Inspired Kindness in the Time of Lockdowns
/Adversity certainly inspires opportunity, for good and otherwise. Under the radar of power and celebrity, several families, organizations and individuals of every generation in the Philippines have chosen to respond to the pandemic with creativity and charity, baring innate altruism.
Take Marty and Chrisel (Yaptangco) de Leon, co-owners of Fortrust, an education consulting company for people seeking to study, work and live abroad. A week in self-isolation had begun to take its toll on the couple, whose routine typically starts from their home in Merville, Paranaque City, to one office in Makati City and another in Pasig City, to oversee a staff of 25. Their calendars are filled with meetings and coordinating school activities and playdates for their daughters Hailey, 6, and Sofia, 2. But not since mid-March, when the national lockdown dawned on the archipelago.
Isolation spurred Fortrust principals Marty and Chrisel de Leon to launch a family project to help protect front liners.
Family Project
While enjoying quality time, Marty, an Entrepreneurship alum of University of Asia & the Pacific, and Chrisel, a cradle Assumptionist with a nursing degree, wanted to engage in solutions. Within days, the couple and Marty's parents Gobby and Michelle De Leon found a new calling: producing a protective device simply called "aerosol box" for hospital workers.
The product is an "improvised equipment used by doctors during patient intubation," said Marty, 36. "The acrylic box shields the aerosols or the dispersed microscopic droplets, which may carry the virus, from spreading out into the atmosphere while doctors and nurses are intubating or securing a patient's airway."
He's not an inventor, he clarified to Positively Filipino.
"On the night of March 23, someone sent me a picture of a box and how it can help doctors. I forwarded that message to my dad to explore if we could produce samples in his shop. The following day, they made a sample they donated to East Avenue Medical Center through Dr. Paul Ipapo, a resident anesthesiologist, for testing. The test was a success, so we decided to produce more and start raising funds for it," said the eldest of the De Leons' four children.
The elder De Leons run small businesses including a vehicle air-conditioning repair shop at their home in San Juan City and a micro-loan office in nearby Mandaluyong City, where they also manufacture luxe display furnishings named after their second son Steven Gabriel, who passed away from brain cancer at age five almost 20 years ago. Youngest son, David, has been accepted to his Kuya's alma mater where he plans to take up the same course. Recently married to a Frenchman after the Taal Volcano ash storm, only daughter, Andrea Mariana, plans to teach English online.
This appeal shifted production from luxe furnishings to protective boxes, for love.
The family's entrepreneurial spirit was born of Gobby and Michelle's early marriage (she was 17, he was 20) and their drive to prove their commitment to each other and their self-sufficiency to their parents. Their firstborn inherited their business savvy and married into a similarly entrepreneurial family: Chrisel's father, Danny Yaptangco, introduced Cebu Lechon to Manila.
The aerosol box is the brainchild of Lai Hsien-yung, an anesthesiologist in Taiwan, according to Focus Taiwan.
Dr. Lai has registered his product but makes it available for free to humanitarian organizations on the condition that it not be sold commercially.
Seizing the opportunity, the De Leons hopped on GoGetFunding to invite donors, aiming for PhP1 million. They have raised PhP159,675.00 as of March 28. To date they have donated 100 boxes.
They jumped on the project minus fanfare such that Michelle's sister in Daly City, California, was clueless about her closeness to the initiative even when her college classmates posted it on their group Viber. (Full disclosure: Michelle De Leon is the sister of the author.)
Giving back is a tradition to the De Leons, who regularly lead medical missions with their church, Greenhills Christian Fellowship, a donor to the aerosol box campaign. The project is a godsend, utilizing the family's marketing, finance, production and development chops, their staff, and their homes.
"We don't physically see each other," said Marty. "Blessed (are we) to have staff who reside within the workshop/factory premises, so they are still compliant with the mandatory home quarantine. All our needs are strictly delivered to the house and picked up from the gate. Strictly zero outside contact."
Each box costs around Php1,000, said Chrisel, who handles financing. That's less than the US$66.00 Dr. Lai had estimated per product.
The De Leons have been receiving donations of raw material to produce more boxes that are picked up by recipients such as the Philippine Children's Hospital and Heart Center, the Philippine Orthopedic and Taguig Medical Center. They plan to expand production to other supplies desperately needed at hospitals.
Hospital worker expresses gratitude for the donation.
Grateful By Design
Concern for the safety of front liners is shared by twentysomething Miel Avena, Dana Mallari and Tracy Choy of Quezon City, Nicia Bobadilla of Paranaque and Aminah Adriana of Muntinlupa. The De La Salle-College of St. Benilde grads are putting their BA in Fashion Design & Merchandising to noble use by making washable face masks and PPE suits from their homes. From other locations 35 other workers, like Dr. Belen Buenazeda Cruz, an elder at Avena's church, complete the crew for the larger part of production.
Fashionistas Nica Bobadilla, Dana Mallari, Miel Avena, Tracy Choy and Aminah Adriana apply their expertise to a noble cause.
"We're making personal protective equipment for different hospitals around Manila, even up to Baguio," Avena told PF of their contribution to support health workers. “For the masks, my dad funded the tela (cloth) and my mom and two helpers would help me sew.”
Their Facebook presence helped boost funding.
For the PPEs, Avena sent fabric swatches to their hospital contact to select from, she disclosed the constant consultation "just to be sure what we're making (is appropriate)."
Dr. Buenazeda Cruz goes beyond her Hippocratic oath.
"The hospital sent us a suit and a gown, so I asked Tracy to make the pattern" for the coveted invaluable paraphernalia.
From the hills of Silang, Cavite, residents of Alabang Westgrove Heights always have their neighbors in view. When Taal threw a lethal tantrum, villagers distributed food and water along with masks.
This time Jason Webb took the lead, coordinating with chefs including his wife, Mylene Dizon, with Genio and Rach Cheung, Maw and Enzo Lim to cook and serve hot meals weekly in Sitio Alcalde outside Westgrove, said co-organizer Maria Nimfa Fallarme Ronson.
Jason Webb coordinates his personal outreach team. (Photo by Maria Ronson)
"Construction workers have no source of income," Ronson, retired Associated Press vice president for sales-Asia and Pacific, referred to some of the "70 families of 353 individuals" they serve.
Chef Mylene Dizon cooks up hot meals for neighbors. (Photo by Maria Ronson)
Driven to Help
Isolation is the best protection against the silent killer. Self-quarantine may be a minor inconvenience to the privileged, but not for those whose survival requires leaving home. Staying in would mean lost livelihood that results in someone else's lost income.
Without tricycle drivers, for example, a multitude of residents including "essential service" providers may not get to where they answer the call of duty. The lockdown, however, has all but robbed the drivers' source of living.
Often revving outside gated residential developments, the motorcycle-powered vehicles suddenly fell quiet, like a mute, frozen phalanx, when the shelter-in-place order came down. Fear of the virus and consequences of violating the mandate halted commuters, thereby paralyzing the ubiquitous grassroots fleets.
Residents of Merville (Meralco Village) Park in Paranaque City quickly showed empathy with action.
Andy Maglipon, Marlou Ablan, Dendu Anareta, Boogie Javier, Larah Cruz, Marta Ortoll-Lichauco, Sitti Navarro-Ramirez and Victor Araneta got together to initiate what they now call the Merville Park Tricycle Operators and Drivers Association Drive (MPTODA).
PH Tennis Academy head Andy Maglipon says the MPHA food drive has also benefited volunteers.
"Through Facebook posts, we ask our neighbors to help our tricycle drivers -- now that they temporarily have no livelihood -- by donating what they can for meals, either in cash or in kind. We have been able to give them rice, canned goods, cooking oil and other items. Some neighbors have cooked and/or ordered food for all of them. Some have baked bread," Maglipon told Positively Filipino.
"We try to give the drivers something every 4-5 days," added Maglipon, who has lived in the neighborhood close to 20 years. "It’s more work than doing it in bulk, but we feel it will go a longer way if we are able to sustain the effort."
Tricycle drivers find friends inside the gates of Merville Park (A and B).
Maglipon said the initiative has benefited its volunteers by promoting camaraderie.
"The funny thing is I did not know most of the others in the group before we started, but we've gotten closer since we started the project."
He is quick to correct the assumption that the idea for the project was his.
"Marlou Ablan initiated the group," he emphasized. As "kagawad" or village official, Ablan had asked Anareta to help. One recruit tapped another and others "got wind of the project and asked if they could join us. I took the lead because Marlou became busy with barangay and MPHA (Merville Park Homeowners Association) work."
As program director of the Philippine Tennis Academy, Maglipon is no stranger to serving those who have less. The Academy trains promising racqueteers from disadvantaged sectors.
"Everything (about MPTODA) is by donation," he said. "The cash donations go into buying rice and basic groceries. It’s heartwarming to see the response of the community. We’ve gotten donations (from cash and rice to homemade soap and cooked food) from at least 30 neighbors."
Their generosity extends to security, maintenance and garden personnel besides the 100 drivers served.
Maglipon is among countless around the world who have lost friends or acquaintances to the virus, which at press time has taken the life of a fellow resident, he said.
"'We thought it was not that big of a problem when we first heard about it early this year," he shared a common hindsight. "Some said it was no worse than the flu, but then news of the disease spreading at a rapid rate started to alarm us. This was in late February before it was declared a pandemic."
By March 15, Maglipon said he had started self-isolating. Ennui did not have time to set in with the alert from Ablan.
While jobs are dropping in the lockdown's domino effect, the chain of kindness too is growing as Filipinos share resources to help one another. In some cases service comes at the ultimate price, as the March 30 crash that killed Dr. Nicko Bautista, Captain Mario Medina, pilots Ren Edward Ungson and Melvin de Castro, medical crew Edmark Jael and Conrado Tomeldan on a medevac mission aboard Lionair with Canadian patient John Hurst and his wife, Marilyn de Jesus. The Hursts reportedly were en route to Japan for their connecting flight home to Canada.
Marty De Leon, the Fortrust Education Services proprietor, pointed to the “bayanihan spirit” that rises when Filipinos confront challenges.
"I would say that this crisis shows the true character of our people," he said as his thoughts turned to service and health workers like his many relatives across the globe who are confronting the pandemic at the risk of their own safety.
Andy Maglipon looks back at the government response at the beginning of the calamity as "a bit late...uncoordinated and confused but have since gotten better." He echoes the pervasive observation of the health system as "overwhelmed and under-equipped especially with frontliners' protective gear."
De Leon sees the situation as another opportunity to assess the mettle of public officials.
"If there's something good coming out from this crisis -- it tells us who is worth voting for at the next elections, and hopefully that starts some real change for our country," he wished aloud.
Until then, the private sector continues to step up as it always does in a nation splintered geographically into thousands of islands but historically has come together in the darkest hour.
Cherie Querol Moreno
San Francisco Bay Area-based Cherie M. Querol Moreno learned empathy, courage and responsibility from her journalist parents. The executive editor of Philippine News Today and correspondent for Positively Filipino and Inquirer.net is founder-executive director of abuse-prevention nonprofit ALLICE and four-term commissioner with San Mateo County Commission on Aging.
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