Department of Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco was conferred the Gawad Pilipino Babae Ka Award for Public Service along with other distinguished awardees in rites held recently at the Tejeros Hall, AFP Commissioned Officers Club at Camp General Emilio Aguinaldo, Quezon City.
“It is a great honor to be a recipient of the Gawad Pilipino Awards 2024. I am deeply grateful to Dr. Danilo Mangahas for his visionary leadership in establishing this platform to celebrate excellence and service of women in the Philippines,” Frasco said in her acceptance speech as this year’s Natatanging Babae sa Larangan ng Serbisyo Publiko.
“As we gather to celebrate the accomplishments of Filipino women, we must also reflect on the barriers and the challenges that women have had to face in the generations that women have contributed to the building of our nation.”
“As we gather to celebrate the accomplishments of Filipino women, we must also reflect on the barriers and the challenges that women have had to face in the generations that women have contributed to the building of our nation,” the tourism chief added.
The tourism head likewise recalled her journey as a public servant while balancing her role as a mother of 4 young children while serving as Mayor of Liloan in the Province of Cebu at the time of pandemic and super typhoon Odette.
“Receiving the invitation from our President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos, Jr. to become Tourism Secretary in 2022, it was quite unexpected as I had just been elected to my third term as Mayor. And as I began to serve the Department of Tourism, I, like many mothers who serve, whether in government, the private sector, here or abroad, had to struggle with being away from my four children who were still living in Cebu while I lived in Manila,” she said.
“I fully understand the challenges that women face everyday.”
Speaking as a woman leader, Frasco said she fully understands the challenges that women face everyday.
This, “as they try to be dutiful to their responsibilities, as they try to pursue their passions and their respective careers and advocacies, all while being daughters, sisters, wives, mothers-truly it is the innate compassion, perseverance, dedication, and determination of women that allow for the fabric of the Filipino society to be strong but also gracious, aggressive but also kind, successful but also cognizant, of everything else that needs to be done to truly do the work of nation-building,” she remarked.
“In the DOT, we have endeavored to put the Filipino tourism workforce at the forefront of everything that we are trying to do for the country, we have trained over 127,000 tourism Filipino tourism workers in the Filipino Brand of Service Excellence with the hopes of opening up opportunities for livelihood and employment for our fellow Filipinos, strengthening the foundation of the tourism industry, we have focused on what needs to be done to be able to forge a path forward for our country as our President has said ‘Our country deserves nothing less than to become a tourism powerhouse in Asia,” Frasco added.
In accepting the Babae Award, she said: “I accept this award with humility and gratitude, as well as joy as I know that I share this room with truly exceptional and phenomenal women who have been nothing less than excellent in their field while always applying oneself with compassion, love and humanity.”
Recognized for her notable contributions as a woman leader in her field, Frasco joined the esteemed roster of awardees this year including Vice President Sara Duterte; Senators Cynthia Villar, Imee Marcos, Loren Legarda and Grace Poe; and Chief Public Atty. Persida Acosta.
Dr. Danilo Mangahas, President and CEO of Gawad Pilipino Awards handed out the plaque of recognition to the awardees.
Organized by Gawad Pilipino Awards in celebration of the International Women’s Month, Babae Ka Awards recognizes Filipinas distinguished for their invaluable contributions in various industries in the Philippines.
