The Palace sounds proud when talking about overseas Filipino workers, our modern-day heroes. ?It?s wrong, just wrong,? says a diplomat friend. ?It?s something the government should be ashamed of, not proud of.? He?s absolutely right. This administration and previous ones have failed at their main task?to provide a decent lifestyle for all its citizens.

Government says ?only? 33 percent of the population is in poverty, that?s according to the 2006 Official Poverty Statistics. Well, that?s about 28 million fellow Filipinos. The Social Weather Stations, on the other hand, found that about 47 million Filipinos (53 percent) are poor. Whom do you believe?

I?m more inclined to believe SWS, and I believe you have to add the approximately 8.5 million (government estimate) overseas Filipino workers to this number because they couldn?t obtain a decent, even half-way decent lifestyle, by staying here. That equates to more or less 56 million Filipinos in a population of 92 million or so who don?t lead a decent life.

If I were the President, I?d commit Harakiri in shame at such a figure. Especially as it?s worse than even this. The poverty line is a minimal level at which no one should have to live (P6,200 a month for a family of five). I believe the minimum should be that a family has enough nutritious food for three meals every day, a place to live in that has running water and electricity, beds for all, a toilet, and a roof that doesn?t leak. Plus enough money to send all the kids to school decently clothed, and access to health services if needed.

Surely that?s not asking too much, is it? Under that modest definition, what percent of the population do you suppose is poor? There?s no demography on it?with that kind of criteria?but I?d guess more than 70 percent of the population. That?s 76 million Filipinos that don?t lead a decent life. I?d be ashamed. This is not a new phenomenon. This has characterized all administrations but the financial crisis is highlighting just how desperate the plight of the vast majority of Filipinos is, how little is really being done to help them.

As to the migrant workers, they have money but they have broken homes. In a society that rightfully prides itself in the closeness of family, we have more or less 8 million Filipinos where the spouses don?t live together, or families are in some other way forced to split. An 11-year-old that hasn?t seen her mother since she was two because the mother is an illegal entrant into the US so can?t leave as if she did she wouldn?t get back. That?s not an isolated case. I don?t condone illegal migration but what do you do if your child is starving to death?

The break up of homes is an unacceptable social cost. Just one small (?) point that no one seems to want to talk about: What happens to the fidelity of marriage when the spouses never see each other. Do you just suppress the urges in some miraculous way?

The existence of overseas Filipino workers is this nation?s shame. They are, indeed, heroes for the sacrifices they make and the dedication they exhibit, and they should certainly be treated as such. But, really, they shouldn?t be out there at all.

Mind you, it won?t be the financial crisis that does these workers in. It will be the deterioration of the educational system. From the finest in Asia, it has sunk to the bottom.

It lacks everything: quality, correct books or, nowadays, computers; classrooms?with roofs; desks and chairs, chalk even I suspect. And, of course, w?id, competent teachers. The Philippine government only spends US$100 per student while Thailand and Malaysia spend US$380 and US$1,060, respectively. Consequently, quality of education is worse here than in any other country in the region. When you can earn 25 percent more answering a telephone than you can forming the minds of young children, something is obviously very wrong in that society.

And here?s a few numbers that should frighten you even more: 1.7 million Filipino kids aged 7 to 12 years old are not in school due to poverty; actual class size in public schools comprise of 60 to 80 students per class against the ideal 25 per class; Filipino students only get 10 years of schooling for elementary and secondary while other countries have 12; only 7 percent of school entrants finish college, within which 25 percent of the richest kids graduate while only 1 percent of the poor do; and about P22 billion is reportedly lost in overpriced materials which could translate to 45,000 classrooms or 11 million desks or 440,000 computers that weren?t bought.

I?ll go back to it again, and again, and again?and again until I can finally drum it in: You?ll get more votes if you pour all your pork barrel into education than you will do anything else. The public needs to pressure their congressmen into spending on nothing else but education. The P20-billion pork barrel would allow you to build all those classrooms. The funds currently budgeted for classrooms could then augment teacher?s salaries.

The really worrying thing about these depressing educational statistics is that this is the nation?s future. This is what the next president will inherit. This is what people face in trying to live a decent life. They won?t have the skills to do so.

It?s time the Philippines clawed its way back to the top on education.

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I join every other thinking person in opposing the right-to-reply bill.

I must speak up, as I hope everyone will, against the bills in Congress to abridge freedom of speech. Because it is no less than that no matter the fancy words they put to it.

On just one point as the Inquirer editorial so well expressed it: If a nuclear explosion occurred you couldn?t give it banner headline as it if ever so obviously must get if a day or two before the banner had been about some senator who now had legal right to that same banner location the day the would fell apart.

Exaggerated? Well, yes of course, but the point is made by hyperbole. If someone truly feels aggrieved and that he or she is not getting a fair deal, there are numerous ways to get it. Hold a presscon, go to more friendly media to get your side out, even sue for libel in court if it?s serious enough. Or you can just ignore it. The people who know you know what sort of person you are and if they respect you, who cares about the rest?

I can?t believe that Senator Pimentel, after all the persecution he went through in Marcos? dictatorship, could possibly want to give ruthless politicians the legal ability to smother the press again. If the Philippines were truly a free democracy as its Constitution proclaims, then these bills have no place in it. Think of a different way to ensure a responsible press.

***

Sometime back I wrote about Manila Zoo, what a beautiful historic spot it is but how it had become so dilapidated despite the dedicated staff who did what they could with negligible funds and no equipment to introduce the animal kingdom to our children.

Well, last week Joe Ledesma of St. Luke?s donated an x-ray machine to the lab to the great excitement of the staff. Many of our precious animals will be saved. St Luke?s deserves the accolades it gets.

Comments to my columns can be sent to plw@mydestiny.net