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Sunday, July 19, 2026 Vol. 21 No. 278
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Mindanao architecture student wins Global Designer of the Year with Bajau-inspired design
DURIAS’S winning entry, “Banuas Lawod”
KIBIT, dark-shelled mollusks harvested off Quezon province, are prepared as crunchy snacks.
Women of General Nakar turn local crops into shared livelihood, proving that humble agri-based enterprises can allow communities to flourish, live with dignity.
EJHEY DURIAS, Global Designer of the Year (Architectural Category), during the victory celebration in Makati City on July 13, following his triumph at the 18th AYDA International Awards under the theme “CONVERGE: Crafting Cultural Legacies,” which called on the next generation of architects and interior designers to honor cultural heritage while shaping the spaces of tomorrow. AYDA AWARDS / JOHN EIRON FRANCISCO
By John Eiron R. Francisco
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THE housewives who organized themselves into the all-women cooperative.
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Text & Photos by Joel C. Paredes
MORNING work begins with the preparation of malunggay harvests for processing.
ENERAL NAKAR, Quezon — In this coastal town facing the Pacific, a group of women has built a livelihood from what grows around them: turmeric, calamansi, fruits, herbs, and other local crops.
For the past 26 years, they have turned those harvests into herbal capsules, drinks, chips, sweets, and concentrates, first selling in nearby markets before reaching larger outlets outside town. Over time, volunteer work grew into a small enterprise that helped mothers earn income, support their households, send children to school, improve homes, and work with dignity. “We relied on each other,” said Thelma A. Velentino, now president of the small company they named Healer’s Choice. “We worked hard. Determination and the quality of our work helped us sustain it.”
From volunteers to producers
AT the center of the effort was Edna Nakar, a community development worker and descendant of Gen. Guillermo Nakar, the World War II resistance leader for whom the town was named. In an interview, she said the project grew out of participatory governance in General Nakar in the
THE Healer’s Choice store.
EDNA NAKAR, the community development worker who started it all.
early 2000s, when women from different barangays were encouraged to organize around practical community needs. Their progress was gradual, built on steady work, shared income, and community organization rather than sudden wealth. The effort began with organizing, not business. Nakar said the women first received training from church-linked rural missionaries and social action groups
on preventive and curative health care, including alternative and herbal medicine. The training addressed a local problem: residents had limited access to medicine and often turned to community-based remedies, including lagundi and other herbal preparations. By 2001, the women had organized themselves into a cooperative—Kilusan ng Nagkakaisang Ina para sa Kabuuang Pag-unlad ng Nakar, or Kinipan—after joining a seminar of the Cooperative Development Authority. The cooperative gave them a formal vehicle for production, training, and collective decision-making. At first, the women worked
with almost no capital. Nakar recalled that after the 2004 flash flood in their town, they received a grant of about P250,000 through the Australian Embassy’s Direct Aid Program. They used it to buy basic production supplies, including empty capsules, bottles, tea bags, and processing tools. Lorna Penaverde, one of the early convenors, said the members came from different barangays and were brought together by friendship, need, and the hope of earning for their families. The group later established Healer’s Choice Community Herbal Products as a DTI-registered business in General Nakar, along with
INDANAOAN architecture student Ejhey L. Durias, 23, made history after becoming the first Filipino to be named Global Designer of the Year in the architectural category for a design that preserves the Bajau community’s cultural identity while creating spaces that support sustainable livelihoods. Durias received the top honor at the AYDA International Awards (formerly the Asia Young Designer Awards) held in Bangkok, Thailand. His winning entry, “Banuas Lawod” (Aquaculture community Hub), was selected from more than 9,000 submissions from architecture and interior design students across 17 countries and regions. The title combines the words banuwa, meaning “community,” and lawod, which refers to the deeper part of the sea. Speaking to the BusinessMirror during a victory celebration in Makati City on Monday, Durias said the concept was shaped by extensive research and conversations with members of the Sama-Bajau (Sea Nomads), locally known as the Badjao, in Davao, including those who had been displaced from their coastal communities and were later forced to beg in urban areas after losing their traditional livelihoods. Those stories became the foundation of his proposal, which seeks to strengthen the community’s traditional livelihoods, encourage displaced Badjao families to reconnect with their communities, and create opportunities for longterm economic and cultural resilience. “I don’t belong to any indigenous group, but I’ve always
loved visiting the sea with my family,” Durias said. He said that during those visits, he interacted with community members and came to admire their way of life, though he admitted he did not fully understand the hardships they faced until he conducted research for the project. “That realization has kind of inspired me to design with greater empathy,” he noted. During his final presentation, Durias told the story of Badol Kati Amilgani, a Sama-Bajau fisherman who now travels across cities in the Davao region with his son, performing with improvised drums to earn a living after losing his traditional source of income. “To take a Bajau home is to take their life,” Durias told the judges. “For them, home was never land. Home was the rhythm of tides beneath their feet.” He said many Sama-Bajau communities have been displaced not only by environmental pressures but also by armed conflict and social exclusion, forcing many families into poverty and leaving them disconnected from their traditional way of life. To address these challenges, Banuas Lawod is anchored on five design principles: preserving marine cultural identity, climateadaptive architecture, aquaculture-based livelihoods, sustainable construction materials and a closed-loop environmental system. Inspired by the layered structure of scallop shells, the design integrates resilient homes, shared community spaces, aquaculture facilities and ecological infrastructure into a single coastal settlement. Continued on A2
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PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 61.6440 n JAPAN 0.3797 n UK 83.0899 n HK 7.8631 n CHINA 9.1040 n SINGAPORE 47.7972 n AUSTRALIA 43.1138 n EU 70.5516 n KOREA 0.0417 n SAUDI ARABIA 16.4196 Source: BSP (July 17, 2026)