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Education is the key to the improvement of the quality of life of
Filipinos.” This is the truism Senator
Teresa “TAO” Aquino Oreta
maintained
as Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Education, Arts and Culture
of the
11th Congress, and still maintains even as she handles a different
committee
in the 12th Congress.
It is with this principle that Senator Aquino
Oreta
has vigorously sought to improve the employment status, working
conditions,
and welfare benefits of public school teachers. “I want to take care of
the
teacher so that
the teacher in turn will take care of our children, so
in
turn our children will take care of the future of the country,”
she has
often said. The youngest of the prominent Aquino’s of Tarlac, she
carries
with her the strong family
tradition of nationalism and activism.
Senator
Aquino Oreta finished her primary school at the College of Holy Spirit
in
Mendiola and finished high school at Assumption College. She then took
up
Literature and history at the
Assumption Convent and received her
International Studies degree in Cuidad Ducal, Avila, Spain. She became
a
Lieutenant
Colonel (Reserved) in the Philippine Air Force after earning
a
Master’s Degree in National Security Administration
from the National
Defense College of the Philippines. She is married to businessman
Antolin M.
Oreta Jr., and
they have been blessed with four children – Rissa, Len,
Karmela and Lorenzo. Before being elected to the Senate,
she already
made
her mark as a legislator in the House of Representatives for three
consecutive terms, from 1987-1998,
representing the district of
Malabon-Navotas. Even then, she already focused on issues concerning
education, women
and children, livelihood and employment, food and
health,
as well as the improvement of public facilities in Malabon
and the
nation in
general. At the Lower House, she authored, and co-authored about 280
bills
(79 were enacted
into laws) and proposed 101 local and national
resolutions
(20 were adopted). Senator Aquino Oreta became Assistant
Majority Floor
Leader twice: First during the 8th Congress in 1987 and the second,
during
the 10th Congress in
1995. In so doing, she became the first woman
Assistant
Majority Floor Leader in the history of the Lower House. A
strong
advocate
of women’s health empowerment, she authored Republic Act 6864
eventually led
to the
creation of the MAKATAO Center for Women Center / San Lorenzo
District Hospital for women in Malabon in March 1998. The
center and
hospital seek to provide integrated health services, health education
and
counseling. In the 1998 National
Elections, she was elected senator
under
the LAMMP (Laban ng Makabayang Pilipino) banner. In the three years she
has
been in office, Senator Aquino Oreta had filed 197 Senate Bills
(authored
and co-authored) and resolutions, related
to education, youth, women,
family
relations, health, local governments, trade and commerce, foreign
relations,
agriculture, agrarian reform, justice, public works, human rights,
cooperatives, labor, mass media, electoral reforms,
government service,
environment, rural development, finance, public order and illegal
drugs, and
many other concerns.
Senator Aquino Oreta is guided by her
Seven-Point-Agenda which accounts for her thrusts in the legislature:
The
Filipino
Child First. “We need to guarantee that the Filipino child
will be
nurtured in an environment conducive to infant
survival, growth and
physical
development.” Caring for Our Teachers. “No education reform will
succeed
unless it is a reform of the teaching-learning process and is focused
on
helping the teacher become a better teacher.”
Governing Basic
Education.
“Promulgate instead a policy framework for the governance of basic
education
which shall adhere to a principle of shared governance, the adoption of
decentralized system of basic education and
the establishment of
opportunities for local school initiatives.” Modernizing Education.
“The new
age
of learning will bring fresh views, new looks and different shapes
of
schooling and schools.” Universalizing
Literacy. “It is easy to be
self-complacent with very high literacy rates that are officially
reported
to
be 94%. Yet it is disturbing to know that the other side of this
so-called ‘achievement’ is the fact that
almost 11 million Filipinos
have
very poor or even no literacy and numeracy skills at all.”
Rationalizing
Tertiary Education. “I am alarmed with statistics that only 16.2 of
every
100 students in both public and
private schools who began in Grade 1 in
any
given schools year subsequently reached 4th year college. What
immediately
comes to my mind with such discouraging figures are not the faces of
those
who made it but rather of those who
did not. When 83.8 of 100 students
do
not survive one wonders if this reflects a failure of the students or
of
a
system of education that over the years has become both ineffective and
inefficient.” Policy Research. “There
is a need to look for data about
education legislation in order to make sure that they are implemented
and
that
they benefit our learners.” Some of her bills that have been
signed
into law during the 11th Congress include:
R.A. 8980 – Early Childhood
Care
and Development Act R.A. 8972 – Solo Parent Act R.A. 9053 – Philippine
Landscape Architecture Act R.A. 8976 – Philippine Micronutrient
Fortification Program R.A. 9003 – Solid
Waste Management Act R.A. 8749
–
Clean Air Act R.A. 8976 – Food Fortification Act R.A. 8792 – E-Commerce
Act
R.A. 9105 – Art Authentication Act R.A. 9036 – Philippine Science High
School System Act R.A.
9155 – Governance of Basic Education Act Early
1999,
Project TAO, for Teachers’ Advancement for Optimum
Well-being, was
launched.
This is the nationwide survey of the employment status, working
conditions,
and
welfare benefits of public school teachers – the most comprehensive
study of its kind in the history of the Philippine
education. It is
meant to
give a face and a name for every statistical data on teachers for any
given
locality.
The database has already been completed and turned over to
the
Department of Education, Culture and Sports for them
to periodically
update
and improve on where necessary. The success of this undertaking is
being
parlayed to
another study on the computer readiness of all primary and
secondary schools, public and private, (Project TAO CARES)
with the end
view
of interconnecting them with the DECS Central Office database. Also,
school
heads, principals
and schools division superintendents were trained in
the
effective administration of schools (Project TAO LEADS) in
direct
response
to the Project TAO findings, as well as the changing needs of the
school
environment. Senator
Aquino Oreta is also responsible for enabling the
issuance of pay slips for public school teachers for the first time
in
August 2000. This she pushed for, immediately upon learning that the
teachers were kept in the dark of any deductions
from their salaries by
the
simple absence of this basic document. The Senator strives to be in
constant
touch
with her constituents particularly through her radio program,
“Usapang
TAO sa RMN” which is aired from
7:00 to 8:00 am every Sunday over DZXL
(558
KHz) Manila, DYHB (74.7 KHz) Bacolod, DXCC (828 KHz) Cagayan de Oro,
DYHP
(612 MHz) Cebu, DXDC (621 KHz) Davao, DWNX (91.1 MHz) Naga, DYMY (729
KHz)
Cotabato, DYMD (1152 KHz) General Santos,
and DXRZ (900 KHz) Zamboanga.
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