A long, long, long Road to Learning… (posted Sept. 2007)

After lunch on a Sunday, Charito, a 10 year-old Dumagat*, prepares for her week's stay in the village. She excitedly packs her clothes, uniforms and school materials while her mother, Loida, packs cassava and sweet potatoes that will serve as their sustenance for at least five days and of course her betel nut. Charito and friends start their trek down the mountains.

"Oh dear, oh dear, my shoes! ....not my shoes!" Charito runs back, pries her prized pair of shoes from its hiding place at home and catches up with her friends. Most of the children were holding banana leaves over their heads as protection from the heavy downpour.

"Swish! Swash! Plop! Plok! Plok!" Goes the sound of their unprotected feet as they trekked down the mountain, unmindful of the scenic view.

"Plak! Ha, ha, ha, ha! Charito has fallen on her butt!" chanted the other children teasingly.

Charito gamely stood up, wiped her muddy butt and joined the other children in their raucous laughter. After a 2-hour trek, they reached their huts at the foot of the mountain. They will be staying in these huts until they return to their community. While Charito soundly slept through the night, Loida could not help but ponder on her family that she left for a week. She worried about the extra work her husband and two elder children will put in tending their farm because of her absence.

At dawn the following day, Loida and the other mothers woke up to prepare their children for school. As soon as they were ready, Charito and the other children bid their mothers goodbye as they departed for school. As they crossed four rivers with strong current, they clasped each others hands to ensure everyone's safety but also held on to the plastic bags containing their uniforms and school books .

It took them another hour of walking before they reached the center of the village where their school was located. In a friend's house, they changed their clothes and wore their uniforms and shoes, unpacked their books and walked to school. Some of the children were worried of the forthcoming taunting and teasing they usually received because they were Dumagats. Charito, an intelligent child and proud of her ancestry, walked gallantly to her classroom ready to face the day's challenges.
**The Dumagats are one of the major groups of indigenous peoples living in the Southern Tagalog region south of Manila. About 30,000 Dumagats now inhabit in the mountain ranges of Sierra Madre, Quezon Province. Majority of this indigenous group are found in General Nakar while the rest are found in three municipalities of Polillo island. Some displaced Dumagats have moved to the barangays around Rodrigues and Tanay, Rizal.

The Dumagats in the province of Tanay are faced with uncertainty with the revival by the Arroyo government of the Laiban Dam Project. This project will not benefit the Dumagats but will submerge 9 villages and affect 10,000 Dumagats. From 2000 to2001, two hundred twenty Dumagat families in Rizal and Quezon were displaced due to military atrocities. The government has likewise impudently disregarded the ancestral domain claims of the Dumagats.

One-room huts at the foot of the mountain, at the fringe of the village, where the Dumagat children stay during weekdays.

Dumagat children, with Madela Santiago, an ARCSEA staff, posing inside one of the houses in the community. Only two of these children are presently studying. The two elder boys (right) never studied at all due to poverty and poor health.

One of the rivers the children have to cross on their way to school. After a heavy downpour, this river swells and has very strong current.