In Their Own Words

No matter how long you spend studying another language—immersing yourself in its nuances and even (if you’re fortunate enough) in the culture of the country where it is most spoken—you will never quite grasp the delicate shades of meaning the way a person who has grown up speaking it will. Language is more than just a mathematical application of phonetics and orthography and all that, it’s also humor and culture and feeling. So the absolute best way to understand any language is to ask a native speaker… which is why we always seek out native speakers to help us in our work.

One such person is Manny Tamayao, who was raised in the northern Philippines speaking Filipino as his first language. 

Manny has come a long way to join us in our work.

Early on, Manny sometimes found school to be a difficult struggle. After taking the entrance exam for two colleges, he was accepted at one—a polytechnic college, where the spot he had wanted in the computer sciences program was already taken and he was forced to pivot into the only place available… library information science. It was a low competition, high demand field, so he stuck with it. But Manny married early, and struggled to make ends meet. So to support his family, he dropped out to work in a car wash located inside a mall, in the basement. It was grueling work, and Manny unfortunately contracted tuberculosis. For two years, he was unable to work. His marriage struggled. He was out of school. At that time, though, he also discovered his faith.

Eventually, he was cured of tuberculosis and able to return to school. His marriage improved. He finished school and got an internship in a church library—his first position as a practicing librarian. They weren’t able to provide full time work, though, and his family was growing, as in 2007 he received the gift of a second son. At the age of twenty-six he applied for a position with SIL as a “Library and Archives Manager.” The position went to someone else, but they were impressed enough with Manny to hire him as part of the library staff.

His first position was in digitization, archiving and transitioning the library to a better, digital system. SIL had purchased a huge scanner, which to date has already scanned more than two million pages—largely due to Manny’s efforts. He currently helps to manage twenty-four libraries in the Philippines, Indonesia, and other parts of Asia and Africa. He also does public relations for the library and archive, to ensure that their wonderful resources are used and shared.

In 2017, Manny was first introduced to Bloom, drawn in by what he describes as the catchy phrase, “Let's grow a library.” SIL members were doing a workshop for Bloom trainers, and Manny dove in. He worked hard, and in 2018 became a Certified Bloom Trainer. Now he is happy to be able to lead workshops in different parts of the country, with different language groups (although Covid has forced much of the training online). In the past two years, Manny has led Bloom training workshops for anywhere from two to sixty-five people at a time. He loves the work, but most of all he loves the partnership he has with SIL LEAD and the opportunity to help make resources available to more children. He loves how Bloom allows them to equip others to create their own literary materials – to begin building their own libraries.

Manny (lower left) leading the Kagayanen Bloom Workshop in May 2018

He’s had the opportunity to help some workshop members who previously hadn’t been exposed to computers to learn how to use them, as well, and most recently is particularly pleased to be helping with the creation of decodable books for children in another Philippine language, Hiligaynon. These literacy materials were not previously available, and Manny is thrilled to play a part in bringing them to the Ilonggo people (who speak HIligaynon). 

“As a fellow Filipino,” Manny says, “I’m very happy for them to have these resources and materials – providing materials that can be used long term – for the children of our children.”

It’s been quite a journey for Manny from the challenges of his early education, but if you speak to him now, his enthusiasm for learning and growing is palpable as he helps SIL LEAD share Bloom. Manny’s passion for continued learning and his language ability in Filipino make him an ideal person to bring Bloom to speakers of many of the nearly two hundred other languages of the Philippines, and beyond.

This video testimonial to Manny’s efforts at the Bloom workshop in Masbate makes it clear that beautiful things can happen when we give people around the world the tools to guide their own transformation and development.