PSS implements austerity program

My salute to the Commissioner of Education for her proactive role in cutting down expenses to ensure that the education of our children isn’t compromised amidst constantly sliding resources. PSS is one of three most important agencies in government for obvious reasons: It teaches and guides our hope and future by educating our young ones.

Without stepping on someone’s toes: Why would PSS take the lead in implementing the governor’s extended austerity program while others sit on their laurels nursing their tañgantañgan mentality? Friends, the military plane that once dropped goodies from the skies will never return and even if we try to get our tañgantañgan plane airborned, we’ll never make it, muchless replicate the good old days. It’s history!

You see, when teachers find it difficult stomaching the proposed 10 percent cut in their salaries, I would have to support their sentiment given that this is one group of public sector employees who really earn their salaries. Their jobs isn’t limited to the usual 7:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. schedule. A lot of them have gone extra mile to counsel or tutor students who need help after school hours. Each returns home and spends additional time planning the next day’s lessons while simultaneously attending to family obligations. Perhaps it is their ultra-sense of dedication that drives them beyond the call of duty for they have the fate of their pupils at heart.

What local leadership ought to undertake is a thorough desk audit of all government departments and agencies to determine whether the number of employees — which is about 5,000 strong — are really needed to ensure the daily operations of the local government. This is where substantial reduction in either work hours or payroll could be imposed in order that we don’t sacrifice the education of our children. PSS isn’t the place to cut nor the Commonwealth Health Center and the Department of Public Safety. Indeed, it is a difficult issue to deal with but we can’t continue nurturing our well greased sense of mañana until this crisis hits rock bottom.
This is where leadership comes into play and for those of us in the wings, we await for appropriate decisions albeit difficult they may be.

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I love to drive or cruise around the island to see how things have changed since the good old days. I’d climb atop a certain hill or the back road with incredible curves where you see Dandan, San Vicente, Kagman and remote areas now sprinkled with new homes on land I once thought would never become a village.

The new villages have become the home of younger people who migrated out of the old village when new homestead subdivisions were opened. As the old community loses its old neighbors and that once strong sense of community, this very tradition never followed the younger folks to their new place. It stayed in the old village.
There’s that sense or preference for semi-independence. In other words, a whole year may go through and you never get to talk to your neighbor in the new village.

It is worrisome and I wonder where this new attitude would take us in the next millennium. It’s quite bothersome and perhaps the old tradition needs a form of powerful revival in that it is a time honored tradition that has allowed us to endure adversity over the last four hundred years. Think about it. More so than ever before, the indigenous people must work together for their collective interest in a social landscape that constantly changes.