Blood flows for Tagle’s bday

Poor patients in need of blood transfusions will be the beneficiaries of a bloodletting drive conducted on Monday in celebration of Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle’s birthday this week.

“The best gift we can give him is extending lives in the form of blood donations. We have to treasure life and show the beauty of it,” said Fr. Sanny de Claro of the Archdiocese of Manila.

Tagle, who was named the 32nd archbishop of Manila in October 2011, will be turning 60 on June 21.

De Claro heads the archdiocese’s human resource development department who organized the bloodletting activity at the Arzobispado building in Intramuros, Manila with poor patients as the target beneficiaries.

“It will depend on the Philippine Red Cross as to where the patients will be coming from, but our mission is to donate blood and give it to poor patients who cannot afford transfusions,” De Claro said. —Julie M. Aurelio