By REV. LUNA DINGAYAN
www.nordis.net

When Jesus finished saying these things, the crowd was amazed at the way he taught. He wasn’t like the teachers of the Law; instead, he taught with authority. – Matthew 7:28-29

Liberating vs. Domesticating Education

In my church, September is Christian Education Month. It is an opportune time for us to look into the situation of education, particularly Christian education, in our society in general and in the local churches in particular. Is Christian Education really making an effective influence in our national life?

Needless to say, values education is now included in our basic education curriculum. Also, various churches are supposedly conducting their own respective educational programs for their own members. Church-related schools and colleges all over the country are presumed to be providing Christian education for their students. But, are these educational programs really making a difference in our life as a nation? The scandalous prevalence of crime and corruption in various areas of our national life raises serious questions on whether or not Christian values are really shaping our social ethos as a people.

Education – whether religious or not – can be either domesticating or liberating. On one hand, it is domesticating if and when it is designed to maintain the status quo; if and when it is meant to exploit, control, dominate and oppress the people. On the other hand, education can be liberating if and when it aims to raise people’s consciousness and empowers them to be free to uplift their living conditions and to chart their own destiny. Liberating education is meant to transform the status quo so that resources will be shared by all and that no one will be in want. While domesticating education will make people blind and bound, liberating education will make people see the truth and are set free.

Risk in doing Liberating Education

What is now happening with the Lumads in Mindanao is a concrete example of how liberating education can be very risky. Keepers and defenders of the status quo will do everything they could to maintain the existing arrangement simply because they benefit from it at the expense of the people. They would like the people to remain domesticated, bound and blinded to the truth so that they could exploit their natural resources for profit. And worst of all, keepers and defenders of the status quo will make use of the people themselves to divide their own ranks and to kill their own kind.

The Alternative Learning Center for Agriculture and Livelihood Development (Alcadev) is a hinterland school that started in 2004 in Sitio Han-ayan, Barangay Diatagon in Lianga town, Surigao del Sur. It is a secondary school that caters to lumad students, who have finished elementary in tribal community schools run by the Tribal Filipino Program of Surigao del Sur (Trifpss). Trifpss has been operating community schools since 1987 through the efforts of former Tandag Diocese Bishop Ireneo Amantillo.

Aside from the basic subjects required by the Department of Education, Trifpss schools and Alcadev offer agriculture where students learn alternative farming using scientific, innovative, systematic and sustainable techniques. Because these schools are doing what the government failed to do in the tribal communities, the military accused them of being supporters and training ground of the New People’s Army, a wild accusation which no less than Gov. Johnny Pimentel of Surigao del Sur even denied. And so, the military recruited and organized paramilitary groups from the ranks of the lumads themselves, trained, armed and used them to harass, threaten, and even kill their fellow lumads who are very vocal in opposing the encroachment of mining companies into their ancestral lands.

Last September 1, members of a paramilitary group called Magahat-Bagani swooped down on Sitio Han-ayan and killed Emerito Samarca, the Executive Director of Alcadev, and two other lumad leaders: Dionel Campos, the president of the tribal organization Malahutayong Pakigbisog Alang sa Sumusunod (Mapasu), and his cousin Datu Bello Sinzo. Samarca was killed inside his office, while Campos and Sinzo were killed in front of the people in the community. And so, about 2,000 Manobos were forced to leave their homes and livelihood in the hinterlands and fled to Tandag City.

Jesus teaching ministry

Killing the bearers of light in a darkened world is not new. Even Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord suffered the cruelty of the cross, because of his teaching ministry. Matthew the Gospel Writer recorded, “When Jesus finished saying these things, the crowd was amazed at the way he taught. He wasn’t like the teachers of the Law; instead, he taught with authority” (Mt. 7:28-29).

Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord taught with authority simply because he walked his talk. His teaching had authority, because he was doing what he was teaching. He was not just spinning information; he was actually empowering the weak and the downtrodden. He was giving hope and enlightenment to those in the pit of darkness and despair. He was showing the way for the lost, the last, and the least so that they may have life and have it more abundantly (cf. Jn. 10:10). Indeed, his teaching ministry is life-transforming and liberating.

Thus, he was accused of being a blasphemer, a prince of demonic forces, and a violator of the Sabbath Law for curing the sick, forgiving the sinners, even as he claimed and proclaimed that the poor are blessed for theirs is the Kingdom of God (cf. Lk. 6). And so, the High Priest, Caiaphas, said that it is better for one man to die than for the whole nation to be destroyed. And so, the Jewish authorities made plans to kill Jesus (cf. Jn. 11:45-57).

It is interesting to note that like the bearers of light today, Jesus’ own disciples and the people whom he loved and served were the ones used by the powers-that-be to snuff his life away. But the truth remains that it is in the giving of one’s life for others that one finds life’s real meaning and fulfillment. Indeed, the keepers and defenders of the status quo then and now committed a serious mistake if they think that by killing the bearers of light they would be able to keep the light of truth from shining brightly. # nordis.net