Activities and inputs

There are days when one column is not enough.

It has been one very busy week for me where I encountered people from all walks of life and with perspectives as varied as the colors on a rainbow. What struck me was the amount of seemingly ordinary things we take for granted, but are things that impact people’s lives or reflect on our individual or collective negligence.

I just came down from Baguio City where I had the privilege to speak to hundreds if not a thousand high school students from all over the Philippines. This was the “National Leadership Training Seminar for student government officers”, held at the Teachers Camp.

This project under Joey Pelaez is undoubtedly a very important high impact project, which has provided the students an opportunity to listen, watch and interact with national leaders, personalities and celebrities. This one week seminar and the high power speakers who participated would have cost participants thousands of pesos to attend, but the Department of Education has done a great job putting it up so ordinary students can benefit from it.

I have attended two such events both of which were in Teachers Camp and I always go away believing, that if we keep “investing on, and mentoring the youth,” they will be the hope of the future.

I would strongly suggest to Secretary Jesli Lapus to sit down with this year’s organizers and find out how the seminar can be replicated in all the regions of the Philippines so that most if not all high school students can be blessed by such events. Education and knowledge should be for all, not just for members of student councils.

Secretary Lapus should also look into the serious need of building a huge multi-purpose hall or integrate the present structures into a convention facility equal to the arenas and coliseums being built by mayors and governors. Secretary Lapus should leave this legacy to students and teachers who converge upon this great place but end up cramming into an area that ends up looking like a refugee center.

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Speaking of Baguio, it won’t be long before the DILG or the DENR will have to step into the highland kingdom and declare it an ecological disaster.

Complete strangers who recognized me from TV days or the photo on this column boldly approached me to call attention to the serious garbage problem of the City. According to locals, their original dump has been shut down and the garbage has to be trucked all the way to Tarlac, which has resulted in a slower turn around and collection, not to mention higher costs. So now part of the scenic view are piles of plastic packed garbage.

Sadly, there is more blame throwing and finger pointing about who is at fault. Locals claim it is the fault of thousands of lowlanders while the other side, blame the local politicians.

The sad thing is that Baguio City has become a “Dirty City”. Unlike the days of our Manongs and our Lakays where people did not throw litter, Baguio now has the “big city” disease called littering. For the first time since my childhood days in Baguio, I actually used a handkerchief to cover my nose and mouth while walking, because of the pollution.

Even my adopted cousins who were part of the original Session Road families have given up. They sold their store front on Session Road. They tried to start all over in the old market only to find themselves involved in a three way legal battle with the City government and Uniwide because officials leased out their area to Uniwide under their noses. When the stall owners stood their ground, they woke up to learn that a fire had burned down many stalls.

This is just one of the many reasons why I pick on the DILG. For many years, the beloved City of Baguio has been dying a slow death because government agencies have not done anything to curb pollution, the excess of transportations, sanitation, etc. All these officials do is come up to play golf, eat strawberries, drive around in air-conditioned cars (because of pollution) and hold cabinet meetings at the Mansion House.

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Laws don’t amount to anything if people don’t understand its reason, its purpose and the spirit of that law.

I recently became involved with Center for Possibilities Foundation and this has exposed me to the realities of being a special child or a handicapped individual. Little by little I have learned the real life of a family with a handicapped child.

I don’t know if I think in extreme terms, but it was only now I realized that I have a very young cousin who is partially handicapped. She has always tried to cope in school and very recently it has taken extra effort for her to be on the same level, physically.

What I discovered is that in spite of laws mandating programs for the handicapped, many people still see these as a special accommodation more than a law and there is no special police or enforcement group that checks on companies if they actually hire or assist the handicap.

It is tragic that the police can be called in to arrest dog-nappers or people selling endangered wildlife. Yet no one really does anything about how we treat the most vulnerable people in society; our children and the handicapped!

Naked people, trying to get attention and publicity get front-page cover. Battered women get front-page cover. But we never talk about the handicapped because we are still ashamed, we are still afraid, because we are the handicapped. We are the handicapped.