Philanthropy
TAYCO?S preference for charity work began eight years ago during her sixth year as a domestic worker in Singapore.
She said she formed Pinokyos in 1999 ?to save Filipino children back home from lack of support so that they avoid lying and doing bad things?.
She said this approach is such because many mothers like her are working abroad and cannot directly take care of their children.
The group got acclaim when Tayco won the Good Samaritan award from the Rotary Club of Singapore in 2002. The PhP4-million cash prize that went with the award she donated entirely to Pinokyos.
The group has no properly documented records of how much donations from Singaporean and Filipino donors it has sent to the Philippines. Its projects include the setting up of mini-libraries in rural areas, scholarships for poor but deserving children, and support to a center for lepers in this city.
Mila Egalin told the OFW Journalism Consortium? that since her predecessor formed the group, Pinokyos was also able to send donations to the southern Philippine provinces of Iloilo, Camarines Norte, Surigao del Sur, and Cebu.
?We just shipped boxes of books to set up mini-libraries in Surigao del Norte and Dana City, Cebu,? Egalin, Pinokyos secretary, told the OFWJC via an overseas phone call last March 25.
Giving more time to Pinokyos work, however, was frowned upon by Tayco?s employer. She fired Tayco last year.
A rule against jobless foreign domestic workers and her mother?s illness forced Tayco to return to the Philippines.
Despite her absence, the migrant donor group of more than 50 Filipino workers in Singapore still elected Tayco as president.
Egalin said this was so since Tayco remains the only person donors of Pinokyos ?mostly Singaporeans? trust.
?They still look for her and only want to talk to her,? Egalin added.
It is also only Tayco who can thus far command attention to Pinokyos members, she said.
But her physical absence has left Pinokyos, the sister group of the Filipino Association in Singapore, with no choice but to ?take the cudgels and continue the work she had started,? Egalin said.
