Teachers from the South

It was February 2000, when war between the Phil. Army and the MILF broke out in the municipality where I teach. Classes were suspended as people literally flee from their homes. Yet teachers reported to school everyday to meet deadlines for the upcoming graduation amidst shells and bombs breaking out nearby.

After six years, I can't believe that Baloi was once a battleground. And after six years, people went on with their lives with no traces of battlescars. This is how it is in the south. One has to deal with war as one in the north deals with traffic. One has to adapt to what is in store for them each day.

Coming to teach in a rural area has been very hard for me. Having been brought up and educated in an urban area made it very difficult for me to adapt to the rural way of life, particularly to the traditional Maranao way of life. But because of my love for teaching, I get to love the community, my colleagues, and my students. I found out that nothing is impossible when you love what you do.

To inform those who doesn't know about Baloi, Lanao del Norte (the place where I teach) it is the place where the National Power Corporation Hydroelectric Powerplant is located. This place supplies almost all of Mindanao's electricity. Thus Baloi is one of the richest municipalities in the region in terms of national wealth.

It is also a place where Christians and Muslims live side by side in peace for decades. There is a Franciscan seminary and countless churches that scatters all over the place side by side with mosques.

Baloi's war past is now over, written only in history books and stamped in the minds of the people. Thus, my task as a teacher is twice as hard. I have to teach my students not only the academic requirements that im bound to teach, but to let them forget the wars in their minds, to remove in their minds perceptions that they have believed in. I have to always remember that these children are not ordinary children, but these are children of war.

I know that im not only speaking for myself. I know that my co-scholars have also been in similar situations. Thus I can say teachers of this region are practically heroes. They are always the ones who pick up pieces after battle wars. Always the ones who helps return the community in semblance of order, the ones who returns first on the schoolground, and the ones who return the children to normalcy.

It is a wonder that somewhere in the north, some people has the vision to recognize the forgotten heroes of the south. That somewhere, some people would make it a mission to improve the plight of the forgotten teachers of the south. By spreading this kind of work, its not only the teachers who would be forever grateful for the people who makes this possible, but the whole community in general.

Now our children can experience what the children in urban areas have been enjoying for years. Children of the war can now be children enriched with bright future ahead of them. Enriched with new innovations that technology can muster.

And for that we would be forever grateful for organizations like GEM(USAID) and IBM for making all these possible. By improving teachers with new innovations and new technologies in teaching, you're improving the lives of the children, making it possible for them to leap beyond their world.