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Festival of Trees spotlights Albay

11/17/2007

What’s inside these boxes that bring glad tidings and early Christmas cheer?

The surprises will finally be revealed when one of Manila’s awaited early Christmas events, the Festival of Trees (FOT), lights up the city once again when it stages its gala on Nov. 29, 6 p.m., at the Manila Polo Club. Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) and PLDT board chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan, and Makati Garden Club (MGC) president and PBSP trustee Maria Luisa Perez Rubio jointly head this year’s festivity with the theme “Celebrating the Spirit of Giving at Christmas.”

The challenge to make each year’s charity auction and dinner event grand and exciting continues to inspire the lady members of the Makati Garden Club (MGC) to come up with creative executions. For its twelfth year, the sale of unique Christmas trees and decors, valuable paintings and art pieces, and other hard-to-find items and treasures for the benefit of a chosen beneficiary will be concealed inside colorful mystery boxes, putting guests in suspense on what they’re exactly bidding on. In addition, guests will be treated to a delectable dinner and a night of lively entertainment, truly making the event an elegant way to celebrate early Christmas for a cause.

The Festival of Trees is the longest running event organized by the PBSP and the MGC dedicated to helping the country’s less fortunate and advancing socio-economic growth and environmental protection in the areas that need it most.

Since its inception, the Festival of Trees has raised more than P60 million to fund programs that have helped create sustainable livelihood opportunities and provide social services while at the same time promoting ecological preservation and regeneration to depressed communities. Last year alone, it was able to generate more than P1.5 million for the landslide evacuees in Ginsaugon, St. Bernard, Southern Leyte.

This year, FOT focuses its efforts on the Amore Community Development Program, a disaster rehabilitation initiative of the PLDT-Smart Foundation in Albay, Bicol Region. It will be recalled that typhoon Reming ravaged Bicol December last year and left a number of casualties and enormous damages to property estimated at P5 billion.

In areas near Mayon Volcano, the situation was worse as the typhoon created mudslides off volcanic ash and debris, covering towns, claiming lives and displacing over 200 families of their homes and livelihood. A year after the calamity, 1,500 families in Daraga, the town nearest Mt. Mayon, are still temporarily housed in evacuation and transit houses while 3,274 families remain unsheltered.

The initiative hopes to raise at least P2.5 million through the FOT to initially help build 30 homes in the town. The program once completed hopes to provide shelter for some 220 families.

In this season of gift-giving and sharing of blessings, the FOT keeps the Filipino bayanihan spirit alive in “helping people help themselves” amidst the face of poverty.

For more information, contact Jean Alingod-Guittap, The Festival of Trees Secretariat, Philippine Social Development Center, Magallanes cor. Real Sts., Intramuros, Manila, through telephone number 527-7741 to 48, fax 527-3743, or email fot@pbsp.org.ph. Web site is www.pbsp.org.ph.