The Vandals

by Gumamela Celes C. Bejarin

 Boy ♥s Girl. Si Girl ay… Pls. Txt me. My no. is …

We often see writings like the ones above on several (if not on many) public properties and places. We see those writings in the public restrooms, on the posts of street lights, on the desks or tables, arm rests and chairs in public schools, on our books in the library, and even on our paper bills.

Vandalism of public properties may not be a problem as big as poverty, but it is related to poverty and may contribute to it.

How can the next students in public schools get the most out of their textbooks if their books are marked with pentel pen from page to page and if some of the pages are already torn? How can they concentrate on the lesson if they are distracted by the writings on their desks (like, “Ang boring magturo ng teacher di ba? And “Ang nagbabasa nito ay pangit.”)? Their teacher would only wonder why the students seem to be smiling on their seats. If we would go deeper on this, it would lead us to why the students have low class participation and performance, which would then be the reason for their failure.

Aside from affecting the students’ performance in class, vandalism also incurs a big cost to our government that could affect us citizens later on. Instead of allocating a part of the DepEd’s budget for the purchase of computers that could be used by the students and for the construction of other necessary school facilities like a science laboratory, clinic, gymnasium, or another classroom, the budget will be spent for the repair and/or repainting of the rest rooms, chairs, tables, and walls. Instead of purchasing new educational resources like informational CDs or DVDs, the DepEd would have to buy the same textbooks that must be replaced.

Don’t you know that the government has allocated P7 –billion to the DepEd for the construction and repair of classrooms nationwide? It is big amount. In fact, “the DepEd budget was increased by P32.3 billion to P207.3 billion—the largest increase it has had in more than a decade—to fund the construction of classrooms, hiring of teachers, purchase of textbooks and other activities” (pcdspo.gov.ph).

There are still other problems that result because of vandalism. My former teacher told me that one of her students before have written an article about the effects of vandalism to a person. I have not read the article nor heard the whole story, but I guess, the following are some of the points she presented. Vandalism affects a person emotionally and morally, because of it can degrade a person. We might have read something written, especially in the restrooms, telling us the negative things about a particular person. What makes it worse is that those negative things include sexually perverse, vulgar, and foul words matched with drawings representing the genitals. Along with those writings are the full names of people. I could only imagine how it hurts to see your name on that. It is very embarrassing. It is somehow a form of public humiliation.

Another point is that these writings are also present in the restrooms of public elementary and high schools, where there are supposed to be young and innocent minds.

Who should we blame? Who are the vandals?

I remember my teacher in Economics say that there is a tendency for most people to abuse the resources, if they are provided for free.

The vandals are those people who are selfish. They are the people who don’t have a sense of responsibility. Probably, they are the people who are very bored with their lives that they can do nothing but vandalize or destroy our common but important resources. Yes, they are free, but there are costs if these resources or facilities are abused.

We know who the vandals are, and we may have been one of them. Realizing the effects of vandalism mentioned above, I wonder if the students who have new desks and textbooks will be hesitant of vandalizing the new gifts of our government.

Boy ♥s Girl. Si Girl ay… Pls. Txt me. My no. is …

Instead of being vandals, they could become artists, poets, or writers. Why couldn’t they write these on the right piece of paper and write a literary piece out of it?

I am hoping not to see more of those writings on the wrong places. Also, I am hoping that the vandals will no longer be vandals.