This National Heroes Day weekend, let’s be real, most of us are thinking about the long weekend, not the actual heroes. But this year, I have been thinking about what modern heroism actually looks like.
I am thinking of one specific Davaoeña hero, in fact. One who is fighting today’s battles with something less dramatic, but arguably just as important — data, transparency, and the audacity to build something that actually works.
I am thinking about Tagum City-based tech entrepreneur, Cherryanne Lee Angoy, the founder and CEO of AIMHI, a finalist in the 2026 Presidential Filipinnovation Awards and winner of the “Startup of the Year” award at the Davao Startup Champion Awards in 2024.
Every hero has an origin story. After graduating from Ateneo de Davao University with a degree in Management Accounting, Cherryanne embarked on a remarkable career in the United States where she held leadership positions in a Fortune 100 company for 16 years. Despite her success in California, at the heart of Silicon Valley, she chose to come home in 2017. To Davao. To the chaotic, frustrating reality of Philippine construction.
She became a local builder. She dealt with delayed deliveries, spotty cell service, and the eternal question: “Where did the materials go?” She learned that in the Philippines, building a simple drainage canal can feel like storming a fortress — not because of geography, but because of systemic inefficiency.
That’s where her heroism kicks in. Instead of ranting about it (which is a favorite Filipino pastime), she decided to build a weapon. Not a kris or a bolo, but something far more lethal to corruption and delay — an AI-driven construction management platform called AIMHI.
AIMHI stands for “Artificial Intelligence Meets Human Intelligence.” Cute, right? But don’t let the jargon fool you. This platform is a straight-up kryptonite for project delays and, yes, for the quiet corruption that bleeds our infrastructure dry.
What makes AIMHI a hero’s tool? It is an AI-powered construction project management platform designed specifically for Filipino contractors. The platform addresses a critical challenge in the Philippine construction industry — poor internet connectivity at remote job sites.
It works offline. Because Cherryanne knows that in many parts of Mindanao and even within Davao Region, your signal is about as reliable as a politician’s promise. Site engineers can log geotagged photos, worker attendance, and material usage without internet. When they get a signal, it syncs automatically. No more “lost” reports. No more “accidental” data gaps.
It flags anomalies in real time. Think of it as a site engineer with a very suspicious mind. If material costs suddenly spike or worker attendance drops inexplicably, the AI raises a red flag while the project is still ongoing. Not after the budget is gone. Not after the deadline has passed. Let me write it in all caps: DURING. That’s the difference between catching a thief in the act and holding a press conference about a “lessons learned” report.
It consolidates everything. No more six different group chats, three paper logs, and a whiteboard someone erased. AIMHI puts scope of work, materials, human resources, equipment, and progress into one auditable dashboard. That means no more “creative accounting” because every detail is geotagged, time-stamped, and immutable.
By creating AIMHI, Cherryanne deserves a spot in our National Heroes Day reflection — not only by creating something revolutionary (it is the first tool of its kind in the entire Philippines), but also by creating something that can restore trust.
We all know the statistics by now. Out of a massive ₱545.6 billion allocated for flood control mitigation, estimates from economic analysts and the Department of Finance (DOF) indicate that delayed, anomalous, and underperforming projects resulted in ₱42.3 billion to ₱118.5 billion in direct economic losses. Beyond the balance sheets, this capital drain translated into 95,000 to 266,000 uncreated or lost potential jobs, shaving crucial percentage points off national economic growth and deepening the erosion of public trust in government institutions.
When a project finishes on time and on budget because of AIMHI, that means a family in Cainta doesn’t wake up to knee-deep water in their living room. A sari-sari store in Naga stays open during monsoon season. A construction worker actually gets paid for days they worked, not for days someone claimed they worked. A government auditor can see the truth without having to chase down “lost” receipts.
That’s heroism. Not the kind that gets a statue in Luneta, but the kind that saves homes, jobs, and futures. And it’s powered by a Davaoeña who refused to accept “that’s just how it is” as an answer.
Of course, a Davaoeña will fix a national problem. Cherryanne represents a distinctly Davao trait — practical action over endless debate. We’re a region of pioneers that builds, not just talks. We’re a city that implemented disaster preparedness decades before it was cool. We’re a community that knows you can’t just wait for the national government to show up — we make it work ourselves.
And Cherryanne’s OFW background adds another layer. She saw how the world could work — with discipline, accountability, and efficiency — and she brought that home. But she didn’t just copy-paste a Silicon Valley solution, she localized it. She built for the reality of Mindanao and the Philippines: weak signals, rugged terrain, and a workforce that needs simple, intuitive tools.
That’s not just innovation. That’s indigenized innovation. And that’s something worth celebrating.
The construction industry in the Philippines has historically been an old boys’ club. I am talking hard hats, heavy equipment, and heavy egos. Women in the sector? Usually relegated to paperwork and making coffee, if they’re included at all. The assumption has always been — construction is for men. You need to be tough and gruff. You need to have, shall we say, a certain familiarity and ease with how things get “greased” to move along.
But here comes Cherryanne — with fellow female co-founders, Monica Llamas-Turrecha (chief technology officer) and Atty. Janice Tejano (chief governance officer) — waltzing into this male-dominated arena and saying, “We can build better, faster, and more honestly than any of you.”
While generations of male contractors and project managers were content to do the things “the old way” (read: the corrupt way), a woman from Davao said, “Nah, I’ll build something that fixes this mess.”
So on National Heroes Day, let us raise a glass to Davaoeñas who are fighting for our country not with guns or speeches, but with technology, data, and an unshakable belief that Filipinos deserve better.
Yes, when we are flooded with corruption and inefficiencies, we Filipinos should AIMHI. ###
