By Jonathan Best
Earlier this year I accompanied a Synergeia Foundation education reform delegation and headed for one of the remotest sections of the ARMM district (Autonomous Region of Moslem Mindanao) in the southern Philippines. They had scheduled an education summit for June 26, 2005 in Barira, a small town in the hills northeast of Cotabato City far from any paved roads and government infrastructure. Barira falls within the sprawling boundaries of Camp Abu Bakar, one of the former strongholds of the Moslem insurgents in western Mindanao, it was especially hard hit by President Estrada’s “Total War” in 2001. The physical isolation of the area and the difficult and often violent political situation, promised to make this one of Synergeia’s most challenging events.
Despite my initial trepidations the weekend turned out to be very rewarding. Many of my misconceptions about the ARMM region were dispelled and I gained insights into Synergeia’s work and its potential to improve the sorry state of public education in the region. The first misconception that was dispelled was the notion that Cotabato is a primitive, dangerous and poverty stricken wasteland. The majority of the people I saw in the crowded streets of Cotabato and Parang appeared to be cheerful, hardworking and comparatively well off. They were shopping in crowded markets and going about in cars and jeeps like anywhere else in the country. Students gathered at fast food joints in the afternoons and at night a strip of bars and fun house came to life. There were many poor districts but also prosperous sections with large churches, mosques and municipal buildings.
People complained bitterly that rampant corruption had robbed them of municipal services including educational infrastructure, but this is certainly not a problem unique to the ARMM region. The ARMM capital and administrative buildings did look a bit the worse for wear and empty, but we were there on a rainy weekend afternoon. Brother Crispan Betita who was showing us about town reported the older Chinese merchant families were moving away due to the endemic kidnapping, but younger, more adventurous entrepreneurs were moving in, taking over the hardware stores, and copra and dried corn trading businesses.
Compared to the squalor and violence of Manila’s overflowing squatter communities these municipalities appeared much healthier. At least there was plenty of open space and green trees. I was not able to gage the levels of poverty in the outlaying rural areas, where there are few paved roads and little or no modern development. One of our drivers told us he had recently visited a town high up in the surrounding hills where the people had no electricity and had never seen automobiles. He was probably not exaggerating.
Increasingly poor rural families, mostly Moslem and Lumads have been migrating to the urban centers looking for work and trying to escape the on-again-off-again guerrilla warfare. These refugees and their numerous children have steadily added to the burden of impoverished local municipalities and the decrepit education infrastructure. Many eventually find their way north to Manila where they have radically changed the demographics of old market districts like Baclaran, Vira Mall and Quiapo.
The ubiquitous presence of the police and military is disconcerting, but virtually all the men and women in uniform I encountered were polite, well dress and not threatening. Given the oft-repeated stories I have heard over the years of ill equipped and abusive soldiers and police in the ARMM district I suspected everyone was on extra good behavior for our official visit. There were way too many guns and ammunition around for my comfort, everything from small personal firearms to heavy M16 Armalites equipped with sinister looking grenade launchers. I suspected the over display of firepower was for the protection of the four or five local mayors we were traveling with from Cotabato up to the isolated town of Barira and not necessarily for our protection.
Considering the bandoliers of ammunition slung over the shoulders and around the waists of our protectors, including grenades of every description, I couldn’t help wondering if the soldiers wouldn’t explode like a Baghdad suicide bomber if hit with a single sniper’s bullet. Bouncing along in the back seats of our vehicles the older marines accompanying us seemed forever to be lighting cigarettes inches away from the hand-grenades dangling from the shoulders of their flack jackets. When traveling with the mayors we never had less than a dozen of these heavily armed soldiers with us, along with personal bodyguards and armed drivers. Some of this military presence is left over from the earlier conflicts with insurgents during President Estrada’s time, but sadly it turns out, the region is also plagued by violent clan feuds and petty, yet deadly, political turf wars.
Despite the renewed activity of NPA brigades in the surrounding hills, the only moment of genuine anxiety I experienced on the whole trip was when our macho driver insisted on showing off by disassembling with one hand his nineteen shot, fully automatic, 9mm, imported Austrian hand-gun. He attempted this while careening down a winding mountain road at 80km an hour trying to keep up with our little convoy of Pajeros, Land Rovers and assorted police vehicles. He only managed to settle down and concentrate on his driving after flattening, with a sickening crunch, a hapless dog that darted under our wheels.
These adventures aside, the reason we were trekking to Barira was to take part in an innovative public education project the Synergeia Foundation had organized as part of a joint venture funded by the Ford Foundation and USAID. Synergeia and its member organizations have designed and initiated participatory, community based summits throughout the Philippines as a first step in tackling education reform at the primary school level; with strong emphasis on English reading skills and math. Synergeia’s director Dr. Nene Guevara, her administrative assistant Minie Manalese and Mayor Alfonso Gamboa of Magalona, Negros Occidental were there to help build an education constituency within the Barira community. Mentoring is an integral part of Synergeia’s approach.
Mayor Gamboa was especially helpful in relating to the local mayors how education reform had been successfully achieved in his municipality in the Visayan Islands just north of Mindanao in the heart of the Philippines impoverished sugar plantations. I had come along to write about the event and take photographs. The goal was to mobilize the community and in effect jumpstart primary school education in the ARMM region following a successful formula Synergeia has used throughout Luzon and the Visayas both in cities and remote rural barrios.
Given the chaotic state of much of the education infrastructure in the ARMM region we found it best to first approach the local mayors. We were greatly assisted in this by Brother Crispan Betita and Agnes S. Reyes of Notre Dame of Marbel University in Koronada City located just north of General Santos and a couple of hours south of Cotabato. They were familiar with the local politicians and were able to introduce us to progressive mayors who genuinely wanted to improve education in their municipalities. In Barira we were lucky to have the assistance of Mayor Alexander D. Tomawis. Mayor “Alex” organized a gala reception for our delegation complete with a kilometer of brightly colored banners lining the muddy country lane leading to the center of Barira. Even more crucial for us was his ability to entice over three hundred teachers, parents and students to attend our summit along with local officials and neighboring town mayors.
Synergeia’s approach is quite simple: find a reliable local partner, document the sorry state of public education in the district with unambiguous facts and figures, gather all the community stakeholders together and get them to start talking about the situation. From the parents to the highest public officials there is an appalling lack of understanding of the crisis facing students, local schools and school districts in every region of the nation. Test scores and demographic markers indicate education and intellectual competitiveness in the Philippines has been steadily declining for decades.
The list of problems is daunting; too few class rooms, not enough desks and chairs, out-of-date or non-existent work books and teacher’s manuals, poorly trained and underpaid teachers, malnourished children, child labor, graft and corruption. Without sustained community input and assistance, many local school boards and politicians are simply without a clue as to how to start turning things around.
After introductory remarks by a number of local officials committed to improving education, Synergeia’s director Dr. Nene Guevara got up and started the interactive part of the summit. Sitting quietly on stage, looking out over the diverse crowd filling the large open-air auditorium I wondered how Nene was going to get them talking and interacting about education. Most of the women were sitting quietly on one side, their heads adored with a variety of colorful head scarves, a few even wore the sinister all encompassing black veils demanded by the new ultra conservative Moslem fundamentalists coming from Saudi Arabia.
The men sat more casually on the other side, many with white crocheted caps, a couple of Imams wandered about in elegant long tan robes over white shirts. When we came into town we had passed the madrasah school at the Islamic Educational Center where all the girls and boys were lined up in their respective uniforms for our arrival, the little girls covered from head to foot in bright purple robes while the boys were allowed to wear shorts and shirts. Many of the students were now hanging around the outside of the auditorium curious as to what their teachers and parents were up to. These were very serious minded country folk who had recently suffered the horrors of a shooting war right here in their municipality.
Using her well honed skills as a former school teacher, a bit of humor and her natural charm, Nene relaxed the crowd and soon had them forming into small focus groups led by the mayors and other community leaders. Talk flowed freely; young and old, men and women, farmers and business people all expressed their frustrations with the system, their hopes and dreams for their kids and their community. Each was asked how he or she might individually contribute. Even a few of the uniformed police and the ubiquitous soldiers became intrigued and volunteered their thoughts. A community dialog was started, which with hard work and some luck will maintain the crucial focus on rectifying the crisis in the primary schools in Barira and elsewhere. Negligence and a lack of information are two of the chief culprits in the decline of educational institutions. The general consensus in Barira as it has been across the country is that education and thoughtful dialog are the best antidotes for poverty and communal violence.
After two hours of productive exchange the summit broke up and we were treated to a luncheon highlighted by Cotabato’s delicious upland red rice and a sumptuous cornucopia of Mindanao’s fresh fruits and homemade sweets. After the plates were cleared and the coffee served, Barira’s embryonic School Board was called into session for the first time. An excellent example of Synergeia’s expressed desire to be a catalyst for initiating the efforts of grass roots organizations and education constituencies.
The long drive back to Cotabato with an obligatory stop at the army base in Camp Abu Bakar was both moving and frustrating. That section of Mindanao is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful parts of the Philippines. The mist rising from virgin rain forests which cling to the steep slopes of the surrounding mountains made a romantic backdrop to the glimpses of Illana Bay with its scattering of tropical islands stretching off into the Moro Gulf. I had no idea that the endless fighting we read about in the Manila papers had been taking place in such a beautiful land with such a tremendous potential for prosperity. Hopefully reforming and upgrading the long neglected education system will begin to alleviate the rural poverty and create a lasting foundation for peace and tolerance.
