FEAR OR APATHY?

I was just talking to my daughter about the stress the thinking and concerned sector of society suffered from this week. She mentioned the comeback of an ousted exec director who is now bullying the one who replaced him.They (in her office) were also affected not just by delayed salary issues but by the piling up of young victims of EJK and of course the issues involving the president and his son which still many turds refuse to connect to the WOD.

I remarked that in my workplace, a school, these concerns (political and criminal) do not seem to disturb my colleagues and students. If ever they do, my workplace people are good at not showing it. Truth to tell, if not for the fact that I really enjoy my work and my clients (my students), I am deeply saddened by the apathy that prevails esp among my colleagues.

We have just been thru a career fest which ate up at least three days of our school week. This weekend is report card completion for the class advisers. I am not an adviser and I am done with the grades a week ago. Still small talk seldom centers or even mentions the killings which involved young people, same age as our students. No one bothers to mention them. I do, in class, but my students seem to dismiss this as my usual anti-Duterte rant. Or at least that's how they make me feel whenever I mention issues re the president.

This made me recall my high school days (1975-79) in a private Catholic school in our city. It wasn't easy to talk about the state of our country then because of Martial Law. My history teacher in whose class one would expect political and social issues to be discussed , opted to teach on safe mode, so to speak-memorize the who, what, when in history. I think it was only on our senior year that our teacher finally let his guard down and in an after class huddle around his table he admitted his anti-Marcos sentiments. That was some breath of fresh air and hope for me, for us. I think that made me more prepared for my entry to the state university where teachers gave us more dissenting opinions/stance than we could handle. Of course we handled them well , we who were in the thick of anti-Marcos protest either as students or as student council officers.

I now worry about the young in our care in the school where I teach. The teachers just don't deliver more than the content of the subjects that they teach. Young and old alike, teachers now seem detached or opt to detach the classroom from the world and reality outside. This is what happens when many among teachers actually thought Duterte was on the right when he promised to annihilate everything and everyone connected to illegal drugs. He was just into instilling fear so he could govern unopposed. We should now realize that he wasn't actually sincere in solving the drug problem.

More than this though, what worries me is the fact that many teachers and their students think it is okay to kill a person if he is perceived to be a "problem" to the community. Schools weren't built to inculcate this belief. Why aren't they alarmed? Why aren't they grieving? Why aren't they saddened by the loss of young lives? What happened to these schools then?
 

It's moral panic . See wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic Thank you , Mr. Irineo Salazar for this.

Spare me the audio

I don't like listening to news and live coverage of congress hearings or presscons under this regime. The muted quotes by news accounts are enough to stress me out. I wish to lessen the frustration and anger I feel by not hearing the voices of leaders and personalities who continue to impose their narrative of lies on hapless Filipinos.

Unfortunately, a colleague is yet to realize he also should not impose his listening to whatever he fancies from his laptop on us who share the faculty room with him. He found a livestream of the Senate hearing on the Kian Case and is now thinking he's doing us a favor by upping the volume of his laptop for everyone to hear. I needed to plug my ears and allow my Mozart list to protect my sensibilities and restrain me from calling out this colleague.

I see a senate inquiry as useless especially if we have senator-enablers pretending to care for the circumstances surrounding the death of Kian Delos Santos. I saw a photo of the three policemen involved in the murder and I don't want to hear them deny or refuse to answer. I understand Bato is also present and why would I want to listen to the voice of this murderous brainless mascot?

Spare me the audio, please. I have enough info from my Twitter feed. I don't need to hear spawns from hell pretend-investigate one death too many. The presence and efforts of a Risa Hontiveros will just be upstaged by the temerity of the other Senators to even express alarm at the death they could have prevented if they cared for their people early enough.

Not Lovin' It

At my favorite fastfood's newest branch near our place, I was excited to buy some muffin sandwiches and big breakfast. There was no line unlike in the previous week when it opened. Alas, there's no muffin and so I had to settle with crispy chicken sandwich for my sons. I also added two banana pies and one apple pie but I was told only one banana pie is ready so could I just have two apple pies instead? I said yes and then it took the crew eternity to find thirteen pesos to give back as change. Even the manager who has one ear covered with a headset couldn't come to the rescue of the crew who couldn't find the exact change for me. She later suggested if she could just give me rice which I mistakenly heard as "fries" so I agreed. Arriving home, that's when I found out she only gave me one crispy chicken sandwich. I ordered two. The receipt said only one was punched. I don't get it with fast food crew . At another store, I asked for two of a meal , the cashier relays the same to one of their crew and this crew says "one?" . 

Anyway, I am not really pissed because the happiest period of the year has just started . It's the first of September and Jose Mari Chan will soon be lording it over the airwaves with his classic Christmas in Our Hearts. In this country, we somehow forget the ugliness of poverty, corruption , violence, and death that the current regime has been imposing on us since last year because the longest Christmas celebration is upon us. Hopefully though the compromise between complaint and atrocity/blunder would not apply to the supposed magnanimous offer of the biggest thieving family in our history. A few gold bars and whatever could be unearthed says the President. Just like whatever is available on the menu and may we replace your change with some rice instead. Not lovin' it, this fastfood type of settling for things you didn't plan to eat while on your way to the branch. The waiting line to the Marcos wealth and the reparation for their victims are no fastfood stint. I don't know why this current President is forcing us to accept whatever is on their menu. And then some netizens will say, it's about time we sit down and settle with the Marcoses so the country could be given the chance to heal. Just like what a peeved mom tells her kids, "Just eat whatever I have put on the table!" 

I will forgive Ronald's crew for the minor compromises I have to make whenever I visit the store but not Digong and his horrible excuse for presidency whenever he absentmindedly talk of this country's problems as if he owns everything and everyone and could do anything to them as he pleases. While we have Jose Mari Chan on repeat in the weeks to come, let's be mindful of the maneuverings this regime and its cohorts are doing with our lives. No lovin' the manipulation, compromise, and utter twisting of the narrative in favor of or in defense of what they alone will benefit from or in diversion from what we as a country should be angry and protesting about. 

Fastfood service sucks. But government shouldn't go on being this terrible for long. 

Sorry po, Senator De Lima

I was up early as usual even on a Sunday of a long weekend. At 54, I am energized enough the day after with just 4-5 hours of sleep. I read it’s normal for people my age. As mother and wife, I busy myself with feeding my dogs and doing the laundry. The brood is still fast asleep save for the older son who is an early riser like me but is wont to stay in his room with his laptop. He likes that small world of his which I think he appreciates all the more now that he is home only on weekends after deciding to dorm. 

I checked my Twitter feed and posted a second greeting to one mother who has been in jail for more than 100 days. It’s her 58^th birthday today. She happens to be the bravest woman in our country and the one our president and a host of others targeted to put in jail even before this regime won the biggest mistake of a presidential election ever. Senator De Lima is feisty. She fights for the truth and human rights and these two things were twisted to get her imprisoned. If you are Filipino, you would know how she ended up in jail as Duterte’s first political prisoner. Hopefully, you are that kind of Filipino who agree that the truth was twisted and her rights were violated in the process of shutting her down. 

I apologize to Senator De Lima because I could not fight for her freedom and I could not defend her enough against people who think the worst about her. I remember a colleague who believing the media and Filipinos’ favorite source of info, Facebook, disdainfully commenting months ago at De Lima’s mention of God in one of her speeches before her Senate colleagues abandoned her to the lions in HOR and DOJ. I was so angry that I could only say, “Please shut up before I could start hating you for what you are saying.” I should have lectured him on the truth about all the ganging up being done but I was just too angry to do so.  Good thing that this much younger colleague backed down but I guess that is one reason I could not talk politics and current events with my co-teachers anymore. 

I see calls for her release here and abroad but I don’t see enough people in street protests to do the same. Some sectors even resent leaflets being handed out at the PPM with her name on them, angrily dismissing any statement from her as unnecessarily coloring the event yellow. I am sorry, dear Senator that people especially some younger “activists” of today, do not see you as one they should be crying for justice for, too.

This reminds me of my own youth when the likes of Ninoy Aquino were picked up and banished from public view by the Marcos regime. After the initial shock of Proc 1081, many Filipinos carried on with life, our family included. The Press was subdued and so we didn’t know much about the thousands who were kidnapped, tortured, jailed or killed in Marcos’ name. I didn’t consider Ninoy as somebody worthy of my attention then because many regarded him as a traditional politician too like the then president. Ninoy languished in jail for more than seven years. I was with the university student council when he was assassinated. I didn’t care to pay my respects for him at his wake because I still believed then he wasn’t worth it. It took me the years that followed to realize how his death galvanized the Filipino people into one big force to topple a dictatorship. It took me years to realize he was one very intelligent, eloquent Filipino leader who finally had his heart and mind in the right place after years of being in jail.

Now, with media not being suppressed, I see no reason why Sen De Lima's life and battles should be unclear to many. Unfortunately, media is still not up to task in telling the truth and social media muddles everything that passes through it. Given the technology of verifying every bit of information that comes our way, we should have not made the mistake of allowing her enemies and erstwhile friends to send her to jail. She is a senator of the republic whose rights she has consistently protected, a mother and daughter to the family she cares so much for. What have we done allowing this murderous regime to take her away?

Dear Senator, up to now, whenever I mention your name in class or in the faculty room, I sense the same lack of interest in your plight. I apologize for my community’s continuing cluelessness about if not apathy toward the injustice done to you, Senator De Lima. I apologize on behalf of a country that is yet to realize your contributions to the elusive goal of good governance. I apologize that you have to spend your birthday in jail when your colleagues, many of whom more jail-worthy, enjoy their being callous enablers of a presidency this country never deserved to suffer from but had the biggest blunder of voting into power.

I know you are a very prayerful woman whose relationship with our God is further strengthened by this test which His enemy imposed on you. Despite the situation you are in, let me assure you that in time (I hope soon), more Filipinos will realize the truth about you and your enemies will be outed and punished for what they have done to you.

God bless you always, Senator De Lima. Happy birthday, Madam!

The Non-Readers

It is becoming increasingly difficult to teach literature these days. One reason I left tertiary teaching is because I felt so frustrated trying to make my students read for my subject: World Literature. I'd be lucky if in a class of 50, I'd chance upon a handful of students who have actually read one or two novels after Noli and Fili. It didn't help that I handled technology students. They who had been stereotyped as averse to reading beyond formulas,diagrams or computer codes. Many would welcome my class as time to slouch on the chair and eventually doze off after several nights of finishing plates and machine problems. So I thought then that it was a good decision for DepEd to transfer the subject of literature to senior high school. And I transfered with it to Basic Ed.

I handle three literature classes this semester, one section from each strand (STEM, GAS and ABM) . The curriculum guide says the focus is 21st Century Literature which I learned refers to literature written/created from 2001 onwards. I have no problem with that even if I would certainly miss discussing mythology and other lit staples that I never get tired of. I am actually excited to discover what this new literature has to offer especially after reading somewhere that students must be made to read stories about them or in their context for them to appreciate literature better. 

After devoting a few sessions to local literary personalities and the venerable roster of National Artists for Literature, I actually had fairly successful activities that involved poetry reading , script reading and even poetry memorization. The creative output were also very reflective of the lessons and the students' individual artistry. One section has also willingly started reading novels borrowed from #thereadinghubproject which was put up for the literature class.

For our first 21st Century lit selection, I chose Jeff Canoy's Dispatches From Marawi which gained much attention online. It falls under literary journalism, a type of creative nonfiction. Needless to say , it was very relevant to the times.

We began discussing. One section has actually submitted their artwork reflection on the selection. I have posted some of them on Twitter and Instagram. 

Well, this section is really reliable when it comes to performance output. I am amazed at their interest in the subject despite the fact that their main interests are Math and Science. I forgive their noise and seeming inattentiveness at times because they deliver when asked. 

I tried discussing the same opus in another class. I mentioned Aleppo and Mosul to emphasize the destruction and misery that the conflict has caused for the people of Marawi. What got my goat was when some students snickered at the mention of Aleppo and Mosul. You know how young people are when they are reminded of something funny that sounds like the word or name mentioned. I normally would let it pass if not for the fact that I have it up to here with Filipinos laughing insensitively at something like Duterte's rape joke. I felt desperate.

There are some things terribly lacking in many Filipinos, young and old, these days. Sensitivity and Empathy among them.  Despite technological advancements that allowed us real-time information from virtually any part of the earth, the nonchalance, the unfeeling stance are too openly displayed. The internet is said to have made the world smaller but it has also created great chasms of indifference between and among peoples and societies. In the classroom, we can only do so much at this stage to goad the student to read beyond memes and updates. Despite literature adjusting to readership in recent years, I am faced with students who are mostly non-readers. They can read, alright, but they are not interested in longer, more in-depth reading. News are accessed in passing, heard over radio or TV in between busying oneself with phones. Many families have non-reading parents as well thus the necessary modeling is absent. 

Why did Aleppo or Mosul sound funny? These days, these names of places should only elicit sadness and concern. So should Marawi. Why is rape funny? Why are there people, some of them women, educated and professionals, who are "getting" what the president means and are having fun echoing him? 

I've learned and have passed on to students the fact that literature affords everyone the chance to be in situations and places they may never be in, know persons they may never meet and learn from lives they will never live. Through literature, sensitivity and empathy are developed, making a regular reader more human and humane. If Facebook, the rest of the Internet and mass media will continue to rule over the short attention span of many students, there will be no in-depth reading done, no significant human experience learned by the youth who have the time to read but wouldn't. 

Under the stairs

I am blogging from under the stairs. 'Tis the little space I was given for my #readinghubproject. It looks like a storage room and one tweep even mistook it for a damaged area when I posted a pic earlier. I don't mind. It allows me space for my abubots. It has a table big enough for my things and I actually have my laptop on it now which I couldn't do in the 1 foot by 2 feet excuse for a table I have in the lugawan style faculty room on the other side of the building.

How has it been since I decided to quit a higher paying tenured post somewhere near Morayta? Let me count the blessings:
1. Shorter work hours. Public school teachers report for six hours only each day. My schedule though this semester donates additional 30 minutes to the school (9-3:30), Mondays thru Wednesdays and more on Fridays (9-4:30). I don't mind because of...
2. Shorter travel time to and from school. Recto from our place ate up to three hours daily from my life. That was shadow work (as I learned years ago from an article by Prof. Randy David). It wasn't paid. Now I get to school/home within 15 minutes save for that afternoon when this group said to be devotees of the Black Nazarene (CAMANAVA sect) extended travel to an hour because of,  yeah, sure, their faith.
3. More time for home and family.
4. More time to do schoolwork.
5. Feels good to be teaching the ones who need it most

How about the non-blessings?
1. The system stinks. I have decided to just stop getting mad last week when the Boss was not as friendly and helpful as before. I suppose she already is up to her neck in feedback about her SHS faculty (we are very outspoken and not zombie-like in complying).
2. The place is so noisy. I actually am planning to have my ears checked because I really don't know if it's the noise or the students just don't speak loud enough when reciting or I am really getting hard of hearing.
3. If not for the afternoon rains, the place is just too hot and uncomfortable. The ceiling fans in the rooms conked out even before the previous school year ended. Now, they are being repaired with students paying for the repairs. Teachers bring their own little fans on top of the LCD projector and laptops they need to bring to class.
4. No library suited to the grade level (SHS). Hopefully, when we get the newer and bigger building (unless the junior high school people sequester it again) , we can have both library and faculty room.
5. The usual inefficient, redundant documentary requirements from the division office. Just today, all our annual physical exam records were returned to us because they were not accomplished on special paper. The clinic personnel thought that we can just have the forms photocopied but the division people want the special hard paper which they fail to supply us because teachers don't get supplies. We buy our own and just hope the subsidies (chalk allowance, instructional materials allowance, etc) would come soon.

Why am I blogging about this? Wala lang. I have three hours vacant and I finished my PowerPoints early. There's the idea and the urge to write. The latter does not come often enough. I would love to post regularly but the writing urge does not come that easily for me.

Yup, that's it. I will have two Literature classes come 1:30 pm. Will discuss Jeff Canoy's Dispatches from Marawi.

One thing I like about starting over in a new school and diff system, I get to think of new strats-- not yet late for me given my years in teaching.

#SalamatLeni

Thank you, VP Leni, for taking the journey with us since we clamored for you to be Mar Roxas' running mate. The 16M erred terribly in their choice of president but the heavens knew we would need you to counter this huge mistake. 

I thank God for you. Carry on, Madame VP. Your detractors are either paid, misled, blind or simply unprincipled. You have risen above them all each time they tried to drag you down. Salamat sa Dios at ikaw ang aming Bise Presidente!