The Real State of the Nation

Subersibo
Michelle Licudine

AS THE Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration asserts its achievements for the past year, the situation of the Filipino people grows more unbearable.

The Arroyo government boasts of creating one million jobs, 100,000 housing units and scholarship for the three boys of Payatas. Yet only one out of ten youth can get into college. Those who do enter college are not assured of finishing their tertiary studies. And those who do graduate are hardly guaranteed a regular job despite their diploma.

Our economy is in dire straits. This year, unemployment rate rose to five million, while the underemployed number some six million. Just this April, the unemployment rate went up to 13.9%, the highest for last two years. Around 40% of the population are living under the poverty line.

The government glosses over the grave situation of the ordinary lives of the people because it cannot face up to its accountability for the worsening poverty due to its policies. This is the real state of the nation, not the commercial advertisements made for Macapagal.

The education dilemma
We always hear the chant “Edukasyon! Karapatan ang Edukasyon!,” but the data on the extent of the crisis of education is truly depressing.

Of the 70,000 information technology (IT) graduates each year since year 2000, only 15,000 were absorbed by call job centers. The IT industry could not even employ 25% of the graduates of IT schools. IT schools are supposed to be affordable. But the P18,000 tuition in Far Eastern University is no different with the tuition in AMA Computer College, ranging from P18,000 to P20,000. This, despite the dilapidated facilities and the “fly-by-night” character of many such schools.

The average 16.4% tuition increase each year is really insufferable. Worse, Commission on Higher Education (CHED) memorandum No. 13 allowed schools to merely inform--not consult--the students about their tuition increase for the year. The experience of student groups which tried to question, if not deadlock the consultations, shows that nothing has changed with the hardline position of schools as regards tuition increases. At most the rate of increase is just reduced but increased nonetheless.

In the state colleges and universities, the crisis on education takes the form of creeping and escalating commercialization. Part of the global trend of State’s privatizing social services and cutting down on social welfare, the PCER has recommended that government gradually rid itself of the responsibility to provide tertiary education.

I still do recall the number of youth at People Power 2. The youth were the majority shouting “Erap, resign!” We fought to stop immorality in the government, to terminate the tyrants. But looking back, what has happened since then? And looking forward, what awaits us? The government could not even come up with a program for the youth. The government could not even make a step to make our valuable education affordable.

The government is escaping from its responsibilities on us. Macapagal and her colleagues forgot what we are capable of. They forgot that the “youth is the catalyst for change.”

For comments and reactions to this article, please visit Tinig.com Forums.