Ka-Cheapan sa DepEd

It’s not every day that the public have anything against DepEd – the venerable Department of Education. But for its own teachers, it might not be the case. For more than a decade now, they are required to buy cheap polyester (that is recycled plastic turned into fabric) from whoever is the untouchable over there for their set of uniforms, yearly.

Cheap, and recycled polyester, a better version of the “gina” fabric used for bag or gown lining, which technology was skilfully mastered in Japan, is basically used for payong, or Rihanna’s umberrrrella, shower curtains, bags, rug, and many others. Technically, it is harmful to be used as human clothing especially when you have to be in it for two hours or more. It is used as disposable or one-time costume or sports uniforms, but as I said, if you have to endure only the un-breathable fabric for a limited few hours in a tropical climate like ours where majority of the year, people get sweaty even with 24-hour electric fans.

It is a given that public school classrooms hardly are equipped with electric fans. So, what do you expect when our underpaid teachers are made to wear polyester year-round? OK, 10 months a year? Fortunately, the geniuses at DepEd have an answer: a roving tuberculosis clinic that checks-up the teachers also, yearly. To whom payments are made or how much the payments are worth, is of course another matter of contention. But the heck, there must be a budget that needs to be consumed, yearly.

Anyway, so, yes, I have been pissed off by this “polyester uniform” of our teachers, as I said, for more than a decade now. But recently, the last strand of the frayed straw gave in. It must be the dressmaker, or the cheapanggas of DepEd have gone way, too low they are now technically spitting the Filipino taxpayer on the face. These photos will tell you.

 

But if you are from DepEd and you don’t get it, then, you now qualify as a DepEd genius. Seriously? They took the trouble to include a design on these umbrellas with a map of the Philippines, inside out. It must be the dress maker. Darn. But she’s been my dressmaker for more than a decade, now, too.