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Tuesday, April 19, 2005
No jobs waiting for us: 2005 grads
"WE ARE 18 million Mindanaoans, with highest fertility rates in the country, but there are no jobs waiting for us."
Thus said Samira Gutco-Tomawis during the 8th Graduation Ceremonies of the University of the Philippines in Mindanao on April 16.
Gutoc-Tomawis took up BA Journalism in UP Diliman, has acquired a Masters in International Studies and became an Oxford Fellow. However, she has remained first and foremost, a Mindanaoan.
"We will continue to grow but resources won't grow as much, thereby driving us poor," she said.
Quoting the 1996 Anti-Poverty Summit report, Gutoc-Tomawis said the poverty incidence in Mindanao is caused by economic marginalization due the lack of participation of majority of Mindanaoans in the development process.
Mindanaoans, she added, also have limited access to assets and productivity, infrastructure and overexploitation of the few elite of the natural resources.
She said that while poverty incidence in the Philippines especially in Mindanao remains high at 34 percent Thailand's poverty incidence has fallen to 9.8 percent and Indonesia to 18.2 percent from the early 1970s to the 90s.
"Mindanao education is in crisis," she said. Out of a total of 100 school children eligible for grade one in a school year, she said, only 34 students will complete their high school studies on time and the rest will not enroll as they have dropped out.
In the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (Armm), she said, only 10 out of 100 will complete their high school studies on time.
At the same, she added, functional literacy that includes reading, writing and mathematical skills is only 75 percent while that of the other island-regions were 86 percent and 81 percent, respectively.
"In the Armm, while there is much to celebrate in clan support systems, foreign investment, successful professionals, there is much cause for alarm," she said.
Amidst the quietude and beauty, she added, you see a sinister and almost cruel poverty enveloping the Moros and the Lumads.
Gutoc-Tomawis said "rido" (clan feud) and the lack of private sector support in the Armm aggravates its poorest human development indicia. "I am most convinced that education is our way out of this ghetto dividing the haves and the have-nots.
"Some who feel deprived of space or Malacañang's attention use the only language they know--terrorism," she said. The voice of reason drowned, she added, "we versus they" resurrected and dialogues closed.
To counter this, Gutoc Tomawis invited the graduates to "the world of community and citizen's work through non-government organizations, foundations or policy institutes. Our mindsets here are "Power With (the people) not Power Over."
"This is where you can bring your idealism, conscience, time and talent altogether to work every day to improve your society; it's surprising but citizen work makes possible traditional employment and much economic activity," she said.
She also invited the University of the Philippines-Mindanao graduates to "come to Armm and help us--train us, work with us, exchange with us."
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (April 19, 2005 issue)
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