Atheista -

I think it’s quite easy to find Chiz Escudero as one of the most grandstanding-prone politicians on television. While he may have a way with words, he does come across as someone who could easily smooth talk his way into spewing out ideas that are generally agreeable but not necessarily concrete or helpful – pretty much like Barack Obama. Of course that type of  charm works for a certain type of person and to be fair to Chiz, that type of person is the absolute majority once the greater scheme of things is considered.

Chiz Escudero in the flesh was not in any way pompous, arrogant or disagreeable. While it was not clear why he wanted to see bloggers for that day (other than to have small talk and probably feed a few undernourshed bloggers such as myself), it was nice to sit across him and have him answer off-the-cuff and unscripted questions from his obvious supporters, critics and skeptics.

The Good

- If everything where to be taken at face value – pretty much the same way that the good in me would like to see things — Francis “Chiz” Escudero seems to have his heart and head in the right place. He comes across as someone who can sleep soundly at night. I know that this is a very subjective comment that could further contradict the other things that I would write as this entry progresses, but at the basic visceral level, he seems like a guy who would be hard to hate. Either that or I’m just a naturally nice guy.

- He is  his own man – or so it seems. This is where the question of whether or not you trust him comes into play. With the words that he has in his arsenal, he could almost always pluck out a good set of words that would come off as something inspiring and rational enough. I asked him about his stand regarding the separation of church and state as well as his tenacity when it comes to resisting pressures from the church in case there is an appeal to have him change his mind on a certain issue. While he didn’t exactly qualify his support for the Reproductive Health bill itself, he did say that he advocates the responsible planning of one’s family and the availability and access to the necessary information that would bolster one’s reproductive health.

- He is against abortion but is willing to make leeway for certain cases – he mentioned something about ectopic pregnancies. As far as I know, it is legal to terminate these types of pregnancies so his point came across as moot to me. I really wanted to ask him, when does life begin? This is a key question in the pro-choice debates overseas but it seemed out of place in the meeting so I bit my tongue.

- He reiterated his reasons for leaving his now-former party - the Nationalist People’s Coalition. He stated that the terms of his departure was amicable and both sides understood where each was coming from.

- He is not easily intimidated by the bishops and the church. During the height of the Estrada cases, the bishops of Sorsogon tried to pin him down and shame him due to his loyalty to the former president. He easily didn’t back down and he clearly showed that he isn’t beholden to the church – nor is he trying to bend over backwards like most politicians just to accommodate the whims and desires of the clergy.

- He has the brains to offer revolutionary solutions that could promise great change. He can think outside of the box – but of course, not all things inside the box are bad and the things that lie outside of it are rightly kept outside the realm of possible options.

- He claimed to be a maverick in his own party. This is a cursed word in US politics of course, Sarah Palin and John McCain totally used this word to the high heavens just to prove a point. We all know what happened of course. Escudero sure tried to show that he was often taking stances that were opposite the official NPC position.

- He said he finds nothing wrong with same-sex marriage. It was interesting that he said this when the question that was fielded by one of the guests was just one regarding the anti-discrimination bill. He somehow qualified his position though by saying that the country is not ready for it. That somehow dilutes whatever “support” he has for the idea, right?

- He seems to have a sense of humor. When someone drew the parallelism between him and US President Barack Obama, Escudero jested that he was only like Barack “from the waist down”.

The Bad

- Just like 99% of politicians, it’s hard to fall for everything that he says. Trusting Chiz Escudero doesn’t come easy. Again, to be fair, this would apply to almost all politicians – and people in general.

- While he may be not beholden to the church, what he hasn’t proven is that he is not beholden to other powers – i.e. Erap and the rest of his ilk. The impact of standing up to the bishops was somehow diluted because he was standing next to Erap, Jinggoy and the other jabronis in that clique.

- He claimed that he was misquoted regarding the algebra issue. While I did try to hear him out, I was just left scratching my head in the end of his lengthy explanation. The basic idea behind his move to change the curriculum seems decent enough – the Department of Educations seems to be very non-flexible in changing the way things are taught to children and reviewing these lesson plans only twice per decade seems to be a tad too infrequent for comfort.

- He pushed this argument to it’s logical conclusion that we must somehow specialize the subjects in high school based on the abilities and potential future careers of the students. Of course, that supposedly logical conclusion would only fly if 1) children in high school already knew what type of career they wanted (hint: a vast majority don’t) and 2) high school students were better off specializing and choosing with subjects to choose as electives. Both premises are clearly not feasible since they are not the case by any stretch of the imagination – I guess in Chiz’s mind it is, but I didn’t feel compelled to buy into the logic of the statement. The rousing “aha!” moment in the venue surprised me though. It’s as if they really bought what he said.

- High school students have to trained to be good in just about everything since most aren’t probably sure which course or career they want. Some would even be basing their choices on the type of course that their first choice university would allow them to take. This is why you have to give all students the right amount of tools to take on whatever challenge. It also allows the student to have back up plans should the first choice of career or course turns out to be a bad fit.

- Chiz made an example regarding students who were dead set on being one thing and it would be shame if they were to fail or repeat a year in school because they missed the mark on a subject irrelevant to their future career. Aside from the ideas in the bullets preceding this one, “specialty” subjects (who to him are only helpful for those who will be going to engineering and similar disciplines) such as trigonometry and calculus are just mere subjects. He didn’t take into consideration these subjects’ potential to enrich the critical thinking of young students. Coming from an intelligent person such as Chiz who is obviously a sharp knife in the drawer, the logic is really suspect.

- The example of a prodigy who is dead set on doing one thing and committing to a train of subjects is a big risk. At the very least, these type of people are an absolute minority (arguably less than 10% of the typical high school class). Allowing students to be only good at certain subjects skews the grading systems and this could cause irregularities in college admissions. I think this is also a valid extension and conclusion to Chiz’s premise. And in the practical sense, there are also great minds who were primed to be one thing – take the example of Shaira Luna for example of Promil Gifted Child Fame — but ended up doing something entirely different. Imagine if she was bee-lined into a program that was just going to bombard her with life sciences lessons during her high school year.

- And lastly, he wanted to give a passing grade to everyone who was victimized by Ondoy. He said since there was barely a month left in the semester, it shouldn’t hurt to give a free pass to the second sem. This was his reaction to the idea that the first semester was to be extended to allow for make-up classes.

- I really don’t understand his aversion to make-up classes . This is a widely accepted practice that may cause inconveniece, but in the end, with all things considered, it is done to the benefit of the student. The student missed valuable hours of schooling in a classroom and this is addressed by replacing the hours and extending the semestral schedule.

-Giving a free pass to student does not in anyway prepare him or her to the challenges of the next semester. Chiz didn’t seem to take into account that lessons in school are often linear and that prerequisite knowledge of a core concept would have to taught first before progressing to the more advanced concepts and operations of the second semester.

- His main defense for his pass-them-idea? Well, the students need to pick up their lives since it is in shambles and the teachers are also having problems. If anything, going to school gives them a semblance of normalcy that life goes on and that there is a need to strive for greater success and achievement to rise up from the challenges. Going to school shouldn’t be a burden to these children – I’m sure their parents also want them to be in school and continue getting lessons to catch up with whatever learning gap the typhoon has caused.

- Also, how are you going to implement this? Is this a blanket policy or will it only apply to those who were flooded. Clearly, not all students would have been flooded and a selective and not-so-objective way of looking at storm damage would have to fall on the shoulders of the ones making the grades. Chiz also conceded that there would be multiple strong typhoons yearly. Does this mean that he would be willing to keep on giving out free passes every time there’s a big flood problem come October or September since the semester is ending anyway?

The Chiz-y
Ladies and gentlemen, Chiz Escudero tried to run this argument.

Don’t you think those children learned more with their experience during the typhoon and floods compared to what they could ever learn in a classroom?

That is not the quote exactly, but that was the main idea. While I agree and concede that yes, exposure to duress, disasters and calamities may bring out the best out of people and help build character… It doesn’t immediately follow that you should give students who were flooded a passing grade. It was an amazing logical fallacy if there ever was one. It’s a grand hybrid of ad misericordiam and non sequitur. To Chiz though, it was the logical conclusion of the argument. I’m really baffled. What he suggested was a bit patronizing and somehow irrational.

Maybe that sort of reasoning works for some people, but with all due respect to the Senator and all his supporters, that won’t work on me. Things were somehow on the upswing until he said these things right to my face (he was sitting across me – I think it was Noemi’s idea to have me sit there!)

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1) Thanks to Carlo Ople for the invitation. The photo also belongs to him.

2) Chiz didn’t say anything regarding his election plans. If you guys would remember, he has only been senator for less than three years – he is assured of a senate seat until 2013 whether or not he wins, loses or even sits pretty without filing his candidacy for 2010.

3) Chiz WILL NOT be Erap’s running mate. I asked this question just to get it out of the way.

4) Chiz will make his decision on the days leading up to the deadline for filing of candidacy (Dec 1)

5) I don’t think I will ever vote for Chiz Escudero.

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