IN MY LAST column, I started naming the donors to this year’s Peter’s Prize Fund.
I do this as a public accounting for the donations that I received.
Transparency is important to my brand as a fundraiser.
And I will say this again: While I still have money to run my Foundation and its projects, I believe in inspiring others to be more generous and civic-minded, especially in the area of literature and the arts.
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The poor will always be with us, but it is the creatives—the writers, the artists, the filmmakers, that help us understand our higher ideals.
In a country where art and literature are often the least of our priorities, I see it as my mission to inspire as many creatives as I can by providing incentives for them to create, and to give us our humanity.
Thus, the Peter’s Prize.
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I only met Jeanette Junsay last year, but she’s also from Iloilo, and is working as a nurse in California.
She goes around the circle of some friends and classmates of mine from UPV.
We became fast friends, and I did drop hints that I might hit her with some solicitations in the future.
She’s a big BTS fan, and always so much fun to be with.
If she’s spending the big bucks to chase the next BTS concert, could she make a donation for the cause of Hiligaynon literature and the arts?
She made good on that donation promise before I left California in July.
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Liberty Bunag is a beloved comadre, but always my number 1 nursing colleague when I was working in Los Angeles.
I usually spend nightovers with Liberty when I’m in L.A.
They got a lovely family, and I always feel so welcome.
My compadre, her husband, would even cook for me.
(Well, he’s a chef, with catering business, too!)
I’m godfather to their first born, but that doesn’t stop the second and third to call me Ninong. Haha.
Liberty and I go back to 2006, when we both started our Nursing careers at an East L.A. hospital.
She also donated to help finance my 2012 movie, “Gugma sa Panahon sang Bakunawa.”
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Elisa Punay still works in the same hospital as Liberty, which means she was also my Nursing colleague when I was working in Los Angeles.
This is the first time that Elisa has donated to the Peter’s Prize fund, but she has always been supportive of my creative and writerly pursuits.
She’s from Cebu, and she was a former policewoman before going into Nursing in the US.
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Ritchie Pagunsan is a New York-based Antiqueño.
I don’t remember him from UPV, but I had been moderator of UP Intermedius, the theater group he helped organize at UPV.
We became even more “online friends” because he has this missionary vision for Kinaray-a literature that runs parallel, if not similar, to my vision for Hiligaynon literature.
Ritchie is an accomplished writer, winner of Palancas for Hiligaynon fiction, and the Writer’s Prize from the NCCA.
This year, we both won additional Palancas in the same category.
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Maria Elena de Asis-Ner, who I have mentioned in a previous column for our jail charity outreach, is also a New Yorker in the sense that she works in NYC.
But I think that she lives in New Jersey.
Elena is my run-to donor because I know her heart for charity and the arts, and her hometown.
She was a classmate at St. Paul School – Barotac Nuevo.
Earlier in the year, I solicited for the Peter’s Prize fund; Elena, a returning donor, made a pledge for $100 (the amount that I am ready to accept without being embarrassed).
When my call for donations for the jail inmates (for the National Correctional Consciousness Week) was going slow, I asked Elena if I could rechannel her Peter’s Prize donation to help with the care package for our Persons Deprived of Liberty (PDLs).
Elena promptly sent me $200– half of it for the Peter’s Prize (as promised), and half of it for the care packages for the inmates, which I promptly delivered.
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Jere Ledesma Cejar and I travel in pretty much the same UPV circle, but I never really met him until about 2019.
By then, he had been reading my crazy column pieces in the newspaper.
We became Facebook friends, and he would always comment something smart or funny on my posts.
He worked on my eyeglasses several times, too—suggesting what would work best for my lifestyle.
I did not have a regular optometrist, so when I met Jere, it was like a good match.
I didn’t solicit from Jere; he pledged by social media as a comment to my post.
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Well, a few others made pledges, but I still have to hear from them again.
It’s not like I’m going to harass people for a mere P5,000, or $100. Haha./PN
