SARA DUTERTE: THE UNHINGED POLITICIAN (1-4)

 SARA DUTERTE: THE UNHINGED POLITICIAN (1)

Google gives the synonyms of unhinged: highly disturbed, unstable, or distraught.

These words could best describe Sara Duterte, who has risen to the second highest post without showing much accomplishment. Except for her father’s name, Sara does not any political capital to use and exploit to reach a national office. She was a two-term vice mayor and mayor respectively of the southern port city of Davao.

But her stint at the Davao City two top LGUs could be regarded as uneventful because she was not known for any major accomplishment for the city. She merely occupied the twin posts because her father, Rodrigo, a war lord in that city, disliked the rise of emerging political stars outside his family and distrusted as well other politicians, whom he viewed as potential rivals.

Her exposure to national politics came in 2019, when she led the senatorial slate of the newly formed Hugpong ng Pagbabago coalition. She was not a senatorial candidate, but was said to have led the so-called pro-administration senatorial candidates, who all won after the infamous computer glitch, or malfunction, of which the purported vote count was not shown on national TV. After seven hours of non-coverage, or waiting, all pro-administration senatorial bets won without explanation. The winners are later dubbed as the “seven-hour glitch senators.”

Curiously, Sara could not claim credit for the Hugpong senatorial victory, which is largely considered a fluke considering the anomalous circumstances.

Her childhood and adolescent years were not known much as her parents separated during her formative years. The court has granted her mother’s petition for annulment of marriage to Rodrigo Duterte on grounds of psychological incapacity. Their separation could have telling effects on her psychological make-up. She is known to be temperamental, apparently inheriting his father’s sharp tongue, but not necessary any shadow of a sharp mind. She is also notorious throwing tantrums even in public.

One of the video clips that has gone public show her beating the sheriff, who was enforcing an eviction order issued by the  court. Contrary to what people thought, Sara even enjoyed the public disapproval on that public video. She seems to enjoy her public persona of displaced machismo of a woman of questionable sexual identify like her. In a single unguarded moment, Sara admitted she could not determine properly if she is a woman or a man, as she experiences man’s aggressive urges and tendencies.

She has assumed the post of Deped secretary, as BBM rejected her overtures to become the defense secretary. In a way, BBM’s move to install her as head of what could be regarded the office with the largest bureaucracy could be taken as a coup because Sara would be definitely mired in Deped’s bureaucratic maze. That post has relegated her into a mere bureaucrat, who signs mountains of papers in that office. She has not occupied any office of consequence except the bureaucracy of the government of Davao City, where she was mayor for six years.  

Sara does not bring any advocacy to Deped. Despite the long standing necessity to institute educational reforms, Sara does not articulate anything that could be regarded worthwhile. Shortly after she has assumed the post of Deped secretary, Sara called for the restoration of ROTC, an advocacy which many people described as untimely, unnecessary, or stupid. She has asked Congress to enact a law for its return but Congress was not inclined to do it. It could be said that Congress was more inclined to entertain her than pass it as a law. She also called for a “toothbrush drill” among grade schoolers, an idiotic task which is better left to their parents.

When the controversy involving basketball player John Anthony Amores, who punched his opponents in the UAAP sanctioned game, Sara came to his rescue, defending him and writing him a letter supported his violent tendencies. Sara did not know that her letter created more question about her character than Amores, who is being viewed in the league as a recidivist. People questioned her fitness for her current public office because she expressed support for violence in her letter to Amores, who was suspended to play basketball at UAAP and dismissed as a player in JRU basketball team.

Sara’s fitness for a national office was also questioned, when she attended a Christmas Party, where she was dressed in a comical attire. It became a butt of joke among netizens as it showed how lowly she has regarded her office.

Lately, Sara has scored the highest among the people, who could be regarded as presidential hopefuls in 2028. But the survey was not taken seriously because it was held too early in the game. There are for more years to pass and discern before the actual political cards would be drawn and known. #

 

SARA DUTERTE: THE UNHINGED POLITICIAN (2)

THE strangest thing has happened when BBM named Sara Duterte as the education secretary. As head of the Department of Education, the biggest office in the government bureaucracy, the Philippines has the situation when the education secretary needs an education. As Deped secretary, Sara needs to address the issues confronting basic education and propose solutions and advocacies to promote educational reforms. But she is no educator. She is just an empty minded small town politician.

The biggest issue confronting Philippine education is underinvestment. Among the East Asian nations, the Philippines spends the least for the education of its people, especially in basic education, when its people are being taught the basic skills of reading, writing, and counting. Basic education is a basic right of every person, yet the education secretary hardly speaks on how to provide it to the citizens.

The ultimate objective of Philippine  education is to make Filipinos proficient of the basic skills, respectful of human rights, develop personal discipline highlighted by spiritual and moral values, reason and critical thinking, and mindful of science and technology, and occupied by nationalism based on knowledge of history and cultural heritage. Sara hardly understands them.

These are alien to the education secretary, whose limited mind is occupied by the restoration of ROTC and “toothbrush drill.” Is she suffering from mental constipation?

Providing basic education to make every Filipino functionally literate and numerate is Sara’s job. She has a limited, inferior, and scattered brain that could not focus on her fundamental job as the education secretary. Making basic education more universal so that every Filipino could have it is something that she hardly knows.

It is most astounding or even astonishing to notice that Sara, the education secretary, hardly talks or discusses steps to raise the quality of basic education. She does not know ways to provide skills and form knowledge to make every Filipino a productive member of society. Sara is too far detached from the noble objectives of her current office.

Underinvestment in education remains a major problem in the Philippines. We are not pouring sufficient money and resources on this field. While other nations have invested over 3% of their GNP on education, our country spends not even 1.5% of GNP on education. Sara has not addressed this pitiful state. She is too detached even to the basic issues confronting education.

Worse, she was proposing the further dissipation of the limited resources by proposing ROTC restoration instead. Her heart and mind is not in Philippine education and the advancement of the Filipino youth.

It would be a pity if she becomes the next president. It would be national suicide. She belongs to the Inferior Davao power bloc.

 

SARA DUTERTE: THE UNHINGED POLITICIAN (3)

The monumental ignorance of the current Education Secretary is not limited alone on Deped, the exalted office she leads but on the teachers, who constitute the single most important sector in the education establishment. Sara Duterte is not an educator but a local government official with unpredictable temper, void of management skills, and limited knowledge on the teachers’ conditions. It  is fair that she bears the unpalatable oxymoronic tag: “the uneducated educator.”

The teacher is the single most important factor in Philippine education. Teachers are always at the heart of the education establishment. The country has about almost a million teachers and they constitute the single biggest occupational group.  Any policy on teachers bears heavily on the educational system and the nation at large. In most instances, it’s the teacher who defines our education. It’s a sound management policy to take care of our teachers.

But Sara Duterte, the Education Secretary, does not know or understand the immensity of the teacher’s role in society. She does not have the key understanding and management skills to handle her own constituency. She takes the teachers lightly. Akala niya mga mamamayan ng Davao City na kasing tanga niya.  When ACT party List Rep. France Castro articulated what she thought the teachers need, Sara was quick to answer her by red-tagging the teachers.  Yes, that was all she knows. Red tagging the biggest occupational group in the country is the only thing she knows best. There’s nothing lofty in her.

Sara Duterte, as the education secretary, does not know how to handle the teachers. She does not know how to elevate and improve the quality of teachers so that they could adequately educate our youth. Sara Duterte does not have a program to educate the educators. She has no program to make them effective teachers to our youth. She is still the small town mayor, wo has no concept of nation-building and national development.

Education works when educating the country’s educators is pursued without letup. Sara Duterte should pursue a program to uplift the teachers from stagnation so that they could effectively teach their students. Sara Duterte, as the Deped head, should articulate her vision to improve our education so that the Filipino students would not remain at the tail end when compared to other citizens.

It takes a proper alchemy of vision and readiness of action to lift the condition of teachers. But Sara Duterte has neither. No vision. No readiness of action. She has no respect for them. She has only the capacity and capability for red tagging.

 

SARA DUTERTE: THE UNHINGED POLITICIAN (4)

Because of the growing public concern on the declining quality of Phl education, even our educators have focused their efforts to improve the quality of teachers and their training programs. It’s doubtful if Sara Duterte, the current Education Secretary, understands the monumental task to address this issue. Her concern is to red tag our teachers, as if they are bunch of communists out to sabotage nation-building.

It is widely accepted that the teacher is poorly trained. In most instances, the teacher does not possess the minimum qualifications to teach the Filipino and provide them the basic skills for effective citizenship and living. A big proportion of our high school teachers, for instance, lack the minimal preparations to teach mathematics and science. Vocational teachers mostly don’t possess the required industrial training or experience.

Poor teacher training and the low quality of students in teacher training have been pointed out as big factors for the declining quality of our basic education. The issue of addressing them is best left to the Education Secretary. Unfortunately, the current Education Secretary lacks the credentials to be a qualified educator. She does not understand the necessity of improving the quality of educators.

For Sara Duterte’s information, the professionalization of our teachers is a continuing process. But its status and objectives have not fully articulated by education officials, primarily the Education Secretary. The red tagging Education Secretary appears clueless on how this process has to proceed. She is nowhere to be seen and perceived in this process. Her mind is elsewhere to show she is totally unconnected to the Deped she is supposed to serve.

She has neither articulated the career paths every teacher has to take nor talked about the necessity for preservice teacher education. Likewise, the Education Secretary appears completely ignorant and detached on the teachers’ right to associate freely as embodied ion the pertinent ILO Conventions the PHL has ratified and even the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers (RA 4670).  To describe the Education Secretary as unhinged is an understatement. She is simply stupid. She is an ignoramus of the lowest kind.

Our teachers are among the most overworked professionals. Aside from teaching that requires training, dedication, and commitment, they also attend to other jobs like election duties, environmental or ecological activities, nutrition and health projects, among other things. They also perform voluntary jobs aside from the usual stuff. Does Sara Duterte know and understand them? You’re asking for the moon. #