VERA Files
Autism advocates have found a good answer to that Miss Universe question asked of Miss Philippines last week: What is the most significant change you have seen in the last 10 years?
By JAKE SORIANO THE annual Angels Walk for Autism reached new heights Sunday. A record crowd of 15,000 people, bigger than last year’s number, attended the event at the SM Mall of Asia Arena, and among them were around a hundred guests from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region and Japan. “We have […]
Puzzle Café, which Canoy and her siblings set up in Quezon City a year ago, aims to raise awareness on autism and train persons with developmental disabilities for employment.
Text and photos by JAKE SORIANO THE message of the estimated 12,000 “angels with wings” dancing to the beat of Taylor Swift’s pop hit “Shake It Off” was a simple one: awareness, acceptance and inclusion of persons with autism in society. “What we want is for the Philippines to be autism-OK,” said Autism Society of […]
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 […]
By CHARMAINE DEOGRACIAS THE campaign to raise autism awareness in the country is as old as my son Giancarlo Miguel, he is now 17. From that time that my kid was taunted in a theme park in Laguna for being special and cannot patiently queue like everyone else, back when he was 6, my resolve […]
By ELIZABETH LOLARGA
WHEN her first child Ibarra was born 20 years ago, Matec Villanueva, then 32, felt like she was a Ms. Universe contestant onstage answering a crucial question asked, the question being “What is the essence of a woman?” Her quick answer at that point in her life would have been “Motherhood!”
BY YOLANDA L. PUNSALAN
VERY soon, a special place for special people will rise somewhere in Batangas.
It will be the answer to the agony of parents with children with autism: who will take care of them when we are no longer around?
FIFTEEN-year-old Carlo woke up at 5 a.m last Sunday. While he knew it wasn’t a school day, he got up in his usual way asking for his instant pancit canton for breakfast. There was no resistance this time wearing his P.E. uniform that normally he isn’t so comfortable with. He was off to Mall of Asia at sunrise to join “Angels Walk.”