Our troubled world
Is all this growing culture of violence that is glorified in video games favored by the youth a portent of troubling days ahead for our next generation?
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Is all this growing culture of violence that is glorified in video games favored by the youth a portent of troubling days ahead for our next generation?
One need only glance at the front pages and social media to get a sense of the foreboding that seems to be enveloping the world. On the local front, weekend headlines bannered yet another shooting rampage involving one more troubled youth suffering from depression, randomly killing, apparently without rhyme or reason, hapless innocent victims in a high school in South Cotabato.
Is this recent spate of violence involving our school children a warning of the troubled mindset of our young? Is all this growing culture of violence that is glorified in video games favored by the youth, whether it be in exclusive schools like Ateneo de Zamboanga or a public school like Banga National High School, regardless of the financial circumstances of the young, a portent of troubling days ahead for our next generation?
The finger-pointing between the government and the militant Alliance of Concerned Teachers as to where to lay the blame has not helped find solutions to this disturbing wave of violence.
The administration’s spokesperson blames the “teachers themselves for teaching bad manners” to the students and the “schools’ inability to control violence through more thorough security checks,” while the teachers union has thrown the blame back to the government for its inability to provide enough guidance counselors and mental health programs for troubled children and more training for the teachers.
The truth is, with our national debt hovering at about P19 trillion, the government simply can’t afford the resources required to pay better salaries, forcing the underpaid, overworked teachers to take sidelines to sustain themselves. Furthermore, we simply do not have enough classrooms to provide a safer and more conducive school environment for the millions of our youth.
I have personally seen many dilapidated make-do classrooms during some of our Rotary Club of Makati’s free book distribution forays up north to the tip of the country in Cagayan and all the way down to the southern parts of Mindanao in Zamboanga.
No wonder our country’s literacy and reading proficiency ratings are now at record lows. Almost a quarter of all Filipinos between the ages of 10 and 64 years are functionally illiterate as of 2024, according to the Functional Literacy, Education and Mass Media Survey.
In the West Philippine Sea, trouble continues to brew as another Chinese ship on 18 September rammed a Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources vessel manned by unarmed civilian personnel on a legitimate mission in support of Filipino fishermen.
When or how this continued bullying by China will end is nowhere in sight. My guess is that, notwithstanding the loud protestations of the United States and the European Union regarding the latest ramming incident, the backing of these global powers will largely be just that — loud protestations with no tangible support or backing it up with any sort of meaningful action against China.
On the political front, the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte continues to spew non-ending drama as former Supreme Court justices acting as amici curiae took center stage to give their somewhat differing opinions on the pivotal issue of what constitutes the required number of votes to convict the Vice President that will surely attract endless debate as the trial winds down.
Whichever way the voting number is eventually interpreted by the Senate court, whatever the decision is, whether 16 or 13 votes are needed to impeach, the outcome will surely trigger protests and demonstrations that could destabilize our already fragile political situation that could set us back again for another potential decade of economic contraction or meandering economic growth at best. Remember the tumultuous impeachment trial that ended in a second People Power that ousted the sitting President Joseph Estrada?
Then, of course, there is the US-Iran war that has fuel prices spiraling upwards again to around P100 per liter for diesel and P90 per liter for gasoline. Following closely on its heels lurks the insidious head of inflation. If Dubai crude prices persist above $100 per barrel, which as of 18 September was at $117 per barrel, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas projects inflation at 6.1 percent for this year and 7 percent for 2027 — way, way above the 2 to 4-percent range the BSP had estimated.
What other troubling news is there? Our peso exchange rate fell to a record low of almost P63 to a dollar as of last week, and the BSP’s policy interest rates nudged higher to 5 percent following the path of the US Fed’s recent rate adjustment to a new three-year high of 3.75 to 4 percent.
Undoubtedly, we are now in the midst of a troubled world.
Until next week… OBF!
For comments, email bing_matoto@yahoo.com.
