“If you are not within my expectations, I would tend to…wonder why you are in Ateneo,” she said.
This belief in setting high standards and demanding too much may have led Ibarra to be awarded as the Outstanding Finance Educator for the National Capital Region for the 2008-2009 FINEX-CITI Rafael B. Buenaventura Outstanding Finance Educator Awards (FINEX-CITI).
The FINEX-CITI aims to recognize the outstanding qualities and contributions of finance teachers. It also helps inspire teachers to achieve excellence in finance education.
The awarding ceremony was held on January 28 at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Manila.
“An achievement”
Ibarra said that it was an honor to finally win the FINEX-CITI. “Getting the Outstanding [Finance Educator Award] is an achievement.”
She attributed her win to her 30 years of teaching, as well as her research work and presentation of finance papers abroad.
The most recent presentation she had was on October 2008 at the International Conference in the Academy of Accounting and Financial Studies in Reno, Nevada. Ibarra presented an article entitled “Corporate Governance and Developments in the Philippine Accounting Profession,” along with Economics Associate Professor Luis Dumlao, Ph.D. and Department of Leadership and Strategy Professor Carmelo Francisco Lopez.
High expectations, motherly care
Ibarra said that the students are the inspiration for her work.
“They [the students] become a challenge to me…how to teach accounting in a better way. That’s why I exert effort…to teach,” she said.
One of her students, Paolo Jose Halagueña (II BS Mgt), said that Ibarra’s style of teaching is good in the long run. “The way she teaches theories is very practical … She makes it a point na ipakita yung (to show the) situations in real life.”
Outside the classroom, Ibarra described herself as “an ordinary person.”
“I’m not strict outside, the way I am strict with my students. Maybe…after being my student, you could be a friend to me,” she said.
Yvette Marie Velasco (IV BS Mgt) found Ibarra “funny and nice” when the latter accompanied her to the China Study Tour. “She would crack jokes, share stories about herself, and was basically our mother on the tour.”
Nikola Noellee Lim (IV BS Mgt), who shared a room with Ibarra during the China Study Tour, said that her experience would not have been fun if Ibarra wasn’t around.
“Eventually, we realized that as a teacher, she may have that iron grip on her students to drive them to do their best in class, but outside the academic field, she is still that kind-hearted and caring mother to us whom she considered as her own children back there,” she said.
“An honor”
Halagueña said that he knew from the beginning that Ibarra was “an extraordinary teacher.”
“Ngayon (Now), you realize that you realize that you’re being [taught] by one of the best finance teachers in the country. It’s an honor,” he said.
Lim, meanwhile, wished for “good health, a happy life, and continuing success” for Ibarra. “I hope that she would continue to inspire, motivate, and shape young minds just as she has done to me.”
