Tagaytay Seminar

I was among the 52 young professionals invited for the U.S. Embassy’s 2006 Tagaytay Seminar held at the Taal Vista Hotel last weekend.

The seminar, with the theme, “It Starts With Me: Civic Action and the Fight Against Corruption”, was the embassy’s latest gathering of the country’s emerging leaders, representing eight sectors – the academe, business, civil society, church, government, media, professionals and the youth.

The seminar kicked off with a digital videoconference at the embassy’s Public Affairs audio-visual room, with Indian national Arvind Kejriwal, the 2006 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Emergent Leadership talking from Texas, USA (where he was for a study leave), on how they were able to fight corruption in his country.

After a brief lunch, U.S. Embassy Public Affairs officials herded all the delegates to a big bus and van for the 1 ½ hour trip to Tagaytay.

Friday ended with a preview of “Kubrador”/The Bet Collector, the award-winning digital independent film by Jeffrey Jeturian, starring Gina Pareño. The presence of the film’s scriptwriter and supervising writer, Ralston Jover and Armando Lao, respectively, ensured a lively and stimulating open forum after the showing (more about this in another post).

Saturday’s sessions kicked off with an inspiring keynote address by Ms. Pura Sumangil, the chairperson of the Concerned Citizens of Abra for Good Government or CCAGG, a non-governmental organization that monitors government projects in the Abra region of the country. The rest of the day saw all 52 delegates divided into 5 breakout groups for specific discussions on how such sectors can fight corruption through civic action: academe/youth, business/professionals, civil society/church, government and media.

Sunday saw the resource persons for each breakout group presenting the results of the discussions. Presenting for the Media group was award-winning journalist, ex-PCIJ member and my ACFJ classmate Luz Rimban. Columnist/TV Host Rudy Romero moderated the wrap-up session before the seminar closed.

We left Tagaytay City just after lunch with inspired spirits from the seminar’s proceedings. But what really made the whole experience truly unforgettable was the delegates and the social activities that happened right after the seminar sessions. More about these in my next posts.