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Jean Gonzales: Magiting’s mother, ‘magiting’ mother

Jean Gonzales speaks before journalists about her experiences as a mother to a person with disability. File photo by MARIO IGNACIO IV
Jean Gonzales speaks before journalists about her experiences as a mother to a person with disability. File photo by MARIO IGNACIO IV

By DARLENE CAY

FOR persons with disabilities (PWDs) and their parents, 67-year-old Jean Gonzales is one mother whose dedication not only to her son but also other children with disabilities is unsurpassed.

Gonzales has without fail been helping families cope with disabilities for more than a decade through the Philippine Association of Citizens with Developmental and Learning Disabilities (PACDLD), an NGO she co-founded after successfully helping her own son Magiting, now 36, a man with autism.

Her story started in the late ‘70s, when she was a young wife taking care of her daughter and three sons. She and her husband Octavio noticed something different with Magiting, their second child.