Chinese New Year Special Supplement
It’s still the sense of community and charity that prevails this Chinese New Year.
The customary street parties, fireworks and dragon dances which used to enliven Manila are prohibited in the city this year. But this has not stopped a number of community organizations from keeping alive the spirit of solidarity, thanksgiving and compassion that have imbued the annual celebration with a deeper meaning beyond the spectacle and merrymaking.
As they prepare for the Year of the Ox festivities this Friday, volunteers of the Taiwan-based charity organization Tzu Chi Foundation have started making sweet bean rice cakes (“tikoy”) from Iloilo muscovado sugar and radish cakes, to sell these delicacies and raise funds for its various missions in the Philippines.
The cakes are baked in a newly renovated commissary at the Buddhist Tzu Chi campus in Sta. Mesa, Manila, and are vacuum-sealed and packed in reusable and environment-friendly bamboo containers handwoven by the indigenous folk of Yunnan, China.
Other products being sold for charity are the “golden kimchi” and the vegetarian sushi bake which have sold well during the pandemic.
Providing relief
The Tzu Chi Foundation in the Philippines, one of this institution’s many international chapters in more than 57 countries, started in 1994 as a charity organization extending humanitarian and medical assistance in the country.
Since June 1 last year, Tzu Chi volunteers around the world were mobilized to join the struggle against the coronavirus pandemic by providing protective gear and other materials in 66 countries and regions.
The local Tzu Chi Foundation started a three monthlong relief operation in August for over 15,300 jeepney drivers and their families.
Earlier, the foundation provided assistance in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Ondoy (international name: Ketsana) in 2009—feeding displaced residents in various evacuation centers, and employing them to clean up their neighborhoods through a “cash for work” program that the foundation continued to carry out in other calamity situations, such as Typhoons Rolly (Goni) and Ulysses (Vamco) last year.
For more information on taking part in the Tzu Chi Foundation’s activities, contact 09177939579.
Responding to the pandemic
Another group endeavoring to make the Chinese New Year significant in this pandemic era is the Anvil Business Club (formerly the Association of Young Filipino-Chinese Entrepreneurs), an organization of entrepreneurs and other professionals age 21 to 50.
The group, one of over 170 associations of the Federation of Filipino Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, is set to donate 2,000 bags of rice for urban poor families as it marks the Year of the Ox.
Wilson Lee Flores, Anvil’s chair, said the donation forms part of their activities for the Chinese New Year.
The group, however, always seeks to rise to any occasion. Last year, at the height of the pandemic,
Two civic groups are marking the Chinese tradition with fundraising and outreach projects
BAGUIO CITY—Hotel owner Peter Ng braced himself for a new round of business losses when Baguio’s second general community quarantine (GCQ) began on Feb. 1.
He said the Chinese-Filipino community’s resources have been strained by the economic impact of the pandemic.
“We were all hurt from the first hard lockdowns last year. Some of us closed our businesses when the well ran dry,” said Ng, chair of the executive committee representing Baguio’s Chinese-Filipino residents.
According to him, he tried to stretch his finances to keep going when they were allowed to gradually open last year but they have kept their struggles under the radar.
And yet, even while trying to keep their business afloat, the city’s Chinese-Filipino community still managed to help feed poor families who were caught off guard by the pandemic last year.
Moreover, the same community is now augmenting the city government’s vaccination plan this year.
A day before the new GCQ took effect, the community donated 250 sacks of rice to a randomly selected 25 villages.
Grateful
On the same day, Ng announced the cancellation of this year’s Spring Festival parade and celebrations to greet the Chinese New Year.
“We had to suspend it (festival) because of the stricter quarantine. We would have wanted to show how grateful we were for [surviving a pandemic] year, and for transitioning into the Year of the Ox,” Ng said.
Last year, the community raised more than P1 million to sustain the food packs delivered to families who were restricted at home.
Ng said the self-sacrifice was fueled by their desire to rescue distressed neighbors, and the more practical need to revive the economy.
Employees’ welfare
“Many of my employees went home to their provinces when my hotel closed. I couldn’t keep them all but I promised they would be welcomed back once business confidence requietly turns,” he said.
Those who stayed but are not residents are living for free near Ng’s hotel, some with their families, until things normalize.
A prominent businessman, who asked not to be named, said Baguio’s Chinese-Filipinos consider foremost the welfare of their employees in making decisions relative to the effects of the pandemic on their businesses.
“If they can sustain their current business losses by using their savings, most of them will,” the businessman said.
He added: “We have reopened most of our businesses to provide jobs even if the limited revenues do not justify their continued operations.”
“Many help the community and without publicity. The acquisition of vaccines by local businessmen through government-accredited channels are being done to hopefully meet any shortfalls,” explained the businessman who belongs to one of Baguio’s oldest Chinese-Filipino clans.
Vaccine pledges
Recently, five leaders of the Chinese-Filipino community pledged P5 million to purchase vaccines, half of which would immunize Baguio residents while the other half would inoculate their employees.
Two freezers capable of storing vaccines at ultra-low temperatures were donated to the city by Baguio businessmen Wilson Angheng and Kenneth So.
Many Baguio old-timers, referred to as “Baguio Builders” for their role in forming the Baguio community, were actually descendants of Cantonese migrants brought in to build Kennon Road in 1903.
Cheap labor from China and Japan augmented Filipino workmen who were hired to connect the American-built summer capital to the Pangasinan railroad leading to Manila.
The importation of Chinese labor was unusual at the time given that the United States’ Chinese exclusion law had been extended to its Philippine colony.
The exclusion law was a political measure enacted in the 1900s to cut off a new wave of Chinese laborers and immigrants who were seen as threats to the job security of their American counterparts in local mines.
Migrants
Some of the Kennon Road crew stayed and married into Ibaloy clans, and the rich culture and farming skills of the Chinese and Japanese migrants were sometimes credited for today’s robust salad vegetable industry in Benguet province, said Ng, quoting the late Dr. Charles Cheng, who published a book about the original Chinese families of Baguio.
Cheng interviewed many descendants of the first Chinese migrants and established that many put up farms when they settled in the region, he said. INQ