On Easter Monday, the 266th leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio 88 years ago, passed away peacefully, seemingly as if the Pope was following the spiritual path of the Lord’s Resurrection that heralded the call for mankind to spread Charity, Love and Hope, particularly to the poor, downtrodden, scorned and abandoned for all Christendom to emulate.

The compassion of Pope Francis for the distressed was in full display as he empathized with the victims of typhoon “Yolanda” in Tacloban in 2015. Ignoring warnings of another typhoon coming, without regard for his already frail condition, Pope Francis braved the winds and rain to be in community with the people.

To this day, Filipinos fondly remember the inspirational lessons of love we learned from Pope Francis whom we, with grateful joy, embraced and will always remember as the grandfatherly Lolo Kiko who could be trusted to understand, forgive and love all in need, no matter what.

Like any Lolo who will always be a Lolo and who would never tire of watching with pride whenever any of his progeny would excel, or whenever they would fall and falter, I would like to believe that for the rest of his life, post his typhoon “Yolanda” visit, Lolo Kiko always had a soft spot in his heart for the Philippines.

His heart surely must have bled as he witnessed how the Philippines has had an unfortunate hit-and-miss vicious cycle of optimism and dejection, after falling back again and again on disappointments after promises of a new beginning, administration after administration, having failed to resolve the ills of the country.

Fast forward to today. The sad passing of Lolo Kiko has rekindled those memories and hopefully will reignite once more the call to action to each citizen to emulate the path trailblazed by Lolo Kiko. Once more, each of us can and should do our part — but working in concert with an organized civic organization like the Rotary would probably go a much longer way.

Interestingly, whether by design or by sheer coincidence, Rotary’s advocacies align closely to the Pope’s lifelong way of life.

Here are some.

Rotary’s mantra is Service Above Self. Undoubtedly, Lolo Kiko’s whole being was centered on a complete disregard for oneself by living modestly, harboring a disdain for luxury and prestige, but prioritizing the needs of the marginalized, emulating the life of his inspiration, St. Francis of Assissi, who opted to give up wealth, power and prestige to live the life of a beggar.

In his 2015 encyclical letter, “Laudato Si’, mi Signore” meaning “Praise be to You, my Lord,” Pope Francis speaks of the need to care for our common home, Mother Earth, which St. Francis of Assisi strongly advocated was created by God to be good and beautiful but was degraded by the mortal sins of man. The encyclical called for a global ecological conversion and a new way of life to preserve Mother Earth.

The sad passing of Lolo Kiko has rekindled those memories and hopefully will reignite once more the call to action to each citizen to emulate the path trailblazed by Lolo Kiko.

This call to action is the very same call espoused in Rotary’s Areas of Focus to protect the environment. Various Rotary clubs have heeded this challenge and the Rotary Club of Makati is one that has bannered protecting the environment as one of its primary calls to action.

Notably, RCM has partnered with various LGUs and community organizations to promote environmental projects such as planting coral reef buds in selected coastal areas for the preservation of aquatic resources of local communities; providing sanitary water to waterless communities; the clean-up of a green and picturesque pathway for the residents and passerbys of the prestigious BGC to encourage walking instead of using smoke-emitting motor vehicles; and, of late, the launch of the nation-wide PHYLA which recognizes outstanding young persons who have made a mark in promoting Rotary’s Areas of Focus.

In fact, the inaugural winner was a young man who innovatively turned discarded plastic bottles, which otherwise would have further added to the degradation of the environment, into useful products such as pontoons.

Had Lolo Kiko been a young man today in search of a meaningful way to promote service above self, surely, he would have loved to join the Rotary.

Until next week… OBF!

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