Pundasyon Hanunuo Mangyan School Turned Over to De La Salle Brothers, Inc.
The Pundasyon Hanunuo Mangyan School, the longest-running research project of the Social Development Research Center, was formally turned over to the De La Salle Brothers, Inc. on January 8, 2015 at the DepED Central Office in Pasig City.
Signatories for the Memorandun of Agreement to jointly carry out the cultural education program were Br. Jose Mari L. Jimenez, FSC, Sector Leader for the De La Salle Brothers, Inc.; Dr. Carmelita I. Quebengco, AFSC, DLSU Chancellor Emeritus; Dr. Ma. Luisa D. Servando, OIC-Schools Division Superintendent of the DepEd-Division of Oriental Mindoro; and Bapa Anhing Maligday and Bapa Lope Santiago, Chairman and Vice-Chairman, respectively, of the Pundasyon Hanunuo Mangyan Association.
DepED Undersecretary Alberto T. Muyot for Legal and Legislative Affairs opened the program with remarks of circumstance on the turnover, and the signatories delivered brief messages for the occasion. Dr. Quebengco delivered the closing remarks on behalf of the De La Salle Brothers, Inc.
It was in mid-1983 that a project proposal was developed by the Integrated Research Center (IRC)—now SDRC—and the Graduate School of Arts, Education and Science (GSAES), in coordination with the Center’s Participatory Uplands Management Program (PUMP). The Pundasyon Hanunuo Mangyan School study aimed in the long run to be a self-sustaining one, through the resolve and efforts of the community. The basic goal was to provide the target population with a culturally appropriate functional non-formal and formal education program, in order for the unified communities to achieve self-reliance in on-going upland development.
The PHMS formally opened on October 22, 1987 with a total of 106 pupils divided into three sections of Grade I housed in two (2) makeshift huts. Thirty years after its establishment, the PHMS maintained its uniqueness in a curriculum content focusing not only on Philippine culture in general but on that of the Mangyan and of other ethnic minorities; in having approximately 15 percent of the instructional materials and teaching methods based on Hanunuo culture; in having Agriculture offered as a regular school subject; in having a school calendar that conforms to the local agricultural cycle.
