LAST month on September 5, 2019, The Daughters of Mary Immaculate Incorporated of the Our Lady of Atonement Cathedral (DMII-OLAC) conducted a very timely seminar for personnel of the Female Dorm of the Baguio City Jail.
The topic? Stress Management and Occupational Burnout.
Everybody agreed that it was high time that the seminar was conducted – as I learned (as a new DMII-OLAC member) that the seminar had been long planned.
At the time, the hottest issue of the day was the Good Conduct Time Allowance (GCTA) – and the hottest personality as a GCTA beneficiary was the released (or about-to-be-released) former Calauan, Laguna Mayor Antonio Sanchez.
This time, the GCTA issue seems to have been forgotten, and it is now the ninja cops, and the late maltreated, murdered PMA Cadet Darwin Dortimorio, who are starring in the news and in everybody’s consciousness.
The GCTA issue had surely stressed – and is still stressing – the inmates.
And so I had believed that it was the inmates in the female dormitory who were going to be the participants in the DMII-OLAC stress seminar.
But upon getting there at the Conference Hall of the BJMP in Baguio, I learned that it was the personnel themselves of the female dormitory who will be participating in the seminar.
I went to the DMII-OLAC event with our DMII-OLAC Regent Millet Siervo Fortaleza Jaurigue, my Soroptimist sis who had served as president of Soroptimist International of Pines City 2016-2018, while I am currently the president-elect of the Soroptimist International of Baguio 2018-2020.
Sis Millet and I would share our insights on the topic and enjoyed introspecting with the participants on the possible stressors (and unique coping mechanisms and deepest wishes/concerns) in the life as revealed by the shapes and objects carved from the clay bars in various colors that were distributed for molding by the participants.
The seminar’s resource speaker was DMII-OLAC Bro. Willy Mina, who had retired as a faculty member of the Saint Louis University.
Just before going to the Bureau of Jail Management (BJMP) for the seminar, I had also researched on Stress Management, updating my past knowledge of the topic that I had taught in the mid-2000s as a civilian instructor with the Department of Management of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA).
The program was kicked off with a prayer by Jail Officer 1 Monalisa Odien and opening remarks by Senior Jail Officer 2 Euglenna Loqiuo.
Sitting it out with the BJMP female dormitory personnel for the three-hour seminar was Jail Inspector Vilma Fangsilat who later delivered the closing remarks.