FOUNDERS

MARIA ROWENA BALMORES- VICTORINO, M.Ed., RN, BSN, CRN

Weng as everybody calls her, is one of the founders of the Philippine Tourette Syndrome Association. She had been doing formal research about Tourette Syndrome even before her interest in forming the organization. She is a registered nurse by profession with hemodialysis as specialization and currently working in a US Dialysis Company in the Philippines. She graduated her Bachelor of Science in Nursing in the University of Santo Tomas in 1999, took her Masters Degree in Education in the University of the Philippines and graduated in 2008.

Weng's interest to form the organization started when symptoms of TS had been observed from a family member. Emphatizing with the difficulty that a person with TS has to face in everyday of his life, Weng saw the need to make people aware of the disorder. Hence, eversince the formation of the organization, Weng hasn't stop working on her advocacy for Tourette Syndrome in the Philippines. She continued to talk about it in seminars, proposed TS to be exposed in media and worked all the way thru developing materials for information dissemination. Truly this has been a very remarkable experience for somebody whose caring profession as a registered nurse had been stretched out for a lifetime community service for people with Tourette Syndrome.



MARLON BARNUEVO


Marlon is the co- founder of the organization. He earned his bachelor's degree in Industrial Design from DLSU- College of St. Benilde in 2000. Armed with nothing but a student's design portfolio, he landed on his first job as designer at Duane Quintal Associates, where he had the rare opportunity of working with one of the Philippine's pioneer in the ID profession and renowned Corporate Identity Designer, the late Duane Quintal Sr. He was eventually promoted as Senior Designer until his resignation in 2004, when he decided to pursue a career in music with his band, 3rd Avenue.

Marlon's interest in taking part of the formation of the organization is basically rooted from the fact that TS had been his companion for the longest time. Although he had a lot of difficulties with the disorder, this hadn't stopped him from pursuing what he liked best----music. In fact, he had become the icon of the organization for success and been inspiring children with TS to be functional individuals and be successful in all of their endeavors in life.