Meaningful awards

MY son had to run off one night last week because -- as one of the judges for the prestigious Anvil Awards -- he had to be present for the awarding ceremonies of the Anvil Awards sponsored by the PRSP, the umbrella organization of public relations practitioners. Not long after, a close friend sent me a text informing me that his company had won and that, to his surprise, his godson -- my son -- was presenting the award to him! My son had not even made the connection between the award and the fact that his godfather was the head of the company to be awarded. Needless to say, the only admonition I gave to my son when he was busy going through the various scrapbooks was to exercise the greatest objectivity and not to be swayed by the corporations or their owners. He is already quite independent-minded, and my reminder only served to reinforce the need to be above the fray when it comes to sensitive matters like the giving of prestigious awards. The occasion of the Anvil Awards reminded me of a trophy I saw last December during a dinner hosted by an aunt to commemorate the life and times of her spouse, my uncle, who served with distinction in both the private and public sectors. The trophy was for a Grand Anvil won sometime in the ‘90s by the institution I worked for. The project was a multi-year effort at uplifting a depressed community in Metro Manila. Why the sense of déjà vu? Sometime in '83 or ’84, I wrote a concept paper which suggested that the firm “adopt” a depressed community and send a team of people from the company to do a “needs analysis” with the end in mind of uplifting said community by way of a multi-year partnership. The idea was to help the community without resorting to the usual hand-outs, but to find ways and means to get target beneficiaries out of the perennial cycle of poverty that most depressed communities are rooted in. I remember one suggestion I made back then, which was to take a look at some of the items being bought on a regular basis by our company, and which could be produced on a small scale by the community. Other possibilities included sponsorship of skills training and vocational education for those capable of working, and the offering of scholarships for promising young children. The program was implemented after I had left the firm for my in and out stints in government and stabs at entrepreneurship. It was a pleasant surprise, therefore, when I got a call from my former staff to tell me that they had won the Grand Anvil based on a concept I had written years earlier. The concept is valid till this day, and is -- to a very large extent -- finding fruit in efforts like the Gawad Kalinga program which provides housing and a combination of social and moral upliftment to boot.