President’s Corner

I am still completely awed by the response we got (and are still getting as of this writing) for the extraordinarily successful meeting we had with the Hon. Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo, Vice President of the Republic of the Philippines, last Thursday. We exceeded the total capacity of the ZOOM room of one thousand (1,000) participants and accordingly, we exceeded the three hundred thousand (300,000) mark on Facebook. The YouTube Posts continue to generate viewership, literally, by the minute. I am getting calls from people I’ve already lost contact with, congratulating us at RCM for having done an excellent session with the Vice President.

As we have earlier stated, the plan is to try to get most if not all the SERIOUS Presidential Candidates and apply the same format to all of the contenders. We had an excellent choice of panelists. RCManila Foundation, Inc. Chairman and Programs Committee Chairman PE/PVP Hermie Esguerra has already lined up Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson as our next Presidential Candidate Guest of Honor and Speaker for our November 18, 2021 Weekly Membership Meeting. This is a service we will do for the nation by providing an objective platform for our people where the candidates can present themselves, their platform, their plans to the virtual audience. The open forum is the ideal arena to determine the mettle and caliber of our candidates. Someone mentioned to me this will be the unabashed, neutral and virtual “Plaza Miranda” for this election, so let us all work on this together by participating in whatever way we can when we are asked to.

We had a productive Fifth Special Board meeting last Tuesday, October 19, 2021, where the Board reviewed the Audited Financial Statement for RY 2020-2021 which was presented by IT/IPT Karlo Castro. Following some minor revisions, this will be presented again in the Sixth Special Meeting to be held on Monday, October 25, 2021. Thereafter, we interfaced with the STAR Rotarians and discussed possible efforts to fuse more closely the YOUNG members with the “YAH” members (Young-at-Heart) members.

Today, we are going to have a very formidable doctor taking to us about a very relevant and applicable topic. As it were, I believe Dr. Martin Camara will leave this meeting “having our backs covered”!

Gentlemen, I would like to reiterate to all of you to do our own personal shortlists to generate potential new members for our club as we do our part in our membership drive, “EVERYONE, BRING ONE”. Keep praying for our brothers who need healing, guys. Keep safe my dear brothers and may God bless our beloved Rotary Club of Manila.

Humbly yours in Rotary, FSZ Felix Francisco S. Zaldarriaga President RY 2021-2022