“Making Things Happen”
The Rationalized DepEd Region 7

by: Amaryllis Rodriguez

The Department of Education – Region 7 recently conducted a three-day team building from November 4-6, 2015 at the Alta Cebu Resort, Cordova, Cebu. This three-day team building constituted three essential thematic subjects that personify the responsibilities of all DepEd Region 7 personnel and orient them with their attached duties both as public servants and as members of an education agency. All personnel from different divisions of the regional office went with gay hearts to one of the most relaxing resorts in the province.  All were provided with air-conditioned huts for their brief stay in the place. Dr. Juliet A. Jeruta (OIC,Director III, DepEd RO7), the leader of the house, welcomed and encouraged her people’s gay hearts with a motivational song each with a varied lyric version.

The enticement began when the execution of which complimented a very familiar scenario of a teacher and her students trying to raise an interaction of ‘whoever gets to exhibit the best output gets the highest remark’. These are just some of the evidences on how the matron of this agency polished herself to become befitting for the position which she holds today; just as how she began stressing out the ‘best fit’ wins the race. Part of the personification of this agency is the continued support for rationalization and change of the system. This rationalization is highlighted on her principle of good consumption as she believes to have already transacted the purchase after appointing and promoting 59 personnel in the office. This summons her notion on the ‘best fit’ wins the race.

Day one lived to be an unforgettable and remarkable session for everyone in the house since the 25 chickens in Dr. Marcial Degamo’s (Chief, FTAD Division) sharing of his lifeline posited loud laughs and made his listeners reminisce a normal folkway in the past. Other sharers were Dr. Victor Yntig (Chief, Administrative Division), and Atty. Glenn Condor (Attorney IV, Legal Unit). It was a day of “all about me”; the icons representing each of the personnel’s identity, his highs and lows, his perceptions toward work, his family and friends and his thought-off concerns from other people commenced reflections on his individuality and how he can be an individual who can help compose a better rationalized agency. That day was wrapped up with a task on formulating plans for more programs and projects with respect to each of the personnel’s functional unit. It was a foundation day that built a team for each of them as members of DepED Region 7 Office.

Day two placed enhancement on the personification of duties and responsibilities. As they come into their sanities, Dr. Jeruta appealed into one of her principles and that is “making things happen”. She wanted to enhance these responsibilities by looking onto what her members need. She initialized the session with inspiring presentations on communication and project management. It was elaborated by two of the newly appointed officers in the Office of the Regional Director. The hype was on when the crowd started to indulge themselves in the lecture on Communication, its elements, processes and relevance in the aspect of business/organizational development and on the principles of good writing which involved a discussion on grammatical features. It was a delightful refreshment of their knowledge in the technicalities of business communication. The excitement lingered when the discussion on project management cycle followed. It projected three basic phases — definition, planning, and implementation on a project proposal and how these would benefit the creation of programs and projects. The second day ended with a task for all functional units to create their own project proposals and have these refined based on the grammar topics discussed. It went productive as expected since every functional unit competitively consolidated and brainstormed ideas for their respective project proposals. Differing ideas on the correct composition of the project objectives erupted. And that marked how compelling it is to be of profound quality when one is part of an agency that advocates on literacy. Per a valid statement from the matron of the house, that whatever is provided by the agency to its recipients will mirror the agency’s strength and capacity to sustain service to its clients.

Moreover, day three got the team into appreciating how Dr. Jeruta began advocating for education in one of the cities in Negros Occidental. Their locally initiated programs and projects (PaPs) such as putting up a story telling room for children and organizing book donations still contain assertion on how they should be continually upheld. For her, they may physically seem little but these PaPs have impacted a lot of learners. The discussion turned all the more interesting when she revealed that Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is utilized in her initiated PaPs. Appreciative Inquiry is a positive framework principle geared toward improvement and enhancement of an organization. It entails 4 Ds (Discovery, Dream, Design, Destiny) as processes into procuring a desired goal or outcome. The desired goal of Dr. Jeruta is to continually advocate an ‘education for all’. With her initiated projects, she has discovered what the learners need and that is to provide more opportunities for learning. Upon her discovery, designing strategies and techniques was her tool to accentuate her destiny in the realm of education. As a form of support to the designs created, her destiny for the recipients of education is immortalized thru the implementation of these programs and projects. These summed up the third day of ‘making things happen’. Her appreciative inquiry approach has revitalized an AI version in each of her members. It has provided them the opportunity to nurture for a heart of more positive approaches on the enhancement of Basic Education in Region 7.

 

This three-day team building professed better realizations and drive to produce a more competitive educational system of the region. According to Dr. Jeruta, as an education agency, the need to foster these drives would pave the way for the people to strive for resilience in upholding a better quality of education. This team building, conducted last November 4 to 6, 2015 at the Alta Cebu Resort, Cordova, Cebu, has ultimately renewed the members of this agency on the responsibilities attached to them the moment they vowed for service and that they will surely take in for as long as they are of public service. Indeed, the responsibilities have been personified and a team has been built. It got her an ‘A’ mark.