In Diwalwal, Graduation Medals Are Made of Real Gold

This is from yesterday’s Philip­pine Star that caught my atten­tion. A cool arti­cle about a min­ing province in the Philip­pines that actu­ally gives gold medals made of real gold (priced at roughly $275 each).

Now why didn’t my alma mater think of that?! hehehe

In Diwal­wal, Grad­u­a­tion Medals Are Made of Real Gold
Edith Regal­ado

It’s another gold medal for Robec June Calu­nia, 12, vale­dic­to­rian of the Mt. Diwata Ele­men­tary School at the gold-rush site in Mt. Diwal­wal, Monkayo, Com­postela Valley.

But it’s not just any ordi­nary gold medal; it’s one made of real gold that he received dur­ing the school’s recent com­mence­ment exer­cises – made of real gold and not just plated gold.

Calu­nia is one of 10 first honor ele­men­tary school pupils of the annex school of the Union National High School in Mt. Diwal­wal who received the cov­eted gold medals.

And this is the fifth time that Calu­nia received a real gold medal as he has been a con­sis­tent first honor stu­dent, miss­ing the honor only once, when he was in Grade 2.

Mt. Diwal­wal barangay cap­tain Franco Tito told The STAR that his barangay is now on its 6^th year of award­ing real gold medals to out­stand­ing students.

“It is one way of encour­ag­ing our stu­dents to study harder,” Tito said.

The stu­dents are chil­dren of the over 50,000 small-scale min­ers who have made their liv­ing since way back in the 1980s when min­ing oper­a­tions started in Mt. Diwalwal.

The gold medals are said to cost as much as P11,000 each these days with the pre­vail­ing prices of gold in the world market.

“The gold medals used to cost only P6,000 when we started the pro­gram in 2003 but it has now reached P11,000 each,” Tito said.

The gold for the medals was said to be sourced from Mt. Diwal­wal and made of 70 per­cent gold and 30 per­cent silver.

He explained that the gold medals were actu­ally made out of dona­tions from ball mill oper­a­tors as well as other busi­ness­men in the area.

“Our pri­or­ity has always been edu­ca­tion. We even allo­cate as much as P600,000 for edu­ca­tion in our barangay,” Tito said.

Tito told The STAR that there may have been honor stu­dents who could have sold the gold medals, espe­cially dur­ing hard times.

“They may sell it when they do not have money. But it could also be that when a pupil gets many gold medals, say as many as 10 medals, then these could be used for the pupil’s edu­ca­tion later in col­lege,” Tito said.

The barangay chief told The STAR that through the award sys­tem, they would be able to incul­cate in the minds of the young chil­dren that edu­ca­tion is always bet­ter than gold.

“We always empha­size to them the impor­tance of edu­ca­tion,” Tito added.