A Tragic Mess

              Ignorance is a disease, and from it, is a curse bearing more fruits. Lies, deceit, confusions, misinformation, disinformation, and manipulations are all part of the produce. Add that with a huge missing chunk, or if not, no brain at all from the Filipinos, and you have the perfect mix of idiocy, incompetence, being lost, and plain stupidity. And as a devoted educator and thinker, this terrible situation is alarming and is the reason why I continue to talk.

              Thinking, dissecting facts, doing research, and reading a lot are noble things to do. However, a majority do not have the luxury. And the worst is that others have the opportunity but are misguided. With more emphasis on obedience than thinking even in a typical family set up, duping the people or getting duped is a piece of cake. Include a culture of discouraging thinking, and all the means to get there is tagged along.

              Conformity has always been the norm, and dissent becomes a crime. Question your parents and you get scolded, and knowing that my country emboldened a father figure, the same is expected for every Filipinos, i.e., obey. Critical thinking is shunned, disgraced, shamed, and even red-tagged. A common Filipino will not even think of education as a means of thought liberation, and add the market into the scene, any non-industry related subject or course faces dissolution. Even the highest degree holders see their papers as an economic means for career upgrade and not as a tool to contribute to the collective dialogue.

              Others had become fatalistic and gave up the fight because being brainless in my country is acceptable, and being smart means you are a rebel. These people grew tired because the enormous system is difficult to uproot given one’s lifetime. Moreover, add pressure coming from a strong family influence and clueless friends with a poor choice of media consumption, and limited with manipulated information, one gets reformatted or one retreats to the comfort of the crowd. However, some people still devote themselves to taking chances in grabbing every opportunity to start major changes.

              The easiest way to survive is always to lick the ladle of the powerful. The safest way to live is to cry in silence amidst oppression. Justice lures danger, and even the greatest risk – death. Dying for a cause is romantic, and heavily appreciated, but humans as we are, we feel cowardice when the odds are against us. However, it does not mean we are not brave. It is just that we yearn to live to see another day with our loved ones, and hoping to see a better world.

              I have to agree that the interactive media I am into is getting toxic. The radically free space of information sharing has created digital information anarchy. Legitimate media outlets, dedicated citizens, and esteemed professionals are at the frontline in this information war. This may seem trivial, but talking to people close to me who base their facts from social media’s shithole made me even convinced about its powerful influence. I appreciate a lot of people who are battling within the digital arena, because if left unchecked, you have the largest population of people who spend the most time on Facebook getting exponential contamination of a single and problematic set of information.

              Social media to me is useful because I can see the dominating narratives affecting and shaping my fellow people’s consciousness. It adds grief to my heart that I see students who I know dearly are victims of disinformation. Consider them blind victims because they are not even conscious of their erroneous thinking. It makes me reflect on a ton of work that I need to do, and a lot of wasted effort when I was with them. Actually, it gets more sickening when I read and hear from them. But this time, I am not immediately available to cast a red mark on their outputs.

              Educating entails reprogramming, and uprooting and rebooting thinking cannot be done in the classroom alone or in one night. Plus, you have to deal with their accumulated “truths” and experiences. I can metaphorically say that education needed a hammer. And I am reminded of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, and how terrible it was to free one prisoner. Even more so, it was more despicable that upon the enlightened prisoner’s return to free his brethren ended up as a tragedy. Each person has a cave, and all are comfortable inside it.

              I always say to myself: “If only I have them for all service course subjects.” I want to see to it that my efforts are given at least two years of labor in their academic life. An arsenal of reading materials, exams, open discussions, dialogues, debates, and questions and answers were employed and are still itching to be used. Almost every day I thought about education as a mission and not just only a job. And education as not the type of vocation that wants to see students graduate and land in a job, but a dedication that I want to see a new breed of people for my country with the hope of them spreading the news. However, I am left to either a silent apathetic bunch, growing idiots, and a few hopefuls.

              A missing brain is what I like to call the status of these people I pass by. Teaching them is even harder when there are no more grades to fail them. A mistake! Making them listen to you and follow your thoughts is harder when there is nothing clearly at stake for them. I am still baffled as to how to really make them think as following instructions or parroting thoughts is still the easy way to do an assessment. However, I am still comforted that others are still doing their best to combat this war on and for truth, and to plant some brains.

              My anger is oftentimes vented towards the person, because it is the easiest recourse when facing their bullshit. However, going deeper into the problem, a system needs overhauling. A system that wants to monopolize information, spread lies, harasses critics, and allows the flourishing of an incompetent and incapable populace. The system is big, and I am just a specter of dust in its presence. Thus, only the hopes of many people realizing the need to move are critical in making change, because there is strength in numbers, and those fighting for truth, justice, and liberation need that advantage.

              Ironically, numbers too, breed more ignorance, as the feeling of belongingness, and the protection offered by a herd trump thoughts and the complexities of truth. And those who are trying to quell ignorance and dispel lies are in need of more help. We have immovable privileged elites who need to be a victim first before taking sides. We have the poorest of the poor who would rather play safe amidst the threats. And we have the big elites battling over business interests rather than core principles. Amidst the sea of interests, finding the common thread as a nation, a people, and as humans is difficult. I oftentimes make a cruel joke that the environment will be the true leveler as it knows no politics.

              It is difficult to see professed religious people coming to terms with political decisions contrary to their beliefs. They even have the gall to justify atrocities and monstrosities as God’s trials. How I really hate this skewed sense of totality and the absolute. Once these people saw that a political champion fights a common enemy of a different sect, then allegiance comes quick. Even the enlightened religious are quite a few and baffled by the number of half-baked community members that they are with.

              We have an education sector that is plagued with systemic issues, and alongside are incompetent teachers who consciously spread fakery and problematic thinking. These educators even have the gall to command and dictate obedience without having the much-needed deliberative exercises. You have the other teachers as well who are incapable of reflection and even rely on troll networks for facts and truth because the total crap sympathizes with their sentiment. There is no other literal meaning of “no-brainers” than this. Plus, you have the apathetic ones who want to play safe, and who do not even have the slightest nerve to push for principles as they hide behind the veil of skepticism and stoicism.

              The pedagogical system is not true to its calling as passing for the sake of passing is the rule. More so, it is loaded with unrelated tasks that usurp the creative and thinking space the teacher needs to prop up lessons. Plus, the system needs to tackle those who simply see the school as a means of economic emancipation. A dysfunctional system is made worse with economic conditions that compromise essential visions. Poverty-stricken learners would rather work and earn a living. All is a mess.

              A thought crisis is also present, as people cannot distinguish a love for the country from patronage. Mistaking leaders as monarchs rather than servants is evident. You have the rich guilty who basks the glorious nectar of impunity, and the poor ones at the end of the crosshair. A skewed sense of moralistic proclamations is employed to fit the agenda. Imagine when the narrative cried for humanity towards big investors, while that very plea was absent when the issue is about our lowly fellow citizens. The latest issue of phasing the media outlet is wittingly crafted to a righteous battle against oligarchy while the next fat cat is waiting for the takeover. And the people are stuck with that narrative, and cannot see the dangerous precedent towards media crackdown. Amidst the sea of facts, my people are having a hard time trying to digest information while keeping their brains stern.

              Amidst the crises and to whatever comes next, I call myself to the mission of nation-building through education. Whether it is in the classrooms, or outside, even though with blazing pressure to purse actions, I am an employee of truth and justice. I hope that I can bring more people to the fold, engineer an environment to breed a new generation, and continue to stand along with those in the same cause. This ordeal never stops, thinking should not end, and the quest for development, progress, and liberation continues even after I am dead. This is for me is a life worth living and dying for.