A journey from 7 kilometers to the finish line

MANILA, Philippines - Efren Gonzales almost lost the ability to walk as a child, afflicted by a rare form of bone tuberculosis. A decade later, however, the teen from Cabangan town in Zambales is training to compete as a national athlete.

At 19, Efren has competed in the Palarong Pambansa, the country’s oldest collegiate league. Years ago, he represented Region 3 in the three-kilometer steeplechase event. This time, he is again busy preparing to compete in another sports category: track and field.

The turnaround is the stuff of telenovelas, and indeed, in 2016, a long-running drama program on Philippine TV took notice and featured Efren’s inspiring story. “My life story is really dramatic, what can I say?” the plucky athlete says in Filipino.

To get to this point, Efren had a long journey – literally. The youngest in a brood of six, Efren remembers scorching days perched on top of his father’s shoulder while he was being physically transported to school. Thanks to his parents’ unflinching support, he says dealing with his crippling condition was more bearable.

Things began to look up when a social worker from World Vision referred the family to a bone specialist. World Vision had helped support Efren’s schooling since he was in grade one. Then commenced a long, often difficult process of medication and therapy, an ordeal that eventually gave way to reprieve as Efren slowly regained strength in his legs.

This newfound strength and youthful audacity gave the then Grade 5 student the confidence to pursue his interest in running, making up for the lost time when his legs failed him. His parents did not approve, as the memory of their child’s frailty was still fresh in their minds.

“But I became a very active child, and I persisted,” Efren says. It was also then when he realized that competitive running, aside from giving him an adrenaline high, could also be a ticket to a brighter future.

Biking to his dream

On his last year in junior high at Cabangan National High School in Zambales, Efren gained a different sense of mobility. In 2013, he became one of the 509 students from Zambales and 5,000 from all around Asia to become beneficiaries of the ING Orange Bike Project that was piloted in the Philippines.

Spearheaded by ING Bank, the Asia-wide initiative targets boosting the performance of school children from remote areas by helping them get to school in a safer and more enjoyable way.

For Efren, the seven kilometers between his house and school was a course he dreaded daily. “It takes me an hour if I walk,” he says. “I could also take the tricycle, but it costs P10 per trip and there are days, up to twice or thrice a week, when I simply couldn’t go to school because I had no fare money.”

The bike thus propelled him towards his dream: to finish high school and go to college, Efren says. The ING Orange Bike also enabled him to improve his performance in class. He even finished junior high with academic distinction, in addition to winning in various regional athletic meets.

One rationale behind the Orange Bike project is to mitigate the effects of the long journey to school on a child’s attendance and academic performance, says Teresa Cuzamo, a volunteer from World Vision, one of ING Bank’s partners in the project. The Zambales project was monitored for three years and, as of the first semester of the third year, the student beneficiaries were able to improve their class attendance by 91 percent; of this group, 72 percent had improved their academic grades.

Efren’s lucky streak continued when his high school trainor, impressed by his athletic ability, referred him to a coach at Arellano University in Manila, which competes in the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA).

“It sounded too good to be true, to be honest,” Efren says. “Imagine, free tuition and other benefits, which means I could go to college without burdening my parents.”

The training package came with a scholarship plus dormitory and meal allowance. His parents (his father is a farmer and his mother a barangay health worker in Zambales) eventually realized that it was Efren’s way of chasing his dreams.

“I told them, I want to finish school to repay them for all their hardships when I was growing up. They really did everything for me. Like I said, I owe them everything,” a grateful Efren says.

Whenever he takes stock of his life story, Efren says it was no longer the disease and the pain that he remembers. As a long-distance runner, he had always believed that life is not a sprint but a marathon, in which endurance is key.

And while he knew it was his dogged persistence that moved him closer to the finish line, Efren says it was the support he enjoyed from his family, as well as from institutions like ING Bank and World Vision, that propelled him towards fulfilling his dream.