A bilateral partnership is being hatched between two original ASEAN member countries – Indonesia and The Philippines – is centered on a major reforestation project deemed to catalyze net zero and carbon market development in the Southeast Asian Region.

An off-shot of a meeting on reforestation partnership by the ASEAN Business Advisory Council (ASEAN-BAC) held early this year (2023), it identified Indonesia and The Philippines as both countries have significant forest resource. The two countries make them among the biggest oxygen producers in the region. Indonesia alone has 91.2 million hectares of forest land while the Philippines has 23.3 million hectares.

The vast forest resources of the two ASEAN-Member countries present a major reforestation partnership to the global aim for a net zero and carbon neutrality to attain the carbon credit – with a carbon market reaching $50 billion by year 2050 with the ASEAN region being well positioned.

While the Indo-Phil reforestation partnership is being refined, finalized, a memorandum of understanding (MOU) is being crafted to be tackled by the ASEAN leadership meeting in September 2023. The partnership expects to commence upon approval, signing of said MOU.

MY COMMENT:
The Indonesia-Philippine reforestation partnership is a well-thought of effort to adhere to the mandate on Climate Change conceptualized during the Paris convention as well as previous and succeeding fora to protect mother earth from calamities pestering mankind and the Planet. I still believe that knowledgeable and science-founded people are involved in the partnership. Indeed, effects of Climate Change is real, imminent!
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THAT gospel episode where the apostles found themselves in a storm in the middle of the lake (cfr. Mt 8,23-27) teaches us a great lesson about absolute trust in God’s providence amid the twists and turns, the ups and downs in our life here on earth.

We cannot avoid storms and other forms of negative happenings in our life. But before this fact of life, what we have to do is to try our best to remain calm and just go to God to ask for help. He’s always around. He may appear asleep and oblivious of our predicaments, but he actually knows everything that happens in our life and is there to help us.

To be sure, the storms and the negative things in our life were not part of the original plan of God for us. They only came out as a consequence of sin, that of our first parents as well as those of ours which are still a continuing affair for us. God allows these things to happen to respect our freedom which we often misuse and abuse. But he also knows what to do with them.

On our part, whatever storms we encounter in life, whether material, temporal, or spiritual and moral, our attitude and reaction should be that we can precisely use these storms to approach our Lord, begging for help. It would be wrong and would make things worse if we choose to run away from him. God is all there to help.

No matter how guilty we may be with respect to the predicaments that befall us, God is not scandalized by any wrongdoing we do. He may be angry for a while, but his mercy will always prevail. And his anger and the punishment that may go with it are always meant for our own good.

And when problems and difficulties beyond our control take place, we should just trust God’s providence and be ready for wherever divine providence would take us. We have to be open to it all the time, developing a faith-guided adventurous outlook.

Even as we make our plans and pursue them truly as our own, we should not forget that nothing in our life is actually outside the providence of God who can adapt himself to us, even in our worst situations and predicaments, and can still lead us to himself.

The only thing to remember is that God is always around and is actually intervening and directing our life to him. That is part of his omnipotence which he exercises both from all eternity and in time since our creation and all the way to the end of time.

There will be things in our life that will be beyond our human notice, and much less, our human control. We have to trust God’s providence even if things look terrible, impossible, or inhuman when judged simply by human standards.

Let’s again remember that episode of the apostles in a boat that was about to sink because of the big waves. (cfr. Mt 8,23-27) Christ reproached them for their lack of faith. And in that parable of the wheat and the weeds, (cfr. Mt 13,24-30) Christ was clearly telling them and us that we should just go on doing a lot of good even if we are disturbed by many evils, because in the end Christ would make the proper judgment.

He assures us that with him we will never work in vain and everything would just work out for the good. (cfr. Is 65,23; Rom 8,28).