Sometime last year, I wrote about Ideal Vision Center (IVC), and how, after a decade of doing its own brand of giving back to society by having a program, partnered with the Rotary Club, of donating eyewear to indigents and charity cases, it finally gave the program a name — Gift of Sight. It was the company’s own take on Fashion for a Cause, as even a purchase of fashion brand eyewear at IVC would mean that on behalf of the buyer, one piece of eyewear would be given to some deserving recipient. It came as no surprise then that the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) would turn to Ideal Vision Center when the hospital’s Sentro Ofthalmologico Jose Rizal needed a partner, a rare fusing of the public service sector and private enterprise.
Located within the Sento Ofthalmologico building, the Ideal Vision Center-PGH branch is a first, a cooperative business and a charitable venture that’s run and managed by IVC. Finished eyeglasses are offered at an affordable price, frames are given to charity cases, the refraction needs of the hospital are alleviated by the center’s staff (traditionally, by 7 a.m., you’d already find a long line of charity cases in need of refraction), special lenses and protective eyewear can be dispensed “on site” to needy cases: all making for an effective outreach system that still manages to work as a business. And every month, upon the recommendation of the DSWD office located within the PGH, free eyewear is donated to more than 100 referrals. The invitation of PGH extended to IVC to put up a store within the hospital’s premises has turned into a godsend for several eye patients.
This early, plans are afoot to do something in August, the Sight-Saving month; and there are talks with the Eye Bank to do something for cornea transplants come 2009. We often read about efforts by companies to embark on a corporate social responsibility (CSR) program; and quite often, a lot of noise and fanfare can accompany the initial stages of these efforts. It’s refreshing to find a company that quietly has pursued this objective without much fanfare, and to find out that it has consistently done so for over a decade now. Not everything has to be high profile and high impact to be effective. Realistically, a business is still a business, one that, in order to survive and thrive, has to rely on bottom line principles and profitability. But it is comforting to read how even enterprises of this type, and size, can initiate and sustain efforts that prove conscience can go hand-in-hand with commercial viability and success.
Those city lights
A common thread running through these three novels is how the cities that serve as locales for the stories’ action take on a life of their own, adding color and texture to the drama that unfolds. Windy City, no points for guessing, is set in Chicago, and is a superb contemporary municipal politics story. With Last Rituals, we’re whisked to Reykjavik in Iceland, where a gruesome murder mystery unfolds. Beautiful Children is Las Vegas, beyond the shiny, glamorous strip of casinos and high rollers.
Windy City by Scott Simon (available at Powerbooks): Have always been partial to novels about politics, and this one by Scott Simon comes in the form of a murder mystery acting as a backdrop for an engrossing exposition on how contemporary big city politics works. Sunny, an alderman of Indian descent, is suddenly thrust into the role of interim Chicago mayor when the elected mayor is found dead in his office, apparently poisoned by the pizza he would have delivered daily. As we meet the aldermen of the different Chicago boroughs, we discover how ethnicity is used as a trump card in municipal politics, but is also a minefield that has to be tenderly negotiated for political survival. There’s the lesson of the difference between making promises and giving one’s word. And there are the intricacies of running a city like Chicago, while overseeing the murder investigation. One of the great things with this novel is how Simon really makes his characters flesh and blood, which each alderman coming to vivid life, each one having his or her own political ambitions and utilizing the ethnic background of their respective neighborhoods as vantage points from which they can curry favor or largesse from the Mayor’s office. The world of political quid pro quo is here for all to see, and it’s a real treat.
Last Rituals by Yrsa Sigurdardottir (available at Fully Booked): Set in Reykjavik, Iceland, Last Rituals is mildly reminiscent of Peter Hoeg’s Smilla’s Sense of Snow. There’s a mix of the academic world, witchcraft and ritual murders, and the unlikely teaming up of an Icelandic lady attorney and a German ex-policeman. It’s the peculiar tandem, and the locale, that drives a lot of the action of this novel and gives it its particular flavor, setting it apart from the countless novels written in this crime mystery genre. There’s a German foreign exchange student that’s bizarrely murdered with his eyes gouged out that sets things in motion. Scion a high-heeled German family, we’re whisked into the world of personal security details, trust funds and limitless expense accounts all stacked up against the grunge world of designer drugs, a fascination for witchcraft and sorcery, and archaeological digs and heritage sites. There’s also the historical fact that it was in Iceland where male witches were the rage back in the 1600s. Partly a procedural mystery and partly a shaggy dog love story of sorts between our two investigators, this novel works as a satisfying read.
Beautiful Children by Charles Bock (available at Powerbooks): There’s a Las Vegas that exists beyond the glossy casinos that the city is known for. Here, it’s “little people” and humdrum dreams and aspirations that give meaning and form to the nexus of relationships and problems that permeate this world. While Beautiful Children is about the lives behind the photos we see in milk cartons of missing children and teenagers, it’s also about the Las Vegas that hums and thrives behind the bright lights of the Strip. Newell, the 12-year-old of Lorraine and Lincoln, goes missing. Newell’s friend, Kenny, is a budding illustrator and shows his attempts at three-dimensional comic strips to disillusioned comics creator Bing. Cheri, who works at a strip club, has tattoos that become Bing’s fetish. There’s Cheri’s slacker boyfriend Ponyboy, and runaways Daphney and this nameless bald girl. From all these characters, Bock creates a melange of voices that speak of dashed hopes and dreams, of facing bleak realities and existing in the shadows of the high rollers and fantasy-filled centers of entertainment and leisure centers that we all automatically think of when we hear Las Vegas. A gritty read, this is one serious, engrossing novel.
