SOCIAL WATCH Co-Convener Marivic Raquiza considers it “very one-sided” that the government monitors compliance by beneficiaries – the so-called demand side – of the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program, but not the supply side, which the national and local government should take care of.

After all, a lack in the latter would make it harder for the beneficiaries to comply with the conditions tied to their cash grants and for the government’s stop-gap poverty alleviation program to meet its goals.

“If we want the participants to do their end of the bargain,” says Raquiza, “government should do its end of the bargain. And that has to be monitored.”

That, however, could take some doing. As of last January, the CCT was already being implemented in about 98.7 percent of the country’s provinces, half its cities, and 62 percent of its municipalities. But by the assessment of the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s (DSWD), which is the head agency in implementing the CCT, education facilities are often inadequate if not totally absent, and health and education personnel and supplies scant in majority of the CCT areas.

This has led many observers and development experts to say that the haste in which President Benigno Simeon ‘Noynoy’ C. Aquino III, as well as his immediate predecessor Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, has expanded the CCT’s scope not only seems to defy logic, but could also end up counterproductive.

Indeed, almost three years ago, Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) senior research fellow Dr. Gilberto Llanto had warned the then Arroyo government against a rapid expansion of the CCT given the limited “fiscal space.” Instead, he said, the government should “sit down and look at both supply and demand issues so people can start talking about absorptive capacity and other things.”

CCT HOPEFULS. Residents of a barangay in Metro Manila search for their names on the latest shortlist of beneficiaries of the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) Program posted by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). Photo by Che de los Reyes.

But the Arroyo administration failed to heed his advice, and the Aquino government has since followed the lead of its predecessor. Since 2008, the number of CCT beneficiary-families has increased annually by more than half a million on average, and there seems no stopping that trend.

Today the program that began with just 4,459 beneficiary-families in March 2007 now has about 1.4 million. The government wants that figure to reach 2.3 million by this December, a number that is nearly seven times the program’s beneficiaries in 2008.

Full throttle

“The government is racing ahead and we were running behind it,” says Bert Hofman, country director of the World Bank, which has been financing earlier CCT programs in other countries like Brazil and Mexico. “That, I think, is a fair way of putting it.”

The initiative, he says, “was supposed to start very slow.” So when the Philippine government began expanding its CCT program sometime in 2009, Hofman says that even officials of the international lending institution “got a little nervous.”

According to the World Bank executive, the move diverted from the original plan, which was to “evaluate (the initial run of the program) and test the procedures…and then gradually expand it.”

In fact, DSWD had originally planned the CCT’s yearly expansion at a much more conservative 350,000 beneficiary-families at a cost of around P5 billion each time. Even then, the agency was already struggling to cope with the onslaught of additional duties that each batch brought in.

Hofman, however, says that when food and fuel crises struck the country in 2008, “it became such an urgency to have a better social protection system.” By the next year, he says, the Philippines was asking the World Bank for a loan to finance part of the rapidly expanding CCT.

Apparently, the Arroyo government wanted CCT beneficiary-families to reach one million by the end of that year. But it would not reach the target within that time frame; DSWD records show only 665,542 beneficiary-families in the program by end-2009, for which a total of P8.3 billion was disbursed. The last budget signed by Arroyo meanwhile would include a P10-billion allocation for the CCT, or an eight-fold rise in just three years.

A DSWD insider says people at the agency had been surprised by then President Arroyo’s announcement of having a million CCT families within 2009. But since it was the year before national elections were to be held, the insider figures the decision may have been politically motivated.

Funds ready but…

That theory was echoed by World Bank officials in Manila, according to an Aquino Cabinet secretary. The loan for the expanded phase of the CCT was ready for release in early 2010, or during the last months of the Arroyo administration, but the Aquino Cabinet member says that the Bank decided to buy some time before releasing the money. As the official recalls it, the unsaid argument was that since the May 2010 elections would surely usher in a new government, it would be better that the funds not be used to prop the campaign of the Arroyo-backed candidates.

Interestingly, the DSWD personnel also thinks politics is behind President Aquino’s move to expand the program even more, as soon as he came to Malacañang in June 2010. This is despite the fact that save for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) the country is not going to have elections until 2013 yet.

DSWD Secretary Corazon ‘Dinky’ Soliman says, though, “The reason why we continued and expanded it to bigger numbers is because (considering) the sheer number of those in need, of the impoverished, we needed to do a strategic intervention on two key areas of concern that will help very poor families move out of poverty. That’s education and health.”

Another reason, says Soliman, is that the government is trying its best to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which include poverty alleviation, as well as specific health and education targets, by a 2015 deadline.

Politics & poverty

Llanto of PIDS himself concedes that through the CCT, Aquino has been able to “respond effectively to the political challenge of addressing the immediate needs of those who have put him in power.”

Albay Governor and CCT advocate Jose ‘Joey’ Salceda also argues that at the very least, the program fulfills the ‘satisfier variable’ for any development intervention: “First (people) must be alive. If (they) don’t survive now, what achievement are we talking about?”

World Bank’s Hofman, for his part, says that the available evidence from other countries’ CCT programs is enough proof that “this type of program really meets what the Philippines wants for their social protection system.”

The question, he says, is “not so much about whether it is the right thing to do or not,” but about the “logistics of expanding the program in such a rapid manner.” Still, he is quick to add, initial evaluation reports commissioned by the World Bank last year have given it confidence that the program “would work.” (See Sidebar)

For all that, the government’s folly of putting the cart before the horse seems to be already showing. Even the evaluation reports cited by Hofman note problems in the program’s implementation among the mixed outcomes.

Done on selected pioneer CCT areas or those that were included in the very first phase of the program in 2008, the reports were aimed at further improving the program “as it is being implemented,” says Hofman. He also clarifies that they were “not a final evaluation or bottom line of the (program).”

Ateneo de Manila University’s Institute of Philippine Culture (IPC) and the Social Weather Stations (SWS) each conducted a study in early 2010 and came up with similar observations. This was even though IPC looked into the first 18 months of the CCT in six municipalities and three provinces from January to May 2010 while SWS concentrated on CCT areas in Northern Samar, one of the country’s poorest provinces, from January to March 2010.

Queries, glitches

Among IPC’s findings was that even after having been part of the program for a significant period of time, member households in general remained lacking in knowledge of the details of the various conditions they were supposed to meet. Some had even proceeded to create “additional” conditions, such as maintaining a backyard vegetable garden, avoiding gambling, and paying school fees in full.

Many queries from beneficiaries regarding various issues (ranging from the cash grants to updates in household composition) also often went unanswered by local and central government personnel alike, says the study.

But perhaps among the more basic glitches in the program found by IPC was the exclusion of several families more deserving of being CCT beneficiaries than those selected. In large part, this was because members of many excluded households were not in their homes, but most likely out working at the time of the survey to select the beneficiaries, the study says. Soliman herself says that such targeting errors affected beneficiaries who began receiving grants in 2008 and 2009.

Another possible factor that led to the exclusion of several deserving families was the absence of a targeting system at the time. DSWD’s targeting system was installed only in the first quarter of 2009.

The database containing the names of those considered eligible for the CCT will also be completed only this year – even as the program is being expanded at its fastest clip yet, and the DSWD is adding more beneficiary-families than ever before.

As well, the DSWD happens to be still in the process of completing its Supply-Side Assessment (SSA) in CCT areas. And yet there are already indications that many of the program’s beneficiaries may be receiving substandard education or would be hardpressed in finding medical personnel to help them fulfill the conditions enabling them to receive grants.

For instance, the DSWD has found that an overwhelming majority of elementary schools in CCT places are not meeting seven out of the nine quality benchmarks set by the Department of Education (DepEd). Majority of municipalities and cities with CCT programs are also not meeting all three benchmarks on health personnel set by the Department of Health (DOH).

Textbooks lack

So far, too, the DSWD has found a serious shortage of textbooks in all five core elementary subjects. The biggest shortfall is in science textbooks, with more than nine out of 10 municipalities/cities surveyed failing to meet DepEd’s standard of one textbook per pupil. Eight out of every 10 municipalities/cities also do not have adequate textbooks in English, Math, Filipino, and HEKASI. Only one out of every 10 municipalities, moreover, is able to provide DepEd’s standard of two deworming pills per student.

In general, CCT areas are faring well in only two education indicators: the teacher-to-pupil ratio and the classroom-to-student ratio. DSWD’s figures show that about nine in 10 CCT areas covered by the SSA so far have an adequate number of teachers and classrooms based on DepEd’s standard of one teacher per 45 students and one classroom per 45 students.  And yet it is highly possible that these healthy ratios were achieved only because in many areas with huge student populations, public schools conduct two to three shifts of classes for the same grade levels.

When it comes to health services, the SSA reveals that majority of CCT municipalities and cities surveyed are short of health personnel. Only three in every 10 CCT areas, in fact, have enough doctors (at least one doctor per 20,000 people). Only four in every 10 areas have an adequate number of nurses (at least one nurse for every 20,000 people) and midwives (at least one per 5,000 people).

Providing education and health facilities and services, though, is beyond DSWD’s mandate. Thus, says the agency, it created a technical working group composed of representatives from the DOH, DepEd, Department of Budget and Management (DBM), and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) in order to “find ways to address the identified gaps on supply side.” In addition, it says, its Regional Project Management Team “continuously engages the LGUs to address supply gaps.”

DepEd Undersecretary for Legal and Legislative Affairs Alberto Muyot says that the CCT areas are “more or less, consistent with (DepEd’s) 40 priority divisions…where (DepEd) will focus (its) resources.” These divisions are being prioritized, he explains, because these are the areas scoring low on achievement tests. 4Ps public relations officer Pamela Susara also says that DepEd has already earmarked a certain portion of its 2011 budget for additional classrooms, textbooks, and teachers in CCT areas.

The DOH has also partnered with local government units in implementing a project dubbed “Registered Nurses for Health Enhancement and Local Service” or “RN HEALS.” Under the project, 10,000 skilled nurses will be hired and deployed for one year to 1,221 rural “unserved or underserved communities.” The DOH will share the cost of providing the monthly cash allowances for these nurses with LGUs. But it will be LGUs that will “supervise, provide board and lodging, and ensure the safety and security of deployed nurses.”

More effort, resources

Still, the huge gaps in the delivery of the most basic health and education services point to the need for much more effort – as well as more resources. The SSA results even show that shortages afflict not only the poorest provinces, but also the more affluent areas.

One striking example is the National Capital Region (NCR), which is usually ranked among the country’s least poor areas. In all the four NCR districts covered during CCT’s phase two, a whopping eight out of every 10 elementary schools failed to meet DepEd’s pupil-to-classroom standard; almost nine in 10 did not meet the pupil-to-science textbook standard.

Less of a surprise is the case of Zamboanga del Norte, which is among the poorest provinces in the Philippines. Nearly every other resident there is considered income poor. In all that province’s 13 municipalities that were covered in the CCT’s first phase, not a single elementary school met DepEd’s textbook-to-pupil standard ratio. Neither did any municipality there meet the standard doctor-to-population ratio set by the DOH, according to DSWD’s SSA.

The SSA for health, meantime, revealed peculiar results. Among the regions covered in CCT’s phase two, for example, Region I ranked consistently the highest in terms of adequacy of health personnel (doctors, nurses, and midwives). And yet, not a single province there was able to administer enough vaccines for children below one year to meet the DOH standard.

By contrast, a 2009 World Bank policy research report says that in countries where CCT programs have been deemed successful, initiatives to improve access to, and coverage of, education and health services were implemented “in parallel with or as an integral part” of the CCT.

In Mexico, for example, the government’s efforts to improve educational services included rehabilitating 50,000 schools, giving grants to parent associations to pay for minor classroom maintenance and repairs, and constructing secondary schools.

In Bangladesh, government spending on education almost doubled as a proportion of social sector spending since the 1980s. Says the World Bank report: “This has allowed for a significant expansion in the capacity of the schooling system.”

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has also warned against the phenomenon of “the tail wagging the dog.” FAO was referring to the tendency of some governments to treat the CCTs as a complete solution to the problem of inequities in human capital, “thus taking resources and/or attention away from essential investments in health and education which may be the only way to sustain the long term investment in human resources required to reduce poverty.”

But the Aquino government seems to have finally woken up to the reality of a yawning gap between demand and supply in the CCT and has been playing a furious game of catch-up. At DepEd, for instance, Muyot says the agency will “fast track the construction of classrooms” by “encouraging” investments from the private sector “either through outright grants, soft loans, or other forms.”

He also says that DepEd is entering into partnerships with local government units (LGUs) for the construction of school buildings. The LGU will manage the actual construction, Muyot says, while DepEd will monitor whether the LGU is able to comply with its quality standards. Construction costs would be shared by the LGU and DepEd.

Not to be outdone, the DOH is reportedly proposing health projects to the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Center, an attached office of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) tasked to coordinate and monitor PPP programs and projects. These include the modernization of public hospitals and the development of vaccines.

Just last May 13, too, Aquino signed Executive Order No. 43, which aims to rationalize the Cabinet into “clusters” according to the administration’s key priority areas.

The cluster that will take charge of Aquino’s anti-poverty efforts is dubbed the “Human Development and Poverty Reduction cluster” and will be composed of 14 government agencies. The DSWD secretary will lead the cluster as its chair, while the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) will serve as secretariat.

Cluster members are the chairpersons of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED); and the secretaries of Education, Health, Agrarian Reform, Agriculture, Environment and National Resources, Labor and Employment, Interior and Local Government, Budget and Management, and NEDA.

It remains to be seen if all these moves would enable to solve the CCT’s supply-side problem. Obviously, though, CCT advocates here would rather look at the bright side. Hofman, for one, underscores the positive outcomes listed by the World Bank-commissioned studies, particularly better school attendance and health-seeking behavior, as well as a decline in the incidence of child labor.

Proclaiming these outcomes as “much better than expected,” Hofman says that the Philippines is rolling out the CCT “at par or even better than the mature programs in Latin American countries.”

But he also says, “Whether people in the end live a richer and happier life – that, of course, is a longer-term perspective.” – PCIJ, May 2011

“Yung EDSA ’86 ba, kailan naganap?”

“Hindi ko po talaga alam, sir.”

The PCIJ asks young people what they know about the 1986 People Power revolution.

“Will the education of special children be more important than mass education?” Dizon asks. “The needs of the majority have yet to be fulfilled. How much more for those in the minority?”

“If (education) priorities are met,” he says, “there should have been more SPED programs and inclusionality programs. More teachers (should have been) trained and retained and not encouraged to leave the country.”

In the meantime, legislators are attempting to add more to the pile of laws on special education. At the Senate, pending at the Committee level are at least 11 bills that aim to improve the special education program in the country. Among these are Special Education Act of 2010 (SB No. 907), introduced by Senator Jose ‘Jinggoy’ Ejercito Estrada, and Special Education Act (SB No. 1912), introduced by Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago.

Once ratified into law, both bills would institutionalize an educational program for every child with special needs through the establishment of SPED Centers – at least one for each school division and at least three in big school divisions. A Bureau of Special Education would also be created to institutionalize and govern special education in the country.

At the House of Representatives, at least seven bills with similar objectives have been filed.

Yet even if these bills are passed into law, they may do little in fulfilling special education’s goal of making a child with special needs nearly as capable as other children through the provision of all the opportunities and appropriate support. At the very least, they probably would not have much impact on society’s understanding and appreciation of those who are “different.”

“We need a community that strives for the advocacy for special children,” says Dizon. “So we need public education in that regard.”

That this is lacking can be seen partly in the severely limited work opportunities for people with disabilities. Says Dizon: “In the end, when special people start getting into education, they eventually transit into work opportunities. The community will have to provide work opportunities…for such people so that they will be reassured of a future.”

“When you talk of a special child,” he notes, “definitely you will talk of a future. You do not only look at it piece by piece, you have to look at it long-term.”

The reality, however, is that community support for those who are either mentally or physically challenged can be hard to come by. Center for Possibilities, Inc. founder Dolores Cheng, for instance, notes the lack of public toilets and water fountains that are special child-friendly. She comments, “The absence and inaccessibility of these services make it difficult and almost impossible for special-needs children to be independent.”

It’s bad enough, she says, that there is no infrastructure available for these children that is comprehensive and continuing.

“Try to imagine a special child commuting,” says Cheng, “it’ll be a challenge. Baka pa nga madisgrasya ‘yung bata (The child may even meet an accident).” – PCIJ, January 2011

MARAGONDON, Cavite –  In theory, Jaime ‘Jay’ Divina Jr. should have been able to go to school, despite the poverty of his family and his own physical shortcomings. After all, education up to the secondary level is supposed to be free in this country, and there are laws to ensure that even children with special needs like him are not deprived of learning opportunities.

MOTHER AND SON. Diana once thought of giving Jay away but soon changed her mind. She decided to take responsibility for him and vowed that they will stay together, wherever fate takes them. Photo by Karol Anne M. Ilagan.

Yet at 16, Jay, the eldest in a brood of four, has yet to step inside a classroom. In fact, in 2009 his 13-year-old sister Jaciel was the only one among his siblings who remained in school. The other two – Jonathan, 15, and Carlinnette, 10 – had to stop because their mother Diana could no longer afford expenses such as the children’s day-to-day baon, school supplies, and other requirements that do not go free in public schools. In 2010, Jonathan and Carlinnette have resumed schooling, but are at least two grade levels behind their age groups.

Diana chose to have Jay skip school altogether partly because of the family’s nearly absent funds. “He should already be a senior in high school,” says the single mother who makes about P50 on a good day selling scrap metal and bottles she picks from dumps. “Pero ‘di naman namin talaga kaya (But we really just can’t afford it).”

The bigger hindrance, though, is Jay’s condition. Says Diana: “All the things a child would already know how to do, he doesn’t know. I still have to feed him, bathe him, and brush his teeth.”

She says Jay was born with a hole in his heart, which she believes has led to several other complications. Jay was already five years old when he began to walk and up to now has very weak limbs. Frail and puny for his age, he has also been partially blind since birth and is plagued by frequent seizures that send his mother into a panic every time.

Under the law, Jay’s physical disabilities entitle him to special education (SPED) that would help him develop to his full potential. The Department of Education (DepEd) categorizes children with special needs in 11 types of disability: learning disability, hearing impairment, visual impairment, mental retardation, behavioral problem, orthopedically handicapped/health problems, children with autism, speech defect, chronically ill, children with cerebral palsy, and children with multiple disorders. The mentally gifted or fast learners are also considered as children with special needs.

The crudely built shack that Jay’s family calls home is only walking distance to the munisipyo, which in most cases would imply that aid is within reach of the boy. Yet Jay is one “special child” who somehow fell through bureaucratic cracks, rendering him unable to access the help due him.

SAFE HAVEN. Diana and Jay in the shack they call home. Photo by Karol Anne M. Ilagan.

Unfortunately, his situation isn’t that rare. In 2005, the Department of Education (DepEd) counted 5.5 million children as having special needs nationwide, representing some 13 percent of the country’s children and youth. Of these children, though, only around 4.8 percent or about 264,000 were being provided with appropriate educational services.

In school year 2007-2008, DepEd recorded a total of 186,764 children with special needs enrolled in both public and private elementary schools. But it could not say how many children entitled to special education had been left unserved for that period, since it had yet to update its countrywide tally of such kids.

THE 1987 Philippine Constitution has provisions on special education, while Republic Act No. 7277 or the Magna Carta for Disabled Persons introduced some rules on SPED.

The Philippine government is also a signatory to the 1994 Salamanca Statement on Principles, Policy and Practice in Special Needs Education, which means it recognizes the need for policy shifts to promote inclusive education that ensures each and every child has access to learning programs appropriate to his or her needs.

SPED’s ultimate goal is the integration of learners with special needs into the regular school system and eventually in the community. First, however, a child’s special needs must be recognized – something that can be difficult to pull off in an impoverished setting.

Dr. Edilberto Dizon, one of the SPED pioneers in the Philippines, notes, “A diagnostician or a clinician will have to identify or diagnose the child. You cannot just go to a municipal or provincial doctor to be able to tell if the child is special. They may know the child is special but not really specify what the exceptionality is.”

DIVINAS. Diana (second from left) with children Jonathan, Jay and Carlinnette. Photo by Karol Anne M. Ilagan.

“Definitely, not all physicians are trained or have the clinical eye for exceptionality,” he adds. “It takes a person specializing in such to be able to know. And that will cost money.”

For sure, Dizon is referring to those who are either mentally gifted or disabled and not really to the likes of Jay, whose physical disabilities are obvious enough to anyone, especially among his neighbors. Says Diana, in dismay: “It’s the little children who tease him mostly because they do not understand him. They call him (Jay) all sorts of names: blind, cross-eyed, crippled, lame.”

She says that Jay tries to do things by himself, although accomplishing even simple tasks could have disastrous results. For instance, whenever Jay eats, the food often ends up all over the place. “Instead of a plate, he uses a bowl,” says Diana. “Otherwise, the food will spill out. He tries to eat properly, though, because other children tease him.”

Diana says she knows that “if you ask for it,” there is some sort of assistance they could get from the government for Jay. But she says that “they also ask for so many papers,” and that she doesn’t know where and how to begin seeking help.

Even for well-off families, the task of bringing up a special child is formidable, says Dizon. “When you raise a special child,” he says, “ideally, you want the best intervention platform. That will mean P1 million a year would not be enough – for therapists, professional fees, home therapy, shadow teacher, and instructional schemes.”

The next hurdle is the child’s training. Dizon, who is a University of the Philippines education professor, hints that this can be almost insurmountable for poor families.  “(T)hey (parents) want to teach their child but they will not even know how,” he says. “Because you would have to get training, and training would cost money.”

Then comes the grown-up child’s transition into the community. Dizon describes the most probable scenario involving an impoverished family: “If the child is high functioning, then maybe he could help in the fields. (But) generally, he will just stay at home.”

SIBLINGS. Jay with youngest sister Carlinnette, a 10 year-old Grade 2 pupil. Photo by Karol Anne M. Ilagan.

“WE’RE LOOKING at all means to find a child (with special needs),” says DepEd Special Education Division chief Mirla Olores. “Sometimes, there’s a tendency for parents to keep their child away from society. That’s why we work with health workers because they would know which parent gave birth to a child with special needs. Early intervention is good for the child.”

She says a cash-strapped family may seek help from the municipal council through the Special Education Fund. Created through Republic Act No. 5447, this fund is derived from the proceeds of an additional tax on real property and from a certain portion of the taxes on Virginia-type cigarettes and duties on imported leaf tobacco.

Olores adds that a disabled child like Jay is entitled to benefits such as discounts in groceries, medicine, and transportation through Republic Act No. 9442, which complements the Magna Carta for Disabled Persons.

Jay, says Olores, falls under the category of children with multiple disorders. She says he would be perfect for DepEd’s home-based or distance learning programs, which are designed for children who cannot go to school physically – that is, they live in far-flung areas, they cannot walk, or whose parents cannot bring them to school.

Olores says these programs are especially for poor families who cannot provide for the child’s transportation. “If the parent cannot bring his child to school, we will go to them,” she says.

In distance learning, a teacher would go to the child’s house at least once a week (either Friday or Saturday), and teach the parent or anyone old enough in the household how to train the child. The lesson plan is modified according to the child’s specific needs.

Another alternative is for a special child to avail of a community-based learning program that either teaches children how to read or write or helps adults learn work skills so that they may be independent and productive. There are also hospital-bound programs, which are meant for children who are chronically ill.

For more ambulatory children with special needs, there are either SPED centers or classes to consider. Again, that’s in theory; in reality, it’s not as if they can just walk into one, much less find one that is more or less a match for them. Olores also admits that some parents are still not aware of the programs and services available for them and their children. “Kulang kasi sa advocacy (Advocacy is lacking),” she says.

IN 1997, DepEd released Order No. 26 requiring all divisions to organize at least one SPED center each to cater to children with special needs. At present, there are about 231 SPED centers across the country. Yet while some larger divisions (such as Manila) have 14 centers, there are also divisions that have zero.

Some schools without such centers do have SPED classes. Here in Maragondon, there is no SPED center; the local elementary school has a SPED class, but only for fast learners, not those with disabilities.

Notes Dizon: “Most likely, a typical barrio would not have a special (education) class. What usually happens is that the child with special needs is joined with other children in the public school. In a class of 50, they will have to teach the same lesson to all children. What will the child learn if he’s having difficulty in comprehending?”

Dizon also says that some parents, in their desire for their offspring to get any kind of education, would settle for a regular school even if it is not suitable for their special child. One result: “Because of certain requirements in school – that each child must meet this and that – the child, at a certain point, will drop out.”

It is the responsibility of a special child’s teacher, as well as the school’s principal, to assess whether their school requires a SPED class, says Zenaida Concon, DepEd SPED senior education program specialist. She says that children with special needs are identified when they enroll or when the teacher notices that a child in a regular class is a slow learner or cannot cope with the lessons because of a disability.

According to Concon, the educational requirements of even the children who are not enrolled, like Jay, should be included in any public school’s assessment. The principal should coordinate with the local social worker, she says, since the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) would have the relevant statistics from its family mapping survey. The school officials can also go to day-care centers, she says, to check on the needs of children under their school’s ambit.

Aida Profeta, who has been a social worker in Maragondon for almost two decades now, says that a Persons with Disabilities (PWD) survey is conducted every year. The English-language PWD profiler form is usually filled up by disabled child’s parents or guardians, who also have to submit a barangay clearance and the child’s ID picture to the local DSWD office. Only then would the DSWD be able to arrange whatever help can be extended to the child.

Profeta says that Jay Divina does not appear in any of her office’s records. She comments that his health seems to be in urgent need of attention and that the DSWD can arrange for him to have a check-up with major government hospitals like the Philippine Heart Center, with the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office perhaps footing the bill. The DSWD would take care of his transport expenses as well, she says.

Profeta promises to visit the family soon, but remarks that it is best to have a parent who is really keen on securing help for the child. She points out, “It’s nice if it’s two-way because there is a process that has to be followed.”

FAMILY MATTERS. If she had the means, Diana dreams of seeing all her seven children through college, Jay included. Photo by Karol Anne M. Ilagan.

DIANA SAYS that she and Elena Mabutin, her live-in partner, visited the DSWD office here recently, but Profeta was out. She guesses that the social worker is still busy, that’s why she hasn’t gotten around to Jay’s case yet.

Diana confesses that when Jay was much younger, she had thought of giving him away. “Not that I wanted to turn away from my responsibility,” she says, “but I thought if there were just someone rich who would take him and have him treated, I would give him up, even if he was brought far away from here. What was important was that he would get treatment, because I wanted him to grow up as normally as possible.”

But Diana could not find anyone who would take care of Jay. Now, she says she realizes that “I am his mother. I am the one responsible for him. We will stay together wherever fate may take us.”

She does continue to worry about Jay, especially since he gets a check-up only during the medical missions conducted occasionally by the U.S. Navy in this town. The U.S. medical staff keeps on telling her to bring the boy to a specialist, prompting Diana to say, “If I had money, why would I not bring him to one?”

As it is, she says she no longer brings Jay to the municipal hospital whenever he has his seizures. Instead, she says, “I massage his chest, and then he would need plenty of air. After that, he’ll be relieved, and he’ll be able to sleep.”

Diana says she knows that the “remedy” she has concocted for Jay’s attacks may not be advisable. But not only does she fear his heart may no longer be able to take the injection the doctors give him every time he has a seizure, she also says each shot costs P300. Besides, she reasons, the hospital is a 10-minute tricycle ride away, and there have been times that Jay seemed just about ready to die during the trip.

She cannot recall ever being included in a DSWD survey. Then again, says Diana, she is always out working, as is Elena, who is a laundrywoman. Diana says she has never gotten any support for the children from her husband Jaime, from whom she separated years ago. If neither she nor Elena ventures out, she says, the whole family – which includes Elena’s three children – will have nothing to eat.

Herself a high-school dropout, Diana would want to see all the seven children in her household end up with diplomas, if she had the means. That would include even Jay, who she says dreams of going to school if only he could see properly.

“He only looks like a child, but he talks like an adult,” she says with palpable pride. According to Diana, her eldest is fond of music and even talks of maybe joining a band someday.

“If I ever find money while looking for discarded bottles, the first thing I will do is seek treatment for him,” she says. “I will have his eyes operated on, I’ll have each and every ailment he has treated, and his heart examined to see exactly what is wrong with it.”

“That,” says Diana, “is my lifelong dream.” – PCIJ, January 2011

THE MOMENT they stepped into the campus of the Philippine High School for the Arts or PHSA in 1988, Roselle Pineda says that she and the other freshmen were made aware they were being trained to be the country’s future cultural leaders.

“Medyo mayabang pakinggan (It may sound like I’m bragging),” says Pineda, now 34 and teaching at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, “but this makes you realize at the start that you are scholars of the people, the cream of the crop, and therefore you have the duty to give back something to the people.”

Then again, PHSA is no ordinary school. As its name implies, it specializes in the arts, and it takes as students only those who are deemed gifted in writing or in either performing or visual arts. It is, in fact, the creative counterpart of the older Philippine Science High School or Pisay, which caters to youths with “high aptitude for sciences and math.”

PHSA graduate Roselle Pineda now teaches at UP Diliman. Photo courtesy of Roselle Pineda.

Both schools are government-run, but they are certainly what most public high schools are not. Both boast of the latest equipment, well-trained staff and solid faculty lineup, and a healthy teacher-student ratio. There are no overcrowded classes in either school, and if there is a class that is held under a tree, it would be because teacher and students suddenly felt the urge to commune with nature or take in fresh air, rather than because of a missing roof or, worse, the sheer inexistence of a school building.  Aside from free tuition, free board and lodging are available. Each student gets a monthly stipend as well.

No wonder then that the select few who get to attend Pisay and PHSA are taught early on that they are expected to contribute to “nation-building and development.” In other words, they need to put the education they receive into good use.

There’s no guarantee, of course, that all graduates of Pisay and PHSA would fulfill such expectations – and it’s not as if the government would demand its money back from those who do not. Yet while there is never any certainty where the youths who finish from these schools would end up, there is no doubt that they leave Pisay and PHSA armed with the skills and values that could only help them realize their potential.

THE PHILIPPINE Association for the Gifted, Inc. (PAG) estimates that about two percent of the country’s population is gifted, meaning they “exhibit at least above average general intellectual ability, and… (demonstrate) superior achievement and/or special ability in any of the following areas: Verbal-Linguistic Intelligence; Logical/Mathematical; Body Kinesthetic; Musical/Rhythmic; and Leadership.”

Fortunately for those endowed with extraordinary aptitude in math and science, there are now actually eight campuses in the Philippine Science High School system, including the original one in Quezon City that was established in 1963.  The seven other campuses are found in the provinces, among them two in Mindanao. But the Quezon City school remains the star of the system, and it is the one being referred to when people talk of “Pisay.”

The minimum expectation for a Pisay graduate is that he or she would later pursue a career in the sciences, engineering, or mathematics. After all, Pisay’s core curriculum comprises advanced science and math subjects that help students maximize their “potential intellectual skills.” But the school itself says that some 30 percent of its alumni wind up in other fields, including journalism, law, the military, and even religious ministry.  Indeed, the diverse paths Pisay grads take can be gleaned from a cursory reading of a list of the school’s more famous alumni: Rosalia Mercado-Simmon, one of the world’s leading researchers in the biology of reproduction, as well as former National Economic and Development Agency chief Cielito Habito, Army General Hermogenes Esperon, United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Chairperson Vicky Tauli-Corpuz, writers Jose ‘Butch’ Dalisay and Jessica Zafra, and film maker Auraeus Solito.

In any case, first-year Pisay students combine general subjects like English, History, Values Education, Integrated Sciences and Elementary Algebra. From second year onwards, students take Biology, Chemistry and Physics as separate subjects. Computer Science is taken in all year levels.

Pisay grads Sophia Cirujales and Hazel Ann Fajardo. Photo by Rorie Fajardo.

Pisay students also take electives that allow students to follow either the science or technology stream. Electives during first year, for instance, include the subjects Drafting, Earth Science, and Technology Preparation. In the second year, students can choose among these electives: Art Appreciation or Environmental Sciences for the Science Elective, and Technology Skills and Drafting using Computer-Aided Design for the Technology Elective.

“I was so shocked with the academics,” recalls Hazel Fajardo, who came to Pisay in 2002, fresh from a Catholic school. “I didn’t know many things there which were taught us. Eventually, I was pressured to catch up and excel.”

Her batchmate Sophia Cirujales meanwhile still can’t forget the figures that she says underlined just how privileged they were to be in Pisay: .02, the percentage of the applicants to the school who get in each year, and P75,000, the amount the government was then spending on each Pisay student annually.

Pisay keeps its batches small compared to other public high schools,  with the number of students per year around 240. At 27 to 30 students, each section is even just about two-thirds the size of its private school counterpart.

PHSA batches, however, are even smaller. According to respected playwright and character actor Fernando ‘Nanding’ Josef, who was the school’s executive director between 1995 and 2001, and again in 2008 to 2009, a batch would start with 30 to 40 students. But he says, “The number dwindles in time when some students are dismissed due to failing grades or disciplinary action, or voluntary leave for some reason.”

NESTLED IN the heart of mystical Mt. Makiling and surrounded by rainforests, the PHSA campus can be said to be the perfect setting for creative souls. It was built in 1977 through Presidential Decree 1287 “to develop artistically gifted and talented students” through the use of special secondary curriculum and support programs.  By 1990, under Executive Order 420, PHSA was converted to a regular government agency attached to the Department of Education and consults with the Cultural Center of the Philippines in the implementing its programs.

Similar to Pisay, PHSA offers basic high school subjects prescribed by the education department, plus a special curriculum designed to nurture the talents of young artists and leaders toward the “preservation, enhancement and promotion of the Filipino heritage through culture and arts.”

The art education in PHSA’s curriculum involves the following disciplines:

• Creative Writing – Fiction, Poetry, Playwriting, and Journalism in English and Filipino
• Dance – Classical Ballet, Modern Dance, Philippine Folk Dance, Dance Composition and Staging
• Music – Solo Voice/Solo Instrument, Theory, Composition, and Ensemble Classes (Chorus and Chamber)
• Theater Arts — Acting, Production Management, Technical Theater, History of the Theater, Theater Theory and Directing
• Visual Arts  — Visual Perception, Sculpture, Art Appreciation, Studio Painting, Materials and Techniques, Figuration, Pottery and Printmaking

PHSA also offers elective courses every semester, among them Computer Graphics, Photography, Ethnic Ensemble, Rondalla, Music for Non-Music Major, Music for Dancers, Basic Journalism, Ballroom Dance, Basic Acting for Non-Theater Arts Major, Philippine Folk Dance fir Ballet Major, Ballet for Philippine Folk Dance Major, Research in the Arts, and Community Service.

The government spends about P500,000 per student for a “four-year construct” at PHSA. And while many people usually perceive arts-oriented schools as rather loose with rules, PHSA Philippine folk dance mentor Victor Flor says, “We apply the pangaral-pamalo style of training.  There are no shortcuts because art is very process-oriented. We always tell the students, ‘Lumusong ka, ‘wag ka lang magtampisaw (Immerse yourself, don’t just play with the water)’.”

Josef estimates that 85 percent of PHSA graduates eventually pursue careers in the arts, among them singer Grace Nono, film maker Raymond Red, and concert pianist Rowena Arrieta. “Only a few do not wind up productive after PHSA,” says Josef.

Flor also clarifies, “They may not pursue arts as a full-time career, but in one way or another must use it to help people.”

HE MAY well be talking about Pineda, who was a theatre arts major during her high school years. These days, she juggles her time between teaching at the country’s premier state university and her work with Concerned Artists of the Philippines (CAP), a progressive group that helps organize communities and young artists for human rights, anti-poverty and other socio-political work.

Pineda’s CAP activities has her visiting rural communities, training budding artists in the barrios, and helping conceptualize and put up street plays and other performances during political rallies in Manila and elsewhere. It’s obviously not work that yields significant financial benefits for Pineda, but money is also obviously not the reason why she is into it. She even sees herself doing her “activist work” many years from now because she believes it is one way she can repay the people for the public – but privileged — education she received.

PHSA graduate Diwa de Leon. Photo by Rorie Fajardo.

For sure, though, making one’s work count as a societal contribution need not always involve politics. Diwa de Leon,  for example, believes he is doing his bit when he composes songs or performs in watering holes in his trademark cowboy hat and black pants and shirt. Reasons the valedictorian of PHSA Batch ’97 (major in visual arts):  “The artist’s role is to keep people sane. Imagine our lives without music or art.”

But he also says that among the things he learned at PHSA was that exercising his freedom to create comes with a “responsibility for your audience.” Perhaps that is why he says discipline as a must for any professional musician. It could also be why one of his most recent works is an album that combines the indigenous string instrument hegalong with sequence music.

“I want to make our hegalong a globally recognized music icon,” says de Leon,  who is a co-founder of the Makiling Ensemble, which plays world music.

Pisay grads Fajardo and Cirujales, for their part, both say the urge to be involved in something that has societal relevance stems from their awareness that they were government scholars.  Now barely a year away from getting their degrees in chemical engineering at UP Diliman, both girls are already drawing up plans on what they want to do after college.

Fajardo, for one, believes she can use her being a chemical engineer to promote environmental protection, arguing that the sciences and engineering can be called the “story behind” certain events that have an impact on a community or even country.  She also emphasizes that she has no plans of leaving the Philippines, the better to repay what she apparently considers a debt for life.

As for Cirujales, her game plan is to use whatever she will earn from chemical engineering to put up a tutorial center for public school students.

“I realized that I was so privileged in high school, getting a premier education without paying a single cent,” says Cirujales, who like Fajardo actually has an older sibling who also graduated from Pisay. “I want to give back by helping the public school students hone their potentials and be competent.” – PCIJ, January 2011

This is what I always tell people every time I am called ‘Math whiz,’ ‘Math genius,’ ‘Math pro’ (for professional). Even my friends expect me to compute bills fast. But because I live in a country where Math is a much-feared subject and is usually associated with nerds, I fully understand this perception. In my many years of competing and winning in Math contests and later teaching and coaching students to do the same, I have seen how most people have considered this subject as their waterloo. Many have shed tears just to conquer it, but not all have triumphed.

GIFTED COMPANY. Fortunato Tacuboy III (center), Math coach and teacher at the Philippine Science High School.

Being called a Math genius is sometimes too overwhelming for me, but my relative ease with Math is not the result of magic or something I achieved overnight. Perhaps it’s a combination of natural talent, discipline, luck, patience, and my unending thirst for knowledge. Maybe I have a predisposition to numeric or computational reasoning. I have always liked Math; I’m drawn to numbers. But I also like information and am a voracious reader. This is a big plus for me. With every new learning, I am able to do a lot of things.

At 31 years old and now a coach of future Math wizards, I still have so many ideas on how to help as many young minds to see Math beyond boring lectures and scary exams. I want to help many children enjoy Math – like I did during my growing years.

Many believe I got my Math and teaching genes from my grandfather, Fortunato Tacuboy Sr., who served as district supervisor of the then Department of Education in the 1960s. Lolo was said to be a genius in many aspects. He even composed our town’s official hymn, the “Buguey March.” Ate Rosbin, my only sibling, was lucky enough to have seen him during his life time and to have been trained under his wing.

There’s also the theory that my ‘gift’ for Math is because I was a ‘menopause’ baby. Ate Rosbin was already 14 years when I was born, while Papa and Mama were in the prime of their careers. That is why they were always busy with their work. But despite their busy schedules, they never forgot to instill in me the value of achievement and excellence. Mama, in fact, seemed like a stage mother. She would prod me to aim for more, to aim higher, with the entire family providing everything just so I could excel academically.

I hate to admit it, but I was really nerd when I was a child. One time, when I was still in elementary school, I had everyone panicking because I was nowhere to be found. All the while, however, I was in just one corner of my room, silently reading an encyclopedia. Even now, whenever I visit Buguey, up north in Cagayan Valley, the old folk would tell me, “Sika diya’y anak ni doctor na nalaing (You are the smart son of the doctor).”

I ATTRIBUTE my passion to win and excel to my family. My father, Fortunato U. Tacuboy Jr., was a rural doctor and public servant. He had served as our municipal health officer until he died due to cardiac arrest in 1996. My mother, Beatriz Co Asiddao, graduated from medicine but did not practice it. Instead, she concentrated in our family’s pharmacy business. Ate Rosbin, a pharmacy graduate, easily inherited Mama’s prowess in running our drug store, even as she plays single parent to my nephew, Ardie Dominic.

Achievement, especially in rural communities like ours, is usually equated to winning in competitions. This is why at an early age, I was already exposed to joining academic contests –and winning. I admit, I really enjoyed winning even as a child.

I got my first taste of competition and success when I was in Grade 6 – but it was in History. It was a two-year training that started when I was in Grade 5 for the Quiz Bee under my teacher aunt, Luzaida Tacuboy Salmorin, Papa’s first cousin. And because the one and only target was to win, it was a no-nonsense training: I lived in my aunt’s house; daily training started at five a.m., and I had to drink warm milk every night with the belief that it would further enhance my brainpower. I got so fat because of the night drinking of milk for two years!

But the discipline, combined with luck, paid off. I was able to compete all the way up to the World Quiz Bee. The competition was originally scheduled to be held in Manila on December 19, 1989.  But the coup d’etat led by former renegade military officer and now Senator Gregorio Honasan forced organizers to move the contest to March the following year. By the time it was finally held, many competitors had dropped out, fearful of the political situation in our country. It was supposed to be a big, happy event, but it ended up with participants from very few countries like Thailand, Spain, and Nauru.

Still, the World Quiz Bee boosted my confidence. I won in my category, a big feat for my home town. When we went back home from the competition, I was paraded all around the province capital, Tuguegarao, and in our hometown as the son of Buguey who bested many others in the World Quiz Bee. I, too, was very happy – because it was all over. I was happy because my hard work paid off.

Everyone’s expectations of me grew as I approached my teen years, and I confess I found it hard to deal with them. When it came time for me to go to high school, I set my eyes on the Philippine Science High School. Pisay – that’s how we call our beloved school — was known to be a prestigious school that hones future experts in Math and Sciences. For me, it was Pisay or bust. There was an alternative: the seminary, to “tame” me. But I wasn’t really considering that option.

The mailed acceptance letter from Pisay took too long to get to Buguey, however. I developed a fever waiting for it, fearing I hadn’t made it. When I finally received the letter, I became the second Buguey resident to enter the premier school. The first one had been the regional Quiz Bee champ the year before. Then again, she was not really from Buguey, but was a transferee from Sta. Teresita town.

BY JUNE 1990, I was a freshman at Pisay – and in serious culture shock. What was supposed to be a dream come true was feeling more like a sharp slap in the face.  At Pisay, I realized quickly that I was not the best, which I had been used to being in my hometown. My only credential – being the World Quiz Bee champ in History – had no weight at all in a field of super intelligent and amazing students in a Science and Math school. I even failed the Math diagnostic test, which is given to new Pisay students to measure how much they know about the curriculum to be taught them for a particular school year. Yet while subtraction of integers proved to be foreign to me, some of my classmates got perfect scores. That meant they already knew what would be taught to us for that year!

Somehow, however, I received an average of 1.4 in Math (Pisay’s grading system has 1 as the perfect score, with 5 the failing grade) for my first year and made it to the Director’s List, the honor roll. I never lost focus on going for high grades, even as I struggled to live independently in a dormitory – a contrast from my pampered life in Buguey. But even though I was grade-conscious, I made sure I harmed no one. I just studied very hard.

I was in second-year high school when I met and was inspired by my would-be mentor in the world of Math: Ms. Evangeline Bautista. She was my Geometry teacher and at the same time the Math coach for the school. By the end of that year, I swept the Math intersection contest by winning both in the individual and team levels. I bested all those who were known to excel in Math in the school. Ms. Bautista — more popularly known as Ma’am Banjo – then invited me to train under her. I started joining Math contests and winning. I tried to be good in Sciences, but I found Math more fulfilling. I resolved to excel in Math.

In 1993, I landed third place in the National Finals of the Philippine Math Olympiad. And while I did not graduate at the top of my class, I was content with being given the Best in Math recognition for the whole batch.

BY THEN I knew I wanted to concentrate on Math. My parents, however, said it was important to be titulado. They said that if I took up B.S. Math, I would become a teacher, a profession that offered no title to append to one’s name. And so I studied Electronics and Communications Engineering at the University of the Philippines in Diliman; my parents said I would be called ‘engineer’ once I graduated.

But the beckoning of Math never stopped. As soon as I graduated from engineering, I immediately began my master’s in Applied Math. I am almost done now; I just need to finish my thesis.

Toward my last years in college, I had also started working as a tutor at the Ahead Tutorial and Review Center along Katipunan Avenue. I wanted to earn my own money. I tutored elementary, high school, and even college students in Math and Science. Working as a tutor for about two years honed my teaching skills. It helped me assess students – whether they belonged to the bored, the lazy, the ones who refuse to learn, or those who are intelligent but are not satisfied with their grades. Being a tutor also taught me how to challenge an already gifted student.

I would have wanted to join the Math department in UP, but my application was turned down. Which turned out to be a good thing, because if I had gotten accepted at UP, I wouldn’t have tried asking for a chance to teach at Pisay. In 2003, Pisay finally accepted me as teacher for juniors. I was tasked to teach Advanced Algebra and Trigonometry and I was also given an advisory class. It was like reliving my high school: every day spelled only fun and excitement, although this time I was in front of the students, imparting the knowledge I had accumulated through the years.

I almost got the highest evaluation rating (‘Teacher A’) for a teacher after my first year at Pisay. Since then, I have consistently received ‘Teacher A’ rating, even though I am known to flunk many of my students. For me, this is proof that my students understand that I want them to excel.

In 2004, I was assigned freshmen classes as my regular load. At the same time, I was also to coach students for Math competitions. By then, coaching students for contests in Pisay was already institutionalized. The difference was that during my time there as a student, we were trained for competition only during out later years of high school. Now, Pisay wanted to train students as early as their freshman year.

SO A decade after I won the Philippine Math Olympiad due to proper coaching, I became a Math coach myself. And I’m still at it. These days, my regular load includes teaching advanced algebra to third-year students apart from coaching mathematically-gifted students.

Stephanie Oliveros, who I trained beginning her freshman year, is among those who have made me proud as a coach. In her senior year, Steph became champion of the Philippine Math Olympiad, thus making her qualify to the training pool for the International Math Olympiad in Spain that July. But Steph has a natural gift for Math. During her elementary years at De La Salle Zobel, she had already won in local and international Math competitions.

I don’t really have a different coaching style from Ma’am Banjo, although unlike her, I am strict and my trainees probably consider me a pain in the neck. I’m just more demanding than Ma’am Banjo — maybe because I was contestant myself, and I know how it feels to lose or win. I do push hard. I don’t easily get pleased especially if my students cannot remember important lessons taught to them. I tell them: You can always do better. The challenge there is for them to impress me. If I can do what they can do, then that is not impressive.

Yet I also tell my students to be realistic. With a lot of effort, you can do things — but also learn to accept realities. Otherwise, you’d go crazy.

My life, by the way, is not all about Math. I also have typical interests, ambitions, and fears, just like anybody else. I get to enjoy what life has to offer. I also envision myself having a family with my college sweetheart, Abigail de la Cruz. Everyone we know sighs and says that our wedding is long overdue – we have been sweethearts since 1998. Hopefully, we will get married this year. A psychology graduate from UP, Abi now works with the development NGO Asia Foundation.

During our free time, we enjoy watching movies and TV – although my TV has not been working for the last six months. I love watching science fiction, technology, and horror/thrillers because these give me the adrenaline rush that I love so much.

I love to read mystery novels, yet still I can’t get my eyes off Math novels or what I call “non-textbook” books. I am reading one now, William Dunham’s Journey through Genius. I am so amazed how the author was able to tell the history of the Pythagorean Theorem beyond the formulae or equations. I believe this approach to Math has helped take me where I am right now. Math is indeed hard. But there are a lot of ways to discover it and enjoy it.

I use this attitude now in teaching Math to my students. I sometimes teach Math at the soccer field or combined with an obstacle course. My exams have themes – Halloween (I ask my students to compute the angle in the witch’s hat), Kung Func Panda (for functions in my Algebra class), among others.

Someday I would like to volunteer to teach in far-flung areas. I also want to earn a doctorate in Math. And I hope I could have an impact in Mathematics education in the Philippines. But for now, I’m enjoying what I’m doing.

Years back, when I was still applying as teacher at Pisay, I promised one of my former mentors, Alex Alix, that I would be a good example. I told Sir Alex, who vouched for me: “Sir, hindi ko po kayo ipapahiya (I will not let you down).”

I’d like to think I have kept that promise. – PCIJ, January 2011

THEIR OTHER children were only eight, five, and six years old at the time, but Linda and Sabido de Leon knew it was important for everyone in the family to understand that things were about to change with the baby’s arrival. The doctors themselves had made sure Linda and Sabido realized that soon after Sammy’s birth.

“When I woke up after the anesthesia’s effects wore off, Sammy’s pediatrician approached me and my husband and started talking to us in a very soft voice,” recalls Linda. “She looked worried, and we could tell there was a problem. She was genuinely concerned, and she told us that Sammy can progress with a lot of help.”

The doctor told the couple that Sammy looked like he had Down Syndrome. Tests would later prove her right. By the time they were headed home, Linda and Sabido had decided to tell the older children that their baby brother would need extra care, and then some. Says Linda: “My husband and I tried to make them understand how fragile their baby brother was, and that they need to be our helpers in making sure Sammy is well taken care of. We told them that Sammy needs special care and attention.”

Down Syndrome is a genetic condition caused by the presence of a 24th chromosome. Normally, a person receives 23 pairs of chromosomes from each parent, or a total of 46 chromosomes. But someone with DS has an extra chromosome with an extra part, which contains the genetic material carrying certain characteristics that include some degree of mental retardation or cognitive disability and other developmental delays.

The cause of this extra chromosome is unknown, and both the Department of Health and local development pediatricians say that currently, there are no specific data on DS incidence in the Philippines. In general, however, the incidence of DS is one in 800 live births, or at least 1,875 in a population of 1.5 million newborns a year. In November 1976, one of those DS babies turned out to be an otherwise healthy baby boy born to the de Leons.

“I felt like I was in a dream,” says Linda, “and I wished I would wake up soon.  It took a while for it to sink in. (But) my husband and I prayed together and accepted that Sammy is special and is God’s gift to us.”

These days, Sammy remains the baby of the family, and in more ways than one. At 34, he still needs to be supervised in some areas like making friends and communicating, and he is still completely dependent on his mother when it comes to handling money and making decisions. Linda also says, “There are areas where we see some regression: the basics, which we thought he has already mastered, he tends to forget them every so often. On good days he would remember a lot. It’s the complete opposite on not-so-good days.”

Yet, in large part because he has never been wanting in his family’s support for his development, Sammy has become independent to some extent: he can bathe, dress up, eat, do some arts and crafts, play sports and video games, and jog all by himself. In the last few years, he has even been doing this in an entirely new environment, having followed, with Linda, his Ate Kathrina and Kuya Harold in migrating to the United States.

“Every year, Sammy seems to progress in some aspects,” reports Linda. “He is getting better and better with social interaction.”

DR. STELLA G. Manalo, who specializes in developmental and behavioral pediatrics, says that the development of a DS child is largely dependent on how well his or her family accepts and handles the situation. The most crucial time to support the child’s mental growth, she adds, is during the first five to six years after birth, and families should understand their role during these years.

“The human brain is like clay,” points out Manalo. “You have to put work into it at the right time, and shape it and mold it. If not, it will harden and not set right. So it is with children with DS; if we cannot nurture and develop it early on, we cannot optimize their brain’s potential.”

She says that the de Leons’ acceptance of Sammy’s condition is thankfully more of the norm rather than the exception among Filipino families with DS members. “Most Filipino families easily accept the diagnosis of DS because there is a clear chromosomal marker and evident physical features,” says Manalo.  “It is harder for Filipino families to accept other disabilities.”

She says that the most common mistake parents commit in handling kids with special needs is to spoil them or do everything for them because of “pity.”

“In other words,” she says, “they are the ones who are treating the child as ‘special.’ The worse thing to do is to do everything for the child because this will deprive them of learning opportunities.”

At the same time, Manalo admits, “(There) tends to be denial in terms of the mental retardation.  It is only the actual experience of the DS child’s slow learning that eventually helps the family accept the mental retardation part.”

Dolores Cheng, founder of the nongovernmental organization Center for Possibilities, Inc., also observes, “Not all parents want to be identified that they have a special child…(Most) parents until now find it hard to accept that their child is special. Tinatago pa rin (They hide that fact).”

Which is sad since parents are the child’s first line of defense, says Cheng, herself a mother of a mentally disabled teenager. She says, “If the parents are embarrassed by their child, nothing will happen to him or her.”

It’s a view apparently shared by Ma. Redetta E. de la Paz, manager at the Down Syndrome Association of the Philippines (DSAPI). According to de la Paz, a DS child’s family can influence how others will react to him or her. She notes, “If others see that the family treats the child with DS as normal as possible, then others will follow.”

This is especially important in a society where those who stand out in a crowd attract flack. Cheng says, for instance, that culturally, Filipinos tend to unknowingly “mistreat” or disrespect” children with special needs, and are prone to stare at those perceived to be “different,” if not break into nervous laughter.

For children with DS, there are physiological characteristics that mark them as different from the rest: upward slanting eyes, flattened facial features, small or unusually shaped ears, small mouth with protruding tongue, broad hands with short fingers and curved “pinky” fingers, a small head, a single crease on the palm, and decreased muscle tone at birth.  DS kids also have shorter legs and arms in relation to their bodies.

To Cheng, the stares and nervous laughter that these characteristics prompt unintentionally comes off as “condescending.”

“The good thing is that the mentally challenged child doesn’t get that,” she says, “but (from) the parent’s perspective, it’s painful.”

SOME STUDIES show that the odds of a mother aged 25 of having a child with DS are about one in 1,400; this increases to approximately one in 350 at age 35, and to about one in 100 at age 40.

Linda says that she was 35 when she got pregnant with Sammy. “I had flu during my third month but did not take any medicine for it,” she also recounts. “I also had poor appetite at that time and worked full-time – minimum of eight hours a day, six days a week.”

“I don’t know if my age at pregnancy and health condition at that time can be attributed to Sammy’s condition,” says Linda, a teacher who sewed dresses on the side, “but I was asked about those things afterward.”

It helped, however, that she and Sabido, an architect, were already financially comfortable when Sammy came into their lives. At the very least, that meant they could take on several of the extra expenses in bringing up a child with Down Syndrome, such as enrolling him in classes tailored to his needs. And while having three other children called for a considerable balancing act from Sabido and Linda in terms of allocating resources and attention, the three extra pairs of hands were also a plus in a household that soon became a bit busier because of Sammy.

The older de Leon children were not allowed to carry baby Sammy, but they were certainly permitted to play with him as he got older. They were not asked to make lots of adjustments – only those that they could manage in accordance to their young age. The siblings just had to be a little more independent because Sammy needed more attention, time, and care from their parents.

“I’d lie if I said the first few months were easy,” says Linda. “They were challenging and really testing. We were all eyes on Sammy. Rearing a special child is no joke. It can be very exhausting. Everything you need to do for him seemed to be twice harder. His motor skills were delayed, so he needed to be dressed, fed, cleaned, etc. until he grew older. His cognitive skills were delayed too, so he needed constant supervision at home – and especially outside the home.”

This was, after all, a child who seemed lost in his own world and was often unresponsive to instructions. Recalls Kathrina, the second among the de Leon children: “We were always cutting him some slack. He had a hard time remembering what he could or should not do. He was the only one among us kids who could break a nice piece of china without getting reprimanded.”

The family’s records show that Sammy had his first tooth at age one, sat without support at one year and four months, started crawling at one year and five months, stood up without support at one year and six months, walked unaided at two years old, and toilet trained at four years old. His first intelligible words, such as “Papa, “Mama,” and “Lola,” were at age five. Only much later was he able to dress, eat, and go to the toilet by himself.

Instead of being discouraged by Sammy’s slow development, the de Leons chose to focus on each of his accomplishments, however small these were. Says Linda: “I remember how we used to become emotional, very grateful to God whenever Sammy had new developments or progress.”

“Every single milestone is such a big achievement for Sammy,” adds Kathrina. “He felt happy whenever he accomplished something, and that really made us happy too. We do our best to give Sammy a lot of encouragement. Positive reinforcement works for him.”

DETERMINED TO do their best for their youngest child, Linda and Sabido sought advice from the family doctor, as well from relatives and friends whom they knew had knowledge or experience on how to go about rearing children with special needs.  By age seven, Sammy was enrolled in a school for special children, where he learned not only the basics, such as the ABCs, counting, sight reading, and colors, but was also able to participate in activities like swimming and basketball, woodshop, and drumming and dancing. In addition, Sammy learned martial arts and taekwondo, and joined the Special Olympics. He even got to play the lead role in an episode of the ABS-CBN program “Hiraya Manawari.”

These days, Sammy is being home schooled because he is not yet eligible for benefits in the United States. His Ate Kathrina and mother Linda report that he is being taught and re-taught some basic topics with first grade workbooks as reference. “There are times when he would get all correct answers, and then there are times he would get everything wrong,” says Kathrina. “It appears his cognitive skills are not consistent. At times, he shows regression.”

Still, Linda says, “Sammy has matured a little bit, too, although at times, he still wants to be babied. He is still as sweet as ever, and he loves the feeling of being needed. He always tries his best to be helpful.”

Sammy and Linda now live with Kathrina and her family in New York, although they visit Harold in California once in a while. On Christmas Eve in 1984, the family lost the eldest child, Lisa, then 16. Four years later, Sabido also passed away. But Kathrina says it was not until Sammy and Linda joined her household in the States that she began playing the role of part-time mother to her youngest brother.

“That’s because of the changes in circumstances,” says Kathrina. “I am now a mother myself, and Sammy plays with my son more like as a brother than like an uncle; my mom needs to work and I take care of Sammy then; and Sammy’s mental age is the same age as my son’s chronological age now.” Anyway, she says, she and her mother share in the responsibility of “raising” Sammy.  But when neither mom nor ate is available, a baby sitter for adults with disabilities like Sammy’s steps in. Kathrina says having someone else look after Sammy is a bit steep, but the benefits include her brother learning to be more independent and “learning English by immersion.”

Sammy now belongs to a group of young men and women who are mentally challenged like him.  He does have some difficulties in communicating with his group because his English isn’t that good yet, but his ate says that he and his groupmates have a sibling kind of bonding because they feel they have something in common.

“I think Sammy had some kind of unique relationship with his former classmates back in the Philippines,” says Kathrina.  “However, because of the nature of the activities that is offered here in the United States, which is a lot more conducive to learning how to be independent, Sammy seems more ‘bonded’ with his peers here (than in the Philippines).”

She says that some programs that Sammy is not eligible for yet may later help him to function “more independently.”

“He will eventually be trained to work,” says Kathrina.  “Perhaps he can even live on his own, separate housing together with some young men who are either mentally or physically challenged as well.  That would be a leap but is certainly feasible if he stays here in the United States. That, of course, is if he wants to and if we would feel that he is ready to go live on his own.”

THAT IS one opportunity that is missing here in the Philippines, where many people still believe that people with DS are bound to be always dependent on their family. Yet as the DSAPI points out, “people with DS…represent a big potential resource that can be a productive sector of society.”

Both Kathrina and Linda say that special education classes in the Philippines fall short of addressing their students’ need to develop independence. Says Linda: “For one, they can make the programs more engaging and more social interactive for special children. That would really be very helpful for them.  It will encourage those with special needs to be more independent in the long run.”

The good news is that there have been changes in the way Philippine society is starting to see children with DS. According to de la Paz, there is a growing awareness on the condition; the DSAPI itself periodically gives lectures in schools, companies and malls, and makes itself available for print and broadcast interviews. Likewise, various government agencies such as the Department of Education, Department of Social Welfare and Development, National Commission for the Welfare of Disabled Persons, and the Department of Health, have contributed to the information and awareness campaign on DS.

Legislative interventions for DS in the Philippines include Republic Act No. 9442, which outlines the incentives and privileges of disabled persons, as well as protects them from ridicule and vilification.

But the de Leons believe far more should be offered by the government. On Linda’s list are more incentives and up-to-date training for educational and health professionals working with children with DS, among other things.

Kathrina, for her part, says, “Free seminars for families dealing with disabilities would be great. Early intervention programs are very good to have as well. If families are guided and educated well and children are trained early, they may cope better and progress to the best they can.”  –with additional reporting by Karol Anne M. Ilagan, PCIJ, January 2011

That’s why “special” comes in handy, in the way it challenges social stigma and, going further, has a privileging function.  In the Philippine context, “special” was a term that was quickly accepted because even in our traditionally conformist society, many Filipinos did see “special children” as blessings, as suwerte (good luck).

Yet the concern we see today with “special children” is fairly recent in human history, starting with Western developed countries and spreading slowly to the Third World, including the Philippines. Certain conditions, like Asperger’s syndrome, which is a high-functioning variation of autism where the person has difficulty reading other people’s emotions, was not even identified until the 1950s. Even now most Filipinos – even university professors – have never heard of the term.

But to have reached the point we have today, with programs and even schools for special children, there had to be social and cultural changes.  To start off, let’s take a step back – way, way back several thousands of years:  Whenever I discuss human genetics in my anthropology classes, I always emphasize the importance of diversity in our evolution.

“Where would we be,” I ask my students, “if all of us were genetically similar in terms of physical appearance and personalities?”  I go into extreme hypothetical situations: if we were all extroverted, we would have a really chaotic situation because everyone would be so highly charged, constantly needing attention.  The other extreme would be if we were all introverts, which could mean a very boring world. Yet introverts, their minds constantly at work in solitude, have probably been responsible for many important discoveries and ideas that have revolutionized our lives.

For societies to move forward, we need a mixture of different people.  But while Nature has never been lacking with this diversity, this has also often created problems.  Many societies want conformity, often because this enhances a group’s ability to survive.  Too many individualists and non-conformists in an agricultural society, for example, could mean chaos in a village’s crop production. (Can you imagine a farmer who refuses to plant rice in a rice-growing area, or who insists on having his ricefields, say, kidney-shaped, while all his neighbors have rectangular fields?)

Even as late as a century ago, someone with autism would have had problems surviving in a very conformist society because he or she would not have been able to interact socially, according to the norms.  Those who were too different were probably neglected, with poor chances of surviving into adulthood.  Those with milder autism stood a better chance of survival, but could have been relegated to certain occupations where the introversion might even be seen as a sign of supernatural power. Shamans – people who claimed to be able to communicate with the dead, and with the spirits, and were attributed with healing power – was probably one of the culturally-sanctioned pathways for people who seemed to be different.

Still others could have been marginalized, attached with other labels.  Note the vulnerabilities of people with Asperger’s syndrome, who can be quite tactless in speech, or simply don’t like people.  Add on peculiar body movements, ranging from body posture, to the way of walking, and you can imagine how in a rural area someone with Asperger’s might end up being labeled an aswang.

ELSEWHERE IN the world, however, changes were taking place. In the West, philosophers in the Age of Enlightenment began to challenge social conformity, building what we now refer to as liberalism, which gave importance to the individual, and recognized rights and equal opportunity.

Many people are unaware that it was this liberalism that opened the doors for many social reforms, allowing us to live as we do today – for example, marrying for love rather than marrying someone our family requires us to. The political impact of this new way of thinking was no less dramatic, spurring movements that challenged monarchies and established religion. The United States was the first nation to be established based on liberalism, with its now well-known declaration in its constitution: “All men are created equal. . .with certain unalienable rights. . .of happiness, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Still, the application of these liberal principles took time.  For instance, America’s notion of equal humans didn’t quite apply to black slaves.  Even after the abolition of slavery in 1864, discrimination against blacks continued and it was not until in 2008, 232 years after the U.S. Declaration of Independence, that an African-American was elected president.

These days, discrimination against people who are “different” continues to be a huge problem in the area of public health.  People with certain diseases – HIV/AIDS for example – are still stigmatized, the illness attributed to sexual “immorality.”   Yet, we see, too, how it was in the United States and other liberal Western democracies where patients began to organize.  People with HIV/AIDS are among the most powerful lobbying groups today, successfully getting governments to pay for their treatment, and getting laws passed that would forbid discrimination.

What we are really seeing is diversity, with many battles not with infectious agents, but with social prejudices and biases.   Until fairly recently, homosexuality was considered a disease, listed with other mental disorders, in the American Psychiatric Association’s “bible,” the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM for short.

Homosexuality was eventually removed from DSM in 1974,  partly through a strong caucus of psychiatrists who were themselves gay, and weary of being regarded as having an illness. But the prejudices remain and there are still Christian psychologists and physicians who try to “cure” homosexual patients.

IN THE meantime, there are the “special children,” or those who, says the American Academy of Pediatrics, “have, or are at an increased risk for having, a chronic physical, developmental, behavioral, or emotional condition and who also requires health and related services of a type or amount beyond that required by children generally.”  But the societal shortcut definition for “special” is “different,” which brings with it a whole range of conditions, with many gray areas that even modern science has not quite been able to identify and decode. For all the changes we have gone through, in fact, “special” still hints of the danger of marginalization. For one thing, I’ve always felt uneasy looking at a special child as suwerte, since it seems to reduce the child into an anting-anting (amulet).

Melissa Hincha-Ownsby (autismaspergerssyndrome.suite.101.com) has a good review of how DSM handled the labels around special children.  The first DSM, issued in 1952, did not have autism listed.  Instead, there was a category called “schizophrenic, childhood type.”   The second DSM, issued in 1968, retained this diagnosis of schizophrenia.  It was not until 1980 that DSM had a separate category, “infantile autism,” which was also challenged because of the term “infantile”; this was removed in 1987.

The latest DSM, issued in 1994, has autism listed, as well as Asperger’s disorder, Rett’s disorder, childhood disintegrative disorder and “pervasive developmental disorders, not otherwise specified.”  But a fifth edition of the DSM is now in the works and Asperger’s might disappear, merged into autistic spectrum disorder, a move that is getting mixed reactions.

The names are bound to change again in the future, with many debates.  The terms coined for lay usage become even more complicated because of overlaps.  For example, a person with Asperger’s syndrome is actually considered autistic, but many are able to function in society because they can excel in particular fields.  One good example is Temple Grandin, who was able to get a PhD and wrote the book Animals in Translation, in which she described her work as an animal behavior specialist.  She explains that it was precisely her Asperger’s condition that allowed her to understand animals, in ways that – there’s that word again – “normal” people could not.

We do have many dilemmas trying to develop appropriate social responses.  Let’s look at one part of the spectrum here, the ones we sometimes call “gifted.” Note that many gifted children can also be mildly autistic.  It is not accidental that the nerdy child who has learned to play computer games at the age of three may have difficulties dealing with playmates.

How do we respond?  We look for special schools.  Or, many mainstream schools will have special honor sections for the brightest children, “bright” measured by IQ.  The idea here is that the gifted children get special attention, and can quickly progress rather than wait for “slower” classmates to catch up.

I HAVE mixed feelings about this approach.  I do see value in having some kind of special treatment, but I worry about honor schools and honor sections, in part because I went through that kind of treatment through grade school and high school.  I experienced the pressure to perform, to be the brightest among the brightest, and by the time I was in high school, I decided I had enough, happy to be “mediocre” even if it was still in the honor section.

I knew, too, that students in other sections saw honor section students as “nerds,” or worse: strange, weird.  There was something of a self-fulfilling prophecy here because the more we were labeled as nerds, the more we would stick to ourselves, avoiding athletics and social events, and therefore becoming even more socially clumsy.

When I got to college, I was almost relieved not to have to be in an honor section (even if it was an “honor school”).  Then I met people from Philippine Science High School, and through the years, into my teaching, I’ve become even more convinced that this special-school approach has its risks.  Many burn out by the time they’re in college, bored with algebra since they’ve taken their calculus, with basic chemistry because they’ve had organic and inorganic chemistry.  Even more importantly, they begin to wonder if they’ve missed out socially.  I’ve seen some of them living it up with vengeance, almost as if to make up for lost time, and neglecting academics.

Through the years,  more Filipino parents have begun to pressure children they perceive as brighter, paying for tutors and review classes so the children can get higher grades. The hope is that the children would eventually get into one of the government science high schools and, eventually, into one of the country’s premier universities. The pressure is greater among middle-class parents, anxious about the costs of private college education, and also looking at the bright child as a special investment for the future, the key to social mobility for the family.

And the other special children, the “non-gifted” ones with serious learning disabilities or social interactive skills?   Special schools seem appropriate, but there are educators who also worry of a ghetto effect.  Sometimes, you end up wondering if a child is kept in a special school more because of fears that they will be disruptive in a mainstream school, or that they will be teased and taunted.  They’re all valid concerns, but parents and educators do grapple with the possibilities of mainstreaming, whenever possible.

WHEN WE get back to basics, we go back to my point about liberalism and the recognition of equality among individuals, and their rights.  It has gotten to the point where adult autistics themselves, sometimes with their families, are protesting what they feel is a medicalization of autism, arguing that it should be seen simply as variations on behavior and personalities.  The debates can become quite semantic, such as an insistence on being called “autistics” rather than “people with autism” (because “with” means you have something, like a bug).

A 2004 New York Times article by Amy Harmon has a title that says it all: “How About Not ‘Curing’ Us, Some Autistics are Pleading.” The piece itself describes programs like “Autistic Strength, Purpose and Independence in Education” and activists using “Autistic Liberation Front” buttons and conducting “autreats” (retreats for autistics).  It talks of how autistic activists oppose the way autism is seen as a disorder, arguing that it’s just a matter of having a different kind of brain wiring.  One of their websites is neurodiversity.com, which invokes principles of rights of individuals.

Harmon’s piece does feature parents of autistics who do want special programs – not as a privilege, but because they feel their children will have to learn to adjust to society, rather than the other way around.

I was struck by that article because it came out about the same time a piece on people with Asperger’s Syndrome ran in a more academic publication, the Chronicle of Higher Education, which is meant for educators.  Written by Mikita Brottman, “Nutty Professors” (another title that says it all about the article’s content) describes how in academic institutions, those with Asperger’s are sometimes being hired as part of political correctness, but without considering that they could become problematic.  Intellectual brilliance aside, some of these Asperger’s professors had serious problems dealing with both students and fellow professors.

I could empathize with Brottman, having had to live with such professors as well.  But I do not believe we should exclude them either.  There has to be social mechanisms that can identify children with Asperger’s early in life so that even in mainstream schools, there can be programs to help them to learn to interact socially. Then again, this view is opposed as well by some people with Asperger’s, who see it as a form of discrimination. They point to the example of deaf people who say that hearing people should also adjust to them.  (The film “Children of a Lesser God” played on this theme.)

ULTIMATELY, IT looks like each country will have to deal with these issues, taking local conditions into consideration.  It won’t be easy.  We would have to deal with problems of logistics and resources, fast-tracking the training of educators who can work with special children, using what is available.

We would have to educate the educators in mainstream institutions, who, unaware of special learning issues, might label a “special child” as a “bad student.” Note that the special need may be as “simple” as dyslexia, a quite common condition where alphabet letters are mixed up when the person tries to read them.  This could lead to the student lagging behind in classes, and dropping out.

Previously, I’ve also noted that Asperger individuals might actually be quite bright, but run into trouble because of a lack of social skills.  There’s more though: people with Asperger’s tend to think very literally, and could have problems with subjects that are more intuitive – the arts for example.  Again, a teacher who doesn’t understand this cognitive problem could make life hard for an Asperger student.

There are no easy answers here.  While the Philippines generally emphasizes conformity, we can be quite kind, although patronizing, about children who are different.  Having said that, I also recall meeting an Australian, the epitome of rugged individualism and who would have expected to be tolerant about Asperger’s. But no – his theory was that “some of them” (he was careful) are probably just “arrogant and spoiled.”

The “truth” might be somewhere in between – I think someone who goes through school without Asperger’s being pointed out could turn out to be always on the defensive, wanting to get his or her way, and ending up even more stigmatized.

It’s a long road ahead for parents and educators all over the world.

Dr. Michael L. Tan is a medical anthropologist. He is currently dean of the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of the Philippines Diliman.  He also writes an op-ed column, “Pinoy Kasi,” for the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

On September 20, Aquino will be at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where he is expected to present just how far the Philippines has achieved progress in attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Unfortunately, in large measure because of the shortcomings of his predecessor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Aquino is bound to acknowledge before other world leaders that the country is falling short of several of these targets.

In September 2000, the Philippines and 188 other countries signed the Millennium Declaration, and committed themselves to achieving a set of eight goals by 2015. These goals – the MDGs – have since been commonly accepted as a framework for measuring development progress for both rich and poor countries.

In the decade that has passed since the Philippines signed the Declaration, however, the country has made little improvement in the three areas that are most crucial to human development: poverty alleviation, health (particularly maternal health), and education. This is even though the Arroyo administration that had a nine-year run at the Palace had actually introduced several reforms that it said were aimed especially at these areas.

President Aquino has minced no words in saying that his predecessor had left him a dismal legacy. And yet, he has also announced that he would be continuing several of the Arroyo administration’s programs and policies, including some of those on education and health.

For sure, his advisers may have already warned him that most of Arroyo’s reforms tended to be mere stopgap measures instead of long-term solutions. At the same time, Aquino may want to watch out for the other obstacles that had bedeviled even the most well-intentioned efforts of the previous administration.

More money, babies

Politics, for one, often got in the way of allocating funds for the most needed interventions. The fact that this happened not only at the national level, but more so at the local government level, is now raising doubts about the wisdom of devolving and decentralizing financing for health and education.

An incessantly booming population is the big complicating factor. More and more Filipino babies are being born every year, which guarantees that even with bigger budgets for health and education, the funds would still end up being spread too thinly to make any substantial difference.

Evidence of this is most stark in education, for which the Constitution mandates the biggest share of the annual national budget. Government officials themselves admit that despite this, the Philippines is unlikely to achieve MDG No. 2: universal primary education.

From 2002 to 2009, the allocation for the Department of Education (DepEd) rose by 6.9 percent per year on average. By 2010, its share of the budget had reached P172.8 billion. And yet, according to a World Bank presentation at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Pasig City last June, the government’s per capita expenditure on education had actually been declining since 1997.

Inflation is partly to be blamed for this. But the bigger reason is the country’s persistently steep-climbing annual population figure, which has meant millions of new students every year for decades to come.

Among the correlations highlighted by the World Bank review was this: as per capita expenditure on education decreased, basic education enrollment rates and elementary school testing scores declined as well.

Official statistics show the current elementary participation rate – the proportion of children aged six to 11 who are actually enrolled – at 85.1 percent. This is still a long way from the MDG target of 100 percent. At least 24 out of every 100 Grade I pupils also never reach Grade VI.

According to the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), poverty is a major factor for the high drop-out rate especially among boys, who are usually pulled out from school to help augment the family’s income.

Gloria redux

To help encourage parents to send and keep their children in school, the Aquino government last week acquired a $400-million loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to expand what is now called the ‘Conditional Cash Transfer’ (CCT) scheme. Originally called the ‘Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program’ or ‘4Ps’ under the Arroyo administration, the program entails giving a monthly cash subsidy to selected poor families, provided that they comply with certain conditions related to education and health.

The program also has set limits: only three children per family will be covered by the subsidies, and even then, a family could benefit from the subsidies for a maximum of only five years.

The Arroyo administration had already injected huge sums into the program. For 2010 alone, the government had allocated P12 billion – up from P7.9 billion the previous year – for it, so that it could reach its target of enrolling one million families. The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) says that as of last March, it had already enrolled 956,000 families in the program.

University of the Philippines economics professor Ernesto Pernia says that subsidy programs like the CCT are “an effective way of addressing the existing, urgent poverty problem.”

Among the range of anti-poverty programs the country has adopted, he says, the CCT “seems to be the most sound and promising in terms of addressing poverty directly and minimizing leakages” because of its targeted approach. It is unlike a past rice subsidy program for the poor that had been taken advantage of by families who were not really in need of such assistance, adds Pernia.

He notes, though, that the CCT is supposed to be just “a short-term measure.”  A “rapid and sustained economic growth that is job-generating,” he says, should go hand-in-hand with the CCT.

Just a palliative

But some observers worry that although the scheme is clearly a palliative, the government may be deluding itself into thinking it is a solution.

Alliance of Concerned Teachers Party List representative Antonio Tinio even describes the CCT as “a fig leaf that covers the absence of a real, substantial, and comprehensive strategy to eliminate poverty.”

“(The CCT) would never be enough for children to claim their right to a fully-subsidized education,” he says. “Barya lang ‘yan. Binabarat ang karapatan sa edukasyon ng mga batang mahihirap (That’s just loose change. It shortchanges the right of poor children to education).”

Multilateral financing institutions had lauded the ‘4Ps’ at its incarnation.  The ADB, for instance, noted its potential to “reduce poverty in the country by 9.3 percent” and to make “one in every three children aged six to 14 who are currently not attending school to choose to go to school.” The World Bank meanwhile, attributed a 15-percent reported increase in elementary school enrolment to the program.

Yet the CCT program may not be as praiseworthy as it appears to these agencies and government officials. For example, the subsidy for each child who attends school amounts to P300 per month, or a mere P15 for every school day.

Lory Geronimo, a single mother of three, says that her two school-going children would need a weekly budget of as much as P250 each for food and other school-related expenses, excluding fare. She says her high schooler’s project expenses alone can reach up to P400 a week. Monthly, the real subsidy each of her children would require would be from P1,000 to P1,200.

“Kakapusin talaga” (You’d really fall short), says Geronimo, who is a canteen worker in a Pasig City public high school.

That was probably why her eldest daughter Mona was forced to drop out in her freshman year. Now 16, Mona has taken on odd jobs, most recently as market vendor, to help her mother provide for her two younger siblings who are still in school.

One of Mona’s neighbors, Mary Joy Racines, says she used to make do with just P45 a day to attend class. But then she often skipped eating while in school, because she didn’t have enough money. The 16-year-old says that in her family of eight children, only one has been able to graduate from high school so far. She is among the five who have dropped out of school. Only one of her siblings is enrolled at present – in Grade II; the youngest has yet to reach school age.

Mary Joy’s mother is a housewife while her father is a street sweeper. Like Mona, Mary Joy is eager to continue her studies – if only she had the money. Were they living in an area with no public high school, both girls may have qualified to vie to become beneficiaries of another education-related subsidy program: Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education or GASTPE. Or at least that is how it is supposed to work.

Ramos-era reform

Aquino intends to expand GASTPE, which was established 16 years ago during the Ramos administration and provides a tuition subsidy for needy secondary students in areas where there are limited public school facilities. Data from the DepEd show that as of schoolyear 2008-2009, high schools make up only 18 percent of the country’s 54,757 public schools, with most of them concentrated in cities and municipalities.

Under GASTPE, an “education voucher” of P4,000 is given to each student to cover part of the tuition in a private school. According to Mona Valisno, who was the last education secretary in the Arroyo administration, GASTPE is the “fastest way” to address the shortage of public school facilities.

At the very least, she points out, “wala ka nang construction, wala ka nang teacher (there’s no need for construction or for additional teachers).”

But Tinio, who has worked as an educator for more than a decade, says that since the program subsidizes just a small portion of a student’s tuition, it benefits only those who could foot the rest of the school fees, including the remaining tuition amount. Poor families thus will largely be left out of the program because they have no capacity to pay at all.

To their credit, both Mona Geronimo and Mary Joy Racines have taken it upon themselves to look for other ways to secure high school diplomas. Since they both lack the means to go back to school, the teenagers have decided to take a crack at the DepEd’s high-school equivalency exam.

To prepare themselves for the test, Mona and Mary Joy have joined an alternative learning program being provided for free by the community-based association KUMPAS, which also runs a daycare in Barangay Pinagbuhatan in Pasig City, where both girls reside.

The group’s alternative learning center, KALINGA itself has run into some funding problems, prompting the organization’s president, Gloria Santos, at one point to try tapping the local government’s Special Education Fund (SEF).

SEF from LGUs

The SEF comes from the local government’s collection of an additional one-percent tax on real property. It is intended to support the supplementary needs of public schools in the locality, such as maintenance of schools, construction and repair of school buildings and facilities, educational research, purchase of books, and sports development.

According to the 2006 Commission on Audit report on Pasig City, its total allotments from the SEF for 2006 was P765 million. Santos wanted to ask for P140,000 for the operational expenses of KALINGA’s two alternative learning centers, but she was told the local government could not accommodate her request. Its SEF, recounts Santos, had been spent for “infrastructure.”

Actually, the Pasig City government had also allocated a certain portion of its SEF for alternative learning centers in the city, but only for those run by DepEd. According to an officer from city hall, the law does not allow the SEF to be given to non-government organizations like Santos’s. The officer, however, could not recall exactly where Pasig City’s SEF went that year.

The Caucus of Development NGO Networks (CODE-NGO), a coalition of civil society organizations working for social development, observes that the SEFs across the country are increasingly used for the mayor’s pet projects. In fact, according to a DepEd staff member, the mayor is usually the only one who decides on the areas to be prioritized in allocating the SEF.

Former Naga City Mayor Jesse Robredo recounts that in his home region, the common priority was oftentimes sports projects such as the Palarong Pambansa and Palarong Bicol. “A lot of the SEF money goes to non-essentials,” says Robredo, now the interior and local government secretary, citing cases where certain LGUs were already spending for “supplemental learning materials” even though their schools still lacked the basic textbooks.

Representative on paper

The SEF is supposed to be allocated by the local school board (LSB), which the law requires every local government unit to reconstitute. The LSB is chaired by the local chief executive and the school division superintendent. It is meant as the venue for different sectors in the community to participate in determining their priorities for education.

When he was still a local official, Robredo had commented that while the LSB “seems well-represented” on paper, “in reality, most of them are not functioning well.” He said that this was because in most cases, the local chief executive overpowered the rest of the board, thereby ensuring things went his or her way.

Another DepEd staff member comments that oftentimes, the LSB members are mere signatories of resolutions formulated by the mayor.

Secretary Robredo blames the lack of regulation in SEF utilization. “(The SEF) is beyond the oversight of the Sanggunian,” as it is solely in the hands of the LSB, he says.

Robredo has issued a memo circular requiring LGUs to have full public disclosure of how they used their SEF, among other items in their annual budget. The Department of Budget and Management is also busy formulating the guidelines for SEF use. This, Robredo says, will hopefully minimize the debate on SEF priorities.

No leg up for NGOs

KALINGA’s Santos has been left grumbling over her experience of trying to get a leg up from SEF, but the good news is she has no plans of giving up her organization’s projects. KALINGA has also worked out a memorandum with the DepEd national office.

Santos says she expects DepEd to issue a resolution that would instruct the local government to recognize KALINGA as a bona fide educational organization, thereby qualifying it for funding support.

Mona and Mary Joy, meanwhile, have proved to be as determined to get high school diplomas.

Eventually, Mona wants to enroll in a business course because she wants to be an entrepreneur. Mary Joy wants to be a teacher someday.

She explains why: “Para ako na rin ‘yung magtuturo sa mga kapatid ko… para matuto naman silang bumasa, sumulat, umintindi. Kasi wala namang magpapaaral sa kanila, e. (That way, I will be the one to teach my siblings…so that they can learn to read, write, comprehend. Nobody will finance their schooling, anyway).”  - PCIJ, September 2010



“Gusto ko, happy ka!” Enrile declared in campaign advertisements.

The fact that the wizened Senate president, 86, would try to appear perky in colegiala-speak, spoke volumes of what candidates were ready to do to cross the generation divide. And who can blame them?

Roughly half of the 50 million registered voters in the country are 18 to 33 years old, according to the Commission on Elections (Comelec). This means that candidates as old as Enrile and former president Joseph Estrada, 73, must try to connect with a generation buzzing about Facebook (“Mafia Wars!”), Super Junior (“Sorry Sorry”), and Jejespeak (“hELloEH pOeZZ”).

The idea of a youth vote has always been a concept inviting and uncertain, interesting and nebulous at the same time. Its pivot is a premise not quite proved that there is such a voting bloc in the first place.

Is the youth vote like a women’s vote, where voters’ shared interests do not necessarily translate into shared candidates? Or is it more like the much-vaunted Iglesia ni Cristo vote, the closest the Philippines has to a command or bloc vote?

According to the results of mock polls conducted at three leading colleges – the University of the Philippines (UP), the University of Santo Tomas (UST) and the University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P) – it appears like the youth in schools have common interests and ideals, but certainly no common candidates.

At least in the media, the story has largely been repeated: that of the supposed power of the youth to tilt the vote for or against certain candidates. These mock elections have been accorded front-page treatment, and the “winners” projected as idols of the young and the idealistic.

For a while, Senator Francis Joseph “Chiz” Escudero was touted as the presidential candidate who had successfully cornered the youth vote, until he backed out of the presidential race in November 2009.  The event somehow triggered a free-for-all fight among the candidates for the so-called youth vote.

Gordon tops in UP

In the string of campuses of the UP, long known as the hotbed of activism, Bagumbayan party standard-bearer Richard Gordon consistently scored much higher than he did in the voter-preference surveys of the Social Weather Stations (SWS) and Pulse Asia. Gordon topped the first round of Botong Isko 2010, an online mock poll conducted among UP students in March; 31.23 percent of the participants voted for him. Gordon continued to clinch the top spot in April and May, getting a stunning 54.76 and 57.98 percent of the votes, respectively.

In Botong Isko, SWS and Pulse Asia survey-frontrunners Benigno Aquino III of the Liberal Party and Manuel Villar Jr. of the Nacionalista Party tailed Gordon and administration candidate Gilbert Teodoro Jr. However, Villar topped the third round of another set of mock polls conducted in UP by the Alpha Sigma fraternity in March.

The first round of the Alpha Sigma mock polls was held in September 2009, with then presidential hopeful Escudero snagging the top spot. Come December, Escudero had dropped out of the race, allowing Teodoro to claim first place in the second round.

Reality vote

Yet in the latest partial unofficial tally of the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP) based on the election returns provided by the Comelec, Gordon only sputters to fifth place, with only 467,627  votes, compared to the 13.8 million votes of frontrunner Aquino. In other words, Gordon only got the approval of 0.9 percent of the total registered voters in the country.

For the UA&P’s mock surveys, Teodoro was hailed the winner, taking 44 percent of the total votes cast by the students last March. In contrast, the KBP’s latest unofficial tally of the actual May 10 elections showed Teodoro trailing poorly with 3.7 million votes.

In UST, erstwhile hopeful Escudero was the leading candidate in August last year with 24.2 percent of the vote. The university however had a new frontrunner in December -  Ateneo de Manila graduate Aquino, with 33.2 percent of the vote. Teodoro, Aquino’s second cousin, was not far behind with 32.5 percent. In the last UST mock polls held in February, Aquino and Teodoro scored a “statistical tie.”

Same, different

Curiously, students from all three universities cited the same reasons for choosing different candidates – intellectual competence, track record, political will, honesty and integrity.

UP journalism student Franz dela Fuente voted for Gordon in the mock polls because he believes in the “no non-sense” governance the former mayor of Olongapo City promises. Dela Fuente believes in Gordon’s brand of leadership, integrity, competence and experience.

Journalism fresh graduate Rupert Mangilit says Villar’s success in business proves his work ethic and capability, qualities that could lead the country to its “much-needed economic facelift.”

“A self-sustaining economy is what the country needs to achieve progress, and Villar’s experience in managing a multi-billion Filipino-owned powerhouse may help bring the country to take the first steps toward national industrialization,” says Mangilit.

On the other hand, Renze Santos, an Electronics and Communications Engineering student, says he was undecided during the mock polls, but as May 10 drew closer, he was already leaning toward Noynoy Aquino.

“I chose Noynoy because he has the best chance of winning over Villar. Apart from that, (I have no other reason),” says Santos, adding that Villar should not be president because of the C-5 double insertion scandal.

Identification

Mock polls in UP may deviate from the results in national surveys, but frontrunners Aquino and Villar still sit somewhere near the top. Estrada, who aced Villar in the polls toward the end of the campaign, is one of the bottom-dwellers here.

Environmentalist Nicanor Perlas, Sen.  Ana Consuelo “Jamby” Madrigal, Olongapo City Councilor John Carlos “JC” de los Reyes, and Eduardo “Eddie” Villanueva were the tail-enders.

UP Political Science Professor Perlita Frago-Marasigan says UP students could identify more with candidates who are UP alumni. Villar, Teodoro and Gordon are all UP alumni.

Frago-Marasigan says students may have frowned upon the slew of black propaganda from the Aquino and Villar camps. Gordon, on the other hand, seems to portray an “idealistic” image that many UP students could identify with. His image as chairman of the Philippine National Red Cross echoes volunteerism, the essence of the Oblation, UP’s symbol of selfless service for the country, she says.

This idealistic image also means a balance between boldness and civility. To be favored by the Iskolar ng Bayan, a politician must argue with reason, but avoid cynicism, adds Frago-Marasigan.

“The youth can identify with the most idealistic candidate. One who says that change is possible. One who does not say that this is what is really happening, we cannot do so much about it,” she says.

As for Teodoro, Frago-Marasigan says UP students identified with his image of intelligence, one-half of his slogan “Galing at Talino.” However, Teodoro’s ties with the Arroyo administration may have pulled him a few points short of Gordon.

“If you listen to Teodoro’s speeches basically he would be saying ‘Yeah that is true but we cannot do so much about it.’ So that can easily turn off the youth,” says Frago-Marasigan.

Colliding cousins

In UST, chemical engineering student Jennifer Suarez said she voted for Aquino because she “sees his sincerity.”

“I believe that Sen. Aquino is honest and open and he has what it takes to end or at least lessen the corruption in our country,” says Suarez.

Ivan Anyayahan, a third year Journalism student says that he voted for Teodoro because he is smart.

“He also had confidence on the things that he promised that made me think he is sincere,” says Anyayahan.

Political Science professor Edmund Tayao of the Faculty of Arts and Letters says many see Aquino as the “moral” choice because he is the son of democracy icons Benigno Aquino Jr. and Corazon Aquino.

Tayao points out that the popularity of cousins Aquino and Teodoro “reflects the youth’s idealism in that the choice reflects a consideration of both capacity and integrity.”

For the UA&P, Teodoro was hailed as the winner, taking 44 percent of the total votes. Out of the university’s voting population of 2,281, at least 1,076 cast their votes in electronic voting machines in six days.

A bar topnotcher with a Masters degree from Harvard Law School, Teodoro was perceived to be intelligent, capable and trustworthy.

While Teodoro had an overwhelming lead among student voters who composed the great majority, Aquino was preferred by most of the university’s faculty and staff, including janitors and security guards.

Flawed method

Pulse Asia president Ronald Holmes says respondents in the pollster’s surveys base their choice largely on the image the candidates wanted to project. In contrast, he notes that university students choose candidates based on the notion of competence, whether real or claimed.

According to Frago-Marasigan, neither Botong Isko nor the Alpha Sigma polls may be considered to be representative of the “youth vote.”

First, UP is not representative of the youth vote. Second, Botong Isko is not even representative of the so-called “UP vote.” The turnout for the first round of Botong Isko was only about 12 percent in the Diliman campus and eight percent system-wide. The later rounds drew even fewer participants.

Any conclusion from such a small chunk of the student body would only be representative of those who participated in the mock polls, says Frago-Marasigan.

The first round of the Alpha Sigma polls employed the same method, although willing students cast their vote in booths set up by the fraternity. The third round of the Alpha Sigma polls was more representative, after the fraternity employed the stratified random sampling method to gather respondents. This last poll drew 8,468 students or 38 percent of UP Diliman’s 22,597 students.

Frago-Marasigan believes that to derive credible conclusion on UP’s voting preference, a poll must gather over half of the total population at least.

Holmes agrees. He estimates that there are about two million university students in the country, or less than a third of the seven million voters within the college age bracket of 18 to 24.

However, Holmes says it is not the size of the sample that mattered but the way the respondents were selected. In all scientific surveys, all members of the population should have an equal chance of being selected for the sample.

Some mock polls did not choose respondents by random sampling. In the Botong Isko, UST and UA&P polls, students voted voluntarily.

“It’s a self-selection process because people who would participate there are people who are inclined to express what their preferences are. So in that sense it cannot be deemed as representative of the school,” says Holmes.

No ‘youth vote’

The idea of a “youth vote” is something that Holmes holds in doubt. In fact, he notes that the Philippines cannot be considered to have an “electorate,” a part of the population that shares similar attributes and position on issues.

Like other age groups, the youth is not organized into one voting bloc.

“My sense is that it is not certain, and you do not have a large group of individuals who may be in school or out of school who (are) articulating such issues so that the candidates can respond to them,” says Holmes.

Arnil Paras, a political economy professor at UA&P, agrees with this analysis. Candidates seem to be targeting the youth as a voting bloc that could swing the elections to their favor, but the assumption “has no historical basis in the post-Marcos era,” he says.

“No presidential candidate has won thanks (solely) to the youth. Will the 2010 elections be the first?” asks Paras.

Useful process

While experts question the relevance of the results of the mock polls in schools, they agree that these mock polls still serve a greater purpose.

The value of the mock polls derives from the process rather than the results, they say. In asking students to cast their votes in mock polls, the student body is encouraged to discuss, debate, and scrutinize the candidates. As a result, students become more politically aware, engaged, and involved.

“It is really (about) getting the students more engaged in issues and in politics in general,” says Holmes.

“I think more than the results of the survey, the value is that the students, since they are new citizens, are able to really participate in the exercise,” says Frago-Marasigan.

While there is no evidence that all the respondents in the mock polls actually voted last May 10, the process served as a constant reminder to all students that being passive observers is no longer an option.

Civil engineering student Myria Cernechez, a Gordon supporter, affirms this.  “Some are hesitating to vote for a certain candidate because they’re afraid that their votes will be wasted but I don’t think that should be the case. I would rather support someone for his credentials and convince others to vote for him too.” – PCIJ, May 2010