(Newspaper article about Class ’65 Andrea Dizon-Domingo, Enriqueta Figueroa-Manabat, Eloisa Lopez-Valerio, and Renato Alarcon)

ADOPTION STORIES
Central Luzon joins
Education Revolution
Posted: 1:37 AM (Manila Time) | Nov. 25, 2002
By Alfredo Hernandez
Inquirer News Service

(from http://www.inq7.net/lif/2002/nov/25/lif_7-3.htm)

Alumni adopt their alma mater

The most prominent graduate of the Pampanga High School (PHS) was President Diosdado Macapagal. Other notables were Carlos Intal. The most recent is Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo.

Recently, Enriqueta Manabat and Eloisa Valerio, trustees of the PHS Class '65 Foundation Inc., got in touch with the FWWPP. They wanted to develop an adoption program for Pampanga High School and the San Juan South and Mansgold Elementary Schools in San Fernando.

Renato Alarcon, VP for external affairs, said through their group's efforts, a 5,000-gallon water tank was installed in PHS. The group also donated computers, sponsored school-wide academic competitions and started a school-feeding program for the San Juan Elementary School.

(The author is the executive director of the FWWPP).

What is the FWWPP? Please read on …

Sitio Talaga and the 'education revolution'
(source : http://www.inq7.net/opi/2002/sep/26/opi_mpdoyo-1.htm

DO you know the way to Sitio Talaga?

Last Tuesday I was with a small group that went to Sitio Talaga in Barangay Maybangkal, Morong, Rizal. We visited the new Talaga Elementary School which is, believe me, in the middle of nowhere. You wouldn't think it is just less than two hours ride from Metro Manila. So near and yet so far. It is a secluded place surrounded by tree farms, orchards and what looks like unexplored wilderness.

Here live about 500 voters and their families. (A resident gave me that number when I asked how many families lived here.) Most families have lived here for an average of 15 years. I did not have the time to do social investigation but I figured they had been brought there. The homes are arranged in neat rows with narrow alleys to separate them.

This is where Talaga Elementary School, an extension of Maybangkal Elementary School, was built a few months ago. The district supervisor called it a Sona school because it was rushed in time for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's State of the Nation Address last June. For whatever purpose it may serve.

Here two very small school buildings were built to house Grades 1, 2 and 3. Between the two schoolhouses stands a lone tall mango tree, perhaps almost a hundred years old, huge and awesome like a cathedral.

So, what were we doing here?

The Foundation for Worldwide People Power (FWWPP) has picked this school to be one of the pilot schools under its Adopt-a-School Program. I did have something to do with its picking, simply through my humble saliva. Me and my big mouth. You know, getting people whom I know connected with one another by word of mouth, and then praying things would turn out well and saying under my breath, "bahala na kayo ha?" (it's up to you then) then heading for parts unknown. Something came out of it.

Well, Eggie Apostol, FWWPP's president (the Inquirer's founding chair, now busily unretired), had to drag me along, the better for me to witness the signing of the memorandum of agreement by the community leaders and responsible persons, agreeing to be the object of a FWWPP project. Under the shade of an ancient tree.

And the project is: adopt a school. Yes, the FWWPP is making a new call for people power-away from politics and nearer to the people. It is calling for "Education Revolution."

The FWWPP is convinced that "education is the best weapon against poverty," education that is beyond the basic skills of reading, writing and 'rithmetic. Education that "emphasizes the value of love and concern for family, community, country; education that empowers and breeds citizens of purpose and vision."

There are about 35,000 public elementary schools and 5,000 public high schools throughout the country with an enrolment of about 17 million students. While the government allocates money for these schools, the FWWPP points out that there has never been enough to make them as effective as they should be. This is where civil society--citizens like you and me--should come in.

Here is what the FWWPP is proposing for those who wish to get involved in the adopt-a-school program:

Start by addressing the basic needs of the elementary public school system. Visit the school, meet with the principal and the teachers, find out their needs, talk with the parent-teacher-community association and other community leaders. Plan ways of helping the school.

Use "people power" to move local officials to pay attention to the school. Get local residents and business to support a school feeding program, or to donate additional textbooks, library books and school supplies.

If local help is not available, write your governor, representatives, senators. March to your nearest public elementary school.

The FWWPP is offering its facilities and services to be the clearing house for education-related activities. (Contact numbers and addresses: +632 6332185, +63 2 6332820, fwwpp@glinesnx.com.ph.) The FWWPP also has a list of civic, corporate and religious organizations already doing their part to boost public school education. You could network with them.

In case you did not know, RA 8525 or the Adopt-a-School Act of 1998 was enacted to encourage private sector assistance for public schools. The Department of Education established the Adopt-a-School secretariat in 2000 to systematize the implementation of this law. Credit Anna Periquet, the youth sector representative who introduced the bill in Congress in 1997. It was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Juan Flavier and sponsored by the late Sen. Marcelo Fernan.

Besides Adopt-a-School, the FWWPP has another concern: the teachers. The FWWPP hopes to set up a Mentoring the Mentors Program. This aims to empower teachers as agents of change by developing their mentoring skills and opening them to the concept of education for social transformation.

Unlike Adopt-a-School, Mentoring the Mentors Program is a more centralized type of endeavor that needs focused funding. The program's target clientele are Teacher Educational Institutions (TEI) involved in training future teachers and already employed teachers.

I asked one of the teachers in Talaga Elementary School how she was faring (salary-wise) and she said, with a great smile on her face, that she has not received her salary since she started last June. She is considered a volunteer until things get approved upstairs. All the stuff she has put up in her pretty little classroom--visual aids and all--she made from out of her little pocket.

Talaga Elementary School still has no water system and no electricity, although the wiring and lighting fixtures have been installed. When it rains and it's dark, Ma'am tells the kids, "Sleep muna kayo ha? (Why don't you take a nap)" and waits for the sun to break through the gray clouds over Talaga.