MASANTOL, Pampanga—Worried that their children might lose 30 to 45 days of school days a year whenever the Pampanga River swells and riding a banca to get to the town proper posed risks, parents of six coastal villages here put up a public high school right where they live in 2002.

Seven years later, parents like Nicolas Viray did not only help make education accessible to their children in the villages of Alauli, Balibago, Bagang, Sagrada, Nigui, and Sapang Kawayan.

Together with the teachers, they had enjoined the 533 students of that school, now known as the Tarik Suliman High School (TSHS), to be become part of the community’s green army.

On Tuesday, 104 graduating students planted mangroves where the waters at the mouth of the Pampanga River and the Manila Bay merge here.

Anna Lee Balingit, 16, and her classmates gathered at the delta at 7 a.m., rushing before the high tide claimed the muddy tidal flats.

Using bare hands or shovels, they dug foot-deep holes, firmly planting “bakawan” (mangroves).

The seedlings were collected from the small patch of mangrove forests and nurtured in a 200-square meter nursery put up at the TSHS by the Center for Emergency Aid and Rehabilitation Inc. and Philippine Tropical Forest Conservation Foundation in December 2008.

Nursery

“We set up the nursery together in line with the order of the Department of Education [for schools to help] ease [the impact of] climate change and global warming,” said TSHS principal Rowena Quiambao.

The more than three hectares of mangroves are what have so far remained after the government widened and dredged the river downstream to hasten the flow of floodwaters draining from 30 rivers in Central Luzon to the bay.

“We were excited. We did something for Mother Nature. The [outing] and this picnic are a bonus,” Balingit said.

The 533 TSHS students and the first batch of 20 Grade 1 pupils of the Sagrada Familia Primary School—also started by the parents, this time with Quiambao—held two tree-planting activities at the dike last year.

The earth dike needed to be fortified because it runs in the middle of the channel and the resettlement where some 3,000 families live, Quiambao said.

The parents, teachers, and students did not only walk the talk. Environmental education is also integrated in the curriculum.

Because their physical environment had been altered by the river dredging and widening, the tree planting help create storm belts and a sort of ground stabilizer, said Vice Mayor Marcelo Lacap Jr., who was among those who established the TSHS and later, the environmental conservation program.

Viray said they did not have an easy start.

Beginnings

When the TSHS began as an annex of the Masantol High School, which is 30 minutes by boat in a river, the DepEd assigned four teachers there.

Eduardo Yabut, Merlita Aguinaldo, Jocelyn Catli, and Arnel Agustin—called around here as the “First 4”—held four classes simultaneously in the chapel. The 6 meters by 6 meters barangay (village) hall beside it packed 30 students on ordinary day.

They toiled as volunteers, getting less than P2,000 in monthly allowance. The DepEd rewarded their dedication by giving them permanent teaching items after two years and assigning 14 more teachers, Quiambao said.

Viray remembered months when the students held classes inside unfinished classrooms with coconut fronds as roof.

But the efforts are paying off.

The DepEd recognized TSHS as the third best performing school in Pampanga in January after judges gave it high scores in student and staff development, curriculum, physical infrastructure, school and community linkages, resource generation, and awards.

The 17 classrooms that the parents and teachers built came from donations by Masantol natives now based abroad, non-government organizations, DepEd, former Pampanga Rep. Juan Pablo Bondoc and his sister, Rep. Anna York Bondoc.

Those who want to work with TSHS may contact Lacap at 0918-964-0913.