Tesay Glinoga

• Project “Kulay Malaya” for street children
• Project “Lambong” for street families
• Devotion to the Virgin of the Poor, organized processions and vigils for the consecration of the country
• March Na! An Ode to Women, 2007 Women’s Month, organized breakfast forum and all-men Fun Run
• Men for Women Movement, 2008 Women’s Month, organized Race Walk, Signature Campaign among men to support “Say No to Violence Against Women.” Designed and conducted Psycho-Spritual Counseling and Healing Catholic Meditation, (Carmelite) Volunteer Teacher for the Secondary Night School, St. Scholastica’s College

Every time Tesay sees street children or scavengers, she cries, “My soul churns. How can we let our children suffer? I don’t know where my tears are coming from; I just believe that God has allowed me to see them through His eyes.”

This started Tesay’s project “Kulay Malaya.” Tesay warms up with a smile, “Imagine the color of freedom. Imagine the beautiful colors that will replace the darkness of their lives when children are set free to run the expanse of green fields, or climb trees, or swim in the middle of the ocean, or let them fly in the sky. We have to bring that color back to their life, at least in their imagination when they see a glimmer of hope in their future. We stole their lives; therefore, it is our duty to let them reclaim their childhood.”



Tesay used to roll out her mats on any space, by the roads, creeks, cemeteries; read to children and allowed them to hold books, etc. But this, she thought was so temporary. So she had her office fenced and she adapted small communities. Every Saturday she accepts children to her office. She bathes them personally, feeds them, teaches them arts and reading; and in the afternoon, they all attend the mass together. Tesay asks for donations of goods, not money, from the neighbors. She would wait for the closing of store hours and beg from restaurants for their leftover breads. “I don’t want to give them the opportunity to doubt that I am using the money for other purposes; so I explicitly say in my flyers that we don’t accept money for donations.”

The long range goal of “Kulay Malaya” is to debrief the children from any form of abuse they have experienced in life. So, “Kulay Malaya” is a link between uprooting the children from their ugly experiences and planting them into mainstream society. Children are resilient. I have actually seen the positive changes after just a couple of weeks. But the Program will take at least one year to see a more lasting character formation on the children.

Tesay says, “The trouble is government tries to force feed children with schooling in the guise of education. Even adults cannot function when they are bombarded with problems. So why and how could we expect children to function effectively when they are still hurting? How can they carry the heavy burden on their tiny shoulders that is too much even for adults to carry? Some of them might be permanently broken. Just because government gives them free education, free textbooks or uniforms that we can already expect them to heal and live a normal life.”

Tesay admonishes the government to use social engineering to address the problems of society and stop using band-aid solutions.

“Kulay Malaya” should be a concerted effort of society. It has parallel efforts to reform the family that the children will go home to after they have undergone the program. If they go back to the same dysfunctional family, the children will slide back to their old self, and the program will all be an effort in futility. The concept is to have a functioning society. To achieve that, everybody should be able to become functional.

The same principles hold true for drug users and other addictions. Six months is not enough for rehabilitation. The programs can eat up a lot of budget, but Tesay believes that we have to start somewhere. Otherwise, the situation may become unmanageable; and we, as a society, will have to suffer the burden of guilt for not doing promptly what we should have done at least thirty years ago. Finger pointing consumes our energy. We are faced with the NOW. So our concerted efforts as a people should be funneled in the now; and the task should start now.


Every Women’s Month, Tesay organizes activities specifically for men. “If men are the cause of women’s miseries; they should be part of the solution. We encourage men to participate in the process of dissecting the anatomy of abuse against women.”



Tesay has initiated the project, “March Na! An Ode to Women.” for Women’s Month. She organizes gender sensitivity seminars to men to raise their awareness on the plight of women. She also organized “Men for Women Movement that jumpstarted a 10K and 20K Race Walk among men which she envisions to become an international race in the future. She organized brisk walking trainings in Metro Manila and promoted it as a better exercise than jogging. Tesay was a long distance runner so she knows what she is talking about, “I promote brisk walking as part of healthy living. When people, specifically for this purpose, men, are engaged in healthy lifestyle, they veer away from vices such as smoking, drug use, or alcohol that blur one’s reason. The result is usually violence against the eventual victims: Women and children.



At the end of the race, men were asked to recite the “Ode to Women” and change from their jerseys to their “graduation T-shirts” with the printed logo “Certified Feminist.” The men were encouraged to commit to the advocacy through a campaign signature: No to Violence Against Women. Tesay has adapted her logo in violet color, the combination for the symbols for male and female, that symbolizes gender equality. “At the end of the day, we hope to achieve the harmony between men and women and among us,” Tesay concludes.