Bright kids
My 2014 Christmas celebration began happily early last month when I entered the social hall of the San Francisco High School in Quezon City. About 60 students had arrived earlier for their early yuletide party, wearing their best clothes. All of a sudden I felt energized, electrified, I must say — as I looked at them in their seats — bright eyed, smiling, listening attentively to what us guests and mentors said — from the littlest seven-year-old second grader to the college students enrolled in different courses in universities.
The room sizzled with bright minds; I thought, they could be the future barangay, town and country leaders. Right now they are scholars of the Study Fund for Philippine Children Foundation Inc., simply called SFK — a fully non-government organization paying for the education of children whose parents are “the poorest of the poor” in Quezon City.
Since SKF’s founding 28 years ago, it has supported hundreds of elementary and high school students, and enabled 150 students to finish college. Some of the graduates are employed abroad, some are teachers, computer engineers and office assistants.
“I would not have finished college without the support of SKF,” Danilo A. Longasa said. His father was a carpenter and his mother a laundrywoman. He was selling cigarettes in the streets when he was not attending classes at San Francisco High School. They were living in a squatters area. Danilo’s father regretted not being able to send his bright son to college; his earnings were barely enough for them to survive. Then a miracle happened one day.
Danilo’s principal, who had been impressed by his class standing and good behavior, told him a foundation would take care of his remaining school expenses, then support him through college. Danilo could not believe his good fortune. He took up criminology at the Philippine College of Criminology and after graduation, for 21 years, he worked with Land Bank of the Philippines. He is now the bank’s chief investigator of criminal and anomaly cases, as well as president of SKF.
Danilo’s wife, Dulce, finished dentistry also as an SKF scholar at Centro Escolar University, and is now teaching at the Bacoor National High School. At the same time she is taking her master’s in education at Dela Salle University (this time at her own expense).
The Foundation was founded in Quezon City in 1987 by Dr. Ph. J.R. Zalsman Wielenga, a Dutch national. Yuup, as he is popularly called, had taken up special education at the University of Amsterdam. He worked in an institution in Nymegen, Holland which looked after children in need of special care, i.e., their parents’ being divorced, or engaged in criminal activities. The program now places such children in the care of foster parents under the guidance of professional social workers.
After 30 years, Yuup decided to leave the institution. “I felt like I was just part of the furniture already,” he said. By divine grace, he found himself in the Philippines and organized a foundation in Quezon City along with Proserfina Jacela, a teacher at the San Francisco High School. Jacela is now a member of the SKF board, along with Illuminada Quinones, Elizabeth V. Meneses, Atty. Renato Zosimo Evangelista (a former SFK scholar), and Emmanuel A. Leyson.
SFK is fully supported by funds raised by the SFK-Netherlands Foundation, otherwise known as Studiefonds Filippijnse Kinderen. Funds are strictly used for 70 scholarships, at any given time. Once three or four students finish college, three or four scholars whether from the elementary or high schools, are taken in to fill up the 70 slots. Support covers tuition fees, clothing, food, and transportation expenses.
According to Jacela, the Foundation supports students attending public schools in Quezon City. The elementary schools are San Vicente, Old Balara, Teodora Alonzo and Bagbag. The high schools are Dona Rosario, Novaliches, Carlos Garcia, Ernesto Rondon, Ramon Magsaysay, Maligaya, San Francisco, Justice Cecilia Munoz Palma, Jose P. Laurel Sr., Amparo, Culiat, Judge Juan Luna, Lagro, and Quezon City.
Jacela and a team meet with the principals who recommend bright, but indigent students for SKF scholarships. “It’s a waste if such bright students can’t finish even the elementary grades because their parents cannot afford to send them to school,” Jacela told this columnist.
She said she once took a taxi, and learned from the driver about his family situation, like the whole family of six children sleeping in one room and on bare ground as flooring. Days later the driver’s bright daughter was taken in as a scholar; she is now in high school.
Only one child in a family is given a scholarship. Emerson Opis is one of triplets; he was chosen when he was in Grade VI. He is now a fourth year human resource development student at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.
After finishing high school, the scholars take up courses of their choice in different universities — tourism to accountancy, political economy, fine arts, education, computer management technoogy, mechanical enineering, civil and electrical engineering.
All of the scholars pass their subjects. Only three have dropped out because they got married and had to move elsewhere.
The scholars take on a sense of responsibility. After they finish college and begin working, they start paying for the school fees of their younger siblings. This is complete sharing of good fortune.
Yuup and Longasa speak proudly of graduates like Renato Zosimo Evangelista, the first Mangyan from Mindoro, and first law graduate of the Foundation.
The first doctor is Enrico Tolentino, who finished biology at Far Eastern University, and medicine at Fatima University.
More than a dozen have graduated from the University of the Philippines, Diliman, where one of them, is a professsor now.
Another graduate to be proud of is Marvin Ramos, a mechanical engineer working with an oil company in Norway. He donated P10,000 for the Christmas party held at San Francisco High School.
Other graduates doing good are Nelson Luz, an accountant with a Rotary Club; Dra. Agnes Magbuhos-Udan, a dentist, and Erlinda Marquez, an X-ray technician working in Singapore.
Renalyn Saniset became a Foundation grantee at age 7 at the Apolonio Samson Elemenary school. She took up human resource at Polytehcnic University, and is now working as an HR assistant at Fisher Mall on Quezon Avenue.
Jonalyn Campos, an SFK grantee since the grades, is currently at the Univesity of Warsaw in Poland on scholarship; she also got a scholarship from Ateneo de Manila.
At the Christmas party, Erica Dauba, 7, a second grader, told us she would like to be a teacher.
The Foundation has no office of its own. But the kind-hearted owner of Dane Publishing Corporation, has given it free ample space in its printing house for the staff which consists of only one social worker by the name of Raquel J. Abaloyan who attended Philippine Christian University, and an assistant. President Longasa drops in at the office from time to time. Yuup comes around, too, but is always available for consultation and at SKF meetings.
Yuup, 80, does not receive any salary, but is living on his retirement pension. His countrymen are proud of him, as were the Dutch ambassador to the Philippines Boon von Ochssée and wife Martine who attended the Foundation’s 25th anniversary.
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