Kristel, Suicide, and History

There may be a myriad of reasons why she took her life. As with the deaths of Kurt Cobain or Lee Kyung Hae or Aaron Swartz, we are left to our second guesses and interpretations of Kristel Tejada's motives, except perhaps that it was triggered by UP Manila's No Late Payment policy. This is discomforting for many, especially those who truly love her. But alas, we will never know what really happened. We will never know the exact array of private reasons that caused to emerge the thoughts of suicide in her head. History will never capture the exact truth. History will never give us the exact description of the complex psychology of Kristel's final escape.

Since we are nearing Holy Week. Another brilliant piece from the Pixel Offensive.

Are we then left perpetually blind by the fuzziness of history? Far from it.

Santiago's Bar Exam Result, UP Law Education, and the "Top Ten" Fetish

Recently, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago was target of various attacks on her supposedly arrogance towards Atty. Vitaliano Aguirre of the prosecution team during the Corona impeachment trial. If we have been monitoring news, we may have already heard that Aguirre was cited in contempt after covering his ears during a tirade by Sen. Santiago, which included calling the prosecution team "gago" (stupid) for withdrawing the five of the eight articles of impeachment. While criticized for its perceived non-stellar performance, the "gago" (stupid) comment hurled to the prosecution was deemed by many as uncalled for, which may seemed to have given Aguirre the moral reason to reciprocate. Knowing Filipino's behavior towards perceived arrogance, Santiago must have already expected to be admonished publicly, even if she is simply acting out her extreme intolerance to what she perceives as incompetence.

But what troubled me is the propaganda pic below circulating in Facebook, apparently designed as an offshoot of the release of the 2011 Bar Exam results. It capitalizes on the fact that Aguirre got a higher score than Santiago:

An attack against Sen. Santiago circulating in Facebook. The one above is
circulated by a certain Ma. Stella A. Vizmanos 

The argument of the propaganda pic suffers from many loopholes. For one, difficulty in bar exams varies across the years. Compare, for instance, the 2001 and 2002 bar exams passing rate: 32.89% and 19.68% respectively. But let us leave it at that and focus on the essence: I don't think we should be equating achievement with grades, in law and in any other field. It gives a false impression to lawyers (as well as other students) that getting a high mark in the bar (or in any other exam) makes you a good lawyer (or professional). For all that people rant on her bar grades, Miriam is a recognized international and constitutional law expert. Prior to becoming elected in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), she was in fact a legal officer of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees.

This fetish on Bar Exam results as a barometer for a lawyer puts into light another issue, that no student from the University of the Philippines College of Law was able to make it to top ten in the recent Bar Examinations Result.

Surprising results from a statistical analysis on PH education data

Photo by Dean Lozarie of Tinig ng Plaridel (UPD-CMC)

Yesterday, University of the Philippines (UP) students protested against the P1.39 billion budget cut for 2011. That there is an actual budget cut is contested, but we must know that this is not happening in a vacuum. Worldwide, students are protesting budget cuts on education as austerity measure for governments to survive the global economic crisis. Italian students did the same recently.

For this purpose, I am posting with permission from my co-author, Ivan Eugenio, a non-parametric statistical study we made on Philippine education data submitted as a requirement for Statistics 130. It uses data culled and prepared by Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) on education, gathered from Commission on Higher Education, Department of Education, and other government agencies.

The study yielded suprising results. First is that there is no change in ratio of enrollees to graduates, and it remains significantly low by inspection. Second is that government appropriation of funds to secondary and tertiary schools are equal. And third, the laborer-job ratio is still close to ideal. But there are implications on these data, given the socio-economic conditions our education system is in.
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Excerpts from Chalk Dust: A Discourse on the Status of the Philippine Education System

A Non-Parametric Statistical Study by Ivan Eugenio and James Miraflor

In any developing nation, one of the biggest components of the enabling environment for industrial growth and capital expansion is the general educational state of the people. The concept is not alien at all to the civilized world. In fact, most liberal democracies often allocate a huge amount of its budget for the education and training of its citizens.

Group wants debt moratorium, 6% GNP education spending

06/02/2008 | 10:56 AM

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/98619/Group-wants-debt-moratorium-6-GNP-education-spending

MANILA, Philippines - With one week to go before classes start, militant anti-debt youths demanded that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo follow the United Nations' benchmark to spend six percent of gross national product on education.



The Youth Against Debt (YAD) also reiterated the call for a moratorium on paying "illegitimate" debts, instead of having President Arroyo calling for a freeze in tuition hikes.