The true spirit of Christmas is in giving

(First of two parts)

I’M sure that like me, you too are at a loss on how we can still make merry during the holiday season with what just happened in Cagayan de Oro, Iligan City and other areas struck by Typhoon Sendong’s fury.

It is a common feeling especially among survivors, that sense of guilt over why we are alive or doing well while our neighbors, the victims, are not.

And we wonder why this tragedy happened so close to Christmas, as if it will hurt less if it occurred any other time of the year.

What I do know is that because of this tragedy, we are now better attuned to what the yuletide season is really all about. It’s about sharing and giving, not just among friends and family, but also with complete strangers. We help them not because they can help us back, but because they are hurting from the loss of their homes and their loved ones.

Ramon Jimenez Jr. (Photo NPPA Images)

This time of the year, it’s usually about how big a gift one can give, or how much we’d like to impress a boss, or a lover with our presents. But in the case of Sendong’s victims, any donation, large or small, will be much appreciated. These are gifts that will truly mean something and make a difference in a person’s life.

With everyone helping out, we can make the victims of Sendong less cold, less hungry this Christmas. Please keep those donations rolling. And if you haven’t done it yet, please give now. Check out the Internet for the different organizations that are assisting in the relief effort, such as Department of Social Welfare and Development and the Red Cross. Thank you.

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Rosanna Roces

FOR my annual Christmas forum, I asked a number of leaders in government and politics, business executives, artists and food enthusiasts what their fantasy Noche Buena feast would be. Most of them were actually quite happy with their usual midnight spread, although a few did unleash their creativity and came up with an eye-popping, lip-smacking sumptuous array of dishes.

A number of them actually cooked the dishes served for Noche Buena, while others mentioned family members as the geniuses behind this dish or that. There were those who stuck to the traditional dishes with recipes handed down from relatives who’ve passed on, while a few—like foodie JJ Yulo—gladly dreamt about “a plate with roasted bone marrow with the marrow quivering like a freshly-made flan, and eaten with toast points, sea salt, and a parsley salad.” (I, on the other hand, want a foie gras-stuffed cochinillo. I don’t know how that will taste, but I bet it’ll be good!)

But amid all the food and festivities, most underscored that what’s great about the Noche Buena is having the entire family around to share it with. My friend Leah Castañeda put it best: “To me, there is no need for steak, lobster or foie gras as long as everyone is present and having a great time.”

Malu Gamboa

To everyone, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Peace, love, and prosperity to you all. And thank you for your continued patronage of this column.

Ramon Jimenez Jr., Tourism secretary—The centerpiece of my Noche Buena is the Christmas ham that I cook myself, which contains the secret family recipe handed down from my grandparents. It’s more than just a dish. It represents history and tradition which I would like my family to observe for generations to come. When you think about it, that’s actually what Filipino Christmas is all about—family and tradition, two essential ingredients that complete the Noche Buena experience.

Rosanna Roces, actress—I thought of bubble tea and pizza for Noche Buena, just to have something new on the table. But Pinoy tradition is hard to miss. We always have kaldereta and other Pinoy food. I want to dine on banana leaves.

Malu A. Gamboa, general manager, Azuthai, Cirkulo and Milky Way Restaurants—Our Noche Buena menu has been the same for as long as I can remember. Mama (Julie Gamboa) always serves the same family favorites at midnight. First comes a hot cup of chocolate laced with peanut butter that Chu, our yaya of 50 years, whisks to perfection with a very old batidor that has been with the family forever. At the bottom of the cup is newly harvested duman, the eagerly awaited Christmas present from our relatives from Guagua, Pampanga. Duman, toasted green malagkit rice, is a Pampanga delicacy that is only available around Christmastime.

Mike Navarrete

Queso de bola (microwaved for five seconds), Majestic ham, Hizon’s ensaymadas and our own Milky Way Macaroni Supreme Salad with bits of Spam, peas and pineapples are always star on our table. We don’t get to enjoy these dishes on regular days, which is why we look forward to celebrating and feasting on these once a year all together as a family.

Miguel “Mike” Y. Navarrete, adviser-Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board (former CFO, ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp.)—For our Noche Buena here in Atlantic, Canada, we enjoy with friends and relatives delicious Atlantic lobsters, Digby scallops, steak, prawns, haddock, eggnog, etc. My wife Gina makes excellent leche flan for dessert. However, we do miss the lechon, queso de bola, bibingka, puto-bumbong, etc. back home.

My dream Noche Buena would be to combine the best of what we used to regularly have in the Philippines with what is special here. Lechon stuffed with Atlantic lobsters and Digby scallops enjoyed during a White Christmas, perhaps? Sarap!

Leah Castañeda with daughter, Carmen

Leah Castañeda, vice president, Bank of Commerce—Our Christmas Eve celebration ends at dinner, which I will prepare this year, and starts again at lunch on Christmas Day. I’m keeping it simple on Saturday—chicken relleno and a killer lasagna that takes five hours to make. I will prepare a light salad of greens (with arugula), feta cheese, honey roasted walnuts and Parmesan shavings. Dessert will be a rum butter cake baked by my classmate/architect Nina and brewed coffee aero-pressed (hopefully) by my dad.

In the off-chance that we get hungry after Midnight Mass and don’t fall asleep while walking home from the church, my mother will prepare a cheese platter (with Marca Piña queso de bola) and Virginia ham from the US, I’ll ask her to prepare authentic tsokolate the way her lola used to make it (with butter and sesame seeds). She also has a bowl of grapes to counter the richness of the cheeses. Let’s not forget the castañas.

If I had it my way, every year would be celebrated simply and quietly, but with the family complete at the dinner table.

(Conclusion next week...)

(My column Something Like Life, is published most Fridays in the Life section of the BusinessMirror. This piece was originally published on Dec. 23, 2011. Photos courtesy of interviewees, except where stated.)

A hero's story, one year after

(Artist's rendering of the Kalingain Batang Mahirap Learning Center in Cavite, of the Dynamic Teen Co.)

SINCE winning CNN’s Hero of the Year Award in 2009, Efren Peñaflorida of the Dynamic Teen Co. (DTC) has become probably one of the most recognizable faces in the country.

During former US Vice President Al Gore’s speech at the SMX Convention Center in June—which was quite a highbrow affair from where we were seated—I amusedly observed men and women, dressed to the nines, crowding around Efren and requesting for photos to be taken with him. He gamely posed with his fans, and gave them his shy smile, exuding humility and a generous spirit that endeared him to them even more.

According to Jan Chavez Arceo, one of his many supporters who knew him even before he received the CNN award, “Efren still takes public transportation” when he moves about. “We even have to insist to send a car to him so he can attend his many appointments.” She also notes he didn’t take a single centavo from the $125,000 award money given to him by CNN, not even to give some to his parents or buy his own house, as we Pinoys are wont to do. (Of course, thanks to the IRS, the award was reduced to $80,000.)

Efren, who spoke to the BusinessMirror during a press briefing by the Discovery Suites for its Christmas tree-lighting ceremony, said the money all went to an account in the name of DTC. It is the organization he cofounded with three other high-school classmates in 1997, which first started out implementing a feeding program for the children in the slum areas in Cavite, then graduating to its now-famous pushcart-literacy program.

Efren is the second child of Lucila, a vender, and Efren Sr., a tricycle driver. His older brother Edgardo is an overseas contract worker, while younger sister Glennis May also helps out in DTC. Efren Jr. was able to finish a college degree in computer technology from San Sebastian College, with the help of his mentor, KB Manalaysay, founder of Club 85-86, which also nurtured him in its own street literacy program. Thereafter, he finished an education course from Cavite University, received an honoris causa PhD in Pedagogy from the National Teacher’s College, and will hopefully complete his master’s degree in Economics Management (“’pag maluwag na ang oras”).

A portion of the prize money went into buying a 291-square-meter lot in Cavite, where DTC’s Kalingain Batang Mahirap Learning Center will rise. About 10 percent of the prize money was donated to the church, while the rest was used to set up a scholarship fund for the kids they cater to, who all want to go back to school.

Efren hopes that the center would be inaugurated by March 5, 2011, his 30th birthday. He cites generous sponsors like La Farge Cement, Boysen Paints, HCG bathroom fixtures and Mariwasa Tiles who’ve helped put up the two-story building, which is designed like a pushcart.

“There is a room for computers, a library, an activity room,” he excitedly explained. The center is basically a place where kids can hang out, as well as supplement their education as DTC plans after-school tutorials. “Hopefully, the kids will be encouraged to study, do research, do their activities there.” The entire building is estimated to cost P11 million. SGV & Co., meanwhile, has volunteered to do the group’s bookkeeping.

(Efren Peñaflorida, 2009 CNN Hero of the Year awardee, answers questions from media at a press luncheon, Dec. 2, 2010.)

Asked how his life changed after winning the CNN award, Efren said: “In the beginning, I know I had a calling to do this task. Right now, it’s a bigger responsibility, because I’m not just an individual, but I represent the whole DTC team.”

I asked him if it was much easier to court girls now since he’s been declared a “hero”, he chuckled and said, “’Di ko alam. Wala pa sa priorities ko.” He is focused, he stressed, on DTC’s projects. The young man took all the good-natured ribbing in stride, especially after I asked him about his rumored desire to court actress Angel Locsin.

I asked Efren if he’s so conscious now of his every movement that he can’t even smoke or drink, or go to parties, like most normal young men like to do. “Even before naman, I didn’t smoke and drink. I have no vices,” he said. But he excitedly told us how he rubbed elbows with celebrities like Jessica Alba, Renée Zellweger and Jon Bon Jovi after the CNN awards.

Rezcel Fajardo, DTC co-founder, intimates, though, that since Efren’s win, he has lost a lot of his private time. He is so well-known that people literally stop him in the streets and ask for a photo-op. “He also has to attend to so many engagements,” she says in Tagalog, and that it has become quite difficult now to even get him to attend simple get-togethers among friends. But Efren tries to keep his Saturdays and Sundays free, so he can still go about pushing a kariton filled with books and teaching the slum kids.

Since DTC started its street literacy program, Efren says 1,800 of the kids who used to crowd around their pushcarts have gone back to school. Some have even graduated and are now professionals.

Since winning the CNN award, he says, the team now gets more respect from the community and many now believe in their cause. “Dati sinisigawan kami ng mga tricycle drivers na sagabal kami sa daan,” Efren recalled with amusement.

However, this doesn’t mean it is much easier now for his group to convince parents to allow their children to join its projects. “A day with us can mean a day without extra income and food for these families,” Efren explained, as the children are also put to work by their parents. Still he is proud to say that many of their kids who finished college have returned to help out in accomplishing DTC’s mission.

While it’s true that donations initially poured in after he won the CNN award, Efren is almost embarrassed to admit that a number of pledges promised them never materialized. He says it was those pledges which emboldened the group to construct the learning center. “Pero ngayon ang hirap na balikan ’yung mga nag-pledge,” he said. I asked who these companies were, but he respectfully declined to identify them. Rezcel told me that one organizer in the US even ran away with the funds that were supposedly donations for their organization.

Apparently, after the CNN event, a group presented itself to put up a concert to raise more funds for DTC, but claimed losses from ticket sales. The organizer then tried to bill Efren for its concert expenses. “Saan ka naman nakakita ng beneficiary, siya pa ang magbabayad ng expenses ng organizer? Because of that issue with the organizer, Efren just left the US without the donations,” she sadly narrated. “Now there are donors from the US asking us if we received their funds, and we have to explain what happened.”

(Efren with Discovery Suites general manager Bobby Horrigan, and hotel owner Cynthia L. Tiu light up the hotel’s Christmas tree in the lobby.)

Efren says DTC’s funds from the CNN win are almost used up, so the group needs assistance in sustaining the learning center and professionalizing its operations. “We need to make sure that utilities are paid, and administrative and maintenance services are funded. Right now, everyone is [working] on a voluntary basis,” he said.

Mercifully, there are legitimate groups like Discovery Suites which have put their money where their mouths are. If guests book the hotel’s “Christmas Three” package—a three-day/two-night stay at a cost of only two nights, including a buffet breakfast for two in a Junior Suite—a portion of the room revenues will be donated to DTC.

“We were touched and inspired by the selflessness of Efren and the organization’s youthful volunteers,” says Discovery Suites general manager Bobby Horrigan. “Giving the children a chance for a better future by providing them basic education is a worthy and admirable cause. Real change will happen if you provide the essential tools to succeed.”

To augment the donation, the hotel will likewise allocate a portion of its December beverage revenues from 22 Prime, its steak restaurant, and Restaurant 5, its café, to DTC.

Asked his long-term vision for DTC, Efren says he wants its projects replicated nationwide. There are already a few areas like Naga, Cainta and Quezon City which have put up their own street literacy programs. Even Kenya and Nigeria have asked Efren for his help. But his ultimate aim is to keep encouraging more children to go back to school because, as he himself has experienced, a good education improves people’s lives.

Let’s help Efren achieve his dream.

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For inquiries on the Christmas Three project, call Discovery Suites at 719-8888 or e-mail rsantos@discovery.com.ph. Donations to the Dynamic Teen Co. will also be accepted at the hotel for the duration of the promo.

(My column, Something Like Life, is published every Friday in the BusinessMirror. This piece was originally published on Dec. 10, 2010.)

Heartless!

Pinapaalis sa PCSO compound ang isang bahay-ampunan na nangangalaga ng mga batang may malubhang sakit. Depensa ng PCSO, dati pa nilang naabisuhan ang Child-haus para makahanap ng malilipatan. Hindi tuloy alam ng mga batang may sakit kung saan sila pupunta ngayong mawawalan sila ng tirahan. (Watch the video report of Henry Omaga Diaz)

IT BEHOOVES me why the PCSO management, first of all, wants to transfer to the more expensive, plush PICC, instead of staying at the Quezon Institute compound owned by the Phil. Tuberculosis Society. PCSO has always been about charity and helping those less fortunate; moving to the PICC is only helping itself and not the constituencies it is supposed to serve.

Secondly, if PCSO management feels that those kids in The CHILD Haus are not safe in those premises, then why not construct a shelter or buy a small building to house those kids? For those who don't know, The CHILD Haus serves as a temporary hospice or halfway home for indigent children from the provinces battling diseases like cancer. Those who have no place to stay in Metro Manila but who need life-saving treatment, are provided free home care at this place.

With the massive amounts of money PCSO has been raising from the sales of its lotto tickets, surely building a halfway home for those kids w/ cancer would not be difficult. I mean, surely this work at CHILD Haus is just as important as PCSO's current pet project, a milk feeding program.

My colleague and blogger Inday Espina Varona has written an impassioned plea to President Aquino to keep this halfway home open. Click scaRREdcat. If you agree with her, pls. forward a link to her blog to as many people as you can, and let your views on the subject be known. We need to shake things up in Malacañang and see that this matter is given utmost immediate attention.

(UPDATE): The follow up report of ABS-CBN is here. Apparently, The CHILD Haus was set up by the Ricky Reyes Foundation.