Under Taipei's Sky, A Friendship Renewed

When I stood in Taipei, Taiwan holding the Philippine flag, the journey acquired a meaning larger than the distance I had traveled. This was my first overseas Rotary trip as President of the Rotary Club of Manila. In my hands was my country's flag; behind my presence was a friendship that had begun forty-four years earlier.

I had come to join our sister club, the Rotary Club of Taipei, in celebrating its 78th Charter Anniversary. Yet the occasion also invited me to look backward — to a dinner on March 9, 1982, when two club presidents made a decision whose warmth would outlive their terms of office.

Under then President Reynaldo "Rene" Concepcion of RFM Corporation, the Rotary Club of Manila established "Brother Club" relations with the Rotary Club of Taipei, then led by President Gary CK Huang. The undertaking reflected the Rotary International theme, "World Understanding and Peace Thru Rotary." Those words gave their friendship a purpose: to bring people closer across borders through fellowship and service. In October 2026, I found myself entrusted with carrying that friendship forward.

There is a particular humility in representing an institution with a long memory. A president serves for a year, but receives relationships built over decades. I arrived in Taipei conscious that the welcome extended to me belonged equally to the Manila Rotarians who had come before — to those who first reached across the water, and to those who had kept the connection alive.

Our host president, Atty. Maggie Huang, stood at the meeting point of that inheritance and its future. An associate partner in the Banking and Capital Markets Department of Lee and Li, Attorneys-at-Law, and the fourth woman to serve as President of the Rotary Club of Taipei, she now carried the responsibility once held by Gary Huang. Alongside her, I carried the office once held by Rene Concepcion. The names and faces had changed. The friendship had endured.

At the Shangri-La Far Eastern Tainan, on Saturday, October 17, the anniversary celebration unfolded beneath the theme "A Night on the Nile." Pyramids, pharaohs, and a purple evening sky transformed the ballroom backdrop into an imagined journey through Egypt. It was a fitting setting for a gathering that brought together people whose own journeys had begun in different countries and converged in Rotary.

In black tie, amid greetings and photographs, I felt the pleasure of belonging to a gathering far from home. Club names became faces. Formal introductions opened into conversation. The sister-club relationship, so easily expressed in a line of club history, became immediate and personal.

The entrance of the sister clubs' national flags gave that feeling a visible form. Holding our flag, I thought of the trust involved in representing Manila. I wanted our hosts to feel that we had come with affection, with respect for their seventy-eight years of service, and with a willingness to sustain the relationship we had inherited.

The evening's program placed fellowship beside the work that gives it substance. President Maggie led The Four Way Test and delivered her welcome remarks. Anniversary remarks by Past Rotary International President Gary CK Huang brought the club's history into the room. Paul Harris Fellow recognition and an introduction to Taipei's Global Grant work recalled the service that continues beyond an anniversary evening.

Gary Huang's place in the celebration held special meaning for me. He belonged to the beginning of our clubs' relationship in 1982; here, forty-four years later, and having served as Rotary International President in 2014-2015 (becoming first ethnic Chinese and Taiwanese leader to hold the office in Rotary's history), his presence offered a living connection to that beginning. History was close enough to greet.

As the evening moved toward the cake cutting, the toast, dinner, and music, its ceremonial character gave way to an easier warmth. These are the moments I will remember alongside the formal program: standing together for photographs, exchanging club banners, and discovering how readily a shared commitment can make conversation possible.

The banners themselves seemed to hold something of the journey. Each carried the symbols and identity of a club rooted in its own community. Held side by side, they spoke of a friendship chosen and renewed. I thought of how many hands must have exchanged such tokens over the years, and how each exchange depended on people making the effort to meet.

That effort continued around the tables of the farewell luncheon on Sunday. Away from the ballroom's formality, fellowship found a more relaxed rhythm. The photographs on my phone preserved smiles, familiar gestures, and the comfortable closeness of people gathered over a meal. By then, Taipei had given me more than an anniversary to attend. It had given me friendships to bring home.

Looking back, I understand why this first overseas trip as club president will remain distinct in my memory. It taught me something about the responsibility of the office. Along with meetings to lead and projects to pursue, there are friendships to tend. Some arrive from the past, carrying the hopes of people who may never have imagined the particular gathering in which we would one day find ourselves.

In 1982, Rene Concepcion and Gary Huang helped begin such a friendship. In 2026, President Maggie Huang and I had the privilege of giving it another present tense.

I returned to Manila grateful for that privilege, and mindful of what must follow. A relationship endures through invitations answered, visits made, conversations continued, and opportunities to serve together. Its future rests in these acts of attention.

My first overseas Rotary journey as president brought me to Taipei for a celebration. It sent me home with a deeper sense of the company in which I serve: generations of Rotarians, on both sides of the water, who believed that understanding could begin with a meeting — and grow into a friendship lasting forty-four years.