Traffic woes

Batas Mauricio

IF the Duterte government can have its way, it wants to solve the gargantuan traffic mess that urban centers are experiencing nowadays as soon as possible. He would like all key administration officials, including himself, to be travelling to their places of work by bus or any other means of public transport.

Former Land Transportation Office chief and Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board chairman Bert Suansing said officials of the Department of Transportation led by Secretary Art Tugade are now furiously mapping out tactical strategies to either minimize or altogether remove the long queues of motorists who have to crawl through roads day in and day out, especially during rush hours. Suansing and Tugade were seen together at the House of Representatives on Thursday.

Then again, how do we really solve the traffic problem whose root cause now, whether we believe it or not, is the extremely very great number of vehicles that are plying streets whose size or number have remained constant or the same through the years?

Metro Manila is the center of life for the whole country. It is the seat of government, and the nation’s economy revolves around the financial centers in its different cities. Education for almost all Filipino students are dished out in the universities that are scattered in its four corners, and it is here where ekeing out a living seems most easy.

It is no wonder then that people come to Metro Manila and make it their home, or their place of work, or their source of education. As a consequence, more vehicles are required to ferry them around, so that more and more cars, vans, trucks, and other modes of transport are compelled to converge in roads and thoroughfares which seem to be shrinking every year.

So, how do we solve the daily problem that is heavy traffic? The most immediate remedy is the decongestion of the place by taking government offices and educational institutions out, transplanting them to provinces.

President Duterte has already shown the way in this direction. I mean, he is now holding office in Davao City in Mindanao several days a week, discharging the duties and responsibilities of the presidency, and conducting his meetings and even press conferences there, and nobody is complaining. In fact, people who want to deal with him and with the government are only too happy to follow him in Mindanao.

Now, this pattern can be imitated and implemented insofar as other government agencies are concerned. I am sure that those who deal with these agencies would not complain even if they transfer their offices outside of Metro Manila. Yes, the agencies’ officials and employees may initially grumble about this, but they will get used to their provincial assignments as time goes by, or they could avail of early retirement.

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How many more teachers, or, perhaps, students in our public schools should die before we awaken to the realization that our system of educating Filipino children is not creating good and responsible children or citizens but is actually making criminals out of them?

Of course, Education Secretary Leonor Briones, ruing the killing by a 15-year old student of her teacher, Vilma Cabactulan of the Pedro “Oloy” N. Roa National High School in Cagayan de Oro City last Tuesday is correct in saying that “it is high time that the mental health needs of both our teachers and students are given attention…”

But what else can Briones, or even the entire Duterte government, do to address the evidently deteriorated mental condition of both the teachers and students of public schools in the country when, for a long time now, Deped has officially stopped the teaching of good manners and right conduct and of religion or spirituality to Filipino children?

Undeniably, since Filipino children are no longer taught good manners and right conduct and the proper fear and love of God in their schools, much less in their homes, they grow up not knowing right from wrong, and not knowing that evil behavior or conduct is punished severely while good and exemplary deeds are amply rewarded by the God that created all of us.

If Filipino school children are now capable of killing their teachers, and physically incapacitating their fellow students or even other people that cross their paths, Deped has no one else to blame except itself. Through the years, it has espoused the rejection of moral, spiritual and socio-civic values by the kind of curriculum it has been and still is pushing nationwide.

In fact, Deped has even become the prime enemy of the teaching of Biblical and spiritual principles to many students by its official policy–as shown by one of its circulars known as DECS Order No. 68, Series of 1999–of rejecting the DECS and Deped-authorized operation of schools owned, managed, and operated, by Christian (Born Again) churches in the whole country.

With due respect, I must say that public schools–elementary and secondary–no longer train children in the way that they should go. More basically, Deped schools do not even know the way that school children should be taught, so that even if they grow old they will not depart from it.

If any teacher, principal, superintendent, or any other high Deped official is going to be asked, what is the way that students should be trained on, I am willing to bet that 99 percent of them would not be able to answer correctly. They could not, because it is obvious that not many of them read the Bible, which describes the way that our children should be taught.

The only way that Filipino kids should be taught is through the training and instruction of the Lord our God. What is this training and instruction of the Lord our God? It is to believe in God, and to love Him with all their might, heart, soul, and mind. If we impart to them this belief in God while they are still young, not only will they grow to be good men and women. They will also be blessed by God beyond expectations!

E-mail: batasmauricio@yahoo.com