The silent hero

When I first met him, he was a young boy and now he must be approaching his 50s, though he still looks the same to me. The miracle of aging these days! He went to college in the United States and stayed there, preferring the simple life but still missing home. So he connected with Filipino friends. That’s how he ran into his second grade teacher again. Carol Atacador came to one of their Ateneo batch reunions and told them her Centex story.

What is Centex? It is a school for underprivileged children founded and run by the Ayala Foundation in Tondo and Batangas. The story touched Pocholito Estella, the young man I am writing about, and he decided to set up lunch with Hewlett-Packard (HP), one of the clients of his events company, and Carol Atacador. That set the ball rolling.

Maybe about a month ago I received a charming invitation tied with blue ribbon to which a miniature walis ting-ting was attached. It invited me to an event called My Backyard at the Ayala Museum. It seems that from the first time they met things began to happen. HP computers were donated to the school. HP in the Philippines joined in. They launched a project with Centex that had an environmental theme easily understood by the children. They called it My Backyard. They asked the children what they wanted to see to celebrate and the children said they wanted celebrities. Who? Charice Pempengco, Arnel Pineda and Gary Valenciano.

Poch decided they needed a theme song, so he contacted his cousin Gino Cruz to compose it. Gino held a workshop with the children to write the lyrics. He asked them to complete three sentences: My backyard is… It is...I will... Sorting through their very poetic answers, he composed the theme song.

To strengthen the My Backyard theme, they had an environmentalist teach the students how to clean their own backyards. They donated more computers and renovated the computer lab. Then they discovered that in the Batangas campus, the children were planting vegetables. So they brought prominent chef Gaita Fores over to study the vegetables and to turn them into cocktail fare for the event, the cocktail reception to which I was invited. I must say this — I would have died for the asparagus canapés. They were top of the line.

I walked into the Ayala Museum in the middle of tremendous pouring rain and sat with old friends Ethel Timbol and Bobby Caballero. Ethel decided to drink gumamela juice, while I settled for my favorite beverage — red wine. Charice Pempengco could not be there but she went to the school and sang for the children. Arnel Pineda was there and sang. Gary Valenciano was there. He was moved by the project and volunteered for it and did a mean Michael Jackson dance.

But I, with my background in advertising and as once chairman and president of the Coca-Cola Foundation Philippines, was particularly touched by how excellent this project was. It linked a computer manufacturer with the underprivileged children of the Philippines. It gave computers to these children. That gives them access to the world. It explodes their future. Look at Charice and Arnel. They exploded their futures through YouTube. They were discovered on the Internet. Can you imagine what this donation will do to the lives of these children? It is unimaginable and that makes it fantastic. This is an event with all the important values sewn in. It is educational, environmental and it offers phenomenal opportunities for changing lives of underprivileged children. It should serve as an outstanding model for an event that combines fun with corporate social responsibility. We often forget that business can and should always combine both. Then possibly we will have a more remarkable world.

Everyone will pardon me but I believe that the silent hero behind all this is Pocholito Estella, who has now grown into Poch Estella, since his father moved on to the next life a few years ago. It was Poch’s idea to put Carol Atacador and the Ayala Foundation in touch with Hewlett-Packard and from that point on everything was well-planned. So I thank you, Poch, for this example. May more young boys from all schools grow up to be like you.

My cell phone was stolen and has not been restored so sorry, no comments today.