Men in Camouflage

The sightings I’ve had of men in camouflage uniforms have been increasing in the past few weeks. Almost every day I see them in sidewalks at random places—with firearms in tow –when I report for work in the morning. When I go home at night, I still see them in the sidewalk, but with their firearms laid aside as they pass around a glass of rum or extra strong beer and proceed to drink the night away.

Sometimes they’ll flag down a jeepney or a cargo truck, talk to the driver, and proceed to “inspect” the contents of the vehicle. I’ve seen them do this regularly, and whenever I drive home and pass by a group of these men, I feel the pearls of my manhood stuck in my throat. I dread the thought of being flagged down by a man in camouflage, especially an intoxicated man in camouflage wielding an M16 rifle. It’s not that I have something to hide. It’s not that I’m concealing a pistol, a grenade, or maybe a few grams of crystal meth or shabu in the trunk or the backseat of my car. It’s the fear that they WILL find a pistol, a grenade, or a few grams of crystal meth or shabu in the trunk or backseat of my car where there was none.

I don’t know what these military men are doing loitering around day and night in the sidewalks of the metropolis. I’ve always thought that they were confined to the hilly and mountainous provincial areas, places where human rights violations and random killings of civilians are at a high.

The militarization of the countryside is alarming; the militarization of the metropolis is doubly distressing. The sight of armed men patrolling the streets, no, getting drunk and patrolling the streets does not evoke a feeling of security, it evokes a feeling of alarm. It stirs up an unmistakable feeling of creeping martial law.
What’s ironic is that in the mornings, amid these ominous-looking men in camouflage with firearms in tow, I see elementary schoolchildren scuttling to get to class. Immediately you would be able to distinguish those children who go to the public schools and those children who go to private ones or exclusive schools. Public school children walk to school shod in worn rubber slippers and clad in old, faded clothes; private school children ride air-conditioned taxi cabs, cars, SUVs or school buses to school and look pristine in their pressed uniforms. In the evenings when these men in camouflage had laid aside their armalites and bid adieu to sobriety courtesy of several tagays of Tanduay Rum or Red Horse beer, I see High School students trudging their way to the classrooms of Night High Schools, that, during the day, served as the classrooms of elementary schoolchildren.

Here we see the travesty of it all. Every school year we hear the usual problems like lack of classrooms, teacher shortage, crowded classrooms, underpaid teachers, substandard teaching materials, and a very high student to teacher ratio, etc. Every year there are reports that public school students do poorly in diagnostic and achievement exams, and we wonder why.

Taxpayers wonder where their hard-earned money goes. We can plainly see that it doesn’t go to education. If it did, there wouldn’t be a huge classroom shortage at all. I even remember Gloria Macapal-Arroyo publicly scolding a Department of Education officer for reporting about the lack of public school classrooms in the country. GMA claimed that there wouldn’t be a shortage of classrooms if a shifting scheme would be employed. A shifting scheme would involve having a session of classes in the morning and another in the afternoon. This means less time for students’ lessons. I wonder if GMA wouldn’t mind sending her grandchildren to a public school.

I’m a taxpayer and I say that the government should allocate more money for the kids’ education rather than fritter away my hard-earned money on camouflage uniforms, rifles, bullets, and Tanduay Rum or Red Horse beer.

(Originally posted on October 24, 2006)