To Kapuso host Rovilson Fernandez environment is 'Ang Pinaka'

For Rovilson Fernandez, Kapuso host of top 10 trivia show “Ang Pinaka," seemingly little facts about many things that add up and impact on the climate are by no means small. So important to him are pointers on climate change that he spent time last Saturday morning to help the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Philippines and Starbucks give street soccer kids in Tondo hours of fun and learning about waste segregation and the 3Rs or reduce, reuse, and recycle. With Rovilson was fellow WWF goodwill ambassador Marc Nelson. Together, they raised cardboard replicas of common items that can be waste segregated. They played with Tondo's futkaleros an adapted form soccer. Kids volunteered to kick little soccer balls labeled with names of pieces of trash into two bags that served as goals. One goal was for biodegradeable trash while the other was for non-biodegradeables.

Rovilson Fernandez (right) and friends from World Wide Fund for Nature and Starbucks take on street soccer and climate change. Earl Victor Rosero

Earlier, as a warm up exercise on the 3Rs, the WWF got the children to play a word game. Three words were on the board and the object of the game was to list down as many combinations of words as they could by reducing, reusing and recycling the letters to form new words. To impart basic concepts on what it takes to develop "good nature" that results in caring for the environment, WWF's Obel Resurrecion, Maye Padilla, and Ruel Bate presented an engaging audiovisual. After the adapted soccer game, Rovilson and Marc, assisted by a small platoon of WWF and Starbucks personnel, handed the kids paper cups and crayons. Crayon art The Starbucks coffee cups served as little canvases for the kids' crayon art about things that mattered to them, including keeping the home and surroundings clean. Rovilson and Marc went around the basketball court that served as the venue of the teach-in and got down on the floor to help some of the children figure out what they could draw. At the end of the art exercise, Peter Amores, founder of the Futkaleros, teamed up with Rovilson and Marc to choose the 10 best pieces of crayon art on paper cups. After that carbon-footprint-reducing fun, it was time for a modest carbo-loading cheer party for Tondo's futkaleros and their neighbors. From November to February, the nearby field where they play soccer is occupied by a traveling amusement park. The basketball court is the alternate venue where they practice street soccer twice a week. Older teens practice on Wednesdays while the under-12 kids play on Tuesdays and Fridays. Some of the futkaleros are members of their respective schools' football teams. Their life stories were made into a 2010 independent film, “Happyland," which is part of this year's Cinemanila International Film Festival at the Market! Market! Cinemas in the Bonifacio Global City in Taguig from Nov. 11 to 17. “Happyland" is directed by Jim Libiran. — VS, GMA News