by Dominic Gutoman
In the heart of an urban poor community in the Bagong Silang, Caloocan, Philippines, children huddle on tarpaulin sheets serving as their makeshift chairs. They squeeze themselves into the narrow alleyways between houses. The tiny space has not only sheltered them, but became their sanctuary of learning, a resisting community against the prevalent learning poverty in the country.
This initiative, called the Bagong Silang Community Library (BSCL), began in November 2022 as the country slowly emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic. The casualties of the pandemic extended beyond the health structures: the crisis in education loomed large with the impending collapse of the country’s education system. For many Filipino children, especially those from low-income families, the pandemic did not just disrupt schooling—it left a devastating gap in their ability to learn.
“The common denominator of the children is that they came from public school. Some of them are also out-of-school youth,” said Lawrence Cusipag, who founded the Bagong Silang Community Library with his sister.
Cusipag is currently an instructor at the University of Caloocan City and also an activist member of DAKILA, a group of artists, educators, and individuals working together to creatively spark social consciousness formation toward social change.
Since the Bagong Silang Community Library primarily caters to children from poor families, one of their approaches to invite them is to offer them food under “Libreng basa, libreng tinapay” (Free reading, free bread). It is a win-win situation, Cusipag said, for the children to enjoy reading and develop a sense of camaraderie. But beyond this, the intersection of the right to education and economic rights remains stark.
Building the library
What inspired Cusipag to establish the community library was close to home. He noticed his youngest brother struggling to read despite being in the third grade. “He was part of the pandemic generation. His reading barely progressed. There were also children like him, who were in preschool and kindergarten when the pandemic happened,” Cusipag explained in Filipino.
In the 2024 report of the World Bank, the learning poverty in the Philippines is “unacceptably high”, with 91 percent of children at late primary age (10 years old) not proficient in reading. The number is significantly higher than the average for East Asia and the Pacific and the average in lower-middle-income countries.
This personal realization sparked action.
The library started humbly with just ten readers. Over the past two years, its reach has grown to 40 children and youth, many of whom were invited from the local wet markets, sidewalks, and basketball courts in the community.
“When we posted about the library on Facebook, we received donations of books, offers from volunteers, and support from partners,” Cusipag said. “Now, our bookshelves stand eight feet tall, holding thousands of books.” These books are primarily children’s books and textbooks in English and Filipino. However, they prioritize books in the Filipino language.
The two bookshelves are placed in front of Cusipag’s house, under a roof. This protects the books from both rain and sunlight. But in times of heavy rain, they are covered with plastic to ensure that they will not be damaged.
Uprooting the barriers to education
For Cusipag, the current number of children and youth in their community library is already enough for them. “If we can guide them and they finish their education, that would already be a significant return on investment for us.”
Nearly 11 million children and young Filipinos are not attending formal school, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), based on their 2020 census. In the context of Bagong Silang Community Library, there is one out-of-school youth for every four children.
“Bagong Silang is really a poor community. The reason why there are a lot of out-of-school youth here is that parents can no longer provide and guide these children to study. We cannot really blame them, and some of these parents have to work two jobs to make ends meet for their family,” Cusipag said.
Bagong Silang was once the largest barangay in the Philippines, with over 260,000 residents. Its name is Filipino phrase meaning “newborn,” which – ironically and supposedly – symbolized hope for its residents who were resettled from their original slum areas in Manila, Quezon City, and San Juan in the 1970s. A plebiscite in August 2024 divided the barangay into six smaller ones, but the struggles of its residents remain daunting.
The latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey in the Philippines shows that Filipino families who consider themselves poor rose to 63 percent in the last quarter of 2024, which is the highest record since November 2023.
Hoping for a brighter future
“The books are available every day,” said Cusipag. “On Sunday, we have a storytelling session. Last year, many organizations also engaged with us, offering to spearhead storytelling sessions for the children. We allowed them.”
Among the organizations they partnered with are The Happy Ripples, a group of Bagong Silang High School alumni, SKKIP Youth Organization, a local youth organization based in BAgong Silang, and some student organizations from the University of the Philippines Manila and the University of Caloocan City.
The regularity of storytelling sessions on Sundays has been disrupted recently, but not for bad reasons. Cusipag said that the children themselves are already learning to lead the storytelling sessions by themselves, a sign of progress not only in their reading and learning capacity but also in the development of their sense of community.
“Some children even level up (reading progression), they no longer want children’s books. They now want books without pictures. We’re rising to the challenge,” said Cusipag.
Recently, Cusipag introduced a session on “pilosopiyang pambata” (children’s philosophy) to facilitate critical thinking and advanced literacy for the children. This session works by asking children with philosophical questions about their community. In their first session this year, Cusipag, who acted as the facilitator of their session, asked the children: “Are you fair? To your friends? To your siblings? To your family?”
“Community libraries exist because there are no public spaces for people to read together,” he said, underscoring the importance of influencing other communities to do the same initiative. “We would like to empower other communities to do the same.”
In the 2023 study of the National Library of the Philippines (NLP), the public libraries in the country only make up 3% of the ideal as prescribed by law: NLP assists over 1,455 public libraries compared to the 40,000 target that needs to be established in more than 41,980 barangays, and 1,618 cities and municipalities.
Some community-based organizations have also coordinated with Cusipag to replicate their efforts in Cebu, Kidapawan, Iloilo, Rizal. There were also some initiatives spearheaded by schools and non-profit organizations (e.g. Lahat ng Bata, The Habilin Project).
“We consider community libraries as a form of resistance against the crisis to education. Our long term-term goal is to become obsolete,” said Cusipag.
The rise of community libraries in the Philippines is not just an act of generosity—it is a form of resistance. In a country where public education spaces remain little, classrooms are overcrowded, and millions of students struggle with illiteracy, these libraries emerge as a defiant response to a broken system. They are built not by government mandates but by the hands of ordinary people who refuse to accept that learning should be a privilege instead of a right.
Supporting community library initiatives is not charity—it is an act of solidarity, a commitment to dismantling educational inequality, and a declaration that every Filipino deserves the right to learn.