If at age 37, you are already a mother of nine children and your family barely survives on a meager income from your husband’s seasonal fishing and your occasional laundrying, would you still have the means, the resources, the time, and – the guts – to fulfill your own dream of finishing your studies?
This is the case of Myrna Modesto Daplas of Nagbaculao, Lower Kalaklan, Olongapo City. Her story can very well be a tearjerker for a television show, either for “Maalaala Mo Kaya?” or “Ripley’s Believe It or Not”. And why not? Although finishing a highschool program then pursuing a college degree is just an ordinary thing for others, it is no ordinary feat for someone in Myrna’s shoes.
Myrna used to sell his husband’s catch to Fr. Albert Avenido when he was still in the Holy Family Quasi-Parish of Olongapo City, Zambales. The bounty of the sea could not sufficiently provide for the family’s needs because Romeo, Myrna’s husband, could only fish whenever he could borrow an available boat from other fishers. The little that the family had was scraped to the bottom when one of the children became ill. As a last resort, Myrna had to come to Fr. Albert not to sell fish but to ask for financial aid.
Fr. Albert’s assistance came not only in the treatment of the sick child. He bought a boat for Myrna’s husband so that Romeo could go out fishing on a regular basis. Thus, a more stable income was provided for the family. Education of the Daplas children was not jeopardized and Ronalyn, the eldest, was able to graduate from
from primary schooling in year 2000.
With the elementary graduation of her daughter, Myrna realized her own dream of finishing her studies. It was an almost abandoned, yet not totally forgotten, desire for her. She was just a 1st year high school student in 1982 when she was forced by poverty to stop her schooling and leave her hometown in Leyte to find a job in Manila. She became a housemaid in the city and by 1985 she got into early marriage.
Lack of education, an early marriage, and the persistent problem of poverty must have made Myrna and her husband unmindful of planning their family. From 1986 to 2000, their union has produced eight children. Romeo is a smalltime fisherman, Myrna is an occasional laundrywoman, their family can barely survive with their income. However, Myrna made it a point that their children would go to school no matter what. And she made an exclamation point when she decided to go back to school to finish her own studies.
Who would have thought that her passion for studying would come back to life after 18 years of being buried in the misfortune of poverty and in the obligations of motherhood? She was not even bothered by the fact that her own daughter will be her schoolmate at Olongapo City National High School. She was so determined that she devised a way on how to manage her time. She enrolled to a module-based education program for adults. Myrna had to come to class every Tuesday and Thursday 1pm. to 5 pm. She would tack her modules on the wall facing her and study while doing the laundry. In between gaps of washing the clothes, she would do the cooking, cleaning the house, taking care of her children, and other household chores. She was also employed by Fr. Albert at SACZ office from 8am -11am on Tuesdays and Thursdays doing some housekeeping. That is not all for Myrna, she also volunteers as a cathecist for Basic Ecclessial Community on Wednesday afternoons.
You may probably ask, what about her role as a wife? Well, that’s the role that she loves most. Inspite of her hectic routine, she has always the best quality time for her husband. Her husband is always her inspiration, she even passed the Philippine Educational Placement Test (PEPT) recently and so, she welcomed the year of 2003 as a proud holder of a high school diploma and a mother to be, for their ninth child.
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