32nd National Milo Marathon Elimination Held in Roxas City

The Rotary Club of Roxas hosted for the fourth straight year the National Milo Marathon Elimination in Roxas City last Sunday, July 13, 2008. Even just a few weeks following the onslaught of the super typhoon, the club was able to muster 6,704 runners to run the 3K, 5K and 21K races. Past President and Protocol Officer Mark Ortiz was the club’s over all coordinator for the event.
Mayor Bermejo firing the starting gun with Pres Pip and a Nestle official
Roxas City Mayor Vicente “Vic” Bermejo fired the starting gun at exactly 6 o’clock in the morning beside the Roxas City Hall at the City Plaza.
21K winner Rene Desuyo at the top with Mayor Bermejo, PP MArk Ortiz, Pres Pip and a Nestle official
Rene Desuyo of Bago City, Negros Occidental won the 21-kilometer elimination for males, while Hanny Jean Delfin, a native of Roxas City, won the 21K elimination for women. Both, together with the other top 3 contenders will compete in the marathon finals on November 30 in Metro Manila.
One of the highlights of the marathon is the cheering competition for elementary and secondary schools. This year, Culasi Elementary School bested 6 other elementary schools in the City while, Tanque National High School bested the Filamer Christian College in the secondary schools competition. Judges in this years cheering competition were Rotarian Doctors Leah del Rosario, Cherry Anne Distor and Richie Olandres.
Judges of the cheering competition
The Capiz National High School won this year’s biggest delegation awards.
The awarding ceremonies were held at the Roxas City band stand with Mayor Bermejo, PP Mark Ortiz, RC Roxas President Pip Acepcion and Nestle officials headed by AVP Pat Goc-ong.
This yearly Milo Marathon is a continued partnership between Nestle and the Rotary Club of Roxas as part of the club’s avenue of vocational service.

FIRST SECTIONAL SEMINAR HELD

The Rotary Club of Roxas was able to muster the first ever sectional seminar on addressing the issue of child mortality just before the induction and turn-over ceremonies.
It was a luncheon symposium held at the Provincial Health Office Conference Room attended by members of the Rotary Clubs of Roxas, Metro Roxas, Metro Roxas Central, and Kalibo. Several Municipal Health Officers were also in attendance. There was a very good exchange of ideas among the participants with our resource person Dr. Jaime Galvez Tan.

45TH INDUCTION OF OFFICERS AND TURN OVER CEREMONIES HELD

The 45th Induction and Turn-Over Ceremonies were held last July 5, 2008 in a formal ceremony at the Hall of Governors. The affair was very well attended by other Rotary Clubs in the City as well as from Aklan, Iloilo, and Negros Occidental.
Rotary VIPs who graced the occasion were Past District Governor Phil Abello, who was inducting officer the night, Assistant District Governor Dr. Carmelo Deslate, District Secretary Bill dela Fuente, Past President and District Officer Louie Gonzaga, District Director for Fellowship and President of RC Kalibo Megs Lunn, President of RC Metro Kalibo Rod Solidum, President of RC Central Iloilo Richard Angeles, President Nonoy Contreras of RC Metro Roxas, and President Chit Noche of RC Metro Roxas Central.
Guest of Honor, former Health Secretary Dr. Jaime Galvez Tan delved on the thrust of the Rotary International President DK Lee of reducing Under 5 mortalities. He stressed the point that Rotarians in Region 6 should take extra effort in improving maternal health through health education inorder to lower infant mortalities. The region is incidentally on the red line as far as infant mortalities are concerned, which is above the 40% national average.
The Rotarians and guests partied ‘til the wee hours of the morning, enjoying each others fellowship. With overflowing drinks, some jammed with the live band and even extended the party at the Chill bar, owned and managed by Rotarian Rey Fuentes where people sang their hearts out in a very lively videoke party until 4 AM the next day!
The Rotary Club of Roxas is definitely off with a big bang and hopefully will be together in their pursuit of making dreams real for the children of the world.

RC ROXAS MEMBERSHIP NOW 41

Ten new young and quality members of varied professional classifications were inducted to the Rotary Club of Roxas during the 45th Induction and Turn-Over Ceremonies held last July 5, 2008 at the Hall of Governor’s of the Capiz Provincial Capitol. This makes the clubs membership grow to 41 which, according to President Pip Acepcion, is past their quota for 2009.
The new members inducted include Board Member Raymund Locsin of the 1st District of Capiz, pediatrician allergologist/immunologist Dr. Cherry Anne Distor, , Petroleum distributor and the son or past district governor Gabi Viterbo Mr. Mati Viterbo, pediatric orthopedic surgeon Dr. Richie Olandres, Printing Press Owner and Manager Mr. Raymund Malapajo, Chief Superintendent Pancho de la Cruz of the Bureau of Fire Protection, Printing Press Part Owners and Manager Gabi Ignacio and Trina Almalbis-Ignacio, brilliant young and upcoming lawyer Atty. Albert Potato, and Insurance Company Manager Mr. Gudz Gudin.They were inducted by President Pip Acepcion, as his first official responsibility for his term. The charging of new members were done by no less than the District Secretary Bill de la Fuente

TYPHOON FRANK RELIEF OPERATIONS: An Extraordinary Display of "Service Above Self"

The recent super typhoon Frank caught the island of Panay off guard and has claimed hundreds of lives, left thousands homeless, and has placed most areas in severe disaster. While the country’s official weather bureau is reporting that the typhoon’s course will not hit land, strong wind and almost 24 hours of rainfall, flood and mud wrecked havoc to the provinces of Capiz, Iloilo and Aklan, with the latter two receiving the worst blow.

In Capiz, about 90% of houses in the coastal areas were destroyed, several municipalities were flooded including some barangays in the outskirts of the city. Electric power was gone for about 2 days in the city proper due to several fallen trees and electric posts.

The day after the typhoon, text messages were circulated by incoming service projects director Leah del Rosario and incoming secretary Raoul Bermejo coordinating on a possible relief operations and just before sunset, we found ourselves braving the knee-deep flood to barangay Punta Cogon, barangay Dumolog and Cogon bringing with us rice, noodles, sardines and bread. The next day, some 10 Rotarians went to distribute goods to barangay Barra and Libas, despite the hardly passable roads due to several fallen trees and light posts along the way.

Treasurer and incoming sec Raoul was a bit worried about our club’s finances at launching relief operations, but the Rotarians persisted by chipping in money just to give aid to those in need. On the first day of operations, we had a total of 16000 pesos cash including pledges and in a matter of two days, donations swelled to reach around 100,000 pesos excluding donations in kind.

The Rotary Club of Roxas also went to the island barangay of Olotayan where the destruction in terms of infrastructures were at its worst. Along with GMA Kapuso, and the Capiz Medical Society, we were able to distribute three bags of goods per family.

President Rod Solidum of RC Metro-Kalibo got in touch with the club asking for support since Aklan was heavily affected. We sent an initial help of 10 5-gallon drinking water, and in two days, a group of Rotarians, on board a firetruck, went to bring a truckload of potable drinking water to Numancia, the town of President Megs of RC Kalibo, and to Kalibo through President Rod Solidum. Last Monday, another group of Rotarians from RC Roxas brought another firetruck-load of drinking water and 300 bags of food stuff which were distributed through the local Rotary clubs in the area. It was a painful sight to see people from all walks of life getting in line to avail of free goods of what should have been their basic necessity – water and food.

“Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage”, as the old adage goes. Typhoon Frank definitely has shown the extraordinary character of the members of the Rotary Club of Roxas… of selfless service and social responsibility.

45TH INDUCTION AND TURN-OVER CEREMONIES OF THE ROTARY CLUB OF ROXAS TONIGHT

The Rotary Club of Roxas will be holding its 45^th Induction of Officers and Turn-Over Ceremonies tonight at the Hall of Governors with former Health Secretary Dr. Jaime Galvez Tan as Guest of Honor.

Past District Governor Phil Abello will be the nights inducting officer. Other Rotarian VIPs coming are District Governor-Elect Edgar Sy, District Secretary Bill de la Fuente, Past President Louie Gonzaga, and the Presidents and incoming presidents of neighboring clubs.

Dr. Jaime Galvez Tan will talk on Strategies of Reducing Infant and Under Five Mortalities in a luncheon sectional seminar with the same title. This will be held at the Provincial Health Office-Capiz Conference Room in Arnaldo Boulevard. This will be on of the first of a series of workshops that is being planned by the club to help guide the new team of officers and directors of possible projects directed towards this thrust.

President Dong Kurn Lee the new Rotary International President has committed himself to projects geared towards reduction of Child Mortality, and he is urging all Rotary Clubs to work along this line.

IP Pip Meets With RC Waxahachie Texas and Warner Center Rotary, Los Angeles

IP Pip Acepcion was in the United States for almost the past 3 weeks for a convention but skipped the Rotary International Convention by just a few days. Instead, he met with individual Rotary Clubs along his way home!

Last June 29, IP Pip had a chance to meet with the Rotary Club of Waxahachie, Texas where he was welcomed by IP Edwin Farrar and some forty club members. It was the clubs regular lunch meeting at the Waxahachie Civic Center. IP Pip had a taste of authentic Mexican Food and was given a 5 minute chance to talk about the Rotary Club of Roxas and its activities. He was presented with the club's banner to bring home.

On June 3, IP Pip had a breakfast meeting with the Warner Center Rotary Club in Los Angeles California. It was a fairly young club, chartered 8 years ago, with a couple of younger members as well. Talking of a few incidental similarities, the Warner Center Rotary Club is also a recipient of 5 district awards during their district conference, foremost are their International service awards wherein they have partnered with several Rotary Clubs in the third world. IP Pip was welcomed by President Tina Wilinski and about 10 members including IP Andy Keowen. IP Pip again talked about RC Roxas and the audience were quite impressed with the present projects and future plans. They voiced out intentions to be closely working with RC Roxas for any partnerships, ie. matching grants. IP Pip was presented with a bag of roast coffee which was labeled Warner Center Rotary Blend. This is one of their fundraising projects that has raised funds for all their international undertakings. It costs $9 per pound.

Details of IP Pip's trip will be related to us personally when he gets back on June 10.