What is an Educated Filipino? protection of the State itself.
Our modern public school
Francisco Benitez
( An Excerpt)
Great changes have taken place in the nature of our
social life during the last forty years. The contact with the
Americans and their civilization has modified many of
our old customs, traditions and practices, some for the
worse and many for thE better. The means of
communication have improved and therefore better
understanding exists among the different sections of our
country. Religious freedom has developed religious
tolerance in our people. The growth of public schools
and establishment of democratic institutions have
developed our national consciousness both in strength
and in solidarity. With this growth in national
consciousness and national spirit among our people, we
witness the corresponding rise of a new conception in
education- the training of an individual for the duties and
privileges of citizenship, not only for his own happiness
and efficiency but also for national service and welfare.
In the old days, education was a matter of private
concern; now it is a public function, and the State not
only has the duty but it has the right as well to educate
every member of the community- the old as well as the
young, women as well as men- not only for the good of
the individual but also for the self – preservation and self
system has been established as a safeguard against the
shortcomings and dangers of the democratic
government and democratic institutions.
Why Sinigang?
By Doreen G. Fernandez
Rather than the overworked adobo ( so identified as
the Philippine stew in foreign cookbooks), sinigang
seems to me the dish most representative of Filipino
taste. We like the lightly boiled, the slightly soured, the
dish that includes fish (or shrimp or meat)vegetables and
broth. It is adaptable to all tastes ( if you don’t like
shrimp, then bangus,
or pork), to all classes and budgets, (even ayungin, in
humble little piles, find their way into the pot), and to
seasons and availability (walang talong, mahal ang gabi,
kangkong na lang).
But why? Why does sinigang find its way to bare dulang,
to formica-topped restaurant booth, to gleaming
ilustrado table? Why does one like anything at all? How
is a people’s taste shaped?
But still, why soured? Aside from the fact that sour
broths are cooling in hot weather, could it be perhaps
because the dish is meant to be eaten against the mild
background of rice? Easy to plant and harvest, and
allowing more than one crop a year, rice is ubiquitous on
the landscape. One can picture our ancestors settling
down beside their rivers and
finally tuning to the cultivation of fields, with rice as one
of the first steady crops.
 The Story of the Aged Mother upward towards the high bare summit of what is known as
Obatsuyama, the mountain of the “abandoning of aged”.
A Japanese Folktale

Long, long ago there lived at the foot of the mountain a poor
farmer and his aged, widowed mother. They owned a bit of
land which supplied them with food, and their humble were
peaceful and happy. Shinano was governed by a despotic
leader who though a warrior,
had a great and cowardly shrinking from anything suggestive
of failing health and strength. This caused him to send out a
cruel proclamation. The entire province was given strict
orders to immediately put to death all aged people. Those
were barbarous days, and the custom of abandoning old
people to die was not common. The poor farmer loved his
aged mother with tender reverence, and the order filled his
heart with sorrow. But no one ever thought a second time
about obeying the mandate of the governor, so with many
deep hopeless sighs, the youth prepared for what at that time
was considered the kindest mode of death.
Just at sundown, when his day’s work was ended, he took a
quantity of unwhitened rice which is principal food for poor,
cooked and dried it, and tying it in a square cloth, swung and
bundle around his neck along with a gourd filled with cool,
sweet water. Then he lifted his helpless old mother to his
back and stated on his painful journey up the mountain. The
road was long and steep; the narrowed road was crossed
and recrossed by many paths made by the hunters and
woodcutters. In some place, they mingled in a confused
puzzled, but he gave no heed. One path or another, it
mattered not. On he went, climbing blindly upward – ever