As a human being living in this world, I live my life as a normal person.

Being born as a
normal person is challenging enough yet being born deprived of senses is way tougher. Person
with disability or PWD’s is an individual with a disability and has a physical or mental impairment
that substantially limits one or more major life activities. It is difficult to understand the situations
of those with disabilities when one is fully capable of doing everyday activities. The experience of
these individuals may hinder. Their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with
the others lead them to disrespect and even left unacknowledged by the public.

Mr. Ronnel Del Rio

One of the example of a PWD is Mr. Ronnel Del Rio that lives his life not to make his
disability as a hinder but use it and his voice to hear the unheard PWDs in the Philippines shouting
for their supplication. He is blind. He is a radio journalist known in 1996 because of his radio
program, “Good Morning Southern Luzon”. He discussed national issues about PWDs in the
Philippines. But before he achieved that position, Mr. Del Rio faces challenges in times of being
student through elementary, high school and college. To graduate and support his own tuition, he
had to massage at least two patients every day. Despite securing a scholarship he still had to
work and study at the same time to afford the expenses of going to school. He is very tough guy
and took the challenges in his life and now being as inspiration of the PWD community. Del Rio
is also the first blind person to earn a Master's degree in the Philippines, having studied
Management Technology in De La Salle University in 2003.

Mr. Ronnel is the president of the Philippine Chamber of Massage Industry for Visually
Impaired, is part of the Philippine Coalition on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities, a board member of the Philippine Mental Health Association, president
of the Federation of Disabled Persons in Lipa, and is the chief executive officer of Punlaka, a
PWD advocacy group based in Region IV. He also works as a Housing and Homesite Regulatory
Affairs Officer for the government of Batangas. He formulated the Viable Socialized Resettlement
Program, which identified idle lands with the hope of converting them into a housing project for
the poor in the Province of Batangas.

Del Rio debuted with a public service radio program called “Tipanan sa DZRB”
(Rendezvous in DZRB). Its maiden broadcast was aired over Radio Balisong DZRB 531 in
October 1994. Then in 2005, he defied odds and ventured into print media. With the help of his
personal assistant, Maricel Manalo, del Rio continues to write as a regular columnist for Sun Star
People’s Courier Batangas. Del Rio, who marked his 22nd year in the media profession this year,
did not only discuss socially relevant issues on his radio program and column. He also used media
as a platform to voice out the concerns of the voiceless and to publish the issues relating to the
nameless in society. At one point, particularly in 1995, he convinced former Batangas
Congressman, now Senator, Ralph Recto to allocate government funding for the reconstruction
of the provincial school for Special Education (SpEd) students.

Mr. Ronnel is now looking at pursuing a doctoral degree after being considered as the first
blind Filipino to have earned a graduate degree. He is a father of four child and his eldest is
graduated as magna cum laude from the University of the Philippines. Del Rio is a believer of
God. He said “but most of all, God inspires me. If God is not in my life, I would be totally wrecked
by now. I won’t achieve anything or reach any place without His guidance. We plan, but it is the
Lord that dispose.”

Ana Kristina Arce

Ana Kristina Arce is a deaf since she was born. She was a very persevere and successful
deaf. Having the hearing disability, Ana is unstoppable yearning to learn. She was graduated in
Philippines School for the deaf a valedictorian. In 2009, she graduated magna cum laude from
the De La Salle - College of Saint Benilde (CSB) with a degree in Applied Deaf studies. Her focus
was on the multimedia arts and she went on to become a graphic artist at her alma mater, CSB.

Arce is the youngest recipient of the Lasallian Achievement award and has made strides
in her career to become an internationally recognized expert in her field. She was the first Filipino
to be awarded the World Deaf Leadership Scholarship at the Gallaudet University in Washington
D.C. in 2012. This institute is the world leader in liberal education and career development for
students who are Deaf and hearing impaired. It was here that Arce built her educational
foundations and graduated with a master's degree in Deaf Studies with a concentration in Cultural
Studies.

Ana Kristina Arce is a woman full of experience and a loving teacher of the Deaf
undergraduate students. Using her specialized bilingual method, Arce seeks to empower hearing
impaired individuals who face the challenge of acquiring basic literacy skills early on in their lives.
She offer her life in teaching and helping the other deaf to develop their reading and writing
abilities in order to prepare them for college and beyond. It not just the deaf she wanted to teach,
moreover she aims to educate those parents of deaf children for bitter communication of mother
and their children. She seeks to empower hearing impaired individuals who face the challenge
of acquiring basic literacy skill early in their lives. Despite of her disability, she used it in helping
and encouraging PWDs into the consciousness of the society, especially the hearing people.

Maria Gilda Quintua-Nakahara

Despite of her disability being deaf, Mrs. Nakahara is an active deaf entrepreneur as a
business woman with her own travel and tour business called Nakahara Lodging and Travel
Agency. She is a very strong woman. She manage to run her business using the sign language
and either through pen and paper. Her business goal was to provide services for hearing people
and a primarily a travel service for deaf people around the world. She draws her inspiration from
her foreign deaf friends met her in tourist spot and decided to start a business in 2004. Because
of her perseverance she managed to learn the ins and outs of booking flights, accommodations,
and tour management.

She established the Deaf Organization in five towns of Eastern Samar: Oras, San Julian,
Borongan, Taft, Dolores. And now Mrs. Nakahara is processing to put up an organization that will
provide funding an emergency assistance for the Deaf community in the Philippines. Mrs. Gilda
crossed the border of so-called limited access. Pushing through discrimination and barriers, she
recognized at the Go Negosyo Caravan for People with Disabilities in De La Salle-College of Saint
Benilde.

Mrs. Nakahara got engaged in May 2007 to Mr. Koichi Nakahara. He was the friend of her
one clients. She is one of the inspirational woman not just for PWDs but for us as normal person.

Having disabilities are tough, but to those three PWDs they manage to become
successful despite of their disabilities. They are the good example to the people who are
struggling because of their lives. Be strong and fight those negative impacts of life.
 Republic of the Philippines
SORSOGON STATE COLLEGE
Engineering-Architecture Department
Sorsogon City Campus

REFLECTION
(Philosophy of Man)

Submitted to:

Mrs. Brenda Lou D. Dellosa

Instructor

Submitted by:

Mary Joy E. Espeña

B.S Architecture 5-A

1st Sem A.Y 2019-2020