A very Goodyear month

For three years I have acted as “emcee” for Goodyear Philippines. 

This month, I have been blessed with the opportunity of hosting two events that were especially significant for me, emotionally and in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility.

Early this month I took part in the annual launch of the 4th Goodyear BNK or Bayani Ng Kalsada project which gathers nominations of drivers who have committed acts of heroism while on the road or within their community.

The unique thing about the project is that the nominee does not have to leap tall buildings or fly faster than a speeding bullet. As far as the project is concerned, your act of heroism can be as simple as giving someone a lift to the emergency room because of an unscheduled birth of a baby, giving a ride to people stranded in floodwaters, or helping people in an accident or whose car stalled along the road.

In simplifying the standard of heroism, Goodyear is actually reviving an old Filipino trait, which is our willingness to assist others in distress. It is certainly one of the very few efforts being made to counter fear and indifference among today’s generation of drivers.

To extend its impact, the BNK recognizes a driver in the private sector, the public utilities and the commercial field. All you have to do is submit your nomination at any Servetek shop or text BNK at 0917666166.

The project took a very different meaning for me in BNK 2008 when the Lord led me to donate my “hosting fee” to a hit and run victim in Goodyear’s name. When I announced that I was donating the money Goodyear immediately matched my donation but even more stunning was that the winners donated their prize money to help the poor young girl.

Yesterday, I nearly got emotional when I hosted a different event for Goodyear. This time it was a “Send Off” for the Goodyear Philippine team that will be competing in Bangkok, Thailand for the Formula Drift races on November 7 & 8.

Heading the team is David M. Feliciano also known as the head of DMF Racing. To many young enthusiasts, David has been the epitome of a teacher-master in the art of Drift racing. He has also been the go to guy for people who want to fix up a car for racing or drifting purposes.

For me, it’s the other way around. For more than a year I have been his part time mentor-tormentor. 

To those over 40 and unfamiliar, David is the youngest “child” of the much-liked Chito Feliciano who was famous for his TV program “Dance time with Chito”. He was also an “Olympian” in Precision shooting who died in a plane crash.

Having lost his father at the age of two, David has depended largely on instinct and “attitude” to get through. So when the “pup” started asking for advise it reminded me of the many times I too needed a mentor who could make time and make sense of things for me.

I was certainly blessed to have grown under my father’s care, but back then, mentoring was a word that very few people used and even fewer people practiced.

Unfortunately “experience” is nothing more than a discarded magazine unless you use it like a book to teach others.

Experience may help you avoid past or potential mistakes, but other than that, experience is pretty much useless like all your mementos that only get to be displayed during Christmas, when someone dies or when you’re trying desperately to get rid of them.

Just try to recall the pain and suffering you “experienced” and how many times you had hoped and prayed that someone was there or had been there to help you from making the mistakes you made. The sheer loss or agony of it all should certainly motivate you to care and to mentor others.

A vivid memory I have with Dad was one evening when he told me and a “young” love of mine that: “In life we are allowed to make mistakes. But the mistakes we are not allowed to make are mistakes that can never be changed”.

It was his way of saying that if you marry too soon or too early in life you will eventually learn that you made a “mistake”. But this one will be for life.

So for over a year I have intermittently mentored and tormented David along with a few petrol heads with “in your face” lectures and SMS encouragement. It has not been an easy year or so for him but he has worked hard and tried hard.

Yesterday, I saw in real life the importance of being the mentor-tormentor as well as the power of corporate social responsibility. While I was doing my thing on the personal side, Goodyear was helping a team of young people from the Philippines to realize that all their hard work and expense in a radical sport that very few understand, has been worth it.

To top it all, Goodyear Philippines has taken it to the next level by sending the team to compete with some of the world’s best in Formula Drift Racing. 

As we sent off the Goodyear “Philippine” team, I realized that we were all part of a process where one generation passed on its “experience and aspirations” to the next. This was both our Corporate and Social Responsibility to youth.

Don’t let the next generation inherit your pain and your mistakes. Let them inherit the wisdom you have gained. “What you dare to dream, dare to do.”