Glad to be friends with Floro & RSA

By Al S. Mendoza  

 

IT is common knowledge that, usually, the rich will not give big tips to the waiter.

Many a time, I’ve seen the not-so-rich out-tip the filthy rich.

The everyday explanation for this?

One becomes rich because he is a penny pincher, or a miser.

It is awfully normal to see the rich leave a five-peso tip on the table—grudgingly at times.

But the average customer will easily part away with his 20 bucks—sometimes more.

But there are exceptions; two of them I happen to know.

One had passed on, the second very much alive.

Danny Floro had said goodbye in 1995 but even to this day, his name is mentioned with fondness by those who knew him that well.

Waiters wept unabashedly when Danny, the quiet manager of the legendary PBA basketball champion Crispa, succumbed to cancer—at a very young age of 71.

I remember part of my eulogy.

“He was rich, but he’d rather be with the poor than his kind,” I said.  “He treated me like his own son but, despite our extremely close ties, he had never, even just for once, requested me to write about his team, Crispa.”

Many abused his kindness, generosity, but Boss Danny was impervious.

“They wouldn’t ask for help if they had the means,” he’d always say.

He is very much like Ramon S. Ang, the President/COO of San Miguel Corp. (SMC).

RSA to those dear to him, Ang has consistently helped not only our poorest of the poor but people in need as well.

His cash donations to calamity victims are so enormous they defy imaginations.

Did he not shell out half a billion pesos to typhoon victims not too long ago in Cagayan de Oro, becoming the biggest single donor then?

His philanthropic ways have become the stuff for a Hollywood movie, if not an outright book to inspire and spur future generations to do good for mankind.

Just this week, RSA had started giving food as well as money to hundreds of seafarers stranded at the Manila North Harbor in Tondo, Manila.

Through his Better World Tondo (BWT), SMC’s feeding center and food bank designed chiefly for the needy, RSA is providing free meals three times a day and financial assistance to our brethren camping out at the pier.

They are awaiting clearance to return to their provinces, their plight hampered needlessly by complicated quarantine protocols amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

“When we learned that they were sleeping at the seaport as they wait to return home, we immediately alerted our BTW people,” said RSA. “We already serve daily meals and provide grocery packs to the local community, so helping out the seafarers was the natural thing to do.”

As of June 25, RSA, himself a proud son of Tondo, has spent P511.1 million for food relief alone since the coronavirus plague became full-blown in mid-March.

May RSA’s ilk multiply?

Ah, if I were a rich man.

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 Advance birthday greetings to Malaya J.M. Sadiwa (July 9).  From Ricky, MayaSoh & Ikap; Coach Dayong, Shang, Mayo, Dada & Migel; and, Sol F. Juvida.

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