Bangsomoro’s Legacy: A Better Future For Children
By John Peps Dales
The inevitable reality of life is daunting. The very essence of living is oftentimes, if not always, proportioned to our daily frays and fracases. The sweetness of it all against the innately drawn bitterness, the surmounted battles and the bowed out ones—- all leads to the narrative of its unfairness. Quite substantiated by the existing inequality people experience in today’s society. Especially when, in the earliest of life, poverty is everything that you have ever known.
For the most part, children bear the blowbacks of poverty. Working at 5, dropping out by 6, or providing for a family before turning 10, speaks nothing of sunshine and happiness people usually brand the sanctity of childhood. But how can a child escape the kind of life that has been laid out to him?
Seeing the photograph firsthand, an immediate thought comes to mind. Either it is apt to be glorified as an image of hardworking children or perhaps shed a hopeful light to the interminable adversity of child labor. Personally, the photograph gravitates more towards the latter. I see the children as vivid representation of opportunities lost and deprived rights.
As recorded by the Alliance 8.7, a global partnership for effacing forced labor, modern slavery, human trafficking, and child labor worldwide; 160 million children between 5 and 17 years old are forced into labor in 2020 alone. Alliance 8.7 also reiterated that these children “are often hidden in plain sight.” Child labor causes consequential implications in all aspects of a child’s well- being, be it emotional, mental, or physical. In a simple manner, the children suffer. So the question remains, do we just conclude it this way?
The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) initiated a project in partnership with the International Labour Organization (ILO) which aims to reduce cases of child labor by providing educational privileges among children within the agricultural communities of Maguindanao and Lanao Del Sur provinces from March 2020 until December 2022. Paramount measures such as this secure a better future for this children. In the time ahead, perchance they can reclaim an equal place in life—- full of hope and purpose for themselves.
In the pursuit of achieving togetherness towards a peaceful and progressive Bangsamoro, these children should perpetually be remembered. That in moments when they feel unheeded and underrepresented, we shall foster a greater sense of cordiality and goodwill among them. It is imminent that someday they will pledge themselves to duty as our future leaders. They will hold the same promises that our generation has once fulfilled for them. Same goes as to how the cultural heritage and identity of Bangsamoro relies immensely on the hands of these children—- its upmost and incomparable legacy.
Child labour has been embedded to the backbone of this country owing to impoverishment and inadequacy of furthering discussions about it. Feasible or not, it will be a dilatory process to get ahold of completely eradicating such problem, a seemingly insurmountable one. And somewhat the photograph proffers a probable and pivotal solution— perseverance and a speck of optimism.
Looking beyond its facade, one should no longer see just an ordinary image of children harvesting seaweeds; no, it is far from that. It is a reflection of sacrifice, resiliency, and a desire. The desire to show that they are willing and capable. Perhaps something that we can learn from them.
The hallmark of a united Bangsamoro is a genuine smile on a child’s face. It serves as a reassurance of being able to uplift even the most afflicted and vulnerable. Thus, BARMM is where children create dreams of their own and a child’s dream can be the foundation of a stronger and triumphant Bangsamoro.