The woman behind ‘Gabay Guro’

Among the honors that she has received as one of the leading lights of Gabay Guro (Guiding Teachers), the most important must be, for PLDT senior vice president June Cheryl Cabal-Revilla, her meeting and eventual marriage to Rep. Strike Revilla of Cavite.

It was through Gabay Guro that the two of them met, when Strike was mayor of Bacoor and “Chaye” was making the rounds of local governments to convince local executives to promote scholarships for students who want to go into education and make teaching a career.

“Before I knew it, he was dropping by our house and watching basketball on TV with my father and brothers,” recalls Chaye of the progress of Strike’s courtship. Her parents held serious reservations: Strike belongs to the politically influential and prolific Revilla clan, headed by retired senator Ramon Revilla and which counts former senator Bong Revilla (and his wife, now Bacoor Mayor Lani Mercado) among its members. But not for nothing is Strike a Revilla, for before long he had won Chaye’s heart. Part of his appeal must have been his wholehearted embrace of Chaye’s son Robert, now 20. The couple have since been blessed with a daughter, Chayeli (for Chaye “liit” or little Chaye), just over a year old.

The melding of the professional and personal, blended with civic involvement and a passionate drive to influence the future, is what characterizes Chaye’s life these days.

Gabay Guro actually began as a project of Chaye and a group of corporate friends in 2007 when, after heated discussions on the state of the country, “we decided that education was the answer to our problems.”

The concept is clear-cut. Working with partners like the Department of Education and institutions that offer teaching courses, almost 2,000 GG “scholars” are granted each year scholarships funded by corporate sponsors (the program was formally adopted by PLDT-Smart Foundation and the PLDT Managers Club) until they graduate with education degrees.

So far, says Chaye, GG has graduated some 800 scholars who are asked to fulfill only two conditions: Go into teaching (it doesn’t matter whether it’s in the public or private sector), and stay in the Philippines.

The GG team also goes around the country promoting the program and, more important, convincing young people to choose teaching for a career.

Once a year, Gabay Guro holds a mammoth general assembly and celebration that is attended by not just business leaders (PLDT chair Manny Pangilinan is a regular) but also by entertainers, including the biggest names in movies, TV, music and dance, with network rivals
ignoring their corporate borders and coming together to put on a show.

It must be a huge temptation for politicians to show up, I remark, especially for Chaye’s husband. “Oh, no,” she is quick to object, “we have a strict guideline that there should be no politicians on stage!”

Gabay Guro’s accomplishments have earned for Chaye numerous accolades, including The Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) award in 2013. Most recently, she traveled all the way to Mumbai, India, to receive the accolade of “Role Player” granted by the Fifth World Women Leadership Congress and Awards, along with other men and women leaders from Asia, the United States and Europe.

Petite in stature, Chaye says she had a hard time mounting the podium and instead chose to walk the stage, even if she couldn’t read from her notes, and so “I ended up sharing bits of my life that I never intended to share in public, much less with an international audience!”

But even with the spare details of her life story—a BA in accounting from De La Salle University, an MBM from the Asian Institute of Management, SVP, controller and financial reporting and controllership head of PLDT, and, since 2015, CFO of PLDT Smart Communications—Chaye stands tall. This story is bolstered all the more by her involvement as chair of Gabay Guro, her interactions with the country’s teachers, and her marriage to a politician, an act that in itself demands a tremendous amount of work-life balance. But don’t worry, Chaye can handle it all!