Antibiotic attitude pushing face-to-face experiment

Some wise guys in this government who think they can outsmart a virus that relies on opportunity rather than intelligence are toying seriously with the idea of holding face-to-face classes in selected areas. These smart alecks are probably the same people who believe it is all right to abort a dose of prescribed antibiotics as soon as they start to feel better.

But we are not yet getting better. Hundreds are still turning up positive with COVID-19 every day. Even if the number of cases is declining, that does not mean the virus is retreating, much less disappearing. There can be a number of good reasons why the cases are slightly dipping but they do not take us out of the woods yet.

One only has to look at the statistics. Out of more than 200 countries where the virus has spread, the Philippines is still at number 28, too high up the charts to even start breathing easy, much less let down our guard recklessly, such as thinking of going face-to-face with nothing less than the lives of our children at stake.

Going face-to-face, even on a limited scale in a few select areas is still nothing short of sending our children to war. We are pushing our kids to the frontlines in a move that is no different from sending in the marines to establish a beachhead. And for no other purpose than to find out if the country is ready for a return to full face-to-face classes.

What these insensitive and unconscionable bright boys in government seem to have forgotten, or missed completely altogether, is the fact that all it takes with this virus is one case. Just one case. Just like when we first started in January with that guy from Wuhan. From that one solitary case, all it took for the virus to force this country of 110 million into a lockdown was two months. By March we were already quarantined, and even up to today.

I am aghast that we are already talking face-to-face when we should have in fact aborted classes for this entire school year. Students are learning nothing from distance learning that education secretary Leonor Briones forced upon the country, ostensibly to save our students from being left behind but the real reason of which could be that she could not say no to the strong lobby from private schools who needed to have some income badly.

I find it very shamely that to help save the economy we were willing to take our students on a wild goose chase. It was a fool's errand to resume classes via distance learning modules that have been untested and carried out by the untrained and then passing everyone enrolled for no other reason than that they are enrolled.

Passing and graduating those who learned nothing, or at least far less than they should have under normal circumstances, is just kicking the can down the street. Let the students we pass and graduate without learning anything be the problem of tomorrow. At least we solved the problem of what to do with a school year today. Oh, and one final thing. Who will answer if our worst fears come and lives start getting compromised?