PLDT Gabay Guro honors 2019 graduating scholars
Year after year, the movers and shakers behind PLDT-Smart Gabay Guro always find creative ways to strengthen, uphold and uplift the plight of its scholars by ensuring that the students will be recipients of high value education to give them a fair fighting chance despite the limitations of their respective lives.
In a testimonial dinner hosted by Gabay Guro recently at the Grand Ballroom of Dusit Thani Hotel, chairman Chaye Cabal Revilla led a fitting celebration for the more than 200 scholar-graduates this school year in an event they dubbed as PLDT Gabay Guro: Accelerated. Graduation of Scholars
2019 with the theme Digital Transformation.
With pride, Chaye paid tribute to Gabay Guro’s Scholarship pillar as it trumpets the achievements of the graduates, 76 of whom finished the course with honors. This pillar proves to be a pivotal marker that provides meaningful and realistic opportunities for them to be the best that they can be in the field of teaching.
Coming from various partneruniversities all over the country, 11 of the graduates are magna cum laude while 65 others are cum laude. In their own words, the gratefulness in their hearts for what Gabay Guro does for them allows them to reach higher heights, unfazed by obstacles in their quest for personal excellence.
Gabay Guro believes in the Filipino and its commitment to forever champion education as a necessary tool for nationwide progress. Melanie Manuel, Gabay Guro Scholarship pillar head, says, “You have your own stories to tell and how I wish we can hear them all and be inspired — but if there’s something common amongst you — then it must be your noble goal to help in nation-building. As Gen Z’s, you have a different world. Digital is in your DNA so as the world continues its digital transformation, I have no doubt that you will use AI, ML, Robotics and new technologies to your advantage as you educate our young people to become tomorrow’s leaders. Thank you for taking the path.”
PLDT chairman Manny V. Pangilinan, who has been an invaluable part of Gabay Guro’s advocacy since the foundation began many years ago, has singled out Gabay Guro as the “most successful” and has proven to be “sustainable over the years” among all the other programs in his group of companies.
This year’s scholars join the rank of more than a thousand Gabay Guro graduates from almost 2,000 scholarship grants that the foundation has given to the deserving youth since 2007. As of this year, there are already 680 LET passers, almost half (33.85 percent) of which graduated with honors.
Gabay Guro has conducted trainings for more than 60,000 teachers all over the country in the course of 12 years. Gabay Guro is now partnering with 52 schools, colleges and universities across the nation to bring underprivileged, but deserving students to realize their dreams of finishing their college education.
The event was hosted by Patricia Tumulak and Justin Stephen Sulit, and was highlighted by a performance by Regine Velasquez, who, in her own way, inspired the scholars more with her own “rags-to-riches story.” Other special guests that night were Paraluman and Unique Salonga.
The PLDT Gabay Guro foundation is the education arm and flagship project of the PLDT-SMART Foundation, a program run by volunteers composed of executives from the PLDT Manager’s Club, Inc. (PLDT MCI). The core of the program is defined by its pillars, namely: Scholarships, Livelihood Programs, Housing and Educational Facilities, Broadband and Computerization, Teachers’ Training, Teachers’ Tribute and Innovation.