Our society made “strength” a masculine term.

But we beg to differ. Women are, equally, strong. 🌺

We’re featuring individuals who display the remarkable strength of #women. While they come from different paths, their beauty, grace, and passion unite them.

Follow along our social media channels and together, let’s declare that #ItsTimeForHer.

In this first of our series, we are featuring Atty. Anna Camille Tadeo-Valerio.

She works for a government agency rendering legal services for the indigent. While known to be a demanding and thankless job, she gets fulfilment from knowing she is helping the poorest of the poor achieve justice.

When she told us she was kicked out of high school for standing up for her friends, we thought that her career fits her perfectly.

While studying in Angeles University Foundation Law School, a friend told her, "You won't make it. Your don’t have the personality to be a lawyer.”

“I will never forget that person," she said. It was one of the things that motivated her to finish law school. “It was difficult but I never gave up.”

In her first year, she met former Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales. "I admire how she’s not afraid of anyone. That time when Morales said, 'No stones will be left unturned,' and 'Nobody dictates the Ombudsman,' I was like, ‘She's so hot!’ This is who I want to be." She passed the bar exam on her first try.

To Acey, beauty is synonymous with strength. A woman who knows what she wants and deals with the consequences of her actions is a beautiful woman.

"If it makes you happy, do it; and if you're going to do it, do it 1000%,” she advises. “Because oftentimes, there's only one opportunity, so make the most out of it."

Venazir Martinez is a Filipino visual anthropreneur, and a street muralist. A multi-potential creative best credited for her distinctive social experiment using site-specific street art that challenged the visual perception of the public. She graduated cum laude with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Philippines Baguio.

Her famous series of public art is found in Baguio City, Philippines, entitled Hila-bana, temporary stitching, unified by the red string concept portraying anthropological figures of the collective identities of the Cordilleras. She has been visually reformulating and developing this creative voyage in tune with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, Davies Paints Philippines, and Harnisch Foundation in New York.

Venazir's love for socially-engaged initiatives compelled her and her family, 23 Sampaguita Artist Collective, to establish a multi-sensorial street art festival called Sining Eskinita in Baguio City. Her vision is to drive artists from all disciplines to set the streets of Baguio as instant institutional grounds for creative development. Produce opportunities to tell the community’s story, create a unique experience, engage citizens, increase foot traffic and tourism, increase appreciation for the arts and artists, and increase the overall attractiveness of our country one eskinita at a time.

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Martinez's creative process delved into the influence of Filipino indigenous knowledge and links it with our contemporary mindset through the lenses of our multitudinous identities. Her works are inspired by empirical stories of the cultural advocates she met along her creative voyage.  Her style captures the realistic representations of people from various customs. Simultaneously, permeated with flamboyant stratification of abstractive, delineating forms, and spontaneous overall. This progressive visual approach exemplifies the multifaceted influences that shaped our core values. Venazir's deep enthrallment on the discourse of the discovery of one’s identity ultimately engendered her existence, thus, primed to deconstruct her concept of continuity on Filipino’s connected presence on a global scale.