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TACLOBAN CITY, Leyte—Eight-year-old Marven Zamora of the New Guinsaugon village in St. Bernard, Southern Leyte went back to school on June 1 proudly wearing a new pair of shiny leather shoes.
Now a Grade III pupil at the New Guinsaugon Elementary School, Zamora said he was very thankful that he received a gift of shoes because his old rubber shoes were already worn out.
The boy lost his father during the big landslide that hit the village of Guinsaugon on February 18, 2006; his mother later left him and his two siblings. He has been living with their older cousins who were also orphaned by the landslide.
Despite his young age and their living condition, Zamora told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that he dreams of becoming an engineer.
Unlike Zamora, Lorgelie Gata still has both her parents and all her three siblings. They live in New Guinsaugon, at the outskirts of the town proper of St. Bernard, 160 km from the regional center Tacloban City.
Gata, now 10, said she and her family were then visiting another village when the landslide hit their village in 2006 and this saved them from the disaster.
Her farmer-parents’ livelihood, however, was badly affected because the mud and boulders damaged their rice farm.
With her parents’ livelihood gone, they could not afford to buy her new shoes.
Gata said she had been wearing her old, worn-out shoes that were bought while she was in Grade III and these were no longer usable.
Now in Grade V, Gata was also among the 100 pupils from Grade I to first year high school who happily received on May 28 a new pair of Marikina-made shoes from the Blas F. Ople Policy Center and Training Institute (BOPC).
The recipients were sons or daughters of those who perished or were displaced by the big landslide of 2006 that killed more than 1,000 people, including about 200 children who were then attending classes in Guinsaugon.
The survivors now live in relocation sites, residing in newly built houses while their children go to new schools in New Guinsaugon built with funds from foreign and local donors.
Ironically, these displaced former residents of Guinsaugon have remained poor since after the big landslide.
St. Bernard Mayor Rico Rentuza said the landslide survivors were still in need of help because many of them have remained jobless as their farms were damaged by mud.
Most of surviving parents have decided not to re-enroll their children because they could not provide for their other school needs.
“So, we were very happy when the foundation (BOPC) called and offered to give shoes to the children, and the children were also excited when we told them the news. They would have new shoes to wear,” the mayor said.
Rentuza said the new leather shoes would encourage the pupils to attend their classes regularly.
Susan Ople, daughter of the late Senator Blas Ople and who is now president of the BOPC, said the “Ople Shoes” project was launched in 2006 in memory of Ka Blas who never wore shoes going to school until his graduation from high school.
She said her father, while studying in a public school in Hagonoy, Bulacan, would go to school either barefoot or wearing slippers because his poor parents could not afford to buy him leather shoes.
Ka Blas, she added, had to borrow a pair of shoes to be able to march during his graduation and speak before his batch as school valedictorian. The shoes he borrowed from a rich uncle, however, were smaller so he winced every time he took a step, she said.
