We sat down over lunch at “Barbara’s,” the restaurant with the turn-of-the-century ambiance with Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales after the “unity mass” across the San Agustin Church. And among other things, we talked about a project dear to his heart, the “Pondo ng Pinoy” which he is launching tomorrow and Saturday.

This early, he has the full support of people he has talked to like Private Citizen Cory Aquino, the business leaders, lay leaders of the church, parish priests and more importantly, ordinary folks!
Rosales first initiated this mini-savings scheme for his former diocese of Lipa, the “Pondong Batangan” or Batangas Fund. His idea was simple but it worked. Ask people, including the poor, to put aside twenty-five centavos every day (one coin) and to make it a habit, he had his seminarians clean soft drink cans, keeping the cover but taking out the tab, then wrap them in white paper with the name “Pondong Batangas” with the opening on top of the can exposed. The “savings banks” were used to store the coins and it was estimated that a full pop can could yield as much as R250!
We were given these cans in our First Saturday breakfast “club” by Nellie Lopez and all of us filled our cans by the time we came back for another First Saturday gathering.

The trick is to leave the can where you normally unburden your pockets or empty your bags at the end of a day.

You usually have several pieces of coins left, so drop all the coins whether 25 centavos or 1 peso or 5 and you will soon feel the can getting heavier and heavier.

He confided that he was appalled by the level of poverty in Metro Manila after making the rounds of his new diocese the weeks after he was installed.

He is not a stranger to the area as he was assigned here before, but he had expected that Metro Manila would not deteriorate as it has, over the past four decades.

Alas it has. One only has to look under the bridges, at the clogged esteros, at our sidewalk people with the poor in carts or on cardboard boxes to realize that Metro Manila is a seething social volcano!

(We can also pinpoint the uncontrolled influx of provincial folks to the metropolis in search of greener pastures which has resulted in over-population, pollution and rise in crime too! Nevertheless, the faces and stench of poverty are indeed everywhere.)

So, Archbishop Rosales has asked other bishops in nearby dioceses to join him and to embark on this “doable” fund-raising for social development projects.

The funds will never be used to build or repair church structures or any of its existing projects. It will solely be for “total development” of the poor he emphasized.

In Batangas, the funds have been used for various ground-level livelihood projects benefiting only the poor to help empower them to rise above their poverty. From the last time we had an update on the Batangas fund, it already ran into millions.

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We asked him how he would undertake to control the solicitation so it will not be tainted. Batangas was relatively easier, we ventured. Supposing some enterprising but unscrupulous people pass around fake cans and pocket the money?

He chuckled that he realized that human nature being what it is, a few might try but he said the cans would be distributed, for rich and poor partners alike, through parishes, so there should be a certain control on who gets them and who will be accountable to the collection of the cans.

Rosales’ mathematics is simple enough — if the estimated 8 million Catholics in Metro Manila gave 25 centavos a day or R1.25 a week, that would be R12 million in seven days! In a year, the fund should grow into R624 million!

Think what the fund could mean for pro-poor projects which cannot get any funding from banks! Ironically, the commercial banks will also benefit from this Pondo ng Pinoy as the funds will have to be deposited in some banks!

If you think this is an ambitious project, it probably is. But as Rosales noted, crumbs, when gathered, can feed thousands as Jesus demonstrated when he asked the apostles to gather the left over crumbs of the fishes and the loaves of bread after the people listened to him on the mountain.
These 25-centavo coins are the crumbs which when put together, will help solve some of the metropolis’ poverty problems.

It will also be a scheme where even the poorest of the poor can save their “crumbs” towards their children’s tomorrow.

So get your cans from your parishes and make it a habit to save your loose change. It is a good way to start the saving habit for young people too.

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Counting of Comelec Certificates of Canvass is still on-going, so we again gave way on Dee’s Day on RPN 9. Keep your fingers crossed that by next week, the honorable ladies and gentlemen of our Congress shall have stopped bickering and proclaim a president and vice president.

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Today is Independence Day, so if you have flags, display them proudly. Many people still think we celebrate Independence Day on July 4 when the US of A “granted” us independence from them.

Well, they should be reminded that June 12 is our official Independence Day as declared by then president Diosdado Macapagal at the Luneta grandstand with Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo in attendance.

Aguinaldo raised the flag for the first time in Kawit, Cavite and the house is still there with the historic balcony from where the flag with its yellow sun and tri-colors flew proudly.

It’s good for us to go back to history once in a while so find time to bring the children to Aguinaldo’s house.