preMEDitated

I had thought adult illiterate Filipinos didn’t exist. I was, however, proved wrong. This incident happened around July last year.


While waiting to get my ATM card from a very long wait, I heard an interesting exchange.
Sunda lagi ang instruction, sir, the teller said in a tone that bordered on annoyance. Or maabtan ta ani ugma.
Follow the instructions, sir, or we’ll end up finishing this tomorrow.
Naa biya nay example dira.
The examples are there.
The teller returned the man’s application forms and went out to do some other business. The man meekly accepted the documents and signed whatever the teller marked.
ID number, na bay, I said as I noticed that he apparently forgot to read the instructions. Dili na sign-an.
Those blanks are for your ID number. You do not sign there.
He didn’t seem to understand what I was saying, but he did stop placing his signature on the other blanks. He asked his companion for help, but his companion was no better than he was. His companion could also not understand what the blanks were for.
I was shocked when I realized what the situation was. Those guys were functionally illiterate! Apparently, they could write rudimentary words like names or some words, but they could not read.
I told the man beside me to get his IDs and copy their numbers on the blanks provided. I had to point the numbers that he had to copy to the form.
Isulat dira COMELEC, I told him on the space provided for type of ID used.
Write the word COMELEC there.
He, however, could not do it. I kept pointing at the words “COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS” as I told him to write their acronym, COMELEC. After telling him several more times, he ended up writing what he thought were my words. He wrote the word “COMMILIC”.
I told him jot down the characters of his driver’s license. Then I told him to write “driver’s license” under the area where it said “type of ID used”.
He still couldn’t do it. Then I pointed the word “license” on his card, to which he meekly copied the characters to the blank spaces provided for him. He then turned over his forms to the annoyed teller.
Saving herself the effort of further scolding, the teller silently accepted the forms and approved them for processing.
From further observation, I surmised that the man and his companion were trying to cash out their checks. Unfortunately, they needed a bank account to have the money transferred there. And more unfortunately, they had to learn to read in order to open a bank account. And most unfortunately, the bank had to close before they could cash out the check.


I never met those men again, and I wonder what their lives must seem considering they didn’t know to read. There was also something suspicious about them. They were illiterate but had voters’ ids. How were they supposed to vote if they didn’t know how to read.
I still wonder about the plight of thousands or perhaps millions of Filipinos, who like them, don’t know how to read but are being used to elect officials to the government.