MANILA, Philippines — The
Philstar Media Group’s Operation
Damayan continued to be at the receiving end of the generosity and goodwill of people who have been sending in donations for Taal evacuees.
Anthony Trillo, chairman of Crown Peak Estate Developers Inc. in Subic Freeport, visited The Philippine STAR office yesterday to hand over a P1-million donation for
Damayan’s Taal relief operations.
Trillo said he
was aware of Operation Damayan’s long-time advocacy, being a
personal friend of Damayan and Philippine STAR founding chairman Betty Go Belmonte, and he was happy
to see that the advocacy of helping others in times of calamity is being sustained by STAR president and CEO Miguel Belmonte.
Alice Eduardo, president and CEO of Sta. Elena Construction and Development Corp., also sent in a donation for P500,000.
“Please accept my humble contribution to The Philippine STAR’s relief efforts in Taal. I admire your efforts to reach out to the victims and make a difference in their lives during this difficult time,” she said.
Belmonte said the response to the fund-raising has been overwhelming, and that this can only bode well for evacuees
whose lives were disrupted by the eruption of Taal Volcano last week.
The
Damayan fund drive now totaled P6.53 million, including the latest donations from
the following: Deflector Door Visor, P20,000; Lim
Siok Kim Go, P10,000; Anonymous, P10,000; boxes of canned goods, biscuits, toiletries and cases of bottled water from Angelo Raphael
Cabanero and family; Anonymous, P5,000; and 590 shirts from
Cylcon Synthetic Oil EU.
In a meeting with the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office in Batangas last Saturday, Operation Damayan
head Emie Cruz was told that
assistance was
much-needed in
underserved and overpopulated centers in the fourth-class municipalities, notably San Luis and San Pascual, where Damayan will
be focusing its relief efforts.
This early, San Luis mayor Danilo Medina expressed gratitude to the
Damayan team for reaching out to them, lamenting that relief in their barangays was
hard to come by since their area was not readily accessible.