Twisted sense of priority

The “Invitation to Bid” of the Department of Education states: “The DepEd intends to apply the sum of Php1,018,056.00 being the Approved Budget for the Contract to eligible payments under the contract for the Printing and Delivery of Various Learning Materials for Environment and Coffee Table Books” (Page B4, 7/8/14). The printing of 11,174 copies of “Alternative Learning System Coffee Table Books” (about “who” or “what” was not specified) alone costs P709,500.

In an order dated Sept. 26, 2013, Education Secretary Armin Luistro reimposed a moratorium on the procurement of supplementary reading materials and reference books for public schools. Has that order been rescinded or revoked?

Who among our public school students still have the time, energy or interest to read coffee-table books when many of them go to school on an empty stomach and without so much as a whiff of 3-in-1 coffee? More than P308,000 will be spent printing booklets and posters that promote “Protection of our Barangays Against Natural Disasters” (“Pangalagaan ang Ating Barangay Laban sa Likas na Sakuna”).

Since when have natural calamities been the responsibility of the students rather than their parents’ or the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council’s? Can the students do anything to prevent the occurrence of natural calamities when nobody can do anything about the occurrence of man-made catastrophes like the systematic looting of public funds by public officials?

The Department of Education has money to spend for coffee-table books that no one but the idle rich browse through, but it won’t lift a finger to correct the errors in the textbooks that millions of public school students read. We worry heaven and harry hell to give luxurious solace and extravagant comfort to pirates, pillagers and plunderers serving temporary jail time, yet not one cent will we spend to clean the crap that’s splattered all over the pages of the books that children of the poor use. What fun it is to live in a country like this!

—ANTONIO CALIPJO GO,

academic supervisor,

Marian School of Quezon City