Exemplars of Pope Francis

Pope Francis has met with (1) the officialdom led by President Aquino in Malacañang (where, as a retired chief justice, I was invited), (2) priests at the Manila Cathedral, (3) families at the Mall of Asia and (4) typhoon survivors in Leyte. Today, he encounters the (5) youth at the University of Santo Tomas and (6) ordinary folks at Luneta. Tomorrow, he leaves for Rome.

Empowering the poor. He is not meeting with tycoons, industrialists and bankers. Is he antirich? Yes, but only against the greedy and the self-centered, not against the rich who regard themselves as mere stewards of their wealth for the benefit of all, especially the naked, the imprisoned, the hungry and the homeless.

In his words, “The Gospel does not condemn the wealthy, but the idolatry of wealth, the idolatry that makes people indifferent to the call of the poor.” And may I add, our Lord Jesus had rich disciples also, like Joseph of Arimathea who retrieved and buried His body after His crucifixion.

In my humble view, to be propoor, it is not necessary to be antirich. In fact, an effective propoor program should not alienate the rich, but should include and inspire them to share their resources with the poor, not by easy doles of crumbs that merely perpetuate the poor’s dependence on the wealthy, but by empowering the poor to conquer their poverty through education and entrepreneurship.

Empowering the poor through education and entrepreneurship is precisely what the Jollibee Group Foundation (JGF) has been doing via two projects called “Busog, Lusog, Talino (BLT)” and “Farmers Entrepreneurship Program (FEP).”

During the JGF’s 10th-anniversary celebration days ago, its president Grace Tan Caktiong noted that the state provides free elementary and high school education. However, she was “horrified to learn” that despite this free education program, the dropout rate was alarming, the highest being in the early grades. Worse, “the most common and shocking reason [for the dropout] is HUNGER!”

To reduce the dropout rate drastically, the JGF started in 2007 its BLT program of feeding the poorest-of-the-poor pupils every school day. As of the end of 2014, the JGF has reached over 1,000 schools nationwide and has fed almost 200,000 pupils, thereby keeping them healthy and in school.

BLT has become the largest private sector-led systematic school feeding program in the country. To guarantee sustainability, community participation was mobilized by getting parents, teachers and village elders to prepare and serve the free nutritious meals.

Farmer entrepreneurship. To supply its over 2,000 fast-food outlets (including Jollibee, Chow King, Mang Inasal, Greenwich, Red Ribbon and Burger King) in the country, Jollibee Foods Corp. (JFC) procures high-quality vegetables, potatoes, calamansi, etc. It noticed, however, that small farmers had difficulty producing them.

So, starting in 2008, the JGF decided to help farmers by teaching them better planting, caring and harvesting methods. It has opened free training centers, provided access to finance, and linked them to institutional markets, restaurants, supermarkets and food processors.

Currently, 15 big institutions, including JFC, source their vegetable requirements directly from FEP-assisted small farmers who have become parts of the supply chain, thereby guaranteeing year-round profitability for them. As of the end of 2014, over 900 farmers from 15 provinces have benefited from the program.

Ms. Tan Caktiong explained that early on, she and her husband Tony (chair of both JFC and JGF) had given millions of pesos to charity without knowing exactly how the money was spent by the recipients.

Hence, they decided to set up the JGF to be sure that the funds are disbursed wisely and accounted for accurately. She has resigned from her involvement in their business conglomerate to concentrate on her responsibilities as JGF president.

Full-time philanthropy. She planned to stay at the JGF for only three years just to kick off its projects. But the passion to help the poor has so overwhelmed her that she decided to devote full time, without pay, to the work of alleviating poverty. Even her husband Tony has given up his CEO position in their conglomerate to devote more time to philanthropy and to overall policymaking.

They remind me of Bill and Melinda Gates, the world’s richest couple, who quit their executive jobs in their Microsoft Corp. to focus full-time on their multibillion-dollar charity work for the world’s poor.

The Tan Caktiongs, who control the giant JFC (which ranks 10th-largest in market capitalization among the world’s fast-food chains), may not be as wealthy as the Gateses, but they are as driven by the same passion and patience to help the poor. They are exemplars of Pope Francis’ call for sharing time, talent and treasure with the least, last and lost.

Incidentally, these two JGF projects were recognized during the Asian Corporate Social Responsibility Awards Night. The BLT won the award for education and the FEP for poverty alleviation, besting 109 entries from 15 Asian countries. The JGF is the first organization to win two awards in the same year.

A third project, FoodAID, was established by the JGF immediately after Supertyphoon “Yolanda” hit the country in 2013. It set up mobile kitchens in the severely affected communities, providing meals for one month to more than 162,000 survivors as well as to volunteers of various relief organizations.

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