Damayan holds graduation rites

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine STAR’s ABKDamayan recently held graduation rites for its students who passed the Non-formal Education Accreditation and Equivalency (A&E) test of the Department of Education-Bureau of Alternative Learning System administered last Oct. 25, 2009.

Twenty-nine students received their high school certificates, making them eligible to enter college.

The graduates also received cash and other gifts from STAR Group of Publications president and CEO Miguel G. Belmonte during the ceremony held at the Betty Go Belmonte hall last April 30.

This year’s first honor is Josh Christian McCarver, who got a score of 119.3 in the A&E test.

McCarver thanked Belmonte in his valedictory address.

“Many broken dreams were once again renewed because of your kind heart. After everything that I went through, I realized that I should never throw my dreams away,” said McCarver, who earlier won first place in the ALS District 1 Battle of the Brains held last August 2009.

“So long as you are hardworking, determined and you seek the help of God, nothing is impossible,” McCarver added.

He added that “education is something that they can’t take away from us,” and that lucky are those who have the means to study because there are others like him who want to finish school but are not given the opportunity.

Also present during the graduation ceremony were Remedios David, ALS lead monitor for District 1 of Manila; Violeta Calixtro, ALS supervisor and Dr. Narcisa Sta. Ana, assistant schools division superintendent.

ABKDamayan, an accredited ALS service provider, is one the projects of The STAR’s socio-humanitarian arm, Operation Damayan.

The program helps out-of-school individuals aged 17 to 80 by providing them with free review classes until they pass the DepEd’s A&E test.

It is supervised by STAR employees Emie Cruz, Alpha Tolentino and Pedring Pascua and implemented by Rainmiel Robles and Diosalinda Pagtananan.

Tolentino said the newest batch of graduates brings the number of ABKDamayan graduates to 173 since 2003 when the endeavor started.