Myrna and Celia

Commentary : Myrna and Celia

By Denis Murphy
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Posted date: November 13, 2009

It’s the time to choose the winner of the Urban Poor Person of the Year Award, which is given each year to a person (rich or poor), government official, business person or civil society leader, who, in the opinion of the poor, has done the most for them during the year. Last year’s award went to Chair Leila de Lima of the Commission on Human Rights for her struggle against forced and illegal evictions.

There are a number of nominees for the award. The list includes Myrna Porcare who lived in North Fairview, Quezon City, along the Tullahan River. Myrna was 52, a mother of seven and the leader of the poor people of her area. She was murdered on Oct. 10. She attempted to stop the security guards from setting up fences around her property and that of her neighbors. She tried to remove the fence and for that she was dealt a shotgun blast, from a distance of two to three meters, directly into her chest and stomach. When her 18-year-old son tried to help, he, too, was gunned down. The two bodies lay in the filthy garbage the river had strewn over the area during the “Ondoy” storm. Myrna had been president of the Samasape (Samahan ng Magkakapitbahay sa Pechayan), a people’s organization since 1997. She was re-elected in 1998. “She was the only one who stuck up for our rights,” her sister told me mournfully.

The guards who shot Myrna are now out on bail, but their agency hasn’t stopped intimidating the people. The day after the shooting and the initial hearing before the Quezon City prosecutor, residents of North Fairview were questioned by guards in their area. The guards showed P1,000 bills and asked residents where the witnesses who had testified at the hearing lived. They said they wanted to give the money to the witnesses for their needs. A day later Fr. Robert Reyes and I met more guards sprawled on the floor of a hut not far from Myrna’s house, sleeping with their guns alongside them. They hadn’t a care in the world.

The legal landowner is not known to be very wealthy, so people wonder whether some powerful person(s) may be behind the murders. A few days before the shooting, some 200 police and demolition team members came to evict the few families scheduled for demolition by the court. It is generally believed such support for an eviction on private land requires large amounts of money.

It seems that no good comes to the poor people of the Philippines from the deaths of their good leaders, such as, Myrna and the farmer, factory worker and sugar worker leaders who have been murdered over the last few years. In the Early Church, Christians probably also wondered what good came from the deaths of so many ordinary people at the hands of the Romans. It was only after decades, maybe centuries of reflection, that it was recognized that “the blood of martyrs is the seed of faith.” Someday, Myrna and all the other dead may be recognized as the seed of a finer, more democratic Philippines where all men and women are assured of their human rights.

But not all poor women are leaders, and fortunately not all are killed. There are thousands of women in the slums who lead quite noble lives of caring and sacrifice but are never praised. Celia Regulacion who died very recently of TB in her mid-40s may receive a special award in the name of all these women.

Celia didn’t have money for medicines after she had bought food for her children, but she did buy five or six sticks of cigarettes a day. Her friends say it eased the pain of TB. Her husband didn’t work. She was often coughing and didn’t feel good, but still every day she helped the Kabalikat people’s organization as a census interviewer. She was a tireless talker, funny and always kind, according to her friends.

Toward the end of her life, it didn’t seem to matter to her whether she died or not. She certainly didn’t do all she could to get medicine or pay for a doctor. “She was dying but her sickness didn’t put her down,” her neighbor said. She was as pleasant as ever and she continued to volunteer, but there just wasn’t enough joy in life to keep her going beyond the short life she had been fated. She had lived as long as needed to raise the children. She couldn’t afford to stay in the hospital. Who would buy food for her children? She told her husband to go back to the provinces as she could no longer provide food for him. On her deathbed, she refused to use the breathing equipment, though her children begged her to keep struggling.

Celia had her limitations which sometimes upset her friends, but they miss their old friend. They laugh spontaneously when they talk of her. It seems the handle of her coffin broke and she fell to the ground in the graveyard. They remember Celia had looked angry when they saw her at her wake and that she looked angrier and angrier day by day because she wasn’t being buried. And then, suddenly, the circle of women began laughing.

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


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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.)

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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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