To celebrate the 65th birthday of Executive Minister Brother Eduardo V. Manalo, the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) will conduct simultaneous Lingap sa Mamamayan outreach activities all over the world on October 31, 2020.
“We are focused on the interest of the people, that’s why we choose to honor our Executive Minister’s special day by continuing his unrelenting advocacy of humanitarian help through local and international projects under the groundbreaking Lingap project,” INC General Auditor Glicerio B. Santos, Jr. said.
INC’s Lingap sa Mamamayan or Aid to Humanity aims to provide livelihood and material assistance to INC members and non-members alike.
Lingap has been held not only in the Philippines but also in various parts of the globe.
For the Executive Minister’s 65th birthday, the INC would be holding an unprecedented 300 assistance drives in different venues all over the archipelago, involving 117 INC districts in the country. Fifty-eight districts abroad, meanwhile, will conduct similar programs in 116 sites.
Santos, Jr. explained that special preparations were made to ensure the widespread distribution of aid, focusing mainly on depressed areas and localities affected by the recent Typhoon Quinta. Assistance would also be provided to areas hard-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
For the foreign Lingap activities, direct assistance would be given to food banks, fire and police departments as well as foundations, schools and NGOs.
“We would distribute food and aid packs that include rice, canned goods, Nutribuns, vitamins, masks and face shields. For our Lingap aid abroad, cash grants are allocated to beneficiary organizations,” the INC official explained.
In 2018, the homegrown Filipino church, through its Felix Y. Manalo Foundation, went full blast with Lingap events in other countries after successfully conducting aid events domestically.
Several pioneering “Aid To Humanity, Fight Poverty” activities were held in the United States of America and in Canada.
Last year, the INC re-established Lingap in various parts of Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Australasia. Various OFW-focused events were held in Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Macau and Hong Kong, which benefitted close to 10,000 overseas Filipinos.
For 2020, Brother Eduardo V. Manalo has directed the Church to sustain the assistance program despite the challenges posed by the Covid-19 health emergency.
Santos stressed: “We are picking up the pace after the slow and steady relaxation of health restrictions. The INC provided PPEs and medicine to hospitals and LGUs in the first few months of the pandemic, but we decided to fully expand the aid initiatives through the well-established Lingap.”
“It so happens that we are relaunching Lingap on the birthday of our Executive Minister Brother Eduardo V. Manalo. It’s but fitting because this was his idea to begin with several years ago,” noted the INC General Auditor.
