Many people believe that poverty is the number one hindrance for children to receive a proper education. Poverty also affects the learning ability of a child because people who are living below the poverty line faced many health and lifestyle issues.
Because of their difficult situation, many children decided to stop going to school to work and make a living for their family. However, there are also some who managed to overcome these challenges and succeeded in life. One of them is Benjie Liloc, a former puto-kutsinta vendor who is now a professionally licensed teacher.
The inspiring story of this respected teacher recently went viral and received praises from the netizens.
Benjie was born to a poor family in Balingoan, Misamis Oriental. Their life had been very difficult after his parents broke up. In fact, there’s a time when his mother thought about giving them away because she could not provide food for them.
To help his mother, he decided to become a puto-kutsinta vendor at the age of 13. But selling his goods was not easy, while there were good days when most or all of it get sold out, there were also days when his sales are very low.
He also thought about giving up, but he managed to motivate himself to pursue his dreams so that he won’t remain a puto-kutsinta vendor forever.
Because of his hard work, Benjie received a scholarship that allowed him to enroll at the Misamis Oriental Institute of Science and Technology in Balingasag, Misamis Oriental. But unfortunately, the scholarship promise wasn’t kept and they didn’t pay for his tuition fees.
The poor boy was forced to quit because his mother couldn’t pay for the fees. But this incident didn’t stop him from reaching his dreams, he went back to selling puto-kutsinta and enrolled again the following year.
Luckily, he was chosen to be among the recipients of Governor Yevgeny Vincente Emano’s “Iskolar Ko Ni Bambi” (IKNB), that allows him to complete his college education.
Benjie is now a licensed professional teacher, and he’s currently teaching at St. Marys Academy of Talisayan in Talisayan, Misamis Oriental.
To inspire other students, he was asked to share his story during the 12th General Assembly of IKNB attended by 3,000 scholars in Misamis Oriental, which was held last February 14.