Vera Files has posted its video report on the subject. Please visit www.verafiles.org
by Yvonne Chua and Luz Rimban
Vera Files
The delivery of textbooks from the Department of Education in Manila to far-flung areas is usually a boring and mundane obligation.
But come July, select communities in remote areas will be welcoming the arrival of textbooks with celebrations resembling town fiestas, complete with dances and décor.
For more of this, please click to http://www.verafiles.org/index.php/focus/34-top-story/80-deped-adopts-textbook-walk
Mag-exercise tayo tuwing umaga is lifted from the Chinese daily exercise since Mao Tze Tung rule. We organize and even spend on walkathons, biking, etc. In fact, the govt allows athletics days Tuesdays and Thursday. I think its motel days for the civilian govt.
For these efforts. perhaps each one carries some text books to his own area. No sweat is wasted. For the real far flung areas, for sure on market days, people go to the market. Let them carry some books home to their barangay schools.
Have they been doing this? Sign up so you can get a share of the booties more like and kiss the ass of the one sending it? Yuck! What a way to corrupt Filipinos, but I am not surprised. It is apparently long embedded in the culture that people there cannot see anything wrong for instance with distribution of those freebies meant to whitewash the Pidal scandals paid with money from the treasury being filled with foreign currencies by OFWs and loans from China, etc.
Many years back in fact, I visited a project community supposedly implementing some compulsory education that I thought was being patterned after that of Japan’s because the project was being subsidized with Japanese funds. I was shocked when I found out that it was being made selective, sign up and join type, and education not being made available to all as done in Japan where education is required with funds ready to implement it in accordance with the law on compulsory education and child welfare that make parents legally responsible to send their children to school to obtain a 9-year free education.
I found out later that a bulk of the funds that came partly from Japanese ODA was going to private pockets. You bet, nakipag-away ako, but I left my Japanese companions to find out things for themselves the corruption over the money they so painstakingly collected to help the children in the Philippines get the kind of education they deserved to get. They eventually did, but I beat them in joining other advocacies outside of the Philippines that made our efforts more rewarding.
Nakakaawa talaga ang mga batang mahirap sa Pilipinas. I’ve met a lot of them uneducated Filipinos coming to Japan and working here illegally. Most of the Filipinos the police here pick up for violating Japanese laws that I have had the chance to interpret for are elementary or high school dropouts ala-FPJ, and all because they did not have the same opportunities the laws here have provided and insured Japanese children can have. None have bothered to protest against such deprivation because they do not know that they have rights under the law to demand to be provided with the needed education to help lift them up economically, socially and otherwise, and stop them from violating laws of countries they migrate to illegally in order to escape from poverty in their country.
Nakakaawa talaga. What’s worse is that children there, even the children of those who have, surely are learning nothing but graft and corruption of the brand of Gloria Dorobo and Company now.
Kawawang generation of Filipinos!
Why is it that every Project or Procurement is financed by Loans and is always contracted from Foreign sources??Guesses?? Right!!!
Vic,
A good friend of mine’s family business was supplying equipment including textbooks to the Dept of Education. She used to complain to me how difficult it was because everyone, and that is EVERY ONE at the dept needed to be bribed. She has since quit saying that she just could barely make ends meet even if her turnover was in the tens of millions because most of her supposed profit went to bribery. She was really disgusted.
She and her family have since moved to Canada.
Vic: Why is it that every Project or Procurement is financed by Loans and is always contracted from Foreign sources??Guesses?? Right!!!
*****
That’s the racket as a matter of fact. Congressmen, governors, et al, are reportedly asked to create projects for the Midget to use as reasons for the many loans she has incurred since she grabbed power, and to validate her expensive foreign trips that are in fact private in nature.
The first time she came to Japan on her so-called “working visits” she even tagged along her husband whom we heard went company hopping trying to establish tie-ups with Japanese companies he undoubtedly hoped to monopolize like what those businessmen appointed to Japan as ambassador used to do. Nabisto kaya medyo patago ang operation that I am told did not come up to what the Fatso expected.
In fact, the lobby group they tried to establish here to promote the interests of the Pidals failed to succeed. Alsa-balutan tuloy sila, and with the attempt to squander the Philippine patrimonies in Japan now, lalo silang nasira. Wait till you hear of lawsuits filed against them on this.
Anna: She used to complain to me how difficult it was because everyone, and that is EVERY ONE at the dept needed to be bribed.
*****
Sabi nga, Anna, “talamak na sa buto.” This “suhol system” is true not just in the Dept. of Education but in all branches and agencies of the Philippine government. Kahit nga maliliit na tindahan nagbabayad ng tong. Saklap talaga!
Off topic, pero mukha naman yatang sumobra ang sipsip ni Razon. Naglinis ng PNP daw, but according to some old friends of the family, nilinis lang iyong suspected anti-Arroyo sa PNP. Ulol!
Valdemar, are you serious about the “mag-exercise tayo tuwing umaga” comment?
Vic, I am also puzzled as to why we can’t afford to spend our own money for textbooks. Libro na lang inuutang pa. Maybe it’s easy to get education loans from ADB and WB (just a guess).
lester,
I have no problem with ADB and WB providing the loans. What I’d rather not see is a syndicated loan coming from the crony banks. Imagine tens of billions in book loans provided by RCBC, Union Bank, and PNB/Allied Bank. At least half goes into the greedy funds. I know for a fact that ADB has designed a special program for monitoring deliverables in its lending to the Philippines. The government is so corrupt ADB even had to modify and tighten its rules specifically for Philippine government loans. ADB has restructured its monitoring organization because Pinoys are specially gifted in locating the smallest loopholes and make ADB’s specialists look like amateurs. No chismis, this one. Right out the mouth of the guys in ADB.
Off topic but Malaya reports, “Syjuco said job opportunities in the US territory must be seized, noting that an ordinary carpenter can earn more than P30,000 a month there. He also said there is no scarcity in overseas job for Filipino workers, especially in the Middle East, Australia and Canada.”
Diyan magaling itong si Gloria Dorobo at mga galamay niya. Inaabatan nila ang mga job opportunities sa ibang bansa kasi wala siyang mabigay na trabaho para sa mga kababayan niya. Dito nga sa Japan, inaabatan ng mga ungas ang job opening para sa caregiver kahit na sinabi na ngang mahirap nilang mapasa ang requirements at national board exam sa wikang hapon. Kapaaaaaaal talaga!
Off topic ulit. It is now confirmed according to Tribune that the Pidal son, Mikey, is running for the Senate in 2010.
Wow, ang lakas ng loob! Are the Pidals that confident still that they can also cheat in 2010? Sinong papalit para sa position niya as Rep. of Pampanga? Iyon bang kapatid na babae? Kaya pala ilalagay sa ARMM as a kind of baptism of fire in dirty Philippine politics. Papayagan pa ba iyan ng mga pilipino?
Lester,
Yup! In fact I am seriously considering the rituals for at least five times a day religiously prayed by our Muslim brothers. Mohammed must have noticed the big bellies of his policemen thus the calisthencs. Have any idea why they face east during prayers?
Nakakatawa naman ito, mapipiyesta pa ang mga tao sa liblib na pook dahil sa mga librong dala ng DepEd. Sinong gagastos niyan? Siguro malaki ang tongpats kaya may panggastos sa pagsasaya ng mga may pakinabang diyan.
Di naman sila bumili ng sardnas para sa pista. Pagtiyagaan na lamang ang manok, baboy at kalabaw sa handa.