HK raises P66M for ‘ultrapoor’ Filipinos

By: Philip C. Tubeza - 10 years ago

The 10th International Care Ministries Hong Kong banquet had raised HK$11.5 million (P66.4 million) that will go to ICM programs for the estimated seven million “ultrapoor” Filipinos who live on less than P22 a day. JOAN BONDOC

HONG KONG—This banquet raised millions of pesos for Filipinos who can’t even afford a plate.

While the street protests here continued Friday night, members of the business community gathered at the iconic Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai to raise funds for the estimated seven million “ultrapoor” Filipinos who live on less than P22 a day.

By the end of the evening, the 10th International Care Ministries (ICM) Hong Kong banquet had raised HK$11.5 million (P66.4 million) that will go to ICM programs in 10 places in Palawan, Panay, Negros, Cebu, Bohol, the Zamboanga Peninsula and Central Mindanao.

“We are changing lives in the Philippines tonight!” said auctioneer Kristine Fladeboe Duininck, the 2010 top female auctioneer in the United States, as one donor after another gave US$100,000, US$50,000 and US$25,000.

The charity event raised funds through on-the-spot donations and by auctioning off trips such as a 10-night stay for two at the Six Senses Con Dao resort in Vietnam.

It also offered a luxury African safari in Botswana, a vacation in a newly restored farmhouse in Tuscany and a four-night stay in a private island in the Maldives.

Artwork donated by renowned artists such as Filipino sculptors Ramon Orlina and Daniel de la Cruz, Spanish-Filipino painter Juvenal Sanso and even local pop diva Kuh Ledesma were auctioned off.

According to ICM, an estimated 25 million Filipinos are mired in “extreme poverty,” or those who live on less than US$1.25 (around P56) a day.

The group focuses on those at the very bottom or the “ultrapoor” who live on less than US$0.50, or P22 a day.

David Sutherland, chair of ICM’s board of directors, used to be the chief financial officer of Morgan Stanley Asia but he left his job to focus on ICM’s poverty-alleviation efforts.

“The average ultrapoor person earns only an average 26 cents (around P12) per day. Fifty-four percent of these people live in cramped homes. Now I know in Hong Kong, we live in cramped homes,” Sutherland told those present.

“(But) the average persons in these cramped homes have less than 10 square feet per person. That means if you’re living in a flat that’s 2,000 square feet, you have enough room to accommodate 200 Filipinos in your 2,000 square foot flat,” he said.

Sutherland said ICM had gathered 27 million data points in their research about Philippine poverty since 2010 and they have discovered that 54 percent of the ultra-poor “don’t purify their drinking water, 41 percent have no electricity, 28 percent have dirt floors and 27 percent defecate outside.”

“Twenty-seven percent go to bed hungry on a regular basis while 13 percent of ICM participants say they are seriously ill at any given moment and 24 percent of all of ICM mothers say they have had one of their children die,” he said.