MATATAG MATAGTAG

All along, we thought that this was going to be the answer. This was going to solve the poor performance of the Filipino schoolchild. This brings back GMRC and kicks Mother Tongue out the window. They said the subjects would be fewer. I remember, they announced this last year; and there was a generally positive response. It shone as a beacon of hope to the often denigrated K to 12 curriculum with its often unpopular additional two years of senior high school and the Mother Tongue subject. I think, a year ago, some parents would have opted to have it implemented immediately.

Now, with a few days in to its implementation, there are grumbles against its grueling gropes. Teachers’ groups are even calling for the halt of its enforcement. Well, that’s highly unlikely. If that were to be taken, do the schools go back to the old curriculum? What would happen to all the time, effort and resources spent on drafting the new curriculum, training the trainers and training the trainees? Maybe, we should ask a different question. What happened in the months of planning and preparation of this new system? Did they miss out on the details on increasing teachers’ work load which seem to be the prevailing protest? I thought the trend has been traversing towards relieving public school teachers of administrative duties. How could a new system divert from the direction of a department? Isn’t this supposed to be the flagship program of the former DepEd secretary? Shouldn’t this be her legacy? She has been waving the MATATAG banner through the past year.

I just noticed that the former DepEd Secretary who also happens to be the Vice President seems to need to be notice. One attempt to attract attention is somewhat acceptable, but a series of it is simply straining. Let me lay them down for you. Vice President Sarah Duterte resigned from her position as DepEd Secretary and as head of that agency that seems to be obsessed with communists less than two months before the opening of classes in the implementation of a program which she spearheaded without giving valid reason. Resigning from an agency as important as DepEd at least deserves a simple reason. She announced that her father and her two brothers will run for the senate which the former President himself refuted a week later; but then he also claimed that he would not run for the Presidency, but later did)). She announced that she would be skipping the President’s SONA and even filed a leave covering the day of the annual address. She went out of the country at a time when all national officials are in one hall to listen to how the nation is. She expressed regret for her resignation from DepEd. Then, why resign in the first place? Then, she welcomed new DepEd Secretary Sonny Angara to “chaos”. She seems to be eliciting some sort of response. Was she waiting for the whole sector of education to clamor to restrain her from resignation? Was she expecting that some sectors or groups with rally around her when she declared that she would skip the President’s SONA? I’m not too sure. It feels like she’s waiting for some reaction that she’s not getting. Is she counting on the Duterte devoted supporters?

That reminds me. News has it that a certain Chinese torture victim of one of the POGOs has come out and into cooperation with the government, presumably to expose and put to justice these criminals that have sucked themselves in our communities. The poor guy was tortured and extorted to provide a certain sum in thousands of pesos from his father in mainland China in exchange for his freedom. The guy must have been already bruised all over when he was freed. This is interesting because Chinese or (Vietnamese or whatever nationality) POGO victims have never sought help from the Philippine government. What made this father and son do so? They say, because the current President Marcos has declared a ban on all POGOs. That’s what gave them courage, because they found out that the President is banning the POGOs. Let’s apply some logic here. Let’s inverse that. A victim decides to cooperate with the government because the President bans the POGOs. Therefore, a victim does not decide to cooperate with the government because the President does not ban the POGOs. So, victims had not cooperated because the President supported the POGOs.

That’s how MATATAG we are. .

“But the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” Matthew 24:13