06/02/2026
FEATUREโก๏ธ ๐๐๐ฌ๐ข๐ก๐ ๐ง๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ฃ๐ง๐ฌ ๐ฃ๐๐๐ง๐
โ๏ธ Eljey Lorraine Corpuz/TG
๐ท Rhian Narag/TG; contributed photos from different Grade 11 classes
๐จTonymar Oblianda / TG
THE morning of February 4 opened with the ringing of church bells in Malolos, Bulacan.
The Divine Grace School Senior High School Grade 11 students stepped into the wide doors of the Malolos Cathedral carrying the familiar excitement of an outbound trip.
Inside the cool, echoing hall, candles flickered like small witnesses to whispered prayers.
For a brief moment, they were not learners chasing requirements, but young people pausing for guidance before a day of lessons beyond classroom walls.
A short walk brought the group to Casa Real, the old museum that guards the memory of Bulacanโs past.
Glass cases held faded photographs and letters written by hands long gone.
The scent of antique wood mixed with the voice of the guide as stories of heroes and ordinary citizens filled the rooms.
History felt less like printed text and more like a living neighbor reminding the students where their present had grown from.
By noon the bus rolled toward Pampanga, and the scenery slowly changed. Concrete buildings gave way to open fields, then to narrow paths leading to Sitio Monicayo, home of the Aeta community. The road was quiet, but the hunger there was loud.
Homes stood like tired shoulders under the sun.
Children greeted the visitors barefoot, their laughter bright yet fragile.
The students learned that for many families, meals do not arrive three times a day; food is a question repeated morning and night.
What others call ordinaryโa full plate, clean water, steady workโis, to the community, already grace.
Assistance reaches the sitio only in brief seasons, and when it leaves, poverty settles again like dust after a storm.
Yet the Aeta spirit refuses to bow. Parents rise before dawn to look for any laborโhauling wood, tending distant fields, accepting whatever job can trade sweat for a few coins.
Their hands are scarred, their backs curved, but their love for their children stands straight. The encounter reminded the students that these children deserve notebooks instead of calloused palms, classrooms instead of mountains of labor, medicine instead of silent endurance.
They deserve a future wider than survival.
As the afternoon faded, the trip moved to its final stop, Air Force City Park.
Towering aircraft rested on wide green grounds, symbols of strength and progress. Families strolled, vendors called out snacks, and the mood was lightโso different from the quiet struggles of Sitio Monicayo.
The contrast followed the students like an unspoken question: How can two worlds exist only hours apart?
The outbound trip was more than a requirement checked on a syllabus. It became a mirror showing the distance between comfort and need, history and present, privilege and perseverance.
The Aetas of Sitio Monicayo continue to live with a courage the world rarely notices.
May the stories carried by the Grade 11 students travel farther than their bus ride.
May the light that touched the roofs of the sitio for a moment remain and may the children there one day eat without fear, dream without limits, and live without the weight their parents were forced to carry.
