Speech made at Rotary District conference in Baguio

If you are wondering what I said in my speech at the Rotary District Conference in Baguio, then the following is an exact transcript :

"Good afternoon, I am Richard Silvester from the town of Bolton. My full time job in Bolton is working for The Department for Work and Pensions which is part of the British government and deals with social security claims. I am also an elected Councillor on Bolton Council and am in my 8^th year as a Councillor. I am also a former Rotaractor.

Through this group study exchange, I have been able to visit both Quezon City Council and shadowed a Quezon City Councillor and also visited the Social Security System (SSS) and Government Social Insurance System (GSIS) so I have been given the opportunity to see both aspects of my two vocations.

Whilst shadowing Councillor Alex Herrera of Quezon City Council, I visited the Paaralang Elementary Congressman Calalay School and was invited to present graduation certificates to the students at the graduation ceremony.

In the UK and my town of Bolton, we do not do this at a school level and when I return to England, I will be suggesting that we do the same as I saw that the students were really motivated and the students looked beautiful in their white robes.

I was also able to take part in the flag ceremony at Quezon City Hall on a Monday morning at 7am. Again we do not do this in Bolton so it was great to see a band playing and workers from each Council department standing in line whilst the ceremony took place to start the working week. I will suggest to the Mayor of Bolton that we do the same and will see what the answer is.

I was also able to visit the Senate of The Philippines whilst in Manila and as a politician, I was struck that in The Philippines, there are only 24 members of the Senate and in your Congress, you have about 250 members. In the UK, the upper House of Parliament, The House of Lords has over 800 members whilst the lower House of Commons has over 650 members. Perhaps in the UK we need to reduce the numbers of our representatives and in fact in the British Parliament, they cannot all fit into the chamber.

Councillors in The Philippines are also full time positions, whilst in the UK as Councillors, we do our work in our own time and it is voluntary. I completely agree that Councillors should be full time positions and it was good to shadow a Councillor here to see the work involved.

From my visits to the SSS and GSIS government departments to see the work of social security, I was encouraged to see that the work done was almost exactly the same to that of which I do at home. If anything, the computer systems here are much better than the department which I work for as all claim forms are scanned into the computer system. The GSIS also had its own museum and art gallery which was interesting to see.

On the whole, social security in The Philippines faces the same challenges as my own department in the UK in that it runs at a deficit – it does not collect the amount of contributions to that which it pays out so it will be interesting to see how The Philippines government addresses this problem.

Which leads me to introduce my colleague Amy who also works in my town of Bolton and deals with many of the problems in the housing sector."

Visit to see the children of K-N-L - R-V-C Daycare Centre

We visited a daycare centre for children in a deprived area in District 2 of Quezon City. The children were delighted to see us and we kept them entertained by handing out gifts and talking to them. For the children to see foreign guests come to visit them is a real experience and for us as a team it is moving too, to see their smiles and laughter.

The Rotary Club of Quezon City are helping this project through their community initiatives. They do a lot of good work and the Rotarians of this Club looked after us very well. In the evening we went to their Rotary meeting at Club Filipino and made our presentation and we spent a very enjoyable day and evening with them. 

 

Visit to Quezon City landfill and Biogas project

As the team is now back in Quezon City, the Rotary Club of Quezon City (which was the first and original Rotary Club of Quezon City) hosted us for the day. We were shown the Quezon City dump and landfill site and Biogas project. I have to give credit to Quezon City Council at their organised recycling collection of waste and their Biogas project which produces energy from waste. The City Council is rightly proud of their achievements so far in energy production from waste and the amount of materials which are recycled. They certainly have the right attitude and approach and we can learn a few lessons from them in the UK.

Miuch of the recycled is packaged and sent to Co-operatives as well and they sell the materials and the profit goes to local deprived communities.

This for me both as a Co-operative Councillor and a keen recycler was excellent to see and hear about.

Rotary and Rotaract District Conferences in Baguio

I attended both the Rotary and Rotaract District Conferences in Baguio City in the north of The Philippines. Baguio itself was a very nice city up in the mountains and cooler than Metro Mianila.

We were again well looked after by the Rotarians of District 3780 and again I would like to thank them for their hospitality.

 

We stayed in Forest Lodge within Camp John Hey by a nice golf course and Pine forest. We attended the opening ceremony of the Rotary conference in the conference centre within Camp John Hey which was an excellent event and included traditional dancing by the indigenous people of this area which was quite spectacular. There were also speeches from the District Governor 'Penny' and envoy from the World Rotary President who had come from Taiwan.

 

After this opening ceremony I travelled with the Rotaractors who were also present, to their conference at the Hotel Supreme in Baguio City. I was the guest speaker and made a presentation to them regarding my own experiences when I was in Rotaract and President of Horwich & Blackrod Rotaract Club in 1995-1996. The Rotaractors appreciated me coming to speak to them and they presented me with a very nice plaque in return.

Rotaract here is very active and the Rotaractors in this District 3780 are a real credit to the Rotary movement.

 

The next day on the Saturday afternoon, my team made our presentation to the District Conference about our experiences here. I spoke for around 3.5 minutes and it went very well. We also played our Gangdem Style music video which we have made and filmed whilst out here in various locations and it went down a hit with much applause.
 

Saturday evening was the District Governors Ball and I wore a black tie for this event. All of us had much fun dancing and celebrating. The Australian VTT team who were also out here left to go back to Australia directly after the Ball so we all said some sad goodbyes to each other. The Australians when we have met them at joint events have added some 'down under' laughter and culture to our trip - we have got on with them very well - they are really nice people and I enjoyed their company.

 

At around midnight I left the Governors Ball and went to see the Rotaractors again at their own Party still in my black tie. Again they gave me a warm welcome and I spent around an hour celebrating with them at Hotel Supreme.

 

I traveled back to Quezon City with some members of Rotaract and we stopped to have a nice swim in The Philippine Sea on route. The Sea here is nice and warm and clear and is just like getting into a hot bath.

Off to Baguio to talk Roteract

I am on my way to Baguio City which is in the north of The Philippines and in the mountains to attend the Rotary District conference and hopefully also the Rotaract District conference running alongside. At the Rotary Conference my team will be giving a presentation on the trip and what we have learnt. At the Rotaract conference, I hope to speak about my experiences as well. I am a former member and Past President of Rotaract in Bolton. I was President of Horwich & Blackrod Rotaract Club (now dissolved) in 1995-1996. Rotaract is the junior arm of Rotary for ages 18-30 so it will be good to see what Rotaract is up to here in The Philippines and what projects they are involved with. Unfortunately back at home in District 1280, Rotaract has seriously declined since I was a member with only a couple of Cubs left so it will be interesting to see what their secret of success is here in attracting young people to get involved. I do hope that Rotary in District 1280 and indeed throughout RIBI, will try to sponsor more Rotaract Clubs before it dies completely.

Corregidor and war memorial

A day trip to Corregidor Island was organised by the Rotary Club of Balintawag in Quezon City. Two Rotarians, Club President Tony and new member Richard accompanied us. Corregidor Island is located in the Bay of Manila, 26 miles from Manila and has strategic locality. In the Second World War the island changed hands several times between the Americans and Japanese and some significant fighting took place for control. We were shown many of the sites on the island which included bombed out barracks, gun and battery locations, war cemetery sites and tunnels. President Quezon and his family were evacuated here along with the Gold reserve of The Philippines in WW2. The team laid a wreath to all of the war dead at the main Pacific War Memorial which is located here. Many lives were lost by each side during the Second World War defending and attacking this tiny island because of its strategic importance and we were told that because Japanese troops were held up by 5 months instead of 5 weeks as predicted by the Japanese in taking this island, that the invasion of Australia was halted because of this. I found the day trip to this little island very enjoyable and the fast boat to the island a nice experience.

Special Action Force and talking Fairtrade with an organic co-operative

I had a great visit to The Philippine Police Special Action Force. On arrival I was greeted by some of the top officers of the SAF dressed in green army style uniforms. I was taken into the conference room and sat facing the officers across the conference table. A video was played showing hostage situations, officers on an assault course, speeding along in boats etc like they were our SAS.

                                                                       

Outside a tank as lined up and officers in combat gear and another section in riot gear stood to attention. I was invited to inspect them and each shouted out his name, rank and equipment he carried to perform his duties. I was then invited to the firing range to try out some of their weapons. I tried out a UMB assault rifle and hit the target dead centre several times. The officer instructor seemed very pleased with my performance. I have never used a weapon like this before or indeed any type of gun and I don’t advocate the use of guns in general. It was an interesting experience to see the guns used by this Special Action Force however because as we all know, Police forces around the world unfortunately have to deal with hostage situations and be trained properly to deal with such circumstances.

 Later in the day I was in the more relaxed setting of an organic farm and had a very nice lunch of all kinds of organic produce from a farming Co-operative. As a Co-operative Councillor, I am always pleased to see people working together for the good of their community via Co-operatives. A few days before departing for this trip, Bolton Council celebrated its 10^th anniversary of being a Fair Trade town and I have been promoting Fair Trade wherever the opportunity has arisen. At this organic Co-operative interest was shown by the Chairman of the Co-operative in becoming Fair Trade recognised and I will facilitate putting people in touch with each other. The Philippines has many Banana, Pineapple, Mango and Coffee producers however few are Fair Trade recognised despite being Co-operatives. I hope more can be done in this respect and some funding help for Co-operatives if possible.

A visit was organised to Eastwood Police Station which is within Quezon City. The Police Major in charge of the station duly toured us around the various sections and the Police officers were very pleased to see us. It was interesting to see that they had a women’s and children’s desk and a dedicated officer for any abuse experienced by either or both women and children.