Making a Difference
Small Voices (Mga Munting Tinig) is a Filipino drama about a young woman fresh from college named Melinda. She has her future laid out for her as her mother in the US has already gotten her visa ready. In this country where every graduate dreams of flying off to the USA, her decision to stay and teach in a remote barrio is difficult for her mother to accept.
But she is a young woman who is trying to find herself, and in her desire to try new things and reach new places, she opts to accept a temporary teaching post at the MalawigElementary School located in a poor remote barrio. Armed with her optimistic view of people and of the world, she aims to make a difference in that small school.
The movie could very well be a political film because it includes many of the socio-political problems that every poor Filipino is confronted with. Pilar, the teacher whom Melinda is to substitute for is leaving to become a domestic helper in Singapore because the salary of a teacher is just not enough to live on.
Melinda gets to know the school OIC, Mrs. Pantalan who sells ice candies to the school children who are compelled to buy lest they don’t get their report cards. Kids have no money? No problem, they just have to list down their names and they can pay on the last day of the week. There is no excuse for refusing to patronize the ice candies of the OIC. This is her way of augmenting her income since she sends two children to school in Manila.
One of Melinda’s two co-teachers who is a bit dumb handles the English subject and proceeds to teach wrong grammar and wrong spelling to the children. The other teacher takes the children home after school to scrub her house clean, to feed her pig, and to fetch water for her bath.
This is the situation that Melinda has to contend with but it doesn’t end there. She feels bad when the few old books are damaged by the rain, only to find out that there are several new books kept by the OIC in her office for show when the school supervisors visit.
Melinda is pressured by her mother to use her US visa and come to America but she persists in her desire to make a difference in that remote barrio for the sake of the children. The reality that has confronted her has not diminished her spirit but her fear is that she becomes one of them, the teachers who have corrupted their roles for their own benefit.