www.district3780.org

DG JOSE FRANCISCO "JESS" Q. CIFRA

District Governor, RY 2011-2012
District 3780, Quezon City, Philippines

District Governor Jess Cifra became a member of the Rotary Club of Loyola Heights in December 2001. He served as president of the Rotary Club of Loyola Heights in 2003. As a Star President, he was also the Chairman of the League of Presidents.

DGE Jess held various positions in RI District 3780, notable among them: District Chair for Service Projects in 2007 and District Chair for Membership in 2008 and 2009.

For many years since 2005, he was the District Chair for the Rotary Community Corps. Since 2006 he had been active in the management of the Rotary Village Corps Foundation of the Philippines, the umbrella organization and supervisory body of close to 1,200 Rotary Community Corps in the Philippines. He was chosen to be a Member of the Executive Committee in 2006 and elected every year since 2007 to the Board of Trustees. He concurrently served as Secretary in 2008 and elected Vice President for Metro Manila in 2010. He was elected Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees in 2011.

He had been awarded several recognitions from his Rotary Club and Rotary International District 3780. The Rotary Club of Loyola Heights accorded him the Most Outstanding Baby Rotarian Award in 2002 and the Most Outstanding Rotarian Award in 2003, 2006 and 2010.

RI District 3780 recognized DGE Jess as the Most Outstanding President in 2004, the Most Outstanding District Officer in 2005 and the Most Outstanding Rotarian in 2006.

In the district and in other countries, he has been recognized for a shelter-for-the-homeless project which he initiated and implemented in a depressed area in Quezon City with the support of his Rotary club and district. He arranged the collaborative efforts among Rotary; Gawad Kalinga, a Philippine-based non-governmental organization; and the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, a religious congregation, in providing homes for 300 families, among them the city's poorest of the poor - beggars, garbage scavengers, domestic helpers, unemployed individuals and many others. The housing project soon evolved into a holistic community development program providing the residents with access to clean water, nutrition and health care, literacy and children's education, livelihood, and knowledge and means in caring for the environment. Several Rotary clubs from the USA, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines, have so far contributed dwellings in what is now known as the Rotary Gawad Kalinga Village - Brookside.

After just a little over eight years of being a Rotarian, he was elected in 2009, unchallenged, as District Governor Nominee, to serve as RI District 3780's District Governor in 2011.

He is a Paul Harris Fellow Major Donor level 1, and his all in his family are PHF recipients.

He studied in De La Salle University where he took up AB, BSBA and MBA. He has built a career in banking, having worked for 26 years with Philippine banks here in the Philippines and in Hongkong and Italy.

He is married to Helen Sulit, herself a former banker, with whom he has three children: Andre, a medical doctor practicing in Batangas, the family's home province; Marc, formerly the operations manager of a restaurant chain; and Don, who just recently returned from hospitality management studies and work in Scotland, UK. He and Helen are proud grandparents to a lone grandchild, Santi.

• Photos of DG Jess Cifra
• Messages and Speeches of DG Jess Cifra
• DG Jess Cifra in Action
• Download DG Jess' Profile (in MS Word format)