NOYNOY

Why I will vote for Noynoy...

Because he is good, among others, for education.

I have a special interest for education. First, I'm an education student, which means that I'll be a future teacher. True, I'll be taking up law soon after I graduate from college. But that doesn't mean I've lost my special interest for education. Who knows, I just might be a professor of law?

Second, I'll be having my own children. Later na. And I don't want them to be victims of our less than impressive educational system.

That is why I want to see our educational system improved. And I think and believe that it will happen if Noynoy Aquino were to be elected President of the Philippines.

As Isagani Cruz argued, "He is the only presidential candidate that has thought through the problems of education in our country. Even if all the candidates say that they regard the deterioration of public education as the most important and pressing issue to be faced by the new government, none of the others have put forward any kind of education reform program that makes sense."

Here is Noynoy's ten-point agenda on education:

1. “I will expand basic education in this country from a short 10-year cycle to a globally-comparable 12 years before the end of the next administration (2016).”


2. “All public school children (and all public schools) will have a full year of pre-schooling as their introduction to formal schooling by 2016.”


3. “I want a full basic education for ALL Muslim Filipino children anywhere in the country.”


4. “I will re-introduce technical-vocational education in our public high schools to better link schooling to local industry needs and employment.”


5. “By the end of the next administration, every child must be a reader by Grade 1.”


6. “I will rebuild the science and math infrastructure in schools so that we can produce more scientists, engineers, technicians, technologists and teachers in our universities so that this country can be more globally competitive in industry and manufacturing.”


7. “I will expand the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education Program (GASTPE) to a target of 1 million private HS students every year through education service contracting (ESC) while doing away with the wasteful education voucher system (EVS) of this administration.”


8. “My view on the medium of instruction is larger than just the classroom. We should become tri-lingual as a country: Learn English well and connect to the world. Learn Filipino well and connect to our country. Retain your dialect and connect to your heritage.”


9. “I will not tolerate poor textbook quality in our schools. Textbooks will be judged by three criteria: quality, better quality, and more quality.”


10. “I will build more schools in areas where there are no public or private schools in a covenant with LGUs so that we can realize genuine education for all.”

***

P.S. Didn't I write before that I would vote for Richard Gordon? Of course, I did. Look it up here. But I changed my mind. And I think I'm allowed to do so. Changing one's mind is, of course, not an insult to one's person. It was I think Jose Diokno who said that a man praises himself when he changed his mind. For it only means that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

Catholics but not de cajon

On February 26, 2010, the Archdiocese of Davao, together with the Holy Cross of Davao College, held a Presidential Mock Elections. Many were encouraged to participate, but only few responded. (I'm not one of those few.) Of the almost 9,000 population of HCDC, only 1,000-plus voted.

Meanwhile, in the said mock elections, Noynoy Aquino won. (I will give the specifics later.)

It's a curious thing that Noynoy won, at least as far as HCDC is concerned. In the first place, HCDC is a Catholic school. As such, it subscribes to the teachings of the Catholic Church. One of its teachings is the sanctity of life. Which is why the Catholic Church opposes the Reproductive Health Bill because, the way the Hierarchy interprets it, the bill undermines the sanctity of life.

This same bill Noynoy Aquino supports.

Now how can we explain this anomaly? It could mean that Holy Crossians are ignorant of Noynoy's stand on the RH Bill. Or Noynoy's stand on the RH Bill is the least of the voter's consideration, which means that voters still don't think about issues and the candidate's stand on them. Or Holy Crossians, though most of them are Catholics, simply are not de cajon; they know just how to think for themselves. They have a mind of their own.

Forgive and forget?

Inquirer on Sec. Gilbert Teodoro's platforms and positions:

...he [Teodoro] has announced that the prosecution of officials for corruption will not be his priority, because it is the Ombudsman’s job.

Questions: What if the Ombudsman will not move, as it has shown and is showing nowadays? Will it be a forgive-and-forget situation then under Teodoro's administration?

But actually, there's no reason to worry about the tack Sec. Teodoro will take if he will be the president of this country.

Reason: I'm sure as hell Sen. Noynoy Aquino will win in 2010.

09/09/09

To some people, the triple nine signifies luck. To Filipinos who are still coming to grips with the loss of a consummate Filipino, however, today is significant because it’s the 40th day after Cory Aquino’s death.

Also, Noynoy Aquino, Cory's only son, announced today that he would join the presidential race in 2010.

"I am accepting the responsibility to continue this nation's fight," Noynoy said. "I am accepting the challenge to lead this fight. I am running for the presidency in the coming election."

But let us revert to Cory's death. It’s but human nature that when one is about to die, one seeks atonement, no matter how venial or mortal his or her sins are. Cory did just that when she was in her deathbed.

By contrast, Mao Zedong, whose 33rd death anniversary the world over is also commemorating today, didn’t seek atonement at all. He didn’t take the trouble of asking for forgiveness. What he should ask forgiveness for? For the well over 70 million deaths he caused under his regime. Nor did he admit he had wronged.

Mao Zedong, born on December 26, 1893 into a well-to-do peasant family in Hunan Province, founded the People’s Republic of China in 1949.

In Mao: The Unknown Story, an 800-page tome, the authors Jung Chang and Jon Halliday made known what still consumed Mao in his last days.

“Hatred, frustration, and self-pity dominated Mao’s last days,” Chang and Halliday said.

*

Two days after I struggled to finish Albert Camus’ La Chute (The Fall), I began reading John Steinback’s The Grapes of Wrath today.

When I borrow a book, I make it a point to look at the Due Date Slip of the book and see when the book was first borrowed and the last time it was loaned out. I did the same when I borrowed The Grapes of Wrath yesterday. The first time it was borrowed was on August 8, 1997 and the last time was on September 5, 2007. In between that decade, only seven people bothered to borrow, let alone read, the book.

Does this imply something about the reading taste of Holy Crossians? I leave the matter for the librarians to debate.

I’m still on the first few pages of The Grapes of Wrath, but I’ve had a fair idea what the book is about. “Particularized in the story of the Joad family,” said its back cover, “the novel is not only a powerful dramatization of the forced migration of the “Okies” from their bank-foreclosed fields and farms; it is a dramatization as well of the plight of the dispossessed everywhere.”

Writing in The Nation in 1939, the year when the book first appeared, Louis Kronenberger said of the book:

“The Grapes of Wrath is superb tract because it exposes something terrible and true with enormous vigor. It is a superb tract, moreover, by virtue of being thoroughly animated fiction, by virtue of living scenes and living characters…”

I think I can relate to this novel because our family was once driven out of our property five years ago.