In a remote village in Sorsogon, getting a high school diploma takes a determination to conquer the sea and mountains.
Every day, before dawn breaks, 10-year-old Jer John and other children in his neighborhood prepare for a difficult trip to school. Their village lies on a small island surrounded by mountains. The fastest route to school requires them to wade across the sea. The sea is capricious; sometimes meeting them in a calm and nurturing embrace, other times pushing them in cold and violent waves. And their misery doesn’t end there. With their clothes dripping wet from the swim, they take a two-hour trek up the mountain before finally reaching school. Despite the exhaustion and hunger, they try their best to absorb their lessons. For all of them, education is the only way to get their families out of poverty, and to a better future.
After risking their lives, the children are met with a shortage of classrooms and textbooks. On days when they arrive late, they even get a scolding from their teachers. Despite the odds, however, these children’s determination never wanes.
The province’s rugged mountainous terrain and scattered settlements mean that construction of bridges and roads is expensive and challenging. A bridge was promised to them once, but it was never built. As if written on the water, these promises were repeatedly washed away by the sea.
Every day, before sunrise, the children from the village of Mambajog prepare for a difficult trip to school. Their community lies on a small island surrounded by mountains. The fastest route to school requires them to wade across the sea while the tide is low, and trek up the mountain. After the two-hour walk, despite the exhaustion and hunger, they try their best to absorb their lessons.
Meanwhile, students from the village of Bon-ot take a dangerous route to school. To get there on time, instead of trekking up the mountain, they walk through the sea close to its foot. To avoid the deeper parts of the sea, they scale the mountain’s rocky slope as they make their way across. One wrong move and any one of them could fall to the rocks below.
After risking their lives on the way to school, they are met with a shortage of classrooms and textbooks. Despite the odds, however, these children’s determination never wanes. Reel Time documents their heartbreaking story and finds out what it would take to help them.
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