Miracle of light: Regular workers turn back the night

GUIDING LIGHT INQUIRER president and CEO Sandy Prieto-Romualdez (right) helped arrange the solar night lights assembled by INQUIRER employees during the Hands On Manila’s Servathon event. Around 250 solar-powered night lights from Saturday’s event would benefit Supertyphoon “Yolanda” victims in Iloilo, where several areas remain in the dark. JOAN BONDOC

MANILA, Philippines–Wearing a mouth cover and gloves, Jovic Yee held the soldering iron in his right hand as he aimed to put pressure on a thin piece of lead wire that he was holding in his other hand.

As soon as the hot tip of the tool touched the wire, a drop of lead fell on a small rectangular piece on the table, making him yell in excitement.

“This is life-changing!” said Yee, editorial production assistant of the Inquirer, his eyes glued to what would be a circuit board that would help light up one narrow cylindrical bulb.

Yee was one of 400 participants from different companies at last Saturday’s Hands On Manila’s Servathon, an event put together by the nongovernment organization in collaboration with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) and My Shelter Foundation for the benefit of victims of Super Typhoon “Yolanda.”

Leading Yee’s team was Inquirer president and chief executive officer Sandy Prieto-Romualdez, who saw to it that the solar-powered night lights were successfully assembled by the Inquirer employees. After the employees were done, she arranged the solar lamps on the team’s table.

No experience

The corporate volunteers had little or no experience at all in assembling solar night lights. In fact, except for employees of One Meralco Foundation, the volunteers were employed in companies that specialized in fields that had nothing to do with light production.

But each corporate pair, with the assistance of an individual trained by Tesda in the assembly of solar night lights, managed to make a cylindrical bulb light up during the event at the Tesda headquarters in Taguig City.

Volunteers

Patrice Tan, Hands On Manila vice president, said the corporate groups were from the Inquirer media group, the Romulo and MOSTLaw law firms, and the business process outsourcing companies QBE and Wells Fargo.

She said other volunteers included those from Far Eastern University, BPI Foundation and LBC Foundation.

“We are very satisfied [with the turnout of the event]… Filipinos are really inherently helpful,” Tan said.

“We feel really good… We were able to do this. Imagine, we are office workers and we were able to make [a bulb light up]. We only use ball pens, computers, papers. And now we are holding a soldering gun,” said Denny Pasaporte of BPI Foundation.

Mary Rose Comon of Concepcion Carrier, an air-conditioner manufacturing company, said she was ecstatic that the solar night light she and her volunteer partner assembled was a success “and it didn’t explode!”

By the end of the day, Sonia S. Lipio, director of special projects of Tesda’s Office of the Director General, said the volunteers would have come out with around 250 solar night lights.

For Tacloban

She said the units would be shipped by My Shelter Foundation to Iloilo, parts of which were “somehow neglected because the concentration of [light distribution] was in Tacloban.”

With one solar light per family, 250 families would benefit from the project, Lipio said.

Apart from serving as a vehicle to help those in need, Tan said the event also helped “raise awareness” about volunteer work.

“Our goal is to make sure each person leaves Tesda feeling they’ve done something good and they would want to seriously consider doing more volunteer work in the future,” she said.

“We’re counting on the corporate volunteers here to spread the word that volunteering is worthwhile, it’s fun, and it’s gratifying,” she said.