IN the gospel, we can hear Christ expressing his burning desire to pursue his mission here on earth. “I am come to cast fire on the earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled?” he said. (Lk 12,49)
It we want to be true disciples of Christ, as we should, we should also have the same zeal to accomplish our common mission of human redemption. We need to sharpen our awareness of this important duty, and to do something drastic about this duty, given the very obvious fact that many of us take this duty for granted.
While this mission is usually done in a very personal and private way—as in on a one-on-one basis—we should also be aware that given today’s condition in the world, we need to carry it out also in the public arena.
We cannot deny that people nowadays are generally affected by what they see and hear in the media. And neither can we deny that in many instances, what the media offer are many questionable pieces of information, views and opinions. Besides, we can easily notice a very toxic atmosphere in this sector—with exchanges that are bitter and acrimonious.
This is where we have to see what we can do to humanize and Christianize the optics or the general perception and understanding people we on certain issues, especially the hot-button ones. Let’s remember that Christ told his disciples, and now to us, to be the light and the salt of the earth. (cfr. Mt 5,13-16)
The ideal is that no matter how different or in conflict we are on certain issues, we remain Christian to each other and are always courteous and charitable to each other in our exchanges of views. Charity should always prevail, since in the end it is what would lead us to truth and objectivity, freedom, justice, fairness and mercy.
We have to be wary when we allow ourselves to be led and dominated by our emotions and passions. Though these animal part of our being can be blended cleverly by our rationality, we would still be doing badly unless we let ourselves by animated by the spirit of God which is precisely that of charity. In the end, truth, justice and fairness can only be found in charity.
In this regard, what is helpful is when we learn to see Christ in everyone, including those with whom we may have serious differences or are in conflict. We have to go beyond seeing others in a purely human way without, of course, neglecting the human and natural in us.
In short, we have to see others in a spiritual way, within the framework of faith, hope and charity. Otherwise, we cannot avoid getting entangled in our limited and conflict-prone earthly condition. And no amount of human justice and humanitarianism can fully resolve this predicament.
Thus, we need to develop and hone our skills of looking at others beyond the merely physical, social, economic, cultural or political way. While these aspects are always to be considered, we should not be trapped by them.
We need to be pro-active in seeing Christ in everyone and in eliciting true charity when we relate to them, regardless of the circumstances. Let’s hope that we can generate a healthy and Christian optics despite, and even because of, our differences and conflicts in views, opinions and even in beliefs.
Broken blackboard
When the K–12 program was rolled out, it was hailed as the grand fix to decades of academic lag. Years later, it is being reconsidered, tweaked, or threatened with replacement—just like every other curriculum that came before it. The cycle has become predictable: a new “solution” is declared, fanfare follows, and soon after, the same crisis reappears, uglier than before.
The constant changing of curricula is almost like repainting a collapsing house. Fresh colors may make the façade look different, but the rotting beams underneath remain untouched. Our education authorities seem convinced that rewriting lesson plans and renaming programs will rescue the system, when in truth, it merely distracts from the deeper decay—poor facilities, underfunded schools, overcrowded classrooms, outdated learning materials, and a bureaucracy that moves slower than a snail on wet cement. Curriculum changes cannot plaster over the cracks left by years of neglect.
Ironically, the Filipino teacher has been celebrated abroad for competence and adaptability. Vietnam, in a rare moment of candor, openly admitted that its own education system soared because it hired Filipino teachers. This alone is enough to dismiss the tired argument that our classroom failures stem from the caliber of our educators. Clearly, the problem is not in the teacher factor but in the system that chains them to mediocrity through lack of resources, irrelevant policies, and an avalanche of administrative work that leaves little energy for actual teaching.
Our neighbors—Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam—are racing ahead with forward-looking strategies: strong STEM foundations, digital integration, and industry-aligned skills training. Meanwhile, our students still wrestle with missing textbooks, slow internet, and computer labs with machines old enough to be in a museum. We are left behind not because our learners are less capable, but because they are being prepared with tools and methods from another century. This is not just falling behind; this is being left in the dust.
Even more disturbing is how politics seeps into every corner of education. Appointments are often based on connections rather than competence. Decisions are influenced by personal gain rather than student welfare. Education has become another arena for political posturing, with reforms introduced not for their merit but for their propaganda value. The result is an endless carousel of half-baked programs—grand in press releases but shallow in execution.
Parents feel the weight of this failure most. They see their children come home exhausted from long hours of school, yet unable to master basic competencies. They save what little they have to send their children to private schools, hoping to escape the shortcomings of the public system. Those who cannot afford such an option watch with growing despair as their children’s futures shrink before their eyes. And still, the official response is to draft yet another curriculum revision, as if we haven’t been there before.
There is a stubborn refusal to face the real roots of our educational decay. The infrastructure is weak, teacher support is insufficient, learning materials are outdated, and education spending remains far below the international standard. Moreover, teachers are burdened with non-teaching tasks, and their teaching time is uselessly consumed. Worse, many such tasks are supposed to be done by their superiors. Until these are addressed, all the curriculum tinkering in the world will only serve as decoration. We cannot teach critical thinking in rooms where students sit on broken chairs and share tattered books.
If we truly want to lift our educational standing, we must stop treating the classroom as a place for quick fixes and start seeing it as the foundation for national progress. That means investing seriously in teacher training, school facilities, technology access, long-term policy stability, and a teaching force freed from clerical and secretarial functions. A curriculum is only as strong as the environment in which it is taught—and right now, that environment is in shambles.