The maiden search for an unsung hero by The One Philippines (TOP) in 2018 ended with college student Dara Mae Tuazon. The then 19-year-old has been teaching children in her neighbourhood in Malolos, Bulacan since she was 11, a passion she brought with her when she enrolled at the University of the East in Manila. On a break from her studies one day, she noticed three children singing for money at a food stall near her school and after finding out that they could neither read, write nor count she started teaching them during her free time. An anonymous post of Tuazon teaching a few children in a tricycle went viral on social media. Pretty soon, her “pupils” grew, street children from just around the school, pushing her to conduct daily classes. She used her allowance to photocopy activity sheets and in simple ways, raised funds to buy more learning materials and foods for the children. Volunteers showed up to help and UE loaned an area outside its walls as well as donated teaching equipment to their coed’s advocacy. The collaboration was dubbed Bangketa UEskwela.

Tuazon, however, was thinking beyond the walls of her alma mater. She registered the more generic Bangketa Eskwela as a foundation, securing the approval of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in April 2018. The timing was perfect for Bangketa Eskwela Foundation (BEF) to be presented as a serious project before the panel of judges of the TOP search.

On May 2, 2018, at the TOP’s first benefit gala dinner, Tuazon was announced as the search’s first-ever unsung hero. The title came with a handsome Php1.5 million check for Tuazon’s projects, plus a couple more hundreds of thousands in cash and in-kind donated to her cause spontaneously by the attendees after her name was announced.

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