The Japanese government has provided P107.6 million to a scholarship program that seeks to develop young Filipino government officials.
Japan also gave P4.8 million to Gambar Elementary School (GES) in Kabuntalan, Maguindanao, that had been affected by armed conflict for about 40 years now.
The Japanese grant for the Human Resource Development Scholarship (JDS) Project, signed by Ambassador Toshinao Urabe and Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario, would bring 20 Filipino fellows to Japan next school year to pursue studies in critical development fields.
“The project aims to enhance the JDS fellows’ expertise in fields such as good governance, agriculture and rural development, financial reform and investment promotion policy and peace and stability in Mindanao to help build a pool of future Filipino leaders who will greatly contribute to the country’s overall economic development,” the Japanese embassy said.
Some 219 Filipinos have received the grant since 2002.
The Japanese assistance to the Kabuntalan school, on the other hand, was meant to support the Mindanao peace process through greater education access.
Urabe and Mayor Datu Salaban Diocolano signed the contract for the construction of six new classrooms for GES.
The project is part of the Japan-Bangsamoro Initiatives for Reconstruction and Development (J-Bird), a comprehensive grassroots development program in support of the peace process.
The new classrooms will replace the school’s dilapidated facilities.
First built in 1972, the school was burned down soon after it started operations because of the conflict between the government military forces and rebel groups. The school reopened two years later, only to be closed again by another outbreak of violence.
The school reopened in 2005 but classes were again disrupted in 2009 due to clan wars. School operations only normalized in 2011 amid improving security conditions, the Japanese embassy said.
“The new classrooms are expected to provide a more conducive learning environment and enable each grade to have an individual classroom instead of [different grades sharing a room]. It is also expected that the project [will] contribute to uplifting the livelihood of conflict-ridden families by providing educational opportunities to their children,” the Japanese embassy said.
Support for Mindanao education is at the core of J-Bird, which has supported a total of 67 community projects in the amount of P290 million in the last seven years.