Many of us are overwhelmingly happy of CNN’s Hero of the Year award granted to Efren Peñaflorida for his “pushcart classroom” in the Philippines. For obvious reasons, we Filipinos are normally proud of achievements of Filipinos in the international scene. Manny Pacquiao’s successful conquest of an unprecedented seven titles in seven boxing categories united the country in praises. When Cristeta Comeford officially became the executive chef of the White House, Filipinos can’t help but be proud of cooking skills and made foreigners ask why Filipino cuisine doesn’t appear in the mainstream of world’s popular cuisine. Rico Hizon’s appearance in the Clinton Global Initiative, he also received local acclaim.
Now, fresh from winning the CNN Hero of the Year plum, Efren Peñaflorida is now a hot commodity in the news, appearing in numerous press interviews, special guest in gatherings and is cited as a legitimate role model to participants of the upcoming World Youth Day.
However, behind the honor and popularity Efren Peñaflorida is enjoying is the reality that the Philippine government failed to exercise one of the basic responsibility of providing education to many Filipino children. Blunt as it sounds, but Peñaflorida only took advantage of what the government failed to exercise. The government’s failure is key to Peñaflorida’s success. Now, Malacañang is trying to make up for any shortcomings by announcing that it would confer on Peñaflorida one of the Philippine government’s highest honors given to a civilian.
It did not help when the Department of Education was embroiled in scandals of its own. It’s feeding program allegedly involved overpriced noodles with no nutritional value as claimed. Its printed textbooks are not only inaccurate but are also delivered with less diligence.
The international community probably noticed the sorry state of education in the country in conferring the award to Peñaflorida. Yet, instead of waking up to its senses, the Malacañang might be quick to join the celebration and seize any honor earned by Peñaflorida and claim it as a credit to the Arroyo administration.
Peñaflorida sees no problem if his idea of bringing education through pushcarts is copied elsewhere especially in the Philippines. So will the government grant him money to build more pushcarts and educate more children instead of addressing the corruption in the country’s education system? Just like the housing problem where the Department of Social Welfare granted 125 million pesos (US$2.66 million) to the religious group Gawad Kalinga to help build houses for the poor.
Sen. Pia Cayetano said that based on latest statistics from the Department of Education, the dropout rate remained high at 6 percent for the elementary level and 7.45 percent for the secondary level.
Antonio Tinio, national chair of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) said Peñaflorida’s “pushcart classroom” showed the severity of the growing number of uneducated youth. Citing data from the Department of Education’s Bureau of Alternative Learning System, Tinio said the number of dropouts had reached an unprecedented 5.2 million.
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