JoyMo

My Journey

by Maria Lourdes ”Joy” Martinez Onozawa

Born and raised in Cebu City, she grew up doing household chores before going to school together with her siblings. She landed mostly in the garden, sweeping the leaves of the fruit trees and flowering trees planted by her plant lover mother, Day by day, she would be reminded of the benefits of having a garden to sweep, a compost to make, all these gifts from God. When any of her family members would get sick, her mother would make something from the garden and told her how this plant would cure her cold, or her sore throat, or her aching pains. She grew up believing that all creatures in nature were made by God for purpose, and having been given an intellect, our role was to find out the benefits of His creation. To do this, one had to go beyond herself. Not only did this require library research, but much of it meant talking to all kinds of people, from all walks of life. Learning was a gift from God, and she had an open mind.

Growing curious, she went from rural areas, to rice fields, to poblacions, to farms , and even to ports, she went about making friends and asking what or how did our folks deal with health . Surprisingly, many questions were answered with making healthy homes. This included kitchen practices, cleaning methods, preventive maintenance practices, and many more that then fueled her creative juices and eventually took up architecture in college.

She graduated BS Architecture, ‘ cum laude” from the University of San Carlos, and proceeded to take a management course in AIM (Asian Institute of Management), to better understand the business world. She went on to take a Masters in Urban and Regional planning . By this time, her interest in heritage conservation came to fruition, out of wanting to conserve the historic urban core of Cebu. By then she had many friends at the port area, where she had spent 25 years picking up her father from his office in the pier area each day.. She felt these buildings needed to be conserved because they represented one of the last bastions of identity with which we Cebuanos identify with. Since the 1300’s, Cebu has survived because of shipping and trading. Addedly, she found many artisans in the area who knew how their forefathers built these old buildings. She founded the Cebu Heritage Conservation Council with the goal of organizing the people in conserving its identity. This meant utilizing heritage conservation as a tool in making its people in charge of their destinies rather than be recipients of charity. There were a number of marginalized people living in the area. She then authored the 3 volume Cebu Waterfront Study and made guidelines for its 20 year development plan, Together with the council members, they presented these to the landowners, the vendors, the people’s organizations, and to government Today, she is happy that their efforts did not go to waste, as no less than the president chose to make the Old Customs House her residence. The rest of the area in the waterfront is being developed right now, and it is open to the people. Once again, we can see the water from the city, whereas in the past, one would think of beaches when they thought seawater.

She then took a course in Integrated conservation in the UNESCO Asian Academy of Heritage Management , and thus, having learned conservation practices form all over Asia, sought to practice them back home where more people would be benefited.

She has 25 years of Integrative Architectural experience focusing on resource management that utilize traditional local , natural and manmade resources in producing an ecologically sound environment in the usage of its buildings, and the activities that are housed therein. Her long term goal is to pursue sustainable community development through participative governance in planning and training in management of local resources, employing relevant experience in the formulation of policies and implementation strategies in integrated conservation. Believing that a job worth doing is worth doing well, she currently sits as an Execom member of the Subcommittee on Monuments and Sites of the National Culture and Arts Commission, is the Philippine representative to the ICOMOS International Committee on Built Heritage, has been past president of the Cebu Chapter of the United Architects of the Philippines, and has founded an NGO (Non-Government Organization), to help barangay communities identify their local cultural, natural and built resources, managing these resources and thereby utilizing heritage conservation as a tool in livelihood generation. She has been involved in design with strong environment considerations in her practice of architecture and planning, policy making in heritage conservation, and land use planning. She has continuing interest and research in alternative ecological systems to enhance soils, pest controls. and treatment of solid and liquid waste out of resources available in a locality. Continuous exploration has also led her to provide the linkages and benefits between conserving traditional and past methods of construction practices and environment conservation , foremost applied in renewable energy processes in her field of Integrative Architecture . These clean development systems are currently being implemented in the Philippines in her practice.

From health to homes to environment she lives with the firm belief that the key to everything is people. It is in learning how to deal with them and addressing their basic needs that one can make them understand what we are fighting for. Nature is God made, so lets take care of it!"

Heritage and environmental conservation is her advocacy. Meet Architect and Urban Planner Ma. Lourdes "Joy" Martinez-Onozawa, a Cebuana, born artistically inclined and raised in a home where gardening was everyone's delight and chore. St. Theresa's College Cebu was her formative school from kindergarten to high school. College years were at the University of San Carlos, Talamban, Cebu, graduating in 1980, with a bachelors degree in architecture , cum laude . She graduated from a Tourism course of the Department of Tourism held jointly with the Cebu Normal College in 1984, and was simultaneously awarded the Most Outstanding Graduate. She obtained a Diploma in Integrated Conservation from the Asian Institute of Heritage Management and her Master's Degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of the Philippines, Diliman.

Fast forward in 2001, she was a recipient of The Cebu City Charter Awards for community service, for efforts on an epical journey advocating on the conservation of the historical architectural "blue print" of Old Cebu. In August 2007, was one of recipients of the Ten Most Outstanding Cebuanos in the field of Architecture for her practice of Green Architecture. She integrates local resources, capacity building for local communities , support it's environmental management while integrating a concerted effort to provide livelihood projects.

Her ongoing epic does not end in Cebu. She extended consultations on conservation projects for the USAID (United States Agency for International Development, the World Bank, and AusAID , in Subic , Saranggani, Masbate, Iloilo, Guimaras, Zamboanga, Dapitan and General Santos. Efforts have extrapolated to the international arena with invitations from the World Bank and UNESCO (United Nations Education, Science, and Culture Committee), and visited countries; China,Inner Mongolia, Tibet, Macau, Hongkong, Singapore, Thailand , Laos, Burma, Malaysia, Malacca, Australia, India, Indonesia, Rome, France, Guam , Spain, Brazil, continually advocating, consulting, and learning ways to inform people about the vital linkages between tradition and present day conservation. Moving on today , restoring vernacular architecture while preventing environmental decay, her long term goal is aimed at integrating the many angles of community development to make Filipinos proud and aware of their roots, history and cultural wealth.

Her parents, Jesus and Rosario Martinez have inculcated in her the need to make life meaningful by doing something greater than themselves. She carries on this legacy to her work and to her children.

This is her story