00:00My Philippines family, I have so much gratitude for the ability to create spaces like this.
00:06To all of our partners that help us make this possible, the stakeholders present today.
00:12To SM, of course, that has been a continued partner.
00:15And to every family advocate and supporter here, maraming maraming salamat.
00:19I'm always going to be grateful for everyone that chooses to show up.
00:24Because showing up matters than we think.
00:26As many of you know, this has been something I've worked on for many, many years.
00:31And I consider this a lifelong advocacy.
00:34From my community work to national and international platforms, I've always tried to carry this conversation forward whenever I can.
00:44If you remember, my first debut, I guess, publicly was when I brought autism acceptance into my Miss World competition.
00:53And I won that and won the beauty with a purpose.
00:57I also championed this with Miss Universe Philippines.
01:00My first run in 2022.
01:03And in 2023, we brought this to Miss Universe on the global stage and won the voice for change.
01:09And it really proved that despite, I think it was 75 or 80 other advocacies that were being championed, we
01:19won gold plays.
01:20And that's just a great message because after that, I did feel an inflow of conversations that started.
01:28There were so many parents that reached out and just found the strength to reach out and ask for help.
01:34But now we're still here.
01:36And over time, despite seeing so much progress, as Sir mentioned earlier, last year we had 40,000 attendees.
01:44But if you actually look back in the history of the Angels Walk, we started with significantly less.
01:50Kaya the progress has significantly grown.
01:53But despite all of that, despite all of that, I think there's still so much room for improvement and so
02:01much more room for growth, more awareness, more openness, more people that are and will be willing to listen.
02:08But at the same time, I've also realized something very honest.
02:12Because behind everything I do and we do publicly, this for me has always been very personal.
02:21As you all know, or if you don't, I actually have two siblings on the autism spectrum.
02:26One older, who is Zen, and one younger, who is Adam.
02:30And growing up, our family learned that understanding autism is not something that you arrive at once in your life.
02:38It's something you have to continue to grow and learn with.
02:42It shapes how we communicate, how we adjust, and how we show up for someone you love in ways that
02:50aren't always visible to others.
02:53So I did grow up in America.
02:55I grew up in a very small town.
02:58I guess two hours away from your closest mall.
03:01And I did, since kami lang nang ate ko yung in-check doon, not only did my sister and I
03:08experience racism and bullying,
03:10I also had two siblings on the autism spectrum.
03:12So we were subject to a lot of scrutiny.
03:15But if there's one thing that I noticed is that grabe, grabe the opportunities and the care that was provided
03:23while we were in the U.S.
03:25And for us, that's something that we realized, that there is a gap that needs to be filled here in
03:32the Philippines.
03:34So again, we had access in America, I mean, access to automatic resources.
03:39We were able to seek support even beyond what was available locally.
03:44And we were, of course, part of that lucky few that had that available to us.
03:49But that's why there is a very clear gap between that.
03:53Because what is possible for some families is what we are making, we are trying to achieve to make possible
04:00here in the Philippines.
04:02So we are moving towards making support more consistent, more nationwide, more dependable for families who definitely need it.
04:12Because like Ms. Mona said, it's not just a million, kasama na din doon yung familia.
04:18So when we talk about autism today, I believe we can all agree that it can't just stop at awareness.
04:25It has to continue to grow towards autism acceptance, towards empowered inclusion, and towards economic inclusion as well.
04:35So kasama na din yung autism works, where we have to include them in our economic demographic as well, because
04:42we're very much capable.
04:43So just a back story, I have two siblings on the autism spectrum, one older who is, both of them
04:50are on different spectrum levels.
05:02Thank you so much.
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