the news about the gunning in virginia tech brought back what my 2nd year high school peace ed teacher said in our first meeting.. i'm not sure about the exact words, but this is the idea: "the terrorists today all have gone through your age, and maybe if we start teaching people your age about peace, then we won't have the same problems in the future." obviously, that statement stuck to me. everytime i heard of terrorist attacks, heinous crimes, i try to visualize offenders as teenagers and wondered how they were when they were my age. then, this morning, a report in the newspaper discussed about "the profile of a gunman" or something to that effect, and the people who knew the gunman, Cho Seung Hi, a 23 year old korean, talked about what they knew about him. they said he was withdrawn, and they only knew him through his projects in his classes. he was an english major and when they were asked to make scripts for plays, his always involved killings and morbid scenes. one student said that when he heard of the incident, his first thoughts of who did it immediately were of Cho Seung Hi, because of what he knew about him through his works. then i again thought of a teenage Cho Seung, who had to go through highschool.

where did things go wrong? was it about his parents' way of treating him or was it about school or other factors? i don't really know. i wish i do, though. or i wish someone does, so that it can be fixed and there would be less of those incidents in the future. what i am quite sure about is the influence that education can have in a certain person's way of thinking.

going back to my peace education class, i think our batch was the first to have it in our curriculum. i felt excited and thought greatly of the subject, because it really had a big potential to influence students positively. its objective was clear, educate students about peace so that they won't turn to violence when they grow old. too bad, though, all we did was study about how many tons of toxic chemicals were leaked to the seas. i acknowledge the importance of knowing the figures, but not to the extent that all we ever did was memorize those. in fact, i don't really think they have to be memorized. they only have to be discussed in a way that students will see the impact that pollution causes to the world. also, there should've been more discussions on issues about peace. when is peace not the best solution? where does violence stem from? at the end of the school year, i doubt if anyone really learned much about peace. the only thing that i remember learning is the one i quoted at the beginning of this post. well, maybe that's all there is to it. i don't know.

right now i can think of one certain issue bugging me- choosing peace over truth. i've always been a non-confrontational person (parang ang baduy nung term) but i've learned that it's okay to sacrifice peace for the sake of justice. that feelings matter far less than truth does. let me cite an example. a cheating incident occured, witnesses came forward, enough evidence has been presented, but people in authority ignored all those and went on as if no injustice and dishonesty have been done. so, is there peace? yes there is. those who came forward to complain knew better than to push the issue, because people in authority already decided on the matter. the offender also was at peace, but well i just hope her conscience eats her up. so see? why did people in authority let the case go that way? to avoid scandal? what? so peace is still deemed important, even if it is pursued at the expense of truth? for me, topics like this should be discussed in class. if truth and justice are taken for granted at such an early age, then aren't the people in authority breeding citizens who think IT'S OKAY TO GAIN PERSONAL GLORY AT THE EXPENSE OF OTHER PEOPLE? peace is a good thing, violence is not something anyone should turn to. but violence isn't the only thing that kills peace, truth sometimes does. difference is that truth is a good thing. and if time comes that one has to choose between peace and truth, then i really do hope that truth will be the choice.