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! 

Chairs

Funny how I have this history with chairs, tables, posts and bosses. I get to recall it oh so suddenly after I told my daughter how luxurious looking were the conference table and swivel chairs in my current boss' office. I am happily (acceptingly) holding office under the stairs with an old teacher's table which has missed its side drawer but repainted yellow by a younger colleague who thought I would have some use for it in my reading hub project. It was a better table than the one I have in our current faculty room. I couldn't even put my laptop in that 1'x2' space alloted to me but that one, too was better than the "whatever" space I could get on a table I shared with my colleagues for several months last year inside that space grudgingly given to us by the science department in the building supposedly for OUR department. Confused already? 

 

Anyway, my current "lungga" under the stairs also has two extra armchairs on which I can put my things but I sit on a monobloc stool which happened to make itself available for me during Brigada Eskwela. I am quite content with my space now bec I get to work on a bigger table in between classes and the books and cabinet donated to my reading hub project are right next to me. The admin was able to fulfill my lone request of a grill gate which I can padlock at the end of the day. Currently, a cat and her kittens have discovered my cave and have helped themselves to my boxes. 

In my previous schools, chairs, desks and bosses also figured prominently. At the Morayta tech college, I had my own table, an ergonomic chair which was scheduled to be replaced when I resigned, and a laptop. I shared the domain with three other faculty members who helped me run the language center. I miss the place , its furniture and equipment and the services it offered to students. My bosses' offices of course were royalty compared to the one we had. I guess, this is true in many companies, the big bosses have it all really good when it comes to amenities. Still, I remain mighty proud of that office which I left behind to go teach in a public school nearby.

My cubicle at the Taft university was also something many public school teachers will not experience. All probationary and tenured faculty had individual cubicles huge enough for all the paperwork our job entailed. We had a well-appointed faculty room on the 15th floor. I would have stayed there til retirement but I had problems with my Chair. Yes, the boss, not the furniture.

Speaking of Chairs, I was Chair for Mass Com in a university chain years ago. Funny though that in my first month, our office was too crowded with Chairs and staff that I didn't have a chair! That university chain had all the illusion of being an academic leader in something but it was really just a business that thought so little of students and teachers. 

I am feeling a bit sad that my current boss (with whom I get along well, actually) has a very beautiful office. I don't know if she doesn't feel out of place because the rest of the school needs refurbishing. I don't know why bosses can actually enjoy amenities when their constituents are in need of even the most basic - chairs, tables, fans, toilets. I hope my boss will go visit the rest of the school more often lest she be thought of less than she deserves by the community . Under Duterte, I fear that we're back to the old rotten ways at the education department. I was inspired by Bro. Armin to transfer to the public school. I don't know but Sec Briones , despite possibly similarly intentioned as her predecessor, is too old and weak to oversee the department which in its history was once the most corrupt government agency. Huge, complicated... too great a responsibility. Ideals are lost like chairs, missed like the drawer on my yellow table. 

Failure to launch

Had an argument with my eldest son yesterday. He told me I was a stage mother! There were things he wanted to do but couldn't bec I was always admonishing him about fraternities and things he should avoid. 

I must admit that I am a nervous wreck when it comes to my children, ages 28, 24 and 16. When my daughter was  going out too often and staying out too late, we also had an argument. She thought I was stopping her from enjoying her youth while I was just being the "praning" mom of these dangerous times. I think it's also bec of the cellphone which I didn't have growing up.

When I was young, I would always be out with friends from the neighborhood. When I went to college and became involved in extra-curricular activities, I would go home really late or sleep over at a friend's. Nobody called or texted to ask for my whereabouts and what time I intend to come home. The one time my dad scolded me because I came home late , I remember him saying, "Uwi ba yan ng matinong babae?" But usually he would just ask if I already had dinner. 

My daughter has since realized it was better for the both of us if she dutifully updates me where she is especially when she's out with friends on a weekend gimmick. I usually calm down if I am informed that she's with a friend she could go home with after or if she's taking Uber. Yes, Grab and Uber made my waiting more bearable bec I know my daughter will be assured of a safer ride. My daughter, too, has become street smart enough and I am confident she could take care of herself. I don't know but I am more "praning" with my sons.

So my son is telling me that I stage mothered him too much that he was already being left behind by his peers in terms of things he wanted to do. Honestly, all the while I thought that the main reason he wasn't able to do things was financial. As a family ,we had to go through difficulties with tuition fees and if not for his (and his ate's) academic excellence, we would be neck-deep in debt sending all three of them to private schools. I actually joke about sending my children to London, as in "loan dito, loan doon". 

I can't possibly be stage mothering too much. I actually think I didn't stage mother enough. I am not the type of parent who likes to talk to teachers. I seldom went to pick up their report cards bec most of the time we failed to pay tuition so the cards could not be released to us so I don't bother to come and pick them up. Fortunately,despite the constraints, my children were very good students with my eldest son graduating valedictorian in elem amd hs, his ate, an honorable mention and the bunso, also among the best students of his grade 10 class. 

What pained me so much during the argument was hearing my son tell me what's wrong with us as parents. We didn't have much. I was the usual overbearing mom who talks a lot and says a lot but who, with my hubby, took to house chores without forcing any of our children to the tasks. For us, it's enough that they never gave us problems and that they were/are diligent in their studies. 

Anyway, that was yesterday. My son after all inherited the "opinionated" from me which was enhanced by his studies at the state university. Mothers and their daughters and sons would always have episodes of snapping at each other. Ours are few and far between but they always lend the relationship some relief of sorts after acknowledging what was amiss. We are not a family known to say sorry and I love you. We don't kiss and make up. We just wake up more aware and understanding of each other. 

I recall the film in which Matthew McCounaghey "fails to launch" as an adult and continues to live with his parents. In my case, it's the parent in me who would be "failing to launch" her children on their own because , honestly, I wish to have them with us for a long time. Tonight, my daughter is out of town. My eldest son decided to climb a mountain and go home tomorrow night. We only have our precious bunso with us who at 16 is already complaining I am too strict with him. And I go "why do children have to grow up and try to launch on their own?" 

Research and Information

Today's topic at training was Research and how to teach it to SHS. The facilitator seemed knowledgeable. Unfortunately, her audience, on their 12th day of "incarceration" were either too tired, too preoccupied (with their gadgets as the hotel offered free wifi) or just naturally shutting down their brain stem at the mere mention of the word "research". Research isn't exactly a strength among basic education teachers. Many of them struggled thru their Master's just so they could get a more respectable rank. In many divisions, research is synonymous to the local government's additional COLA of 1500/month. Or so I discovered.

I remember that years ago, as a teacher in a very research-oriented university along Taft Ave., I made the mistake of revealing my lack of interest in research. I think that was the beginning of my downfall in the eyes of my superiors. I eventually began to appreciate research's role in the academic profession but I wasn't able to cultivate a good enough reputation in it. Proof is the fact that my dissertation took too long to be defended and when I finally did, my panel already had made up their minds it wasn't good enough. Not that it was the worst paper they have ever read. But that's another issue. 

I have since taught Intro to Research to technology students somewhere near Morayta. I loved the subject. I enjoyed teaching it and getting my students started in the wonderful word of sociological research. They didn't have much use for it though bec by the time they got to thesis writing, a whole new angle to research is presented or forced on them, that of the technological kind. They even forgot the importance of honesty in the use of sources. All they cared about was the design or program their thesis was all about. 

Research is also not a strong suit of Filipinos in general. There are very few people who are into it. Many Pinoys seem averse to the "tedious" process of finding out more and that they'd rather accept what ever info is presented to them despite the obvious irregularity, lack of logic and truth in it. Google has made info so accessible that many Pinoys take it for granted. Instead of making the search engine their friend, they have become too lazy to use it to their advantage. It's like settling for the info received thru the grapevine or the neighborhood gossip. Many would readily believe the tall tales bec verifying them would just take time.

Several times, the problem of fake news was mentioned by almost every facilitator we've had. The teachers seem to acknowledge it but so far no effort was made to discuss it further. Yes, even if the queen of fake news has recently been rewarded for her achievements in it. The talk centered only on how much she would be getting. Nothing much on how she has twisted the appreciation for the truth and the factual on socmed. The teacher seated near me even pointed to (and ready to believe) the latest fake story of two senators holding hands on the street. I was just quick enough to correct him. Good to note that his source was FB and mine was Twitter. We do realize though that it's not really the platform but the user. This morning there was this misleading use of a still photo from Coco Martin's teleserye to depict the worsening drug situation in the country. And that's from Reddit, supposedly a better, more reliable platform than FB. 

Anyway, information is power and in this age of Trump and Duterte, false information is more powerful than facts  it seems. It has won elections for the undesirables and unimaginables. I don't know when we are going to come around and realize the value of research and the pursuit of facts but obviously we can't just rely on our educators. Not yet. They, too, are in the infancy stage when it comes to research and its rewards.