A bill had been recently filed in the House of Representatives that aims 'to make better writers.' (View the complete news story here.) It had been filed by a certain Cong. Narciso Santiago III of the partylist group Alliance for Rural Concerns. He felt the need to file such bill because it had become easier for us to share our thoughts over the internet (like my blog and yours too) so it is a must that we could communicate well with the rest of the world.
Well, I must agree that we all need better training when it comes to writing. Even I believes that I badly need to improve my writing skills. I bet that you had seen a blog or website by a fellow Filipino that is really poorly written. (Maybe that one is my blog.. :D)
But I guess it would be better if we would first encourage our students to love reading. There is no better way to learn writing than to read books or any other literary works. Just look at how our great Filipino writers had started. Even some of our greatest heroes had first loved to read a book before they had written their own. Sadly, we are not a 'reading' nation and that should be changed.
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One thing that caught my attention is the person who filed the bill. He is the representative of a partylist group that represents the concerns of the rural population. I think there are other pressing concerns of the rural folk than the need for them to write better. I thought these partylist representatives are representing the marginalized sector of our society. (Actually, some of them does not even truly represent a genuine marginalized sector.)
I think he should first address the needs of the rural populace like electricity, better farm to market roads and the modernization agriculture which is their main source of livelihood. Well, just maybe, he does not really know what is happening in our countryside that he could come up with this kind of bill that his constituents wouldn't benefit from.
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Aside from that, we have to address other much important problems of our educational system which is basicaly the lack of everything else that our school children needs. In fact, we don't need to have a 'novelty' bill like this so that we could have better writers. We could produce the best writers if we could only address these problems.
I just hope that they had not filed this bill for filing's sake and so that they could add them up to their list of 'achievements' in the forthcoming 2010 election. I do really hope they know what they are doing.
Photo taken from here.
Excellent blog, bro. Thinking of writing about this myself. :)
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid, I really don't want to read books and stuff 'cause I really find it so boring. But since a friend of mine's a bookworm, yeah, I was encouraged by her to appreciate books. :)
ReplyDeleteTo have better writers we need better teachers, more parent involvement, better participation from our community, and most of all, our goverment must strongly support and back this up.
ReplyDeleteRe chikletz:
ReplyDeleteBut I guess, it is not as urgent as our dire need for better basic educational facilities like classrooms and books. :) Producing better writers would eventually come as we have addressed the most basic needs of our educational system. :)
oh, right, right. I agree wholeheartedly with you. Reading is the number one way to improve writing :)
ReplyDeleteBefore they can even push for better writers, the government should first push for better quality of education. How can the students become good writers when they can't even learn the proper way? Really, the status of public schools have been terrible, and the students are suffering because of that. :(
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