The public administrator (part four) A reminder from God

And what could be the common roots of all simple cases involving principals and teachers which if examined are actually gossips or if not are bad manners and wrong conduct. Manners define men and women, but power and the exercise of it describe their outcome.

And what would that gossip’ be about, other than accusing someone of either partaking that powerful fruit grown in the garden of paradise or sucking that sweet succulent honey from bees in a forbidden relationship. Indeed, love what a powerful beast you were, if you enter the arteries, in the heart of human, all are disturbed except no one, for you chant a natural sound which deafened reasons beyond.

From contemplating, Manong Bert then laughs, at how he sealed the good relationship between three disputing ladies involving simple gossips by using his talent as arbiter of administrative conflicts. He recalls the looks of Nicole, Eve and Bruno.

The first is single, the second was married and the third was a man who declared himself, a lady. Nicole was rumored to be in a relationship with Eve’s husband, while Bruno is Nicole’s best friend, but daydreaming also of the same man. Whoever started that buzz must have been good at it, because it has changed the attitude and behavior of the two real women in school. If the world is narrow, what more in a school.

From an observer’s view every time the two ladies meet in alleys and corridors their faces are in opposite angles – one looks at the left while the other to the right. The simple rebuff was turned into an oral and almost physical conflict between the two, which at one time some faculty members including Bruno intervened to hide the conflicts in the eyes of the students. Else, it is a despicable act to see adult mentors fighting out over some petty and silly causes. Again, what aggravate matters are administrators who lack knowledge or fail to exercise the very basics of due processes – hear first before you decide or take sides.

Now, the conflict was at Manong Bert’s table and to settle it, had a separate chit chats with the three mentors. Starting with Nicole, Manong Bert said:

Nicole, if you love for good reasons, a thousand flowers will bloom, but if you love for the wrong reason, you will end up in eternal misfortune. With the usual five “W” and one “H” strategy, Manong Bert asked Nicole, how did these ones came about? And so tears on Nicole’s eyes dropped as she began to narrate how the conflict started.

Nicole has the looks and brain but in all the years that she has been teaching, No one had ever seen her being fetched by a fine gentleman in school. Manong Bert taught of any reason why this lady despite of the good looks and strong appeal was rumored to be in a relationship with a married man.

To be continued… “Children are a reminder from God that the world must go on.”

HE QUOTE is from Baguio boy and thinker Jose “Peppot” Lambinicio Ilagan, a fellow newsman who went ahead due to kidney failure. It’s a life-time medical inconvenience I’m coping with, making me realize life is beautiful, despite your having to now and then throw up unanswered questions to the sky.

In-between shots of gin, we were discussing “Eco-walk”, a basic and simple environmental program of having kids trace their source of water, from the faucet to the pipes and ending at the Busol Watershed. There, they drink water from the source and then plant a tree seedling to the foliage.

Eco-walk gave me, Peppot and other fellow Baguio journalists, together with Baguio barangay captains, a refreshing respite from the daily grind. We simply could not refuse guiding kids excited to trace where their tap water comes from. The hikes were our mandatory exercise, allowing Peppot and I to sweat and to delay the eventual impact of diabetes, which is kidney failure.

Peppot, my brother, mentor, immediately saw the power of kids in convincing tree-cutters and fire-bugs from destroying Baguio’s remaining pinestands and water sources. The kids’ daily presence in Busol somehow reduced the number of illegal logging and fire incidents in what remains as one of the few water sources of Baguio.

The program galvanized the city’s barangay captains to action, initially by building the lecture shed and then training themselves as guides under Manny Flores, who committed what remained of his life to the program.

Truly, why deny a child the right to know where his water comes from? For Busol, we adopted the “muyong” system of forest management effectively done for centuries by the Ifugaos to ensure yearround water for their rice terraces.

More often than not, a child who grew up in Baguio after the 1990 earthquake has experienced “Ecowalk”. So did thousands of visitors from all over the country who adopted their own kids’ programs patterned after that of Baguio’s.

As seen in the program and in recent events, the power of kids can not be over-emphasized. When that pine stand beside the Baguio Convention Center was threatened to be destroyed and turned into four high-rise commercial buildings called “Baguio Air Residences”, kids of Baguio Pines Family Learning Center wrote then President Glorai Arroyo, asking her to save the trees.

To permanently save the pinestand, city mayor Mauricio Domogan offered to have the city buy it, together with the Baguio Convention Center that the Government Service Insurance System initially agreed to sell to the city.

Recently, however, GSIS had a change of mind, saying the area’s land value has appreciated and offered the lot at a higher price.

Kids rom Baguio Pines Family Learning Center went into letter-writing, this time asking President Rodrigo Duterte to convince GSIS to save the pine lot so the “City of Pines” won’t turn into a misnomer.

First to respond to the pupils of school principal Leonila Bayla was GSIS president Jesus Clint Aranas who said the GSIS property “will remain the home of these beautiful trees”.

As Peppot had reminded us: Children are a reminder that the world must go on.”

e-mail: mondaxbench@yahoo.com for comments.

T