Rotary’s Filipinos got talent

As it is my addiction every Monday morning to read the column of my favorite National Artist for Literature, F. Sionil Jose, my sight caught the front page with what is seemingly a cartoon from komiks, my favorite reading fare in my pre-adolescent years.

There is a special reason in looking forward to Manong Frankie’s Monday column. He analyzes why we fail as a nation yet he beautifully narrates historical accounts of the Philippines. He eloquently describes Quiapo and the Port Area, the places where I worked odd jobs as a working student when I arrived in Manila at the age of 16.

F. Sionil Jose’s love of country and his roots is manifest by writing about his hometown in Rosales, Pangasinan which is as rustic as my own San Manuel, known as little Bataan in the wake of the retreating Japanese forces in World War II. Now, my town hosts the San Roque dam that contributes electric power to the national grid, delivers water to farms and rice fields, as its own sons deliver inspiration, ideas and leadership to this country.

That piece of creativity in this newspaper invests us hope as if tomorrow, our people will wake up from nightmare and claim their greatness. In one fell swoop, the photo muted the political noise and false news, the premature sense of expectation from new political coalitions and the distressing ennui from self-pity as other countries pursue acts of survival in this era of pandemic.

So, the photo depicting diners as if they are also in a comic strip bolsters a silver lining. Just putting that photo on the front page shows a keen eye for beauty, creativity, innovation which is innate to the Filipino spirit. It is pure genius and must be celebrated as a remarkable achievement in promoting hope.

It capped my days of intoxication watching America’s Got Talent as it showcases, which is at times a misnomer, talents of Filipino descent surprise the world with their artistry and exceptional abilities. These talents, sons and daughters of the Filipino hoi polloi, elicit spontaneous paean “Where is the Philippines,” in effect putting our country in the international consciousness and worldwide admiration.

Why not a search for Filipino excellence in the workplace as exemplified by the STAR’s front page? Surely, giving recognition will uplift the Filipino workers’ morale. It will give social status to the dignity of labor and, on a macro-level, will solve the problem why there are rich people and poor people.

The Rotary Club of Manila has its own version of America’s Got Talent – the search for The Outstanding Workers of the Republic, or the TOWER AWARD. The Peoples Management Association of the Philippines and the Department of Labor have lent their prestige, expertise and power to ferret out from the haystack of “blue collar” workers around the country for their excellence in creation, innovation, technological breakthroughs with economic impact in the workplace.

An understanding of the spirit of this award is expressed in one of the sessions preparing for this award: Susing Pineda, the chairman of Rotary’s TOWER AWARD committee, said that this year’s awardees must be bold, willing to go against the grain of the ordinary way of doing things. Bobby Joseph, Rotary Club of Manila president, added that an awardee must be an “unreasonable man.” Hermie Esguerra, the co-chairman of the committee and chairman of the Rotary Club of Manila Foundation, explained what Bobby meant by quoting George Bernard Shaw: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

But these men realized that words are mere lip service. It was agreed that the Rotary Club of Manila, in addition to the plaques of recognition, will give a bounty of P75,000 for each of the ten outstanding awardees who will be selected by a select panel of judges.

Touché.

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Amado Valdez was the former chairman of the Social Security Commission that approved the monthly increase of P2,000 for SSS retirees.