Sister Mary Chritine Tan, R.G.S.
Amanda Tan was born November 30, 1930 to an upper-class Chinese Filipino family in Manila.
She spent 16 years of her religious life in the convent. Highly intelligent and driven, she became the first Filipino head of the Philippine Province of the Regious of the Good Shepherd.
Eventually the socio-politico injustices of the Martial Law years (1972-1986) glavanized her religious foundations and reinvented her into an outspoken political activist who fought for the restoration of democratic right. She describes her life as a search for justice inside and outside the Church; a search for God, for authenticity, for true freedom; a search to give people a taste of a life that is truly human.
In the late 1970's and in keeping with this search, she moved from the convent to Leveriza, a slum area in Manila rife with poverty, drugs, and crime.
In 1984, she along with five other RGS sisters, estalbishe the Alay Kapwa Kritiyanong Komunidad. Its mission was "to improve the lives of the urban poor by providing them with livelihood and spiritual growth." To this end, Alay Kapwa provided the urban poor community with spiritual enrichment programs, aid such as feeding and daycare, and educational scholarships.
Her work inspired rich and poor alike. Former Philippine President Corazon C. Aquino praised her as a great woman with true integrity, patriotism, selflessness and dedication.
In early 2000, she was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Even as she fought this last battle, she thought of ways to continue to serve God. In her words, "There is an intensity within me to give all of my life to God in any way that evolved--be this with the poor or even though sickness. An in th pouring I shall stive to be poor and pure." She died on October 7, 2003. - from Amzon