CRAIG GIMA / CGIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Lovebel Talisic shows the school Web site she is designing at Arcelo Memorial High School.
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Gift of computers opens doors in Cebu
The donation to the Philippine school is helping students with their academic future
CEBU, Philippines » The computers might be old and used, but that does not matter to students at Arcelo Memorial High School in Lilo-An, a rural community near Cebu City.
The donation from Hawaiian Electric Co. of computers discarded after a hardware upgrade helped give these students their first access to the Internet and high technology.
The computers were shipped to the Philippines by Hawaii cardiologist Dr. Daniel Canete, who started a foundation named after his mother, a public school teacher in Lilo-An for 29 years before the family immigrated to the United States.
When his mother died, Canete started the Ambrosio Soledad Canete foundation with a small inheritance.
The computers were donated to a local elementary school seven years ago, but Canete has shifted the foundation's focus since then to Arcelo Memorial High School.
About 70 percent of the students at Arcelo will skip college and go straight to earning a living at a job or on the farm, said senior teacher Hipolito Pesarido Jr.
"The majority (of families) cannot afford to send their children to college," Pesarido said. Even if they do pass the scholarship examinations, without access to computers in high school, "they will be behind those who are computer-literate," he said.
A main focus of the foundation is to try and level the playing field for public school students, said Christopher Roble, Canete's nephew who also helps administer the foundation.
"We give them a chance to compete with other students," Roble said.
Lovebel Talisic, 15, and Janice Paras, 16, are two of the top students at Arcelo Memorial High School. Paras only started working on computers last year, but she won a province-wide financial preparation contest using Microsoft Excel, beating out private-school students who have been working with computers since elementary school.
Talisic started on computers in elementary school through the Canete foundation. She is designing a Web site for the school.
"I really like computers," Talisic said. "Maybe I was born to be a computer addict."
Both girls have older siblings attending college, which could be a factor in whether they are able to go to college immediately after they graduate. Because of the cost, even with a scholarship, they might have to wait until after their older siblings graduate before they can go to school.
Talisic is determined to continue in school after graduation and has started working part time to pay for some of her own expenses.
"I will go to college," she said. "I will not wait."
In a school where textbooks are scarce, the computers offer a chance for students to do research online.
Genman Goo-Ong and Shiera Mae Butar are working on a project to explain "dancing sun."
"When you look at the sun, it sometimes appears like it is dancing," Goo-Ong explained. "The sun is dancing because of the particles in the atmosphere."
Without the Internet, research is limited, said Ronald Ababat. "We don't always have the topic we need on campus. Some of the encyclopedias at Arcelo date back to 1961."
Maryknoll High School in Honolulu has a sister-school relationship with Arcello Memorial High School. Maryknoll has donated old textbooks and pocket books to practice reading English.
Computers have made it possible for the two schools to exchange e-mails and for students to talk to each other through Web cameras.
But the program is on hold for a while because the Internet is down on campus. The Canete Foundation is hoping to install a broadband connection soon, Roble said.
High-speed Internet access costs less than $20 a month, but the school cannot afford it on its own.
"There is no budget for it," Pesarido said. Most teachers here make less than $200 a month.
There are 1,200 students sharing just 29 classrooms. Classes consist of 60 to 70 students a teacher and are sometimes held under a large mango tree. "When it rains, there's no class," Pesarido said.
His mother's inheritance has long since run out, and Canete pays for the foundation with his own money and with donations. It costs about $5,000 to $7,000 a year to support the school. And the classes make a difference.
In the last two years, four students have been accepted and received scholarships to the University of the Philippines at Cebu, the top public university in the region.
Before the computers, only one student in the last decade attended the University of the Philippines.
When they first start working on the computers, students are hesitant, said computer teacher Ernistina Sabonsolin. "Now if given a chance, they are going to come here every day, every hour."