Talaga Elementary School

One of the first recipient of Foundation for Worldwide People Power.

Article from Education section of Philippine Daily Inquirer.
complete story here.
by Butch Hernandez

In 2002, the Foundation for Worldwide People Power was a lone voice calling for everyone to mount an Education Revolution. Eggie Apostol, FWWPP founding chair, fired the first shot as it were by traveling to a very small extension school in Sitio Talaga on the outskirts of Metro Manila. Sitio Talaga Elementary School actually sits on the border of the towns of Morong and Tanay in Rizal province, outside Manila. It was an incomplete elementary school at that time, offering classes only from Grades 1 to 4.

Because there was no paved road yet at that time, the children living in Sitio Talaga actually had to circle around into Tanay and head back to Morong, on foot, for about two kilometers. The school is built on top of a low but rocky hill. When it rains, the path going up turns into a mudslide. It’s amazing how the children still manage to keep their spirits up, but they do.

Like many schools all over the country, Sitio Talaga Elementary School had a shortage of everything: books, desks, classrooms and especially that most requested item, the perimeter fence. What they had in abundance were school children literally willing to walk the extra mile just to get to school, and deeply committed teachers who waited for them every day. Whatever they lacked—facilities, school supplies, up-to-date teaching strategies—they tried to make up for with a burning desire to learn.

The FWWPP, meanwhile, talked about Sitio Talaga Elementary School to anybody who would listen. We talked about a better future, and how a good education could get our children there.

Their school head, Clarita Rino, did the same thing we did: she gathered her thoughts and aspirations and talked about them to the mayor, to caring community residents and to NGOs. Before she knew it, she got a donation for a school building, and then another one.

The local government paved a new road to the school, so the children didn’t have to walk so far. People from as far as Spain donated textbooks (the ones accredited by the Department of Education, thankfully with no factual errors) for the entire school so that all the kids would be reading from the same page.

The division superintendent made Sitio Talaga Elementary School a complete school with a full complement of teachers. Last year, the principal called Mrs. Apostol with wonderful news: their first batch of Grade 6 pupils was going to graduate and they wanted her to be their commencement speaker. You can’t imagine how proud we felt on that day.

Our little victory at Sitio Talaga became the seeds of the Education Revolution. Our call to harness people power for education was heard in the cities of Bacolod, Iloilo, Davao, Iligan, Butuan, Cagayan de Oro and Marawi and in the provinces of Laguna and Pampanga.