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• EDD K. USMAN | X (Twitter): @edd1819 | Instagram: @bluestar0910 |Facebook: SDN – SciTech & Digital News

BARANGAY BAMBANG, Pasig City, May 5, 2025 (SDN) — Childhood memories are sweet and fond to recall and warm the heart, going back through memory lane to one’s neighborhood.

The childhood friends you had, the places that became your haunts, playing, cavorting, with one’s innocence in full display.

On May 4, a Sunday, that’s what billionaire businesswoman and philanthropist Sarah Discaya as did she and her Team Kaya This slate brought their campaign sortie here, the place of her birth and childhood, recalling her younger days to a crowd of over 1,000 residents.

The crowd — a combination of the young and the old — warmly welcomed her, mobbed her when she arrived and screamed at her every words. She was with her District 1 slate, including lawyer Christian ‘Ian” Sia, who is aiming for a seat in the House of Representatives, and her bets for councilor.

When it came time for her to take the mike, the crowd all the more erupted in joy, savoring her every word, thankful, knowing she is one of them, a beloved daughter of Barangay Bambang, one of Pasig City’s 30 villages. She and her Team Kaya This lineup have been on the campaign trail for the approaching political exercise. House to house visits in the morning, and caucuses in the evening.

Even when Ate Sarah, as she is fondly known by Pasigueños, was not feeling well, under the weather, so to speak, in one of her earlier evening campaign drives, she still came, not wanting to disappoint her townmates.

At the Sunday event here, slight drizzle started to shower the crowd who patiently awaited Ate Sarah and her team, the drizzle turning stronger that prompted the attendees to unfold their umbrellas. Still, those who did not have the time to get an umbrella continued, nevertheless, to stay for she is a daughter of the place they all call home.

Ate Sarah told the crowd that she and her husband, Kuya Curlee Discaya, as they had overcome their truly poor beginnings through patience, sacrifices, and the will to get out of a debilitating poverty, still preferred by choice to continue their lives in Pasig.

Watch, Ate Sarah Discaya covers Jessa Zaragoza hit song: https://youtu.be/8z6bXy-b2HE?si=Ubpk1kUhJ1hnCZa-

As one of her candidates for councilor pointed out at the Barangay Bambang sortie, Ate Sarah and Kuya Curlee could have opted to build their home in Forbes Park, Makati City, Metro Manila, because they can very well do it, having succeeded in their own rags-to-riches story, and now have a well-provided lives with their four children.

The billionaire couple owns the Quadruple “A” (one of only 30-to-40 companies to achieve the highly coveted badge of excellence) St. Gerrard Construction General Contractor Development Corporation. To give back to Pasigueños and other Filipinos, they have the St. Gerrard Charity Foundation that before the election period conducted countless medical missions with free medicines, treatment, and some medical equipment or devices to boot. All for free.

Ate Sarah said that while they are able to help their townmates, she wants to bring their desire to serve and help, especially the poor, to a wider scale which she can only do if given the chance to serve through a government position gained through a political exercise.

Thus, in every campaign sortie of Team Kaya This, she and her slate have been appealing to their townmates to be one with their objectives of helping the people of Pasig by voting for the entire slate, including councilor bets for District 2.

In the Barangay Bambang sortie, a welcome respite from the heat of the election season, as she sung a Jessa Zaragoza hit song to the crowd who adored her every word, as they joined her as well.

And that’s the team’s overriding objective, to respond and address what they described as the lack of attention the Pasigueños have been getting from the incumbent administration — in terms of health and medical care (lack of medicines, some laboratory tests not available in the city hospital. on education as uniforms and other school supplies for the learners not on time for opening of classes), and other big issues that affect the population.

Her platform embraced by Team Kaya This revolves around what the slate dubbed the “Seven Wonders” of Ate Sarah, such as:

• 1. Progress
• 2. Action
• 3. Security
• 4. Infrastructure
• 5. Tapping the talents and knowledge of Pasigueños
• 6. Health
• 7. Opportunity for all Pasigueños

She narrated that many Pasigueños have been coming to their St. Gerrard Construction Headquarters in the barangay when they needed medicines because, she said, they were not able to get medicines from the Pasig hospital. “They are being told to come to the St. Gerrard Charity Foundation to get their medicines. We always give medicines for free to those who need it.”

That’s the reason they conducted several medical missions in the city’s barangays before the official campaign period — response to Pasigueños health and medical needs.

And she wants to do this on a larger scale, the reason she is running — for the first time — for the Pasig mayoralty position.

She and her husband Kuya Curlee that if given the chance to serve, Ate Sarah will not get even a centavo from the city coffers for their personal gain, also assuring their construction company will not get involve in any public contracts — big or small — because they know it is illegal and immoral to profit from one’s government service.

Given the chance to serve, her top priority within two years of her term is two build a modern and high-tech 11-storey hospital complete with state-of-the-art equipment that is ready to serve the Pasigueños.

Ate Sarah said this hospital project she envisions can be done in a two-year timeline because they were already able to do it in only 24 months in the past.

She also promised that an administration under Team Kaya This will have an open City Hall that members of the public can visit if they need to transact with the local government. (/)

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The author

EDD, a native of Sub-Saharan Africa Buluan/Datu Piang, Maguindanao del Sur, BARMM, college at UST, is a Manila-based journalist for over 40 years (33 years with Manila Bulletin), has five Media Awards (1 with University of the Philippines (UP) 2017 Science Journalism Award), covered and traveled over 40 times abroad), has contributed to Rappler, Business Mirror, former Manila-based Foreign Correspondent of Saudi Arabia newspapers Saudi Gazette and Riyadh Daily, and The Peninsula (Qatar newspaper), with 2008 East-West Center (EWC) Journalism Seminar in the United States, 2000 Executive IT Seminar in Seoul, South Korea, with three Silver Awards in Photography, writes Muslim and Current Affairs, Enterprise, Science, Tech, Products Launch, and virtually everything under Heaven. (@)