By ALDWIN QUITASOL
www.nordis.net

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step to ward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering and struggle; tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

At the final testing and sealing of the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines four days before the much awaited elections, the teachers are the busiest workers of that day. They arrived at the polling center hours before the testing starts. One is overheard telling her co-teachers “saanak pay a nangagsapa” (I did not yet eat breakfast). Their head teacher with the assistance of the technical person provided by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) gave instructions and some reminders.

Opening the boxes of the machines, the teachers-turned-election slaves search for the eye-buttons, memory cards and other paraphernalia with strange names as seen on the teachers’ facial reactions. It was better among the younger ones who apparrently were familiar with the computer language, digital codes and names. The older teachers who were used to the manual elections many years back had to decipher the new technology.

Of all the rooms designated as poll centers those assigned to the older teachers took the longest time to open. When the younger ones in the other rooms were already done sealing and wrapping the PCOS machines and other items, the older ones were still waiting for the shading of the test ballots to be fed into the machines. Then when the shaded ballots were ready to be fed into the ballot bin, they again spent around 10 minutes figuring how to do it.

One of the teachers said it seemed their life was easier when elections were still done manually. Though she said the working conditions as teachers before and at present are the same. As teachers they sacrifice their time and for some their lives for the biggest political event every three years and receive little compensation. She said she enjoys teaching the kids very much as it is her passion but no where in her dreams was it of being very tired and in danger every elections.

The senior teacher said it will be days before they will return to the normal life of teaching. And as far as she knows, it seems changes in the government, if any, after every election are hardly felt. She sighs this coming opening of classes, they will again encounter the same scarcity of text books, lack of classrooms as well as the shrinking value of their salaries.

If only the politicians can go through the hardship the teachers face. They who are also voters, and work to see to it that their votes are well counted. The teachers who are part of the communities who repeatedly have to listen to the candidates’ promises of change and good governance. These politicans should be ashamed if they will not fulfill any of the promises they made to the public.

Yet as expected, the situations of the teachers are still part of the bigger picture of a society that badly needs a real system change. # nordis.net