Tuesday, 08 September 2009 10:13 Last Updated on Tuesday, 08 September 2009 10:24 Written by admin

As the social arm of the Adventist church, Adventist Community Services (ACS) aims at providing the people in the community help for better living. These services come through livelihood, health, education, disaster response, etc.  As Jesus' ministry consisted mostly of helping those He came in contact with, so the Adventist church believes that through these services many will be helped.

This same love for people caused the Adventist Community Services of Tacas, Jaro, led by Llena Rubrico, the wife of Pastor James Rubrico, the district pastor, to consistently follow the monthly program for the whole year.  And last August 30, at 2:00 P.M., in cooperation with Shine Iloilo Shine (SIS), a micro-finance organization of the church based at Lapaz, the said ACS initiated that a lecture on cancer prevention and plant-based cooking demonstration be done in the church.

This initiation by two groups, ACS of Tacas and Shine Iloilo shine, comes through as these groups embrace the same value--helping people in the community.  Organized not just as a micro-finance institution, the Shine Iloilo Shine also seeks to provide health, dental, and livelihood programs to the community.  Last year, during the "Frank" tragedy, SIS provided food, clothing, and water assistance to the victims.  SIS also have consistent feeding programs, free dental and medical clinics for SIS members and clients.  "This way we can help as many people as possible in our community", Joefer Soliman, SIS accountant officer, said.

Because of the existing contacts of SIS to the people in and around Tacas, Llena Rubrico tapped SIS through Jonah Alvarez, SIS accountant officer, to join in this program.  So, invitations went around Tacas, particularly in barangays Bitoon, Buntatala, Tagbak, and Balabago.  More than 60 people came and received the services offered that day.

But this month's ACS program in Tacas comes just as one of the many consistent programs done by Tacas ACS.  "We consistently have our monthly program for the community, and we'd been doing this for more than three years now", Llena Rubrico said.  "We have clean-up drives, dental services, health symposiums, gift-givings, and programs for the elderly and youths; sometimes we would also invite personnels from the Bureau of Fire Protection and Population Commission; and, We've even adopted a place in barangay Tacas for our clean-up program", she further explained.

The cancer-prevention lecture and the plant-based diet cooking demonstration lasted for more than two-hours.  Yet the people enjoyed the presentation as it touches basically on lifestyle issues as the primary cause of cancer and preventing the same also revolves in changing one's lifestyle.  Preventing cancer means saying "no" to harmful chemicals from tobacco, alcohol, illicit drugs, pollution; it also means refraining from eating flesh foods, and from eating processed food, especially from the fast-food stores; moreover, it also requires one to live a healthy lifestyle of much exercise, eating plant-based diet, and taking rest, etc.

The cooking demo gets everyone interested as the cooking process and the food being cooked took a different route from the common.  The demo taught how to make a gluten (the product one gets by washing away the starch from flour) and how to cook the same into different palatable menus.  The ones attending not only watched the preparation and actual cooking of it, but they also got the chance of touching, smelling and tasting the same.

Many of the people attending, especially the ones who had just been into this kind of program for the first time, said their many thanks.  "Ay, abaw, amo gali na nga ang ginakaon ta mahimo nga makahatag cancer sa aton?...salamat gid sa pagpahibalo sa amon (O, I see, the food that we eat can also give us cancer?...thanks a lot for letting us know)", many of them said.

Dr. Antonio Acero, Founder and President of Remnant Institute of Alternative Medicine, gave the said lecture and did the cooking demo.