Different castes of arrogance

Few weeks ago, there was an issue that surfaced in the Senate session hall. It struck me as rather odd, if not alarming, for I thought, it showed the different castes of arrogance. Ironically, it came when our esteemed senators were deliberating on the national budget allocation for education, of all fields.

I am referring to the appearance of School Superintendent Thelma Buison (from somewhere in Luzon) before the Philippine Senate. She was asked to show her face in order to shed light on an alleged memorandum, which she circulated in her turf. As it evolved, Supt. Buison penned some kind of a circular urging her teachers and pupils to shun the candidacies of basketball and movie stars. Naturally, it got some of our senators' goat.

The memorandum, by its judging with obvious discrimination against personalities from showbiz and the hard court, smacked with both arrogance and contempt. Unfortunately, it came from the institution tasked with educating our race. It incensed our senators primarily because it descended from an institution where arrogance would have been overcome and contempt subdued. There was no other way to evaluate the memorandum but to assume that its author thought the matter of law-making was a sole preserve among those who had higher education. Or that conversely, cage and screen heroes could not become effective legislators. Indeed, the school superintendent seemed to think that basketball stars and movie personalities were undeserving of the honorable title of being senators or worse, incapable of nurturing profound ideas.

I could not blame fully Supt. Buison. She might have the highest interests of our nation in her heart in conceiving that those who rise to popularity as leading practitioners of James Naismiths's sport or as idols of screaming movie fans, would not be equipped to scrutinize and comprehend the nuances of legislation. Perhaps, she might have seen that the "agimat" (roughly translated as charm) of Ramon Revilla, the actor, did not serve him well in his stint as Senator Ramon Bautista. Or she could have been totally disappointed with the lack of performance of basketball's living legend, Robert Jaworski, as a senator.

Being in the forefront of education, Supt. Buison did what, to her, was her bounden duty. She had in her mind the infinite task of helping our voters understand the full value of the exercise of the right of suffrage. As an educator, she knew it was senseless to vote for someone with nothing between his ears. It would serve no patriotic end for electors to put in office anyone who could not perform the assigned task. Yes, she felt that, at her umbra of influence, she was to guide her flock into the "correct" way.

Supt Buison, more likely, failed to consider that no one has a monopoly of knowledge. Her academic attainment, impeccable, no doubt, but her scholastic achievement was not guarantee of her intellectual superiority over a high school dropout. What she succeeded in writing into that memorandum was to display her own arrogance. By her feeling to be better educated than, say, Sen. Lito Lapid, and impliedly announcing that to be so, she too showed her unwarranted contempt of the latter.

Whatever, some of our senators also displayed their own brand of arrogance. I saw how they demeaned Supt. Buison with their impertinent questions. Feeling to be masters rather than public servants, they subjected the school superintendent to a kind of humiliation that not even an apology would suffice. If they felt that being movie stars was enough tool to tackle the yeoman's job of lawmaking, they should not have felt the venom of Supt. Buison's memorandum. They could have simply commented on its propriety and allowed it to pass with less fanfare. By harping on the circular's contents, our legislators succeeded to highlight their own insecurity.

But what finally alarmed me was that Supt. Buison, succumbed to the unbearable pressure of the high and the mighty. She made a 360-degree turn. Rather than standing pat on what could be her well considered stand, she capitulated. She registered regrets for doing what she did. By begging apology, she admitted that her arrogance was misplaced. Or that its degree was miniscule compared to that of the senators. Is that it?