A teacher for all seasons

Education for all is a universal commitment of the member states of the United Nations. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has focused on underscoring the importance of fulfilling a basic millennium development goal which is to encourage our children to complete elementary school education.

Fulfilling an education summit resolution, the President has also instituted an early childhood education commission to provide a learning head start program in daycare centers. A most laudable cultural policy of the President is her bridging back culture into education and recognizing it as an essential component for accomplishing development programs. There is an entire culture chapter in the medium term development plan linked to the UN MDGs.

During my time, under President Diosdado Macapagal, Dep-Ed was DECS - Department of Education, Culture, and Sports. But in the 1990s, culture was carved out of DepEd with the creation of the National Commission on Culture and the Arts and the National Sports Commission. For some time, there was an unspoken divorce between education and culture. But President Arroyo gave oversight responsibility to Department of Education over NCCA and the President wisely chose a brilliant, dedicated, public servant to serve as NCCA Chairperson, Dr. Vilma Labrador, Education Undersecretary for Programs and Projects, and concurrent Chairperson of the Education Committee of the National Commission of UNESCO.

A communication arts-friendly teacher, 40 years ago, Dr. Labrador went up the career ladder for her determination and devotion to advance the welfare of the youth. It is not surprising she is affectionately known as Ate Vi. Orphaned at an early age, she knows that faith and perseverance to earn an educational diploma is what gave her the capacity to triumph over difficulties.

We applaud Dr. Labrador’s stewardship of NCCA, dynamically linking back culture as a catalyst for learning. In DepEd regional arts schools, she has opened the door for linkage with NCCA schools for living traditions and encourages teacher-enhancement programs to use arts innovatively as teaching tools. Inter-agency cooperation with local government officials have been facilitated and the poverty alleviation program of the government is fleshed out in the field of culture, arts, and heritage preservation. Cultural communications through broadcast is employed to raise awareness about the wealth of our cultural diversity and help forge a national cultural identity. NCCA is hardly mistaken now as the NCAA - National Collegiate Athletic Association. The vision of National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) is now vividly manifest in its effort to democratize the right to culture and the empowerment of marginalized sectors; the street kids, the urban poor, the differently-abled, the prisoners, abused women and children, refugees, etc. Free art workshops are being offered as modules linked to TESDA’s ladderized curriculum.

We have been witness to intrigues in NCCA played up in media. We are glad that Dr. Labrador has been able to harmonize and unify diverse and sometimes conflicting points of view towards a common vision. Proving her skills as an expert negotiator, International Conciliation Committee — an international body in UNESCO, Paris, has designated her as member.

The successful management of NCCA is, undoubtedly, a feather in the cap for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo whose insightful choice of selfless teacher and education administration, Dr. Labrador, as NCCA Head was twinned with an equally socially committed artist in the person of Ramon Magsaysay Awardee Cecile Guidote-Alvarez.

This column nominates Vilma Labrador as one of the Ten Outstanding Filipino Leaders Award of the Jaycees. She is a teacher for all seasons!