CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, March 17 (PNA) — A government scholar of the tribal community in Bukidnon on Tuesday urged children of the indigenous people (IP) to pursue college education.
Marlon Mandago, 24, a scholar of the government’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), believes that education could emancipate the tribal communities from poverty.
Mandago, a member of the Higa-onon tribe lives in San Luis, a farming village in Malitbog, a town in Bukidnon that borders with Misamis Oriental, 42 kilometers southeast of here.
He said that he does not want to go through “what my parents have gone through” as low-income farmers of a vegetable farm in Malitbog.
Mandago also called on women in the IP community to assert their rights as the country observes Women’s Month this year.
“Although violence against children and women seldom occurs in IP communities, the tribal community is basically patriarchal, where men dominate against women,” Mandago said.
Now a third year college student of the state-run Mindanao University of Science and Technology (MUST) in Cagayan De Oro City, Mandago is taking up Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education, major in Physical Sciences.
Mandago thanked the Department of Social welfare and Development (DSWD) of Northern Mindanao through the department’s 4Ps Expanded Student Grants-In-Aid Program.
In 2012, the Pantawid Pamilya in partnership with the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) launched and eventually rolled-out the ESGPPA for Pantawid Pamilya households, whose members are about to enroll or are currently enrolled in college. (PNA)