Valencianon Rene “Tatay Ete” Vendiola and GP Rehab, a non-government organization in Dumaguete City, brought honor to Negros Oriental last Thursday by garnering awards during the 5th Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc. Triennial Awards at the Marco Polo Hotel in Cebu City.
Vendiola emerged as the sole winner in the individual category from among five finalists while the GP Rehab, represented by its founder Analou Suan, was adjudged as a finalist.
“I am so happy for this award. I never expected that we would be noticed as we are so far away,” Vendiola said in his acceptance speech, the only speech that night which was said in the Visayan dialect, to the applause of the audience and his fellow awardees.
Vendiola, a mountain guide who used to be a slash-and-burn farmer, became an environmental advocate and built a forest on his one-hectare land in Liptong Valencia.
The GP Rehab, on the other hand, gives children with disabilities a chance to be integrated with the rest of the community. Their stories are reprinted in another section of this newspaper.
Both Vendiola and Suan have also been admitted as members in RAFI’s Circle of Laureates, along with the other finalists in the triennial search.
Previous RAFI awardees from the province are: Dr. Gerardo Maxino, who founded the Philippine Physics Society and Maxino College that offers an aggressive scholarship program for 50% of the college’s student population; Dr. Chelsa Cacaldo who established the community-run primary hospital in Inapoy, Mabinay for indigent families and where she also initiated the “Peso for Health” program; Perpetual Help Credit Cooperative, Inc. and its former manager Edilberto Lantaca, Jr.; and St. Catherine Family Helper Foundation, Inc.
