Loving the poor 'til it hurts

MANILA, Philippines - On a typical afternoon, Irene Yusingco can be found in a slum area in the outskirts of Cebu, putting rice and fried lumpia on the plates of children standing in line, waiting for their turn.

The feeding session is just a fraction of Yusingco’s day. She also attends to her other projects including mobile clinics, shelters for street children and battered women, and livelihood centers for mothers. Yusingco’s way of giving is not based on charity alone but also on giving the poor the means to help themselves via livelihood training.

For more than 30 years, she has been active in serving the needy through collaboration with various foundations and charity groups in Cebu City. Even Yusingco’s house in Cebu is open to jobeless individuals, abused women and children and even scholars who need to save on their everyday expenses.

Yusingco is this year’s Blessed Teresa of Calcutta recipient, an award given annually since 1983 by the AY Foundation, the philanthropic institution of the Yuchengco Group of Companies (YGC), together with the Junior Chamber International Manila (Manila Jaycees).

The award commemorates the life and work of Blessed Mother Teresa, an icon of mercy to people of all religions. Her ministry with the poor has won her the Nobel Peace Prize and countless other awards.

The awarding ceremony was recently held at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium at the RCBC Plaza in Makati City and was attended by AY Foundation chairman Alfonso Yuchengco, BTCA member Ramon Bagatsing, Christopher Ty, chairman of the 2009 BTCA search committee, and Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile.

“In our 22nd year of giving the Blessed Teresa of Calcutta Award, we will once again commend another soul who has chosen the arduous yet consecrated path of lifelong charity. It is heartwarming to know that Blessed Teresa lives on in the lives of these people,“ Yuchengco said.

“Though our awardees solicit neither fame nor fortune in all their decades of toil, the Blessed Teresa of Calcutta Award can now only serve as a token of our deepest gratitude by which they may advance their noble cause,“ said Yuchengco.

Widely regarded as generous and humble, the people Yusingco worked with enthused she could always be depended upon to help the underprivileged.

“Irene has always been a generous and humble person... she is always just in the background, but you know that she is always there,“ said Sr. Grace Gupana of Good Shephered, one of the foundations Yusingco also assists.

Signs of Yusingco’s charitable nature were evident at a young age, especially when she took it upon herself to care for her younger siblings when their mother died from shrapnel wounds after WWII.

“I was the eldest of seven children and our youngest was only three years old at that time and although my father was around, nobody was taking care of the household,” Yusingco said.

“I didn’t know how I managed, but I went to school at St. Theresa’s College in Cebu. In my first year of college, while I was looking after my siblings, I also got work as a bookkeeper and managed to finish my course,” Yusingco said. She finished Bachelor of Science in Commerce in 1952.

It was in St. Theresa’s where the values of loving and caring for the poor with compassion were inculcated in her.

“In St. Theresa, I remember they always taught us to love the poor and encouraged corporal works of mercy. I also remember a sister from the religious order of the Good Shepherd brought three of us to the slums,” said Yusingco. The experience changed her life forever and ignited a resolve to spread love and charity in the slums.

From 1977 to 1979, Yusingco led the Sacred Heart Parish Ladies Association in broadening its vision to address the needs of the less fortunate. Deeply committed to the organization’s social outreach programs, The Francis Lim Charity clinic was set up to serve less fortunate parishioners and their families and conduct regular feeding programs for poor and undernourished children.

“We went all out. We had mobile clinics in places outside the city. We also served in a relocated squatter area outside the city,” Yusingco said. They had to stop the program outside the cities in 2003 when donors stopped support but they still have mobile clinics in the city.

Yusingco was also very involved in the establishment of feeding centers all over Cebu. In 1985, Ricardo Cardinal Vidal was able to solicit funds to help them set up feeding programs in parishes and in depressed areas. The volunteers would cook and Yusingco would do the marketing.

Cardinal Vidal would tell them to sell the food to the poor even at P1 per serving so that it was not completely a dole out. “Because the price was cheap, they would buy two servings, not giving everything for free gave them dignity,” said Yusingco. They fed more than 200 people each week.

Yusingco also devoted her time to helping abused women. In 1987, she and her friends founded the Lihok Pilipina foundation, which addresses the needs of women in depressed areas of Cebu City. The organization currently maintains various support programs in which Yusingco has been actively involved. The programs focus on providing women livelihood skills training; crisis intervention and support against gender and domestic violence; community waste management information and support for street children.

Yusingco is also actively involved with Bidlisiw Foundation, Inc., which provides entrepreneurial development and training for urban poor families in Metro Cebu; alternative education programs for needy children; protection for youth from physical abuse, drug addiction and exploitation; and support for children and families affected by fires.

Untiring in her commitment to serve other neglected sectors, she also extends assistance to ex-convicts and city jail prisoners, giving them gifts, used clothing and donating to the Pag-Asa sa Paglaya (PSP) Restorative Advocacy Center, which provides reform and livelihood opportunities to ex-prisoners and their families.