Echaves: Magnificent 12, part 4

LET it not be said that all “Tatak UP” 2015 awardees are men. The search and awards committee of the UP Alumni Association (UPAA), Cebu chapter identified three ladies to complete this year’s crop of twelve:

Dr. Cecilia Gastardo-Conaco for education and research, Christine Cabahug-Ruedas for social change and advocacy, and Azucena Legaspi-Pace for culture and heritage.

Faithful to UP’s dictum of honor and excellence, Conaco is no stranger to awards. A BA Psychology graduate, cum laude, from UP Diliman, she was an East-West and Fullbright scholar, and obtained her Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of California in Santa Barbara.

Conaco has held several professorial chairs and faculty grants, and was among the “Outstanding Young Scientists” awarded by the National Academy of Science and Technology in 1991. In 2013 she received the Achievement Award from the National Research Council of the Philippines, and the special citation from the Professsional Regulatory Board of Psychology for her exemplary contributions to the profession of psychology.

Her list of publications, extension services, consultancies and scholarly papers since 1990 here in the Philippines, Europe and the Asean countries can leave us breathless.

Ruedas finished her high school and college studies at UP College Cebu where she first felt the desire to help persons with disabilities.

She naturally gravitated to activities providing rehabilitation services in the barangays of Mandaue, Talisay, Cebu and Danao, and partnered with different church-based clinics.

Asked if she could sit as incoming UPAA president, she declined because her work demands much moving around. This includes her involvement with the therapy center CHAMPS, short for Children and Adults in a Multitude of Play.

CHAMPS is a CHED-accredited non-profit community-based rehabilitation center set up in 2012. Its services include physical and occupational rehab, speech therapy, special education, counseling, and medical and surgical assistance.

Presently the community extension director at Velez College, she is an active wheelchair service provider, in response to the World Health Organization’s initiative on assistive technology.

Pace is a BA in English with major in journalism graduate of UP Diliman. Prior to her permanent residency in Barili, Pace was an extensive traveler, whether for personal or official purposes, covering all five out of seven continents.

Earlier employments were with the national government as reporter in the Malacañang press office, the departments of justice and of foreign affairs, and attache in the Philippine Embassy in Spain.

Fluency in Spanish easily saw her translating books into English.

Living in Barili has been a boon to this southern town of Cebu. An organizer, founder and writer by passion, she set up the Barili Historical Society, Inc., and the Barili Folk and Heritage Museum, and penned so far eight books on the history and heritage of Barili.

These include books on the mayors of Barili spanning five centuries from the 17th to the 21st centuries, the “Semana Santa in Barili and Its Fabulous Processions,“ and “Barili’s Ancestral Homes and Other Heritage Structures.”

(lelani.echaves@gmail.com)

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