For these Aeta students, softdrinks and school do mix

MANILA, Philippines - Success has spilled out smoothly for Asiawide Refreshments Corporation (ARC), the licensed manufacturer and distributor of RC Cola products. Since bringing in carbonated soft drinks in the market, Filipinos have consistently guzzled bottle after bottle of their favorite RC Cola drinks.

But profits and having a fair market share are not the only objectives of ARC. For the company, whose credo is “Value First. In everything we do, Tatak Asiawide, Galing ng Pinoy, Diskarteng Asiawide,” enriching the lives of Filipinos also runs very clearly. It resonates deep in the heart of its every employee.

ARC believes that everyone should do their part in helping underprivileged Filipino communities to get a head start, to lend a hand in countering the combined effects of soaring food prices and the deterioration of livelihoods, among others.

Essential services in the areas of health, education and sanitation continue to be a struggle for some of our brethren. We’ve all seen documentaries of children in threadbare clothing, walking for miles, just to attend classes. Some don’t even have sufficient school supplies and are forced to carry their tattered notebooks and a small pencil in a plastic bag. Touched by some of these school children’s plight, ARC began to undertake a health and education campaign.

For three years now, ARC has partnered with the Rotary Club of Pag-asa to ensure that school children from an Aeta community in Morong, Bataan would get their chance at better health and education.

“Sipping our first success here in ARC, we started to look for projects that would allow us to give back the blessings we were fortunate to have,” began Rizza Alfonso, Senior Marketing Services Manager of ARC. “During a conversation with our friend, Gary Ting (Rotary Club president), he mentioned the club’s assistance towards school children of Kanawan in Bataan.”

According to Gary, Rizza recalled, these children were Aetas. To ensure that the children get to be on school (Kanawan Elementary School) on time, ARC has provided one motorcycle unit. Rizza also asked their contractor to repaint the school structure to make the setting more comfortable. But Alfonso knew, deep inside her heart, that this would not be enough.

Since then, ARC has supported around 150 Aeta school children -- organizing feeding program every quarter, providing the children school materials, constructing a stage for school activities, and adding another vehicle for use as transportation from their home to school and back. In setting the campaign, ARC has made key improvements not only to the school but the lives of these children as well.  

Today, school attendance has increased and more Aeta children are able to study, providing them with opportunities and choices that, hopefully, could give them a fighting chance in life.

Education, specifically, has become a problem in the Philippines. The state of basic public education is beset with issues of lack of school and learning facilities, lack of resources of teaching train and development of educational materials, increasing drop-out rates, pressed on more by the heavy burden brought about by poverty.