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Edicio de la Torre was an activist priest who fought for farmers’ rights and land reform in the ‘70s. He got involved in various urban poor community organizing programs and helped mobilize students and the Christian youth against the Marcos dictatorship. During the time of President Marcos, he joined the underground left in 1972, just four years after he was ordained as priest. He was captured twice and spent over nine years in various prisons. As one of the former prisoners and activists targeted by the extra-judicial killings in the 1980s, he left the country and spent four and a half years in Europe working with solidarity groups and Filipino migrants. He had since left the priesthood.

He returned home in 1992 and founded the “Education for Life Foundation,” an NGO that trains new grassroots leaders in the politics of participation. In 1998, under the Estrada administration, De la Torre, became director general of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.

De La Torre is also a founding fellow of the non-government organization La Liga Policy Institute, vice-president of the Association for World Education, and chairperson of the Boards of Empowering Civic Participation in Governance, Institute for Popular Democracy and Asia-Pacific Communication Forum. He works with NGOs in the fields of democratization and development, emphasizing education and leadership formation, project design, and implementation and evaluation using participatory methods.

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