Guilty...

I taught kindergarten for almost seven years before making that decision to leave and focus on my masters. This two-year journey is far from ordinary. It was an unmasking of the real state of my country. I know we are third world. I read the news, I watch it on TV. I was enraged with Chip Tsao, I wanted to smack Alec Baldwin and Teri Hatcher for their racist, demeaning remarks. I wanted to hate myself for feeling a bit inferior in the presence of my English aunt.

I went odd-job hopping to sustain my schooling needs and of course, contribute a bit at home. It was an adventure but at the same time, It was a heart-wrenching compilation of tales. Each day, I wanted to cross the streets with eyes closed so I will be blind to the realities of my country. I wanted to be unfeeling so that my heart will not be gripped with the sights and sounds that ring a message so strongly in my ears. Everything was vividly happening around me while I stood in its midst- the disengaged,indifferent, uncaring Filipino.

I saw it in the long queues of college graduates applying for meager pay to work as phone English teachers. Most of those I happened to chat with were teachers. For reasons only they can explain, they did not dare to practice their profession, and chose to settle for pay in exchange for speaking English over the phone while our schools are screaming for teachers.

I had a brief stint with an editing company based in Hongkong. Our private offices were in the comforts of our own home in front of our PC and we met the boss and his wife occasionally, whenever he flew to Manila. We were gathered once a month in the five-star hotel where he was booked for updates, distribution of paychecks and pizza. It was obviously, an illegal, non-registered company in the Philippines. We were a pool of editors in the Philippines who pose as native speakers, or more appropriately, native writers. Our work, in connivance with the big boss entails editing personal statements, application letters, recommendation letters of Chinese students who seek admission to Ivy League universities in the U.S. and in the U.K. You would be surprised with the top caliber colleagues I rubbed elbows with. There was a medical doctor from where else but from the top state university, brilliant writers for respected newspapers, two university professors, an accountant, a movie producer, a Sociology major, another university professor who took Masters in Europe and the list goes on. Modesty aside, it was a group of academic elites. I wonder now, why I was there, and what we were all doing there. I met a former colleague, a first level editor who was fired by the big boss. He was not able to dispatch last minute files simply because he was in the hospital, in a coma at that. He was requesting for seperation pay, and the American refused at the start, he told him he would report illegal operation and the American retorted saying, "you squeal but first tell your Filipino friends that they are about to lose their jobs.."

I left after a month. I knew something was fishy and God in His goodness, was already ordering my immediate world, waving the red flag right in front of my face. My internet connection was acting up during that entire month. I had to keep going out to meet my deadlines in 24-hour Internet cafes until the wee hours of the morning.

It has been a year if I remember it right and the American boss' right hand guy in the Philippines died. They drank together. Few people know how my heart broke for this man. When I saw him for the first time, I knew right away he was troubled and a walking timebomb at that. I learned later on that he lives with a companion and has long been separated from his wife with whom he fathered two grown-up boys. He happens to be the son of a very famous writer of Filipino short stories of the 60's and 70's. I could not sleep that night when I learned about his demise. The diagnosis was a heart problem. My suspicions were confirmed. His heart had been seriously ticking ill for a long time and it ticked its last for good that fateful day he breathed his last.

The biggest blow in all these two years was when I was doing research for my paper I had to write in one of the biggest public schools in the Philippines. I was crying almost everyday, either on my way going there or going back home. Early on, I stumbled upon Gilas' website to discover staggering statistics: 90% of Filipino schoolchildren go to public school. I could hardly breathe. I felt like I was being suffocated right that very instant. My face was bathed in tears at an instant for I now know too well the state of our public school system. I did come from one but it was different back then. There were only a few of us. We had a chair each and there was hide-and-seek space inside the classroom. I belonged to the cream section beginning grade two until I graduated seventh place in sixth grade. My mother is not your ordinary mother. She reads, writes and speaks fluent English and Filipino. Her Spanish has become rusty through the years but every now and then she say a line or two. Our poverty never made her succumb to cheap substitutes. You never see her watch soap operas or watch news on gossip. She is one of a kind. I may have come from public school but I was and am blessed to have a different kind of mother. I think of the rest who are as poor as we were, unpriveleged to have a mother as mine.

And so I feel guilty. Guilty for being too preoccupied with my own comforts, dreams and ambitions and unmindful of my country's shameful plight. God had mercy on me as He opened my eyes to the real score of things. Now I do things for deeper reason. I choose to burden myself with the things that God burdens Himself with about my country.