"entrenched idiots"

Yesterday, while riding on a ubiquitous public utility jeepney, I heard the conversation among its passengers, between mothers cuddling their kids. The topic centered about a certain school along the Matina area in Davao City. It used to specialize on gifted students; A painter I once knew actually graduated there. It had been closed now, rumors say that the school was unable to pay the land rent.

That was not the main shocker. A mother further lamented about the experience her acquaintance had of her poor kid with that institution. The child, along with many others, took the examination that will decide the coveted entrance to the (once) prestigious school. Unfortunately, the child did not pass. To the mother's disbelief, another pupil, a child of her acquaintance, did pass the supposed exam. The gross issue was, her child did not even take the test! When the mother inquired about the sacrilegeous 'miracle', her alecky acquaintance merely hinted about her influential connection from inside the school staff. Argh.

If the unforunate child had been victimized by such adults with the gallbladder to be entrenched on those seats of authority, far more unfortunate will be a culturally deprived nation infiltrated, as aptly described by a website I once read, with such "entrenched idiots."