Partners

This all started at a wedding at Club Malarayat in Lipa, Batangas last January. As we were going in to the reception in the ballroom, Ayala Foundation president Vicky Garchitorena pulled me aside said, "We have to talk. Fernando and I have a project." I must admit I gave her the typical let’s-do-lunch answer: "Okay, call me."

Call they did, not Vicky though who went to the U.S. to meet with AF-USA chapters, but Emi de Lara of Ayala Stakeholder Relations. Ayala was restructuring and re-branding their group-wide corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs under three key issues—the catchy 3Es of education, environment and entrepreneurship—and would STARweek partner in its launch.

Sustainable development and community involvement initiatives have always been of great personal and editorial interest. The STAR—and STARweek in particular—has always sought to spread the good news: success stories big and small, community efforts, people who do their jobs well in the face of considerable odds, people who serve others despite great difficulty, and corporate participation in social and developmental projects. In particular, we have in the past been actively involved in and followed several Ayala projects like GILAS (of which The STAR is a partner), Centex, and the annual Ayala Young Leaders Congress, at which our president/CEO Miguel Belmonte was a speaker last February.

The sad but very real fact is that the government, with severely limited resources and further hobbled by corruption and politics, cannot meet a lot of even the most basic needs of our growing populace. We can lament this not just half empty but nearly empty glass all we want, but the reality remains that the challenges of poverty, the lack of housing, education, basic utilities and services for a large number of Filipinos still need to be met.

The onus has thus fallen on the private sector to take the lead in answering these challenges. Long before CSR (corporate social responsibility) became the "in" phrase, corporations were doing what they could to help, to be good neighbors and citizens. "Charity" was still the term used, and projects were usually along the lines of scholarships, medical/dental missions, typhoon relief, and gift giving at Christmas.

As social problems increased in scope, magnitude, and urgency, not just nationally but worldwide, corporate involvement fortunately increased as well. And this time they went about their "charity work" in the best way they knew how—they applied their business and management skills to the problems at hand. It was no longer simply sending a check to the orphanage or sacks of rice and cartons of milk to the relief center; managers and CEOs studied and analyzed the problems, lined up and weighed options and courses of action, then implemented solutions with resources used to fuel the best laid marketing campaigns and corporate ventures.

The age of Corporate Social Responsibility, of a new brand of corporate philanthropy, came to be.

From there, corporate social initiatives went a step further—sustainability was now a factor. One time gifts, losing propositions, the proverbial giving of a fish were eschewed in favor of economically viable, self-sustaining programs that taught beneficiaries how to fish. These initiatives were also folded or integrated into the corporations’ core businesses. Companies engaged in "businesses that not only create value for shareholders but also result in a developmental impact on societyÖ"—in other words, what’s good for the community at large is also good for business, and vice versa.

At the risk of being accused of favoritism, I want to single out Manila Water, not only because I finally got continuous water supply since they took over the East Zone concession in 1997 (before that we only had water from 7 pm to midnight). By providing water service to squatter areas and low income communities—unarguably an important social service—Manila Water increased its base of responsible and paying customers. By going further and extending start-up loans to these customers, their economic viability—and consequently their ability to pay—increased. It is definitely a win-win situation.

The Manila Water example is so successful that it has been cited in the new book, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid by Professor CK Prahalad, who advises business to "stop thinking of the poor as victims and instead start seeing them as resilient and creative entrepreneurs as well as value-demanding consumers."

Socially responsive programs that make good business sense—that is the secret of successful CSR. Which brings me back to this special issue and our special partnership with Ayala. We are delighted to tell these stories and share these images with you in this special dedicated issue of STARweek. As a whole and individually, the stories are uplifting, encouraging and, quite frankly, help dispel some of the gloom of these trying, confusing times we live in.