SMOKEY Mountain may have once been the stinking symbol of a backward nation. But today, the former dumpsite means much more to this country. It is now becoming a symbol of the poor Filipino's desire to move forward in the world and compete in the globalized computer age. It has become a venue for computer education literally at the grassroots level.

It was in 1991 when Fr. Ben Beltran, SVD_the community's spiritual leader for 26 years_started a computer school inside Smokey Mountain's temporary shelters. With the help of Benedictine monks from Holland and some of Beltran's friends, resources were pooled together to come up with a computer center.

Beltran then invited the Polytechnic University of the Philippines to create an "Open University" status for the Smokey Mountain area. PUP, since then, has been issuing the certificate to the center's graduating students and has been providing computer course instructors. The Smokey Mountain parish shoulders the payment for the instructors.

Today, the school attracts hundreds of youths_and adults_who before were scavanging around refuse everyday to earn their keep. Remarkably, the once putrid dumpsite has already produced over 700 computer secretarial and computer technician graduates. And on Oct. 9, 70 more will graduate.

The Smokey Mountain Computer Center houses 100 computers with Internet access. Before the year ends, each computer will be networked so that every student will have access to the Internet.

Since the center has no age limits, students as young as 7 or as old as 53 can now be seen tinkering on a computer. A grandmother recently learned the basics of operating a computer inside one of the center's air-conditioned rooms.

The learning doesn't end there. Another four-story computer school which can accommodate 2,000 students will be built in the reclamation area. This hopefully will educate poor students in the areas of Tondo, Navotas and parts of Caloocan.

In addition, Smokey Mountain residents are offered a non-formal education for elementary and secondary levels accredited by the Department of Education, Culture and Sports. Students enrolled in these classes are required to attend basic computer lessons one hour every day.

After finishing the secondary level, they are encouraged to take either a computer secretarial or computer technician course. Women, on the other hand, are encouraged to further their studies with a course in entrepreneurial management. Soon, the computer center is planning to train computer programmers.

Beltran estimated that about a hundred students were employed as production operators in the semiconductor manufacturing plants of Amkor Technology Philippines between 1993 and 1995.

He is also preparing graduates for data encoding professional jobs. Recently, he disclosed that a company from Hong Kong asked him for data encoding services. Very soon, he said, the Smokey Mountain cooperative will take care of supplying this demand.

"We are rushing toward computerization," Beltran stressed. "I would like to train as many people as possible, especially among the poor so that they will have a fighting chance in this globalized, computerized and e-mail-connected world."

Fr. Beltran is also looking at future computer upgrades.