January 21, 2010

I've been figuring out how am i gonna start this blog. My mind has been focused on Alfonso, Cavite - my hometown in the Philippines where I want to retire but it has been on hold due to personal matters here in USA. There is no question about retiring in Alfonso after more than 30 years raising my family in the USA. It is a matter of spending my golden years where I grew up - my old country and my own people. There are no regrets about my spending 36 years in a foreign country which enabled me and my family to live a very exciting and rewarding life. I am very fortunate to now have an option to live a new challenge unmindful of whatever happens in the future.

I have been preparing for this since 2004 when my younger brother was elected as the Mayor of Alfonso. We share the same ideals and goals to make a difference in the lives of the people of our hometown. I took the opportunity to create the USA based Alfonso Charitable Foundation which took more than a year to realize. It's main recipient was our hometown - the motto; "One town at a time". For the next 2 years, with the support of my college friends and many "kababayans", and my personal money, we succeeded in raising funds and delivered donations such as medicines, books, computers, shoes, refrigirators for barangay clinics, seed money and tools for some start-up cooperatives. My personal time and transportation expenses going back and forth from the States and Alfonso came from my own pocket. My wife thought I was crazy at first but after she saw the fruit of our labor, she even donated a lot of her own real estate commissions.

The Foundation is not without controversy. It created a lot of criticisms from some detractors and accused me of politicizing the organization because my brother is the mayor. My brother's political opponent even tried to use the Foundation in his campaign that the organization is a fake and just a family foundation. I figured somebody checked the SEC and did not find it's existence. They were right because I went to the SEC to register it in the Philippines. All I got was runaround and the typical government bureaucracy that I left very exasperated without any registration. The Foundation did not really need any since it is fully registered in the US as a 501(c)(3) foundation and Alfonso is just a recipient without intention to raise funds from the Philippines. Alfonso never asked for a registration every time we delivered donations.

To be continued...