The horrific shooting of a mother and her son by a policeman over a minor incident, caught in a video that went viral, has led to a renewed public outcry against senseless killings.
But many have unjustifiably berated the police officer’s young daughter online, citing her seemingly cold reaction to a heinous crime that unfolded in front of her. The child’s impassiveness could, in some way, be a cry for help.
The video showed how 52-year old Sonya Gregorio was shot in the head at point-blank range by Jonel Nuezca, shortly after his daughter screamed “my father is a policeman” at her during an altercation on Sunday in Paniqui, Tarlac.
Nuezca, who was off duty, shot Gregorio’s 25-year old son Frank Anthony next. Father and daughter then walked away, according to a witness.
Nuezca has since turned himself in and has been charged with two counts of murder. His daughter continues to be the target of vitriolic comments on social media.
Synergeia Foundation condoles with the Gregorio family for the murder of Sonya and Frank Anthony and joins the call for justice for them and for their family.
Synergeia is also against the condemnation of the policeman’s daughter.
Every child has the right to live in an environment without fear and violence.
Because the child witnessed her father kill two people in cold blood, she may have experienced some form of trauma. She will undoubtedly need help mentally and emotionally to cope with what happened, instead of harsh judgment from people whose sole image of her is the one from the video of the gruesome crime.
As the late South African President Nelson Mandela said: “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”
Synergeia has been working for every Filipino child to have access to basic education. It believes that along with education, as mandated by law, every child has the right to be brought up in an atmosphere of morality and rectitude to enrich and strengthen his character.
While millions of children learn at home after the pandemic forced school closures, Synergeia has been advocating that it is critical for parents to include character building as an essential learning competency as they take on the teachers’ role. Character building, as it is often said, starts at home.
Since parents are powerful role models for their children, it is important for them to set good examples in terms of behaviour and attitudes.
And in an era when social media has become a platform for validation, Synergeia believes it is crucial for parents to ensure that their children live in an environment free from judgment and harmful influences.
As it transforms communities to give top priority to the education of every child, Synergeia will continue to work on reforms towards a learning system that will help every child develop his full potential and strengthen his character.
Being thankful in a year when a global health crisis led to deaths, joblessness and isolation may be tough to muster for anyone who lost relatives, friends or income.
But as the coronavirus pandemic redefined health and family as the most important things one could have, having them both near the end of a tumultuous year becomes something to be hugely grateful for.
Among children, being able to continue learning despite the limitations as the pandemic reshaped the education structure is another gift to be thankful for.
That sense of gratitude becomes pervasive as 2020, a year like no other, draws to a close. Hopefully so will the pain it has wreaked on humanity.
“I’m thankful to God because we’re still able to study,” says Clifton Pugong, a Grade-2 student from Nueva Vizcaya province and among millions of students forced to learn remotely via modules as the pandemic shut schools.
Clifton is one of seven-year old triplets. He and brothers Clifford and Cliff John wished for notebooks and pencils for Christmas, not toys, showing how a global health crisis has failed to dampen their interest to learn outside the classroom.
The triplets were among recipients of mathematics and reading workbooks from Synergeia Foundation, part of the education coalition’s efforts to help children cope with the challenges of distance learning.
The foundation, in partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development, gave out nearly 15,000 workbooks this year.
Synergeia works with 426 local governments across the Philippines, transforming their mindset to be more responsive to the education needs in their communities.
The triplets’ mother, Jennifer, is hearing impaired. But she tries her best to help her children with their schoolwork while she tends to a small store.
The children only see their father for a few weeks after every six months because he works for a quarrying company which is more than 200 kilometers away. Thankfully, he’s home this month and the kids are overjoyed.
Surviving COVID
Jeralyn Mortel, a thirty-eight-year old mother of two, couldn’t be more thankful for beating COVID-19. A billing staff at a private hospital, the frontline worker thought that she would not survive as she battled the disease, telling her husband over the phone to take care of their kids.
“The first five days in the hospital were the hardest because I was having difficulty breathing and I was all alone in the room,” says Mortel, sobbing as she recalled those days in June. “I kept thinking I didn’t want to be intubated, otherwise it would be the end of me.”
She soon recovered, but had to fight discrimination by co-workers who blamed her because they were also quarantined and unable to work and get paid. Her family suffered from the same prejudice although all later tested negative for COVID-19.
“I’m thankful for this new lease on life, that I still have a job and I have my family with me,” she says.
Mortel was among those who joined one of Synergeia’s virtual workshops to help parents mentor their children at home.
She is grateful that her third-grade child is a consistent honor student, and continues online learning via a computer tablet provided by Pasig City, one of Synergeia’s local government partners.
In Caloocan City, seventeen-year old Noraima Tapales is thankful that she is able to keep up, despite a rough start, with the requirements of her online classes, where she is currently in Grade 9.
She is hoping she will be the first in the family to earn a degree. Her three older siblings were forced to discontinue their studies and find work after their father was killed by an unknown assailant in July 2016.
“She studies hard because she has experienced poverty,” her mother, Mercedita, says of Noraima. “She knows that education will help her rise from it.”
‘Education back in the community’
The pandemic also tested the limits of educators who had to adapt to the new education normal and yet were bold enough in pushing for changes to ensure that children would learn despite the challenges.
School principal Lucia Lamanero launched a teaching volunteer program in Concepcion, Iloilo after a survey showed that some children were left with their grandparents at home as their parents headed off to work.
“I organized clusters of learners in several sitios where these families live and assigned learning facilitators to help the learners who have no support at home,” she says.
Synergeia has advocated for in-person tutorials in places with zero COVID cases or low-risk areas, to help students with working or unschooled parents and those who cannot afford online platforms.
With strict compliance to health measures, these physical teaching sessions are underway in Synergeia partner communities including Iloilo, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao and La Union provinces.
“I am grateful to my stakeholders, especially my Synergeia mentors. They helped me appreciate the meaning of transforming people and touching their hearts,” says Lamanero.
Other teachers like Leonarda Lumot from Villaverde, Nueva Vizcaya do home visits or read stories to their students online or through phone calls.
“I am thankful that I am still able to carry out my job and take care of my pupils. I am also grateful for how responsive they are to learn,” says Lumot, who won a Synergeia virtual storytelling contest with her piece about a child who’s determined to follow her dream.
The in-person tutorials “brought education back in the community,” said Meriam Puegan, a 25-year-old teacher from San Gabriel, a COVID-free municipality in La Union.
“As a teacher, I am grateful for where I am now. I live and teach in the mountains where things are simpler,” she says. “I can still meet my students without fear of getting sick.”
There is a strong need to reform the Philippines’ education system including a possible overhaul of the curriculum to boost the competency of children in primary school after a regional assessment showed that Filipino Grade 5 students lagged their counterparts in Southeast Asia in reading, writing and mathematics.
The Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) 2019 study highlights the learning gaps in the Philippines’ basic education that the coronavirus pandemic may have exacerbated – gaps that education coalition Synergeia Foundation has been working to address even during a global health crisis.
The study, jointly undertaken by the United Nations Children’s Fund and Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization in six countries, showed that 27% of Filipino Grade 5 students have a reading proficiency equivalent to that expected in the first years of primary school.
More than 70% of Grade 5 children were in the three lowest bands in a writing proficiency scale of 1-8 and majority are still working towards mastering fundamental mathematical skills, according to the study released this month. Students from Vietnam and Malaysia were among the most competent in all three areas.
A separate study published last week showed Grade 4 students from the Philippines ranked the lowest among 58 countries in an assessment of mathematics and science competency last year by the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study at Boston College.
‘Won’t be left out’
Synergeia, in partnership with UNICEF and 426 local governments across the country, has been working to lift children’s proficiency in reading, writing, mathematics as well as character building by transforming communities to be more responsive to the education needs of their constituencies.
Synergeia works with UNICEF in partner municipalities in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao including those in the provinces of Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao, through grants that help the local governments develop and produce learning modules for children in the communities.
As part of its mission to boost the quality of basic education even during the pandemic which forced school closures and shifted learning to homes, Synergeia held virtual workshops to help teachers and parents cope with the demands of distance learning, from writing up modules to how to properly mentor children at home.
Synergeia also pushed for in-person tutorials in communities with zero cases of COVID-19 to help students struggling with remote education. They are now being carried out in several provinces including parts of Maguindanao, Iloilo, La Union and Lanao del Sur.
Still, the results of the SEA-PLM study amplify the need to “push and implement reforms in the country’s education system, from the teachers to our curriculum, to make sure that children are learning,” Senator Win Gatchalian said in a statement.
“Even while we’re in the midst of a pandemic, we need to pursue these reforms so our students won’t be left out,” said Gatchalian who is part of the Board of Trustees of Synergeia Foundation.
Gatchalian has also supported limited in-person learning sessions in areas without COVID-19 to allow students to better understand the self-learning modules, particularly those whose parents are either working or unschooled themselves.
The latest dismal assessments followed last year’s similarly poor outcome when 15-year old students from the Philippines ranked lowest among 79 countries in reading proficiency and second lowest in mathematics and science in the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment.
