MEDIUM RARE
Jullie Y. Daza
When it rains, it pours. Then it floods, an ocean of problems.
Babies are being born smaller, many of them to girls hardly out of puberty. The IQ of Filipino teenagers has been dropping, until it hit rock bottom in a survey of 600,000 15-year-olds from 79 countries. God knows how today’s high school graduates will fare next school-year under whatever system they will be tutored. As if that’s not enough, 900 private schools were forced to shut down last year, with another 980 facing the same fate this year.
Between us functioning adults, what’s the difference between “some restrictions” and “heightened restrictions” in classifying GCQ, MGCQ, BBQ, etc.? Without consulting Secretary Harry Roque’s notes, do OFWs, ROFs, and other Filipino travelers except APORs know what’s what between Cebu’s airport protocols and Manila’s NAIA? (Just how did Cebu “cave in” to Malacañang?) How many of the Cabinet secretaries sitting around President Duterte for his “Talk to the Nation” can recite the full name of IATFFMEID? (For the rest of us, that’s InterAgency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.)
If you have memorized the airport protocols for departing and arriving passengers, congratulations, your IQ is ready for takeoff. Why, even EDSA can be a source of wonder, depending on your luck of the day.
And what’s a face shield between friends, if authorities cannot decide what it is for? The President? DOH? IATF? PNP? CS (common sense)? See what you started, Yorme, you and your concern for the man-on-the-street’s daily “tosgas” (Kois’ word for gastos, or expense).
With rules changing every hour, like Vice Ganda’s costumes, I got so confused that I wrongly promoted US-based feng shui expert-banker-data analyst Patrick Fernandez. On June 17, I reported that Patrick had scored 100 to finish a three-year course in Harvard. The perfect score is correct, but Patrick is only in his first year pursuing a master’s degree in data science at Harvard. The mistake may not be so apparent, however, just look at all these degrees decorating his thinking cap: BS in management engineering and BA in economics (honors) from Ateneo de Manila; MBA from UCLA; advanced analytics courses in MIT and Stanford. The list reads longer than three years!