landmark forum grad Evelyn Cu-Unjieng
Evelyn Cu-Unjieng
The Phillipines

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After Many Ups and Downs, a Huge Success

I'm the eldest of four children and in charge of taking care of the business for my father's trading company. Our company is engaged in soil erosion control products and specialty engineering systems. I'm the vice president and the authorized distributor of six foreign companies from Europe and Asia. Also, I am married with four children of my own. At the time that I did The Landmark Forum in the United States, my children were teenagers, my father was ill, I was dealing with an illness of my own, and I was managing a thriving business. My life was a bit overwhelming to me and I slumped into a low period.

While resting in the San Francisco Bay Area (after taking care of my father there for four months), I was staying with my brother, Eric Golangco, and his family. It just so happened that my sister-in-law, Marsha Golangco, had participated in The Landmark Forum and invited me to explore it for myself. I found it very interesting and wanted to do it. It turned out that a Landmark Forum was scheduled for a weekend that I was there. The Landmark Forum cleared things up for me. I realized that I needed to take care of myself in addition to taking care of everybody else. I found I could invest some energy and attention into myself, be responsible for my own satisfaction and my own life, and still have everybody around me flourish.

I became involved in multiple activities and really began expressing myself in the world. For three years, I volunteered for an organization to help oversees workers adapting to their new environments. I also went back to graduate school at my alma mater, the University of the Philippines, to take up creative writing courses and, at the same time, joined a private class on watercolor painting. I'm a board member of a private foundation that supports priests working in rural areas and I have my regular prayer group and book club. And, would you believe, I'm doing all these on top of maintaining my work schedule and relationships with my family and friends!

Naturally, I wanted to share the benefits I had gotten from The Landmark Forum with others. I thought bringing The Landmark Forum to the Philippines was an impossible dream until I responded to an email from Chiqui Veneracion, a graduate here in Manila. She was in contact with a group of graduates in Los Angeles who were talking about bringing Landmark to the Philippines. Then Father Gregg Bañaga, who was referred to me by Marsha, emailed to say he was coming back home to the Philippines. He began leading Introductions here. The first one was held in my home. For some time, the three of us, Father Banaga, Chiqui, and myself were the only ones working on this in the Philippines. Without a venue and without a date, we still managed to get over 100 letters of intent. Then Romel Axibal and Aljor Perreras came to Manila. We built up momentum and met two more graduates here that joined our efforts. Even so, there were many ups and downs and many successes and breakdowns before we got a firm date for the first Landmark Forum in the Philippines.

We kept the dream alive in our hearts, believing one day The Landmark Forum will come. In fact, it did - thanks to the team of graduates in the Philippines, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Area, New York, Florida, Beijing, and Singapore, and especially to Jerome Downes, who worked with us for three years to make it happen.

For me, The Landmark Forum is my way of reaching out to others. The Landmark Forum helps me to be the greatest version of the grandest vision of who I am and what I want to become. I want to share this with others, and Landmark is a perfect vehicle for it.