OPINYON
Marso 28-Abril 03, 2018
BFP-NCR pushes for fire safety via ‘creative’
meet
QUEZON CITY -- The Bureau
of Fire Protection-National
Capital Region (BFP-NCR)
on Thursday utilized different
contests on creativity to
drumbeat fire awareness and
safety.
With this year’s Fire
Prevention Month theme,
“Ligtas na Pilipinas ang ating
hangad, pag-iingat sa sarili
ay ipatupad,” BFP-NCR
official Chief Inspector Jessie
Calumpiano said they have
gathered the “most creative”
Metro Manila grade school
and high school students and
fire personnel who vied for top
prizes through the creative arts
such as drawing, essay, poster
making, and band battle.
Mr.
Calumpiano
said the activity center of the
Farmers Plaza mall became a
good venue to teach fire safety.
“We do understand
that conducting such event is
one way wherein the Bureau
of Fire Protection can reach
out to the public. This is what
we are showing to the public,
how important fire prevention
is. We have been celebrating
such event every year. Thank
you for the cooperation
of everybody. Thank you
to Farmers Plaza mall for
accommodating us here. We
welcome you to witness this
momentous event,” he said
in his opening remarks. The
official fill in for Regional
Director SSupt. Roel Jeremy
Diaz, who was unavailable
due to more pressing matters.
For her part, Public
Information Services chief
Senior Fire Officer I Gladdes
Arreco said their agency
has
been
encouraging
and involving students to
understand the importance of
fire safety on and off-campus
and in their everyday lives.
“Taon-taon
pong
ginagawa ng Bureau of Fire
ang ganitong pa-contest para
ma-involve po an gating
mga kabataan, ang ating mga
estudyante,” Arreco said.
Ang kalahok po dito
ay lahat ng schools all over
Metro Manila. Sa city level
nagkaroon po ng screening,
then from there, napili po
sa bawat siyudad, and then
regional meet na po ito,
regional screening, o regional
finals. Lahat po ng mga events
namin ngayon sa poster
making, essay, and battle of
the bands ay mayroon pong
cash prize na ibibgay ang
Bureau of Fire Protection to
acknowledge po ‘yung effort
ng ating mga contestant,” she
added.
The winners, who will
represent Metro Manila in the
national meet, were as follows:
Drawing
contest
(Elementary) P8,000 for top
prize
1st
Raia Athene Manalo of
Academia de Santo Rosario in
A THOUSAND MYLES
by Grace Cantal Albasin
A mother writes about
her daughter, one of the
so-called Mabinay Six–
six youths arrested in
Mabinay, Negros Oriental
and falsely accused of
being armed guerrillas.
Many of us are
lucky enough to have
been clothed, sheltered,
fed and provided by
fathers and nagged at
in worried voices by
mothers (“Where’s your
assignment for school
tomorrow?!”). We go to
good schools and get an
education and are taught
that this is the only means
to survive in the world.
And that’s true. We enter
college in the hopes of
preparing for our future,
learning a thing or
two about struggle and
struggling in four or five
years, maybe graduating
with honors, getting a
high-paying job, live our
lives. We dream of all the
luxuries in the world and
all the opportunities you
can ever have to push
yourself forward in this
predator-eats-prey world
sitting right in the palm
of your hand and all you
need to do is to close that
fist.
That’s the life
Myles
Albasin
was
brought into the world
with. Here we have a
woman whose life was
probably already written
out and planned out for
her, just waiting for her
to step her feet into.
Someone who’s laughed
and smiled with family,
ate outside at a KFC or
at high-end restaurants
with friends, cried over
small heartbreaks, and
held broken hearts where
they shouldn’t be. Here
is a woman who lived
all these and loved this
life and everyone around
her with much fervor and
passion, it seeped into
particular crevices of her
existence, waiting for
ignition.
Myles
Albasin
found herself loving
life so much, she had to
extend this love to other
people and it was in no
other form than service
to them. This staunch and
passionate student leader
and activist found herself
in countless immersions
with farmers, Lumad
communities, the urban
poor, workers, senior
citizens, women, and
many others who are
among the most oppressed
and
marginalized
of
this nation. She found
herself among the ranks
of different sectors of
the basic masses as they
formed mobilizations and
marched down the streets
of Osmeña Boulevard
with their calls that
have been chanted for
decades now. By the
time groups reach Colon
St., she would be in that
platform, microphone in
hand, fists raised in the
air, declaring, “Ang tao,
ang bayan!” to which
hordes of people would
respond with, “Ngayon
ay lumalaban!”
More than these
mobilizations,
Myles
found herself among
students and the youth
as well, passionately
explaining to many of
them and teaching them
the importance of the
youth in nation-building,
Malabon City
2nd Nica Steffany Jimenez of
Bayanan Elementary School,
Muntinlupa City
3rd
Carl Albert Lique of
Pateros Elementary School
Poster making (High School)
P8,000 cash for top prize
1st
Annbri Castro of
Manuel A, Roxas High School
in Manila
2nd
Mayshelle Janzenne
Reyes of Ramon Magsaysay
High School in Quezon City
3rd
Tesha Yumol of Makati
City High School
Essay contest (High School)
1st
Janna Louise Bravo of
Lakeview Integrated School
of Muntinlupa City
2nd
Maurinne Angeline
Guloy of Neptali A. Gonzales
High School of Mandaluyong
City
3rd
Gabriel Ryan Tamayo
Saint Andrew School of
Paranaque City
Photo
contest
(Amateur
photographers) P8,000 cash
for top prize
1st
Ricky James Arrogante
of BFP Fire District IV
2nd Leo Azores of the Office
of the Regional Director, BFP 3rd
Kent Michael Grayda
of the Office of the Regional
Director, BFP
Battle of the Band (Amateur
bands) P15,000 cash for top
prize
1st
BFP-NCR Close
Encounter Band
2nd Dreev Band
3rd
Quezon City Fire
District Band
Meanwhile,
Ms.
Arreco warned the public of
buying or using substandard
electrical
appliance
or
extension cords, as electrical
fire remains the top cause of
fire incidents in Metro Manila.
“For the last three
years ang pinakamataas na
cause ng sunog sa Metro
Manila ay (sanhi ng) electrical
fire. Ito po ‘yung short circuit
na nangyayari sanhi po ng
substandard appliances at
extension cords,” she said.
Last Wednesday, on
the eve of the observance of
Fire Prevention Month, some
1,000 persons lost their homes
in Barangay Tatalon in Quezon
City when a fire broke out due
to an unattended cellular phone
charger. (EPC/JCP/PIA-NCR)
in militantly advancing
the democratic rights of
students, and in being
more than just students
confined to the four walls
of the classroom. Going
to a good school was not
the only means for an
education for someone
like Myles. There was
learning that can only be
obtained in school but
there was also learning
that needed to be obtained
outside of it and the latter
was far greater and more
important. Myles knew
and saw this.
Myles saw the
people. She saw how
the masses suffered in
a society that was still
semi-feudal and semi-
colonial even now, in the
21st century. In her many
immersions, Myles saw
how land-grabbing kills
farmers, how land equates
to life for the Lumad. She
saw the different faces of
poverty that many of us
only mock and ridicule.
She saw how the workers
struggle to earn meager
wages just to live to
the next day and how
women are oppressed and
victimized through it all.
She
saw
the
Filipino
people
and
redefined what “struggle”
meant. It was not to
struggle four or five years
in college to graduate
with honors and get a
high-paying job. Rather,
it was to struggle with
and for the oppressed and
toiling masses, to strip
herself of her luxuries
and her opportunities and
find her feet planted in
the ground where many
others before her stood—
among the people.
She had many
opportunities that others
would want grab more
than anything. But the
feeling of the soil under
her feet filled with the life
and hope of a new nation
must have been the one
opportunity she wanted
the most. She closed in on
it and embraced it.
No one has the
right to judge her for
the path she took after
graduating. She was there
to see it all. She immersed
and found herself serving
the people and marching
alongside them, and this
has given her the resolve
to continue the struggle—
theirs and now hers.
But she is not the
first. She will certainly
not be the last. There
are plenty others like
her, those who chose to
forego their luxurious and
privileged lives in pursuit
of liberation. Soon, there
will be many others like
her as well, staunch
and militant in serving
the people, because for
as long as the Filipino
people remain oppressed,
for as long as hunger
prevails and exploitation
remains, there can be no
freedom for any of us.
The youth will
make the ground shake
and it will force the ruling
elite who have amassed
the people’s wealth for
centuries to think twice.
Dictators will tremble
and traditional politicians
will start to feel fear
trickle in their veins.
The youth, with
the same blood of vigor,
fervor, and passion that
runs in Myles Albasin,
will inevitably rise anew.