The Aboitiz Group: Intervention in education!

Last Oct. 4th, we wrote about the good news that the Triennial Awards had given not just for Cebu, but also for Mindanao, thanks to the Ramon Aboitiz, Foundation, Inc. (RAFI). Well, yesterday morning, I got another piece of good news, which I'm sharing with our readers today when I attended what looked like graduation ceremonies at the Ecotech Hall yesterday, which wasn't really a graduation ceremony, but something better.

The main banner read, "Aboitiz Intervention in Education" and indeed it was exactly what the entire program was all about… an intervention by the Aboitiz Group Foundation, Inc. (AGFI) to improve the quality of public education for our poor school children. This intervention comes in various forms, via the Aboitiz Infrastructure Program, it's Computerization Program and the Aboitiz Scholarship Program.

Yesterday, AGFI presented its scholarship program to more than 200 school children coming from various schools in Metro Cebu, including children taken from Mrs. Margot Osmeña's Task Force Street Children. AGFI also gave out computers to various schools, which is why a lot of school administrators were in attendance at the main Ecotech Hall to accept the donation. In the podium where Mr. Erramon I. Aboitiz, President of AGFI, Mr. Stephen G. Paradies, Trustee, Mr. Augusto Carpio III Managing Trustee and Department of Education (DepEd) Undersecretary Fe Hidalgo and DepEd Regional Director 7 Carolino Mordeno.

No doubt that we are all cognizant of the pressing problems with the education of our children today, which everyone says is in crisis, thanks to a government that has very limited resources. However, AGFI does more than just bitch and complain about our problems. They took the cudgels to help the Education Department where they have fallen miserably short, like building schools, classrooms, giving away textbooks and more importantly, giving away computers, which are duly licensed by Microsoft so you'll know that they are not pirated copies and of course, printers from Lexmark.

I'm sure that by now, Cebuanos know that the Aboitiz Family has gone out of their way to show where their hearts lie with their Corporate Social Responsibility. So you don't get confused, the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI) is the foundation of the Aboitiz Family, while AGFI is the foundation of the Aboitiz Group of Companies. This tells you that the Aboitiz Family do not just lend a hand to help the country's social development, they give you two arms, RAFI and AGFI! Yesterday was AGFI's affair.

Just watching yesterday's ceremonies made me go into some kind of soul searching… it reiterated my belief that the only solution to the poverty of our country is through good quality education and here I was seeing for myself a company that not believed in this dictum, but went out of its way to pursue their programs.

I thought that if only the top 500 corporations of the Philippines came up with a similar program that AGFI was doing (there are some 42,000 classrooms throughout the country that would surely welcome any help from these corporations) it certainly would put an abrupt halt to the pressing crisis in our education.

In his speech, Mr. Erramon Aboitiz emphasized that the various programs done by AGFI was "to prepare the next generation of Filipinos, especially at this time when we are now in the midst of a brain drain, which could affect the nation's growth. We have opened the door of opportunity to all Filipinos to improve their standard of living by presenting various initiatives to improve education in our country."

Mr. Aboitiz also told his audience that one of the core values of the Aboitiz Group is sharing… sharing to the communities where they operate a business. The AGFI program in a way teaches our children how to fish, rather than beg in the streets. AGFI have allocated 50% of its budget on education, specifically on infrastructure, IT and scholarships. To date, they have built more than 800 classrooms (with 16 more coming this year) four libraries, 30 daycare centers to prepare toddlers to embrace school life and 500 computers which have been distributed to various schools, not just in Metro Cebu, but throughout the country. For her part, DepEd Usec. Fe Hidalgo warmly appreciated the effort of the Aboitiz Group; gave special note to their helping the DepEd transport their textbooks through the far-flung areas of the country. But more needs to be done… only 14% of high school kids go to college for higher education. I summed up yesterday's affair like this. AGFI was sending a message to our youth… that we'd take care of you now so you can take better care of yourself in the future. God Bless AGFI!

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For email responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila's columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com