What Is Brigada Eskwela?

“Brigada Eskwela na naman!”(It’s School Brigade once again!), We often hear these words come out of
our mouths when it’s the time of the year again. Many are beguiled and puzzled behind this commonly
bizarre phrase.

Brigada Eskwela started in a concept of Filipino unity when people where hand in hand carrying bahay
kubos on their shoulders during surge of calamities, thus “Bayanihan Para sa Paaralan” was attached to
add new to camaraderie. As we all know, The Department of Education (DepEd) is the executive
department to promote and improve the basic education in the country. However, due to population
demands, it is impossible to secure the equity of facilities and resources of the students. Thus, this is
where the Brigada Eskwela enters.

The School Brigade gives us a caricature of teachers, students, parents and staffs, without any biases
but with equality, reaching each other’s hands repairing, painting and fixing what is needed to do
inorder to enhance and bring sustainability to the learning facilities. DepEd also adressed this issue
through Adopt-A-School-Program (ASP) in year 1998. Where this program initiated partnerships to
stakeholders who are willing to share resources to enhance the Philippines public school education.

Private Partners do not only send financial support, but also staffs and employees that are willing to
hone the schools’ refinement. Even people from religious organizations offer help to ensure the molding
of the educational advancement. DepEd explains this is not just a necessity, but the goal is to foster the
perception of Philippine education as a responsibility.

Students may not see the real esence of Brigada , some may percieve this as a mandate of public
schools to generate funds for beautification. Yet, seeing this in a deeper perspective, up to its roots, this
reveals a true essence of private-public partnership that creates ripple effects and large influence among
different sects of society in terms the revolution to uphold the Filipino trait of bayanihan.

This shows that greed is still overpowered by volunteerism, a trait that is highly regarded as one of the
things that dominates the kindness among Filipinos, a characteristic that is pure and fulfilling without
wanting any kind of reciprocity.

“More than painting or cleaning schools, we must also ensure that we provide our learners with the
essentials of quality basic education,”says Education Secretary Leonor Briones.