government support

Many people curse and blame the government for almost everything that went wrong in their lives.

But I, am grateful for all that the government has done for me.

I am a product of the public school system from elementary to graduate school.

In my time, as if I am ancient :), the state of Philippine public education was still good. Until I graduated from high school, there were no more than 40 students in one classroom. Although two to three of us shared a book in a subject, there were still time to visit a classmate to do our homework. There were no supermalls then or videogames to entice us to forgo our homework and to skip classes. The farthest we could go then was C.M. Recto Ave. -- to watch movies once in a while and to buy pocketbooks from National Bookstore and the sidewalks.

I got accepted in the so-called “only university in the Philippines,” and with a stipend at that :)

When I was ready to take graduate study, the Civil Service Commission gave me the chance to do so without spending a cent – through the Local Scholarship Program for Master’s Degree.

And now, I am studying the German language at the Foreign Service Institute for free. I am on my fifth term and will finish the advance levels on December. I hope that by then, I can properly claim that I speak German :)

As the office van brought me to the FSI today, I am reminded of all these and of other things that I managed to do, through the programs of the government.


sayong
06-09-06 11:55pm