Philippines: Meet the woman who scavenged through trash to become a licensed teacher
April Joy Gemino Ceballos graduated with a degree in Secondary Education, majoring in Filipino language at the University of Southern Mindanao in Kabacan, North Cotabato, Philippines nearly six years ago.
In March, she took the licensure exams for public high school teachers and was among the 81 test-takers to pass.
Her achievement made the news because, despite the difficulties she endured in life, she triumphed over the odds and fulfilled her dream of becoming a public school teacher. “Maestra,” a title venerated everywhere you go in the Philippines.
Before she was able to secure her public high school teaching license, April Joy had to tread through a more difficult terrain than most. To have money to fund her college education, April Joy had to sift through refuse for recyclables. A picture someone took of her scrounging through the trash heap made rounds on the internet.
“Why don’t I have my picture taken while picking for recyclables so that one day when I pass the teachers’s exams, I can proudly say that I pursued my goal of becoming an educator through hard work," she said.
A college schooling that normally takes four years, took her five to finish as she had to earn money to pay for her tuition.
During her six-month review studies to become a licensed teacher in high school, April Joy had to be away from her family back in Carmen, a municipality in the Southern Philippine province of North Cotabato.
She was without her emotional support system, her family. She gave a glimpse of the hardships she endured in a Facebook post. She recalls surviving on fermented rice shrimp paste and boiled eggs for three months to save money to pay for her boarding at a pension house in Kidapawan City, the capital of the Cotabato province while she was taking review classes for her teacher’s licensure exam.
“Forlorn and mentally exhausted from reviewing, I survived on the good graces of Maam Mercy Verdadero and Maam Nai Mac who gave me rice to cook, eggs, and a jar of fermented shrimp paste which I judiciously consumed so that it would last for three months," April Joy recalled in a Facebook post dated November 18, 2023.
Verdadero, who had been friends with April Joy for five years knew of the struggles April Joy had to go through to stay on course to pursue her goal of being a public high school teacher.
“I had known teacher April Joy since the first year of college, at times she wouldn’t even have money for transport fare to go to school,” Verdadero told Global South World.
April Joy, Nai Mac, and Verdadero took the licensing exams together.
“It was really a difficult period for her (April Joy)… for all of us taking the licensure test," Verdadero narrated to Global South World, affirming April Joy’s difficult journey to get a license as a professional public school teacher.
In her social media post, April Joy said she would scavenge for recyclables that she would sell to junk dealers for cash. While getting a teaching position in a public school is not easy, living in a restive region like North Cotabato adds to the challenges.
North Cotabato was once a hotbed of the Muslim separatist struggle as well as the communist insurgency. Firearms kept by former rebels remain unaccounted for and are in the weapons black market.
Earlier this year, a student was killed and two others were injured in a shooting incident near the campus of the Pikit National High School (PNHS) in the same province.
Verdadero said she leaves it to fate if anything happens to her or her colleagues. “We are here to educate, the positive effect of what we are doing may not have an immediate effect, but we are getting there," she said.
