as i continue to wrap my head around the aftermath of Kristel’s death, as one grapples with what ultimately is an injustice, one is also forced to respond to the most insensitive comments cloaked in notions of being “more objective” or being “scientifically, medically correct.”
and while we mourn, we are also fuelled to fight. and as many others are out on the streets, are boycotting their classes, i fight the best way i know how: with words.
at a time when social media Pilipinas is revealing its elitism, its utter lack of sensitivity, its denial of the real conditions of poverty that a majority in this nation suffer, i will fight word for word. word for fucking word.
***
“What killed Tejada isn’t the lack of money but the lack of will to live. Is that stating the obvious? Then why are we not acknowledging it?”
my answer: we are not acknowledging it, because it is wrong. you want the lack of will to live? try being poor. this is NOT a chicken and egg question: she decided not to live, because the educational system and the decaying society killed her will to live.
the lack of will to live doesn’t happen in a vacuum. the lack of money and everything that means to a freshman student who believed education was the way to a better life, that IS what killed this girl’s will to live. the poverties of this nation is what killed her.
***
“I am not trivializing the need for reform on education but I wish for things like a higher salary for public school educators. If we’re going to rally for free stuff, who on earth is going to pay for that? God?”
my answer: that you even think that this is merely about rallying for “free stuff”? it is telling of how you do not know what you are talking about. EDUCATION IS A RIGHT. if the State was doing its job of educating its people, if the government was doing its job and putting a system in place that will allow every student, no matter how poor, to have the best State education possible, there would be no rallies.
there would also be no dead student named Kristel.
***
“This boils down to the girl’s personality, there are so many others who have it worse in life, but they don’t kill themselves.”
my answer: personality does not exist in a vacuum. personality is created by the conditions of nation that we are part of, and in this case it was the poverty of nation that created as it were, this “personality.” there is no person / persona / personality created out of context, and we are all just luckier that we were not created by the context of hunger and need and oppression that created Kristel.
and yes, of course, there are many like her, if not so many others who have it worse. but why compare one life to another? why insist that she is weak and the others are strong? why demand that this girl have it in herself to suffer further?
persistence and hope are for those who can afford to see a light at the end of the tunnel. you do not judge someone for seeing only darkness.
