By Elinando B. Cinco  “Thank heaven for little girls,” go the first few bars of an old Maurice Chevalier song. Elinando B. Cinco But to a grateful world today, it has parallelism to a pressing human concern that emerges when big names in the corporate world go out even of their own bigger wayin a social re­sponsibility gesture. How is that carried out? Note that those global multi-national corporations “simply” give back to the people or community the profits gained out of the sales of their products. Yes, it is that “simple.” And to gi­ant international conglomerates, what they see are a pressing need of people somewhere out there. And that keeps them on the move to help contribute in solving that need. With always-ready resources at hand, they just press the button and go for it. Again, yes, because they are clothed with that virtue of social re­sponsibility and are serious in fulfilling that commitment to mankind. Yes, this is the same social respon­sibility that I saw unwrapped at the Eastwood Mall Open Plaza in Libis, Quezon City, late afternoon last Sat­urday, December 15. It was called “Shower for Good” benefit sale by the American Standard Philippine business operation. What a meaningful day of the launching, when the entire Christen­dom is the midst of a celebration of the birth of the Saviour! Its objective is to sell 1,000 pieces of the company’s “Genie” brand of hand-shower for a huge discount. The proceeds will be donated to American Standard’s parent company LIXIL which has an on-going international social responsibility partnership with UNICEF called “Make a Splash” program. That humanitarian effort reaches Filipino children – among other children in the world who are benefi­ciaries of UNICEF – “they who have no access to clean water and basic sanitation.” Similar public relations events are being implemented in Mumbai, India; Bangkok, Thailand; and Jakarta, Indonesia. By the year 2021, the determined effort of the LiXIL-UNICEF tandem the program shall have “contributed to the global effort to improve basic sanitation for 250 million people around the world.” And we see the multitude smiling in gratitude! The American Standard’s “Shower for Good” sale benefit and choral fest that Saturday afternoon attracted a sizeable weekend crowd of mostly high-end shoppers. I also saw that those family shop­pers took advantage of the attractive promotional offer, obviously, inspired by the humanitarian message it car­ried. The event also featured six highly awarded choral groups from the me­tropolis. In between numbers, I was able to interview Alpha Ang, Lixil general manager for Asia and the Pacific re­gion. He remarked, “We find it our company’s social responsibility to give back to our customers, in many ways, their patronage of our products.” Alan Alban, Lixil country man­ager, said, “We always look forward to modestly helping fund clean water and basic sanitation projects in the Philippines and elsewhere.” Other Lixil Philippines executives I met were Joralyn Ong, national sales and trade marketing director; Emily Besavilla, marketing manager. From the company’s coordinating agencies: MargaBaula, UNICEF Philippines corporate fund-raiser; Liza Rachel Cancino, marketing director, Branding & Communications, AS &Inax (Asia). Lixil is leader in water and hous­ing products technology. Its leading brands include LIXIL, GROHE, Amer­ican Standard, INAX, and Tostem.