By Malio Aguilar

The struggle has been real for many students who were forced to learn remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The worry is even bigger for parents like Josephine Billones, from Oton, Iloilo, whose young daughter Jhaeza had to start grade school outside a classroom.

With schools across the Philippines closed for more than a year now, the help that Jhaeza, who’s in Grade 1, gets from her teacher is minimal given the limited Internet access that her mother could afford. That also limits what she could learn at her grade level where reading is a key competency.

So the local government’s remedial reading program proved to be manna from heaven for both Jhaeza and her mother.

The program is called “Collaborative Action in Reading Instruction to Nurture Achievers”, or CARINA, named after the municipality’s first woman mayor, Carina Flores, who launched it more than a decade ago.

The program aims to boost the reading proficiency among grade school students and was carried out daily for an hour before the pandemic hit. As the global health crisis restricted movement and shuttered schools, teachers have been conducting the reading sessions with students virtually every Friday.

At the time the program was introduced, Oton had the lowest scores in the district in the National Achievement Test and there were a lot of slow and non readers so a plan was hatched to increase reading proficiency, said project coordinator Suzanne Basco.

“The most challenging part is making sure that the children pronounce the words properly,” said Rosalie Francisco, a Grade 1 teacher who is handling 15 students under the remedial reading program. “It is challenging but very rewarding.”

Francisco says what gives her a sense of fulfillment is “seeing the progress in the program participants from a non-reader to even a slow reader.”

Oton is among the more than 400 local government units that Synergeia Foundation works with to make sure that every child completes a good basic education and is given equal opportunities to become the best of what he/she can be.

“We transform their way of governance because local governments are closest to their constituents – they can listen, they can feel, they can understand what their constituents need,” Synergeia President and CEO Milwida Guevara said.

Honorable mention

In the current school year, Oton was able to reduce the number of its non and frustrated readers by 29.6%. The municipality made it to the list of honorable mentions for the annual Seal of Good Education Governance awarded by Synergeia and the United States Agency for International Development at the 14th Washington SyCip National Education Summit held in March.

Many partner communities of Synergeia hold remedial sessions to improve the reading competency of students. A key criterion in awarding the Seal is the reduction in the number of non and frustrated readers in the member cities and municipalities.

For students without steady Internet access, the teachers schedule home visits, usually done fortnightly, said Aylen Artuz, the principal of Rita Elementary School, who has been part of the reading project for four years monitoring the progress of the learners.

That puts the bulk of the burden in mentoring the children with their own parents so Artuz said they make sure to give the parents tips on how to help their child improve their reading skills.

“We tell them how they should read the stories to make them more interesting to the children,” she said. “Most parents have a hard time especially when their child is just beginning to read so we teach them how to be engaging and how to make the proper sounds in pronouncing the words.”

For Billones, the reading program is a huge help for her daughter and herself as it gives her time to work. She sells vegetables and fruits with her husband.

“The remedial sessions have been great because they help my child enunciate sounds and read words properly,” she said. “I can also work while she’s learning and just follow up with her later on.”

By Manolo Serapio Jr.

A month before the siege of Marawi City in Lanao del Sur by Islamic State-linked Maute group in 2017, dozens of the terror group’s members were killed in a series of encounters with the military in the town of Piagapo less than 20 kilometers away.

The clashes displaced hundreds of families in Piagapo, but it would not compare to the battle in Marawi that unfolded in May which lasted five months and flattened the city. Nearly four years since it ended, many of Marawi’s residents remain in temporary shelters as the rehabilitation of the Islamic city is yet to be completed.

What happened in Marawi remains a cautionary tale for the people of Piagapo where the threat of extremism continues as those left of the Maute group are believed to be recruiting youth as young as 13 in the outskirts of the town.

“Our aim is to prevent them from being easily convinced by remnants of the Maute group,” said Piagapo Vice Mayor Ali Sumandar. “We have to continue our campaign against violent extremism.”

That campaign includes using a standardized module and curriculum in the madaris or Islamic schools in Piagapo. The new modules and curriculum were launched in January 2018, said Sumandar, three months after the end of the battle in Marawi.

Synergeia Foundation in partnership with the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund helped draft some of the modules when they began a project to prevent violent extremism in Mindanao.

“Our project with GCERF is breaking the ascent of violent extremism by enabling people to see that the local governments will provide good education for their children and will promote good justice,” Synergeia President and CEO Milwida Guevara said.

Apart from Piagapo, other areas covered by the program include Kapatagan in Lanao del Sur, Jolo in Sulu and Buldon in Maguindanao.

Synergeia believes that working with local officials like Sumandar leads to meaningful changes in governance across Philippine cities and municipalities, particularly in pushing for education reforms and in developing peace leaders.

“By standardizing the curriculum, we know what is being taught to the children,” said the 48-year-old vice mayor. The next step is to monitor what is being preached in the mosques and the local government’s plan is to create a uniform message to be preached on Fridays, he said.

“We will prepare it ourselves maybe two days ahead to be used for the Friday worship in all mosques,” said Sumandar, adding he hopes to launch this plan in June or July.

Religion of peace

In a fresh reminder of the continuing threat of terrorism in Mindanao, more than 100 gunmen belonging to the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters occupied the public market in the town of Datu Paglas in Maguindanao for six hours earlier this month, before fleeing shortly after the military launched an assault.

Three months ago, during a routine monitoring of a remote barangay, Sumandar received information that three children, aged between 13 and 15 years old, were reported missing and believed to have been recruited by the Maute group.

“We don’t know if they’re dead or returning and one of the kids’ fathers was livid at what had happened,” he said. “We need to keep a close watch on our children because they could be very vulnerable.”

That child’s father has now been warning other parents to protect their own children, Sumandar said.

During the Talakayang Bayan, or town hall meeting, in January at the Piagapo municipal hall organized by Synergeia and GCERF, participants including local government officials, educators, parents and members of the police and military vowed to advocate against violent extremism.

“Islam is a religion of peace. No one should declare war unless they are deprived of their religious belief,” Sumandar said at the meeting.

Hanifah Sultan, head of Bualan Elementary School, expressed concern over the seeming lack of supervision of children given the closure of all schools in the Philippines for more than a year now due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

She pledged to work closely with all stakeholders of the community and parents to keep a tighter watch on children and youth.

False ideology

With education as a powerful weapon to counter extremism, Sumandar believes there should be a firm plan to consider resuming in-person classes in the municipality, even on a limited basis.

“If the pandemic continues, we have to have a strategy on how children can go back to school during some days of the week,” he said.

The children from remote areas where Internet connectivity is weak or non-existent suffer the most during distance education, with limited access to teachers and other online help.

Officials from other local governments in the Philippines with low to zero transmission of COVID-19 in their communities, like in Piagapo, have been pushing for the resumption of face-to-face classes in the next school year as many children have struggled with remote learning.

There was an initial plan by the Piagapo local government to hold a symposium for the youth, similar to what is regularly done for adults, to constantly warn them against joining extremist groups, but it was later discarded due to pandemic restrictions. The local government also holds peace dialogue in its barangays.

The town’s Sangguniang Kabataan, or youth leaders, are currently raising funds to build a multi-purpose building for sports and other activities, said Sumandar. Construction may start next month.

“Prevention is better than cure,” he said, adding that what happened to Marawi following the 2017 siege will continue to be a dark reminder for Piagapo that violent extremism only leads to destruction.

“In just a few years, Piagapo has managed to become one of the blooming and growing municipalities in Lanao del Sur,” said Sumandar. “Why would we allow it to collapse in pursuit of a false ideology?”

By Manolo Serapio Jr.

He used to walk 16 kilometers to get to school and back home with salt-topped rice wrapped in banana leaves as his meal for the day. It was in one of those back-breaking treks that the young Ernesto “Estong” Balida made a vow to finish his studies so he could turn his life around.

Now the vice mayor of his hometown of Batad in Iloilo province, Balida has made it a lifelong commitment to push all children in the municipality to complete their education. “I’ve always told them that education is the only way they can improve their lives,” he says. “I hope my life story will inspire them.

The long, arduous daily journey and the lack of money in the family of nine children forced him to work as a helper in the market closer to where his high school was.

He continued to work through college, at Capiz State University where he eventually earned a degree in agricultural economics, graduating with honors.

It’s no wonder then that education has been at the center of Balida’s career, having started as a program officer for Ford Foundation in the town of Ajuy, and later for Synergeia Foundation.

In Ajuy, he helped develop English workbooks and implemented reading programs that reduced the number of frustrated and non-readers in the municipality.

“I told myself I should go back to my hometown because I knew that the state of education there was far worse than it was in Ajuy,” he recalled.

He returned to Batad and kicked off his political career when he ran for town councilor and won. Taking charge of the local government’s education programs, he worked tirelessly towards improving the quality of learning in the community.

He led efforts to rebuild schools destroyed by Super Typhoon Yolanda in November 2013, through funds that Synergeia raised from its trustees and other stakeholders.

Despite all his work, Balida lost his reelection bid and soon returned to Synergeia. But that did not deter him from later seeking the vice mayoral seat which he won in 2019.

Storytelling project

As the Covid-19 pandemic reshaped education with all Philippine schools closed for more than a year now, Balida focused on measures that would help children as they learn from their homes.

He tapped the Sangguniang Kabataan, or youth leaders, to mentor children whose parents could not help them with their modules. Students from Grades 3 to 6 are tutored in small groups of five and in compliance with safety protocols. There is currently no local transmission of Covid-19 in the town.

At the moment, Balida has a storytelling project where an SK leader reads a story book from a “sari-sari store” or a neighborhood store in a community area using a megaphone. The children would listen in from their homes and they’re asked questions after each reading and they need to drop off their answers in the store.

“We do this everyday and you could really feel the children’s thirst for knowledge as they listen in to the storytelling,” he said.

Batad is among the 421 local governments that work in partnership with Synergeia and the United States Agency for International Development to improve learning outcomes.

It is one of the municipalities with strongly functional School Governing Councils (SGCs) which have become more crucial to children’s learning process as the pandemic keeps schools shut.

SGCs help formulate school policies that benefit learners and take part in creating school improvement plans to boost the quality of learning in an educational institution. Parents, teachers, barangay officials and anybody who can devote time and self in improving the education of children can be part of SGCs.

Life ahead

Ferly Bones is the chairperson of an SGC who converted her home into a tutorial center for children having a tough time with remote learning.

After participating in seminars on distance education organized by the local government and Synergeia, the 51-year old mother realized she needed to help children who are left on their own devices at home because their parents are either working or unschooled.

“She’s really a model for everyone here and she has influenced so many SGC officers,” said Balida, adding he supplies her with some school materials for the learners whom she tutors with her own children and some volunteer teachers.

“I’m fortunate because the SGCs here are very active,” he said.

But there is still a lot of work ahead. A recent finding showed there are still many frustrated and non-readers in Batad. Balida says there is also a need to administer assessment tests before the school year ends “so we’ll know what kind of intervention we can make before the next school year opens.”

As he looks back on his life so far, the 52-year-old says there is so much more that he wants to accomplish.

“Even if I’m no longer in politics, I will do everything I can for the education of the children of Batad and our neighboring areas. This is my life and this is what makes me happy,” he said.