Dr. Sailila Abdula (seated, center) poses for posterity with DAP SVP Magdalena Mendoza (seated, sixth from right) and PMDP Managing Director Nanette Caparros (seated, sixth from left), along with the Middle Managers Class Batches 13 and 14 and the PMDP training operations team during the opening ceremony of the latest MMC program. (Photo by Megan Matias)
The Public Management Development Program (PMDP) recently welcomed 38 middle managers from various government agencies at the Development Academy of the Philippines Conference Center in Tagaytay City as they started their journey as the 14th batch of Middle Managers Class (MMC) scholars.
The opening program’s keynote speaker, Dr. Sailila Abdula, said that his stay at the DAP as a member of a similar class prepared him for the responsibilities he now holds as the acting executive director of the Philippine Rice Research Institute. Abdula, an alumnus of the program himself, is a member of MMC Batch 8-Siklab.
“You’ll feel like you are being molded and sharpened to be the next leaders of this country,” he told the new scholars of the MMC program.
Batch Balangay’s challenge
MMC Batch 13-Balangay prepared a ceremonial turnover, with members of the class holding a lantern as a symbol of guidance while the current batch walked towards a lighthouse-river setup to “set sail” their miniature boats or balangays, symbolizing their dreams and aspirations.
Batch 13-Balangay President Carlos de la Reyna Jr. challenged the current batch to prove that its members deserve the seats as MMC scholars of the PMDP along with the government resources allotted to them as a result.
Batch 14 representative Rowena Sorioso accepted the challenge on behalf of her colleagues.
Program team and design
DAP Senior Vice President for Programs Magdalena Mendoza, who along with DAP President Antonio Kalaw Jr. and PMDP Managing Director Nanette Caparros comprise the program’s senior management team, oriented the participants earlier in the day about the program design, the MMC curriculum and the requirements for the course.
The MMC, one of two courses offered by the PMDP, is designed to train division chiefs who are to assume a greater responsibility in the bureaucracy. It has three learning areas: governance and development, strategic public management, and personal efficacy and leadership.
There are two phases in the MMC program: a five-month-long residential training and a six-month-long reentry project implementation, the equivalent of a thesis in postgraduate schools.
The MMC Batch 14’s residential training will be handled by the training operations team with class director Luis Casimiro, and the class management team composed of Anne Victoria Alcala, Michelle Imperial and Rafael Resurreccion.