Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts

Issue No. 25                        August 5-11,  2001                    Quezon City, Philippines

Negros Children Work Their Way Through School

BY DANILO ARAÑA ARAO
Bulatlat.com

Ever heard of children going to school only three times a week because they have to help in the farm? Or of children walking for two hours rain or shine just to go to school?

These may seem something new, but this has been the plight of children in at least four towns in Negros Occidental since time immemorial. They share the same story of countless other rural children anywhere in the Philippines.

The towns of Toboso, Murcia, Escalante and Bago in Negros are home to thousands of farm worker families. They earn their keep by harvesting sugarcane and weeding in the sugar haciendas found in the barrios.

A recent study by Salinlahi, a progressive children’s organization, revealed that each family earns P800 (US$15) per week for weeding grass in one hectare. During the harvest season, each person earns P50 ($0.86) daily for harvesting sugarcane.

The daily cost of living for a family in agricultural areas has been pegged at P388.17 ($7.32) as of last June, according to an independent estimate. This simply means that every week, a family of six needs P2,717.19 ($51.26) to get by.

As if this is not enough, a hacienda overseer monitors the family’s daily activity to ensure that a family does its weeding job from Monday to Friday, .If the overseer finds out that weeding has not been done in, say, one day, around P160 ($3.01) is deducted from the family’s already meager income.

What makes the situation worse in these areas is that families are not allowed by hacenderos to engage in backyard farming to augment their income or at least grow vegetables for their own consumption.

Unpaid family workers

Children living there are considered unpaid family workers. They help augment their parents’ income but still manage to go to school.

Unlike in the urban areas, however, the village school is about three to five kilometers away. So many children have to walk for an average of two hours to go to school. . Since they have to be in school at 7 a.m., they should start walking at around 5 a.m. Taking that jeep and tricycle ride would mean shelling out P20 everyday – a big sacrifice for the family.

Classes are held Monday to Friday, but children in these barrios normally go to school only three times a week since they need to help in the farm for the remaining two weekdays. Teachers have learned to accept this reality and have been forced to tolerate this given the sugar workers’ plight.

As a result, schooling suffers in grade school. Parents are aware this is not enough to prepare their children for high school much less for college. They simply cross their fingers.

Tata, 15 years old

The case of Tata, 15, is a glaring example of the hardships of children. His father, suspected by the military as a member of the New People’s Army (NPA), was killed in 1986. That was the year Tata was born.

Tata worked in the hacienda at the age of 12, weeding grass and getting paid P50 ($0.94) per day for eight hours of work. After a couple of years, he was earning P1,000 ($18.86) to P2,000 ($37.73)monthly for 10 hours of work everyday for cutting and carrying leaves of sugarcane.

He only lasted five months in what he describes as a “backbreaking, low-paying” job.

His mother died from kidney cancer in 1999. He was forced to leave his stepfather since his mother died because he was being beaten up. He then stayed with his aunt.

At that time, he dropped out of school. He worked the night shift for La Tondeña in Bago City, rolling the drums and gathering molasses. He was paid P100 ($1.88) per day, with additional pay of P50 per hour for overtime work. His shift started at  6 p.m. and ended at 4 a.m. the following day. He remembers that there were 20 other children ages 15-17 in the factory.

His and that of his family’s condition motivated him to struggle for change. He joined Anakbayan, a progressive youth organization. He has since joined several mass actions, as well as fact-finding missions to know more about the plight of poor people – especially children – in Negros. Bulatlat.com

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