Education completes handicapped lady in red

MANILA, Philippines—When the lady in red sauntered to the front of the hall, the audience only saw the swagger, not the imperfection.

And for a few minutes, 43-year-old Fe Corpuz—who was born with one leg shorter than the other making it difficult for her to walk—held her listeners in a spell.

She had wit to compliment her winsome smile, commanding the audience of more than 200 education professionals.

Her message was spectacular in its simplicity: Education completes a person.

“Now I know that I am already perfect,” Corpuz said in an interview.

In a speech at a recent forum on the Department of Education’s (DepEd) Alternative Learning System (ALS), Corpuz said that for youths and adults who have disabilities like herself, “this is the time for change.”

“Any disability or stature in life should not be considered a hindrance,” she said.

<strong>Relentless training</strong>

Almost 30 years after she quit formal schooling, Corpuz obtained her high-school diploma through computer-aided equivalency classes under ALS, a DepEd program that provides an alternative mode of basic education for out-of-school youths and adults.

An average 150,000 learners take equivalency tests under ALS every year, said Carolina Guerrero, the director of DepEd’s ALS bureau.

Corpuz was forced to drop out of first-year high school at age 13 because of the relentless teasing over her uneven legs from her classmates.

As it was, the congenital condition was already making it difficult for her to cope with regular school activities as she walked with difficulty and was easily tired.

“They laughed at me, they looked at me differently. I was really affected. I felt like I had no right to also study there. I allowed myself to be affected by the negative comments, which shouldn’t have been the case,” she said.

<strong>Importance of education</strong>

The sixth of nine siblings in a squatter family in Quezon City, Corpuz dropped out of school and worked as a bakery helper. (Sometime in the 1980s, the family moved to Bulacan as the squatter community was demolished.)

At age 18, Corpuz applied for work at a handicraft factory—her first attempt at trying to obtain formal employment—but was harshly rejected.

“They looked at me from head to toe and told me, ‘We don’t need someone like you.’ That was painful. I cried and asked myself why they looked at my disability instead of looking at what I can do,” she said.

After several more attempts, she was able to land a job as a cutter at a garments factory.

Something seemed amiss, however, and it would take the urging of friends before Corpuz was able to figure out what it was.

“That’s when I saw the importance of education. My friends encouraged me to enroll with ALS. At age 40, I studied high school. I had really patient teachers who taught me even if I was afraid that I might already be a slow learner at my age,” she said.

<strong>A techie to boot</strong>

Corpuz enrolled in 2008 and passed the high school equivalency test in February of 2009.  The computer-aided ALS classes also turned her into a techie—she is now an avid user of the Facebook social networking site.

The still single Corpuz, who now runs a cellular phone pre-paid load business, continues to aspire for something better. She hopes to enroll in a business course and is looking for a school with special education programs in her area.

“Because of ALS, I learned how to relate to people. If people like you who are without disabilities have feelings of inferiority, what more for people like me? But I overcame it with the help of people around me and the Lord. I couldn’t have done it on my own,” she said.

“I regret that I ever quit school. What a pleasure it is to study,” Corpuz said.