Brief History of the Institute
Taken as excerpts from, “The Church, The State, and The Market: An Ecumenical Analysis of the Philippine Educational System Under Structural Adjustment Program of the World Bank.” A thesis presented to the jury of Ecumenical Institute of Bossey, University of Geneva in June 30, 2007. Full text of this document may be accessed from the libraries of University of Geneva School of Protestant Theology, Ecumenical Institute of Bossey, and the World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland.
The conceptual stage: The socio-political and economic context of its creation.
The idea of establishing the Institute started at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague The Netherlands way back in 1999.
An essay, “What Keeps Us Filipinos Underdeveloped?, written by Ernesto Tatie Arellano,Jr., while he was taking his Master of Arts in Development Studies at ISS inspired some local leaders and academicians to suggest having an alternative strategy for developing the core masses of people that are deprive of education. In his essay he identified that these core masses are people from isolated areas of the Philippines who worked as peasants, farmers, fisherman, urban poor, street and abandoned children, children caught in situations of armed conflict, solo parents, and persons with disabilities. Their actual situation and other surrounding circumstances have caused them to stay away from mainstream economic and social activities including education. This caught them in a “poverty trap” where other people have taken advantage of their cheap labour. The extraction of their labour and keeping them underpaid for the services they have rendered has kept the exploitative condition an acceptable social and economic relationship that has grown to become a social norm. For generations, a large number of Filipino families have remained below the poverty line and some have opted to seek labour abroad.
The essay delved on the thesis that education is a potent force to alleviate the poor and unshackle the core masses from the bondage of poverty and exploitation in the countryside. Education was identified as the cornerstone to open the minds of the local people to the realities that confronts and undermine their deprivation and the generally accepted exploitative conditions. The essay further examined the experience of Western Europe which has advance tremendously for the past 3 centuries. The modern experiences of Western Europe, particularly their emphasis on education was taken as a model. Western Europe has shown a strong correlation between their economic development, standards of living and high literacy rate.
Education in the context of Europe is regarded as a basic human right where all its citizens are entitled to have access and benefits. The net effect of this strategy is an efficient and competent labour force that is productive. This strategy was also followed by Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan. In contrast, the Philippine situation has a different model in delivering education. Basic public education is given free but the tertiary level is split between public and private education. The primary and secondary education delivered publicly has proven very ineffective resulting in the majority of its graduates dropping out at the tertiary level. Only those in the higher sections of the graduating class were seen to have accomplished their tertiary education.
In the middle of the eighties, the Philippine economy went from bad to worse as a direct result of two major “oil-shocks” brought by Iran-Iraq war and floating of the US dollars. External debt of the Philippines ballooned to more than it can afford to manage and pay. The International Monetary Fund and World Bank came to “rescue” with its structural adjustment program (SAP) where one of the conditions to restructure and secure fresh loans from the international market is to cut public spending on basic services (health, education, welfare services).
The
education
sector was hit hard. Public schools were authorized to collect
tuition fees from students, while private schools were deregulated
from tuition fee increases. The result was felt by thousands of
students who can barely afford to pay their tuition and other fees.
Only a few students from elite families went to private schools and
public schools were flooded by students coming
from middle income
groups. Students from the lowest income group were forced to
drop-out. The SAP has ushered the commercialization of education
and education has become an effective social instrument that
segregates the privileged few from those who do not have. Although
generally, the Filipinos were able to cope with these realities, the
commercialization of education has continued, and large numbers of
children and youth have silently suffered this deprivation of their
basic right to education.
The preliminary work at the community level
Mr.
Arellano started his fieldwork in the mountain communities of
Janiuay, Iloilo in central Philippines in January 2002. The mountain
community of Ubian, Janiuay was taken as a micro unit of analysis to
understand the impact of SAP in the rural areas. The community is a
small farming village with one public elementary school. Due to its
distance away from the town the public school is loosely supervised
and monitored. Public school teachers in Ubian arrive to the
community on Tuesday morning and rest the whole afternoon. Wednesday
classes will start with gardening and cleaning of classrooms.
Lectures will start on Wednesday afternoon until Thursday morning.
By
Thursday afternoon teachers will begin preparing to pack up their
things and are ready to go home by Friday morning. These things are not
known to public school authorities because reports, which are the
basis for evaluation, are made convincing and acceptable. The absence
of validation and monitoring processes on the part of the local
authorities plus the “culture of silence” of the community people
have allowed these things to continue to flourish.
Despite the fact that students from Ubian and nearby mountain communities have finished their basic education, the students are not motivated to continue their studies in the secondary level. This is due to the fact that they are now obliged to pay their tuition and fees. Their basic and immediate needs are a much higher priority than the achievement of finishing their education. The students therefore prefer to work as domestic helpers in Manila than to pursue their studies.
Their parents who are members of the house churches have realized that they are trapped in the cycle of their own ignorance and poverty. Their poverty is a result of their isolation to participate in the mainstream economic activities of the whole town. Their isolation is exacerbated by their ignorance and illiteracy and because they are ignorant, they have succumbed to conditions of loan sharks and usurers when they needed financial capital during planting season. Mr Arellano started to introduce to the farmers in Ubian the use of organic farming. Local technicians were invited to introduce the concept of organic farming and one hectare of farmland was taken as demonstration farm. After two rice productions the farmers have seen the benefits of organic farming. The discussions in the house churches moved from simple organic farming to informal education and non-formal education and in 2003 preparations for establishing a formal education to cater for this aspiration started.
The ground work for the Institute
In June 2003, the farmers began to gather scrap iron, empty bottles and anything that had value and sold them to the market. Livestock such as chicken, goats, and some vegetables and fruits were also sold at the market. The amount generated was use to purchase office supplies and payment of rentals of the staff house in the town. Recruitment of teachers was done and registration documents were submitted to proper government regulating bodies. Classroom materials, chairs, blackboards, were prepared through solicitation from churches and friends.
On March 30, 2004 the legal standing of the Institute was finally approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). From then on, the volunteer staff have had to keep the ball rolling. The Institute asked the President of Farrol Foundation to utilize as classroom the unused Geriatric Centre in Jibolo. The foundation president agreed and made his positive endorsement to the local government of Janiuay. The request of the Institute was endorsed by the local government and by the local hospital to the legal department of the Provincial government. The legal department of the provincial government has positively endorsed to the provincial council. After several public hearing and discussions, the provincial council of Iloilo authorized the Provincial Governor to enter into contract with the Institute to use the Geriatric centre as classrooms.
Early Achievements
By
June of 2004, the Institute had 150 students in its secondary
education program and 150 in its non-formal education program. After
three months of academic operation the Institute joined a district
competition of more than 64 private and public schools in the area of
mathematics. The Institute being a neophyte emerged 3rd
in advance algebra which captured the 
attention
of other schools. This
was again followed by major achievements of students in the areas
of literary and musical contests during the Municipal meet.
The most inspiring achievement is the Division Achievement Test (DAT) which measures the academic accomplishments of each school in the whole division of Iloilo. The Institute exceeded higher than the national achievement rate which qualified the teaching standard of the Institute to avail the Fund Aid for Private Education (FAPE). By 2005, the Institute had gained its full recognition and accreditation status. Despite the financial difficulties of having no financial support for operations, the Institute delivered quality and accessible education for the marginalize students.
Also in 2005, the Institute garnered major academic achievements in science. The bio-gas project won second best experiment. The project was to trap the manure and urine of swine’s in a septic tank and mixed these with chicken dung. After several days the ammonia from the waste of the animals is converted into a combustible methane gas which is used for cooking in the kitchen. In 2006, the Institute started to use computer simulation to ascertain the direction of the floods in Janiuay and has assisted hundreds of families during emergencies and evacuations.
In October 2006, Mr. Arellano left as administrator of the Institute to pursue his Ph.D. in Development Studies at the Graduate Institute of International Relations and Development Studies of the University of Geneva. He is studying the area of development-induced human displacement. His academic studies are in preparation for the academic expansion of IDSS-School of Development Studies.
Currently the Institute is under the management of a local board created for this purpose.