Happy to receive, happier to give

For 73-year-old Japanese businessman Katsutoshi Shimizu, weekly visits to—and relentless offers of merienda (snacks) at—Batangas schools meant higher sugar levels.

“I’d tell [the teachers] I just had my snack or still full, but they still encouraged me to eat or even taste the food, since this is to show Filipino hospitality. So I ate and ate and ate each time I visited their school,” said Shimizu.

“What happened to me now? My diabetes got worse. As part of your hospitality, please give me also medicine each time I eat,” joked the used-ships trader, who has been doing business in the Philippines since 1969.

Such is a happy consequence of the brand of hospitality in the land that Shimizu considers his second home. And he has made a vow to reciprocate.

As a storm battered Batangas with the rest of Southern Luzon on Wednesday last week, Shimizu and representatives from the Japanese Embassy handed over a six-classroom single-story school building to Philippine education officials at the Venancio Trinidad Sr. Memorial High School in Talisay, Batangas.

Building more

Shimizu promised to build at least 20 more school buildings in the next three years. Two-classroom buildings are now under construction at the Carretonan Elementary School and Carlosa Elementary School in Calatagan, Batangas.

“Three years??? I can read your mind now… [you’re thinking] hurry na, hurry na, no more time na… Is this correct? Don’t worry. Even after I patay, my son will take over. He will continue what I have started,” Shimizu said in half jest.

The schools were built through a P7.4 million grant from Shimizu’s R.K. Shimizu (Nagasaki) Foundation, Inc., with labor and construction assistance from the Armed Forces National Development Support Command’s 51st Engineering Brigade.

It had been Shimizu’s birthday wish to hand over the schools in his birth month (he turned 73 on July 13).

“Usually we are happy if we receive gifts like these schools … But you will realize that you are happier if you are the one who gives. So, if you are happy to receive my gifts, then I am the happiest man in the Philippines today,” said Shimizu.

His donation came with disaster-resilient chairs and tables from Shimizu’s native Nagasaki prefecture. The businessman also gave the school six LCD television sets.

“When you build a classroom, you also build the foundation for lasting friendship between our two countries,” said Education Secretary Armin Luistro in accepting the donation.

The official especially admired Shimizu’s resolve to make good his word to help Batangas schools even as his homeland reeled from a triple disaster that struck in March.

“I told Mr. Shimizu that the Philippine government would understand if he’d have to help rebuild his country first,” said Luistro.

Working with limited funds, the education department is struggling to address a classroom shortage of roughly 60,000, and has been tapping the private sector and local government units to do their share in curbing the backlog.