Wiring Payatas

Former Finance Undersecretary Milwida Guevara was surprised when she received an invitation one rainy day in June last year. A 27-year-old Argentinian priest had sent her e-mail, asking if she would be interested to go to Payatas.

You can’t blame Guevarra. Payatas, a barangay in Quezon City, conjures a not-so-good image in the mind. It is a dumpsite waiting to be completely closed, and to say that life there is hard is to make an understatement.

Curious, Guevarra gave in to the request. It turned out, the priest – Fr. Luciano Felloni of the Sons of Divine Providence – was taking a shot at the Internet to find "angel" sponsors or those who would be generous enough to support his project. With a prayer, he sent e-mails from his parish office "to whom it may concern". They landed on the mailboxes of several donor institutions, but only Guevara, who is now working as program director of the Ford Foundation in Manila, was intrigued enough to respond.

When they first met in August last year, Guevara said she was instantly disarmed by the priest’s appearance.

"He was so young, unshaven, had no shoes on, and his face was full of compassion. He reminded me of Jesus," Guevara said of the Argentinian priest who speaks Tagalog with a Visayan accent.

Felloni gathered all the parishioners of Barangay Payatas to meet Guevarra who asked what they needed. They gave her a long list. It was then just barely two months since a huge wall of trash came crashing down on a row of shacks in the dumpsite and buried more than a hundred people. Grief was still written on the people’s faces.

Since the government ordered the temporary closure of the dumpsite, those who used to earn P150 a day from collecting scrap now had to find alternative livelihood. Scavenging used to send their children to school and ensured their three meals a day.

"The problem was they have so many needs but don’t know how to put a handle on them," said Guevara.

Having been a government official, Guevara knew she had to set the criteria that would ensure that the project would have a strategic impact on the lives of the people.

"The foundation should not be seen as a dole-out giver. For it to support a project there should be a partnership between the local government, the community and the foundation. The project should be sustainable and have a strategic impact," she said.

In a span of eight months, Guevara and Felloni exchanged e-mails – hers, from her office at the posh 6750 building along Ayala Avenue, which has a sweeping view of the Makati skyline; and his, from Payatas where mountains of trash spew out methane gas to the heavens.

For years, the 220-hectare dumpsite had conjured up images of poverty and shame. For many of its 100,000 residents, Payatas has become a quicksand of dreams, a quagmire of despair.

"Sabi nila kapag pinanganak ka sa Payatas, hanggang dito ka na lang buong buhay (They say when you’re born in Payatas, you are stuck here forever)," said Elena Esperas, 45, mother of five who inherited the fate from her parents.

Breaking the cycle was Felloni’s mission. "My dream is for our youth to fulfill their dreams of studying, work in a decent place, and earn enough to feed their family... pay for hospital, and not have to endure the hardships or misery that till now pierce my heart," the priest wrote in one of his e-mails.

Constraints

The young priest, however, did not have to "hard-sell" the plight of Payatas residents to a potential donor.

Before Ford Foundation came into the picture, the community, through the guidance of the Mother of Divine Providence Parish, already runs a scholarship program for 428 elementary and high school students from the poorest families in Payatas. The parish initially pays for tuition and other costs, and parents shoulder half of the expenses through a type of microfinance program similar to that started by Dr. Grameen in Bangladesh decades ago. The program forces them to save.

The scholarship, however, is no guarantee that the students will reach and graduate from college. Payatas’ population grows annually by 15.23 percent, and a great majority are children from ages seven to ten. As there are only five public elementary schools in the village, classes have to be held in three shifts and limited to three hours a day. At Lagro High School, the only secondary school in Payatas, around 5,000 students pack into classrooms like sardines, and each class of 70 is held on rotation for three times a week.

At the end of the day, students go home to one-room shacks made of cardboard, tin or leftover wooden planks, do their homework under the light of a flickering candle, and inhale the toxic fumes from decomposing rubbish.

It is thus not surprising that most students from the village flunk the national achievement tests administered by the State every year, said Efren Castanares, who heads the parish’s social services work. "How could you get the inspiration to study in a place like that?" he said.

Enriching learning

To augment the students’ chances of getting quality education, the parish set up a Community Learning Center that provides students access to reference books and basic computer facilities. A $30,000 grant from the Ford Foundation released last March funded the operations and training for the Blessed Luigi Orione Learning Center (named after the founder of the Sons of Divine Providence Order).

Part of the parish’s sacristy had to give way to an air-conditioned library which men in the community helped build together. Each family donated a book, while others came from the Ford Foundation, the American Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Chinese-Filipino Business Club.

Adjacent to the library is a training room where 235 of the 428 scholars of the parish and the community presently receive weekly tutorials. Around 20 volunteers from the Ateneo de Manila University and young professionals from the middle class in Payatas devote half-day work to teach math, science, philosophy, and basic computer skills. Tutorials would sometimes be held inside the library whenever there is an overflow of students.

The airconditioned room has 10 computers donated by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), while some private companies gave the software.

Brenda Bacusmo, 19, is among the frequent visitors of the learning center. Almost every day, she would walk from her residence for nearly half an hour in muddy road to get to the library. Brenda said she has no time to study at night since she arrives home late and tired at 11 p.m., after enduring a long ride from the Technological University of the Philippines on Taft Avenue, Manila. In her second year taking up her Bachelor of Science, major in industrial education, Brenda said the learning center helps her cope with the demands of being a government scholar, especially after fire gutted down the university’s library early this year.

Early success

Barely just on its fourth month, the learning center will already have a "twin" by early next year. The parish is again seeking the Ford Foundation’s financial support for the establishment of another computer room and a library at a depressed area for families living near the Payatas dumpsite.

While negotiations for a second grant are still under way, Guevara said she is already very pleased with the progress of the community learning center.

"When we started, they still didn’t know what they want since it was their first time to link-up with a donor," she said.

The former Finance official said she even had to ask her former staff – DOF executive assistant Annie de Leon and consultant Francis Vicente – to "volunteer" assistance to the parish by preparing a project proposal and drafting a budget that will be submitted to the Foundation.

Most of all, Guevara said she considers the community learning center’s role in "empowering" the people in Barangay Payatas as the program’s biggest gain thus far.

"At the start, they cannot understand why Ford Foundation just cannot give out computers. Instead, we want to have a program that will lead to a change in behavior. I had to drag a psychologist priest to Payatas to explain this to them," she said.

Now, the community regards the Foundation as a "partner" and not a "donor". Semantics, one may say, but for parents like Elena Esperas, who has two children that are parish-community scholars, sending her children to college through her own sweat and blood in a place called Payatas is enough of a feat that words cannot just describe.

(The author is freelance writer working as a consultant of the Ford Foundation for the Education Reform Initiative program. Her e-mail address is [email protected].)