This is a difficult task for me because I have been asked to introduce someone who I do not know personally. So with the indulgence of our guest speaker, and with a nod to her career as a journalist, allow me to start by asking a few seering true or false questions to truly get to know her -
True or false - our guest speaker is a talented singer and some of her favourite pieces are “All I Ask of You,” “Ikaw Lang Ang Mamahalin,” and “Saranggola sa Ulan.”
True or false - when she was thirteen, our guest speaker played one of the Von Trapp children in the Repertory Philippines production of the “Sound of Music”.
It is true that she is the widow of Francisco Baraquel Jr. with whom she has four children, one boy and three girls. But - true or false - our guest speaker watched the Jonas Brothers, The 3D Concert Experience, with her daughters, and later said that the Jonas Brothers cannot sing!
Finally, true or false - our guest speaker wears a shawl or alampay as a political statement matching its color to her advocacy of choice.
I credit obtaining the information from a 2010 blog entry whose undisclosed author has a self confessed crush on our guest speaker and from a 2009 interview with the Manila Bulletin Newspaper Online.
Born on February 24, 20 years before the 1986 people power revolution, Ana Theresia Hontiveros Baraquel completed her primary and secondary education from St. Scholastica's College. In 1987, She graduated cum laude with a bachelor of arts degree in Social Sciences from the Ateneo de Manila University.
She started a career in journalism even before graduating from college, eventually working for all the major networks, and in 1994 she capped that career with the Golden Dove Award of the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas or KBP for best female newscaster.
Her career in journalism was matched by her passion for peace. In 1987, she was Secretary General of the Coalition of Peace and a member of the Government Panel for Peace Talks with the National Democratic Front or NDF. In 2001 she was the recipient of the Ten Outstanding Young Men Award for her work in Peace Advocacy. Her work in the peace process also earned her a Nobel Peace Prize nomination.
In 2004 she became the representative of the Akbayan Citizens Action Party, a mass-based, democratic, and pluralist political party that seeks to institutionalize people power. As party list representative she served in the 13th and 14th Congresses where she established a track record for her Magandang Laban. She is credited with the Cheaper Medicines Law, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms or CARPER Law, the Anti-Prostitution Bill, the Gender Balance Bill, the Students Rights and Welfare Bill, and perhaps, one of the most controversial, the Reproductive Health Bill.
Today, she epitomizes the principles of democracy, equity, humanism, internationalism, socialist feminism and environmentalism of the Akbayan Party, and continues the beautiful fight as its National Spokesperson.
Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming Ms. Risa Hontiveros Baraquel.
