Rise and help

THE Covid-19 pandemic has turned the world upside down, wreaking havoc on everyone’s daily lives, especially Filipinos already facing struggles well before the health crisis hit. On the other hand, this situation has also brought out the best in many Pinoys who are rising to all of today’s challenges—and are putting in the extra effort to uplift the lives of their fellow Filipinos.

Photographer Mau Aguasin is one of those people who have stepped up to the plate, swatting at those Covid obstacles and hitting a home run with Project Food Trunk LP. She established this project in Las Piñas City during the enhanced community quarantine, after seeing how the lockdown badly affected people living in the streets.

“In April, as I went around to finish essential errands, I saw homeless people exhausted and uncertain about where to get their next meal,” Agustin tells me. “I told my housemate, who is an amazing cook...i told my housemate about it and we decided to cook healthy meals for them. My thinking was, if we could secure their meals, they would be better equipped to respond to the crisis,” she explains.

Project Food Trunk LP continues to be a daily task for Aguasin and her roommate—and their dream is that their actions also inspire others to open other food trunks in other parts of the country.

“It would be amazing to raise funds for more families and give away more healthy grocery bags for them. We hope to provide for new moms, households with recently unemployed individuals or those whose family members have physical disabilities, and senior citizens for at least another month as they figure out how to adjust to the economical consequences of this pandemic,” explains Aguasin.

As Project Food Trunk LP feeds the hungry among us, Renz Abelita nourishes the minds of the youth. The security guard at a pawnshop in Manila has been conducting informal tutorial sessions on reading and writing for neighborhood kids amid the pandemic.

Abelita has taken it upon himself to assume the role of educator to these children roaming the streets near his place of work, and is using his downtime to improve their literacy. “I thought of teaching the kids living nearby the basics of writing, so that they would learn how to write their own names. I also taught them how to count properly,” Abelita says in Filipino.

The desire to teach comes from Abelita’s unfulfilled dream of becoming a teacher. “There was a time in my life when I wanted to be a teacher. However, life in the province was hard, so I decided to find any job that would enable me to help my family first,” asserts the 23-year-old native of Masbate.

Abelita’s act of kindness went viral on the Internet after someone took a video of him conducting his “classes” during lean hours at the pawnshop. He says this has inspired him to simply continue teaching his “students,” as doing so has helped him maintain a positive outlook despite the hardships brought about by the pandemic.

When public transportation stopped, Abelita says it was difficult for him, at first, to get to work. Using his resourcefulness, and inspired to continue providing for his family, Abelita now borrows bicycles from friends to make it to his post every single day.

“Helping my family and these children keeps me motivated to stay positive,” he avers. Now, he looks forward to teaching his students every day—and this good deed serves as inspiration, too. “Helping others is the least I can do, especially children who now find it hard to continue their education,” he says.

Aguasin and Abelita show how many of us are

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rising to the challenges posed by Covid-19— all while helping others bounce back, too. Both epitomize the Cobra Mentality: the mindset that each Filipino should help his or her neighbor as we all face one of the greatest challenges in history.

Because of their generosity in spirit and positive messaging, Aguasin and Abelita have been chosen by Cobra, the popular energy drink, as the heroes behind its “Bangon Campaign.”

According to Hubert Tan, Cobra’s senior vice president for commercial division, the Bangon Campaign is an initiative that “aims to remind hardworking Pinoys to choose to survive and rise from their struggles.”

Part of the campaign is also a partnership with an online job portal site, as well as e-learning portals, which mostly cater to blue-collar and administrative professions.

The market leader in the energy drink brand category is also working on sponsoring trainings and seminars under the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, or Tesda, that would help the country’s work force acquire new skills necessary for them to adapt to the new and next normal.

“The impact of the pandemic has been felt in many areas and in different industries, with the economic crisis resulting in either loss of livelihood or restriction in mobility because of the quarantine measures in place,” says Tan in an e-mail.

“Cobra would like to be an instrument in bringing hope to Filipinos, and in inspiring solutions that will help empower their innovativeness and openness to learn lifelong learning skills.”

Whatever our status in society, whether rich or poor, able or disabled, young or old, we can all rise and help each other deal with the challenges not just of Covid-19 but also with other difficulties life brings.