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SAN FRANCISCO, California: Dial 163—or to be more
precise, Bantay Bata—is marking its 10th anniversary this year. A
flagship program of ABS-CBN Foundation, Bantay Bata under the
stewardship of Gina Lopez, has expanded over the years to become the
most widely supported cause in the Philippines by Filipinos locally
and abroad.
Since its inception in 1997, the
rescue and care of abused children had increased dramatically with
the Children’s Village receiving about 28,000 calls for help a
year through its 24-hour hotline. On December 2006, the program
rescued its 180,000th child. But there’s more to be done and
thousands more children needing succor.
To commemorate Bantay Bata’s
10th anniversary, ABS-CBN hosted a presentation at its offices in
Redwood City, with Gina personally inviting Fil-Am community leaders
and donors to join and actively support “2007 Friends of Bantay
Bata.” The idea is have these “Friends” jumpstart a special
campaign in the United States—target $100,000 for the Bay
Area—to sustain expanded Children’s Village programs.
Lopez related several
heart-tugging cases of abused and neglected children who had been
saved and succored by Bantay Bata. Over the years, volunteers had
come to realize that rescuing a child was only the first
step—housing, feeding, educating and psychological mending
necessarily followed. The Children’s Village has the capacity to
provide transitional housing to 200 children.
Lopez appealed to Bay Area
Filipino Americans to help “build the country from the ground
up” and she said the magic words, “Bantay Bata has no
involvement in governance.” She asked Filipino Americans to adopt
communities in the Philippines—particularly in Bicol, where
poverty, abuse and child malnutrition are most prevalent.
Quickly responding to her appeal,
real-estate executive Therese Dwyer and community activist Edna
Casteel offered to co-chair the newly formed “Friends of Bantay
Bata” in Northern California. Everyone agreed that for such a
worthy cause, it would be easy to raise $100,000. In fact, one
benefactor immediately committed to donating $10,000, thus reducing
on the spot the campaign goal to $90,000!
The power lady of Bantay Bata
left for Los Angeles the following day to continue her campaign for
the Children’s Village.
Her dinner guest list simply
“growed and growed,” but it’s what friends expect when Goya
Navarrette invites for her famous home-cooking. What was supposed to
be a simple meal of roast turkey and baked ham for in honor of Ken
Kashiwahara (whose better-half Lupita is in Manila) became a
fully-laden table—shared by Nestor de Castro, his kids Chiqui and
Bubut, Lloyd, Edna and Nicholas Casteel, newly-retired Special
Forces officers Rudy Rimando and Ship Captain Errol Cody, retired
San Francisco Police Officer Joe Robles, lawyers Ted Laguatan and
Rodel Rodis and their wives Josie and Edna.
Real-estate broker Boots Bautista
also celebrated her birthday on April 20, at her new home in South
San Francisco, with some of her seven children, and old friends and
former members of the People-to-People organization. Her
well-wishers included Rose and Romy Mercado, who own a specialized
shoe store in Millbrae, May Fontanilla and her son Richard, Annie
Salonga and Amado Villanueva. The following day, Boots flew to
Manila to visit her 95-year-old mother in Pampanga.
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