TEN Moves!

LONG BEFORE the Philippine Department of Education called for private sector support to address the classroom shortage, now estimated at 66,000, a number of companies and other organizations had already been involved in the building of classrooms. When Education Secretary Armin Luistro made an appeal to the private sector in a roundtable discussion he had with top business leaders early this year, he described the magnitude of the problem and the government’s efforts to address it.
While the government’s budget for the building of classrooms has increased this year and is being increased again next year, the resources are still not enough to fully address the problem. Thus, the secretary appealed to the private sector for bigger support. A segment of the private sector decided to take on the challenge and put together an organized campaign to raise the needed resources. That was how Bayanihang Pampaaralan was born.

Spearheaded by the 57-75 Education Reform Movement led by the League of Corporate Foundations (LCF) and the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP), Bayanihang Pampaaralan aims to raise enough resources to build 10,000 classrooms in two years. This it aims to accomplish by tapping four possible sources of support—corporations, donor agencies, overseas Filipinos, and the general public.

Corporations may participate in three ways: (1) by making outright cash donations, (2) by implementing their own classroom-building programs, and (3) by encouraging their own employees to contribute to the project. Such employee contributions may be made through salary deduction, a model that was developed and propagated by Children’s Hour.

The donor community, including the bilaterals and multi-laterals, may also support this campaign by opening funding windows for the building of classrooms or by providing funding support for organized efforts to raise resources for classrooms.

Overseas Filipinos, who have been helping their home country through their remittances, investments, donations and technical expertise, will also be tapped to help. Partnerships with the US-based Philippine Development Foundation (Phildev) and similar organizations around the world will be established for purposes of reaching out to the Filipino diaspora.

Bayanihang Pampaaralan will also tap the general public, including ordinary Filipinos who have been doing their share in nation-building through their day-to-day activities but are looking for more ways to help in addressing the country’s many needs. Bayanihang Pampaaralan appeals to their sense of citizenship and hopes to give them yet another opportunity to take part in nation-building.

This campaign to solicit support from ordinary Filipinos will entail a massive information drive to reach as many of them as possible, and setting up channels of donations which are accessible and convenient even to ordinary people. In other words, this effort will entail mobilizing practically the entire nation. Thus, the campaign is called “The Entire Nation Moves!” or TEN Moves!

The main strategy of TEN Moves! is to look for two million Filipinos who will donate P10 a day for 10 months. This is about P300 per month or P3,000 for the entire 10 months. Two million Filipinos donating P10 a day for 10 months will help raise P6 billion, which is enough to build 10,000 classrooms. The campaign will end on Oct. 10, 2012.

Is it possible to find those two million Filipinos? There are about 40,000 barangays in the country today, and 50 persons per barangay will add up to two million. Eight hundred church-goers in the country’s 2,500 parishes will also add up to two million, or 200 employees of each of the top 10,000 corporations, or a million students in private schools and state universities with matching donations from their parents, or two million out of the 3.5 million credit card holders.

The organizers of TEN Moves! believe that the success of this campaign will depend on how well it is received and embraced by organizations and communities which have influence over large numbers of people: companies, civic organizations, churches, schools, civil society organizations, community associations and many others. But the ultimate key to the success of this campaign is how well it is supported by ordinary citizens.

There are several ways by which people can help: by donating, by soliciting donations from people in their circles of influence, and by adopting TEN Moves! as their own contribution to addressing the classroom shortage.

The resources that will be raised will be used to build classrooms in areas identified as priority by the DepEd. The implementation will be overseen by the Philippine Business for Social Progress in behalf of the 57-75 Education Reform Movement. The TEN Moves! campaign will be managed by Ayala Foundation.
People and organizations that are interested in taking part in this task of nation-building may get in touch with Ayala Foundation at tenmoves@ayalafoundation.org or the TEN Moves! Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/TEN-Moves/213060662074291.

TEN Moves! will soon launch its website.

TEN Moves! Sampung piso. Sampung buwan. Sampung libong silid-aralan. Make your move now!

Mario A. Deriquito is senior director at Ayala Foundation and one of the lead conveners of the 57-75 Education Reform Movement. He may be reached at mario.deriquito@gmail.com.