InsiderPH features the inspiring stories of Metrobank Foundation’s awardees as Outstanding Filipinos for 2025—teachers, soldiers and police officers who are making significant contributions to nation building.
Most days, he is just a man with a lesson plan, a worn-out bag, and the enduring belief that the future is still worth building.
At South Hill School, where he has taught Physics and Mathematics for more than two decades, his title is a “teacher.” Yet, Sir Aman is, more accurately, a mentor who believes that even in a fractured world, children can still be taught not only science, but also kindness.
The turning point
He wakes up early in Santa Rosa, Laguna, boards a bus to Los Baños, and by the time the morning sun threads through the trees of South Hill School, he has already imagined the day: the questions they will ask, the long pauses, the eyes drifting to the window. He has already rehearsed how to make gravity feel like more than just a theory.
He didn’t plan to become a teacher. Trained as a chemical engineer, following the path set by an older brother, he was on the cusp of joining a multinational firm when he accepted a short-term job as an UPCAT review instructor. The first time he faced a classroom, he discovered what felt like a long-hidden calling, “like I had discovered a part of myself that had been waiting quietly all along,” he says.
Later, as a volunteer teacher in a juvenile detention facility in Majayjay, Laguna, he witnessed education as an act of rescue. For the neglected, criminalized, and forgotten boys, learning was like “watching windows open in a room that had long been closed,” he recalls.
From then on, the engineer chose to stay in the classroom.
Beyond the classroom
His style of teaching is defined by humor and creativity. He launches water-bottle rockets to demonstrate Newton’s Third Law. He turns science symposia into debates on ethics. His class is equal parts laboratory and sanctuary, where students learn about equations and, occasionally, themselves.
“I want to be remembered not just for the lessons I taught,” he says, “but for the lives I touched."
He talks a lot about joy, which is not the first word most people associate with education in the Philippines. But Molin’s idea of joy is specific: it’s the moment a struggling student solves a problem without fear. It’s in the trembling voice of a kid finding the courage to speak up during a debate. It’s in the letters from alumni who thank him for how he made them believe they were capable of more.
That belief has borne fruit. His students have gone on to speak at the United Nations (UN), won international sustainability prizes, and launched social enterprises. They have competed in the Yale and Harvard Model United Nations.
One of his proudest moments was guiding a student delegation in a mock trial on human rights held at the UN Headquarters in New York–an experience that felt both surreal and deeply earned, proving that Filipino students can take their place on the world stage.
“It wasn’t about the grandeur,” he says. “It was about taking a stand.”
Ideas into action
Beyond teaching, Molin founded two initiatives that embody his vision of education as both science and service: Youthniversal Collaboration for Sustainability (YC4S) and Kindness for PEACE.
Youthniversal Collaboration for Sustainability or YC4S began as an extracurricular waste-segregation project and has grown into an international platform for students to contribute their sustainable solutions for the environment.
Today, it operates on three tiers – Ideation, Building Connections, and Community Engagement – and partners with organizations as far-flung as the Zayed Sustainability Prize in the UAE and SEAMEO in Japan.
His students design mobile apps, prototype green technologies, and pitch real solutions to global problems. The aim is not to earn awards (though those come, too) but to train students to see their communities as sites of innovation.
Kindness for PEACE started in 2018 when Sir Aman and his mentor Carmencita “Menchie” T. Nolasco, noticed a pattern of bullying and emotional burnout in the school.
K4P, as it came to be known, teaches empathy like it’s a science. Students are taught to speak from multiple perspectives, to reflect before reacting, to perform acts of kindness with the same regularity as homework.
Subprograms like Rak on!, Gandhi TALKS and Project Kindred have made their way into sister schools across Southeast Asia.
“In a world this divided,” he says, “teaching empathy is as urgent as teaching science.”
'Not just work, it's a mission'
Outside of the classroom, Sir Aman’s life is less glamorous than his students might imagine. He balances teaching in Los Baños with doctoral studies in Diliman and family obligations in Santa Rosa.
His finances are tight; his schedule is tighter. He writes at night. He reads journal articles on the bus. He has a folder of rejected grant proposals and a spreadsheet of upcoming deadlines.
When asked how he endures it, he says: “I stay focused on what I can control. And I remind myself that purpose is a kind of fuel.”
He has, over the years, turned his limitations into leverage. Scholarships, fellowships, and late-night study sessions have shaped not just his CV, but his character. “This isn’t just work,” he says. “This is mission.” —Metrobank Foundation
