Who’s reading?

WHEN was the last you saw a student reading a book, a newspaper, or a magazine in his or her comfort zone outside of the school? In all probability, the chances of seeing one in a day today is practically nil.

The fact is today’s generation of students is seeing a sharp decline in their reading habits compared to the baby-boomer generation of last whose majority were voracious readers of books and newspapers. This contributed largely to the continuing decline in the country’s literacy rate and for too long, the government and the education sector have ignored this malady. While technology has expanded opportunities for information to be disseminated, it has not helped promote reading as a habit in any community.

The establishment of the Library Hub in Dagupan is, therefore, a welcome initiative of government since it promises students access to new editions of primary reference materials. The only thing that remains to be done is to complement it by including a daily reporting and discussion of book titles and news in classrooms to force students to use the hub daily. We also recommend that the city government on its own provide the hub ample copies of newspapers and magazines because costs of these materials are inarguably already costly to a family that sends children to school.

It’s bad enough that our children now use phone cameras to copy a teacher’s lecture on the board instead of writing them down, but to tolerate them to stop reading will rapidly lead to their inadequacy to communicate effectively in the globally competitive world.

 

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One-sided

THE recent gruesome murder of transgender Jeffrey/Jennifer Laude inside an Olongapo motel allegedly by US Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton has put to spotlight anew the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), not to mention the much-criticized Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA).  The VFA was signed between the Philippines and US in 1999, allowing American soldiers to trample on our patrimony again after we threw out the US bases in 1992.

Only last April when US President Obama was only hours away from landing on Philippine soil, both sides inked the Edca.  That pact ensured America’s virtual unlimited access to designated PHL territories and, in the process, also the establishment again of military facilities here.

And in VFA’s Art. 5, Par. 6, it says that although the PHL has jurisdiction over criminal cases involving US soldiers like Pemberton, the US government has custody of them.  What could be more one-sided than that?

Thus, weep no more that Pemberton, poor Laude’s alleged killer, is in a US ship docked at Subic.  All this time, we’ve been subservient to American interests.

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