Tuesday, August 05, 2008 Speak out: Hope for the youth? By Lloyd Joseph Mosqueda Anakbayan-Sugbo, deputy secretary general
LAST July 28, the whole Filipino youth witnessed and heard the annoying piece of lies, the State of the Nation Address of de facto President Gloria Arroyo.
From the beginning until the end of her speech we never heard of steps and ways concerning the youth’s welfare. Most of what she said was just making the dreams of the capitalist come true. How sad the state of the Filipino youth.
According to the study of Anakbayan, 13 million Filipino youth who are supposed to be in school are engaged in labor, some of which are anti-social activities. This situation alone should be a determining factor that the state has abandoned its vital and basic services to the Filipino people, most particularly the youth.
On the other hand, the government is always claiming that education is the backbone of the economy, emphasizing that “the youth are the hope of our land!” Now the question is, “how could it be possible in this present situation?”
If we take a closer look at the situation of our public schools today, we can conclude that the education situation is in a poor state. As a matter of fact, even Abellana National School, one of the largest schools here in Cebu City, lacks facilities, including classrooms. And most of the other schools are very old and not conducive to learning. Instead, these schools instill fear among students, parents and teachers who are afraid that the buildings might give way at any time. As for some of the books and references in use today, these have become obsolete. With a ratio of three students for every book, how can we expect them to learn? And if the library does not have the latest books, what then? The problems at Abellana National School are just part of the problem of the entire nation. Yet the government is always claiming that it allocates huge amounts every year to education but I can’t find any rationale about the said allocation.
How about schools in remote areas? Does the government reach out its hand to respond to their demands? Are these schools academically competitive? These are only very few questions that greatly bother us, as members of the Filipino youth.
Last February, I was given the opportunity to accompany several Franciscan priests from Europe whose goal was to find out the real situation of the urban poor in Barangay Carreta, Cebu City. As a Cebuano, I was not surprised by their finding. As a closing part of the activity, we had a stroll inside the cemetery. The foreign priests were very amazed when they saw families living inside the cemetery. When we arrived at the center of the place, we noticed an abandoned infrastructure called “Moseleo,” owned by established family here in Cebu. What attracted us to it was the angelic voices coming from inside. The structure, it turned out, was a makeshift kindergarten school.
In that experience, I could say that Jose Rizal was just speculating when he said that “the youth are the hope of our fatherland.”
I could say that we Filipino youth have been abandoned by our leaders. If we continue to be silent, nothing will happen to us. But if we stand up now so our demands could be heard, then perhaps there is still hope for the youth. We have to remember that the culture of silence is very dangerous. This is the termite that slowly gnaws at the foundation of our freedom. Beat the termite; break the culture of silence so we can attain the real essence of democracy.
