042 BALIK ESKWELA NA! (2)
I had mixed feelings when I entered the Office of the Secretary that morning. On the one hand, I came prepared, armed with a slide presentation I worked on for about a week. So I was confident enough just knowing that I couldn’t be faulted for not trying. However, I also knew that what I had may not be what the boss—Education Secretary Butch Abad—had in mind.
For sure, it wasn’t what anyone would have expected.
It’s been two weeks since we discussed this—in Baguio—and I volunteered to come up with a plan to address Abad’s fear of a chaotic start for the new school year (his first and what would turn out to be his only school year as head of the education department), which was a little over a month away.
So there I was, Abad’s new policy adviser for communications, on the verge of presenting what could very well be a very bad idea.
We were to meet Abad in the small private meeting room right next to his office. This was a good thing, I thought. It meant less people, since the room can comfortably accommodate no more than eight people, tops.
As I was setting up for my presentation, I had no idea who’d be invited. All I know is that it’ll be with Abad and a few other officials.
In the room were two undersecretaries, Mon Bacani (Regional Operations) and Chito Gascon (Legal), and three representatives from a PR firm doing pro bono work for the department. Abad asked them to sit in to give their opinion on what I was to present. Soon enough, Abad walked in, accompanied by the head of our comms team, Gelix Mercader.
After a few pleasantries, Abad sat in the middle of the room and gave me the floor. It was game time.
* * *
I saw it fit to open by presenting the problems that may happen on the coming school opening week, which I based on what normally occurred in previous years. All problems.
I couldn’t limit my research on what happened the year before (2004) since it was an election year and therefore had peculiar issues, especially since our elections then were held barely a month before school opening.
Suffice to say that my audience were pretty much content with my menu of problems—This included the usual resource shortages and illegal collections in the public schools. Some kids had problems with school records and were therefore barred from attending their classes. Of course, some schools packed students like sardines in their classrooms!
There were a lot of problems that were beyond the control of the schools. There’s the traffic in the metropolis. There’s the power and water service interruption. And the flooding. Oh, the flooding, which was best expressed by a pitiful front page image of children knee-deep in water as the enter their submerged classroom.
To lighten up the conversation, Abad wittily commented on the slide that said Acts of God: “Oh, we can’t do anything about that!”
To which I replied: “Actually, sir, we can.”
That was a perfect opportunity to segue to my proposal.
(To be continued)