Rights and Obligations of Medical Patients
Have you paid your doctor a visit recently? If you have, do you recall having seen conspicuously posted in the clinic a large poster listing your rights and obligations as patients? As medical patients, you have 14 “medical” and “nine” societal rights. So you have 24 rights all together. Your first right is, right to good health care and human treatment.
You, too, have obligations, don’t you ever forget. Your first obligation is, “know your rights.” Do you realize that knowing one’s rights as medical patient is extremely important that it’s the first obligation one must abide by?
Or, should the question be, “do you visit your doctor at all?” You’ll get a first hand experience of the consequences of not visiting your doctor regularly when you grow older, if you get there.
Physically sick or not, your second obligation should be, “see your doctor now.” And the third should be: “next time you visit your doctor, look for the list of your rights and obligations as medical patient.” Copy the list so you can bring it wherever you go.
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Are GSIS People More Patriotic Now?
GSIS members living in Laguna must have visited the GSIS Center in Pagsanjan, Laguna. Beautiful structure, I must say. I was there last week to swipe my e-Card. The G-WASP kiosk at UPLB has not been working the last year or so, and Pagsanjan is the option.
I got there rather early, about 7:45 am, and there were already people, mostly standing and moving around in the lobby. A couple of individuals were swiping their cards, so I joined the queque. Before I could swipe my card, however, the public address system blared the Philippine National Anthem. So I had to stand at attention, facing the flag pole outside the building where a security officer was raising the flag. After the national anthem, came the recitation of the “Pledge of Allegiance to the Filipino Flag,” something I used to know by heart when I was in elementary school. I have forgotten some of it now.
When the ceremony was over, everybody rushed to their respective stations and began entertaining visitors who had businesses with the GSIS.
I don’t know if this is the standard practice now in all GSIS branches throughout the country, but if it is, then it’s a good practice. I wonder, however, if the flag raising ceremony at the GSIS in Pagsanjan is a daily routine. I know that flag ceremonies were used to be held on Monday mornings and Friday afternoons, at the beginning and end of the work-week.
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“Road Barricade”
One practice that I don’t appreciate is when people, including students, stretch ropes across national roads to stop motorists and ask for donations for activities that are not related to the interests of motorists. Last Sunday, when Jegs and I were driving to Lipa City, through Barangay Masaya in Bay, we were being stopped by students of the Masaya Elementary School with a rope stretching across the road with the poster, “a Project of the Student Government.” This shouldn’t be done for two reasons: one, it’s dangerous to traffic; and two, you don’t simply ask for donations or even alms just like that.
As things are, motorists are already heavily taxed in this country. The cost of petrol, which is higher in this country compared to anywhere else in the world, is unbelievably very high. And there seems to be no end to the increasing cost of petrol that motorists just have to bear.
In any case, I wonder if stopping motorists on the road for alms is what public school teachers teach children in elementary schools. This is not “good character and right conduct” which public schools are supposed to promote and teach.
So, since Jegs was driving I simply suggested, “your flasher” to signal the kids that we’re not going to give up a single centavo for such stupid and illegal project. Youth organizations in various Barangays do this, too. Even older individuals do this in a different way, like they stand along a railroad crossing holding a shovel on one hand and a plastic cup on the other. When a vehicle passes by, the individual simply offers the cup where the motorist could drop coins, if he wishes to.
Frequently, the individual who does this has no money for alcoholic drink, so he has to pretend he was being helpful by filling pot holes with earth. Absolutely stupid. He doesn’t do what he seems to be saying he’s doing, i.e., filling pot holes with earth, or something to that effect. Further, he has no business being there not being a laborer of the railroad company. Finally, he’s asking you to give him drinking money, for no reason at all. That’s highway robbery, pure and simple. That’s also clear demonstration of one being absolutely lazy and discourteous at best. Why should it be the responsibility of motorists to give him alcohol money?
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Improving Service at LTO Provincial Branches
I visited the LTO Branch Office in Pila, Laguna yesterday to renew my driver’s license. The system at the Pila LTO Office seems efficient and effective. I got there about 7:45 am and an LTO staff was already entertaining early birds. I joined the queque and was instructed to go for medical exam and drug test. After the standard physical exam (i.e., test for vision, physical appearance, and physical disabilities) I was instructed to go to the urine lab after having Xeroxed my medical exam report. From the urine lab, I returned to the queque at LTO, where I was assigned another number and my papers labeled “Senior” before I was directed to Window 3 to submit said papers. I was told to wait since my name would be called.
After some time, probably about 20 minutes, my name was called at window 1, where my picture was taken. Then I was told to proceed to window 5 and wait for my name to be called so I could pay my fees. This was a long wait, possibly a couple of hours, because all applicants converge at the Cashier’s window and there was only one cashsier. When my name was finally called I paid my fees. Then I was instructed to proceed to Window 4 and wait for my name to be called. This was about 30 minutes waiting time. To make a long story short, I got my OR and my new Driver’s License in four hours.
This could have been just a couple of hours had I decided to renew my Driver’s License electronically in Metro-Manila or at the Alabang Town Center, but I was already used to the Pila system. In the past, this could have taken me a whole day, with the help of fixers. This time around, without the help of fixers, I was able to get my driver’s license in four hours, plus the good experience of having to go through the process.
While waiting for my name to be called, I sat on the bench nearest the service windows. This bench was labeled (at the back) “Seniors, Handicapped, Pregnant Women.” While seated on this bench (I had to squeeze myself into position), at least for a couple of times a staff of LTO had to announce in Filipino, “to those seating on the front bench reserved for Seniors, kindly vacate your seat. Don’t worry, you’ll be Seniors someday.” Well, those seated on said bench were in their early twenties.
At this point, I must compliment the LTO staff. They were all trying to be pleasant, in spite of some unreasonable people in the crowd, like that foreigner who was scolding his son so loudly that most people could hear him (in my youth I could have given him a good upper cut). He was probably trying to call some attention because he was foreigner. Or perhaps he was simply venting his frustrations to his son about the long wait. Quite a number of people were visibly irked by such behavior. Those kinds of people do not last long.
The LTO people were trying to smile at everybody. They were gracious and respectful. The problem was that there were individuals who simply couldn’t wait for their turn and had to squeeze others out of queque. Fortunately, LTO officials were watchful of these antics, and were quick to correct the error.
While at LTO in Pila, I got an opportunity to talk to people and learned that in the last couple of years there have been an abrupt increase in the number of people applying for driver’s licenses. An old friend who happened to be at LTO Pila while I was there told me that there were very many applying for new driver’s licenses. And this happens everyday, he says. He said that this could be an indication that more and more people would probably be going into tricycle driving since they are unable to find regular jobs.
And while we’re on the topic of tricycle driving, did you know that in Metro-Manila last year (2010) the total number of road accidents was 380 and that 33.75% (about 128) of these road accidents involved motorcycles? If we go by this ratio, extrapolated to the national level, there were 14,847 vehicular accidents in the country for a period of 10 months (January to October) in 2010 as reported by the PNP Highway Patrol Group, more than 5,000 must have involved motorcycles. That’s not hard to believe, given the recklessness level of both motorcycle and tricycle drivers, which, to me, is phenomenal, to say the least.
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Trends in Education
According to CHED, more than 2.5 million will enroll in various colleges and universities this school year. Last year, a slightly lower number enrolled. CHED also estimates that about half of all high school graduates will not enroll in college because of financial reasons. DepEd reported that more than one million graduated from high school last year and should be enrolling in college this school year. However, half may be enrolling in vocational courses, while others might already have entered the labor market.
CHED data indicate that the top five academic areas most preferred by students this school year are: business administration and related fields (about 640,000), medical and allied sciences (almost 421,000), education and teacher training (about 375,000), engineering and technology (more than 325,000), and information technology (more than 327,000). Now, when these people complete their studies in four years time, would the jobs be there?
Another trend, this time reported by DepEd, is a bit scary. The DepEd reported that the performance of high school students and graduates in the NAT has been declining the past years, say, from 2005 to 2010. The HS mean percentage score (MPS) of 49.26% in 2007-2009 went down to 47.4% in 2008-2009, and down further to 46.3% in 2009-2010. With such performance in the National Achievement Test, these individuals will certainly perform very badly in college.
Unfortunately, raising the standards of education in the country doesn’t seem to be a significant priority of government today. That’s my own personal feeling, but I’d be extremely glad to be proven wrong.
And by the way, we should expect more Filipinos born to poor families that can’t afford to provide proper nutrition to ensure mental preparedness for school. Some sectors of Philippine society are doing all they can to prevent the RH Bill from getting approved. Such RH Law could help improve mental conditions of children, and consequently result in better education, but that doesn’t seem to be appreciated by some quarters.
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University Rankings, Anyone?
According to the QS World University Rankings, UP, which is ranked first in the country, is ranked 62 compared to other universities in other countries. Ateneo is ranked 68, UST is ranked 104, and DLSU is ranked 107.
I do have reservations about rankings of universities. The criteria are not clear and often the organization that does the rankings base its rankings on obsolete information. When I was Chancellor of UPOU, the UP System questioned the methodology employed by the organization making the rankings. When informed that UP was not participating in the survey in 2005, the organization that was doing the rankings still included UP in its rankings, but based the rank on old and incomplete information about UP. UP was still ranked first in the country and 64th internationally. So, when UP decided not to participate, it was still ranked but had to be given lower rank.
The UP administration tried to search for information related to the ranking project and found that the organization responsible for doing the ranking was actually doing it for business purposes. An increasing number of international students refer to these rankings in their choices of universities to attend. Then, of course, the publisher was getting advertisements in the book which carried the rankings. At least one of the four Philippine universities included in the rankings (not UP) advertised in said publication.
Still, the declining ranks of Philippine universities is alarming, at the very least. There’s a trick here, somewhere. Our universities must have access to funding for their academic programs, increase funds for research and publications, increase the number of faculty members with advanced academic degrees (like PhD), and increase drastically the number of foreign students enrolled. These four items appear to be significant items in the survey for university rankings.
Net effect? Philippine universities are automatically disenfranchised in the World Rankings of Universities. Why? Funding for public universities can hardly be increased, and any increase in expenses incurred by private universities would certainly be translated into increased school fees. Net losers: students. One should note that those universities with high ranks are universities who’ve been spending huge budgets to improve their programs and facilities, including huge salaries of faculty members, as well as advertising.
Talking about faculty salaries, the last time I checked (which was about 10 years ago) an Associate Professor at National Singapore University was getting annually about Singapore Dollars 105,000, which translated to something like P1.96M. Today, that same amount in Singapore Dollars would amount to something like P2.64M. How much does an Associate Professor get today at UP? About one-fourth of what one would get at NUS.
I can only say, Filipino professors just grin and bear it due to “patriotism.” Tsk, tsk, tsk. Such sweet lemoning!!!
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