Z Santillan: Mga Mandirigma ng Lokal na Komunidad ng Kalusugan ꕤ Isang Serya ng Talang Dalisay Para sa HEARTH Summit

Name, age, where you are from, where you currently live.

My name is Z Santillan. I am an artist, advocate, and educator based in Cavite. I am the daughter of Veah Go Aoyang from Palapag, Northern Samar and RD Centeno Santillan from Geguinto, Bulacan. I am carried to the present by the dreams and sacrifices of my parents and grandparents who migrated, worked hard, and strived for a better life. 

What started your personal wellness journey? Walk us through how this sparked in your life. 

There were years when I thought I could be invincible and keep going in fast paced environments. I juggled multiple jobs and responsibilities non-stop for eight years and in 2021, I collapsed. It was difficult for me to get up from bed and find the energy to show up. I was experiencing burnout. Burnout led me to rethink wellness, who is it for, and rebuild strength by drawing firmer boundaries.

My two-year recovery was incubated within the wisdom of nature and a newfound community when I started Pilipinas Journal. While I was organizing and facilitating for others, I found the relief and courage to start again in their presence. I learned that no pain must be carried alone, just as our joys and blessings are best celebrated with others. 

Burnout taught me that the practice of wellbeing is not linear nor solely personal, but circular and interconnected. Our wellbeing is linked with each other and not against one another. It is a dance of pakikipagkapwa (shared identity) that intertwines personal with community care, and advocates for pananagutan (accountability), kapatiran, and kagandahang loob. It is realizing the need to be tender to each other and to be critical on the systems we swim in. It is a continuous commitment to be more helpful instead of causing more harm.

I also realized that my wellness extends beyond my ego boundaries. Ginhawa (shared wellbeing) does not separate the self from kalikasan (environment). It is about living in harmony with my kapwa – people, plants, animals, and all living beings. It helped me remember and recognize that we can reroot back to an ancestral perspective where there is no separation between human beings and the natural world.

What are personal practices that you consistently have been carrying out that has been helping your wellbeing? How do you balance advocating for others' wellness aside from your own? 

I constantly remind myself that my first role in the world is a human being. A human being who needs to breathe, bask under the sun, move her body, rest, connect with others, and play. Without these fundamentals, I wouldn't be able to sustain the work required to show up in the world and I’d risk losing what it means to truly live, rather than just exist.

Being alive is an immense gift and responsibility. But it takes a lot of sustained work to metabolize this state of enoughness, especially when culturally, our economy is powered by wanting and longing to be more and to accumulate more. 

‘Sapat na’ is a liberating mindset I practice that grounds me on the truth that who we are is inherently enough. It is a source of abundance, acceptance, and renewal for my well-being that trickles to everything I do and everyone I meet. It sustains the fire and joy in my creative and advocacy works—whether through drawing, writing, or designing a new program for social impact. I am most creative when tapping into this mindset. In return, the creative work helps me transform tension, aches, and worries into beauty, new discoveries, and pathways to freedom.

Tell us about your advocacy, your work here, and what you all aim to do with it together. 

I've been involved in the interconnected advocacies of mental health, climate justice, environmentalism, and human rights for 13 years. I feel that this culminated in starting Pilipinas Journal in 2021. I realized that education holds the key to empowering individuals to exercise their rights. It also weaves the seemingly disconnected issues, from environmental issues to inequality, that I want to help dissolve.

After teaching for three years and witnessing how colonialism persists in the education system, among other issues, I began to wonder about: how might revisiting indigenous knowledge, values, and biodiversity inform the way the Filipinos collectively dream and act towards positive change? Pilipinas Journal (School of Deliberative Futures then) was born to explore and experiment around this thought bubble in July 2021.

Today, Pilipinas Journal (PJ) explores how a culturally-relevant education can contribute towards a today and tomorrow that is maginhawa (shared wellbeing), mapag-alaga (caring), at makatarungan (socially just).

My hope in starting PJ is that we get to democratize and decolonize learning so we can support more people deliberately transform the present. Like many, I feel powerless at times with the recurring patterns of extraction, exploitation, and dependency we face as Filipinos. But through PJ, I want to present an alternative: that we have the power to create the culture we dream of, and to be part of practical utopias that are compassionate, meaningful, and healing.

I see my work as a gardener planting seeds of hope. I organize, facilitate, and design programs that put an emphasis on interconnectedness and the importance of community care and action.

Through PJ, I plant these seeds by sharing culturally relevant learning materials that rebuild our local knowledge systems and de-center colonial mindsets and habits. We also host learning experiences and community meet-ups that center connections at the heart of learning. These gatherings are an invitation to rediscover and reconnect with our personal and shared stories, as well as with the biodiversity and values of the islands that nurtured us.

With your aforementioned answer, what are current and future plans people could look forward to when involving communities in the Philippines? How could people give back to this space or get involved? 

We’re cooking up more activities in the upcoming year and we’d love to invite you in our:

Tagpuan: Community Meet-Ups. These are community gatherings that restore connection with one another and with the planet, creating a shared space for dialogue, collaboration, and mutual support. This is for anyone who’d like a sneak peek into how we facilitate our events - PJ style!

Pamana: Learning Talks and Retreats. These are designed to reignite the joy and innate curiosity of learning. Learning Retreats are workshops, usually lasting a bit longer, that are perfect for people who enjoy making deeper connections with others. It’s a space to explore new ideas, think in fresh ways, and grow together in a supportive and welcoming environment.

Gabay Guro Program. Gabay Guro is our flagship program designed to assist community and public school educators in healing, strengthening their practices, and advancing their professional development. We are looking for people who can support the project by donating, volunteering, or offering expertise in workshops such as facilitators or project coordinators.

These are four reasons to connect with us: 

• If you're working to enhance your school or organization's impact on localization, quality education, or reducing inequalities, we welcome collaborations that help create deeper, more meaningful change.

• If you're looking for a partner organization with shared values to collaborate on future events or initiatives, we'd love to explore ways to co-create transformative projects together.

• If you’re a writer, photographer, or a creative looking to contribute to our Creator’s Network, helping amplify our mission to democratize and decolonize learning through the power of storytelling and creative expression.

• If you’re ready to build a movement with us, that is focused on a today and tomorrow that is maginhawa, mapag-alaga (caring), at makatarungan (socially just).

If you’d like to explore how we can work together or simply have a chat, you can reach me at @pilipinasjournal on Facebook and Instagram or via email at hi.phjournal@gmail.com. I love reading messages and seeing what new ideas or questions come up.

What would you say to encourage Filipinos to go out of their comfort zone to destigmatize mental health & wellness? 

I believe in the power of pakikipagkwentuhan (storytelling) and asking questions to destigmatize mental health and wellness. A simple ‘kamusta ka?’ can open a portal of connection, trust, and understanding. It humanizes daily encounters such as meetings and transactions.

Not to mention that we (Filipinos) love chikahan and kwentuhan! It's a practice that can turn off shame, judgement, and misconceptions when done with openness, understanding, and curiosity. The next time a person might say something harmful such as “baka may topak yan”, we can pause and ask, “teka lang, baka may pinanggagalingan siya. Ano kaya ang nangyari sa kanila?”. Open-ended questions like these invite us to pause, reconsider, and reconnect with our humanity.

We all have a part to play in the different societal sicknesses we belong to. 

Everyday, we hold the power to make a choice: 

Do I want to fuel division, or do I want to build bridges of understanding?

Do I want to be part of the problem, or can I take small but meaningful steps to nudge towards a solution?

Do I want to stay comfortable, or am I willing to embrace discomfort for growth?

Do I want to spread apathy, or can I be a source of hope and courage?