President’s Corner

Dear Colleagues in RCM,

Welcome to another RCM weekly meeting. I would like to congratulate everyone who took part in the successful meeting held last January 7, 2020 which was led and organized by Programs Committee Chairman IPVP Hermie Esguerra. The event garnered attendees not just within the RCM community; other Rotarians and Rotaractors all over the country attended as well. About 274 individuals joined the meeting, and in my 21 years in the Rotary, this was the biggest regular meeting I have ever witnessed. I am proud that it happened during my leadership.

We are grateful to our guest of honor and speaker last week, Governor Ben Diokno of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, who is also our past RCM Vice President, for taking the time to speak with us and share his valuable insights and fearless financial forecast for 2021 amid a global pandemic.

The remarkable attendance inspired us to invite more Rotarians around the country to witness our activities and meetings through Zoom. We will also continue to hold joint meetings with other Rotary clubs.

This week is a hectic week with multiple meetings as we also prepare for this week’s fellowship on Saturday. We have invited Executive Officers, Star Rotarians and Governors to meet over lunch at the Heritage Hotel. Wines will be served with delicious Singaporean and Malaysian specialties. Our Director, Farid Shouchair, who is also the Country Manager of Heritage Hotel, is assisting me in organizing the event.

We are currently evaluating another major project called Branding through Marketing Techniques and Strategies. The goal of this project is to improve the image of RCM, increase and sustain its membership and create more collaborations with other Rotary clubs worldwide. Yesterday, we began assessing this project and estimated it to cost 2.7 million pesos. Since this amount is huge for the club to undertake, we will suggest to District Governor Odie Tariella to take the project to a larger scale to include 116 Clubs, including RCM, and to seek sponsorship. To determine the feasibility of this project, this will undergo a Board and Audit review. If there are any suggestions from the readers, please contact us.

I would like to thank our good friend and Assistant Treasurer Marcus Dee, who started the project with Carla Cabrera, Charter President of Rotary Club of Makati Lumina and Derrick Daye, Managing Director of Blake Project, based in LA. We had them two weeks ago as our guest presenters and their presentation was interesting.

We continue to encourage everyone to extend a helping hand to the poor despite the financial difficulties. If we put all our efforts together in helping those in need, it would amount to something substantial in improving their lives. The economy is starting to move, and more positive things are in sight. So never give up, appreciate what you have and continue to share your blessings.

As there is a current demand for change and interrupters, it is time that corporations and organizations such as ours, review and reap from the benefits of what we can learn and practice for us to lead and advance since we started this organization 102 years ago. We can leap forward to a new era.

Mabuhay ang Rotary Club of Manila! Mabuhay tayong lahat!