BY JOVE!

Cabinet meetings are usually marked as “for photo-opportunity only”.

Closed from the reporters and the crew/photogs are only allowed to stay for photo-opp until the few minutes after the opening prayers of the cabinet.

There are times that reporters are invited to listen in, but those times meant that the President wants to present a list of their accomplishments to the media.

Those times are quite “rare”.

Include today’s cabinet meeting among those rare times.

Not only rare, it also became quite “eventful”.

Of all the times that a cabinet meeting was opened for coverage, something “interestingly uncomfortable” happened PA this morning.

You see, the palace opened the cabinet meeting to the media because the officials wanted to tell the people that the administration is completely in control of the logistics surrounding the opening of classes this June.

The President entered the State Dining room “all smiles”. She enthusiastically led the meeting. She was in the mood. But by the time the presentation led by acting DEP ED Secretary Fe Hidalgo reached the prickly issue of classroom shortage, the President’s mood started to change.

(portions of the discussions that were opened to the media)

PGMA: “…100 is to 1 since we have two shifts…ask your staff to generate it now. We will distribute it among the cabinet members. Student classroom data because either our original data was wrong or this one is wrong. It cannot be wrong because the discrepancy is big…”

FH: “…but the one I’m reporting is 1:45”

PGMA: “…but we already agreed with our definition…”

FH: “… the solution there is to double the single session…”

PGMA: “… but that was already set last year… so what is the shortage now if we used what we agreed on last year…”

FH: “…we only have a few shortage…”

PGMA: “…exactly. We have to present our accomplishments rather. My god.”

FH: “…we are meeting the shortage…”

PGMA: “… but it doesn’t appear here…”

FH: “… that is why I said that the solution is the double single session…”

PGMA: “… but do we agree on…”

FH: “ … well we will look at it, we have a listing of the few schools…”

PGMA: “… can we be careful? Every time there is a major issue (garbled recording but in effect the President’s point was that she’s worried about the criticisms they will get if the figure of classroom shortage is substantially high, still) … siguro we defer this discussion until we come up with the shortage even with two shifts because children go to school half day only. Grade schools supposed to be half day only…”

(BTW: I viewed the video many times together with my team in our live point. We all noticed how Hidalgo -a teacher we were told- didn’t back down from the facts in her presentation, despite the President’s protestations. We also noticed how many of the cabinet secretaries either 1) just looked away and 2) pretended they were busy, sifting through the papers/folders in front of them.)

Then from out of the blue, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales, who was sitting near the President, butted in and wanted to talk about the role of solons in building school rooms.

Bad idea.

It just provoked the President to repeat her desire to defer the discussion of the issue and order her security and staff to usher out the media from the venue.

RG: “…can we input here the school buildings built by congressmen?…”

PGMA: “…(paused) as I said can we defer already discussions? Can we let the media go first?…”

My cameraman, Rudy Yaneza, was being led out of the room by the PSG but wisely decided against stopping his camera from rolling. He was able to capture the President’s taking off of her reading glasses, PGMA rising from her seat, her walking away from the table to talk to Secretary of the Cabinet Ric Saludo and Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita. The camera continued to roll even after that small chat, when the President decided to go towards the direction of her chair, but suddenly changed her mind and didn’t sit but instead walked to and fro, displaying an obvious irked stance, arms folded together.

What happened in there?

First off, the building of school rooms is indeed a big deal for PGMA. The program is part of her 10 point agenda, her MTDP. This issue will surely be a hot item especially in the next few weeks because of the opening of classes. Also, this program is usually included in her SONA list of “accomplishments”.

The shortage of 6,832 classrooms reported by OIC Hidalgo was based on (her and the DEP ED’s) IDEAL ratio of 1 classroom for 45 students.

The President wants to use the 1: 100 ratio because that’s the ratio they used last year. If the President’s ratio is used, then the figure of classroom shortage will surely decrease dramatically. Way way fewer than the DEP ED report of six thousand plus classrooms still needed.

In fairness, there’s wisdom and logic in the President’s desire to use her ratio. Public schools can use each of their existing classrooms two times a day (two shifts per day). Practical. “Kapag maikli ang kumot, mamaluktot”

In fairness too, there’s something good about Hidalgo’s ratio. Some believe that there’s wisdom in being realistic and idealistic at the same time. It seems that Hidalgo and her team were just being REALISTIC about the issue. Increasing the number of students per room (two shifts) may save the government from criticisms (for failing to build rooms) but may eventually take its toll on the learning process of the students. Hidalgo believes that it is IDEAL to have fewer students in a given classroom and let these students use the classroom in the afternoon for their other learning activities instead of giving way to the next set of students that will use it.

In the afternoon, Chief of Staff Secretary Mike Defensor, accompanied Ms. Hidalgo to the Kalayaan Hall for a press briefing. (Apparently, the acting secretary of the education department went back to the Palace after leaving the cabinet meeting to do some checking of facts and presumably, to do some thinking in the DEP ED main office)

She told the MPC that she’s now using the 1 is to 100 ratio of the President to determine the shortage of classrooms nationwide.

She also told all of us that more than 2,000 new school rooms will be functional by the opening of classes this June. She added that another thousand will be ready by December. The government claims that these rooms will bring great comfort to the more than 2 million expected students that will be returning to school this year.

After the presscon, reporters conversed with Hidalgo some more. Not much about the “accomplishment list” (what the President really really wanted to present during the open for coverage cabinet meeting this morning), but more on the seemingly “quick as magic” change on the ratio that they will now use, in unison.

The way I understood it, Hidalgo was saying that there are different ways of looking at the school room shortage problem. That she can’t fault the President if she wants the 1:100 (classroom per student) ratio because it is indeed one way of looking at the school room issue. The same way that she shouldn’t be in hot water for using the 1:45 ratio.

Despite her concurrence with PGMA’s ratio this afternoon, she still quipped that it is still ideal to use the 1 is to 45 ratio (one shift per day) because it means more time for the students to use the school premises for other learning activities beyond their actual class hours. It will also allow the teachers to give more attention to each and every student in his or her class. (the lesser, more manageable)

Asked if she regrets standing by her presentation and if she’s not scared of the repercussion of the incident, Hidalgo said, with a smile: “she’s sorry for herself” and that it is up to the President if she still wants her to serve at the DEP ED.

When I was writing my report for our early evening newscast, an administration friendly reporter ribbed me about how predictable it was that I’ll be mentioning the President’s “pagtataray” in my report. She noted that most reporters will zero-in on the outburst, because that’s the kind of news that sells. I told her that, yes, I’ll be stating that in my report, but NO, I don’t believe that the “pagtataray” was the main issue.

The real issue is the quality of education.

The topic may have been about the quantity of school rooms, but it really was about this government’s regard or disregard on the education of our kids.

Yes, the conflict this morning was simple Math. It actually quantified the quality of education in store for the next generation.

I’m no expert in numbers and I really hated math when I was in school. So I’ll leave the analyzing of the numbers stated here to you (if you love math). But it is indeed, as easy as ONE PLUS ONE.

While we are at it, let me add one more word problem for you to analyze and solve:

Let us say that we are in school and the subject is Math. In educating our students, isn’t it more appropriate to teach them how to appreciate numbers than showing them how to use numbers so that the figures will favor them?

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Happy Birthday, MLQ3! (can’t post in your newly designed site, dito muna) Robinson Crusoe on Mars psp