:(

Overheard from a kid in Pateros who saw me give my ID to the guard at Pateros Elementary School: Gusto ko rin mag-aral diyan. Kaya lang wala akong pera.

I told her, di naman kelangan maraming pera para mag-aral sa UP.

But I really wasn't sure. UP charges five times less than a private school, and that's one heck of a deal, but I did have to spend here and there. Nevertheless, I wanted to reassure her that money should be the least of a ten-year-old child's problems, especially when it concerns her education. My heart was again slowly breaking, as it had hours earlier when I was reviewing the data requirements I would need for our plan, and reading the Pateros CLUP. The CLUP told very little on education. Just broad strokes, motherhood statements, but not even budget allocation for school facilities or teacher training or stuff that really mattered. I consider this an atrocity.

I suddenly didn't know to do. It's like a wall, this system that we have to face. To even push for a single program that would make students think feels like moving heaven and earth. And listening to that child made me want to get into a fight with a teacher or principal or her parents, everyone and everything, her entire world that pushes her into believeing that she can't get to where she wants to be.

Reality bites me every single day, but it doesn't hurt as much as when it comes from a child.