RAFI at 40

Just how does one visualize forty years of touching people and helping shape their future? Let 900,000 people in the Visayas and Mindanao count the ways.

They are the beneficiaries of programs for the youth, women and community, and shared solid concerns about the environment, heritage, citizenship and governance….all under the umbrella of the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI).

While all around preparations began early for Christmas last year, RAFI had the powerful shine of forty carats…. confident about empowering people, building communities and creating partnerships towards fulfilling people's individual capacities.

So, how does it feel, all this mission of transforming lives and building communities?

RAFI Chief Operating Officer Dominica "Domi" Chua beams, relishing the knowledge that what started as a philanthropic work of Don Ramon Aboitiz, bloomed into a Foundation which for four decades has actively participated in Cebu's development. And it all started with the Asilo de la Milagrosa orphanage and house for the elderly run by the Daughters of Charity.

Domi remembers that right at the start of the Liberation, people had been seeking out Don Ramon's help. Nuns had taken a small place in Mabolo (now San Jose de la Montaña) and there they handled all the abandoned children. Don Ramon, thus, financed the construction of the Asilo building. And since problems do not exist in a vacuum, he became concerned about the out-of-school children. Already supporting the Society of Don Bosco since the 1950's, Don Ramon soon enough set up the Don Bosco Boys' Town by donating a lot and buildings. Children accommodated there were picked up from anywhere in Cebu City and Province, and trained by the Society of Don Bosco priests for technical and vo-cational skills.

Today, about 3,000 youth have undergone the Kool Adventure Camp (KAC), a youth leadership program offering experiential adventure education for public high school students. A total of 8,068 women in Cebu, Bohol and Leyte have improved their families' economic status, thanks to RAFI's micro-finance program, the Cebu Micro-Enterprise Development Foundation, Inc. (CMEDFI). In Cebu alone, women from 36 municipalities have developed skills to spring free from a life of poverty and dependence, to a life of confidence as entrepreneurs.

Cancer the killer is addressed not with fear but with the courage for proactiveness. Through awareness campaigns to promote prevention efforts, the Eduardo Aboitiz

Cancer Center also manages the cancer registry, a research on cancer incidence in Metro Cebu.

Convinced that the past is never gone until we forget it, RAFI's Cultural Heritage Program (CHP) helps preserve cultural heritage through the Casa Gorordo Museum and the Cebu Heritage Frontier. The CHP is meant to establish Cebuano and Filipino identity by learning our past and preserving it, and came about from the vision of Don Ramon's son Eduardo - To know our past so that planning for the future is well grounded on love of country and love of history, crushing tendencies to be ashamed of one's history.

Meanwhile, the Cebu Heritage Frontier records historical monuments and sites, and the intangible heritage, like old songs, folk literature, and conducts documentation of lives of significant people from the southern towns of Argao, Alcoy, Boljoon, Dalaguete, and Oslob.

All this commitment needs the assistance of equally passionate citizens. Thus, RAFI works closely with local government units in the identified towns through their local tourism councils and youth council, with the Cebu Province through the Provincial Tourism and Heritage Council of Cebu, with U.P. College Cebu through trainings and teachings on cultural mapping and local history writing, the University of San Jose Recoletos through its tourism department, and the Lakbay Aral campaigns.

And convinced that any democracy can be delicate and vulnerable to the winds of change, RAFI's Eduardo Aboitiz Development Studies Center (EADSC) creates space for dialogues in the Visayas and Mindanao about societal issues and responses. EADSC, thus, serves as a center for enabling people's organizations to address their needs, and as a center for policy research and studies.

With RAFI's involvement in good governance, how thin is the line separating politics? It's a no-no, says Domi. RAFI functions well because it is apolitical; besides, it has no time for this. The answer resonates well with observers saying that even requests from some sectors for endorsements to government appointments, including the judiciary, are politely declined.

Having accomplished so much since 1966, RAFI thus celebrated its forty years of service with a three-day, three-affair activity: trade fair, tree planting and medical/dental missions. Fifty exhibitors from Cebu and Bohol displayed local products of fashion accessories, native bags, ornamental plants, pastries, ready-to-wear clothes, rice and other agricultural produce. Indigenous tree species numbering 3,526 were planted in Mt. Pung-ol, Cebu City.

And free medical services embraced 1,972 people, as over 100 medical doctors and students, technologists, nurses, barangay health workers, and members of the Cebu Dental Society attended to their concerns. Held at the Eduardo Aboitiz Development Studies Center on Lopez Jaena Street, patients came from everywhere, particularly Barangays Tinago, T. Padilla, Tejero and Parian.

Good honest service rained in November and reigned supreme. The Cebu City Medical Center conducted on-site laboratory examination serving around 274 patients. Dentistry students and medical interns from Cebu Doctor's University and Southwestern University performed dental extractions and/or general consultation on 601 patients. And the Rotary Club of Mandaue conducted a free bone density check-up on 165 patients, particularly to spot osteoporosis.

All that goodwill and sense of mission are generous enough. But is the experience of other foundations -- having too little for too much to do - true for RAFI? Where does the funding come from?

The COO says, first there's the family foundation started by Don Ramon. Then there are the internally generated funds because of programs, and sourcing of grants from outside. Before, funds were contributed by the USAID, the Australian Aid, the Canadian Industrial Development Aid, JAICA, the World Bank, and the German Development Service. Since then, however, RAFI has developed other sources and with God's blessings, it has never run out of money.

But assistance by volunteerism will always be welcome. Involvement in RAFI is a vocation, not a job, so that more people and more people are needed to improve others' quality of life. The need to eradicate all problems of society must have everyone's help, ever guided by Don Ramon's principle, "The dignity of man is best respected by helping him realize his dreams and by sharing with him the burdens of his fears."