Quality education reaches 4Ps learners in remote island school

Testimony by Fralyn B. Leones
Principal II
Granada National High School

CARLES, Iloilo (Sustainability) — In the quiet coastal community of Barangay Gabi, situated on the island of Gigantes Sur in this municipality, where the horizon meets hardship and distance often defines opportunity, I have learned that education is more than instruction. For us, it is survival, dignity, and hope. My journey as a school leader has been shaped by this truth.

I am Fralyn B. Leones, 48 years old. I was born in Pilar, Capiz, but I chose a life anchored not in comfort but in commitment. Through Granada National High School, Ballesteros Campus, which is located in the said barangay. I have served here since its establishment in 1999. The school has stood as a fragile but faithful bridge between poverty and possibility, serving children of fisherfolk, farmers, and seasonal laborers who once saw education as a distant dream.

On April 7, 2026, my journey of service received national recognition when I was named “Most Outstanding and Inspiring Secondary School Principal of the Philippines” during the awarding ceremony at the Legazpi Convention Center in Albay. Yet for me, the award is not a destination. It is a reflection of lives quietly transformed under my leadership.

From the moment I assumed my role as School Principal II, I carried a conviction: education alone is not enough when learners are burdened by poverty, hunger, and instability. I reimagined the school not as an isolated institution, but as a living partner of the community, deeply engaged in the realities of the families it serves, especially the beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).

Under my leadership, compliance became compassion in action. Teachers did not merely record attendance; they walked riversides, crossed rough roads, and reached remote sitios to visit homes of learners at risk of dropping out. These home visits became lifelines, conversations filled with listening, encouragement, and renewed hope. For many families, it was the first time they felt seen not as statistics, but as partners in a shared future.

We strengthened collaboration with parents, Municipal Links of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) through its Family Development Sessions that transformed classrooms and covered courts into spaces of learning beyond academics. Parents became active learners, engaging in discussions on responsible parenting, nutrition, mental health, child protection, and family strengthening. Slowly, a cultural shift emerged. Parents who once viewed education as solely the teacher’s responsibility became co-educators, joining school initiatives, feeding programs, and community efforts. The school became not just a place of learning, but a community of shared responsibility.

I also deepened our interventions for learners. Remedial classes, Catch-Up Fridays, literacy and numeracy programs, peer tutoring, and guidance services ensured that no learner was left behind. Each struggling reader who regained confidence, each child who returned to school, became a quiet testament to persistence shaped by care.

Understanding that learning cannot thrive in hunger, I intensified nutrition programs through the Gulayang Pampaaralan initiative. Parents and community volunteers cultivated school gardens whose harvests sustained feeding programs and addressed malnutrition. Health services, deworming activities, mental health support, and disaster preparedness training that further strengthened the holistic development of learners.

Beyond the classroom, I expanded the mission of education into livelihood and empowerment. Parents were trained in organic farming and small-scale production activities such as liquid hand soap making. What began as training sessions evolved into opportunities for economic resilience. Even environmental stewardship became a shared advocacy, with clean-up drives, greening initiatives, waste management programs, and school-based gardens uniting learners, parents, and teachers.

Then came the pandemic, an unprecedented disruption that tested every foundation of education. Yet under my leadership, Granada NHS, Ballesteros Campus refused to yield. Modular distance learning was implemented for 1,197 learners, sustained by the tireless dedication of teachers, parents, and barangay stakeholders who ensured learning materials reached even the most remote homes. Coordination with DSWD and Municipal Links continued, safeguarding the welfare of 4Ps beneficiaries amid the crisis. In a time of isolation, the school became a network of connections. Through every challenge, one truth remained constant: the school did not simply survive, it served.

Today, Granada National High School, Ballesteros Campus stands as a living testimony that leadership, when grounded in compassion, can transform not only institutions but entire communities. It is a place where struggling learners rediscovered hope, parents became empowered partners, teachers became agents of change, and families once defined by hardship found dignity in participation. A milestone of this transformation was when the school received recognition as one of the healthiest schools for its ComposTech project.

My recognition as the Most Outstanding and Inspiring Secondary School Principal of the Philippines is not merely an honor. Because in the end, my legacy is not written in plaques or titles. It is written in every child who stayed in school, every parent who chose to believe again, and every community that learned that education, when led with heart, becomes more than instruction, it becomes transformation.(Submitted by Carles MOO, Iloilo POO)

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