FULL TEXT: Maria Ressa’s speech at Nobel Peace Prize awarding

In her speech in Oslo, veteran journalist and Rappler CEO Maria Ressa asks: What are you willing to sacrifice for the truth?

Veteran journalist and Rappler CEO Maria Ressa received the Nobel Peace Prize along with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov on Friday, December 10, in Oslo, Norway. Ressa, who has become an international icon for press freedom and democracy, is the first Filipino to win the award.

Below is the full text of Ressa’s speech delivered in Oslo on Friday.

 

Thank you. 

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Distinguished Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Your Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I stand before you, a representative of every journalist around the world who is forced to sacrifice so much to hold the line, to stay true to our values and mission: to bring you the truth and hold power to account. I remember the brutal dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta, my friend, Luz Mely Reyes in Venezuela, Roman Protasevich in Belarus (whose plane was literally hijacked so he could be arrested), Jimmy Lai languishing in a Hong Kong prison, Sonny Swe, who after getting out of more than seven years in jail, started another news group and now is forced to flee Myanmar. And in my own country, 23-year-old Frenchie Mae Cumpio, still in prison after nearly two years, and just 36 hours ago, the news that my former colleague, Jess Malabanan, was killed with a bullet to his head.

There are so many to thank for keeping us safer and working. The #HoldTheLine Coalition of more than 80 global groups defending press freedom and the human rights groups that help us shine the light. There are costs for you as well: more lawyers have been killed than journalists in the Philippines – at least 63 compared to the 22 journalists murdered after President Rodrigo Duterte took office in 2016. Since then, Karapatan, a member of our #CourageON human rights coalition, has had 16 people killed, and Senator Leila de Lima, because she demanded accountability, is serving her fifth year in jail. Or ABS-CBN, our largest broadcaster, a newsroom that I once led, which, last year, lost its franchise to operate.

I helped create a startup, Rappler, turning 10 years old in January – we’re getting old – our attempt to put together two sides of the same coin that shows everything wrong with our world today: the absence of law and democratic vision for the 21st century. That coin represents our information ecosystem, which determines everything else about our world. Journalists – that’s one side – the old gatekeepers. The other is technology, with its god-like power, the new gatekeepers. It has allowed a virus of lies to infect each of us, pitting us against each other, bringing out our fears, anger, hate, and setting the stage for the rise of authoritarians and dictators around the world. 

Our greatest need today is to transform that hate and violence, the toxic sludge that’s coursing through our information ecosystem, prioritized by American internet companies that make more money by spreading that hate and triggering the worst in us. Well, that just means we have to work harder. In order to be the good, we have to believe there is good in the world.

I have been a journalist for more than 35 years: I’ve worked in conflict zones and war zones in Asia, reported on hundreds of disasters, and while I have seen so much bad, I have also documented so much good, when people who have nothing offer you what they have. Part of how we at Rappler have survived the last five years of government attacks is because of the kindness of strangers, and the reason they help – despite the danger – is because they want to, with little expectation of anything in return. This is the best of who we are, the part of our humanity that makes miracles happen. This is what we lose in a world of fear and violence. 

You’ve heard that the last time a working journalist was given this award was in 1936, awarded in 1935. He was supposed to come and get it in 1936; Carl von Ossietzky never made it to Oslo because he languished in a Nazi concentration camp. So, we’re here, hopefully a little bit ahead, because we are both here! 

By giving this to journalists today – thank you – the Nobel committee is signaling a similar historical moment, another existential point for democracy. Dmitry and I are lucky because we can speak to you now (Yay for court approvals)! But there are so many more journalists persecuted in the shadows with neither exposure nor support, and governments are doubling down with impunity. The accelerant is technology, when creative destruction takes new meaning. 

You’ve heard from David [Beasley]: we are standing on the rubble of the world that was, and we must have the foresight and courage to imagine what might happen if we don’t act now, and instead, please, create the world as it should be – more compassionate, more equal, more sustainable.

To do that, please ask yourself the same question we at Rappler had to confront five years ago: What are you willing to sacrifice for the truth? 

I’ll tell you how I lived my way into the answer in three points: first, my context and how these attacks shaped me; second, by the problem we all face; and finally, finding the solution – because we must!

In less than two years, the Philippine government filed 10 arrest warrants against me. I’ve had to post bail 10 times just to do my job. Last year, I and a former colleague were convicted of cyber libel for a story we published eight years earlier, at a time the law we allegedly violated didn’t even exist. All told, the charges I face could send me to jail for about 100 years. 

But the more I was attacked for my journalism, the more resolute I became. I had firsthand evidence of abuse of power. What was meant to intimidate me and Rappler only strengthened us. 

At the core of journalism is a code of honor. And mine is layered on different worlds – from how I grew up, the golden rule, what’s right and wrong; from college, and the honor code I learned there; and my time as a reporter, and the code of standards and ethics I learned and helped write. Add to that the Filipino idea of utang na loob – literally the debt from within – at its best, a system of paying it forward. 

Truth and ethical honor intersected like an arrow into this moment where hate, lies, and divisiveness thrive. As only the 18th woman to receive this prize, I need to tell you how gendered disinformation is a new threat and is taking a significant toll on the mental health and physical safety of women, girls, trans, and LGBTQ+ people all around the world. Women journalists are at the epicenter of risk. This pandemic of misogyny and hatred needs to be tackled now. Even there, though, we can find strength. After all, you don’t really know who you really are until you’re forced to fight for it. 

Now let me pull out so we’re clear about the problem we all face and how we got here. 

The attacks against us in Rappler began five years ago when we demanded an end to impunity on two fronts: Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war and Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook. Today, it has only gotten worse – and Silicon Valley’s sins came home to roost in the United States on January 6 with mob violence on Capitol Hill.

What happens on social media doesn’t stay on social media.

Online violence is real world violence. 

Social media is a deadly game for power and money, what Shoshana Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism, extracting our private lives for outsized corporate gain. Our personal experiences sucked into a database, organized by AI, then sold to the highest bidder. Highly profitable micro-targeting operations are engineered to structurally undermine human will. I’ve repeatedly called it a behavior modification system in which we are all Pavlov’s dogs, experimented on in real time with disastrous consequences in countries like mine, Myanmar, India, Sri Lanka, and so many more. These destructive corporations have siphoned money away from news organizations and now they pose a foundational threat to markets and elections. 

Facebook is the world’s largest distributor of news, and yet studies have shown that lies laced with anger and hate spread faster and further than facts.

These American companies controlling our global information ecosystem are biased against facts, biased against journalists. They are, by design, dividing us and radicalizing us. 

I’ve said this repeatedly over the last five years: without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without trust, we have no shared reality, no democracy, and it becomes impossible to deal with the existential problems of our times: climate, coronavirus, now, the battle for truth.

When I was first arrested in 2019, the officer said, “Ma’am, trabaho lang po (Ma’am, I’m only doing my job).” Then he lowered his voice to almost a whisper as he read my Miranda rights. He was really uncomfortable, and I almost felt sorry for him. Except he was arresting me because I’m a journalist! 

This officer was a tool of power – and an example of how a good man can turn evil – and how great atrocities happen. Hannah Arendt wrote about the banality of evil when describing men who carried out the orders of Hitler, how career-oriented bureaucrats can act without conscience because they justify what they’re doing because they’re only following orders. 

This is how a nation – and a world – loses its soul.

You have to know what values you are fighting for, you have to draw the lines early, but if you haven’t done so, please, do it now – where this side you’re good, this side, you’re evil. Some governments may be lost causes, and if you’re working in tech, I’m talking to you.

How can you have election integrity if you don’t have integrity of facts?

That’s the problem facing countries with elections next year: among them, Brazil, Hungary, France, the United States, and my Philippines – where we are at a do or die moment with presidential elections on May 9. Thirty-five years after the People Power Revolt ousted Ferdinand Marcos and forced his family into exile, his son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is the front-runner for president, and he has built an extensive disinformation network on social media, which Rappler exposed in 2019. It’s literally changing history in front of our eyes.  

To show how disinformation is both a local and global problem, take the Chinese information operations taken down by Facebook in September 2020, a year ago: it was creating fake accounts using AI generated photos for the US elections, polishing the image of the Marcoses in the Philippines, campaigning for the daughter of President Duterte, and attacking me and Rappler. 

So what are we gonna do? 

An invisible atom bomb has exploded in our information ecosystem, and the world must act as it did after Hiroshima. Like that time, we need to create new institutions, like the United Nations, and new codes stating our values, like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to prevent humanity from doing its worse. It’s an arms race in the information ecosystem. To stop that requires a multilateral approach that all of us must be part of. It begins by restoring facts. 

We need information ecosystems that live and die by facts. We do this by shifting social priorities to rebuild journalism for the 21st century while regulating and outlawing the surveillance economics that profit from hate and lies. 

We need to help independent journalism survive, first by giving greater protection to journalists and standing up against states which target journalists. Then we need to address the collapse of the advertising model for journalism. This is part of the reason that I agreed to co-chair the International Fund for Public Interest Media, which is trying to raise money from overseas development assistance funds. Right now, while journalists are under attack on every front, only 0.3% of ODA funds is spent on journalism. If we nudge that to just 1%, we can raise $1 billion a year for news organizations. That will be crucial for the global south. 

Journalists must embrace technology. That’s why, with the help of Google News Initiative, Rappler rolled out a new platform two weeks ago designed to build communities of action. It won’t be as viral as what the tech platforms built, but the north star is not profit alone. It is facts, truth, and trust.

Now for legislation. Thanks to the EU for taking leadership with its Democracy Action Plan. For the US, reform or revoke Section 230, the law that treats social media platforms like utilities. It’s not a comprehensive solution, but it gets the ball rolling. Because these platforms put their thumbs on the scale of distribution. So while the public debate is here, down here on content moderation downstream, the real sleight of hand happens further upstream, where algorithms of amplification, algorithms of distribution have been programmed by humans with coded bias. Their editorial agenda is profit-driven, carried out by machines at scale. The impact is global, with cheap armies on social media rolling back democracy, tearing it down in at least 81 countries around the world. That impunity must stop. 

Democracy has become a woman-to-woman, man-to-man defense of our values. We’re at a sliding door moment, where we can continue down the path we’re on and descend further into fascism or we can choose to fight for a better world. 

To do that, please, ask yourself: What are YOU willing to sacrifice for the truth? 

I didn’t know if I was going to be here today. Every day, I live with the real threat of spending the rest of my life in jail because I’m a journalist. When I go home, I have no idea what the future holds, but it’s worth the risk. 

The destruction has happened. Now it’s time to build – to create the world we want. 

So please, with me, just close your eyes for just a moment, and imagine the world as it should be. A world of peace, trust, and empathy, bringing out the best that we can be. 

Open your eyes. Now go, we have to make it happen. Please, let’s hold the line together. Thank you. – Rappler.com

The Challenge of Teaching for Quality

(Address at the 2019 World Teachers Day Celebrations, Limketkai Atrium, Cagayan de Oro City)

Sec. Leonor Magtolis Briones Department of Education

October 5, 2019

Today, I greet our more than 900,000 teachers and school leaders in the Department of Education (DepEd), our teachers in the private schools, teachers in higher education, and our retired teachers, a very happy National and World Teachers’ Day.

I will start with the good news.

With the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) completing its study on benchmarking of salaries of government personnel, we anticipate that the promised new round of salary increase for all employees of government will be announced by the Office of the President or its authorized representative soon.

But this is not all that our public school teachers can look forward to.  DepEd, under my direction, is working to secure the support of DBM for the expansion of Teacher positions. We are proposing to add to the present Teacher 1, Teacher 2, and Teacher 3 positions the new positions of Teacher 4, Teacher 5, Teacher 6 and Teacher 7, with their corresponding higher salary grades. Expanding the teaching positions will allow our T1, T2 and T3 teachers, comprising more than 90 percent of our teaching force, greater opportunity for promotion with the corresponding increase in salary levels.

But the good news comes with a challenge. As we increase the salaries and improve the terms of employment of our public school teachers, we expect our teachers to be the driving force to raise the quality of the country’s basic education.

Today, education quality is our biggest concern. While investing in education has produced major gains in access to education, the evidence is clear that the quality of our learning outcomes leaves much to be desired.

We administer large scale assessment of learning outcomes through the standardized National Achievement Test (NAT) for Grade 6, Grade 10, and Grade 12. The average results in all subject areas and 21st century skills are mostly at low proficiency levels. Low proficiency means our learners are on average only able to correctly answer between three to five questions for every 10 questions in NAT.

This is the cumulation of our education system since the foundation of our Department on June 23, 1898. I have announced in our budget hearings that even as we address the remaining gaps in access, we have shifted the focus of our reform agenda to education quality.

The standards of quality have changed. The 21st century and the fourth industrial revolution have brought rapid changes in the world. The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and robots have transformed institutions like education. AI also changed the way people learn since educational materials are becoming accessible to all through smart devices and computers.These have also brought changes in the expectations for learning outcomes among our students. For example, in reading, as various sources and types of information become available to our students through information technology, it is no longer enough that our students are able to read and comprehend continuous text in textbooks. They must now be able to read, comprehend, compare, analyze, process, and integrate from multiple text sources not only in printed format, but also from unlimited digital sources.

In the OECD PISA international test that we joined for the first time in its 2018 round, the test for reading involves being able to read fluently, locate information, understand, and evaluate and reflect. Evaluating and reflecting requires being able to:

Assess the quality and credibility of information, that is, whether the information is valid, up-to-date, accurate and/or unbiased.

Reflect on content and form, that is, the quality and style of writing.

Detect and handle conflict, that is, being aware of and able to assess information that contradict each other.

In Math and Science, it is no longer enough to know the mathematical operations or the science concepts. Our students are now being tested for their ability to apply these in the context of real-world situations. In math, this requires being able to “use mathematical concepts, procedures, facts and tools to describe, explain and predict phenomena”. In science, it requires being able to explain phenomena scientifically, evaluate and design scientific inquiry, interpret data and evidence, and draw appropriate scientific conclusions.

This is what 21st century skills in the K to 12 curriculum is all about. It is not enough for our students to master concepts and subject matter. They also need to have digital literacy, and have the skills for problem solving and critical thinking.

In our country, there are already classrooms that are ready for the 21st century. I have visited classrooms in Taguig and Batangas, in which every learner is equipped with an iMac computer, with access to learning resources such as e-books.

But the question is, have our teachers kept pace with the changes in teaching required for the 21st century, so that in turn our students will be able to keep pace with changes in the required standards of quality? Have our teacher education institutions kept pace with the needed pre-service preparations for teachers in the 21st century? Have our in-service training kept pace with the professional development needed by teachers of the 21st century?

The challenge is for our teachers to be able to think of new and innovative ways of teaching. An example of this is Dr. Ensalada; he fuses IP culture with how he teaches Math. In other countries, teachers are using technology to enhance teaching such as through gamification – using concepts and theories in games for education – and playful learning. Also, other countries have started teaching learners how to create games, enhancing their creativity and problem-solving skills.

The learners today are very different from the learners before. Generation Z, learners born from 1997 onwards, are anxious because they know a lot of things. This is due to the influx of information and data that are very accessible to these learners. They are concerned about what is happening on our planet, and what the future holds for them. With this, we need to understand what is happening with our learners. We need to listen to them. Other countries have already started using neuroscience to understand what the learners feel, what part of their brain works when doing specific tasks, and how they learn.

How is the Department responding to the herculean task of rising from the reality of low education quality? The focus in the past has been in changing the curriculum through K to 12, and in upgrading the learning environment through new school buildings and modernizing facilities. But these are not enough.

The battle for quality basic education will be fought and won at our classrooms, by our teachers. Ultimately, it is in the classrooms where the day-to-day learning of our students happen. I have worked from day one to support our teachers through policy and program reforms. For instance, alongside our initiative to expand the Teachers positions is our ongoing transformation of the National Educators Academy of the Philippines (NEAP), whereby we are integrating the professional development program and aligning it to the career progression and promotion system for teachers.

The new professional development program will start in 2020. This new professional development program, aligned with expanded promotion opportunities, will have a built-in process for teachers to be able to translate their own learning into classroom teaching improvements. The new professional development program will empower our teachers to make transformative reforms in classroom instruction for quality.

There is much work to be done. The fight for quality will require no less than a national movement, with our teachers at the forefront.

Our Teachers’ Day national theme this year, “Gurong Pilipino: Handa sa Makabagong Pagbabago”, as well as the global theme, “Young Teachers: The future of the Profession”, are very apt for the biggest challenge that our basic education system faces today. On this World and National Teachers’ Day, I reach out to all our teachers and school leaders, seek your support, to renew everyone’s commitment and motivation for an all-out effort for education quality.

Magandang hapon, at mabuhay ang mga guro ng Kagawaran ng Edukasyon.

(Transcription courtesy of  Usec Diosdado San Antonio's fb post at https://web.facebook.com/diosdado.sanantonio)

When the School Leadership Falls Victims of 'Edifice Complex' Syndrome

By:  Gilbert M. Forbes
DepEd Quezon, Region IV-A  (CALABARZON)

For quite a long time, more than two decades already, it has been experienced and observed that much focus have been directed and given to institutional projects otherwise known as ground improvements (landscaping) or beautification projects of all sorts among our schools.  So much investment without careful planning is spent in these project without considering its continuing maintenance cost or sustainability and returns on investment.  Teachers too are not prevented or excused from shelling their monetary share in the process. 

Delaire Elementary School  in Pennsauken, NJ, USA

At the outset, it isn't surprising to see our schools look like a mini-park or resembles a resort!  I am particularly afraid that many of us particularly school leaders have been infected with the so called 'edifice complex' syndrome or sickness. Unfortunately, we might be setting aside some of the most important things unintentionally. Sad to say, some authorities whose main function is curriculum and instructional supervision are encouraging, tolerating even making it as indicator of how good or better the school, its stakeholders and the school leadership is.

Surprisingly, schools in other countries particularly those which are topnotch when it comes to education like Japan and Finland or even the United States, a super power country have simpler school landscapes, even interiors as compared to the Philippines.

SO SIMPLE: A typical Japanese rural school.

With this, it is thought that it would be better to look back at our priorities.  What is really needed by our pupils and students.  How do these interventions going and is going to affect teaching-learning process and so the performance of our learners and quality of education in a larger perspective?

Probably, engineers and architects tasked to construct our school buildings should already consider and include specific landscape and designs for our schools to follow and maintain so that not much financial resources are spent for it.  In a third world economy and in a country where less than 5% of the GDP is allotted to education, it is a great relief.  

Financial resource commonly generated by the stakeholders can then be allotted to most important and much needed things, i.e., instructional materials which are the immediate source and instrument that will help raise educational performance and academic standards of our schools.  More so, on other ways that will strengthen and improve basic education performance indicators.

Being Whole, Becoming Holy: Upholding the Integrity Among Education Leaders

By:  Fr. Roderick C. Salazar Jr.
Director, SVD Mission Philippines, Inc.
First National Assembly of Education Leaders, Sept. 20- 22, 2017, PICC Manila Philippines

There is a philosophical principle first in intention last in execution.  Being and becoming on one side and whole in holy on the other side.  The word paired with being is whole.  The word that is introduced by becoming is holy.  Leaders then or its singular form leader and related words lead and leadership.  Among the many definitions of leadership the one that I like best is what Vance Packard wrote in his book The Pyramid Climbers.  He said, in essence leadership appears to be the art of getting others to want to do something that you are convinced should be done.  Towards, in that phrase, make it stand out from other definitions.  To want.  Take this away and you might indeed still get people to do something that you are convinced should be done but you’ll have exercised may not be leadership anymore.  It could very well be martial law, dictatorship.  But with these two words to want what is revealed is that leadership is really a matter of the heart.  The leader so touches the inner being of so stirs the soul that react of following which follows is a choice made freely motivated from within.

What this notion side by side with the usual of idea of leadership as taking charge and getting things done. Contrast this with the familiar picture of corporate management on the one side and the work force on the other side bargaining with bonuses and incentives, rewards and benefits and listen to these questions of James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner in their book The Leadership Challenge.  If that has been normal, picture of management and leadership in corporate characters.  What of those who have no bonuses to give, no promotions to offer and no performance to write.  What of those who cannot pay any compensation and yet asked us to contribute our time, our resources, our services, our energies, even our lives.  What of those who must rely upon our willingness, our internal motivation, to give ourselves to some just cause.  Do they not lead?  Keep this in mind so that we can be ready to look at transformational leadership. 

The idea and term was first introduced by James MacGregor Burns in his Pulitzer Prize winning book published in 1978.  Bernard M. Bass would later expand his idea and so would a host of other writers.  Putting together the contributions of these individuals we can differentiate between transactional and transformational leadership.  The first is characterized as the exchange of valued things that serve the individual interest.  This turns in contrast to collective efforts focus towards common interest.  Transactional leadership is a process of exchange the root word being Trans meaning between and act or action, Trans act, transactional leadership, the leader in this case clearly specifies what he or she wants.  Determines what the employees want and brokers the contractual exchange of the two.  So the contractual relationship is based on agreed upon goals and minimum acceptable performance levels.  Rewards for satisfactory performance or penalty for unsatisfactory work.  The negotiation that is involved the exchange or transaction that occurs lead to the naming to this kind of leadership transactional. 

Management understood in the traditional sense is equated with it.  By contrast, transformational leadership occurs when one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality.  We ask ourselves then, what shall we do?  We ask ourselves who are we dealing with transactions or we transforming people?  What is the kind leadership that we are doing?

In his 1978 work, Burns mentioned the importance of a leader in both imparting and compelling forces and in leveraging his or her charismatic personal qualities in support of the vision.  So when, Bernard Bass took of the pulpit, he said that transformational leadership is comprise of charismatic leadership distances of reasoning and inspiring others to follow the vision.  Individualize consideration which concerns the leader developing the follower and intellectual stimulation, new ways of thinking, problem finding and solving.  To these others would add the importance of visioning, promoting shared values, culture shaping, role modeling, trusting and empowering.  The theory is that these practices inspire followers to exert extra effort, become self-led leaders and enhance commitment to the common purpose of the group and the leader.  

Indeed Burns sees leadership as inducing followers to act to certain goals that represent the values and the motivation.  The wants, the needs, the aspirations and expectations of both leaders and followers.  In other words, leadership is a relationship between leaders and followers who are acting interactively to attain some purpose. 

And this is what Burns, Packard said which I quoted earlier, leadership is the art of getting others to want to do something that you are convinced should be done.  For when a vision is shared and the longing for it has become common to both leader and follower, then the movement towards the goal comes quite naturally.  And one then knows that leadership has been exercise.  Leadership is an art and stirs the followers from the heart.

Taking off from the concepts just presented, two others offer their insights without actually using the terms transformational.  James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner, who were also quoted earlier, articulated the idea even more.  And their research on leadership they found out that leader is at their best when they challenge, inspire, enable, model and encourage.  A shorter way of differentiating transactional from transformational leadership is to look at the spelling of the verb to lead.  It starts with an L and end with a D.  L E A D that is transformational.  If you reverse the first letter and the last letter it become D E A L, it becomes transactional.  

How do you deal with your people?  Where are we at this words and goods familiar not to ask that we try to use them from our position in the organization? What do you think ourselves?  Because we are the director and the president and the superintendent and the supervisor, who are we?  

Stories told that once Mohammad Ali boarded a plane and when it was about to take off, the announcement came that everyone should fasten their seatbelts.  And when the stewardess walks the aisle to check everyone complied.  She approached Mohammad Ali and politely said sir, “Please fasten your seatbelt.”  Mohammad Ali arrogantly answered loud enough for everyone to hear.  “I am the greatest.  I don’t need any seatbelt.  I am superman.”  Without missing a deep, the stewardess asked politely replied, “then please superman, get off the plane and fly.” And wordlessly, the greatest just put on his seatbelt.

Are we the greatest because of the title that we have?  In another occasion in an airport, the check-in counter was swarm with people waiting to be served when a man drunk the queue and demanded that he be served first.  The clerk said, “Sir please takes your turn and the queue.”  The man shouted and said, “Don’t you know who I am?”  And the clerk took the public address system and announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, there is a man here at the check-in counter, who does not know who he is.  Anyone who knows him, please come and identify him.”  Amused chuckles of the people, the man who did not know who he was immediately took his place in the queue. 

Do you know who I am?  Do you know who you are?  Are you that kind of leader who will rise only on titles and positions?  Let us now look at where we are supposed to be as leaders in education. 

Integrity also comes from the Latin word which means whole.  Corruption breaks the heart, the core of your value.  That’s the reason why so many problems in our country today because heart has come to do hell.  If you don’t have your heart whole, corruption follows.  

A person of integrity is living rightly not divided.  It is not being a different person in different circumstances.  A person of integrity is the same person in private that he or she is in public.  Integrity is related to the word integrating which means the result of infusing together of different parts into a coherent consistent whole. 

Public and private life is the same for the person of integrity.  Integrity is what we do when you are not aware that your children are looking and listening.  Integrity is who we really are on the inside.  Other descriptions of integrity are what you see is what you get and who you are when nobody is looking.  Integrity is the wholeness which is the first part of my title of this talk.  Being whole.  It is doing what you say you’ll do. 

In the words of Jesus about love and our relationship with God, you shall love the Lord your God with a whole heart.  With a whole soul.  With your whole mind.  With your whole strength.  Love your neighbor as you love yourself.  Whole, entire, complete, not a fraction.  No time in the history of our nation is this world integrity find out for fulfillment.  In the times and by some about elected leaders and the followers, we are besieges with lies and fake news, and killings and insults and tens of lies and more lies.  Where are we going?  Where is the integrity of this beloved nation Philippines? 

At least this assembly is looking at what integrity requires.  What is happening?  It is indeed timely that starting today on the anniversary of the declaration of martial law in our country where different positions on leadership and integrity are raised.  Without integrity, where are we?

This is not easy.  If my leader above me says or does something patently wrong.  Or even evil, what should I do?  If I speak up for the right and true, I may lose my job.  This is an existential situation.  There are no easy answers. 

Genuinely loving those God has placed in our life’s path is the starting point of that influence.  Add to that a commitment to using every ability, God has given us to be the best that we can be regardless of what we do or where we are and you have a recipe for leadership to succeed.  This is really what leading from the heart is all about. 

Leading and leading from the heart as God designed it means our relationships are always central to our actually being the best that we can be.  We make mistakes, we fall.  We sinned but the God who called us to be whole will help us to become holy.  There will be so many temptations in our lives.  We betray our faith, our values, and our loves.  We make compromises but we must rise after every fall.

There is a song that most Filipinos know.  The story behind the song My Way is that after decades of being in the entertainment world, Frank Sinatra felt that he should retire.  He asked a fellow singer who is also a composer Paul Anca to propose a signature song for Sinatra’s farewell concert which is how Paul gave him the song with the catchy first line. “Farewell tour of Frank Sinatra, ladies and gentlemen, Frank Sinatra.”  He goes up on the stage, “And now, the end is near.  And so I face the final curtain.”  You know that song did say in the proud final line, “I did it my way.” 

It is truly great for a leader to do things his or her way.  It is the mark of originality.  But in the moral scheme of things, each ones way is not God’s way.  The life would be a failure.  Jesus would say it.  “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but suffer the loss of his soul.” 

Back to the Frank Sinatra’s story, so after his farewell tour, telling people to do things his way, he retired but the entertainment body in him refuse to go.  After some years, the world knows that he is on a comeback tour.  “Huh, he already said good bye.”  But he goes to Paul Anca and he said Paul, write me a song.  “I thought that was the lost song for you.”  “Come on Paul, give me a song.”  He did.  “Ladies and gentlemen, Frank Sinatra, in his comeback tour!”

I know I said that I was leaving,

but I just couldn't say good-bye.

It was only self-deceiving

to walk away from someone who

Means everything in life to you.

You learn from every lonely day

I've learned and I've come back to stay.

Let me try again; let me try again.

We must learn to say, Lord, let me try again.  Upholding.  It really means to hold on up.  For everyone to see.  For us not to be ashamed of who we are.  Uphold.  Hold up.  It is not meant to make a ghost of who we are but it is also what Jesus said, “We must be the light of the world.  Who you are.  Stand up for others to see.  Not for your own benefit but for the sharing of the light to this world. 

If God made us body and soul.  Matter and spirit.  He meant for us to do whole, integral.  We cannot be whole or holy unless God holds us up.  Integrity is wholeness.  Wholeness is holiness.  This is what each have all wants try to achieve.  The goal the end must be clear even if the way is not easy.  We need God.  And we need one another.

Many years ago in 1963, there was the popular movie entitled The Cardinal.  It was about a priest who became a cardinal despite his having vouch of unfaithfulness to his vocation.  There is a lovely song connected to the film which of us can learn, priest or not, religious or lay, learn in sing and pray when struggle to uphold our integrity.

Should my heart not be humble, should my eyes fail to see,

Should my feet sometimes stumble on the way, stay with me.

Like the lamb that in springtime wanders far from fold,

Comes the darkness and the frost, I get lost, I grow cold.

I grow cold, I grow weary, and I know I have sinned,

And I go seeking shelter and I cry in the wind,

And though I grope and I blunder and I kneel and I'm wrong,

Though the rose buckles under where I walk, walk along

'Til I find to my wonder every task lead to thee,

Or that I can do is, pray, stay with me.

Stay with me.

God help us.  Hole integrity among education leaders.  Thank you.

Motivation in Public Service

By:  Ambassador Henrietta T. De Villa
First National Assembly of Education Leaders, PICC Manila Philippines, Sept. 20- 22, 2017

Why is the heart so important because it is where all dealings are made?  There is the heart.  The heart is the first organ that is visible. Engaging your heart is vital because you have the power, you have the means and you have the captive subject to shape a new and different future for the country. I hope you are very excited about what you do.  Yes, o yes, you have to be because it is always an adventure and an adventure to newness really is quite exciting.  Servant leaders of the nation with a heart, a pure heart, a clean heart, a compassionate heart.  And you have the power to chart a new course for our country that could even impact our ASEAN nations to draw them out, to draw us out, of the grab mentality.  Grab power, grab profit, grab pleasure.  I hope you will ponder on this and start doing it. 

I still remember my mother who was a Math teacher in FEU.  For her, math is not merely addition, subtraction, multiplication, division or equation.  She expanded her math lessons to wider dimensions, a more holistic meaning to the mathematical processes.  Subtracting pain through sharing, adding joy and hope through good deeds.  Multiplying talents with community work and dividing work load through volunteerism.  Sharing pain, having joy and hope, multiplying gifts, dividing the burden, this is engaging the heart of education leaders.  The sit of wisdom, the heart, compassion, most of all the start up motor of humanizing the person in society.  Education is an on-going process, a life-long project.  Even if in your case, education would be, educating in schools, within the confines of classrooms, within specific timelines, still there must be that consciousness that education is life-long and life-wide.  

What you teach and how you teach can detonate positive or negative heart bites.  TO TEACH IS TO SHOW SOMEONE HOW TO LIVE.  Teaching is not merely transmitting literal knowledge.  Teaching is making word and happening one.  So it is witnessing.  Pope Paul VI teachers teach best when they are witnesses.  Realize that engaging the heart is the dynamic force for motivation, experiences that becomes memories of the heart and lessons for a life-long and life-wide practice.

Mothering or parenting and teaching form a single vocation.  Both engage the heart to the hill in motivating their children and students to strive for excellence and to account for the hope that is in them.  Engaging the heart does not mean permissiveness.  It requires discipline.  A danger, parents are sometimes prone to probably due to the lack of time since both father and mother have to work.  Or the guilt provoked by this lack of time.  Neither does compassion mean, you can’t confuse it with pity.  If we spoon fed our daughters and sons of whatever age.  Your students of whatever level, there is a danger of turning them to become mental wimps, worst with hearts that crumble at the slightest stress or difficulty. 

Forms and substance but this has no reference to impeachment requirements.  Impeachment cases have become a dime a dozen now a days which is a sad commentary on public service.  Was it Jefferson?  I think its Jefferson who said, what we acquire too easily, we esteem too lightly. Going back to my sharing, this will focus on form and content.  The form, anecdotal narratives.  The content flushed out from the Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines which is invoked by every congressional investigation in aid of legislation, a dime a dozen too now a days.  Since I am not a lawyer or an elected servant of the people, I just went as far as the preamble articles I to III, because I find them all the highlights I needed in these sections which can be crunched into three headings for purposes of motivation, motivating you as educators and public servants.  

The three motivators; maka-Diyos, makabayan, makatao.  Maka-Diyos when you read the constitution, that is the first part.  It invokes God, so it is recognition of the primacy of God.  And makabayan states the national territory that is our country, the Philippines which public servants and all of its citizens have to develop her patrimony and secure her posterity.  And then makatao particularly the poor, ang mga pinapahirapan, ang mga isinasaisantabi, mga kinakalimutan para sa panahon natin ngayon mga pinapatay.  Paulit-ulit, andun po sa Philippine Constitution ang karapatang pantao napakahalaga na ang karapatang pantao, hindi pinapahalagahan ng isang libo lamang.  Wala pong . . . ,  it cannot be buy you.  Do not be scared even if you are public officials to concern what is right and what is wrong.  I admire your secretary.  She vouched for the character of Kian De Los Santos.  That was brave.  I thought that was very brave.  What will make maka-Diyos, makabayan, makatao excellent motivators is love.  And love is not an emotion.  It is an action of the heart.  Love for God, love for country, love for people especially the poor.  This love must be proactive not passive.  Not just a passing emotion. Naku, kawawa naman.  Naku talagang mali ‘yan.  Magrarally tayo.  Pagkatapos, nakalimutan na.  It has to be a passion for it to be a life-long and life-wide. 

Passion is a produce of the heart.  A heart that has been loved.  A heart that has known what it is to be loved and what it is to love.  ‘Yong mga nakaranas, naïve, na mahal sila.  Na inibig sila.  Those who experienced how to be loved without looking at our warts, or moles, or defects, simply for ourselves, that is the best motivation, iyon ang nag-uudyok sa puso na magmahal din,  that dictates the heart to love too. 

I am a Catholic.  And I’m very proud to be one.  I believe in one God for whom nothing is impossible.  My God whom I believe who loves me and is always there for me, come hell or high water.  You have to believe in something or in someone.  Whatever your faith is or whatever god you worship, your faith, your god must be your all in all.  What is this that gives meaning to life?  To your vocation as educators.  God who is love is the absolute motivation for remaining faithful in being maka-Diyos, makabayan, makatao, in all things that we do and say. 

You know, Pope Francis is a very practical man.  He is very kin on encounter.  Iyong makipagtagpuan.  Because life is all about relationships. You relate with our children.  Children relate with their parents.  You relate with your students.  You relate with each other.  Life is relational.  We relate with people we encounter. Kaya best iyong person to person contact eh.  Kaya ako, hindi ako naniniwala nung bibigyan na lang ng assignment ang mga estudyante.  Darating na lang kapag may eksamin.  Sa college yata iyon, mas type nila yon.  At hindi na nakikita.  Wala iyong exchange, interaction, engaging the heart.  And we need to encounter God in especial moments of our lives.

I met my God early in life.  I know it was not through my effort for what grade three girl student for seriously know who Jesus is.  He must have been the one who drew me.  To wake up early every morning and walk to an early mass. 6:00 o’clock in the morning.  And then, so that we will not be late in school which starts the next day at 7:30.  Since then, Jesus and I have been friends.  And I can tell you.  There is no bff better than He is.  And I know, He will save me from whatever fall I find myself into from whatever foolishness I may do He will save me because He loves me.

When you know you are love unconditionally, faithfully walking with you in sunshine and in rain.  Then this gives meaning to your waking, sleeping, breathing, working living. 

Motivation starts with relationships, carried through relationships, which bear fruit in relationships.  They can be good or bad fruit depending on the relationships you established and encounters that you have.  I am a Filipino and I am very proud to be one. 

You saw that, The Devil Wears Prada?  Ang galing-galing ni Merill Strip.  The Devil Wears Prada, kase kapag nagkaron tayo ng mga ilusyon, to buy this, to buy that, to wear this to wear that.  Hay naku, umpisa na ang katapusan.  Madali po kaseng matisod, di po ba?  Kaya kailangang balik-balikan ang dalisay na hangarin sa paglilingkod.  Alalahanin n’yo po si Bonifacio.  Humayo kayo, humayo tayo at ibangon ang bayan sa kawalan ng puri dahil sa katiwalian. 

When somebody does something for you, no matter how small, or even if it’s their duty to do so, show some appreciation, some affirmation because some affirmation expands the heart.  And motivates it to go an extra hundred miles for the magi’s be abundance to life. One of the things I cannot forget, he told me because he made an order that I should repeat it to as many people as I can.  Pope John Paul II said, “God has blessed the Philippines, with two things that is not present anymore in other countries; the richness of your faith and the closeness of your families. 

Engaging the heart knows no distinction, no barriers, no differences.  The three motivators, Maka-Diyos, makabayan at makatao.  I hope you will always remember God who is kind and merciful.  Slow to anger and rich in forgiveness.  Even if your students are nakakagigil.  That you will remember that.  Na araw-araw hahayo kayo at ikalat na walang pag-ibig pa, na hihigit sa pagkadalisay at pagkadakila,  kundi ang pag-ibig sa tinubuang lupa.

That when you encounter people especially the poor.  That you will teach them, rather show them, through your hugs and affirmation that there are no children of a lesser god.  And what better motivation for you than being true to what you are and what you do which is a privilege no amount of money can equal that privilege to form the minds and engage the hearts of the young Filipino, the new Filipino, the future’s authentic Filipino servant leader.  Education is on-going, life-long, life-wide.

Teachers' Continuing Challenges as Instrumentalities of Knowledge and Wisdom in the 21st Century

By:  Gilbert M. Forbes

With excerpts from Ms. Dina Ocampo’s talk at PNU Graduation Ceremony, April 7, 2017

No one can deny that LIFE has become easy due to the improvement in the lives of the average Filipinos brought about by the increase in the so called per capita income.  Things considered as luxuries before by the poor and can only be afforded by the rich and the middle class like sardines, instant noodles, frozen foods, fork and chicken, even eggs are now affordable to the poor.  Even mobile phones, television sets, ordinary fashion even its from ukay are affordable too.  As such, at times the poor can outsmart the middle class in fashion and gadgetry.  It is now easy to go from one place to another.  Indeed, due to the onset of information technology, it has shrunk the world and the country we used to live.

Claro M. Recto Memorial Central School's grade two pupils in Tiaong, Quezon:
Learners' critical discernment has not been as great as it is today.

However, even if life has become easier and much entertaining, at least in our country as compared to Sub-saharan Africa, it did not contribute in the improvement of our values, morals, and spirituality.  While there’s an explosion of knowledge brought about by the information super high way, there came the evils of it. One example of this is the deliberate manufacturing and sharing of fake news to manipulate public opinion. The damage this causes society is massive. Anger is aroused, distrust is sewn, bigotry is fostered and culture of impunity is raised, promoted and even accepted as synonymous to forgiveness and the concept of moving on.

The pressure on educators such as ourselves to develop in learners critical discernment has not been as great as it is today. The age of information technology has become both a blessing and a bane to us teachers who ourselves have difficulty in distinguishing between credible news and “alternative facts” regardless of age bracket we belong be that as from baby boomers up to the mellenials or generation Y.   As such there comes the revisionists.

We must address this issue on two levels. First, establishing the truth must be based on facts that are corroborated by credible sources. And second, we must teach our students that the measure of fact has little to do with their preferred outcome. Just because it is your opinion, it does not mean it is right. Nor is it the truth.

In other words, critical pedagogy is what you must practice so that the students will develop critical discernment. Just because something resonates with your opinion, it doesn’t mean it is a fact. Scientific processes and the proper appreciation of data is needed. This can be done by giving students opportunities and direct instruction on how to dissect information. Otherwise, we will fall into the trap of believing that all opinions out there are for real. Worse, we will believe that our opinion is always better than others all the time and we ignore that there is always a possibility that we are mistaken.

Another example has to do with bigotry. In education, we have struggled to move away from labelling children and learners. We have stopped using terms like bobo and retarded to describe learners with different learning needs. We stopped homogenous grouping of our pupils and students according to their academic performance instead grouped them heterogenously avoiding labels as higher or lower section or fast and slow learners.  Move on na tayo diyan db? We have moved towards seeing the learner and their capacities instead of cuing onto the label together with the assumptions and judgements that go with that label.

Unfortunately, social media is full of bigotry. Dilawan and Dutertards are only two examples of such manifestations of bigotry. Labels such as these box in people into categories. Worse, they call into mind generalizations and characteristics that make recipients of these labels clones of each other as if they were not individuals and human.

Such bigotry resulted in the reign of terror in the middle east or even the unexpected personalities getting elected into public offices as a result of lies, trolls and memes. And now, still on-going, the attack on Marawi City by the Maute Group allegedly linked to ISIS. Or on statements like, “di ikaw na.  Addict ka!  “Kung kaanak mo kaya ang marape . . .”

As instrumentalities in propagating knowledge and wisdom we can help to abate social ills and lies for it would always be true and factual that education is the solution.  It is our greatest weapon and resource if we can only perform our sacred duties and responsibilities to the best that we can.  This we could do with much ease if we could rise above our basic enemy, the average in ourselves.  For we are tasked to do THY WILL BE DONE, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN!  Aristotle puts it, EXCELLENCE ISN’T AN ACT, IT IS A HABIT.

We should always be open to trainings, lectures and discussions even when we feel and think that it is no longer new or interesting because at the end of the of the day, there will always be novel in things we thought we knew already.  We should reflect on what has been given to us up to this very moment onwards to the bits of wisdom our experiences tell and by internalizing and committing to apply with much ease the Constructivist, Integrative, Reflective, Inquiry, and Collaborative Approaches in teaching. 

Where others fail, in K to 12, with these clearly defined and given approaches, doing it right and with expertise, we are bound to SUCCEED! 

Why Do Teachers Need to Plan their Lessons and Prepare DLL

By:  Gilbert M. Forbes
DepEd QUEZON, CALABARZON


Teacher's Guides (TG's) are only guides. It is suggestive but not prescriptive. It is definitely not Lesson Plan (LP). As teachers therefore, we still need to plan our lessons to insure that it fits well with our classes. "Planning is one of the most important project management and time management

techniques. Planning is preparing a sequence of action steps to achieve specific goal. It is like a map. When following a plan, you can always see how much you have progressed towards your project goal and how far you are from your destination. Knowing where you are is essential for making good decisions on where to go or what to do next,"- (What is Planning and Why We Need to Plan?http://www.time-management-guide.com/planning.html)

All those things mentioned about planning is not contained in our TG's. However, LP preparation though the most ideal is very time consuming. So after more than a decade of struggle to move away from the rigors of LP preparations but not necessarily lost its essence, the Daily Lesson Log was introduced by DepEd so that time lost will be directed in studying the content of the lesson and the preparation of instructional materials.

DLL is a much simplified LP for it contains official record of activities, instruction and learning experiences written in a systematic way.

DO 42, s. 2016 explained it clearly that its aim is to support teachers in organizing and managing their classes and lessons effectively and efficiently and ensure the achievement of learning outcomes. Preparing for lessons through the Daily Lesson Log (DLL) or Detailed Lesson Plan (DLP) provides teachers with an opportunity for reflection on what learners need to learn, how learners learn, and how best to facilitate the learning process.

At first, because of its length, DLL preparation will require additional 50% or even double the time required viz the old DLL but its only while we are still new to it but sooner, as we became used to it and learned techniques of doing shortcuts, it will be easier.

For the meantime, let us just do and learn from doing it. A blessed Sunday folks. May God continuously shine on us!

2016 Graduation Message of Secretary Br. Armin Luistro FSC

Source:  www.deped.gov.ph

Congratulations to our dear graduates for reaching this significant milestone in your lives. Let this achievement also be generously shared among school administrators and personnel, teachers, and parents who have given a part of themselves to ensure this success for our young learners.

This day holds more significance because it comes at a time when the Philippine education system is undergoing the biggest education reform in the country, the K to 12 Program. With its full implementation come June 2016, we send you off to another journey of your lives—with our hearts filled with hope that we have given you the quality education you deserve, one that is inclusive, relevant and holistic.

This year’s theme “Kabataang Mula sa K to 12, Tagapagdala ng Kaunlaran sa Bansang Pilipinas” reminds us of the youth’s role in building a nation every Filipino deserves. The future will always have a place for people who forge ahead with purpose and a keen intent to serve. In diversity, find opportunities to reach out and build bridges; in difficulty, the chance to be altruistic; and in challenges, reasons to learn and rise to the occasion.

Our country needs graduates who will commit to uphold and enhance the best of what it has to offer—citizens who are as patriotic as they are competent, highly-skilled and innovative.

Dear graduates, education is a continuing journey towards self-actualization. The world outside the four corners of your classroom is filled with possibilities and challenges, and they are waiting for you. As you move closer to your aspirations, let your moments of victory serve as an inspiration for others and your moments of defeat be your motivation to work harder and to do more not only for yourself but also for our fellow Filipinos.

For us in the schools, may this theme remind us of the core reason of our vocation: to mold young minds into citizens who have a heart for service and a dream for the Filipino nation.

Again, congratulations to our graduates! I wish you all the best in your future endeavors.

Patuloy tayong magsama-sama para sa edukasyon.