Talogtog Bateng Elementary School

Talogtog Bateng Elementary School in Pangasinan was built in 2021 and is frequented by flooding during the rainy season which typically lasts half the year, from June to November. Due to this, makeshift classrooms are built to accommodate the students while the other classrooms that have been affected by the floods are being repaired and/or elevated. These classrooms are made out of lumber and plywood and double as a faculty room and feeding rooms.

HOPE recognized the hurdles the Talogtog community had to overcome to meet their basic right to education, and has built three new classrooms to replace the makeshift ones. The new HOPE classrooms were turned over in March 2022. It was far from a walk in the park to construct the new classrooms. Challenge after challenge threw themselves at the team, from heavy rains necessitating work stoppage and preventing backfilling materials from being delivered to the construction sites, to COVID-19 safety protocols requiring hardware stores in Pangasinan to close early. To add to that, unanticipated outbreaks of typhoid fever and dengue hit Pangasinan and resulted in less available manpower as workers got sick left and right. Still, the workers persisted and the community is thrilled to reap the benefits. During the turnover ceremony, a representative from Bridgestone Philippines, the donor of the project, remarked that basic education is “the tires that enable what we call society to move forward.” With the inauguration of these new classrooms, the community is assured that their own little society in Talogtog will progress.