More than free notebooks to schoolchildren in CamSur

PUPILS of Monte Calvario Elementary School in Buhi, Camarines Sur, receive backpacks with notebooks and pencils from the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines, whose high-voltage power transmission towers pass through the village. JUAN ESCANDOR JR.

Ana Maria Miranda held back tears while narrating how her children at Monte Calvario Elementary School received their gifts from a power firm—backpacks with five notebooks and pencils.

National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) distributed the school supplies to pupils in Barangay (village)  Monte Calvario in Buhi, Camarines Sur, and in other areas where its transmission towers are found, in line with its corporate social responsibility program.

Miranda, who looks older than her actual age at 45, considered the small items a big help to her children who are in Grades 3, 4 and 5. She said she could afford to buy only three of the required 10 notebooks for each of them.

“We are subsisting from farming. I told my children to divide the three notebooks they have into different subjects for the meantime as I still have to find ways to earn money to buy the remaining notebooks,” she said.

Miranda has nine children and is married to a poor man. Their family lives in a village that is an hour-and-a-half’s walk to school.

Another mother, Alma Competente, was just as grateful for the school supplies from NGCP. Now, she just needed to buy only half of the 10 notebooks for her child in Grade 4.

Miranda and Competente were among the parents of some 500 pupils who attended the Balik Eskwela Program in Monte Calvario.

Nelson Bautista, spokesperson of NGCP, said the Balik Eskwela was a nationwide company program, which provides notebooks, pencils and bags for schoolchildren based on a “needs” survey it conducted.

The notebooks are customized to provide information regarding safety tips for people living within the vicinity of high-voltage transmission towers. Bautista said the safety tips were included following cases of electrocution in areas where the towers are found.

“We want to make the residents feel that we are not only committed to improve the reliability of our transmission service but also to let them know that we value them in all aspects,” he said.

Bautista said the distribution of school supplies in Monte Calvario was the last leg of their program in Camarines Sur. A similar activity took place at Del Rosario Elementary School in Naga City, also in the province.