May I take a bow

My recent designation as the new assistant editor for this paper's Business section will usher in this final “Detachment”. Our aim for now is to focus on conquering our new battles in the much larger battlefield.

As much as we would love to keep this column, the new responsibilities imputed upon our shoulders will prove it difficult to do otherwise.

For one whole year of being a columnist, my ultimate word of gratitude is reserved to my editor Ms. Quennie Bronce and to the big family that is The FREEMAN for making it an awesome learning experience for newbie writers like me.

To be honest, I do not know how to pull off a good goodbye piece that could sum up everything I long to say for 650 words or less. But I guess the purpose an ending best serves is for us to stop and see how far we have gone. And so allow me to take you back to the year that was Detachments where we tackled down few of the issues that greatly affected the students and youth in general:

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Tuition fee increase again: “For how do you expect parents, who are already biting the dust just to carry their families through for a day, to send their children to schools that will only assail them with ridiculous figures in their assessment slips? For sure these parents know the value of education but are compelled to capitulate their son's or daughter's college dream if the process only chokes them slowly, if not instantly, to death!”

The youth aren't superheroes:   “They'll be going through an educational system that takes more or less the biggest slice of the national budget but is yet perpetually bombarded with problems of lack of textbooks and classrooms. And these youth don't care how tattered the pages of their oldfangled books go; the youth after all are just the future of our fatherland, and so this is all that they only deserve, right?”

Blind as a bat: “Unfortunately, the shortage of jobs that befit fresh college graduates' credentials for instance was sort of glossed over by the headline of dwindling unemployment, another classic example of missing to hit the real target.”

Zero Olympic gold is not more fun: “So it seems that Olympic training is more fun in Cuba than in the Philippines. Here, our athletes during sendoff merely get beautiful words of encouragement that actually mean no more than “Good luck!” Consciously or subconsciously, that explains the zero Olympic gold.”

Breaking the OFW's heart: “So my OFW brother was probably the first one to feel heartbroken with the President missing to say anything about the state of OFWs. And this might only be a simple case of inadvertent overlook but as far as I and my other siblings are concerned, whose education and all are financed by my brother's work as an OFW, we were the second ones to feel that same heartbreak.”

Galileo, Rizal and the RH Bill: “Those who are against it might consider that first and foremost, the bill does not in any way make abortion legal in the Philippines. Next, contraception is not abortion. And if both were evil, contraception is definitely the lesser evil and would perhaps lead to decreased cases of abortion. And the bill actually tackles more than just contraception. In the moral debate, people seem to forget the good things about it that will help many.”

Stray bullets, broken dreams: “As a youth, I am not scared about guns mushrooming in the country like hell because I know that if used for good intentions, guns can save lives. But strict regulations must be made in order to ascertain that this purpose is not defeated. If guns become the very reason why merrymaking develops into something not merry anymore, then what's the point of having them around?”

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Indeed, it was only a year but the experience here will transcend a lifetime. Thanks to all readers! God bless us all!