Koronadal City—Members of the Partido Federal ng Pilipinas are pooling resources to maximize benefit of the government’s free education program for deserving members of poor families.
South Cotabato Governor Reynaldo Tamayo Jr., PFP national president, said one of the popular, apolitical programs of the party is to help provide the poor with local access to free quality education.
For one, PFP president for South-Central Mindanao Assam Ulangkaya has donated a one-hectare lot in Baragay Paraiso here for a proposed establishing of extension colleges of the Mindanao State University General Santos City Campus.
Tamayo said taking this plan up for a main dish with friends on his birthday Saturday, made the life celebration one of the best he ever had with friends.
Ulangakaya, a former journalist, confirmed this from his circle of former schoolmates at MSU College of Law, saying the school should be expanding here to help bring quality free education to children of poor families among the Lumads, the Moros and the local community of Christian settlers.
He said during their meeting on Saturday, he had opened up with MSU-General Santos Chancellor Dr. Anshari Ali, the prospect of donating the property for a site of college and post-graduate degree programs extension campus.
Ulangkaya said Ali told him that school fees would no longer be a hindrance for children poor families to pursue expensive medical fields. The MSU Campus in General Santos City which offers free tuition has recently opened its School of Medicine, he said Ali told him.
A mosque will also be built in another space donated to the local Muslims by the Ulangkayas.
Ulangkaya said he had also taken up with Koronadal City Mayor Eliordo “Bebot” Ogena about a planned separate donation of one-hectare for a proposed Muslim cemetery in Barangay Cacub here.
Being member of a landed family did not spare Ulangkaya from his hard way through college, having experienced evacuation as a child, when his family moved from place to place to flee armed conflict during martial law.
Ulangkaya doubled as print and broadcast news-writer and reporter in Cotabato City for the Catholic-run Notre Dame Broadcasting Corp. and The Mindanao Cross, a regional weekly.
He recalled waking up very early in the morning to work; had late breakfast midmorning and would shortly nap at noon for his afternoon to evening classes at Notre Dame University, where he obtained his degree in economics as a government scholar.
Ulangkaya has not been to politics yet and that as a government employee, he said it was still a “long way to retirement” before he could decide to throw hat into it.
