Mrs. Aileen Alejandro gets up early to prepare breakfast for her children who will go to school and her husband who will go to work.
After breakfast, she sends her children to school. When she gets home, she tends to the seedlings of various species such as Naga, Bayoc-bayoc, and Talisay among others.
Afterwards, she does household chores and prepares food for lunch. In the afternoon, she goes back to taking care of the seedlings before she fetches her children from school.
This was her daily routine when she had a contract for seedling production from Hinatuan Mining Corporation (HMC), a subsidiary of Nickel Asia Corporation.
The contract for seedling production is just one of the many projects of the Community Output Based Program (COBP) of the Mine Environmental Protection and Enhancement Office (MEPEO) of HMC.
“Kasama ako sa natulungan ng HMC, binigyan kami ng trabaho kahit diyan lang kami sa bahay, may pagkakataon kaming kumita dahil sa kontrata ng COBP,” said Alejandro.
She further added that the money she earned from COBP was also used to pay for the schooling of her child studying in Surigao City as a Senior High student.
“Ang nadeliver ko na 2,000 seedlings ay malaking tulong, yung perang nakuha dun ay isa sa mga pinangtustos ko sa pag-aaral ng aking anak na nasa Senior High na sa Surigao City,” she added.
Before she was a contractor for COBP, Alejandro worked in HMC as a laundrywoman and utility in 2009 and as MEPEO Nursery staff from 2010 to 2015.
She resigned from working in HMC since she needed to take care of her children. She has seven children with ages: 22, 21, 18, 14, 12, 9 and 1 respectively.
Her work as MEPEO Nursery staff provided her with experience in taking care of seedlings, which she used to her advantage when she secured a COBP seedlings production contract from HMC.
“Lahat ng alam ko tungkol sa pag-aalaga ng mga seedlings ay natutunan ko noong ako ay maging empleyado sa Nursery ng NAC-HMC. Mula 2010 hanggang 2016, ang pag-aalaga sa mga seedlings ang isa sa mga pangunahin kong naging trabaho,” she said.
Alejandro said that taking care of seedlings is like taking care of a baby, “Ang pag-aalaga ng seedlings ay parang pag-aalaga ng baby na kailangang alagaang maigi. Kung mainit ang panahon kailangan magdilig sa umaga at sa hapon, at kung maulan naman ay di na kailangan pang diligan. Kailangang alagaan ng mabuti para pag tubo ng tanim ay green na green talaga iyong magiging kulay ng mga dahon. Mabilis lang ang tubo pag maganda ang pag-aalaga.”
For her, the hardest part in seedlings production is gathering or finding seedlings for production since the seedlings are usually located in elevated areas.
“Malaking tulong para sa akin ang kontrata ng COBP sa seedlings production. Bukod sa nandito lang ako sa bahay, pwede akong makatulong sa mga bayarin at mayroon pa akong oras at panahon para alagaan ang aking mga anak,” said Alejandro.
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