Hi all,

By the time you read this, graduation season has ended, families have finished celebrating and the fresh graduates are now looking forward to an exciting new life! For parents though, all those years of investing and of patiently guiding their children are finally bearing fruit. To give congratulations is a mere understatement. Sa tingin ko, di biro ang pagpalaki ng isang anak at pag-aralin siya simula kinder hanggang college. Ngayon na tapos na ang kanilang pagsasakripisyo, it’s up to the young graduates to look towards the future for both themselves and their families. I trust that the graduates will not disappoint.

They already know that there is a time-tested formula for success: plan ahead, believe, pray, work hard and never give up. Many of them, however, might ask: why? “Why bother when our country is already known world-wide for corruption? Why work hard when your success seems to depend on who you know, not what you know or what you do? Why believe in the straight and narrow path when everybody who succeeds seems to take the crooked path to push ahead?” My answer is simple. Yes, the country is in a bad state. Yes, our system is broken. But the question to all of us, especially to our graduates, is: do we accept it or do we change it? Their determination to stay, to fight, will be the collective determination of our people in the long run. These graduates can be the source of much needed change or they can be swept along in the tide. The choice is theirs. The parents know this and have much hope. I share this hope with them and I share it with all of you: the hope that we all welcome these graduates to a future characterized by putting conscience over ambition, principles over selfishness, integrity above power, and country above self. Our country has risen to the occasion before: when we fought for our freedom from Spain, when we fought for our freedom against Japan, and when we fought for our freedom against our own dictator. Filipinos put country above self then and inspired the world. We can do it again.

Mabuhay ang kabataang Pilipino! Mabuhay ang bayang Pilipinas!

M.

Hi, Philippines:

The Ground Hog must not have shown its shadow, so there is a streak of snowstorm, one snowmaggedon after another snowpocalypse, weekend after work week, in the political capitals of this country.

I have read your biography, Mar, and it is the best written I have ever seen.

Story telling is the latest trend in change management and transformational leadership in Harvard Business School, Wharton School and the University of Pennsylvania. I hope you will continue to use your authentic stories of change and leadership during the campaign and connect with the people.

Good luck, Josephine

The internet has a key role to play in this election. I for one am excited about it – not just because I’m a bit of an internet junkie, haha – but because it’s a great way to communicate directly with all of you who share our passion to change the country. It also gives you the opportunity to be more involved than in the past elections. Make no mistake that this election will determine whether or not we can turn our country around.

Many of you have already come forward and I’m very thankful to those who’ve e-mailed me or tweeted in the past asking for posters and baller tags to help support Noy and myself. Change in this country won’t come from TV ads. Change will come from people who fight for it. Your passion and your conviction are worth more than 10 spots on TV. If you’d like to be a more active participant, please e-mail volunteer@marroxas.net. You can also invite more people to share our cause via the info-graphic in this note.

No matter where you are in the country (or even outside of it), you can be a part of reforms and good governance by signing up, by giving us feedback, by collecting contact details for our lists of supporters. I am thrilled that the internet allows us this medium of campaigning: one based on a shared passion for change rather than a passion based on making money from power; a campaign based on a character of a people taking their country back from those addicted to money politics, to trapo politics.

Just recently I was in Davao and while I was eating lunch, someone asked me a question about my blog entry on educational reform. Her name was Iris. She didn’t completely agree with some parts of our Senate Bill but she liked the general direction of our plans to improve the education sector. She wanted to know how she could help… not with regard to the bill itself but in getting Noy and myself elected. Without asking for anything in return, she asked to volunteer and be a part of this movement for the simple reason that she wanted things to change in our country. It’s always very moving when you realize you’re not alone in a fight… when people show their belief in you and join you not because they want something out of it but because they feel it’s the right thing to do. Our only chance lies in this: that many consider reforms and good governance a vital goal for this elections.

For the many Iris’es just waiting to help, thank you. We will not let you down. Lalaban tayo!

M.

Hi all,

This election season, you’ll hear a lot of candidates talk about how important education is. It is true, too. Quality education allows young people from poor families to succeed in society and provide a better, more equitable future. Many candidates will also say that they’ll place great emphasis on education. Pero palagi nalang eh. If all who had promised this had done so – starting with our current president – we’d have a first-rate education system already. But just look at the statistics today!

If there are 100 pupils who enter grade school in the Philippines:
- at least 30 of those are underweight during their elementary years;
- only 65 complete grade school; while only 23 gain reading comprehension;
- only 43 eventually finish high school.

The problem doesn’t stop there. Upon graduating high school…
- only 3 achieve the required mastery in English.
- only 1 achieves the required mastery in Science.
- only 7 achieve the required mastery in Math.

The temptation for us candidates is to continue mouthing the usual platitudes without being serious about it. This is going to be disastrous for the country. So let’s move beyond the platitudes. Let’s take a good hard look at our system and ask ourselves what do these numbers mean? To me, they show how the government is investing so little in basic education. Did you know that we’re only spending 2% of our GDP on such an important aspect of our country when the global norm is twice that? Specifically, the numbers tell me that:

1. We’re using an inappropriate medium of instruction for a child’s early years;
2. The poor health of the student affects the drop-out rate early on.
3. The poor quality/performance of teachers needs to be seriously addressed.
4. We have an incomplete and inadequate curriculum in both elementary and high school.
5. The enforcement of educational quality by state universities and colleges is sub-par.
6. Those outside the formal system lack options to succeed.

We’ve invested a lot of time in researching the issues and talking to stakeholders. As a result, we’ve drafted a Omnibus Education Bill that proposes to solve these problems comprehensively by implementing the following actions:

Use of the mother tongue as a mode of instruction in the early years of elementary schooling. There is a broad consensus in educational research that competency in the core subjects (English, Science and Math) which are crucial for communication and competition are best achieved if taught in the mother tongue. This should not be confused with giving up English. Proficiency in English is absolutely essential, period. But it’s not needed as a medium of instruction when the subject is math or science. In fact, such misapplication is harmful.

We have to help children overcome their health problems that actually hinder them from attending/completing their education. The school feeding program is an important element, but we have to ensure that it provides a healthy and balanced diet. Instead, our children have been force-fed overpriced noodles. There has been no worse indictment of our neglect of education than this scam at the expense of our children. And, tellingly, no one has had to face any consequences. This has got to change.

As a basic right, each child should have access to quality education. This is the best way for us to catch up with our neighbors that have long made wise and huge investments in their own educational systems. But we have to start with the basics. So this is what we commit to do. The bill has already been filed and I ask your support in making this proposed solution a reality. If you have thoughts about this, I would love to hear them.  Thanks!

M.

It’s always just been me and two of my classmates who’ve been interested about politics, the upcoming elections and society, in general. It’s pleasantly surprising that, in the past few weeks, this has changed. From talking about the smallest of things, conversations with everybody else have gone deeper, wider. I think that this can be thankfully attributed to the dynamic promotion by the different media outfits and the emphasis, or should I say “pressure”, on us youths to be active participants in the upcoming elections because we make up 40% of the electorate.

The first thing on the conversations obviously was who to vote for president and vice-president. My classmates and myself are, to put it mildly, thrilled because it’s the first time that we’ll be exercising our right to vote. We’ve weighed the pros and cons of voting for the aspirants. But to this day, in so far as the best presidential candidate is, we’ve ended up with different choices.

We are, however, in agreement one thing. Had Sen. Mar Roxas not given up his bid for the presidency, deciding on who to put our trust on to lead this country in 2010 would have been much, much easier. He’s perfect for the position.

Having a good political background, coming from a respectable family (being born to an affluent family is an advantage for us since it means he won’t need to take money illegally), a young blood with a long list of bills passed from health (cheaper medicines) and economics (call centers) to labor (tax exemption for minimum wage earners) and education (the Roxas law). Being students, the last item makes Senator Roxas the “man” for us. And more importantly, he has not broken the trust of those 20 million voters who elected him to the Senate. He has proven that he can sacrifice personal ambition for the unity of the country.

Because of these factors, our votes for vice-president in 2010 are guaranteed for him and we’ll just have to wait another six years to see Mar Roxas leading this nation to greater heights.