Some Filipino kids remain poor, unschooled

PERLA ARAGON-CHOUDHURY, Philippine Human Rights Reporting Project

06/13/2008

QUEZON CITY, Philippines - Pepe, 12, is busy helping his mother package loose garlic cloves for sale. "Before I go to school," he says," I put the cloves in plastic packs and staple them onto strips of cardboard. And when I get back home, I walk with my mother to the stores around Tandang Sora."

Working in this main thoroughfare of Quezon City with his mother, Pepe endures the fierce afternoon sun, as shown by his dark brown skin. But he is proud to have finished Grade 6 -- and happy that his cousin Jeffrey will return to school after dropping out last year.

Pepe and Jeffrey descended from tenant farmers who once toiled the land here before it was converted into subdivisions for the burgeoning population in the Philippines.

Their grandmother talks of a time when the family had enough for all their needs. But today they have lost the lands and their livelihoods to become tricycle and jeepney drivers or sidewalk vendors who are not allowed in to sell at the nearby private market.

Pepe is not the only working-class student determined to stay in class. In a garbage pile near a big drugstore along Tandang Sora, Mac-Mac, 12, checks for plastic bottles to sell. "I can get a good price for the mineral water ones," he says indicating a junk shop along Visayas Avenue.

Mac-Mac is a fifth grader at a public school and proudly claims his teachers have awarded him `Best in Science' and `Top Five'.

"I want to be a doctor and treat people even if they are too poor to pay," he says as he carries a sack which once held the rice that the poor of Manila now queue for outside of the National Food Authority (NFA) on Visayas Avenue.

A kindly meat vendor in the nearby market worries out loud about the future if the children who work the streets here instead of being in school. "Just like the gangs in Oliver Twist, they'll probably lack the proper values, character formation, discernment and life skills," says Francisco Mondragon, 60.

"By late afternoon they are here at the market, asking for what we will discard," says Mondragon. "How will they get the jobs that just might lift them out of poverty if they're out of school?"

Shirley too works in the market. Poverty forced her to quit high school after her second year and she is now married to a seasonal construction worker earning what she can through buying and selling on fish to her equally poor neighbors. She makes very little in the way of profit.

But she hopes at l east her children with get a better chance of schooling than she ever did.

"I'm lucky that one of my sons impressed his teachers during the entrance interview at the rich pre-school in our area, and got a scholarship. I hope that he can still get one tomorrow when we enroll again in his new school. If not, he might have to quit."

The problem is education in the Philippines is free in principle –but not in practice. Pupils are routinely denied schooling for failing to wear the proper uniform or having the proper stationary or supplies.

Shirley's sons and a great many other children like them across the Philippines are being denied the right to an education which is contrary to Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) which states that "everyone has the right to education."

In 2000 - close to 50 years after it ratified the UDHR in 1948 – the Philippines became one of the signatories to the Millennium Declaration and committed to meet by 2015 eight goals that address development concerns worldwide.

Last year marked the midpoint for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but in its progress report last October, the Philippine government said there may be problems in achieving universal primary education.

Writing in the Philippine Center for Investigation (PCIJ) last month, Jaileen Jimeno described the state of education in the Philippines as dismal. "Since the Arroyo administration came to power in 2001, all key performance i ndicators in education in fact have floundered," she claims. "The percentage of schoolchildren who reach up to grade six, for instance, is down from a high of 75.9 percent in 2001 to 69.9 percent in 2006. Elementary dropout rate in 2001 was 5.75 percent, but went up to 7.36 in 2006. Those who repeat a grade is also up, from 1.95 percent in 2001 to 2.89 percent in 2006."

In large part, she says, problems can largely be traced to a decline in per capita spending for education and a booming population. Per capita spending for education currently stands around $25. This includes teachers' salaries and building and classroom maintenance. The result is that many schools and their teachers find creative ways of charging pupils and their families in order to raise much needed funds and supplementing income.

But as 20 million children trooped back to school this week, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo reminded teachers not to charge them fees and accept those who came without uniforms.

"We want to make it as small a burden as possible on parents to send their children to school. Just like in the United States and many parts of Europe, we should not require children to wear uniforms. We want to make sure that all our children go to school, especially our six-year-olds, because our statistics show that majority are at home."

The idea is to help children enter and stay in school. In this connection, the National Framework for Youth Development (Philippine Medium-Term Youth Developmen t Plan 2005-2010) cites Labor Code Article 139 which rules that children under 15 may not be employed (as do Republic Act or RA 9231 and 7858).

The Labor Code also prevents children under 16 - like Pepe and Mac-Mac - from working at night; those under 18 from working unless permitted by the Secretary of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE); and those below 18 from working in jobs hazardous to health, safety and morals.

Another set of laws - the Women and Child Labor Law, the Labor Code Article 150 and RA 8231 - stipulates that children below 15 are not permitted to work more than seven hours a day; and that no children below 14 are allowed to work as apprentices.

But what if students are near the point of dropping out?

The DOLE has its Special Program for Employment of Students to encourage the employment of poor but deserving students and out-of-school youth (OSY) during summer and Christmas breaks. The Department of Education has its Youth Action for Sustainable Development to teach students and OSY entrepreneurship, science, culture and the arts.

The scholarship for Shirley's son at Little Lamb Learning Center shows how private groups help prevent and lessen the number of school drop-outs. For its part, Miriam College offers night classes for adults wanting to go back into education. One of its students, Eileen Gardo, made it through the five-year high school course by combining housework with homework for her 5-9 p.m. classes.

She recalls:=2 0"At times, I had to wade through floods just to get to exams on time. Many evenings I had to go hungry because I had just enough cash for the jeepney fare but no money for food. But now I want to study hotel and restaurant management so that I can run my very own business. I'm good at cooking, you know."

Other private initiatives to keep children in schools come from major television networks which requests viewers to donate bags, notebooks, pencils and other school supplies.

And under the Adopt-a-School Program of the Department of Education, schools are built, repaired and maintained by the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce, the Coca-Cola Foundation, the SM Foundation and other socially responsible organizations.

Still other groups like Child Hope Asia use a comprehensive approach to ensure livelihood for urban poor families as well to keep children in school as long as possible.

One step at a time admittedly - but when many people move together, school children are helped on the road to a better life. - Philippine Human Rights Reporting Project

(The author is a freelance reporter specializing on women, children, reproductive health and religious issues. Names of the minors interviewed in this story have been changed to protect their identities.)