Department of Foreign Affairs
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P R E S S  R E L E A S E

SFA-AGR-733-04                                                                                                                                              09  November  2004
 
PHILIPPINE EMBASSY IN KUALA LUMPUR SOLICITS 25 CLASSROOMS FOR CGMA PROGRAM

09 November 2004 – Secretary of Foreign Affairs Alberto G. Romulo welcomed the most recent donation of 25 classrooms to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s Classroom Galing Mamamayang Pilipino Abroad (CGMA) Project by a Kuala Lumpur-based NGO. “I am very delighted with the overwhelming support for the Program that we have been getting through our Philippine Foreign Service Posts and the expatriate Filipino community. The donations for classrooms pouring in from abroad, the latest one being this bulk of 25 classrooms from an NGO in Kuala Lumpur, would mean a lot to thousands of Filipino schoolchildren. Every donation made is a step toward securing a brighter future for Filipino children,” Secretary Romulo said.

The Philippine Embassy in Kuala Lumpur reported to Secretary Romulo that the Council of Peoples for the United Nations (WCPU), an NGO based in Kuala Lumpur, remitted the amount US$99,980.00 (approximately PhP5.6 M) to the CGMA Trust Account with the Development Bank of the Philippines on 25 October 2004. The amount will finance the construction of 25 classrooms in the provinces of Batangas, Pampanga and Zambales, among other locations in the Philippines under the CGMA Program.

WCPU is a member of the Executive Committee of Non-Governmental Organizations Associated with the Department of Public Information (NGO/DPI) of the United Nations in New York. The Kuala Lumpur-based NGO has an ongoing program in different parts of the Asian region, focusing on street children, education, as well as women and underage workers.

According to the Philippine Embassy’s Chargé d’Affaires Luis T. Cruz, the sizeable donation was made through the efforts of the Embassy's Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) headed by Labor Attaché (LabAtt) Brenda Villafuerte, who presented the project proposal to WCPU Vice President for Asia Operations Mr. Leo Van Vogel. LabAtt Villafuerte then arranged Mr. Vogel's meeting with DOLE Undersecretary Manuel Imson and Assistant Secretary Jeffrey D. Cortazar in mid-October 2004 in Manila to discuss the participation of WCPU in the donate-a-classroom campaign of the Philippine government under the CGMA Program. The meeting resulted in WCPU’s donation of US$99,980 for the 25 classrooms.

LabAtt Villafuerte added that there would be a follow-up meeting to be held in the latter part of November this year to discuss WCPU’s greater participation in assisting other DOLE-related projects concerning the marginalized youth, especially street children to find their way back into the mainstream of society.

Prior to his Manila visit, Mr. Vogel also assured LabAtt Villafuerte that WCPU would assist the Philippine Embassy’s computer literacy program for OFWs by upgrading the existing computers at the Filipino Workers Resource Center-Skills Training Program (FWRC-STP). A broadband-based Local Area Network will be provided to enable all the computers to be online and Internet-ready for 24 hours. The first year broadband subscription will be paid for by WCPU.

The CGMA is a donate-a-classroom project of the DOLE in collaboration with the DepEd and DFA, as well as the Federation of Filipino Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. Currently, more than 100 classrooms have been donated by expatriate Filipino community organizations to the CGMA project. So far, the Philippine Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia tops all Philippine Foreign Service posts with 29 classrooms credited to the said Post, including the 25 classrooms from the above-mentioned Malaysian NGO. Other donations to the CGMA Program were made by communities in Brunei, Canada, the Nordic Region, Singapore and the United States (please see press releases no. SFA-AGR-517, 603, 651, 652-04). END.