'Tondo To Tribo' on I-Witness tonight

HE GREW up in Tondo but now travels Mindanao's tribal lands on horseback, bringing literacy to Bla-an kids.

Lito Delizo never graduated from college, but a unique government program enables him to teach. He is also opening up isolated communities to the modern world.

Howie Severino and his team accompany Lito as he rides his horse across rivers and over hills to reach these kids. They also meet an unusual character in the Bla-an village, a one-legged woman named Placida.

Riding a white carabao, Placida is the only woman in the village who consciously keeps the Bla-an culture alive by continuing to make the Bla-an's traditional clothing and tribal gear for her grandchildren.

The team discovered that in the wake of education and literacy, the diversity and uniqueness of the Bla-an tribe is slowly being erased.

Even some of the tribal children are ashamed to admit their tribal roots, afraid of the discrimination they receive when for a long time, they grew up with the notion that being ‘lumad’ meant being ‘mangmang’ or uneducated.

Placida fears what may be lost from her culture with the influence of even well meaning outsiders. So she takes action.

Does the onset of ‘modernity’ through education have to compromise cultural identity? Join Howie Severino as he finds out on Monday, February 25, in I-Witness after Saksi on GMA-7.