Lab Club’s sud story

When the so-called EDSA 3 taunted the President – Gloria, Gloria, Labandera – little did they realize that they were doing her a big favor. Rising to the occasion, she announced that she is proud of her lahing labandera, and she was surprised that the opposition, who were declaiming that they loved the poor, should connect shamefulness with being labanderas or being related to one.

Since then, thanks to Ginintuan Foundation, labanderas are now the bida. And Alerta Labandera will be the buzzword in improving the lifestyles in about 100 barangays initially in Metro Manila. In these barangays (in Navotas, Parañaque, Pasay, Pateros, San Juan, Valenzuela, Caloocan, Las Piñas, Malabon, Marikina, Manila and Quezon City), Ginintuan has conducted Parent Enrichment Service (PES II) seminars under the guidelines and guidance of the DSWD, and with the help of volunteers from the ranks of Couples For Christ. Graduates of PES will form the core group of the Labandera Kami Ni Gloria Club under the Alerta Labandera movement. Lab Club members will enjoy access (from donors mobilized by Ginintuan) to educational, medical and legal assistance, livelihood projects, sports and recreation activities, and such fringe benefits as ID cards, stickers, aprons, bandannas, and towelettes for men appropriately labeled Mister Ako Ng Lab Ni Gloria. While addressed to women, the Lab Club also embraces their families by including them in their benefits, certainly beyond just towels.

To date, 3,033 parents, with 4,826 kids and 1,643 volunteers have undergone 200 Parent Enrichment Service seminars, held for nine weeks at half a day per week to accommodate their schedules. PES seminars are designed to give educational assistance packages to street children, livelihood projects including self-employment and/or capital assistance for income-generating projects for families.

The seminar underscores the importance of promoting family values leading towards unity and cohesiveness and of building the knowledge, capabilities, and skills of the parents of street children to effect changes in the lives of their families. This approach, coupled with promoting family spirituality, is envisioned to lead to an inner and long-lasting sustainable transformation.

Through practical livelihood skills development, the families of the street children are provided with opportunities for gainful occupation. Those parents who plan to engage in an income-generating project are further trained through the Basic Business Management Skills Training Seminar/Workshop. The provision of capital assistance for this livelihood component shall be made available.

These completed, the parents-graduates, or agapays, become the vehicle for sustained activities endorsed by the seminars, and thus encourage others in the community to join in the commitment to a wholesome and self-reliant family life.

As the Lab Club expands along with PES, Ginintuan plans more programs and benefits for all women who engage in manual labor to help their families get ahead. Thus the labandera symbolizes the noble aspirations of the poor to give their children a better life. She is the symbol of the woman who uplifts her family with her own hands, and cleanses her family’s dire situation. She can draw inspiration from a poor woman such as the President’s paternal grandmother, who washed clothes for her neighbors to send her son Diosdado to school. Little did she know then that she would produce not just one, but two presidents of the republic.

First introduced last June during PES graduation rites at the Malacañang Park, President Gloria was surprised by labanderas from the graduating class dressed in matching bandannas and aprons with Lab Kami Ni Gloria logos. They danced to the lively Alerta Labandera jingle, as recorded by the Soul Divas of the Youth for Christ.

The catchy music, composer unknown, was adapted from a march (Alerta Katipunan) calling on volunteers for the Katipunan in 1896. The current Alerta Labandera is arranged by international Filipino pianist Raul Sunico. Concept and lyrics are by Chola Colayco Navarro. The lyrics tell of hope, value of hard work (as exemplified by the President’s paternal grandmother), cleansing, and a call to unity for love of God and country. Subliminally, it is an invitation to be part of Alerta Labandera, a grass-roots movement or club to provide hope to this sector, which, through the ages, have unkindly been called "the great unwashed."

Hopefully, this lifestyle and its association with the less fortunate will change as Alerta Labandera members pledge to strive to live with cleanliness in body and soul, and the surrounding environment. This pledge is enshrined in a diploma-type parchment with the Lab Kami Ni Gloria seal.

And why is the Ginintuan Foundation promoting these? It is certainly not a Johnny-come-lately answer to the May 1 march to Malacañang. The Ginintuan at Makabayang Alay Foundation, Inc., whose board members are mostly classmates of President Gloria, decided in 1998 to do their share in helping the then Vice President and DSWD Secretary get the street children off the streets and into the classroom. Though everyone knows that classrooms are not exactly available to every street kid, Ginintuan was emboldened by the small changes they saw. Despite the bad news that proliferates, PES graduates themselves have bonded to reach out to other barangays so they can join in the benefits of the Lab Club. The more is not just merrier, but also better, and Ginintuan Foundation is moving mountains to support the aspirations of these women and their families for a better life today and a better future for their children.

For Ginintuan’s board of trustees – led by its president, Marilou Varona, along with project director Elena Dinglasan and Leonila Mackay, Mary Anne Colayco, Cynthia Norton, Priscilla Gamboa, Hilda Antonio, Veronica Rodrigo and Asuncion Villanueva – is reaching out not just as a matter of noblesse oblige, but a question of justice and necessity. And their efforts have been enthusiastically received. Recently, Ginintuan met with Unilever chairman and CEO Howard Belton and Home Care marketing director Marcel Kerkmeester to propose that industries such as theirs which had long relied on labanderas go out of their way in a beau geste, to reach out, not for profit but to share. They were pleasantly surprised when Unilever officials presented samples (only three so far) of their own version of the Gloria Labandera Soap, Presidential Edition. They sent two samples to surprise the President and "make her smile" in the midst of so much crises.

Additional seminar graduates are joining a public launch of Alerta Labandera planned sometime in August. Hopefully, a saturation of Metro Manila barangays will be accomplished in a few months, followed by a nationwide outreach. Already being scheduled is a National Labandera Day. Who knows if history will repeat itself – a child or grandchild of the labandera today may be a president of the future.