Estrada presence still bugs public schools

A shortage of classrooms, teachers, books... and a surplus of posters of deposed President Joseph Estrada.

Education Secretary Raul Roco said yesterday that another problem bugging his department is the lack of a poster-size picture of President Arroyo to replace that of her deposed predecessor in many public school classrooms across the country.

Roco sounded out Press Secretary Noel Cabrera that the first batch of Arroyo posters sent to the Department of Education, Culture and Sports by the Palace were not enough to meet the requirement of DECS offices in Metro Manila.

Roco explained to Cabrera that there are 350,000 classrooms where the presidential poster must be put on display, not to mention the offices of the school principals, assistant principals, DECS regional directors and supervisors on down the line.

Despite getting the lion’s share of the annual budget, the DECS doesn’t have the extra funds to pay for the printing of the President’s poster.

However, the Office of the Press Secretary has the National Printing Office as one of its attached agencies, which can produce the posters.

More than four months after the new administration took over, Roco lamented, the picture of Estrada remains entrenched in many public schools.

Roco was one of the bitterest critics of the former administration, and one of the 10 senators who voted to open the second envelope containing documents of evidence against Estrada in his aborted impeachment trial.

Before his second and last term as senator ended, Roco was appointed to his present post by President Arroyo.

Mrs. Arroyo and Roco finished 1-2 in the 1995 senatorial elections. In 1998, she ran for vice president and won while he lost to Estrada in the run for the presidency. — Marichu Villanueva