Category Archive for: komentaryo

komentaryo

post-SONA blues: LFS one point, Dep Ed zero

Other than the fashion both inside and outside the halls of Congress (which will be topic for another entry), what’s also exciting about the President’s annual SONA are the discussions that lead up to it, where once a year, media actually sort of asks the right questions (finally!). Then again, with a past SONA to diss, and a new one to compare it to, how can any show go wrong?

And so on the new TV show Harapan with Korina Sanchez and Ted Failon last Monday sat Vencer Crisostomo, secretary-general of the League of Filipino Students, and Department of Education Undersecretary Vilma Labrador, face-to-face (kasi nga harapan, hindi ba?) to talk about GMA’s presidential promises on education. Suffice it to say that in this harapan, Crisostomo had the upper hand, primarily because he was faced with a Dep Ed undersecretary who, like her boss GMA, had her way with truth. That is, she had a way of lying by not talking about the full picture of our public schools.

So Labrador says with pride in her voice and a sparkle in her eyes that the teacher to pupil ratio has consistently been kept down to 1:35 or 1:36, thanks to GMA’s administration. Barely able to contain his laughter, Crisostomo responds that this is only so because the classrooms have been cut in half — as in literally in half with makeshift walls! — so instead of 1 teacher to 70 pupils, it can truthfully be said that it’s now 1 teacher to 35 students at any given time.

He also points out that it’s the logic of having three shifts – that is, three different classes – for any given day, any teacher, and every halved classroom, that allows for the 1:35 ratio to be true. In fact Dep Ed Order No. 62, s 2004, speaks of these shifts as a way of solving the problem of classroom shortage, which at that point was at 51,947. Inthe said order, it’s even recommended that for certain public schools, they must have as many as four shifts, not three, and the maximum number of students for every classroom is set at 65. Wait, is that a whole, or a halved classroom?

But Labrador seemed surprised at Crisostomo’s response, if not flabbergasted. How could she respond? Well, with no answer at all. So she starts talking about statistics on the number of graduates in public schools, and how statistically, the numbers have been consistent. To which of course Crisostomo responds by mentioning the now higher drop out rate, which would technically allow for the number of graduates to be consistent, because you’re not counting the growing number of students who leave school because they can’t afford it.

But public schools are suppose to be free, yes? Failon asks. No, according to Crisostomo, as there are fees that students continue to be required to pay, to which Labrador says, report those schools that still have fees and the Dep Ed will take care of it. To which Crisostomo says, “hindi naman maiiwasan ‘yon.” Because really, if a school has to collect money for a bathroom that students can use, or an electric fan to ease the heat of a classroom with 70 students, who would complain?

Meanwhile, Labrador is left with nothing to say, and nothing to be proud of. Someone should’ve warned her that speaking of truths based merely on gov’t statistics, doesn’t hold in the face of someone like Crisostomo who has a real sense of what it is that actually happens on the ground, in the public schools, that half the time seems to only be a theory to the Dep Ed and GMA.

Of course it helped that Crisostomo was not your grim-and-determined scary activist. For most of Harapan, his charm was difficult to miss, informed as it was with knowing that truth was on his side – the kind that sustains organizations like his, because it is the truth that is lived by the majority who aren’t invited to speak in shows like this one.

LFS: one point. Dep Ed: zero.

komentaryo

don’t forget the woman

it’s easy to get lost in the mudslinging that goes into debates about any bill that touches on reproductive health and its contingent issues (contraceptive use, family planning) in this country. what with the notions of morality and rights, the Church and the State, religion versus the law, that get thrown in for good measure. talaga naman, the weak at heart would rather not say anything. baka nga namang matawag ka pang imoral (which, given the Church’s definition isn’t a bad thing at all), o demonyo.

minsan, mas madaling pagtawanan, the things that are revealed about our institutions in the midst of issues like this. one can’t help but laugh, for example, at the outmoded ways in which the Church views its devotees as: (a) living sexless lives or (b) responsible, compassionate and intelligent adults, who aren’t wont to give in to sexual needs. anyone who does research on this issue will also be brought to sites like this one, where Pro-Life people insist on keeping families smaller by what they call the “mucus method” – where women will keep track of their vaginal discharge, (maybe even touching it and smelling it for good measure, you can never be sure after all), so that they know when they can have sex (which is of course dependent on whether or not they want to have children).

recently though, the laughter has been a pained one. the kind that’s premised on a fear of the Church and its ability to insist on things political using their notion of morality. particularly given the ways in which GMA has tried her best to keep this institution happy – even if only through her silences and wry smiles. it’s even harder to be hopeful when all we hear from her comes from Gov. Joey Salceda, who has the gall to reduce the issue and the government’s stand to this: “There’s very little pressure for drastic change in the policy, which the President says she wants to be consistent,” he said. He added partly in jest, “Apparently, there are no people going out on the streets calling for less sex because it is sinfully delightful.” what a pointless thing to say.

along with the silence, or stupid soundbites, from GMA’s camp, there’s the Church and its believers, coming out in droves, talking about immorality and death, and all the possible evils that a reproductive health bill will bring on. where we talk about population control, they’ll say but the population’s fine, what we need are economic policies to take care of our admittedly growing number. where we talk about impoverished families with too many children, they say but i have eight children, and i’m perfectly happy! where we talk about parents’ right to choose how many children to have, when to stop having children, and how to keep from having children; they’ll point a finger and scream: a culture of sin, a culture of evil! anti-life advocates!

but this is not, cannot simply be, a debate that’s about pro-life versus pro-choice. that debate, to begin with, is premised on an abortion law, not a reproductive health bill. a bill, that in its current version continues to insist that abortion is illegal in this country. when the Church and its cohorts say otherwise, they are lying.

what this bill does call for is medical attention for the half a million women who go through illegal abortions every year, in some godforsaken dirty room in the bowels of our urban spaces. what it does insist on, is the right of every woman to choose for herselfwhat kind of method to use, if she wants to have less children, or none at all, given the sexual relationship she’s embroiled in, within or outside of marriage.

what the Consolidated Reproductive Health Bill knows is that while it would be great to imagine that all Pinoy husbands will not insist on sex when their wives don’t want it, or when their wives say it’s a “bad time” (because you know, my mucus isn’t right); while it’s fantastic and ideal to imagine that the youth aren’t sexually active too early for their age; while it would be great if all single Pinoy adults were sexually responsible; in reality, in truth, these ideals aren’t what we’re working with.

it only takes a more intelligent assessment of the ideologies that surround relationships and marriage in this country to see that this can’t simply be about couples deciding privately how they can grow their families. here, in the land of poverty and miseducation, marriage and patriarchy, couples living in shanties and unable to afford basic services, have 8, 9, 10, 11! children; women die at childbirth, children die before they turn one, more before they turn five; and the women who do want and need to control their pregnancies can’t afford the choices available.

what this highlights, and which discussions on pro-(culture-of-)life forget, is that ultimately, a reproductive health bill is about women and their right to their bodies.

and it is when we speak of women that we must acknowledge their diversity: not all women want children, or want many of them, and some women just enjoy having a husband/lover and the sexual relationship that allows; not all women want to focus on their mucus or the calendar, and risk getting pregnant given the uncertainty of these methods; a majority of women in this country are poor, uneducated or miseducated about their rights and the roles within the family, and don’t know any better than to accede to their husband’s sexual whims and demands; and while their lives seem to be made of the same cloth as your daily soap opera, these women’s lives are real and painfully true.

even when it’s not you or me, na nakakapit na sa patalim, stuck between a rock and a hard place, we must be able to imagine that woman. she who’s more than willing to batter the body and risk one’s life, instead of bringing out another unfed, malnourished baby into the world, and make life more difficult than it already is.

to forget that this is about women’s choices, their bodies and their lives, is to gloss over the fact that women – as much as the children- are victims of the current state of things, too. to forget the woman who is central to the reproductive health bill, is to imagine that we are all the same, that our bodies aren’t our own, that the Church can decide on our bodies for us.

anti-reproductive-health-bill advocates conveniently forget that some women have the luxury of choice and the capacity to spend on these choices. others can only imagine their choice to be among stealing formula milk for another newborn, throwing their pregnant selves down a flight of stairs, or leaving their newborns in a trashcan somewhere in the metro. at least give these women the choice to keep from getting pregnant to begin with. then we can truly say that we promote a culture of life. that we respect life – the child’s, the man’s and the woman’s. regardless of whether they’re rich or poor.

kultura

romanticizing poverty and wowowee

The past couple of weeks, Randy Santiago has been pinch hitting for host Willie Revillame on noontime gameshow Wowowee. Suffice it to say that it has been a breath of fresh air, a relief and respite from the kind of hosting that Revillame has been allowed to do on nationwide (worldwide!) television. (more…)

komentaryo

kidnap: truth as tribute

for something that ABS-CBN hyped up to high heavens, and advertised like anything, there was nothing new or extraordinary about Kidnap, the story of how Ces Drilon and her cameramen Angelo Valderama and Jimmy Encarnacion were abducted in Sulu. in fact, it was so much worse than the standard Correspondents episode that the network churns out weekly, or even a Probe Team segment – which says a lot if you’re familiar with the usually shallow and biased (for big business and hacienderos/elite) slant that these two shows usually take.

Kidnap lacked focus, sold a false sense of truth (or the limited one that ABS-CBN wants to feed us), and really was a perfect example of journalism turned propaganda – and tribute. (more…)

komentaryo

presidential torture

of course this president is torture enough. that grimace that she seems to always have on her face. her capacity at giggling in kilig and laughing at jokes made at the expense of a nation in calamity. and we’re not even talking about her ability to say one thing and do another. and to lie through her teeth.

and then this, a perfect example of how torture is but part and parcel of GMA’s presidency. and how people still suffer for their politics – when it’s the kind that is not one of a heckler’s, or a rightist’s, or that of an America-loving-Pinoy – in the closet and otherwise.

According to the Manila Times editorial today, the NCR director for the Human Rights Commission Dr. Renato Basas has confirmed that various forms of torture have been employed by the GMA administration. And while she has also ratified the U.N. Treaty Against Torture, the editorial also says that obviously

“The unfortunate reality is that absolutely prohibiting the police, the jail managers, the military and others charged with the duty of ensuring that law and order prevail is not among the top priorities of Malacañang.”

A measure as well of GMA’s fear in the military’s power over her, thus the decision to coddle the Palparans of this world and celebrate then as fantastic officers, despite witness upon witness saying otherwise. Proving otherwise.

i caught Storyline‘s episode on the desaparecidos of the present. And while sometimes the show’s format doesn’t work (more on this next time), last night, it just did, as it allowed King Catoy to just speak to the camera, with no real sense of an interviewer. Catoy told the story of his 2003 abduction, and spoke of the activists with him who were summarily executed: human rights worker Eden Marcellana and peasant leader Eddie Gumanoy.

what struck too close to home was the fact that he and two others had identified Master Sgt. Donald Caigas as one of their abductors. Caigas would also be the one name that would surface in relation to Karen Empeno’s and Sherlyn Cadapan’s disappearance, and apparent torture and rape. the latter story was witnessed and told by the abducted farmers who would come to be known as the Manalo brothers, Raymund and Reynaldo.

it was Raymund Manalo who claimed that he saw Palparan twice during his three-month detention, before he and his brother escaped to tell their story. in one of those instances, Palparan told him to tell his parents to stop going to protest rallies.

blindfolded, hands tied behind him, and kneeling on the ground, King Catoy was also told the same thing: stop going to rallies, stop whatever it is you’re doing with these activists. stop being yourself.

and everyday, we live through the torture of knowing that many others are disappearing and dying for doing what they do, believing what they will, living a life for justice and democracy that we all should want to live. because people are stolen, are made to disappear, are tortured and raped, and are killed, not simply for their politics. in GMA’s time (as with Marcos’), they are being made to suffer for being themselves.