Meet ML. A true-blue Filipina now living in New Zealand; her home for several years. She works as a fashion consultant and buyer for no less than SAKS, one of the biggest European fashion houses exclusively carrying brand names like Versace, Escada, Hugo Boss, Boss Orange Label, Armani Collezione, D&G, Caruso, Cantarelli, and Brioni. Aside from this, she is sometimes a personal stylist to a number of TV and top sports personalities in New Zealand.
This glitzy world of high fashion is a far cry from her roots in the Philippines. Sa young woman, she was a nun with the Daughters of St. Paul in Pasay City. She was deeply moved when she saw the news report about the Leyte mudslide that wiped away the entire village of Guinsaugon, St. Bernard. Having grown up in Hinunangnan, a few kilometers away from the disaster area, she was also left grieving for a place so close to her heart.
ML got hold of TV3 NZ presenter Mike Mc Roberts, a close friend, and together they traveled to Leyte. Nothing prepared ML for what awaited her there. What used to be a busy road in which trucks for trading went to and fro was now completely erased. Miles and miles of land stretched before her where houses, public buildings, marketplaces, and small chapels used to stand. Being the fighter she has always been, she initiated steps to help alleviate the sufferings of the surviving relatives of the landslide casualties. Her priority? The children.
Even while traveling back to New Zealand, ML’s mind was already at work on how best to help the children left behind. Her first step was to have two powerfully moving documentaries made about the tragedy. Her goal was to gather all forms of support via the PAGLA-UM (Hope) Trust she founded. The trust aims to ensure that the surviving children of St. Bernard finish their entire education and create a brighter future for themselves and get on with life despite what happened to them. On April 29, 2006, a fundraiser “Forgotten Victims charity Dinner” will take place in New Zealand and will be hosted by Mike Mc Roberts himself.
ML believes that a home is not earth that we build houses on. Rather, she believes it is in our hearts and we take it with us wherever we go.
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