IN light of recent events, the question of what to do with the current semester has begun making rounds among student bodies in many schools and universities.
As such, we in Samahan ng Progresibong Kabataan (Spark) join students across the country in demanding a national academic break until the following conditions have been met.
1) First, all flood water has subsided.
2) Second, that all telecom and power infrastructure ravaged by the typhoons has been repaired.
3) Lastly, all students and their families have fully recovered from the multitude of disasters they had to go through.
No doubt, the year continues to pile on crisis after crisis. The Covid-19 pandemic has taken lives and continues to loom over everyone else’s. Millions have been left unemployed and even poorer due to the recession. Back-to-back typhoons ravaged parts of the country, sinking entire towns and cities.
Yet it seems the biggest disaster is the government, with its immense talent of magnifying every single hardship ordinary Filipinos face. The Department of Education and Commission on Higher Education’s incompetence shined through the bulldozing of the opening of classes despite half-assed preparations.
Their responses for the tragedies that followed reeked of neglect: one can remember the apathy of the Secretary herself regarding mud-soaked, ruined modules, the pathetic defensiveness of these agencies’ when faced with criticism of their inaction, their ambivalence to the cries of thousands of students, and towards those who have already died from the steep costs of the distance learning set-up.
There is no celebration of resilience, only furious calls for accountability. How can we celebrate the incompetence of both the local and national governments? Flood levels are still rising, families are still waiting to be rescued, and there are four more typhoons that could hit us before the end of the year. How can we celebrate with the government’s incompetence, misappropriated public funds, over-reliance on the private sector, and debt levels pushed to new heights?
Now, there shouldn’t be any more questions regarding the semester. Ignorance of the glaring problems proceeding with the school year leads to this. All the temporary, local, even tokenistic solutions, reading breaks, academic ease still ended up to this.
What we need, instead, is an academic break that covers all Filipino students. For the sake of lessening the suffering of ordinary people and youth, let them breathe. This government has taken away, with their indifference and inaction, so much from us.
Any hope for recovery will be long and difficult, all the more making it legitimate and just to demand an academic break. They cannot expect students to go through distance learning in evacuation centers and with wide-scale internet and power outages. The studentry and their families need time and resources to recover from these crises and this can only begin with an immediate and effective break from all classes, at all levels, nationwide.
As such, we in Spark encourage and support all initiatives by student governments and campus organizations to push for an academic break, in order to demand pro-student policies, and for accountability from the Duterte regime in its criminal neglect in handling the onslaught of typhoons, the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the economic crisis, and the crumbling education sector.
We will not and must not settle for less. We have had enough. (Spark)
