Graduation is a joyful occasion that is in perfect sync with the new beginnings that we celebrate on Easter Sunday. And the stories of certain graduates have made this significant milestone in young people’s lives more meaningful than usual, making of it both logical conclusion (of schooling) and triumphant affirmation (of transcendence).
Some of this year’s graduates overcame straitened circumstances, including trolley pusher Marlo Frias and kasambahay (household helper) Rodora Rodriguez, both of the Quezon National High School (QNHS), to achieve this milestone.
Frias, eldest son in a brood of nine, manfully juggled his time daily between studying and pushing a trolley on the railway to transport passengers or gallons of water, according to a report written by Learning editor Chelo Banal-Formoso. He graduated at 16, even managing a 92 in math, his favorite subject, and picking up valuable lessons in problem-solving from his daily run on the railway.
Rodriguez had to work after graduating from grade school to help her parents put food on the table (she is the 11th of 16 children). She became a kasambahay for the Terrenal family, but never forgot to dream. After discovering QNHS’s Open High School program, Rodriguez, with the encouragement of her employers, returned to school; household chores notwithstanding, she graduated four years later at the top of her class at the age of 27.
“[My employers] told me I could not be a household help forever,” the Inquirer’s Linda Bolido quoted her as saying. Now she seeks to go to college and become a grade school teacher in the Bicol region. “There are many students there who are like me, unable to pursue their studies,” she said. “I want to help them.”
Other graduates have risen from the calvary around them. With the military’s all-out offensive against the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters in the wake of Mamasapano, a firefight broke out in a nearby town on the eve of the graduation ceremony of Hadji Salik Kalaing National High School. But class valedictorian Norombai Utto, 17, managed to deliver her speech and to receive 15 medals of distinction the next day. In her speech to her fellow graduates, their parents and esteemed guests, she said: “The biggest dream we have is the aspiration for peace. To those who fan the need for war, they may want to study first our history. This is my message: Please stop the war.”
The military has since ended its offensive against the BIFF that displaced more than 120,000 people in Maguindanao. Earlier, it declared a weeklong suspension of the offensive to give way to graduation rites in the area. Commencement exercises were held for some 100 students in evacuation centers.
What are these stories but declarations of will and its infinite possibilities?
Alternative programs of education such as the Open High School in which Rodriguez enrolled show the way for similarly situated people. Education was at the heart of Efren Peñaflorida’s victory as CNN Hero of the Year in 2009. Today, Peñaflorida’s nonprofit Dynamic Teen Co. runs a program called the Kariton Open High School, an extension of its “kariton classroom” which used pushcarts as mobile classrooms. “The main thrust of [the Kariton Open High School] is to educate dropouts,” Peñaflorida once said. Among the students is the winner of the International Children’s Peace Prize at the Hague, Cris “Kesz” Valdez, who is in the ninth grade. Valdez, who had run away from abusive parents before starting his own award-winning nonprofit, now dreams of becoming an English teacher. And recently, Education Secretary Armin Luistro himself addressed the 542 inmates of the New Bilibid Prison who had passed their Alternative Learning System courses.
All these programs, and more, show the importance of education in the uplift of society. They are also proof positive that the best and brightest are not limited to the wealthy and comfortable, that individual perseverance and determination can work wonders—and that education is the fundamental tool for transformation and empowerment. Now if only the government can bring about the conditions ideal for job generation and not merely rely on exporting labor …