SUICIDE AND PHILIPPINE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM

That a UP student committed suicide due to tuition fees problem rightly causes an alarm, even rage, to us who think of Public School system as the way to afford a quality education. Her case is only a symptom of disease that plagues the Philippine public school system.

My thoughts concern another sickness of the public school system. My sister teaches at an elementary school in a coastal barangay of Lagonoy. Having taught at several private schools, she now realizes the gigantic difference between public school life and private school life. She has to brave several kilometers from Lagonoy town proper going to the barangay, getting body aches from the habal-habal that dances on the rough and dirty roads. What awaits her is a more challenging place: a classroom that rains when it rains, chicken enters her room while teaching, clogged comfort room, and others. Her students got different stories. My sister recounts that she sometimes would skip her snacks because it just feels awkward to eat when you know your students are also hungry and got no snacks for themselves. On Fridays, some of her pupils would no longer come to class because they need to help their parents in fishing – the primary source of livelihood in that place.

Yet, just like any teacher whose desires are bigger than these hapless situations, my sister continues to teach. She knows she has to teach; these kids need to learn; her kids deserve something better than their situation.

However, desires are hampered sometimes by economic needs. For almost four months now, my sister still got no salary! Well, she had her check for the first month (she received it on third month of teaching) and it seems no white smoke is getting out of the payroll yet to announce the good news for her economic salvation.

Why is the government system like this? Why does it seem to punish those who have the heart to give chances for these children to have better education? They say, “well, it is really the system. It will come lump sum!” But that reasoning is a trash! Imagine an employee who starts from a deficit and with loans rising to her neck without any certainty when will she be able to pay!

We need heroes in the education system, and surely, the well is far from drying! Yet, the government needs to realize that heroes need to eat, too! They could concentrate all their energies preparing for lessons instead of looking for a source of allowance like beggars!

Or could it just be the case that indeed, in public school system, new hired teachers must practice suicide for long months before finally knowing there is a light at the end of the payroll—err, the tunnel? If that is the case, imagine a mass suicide that is taking place every week in our God-please-save-public school system.