JCI Senate Philippines relaunches TOFIL Award
After a break of two years, Junior Chamber International (JCI) Senate Philippines relaunched the iconic The Outstanding Filipino Award (TOFIL) in ceremonies last June in Club Filipino, this time with a new corporate partner — ANSA Foundation.
The TOFIL Award is bestowed by the JCI Senate Philippines to Filipino men and women over 41 years of age who have distinguished themselves in their respective professions and callings and widely recognized for their contributions to society and national development.
Started in 1988 by JCI Senate Philippines in corporate partnership with Insular Life, the TOFIL Award was intended to be a complement to the Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) awards for Filipinos 35 years and younger (later adjusted to 40 years).
JCI Senate is a select group of JCI members worldwide who in recognition of their outstanding achievements and contributions to the JCI movement are awarded lifetime titles as JCI senators. Only about one percent of the five million strong members of the JCI movement since 1939 have been awarded this life membership.
JCI senators organize themselves into national organizations. JCI Senate Philippines is one of the oldest national chapters.
Among the ranks of previous TOFIL awardees were Jaime Cardinal Sin; Chief Justices Marcelo Fernan and Hilario Davide Jr.; humanitarians Rosa Rosal and Antonio Meloto; Lucrecia Kasilag and Andrea Veneracion in culture and arts, and Efren Reyes in sports.
Also in the list of awardees are banker George Ty; construction industry leader David Consunji; entrepreneur Robert Kuan; Fe del Mundo and Perla Santos Ocampo in medicine; Florangel Braid and Crispin Maslog in development communication; Corazon Santos dela Paz in accountancy; Dioscoro Umali in agriculture; Gelia Castillo in social sciences; Amador Mariel in Physics.
Most recent awardees were geologist Mahar Lagmay; public works secretary Rogelio Singson and forest products engineer Arsenio Ella.
ANSA Foundation Starting 2016, the corporate partner of JCI Senate Philippines in the TOFIL project is ANSA Foundation led by its president Anthony Philip Nocom and yours truly as Chairman. ANSA Foundation is the legacy of spouses Antonio Nocom and Susana Ang. The founder Antonio Nocom was a pioneer cattle farmer and a founding director of the Federation of Cattle Raisers of the Philippines.
In the 1970s, Antonio Nocom operated a modern 4,000-head cattle ranch in South Cotabato. Recognizing the need for an outstanding breed of cattle adapted to humid tropics and with resistance to tick parasites and other tropical livestock pests and diseases, he imported the best breeding lines of the American Brahman breed of cattle from Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, USA. These constituted the foundation of the Asian-acclimatized ANSA breeding line of American Brahmans which to date is the country’s only source of registered animals for local cattle upgrading and for exports.
Very generously and far sightedly, Nocom welcomed scientists from the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) to his cattle ranch in South Cotabato to conduct pioneering research in artificial insemination and in vitro reproduction, cattle genetics, tropical pastures and veterinary science. These studies were conducted at private expense with hardly any government support. For two decades (1970-1990) ANSA Farm became virtually a University of the Philippines experiment station.
For his selfless dedication to and support for the modernization of the Philippines agriculture, Nocom was accorded the rare honors of being an Honorary Fellow of the Philippine Society of Animal Science and of the Crop Science Society of the Philippines. Later he was inducted into the UP Los Baños Alumni Association as its first honorary member.
Leading the 2016 TOFIL Awards Organizing Committee is JCI Senate Philippines national president Rogelio V. Garcia of General Santos City and veteran JCI Senator Ramon dela Rosa Nanadiego.
Nomination forms for the 2016 TOFIL Awards may be obtained from Arline Cayme de Jesus of the JCI Senate Philippines office, telephone 02-374-4390; 0949-994-6649 and 0977120-2678.
Deadlines for nominations is 30 September 2016.
*** Dr. Emil Q. Javier is a Member of the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) and also Chair of the Coalition for Agriculture Modernization in the Philippines (CAMP). For any feedback , email eqjavier@yahoo.com.