Aklan hosts NGOs nationwide assembly

BY BOY RYAN B. ZABAL

Senator Cynthia Aguilar Villar will lead the forthcoming nationwide assembly of non-government organizations (NGOs) as keynote speaker on April 21, 2014 at the Aklan State University in Banga, Aklan.

Johnny Dayang, chairman of Ben Hur Z. Mobo Move Aklan Forward Foundation, Inc. (BHZMMAFFI), said the 2014 Strategic Convergence of NGOs for Countryside Growth aims to invite leaders and representatives of NGOs to converge and act together as an advocacy and mission-propelled movement.

Dayang said Senator Villar is expected to call upon the more knowledgeable, respected, and civic-minded citizens who are not in the public service to lend their collective talents, experience, and expertise to chart the progress and development of the country and spearhead the movement for reforms and meaningful change.

Senator Villar, chairman of the committee on Agriculture and Food and popularly known as “Misis Hanapbuhay”, founded Villar Social Institute for Poverty Alleviation and Governance or Villar SIPAG and the Villar Foundation.

"With the central theme of New Vistas for NGOs, the one-day summit of NGOs will help recast and re-invent vital sectors of Philippine society, so that they can set up a truly democratic and egalitarian polity," said Dayang, who is currently chair of the Publishers Association of the Philippines, Inc. (PAPI).

Dayang, former Philippine National Red Cross chairman and veteran journalist, said the foundation was organized in 1987 to enshrine the idealism and vision of the late Ben Hur Z. Mobo, who served his home province of Aklan and its people as a youth leader, pro-poor lawyer, senior Provincial Board Member, Vice Governor and Governor of Aklan.