"Pagbag-o Sang Baryo" (Transformation of a Community) (inside book pages)

“Pagbag-o sang Baryo”
Transformation of a Community
An Illustrative Account of Community’s
Behavioural Change Process
in Tackling Child Labour Eradication
The Quidan Kaisahan Experience
in Hinigaran and Sipalay Towns
of Negros Occidental
Noel Sto. Domingo
Funded by the Delegation of the European Union to the Philippines
European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights
Country Based Support Scheme (CBSS) for the Philippines
Pagbag-o Sang Baryo Book.indd 1 3/8/2016 4:25:20 PM

Copyright © 2016 by Noel S. Sto. Domingo
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Published by Quidan Kaisahan Negros Occidental, Inc. with support from the
European Union Delegates to the Philippines.
Printed in Quezon City, Philippines.
All photo credits to the author using Nokia D3300 and iPad Mini 2, except those
credited to the original source. Layout and infographics by Richard Villarante.

Acknowledgement
A
humble book like this one needs to express a profound gratitude.
The completion of this sourcebook will not come into fruition
without the full support of Quidan Kaisahan Negros Occidental,
Inc. headed by its hard-working Executive Director, Imelda Villacin, and
the rest of its equally industrious central office staff that made my stay in
Bacolod City safe and sound.
For the wonderful individuals in the Delegation of the European Union to
the Philippines, my gratitude extends not just for the funding of this pursuit
but their untiring support to every efforts and innovations to eradicate
poverty in the country wherein the initiatives to curb child labour in the
communities of Negros Occidental is just one of them.
I am equally thankful to Ronnie Tapnio and Ma. Luisa Aquilera of
the Consortium for the Advancement of People’s Participation through
Sustainable Integrated Area Development (CAPP-SIAD) – the institution
where I belong – for their trust that I can fulfil the challenge of completing
this book singlehandedly. With their encouragement, I proved that I can do
a feat like this one, my first ever authored book. I pray and hope that there
will more after this.
For my fruitful days in chatting with the key stakeholders in the
communities, I share the gladness (that washes away the tiredness) with
the local Quidan teams lead by Glenda Nabua-Bautista. I wish her a lot of
luck with prayers for her newfound noble profession as a public servant and
win in the upcoming political exercise. As one of the pioneers of Quidan
with passion for saving child labourers, she more that deserved this one.
This gladness extends to the Quidan Hinigaran Team, for providing
me a second home every time I visit Negros Occidental to do my job,

headed by Ann Grantas and his deputy Thonjy Siton together with the
senior officers Lydia Gealolo, Jerlyn Saludares and Paul Monglal and junior
staff Kim Lucas and Henry John Masabio. Thanks to all of them for sharing
with me the fresh marine bounty of Hinigaran particularly the delectable
squid adobo cooked by chef Ike. Also wholehearted thanks for the time
and efforts of the Sipalay Team headed by Benjie Largo and his deputy
Manuel Pacardo and project officer Evangeline Oquiana with the rest of the
accommodating Sipalay Team staff.
And now my sincerest and profound gratitude to the heroes of this
book. With their shared valuable experiences, insights and hopes – the
heart and soul of this sourcebook – my job to complete this endeavour
becomes easier than I thought otherwise. The vital information I gathered
from them is so overwhelming that only half of it are presented in this book.
It is not that the other half is not important or relevant; rather, they are so
precious that it would need another set of narratives to develop it into
another reference material or even inspirational stories that can be shared
with interested readers about the life and challenges of child labourers.
Heartful thanks goes to the compassionate community of Barangay
San Jose, Sipalay headed by Punong Barangay Ricardo De Gracia and its
barangay council members composed of Kagawads Dennis Jordan, Lino
Lambot, Rene Gelvoso, Mario Magno, Jose Lomeran, Ramon Muerco, and
Jose Estoya Jr.; and the barangay staff Nony Alson (Secretary), Mary Ann
Simple (Treasurer), and Rebecca Sanglay (Desk Officer). The sense of
realizations to act swiftly and passionately on child labour issue discussed
in this book comes from their concrete experience. Equally important is the
participation of the community Instructional Manager Vilma Arbigalo and
parent-volunteer Gloria Baybona.
Same gratefulness goes to the participation of some of the hardworking
council members of Barangay Narauis, Hinigaran headed by the young-but-
tested Puong Barangay Hadji Trojillo and his Kagawads Hardy Morancil,
Joemar Antolo and Cris Paduhilao who is also a volunteer Instructional
Manager. The barangay’s transition from looking at the nominal number of
child labourers in the community as trivial in the past, then recognizing this
as a serious problem that needs equally serious solutions was one of the
valuable example of the three hundred sixty degree change in behaviour
while responding to child labour issue in the community.
This transformation was also observed, though theirs is a pro-active
manner, in Barangay Quiwi, Hinigaran through my conversation with the
“Pagbag-o sang Baryo”iv

barangay council members headed by Punong Barangay Edwin Gavilanga
and Kagawads Ramil Java, Leticia Gonzalodo, and staff Jesamie Montalvo
(Secretary), Monico Galagaor (Treasurer) and Ma. Fe Yude (Health Worker).
To the participating dedicated teachers, I salute them for walking the
talk of their pledge of duty as educators while saving the child labourers,
not just from ignorance, but from the bottomless pit of misery. From the
Binulig Elementary School, Sipalay, these teacher-cum-surrogate-mothers-
of-child-labourers are Madams Erma Balabis, May Drosela Apucay,
Milagros Lambot, Noemi Apucay, May Belardo and Marilou Dequina. In
Hinigaran, from the Negros Occidental National Agro-Industrial School
of Home Industry (Nonaishi), a technical-vocational centred high school,
these passionate and compassionate teachers are Madams Leonila Molino
(DORP Coordinator and Master Teacher), Leah May Claver (Assistant
DORP Coordinator), and Thelma Bugay (Head Teacher); and Madam Jinky
Gato, ALS Coordinator of Hinigaran National High School, who was a long-
time Quidan volunteer instructional manager before she formally applied
for and accepted her current position.
A higher salutation goes to the pioneers and consultants of Quidan’s
ALS and DORP programs: Sir Peter Galimba, Hinigaran National High
School Principal, and Madam Myrna Arancillo, Candumarao Elementary
School Principal, for their shared knowledge from their decade-long
experiences that is worthy of another book like this.
Selfless. This one simple word would suffice to describe the untiring
sacrifices of the following Instructional Managers who participated in
the focused group discussion in Hinigaran. Without them, there will be
no Alternative Learning System passers. Gratitude, in the higher form,
is heralded to them. They are Jocelyn Caballero and Marilyn Nejao of
Barangay Tuguis; Mary Rose Dela Cruz and Josefa Robles of Barangay
Tagda; Erlinda Manoy of Barangay Nanunga; Victoria Estrella of Barangay
Himaya; and Josephine Segovia of Barangay Quiwi.
The highest gratitude is, of course, given to the protagonists of this
book, the child labourers and their parents who most of them shyly shared
their experiences. Their stories of triumphant ascendance from the ashes
of drudgery will remain an astounding inspiration for me, and I hope for the
readers too, to always look at life’s challenges through the eyes and heart
of a child. That the simplest joys in life come from overcoming obstacles
and hardships as shown by their unequalled perseverance to reach their
dreams in spite of poverty and scarcity. These children are represented
A Quidan Kaisahan Experience v

by Jessa Mae Angre, Rosamae Macero, Ramsis Temblor with his aunt-
guardian, and Jason Malupay with his mother Nenelyn Malupay, who are
from Barangay Mambaroto, Sipalay.
They are also represented by the former child labourers and ALS
passers that participated in the group discussion in Hinigaran: Raniel
Domingo, Raymond Sanong and Marlyn Arcenas of Barangay Nanunga;
Julie Ann Belamo and Ramel Dejar of Barangay Tuguis; Marvin Bitches
and Elena Mollenido of Barangay Tagda; Mary Joy Tanchico of Barangay
Camalobalo; and Jinky Montinola of Quezon Street.
My sincere apology, on the other hand, to those actors mentioned here
if I had ever misspelled their names. This is not intentional but the reason is
that my only reference is the attendance sheet from every group discussion,
and I don’t have any other reference to double check the correct names.
For those that I forgot to mention, my apology, too.
Finally, I am deeply indebted to the untiring support of my loving wife,
Nanette, and incessant inspiration from my four beautiful sons Vinzent, Von
Trier, Leon Nicklaus and Venedict.

Noel Sto. Domingo
29 February 2016
“Pagbag-o sang Baryo”vi

Table of
Contents
Acknowledgement
Introduction
Illusration 1: Phases and Stages of Behavioural Change in
Parents/Family, Local Government and School Authorities
Chapter I: Phases and Stages of Behavioural Change
Box Story 1: Quidan Kaisahan’s Mission
“Championing Child Labourer’s Rights in Communities”
Illustration 2: Why Child Labour is Real in Hinigaran and
Sipalay Communities?
Chapter II: Why Child Labour is Real in a Community?
Illustration 3: Hopelessness of Community due to Ignorance and
Inaction on Child Labour Realities
Chapter III: Community Hopelessness
Box Story 2: “Lost boys, Gone girls and Seeking mothers”
Illustration 4: Community’s Acceptance that Child Labourers Exist
Chapter IV: Community Acceptance
Illustration 5: Community Working to Uphold
a Child Labourer’s Rights
Chapter V: Community Working Together
Box Story 3: “Regaining the Lost Dream”
Epilogue
iii
1
4
7
11
14
17
24
27
35
36
38
48
51
58
61

“Pagbag-o sang Baryo”viii

Introduction
A
sourcebook this is intended to be. A reference, at the least, or
a guide for organizations and institutions that are implementing
child labour eradication programs in a community. This can also
be a coffee-table book for individuals who have compassion in
helping uplift the poor conditions of and saving the fragile and vulnerable
children in distress, especially child labourers. And this can also be a
simple reading material for the uninformed who wants to understand the
intricacies of how child labour phenomenon exists in a village and how can
it be solved by the community itself.
Entitled Pagbag-o sang Baryo, an Ilongo* phrase that means
“transformationofacommunity,”thisbooknarratesthevaluableexperiences
of Quidan Kaisahan in implementing the project “Community Education,
Advocacy and Social Mobilization to Eliminate Child Labour” in the towns
of Hinigaran and Sipalay in Negros Occidental, Philippines. The project
fund comes from the European Instrument for Democracy and Human
Rights Country Based Support Scheme (CBSS) for the Philippines through
the Delegation of the European Union to the Philippines. Its implementation
runs from August 2013 to February 2016. It was at this period when the
author done the visits and interviews—between October 2014 to December
2015—to gather data and materials for this book.
Although this sourcebook is part of Quidan Kaisahan’s fulfilment of the
abovementioned project, this does not mean that the discussion revolves
only within the project period. In relaying the core message, the book takes
into account the past experiences of Quidan Kaisahan more than a decade
ago since it started its engagement in child labour eradication in Negros
Occidental. The book, therefore, highlights the primary program strategies
employed by Quidan Kaisahan and its direct and indirect impact on the
*Ilongo or Hiligaynon is one of the dominantly used local dialects in the north-eastern part of the Visayas
particularly in the Panay region.
A Quidan Kaisahan Experience 1

project stakeholders.
In doing so, this sourcebook aims to illustrate the behavioural change
processes of the individual actors involved, voluntarily or involuntarily, in
their journey to come face to face with the child labour reality up to the
point of resolving its ill effects on the young victims, their families and
the community as a whole. The general illustration of this is discussed in
Chapter I. The limit, therefore, of the discourse is to show to the readers the
changing perceptions of the individuals in dealing with child labour issue
within the confines of the community by considering the cultural, economic
and political landscape of those communities, in this case the barangays**
reached by Quidan Kaisahan in Hinigaran and Sipalay towns.
The basic assumption here is that the cultural and political factors that
affect these perceptions can be entirely different from other countries having
the same kind of long-standing social problem. But the book stands on
its credence that the economic factors–inequality and poverty–influencing
the development of negative individual notions and beliefs towards child
labour is almost the same in most of the communities in other countries
where child labourers suffer the fate of despair.
The flow of the book, therefore, is to firstly introduce the socio-cultural,
socio-political, and socio-economic background of the community,
portrayed in Chapter II, and float to surface these perceived negative
notions and beliefs that are dissected in Chapter III. In Chapter IV, the
discussion revolves in the renewed perceptions of the stakeholders brought
about by the efforts of Quidan Kaisahan, backed by the willingness of
the actors, to understand deeply the complexities of how child labourers
are forced to do hard labour in the sugarcane plantations and other non-
conducive workplaces for young kids. Finally, in Chapter V, the renewed
notions and beliefs of the individuals is now translated into actions as their
full commitments to partake in reducing, if not eradicating, child labour in
the community and save the child labourers from education deprivation
and protect them from other forms of exploitation and abuse.
Since the book deals mainly with the behavioural change process, it is
of necessity to include in this introduction a little bit of behavioural theory
related to or can be of help in understanding more the core topic, that is,
how do social conditions really affect the behaviour of people or of the
community as a whole.
**A barangay is the smallest political subdivision in the Philippines that is almost the same as a village or county, in
the literal sense of the word, but may also be composed of several villages.
“Pagbag-o sang Baryo”2

Of the many academically accepted behavioural theory, the nearest
we can relate to with the processes of changing perceptions in this book is
the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT)***. This theory, pioneered by renowned
psychologist Albert Banduria in the 1960s, proposes that learning occurs
in a social context with a dynamic and reciprocal interaction of the person,
environment, and behaviour (see Figure below). The unique feature of this
theory is the emphasis on social influence and its emphasis on external
and internal social reinforcement. This considers the unique way in which
individuals acquire and maintain behaviour, while also considering the
social environment in which individuals perform the behaviour. The theory
further takes into account a person’s past experiences, which factor into
whether behavioural action (or changes) will occur. These past experiences,
therefore, influence reinforcements, expectations, and expectancies, all of
which shape whether a person will engage in a specific behaviour and the
reason why a person engages in that behaviour.
Let the readers decide if this theory applies to the actors portrayed
herein by reading along.
***Source: slideshare.net/mohammadsohaibafzaal/social-cognitive-theory-34958260
Source: hl250wt2014.weebly.com
cognitive
factors
knowledge
expectations
attitudes
environmental
factors social
norms access in
the community
influence on others &
environment
Social Cognitive Theory
Bandura
behavioural
factors
skills
practice
self-efficacy

Illustration 1
Phases and Stages of Behavioural Change in Parents/Family, Local
Government Officials, School Authorities
First Phase
Child Survey
Qualitative data
analyses on poverty,
health and education
of child labourers
Negative beliefs
from
ignorance and
inaction on child
labour realities
Acceptance that child
labourers exist
Why child
labour is real?
(context and
realities)
Depressing notions of
parents/family of child
labourers and community
in general
Hopefulness in children,
parents and neighbours
Realization of local
government officials that
not just child labourers
and their families but
whole community is
affected
Deeper understanding
of school officials on the
plight of child labourers
Apathetic stance of local
government officials
(barangay and city/
municipal)
Refrained attitude of
school authorities
Community
Awareness
Raising
Capacity Trainings
and Community
Advocacy
Second Phase
Stage 1 Stage 2
Third Phase

Commitments to work for children’s
rights to education, health and social
development
Children’s strong sense of importance
and confidence.
Parents valuing education more than
additional income.
Community members’ empathy and
willingness to help neighbours.
LGU officials welcoming any and every
voluntary efforts from community members,
schools and outside organizations thru
participatory governance; also gave equal
priority to child labour reduction
School authorities’ renewed and pro-
active engagement in saving child labourers
from formal education deprivation
Facilitation of BCPWC1
in Crafting CWIP2
for
ALS3
and DORP4
programs
Stage 3
Fourth Phase
1
BCPWC - Barangay
Council for the
Protection of Women
and Children
2
CWIP - Child Welfare
Improvement Plan
3
ALS - Alternative
Learning System
4
DORP - Drop-Out
Reduction Program
with Quidan Kaisahan Interventions in Every Phase of
Mainstreaming Child Labourer’s Rights in Hinigaran and Sipalay
Towns of Negros Occidental

I
Chapter
Phases and Stages
of Behavioural Change

I
llustration 1 presents the over-all picture of how communities reached
by Quidan Kaisahan changed its behavioural pattern in dealing
with child labour issue. It also shows each primary strategies used
by Quidan Kaisahan to sow community awareness of the situation,
accept this reality and directly participate in resolving the problem. This
graphical presentation does not intend to show the concrete impact of
Quidan Kaisahan’s interventions in a community; rather, it aims to show
the attitudinal change of individuals involved in the project implementation.
The measurable impact of the project based on monitoring and evaluation
records were already considered in the development of this book as
references.
This is, therefore, a general presentation of the focus of this sourcebook.
It is to tell the inanimate story of the transformation of individuals from mere
passive onlookers to become pro-active members in slashing the effects of
child labour in their community, hence, champion the rights of children to
education for their holistic development.
These individuals, sometimes referred to as stakeholders, are the child
labourers themselves and their families who are the direct beneficiaries
of the project. Other individuals are the community’s duty-bearers and
policy-makers represented by the local government officials both at the
barangay-level to city-level (Sipalay case) and municipal-level (Hinigaran
case). Another set of individuals are the community educators, both in the
formal and informal system, embodied by the school authorities (teacher,
principal, administrators) and volunteer instructional managers of the
Alternative Learning System that have the same importance in telling
the whole story of child labour reduction in the community. The last set
of individuals is the parent- and student-volunteers that made the same
impact as the others in making the project more valuable and successful.
Representation of Symbols Used
Curved dash-line with arrows
Represents the level of individual behaviour towards child labour issue
in each stage process. This is to show graphically the downs and ups of
the perceptions and attitudes of the individuals in the community towards
the issue at hand*. The level of attitudinal change is only considered in
*The use of numerical representation to show the level of behavioural change is of no importance since, again, the
focus of telling the story is on the perception level of the actors involved and not the concrete measurable impact of
the project implementation.

second phase since the first phase only introduces the factors and reasons
surrounding the irrefutable reality of child labour in every community.
Boxed arrow
Represents the strategies and programs of Quidan Kaisahan used
in project implementation. There are four major strategies: Child Survey,
Community Awareness Raising, Capacity Trainings and Advocacy, and
Organizing & Facilitation. Each strategy is used particularly in every
phase. This does not suggest that each strategy was exclusively applied
in each phase; rather, the integration of these strategies are coalescing
in all the stages of the behavioural change processes which will be
discussed later in the detailed discussion of every phase. In each strategy,
Quidan Kaisahan was able to entice all the stakeholders to participate
in implementing the programs under each strategy to satisfy its efficacy.
And this is the crux of this sourcebook: the direct and/or indirect relation
of Quidan Kaisahan’s project interventions to the changes in behavioural
pattern of the stakeholders in dealing with the child labour issue.
Index card
Represents the analyses of the child survey on the poor quality of life
in the community with highlights on the families of child labourers and the
effects of this economic scarcity to the education and health situation of
these children.
Call out
Denotes the negative perceptions of the participating individuals
arising from their long standing culture of ignorance and inaction on child
labour realities.
Scroll
Represents the renaissance of looking at child labour from the hearts
and minds of the involved individuals.
Diamond/hexagon
Represents the polished perceptions – and their interconnections
– of the individuals from the depressing beliefs about child labourers
transformed into a commitment to uphold and work for their rights to
education, health and social development.

Four Phases and Three Stages
The discourse of this sourcebook is divided into four phases wherein
the three stages of the behavioural change processes are incorporated
in the second to fourth phase when the perceptions of the stakeholders
progress. Each phase represents a period of the community situation and
the prevailing perceptions of the individuals at that juncture with Quidan
Kaisahan program strategies as a backdrop, except in the first phase
wherein the presentation only revolves around context and realities.
First Phase
The period when Quidan Kaisahan is still not directly engaged in
the community, or not yet implementing its program in full steam. In this
phase, there is still no presentation of the perceptions of the stakeholders.
Discussion in this phase will revolve mainly on the factors on why child
labour exists in the community. This is to show to the readers the economic
and social circumstances resulting to children being driven to hard labour.
For the first phase, Quidan Kaisahan initially used its child survey strategy
to map the children according to working and education status, then
analyse the relation of the data results in the current social conditions of the
child labourers and their families. In this phase will be discussed in some
details the social, economic and cultural situation of the families that results
to the occurrence of child labourers in the community.
Second Phase/Stage 1
In this period, the discussion highlights the long standing negative
culture of the community under distress of child labour reality. The different
but related depressing sentiments of the actors will be discussed further
when we come to the detailed illustration of the second phase.
Third Phase/Stage 2
At this period, we will show the transition from the culture of ignorance
and inaction to the acceptance of the community not just of the existence of
child labour phenomenon but also the need to address the disheartening
conditions of affected children and help save them from the dangers of
long exposure to hard labour. Details of these will be discussed when we
come to the story of stage two.

The Challenge
According to official
estimates, over 250,000 child
labourersaretobefoundinthe
Philippines’ Negros-Panay
region, a predominantly rural
province that relies heavily on
sugarcane agriculture.
In the Negros Occidental
province, the effect of the
remnant of a feudal system
has meant families that do
not own land struggle to
breach economic barriers that keep them politically excluded and in
dire poverty.
In this context, children – some as young as seven – are sent to
work to help supplement family income. On sugarcane plantations,
rice and corn farms, and whilst fishing or mining, they are exposed to
hazardous chemicals and pesticides, endure long working hours and
receive little rest or leisure. The work inevitably disrupts the children’s
schooling and places immense pressure on their health and safety.
Fourth Phase/Stage 3
This period will show the conversion of the individuals from their
depressing beliefs about child labourers into a commitment to uphold and
work for the rights of children to education, health, social development, and
protection against exploitation. As stage three of the behavioural change
process, the renewed culture being presented here is the product of their
commitment to protect the children, not just from hard labour, but from
other social ills.
Box Story 1: Quidan Kaisahan’s Mission
“Championing Child Labourer’s Rights
in Communities”
(In December 2015, Quidan
Kaisahan received the “Impact Awards”
from Stars Foundation, a London-
based independent charity, that
invests in organisations and ideas that
transform the lives of disadvantaged
children and their communities
globally. Quidan Kaisahan was also
a runner-up in the 2012 Stars Impact
Awards. The following article, except
for the last part about ALS, came from
Stars’ website: www.starsfoundation.
org.uk/awards/organisations/quidan-
kaisahan-negros-occidental-inc)

The Response
Quidan Kaisahan is an organisation that works to change societal
perceptions in the Negros region, where many child labourers’ parents
were themselves working children.
The organisation was established in 1996 with the aim of working
with rural communities and local government to organize and
empower community members and promote sustainable livelihoods
by equipping and supporting community groups.
Quidan Kaisahan’s focus on ensuring stronger and more inclusive
village-level governance has been at the core of the sustainability of
its programmes. Quidan Kaisahan works in 80 villages in the Negros
Occidental region, reaching thousands of beneficiaries.
To date, more than 11,500 at-risk children and those working in
hazardous conditions have been supported. In addition, some 985
children have been removed from hazardous labour situations.
Almost 3,000 children who were not in education have acquired
functionalliteracythroughQuidanKaisahan’seducationalprogrammes,
and more than 100 children have successfully completed their high
school equivalency. A further 674 have returned to formal school.
The Quidan Kaishan
Hinigaran Team
headed by
Ms. Ann Grantas
(front, rightmost).

The Community-Based ALS
The Alternative Learning System (ALS) is a ladderized, modular
non-formal education program in the Philippines for dropouts in
elementary and secondary schools. It is part of the education system
but, unlike the formal system which requires the students to attend
class daily, the ALS allows learners to choose the schedule according
to their availability.
Quidan Kaisahan works towards the elimination of child labour
and improvement of children’s access to education, helps establish
community-based ALS in the rural barangays of Negros Occidental.
The ALS is found to be more viable for out of school child labourers
who cannot immediately withdraw from their employment.
The current EU-supported project covering 30 barangays in
Negros Occidental has already enrolled and retained 590 out of school
child labourers and children at risk into the ALS. 78 of these learners
have already returned to the formal schools.
Hinigaran Team staff Thonjy Siton (below) and Jerlyn Saludares (left-most), facilitating the planning session of
child labourers and Supreme Pupil Government leaders of Nanunga Elementary School, Hinigaran.

Illustration 2
Why Child Labour is Real in Hinigaran and Sipalay Communities?
(FIRST PHASE)
Unimaginable Poverty
Most families in every barangay earn a
measly one hundred fifty pesos ($3) or less
daily particularly those working
in sugarcane plantations
Odd Jobs in the Metro
For additional income, parents, especially
mothers, seek odd jobs in Manila and other
urban centres, leaving children at the care
of relatives if there is still one available, or
children are left by themselves since the father
works in the sugarcane plantation.
Child Map*
2,487 reached by
Quidan’s educational
program:
(as of August 2015)
Helpless Children
broken family
neglect of young and fragile
children resulting to malnutrition and petty
crimes committed by them
worst,
orphaned and abused children
daily income
or lessPhP153
*Child Mapping using child survey, pupil profiling, interviews, secondary data, and participatory
rural appraisal.

No Farm to Till
All of the heads of these families have no
ownership or, at the least, access to farmlands
to till for them to produce crops to augment
income and daily food needs
Hard Labour
Family members, including young and fragile
children, are forced to work as sakada (worker
in sugarcane plantation) doing back-breaking
jobs and exposed to harsh labour conditions
albeit very low wages; other children work in
wood charcoal production and metal scrapping
with the same poor condition.
School-less and
Friendless Children
Child labourers can’t come to school on a daily
basis—thus, prone to dropping out of
school—while others already stopped going to
school—thus, deprived of formal education; most
of them are stigmatize, bullied, have less friends,
and grow up not enjoying the free-spirited world
that a child should experience in life.
1,233 in-school child
labourers
775 out-of-school
child labourers
479 young adult-
victims of child labour
Landlessness because the rich owns
almost all the farmlands

Why Child Labour
is Real in a Community?
II
Chapter

A
s one of the entry points in selecting any community as beneficiary,
Quidan Kaisahan utilizes child survey and participatory rural
appraisal to assess the children situation within the barangay.
With participation from community members – mostly by barangay day
care teachers and barangay health workers and some parent-volunteers –
and supervised by Quidan Kaisahan staff, the child survey is the preparatory
process in engaging the whole community for them to understand, at first
glance, the face of child labour issue.
During child survey, data gathering does not solely pinpoint to the
number of children doing hard work in sugarcane plantations and elsewhere
but also related information about the economic and working status of the
family are culled out from the respondents.
The qualitative analysis of the interconnectedness of these data and
information became the basis of developing the general picture of child
labour phenomenon in the project area. But we are not interested in the
technical description of the child data analysis.
To generate the backdrop behind child labour realities, we are more
interested in presenting perceived realities about child labourers and their
family based on the analyzed data.
Our attention will focus to two of these realities: poverty and landlessness.
Dire poverty
A typical family in Hinigaran and Sipalay raises an average of six
children, some having nine or more. The head of this same family earns a
measly one hundred fifty pesos ($3 US dollars) a day, enough to buy one
kilo of staple rice and fish to feed eight to eleven mouths. It is usually the
father who is the lone earner working mostly in sugarcane plantations.
In comparison, the national average of children per family is three
while the current daily wage in the Philippine capital of Metro Manila is four
hundred sixty six pesos ($10 US dollars).
If the father is a drunkard then his daily income will still be slashed to
satisfy his daily alcohol intake, further depleting the amount that goes to
food consumption and other basic needs. From interviews with mothers,
one of their common complaints is the alcoholism of the father. And this

seems very typical in rural areas such as Negros Occidental. This was
validated by teachers and barangay officials, and even by the children
themselves, further saying that this kind of addiction results to domestic
violence and child abuse in some cases. Alcoholism of fathers worsens
the emotional stress of children apart from the pressure of poor family
conditions.
Odd jobs in the Metro
To augment for the measly income of the father, the mother is forced to
leave her family and seek odd jobs in the nearest urban centre in Bacolod
City or as far away as Metro Manila.
Departing mothers have no choice but to ask for favour from close
relatives to look after her children since the father works on a daily basis.
That is, if they have kind and understanding relatives willing to take into
their fold an additional six to nine children to take care of. Either under the
watch of relatives or not, children are left to take care of themselves.
This hardship falls on the shoulder of older siblings. Aside from being
forced to work in the field, they still need to closely look after their younger
siblings. This responsibility weighs more if their father is unmindful of this
responsibility being always drunk and just sleeps at home during rest days.
Such is the daily pitiful life of a child labourer.
Helpless children
Hundreds of expert study had concluded that work-related migration of
parents and leaving their children at the care of others leaves a scar in the
psychological and emotional states of these vulnerable kids. There are too
many and so tedious to mention here.
Still, we need to cite some of the most common of these stunting
effects to children since the information gathered through interviews clearly
validate that these conclusions are so real in the communities of Hinigaran
and Sipalay.
Broken family
The children suffer the fate of growing up with only one parent at their
side. These set of children are still relatively lucky than those siblings whose
both parents are domestic migrants. In either case, this circumstance
breaks the traditional fabric of family’s togetherness.

A day in the life of Jason, 17
years old, in the sugarcane
plantation in Hinigaran.
(Photo stills are from the audio
visual presentation titled “Kita”
filmed by Fine Arts student-
volunteers from De La Salle Bacolod
and produced by Quidan as part of
this project for EU.)
Pressed by the difficulty
of having food on the plate on
one side, the normal growth
of these children is stunted more by the absence of their parents to take
care of them. The situation worsens when the inevitability of separation of
parents happens due to reasons mentioned in the story on page 35.
Neglected children
Having a mother or father, worst if both of them, working in far away metro,
leaves the children literally for themselves. Most often than not, children are
often left with the grandparents who are too old to earn a living. This further
increases the pressure on the children to find jobs because they need to
earn not only for food but oftentimes also for the healthcare of grandparents.

Their condition exacerbates
if they don’t get support from
their relatives to at least watch
over them. As stated earlier,
the burden falls on the shoulder
of the older brother/sister to
tend to his/her five to eight very
young siblings. Most of these
older children are still at their
adolescence stage.
But to ensure that all his/
her siblings will eat for a day,
they have no choice but to look
for paying jobs where the only available ones is the backbreaking work
in the sugarcane field. During peak season when plantation owners need
additional workers, they can easily fill in. But during off season, they are
lucky enough to work for a week.
Lootin’ bananas
If no one hires them, they tend to salvage farm products from their
neighbours, even committing petty crimes in the act, just for them to eat
even once a day.
A story was shared by a kagawad (barangay council member) in
Barangay San Jose, Sipalay about a young boy who would steal bananas
from the neighbour’s own backyard. Usually he would bring home the
loots of his labour for them to eat but at other times sell the goods for
small amount of money. Only thirteen years of age, he would embark on
this adventure on a regular basis and will also be caught in the act by
the owner of the banana tree. The barangay police will bring him to the
barangay authorities but not to charge him with theft and put him in jail
since he is still a minor. After lecturing him and making him swear not to
do stealing bananas again, he will be released and brought home to his
grandmother who takes care of him. The barangay will blotter the incident
as just another juvenile delinquent case. In frustration, the community will
curse the menace in the form of this daring boy who will salvage anything
just to put some solid foods in his and his family’s aching stomachs.
As for the vulnerable younger siblings, being exposed to this kind of
desiccated life pushed them to malnourishment aggravated by the neglect
Orphaned at an early age, Ramsis, 10 years old, is now living
with his aunt in Sipalay where his family settled after leaving
Zambaoanga, Mindanao to find work. He is now in the
process of going back as first grade to formal school.

of other basic needs such as education and the much needed warmth of a
complete family. But a small grain of good fortune is still in them in this kind
of situation because there are others who become totally orphaned with no
relatives to cling to, ending up to languish in life’s uncertainty.
No access to farmland
Landlessness of families of child labourers adds up to their dire
condition. Negros Occidental is one of the provinces in the country where
large tracts of land still remain under the ownership and control of a few
rich landlords despite the efforts of the government to finish the agrarian
reform program.
Most of the families of child labourers were not given the opportunity
to own even a small portion of land (one hectare or less) from which they
could have produced crops either for daily subsistence or for income.
Heavy metal
To solve the problem, parents will force their children to work with them
in the sugarcane plantations for additional income, albeit much lower than
the adults’ wage rate.
Some as young as seven years old, these children will do bone-breaking
jobs from reaping sugarcane under the burning heat of the sun to manually
load, using their fragile body, the pile of reaped canes, weighing more
than their own body, to the delivery trucks waiting a hundred or so meters
from the roadside. As the adults do, they will bear this day in and day out,
just for the much needed small
amount of money enough to
buy a kilo of rice.
Sugarcane plantation is the
usual workplace where child
labourers are thrown into in
the whole of Negros province.
But some of them are forced
into wood charcoal production
in the remaining hinterlands
and metal scrapping from an
abandoned mine site which is
more prevalent in Sipalay. In
Non-operational mining area in Barangay San Jose, Sipalay
where. years ago, child labourers and their family risk their
life and limbs in scavenging scrap metals rusting in the site
left by the mining company.

any of these three kinds of workplace, the vulnerable children experience
the same kind of hard labour exposing them to natural and man-made
dangers.
A grim case happened in metal scrapping activities in Barangay San
Jose wherein there was a confirmed report of a child labourer that drowned
while salvaging metal sheets under water when the steel foundation of
one of the mining structures collapsed. What’s more depressing about this
was, no one bothered to retrieve the body of the child, not even the child’s
parents.
School-less and friendless
Child labour disrupts schooling. Children who combine work and
school have difficulty coping with their studies. Schooling is often sacrificed
if there is work in the plantations, fishing, mines, and other workplaces.
Children would leave school for two months or more during peak planting
and harvesting seasons in the sugarcane plantations. These children are
prone to ultimately drop out of school.
Children who have to take care of their younger siblings while, at the
same time, have to work in the fields to earn a living no longer have the time
to think or even dream of going to school. Many have already learned to
accept a future that is no different from the lives of their parents.
What’s more depressing is that these child labourers are stigmatized
by their neighbours as hopeless creatures and bullied by other children
from better-off families, further burying them deeper to the life of isolation
and despair.
Worth mentioning also is the fact that many of these unfortunate
children live in the remotest areas as many of the poorest families do.
They need to walk through rough and rugged terrains for longs hours, the
fastest average is two to three hours, just to reach the nearest school. Not
to mention that they bear this long trekking with an empty stomach.

Awareness Raising for
Barangay Officials
• Child situational
analysis workshops
and documentation of
workshop results.
• Presentation of the pupil/
student profiles in the
barangay situational
analysis workshops
and child data to
the municipal level
stakeholders.
• Workshops for
community awareness
raising teams,
formulation of
community awareness
raising plans and design
of materials and modules.
Illustration 3
Hopelessness of Community due to Ignorance and
Inaction on Child Labour Realities
(SECOND PHASE/STAGE 1)
“Absenteeism in school is the
problem of child’s parents”
“Drop out rates is really
a problem, but we,
teachers, can’t do
nothing about
it.
Refrained attitude of school
authorities:
“We have a small number of child
labourers, so this is not a priority in
barangay program; infrastructure
projects such as street lights,
Apathetic stance of local
government officials:
“Children must work with adults to help
produce additional family income”
“If children won’t help in hard work,
we cannot buy food and other basic
necessities”
Depressing beliefs of parents/family
of child labourers and community
members:

Awareness Raising for Child Labourers, Parents,
and Community Members:
• Community awareness raising seminars on child’s rights to quality
education, protection against child labour and other forms of abuse,
and community participation.
Awareness Raising for School
Authorities:
• Anti-child labour road shows,
documentary film showing and
local fora.
• Profiling of pupils/students at risk
of dropping out.
• Workshops for community
awareness raising teams,
formulation of community
awareness raising plans and
design of community awareness
materials and modules.
Let’s not just report it to get
our bonus.”
“Engaging to save children
from dropping out is just
additional task without
compensation to us
teachers”
covered court, renovation of
barangay hall are more needed by
our constituents”
“Child labourers? Our town is a
progressive city/municipality, we
have none of that here”
“We are very poor, we can’t afford the
expenses to send our nine children to
school”
“Daughters are less prioritized to
be educated, they’ll marry early
anyway”
“My neighbour’s uneducated and
poor children are pain in the neck of
the community”

Community
Hopelessness
III
Chapter

T
he context and realities of child labour issue discussed in the last
chapter breeds, consequently, of a disheartening culture among
the community members. And these notions and beliefs are not just
the culture of a single community nor borne out of a short period of
time. They are, unfortunately, a by-product of the past generations who had
been treating the child labour phenomenon as natural as how sugarcane
are being planted and harvested.
To put it more bluntly, these negative notions and beliefs are as old as
when the first child labourer in Negros was forced to hold a scythe, walked
in the centre of the sugarcane plantation under the blazing heat of the
sun, and cut the first ripe sugarcane he harvested with the belief that this
is a noble deed for the good of his very poor family. Generations passed
and we know that he was wrong. Regrettably, his old belief still lingers in
the psyche in most, if not all, of the poor communities in Negros because
of, we can surmise, ignorance and inaction to child labour realities. The
tolerance, furthermore, for child labour is also due to the fact that parents
and adults in the community used to be child labourers and school drop-
outs themselves.
This will be the centre of the story in this first stage of the behavioural
change process.
At this point, individuals are still wrapped in their old beliefs surrounding
child labour. These negative beliefs and notions do not mean that all of
the community residents reflect the same kind of observation towards this
social problem. This is just to expound that these negative perceptions, in
a summarized sentiments, almost always surfaces as the long standing
culture of the stakeholders based on interviews and document references.
Community awareness-raising is the strategy utilized by Quidan
Kaisahan in this stage. This is to throw light on the bleak culture of silence
and ignorance and somehow urge the stakeholders to re-assess these
negative notions and beliefs and look at it at another vantage point with a
sense of optimism.
Depressing beliefs
“Child labour is fine. It is normal and an acceptable response to poverty.
Almost all adults in the community used to work as children, too.”
At the helms of extreme hardships, these words from the parents

almost always come as their defensive expression towards child labour.
Their take on bringing their children with them in the sugarcane plantation,
or elsewhere where they can find work, thus, seems but just natural for
them. Their main contention is that it is the responsibility of every family
member to help in augmenting for the little income they get working alone.
A large family needs more food in the table. If, therefore, a child is able
bodied enough to endure the back-breaking jobs in the field so that he
can have his share in feeding his other siblings, that child should do so.
At the end of such story, the parents will, with a sense of inappropriate
pride, conclude that their children’s priority is to go to the field and earn
extra money, and not going to school to learn. Still, they would further say
with blind gratefulness, that the landowners are even doing them and other
poor families a favour by giving their children employment.
Adding injury to the education-crippled children, extreme poverty
forced the parents to easily admit and stand on the belief that they cannot
send six to nine children to formal school because they cannot afford the
regular expenses needed to support them. Instead of providing for the
children’s daily school needs and required snacks for recess, they just
decided that the money must only be expended for food at home since
total income is still not enough even if the salary of the child labourers are
already included.
These scenarios clearly shows that parents value more the little
economic gains the children will produce at the end of the day than the
long-term developmental effect of formal education to their children.
Deprived daughters
But not all parents have the
same take. There are still those
who want their children to go to
school although not on a daily
basis. Unfortunately, there is
still another depressing belief
that these kinds of parents
have. It is the belief that every
daughter should not finish
formal schooling since they will
marry early anyway and end up
enslaved in household chores.
The sons are more prioritized
Rosamae and Jessa Mae of Barangay Mambaroto, Sipalay
stopped attending school for a year because they need to
help their parents to work in the field. At the time of the
interview, they are now back to the formal school as junior
high students.

since they are the breadwinners of every family. Frankly, this is one common
culture that distorts gender equality. Sadly, it is a living culture hounding
poor communities not just in Negros but in other rural communities in the
country.
To rub more salt into the wounds of education-crippled child labourers,
most neighbours, who relatively have a normal life than them, treat or look
at them as pain in the neck of the community. This is true in a sense that
neglected children are very prone to drug addiction, alcoholism, gangster
life, and juvenile delinquency such as minor theft as mentioned earlier. But
these discouraging notions are a product of the community’s ignorance
about the intricacies involved in the life of a child labourer. Shedding light
on this needs empathy towards and willingness from these neighbours to
wholeheartedly understand child labourers.
Apathetic stance
Local government officials are not spared from the negative culture
regarding child labour issue flourishing in the community. Being the duty-
bearers and policy-makers, they should be the one to first recognize the
existence of child labour. Although they knew something about this, the
inaction of the local government establishment still seeps into the minds of
most of the local officials.
This is not to suggest that they directly veer away from their responsibility
to oversee the welfare of the constituents, especially the families of child
labourers. It is because of the common practice of local governments, not
just in Negros but in almost all of the local governments in the county, is
to focus more on physical development projects, sometimes called hard
projects. This traditional way of programming community projects tends to
less prioritize soft projects or basic service delivery that includes ensuring
that all children in the community are benefitting from the free elementary
and high school education program of the government.
As a result, in all of the barangays that was interviewed, the local
officials somehow relates in unison this kind of old belief:
“We have a small number of child labourers, so this is not a priority in barangay
program; infrastructure projects such as street lights, covered court, renovation
of barangay hall are more needed by our constituents.”
While at the city- or municipal-level, elected officials and local authorities
would always throw this kind of apathetic stance:

“Child labourers? Our town is a progressive city/municipality, we have none of
that here!”
Indeed, a disheartening thing to hear from these duty-bearers. But it is
one of the major impacts of not having the right lens to look more closely on
the complexities of the child labour phenomenon.
Compounding the problem is that existing records and reports from
most of the barangays up to the municipal/city government show zero or
insignificant number of child labourers. Sadly, the regional office of the
Department of Labor and Employment validates these claims. This state
of reporting is because child labour in agriculture is undocumented, thus,
authorities cannot act on them. Undocumented wherein plantation owners
does not reflect in their records, if there is any, the number of children they
hire. Frustratingly, the local officials just stare at it with their blind eyes.
Refrained attitude
In the same manner, teachers and school administrators interviewed
humbly admitted their old refrained attitude towards child labour issue,
backed by their unwillingness to carry more professional loads in school.
At any rate, they can not deny that a number of children enrolled in their
school are regularly skipping classes, not just once a month but twice or
thrice a week. With no reference point to explain this prevalence, teachers
always blame the parents for the absenteeism of these children, not really
knowing that most of these class-skipping school children are already
delved into the hardships of working in the sugarcane plantations, wood
charcoal production, and metal
scrapping.
When these class-skipping
children were not given full
attention, they were the ones who
Mrs. Myrna Arancillo, principal of Candumarao
Elementary School, Hinigaran, is the first teacher-
volunteer of Quidan when it started ALS program in
2003. Now a consultant of Quidan, she narrates that
at the start, teachers and administrators including
from her own school veer away from Quidan staff
believing that engaging with Quidan in implementing
ALS just means additional academic loads for them.
After more than a decade since, with her perseverance
and personal commitment, she was able to prove
that not just ALS but also DORP programs are vital in
saving child labourers.

are at risk of dropping out altogether. At this situation, teachers usually just
record the number of drop outs and shrug it off, sometimes with approval
from the school administrators. Most often than not, they do not report it
anymore to the higher superiors at the division level, not just for fear of
being scolded over and over again but to falsely report that the school has
zero drop out rate, therefore, portraying the school’s good performance so
that the teachers will be able to get their yearly performance bonus.
In all these cases, we cannot directly blame these school authorities
for having this kind of refrained behaviour. Again, they may not have the
proper tools to really dig deeper on why there are class-skipping school
children and the proper training to go over about it.
Awareness-raising
To shed light on the depressing beliefs, apathetic stance and refrained
attitude of these key actors in the community, Quidan Kaisahan launched
its awareness-raising program. The objective is to engage them directly to
re-assess and reconsider these negative notions and beliefs, but not in an
antagonizing manner. It is noteworthy that the use of the child data gathered
was a key element in raising community awareness and mobilizing their
support. Using the “real” information that came from the community itself
has proven to be an effective eye-opener.
Apart from raising awareness, the program intends to develop empathy
first to the stakeholders as a crucial step in tackling the child labour issue
in the community. To ensure the efficacy of the awareness raising strategy,
Quidan Kaisahan enticed all the stakeholders to directly participate in the
process. The following are the detailed description of this process.
Healing wounds
Awareness-raising for child labourers, parents, and community
members.Majorcontentofthisisthecommunityawareness-raisingseminars
on child’s rights to quality education, protection against child labour and
other forms of abuse, and the voluntary participation of the community in
resolving the child labour issue. The legal and moral obligations of parents
to protect their children from the hazardous and exploitative sugarcane
plantation work is also emphasized.
A workshop was also conducted among children including the child
labourers where they were made to express their feelings, difficulties and

fears in working in the fields
through drawings and role
playing. In an emotional-filled
air, these were presented by
the children to the adults,
signalling the healing of
wounds, both to the children
and parents, from the blades
of hard labour.
A workshop with the adults
was also conducted for them to
identifythephysical,mentaland
psycho-social effects of child labour on children. The information gathered
from these workshops were used as effective tools for awareness-raising
since they came from the children and community members themselves.
Using first-hand information such as the child data and workshop outputs
proves to be more effective than using standards set by government or
other bodies in which the communities have no participation at all.
How would you feel if your child is a child labourer?
Awareness-raising for barangay officials. Since they are the duty-
bearers and policy-makers in the community, awareness-raising process
for them involves their direct and committed participation in child situational
analysis workshops including its documentation process. With the help from
teachers and school administrators, there are also presentations with them
of the profiled students at risk of dropping out during these workshops. At
the municipal level, there are discussions with the municipal officials and
authorities about the data on children particularly the working and schooling
status of children in each barangay.
Awareness-raising for barangay officials also included the review of the
local government mandates in child protection and child labour reduction
where several issuances were presented and reviewed. They were also
made to realize the kind of community that would be created if their own
children were unable to attend school because they are working as child
labourers. The resulting gloomy thoughts from this realization did not sit
well with the participants. This frustration became their springboard to
decisively and seriously tackle child labour in the community.
Barangay Mambaroto, Sipalay former child labourers Jessa
Mae, Rosamae, Jason (from left, second to fourth) and Ramsis
(right-most) with their parents who are now in full support for
their re-entry to formal school.

Again, the child data was used for awareness-raising here and a
barangay child map was drawn as a visual representation of the degree
and extent of child labour in the community. The child map is posted in
the barangay premises where the constituents can easily read it. The child
map is also used for child labour monitoring and a constant reminder of the
child labour status in the barangay.
From blame game to shared deed
Awareness-raising for school authorities. For the community educators,
awareness-raising activities include profiling of students at risk of dropping
out of school and initial actions to at least normalize the class attendance of
these children. The teachers also conducted conference with the in-school
child labourers and other at-risk pupils and their parents.
Several sensitization workshops were conducted in the schools
where the teachers themselves analyzed the situation of in-school child
labourers and recognized the inextricable link between child labour and
school dropout. A pupil profiling tool was designed in cooperation with
the teachers. The teachers themselves administered this tool among all
the pupils and in the process they were able to realize the situation of the
pupils: that they are indeed in a miserable situation which is the reason why
they are skipping school. The blame they throw to the parents, they now
humbly accept as also their own. They now fully understand that the burden
of this problem weighs equally on their shoulder as with the parents.
Other key awareness methods include anti-child labour theatre road
shows, documentary film showing depicting the real life of a child labourer,
and local fora. These are usually done in schools attended by the child
labourer themselves, parents, local officials, teachers, outside visitors and
other interested individuals who are ready to volunteer to combat child
labour issue in communities.
Self-help groups
Awareness-raising for all stakeholders. The convergence of all the
different awareness-raising program of Quidan Kaisahan is encapsulated
in organizing key actors from family, neighbours, local officials and school
authorities into a pro-active community awareness-raising team. This team
is tasked to formulate community awareness-raising plans and design and
development of materials and modules. Key stakeholders also include
the different community-based self-help groups such as the women’s
organizations, farmers’ groups and faith-based organizations.

Box Story 2
“Lost boys, Gone girls and Seeking mothers”
N
ot all of those seeking jobs in the metropolis are mothers. Even
children are forced to migrate to urban centres and land the same
kind of jobs as the mothers do, with some boys doing much harder
work such as in the construction and delivery services. For the girls,
most of them are hired as additional house-helpers through relatives who are
already working for rich families.
An interview from a teacher of Nonaishi High School in Barangay Aranda,
Hinigaran, revealed a case wherein an outstanding girl-student was monitored
not attending her class for weeks. Her class advisor thinks that she is just
sick or working in the field. But in one of their regular house visits when they
checked her status, they found out that she was already gone to Iloilo City and
hired as a house-helper through her aunt. Frustrated to save one of their bright
students, the advisor deeply sighed and just hope that she will still change her
mind, go back to Barangay Aranda and finish her high school.
There were also some cases wherein the father departs to work elsewhere,
while in rare instances both the father and mother migrate. Departing fathers
almost always land as construction workers with better income than the
measly wage in the sugarcane plantations. Having had this modest income
should be a lot of help to the family. But in some unfortunate cases, migrating
fathers tend to fall into the trap of infidelity or adultery, giving up all together his
responsibility to his wife and children who are left in the cold of dire poverty.
An interview with a teacher-advisor of top students in Binulig Elementary
School in Barangay San Jose, Sipalay revealed some stories where the father
who worked in Manila never returned in their home, totally abandoning his
wife and seven children because he already found another partner, got her
pregnant and now living as one family. In desperation, the abandoned wife
seeks for her own new partner, not just to satisfy her biological needs but to
ensure that there is a continuing support for her children’s daily needs. In the
end, the wife’s new partner had her own set of children, too, from his former
wife or partner. Such is the common cycle of untold story of separation and
finding another partner among the families of child labourers.

Dialogue, meeting and lobbying work with sugar
planters’ groups, farm owners and other employers,
and government agencies including the police to
generate their support for the action against child
labour.
Realization of LGU officials that not just
child labourers and their families but whole
community is affected
“Upbringing of children is first and foremost the
duty of parents but for child labourers it is the
responsibility of the barangay and the whole
community”
“Infra projects are the sign of community progress.
In doing so, no one should be left behind including
children, most especially child labourers who need
extra attention to enjoy their rights to education,
health and social development”
Training for children’s
organizations on:
Sector Assessment,
Organizational
Governance, Leadership
Training, Simple
Bookkeeping and
Accounting, Policy
Formulation
Involving the Community thru Advocacy
Organizing of anti-child labour advocates and development of advocacy
materials / Training modules on Child’s Rights, Child Labour and Children’s
Training for Barangay Council for the Protection
of Women and Children (BCPWC) on:
• Child Legislation
• BCPWC Functions and Org’l Development
• Community-based Child Monitoring
Illustration 4
Community’s Acceptance that Child Labourers Exist
(THIRD PHASE/STAGE 2)
*ALS - Alternative Learning System program for children and adult done outside the formal school system.
Hopefulness in
children, parents
and neighbours
“Not only will I continue
to study my favourite
subjects—math & science,
but also show my talents
in drawing, singing and
acting with new friends
younger than me”
“We will help our children
finish formal education

Deeper understanding of school authorities
on the plight of child labourers
“I have now a deep understanding why some of
my students are skipping school, and it breaks my
heart to know personally their hardships and poor
living conditions”
“So what if we can’t get our performance bonus?
We’re just telling the truth to our superiors that
our school’s drop-out rates is not zero, and it is not
just a number but represents a battered body and
soul of child labourers”
Training for community
organizations on:
Sector Assessment,
Organizational
Development Planning,
Organizational
Governance, Policy
Formulation, Simple
Bookkeeping and
Accounting,
Viability Checking &
Proposal Making
Training for Drop Out Reduction Program
(DORP) teams and school teachers on:
• Training-Workshops on the DORP Spiral
and Processes
• Capacity building for parent- and pupil-
volunteers
Training and mobilization of Instructional
Managers (IMs) of ALS* learners on:
• ALS Centre Management and
Facilitation
• Enhancement Training in
Handling Math and English
Education / Slogan and poster-making contest against child labour / Video
documentary / Theatre arts workshop for children and roadshow featuring
the life of child labourers
even if they stopped
schooling for years; we
don’t want them to again
experience the hardships
of not being able to go to
school as we did in the
past”
“I don’t just sympathize
with child labourers. I
want to really be of help.
So I volunteered to give
them the best way I can”

Community
Acceptance
IV
Chapter

E
ffects of the awareness-raising activities participated by the key
actors in the community coupled with their openness to accept child
labour realities and empathy to child labourers became the venue
to develop their renewed notions and beliefs. Interestingly, these
fresh perceptions somehow turns a three hundred sixty degree from the
disheartening notions and beliefs dissected in the last chapter. We will see
the details of this in this second stage of the behavioural change process.
As admitted by the Quidan Kaisahan project staff and program officers,
this transition process cannot be restricted alone as the result of the strategy
used – training inputs and advocacy techniques – in this phase. One way
or the other, the stakeholders have already had these changing notions
and beliefs but were just looking for some formal venues to resurface them
as renewed perceptions.
Through trainings and workshops, Quidan Kaisahan was able to
provide them the necessary tools to deeply scrutinize their long standing
culture on child labour issue, gradually embracing it as concrete as other
social problems in the community. Simply put, the various trainings and
consistent advocacy mechanism employed by Quidan Kaisahan boosted
the process of bringing into surface these renewed perceptions from the
murky mud of their long standing culture of ignorance and inaction.
The following are the trainings provided separately for the different
set of stakeholders and their ensuing renewed perceptions, presented in
summarized forms, which developed in the process.
Young leaders
To build confidence and develop the leadership skills of the children
(child labourers and youth leaders alike) and community actors, they were
given the following trainings:
Leadership and Organizational Governance. To instil the values, skills
and attitude of a good and effective leader in steering children’s and
community organizations to promote and uphold child rights in coordination
with the barangay council and school-based organizations.
Organizational Development Planning. Given particularly to community
organizations, this training-workshop aims to provide community members
the tools and techniques to develop a sound community plan that will
address child labour issue in the community.

Policy Formulation. Integral
in building the children’s and
community organizations is the
know-how to craft a consensus
set of rules and regulations
within the organization for
the smooth flow of its regular
activities and programs.
Simple Bookkeeping and
Accounting. This is to provide
the youth and adult leaders
the basic science of handling
finances for effective and
proper use of organizational
funds sourced from within the
members themselves and from
outside donors.
Viability Checking and
Proposal Making. Particularly
given to community
organizations, this training provides the technical know-how of developing
viable income-generating projects and programs through marketing for
grants from funding institutions and supportive private individuals or groups.
Sector Assessment. This training involves the identification of sectors
of society or group of people according to their common needs and each
sector’s universal rights. This is for them to understand that children is a
sector in the community that needs the same amount of protection and care
as the other sectors such as women, farmers, youth, professionals, etc.
Hopefulness
Now filled by sense of optimism from the valuable knowledge gained
from the above trainings, child labourers are now ready and excited in their
re-entry to formal education. That is, regular attendance in school for class-
skipping children and attending weekly class through Alternative Learning
System for children and young adults who already stopped schooling for
years. From interviews, these children kind of blissfully express these Peter
Pan inspired happy thoughts:
Youth leaders and child labourers in session about situational
analysis of children in Barangay Nanunga, Hinigaran. Their
output will be a major part of the CWIP.

“Not only will I continue to study my favourite subjects—math & science,
but also show my talents in drawing, singing and acting with new friends
younger than me.”
Through this expression, the then helpless, school-less and friendless
children are now optimistic of going back to school to continue their love
of learning, have fun and share their innate talents with the community and
their classmates, which they humbly considers as newly found friends.
Not only with their classmates that they found new acquaintances.
From the youth leaders in the community and school, who volunteered in
building children’s organizations, they were able to build a brotherhood to
promote child labourers’ rights. Some of these youth leaders are non-child
labourer with a modest family life while some were former child labourers
saved, directly or indirectly, from the child labour eradication program.
Both of these sets of youth leaders are brave enough to the challenge of
partaking in saving children from the hard labour and ensure that they, too,
enjoy schooling like them.
With the same psyche of hopefulness, parents, after knowing the most
important rights of their children, without hesitation, throws their full support
not just for the continued schooling of their children but also for their full
social development.
Turning away from their weak contention that children’s priority is to
support the family through hard work in the field, the smiling parents, with
some sense of nostalgia, accepted the right direction for their children
through this expressions:
“We will help our children finish formal education even if they stopped schooling
for years; we don’t want them to again experience the hardships of not being
able to go to school as we did in the past.”
Good souls
And there were community members who are non-hesitant to share
their professional knowledge and skills for the child labourers because they
were moved by the sad stories of children that seem to be imprisoned into
working hard in the field sans attending formal school. These good souls
somehow express the sense of elation like this:
“I don’t want to just sympathize with child labourers and their families. I want to
really be of help to save them from the misery of hard labour. So I volunteered to

give them the best way I can.”
Most of these volunteers
became instructional managers
(IMs) for the Alternative Learning
System (ALS) that caters for the
children and youth labourers that
had already stopped schooling
for years.
For them, Quidan Kaisahan
provided academic-centred
trainings such as:
ALS Centre Management
& Facilitation. To effectively
handle ALS classes done, not
in school classrooms, but in any
convenient space near where the
ALS learners are working. It may be under the tree, beside the sugarcane
field, in the makeshift house, or in the learning centre provided by the
barangay; and
Enhancement Training in Handling Math & English. An integral part of
an IM course to provide ALS learners the foundation of formal education.
Most professions of these IMs are not related to formal education
particularly those interviewed from Hinigaran. In Barangay Quiwi the
volunteer is a Business Management graduate with children of her own. In
Barangay Narauis, a kagawad also acts as an IM aside from his mandate
as an elected barangay council member. In Barangay Tagda, a college
graduate mother was forced to be an IM because one of his children in high
school is skipping school because of the teenager’s work as a professional
dancer, thus, needs special class; so she thought of the ALS program to
save her child and eventually volunteered as an IM to teach other child
labourers as well.
Realizations
The good use of the child data gathered – highlighted in the last chapter
– was a key element in raising community awareness and mobilizing support
of the barangay officials. This “real” information from the community itself had
Jinky Gato volunteered as an IM when she was a fresh B.S.
Secondary Education graduate in 2005. After several years
of teaching ALS learners and a decade of challenges for
being an educator, she is now the full-time ALS Coordinator
of Hinigaran High School, fulfilling her mission in life.

been an effective eye-opener for
them, immediately right after these
data were formally presented to
them.
Touched by the reality of not
just the numbers of child labourers
but also the children’s grim
situation, officials realized that
not just child labourers and their
families but the whole community
is affected by this social problem.
In all of the barangays that
was visited (Barangays Narauis and Quiwi in Hinigaran and Barangay San
Jose in Sipalay), interviews with the barangay council members echoed
almost the same realizations ranging from honest concerns for the smallest
unit (family of child labourers) to the larger mandate of the barangay (hard
projects vis-a-vis service delivery). To sum it up, here are two of the usual
phrases we can hear from the council that they revealed in consensus:
“Upbringing of children is first and foremost the duty of parents but for child
labourers it is the responsibility of the barangay and the whole community.”
“Infrastructure projects are sign of community progress. In doing so, no one
should be left behind including children, most especially child labourers who
need extra attention to enjoy their rights to education, health and social
development.”
Enlightened
Enlightened of their once blinded eye and inaction, the barangay
officials are now up-in-arms to combat the flourishing child labour issue
in the community. To help them in effectively do this as the community’s
duty-bearers and policy-makers, Quidan Kaisahan provided them the
necessary trainings.
But the barangay should do its homework first, that is, to re-convene
the Barangay Council for the Protection of Women and Children (BCPWC)
and actively do its purpose as mandated by law. Once formally convened,
Quidan Kaisahan does its part through capacity building trainings and
workshops that include:
IMs answering modules on Math and English as part of a
training conducted with the help of Quidan’s Australian
teacher-volunteer.

Child Legislation. To institutionalize ordinances and programs related to
women and child welfare and their protection from exploitation and abuse;
BCPWC Functions
and Organizational
Development. To strengthen
the organizational aspect of
this special council; and
Community-based Child
Monitoring. To develop the
proper design and system
to regularly check the child
labourers on their transition
from being education-
deprived kids until their
return to formal education
either in standard formal
class activity or through
Alternative Learning System.
At the higher level of
governance, the BCPWC
officers, backed by school
teachers and community
volunteers,launchesaseries
of dialogues, meetings and
lobbying with sugar planters’ groups, farm owners and other employers,
municipal/city authorities and government agencies including the police to
generate their support for the action against child labour.
Eventually, through these engaging activities, the same realizations as
the barangay officials were arrived at by these other stakeholders particularly
the municipal/city duty-bearers. There were also some cases where in
plantation owners vowed to cooperate in the action against child labour and
show willingness to veer away from the practice of hiring children to work in
their farms, even if it meant losing manpower that redounds to lesser profits.
Deeper understanding
The potent of the community child survey, validated by the profiled
students in school, and the information culled from the child labourers
(Above) Quiwi Barangay Council headed by Hon. Edwin Gavilanga
(second from right) and his Kagawads; (Below) Narauis Barangay
Council headed by Hon. Hadji Trojillo (second from right) and his
Kagawads. Both Hinigaran barangays humbly accepted that even if
there is only a small number of child labourers, the council should
act on it with equal prioritization as other barangay programs.

themselves and their families
paved the way also for the school
authorities to notice the issue.
Presented at them in point blank,
the data portraying school-skipping
children made an impact to them.
Not the numbers but the stories
behind the numerical. It dawned
on the educators that the reasons
why there are children not regularly
attending school is not because
the parents are irresponsible in
tolerating it but because the parents
forced their children to hard labour
to, at least, help in easing their dire
poverty.
From all the interviews done, it looks like the teachers were the most
profoundly touched by the deeper understanding of the child labour issue.
In every account of a teacher, you can hear the same poignant compunction:
“I have now a deep understanding why some of my students are skipping school,
and it breaks my heart to know personally their hardships and poor living
conditions.”
And the humility to accept their past mistakes:
“So what if we can’t get our performance bonus? We’re just telling the truth
to our superiors that our school’s drop-out rates is not zero, and it is not just a
number but represents a battered body and soul of child labourers.”
Teachers, parents and pupils saving at-risk students
Going back to the profiling of students, school authorities concluded that
class-skipping children, most of them child labourers, are the most susceptible
to dropping out of school given their economic and social conditions.
Without delay, they acted on it through setting up consultations with
the parents by visiting them directly at their homes. At this personal level
of reaching out to the family of a child labourer, teachers got a first-hand
account of the merciful plight of their students. Such heart-breaking
experiences generated the apology and humility mentioned above.
Blissful Teachers. Madams Leonila Malino, Leah May
Claver and Thelma Buga-ay of Nonaishi High School,
Hinigaran shared their emotional experiences of
knowing first-hand the pitiful situation of their child
labourer-students in their regular home visits.

To provide the teachers with enhancement tools in handling the process
of saving these at-risk pupils and regularize their class attendance, Quidan
Kaisahan engaged them in the following:
Training-Workshops on Drop-Out Reduction Program (DORP).
Development of design and processes of withdrawing in-school child
labourersfromtheirhazardousemployment,improvetheirschoolattendance
and academic competency, health, and other welfare. Trainings on the
DORP Spiral based on the DORP manual of the Department of Education
enhanced with inputs on the analysis of pupil cases, the formulation of
learning management plans, and alternative delivery modes such as
remediation, supervised modular learning, etc. were also conducted.
Involving the community
The advocacy mechanism introduced by Quidan Kaisahan at this
phase is very worth to mention since it is in this playing field that the whole
community – youth and community leaders, barangay officials, school
authorities and other volunteers – was literally enticed to participate in
curbing child labour in the barangay.
Advocacy activities ensure the integration and coalescing of all their
different efforts into one direction. Without this strategy there is a tendency
that the separate initiatives of every set of stakeholder will just be in vain
because they are not anchored in a unifying stance.
Quidan Kaisahan just provided the tools and parameters of advocacy
activities. The stakeholders then applied it based on the most emerging
needs of their respective community.
These are the advocacy mechanisms: Organizing of anti-child labour
advocates and development of advocacy materials; Development of
training modules on Child’s Rights, Child Labour and Children’s Education;
Slogan and poster-making contest against child labour; Video documentary
production; and Theatre arts workshop for children and child labourers and
translate their talents into a roadshow featuring the life of child labourers
shown in every community.

Children’s sense of
importance and confidence:
“Studying under the mango
tree is hard, but I have to
endure it with the help of
my IM and fellow learners
who are my friends, because
my future and good fortune
depends on my education”
Parents
valuing education than
small income: “Until they
finished schooling, we will
sacrifice the added income my
children earns by doing hard
Illustration 5
Community Working to Uphold a Child Labourer’s Rights
(FOURTH PHASE/STAGE 3)
Barangay officials
welcoming any and
every voluntary efforts from
community members, schools
and outside organizations through
participatory governance;
also gave equal priority to child labour
reduction:
“Any program
by the barangay for the betterment of its
constituents and the community will be in
vain if the people working on it do not
have the profound passion to serve the
children who have all the rights to
education, and vulnerable child
labourers should be on top of
this program”
MAINSTREAMING CHILD LABOURER’S
RIGHTS IN THE COMMUNITY
1)Orientation,partnershipagreementandworkshopswithbarangaysincrafting
the Child Welfare Improvement Plan (CWIP) by the Barangay Council for
the Protection of Women and Children (BCPWC) to address child labour
and educational disadvantage programs such as: massive education/campaign
against child labour; recruitment of learners to undergo Alternative Learning
System method; livelihood development for parents; supplemental feeding for
malnourished children; child monitoring of pupils; and mobilization of support
from planters/employers
2) Partnership agreement and workshops with municipal/city government to
strengthen the Municipal Council for the Protection of Children (MCPC) that
will compensate the efforts from the barangay level based on BCPWC plans.

Teachers’ pro-active
engagement in saving child
labourers from education
deprivation and the ensuing
personal and professional fulfilment
they gained:
“Being a
guardian of a child labourer
who lives far away from school, I get
profound fulfilment in allowing him to stay at home
during school days, share food with my family, and
fund his school projects, because it is part of my
duty as a teacher”
“We are so very happy that all our efforts
in rescuing children from education
neglect are bearing fruits and it is
more blissful that we share these
knowledge and experiences to our
fellow educators in and out of
our mother school”
work; once they got a decent
job fit for professionals, those
sacrifices will eventually paid off.”
Community’s heart to help
neighbours: “As barangay
health worker, I still volunteered
as an IM and I don’t
complain that it’s difficult to
teach ALS learners because
I value more the personal
satisfaction of helping them
realize their dreams and have a
normal life like what I want my
children to be”
3) Consultations and partnership agreement with different public
elementary and high schools with protocol from Department of Education
Division Office to:
• Profile students at risk of dropping prioritizing in-school child labourers,
temporary school leavers, and pupils with failing grades through
individual learning management plans; and
• Formulation of Drop-out Reduction Program (DORP) plans and formation
of DORP Teams involving school heads, guidance counsellor, head
teachers/subject coordinators, student government leaders, Parents-
Teachers Association officers, and barangay representative.
4) Establishment of child database at the Quidan Kaisahan level translated into
child maps to guide the Child Monitoring System (CMS) implementation by the
BCPWCs.

Community
Working Together
V
Chapter

W
e now come to the last stage of the behavioural change
process. At this stage, the community as a whole are now
working together to uphold and work for the rights of child
labourers to education, health, social development, and
protection against exploitation. This commitment and the interrelatedness
of their renewed perceptions stem from their direct participation in the
program. It is important to mention that from these optimized perceptions
emanate the profound personal and professional fulfilment of the
stakeholders.
Conversely, during the process, these programs were improved by
the actors themselves depending on the needs and requirements of their
respective community in facing head-on the issue of child labour and resolve
its ill effects to the young and fragile children and the community as a whole.
Simply said, the training inputs and advocacy activities employed
by Quidan Kaisahan was translated into mechanisms and processes to
secure the optimum solution in eradicating child labour in the community.
The overall strategy is to mainstream the acceptance of the community
about the reality of child labour phenomenon and work together to address
this social problem so that all children in the barangay can have their full
growth and potentials as should normal kids do.
Children’s welfare
First and foremost of these mechanisms is the important role of the
Barangay Council for the Protection of Women and Children (BCPWC) to
address the effects of child labour and educational disadvantaged of these
children. The process involved here is the following.
BCPWC organizational structure (left) and Child Map (right) posted in the ubiquitous vicinity of Barangay San Jose,
Sipalay. These graphical reminders are replicated in all of Quidan’s partner-barangays to serve as guide for the
stakeholders of the progress of eradicating child labour in the community.

Launching of
orientation, partnership
agreement, and
workshops with the
convened BCPWC to
craft the Child Welfare
Improvement Plan
(CWIP). This action plan
is then forwarded to the
barangay authorities
for inclusion in the
barangay budget. To
strengthen this plan,
there is a need for the
passage of anti-child
labour ordinance and establishment of child labour monitoring system
using the child database under watch by Quidan Kaisahan.
Right after the plan is finished, the assigned instructional manager and
parent-volunteers will do the proper recruitment of learners who will undergo
the Alternative Learning System method; while monitoring of pupils at the
school level is done by the teachers, parent- and pupil-volunteers. This is
to warrant the initiation and regularization of child monitoring activities.
Integrated in the plan implementation is the massive education and
campaign against child labour in the community as one of the major
components of the mainstreaming efforts. To directly involve the parents in
these efforts, there is a need to develop livelihood projects for them. This is
to relatively augment the lost income of the child labourers since they are
now preparing to go back to formal school.
Furthermore, to address malnourishment among the fragile child
labourers, supplemental feeding programs are done. Mostly done in
school, the feeding program seeks support from kind hearted individuals
or groups, even among the teachers themselves.
Finally, to complete the integration of efforts in the community, the
BCPWC regularly mobilizes support from plantations owners and planters’
groups to ensure that the proliferation of hiring child labour in the sugarcane
plantations is halted.
But how do these mechanisms and processes influenced the changed
notions and beliefs of the stakeholders? Let’s dig into some of the
Smiling faces of confidence: Jessa Mae of Barangay Mambaroto, Sipalay
(right) returned to formal school after a year of missing school; John Rey
and Jensen of Barangay Quiwi, Hinigaran (left) are passing ALS learners
who were able to showcased their talents during the roadshow depicting
the life of child labourers.

summarized renewed feelings from them.
Sense of importance and confidence
The child welfare plan encapsulates the focus on restoring the stunted
life of child labourers. In it lie the concrete actions in ensuring that their right
to education, coupled with the assurance of health and social development,
is being met. It is, therefore, not surprising that these children profoundly
appreciates this effort then gladly expresses this essence of importance
and confidence:
“Studying under the mango tree is hard, but I have to endure it with the help of
my instructional managers and fellow learners who are my friends, because my
future and good fortune depends on my education.”
Education more than small income
There is this chained link between the newly-felt bliss by the child
labourers to their parents’ renewed wisdom. This could be pinpointed from
their direct and willing participation in the program activities for the good of
their children. Turning away from their bleak notion, these parents are now
humbly accepting the challenge of putting more value on the education
of their children than forcing them to do hard labour in the fields with the
following thoughts:
“Until they finished schooling, we will sacrifice the added income my children
earns by doing hard work; once they got a decent job fit for professionals, those
sacrifices will eventually paid off.”
Big hearts from neighbours
The above change of hearts spills
over to the neighbours. Outpouring
of voluntary spirits is the name of this
occurrence. Standing tall on this are
the instructional managers, most of
whom are already working as barangay
healthworkers and daycare teachers.
Some of them are simple mothers that
were lucky enough to finish college,
having had a relatively modest life than
the families of child labourers; while
Selfless. Instructional Managers of Hinigaran
posed to show their profound fulfilment in
teaching ALS learners.

others are former child labourers themselves.
Their selfless participation in the community efforts to curb child labour
cannot be discounted. Having their own children to take care of, not to
mention their regular community and household work, they were not mindful
of the challenges of helping the victims of child labour. Having a big heart,
these friendly and humble neighbours find fulfilment in their personal quest
through this kind expression:
“As barangay health worker, I still volunteered as an IM and I don’t complain
that it’s difficult to teach ALS learners because I value more the personal
satisfaction of helping them realize their dreams and have a normal life like
what I want my children to be.”
Participatory duty
Through all these efforts, barangay officials welcomed any and
every voluntary efforts from community members, schools and outside
organizations that they incorporated in the practice of participatory
governance. In this way, by giving equal priority to child labour reduction
as important as other traditional hard projects, the barangay authorities is
now beginning to promote the spirit of “participatory duty” to battle child
labour issue and champion the rights of child labourers to education,
social development and protection against all forms of exploitation and
abuse. This means that the barangay is continuously looking for more
kindred hearts to add to the pouring voluntary spirits so that the essence
of “participatory duty” of the whole community to eradicate child labour will
come into fruition.
Compassionate Community. Barangay San Jose Council, headed by Hon. Ricardo De Gracia, Punong Barangay
(seated, center), and the rest of Barangay Kagawads, Secretary, Treasurer and Desk Officer, instructional
manager, parent-volunteer and Quidan staff posed after the interview. Their unity is a stupendous example of a
community working together for the rights and welfare of child labourers in the community.

"Pagbag-o Sang Baryo" (Transformation of a Community) (inside book pages)

"Pagbag-o Sang Baryo" (Transformation of a Community) (inside book pages)

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