City officials urged groups intending to adopt parks in the city to honor their commitment to tend to these promenade areas continually and sincerely and not only for posterity.

“Our adopt-a-park program does not end after the adoption ceremonies and signing of the agreement.  Let’s learn from our past experience and see to it that if we adopt a park, we will maintain it to give meaning to the program,” Mayor Mauricio Domogan said.

“We should take this program seriously and carry out our obligation of maintaining these parks,” Vice mayor Daniel Fariñas added.

The officials bemoaned the failure of many groups which joined the program in the past to sustain their obligations for the upkeep of the parks.

“There were many groups that adopted the parks, installed their names and logos within the park and afterwards abandoned the same,” said Councilor Elmer Datuin, chair of the council committee on parks.

To avoid this in the future, the City Environment and Parks Management Office will come up with guidelines for the adopt-a-park program to ensure that participants will not renege on their obligations.

Cepmo Officer-in-Charge Cordelia Lacsamana said the guidelines have been submitted to Datuin’s committee for study and presentation to the city council.

Lacsamana said they are still looking into the possibility of dissolving existing adoption agreements with groups that are no longer keeping their obligations.

Councilor Betty Lourdes Tabanda suggested the guidelines should include a provision to cancel the adoption upon the group’s failure to deliver on its commitment. 

Fariñas said the city council has been working on institutionalizing the “adopt-a-park” program to make it more effective in support of the environmental preservation campaign.

Under the adopt-a-park agreement, the adopting parties are supposed to assist the city government in the cleanliness, beautification and development of parks, maintain and protect the existing vegetation as well as the planted seedlings at the adopted area, conduct weeding, brushing, cultivation and landscaping and other obligations.