Best and worst of government

Commentary : Best and worst of government

By Denis Murphy
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Posted date: February 18, 2010

EVERY DAY IN METRO MANILA WE HAVE numerous examples of the best and worst practices of government. In Navotas, young policemen beat up poor women old enough to be their grandmothers. The women wouldn’t disperse from a barricade they had formed to protect their homes against actions of the Department of Public Works and Highways which they believed were illegal. Lawyers and other government offices agree with the women.

Meanwhile in Baseco, Manila Mayor Fred Lim and Barangay Chair Cristo Hispano have agreed to resettle 300 fire victim families in the most humane and efficient way possible.

Cora Geducos, 61, was one of the women beaten by police in Navotas along the R-10 road that runs along Manila Bay. “He held his shield against my face,” she said of the young policeman who clubbed her, “then he bent down and hit my legs and feet with his club.” She showed me her bandaged toe and the lesions on her arms. “I didn’t think they would do that to us. We were just protecting our homes and our rights as human beings. I feel very sad about what happened. It hurts to think they would do that to old women like myself.”

Sixteen other women showed their wounds, including Angelita Villaruel, Virginia Cantellas, Daisy Jalbuena and Emma Villaruel. Few wanted to give their ages.

Fr. Robert Reyes had led a prayer service in the street at which the men and women of the barricade laughed and cried, hugged one another, listened to the Scripture, prayed and sang “Ama Namin,” which has become the anthem of the oppressed ever since it was sung in the giant rallies that supported Cory Aquino before and after the snap election of 1986.

The women were also water cannoned from a distance of a few feet. The use of water cannons is illegal in such evictions. Water cannons on women!

Usually after big fires the government takes steps to keep the poor from returning to the land they occupied, because it believes it has better use for the land. The fire victims must look for land elsewhere. Mayor Lim, the barangay captain, the local people’s organization, Kabalikat and architects from the Mapua School of Architecture have agreed on something more useful.

They, too, will not allow people to return to the land they occupied, but only until the land has been surveyed and subdivided into lots, and then they can return. The new settlement will have straight roads for ambulance and fire engine access. Access is the biggest problem in most slum fires. The recent fire spread because fire trucks couldn’t get near it.

Second, the mayor and others will ask the Mapua School of Architecture to survey and plan the settlement in consultation with the people.

Third, the restructured area will be the model for the other 6,000 families living in barong-barongs in Baseco. Because the soil is very “risky” and liable to liquefaction in case of an earthquake, houses will be limited to one story. The people involved will work with neighborhood groups, including Muslim organizations and Fr. Cris Sabili and the St. Hannibal Empowerment Center (SHEC).

The fire area has been bulldozed, and now looks like an ancient battle field excavated after the ages. Individual men and women wander about on it, lost in their thoughts. The setting sun sends long shadows of playing children across the scorched ground. The people are content as they line up for relief goods; they don’t have to worry about relocation. That is, all the people except the parents of a little girl who died in the fire.

In Navotas the people live on land designated for the widening of R-10. They agree to move and they qualify in every way for the relocation ordered in the Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992. If they receive their relocation allowance, they will move.

The DPWH says it asked the National Housing Authority and other agencies to provide resettlement. When they couldn’t do so, the

DPWH claimed it had done all that was required and went ahead in another questionable way to plan the eviction. Instead of a home, it offered P21,000 to families to move, an alternative not mentioned in the law.

There is a greater willingness now even among the most influential government agencies to ignore the housing and resettlement laws. The government can deal kindly or cruelly with the poor, but there are serious consequences in this life and the next.

Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates. His email address is upa@pldtdsl.net.

©Copyright 2001-2010 INQUIRER.net, An Inquirer Company

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Media Advisory - CHILDREN’S MONTH CELEBRATION in Baseco

Attention: News Editor, News Desk, Reporters and Photojournalists

MEDIA ADVISORY

Baseco Inter-Agency Network
CHILDREN’S MONTH CELEBRATION
27 October 2009 / Tuesday
Baseco Compound, Brgy. 649, Zone 68, Port Area, Manila

Theme: “BRIGHT CHILD: PROTEKSYON NG BATA,
PANANAGUTAN NG BANSA!”

6:30-7:00 Assembly for the Parade

7:00-8:45 Parade

8:45-9:00 Snacks and Preparation for the Program

9:00-9:10 Invocation - Open Heart Foundation

9:10-9:15 National Anthem - World Vision Development Foundation

9:15-9:25 Welcome Remarks - Hon. Kristo Hispano, Brgy. Chairman

9:25-9:35 Special Message - Mr. Emmanuel Soriano, Principal

9:35-9:45 Special Message from a Child - Mark Lunchael Gadi, Lingap Pangkabataan

9:45-9:55 Intermission Number - WMC-CARE

9:55-10:25 Recognition of Outstanding Parents/Volunteers

10:25-10:35 Commitment Signing - Ms Lani Cantilang
Directress- WMC-CARE
10:35-11:25 Cheering Competition / Face Painting

11:25-11:30 Awarding of Winners

☼ World Mission Community – CARE ☼ Hope Worldwide Philippines ☼ Open Heart Foundation / Buklod ☼ Lingap Pangkabataan Foundation ☼ Manila Department of Social Welfare ☼ Kabalikat sa Pagpapaunlad ng Baseco ☼ World Vision Development Foundation ☼ Baseco Elementary School ☼ Barangay Council ☼

Dave’s wish

Youngblood : Dave’s wish

By Shella V. Espineli
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Posted date: December 23, 2008

Dave is a timid 10-year-old boy, who is small for his age. He is the fourth among six siblings and a hard-working Grade 5 student of mine. Three elder brothers and a sister are somewhere in Davao. He is the oldest among his brothers in Manila, and so his mother expects many things from him. He has to do the household chores—marketing, cooking, cleaning the house, washing dishes, doing the laundry and baby sitting. Before all this, he has to sell pan de sal and maja blanca starting at 4 a.m. and kamoteng kahoy at 10 a.m. He attends a tutoring class late in the morning and regular school in the afternoon. He sells tahong on weekends.

Whatever he earns he turns over to his mother to buy their food for the day. Sometimes he saves P3 to buy bread, or for his baon or to keep it in his coin bank, wishing to save enough to buy a pair of beautiful shoes for school.

No matter how tired he is, Dave never absents himself from the tutoring program and tries his very best to understand the lessons. He comes even without lunch, though sometimes he brings a small amount of rice. If he has viand, it’s fried tadpole (which may be poisonous), or stir fried chicken skin with soy sauce, or powdered milk. Quite often, his classmates share their food with him.

One time a teary-eyed Dave told me he wished he could play, dress and eat like the other children. They, too, are poor but have a little more.

Dave’s mother wants the young boy to do everything, and sometimes he is scolded. His stepfather just got a job in construction but his income is insufficient for the family’s basic needs. Dave can’t stop selling early in the morning with his best friend Joshua, 11. They share everything: left-over bread, family problems, home work—even dreams of what they want to be when they grow up. According to Dave, they have promised each other that they would remain friends whatever happens. They believe education is the key to success.

For Christmas, Dave wishes that his savings will be enough to buy a pair of second-hand black shoes he has been eyeing in a neighborhood ukay-ukay. He says they are of good quality and he can use them in school. They cost P15.

If he has still some money left, he will buy clean clothes and if there is some more, he will buy food. He thinks fried chicken, spaghetti, mixed vegetables and ice cream would make a nice noche buena.

He also wants things that are a little harder to get: a happy family and finishing school together with Joshua. Surely someone who is up and selling pan de sal at 4 a.m. and never misses tutoring class or regular school, deserves a break some time. Isn’t that what Christmas is for?


(Ivy Shella V. Espineli, 26, tutors 50 poor children in Baseco as a member of Kabalikat, a people’s organization.)

©Copyright 2001-2008 INQUIRER.net, An Inquirer Company

Manila Archbishop leads Mass for the urban poor in Baseco

** NEWS RELEASE *** NEWS RELEASE *** NEWS RELEASE **

Manila Archbishop leads Mass for the urban poor in Baseco

19 October 2008. Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales went to the Port Area this morning and lead a Mass in Baseco to pray and show that the Church is one with the urban poor community’s struggle for a better life.

Hundreds of Manila’s urban poor settlers attended the Mass held in the Baseco covered court. The poor wanted Cardinal Rosales to come and say the Mass and the Manila Archbishop welcomed the rare opportunity.

Rosales’ visit delighted the Baseco community. “Sana ay maging socialized housing ang Baseco at di na baguhin pa. Naging maayos na ang buhay namin. Kami ay natutuwa dahil nandito si Cardinal at siya ay sumusuporta sa aming kahilingan. Sana ay pakinggan ito ni Presidente Gloria Macapagal Arroyo,” said Jeorgie Tenolete, president of Kabalikat sa Pagpapaunlad ng Baseco, a people’s organization.

Baseco residents have the problem of land tenure insecurity: they fear they can be removed from their homes at any time and for insufficient reasons. The 10,000 families in Baseco fear they will be evicted due to the government’s reclamation project and sent 50-80 kilometers away to remote and jobless areas.

The land was proclaimed for them by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2002. They believe powerful and well-connected businessmen want the strategic area for commercial purposes.

The government cites a 2004 soil analysis that predicts the soil in Baseco will liquefy if there is a strong earthquake nearby. The study concludes that no homes are safe and all the homes must be removed. This is because the reclamation done in Baseco by the government used garbage instead of good soil and rocks, the analysis states.

A cloud of secrecy covers the government’s real plans, according to Urban Poor Associates (UPA), a housing rights NGO. “The residents should be told what the plan is, and if there is no plan then government should put that in writing and continue instead to upgrade the area as the proclamation states,” the UPA said in a press statement.

UPA invited the Philippine Reclamation Authority (PRA) to attend the Mass in Baseco. However, PRA officials could not attend the Mass due to “some unavoidable circumstances.”

In a letter sent to UPA, PRA General Manager and CEO Andrea Domingo informed that the PRA is presently complying with the directive of President Arroyo to reclaim 10 hectares at the bayfront of the Baseco area. “Upon completion of the reclamation works, PRA will turn over to the agency that will undertake its development as site for socialized housing. Beyond this PRA will no longer have any participation in the project,” the letter read.

“We’re asking the President to issue the implementing rules and regulation (IRR) that will lay down the processes and steps leading to the families’ ownership of the land and to convene the Project Inter-Agency Committee,” said Ted Añana, UPA deputy coordinator. -30-

MEDIA ADVISORY: CARDINAL ROSALES IN BASECO

Attention: News Editor, News Desk, Reporters and Photojournalists

MEDIA ADVISORY

CARDINAL ROSALES IN BASECO

We wish to invite you at a Holy Mass with Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales in the Baseco urban poor area on Sunday, October 19 at 9:00 AM. The Mass will be held in the covered court in Baseco, near the Baranggay Hall.

The poor face the problems of most Manila families – high prices, poor services, etc. – but in addition they have the problem of land tenure insecurity: they fear they can be removed from their homes at any time and for insufficient reasons. The 10,000 families in Baseco fear they will be evicted due to the government’s reclamation project and sent 50-80 kilometers away to remote and jobless areas.

Your support is needed if there are to be solutions to these problems. Please come and pray with the Cardinal and the poor and show that we are all one with their struggle for a better life.

We are also inviting poor people from Parola, Navotas and other parts of Tondo.

Date: October 19, 2008 (Sunday)

Time: 9:00 AM

Venue: Covered Court, Baseco Compound, Port Area, Manila

A changing of the guard?

Commentary : A changing of the guard?

By Denis Murphy
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Posted date: September 26, 2008

In a small rented room in the Baseco Compound in Manila’s Tondo district that serves as the office of the people’s organization Kabalikat, some 20 leaders, mostly women, waited for the arrival of two young princes of Philippine politics, Senators Manuel Roxas II and Benigno Aquino III. Manila Mayor Fred Lim and former secretary of education Florencio Abad were also expected. The room is used for a tutoring class, so the people were squeezed into the children’s small chairs.

There is a countrywide consensus for a more democratic, egalitarian and participative government, but what would it look like in the concrete? People want a changing of the guard, an end to the “trapo” [traditional politico] system, but how would the new politicians act? People in that small room that morning saw some signs of what this new politics might be like.

Lim came first. He stayed on the street outside the room, gathered crowds of people, children especially, and gave them P20 bills until the bags of money he brought with him were empty. He talked to Roxas when the latter arrived, and then went away.

Roxas went around Baseco for an hour or so, an area of 56 hectares at the mouth of the Pasig River. It is home to about 10,000 families. One woman he met told him she paid P6 for a 20-liter container of water, which translates to about P300 for a cubic meter. Ordinary users of supply from Manila Water Co. pay only P10 a cubic meter. The poor pay more in every conceivable way.

Finally, the two senators and Abad came into the meeting room and spent the next two hours talking with the people. They listened as the people explained the problems they faced with light, water, drainage, incomes and schools, and how at present they feared they might be removed from Baseco, even though the land was proclaimed for them by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2002. They believe powerful and well-connected businessmen want the strategic area for commercial purposes.

The government cites a 2004 soil analysis that predicts the soil in Baseco will liquefy if there is a strong earthquake nearby. The study concludes that no homes are safe and all the homes must be removed. This is because the reclamation done in Baseco by the government used garbage instead of good soil and rocks, the analysis states. Other engineers say it is still possible to build safely one-story or two-story houses, provided ordinary building precautions in such a hazardous area are taken.

A cloud of secrecy covers the government’s real plans. Understandably, the people fear they will be evicted and sent 50 or 80 kilometers away, far from their work and the children’s schools, and that they will be replaced by offices, harbor facilities or houses of the rich.

The people told the senators they believed the proclamation gave them ownership rights, and on that basis they, with the help of Gawad Kalinga and Habitat for Humanity, built 2,000 neat, one-story houses. Another 1,000 families built in a government sites and services program. The remaining families have built as the poor have always built: shacks of secondhand materials wherever there was space. The people believe these steps strengthened the ownership rights, and they feel they cannot be evicted arbitrarily.

They told the senators that they should be told what the plan is, and if there is no plan then government should put that in writing and continue instead to upgrade the area as the proclamation states. The senators promised to help them find out what they could about the government plan.

As the morning went on, there were signs of a changing of the guard, from the old-style politician, or trapo, to a newer, more democratic style.

Lim may not be the best example of the trapo, though he very often refuses to meet with groups of poor people. He does help in his own way. In a more democratic style the senators visited the poor, they listened patiently and they offered to do what the people wanted them to do.

The senators took part in a dialogue with the people that was informal, friendly, one in which each side treated the other with respect. Perhaps that’s the essence of new governance: respect, willingness to enter into dialogue to form solutions, and cooperative action. One swallow doesn’t make a summer, however. Everyone hopes the senators will maintain their opening to the poor.

There were signs within three days after the meeting that the senators had begun to do what they promised.

The experience of Mayor Jesse Robredo in Naga City and Mayor Tomas Osmeña in Cebu City shows that the urban poor will vote in overwhelming numbers for the candidates who have helped them between elections. The poor are a more reliable constituency for a politician than the business and special interest groups they usually serve.

It would be wonderful if politicians took the poor seriously and won their votes, not by handouts, but by performance, by solving the very serious problems the poor face.

Is there hope of a changing of the guard?

Dennis Murphy works with Urban Poor Associates. His email address is upa@pldtdsl.net.

Copyright 2008 Philippine Daily Inquirer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Teaching kids to dream beyond Baseco

By Tarra Quismundo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:53:00 08/03/2008

THE MINUTE HE EXPERIENCED MAKING art with crayons on a clean sheet of paper, sixth-grader Rodel Candano started to dream about becoming an architect.

Though still in grade school at age 13, Mayka Rosaros learned she could aspire to be a doctor.

From their crowded regular classrooms, a select group of elementary school pupils from poor families has been chosen to take remedial instruction in a study center at the Baseco Compound in Manila. Here they learn to aim big with the help of two tutors who make up for what their regular schools lack.

Regarded as mentors more than tutors, Laarni Salanga and Ivy Espineli, graduates of the University of the Philippines, are providing a hands-on learning experience to a select group of Grade 5 and Grade 6 students in the port village.

Salanga and Espineli take turns teaching morning and afternoon tutorial sessions in English, Math and Science at the Edukasyong Kabalikat Para Sa Kaunlaran (EKK) learning center, a one-room facility established by Kabalikat, a Baseco people’s organization, and Urban Poor Associates, a nongovernment organization, with a P300,000 donation in 2003.

“Sometimes when we ask kids what they want to be, they say ‘I want to be a seaman, a porter, a vendor in Divisoria.’ They do not dream of bigger things. Nobody said ‘I want to be a doctor.’ But we tell them this is not all of the world. There’s a bigger world outside Baseco,” said the 25-year-old Espineli.

EKK’s thrice-weekly sessions (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays) with 25 students per grade level are helping to bridge the learning gaps for low-performing students of Baseco’s public elementary schools.

“In school, they average 70 to 90 students per class, so only those in the front rows get to understand their lessons. If you’re in the back, you will be left behind. That’s what we notice. That’s why children lose enthusiasm for going to school,” said Salanga, 29, who finished English Studies at UP Diliman.

Tutoring pupils at the center has become a mission for Salanga and Espineli who have shunned better opportunities normally available to young people of their age and accomplishment.

Espineli, who majored in Social Science at UP Manila, started work at EKK three days after she graduated in April 2003.

Family obligations made Espineli, the third in a family of four children, take a three-year respite from EKK to take a teaching job in Thailand. She taught at an exclusive, all-girls school in southern Thailand and later became assistant director of the Thaksin University’s Institute for Foreign Languages.

“I had to go there to support my youngest sibling’s [nursing] studies. He graduated in March, that’s why I’m back. My obligation is over,” she said.

Salanga, who was looking for a part-time job to support her graduate studies, joined EKK the year that Espineli left. She said it was the kind of challenge she had long been looking for to escape a “boring” job at the family printing business in Caloocan.

“For an English Studies graduate like me, there are many opportunities. It’s easy for me to go but I do not feel like it. I feel like there’s no need for me to leave. And what’s good here is we get to express our creativity,” said Salanga.

They receive compensation that they regard as better than what other schools would pay, but they consider the experience of becoming more than a tutor to their students a far greater reward.

“We are able to provide individual attention and the child sees that the teacher is concerned. Once you get their trust, they will already share with you what’s happening in their homes, they will open up. They treat you as a friend,” said Espineli.

The center, which follows the regular school calendar, annually admits 25 of the poorest performers—or those with a grade average of 79 percent and below—in the last two grade levels whom they prepare to enter high school.

A token fee of P1 is charged for each session. The idea is for the students and the parents to have a “sense of ownership” of the program, said Espineli.

The job of selecting those that need help falls to the Baseco parents who identify barely passing elementary school pupils in the community and enroll them at EKK. Salanga and Espineli said they sometimes have to knock on doors to encourage participation.

The tutors hold three-hour sessions for each grade level, dividing the time among English, particularly reading and grammar, basic Math and Science. Fridays are reserved for art and music lessons which many of the kids enjoy the best.

And throughout the sessions, the pupils are taught to observe good manners.

Once, a student who came in 15 minutes late for a Friday afternoon session had to apologize to the group, to which a classmate replied in English: “Next time, come early.”

Encounters with Baseco kids have opened the tutors’ eyes to “realities” that are peculiar to the place.

In the port village, a former shantytown that had been dismantled many times before by fires and demolitions, sixth-graders often include students old enough for high school.

Finding the answer to 5 minus 4 is a stretch for fifth-graders, and graduating students struggle to read “run” or “fun.”

“You wonder whether there was a student who could read well,” said Salanga, adding that sessions at times had to go back to primary-level lessons.

Many also go to school with empty stomachs.

“You’d see that immediately in the child. You’d think he’s just not that smart but you realize that hunger is the reason why he performs poorly in school. It’s either they went to school without eating, or they were beaten by their parents,” said Salanga.

To enhance comprehension, the teachers would use the pupils’ experience to simplify the lesson.

“In addition or subtraction, we ask them how much will be left if you take P2 from P5. And most of them immediately understand because at times their parents make them hawk [items] in Divisoria,” Salanga said.

But what would prove to be useful in class was also a factor for pupils missing the sessions. The teachers note poor attendance in the months leading up to Christmas, traditionally the peak selling season for Divisoria.

“Sometimes, parents would rather that their kids sell plastic bags in Divisoria, at P5 for 100 pieces, than go to the center. Or they are made to sell vegetables, or take care of their siblings,” said Espineli.

To persuade the students to return, the tutors have to visit their homes and talk to the parents.

Despite the challenges, the young teachers are buoyed by the EKK’s successes.

Vanessa Vega, who was in the first batch of students at the center, graduated First Honorable Mention in 2004, after lagging behind in her class for a long time with 70-percent grades.

Roughly 90 percent of EKK “graduates” have also proceeded to high school, helping to cut the high elementary-to-high-school dropout rate among Baseco students.

The extracurricular activities at the EKK have helped to pull up Rodel Candano’s average by a point -- from 79 percent to 80 percent -- in the last school year.

“Here we get to draw, we sing and dance and go on field trips. We went to the Planetarium where I saw stars and Parks and Wildlife where we got to play in the open ground,” said Candano.


Copyright 2008 Philippine Daily Inquirer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Baseco worries

29 July 2008. Some 6,000-10,000 poor families have been living in Baseco since 2001. Baseco is 56 hectares in extent. As late as 2001 most of the 56 hectares was underwater. Since 2002 the land has been gradually reclaimed.

In February 2002 President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo proclaimed the area, all 56 hectares for the homes of the people. That same year the first of four major fires hit the area which initiated the reclamation of land. Some five hectares were reclaimed and divided into lots which were assigned to about 1,000 families.

In 2004, PGMA introduced Gawad Kalinga (GK) and Habitat for Humanity (HfH). They have built together nearly 2,000 row houses since then. The people like the housing. Most families wish for a similar type house. A soil test was made that found much of Baseco would be at risk if there were a very strong (8 on the Richter scale) earthquake. The soil might turn to mud, it is said.

In 2007, the 2004 soil test was resurrected to show that building even one storey houses in Baseco because of the poor soil was not a good idea. Mayor Alfredo Lim asked Gawad Kalinga (GK) and Habitat for Humanity (HfH) to stop building.

The Philippine Reclamation Authority announced it would reclaim another 10 hectares of land just west of Baseco. At first PRA said it knew nothing about the future of the 56 hectares.

After the people had more meetings with PRA, a visit (May 14) from PGMA and a meeting with the National Housing Authority, the following seems to be the government’s plan:

· Government will reclaim the 10 hectares as proposed, an island just off the 56 hectares.
· It will move families there from the 56 hectares. It plans on housing 3,000 families on the 10 hectares. There will also be a mini-fish port there, PGMA said on her visit.
· The government will then develop 35 hectares of the 56 hectares proclaimed for commercial purpose.

The residents are afraid of this plan for the following reason:

1) No clear black and white detailed description of the plan has yet been shown to the people.

2) There are at least 6,000 families in Baseco and maybe as many as 10,000.
· There are plans for 3,000. What will happen to all the other families?
· It is not clear who the beneficiaries are. Will it be only families censused in 2001? What of the other hundreds, maybe thousands of families living there now?
· Will the 3,000 units be affordable? A survey made by the Institute of Philippine Culture of the Ateneo de Manila found the average family income per month to be between P6,000 to P7,000 in 2002. It is not much higher now. At most, the people can afford P150 per month, they say.
· Will the 2,000 houses of GK and HfH remain or will they be removed?
· Who is the main stakeholder in this huge venture? Where will financing come from?
· Does the fact that the land is proclaimed limit what uses can be made of it? If it was proclaimed for homes, can it be used for commerce?

3) What People Want: The people of Baseco want a house like those built by GK and HfH. These houses encourage the formation of peaceful, neighborly communities. They like some open space for the children’s play, churches, day care centers, clinics and job training institutions. The people want to build working family communities with basic services, playgrounds, lawns and flowers, where old people can sit in front of their houses and watch the children play, where people engage actively in public affairs and politics. -30-

MEDIA ADVISORY: Running Priest in Baseco for U.N. Run

Attention: News Editor, News Desk, Reporters and Photojournalists

MEDIA ADVISORY

Running Priest in Baseco for U.N. Run

Fr. Robert Reyes, the running priest, will stage a run in Baseco, Port Area in Manila tomorrow (Tuesday) morning 10:00 AM starting at the Herminigildo Atienza Elementary School to publicise a petition which the people will send to the United Nations (UN). The petition will concern the eviction of 7,000 to 10,000 families living in Baseco.

The land was proclaimed by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in 2002. On the basis of that proclamation, aided by the Gawad Kalinga (GK) and Habitat for Humanity (HfH), the people invested in their homes. But now they are told to vacate the 56 hectares because the reclamation done by the government between 2002 and 2004 was poorly done. With the result, the land will liquify if there is a strong earthquake, the government says.

It is estimated well over a hundred million pesos was spent for the reclamation, according to Urban Poor Associates (UPA), a housing rights NGO.

After the run, there will be a brief prayer service. The people of Baseco will also sign a banner with the words “United Nations Housing Rights, please help us. We want to stay here in our homes. We don’t want to move out.”

Date: July 29, 2008 (Tuesday)

Time: 10:00 AM

Venue: Baseco, Port Area, Manila

Tutoring for grade school students

Inquirer Opinion / Columns

Commentary : Tutoring for grade school students

By Denis Murphy
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Posted date: July 13, 2008

MANILA, Philippines—My 7-year-old niece who studies in Mater Carmeli School in Novaliches heard her father talking about high prices and told him: "Don't worry, Papa, I can stop schooling. Anyway, I finished Grade 1." Her parents assured her there was enough money for school and that there was much more to learn. When they tell the story, people laugh.

In the Baseco urban poor area at the mouth of the Pasig River, hundreds of poor children drop out each year from the Hermenigildo J. Atienza Elementary School. Some 918 children began Grade 1 in June 2007, but before the end of the school year, 101 had dropped out: 11 percent of the class. Nobody was laughing. These are 6- or 7-year-old children who are now finished for good with school and thrust into a highly competitive world where even factories require a high school diploma, and fast-food shops require some college education. Some years the figures were worse: in June 2006 the first-grade class began with 943 children, but only 702 finished the year, a dropout rate of 25 percent.

In June this year, 378 children finished elementary school in Baseco. There were 715 when they began in Grade 1 in June 2002. Over the six years of schooling, 47 percent of the children dropped out.

The children drop out for many different reasons. Parents can't afford the school expenses, or they need the children to work to make money, for example, by scavenging, or the children feel they don't fit in or can't keep up with the studies, or the parents just don't care. As a result of all this, almost half the children of Baseco will wind up illiterate, which is equivalent to a life-long sentence to poverty.

No one blames the principal or teachers. There are classes in Baseco with 91 and sometimes more children in the room. How can a teacher handle such a number? Just to keep a modicum of civilization is quite a work. There are two children for every textbook (government figure). There are children so bright they do well despite all the obstacles, but most children are average and below average and these children wind up in the 5th and 6th grades unable to read with any ease in English or Tagalog, and unable to do simple math. If you ask a 6th grade boy or girl in Baseco, how much is 29 plus 15, they will most likely go into some sort of abacus on their fingers. Fingers may be useful for simple addition and subtraction, but not for the math needed to deal with credit cards, bank accounts, bills from utility companies, tax forms and the like. The children will be numerically illiterate.

What to do? The usual suggestions for a bigger education budget, higher salaries for teachers, smaller class size, etc. are all good, but what to do now?

A small tutoring venture in Baseco called Edukasyong Kabalikat para sa Kaunlaran (EKK) has had some success and, in the process, came upon what may be the prime missing ingredient in the present overcrowded school system, namely, the lack of any individual care. It's not a new discovery, of course: good teachers have always known the importance of individual attention to children.

EKK is a small tutoring effort run by the parents of Kabalikat, a people's organization in Baseco, that takes children for six hours a week (two hours a day, three times a week) after regular school. There are classes for 5th and 6th grade boys and girls and first graders. The program only takes students whose academic averages are under 80 percent: the very bright students don't need tutoring and the very slow won't benefit. It is a difficult triage for kids to undergo. Mayette Betasolo is in charge of the EKK committee of parents.

The program focuses on reading (English and Tagalog), math, science and religious values. The classes always have less than 25 students, allowing the young teacher to give some individual time to each student. This individual attention makes a great difference in children's progress. In individual instruction, the teacher can discover what prevents the children from doing their best. The problem may be a serious one, dyslexia, for example, or a much more common one, lack of confidence, shyness, or the inability to form certain sounds. Sometimes it's enough to move a child who has trouble hearing from the last row in a class to the front where he or she can hear the teacher. A good teacher or a good part-time tutor can solve most problems.

Ivy Espineli and Lala Salanga, two young women, both UP graduates, have been EKK's main teachers. They have been successful. All 96 children who finished the 6th grade tutoring over the past four years have passed the government exam for entering high school. All were average students. Of the 96 who have gone to high school, all but five are still in high school or have graduated. EKK is now into its 5th year. The usual percentage for finishing high school is about 20 percent. EKK's graduates may reach a 90 percent graduation rate if present trends continue.

Ivy has given up a well-paying work in Thailand and Makati to tutor in Baseco. Lala is getting her master's at UP.

The Baseco parents who run EKK say there are three reasons for the success EKK has had: one, it focuses on reading, math, science and values and stays away from the other subjects that crowd children's days in school; it gives time for individual attention; and, finally, there is the commitment of the young teachers.

How can we provide similar tutoring for many other children? It need not be six hours a week. If there are only two or three children in a class, maybe two hours a week would be enough. Maybe one hour a week with one child would do. We have thousands of children who need tutoring. We have potential tutors in our college students, young professionals, retired elderly people, the children's parents themselves and older students in the urban poor areas. How do we put students and tutors together? Is there some person(s) with the calling to do this?

Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates. His e-mail address is upa@pldtdsl.net.

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