In Grade 3 we were grouped either by seating rows, or clusters, but more often than not by random distribution. Ms. Peña would tell each pupil what group he or she belonged. She made sure there was an equal number of boys as girls in every group, and that the stronger, bigger beefier boys were not in the same group. It didn’t take long before I understood that she was really distributing MANPOWER, going for as much balance as possible among FIVE groups. That’s because all groups have only one reason for living—the raison d’etre—and that is to clean up the room after dismissal. That’s why there are 5 groups—for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday…
Not only were we school kids EXPECTED to clean up the school as a conscripted juvenile slave labor force—and no parent complained (not even one!)—we were even supposed to bring our own cleaning implements. So it was our first awareness of the phrase “ginigisa sa sariling mantika.”
We were laborers “gratis et amore” who had to bring their own soft brooms, broomsticks, dustpans, coconut husks, wiping rags and such. Now since only one group actually needed all the cleaning tools on any given day, it made no sense to have five sets of tools. It made a lot more sense to centralize procurement. That needed some budget, which had to be raised through taxation.
It was called the “class fund” and as tiny toothy little children as we were still then, Miss Peña totally refused to hold our money. She forced us to manage everything about it—from how much each pupil must pay in “tax,” how often, to whom, what it must be spent for and how each centavo must be accounted for.
That’s why there HAD TO BE a class president, vice-president (in case the president dropped out from school), a secretary (who wrote everything on the blackboard for the teacher, and therefore had to have the most beautiful handwriting, so it was ALWAYS a girl), a treasurer who kept the money in her own purse (and must be able to resist all carnal seductions to spend, so again it was ALWAYS a girl), an auditor (who doesn’t get to hold any money but is always suspicious that the one who does cannot be trusted, so it was ALWAYS a boy), a business manager (who is the purchasing officer, the one who actually has to go to the market to buy things, so someone who knows how to cross the street PROPERLY, not in a mad suicidal dash like most boys do, so again it was usually a BIG GIRL), a public relations officer or we just say “P.R.O.” (because we really had no idea what his job was supposed to be), and finally a Sergeant-at-arms, who was basically a young human rights violator with a license to hit anybody who refuses to sit down during heated arguments among the class officers.
We learned a micro-abbreviated version of the Roberts Rules of Parliamentary Procedures—which is to say we knew FIVE SENTENCES: “The table is now open for nomination”, “I nominate this idiot” , “I second the motion”, “The table is now closed” , “All those in favor of Idiot A raise your hands.”
There was hardly any campaigning because we knew each other so well already, lying wouldn’t help much. But the bigger reason was that, basically, NOBODY wanted to be an officer. There was no pay involved and you would always be called by Miss Peña to render all kinds of verbal reporting—in English, which can be a struggle in Grade 3.
But all of that changed when suddenly Bart Serrano, a transferree from Cabanatuan proposed something radical. He gathered all of us boys and said if we would vote him President, he would raise the weekly classfund “tax” from ten to fifty-centavos!
Doing the math, with 30 pupils, that would be P15-pesos a week, or P60-pesos a month, multiplied by the ten months of the school year—we would have SIX HUNDRED PESOS in the class fund. By current Forex formula adjusted for time and inflation, that’s equivalent to P34,224.00 today! We only needed P500.00 to buy cleaning implements. What would we do with the remaining P33,723.00?
Bart said we would hold TWO big parties, one for Christmas and another one just before school went out in March. And there would be food galore! A smorgasbord of pansit, fried chicken, lumpiang shanghai, macaroni salad, two flavors of ice cream and some real cake with real icing on it and—best of all—we would lace the pineapple juice with brandy!
One of the girls, Myra Erece, heard about Bart’s plan and she gathered the girls and did their own plans, their own math, their own party scheduling, listed their own menu and—to top it off—they were going to ask Julie Monteclaro to sneak out one of her dad’s champagne bottles from home to lace the Christmas party lemonade drink!
The boys’ plans seemed dull, all of a sudden so we regrouped and started from scratch. When we came up with grander scenarios, the girls would regroup, and rework everything from the ground up! It went back and forth, from day to day and we cursed the fact that the class was split right down the middle, 15 boys versus 15 girls with no turncoats in sight.
There was no choice, there had to be recruitment from the “enemy camp” which meant drawing posters with pictures of ice cream and wine bottles cut out from magazines, “All these YOURS if you vote for BART!” and sticking it in the girls’ comfort room.
The next day, a BIGGER poster made by the girls and stuck in the boys’ comfort room promised a raffle with sumptuous prizes like a Dymo plastic labeler and a Walt Disney round colorslide viewer! “All of these waiting for you! VOTE FOR MYRA!!”
We boys looked pathetic.
It marked the end of innocence. It was a portent of things to come much later in life when politicians would promise basically the SAME THINGS scaled up a billion times—only to raise our taxes as soon as they won.
We finally held our class elections—but for the life of me I don’t remember who won!
It must be the champagne in the lemonade.
