Thursday, January 5, 2012

Outpouring Of Support


Friday, December 24, 2011 - Cebu

Day 5/5

Total Transcriptions Solutions, Inc./Cybersoft (TTSI) could only commit for two days. Understandably, this is the nature of volunteerism, and based on my experience they are always time-bound. Chamber of Commerce and Industry Foundation, Inc. of Iligan (CCIFII) president, Emily Pascua, sent me a message asking if we could get more encoding companies to help. There were still some 10,000 records that needed encoding.

On December 21, in the middle of the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections’ (Namfrel) get-together, the staff were encoding corrections on some of the previously entered data by the volunteers at the Iligan Institute of Technology. Edgar Camenting, Josefa AportaderaEdward Torcuato, and visitor Jane Arsenio worked on the records and emailed back the files to us the following day. They, too, could not stay on.

Once again Gigi Virata responded to my SMS saying, “Okay, I will ask the Philippine Software Industry Association again and also the National Information and Communications Technology Confederation of the Philippines.” “Very happy to help. We'll look for more volunteers,” Gigi added. After a few minutes, she asked me to call Ayhee Campos of PacificHub and Wit Holganza, who Gigi said has companies that can help encode.

TTSI/Cybersoft’s Myla Reyes, too, had also engaged fellow members of the Healthcare Information Management Outsourcing Association of the Philippines (HIMOAP). Before the day’s end they had brought in MX Secure, Medicall, Digital Communications and Technological College (Digitech) and Transkripsyo. Also on board and directly coordinating with CCIFII were PacificHub Corporation, Legaspi city-based Southern Luzon Technological College Foundation, Inc. (SLTCFI), and Syntactics, Inc.

Gusto ko motabang mag-encode, I want to help. "My name is Myrna Padilla at dati akong overseas Filipino worker, I used to work abroad. Now, I am based in Davao and I can gather volunteers," Myrna said in our telephone conversation.  Soon after they had hooked up with Emily and her team.  Myrna herself had earlier gone to Iligan to provide relief goods from the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP), her company MyndConsulting, the non-profit OFW Watch, and other organizations in her network.

Department of Education secretary, Bro. Armin Luistro FSC, SMSed, “Hi Telibert. We'll try to find volunteer encoders. Can you send me more details on how we can help? You can email to….” The following day, Michael Lagcao, of the Iligan Bloggers Society and working with Emily, was in communication with the De La Salle University team of Bro. Armin.

Just before the new year, Accenture’s Gil Pinga got in touch and after providing him a brief orientation on the on-going work, I sent Emily a message about Accenture’s support.

The outpouring of generosity was simply inspiring and amazing, don’t you think? I thank God for putting all of us in this privileged position of being able to help His people.

Mabuhi ang nasud nga nagtinabangay! Long live the nation that is helping one another!

1 comment:

  1. Thank you sa inyo Sir Telibert Laoc at Mam Gillian Virata. Dahil sa panawagan ninyo... you are giving us the opportunity to serve.

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