The young Adamson students who marched to Liwasang Bonifacio yesterday went to the rally for the first time in their young lives. They have not experienced tear gas or police truncheons like we did during Martial Law days. We still have to give instruction on “buddy system”, etc.
They were shielded from critical engagement, thanks to red tagging of schools by NTF-ELCAC. The powers that be sowed fear, terror and suspicion when teachers teach critical thinking and social consciousness.
But to go to the streets, they must. To critically engage with society, they need to. Because education is never neutral.
Pope Francis once said: “Education cannot be neutral. It is either positive or negative; either it enriches or it impoverishes; either it enables a person to grow or it lessens, even corrupts him. The mission of schools is to develop a sense of truth, of what is good and beautiful.” (Pope Francis, 10 May 2014)
When schools teach students “the truth, the good and the beautiful”, people in power are threatened. They only want us to follow, to toe the line. So they close the lumad schools or militarize our school premises. Their line of attack: schools are recruiting the youth for the mountains!
And when the teachers and administrators cower in fear, in the name of scholastic neutrality, we actually normalize “the lie, the evil and the ugly.”
Let me count the ways.
First, our society tells us that human life is expendable. Without our teaching them, our youth imbibe the same values. I asked one EJK orphan in Payatas what he wants to become when he grows up: “Anong gusto mong maging paglaki mo?” His reply was: “Gusto kong maging pulis. Papatayin ko ang pulis na pumatay sa Tatay ko.”
And when our educational institutions do not make a stand in the name of neutrality or when our teachers even cheered the killings, we do not do our mission as schools, that is, to form and protect the human person. We proclaim that power, violent power, abusive power, corrupt power, is the ultimate good.
Consequently, education as dialogue is not our main paradigm. Dictation is. Dictation of power. Dictation of authority. “Sunod lang sa gisulti ni Sir.”
Second, our society tells us that the human person is not the center. Money is.
This society puts profit first before people. There is no fair learning access in this country. If you have no money, you cannot study — that simple! I once asked another child in Payatas what he wants to be when he grows up. He has no answer. No dreams, no ambition. Nothing. He was just staring at nowhere. Tinanong ko: “Wala ka man lang sagot? Wala ka man lang pangarap para sa bukas?” Sagot sa akin: “Wala po. Wala nga po kaming makain bukas.”
We have learned recently that 72 % of UP students come from Class A-B, and only 6.2 % come from Class E. Against popular beliefs, in this Philippines, education is not a “great equalizer”.
On the contrary, and in a structural manner, education reproduces our social divide. Economic advantage generates a habitus that can pass big universities. That is why Pierre Bourdieu, a French sociologist tells us, that education is nothing but a reproduction of social inequality.
Killing poor drug users is already an affront to the dignity of the human person. But to make the program systemic with all its quotas and incentives using government funds is not only morally reprehensible but humanly unthinkable. It violates not only those who are killed but also their families to the nth generation because we can never measure the extent of the damage done to them. I have seen countless children staring at nowhere, not understanding why their loving fathers were killed in front of their very eyes.
In the Filipino everyday life, corruption and non-accountability, political dynasties and patronage politics — all prevalent in the present political climate — only “uses” the people with the money that also comes from them. Sumayaw lang budots, senador na!
From confidential funds that supposedly went to hands of Mary Grace Piattos and her friends to the present GAA that only fuels the ambition of those in power, ginigisa lang nila tayo sa sarili nating mantika, as the Tagalogs would say.
For instance, why do they allocate billions to AKAP when we have already have 4Ps? We lack 165,000 classrooms and they cut the budget in education. Our infant growth is stunted, EDCOM 2 says, and they cut the budget for health or gave zero budget for PhilHealth.
My message to the teachers among us: from our classrooms to the streets, from our lessons (be it in science, math or readings) to their researches (be it in engineering, biology or literary criticism), we need to critique “the lie, the evil and the ugly.” We need to proclaim “the truth, the good and the beautiful.”
Otherwise, we have miserably failed in education. We have truly miseducated our people, as the EDCOM 2 describes our Philippine educational system. Not only because we lack 165,000 more classrooms or 50% of our schools do not have principals.
We have miseducated our people because we taught them neutrality, silence and subservience despite the rampant abuse, shameless corruption and grave injustices happening in front of our very eyes.
Tama na. Sobra na. Laban na!
Daniel Franklin E. Pilario, C.M.
Adamson University
Manila
