Mentoring the Mentors Program

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo My article “Fomenting a Revolution in the Classroom” (Sunday Inquirer Magazine, June 12, 2011), which was on the Mentoring the Mentors Program (MMP) generated concrete and surprising responses. MMP executive director Chinit D. Rufino got a lot of phone calls and e-mails. Good thing I included MMP’s contact numbers in the article, because if I didn’t I would not hear the end of it and I’d have had to keep forwarding messages to MMP. There were those who wanted to send donations so that more...

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Journalism as if Earth mattered

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo   I can’t resist this one, so let me say something about the matter before I proceed to the intended subject of today’s column. When another round of fishkill occurred in Taal Lake a few days ago, was it a fisheries official who said that it was not a fishkill but “fish mortality”? A grouchy copy editor would have red-penciled it were it not a direct quote, an example of jargon, euphemism,...

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                                   (First stanza of Rizal's "Mi ultimo adios" written before his execution on Dec. 30, 1896.) Today, June 19,  is the 150th birth anniversary of our national hero, Dr. Jose P. Rizal. May his life and death continue to inspire our generation...

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Yamot Aetas and Mt. PInatubo 20 years ago

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo “BINULSA KO na lang ang aking kalungkutan (I put my sorrow in my pocket).” —Paylot, an Aeta leader. Here are excerpts from the feature article I wrote shortly after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption that went on for days in June 1991. I had gone to Zambales when the volcano was still spewing ashes and tracked down the Aetas and the Franciscan nuns whose idyllic community in Yamot on the volcano’s...

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Fomenting a revolution in the classroom

Sunday Inquirer Magazine/FEATURES/by Ma. Ceres P. DoyoA text message from a teacher in Palawan who attended a three-day Mentoring the Mentors seminar/workshop reads, “Hi, Dr. Sol, Dr. Eve & Dr. Cel! Ds s Rhoda, one of the pax in MMP at PSU. Just wanna thank u all again for what we got out of d seminar. For one, a mentor lyk me whos considering quitting her job made a (180) degree turn around in a matter of 3 days…”The program is taking the countryside...

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Maliputo, tawilis and poisoned waters

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo In this season of huge fishkills in Taal Lake in Batangas, and Bolinao and Anda in Pangasinan, we again confront the grim reality of food gone to waste and environmental devastation caused by human greed. Bolinao was that brave little town that stood up to big foreign investors that planned to put up a cement plant and mine its limestone deposits in the mid-1990s. The project would have ruined...

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Amnesty International at 50

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo ITS FAMILIAR logo shows a burning candle with a piece of barbed wire wound around it. This was a familiar image of hope during the terrifying days of martial rule (1972-1986) in the Philippines. It was a candle that braved the tempest and shone in the night. Today, it continues to be a source of strength and hope for many oppressed peoples all over the world. Amnesty International (AI) turned...

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