Kids ask the darndest things that stumped Aquino
KIDs say and ask the darndest things, and what happened this Wednesday when President Aquino visited Teodoro Palma Gil Elementary school may left him stumped.
The president was there on an invitation to a tree-planting event. Part of the program included a chance for the students to talk with the president. Among the questions that came out were: Why is illegal logging still happening? How will K-12 be good for us? How will foreign investments help us?
from In teachers between and laughs media on thesetried his questions,best to Aquino give some logging answers.is happening,Why illegal he said pasaway “meron (therepa ring are mgastill stubborn people)”. On K-12, he said this is an “opportunity to learn trades and be productive”. He said foreign investments help create jobs.
If this was a graded recitation, I wonder how we would have graded Aquino’s answers. Teachers do know when students bluff or have done their homework. And for Aquino, his answers leave us with more questions.
Maraming pasaway? After five years of fighting for daang matuwid and you are close to saying this is a failure. Logging is still rampant, Customs is filled with thieves stealing balikbayan items, and cops do kotong. Logging has caused the denudation of rivers, destruction of farms, contributed to the devastation of Pablo, yet that’s all you can say?
Opportunity to learn and be productive? The kid must have asked this question because the most practical concern about K-12 is what happens next year when senior high school finally begins and there are still no facilities, classrooms and teachers to welcome this first batch. How can kids learn with these backlogs?
Foreign investments lead to jobs? That remains to be seen, especially with the state of education gasping with small budgets and facilities as they churn out a labor force for the market.
On one hand, I am delighted the kids show they are aware of the realities. It’s just like the Emperor’s New Clothes, where a kid dared to say the truth that the king is naked. They too, ask questions that unmasked the rhetoric of daang matuwid.
Not only these kids spoke the truth. There is this high school salutatorian who spoke about palakasan in her school. There’s also the daughter of Dionel Campos, the slain Manobo leader in Han-ayan, who still bravely speaks for her tribe and her fellow children who want to return to their schools and communities without the presence of blood-hungry paramilitaries.
On the other hand, the public still have many questions for Aquino. As he has stepped on the grounds of Mindanao, is he addressing the plight of lumads in surigao del sur, Talaingod and Bukidnon which have seen deaths and displacements?
sadly, Aquino responded to this issue early this week by saying “There is no campaign to kill anybody in this country. There is a campaign to get after everybody who commits crimes regardless of who they are.” That response is criticized by indigenous people’s support groups for denying the fact that 53 lumads in Mindanao are killed by state forces under Aquino’s presidency. The Rural Missionaries of the Philippines Northern Mindanao said Aquino’s statement is “an accusation targeted at the victims butchered by the government forces and supporting paramilitary minions. His statement is consistent with the military’s claim that they have been going after members of the New People’s Army, a statement that has been exposed to be a lie by the communities.”
that has been exposed to be a lie by the communities.”
Even his anointed one, Mar Roxas, was in Surigao del Sur early this week, was stumped when an independent media covered him asking the Manobo evacuees what happened to their community. Apparently, the interior secretary didn’t do his homework before visiting the evacuation center. In the end he only said that the authorities would investigate the murder of a tribal school head, a lumad leader and his relative.
Their statements are totally off from the sentiments of the people, including the many netizens who flooded the social media with calls, poems and hashtags of #Stop Killing Lumads and #Stop Lumad Killings. Apparently, there seems to be no will from them to stop the senseless violence against lumads and schools.
I guess we know now who is telling the truth and who is bluffing and denying the truth. How I wish these kids would be running for 2016. They darn know the truth and know what to say.
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