‘Chinese Ambassador Scholarship’ raises dreams of Filipino students
IN 2013, the China-Philippines relations were at low tide. However, given the geographical neighborhood, time-honored exchanges, close economic relations between China and the Philippines, Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Zhao Jianhua held a firm belief that the Chinese Embassy should try its utmost to keep the China-Philippines friendship warm so as to secure a solid foundation for the turnaround of bilateral relations in the future.
Thus, the Embassy staff launched several initiatives to reach out to marginalized Filipinos. Standing out among all the actions is the “Chinese Ambassador Scholarship” (CAS) to help the outstanding but impoverished Filipino students realize their dreams.
In November 2013, the super typhoon Haiyan ( Yolanda) struck the Philippines, causing a great amount of devastating damage. The number of typhoon victims reached 11.8 million. After visiting the disaster area, Ambassador Zhao decided to set up additional scholarships to help the students in the disaster-stricken areas return to the campus.
Since the end of 2013, the CAS started granting scholarships to selected students from the Philippine Normal University (PNU) and University of the Philippines (UP).
Some 120 PNU students have since benefited from CAS, including Karl Solimpo.
"When I was a teenager, my dream was to become a teacher. And I am thankful for the 'Chinese Ambassador Scholarship' to help me realize my dream!" Karl said.
"I just started studying in PNU in 2013 when Yolanda destroyed my home," Karl said. "At that time, as a student in the disaster-stricken area, I was among the first batch of students who were granted the CAS.”
After all the hard work, Karl is now a lecturer of Environmental and Earth Science at Grace Christian College, a Chinese school close to the Malacañan Palace.
“Thanks to the scholarship, I was able to have a burden-free study for four years. The scholarship funded my tuition and accommodation fees until I successfully completed my studies. Now, I often share my story with my students so that they could know that China’s friendship with the
Philippines is solid and substantial."
Meanwhile, Niel Kenneth F. Jamandre, director of the UP Scholarship and Student Affairs Office, said the CAS is the only ambassador-named scholarship in UP.
UP has also set up a CAS Fund to make full use of the annual income of the P5 million scholarship as the subsidies to help more students. The CAS is open to such majors as law, economics and mass communication. For students who have a grade point average (GPA) not less than 2.5 points (1.0 being the highest) and a family annual income less than P500,000, they are eligible to apply for the CAS. The full CAS grantees receive P45,000 per year. So far, 25 UP students have benefited from the CAS.
Mr. Jamandre said: “The establishment of the CAS has attracted more teachers and students to pay attention to China and make a more objective and independent judgement of what the SinoPhilippine relationship really is.”
Ruth Abegail B. Licong, 19, is a third-year UP Mass Communications student who is interested in pushing forward cultural exchanges among Asian countries. This summer, she participated in the CAS Summer Camp and visited China for the first time, where she saw many famous landmarks such as Great Wall and Forbidden City and visited Miao Village in Guizhou Province.
"The CAS helped me broaden my horizon and improve myself. I experienced the long history and brilliant culture of China, and was touched by the enthusiasm of the Chinese people in the real
light while it is not how the media portrays as aggressive,” she said.
In the past four years, the CAS has invested nearly RMB1.9 million into some universities such as UP and PNU. There were 178 impoverished Filipino students with excellent academic performance that were funded by the scholarship.
The inheritance of the Chinese culture in the new generation of Filipino- Chinese is also the focus of the CAS. Since 2014, Ambassador Zhao has also established the “China Ambassador Fellowship & Scholarship” for Chinese Schools in the Philippines through the Philippine Chinese Education Center.
Center’s Director Huang Duanming said, “The ‘China Ambassador Fellowship & Scholarship’ was granted to the students of different schools in Metro Manila, Luzon and Visayas. Many Filipino Chinese families felt proud of their children that could be granted the CAS.
Currently, among 92 Chinese schools, there have been 140 outstanding high school studentswho received a scholarship of P20,000 per year and 220 impoverished students who received a fellowship of P10,000 per year as well.
The awardees have since embarked on a road of friendly exchanges between China and the Philippines. One of them is Lin, who said that becoming a Mandarin teacher in the Philippines is her dream. Today, she is studying Chinese in Beijing and plans to return to the Philippines to teach Chinese at the Philippine Cultural College in the future.