I recall an article in the Philippine Daily Inquirer last month which read “Cops deployed as substitute teachers in far-flung areas.” I take the report with great interest. That is so because this month classes have already begun, or at least a number of schools have already opened for the school year. But apart from that, it’s the irony there that leaves me, or some of us, thinking.
Conventional wisdom, the one conspired by the minds of the public, tells us that if there’s anything at all that the cops in this nation have taught us, it’s that you have to fear for your life when placed in the hands of bandits and crooks. That fear seethes with even more torment upon knowing that behind that robber’s mask is a badge with the phrase “to serve and protect” written all over it. Which is enough to scare the living daylights out of you, or to suffuse wretched madness into you. It’s one thing to know that the hands of thieves and murderers lord over the crimes in this nation. It’s quite another to know, or to be dumbfounded upon sight of a methodical madness, that law enforcers have strings attached to those murdering and thieving hands, living incognito with plunder in pockets or sacks, whichever way they prefer it.
Save for a number of virtuous policemen and women on the brink of extinction, it should make us wonder how it is possible for cops to assume the role of teachers, let alone to teach in far-flung areas with pistols on the side. Guns might scare off the children. But, alas, “schoolchildren did not fear their policemen-teachers.” PNP Directorate for Police Community Relations Chief Leopoldo Bataoil is even saying “schoolchildren actually find it enjoyable.” I don't know what it is that children find enjoyable—the pistols or the policemen—in that, although I suspect it has something to do with having a policeman for a teacher. For all we know, some people might have mastered the art of plucking humor out of the plight of cops in this nation. How rare an event can be like that? Indeed, how rare can human adaptation be any more than that?
I say adaptation simply because “schools in those areas lack teachers because of the security situation.” Insurgents thrive and brood in those places like rabbits on a copulation spree, mounting threats to life and education that has been going on for years. I cannot exactly tell in words how it feels like to live in those dire conditions, especially since I've never been into one—and God or Allah or Bathala forbid. Yet it is enough to say that something should be done to address the problems in education assailing the children in those regions who are most deprived of the gift of knowledge. I cannot say as well if it really is a stroke of genius for the part of Chief Bataoil who launched the program back in 2007. After all, there must be truth in the saying that necessity is the mother of invention, or discovery.
A police mind, I recall someone saying, is often most predictable and yet equally amusing since the phrase police mind itself is a palpable irony, or a contradiction in terms. I leave the depths of the reader's imagination to steer into that contradiction. Suffice it to say, though, that “[these] policemen were previous holders of education degrees prior to becoming members of the PNP.” It does assure the children, at the very least, that they won't only find the presence of policemen-teachers “enjoyable”. They will also learn something, hopefully, out of the brainchild of Bataoil.
But you know what people say, desperate circumstances call for desperate measures. To put it bluntly, having policemen as teachers is a desperate move, yet it isn't something which should trigger us into a state of hysteria. It should only give us more reasons to hope that some things have to be done for a good which far exceeds the weight of the burden. I am not against the program, given that the necessity to educate children living in soils drenched with blood and brazened down by one of the most cruel phenomena humanity has bear witness to is monumental. That phenomenon—the problem of insurgency—takes away life and limbs. The problem of insurgency nips reasons to hope right at the bud. The problem of insurgency rips away the glory of life and puts horror in its place.
In desperate times like these, who are we going to turn to? Who are these kids going to turn to who will fill the vacuum left by the void of teachers? Or, in the words of four men busting ghosts for a living, who you gonna call?
I can only partly understand why those children won't tremble and collapse at the sight of guns before their eyes, especially so when before them stood policemen with firearms within arm's reach while working, or playing, the role of teachers. Living a life right in the bosom of violence creeping just beyond the bushes or the other side of the mountains, a life nurtured and nestled at the heart of insurgency, these children know the dangers to life like air to lungs. Which is perhaps why they know no fear, or care less about that fear than caring less about the stakes of education. They've practically lived insurgency more than any other adult sitting comfortably somewhere high in the towers of Makati or squatting deep and bootless in the bunkers of military encampments.
Or perhaps it is their innocence towards the miseries and misfits that mince their life without their knowing—precisely because they are innocent—that makes them immune from fearing guns whoever wields them. Policemen or rebels, perhaps it does not really matter.
Quite frankly, I'm at odds with the situation where you have guns inside classrooms, especially so before the inquisitive eyes of children. But then again, who are we going to call in pressing times and in dismal situations like these? Perhaps these children know the answer better than we do. Perhaps they're afraid of no ghosts.
Or perhaps they're afraid of no policeman-teacher.
Conventional wisdom, the one conspired by the minds of the public, tells us that if there’s anything at all that the cops in this nation have taught us, it’s that you have to fear for your life when placed in the hands of bandits and crooks. That fear seethes with even more torment upon knowing that behind that robber’s mask is a badge with the phrase “to serve and protect” written all over it. Which is enough to scare the living daylights out of you, or to suffuse wretched madness into you. It’s one thing to know that the hands of thieves and murderers lord over the crimes in this nation. It’s quite another to know, or to be dumbfounded upon sight of a methodical madness, that law enforcers have strings attached to those murdering and thieving hands, living incognito with plunder in pockets or sacks, whichever way they prefer it.
Save for a number of virtuous policemen and women on the brink of extinction, it should make us wonder how it is possible for cops to assume the role of teachers, let alone to teach in far-flung areas with pistols on the side. Guns might scare off the children. But, alas, “schoolchildren did not fear their policemen-teachers.” PNP Directorate for Police Community Relations Chief Leopoldo Bataoil is even saying “schoolchildren actually find it enjoyable.” I don't know what it is that children find enjoyable—the pistols or the policemen—in that, although I suspect it has something to do with having a policeman for a teacher. For all we know, some people might have mastered the art of plucking humor out of the plight of cops in this nation. How rare an event can be like that? Indeed, how rare can human adaptation be any more than that?
I say adaptation simply because “schools in those areas lack teachers because of the security situation.” Insurgents thrive and brood in those places like rabbits on a copulation spree, mounting threats to life and education that has been going on for years. I cannot exactly tell in words how it feels like to live in those dire conditions, especially since I've never been into one—and God or Allah or Bathala forbid. Yet it is enough to say that something should be done to address the problems in education assailing the children in those regions who are most deprived of the gift of knowledge. I cannot say as well if it really is a stroke of genius for the part of Chief Bataoil who launched the program back in 2007. After all, there must be truth in the saying that necessity is the mother of invention, or discovery.
A police mind, I recall someone saying, is often most predictable and yet equally amusing since the phrase police mind itself is a palpable irony, or a contradiction in terms. I leave the depths of the reader's imagination to steer into that contradiction. Suffice it to say, though, that “[these] policemen were previous holders of education degrees prior to becoming members of the PNP.” It does assure the children, at the very least, that they won't only find the presence of policemen-teachers “enjoyable”. They will also learn something, hopefully, out of the brainchild of Bataoil.
But you know what people say, desperate circumstances call for desperate measures. To put it bluntly, having policemen as teachers is a desperate move, yet it isn't something which should trigger us into a state of hysteria. It should only give us more reasons to hope that some things have to be done for a good which far exceeds the weight of the burden. I am not against the program, given that the necessity to educate children living in soils drenched with blood and brazened down by one of the most cruel phenomena humanity has bear witness to is monumental. That phenomenon—the problem of insurgency—takes away life and limbs. The problem of insurgency nips reasons to hope right at the bud. The problem of insurgency rips away the glory of life and puts horror in its place.
In desperate times like these, who are we going to turn to? Who are these kids going to turn to who will fill the vacuum left by the void of teachers? Or, in the words of four men busting ghosts for a living, who you gonna call?
I can only partly understand why those children won't tremble and collapse at the sight of guns before their eyes, especially so when before them stood policemen with firearms within arm's reach while working, or playing, the role of teachers. Living a life right in the bosom of violence creeping just beyond the bushes or the other side of the mountains, a life nurtured and nestled at the heart of insurgency, these children know the dangers to life like air to lungs. Which is perhaps why they know no fear, or care less about that fear than caring less about the stakes of education. They've practically lived insurgency more than any other adult sitting comfortably somewhere high in the towers of Makati or squatting deep and bootless in the bunkers of military encampments.
Or perhaps it is their innocence towards the miseries and misfits that mince their life without their knowing—precisely because they are innocent—that makes them immune from fearing guns whoever wields them. Policemen or rebels, perhaps it does not really matter.
Quite frankly, I'm at odds with the situation where you have guns inside classrooms, especially so before the inquisitive eyes of children. But then again, who are we going to call in pressing times and in dismal situations like these? Perhaps these children know the answer better than we do. Perhaps they're afraid of no ghosts.
Or perhaps they're afraid of no policeman-teacher.
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