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    Called to Serve: 11 Outstanding Filipino Role Models
    Called to Serve: 11 Outstanding Filipino Role Models
    Called to Serve: 11 Outstanding Filipino Role Models
    Ebook89 pages1 hour

    Called to Serve: 11 Outstanding Filipino Role Models

    By Raquel Lucas and Queena N. Lee-Chua

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    About this ebook

    Called to Serve started out as a master’s thesis of one of the authors, Raquel “Ira” Lucas. Written to inspire, this book shares the experiences of eleven Filipinos who dedicate their lives to helping others through volunteerism, charity, leadership and innovation.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAnvil Publishing, Inc.
    Release dateNov 20, 2017
    ISBN9786214201693
    Called to Serve: 11 Outstanding Filipino Role Models

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      Book preview

      Called to Serve - Raquel Lucas

      PROLOGUE

      A MEETING, A CALLING

      CALLED TO SERVE started out as a master’s thesis for Ira Lucas. One Sunday morning at mass in 2012, the homily revolved around transcendence—going beyond the self. The priest’s words struck Ira, enlightening her that transcendence meant dedicating oneself to serving others.

      Ira was then in her first year of graduate studies. Right then and there, she decided that she would write about people helping others.

      For Ira, another blessing came, three years later, in the person of Dr. Queena Lee-Chua, who had been her undergraduate professor in psychology. The two of them reconnected as they both worked on curriculum development at an exclusive girls’ private school.

      When Ira took the chance to ask Dr. Queena to be her thesis adviser, the latter became as excited and passionate about it as her student. Dr. Queena is also an advocate of positive psychology, having done her PhD dissertation on best practices of successful family businesses, and conducted research on traits of public and private school achievers.

      The two had several enthusiastic meetings. Ideas spread like wildfire, as they discussed whom to interview, what questions to focus on, and how to pretest the validity of methods used.

      Meeting and talking with prosocial individuals took Ira to various places: the busy streets of Manila, Quezon City, San Juan; the cradle of heroes in Cavite, and Enchanted Farm in Bulacan.

      WHY

      PEOPLE SERVE

      HUMAN HISTORY IS A RECORD of the ways in which human nature has been sold short, says American psychologist Abraham Maslow, the founder of the humanistic field. The highest possibilities of human nature have practically always been underrated. Even when ‘good specimens,’ the saints and sages and great leaders of history have been available for study, the temptation too often has been to consider them not human but supernaturally endowed. If we want to know the possibilities for spiritual growth, value growth, or moral development in human beings, then … we can learn most by studying our most moral, ethical, or saintly people.

      Whether or not someone is a saint is debatable, but what is not is the fact that certain individuals, not necessarily priests, nuns, monks, or the traditional religious, have made it their vocation to serve others.

      Modern-day individuals–who engage in prosocial behavior and mobilize others to do the same–do exist. When and how did their journey of helping others begin? What drives them to help others? What gives them direction? What challenges have they encountered, and how were these overcome? What keeps these individuals going?

      Outstanding prosocial individuals have rendered substantial contributions to the country through establishing non-profit organizations that focus on supporting and empowering communities and the youth. These individuals not only share their time and skills to help those who are in need, but they also inspire others to do the same with their vision and their passion.

      In a society beset by problems of various sorts, it is helpful to understand how prosocial individuals are formed, in the hope that in the near future they will not be the exception, but the rule.

      PEOPLE

      WHO

      SERVE

      The greatest gift is to make yourself obsolete. If you’re so good at helping people then you should be able to help people without you being always in the middle. This is the purest form of charity: you make yourself obsolete. (More on Illac Diaz here)

      TONY MELOTO

      Gawad Kalinga

      ANTONIO TONY MELOTO is the founder of Gawad Kalinga (GK). Established in 2003, GK builds homes and communities, and develops social entrepreneurship among the poor in the Philippines. Tony received the World Entrepreneurship Forum’s Social Entrepreneur of the World Award in 2012, Japan’s Nikkei Asia Prize for Regional Growth in 2011, and the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership in 2006.

      It began with asking about, and not finding a lot of answers to the problems that we have as a country, says Tony Meloto. Problems like: Why are we poor when we don’t have any reason to be poor? Why are Filipinos squatters in their own country when there’s so much land? Why are we importing chocolates from countries that do not even grow cacao?

      In Tony’s quest to find the answers, he began to understand why there is no sense of nationhood among Filipinos. Poverty relegates Filipinos to a perpetual survival mode. Most people’s energies are dedicated to sustain themselves and their families, leaving none for the country.

      We have just been going on our own journey as a people without really looking realistically at our situation and finding a purpose beyond our own personal ambition, beyond just providing the best quality of life for our family.

      Colonial thinking also saps any remnant of nationalism. It somehow made me feel that I was not good enough. I was not good enough to own my own business. I was not tall enough. I was not white enough. My ideas were not big enough.

      Tony realized that he was not truly free. He decided to embark on a journey to freedom. He began this journey at the age of thirty-five, which he described as his midlife crisis. "I thought I had followed the right formula for success. Go to the best university, get a good job in a multinational company, marry an educated woman with good character and good pedigree, live in an exclusive subdivision, send my children to an exclusive school, go to church on Sundays, give to charity. That was the usual formula. But then I realized that this was precisely what perpetuated poverty. I was isolated in my own bubble of comfort and safety, and everyone around me was living in poverty. Poverty surrounded every day that I no longer really saw it. I woke up one day and realized that my children have no future in this country. So somehow in that phase, I realized that I had to build a country for my

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