TAGAYTAY CITY?Peering through her glasses, Nanay Remy aims her pencil at a lined pad paper and carefully writes what she remembers of the alphabet: A, C, B, I ...

Despite her failing memory, bad eyesight, arthritis and barely enough money for transportation, 80-year-old Remedios Pascua goes to school every day.

Pascua cannot read. Not street signs nor jeepney signboards. She cannot even play bingo with her senior friends because she cannot distinguish letters from numbers.

?I dream of being able to read. It?s hard to be illiterate,? she says in a mixture of English and Filipino. She smiles and her face creases. ?I know I?m old but I want to learn. I study hard and I?m happy.?

Pascua, a widow for more than 10 years now, has survived with just her ?smarts.?

She claims she can only count up to 10 yet she sold wares in the market and could give correct change. She owns a watch and can tell time.

She also voted in the last elections. One of her children accompanied her to the polling precinct and read to her the names of the candidates. But Nanay Remy herself shaded the oval on the ballot, indicating her preference for Noynoy Aquino.

Pascua says she has been voting since the time of Ferdinand Marcos, whom she remembers as ?Imelda?s husband who was removed.?

The determined grandmother has been given a chance to catch up on her lost education. Pascua is the oldest student at an Alternative Learning System (ALS) Center at the Divine Word Seminary run by the Arnold Janssen Catholic Mission Foundation in Tagaytay City.

The ALS, a program under the Department of Education, is a practical option to the existing formal instruction for out-of-school youths and adults aged 16 years and over.

Favorite pupil

Ritchelle Razon, Pascua?s teacher, talks about her favorite pupil: ?We had to start with the very basic?like teaching Nanay Remy which jeepney to take to go to school, followed by the a-ba-ka-da (ABCs) ? but sometimes she forgets what she has already learned.?

Pascua, a resident of Barangay Mendez, Tagaytay, signed up for the ALS in February just before the program marked its first year and sent off its first batch of graduates, according to program head Olivia Tolentino.

Some 140 students aged 10 to 22 report to the seminary?s old dispensary. Some are taught basic education, others take elementary and high school classes. Many of them dropped out of school because of poverty or family problems.

Pascua shares a classroom with students the same age as her grandchildren. They attend the basic learning program, which is equivalent to the kindergarten level in formal school. They learn basic math, reading and writing.

?I am not ashamed. All of us have to learn how to read and write. You don?t go to school already knowing everything,? Pascua says during a break from class.

At first, she was a novelty among her younger classmates. Later, Pascua became an inspiration to the ALS teachers and fellow students.

?There are times when you don?t feel like going to school. Then you remember Nanay Remy, who goes to school every day. So you get up, take a bath and go to school because you know Nanay Remy is going to be there,? says Tolentino, who has made Pascua an example to her students.

?They?re younger and stronger, with better memories but they don?t try hard enough. So I tell my students: ?Look at Nanay Remy, she?s 80, but she?s enthusiastic about going to school,?? she adds.

Pascua grew up in Rizal province during World War II and stopped going to school because of her family?s circumstances.

Asked if she had any ambition while growing up, she gave no answer.

Perhaps being deprived of an education so early in life may have snatched her ability to dream at a young age, says Tolentino.

Pascua was in Grade 1 when she left school to help her mother take care of her siblings. She was third in a brood of 12 and the eldest daughter.

?I regret that I was unable to go to school. My mother had given birth. I was the eldest girl so I had to do housework or nobody would cook, clean or wash clothes,? she says.

Her father was also afraid that sending her to school would expose her to the possibility of his daughter being courted by her teachers.

All her brothers, however, were sent to school.

Some even found good jobs. As far as Pascua could remember, one worked in fisheries while another worked as a land surveyor.

She had the chance to go to school after the war, but she got sick with malaria.

A few years later, she met Ricarte, her future husband. They got married and started a family in Tagaytay City.

Their union was blessed with eight kids. He worked as a sorbetero (ice cream vendor) and she, a labandera (laundrywoman).

She says some of her kids were able to reach high school but some had dropped out because they lacked funds.

Writing her name

Proudly, she shows the Inquirer that she can already write her name, albeit slowly. She misses the ?u? in her surname. When she realizes her mistake, she erases it and tries again.

?Yesterday, I borrowed some money from a friend to buy these,? Nanay Remy says, pointing to her new glasses. ?Sometimes, when I?m writing, I find it hard to see the lines.?

For students, she advises ?Life is more difficult if you can?t read or write. Go to school. Finish school and it will be easy for you to find a job.?