Marcelita Mad, a dedicated daycare worker at the newly built Tahakayo Daycare Center, continues to pour her heart into shaping young learners—proving that service to the community is a calling she proudly embraces.
“I realized that teaching is my calling. I worked abroad once to support my family. But my heart kept coming back here, and I’ve never regretted that choice.”
For 17 years, Teacher Marcelita Mad walks through rivers and narrow footpaths in Sitio Tahakayo, Maasim, Sarangani, where the road to school turns into a trail. She carries hand-drawn charts and a deep love for the many children she treats as her own.
No fanfare. No salary is big enough to explain the sacrifices. Just the certainty that the children in this mountain community deserve someone who keeps showing up.
“Mura kog mu-surrender usahay… pero kung makita nako ang mga bata, dili nako sila mabuhian.”
(Sometimes I want to give up… but seeing the children keeps me going.)
Each year, she teaches 30 to 40 young learners aged three to five years old. Some are tiny preschoolers tracing shaky letters for the first time. Others are older children who started late because poverty or distance kept them from school.
Before the ECCD center was built, early lessons moved from trees to chapels to borrowed homes—Marcelita Mad’s house among them.
A Legacy Built on a Dream
Teacher Mad had always hoped for a better learning facility for her students. Then one day, good news came: Alsons Power was willing to build an Early Childhood Care and Development center in the sitio.
To make the dream Center a reality, Marcelita and her husband, John—who serves as the sitio’s village chair—offered 48 square meters of their own yard.
“Unsa may legasiya nga among ikabilin?” John remembers asking.
[What legacy will we leave behind?]
“Unsaon na lang ang kaugmaon sa among kabataan kung idalo namo ning gamay’ng yuta?”
[What happens to our children’s future if we cling to this small piece of land?]
It wasn’t a grand gesture. Just a quiet decision made on an ordinary day. But it changed everything.
Through the support of Alsons Power, the ECCD Center in Sitio Tahakayo was built — a permanent space where lessons would no longer depend on the weather.
A Place to Build Dreams
Now, the children of Sitio Tahakayo walk a little faster on their way to school. They know the room will be open, dry, and waiting for them.
For Jennifer Limpin, a 34-year-old mother of two, the change feels almost unreal as she walks her child to the new Tahakayo Daycare Center—something the community once only hoped for.
For the first time, they have a classroom they can point to and say, “Amoa ni,” Jennifer says, brushing her fingers over the small desk now used by her youngest, Prince Adrin.
[“Finally, we have an ECCD center we can truly call our own.]
“Makatuon na ang among mga bata nga dili mahadlok maulanan… dili magsiksikan… dili maputol ang leksyon.”
[Our children can finally learn without fear of the rain… without being cramped… without lessons being cut short.]
She remembers the old days—how they would check the sky every morning, hoping the clouds wouldn’t end the school day before it even began.
The Dream Continues
With every story she reads, Teacher Marcelita motivates her class to imagine, learn, and dream bigger inside the community’s newly built ECCD facility
Today, she stands inside a real classroom — walls bright, desks arranged neatly, a roof that does not leak.
“First time jud, makatuon na ang among mga bata nga dili mahadlok maulanan, dili magsiksikan sa gamay’ng lugar, ug dili maputol ang leksyon,” Marcelita says, looking around the room she once only imagined. “Aduna na gyud silay classroom nga ilang maingon nga ila.”
(First time jud,” she says softly. “For the first time, our children can learn without fear of the rain. They don’t have to squeeze into small spaces. The lessons no longer stop.)
“Dako gyud among pasalamat aning kumpanyaha,” she adds. “Dili lang kini para sa amo, kundi para sa umaabot sa among mga anak.”
(We are deeply grateful to the company. This is not only for us, but for the future of our children.)
The center may look small to some, but in Tahakayo, it makes a big difference. It gives children a place to learn, grow, and dream.
In places where classrooms once existed only in the imagination, sometimes all it takes is someone who dreams not only for herself but for the future of the community around her.
This is a Face of Alsons Power.
Behind every megawatt we generate are stories of people whose lives are powered with care.
