MANILA, Philippines - It was a proud weekend for Filipinos all over the world the past Independence Day celebration in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The first Global Summit of Gawad Kalinga concluded with secretary of Agriculture Arthur Yap as the last plenary speaker. As the only member of the Arroyo cabinet to be at the Summit, it was not immediately certain how he was going to be received by the group of Filipinos majority of whom are successful, wealthy professionals from all over the US. But as he spoke of the state of agriculture in the Philippines, everyone could see his wealth of knowledge.
The GK Summit began with GK founder Tony Meloto discussing the GK goal of 2024’s vision of the Philippines to transform five million poorest of the poor families out of poverty. It went on to present among the most successful partnerships of GK with local government partnerships. Gov. LRay Villafuerte of Camarines Sur, Mayor Jejomar Binay of Makati, Mayor Freddie Tinga of Taguig, Mayor Sally Lee of Sorsogon and Mayor Sonia Lorenzo of San Isidro, Nueva Ecija were just a few of the local officials who presented their GK plans for their provinces and cities. Sen. Francis Pangilinan spoke of the use of legislative agenda to further the development of the communities and the judicious use of their community development fund for the greatest impact and senator Miguel Zubiri spoke with pride of his province Bukidnon and the thousands of GK communities already up. The highest official of the Philippine government to attend the Summit was VP Noli de Castro who as the housing czar has greatly contributed to the massive growth of GK in the past two years due to the partnership between the National Housing Authority and GK.
The summit was not all presentations and speeches, contributing to the success of the weekend was the musical presentations by GK champion Ryan Cayabyab with GK stalwarts Joey Albert, Louie Reyes, Stephanie Reese and GK’s very own DIVOS Calvin Keen, Nathan Mari and Micray Gonzalez. Aurora Pijuan danced the tango while various GK US regional centers contributed dance numbers.