High Level of intollerance in Dumaguete and Lee Plaza

It has been a long time since I wanted to join Dumagueteinfo Forum and have my voice heard. I always postponed it, thinking, why do I need to post my complaints here and maybe spread negative vibes.

But finally I realized that it's important to tell and share my opinions with others so we can all learn new things and grow and improve together.

I live in the Philippines almost 19 yrs. and I have travelled all over the country and finally chosen Dumaguete 10 yrs. ago.

But now I am not satisfied about this city anymore for many reasons, one of them is the high level intolerance that I experience almost every day.

This is one of the many stories I want to tell.

Yesterday I was shopping at Lee Plaza and was going out. At the main entrance there was a Filipino couple in their 50's with a lot of boxes and bags (shopping items from Lee Plaza). The wife was sitting beside the boxes on the stairs and there was plenty of space for other people to access the entrance. The mall was not crowded at all at this time.

The guard approached the woman in a rather unfriendly manner and told the woman that she was not allowed to sit there. Looking at the woman she looked tired from the shopping and obviously with all those boxes she was just waiting for somebody to pick her up. For sure she was not planning to spend the whole day on the stairs.

But the guard insisted that the woman was not allowed to sit there.

I find this instance very annoying to a customer who has done extensive shopping, (maybe feeling tired) in the supermarket and just waiting to be picked up.

You might think, is this important, yes because there are many more episodes of intolerance at Lee Plaza and around the city, I will tell more stories in my future posts.

Note: By far the most customer unfriendly mall I have seen in 30 yrs. of travelling around the world!

 

Trust me not much most of the time.
One time i went to a public school with a Pinoy friend to pick up his little monster.. man i never (or dream of it when i was a kid) saw a place like that...
Kids running around, teacher sometimes outside of the classroom chatting with some other teachers etc etc.
It was funny to see and i guess the kids are really free but the learning must not be ideal here i guess...

 

From knowledge of students here and in the UK, the level here for a 16 year old is about that of a 10 year old in the UK. As you correctly say, the priority seems to be producing kids who can dance (even if the dance is the same one every time). Students are not given an awareness of the outside world, the ability to think, creativity, academic rigour etc., etc., etc. The whole education system needs a major overhaul, starting with putting teachers in the classroom all of their working hours - too much time is wasted by teachers wandering around, leaving the schools to go shopping and attending pointless seminars. Homework needs to test more than the ability to glue together bits of paper and card. I have met adults here who have been educated at the 'most prestigious' local private school and they have no ability to grasp simple concepts - they just think they must be smart because they went to that college. I would really like to see the country progress but I feel it is held back by lack of an educated population and, unfortunately, parents just seem to accept the situation (probably because the culture is non-confrontational and challenging teachers is something parents will not do).

 

I'd say this is a classic - an underpaid guard, enforcing the little bit of authority he or she has, by any means, without paying attention to the actual circumstances, because, well, that's all they have. Or, maybe they hate being a dick themselves, but do it anyway for fear of losing the job.

But it is right, to somehow keep an utterly undisciplined population in check, there can be no exceptions. Those who can differentiate between "its OK to sit down here because there are not many people walking into the mall currently and I'm not in the way" and "im blocking the entrance and nobody gets in and out of the mall" on their own have to suffer unfortunately.

 

Yes, I absolutely agree.