The other day, parents were lining up, even going on all-night vigils, at the Baguio City High School to get slots for their kids to be able to enroll there. Of the 1500 who moved up to grade 10, only 750 will be accommodated for grades 11 and 12 from all its satellite campuses. The 750 who will not be admitted will have to go to private schools. Good for those who can afford. How about those who can’t?
Obviously, the reason for the dire situation is lack of teachers, and other personnel and resources such as facilities. In turn, those are caused by lack of budget or finances.
Baguio City was established and eventually became a city due to mining operations in its suburbs. So many became filthy rich, mostly outsiders, because of the gold and other minerals extracted from underneath our mountains. So many decades after, what were left behind are wastes from tailings ponds and other junks from the mines.
Lucky for those who were able to send their kids to school and became professionals. Otherwise, the rest were practically left holding the proverbial empty bag.
So here we are with not even enough public schools where quality education can be obtained.
How did the riches go to outsiders? Mostly, the big investors were not from here in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) who got most of the profits. What about the big money that accrued to the government? It went to local governments outside the region, mostly in Metro Manila, where the head offices of the mining companies are located. Whatever we got were just the crumbs.
The same thing is true regarding the government’s take from big businesses around such as malls and energy companies. While they are raking in big money from our resources and paying big bucks to government, to repeat for emphasis, we don’t even have enough very good high schools to accommodate our kids.
How can we have more control over our resources instead of those in Metro Manila in expensive suits inside comfortable air-conditioned offices? The only way is for us to have autonomy.
Sadly, it is now the 37th year of CAR which was supposed to prepare us for autonomy and yet that dream is still up there in the air, just a dream.
The main reason is because the national government under a President whom Cordillerans overwhelmingly voted for do not like, hence, is not doing enough, to grant us the dream.
With the humongous wealth extracted from this region, which is still happening, we should have, at the very least, livable villages with enough quality educational and health care facilities.**