Photo: RP-US Sea Bees Repair Damaged Jolo Island School

Petty Officer 1st Class Randolf B. Castronuevo hammers in a nail on a new pressure-treated fascia board at the Tayungan Elementary School during a recent joint Philippine-US Navy Engineering Civil Action Project on Jolo island in the Sulu Archipelago. The Tayungan Elementary School is severely damaged by weather and termites, and the pressure-treated wood will help resist the same situation again. (Photo contributed by Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines)

Three Pieces of Cupcake

Jocelyn Lambac (center), 28, together with fellow recipients of General Santos City Youth Achievers Awards 2006, Donald Louie Monteclaro (left), 20, and Engineer Abdul Gafur Kudarat (right), 27, will be featured June on youth leadership on ABS-CBN television in General Santos City in southern Philippines.

GENERAL SANTOS CITY – The last bottles of soft drink had been drained, the plates of rice cleared, and only a leg of garlic chicken left.

“Each one of us must have knowledge of the Holy Qur’an,” said Jocelyn Lambac, 28, a government employee, clad in a seemingly tight black shirt, pair of black pants and a black headscarf. “I should have had good knowledge of the Holy Qur’an.”

“When he was still bedridden, I would repeatedly chant by his side the Al-Fatiha,” she said, referring to the first chapter of the Muslim Holy Scripture. “It’s all I know.”

Her eyes turned red but she braved crying. “Please, no crying,” she said turning her eyes to one corner of the room, refusing to look straight at the eyes of each person at the table.”

Silence.

“Gandhi and I have good news for you,” said Jovar Pantao, 24, a community organizer. “Remember what I told you before?”

“I was somewhat expecting for a wheelchair,” she said. “Not that one.”

“During my time, it wasn’t live. We did taping,” Jovar said.

“Shall I wear a headscarf that time? Oh, I should wear an outfit with videocam-friendly colors,” she said.

“You still have a time to go for foot spa, body scrub and diet,” he said. “Plus 10 pounds on TV, you know.”

“Gandhi, you should give me a copy of it,” she said, her voice somewhat excited, her eyes as if telling to herself: “I will be fine. I should be fine.”

“I will take a video of the TV while you’re live on air,” said Gandhi Kinjiyo, 33, her cousin.
“No, I want a copy of the video by the television station,” she replied.

Silence.

This coming June, she and her co-awardees of General Santos City Youth Achievers Awards (GSCYAA) for 2006 will be featured on a local television channel. GSCYAA is an annual distinction conferred by the local government of General Santos to young people in the city who have manifested sterling performance in their respective fields of endeavor.

In the middle of her acceptance speech in December 15, 2006, her voice cracked and tears trickled down her face. “My mom must be very happy for me. Wherever she is now, I know my mom is very proud of me.”

“I’m neither a perfect daughter nor a perfect sister, but deep inside me I’m trying to be one,” she said. She was wearing a colorful headscarf and a dress with long sleeve. A friend would tease her later as the Megawati Sukarnuputri of the Philippines.

She is vice president of Young Moro Professionals’ Council, a non-government youth-serving organization that operates in South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani and General Santos.


Her engagements in myriad community services and volunteer works have convinced the GSCYAA board of adjudicators that she deserved the award.

During the 5th Regional Qur’an Reading Competition last April 16, she was supposed to introduce as keynote speaker Lieutenant Colonel Abubakar bin Abdmalek, the team leader of Headquarter Site 4 of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines ─ Moro Islamic Liberation Front - International Monitoring Team (GRP-MILF-MT), which overseas the implementation of the ceasefire agreement between the rebel group and the Filipino government.

She did not appear.

We didn’t know why. It was not the kind of occasion that she will take for granted. Another lady took her place to introduce the 47-year-old officer from the Royal Malaysian Navy.

A few hours later, a friend approached me and asked: “Will you join us to visit Jo?”
“Why?” I asked back.

“Her father died,” he replied. “I’ll go with you.”

Tears kept falling off her bulging red eyes when we saw her. Comforts of friends were to no avail.

Silence.

She stood to get some coffee and breads for us. Some days after her father passed away, she called me. “Do you want an ice cream, or you want to eat outside? My treat.”

At the restaurant, she appeared in all black. Together with her is Kim Limjap, 31, her best friend.

“It hurts inside,” she said. Tears wanted to fall from her eyes. She defied it. “But I’m already happy for Ama. When I talked to some ustadzes (Islamic scholars) on separate occasions and told them what happened, they have told me that all happened in good time. The Islamic rituals were all followed properly somehow.”

“I’m afraid of corpse,” she said, “but I still managed to kiss Ama while his body was at home. I couldn’t forgive myself if I wasn’t able to do so.”

She held her mobile phone. “I whispered to Ama how much I love him.”

Long silence.

“So with my dad,” Jennifer Andiam-Kamid, 30, her officemate said. Her voice cracked. She tried to hold back her tears but to no avail. “I’m also afraid of corpse but I braved the morgue when Dad died.”

“When Dad was still alive, we would always fight. I would chase him with bolo out of anger,” she said. “My husband Misuari even witnessed how Dad and I fought.”

“But when he died, I realized that I was the one closest to his heart than my other sibling in Mom and in Dad’s other families.”

Two friends bade goodbye first. Moreb Dalama, 24, has visitors at home. Jehanna Tin, 23, lives in a far off municipality in Sarangani province, an adjacent place.

“Bring home to your kids the left over chicken leg,” Kim told Jennifer.

While leaving the restaurant, Jocelyn handed me something she bought from the restaurant attendant. “Give this to your Ama,” she said.

Wrapped in brown thin paper bag. Three pieces of cupcake.

Jovar and I walked together to some distance to where we will move as under: I, to wait for a jeepney, and he, to walk alongside another streets leading to his rented place.

While we were walking, Jocelyn and Kim passed by our side, riding on a motorcycle.

“She has no other outlet, that’s why she talked to us,” Jovar said when the two were already about 10 meters away from us.

“She looks relieved, happy for her dad,” I said.

The first jeepney that stopped by happened to be the one I’m waiting for. It wasn’t a starry, starry night. The city was somber, the streets dusty. (Contributed by Norodin M. Makalay)

Mindanao Teachers Lack PCs, Call It Happy Problem

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (Mike Banos / 20 Dec) - Teachers in the Mindanao State University MSU-System of High Schools and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) have what EduQuest, Inc. general manager Teresita Medado calls a "happy problem". They don't have enough computers and peripherals to integrate computers and the internet into classroom instruction.

During the Recognition and Awards Night for the IBM eMentor Scholarship program held recently in Cagayan de Oro, Maryam Manalundong, who was cited as the "Best Trainer" among the 27 graduates of the program, said they don't have enough computers to enable students to learn "hands-on".

They also lacked LCD projectors to make up for the lack of PCs by projecting their lessons to the board for all students to see.

But Medado called this is a "happy problem" because that particular batch of eMentors have "found good use for their PCs" and said she "wanted it recognized." Apparently, EduQuest worked with other schools before which "over-invested" in hardware and software but eventually found little use for it.

Even prior to that, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded Growth with Equity in Mindanao (GEM) program already recognized the need to develop the "humanware" for this project by bringing in the IBM eMentor scholarship program for its Computer Literacy and Internet Connection (CLIC) program.

CLIC aims to promote computer literacy and the use of information and communications technology (ICT) among students and teachers in the ARMM and other conflict-affected areas in Mindanao. It provides internet-linked computers, software, printers, reference materials on computers and the internet, and training on basic troubleshooting and repairs to CLIC-beneficiary schools.

To improve the quality of ICT-facilitated learning in the ARMM, IBM and USAID through GEM launched the IBM eMentor Scholarship Program (also known as the IBM eMentor Teacher Professional Training and Practicum Program) in the ARMM and the MSU System of High Schools.

The IBM eMentor Scholarship Program is implemented and managed by EduQuest, Inc., an affiliate of Asia Pacific College, an institution founded by IBM Philippines and the SM Foundation.

As a training provider and consultant on teaching strategies and tools, EduQuest designed the training course and certified the acquisition of competencies gained by teachers through the program. It was also responsible for monitoring the implementing the program by qualified and trained teachers in their own schools.

The program was developed with the rationale that improving the quality of education in the ARMM would help accelerate economic growth in Mindanao, improve the quality of life and bring about a just and lasting peace in the region.

In January 2006, at least 30 teachers were selected from a pool of 85 program applicants using a highly competitive process managed by GEM. Selection criteria included reading diagnosis rating, technology skill level and professional qualifications.

As program beneficiaries, each teacher-scholar committed to share the skills they acquired with at least 10 teachers from their schools within 7-10 months after graduating from the program.

From the original pool of 30 qualified applicants, 28 teacher-scholars went through an intensive 8-day training program at the STI computer laboratory in Davao City last January.

The training taught them how to maximize ICT applications, tools and resources in the classroom to inspire greater interest and increase the motivation to learn of students, thus increasing the quality of classroom instruction in the region (which has among the lowest literacy rate in the entire country) and also improved their ability to facilitate community participation in the learning process. Outputs and peer feedback were discussed on the last day of training.

Upon returning to their respective schools, the teacher-scholars now turned mentors applied their newly acquired skills and trained at least 10 other teachers, thus increasing the base of trained and qualified teacher-users for CLIC-partner schools.

Through the next 10 months, CLIC and IBM, through EduQuest, monitored and evaluated the implementation of the teacher-mentors' portfolio in their own schools.

Twenty seven teacher-mentor scholars completed the requirements of the program just this month.

The three highest achieving teacher-scholars and who excelled in their specific fields were recognized with awards from IBM and EduQuest. The teacher-mentors were evaluated based on three major criteria: Development and Implementation of Instructional materials using ICT; re-echo training or passing on what they have learned from the IBM eMentor program to their co-teachers, and teacher collaboration through various tools in the internet.

The 27 IBM eMentor Teacher-Scholars were Kusain M. Abas, Leticia S. Adjaril, Ma. Venus P. Aman, Floravel K. Ambas, Saliah Datucali H. Amin, Nor-ain M. Ampang, Aquil S. Andog, Arnold B. Asotigue, Achmad Dimalutang, Camaro T. Edzraphil, Arnel B. Hajan, Renette H. Jecostan, Aidyl Jeffrey A. Jikiri, Florida D. Maddie, Ma. Corazon G. Maguate, Mayleen P. Malagamba, Maryam Q. Manalundong, Caroline T. Marohom, Barbara Ann E. Pangcoga, Ranilo R. Remonde, Jemima O. Ruiz, Rheinjohn A. Sampang, Mariam A. Sunggod, Reynald L. Sykimte, Arlene B. Tawan, Ricardo B. Tarro and Nazer K. Usman.

Recognized as the top eMentor Scholars were Maryam Q. Macalundong, MSU Balindong, Lanao del Sur (1st place); Caroline T. Marohom, Malabang National High School, Lanao del Sur (2nd Place) and Nor-Ain M. Ampang, MSU Balo-i, Lanao del Norte.

Also granted special awards were Marohom (Best in Classroom Demonstrations), Manalundong (Best Teacher's Portfolio, Overall Best Online Discussant, Best Online Discussant/IBM Mentor Place, Best Online Discussant/IBM Yahoo group, Best Trainer), Edzraphil (Simplest Use of Technology to Achieve Maximum Impact) and Mr. Aquil S. Andog (Best Online Discussant/IBM eMentor Blogspot).

Although the program partners committed to continue supporting CLIC through the program, a formidable obstacle over which they basically have no control continues to hound the integration of computers and the internet in the ARMM, especially in Lanao del Sur: inadequate and unstable supply of electricity.

Ricardo de Leon, MSU-System President, acknowledged this problem but said the National Transmission Corporation (Transco) can hopefully address it in the near future upon the completion of a 69KV transmission line in Lanao del Sur aimed at stabilizing the power supply.

Ironically, Lanao del Sur and Iligan City, are hosts communities for the Agus hydro-electric power complex which supplies over half of Mindanao's present power needs.

The CLIC program in the ARMM is managed by Arcille Catherine Raagas, herself a former teacher and mentor based in Cagayan de Oro City. (Contributor, Kagay-an.com)