A senator has proposed to ban the use of gadgets in schools, the classroom to be more specific.
The recommendation earned mixed reactions not just from students, their parents. But also from teachers themselves.
Yes, why ban when the gadgets can be useful in school when there is legitimate need for its use? And while it is true that what can easily be seen is the negative aspect of allowing the use of gadgets in classroom, the government must also recognize its importance both for the learning process as well as in communicating messages to the parents, closed relatives especially in times of disasters which no single person, students and teachers included, know when will it strike.
Imagine when there are emergencies involving students and teachers and there is no way of communicating to concerned relatives of what happened and where it happened. If something serious hit the students or teacher they’d likely be left to die if there is no way of immediately communicating to their parents, family members and other concerned relatives.
Thus, for us, in order to avoid this possibility, the better and perhaps the most acceptable option is through regulation. That is, when inside the classroom there has to be parameters to serve as guide when to use the gadget or better still, policies have to be adopted to ensure that the students, or even teachers for that matter, will have limited access to the gadget they bring inside the classroom during classes.
The key here is institutionalizing the regulations so that these will result to the instilling of discipline among gadget users.
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Yesterday we received another text message from the Davao City Water District (DCWD). It advised water consumers served by the Riverside Water Distribution System that they have to store water again as there will be low water pressure or no water at all on June 21, 22, and 23, 2024 a good three successive days. The reason given is that there is possibility of prolonged heavy rains during those days based on Pag-ASA weather forecast. The water distributed to consumers through this DCWD facility comes from the agency’s partner in its Bulk Water delivery project, Apo Agua Infrastructura.
During the last two months or so we received several of this notice although the warning of low water pressure or no water at all, did not material as scheduled. The service outage happens instead either earlier or after the scheduled interruption.
But what intrigues us the most is that the water distributed by the DCWD through the said facility is supposed to have come from the dam of Apo Agua Infrastructura located in the upper Calinan area.
Meaning, when there is heavy downpour there will be more water going to the Apo Agua dam and direct to the purifying facilities of the bulk water provider of DCWD.
How come that we the consumers supplied the precious liquid from the DCWD’s partner in bulk water supply are deprived of the service when supposedly there is huge volume of water available. Are the firm’s purifying facilities not enough to process the surface water from the Tamugan River into a state that can quince the thirst of the consumers as well as satisfy their household needs?
In fact the water consumers have to grudgingly agree to paying a much higher water rates because of the commitment of the water agency of a much improved water supply once the Bulk Water Project will be operational.
And the more rains there are, will assure that there will be continuous flow from the utilized rivers to the dam operated by the Bulk Water project owners.
Why then that the consumers have to suffer as long as three days of no water supply or low water pressure?
We, and other residents of the same areas served by the Riverside Water System have just been through with almost three days without water due to a leaking pipe. And here comes this advice of another three days of service outage of one of the most important household necessities.
Many are now starting to think that the Bulk Water Project is evolving into one bulkiest problem among consumers who are the ones paying for the project cost through the water supplier’s hiked rates per cubic meter.
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Is Davao City Mayor Baste Duterte’s seeming dislike of Senator Bong Go’s “silence” on the juggernaut of the Marcos administration affecting Davao City and his family for real?
Or, is it simply a way of making the Marcos, Jr.’s camp believe that the Duterte group is disintegrating and for the latter to become complacent and eventually make mistakes in its strategies in fighting the former group?
We hope that the Mayor’s taking to task his father’s confidante will not really lead to the estrangement of the Senator because if that happens, the Dutertes’ rival political camp may be able to exploit to the hilt Senator Go’s isolation from his Davao links.
However, no one can deny that former President Rodrigo R. Duterte is one of the shrewdest politicians we have ever known. He knows countless ways to trick his political enemies that will eventually give him the opportunity to make his countermoves even more devastating to the persons or organizations he is at odds with.
We know the former President and Davao City Mayor for half of our lifetime.
