HAPPY TRIP 14: Malalaking Munting Tinig

The Grade II class was in full swing; the pupils sang “Bahay Kubo” with all their might, their little voices shrill in the distance. Then I caught a deep baritone, his “sitaw, bataw, pataniiiiiiii” soaring well above all the other voices. Intrigued, I took a peek inside the classroom. And found three young Mangyan men in their 20s singing merrily along with their tiny classmates.

Education is slowly creeping into Mangyan land and it is normal to find 17 or 23-year-olds attending primary school. Never too late to get an education. In this same Grade II class, a mother is also enrolled, while her daughter is in the next room. In Grade III.

BAD TRIP 19: Bata bata...sana di ka na ginawa

The girl must be no more than 13. And yet a baby already clung to her, sucking on a breast hungrily. And she’s not the only one. Lots of other children her age in almost all the Mangyan villages I visited already have children, married just as soon as they start menstruating. Breeding the next generation of Mangyans, who will be as marginalized as the generations before them.