Born in the Philippines. Educated in the Philippines, America and Japan. Married with 3 children, raised and sent 5 children to college. Husband is Filipino, who worked as a United Nations Peacekeeper in Pristina, Kosovo. Eldest and youngest children live with me in Tokyo and my second child is an Early Childhood Specialist in Sydney, Australia.
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Have lived ,worked, and a permanent resident in Japan, academic scholar in United States of America, traveled extensively in South East Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines) , Australia, Europe (Austria, Kosovo, Macedonia, Denmark). Have worked with people of different nationalities in different cultural settings.
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Political Platforms:
I care about the future of our children. It takes an entire community to raise a child, and as a community, we must have the vision to ensure children have the right types of support and services in place to help them succeed. Every child should enjoy early childhood education
Water in every home. In this town the source of water is not given the priority by municipal projects. People still depend the primitive, unsafe deep well water supply.
Support small business to help family raise children
Build community where fishermen and farmers can yield more than what their family needs.
Proper planning and a common sense approach to local problems.
Protect precious environment
Ensure that the inhabitants in Calubian, Leyte will live in a community where everyone has the opportunity to realize their dreams.
Strongly support a woman’s right to choose.
Perspective View of a town called Calubian, Leyte
“Hubog na ako, hubog na, ayaw na ako paimna. Kay bangin ako sumuka, an akon bado mag kakamantsa” People in this town sing both their joys and sorrows. Everyday is a celebration of life and living over a gallon of coconut wine or tuba. A small catch of fish from the rich sea is enough for a day’s meal with approximately 8 members in a family. Tommorrow is another day.
There may be or no catch of fish but it doesn’t matter. Their faith from the Almighty Father is strong. God will not allow them to be hungry. Neighboring towns are enjoying some government supports through their local government units but, this little town is still in its struggle to meet their three meals a day. Small businesses are not supported by the municipality because big businesses belong only to political dynasties.
The sea is rich but fish cages are owned by the rich capitalists. Small scale fishermen use only nets to trap fish that accidentally get out of the cultured fish cages. Farmers are forever indebted to their landlords. In this municipality agrarian reform is not implemented. Big land owners turn their land into either cattle fields to excuse them from the agrarian reform or make it a farming corporation and the farmers are paid on a daily wage basis to yield more harvest.
Political dynasties rule this small town. Mayoralty position is passed from generation to generation. In other words, grand father first become a mayor, passed on to the son, then to either grand son or daughter. The town is owned by a family. Aspiring candidates who really are qualified and has the capacity to change people’s lives through public service cannot access people’s votes because voters are paid with large amount and aspiring candidates do not have much money to buy the votes.
People in one of the largest barangays, line up their water container 24 hours a day to fetch water that run from a mountain spring. This bothers me a lot because this is not a costly project if the municipality will allot budget to build water tank that would collect water ready to be distributed to households. I asked people why this is not done. Their answer is simply because this barangay is a political opposition.
Calubian, the northwestern part of Leyte is not ready to struggle for a change. Good things are possible only incompetent, lack of will and courage are allowed to lead the town Given the right leader to turn around failure and create something that can work, not just for one or two privilege and lucky people but for all people. Agriculture and fishing ground are rich in this town. The environment is pure and unpolluted, people are sincere and honest, they deserve to enjoy educational and socio-economical progress. People in this town deserve a safe environment, a place to live, where crime is not regarded as an unfortunate by-product of this day and age.
My husband and I designed a non-government organization (Socio-Economic Empowerment and Sustainable Development Program SEESDeP). Its mission is to organize, motivate, and help the poor help themselves alleviate poverty through livelihood generation. Effective March 2008, SEESDeP conducted a pilot project on Agri-Aqua Industry Development. Two barangays have already been trained by Bureau of Fisheries on Mud Crab Fattening. This project is on-going and we privately provided the members with seed money to pursue pilot projects.
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Employment History:
2007 Feb- Present
Chief Executive Officer
Non-Native English Teachers Connection (NNETsCON)
Setagaya-ku, Setagaya, Tokyo, JAPAN
(Conduct hands-on workshops for assistant English language teachers in all areas of Japan)
2006 May
Teacher Trainer and Curriculum Developer
Community Home-based English Teachers (CHOBET)
Center for Japanese-Filipino Families (CJFF)
Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo
2001- Present
Preschool Homeroom teacher
Komazawa Park International School (KPIS)
Fukazawa, Tokyo, JAPAN
1996-2001
Hokkaido International School
Grade 5 Science Teacher and Grade 2 ESL Teacher to Japanese and Koreans
1994-1996
Private Education Training School
English Language Teacher
Date-shi, Hokkaido
(Responsible mainly for students with low levels of English proficiency)
1985-1991
High School Teacher
Holy Infant College
Tacloban City, Philippines
1981-1985
College Instructor
Leyte State College (now Leyte Normal University)
Tacloban City, Philippines
(Taught Japanese language, Marketing and Advertising to College students taking up Tourism and Hotel and Restaurant Management)
1978-1981
Program Coordinator
Youth and Student Travel Association of the Philippines (YSTAPHIL)
Metro Manila, Philippines
EDUCATION:
1997-1999
Heidelberg College, Tiffin, Ohio
Master of Arts in Education
1991-1993
Shikoku Gakuen Daigaku
Research Student, Japanese Literature
Kagawa-ken, JAPAN
1988-1990
Leyte Normal University
Master of Arts in Language Teaching
(Certificate Completion)
Leyte, PHILIPPINES
1975-1977
International Christian Youth Exchange (ICYE)
Exchange Student (Study of Japan and Language)
JAPAN
1973
Polytechnic University of the Philippines
Bachelor of Science in Business Education
Manila, PHILIPPINES
