L-R: Mr. Manuel M. Lopez, Chairman and CEO of Meralco Corporation, Dr. MIlwida Guevara, 2nd Gawad Heidi Yorac Awardee, Hon. Manuel Villar, Senate President and Dr. Emerlinda R. Roman, President of the University of the Philippines. 

Congratulations to our President and CEO, Dr. MIlwida M. Guevara for being the recipient of the Gawad Haydee Yorac Award for Outstanding Public Service. The award, jointly given by MERALCO and the University of the Philippines, recognizes leaders and public servants whose personal qualities and personal lives are worth emulating.

Dr. Guevara is recognized for her uncompromising integrity and professional excellence as a government official in the field of public finance, for her impassioned advocacy and leadership in creative private scetor initiatives to improve the quality of basic education at the grassroots by working with local government officials and the local communities themselves, and for her extraordinary, consistent and inspiring example of selfless, honest and intelligent public service espoused by the late Haydee Yorac.

Dr. Guevara is the 2nd recipient of the Award. The 1st winner was Mr. Antonio P. Melto, founder of Gawad Kalinga and the Executive Director of the GK Development Foundation Inc.

The award is given in honor of the late Haydee Yorac, who epitomizes principled and credible public service, courageous, fair and exemplary, tempered with an understanding of human nature and huamn rights within the bound of law. Atty. Yorac served as Chair of the Presidential Commission of Good Government, Chair of the Pastoral Parish Council for Repsponsible Voting, Chair of the National Unification Commission, Commissioner of the Commission on Elections, Member of the Presidential Committee on Human Rights, Partner of the Azcuna Yorac Arroyo and Chua Law Offices, Co-Chair of the National Peace Forum and Associate Professor of Law at the University of the Philippines.  

Dr. Guevara pledged the P300,000 cash incentive  to an education governance program in the municipality of E.B. Magalona, in honor of Ms. Haydee Yorac.  E.B. Magalona is a municipality in the province of Negros Occidental and is the hometown of the Yorac family.

The Synergeia family is truly proud of "Ma'am Nene".