Punchline

By July 2, 2006Opinion, Punchline

Who’s afraid of the future?

By Ermin Garcia jr.

The latest attempt of Malacanang Palace officials to invoke the principle of separation of church and state as a result of the signing of the impeachment complaint by Caloocan’s Bishop Deogracias Yniguez, confirms the confused mindset, hypocrisy and erratic posturing of the Palace occupants.

            When President Arroyo gleefully reported how the Holy See was inspired by her projects and programs, the spinmasters of the Palace went to town to trumpet it. They heralded that the Pope’s endorsement was good for the Filipino people.  (In their view, there was no violation of the principle of the separation of church and state, never mind that Mrs. Arroyo invoked the bidding of the Church to promote her political agenda).

              Within hours, the same Palace trumpeters asked that Bishop Yniguez be sanctioned by the Catholic Bishops conference of the Philippines for violating the principle of separation of church and state by signing the impeachment complaint.

            It’s double-speak par excellence.

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THE WAR VS. INSURGENCY. Then, take the historic abolition of the death penalty.

            Mrs. Arroyo marched to Rome to personally present a copy of the signed document banishing the use of the lethal injection room by death convicts, to which Pope Benedict XVI reportedly said, “Well done.”

            But even as she was presenting the Pope’s special copy of her “Gift of Life”, battalions of soldiers were being flown from Mindanao to Luzon to wipe out the communist insurgents from the map while hundreds more of leftists are being targeted for assassination, courtesy of the P1 billion fund that Mrs. Arroyo allocated for the all-out war against the insurgency. 

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THE WAR VS. CORRUPTION. Mrs. Arroyo also released another P1 billion for an all-out war against graft and corruption in the country. (The first program that Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez is contemplating for the all-out war is to ask radio stations to play songs that inspire citizens to be patriotic!).

            Mrs. Arroyo’s first instruction was to release the P1 billion budget to the Bureau of Internal Revenue, Bureau of Customs and other flagships of corruption so these can measure up to the challenge in fighting corruption. How that makes sense is alien to me.

            But even before her trumpeters could send out the announcement to all media outlets, she reminded all agencies about her standing order not to search for and/or produce former Usec. Joc-joc Bolante to face investigation on the P726 million fertilizer scam!

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SIGAW NG DAYA. Some “Hello Garci” habits are just too difficult to break.

A news item from the provincial office of the Commission on Elections reports that all districts in Pangasinan have submitted more than the required 3% of total voters in each district for the “People’s Initiative”. But this after it determined that more than 40% of the submitted names and signatures of voters were actually not registered! Baka nga nanam makalusot din!

And thanks to the absence of an enabling law that would have defined the process and procedure for the conduct of a People’s Initiative, the “signatures” of registered voters that bore some “minor” differences were validated.

            Thank heavens, the solicitation and submission of signatures was just an academic exercise for the Sigaw ng Bayan’s version of People’s Initiative. Can you imagine how the count would have been if reform-minded sectors were not vigilant and there are no legal impediments to it?

 If policies and political leadership do not change soon, expect more of the “dagdag-bawas” (Hello Garci version) in 2007 elections. 

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WHO’S AFRAID OF THE FUTURE? Schools have opened and the brouhaha over Mrs. Arroyo’s version of classroom shortage is (like most seemingly contentious issues) is now but a fleeting memory for those who aren’t truly bothered by the rapid deterioration of education in the country. 

            So before everyone forgets the core issues, permit me to reprint here some facts that beset our youth, our remaining and last hope for our motherland. The following was reported by Kaakbay CDI (Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan Citizens’ Development Initiatives, Inc.):                                                

Fact 1: Only 6 out of every 1,000 Grade Six elementary graduate students are prepared to enter high school. (Only 0.64% of some 1.4 million Grade VI students got a score of 75% and above in the 2004 High School Readiness Test (HSRT). The mean percentage score was 32.13%).  

Note: 99.36% of Grade VI elementary graduate students failed to get 75

 percent and above in the HSRT, a 90-item competency test on elementary English, Science and Mathematics administered by the National Educational Testing and Research Center (NETRC) of the Department of Education (DepED) on May and June 2004 on incoming public freshmen high school students nationwide. Only 7.9 percent got a score of 50 percent and above. The mean percentage score was 29.47 in English, 33.46 in Science, and 33.46 in Mathematics.

            Fact 2:  Only 2 out of every 100 Fourth Year High School students are fit to enter college. (97.9% of the more than 1 million 4th year high school students failed to get 75% and above in the National Achievement Test (NAT) last March 2004. The total percent score of examinees was 44.36%).
Note: The mean percentage score was 36.80 in Science, 46.20 in Mathematics, and 50.08 in English.
Fact 3: Only 19 out of every 100 public school teachers have confidence and competence to teach English. (19% of 53,412 public high school teachers of English, Science and Mathematics earned a score of 75% or higher in Self-Assessment Test (SAT) for English Proficiency administered by the DepED in May 2003.)
Note: 81% of Public School Teachers failed to earn a score of 75 percent or higher in the SAT for English.
Fact 4:  The Philippines is No. 41 in Science and No. 42 in Mathematics among 45 countries. (In science, Grade 8 (equivalent of Second Year) Filipino students edged out only their counterparts in Botswana, Ghana and South Africa. In Mathematics, they were ahead from the same countries plus Saudi Arabia).
Note: In science, Philippines got a score of 377; International average is 474. In mathematics, Philippine score is 378; International average is 467. Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan topped the worldwide survey. TIMMSS is administered by the International Association for the Evaluation of Education Achievement.
If these facts don’t bother you, then you are part of the problem.

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