Of “Pagpag” and Pinoy poverty

I am human. My life constantly depends on nature. From the air that I breathe; from the food that I eat; from the water that flows from the underground to my thirsty mouth, I am all-human.  It feels saddening, though, that despite the equality of every human depending from these natural resources, life isn’t really equal.  Amidst the ever growing technological breakthroughs as well as the advancement Science, poverty lingers like a rust-stain in the fibers of a white, cotton shirt. 

Food is one of our sources of life.  It is in that where we can see the myriads of differences between the poles of human status. The quality of life typically depends not on the kind of food we eat being offered in our tables but the quality of food we eat. I believe you’ve heard the kind of food known as “Pagpag”.

Philippines is supposed to be a rich country. Its natural resources and the beauty that goes with it are astonishing. We’ve been blessed with unparalleled provision of nature from the mountains to the valleys and to the land and seas. But why when we look at our country particularly the places of urban poor and far-flung rural areas, we can’t help but to take solace to the remaining strength our psyche can summon.  How these places endured by human when what you see are rubbish all around with stench so strong you would hold you breath to the point throwing up.  Roads littered with human excrement and animals with their waste scattered around. The place is where children spend the day and even nights, all without proper shelter, clothing and food. That is how we learned of “Pagpag”: the recycled remains of food already consumed but still worth some portion that are salvageable.

For many it is garbage. Food that was left by someone from restaurants and popular fast food are being collected and dumped. Chances of dirt, bacteria and diseases that could penetrate its containers are of huge possibility. But for some, Pagpag is like a piece of heaven rained down on Earth during one’s birthday party. The chances of finally having something to fill-in the stomachs, which for days stayed empty, have finally arrived. 

Pagpag can be a stigma that would further deteriorate Filipinos integrity in the eyes of the world. But we cannot deny that it is a symbol of our people’s survival, and of inventiveness and of improvisation. 

ORATION: Today’s Jose Rizal, I am

Flowing within my veins is the blood of the first Filipino. The blood that was spilled in the spoils of war, dropped from the slugs of riffles and the blades of the swords. It stinks to the bone from the decaying flesh of those who sacrificed their lives. It reeks of pungency from sweeping the entire legion of fallen warriors but splashed the sprouting courage that bloomed to become the next generation of fighters for liberty. 

 

Allow me to greet you a pleasant day and continue with a quote that says, “It is the fervor of the youth that holds the world’s temperature at its normal state; when the youth cools, the rest of the world freezes.”

In his youth, the great Jose Rizal captured the imagination of the world with his resilience, courage and intelligence more than any other person in the Philippines. His penchant for politics reaches beyond the shores of our 7,107 islands when he led the reformists to use the mighty pen against our tormentors. It was when he published his two great works, the Noli and El Fili, which upon reaching the Philippines stirred the consciousness of the people, blazing their courage into an inconsumable fire. It enraged the Spaniards that consequently caused Rizal’s imprisonment and brought his untimely death in Bagumbayan. All these are proofs of his overgrown prestige as the premier national hero who is being revered with almost larger-than-life status. Legend has it that some even see him as a god of mythological proportions –an apparition of a great warrior from long ago.

But let me digress a bit off his legend and imagine him time-travel to where we are today. Can you visualize Dr. Jose Rizal in front of a laptop with Facebook loaded on its browser, displaying him all the menus, the icons, the tabs and the graphical interfaces he had never seen before? What could possibly happen when suddenly the Android phone rings beside him with rap music by Gloc 9, or Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking Ball or Psy’s Gentleman? Can you picture him replying to text message or see him press his thumb in the built-in finger print scanner of the latest Iphone 6?

That would’ve been outrageous. He might had had his nose-bleed or suddenly knocked out by heart attack barely five minutes since his arrival. I’m telling you that would have been crazy!

The greatness of Jose Rizal is unparalleled. His life, his works and brain may have been unmatched. But his time already came and went. He is an icon until today and the future. A legend. An inspiration. His monuments will speak for him. But we are now in a different era where greatness such as his has entirely changed. Ours is a new world of different horizons but our strength, as a youth, makes no thing impossible. For impossible for us is nothing.

Just think of what we can accomplish now that we are free from the war-torn epoch with all the tools and technology at our disposal. Just remember our recent predecessors when they were able to conquer those places, which they thought were impossible to reach. The vastness of the ocean, now we know how compact it really is; The height of the sky, we scaled it by planes and drones; The outer space, which was feared, we now can set foot not only on the moon but soon even the planets and far-away galaxies.

For it is within our hands that we can make things possible. We may put our lives on the line like what Rizal did but we can do even more. The fervor, that fire we carry inside our consciousness could stir not just a country but an entire world and beyond. The frigid, lifeless worlds will turn ablaze with just a flick of our fingers. And the one thing we can put this fervor into full throttle like Rizal is in that most impermanent thing: CHANGE.

The young people are today’s Jose Rizal. They carry the ultimate power to change the world. They have enough strength to shape the future. And I am one of them.

OPINION: The problem with the Rizal-GAD free day (3rd day)

I was still thinking exactly when the issue surrounding the recent Gender and Development (GAD) training was in full swing following the lecture presented by a certain law graduate from a certain law school in Manila but under-bar Nick Cudia with the hints jabbed by Orlando Braga which eventually made the district supervisor, Plerida Payawal, went berserk with the defense of the GAD budget to the diversionary misinterpretation of the question from Jingle Bilog Pestaño and finally the looking-like-a-gobbledygook-question, "...Free day or training day?!"

To the bemusement of almost all the 270 educators present in the seminar that day, the question was either something that wasn't pocketed well or an intentional junction from an otherwise clearer-than-water query. And to paraphrase that very simple point: If the third day is a free day, what are we going to do with the budget allocated for that day since no one's having any expense to where the program was aligned? Or to simplify it even better: What are we going to do with the budget for the 3rd day when it's a free day?

The question raised the bar from where the previous one left off. When the whooping 218,000 pesos allocation was announced by the supervisor herself, too many eyebrows crooked while the eyes bulged in full. Not to mention when she was island-hopping each school-group, fetching an answer more inclined to the YES -for nobody would want to come back, probably, the next day for a training. Who would not trade a training day for a free day...with pay by the way?

None.

Big NONE.

But the supervisor's question of choosing between "Training Day" and "Free Day" was a logical fallacy from the outset. In English parlance, they call it "false premise". It is an incorrect proposition that forms the basis of an argument or syllogism. It is rooted to the idea that since everyone was asking for some specific information to which the subject appeared not too keen on divulging, then it was generalized that the proponent and those who agreed do not want to have "the free day." A far cry from what really was the issue at hand.

But all of these started with one, base idea: Going out-of-town for the GAD training. With the huge resources at hand and while the others, even those relatively smaller districts, could manage to pick pebbles out from resorts and venues away from their districts, why wouldn't we? And yes, we could if only we would.

But the supervisor doesn't think so. She claimed to factor security first before anything else.
"Pa'no kung maaksidente kayo o may masamang mangyari? E di mag-isa kong sasagutin kayo!", she exclaimed over the microphone.

From then on, we knew her reason. However we see it, it was like looking at a mother hen folding her wings, guarding her chicks and warming them up against the deadly cold of the night as well as the sharp edges of a predator's claws. It's called security. And none has the courage in complete sanity to counter that. Perhaps, other than me and a few others who have shared my belief.

Let us try to look at the matter differently this way. What if we went out somewhere out-of-town during the free day? But remember, that is with the attendance you signed covered the 3rd day -where you are inside the Don Lorenzo Elem School sitting in a monobloc chair sponsored by SAGUN, listening intently to a lecture in Science or that ethical standards lecture by a principal BUT then you have encountered an accident somewhere in Cabanatuan.

Huh?!

Eyebrows could be raising again by now. Then you ask how would that be even possible. Well, we are in a 3rd day which is a free day therefore we could be anywhere at that point. But the attendance and the signature speak differently. Now who will be responsible? Isn't it the supervisor?
"Paano kung maaksidente kami o may masamang mangyari sa amin (out-of-town because of the free day)?" E di mag-isa po ninyong sasagutin kami!"

If only we can go back a few weeks ago and have the committee reassess the GAD program they supposed to have planned many months ago, would they have our training move to other venue or not? That is if they knew that the security breaches the supervisor were yapping about are the same security breaches the teachers could suffer now that the 3rd day-free day was already in the roll?

Yes or no, we can never tell. It is like a chess piece that was moved too early and then you realized that it was a blunder. You wanted to pull the move back to the original square but the opponent quickly spewed, "Touch move!"