FOR the first time in its 45-year history, a woman heads the male-dominated JCI Senate Davao (Davao Jaycee Senate).
JCI Senator Jocelyn “Jocy” Tagle-Ledesma was elected the 2015 President of the Organization in the annual elections.
She leads the Senate with Sen. Richard Eric T. Tandoc as Executive Vice President, JCI Sen. Ramona R. Naidas as Vice President for Internal Affairs, JCI Sen. Edely Tarrazona as Vice President for External Affairs, JCI Sen. Anna Marie Fanlo Candari as Treasurer and JCI Sen. Gavin S. Tulio as Secretary General. Others elected as Directors of the Board for the year 2015 were: JCI Sen. Jeremaine Cua, JCI Sen. Bayani S. Estanislao II, JCI Sen. Teddy Garcia, JCI Sen. Ryan Gaw, JCI Sen. Danilo Gotera, JCI Sen. Jesus Leonardo Mabaquiao, JCI Sen. Salvador Nagal, JCI Sen. Karlo Alexei Nograles, JCI Sen. Antonio Nicolas Partoza III and JCI Sen. Ralph E. Aviola, Immediate Past President, Ex-Officio. JCI Sen Jocy is no stranger to positions of leadership.
In 1985, she was elected President of the Davaoena “Daba-Daba” Jaycees, the first and only lady chapter in the City then. The new chapter was extended by the Davao Jaycees headed at that time by JC James Lee as President.
With Davao City’s booming population now, that first and only lady chapter has increased to three exclusively-women chapters and, after 30 years, the Davaoena “Daba-Daba” Jaycees remains as strong as ever. She has been a JC Senator for the past ten years, having been one of the first lady Jaycees to become Davao JC Senator in 2005.
After her presidency in the Davaoena Jaycees, she took time off from the world of civic life and married Davao business executive Francis R. Ledesma. Fully consecrating on raising a family, she bore a total of six children, one after another: five boys and one girl.
Now ranging in age from 14 to 27 years old, they are: Jose Francisco, the eldest, Paolo Javier, Isabela Andrea, Martin Alfonso, Benjamin Lorenzo and Francis Jacob. A product of the Ateneo de Davao University with a degree in Liberal Arts, major in Sociology and minor in Psychology, with undergraduate studies in Industrial Psychology from the Ateneo de Manila University tucked in her belt, Sen. Jocy did not remain a fulltime housewife for long.
As her children grew, Sen. Jocy got back on track. She immersed herself in Christian teaching and training. In 2006, she co-founded the Leaders United for Missions and Development or LUMAD, giving much of herself to the Organization to provide medical and dental missions, education, and school buildings to their adopted tribal communities in Arakan Valley, North Cotabato (on the way to BUDA), and training the lumads in sanitation, gardening, reforestation and more importantly, evangelizing them.
She has gone through numerous trainings herself in fostering her career as a pastor/Bible teacher, such as at the Gary V. Johnson Leadership Training Institute (1998-2000) and the Haggai Leadership Institute in Maui, Hawaii in 2011. She co-founded as well the Family of Faith Church International in 2006 and remained as Associate Pastor and Training Director until 2013.
Matching Sen. Jocy’s religious zeal are her active business and civic endeavors, such as being a licensed real estate broker, a member of both the Davao Real Estate Board, Inc. and the Philippine Association of Real Estate Brokers.
Earlier, she was a member of the Ventures Club of Davao, a club for aspiring young women-entrepreneurs. She is a long-time officer as well, of their family business, the well-established Tagle Marketing based in Juna. Lately, she and her husband Francis set up Saddleback Haven, an emerging tourist destination up in the mountain in Baracatan.
On top of all these, Sen. Jocy is the local representative of Aklat Gabay Aruga tungo Sa Pag-Angat at Pag-Asa or “AGAPP,” a non-profit organization engaged in the construction and development of library/pre-school classrooms in public schools.
In Davao City and Region XI alone, AGAPP has built 29 schools or 58 classrooms from 2010 to the present. Pres. Jocy is the local representative of Pinky Aquino-Abelleda, co-founder of AGAPP.
Indeed, Senator Jocy has tamed and handled the intimidating role of being a wife, mother of six, businesswoman, pastor, and community leader.