Center distributes “Ople Shoes” to poor school children of St. Bernard

By Philippine Information Agency (PIA 8)
June 1, 2009

TACLOBAN CITY  –  Classes for the new school year will open on Monday but this early some 100 happy school graders of St. Bernard, Southern Leyte are already raring to go wearing their new shoes.

These school children from the poorest of the poor in St. Bernard received “Ople Shoes” from the Blas Ople Policy Center and Training Institute.

No less than Ms. Susan Ople, the youngest daughter of the late former Speaker, former labor secretary and former foreign affairs secretary Blas Ople, the president of the Ople Policy Center, personally distributed the made to order shoes to the lucky children of St. Bernard on May 28, 2009.

Ms. Ople and her staff arrived quietly in Tacloban in the afternoon of May 27 and went to St. Bernard early in the morning of May 28.

There is more to the shoes than just the giving, though. Ms. Ople said that the giving of shoes is giving of hope and inspiration to the poor children of St. Bernard.

Ms. Ople intimated that her late father once wrote: “I still vividly recall my own graduation right in the plaza of my hometown in Hagonoy, Bulacan,” the late Blas Ople, a esteemed man of letter, once wrote in his newspaper column. “It was the first time ever that I gave a formal speech…which I composed with great care and committed to memory.”

“It must have been a flawless delivery. But what the audience, including my classmates did not know, was that I was wearing an ill-fitting leather shoes borrowed for the occasion from an affluent uncle, and my aching feet nearly ruined my performance.”

The passage became the inspiration for “Ople Shoes,” a gift-giving project, because the young school children of St. Bernard have to look their best for the beginning of classes on June 1, Ms. Susan Ople said.