Tag: Ronald Gadayan

I made a terrible mistake in my column last Monday.

In my article on Ronald Gadayan, the NAIA janitor who returned to the owner a pouch he found while he was cleaning the departure area in September 2012 containing some P2.4 million cash and valuables, I wrote about his concern about his children’s education.

Being a contractual employee at NAIA, he only earns P481 a day. He has three children, ages 12, 10 and 6. His wife is looking for a job to augment their income.

His children go to a public school in Bulacan. He said he is worried about his children’s future education and asked Education Secretary Armin Luistro for assistance. He said the education secretary told him that his children cannot qualify for scholarship because they are not “matalino.”

If you are intelligent and rich, there is no problem about getting the education you desire.

If you are poor but intelligent and have good grades, there are opportunities to higher education given by the government and private institutions.

But if you are poor and do not have good grades (there are many factors involved why many children do not do well in school), getting on to higher education would really be a problem.

If your educational record is not impressive, you would have a difficult time getting a good job. If you don’t have a good job, escaping from the cycle of poverty would be hard.