Escuella Taller grads sulk 

Over broken promises 

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, March 7, (PIA)—They were promised to be priority-picked for the current rehabilitation and reconstruction works of Bohol’s heritage structures, but only a few of them got the promised jobs. 

Boholano out-of-school youth (OSY), who trained for the Escuella Taller: a Spanish Embassy project with the Diocese, thought they could finally catch up with their earning friends after learning from formal school, but to their dismay, the restoration of several churches came and went, and nobody asked them to work as promised. 

It may be recalled that the earthquake in 2013 destroyed heritage sites, structures and tangible and movable antique art, that the idea of restoring them proved a challenge. 

Enter Escuella Taller (ET). 

A Spanish government initiative it brought out of a success story in Spain in the ’80s, ET then focused on putting up a training program for skilled workers who specialize in the protection, conservation, and restoration of cultural heritage properties and practices. 

Brought in Manila from Spain in 2009, ET also looked at the development of unschooled and unemployed youngsters in poor areas to be trained and taught on technical and the highly specialized skills needed in heritage preservation and conservation. 

In the Philippines, where heritage preservation and conservation is least understood, the society is losing priceless heritage fast, the continued struggle to preserve important cultural assets, both tangible and intangible has been another big reason for ET in Bohol. 

As ET’s role is to build the capacity of the Filipino youth to become craftsmen or heritage protectors who will work for the conservation of the materials and the entirety of our built heritage, the project also intends to increase Philippine consciousness on the importance of preserving such cultural resources, according to published articles about the project. 

As the government moves to put up the plans to rebuild, restore and refurbish the destroyed centuries’ old churches with their priceless art forms and designs and embellishments, ET came to Bohol and started training OSY in Dauis and in Maribojoc. 

Special skills training were on stone works and masonry and includes carving and stone sculpture, carpentry and woodworks and included hand carving and wood sculpture, painting and electrical installations, according to sources from Maribojoc ET. 

Most of those who came to the training believed that with their new skills, they would be used to work in the church restoration projects, unfortunately, there was a different dynamics going on with the national government and the contractors, observed a member of the local Parish Council in Maribojoc. 

On the second round of training, about 40 students came, but by then, many from the first batch were starting to wonder where they would be hired. 

The promise was for the OSYs to be trained and once they have the skills, they would be used to help in the rebuilding, but none came to ask the graduates to work, parishioners said. 

Asked what has happened to those who finished the training, Felix Ladeza, 23 years old and a woodworking graduate, said they are now work in the malls, because there were no contractors who sought for them. 

There was also no memorandum of agreement between the national government and the ET, on the employment of the graduates of the ET training. (rahchiu/PIA-7/Bohol) 

BROKEN PROMISE. A skilled woodcarver graduate of the Escuella Taller now finds some income carving Saint Vincent images on wood, which he would sell, as only very few of those promised to get hired in the rebuilding activities of churches are now working. (rahchiu/PIA-7/Bohol)