Conversations with a mover

One-on-one with Tonette Binsol

ANTONINA “TONETTE” BINSOL is a rare breed of Filipino. With an excellent education, a stable job and a promising future, she can be content with the daily humdrum of life. But Tonette is not run-of-the-mill; she is a mover, a symbol of the adage that “to whom much is given, much is required.”

Tonette is the founder and force behind the four-year-old cyber NGO Tulong Pinoy Movement (TPM), which is committed to supporting needy Filipinos by making use of information technology in building partnerships and empowerment-sharing with individuals and organizations worldwide. TPM provides the virtual venue by which these partnerships are mobilized for poverty alleviation in the Philippines.

Lofty this may sound to the casual reader, but Tonette is surely standing on solid ground. Believing that education is the key to personal and community empowerment, TPM has launched, among many other grassroots projects, the Iskolar Pinoy Program that has presently 80 beneficiaries and about 500 applicants. With only 3,000 yen or 25 US dollars per month (roughly the cost of 2 hours in a karaoke bar), you can help a poor but deserving college student in the Philippines complete his/her education and become a productive member of society.

Since the project began, the Iskolar Pinoy Program has produced many graduates, thanks to the tenacity and hard work of Tonette and her partners. In fact, Tonette believes in this project so much that she even sells phone cards just to help strengthen TPM’s funds. For indeed, given that many of the beneficiaries are aetas, indigenous tribes, negritos in Mindanao, and even child scavengers in the Payatas dumpsite, the task is daunting and requires all the financial and moral strength that it can tap.

True to its calling as a cyber NGO, TPM has also succeeded in obtaining hundreds of used computers from banks and other commercial establishments in Japan. These will be donated to many Philippine-based rural schools that cannot even afford a cheap microscope. It is Tonette herself and her friends who personally carry, even fix, these heavy computers and arrange their tax-free transport to the Philippines.

The list of TPM’s worthwhile activities is too long for this introductory piece, so we would rather let you get it straight from the mover herself. This month, PHILIPPINES TODAY presents an interview between PT Editor Butch N. Talorete and Tonette Binsol. PT likewise endorses her cause to the thousands of PT readers here in Japan and abroad through our online edition.

While it takes a mover to start things, it takes everybody -- yes, you and me -- to get things done. Read on.

A gathering of Iskolar-Pinoys from Botolan-Zambales, Agoo-La Union, Manila/ Payatas in Loob-Bunga Resettlement, Botolan, Zambales.

What inspired you to launch Tulong Pinoy Movement (TPM)? What are the driving forces behind it? Can you give us a brief historical overview of TPM and who are the people behind its conception?

My inspiration for Tulong Pinoy Movement are the deserving poor young ones who have a positive outlook in life, respect for oneself, concern for dignity and fear of God.

I pity the children who were born without too many choices in life. This statement is an open challenge. I don't think that it's that easy to just close your eyes, close your mouth or not do anything especially if you believe that there is hope.

Partnership for poverty alleviation is the strategy of Tulong Pinoy.

That was 1998 when I started looking at this perspective. Those were the days when I had the time to surf the internet after my regular meeting with my sensei or after a research work at Keio University. At that time, El Nino caused forest fires and unexpected deaths of tribal people. I saw malnourished children in Mindanao and read sad news about children who died after eating "kayos" which is a root crop with poisonous skin. For me, that kayos-craving symbolizes hopelessness and lack of care.

Let me lift a portion of history from our website. TULONG PINOY (TP) started in April, 1998 by helping the Matigsalog tribe of LUMaDS-Dev (Livelihood for a United Matigsalogs' Determination towards Sustainable Development) with Sister Dionisia Quela, FI of the Daughters of Jesus Congregation in Malabog area of Davao during the El Nino. It continued its way to promote helping-direct opportunities by mobilizing a nationwide fund drive in Japan in June, 1998 with Filipino and non-Filipino scholars and colleagues to assist the transport of the remains of a fellow Monbusho scholar. It had another focus when it started Iskolar-Pinoy program in June, 1999, targeted to help poor but deserving Filipino students in the Philippines through migrants' sponsorship and empowerment. Partnership being the key utilizing ICT as the tool to make it all happen, it has established significant linkages covering various sectors such as indigenous people, women, urban poor, migrants and migrants' children, environment and mass computer literacy. A very interesting partnership-building on the rise is the empowerment of local folks to help their native towns by means of scholarships and livelihood project-support groups. Mailing lists and other online facilities are becoming very useful in reaching out to our kababayans from different parts of the world.

Continue to next page

Back to top