The Decision to Run for Mayor of Manila

Ma. Teresita Glinoga Hizon is Teresa, Tess, Nognog to others, like me because of her curly hair. I know, it wasn’t politically correct, but the nickname was our way of being affectionate to her. I am writing about my best friend from high school….a friend whom I have not seen in years. We were both intense individuals, and, still are, very intelligent, innovative, creative and self-less. Tess also had a great sense of humor. It was not until I heard that Tess is running for Mayor of Manila that I was able to contact her. She is the same Tess I remember from high school at Immaculate Conception Academy of Manila in Gagalangin, Tondo.

High school was the best time for us. That was then. This is now. Tess is Tesay and is running for Mayor of the one of the largest cities of the Philippines. Through emails, Tesay shared the new Tess. She is running as an Independent and is campaigning on her own. Here I am, from the other end of the world, sharing to you, people of Manila, who Tesay Glinoga is.

Kilalanin po ninyo si Tesay Glinoga Hizon….

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

I love my name, Tess. There is a certain mystery in it— in the person who owns it. However, not in this part of the world, it isn’t! Nakakasira ng araw, no matter how Juliet rhetorically asks: What’s in a name? A rose is a rose and will smell as sweet. Dito kahit sa mall, sa kalye, sa palengke, if someone calls, “Tess,” sampu kaming lilingon. Sayang ang energy na lilingon ako’t sasagot tapos hindi pala ako. Nawawala ang uniqueness…and identity! I was in Australia n 1998. A group of excited children were running towards me and calling out, “Tess.” I thought: Aba, bakit ako kilala? Then I was taken aback when I realized they were running after their pet rabbit! Hanggang Australia ba naman?

Of course, we mean different to different people. So no matter how you call me, Tess or nog-nog or knogs, or nogs, or Teresa, Theresa, terry, or tesay would not matter nor change how you feel about me. I am so happy, thrilled, in fact, that you remember me.

TYPHOON ONDOY, THE TIPPING POINT TO RUN FOR MAYOR

That Saturday during the onslaught of the typhoon, I was trapped in San Carlos Seminary from morning till afternoon. The rains were strong and the traffic was not moving anymore. A neighbor called me up to inform me that floodwater was rising to knee-deep. I was not really worried kasi mataas ang lugar ng office. When there were floods in the past, people took shelter in my office. Nagpapainom pa nga ako ng kape pag minsang merong stranded sa harap ng office. But not this time; my office was not spared. Anyway, I could not return to check my office; everywhere was flooded. I went home to my condo unit here in Legazpi Village. I was able to check on the office on Monday afternoon yet.

I saw everyone was cleaning in the streets, nagbibilad ng mga gamit. When I opened the door of my office, it was like a tornado hit the place. The smell was like estero already. Black, everything was black from mud na madumi. Everything was damaged.

It so happened, that another condo unit in Quezon City, where I kept my belongings, was sold already. I had to move all my stuff from that condo to my office. So kung kelan ko pa nilipat mga gamit, dun pa nabaha. There was no memory of everything I worked so hard on—my personal effects, writings, everything. I just scoured through the ravage for my children’s photos and dried them.

That was the tipping point of my decision to file my candidacy for mayor.

I took it as cleansing of the past and starting with a new life. We all have to let go. I felt light actually. We have a strong tendency to be so attached to the past: Past glories, memories etc, for posterity. But posterity for what? I had a truckload of garbage I had to dispose.

SEMI-RETIREMENT IN QUEZON

Even before that, sumisiksik sa isip ko mag-mayor. It was not in Manila, though. I was about to buy an ancestral lot in Quezon. It is at the foot of the mountain, overlooking the Pacific. I planned on building a modest nipa hut with a roof deck for my meditations and a clean toilet. My uncle and other relatives used to be mayor there. Para kaming dynasty doon. Haha. Pero good kami ha. Walang nagpayaman. Yung mga associates ng uncle ko, pinipilit akong mag-mayor dun; they will support me. Ako naman, umandar na naman ang utak. You see, people there are starving. You know— the big farm owners, (isa kami dun;) and the kasama, the farmhands. I envisioned the things I’d do to make the place a big tourist attraction. Sayang ang tubig-dagat at mga isla na idle lang dun. I thought of national and international regattas, waterfun, etc. Ang laki ng potential. It’s mainly fishing industry there na hindi naman naalagaan ang dagat at isda. So I will come up with a scheme na maalagaan ito, at idevelop pa.

NO CREATIVE SOLUTIONS

Walang ganung programa ang Quezon, o ang ibang probinsya, o ang Maynila, kahit ang bansa. We’re stuck as a people, I see that clearly. Walang creative process na nangyayari kaya tayo mahirap. It is the perennial inferiority complex as a people that we accepted it as a fact that we are perennial victims of the West. Hindi tayo aware doon; but it is in our psyche.

If we assess our past actions and directions as a country, we are wasting our gifts as a people, as individual persons, as a country.

NO TELEVISION

So, going back to earth… I’ve not had television for the past 5 years or so; a personal choice. It’s trash. I just have a regular solicitation of Inquirer and Newsweek and other stuff. I have a decent library na nadurog sa baha. Nakakaiyak kasi I packed some books to donate them. Well…

GANG WAR

One day, I was reading the newspaper and I saw a seven-year old boy armed with rusty icepick on one hand; and a broken beer bottle on the other; geared for war. Gang wars, fraternity wars happen every night in places like Baseco, Parola, Sta Ana, San Andres, Moriones. Hindi na mapasok ng pulis yan. All police and the local government can do is impose curfew. By now, as we know from martial rule, curfews can only ba effective to a certain point. It’s band-aid solution, that’s all. Buti pa ang Newark, it is virtually a ghost town at 5pm. I’ve been there; I’ve seen it. Only the warring factions are seen in the streets at night. But here, it’s alive every night. People co-exist and they have accepted the situation as part of their life.

ADVOCACY FOR CHILDREN

When I see street children, I cry a lot; and I really do not have an idea where all those tears are coming from. I have so much pity for them. If they are given opportunities, who would want to scavenge through the garbage?

I trained as Casa Gal or Court Ad Litem, where we are the voice of children in court. The training was undertaken by no less than the Supreme Court, Ateneo Law School, and the Unicef. But I was never called to duty. I don’t even know now if it was ever implemented in juvenile courts.

I was deeply involved in the Consortium of Metro Manila NGOs for children. But I was disappointed how the officers of the various NGOs used the money to suit their personal needs when I was sincere in giving my services for free to help them. Corrupted na rin. Actually there are many fly-by-night NGOs; however, even legitimate NGOs use the funds for their personal end. The NGOs would just report anything to justify their programs to their foreign donors who are most of the time clueless and approve their expenses which run to millions.

The system hurts me. Any system that is tainted with corruption hurts me. I decided to go solo.

One day I had a wishful thought: If only I could be a little like Mother Teresa who embraced smelly dirty children and touched and cared for the sick, then my advocacy would be complete. The rest of the story—I hope to tell you later, in person. Again, it was a mystical experience.

The advocacy for children, I called it Kulay Malaya. I expanded it to those “Mangangalakal” or those scavengers; and those who live in “kariton.” I called the project “Lambong,” or Mantle. I did my own research on them. Interviewed them one by one and each has his own problem.

So I concluded that the solution to poverty cannot be just linear. The solution should use social engineering to identify the problems; and address them accordingly. Hindi pwedeng housing lang; or feeding; or giving land titles. Those are band-aid solutions.

BILANCIA

That’s when I decided to put up Bilancia, Italian word for balance, our zodiac Libra, balance as in dance, or balance in music as in a symphony, balance of the mind-body-spirit. I set up Bilancia to house everything I do from arts and crafts, fashion design, to psycho-spiritual counseling that I designed myself , my advocacies for street children, abused women, abusive men, and any Juan and Juana who need to talk, healing, house visits for the sick, praying for the sick and the dead, and those who have various wishes.

Tesay Glinoga

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Bilancia

Tesay has gone through many dark nights and she has used her “woundedness” to heal others. She has opened her center, Bilancia, to give services for women and children, and anyone who needs solace, or just wants to talk about his concerns. Tesay has designed her own psycho-spiritual counseling/healing based on her trainings in Psychological counseling, drug rehabilitation, meditations and her own experience how she was able to heal her wounds.

Bilancia is an Italian word for balance, or equilibrium. It also means dance; dance is a form of balance. Tesay conducts healing dance. Tesay adds her personal definition to Bilancia as balance of the Mind-Body-Spirit to be able to function well.

“We need to empower women, not to use it against men, but to use it for our own well-being. Our Source of power is the Holy Spirit. No matter what devastation we encounter in life, including Ondoy or Haiti’s earthquake, we have the power to process that in our minds. Our emotions and feelings, our ideas, even faith starts from the mind. So I espouse Viktor Frankl’s ‘Will to will’ to salvage ourselves from devastation. In the end, only we can save ourselves; and so, we are our own disciples and healers.”

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Advocacies

Tesay Glinoga’s Advocacies and Projects

• 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

Kulay Malaya

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.

March Na! Ode to Women

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.

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Education

EDUCATION

• Immaculate Conception Academy of Manila - Elementary and high school
• St. Paul College of Manila - Bachelor of Science in Psychology, Major in Clinical Psychology (Pre-med), Dean’s List
• Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, USA - AB Fashion Design, 1985,Top 5 of the class. Returned to the Philippines for the EDSA Revolution.
• St. Scholastica’s College, Manila - MA in Humanities, Major in Women’s Studies, earned Units

TRAININGS

• Market Research
• Personnel Administration
• Human Resource Management
• Records Management
• United Management System (MBA for United Laboratoties, Inc.)
• Assessment Center (Recruitment and Promotions Systems; Targeted Interview, In-Basket Case, etc.)
• CASA GAL /COURT AD LITEM-Ateneo Law School and the Supreme Court
• Upward Bound-Dr. Lourdes Vega (Formerly with DARE), Drug Rehabilitation and Attitudinal Training
• Poetry Writing - Ateneo University
• Scriptwriting-Star Cinema, Ken Rotcop, Nestor U. Torre, Film Academy of the Philippines

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