SABBATICAL NOTES. 12 APRIL 2014. N2. SATURDAY. Manny Pacquiao and the discourse of hope and the miserable. ON SUNDAY, 6 April 2014, I went back to Isetann on Recto to wait for my tarpualin job to dry before I could take this home back to the boondocks. I would need the tarpaulin to announce that we were making the Gramatika on sale only for Ilokano MTB-MLE teachers attending the five-day conference, and that the sale is going to be only for these teachers. The tarpaulin would do the job. In most ways, I have realized that many of our teachers are not book readers at all, or if they read books, these are not the things that they need to sharpen the tools of their trade. The lame excuse is that they do not have enough purchasing power, that is, their take home pay would not warrant an ability to buy even the basic reference book they would need to continue teaching well. I do not buy that argument, however. My wife and I, and now our son, have been teachers, and we have made it a point to make certain choices to buy certain books we need in our teaching life. A daughter once taught the English language in a Makati foreign school, and we bought books that we want to read, and books that we needed to improve our teaching abilities. So to argue that teachers cannot buy a reference book because they are not paid that much by the government is one of the lamest excuses I have ever heard in my life. But this is not the story. The story is about what was happening on that Sunday afternoon. At that chair stores main entrance fronting the train station, a flat screen TVthe size of 3 feet by 6 feet was set at that space before you hit the stairs going to the food court at the basement. All around that TV were males, many coming from work, work bags on their shoulders, and all eyes glued on the screen. You have before you an ongoing fight, a Bradley a few years younger and a Pacquiao a few years younger too. At the foot of the screen was a continuing word, coming in and out, and appearing even at the most inopportune time while the congressman fights it out with the other guy. I looked at this males enticed to look at their idol. They were awed, mesmerized, dumbfounded. So here were the poor like needing all this spectacular thing to make them forget that at their home, their table is empty, or will soon be, and never mind if that happens for as long their idol shall be able to slug it out with another sports idol, that Bradley guy. We are all here for the kill anyway, and God forgives us, the Philippines will stop having its troubles for two hours or so, and even the arms of Basilan will stop making that unnecessary noise of war and conflict for as long as that guy will continue to slug it out with that other guy. We need to forget. And we need to forget clearly. And we need that guy, God forbid. And we call this the God-forsaken country. RECTO/ 6 April 2014
Posted on: Sat, 12 Apr 2014 06:43:26 +0000
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