By Manolo Serapio Jr.

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Between January and September, the number of people who took their own lives surpassed those who died due to COVID-19 in the central Philippine province of Iloilo.

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Most of the 72 suicide cases were aged between 17 and 30 years old, according to local police, saying the coronavirus pandemic may have aggravated the psychological and emotional stress some of the victims have faced. In 2019, suicide cases in the province reached 78.

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Now, Jason Gonzales, a member of the Iloilo provincial board, is leading an intervention plan aimed at training educators, guidance counsellors, health workers and volunteers “so they can identify problem cases and be able to intervene in cases of attempts.”

The health crisis that reshaped the world this year causing deaths, job losses and isolation has triggered mental health conditions and worsened existing ones.

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Children are among those who have become vulnerable as many grapple with the demands of remote learning, making it crucial for communities around them to provide the necessary support to spur both their educational and emotional growth.

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Iloilo’s response highlights how the pandemic has been pushing communities across the Philippines to take bolder steps in adapting to the new normal, from innovative learning approaches to critical support systems like the one the province is staging, which it hopes to roll out wider in the future.

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“We have to find ways to address this other pandemic,” Gonzales said during the Nov. 20 pilot run of the virtual training workshop.

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Isip Kalasag

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The initiative called Isip Kalasag, or Mind Shield, is aimed at combating the rising cases of suicides in Iloilo by “developing, training and capacitating mental health warriors.”

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The workshop was facilitated by the Panay Regional Education Council, Global Shapers Iloilo and Synergeia Foundation.

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As it works with communities in the country to lift the quality of basic education, Synergeia strives for a holistic approach to the development of every child including mental and emotional growth.

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Around 3.6 million Filipinos are suffering from mental disorders amid the pandemic, based on the initial results of a Department of Health survey released in mid-October. Officials say the number could be higher when the survey results and the range of mental conditions are published in full next year.

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Globally, more than 800,000 people die by suicide every year, or one person every 40 seconds, according to the International Association for Suicide Prevention.

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“For every one suicide, 25 people make a suicide attempt,” the association said in a presentation on Sept. 10, the annual World Suicide Prevention Day.

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Gonzales said the lack of official data in Iloilo on suicide attempts and those suffering from depression – seen as the most common psychiatric disorder in those who take their own lives – underscores the need for an immediate intervention program.

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PERMA model

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Friday’s trial run involved discussions on mental health awareness, employing psychological first aid and a social learning program for students already underway, with educators and guidance and peer counsellors in the Iloilo towns of Lambunao and Badiangan.

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All speakers were from Agubayani of Global Shapers Iloilo, a group of young professionals including doctors and psychiatrists, who launched in June a five-day social learning workshop aimed at helping students cope with the challenges posed by the pandemic including the demands of remote learning.

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Agubayani’s workshop is anchored on the PERMA model of well-being and happiness developed by American psychologist Martin Seligman. The acronym stands for positive emotions, engagement or being completely immersed in activities, relationships, meaning or what drives one towards fulfilment and achievement.

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Following the preliminary run, the plan is to finalise a content that can be shared digitally, assisted by live facilitators, to more areas in Iloilo and eventually, to other provinces in the Philippines, in cooperation with Synergeia, said Gonzales.

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“We will be spreading this once we come up with the video module,” Gonzales said.

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To help students grappling with the demands of remote education, Valenzuela City created a system to live-stream teaching videos by converting one of its schools into studios, hoping to fill a learning gap caused by the global pandemic.

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The city’s Valenzuela Live streaming school allows thousands of its elementary and high school students to have a better grasp of the learning modules supplied by the Department of Education, says Mayor Rex Gatchalian.

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“We found out that, left to their own devices, many parents are struggling with administering the modules at home. And many of them didn’t even complete their own education,” he said.

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As the coronavirus pandemic shifted learning from schools to homes, there emerged a need to assist learners, particularly those from fourth grade through senior high school, says Gatchalian, to better understand the learning materials.

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Done three times a week and broadcast on Facebook Live, a teacher discusses a subject like mathematics in front of a camera for half an hour followed by a 15-minute period where the teacher fields questions from students. The sessions, which kicked off when public schools opened on Oct. 5, are also uploaded on YouTube.

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The synchronous sessions start from 7 am and end before noon – covering at least four subjects. The local government uses 18 rooms of its Valenzuela City School of Mathematics and Science as studios that stream different lessons to the different grade levels. Each room has one teacher, a person that moderates the online session and a computer technician.

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The remaining two days of the week are devoted to asynchronous learning when students can follow through on lessons with the teachers via online platforms such as Facebook Messenger.

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Each student needs to create a portfolio where they need to store all their modular exercises which will be the basis for grading.

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“By no means is the system perfect. But it hinges on two things: Internet connectivity and accessibility to hand-held devices,” Gatchalian said.

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Valenzuela has 140,000 students enrolled in its elementary and high schools and is lending 24,000 computer tablets to the “poorest of the poor”.

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Internet connectivity costs will be shouldered by the students themselves, with money that their parents would have otherwise spent on their kids’ allowance or school uniform.

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Valenzuela is among 426 local governments working with Synergeia Foundation, a non-profit organisation aiming for every Filipino child to complete basic education. Created in 2002, Synergeia has partnerships with the U.S. Agency for International Development and the United Nations Children’s Fund.

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manny.serapio@gmail.com

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By Manolo Serapio Jr.

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About 20 men surrounded their shanty dwelling in Caloocan City one evening in 2016 looking for someone. Failing to find him, the men told Carina*, then 14, and her siblings to go to a neighbour’s house. A series of gunshots soon rang out and when they rushed back home, their father’s lifeless body was sprawled on the floor.

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Carina’s mother was fatally shot a year later, while playing bingo with friends, by a motorcycle-riding man chasing after someone else. She also lost three siblings in a span of nine years, with one dying in jail and another  succumbing to dengue at a young age.

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To this day, she remembers how minutes after her father was killed, scene of crime officers and funeral workers were at their door, even though they did not seek them out. That no one rushed her mother to a hospital, for fear, that like her father, she too was caught in the Philippine government’s anti-drug war.

The series of horrific, unfortunate events affected her deeply, causing her to be a serial repeater in school. But the coronavirus pandemic brought fresh challenges for Carina. Now in Grade 9, she misses half of her online classes because she shares a single phone with three other cousins also learning remotely.

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“I try my best, but it’s really tough,” says Carina who lives with her brother’s family, and admits she’ll probably drop out again if school work overwhelms. With her sister-in-law busy with her kids and her brother usually out for menial jobs, Carina mostly has herself to turn to.

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One of Carina’s teachers called her on the phone, asking why one of her learning modules was incomplete and advised her to stop missing out on  classes. “I usually get a special mention in class,” she said.

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Tougher hurdles

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More than 2 million students who were enrolled last year skipped school this year amid the pandemic that hit businesses and cut thousands of jobs, data from the Department of Education showed.

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But as Philippine schools shifted to remote teaching via learning modules and online classes, many students are struggling amid cases of punishing school work and teachers not available for follow-through consultations as well as costly computer gadgets and Internet connection.

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The hurdles are bigger and tougher for orphans, with no parents to support them and take on the teacher’s role at home, forcing many to work harder to survive and strive for a better future.

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Yet it underlines the need for communities around them to be more supportive and responsive to their plight.

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Synergeia Foundation, a non-profit organisation whose vision is for every Filipino child to complete basic education, has been working with local governments across the country to help provide such support to children, including orphans.

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Synergeia, which has partnerships with organisations like the United Nations Children’s Fund and the U.S. Agency for International Development, has been giving virtual tutorials on subjects like mathematics – streamed live on its Facebook account – to help students cope with the demands of distance learning.

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The foundation has also been holding online workshops for parents and guardians and writeshops for teachers, and has given nearly 15,000 workbooks to children this year.

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And it encourages small, in-person learning groups led by teachers or volunteers in communities where the risk of COVID-19 exposure is low and where Internet connectivity is weak, with the strictest compliance to health standards.

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Jane

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It’s the in-person pre-pandemic school structure that fifteen-year-old Jane* misses, when she can quickly catch up with lessons in class or talk to her teachers. Like Carina, she grapples with her learning modules, opting to leave some questions unanswered.

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Jane lives in Vigan, about 400 kilometres north of Manila, in a small house she and her brother Gerry* inherited from their parents. They lost their mother four years ago and their father nearly a decade earlier.

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“Whenever I have a hard time, I cry and I think about my parents,” says Jane whose father died when she was in sixth grade. Her mother was electrocuted at home while the siblings were asleep, and Jane was the first to see her body the next morning.

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“It was a very painful period in my life, a blow I thought I’d never recover from,” said Jane who’s in Grade 10. They have since been supported by their aunt who lives three villages away.

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With no phone, computer and Internet, the siblings can’t attend online classes, relying mainly on learning modules dropped off by a teacher neighbour or a classmate.

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Jane and Gerry are usually up by 6 am, tending to house chores before they begin answering modules covering at least eight subjects that need to be completed every week. They skip meals when deadlines loom, and cook only when hunger kicks in, usually canned food or instant noodles.

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“It’s hard but I won’t give up. This a challenge I must surmount,” says Jane who aspires to be a doctor. “I know my parents are watching over us that’s why I’m trying to be strong.”

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Mark

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Other parentless kids are fortunate to be surrounded by their extended family who look after them.

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Evelyn* has been raising her grandson Mark*, aged nine, since her son was murdered last year. The suspects are still at large and a case had been filed against them in court.

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Mark’s mother died two days after he was born, so he only remembers being with his father. “We’ve been honest with him. We told him his father was killed and we don’t know why,” says Evelyn.

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Now in fourth grade, Mark wants to be a teacher like his older cousin who tutors him after his online classes.

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“We’re doing all that we can to support him because he’s lost both his parents,” Evelyn says. “He needs to finish his studies so he can make something of himself.”

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Mark says his favourite subject is English and misses playing on the street, having been cooped up at home for months now like many kids because of COVID-19.

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His voice was cheery until I asked him what he remembers most about his dad. He paused, then his grandmother told me on the phone that his eyes had welled up with tears.

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While the void from losing their parents will never be filled, living with their extended families help shield Mark and Carina from harm, keeping their dreams alive.

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Before her grandmother died two years ago, she wanted Carina to become a doctor someday. “I will try to make her proud, and my parents too,” she says.

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*Real names were not used to protect their identities