Small Acts of Heroism Can Bring Back Dignity of Filipino.
January 21, 2010
YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A MANNY Pacquiao to raise the sagging Filipino Spirit. All you need to do is be a member of a foundation formed five years ago in time for the Catholic Church’s Jubilee Year.
One member simply pays the right taxes on time and monitors how they’re spent in her community.
A second one patrols the streets of Obando as a volunteer village watcher.
A third, a firefighter, did his share in a more dramatic fashion. He helped save children trapped in a burning Quezon City building and lost his life in the process.
These acts of heroism, big or small, were their way of returning favor for the benefits they reaped from their membership in Sagip Ka 2000 Foundation.
With a token contribution of at least P200 yearly, members get substantial hospitalization and burial benefits.
It’s one concrete way of uplifting the Filipino spirit, especially that of the poor, say Bro. Manuel V. de Leon, FMS head of the Marist Brothers of the Philippines and the group’s founding president. “It means a lot when people don’t have to worry so much about money when he gets sick or when a relatives die,” he told the Inquirer. “It brings back their dignity.”
The foundation has around 17,000 members scattered around the country, farmers, tribesmen and fisher folk.
There are also soldiers, policemen, teachers, office workers, students,small businessmen and priests.
The requirement is not at all Herculeen, according to Bro. Manny. One simply has to live by the group’s core principles centered on bringing back dignity among Filipinos.
They’re spelled out in a 15-point advice encouraging members to go back to basic principles, such as honest labor, respect for the human person, orderliness, beauty, truth and fairness.
In more concrete terms, Bro. Manny says, they’re urged to assist a neighbor in need, clean their backyard,vote for deserving politicians, reject any form of violence, and develop personal relationship with God.
In essence, Sagip Ka promotes values expected of any well-meaning individual, he explains.
Bro. Manny got the idea during a renewal trip to the Vatican in 1999. Walking down a street leading to St. Peter’s Square, he chanced upon a nice shirt bearing a print of a Michelangelo painting. When he decided against buying it, the Italian vendor shouted at him: “Filipinos, no good!”
How it began
“It hit me hard”, he recalls, “I kept asking myself if Filipinos were really ‘no good’ in the eyes of foreigners.”
The following year, he organized Sagip Ka whose theoretical backbone was his dissertation at the University of the Philippines in 1998 on the “influence of family, school, and society on student values.”
Members can avail of two benefit packages shouldered largely by the insurance premiums collected from individual contributions, Bro Manny says.
Medical, death assistance
For the first package, which is for members aged between 5 and 75 years old, a yearly contribution of P200 is equivalent to an ambulance service worth P1,000 and medical reimbursement worth P3,000.
If member dies of natural cause, the beneficiary gets a maximum P10,000 burial assistance. Death due to an accident means P15,000.
The second package, available to those within 5-to-65 age bracket, raises the amounts of benefits with only an additional P800 annual contribution.
Contagious Values
A member needing a heart by pass or kidney transplant, for instance, can receive P50,000 inclusive of a P1,200 daily hospitalization assistance. Death benefit assistance is raised up to a maximum of P25,000.
At least 3,500 members have received assistance, mostly in the form of hospital benefits, from the second package, Bro. Manny says.
The values the group has been trying to promote have been contagious, he says.
In Marikina, there are around 200 volunteers devoted to clean the streets with a very minimal salary from the local government. Their main objective is cleanliness and orderliness.
Teaching in the mountains
In Antipolo, a government employee spends her weekends teaching Dumagat children in the mountains of Sierra Madre.
One pilot came up with a new way of producing organic fertilizer and is now teaching it among farmers in his community.
In Bro. Manny’s case, he has built two machines: a mechanical shredder for organic waste and a compactor for residuals garbage in an effort to reduce the volume of solid waste at Marist School in Marikina City where he was a President for 15 years.
Elsewhere, someone is probably walking an old lady across a busy street. Or a vendor is chasing after a buyer who has forgotten his change.
Multiply these simple acts of heroism, says Bro. Manny, and the Filipino will get back his dignity.
5th Year Anniversary Programs and Activities
January 20, 2010
TAKE CARE OF THE EARTH – water gives freshness and life to the earth. Sagip Ka 2000 Foundation has the DENR.LGU’s.NGO’s etc. to adopt rivers, streams and tributaries to protect the waterways from garbage and other pollutants.
Going Back to the Basic
January 19, 2010
Cleanliness Programs
January 19, 2010
