1966-2011: A nation in search of the new children, parents and teachers

In the ancient days in Rome, young virgins were carefully selected to guard the nation’s shrine, which housed the eternal flame. These vestal virgins went on shifts for 24 hours, for this flame was believed to light the destiny of the nation.

We are the keepers of the flame

As we enter school year 2011-2012, Our Operation Brotherhood Montessori schools, a non-profit and non-stock educational institution looks back to 45 years of commitment to the nation. Using the Montessori system, the legacy of a great educator and social reformer Dottoressa Maria Montessori, The O.B. Montessori Center has been continuing the search for the “new children” discovered in 1908 in the slum quarters of San Lorenzo in Rome. Her faithful follower of 30 years, E. Mortimer Standing, a British writer and biographer referred to her that “like Columbus, she had discovered a new world ... not a world without; Montessori discovered a world within – within the soul of the child.” We, O.B. Montessori teachers have been privileged to share in that voyage of discovery.

Thus this pledge to the cause of the children of our nation is carved in marble on the façade of our building in Greenhills, San Juan together with an eight-meter high statue of a vestal virgin watching the precious flame of each child stating an invitation to all Filipinos: “We are the keepers of the flame, the child is the vessel and bearer of the light of Christ... from him will shine forth a golden ray of light to guide the destiny of the nation.”

1966-1986 Operation Brotherhood Montessori’s growth from preschool to professional high school

As I look back to the two decades of OBMC’s completion of its Basic Education programs, I realize that the span of time from 1966 to 1986 was the so called Bagong Lipunan of the whole Marcos regime. It included the 1972 declaration of Martial Law period. My husband Max was the number one censor and critic of President Ferdinand Marcos. Foreseeing earlier he would govern eventually like Indonesia’s dictator, Bung Soekarno, he referred to him as Bung Marcos. Somehow, It was Max’s TV show “IMPACT” that made the former president declare Martial Law a month earlier. As a surprise guest, Sen. Ninoy Aquino revealed Operation Sagittarius – the detailed plan of Martial Law. Although Max was arrested with Ninoy, our school activities went undisturbed.

In 1966, right after my Montessori training in Europe, Operation Brotherhood Montessori International president, Oscar Arellano made me manage their children’s projects: the O.B. Montessori preschool in their office premises at Syquia Apartment, along M.H. del Pilar in Malate, and the Taal Volcano refugees’ preschool in Taal and Lemery in Batangas. When the lady columnists of Manila Times, Chronicle, Bulletin and Fokien Times discovered the “new children”, all chorused praises in their columns.

The enrollment increased suddenly that I asked Mr. Arellano to rent the Cu Unjieng mansion at Escoda, Paco, one of the big residences the rich families left in Manila to relocate to Makati.

Three years before I set up a preschool for the slum dwellers of Intramuros, who were relocated to Sapang Palay, under the aegis of Operation Brotherhood International. Because of this I received grants to train at the AMI Center in Italy and England.

Another grant was added to take the advanced teacher training at the Centro Montessori per La Scuola Elementare near Milan at Bergamo, Italy. Before continuing to highschool, Ambassador Solera provided a travel grant to visit the scuola professionale of Florence and Venice.

Montessori for everyone - on television

To introduce the system properly to the public, ABS-CBN president Geny Lopez allowed me a weekly TV slot, repeated Tuesdays and Thursdays, fully sponsored by five commercials. A fully equipped Montessori classroom was set up in the largest studio where I presented three- to six-year-old children at work, live every Saturday after Ariel Ureta’s noontime show. It was one of ABS-CBN’s major shows, for I spoke in Tagalog, simultaneously with English and thus captured the A, B and C class of viewers.

From 1970 to 1972, the show rated 17th among 400 weekly shows. Hundreds of false Montessori preschools mushroomed all over the country.

I experimented with an affordable version of the Montessori preschool and labeled it Pagsasarili. Partnering with the National Housing Authority (NHA), its community relation section (CRIO), helped us set-up eight of them in improved slum areas of Metro Manila. DECS Secretary Gloria, together with SEC Chairman Yasay helped us set up the Federation of Philippine Montessori schools to help accredit authentic Montessori preschools.

Working with UNESCO Paris and DECS Secretary Quisumbing - 1986-1992, President Corazon Aquino’s governance

The last years of Marcos showed the worst of Martial Law. The NPAs were burning the haciendas since the planters could not pay tax. The Escalante Massacre occurred abetted by politicians. Young priests were joining the leftist wing. Teachers often went on strike.

With sugar dropping so low in the world market, the hacienderos of Negros Occidental were impoverished. An average of 140 farmers’ families dependent on them went hungry. One of them asked my help to provide a functional literacy course for these families.

The Pagsasarili literacy twin project for village mothers and their children continued to spread in Cadiz and Sagay during the new governance of President Corazon. Punay Kabayao Fernandez inspired her sugar planter friends to sponsor their own literacy centers in their haciendas. Partnering with Mayors Guanzon and Mayor Joseph Maranon a total of 17 centers were established. The Australian and Canadian governments pitched in and funded their backyard business of piggeries and karinderias. The families’ day to day lifestyle improved with more systematic Personal Grooming and Hygiene, Good Housekeeping, Child Care, Cooking and Nutrition. Eventually Punay’s daughter Tamsi helped me put together an illustrated literacy manual written in English and Tagalog, “The Pagsasarili Mothercraft Course for Local and Overseas Filipino Working Women.” The program won one of the UNESCO International Literacy Awards in 1993 at New Delhi.

The true EDSA revolution

Education Secretary Lourdes Quisumbing who launched the program during the first graduation of the Pagsasarili village mothers in Cadiz across the Cadiz Normal College was so pleased that she remarked, “This truly is a creative effort to lift the lives in the barrios. The true EDSA Revolution should be a daily exercise of the Pagsasarili mother and child activities.”