Building Dreams

Academic year in the Philippines begins on June. But as teachers prepare for the influx of children, they also prepare for the monsoon season. In the Philippines, it is not uncommon to see schools vulnerable to floods and typhoons. Old San Agustin Elementary School in Basey is just one of thousands of schools at risk during the monsoon season.

Old San Agustin Elementary School usually gets flooded when it rains hard because of nearby river usually overflows. Teachers are often disheartened to see their books destroyed and children affected sometimes even acquiring skin diseases brought by dirty water. This has been a long occurring problem in the community.

Mrs. Azil Homeres, an alumni of the school and incidentally the current principal, dreamt of having better learning spaces and disaster resilient classrooms. She can still recall in her younger years how the schools gets flooded. However, in the most recent years, the floods are getting more often and worse. Despite that, teachers and other community members continue to prepare for and mitigate the adverse effects of storms and typhoons.

So when Plan-ADB/JFPR started the project in their school, she welcomed it with eagerness and excitement. Headed by her, the school faculty, are really hands on in the implementation of the construction. Considering the vulnerability of their school to floods, the faculty even suggested the classrooms to be elevated. They also asked for the some coconuts trees with the perimeter of the school to be cut. They truly participate actively in the implementation of the project and continue to show willingness participate with their role to monitor the construction.

Home is Where the Heart Is

In the picturesque coastline of fine white sand in Barangay Sulu-an, Guiuan, Eastern Samar is a small makeshift house  with scraps of wood as foundation and plastic sheeting as roof and walls. This is home to an old man who is more known in the community as Papa Sendo.

In his life, he lost so many. He is deprived not only of things but of family as well. It has been 18 years since he last saw his wife and children. Since then, he has not even heard from them and had been living alone. Sometimes, he would go to Homonhon, a nearby island, to make a living as a carpenter for relatives.

Life is tough on him. His home, made from light materials, is often destroyed when typhoons hit the island. Although willing and insistent, he is too old to go fishing. To buy rice, he makes “pangal” or fish baskets for Php200 each. If he’s lucky, he can finish and sell one in a week. He does not worry about his viand to pair with his rice as there are many fish in the sea.

Despite the hardships he experiences, he does not use his poverty as an excuse to do ill or get ahead of other people. Even if there are moments when chickens would run into his home, he never dared to get them as they were not his and even returned them to its owner. As he said,“Poverty is not my choice, but I have to strive to survive.” 

Maybe for other people, what he calls home may uncomfortable to live in. For Papa Sendo, it is home, and he is not willing to move out. Even if he has relatives who persistently encourage him to live with them, he kindly declines because he is more comfortable living in his own space. Because for Tatay Sendo, home truly is where the heart is.

As one of the grantees of the Unconditional Cash Transfer under the Livelihood component of the ADB/JFPR Project, he said the money he would get would be a big help to him to buy rice and if possible as capital so he could go fishing again. Because even in his old age, he continues to strive to survive.