St. Scho gives PAX award to Paulynn Paredes-Sicam

MANILA, Philippines - With great pride, St. Scholastica’s College Manila, announces Paulynn Paredes-Sicam as its PAX awardee for 2014. Conferred on the awardee at the College graduation, the PAX award is given to an alumna who has distinguished herself in service to the community and country in the field of Arts & Sciences.

Sicam graduated with a degree in AB English Literature in 1967.

As a journalist, Sicam has written extensively on politics, human rights, peace, democracy and the development of civil society.

As a member of the Commission on Human Rights (1991-1994), she directed CHR’s human rights training program for the Philippine military, police and public school teachers which earned for the CHR the UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education in 1994.

Since 1993, she has served the Philippine government panel for peace talks with the CPP-NPA-NDF in various capacities as human rights consultant (1993-98), member of the negotiating team (2005-2010) and now as part of the technical working group assisting the panel (2010 to the present).

Sicam was a convenor of the Regional Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism which was instrumental in the establishment of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Human Rights Commission in 2009.

As a peace advocate, she was co-coordinator for Southeast Asia for the Swiss initiative to search for 1000 peace women worldwide who were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. She was also one of the editors of the book, ‘1000 Peace Women Across the Globe’ which featured the biographies of all the nominees.

She was a John S. Knifght journalism fellow of the Asia Foundation at Stanford University (1984) and of the Benigno Aquino Foundation sponsored by the US State Department in 1999. In 1988, she received the Catholic Mass Media award for her column Heart and Mind. She was a TOWNS awardee for print media in 1989.

Sicam continues to write on and work for peace and human rights. She is a board member of the Conflct Resolution Group Foundation (CORE), an NGO that uses mediation as a tool for conflict resolution. Four weeks ago, she returned to column writing. Her column, “Heart and Mind”, can be read on Sundays in the Philippine Star.

Public intellectual, peace and human rights advocate, journalist, Paulynn Paredes-Sicam is truly an exemplar of the PAX award.