The Real Deal

Got a kid going to public school? Have you done Brigada already? Recently, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers voiced out what has been a nagging feeling for years now. Why do public schools solicit for support of the community for building and facilities construction and repair? Is not construction of buildings and repair of facilities the responsibility of the administration, the management of the institution in question? If the police station has a leaking roof, I suppose the chief has someone assigned to take care of it. I don’t think he solicits materials and labor from people who bring cases to them. If a government hospital needs a new row of rooms, the patients’ families don’t bring bags of cement or plywood panels, don’t they? If the paint on the walls of the barangay hall are all faded, I don’t think they ask the residents to give their time to do the job. Those agencies take care of their own. So, why do schools call on the community? Because it takes a whole village to educate a child? But does not it take the same village to deliver health and healing, to ensure peace and order, to maintain cleanness? Then, community members would be donating time and resources to hospitals, police stations, barangay/municipal/city halls. Well, in an ideally idyllic idea of an alternate universe, that would be beautiful. But don’t these institutions have budget allotment for physical facilities, expenses which should not be shouldered by the community? Does not the highest level of national office allot budget for these expenses?

Check what’s wrong in this statement: Marcos administration to launch literacy campaign vs. fake news. There are no spelling errors. The grammar is okay. But the whole sense of it is self-destructive, self-incriminating. Marcos is against fake news now? Don’t people allege that fake news has what escalated the Marcoses back to power? The Marcoses were alleged to be presented as “victims of a treasonous plot, not oppressors of the Filipino people”. There have been claims that the Martial Law was a government plan to systematically curb the threat of communism. (Does that make Ninoy Aquino, Nene Pimentel, and Jovito Salonga communists?) The President has allegedly belittle and denied the atrocities of Martial Law. In effect, he has claimed that numerous torture, disappearance and slay victims did not really happen. (What were those then? Figments of imagination?) Weren’t there alleged denials of unlawful arrests and killings during the senior Marcos administration? Didn’t BBM supporters allegedly actively spread fake, inauthentic, malicious information about political opponent former Vice President Leni Robredo in the presidential campaign? (Former VP quite took a beating then.) Weren’t all the unofficial, unverified, inauthentic propagandists all over Facebook and Youtube? Wasn’t there a report of Marcos having 42.6% ‘fake followers’ on Twitter? Now, this administration is campaigning against fake news? Are they digging out the very stones that built them strong? What is this? Is this a snake biting its own tail? What happened? Did they suddenly wake up from a nightmare and realize that fake news is bad after all?

Now, here’s something more to check out. I did not make any promise to remove VRP Sierra Madre from the Ayungin Shoal; if I ever did, I rescind that promise. (Well, I had to rephrase it from memory, since I could not find a direct quote. But that pretty much sums it up.) The first clause is okay. Of course, the Filipino nation does not expect its President to make a promise to remove the ship, and symbolically opening the floodgates for the Chinese armada. Yes, we would all agree on that. But, it’s the next clause that gets me scratching my head (and it’s not due to dandruff). Is he rescinding a promise that he admits he may have possibly made? Is he not entirely sure that he did not really make such a promise? If the first statement were rock-solid sure, there wouldn’t be any need for the second statement; it would have ended there. It would have gone as: “I did not make any promise period”. But then, it continues with “if I ever did…”. What’s that? Is there a possibility that a promise may have been actually made? Why is there an “if”? Is the person speaking not sure if he had made a promise or not? Why is the speaker of these statement not sure? Does he mutter words uncontrollably or without much thought? Does he think he may have forgotten something he may have said? What’s the real deal?

Ephesians 6:14: “Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist.”