For several years the Philippines has produced Filipinos whose talents and skills have put its countrymen in the pedestal. Although a developing country, the Philippines is also home to professionals who complete an important bulk of its work force. Filipino professionals have been known and admired the world over not only for their love for work but also for their skills and their enthusiasm to learn and develop their craft. True enough, the Philippine Association of Interpreters for Deaf Empowerment (PAIDE), a training ground for aspiring interpreters has witnessed the Filipinos' intrinsic desire to achieve their best potential in order to serve. For 22 years, Mr. Alfredo D. Celada Jr., and his team at PAIDE has transformed many professionals to become competent sign language interpreters.
While most of the interpreters are special educators for deaf students some have also emerged from other areas like business management, computer programming, medicine, nursing, and other allied health professions like occupational therapy, physical therapy, and medical technology, psychology, law, interior designing, engineering, journalism, banking and finance, and the religious vocation. Together, these professionals create hope to the deaf members of our community by applying their professional skills in their service as sign language interpreters.
The interpreters in their professions:
1. Sign language interpreters in the teaching profession
(Rosamira Hizon; Ma. Corazon Caggauauan; Myrna Tolorio; Dennis Vargas; Ellier Aggabao; Josefina Alcantara; Carmencita Bambao; Vilma Kong: Ciriaca Monteza; Michael Potian; Criselda Sabayan; Evelyn Tutaan; Gilda Aves: Candido Carsula; Marina Francisco; Ludina Manalastas; Peter Maurice Yambao; Nemia Abiday; Cynthia Lopez; Melody Ramirez; Rosalinda Laxamana; Victoria Rivas-Santos; Nancy Sasis; Chiara Vega; May Cabutihan; Eva Eva; Shiela Panganiban; Shierra Jara; Ronald Santos and Jerly Ann Villanueva)
Educators employ different strategies in order to convey thoughts and ideas to their students. Sign language has been one of the tools to communicate with students who are non-verbal because of impairments in hearing and delays in communication like in the case of students with autism or learning disorders. However, communication is such a basic need that even students without impairments, but who are kinesthetic learners, employ sign language to learn through gestures and basic hand movements. The teacher who knows how to use sign language also has an advantage in adding an artistic style in musical interpretation in different school presentations.
2. Sign language interpreters in the medical and allied health profession
(Alma Miranda-Roxas; Jazmin Pescasio; Jeannepie Duma-ug-Vargas; Heddy Jane Reyno-Casaña; Christine Fernandez-Ramoso; Catherine Tuazon; Honeylet Mercado; Maria Antonette Padilla; Leores Britanico and Marlon Palma)
Physicians, nurses, physical and occupational therapists, and medical technologists who know sign language have the skill in communicating with their non-verbal and their hearing impaired clients who need health services in hospitals and those who need intervention in therapy centers. By employing sign language in their work place they are able to understand their clients more. Therapists make use of sign language to promote development of communication among young children including infants who are beginning to communicate and those who have delays in speech like those who have autism. While physicians, on the other hand, identify the cause or source of pain and instruct important prescriptions to the deaf patient through sign language.
3. Sign language interpreters in interior designing
(Vivian O. Hipolito and Amanda Derecho)
Brooding deaf artists need neither their ears nor their mouth to express their imaginations. But they can learn to transform their mental images into beautiful works of art through their hands. Mrs. Bing Hipolito, a professional interior designer, facilitated one summer workshop for the deaf students of the Angeli Dei Schools and discovered the unique styles of the hearing impaired in their designs. Had it not for her skill in sign language interpreting, the potentials of her young students would have been kept dormant and unnoticed.
4. Sign language interpreters in the Psychology and Counseling profession
(Alfredo Celada, Jr.; Leticia Uy; Benreddy Reyes and Eva Marie Geonzon)
Psychologists and counselors who know how to use sign language can be influential in the life of any deaf individual. In a world where stereotypes and discriminations exist towards individuals who appear quite different from the norms, the deaf would certainly find comfort in the advice of psychologists who make use of every opportunity to understand his personal concerns. Sir Jun and Ma'am Letty have served and saved the lives of some high school deaf students who have been affected by the crises of their youth. They know the significance of a listener for the growth and the survival of these fragile and frequently neglected individuals.
The experience in sign language interpreting of PAIDE's group of professionals placed them on the top of their fields in addition to their skills, creativity and dedication in their own work place. Although professionals in their respective fields, Sign Language interpreters from PAIDE are gifted individuals who share the common love for human interaction. They unleash their extrovert persona whenever the situation calls for it. They are also diligent people who are keen observers of the true meaning of what one is trying to convey.
All of them desire to be at their best as they have emerged victorious from their trainings in their professions and their sign language courses. Being extremely in demand in their own fields, they are also generous beings who believe in sacrificing themselves for other people's concerns. One can see them spending their Sundays interpreting the mass for the benefit of the deaf.
The deaf community will forever be grateful for the interpreters of PAIDE who can offer them many great things. We, the interpreters, are equally blessed because of the opportunities given us to serve other people. After all, we owe these unselfish acts of kindness to God who gave abundant blessings not to make us feel proud but to humble our spirits in serving those who depend on us. May the hands that we use to touch the lives of the deaf remind us that our work is only one of the many ways of fulfilling our life's dual purpose: to love God and others. To all my fellow interpreters, may we always have the grace to continue the work we have started in sign language interpreting so that we can inspire both the hearing and the deaf to take this noble path of serving and helping other people.