Our special presentation on our talkshow Straight from the Sky, we bring you once again a show about the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI), which recently embarked on a massive rebranding to strengthen its focus and its capabilities. Rare do foundations go into rebranding itself, unless for a good reason. RAFI is, after all, on its 45th year of existence and that means that they have been with us in Cebu for a long time.
I will be celebrating my 25th year as a journalist a few months from now and when I joined the media, RAFI was already way past its 20th year of existence. Hence for most of us journalists, we just did what we had to do, cover the activities of RAFI, often forgetting its original focus areas and its brand promise, not to media’s own or RAFI’s fault, but rather because things in RAFI had already moved far ahead in their passion to help the socio-economic growth and development of Cebu, some of us have difficulty playing catch up.
Call it timely that last Friday, RAFI was given the Anvil Award of Merit during the 46th Anvil Awards (Gabi ng Parangal) PR Programs Category held at the EDSA Shangri-La for one of its Heritage and Culture programs dubbed “Gabii sa Kabilin” (Night of Heritage) which has made visiting Cebu’s Museums, not only educational, but fun as well. Its popularity has grown so much; Manila has recognized their efforts in promoting the nation’s culture and heritage in this unique way.
Incidentally, the Aboitiz Equities Ventures (AEV) also bagged the Anvil Award of Merit for its Race to Reduce Challenge also for PR Category in recognition for its effort to reduce or minimize the company’s carbon footprint through this awareness program. So congratulations are in order not just for RAFI but also to AEV for bagging the very prestigious 46th Anvil Awards.
So tonight we will feature RAFI President Sir Roberto “Bobby” Aboitiz and the RAFI staff headed by Evelyn Nacario-Castro, Executive Director of the Eduardo Aboitiz Development Studies Center (EADS). We shall also bring you a snippet of its various focus areas like Culture and Heritage, Greenin’ Philippines, the Eduardo Aboitiz Cancer Center, the RAFI Micro-Finance and Our Cebu Program which features the very successful E-Gwen Project and its Kool Adventure Camp, a program that I recommend to all schools and business offices. So watch how RAFI rebrands itself on SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8:00 pm tonight.
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It seems that the hunt for the suspects in the killing of that poor six-year old Ellah Joy Pique has hit a snag when the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) corroborated the story of Norwegian National Sven Berger and his Filipina fiancée Karen Esdrelon who were stopped from leaving the Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA). This means that the police have to do more searching for a white Caucasian couple.
Last Saturday, I got a phone call from a good friend about such a couple who boarded a ferry from Toledo City to San Carlos City. My friend texted me the plate number and the type of vehicle that they were using, but I won’t print it here until the NBI verifies this information. So I texted this information to Gov. Gwen Garcia who in turn has asked the NBI to look into this information. Chances are, this murderous couple is still in this country.
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This week, the country observes the 25th anniversary of the EDSA Revolt, which began on Feb. 22, 1986 up to Feb. 26, 1986 when the conjugal Marcos Dictatorship fled Malacañang. We shall try to bring you certain articles just to remind our people that People’s Power already happened a quarter of a century ago. Call it timely that our 25th anniversary comes at the heels of the People’s Power revolts in Tunisia and Egypt where their decades-long tyrants were booted out of power. Now it’s the turn of Libya, Algeria and yes, Iran. How this week might turn out for Democracy, we will probably know this week.
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Tomorrow the 2011 Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition will commence at the Plenary Hall of the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) hosted by the Philippine Association of Law Schools (PALS). Jessup is the largest and most prestigious competition among laws schools in the world and for tomorrow’s competition, the top law schools of the Philippines, notably, the Ateneo Law School, the University of the Philippines Law School, The Far Eastern University and Arellano University will slug it out for a chance to represent the Philippines at the World Championships in Washington, DC.
This competition will be presided by former Supreme Court Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, including Presidential Legal Counsel Eduardo De Mesa and Dean Amado Valdez. Atty. Christina Garcia Frasco who was a former member of the 2005 Jessup Philippine Team is helping organize this competition here in Mandaue City.
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Email: vsbobita@mozcom.com