Gina on a Quest for Love

Former Environment Secretary Gina Lopez.

Anything can be made into a contest these days.

We’ve seen shows that made a competition out of eating loads of unhealthy food, losing weight in weeks, and even pretending you can’t sing when you really can.

Gina Lopez wants something different.

The former environment secretary, whose name could either inspire or send shivers down one’s spine, wants a contest for community development.

Social good

This might not be the usual pitch that people hear when suggesting new story ideas for TV, but Lopez of the family that runs ABS-CBN is looking to use her clout for social good.

So what’s the pitch?

It’s a contest among groups to bring out the best out of their

partner-communities.

She calls it “the Quest for Love.”

“One thing is you know how we have The Voice, Pilipinas Got Talent, and all that. So we felt, why do we just give awards to those who sing well? Why can’t we give awards to communities that have the guts and the creativity to get themselves out of poverty?” she said in a press launch last week.

The Quest for Love is in partnership with the Social Economy Action Research (SEARCH) Foundation, Bayan Academy for Social Entrepreneurship and Human Resource Development, and several government agencies.

These include the Departments of Trade and Industry, Social Welfare and Development, Tourism, Science and Technology, National Defense, Public Works and Highways, and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.

The competition, which will be featured as a special segment on “G Diaries” on ABS-CBN this July, will allow socially oriented organizations in the country to establish sustainable community-based businesses.

The contest will start with a shortlist of 16 groups, which will be selected based on their track record, their leaders, and the potential impact of the proposed intervention on the partner community.

Lopez and her team will accept applications on or before April 13. Interested groups can look for further information on questforlove.ph.

Training sessions

The top 16 will enter into a three-day boot camp with training sessions on area development where candidates will pitch their preliminary plans to a panel of judges at the end of the boot camp.

The judges include Anna Meloto-Wilk, one of the co-founders of eco-friendly company Human Nature.

The selection will be based on the following: Potential impact of the group’s program on the local community and environment, the community’s level of involvement in the program, and enterprise competitiveness and sustainability.

After the training, eight candidates will be chosen to undergo the mentoring and support program with each of the eight organizations receiving P100,000 on top of direct access to government support.

Since she can neither hold office in the private sector or in the government for now, she channeled her energies to putting up the Investments in Loving Organizations for Village Economies (ILOVE) Foundation, which will provide financial and technical support to eight deserving organizations in the competition.

Each of the lucky eight will get one-on-one guidance from ILOVE’s pool of mentors, including an enterprise development officer. The mentoring and support program will last for eight months.

Viewers will get to follow the journey of the eight semifinalists this July on “G Diaries,” which launched its second season early this year.

In the end, three organizations will win the competition and receive direct assistance from the ILOVE Foundation and other government and private partners. They will be awarded based on tangible outcomes achieved during the eight-month period.

Undoubted passion

Lopez has always been a vocal supporter of the environment and social development. While this drew her praise in some sectors, this brought in criticisms, especially from the mining industry when she took on the role of President Duterte’s environment czar.

No one, however, could doubt her passion. Here, in this quest, her passion shows clear. Amid all the political noise, she really just wants to help the poor.

“The stand of ILOVE is this: Economic growth, if it does not result in social justice, is totally bogus. I don’t care about the stock market, or the GDP. If our people don’t benefit, it’s totally bogus,” she said.