Raffy L. Lopez
Chairman of the Board of Directors

Overview
2007 was a productive year for ABS CBN Foundation: The Bantay Bata hotline responded to more than 20,566 calls for rescue and intervention. A group of 1,269 families participated in the Bantay Kalusugan nutrition initiative. The Children’s Village, our transitional housing for rescued children, was home to 120 children during the year. EMedia started implementation in 35 public elementary schools. Bayan Microfinance’s number of partnerships with small community entrepreneurs reached the 45,000 mark. And Knowledge Channel’s special program to remote high schools started its initial outreach to the hard-to-reach communities in Mindanao.

One of the key partnerships between the Foundation and our donors is the continuing rehabilitation of the province of Leyte after the devastating landslide. I am pleased to announce that we were able to build a 7 kilometer water line to serve the 670 families in the relocated New Guinsaugon Village. The project cost of P3.2 million was underwritten by ABS CBN and the donors of ABS CBN Foundation.

In 2007, unaudited reports show that ABS CBN Foundation USA received approximately $1.25 million in cash gifts for our projects in the Philippines. This was an increase of almost 75% from 2006. The increase was due in large part to a generous grant from Altria/Philip Morris International in support of the high school program of Knowledge Channel. In addition, we estimate that approximately $135,000 in cash was donated directly to ABS CBN Foundation Manila by returning and visiting Filipino Americans. The U.S. foundation also facilitated in-kind donations of medical equipment, wheelchairs, books, computers and other school equipment.

Excluding the Philip Morris grant, 92% of support came from individuals or their associations. Eighty percent (80%) of these donations were directed to Bantay Bata, the Children’s Village and Bantay Kalusugan (anti-hunger and malnutrition initiative). Fifteen percent (15%) supported the expansion of EMedia to new schools. And about 5% went to other programs including our disaster relief fund Sagip Kapamilya.

The overall fundraising climate in the U.S. in 2007 was tenuous at best. Our donors had expressed to us that challenges in the real estate and job markets affected their confidence in the economy and receptiveness to give more to causes in the Philippines. As a matter of fact, the average donation to ABS CBN Foundation USA decreased slightly in 2007.

However, what made up for the modest size of the average gift was the increase in the number of new supporters. At least 2,000 new U.S. donors—most of them from the subscriber roster of The Filipino Channel—joined the Foundation family. This was an increase of at least 27%.

Here in the U.S., we forged a partnership with the Los Angeles-based non profit Mending Kids International and Philippine Airlines Foundation to bring Filipino children in need of life-saving medical operations to the U.S. We established the Sagip Kapamilya Operation Wildfire to help Filipino families affected by the massive Los Angeles fires. We joined ABS CBN Global in the Tree of Hope initiative, a special campaign to help in the education of indigenous children from select Philippine provinces. And in December, we hosted the 10th anniversary gala of Bantay Bata in Los Angeles with Lea Salonga as headliner.

Program Reports

School Programs
EMedia is our elementary school program that brings the power of technology, media and television to the country’s public elementary schools. We provide these schools with basic audio-visual infrastructure, a library of research-based educational materials which currently stands at 108 original educational titles, and complementing professional development for teachers to help them use these materials to enhance their teaching.

In 2007, EMedia was introduced to 35 new elementary schools through the generosity of Filipinos in the United States. Many of these schools were in rural areas. More than 16,500 elementary students and their teachers were introduced to EMedia and educational television for the first time.

We have encouraged our friends to consider adopting clusters of schools in their hometowns to scale-up the regional impact of our work and bring about more systemic changes to the educational system of each province. In 2007, the Oriel family responded by adopting 7 schools in the province of Pampanga. And the Zambaleneans Club of Hawaii followed suit by adopting 13 schools in Zambales.

We now have 7,712 public elementary schools that use EMedia. There are 38,408 public elementary schools in the Philippines, and we have reached about 20% of them to date. More importantly, student test scores in EMedia schools have increased by 15% in science, 19% in English, and by an impressive 45% in math! To find out if an elementary school in your home province is available for adoption, I encourage you to contact the ABS CBN Foundation USA offices. The contact information is at the end of this report.

Knowledge Channel is a complementing high school program assisted by ABS CBN Foundation USA. This program helps build satellite connectivity for the most remote and hard-to-reach public high schools in the Philippines. In 2007, we facilitated two grants from Altria/Philip Morris International to help scale-up the work of Knowledge Channel in the war-torn communities of Mindanao. The project was nominated by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington DC as one of the most outstanding overseas programs of an American multinational corporation.

Bantay Bata and the Children’s Village
In 2007, 20,566 calls were received and acted upon by Bantay Bata hotlines in Manila, Cebu, Davao and Iloilo. Most of these calls involved on-the-spot intervention, medical, food, and nutrition assistance. Less than 1% necessitated extracting the children away from their environments due to extreme physical abuse. At least 120 children spent some time at the Children’s Village in Bulacan. The Village is our transitional housing for children of the worst abuse.

Our relationship with the children—and their families—often extend to the provision of some long-term support. The hotline has introduced us to families and communities that have eventually become participants in our community-wide nutrition programs. Children have qualified for long-term educational assistance. The schools of the children have become part of our EMedia school program. And, in select cases, Bayan Microfinance has come to the communities to promote economic self-sufficiency among the families.

Sagip Kapamilya
Sagip Kapamilya, the disaster emergency and rehabilitation fund of ABS CBN Foundation, implemented a new program in partnership with the Philippine Department of Education and nine other agencies and private organizations. Disaster Preparedness through Educational Multi-Media is an initiative that was brought to schools, community centers, businesses, government offices, and the general public in the last year.

The rehabilitation schedule for the province of Leyte is right on target! Water is now flowing at the relocation site. Nine (9) LPS (liters per second) of water is now available to 677 families in the New Guinsaugon Village. The pipeline is over 7 kilometers long. Costing approximately P3.2 million, the pipeline started running water on April 28, 2007.

Bayan Microfinance
In April, Bayan Microfinance also celebrated its tenth anniversary. Bayan’s mission remains unchanged in the last decade: to provide families with socio- economic opportunities that would enable them to live dignified and decent lives. At the anniversary reception hosted at the Central Bank of the Philippines in Manila, we unveiled three core programs: Grassroots Entrepreneurship Program or Entrep Eskwela; the Technical and Livelihood Courses on Communities or the Sanayan pang Hanap-buhay at Kabuhayan and lastly, Microfinancing.

Ten years ago, the Lopez family experimented by lending to 25 small, women-owned businesses in Loyola Heights QC. Today, Bayan facilitates the provision of financial services from small loans, multipurpose loans, savings and micro-insurances, all geared at freeing families from the chains of poverty. Bayan Microfinance currently serves about 45,000 families nationwide. The debt repayment rate is an impressive 97%. This is testimony to the fact that what the poor really want are opportunities, not hand outs.

In 2008, we will promote Microfinance as another opportunity for Filipino Americans to help the Philippines. We will encourage Filipinos in the U.S. and their friends to donate funds to serve as additional revolving capital for low income households—perhaps in their home provinces—that engage in small and micro businesses.

Expanding the Foundation Family
We welcomed more than 2,000 first-time donors to ABS CBN Foundation USA in 2007. The Foundation’s alliance with The Filipino Channel continues to provide that unique forum to educate Filipinos around the world on the plight of poor and disadvantaged Filipino children and their families. Through the power and reach of media, we were able to inform and inspire, as well as empower and involve many more of our kababayans.

In 2007, we reached out to more Filipino employees of American corporations with matching gift programs. The following companies generously matched their employees’ donations: Bank of America, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Callaway, Clorox Company, Farella Braun + Martel, Global Impact, Hospira Foundation, JK Group Inc., Levi Strauss, Microsoft, P.G. & E., Roll Giving, and Wellpoint. We encourage our friends and supporters to contact their human resource departments to check if your employers have a matching gift program that can double or even triple your donations to Bantay Bata and ABS CBN Foundation.

The Board of Directors approved the nomination of four new members: Cora and Roger Oriel, and Millie and Michael Gurfinkel. The Oriels and Gurfinkels are long-time friends and supporters of ABS CBN Foundation USA.

Prospects for 2008
As we continue to scale-up the implementation of our various programs across the country in the next year, we will put special attention on the critical needs in Bicol. The children of Bicol are faced with the worst cases of malnutrition and hunger; inadequate medical services; and substandard housing, educational and community infrastructure.

In 2008, the programs of ABS CBN Foundation—Bantay Bata, Bantay Kalusugan, EMedia, Bayan Microfinance—will be implemented in Bicol in a complementing, holistic fashion to truly address the multifaceted and specialized needs of this community. Bicol may be the test ground for a comprehensive approach to development in each province and region of the country.

We recognize that the needs of the disadvantaged and disenfranchised are often changing, and ABS CBN Foundation strives to have the capacity to address these changing needs. With your continued patronage, we will work to always remain relevant to the people we are privileged to serve.