Saturday, March 31, 2007 Carvajal: Hero or heel? By Orlando P. Carvajal Break Point
NOBODY in his right mind puts innocent children in harms way just to bring home a point.
Having said that, I must declare hostage-taker Jun Ducat a heel. Yet, without in any way condoning his crime, I have to concede a grudging admiration for him for risking everything in a desperate attempt to bring his gripes on education to the attention of authorities.
Unfortunately, I do not expect the authorities to listen to his desperation. This government has denied hunger, denied extra-judicial killings, denied corruption, and all but rams down our throats the macro-economic figures crunched out by its economic staff. We have reason, therefore, to expect it to dismiss the hostage-taking incident as the act of a mad man and to continue bragging about the progress it is making in improving the state of education in this country where the reality is otherwise.
For the longest time we have known that one way out of poverty over the long haul is education. For many of us who were born poor, education has been our passport to a better life thanks to the heroism of our parents who had to educate us with little or no support from the government.
I do not know who is more insane. Those who take desperate measures to dramatize the issue of poor educational opportunities or those who cajole people into believing that they are doing enough for education when they are not. The fact of the matter is that this country is not spending enough for education. We do not have adequate educational facilities and the quality of the education we get from our schools leaves much to be desired.
We have so many college graduates who are unemployable because of a severe lack of adequacy in reading, writing and arithmetic. We all know this but all we do is brag about the high literacy rate that we think we enjoy but which really only exists in the minds of our politicians. So now, who is insane?
We do not spend enough for education, a major component in the fight against poverty, because our leaders prefer big macro-economic projects including an inordinate number of white elephants. We do not have funds for enough schools and desks but we have plenty for pork barrel to give to our lawmakers to fund their high profile vote-getting projects, if they do not decide to spend it all on their personal luxuries.
We are spending for everything except for what really counts, a solid education for all Filipinos. Jun Ducat was no hero. But neither is the rest of officialdom who breathe the rarified air of another world and cannot hear the people’s cry for better educational opportunities.
Jun Ducat was no hero but our public officials are heels for driving more and more people to take desperate measures.
