Recently, presidential wannabe Senator Francis Escudero proposed that students who were victims of Ondoy and Pepeng be given passing grades in school—because, you know, they missed classes. I admire DepEd Secretary Lapus’ resolute reply: “What the hell are you talking about, Chiz? Are you out of your mind?! No way, José!” … Just kidding. But it is true that Lapus declined the proposal. Faced with a proposal backed by enormous emotion and empathy, the secretary argued that the graver travesty is to rob these children further of their future. They have lost their belongings and now we rob them of their education? Can’t help but agree.

Sorry, Chiz. I know you make yourself out to be the voice of the youth, but this? This has got the trapo’s touch all over it. Nice try.

…

In connection with this issue, commentator and PDI columnist Mon Tulfo agrees with Chiz (http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/metro/view/20091014-230086/Lifes-great-lessons-not-learned-in-classrooms). He argues that people learn life’s greatest lessons outside the classroom. I agree. But that doesn’t mean letting people pass classes because.

To give people a perspective of things (something people seem to lack during times of distress; people can be so emotional, tsk), I will give a “for example”.

A kid’s father dies. He misses classes. He has to. He is needed at home to support the grieving family. After the funeral, he goes back to school and his adviser tells him: “we’re very sorry for your loss. Our condolences. But, congratulations, you passed! No need to go to school, hijo. Go home.”

As far as I know, students who miss classes due to these kinds of events are given time to make up for what they missed. Sure, given that the Ondoy and Pepeng tragedies are a different situation considering the epic scale of devastation they wrought, they still don’t evoke as drastic a move as to give the affected victims a free pass at learning. Because that is what is at stake here: learning.

In the said column, Mr. Tulfo wrote:

“The lessons from Math, English, Science and Social Studies cannot compare with the lessons those students acquired from the University of Life.”

I already stated that I agree that there are far greater lessons people can learn outside the classroom, aside from these subjects even. But my beef with this argument is its subjectivity. Far more students DID LEARN a lot from these basics. These subjects build the base for one’s knowledge. Sure you’ll learn how to communicate with people by being with them, sticking with them through thick and thin, but how well will you go on in life when you don’t know what 2 + 2 is?

I admit this is a bit of a stretch to explain my argument, but I shall make my point by asking a few questions: what kind of message will this—letting kids pass subjects because they are victims—send to students? What kind of kids would this action yield? Wouldn’t this be a precedent to batches after batches of students praying for calamities to befall our hapless country? Even without a god, such calamities are bound to happen anyway. With the kind of leaders we have? Man. The reason the country is in the shape it is in is because a lot of people put so much stock on emotionalism, premium on subjectivity over objectivity.

Lastly, Mr. Tulfo and Mr. Escudero, I shall leave you with this: grades are earned. They aren’t giveaways that are given away as tokens. Tokens make us happy, make our eyes watery even. But only what we earn and what we have earned so far make us proud.

This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Philippines License.

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October 16th, 2009 by A Les Lupisan A Les Lupisan is a creative writer + director. He is an alumnus of the Advocate + a graduate of AB Mass Communication, batch 2002. He is an artist, a musician, a writer, but aren't we all?