ABOUT US
High Quality Solutions
Finding A Permanent Solution Is Our Ultimate Goal!
Pilipinas Una sa Lahat (Cebu Foundation, Inc.
provides scholarship subsidies and personality development programs to disadvantaged yet diligent and deserving students (secondary and tertiary levels). It seeks to empower financially challenged Filipino youth obtain the best quality education and enable them to become productive (critical and creative) Filipino citizens and compassionate human beings. PUNLA (Cebu) Foundation, Inc. believes that education is powerful equalizer and a basic right among all Filipinos who seek to become the best that he/she can be for one’s family and for the Filipino Nation. Through these, the foundation envisions to produce intelligent and industrious Filipino citizens who will become assets of our beloved country – Pilipinas.
Sowing the Seeds: The Birth of PUNLA
At the closing end of the 20th century, the Philippines had experienced social, political and economic challenges which had pervasively constrained the Filipino society in providing the best welfare for its citizen especially to the children and youth. The political aftermaths of the Martial Law; the EDSA Revolution; the subsequent coup d’etats; and insurgencies had caused social and economic turmoils which had pressed down Filipino families to the mires of poverty. Many Filipino families were living below poverty line and denied the opportunity of helping themselves become productive and dignified citizens who can contribute to our country’s development. The promise of youth had become perils of juvenile delinquency and the innocence of children had become illusions of lost childhood corrupted by hopelessness and desperation.
Industrialist and philanthropist couple, Dr. Norberto B. Quisumbing, Jr. and Madame Britta B. Quisumbing founders of the Norkis Group of Companies saw and felt that something concrete and sustainable must be done in order to address these compelling realities. While the power and influence of the church and the government are hardly enough to mitigate the detrimental effects of social inequality and abject poverty, sincere initiatives of private individuals can contribute so much in alleviating the conditions of struggling Filipino families.
Thus, in 1988, the Pilipinas Una sa Lahat (PUNLA) Scholarship Program was launched by the Norkis Group of Companies. Dr. Norberto B. Quisumbing, Jr. and Madame Britta B. Quisumbing fondly called Papa NQ and Mama BQ by PUNLA beneficiaries with the help of kind hearted principals and teachers of the University of San Jose Recoletos (USJR) High School Department and the University of the Philippines (UP) High School department identified struggling yet deserving elementary school graduates who will become the first batch of incoming first year high school PUNLA scholars.
Papa NQ and Mama BQ believes that these struggling yet deserving young children who will soon become youth deserve all the moral, financial and spiritual support available so that they will develop and transform as productive Filipino citizens. They are like seeds that must be planted into good soil, nurtured and cared until they will become sturdy trees that are capable of bearing good fruits that will yield the best seeds. The benevolent couple associates good soil with quality education; and the nurturing and caring to the personal and social development and formation programs and activities. It is their vision that through their humble efforts of providing education financial subsidies and values formation many struggling yet deserving Filipino families will be given an edge and leverage amidst the tough and unforgiving competition toward social mobility. Papa NQ and Mama BQ compare these academically excellent and industrious but financially challenged students as “punla” the Tagalog word for seedling (binhi in Visayan) whom if given the proper soil – quality education; and nurturing and caring – appropriate values formation will grow into sturdy trees – productive and competent Filipino citizens who will become our leaders – thinkers and doers toward nation building and development.
Along the years, the PUNLA Scholarship Program had strengthened itself to become not just an organization who provides scholarship financial subsidies but a refuge and sanctuary to struggling but striving students by providing values formation seminars; personality development activities and even counselling to its beneficiaries. With the strong desire of helping more and more poverty stricken students, PUNLA through the Norkis Group of Companies and the Quisumbing Family had persuaded business associates and close friends of Papa NQ and Mama BQ to take part in their advocacy of empowering struggling Filipino families. In the 1990s and until now, these business associates and close friends become generous godparents who faithfully support one or more PUNLA scholarship beneficiaries. Later on, the Norkis Group of Companies through the generosity its chairman and vice-chairperson, Dr. Norberto B. Quisumbing, Jr. and Madame Britta B. Quisumbing decided to grant its employees – the loyal and deserving Norkisans scholarship benefits to their children who qualify to the rigorous selection process and excellent standards of the PUNLA Scholarship Program. Many Norkisans were very grateful as their children become Norkis-PUNLA Scholars who are given the option to take their education in any reputable private education institution. Later on, successful Norkis-PUNLA Scholars become themselves Norkisans who chose to emulate their parents and start their corporate careers in the Norkis Group of Companies.
Sustaining the Seedlings: PUNLA through the years
Through the years the PUNLA Scholarship Program later on known as PUNLA (Cebu) Foundation, Inc. had already supported more than a thousand scholarship beneficiaries. It had already produced 31 batches of PUNLA scholarship beneficiaries since academic year 1988-1989 until the last academic year 2019-2020. Many of them are now professionals – doctors; engineers; accountants; teachers; priests; lawyers; nurses practicing in the Philippines and abroad – while some are entrepreneurs and artists.
Sharing the Shade: PUNLA (Cebu) Foundation, Inc. 33 years and beyond
PUNLA (Cebu) Foundation, Inc. is now on its 33rd year of giving hope and inspiration to struggling Filipino families. It envisions to count more and more successful and fruitful years of empowering industrious and academically excellent but financially challenged students become confident, competitive and also compassionate citizens. It is now organizing the PUNLA Alumni Association (PAA) which will keep tract of the whereabouts of the graduated PUNLA scholarship beneficiaries. With a current membership of 400 alumni, PAA envisions to mobilize its members to organize activities that will inspire the current scholars and also themselves become PUNLA godparents.
With the intention to make the services extended to its beneficiaries even better; and management and operations more efficient and effective, the PUNLA (Cebu) Foundation, Inc. continually seeks the technical expertise of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) the Philippine Council for NGO Certification (PCNC). As a duly registered socio-civic foundation, it synergizes with DSWD, PCNC and other foundations in order to create more linkages and acquire more professional competence in serving the best welfare of its beneficiaries.
Thirty two years after its inception, PUNLA (Cebu) Foundation, Inc. looks back on its experiences as well as beyond the horizon for more future endeavours in serving the welfare of the Filipino people. Through the leadership and direction of its founder and benefactor, Dr. Norberto B. Quisumbing, Jr., PUNLA (Cebu) Foundation, Inc. intends to put under its care Q-Park I located in the Municipality of Compostela, Province of Cebu; and Q-Park II located in the Municipality of Malaybalay, Province of Bukidnon which are all religious and socio-civic destinations for Filipino families from all walks of life. It is also exploring the possibility of reviving the Q-Excellence Awards which recognizes the academically excellent; socially engaged; and morally upright pupils and students of all public elementary and secondary academic institutions of the Municipality of Compostela.
There is no limitation to innovative ideas that will enable PUNLA (Cebu) Foundation, Inc. to serve the best welfare of the Filipino people. In its 33 years of service and beyond it will sustainably work on enabling and empowering Filipinos to become the best that they can be – as individuals and as a nation serving its namesake – Pilipinas Una sa Lahat.
Goals, Vision and Mission
Vision
Each child finds a dignified path to realize his or her family and in the community, ultimately leading to nation-building and successful life.
Uplift, enrich and improve the socio civic and spiritual well being of the Filipino people especially the youth.
Mission
To provide access to higher education through scholarship grants for the less fortunate and deserving students, which is an investment in their future contribution to the society;
To make conscious efforts to influence active support from institutions, private individuals and families.
To support development and implement a comprehensive program for various activities o issues, trends and thrust related to the different sectors of the community – educational background, governmental, environmental, business, socio-civic, and religious – as reference for national reconstruction and nation-building
Goals
The Foundation aims to ensure the educational support of all participating in all activities every year.
Work in partnership with stakeholders, including former beneficiaries, to achieve the objectives and plans of the Foundation.
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum