(UPDATE) Mindanaons plant 3,192,770 trees in 1 hour

COTABATO CITY (Sept. 26) -- Mindanao made it, exclaimed Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) hours after the biggest tree planting event in Mindanao.MinDA chair Sec. Luwalhati Antonino announced thatMindanao, on September 26, simultaneously planted more than 3 million trees from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. in 228 sites across Mindanao. Some reports are yet to reach the MinDA central counting center as of posting.As of 6:16 p.m., the partial tally based on MinDA monitoring was 3,192,770 trees planted.As a result, the Philippines has broken the Guinness Book of World Records of highest number of trees planted in an hour. We made it! We are greeining Mindanao, unofficial world record na, the MinDA Facebook account announced with about 60 percent remained unreported.The number could go higher.Although a validation team from MinDA and Guinness Book of World Records representative to make it official. Jojo Reynaldo, MinDA coordinator for South Central Mindanao Jojo Reynaldo, saidas planned in today’s activity, Mindanaons will plant 1.9 million to break India’s 1,945,535 trees planted in 408 areas with 340,200 participants in 2011. MinDA, in a statement, stressed that the main purpose is not to break India’s record only, but in compliance with the National Greening Program of the government. More than getting the world record, we also hope that through this, we will be able to achieve Mindanao’s target of 690,815 hectares by 2016,” Reynaldo said.In Maguindanao, local officials, policemen, soldiers and Moro rebels on Friday planted thousands of forest and mangrove trees in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao to set a world record of having planted 4.6 million trees all together at one time.Gov. Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu and ARMM’s natural resources secretary, Kahal Kedtag, led the planting of trees in four sites in the province as part of the Mindanao-wide Treevolutionand Greening MindaNow.The rank-and-file personnel of different agencies under the ARMM government planted trees on idle lands in Pigcalagan area in Sultan Kudarat town in the first district of Maguindanao.Local officials in the towns of Datu Odin Sinsuat and North Upi also led their constituents in planting thousands of forest trees in selected areas vulnerable to landslides and soil erosion due to occasional strong winds and heavy rains. Thousands of rubber tree seedlings have also been planted by participants along the road connecting a stretch of the Cotabato-Gen. Santos Highway to the scene of the infamous Maguindanao Massacre on Nov. 23, 2009. We decided to plant rubber trees to ensure that people residing in the surroundings will take care of them because if fully grown the trees can produce rubber latex that can be sold,” Mangudadatu told reporters.