Had the chance to visit the Caritas Manila led SEGUNDA MANA Grand Bazaar 2025 at the Ayala Malls Trinoma's 4th Floor in Quezon City. This is the social service arm of the Philippines Catholic church and has been running a couple of years already.
It was packed but people were eager to help because where else would you be able to purchase really great finds of food and products and in turn help the causes that they support particularly the education of the poor and their livelihood. This was witnessed by leaders of Caritas Manila, our lovely Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte, several beauty queens and kings too.
Rev. Father Anton Pascual the Caritas Manila Executive Director says "For 72 years we have been doing Caritas Manila efforts and there are a lot of people helping us in Segunda Mana. Second Hand Items, new ones, toys, we monetize them for nature and community projects and we hope this would be sustained with your help. This is patterned from the US's goodwill stores and we thank Ayala Trinoma, PMG, Miss Universe PH and Misters Pilipinas, our Mayor Joy Belmonte who has helped social enterprise. We want to thank you, and hope this gets sold in 3 days so we can help the poor. The poor are not lazy, they just need opportunity so they could help themselves. Please spread the good news, may God bless you!"
Mayor Joy Belmonte says "I was lucky to have been able to work after graduation with Caritas Manila. At QC, our values are aligned and have worked to give scholars to lift themselves and not just rely on dole outs. We have 40k now and hopefully have 80k after our term. Thank you to Caritas for doing environmental efforts, textile is another waste we need to address in this economy. Every year we have tons of it in our landfills and in a circular economy we hope to recycle these. I wish people stop a consumerist lifestyle, balance it with new and second hand items to help, declutter and live simple lives to donate in Caritas Manila. We hope to host a lot of social enterprises in the city, it's my dream to do this. Let's all shop for a cause today!"
Miss Eco International 2025 Alexei Brooks says "Coming here I asked what to talk about, but recycling is an important part of it. I am an athlete, and was poor to afford shoes. My grandma went to buy a 500 peso pair which I eventually would win in Palarong Pambansa. I still have it, it's a reminder of who I am, to take care of the environment and climate change is happening. This organization is partnering with international ones and it is a good cause. If you want to achieve great things, please donate so you can make a difference in someone else's life."
PMG GM Agnes Magallanes adds "I rallied our team to donate and went on to do 3 years of helping this cause. We want to be part of the solution, meeting with them, we got to have social engagements and urge corporations to give back. We need to be part of the solution, not just clothes, but plastics, it's part of our sustainable efforts and we thank Caritas Manila for making us part of it. We hope to sell these and have nothing to send back to our warehouse."
The event will be from today til June 8 so you have about 2 days left to go there and help. Make sure to visit and buy so we can help families send their kids to school through Segunda Mana and other Caritas Manila projects. They also have vendors from communities, as they want them to be self sufficient later on. Hope you can help!
