Yes The Filipino Can! awards launched

MANILA, Philippines – The RFM Corp. will launch the first “Yes The Filipino Can! Awards” on Monday, as it celebrates 50 years in the industry.

“Yes The Filipino Can!” started as the popular battlecry of the Concepcion family, embodied and promoted by Jose Ma. “JoeCon” Concepcion Jr. and his son, Jose Ma. “Joey” Concepcion III. It was an advocacy of promoting important Filipino values and principles, which they also brought into Namfrel, the Ten Outstanding Students of the Philippines, and Go Negosyo.

The Yes The Filipino Can! Awards is a way of thinking and a way of life. It emphasizes a heart for the Filipino, a fighting spirit and positive attitude, an entrepreneurial mindset, a concern for helping the community and improving the lives of others.

Eleven Filipinos – men, women and institutions – will be recognized on Oct. 13 at the NBC Tent in Taguig..

Three of the awardees are former senator Santanina Rasul, educator Onofre Pagsanghan and Colayco Foundation chairman Francisco Colayco. This is the first of a four-part series on the “Yes The Filipino Can!” awardees.

‘Magbassa Kita’

Former senator Santanina Rasul has greatly contributed to improving functional literacy rates in Mindanao, particularly among out-of-school youth and adults. She pioneered and launched her Magbassa Kita Program in 1966. “Magbassa Kita” is a Tausug phrase that means “let us read.”

The program reaped UNESCO awards such as the International Literacy Prize, Jury Award (1990), the Nessim Habif Award: Asia and the Pacific (1985), and the Award of Merit (1983). The program was also implemented nationwide by the Department of Education, Culture and Sports.

She established the Magbassa Kita Foundation, Inc. (MKFI) in 1991. It aims to promote peace and development by increasing functional literacy.

The foundation has already benefited more than 200,000 new literates as of 1997 and trained more than 1,600 teachers as of 2006. UNESCO appointed Rasul as honorary ambassador during the International Literacy Year in 1990.

While maintaining literacy promotion as its major area of concern, MKFI expanded its activities to include livelihood skills training, capability building among farmers, development of self-help organizations, and cooperatives, and producing post literacy materials. However, as a result of the armed conflict and the unstable peace and order situation in Mindanao, MKFI launched its peace advocacy program in 2001, focusing on training for women in the areas of conflict as peace advocates and agents of change.

They introduced literacy programs in war-torn Sulu and are currently implementing livelihood training and Islamic micro-credit to Muslim women. The foundation also launched a radio program called “Woman Talk Peace” and conducted grassroots consultation on peace and development for government, and partnered with PPCRV to monitor local elections.

To further their cause, MKFI launched the Kassannangan Foundation, Inc. that currently supports more than 100 scholars. MKFI also extends their support to the Philippine Council for Islam and Democracy, which focuses on the study of Islamic and democratic political thought and the search for peaceful solutions to the conflicts affecting the Muslim communities especially in Mindanao.

‘Sir Pagsi’

Onofre “Pagsi” Pagsanghan’s vocation is to teach.

Fondly referred to by his students as Sir Pagsi, he began teaching at the Ateneo de Manila High School in 1951. He taught both English and Filipino for more than four decades.

One of the first awardees of Metrobank’s Search for Outstanding Teachers in 1985, Sir Pagsi continues to be recognized by national organizations for his exemplary teaching.

Sir Pagsi has also utilized and continues to utilize theater as a means of teaching not just English and Filipino, but Christian values as well. He began as the moderator of the Ateneo High School Dramatics Society in 1956. He also managed the society’s transition to Dulaang Sibol in 1966. Sir Pagsi has also won recognition as a playwright and director in the succeeding decades.

He is a well-respected and much-loved member of the Ateneo community. On the occasion of his 45th year as a teacher, the Dulaang Sibol Theater was renamed Tanghalang Onofre R. Pagsanghan by the Ateneo. In honor of his 50th year as a high school teacher, Ateneo established the Onofre R. Pagsanghan Endowed Fund for Basic Education.

Sir Pagsi is also a regular lecturer for the Department of Education. He has authored five textbooks used in several high schools. In 1997, he founded the Sibol-Hesus School, a free tutorial school for public high school students.

His work in Dulaang Sibol has attracted national recognition. It is high school theater with, as critic and National Artist the late Leonor Orosa Goquingco put it, “professional polish.” He has been the director of dramatics at the Ateneo de Manila High School since 1956.

Sir Pagsi also founded the Knights of the Sacred Heart in the Holy Trinity Parish of Balik-balik in 1948, which to date has seven ordained priests from underprivileged boys. The seminary studies of three priests were partly subsidized by the group from earnings of their annual plays in Filipino.

He has likewise pioneered in incorporating musical competitions in the study of Filipino to stimulate greater creativity in and love for the national language. The now nationally famous “Hindi Kita Malilimutan” was the composition of his then first-year student Manoling Francisco. The lyrics of the song was a collaboration of Sir Pagsi and one of his first year classes.

In his honor, his Sibol boys produced Pagsibol, a recording of some sixteen Sibol songs, most of which are either his songs or his lyrics. The songs on tape are only a part of more than a hundred original Filipino songs in Dulaang Sibol. A second recording of Sibol songs is entitled Kulay-Buhay. A third recording, Sumibol, has also been produced as a CD.

Now in his 80s, Sir Pagsi continues in his vocation to teach.

‘Topacs’ Foundation’

Francisco “Topacs” Colayco is the leading advocate of teaching financial literacy to average income-earners, students and migrant workers. He claims that his biggest challenge is to propagate a mindset among small-income earners in the country to appreciate the value of laying money in store for the future, to save and grow their savings to prepare a secure future for themselves, their families and their community.

Topacs is an expert on the timeless principles of attaining financial freedom. He is also well known for infusing the process of wealth creation with a higher purpose of sharing financial success with one’s family, community, church and nation. With these principles, the Colayco Foundation for Education (CFE) was born. CFE is a prime mover of the financial literacy movement and the Kalayaan sa Kakapusan Movement.

CFE has engaged hundreds of corporations, institutions and organizations in enlightening their employees and members in the proper management of their personal finances. The foundation’s goal is to continue working closely with these groups to provide their employees/members with advance training and guidance in practicing what they have learned. Their vision is to stimulate wealth creation and entrepreneurship among income earners, thus helping close the widening poverty gap in the country.

Topacs is also the best-selling author of “Pera Mo Palaguin Mo 1 & 2,” motivating books that creatively reduce complex terms and ideas in the business scene into layman’s language. The books aim to help make the people realize that wealth creation is indeed possible.