We are a group of 16-year-old students who want to voice out our opinions on social issues – and we want to be heard.
For the past four years, we have visited Itaas Elementary, a public school in Muntinlupa, for outreach. It frustrates us to see the children having so little even of the basic necessities every person has the right to have. Some do not even have a decent chair to sit on, a pencil to write with, or a notebook to write on. It makes us wonder where all the money is going because we know that our parents pay taxes year in and year out.
Seeing the condition of the children of Itaas Elementary school disheartens us every time; considering that education is the key to a better future for themselves as well as their families. With quality education, these children can be taught the necessary information and know-how in order to obtain lucrative jobs in the future. What you are really doing – by channeling public funds into your own pockets – is pushing them deeper into the poverty they wish to free themselves from.
Since these children have no voice, we wish to be their voice. And we wish to say that the lives of the students of Itaas – as well as that of the other poor children of our country – are unfortunate because you robbed them of the funds that could have been used for better education. Thus, in behalf of every Filipino child whose voices are silenced by poverty, we wish to say that: We suffer so much because of YOU.
– Monica Gamboa, Bea Ipapo, Mackey Cureg, Angelica Martinez , and Valerie Wei, Muntinlupa City