‘Sabungan’ turned into school for Quezon kids

GOOD MORNING, CLASS | Grade school students at Barangay San Isidro in Mulanay, Quezon, find themselves in an unusual learning space as local and education officials allow the use of an idle cockpit arena as a classroom. (Photo from the Facebook account of Mulanay Mayor Aristotle Aguirre)

LUCENA CITY, Quezon, Philippines — Students in Mulanay town in Quezon province found a new learning space in a cockpit arena, or a sabungan, that has long been idle.

The now temporary public school is serving 232 students in the town at the province’s Bondoc Peninsula district.

Agnes Par, one of 10 teachers at the elementary school in Barangay San Isidro, said holding classes inside a cockpit arena has its own inherent disadvantages.

“But learning can still be achieved even under a papaya tree,” Par said in a video documentary on the Facebook page of Mulanay Mayor Aristotle Aguirre, which has garnered over 500 positive comments since it was posted on Sept. 2.

The old school building in the village, located some six kilometers from the town center, was built in 1978. But the facility was ordered closed by authorities in November 2020 due to safety concerns after it was heavily damaged by successive typhoons, earthquakes and landslides.

However, the closure did not immediately affect the schoolchildren who were then attending classes online in a virtual learning mode due to the raging COVID-19 pandemic.

Temporary place

When the Department of Education (DepEd) declared that the current school year will be conducted in person, Par said they sought the help of village officials to find solutions to their school problem.

“Our original intention is to hold classes at the barangay hall. But our barangay captain offered the [empty] Decena Sports Arena,” Par said.

“I pity the children. I did not hesitate and allow the DepEd to use the arena as a temporary place for students when they return in face-to-face schooling,” San Isidro village chief Arnulfo Decena, whose family owned the facility, said by phone on Friday.

Par said they moved into the arena last March.

With the in-person classes already in place this school year, the arena now serves students in Grades 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6. Two classes are being held at the two offices inside the arena while the rest of the students have their assigned areas around the main cockpit. Classes for those in Kindergarten and Grade 3 are being held at the nearby barangay hall.

The circular cockfighting area in the middle of the arena serves as the common office for all teachers.

The main entrance serves as a triage area, where teachers and students submit themselves to thermal scanners before entering the facility.

“We also have an isolation room for those who will show [COVID-19] symptoms,” Par said.

Closed for 6 years

Decena disclosed the facility has been closed for the past six years due to a case in court filed by another cockpit operator in the locality.

“We only operated for four days after the opening. Then the court ordered us to stop,” he recalled.

He said the other cockpit arena also stopped its operation in 2013. The town had no operational cockpit arena since then.

Decena said the arena, which sits on a 1.3-hectare property and costs around P19 million to build, is not only a cockfighting place but also a multipurpose function center.

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