Naglalakad ako kaninang tanghali mula Kalaw patungong Quiapo sa may gilid ng SM City Manila at nakitang nagkukumpulan ang mga empleyado at/o aplikante. Tanyag na mall na itinatambad ang kanilang mga magagandang produkto’t salespersons ngunit heto’t wari’y mga langaw sa gilid ng daan. Tensiyonado sila’t umaasam ng trabahong magbibigay ng kakarampot na sahod mula sa dambuhalang kumpanyang kumikita ng bilyon-bilyon kada taon. Kapag bumibiyahe mapapansin ang sandamukal na mga patalastas na humihimok na magkonsumo, pakiwari bang kaya nating gumasta at kalakhan ng mamamaya’y (lalo na sa kalunsuran) mga propesyonal at may mga espesyal na pangangailangan. Ngunit higit na marami ang mga manggagawa at mala-manggagawa dito sa lunsod. Itinatago, tinatakpan, isinasantabi at ikinahihiya nga lamang sila. Kapag nasa MRT mga papuntang opisina na nangangailangan ng kakayahang dulot ng pormal na pag-aaral ang makakasalamuha. Marami ay mga estudyante. O kaya ay mallers. Pero nasaan ang mga manggagawa? Sila yaong mga nagbu-bus: na hindi aircon. Sa pagkain naman sa mga fastfood o may kamahalang mga restaurant napapansin ba sila? Ibig kong sabihi’y naiisip pa ba ng mga kumakain na ang service crew ay obrero din, kumikita ng minimum wage at hindi sapat kahit dalawa o tatlo pa kayo sa pamilyang ganito? Sa Makati at iba pang may mga high-rise sila ay nasa mga sulok, basement, ilalim, madidilim at masisikip na lugar: doon sila kumakain dahil nandoon ang mga murang karinderya de-tulak na tindahang nabigyan ng special permit o di kaya’y tinatarget na hulihin at kotongan. Ngayong marami ang construction projects ng malls at condominium, pati na exclusive subdivisions at leisure areas ay pulu-pulutong na pumapasok, kumakain, natutulog sa semento, nagyoyosi at umuuwi ang mga construction workers na palaging pinagdidiskitahang pagkakitaan ang kanilang mga kita. Naiisip ko lang ito, sa araw-araw na paglalakbay, maya’t mayang pagmumuni.

***

It’s been three weeks since the start of classes and I still have to fully adjust to a heavy teaching load this sem. Well, I only have two preparations now; but four of the five classes I’m currently handling is Communication One. Which means that their writing skills developed from word-building unto the discourse of the essay depend on me: in the first semester of their first year in the university celebrating its first one hundred years (because it looks forward to hundreds of years more. Hundreds of years of what?!)

I asked my students to write a thousand-word essay on any topic. Top theme is the adjustment from high school to college life. Their ‘new’ life is more of a fine-tuning from being the best and the brightest of months before to mingling with the best and the brightest of their generation. That this is the underlying thesis of the oft-described difficult college life gives the impression that they have internalized UP’s ang galing mo! motto. Magaling saan?! From a conservative position, isn’t this the vocation of the premier university, to be magaling? This stops short of the claim of being the best – pinakamagaling or pinakamahusay. Ngunit para saan? Para kanino? When you see UP graduates populating prestigious and leadership positions in the government, mass media, business sector and even non-government organizations, it is just being loyal to its mandate to prepare the leaders of tomorrow. It is a radically different problem what kind of tomorrow students now are on the order of inheriting. Also, what do we make of our university when you see that an overwhelming majority inhabits call centers or migrate to have a better life? Not a university for the Philippines, my isko! What about those who lead graft and corruption, corrupting lives as they graft their names onto our labors, our blood and sweat, our history? So you see, it’s not the question of being the best when this best is applicable to so many fields and issues that we cannot sift the UP in them except for, well, being a product of UP.

***

There is simply injustice in spending much money on centennial celebrations and disposing a small amount on the welfare of its employees. All the bombast will fade and sooner teachers and non-academic personnel will literally fade out as dispensable workforce once the celebration turns into a reflection on our difficult conditions.

***

Watched last week the i witness feature on three freshmen. How are their lives, what do they feel upon passing the upcat, their parents’ hopes and dreams, their friends and classmates’ reactions, and owing to the tv program’s mediation of their lives and the Filipino people’s, society’s take on their being iskolar ng bayan. The lesson inserted was “hindi hadlang ang kahirapan sa may talino at tiyaga.” We know that poverty is indeed an obstacle, but it is the perseverance to surmount difficulties on the part of the many that make them successful. But this moral lesson was fantastically rendered by the coverage on the young people’s first few days: on how chaotic life in manila is; the competition on the hearts and minds of freshies being fought by the left (activists) and the right (the rayadillo, rotc/nstp/cwts); how many students were shocked at the freshmen orientation program protest rally knocked together despite repressive measures (so as not to frighten the kids and their parents, so as to have a well-mannered welcome exercise, so as not to intimidate the officials…so as to present a ‘dynamically’ safe and wonderful university of the philippines!); on how one was surprised that there are truly students who own their cars; on how one can encounter a mad man by the name of Zorro who thus exemplifies how in UP the right to express and speak even when you are insane is held sacred (scared!); on how one can strike a balance in the preparation for the nation’s leadership; on how rich and poor students alike are brought together by intellectuality (that of course denigrates the poor because only the freedom from economic necessity enables one to be a scholar indeed); on how one freshie, coming from Palo, Leyte where Douglas McArthur landed to save the colony, proclaimed “I shall return!” These are sights and sounds beautifully presented by the special features show making a composite impression of the university as, without a doubt, offering the best experiences for its students. Surely, millions of our countrymen’s desire to have one of their sons or daughters or kin be a UP student was propelled to the greatest heights this centennial year of our lord u.p. officials, malacañang and the neoliberal order.

1:16 am
sunday, 6 july 2008