Comments on: A Visit to the Banawa Elementary School Feeding Program…

By: gerry

gerry — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 21:59:52 +0000

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” Aesop

By: Gwenn Galvez

Gwenn Galvez — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 02:25:43 +0000

you have a great program here MM. We can donate books ( textbooks, activity books for grade school) for these schools.if you are interested, pls send me a letter.

By: paeng3

paeng3 — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 03:24:41 +0000

Kudos to you MM.
Just a thought, maybe you could encourage the children with support from the school administration to start a vegetable garden in which the students, teachers will be the ones to maintain. The produce then will be used for their own consumption as part of the feeding program menu. Maybe with that, the children would appreciate vegetables more and start to eat it.

By: Tracy

Tracy — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 08:57:10 +0000

I choose to get ticked off. When I see poor kids choosing not to eat their vegetables, I get fumed because it’s disrespectful. Someone is giving you a gift and you discard it–in their presence no less. When I was young, my neighbor invited me to lunch whenever she could. “Auntie” invited me because she wanted her picky eater children to see how I ate my food since I was supposedly human food disposal. Which was mostly true I admit, but I hated munggo guisado so I just took and ate as little as I could get away with. (But then she’d put more on my plate.)

And yes, children have more sensitive palates especially to the bitter taste but I can’t believe you can still be that persnickety when you’re starving. I mean, I disagree with “beggars can’t be choosers” because there is a minimum standard that people should be treated with regarded of their socioeconomic status, but still. Everything tastes better when you’re (perpetually) hungry, so suck it up. I used to think those tv ads with Anne Curtis, Sarah Geronimo, et al praising vegetables were cheesy and a waste of money, but now that I think of it, I hope to God that I’m wrong.

By: shiko-chan

shiko-chan — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 07:15:08 +0000

thank you so much for your example MM, and your write-up that is enlightening as always. i myself have no capacity for an activity on such a scale, but i try what i can.

ros has a totally awesome comment that, for whatever it’s worth, i really appreciate. :)

mr. Monty may not understand the CCT program accurately or completely. i don’t know all its details but if i’m not mistaken it’s not as if cash is just being thrown at “poor” people randomly.

By: Christina

Christina — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:13:22 +0000

Dear MM,

What about Myra_P’s suggestion, to sell something and designate all proceeds go to the feeding program as in the past? That way you skip having to set yourself up as a foundation, and if you’re charged any taxes, it can come out of the profits. Maybe even attach it to Zubuchon? My family and I have donated in the past to the feeding program from abroad, I know I’d like to help again … I’d show up to volunteer if I could …

By: bree

bree — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 09:45:32 +0000

hi marketman,

I understand your frustration with setting up a foundation in the Philippines! Not counting the work and the initial funding required by the BIR for the process to make it tax-exempt, you will be subject to BIR audits where they collect this and that “fees”. It’s ridiculous. The fees we paid to the BIR was enough to cover the tuition and misc fees of a full-paying DLSU student a year.

By: Betchay

Betchay — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 07:47:12 +0000

Had contributed to this before and would love to do so again but I do understand your predicament….”trust the Philippine Govt to be one of the few that still taxes charitable gifts’ ….sad indeed.But I am really glad that no matter how small this feeding program is,it really does benefit these kids! More blessings will come your way!

By: terrey

terrey — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 06:20:48 +0000

i echo myra_p…what about us buying something from you? aha, we will just eat at Zubuchon as often as we can! :-)

By: Marketman

Marketman — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 04:29:45 +0000

Hi everyone, on the question of donations… unfortunately, it’s a bit trickier than just pooling money together, as I may incur a tax liability. Trust the philippine government to be one of the few that still TAXES charitable gifts, unless the recipient is BIR exempted. As a result, I haven’t collected donations from the public for several years. Large donors, write checks directly to the beneficiaries, but my staff and I keep an eye on the disbursement of funds and delivery of meals for transparency and oversight. So you see, it’s hard for me to post an account that you can send funds to, as essentially, it gets complicated… So a program that could have been much bigger is rather modest in size… Short of setting up a foundation, that is a LOT of work and money, I am hamstrung by these seemingly (though I understand some of the reasons for them) stupid regulations… :(