TVIRD employees bring Christmas cheer to Siocon kids

And `enjoyed every minute of it’

To reach the public school in Barangay Makiang from Canatuan is never easy. One has to travel along 33 kilometers of mostly rugged road, trudge through a 3- kilometer winding path across a vast field, and finally cross a river onboard a makeshift bamboo raft called gakit. In this particular trip, however, all difficulties were well worth it for a group of employees from a mining firm operating in Canatuan. After all, it’s Christmas, and they’ve come to Makiang, a 100% Muslim community, bearing gifts for children.

The group of Makiang visitors, composed of representatives from different departments of TVI Resource Development Philippines, Inc. (TVIRD), is actually one of the many similar groups — also composed of employees from TVIRD’s various operating and support units – who volunteered to distribute gifts to children from 13 schools in eight of the company’s host and impact communities under the project aptly dubbed “Christmas Cheers”. And, to further bring holiday cheer to the little residents of Siocon town in Zamboanga del Norte, the TVIRD employees wore Santa Claus hats and reindeer “antlers”. They were all warmly welcomed wherever they went.

In Makiang, residents young and old rushed to help the employees carry the heavy boxes of gifts and snack items as the miners approached this isolated village on the banks of the mighty Lituban River. The excited laughter of tiny students from Makiang elementary school filled the air to the delight of parents, teachers and village leaders. With TVIRD employees facilitating, the kids played games, sang, danced, ate snacks and, of course, received their Christmas gifts.

“Funny but I didn’t get tired following the long journey we took to get here,” said Evangeline Gubantes , Administrative Logistics Assistant of TVIRD’s Environment Department, who helped distribute the gifts and facilitate the games. “I guess this happens when you see very happy children. You get to enjoy every minute of it.”

“Thank you TVIRD for giving happiness to our children,” Rolito Tolentino, the school’s head teacher said to the jolly visitors, consisting of personnel from the company’s Community Relations and Development Office (CReDO), as well as Environment, Mine Management, and Public Affairs departments. “You’ve always been there to support us,” Tolentino added, pointing towards the faucet, part of the water system that TVIRD built for Makiang residents.

In the neighboring village of Lituban, meanwhile, the employee team from TVIRD’s Mine Department, headed by no less than its manager, Pete Remoto, did the same thing as their Makiang counterparts. One of the employees in this team was actually a graduate of Lituban Elementary School, visited a day earlier by TVIRD’s Civil Engineering Services led by Manager Ed Nercuit.

Aside from school items, refreshments and t-shirts, the employees gave away cash prizes to winners in the parlor games. Nercuit told the children that the gift-giving, now an annual TVIRD tradition, is “the company’s way of sharing the blessings of good business, made possible by the One whose birth is the main reason for the season.”

At the Siocon Central Elementary School at the town proper, the reception given to TVIRD was massive. Nearly a thousand school kids, unmindful of the heat of the sun, jubilantly participated in the games and song and dance numbers at the school grounds. Each child received their refreshments and their shirts that bore prints expressing statements of support for TVIRD’s advocacy efforts on responsible mining.

The statements were penned by elementary students themselves. A month earlier, TVIRD’s CReDO conducted a Mining 101 symposium among selected Grades 4, 5 and 6 pupils from various public schools within the company’s impact communities. Capping the symposium was a slogan-writing contest, which saw students coming up with statements like “Responsible Miners are Nature Lovers”, “Responsible Mining Towards a Healthy and Progressive Community”, and Responsible Mining: A Catalyst for Sustainable Development”. These statements were among those printed on shirts now worn by more than 7,000 children all over Siocon.

Noelle Nazareno, TVIRD CReDO Senior Program Officer, said the gift-giving is “our simple way of showing our gratitude for your support. And the Yuletide season is the best time to express our thanks.” CReDO has been behind the planning and implementation of the Christmas Cheers Project, which has the willing support of practically the entire TVIRD family since 2004.

Later in the week, the Christmas Cheers teams went to communities around the vicinity of TVIRD’s Canatuan copper-zinc mine site. The gift-giving here was not limited to school-age children, but to kids as young as one month-old infants. And so, the scene was more like a big family affair: older children played and danced while their younger siblings carried by their mothers watched amused along the sidelines. Virgie Patoh, a Canatuan village elder, said in her message at the Skyline village that TVIRD does not give gifts only during Christmas but throughout all the years the company has been operating in the area. TVIRD, she said, “built schools, paved roads and gave livelihood and employment opportunities to members of the community.”

But the sentiment of the community was best expressed by Nene Bernalde, when she uttered in her opening prayer at the Tanuman village Christmas Cheers program: “May the Lord Almighty allow the company to stay longer, so it may continue to help our community.”

For TVIRD employees, the innocent smiles children were enough for them to want to stay longer. (Joseph Arnel Deliverio)