046 OPLAN BALIK ESKWELA (Postscript)
Our effort to ensure a smooth opening of the new school year was a resounding success. Oplan Balik Eskwela, which I had conceptualized a little over a month before the June 5, 2005 school opening, was implemented well by our communications team, with the support of the rest of the Office of the Secretary and various units of the Central Office and field offices of the education department.
Among those who made things happen—and made my job easy—was Dr. Teresita Domalanta, then regional director for the National Capital Region. And she had been a reliable partner of our comms team ever since (and subsequently, she had been my partner when we both served in the board of City Savings Bank many years later).
At the Central Office, it was Undersecretary Mon Bacani who gave us the muscle we needed to get things done. In part, it was his job as head of field operations. But more so, he was just such a great guy to work with, always willing to do the hard stuff on behalf of the secretary. Our legal affairs head, Undersecretary Chito Gascon, also gave his all-out support through the DESCO unit under his office that served as our quick response team. Then there were all the units that had assigned people to man our OBE Command Center for two weeks.
Ultimately, our success was thanks to the all-out support of Secretary Butch Abad. We could not have accomplished what we had done if he didn’t trust our judgment and our ability to perform.
Thankfully, Oplan Balik Eskwela survived way beyond Abad’s term of office, which is quite rare in government and as such was quite an achievement.
In subsequent years, I had introduced a few other innovations to Balik Eskwela.
For the second year, for instance, I thought it would be a great idea to have the president preside over the Balik Eskwela Command Conference. And she came (obviously aware of the immense public relations value of Balik Eskwela, for her and anyone else it touches).
In the same year, we had made more efforts to cover the concerns of other regions (and I got a laugh when I saw our old Balik Eskwela logo still being displayed in one school in Cebu over a decade after).
One major development that we did not plan for involved the Philippine National Police. In one particular year, the head of the National Capital Region office sent all precinct commanders to our convergence meeting. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise since it gave all Metro Manila city schools superintendents the rare opportunity to discuss specific peace and order concerns with their respective police precincts, which the commanders wholeheartedly addressed immediately.
In 2009, my last year manning the program, I had asked then Education Secretary Jesli Lapus to man our hotline, and he obliged. That became an unintentional public relations coup for us, since a television crew had arrived just then and immediately had their cameras rolling. Later that day, prime time news showed the footages of Lapus calling a school principal to order him to accept a child whose parent had just called our hotline because the child was being denied enrollment.
At the end of the day, it was in knowing that we helped a lot of people—students and parents especially—that gave us reason to celebrate our efforts. And it’s great that Balik Eskwela has been institutionalized in the department long after I had left.
For sure, there have been improvements to the program, even while it’s also safe to assume that some of its essence was lost over the years. And that’s fine.
I’m just happy that we managed to accomplish what we did then, on that first Balik Eskwela, with such limited time and limited resources.