BAAO, Camarines Sur---Josefina Pelingon of Barangay La Medalla, this town, can’t wait to go to college and pursue her childhood dream of becoming a teacher, believing that at 53 it was not yet too late for her to forego selling tabog-tabog (cassava dumplings), which had sustained her family for years, and get a college education.

        Pelingon recently graduated from the alternative learning program offered by the Department of Education (DepEd) in nearby Iriga City along with her husband Morito, 54, who like her also had passed recently the accreditation and equivalency examination that made them eligible for college. Both she and her husband were elementary school undergraduates.

        “I will certainly go to college as soon as possible,” she said excitedly.

        Years ago, she was hesitant to go back to school and join classmates thirty years younger than her in the alternative learning program, lest she had to put aside vending.

        But upon the encouragement and insistence of her children that she would not anymore need to sell cassava dumplings, she decided to enroll in the program that had given chance to out of school youth and adults to continue their schooling since it was implemented by the DepEd.

        She said she really wanted to return to school and go on studying even before she was convinced by her children, but she had been bent on vending cassava dumplings to augment the family income.

        When two of her sons and daughters became public school teachers, however, she made up her mind to go back to school.

No fairy tale

        Her life story was far from happy. Without finishing elementary school, she started working as a helper at an early age. Then she got married to a runaway Visayan man (Morito) who like her also had to give up schooling and shuffle menial jobs to earn a living.

        Since she got married and decided to settle in this town, she raised her family with her husband by growing cassava and selling cassava dumplings in a nearby schools.

        She and her husband had sent all their children to school through this occupation.

Hard times

        She vividly remembered the time she pleaded hard to administrators of a university in Iriga City so they would allow her son to avail of the university’s scholarship program.

        Now, two of her sons Roque, 30, and Salvador, 26, are already licensed teachers.

        Roque and Salvador, who took up law at the University of Northeastern Philippines in Iriga City as soon as they got their teaching licenses, are waiting for the result of this year’s bar examinations.

        Salvador recalled the times when they had to eat binlod (fine grains of rice collected by sieving or blowing rice bran) because they cannot afford to buy the cheapest regular rice, and the time he and her siblings would go to school without having breakfast and penniless, and how they were constantly reminded by their parents not to be like them, who had been dirt poor because of very low educational attainment. He said constant reminders from their parents combined with the extreme poverty they were experiencing pushed them to strive hard to finish their studies and get college degrees.

        One of her daughters, also, is now a teacher at a private school in Las Piñas in Metro Manila. Her three other children are all studying.

Model parents

        These days, she and her husband are known in their barangay as model parents for being able to send all their children to school amid extreme poverty.

        They are also recognized because of their decision to go on with their schooling despite their ages.

Passion for teaching

        During the hardest times, she and her family found refuge in the hands of a Christian fellowship in this town, which had been operating a government-recognized school from elementary to tertiary level. It was when she rediscovered her passion for teaching and “sharing knowledge” to those who needed it more.

        She said being given the chance by the fellowship to teach informal lessons inspired her to go back to school. She said she found out that she could share more learning if she would get the training and education a full-fledged teacher should have.

        Fortunately, her children had been supportive of her decision.

        She said she was very eager to be in college as spoon as possible. And though she would be near the obligatory retiring age by the time she finished college, she said she was not giving up, adding that in fulfilling a dream and wanting to help more, age didn’t really matter.

        Now she doesn’t have second thoughts in pursuing everyone in her barangay who were once like her to go back to school, too.

Success stories

        Hers is only one among the success stories of the hundreds of students who graduated from the alternative learning program of the DepEd in Iriga City, which has been recognized consistently as among the top implementers of the alternative learning programs in the country.

        Jocelyn Cabaltera, 45, who was not able to attend regular secondary school is now an employee of the Department of Social Welfare and Development in Iriga City

        Aurora Nacario, 44, a high school undergraduate who attended the alternative learning program is now an employee of the Department of Public Works and Highways in the same city.

Alternative learning system

        The six teachers who had promoted the alternative learning program in Iriga City—Ester Oliva, Flordeluz Nacario, Fe Oronan, Elsa Orbon, Amado Oliva, Jr., and Allan Labios—all said they were gladdened whenever they heard that one of their students had been successful.

        They said that being part of the alternative learning program was an experience they would never trade for recognition or higher pay.

        “There’s no alternative to touching lives,” one teacher added.

        Mobile teacher Allan Labios recounted when they were trekking up the slopes of Mount Asug, where some of the upper villages of Iriga City were nestled.

        “We were mistaken for insurgents by patrolling military men and had to be interrogated. But they (the military men) had allowed us to proceed upon knowing that we were teachers crisscrossing the far-flung barrios to look for out of school youth and adults willing to be part of the alternative learning program.”

        They said there were hardships, adding that it was not easy being alternative learning program teachers.

        They remembered the first time they had to accompany students from Iriga City to Sorsogon province to take an assessment test. Some of the students became exhausted from the long travel. Too tired to take the exam, most of them flunked. But they never gave up.

        They said they were happy to bring closer to good life what could have been hopeless persons, adding that several of their students were victims of incest and child-abuse, if not by poverty.

        And Josefina Pelingon wanted to be like one of them as soon as possible.


VENDOR Josefina Pelingon and her husband Morito proudly show off a photo of their son and daughter who had finished studies to become public school teachers.

DONS CAUDILLA