Calamity

A state of calamity might need to be declared for our educational system. All the signals point to that.

We find ourselves in the bottom ranks in all international surveys on the quality of education. The study conducted by the Program for International Student Assessment show our students performing poorly in nearly all areas, from numeracy to reading comprehension. A comparative study on human capital shows us at the bottom. Another study on creative thinking also ranks our students near the bottom among the core ASEAN economies.

Sergio Ortiz-Luis, president of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines, announced his group would soon launch platforms in education to assist in rescuing our students. Other corporations have been running their own programs in support of education. Some conglomerates have acquired educational institutions to ensure a supply of graduates they could hire.

The poor state of our educational system becomes even more alarming when compared to our neighboring economies. Vietnam maintains what experts have described as one of the best educational systems in the world. This ensures the next generation of Vietnamese will be absolutely competitive in an increasingly globalized environment.

China has become the center of gravity for the world’s science. Her universities and research institutions are now at the cutting edge. Recently, China landed an unmanned craft on the dark side of the moon. Her technology enterprises are among the best in the world. National examinations for getting a seat in any of China’s universities are probably the most rigorous.

South Korea and Japan have long-established reputations for educational quality. Their educational institutions provided the highly skilled workforce that enable their industries to compete on a global scale.

Singapore has maintained impressively high educational standards. The small city-state competes with the rest of the world on the basis of its high-quality workforce.

This is how our neighborhood looks like. Our closest neighbors have made great investments in their educational systems and reap the benefit from doing so.

In the new economy, nations flourish or perish on the strength of their human resources. We should be preparing to compete in this very tough league. But the signals are not encouraging at all.

A search is currently under way to choose a successor to Sara Duterte at the helm of our Department of Education. We hope this will be a rigorous search to find an educational leader who may rapidly repair a system with a yawning learning deficit.

Bingo

It is probably indicative of the national morale that more and more Filipinos appear drawn to games of chance rather than to building careers based on skills.

The melodrama of the day concerns the proliferation of POGO hubs, many masquerading as BPO facilities. China, which is actively discouraging its citizens from gambling, has been pressing the Philippine government to crack down on POGO enterprises. These enterprises, however, have proven too lucrative – especially as they shelter related criminal activities including money laundering, human trafficking and drugs.

The most impressive new hotels that have mushroomed lately, despite the meager inflow of tourists, are mainly anchored on casino operations within their premises. They are luring high-rollers from nearby economies who come mainly to gamble rather than relish our cultural offerings.

Our addiction to games of chance grows by the day. Apart from jueteng, small town lotteries and lotto, we have seen the growing popularity of bingo. Venues for bingo seem to be present in all the major malls.

Like jueteng or masiao, bingo does not come across as a form of gambling. The fact, however, is that it could be as lucrative as the others. Some bingo games have stakes reaching millions of pesos.

Proof of how bingo could become lucrative is provided by recent cases where syndicates appear to have formed to rig the results. Recently, a mall-based bingo operator filed fraud charges against three of its own workers and one player for rigging the game.

After doing its own investigation, using CCTV cameras, the management of Bingo Plus found that three of its employees were conniving with one player to fix the results. One of those employees charged was the one actually tasked with ensuring fairness of the game. The jackpot for the game the employees were found rigging amounted to P3 million.

Those involved in this scam, if convicted, could suffer jail sentences of between four to eight years. Bingo Plus commits to pursue this case to the end as well as maintain its vigilance in ensuring the game is fairly played.

The reputation risk for bingo operators is high. If something as seemingly innocent as bingo becomes the object of manipulation by unscrupulous people, the business will lose its customers.

Because of the reputation risks, Bingo Plus reiterated its commitment to zero tolerance for cheating in their facilities. Instead of sweeping the incident involving its employees under the rug to avoid bad publicity, the mall bingo operator chose to be transparent and announce the filing of charges. They hope this will be a reassuring signal to their customers.

While Bingo Plus went out of its way to demonstrate transparency, the same cannot be said about other gambling operators. Those who habitually place bets in jueteng, for instance, admit the draws are probably rigged. But they hope the operators are charitable enough to allow some bettors to win some of the time.