It was on this year, under the watch of Pres. Reynaldo “Rey” Adriano, that the Medical Missions Project was born. A brainchild and pet project of Serafin “Boy” Hilvano, a surgeon at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH), the project started on Boy’s very first year as a member of the Club. Now on its 26th year of operations, this joint project RC Makati-PGH undertaking offers indigent patients free surgery for hernia, hemorrhoids, gall stones, breast cancer, goiter, and meningocoele and has benefited way over a thousand grateful patients since its inception in 1989.
It was under Pres. Rey’s watch that the Club launched a project under the Vocational Service umbrella—the Makati Rotary Training Center (MRTC). Conceived and set to motion by Vinci Roco as a skills development facility for out-of-school youth as well as un- and underemployed men and women, the project offered a computer operation course and high-speed sewing classes, with support from project partners and sponsors—from the private sector, the Ayala Foundation and the Philippine Computer Society; from the government, the University of Life, National Manpower & Youth Council, and Apparel & Textile Industry Board Foundation. The Center also offered post-training assistance to sewing class trainees who successfully passed the course by recommending them for jobs in garment factories owned by Rotarians. MRTC ran for several years, helping hundreds of people transition from unskilled to skilled to gainfully employed.
Six years after its last run, the National Awards for Barangay Service was revived under its original name, National Awards for Community Service. With San Miguel Corporation as sponsor, the nationwide search for outstanding community projects culminated in May 1990 with a program that honored three top winners.
The Club kept up with its support of soldiers, especially those hurt, maimed or killed in the successive coups d’etat, failed attempts at overthrowing the Cory Aquino government, demonstrating its stand against violence with a substantial donation to the Alay sa Kawal Foundation.
Its concern for health found manifestation in its donation of badly-needed equipment to the pediatric ward of Ospital ng Makati and the medical missions it undertook in several places—Cabanelas in Makati’s Brgy. La Paz, Bauang in La Union, Manila, and Butuan in distant Mindanao.
The medical mission in La Union laid the groundwork for the forging of a brother-clubs agreement with the Rotary Club of Bauang, which flourished for over a decade.
It must be noted that Pres. Rey’s term marked yet another district renumbering plan that saw District 381 become District 3810.