Actress Rosa Rosal celebrates 60th anniversary as Red Cross volunteer on July 4

MANILA, July 2 (PNA Features) – Philippine Red Cross (PRC) officials on Friday paid tribute to veteran actress-social worker Rosa Rosal on the occasion of her 60th anniversary as Red Cross volunteer.

Rosal also hosted public service television programs “Kapwa Ko, Mahal Ko” and “Damayan” over NBN-4.

PRC officials said volunteers, like Rosal, formed the backbone of charitable institutions, churches and non-government organizations.

“These bodies owe its effective functioning to selfless individuals who are always of service to the needy,” PRC chairman Richard J. Gordon said.

“However, volunteers’ eagerness to serve often withers as years go by. Thus, it is quite amazing how some people manage to keep the fire of humanitarian service burning through the years,” Gordon said.

Rosal, Florence Danon Gayda (born Oct. 16, 1931) in real life, will celebrate her 60 years of volunteer service to the humanitarian organization on July 4. She will be given a special tribute on Sunday.

Rosal was first introduced to the work of the Red Cross when an American named Ray Higgins brought her to a blood donation drive in 1948.

Then 17 years old, she was impressed with the people voluntarily donating blood in a hospital.

One day at the emergency ward of the Philippine General Hospital (PGH), she saw a young girl who had been in a coma for three days after falling from a five-story building.

Rosal helped save the girl’s life through a blood transfusion, with help from the Red Cross.

The miracle inspired the young Rosal to join the Blood Program of the Philippine National Red Cross on July 4, 1950 as a volunteer, thus the start of her lifelong commitment.

She was married briefly in 1957 to an American pilot, Walter Gayda, with whom she had a child, Toni Rose, who later became a television host

Rosal faced several challenges through the course of her work in the Red Cross, primarily fund-raising campaigns.

In order to acquire a refrigerated centrifuge, a machine that separates blood into four components to enable four beneficiaries to receive transfusion through a single blood donation, she sought the help of the Philippine Senate but to no avail.

She then wrote to then President Ferdinand Marcos and after three months, the Red Cross procured its first refrigerated centrifuge.

Danger and death were also part of Rosal’s volunteer work. During a coup d’etat in 1989, she asked for blood via the airwaves and personally delivered emergency supplies to city hospitals.

“I was never afraid. If I have to die, then so be it,” said Rosal. Military coups, earthquakes and floods--she all faced these with a brave heart.

In her six decades of service as a volunteer, Rosal has contributed a lot to the premier humanitarian organization.

She initiated mass blood donation campaigns and recruited a number of voluntary blood donors such as the armed forces and citizen cadets.

Through Rosal’s efforts, Red Cross employees enjoy health insurance when a Filipino philanthropist’s endowment fund given to the organization in the late 1980s was used for a health plan.

The Red Cross’s blood chemistry department and regional blood centers were also established for poor patients because of Rosal.

Despite all her sacrifice for the Red Cross, Rosal regretted that she was not able to donate blood herself.

She had not been qualified to do so due to her low blood pressure. She only hoped that another earnest youngster would promote voluntary blood donation as she did 60 years ago.

Rosal earned various recognitions for her involvement in the Red Cross. In 1999, she received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, deemed as Asia’s Nobel Peace Price, for her “lifetime of unstinting voluntary service, inspiring Filipinos to put the needs of others before their own.” Six years later, President Gloria Arroyo awarded her the Order of the Golden Heart with the rank of Grand Cross “for a lifetime in public service.”

The Reader's Digest, in the March 2010 issue, cited Rosal as the most trusted public figure by Filipinos in 2009, based on a nationwide survey conducted in October 2009.

Also dubbed as the “original femme fatale of Philippine cinema,” Rosal could have chosen to embrace the fame and prestige of being in the spotlight as an actress.

Rosal received the Best Actress Award from the Filipino Movie Arts and Sciences (FAMAS), the local equivalent of Hollywood's Oscar Awards, in 1955 for her lead role in the movie “Sonny Boy.” Yet she opted to spend most of her life as a humanitarian worker.

She could have also become the chair of the PRC. However, she decided to remain a member of the board of governors because she did not want to "take the whole burden on (her) shoulders.”

Other organizations invited her to become a member but she chose to concentrate on the Red Cross.

She said that she did not want to spread herself thinly, noting that there “a lot of dedicated men and women.”

The late President Ramon Magsaysay also offered her to head the Social Welfare Administration but she declined it courteously and continued working as a Red Cross volunteer.

She was also consistent and firm in saying that she would not run for any public office post.

She was once a young girl with an idealistic fervor for humanitarian service when she started as a Red Cross volunteer.

Six decades later, Rosal, now 78 years old, never ceased prioritizing other people’s welfare. As she continues her work with the humanitarian organization, she will remain to be a rose with a golden heart, ready to be of service to all the people in need. (PNA)
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