“Balik Eskwela” in Asturias

CEBU, Philippines - In the outskirts of the mid-western town of Asturias lies Cubong Elementary School. It has a population of 181 pupils, including Kindergarten. But there are only four functional classrooms in the school’s three buildings.

The kids share the available rooms in combined classes. There are only two teachers, three new ones are scheduled to join in this month. For the time being, the two teachers are catching their breaths with the present number of pupils in their charge. The head teacher himself handles two other upland elementary schools, some seven kilometers from the national highway. Obviously, the situation calls for help.

Help once came when the provincial government distributed free school supplies to Grade 1 pupils. Needless to say, not all the pupils were given. And the bigger problems remained unsolved.

Then the “Balik Eskwela” program of The Freeman Foundation comes to Cubong Elementary School. A new school building has been constructed and recently turned over to the school. It now serves as school library and clinic.

This is so far the biggest help the school has received, according to the president of the Parents-Teachers Association. The building donation comes with books for the library and medicines for the clinic. The parents and the teachers are very grateful indeed.

The clinic’s medicines are enough for a year’s supply; there’s also a wall fan and a ceiling fan, a bed with pillows and blankets. The library is equipped with a TV set and a DVD player to assist visual learning; game balls and board games are also in place to drum up the kids’ interest in sports.

Donating a school building is a tradition of sorts at The Freeman Foundation, in coordination with Operation Damayan of The Philippine Star, a sister publication of The Freeman newspaper. It is the brainchild of The Freeman general manager Melandro Mendoza, who works so hard to sustain the project. A similar donation is found in barangay Magdulinog in Borbon town, turned over in 2010.

In the case of Cubong Elementary School, the “Balik Eskwela” project also includes the rehabilitation of two old, dilapidated classrooms, which are now used for the classes of preschoolers. The school now has five functional classrooms in all.

The Freeman Foundation has also enlisted the support of its partners Carmen Copper Corporation, which donated notebooks, and Uratex Foam, which gave monobloc chairs, tables and mattresses for the school library and clinic.