The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)—together with the National Bicycle Organization (NBO)—will lead this year’s celebration of the National Bicycle Day (NBD) on November 28 with the theme “Cleaner air through bicycle-friendly Philippines.”

DENR Secretary Roy A. Cimatu said that while the celebration is already in its seventh year, this year’s event is the first after President Rodrigo Roa Duterte declared in 2020 the fourth Sunday of November of every year as National Bicycle Day.

In issuing Presidential Proclamation 1052 on November 18, 2020, President Duterte encourages Filipinos to promote bicycle as a “sustainable and environment-friendly” mode of transportation.

“With climate change, everything we do counts in large amounts and that the remarkable increase in Filipinos discovering the bicycle as a mode of transport and cycling as a way of life is a big boost to our climate change resiliency and adaptation under the mantle of Proclamation 1052,” Cimatu said, who is also the chairperson of the Cabinet Cluster on Climate Change Adaptation, Mitigation and Disaster Risk Reduction.

As part of the 2021 NBD celebration, a 26-kilometer bike parade called “A Celebration for the Presidential Proclamation 1052 Declaration” will be held starting from the DENR grounds in Quezon City to Centennial Park, Barangay Bagumbayan North, Navotas City where a short program will be held.

DENR Undersecretary Benny D. Antiporda is expected to give a keynote address during the program.

Other activities that will highlight this year’s celebration include coastal cleanup, lectures on bike road safety, and turnover of three free bike racks to the city government of Navotas.

Unlike in the past years, Antiporda said only around 300 bikers from the DENR and NBO will take part in this year’s NBD celebration that will be held in Metro Manila.

“This is a far cry from the number of participants in the yearly DENR-NBO organized event before the pandemic which averaged around 10,000 in Metro Manila alone,” Antiporda said, noting that the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority allowed only up to 300 bike participants for the event in compliance with the health and safety protocols set by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases or IATF.

He noted that around 30,000 bikers took part in the nationwide NBD celebration in 2014. ###