Revival of things past

One of the things that we recall from our childhood was that we began the first rain of May by taking a bath in our garden. The ritual was called agua de Mayo and it was supposed to rid one of prickly heat. The girls say that the agua de Mayo also softened their hair.

Now an educator, Angeles University Foundation Chancellor Emmanuel Angeles has suggested that the country revive the old custom of reciting the Angelus, not only in schools, but nationwide. We recall the days when everything stood still when the Angelus bell rang. People walking in the streets stopped and recited the prayer. It would indeed be good if such an old practice could be revived. It is not good to be totally separated from our past. A traditional Filipino saying states that a person who is not aware of where he came from will not reach to where he is going.

We take our common customs for granted. When someone knocks on our door, they generally say, "Tao po." What that originally meant was that it was not a kafre, tikbalang, manananggal or any of the traditional demons the common people one believed really existed. To show that it is truly Filipino, no one knocks at a door and says, "It is a person." What else would ring a doorbell or knock at one’s door?

Someone should compile the old customs that have disappeared because, perhaps, they are no longer applicable in our times. Times change and they don’t change for us. We have to change with the times. Today the world is literally a global village and personally I have not even caught up with the cellphone. There are so many modern technologies that we have not kept up with.

Believe it or not, to this day we still write our column by hand.

I was always under the impression that the present generation was better informed than I was because of modern media. Now comes a report than an "alarming" number of students about to enter Philippine universities lack of a basic mastery of key subjects, and those entering high school fared only slightly better. We thought that with modern media, education would improve. But it seems to us that modern media is not being used for education. What an impact television would make if it were used to maximize education. During our time, the greatest contribution to education was still the blackboard. It has not been replaced. This is the age of science and one of the observations of the National Statistics Coordination Board was that "Science was the least of the competencies of both elementary and secondary students."

People always talk about freedom and they always refer to our freedoms as freedom of speech. We believe that all freedoms start with freedom from and we, of course, mean freedom from ignorance. Of what use is freedom of speech to a totally ignorant person?

As far back as we can remember, education always had top priority in our country. This was true even before our time. That is why we were once the second most progressive country in Asia, next only to Japan. We once held the position of Secretary of Education. Our office was in what is now known as Arroceros Park and it was just a Quonset hut that was abandoned by the American GIs. But the standard of education was high. It should go even higher today.