The Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA), which stresses community volunteerism and malasakit among its employees and stakeholders in the Subic Bay Freeport, has produced another winner of the coveted Civil Service Commission’s Pagasa Award.
Rhea Jane Pescador-Mallari, who works as Community Development Officer at the agency’s Ecology Center, will receive the CSC Pagasa Award for individual category under Memorandum Circular No.15 Series of 2018 signed by CSC chairperson Alicia dela Rosa-Bal.
The CSC Pagasa Award is conferred for outstanding contributions resulting from an idea or performance that directly benefits more than one department of the government.
Mallari, who started out as a contract-of-service employee in 2007 and was hired as a permanent employee in 2013, was nominated for her initiatives in empowering members of the indigenous people in biodiversity monitoring, enforcement of environment laws, engagement of stakeholders in mangrove conservation, as well as for knowledge transfer among various community groups.
SBMA Ecology Center manager Amethya dela Llana noted that since her first appointment 10 years ago, Mallari had distinguished herself in initiating environment projects that engaged local community groups, particularly the Ayta tribe.
In last Monday’s flag ceremony, SBMA Senior Deputy Administrator Ramon Agregado congratulated Mallari for earning more honor for the agency, noting that she would be the fifth SBMA employee to be conferred the Pagasa Award since Security Officer Joel Viray received the accolade in 2008.
“This is to prove that SBMA employees continue to work hard to serve our people and the country in our own little way with excellence and malasakit,” Agregado said.
Meanwhile, Mallari shared her achievement with the Ayta tribesmen who had joined her projects in biodiversity management and conservation.
“The award is not my own alone. If the people I worked with did not believe in me, if the Ayta people did not believe in their capacity to improve themselves, then there will be no Pagasa Award for me, too,” Mallari stressed.
Mallari narrated the hardship she experienced in implementing environment projects while mentoring Ayta tribesmen to become biologists, foresters, reef checkers, and divers.
“Now, even in my absence, they can manage to perform their assigned tasks,” she said.
Mallari is a B.S. Biology graduate of the University of the Philippines in Baguio, and earned her Master’s degree in Biology from the Ateneo University in 2014 under a scholarship program.
She was named SBMA Employee of the Year in 2011, and received a special award as most outstanding graduate from the University of the Philippines Open University Faculty of Management and Development Studies in 2012. (RAV/MPD-SBMA)
PHOTO:
SBMA’s Rhea Jane Pescador-Mallari inspects a specimen of “tamilok”, or woodworm, as part of her work in mangrove biodiversity management at the Subic Bay Freeport.
