Solita Magahum-Wakefield
SOLITA MAGAHUM-WAKEFIELD
President,
World Bank Group IMF Filipino Staff Association (WBIFA)
Solita Magahum-Wakefield is an enthusiastic advocate for Filipino nationalism and an ardent fundraiser for the disadvantaged Filipinos or “kababayans” in the Philippines. As president of the World Bank Group IMF Filipino Staff Association (WBIFA) for the past three years and now on her 4th term in office, together with her very involved and vigilant set of Officers, continues to implement awareness of cultural, social and economic situations in the Philippines by way of informational events and local activities, as well as fund raise for support and assistance to the Philippines, especially for the victims of calamities.
Solita grew up in Bacolod City and moved to Manila when she was 11 years old. Her childhood was a mix of playmates from school, but mostly with poor children who lived in their family’s land for free. From a very early age, the less fortunate and underprivileged have curved a niche in Solita’s heart. Driven to reach out to them, while in Maryknoll College, Solita together with her good friend, Maricel Marino, made weekly visits to White Cross, an orphanage in Mandaluyong run by nuns. There they got involved by donating goodies to the children, taking 8-10 kids out to visit museums and parks, and prepared meals for them at home on Sundays. Both shared a dream of one day establishing an orphanage of their own. After graduating from her M.A. in Economics in New York, she did not choose to work in the private sector but, inspired to make a difference in the world, opted to move to Washington DC to pursue a career in two international institutions serving developing countries. She started as a consultant at the World Bank in 1986 and continued at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1991 as Senior Research Officer where she carried out research and data analysis and participated in economic missions to countries in Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Asia.
In her desire to be always connected to her home country, Solita became involved with the World Bank Group IMF Filipino Staff Association (WBIFA) as Vice president in 1997-1998 and Adviser to the then president Vangie Ganuelas in 1999-2000. Among WBIFA’s objectives are to keep its membership informed and educated on the goings on in the Philippines in terms of the economic and socio-cultural conditions.
Aiming to make that difference specially for her beloved country, the Philippines, Solita accepted the position of Overall Chairperson of Feed the Hungry, Inc. (FtH) in 1999 to do civic and charitable projects and has been an active volunteer and Board member since then. For the last 11 years, she goes home at least once every year to visit family, as well as, implement FtH projects in different provinces of the country. All travel and incidental expenses are shouldered personally by each FtH volunteer or officer. The projects are diverse in both scope and range, and all are directed at bringing assistance to the poor. She has travelled to the Bicol region, Camarines Sur and Leyte for calamity assistance, to many depressed areas in MetroManila to implement feeding programs and gift giving projects including to the Mangyan tribes in the mountains of Mindoro. She participated along with FtH volunteers in distributing goods and basic needs to orphanages in MetroManila, Bacolod City, the Bicol region and other provinces, and also to homes for the aged and the disabled. Solita has participated in medical missions in Paranaque, Caloocan, Naga and Sorsogon, including a visit to the leper colony in Novaliches. Her volunteer work continues every year.
Highlights of her FtH experiences are solo implementations in the company of one or more Commission on Filipinos Abroad (CFO) staff, an FtH partner in the Philippines; in 2006, a catastrophic mud landslide in Leyte buried the town of Guinsaugon, and nearly 2000 people perished including an elementary school full of children. She took an early morning flight from Manila to Leyte, a 4-hour truck ride to a remote town where there are no more schools standing and children are taught inside tents. Books, raincoats and rain boots were distributed to the children then a somber visit to Ground Zero, what town people call the town of Guinsaugon, now all buried in mud; an arduous solo trip to Samar for a dental mission up in the mountains that took a 1 1/2-hour plane trip, a 4-hour public bus trip and a half an hour bumpy tricycle ride to reach; in 2007, a solo flight to Bicol coordinating with local authorities and the CFO staff, distributed basic needs of food and toiletries to the hundreds of homeless families displaced by the Mayon Volcano eruption and the continuing outflow of lava that destroyed homes and farms; she took a 15-kilometer drive up a mountain in Bacolod where 40 elderly, abandoned by their children, are cared for by nuns whose only transportation to the city when an emergency happens is one “carabao” (water buffalo).
Medicines, diapers and food were distributed.
What she finds most heart rending, a feeling that is etched in her heart and the driving force of her unconditional dedication to help the poor and make a difference – is the memory of holding in her arms, a one-year old severely malnourished child in Camarines Sur, hardly 15 lbs in weight, who can hardly open its eyes and too weak to speak or move. A sight that cries out for immediate help.
The most essential and significant principle that brings comfort to her is the reassurance that thru FtH and the support of WBIFA Officers and its members, Filipinos here at the Washington Metropolitan can reach out to their disadvantaged and deprived “kababayans” to share their blessings and be able to give hope and renewed faith to them, who have lost it.
One can never put a price on the grateful smile of a 90-year old woman happy to receive a piece of perfumed soap, a dress, a towel, a shampoo; the excitement in the face of a 4-year old boy in tattered clothes receiving a toy, a book, a pencil; the cheers of half naked children of a Mangyan tribe seeing candies and cookies in big bundles, and milk for the next four months; a tear of appreciation from a woman on death row receiving goodies and a visit from someone who still cares. All the hard work, the fundraising efforts, the countless hours after work and family life, makes it all worth it.
On her last visit to the Philippines in January 2010, she went to Iloilo and visited 3 homes built by FtH thru Habitat for Humanity and listened to the horror stories of the recipient families who lost their homes during one of the worst floods in Iloilo in decades- typhoon Frank submerged 80% of Iloilo City and devastated 42 towns and 48,836 families and a total over half a million families in the whole province. She also visited FtH grade school scholars in Baluarte Elementary School supported by her own close friends and the Iloilo City High School to check on the computers donated to FTH which she has procured from the IMF. While in Manila, she joined FtH volunteers for gift-giving implementations in a public elementary school in Marikina and indigent families from the Sierra Madre mountains who were victims of Typhoon Ondoy that hit Manila in 2009 in one of the worst floods in the city and surrounding areas.
Always actively involved in staff events in the World Bank and IMF, particularly those benefiting Filipino and Filipino- American staff, Solita acquiesced and accepted the nomination for President of the World Bank Group-IMF Filipino Association (WBIFA). She was elected to the position in 2006 and has held the position along with a majority of the Officers for four terms, including the current year. Working with the dedicated and committed set of Officers,
WBIFA organized economic forums and informational seminars from visiting Cabinet members, government authorities and NGOs as speakers. During her term, the Association implemented community reach out projects and several fund-raising campaigns for calamity assistance in the Philippines. The most recent fundraising effort was the Typhoon Ondoy Relief Campaign in October 2009 that collected the biggest funds raised in the history of WBIFA in the total amount of $60,500 which included matching funds from the World Bank and the IMF. WBIFA has contributed to a microfinance project of the Ayala Foundation thru former Ambassador Albert del Rosario and the GILAS project (Gearing-up for Internet Access to Students). On one of her visits to the Philippines, Solita visited the public high school in Mandaluyong along with two Ayala Foundation staff to see the computers that now have internet access financed by WBIFA. WBIFA also donated to the renovation of a school in Naga damaged by Typhoon Reming, built a school in conjunction with the Philippine Association of Metropolitan Washington Engineers (PAMWE) in Carles, Iloilo destroyed by Typhoon Frank, financed two Feed the Hungry 6-month feeding programs, and donated to the medical mission to the Philippines of St. Charles Borromeo parish in Arlington. The WBIFA members and Officers participate in the yearly IMF and World Bank Cultural Showcase. Other activities include book signing of Filipino authors, seminars of interest to the membership (i.e., Stock Exchange and Investment in the Philippines, Empowerment for Women and Philanthropy, Open Forums on Economic Environment in the Philippines).
Relentless in her efforts to help newcomers to the DC area who have come to better the future prospects of their families but are treading unfamiliar soil, Solita thru WBIFA joined forces with the Philippine Embassy to continue the yearly Winter Clothes Drive for Filipino Migrant Teachers which has started two years previously. This effort has made the newly arrived teachers feel welcome by the community. She spearheaded the procurement of 100 computers from the IMF to donate to FtH and are now being used in public schools in Iloilo and other provinces. Also, through her efforts, 20,000 textbooks from the World Bank were shipped to the Philippines in coordination with Makati Rotary Club.
On her 4th term in office at WBIFA, together with her devoted and tireless team of Officers, Solita aims to leave a legacy of continuous and enthusiastic involvement of the Association and its members to further cultivate interest and concern of to their home country. This year, she plans to revive the WBIFA website, implement a program that will involve the youth to appreciate Philippine history, its beauty and culture and a language program in conjunction with the Philippine Embassy to teach conversational Pilipino to young Filipino kids who are mostly born in the U.S. and other cultural activities. These projects will be aimed at awakening the Filipino-American youth of the cultural treasures that abound in their Filipino heritage and roots.
Outside of her activities with WBIFA and FtH, Solita has volunteered with K.E.E.N. (Kids Enjoy Exercise Now) an organization located in Maryland that recruits volunteers on weekends to play and exercise with mentally disadvantaged children, while giving their parents some hours of rest and respite. She is also a volunteer for INVOLVE, an IMF volunteer group in Metropolitan DC.
Born in Molo, Iloilo City, Solita, fondly called by family and close friends “Tata” (Ilonggo for “little girl”) is the daughter of Ignacio Magahum and Ramona Santiago. She is the proud grand daughter of Angel M. Magahum Sr. who is recognized in Philippine history as the “Colossus of Visayan Literature”, a historian, a musical composer of zarzuelas in his time and the author of the first Hiligaynon novel “Benjamin”. She graduated A.B. in Economics at Maryknoll College, and was awarded a scholarship at Ateneo de Manila University for M.A. in Economics. Solita proceeded to New York to complete her M.A. in Economics at Long Island University and took courses in Quantitative Analysis in New York University, MBA courses at George Washington University and PhD courses at the George Mason University in Fiscal Policy. She is a member of the Omicron Delta Epsilon (Economics Honor Society, New York chapter).
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PDF 
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