At day's first light:
Chronicling Dumagat Education
Story by Faith Brown and Beatriz Zamora
​
Perched high atop the Sierra Madre mountain range is a life built on dried leaves of palm trees, scraps of corrugated metal and chopped wood.
​
A life toiled for by the hands of those who live it; a survival they owe to no one but themselves.
​
On a normal day at the summit of a nondescript mountain, the indigenous people of Norzagaray, Bulacan, would usually spend hours feeding their animals, tending to their humble plantations and reconstructing their houses with wood acquired from the lush forests of their ancestral land. Called Dumagat, which means “people of the sea”, they now reside in the mountains of the Sierra Madre.
In the midst of the heavy task of making a living for the benefit of their community, still the Dumagat dedicate time to getting the education they should have been provided with.
Among the homes they have built, a makeshift classroom sits in the middle of the land they call Punduhan, a Tagalog word for “roadstead”.
It is within the safety of its walls where Loreta Garais, 16, first experienced what standardized education was like.
“Marami po akong natutunan. ...ngayon lang po kami nag-aral ng pinag-aaralan po talaga sa bayan,” she shared.
At fifth grade, Garais had been to other schools before she was brought to the Punduhan by a man she calls Brother Greg, a missionary assigned to the settlement. She said she came from a higher outpost in the Sierra Madre, where her father and four siblings presently reside.
​
In her previous community, Garais’ teachers rarely showed up.
​
“Sasabihin nila sa ‘min ay ‘pasensya na kayo hindi kami nakaahon (nakaakyat ng bundok) kasi yung anak namin nagkasakit’,” she said.
Even more than the responsibility of teaching children who have attained higher educational levels than him, Prejinal faces the ire of students who are aware of his lack of schooling.
​
Sometimes he thinks he should just quit teaching.
“Pero papano naman itong aking mga katribo na nasumpungan kong ganito kung iiwanan ko sila?” he said.
Prejinal shared that his dedication to teaching lies in the value he holds for education in the life of the Dumagat. Economic prosperity will come with the lessons they learn in the community, he explained.
​
However, it takes more than his dedication and the aid of student teachers to keep the school running.
​
Eager to learn, some students remain standing during the entirety of the lesson. While Prejinal claimed that they have an abundance of school supplies to the point of spoilage, these are merely the grace of donations by private institutions, not initiative of the State which mandates its people’s right to education.
​
Seeing the bigger picture
While she experienced going to school on a daily basis in the months between June to February in Punduhan, the few teachers who were willing to trek the high road to their community left, leaving the Dumagat at the hands of Dominador Prejinal, an elder, and Brother Greg.
Garais said, “Noong si Lolo Domeng [Prejinal] pa po, puro kultura lang po namin ang aming pinag-aaralan dahil raw po nakakalimutan na raw po naming mga kabataan yung aming kultura.”
Prejinal explained that the culture of the Dumagat is losing its direction as more of them turn to alcohol and other worldly temptations.
“Nitong taon lang ako nagturo sa panlipunan, yung katulad sa mga kultura namin, yung mga tradisyon namin … yun ang kailangan di namin limutin,” Prejinal said, adding that the Department of Education (DepEd) instructed them as such.
Eventually, however, students from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), in fulfillment of their bachelor’s degree in education, joined Prejinal in teaching the Dumagat. Instead of culture, they impart knowledge on basic arithmetic and English.
Prejinal shared that before the PUP students’ arrival, he had extreme difficulty teaching the Dumagat children. Students from first to ninth grade were relying on his capabilities. This feat proved to be tough for Prejinal as his highest educational attainment was sixth grade.
​
Even so, he is aware that Punduhan’s education lies solely within his two hands.
​
“Nung ako ay mag-aaral yun ang pangunahing naisip ko, na kahit papano makatulong ako sa aking katribo sa abot ng aking makakaya. Kaso ang mali ko lang hindi ako nagpatuloy mag-aral,” he said.
While Republic Act (RA) 8371 also called the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997 guarantees basic services including education to IPs, the situation of the Dumagat of Bulacan proves that numerous IP children do not enjoy this right.
​
The children of Punduhan are those of the few who are fortunate enough to have their own school within their community. They built this school, however, from the willingness of helping hands and not the State which guarantees them this right.
According to Brother Martin of the Blessed Sacrament Missionaries of Charity, a congregation of the religious brothers in the Diocese of Malolos, the school of Punduhan exists as an extension of St. Joseph College, a private institution for tertiary education in Sta. Maria, Bulacan.
“Very promising yung support ng maraming institusyon. Although gusto lang nila (ng gobyerno ng) support pero sila dapat ang gumagawa ng mga ito,” he said.
In other parts of the country, IPs still have to fight for the basic right to learn--the basic right the government itself is mandated to provide.
In a situationer forum in UP Diliman on Oct. 14, Minda Dalinan, a Lumad leader from Mindanao, described the situation of IPs and their schools in the region.
Dalinan said they built the Lumad schools in cooperation with non-governmental organizations because the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), chiefly concerned with implementing the IPRA, did not provide schools for their children in the first place.
“Ang tagal na po naming hinihiling sa NCIP yan. Pero hanggang sa kasalukuyan po, wala naman silang nagawa kahit isa,” Dalinan said.
“Nandiyan yan sa IPRA law e. Libre. Dapat sila ang magbigay ng mga serbisyo sa katutubo pero hanggang ngayon wala.”
According to SOS in 2015, there are 146 Lumad community schools that serve more than 5,000 Lumad children in Mindanao.
However, Dalinan said the military troops within and near IP areas continuously plague the schools they have built for their children.
​
“Patuloy ang pag-atake sa mga schools namin na kung saan kami ang nagtatayo para lang makapag-aral ang aming mga anak,” Dalinan said. “At doon sa aming paaralan hina-harass ang titser na huwag daw ipagpatuloy dahil komunista ka, NPA ka. Hindi ka ano [affiliated] sa DepEd.
​
According to Save our Schools (SOS) Network, a group advocating children’s right to education, the military attacks on schools are attributed to their suspected support of the New People’s Army (NPA).
According to them, the previous administration’s counterinsurgency program caused the increase of violence and attacks on schools, as well as on teachers, children and IP community members in Mindanao. Military operations also allegedly disrupted classes in Lumad schools.
Just recently another Lumad school in Sultan Kudarat was attacked, placing over 1,000 students, teachers and personnel under the accusation of being members of the NPA.
Aside from militarization and the lack of government support, the progressive organization also pointed out the insufficiency of the DepEd IP curriculum.
Mandated by the IPRA implementing rules and regulations, the DepEd has released an IP curriculum framework, which according to the department is “culturally-appropriate” and “anchored on the defining features of indigenous communities”.
The framework also employed the Mother Tongue-based Multilingual Education which compels teachers to teach IP children using their mother language. However, in the case of Dumagat students in the Punduhan, this is not fully implemented.
“Dapat yung mga titser na nagtuturo dito, mag-aral din sila ng salita namin. Para sa ganun, mabilis yung pagtuturo nila sa mga katutubong bata dahil yung iba hindi marunong mag-Tagalog, kaya kailangang matuto sila,” Prejinal said.
DepEd aims to make its IP curriculum culturally appropriate, Prof. Sharon Briones of SOS said. However, the curriculum is still unfit to the diverse cultures of the country’s indigenous peoples.
“Palibhasa kasi napaka-teoretikal lang nung kanilang mga ginagawang dokumento at hindi sila mismo yung lumulubog sa mga komunidad para aralin, alamin kung ano yung kanilang mga pangangailangan,” Briones explained.
The Insight tried to get the side of the DepEd as well as the NCIP regarding the following issues. As of press time, however, the offices were not able to grant the interviews.
Despite these challenges, Garais remains unfazed. Her dream of leading her fellow Dumagat in protecting their home--the calm green mountains of Sierra Madre--outweighs the lack of formal school structure, teachers, school tables, chairs and government support..
Still, tonight, atop Sierra Madre, a Dumagat girl will yearn for better education when she wakes. As for the rest of the indigenous children in the country, their dreams are the same.
Their struggle to learn will reawaken with the next day’s sunrise.
 |  |  |  |
|---|