Mam, May I Go Out?

Enrolment problems ranging from late enrollees to transferees hounded the opening of classes on Monday, when some 25.7 million students from kindergarten through high school returned to public and private high schools nationwide.

It was the first class opening for the Aquino administration, whose Department of Education (DepEd) is grappling with inherited shortages in critical resources, including teachers, classrooms, textbooks, seats and toilets.

As it happened, a group of 50 teachers, still in uniform, trooped to the DepEd central office in Pasig City to protest the introduction of K+12, a costly universal kindergarten program, amid yet unresolved problems including the low wages of educators. (Inquirer.net)

These unsettling realities would seep into our cores since we were students before. How could a young kid learn something while sweating buckets of perspiration while he is sitting on the floor? How could a teacher mill-around to do the process-checking when he himself could not move around since the classroom is filled with wriggling bodies?

With the onslaught of 5-year-olds for the K+12 Program of the Department of Education and the inconsistencies of the salaries given to the (untrained) pre-school teachers, one could really wonder about the intellectual destination of our young. With the influx of gadgets and availability of on-line cafes around, which child psychologists point as one of this generation’s major distractions, we could also see that the kids are into things which they could not use in real life. Could they communicate well if they’re into DOTA? Could they really perform deep analyses since they know how to do Counterstrike? Maybe…

The government must do something. The painful thing is that almost all the mistakes would be pointed to the president and other leaders. That could be another unsettling reality. Since the state is created for its people, then everyone could almost put the blame to the government. This was probably one reason why P-Noy hesitated to run for the presidency. In fact, he went for a retreat somewhere in Mindanao to be enlightened. But majority of Filipinos pushed and voted him to office with Cory’s charisma as an add-on… It was indeed a sacrifice on his part for now even his relationships and his nicotine addiction are newsworthy.

Again, what would become of our educational system? There’s the 4 P’s of the DSWD where critics term as dole-outs. Government subsidies are given to poor families and a portion of the grant must be for the kids’ education. But some parents won’t go the school to pay their dues. Some would try to experience being one-day millionaires once they receive the money in lump.

The brouhaha for the RH Bill is continuing. Some analysts say that this could be one of the alternatives to control the population so that the Philippines won't be in future limbo. According to them, the more people, the more problems. The more children, the more classrooms to be built, the more textbooks to be produced and the more errors to correct. But the church is waging war against the issue since its stand is Pro-Life. It considers the bill as anti-life.

Because of these chains of confusion, others would resort to drown in DEADMA and LET IT BE and WHO CARES.

For us teachers, we could squeeze in more students inside our classrooms; damage our vocal chords so to be heard; arm ourselves with anti-TB medicine; think about being a caregiver; go on for more loans... or resign from being one. In the end, only the willing to serve endures...

Welcome back to school.

(photo:uk.reuters.com)

Kapit-Tuko

Someone asked me if we have a gecko at home because he will buy it for 2.5 million pesos. On instances like these, I would become speechless. Questions and facts would whirl inside my head it's like going crazy. (Have you experienced traveling on a bus for almost 10 hours and you got scared to realize that your thoughts are in disarray? This is similar to that experience.

First, what's with the gecko which we locally named TUKO? Someone said its blood and liver could cure cancer. Others theorized it is an additive for illegal substances. Then, scientific stuff was mentioned... Millions,too, were spoken...

This is my problem: Are the buyers authorized to buy such reptiles? Who are these buyers when in fact there is no company present in the region where signage of this business is conspicuous. We buy copra, we buy seaweeds, we buy nipa, we buy bayat and kinhason... but no We buy tuko.

I remembered one time when a person came to the former school where I was teaching. The guy announced that he is a talent scout of ABS-CBN. He was interested to "sign-up" a male student and the parents asked for advise from me (I was designated as the guidance coordinator that time). The talent scout then discussed without any stimulus about the talent fee. He talked 500 thousand starting fee and I blurted out: You're talking about money this big and yet you were only commuting using trisikad?

The point is this: If this is such a big business, who are these buyers who only come and go looking like thugs? They'd tell you about bank-to-bank transactions while dusting-off the "kaitan" they got from Noventa. Is there a permit of sorts from the DENR since geckos are exotic animals? If they're only interested on the blood and liver of the reptile then dump the tuko, would the animal-rights' advocates cry foul?(Then the whirlwind of thoughts then stop on the image of Cindy Crawford and the supermodels going naked than wearing fur!)

A teacher, full of conviction, told me about this. She said that we could retire from the education department and find geckos. I shushed her since we were on a hired van and other passengers might think that teaching is really a pathetic profession that we'd rather look for lizards than facilitate the learning process!

Indeed, we are motivated to have more possessions. I could not blame this to poverty since I saw a lot of people in the malls frequenting Marithe+Francois Girbaud and our so-called poor students are spending on cellphone loads than books. Our sanity will be blinded by the figures mentioned to us. When millions will be discussed we then forget to ask LAW: Is it Legal? Is it Accepted? Is it Worthwhile? That's why we sometimes swallow illegal drugs and become mules for a bigger fee.

But stories are yet to be told and reasons are still to be analyzed, qualified and accepted. We will not put this one to a dark light. It's just that we have to ask. If indeed geckos are worth millions, then so be it. But the facts must be clear. Since we already realized how expensive swallows nests, shark's fin and Beluga whales' liver could be...gecko's blood might be the next.

I might also try reviving that sigbin controversy since this alleged creature could cure AIDS!

(photo:pinoyexchange.com)

When Justin Turns Samson

Is it his hair that catapulted him to such fame? For how could we say that it's his voice since we could not even be assured that his music will be remembered when he will be swallowed by fame itself. Sorry Justin Beiber fans but we lovers of the arts could not even find the aesthetics every time he struggles with the choreography given by Usher's dance creators.

I don't have anything against him or or his music. I could understand how adolescents swoon when he is on TV or onstage since I also saw how my friends shrieked when Robi Rosa of Menudo displayed his feelings via "If You're Not Here (By My Side) during the 80's. I know how to be edging towards being a groupie because I collected and read almost all of the music and articles of "The Cure".

Yeah, there's a certain stage when young persons invest a lot of emotions on entertainers...

But could we just shrug our shoulders when fame starts become bigger than life? Could we continue to make him as a role model if he'd display arrogance and things which are against the universal values? For starters, respect cuts across races and orientations.

Justin Beiber, the teen idol, recently had a concert here in the Philippines. I was mum about it for he is not R.E.M. or Coldplay but the promotions were everywhere.

Then he arrived in Manila and was reported sick. He turned down the after-the-concert party due to his alleged illness. We could understand that. But how could we accept his behavior when he would snap to a camera man covering his departure? Worse, he slapped away the CD an airport crew wanted him to sign. Even if one is sick, he knows that the crew probably has a kid who idolizes him, or probably a niece or nephew, or simply the person himself... Empathy, if not developed in a person could make him become dysfunctional. Historical data showed how serial killers lack this competence. If he lacks the education he direly needs due to his age, his handlers and managers must be concerned about this since POWER would soon take over. Even if they're old enough to be his fathers/mothers, they could be screamed because he is simply Justin Beiber. The managers/agents must give him character education since the singer is the product himself. What if the consumers won't patronize the product since it is rotten in the core? What would be their cut when there are no more demands for records to produce?

During the last Grammy awards, I knew that Beiber won't have anything except if there was a popularity contest there. Even the Best New Artist trophy was not garnered by him. For how could he topple the likes of Lady Antebellum and Muse?

Point: Singing could be honed since it's a skill. But in this industry, there are Phil Collins, Seal, Michael Stipe, Sting, John Mayer, Jason Mraz, Bjork, Tori Amos, Alanis Morisette and others who reek TALENT. When this skill would be paired with bad attitude, we could only wait for him to be another Britney, Lindsay and others to become a has-been.

Like Samson, Justin needs a haircut.

(photo:celebritysmack.com)

When Blogs Die

When the news that Friendster is going to have an overhaul of their system, you wondered what will happen to your blogs. According to the advisory, the pictures and blogs would be wiped-out. Where would your thoughts go? When the ideas, opinions and other stuff from the mind are immortalized on the virtual memory, they could be considered as snippets of one's soul. So, with the demise of such thoughts, part of the soul would also succumb to the "other" place. But, again, is there a nirvana of sorts in terms of these?

Reading your blogs could sometimes enthrall you. There are ideas which you could not remember having. There are also beautiful words and erroneous syntax... Still, you wonder what prompted you to think about those things. Sometimes, a stimulus could just be a simple event that would mutate into something incomprehensible. There were instances too when the events are too good to be true and you say nothing at all.

You then remember Stephen King's "The Dark Half". You got scared too much when the writer's other half knocked on his doorstep and introduced himself as his pseudonym humanized. Paranoia and other forms of insanity could be traced but then the author was wise enough to allow the reader to imagine that indeed the dark half is true. Paired with the smell of apples and the vivid imagery of sparrows on the cable wires, sleep would be a bit impossible for those who are gifted with clear image projections.

Then, there are instances that you got scared of yourself too. Looking at the humongous bulk of your journals, you sometimes hear them whisper. Since 1986, you were scribbling things on a myriad of feelings, occasions and trivial stuff. When you would dare open them to read some, it seems that they were being written by a different person. probably your dark half...

But you're concerned about them. Even if you get scared sometimes with the way the mind brings you to unimaginable places, you still worry they're going to vanish like cosmic dust...

Digressing, there are men you know who have this scary thing once they'd get drunk. Like a stranger, they would show something that even their friends and their families get amazed with the display of something near the bizarre or even the macabre! After the euphoria, they would put the blame on the alcohol and dismiss everything indifferently. Now, you realize that multiple personalities live inside you and the people around. There are trigger points when these characters come out in the open. Some are beneficial and others could be harmful... Sometimes, by just thinking about it could cause a headache...

You need to save your soul, er, your files now.

(picture: sodahead.com)

Sadako That Time

It was roaring. The groan seemed to come from the depths of the earth. And as if scared, the house trembled and the glasses shattered while the saints on the altar went down the floor to kiss the dye wax on it. There was nothing to register in the head but fear. Engulfed with panic, the body swayed like a rag doll towards the safe haven of the outside. Mumbled prayers became screamed ones as the need to do self-preservation escalated. Disorientation gripped the mind as the heart sank at the sight of fallen structures and cracked dreams of supposedly-tough materials.

The loved ones were then remembered. Where are they? Are they safe? Is Kino with his classmates when the earth shook? Is Akihiro outdoors when the groans from the earth complained?

While trying to collect the thoughts, hissing sound commenced. It was like a snake roused from a deep slumber. The sound could be a signal of an aftershock but it was... wet.

From the corner of the eye, a silver reflection blinked. It was ignored first but it seemed to be the source of the hissing! Then, when the eyes focused on the onslaught, it dawned on the senses that water raged towards the land!

The breaking of wood, steel and other materials mixed with the sound of screaming for help but the hissing sound overpowered everything. Debris and people made love on water as life ebbed when the force of the quake was transferred to the liquid medium. On an aerial view, the scene looked like a computer-generated simulation of a scary catastrophe. Yet, it was real...true.

A forty percent increase from the previous panic increased as the body moved back inside the shaken house. Water ran after like a mad dog insulted by his territorial claims. Lots thought that the houses would protect them. But they were wrong. The hunger of the water seemed insatiable. A liquid beast devouring everything on its way...

When its claws scratched their walls, she exhaled. A sign of surrender and defeat. As the soul felt the force enveloping the structure, it remembered the unsaid haikus to the loved ones.

Hundreds of kilometers and continents away, people viewed the nightmare on cable TV. They were gripped with fear too that something as destructive could reach their place . They intently listened to the broadcasts and started to pack their bags as the authorities raised Alert Level 2.

But back in the place where it all began, ghosts started to haunt the fallen places as waves of aftershocks continued to animate the now-silent surroundings.

Silence--a strangled
Telephone has forgotten
That it should ring - (Haiku by Michael R. Collings)

(Photo: Sanni Vincent Guillergan)

Hiccups

(for the Goat who found a boner scary...)

Enveloped with the dark shroud of despair and rain-kissed
the heavy soul picked himself from the shattered pieces of his dreams
the mirrored past loomed in his future, his bent present seemed full of pain
but a tinge of the distant rainbow could still be traced that he moved slowly

Towards the comforting arms of reality- his father, his mother, his siblings, himself
yet their realities excluded him from jumping up to Mars
that he decided to be embraced by the comforts of "the others"
their laughter became his and he went to hell and to heaven and back

He decided to become his own universe, free from gravity and other forces when rotating,
his own axis and his own center was not the sun but the night
he became a demigod, then God himself... then, the devil incarnate
justice, truth and other stuff became distant feelings from his numbed ones

Then, the rain, the shroud caressing him like a lusty lover... and the man on the moon!
he wept and looked at his tattered clothing of a self
and stooped, grasped the last breath of oxygen gifted by another demigod
he died, tried to but survived, he left the old shell of a body but the spirit won't...

Vampire or not, he must grab that tinge of rainbow that Baxter's world is offering
Death would come intimately, as Sugar Hiccup suggested...

(photo:circlingthelionsden.blosgspot.com)

His Island, Our Islands

Jack opened his eyes. He was dazed. He saw green trunks of trees. Before moving, he sensed the eerie quiet. Was he dead? But, a blade from grass touched his cheek. He felt something - of course, he was still alive!

Then, he stood up and realized he was in the middle of a thicket. Vegetation surrounded him like foe and he saw the dog looking at him with curiosity... He felt pain all over his body and he heard the ocean. He rushed to where the ocean was and he saw them.

There were people both living and dying. The dead stayed immobile on the beach with eyes wide open, the dying ones were trying to figure out whether they were in heaven or hell. Then, Jack saw the debris of their plane. Of course! He was a passenger of Oceanic Flight 815 and their plane crashed.

He hurried to where the injured persons were. He tried to resuscitate a woman who seemed not to breathe. The woman coughed and he commanded someone to take care of her as he scurried on the sand to find more of the injured. He must help them!

Jack then remembered he was a doctor.

So goes the opening sequence of J.J. Abrams' pilot episode of LOST. The TV premiere garnered an average of 15.69 million US viewers per episode on ABC. During its sixth and final season, the show averaged over 11 million US viewers per episode. Viewers hungered for the answers when they find themselves asking a lot of questions as the episodes unfold more twists and turns.

But the series was a no-nonsense one. Although there were twists, they were presented in a consistent manner where the story is intact and the characterization, precise. Indeed, every time the scenes were presented, the viewers were allowed to think... deeply. The main interest would crop up when one realizes that "there's something about the island!"
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You know such places.

One time, you were cajoled by your friends to go to a night joint and you suddenly sensed sex on the atmosphere. When the nude women started to gyrate onstage, you wanted to find blankets to cover their imperfections. The men salivate on the mons pubis downwards but you saw poverty behind the staged lust on the ladies' faces. You also saw the scars of childhood rashes and deprivation of Vitamin C. Their reptilian skin was slick with perspiration yet the men around you wanted to perform the animal instinct of mating and nothing more. But there were no blankets and your urge was as blasphemous as shouting F_CK YOU! inside a church while the priest is venerating the unleavened bread to become the body of Christ.

You also remembered a street corner where some drinking buddies drowning their souls with intoxicants witnessed an accident from someone riding a motorbike. The driver, sans a helmet, flew some feet away from them banging his head on concrete. The will to help surfaced on the drunks. One lifted the victim while another started massaging the chest of the man. One shouted to unbuckle the belt and take off his shoes. When another saw that the man stopped breathing, he grabbed the man's balls and squeezed them hard. He died anyway.

There's also an acacia tree near the church of your place. Across the street is the statue of Michael the Archangel stepping on the devil with his sword angled to impale Satan. But at night time, some young couples (gay, straight and whatnot) would make this spot as their rendezvous. Others are equipped with protection, others would simply make the Australian bush as their thin shield from shame. You even wondered if the energy of this place would shift since an adoration chapel is on its completion.
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Yeah, Jack is a fictitious character and his island. But his kind and his island is here amongst us.

(Matthew Fox's photo: fanpop.com)