So Much for Honor and Excellence

By Maria Soledad Bueno

Similar to someone who engages in work they may find compromising, I have long set aside the notion of honor and excellence, selling my intellectual labor to make ends meet. Anxiety over tomorrow’s transportation fee, food expenses, and our family’s electricity and water bills were just too unbearable that I had to continuously accept such tasks.

It began when a friend of a friend introduced me to the world of academic commissions. Tutorial sessions then turned to ghostwriting research papers, laboratory reports, essays, and even answering exams of our clients, who are mostly senior high school, college, and even medical students who are overwhelmed with their workload. Some are working students who had difficulty meeting deadlines. There are also clients who are just too lazy to finish their long list of dues.

It felt like a full-time job to the point where I would prioritize these over my academics. During finals or midterms, I would receive several tasks in a day which had various difficulties. The fast money that I earned through this sideline has made me the breadwinner of our household, given that my aunt could not find a stable job and my biological father earns just enough to provide for my younger half-siblings.

It was also difficult for me to venture into other sidelines; my schedule is not amenable to the graveyard shifting in the BPO industry, while other work-from-home online jobs require a stable internet connection, which I do not have. Working as a student assistant would have been helpful if it weren’t for the inadequate and delayed salary.

Though these are my personal experiences, students all over the country also share the same struggles. In fact, these conditions are the ingredients of the internal contradictions that have brewed in the Philippine education system in the past years.

Clients seek academic commissioners due to multiple reasons — some are inexcusable, such as plain laziness due to their privileged disposition in life — however, this phenomenon could be attributed to the educational crisis in the Philippines, as seen in the poor reading comprehension of 90% of Filipino children. This is also mirrored in the teaching environment, where educators often face significant hurdles such as meager wages and overwhelming workloads, thereby affecting the effectiveness of their teaching techniques. For instance, self-studying and reporting-based methods of teaching, as well as a fast-paced learning environment may not work for some students.

Academic services remain prevalent in digital spaces, even as students have returned to the face-to-face setup, because of the commercialized education system that treats students as mere products to be exported for cheap labor after graduation. The output-based education system breeds a culture of fear of failure and molds a machinery of robots focused on production but not learning.

Instead of focusing on providing a holistic environment that emphasizes the learning process, education often becomes a dull chore to most students as their curriculum overdumps tasks. Failure becomes a fatal mistake rather than a learning opportunity. Learning becomes an afterthought as task submission becomes the goal; it’s no wonder why many students feel half-baked even near graduation.

Unlivable wages, lack of job opportunities, and soaring prices of basic commodities are ghosts that haunt many student commissioners. Faced with such dire material conditions, when opportunities such as clients present themselves to us commissioners, we grab the chance — even at the expense of our principles.

The phenomenon of academic commissions is a sad reflection of our current education system and a manifestation of state neglect. It represents a contradiction arising from the ineffectiveness of the prevailing superstructure and the shakiness of our material conditions, exacerbated by the minimizing value of our wages. Providing better job opportunities, livable wages, and a more holistic education system could be primary steps that the state could take to address the matter.

Much could be done to resolve this issue, but dialectical materialism tells us that systemic revolution and change is inevitable. If the state genuinely served its people, no student should ever have to compromise their principles just to provide for their families.