Asian Social Insti­tute
Ph.D. in Applied Cos­mic Anthro­pol­ogy
1518 Leon Guinto Street, Malate Manila 1004, Philip­pines
Tel.: (3–2) 523‑8265 – 523‑8266 – 526 –5590

I thank GOD for open­ing many doors to all…

I have been teach­ing for the last 20 years. Dur­ing that time, I have worked as Chris­t­ian Liv­ing Edu­ca­tion (CLE) high school teacher in Assump­tion Col­lege (1991–1992), religion/theology teacher in Cen­tro Esco­lar Uni­ver­sity (CEU) (1992–1994), in St. Paul Col­lege of Manila (SPCM) (1994–1997) now a Uni­ver­sity, and here in our Col­lege, De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde (1997-present). The breadth of my expe­ri­ence has enriched my teach­ing life. I meet exem­plary teach­ers and I have been so fas­ci­nated and inter­ested in find­ing out what makes them really good. Regard­less of the sub­stan­tial dif­fer­ences among them in terms of teach­ing style, per­son­al­ity, teach­ing goals and ways of inter­ac­tion with stu­dents, I have real­ized that it is the inher­ent same­ness of good teach­ers that made them really good. I could also say that good teach­ers, in all set­tings and at all lev­els, have more in com­mon with each other: They have hearts to teach.

It is really worth­while for our Col­lege to select, hire and re-hire a good if not a best teacher by scru­ti­niz­ing his or her teach­ing cre­den­tials, per­for­mances and expe­ri­ences. I believe that our Col­lege will not set­tle for less. Lower qual­ity teach­ers are more expen­sive; they pro­duce lower lev­els of stu­dent learn­ing and erode morale. Good teach­ers mat­ter and they mat­ter a lot for they can make a vital difference.

Being a religion/theology teacher here in our Col­lege for the past 14 years, I have also wit­nessed good teach­ers who have been keys to Benildean learn­ing, to Lasal­lian edu­ca­tional reform, cur­ricu­lum design and imple­men­ta­tion, com­mu­nity build­ing and Chris­t­ian val­ues for­ma­tion. They really have hearts to teach. But teach­ers can­not be good in a generic sense, they have to be good for some­thing and should have hearts to teach. These are the teach­ers “who have some sort of con­nec­tive capac­ity, who con­nect them­selves to their stu­dents, their stu­dents to each other and every­one to the sub­ject being stud­ied.” (Parker Palmer, 1999). With humil­ity I know I am one of them. I believe I am a good. I believe I have a heart to teach.

On May 16, 1997, bring­ing with me my 7 years of sem­i­nary for­ma­tion and 7 years of teach­ing expe­ri­ences, I for­warded my let­ter of appli­ca­tion for the posi­tion of a teacher to Dean Socorro Bacay (for­merly the Exec­u­tive Assis­tant of our for­mer Dean Flordeliza Reyes, PhD). The fol­low­ing month, June 14, 1997, I was blessed to receive my first pay check.

I attended my very first Lasal­lian Retreat Sem­i­nar (RS1) on June 27, 1997. After the retreat-seminar, I was invited by LMO (for­merly Cam­pus Min­istry Office) to join the Lasal­lian Fam­ily Ani­ma­tion Team. On this same year, I was also invited by Blessed Arnold Study Assis­tance Pro­gram (BASAP) Coor­di­na­tor Ms. Basilia Blay to be a vol­un­teer teacher in religion/theology to teach for FREE. Since then, I have been a LaFT mem­ber (DLSU-CSB Chap­ter) and BASAP vol­un­teer teacher. Through the years that I have been under­go­ing Lasal­lian For­ma­tion, attend­ing Tagpuan(s) and at the same time facil­i­tat­ing the RS to stu­dents, fac­ulty and staff, I was blessed to work with and facil­i­tate retreats to VPA Robert Tang, Dean Techie De La Torre, Dean Ger­ard Tor­res, Dean Leti­cia Delar­mente, Dean Dioscoro Bay­lon Jr., Dean Socorro Bacay and Dean Cristina Esquivel-Saldivar in var­i­ous occasions.

I first met Br. Armin Luistro, FSC (DepEd Sec­re­tary, June 30, 2010-present) in a “Lasal­lian Prayer Work­shop” he facil­i­tated on Sep­tem­ber 26, 1998 in LMO. The fol­low­ing school year, May 27, 1999, I was appointed as Lasal­lian Ministry-Coordinator for Stu­dent Min­istry. Two years prior to my appoint­ment, LMO had a new coor­di­na­tor for stu­dent vol­un­teers annu­ally. I was blessed to take the respon­si­bil­ity for five straight years and the oppor­tu­nity to design the Lasal­lian For­ma­tion Mod­ules for Stu­dent Ministry.

Dur­ing the 2nd term of the school year 1999–2000, while I was still the Coor­di­na­tor for Stu­dent Min­istry, I applied for and availed a study grant for my grad­u­ate stud­ies in De La Salle Uni­ver­sity in Mas­ter in Edu­ca­tion Major in Reli­gious and Val­ues Edu­ca­tion. Br. Ricky Laguda, FSC, Br. Anto­nio Ser­vando, FSC and Br. Vin­cent Fer­nan­dez, FSC were my class­mates then. On Sep­tem­ber 6, 2000, through Br. Bill Gar­vey, FSC encour­age­ment and inspi­ra­tion, I was blessed to grad­u­ate with high distinction.

In 2000 I was invited by Dr. Carol Fal­larme (CARE Adviser) to join the Com­mit­ted Asso­ciates in Reli­gious Edu­ca­tion, an asso­ci­a­tion of DLSU Reli­gious Edu­ca­tion grad­u­ate, post grad­u­ate stu­dents and alumni founded by Br. Andrew Gon­za­les, FSC. This same year, I was elected as vice-president of CARE (2000–2002). With the encour­age­ment of my teach­ers Sr. Cora Man­alo, DC and Dr. Nativi­dad Pagadut, two years after, I was blessed to be elected as the pres­i­dent of CARE from 2002–2005. In 2002, together with Fr. Car­los Ron­quillo, CSsR and Dr. Jose de Mesa, we col­lab­o­ra­tively worked on a project on doing local the­ol­ogy enti­tled: “Diyos Ano Po Ba Ang Lakad Ninyo?” This project turned into a sym­po­sium in DLS-CSB which was joined by Br. Mawel Pajar­illo, FSC, who was our Chair­per­son then in DLSU-CED Reli­gious Edu­ca­tion Department.

The year 1997 was a year of dream­ing, of hop­ing and of mov­ing in the direc­tion our Col­lege needs to go: Inno­va­tion. The very first in–house train­ing and devel­op­ment I attended was on “INFOTECH Train­ing Pro­gram” (from June 21 to July 26, 1997). This was orga­nized by Inno­va­tions and Fac­ulty Devel­op­ment Cen­ter (IFDC) — now known as Cen­ter for Learner-Centered Instruc­tion and Research (CLCIR).

By the fol­low­ing school year, I was one of IFDC’s first batch of awardees who com­pleted the “Basic Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­ogy Edu­ca­tion Pro­gram (ITEP).” On that same year, I was nom­i­nated by “Gawad Kar­i­lyon” as “Most Out­stand­ing Fac­ulty of the Year.” By the school year 1999–2000, I was already an active mem­ber of IFDC’s LEVITE Man­age­ment Team.

Since 1997, while almost every­body was so fas­ci­nated with the won­ders of Microsoft Pow­er­point pre­sen­ta­tion soft­ware, I was already amazed with web­site cre­ations. I have cre­ated and devel­oped all 6 religion/theology/values course-websites for Bib­stud, Dynarel, Reconse, Cath­wor, Ordev 1 and 2 and NSTP. All of these web­sites were housed in what I cre­ated as the “Class for Learner-centered Instruc­tion and eXpe­ri­ence Teach­ing On-line” (CLIXTO). Dr. Ben­ito Tee­hankee was my first men­tor in web devel­op­ment and online learn­ing. While we often met in Philip­pine eLearn­ing Soci­ety con­fer­ences, we have been exchang­ing notes on how to bring and inte­grate Catholic Social Teach­ings in MBA cur­ricu­lum and courses.

In 1999, I was actively involved in the ini­tial devel­op­ment of Ordev 1 and 2, Ordev A, B and C Mod­ules (for­merly known as Seperde) and in 2000 for NSTP 1 Mod­ules (NSTP 2 is off-campus). Since 2006, I have been actively involved in the design of For­ma­tion Pro­gram of the For­ma­tion Unit of the Office of Stu­dent Behav­ior (for­merly known as Dis­ci­pline Office).

On Feb­ru­ary 5, 2001 SMS-Instructional Mate­ri­als Devel­op­ment Team (IMDT) web­site was offi­cially launched by our for­mer SMS Chair­per­son Dr. Rizaldi Nocon, my sec­ond men­tor in online learn­ing. I was tasked by SMS to be the cus­to­dian of these instruc­tional materials/resources and the main­te­nance of the said web­site. Our EVP then was Mr. Ronald Holmes. Bro. Mike Rap­atan, FSC, my third men­tor in online learn­ing and teacher would describe this endeavor as “Design­ing of Technology-Supported Learn­ing Environments.”

On Feb­ru­ary 2004 onwards Dr. Rizaldi Nocon (our for­mer VPA) met us, the 1st batch of CLCIR Online Facil­i­ta­tors on how to use MOODLE: A Free, Open Source Course Man­age­ment Sys­tem for Online Learn­ing. Even­tu­ally, I was tasked by CLCIR to facil­i­tate MOODLE Fac­ulty Train­ing and LC PBL Mod­ule Writ­ing Work­shop Ses­sions. Today, I am blessed to be one of the CLCIR resource faculty-training facil­i­ta­tors (prac­ti­tion­ers) for online learning/elearning. In 2007, my eLearn­ing expo­sures, train­ing and knowl­edge prov­i­den­tially gave me the oppor­tu­nity to be of help to Mr. Tomas T. De Leon, Jr. to roll out his train­ing courses online. Sir Tom is the Pro­gram Direc­tor for Cor­po­rate Gov­er­nance for banks and quasi-banks and the Pro­gram Direc­tor for Retail Man­age­ment in Ate­neo Cen­ter for Con­tin­u­ing Education.

The year 2003 is also a year of dream­ing, of hop­ing and of mov­ing in the direc­tion the Col­lege needs to go: Learner-Centeredness. With the Col­lege goal to be a truly learner-centered learn­ing insti­tu­tion, I took my sec­ond Mas­teral Degree in Learn­ing and Teach­ing (MaLT 1st and pio­neer batch) in De La Salle University.

And then I wrote an action research on the ways of cre­at­ing a learner-centered learn­ing envi­ron­ment as sup­ported by tech­nol­ogy. I incor­po­rated an online com­po­nent (web-based mod­ules) in the face-to-face or classroom-based instruc­tion in my Dynarel (Church and Sacra­ments) class. I wanted to find out how our stu­dents are actively learn­ing with this inter­ven­tion. On Decem­ber 5, 2005, I was blessed to grad­u­ate with distinction.

On May 2004, dur­ing my last term in LMO as Coor­di­na­tor for Stu­dent Min­istry, I was invited by the Col­lege to be the 1st Chair­per­son (for­merly named as coor­di­na­tor) of The­ol­ogy and Phi­los­o­phy Area (Depart­ment) for the school year 2004–2005. I was blessed to take the respon­si­bil­ity for four straight years.

There is no doubt that stu­dent learn­ing is the main goal of any edu­ca­tional insti­tu­tion. The Col­lege finds it impor­tant and nec­es­sary to eval­u­ate cur­rent prac­tices and con­tinue to pro­vide effec­tive strate­gies in sup­port­ing this goal. From 2005–2007, I was blessed to be part of the Task Force on Stu­dent Learn­ing (TF-SL) headed by Dr. Rose Marie Salazar-Clemeña (our for­mer EVP) which was con­vened in order to uncover and assess stu­dent learn­ing prac­tices with the goal of pro­vid­ing rec­om­men­da­tions and/or revi­sions to exist­ing pro­grams, poli­cies, and inter­ven­tions in stu­dent learning.

On April 2–3, 2004, our Col­lege hosted the 1st Inter­na­tional Con­fer­ence on Learner-Centered Edu­ca­tion in the Philip­pines and in Asia. For this con­fer­ence, I was part of a team tasked to work with CLCIR for its web­site on LC pro­mo­tions and updates. Last Feb­ru­ary 19–20, 2008, our Col­lege hosted the 2nd Inter­na­tional Con­fer­ence on Learner-Centered Edu­ca­tion. I was blessed to deliver my paper on the LC Prin­ci­ples on Dynarel (Church and Sacra­ments) in this venue. This con­fer­ence has also opened another door of oppor­tu­nity for me to deliver my other research papers in fol­low­ing five venues:

Inter­na­tional Con­fer­ence on Social Sci­ences and Human­i­ties 2008 (ICoSSH2008), Uni­ver­siti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia 18th–20th June 2008;

1. Inter­na­tional Con­fer­ence on ICT in Teach­ing and Learn­ing 2008 (ICT2008), The Open Uni­ver­sity of Hong Kong (OUHK), Hong Kong, 7th–8th July 2008;
2. Inter­na­tional Con­fer­ence for Teach­ing and Learn­ing with Tech­nol­ogy (iCTLT2008), Sun­tec Con­ven­tion Cen­ter, Sin­ga­pore, 5th-6th August 2008;
3. National eLearn­ing Con­fer­ence on eLearn­ing (NeLCeL2008), Philip­pine eLearn­ing Soci­ety (PeLS), Asian Insti­tute of Man­age­ment, Makati City, 16th-17th Octo­ber 2008;
4. Pam­bansang Kumperen­siya sa Sikolo­hiyang Pilipino (PSSP2008), Holy Angel Uni­ver­sity, Ange­les City, Pam­panga, 20th-22th Nobyem­bre 2008

The year 2007 is another year of dream­ing, of hop­ing and of mov­ing in the direc­tion the Col­lege needs to go: Edu­ca­tion, Edu­ca­tion and Edu­ca­tion. Palmer said, “Stu­dents who learn, not pro­fes­sors who per­form, is what teach­ing is all about: stu­dents who learn are the finest fruit of teach­ers who teach.” I believe that it must be an edu­ca­tion of the hearts to let Jesus, the TEACHER, live and be inspired by a spir­i­tual out­look of St. La Salle’s spirit of faith and zeal. I have been pray­ing that our hearts be like Jesus.

As my respon­si­bil­ity as Chair­per­son of The­ol­ogy and Phi­los­o­phy Depart­ment has ended, I have been blessed to be given a new respon­si­bil­ity as the Coor­di­na­tor for Learn­ing Enhance­ment and Adjust­ment Pro­gram (LEAP) for the school year 2008–2009 (-present). Dur­ing my last term in Theo/Philo as Chair, I was excited to the effort of the Col­lege towards the inte­gra­tion of The­ol­ogy Cur­ricu­lum of SMS and Sup­port Ser­vices Pro­grams of LaMMP. I took the ini­tia­tive to study “The Faith Com­mu­nity Par­a­digm” of Br. Mike Valen­zuela, FSC (1999). Out of which I pro­duce a primer for this par­a­digm for Theo/Philo Area and pre­sented to my col­leagues the advan­tages of this endeavor, until an “orga­ni­za­tional restruc­tur­ing” became an issue on March 2008. Five months after, our area was blessed when things were clar­i­fied on August 7, 2008.

I have been pray­ing that my heart be like Jesus, for my new appoint­ment as LEAP Coor­di­na­tor which will enable me to instill Gospel Val­ues and fos­ter a spirit of faith, zeal in ser­vice and com­mu­nion in mis­sion among our LEAP stu­dents and their par­ents, truly likened to a Basic Eccle­sial Com­mu­nity (BEC). I was told that by next term, the incom­ing for­eign stu­dents will be join­ing LEAP. This is another oppor­tu­nity to take into account the reli­gious diver­sity in the Col­lege to bring the Lasal­lian Core Val­ues across all sec­tors. Faith in the pres­ence of God must be part­nered with meet­ing the stan­dards of excel­lence in Lasal­lian edu­ca­tion. Enhanc­ing the qual­ity of edu­ca­tion also requires con­tin­u­ous updat­ing on my part as edu­ca­tor and as much as pos­si­ble inte­grat­ing all bod­ies of knowl­edge with cur­rent infor­ma­tion in the con­text of Lasal­lian for­ma­tion, ped­a­gogy and social respon­si­bil­ity because knowl­edge is ever expand­ing and evolving.

As a teacher, I believe that Lasal­lian Guid­ing Prin­ci­ples, Lasal­lian Core Val­ues and Benildean Vision-Mission have been turn­ing my work into a min­istry –focused and ener­gized, where in my own hum­ble way I have been help­ing and work­ing with my stu­dents, col­leagues and com­mu­nity dis­cover and sus­tain what are essen­tials and rel­e­vant because many peo­ple today need mean­ing and pur­pose in their own par­tic­u­lar con­text and con­di­tion, in their work and life.

Work­ing with and help­ing the mar­gin­al­ized sec­tors of our soci­ety since my sem­i­nary days until today have always been my pas­sion and mis­sion, and I am dream­ing that one day if God’s gen­eros­ity allows, I will build a school in the rural areas, a school for life to empower them for it is an urgent call to action by the rural poor: the indige­nous peo­ple, the rural women, the fish­er­folks, the farm­ers, the rural youth, the elderly, per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties and the infor­mal sector.

Because of this, I have sought a frame­work that holis­ti­cally ties every­thing together, that allows us to under­stand soci­ety, the world, and our place in it, and that could help us make the crit­i­cal deci­sions which will shape our future (Hey­lighen, 2000). I have been blessed to find a frame­work of “Right-Relations” or even bet­ter as “Life-Giving Rela­tion­ships” in four direc­tions: to God, to one­self, to neigh­bor (both as indi­vid­ual and as part of soci­ety) and to cre­ation as a whole. Life-Giving Rela­tion­ship is justice-concept and justice-practice based on a holis­tic view of Hebraic Covenant The­ol­ogy (Fuel­len­bach, 1998). I have been blessed that this has been inspired and enlivened in me by my Lasal­lian Edu­ca­tion, which I owe a debt of grat­i­tude to.

But to sus­tain this frame­work I have real­ized that my back­ground in Phi­los­o­phy, The­ol­ogy, Reli­gious Edu­ca­tion and Edu­ca­tion are not enough. Then I have sought the help from Social Sci­ences and I dis­cov­ered a doc­toral pro­gram in Applied Cos­mic Anthro­pol­ogy (ACA) in Asian Social Insti­tute (ASI). ASI is an Asian Grad­u­ate School of Social Trans­for­ma­tive Praxis towards Jus­tice, Peace and Integrity of Cre­ation founded by Fr. Fran­cis Senden, CICM. ACA is designed for policy-makers and imple­men­tors who have the abil­ity to process trans­for­ma­tional change within them­selves and oth­ers, who are cur­rently work­ing in an insti­tu­tion involved in man­ag­ing change, and who are in touch and can com­mu­ni­cate with both the masses and elite. This doc­toral pro­gram pre­pares lead­ers of insti­tu­tions to exer­cise effec­tive lead­er­ship for the 21st cen­tury and beyond.

In 2006, I applied for and availed a study grant for my post grad­u­ate stud­ies in ASI. I am blessed that what I am study­ing and prac­tic­ing for the last five years and that the very iden­tity and vision of ASI is one of the themes of the strate­gic direc­tions or goals for 2008–2014 of the Philip­pine Lasal­lian Fam­ily, which is Social Involve­ment in Jus­tice, Peace and Integrity of Cre­ation. On March 23, 2011, through God’s mercy, I suc­cess­fully defended my Ph.D. dissertation.

We stand today before a wounded cre­ation which suf­fers because of us. To be just, it is not enough to refrain from injus­tice. Let us heal this wounded home of ours and be very sorry for the injus­tice we have done. “…Just as the cos­mos itself can be rup­tured and torn apart by injustice…it can be healed by all human efforts to bring jus­tice back to human relationships…(M. Fox). This is an invi­ta­tion to eagerly seek the King­dom of God, our Cre­ator and his right­eous­ness (jus­tice), and pray that the fruits of his cre­ation will be added unto us.

I am now 43 years old with 20 years of unin­ter­rupted teach­ing expe­ri­ences, 14 years of hard work and ded­i­ca­tion to my for­mer and cur­rent Benildean stu­dents and 9 straight years of stud­ies, ser­vices, faith and col­lab­o­ra­tion (com­mu­nion) to/with my for­mer and cur­rent Benildean supe­ri­ors and colleagues.With trust and con­fi­dence to God, my col­leagues and myself, I am con­vinced that there are no sub­sti­tutes to all of them. The breadth of my teach­ing expe­ri­ences has made me real­ized that I am not only good and that I do not only have a heart to teach. I am not the best, but with esteem I take the lib­erty of say­ing that at my age I am a good teacher who made and will make a vital difference.

A Chi­nese Proverb tells us that the “Teach­ers open the door. You enter by your­self.” De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde has been a teacher to me, open­ing the doors of oppor­tu­ni­ties to be of great ser­vice to oth­ers which I have entered by myself. I do not believe in coin­ci­dence for I know from my every­day life that an oppor­tu­nity could be missed if not grasped at the right time. I have faith in Divine Prov­i­dence and I thank GOD for being a teacher who opens many doors to all.

Anto­nio Ingles, Jr., PhD / May 2011