Bond girl’s mission: Homes for the poor

BRITISH-FILIPINO actress and model Rachel Padua Grant with grandparents Ceferino and Nellie Padua at the couple’s home in Parañaque City, where wall clippings show she definitely has avid fans this side of the globe. LYN RILLON

She once played a hot Bond girl named “Peaceful Fountains of Desire.” Off-cam, she plays a role without the fanfare in her family’s mission: To help Filipinos build homes they can call their own.

Despite a hectic schedule, a British-Filipino actress and model remains involved in a family-run charity in Metro Manila that has been building houses for the poor since 2007.

Rachel Padua Grant—whose resume includes partnering with Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond in “Die Another Day,” playing body double for Angelina Jolie in “Tomb Raider,” and flashing her martial arts skills in TV action serials—recently visited the country to grace celebrity events as well as monitor projects of Padua Charitable Foundation (PCF).

Her schedule included photo-shoots, TV appearances, and sitting as judge in the Miss Earth Philippines pageant last month. Upon arriving in Manila for a three-week stay, however, Grant went straight to a PCF-assisted Gawad Kalinga (GK) community in El Dorado, Parañaque City.

There, grateful residents— and instant fans—greeted the energetic Grant, whose father is a British medical doctor of royal lineage and whose Filipino mother comes from a prominent Ilocano family.

“The people were nice. You know everyone wants to take a picture, but no one says so!” she said in an Inquirer interview on Tuesday. “But it’s comforting to be with those people. I think it’s because of my Filipino blood.”

About a dozen houses in El Dorado are now rising with PCF’s help, in cooperation with GK. The foundation also sponsored the construction of a multipurpose hall and two classrooms with a library in the area, using a P1-million donation from a Singaporean bank in the aftermath of Tropical Storm “Ondoy” in 2009.

PCF is also funding the construction of 12 more houses in Sapang Maligaya, also in Parañaque.

“The foundation, registered in the United Kingdom where my mother is based, solicits funds from donors in the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada, among others. We use these funds to help communities in Parañaque,” said Grant, who serves as PCF’s publicist.

According to the “trivia” section of her website, Grant’s grandfather Raymond, Baron de Longueuil, was a cousin of the reigning Queen Elizabeth of England, while her paternal great-grandmother, Ernestine Maud Bowes-Lyon, was the Queen Mother’s cousin.

That makes her a third cousin of Princes William and Harry.

Out of tragedy

Rachel was also crowned Miss Hawaiian Tropic–Great Britain in 1998 and has an IQ of 140, the site added.

“I really don’t get to mingle with my royal cousins, but I’ve been wanting to write a letter, especially to Prince Charles, to tell him about my family connection, and that if he ever comes to the Philippines, we would be happy to tour him around to show the good work the Padua Foundation has done,” she said.

While it brings joy to many families today, the foundation was actually conceived in the wake of a family tragedy, when her mother, Isabel, lost two siblings—Regino III and Ceferino Jr.—to disease.

“It was around that time that my mother’s two younger brothers passed away. My mother was heartbroken, and she couldn’t believe she spent most of her life away from the Philippines and had not fulfilled her promise to return and retire here,” Grant said.

“So she thought of establishing this charity, doing it together with us, to help other people and in the process bring the family together and soothe the heartache,” she added.

Today, the foundation receives an average of $100 from donors every week and is focusing on three areas of concern: Housing, education and healthcare. It works mainly in cooperation with Gawad Kalinga.

Incentives to study

“For education, we currently support 30 students from El Dorado and Sapang Maligaya. We give them money for transportation as an incentive to go to school every day,” she said.

The charity also brings English teachers to the two communities during weekends to teach the residents for free.

It also accepts donations for people seeking medical treatment.

Grant admitted that it was not always smooth-sailing for PCF. “One of the streets leading to the El Dorado settlement always gets flooded, for example,” she said. “When we tried to bring it to the attention of the government, no one reacts. The problem hasn’t been solved.”

It has been quite easy for the foundation to solicit donations from British, Canadian and American sponsors. Filipinos, on  the other hand, “tend to support our projects in other ways, like volunteering their time, giving food and transport and other nonmonetary contributions, which are also very much needed,” she said.

Grant said she would like to be more hands-on in her future visits to the beneficiary communities. “We like to teach the children various arts like painting. We want to inspire them to become more than what they are now.”