“Bridge between two worlds”: Project SIGND interpreters tell their stories

There is no way to overemphasize the importance of Sign Language interpreters in facilitating understanding between the Deaf and the hearing.?

With Sign Language being the most effective and preferred language when communicating with the Deaf, the provision of sign language interpreting ensures effective two-way communication between Deaf and hearing individuals, according to the Policy Roadmap and Toolkit for Deaf-Inclusive Climate Action. The latter is a handbook that will soon be published by the Oscar M. Lopez Center’s “Climate Resilience of the Deaf: Signs for Inclusive Governance and Development” (Project SIGND).?

As we enter the new year, we at Project SIGND celebrate our Filipino Sign Language (FSL) interpreters who make communication between the Deaf and hearing members of the team possible, with the ultimate goal of boosting the climate resilience of the Filipino Deaf community.

This time, three of our FSL interpreters speak for themselves and tell their own stories.

When Aimee Gabrielle Adiwang met a Deaf person for the first time through her Church community over a decade ago, she had no idea what to do. How would she talk to that person when she had only started learning how to sign the songs they sang during religious services??

She had first learned how to sign from a hearing mentor, using Signed Exact English: the use of signs as one’s basic linguistic unit of meaning, but constructed in sentences using English grammar or word order. This is different from using Sign Language, which is a visual and spatial language that relies on handshapes, facial expressions, and body movements to convey meaning.

“I was worried because I didn’t know whether we would understand each other. I didn’t know how to ask for help to sign a song because I wasn’t well-versed in communicating with them,” she recalled.?

It was only six years later that she would learn FSL from a Deaf mentor and realize that what she had been doing previously was ineffective.?

“So that was why I would notice the Deaf getting sleepy. Because I was signing word for word. When I started doing FSL, they said they understood it more than what I was doing before.”

She had thought she would become a journalist when she was in grade school, having loved writing from a young age. But in 2016, she was hired to become an FSL interpreter and realized that she felt passionate about it.?

“And it felt like the Lord brought me there because that was where my mission was,” Aimee said. “You’re bridging the communication gap between the hearing and Deaf people. Whether it’s pro bono or paid work, I just want to help the Deaf improve their lives. Because they want equality with us.”

From not knowing how to act around a Deaf person, Aimee is now in a relationship with a Deaf man, and can often be seen chatting and laughing with her Deaf colleagues. Professionally, she does FSL interpreting full-time, working for popular TV news programs and even reality shows. Her job includes a memorable assignment in 2023 where she did interpreting on 90 Day Fiancé for a Deaf American who was in Cebu to bring his Filipina fiancée to the States, where, according to visa requirements, they would need to get married within 90 days. (She also used some American Sign Language for this particular assignment.)

Her knowledge grows every day, especially now that she works with Project SIGND. “I learned a lot about climate change,” she said. “All along I thought earthquakes were part of it, but it wasn’t actually a climate change phenomenon. There are many vocabulary words that I needed to learn, relearn, and unlearn. Disaster risk reduction is also a whole different thing.”

14 years into FSL interpreting and Aimee is just beginning. She believes in being open-minded and saying yes to a variety of things. Who knows, she might even take up studies in climate science.?

“Go mo na ‘yan (Just go for it)!”

Patrick Palomares certainly went for it, simultaneously working in FSL interpreting while obtaining a certificate from the FSL Learning Program of the Benilde School of Deaf Education and Applied Studies at the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde.?

He had known Deaf persons all his life, including a relative who was his chess partner and first teacher in communicating with the Deaf. But it was only in 2010 that he began to study Sign Language seriously so he could evangelize to various households as a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses.?

The more he immersed himself in the Deaf community, the more he learned to sign. It helped that they welcomed him and taught him how to converse with them. He also had a Deaf mentor who helped him improve his signing until he decided to turn FSL interpreting into a career in 2018.

“From the time I was a volunteer until today, I enjoy it, more than any other work I had been doing. Aside from that, the love for the Deaf community [is the reason I do this], because I really see what they go through when I interpret. I see what their struggles are,” Patrick said.

Just like Aimee, he does FSL interpreting for the news, but he also helps Deaf individuals when they apply for work, for example, or when they attend trainings.?

Being part of Project SIGND has helped him improve his interpreting for weather news updates, having beefed up his FSL vocabulary for technical terms. He added that the involvement of climate scientists in the development of FSL signs to convey climate-related concepts has also made the FSL signs more accurate, as compared to consulting only with the Deaf who might not understand the science behind various climate phenomena.?

Whatever the project he is involved in, Patrick takes his role seriously. “I always do my best to encode or relay what’s being said,” he said. “I try to be neutral when it comes to voicing what the Deaf wants to communicate. I really try to voice what the Deaf sign as faithfully as I can. I know my limits as an FSL interpreter.”

Like Patrick and Aimee, Reiner Blas found his way to FSL interpreting through his religious beliefs. It was 1994, and he just wanted to share the Gospel with everyone.

“When I was on the LRT going to my school, Mapua, I saw a group of Deaf people just signing away. I wanted to tell them that God loved them, but I didn’t know how. That particular instance left a burden on me, that there’s a group of people that I cannot even communicate with to share God’s love. It’s like there’s another world within the world,” Reiner recalled.?

It made such an impression on him that he looked for an institution where he could learn Sign Language, which brought him to the Philippine Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (PRID) inside the Philippine School for the Deaf (PSD). He learned basic to advanced Sign Language here.

But he wasn’t content with just learning the theory. He wanted to apply his knowledge, and started volunteering for HALIKA, a foundation for persons with disabilities. Work was up to five in the afternoon, however, which meant the Deaf students that he could have talked to were no longer in school. So he would often visit Harrison Plaza, an old shopping area where Deaf students hung out.

While some of them didn’t really want to engage with him because they quickly realized that he wasn’t fluent in signing, one student was patient with him and taught him signs that he had not yet learned in class. Thus, Reiner was able to practice his lessons with her, until such a time that his boss at the foundation he volunteered at asked him to do interpreting work for its Deaf students. He later became a math and computer teacher at a private school for the Deaf, and “the rest is history.”

“I love what I do. I love languages,” Reiner said. “When I was in high school I had a chance to study in Papua New Guinea. I was petitioned by my father when I graduated elementary because he worked there. In our school we had a subject with two options, either French or German. I took German. I also learned their local language which is Pidgin. So that’s why I began to really love different languages. Which was why when I met those four Deaf people [in the LRT], I said to myself, ‘Oh, this is another language’. So I became interested in learning Sign Language.”

It’s a tough job. Working with Project SIGND, in particular, has required some technical knowledge of climate change to ensure accuracy in signing.?

The act of interpreting itself is grueling work. “For instance, there’s a meeting and there are no other interpreters available. It’s okay if it’s just one-hour long. You can manage that. But beyond that, your mind becomes tired and exhausted. So do your hands,” Reiner said.?

“Interpreting for a Deaf person, you have to do Filipino Sign Language while the hearing person is talking. On the other hand, when the Deaf responds, you would voice for the hearing person in correct English grammar as Sign Language is not based on writing. So that sudden shift in your brain, processing all the information in a split second, how you are going to interpret from signs to spoken words and vice versa, is really challenging and taxing,” he explained.

Since that fateful LRT ride, Reiner has done work outside of interpreting, at one time focusing on managing his own business. Today he is a valued member of the Project SIGND team, picking up where he left off in FSL interpreting to be able, in his words, to “serve as the bridge between two worlds.”

“The plight of the Deaf is the communication barrier,” Reiner said. “They would want to communicate and mingle with others, but unfortunately they cannot, unless the other side is patient enough to really accommodate the Deaf. If the hearing doesn’t know how to sign, the Deaf would write in English and pass the note, or even use text messaging. So if the other party, the hearing person, would be patient enough, then that's good. They can communicate.”

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About Project SIGND

Project SIGND is a grant mobilized through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Funding for Disability-Inclusive Climate Action (DICA). The grant is implemented under the larger project umbrella of the Investing in Sustainability and Partnerships for Inclusive Growth and Regenerative Ecosystems (INSPIRE) project administered by the Gerry Roxas Foundation.

Know more on OML Center's website: https://www.omlopezcenter.org/our-work/project-signd/