Ma. Iris Melliza, Ed.D.: Portrait of a Woman as An Educator

Iris is a teacher, a feminist, a consumer activist, a school administrator & director of various social development organizations. As one of the founding leaders of PILIPINA - Davao, she has inspired and mentored many young women in the women’s movement. 

Most of all, Iris has been the political head & heart of PILIPINA Legal Resources Center, Inc., as she serves as our center’s Chair of the Board of Trustees for decades now & gratis et amore.  

In 2023, she was awarded the 2023 Catholic Education Association of the Philippines (CEAP) Catholic School Heroes Award. Iris is also a Datu Bago Awardee.  

 Oct 8, 2025: Iris on her 85th birthday with Fellows of PILIPINA Davao
        & PILIPINA Legal Resources Center, Inc. 

Iris, as we fondly call her, has been an educator for about 50 years now.
She worked in schools that to her would best fit her ideology like Assumption College of Davao and the Holy Cross of Davao College (HCDC). She is also very passionate about her involvements with select NGOs, the cultural arts, feminist and consumer movements.

At Assumption College of Davao, she embarked into alternative education or education for social transformation, which was informed by the basic tenet of the Vatican II Papal encyclical which is “integral evangelization.” Iris thinks a bug bit her that has since then directed her life. Assumption College of Davao and Iris just synchronized together in the beautiful discovery that real Christianity and real Christian education should be an education that addresses both spiritual and temporal needs.

Iris thinks every human being deserves to live a dignified life and that is what the phrase “integral evangelization” means to her. Integral evangelization by Iris radiates to all groups that she belongs to, starting with her family, with her workplace, with involvement with her sisters and brothers in the parish, in the school, wherever she is.

Iris is happy that Assumption College of Davao is still one of the few schools which has really committed itself to education for social transformation. With this trailblazing work in the academe, it was not difficult for her successors and the congregation to consider feminist education as feminism was already in the curriculum.

This feminism in academe gave way to a funding grant from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) for a project of making modules that focus on human rights especially on feminism & integrating it in the curriculum for the Sunday school. Iris would say that blessed is the Sunday school of Assumption College of Davao and until now she has not yet heard of any other Sunday school whose curriculum is as feminist and as oriented to human rights as that of Assumption College of Davao.

When she came to Holy Cross of Davao College, her appointment’s mandate is to bring accreditation to Holy Cross which is an indicator of what a good academic institution should be. Since then, Iris has been in the roster of accrediting institutions. Archbishop Mabutas during the appointment said “Bring development as well as the integral evangelization aspect of Assumption College to Holy Cross of Davao College.”

Iris has brought feminism to the academe through various projects.
During her stint as President, HCDC was in consortium with the Mindanao Working Group at the Ateneo de Davao University on reproductive health rights program.
It was an integration program using modules to integrate feminism in the college curriculum.

Through Iris, HCDC is one of the first schools which complied with the requirement of drafting school guidelines for the Anti-Sexual Harassment Act as required by law.
They have addressed sexual harassment cases already according to the spirit of the law. Another project by Iris in HCDC was the BEAM project, an Australian funded project for basic education in the pre-service component.
The BEAM project much like the Ateneo consortium project also involved the integration of feminism in the school curriculum. The College has orientation for students on feminism under the HCDC guidance program which is given to all students of Holy Cross of Davao College.

The latest passion of Iris is with the Culture and the Arts. She has been the Vice-chair of the National Committee on Museum and has been the President of Mindanao Associations of Museums. Through Iris, Holy Cross of Davao College has its own museum now.

This new endeavor for the Arts and Culture is towards peace, harmony and for blending with nature.
The art by Iris is inspired by her concern for Mindanao.
Iris says “If we truly believe that there should be pluralism of cultures, then we have to live it in anything we do, in any group where we are in and in the consciousness that plurality can thrive with harmony and unity of purpose.”

Her life has come to a level where she thinks she seems to blend with all quietly. Her passion for human rights and women’s rights is evolving towards harmonizing groups. At this juncture in her life, Iris is reflecting on the highlights of her life.

Her empathy for others springs from having lived in a small town, close to nature & simple lifestyle and having had originated from a lower - middle - class family with some deprivations and limitations. Life has given her passions which are very positive drives for her to continue to live simply and not to be enslaved by wants.

Over the years, Iris says her needs are becoming fewer and fewer. Iris is happier with meeting fewer needs knowing the limitations and the deprivations of a large number of our people. She attributes her formation to pre-Vatican II & the Christian Perfection in the early 70’s which was a kind of renaissance: to work for the dignity of people. 
Catholic education, then, meant conflating learning outcomes with the goals of the 2nd Vatican Council which were to address the connection of the Church & the post - modern world.
Iris shares that all these have now evolved to Synodality (communion, partnership & mission).

And now, she is going into another level: blending activism with the culture and arts because of the belief that there is unity in diversity. On earth, Iris says, one can reach Christian perfection by harmonizing, by unifying, and by building and not destroying.

Iris has two wonderful children, Jojo who works in the corporate world in Manila & Riza who is with the Teresian Association of Lay Missionaries which runs POVEDA, a private, Roman Catholic co-educational school in the heart of Metro Manila's Ortigas Business District in Quezon City.  

Finally, without any hesitation, she would say that the crowning glory of her life is being a grandmother because she thinks she did her best in her parenting but now she knows this new cycle & phase in her life can be lovely by grand parenting her grandchildren.

Iris is also so glad to note that if kids are brought well at home, they can have good manners, they can be very sensitive, they can love nature, they can avoid junk food, and they have graceful language.

Iris is discovering all of these grandparenting again in her grandchildren.
And how she wishes they would continue to be such a lovable human beings and persons as they grow up. Iris says, “It’s really learning from my mistakes as a parent and then doing better parenting to my grandchildren. I have three boys and one girl, all very lovable.”

                                            Portrait: Iris & Riza Melliza

 

To The Graduates

IT IS TRUE that life is about nature & nurture. As we like to say, biology is the cupcake while culture is the icing. Finding meaning in our lives is a lifelong affair. Believe in the meme that everything is learned & unlearned.
It is true that we are a people who believe in the value of a college education. But, life is also about options. And education is not the monopoly of academia. One of the messages of the K+12 government educational program is the option to find employment after spending more than a decade in school. Even if it is true that skills after high school is favorable to the capitalist labor market, the senior years in high school are not only about honing skills in trade, industry, entrepreneurship but also about science, the arts & humanities, too, which are all needed in life.

My niece, Zoe Solamo. Picture credit: Vanessa Solamo Merida

Data from the internet need to be analyzed as it may not be the truth. There is no one way of looking at the truth. The truth of the majority is oftentimes overrated; and as a tool in democracy or for crystallizing consensus, it can be challenged always. New normals are sprouting everyday in the name of political correctness. All time passions include multiculturalism, self determination, non discrimination based on sexual orientation/ gender identity, inclusion, equality, security, development, & human rights.
As you will find out, it matters if we look at life positively. I was reading again the 2008 speech of the Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling, before the Harvard graduates and she talks about the benefits of failure and imagination. How she took refuge in reading and writing when life was at its ebb. She also talks about lifelong friendships built with fellow graduates who became godparents of her children. I resonate with this as I have also nurtured friendships with classmates and workmates. They are friendships which have paced not only across the years and across oceans but also in the choice of causes & community activism.

My sorority in college was founded by feminists & thus promoted principles of equality & development. Given the kind of fraternities we see around now, there is a need to revisit not only the violence that have visited these so called sisterhood/brotherhood enclaves but also the kind of exclusions all these have promoted. These enclaves whose admissions are based on archaic concepts of seniority & violence are anathema to solidarity & sharing. We can only rest assured if academia & our community will help ensure the enforcement of laws & policy instruments to regulate these fraternities which have been allowed in the name of the right to association.
Life is planned in cycles: 12 + 1 years of basic education, college & education all the way, work, love & marriage or having children, & retirement. It is ideal that your work is influenced by your passions. But, with poverty all around, it will be an insult to those who do not have options like yours to say that our life work should be something that we want and love. Many toil in less than ideal material conditions. And so, contributing your bit to make this world a better place is a cliché worth believing as an ideology.

This is also the part where we say that riches & fame are not the sole yardsticks of success. You will have to determine what is important to you. It must be said, too, that politics within your spheres of influence are powerful tools for forging all that is good for your community at large.

There are narratives to your life. It has a past, a present and a future. Imagine them well. The narratives can be reviewed, rewritten and "rebranded" for as long as you find them to be true and they are you.

My father, Inigo Solamo & I

Steve Jobs

photo credits : Cristina Pineda


"We all took a bite at his genius." – Hernan Hormillosa

“Three apples that changed the world.
The one that Eve ate.
The one that fell on Newton's head.
and the one that Steve Jobs built.” - a repost from a Facebook friend

Goodbye Steve Jobs, and thank you very much for making our world beautiful through your genius gadgets. Steve Jobs, co –founder of Apple, a personal computer company, himself said, “People are listening to more music. Millions of people have rediscovered the joy of music.”

Steve Jobs did not originally invent these hardware and software. He improved on them through great product design. He brought the word “design” to a new level by popularizing that design is not just structure but more importantly, his concept of design is also about function. So, from the heavy or cumbersome to carry stereo system or walkman, we were introduced to the iPod, the minute music gadget with a cool design, to borrow the language of the young.

Our first computer in the office which was donated, of course, was a Macintosh. It was a time when others were still into the good old typewriter even in England. That Mac was so savvy and it had a mouse while other computers were still using the arrows in the keyboard. Most of all, it had a Mac Draw, Mac Write & Mac Paint which were gadgets for desktop publishing. The fonts were different from the rest of the clones. I remember that others would ask us, what font we were using because they were not into the Mac and the fonts were simply beautiful and different. Now, the sleek iPhone 4S (with a voice command, GPS features & built in compass for location & directions) & the iPad are simply making the other models so last season, so to speak.

In 2009, while we were preparing a living funeral for a dear uncle, a friend sent me the Stanford commencement address. And so, early on, I was introduced to Steve Job’s prescient death words, now a legacy of sorts about what are truly important in this world. I was also awed that THE Stanford University would invite a college drop-out as a commencement speaker. Here is a profound message to the world about education beyond the classroom. Steve Jobs made an academia out of himself.

A biography of Steve Jobs is underway. It will surely be a bestseller. Earlier, the title was “iSteve: The Book of Jobs.” Now, we hear it will just be entitled Steve Jobs and for the better for obvious reasons. The name Steve Jobs per se already paints a thousand words and more.

My take home lesson from the life and work of Steve Jobs is his great genius of combining technology and marketing. Others say, Steve Jobs is The Entrepreneur of all time. The mantra about this great entrepreneur is that he has three basic business stories to tell: the rise, the fall & then the comeback. When he was fired by the managers that he himself recruited, he spent those years honing and mastering his craft that led to his comeback to Apple, the company he co-founded and which he eventually brought to the heights & pinnacle of glory in business and fame.

Now, the mood is gloomy. A friend who is a Steve Jobs’ fan has posted this tribute: “Ten years ago, the United States of America was a Super Power - it had Bob Hope, Johnny Cash and Steve Jobs. Today, the USA is POWERLESS, it has No HOPE, No CASH and No JOBS.”

We bid our farewell and thank heavens for Steve Jobs and his legacy that led us to a whole new wonderful world.

Lessons in London’s Looting

After the fairy tale wedding of a few moonlights ago, the world watched in shock & disbelief as anonymous looters rapaciously ravaged UK stores stealing shoes, clothes & electronic devices.

I have walked through these high streets looted in Croydon & Clapham in south London & I also felt the outrage at this senseless brutality & mayhem. I used to window shop in these stores and eat in some of the restaurants lining the streets now turned to ashes.

The rioting looters wearing ski masks & bonnets burned buildings & attacked defenseless working class neighborhoods, too. The looters did not belong to any one pigmentation & color or racial background: they were just kids which were either middle class & wealthy. There was no statement of ownership or signature to the riot; there was no unifying ideology except that these looters were self driven and acted as a mob.

The rioters were called a mob because they were not organized & their participation was instantaneous. But, a mob is also part of the larger society and it is an indictment that something is deeply wrong in Great Britain now.

For now, the causes of this mayhem can be attributed to a conflation of many things. But, the framing of things or theories to explain all these is addressed to the big society not just the governance apparatus. In short, the solutions are indicated for all social institutions.

For instance, is it the primary role of government or is it the role of family to make sure that our children are able to distinguish between right & wrong? Surely, the discipline of children & the re-establishing of a new system of values are clearly the role of both the educational system & family.

London residents waited uneasy & were quick to blame the London police whose tactics proved inadequate as the riots were initially treated as a public disorder issue rather than as an issue of criminality. It is said that it was not about the number of the police responding to the riot but it was about the way the police were deployed.

Police tactics are different for crimes against public order such as rebellion & illegal assemblies because these crimes must be conflated with civil & political rights or the right to petition government for redress of grievances. Also, the riots with looting were sparked allegedly by an incident of police brutality that resulted in the killing of a young boy in the north of the United Kingdom. Still, everyone was in consensus that no police brutality can ever justify the breakdown of order that shortly followed.

The parliamentarians from all political parties immediately huddled in the wake of the riots & resolved to start somewhere in addressing order & the breakdown of discipline. The magistrates are now swamped with hearing the cases of the more than a thousand youth arrested. The oft repeated query by the judges was, “Where are your parents?” Prime Minister David Cameroon is now urged to look at his social policy & scale up his “inner city” small project from the periphery and make it a national central project for working class neighborhoods & defenseless minorities.

The Prime Minister is also proposing for a national citizen service. In turn, the Labour Party was heard as saying that these instant and simple judgments will lead to wrong solutions. So, there is a call for a deep inquiry into this social problem manifesting as riots & looting & breakdown of discipline & the corresponding restoration of responsibility by various social institutions so that this mayhem may not happen again – especially that the eyes of the world will be focused to London again for the Olympics in 2012.

A Pause On My Birthday

I kind of pause a bit every year around this time in November because I turn one year older and because it is the thanksgiving season. So, let me share at random my current stream of consciousness. On a personal note, I have my share of angst in life and always there are reminders around me. The dreams that turned out to be elusive, personal problems and the problems of the world that in my social development work feels like I carry the weight on my shoulders.

So, I have developed a method of reciting a mantra to tell myself that I cannot have everything and that our collective work is hopefully always to make things better. And, yes, across the years, I find that things are different and so much better now. One example is that technology makes life handy and fun. The one technology that reminded me that I am one year older is Facebook. This is a wonderful medium and indeed we are now a global village.

I went to a meeting in Manila last week and it was a meeting of a development law group ( Alternative Law Groups) that I have not been to for a while now. I was much pleased to realize that our group has consciously developed a successor generation: the best and the brightest lawyers and development practitioners who are choosing to work for the poor and the oppressed instead of for the rich and powerful. But, I am also wary that the recent economic crisis is affecting the various development funding windows in a precarious way. I hope that this will not make social development work unattractive to the younger generation as a career track.

Ideally, it is about the challenge of tapping the centers of wealth and power towards social responsibility and the promotion of social justice. The rule of thumb here is the biblical saying “ Ask and it shall be given.”

We were discussing the national situation at this juncture in time and the twin issues that are plaguing us : corruption and poverty. The variation of the themes in a nutshell as shared by Representative Walden Bello to our group are on poverty reduction through conditional cash transfer (CCT), the likelihood that the reproductive health bill will be passed as a law, that there should be a reversal of trade liberalization which is the cause of our current economic crisis, the absence of a real opposition in the House of Congress because the 30 representatives in the lower house are headed by Rep Gloria Arroyo, our eight ( 8) million Filipino economic refugees spread around the world, and the Balay vs Samar political factions in the P-Noy cabinet which are personality driven and which are in a kind of tug of war in terms of programs and policies in government. ( read : Balay is the Roxas- Araneta home in Cubao & so it is the Liberal Party & more ; & the Samar group is the group which held office during the campaign period in Samar Avenue in Quezon City and is the other set of power holders in the P-Noy team)

To set the anti-corruption agenda in motion, the newly created structure is the Truth Commission. I am filled with hope that this will work out because some of the personalities that are here are our friends who came from the social development circle. The other structure is, of course, the track of impeaching our Ombudsman and the Akbayan Party List is very much into this track.

The latest on poverty reduction is the billions worth of conditional cash transfer which has recently been practiced in other jurisdictions like in Mexico, Brazil and Bangladesh. It is such a resounding success in Brazil. Anyway, this methodology is about giving cash to the poorest provided they send their children to school and that they visit health clinics and this project is being presided over by our Department of Social Welfare & Development (DSWD). Our legislators are examining the capacity of the DSWD as a bureaucracy to deliver this huge four (4) billion pesos worth CCT program. This CCT transfer program is related to achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG). My personal take is that, perhaps, the impact of CCT will take time. There was a sense in our development law group that asset reforms like agrarian reform, modernization of agriculture, taxation, moratorium on debt repayment should also be pursued more vigorously towards real reduction of so much social inequality.

I now realize that my life is so very much intertwined with my work that I find very meaningful in the larger scheme of things in this world. And that is a good reason to celebrate my birthday.

The University: Promoting Equality Through The Classroom

Going Back To The University

After decades, I have gone back to the university to teach which is a kind of renaissance for me. Friends in the academe have warned me that there is a different crop of students now. Of course, what the academicians mean is that many students today do not regard themselves as serious scholars plotting to change society and the world. Then, I saw some young student activists exercising their freedom of speech on television and their core message was about the tuition hike and the processes that should be part it.

I am teaching the social sciences (Political Science & Sociology) and I am filled with much hope that I can contribute to the mentoring of the successor generation. Some of these students will be future leaders. On the first day of class, I was trying to introduce a quality of mind that allows a student to understand one’s personal circumstance in the context of society and various institutions or what C. Wright Mills calls as the interplay between history, society and biography. It is revealing that advancements in science and technology have not solved much of the problems of humanity. Much of our problems are called social and the solutions involve changing social structures. For example, scholars are asking why is it that even as the Philippines is the most "western" country in Asia, it is also one of the poorest? China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia are performing well economically. What is it in our culture that hinders economic growth? I told my students that to say that the Filipino is lazy is a misrepresentation of social reality. But, the answer to the study of why we are still poor is a very long overdue report. Perhaps, the more incisive question is why is it that majority of our people do not have access to the wealth of our country?

Or why is it that across time, women have become subordinate to men? Ah but looking at the classroom now, I am much pleased that there are more women. But, then again, one can also accurately say that a private elite university is one of the social institutions that are accessible to one strata or class of society. The poor have been pre-excluded by virtue of their belonging to a particular class. And for the poor, the economic system has failed not just female students but male students too, and who have been excluded from school due to poverty. Which is why, one of the ideal functions of a good government is to subsidize the education of its people.

I was once asked what it was in my well rounded education that socialized me to enter the world of social development. During the activism of the 70’s when we were debating whether we wanted to be doctors, we asked ourselves, “ so when we treat a patient for malnutrition, what will happen to him or her when s/he goes back to his or her poverty?” So we said,” Let us address the poverty first by contributing our bit.” At that time and even now, the disciplines that are inspiring us and allowing us to look forward to good social change are the social sciences.


Promoting Equality Through The Classroom

I am about to go to the classroom to teach and I have to churn out words for my Wednesday column. There is so much to say and I always start up with a framework for saying things. Today, my frame of mind is about poverty and all sorts of inequality in society.

I am thinking of my two types of students in the classroom : type one is the group mesmerized and fascinated by what I am saying and investing themselves in interaction. The trick for this is the skill to evoke their interest and drawing examples relevant to their worldview and experiences; and type two is what I call the deviant few who are displaying what we call the “shut out” syndrome. Teachers in the elementary grades have a term for this: physically present but mentally absent. It is a challenge always to bring these students back to the classroom.

My topic for later is social stratification and the task is to explain how society is divided according to rank or hierarchy using various indicators that they will understand. My challenge for this is how to promote an egalitarian society given that my students are blinded by their middle or high class socio - economic status and thus have either no empathy for the poor or have aversion for being poor. Then, I remind them that the mission of the university where they are enrolled in is not only for excellence but also to serve others.

The Muslim world will observe Ramadan soon and by practice I have sort of always observed this season for years. We call it Duyog Ramadan. Particularly, in this season for this year, my colleagues will be traveling to Muslim communities about a project in the Shari’a courts and in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao but observing the holiness of the season. Some of my Muslim women friends will be doing paper work during the night and going slow during the day. I share to my class what a Muslim friend once said that the Ramadan season is, among others, a time for solidarity with the poor who have to undergo forced fasting all year round due to poverty.


Then I go about the myriad things about how wealth should be shared by all and how we should just be custodians of the earth’s resources for the next generation; and that the climate changes that we are experiencing are the consequences of the way we have treated the environment.

I will say, for instance, that in gender stratification, women have for centuries been subordinate to men and that there are rich feminists who are advocating for gender equality because they have owned the suffering of their mothers and all women before them. I guess if we are able to promote this kind if social consciousness, somehow this new generation will not allow discrimination because it is wrong. I always tell my students that all of the existing inequalities are socially constructed and amenable to social change but that change will have to involve change in institutions and structures. Institutions and structures are big words but a faster way to really change and promote new behavior is through laws and standards. I guess given that so much inequality is so well entrenched, we will have to think of more creative ways to promote an egalitarian society to a student population whose goal is to graduate from school and join society whose processes generate more inequality. This is a mission of a lifetime. And the classroom is a good place to start.

Sex Education

Should our schools be teaching sex education at all? Recently, a Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) Legal Office executive secretary Atty. Jo Imbong and 30 other parents haled the Department of Education (DepEd) to court in filing a class suit against education officials over sex education.This current controversy is about the United Nations Population Fund and Department of Education (DEP-ED) project, which is being piloted this month in primary and high schools and aims to promote safe sex, limit the spread of HIV-AIDS and prevent unwanted pregnancies. Accordingly, the government had planned to implement the program in 159 elementary and high schools this year and that this sex education project covers topics such as reproductive systems and cycles, hygiene, pre-marital sex, teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

According to a website of a religious community, “they are concerned with the manner sex education will be taught to intermediate elementary pupils and high school students, …. and they will continue to mobilize their faithful to be on the lookout for sex education modules being taught in government-run schools.”
When teaching anything, the framework or perspective is crucial. What are we promoting? In this sense, the training of teachers on this project is crucial. One DEP-ED legal official said that last year, sex education was already being taught in our schools under the subject Adolescent Reproductive Health and that then there was no controversy. Education Secretary Mona Valisno said that the teaching modules which will be integrated in other subjects such as science are designed to be scientific and informative and that the modules were written by professionals, including psychologists, who made sure the discussions would be educational and that “they are not designed to titillate prurient interests."

The Webster Dictionary defines prurient as “ having or encouraging an excessive interest in sexual matters.” Because, there is a brewing court case (sub judice), we will have to refrain from discussing on the merits of the case. But, suffice it to say for now that Philippine jurisprudence in defining what is obscene still uses the Miller v. California (37 L.Ed. 2nd 419, 431 1973) as the obscenity test : “Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest … (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and (c) whether the work taken as a whole lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”


Traditionally, sex education as we know it in the academe, is more discussed in the biological sense and so over time it has evolved to the academic subject sexuality education and thus it is taught more broadly in the sociological and psychological tradition and the subject includes thematic discussions on gender and development and women’s human rights. More, importantly, for girl and boy children, the teaching of the subject has shifted from demographics and population control and numbers towards the recognition of the individual and bodily rights of each human being.

Sexuality and education have much to do with each other. When our social institutions like the academe and the church decide on whether information about our sexuality should be part of our education, this is tantamount to defining the parameters on how much education we must have pertaining to our life, bodily rights, autonomy and general well-being. Who should be responsible for sex education or sexuality education of our children? Should sex education be the sole prerogative of parents? My sense is that whoever is deemed in charge for our children’s education must do so with the best interests of the child as a primary consideration. And, where is the child in this conflict between the social institutions that are supposed to decide for the “best interests of the child”? Should we not be evoking some of the answers from the children whose worldview is constantly evolving?

Campaigning for a President of the Philippines

Today’s election campaign is targeting to bring national candidates to as many major cities and towns. I have been involved in presidential campaigns in many ways : as a child during the 1965 Macapagal & Roxas campaign when my grandfather was a campaign manager, when I joined the 1998 Roco & Santiago national campaign as a close in aide and now as a team member in the Noy & Mar campaign. Over the weekend, Presidentiable Noynoy graced a local rally in the island city of Samal. The gym was so full to the brim notwithstanding that the notice was just a day earlier.

I have had chances of face to face encounters with Noynoy early on in the decade during Abanse ! Pinay meetings and his overnight transformation as a national leader is unmistakable. Noynoy is now oozing with a charism that feels like divinely ordained. It is a feeling that I associate with Presidents like Obama and Cory much like a feeling of déjà vu.

As the campaign for local candidates has not started, all speeches before the arrival of Noynoy in a Samal City gym was about his presidential platform. In my own pitch for Noynoy, I introduced his educational platform of transforming secondary education as a stepping stone to a possible livelihood option after graduation and I was much pleased when he actually talked about it as the centerpiece of his rally speech.

We have also been bringing the presidential campaign to barangay hall meetings and barangay fiestas. I am finding out that the national campaign is a chance to review our soul and character as a nation : how despite our industry as a people, we are so impoverished in so many ways. In this sense, it should not be difficult to campaign for a president who is running on the platform of WHY we are poor. In sociology, we say, we know who are poor, where they live and what they do but we seldom address the issue of why we are poor. Therefore, the issue of why we are poor needs to be communicated well. In this electronic age, we have become visual creatures. The connection of corruption to poverty must be visually communicated. Of course, having the wherewithal and funds for communication is another matter. But, we are much pleased that the Liberal Party will accept donations only on the condition that there are no strings attached to the campaign donations. Donations will be accepted only on the condition that the future sitting president will not be beholden to campaign contributors.

It has been written by a literary pundit that we should not pin all our hopes in this 2010 election that is mostly funded by the so called upper class strata of society and that real meaningful change if we go by historical evolution will take, at least, two decades. But then again, if we are in rock bottom, the only way is to go up. And which is why, a palpable ambiance for change is in the air and this election will hopefully crystallize this. So, if as they say change happens every two decades or so, 2010 will be a year for good change and evolution through the ballot, two and a half decades later after the 1986 people’s power under the baton of our beloved President Cory Aquino.

Education Towards a Means of Livelihood

In all probability, educational preparation enhances one’s earning capacity. It is one of the most sustainable ways to address poverty. The education agenda is common to most candidates in this 2010 election campaign.

First, let’s look at tertiary education. In this globally competitive world, we should catch up with the rest of the world. The requirement for college education in most countries abroad is six years secondary education ( equivalent to our four years high school). During the last two years of secondary education abroad, it is presumed that students have taken advanced courses called general education ( the equivalent of our liberal arts education). So, by the time students enter university, the focus is already on one’s field of specialty. In most of Western Europe, the Bachelor’s degree no longer exists; after four years in the university, all students receive a Master’s degree upon graduation. If we are to promote trade and exchange of human resources in the Asean region or in the Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines - East Asia Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA), we must facilitate a “credit transfer system” in our educational systems within the Asean region. This system will make education in the Asean region comparable in terms of credits earned in our various universities in the Asean economic region.

In our country, our educational system is divided into basic education for ten (10) years, vocational or technical education and tertiary education. It is said that the last four years of our basic education is more geared towards college preparation. Unfortunately, less that fifty ( 50) per cent of those who entered grade school do not go to college. Which is why, one of the proposed educational reform agenda ( i.e. Ten Point Education Agenda of presidential bet NoyNoy Aquino 111) is to bring back technical vocational education to high school. NoyNoy says “ Half our High School graduates want to work upon graduation rather than attend university….. We need to provide a technical-vocational education alternative to better prepare students for the world of work. I will re-introduce technical-vocational education in our public high schools to better link. “

Juan Miguel Luz, former Undersecretary of the Department of Education and consultant to the Davao City School Board echoes this and he says “ we would like to create agribusiness high schools ( for agri, aqua, food processing, etc ) where these would be meaningful and appropriate….. Pass the agenda to as many teachers, principals, educators as you know and ask them to explain what it means to our parents and university students.”

Our constitution says, particularly under the article on Declaration of Principles and State Policies, our state shall….“ promote full employment.’’
This provision is akin to promoting a right to work provision. A right to work provision is not found in other constitutions of other countries. This full employment provision in our constitution is repeated in our Labor Code and therefore with the Labor Code’s Implementing Rules and Regulations, it is like making this provision ready and enforceable through our legal and judicial system. Which is why many jurists insist that economic rights are justiciable issues in the Philippines. As we are not a litigious society, the best way of promoting full employment is through a labor friendly or work friendly educational system. Now, this needs to be communicated to the public at large.