By Tony Meloto
How do you say thank you to so many for doing so much to those with much less?
They were there at the 2nd GK Global Summit in Singapore last June 25-27. Kindred spirits and like-hearted souls, patriots and heroes, philanthropists and partners,friends and family - they gathered to celebrate the dream of Filipinos to rise from poverty by 2024, of Asians ending poverty in Asia, of kalinga(caring) and bayanihan (sharing) as the way to a better world.
To the speakers, sponsors, hosts, service teams, delegates and guests, thank you.
The Summit clearly revealed, through insightful talks and inspired stories, that those with the courage to care are able to discover the power of love.
*Love more, live better - was the first lesson of Singapore.
Their Minister for Youth and Sports, Vivian Barakrishnan, put it simply on opening night that "in an imperfect world, the best way to live is to care."
They received us with respect and displayed Gawad kalinga with pride as an effective Asian model for social development. A world class solution to a Third World problem.
Red carpet hospitality started from top government leaders. . Formal, yet warm and real. They welcome good practices that work - in business, education, and now, in social innovation.
In November last year Singapore gathered the global superpowers at the APEC; last week they gathered heroes at the GK Summit.
The schools likewise, particularly Ngee Ann Poly and NUS, showed us no-nonsense generosity. They give because it is right and it works. The best facilities - convention centre, workshop areas, including the board room where former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew met his education ministers - were made available to hope-weavers and poverty- busters.
The presence of over a hundred student volunteers, impeccably dressed in blazers and moving with clockwork efficiency, gave the Summit a touch of class and a sense of good order befitting a global event that will make life kinder and better to the next generation.
Big corporations were also there to show that they have made it their business to care.
They came to discuss effective strategies to create abundance from a ground up perspective. Keppel, Ascendas, Singtel (with Philippine partner Globe), Akzonobel, Philips, Shell, Nestle, Cebu Pacific, Coke - all want to ease human suffering and save the planet.
*Caring makes good business sense.
Investing in poverty reduction will expand the market base and contribute to industrial peace. Nestle Philippines CEO John Miller called it " creating shared value." Makers of Dulux paint, Akzonobel Asian Managing Director Jerome Rowe, challenged the crowd "to colour the world" of the poor like GK, to raise dignity and make life beautiful for those who have accepted ugliness as their destiny. Sadly, as a people we have lowered our standard and embraced poverty and the ugliness that comes with it. GK is changing this mindset.
Coke CEO Tony Del Rosario referred to our concerted effort to end poverty as the "real thing."
Singapore was the authentic model of effective governance and good citizenship that drove material poverty and corruption out of their gates. They were the perfect host and the strategic hub to spread the spirit of GK in the region.
Most of all, they have a remarkable team that had the courage to host because they have big dreams and great faith. Our gratitude to the GKHI team and Chairperson Ai Lin Ong, for sleepless nights, missed meals and buckets of tears, for putting up with doubts, fears and stress and putting faith into action that mounted a successful global event for over 700 participants.
Paolo and Annette, wipe the tears and take a bow.
The guests from the Philippines relished the fact that they were listed as foreign delegates and that their stories were being heard and their sacrifices admired by an international audience. Our caretaker teams, mostly unsung ordinary everyday heroes, were hailed as the real stars of the event that gathered men and women of wealth and power. They were the inspiration to many young people, mostly students who had done immersion in their villages and seen the transforming power of their commitment to love unconditionally.
Jainab Abdulmajid, the GK head for Sulu, conquered her fear and. spoke about pain and hope with nobility. She worked with marines to build homes and schools and heal her people. Her moving story showed the power of compassion. Enemies banish when love shows its beautiful face.
*Love without borders is love without fear.
This lesson and images of brightly coloured homes painted like vinta sails and smiling malong clad children lingered in my mind long after the week-end was over.
It brought vivid memories of the night I spent in Sulu in the home of Mayor Munib Estino during the April 2009 Highway of Peace(HOPE) Build about which Jainab spoke, listening to young marines on a clear star lit night until early morning about their dreams for their children, finally retiring on the only bed in the room in the home of the once most dreaded Tausug warrior in Sulu ( Commander Bawang, 104 year old Father of Mayor Munib) while three star general Boying Ecarma slept soundly on the floor. I never felt safer in my life, though this was happening at the time when kidnapped Red Cross volunteers were still in captivity in the next town of Indanan (they were released two days later). I slept with the words still humming in my head of the vow made earlier that night by Mayor Munib at the town plaza, that the Tausugs would protect GK workers and their descendants because they are now family and friend to them.
*Love protects those who seek peace.
This was true also for rebels in Compostela Valley who found no more reason to fight when they received kindness in the form of homes and farms in almost all the towns of the province upon the initiative of Governor Arturo Uy. Rebellion vanishes when authority is used to serve, not to oppress.
Despite the humour of speaker Mari Oquinena and the animated talks on the final day, I could not hold back my tears, out of grief for the depth of human suffering and lives lost in the course of our journey but mostly out of joy and relief in discovering that by caring we have the power to heal and restore life.
Listening to Bagong Silang Barangay Captain Cesar Padilla, I faintly remembered the faces of the five boys we lost in the gang wars in the early years of our social experiment in the most dangerous slum in the country where GK began. What moved me was his statement that Bagong Silang was cited by the National Police this year as one of the most peaceful areas in Metro Manila. This fact alone made all the blood, sweat and tears over the years worth it after all.
*Love can turn mourning into dancing.
The cries of the children of Gisaugon no longer ring in the ears of survivors 4 years after the tragic mudslide that killed over 300 of them, according to Mayor Rico Rentuza. They have moved on in their typhoon resistant homes built away from fault lines, growing food and raising children that will be healthier and better educated than those they lost. The town was last year's national winner for disaster preparedness and is on its way to prosperity as a second class municipality from fourth before the tragedy.
The Summit allowed me to acknowledge my grief over heroes we had lost in our fight against poverty. I was in America when Nonoy Maloloy-on died suddenly last May and it was only as I watched the video about his life (for his Summit report, that became his fitting obituary)) that I had the chance to grieve over an extraordinary human being who penetrated dangerous territories to make the lives of those in despair better and safer.
*Love gives value to life and meaning to death.
To those of us who have the privilege to be alive, it continues to be a call to live with a purpose and to love with excellence by giving the best to the least for entire communities and nations to rise.
To Mayor Freddie Tinga, it is to get the trust and active participation of the private sector for effective governance. "If you don't trust us politicians, help our people by giving through Gawad Kalinga," he stressed.
To Camsur Governor LRay Villafuerte, the road to prosperity is ending poverty in his province (from the 39th poorest, now the 10th richest) via tourism (now the number one tourist destination in the country), raising productivity (now the 5th in rice production) and ending squatting and homelessness by adopting GK's formula for intentional communities in every town in his province, in place of makeshift shanties and accidental slums.
To Ateneo President Fr Ben Nebres, it is graduating patriots who will make an entire nation soar by not leaving the weak behind, by providing quality education to the rising poor and going for better product quality and profit in business with a bigger social conscience.
*Knowledge makes the head smart, love grows an intelligent heart.
To Dylan Wilk, founder of top British computer games company Gameplay, it is about enlightened capitalism where top executives give more for less pay, where rank and file employees with less in life get more, and where starving farmers can earn more, and profiteers less, as growers of high value crops for essential oils and fragrances of Filipino owned world-class brands. This is his goal for setting up Human Nature as a platform for the market to be more just and caring.
To Tony Olaes, the biggest supplier of apparel to America's pop culture, it is about not forgetting one's roots or past, about successful sons and daughters abroad going back to create abundance to poor countries they left behind.
*Love remembers first the last, the least and the lost.
To Philippine Vice President Noli De Castro, it is about re-defining power as the mission to serve and not the ambition to rule, continuing his support for GK beyond position or recognition, intensifying caring for those at the bottom when he steps down from the second most powerful office of the land on June 30.
*"You are my friend when you love one another."
To Cito Lorenzo, Nordy Diploma and Boy Abay, dear friends who kept me sharp and sane in Singapore over coffee in the morning and wine in the evening, who have discovered bonds that last, and my lasting respect, by making the poor their heir and committing their treasures to their welfare.
To Boy and Maria Montelibano, Conrado de Quiros, Billy Esposo and Patricia Estevez, it is about media with the conscience and heart of a patriot, about the power of communication to spread good news to build a nation and not lies that destroy reputations for a price.
To our Singaporean friends, it is to help spread the Gk template in the ASEAN, to send more students to our villages for immersion and study and for business and philanthropy to invest in ending poverty and promoting peace by building more sustainable GK communities.
To GK Executive Director Luis Oquinena and all fathers and mothers of the next generation, GK 2024 is the possible dream, the joy ride in the road of sacrifice, the deliverance of their own children as they deliver the homeless and the hungry from want.
From Singapore it was a rush for many of us back to Manila, to make our vow with our brand new President Noy Aquino as he assumed leadership, to make his hope for our country our hope, his concern for our people our command, and his responsibility to our children our accountability as well.
We look forward to Australia next year for the third Global Summit with great faith that there will be more good news to share. Hopefully, our new President can join us by then to show the world that the power to build nations is in ordinary people who have discovered the extraordinary power of love.
*"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld
