No orphan left behind

Raymundo Andallon Jr. has a bright career ahead of him. In his mid-’20s, he has a stable job as accountant at Pilipinas Shell, one of RP’s top ten firms. Life wasn’t always looking up for Ray, though. He was only two years old when his father, Constabulary Sgt. Raymundo Sr., was killed in an ambush by communist rebels. The family lost their breadwinner and the future dimmed uncertain. But then came a scholarship offer from the AFP Educational Benefit System when Ray was in Grade 6. The subsidy went on to high school, then to the University of the Philippines-Diliman, where he finished magna cum laude a five-year business administration-accountancy course in 2001. That same year Ray topped the accounting board exam to fulfill dad’s big plans for him. If only Sgt. Raymundo could see him now.

Ray is but one of 4,000 graduates that the AFP-EBS has put through school in what chairman Lt. Gen. Edilberto Adan bills as its "no orphan left behind" program. Eighteen thousand other servicemen’s children presently are receiving scholarship grants, courtesy of the System’s modest provident fund and munificent donors. Individually they struggle to cope with the hardships of soldiers’ dependents’ life and, for some, the pain of loss. Together they strive to realize that great Filipino dream of education – a dream shared not only by servicemen for their children but even of enemy-rebels who thus lay down arms for plowshares.

Yet dutifully seeing the brood through school may not be a soldier’s normal path. The very nature of the job assures that. Charles de Gaulle once said of the military service: "Men who adopt the profession of arms submit their own free will to a law of perpetual constraint. From the moment they become soldiers, they reject the right to live where they want, say what they think and dress what they like. They cease to be masters of their own fate. On a word of command, they must rise, run, march, endure bad weather, and go without food or sleep. If they drop dead in their tracks or their ashes be scattered to the four winds, that is all part and parcel of their fate."

AFP chief Gen. Efren Abu felt exactly that when he addressed AFP-EBS donors Monday night. "The moment I became a soldier, I ceased to be a perfect father," he rued, recalling the many times he had had to leave home for long, faraway postings. A father of five, Abu has reached the pinnacle of his military career, yet whispered of this uncertainty: "When I retire at 56 in June, I will still have two children to put through school, one in high school and another in college."

The sentiment is felt down the ranks. A grateful Sgt. Danilo Bendal, in the Air Force for 23 years, says he constantly reminds his seven kids to "do your best in school." More so since his eldest, David Jan, is a 1st-year student of Liberal Arts at the University of Asia and the Pacific, care of AFP-EBS donor Sapientes Milites Scholarship Foundation Inc.

The scholars are equally grateful. Merry Kristine, orphan of Army intelligence Sgt. Alejandro Bag-o, has been a beneficiary since 1993 and is now in 3rd year of a five-year undergraduate-to-masters course in management at the UA&P. Says she of the Salome Tan Foundation and Sapientes scholarships that AFP-EBS had fixed for her: "It compensates for the loss of my father." To which Sharon Calleja, orphan of Sgt. Ely, adds: "Without the grant, I might not have earned my degree." A scholar in 1998-2002, she finished B.S. Accountancy at Centro Escolar University.

Responding on behalf of the donors, Manuel Pangilinan, head of the Philippine Business for Social Progress spoke like a fulfilled parent: "Let me cite a story that makes us proud of our partnership with AFP-EBS. Cheddy is the youngest of six children of the late Army Sgt. Tamayo Mossilet. The truck of a team from the 51st Engineer Brigade that included Sgt. Mossilet en route to Kabangkalan, Negros Occidental, to build a bridge two hours from their command post, was ambushed by a group of communist rebels at 6 in the morning of June 28, 1984. Sgt. Mossilet died of massive bleeding due to multiple gunshot wounds minutes after. Cheddy was about to take a leave from school due to financial difficulties when AFP-EBS informed her of our scholarship program. She then managed to enroll at Negros Oriental State University and finish her studies two weeks ago. Cheddy texted AFP-EBS that she has graduated with a degree of B.S. Hotel and Restaurant Management, cum laude." Pangilinan didn’t say if Cheddy sent the text message via Smart Communications, of which he is chairman. But the P10-million grant that PBSP plunked into AFP-EBS only two years back has begun to bear fruit.

Among two dozen other donors are: Alfonso Yuchengco Foundation, Bahay ni Angelo King, Doktor na Kawal Foundation, Dr. Emilio T. Yap, Help Educate and Rear Orphans, Meralco Foundation, Saludo sa Kawal Pilipino, and Systems Technology Institute. If not for them, AFP-EBS funds would be insufficient to subsidize the children of 200 soldiers killed in action each year, 300 disabled in action, plus deserving scholars of 110,000 other servicemen.

John Kaw of Sapientes considers education "my most expensive hobby." He is also a trustee of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industries Inc., which donates to build schoolhouses not only for soldiers’ children but for all. Amazingly, FFCCCII does it at only P175,000 per classroom, complete with ceiling and lighting – only a third what it costs the Dept. of Public Works. It has built 3,000 units to date, and starting 2006 will throw in a toilet and a computer for just a few thousand pesos more. Why the government spends thrice as much is something for new Public Works Sec. Hermogenes Ebdane, a former National Police chief, to investigate. But that’s a different story altogether.

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