His father brought Tom to Davao city as a child where he came to know about how diverse the peoples of Mindanao were. It was also a time when the Bangsamoro was at the height of its struggle under the dictator.
Tom’s awakening to fight injustice happened when he came face to face with violence at an early age when a soldier shot an older brother of a Muslim friend. When he was a high school senior in his hometown, Bislig, Surigao del Sur, his father was fired for siding with the cause of company workers who were demanding wage increases. His father knew that the logging and paper company was getting rich at the expense of the workers --- and the environment. His father went to work abroad and became one of the first overseas Filipino workers (OFW) and had to move the family to Manila.
Tom went to a university in a far-away city knowing nothing about the place nor the language they speak. Later on Tom made friends, became a student activist, and was elected to the college student council and even had a stint as a campus journalist.
After helping in toppling down the Marcos dictatorship, Tom channeled his passion to become a development activist. He worked as a community organizer for informal sector families, helped in building trade unions among construction and public sector workers, shifted from trade unionism to become an agrarian reform non-government organization (NGO) advocate under KAISAHAN with its mission of building empowered sustainable communities.
Tom then moved on as executive director of an NGO pursuing political-electoral reforms and local governance, before settling down in Davao City in 2004 to lead a Mindanao-wide NGO network engaged in peace-building, organic agriculture, participatory governance, and policy advocacy.
As a founding member of Akbayan, Tom helped in strengthening the party at the local level and building 'green patches' in a bleak landscape. As a Mindanaoan, Tom strongly feels for federalism and the rights of indigenous peoples for self-determination.
He is also a passionate advocate of organic agriculture and shares his advocacy with his wife who is with an environmental NGO. Tom had a breather from NGO work and took up post-graduate studies in development management. Tom was later pulled into working for government as an official in charge of political and constituency-building work for reforms in the ARMM and then leading the Bottom-Up Budgeting (BUB) program focused on CSO mobilization under the DILG.
It is from such diverse experience and advocacies that Tom wants to bring to the legislative arena as Akbayan’s first nominee for the 2016 party-list elections.
True to Akbayan’s platform, Tom vows to highlight the struggles of Mindanao and the basic sectors in his legislative work. From the boundaries, Tom serves as the voice of the workers, farmers, fisherfolk, women, indigenous peoples, Bangsamoro, and other marginalized groups in their aspirations for a just, peaceful, and sustainable future.
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