Barangay Sta. Filomena has a land area of 503.92 hectares which is inhabited with 6,898 people divided into 26 Purok residents by households. This 10-year Mangrove Rehabilitation and Conservation Project is done within one of the Barangay’s Purok recognized as Purok Valderama with 56 households with 280 citizens which consists of 4.1 % of the Barangay’s total population.

        Prior to 1950’s, this estuary that exists now along with the shore of the open sea was a former river identified as Mandulog River where naturally grown mangroves and planted nipa’s grew along these spots but were destroyed because of the flood in 1983, that almost half of the trees were left and the rest were being cut down by some of the people living nearby for firewood, timber and Christmas decorations.


        Since Purok Valderama was declared as one of the fishing village of the city, only the neighboring village residents benefited the abundance of the employment that was brought by the open sea as Industrialization drew closer to these areas particularly, the T.H. Valderrama and Sons Inc. – a logging company that operated in 1977 so as to almost all of the residents settled in this area was employed in this corporation but soon ended during 1986 due to exhausted area source of logs. These reasons brought an immense inequity to the ecosystem. To think, mangroves alone have its ecology mainly to protect, to produce to recover and to develop.

        In the year 1977-1982 majority of the residents were employees of the Valderama Logging concessionaire operating at the Upper Mandulog Watershed Area. During this period the coastal area of Valderama where the mouth of the Mandulog river was situated served as the log pond of the cut timber before it was transported to different destination ferried by large barge. In 1983, big flash floods happened wherein half of the mangrove trees situated in the coastal area of Valderama were washout. At the same time, the Mandulog River changes its water path going to Bayug coastal area. The changes of Mandulog river water path was due to the siltation effect of the sand and gravel extraction at the upper stream.

        Since this 10-year project focuses about the Rehabilitation and Conservation of the Mangroves, different organization helps out for the possibility of this plan. The joint effort of the Barangay Sta. Filomena Council, Rotary Club of Iligan Maria Cristina, CENRO-DENR, other stakeholders in the society and Iligan City East High School YES-O – Interact Club which is the prime mover in the full implementation of this 10-year Project which reaches out a great possibility towards the development of the scheme. This also encourages community participation and initiative in environmental and ecological movements which may lead to progress within the community structure.

        One of the main implications of this task is to develop teamwork, leadership, enhances the writing skills and oral communication skills and develops the knowledge about the use of ICT among the students. It also develops the proper environmental values, skills and attitudes among the community members towards the environment and to themselves.