Good corporate citizenship starts from the top

MANILA, Philippines — Suntrust president Atty. Harry M. Paltongan speaks about how a community instills a culture of sharing and giving

MANILA, Philippines — “Selflessness is very important in a big team,” Atty. Harry M. Paltongan, Suntrust president shared in a recent interview. “Personal goals must only be secondary to the team goal. This is our culture inside and outside of the company.”

Inspiring the culture of sharing and giving is the property company’s theme in celebration of their 22nd anniversary.

Suntrust Properties, Inc. (SPI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Megaworld Corporation, started in the challenging year of 1997. Since its establishment, it has proven its mettle and has built self-sustaining communities in various towns in Cavite, including Dasmarinas, Gen. Trias, and Silang. It has also built condominiums at the center of Manila.

Suntrust has been the leader in providing affordable homes and master-planned communities that deliver space- saving and well-thought-out features that are valuable to its target moderate-income market.

Value of giving back

Given its success in over two decades, SPI has trained its vision to giving back to the communities it serves. “Instead of just celebrating our anniversary in the traditional way such as internal program, parties, food, or merriment, we gave our employees the opportunity to realize the importance of corporate social responsibility,” Atty. Paltongan explained.

“The impact is profound,” he said. “We want our Suntrustees to realize that regardless of their level in the company, they have the power to inspire people, to make them smile, to make them hope, to make them feel loved.”

To the president, their company anniversary “is like a birthday. You are thankful because you are lucky.” He explained that in such an occasion, their employees and sales people understand that it is a celebration of thanksgiving. “Hence, we must express gratitude by giving back,” he stressed.

In the past, their activities included “honoring thousands of their construction workers, appreciating them, and making them really feel that they are a part of the Suntrust family,” Atty. Paltongan said.

“This year, we made it more exciting,” the company president described. “We are too many for a single CSR and we had lots of months leading to our November 14, anniversary.”

Eight rays of hope

Inspired by their emblem that bears eight rays of the sun, they divided their employees into eight groups wherein each team initiated different outreach projects. Every team was composed of Suntrust employees, sales people, and volunteer contractors.

Each group initiated and implemented different project including activities to help abused and abandoned children; programs for cancer patients; cleft-lip operations; sponsorship of school supplies and scholarships; spearheading of environmental clean-up drives and donation of fishing boats; visit and donations to the elderly; donations to and renovation of bahay pag-asa (a center for challenged youths); rice in exchange of plastic and wastes; legal/medical/ dental mission; job fairs and employment offers; among others. The teams planned, organized, and implemented all their projects prior to their anniversary.

According to Atty. Paltongan, the challenge to each group was “to be creative and resourceful, including various ways of fund-raising — from as simple as cooking kakanin for breaks, selling used ware, games, and solicitations. No fund came from the company. The idea was for each one — from the lowest staff to the top level employees — to be involved in all aspects of our corporate social responsibility projects. Everyone is involved in raising fund, preparing and doing the legwork, and being present during these activities.”

leaders create leaders

“We create leaders,” Atty. Harry M. Paltongan clearly spelled when asked about the impact to him of this innovative social responsibility program. “That is the ultimate goal of a leader.

According to him, the eight groups were headed by senior managers. “We taught them how to exercise their role to the fullest, how to listen to their people, how to set examples, how to be the first in line,” the president passionately shared.

“We have a creed for leaders which we recite every time. The different CSR projects that our senior managers led were their tests, as we gave them full discretion,” he said. “For their members, it was a chance to solidify their perception on how they should look at their lives. We knew that our corporate social responsibility program will have a lasting impact on them.”

For this developer’s leader, Atty. Paltongan, “it made them profoundly happy — which we expect to be lasting while they work with us in Suntrust.”

Some of those leaders who took to heart the company’s initiatives to help those in need, shared stories of hope and kindness in the eyes of Suntrustees.

“The opportunity to see those who need more but ask for less touched my heart. This challenged me to explore all possibilities to assist and lend a hand,” Ely Ladrera, Suntrust Client Administration and Relations officer, shared with us what she felt about being part their recently conducted corporate social responsibility program.

“Suntrust was able to raise awareness to us that we are committed to assist, not just our buyers, but those in the community as well,” she expressed.

We asked Suntrust employees in a series of interviews the impact of being in the frontline, planning and executing projects that give back to the communities that needed support. This is in line with the property developer’s 22nd anniversary-aligned corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs, carrying the battle cry, Inspire to Aspire.

In celebration of this year’s anniversary, employees, contractors, salespeople, and business partners were grouped into eight teams to carry out various activities for their chosen beneficiaries.

“As part of Suntrust Properties Inc.'s CSR activities, I have learned that there is so much an ordinary employee can do when she is given the chance to help others. Members of each group spent hours in and out of the office to discuss ways to pool fund, suggest activities, and prepare gifts and donations for our beneficiaries,” Ely described her experience.

Company that cares

Ely added that for years, she has always been thankful to the generosity of the management for the monetary gifts and development programs to its employees. But more than these, “this year’s anniversary activities made me appreciate the opportunity to be part of a company that cares, serves, and encourages its people to be living advocates of Suntrust’s mission to be bound by teamwork, professionalism, and corporate social responsibility.”

For Rovelle Ancheta, Suntrust’s Management Information System manager, the experience was an eye opener. “It was really an eye opener for me seeing the children in that situation,” he shared. Their team visited a hospital for children afflicted with serious illnesses. “I really don’t know how they are surviving with high cost of medication and other expenses. Despite all these, they keep their faith so high,” he shared.

“As part of the Suntrust family, I was so blessed to be given the chance to help these children. As a professional, what I learned is that I should work and strive harder for me to be able to keep my job so it will allow me to continue helping these children even in my own capacity,” Rovelle added.

According to him, “Suntrust’s management constantly practices malasakit. They constantly remind us to have malasakit, I’ve experienced this firsthand since I joined the company 7 years ago and it continues to advocate this noble value inside and outside of the organization.”

Embracing those in need

Suntrust’s Architect Grace Delfin, for her part, learned to embrace those who are in need despite just meeting them for the first time. “Our program gave us the chance to give very personal touch and create positive atmosphere. We embraced each beneficiary and made them feel that there are people who care for them,” she shared.

She shared that at first, she felt that she joined the program just for compliance when they went for an initial visit to Bahay ni Maria, a center for the abandoned elderly but “seeing their condition and hearing stories on how they ended up in that place managed by the nuns gave me a rather new perspective.”

Architect Grace shared that some of their beneficiaries have dementia, others are afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease, while some have had traumatic experiences that they have not recovered from. “This is not something that you do just to comply with our company requirement. It is something we should do because we are in a better position to understand their situation and needs,” she added.

With their activity, Architect Grace realized that sometimes, when one has a successful career and works away from home, “we become complacent, thinking that our family will always be there when we come home and the monetary assistance we send them is enough to show them that we care. We should not be satisfied with that. We also need to be there with them in person and care for them in person,” she explained.

Transformational impact

For Human Resource junior coordinator, Justerini Manalese, the program has a great impact to her as part of the Suntrust family. “As a Suntrustee, I’m proud to say to everyone that my company doesn’t just focus on improving sales and making money but also serving other people who need help and sharing with them the success of our company,” she beamed.

Her team was assigned to refurbish a basketball court in Bahay Pag-asa, a transformational center for minors in conflict with the law. They provided the resident youths with new sports equipment and apparel and donated cash for their education.

“With our CSR program, I learned that there will always be a chance for one to change. Bahay Pag-asa gave these young people a chance to a new beginning, a new life to start. I may not have seen how much this young men tried to change but I felt during the program that they already have changed for the good. I see that they all are moving forward,” Justerini shared.

Indeed, these social outreach projects spearheaded by Suntrust employees and their business partners have not only transformed their beneficiary communities – they also transformed the volunteers on a deeper personal level to help them improve the way they see their own lives and the way they do their jobs.

“I learned that money is not the only solution. We can help those who are in need in so many ways. I learned that we can achieve our goals thru teamwork and that is how we are in Suntrust,” administrative staff Leo Recabar expressed. “I am proud to be called a Suntrustee because the company I belong to takes care of the people who need most”

Indeed, Suntrust is that sun that brightly shines, touching everyone with its empowering rays of transformation and hope.