ANCOP Global Walk: When the Frame Moves Beyond Borders

Cover credit: CFC ANCOP

The ANCOP Global Walk 2026 Frame Twibbon was published on October 7, eleven days before the walk itself. It now carries 1,245 supporters. The equivalent Frame last year had 182 supporters.

Campaign by CFC ANCOP

The Twibbon contains the phrase "One Mission, One Walk" and 1 John 1:3-4 referring to the Bible verse. Five figures in green and yellow walk together beneath the photo area. Two features to the left of the Frame are a red geotag and a stop light. 

We reached out to the organizer in late October to learn more about this campaign, and Ritchie Roberto responded back. "It doesn't matter if you are in the Philippines, you can use the frame even if you are outside the Philippines. It's for anyone who would like to support the Global Walk."

That is the idea behind the campaign, which was built by CFC ANCOP, a nonprofit organization founded in the Philippines, for their biggest fundraising event.

Answering the cry of the poor

CFC ANCOP is the social development arm of Couples for Christ (CFC), a Catholic organization that began in the Philippines and now runs in a long list of countries. ANCOP stands for Answering the Cry of the Poor.

Ritchie, the department head for communications, marketing and events in Quezon City, describes the organization through its three programs. Education, which sponsors around 11,000 scholars across the Philippines plus scholars in Africa, India and the Seychelles, and about 200 seminarians. Community development, which has built roughly 4,000 homes across 58 communities. And calamity disaster relief, a necessary program for a country located within the ring of fire and Western Pacific typhoon belt.

Ritchie had started as a scholar sponsored through his studies before he ever joined CFC. What attracted him to joining was the structure around it, "a community by your side that you can call anytime if you needed help."

Rendell Esperas, the department's multimedia artist, came from a different route. He joined in January of this year through a youth leader at his local church. He was looking for a job, but he also wanted "a platform to show my skills, and also another way to serve God." He designed the Global Walk Twibbon Frame, which turns out to matter more than it sounds.

Seventy-nine walks and one Saturday

The Global Walk started in 2011. This is its sixteenth year, and it is the organization's largest fundraiser, with the money going to keep sponsored students in school. A walk day has prayer, fellowship, music and the walk itself, but Ritchie is more interested in what sits behind the schedule. "What matters most is knowing that every step represents someone's willingness to help another person."

On October 18, roughly 25,000 walkers gathered in Metro Manila, one of 79 Global Walks across the Philippines. Others ran this year in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and the Middle East, with ANCOP USA closing its walk on November 7.

The theme is chosen fresh each year while the advocacy stays fixed, and this year, One Mission One Walk, was written to hold 79 separate Saturdays together in a single idea. "Although we came from different places, backgrounds and communities, we are united by one mission," Ritchie said. "We may take different roads, but we walk toward the same mission."

Why a poster was not enough

ANCOP has been making Twibbons since the COVID-19 pandemic started. The tenth-anniversary walk in 2020 had to happen without anyone physically walking together, and they saw Twibbon as a balm, an online gathering by simply putting on a Frame. 

The walk moved online for two years before it came back in full force in 2022. Although the event could then be held on site, the habit of making Twibbon stuck. Ritchie is precise about what the Frame does that other campaign material does not. "A poster tells people about an event, and a graphic helps us communicate its message," he said. "But the Twibbon gives people an opportunity to become part of the message themselves."

There is a practical side to it as well. "You don't have to be physically present at the venue," as Ritchie put it. He thinks the Frame represents people saying "I believe in this cause. I support this mission, and I'm walking with ANCOP."

When asked about the supporters growing from hundreds in 2025 to thousands in 2026, Ritchie gave his colleague the credit for the jump. "I'll be honest, it's because Rendell joined our team," he said. "Rendell designed this interactive frame that the people, when they saw it, they wanted to use it. We always use, like, a circle only, with no elements in the photo. But right now it has some overlaying items or elements on the design."

Rendell explained that he made the design by studying other campaigns on Twibbonize for inspiration. Then there is the word on the signage. "The tagline there, or the text inside the signage, is a trendy word in the Philippines," Rendell explained his decision to use Ano tara? Walk na! "That is Tagalog, which means to encourage the people to join. Tara, let's eat. Tara, walk. We use the trend to capture more people to join this mission."

The distribution line

"We posted on Facebook, but we have a lot of group chats," Ritchie said. "So we blast it on our ANCOP group chats, both for the Philippines and the other countries." Then co-workers and volunteers were asked to use it themselves.

What happened next is the flywheel in its most literal form, and it happened in comment sections. "If someone changes his or her DP photo, then there's a comment like, where did you get it?" Ritchie said. "How to have that kind of photo or frame as well. So that's where we put the details on the comments, and how to use it."

ANCOP's audience runs from young professionals to members in their sixties and seventies. "Some of them don't really use technology, but they wanted to be part of this mission," Rendell said, "so they asked their younger child or younger families to help them to use this platform."

A local word that traveled

We asked whether using Ano Tara had been counterintuitive to the idea of the Global Walk. After all, not everyone understands what it means.

But Ritchie casually read out to us the analytics available on the creator's profile. The data shows that the Frame's biggest use is in fact from the Philippines. Set against the number of people who showed up in Metro Manila, the Frame's 1,240 supporters seems to mean it only reaches a fraction of it. But upon a closer look, what it does is reach the ones in other countries too. Overseas chapters, members in Qatar and Saudi Arabia and the UAE, families watching from Canada and New Zealand. They wear the Frames while attending the walk organized by their own chapters.

Global Walk in Qatar. Credit: CFC ANCOP

For Ritchie, this turnout represents trust. "People wanted to use it because [ANCOP is] one of the trusted organizations in the Philippines," he said, and in the Philippines, "everyone in social media wanted to flex their photos."

Rendell saw the turnout as something heartfelt for him. "After the event, when I was going home, I cried. Looking back to the people who participated, because I did not expect that many people would support this campaign. I see happy faces. They are proud. There are pictures with their pets, with their loved ones."

What they hope people see

The Frame carries ANCOP’s website and social accounts. “Something as simple as using the Twibbon can help someone discover the cause and inspire them to participate,” Ritchie said, “even if they don’t know ANCOP Global Walk, or they don’t know ANCOP.”

Near the end of the call he turned the question the organization is named after back on himself. “Are we really answering the cry of the poor? It’s quite a challenge, and a call to action to everyone who will search for us.”

And the  word "everyone" is not a figure of speech. Ritchie emphasized that nothing is gated behind membership in ANCOP. Beneficiaries are not required to be Catholic. People can even help fund with as little as US$ 6. “You can be with us in helping and transforming the lives of our poor brothers and sisters,” Ritchie said. “Wherever we come, whatever our circumstances, we can walk together toward a world where families experience Christ’s transforming love.”