Graduation...and those soporific messages from the menor de politicos!

Graduation day is a very important event for the pupils and especially for the parents. There’s nothing more inspiring sight than the pupils marching solemnly to Wagner’s Aida March with their parents beside them smiling, exuding pride at their children’s achievements.

Our school's graduation features the Taytay Banda Uno playing the marches and accompanying the hymns with the high school cadets presenting the colors and escorting the guests giving the commencement exercises an aura of…hmmm…solemnity and formality. 

Perfect.

 And what could ruin an otherwise baeutiful ceremony?

Yes, yes, yes…the local politicians who love to share their “wisdom.” My gulay, after the flag ceremony, the doxology etc…there’s an opening remark from the governor represented by his wife, message from the Representative of Rizal, message from the mayor…then there’s the message from the secretary of education, division superintendent, speech by the alumni association president, supervisor, etc. Before it gets to the main speaker, the whole gymnasium is already fed up and constipated with boring, redundant and soporific messages that even though the audience is very silent, one could hear the unpronounced, fuming anathemas from bottled up  boredom. i.e. judging from the audiences’ somnambulic  and apathetic look. (Apathy is worse than hatred, so the wise say.) 

 I wonder if all these speeches are important. Or to be more to the point, are they really necessary? Or are they done for the benefit, or to smooth the feathers of the local executives and the department’s minor executives with the interest of the pupils and the parents and the teachers the least of considerations?

 Of course I understand the school officials, they don't want to commit lesse majeste and be left with budget cuts and stunted promotions by bypassing these menor de politicos et les ejecutivos de departamentos (forgive my German). Do the young minds of the pupils have the facility to understand the superficiality of all these oratories? Are the parents really interested in these?

I’m glad these children have a five minute limit to their attention span because, otherwise, they would have to digest the indigestible. These speeches are nothing but rigid formalities-banal (not holy but trite). I take exception to the main speaker’s message and challenges to the graduates, of course.  

There’s also uneasy politics when two rival politicians are invited; the tension could be felt up to the last seat in the gym. This kind of radioactivity is harmful to the children.  Spare the children...

 The prolong sitting and listening to drones induce head ache, migraine, and dysmenorrhea…not to mention making the buttocks sleep. I mean, could we not give these commencement exercises to the children, the parents and the teachers and not the politicians? Please…I'd take a clown anytime.