From 3 to 6 February, representatives from the 11 Jesuit schools in the Philippines gathered at the Cebu Center for Ignatian Spirituality for EcoSummit 2025. Now in its second year, this annual assembly brings together faculty and staff who lead the ecological programmes of their respective institutions. The event serves as a platform for sharing, seeking inspiration, and learning new things to take back to their schools. This year’s theme was “Tayo na, Tara na!” a Filipino phrase which can be described as: “We are together as a community. Come, let us move forward in this journey!”
The EcoSummit is not simply a sharing of best ecological practices from each school, although that is included. It is not just a meeting within air-conditioned rooms discussing future plans, although that also happens. Among the several aspects that make the EcoSummit a bit different, here are a few that make it quite special.
Cultivating a contemplative disposition
Every EcoSummit begins not with business discussions but with moments of listening and reflection on a relevant aspect of Ignatian spirituality. In EcoSummit 2025, the emphasis was on viewing nature first and foremost from a contemplative stance, not so much as a problem to be solved.
According to Fr Walter Burghardt SJ, to contemplate a subject means taking “a long, loving look at the real”. St Ignatius’ practice of contemplation encourages patience and a deep loving gaze at God’s creation—to do this with love and gratitude in our hearts, not with judgement or anger; facing another being as it truly is, looking underneath its facade or digital representation.
To be contemplative is to perceive God beneath the surface of what is in plain sight. Fr Daniel O’Leary speaks of how ordinary moments, transformed by the grace of God, can reveal the extraordinary, as “when the focus shifts and the single leaf becomes the universe, a rock speaks prophecies and a smile transforms a relationship”.
Beginning with encounter
Early on in the summit, participants became aware of the need for grounding. We stepped out of the conference room and entered natural spaces, where our senses could more directly encounter creation. It was important for our energies to move from inside our heads towards our other senses—our hands feeling the warm earth, our noses taking in the scent of newly cut grass, our tongues tasting sweet water from freshly harvested coconuts. These kinds of visceral experiences connect us to the earth, highlight our sense of belonging, and remind us that creation is indeed our community.
This encounter was certainly facilitated by our visit to the Barangay Canduman Vegetable Garden in Cebu, where we met Jesus Cortes, the main life-source of the small-but-packed urban farm, who put us to work by preparing their compost mix. There were so many leafy vegetables growing out from a variety of containers—certainly a refreshing sight. On another day, we went to the farm of the Cebu Diversified Advocacy Cooperative, where getting around was already a bit of a nature hike. There, the young local farmers also got our hands dirty with planting vegetables and mixing organic fertiliser concoctions. They also introduced us to their local bee hives, whose complex social structure impressed many of us.
Engaging in dialogue with administrators
The main highlight of EcoSummit 2025 was when members of the Jesuit Basic Education Commission (JBEC) joined the ecology delegates as one EcoSummit group. The expanded group, numbering around 50 school officials, shared the last two days with common experiences of prayer, reflection, and encounter with creation.
Ecology delegates met with their principals or presidents to discuss which ecological initiatives or programmes could already be advanced in their schools. For example, some schools agreed to modify their academic curriculum to incorporate more ecological topics and include ecological conversion in their student and faculty recollections. Another collective initiative was to incorporate ecological principles into induction modules for new faculty and staff. More broadly, JBEC administrators moved towards making care for creation a fundamental part of what it means to be a Jesuit school in the Philippines.
By the looks of it, EcoSummit 2025 turned out to be an enriching gathering for all. It was a time for prayer, reconnecting with creation, and working out specific ways to deepen the ecological commitment of each Jesuit school. May these nascent seeds of collaboration and ecological conversion grow and bear fruit.
Fr Gabriel Lamug-Nañawa SJ, from the Philippines, is the coordinator of the Reconciliation with Creation network of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific. He is also the Philippine Province Assistant for Ecological Justice. He was a missionary in Cambodia for 17 years, working with persons with disabilities and together starting the Ecology Program of Jesuit Service Cambodia, where he served as Country Coordinator before being assigned back to the Philippines.