Dr. Christopher C. Bernido and Dr. Ma. Victoria Carpio-Bernido, president and principal of the Research Center for Theoretical Physics in Bohol are being recognized for their innovative way of teaching science in the Philippines.
"Their purposeful commitment to both science and nation, ensuring innovative, low-cost, and effective basic education even under Philippine conditions of great scarcity and daunting poverty showing how commitment, competence, and collaborative leadership can truly transform individual lives and galvanize community action."
The Bernidos – who came from privileged backgrounds – both earned their doctorate degrees in physics from the State University of New York. In the 1980’s, they headed the National Institute of Physics at the University of the Philippines and were university awardees for teaching and research excellence.
They stood at the top of their profession and were well respected in the world community of physicists.
In 1999, the Bernidos surprised many of their colleagues by moving to the poor, remote municipality of Jagna, in Bohol province, to run an old, struggling high school owned by Christopher’s mother.
Christopher said it was not just filial duty that led both of them to devote themselves to the Central Visayan Institute Foundation (CVIF), as the school’s president and principal, respectively. The CVIF was a small school of about 500 mostly poor students.
They could have simply closed down the school but they saw as a challenging opportunity. They both realized that the school was a microcosm of the problems of basic education in the Philippines.
For them, it was always been the bigger picture, the country. They both wanted to do something for the country.
In 2002, they introduced a revolutionary way of teaching science and non-science subjects, which they called CVIF Dynamic Learning Program (DLP).
The DLP is a