Why do we have to be poor? Kids ask, wish for food, books, schooling

MANILA, Philippines—In her jumbled English, 13-year-old Stella Mae Santos wrote her wish to the government: “I want to the poor people to have and dress and school requirements and money so that they have for buying foods.”

An unnamed artist captured a familiar scene of young pupils holding classes under a tree. A message scrawled on the drawing read: “Equal right to good education. Improve antique facilities.”

Junemar Gadian, a first-year Dumaguete City High School student, had a simple request: “I want a book so that I can read.”

In drawings and letters, students and out-of-school youths expressed their deepest wish to get an education, many of them sketching and writing down the barest of essentials: Peso bills in pencil, houses in crayola, clothes and fruits.

One student, Junrey Belando, wrote: “Why do we have to be poor? Why are we not like other well-off families?”

“We should take action against [poverty]. The collective effort of the government and its people will surely guarantee a poverty-free Philippines,” he said.

The students’ works were in a suitcase that Amnesty International turned over to the Department of Education (DepEd) on Friday to mark the observance of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

Lagging

The international rights group wants a commitment and concrete plan of action from government on how it plans to meet the education targets under the Millennium Development Goals, a set of global antipoverty benchmarks that world leaders have committed to achieve by 2015.

The Philippines is among the nations known to be lagging behind in MDG compliance.

In a roundtable discussion with Education Undersecretary Alberto Muyot, Amnesty section director Aurora Parong said government should include stakeholders in drafting its course of action for MDG compliance and should direct its efforts into getting the poor and marginalized into the school system.

“The first message is to fulfill their international human rights obligation to respect, protect and fulfill the right to education. They should target the most vulnerable—the street children, the displaced, those in evacuation centers, those in the 10 poorest provinces,” Parong said.

She said government should adopt targeted measures to address education concerns specific to impoverished regions and sectors. She said these sectors should also be represented in consultations so that government action would correspond to their needs.

Overcoming poverty

Muyot, a former Amnesty International member himself, said he would convey the group’s concerns to government. He said measures were under way to ensure that the country makes it to the 2015 MDG deadline.

In a program held on the steps of DepEd’s main building, Amnesty International members read out a few of the letters from students and out-of-school youths, all of them expressing the hope that funding for public education would be increased to help them overcome poverty.

A cause for concern is the DepEd’s anticipated higher budget for next year—P207 billion from this year’s P175 billion—that Amnesty fears may not trickle down to the communities that are in most need of education funds.

“Despite bigger resources, Amnesty International is concerned that this might not translate into universal primary education when the poor and marginalized do not have access to elementary school buildings, qualified teachers and adequate books and materials needed for effective and quality education,” Parong said.

The MDG deadline coincides with the end of the five-year transition period that the DepEd has set for the implementation of K+12 (kindergarten plus 12), a key Aquino administration reform that aims to extend basic education by two years to place the country’s education system on a par with that of other countries around the world. –Tarra Quismundo, Philippine Daily Inquirer