The Philippine Red Cross: 70 years of providing humanitarian service to Filipinos

THE Philippine Red Cross (PRC) has always been there in our midst whenever we are in dire straits. In every emergency situation, calamity, or armed conflict, you can be certain that help is coming your way through the millions of Red Cross volunteers throughout the country.

Since its formal establishment 70 years ago on April 15, 1947, the Philippine Red Cross has emerged as the country’s leading humanitarian organization. Under the watchful eye of its present chairman, Senator Richard J. Gordon, more and more people, especially the youth, are volunteering their services and donors have been more than generous enough to lend a hand to the agency’s cause of alleviating human suffering and helping the most vulnerable sector of Philippine society.

With its track record of effectively delivering the goods and services to our fellow men in need even to the farthest corners of these islands, the PRC indeed deserves all the support it is getting and should receive. For good measure, your trust is worth the while for the PRC has now armed itself with modern, state-of-the-art equipment and facilities, including a newly-bought hospital and disaster response ship which can sail across choppy seas and can haul itself to shore. All these are intended to ensure swift and unhampered transit of aid to critical areas because Chairman Gordon, the man dubbed as the master of disaster, considers each and every Red Cross mission a race against time.

The Philippine Red Cross never leaves a disaster site even when government agencies and other private humanitarian groups have left the area to focus on more recent concerns. The PRC makes sure that its presence lingers until the disaster-stricken community is able to stand on its own feet again and gets a new lease on life.

As Chairman Gordon aptly puts it, “the work of the Red Cross is always a work in constant progress.”

We salute and thank the Philippine Red Cross for its 70 years of “Kusang Loob, Malasakit, at Kapwa Tao,” qualities that demonstrate unselfish dedication to serve the Filipino nation, and for always being there when we need you the most.