People’s Pilgrimage for Climate Change

I first met AG Saño in 2008, when I was assigned in our mission station in Camiguin Norte, Babuyan Islands. AG, whose name stands for Amado Guerrero, is a landscape architect, a mural artist, a photographer and an advocate of the environment. He was then a member of a team of whale researchers for World Wildlife Fund for Nature. They were doing research on humpback whales that migrate to the Babuyan Group of Islands during the summer months of March, April and May. Since then, AG has become my friend and one of our volunteers for the Dominican Missions.

After I requested AG to paint the exterior wall of my bedroom in the mission station with a whale mural, he has then taken on the advocacy of promoting the protection and preservation of marine wildlife, specifically whales and dolphins. Upon his return to Manila after his mission trip to Babuyan Islands in 2009, he pursued the advocacy of painting public spaces with 23,000 dolphins, as protest to the annual killing of dolphins in Taiji Cove in Japan. It was from the documentary movie “The Cove” that AG learned about the plight of the dolphins in Japan. It was then that AG and his friends thought of forming an advocacy group that is now known as Dolphins Love Freedom (DLF). Since then, AG has lost count on how many thousands of dolphins he has painted on wall murals all over the Philippines.

When Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) made landfall in Tacloban City, AG was there, visiting an artist friend on his way to another destination for an engagement about his advocacy. A day after the most powerful typhoon in recorded history, AG found out that his friend Agit, together with his wife, his child and his parents all perished in the aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda. Stranded in Tacloban City for the next few days, AG volunteered to help gather dead bodies, instead of shooting pictures as a photographer. While Typhoon Yolanda was devastating the Philippines, AG’s brother, Naderev Saño was in Warsaw, Poland, attending the Climate Change Summit, as the Philippine’s representative, being a member of the Climate Change Commission. It was there that Commissioner Naderev Saño delivered his emotional speech, because he does not yet have an idea about the fate of AG in Tacloban City at that time.

Forty days before the anniversary of Typhoon Yolanda last year, Commissioner Naderev Saño, together with AG, and a handful of advocates on climate change, organized the “Climate Walk”. They embarked on a journey and walked from Rizal Park, which is Kilometer 0, all the way up to Tacloban City. After that, Pope Francis personally visited Tacloban City, and there was news that the Pope was going to come out with an encyclical on climate change. When the encyclical finally came out, it was entitled “Laudato Si”.

A few weeks ago, the Saño brothers, Naderev and AG, left for Rome, Italy to embark on the “People’s Pilgrimage for Climate Change”. Together with other international advocates for the environment, they are going on a pilgrimage on foot from St. Peter’s Square in Rome, Italy all the way to Paris, France. From what I saw on their Facebook posts in the past days, they have started the People’s Pilgrimage for Climate Change, kicking off with an audience with Pope Francis at St. Peter’s Square. Naderev Saño was able to go near the Pope to personally ask for the Pontiff’s blessing. On October 4, 2015, feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the group of pilgrims are in Assisi, Italy, to pay tribute to a saint, who is also an advocate of nature and the environment, and from whom the present pope got his name.

Know more about the cause, visit peoplespilgrimage.org