Vote for the Filipino environmental advocates for UN Climate Change

[Joe Carillo]

I received the following letter this morning from young environmental advocates Paul Garilao and and Alfonso Orioste, Jr.i:

Hello Mr. Jose Carillo,

After the Philippines was struck with typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng, we raised our voice on climate change issues by joining the Youtube contest for the United Nations Climate Change Conference.

In the conference, global leaders will convene to discuss and iron out global agreement on climate change in Copenhagen from December 7 to 21, 2009. To generate awareness among millions of viewers in the world, CNN and Youtube partnered with the Danish government and created "Raise Your Voice" campaign, asking individuals to send videos with their views, opinions, and questions about the global event. 

We ask for your support by voting for our video from November 6 to 30, 2009.

Here are the steps to vote:                                                       

1. Visit www.youtube.com/cop15
2. Click Vote.
3. Search for Philippines in the videos per country.
4. Kindly click the “green thumbs up” sign for the entry entitled: "Raise Your Voice" by Filipino environmental advocates.
5. Spread the campaign on Facebook and Twitter.

It is the lone entry from the Philippines and South East Asia. Check the other countries and you'll find that they didn't register.     

The video can be viewed on the following URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8RanL2KMyo

The Youtube COP15 team featured us together with four other contenders out of the 150 entries around the world as a campaign video for "Raise Your Voice." The video may be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD7Wof3Eng0&feature=player_embedded 

We were recently featured in ABS-CBN's Balitang America. Click the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uigxUhH0lQk

If we are able to gather a significant number of votes, we will have the opportunity to raise environmental concerns with the leaders during the convention. Our target is to air the video on the CNN/Youtube Debates on December 15.

We will greatly appreciate if you could feature our advocacy. Let us help change climate change! 

Paul  Darwynn Garilao and Alfonso Orioste, Jr.
Environmental advocates