MANILA — The Ateneo de Manila University on Thursday announced that it had discovered 2 new species of water scavenger beetles, and one of them was named after former Vice President Leni Robredo's Angat Buhay program.

Angat Buhay, which focused on poverty alleviation, was Robredo's flagship program during her stint as vice president. When she stepped down from office, the program was turned into a non-government organization.

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One of the two "species is named [after Angat Buhay] to honor the program's outstanding and unparalleled service, especially during the pandemic," Ateneo said in a statement, quoting the study's authors who made the discoveries.

"Discovered in Ifugao, the first of the two new species is Anacaena angatbuhay, named after the Angat Buhay anti-poverty program launched during the term of former Vice President Leni Robredo," the university said.

The species were discovered by Biology student Enrico Gerard Sanchez, his thesis adviser Emmanuel Delocado, and co-adviser Hendrik Freitag from the Ateneo Biodiversity Research Laboratory of the Department of Biology.

"The publication was part of Sanchez's undergraduate thesis, which he conducted in the middle of the pandemic and defended in April 2022."

Anacaena angatbuhay remained unnoticed by the world until its publication, Delocado said in a Facebook post.

According to him, the species' name "is a nod to the countless Filipinos working for and with far-flung communities whose efforts were not widely recognized."

The second species is named Anacaena auxilium, the university said, in honor of Mary Help of Christian High School Seminary in Binmaley, Pangasinan, where Sanchez attended junior high school.

"The paper noted that help (auxilium in Latin) alludes to the need to pay attention to the vulnerable state of freshwater biodiversity in the Southeast Asian region," it explained.

Ateneo said the study is noteworthy because it was conducted in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic using an innovative lab-at-home setup.

The discoveries were published in the international scientific journal ZooKeys in an article titled "Two new species of Anacaena Thomson, 1859 (Coleoptera, Hydrophilidae) from Northern Luzon, Philippines."

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