Better world community centers for a better PH

In Better World community centers, activities are undertaken in collaboration with different non-government organizations

Tondo, the largest among districts of Manila, occupies an important place in the annals of the country’s history.

It is also the site of Smokey Mountain which for decades symbolized poverty before it became one of the pilot projects in the government’s war against poverty.

Smokey Mountain was then host to a dumpsite, a receptacle of over two million metric tons of waste, until its closure in the early 1990s.

In the commemorative coffee table book Teamwork for Enduring Peace and Sustainable Development, the 10th anniversary book of RPDev (Ramos Peace and Development Foundation, Inc.) that I authored, I wrote:

“Smokey Mountain, for 45 years before FVR, represented the home of the country’s poorest of the poor. Its stark images of barefoot, bony children naked or in decrepit clothes who lived in shanties on top of the dumpsite, scavenging for bottles, housewares, plastics and even spoiled food evoked the image that abject poverty stalked the land…”

“The Ramos Government constructed 21 five-story typhoon and earthquake proof medium rise condominiums, which could shelter 3.520 families at affordable rates….”

Transforming Smokey Mountain into a vibrant residential-industrial complex was undertaken through the Smokey Mountain Development and Reclamation Project (SMDRP). It was a project to promote sustainable development and people empowerment.

This aspiration for sustainable development and people empowerment has remained to this day and is shared by the country’s leading conglomerate, San Miguel Corporation (SMC). To help attain this, it has undertaken initiatives through its various CSR programs.

This year, as it celebrates its 133th anniversary, SMC through the SMC Foundation inaugurated its fifth community center.

The community centers manifest SMC’s unwavering commitment to nation-building and in helping uplift the lives of more Filipinos.

At the launch, SMC President and CEO Ramon S. Ang said the widening skills gap in the country’s disadvantaged communities that hinders their progress is a critical challenge.

RSA is no stranger to Tondo,