Call of duty

What could be nobler than being a teacher? No one would reach success if it were not for the knowledge imparted to one by one’s teachers. No president, no senator, no mayor, no engineer, no mathematician would be such without having to learn first lessons from his or her teacher.

Come election time, the teachers take the risk of being at the forefront of preserving the sanctity of the ballot. Their will to deliver a clean and honest election is resolute. But many of the people around them have other motives.

Take for example the case of Nellie Banaag, a public school teacher for 22 years. She and poll watcher Leticia Ramos died when poll precincts in Pinagbayanan Elementary School in Taysan, Batangas were set ablaze by still unidentified men. Twelve others, including Banaag’s daughter, Richelle, a nursing student, were seriously injured.

Teachers know too well how violent and volatile elections can be in the Philippines. Notwithstanding this, on the day of the election, they wake up at the crack of dawn ready to perform their duties. The counting is tedious that only the tenacity of the teachers can endure the test. Always, always, the counting at the precinct level reaches up to early in the morning the following day. 

It was around 3 a.m. of May 15 that men with despicable desires burned down several precincts in Pinagbayanan Elementary School. Imagine the horror the teachers and poll watchers faced when they were ordered by the goons with guns to lie on the floor while they were pouring gasoline on the walls and doors of the classrooms. The armed men escaped in a jiffy when they set the place on fire, leaving the victims scampering out of the burning classrooms. But the dedicated public school teacher and the equally dedicated poll watcher did not find their way out as they were reportedly trapped in the toilet inside the classroom.

Banaag and Ramos, sadly, are now part of the statistics of election-related violence. According to the Philippine National Police, 118 people had been killed since the campaign started on Jan. 14. And the Commission on Elections said the May 14 elections were “generally peaceful.” 

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“My heart goes to Mrs. Banaag,” my brother Rod, also a public school teacher, told me. He did not know Banaag personally but their link is heightened by being in the same profession. “We always face the risk every time there’s election.”

Rod said teachers are commonly subjected to nasty speculations, especially by the camp of losing candidates. Teachers, he added, are sometimes viewed as cheaters.

“But how can you cheat when what you’re doing inside the precinct is seen by many poll watchers?”

In fact, before Rod attends to his call of duty on election day, my family offers a prayer or two for him and  his colleagues. My mother, most especially, will only be “at peace” when she sees her youngest son in one piece albeit looking grungy from the overnight toil. 

The teachers’ job during election is actually an immeasurable service to the nation. Sure they are paid P3,000 for rendering service on that day but, if you ask me, that is a paltry sum compared to their dedication to duty which is always done with the conviction of preserving the sanctity of the ballot. If that is not labor of love, what is?

“My hand already ached in signing the checks so that our teachers will be paid on time,” Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos told The STAR earlier.

There’s an agreement between Comelec and the Department of Education that each teacher who served in the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) will be paid P3,000, plus P300 as transportation allowance. The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), however, said that many of the teachers did not get their allowance when they picked up the election materials. In several instances, ACT reportedly said, even the P300 transportation allowance was not released to teachers in Metro Manila, Bulacan and Laguna.  

Despite that, the teachers still trooped to the voting precincts to fulfill their responsibilities. And in spite of their efforts, they were still not spared from harassment. If it was not their life that they risked, they also unintentionally gambled their dignity. 

“Nandyan yung mga miron na mas marunong pa sa mga teachers. Akala nila mas alam pa nila ang eleksyon kaysa sa mga guro na umattend ng seminars bago mag-election (There are kibitzers who think they are more knowledgeable than the teachers. They think they know how to conduct the election better than the teachers who attended seminars long before the election day),” my brother said.

Rod told me a co-teacher of his experienced being called bobo (stupid) for declaring one single ballot null and void simply because it was. Many of his co-teachers experienced hyperacidity — the most common inconvenience among teachers on the day of the election — because, even if there was food, “they couldn’t eat due to tension.”

“You cannot help but worry, knowing too well that any election in the Philippines can be marred with uncertainty.  Even if a teacher serving as the chairman of the BEI conducts it with the utmost desire to keep the results untainted, still there will be others who will think otherwise,” Rod observed. 

Many people — particularly those who belong to the camp of the losing candidates — can easily blow their top and spew expletives when ballot counting is going on. And the teachers are their usual easy targets as if they are the ones at fault.

Of course the teachers get incensed and insulted when their image is tainted, when their dignity is being trampled upon. But they are trained to keep their cool. After all, it is only with a cooler head that one can count votes correctly.

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“Till her very last breath, Mrs. Nellie Banaag made sure to protect the sanctity of the people’s votes. That was not only a call of duty. That was an act of heroism,” said Nimfa dela Cruz, a teacher in San Pedro, Laguna.

I can only surmise Ma’am Banaag performed her call of duty well and counted the ballots correctly. But hotter heads got the better of her and incorrectly killed her. That’s sad. The perpetrators are still at large. Now, that’s cruel. That’s foul.

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