'Certified Piolo Addicts (CPAs)': Helping from afar
Manong Doming takes a stroll inside SM City.
Typhoon Frank with its unprecedented damage to Panay Island turned ordinary days into extraordinary times.
And with it, "ordinary" people into extraordinary citizens.
Meet the "Certified Piolo Addicts," or CPAs for short.
Coming from different countries, of different ages and different careers, this group of Filipino expats are brought together by their love and support to Filipino actor Piolo Pascual.
The "meeting place" online is www.pinoyexchange.com, a website dedicated to anything Filipino.
One area of this site is for movie actors and at the Piolo Pascual area they call a "thread", is the "house" of the CPAs. They meet here to talk mainly about Piolo but almost always, the conversation shifts to themselves, their lives, their jobs and anything under the sun.
For the CPAs, this is their fun after hours of working and taking care of their families. Whenever Piolo is in town, whichever country it may be, if there are CPAs, for sure Piolo is taken cared of. They love him like a member of their family and Piolo treats them like members of his family too.
Manong Doming and his son buy a set of
kitchen ware.
During this time of need of the Ilonggos, the CPAs helped out.
They understand that they cannot help every flood victim but by helping one family at a time, it would surely have a long-term effect on this family. The CPAs extended this help to Dominador Evangelista Sr. of Janiuay, Iloilo as a thanksgiving for all the blessings that Piolo has received and as a thank you to him for loving them back.
It seems to be happening only in the movies. Yet the CPAs made it happen for Manong Doming whose story earlier came out here in The News Today (TNT) (Angels and heroes in Iloilo's darkest day, June 26, 2008) and picked up by the group. The Evangelistas lost everything the family owned including the family hut Manong Doming built himself.
A sales attendant guides Manong Doming in
buying his chosen carpentry tools.
In the TNT interview, he never complained having only one set of clothing. What was more important, he said, was that his family is intact, the three children swept by the raging river miraculously back, hurt and shaken, but alive.
And now total strangers banded by the love and support for Piolo, responding to a plea for help, all because they say Piolo has always been kind and good to them. The CPAs passing the kindness and goodness. It should have happened only in the movies. But this is real life. In real time.
Angels and heroes come in many forms. Add the CPAs to it. Add a Filipino actor, Piolo Pascual, to it. He has made it possible for one family – a new life, a better life that Manong Doming deserves.
Manong Doming is being interviewed by Tatak
Ilonggo's Alex Carlo Magno and the writer.
Last Friday, Manong Doming was treated to a day of shopping for the carpentry tools that he lost to the flood. And he got branded tools that will last for a lifetime. For the first time too, his family had a complete set of matching plates, cups, glasses, a water jug, a kettle and cookware. These were to become his prized possessions, thanks to the generosity of the CPAs. Thanks to the goodwill and kindheart of Piolo who certainly deserves the accolade and success he now has.
Come to think of it -- Manong Doming and Piolo Pascual now have something in common. The CPAs love them both. All from afar.
Do good. Be worthy of goodness. This can happen to you. It happened to Manong Doming.