Moments 2: Mache Torres

The first Peace President that I interviewed was Mache Torres sometime in March 2013. The plan at that time was a flashy magazine called LEADERS and feature some business and political leaders who are also Rotarians in RI District 3830 initially. When it was decided by Gov. Sue and her editorial team to produce a yearbook, this is what I submitted to the team. I am sure this draft is not the one that was published because all papers are in first person, not third person, narrative. I was impressed by Mache’s story, hence, I am posting this.

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Marichelle “Mache” Torres

Rotary Club of Makati Uptown

Helping women prisoners, not on legal counseling but via hypnotherapy, is a new and novel community service for Rotarians. There are plenty of depressed women inmates and there is deep need for more therapists there. Women who already regretted the wrong acts they have done, or were unjustly accused and detained, or have already served their sentence but cannot leave on time due to certain bureaucracies.

This is the path taken by Peace President Marichelle “Mache” Torres. The Rotary Club of Makati Uptown has adopted the Correctional Institute for Women (CIW) in Mandaluyong City as their main community service area. Mache goes there at least once a week to give free services to women inmates. She has also developed a special program for inmates who will be released within six months.

There was this lady prisoner that Mache has helped for many months until she got out of prison. She was good, was jolly and not doing drugs inside. When she got out, she turned to drugs due to depression. Her family has rejected her and did not welcome her back in the house. Mache felt bad that this happened to one of her favorite and joyful patients at the Correctional.

Mache held her club induction at the Correctional – the first rotary club induction in that institution ever. The Governor’s Visit to her club was also held there. This should be a record in the history of both Philippine Rotary and the CIW.

And there’s more. Mache also visits the maximum penitentiary at Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa and  do therapy sessions to some male prisoners, again for free.  And she also helps some returning women OFWs who were traumatized with bad work experience or been sexually abused abroad, also for free.

Mache is a certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, specializing in 5th Path Hypnotherapy, and a 7th Path Self-Hypnosis teacher She is the Founder and President of the Mache Torres Advocacy & Leadership Programs, Inc. (MTALPI, see machetorres.com), an academy that focuses on self-leadership, as well as the Founder/President of the Transformational Advocacy thru Self-Awareness (TASA).

So what is hypnotherapy? It is the science of applying hypnosis or focused consciousness to move a person towards good health and wellness. So a hypnotherapist like Mache is often called a “life teacher”. They help troubled, depressed, or simply confused people unload some personal baggage so they can move on with their lives. Towards unbound potentials and possibilities. Cool career, isn’t it?

Mache says that troubled and unhappy people carry any or all of these three enemies within them: anger, guilt and fear. So to fight such depression and confusion, one must unload all of them. Not just one or two but the three of them, and inner peace can be attained.

She used to be a depressed and confused woman herself after a failed marriage with four daughters to raise. She tried escapism and travels but the pain and anger were still inside her. In one of her trips to the US, she stumbled upon some professionals in hypnotherapy. She was once a patient of this science, she got well.

Happy with the result, she went back to the US and took basic and advance courses in Clinical Hypnotherapy at the Banyan Hypnosis Center, in Orange County, California. And that is where she got her degree as a certified Clinical Hypnotherapist. She can practice in the US if she wants to.

She published her first book with an attractive and self-explanatory title, "Learn to Live Life. Passionately, with No Bounds!",

Mache belongs to, or has headed, several NGOs. Like the Zonta International, the Jaime Torres Educational Foundation, a church group and Rotary. Where does she enjoy the most?

Without batting an eyelash or even thinking deep, her quick answer was Rotary. She says that  “Rotary has a more wholistic approach to serving other people. Zonta helps only women and children. The Torres Foundation helps student scholars, the church group focuses mainly on spiritual affairs. In Rotary, there are many avenues of service – the youth, the community, the club, career and vocation, and foreign and international partners. And there are the six Areas of Focus. Rending meaningful community service is a lot more systematic, coordinated and wholistic in Rotary.”

This is one of the perks of interviewing highly energetic, positive and forward looking people. They send some sort of electrical energy, positive karma and similar mantra of cheerfulness and positivism from them to the interviewer.