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Sheila Lirio Marcelo

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The Philippine American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Chicago (PACCGC) celebrates its long-awaited 25th anniversary by hosting two events on Saturday, December 5, 2009 at the Wyndham O’Hare Hotel, 6810 North Mannheim Road, Rosemont, Illinois: a Leadership Conference convened by the nationally-based Federation of Philippine American Chambers of Commerce (FPACC) and a Business Forum, coordinated by Mabuhay Alliance.

Many of the Leadership Conference’s panelists are expected to share their insights, expertise, and practical tips on how to develop inclusive business practices that will maximize the participants’ economic empowerment objectives. The event will be held from 9:00 am to 12:00 noon. Luncheon will be served at noon, where the assembly will be addressed by a keynote speaker. Members of Illinois and other Filipino American Chamber organizations in the Midwest as well as Filipino community-based associations are encouraged to attend the Leadership Conference. The Leadership Conference’s fee of $35.00 includes continental breakfast and luncheon.

From 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm, PACCGC in coordination with Mabuhay Alliance and the Federation of Philippine American Chambers of Commerce (FPACC) will hold its Business Forum. Admission is free and pre-registration is done at www.paccgc.org or through Cindy Flores at (312) 925-7812, Nancy Harrison at (773) 428-8002, or Marie Espero at (708) 443-5764. Timely topics during these uncertain economic times will be discussed, including: (1) Small Business and Economic Development, which will cover micro lending, business loans, SBA, and supplier diversity; (2) Home ownerships, which will include home foreclosures, how to own and sell a property; and (3) Broadband and ethnic media, that will cover communications, local ethnic papers, and the internet.

PACCGC’s 25th anniversary celebration will also feature an evening event, the “Gala and Dinner Ball” which commences at 6:30pm with no-host cocktails and a reception. A silent auction will be one of its major attractions. Invited to grace the event as the evening’s keynote speaker is Valerie Jarrett, Senior Legal Advisor for the White House. Also expected is Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, Commissioner of Federal Communications Commission. Tickets for the Gala/Dinner Ball are $65.00 per person.

The original Philippine Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1984 and was recognized as Philippine Chamber of Commerce of Chicago in 1989. It was renamed Philippine American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Chicago to include businesses and entrepreneurs statewide in good standing. It is a non-profit organization under IRS 501 (c) 6 and a delegate agency of the City of Chicago.

The Federation of Philippine American Chambers of Commerce (FPACC), an organization of Philippine Chambers of Commerce in North America led by its new President, Jaime Lim from Oregon, is at the hub of Filipino business activities in the US, an organization established by the coalition-based efforts of its President Emeritus, Yolanda O. Stern, and charter member organizations in the early 1970’s.

The Mabuhay Alliance, a non-profit organization, is an advocate for empowerment and recognition of ethnic minorities, especially Pan- Asian Americans, Latinos and Afro-Americans. The Business Forum is expected to be the first of many events that will be hosted by the group in Greater Chicago.

For more details, call Nancy Harrison, Chair, Leadership Conference, Business Forum (773) 428-8002; Marie Espero, Chair, Gala/Dinner Ball (708) 443-5764; Cindy Flores, Over-All Chair (312) 925-7812 or (312) 738-0201; or Ely Natividad, PACCGC President (773) 457-3402.

Less than 10 percent of female entrepreneurs are funded by venture capitalists, and Sheila Lirio Marcelo is one of them. As the founder of Care.com and one of a small number of female CEOs within the Internet space, Sheila attributes her success to her culture and upbringing. “I’m so glad I grew up in the Philippines,” she says. “In a society that not only allowed, but encouraged women to be fearless leaders. I became someone who can take risks and enjoy doing so while still maintaining who I am as a person.”

According to Sheila, nurturing a strong sense of identity is key to being an entrepreneur, and it’s something you can’t learn in school. Originally from Candelaria, Quezon, where she grew up with five siblings, Sheila learned about hard work and perseverance by watching her parents juggle their multiple businesses in the Philippines. “I got to see firsthand the sheer amount of work and dedication it takes to create your own business, but also the great rewards that come when your idea takes off.”

From a young age, Sheila knew she would start a company of her own someday. While attending Mt. Holyoke College, where she majored in economics and international relations, she became a mother at 21 years of age. She then went on to receive both a J.D. and M.B.A. from Harvard Uni-versity. From there, Sheila acquired positions with UPromise and The Ladders, hel-ping families solve critical “pain points,” such as saving up for college or finding a job. “I’ve always been passionate about businesses with a social mission,” she says.

Finding Her Mission
In 2006, Sheila and her husband found themselves struggling to find reliable childcare for their two boys. “It was a very painful experience,” she says. But Sheila channeled that frustration into the goal of fulfilling a community need. To help families avoid the pain and frustration of finding quality child care, she founded an Internet business, Care.com.

Care.com matches parents with local babysitters and nannies, helps families find home care aides for their elderly loved ones, and even connects its members with special needs care, pet sitters, housekeepers and tu-tors. For Sheila, Care.com fulfills two passions: she meets the daily challenges of a thriving business career while serving the higher purpose of helping others. With the help of Sheila’s vision alongside a terrific team of peers, Care.com is now the largest and fastest-growing online service connecting families with caregivers for their homes.

Care.com boasts an 80 percent match rate, meaning four out of every five people who join find a new caregiver. The service has been featured in numerous media outlets, including “The Today Show” on NBC, ABC’s “Good Morning America,” the “CBS Morning Show,” The New York Times, Parent, USA Today, The Boston Globe and Business Week.

Cyberspace Proportions
As an Internet business, Care.com utilizes the power of the web to deliver a service with unbeatable speed. “The Internet is such a powerful tool that makes a powerful vehicle for change,” Sheila says. “Because communication and networking can happen across great distances at a moment’s notice, people who need help can quickly connect with people who can provide the assistance or service they need.”

While she invests much of her time and attention to growing the company in the U.S., Sheila keeps the potential for international expansion in mind as well. “I was just in Manila and even friends there are saying they need help finding yayas (nannies) or caregivers and housekeepers. So perhaps there’s an opportunity there. Who knows?”

Circle of Trust
Within the traditional Filipino community, childcare is often provided by family members, like a grandmother or stay-at-home aunt, and it takes a great deal of trust to go beyond that protected circle of family for outside help. With that in mind, Sheila understands what a big responsibility she’s undertaken. Care.com’s security and safety features are a top priority, and part of Sheila’s challenge entails putting the systems in place so parents and families from every background can trust in the company’s providers.
How are the care providers who find work through Care.com screened? An in-house team reviews provider qualifications and offers unlimited background checks to premium members looking for hired help. Care.com also enlists a team of 40 work-at-home moms to screen every care provider. This “mom force” verifies provider qualifications and certifications. All of this happens before care providers are posted on the site. Afterwards, members are encouraged to leave online reviews of care providers they’ve hired to better insulate other members from potential disappointments.

Keeping Things New
With so many businesses struggling to stay afloat during the economic downturn, Sheila welcomes the task of ensuring that Care.com keeps growing and changing. “It makes coming to work exciting and new.”
Her biggest challenge is staying focused to deliver the best user experience for families who visit the website. This entails getting the word out about how Care.com can help make life easier for members, then scaling a growing online business for increased traffic.
In response to the recession, the company has launched two new Care.com services over the last few months. “Care Exchange” is free for premium members looking to exchange care. Members located in the same area can post descriptions of their families and figure out the days and times they’d like to exchange care—say one family watches the kids Tuesday afternoons and the other watches them on Wednesday.
Another new addition to the site, “Care Club,” is open to all members of Care.com and consists of an online shopping experience, complete with discounts and deals from favorite retailers.

Making Connections
Yet the largest area of Care.com’s service continues to be childcare match-up with local babysitters and nannies. Sheila finds it most rewarding to hear stories from the website’s members and caregivers who’ve formed meaningful connections. “I’ve seen this in my own family with the two nannies we’ve hired.” she says, “Care providers really become like extended family members over time. If they’re caring for children, adults with special needs, or elderly loved ones, they’re around so much of the time that they’re there for all the big life events—birthdays, holidays and celebrations. The connection becomes very deep, very quickly.”
As a business leader and mother, Sheila has learned to cultivate long-term relationships while striving for excellence. She at-tributes these qualities to all strong and loving Filipino women whom she hopes to emulate. “Filipino women are not only warm and nurturing, but also known to be pillars of strength.”
Whenever the challenge of maintaining this balance seems daunting, Sheila thinks back to her early life, when she watched her own Filipino mother not only manage, but also succeed in her daily life as a mom and entrepreneur. “Whether I’m working as a CEO, team leader, or executive, I approach the job with the same mentality. I’m thankful for having a father who believed in me and encouraged me to follow my dreams and a mother who modeled a pillar of strength for me to emulate. Remembering where I came from never fails to give me the inspiration I need to keep going when the journey gets hard.” n

Renee Macalino Rutledge is a free-lance writer and editor based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She’s contributed to Filipinas Magazine since 2004.

Sheila Lirio Marcelo

Henry’s Restaurant at Hotel Durant in Berkeley, California, offers dishes inspired by its general manager, James Lim.

Gastropub (n): term coined in 1991 to describe David Eyre and Mike Belben’s pub, the Eagle. A cuisine-conscious tavern that bridges the gap between bars and upscale restaurants, with a focus on high-quality comfort food at a good value and a menu that complements the assortment of beers and wines offered at the bar.

One of the best Bay Area examples of a gastropub is Henry’s Restaurant inside Hotel Durant in Berkeley, California. True to its “Sports Illustrated” meets “the Economist” décor, the bar area is bedecked by flat-screen TVs on paneled wood walls and a giant chalkboard broadcasts the latest sports schedule, while the adjacent dining room sports exposed oak beams and serves up gourmet pub grub at great values.

Executive Chef Eddie Blyden expresses his global upbringing in his gastropub offerings, using spices from Southeast Asia, India and West Africa and combining them with Mediterranean herbs, Caribbean flavors, and local organic produce. The result: American Mac and Cheese infused with Sambal Olek—an Indonesian chili condiment—sprinkled with bacon, tomatoes and scallions, Antilles-spiced Wings with Cool Cucumber-Lime Raita, and at the request of the hotel’s General Manager, Crisp Veggie Spring Rolls with Sweet and Sour Dipping Sauce”—in other words, lumpia.

You see, at the helm of Henry’s and Hotel Durant is James Tecson Lim—the first Filipino American to achieve General Manager rank in the hospitality industry in the United States.

Born and raised in the Philippines, James moved to the U.S. in 1984 to pursue his degree in Business Information and Computer Science from Skyline College, where in 2005, he was inducted into the Alumni Hall of Fame along with Michael Guingona and Golda Gacutan. During his sophomore year at Skyline, he decided to take Hospitality 101 as an elective. Inspired by the industry, he pursued another degree in Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management at Golden Gate University where he graduated Magna Cum Laude.

James began his career in the hospitality industry as a Front Desk Agent/Night Auditor at the San Francisco Marriott and the Westin St. Francis hotels twelve years ago. He fondly recalls the day that marked a significant turn in his career. Ever the gregarious guy, he innocently struck up a conversation at a cafeteria table during a job fair with two men. As serendipity had it, one of them happened to be the General Manager of the Palace Hotel, and the other the Director of Human Resources. He was hired as the Assistant Hotel Manager the next day and became part of the pre-opening team of the $170 million renovated Palace Hotel, a Starwood Hotels and Resorts Luxury Collection.

Since then, James has served as General Manager for Maxwell Hotel and Hotel Rex in San Francisco, and in August of 2007, was assigned to lead the multi-million dollar renovation and grand re-opening of Hotel Durant. Just steps from the UC Berkeley campus and located along the bohemian bustle of Durant and of Telegraph Avenue, Henry’s is a favorite destination for diehard Cal Bears fans, hosting pre-game and post-game festivities, including the very popular outdoor beer gardens.

James continues to remain active in several Filipino American organizations, including Philippine International Aid (PIA). In the wake of Typhoon Ketsana (Ondoy), he and his wife, Cay, collaborated with Filipino student organizations at UC Berkeley in collecting cash and in-kind donations for the flood victims. After just a week and a half of email blasts and Facebook posts, the effort yields a half dozen truck loads of canned goods, clothing and blankets. “I grew up in Pasig, which is why this recent calamity was close to my heart,” he says.

Next time you are in Berkeley, be sure to stop by Henry’s for a pint and sample a selection from this global gastropub. Henry’s is located at 2600 Durant Avenue. For more information, visit http://www.jdvhotels.com/dining/sanfranciscoeastbay/henrys

Hotel Durant

James Lim and Chef Eddie Blyden

A delicious buttery, mushroom dish in less than five minutes! Chef Eddie Blyden of Henry’s in Hotel Durant shares a yummy recipe that you can try at home.

Ingredients:

6 oz. whole crimini mushrooms
6 oz. whole white button mushrooms
1 tbsp tumeric powder
1/2 oz. fresh ginger peeled and thinly sliced
2 oz. unsalted butter
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 sprig fresh rosemary
1 sprig fresh thyme
1/4 tsp black pepper
Pinch of salt

Procedure:

1) Preheat oven to 500 degrees.
2) On the stove top, heat a heavy-bottomed skillet and add olive oil and butter.
3) When butter begins to brown, add mushrooms, ginger, herbs, salt and pepper.
4) Toss gently and place in oven for five minutes.
5) Remove after five minutes and put back on burner on high heat; toss for another 30 seconds then add soy sauce.
6) Serve in a bowl with a crusty bread of your choice to dip in that delicious butter!

Butter Roasted Turmeric-Ginger Mushrooms with Essence of Ginger

No one said the world would end on May 28, 1960, but for nearly 300 poor residents of Manila, it did. Typhoon Lucille sliced through the capital region, and from the Sierra Madre’s denuded foothills, torrents rushed down Manila’s web of creeks and man-made esteros, smashing hundreds of squatter shanties on their banks. Corpses floated everywhere. It was a surprise to everyone. At All Saint’s Dawn, in November that year, the strum of guitars and a rough vocal harmony outside the window awakened me to this plaint:

Kaluluwa kaming tambing
sa Purgatoryo nanggaling,
Bente-otso de Mayo
nang kami’y nahimbing.
Kung kami po’y lilimusan
dalidaliin po lamang
Baka kami ay pagsarhan
ng pinto sa Kalangitan.

I don’t think we gave those “wandering souls” of May 28 the alms they sought; perhaps, as they feared, they were locked out of Heaven’s Gate. I only remember that we had no chickens for them to steal out of spite, as tradition warranted. May 28, 1960 seemed to herald other disasters that followed in the course of the years. No one said the world would end on September 26, 2009 either, but for nearly 200 residents of MetroManila, it did. This time, however, even the wealthy had to seek safety on their rooftops. It was a shock to everyone, but no longer a surprise.

Cataclysmic acts of nature are encoded in our archipelagic homeland’s genome, making floods and earthquakes recurring facts of life. Imelda Marcos’ loony “hole in the sky” theory isn’t the explanation. Neither is it God’s punishment for bad governance. It comes with the islands’ natural setting. We’re in the Pacific Rim of Fire, which often sends us into fits of temblors and volcanic eruptions. Being in a monsoon belt, our regions are seasonally battered to submission by vicious winds and copious rains. What is undeniable, of course, is that what nature has dealt us, we humans have made worse. Metro Manila is living proof.

The capital is now a tangled heap of concrete highways and byways, massive skyscrapers and shopping malls, sprawling gated subdivisions and jerry-rigged shantytowns much of it resting on a soft, primordial swamp that’s barely above sea level. The low coastal plains are part of an elaborate fluvial web comprising the Laguna Lake Basin, Marikina River Basin and the Metro Manila watershed. It includes the great Pasig River and scores of tributaries and man-made canals with names like Bitukang Manok and Ilog Beata. In dry season Manila Bay’s level rises, reversing the Pasig’s course, making it flow into Laguna Lake. In rainy season the water flows from the lake into the Pasig, swamping Manila’s low-lying banks before draining into the bay. This respiratory cycle renewed biological life in the waterways and fertilized riverside plains with nutrient runoff from the wilds of Laguna and Rizal. The capital’s suburbs used to be vast tracts planted to rice, where people spun folklore, superstitions, poems, kundiman and traditions. That was when nature could still tolerate the inhabitants, their livelihoods and uprisings. Although by the end of Spanish rule, the waterways were already being poisoned by sewage from the growing population.

Yet, until the ’60s, Mandaluyong still had swaths of fallow paddies waiting to be subdivided for middle class housing. The riverbank below the Lambingan Bridge in Santa Ana, still flourished with a truck garden of pechay and green onions. In Pan-dacan where I grew up, bands of migratory martinez birds still mistakenly came looking for rice in the paddies near our house, finding instead zacate grass that old Mang Marco sold as feed for the kalesa horses of Binondo and Ongpin. Even then the river basin continued to gently flood our paddies when rains came, reviving the mudfish and edible snails in vestigial carabao wallows. My older brothers and their friends would paddle their dugout bangka from the Estero de Pandacan out to the Pasig to catch kanduli and smelt migrating from Laguna Lake, or after severe storms, fugitive bangus from the sodden fish ponds of Malabon and Hagonoy. Monsoon floods habitually took over our streets, and we gleefully dove in, unmindful of catching intestinal worms and other vermin, for we thought the water still looked clean enough.

But the factories, oil terminals, and office buildings kept growing, and the rural folk who sought jobs in them kept coming, settling anywhere they could. Buses, jeepneys, cars kept multiplying. Pandacan’s open paddies have long given way to houses and buildings alongside traffic-choked Quirino Avenue. Today, the Pasig River and its esteros, having become inexorably pestilential, are but putrid arteries of garbage and disease. The delicate river basin, which can’t possibly breathe under the weight of 13 million inhabitants and their modern needs, now regularly breaks down in monsoon season. And if that season brings particularly harsh storms, as on May 28, 1960 and last September 26, the waterways no longer bring fertility to the soil but revenge on its inhabitants.

It may be too late to reverse the course of our environmental destruction. I even doubt if the traditional lament of wandering souls on All Saint’s Day can still be heard through the urban din. But here’s still hoping that we’re not yet fated to be locked out of Heaven’s Gate.

Slowly but surely, the battle lines are being drawn for next May’s highly anticipated presidential race in the Philippines.

As I write this late in September, at least six contenders have publicly and firmly announced their intention to run: Nacionalista Party standard bearer Sen. Manny Villar; the Liberal Party’s Sen. Noynoy Aquino; the administration Lakas-Kampi coalition’s Defense Sec. Gibo Teodoro; the comebacking ex-President Erap Estrada; the capable but longshot independent Sen. Dick Gordon; and the preacher Bro. Eddie Villanueva. Pacing in the wings and also expected to announce their candidacies shortly are the Nationalist People Coalition’s Sen. Chiz Escudero; Metro Manila boss man Chairman Bayani Fernando; and surprise self-nominee Public Works Sec. Hermogenes Ebdane.

The scurrying for vice-presidential slots has also already begun. So far, only Sen. Mar Roxas—who scuttled his own presidential ambitions to give way to partymate Aquino—is a sure No. 2 bet. The Lakas-Kampi party chiefs have expressed their “preference” for Interior Sec. Ronnie Puno to be Teodoro’s VP—a suggestion met with about as much enthusiasm as a vaccine shot, especially since it was Puno himself who floated the idea. The other VP contenders include Sen. Loren Legarda (if she can do a Mar Roxas and run in tandem with the higher-rating Escudero); the openly reluctant but very popular Batangas governor and movie star Vilma Santos (being wooed by the administration in lieu of the truly wooden Puno); Bayani Fernando (again); Makati Mayor Jojo Binay (a Cory Aquino loyalist but also an Estrada pal); and Sen. Jinggoy Estrada (his dad’s biggest and most natural ally, but will people take a father-son package?).

Let’s not forget incumbent Vice President Noli de Castro, whose place in all this remains a mystery. Only a few months ago, many Pinoys seemed pretty much resigned to the inevitability of a President “Kabayan.” But much to the disappointment of administration officials—who left the door open until the very last minute for him to join the coalition and be anointed its presidential candidate instead of the newbie Teodoro—de Castro has been playing coy. The latest rumors had him signing up with his Senate buddy Villar for a second turn in the veep’s seat—something that I myself have been predicting the surefooted de Castro would do.

We won’t know anything for sure until the deadline for the formal filing of candidacies passes on November 30. Until then, we can expect more surprises and more compromises, as political and logistical realities set in (as they already did for erstwhile “presidentiables” Roxas, Sen. Ping Lacson, and preacher Mike Velarde).

Still, it is and will be a pretty crowded field, whatever final configuration emerges. The most likely scenario will have our next President come from one of these three men with a realistic shot at the top spot: Villar, Aquino, and Teodoro. (I’m betting or guessing that Erap Estrada will lose the legal argument entitling him to a second run for the presidency, and that Chiz Escudero fails to muster the support he expects.)

All three are running with distinct advantages and disadvantages.

Villar’s biggest asset is, well, the biggest assets—a war chest in excess of P1 billion, which he himself said no self-respecting presidential candidate should be without. Since his transition from housing developer and banker to congressman, Villar has projected the image of the self-made entrepreneur (and more recently as the protector of Overseas Filipino Workers) and his trademark orange shirt and “sipag at tiyaga” slogan have caught on with a good number of Filipinos, making him the presumptive leader in the polls.

But all that was before Noynoy Aquino stormed into the picture as the sentimental favorite following the beloved former President Cory Aquino’s death in August. Recent surveys show Aquino’s candidacy gathering steam, and Roxas’s quick withdrawal in support of Aquino has given the Liberal Party a big boost, allowing it to focus on the enemy and on the campaign instead of costly intramurals. For all his perceived inadequacies, Noynoy comes across as Mr. Clean, the promise of relief from a spate of scandals, and a vote for him will probably be less an endorsement of his personal virtues than an indictment of the Arroyo administration’s venalities.

Gibo Teodoro is young, fresh, energetic, and no intellectual slouch, being a bar topnotcher. And (or should I say “but”) he’s the administrator’s standard-bearer, which brings us to the negatives.

Like Aquino, Teodoro shot up from political obscurity just over the past year, edging out Bayani Fernando and other longtime Lakas-Kampi stalwarts for GMA’s nod. He has been unfailingly loyal to the President, singing her praises and pledging to pursue her programs. The question now is whether that loyalty will get or cost him votes, given the electorate’s predominantly anti-GMA sentiments. His wannabe-VP, the master backroom operator Ronnie Puno, keeps touting the power of political machinery, but all that machinery could also become so much baggage if the Aquino camp manages to mount an Obama-style insurgency and effectively tags the Teodoro-Puno tandem as More of the Same.

As for Villar, all that money has also raised all kinds of questions about where it came from; the ongoing Senate inquiry into allegations that certain budgetary allocations favored Villar properties has got to have hurt, undermining any claim he might make to good governance and thickening the “trapo” image he has been at pains to undo.

And Noynoy? People loved and still revere his mother if not his dad, but critics point to his lackluster record in Congress and the Senate as his biggest drawback. (And then again, what do most Americans know of Barack Obama’s achievements in the Senate?)

As they say in these parts, abangan!

It all began when the Filipino American National Historical Society decided to stake a claim on our part of American history, commemorating October as Filipino American History Month, even if the rest of the country ignored it. This was in 1992.

It would take 17 years for anyone outside of our community to pay this historic date some respect. First, the California State Senate through the initiative of Sen. Leland Yee. He filed and secured approval of Concurrent Resolution 48, officially designating October as Filipino American History Month. Then, the U.S. Senate, with Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada securing passage of Resolution 298. And finally, House Resolution has just been passed by the House of Representatives.

The whereases officially acknowledge the role we have played in the making of this great country:

“Luzones Indios set foot in Morro Bay, California, on board the Manila-built galleon ship Nuestra Señora de Esperanza” on October 18, 1587.

“The first permanent Filipino settlement in the United States” was established in St. Malo Parrish, Louisiana in the 1700s.

“Filipino American servicemen and servicewomen have a longstanding history serving within the Armed Services of the United States, from the Civil War to the present Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, including the 250,000 Filipinos who fought under the United States flag during World War II to protect and defend this country.”
Filipino Americans are “an integral part of the United States healthcare system as nurses, doctors, and other medical professionals.”

Filipino Americans have “contributed greatly to the fine arts, music, dance, literature, education, business, journalism, sports, fashion, politics, government, science, technology, and other fields in the United States which enrich the landscape of the country.”

The resolution also points out that “the roles of Filipino Americans and other people of color have been overlooked in the writing, teaching, and learning of United States history;” and that “it is imperative for Filipino American youth to have positive role models to instill in them the importance of education, complemented with the richness of their ethnicity and the value of their legacy.”

Finally, the resolution “recognizes the celebration of Filipino American History Month… as a time of reflection and remembrance, and as a time to renew efforts toward the research and examination of history and culture in order to provide an opportunity for all people in the United States to learn and appreciate more about Filipino Americans and their historic contributions to the Nation.”

It further “urges the people of the United States to observe Filipino American History Month with appropriate programs and activities.”

Antonio Miranda Rodriguez, the Manila Men of St. Malo, Carlos Bulosan and countless pioneers and manongs must be smiling in their graves.—Greg B. Macabenta, Publisher & Editor

If music is salve for wounded souls, then Ryan Cayabyab is one great healer.

In my last days in Manila last month, my friends and I treated ourselves to his concert at the Music Museum, and it was one of those experiences that come rarely, when one feels so awed and humbled to be in the presence of extraordinary talent—both the Maestro himself and the Ryan Cayabyab Singers (RCS), four guys and three girls in their 20s who can each belt out a tune in a way that brought goosebumps.

The concert in Greenhills that night was special because it was the first time Ryan performed in Manila the repertoire he stitched together for the 12-city U.S. tour he and his RCS did last year for Gawad Kalinga (GK), his favorite charity.

Ryan is a “big advocate” of GK. When a friend asked him to do a fundraising show in the U.S. for the organization, he unhesitatingly offered his services for free “as long as I have the RCS with me.” GK got more than it bargained for: the Maestro and his music as fundraising assets, and a number of his compositions, notably “Paraiso,” which has since become GK’s theme song and the title of the full length film about the organization, “donated” to the group. In ex-change, Ryan and RCS were able to travel for free and to bond with Fil-Am audiences—not really a difficult task considering that his music is something that makes Filipinos everywhere proud.

Those of you here in the U.S. who were lucky enough (I wasn’t) to have caught Ryan’s GK concerts will remember the three-part format that only he can execute so seamlessly. The first part was his music, starting with the rousing “Kay Ganda ng Ating Musika” and includes some of the famous hits of what the Maestro himself calls his “Basil Valdez phase”—“Kastilyong Buhangin” and “Paraisong Parisukat.”

Part two was the medley of original Pilipino music (OPM) from various musicmakers—significant milestones in Philip-pine pop music history. This portion was where the Manila show differed from the U.S. shows. In Manila, the medley featured English OPMs of the ’80s, because of the presence of guest singers and my favorite pop violinist, John Lesaca. In the U.S. shows, according to Ryan, the medley he put together was of Filipino love songs that, I’m sure, the RCS must have sang so rousingly because Ryan remembers the standing ovations “because it ended on a really powerful chord.”

The show’s last portion focused on a “love of country” theme and it was what linked the concert to GK’s vision. “Para-iso,” of course, had a stellar part, but it was Ryan’s “O Bayan Ko” that literally brought the audience to its feet, partly because it cleverly segued to “Lupang HInirang,” the Philippine national anthem, thus making the Filipino audience (or any audience with a lot of Filipinos) stand up, right hand over heart, and end with a standing ovation that Ryan and his energetic and extremely talented RCS performers so unequivocally deserve.

Ryan recalls that the U.S. audiences responded so enthusiastically to this portion. “In our U.S. shows, by the time we sang “…sa dagat at bundok sa simoy at sa langit mong tanglaw…” (part of the National Anthem), the audience were up on their feet, many crying unabashedly. No fail. The singers usually choked at this point, and [they had to] hold back their tears. Naku, pati ako naiiyak sa sobrang fervor (I would be tearful too because of the intense fervor). My heart swelled every time we reach that climactic point.”

And this is what, I think, makes a Ryan Cayabyab concert so unforgettable. Genius and fervor make an irresistible brew. Add to that the genuine goodness of the Maestro’s heart—very evident when he makes each member of his audience feel like an old, cherished friend—and there’s just nothing that can go wrong. If you’re like me, you’ll feel privileged and proud to be present on such an enjoyable musical feast.

The only sour note that night was the pre-concert very-hard-sell pitches of GK members. Memo to GK members everywhere: if you’re already preaching to the choir, you don’t have to be so pushy and repetitive about GK’s mission, vision and accomplishments. We get it, even from the first video (That night at the Music Mu-seum in Greenhills, Edu Manzano was perfect both as a host and as eye candy, but did you have to stifle his natural exuberance by making him read long paragraphs on how wonderful GK is? Edu even joked about the ridiculousness of it; he interrupted his reading at one point to say, “I’d like to meet whoever wrote this copy”). We don’t need two or three more [videos] of the same theme to convince us to donate and/or volunteer. And if you throw in a rambling speech or two from any of your leaders, that would be reason for anyone to walk out in disgust.

It was tempting that night to just up and leave because the GK hard-sell was too much to bear. Good thing we managed to stay focused on the prize: a Ryan Cayabyab concert, after all, is worth all the irritations and annoyances thrown in its path.