ties here and abroad. When we were starting this book project, Angel and Beth Lahoz, the dynamic heads of TIP, played with the idea of limiting the subject of “the teacher who influenced me most in my life” to classroom teachers, for uniformity’s sake, but they understood that this influential teacher could well be a parent, a priest, a tutor, a friend, a book, a movie, a line or two of a poem even, or, yes, a yaya . Beth Quirino-Lahoz herself writes about her father, the founder of the Technological Institute of the Philippines (TIP), who taught her not in a classroom but in the larger environment of life, wherein his instruction was fired by inspiration and his guidance was forged by example. As Beth Quirino-Lahoz says, when her father was still active in TIP, they ate TIP for break- fast. Apparently, she still does. The mother of serigrapher and sculptor Impy Pilapil figures prominently among Impy’s many influences, and not only because her mother taught her how to choose the freshest produce in the market. In the next breath she credits authors Steiner and Hauschka for giving her a “new perspective” to her art and brightening her life “beyond words can describe.” Columnist and novelist Butch Dalisay wants to mention not just one but two or three of his memorable mentors, and these mentors tell us a lot about this widely read writer, about whom a colleague once said, “He’s writing in English as if he was not a Filipino.” Rosario “Chato” Garcellano, editor at Philippine Daily Inquirer , composes an ode to the nationalist and activist professor Armando Malay in her inimitable style. Thelma Sioson San Juan, the iconic lifestyle editor, writes about Joe Luna Castro, her editor in Times Journal . Since I sat next to her in the editorial room, I knew that Thelma hated his guts like she hated cigarette smoke (mine). “My hating his guts,” simply says Thelma, “makes him the best teacher I’ve ever had.”
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker