Pedestrian Observer GB: Corruption Plus Fraudulent Election Equals Pathetic Education

All systems go reports Jesli lapuz of the Department of Education assuring the high priestess errr the Garcified president of a smooth back to school opening to more than 20 million students. Normally in a perfect world we would have said congratulations for a job well done but this is not a normal perfect world at least not in the context of Philippine realities where abnormalities seem to be the norm. In the Philippine context Corruption Plus Fraudulent Election Equals Pathetic Education system has sunk this low, so low that it appears surreal but real.

Brownman of Uniffors says It’s alright ma, I am only bleeding citing Rene Raya of AER (Action for Economic Reforms) article using FIES data on the pathetic state of education in the Philippines. It is very troubling to note that with the ever increasing price of food and fuel Filipino families budget on education are severely affected forcing families to reduce spending on their children’s future. What is sad is the contrast in priorities seen with poor families and middle class families with the poor increasing their spending on tobacco and alcohol when the going gets tough unlike the non-poor families spending their budget prudently. No we don’t intend to blame the poor it just shows and usually a good indicator of hard times is when you see increase in alcohol and tobacco consumption.

What is appalling is the fact that the government led and run by the elites of Philippine society shows the same pathetic misplaced priorities when it comes to allocating the budget for education, to quote Raya’s article:

There was a time when the Philippines ranked next only to Japan in education. That was in the 1920s. By the 1940s, Sri Lanka, Thailand and South Korea joined the Philippines in the lead pack. By the first half of the 1970s, the Philippines was still in the lead pack. But this was the time when the country started to lose steam. Today, the country is among the bottom performers in Asia and the rest of the developing world. UNESCO’s Education Development Index ranked the Philippines 75th among 125 countries, falling behind most Asian countries like China, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Today as Raya pointed out the Philippines’ spending level at 2.5% of GDP is about the same as Bangladesh, Laos and Pakistan. As if this is not bad enough PCIJ came out with a 3 part series on the state of education in some part of the Philippines particularly in the ARRM region indicative of why it is the hotbed of electoral cheating and anomalies.

The corruption and mentality is just unbelievable so unreal that makes you lose hope if ever the Philippines will even rise out of the morass we have sunk our society. It is so revolting to learn that criminal syndicates within the education system can carry on with their criminal activity that will make the Soprano’s look like a nursery prank in comparison.

Would you believe that in the ARMM (Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao) region in order to be employed as a public school teacher they have to pay 2 months worth of their salary? Heck, you guess it right, if that is how they recruit teachers then it follows that what you are getting are the scumbags and unqualified morons unfit to teach our children the future of our nation. And then something unheard of cropped up, some these teachers who bribed their way into a teaching job “sub-contracts” their job to someone else or worse do not report for work but continuously draw their salary because according to their false sense of values they already paid for their position. Some of these teachers are even out of the country; yes they belong to the so-called bagyong (storm) errr bagong bayani (modern day heroes) with their relatives collecting their salary for them, an entitlement I suppose now that they are also society’s heroes?

So corrupt are those running the education system that they upped the con game of not just employing ghost employees they even have an entire school that does not exist but with a budget existing only on paper. Forgers it appears are in demand in these places but of course all these shenanigans activities are not possible if there is no collusion among the national and local public officials including regular rank and file employees in the government.

This is the result of using teachers in the fraudulent electoral exercise and to think that these are the people we entrusted to mold our youngsters to be responsible citizens who will one day run the affairs of the nation. We are going down and now I can understand why we have a president who despite having a questionable mandate had the temerity to hold on to her fraudulently acquired position, it is in their system.

If you think Federalism will solve the problem and lead us to prosperity well I am sorry to disappoint you folks, it will likely get worse as long as our politicians keep on dreaming about the form of governance but refuse to seriously address the issue of graft and corruption for which they are also directly or indirectly responsible. In the meantime our children, the hope and the most valuable investment for our nations' future, a future generation of morons trained and schooled in the most pathetic corruption laden system run by incompetents and nincompoops will be at the helm to continue the never ending cycle of degradation.

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