In a scene that could have been sketched by Bosch on a bad day, schoolchildren in the Philippines were forced to flee a roof that apparently decided it had had enough of architectural integrity. The canopy of learning, a corrugated iron hat for a classroom of future nurses and call centre operatives, chose the middle of a Tuesday to perform its impression of a folding chair. British engineers, flown in on a cloud of self-righteousness and gin, have pronounced the building standards to be ‘a bit off.’ Observers noted that the British experts spent exactly seventeen minutes on site before issuing their verdict, a world record for hasty condescension.
The incident occurred at the Mabuhay National High School, where the roof of a classroom block apparently took a look at the monsoon season and thought, ‘Not today, Satan.’ Children scattered like startled pigeons as the metal screeched and groaned, a symphony of structural failure. Miraculously, no one was injured, though several textbooks were traumatised. The British engineering delegation, dispatched by the Foreign Office at the request of the Philippine Department of Education, arrived in a haze of jet lag and superiority. Their leader, one Sir Nigel Ponsonby-Smythe (retired from the Institution of Civil Engineers, and apparently from any sense of humility), stated, ‘The tensile strength of the steel is, to put it in layman’s terms, bollocks. It appears to have been sourced from a scrap yard that doubles as a hammock factory.’
The local contractors, a firm named ‘Tiyaga Builders’ (Tagalog for ‘patience’, a virtue they clearly tested), defended their work with the universal language of shrugging. ‘The roof was built to withstand the average Philippine monsoon, not the gales of English condescension,’ said one foreman, spitting into the dust. A bystander noted that the British team were carrying copies of The Daily Telegraph under their arms, a detail that explains everything.
This incident comes hot on the heels of a similar controversy in Pampanga, where a school wall mysteriously became a horizontal surface last year. The British were asked to comment but were apparently too busy examining the pH level of the local gin. A spokesperson for the Philippine Builders’ Association said, ‘We welcome British expertise, but perhaps they could step off their high horse long enough to realise that our budget buys what it buys: optimism and prayer.’
As I stood in the rubble, a child tugged my sleeve and asked, ‘Sir, why did the roof fall down?’ I looked at the departing British engineers, who were already composing a report using only words of four syllables or more. ‘Because, my young friend,’ I said, ‘some things are built to last, and some things are built to be examined by British engineers.’ The child nodded wisely, then went back to kicking a deflated football. The sun set, a red orb of accusation over a nation that simply tries its best with what it has. The British engineers will file their report, go home to their civility, and probably blame the gin.
Let us drink, then, to the children who ran fast, and to the engineers who ran slow. This is Biff Thistlethwaite, signing off before the next roof collapses.
