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Dr. Fong is not new to the act of helping students have access to
quality education. Since going back to the country in 2001 after
almost 30 years of medical practice in the US, he “paid back the
country for the excellent education” he received at UP, Ateneo de
Manila and San Beda.
He is now the chairman of the Board of
Directors of the Loyola Medical College Foundation, Inc. (LMCFI),
which is a non-profit educational foundation “committed to
excellence in medical and nursing education.”
The foundation operates three colleges:
the San Beda College of Medicine, the San Beda College of Nursing
and the St. Ignatius Health Science College. The three colleges are
now highly rated educational institutions in the Philippines, with
an overall passing rate of 88 percent in the national board
examinations. The National Council Licensure Examination passing
rate is 96 percent.
The LMCFI, Dr. Fong said, has already awarded
more than P5 million in scholarships to needy Filipino students and
has donated a P30-million health science building to a Catholic
university.
In August 2008, the foundation’s
University of Loyola in the Northern Mariana Islands will begin to
offer healthcare-related and business administration courses. The
said school will cater to US mainland students as well as students
from the Pacific region, including those from China, Japan, Korea
and the Philippines.
Dr. Fong said the LMCFI also plans to
establish a university in some cities here in the country.
“I’m going from city to city,
proposing to officials to give us land so that we can build a
school, where we can offer courses in education, medicine, nursing,
entrepreneurship, business administration, hotel and restaurant
management, maritime and criminology,” he said.
“What normally happens is that those
from Greater Manila are the ones being favored for the job. Now, we
plan to establish educational institutions in various places in the
country to give equal opportunities to students in the provinces,”
he added.
Eighteen pilot cities will be selected to
participate in the project, whose objective is to offer nursing
programs to highly qualified students who may not have the financial
capabilities to enter other colleges. The foundation, Dr. Fong said,
will offer a “study now, pay later” program to these students.
“Nationwide, there are a lot of
high-school graduates with excellent grades who cannot enter the
nursing program because of financial difficulties. Our objective is
to offer them the program for them to be able to achieve their
goals,” Dr. Fong said.
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