PLDT marks another year of supporting The Outstanding Young Men and Women (TOYM) Foundation. The Foundation honors outstanding individuals who continue to go above and beyond for the country. As TOYM Foundation Chairman, PLDT-Smart Chairman and CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan led the presentation of 11 TOYM 2018 honorees.
In photo are the TOYM 2018 honorees, from left to right: Dr. Erika Fille Tupas Legara, TOYM 2018 honoree for Education Innovation; Dr. Katerina Tolentino Leyritana, TOYM 2018 honoree for Medical Science; Jamela Aisha Martinez Alindogan, TOYM 2018 honoree for International Journalism; Dr. Mark Anthony Santiago Sandoval, TOYM 2018 honoree for Medical Science; Zulueta Jaton, TOYM 2018 honoree for Community Development; Cherrie De Erit Atilano, TOYM 2018 honoree for Agribusiness; PO3 Fatima Peñones Ibias Lanuza, TOYM 2018 honoree for Law Enforcement; Rodne Rodiño Galicha, TOYM 2018 honoree for Environment and Climate Change Education; and Karl Kendrick Tiu Chua, TOYM 2018 honoree for Economic Development.
The 11 TOYM awardees come from diverse fields, including political and social sciences, international journalism, agribusiness, economic development, public service, environment and climate change education, education innovation, and medical science.
TOYM 2018 awardee for Political and Social Sciences Dr. Nassef Manabilang Adiong is a prolific academic with three peer-reviewed books and edited volumes, nine peer-reviewed journal articles, seven peer-reviewed encyclopedic entries, 20 web-based articles, and more than 44 papers presented at academic conferences. His research and writings encompass Islam, International Relations, the Bangsamoro, and Philippine knowledge production on the concept of the ‘international’.
TOYM 2018 awardee for International Journalism Jamela Aisha Martinez Alindogan is an award-wining correspondent of Al Jazeera English for over ten years. She covers the Philippines and most of South East Asia and even Africa. She was elected as President of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP), an organization whose members hail from different top foreign news agencies.
Cherrie De Erit Atilano is the TOYM 2018 awardee for Agribusiness. Inspired by her work on smallholder farmers all over the Philippines through her exposure to the Department of Agrarian Reform beneficiaries, Atilano started her own social enterprise called AGREA Agricultural Systems International, Inc.
TOYM 2018 honoree for Agribusiness Cherrie De Erit Atilano talks about her passion of teaching today’s youth about the importance of agribusiness through agripreneurship.
Karl Kendrick T. Chua is the TOYM 2018 awardee for Economic Development. Chua has been the Undersecretary for the Strategy, Economics, and Results Group of the Department of Finance since September 2016. In this capacity, he helps the government achieve the ten-point socioeconomic agenda by ensuring equitable and sustainable financing for the country’s key infrastructure and human development programs through an effective tax reform.
In his five years as Mayor of Cauayan City, Bernard Faustino La Madrid Dy, who is the TOYM 2018 awardee for Public Service, brought Cauayan at the forefront of progress, technological innovation, transparency and integrity-based governance. The nominee transformed Cauayan City into a bustling and the first-ever smarter city in the Philippines while maintaining the competitiveness of its agro-industrial and tourism industries. He was also the first mayor in the Philippines who successfully localized the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Rodne Rodiño Galicha is TOYM 2018 awardee for Environment and Climate Change Education. Galicha serves as Philippine Manager of Washington-based The Climate Reality Project (TCRP) which was founded by Nobel Laureate and former US Vice President Al Gore. Galicha is also chairperson and president of Bayay Sibuyanon Inc., a local organization in Romblon province that works on cultural heritage and ecology. He is also vice-chairperson of Greenpeace Philippines.
PO3 Fatima Peñones Ibias Lanuza is TOYM 2018 awardee for Law Enforcement.
She is one of the ten honorable officers recognized in the Search for Country’s Outstanding Police Officers in Service (COPS) by the Metrobank Foundation Inc. (MBFI) in 2016. She is a proud member of the Tabangon Tribe, an indigenous people of the Agtas.
TOYM 2018 awardee for Education Innovation Dr. Erika Fille Tupas Legara has a bachelor’s degree, a master’s and a doctorate in physics —all from the University of the Philippines (UP) where her general weighted average grade was a perfect 1.0 (with 1.0 as the highest grade point) in the PhD program. She worked in Singapore for most of her professional life from 2012 to 2017 before moving back to the Philippines to help implement the first formal data science program which she chiefly designed.
Dr. Katerina Tolentino Leyritana is TOYM 2018 awardee for Medical Science. During her Infectious Disease Fellowship Training Program in UP-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH), she won numerous awards in research which eventually led to her being awarded the Clemente S. Gatmaitan Award for Most Outstanding Fellow in Research, given at the UP-PGH Medicine Graduation Rites. In 2012, she was awarded the International Investigator Award of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, for her poster work on "The changing epidemiology of the HIV-positive patient before and after accessible anti-retroviral therapy: areas for intervention in the time of a national epidemic."
Dr. Mark Anthony Santiago Sandoval is TOYM 2018 awardee for Medical Science. Sandoval obtained his Doctor of Medicine degree, cum laude, from UP Manila where he graduated as Salutatorian. He completed his residency training in internal medicine and fellowship training in endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism both at the UP-PGH. He is presently an Associate Professor at the Department of Physiology and Section of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Department of Medicine of the UP College of Medicine and Philippine General Hospital.
Ever the advocate for dynamic, practical, and fun education, TOYM 2018 awardee for Community Development Antonio Jaton Zulueta Jr. would gather out-of-school youth living in in the mausoleums, and teach them basic reading and arithmetic by using games and atypical visual aids to get the children excited about learning. In 2005, just two years since he started informally teaching the out-of-school youth, his class in Manila South Cemetery grew from a group of 60 kids to 300. In 2009, Jaton, along with his sister Aina, founded the AHA! Learning Center – a physical classroom near the cemetery which holds proper Math and English tutorial classes up to five days a week as well as establishing his values formation program.
Transforming the ordinary
PLDT-Smart Chairman and CEO and TOYM Foundation Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan congratulates the TOYM 2018 honorees.
“Each year, The Outstanding Young Men and Women showcase the dedication and talent of the Filipino people. To each person on today’s list, you are brilliant and competent. You are inspiring all of us in every generation to aspire for greatness,” said TOYM Foundation Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan.
“The awardees symbolize far more than and beyond themselves. They represent a generation ready and willing to choose the Philippines,” Pangilinan added.
Since 1959, TOYM Foundation, through the Junior Chamber International (JCI), Inc., has recognized many individuals for their remarkable contributions in Philippine society.
TOYM Foundation President Bienvenido Tantoco III recognizes the TOYM 2018 honorees who have “transformed the ordinary.”
TOYM Foundation President Bienvenido Tantoco III addresses the TOYM 2018 awardees by reminding them to “transform the ordinary” – a nugget of wisdom he picked up from his grandfather. “Where we will find the right tools of technology, where we will find the right place to make an impact and a positive difference, and where the right place is to engineer transformation in this world that is going through so many changes – is still in the ordinary,” said Tantoco.
“The 11 TOYM 2018 awardees are prime examples of what it means to transform the ordinary,” Tantoco added.
