“Her sense of creativity cannot be boxed within the programmable cells of MS Excel.” Twinkle “Tala” Bautista and I enjoyed our time together while she’s sharing her dreams for her people starting with her new arabica coffee seedling yard in Kalinga.
We, at PeaceBuilders Community and at Coffee For Peace, have learned to respect Tala as a person who enjoys leading people and who is patient in managing things. She has no trouble talking with people and loves to organize them. When assigned a leadership task, she can anticipate problems and provide solutions even in circumstances that are unpredictable. She works best under pressure; the higher the pressure, the more she’s challenged, and the better the performance she gives.
Tala does not function well in office routines. Not because she is not able. She’s so capable. Her adventurous being doesn’t fit in the air-conditioned Consultants’ Room at the former PeaceBuilders Community Center. Her sense of creativity cannot be boxed within the programmable cells of MS Excel. The chronos-time that measures efficiency is not enough to handle the kairos-time that energizes her effectiveness.
Twinkle Alngag Bautista was born in 25 September 1986 in a village called Bulanao, Municipality of Tabuk, Province of Kalinga. When she was five years old, she saw on TV a soldier giving a boy to a nun. The boy was a survivor of a natural disaster. “At that moment,” Tala recalled, “I knew deep within me that I wanted to serve other people.”
Later, as a teenager experiencing the struggles of growing pains and seeking to determine what was real and what was not, she said: “The only thing that I was sure of during that time was that I wanted to serve the Lord with all of my heart, my soul, my mind and my strength. I was rock bottom when Jesus showed He was holding me and was close with me all along.” And thus began “another level of relationship” between Twinkle and her Creator.
In 22 April 2007, she completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. She’s also a licensed Secondary Education Teacher and an eligible Civil Service Professional. Her internship in Journalism was with ABS-CBN, the Philippines’ largest media corporation. Her first employment was with the Philippine Information Agency, the communications hub of the Government of the Philippines. Then she went back home to Kalinga to serve at the Cultural Heritage Research Center, Saint Louise College.
It was in December 2011 when Tala became a part of our community. After a one-year field mission in Bukidnon, the Peace and Reconciliation (PAR) Community in that province was established. In fact, PAR Bukidnon is right now the strongest PAR community in the country.
Just before we released Tala back to her home province, she was assigned to be a part of a PAR teaching team in Zamboanga City in the first week of October 2013, right after the Zamboanga Crisis of 08-28 September. It was there when she was assured that the God who called her is the same God who will ultimately bring Jubilee in this world.
