Because of a very low number of deaf people who took part in the recent presidential elections based on informal survey, MCCID College decided to launch its “Election Awareness Campaign” program last July 31 at MCCID Lecture Hall.

More than 50 second and third year deaf students attended the mini-lecture activity. This program will continue up to October 31, in time for the National Barangay Election, which will be held this October 25.

Deaf Student Omar shared his experience voting in last May 2010 elections.

MCCID Administration together with MCCID Student Organization agreed to provide assistance and additional incentives to students who will be registering in their respective City or Municipal Election Offices. Among the perks of newly registrants include additional grades in their midterm for English, Deaf Culture, Current Issues on Disabilities and Values Education Subjects. They will also be excused from their subjects should they register on a school day.

Sir Jojo explains how to fill up the Voters Registration Form.

MCCID Training Director Jojo Esposa enumerated the many problems deaf people are encountering in the country like unemployment, inability to receive government services, closed captioning and sign language interpreting services and ignoring the 20% discounts on medicine and other vital services. He explained that by registering their vote, the government will become aware of the existence of the deaf community.

During the launch, Sir Jojo also explained to the students how to fill up the Application for Registration as well as the procedure and requirements for registering. He also gave a letter to the parents seeking their help in assisting their child when they register to their respective election offices.

For his part, MCCID Deaf Faculty Jerome Marzan shared to the students about his experience as a first time voter in the first automated elections last May. Other students also gave their experiences as well as problems they faced when their parents did not allow them to vote.

Here is the list of expected activities:

• Voting Orientation – July 31
• Voter Registration – August 3–15
• Voter Awareness of Barangay Candidates (Barangay Chairman and Barangay Kagawad) – Campaign Period to be announced later
• National Barangay Election – October 25
• Ballot guarding and watching TV about elections – October 25-31

                          

www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7ab8Sel-Ek

                          

MCCID Deaf Students watch SONA.

From Left: Sir Jojo, DLS-CSB's Giselle Montero, GMA News Howie Severino, Deaf Myra Medrana and DLS-CSB's Nicky Templo-Perez (Photo Courtesy of DLS-CSB SDEAS)

Pres. Noy's SONA with Sign Language Inset

The first historical State of the Nation Address (SONA) delivered by President Benigno Aquino III also had another first, that of an inset sign language interpretation.

This is the first of its kind since SONA has ever been televised. It gives the Deaf people the right to participate in nation building, access to communication, access to be equal to people without disabilities. Educators and veteran interpreters from De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB), MCCID College of Technology, Philippine Deaf Resource Center, and the Philippine School for the Deaf together with Deaf leaders of the Philippine Federation for the Deaf (PFD) worked together to make the first inset-interpreting of the SONA possible.

GMA-7 staff and crew provided inset FSL interpreting through live streaming in gmanews.tv with Jojo Esposa and Nicky Templo-Perez as interpreters, Myra Medrana as Deaf representative and Giselle Montero as team leader. This was much appreciated by the Deaf Filipino community abroad.

Here is the Behind the Scenes Video of Sign Language Interpretation of SONA courtesy of Ms. Pia Faustino of gmanews.tv:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=17TduUTvGbI

For the Deaf community, this is a dream come true, and the realization not only came through one but through three communication channels. There is no boundary for inclusion or access. What a realization, that indeed, there is no monopoly of skill and intent to do good. There is no exclusivity of information.

For those with cable access, the ANC Channel aired interpreters John Baliza and Febe Sevilla with Raquel Estiller-Corpuz as Deaf representative and Joyce Dalawampu as team leader.
The Deaf students who were excused from their classes tuned in to TV5 with Junjun Sevilla and Therese Bustos as interpreters, Jay Sunico as Deaf representative and Techie dela Torre as team leader.

The Manila Bulletin Online wrote an article about how the deaf people understood the SONA.

Here is the entire video of SONA 2010.

For the latest Philippine news stories and videos, visit GMANews.TV

                          

MCCID Pampanga Blessing

Welcome Invitation Poster

1st Year Students rendering Philippine National Anthem in Sign Language

IMMFI Chairman Dr. Vito Roa gives his welcome remarks.

IMMFI Board Member and LFP Mediator Antonita Gomez explains the CTED program inception.

MCCID Training Director Jojo Esposa expounds on computer education for the deaf.

LFP National Coordinator Sis. Agnetia Naval introduces Liliane Foundation Philippines as lead agency of the CTED Project.

Memorandum of Agreement Signing

Memorandum of Agreement Signing

MCCID College President Remberto C. Esposa receives certificate of membership from CTED Project Head Sis Agnetia Naval.

Msgr. Cenovio Lumanog blesses the new CTED computer lab.

Msgr. Lumanog officiates the blessing of CTED project.

MCCID Deaf Trainor Lucky McGill Paltep is being interviewed by the media.

Liliane Foundation Philippines (LFP), in partnership with MCCID College of Technology together with Inocencio Magtoto Memorial Foundation, Inc. officially launched a computer project for the deaf in City of San Fernando, Pampanga last July 19.

Dubbed, “Computer Trainers Education for the Deaf (CTED)”, this special project aims to train deaf high school graduates from nearby provinces with the latest in computer application softwares and programs. After they complete the three-year program, they are required to impart their skill to other deaf youth from other Liliane who would also want to learn computers.

IMMFI President Dr. Vito B. Roa gave his welcome speech congratulating all those who worked hard in making this project a reality. For her part, LFP National Coordinator Sis. Agnetia Naval introduced CTED as one of the projects being undertaken by the foundation nationwide. She also hoped that this activity will be replicated in other partner organizations already numbering more than 140 in the Philippines.

Ma’am Antonita Gomez, LFP Regional Mediator gave a brief history on how this project was able to realized through brainstorming sessions which started in 2008. Sir Jojo Esposa justified the computer program for the deaf by enumerating possible job opportunities and companies that already hire and are very much satisfied with their deaf employees.

Another important event was the signing of Memorandum of Agreement for all key stakeholders and partner organizations. Among those who signed includes a representative from Brothers of Charity, Mr. Ricky Ebbay of Archdiocese of Iba, Mr. Remberto Esposa of MCCID College of Technology, Ms. Zenaida Guevarra of Akapin, Dr. Vito Roa of IMMFI and Sis. Agnetia Naval of LFP. The project will be for implemented for three years.

The whole afternoon affair was capped by the blessing of the computer room officiated by Msgr. Cenovio Lumanog of Immaculate Conception Church in Guagua, Pampanga. A total of 14 new personal computers complete with network and Internet connections were installed.

Aside from MCCID, LFP and IMMFI, other partner groups involved in the project are Akbay Lingap, Inc (Bulacan), Brothers of Charity (Baguio City), CBR Foundation of the Diocese of Iba (Zambales) and the University of Assumption (Pampanga).

The CTED Project Launch coincides with the nationwide celebration of National Disability Prevention and Rehabilitation Week (July 17-23). Among those who attended were members of the local media, TESDA officials, representative of the Mayor of City of San Fernando and other LFP Partner Organizations in Region III.

MCCID College Pampanga Campus is located at Blk 1 Dolores Homesite, City of San Fernando, Pampanga.

                          

The MCCID FSL Font has all the equivalent alphabets and numeric characters that are used in finger spelling and hand sign. The hands used are similar to those with white gloves so special markings like fingernails and hand lines don’t appear. The characters are comic like to make the letters more clear and easier to copy.

Special Characters

Awarding Ceremony held last February 20

MCCID aims for the font to be accessed and installed freely to anybody’s computers in order to promote the learning of sign language and increase people’s awareness in learning this special language of the Deaf people.

Font Features

• MCCID FSL Font is on its first version (135 kb). Expect a clearer and more accurate font as well as additional characters in the near future.
• MCCID FSL Font is a True Type Font. The primary strength of TrueType was originally that it offered font developers a high degree of control over precisely how their fonts are displayed, right down to particular pixels, at various font heights.
• It can be installed into any PC with Windows Operating System (XP, Vista and 7) as well as Apple Mac OS 10 and above. It has also been tested for Linux Based OS (Ubuntu).
• Lower case and upper case hand letters are the same.
• MCCID FSL Font is a Regular Font. It means you can convert each character into Boldface and Italics.
• As a dingbat font, MCCID FSL Font does not appear clearly on font size lower than 90. You can better appreciate the font if you change the character size to 100 and above. 300 is the recommended font size.
• Unlike the Gallaudet American Sign Language Font, British Sign Language Font or Braille Fonts, the MCCID FSL Font offers more than 50 equivalent keyboard characters except for the tilde (~), caret (^) and closed apostrophe (`).

A special Facebook Fan Page was created so that people can freely access the font and its feature. There are already 254 people who liked it as of April 30.

How to Install MCCID FSL Font

For Windows Vista and 7:

Installing fonts are easy and quick. Do this.

1. In your favorite browser (IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc.), click on the link below the banner of this website or click on this link. We will use Internet Explorer 8 in this demonstration.
2. Since the file (mccidfsl.ttf) is only 135 kb, the File Download Dialog Box appears in a flash. You may chose between Open or Save.

Screenshot of Install Font Dialog Box
3. If you select Open, it automatically shows the Install Dialog box. Select Install.
4. The font will be copied into Fonts folder inside the Windows folder. It will now be ready to use. Open your favorite softwares (MS Word, Excel, etc.) and simply select MCCID FSL Font.

Please go to the following links for instructions on how to install the font in different operating systems.

1. For Windows XP
2. For MAC OS 10 and above
3. For Ubuntu Linux

                          

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrGSsIPRADI

Praise God! Our prayers have been answered! MCCID College of Technology is now graciously blessed for having acquired a 6,000 square meter (more than 1/2 hectare) of prime property in the cool, rolling hills of Municipality of San Mateo, Province of Rizal. It is situated along the Bgy. Silangan National Road. in Barangay Silangan.

The lush property is near the boundary of Marikina City and San Mateo. It is 13 kms. away from Cubao, Quezon City and 2 kms. away from Marikina City Hall. There is a direct jeepney route from Cubao Terminal to the place via Marikina City. The property is nearly 300 meters above sea level overlooking the Marikina Valley so flooding will not be a problem. Landslides rarely occur because of the land’s very low angle of inclination.

The multi-million peso real estate was brought by MCCID College out of its savings from the school’s operation as well as generous donations coming from the MCCID family, relatives, friends and non-government foundations. As of October 2009, major improvements that have been completed are:

1. The entire property already has a 10-ft high concrete-wall perimeter fence including 2 ft. of barbed wires on top;
2. The street facade is secured with a steel gate and concrete wall.
3. The street lighting was placed in order to provide illumination.

San Mateo, Rizal is a first class urban municipality of Rizal Province. Located on the island of Luzon. It is part of the Metro Luzon Urban Beltway. Metro Luzon is composed of Region 3, Region 4-A (CALABARZON) and the nearby National Capital Region (NCR). San Mateo is located along the western border of Rizal Province, it is bordered on the west by Quezon City, to the south by Marikina City and Antipolo City, the capital of Rizal Province, and to the north by Rodriguez (Montalban) also in Rizal province. It is approximately 24 kilometers away from Manila and 11 kilometers south of Pasig City, the former town capital of Rizal.

MCCID College intends to put up a two-floor school building, a multi-purpose covered court for our sports activities, special dormitories for our students from the provinces, a livelihood training center and an Olympic size swimming pool.

For the past 16 years, MCCID has been renting small building spaces first in Sta. Mesa, Manila and now in Cubao, Quezon City. In spite of that, the school was able to fulfill its mission of providing quality technical education for nearly 250 deaf high school graduates in the Philippines. Majority of them now work in IT related jobs nationwide.

MCCID College continues to aim higher. The institute wants to strengthen its efforts in educating the Filipino Deaf in the field of information technology and widen their career opportunities. The school may not be able to expand its mission by confining itself in a small place. Having its own land is one step in achieving that goal.

But the task does not end there. The school needs additional funding in order to support the construction of its new school building. MCCID College needs to raise at more than Php 5 million so that it can start putting up the structure.

With this, MCCID College is asking for your assistance in giving us seed money for the construction of the school building. Most importantly, your help will support our indigent Filipino deaf students who are very eager to learn and become productive citizens of our country.

I appeal for your generous support in this project. You may click on the donate button below or go to our Contact form, select “subject: To Make a Donation” and provide your contact information. You may also email us at donate@mccid.edu.ph or contact us through telephone numbers 632-4129447 and 632-7269690. Whatever you may give will go a long way for uplifting the living conditions of Persons With Disabilities.

We have the land. Now, we ask you to help us put up the building. Your donation will be very much appreciated. May God continue to bless you and your family!!!

MR. REMBERTO C. ESPOSA
School President