Death of a dream

It is said that there’s always 2 sides to a story but when a story involves death or in this case suicide, the easiest way to go for some is to point fingers. When emotions get the better of us, in most cases we become inclined to pass judgment on others. We view the facts distortedly, create biased assumptions, and to some extent build an air of hate and contempt. In Kristel’s passing one could only wish that there won’t be 2 suicides or another suicide to this story.

Kristel died the day she mourned what she thought was the death of her dream. It could be a fact or it could be just my biased assumption, I do not know. We may never know for sure what was going on inside her head during her last few minutes. And to say that she was too weak or that she could have been stronger had she turned to God or Faith and she might have survived would be hypocritical of us. People have different thresholds when it comes to pain or frustration, and for her, it could have been the last straw. We could go on and on about what she could have done, what she should have done, or what her family should have done to prevent her from taking her own life but that’s what I think is the wrong angle to ponder on.

UP Professor and Columnist Randy David wrote "When the poor’s access to good education is blocked by their lack of capacity to pay, education becomes yet another contributing factor in the reproduction of inequality. This is what has happened in the Philippines.  By transferring to the private sector the main responsibility for providing quality education at all levels, the government in effect reinforces the inequality that is found everywhere in our society. The resulting lack of educational qualification of the poor then becomes the warrant for their further exclusion and marginalization.  Education has to be harnessed as a means to interrupt this intergenerational transfer of inequality." So much energy has been wasted on debates about her suicide, who to blame, was it the only way out etcetera etcetera when in fact there is no one culprit that we can pin the blame on. 

I am in awe when I see articles written about her suicide that tries to dissect her death as if they're experts in psychology and sociology. Even worse are the ones that put her suicide in such a bad light just to stress on their own mightiness that they would never resort to such a thing as unforgiveable as suicide because they have God, or they know better to try other solutions. Blessed are those who have never once had a problem paying their expensive tuition. You have all the right to criticize her. 

The bigger story here is the death of a dream, that was choked and strangled by a stifling system. Today Kristel's body will finally be laid to rest. Yet I wish that her dreams would not be buried along with her  but rather may it live through the students who still carry that passion for knowledge the way she did. 

True Justice for Kristel means access to good education, true reforms, greater state subsidies to state education and that her death did so much to change our state policies towards education.