The heart of Serbisyong Totoo

MANILA, Philippines - It’s four in the afternoon and the phones in the office of the GMA Kapuso Foundation on GMA Network Drive in Quezon City are ringing incessantly. Most of the calls are from indigents seeking medical help and donors inquiring how to send their donations.

Inside the foundation’s conference room, several volunteers are tagging designer clothes donated by showbiz celebrities. These items are set to be auctioned or sold at discounted prices and the proceeds used to build new schools in far-flung areas and to rehabilitate school buildings that were damaged in recent calamities.

Inside a corner office room sits GMA Kapuso Foundation executive vice president and chief operating officer Carmela Tiangco, Tita Mel to most in the network.

With her decades of experience in broadcasting, Tiangco has established herself as one of the most trusted news personalities in the Philippines. Despite her busy schedule and the demands of her newscasting job, she is still able to set aside a great portion of her time to do one thing she truly loves – helping people.

When Tiangco was yet a budding radio announcer in the late ‘70s, one of her tasks was to anchor a public affairs program at the Radio Mindanao Network.

“Radio, especially back then, was more far-reaching than television; it reaches the mountains and even the remotest of communities,” she explains.

Volunteers plants trees in Tanay, Rizal in support of Haribon’s Road to 2020 project.

Tiangco didn’t realize how wide the reach of her radio program was until one day, a trader-friend of a community of Mangyans living in the mountains of Sinariri, Oriental Mindoro, came to her radio station with a mission. He informed her that the Mangyans were regular listeners of her radio program and that he came to deliver a letter from this indigenous community.

“In their letter, the Mangyans asked for my help in looking for a teacher who was willing to be assigned in their school in the boondocks. That may sound relatively easy to do today, but back then it wasn’t,” she says. “If you were a teacher, why will you go to the boondocks to practice your profession when you have better options in the city?”

Nevertheless, Tiangco was moved by the natives’ request and took it on as her personal project. She went to the head office of the then Department of Education, Culture and Sports (the precursor of today’s DepEd) and sought help on behalf of the Mangyans. “Luckily, I didn’t go home empty-handed. To cut the long story short, I was able to grant the Mangyans their wish.”

Overwhelmed by the success of her project, Tiangco talked about it in her radio program. At that time, a reporter from a local magazine was coming up with a special feature on education. Inspired by Tiangco’s work, the reporter contacted her and asked if the magazine could feature her project in its next issue. Tiangco agreed and so they trekked the mountains of Mindoro for 12 grueling hours and literally crossed rivers before finally reaching the Mangyan community.

“It was no joke. When we arrived at the village, I was very tired that I barely had enough energy to drag my feet. At yung eskwelahan pala nila, halos wala lang, pawid lang (And the school had nothing, just thatch walls) and nothing more. There wasn’t even a blackboard. Absolutely disheartening,” she recalls.

Among the projects of the foundation, Tiangco’s personal favorite is the Kapuso School Development. With this project, students like these from Adiangao High School in San Jose, Camarines Sur (right) no longer have to study in makeshift classrooms (far right). Construction is ongoing on a new three-room building for the high school (above).

Through the years, even as Tiangco rose to become one of the country’s most popular news and public affairs personalities, she has never forgotten the Mangyan tribe, whom she describes as “nice and gentle people” and who served as her inspiration to do public service.

“I’ve been back there several times and as a matter of fact, every so often some members of the tribe come here. We continued to communicate with one another. Today, the younger generation of the tribe has come down to the lower portions of the mountains. I really fell in love with them. The Mangyans are such a pristine tribe,” she says.

When Tiangco moved to GMA Network in 1996, she created a public service office, which operated as part of the network’s News Department.

“At that time, there wasn’t really a concept of a public affairs office tied to the News Department in GMA. Although the network had a foundation, a news-related public service office didn’t yet exist. Until one day, the then network general manager Tony Seva asked me to form one. I called it Bisig Bayan.”

Tiangco juggled newscasting and public service with Bisig Bayan, which had fewer than five staff members until in 2002, GMA chairman and chief executive officer Felipe Gozon and president and chief operating officer Gilberto Duavit, Jr. asked her to take over as head of the GMA Kapuso Foundation.

“The first thing that we did was to expand the existing programs of the foundation. We took on the Christmas project called ‘Give-a-Gift: Alay sa Batang Pinoy.’ I thought it was good, but we adjusted it a bit to create a little more impact on the beneficiaries.”

While the foundation continued with the usual distribution of toys and noche buena packages to less fortunate children and their families, Tiangco introduced new concepts like ‘sectorizing’ children into groups like children with cancer, children with congenital defects, child laborers, children of incarcerated parents, malnourished children, etc.

Volunteers take part in a bloodletting drive held at the network headquarters. Some 340 malnourished children receive a hearty meal in Pililia, Rizal.

The GMA Kapuso Foundation has set its focus on the following advocacy areas: health, values formation, education, disaster relief, and school rehabilitation.

Among the Foundation’s projects, the Kapuso School Development (KSD) is Tiangco’s personal favorite. “I strongly believe that in order to break the cycle of poverty in a family, one must really have an education. Kahit bigyan mo ‘yan ng sariling bahay, ‘pag walang education, wala ring mangyayari (Even if you give them a house, without education, nothing will happen),” she explains.

“If the parents are poor, the children and everyone down the line are also poor. But break that cycle, get one or two family members and send them to school, and that will have an impact on the entire family. The educated members can save the family from poverty.”

Helping those in need is not an easy task, but thanks to the generosity of its donors and partners, the GMA Kapuso Foundation is able to fulfill its tasks.

“One might easily think that our donors are big companies or very affluent businessmen, but actually, many of our donors are ordinary individuals who have it in their hearts to set aside a portion of their modest income in order to help their kababayans who are in dire need. And that’s really moving. Their trust in the Foundation – that their donations will really reach their intended recipients – is also very flattering.”

Stories about ordinary donors and their reasons for donating inspire her, but one story particularly stands out.

“An old lady came one day to my office to donate to our environmental project. She was an informal settler in her area in Novaliches and she’s obviously a very poor old lady. I learned that she was inspired when she watched my segment in ‘24 Oras,’ in which I reported about the Foundation’s school development project,” shares Tiangco.

Kapuso Foundation executive vice president and chief operating officer Mel Tiangco, a popular news anchor on GMA-7’s “24 Oras.”

“Apparently, at the time she was watching me on TV, she was thinking how she could, in her own capacity, help other people. She learned that after the inauguration of every school building that we build, we plant trees in its surroundings. That’s how she got the idea.”

“Doon sa kinatitirikan ng kanyang kubo, may maraming (Where her shanty is located there are many) mahogany trees. She realized that she could help by growing seedlings of mahogany and donating them to the foundation for its environmental projects. And so, she started picking up mahogany seeds that fell from the trees and processed them so that they became seedlings. Hindi pala ganun kadali yun eh (It isn’t that easy). It takes so much time and effort. Whenever we need seedlings, we simply call her and have the seedlings picked up from her home.”

“Stories like this give me so much fulfillment,” confesses Tiangco. “Imagine, this woman had nothing but still she concerned herself with how she could help her fellow. And when we asked her what she wanted in return, she only asked for my photograph.”

“I feel glad that I was able to inspire this woman to help others. Her story only proves that you don’t need to be rich to be able to help. Kung gusto mo lang talagang makatulong, magagawa mo (If you really want to help, you can).”