Graduate also went to School of Hard Knocks in Lucena City

Scholarship

It was just as well because the Esep schedule would have eaten into his trolley time and there was no way he could have worked after dark. He has a condition called night blindness. He has had to wear eyeglasses since first year high school to correct his nearsightedness.

Two years ago, a group of mass communication students from Manuel S. Enverga University Foundation made Frias the star of a 15-minute documentary titled “Batang Padyak (Trolley Kid).” The film, which showed how a boy from a poor family strove hard to support his education by transporting passengers on an improvised trolley, won the gold in a nationwide competition.

As an offshoot of the film, the university has awarded Frias a scholarship for a course in civil engineering.

Featured in ‘Mukha’

“I’ve lived in a shanty all my life,” he said. He became curious about how sturdy houses were made, he said, after a draft-your-dream-house project in his TLE (technology and livelihood education) class. “That’s one reason I want to be a civil engineer.”

Just as Frias was starting his last year in high school, ABS-CBN came around to film him for an episode of its docu-series “Mukha” (Face). The response from viewers after the program aired locally and on The Filipino Channel was tremendous.

Frias said he received gifts in cash and kind. Someone gave him a digital notebook and pocket Wi-Fi that helped him immensely with school work. Other people sent him food. Two viewers gave cash with specific instructions that the money be used to buy a trolley. As a result, he now has two trolleys, which works out fine because a younger brother has joined him in plying the railway tracks.

An anonymous donor started sending him P1,400 every two weeks, he said, for which he was thankful even though he had been warned that the money would stop coming upon his high school graduation. The allowance had enabled him to buy food in school.

“I think that’s the reason I’ve grown taller and less frail,” Frias said. If you watched the two documentaries, you’d know what he meant.

Frias is the third of nine children of Rizalito and Marissa Frias. His mother studied to be a teacher but never got the break to work as one because the kids kept coming. In such a large family that had to depend on a jeepney driver’s meager income, there was never enough food to eat.