Intelligent use of intelligence fund

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March L. Fianza

BAGUIO CITY -- Four of my five grandchildren go to school. The youngest is in the first grade. When asked, he prefers to be in the shade of the classroom during hot weather and can just run home after school even under a scorching sun, rather than getting soaked on rainy months.
    Due to the high heat index reported daily by the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration – Department of Science and Technology (PAGASA-DOST), those concerned are again proposing to move back the opening of classes to June from August.
    They reason out that schoolchildren are the most affected by the hot weather months of March, April and May in most places lower than the altitude of Baguio, Benguet, Ifugao, Mountain Province and other cold climate mountainous areas in the Cordillera.
    But the reality is that schoolchildren are always at the risk of facing bad weather the whole year round, whether during the hot months or during the typhoon months where they wade flooded urban streets or cross swollen barrio rivers.
    The inconvenience of studying in classrooms with no air-condition systems is the same as learning in a school with leaking roofs and flooded floors. In other words, the distress in having classes in very hot weather is the same danger met in having to cross flooded roads and raging rivers.
    With all their reasoning, they are blind to the reality that bad weather, both hot and stormy, is unpredictable.     The threats to good basic education are not because of the seasons but due to very poor school infrastructure.     These are the leaking roofs, no air-condition units, clogged waterways that cause floods, uncovered manholes and more.
    This is the reality that is faced by the public, including high school and college students, teachers, the working sector and public utility vehicle drivers; not only schoolchildren. Changing the schedule for opening of schools everytime the weather is unbearable is not a solution to the problem.  
    By building better school infrastructure, we might just be able to prevent bad climates from threatening the education of our schoolchildren, and stop moving school schedules. If not, then the crisis in the education sector will be waist-deep like the floods.
    It is surprising that everytime communities are hit by floods, houses burn down, farmers and fishermen are unable to work due to an environmental disaster; our government officials resort to distributing relief goods and even cash assistance.
    Our elected and appointed officials resort to these solutions that make Filipinos too dependent on social amelioration but fail to address issues related to education. For decades now, we have been hearing about the lack of infrastructure like better classrooms, in addition to the salary increase of public school teachers that has been a grievance for the longest time.
    The solution to alleviate the situation is not to move the opening of classes in June and free the schoolchildren from the hot months of March, April and May because weather is unpredictable, and the tendency of which is for LGU heads to cancel classes during typhoons.
    The better solution is to build better infrastructures by simply providing air-condition units in classrooms so that schoolchildren will have the finest education they can experience while the sun is burning so hot outside, or when it is raining cats and dogs in the playground.
    For decades, appointed and elected officials of a certain LGU know which schools in their areas suffer from annual flooding. It is time they build or look for elevated grounds to relocate the schools from flood-prone areas.
    Why this has not been done before is quite puzzling. As if to “not relocate” has a deeper purpose, one of which is for the situation to be a legitimate alibi to distribute “ayuda” or relief goods and cash assistance. This does not solve the problem, it worsens our educational woes but it perpetuates political careers.
    Funding drastic reforms for our educational system through better infrastructure and the way we treat our schoolchildren and their teachers would really be costly, even while it is not a secret that a bigger portion of our taxes are always allotted by congress to the Department of Education.
    It is indeed more intelligent for Vice President Sara Duterte to spend the intelligence fund allotted to her office for the installation of air-condition units in classrooms that need them and seal those leaking roofs.
    Provide better school infrastructure to escape the heat and elevate or relocate the schools to avoid the floods.     That way, school opening won’t have to be moved every time the bad weather hits us, and VP Sara’s intelligence fund would definitely improve the intelligence of our schoolchildren.