UNLESS WE WERE IN A WARZONE

When it comes to the most important goal that anyone should have in this world, I always put a premium on education. I encourage every person I meet to go into formal or non-formal education. For me, using our minds is the best thing that can happen to human beings. However, when using our minds, our emotions are at work too. The strong desire for education that we have is equal to the achievement we are capable of. 

Some people think that graduating from college is the best thing for them and then they just plod on through making a living, an accolade, a medal, a high position. But to my mind, continuing education is forever; as the UN says, education is lifelong. 

Our national hero, Rizal, emphasized the need for education of our people even before they should have won independence. Sadly, the colonizers denied them that right and so our history went on to another colonizer who had known our vulnerability -- our hankering for education. 

Thus, I felt very sad when I read that a Philippine Military Academy cadet was going to lose his chance of graduating, after four years of hard work -- meeting the requirements, simulation exercises of being a soldier in the field, etcetera. 

It would been very easy to solve that problem of "dishonor," which occurred over a light situation but which has been given so much gravity by the honor committee. Why did they not just hand down any of the following decisions:

1. Extend your schooling year;
2. Write a long paper on an international issue from the point of view of a civilian and a soldier;
3. Write the histories of rebellion in ten provinces and their implications on using war as a solution;
4. Enhancing the entry and participation of female cadet students in the academe;
5. Plotting the career paths of honor students of the PMA since its birth; etcetera.

In this manner, by emphasizing a mental solution to the problem, the PMA could have saved its face and would have shown it as an institution that values the rational and humane education of our Filipino teenagers -- boys and girls. Aren't they in their teens when they enter the PMA?

I do think that the DEP ED should step into the picture and insure that educational theories that truly raise the levels of learning in all educational institutions are implemented. The faculty of the PMA has to undergo a revaluation of its own curriculum to find out why the members of the so-called Honor Committee could turn out that way -- insensitive to the plight of its own co-students. Education should not be a burden, but rather an exciting adventure into the unknown, to raise our knowledge, shape our values and teach us the proper behavior to achieve our goals, personal and social. 

Yes, we welcome all forces to the Democratic Society. We should insure that everyone is given a chance to speak out, to exercise our human rights, except if we were in a warzone, I suppose, and which we are not. 

Long Live Freedom!