National daily Manila Bulletin featured The Lewis College on the front of their Schools, Colleges and Universities Bulletin section (E1), To see the online version of this article, click here (this opens a new window/tab).
October 22, 2013, Sorsogon City - ATRIEV or Adaptive Technology for Rehabilitation, Integration and Empowerment of the Visually Impaired, the only computer training institution for the blind in the Philippines, in partnership with The Lewis College (TLC), Department of Education Region V and the Special Education Division, held a 10-day community-based computer training for visually impaired students and special education teachers of Sorsogon last October 22 to 31, 2013 at TLC Annex in Piot, and TLC Main Campus in Sorsogon City. The training sessions were led by ATRIEV's totally blind Executive Director, Tony Llanes and ATRIEV's graduate, Bobby Baja from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM to maximize the time for learning. They were assisted by Mrs. Necy Mendoza-Llanes.
This project was made possible through the kindness of TLC Board of Trustee Pastor Francisco Nicolas, Jr., who is also ATRIEV's Board Treasurer. The local government of Sorsogon City led by the honorable Mayor Sally Lee, the DepEd office led by School Division Superintendent Ms. Ruby Abundabar, Assistant Superintendent Ms. Socorro de La Rosa, and Regional SPED Coordinator Ms. Eliza Suarez were also a part of making this project a reality. Pastor Francis brought the team of ATRIEV from their office in Quezon City to Sorsogon in order for ATRIEV to teach 13 visually impaired students and 7 teachers and relatives of the blind who came from Irosin, Bulan and other towns in Sorsogon Province. ATRIEV also brought 15 laptops with text-to-speech software in order to teach the blind about typing, word processing, surfing the Internet, email and social media.
September 25, 2013 - The Lewis College is the new Champion in BICCS Season 7 (College Level) for the second time! The varsity players gave their all in the do or die games against reigning CCDI Wildcats to emerge victorious. Coaches for this year was Mr. Ian Gallos, Mr. Vernie Datu and Mr. Jesus Lagata. It was truly a memorable event. Congratulations also to the TLC PepSquad team who also danced their way to the Top in BICCS Pepsquad Competitions. Below are the champions with their Trainor, Mr. Ardel Dela Torre.
REPORTING FROM MANILA, PHILIPPINES—The life of America’s most successful African-American Wall Street financier is remembered and celebrated in a most unlikely location, some 8,000 miles from the New York City financial hub where he rose to prominence.
In a quiet province in the Philippines, there is a school that is named after Reginald F. Lewis, who is widely regarded as one of America’s financial powerhouses. In fact, in a short 10 years since it was founded, the Lewis College has gained a good bit of attention for its academic excellence in a school that provides education for students from elementary school through college.
The school was founded by Loida Nicolas Lewis, the widow of the late finance mogul, in her native Filipino province of Sorsogon, a 11-hour drive to the southwest of the nation’s capital of Manila. It was, she explained, a way of honoring her husband’s memory as well as providing needed quality education in the region where she grew up.
“The idea of starting a school was something that I was excited about,” Lewis said, in an interview with BET.com. “It has always been my belief that the best way out of poverty is education."
Indeed, her late husband considered his contributions to educational institutions to be his most important legacy. In the years before his death, he gave vast sums to several schools, including Virginia State andHoward universities. In New York, he gave large contributions to Abyssinian Baptist Church and the New York City scholarship foundation of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, of which he was a member.
As every student at the school knows, Reginald Lewis was a Wall Street lawyer and financier, was one of America’s richest businessmen and was a prominent corporate-takeover dealer. He was a graduate of Virginia State and Harvard Law School.
His $1 billion acquisition in 1987 of the Beatrice Cos., a foods concern, led to the formation of his own company, TLC Beatrice International. He amassed personal assets of $400 million, according to estimates by Fortune magazine. By acquiring the Beatrice operations, TLC became the largest company in the country run by a Black person. He died in 1993 from brain cancer at the age of 50.
In addition to educating students, there seems to be another mission at the Lewis College. The leaders of the school are determined to make sure that students come to know the name and accomplishments of the man after whom the institution was named.
Sorsogon City, Philippines– Niles and Meleneus Perlas, a Filipino couple residing in New York, USA recently donated $5,000 for The Lewis College (TLC) in their desire to support the needy but deserving students in Sorsogon. Half of this amount was donated by KDP Foundation, a foundation set up by Mr. and Mrs. Perlas named after their daughter Kristine Perlas.
This scholarship from KDP Foundation is for students who are poor but have exemplary performance in studies and passed the screening of the TLC Executive Committee. The other half will be for an evergreen loan fund, the Niles and Meleneus Loan Fund which will be made available to qualified TLC graduates who lack funds for processing their papers but are already scheduled to work abroad.
CRNA Niles Perlas is the Chairman of Filipino American Medical Inc. (FAMI), a non-profit corporation founded in 1999 by Mr. and Mrs. Perlas and friends in New York city. FAMI brings American and Filipino-American physicians and other medical professionals to the Philippines to serve the poor. She also worked as an Anesthetist for the Hospital for Special Surgery for 20 years and retired this April. Her husband, Meleneus Perlas, is Vice President of a Real Estate Investment Company and project manager in Jeffries Morris. Together with her husband, Mrs. Perlas has donated in numerous projects in her province of Nueva Ecija and other missions to help the poor in the Philippines. Their family’s charitable work is clearly seen in their medical missions at www.ifami.org. As Mrs. Perlas mentioned, “It is our pleasure to serve the needy.”
CRNA Niles Perlas receiving an award at Malacanang Palace.
National daily Manila Bulletin featured The Lewis College on the front of their Schools, Colleges and Universities Bulletin section (E1), To see the online version of this article, click here (this opens a new window/tab).
