The government, alone, simply cannot address the needs of the general public, thus the private sector must step in.

In an interview with DAILY TRIBUNE’s Straight Talk digital show on Wednesday, business leader former Makati Rotary Foundation chairperson Senen “Bing” Matoto, also a columnist for the newspaper, discussed ways that civic organizations and the government can address some of the country’s lingering social problems.

The Rotary Foundation, he said, owns various assets, composed of various properties, commercial primarily, ceded to the foundation years ago.

“Remember when the Laurel Langley Treaty expired? When companies needed to donate to a non-profit organization, the Rotary Club (RC) of Makati was one of the beneficiaries. We ended up having properties that generate lease rentals,” he said.

He shared that over the years, RC has generated quite good rental revenues, which they use to provide support to the community.

Mother Rotary club

The RC of Makati is the “mother club” of all Rotary clubs in Makati. It was the first club chartered in Makati City in 1966. The formal chartering ceremony by Rotary International was held at the Manila Polo Club in Forbes Park, with the club having 46 members, two of whom are still on the club’s roster.

“[We] are part of the total world of Rotary, which is Rotary International, which started years ago, I think over 100 years ago. And I think we are probably the third or fourth that was created in the country,” citing the existence of RC Manila and Cebu.

“Each Rotary Club has its distinct organizational structure. The size of the clubs varies in terms of membership, from, let’s say, 30 maybe to as much as 100 plus.”

RC Makati, according to Matoto, has approximately 130 members and organizes activities aligned with seven areas of focus: peace and conflict resolution, water and sanitation, basic education and literacy, disease prevention and treatment, economic and community development, maternal and childcare, and environment protection.

The club’s resources come from the revenues that they generate from their operations, membership fees, and donations from members, Matoto said. He added that they also cooperate with other Rotary clubs when they do a project.

Matoto shared that one of the projects the group is currently working on is connecting youth in need of mental health assistance with professionals.

“Well, our role really in our world is really to provide support and resources for our club to execute, which of course, as a consequence, would be projects that have been determined to be what we’ll be pushing for, which would be things like mental health; for example, we have this Jean Goldberg relationship,” he said.

Peers help for mental balance

“During my Rotary year, I got to meet Jean and decided that we could work together on mental health,” Matoto said, saying that mental health is a major issue in the Philippines and there are around 500 psychiatrists nationwide, which he described as a pittance for a country with over 115 people.

“Let me tell you a story about mental health involving kids. Kids, when they have problems, don’t normally go to their parents. The last person that they go to would be a father or a mother. What do they end up doing? They go and talk to their friends, and so if they talk to their friends, some commentary might be detrimental,” he said.

“What Jean Goldberg does is she has this program that provides mental health support to the young. She created this program called ‘Supeer Heroes,’” he said.

Matoto said the whole objective of the program is to provide training to selected youth leaders and then give them training — a four-day course in two weekends.

“She would bring in psychologists and counselors. So our club’s role, for example, is to provide the resources to help her execute that. We provide the resources by way of the food that’s given or the prices that are given for the fees paid to the resource person,” he said.

He said that they have already done it to four schools: a public school in Makati, a girls’ town, and a boys’ town in Silang, Cavite.

“My own sense is that a lot of people want help, but sometimes you figure, How do I help? The Rotary provides people an opportunity to be involved in a structure that has a way to facilitate that helping,” Matoto concluded.