New Beetle Species Named After Robredo's Angat Buhay
A newly-discovered beetle species has been named after former Vice President Leni Robredo's anti-poverty program Angat Buhay as way of honoring its service during the pandemic, Ateneo de Manila said Thursday.
A 22-year-old biology student, Enrico Gerard Sanchez, and his advisers Emmanuel Delocado and Hendrik Freitag, discovered two new species of water scavenger beetles in Ifugao as part of a thesis study, the university said.
"We are naming the new species after the Angat Buhay program in honor of its valuable and unparalleled service especially in the time of pandemic," Delocado said in a Facebook post.
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The Anacaena angatbuhay beetle species has been thriving unnoticed in Ifugao for the past centuries, said Delocado, similar to how countless Filipinos worked silently in far-flung communities even without recognition.
Sanchez's undergraduate thesis was recognized for species discovery using a lab-at-home set-up during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also received a Dean's Choice Awards at the School of Science and Engineering.