Alchie Paray is not a film
WHEN you treat the Alchie Paray hostage taking like a movie, like he’s Arthur Fleck who flipped out because of one bad day under an exploitative capitalist system, or in Alchie’s case, one bad boss. Or if your movie library is deeper, you see him as Julio Madiaga, who resorted to violence only to meet a dead end.
But he’s not a movie character. And the problem he encountered at work – being fired for doing his job because of palakasan – is not personal. As Bulatlat writer Justin Umali points out, “we are not dealing with personal grievances but against an entire system built on exploitation... we must collectively strike ...at the heart of it.”
But when you see the solution to Paray’s plight, that is of workers trying to form unions, then you go beast mode saying unions, and strikes and bargaining, you go beast mode and condemn this act as the act of the devil, then you don’t see the problem. You become part of the problem.
We just want to see Alchie as a movie. As Esquire PH’s Joseph Pascual articulated it well: “Every good story has a bad guy. To many of us, the bad guy is someone else, and the story ends there.”
Schooled
Let’s imagine the Philippine Senate as a school, where the class president is a Wanbol University alumnus known for palusots and one-liners. Imagine also, this class president surprisingly lectures on the rock-headed classmate to stop bragging and bullying about how good he is to his daddy and do his homework as a senator.
For that, new classmate admits he is not a statesman. So what is he doing in class anyway? And where did that PhD skills he brags about gone?
Surprisingly too, is that class president makes sense on what he said. But only if he can also practice what he preached.
DepEd gets schooled
Department of Education (DepEd) thought it was cute to run a social media gimmick called “Name your Class Section Challenge”. The millennials wasn’t so kind to them with their wittier and realistic remarks. Here are the wittiest answers:
“‘Pag nasagot ba namin ‘to tataasan niyo na ang sweldo ng mga guro?”
“Can you name all the schools with tuition and other fee increase?”
“How about improving the education system challenge?”
This is the best answer: “Can you name all the Lumad schools you closed down?”
DepEd should know that when one acts cute during recitation, it means they know nothing.