Terror 101: Cyber Education Project
Posted by: Fats in: Wika at Hirap > What and WhyTwo Birthdays
What a wonderful birthday celebration my auntie had last Friday - her 75th birthday, and next year will be celebrating 50-year wedding anniversary. How blessed and fortunate they are, as one of her old school friends said, that they are still healthy and can enjoy life so much.
I thought about that - 50 long years together. My uncle is the complete opposite; while my auntie is affectionate, warm, ostentatious and a typical Kapampangan (although her family are actually migrants from Tuguegarao), my uncle is stiff upper lip, cold, tightwad and a typical Ilokano. 
Most surprising that night, though, was how well my partner could actually dance! 
When live ballroom music started playing, first with the waltz and then onto the faster tempos, he asked to dance. I thought it was funny, that he might hurt everyone or disrupt the dancing (which he did when we were trying to do an indigenous dance in Taiwan). But what a surprise! My partner could dance!
Still funny, though, and I couldn’t stop laughing while we were dancing.
Anyway, it was a wonderful evening, and my auntie was so happy - and so happy to see that I was there with my partner. My family was there too, and some of them were quite surprised to see my partner, although my mother already knew he would be there. What was most heartwarming was how my mother greeted him and touched his arm to say good-bye when the party ended…
Strange how so much easier it is to be happy when your family - those who share your very existence and identity - are also happy. Sometimes this “identity-sharing” is seen negatively especially within the context of individualism and independence that is prevalent in western culture, but “identity-sharing” constitutes a wider sense, a network, of balance that is most strong and most needed within our difficult and uncertain times.
It was 1PM when I woke up Saturday and Alwin’s birthday party starts at 1PM! I nearly panicked - quickly got dressed, drank coffee (after spilling a whole cup!), made another Edward and Maria birthday card to go with the birthday gift, and zoomed off to the venue. When I got there the program had started and some guy in a yellow reptile costume was organizing the kids over dozens of games where nearly everyone got prizes. When Alwin saw me he was so happy and asked “where’s Trevor!” Still sleeping, I told him!
Actually, the birthday card I gave him has a drawing of Edward still asleep, horribly late for Alwin’s party.
What a wonderful birthday celebration - Alwin’s cousins, schoolmates and friends were all there - and they all got prizes, souvenirs, caricatures, face paintings and picture with Dino the Dinosaur (they had a special guest, a big green dinosaur called “Dino”.) When DIno finished his dance number, Alwin and his dad thought they’d follow the dino to find out who’s inside the green costume. So they followed but the dinosaur went into the ladies room.
After eating, the magic show started - it was the same guy in the yellow reptile suit but this time he was wearing a magician’s costume. Actually, he was very good and really very funny. Everyone - the kids and even the adults, had a wonderful time. It was really very funny when the magician, while he was doing the colored handkerchief routine, accidentally dropped his dentures to the floor!
Alwin’s really lucky to have such a party on his 7th birthday (the 1st and 7th are cutomarily celebrated, and girls would celebrate their 18th as well). I’ve never had such a birthday celebration, although few of my richer cousins did. Certainly my dad’s family never could even imagine such a birthday celebration. However, the general idea remains - just try to feed as many people as you can.
Back to school
Anyway, it is back to school for many kids this June (also the start of the rainy season, a pretty good start for schoolyear! ) - at least for those kids with families that could afford it. Even free public education is not so “free” at all especially with all the miscellaneous fees that one has to pay. And education remains in a deplorable state in the country despite the government statement that the Department of Education gets the largest share of the national budget among the various government agencies (of course, the largest part of the budget goes to foreign debt servicing at 40%). With the education budget at 14.7% (see budget and taxes breakdown), a look at the proposed 2006 General Appropriations Act would show that state colleges and universities – numbering hundreds all over the country – are to get less than half of the budgetary allotments for two major military educational institutions, the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) and the National Defense College of the Philippines (NDCP). (See Bulatlat report).
And now, the government is going into debt again to launch its Cyber Education Project. It’s going to cost 26-billion pesos. According to the Inquirer editorial, the original cost of the project was 5-billion pesos under a BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer scheme). Six months later, the project cost ballooned to 26-billion pesos after Pres. Arroyo signed an agreement with China for the BOT scheme (the government gets a $465.5-million soft loan from Tsinghua Tongfang Nuctech to fund almost the entire Cyber Education Project, and the remaining cost, some P3.7 billion, will be shouldered by the Philippine government).
According to the Department of Education, public schools are in decrepit conditions: Some 80 percent of public schools have no running water, 60 percent have no toilets, 40 percent have no ceilings and 50 percent have no electricity. (See news article)
In the meantime, the ambitious Cyber Education Project aims for a “digital legacy” by DepEd head Jesli Lapus, so that disadvantaged students nationwide might have access to an alternative learning platform.
As far as I can see, with the most basic of problems with public schools described above, the Cyber Education project is bound to become a miserable failure in terms of improving education in the country. But such a project is conceived and pursued precisely because it offers the greatest in terms of kick-backs to the politicians and business people involved - with 26-billion pesos, there aught to be enough to keep the corruption going.
The idea of ICT for education is absolutely obscene when we can’t even put a ceiling or install electricity in our classrooms, and certainly disgusting to believe that building such an infrastracture “…will allow interactivity between and among the learners and teachers. It will allow the learners to deal with interesting and high quality lessons and to become well motivated and receptive to ideas presented through television and other multi-media instructions.”
Sometimes I wonder why I am still in this godforsaken country. Sometimes I wish that I was 75 years old or older so I need not worry and fret so much about these things, so I can sign-off before the whole world collapses in the weight of its own disgusting greed.
