Rotary Club of Manila Rotary Club of Manila The Rotary Club of Manila is the first and oldest Rotary Club in Asia. After its establishment, the Rotary Club of Manila would go on to sponsor other organizations, including the Rotary Club of Cebu (1932), the Rotary Club of Iloilo (1933), the Community Chest Foundation, the Philippine Band of Mercy (1937), the Philippine Safety Council, and the Boy Scouts of America Philippine Islands Council (1923). In 1919 Manila businessman Leon J. Lambert sent communication to Rotary in Chicago about the possibility of organizing Rotary in the Philippines. In response to Lambert's proposal, Rotary sent Roger
Rotary International office in Illinois immediately began encouraging the Rotary Club of Shanghai to recruit Chinese members “believing that when a considerable number of the native business and professional men have been so honoured, the Shanghai Club will begin to realize its period of greatest success.” As part of considering the application of a Club to be chartered in Kolkata (then Calcutta), India in January 1920 and Tokyo, Japan in October 1920, Rotary formally considered the issue of racial restriction in membership and determined that the organization could not allow racial restrictions to the organization's growth. In Rotary's legislative deliberations in June