Copyright tribune
Only 22 classrooms have been built thus far this year.Twenty-two. Out of 1,700! That’s one classroom for every senator and, we suspect, one excuse per engineer.And we’re told the DPWH was “too focused on flood control.” We’ve never seen people so focused on something that doesn’t exist.And now, mark our words, he’d have his excuse ready while acting shocked. Bongbong. “Flood control is Priority No. 1!” he said two years ago.“Not my fault. They were just following orders.” But of course they did. Because floods come every year, while students, unfortunately, come every day.Somewhere, a student is praying to be assigned to one of the lucky 22.The country is drowning in stupidity, and we’ve built a nation where flood control has more sex appeal than education.Because clearly, that’s our national fetish. Every time it rains, we get inspired.Even when you can’t drain the swamp because the swamp is in charge of the pumps.We spend more money protecting land from rain than protecting minds from ignorance. Like they’re optional amenities. Like swimming pools in a subdivision. Nice to have, if the DPWH feels like it.Why build a classroom that will last decades when you can build a dike that collapses in six months and will need another contract? Instead of students learning, we have engineers earning. “Not submerged? Not our problem.”Because floods can be photographed; ignorance can’t. They love concrete because you can see it, touch it, overprice it. But classrooms? They’re made of something politicians can’t monetize. Hope.Then this: P63 billion. For classrooms next year, which, at the current rate, means we’ll have 38 new classrooms by 2030.Education Secretary Sonny Angara says he’s trying to fix it. The DPWH has had exclusive rights to build DepEd classrooms. He wants to have LGUs build classrooms directly. Excellent, get an education building classrooms. It’s like hospitals deciding to buy their own beds. Revolutionary!We’re saying out of sheer exhaustion: “Anyone, Boy Scouts, volunteers, anyone who can hold a hammer, please step forward.”Decentralize. They want local governments to help. Terrific idea. Let’s just multiply the corruption by province. Spread it around, share the wealth.At least, if a mayor steals the money, he can show us the resort he built with it. Transparency is easier when corruption is local.And, love the optimism. “Let’s involve the private sector!” Let’s go! Coming soon: Jollibee National High School. Mission and Vision: “You want fries with that?”Thank you. And please. No ribbon cutting until the classrooms exist.Let’s stop pretending we’re pouring cement into rivers while children share chairs and think it’s “group work.”Our dream? A country where kids have classrooms, instead of their only doubling as evacuation centers. Where DPWH finally realizes the mind, too, is public infrastructure. Where building classrooms is flood control because ignorance is the longest-running natural disaster of all.If we’re serious about progress, then education must evolve from a side project to a national obsession.Until then, we cannot, in good conscience, call ourselves a developing nation when we’re just an abandoned construction site with a national anthem.
