SEVENTY micro-entrepreneurs stand to benefit from the plan of the Lourdes Tuason de Arroyo (LTA) Foundation to provide financial support necessary to jump-start their businesses.

 

The foundation, set up by Arroyo’s descendants, is a way of honoring her memory and unheralded charitable works, most of which they learned about only after her death in 1978.

 

The LTA Foundation, established in 2012 to coincide with Arroyo’s 105th birth anniversary then, is now in active search for deserving small enterprises and is concentrating in areas including the Sta. Mesa district in Manila; Diliman, Quezon City; and Marikina City.

 

The three areas used to be part of real estate properties of Arroyo’s ancestor, Don Antonio Tuason—the only Filipino in history elevated into Spanish nobility by decree of King Carlos IV of Spain in the 1700s.

 

Ongoing project

 

The foundation already has ongoing health, livelihood and education programs in these communities under the Ikkaw project. Ikkaw stands for Ipin (free dentures for indigents), Kalusugan (health), Kabuhayan (micro-financing), Aral (scholarships) and Wheelchair (units donated to the disabled).

 

Ikkaw executive director Marita Capadocia said candidates for the 70 livelihood programs are now being screened.

 

The chosen ones will be announced next year in time for the 70th birthday of lawyer Jose Miguel Arroyo, the eldest child of Lourdes Arroyo and second husband Ignacio Lacson Arroyo.

 

Capadocia said those to be awarded livelihood programs would also receive training on how to manage their businesses.

 

At present, the LTA Foundation is coordinating with social workers based in the three areas in choosing potential awardees.

 

These social workers are the ones who refer the candidates to the foundation since they are familiar with the residents and work very closely with them, Capadocia said.

 

She added that attendance in the entrepreneurship seminars is monitored strictly to measure how serious the candidates are in starting their small businesses.

 

“We want to see who is determined to engage in business,” she explained.

 

Financial assistance

 

At the same time, the LTA Foundation also announced plans to celebrate Arroyo’s 110th birth anniversary in 2017 by offering financial assistance to indigent children with heart ailments who are confined at the Philippine Heart Center.

 

Scholarships will also be provided for music and fine arts students.

 

Arroyo, whose maiden name is Lourdes Zaragoza Tuason, was born on Aug. 10, 1907. She was the fifth of the seven children of Don Demetrio “El Coronel” Tuason and Doña Natividad Zaragoza.

 

Arroyo was married twice—first to Eduardo “Danding” Matute in 1924. They had five children before Matute died prematurely in 1939.

 

Three years later, she married Ignacio Arroyo with whom she had three children.

 

Maria Lourdes “Marilou” Arroyo, LTA board member and one of Arroyo’s daughters, remembers her mother as being “generous, simple, serene and always quiet.”

 

Meanwhile, granddaughter Dina Arroyo-Tantoco said the story goes among family members that they learned that her grandmother swept floors and helped take care of sick patients confined at the Philippine General Hospital from strangers who attended her wake.

 

Family members also heard of how Arroyo saved money to fund the spiritual formation of priests and nuns.

 

Also, having been a patron of music and the arts, Arroyo supported local arts, crafts and industries before the catchphrase “Buy Filipino” was coined.

 

Granddaughter Luli Arroyo-Bernas said the present effort to aid would-be entrepreneurs is the family’s way of paying it forward and continuing her grandmother’s legacy “in a more organized manner.”

 

Aside from the three districts in Metro Manila, Bernas said the foundation’s microfinance project would include Pampanga beneficiaries as a way of saying “thank you” to the constituents of her mother, Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

 

Tantoco later showed Inquirer Lifestyle a portrait of her grandmother, painted when she was in her 40s, that is now among the treasured possessions of the family.

 

“I have very fond memories of my grandma because I spent a lot of time with her when I was young. My love for traveling and my curiosity about other people came from her,” Tantoco said.

 

“I remember she always wanted family to be around her. She never got mad at anybody. She always wanted her grandchildren to be happy and she went about her day quietly without trumpeting anything she did,” the granddaughter added.

 

“When she passed away, there were many things we learned about how she helped other people. They came to the wake and that was the only time we found out,” Tantoco related.