Sylﬀ  Leadership  Ini1a1ves  Final  Report
About  Yourself
Name:            Ms.  Sherilyn  SiyHome  Sylﬀ  Ins5tu5on:          Ateneo  de  Manila  University
Currently  5tle,  posi5on  and  responsibili5es:            Board  member,  Salu-­‐Salo  Food  Bank  Philippines,    full-­‐5me  mother  of  two,  writer

About  Your  Project
Name  of  project:    
  
  
  

Our  Community,  Our  Resources:  Increasing  Food  Security.  
The  First  Philippine  Food  Bank  Symposium

Project  period:          October  28,  2013  to  March  20,  2013
Amount  of  Sylﬀ  Leadership  Ini5a5ves  award:    JPY  528,476  (US$5,200)

Project  Highlights
Salu-­‐Salo  Food  Bank  Philippines  (FBP)  is  the  ﬁrst  incorporated  food  bank  in  the  Philippines.    Since  its  incorpora5on  in  March  of  2012,  Salu-­‐Salo  FBP  has  had  some  modest  opera5ons  receiving  and  delivering  food  dona5ons  to  recipients  in  Luzon.  In  the  a^ermath  of  the  recent  Typhoon  Haiyan,  Salu-­‐Salo  FBP  and  Second  Harvest  Asia  passed  on  emergency,  food  and  water  supplies  worth  over  $660,000  to  survivors  in  the  Visayas.  This  ﬁrst  Philippine  food  bank  symposium  sought  to  celebrate  the  gains  but  also  expand  the  work  of  Salu-­‐Salo  FBP  by  focusing  on  looking  at  what  resources  we  have  in  the  community  that  could  be  recovered  and  redirected  to  those  in  need.  It  also  sought  to  share  current  eﬀec5ve  models  and  bring  people  together  to  generate  ideas  and  rela5onships  to  provide  alterna5ves  to  the  current  prac5ce  of  destroying  good  food.  
In  par5cular,  the  symposium  aimed  to:-­‐ Iden5fy  the  reasons  for  food  loss  and  food  waste  in  the  Philippines-­‐ Ascertain  the  obstacles  to  geang  excess  food  to  those  in  need-­‐ Iden5fy  the  necessary  logis5cs  to  recover  and  redistribute  these  resources-­‐ Bring  together  individuals  and  groups  for  collabora5on,  and-­‐ Raise  awareness  about  food  banking  as  a  posi5ve  and  viable  approach  towards  food  security
Sherilyn  par5cipated  at  the  Second  Annual  Regional  Food  Bank  Mee5ng  in  Hong  Kong  last  November  4-­‐6,  2013  organized  by  Second  Harvest  Asia  in  which  she  represented  Salu-­‐Salo  FBP  and  also  iden5ﬁed  trending  issues  for  the  thema5c  discussions  for  the  Manila  symposium.    As  a  result,  the  following  themes  were  conceptualized
Where  is  the  waste?  Food  loss  in  the  Philippines
From  A  to  B:  Logis9cal  considera9ons  of  recovering  and  redistribu9ng  foodReaching  recipients:  Increasing  accountability,  transparency,  and  traceability
Social  marke9ng  for  social  innova9on  and  entrepreneurshipResponding  to  disasters:  Problems  encountered.  Lessons  learned.
Building  a  business  model  for  Food  Bank  Philippines
On  March  20,  2014,  the  symposium  “Our  Community,  Our  Resources:  Increasing  Food  Security”  was  held  at  Miriam  College.  About  115  people  registered  to  par5cipate  and  103  people  joined.  
They  included  people  from  government,  food  companies,  farmers,  media,  faculty  and  social  ac5on  arms  of  universi5es,  food  interest  groups,  and  NGOs,  many  of  which  have  their  own  feeding  programs.  The  symposium  was  also  graced  by  an  exhibit  en5tled  “Too  Good  to  Waste”  presen5ng  stunning  photographs  by  students  of  the  De  La  Salle  University  College  of  St.  Benilde.  It  was  a  well-­‐organized  and  compact  event  featuring  TED-­‐Talk-­‐like  presenta5ons  by  renowned  speakers  and  industry  leaders  -­‐-­‐  the  sessions  were  thought-­‐provoking,  insighiul,  and  the  par5cipants  are  le^  with  an  inspiring  and  posi5ve  sen5ment.  Food  donors  were  happy  to  be  able  to  meet  the  recipient  organiza5ons  for  the  ﬁrst  5me  through  this  symposium.  A  number  of  par5cipants  pledged  speciﬁc  ac5ons  to  support  the  work  of  the  food  bank.  It  was  without  a  doubt,  a  huge  success.  
Some  post-­‐symposium  feedback  received:
I  feel  fortunate  to  have  been  given  the  opportunity  to  learn  more  about  food  banking,  a  subject  that  I  was  not  very  familiar  with  prior  to  the  symposium.  The  work  that  you  and  your  team  have  done  and  will  do,  is  both  inspiring  and  necessary  in  our  country.  I  am  happy  to  have  been  a  part  of  it  and  here  to  provide  what  support  I  can  in  your  future  endeavours.
Paolo  Delgado,  Delgado  Brothers  Group      (a  logis5cs  company)

It  is  our  pleasure  to  aHend  in  the  ﬁrst  ever  Food  Bank    symposium.  Thank  you  for  the  experience  of  mee9ng  and  interac9ng  with  such  dis9nguished  and  interes9ng  individuals.  We  are  also  touched  in  mee9ng  our  direct  beneﬁciaries.  Rest  assured  that  we  will  propose  to  our  board  for  the  con9nuous  partnership  with  Food  Bank.
Ella  Vergara,  CDO  (a  food  company)

It  impressed  upon  me  how  much  I  didn’t  know  about  the  topics  covered,  and  that  there  is  much  work  to  be  done  to  inform/educate  Filipinos  about  the  important  issues,  especially  those  who  could  be  in  a  posi9on  to  help.  Thank  you  so  much  for  such  an  inspiring  and  enlightening  symposium  -­‐-­‐  I  took  away  a  lot  from  it.  I  would  be  looking  out  for  your  next  one.
Regina  Tolen5no  Newport,  Culinary  Historians  of  the  Philippines

I  found  this  symposium  very  informa9ve  and  inspiring  -­‐  that  the  issue  of  food  security  in  the    Philippines  is  so  mul9faceted,  with  diﬀerent  stakeholders  involved,  poli9cs,  economics,  environment,  logis9cs  all  playing  a  part  in  this  issue.  The  talks  got  me  to  reﬂect  about  how  each  individual  contributes  to  the  country,  and  I  hope  that  the  inspira9on  I  found  in  this    food  banking  symposium  helps  me  to  start  something  in  Zamboanga  City,  be  it  involvement  in  environmental  issues  or  food  security  concerns,  by  way  of  my  interest  in  organic  gardening.
Tiﬀany    Hope  LimI  also  enjoyed  your  symposium  and  am  happy  I  was  able  to  make  a  contribu9on  to  its  success.    My  congratula9ons  to  you  for  a  very  orderly  and  well  organized  symposium.    
Dr.  Ned  Roberto,    Social  Weather  Sta5on

Short  Ar1cle  (1,000  words)
Food  loss  has  become  a  hot  topic  in  the  last  several  years  as  more  and  more  NGOs  and  other  aid  workers  look  for  resources  in  their  own  community  that  could  be  used  to  serve  those  in  need.  In  1967  food  banking  was  developed  in  the  US  to  address  the  reality  of  surplus  exis5ng  alongside  need.  Food  banks  act  as  middle-­‐persons  collec5ng  and  distribu5ng  food  dona5ons.  They  have  become  one  response  to  the  growing  concern  over  food  loss.
In  March  2012  Salu-­‐Salo  FBP  became  the  ﬁrst  incorporated  food  bank  in  the  Philippines.  Through  the  development  of  food  banking  in  the  Philippines  we  have  become  aware  that  there  are  many  resources  available,  resources  hat  could  be  recovered  and  redirected  to  those  in  need.  There  is  a  wide  range  of  stakeholders  in  the  community  who,  if  brought  together,  could  provide  alterna5ves  to  the  current  prac5ce  of  destroying  good  food.
We  originally  planned  for  the  symposium  to  take  place  early  February  this  year  -­‐-­‐  that  was  before  Typhoon  Yolanda  -­‐  the  deadliest  Philippine  typhoon  on  record  -­‐  struck  last  November  8,  2013.    
Typhoon  Yolanda  and  the  staggering  destruc5on  it  caused  drew  aken5on  once  again  to  the  vulnerability  of  the  Philippines  to  natural  disasters.    It  also  highlighted  the  pressing  need  to  have  a  food  safety  net  -­‐-­‐  something  that  food  banks  are  expected  to  provide  -­‐-­‐  not  only  in  5mes  of  disasters  or  emergencies  but  for  many  of  the  country’s  poor,  on  a  day  to  day  basis  as  well.
Inadvertently,  this  symposium  couldn’t  have  happened  at  a  more  opportune  5me.  This  March,  2014,  we  celebrate  the  2nd  anniversary  of  the  incorpora5on  of  Salu-­‐Salo  FBP.  Since  our  incorpora5on  two  years  ago,  we  have  had  some  modest  opera5ons  receiving  and  delivering  food  dona5ons  to  recipients  in  Luzon.  Salu-­‐Salo  FBP  has  also  sent  thousands  of  dollars  worth  of  emergency  food  and  water  supplies  to  survivors  in  the  Visayas,  post-­‐Yolanda.  With  this  symposium,  we  celebrated  our  gains  but  we  also  look  forward  to  expanding  our  work.  This  ﬁrst  Philippine  food  bank  symposium  focused  on  sharing  current  eﬀec5ve  models  and  bringing  people  together  in  order  to  generate  ideas  and  rela5onships  necessary  to  push  food  banking  forward.  
The  ﬁrst  session  Where  is  the  waste?  Food  loss  in  the  Philippines,  was  led  by  Charles  Mcjilton,  founder  and  chair  of  Second  Harvest  Japan,  the  ﬁrst  and  the  largest  food  bank  in  Japan.  He  pioneered  the  concept  of  food  banking  in  Japan  and  has  worked  to  establish  a  na5onal  food  banking  network.  He  is  also  the  founder  and  chair  of  Second  Harvest  Asia,  an  NGO  that  promotes  food  banking  in  Asia,  including  the  Philippines,  and  works  with  other  food  banks  and  aid  agencies  to  increase  food  security  in  the  region.  Charles  gave  an  introduc5on  on  the  food  supply  chain  and  the  points  where  food  loss  can  be  recovered.  He  emphasized  the  need  to  look  at  opportuni5es  that  are  scalable.  
Some  farmers  from  Luzon  par5cipated  in  the  symposium.  Luisita  Esmao,  an  advocate  and  prac55oner  of  organic  farming,  represented  the  farmers  who  akended  and  reported  on  their    experiences  of  food  loss  in  their  respec5ve  farms.  Some  farmers  have  to  abandon  hectares  of  their  crops  and  don’t  even  bother  harves5ng  them  whenever  the  market  prices  drop.  The  sale  of  the  produce  at  such  a  low  market  price  won’t  even  be  enough  to  cover  the  cost  of  bringing  them  to  the  market.  The  farmers  iden5ﬁed  several  problems  that  lead  to  food  loss:  the  lack  of  farm  to  market  access  roads,  the  lack  of  market  links  (clear  oﬀers  on  who  will  buy  and  at  what  price),  and  lack  of  harvest  facili5es.  
In  the  second  session  From  A  to  B:  Logis9cal  considera9ons  of  recovering  and  redistribu9ng  food,  Jose  Paolo  Delgado,  shared  his  thoughts  on  the  current  state  of  and  the  prospec5ve  changes  in  the  logis5cs  of  transpor5ng  food  in  the  Philippines.  Paolo  is    the  Director  of  the  Delgado  Brothers  Group,  a  63  year  old  interna5onal  corpora5on  which  consists  of  15  subsidiaries  and  member  companies  with  interests  in  logis5cs,  leasing,  trading,  real  estate  and  investments.  At  any  given  5me,  his  logis5cs  company  has  an  impressive  25,000  5res  on  the  ground.  Despite  the  deﬁciencies  in  the  infrastructure  and  transport  system  in  the  Philippines,  Paolo  remains  posi5ve.  He  is  an  enthusias5c  proponent  of  the  road  train  which  maximizes  the  exis5ng  paved  and  nau5cal  highways    through  the  use  of  modern,  standardized  equipment  that  can  easily  connect  and  disconnect.  He  also  advocates  increased  visibility  and  interconnectedness  in  the  food  supply  chain  in  order  to  plan  food  produc5on  more  eﬃciently.
For  the  third  session,  Reaching  recipients:  Increasing  accountability,  transparency,  and  traceability,  symposium  par5cipants  were  treated  to  a  live  performance  from  Juana  Change,  played  by  ar5st  Mae  Paner.  Juana  Change  is  best  known  for  her  videos  that  went  viral  on  the  internet  -­‐-­‐videos  that  challenge  apathy  towards  poli5cal  and  economic  problems  with  a  dis5nc5vely  Pinoy  humor.    Juana  Change  videos  have  hundreds  of  thousands  of  hits.  The  Juana  Change  project  seeks  to  con5nue  viral  campaigns  on  the  internet,  live  performances,  grassroots  tours,  and  na5onwide  TV  broadcast  to  advocate  freedom,  jus5ce  and  good  governance.  Juana  Change  performed  on  stage  with  a  family  who  survived  Typhoon  Yolanda  and  whom  she  subsequently  adopted.  In  her  entertaining  piece,  she  highlighted  the  corrup5on  that  results  in  undue  delays  in  providing  public  service  especially  in  5mes  of  disaster.  Vincent  Laza5n,  Execu5ve  Director  of  the  Transparency  and  Accountability  Network  (TAN),  a  Philippine-­‐based  network  of  25  civil  society  organiza5ons,  non-­‐governmental  organiza5ons,  and  academic  and  research  ins5tu5ons  focusing  on  transparency  and  accountability  in  governance,  responded  to  Juana  Change’s  performance  by  outlining  the  dysfunc5ons  of  governance  par5cularly  epal,  in  which  government  oﬃcials  put  their  names  and  faces  on  projects  to  take  credit  for  things  they  should  be  doing,  thus  ci5zen  distrust.  He    advocated  for  access  to  informa5on  and  ci5zen  involvement  to  increase  accountability.  
The  fourth  session,  What  we  get  wrong  about  the  poor  and  what  to  do  about  it?  (5tle  of  the  session  revised  a^er  discussions  with  the  speaker)  featured  Asia’s  foremost  authority  on  marke5ng,  Dr.  Ned  Roberto.  Dr.  Ned  currently  serves  as  part  of  the  editorial  board  of  the  Interna9onal  Journal  of  Research  in  Marke9ng.  The  author  of  numerous  bestselling  books  on  marke5ng,  market  research  and  social  marke5ng,  Dr.  Ned  is  a  sought  a^er  teacher,  mentor,  consultant  and  speaker  in  universi5es,  countless  na5onal  and  mul5na5onal  corpora5ons  in  a  wide  variety  of  industries,  and  in  interna5onal  agencies  and  organiza5ons.  He  is  the  recipient  of  the  AGORA  Award  for  Achievement  in  Marke5ng  Educa5on,  as  well  as  the  Life5me  Achievement  Award  as  Marke5ng  Educator.  He  is  currently  research  fellow  and  director  of  the  Social  Weather  Sta5ons.  Dr.  Ned  illustrated  how  most  poverty  allevia5on  programs  were  reaching  the  borderline  poor  and  not  the  extreme  poor  who  need  help  the  most.  We  also  need  to  be  cri5cal  of  our  model  or  framework  of  why  the  poor  are  poor  as  o^en5mes,  our  model  clouds  us  from  seeing  the  real  needs  of  the  poor.  

Mayor  Sandy  Javier    whose  hands-­‐on  response  to  his  people  in  Javier  Leyte  in  the  wake  of  Typhoon  Yolanda  is  legendary,  making  him  the  most  qualiﬁed  person  to  speak  for  the  ﬁ^h  session,  Responding  to  disasters:  Problems  encountered.  Lessons  learned.  A  leader  and  hero  to  many,  Mayor  Sandy  has  put  together  a  solid  relief  opera5ons  team  to  provide  immediate  relief  to  all  aﬀected.  The  Javier  Municipality  has  taken  responsibility  not  just  of  its  immediate  local  barangays  and  communi5es  but  also  for  the  20  towns  in  the  surrounding  area.  Javier  is  now  ac5ng  as  the  main  relief  goods  distribu5on  hub  for  these  coastal  and  inland  towns  gravely  aﬀected  by  Typhoon  Yolanda.  Mayor  Sandy  shared  his  experiences  saving  the  people  of  Javier  and  proac5vely  providing  food  for  them.  Vincent  Laza5n  in  his  capacity  as  member  of  a  Disaster  Response  Team  his  group  is  organizing,  supplemented  Mayor  Sandy’s  presenta5on.  Vincent  warned  that  such  disasters  are  bound  to  happen  again  especially  because  of  climate  change  and  the  vulnerable  posi5on  of  the  country  within  the  typhoon  belt  and  the  ring  of  ﬁre.  Instead  of  thinking  about  how  to  build  resilient  ci5es,  Vincent  raised  the  need  to  invest  in  infrastructure  to  prepare  for  disaster  as  well  as  to    think  in  terms  of  building  resilient  ecosystems  and  microclimates  since  natural  disasters  know  no  poli5cal  boundaries.  
Charles  McJilton  brought  the  symposium  to  a  close  with  the  ﬁnal  session  Building  a  business  model  for  Food  Bank  Philippines  in  which  he  shared  the  principles  that  have  guided  Second  Harvest  Japan  from  the  beginning  that  might  be  helpful  for  Salu-­‐Salo  FBP:  focus  on  building  rela5onships  with  people  and  companies  and  geang  away  from  the  poverty  mentality  and  just  start  working  with  what  resources  you  already  have.  
It  was,  without  doubt,  a  very  high-­‐powered  symposium  that  exceeded  expecta5ons.  The  highly  organized  sessions  were  packed  with  thought-­‐provoking  presenta5ons  that  le^  everyone  inspired  and  posi5ve,  eager  to  apply  and  share  what  they  have  learned,  and  get  more  involved  with  food  banking  eﬀorts.
On  a  more  personal  note,  someone  once  told  me,  “If  you  want  to  get  something  done,  ask  someone  who’s  already  busy.”  I  was  baﬄed  by  this  seemingly  counterintui5ve  thought.  I  cannot  imagine  anyone  busier  than  a  full  5me  homemaker  and  mother  of  two  wee  ones  and  yet  I  am  most  grateful  for  The  SYLFF  Leadership  Ini5a5ves  for  believing  in  my  capability  to  pull  this  through.    
I  look  back  and  feel  quite  overwhelmed  by  what  I  had  accomplished  with  my  hands  full.  This  experience  of  successfully  organizing  the  ﬁrst  Philippine  food  bank  symposium  has  only  served  to  energize  me  for  future  endeavors.