Gina Lopez was both ecstatic and emotional when she graced a momentous event on Friday.
When she arrived at the executive dining restaurant of ABS-CBN Corporation located on the 14th floor of the ELJ Communications Center, she immediately greeted everyone and asked for everyone’s name on the press table.
“I’m going to remember you,” she told a member of the press who was wittingly introduced to her as an editor who is also good at singing. She then graciously asked to have a group photo with the scribes together with Jude Turcuato, FOX International Channel senior vice president at general manager.
“As you know, I was a cabinet minister for 10 months and my increasingly profound realization and conviction after 10 months in the government…it’s not the money that makes the difference,” she said at the beginning of the program where her award-winning travel show G Diaries was announced to be going global with a partnership with the National Geographic Society (NAT GEO) for its third season.
“You know what makes the difference? It’s the heart. It’s when you really care. You can have little money but if you connect with people and the ideas that come would be good and you create an environment with love, you bring much more than the money can,” she added.
Lopez’s I LOVE (Investments in Loving Organizations or Village Economies) Foundation, which she founded in 2017, will be the main highlight of her show’s third season.
The new season of G Diaries will feature the eight communities that won last year’s “Quest for Love” and will be getting technical and financial support for their proposed business and livelihood projects.
“What we want to do in the program is create a model. We want to show that when the people care, when there’s someone who stands for integrity and love, you end up making more money, there will be peace and order, there will be good health,” Lopez said.
In fulfilling its dream of “Creating a Planet in Balance,” NAT GEO—known as a world leader in geography, cartography and exploration—has agreed to take part in transforming marginalized communities into successful and sustainable agro—forestry, fisheries and ecotourism sites, by showcasing the beautiful I LOVE sites through their identified media platforms and digital assets.
These “I LOVE” sites, are located in Tublay, Benguet; Bulusan, Sorsogon; Sta Cruz Island, Zamboanga; Polomolok, South Cotabato; Lake Sebu, South Cotabato; Simunul Island and Bongao, Tawi Tawi; Upi, Maguindanao; and Maramag, Bukidnon.
During event, Lopez and Turcuato held a memorandum of agreement signing to formalize the partnership, where NAT GEO will be creating and showing communication materials on the featured communities in G Diaries to its global audience.
Turcuato shared that NAT GEO and Lopez’s I LOVE Foundation are same in looking for change agents in the world and he believes by showing the stories of the eight communities they can prove that change is possible.
“Because our mandate is to really inspire people to care about the planet globally, we are now going tell the story (of the communities in G Diaries) to not only the Philippines but we’re going do our best to tell the story elsewhere so that people can see the model, especially if it works, and the whole world can know the great things that are happening in the Philippines,” Turcuato said.
Lopez founded to bring together private institutions, local government units, government agencies and ABS-CBN Lingkod Kapamilya’s Bantay Kalikasan to address the reality that although the Philippines boasts of a 6.7 percent GDP growth and is seen to be one of the top 3 fastest growing economies in Asia, the robust growth has not trickled down to the remotest areas of the country—the fishermen, farmers, indigenous people and people in conflict areas.
Among I LOVE’s partners are People Design Places (PDP) Architects, ESCA Inc. and, Institute of Integrated Electrical Engineers of the Philippines, Inc. (IIEE).
G Diaries, which first aired in 2017, has been supporting I LOVE’s advocacy of uplifting the lives of the marginalized community through sharing the inspiring stories of communities in the program.
Last year, the show won Best Travel Show at the 32nd PMPC Star Awards and Most Development-Oriented Environment Program at the UP Gandingan Awards 2018.
Watch G Diaries Season 3 on ABS-CBN every Sunday starting March 3 at 10:00 a.m. It will also air on cable TV on ANC, the ABS-CBN News Channel, and the METRO Channel. For more information and to support the I LOVE communities, visit https://www.passitforward.com/u/ngo/1676#/stories.