1966-1967

This said that the presidency of any Rotary Club is a full-time job that requires much from the person. This is doubly true of RC Makati, the presidency of which demands undivided attention and often, 24-hour days. It can be tiring. And challenging. Which is why anyone elected president commits to one year and one year alone of full service to the Club - 12 months and no more. That rule has rung true for all of its presidents. Except one.

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Charter president Armando "Mando" Picciotto stands out in club history as the only president who served for two terms, running for 15 months-plus: the first year, from March 12, 1966, when the club received its charter, to June 30, 1966, the last day of that Rotary year, 1965-1966; and then for full-year term from July 1, 1966 to June 30, 1967. He also has the distinction of being the only president to have served under two governors of District 380 - Jose Barredo and Rodolfo Nisce.

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As charter president, Mando set the direction and laid the foundation for the Club's service programs and strategy. The Club would engage in projects with far-reaching and long-term ends that bring the greatest benefit to as many individuals or communities as can be reached. To ensure sustainability, the Club would partner with government agencies, business corporations and private organisations with human and material resources, proven expertise in a given field, and a shared passion for or interest in a given program or cause.

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The Club's first major project met all these criteria. In addition, it impacted a significant public - Makati's business community and gated residential villages - and served notice of the Club's arrival on the civic action scene.

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It was an ambitious undertaking for a fledgling club that had yet to grow wings: a postal station at the Makati Commercial Center (now Ayala Center). The MCC post office was timely response to a felt need to speed up the flow of communication and keep it in step with the town's business center that was growing at a dizzying pace. Noting the delay in mail arrivals owing to the routing of letters and parcels from the airport to the central post office in Manila before their delivery to addressees in Makati, the new club designed a new route that allowed air mail to be delivered from the airport straight to Makati, bypassing the central PO.

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The project stood on three legs: the Bureau of Posts, which approved the plan and provided the staff that manned the station; Ayala Corporation, which provided the space for the station; and the Club, which provided the transportation for mail pick-up and delivery, built PO boxes that it rented out to institutional and individual subscribers, and oversaw operations

Its effects were immediate, and met with praise, It was, from the standpoints of public service and public image. a master stroke that merited the issuance by the Bureau of posts of a commemorative stamp on its first anniversary.

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The Club's maiden year also marked the start of a long line of projects in the education sector.

Joining hands with S.C Johnson & Sons, it secured a donation of a 10-wheeler truck, outfitted it with bookshelves, and filled them with donated books for a mobile library that rolled through remote towns and barrios in neighboring provinces where books were in short supply, there to be devoured by students and teachers hungry for the knowledge derived form books and thankful for the joy that books alone bring.

 

The mobile library would be the precursor of the Club's most enduring educational project - Books Across the Seas or BATS. 

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