Part I of a Series Called “The ReVOTElution of Hope for Sorsogon”

T here is a proposed pilot project for the ReVOTElution for the youth and elders of Sorsogon, as the province has been selected as its testing ground. In 8 years (2019 to 2027), the ReVOTElution of Hope – as spearheaded by a coalition of Sorsoganons, Overseas Filipinos (OF) and Overseas-Filipino workers (OFW) – intends to make Sorsogon Province the center of education and related fields in Bicolandia and adjacent regions, if not in the entire country. The local movement (for the pilot province) is called the “Bungkaras for a Better Sorsogon".

The ReVOTElution proponents are paraphrasing a dictum of the late President Ramon Magsaysay, who said “He who has less in life should have more in law.” The founding fathers (and mothers) of the ReVOTElution say “He (she) who has less in life should have more in guaranteed educational opportunities.”

The ReVOTElution will guarantee that the youth – whether they are native sons or daughters of Sorsogon or of immigrants or children of workers or even scions of Overseas Filipinos – will be able to finish college if they have the right mentality and ability. It is the right of the youth to an education and a coalition of government-and-private entities should have the supreme duty of guarantying that basic-and-fundamental right. 

Editor’s Note: To read the other articles of this series, please go to:

How the ReVOTElution Will “Reinvent” Education and Life in Sorsogon

A Sorsoganon OFW Appears to Be a Bigger Hero than Manny Pacquiao: How the ReVOTElution Will Protect OFWs and their History (Part II)

A Bigger Danger than an Eruption Lurks in Bulusan Volcano

 (Part III)

It is suggested that the people of Sorsogon Province consider this Education Proposal as the centerpiece of REAL socioeconomic platforms and programs of provincial government. Essentially the proposal will consist of the following innovative steps:

1.0         As a first step, the ReVOTElution proposes the adoption of a system patterned after the “California State University” in which all the public and private institutions of learning will be invited to be part of a province-wide series of campuses under a new “Ibalon University of the Philippines” (I-UP, pronounced exactly as “I up,” short for “I am going up even in the quality-of-life ladder”). “Ibalon” was the name of Southern Albay and Sorsogon during the pre-Hispanic era. The “I-UP” will be provided with the state-of-the-art tools – from computers to laboratories, libraries, sports-and-dormitory facilities, the works – and how they will be funded is discussed in paragraph 4.0.

1.1         The I-UP system will also adopt the “School District” system of the United States wherein all the voters will elect the members of the local School Boards, which will become partners of the provincial government in running it.

1.2         It is proposed also that the school calendar follow that of the United States and other developed countries, where school year begins in September. Why? June, the traditional Filipino school-opening month, is part of the rainy season. Besides, adopting September to open the school calendar will facilitate transfers of Overseas-Filipino and other foreign students to and from the I-UP system.

1.3  Schools in Sorsogon -- beginning with parochial schools, private high schools and colleges -- will be encouraged to teach a Bahasa Bisaya version of the Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Melayo, aside from foreign languages like Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese and Arabic. Command of the native languages of the targeted countries from which tens of millions is a must thing to do, if we want to attact potential tourists for the coming proposed tourist attractions in the Province of Sorsogon and adjacent provinces.

2.0         The provincial government will initiate the formation of a quasi-government entity called the “Provincial Student-Loan Fund System (PSLFS),” which is patterned after the “Study Now, Pay Later” project of the Pearl S. Buck Foundation of Pennsylvania, U.S.A. Instead of scholarships, loans to the students will be made available, so that the PSLFS will be replenished by the graduates’ repayments and voluntary contributions in lieu of interest. I have invited Apo Ernesto Gange and Richard Rillera the first two Filipino-American members of the PSBF Board of Trustees to serve as our consultants.

2.1         The retraining as well as the salaries of teachers and other school-system employees will be raised, so as to be higher than those being received by the faculty members of the leading schools in Metro Manila. Teachers will be paid decently, if the goal is to surpass the standards of the best educational institutions in the nation’s capital.

2.2         The funding mechanism of all the new systems and other proposals is discussed in paragraph 4.0.

The ReVOTElution – as spearheaded by a Bungkaras for a Better Sorsogon Coalition – intends to make in 8 years Sorsogon Province the center of education and related fields in Bicolandia and adjacent regions, if not in the entire country.

3.0         Special New Learning and Affiliated Institutions. It is proposed that on July 1, 2019, the following institutions be launched:

3.1         A “Southern Naval Academy,” so as to train the Filipino youth who want to have a career in the Navy or the Merchant Marine. The Philippines is an archipelago and so far, there is no naval academy in the country. More details for this “SNA” project are found in paragraphs 2.0 and 2.1 of this article, Reinventing the Philippine Military (Part Two)

3.2         A school of journalism, literature and mass communications, where orphans of slain journalists will be provided ample opportunities to be trained, so that they could replace their deceased parents or kin and help protect and promote the Fourth Estate.

3.2.1           This school will be located in a planned new Media City, which will offer to house the broadcast facilities of all radio and TV stations in the province. A separate article will be published to provide more details about this Media City, which will be the headquarters of a viable Alternative Press, which will also deal in book printing, manufacture of e-books, sponsorship of book festivals, book clubs and other related activities.

3.2.2.  Perhaps the proposed school of journalism can be a component of what this writer has proposed in other discussion -- the formation of a FAME Academy. FAME is the acronym of Film, Arts, Media and Entertainment, which can become an Academy.

3.3         To fulfill the need for computers –both hardware and software – and other electronic equipment from automated teller machines (ATM) to computerized cash registers, the provincial government will form a consortium that will run a high-tech college, provide participating students in the I-UP system with their own laptops, computers for offices and homes and do a “Wireless Revolution,” aside from manufacturing or assembling in the province such required state-of-the-art computers and other needed equipment.

3.3.1           To read background materials on this project, please read this article: The OF-led “ReVOTElution” Will Also Launch a “Wireless Revolution”

3.4         A Medical Center, which is defined as an institution that has a school of medicine (and nursing), a hospital and research facilities.

3.4.1           For Sorsogon Province to become the Mecca of Medicine in the country, all the public-and-private hospitals, clinics and pharmacies will be invited to join a quasi-government consortium that will launch a national Health-Maintenance Organization (HMO) that will guarantee to all people and workers in Sorsogon access to affordable primary-care (preventive-medicine) benefits.

3.4.2           Additional details about this proposed HMO operations can be read in these articles:

The Philippines: A Land of "Mona Lisas"

Reinventing the American Healthcare Industry

Reinventing the American Healthcare Industry (Part II)

The ReVOTElution will turn the Sorsogon provincial government and the economy into viable enterprises of the people, by the people and for the people, who will become not mere citizens but also stakeholders of the various socioeconomic ventures.

3.5         A “Research and Development Institute (R&DI)” that will tap the scientific minds of the Filipino people and the Overseas Filipinos and the OFWs for certain particular tasks.

3.5.1           The R&DI will have an “Abaca International Development and Research Institute (AIDRI),” so that Sorsogon Province can be really the “abaca capital of the world.”

3.5.2           It will also have a “Pili-nut Research Institute (PRI),” so that Sorsogon Province can indeed be the pili-nut (Canarium ovatum) capital of the world.

3.5.3           The R&DI will also do research and establish courses in aquaculture, sea-weed farming and other fields, so that Sorsogon can become the Philippine center of research in areas like botany, manufacture of generic drugs, natural medicine and herbal products. Sorsogon will also introduce engineering courses (aeronautical, agricultural, bio-chemical, ceramics, civil, computer, electrical, environmental, mechanical, railway, social, waste-management and other engineering fields) to support its R&D program. Every engineering student will be required to have both a major-and-minor fields of concentration in engineering. It will have also specialized courses and seminars in reforestation, broadband technology/wireless research, climate change, etc., as continuing studies.

4.0         Funding the Various Innovations and Social Experiments.

4.1         Please read Funding the Filipino Empowerment Fight to be able to decipher how all of the above-mentioned innovations and projects can be financed.

4.2         For more details on additional funding, the master plan and proposals, please read:

Funding Reforestation as a Solution to Global Warming (Part6)

An Executive Summary of the Filipino Version of "The Manhattan Project" (Part7)

Master-planning the Filipino "The Manhattan Project" (Part8)

5.0         Other Targets.

5.1         The ReVOTElution will exhaust all methods and diplomatic avenues in filling up a good percentage of the nursing needs of some developed countries and the United States, where more-than 1.0-million nurses will be needed by 2020. A separate article will be published in this regard, as it will propose how Filipino maids in the Middle East can be trained into nurses or nurse-aides and employed in the United States and other developed countries and earn at least $400 per week, instead of per month as they are now being paid in the Middle East.

5.1.1           Here is a report by Ms. Elsa Bayani, RN, who has been invited to join the Planning Group for the Sorsogon-based HMO: A Partial History of Filipino Nurses in Europe (and in Arkansas, too)

5.2         The ReVOTElution will provide trained teachers for school districts in the United States, as explained in this article, The “Thomasite” Teachers Are Indeed Back in America

5.3         To safeguard the Sorsoganon and Filipino professionals who want to work abroad, the ReVOTElution will organize with the Sorsogon provincial government a placement agency that will not charge any fee to the prospective OFWs. The OFWs, however, will be encouraged not only to repay their student loans but also donate from their expected more-than modest income to the loan-fund itself and other social-services entities.

6.0         Manpower and Conclusions.

6.1         There is nothing really impossible in life, if the people will generate the right political will.

6.2         The ReVOTElution founding fathers (and mothers) will field Sorsoganons, Overseas Sorsoganons, Overseas Filipinos, OFWs, foreign investors and partners to complete the feasibility plans, environmental-impact studies, launch the projects and staff the various positions needed.

6.2.1           We will be able to assemble in less-than five years a coalition of the willing consisting of more-than one-million people composed of stakeholders, technocrats, investors, educators, medical practitioners, whiz kids, workers and partners. There is no room for failure, as the ReVOTElution will turn the Sorsogon provincial government and the economy into viable enterprises of the people, by the people and for the people, who will become not mere citizens but also stakeholders of the various socioeconomic ventures.

6.3         The ReVOTElution intends to turn Sorsogon in 8 years (2019 to 2027) from the Bicol Region’s poorest province on a per-capita basis to one of the richest provinces in the entire country. With the right political and socioeconomic leadership, the people of Sorsogon can reach their full potential in a matter of 8 years or even earlier. And as General Patton said, “No guts, no glory.” Quo vadis, Sorsoganon?

(To be continued . . .)

E

ditor’s Note: To read the other articles of this series, please go to:

How the ReVOTElution Will “Reinvent” Education and Life in Sorsogon

A Sorsoganon OFW Appears to Be a Bigger Hero than Manny Pacquiao: How the ReVOTElution Will Protect OFWs and their History (Part II)

A Bigger Danger than an Eruption Lurks in Bulusan Volcano

 (Part III)