Dr. Mamerto Elier P. Iguiron

International Luminary Award in Teaching

Buruanga Vocational School ,

Philippines

Head Teacher VI

Personal Highlights

Dr. Mamerto Elier P. Iguiron has been recognized and nominated by various institutions for his contributions to teaching, instructional leadership, innovation, public service, and community engagement.

Nominee, DepEd-Regional Office VI- Search for the Princess Maha Chakri Award, an international recognition honoring exemplary educators.
National Qualifier, Metrobank Foundation Outstanding Filipinos (Secondary Education)
Most Outstanding Aklanon 2026, (Basic Education Category), Province of Aklan
Resolution of Commendation, awarded by Sangguniang Panlalawigan, for bringing pride and honor to the Province of Aklan as Dangal ng Bayan Awardee, Civil Service Commission.
Regional Winner, 2024 Search for Outstanding Government Workers – Dangal ng Bayan Award, Civil Service Commission
2024 1^st Runner-Up (Teaching-Related Category) & Best Innovation Paper, Division Innovation Showdown, DepEd-Division of Aklan
Outstanding Alumni 2023, (Education Category), DepEd- Buruanga Vocational School
Outstanding Public School Head Teacher 2023, DepEd-District of Ibajay East
Best Performing School Head in MOOE Liquidation and Utilization, for 2 consecutive years, (2022 and 2023), DepEd, Division of Aklan
Outstanding Head Teacher 2022, DepEd-Schools Division of Aklan
2026 Gold Service Awardee, Boy Scouts of the Philippines, National Court of Honor, BSP-Aklan Council

These recognitions reflect his sustained commitment to quality teaching, learner support, educational innovation, professional leadership, and service to the community.

Inspirational Success Story

Dr. Mamerto Elier P. Iguiron is an educator who believes that every learner deserves a chance to learn, attend school, and succeed, regardless of poverty, distance, or difficult circumstances. For him, teaching is more than delivering lessons. It is about understanding learners, recognizing the barriers that prevent them from learning, and finding meaningful ways to help them overcome those barriers. His journey as a teacher and educational leader is a continuing story of turning challenges into opportunities for learning, service, innovation, and change. At the heart of everything he does is one simple belief: when a learner struggles, a teacher must not give up.

Early in his teaching career, Dr. Iguiron handled learners with diverse needs, including struggling readers, learners with behavioral difficulties, frequent absences, and children from families living in poverty. These experiences taught him that every struggling learner has a story. A child who cannot read may need a different approach; a learner who is frequently absent may be facing difficulties at home; and a child who cannot participate actively may simply be hungry. Instead of defining learners by their weaknesses, he chose to understand their circumstances and respond to their needs. He patiently taught struggling readers, guided learners toward positive behavior, and created opportunities for them to experience success. These experiences shaped his conviction that low performance is not a permanent label but a signal that a learner needs appropriate intervention, patience, and a teacher who believes in his or her potential.

This belief became the foundation of his learner-centered interventions. Recognizing the connection between poverty, hunger, absenteeism, and learning difficulties, he initiated Project SWEET (Home-Based Feeding Program: Severely Wasted Elimination and Eradication Technique). The project initially addressed learners who were severely wasted, but Dr. Iguiron understood that feeding was only part of the solution. He visited learners in their homes, worked with parents, provided food supplies and vegetables, and shared practical ways of preparing nutritious meals. He also coordinated with barangay officials and health workers to strengthen community support. Through Project SWEET, he demonstrated that effective teaching sometimes begins by addressing the conditions that make learning difficult. For a hungry child, a meal can mean the energy to participate, the strength to attend school, and another opportunity to learn.

His commitment to literacy led to Project SAN ISIDRO (Strategies and New Designed Techniques: Ways to Improve Developmental Reading and Numeracy Outcomes). Rather than allowing struggling learners to remain behind, he extended reading remediation beyond the classroom and into the homes of learners. He developed contextualized learning materials that were approved by the Schools Division of Aklan and provided learning resources to children who needed additional support. His approach was purposeful: identify the learning gap, understand the learner, provide an appropriate intervention, and continue until progress becomes possible. The school was subsequently recognized as Most Learning Focused Elementary School Key Stage 2 during the 2024 Curriculum and Instruction Regional Champions for Learning Excellence (Circle Awards). His commitment to literacy also continued through his facilitation of the ARAL Reading Program during the summer, giving struggling learners additional time and guidance to strengthen their reading skills. These efforts reflect his conviction that every child can improve when given the right support and a teacher who refuses to give up.

His desire to reach learners beyond his own classroom eventually grew into Project BULIG (Build Learning Support to Last-Mile Schools and Indigent Groups of Learners). BULIG, an Aklanon word meaning “to help,” became a fitting expression of his teaching philosophy. What began as a simple act of service developed into a sustained initiative that reached nearly 1,100 beneficiaries in last-mile, remote, and disadvantaged schools in different parts of the Province of Aklan. Through the project, he provided food, school supplies, and learning support to learners in Mina-a Elementary School, Tabungyan Elementary School, Buenavista Primary School, Aparicio Elementary School, and ALS learners in Barangay Aparicio, Ibajay, Aklan. More than providing material assistance, however, Project BULIG addressed barriers that affect learning and encouraged parents, teachers, barangay officials, alumni, private sponsors, and community members to become partners in helping children stay in school. In doing so, Dr. Iguiron showed that teaching does not end at the classroom door; it extends wherever a learner needs support.

Following his transfer from elementary to secondary education, the same commitment continued through Enhanced Project BULIG. When severe flooding affected Agbaliw Primary School, he provided school supplies and facilitated feeding activities for learners and parents. When Tigbawan Primary School in Madalag, Aklan was affected by fire, he also extended assistance to learners and teachers. These efforts were supported through his personal resources and private sponsors. He did not wait for perfect circumstances or substantial resources before responding. He saw a need and acted. For him, public service is an extension of teaching, a way of helping learners remain hopeful, connected to school, and capable of moving forward despite difficult circumstances.

A significant component of Enhanced Project BULIG is the Project BULIG Scholarship Program, through which he continues to support four indigent learners of Buruanga Vocational School through financial assistance, school supplies, and uniforms. He has also sustained feeding activities that benefited nearly 600 learners. These interventions help remove practical barriers that may contribute to absenteeism, disengagement, and interrupted learning. By helping learners meet their basic school needs, he gives them a better opportunity to attend regularly, participate meaningfully, and remain focused on their education. Even his two sons have participated in donation and feeding activities, demonstrating that the value of service can be nurtured not only among learners but also within the family.

For Dr. Iguiron, however, meaningful teaching impact cannot depend on helping learners one at a time. He understands that when teachers become better, many more learners benefit. As an instructional leader, he provides technical assistance, shares practical teaching strategies, develops contextualized learning resources, and encourages teachers to use reflective and evidence-based practices. His innovation, Project OPT (Offline Programmed Tool: Optimizing the Liquidation Process for Greater Efficiency and Accuracy), demonstrates his ability to transform an identified problem into a practical solution. Although it addressed an administrative concern involving MOOE liquidation, the innovation reflected the same problem-solving mindset he applies to teaching: identify a need, develop a practical intervention, improve it, and share it with others. Project OPT was recognized as 1st Runner-Up in the Teaching-Related Category and Best Innovation Paper during the Schools Division of Aklan Innovation Showdown. Its significance lies not only in the recognition it received but in it’s potential to help fellow educators work more efficiently and devote greater attention to their core mission, serving learners.

His commitment to improving instruction is further demonstrated through action research. In 2025, he became the lead proponent of “Pedagogical Application of Reading Power Skills to Improve Grade 8 Learners’ Functional Literacy,” which became a Non-BERF Division Qualifier. The study emerged from the urgent need to address serious difficulties in functional literacy. Through the use of Reading Power Skills and systematic intervention, he sought evidence-based ways to strengthen reading instruction and support struggling learners. For Dr. Iguiron, research is not merely an academic requirement. It begins with a real classroom problem, searches for evidence, informs teaching practice, and ultimately seeks better outcomes for learners. His research embodies his belief that teachers must continually learn, reflect, and improve if they are to help learners learn better.

This commitment has continued through Project BURVOCS (Building Creative Instructional Strategies for Strengthening Instructional Leadership and Teacher Professional Development), developed as a Workplace Application Plan. Responding to literacy gaps reflected in the Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI) results, the project focuses on strengthening teachers’ capacity through creative instructional strategies, ICT, and arts integration. Through professional learning, Learning Action Cell sessions, technical assistance, collaborative planning, and instructional support, the project seeks to make teaching more engaging, creative, responsive, and relevant to diverse learners. Project BURVOCS represents an important development in Dr. Iguiron’s journey, from directly helping individual learners to empowering teachers who can reach and influence many more learners. It reflects his understanding that sustainable improvement happens when teachers work together, continuously develop their practice, and place learner needs at the center of instruction.

Dr. Iguiron also recognizes that the challenges affecting learners cannot be addressed by teachers alone. He therefore builds partnerships with stakeholders such as the DSWD, PNP, LGU, PTA, alumni, SSLG, Teachers’ League, and other community partners. Through collaboration and Memoranda of Agreement (MOA), he helps establish a stronger support system for learners and teachers. His work demonstrates that education becomes more powerful when schools and communities share responsibility for children. The partnerships he builds transform concern into collective action and create opportunities for learners that the school could not provide alone.

Beyond his projects and formal responsibilities, Dr. Iguiron continues to serve as a role model in teaching and community service. He actively participates in professional development activities on curriculum implementation, instructional strategies, and teaching and learning, and has been invited to serve as a resource speaker in various DepEd trainings. He shares innovative teaching practices and experiences with fellow educators, encouraging them to pursue professional growth and excellence. He also participates in community-based activities such as tree planting, coastal cleanups, and other environmental initiatives that promote environmental protection and climate change mitigation. Through these activities, he shows learners that education is not only about academic achievement but also about responsibility, compassion, service, and care for the community and the environment.

The recognition he has received, including the 2024 Regional Winner of the Civil Service Commission Dangal ng Bayan Award for the Province of Aklan, Most Outstanding Aklanon 2026, and National Qualifier for the Metrobank Foundation Outstanding Filipinos, among other distinctions, affirms his contributions as an educator and public servant. Yet for Dr. Iguiron, recognition is not the ultimate measure of success. His greatest rewards are seen in the learner who begins to read, the child who returns to school, the hungry learner who can participate in class, the struggling child who gains confidence, the teacher who becomes more capable, the parent who becomes more involved, and the community that chooses to help.

His story is not simply a story of projects, awards, or accomplishments. It is a story of teaching transformed into action. He sees a learner who struggles to read and finds another way to teach. He sees a child affected by poverty and finds a way to provide support. He sees hunger affecting participation and responds with care. He sees a teacher who needs assistance and shares what he knows. He sees a school facing a challenge and develops a solution. He sees a community that can help and builds a partnership. In every situation, he returns to the same purpose: to create better opportunities for learners to learn, grow, and succeed.

At the center of his work is a simple principle: help where help is needed, teach where learning is difficult, lead where leadership is required, and never stop looking for ways to make a difference. This principle has guided his journey from classroom teaching to instructional leadership, research, innovation, professional development, and community service. His projects may carry different names, but they tell one continuing story, the story of a teacher who refuses to accept that poverty, hunger, distance, low literacy, or difficult circumstances should determine a learner’s future.

Ultimately, Dr. Mamerto Elier P. Iguiron’s greatest contribution is not simply what he gives, but what he inspires others to give; not simply what he teaches, but what he inspires others to learn and do. His classroom extends to the home, his teaching extends to the community, his leadership strengthens fellow educators, and his service creates opportunities for learners to move forward. He teaches with compassion, innovates with purpose, leads through action, and serves beyond the boundaries of the classroom. His influence is measured not only by the learners he has helped, but also by the teachers he has inspired, the families he has reached, and the communities he has mobilized.

That is the mark of Dr. Iguiron: an educator whose influence reaches far beyond the classroom, one who teaches with purpose, leads with compassion, inspires through example, and remains steadfast in his commitment to the future of every learner.

Evidence of Works/Accomplishments: