By Ellen Tordesillas
ww.ellentordesillas.com
August 29, 2008
Gloria Arroyo is leaving abroad this weekend, a source in Malacañang said.
She declined to tell me the destination but it couldn’t be to the United States because her next trip there will be next month. Arroyo is scheduled to leave for New York Sept. 22 to attend the United Nations General Assembly and the Clinton Global Initiative conference.
I’m told she will also be going to Seattle to attend a Fil-Am activity.
It is expected that Arroyo will again be accompanied by her usual coterie of junketing congressmen paid for by Filipino taxpayers. At this time economic difficulties and with the uneasy situation in Mindanao, another transatlantic trip for Arroyo reflects callousness.
It was only two months ago when she, accompanied by 65 congressmen, went to the U.S to meet with President George Bush while thousands of Filipinos were being battered by typhoon Frank.
A source in Malacañang said they are also at a loss trying to understand Arroyo’s decisions these days. It looks like she is disassembling.
The embarrassing part about it is she is doing it international. Last Monday, she announced that she will enlist the help of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in the peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
I’m reminded of her plan in 2001 to hire former New York Rudolph Guiliani as presidential adviser on peace process. Guiliani was a recent visitor and nothing was mentioned about it.
I presume she has talked to Blair, who played an important role in bringing peace in Northern Ireland, because she was quoted to have said the former British prime minister “ is willing to come help us.”
Blair’s willingness to help, however, is not for free. His advisory fee is reported to be at least $1 million.
Her ally, Sen. Joker Arroyo, calls her plan “injudicious” which means “lacking or showing a lack of judgment or discretion; unwise.”
He correctly pointed out the folly of Arroyo’s idea: the conflict in Mindanao is a “geographical dispute”, not a religious war which was the case in Northern Ireland.
“The Mindanao conflict is not between Protestant and Catholics – both Christian as in Northern Ireland,” the senator said.
Arroyo is not only reaching out to far away United Kingdom. Reports said she has also enlisted the help of Sweden, which drew up the Stockholm initiative on Disarmament, Demobilization and Re-integration. I imagine that’s where she copied her DDR (disarmament, demobilization and rehabilitation), her latest tack towards the MILF announced last Thursday after her attempt to ride on the Muslim cause to push her charter change agenda had renewed hostilities in Mindanao killing more than 30 people and rendering homeless more than 250,000 people.
The peace talks with the MILF which produced the explosive Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain was brokered by Malaysia with the United States as one of its main sponsor. Japan, Brunei and Libya have representatives in the International Monitoring Team while the ceasefire between the government armed forces the Muslim rebel forces is in place. By the way, the IMT mandate, which is supposed to expire on August 31, has been extended for three more months.
Arroyo’s actions in recent days indicate lack of control and desperation. With majority of Filipinos registering distrust and disapproval of her, she is turning for support to other countries. Probably she thinks that by involving the international community in the Mindanao problem, she can count on their condemnation when she is ousted from power. That’s grasping at straws
In a briefing of the diplomatic corps on the MOA-AD last Wednesday at the Department of Foreign Affairs, a diplomat asked, “What’s next?”
Presidential Spokesperson Jesus Dureza replied:“The next step would be, we are going to do a lot of consultation with ulamas and stakeholders to help us determine the next step that we will take.”
Translation: we do not know.
Lodestar for the elections by Danton Remoto
by Danton Remoto
www.abs-cbnnews.com
The following is my introduction to Ladlad 3: An Anthology of Philippine Gay Writing, edited by J. Neil Garcia and myself (Anvil Publishing). It is now flying off the shelves of National Book Store and Power Books.
Three days of the week, I teach English at the Ateneo, telling my students “sematary” should be “cemetery,” “high school” is spelled two words, and that even if I wrote an erotic poem in their Filipino textbook Hulagpos, I was not, am not, and will never be the persona sitting on another man’s lap in that scandalous poem. I am also taking my last three exams for my Ph.D. in English at the University of the Philippines. And once a week, I have my political meetings.
It is on a day like this, on a fine Saturday afternoon, that I am going to the Manila Yacht Club for my next political meeting. When Ang Ladlad, our lesbian-gay-transgender-bisexual (LGBT) political party filed our papers for accreditation in the party-list elections for May 14, 2007, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) blanched and said “No, you didn’t have enough people for a national constituency.” Yeah, right. To paraphrase the Pussycats, “And don’t cha!” Don’t cha say that without checking, too, the membership roster – with real names and addresses – of the many other party lists of dubious provenance that were allowed to run in the last, super-messy elections.
My reading was that the powers-that-be were threatened by Ang Ladlad. They must have thought that if we got at least two seats – and surveys said we would – that would be two seats against the administration. But how did they know about that? We only had two political statements arrived at through a consensus: 1) No to Charter change and yes to a Constitution Convention of duly elected members; and 2) A stop to political killings of activists and journalists. That was all. Nothing about impeachment, resignation, and such for the sitting President. When I learned of this and actually read a memo that allegedly came from the powers-that-be, I smiled: the political party that began with a book has become a force to reckon with. And why not? Of the 45 million Filipino voters, 4.5 million would belong to the LGBT voters’ niche, if cross-country studies are to be believed. Why do you think politicians fell all over themselves endorsing Ladlad for party-list accreditation in the last elections? I grant them good will, of course, but also I grant them shrewdness and political acumen. They sniffed the wind, and what they sniffed was this: the Pink Vote has arrived. Were you there among the throngs of people registering for voters in the last elections? If you were, did you ask the transgenders why they were signing up? Who were they voting for in the party-list elections? Ask them, and ye shall know.
The uber-origin, of course, of this political party is the book you are now holding in your hands. Our first anthology came out in April of 1994. By June of that year – and appropriately enough, the Pride Month of the LGBT movement – all 2,000 copies of Ladlad were sold out. Salesgirls at National Book Store would tell me of gays stud-looking enough to qualify for Ginoong Pilipinas asking, in their deepest, lowest voices: “Miss, saan ang Ladlad?”
The second installment of Ladlad came in 1996, and together with the first outing, the two books with pink covers became permanent fixtures in the Philippine Books section of National Book Store. I was helping NBS and Power Books then, dispensing free advice on book-selling, and I suggested that they change the word “Filipiniana” into “Philippine Books,” for certainly, when you entered Barnes and Nobles in LA you do not see a section called “Americana.” They complied. And then I also said that Philippine books ought to have pride of place and displayed prominently, on the first shelves, of the Books Section. So any book-lover who enters the store would see the books at first blush, and come near, and open the pages, and inhale the very words of his or her own writers. To their credit, NBS also did that.
And so now, when you go to the more than 50 branches of National Book Store all over the country, you would see the Ladlad series of gay anthologies – as well as the other books of J. Neil Garcia and myself – there on the first shelves. Standing tall, breasts thrust out, bottoms pointed up, and one foot forward.
The anthology gave free mileage to the Ang Ladlad political party, especially in the urban areas where the students congregate and where – as studies show – gay men eventually come out, because of the liberal education in the schools, the company of peers, and the books that are now out there, for them to hold and to cherish.
We also have to give credit to Mrs. Lourdes Vidal, my former English teacher at the Ateneo, who published her romance novels in Tagalog, and gave me thousands and thousands of free copies to give away. Marked with “Donated by Ang Ladlad,” these freebies went around the country, were read avidly and passed from hand to hand, and added to the word-of-mouth campaign that we were waging.
There was also the Internet, where we have a huge and colorful presence, with our website and discussion groups and e-mail exchanges. Our alliances with more than 30 LGBT groups nationwide also bolstered our ranks, as well as the support of straight people – brothers and sisters of LGBT Filipinos, friends and relatives and such – who rallied around our cause. I also appeared countless times in the tri-media of television, radio and print, and toured the Bicol Region – my bailiwick – for a whole month in the summer of 2006, talking to students, teachers, market vendors, farmers, fisher folk, government officials, and priests. In short, from 2004-2007, we worked on our pre-election campaign strategy, and I swear to Nefertiti, we did work our butts off.
But the Comelec – as stodgy and as ancient as their wooden building that later burnt down – would not, could not, budge. To their eternal discredit, because it soon gave way to the mess in the accreditation of the party-list groups, the madness that was the elections, the lunacy of the counting that was slower, slower than a snail climbing Mount Fuji.
The day after the elections I felt so relieved. I got my copy of Elizabeth Jennings’s book of poems, Extending the Territory (Carcanet Press, 1985) and began to read. For many months, the book had languished on the table beside my bed. I felt sad during the campaign season for one simple reason: I could not read anymore. Every day I would go home, tired beyond belief, my feet aching from the day-long sortie, my hands sore from all that shaking, my face painful from all that smiling. The moment my back rested on my bed it was nirvana: I would wake up the next morning, only to campaign once more. Erwin Oliva of the Inquirer online edition asked me what I missed most during the campaign and I told him, “The time to read.” He said he would do a survey of the books the politicians read before the campaign, and I told him, “Good luck, my friend.”
And so I was relieved because I could read again, and return to my old life as an absent-minded professor with what my students called “a fearsome” reputation (translation: I made them read books without movie versions). I began my post-election life by reading Elizabeth Jennings’s Extending the Territory, which Douglas Dunn, writing for the Glasgow Herald, called “poems outstanding . . . [for their] wisdom, hard-earned from grief and religious faith.”
Even so on a day like this I have another political meeting. I am happy because after the meeting, I would go to Makati to buy books. The person I am meeting had sent over his chauffeur-driven SUV, shinier and bigger than my library, to pick me up and bring me to Manila. I said I could take the LRT 2, get off at the Recto station, and then take a cab to the Manila Yacht Club on Roxas Boulevard. But he said that is a “no-no for our senatorial candidate in 2010. You are an important cargo and you have to be handled very carefully.”
“Uh-oh,” I think to myself now as I remember his exact words. Most of the time, I feel like a speck of moissanite, but these guys make me feel as if I were a ring of diamond. Invariably, they are all kind and polite. I must remind them so much of their stern English teacher in college. But today, the sun shines brightly. Our SUV flies over the Katipunan overpass, down to C-5, circling Makati, seemingly gliding on air. Smooth as silk, as the airline ads would put it, with a blast of cool and subtly perfumed air that makes me forget I am in sweltering Manila.
The person I am meeting is a pleasant man, whom I had met twice, and he is asking me to join them in the 2010 presidential elections. He is not the candidate, but one of the assistants of the candidate. He suggests that I draw up a budget for my own campaign, and he would show it to his boss for approval. I tell him he is the third person I am meeting after I lost in the May 14 elections, with the same agenda for discussion, and I ask him, “Why do you really want me to join your group?”
He says, “Because you have no skeletons in the closet. It’s easy to campaign for you.”
I answer, “Oh, I have no more skeletons in the closet. In fact, I am now out of the closet.” The man nearly chokes in his callos and laughs.The memory of his laughter makes me smile now as his SUV drives me to Makati. After his laughter that broke the cavernous silence of the Yacht Club, he said, “That’s why we like you. You’re quick on the take. You don’t have to memorize your answers. By the way, who’s your speech writer?”
This time it was my turn to laugh. I told him my campaign is too poor to hire a speech writer, and I just make things up as I go along. “I’ve been teaching English,” I tell him, “for 21 years. You survive those students, you can survive anything.”
Then he turned serious and asked me: “Professor Remoto, we admire your bravery and your work. What, really, makes you tick?”
It made me feel like a clock – or a time bomb about to explode – but this question burns in my mind now as I write this Foreword. What makes me “tick” is the knowledge that what I am doing is right. It is the thing to be done, right here and right now. Some say that books are mere vessels and words have no bones. But revolutions have been waged, and countries liberated, because of mere books, simple words. As the famous text message every New Year puts it, we should be like birds always poised forward into the future: we should leave behind all regret and bitterness and pain.
It is in this spirit that we are offering you Ladlad 3. The pieces in this book show that, especially the pieces that throw a new light, give a new angle, to gay writing in the Philippines. Alex Gregorio rewrites Alice in Wonderland into a poem. Ian Rosales Casocot gives us a gay children’s story called “The Different Rabbit.” Honorio Bartolome de Dios shows us a beauty-parlor worker who is part of the underground movement – a link, you could say, to another story by Rands Catalan in Ladlad 1. Ino Manalo gives us gay characters that have the delicacy and strength of the pineapple fibers in his story. Michael Andrada gives us the many different kinds of male bonding in “Boy Scouting,” while Zack Linmark shows us that Hawaii is no, never, blue. Paul del Rosario’s character beats up a bully and Neil Garcia, of course, tells us of another, creative use for the razor blade.
Goethe once said that there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. We have come, as National Artist Jose Garcia Villa said, and we are here. Brandishing Ladlad and our many other books, waving our words like flames in the wind, we will you see you again in 2010.
And that’s a promise we intend to keep.
Join the petition vs the recall of Gov. Among Ed Panlilio
We must join ranks and help Gov Among Ed Panlilio from the forces of darkness in Pampanga. This is what we call super-hyper-kapal: when those who are writhing in the muck want to topple those who are doing their best to restore pride and dignity among the Kapampangan. Let us show them our power; sign the petition against the recall of Gov Among Ed. -- Danton
***
Last week, an initiative to recall Gov. Eddie Panlilio of Pampanga was
started by people closely affiliated with Lilia Pineda, the gubernatorial
candidate that Gov. Panlilio defeated and wife of alleged jueteng lord Bong
Pineda. Their main aim is to be able to gather at least 100,000 signatures
from registered voters in Pampanga so that they can remove Gov. Panlilio
from his position through a recall election before 2010. If you will recall,
just last month, Gov. Panlilio courageously filed plunder charges against
Bong Pineda for his alleged involvement in jueteng operations and payoffs in
Pampanga. If they succeed in doing this, we can expect that Pampanga will
once again go back to the dark ages of patronage politics that has led to
the propagation of graft and corruption and illegal gambling activities.
More importantly, this will be a huge step backward for our country as a
whole since all of us were witnesses to how people power prevailed over
traditional politicians in Pampanga during the last May 2007 elections.
*We cannot just sit back, relax and allow a good and upright Filipino leader
to fail. We cannot allow evil to ultimately prevail.* We cannot allow Gov.
Eddie Panlilio to be recalled. We cannot allow politicians with vested
interests to once again rule in Pampanga. Gov. Panlilio needs us now!
Support Gov. Panlilio and Good Governance in Pampanga by signing up at: *
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/supportgovpanlilio/*
*Please forward this email to all your friends who believe in fighting for
Good Governance in our country and who want to join us in supporting
well-meaning Filipino Leaders!*
Below is the formal statement of Kaya Natin! on the Recall Movement of Gov.
Panlilio. If you would like to join Kaya Natin! Please feel free to get in
touch with us at (02) 426-5657 or you can send an email to us at
kayanatin@yahoo.com
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
*Harvey S. Keh*
*Kaya Natin! Statement on the Recall Movement of Gov. Eddie Panlilio
(Pampanga)*
We, the founding members of Kaya Natin! A Movement for Genuine Change and
Ethical Leadership strongly oppose the move to recall Governor Eddie
Panlilio of Pampanga. We believe that this attempt to recall him is
politically motivated and would only serve to benefit the vested interests
of a few politicians in Pampanga.
While we are aware that there are escalating problems in Pampanga such as
the continuing conflict between Gov. Panlilio and the Provincial Board, the
unresolved issue on the striking BALAS Quarry Workers and the calls for the
resignation of the current Provincial Administrator, among others, we
believe that a genuine effort to resolve them will be more beneficial to the
Kapampangans than a political exercise the will further polarize and divide
the community. We also recognize that there are members of the civil
society, church groups, business organizations and supporters of Gov.
Panlilio that have expressed disappointment with his performance during the
past year. Thus, while we continue to support Gov. Panlilio's crusade to
promote good governance in his province, we also believe that he should
listen to the voices of these groups and work at immediately addressing and
resolving these growing concerns in order for him to become a more effective
governor.
As current local government leaders, we believe that all these issues arise
as a result of the changes and reforms being implemented in the province.
Reforms do not come easy. It requires continuing engagements between the
provincial leadership and the other stakeholders in the locality. We do
believe that given time, Governor Panlilio's initiatives will ultimately
result to better delivery of basic services to his constituents.
In light of all these, we urge the people of Pampanga not to support the
recall initiative. We ask the Kapampangans to give Governor Panlilio a
chance to fully serve his term and continue the reforms that he has begun.
Moreover, we ask all Kapampangans to be patient with Governor Panlilio
because we believe that despite the current situation, he is at the moment
still the best person who can govern the province in an effective and
ethical manner. Should there be a need, the members of Kaya Natin are
willing to help organize and/or facilitate a dialogue between Governor
Panlilio and disgruntled members of the civil society, business groups,
people's organizations and his former supporters in Pampanga.
Finally, we sincerely hope that this movement to recall Gov. Panlilio will
be put to rest at the soonest possible time so that we can unite towards
working for a better Pampanga and ultimately, a better Philippines.
Signed:
*(Sgd.) HON. GRACE PADACA
Governor
Isabela
*(Sgd.) HON. JESSIE ROBREDO
Mayor of Naga City
*(Sgd.) HON. TEDDY BAGUILAT, JR.
Governor, Ifugao
(Sgd.) HON. SONIA LORENZO*
Mayor
San Isidro, Nueva Ecija
--
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/supportgovpanlilio/
***
Last week, an initiative to recall Gov. Eddie Panlilio of Pampanga was
started by people closely affiliated with Lilia Pineda, the gubernatorial
candidate that Gov. Panlilio defeated and wife of alleged jueteng lord Bong
Pineda. Their main aim is to be able to gather at least 100,000 signatures
from registered voters in Pampanga so that they can remove Gov. Panlilio
from his position through a recall election before 2010. If you will recall,
just last month, Gov. Panlilio courageously filed plunder charges against
Bong Pineda for his alleged involvement in jueteng operations and payoffs in
Pampanga. If they succeed in doing this, we can expect that Pampanga will
once again go back to the dark ages of patronage politics that has led to
the propagation of graft and corruption and illegal gambling activities.
More importantly, this will be a huge step backward for our country as a
whole since all of us were witnesses to how people power prevailed over
traditional politicians in Pampanga during the last May 2007 elections.
*We cannot just sit back, relax and allow a good and upright Filipino leader
to fail. We cannot allow evil to ultimately prevail.* We cannot allow Gov.
Eddie Panlilio to be recalled. We cannot allow politicians with vested
interests to once again rule in Pampanga. Gov. Panlilio needs us now!
Support Gov. Panlilio and Good Governance in Pampanga by signing up at: *
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/supportgovpanlilio/*
*Please forward this email to all your friends who believe in fighting for
Good Governance in our country and who want to join us in supporting
well-meaning Filipino Leaders!*
Below is the formal statement of Kaya Natin! on the Recall Movement of Gov.
Panlilio. If you would like to join Kaya Natin! Please feel free to get in
touch with us at (02) 426-5657 or you can send an email to us at
kayanatin@yahoo.com
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
*Harvey S. Keh*
*Kaya Natin! Statement on the Recall Movement of Gov. Eddie Panlilio
(Pampanga)*
We, the founding members of Kaya Natin! A Movement for Genuine Change and
Ethical Leadership strongly oppose the move to recall Governor Eddie
Panlilio of Pampanga. We believe that this attempt to recall him is
politically motivated and would only serve to benefit the vested interests
of a few politicians in Pampanga.
While we are aware that there are escalating problems in Pampanga such as
the continuing conflict between Gov. Panlilio and the Provincial Board, the
unresolved issue on the striking BALAS Quarry Workers and the calls for the
resignation of the current Provincial Administrator, among others, we
believe that a genuine effort to resolve them will be more beneficial to the
Kapampangans than a political exercise the will further polarize and divide
the community. We also recognize that there are members of the civil
society, church groups, business organizations and supporters of Gov.
Panlilio that have expressed disappointment with his performance during the
past year. Thus, while we continue to support Gov. Panlilio's crusade to
promote good governance in his province, we also believe that he should
listen to the voices of these groups and work at immediately addressing and
resolving these growing concerns in order for him to become a more effective
governor.
As current local government leaders, we believe that all these issues arise
as a result of the changes and reforms being implemented in the province.
Reforms do not come easy. It requires continuing engagements between the
provincial leadership and the other stakeholders in the locality. We do
believe that given time, Governor Panlilio's initiatives will ultimately
result to better delivery of basic services to his constituents.
In light of all these, we urge the people of Pampanga not to support the
recall initiative. We ask the Kapampangans to give Governor Panlilio a
chance to fully serve his term and continue the reforms that he has begun.
Moreover, we ask all Kapampangans to be patient with Governor Panlilio
because we believe that despite the current situation, he is at the moment
still the best person who can govern the province in an effective and
ethical manner. Should there be a need, the members of Kaya Natin are
willing to help organize and/or facilitate a dialogue between Governor
Panlilio and disgruntled members of the civil society, business groups,
people's organizations and his former supporters in Pampanga.
Finally, we sincerely hope that this movement to recall Gov. Panlilio will
be put to rest at the soonest possible time so that we can unite towards
working for a better Pampanga and ultimately, a better Philippines.
Signed:
*(Sgd.) HON. GRACE PADACA
Governor
Isabela
*(Sgd.) HON. JESSIE ROBREDO
Mayor of Naga City
*(Sgd.) HON. TEDDY BAGUILAT, JR.
Governor, Ifugao
(Sgd.) HON. SONIA LORENZO*
Mayor
San Isidro, Nueva Ecija
--
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/supportgovpanlilio/
Mar Roxas: The Business of Politics
by Danton Remoto
Published in ROGUE MAGAZINE
February 2008
It is 5:30 a.m. at the central market of Iloilo City. The haze of sleep is still on my eyelids, and I rub them to wake me up. Two “Mr. Palengke” tarpaulins of Senator Manuel Roxas II had been hung in front of the entrances to the market. As the door of the van bearing the senator opens, the “Mr. Suave” song transformed into the Mr. Palengke jingle booms in the air. Market vendors and buyers stop what they are doing, look to the left and then to the right, espy a man in blue coming towards them, and rush to him. “Tuod na Ilonggo!” they say to each other, a pointed rebuke at recent senatorial candidates who claimed they were Ilonggo but could speak not a word of the language, not even palangga, hala!. Then, the market vendors and buyers talk to the senator in the gentle diphthongs of the south. The young men dance, the older women crowd around him and kiss him on the cheek. The photographers’ bulbs flash, the VCR runs, and the crowd around me exclaims: “Magidalagan na sa 2010!”
Mar Roxas has not announced any plans, yet, of running as President in 2010. He just said to Ricky Carandang at ANC that he would make a better job of the presidency than its current occupant does. Mar flew to the south, to his bailiwick of Panay Island, to feel the people’s pulse. He talked to market vendors and mayors, street sweepers and students. He inaugurated the Gerry Roxas Market Annex in Santa Barbara, checked the prices of market produce in Pototan, went to two radio stations and attended Governor Tupas’s birthday in Iloilo City. He had a cold, yes, and coughs tore through his voice as he spoke, but the meetings had been planned weeks before, and the people were waiting to see him. He plunged into the meetings and speeches like he was born to do so.
But it has not always been the case. He may be the grandson of President Manuel Roxas, the son of Senator Gerardo Roxas, and the son of Judy Araneta Roxas, but reluctant politician he seemed to be. He went to the Ateneo de Manila University for his grade school and high school and took some units in college before he flew to the States to study at the Wharton School of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania.
“I remember Ateneo with fondness because of the values that I imbibed along the way and the friends I made there. I still see them up to the present. The funny thing is, even when I was no longer in the Ateneo, when I would be home for a vacation, I would hang out in the school. That was the easiest way to connect with friends. On the other hand, I still remember the values taught at the Ateneo. These values continue to guide and influence my decision-making. These values include the all-encompassing ones of making a difference, being a man for others, and an agent for social change. I try to apply them until now, on a day-to-day basis, on whatever decisions I make, and whatever issues that arise.”
At Wharton, some of the courses he took in Ateneo were credited, but they were not enough to constitute a full semester. So he basically started from scratch. “Wharton was
an entirely different experience. Most of my classmates and peers then were very driven, very focused, and very clear as to what their goals were and how they were going to go about attaining them. And it was not just passing school. Their goal-setting included the job, the lifestyle, the city and the house they were going to live in. My experience in Wharton transformed me into somebody who is much more serious about things and less happy-go-lucky. Most of my present advocacies as they relate to the youth are rooted in that experience – where you can have somebody in their teens actually map out where they want to end up, and know if they did certain things, if they adopted certain behavior patterns – doing your school work, being honest and hardworking – they would eventually get there. I admire very much the very close connection between input and output in their society. If I did this pala, I’ll end up in my house, move on in my life, and have a safety net at the end.”
Which, as the young man knew, was in stark contrast to the typical Filipino experience. Here, you cannot even plan your day because you do not know how long it would take you to go from point A to point B because of the mega-mad Manila traffic. “Here,” Mar adds, “if you did what you were supposed to do, chances are you wouldn’t get to where you want to end up. Because many times, the prevailing mechanisms for getting ahead are lamangan and connection and elements other than simply what you would put out. Here, you can work like a dog and still not end up any farther than where you started from. That, in a lot of ways, defines my central advocacy, why I want to be in the public service. I’m attracted to the dynamic that you reap what you sow.”
He graduated with a degree in Economics from Wharton in 1979 and worked for seven years as an investment banker in New York, rising to become assistant vice president of the reputable New York-based Herb Allen and Co., Inc. But home was not far from his mind.
“I always wanted to come back. It was just a matter of when or under what circumstances. I recall when Marcos declared snap elections, I was watching TV like, I assumed, all of the Filipino expatriates were doing at that time. Whenever Marcos would come out, we would always be glued to the TV sets. When he announced the snap elections, the very next day, I went to my managing director and told him that I wanted to take a leave of absence because I wanted to work in Cory Aquino’s campaign. I came home and worked for her campaign in my home province. So there I was at the JFK airport on a cold and snowy December 26, wearing overcoat, scarf, and gloves. And by December 31, I was already at the Iloilo airport, hot, dusty, and in summer wear. I stayed for the duration of the campaign. I was here during EDSA. Shortly thereafter, I went back to resume my life in the States.”
It was Mar Roxas’s baptism of fire in national politics. Sure, being the son of the Opposition leader Gerry Roxas, he had some indirect involvement in the protest movement. He was here during the election for members of the Interim National Assembly at the Batasang Pambansa, the noise rallies, the protest actions against Marcos. But because of age and circumstances, he was not involved first-hand.
“By 1986, my father had already passed away. When my father was alive, he was in the frontline of the opposition movement against Marcos. We his children and his family supported him. After Cory Aquino became President in 1986, I felt it was 1946 all over again. [The time, by the way, when his grandfather Manuel became the President of the republic] It was time to rebuild the country. The treasury was bankrupt, so investment was necessary. I was in investment banking so I thought I could play a contributing role. In September 1986, President Cory went to the United States. I was one of those who organized a series of investment round-table discussions with the American business community. At that time, President Cory’s name spelled magic. That was the trip when she went to the US Congress and spoke.”
He did not have any inkling that seven years later, he would become a congressman of Capiz. From 1986 onwards, he visited the Philippines more frequently.
“It got to a point where it was just crazy. I would come here and when I got back there, I would read a lot of stuff, newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times that I hadn’t read while I was home jus to get up-to-date on what had been happening. Wala pang Internet noon. I remember a fax machine then was as big as a refrigerator. At that time, we were still using telex. I was lucky because my bosses were all kind to me, and invited me to their homes during Thanksgiving. They took an interest in making sue that I progressed and developed as a professional. Maybe they thought I was a refugee or something, and they kind of felt sorry for this political refugee brown kid.”
But work he did, sometimes for as long as 18 hours a day – the coffee gone stale, the hunger pangs stilled by pizza or croissants that had gone cold because work had to be done, now, in that corporation on Wall Street. He worked his way up and became its assistant vice-president.
“Because of my comings and goings to the Philippines, finally I proposed to the company that we set up shop in Asia, since there was really an opportunity there. My only request was that it be in the Philippines. They agreed. So around 1991, I was permanently station here, in North Star Capitals, Inc. We took Jollibee public. We did the financing for them to get them a hundred stores. Now they have more than 500 branches, and I am happy about that. In the US, we participated in the first financing of Discovery Channel and Tri-Star Pictures. So those are my early successes, if you are looking for things that you can really call your own successes. I am grateful for my parents for giving me that chance to find myself, to define me for myself in the States. I think it gave me an additional dimension. It gave me the ‘walk-away’ concept, which is an important part of my character. If you don’t like the situation, then walk away. That’s your ultimate safety net, especially when it comes to ethical issues. When you don’t like something, walk away.”
Another defining moment for him was martial law. One day, his father Gerry was one of the brightest minds in the Senate; the next day, he was jobless. “Within 24 hours, I saw my father go from being a political celebrity – senator, head of the opposition, possible President after Marcos – to in effect becoming jobless. Before, he would go to golf clubs and everybody would want to play with him. Then during martial law, we would go and nobody wanted to talk to him. He made phone calls but they were not returned. People shunned him. I was then in second year high school. I saw that. But I also saw how he never gave in. He never bought in to what Marcos was selling, whatever the cost was. He never did. Right then and there, you saw what he really was. I admire and respect him for that, and I aspire to be as strong as him.”
How was the father-son relationship? “My father was articulate, but wasn’t very expressive. He was old-school father. He didn’t say anything. He just raised an eyebrow. That would already speak volumes about what he thought. I was at home where there were several entreaties from my father’s friends, acquaintances, brods, and emissaries from the Palace. There was even a time when there were telephone linemen who came to our house and installed a direct line. They were from Malacanang. And the entreaty was: This is a direct line that gets you to the Malacanang operator. Parang gusto lang ipaalam ni Pangulong Marcos to my father that there was a direct line to the President, that any time he wanted to call Malacanang, he could. But my father never used it. He never gave in. That’s a defining moment, a defining event.”
But still, until now, even if he is of good political stock, some people are of the impression that he is not so politically oriented. He is not just reluctant but also shy, and seems to dislike political pow-wows.
Mar concedes some truth to that impression. “My training, my experiences, my first successes, my first taste of victories as a professional was in the business world. The experience of standing up on the stage and waving, the satisfaction from that, is of recent vintage. So it’s not something that I thirst for. I told myself I would work in the private sector until I am 50 or 55, then near my retirement, I would do something for our country. That was my plan. When I was very young, I was, in Visayan, upod-upod, sama-sama, of my maternal grandfather who was in business. So I saw Farmers Market and Ali Mall being built. I was the one who was carrying his attaché case, who was driving him around, his all-around messenger.”
But the palm of one’s life is crossed with destinies unseen. When Mar was 35 years old and already used to 18-hour work days in Wall Street, there was a vacancy for the congressional seat in the 1st district of Capiz. His brother, Gerardo Jr. or “Dinggoy”, was the congressman, and he passed away because of cancer. A special election was held, and Mar was prevailed upon to run.
“All the leaders told me why not give it a try? If you really don’t like politics, then after finishing the remaining 1 ½ year terms of Dinggoy, don’t run again.” My thinking is, if I go into politics, then it’s not feasible to be there for only 1 ½ years. Sayang naman kasi. How could you give it your best efforts if you would be there for only 1 ½ years? I did not harbor any ambition to stay long, I just told myself to be sincerely open-minded about the whole thing. It’s not good to work with one foot in, one foot out. The work will just turn out to be shoddy. So I ran for the special elections and I won. I was also lucky that in my first term, I was able to pass a law, Republic Act 7880. The Department of Education calls that the Roxas Law – the Fair and Equitable Access to Education Act. This law stipulates that the Education Department’s budget for classrooms should be pro-rated according to student population. Thus, the more shortage, the more classrooms should be built. And finally, ten percent of the Education Department’s budget should be in the discretion of the Secretary so he or she could fund emergencies when they arise.
The passage of this bill into law seems to be a turning point in the life of the reluctant politician. “I saw that I can be of service pala. That politics is not all about politicking. You can actually make a contribution and have a positive impact. When I was going around the country, campaigning for the 2004 senatorial elections, a member of a Parents-Teachers’ Association in the Visayas told me that their school finally had a classroom because of the Roxas Law. The man told me, ‘For whatever it might be worth sa iyo, nagpapasalamat kami na may classroom na ngayon ang mga anak namin.’ I felt so good. ‘Yung sarap at satisfaction, the fulfillment of hearing things like that – these prodded me to run again as a Congressman in 1995 and in 1998. Then I became a Secretary of the Department of Trade and Industry in 2000. There, I focused on the palengke, started my cheaper medicines advocacy, and brought in 30,000 new computers distributed in 2,000 schools that we got for free from the Japanese government. I also closed down 10 DTI offices abroad that were not performing according to standards.”
Even Mar concedes Dinggoy was the better politician. People in Capiz and Iloilo remember Dinggoy with fondness. Dinggoy never left the country and studied here (Ateneo; UP), while Mar went to an Ivy League school and worked in Wall Street. Thus, when Mar returned he carried with him the virtues of punctuality and efficiency which, until now, he expects of everybody he deals with. No half-measures for him. No one foot in, one foot out. Everything must be, in his favorite phrase, “soup to nuts.” In short, everything is planned so well as if there is a matrix inscribed on stone. That is why, one man tells me in Iloilo, during the early days of Congressman Mar, when they arrived for a 7 a.m. meeting at 8 a.m., Mar would be irritated. “Sana, nag-shave man lang muna ako ng maayos kung alam kong one hour kayo male-late!”
The same sense of purpose and efficiency he carried into his DTI work, where he focused on the palengke as the index of economic prosperity for the country, and for his senatorial run. From number 22 in surveys to number one in the final count is a long leap, but he did it. He was voted by 19,237,888 people in the May 2004 senatorial elections, the biggest votes anybody has received in the country. In their book Spin & Sell: How Political Ads Shaped the 2004 Elections, Glenda M. Gloria, Ana Maria L. Tabunda and Carmela S. Fonbuena conceded that a year before the May 2004 elections, the Mar Roxas team had already put in place a very comprehensive and detailed campaign strategy, including placement of campaign ads in radio and on TV. So when the campaign period began in February 2004 and his opponents were still finalizing their jingle, ads and placements, Mar was already everywhere – in the morning shows, in person; at night, via the TV ads; and in the farthest nook and cranny of the archipelago, through radio jingles. He was difficult to miss, summed up the authors, and wondered not why he zoomed to number one, even past popular movie star Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr., the son of Nardong Putik, himself a former senator.
How did Mar Roxas find Senate work as compared to the get-up-and-go work as a DTI Secretary visiting public markets every week?
“The nature of the job in the Senate is very different from my four-year stint as a DTI Secretary. The output here is in the nature of policy prescriptions, advocacies, and support for or against the position taken by others. In Senate, we are trying to shape the public agenda. At DTI, the nature of the job is problem-solving, making a decision, and then implementing that decision. So it’s two different jobs altogether. Each has its own pluses and minuses. Each has its own attractions. But here, the negative or frustration is that you can only advocate a policy; you cannot implement it. If somebody decides not to implement it, or to implement it differently or at a different pace, then you are just on the sidelines trying to effect a change. You are not a decision-maker. On the other hand, in the executive, you are the decision-maker. You implement it. But you are not in control of the agenda.”
Quietly he worked, focusing on quality education, health and livelihood through small and medium enterprises. The Singapore government chose him as the 16th Lee Kuan Yew Fellow. The World Economic Forum, meanwhile, picked him as “one of the Global Leaders of Tomorrow who is expected to shape the future. The international community chimed in: “He is one of the young leaders in politics and business who will bring Asia and the Pacific into the forefront of world affairs.”
It is less than 25 months before the presidential candidates would file their certificates of candidacy in February of 2010, and the jostling for the presidency has begun. Nobody is in control of the agenda – not even the Palace, who does not have a strong candidate for President in 2010, unless you are thinking of Noli de Castro. Ho-hum.
Since I am running as a senator of the republic in the 2010 elections, I am also attending political meetings with different people and parties for alliances. During one such meeting, one person I do not know rode the high horse and began badmouthing everyone possibly running for president, except who I surmised must be his boss. I just sat there patiently and looked through him while he perorated. But when he said, “I do not like Mar Roxas because he was born with a golden spoon up his ass,” I had to correct him.
I could listen to nonsense as long as it is grammatical and idiomatic. After all, I have been teaching English for the last 21 years and sat through classes of rich brats. But if it is ungrammatical or unidiomatic, it is my bounden duty to correct them. I told the political operator: “Excuse me, the correct idiom is born with a silver spoon. Period.” You should see the ashen faces of the men – tough, rich, old men – around me.
So the next time I met with Mar Roxas I told him to be wary. The decibels for the noise and the lunacy would rise as the days fly towards 2010. They would hit him and his relationship with ABS-CBN broadcaster Korina Sanchez (Why are they still not yet married?) They would hit him and the mother of his son (Why does the public not know who the mother is?) They would say his mother, Judy, is really the power behind him (Why is she invisible when she is the one pulling the strings?) They would attack him for his silence from 2004 to 2007 (Why is he in the public eye only now?) They would even talk about his hair, his clothes, his shoes – everything under the torrid, political sun of a presidential pre-election campaign.
Mar makes no bones about his relationship with Korina. “It’s not a secret, of course, and we are doing well. We love each other. You know this thing, we let time and the relationship hold. Both of us are extremely busy. Sometimes, when we are going on a function, let us say at ABS-CBN, I would be coming from the Senate on Roxas Boulevard and she would be coming from Makati, where she lives. Believe it or not, we would meet at EDSA, at the gasoline station near McKinley Road. That is our rendezvous point, as they say. We do that so we could be together in the same car because that is still 30 minutes of traveling and we would be together. That quiet togetherness is very important. I’m not a teenager anymore. So right now, the highest form of relationship with another is having the security and the integrity and the wholeness of it. I am aware that people are asking when we would get married. I know marriage is important. I think both of us have waited this long and if marriage comes, when it comes, then it will come. Meanwhile, we’re very happy with our relationship.”
Before the senatorial campaign began in February of 2004, he admitted he had a son, but did not want photos of him taken to protect the son’s privacy. The word on the son’s mom is mum. But of his mother, the redoubtable Judy Araneta Roxas, Mar says: “I love my mother. I remember that one of the things my father told me before he died were the same things his father told him earlier: ‘Do not cause your mother to shed a tear.’ Which is not to say that you don’t discuss, you don’t argue, you don’t have your own point of view. I mean, I think my mother’s ambitions and dreams for me are the same as any mother’s ambitions and dreams for her children. She and my father sent me to good schools. My family and these schools taught me my values. In our family, we use the analogy of the compass. And Korina is now considered part of the family. When she is in the house, she and my mom talk. They talk together. In fact, when they start their women talk, I leave them.”
As to the silence from 2004 to 2007, Mar says that people should remember he did not vote for the Human Security Act. “I thought it was a misnomer, because it’s not really a human security act, it’s really a tool that can be used to terrorize our own people. You can be picked up and in effect be hidden forever, because the limitation of five days can actually be extended by a simple action. So all these extra-judicial killings and salvaging might become more frequent. I also went against Executive Order 464, the Calibrated Pre-emptive Response (CPR), and Proclamation 1017 of Mrs. Arroyo. I voted against all of these, I’ve stood my ground, I stood where I thought the country ought to be. I am now the head of the Senate Committee on Trade and Commerce that grilled government people regarding ZTE and JPEPA.”
To all these artillery, Mar Roxas just shrugs his shoulders. “It’s important to know who you are, where you are. Being congressman, DTI secretary, senator – these are all just titles, these are just jobs. When I was a congressman, I never used the number 8 license plate. When I was the DTI secretary, I never used number 6, and now as a senator, I never use number 7. Maybe that has also something to do with my bachelor status, so it’s not easy to find me, hahaha! But you can’t take these titles seriously. Otherwise, you’ll just get all screwy. I am Mar Roxas – I am the same person, the same clothes, the same shoes, everything. But all of a sudden, you enter a building now and you’re called ‘Honorable.’ HON. ka na ngayon, wow! I mean, you know, you have to take this tongue-in-cheek. When the function is a buffet, you don’t line up any more. They now bring you a plate full of food which – well, since I eat everything – I completely finish everything on that plate!”
It is one of the perks of being an honorable, surely, among other things. But Mar says that being HON. is not always fun.
“Now that you are an HON., typically, the conversation in your table is stilted and formal. Your friends and the halakhakan is actually happening in another table, which is where you want to be – but sadly, you cannot.”
Published in ROGUE MAGAZINE
February 2008
It is 5:30 a.m. at the central market of Iloilo City. The haze of sleep is still on my eyelids, and I rub them to wake me up. Two “Mr. Palengke” tarpaulins of Senator Manuel Roxas II had been hung in front of the entrances to the market. As the door of the van bearing the senator opens, the “Mr. Suave” song transformed into the Mr. Palengke jingle booms in the air. Market vendors and buyers stop what they are doing, look to the left and then to the right, espy a man in blue coming towards them, and rush to him. “Tuod na Ilonggo!” they say to each other, a pointed rebuke at recent senatorial candidates who claimed they were Ilonggo but could speak not a word of the language, not even palangga, hala!. Then, the market vendors and buyers talk to the senator in the gentle diphthongs of the south. The young men dance, the older women crowd around him and kiss him on the cheek. The photographers’ bulbs flash, the VCR runs, and the crowd around me exclaims: “Magidalagan na sa 2010!”
Mar Roxas has not announced any plans, yet, of running as President in 2010. He just said to Ricky Carandang at ANC that he would make a better job of the presidency than its current occupant does. Mar flew to the south, to his bailiwick of Panay Island, to feel the people’s pulse. He talked to market vendors and mayors, street sweepers and students. He inaugurated the Gerry Roxas Market Annex in Santa Barbara, checked the prices of market produce in Pototan, went to two radio stations and attended Governor Tupas’s birthday in Iloilo City. He had a cold, yes, and coughs tore through his voice as he spoke, but the meetings had been planned weeks before, and the people were waiting to see him. He plunged into the meetings and speeches like he was born to do so.
But it has not always been the case. He may be the grandson of President Manuel Roxas, the son of Senator Gerardo Roxas, and the son of Judy Araneta Roxas, but reluctant politician he seemed to be. He went to the Ateneo de Manila University for his grade school and high school and took some units in college before he flew to the States to study at the Wharton School of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania.
“I remember Ateneo with fondness because of the values that I imbibed along the way and the friends I made there. I still see them up to the present. The funny thing is, even when I was no longer in the Ateneo, when I would be home for a vacation, I would hang out in the school. That was the easiest way to connect with friends. On the other hand, I still remember the values taught at the Ateneo. These values continue to guide and influence my decision-making. These values include the all-encompassing ones of making a difference, being a man for others, and an agent for social change. I try to apply them until now, on a day-to-day basis, on whatever decisions I make, and whatever issues that arise.”
At Wharton, some of the courses he took in Ateneo were credited, but they were not enough to constitute a full semester. So he basically started from scratch. “Wharton was
an entirely different experience. Most of my classmates and peers then were very driven, very focused, and very clear as to what their goals were and how they were going to go about attaining them. And it was not just passing school. Their goal-setting included the job, the lifestyle, the city and the house they were going to live in. My experience in Wharton transformed me into somebody who is much more serious about things and less happy-go-lucky. Most of my present advocacies as they relate to the youth are rooted in that experience – where you can have somebody in their teens actually map out where they want to end up, and know if they did certain things, if they adopted certain behavior patterns – doing your school work, being honest and hardworking – they would eventually get there. I admire very much the very close connection between input and output in their society. If I did this pala, I’ll end up in my house, move on in my life, and have a safety net at the end.”
Which, as the young man knew, was in stark contrast to the typical Filipino experience. Here, you cannot even plan your day because you do not know how long it would take you to go from point A to point B because of the mega-mad Manila traffic. “Here,” Mar adds, “if you did what you were supposed to do, chances are you wouldn’t get to where you want to end up. Because many times, the prevailing mechanisms for getting ahead are lamangan and connection and elements other than simply what you would put out. Here, you can work like a dog and still not end up any farther than where you started from. That, in a lot of ways, defines my central advocacy, why I want to be in the public service. I’m attracted to the dynamic that you reap what you sow.”
He graduated with a degree in Economics from Wharton in 1979 and worked for seven years as an investment banker in New York, rising to become assistant vice president of the reputable New York-based Herb Allen and Co., Inc. But home was not far from his mind.
“I always wanted to come back. It was just a matter of when or under what circumstances. I recall when Marcos declared snap elections, I was watching TV like, I assumed, all of the Filipino expatriates were doing at that time. Whenever Marcos would come out, we would always be glued to the TV sets. When he announced the snap elections, the very next day, I went to my managing director and told him that I wanted to take a leave of absence because I wanted to work in Cory Aquino’s campaign. I came home and worked for her campaign in my home province. So there I was at the JFK airport on a cold and snowy December 26, wearing overcoat, scarf, and gloves. And by December 31, I was already at the Iloilo airport, hot, dusty, and in summer wear. I stayed for the duration of the campaign. I was here during EDSA. Shortly thereafter, I went back to resume my life in the States.”
It was Mar Roxas’s baptism of fire in national politics. Sure, being the son of the Opposition leader Gerry Roxas, he had some indirect involvement in the protest movement. He was here during the election for members of the Interim National Assembly at the Batasang Pambansa, the noise rallies, the protest actions against Marcos. But because of age and circumstances, he was not involved first-hand.
“By 1986, my father had already passed away. When my father was alive, he was in the frontline of the opposition movement against Marcos. We his children and his family supported him. After Cory Aquino became President in 1986, I felt it was 1946 all over again. [The time, by the way, when his grandfather Manuel became the President of the republic] It was time to rebuild the country. The treasury was bankrupt, so investment was necessary. I was in investment banking so I thought I could play a contributing role. In September 1986, President Cory went to the United States. I was one of those who organized a series of investment round-table discussions with the American business community. At that time, President Cory’s name spelled magic. That was the trip when she went to the US Congress and spoke.”
He did not have any inkling that seven years later, he would become a congressman of Capiz. From 1986 onwards, he visited the Philippines more frequently.
“It got to a point where it was just crazy. I would come here and when I got back there, I would read a lot of stuff, newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times that I hadn’t read while I was home jus to get up-to-date on what had been happening. Wala pang Internet noon. I remember a fax machine then was as big as a refrigerator. At that time, we were still using telex. I was lucky because my bosses were all kind to me, and invited me to their homes during Thanksgiving. They took an interest in making sue that I progressed and developed as a professional. Maybe they thought I was a refugee or something, and they kind of felt sorry for this political refugee brown kid.”
But work he did, sometimes for as long as 18 hours a day – the coffee gone stale, the hunger pangs stilled by pizza or croissants that had gone cold because work had to be done, now, in that corporation on Wall Street. He worked his way up and became its assistant vice-president.
“Because of my comings and goings to the Philippines, finally I proposed to the company that we set up shop in Asia, since there was really an opportunity there. My only request was that it be in the Philippines. They agreed. So around 1991, I was permanently station here, in North Star Capitals, Inc. We took Jollibee public. We did the financing for them to get them a hundred stores. Now they have more than 500 branches, and I am happy about that. In the US, we participated in the first financing of Discovery Channel and Tri-Star Pictures. So those are my early successes, if you are looking for things that you can really call your own successes. I am grateful for my parents for giving me that chance to find myself, to define me for myself in the States. I think it gave me an additional dimension. It gave me the ‘walk-away’ concept, which is an important part of my character. If you don’t like the situation, then walk away. That’s your ultimate safety net, especially when it comes to ethical issues. When you don’t like something, walk away.”
Another defining moment for him was martial law. One day, his father Gerry was one of the brightest minds in the Senate; the next day, he was jobless. “Within 24 hours, I saw my father go from being a political celebrity – senator, head of the opposition, possible President after Marcos – to in effect becoming jobless. Before, he would go to golf clubs and everybody would want to play with him. Then during martial law, we would go and nobody wanted to talk to him. He made phone calls but they were not returned. People shunned him. I was then in second year high school. I saw that. But I also saw how he never gave in. He never bought in to what Marcos was selling, whatever the cost was. He never did. Right then and there, you saw what he really was. I admire and respect him for that, and I aspire to be as strong as him.”
How was the father-son relationship? “My father was articulate, but wasn’t very expressive. He was old-school father. He didn’t say anything. He just raised an eyebrow. That would already speak volumes about what he thought. I was at home where there were several entreaties from my father’s friends, acquaintances, brods, and emissaries from the Palace. There was even a time when there were telephone linemen who came to our house and installed a direct line. They were from Malacanang. And the entreaty was: This is a direct line that gets you to the Malacanang operator. Parang gusto lang ipaalam ni Pangulong Marcos to my father that there was a direct line to the President, that any time he wanted to call Malacanang, he could. But my father never used it. He never gave in. That’s a defining moment, a defining event.”
But still, until now, even if he is of good political stock, some people are of the impression that he is not so politically oriented. He is not just reluctant but also shy, and seems to dislike political pow-wows.
Mar concedes some truth to that impression. “My training, my experiences, my first successes, my first taste of victories as a professional was in the business world. The experience of standing up on the stage and waving, the satisfaction from that, is of recent vintage. So it’s not something that I thirst for. I told myself I would work in the private sector until I am 50 or 55, then near my retirement, I would do something for our country. That was my plan. When I was very young, I was, in Visayan, upod-upod, sama-sama, of my maternal grandfather who was in business. So I saw Farmers Market and Ali Mall being built. I was the one who was carrying his attaché case, who was driving him around, his all-around messenger.”
But the palm of one’s life is crossed with destinies unseen. When Mar was 35 years old and already used to 18-hour work days in Wall Street, there was a vacancy for the congressional seat in the 1st district of Capiz. His brother, Gerardo Jr. or “Dinggoy”, was the congressman, and he passed away because of cancer. A special election was held, and Mar was prevailed upon to run.
“All the leaders told me why not give it a try? If you really don’t like politics, then after finishing the remaining 1 ½ year terms of Dinggoy, don’t run again.” My thinking is, if I go into politics, then it’s not feasible to be there for only 1 ½ years. Sayang naman kasi. How could you give it your best efforts if you would be there for only 1 ½ years? I did not harbor any ambition to stay long, I just told myself to be sincerely open-minded about the whole thing. It’s not good to work with one foot in, one foot out. The work will just turn out to be shoddy. So I ran for the special elections and I won. I was also lucky that in my first term, I was able to pass a law, Republic Act 7880. The Department of Education calls that the Roxas Law – the Fair and Equitable Access to Education Act. This law stipulates that the Education Department’s budget for classrooms should be pro-rated according to student population. Thus, the more shortage, the more classrooms should be built. And finally, ten percent of the Education Department’s budget should be in the discretion of the Secretary so he or she could fund emergencies when they arise.
The passage of this bill into law seems to be a turning point in the life of the reluctant politician. “I saw that I can be of service pala. That politics is not all about politicking. You can actually make a contribution and have a positive impact. When I was going around the country, campaigning for the 2004 senatorial elections, a member of a Parents-Teachers’ Association in the Visayas told me that their school finally had a classroom because of the Roxas Law. The man told me, ‘For whatever it might be worth sa iyo, nagpapasalamat kami na may classroom na ngayon ang mga anak namin.’ I felt so good. ‘Yung sarap at satisfaction, the fulfillment of hearing things like that – these prodded me to run again as a Congressman in 1995 and in 1998. Then I became a Secretary of the Department of Trade and Industry in 2000. There, I focused on the palengke, started my cheaper medicines advocacy, and brought in 30,000 new computers distributed in 2,000 schools that we got for free from the Japanese government. I also closed down 10 DTI offices abroad that were not performing according to standards.”
Even Mar concedes Dinggoy was the better politician. People in Capiz and Iloilo remember Dinggoy with fondness. Dinggoy never left the country and studied here (Ateneo; UP), while Mar went to an Ivy League school and worked in Wall Street. Thus, when Mar returned he carried with him the virtues of punctuality and efficiency which, until now, he expects of everybody he deals with. No half-measures for him. No one foot in, one foot out. Everything must be, in his favorite phrase, “soup to nuts.” In short, everything is planned so well as if there is a matrix inscribed on stone. That is why, one man tells me in Iloilo, during the early days of Congressman Mar, when they arrived for a 7 a.m. meeting at 8 a.m., Mar would be irritated. “Sana, nag-shave man lang muna ako ng maayos kung alam kong one hour kayo male-late!”
The same sense of purpose and efficiency he carried into his DTI work, where he focused on the palengke as the index of economic prosperity for the country, and for his senatorial run. From number 22 in surveys to number one in the final count is a long leap, but he did it. He was voted by 19,237,888 people in the May 2004 senatorial elections, the biggest votes anybody has received in the country. In their book Spin & Sell: How Political Ads Shaped the 2004 Elections, Glenda M. Gloria, Ana Maria L. Tabunda and Carmela S. Fonbuena conceded that a year before the May 2004 elections, the Mar Roxas team had already put in place a very comprehensive and detailed campaign strategy, including placement of campaign ads in radio and on TV. So when the campaign period began in February 2004 and his opponents were still finalizing their jingle, ads and placements, Mar was already everywhere – in the morning shows, in person; at night, via the TV ads; and in the farthest nook and cranny of the archipelago, through radio jingles. He was difficult to miss, summed up the authors, and wondered not why he zoomed to number one, even past popular movie star Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr., the son of Nardong Putik, himself a former senator.
How did Mar Roxas find Senate work as compared to the get-up-and-go work as a DTI Secretary visiting public markets every week?
“The nature of the job in the Senate is very different from my four-year stint as a DTI Secretary. The output here is in the nature of policy prescriptions, advocacies, and support for or against the position taken by others. In Senate, we are trying to shape the public agenda. At DTI, the nature of the job is problem-solving, making a decision, and then implementing that decision. So it’s two different jobs altogether. Each has its own pluses and minuses. Each has its own attractions. But here, the negative or frustration is that you can only advocate a policy; you cannot implement it. If somebody decides not to implement it, or to implement it differently or at a different pace, then you are just on the sidelines trying to effect a change. You are not a decision-maker. On the other hand, in the executive, you are the decision-maker. You implement it. But you are not in control of the agenda.”
Quietly he worked, focusing on quality education, health and livelihood through small and medium enterprises. The Singapore government chose him as the 16th Lee Kuan Yew Fellow. The World Economic Forum, meanwhile, picked him as “one of the Global Leaders of Tomorrow who is expected to shape the future. The international community chimed in: “He is one of the young leaders in politics and business who will bring Asia and the Pacific into the forefront of world affairs.”
It is less than 25 months before the presidential candidates would file their certificates of candidacy in February of 2010, and the jostling for the presidency has begun. Nobody is in control of the agenda – not even the Palace, who does not have a strong candidate for President in 2010, unless you are thinking of Noli de Castro. Ho-hum.
Since I am running as a senator of the republic in the 2010 elections, I am also attending political meetings with different people and parties for alliances. During one such meeting, one person I do not know rode the high horse and began badmouthing everyone possibly running for president, except who I surmised must be his boss. I just sat there patiently and looked through him while he perorated. But when he said, “I do not like Mar Roxas because he was born with a golden spoon up his ass,” I had to correct him.
I could listen to nonsense as long as it is grammatical and idiomatic. After all, I have been teaching English for the last 21 years and sat through classes of rich brats. But if it is ungrammatical or unidiomatic, it is my bounden duty to correct them. I told the political operator: “Excuse me, the correct idiom is born with a silver spoon. Period.” You should see the ashen faces of the men – tough, rich, old men – around me.
So the next time I met with Mar Roxas I told him to be wary. The decibels for the noise and the lunacy would rise as the days fly towards 2010. They would hit him and his relationship with ABS-CBN broadcaster Korina Sanchez (Why are they still not yet married?) They would hit him and the mother of his son (Why does the public not know who the mother is?) They would say his mother, Judy, is really the power behind him (Why is she invisible when she is the one pulling the strings?) They would attack him for his silence from 2004 to 2007 (Why is he in the public eye only now?) They would even talk about his hair, his clothes, his shoes – everything under the torrid, political sun of a presidential pre-election campaign.
Mar makes no bones about his relationship with Korina. “It’s not a secret, of course, and we are doing well. We love each other. You know this thing, we let time and the relationship hold. Both of us are extremely busy. Sometimes, when we are going on a function, let us say at ABS-CBN, I would be coming from the Senate on Roxas Boulevard and she would be coming from Makati, where she lives. Believe it or not, we would meet at EDSA, at the gasoline station near McKinley Road. That is our rendezvous point, as they say. We do that so we could be together in the same car because that is still 30 minutes of traveling and we would be together. That quiet togetherness is very important. I’m not a teenager anymore. So right now, the highest form of relationship with another is having the security and the integrity and the wholeness of it. I am aware that people are asking when we would get married. I know marriage is important. I think both of us have waited this long and if marriage comes, when it comes, then it will come. Meanwhile, we’re very happy with our relationship.”
Before the senatorial campaign began in February of 2004, he admitted he had a son, but did not want photos of him taken to protect the son’s privacy. The word on the son’s mom is mum. But of his mother, the redoubtable Judy Araneta Roxas, Mar says: “I love my mother. I remember that one of the things my father told me before he died were the same things his father told him earlier: ‘Do not cause your mother to shed a tear.’ Which is not to say that you don’t discuss, you don’t argue, you don’t have your own point of view. I mean, I think my mother’s ambitions and dreams for me are the same as any mother’s ambitions and dreams for her children. She and my father sent me to good schools. My family and these schools taught me my values. In our family, we use the analogy of the compass. And Korina is now considered part of the family. When she is in the house, she and my mom talk. They talk together. In fact, when they start their women talk, I leave them.”
As to the silence from 2004 to 2007, Mar says that people should remember he did not vote for the Human Security Act. “I thought it was a misnomer, because it’s not really a human security act, it’s really a tool that can be used to terrorize our own people. You can be picked up and in effect be hidden forever, because the limitation of five days can actually be extended by a simple action. So all these extra-judicial killings and salvaging might become more frequent. I also went against Executive Order 464, the Calibrated Pre-emptive Response (CPR), and Proclamation 1017 of Mrs. Arroyo. I voted against all of these, I’ve stood my ground, I stood where I thought the country ought to be. I am now the head of the Senate Committee on Trade and Commerce that grilled government people regarding ZTE and JPEPA.”
To all these artillery, Mar Roxas just shrugs his shoulders. “It’s important to know who you are, where you are. Being congressman, DTI secretary, senator – these are all just titles, these are just jobs. When I was a congressman, I never used the number 8 license plate. When I was the DTI secretary, I never used number 6, and now as a senator, I never use number 7. Maybe that has also something to do with my bachelor status, so it’s not easy to find me, hahaha! But you can’t take these titles seriously. Otherwise, you’ll just get all screwy. I am Mar Roxas – I am the same person, the same clothes, the same shoes, everything. But all of a sudden, you enter a building now and you’re called ‘Honorable.’ HON. ka na ngayon, wow! I mean, you know, you have to take this tongue-in-cheek. When the function is a buffet, you don’t line up any more. They now bring you a plate full of food which – well, since I eat everything – I completely finish everything on that plate!”
It is one of the perks of being an honorable, surely, among other things. But Mar says that being HON. is not always fun.
“Now that you are an HON., typically, the conversation in your table is stilted and formal. Your friends and the halakhakan is actually happening in another table, which is where you want to be – but sadly, you cannot.”
What about youth?
Answering queries of the young is the subtitle of the recently finished youth forum the Young Turks had at the UP NCPAG from 1 to 5 pm today. Thanks go to the Student Council of UP NCPAG led by Sheila Mae Sabalburo, Prof. Liling Magtolis Briones, Dean Alex Brillantes Jr, and the Manila Concert Choir for a most wonderful afternoon.
And of course, to the students. They listened and asked questions, which is the part I always like best in a youth forum. Our emcees were Jeff Manalo and Pebbles Sanchez.
I want to write about this longer, when I have rested after a class I just finished. Suffice it to say that the event, like our first campus tour in Silliman, was a rousing success. After the forum, the students rushed to the stage for photos. I stood up, and the chair I was sitting on fell, and I almost fell with my chair. The stunned students managed to grab my hand. But we just laughed about it. Nearby, Adel and Gilbert and TG were also surrounded by students, for the photo ops. JV arrived and gave a message but had to leave early for another engagement. Erin was out of town for work as Chair of the Human Rights committee in Congress.
We are just Young Turks. But we were treated like rock stars.
As the great Pepe Smith would put it, "rock on!"
And of course, to the students. They listened and asked questions, which is the part I always like best in a youth forum. Our emcees were Jeff Manalo and Pebbles Sanchez.
I want to write about this longer, when I have rested after a class I just finished. Suffice it to say that the event, like our first campus tour in Silliman, was a rousing success. After the forum, the students rushed to the stage for photos. I stood up, and the chair I was sitting on fell, and I almost fell with my chair. The stunned students managed to grab my hand. But we just laughed about it. Nearby, Adel and Gilbert and TG were also surrounded by students, for the photo ops. JV arrived and gave a message but had to leave early for another engagement. Erin was out of town for work as Chair of the Human Rights committee in Congress.
We are just Young Turks. But we were treated like rock stars.
As the great Pepe Smith would put it, "rock on!"
1,600 principals to be trained on online management
Isn't it time that these principals jump over to the 21st century? Sirs and mesdames, welcome to a brave, new, borderless world. -- Danton
By RAINIER ALLAN RONDA
The Philippine Star
The Department of Education (DepEd) has partnered with the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization, Regional Center for Educational Innovation and Technology (SEAMEO-INNOTECH) to train some 1,600 public school principals on better school management using the Internet.
Education Secretary Jesli Lapus said the online school management training of public school principals will be pursued under the DepEd’s Excellence in School Leadership in Southeast Asia (eXCELS) program.
"By upgrading their (principals’) competencies, we optimize the principal’s leadership and management capabilities while updating them on the latest trends in curriculum and instruction," Lapus said.
About 1,200 school principals have already been scheduled for a four-week intensive online session where a learning tutor guides them through different sessions.
The principals can either have group interaction, one-on-one consultations with the flexible learning tutor, or do online forums among their peers, DepEd said.
The program also pushes principals to read, download and study resource materials, and answer exercises and case studies in their own time.
Among the learning resources for the principals are the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) materials and the online Harvard Education Review.
SEAMEO-INNOTECH welcomed DepEd’s move.
"We are pleased that the DepEd leadership can see the potentials of the flexible learning system and appreciate the opportunities it offers for the future," said Dr. Erlinda Pefianco, SEAMEO INNOTECH Director.
By RAINIER ALLAN RONDA
The Philippine Star
The Department of Education (DepEd) has partnered with the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization, Regional Center for Educational Innovation and Technology (SEAMEO-INNOTECH) to train some 1,600 public school principals on better school management using the Internet.
Education Secretary Jesli Lapus said the online school management training of public school principals will be pursued under the DepEd’s Excellence in School Leadership in Southeast Asia (eXCELS) program.
"By upgrading their (principals’) competencies, we optimize the principal’s leadership and management capabilities while updating them on the latest trends in curriculum and instruction," Lapus said.
About 1,200 school principals have already been scheduled for a four-week intensive online session where a learning tutor guides them through different sessions.
The principals can either have group interaction, one-on-one consultations with the flexible learning tutor, or do online forums among their peers, DepEd said.
The program also pushes principals to read, download and study resource materials, and answer exercises and case studies in their own time.
Among the learning resources for the principals are the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) materials and the online Harvard Education Review.
SEAMEO-INNOTECH welcomed DepEd’s move.
"We are pleased that the DepEd leadership can see the potentials of the flexible learning system and appreciate the opportunities it offers for the future," said Dr. Erlinda Pefianco, SEAMEO INNOTECH Director.
Comelec prepares for 2010 elections automation, mulls hybrid technology
By Carmela Fonbuena
abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak
With the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) elections out of the way, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) chair Jose Melo said the polling body is now "totally focused" on the automation of the coming 2010 presidential elections.
Less than two years away, Melo said "we have to keep moving. If we rest, we will lose the momentum from the successful ARMM automated elections. We were able to proclaim the winner in two days. If we can do it faster in 2010 and proclaim the president in one day, it will be better," he told abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak.
Melo issued at least three orders during Wednesday’s Comelec en banc to prepare for the 2010 elections. One, he asked for the preparation of elections calendar for 2010. "I asked them to do it as soon as possible. There are a lot of things to be done. We still have to bid [the automation project] and decide," Melo said.
Two, he assigned poll commissioner Leonardo Leonida to be in charge of cleansing the voters’ list. "I still don’t know how it will work. Commissioner Leonida will report to us," Melo said.
The Comelec is mulling the use of biometrix technology, which will supposedly purge the voters’ list of flying voters or multiply registrants. With biometrix, poll officials will be able to cross match the signatures, photographs, and fingerprints of voters.
Three, he scheduled a meeting with the Advisory Council on Poll Automation on Tuesday next week. The advisory council was in charge of the technical aspect of the ARMM automated elections.
While the council is expected to complete its assessment on the machines used in the ARMM elections in October, Melo said it’s better to start discussing with them this early about possible technologies that will be used in 2010.
The council's report due in October will also be submitted to Malacanang and Congress.
DRE, OMR hybrid in 2010?
A hybrid of the Direct Recording Equipment (DRE) and Optical Mark Reader (OMR) technologies were used in the ARMM elections. With DRE, the election is fully automated from voting, counting, and canvassing. With OMR, only the counting and canvassing are automated.
While the same hybrid is mulled for the 2010 presidential elections, Advisory Council for Poll Automation president Ray Roxas Chua told reporters after the ARMM polls that Comelec is still open to other technologies for 2010. Chua is the head of Malacanang’s Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT).
"When we look at the 2010 elections, we will once again look at all possible technologies. We will do procurement from the very beginning. Definitely, OMR and DRE will be strongly considered," he said.
Melo depends on the advisory council on technical matters. "It’s up to the advisory council to tell us. They will study the glitches. Of course, the cost is a big factor."
Early bidding
On Melo’s timeline, invitations to bid for the automation project should be given out December this year if not earlier. "At the latest on January 2009, we would be giving out our invitations to bid to the providers," he said.
"By the first quarter of 2009, we shall be making our decision on whom we shall get as providers. At the latest, March of 2009. We will begin training again, etc.," he added.
"We have to consider a lot of factors," said Chua. "It will not be economically feasible to do 100 percent DRE roll out for 2010. One of the things we’re really looking for in [the ARMM polls] is how the two systems can work together."
Although quicker, the DRE technology is estimated four or five times more expensive than OMR. Comelec will depend on the budget that Congress will give them.
abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak
With the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) elections out of the way, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) chair Jose Melo said the polling body is now "totally focused" on the automation of the coming 2010 presidential elections.
Less than two years away, Melo said "we have to keep moving. If we rest, we will lose the momentum from the successful ARMM automated elections. We were able to proclaim the winner in two days. If we can do it faster in 2010 and proclaim the president in one day, it will be better," he told abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak.
Melo issued at least three orders during Wednesday’s Comelec en banc to prepare for the 2010 elections. One, he asked for the preparation of elections calendar for 2010. "I asked them to do it as soon as possible. There are a lot of things to be done. We still have to bid [the automation project] and decide," Melo said.
Two, he assigned poll commissioner Leonardo Leonida to be in charge of cleansing the voters’ list. "I still don’t know how it will work. Commissioner Leonida will report to us," Melo said.
The Comelec is mulling the use of biometrix technology, which will supposedly purge the voters’ list of flying voters or multiply registrants. With biometrix, poll officials will be able to cross match the signatures, photographs, and fingerprints of voters.
Three, he scheduled a meeting with the Advisory Council on Poll Automation on Tuesday next week. The advisory council was in charge of the technical aspect of the ARMM automated elections.
While the council is expected to complete its assessment on the machines used in the ARMM elections in October, Melo said it’s better to start discussing with them this early about possible technologies that will be used in 2010.
The council's report due in October will also be submitted to Malacanang and Congress.
DRE, OMR hybrid in 2010?
A hybrid of the Direct Recording Equipment (DRE) and Optical Mark Reader (OMR) technologies were used in the ARMM elections. With DRE, the election is fully automated from voting, counting, and canvassing. With OMR, only the counting and canvassing are automated.
While the same hybrid is mulled for the 2010 presidential elections, Advisory Council for Poll Automation president Ray Roxas Chua told reporters after the ARMM polls that Comelec is still open to other technologies for 2010. Chua is the head of Malacanang’s Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT).
"When we look at the 2010 elections, we will once again look at all possible technologies. We will do procurement from the very beginning. Definitely, OMR and DRE will be strongly considered," he said.
Melo depends on the advisory council on technical matters. "It’s up to the advisory council to tell us. They will study the glitches. Of course, the cost is a big factor."
Early bidding
On Melo’s timeline, invitations to bid for the automation project should be given out December this year if not earlier. "At the latest on January 2009, we would be giving out our invitations to bid to the providers," he said.
"By the first quarter of 2009, we shall be making our decision on whom we shall get as providers. At the latest, March of 2009. We will begin training again, etc.," he added.
"We have to consider a lot of factors," said Chua. "It will not be economically feasible to do 100 percent DRE roll out for 2010. One of the things we’re really looking for in [the ARMM polls] is how the two systems can work together."
Although quicker, the DRE technology is estimated four or five times more expensive than OMR. Comelec will depend on the budget that Congress will give them.
Nobody's listening to Arroyo
By Ellen Tordesillas
www.ellentordesillas.com
Ang Pahayagang Malaya
Gloria Arroyo has lost control. She should resign.
She has lost control not only of herself (look up her throwing tantrum video last Monday in YouTube) but also of the government.
She should resign to spare the country further destruction, not only in terms of loss of lives but damage to democratic institutions.
Calls for Arroyo to resign are nothing new ever since the “Hello Garci” tapes surfaced which exposed her to have masterminded cheating in the 2004 elections. But she has effectively placated her political adversaries. This time, however, she has expended her political capital. Derided by majority of Filipinos, Arroyo’s words have no value.
Even MILF spokesman Mohagher Iqbal is not taking her seriously.
Asked by ANC’s Tony Velasquez about Arroyo’s latest policy statement abandoning negotiation and shifting to “dialogue with the communities” (whatever that means), Iqbal said, “I don’t want to comment. Kapag ang isang tao ay emotional kung ano-ano ang nasasabi.
Iqbal must have also observed that Arroyo is confused and panicking. Her statements give us reason to doubt if she has a good grasp of the situation on the ground. What does she mean by “Engagements with all armed groups shall be about disarmament, demobilization, and rehabilitation or DDR.”
Is she ordering the AFP to disarm the MILF? Is this an order for an all-out war?
At this time when the people have had enough of secrecy and obfuscation, she comes up with declarations that “From negotiations, our focus shall shift to dialogues with the communities or government conducting authentic conversations or dialogue with the people… about the people and government telling armed groups to give up armed struggle.” The people telling the MILF to give up their arms? Hello?
Arroyo’s deputy spokesperson announced the cancellation of the GRP-MILF Memorandum of Agreement On Ancestral Domain that would have been signed last August 5 in Kuala Lumpur had it not been for the temporary restraining order by the Supreme Court. She said the government will work out a new agreement with the MILF.
MILF’s Iqbal rejected any suggestion of renegotiation.
Fr. Eliseo Mercado. OMI, who has worked closely with the GRP-MILF peace panel said, “GMA is suspect from the very start. Whether we are for GMA or not, the fact remains that her credibility and popularity are almost nil. No peace agreement anywhere in the planet can be negotiated with that standing.”
Mindanao is being held together by the military taking to heart their Constitutional duty “as protector of the people and the State.” Arroyo, the commander-in-chief, is merely catching up with the armed forces. In fact, she issued her order for the military and police “to defend every inch of Philippine territory against MILF forces, and immediately restore peace in the affected areas in Lanao de Norte” when the military was already conducting mopping up operations. MILF’s Commander Bravo was already back in his “territory” after attacking municipalities in Lanao del Norte, burning houses and killing those who resisted.
The people have to be thankful that AFP chief Alexander Yano does not share the view of his predecessor, presidential peace adviser Hermogenes Esperon who told North Cotabato Vice Governor Manny Piñol that it’s the policy of the government not to “sacrifice the lives of the soldiers” if communities are attacked by MILF if the MOA on ancestral domain if blocked by the Supreme Court.
Arroyo should take her cue from her 2005 visitor, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, who resigned last Monday after nine years in power rather than be impeached. She is in no danger of being impeached given her hold on the pork barrel-loving congressmen. But if things get out of hand and Arroyo is seen as incapable of governing anymore, more messy scenarios could unfold.
She still has the option to resign and negotiate her exit which could include exile in a castle in Europe where she can enjoy her brandy. That’s definitely better than being ousted and landing in jail.
.
www.ellentordesillas.com
Ang Pahayagang Malaya
Gloria Arroyo has lost control. She should resign.
She has lost control not only of herself (look up her throwing tantrum video last Monday in YouTube) but also of the government.
She should resign to spare the country further destruction, not only in terms of loss of lives but damage to democratic institutions.
Calls for Arroyo to resign are nothing new ever since the “Hello Garci” tapes surfaced which exposed her to have masterminded cheating in the 2004 elections. But she has effectively placated her political adversaries. This time, however, she has expended her political capital. Derided by majority of Filipinos, Arroyo’s words have no value.
Even MILF spokesman Mohagher Iqbal is not taking her seriously.
Asked by ANC’s Tony Velasquez about Arroyo’s latest policy statement abandoning negotiation and shifting to “dialogue with the communities” (whatever that means), Iqbal said, “I don’t want to comment. Kapag ang isang tao ay emotional kung ano-ano ang nasasabi.
Iqbal must have also observed that Arroyo is confused and panicking. Her statements give us reason to doubt if she has a good grasp of the situation on the ground. What does she mean by “Engagements with all armed groups shall be about disarmament, demobilization, and rehabilitation or DDR.”
Is she ordering the AFP to disarm the MILF? Is this an order for an all-out war?
At this time when the people have had enough of secrecy and obfuscation, she comes up with declarations that “From negotiations, our focus shall shift to dialogues with the communities or government conducting authentic conversations or dialogue with the people… about the people and government telling armed groups to give up armed struggle.” The people telling the MILF to give up their arms? Hello?
Arroyo’s deputy spokesperson announced the cancellation of the GRP-MILF Memorandum of Agreement On Ancestral Domain that would have been signed last August 5 in Kuala Lumpur had it not been for the temporary restraining order by the Supreme Court. She said the government will work out a new agreement with the MILF.
MILF’s Iqbal rejected any suggestion of renegotiation.
Fr. Eliseo Mercado. OMI, who has worked closely with the GRP-MILF peace panel said, “GMA is suspect from the very start. Whether we are for GMA or not, the fact remains that her credibility and popularity are almost nil. No peace agreement anywhere in the planet can be negotiated with that standing.”
Mindanao is being held together by the military taking to heart their Constitutional duty “as protector of the people and the State.” Arroyo, the commander-in-chief, is merely catching up with the armed forces. In fact, she issued her order for the military and police “to defend every inch of Philippine territory against MILF forces, and immediately restore peace in the affected areas in Lanao de Norte” when the military was already conducting mopping up operations. MILF’s Commander Bravo was already back in his “territory” after attacking municipalities in Lanao del Norte, burning houses and killing those who resisted.
The people have to be thankful that AFP chief Alexander Yano does not share the view of his predecessor, presidential peace adviser Hermogenes Esperon who told North Cotabato Vice Governor Manny Piñol that it’s the policy of the government not to “sacrifice the lives of the soldiers” if communities are attacked by MILF if the MOA on ancestral domain if blocked by the Supreme Court.
Arroyo should take her cue from her 2005 visitor, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, who resigned last Monday after nine years in power rather than be impeached. She is in no danger of being impeached given her hold on the pork barrel-loving congressmen. But if things get out of hand and Arroyo is seen as incapable of governing anymore, more messy scenarios could unfold.
She still has the option to resign and negotiate her exit which could include exile in a castle in Europe where she can enjoy her brandy. That’s definitely better than being ousted and landing in jail.
.
Roxas invites Lim to join Liberal Party
Politics is addition, not subtraction. Erap has a lot of time in his hands -- enough time to prepare for 2010. Whether running as president or kingmaker, Tatay Erap is still like a force of nature. Whether you like it or not, you will see more of him in the next few days. That is, if he is not busy going around the country, to thank the people for trusting him.
***
AMITA LEGASPI, GMANews.TV
August 21, 2008
MANILA, Philippines - Dethroned Partido ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) president Alfredo Lim may find himself joining the party that had him as standard bearer in the 1998 presidential elections.
This was after Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II disclosed that he had invited Lim to join Liberal Party (LP) and that preliminary talks are “ongoing.”
“We have high regard of Lim and we respect him. We welcome him (if he intends to join the party),” Roxas, the LP president, said Thursday.
Lim formally resigned from PMP Wednesday after he was booted out of the presidency.
Pardoned former President Joseph Estrada said he decided to assume the leadership of the PMP since Lim was “too busy" with his functions as mayor of Manila.
“I have taken over as president of the PMP because Mayor Lim was too busy. Anyway, I am not doing anything. The party removed him (Lim)," Estrada said.
Estrada also admitted that Lim’s participation in Edsa Dos, which catapulted President Arroyo to power, and his recent manhandling of a Manila councilor over a row involving a slaughterhouse also contributed to the party’s decision.
In his resignation letter dated August 20, 2008, Lim promised Estrada that he will remain with the opposition.
Lim served as secretary of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) during the short-lived Estrada administration. - GMANews.TV
***
AMITA LEGASPI, GMANews.TV
August 21, 2008
MANILA, Philippines - Dethroned Partido ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) president Alfredo Lim may find himself joining the party that had him as standard bearer in the 1998 presidential elections.
This was after Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II disclosed that he had invited Lim to join Liberal Party (LP) and that preliminary talks are “ongoing.”
“We have high regard of Lim and we respect him. We welcome him (if he intends to join the party),” Roxas, the LP president, said Thursday.
Lim formally resigned from PMP Wednesday after he was booted out of the presidency.
Pardoned former President Joseph Estrada said he decided to assume the leadership of the PMP since Lim was “too busy" with his functions as mayor of Manila.
“I have taken over as president of the PMP because Mayor Lim was too busy. Anyway, I am not doing anything. The party removed him (Lim)," Estrada said.
Estrada also admitted that Lim’s participation in Edsa Dos, which catapulted President Arroyo to power, and his recent manhandling of a Manila councilor over a row involving a slaughterhouse also contributed to the party’s decision.
In his resignation letter dated August 20, 2008, Lim promised Estrada that he will remain with the opposition.
Lim served as secretary of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) during the short-lived Estrada administration. - GMANews.TV
Ninoy may now be wondering if the Filipino was worth dying for
AS I WRECK THIS CHAIR By William M. Esposo
Thursday, August 21, 2008
The Philippine Star
The murder of Ninoy Aquino 25 years ago was supposed to silence the one Opposition leader then who was the thorn on the side of Dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos and posed the greatest threat to those seeking to succeed him.
The murder was supposed to secure the tenure of the Marcos dictatorship — if not Marcos himself, then his preferred successor. But like the best laid plans of mice and men, that was not what turned out to be.
The murdered Ninoy became the country’s new national hero. His sacrifice provided the spark that ended the Marcos dictatorship. The dictator who sought to perpetuate himself in power was ousted three years later – to be succeeded by the widow of the man they murdered.
To those of us who lived through all this, we are wiser for witnessing with our own eyes two valuable lessons:
1. The first is that there is truly a God who can set the seemingly hopeless course of a nation to the path of redemption. We delude ourselves if we say that the events of August 21, 1983 all the way to Redemption Day on February 25, 1986 did not have the hand of God guiding the nation to its desired liberation.
2. The second is that the Filipino is a great nation that only needs a truthful and sincere leader to bring out the best in all Filipinos. Filipinos became the toast of the world for the lessons of People Power which, sadly, is altogether forgotten and discarded now.
It is no coincidence that two of the icons of People Power — Cory Aquino and Jaime Cardinal Sin — are persons who take their strength from prayer. It is no coincidence that the people in EDSA were repelling tank columns with prayers and rosaries. All they had was the faith that moved mountains.
It is no coincidence that the easily divided Filipinos were united in their stand for freedom and democracy during the fateful days of the People Power Revolt. Their courage was no doubt inspired by the man who dared to return home 25 years ago despite the grave risks it involved.
The events of February 21 to 25, 1986 made us the toast of the world. The anchor of a US TV network covering the event live commented: “We Americans like to think that we taught the Filipinos democracy. Well today, they are teaching the world.”
It was George Bernard Shaw who wrote in St. Joan that it is bad enough if people do not know when they are beaten, it is worse when people do not know when they are victorious. In other words, it is bad enough if you do not learn the lesson of your mistake, it is worse if you do not learn the lesson of your own success.
Alas, we Filipinos taught the world the perfect execution of People Power sans violence. And yet, instead of using People Power to strengthen our democracy and make it work, we discarded the priceless lesson we taught the world.
The lesson of unity gave way to ‘kanya kanyang lakad’ (paddle your own canoe). Weak because we are un-empowered, still we allowed ourselves to be divided and thus be easily manipulated and exploited.
Since few Filipinos really cared to do something about the problems of the country, we find ourselves the biggest victims of the continued slide, our economic retardation. Richer than Japan in natural resources, we cannot even provide our people with basic education and health services.
The majority of Filipinos thinks and believes that the country is ruled by one who cheated during the 2004 elections. Ninoy must be wondering — how come People Power was launched when Marcos tried to cheat Cory and yet is now discarded in the face of a similar rape of the democratic process?
It must be puzzling Ninoy no end that how come Filipinos who did not tolerate oppression and repression from Marcos — compared to the current, a far better ruler who had a vision for the country despite the failings of his dictatorship — is now able to stomach the present regime which hardly has any saving grace to speak of?
Brilliant as he was, Ninoy must be at a loss at how come the race that produced such lions of history as Lapu Lapu, Gregorio del Pilar, Jose Rizal, Apolinario Mabini and Andres Bonifacio is so devoid today of such patriotism and heroism in the face of crass corruption and the treasonous sellout of the national interest to foreign superpowers.
Ninoy must be crying over how the rest of the soldiers and officers of the military — save for the few who stood up to tyranny — can continue to defer to this present ruler as their Commander-in-Chief. They’re the constitutionally mandated protectors of the people and yet they’re unable to discern if Filipinos need protection and redemption from their present bad rulers.
Ninoy must be crying at the sight of his siblings — Paul, Tessie and Lupita — fawning on the woman who would be another Marcos if she could.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
The Philippine Star
The murder of Ninoy Aquino 25 years ago was supposed to silence the one Opposition leader then who was the thorn on the side of Dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos and posed the greatest threat to those seeking to succeed him.
The murder was supposed to secure the tenure of the Marcos dictatorship — if not Marcos himself, then his preferred successor. But like the best laid plans of mice and men, that was not what turned out to be.
The murdered Ninoy became the country’s new national hero. His sacrifice provided the spark that ended the Marcos dictatorship. The dictator who sought to perpetuate himself in power was ousted three years later – to be succeeded by the widow of the man they murdered.
To those of us who lived through all this, we are wiser for witnessing with our own eyes two valuable lessons:
1. The first is that there is truly a God who can set the seemingly hopeless course of a nation to the path of redemption. We delude ourselves if we say that the events of August 21, 1983 all the way to Redemption Day on February 25, 1986 did not have the hand of God guiding the nation to its desired liberation.
2. The second is that the Filipino is a great nation that only needs a truthful and sincere leader to bring out the best in all Filipinos. Filipinos became the toast of the world for the lessons of People Power which, sadly, is altogether forgotten and discarded now.
It is no coincidence that two of the icons of People Power — Cory Aquino and Jaime Cardinal Sin — are persons who take their strength from prayer. It is no coincidence that the people in EDSA were repelling tank columns with prayers and rosaries. All they had was the faith that moved mountains.
It is no coincidence that the easily divided Filipinos were united in their stand for freedom and democracy during the fateful days of the People Power Revolt. Their courage was no doubt inspired by the man who dared to return home 25 years ago despite the grave risks it involved.
The events of February 21 to 25, 1986 made us the toast of the world. The anchor of a US TV network covering the event live commented: “We Americans like to think that we taught the Filipinos democracy. Well today, they are teaching the world.”
It was George Bernard Shaw who wrote in St. Joan that it is bad enough if people do not know when they are beaten, it is worse when people do not know when they are victorious. In other words, it is bad enough if you do not learn the lesson of your mistake, it is worse if you do not learn the lesson of your own success.
Alas, we Filipinos taught the world the perfect execution of People Power sans violence. And yet, instead of using People Power to strengthen our democracy and make it work, we discarded the priceless lesson we taught the world.
The lesson of unity gave way to ‘kanya kanyang lakad’ (paddle your own canoe). Weak because we are un-empowered, still we allowed ourselves to be divided and thus be easily manipulated and exploited.
Since few Filipinos really cared to do something about the problems of the country, we find ourselves the biggest victims of the continued slide, our economic retardation. Richer than Japan in natural resources, we cannot even provide our people with basic education and health services.
The majority of Filipinos thinks and believes that the country is ruled by one who cheated during the 2004 elections. Ninoy must be wondering — how come People Power was launched when Marcos tried to cheat Cory and yet is now discarded in the face of a similar rape of the democratic process?
It must be puzzling Ninoy no end that how come Filipinos who did not tolerate oppression and repression from Marcos — compared to the current, a far better ruler who had a vision for the country despite the failings of his dictatorship — is now able to stomach the present regime which hardly has any saving grace to speak of?
Brilliant as he was, Ninoy must be at a loss at how come the race that produced such lions of history as Lapu Lapu, Gregorio del Pilar, Jose Rizal, Apolinario Mabini and Andres Bonifacio is so devoid today of such patriotism and heroism in the face of crass corruption and the treasonous sellout of the national interest to foreign superpowers.
Ninoy must be crying over how the rest of the soldiers and officers of the military — save for the few who stood up to tyranny — can continue to defer to this present ruler as their Commander-in-Chief. They’re the constitutionally mandated protectors of the people and yet they’re unable to discern if Filipinos need protection and redemption from their present bad rulers.
Ninoy must be crying at the sight of his siblings — Paul, Tessie and Lupita — fawning on the woman who would be another Marcos if she could.
We are family
REMOTE CONTROL By DANTON REMOTO
www.abs-cbnnews.com
Posted August 20, 2008
In the mid-seventies my father had a trading firm in Quezon City and his accountant was a lesbian. How did I know she was a lesbian? She had short hair, a robust body, and she wore blouses that looked like shirts. She walked with a swagger and had a gentle face wreathed in smiles.
She would visit our house every quarter to look at the books. After her first visit, my father walked her out of the house into her car, a cool, blue Datsun. My mother and I were sitting in the living room, and suddenly she said, “Do you know that Tess is a lesbian?”
I was in high school, tall and lean and shy, my face full of pimples. I just looked at my mother, and then she added: “But that is all right. She takes care of her old parents and sends her brothers and sisters to college.”
I was confused. Does that mean it was all right to be a lesbian? Or was it all right to be a lesbian if you care for your old folks and send your siblings to school?
My hairdresser’s name is Dessa. I go to him not only to have my hair shampooed and trimmed and oiled; I also go to him for my month’s supply of stories. Sometimes scandalous stories, yes, because his parlor is near two places dear to his heart--a military camp and a construction site. He likes his men straight and dark and hard of sinew, and he has a cache of stories about soldiers and workers who can be seduced with an excellent haircut or a bag of hot pan de sal and Coke.
But like Tess, Dessa is also the family breadwinner. Sure, his parents are now permanent residents in the United States, after having been petitioned by his sister, now an American citizen. But he still has other brothers and sisters—and their gaggle of children—who come to him with their interminable needs.
Sometimes, he would be cutting my hair and his nephew would climb the stairs and ask him for some money to buy milk for the baby at home. Dessa’s round eyes would just look at me, he would shrug his shoulders, then dip his fingers into his small, brown handbag.
Gay market?
The columnist and UP professor Michael Tan said that there is no such thing as a gay market in the Philippines, in reference to the slew of advertisements talking of gay-niche marketing. In the Philippines, he said, there is only the gay (and lesbian) breadwinner.
The Filipino family in the new millennium is no longer composed of the father who works, the mother who stays at home, and the children who go to school. Since the 1970s, with terrible poverty besetting the land, millions of Filipinos have left.
There are now eight million Filipinos abroad, fully 10 percent of our population of 89 million. These Filipinos are fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts. They left behind children, nephews and nieces, siblings to be fed and clothed and educated.
Some of those who left are gays and lesbians who remit the dollars that prop up our dismal economy. Some of those who stayed here are gays and lesbians who care for the children their parents left behind. They work by day, go home to tutor the children, make sure they are fed and cared for. Along with the grandparents left behind, they, too, constitute the new Filipino family.
Adoption
In this nation of migrants, the fabric of the Filipino family has not been torn, it has been altered. It has been patched, with new designs and new colors added. It has verily become a fabric different but still the same. It has been said that the Filipinos are some of the warmest and most spontaneous people in the world. You only have to attend family reunions to see vivid examples of these.
But in these reunions, the gay uncle is quiet because he does not want to be asked when will he marry, and the lesbian aunt is busy puttering about the house, making sure everybody is fed.
These are stereotypes. Gays and lesbians in the millennium have changed, too. Some of us are into relationships with fellow gays, or with fellow lesbians. There are still those who sleep only with straight people, with dire consequences for their pockets and for their self-esteem.
But more and more people in our community are into relationships based on mutual love and respect. The relationships last for months, for years, even for decades. Love, like desire, springs eternal in the human breast.
And as the years pass, more and more are adopting children—the children of their poor relatives, the children of their house help, the children left on their very doorsteps, like in the melodramatic Tagalog movies. So the mainstream protest has shifted to same-sex parenting.
In 1998 we hosted an afternoon of discussions with presidential candidates. One of those who graciously attended was the late Senator Raul Roco. We asked him if there is a provision in the Family Code that would prevent a same-sex couple from adopting a child legally. The context of the question is an opinion from the Department of Social Welfare and Development that a lesbian or gay couple (or individual) cannot adopt because there would be no role models for a male or female parent.
Senator Roco said that was only an opinion and it has no legal leg to stand on. He even suggested that we could do a test case here and go to court.
Condoms and contraceptives
The American Psychological Association and the American Psychoanalytic Association have separately issued statements supporting the rights of gays and lesbians to adopt. Categorically, they have affirmed studies done over the last 20 years that “there are no notable differences between children raised by straight or gay parents.”
Ironically, the Marriage Law Project—an organization whose mission is to reaffirm the legal definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman—commissioned analysts to examine the 49 studies in which researchers found no difference between children raised by gay and straight parents. Shaking its head, incredulous even, the Marriage Law Project had to concur with the validity of the scientific findings.
You can see this miasma of confusion in the current debate between the Catholic Church and the reproductive-rights advocates. The end-point, from where I stand, is that the Church should continue teaching people in their natural family planning clinics how to count correctly so their natural birth-control methods would work.
As it is now, with illiteracy and innumeracy hounding the poor, they cannot even understand the basics of the natural method. On the other hand, health centers should carry condoms and other contraceptives, as well as accessible information on family planning, so that the poor could limit the number of their children.
For the very poor who has P10 in his pocket would rather buy a packet of noodles to feed their children than a condom for himself. In the end, I think it all boils down to choice.
Sexual violence
Moreover, there is the silence of the church on the sexual violence inflicted on young members of the flock. Even Pope Benedict has publicly apologized for what the pedophile priests have done in Australia and the United States. Gobbledygook, a member of a gay yahoo group, said, “It’s truly sad that the Catholic hierarchy condemns homosexual [acts] when it has treated its erring gay priests and lesbian nuns who figured in molestation/rape/sexual harassment cases with kid gloves. If there are closeted gay clergy who engage in homosexual practices, what does that make of the Catholic hierarchy that condemns homosexuality? I think it only makes the Church look ridiculous.”
Mr. Brown adds: “There are some gay priests hiding in the confessional boxes, afraid to come out in the open. What we get from the newspaper headlines are only a few isolated cases. Most of the young and helpless victims are afraid to speak out. Yet we hear of condemnation of gays high up in the pulpit.”
In fairness to the Catholic Church, when I asked a bishop about this, he said the CBCP should be given a written letter about incidents of pedophilia, and they would investigate the matter at hand. So the table is now open for a test case.
Luigi, Mika
I want to end with a self-serving story.
My sister’s husband recently died of leukemia. Now she has to raise Luigi, her now 12-year-old son, who wants to go to medical school. She works hard and has saved some money, but I do not think it is enough to send a son to medical school in the next 20 years. So I told her I will help send her son to school.
Recently, I adopted the daughter of our yaya of 20 years. Mika is now seven years old, a big-boned and bubbly girl who is topping her class in grade school. I am sending her to a good school and one of the pleasures of my life is to call home every night and ask her what good thing she did in school today.
Thus, happy-go-lucky me who only buys books and clothes for myself and who lives abroad every two years now has to send two kids to school. Our house is loud with a teenager’s voice and the poem being memorized by a bright girl.
Every night I check if the aircon is not too cold for them, and if the yaya has tucked them well for the night. I think of vaccinations and medicines and sweat drying up on their backs. But in turn, the boy breathlessly tells me stories about what the manga he has just drawn, and the young girl calls me “Daa-dee.”
I do it not out of a sense of obligation but of love. Now that these two children have another “Daa-dee,” our little house on the prairie is complete.
www.abs-cbnnews.com
Posted August 20, 2008
In the mid-seventies my father had a trading firm in Quezon City and his accountant was a lesbian. How did I know she was a lesbian? She had short hair, a robust body, and she wore blouses that looked like shirts. She walked with a swagger and had a gentle face wreathed in smiles.
She would visit our house every quarter to look at the books. After her first visit, my father walked her out of the house into her car, a cool, blue Datsun. My mother and I were sitting in the living room, and suddenly she said, “Do you know that Tess is a lesbian?”
I was in high school, tall and lean and shy, my face full of pimples. I just looked at my mother, and then she added: “But that is all right. She takes care of her old parents and sends her brothers and sisters to college.”
I was confused. Does that mean it was all right to be a lesbian? Or was it all right to be a lesbian if you care for your old folks and send your siblings to school?
My hairdresser’s name is Dessa. I go to him not only to have my hair shampooed and trimmed and oiled; I also go to him for my month’s supply of stories. Sometimes scandalous stories, yes, because his parlor is near two places dear to his heart--a military camp and a construction site. He likes his men straight and dark and hard of sinew, and he has a cache of stories about soldiers and workers who can be seduced with an excellent haircut or a bag of hot pan de sal and Coke.
But like Tess, Dessa is also the family breadwinner. Sure, his parents are now permanent residents in the United States, after having been petitioned by his sister, now an American citizen. But he still has other brothers and sisters—and their gaggle of children—who come to him with their interminable needs.
Sometimes, he would be cutting my hair and his nephew would climb the stairs and ask him for some money to buy milk for the baby at home. Dessa’s round eyes would just look at me, he would shrug his shoulders, then dip his fingers into his small, brown handbag.
Gay market?
The columnist and UP professor Michael Tan said that there is no such thing as a gay market in the Philippines, in reference to the slew of advertisements talking of gay-niche marketing. In the Philippines, he said, there is only the gay (and lesbian) breadwinner.
The Filipino family in the new millennium is no longer composed of the father who works, the mother who stays at home, and the children who go to school. Since the 1970s, with terrible poverty besetting the land, millions of Filipinos have left.
There are now eight million Filipinos abroad, fully 10 percent of our population of 89 million. These Filipinos are fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts. They left behind children, nephews and nieces, siblings to be fed and clothed and educated.
Some of those who left are gays and lesbians who remit the dollars that prop up our dismal economy. Some of those who stayed here are gays and lesbians who care for the children their parents left behind. They work by day, go home to tutor the children, make sure they are fed and cared for. Along with the grandparents left behind, they, too, constitute the new Filipino family.
Adoption
In this nation of migrants, the fabric of the Filipino family has not been torn, it has been altered. It has been patched, with new designs and new colors added. It has verily become a fabric different but still the same. It has been said that the Filipinos are some of the warmest and most spontaneous people in the world. You only have to attend family reunions to see vivid examples of these.
But in these reunions, the gay uncle is quiet because he does not want to be asked when will he marry, and the lesbian aunt is busy puttering about the house, making sure everybody is fed.
These are stereotypes. Gays and lesbians in the millennium have changed, too. Some of us are into relationships with fellow gays, or with fellow lesbians. There are still those who sleep only with straight people, with dire consequences for their pockets and for their self-esteem.
But more and more people in our community are into relationships based on mutual love and respect. The relationships last for months, for years, even for decades. Love, like desire, springs eternal in the human breast.
And as the years pass, more and more are adopting children—the children of their poor relatives, the children of their house help, the children left on their very doorsteps, like in the melodramatic Tagalog movies. So the mainstream protest has shifted to same-sex parenting.
In 1998 we hosted an afternoon of discussions with presidential candidates. One of those who graciously attended was the late Senator Raul Roco. We asked him if there is a provision in the Family Code that would prevent a same-sex couple from adopting a child legally. The context of the question is an opinion from the Department of Social Welfare and Development that a lesbian or gay couple (or individual) cannot adopt because there would be no role models for a male or female parent.
Senator Roco said that was only an opinion and it has no legal leg to stand on. He even suggested that we could do a test case here and go to court.
Condoms and contraceptives
The American Psychological Association and the American Psychoanalytic Association have separately issued statements supporting the rights of gays and lesbians to adopt. Categorically, they have affirmed studies done over the last 20 years that “there are no notable differences between children raised by straight or gay parents.”
Ironically, the Marriage Law Project—an organization whose mission is to reaffirm the legal definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman—commissioned analysts to examine the 49 studies in which researchers found no difference between children raised by gay and straight parents. Shaking its head, incredulous even, the Marriage Law Project had to concur with the validity of the scientific findings.
You can see this miasma of confusion in the current debate between the Catholic Church and the reproductive-rights advocates. The end-point, from where I stand, is that the Church should continue teaching people in their natural family planning clinics how to count correctly so their natural birth-control methods would work.
As it is now, with illiteracy and innumeracy hounding the poor, they cannot even understand the basics of the natural method. On the other hand, health centers should carry condoms and other contraceptives, as well as accessible information on family planning, so that the poor could limit the number of their children.
For the very poor who has P10 in his pocket would rather buy a packet of noodles to feed their children than a condom for himself. In the end, I think it all boils down to choice.
Sexual violence
Moreover, there is the silence of the church on the sexual violence inflicted on young members of the flock. Even Pope Benedict has publicly apologized for what the pedophile priests have done in Australia and the United States. Gobbledygook, a member of a gay yahoo group, said, “It’s truly sad that the Catholic hierarchy condemns homosexual [acts] when it has treated its erring gay priests and lesbian nuns who figured in molestation/rape/sexual harassment cases with kid gloves. If there are closeted gay clergy who engage in homosexual practices, what does that make of the Catholic hierarchy that condemns homosexuality? I think it only makes the Church look ridiculous.”
Mr. Brown adds: “There are some gay priests hiding in the confessional boxes, afraid to come out in the open. What we get from the newspaper headlines are only a few isolated cases. Most of the young and helpless victims are afraid to speak out. Yet we hear of condemnation of gays high up in the pulpit.”
In fairness to the Catholic Church, when I asked a bishop about this, he said the CBCP should be given a written letter about incidents of pedophilia, and they would investigate the matter at hand. So the table is now open for a test case.
Luigi, Mika
I want to end with a self-serving story.
My sister’s husband recently died of leukemia. Now she has to raise Luigi, her now 12-year-old son, who wants to go to medical school. She works hard and has saved some money, but I do not think it is enough to send a son to medical school in the next 20 years. So I told her I will help send her son to school.
Recently, I adopted the daughter of our yaya of 20 years. Mika is now seven years old, a big-boned and bubbly girl who is topping her class in grade school. I am sending her to a good school and one of the pleasures of my life is to call home every night and ask her what good thing she did in school today.
Thus, happy-go-lucky me who only buys books and clothes for myself and who lives abroad every two years now has to send two kids to school. Our house is loud with a teenager’s voice and the poem being memorized by a bright girl.
Every night I check if the aircon is not too cold for them, and if the yaya has tucked them well for the night. I think of vaccinations and medicines and sweat drying up on their backs. But in turn, the boy breathlessly tells me stories about what the manga he has just drawn, and the young girl calls me “Daa-dee.”
I do it not out of a sense of obligation but of love. Now that these two children have another “Daa-dee,” our little house on the prairie is complete.
Don't stereotype Moros as terrorists -- Opposition spokesman
MANILA, Philippines — The spokesman of the United Opposition (UNO) on Wednesday appealed to the public not to stereotype Filipino Muslims as “terrorists” as a result of the unprovoked killing of unarmed civilians allegedly by renegade members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Central Mindanao last Monday.
Adel Tamano, a Muslim scholar and lawyer, said such unfair characterization would be “a serious threat to the peace-process in Mindanao.”
“While all-peace-loving Filipinos must condemn the attacks on civilians by MILF, we must strongly resist the temptation to stereotype all Moros as violent or terrorists,” Tamano said in a statement.
“The vast majority of Filipino Muslims are law-abiding citizens who want nothing more than to find decent jobs and education for their children, just like all other Filipinos,” he added.
“We must not allow the situation to degenerate into a generalized anti-Muslim sentiment which is unfair and will ultimately be a death-blow to the dream of creating a lasting peace in Mindanao,” he said.
Tamano earlier said the unprovoked attacks on civilians “certainly does not help convince those against the controversial Memorandum of Agreement on ancestral domain between the government and MILF negotiation panels.”
He called the attacks “immoral, Un-Islamic and un-Christian.”
Tamano, along with former Senate President Franklin Drilon, and Liberal Party President Sen. Mar Roxas openly supported the opposition raised by Mindanao local officials against the proposed MOA. They were able to secure a temporary restraining order from the Supreme Court to stop its scheduled signing last Aug. 5 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
At the same time, Tamano said all peace advocacy groups, whether they supported the MOA or not, should now take a firm stand against the recent atrocities in Central Mindanao that has claimed dozens of lives and displaced thousands of villagers..
Tamano earlier called on all Mindanao leaders “to make a strong and unqualified call to end all hostilities between the government and the MILF.”
“Now is not the time for blame and finger-pointing but for statesmanship on all sides. I challenge all our leaders to set aside their own agenda and make an unequivocal call for peace and unity,” he said.
Adel Tamano, a Muslim scholar and lawyer, said such unfair characterization would be “a serious threat to the peace-process in Mindanao.”
“While all-peace-loving Filipinos must condemn the attacks on civilians by MILF, we must strongly resist the temptation to stereotype all Moros as violent or terrorists,” Tamano said in a statement.
“The vast majority of Filipino Muslims are law-abiding citizens who want nothing more than to find decent jobs and education for their children, just like all other Filipinos,” he added.
“We must not allow the situation to degenerate into a generalized anti-Muslim sentiment which is unfair and will ultimately be a death-blow to the dream of creating a lasting peace in Mindanao,” he said.
Tamano earlier said the unprovoked attacks on civilians “certainly does not help convince those against the controversial Memorandum of Agreement on ancestral domain between the government and MILF negotiation panels.”
He called the attacks “immoral, Un-Islamic and un-Christian.”
Tamano, along with former Senate President Franklin Drilon, and Liberal Party President Sen. Mar Roxas openly supported the opposition raised by Mindanao local officials against the proposed MOA. They were able to secure a temporary restraining order from the Supreme Court to stop its scheduled signing last Aug. 5 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
At the same time, Tamano said all peace advocacy groups, whether they supported the MOA or not, should now take a firm stand against the recent atrocities in Central Mindanao that has claimed dozens of lives and displaced thousands of villagers..
Tamano earlier called on all Mindanao leaders “to make a strong and unqualified call to end all hostilities between the government and the MILF.”
“Now is not the time for blame and finger-pointing but for statesmanship on all sides. I challenge all our leaders to set aside their own agenda and make an unequivocal call for peace and unity,” he said.
SWS: De Castro, Loren are top prez bets for 2010
www.abs-cbnnews.com
Vice President Noli de Castro and Sen. Loren Legarda are the top two presidential choices to succeed President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in the 2010 polls, results of the Second Quarter 2008 Social Weather Stations survey said Tuesday.
Three out of ten Filipinos or 31 percent of the respondents chose De Castro as their top presidential bet followed by Legarda with 26 percent. Twenty-five percent of respondents chose Senate President Manuel Villar as their choice for president.
The SWS survey used face-to-face interviews to 1,200 respondents, who were divided into random samples representing 300 each in Metro Manila, the rest of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. SWS claimed a sampling margin error of ±3 percent.
In the survey conducted June 27 to 30, adult respondents were asked the question: “Under the present Constitution, the term of President Arroyo is up to 2010 only, and there will be an election for a new President in May 2010. Who do you think are the good leaders who should succeed President Arroyo as President? You may give up to three names."
The respondents were not provided a list of names, giving them the chance to name three of their presidential bets.
Other names that emerged were mostly from the opposition namely Senators Panfilo Lacson (16 percent), Francis Escudero (14 percent), Manuel ‘Mar’ Roxas (13 percent), former President Joseph Estrada (11 percent) and Francis Pangilinan (2 percent).
Fifteen percent failed to give an answer, while eight percent had no one to recommend.
Compared to the previous SWS survey, the proportion of respondents who favored De Castro and Legarda slightly dropped down by four points. De Castro dropped from 35 percent to 31 percent while Legarda dropped from 30 percent down to 26 percent. There was a three-point decline for Roxas (from 16 percent to 13 percent) and Estrada (14 percent to 11 percent). Escudero went down to 14 percent from the previous 19 percent while Villar leaped 8 points from 17 percent to 25 percent.
Vice President Noli de Castro and Sen. Loren Legarda are the top two presidential choices to succeed President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in the 2010 polls, results of the Second Quarter 2008 Social Weather Stations survey said Tuesday.
Three out of ten Filipinos or 31 percent of the respondents chose De Castro as their top presidential bet followed by Legarda with 26 percent. Twenty-five percent of respondents chose Senate President Manuel Villar as their choice for president.
The SWS survey used face-to-face interviews to 1,200 respondents, who were divided into random samples representing 300 each in Metro Manila, the rest of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. SWS claimed a sampling margin error of ±3 percent.
In the survey conducted June 27 to 30, adult respondents were asked the question: “Under the present Constitution, the term of President Arroyo is up to 2010 only, and there will be an election for a new President in May 2010. Who do you think are the good leaders who should succeed President Arroyo as President? You may give up to three names."
The respondents were not provided a list of names, giving them the chance to name three of their presidential bets.
Other names that emerged were mostly from the opposition namely Senators Panfilo Lacson (16 percent), Francis Escudero (14 percent), Manuel ‘Mar’ Roxas (13 percent), former President Joseph Estrada (11 percent) and Francis Pangilinan (2 percent).
Fifteen percent failed to give an answer, while eight percent had no one to recommend.
Compared to the previous SWS survey, the proportion of respondents who favored De Castro and Legarda slightly dropped down by four points. De Castro dropped from 35 percent to 31 percent while Legarda dropped from 30 percent down to 26 percent. There was a three-point decline for Roxas (from 16 percent to 13 percent) and Estrada (14 percent to 11 percent). Escudero went down to 14 percent from the previous 19 percent while Villar leaped 8 points from 17 percent to 25 percent.
Young Turks go to Silliman
LODESTAR By Danton Remoto
Monday, August 18, 2008
www.philstar.net
In February of this year, I received a text message from my friend, Atty. Adel Tamano, president of Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, spokesman of the Genuine Opposition, and a fellow alumnus of the Ateneo de Manila University.
He was asking me to join a group of new and relatively young political leaders. Our mission: to talk to the youth and listen to why they only see hopelessness on the horizon. I signed on, along with San Juan Mayor JV Ejercito, Bukidnon Rep. TG Guingona, former Cavite Rep. Gilbert Remulla, and Quezon Rep. Erin Tanada. We had two subsequent meetings, where we drew up a list of other people we wanted to invite to our group, and to focus on what our core message would be. Hope, we all said, it is going down, down, down, especially among the young.
Our first media appearance was on ANC, and then to tilt the scales, we also had a radio gig at DZBB over at GMA-Channel 7. Our first campus tour was held last July 10, at Silliman University in Dumaguete City.
“Are you ready to talk to a group of students in a big church?” asked UP professor Liling Magtolis Briones, chairperson of the board of trustees of Silliman University, former national treasurer, and our fairy godmother.
“Of course,” I answered, “I am a good Christian soldier.” Adel, who is a Muslim, as well as Gilbert and Erin joined the first campus tour of the Young Turks.
Nestled in a bowl of land between the mountains and the sea, Dumaguete City is a perfect place for the first campus tour. It is home to the 107-year-old Silliman University, which has taught and trained some of the country’s best minds. I first went to Silliman after graduation in 1983, as a writing fellow in the famous Writers’ Workshop led by the formidable husband-and-wife team of Edilberto K. Tiempo and Edith L. Tiempo. I returned a decade later, as a workshop panelist myself.
And I was back a few weeks ago, with my friends, to talk turkey with the young in Silliman. We woke up at 4 a.m. to be at the airport by six, for the 7 a.m. flight. Groggy from lack of sleep, we were fueled by sheer adrenaline, and the kindness and graciousness of the administration, faculty, staff and students of Silliman.
First we talked at the Udarbe Memorial Chapel, before a group of feisty political science and history students. One of them asked us, in a tone plaintive yet inquisitive: “What makes us sure that you won’t end up like the politicians before you, who talked to us and later abandoned us?”
Adel, Erin, Gilbert and I spoke, telling them of our individual choices to stay here in the Philippines when we could have stayed in the US after we got our graduate degrees. We spoke of working for the government with its starvation wages — if you never dipped your fingers in the pie of public funds. I told the young and earnest crowd that I’m proud to be with this group of bright and hardworking young men, achievers all, the finest assembly you could find ever, who would put the country where it belongs — in the forefront of the Asian renaissance.
After lunch at the lovely Residencia del Almar, with its Spanish-inspired architecture, we hied off to talk to the business administration and economics students at the audiovisual presentation room of Silliman. This time, we were asked about our thoughts on pump-priming the moribund economy. I said the government has money, but it is not allocated wisely and well, and much money is lost due to a lot of leakages. So in this time of economic crises, we must focus on fixing first the infrastructure destroyed by the recent typhoons, thus providing jobs for the countryside and making the infrastructure usable again. I also batted for food security, in the sense that we should put agriculture back on track, by funding irrigation and fertilizer needs, and making sure the money does not end up in the campaign kitty of some dirty hands in the 2010 elections, the way it did in 2004.
Our last stop was at the grand Silliman Church, where we held the all-university convocation/town hall meeting, complete with orchid leis and a recessional hymn. We spoke briefly and listened to the questions, ranging from politics to economics, from local government units to the Sangguniang Kabataan, from lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender concerns to the Law of the Sea. Whew! And we were treated like rock stars — the whole church rocking with the screams, shouts, and cheers of the students when our names were called. Goose pimples ran over my skin when I saw the warm welcome and — yes — wild reception we all received from the young people.
When a well-scrubbed girl in ponytails asked if there is still hope for this country and why do we continue to live here, I said: “Look, look outside this grand church and there is the sea. More than one hundred years ago, our national hero, Jose Rizal, walked on the same boulevard in Dumaguete that we now see. From Dipolog he visited Dumaguete and walked there, deciding whether he should stay here in the Philippines, or leave. We all know what he did. When in doubt,” I added, “read what Lolo Pepe did.”
But let us now listen to what Ma’am Liling wrote about us, to round off this piece.
“The Young Turks belong to different parties, faiths, and lifestyle preferences. Nonetheless, they respect and celebrate each other’s differences. They are united in their advocacy for a New Politics and their eagerness to engage the youth and invite them to be active in the movement for reforms and political activism. Silliman University, (on the other hand), is steeped in Christian tradition. The conduct of university convocations always include the opening and closing prayers led by the university pastor. Nonetheless, the organizers agreed to dispense with the other features associated with convocations. The talk-show format was adopted instead. Dr. Cecile Genove acted as the talk-show host and moderated, with the student government president Stacy Alcantara assisting.
“Full support was provided by president Ben Malayang III, vice-president Betsy Joy Tan, dean Carlos Magtolis, Jr. of the College of Arts and Sciences and dean Tabitha Tinagan of the College of Business Administration. Most nearly everything was discussed: GMA, corruption at all levels starting with the Sangguniang Kabataan to the highest levels, exploitation of the environment, gender equality, the role of media, governance problems with national and local leaders, and yes, alternatives. The oft-repeated concern was about loss of trust in the present leaders and lack of hope for the future.
“Those who believe that the students from the provinces are different from those in Manila are in for a surprise. The questions were just as intense and well-informed. And the depth of despair just as disturbing.
“The sharing of hopes for change was touching. Even with his political disappointments, Gilbert urged the young not to lose hope. Erin who is now carrying the torch for his grandfather and father, called for a redefinition of nationalism. Danton urged inclusion of the marginalized. Adel called for a place for everyone at the national table. He advised the young to be part of the political process.
“Pres. Malayang commented admiringly, ‘They are so different from their fathers!’ Yes, they are different in a wonderful, contemporary way. But they are also the same in that they honor the trails blazed by their fathers.”
The next campus tour of the Young Turks will be on Aug. 26, at the UP National College of Public Administration and Governance, 1 to 5 p.m. Be there.
Monday, August 18, 2008
www.philstar.net
In February of this year, I received a text message from my friend, Atty. Adel Tamano, president of Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, spokesman of the Genuine Opposition, and a fellow alumnus of the Ateneo de Manila University.
He was asking me to join a group of new and relatively young political leaders. Our mission: to talk to the youth and listen to why they only see hopelessness on the horizon. I signed on, along with San Juan Mayor JV Ejercito, Bukidnon Rep. TG Guingona, former Cavite Rep. Gilbert Remulla, and Quezon Rep. Erin Tanada. We had two subsequent meetings, where we drew up a list of other people we wanted to invite to our group, and to focus on what our core message would be. Hope, we all said, it is going down, down, down, especially among the young.
Our first media appearance was on ANC, and then to tilt the scales, we also had a radio gig at DZBB over at GMA-Channel 7. Our first campus tour was held last July 10, at Silliman University in Dumaguete City.
“Are you ready to talk to a group of students in a big church?” asked UP professor Liling Magtolis Briones, chairperson of the board of trustees of Silliman University, former national treasurer, and our fairy godmother.
“Of course,” I answered, “I am a good Christian soldier.” Adel, who is a Muslim, as well as Gilbert and Erin joined the first campus tour of the Young Turks.
Nestled in a bowl of land between the mountains and the sea, Dumaguete City is a perfect place for the first campus tour. It is home to the 107-year-old Silliman University, which has taught and trained some of the country’s best minds. I first went to Silliman after graduation in 1983, as a writing fellow in the famous Writers’ Workshop led by the formidable husband-and-wife team of Edilberto K. Tiempo and Edith L. Tiempo. I returned a decade later, as a workshop panelist myself.
And I was back a few weeks ago, with my friends, to talk turkey with the young in Silliman. We woke up at 4 a.m. to be at the airport by six, for the 7 a.m. flight. Groggy from lack of sleep, we were fueled by sheer adrenaline, and the kindness and graciousness of the administration, faculty, staff and students of Silliman.
First we talked at the Udarbe Memorial Chapel, before a group of feisty political science and history students. One of them asked us, in a tone plaintive yet inquisitive: “What makes us sure that you won’t end up like the politicians before you, who talked to us and later abandoned us?”
Adel, Erin, Gilbert and I spoke, telling them of our individual choices to stay here in the Philippines when we could have stayed in the US after we got our graduate degrees. We spoke of working for the government with its starvation wages — if you never dipped your fingers in the pie of public funds. I told the young and earnest crowd that I’m proud to be with this group of bright and hardworking young men, achievers all, the finest assembly you could find ever, who would put the country where it belongs — in the forefront of the Asian renaissance.
After lunch at the lovely Residencia del Almar, with its Spanish-inspired architecture, we hied off to talk to the business administration and economics students at the audiovisual presentation room of Silliman. This time, we were asked about our thoughts on pump-priming the moribund economy. I said the government has money, but it is not allocated wisely and well, and much money is lost due to a lot of leakages. So in this time of economic crises, we must focus on fixing first the infrastructure destroyed by the recent typhoons, thus providing jobs for the countryside and making the infrastructure usable again. I also batted for food security, in the sense that we should put agriculture back on track, by funding irrigation and fertilizer needs, and making sure the money does not end up in the campaign kitty of some dirty hands in the 2010 elections, the way it did in 2004.
Our last stop was at the grand Silliman Church, where we held the all-university convocation/town hall meeting, complete with orchid leis and a recessional hymn. We spoke briefly and listened to the questions, ranging from politics to economics, from local government units to the Sangguniang Kabataan, from lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender concerns to the Law of the Sea. Whew! And we were treated like rock stars — the whole church rocking with the screams, shouts, and cheers of the students when our names were called. Goose pimples ran over my skin when I saw the warm welcome and — yes — wild reception we all received from the young people.
When a well-scrubbed girl in ponytails asked if there is still hope for this country and why do we continue to live here, I said: “Look, look outside this grand church and there is the sea. More than one hundred years ago, our national hero, Jose Rizal, walked on the same boulevard in Dumaguete that we now see. From Dipolog he visited Dumaguete and walked there, deciding whether he should stay here in the Philippines, or leave. We all know what he did. When in doubt,” I added, “read what Lolo Pepe did.”
But let us now listen to what Ma’am Liling wrote about us, to round off this piece.
“The Young Turks belong to different parties, faiths, and lifestyle preferences. Nonetheless, they respect and celebrate each other’s differences. They are united in their advocacy for a New Politics and their eagerness to engage the youth and invite them to be active in the movement for reforms and political activism. Silliman University, (on the other hand), is steeped in Christian tradition. The conduct of university convocations always include the opening and closing prayers led by the university pastor. Nonetheless, the organizers agreed to dispense with the other features associated with convocations. The talk-show format was adopted instead. Dr. Cecile Genove acted as the talk-show host and moderated, with the student government president Stacy Alcantara assisting.
“Full support was provided by president Ben Malayang III, vice-president Betsy Joy Tan, dean Carlos Magtolis, Jr. of the College of Arts and Sciences and dean Tabitha Tinagan of the College of Business Administration. Most nearly everything was discussed: GMA, corruption at all levels starting with the Sangguniang Kabataan to the highest levels, exploitation of the environment, gender equality, the role of media, governance problems with national and local leaders, and yes, alternatives. The oft-repeated concern was about loss of trust in the present leaders and lack of hope for the future.
“Those who believe that the students from the provinces are different from those in Manila are in for a surprise. The questions were just as intense and well-informed. And the depth of despair just as disturbing.
“The sharing of hopes for change was touching. Even with his political disappointments, Gilbert urged the young not to lose hope. Erin who is now carrying the torch for his grandfather and father, called for a redefinition of nationalism. Danton urged inclusion of the marginalized. Adel called for a place for everyone at the national table. He advised the young to be part of the political process.
“Pres. Malayang commented admiringly, ‘They are so different from their fathers!’ Yes, they are different in a wonderful, contemporary way. But they are also the same in that they honor the trails blazed by their fathers.”
The next campus tour of the Young Turks will be on Aug. 26, at the UP National College of Public Administration and Governance, 1 to 5 p.m. Be there.
My campaign team in Lanao del Norte
My campaign team in Lanao del Norte just texted that they are fleeing because the MILF took over their towns this morning. More than 20,000 people have fled. Some are taking their bancas to cross over from Lanao del Norte to Ozamiz City, on the other side of Northern Mindanao. Iligan City is on red alert. Fr. Regie Quijano of Kulambugan town has been killed by the MILF. Fr. Regie is a friend of our cause -- human rights for all Filipinos, including LGBTs, and justice and peace for Mindanao. We should mourn his passing and pray for his soul.
There is blood on the hands of GMA. The Chinese said their govt is unlucky if it is doing nothing for its people. This govt is just that -- full of ill luck, deep in wickedness. And thus, its mandate from heaven should be lifted.
Now.
There is blood on the hands of GMA. The Chinese said their govt is unlucky if it is doing nothing for its people. This govt is just that -- full of ill luck, deep in wickedness. And thus, its mandate from heaven should be lifted.
Now.
Reaping the whirlwind: GMA and the MOA-Ad mess
by Atty. Adel A. Tamano, AB, JD, MPA, LLM
I received information that war is imminent in Mindanao because of the petitions questioning the constitutionality of the MOA on Ancestral Domain pending before the Supreme Court. According to one message, the Supreme Court was “adding fuel to the fire.” The proposition is that if the MOA is declared to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, then hostilities would break out between the MILF and government. Also, in media and in numerous fora, the supporters of the MOA argue that those who support the MOA are for peace in Mindanao and those who oppose it, like myself, are, therefore, are not only against peace but are anti-Moro. This is preposterous.
Firstly, that argument implicitly characterizes the MOA as the cure-all for the peace problems of Mindanao, so much so that if you are opposed to its implementation or disagree with its effectivity, then you must ipso facto be against peace in Mindanao. This characterization grossly oversimplifies the problem and underestimates the human capacity to find creative and even better solutions to the problem. The MOA essentially creates a separate Moro State; the obvious stand of the MOA proponents is that this is the only answer to the Mindanao conflict. There are other approaches to the peace problem in Mindanao, such as enhanced Moro integration, providing greater autonomy to the ARMM, creating a culture of peace, intensive Muslim-Christian dialogue, or even establishing federalism in Mindanao, which – unlike the MOA - does not create an unconstitutional State within a State. Apparently, the MOA proponents do not find merit in these less drastic, and yet
more effective, solutions.
Unfortunately, making the MOA a panacea to the peace problem only creates unreasonable expectations that, ultimately, will cause greater disappointment and even heightened conflict in the long-run. Sadly, because the terms of the MOA are undeliverable because of their inconsistencies with the Fundamental Law and the inability of GMA to convince the public to support her moves to amend the charter, the MOA is, by its very terms, doomed to failure.
Secondly, it is another gross oversimplification to argue that those against the MOA are anti-peace and anti-Moro. On a personal level, being a Moro myself, that is absurd and I am not the only Moro who opposes the MOA. Other Moros share my stand that while we are against the MOA for being unconstitutional and done without proper consultation with stakeholders, nevertheless we are for greater autonomy and federalism for Filipino Muslims. It is true that some non-Moros who oppose the MOA are driven by interests not related to the peace process, such as preservation of their private lands or fear of loss of political power. In truth, some Christians may even oppose the MOA because they discriminate against Moros. That is a fact that we must admit in all candor and it is, of course, most unfortunate. However, the whole truth is that discrimination is not a one-sided affair. There are Moros who discriminate against Christians as well and we must condemn that
as strongly as we condemn Christians who discriminate against Muslims. Additionally, fairness dictates that we must accept that there are Christians who oppose the MOA on principled grounds and who do so out of a sense of patriotism and even a genuine concern for the interests of Moros.
Thirdly, opposing the MOA may have little to do with being anti-peace and anti-Moro but have everything to do with being anti-Gloria. GMA has never been shy about her desire to amend the Constitution. In 2006, she attempted to do this via the aborted People’s Initiative, which was struck down by the Supreme Court. Also, she has explicitly stated in her State of the Nation Addresses that charter change is part and parcel of her administration’s agenda. It has become obvious to many that her support for the MOA is another sinister attempt to amend the charter for the purpose of staying beyond 2010. GMA’s claim that she will amend the Constitution only to conform to the MOA is belied by the fact that there is no such thing as a “surgical amendment” of the Constitution. Once constitutional change is discussed, whether by a constituent assembly or a constitutional convention, the assembly or convention has plenary power to consider any amendment,
which of course may include term extensions, not merely amendments to conform to the MOA.
In my view, the fatal flaw in the whole process of creating the MOA - even going beyond the constitutional issues and whether or not it was negotiated by the government in bad faith – is that the MOA was crafted in the shadows beyond the pale of public discussion and debate. The marginalization of the stakeholders to MOA, which not only include the MNLF, the lumads in Mindanao, the Christian communities that are to form part of the BangsaMoro Juridical Entity (BJE), the Congress that will be duty-bound to enact laws to effect the MOA, but, more importantly the public-at-large who have an interest in a matter of this transcendental importance, fatally undermines the MOA. It must be obvious that there can be no final peace settlement unless all stakeholders are part of that settlement. The MOA is only between the government, as represented by the peace panel, and the MILF. If consultations had been done, if we had a full and fair debate on this issue,
then we would not be where we are now, which is at the verge of war. Let us put the blame squarely where it belongs – not with the MILF who had every right to negotiate for the best terms that they could obtain, not the Supreme Court that is merely fulfilling its constitutional duty to hear the cases on the MOA, not the petitioners who oppose the MOA, and not the political opposition who see the MOA as a Trojan horse for charter change – but with the person whose administration has been characterized by secrecy and repeated claims of executive privilege, who will use any means, even tearing our country apart, to perpetuate herself in power. The blame lies with GMA.
I received information that war is imminent in Mindanao because of the petitions questioning the constitutionality of the MOA on Ancestral Domain pending before the Supreme Court. According to one message, the Supreme Court was “adding fuel to the fire.” The proposition is that if the MOA is declared to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, then hostilities would break out between the MILF and government. Also, in media and in numerous fora, the supporters of the MOA argue that those who support the MOA are for peace in Mindanao and those who oppose it, like myself, are, therefore, are not only against peace but are anti-Moro. This is preposterous.
Firstly, that argument implicitly characterizes the MOA as the cure-all for the peace problems of Mindanao, so much so that if you are opposed to its implementation or disagree with its effectivity, then you must ipso facto be against peace in Mindanao. This characterization grossly oversimplifies the problem and underestimates the human capacity to find creative and even better solutions to the problem. The MOA essentially creates a separate Moro State; the obvious stand of the MOA proponents is that this is the only answer to the Mindanao conflict. There are other approaches to the peace problem in Mindanao, such as enhanced Moro integration, providing greater autonomy to the ARMM, creating a culture of peace, intensive Muslim-Christian dialogue, or even establishing federalism in Mindanao, which – unlike the MOA - does not create an unconstitutional State within a State. Apparently, the MOA proponents do not find merit in these less drastic, and yet
more effective, solutions.
Unfortunately, making the MOA a panacea to the peace problem only creates unreasonable expectations that, ultimately, will cause greater disappointment and even heightened conflict in the long-run. Sadly, because the terms of the MOA are undeliverable because of their inconsistencies with the Fundamental Law and the inability of GMA to convince the public to support her moves to amend the charter, the MOA is, by its very terms, doomed to failure.
Secondly, it is another gross oversimplification to argue that those against the MOA are anti-peace and anti-Moro. On a personal level, being a Moro myself, that is absurd and I am not the only Moro who opposes the MOA. Other Moros share my stand that while we are against the MOA for being unconstitutional and done without proper consultation with stakeholders, nevertheless we are for greater autonomy and federalism for Filipino Muslims. It is true that some non-Moros who oppose the MOA are driven by interests not related to the peace process, such as preservation of their private lands or fear of loss of political power. In truth, some Christians may even oppose the MOA because they discriminate against Moros. That is a fact that we must admit in all candor and it is, of course, most unfortunate. However, the whole truth is that discrimination is not a one-sided affair. There are Moros who discriminate against Christians as well and we must condemn that
as strongly as we condemn Christians who discriminate against Muslims. Additionally, fairness dictates that we must accept that there are Christians who oppose the MOA on principled grounds and who do so out of a sense of patriotism and even a genuine concern for the interests of Moros.
Thirdly, opposing the MOA may have little to do with being anti-peace and anti-Moro but have everything to do with being anti-Gloria. GMA has never been shy about her desire to amend the Constitution. In 2006, she attempted to do this via the aborted People’s Initiative, which was struck down by the Supreme Court. Also, she has explicitly stated in her State of the Nation Addresses that charter change is part and parcel of her administration’s agenda. It has become obvious to many that her support for the MOA is another sinister attempt to amend the charter for the purpose of staying beyond 2010. GMA’s claim that she will amend the Constitution only to conform to the MOA is belied by the fact that there is no such thing as a “surgical amendment” of the Constitution. Once constitutional change is discussed, whether by a constituent assembly or a constitutional convention, the assembly or convention has plenary power to consider any amendment,
which of course may include term extensions, not merely amendments to conform to the MOA.
In my view, the fatal flaw in the whole process of creating the MOA - even going beyond the constitutional issues and whether or not it was negotiated by the government in bad faith – is that the MOA was crafted in the shadows beyond the pale of public discussion and debate. The marginalization of the stakeholders to MOA, which not only include the MNLF, the lumads in Mindanao, the Christian communities that are to form part of the BangsaMoro Juridical Entity (BJE), the Congress that will be duty-bound to enact laws to effect the MOA, but, more importantly the public-at-large who have an interest in a matter of this transcendental importance, fatally undermines the MOA. It must be obvious that there can be no final peace settlement unless all stakeholders are part of that settlement. The MOA is only between the government, as represented by the peace panel, and the MILF. If consultations had been done, if we had a full and fair debate on this issue,
then we would not be where we are now, which is at the verge of war. Let us put the blame squarely where it belongs – not with the MILF who had every right to negotiate for the best terms that they could obtain, not the Supreme Court that is merely fulfilling its constitutional duty to hear the cases on the MOA, not the petitioners who oppose the MOA, and not the political opposition who see the MOA as a Trojan horse for charter change – but with the person whose administration has been characterized by secrecy and repeated claims of executive privilege, who will use any means, even tearing our country apart, to perpetuate herself in power. The blame lies with GMA.
Pulse Asia's July 2008 Nationwide Survey on 2010 Senatorial Race
I am not in the list of names given to the survey respondents so, obviously, the respondents could not choose me. Maybe next time, Pulse can widen the net of voters to include us from the far side?
Then we will see who will eat the dust. -- Danton
***
Pulse Asia is pleased to share with you some findings from the July 2008 Ulat ng Bayan national survey on 2010 Senatorial Race. We request you to assist us in informing the public by disseminating this information on Filipino perceptions, opinions, sentiments, and attitudes relating to current developments here and abroad.
Based on a multistage probability sample of 1,200 representative adults 18 years old and above, Pulse Asia’s nationwide survey has a +/- 3% error margin at the 95% confidence level. Subnational estimates for each of the geographic areas covered in the survey (i.e., Metro Manila, the rest of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao) have a +/- 6% error margin, also at 95% confidence level. Face-to-face field interviews for this project were conducted from July 1 to 14, 2008. (Those interested in further technical details concerning the surveys’ questionnaires and sampling design may request Pulse Asia in writing for fuller details, including copies of the pre-tested questions actually used.)
In the period prior to and during the conduct of this survey, the news headlines focused on developments having to do with the increasing demand for NFA rice across the country, the granting of various subsidies to the Filipino poor particularly through the administration’s “Katas ng VAT” program, the signing into law of the cheaper medicines and tax exemption bills, the President’s call for a review of the power rates being charged by MERALCO and GSIS President Winston Garcia’s efforts to take over the management of MERALCO, several natural disasters in the Philippines and other parts of the world that resulted in loss of lives and destruction of properties (e.g., especially the aftermath of Typhoon Frank which hit the country in late June 2008), the investigations into the sinking of the M/V Princess of the Stars by the House of Representatives and the Board of Marine Inquiry (BMI), the worsening global food crisis, the continuing increase in oil and food prices, the depreciation of the local currency, and sustained calls for further wage increases and fare hikes.
The survey’s sampling design and questionnaire are the full responsibility of Pulse Asia’s pool of academic experts and no religious, political, economic or any other form of partisanship has been allowed to influence the survey design, the findings generated by the actual surveys or the subsequent analyses of survey findings.
Pulse Asia undertakes Ulat ng Bayan surveys on its own without any party singularly commissioning the research effort.
Incumbent and former senators dominate the 2010 senatorial race
If the May 2010 elections were held today, 14 possible senatorial candidates would have a statistical chance of winning a seat in the Philippine Senate. Senators Pia Cayetano (48.2%), Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada (47.3%) and Manuel “Mar” Roxas (46%) and former Senator Franklin “Frank” Drilon (44.1%) lead the list. Given the survey’s error margin, these four are tied for first place. Following these senatorial race leaders are Mr. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel (39%), a 2007 senatorial candidate, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago (37.2%), former senators Sergio “Serge” Osmeña and Ralph Recto (both at 35.6%), Senators Ramon “Bong” Revilla (34.6%) and Jamby Madrigal (34.5%), and former Senators Ramon “Jun” B. Magsaysay, Jr. (30.6%) and Vicente “Tito” Sotto (26.5%).
Completing the list of probable senatorial winners are Senator Juan “Johnny” Ponce Enrile (26.3%) and Makati Mayor Jejomar “Jojo” Binay (25.2%). Sen. Enrile has a statistical rank of 11-15, while Mayor Binay has a statistical rank of 12-16 (See Table 1a and 1b).
Presented with a list of 60 names for the senatorial race, Filipino adults name a mean of nine and a median of 11 (out of a maximum of 12) individuals as
their bets to the Philippine Senate.
On the other hand, 6.6% of Filipino adults are either still undecided as regards their senatorial candidates or refuse to name their senatorial preferences at this time.
Then we will see who will eat the dust. -- Danton
***
Pulse Asia is pleased to share with you some findings from the July 2008 Ulat ng Bayan national survey on 2010 Senatorial Race. We request you to assist us in informing the public by disseminating this information on Filipino perceptions, opinions, sentiments, and attitudes relating to current developments here and abroad.
Based on a multistage probability sample of 1,200 representative adults 18 years old and above, Pulse Asia’s nationwide survey has a +/- 3% error margin at the 95% confidence level. Subnational estimates for each of the geographic areas covered in the survey (i.e., Metro Manila, the rest of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao) have a +/- 6% error margin, also at 95% confidence level. Face-to-face field interviews for this project were conducted from July 1 to 14, 2008. (Those interested in further technical details concerning the surveys’ questionnaires and sampling design may request Pulse Asia in writing for fuller details, including copies of the pre-tested questions actually used.)
In the period prior to and during the conduct of this survey, the news headlines focused on developments having to do with the increasing demand for NFA rice across the country, the granting of various subsidies to the Filipino poor particularly through the administration’s “Katas ng VAT” program, the signing into law of the cheaper medicines and tax exemption bills, the President’s call for a review of the power rates being charged by MERALCO and GSIS President Winston Garcia’s efforts to take over the management of MERALCO, several natural disasters in the Philippines and other parts of the world that resulted in loss of lives and destruction of properties (e.g., especially the aftermath of Typhoon Frank which hit the country in late June 2008), the investigations into the sinking of the M/V Princess of the Stars by the House of Representatives and the Board of Marine Inquiry (BMI), the worsening global food crisis, the continuing increase in oil and food prices, the depreciation of the local currency, and sustained calls for further wage increases and fare hikes.
The survey’s sampling design and questionnaire are the full responsibility of Pulse Asia’s pool of academic experts and no religious, political, economic or any other form of partisanship has been allowed to influence the survey design, the findings generated by the actual surveys or the subsequent analyses of survey findings.
Pulse Asia undertakes Ulat ng Bayan surveys on its own without any party singularly commissioning the research effort.
Incumbent and former senators dominate the 2010 senatorial race
If the May 2010 elections were held today, 14 possible senatorial candidates would have a statistical chance of winning a seat in the Philippine Senate. Senators Pia Cayetano (48.2%), Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada (47.3%) and Manuel “Mar” Roxas (46%) and former Senator Franklin “Frank” Drilon (44.1%) lead the list. Given the survey’s error margin, these four are tied for first place. Following these senatorial race leaders are Mr. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel (39%), a 2007 senatorial candidate, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago (37.2%), former senators Sergio “Serge” Osmeña and Ralph Recto (both at 35.6%), Senators Ramon “Bong” Revilla (34.6%) and Jamby Madrigal (34.5%), and former Senators Ramon “Jun” B. Magsaysay, Jr. (30.6%) and Vicente “Tito” Sotto (26.5%).
Completing the list of probable senatorial winners are Senator Juan “Johnny” Ponce Enrile (26.3%) and Makati Mayor Jejomar “Jojo” Binay (25.2%). Sen. Enrile has a statistical rank of 11-15, while Mayor Binay has a statistical rank of 12-16 (See Table 1a and 1b).
Presented with a list of 60 names for the senatorial race, Filipino adults name a mean of nine and a median of 11 (out of a maximum of 12) individuals as
their bets to the Philippine Senate.
On the other hand, 6.6% of Filipino adults are either still undecided as regards their senatorial candidates or refuse to name their senatorial preferences at this time.
Back to Cha-cha
SKETCHES By Ana Marie Pamintuan
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Philippine STAR
www.philstar.net
Give the administration an A for audacity. Or maybe it’s plain cluelessness, born of long years of insensitivity to public sentiment.
I don’t know how the administration intends to sell two unpopular ideas at the same time to Filipinos: Charter change to shift to another form of government, plus a deal with a bunch of violent hooligans that will reward their banditry with vast tracts of Philippine territory, and without consulting affected communities.
Shifting to a new system of government elicits passionate debate in this country only when Filipinos see the initiative as a mere smokescreen for the real agenda: the perpetuation of public officials in power.
In this case, the intended principal beneficiary of a shift to federalism looks too much like President Arroyo – the most unpopular chief executive so far since Ferdinand Marcos, according to independent surveys.
Fidel Ramos, who brought the country closest to Asian tiger status, could not pull off Charter change. In fact his allies’ efforts to allow him to seek re-election through Cha-cha, coupled with an economic slowdown due to the Asian financial crisis, pulled down his performance ratings.
How can the country’s most unpopular president since Ferdinand Marcos at his worst think that she can pull off what even Ramos could not?
This is the problem when people stay too long in power; they become indispensable in their own minds. The lust for power must be one of the toughest addictions to cure. In the past four decades, only one Philippine president has handed over power with grace and dignity – Corazon Aquino – though there were rumors back then that certain members of her inner circle also harbored thoughts of making her hang on to power beyond her constitutionally allotted six years.
Suspicions of a hidden agenda in President Arroyo’s push for a shift to federalism were bolstered yesterday by an “informal survey” trotted out by her allies in the Palace rubberstamp House of Representatives, that bastion of political navel-gazing and unenlightened self-interest.
The instant survey, conducted among 238 lawmakers, elicited responses from 123, of whom 115 favored a shift to federalism, according to the head of the House committee on constitutional amendments.
* * *
There is only one way Filipinos will go along with political amendments in the Constitution: no incumbent public official must benefit from any of the amendments especially through a term extension.
Federalism is a concept that most Filipinos cannot easily understand. But they can understand what a term extension means.
Faced with the prospect of a few more years of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo – and the shelving of the 2010 general elections – the naifs in the Senate who supported a resolution for federalism are now reviewing their stand.
What were they thinking in the first place – that Malacañang would let such an opportunity for Cha-cha pass?
As I have often written, President Arroyo’s staying power is due less to her personal strength than to the weakness of her enemies. The disorganized opposition is reactive, lacking in foresight, unable to anticipate the moves of the enemy. And it has its share of navel gazers preoccupied with matters of unenlightened self-interest, constantly waiting for someone to make them an offer they can’t refuse.
So now Malacañang is happily announcing that “it’s all systems go” for federalism through Cha-cha.
* * *
The world has changed so much since the so-called Freedom Constitution was ratified 21 years ago. A number of provisions in that Constitution have held back Philippine competitiveness in a global economy. Constitutions are supposed to be dynamic, and we must always be open to changes in the basic law of the land.
We must be open even to the possibility of changing the system of government, though with the same characters, the same dynasties keeping their stranglehold on politics, it’s hard to see what difference such a change would make.
But any credible effort to overhaul the Constitution would have to wait until the country’s most unpopular president is no longer in power, and no longer able to influence the results of Cha-cha in her favor.
If certain foreign governments are willing to go along even with Cha-cha, just to ram down Filipinos’ throats any peace pact with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, they should consider that they would likely end up saddled with cleaning up the resulting mess – including a peace agreement that cannot be enforced.
That aborted signing of the land deal in Malaysia should teach the diplomatic community certain lessons about dealing with this government.
One of the ambassadors who eagerly rushed to Malaysia was surprised to learn that Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo had not been informed of the diplomats’ presence. In the first place, don’t foreign offices have a rule that ambassadors should not encroach into each other’s turf? The governments represented at the aborted signing all had their respective ambassadors to Kuala Lumpur. Those were the envoys who should have been present at the ceremonies.
Perhaps there was just too much confusion. And the confusion can only be attributed to the hush-hush nature of the fast-break attempt to get that bizarre land deal signed.
Now the continuing fast break includes Cha-cha. The effort can still be blocked.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Philippine STAR
www.philstar.net
Give the administration an A for audacity. Or maybe it’s plain cluelessness, born of long years of insensitivity to public sentiment.
I don’t know how the administration intends to sell two unpopular ideas at the same time to Filipinos: Charter change to shift to another form of government, plus a deal with a bunch of violent hooligans that will reward their banditry with vast tracts of Philippine territory, and without consulting affected communities.
Shifting to a new system of government elicits passionate debate in this country only when Filipinos see the initiative as a mere smokescreen for the real agenda: the perpetuation of public officials in power.
In this case, the intended principal beneficiary of a shift to federalism looks too much like President Arroyo – the most unpopular chief executive so far since Ferdinand Marcos, according to independent surveys.
Fidel Ramos, who brought the country closest to Asian tiger status, could not pull off Charter change. In fact his allies’ efforts to allow him to seek re-election through Cha-cha, coupled with an economic slowdown due to the Asian financial crisis, pulled down his performance ratings.
How can the country’s most unpopular president since Ferdinand Marcos at his worst think that she can pull off what even Ramos could not?
This is the problem when people stay too long in power; they become indispensable in their own minds. The lust for power must be one of the toughest addictions to cure. In the past four decades, only one Philippine president has handed over power with grace and dignity – Corazon Aquino – though there were rumors back then that certain members of her inner circle also harbored thoughts of making her hang on to power beyond her constitutionally allotted six years.
Suspicions of a hidden agenda in President Arroyo’s push for a shift to federalism were bolstered yesterday by an “informal survey” trotted out by her allies in the Palace rubberstamp House of Representatives, that bastion of political navel-gazing and unenlightened self-interest.
The instant survey, conducted among 238 lawmakers, elicited responses from 123, of whom 115 favored a shift to federalism, according to the head of the House committee on constitutional amendments.
* * *
There is only one way Filipinos will go along with political amendments in the Constitution: no incumbent public official must benefit from any of the amendments especially through a term extension.
Federalism is a concept that most Filipinos cannot easily understand. But they can understand what a term extension means.
Faced with the prospect of a few more years of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo – and the shelving of the 2010 general elections – the naifs in the Senate who supported a resolution for federalism are now reviewing their stand.
What were they thinking in the first place – that Malacañang would let such an opportunity for Cha-cha pass?
As I have often written, President Arroyo’s staying power is due less to her personal strength than to the weakness of her enemies. The disorganized opposition is reactive, lacking in foresight, unable to anticipate the moves of the enemy. And it has its share of navel gazers preoccupied with matters of unenlightened self-interest, constantly waiting for someone to make them an offer they can’t refuse.
So now Malacañang is happily announcing that “it’s all systems go” for federalism through Cha-cha.
* * *
The world has changed so much since the so-called Freedom Constitution was ratified 21 years ago. A number of provisions in that Constitution have held back Philippine competitiveness in a global economy. Constitutions are supposed to be dynamic, and we must always be open to changes in the basic law of the land.
We must be open even to the possibility of changing the system of government, though with the same characters, the same dynasties keeping their stranglehold on politics, it’s hard to see what difference such a change would make.
But any credible effort to overhaul the Constitution would have to wait until the country’s most unpopular president is no longer in power, and no longer able to influence the results of Cha-cha in her favor.
If certain foreign governments are willing to go along even with Cha-cha, just to ram down Filipinos’ throats any peace pact with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, they should consider that they would likely end up saddled with cleaning up the resulting mess – including a peace agreement that cannot be enforced.
That aborted signing of the land deal in Malaysia should teach the diplomatic community certain lessons about dealing with this government.
One of the ambassadors who eagerly rushed to Malaysia was surprised to learn that Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo had not been informed of the diplomats’ presence. In the first place, don’t foreign offices have a rule that ambassadors should not encroach into each other’s turf? The governments represented at the aborted signing all had their respective ambassadors to Kuala Lumpur. Those were the envoys who should have been present at the ceremonies.
Perhaps there was just too much confusion. And the confusion can only be attributed to the hush-hush nature of the fast-break attempt to get that bizarre land deal signed.
Now the continuing fast break includes Cha-cha. The effort can still be blocked.
A mansion of many languages
by Danton Remoto
Business Mirror Front Page
www.businessmirror.com.ph
***
This is the last in a series of four columns commissioned by the British insurer, Pru-Life, as part of its Planet English project to showcase the English language and English-language writing in the Philippines. The columns appear on the front page of Business Mirror every Monday.
***
In 1977, my mentor, the National Artist for Literature and Theater Rolando S. Tinio, said:
“It is too simple-minded to suppose that enthusiasm for Filipino as lingua franca and national language of the country necessarily involves the elimination of English usage or training for it in schools. Proficiency in English provides us with all the advantages that champions of English say it does – access to the vast fund of culture expressed in it, mobility in various spheres of the international scene, especially those dominated by the English-speaking Americans, participation in a quality of modern life of which some features may be assimilated by us with great advantage. Linguistic nationalism does not imply cultural chauvinism. Nobody wants to go back to the mountains. The essential Filipino is not the center of an onion one gets at by peeling off layer after layer of vegetable skin. One’s experience with onions is quite telling: peel off everything and you end up with a pinch of air.”
Written 31 years ago, these words still echo especially now, when some misguided congressmen are pushing for English as the sole medium of instruction in schools. Afraid that we might lose our competitive edge in English, they themselves are proof positive that we might have lost it. Their bills, and their illogical defense of these bills, show that the problem is not lack of language skills, but of brain cells.
Decades of teaching English to students (together with four years of teaching Filipino) have shown me that the best students in English are also the best students in Filipino. And how did they master the two languages?
One, they had very good teachers in both languages. Two, they inhabited the worlds of both languages. Three, they have gone beyond the false either-or mentality that hobbled their parents.
Let me explain.
My best students in English and Filipino were tutored by crème de la crème, many of them teaching in private schools. At the Ateneo de Manila University, we have classes in Remedial English, since renamed Basic English or English 1. These are six units of non-credit subjects. The enrollees are mostly intelligent students from the public schools and the provinces. Lack of books and untrained teachers prevent them from having a level playing field with the other freshmen. A year of catching up is necessary for them to have the skills to have a mano-a-mano with the other students.
Moreover, I introduce them to the worlds of the language they are studying – be it in the formal realm of the textbook or the popular ones of film, graphic novel, or anime. I encourage them to keep a journal as well, which is not a diary where you write what time you woke up and why. A journal, or its postmodern cousin, the web log or blog, aims to capture impressions or moods on the wing. If at the same time it sharpens the students’ knowledge of English, then that is already hallelujah for the English teacher.
And the third is that today’s generation of students is no longer burdened by the guilt of learning English – and mastering it. I still remember those writing workshops I took in the 1980s, when I was asked why I wrote bourgeois stories in the colonizer’s language. The panelists said I should write about workers and peasants – and that I should write in Filipino. Without batting a false eyelash, I answered that I don’t know anything about workers and peasants, and to write about something I don’t know would be to misrepresent them. To the charge that I write only in English, I showed them my poems in Filipino, because the modern Filipino writer is not only a writer in either English or Filipino, but a writer in both languages, like colorful balls that he juggles with the dexterity of a seasoned circus performer.
So it’s not a choice between English or Filipino, but rather, English and Filipino, plus the language of one’s grandmother, be it Bikolano, Waray, or Tausug. And in college, another language of one’s choice, be it Bahasa Indonesia, German, or French – the better to view the world from many windows, since to learn a new language is to see the world from another angle of vision. In short, one no longer has to live between two languages, but to live in a mansion of many languages.
To end in a full circle, we must return to Rolando S. Tinio, who said: “Only the mastery of a first language enables one to master a second and a third. For one can think and feel only in one’s first language, then encode those thoughts and feelings into a second and a third.”
In short, as a friend and fellow professor has put it, “The Philippines is a multi-lingual paradise.” The earlier we know we live in a paradise of many languages, the better we can savor its fruits ripened by the sun.
Business Mirror Front Page
www.businessmirror.com.ph
***
This is the last in a series of four columns commissioned by the British insurer, Pru-Life, as part of its Planet English project to showcase the English language and English-language writing in the Philippines. The columns appear on the front page of Business Mirror every Monday.
***
In 1977, my mentor, the National Artist for Literature and Theater Rolando S. Tinio, said:
“It is too simple-minded to suppose that enthusiasm for Filipino as lingua franca and national language of the country necessarily involves the elimination of English usage or training for it in schools. Proficiency in English provides us with all the advantages that champions of English say it does – access to the vast fund of culture expressed in it, mobility in various spheres of the international scene, especially those dominated by the English-speaking Americans, participation in a quality of modern life of which some features may be assimilated by us with great advantage. Linguistic nationalism does not imply cultural chauvinism. Nobody wants to go back to the mountains. The essential Filipino is not the center of an onion one gets at by peeling off layer after layer of vegetable skin. One’s experience with onions is quite telling: peel off everything and you end up with a pinch of air.”
Written 31 years ago, these words still echo especially now, when some misguided congressmen are pushing for English as the sole medium of instruction in schools. Afraid that we might lose our competitive edge in English, they themselves are proof positive that we might have lost it. Their bills, and their illogical defense of these bills, show that the problem is not lack of language skills, but of brain cells.
Decades of teaching English to students (together with four years of teaching Filipino) have shown me that the best students in English are also the best students in Filipino. And how did they master the two languages?
One, they had very good teachers in both languages. Two, they inhabited the worlds of both languages. Three, they have gone beyond the false either-or mentality that hobbled their parents.
Let me explain.
My best students in English and Filipino were tutored by crème de la crème, many of them teaching in private schools. At the Ateneo de Manila University, we have classes in Remedial English, since renamed Basic English or English 1. These are six units of non-credit subjects. The enrollees are mostly intelligent students from the public schools and the provinces. Lack of books and untrained teachers prevent them from having a level playing field with the other freshmen. A year of catching up is necessary for them to have the skills to have a mano-a-mano with the other students.
Moreover, I introduce them to the worlds of the language they are studying – be it in the formal realm of the textbook or the popular ones of film, graphic novel, or anime. I encourage them to keep a journal as well, which is not a diary where you write what time you woke up and why. A journal, or its postmodern cousin, the web log or blog, aims to capture impressions or moods on the wing. If at the same time it sharpens the students’ knowledge of English, then that is already hallelujah for the English teacher.
And the third is that today’s generation of students is no longer burdened by the guilt of learning English – and mastering it. I still remember those writing workshops I took in the 1980s, when I was asked why I wrote bourgeois stories in the colonizer’s language. The panelists said I should write about workers and peasants – and that I should write in Filipino. Without batting a false eyelash, I answered that I don’t know anything about workers and peasants, and to write about something I don’t know would be to misrepresent them. To the charge that I write only in English, I showed them my poems in Filipino, because the modern Filipino writer is not only a writer in either English or Filipino, but a writer in both languages, like colorful balls that he juggles with the dexterity of a seasoned circus performer.
So it’s not a choice between English or Filipino, but rather, English and Filipino, plus the language of one’s grandmother, be it Bikolano, Waray, or Tausug. And in college, another language of one’s choice, be it Bahasa Indonesia, German, or French – the better to view the world from many windows, since to learn a new language is to see the world from another angle of vision. In short, one no longer has to live between two languages, but to live in a mansion of many languages.
To end in a full circle, we must return to Rolando S. Tinio, who said: “Only the mastery of a first language enables one to master a second and a third. For one can think and feel only in one’s first language, then encode those thoughts and feelings into a second and a third.”
In short, as a friend and fellow professor has put it, “The Philippines is a multi-lingual paradise.” The earlier we know we live in a paradise of many languages, the better we can savor its fruits ripened by the sun.
Harnessing student power
By Leonor Magtolis Briones
The Business of Governance
www.abs-cbnnews.com
The phrase “student power” came into vogue during the sixties. This was the time when thousands of students all over the world marched on their governments, whether in the United States, Canada, Europe, South America, Asia or Africa. A common theme was the war in Vietnam . The global call of the students was for the United States to get out of Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh, and Che Guevara were the most popular icons. So it was in the Philippines.
The students also found reason to engage their respective governments on other issues as well. American students complained about the activities of the CIA in developing countries. They rebelled against the draft which would have sent them to Vietnam. In England , students criticized their government’s domestic policies. Rallies drew students by the thousands.
In Paris, they tried to recapture the days of the French revolution where the students played a major role. Students stormed Paris a number of times to set up their version of the Paris Commune. In UP the students took over the university and established the Diliman Commune.
In the Philippines, the focus was on American imperialism. The battle cry was “Ibagsak ang Piyudalismo, Pasismo at Imperialismo!” “Maoismo, Marxismo-Leninismo” were frequently uttered by students. Privately, the women would complain about “Machismo-Leninismol”
Teach-ins would last till morning. Those of us who were members of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation would camp in the house of Dodong and Princess Nemenzo. We would cross over to the house of Merlin Magallona and pester him with questions.
And the mammoth rallies! I must say the youth rallies of today can’t match the vast numbers of students who would march from UP Diliman , walk all the way to Tondo and end up in Malacanang—singing, chanting, and shouting all the time.
Student Power and the 2010 elections
Time to “fast forward” to the present. Since the downfall of the Marcos dictatorship, it seemed that student power like Merlin the Magician has faded away.
Globalization is largely to blame. Students spend their time getting ready for jobs here and abroad. During the 60’s, the most powerful lure was radicalism. At present, students have many more choices.They can go abroad. They can get cushy jobs. They can spend long hours in cyber space with their laptops. They can do many things— set up businesses, become chefs, write plays, make movies and even enter show business.
Things have changed, though. The emergence of political, social and economic crises is radicalizing the students. They are aware of the disarray in governance They now attend rallies and assemblies in greater numbers. They are busy organizing forums and symposia. Slowly, the sleeping giant is awakening.
Their elders are beginning to see the potential of student power. Now it is fashionable for young and old personalities to go on campus tours and stir the students into action either for their candidacies or for national reforms.
Two trends are discernable. Students are seduced with offers to be on the staff of 2010 candidates. As early as last year, the bulletin boards of the College of Public Administration and Governance were plastered with ads inviting students to be part of the team of a presidential candidate. Political parties are busily organizing youth organizations. The students are beginning to sense their power.
Another trend is to encourage students to participate in reforming the present system. The “I Am Change” Movement started by Harvey Keh is going on campus tours. “Kaya Natin ‘To” is led by Governors Panlilio and Padaca. From Ateneo, they are crossing over to UP and on to the other schools. The Former Senior Government Officials (FSGO) is also going on campus tours.
The Young Turks are themselves politicians. However, they are introducing new politics to the students. Traditional party members usually stick together and spend their waking hours plotting the destruction of the other parties. Atty. Adel A. Tamano, Mayor JV Ejercito, Cong. TG Guingona, Cong. Erin Tanada, former Cong. Gilbert Remulla and Prof. Danton Remoto come from different parties, but they have bonded together in order to reach out to the young. They encourage students to dialogue with them on political, economic, and social issues. Their theme is, “there is hope” in response to the apathy and indifference of the youth to national problems.
To repeat, the decade of the 60’s saw the global rise of student power. Students of that decade proved they were a formidable force. They contributed mightily to the downfall of dictators, fascists, and warmongers all over the world.
Will Filipino students rise and mobilize their power to reform this country, or will they succumb to the siren call of tradpols ? Let us see.
Young Generation of Politicians Barnstorms Schools, Connects with the “Internet Nation”
Press Release: August 11,2008
For more info: Eero Brillantes, 09276702831, mindbullet45@gmail.com
A multipartisan political group called the “Young Turks” led by Genuine Opposition Spokesperson and Pamantasan Lungsod ng Maynila President Atty. Adel Tamano has started to go the rounds of colleges and universities all over the country. Tamano, along with other young political personalities Nacionalista Party spokesperson and former congressman Gilbert Remulla, Ateneo English Professor Danton Remoto, Congressman Erin Tanada, Congressman TG Guingona and San Juan Mayor JV Ejercito are doing the rounds of campuses advocating for youth involvement in governance.
The kick-off started at Silliman University in Dumaguete City last July 10-11, 2008. Tamano described the event. “The bright students of Silliman University asked questions and we tried to answer them with substance and with style, with wit and cheer and laughter intact. It is because their questions seemed to deal with lack of hope, of being betrayed by their leaders, of abandonment. I hope we kept the spark plug of hope alive. We spoke in a chapel, a presentation room for business students, and the great church — all in one day. We hope the Sillimanians had a grand time, the way we did too, in our first campus tour.”
Eero Brillantes, CEO of Mindbullet Marketing and Public Relations, who maintains the young turk’s blog www.oppositeofapathy.wordpress.com, says that the blog has become hyperactive after the Silliman activity. Based on site metering, he noted interest in what the group has to say. “The blog has just recently been put up. Yet it has already been visited almost 10,000 times. It is currently ranked number 13 for politics and government by topblogs.com.ph. Its just one notch lower than the “Mar Roxas for President 2010 blog which is at number 12. The blog definitely has momentum. With the campus tour catching fire, the blog is poised to be a prominent fixture in new politics for the country. The Young Turks and the Internet Nation has become properly introduced.”
For his part, Remoto was upbeat about the launch and how the internet was able to disseminate the event exponentially. “Skycable showed the complete proceedings that night of July 10, and we also had coverage from two radio stations, two newspapers and the Sillimanian college paper as well as its website. Not to mention the many blogs of the bagets from Silliman, which are now being read and re-sent and re-read all over the borderless world of cyberspace. “
Moreover, Congressman Tanada emphasized the need for dialogue between the young batch of political leaders and the youth. He said that it is important for the youth not to lose hope and for them to assert their rights. Remulla asserted that there is still hope and it resides in the youth, and the young generation should not be afraid to stand for what they believe in.
On August 26, 2008, the Young Turks will visit the University of the Philippines National College of Public Administration and Governance from 1-5 p.m. This will be followed by a tour to University of the Philippines at Los Banos in September.
Young Turks go to UP NCPAG, August 26
Greetings!
The University of the Philippines’ National College of Public Administration and Governance (UP-NCPAG) is celebrating its 56th year, along with UP’s 100 glorious years of existence. In recognition and support to the important responsibility of the said institutions in developing future leaders, the College’s Student Council plans to hold a forum dedicated to the youth sector entitled “What about YOUTH (Answering Queries of the Young)” on August 26, 2008, 1:00-5:00 P.M., at the NCPAG Assembly Hall.
The forum aims to inform the youth of the issues that confront them today. It also wishes to provide a venue for students to voice out their different concerns, engage them, and hear possible answers to their issues. Moreover, the said event seeks to educate and empower the students as part of the youth sector by making them realize that they can do something for our country and by rekindling the hope in their hearts.
In this light, the Student Council is humbly requesting your presence as one of our guest speakers. We hope that your group, the Young Turks, will consider our College as the second stop of your nationwide campus tour.
Looking forward for your favorable response. Thank you and more power.
In service of the students,
Shiela Mae M. Sabalburo Pebbles B. Sanchez
Chairperson Socio-Academic Affairs Administrator
0927-7881134 09275282080
Noted:
Dr. Leonor Magtolis-Briones
NCPAG Professor
PROJECT PROFILE
Title: What about YOUTH (Answering Queries of the Young)
Date: August 26, 2008, Tuesday
Time: 1:00-5:00 P.M.
Venue: Assembly Hall, National College of Public Administration and Governance, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City
I. Description:
“The youth is the hope of the fatherland,” our national hero, Dr. Jose P. Rizal once said.
In the present times where our country and our society is experiencing turmoil and crisis, the call for the youth to voice out their opinion and concerns, actively participate and get involved is even louder. The youth is considered as a powerful force in the society, considering that they compose a big bloc of the Philippine population with a total of 26.6 million as of 2007. They are the next generation who will lead our country, so it is only proper to let their voices be heard and address the issues they are currently facing to equip them and provide ammunition to better serve the country in the near future.
A group of young politicians who call themselves the “Young Turks” is calling on the students to organize among themselves and help in forming a new political environment that would be directly advantageous for the youth sector. As part of this call, they are conducting nationwide campus tours. As head start, they have visited Silliman University last July 10 and 11. They engaged the students of Silliman in forum discussions that addressed the issues and concerns on education, politics, economics, culture, gender equality, and Filipino diaspora, among other concerns of the youth.
The Young Turks is composed of Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Manila (PLM) President Adel Tamano, also spokesperson of the United Opposition (UNO) and an alumnus of UP NCPAG; Representative TG Guingona III of the 2nd District of Bukidnon; Representative Lorenzo “Erin” Tanada III of the 4th District of Quezon, the son of former Senator Wigberto Tanada and the grandson of nationalist Senator Lorenzo Tanada; Representative Gilbert Remulla, a former congressman, broadcaster and television personality; and Danton Remoto, chairman of Ang Ladlad Party List and professor of English at Ateneo.
It is their call that the youth must actively engage in government and society and that there should be room for everyone regardless of faith, religion, or sexual preference. With this, What about YOUTH (Answering Queries of the Young)*, is the second leg of their nationwide campus tour that has the following Objectives:
1. To inform the students of the issues that confront the youth of today
2. To provide a venue for the students to voice out their different concerns as youth, engage them and hear possible answers to their issues
3. To educate and empower the students as part of the youth sector by making them realize that they can do something for our country and by rekindling the hope in the hearts.
*The title “What about YOUTH” intends to inform the young with the realities and situations concerning them. In addition, it aims to suggest that the youth should be taken into consideration in solving various issues either on the individual, relational, national, or global level. The title entails a challenge to the youth sector as well.
Target Audience: 400 participants
Mechanics: A professor serves as the master of ceremony (onstage with the guests) while two students join the audience. The latter facilitates and solicits questions from the participants.
II. Tentative Flow of Program
PM (2-5pm) (1 pm Registration)
1:00 - 2:00 Registration
2:00 – 2:15 Musical Invocation Manila Concert Choir
National Anthem Manila Concert Choir
2:15 – 2:25 Welcome Remarks Dr. Alex Brillantes, Jr., NCPAG Dean
2:25 – 2:30 Opening Remarks Dr. Leonor Magtolis-Briones, NCPAG Professor
2:30 – 2:40 Introduction of Guests
2:40 – 3:05 Message to the Youth Atty. Adel Tamano, Rep. TG Guingona, Rep. Gilbert Remulla, Prof. Danton Remoto, and Rep. Erin Tanada’s message.
3:05 – 3:35 Talk Show Discussion
3:35 – 3:45 Intermission Manila Concert Choir
3:45 – 4:30 Continuation … Talk Show Discussion
4:30 – 4:45 Synthesis
4:45 – 5:00 Awarding of Tokens of Appreciation
Closing Remarks Shiela Mae M. Sabalburo, Chairperson NCPAG SC
The University of the Philippines’ National College of Public Administration and Governance (UP-NCPAG) is celebrating its 56th year, along with UP’s 100 glorious years of existence. In recognition and support to the important responsibility of the said institutions in developing future leaders, the College’s Student Council plans to hold a forum dedicated to the youth sector entitled “What about YOUTH (Answering Queries of the Young)” on August 26, 2008, 1:00-5:00 P.M., at the NCPAG Assembly Hall.
The forum aims to inform the youth of the issues that confront them today. It also wishes to provide a venue for students to voice out their different concerns, engage them, and hear possible answers to their issues. Moreover, the said event seeks to educate and empower the students as part of the youth sector by making them realize that they can do something for our country and by rekindling the hope in their hearts.
In this light, the Student Council is humbly requesting your presence as one of our guest speakers. We hope that your group, the Young Turks, will consider our College as the second stop of your nationwide campus tour.
Looking forward for your favorable response. Thank you and more power.
In service of the students,
Shiela Mae M. Sabalburo Pebbles B. Sanchez
Chairperson Socio-Academic Affairs Administrator
0927-7881134 09275282080
Noted:
Dr. Leonor Magtolis-Briones
NCPAG Professor
PROJECT PROFILE
Title: What about YOUTH (Answering Queries of the Young)
Date: August 26, 2008, Tuesday
Time: 1:00-5:00 P.M.
Venue: Assembly Hall, National College of Public Administration and Governance, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City
I. Description:
“The youth is the hope of the fatherland,” our national hero, Dr. Jose P. Rizal once said.
In the present times where our country and our society is experiencing turmoil and crisis, the call for the youth to voice out their opinion and concerns, actively participate and get involved is even louder. The youth is considered as a powerful force in the society, considering that they compose a big bloc of the Philippine population with a total of 26.6 million as of 2007. They are the next generation who will lead our country, so it is only proper to let their voices be heard and address the issues they are currently facing to equip them and provide ammunition to better serve the country in the near future.
A group of young politicians who call themselves the “Young Turks” is calling on the students to organize among themselves and help in forming a new political environment that would be directly advantageous for the youth sector. As part of this call, they are conducting nationwide campus tours. As head start, they have visited Silliman University last July 10 and 11. They engaged the students of Silliman in forum discussions that addressed the issues and concerns on education, politics, economics, culture, gender equality, and Filipino diaspora, among other concerns of the youth.
The Young Turks is composed of Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Manila (PLM) President Adel Tamano, also spokesperson of the United Opposition (UNO) and an alumnus of UP NCPAG; Representative TG Guingona III of the 2nd District of Bukidnon; Representative Lorenzo “Erin” Tanada III of the 4th District of Quezon, the son of former Senator Wigberto Tanada and the grandson of nationalist Senator Lorenzo Tanada; Representative Gilbert Remulla, a former congressman, broadcaster and television personality; and Danton Remoto, chairman of Ang Ladlad Party List and professor of English at Ateneo.
It is their call that the youth must actively engage in government and society and that there should be room for everyone regardless of faith, religion, or sexual preference. With this, What about YOUTH (Answering Queries of the Young)*, is the second leg of their nationwide campus tour that has the following Objectives:
1. To inform the students of the issues that confront the youth of today
2. To provide a venue for the students to voice out their different concerns as youth, engage them and hear possible answers to their issues
3. To educate and empower the students as part of the youth sector by making them realize that they can do something for our country and by rekindling the hope in the hearts.
*The title “What about YOUTH” intends to inform the young with the realities and situations concerning them. In addition, it aims to suggest that the youth should be taken into consideration in solving various issues either on the individual, relational, national, or global level. The title entails a challenge to the youth sector as well.
Target Audience: 400 participants
Mechanics: A professor serves as the master of ceremony (onstage with the guests) while two students join the audience. The latter facilitates and solicits questions from the participants.
II. Tentative Flow of Program
PM (2-5pm) (1 pm Registration)
1:00 - 2:00 Registration
2:00 – 2:15 Musical Invocation Manila Concert Choir
National Anthem Manila Concert Choir
2:15 – 2:25 Welcome Remarks Dr. Alex Brillantes, Jr., NCPAG Dean
2:25 – 2:30 Opening Remarks Dr. Leonor Magtolis-Briones, NCPAG Professor
2:30 – 2:40 Introduction of Guests
2:40 – 3:05 Message to the Youth Atty. Adel Tamano, Rep. TG Guingona, Rep. Gilbert Remulla, Prof. Danton Remoto, and Rep. Erin Tanada’s message.
3:05 – 3:35 Talk Show Discussion
3:35 – 3:45 Intermission Manila Concert Choir
3:45 – 4:30 Continuation … Talk Show Discussion
4:30 – 4:45 Synthesis
4:45 – 5:00 Awarding of Tokens of Appreciation
Closing Remarks Shiela Mae M. Sabalburo, Chairperson NCPAG SC
Tibo, Tivoli, Lesbiani: What Filipino Lesbians are Not
Tivo, Tivoli, Lesbiani: What Filipino Lesbians Are Not
By Danton Remoto
Remote Control
www.abs-cbnnews.com
Ugly as sin
The stereotype is that lesbians turned “that way” because they have faces only their mothers could bear to love. They have coarse hair cut close to the scalp, they have bodies like Kelvinator refs, and they have legs more curved than any bows you could see. No man would court them, send them chocolates and roses, marry them and gift them with ten kids and a house with three SUVs in the suburbs.
Well, then, I’ve got some news for you. Many of the lesbians I’ve worked with are some of the prettiest, most charming souls on earth. I know of some who have long, silky, black hair – the kind of hair that Mother Ricky Reyes, the empress of Philippine hairdressing salons – would call “para kang nagpa-salon (like hair done in a beauty salon”). Others have 28-inch waistlines, and legs that could make heads turn. Without help from Vicky Belo and her smart-sharp-nip and tuck group of cosmetic surgeons.
Difficult to work with
The stereotype is that lesbians are difficult to work with because they are like bullies in the schoolyard. They look tough, they act tough, they hang tough. Step aside when they come, those elbows can dig a hole in your tummy. Do not engage them in debate or discussion – they will whip out their knives and turn your sides into faucets dripping blood. They only hang around with fellow lesbians like themselves, muttering about their deep and dark conspiracies.
Well – hindi, no, nada, nyet. Unlike other lesbian and gay groups in the world, the Filipino lesbians work together. True, the gays are louder, more intrusive with their jokes and puns and so-called one-liners. But the lesbians, they are always there to bring everybody back to earth. They’re the easiest person to work with in the world. Then and now, one of them would volunteer to be the secretary and write minutes of the meetings – a ploy to steer the meetings back to its course, when the gays begin to talk about their weekend full of romance and love.
Another would offer to be the marshall during Pride Marches – riding on her motorcycle that va-va-vooms on the street, clearing the lanes so that the beautiful could walk without any distractions.
Lethargic as molasses
Another stereotype is that since they think like men, they would form committees, hold endless meetings, bicker and dither hither and yon, and then arrive at no concrete action plans.
Think again. Some of the lesbians I’ve worked with are so decisive they would make the gills of my Management teachers in school turn green with envy. Yes, we meet but we do so only when we have clear agenda for discussion. Yes, we form committees and discuss, but not the whole day long and until the cows come home.
After the committee members have reported, there is updating before the group, then a consensus is formed. Leadership, after all, is after arriving at that golden moment when everybody – or almost everybody – has reached a point of common agreement. Only then would we map the action plans – specific, practical, do-able within a time-frame. So no time really for lethargy, for slowpokes, for endless committee meetings.
The lesbians and I know that words are worthless unless backed up with work. With this equation – words with work – do my lesbian friends and I walk down the merry path of LGBT advocacy.
Lack a sense of humor
The stereotype is that, like spinsters, lesbians have no sense of humor. Because they are ugly, they are dour, sour, and humorless. The comparison would be to that of vinegar.
But this vinegary quality is lacking among my lesbian friends. I’m always amazed at our meetings where the lesbians know the current gayspeak; where they act “more gay” than the gayest, most flaminco-pink denizen of Manila; where they could impersonate the latest hilarious character in the country’s endless gallery of lunatics – politicians, movie stars, or us.
I almost died laughing when one of them applied for a job as a stewardess in one of the country’s top airlines. She went through the rigmarole of the application and the interview Q & A like a beauty-pageant contestant. Another applied for a top job in a multinational firm in Makati – with her butch haircut and all. She did well in the exams and during the interview, the personnel director was flabbergasted.
The director asked, “Well, errr, hmmm. Are you a practising lesbian?” Our dear sister looked at the director straight in the eyes, then said: “Oh, I’m no longer practicing. I am good at it.” Naturally, she didn’t get the job, but scored some points at queer advocacy in the towering canyons of multinational Makati.
Unhappy people
The last stereotype I know is that they are unhappy people. Their affliction can be cured if a straight man courts them, has sex with them (eeewwww, I could hear squeaks from the lesbian gallery), marries them.
But tell me, baby, what does happiness mean? When I meet them in bookstores or conferences, my lesbian friends never fail to relate to me how they are amazed at the quickness with which gays meet and, well, mate. For them, I guess it’s a rather longer process that involves getting to know you, conversation and dates, movies and dinners, the works. “How could you?” one of them ask, “just meet somebody in the bathroom and have sex with them?”
“Ahh,” I answer, returning the illustrated Kama Sutra in its shelf in the bookstore. “I haven’t done that, I think, let me remember, no, I haven’t, but you know, that is just sex.”
“Precisely my point,” my lesbian friend answered, sounding like an interlocutor in a court of justice.
“I guess that we are still men, you know. With galloping gonads and as horny as hell.”
“Oh,” she said, a smile dawning on her face. I thought that was also the smile of recognition and acceptance.
Many lesbians I know are in relationships that have lasted for weeks, months, hey, even years. They’ve hurdled the petty jealousies and the small wars, wrestled with the lesbian bed death and other minor deaths. They live and lust and love together, focused on the horizon of their common dreams.
Reviving Cha-cha
Opinion
SKETCHES By Ana Marie Pamintuan
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Philippine Star
www.philstar.net
There were many horror stories about Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo from people who worked for her before she rose to power.
Some of their complaints Filipinos have become familiar with in the past seven years: this President is too demanding and unreasonable, she lacks charm, she lacks empathy.
The President has admitted a number of her faults, some of which she attributes — like her good skin to her genes — to a rigid upbringing.
Yet those same traits made her look like the antithesis of Joseph Estrada. And back in 2000-2001, with Filipinos suffering from an overdose of President Erap’s natural charm and empathy, the possibility of his workaholic though crabby vice president replacing him seemed like a godsend.
People power 2 succeeded in part because people saw Erap’s constitutional successor as a far more competent and palatable alternative to the incumbent.
A similar sentiment helped fuel the original people power revolt in 1986. In that epic battle that came to be portrayed as one of good versus evil, Filipinos found their alternative to Ferdinand Marcos, in the person of Corazon Aquino.
President Arroyo owes much of her staying power, amid repeated attempts to unseat her, to the perceived incompetence of her constitutional successor, plus the weakness of the opposition that has failed to rally behind a single alternative to the incumbent.
But the situation is changing as the 2010 elections approach. At least two of the serious contenders for the presidency are seen to be highly capable, hardworking and relatively clean given the dirty political environment in this country.
If recent survey results are accurate, Filipinos are also open to the possibility of a Noli de Castro presidency. Then there are Erap’s loyal legions who, like him, are dreaming of Take 2 for his aborted presidency, though the Constitution bars “any” re-election for presidents.
With more than one palatable replacement emerging, and with the performance and trust ratings of the incumbent plumbing new depths with each quarterly survey, I can’t see how President Arroyo can swing Charter change (Cha-cha) to perpetuate herself in power without tearing the country apart.
* * *
And yet there is persistent talk about her administration’s efforts to revive Cha-cha through whatever route.
The last people’s initiative to amend the Constitution collapsed through sheer sloppiness. Some quarters suspected that while Malacañang truly wanted Cha-cha, if only to amend certain economic provisions, the sloppiness was deliberate to foil then speaker Jose de Venecia’s dreams of taking over the country’s helm.
These days there are reports that the people’s initiative for Cha-cha is being revived, to be spearheaded by local officials who have been promised a term extension plus cash.
The real prize, at least for Malacañang, is supposedly a constitutional amendment that will allow the President to stay in power beyond noon of June 30, 2010.
The final peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is supposed to provide a convenient smokescreen for the deeper agenda for Cha-cha.
This is supposedly the reason why the government is anxiously trying to ram down the nation’s throat the first phase of the final pact, which is the memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain. Implementing the MOA will require amending the Constitution.
But now the MOA is in limbo. The provisions of the MOA and any final peace pact will have to be ratified by affected residents in a plebiscite. That sounds simple enough. But given the way electoral exercises are conducted in this country, especially in several areas in Mindanao, you can’t blame residents in the affected areas for believing that any agreement signed with the MILF, even before ratification by the affected communities, is already — in the words of an MILF commander — a done deal.
Some quarters are particularly leery with retired Armed Forces chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. as the new government point man in the peace process. Esperon, despite his vehement denials, cannot dispel suspicions that he helped manipulate Mindanao votes in favor of the President during the 2004 race.
* * *
The inevitable entanglement of Cha-cha with politics is unfortunate, because there are several provisions in the 21-year-old Charter that need amending if the country wants to improve its competitiveness in the global economy.
One provision that has been successfully invoked as legal justification for a coup d’etat must be either reworded or struck out of the Constitution.
The powers of the Supreme Court need clearer definition.
Certain protectionist provisions, though well-meaning at the time the Charter was drawn up, must be lifted if we want to attract more job-generating foreign direct investments as well as promote competition and efficiency in several sectors.
No one can say for sure if changing the system of government will offer a cure for many of the ills plaguing Philippine politics and governance.
Among the arguments for a shift to a unicameral parliamentary system is that it will stop uninformed voters from choosing popularity over competence in picking the nation’s highest official. Presumably, members of parliament will know each other well enough not to pick a popular but incompetent moron as prime minister.
This argument gained traction during the term of Joseph Estrada, a popular actor who won the presidency by the biggest margin ever in the history of the republic.
But recent elections have shown that popularity is no longer enough for the typical Filipino voter. Even boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao could not get himself elected to Congress. In the Information Age, it is becoming harder to fool all of the people all the time.
And with the same political dynasties controlling parliament, would a change in the system of government make a difference?
Filipinos no longer want to set a bad precedent by prematurely kicking out yet another president, with less than two years left before the next elections.
But those dreaming of perpetuating themselves in power through Cha-cha should also consider that Filipinos are eager for change, starting with their leader, at the scheduled time. And now there are alternatives who are perceived to have the ability to do the job better.
SKETCHES By Ana Marie Pamintuan
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Philippine Star
www.philstar.net
There were many horror stories about Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo from people who worked for her before she rose to power.
Some of their complaints Filipinos have become familiar with in the past seven years: this President is too demanding and unreasonable, she lacks charm, she lacks empathy.
The President has admitted a number of her faults, some of which she attributes — like her good skin to her genes — to a rigid upbringing.
Yet those same traits made her look like the antithesis of Joseph Estrada. And back in 2000-2001, with Filipinos suffering from an overdose of President Erap’s natural charm and empathy, the possibility of his workaholic though crabby vice president replacing him seemed like a godsend.
People power 2 succeeded in part because people saw Erap’s constitutional successor as a far more competent and palatable alternative to the incumbent.
A similar sentiment helped fuel the original people power revolt in 1986. In that epic battle that came to be portrayed as one of good versus evil, Filipinos found their alternative to Ferdinand Marcos, in the person of Corazon Aquino.
President Arroyo owes much of her staying power, amid repeated attempts to unseat her, to the perceived incompetence of her constitutional successor, plus the weakness of the opposition that has failed to rally behind a single alternative to the incumbent.
But the situation is changing as the 2010 elections approach. At least two of the serious contenders for the presidency are seen to be highly capable, hardworking and relatively clean given the dirty political environment in this country.
If recent survey results are accurate, Filipinos are also open to the possibility of a Noli de Castro presidency. Then there are Erap’s loyal legions who, like him, are dreaming of Take 2 for his aborted presidency, though the Constitution bars “any” re-election for presidents.
With more than one palatable replacement emerging, and with the performance and trust ratings of the incumbent plumbing new depths with each quarterly survey, I can’t see how President Arroyo can swing Charter change (Cha-cha) to perpetuate herself in power without tearing the country apart.
* * *
And yet there is persistent talk about her administration’s efforts to revive Cha-cha through whatever route.
The last people’s initiative to amend the Constitution collapsed through sheer sloppiness. Some quarters suspected that while Malacañang truly wanted Cha-cha, if only to amend certain economic provisions, the sloppiness was deliberate to foil then speaker Jose de Venecia’s dreams of taking over the country’s helm.
These days there are reports that the people’s initiative for Cha-cha is being revived, to be spearheaded by local officials who have been promised a term extension plus cash.
The real prize, at least for Malacañang, is supposedly a constitutional amendment that will allow the President to stay in power beyond noon of June 30, 2010.
The final peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is supposed to provide a convenient smokescreen for the deeper agenda for Cha-cha.
This is supposedly the reason why the government is anxiously trying to ram down the nation’s throat the first phase of the final pact, which is the memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain. Implementing the MOA will require amending the Constitution.
But now the MOA is in limbo. The provisions of the MOA and any final peace pact will have to be ratified by affected residents in a plebiscite. That sounds simple enough. But given the way electoral exercises are conducted in this country, especially in several areas in Mindanao, you can’t blame residents in the affected areas for believing that any agreement signed with the MILF, even before ratification by the affected communities, is already — in the words of an MILF commander — a done deal.
Some quarters are particularly leery with retired Armed Forces chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. as the new government point man in the peace process. Esperon, despite his vehement denials, cannot dispel suspicions that he helped manipulate Mindanao votes in favor of the President during the 2004 race.
* * *
The inevitable entanglement of Cha-cha with politics is unfortunate, because there are several provisions in the 21-year-old Charter that need amending if the country wants to improve its competitiveness in the global economy.
One provision that has been successfully invoked as legal justification for a coup d’etat must be either reworded or struck out of the Constitution.
The powers of the Supreme Court need clearer definition.
Certain protectionist provisions, though well-meaning at the time the Charter was drawn up, must be lifted if we want to attract more job-generating foreign direct investments as well as promote competition and efficiency in several sectors.
No one can say for sure if changing the system of government will offer a cure for many of the ills plaguing Philippine politics and governance.
Among the arguments for a shift to a unicameral parliamentary system is that it will stop uninformed voters from choosing popularity over competence in picking the nation’s highest official. Presumably, members of parliament will know each other well enough not to pick a popular but incompetent moron as prime minister.
This argument gained traction during the term of Joseph Estrada, a popular actor who won the presidency by the biggest margin ever in the history of the republic.
But recent elections have shown that popularity is no longer enough for the typical Filipino voter. Even boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao could not get himself elected to Congress. In the Information Age, it is becoming harder to fool all of the people all the time.
And with the same political dynasties controlling parliament, would a change in the system of government make a difference?
Filipinos no longer want to set a bad precedent by prematurely kicking out yet another president, with less than two years left before the next elections.
But those dreaming of perpetuating themselves in power through Cha-cha should also consider that Filipinos are eager for change, starting with their leader, at the scheduled time. And now there are alternatives who are perceived to have the ability to do the job better.
Editorial: Young blood and hope
Editorial
Visayan Daily Star
July 26, 2008
It should not be taken against the Filipino people if most of our countrymen remain discontented with the state of our national affairs. While we wait with bated breath for what President Arroyo will say on Monday in her State-of-the-Nation Address, various sectors of society have been playing soothsayers by almost taking the SONA from the President’s mouth and speaking for her.
If we believe what the critics of the administration are saying, it would seem that doomsday is just around the corner. Much of the pessimism stems from the myriad of crises that we are experiencing. To top it all, the latest word from our economists revealed that the Philippines has wrested the top spot as the most corrupt nation in the world.
Thus, the recent visit of the so-called Young Turks to Dumaguete recently, meant to kick off their series of campus tours, was an eye-opener of sorts insofar as their ideologies are concerned. The Young Turks is composed of, among others, Danton Remoto, founding chairman of Ang Ladlad; broadcast journalist and former Congressman Gilbert Remulla; Genuine Opposition spokesperson, lawyer Adel Tamano; and, Congressman Lorenzo Tañada III.
Though they are all members of the opposition and, therefore, are espousing change and reform, the collective message of the Young Turks was one that struck a sensitive chord among the diversified members of the audience. It is that of hope – that, for as long as there is hope, all is not lost for the Filipino people. The Young Turks likewise offered an alternative of injecting young blood into the otherwise humdrum political scenario composed of so-called traditional politicians.
As the saying goes, hope springs eternal. Although we should not remain callous and indifferent to the ills of society, we should not persist in our skeptical attitude either. No one can give us hope except ourselves. If we have even just a tinge of hope in us, then we will survive.*
Visayan Daily Star
July 26, 2008
It should not be taken against the Filipino people if most of our countrymen remain discontented with the state of our national affairs. While we wait with bated breath for what President Arroyo will say on Monday in her State-of-the-Nation Address, various sectors of society have been playing soothsayers by almost taking the SONA from the President’s mouth and speaking for her.
If we believe what the critics of the administration are saying, it would seem that doomsday is just around the corner. Much of the pessimism stems from the myriad of crises that we are experiencing. To top it all, the latest word from our economists revealed that the Philippines has wrested the top spot as the most corrupt nation in the world.
Thus, the recent visit of the so-called Young Turks to Dumaguete recently, meant to kick off their series of campus tours, was an eye-opener of sorts insofar as their ideologies are concerned. The Young Turks is composed of, among others, Danton Remoto, founding chairman of Ang Ladlad; broadcast journalist and former Congressman Gilbert Remulla; Genuine Opposition spokesperson, lawyer Adel Tamano; and, Congressman Lorenzo Tañada III.
Though they are all members of the opposition and, therefore, are espousing change and reform, the collective message of the Young Turks was one that struck a sensitive chord among the diversified members of the audience. It is that of hope – that, for as long as there is hope, all is not lost for the Filipino people. The Young Turks likewise offered an alternative of injecting young blood into the otherwise humdrum political scenario composed of so-called traditional politicians.
As the saying goes, hope springs eternal. Although we should not remain callous and indifferent to the ills of society, we should not persist in our skeptical attitude either. No one can give us hope except ourselves. If we have even just a tinge of hope in us, then we will survive.*
Villar's answer to crisis: promote business
EAST WEST
By Julius F. Fortuna
Manila Times
www.manilatimes.net
WE attended on Saturday an affair held at the historic Laurel residence in Mandaluyong where the Nacionalista Party awarded 16 small-scale businessmen from across the country. The project was spearheaded by Senate President Manny Villar who used the occasion to elaborate on the virtues of sipag and tiyaga (industry and perseverance), as the road to economic self-reliance.
Is this affair a preparation for 2010? I think it is. But in fairness to the organizers, I did not hear all throughout the affair a clear-cut political message or a reference to the presidential polls. But I noticed that in his speech honoring the awardees, Villar harped on the theme of giving hope to the nation. Hope was the slogan of the late Ninoy Aquino when he first ran for senator. And Marcos used “this nation can be great again” to win in 1965.
Villar must be aware of the present crisis. That is why he referred in his speech to the growing hopelessness prevalent among the people, specially the youth. At one time, he referred to his conversation with a Pinay maid in Hongkong who was embarrassed to be described as a Filipina.
If I could derive a political message from the affair, it is this: By encouraging the business acumen of Filipinos—by giving people more livelihood in the form of small business—this country may be able to hurdle the present crisis. How’s that for a political thesis in 2010?
But whatever the political message, the evening was dedicated to the entrepreneurial spirit of awardees like Ms. Calma Arcala of Benguet or Ms. Elizabeth Africano of Cauayan, Isabela, Pacifico de la Cruz of Plaridel, Bulacan, Mr. Rolando Madera of Bacolod City, Elizabeth Rafal of South Cotabato, and Marianne Olano of Camarines Sur.
By Julius F. Fortuna
Manila Times
www.manilatimes.net
WE attended on Saturday an affair held at the historic Laurel residence in Mandaluyong where the Nacionalista Party awarded 16 small-scale businessmen from across the country. The project was spearheaded by Senate President Manny Villar who used the occasion to elaborate on the virtues of sipag and tiyaga (industry and perseverance), as the road to economic self-reliance.
Is this affair a preparation for 2010? I think it is. But in fairness to the organizers, I did not hear all throughout the affair a clear-cut political message or a reference to the presidential polls. But I noticed that in his speech honoring the awardees, Villar harped on the theme of giving hope to the nation. Hope was the slogan of the late Ninoy Aquino when he first ran for senator. And Marcos used “this nation can be great again” to win in 1965.
Villar must be aware of the present crisis. That is why he referred in his speech to the growing hopelessness prevalent among the people, specially the youth. At one time, he referred to his conversation with a Pinay maid in Hongkong who was embarrassed to be described as a Filipina.
If I could derive a political message from the affair, it is this: By encouraging the business acumen of Filipinos—by giving people more livelihood in the form of small business—this country may be able to hurdle the present crisis. How’s that for a political thesis in 2010?
But whatever the political message, the evening was dedicated to the entrepreneurial spirit of awardees like Ms. Calma Arcala of Benguet or Ms. Elizabeth Africano of Cauayan, Isabela, Pacifico de la Cruz of Plaridel, Bulacan, Mr. Rolando Madera of Bacolod City, Elizabeth Rafal of South Cotabato, and Marianne Olano of Camarines Sur.
Filipinos want next president to curb prices and enforce the law -- Pulse Asia
By JESUS F. LLANTO
abs-cbnNews.com/Newsbreak
Most Filipinos think that the next president should be pro-poor and should focus on preventing the soaring prices of the basic commodities and reducing poverty, a survey by polling firm Pulse Asia showed.
The Ulat ng Bayan Survey held from July 1-14, 2008 showed that almost four out of 10 (39%) Filipinos thinks that being pro-poor is the most important characteristic the next president should possess.
Aside from being pro-poor, the next president, the survey showed, should be able to enforce law equally on influential as well as ordinary people (35%) and be knowledgeable in the management of government (34%). Respondents also think that the next president should be trustworthy (29%) and fight anomalies in the government (28%)
Being pro-poor is cited as the most important characteristic of the next president by 41% of respondents from Luzon and 50% of respondents from Mindanao.
Respondents from the National Capital Region, however, said the most important quality of the next president is being able to enforce the law equally on influential and ordinary people (43%) while those from the Visayas being knowledgeable in managing the government (47%) is the most important.
Popularity, however, occupied the last spot in the list of most important characteristics of the future president. Only 1 percent thinks that being popular is the most important attribute of the next president should possess.
Other characteristics that are cited important by only few respondents include having integrity and good reputation (8%), being able to produce concrete results (8%), and having a good family background or lineage (3%).
Rising prices and poverty
Meanwhile, respondents also think that the next president should focus immediately on problems like rising prices and poverty reduction.
Nearly seven out of 10 (67%) believe that the next president should focus on preventing rapid increase in prices of basic necessities while almost half of the them (49%) think that reducing the great poverty of many Filipinos should be the immediate focus of the future president.
Consumer prices have reached double-digit levels and in July it soared to 12.2 percent, the highest since December 1991.
Meanwhile, data from the National Statistical Coordination Board showed that poverty incidence in the Philippines worsened from 2003 to 2006 and that there are 4.7 million families or 27.6 million Filipinos who are classified as poor.
Other top concerns cited by respondents include eradicating widespread graft and corruption in the government (43%), creating sufficient jobs or livelihood (42%) and curbing widespread criminality (28).
abs-cbnNews.com/Newsbreak
Most Filipinos think that the next president should be pro-poor and should focus on preventing the soaring prices of the basic commodities and reducing poverty, a survey by polling firm Pulse Asia showed.
The Ulat ng Bayan Survey held from July 1-14, 2008 showed that almost four out of 10 (39%) Filipinos thinks that being pro-poor is the most important characteristic the next president should possess.
Aside from being pro-poor, the next president, the survey showed, should be able to enforce law equally on influential as well as ordinary people (35%) and be knowledgeable in the management of government (34%). Respondents also think that the next president should be trustworthy (29%) and fight anomalies in the government (28%)
Being pro-poor is cited as the most important characteristic of the next president by 41% of respondents from Luzon and 50% of respondents from Mindanao.
Respondents from the National Capital Region, however, said the most important quality of the next president is being able to enforce the law equally on influential and ordinary people (43%) while those from the Visayas being knowledgeable in managing the government (47%) is the most important.
Popularity, however, occupied the last spot in the list of most important characteristics of the future president. Only 1 percent thinks that being popular is the most important attribute of the next president should possess.
Other characteristics that are cited important by only few respondents include having integrity and good reputation (8%), being able to produce concrete results (8%), and having a good family background or lineage (3%).
Rising prices and poverty
Meanwhile, respondents also think that the next president should focus immediately on problems like rising prices and poverty reduction.
Nearly seven out of 10 (67%) believe that the next president should focus on preventing rapid increase in prices of basic necessities while almost half of the them (49%) think that reducing the great poverty of many Filipinos should be the immediate focus of the future president.
Consumer prices have reached double-digit levels and in July it soared to 12.2 percent, the highest since December 1991.
Meanwhile, data from the National Statistical Coordination Board showed that poverty incidence in the Philippines worsened from 2003 to 2006 and that there are 4.7 million families or 27.6 million Filipinos who are classified as poor.
Other top concerns cited by respondents include eradicating widespread graft and corruption in the government (43%), creating sufficient jobs or livelihood (42%) and curbing widespread criminality (28).
Remebering Ka Tanny: Nationalist to the last
By LEONOR MAGTOLIS BRIONES
www.abs-cbnnews.com
"Nationalist to the last." This is how Rene A.V. Saguisag describes the late Sen. Lorenzo "Ka Tanny" Tanada, whose centennial we are celebrating on August 10, 2008.
The first time I met the late Sen. Lorenzo "Ka Tanny" Tanada was in the old Senate Building in Luneta. I went there for the first Council meeting of the Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism (MAN) . He was the first Chairman. I was a then a member of the Kabataang Makabayan and represented the Youth Sector.
In those days, senators were like Olympians, more godlike than human. They towered over mere mortals in their erudition, eloquence and grandeur. They were like the Roman senators of old. For a graduate student in her twenties fresh from the province, the experience of meeting, talking and seeing a senator up close was awesome.
I was a callow and timid promdi taking up graduate studies in the then U.P. Institute of Public Administration. Dodong Nemenzo was my professor. It was he who brought me to Kabataang Makabayan and to Ka Tanny.
Dazzling is the only word which can be used to describe Ka Tanny's smile. And when he spoke, his listeners were all mesmerized. During assemblies and marches, young people were carried away by his brilliance and eloquence as he expounded nationalist tenets.
The Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism (MAN) was the broadest alliance of different sectors rallying to the cause of nationalism. The first Secretary General was Jose Maria Sison. Leading personalities included intellectual giants like Renato Constantino, Dodong and Princess Nemenzo, Merlin Magallona, and fiery labor leaders like Ignacio Lacsina and Juan Olalia..
As MAN Chairman, Ka Tanny steered the organization at a time when to be a "mere" nationalist was considered dangerous. At times, we would meet in the house of Renato and Letty Constantino
Those were heady days. I felt like a fish thrown into the waters of nationalism. We read and reread, and held DGs (discussion groups) in different houses. Nationalism was the first step on the road to radicalism and the young welcomed it joyously.
My MAN experience was a defining moment in my journey to full development as a nationalist and progressive. It completely changed my life and led me on the path which I have never abandoned. Many young people of that time started with MAN. Now they are national leaders in their own right.
Ka Tanny was part of the MAN experience for many young men and women. In the words of Arlene Babst, "He looked, in fact, like the youngest MAN (Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism, which he spearheaded) I have ever seen in my life."
From Senator to MAN
When Ka Tanny became senator in 1947, he had already built up a formidable reputation as professional, lawyer and public servant. He held the longest record of continuous service in the Senate, 24 years.
He received his law degree from the University of the Philippines, his Master's of Law from Harvard University, and his Doctor of Civil Law from the University of Santo Tomas, meritissimus.
His nationalist inclinations were enriched by his experience as running mate of Don Claro M. Recto in the Nationalist People's Party. His chairmanship of MAN was a result of nationalist positions which he espoused in the Senate, his relentless battles against graft and corruption and his advocacy of civil liberties as founding member of the Civil Liberties Union.
From MAN to nationalist hero
Ka Tanny is best remembered for his leadership role during the dark days of Martial Law.
Along with other luminaries, he fought the dictatorship. He was campaign manager of Lakas ng Bayan, a coalition of anti-dictatorship forces. Ka Tanny later led a protest march against the massive cheating during the 1978 election.
Ka Tanny continued his glorious journey during the Aquino administration with his heroic stand on the military bases. He was among those who headed the series of protests which led to the mothballing of the much maligned Bataan Nuclear Power Plant.
Ka Tanny only stopped when his physical system finally gave up on him. He passed away in 1992.
Remembering Ka Tanny
How easily people forget! Eccelesiastes has said, "There is no rememberance of men of old, and those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow." How soon the country forgets! But those who were enraptured with his oratory in MAN, his courage in the face of Martial Law, and his endurance in the fight against the bases will not forget.
Nationalism was my first step in the journey towards full development. Ka Tanny was part of that journey. I too travelled the same road as his son Wigberto. Now I am with his grandson Erin. Thank you, Ka Tanny.
www.abs-cbnnews.com
"Nationalist to the last." This is how Rene A.V. Saguisag describes the late Sen. Lorenzo "Ka Tanny" Tanada, whose centennial we are celebrating on August 10, 2008.
The first time I met the late Sen. Lorenzo "Ka Tanny" Tanada was in the old Senate Building in Luneta. I went there for the first Council meeting of the Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism (MAN) . He was the first Chairman. I was a then a member of the Kabataang Makabayan and represented the Youth Sector.
In those days, senators were like Olympians, more godlike than human. They towered over mere mortals in their erudition, eloquence and grandeur. They were like the Roman senators of old. For a graduate student in her twenties fresh from the province, the experience of meeting, talking and seeing a senator up close was awesome.
I was a callow and timid promdi taking up graduate studies in the then U.P. Institute of Public Administration. Dodong Nemenzo was my professor. It was he who brought me to Kabataang Makabayan and to Ka Tanny.
Dazzling is the only word which can be used to describe Ka Tanny's smile. And when he spoke, his listeners were all mesmerized. During assemblies and marches, young people were carried away by his brilliance and eloquence as he expounded nationalist tenets.
The Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism (MAN) was the broadest alliance of different sectors rallying to the cause of nationalism. The first Secretary General was Jose Maria Sison. Leading personalities included intellectual giants like Renato Constantino, Dodong and Princess Nemenzo, Merlin Magallona, and fiery labor leaders like Ignacio Lacsina and Juan Olalia..
As MAN Chairman, Ka Tanny steered the organization at a time when to be a "mere" nationalist was considered dangerous. At times, we would meet in the house of Renato and Letty Constantino
Those were heady days. I felt like a fish thrown into the waters of nationalism. We read and reread, and held DGs (discussion groups) in different houses. Nationalism was the first step on the road to radicalism and the young welcomed it joyously.
My MAN experience was a defining moment in my journey to full development as a nationalist and progressive. It completely changed my life and led me on the path which I have never abandoned. Many young people of that time started with MAN. Now they are national leaders in their own right.
Ka Tanny was part of the MAN experience for many young men and women. In the words of Arlene Babst, "He looked, in fact, like the youngest MAN (Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism, which he spearheaded) I have ever seen in my life."
From Senator to MAN
When Ka Tanny became senator in 1947, he had already built up a formidable reputation as professional, lawyer and public servant. He held the longest record of continuous service in the Senate, 24 years.
He received his law degree from the University of the Philippines, his Master's of Law from Harvard University, and his Doctor of Civil Law from the University of Santo Tomas, meritissimus.
His nationalist inclinations were enriched by his experience as running mate of Don Claro M. Recto in the Nationalist People's Party. His chairmanship of MAN was a result of nationalist positions which he espoused in the Senate, his relentless battles against graft and corruption and his advocacy of civil liberties as founding member of the Civil Liberties Union.
From MAN to nationalist hero
Ka Tanny is best remembered for his leadership role during the dark days of Martial Law.
Along with other luminaries, he fought the dictatorship. He was campaign manager of Lakas ng Bayan, a coalition of anti-dictatorship forces. Ka Tanny later led a protest march against the massive cheating during the 1978 election.
Ka Tanny continued his glorious journey during the Aquino administration with his heroic stand on the military bases. He was among those who headed the series of protests which led to the mothballing of the much maligned Bataan Nuclear Power Plant.
Ka Tanny only stopped when his physical system finally gave up on him. He passed away in 1992.
Remembering Ka Tanny
How easily people forget! Eccelesiastes has said, "There is no rememberance of men of old, and those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow." How soon the country forgets! But those who were enraptured with his oratory in MAN, his courage in the face of Martial Law, and his endurance in the fight against the bases will not forget.
Nationalism was my first step in the journey towards full development. Ka Tanny was part of that journey. I too travelled the same road as his son Wigberto. Now I am with his grandson Erin. Thank you, Ka Tanny.
Nelson Mandela is truly free
by Danton Remoto
Remote Control
www.abs-cbnnews.com
It was sometime in November 1989, the second month of my stay at the University of Stirling in Scotland, where I took the M.Phil. in Publishing Studies on a British Council Scholarship.
The Student Council decided to hold an African party. Purpose: to raise funds for the African National Congress whose leader, Nelson Mandela, was still languishing in the prison chambers of South Africa. It was a collaborative effort on all fronts – from the African students in my university to the British students still trying, it seems, to work out what one of them called “their white, liberal guilt.”
We would visit an ancient printing press in Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital, early the next day. But still I wanted to dance.
So that night, I wore late 1980s party gear: canary-yellow T-shirt one size smaller, faded jeans torn at the most appropriate places, and purple suede shoes. And since the party was for dear, old Mr. Mandela, I decided to wear my cow-bone necklaces, the ones with messages of freedom inscribed on the back, hand-made by political prisoners during the regime of Ferdinand Marcos and bought at one of those political meetings during the dying days of the dictatorship.
When I arrived at Robbins Hall at 11 P.M., the party was just beginning to heat up. My African friends wore the most colorful costumes. The women’s headgear looked like huge, cabbage roses. Their green satin dresses curved and shimmered, along with their beads, bangles, and bracelets done in all the colors of the rainbow. Some of the men wore short, embroidered vests that showed off their washboard tummies and tighter-than-tight jeans.
Best costume
But if this were a costume party, I would give the Best Costume Award to this gentleman from North Africa. A Muslim, he came to the party in his usual, daily wear: a white fez, a robe as big as a tent, and leather sandals with braided straps. And yes, he jived and danced with the rest of us.
There were also other boys whose dreadlocked hair trailed all the way down to the floor. On the other hand, the Brits came in ratty clothes dug up from the flea market, layered them with something from the Thistle Centre Mall, and strapped on their shoes the shape of big boats.
As they would say in Britain, the party was a smash. People danced without any hint of self-consciousness, the way they would do it in Manila. They just went to the floor, whether alone, in twos or threes, and began to jive.
In the beginning, the deejay played some techno and house music. But in the middle of the party, he switched to “Free Nelson Mandela,” the South African anthem of protest. And the crowd just went wild! The song has a deep and fast thrumming rising to a refrain that urges, again and again, the white racist government in Johannesburg to free Mr. Mandela. Everybody was singing and dancing and jumping and hooting. And I knew, Tonto, that I was no longer in Manila. The volts of energy that night were enough to make Robbins Hall burst into flames.
Laughter and tears
Six months later, the white government in South Africa finally faced the fact that it had to hand over power to the black majority. The first step in healing the injustice and pain of the years was to free Nelson Mandela after 25 years of imprisonment.
I watched the event on television with my African friends – Peter Okeke, Orufemi Abodundrin, Mary Khasiani and Bookie Mwelagabe. We were on the first floor of Muirhead Hall, along with the other Africans who live in our building. Sue Joubaud, our classmate who descended from French settlers in South Africa, wasn’t with us. She was visiting her Mum in London.
The BBC covered the event live, and we all huddled together in the small TV room. When Mr. Mandela was beginning to walk out of jail, we were so very quiet. And then Bookie said, in her big, booming voice that seemed to have come from the deepest bowels of the earth: “Oh, my Lawd! My very good Lawd! They’re finally letting him free!”
And we all whooped with laughter and with cheer, our faces bright with tears.
Back in my room, I wrote a poem for my African friends and for Mr. Mandela, who was finally free after 25 years. He would later become the first president of South Africa, ruled wisely and well for six years, but did not stand for reelection. Instead, he became an icon of decency and honesty respected the world over: the leader as a statesman and gentleman of the world.
Poem
Richard Stengel, Mandela’s biographer in the book Long Walk to Freedom, wrote: “In the history of Africa, there have been only a handful of democratically elected leaders who willingly stood down from office. Mandela was determined to set a precedent for all who followed him – not only in South Africa but across the rest of the continent.... He knows that leaders lead as much by what they choose not to do as what they do.” Unlike many despots around the world, Mandela did not hold on to power, knowing that he was just its steward, and not its owner. In this way, he was truly, magnificently, free.
The poem I wrote is called “For Nelson Mandela,” and it goes this way.
“When they freed you, I was in Stirling/ with my African friends,/ their voices deep,/ swift the syllables from their lips./ Silence like a mat/ unrolled itself in the room/ when you left/ the white prison,/ your face calm,/ with no line of vengeance or bitterness./ When you raised your hands/ gratefully,/ like an offering,/ joy exploded from my friends/ -- our eyes filmed with tears --/ joy that exploded like wings rushing back/ to the veldts and woodlands,/ the mountains and plains/ of beloved Mother Africa.”
Remote Control
www.abs-cbnnews.com
It was sometime in November 1989, the second month of my stay at the University of Stirling in Scotland, where I took the M.Phil. in Publishing Studies on a British Council Scholarship.
The Student Council decided to hold an African party. Purpose: to raise funds for the African National Congress whose leader, Nelson Mandela, was still languishing in the prison chambers of South Africa. It was a collaborative effort on all fronts – from the African students in my university to the British students still trying, it seems, to work out what one of them called “their white, liberal guilt.”
We would visit an ancient printing press in Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital, early the next day. But still I wanted to dance.
So that night, I wore late 1980s party gear: canary-yellow T-shirt one size smaller, faded jeans torn at the most appropriate places, and purple suede shoes. And since the party was for dear, old Mr. Mandela, I decided to wear my cow-bone necklaces, the ones with messages of freedom inscribed on the back, hand-made by political prisoners during the regime of Ferdinand Marcos and bought at one of those political meetings during the dying days of the dictatorship.
When I arrived at Robbins Hall at 11 P.M., the party was just beginning to heat up. My African friends wore the most colorful costumes. The women’s headgear looked like huge, cabbage roses. Their green satin dresses curved and shimmered, along with their beads, bangles, and bracelets done in all the colors of the rainbow. Some of the men wore short, embroidered vests that showed off their washboard tummies and tighter-than-tight jeans.
Best costume
But if this were a costume party, I would give the Best Costume Award to this gentleman from North Africa. A Muslim, he came to the party in his usual, daily wear: a white fez, a robe as big as a tent, and leather sandals with braided straps. And yes, he jived and danced with the rest of us.
There were also other boys whose dreadlocked hair trailed all the way down to the floor. On the other hand, the Brits came in ratty clothes dug up from the flea market, layered them with something from the Thistle Centre Mall, and strapped on their shoes the shape of big boats.
As they would say in Britain, the party was a smash. People danced without any hint of self-consciousness, the way they would do it in Manila. They just went to the floor, whether alone, in twos or threes, and began to jive.
In the beginning, the deejay played some techno and house music. But in the middle of the party, he switched to “Free Nelson Mandela,” the South African anthem of protest. And the crowd just went wild! The song has a deep and fast thrumming rising to a refrain that urges, again and again, the white racist government in Johannesburg to free Mr. Mandela. Everybody was singing and dancing and jumping and hooting. And I knew, Tonto, that I was no longer in Manila. The volts of energy that night were enough to make Robbins Hall burst into flames.
Laughter and tears
Six months later, the white government in South Africa finally faced the fact that it had to hand over power to the black majority. The first step in healing the injustice and pain of the years was to free Nelson Mandela after 25 years of imprisonment.
I watched the event on television with my African friends – Peter Okeke, Orufemi Abodundrin, Mary Khasiani and Bookie Mwelagabe. We were on the first floor of Muirhead Hall, along with the other Africans who live in our building. Sue Joubaud, our classmate who descended from French settlers in South Africa, wasn’t with us. She was visiting her Mum in London.
The BBC covered the event live, and we all huddled together in the small TV room. When Mr. Mandela was beginning to walk out of jail, we were so very quiet. And then Bookie said, in her big, booming voice that seemed to have come from the deepest bowels of the earth: “Oh, my Lawd! My very good Lawd! They’re finally letting him free!”
And we all whooped with laughter and with cheer, our faces bright with tears.
Back in my room, I wrote a poem for my African friends and for Mr. Mandela, who was finally free after 25 years. He would later become the first president of South Africa, ruled wisely and well for six years, but did not stand for reelection. Instead, he became an icon of decency and honesty respected the world over: the leader as a statesman and gentleman of the world.
Poem
Richard Stengel, Mandela’s biographer in the book Long Walk to Freedom, wrote: “In the history of Africa, there have been only a handful of democratically elected leaders who willingly stood down from office. Mandela was determined to set a precedent for all who followed him – not only in South Africa but across the rest of the continent.... He knows that leaders lead as much by what they choose not to do as what they do.” Unlike many despots around the world, Mandela did not hold on to power, knowing that he was just its steward, and not its owner. In this way, he was truly, magnificently, free.
The poem I wrote is called “For Nelson Mandela,” and it goes this way.
“When they freed you, I was in Stirling/ with my African friends,/ their voices deep,/ swift the syllables from their lips./ Silence like a mat/ unrolled itself in the room/ when you left/ the white prison,/ your face calm,/ with no line of vengeance or bitterness./ When you raised your hands/ gratefully,/ like an offering,/ joy exploded from my friends/ -- our eyes filmed with tears --/ joy that exploded like wings rushing back/ to the veldts and woodlands,/ the mountains and plains/ of beloved Mother Africa.”
Mar Roxas on Grace Padaca -- both of the Liberal Party
GOV. PADACA ‘A HEROINE AHEAD OF OUR TIME’
ROXAS: ‘RP NEEDS MORE LEADERS LIKE GRACE’
Isabela Gov. Grace Padaca has shown Filipinos that there will come a time when people who are victims of circumstances — born into poverty and violence—will triumph against seemingly insurmountable odds and usher in a new mainstream consciousness, Senator Mar Roxas said today.
The Liberal Party President said he has deep admiration and respect for Padaca, recently named as the Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Government Service, the third Liberal leader honored with the prestigious recognition this decade.
“Grace Padaca is a heroine ahead of our time. Our country needs leaders like her, who shine valiantly during these turbulent times and inspire Pinoys to excel despite living in this time of despair and helplessness,” he said.
“She did not allow poverty or her being stricken by polio to hold her back from pursuing personal excellence. As a public servant from the time she became the voice of Isabelanons during her stint as a radio journalist, she ignored threats to her life and won public adulation and support by doing the right thing at all times,” he said.
Maria Gracia Cielo Magno Padaca was born on October 25, 1963 in Naguilian, Isabela, the second of six children of schoolteachers Bernardo and Amelia Padaca.
Coming from a poor family and stricken with polio at age 3, Grace pushed herself to excel in academics in order to obtain scholarship and ease the load of her parents. She was a valedictorian in elementary and high school and graduated Magna Cum Laude at Lyceum University in Manila in 1984.
Grace was radio commentator for Bombo Radyo in Cauayan, Isabela beginning 1986, receiving the station’s Anchorperson of the Year award in 1993.. She was also one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men/Women of the country in 1992 and 1999.
In 2004, Grace Padaca was elected governor of Isabela, the first woman to assume the position. She was reelected as governor in the 2007 elections, an affirmation of the policy of reforms she started in Isabela politics. On December 5, 2007, she was conferred the International Women of Courage Award by US Ambassador to the Philippines Kristie Kenney.
ROXAS: ‘RP NEEDS MORE LEADERS LIKE GRACE’
Isabela Gov. Grace Padaca has shown Filipinos that there will come a time when people who are victims of circumstances — born into poverty and violence—will triumph against seemingly insurmountable odds and usher in a new mainstream consciousness, Senator Mar Roxas said today.
The Liberal Party President said he has deep admiration and respect for Padaca, recently named as the Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Government Service, the third Liberal leader honored with the prestigious recognition this decade.
“Grace Padaca is a heroine ahead of our time. Our country needs leaders like her, who shine valiantly during these turbulent times and inspire Pinoys to excel despite living in this time of despair and helplessness,” he said.
“She did not allow poverty or her being stricken by polio to hold her back from pursuing personal excellence. As a public servant from the time she became the voice of Isabelanons during her stint as a radio journalist, she ignored threats to her life and won public adulation and support by doing the right thing at all times,” he said.
Maria Gracia Cielo Magno Padaca was born on October 25, 1963 in Naguilian, Isabela, the second of six children of schoolteachers Bernardo and Amelia Padaca.
Coming from a poor family and stricken with polio at age 3, Grace pushed herself to excel in academics in order to obtain scholarship and ease the load of her parents. She was a valedictorian in elementary and high school and graduated Magna Cum Laude at Lyceum University in Manila in 1984.
Grace was radio commentator for Bombo Radyo in Cauayan, Isabela beginning 1986, receiving the station’s Anchorperson of the Year award in 1993.. She was also one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men/Women of the country in 1992 and 1999.
In 2004, Grace Padaca was elected governor of Isabela, the first woman to assume the position. She was reelected as governor in the 2007 elections, an affirmation of the policy of reforms she started in Isabela politics. On December 5, 2007, she was conferred the International Women of Courage Award by US Ambassador to the Philippines Kristie Kenney.
Young Turks go to UP NCPAG, August 26
Greetings!
The University of the Philippines’ National College of Public Administration and Governance (UP-NCPAG) is celebrating its 56th year, along with UP’s 100 glorious years of existence. In recognition and support to the important responsibility of the said institutions in developing future leaders, the College’s Student Council plans to hold a forum dedicated to the youth sector entitled “What about YOUTH (Answering Queries of the Young)” on August 26, 2008, 1:00-5:00 P.M., at the NCPAG Assembly Hall.
The forum aims to inform the youth of the issues that confront them today. It also wishes to provide a venue for students to voice out their different concerns, engage them, and hear possible answers to their issues. Moreover, the said event seeks to educate and empower the students as part of the youth sector by making them realize that they can do something for our country and by rekindling the hope in their hearts.
In this light, the Student Council is humbly requesting your presence as one of our guest speakers. We hope that your group, the Young Turks, will consider our College as the second stop of your nationwide campus tour.
Looking forward for your favorable response. Thank you and more power.
In service of the students,
Shiela Mae M. Sabalburo Pebbles B. Sanchez
Chairperson Socio-Academic Affairs Administrator
0927-7881134 09275282080
Noted:
Dr. Leonor Magtolis-Briones
NCPAG Professor
PROJECT PROFILE
Title: What about YOUTH (Answering Queries of the Young)
Date: August 26, 2008, Tuesday
Time: 1:00-5:00 P.M.
Venue: Assembly Hall, National College of Public Administration and Governance, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City
I. Description:
“The youth is the hope of the fatherland,” our national hero, Dr. Jose P. Rizal once said.
In the present times where our country and our society is experiencing turmoil and crisis, the call for the youth to voice out their opinion and concerns, actively participate and get involved is even louder. The youth is considered as a powerful force in the society, considering that they compose a big bloc of the Philippine population with a total of 26.6 million as of 2007. They are the next generation who will lead our country, so it is only proper to let their voices be heard and address the issues they are currently facing to equip them and provide ammunition to better serve the country in the near future.
A group of young politicians who call themselves the “Young Turks” is calling on the students to organize among themselves and help in forming a new political environment that would be directly advantageous for the youth sector. As part of this call, they are conducting nationwide campus tours. As head start, they have visited Silliman University last July 10 and 11. They engaged the students of Silliman in forum discussions that addressed the issues and concerns on education, politics, economics, culture, gender equality, and Filipino diaspora, among other concerns of the youth.
The Young Turks is composed of Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Manila (PLM) President Adel Tamano, also spokesperson of the United Opposition (UNO) and an alumnus of UP NCPAG; Representative TG Guingona III of the 2nd District of Bukidnon; Representative Lorenzo “Erin” Tanada III of the 4th District of Quezon, the son of former Senator Wigberto Tanada and the grandson of nationalist Senator Lorenzo Tanada; Representative Gilbert Remulla, a former congressman, broadcaster and television personality; and Danton Remoto, chairman of Ang Ladlad Party List and professor of English at Ateneo.
It is their call that the youth must actively engage in government and society and that there should be room for everyone regardless of faith, religion, or sexual preference. With this, What about YOUTH (Answering Queries of the Young)*, is the second leg of their nationwide campus tour that has the following Objectives:
1. To inform the students of the issues that confront the youth of today
2. To provide a venue for the students to voice out their different concerns as youth, engage them and hear possible answers to their issues
3. To educate and empower the students as part of the youth sector by making them realize that they can do something for our country and by rekindling the hope in the hearts.
*The title “What about YOUTH” intends to inform the young with the realities and situations concerning them. In addition, it aims to suggest that the youth should be taken into consideration in solving various issues either on the individual, relational, national, or global level. The title entails a challenge to the youth sector as well.
Target Audience: 400 participants
Mechanics: A professor serves as the master of ceremony (onstage with the guests) while two students join the audience. The latter facilitates and solicits questions from the participants.
II. Tentative Flow of Program
PM (2-5pm) (1 pm Registration)
1:00 - 2:00 Registration
2:00 – 2:15 Musical Invocation Manila Concert Choir
National Anthem Manila Concert Choir
2:15 – 2:25 Welcome Remarks Dr. Alex Brillantes, Jr., NCPAG Dean
2:25 – 2:30 Opening Remarks Dr. Leonor Magtolis-Briones, NCPAG Professor
2:30 – 2:40 Introduction of Guests
2:40 – 3:05 Message to the Youth Atty. Adel Tamano, Rep. TG Guingona, Rep. Gilbert Remulla, Prof. Danton Remoto, and Rep. Erin Tanada’s message.
3:05 – 3:35 Talk Show Discussion
3:35 – 3:45 Intermission Manila Concert Choir
3:45 – 4:30 Continuation … Talk Show Discussion
4:30 – 4:45 Synthesis
4:45 – 5:00 Awarding of Tokens of Appreciation
Closing Remarks Shiela Mae M. Sabalburo, Chairperson NCPAG SC
The University of the Philippines’ National College of Public Administration and Governance (UP-NCPAG) is celebrating its 56th year, along with UP’s 100 glorious years of existence. In recognition and support to the important responsibility of the said institutions in developing future leaders, the College’s Student Council plans to hold a forum dedicated to the youth sector entitled “What about YOUTH (Answering Queries of the Young)” on August 26, 2008, 1:00-5:00 P.M., at the NCPAG Assembly Hall.
The forum aims to inform the youth of the issues that confront them today. It also wishes to provide a venue for students to voice out their different concerns, engage them, and hear possible answers to their issues. Moreover, the said event seeks to educate and empower the students as part of the youth sector by making them realize that they can do something for our country and by rekindling the hope in their hearts.
In this light, the Student Council is humbly requesting your presence as one of our guest speakers. We hope that your group, the Young Turks, will consider our College as the second stop of your nationwide campus tour.
Looking forward for your favorable response. Thank you and more power.
In service of the students,
Shiela Mae M. Sabalburo Pebbles B. Sanchez
Chairperson Socio-Academic Affairs Administrator
0927-7881134 09275282080
Noted:
Dr. Leonor Magtolis-Briones
NCPAG Professor
PROJECT PROFILE
Title: What about YOUTH (Answering Queries of the Young)
Date: August 26, 2008, Tuesday
Time: 1:00-5:00 P.M.
Venue: Assembly Hall, National College of Public Administration and Governance, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City
I. Description:
“The youth is the hope of the fatherland,” our national hero, Dr. Jose P. Rizal once said.
In the present times where our country and our society is experiencing turmoil and crisis, the call for the youth to voice out their opinion and concerns, actively participate and get involved is even louder. The youth is considered as a powerful force in the society, considering that they compose a big bloc of the Philippine population with a total of 26.6 million as of 2007. They are the next generation who will lead our country, so it is only proper to let their voices be heard and address the issues they are currently facing to equip them and provide ammunition to better serve the country in the near future.
A group of young politicians who call themselves the “Young Turks” is calling on the students to organize among themselves and help in forming a new political environment that would be directly advantageous for the youth sector. As part of this call, they are conducting nationwide campus tours. As head start, they have visited Silliman University last July 10 and 11. They engaged the students of Silliman in forum discussions that addressed the issues and concerns on education, politics, economics, culture, gender equality, and Filipino diaspora, among other concerns of the youth.
The Young Turks is composed of Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Manila (PLM) President Adel Tamano, also spokesperson of the United Opposition (UNO) and an alumnus of UP NCPAG; Representative TG Guingona III of the 2nd District of Bukidnon; Representative Lorenzo “Erin” Tanada III of the 4th District of Quezon, the son of former Senator Wigberto Tanada and the grandson of nationalist Senator Lorenzo Tanada; Representative Gilbert Remulla, a former congressman, broadcaster and television personality; and Danton Remoto, chairman of Ang Ladlad Party List and professor of English at Ateneo.
It is their call that the youth must actively engage in government and society and that there should be room for everyone regardless of faith, religion, or sexual preference. With this, What about YOUTH (Answering Queries of the Young)*, is the second leg of their nationwide campus tour that has the following Objectives:
1. To inform the students of the issues that confront the youth of today
2. To provide a venue for the students to voice out their different concerns as youth, engage them and hear possible answers to their issues
3. To educate and empower the students as part of the youth sector by making them realize that they can do something for our country and by rekindling the hope in the hearts.
*The title “What about YOUTH” intends to inform the young with the realities and situations concerning them. In addition, it aims to suggest that the youth should be taken into consideration in solving various issues either on the individual, relational, national, or global level. The title entails a challenge to the youth sector as well.
Target Audience: 400 participants
Mechanics: A professor serves as the master of ceremony (onstage with the guests) while two students join the audience. The latter facilitates and solicits questions from the participants.
II. Tentative Flow of Program
PM (2-5pm) (1 pm Registration)
1:00 - 2:00 Registration
2:00 – 2:15 Musical Invocation Manila Concert Choir
National Anthem Manila Concert Choir
2:15 – 2:25 Welcome Remarks Dr. Alex Brillantes, Jr., NCPAG Dean
2:25 – 2:30 Opening Remarks Dr. Leonor Magtolis-Briones, NCPAG Professor
2:30 – 2:40 Introduction of Guests
2:40 – 3:05 Message to the Youth Atty. Adel Tamano, Rep. TG Guingona, Rep. Gilbert Remulla, Prof. Danton Remoto, and Rep. Erin Tanada’s message.
3:05 – 3:35 Talk Show Discussion
3:35 – 3:45 Intermission Manila Concert Choir
3:45 – 4:30 Continuation … Talk Show Discussion
4:30 – 4:45 Synthesis
4:45 – 5:00 Awarding of Tokens of Appreciation
Closing Remarks Shiela Mae M. Sabalburo, Chairperson NCPAG SC
Kaya Natin! goes to De La Salle University
KAYA NATIN! goes to De La Salle University-Manila
featuring Kaya Natin! Leaders:
Governor Grace Padaca (Isabela)
Mayor Jesse Robredo (Naga City)
Mayor Sonia Lorenzo (San Isidro, Nueva Ecija)
August 14,2008 (Thursday)
4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
De La Salle University-Manila, Taft Avenue, Manila
*If you would like to attend this event, please contact Mr. Wadel
Cabrera at (02) 523-4143 or you can also send an email to
cabreraw@dlsu.edu.ph
featuring Kaya Natin! Leaders:
Governor Grace Padaca (Isabela)
Mayor Jesse Robredo (Naga City)
Mayor Sonia Lorenzo (San Isidro, Nueva Ecija)
August 14,2008 (Thursday)
4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
De La Salle University-Manila, Taft Avenue, Manila
*If you would like to attend this event, please contact Mr. Wadel
Cabrera at (02) 523-4143 or you can also send an email to
cabreraw@dlsu.edu.ph
Remember how Raul Roco lived
By Sophia Roco-Avancena
The Manila Times
www.manilatimes.net
“Mourning is the language of memory…the passage to recovery.”
(Canon Without Closure by Rabbi Ismar Schorsch)
On August 5, my father, Raul Roco will be with our Lord for three years. It seems longer to me, his daughter, who misses him terribly. Time is supposed to ease the loss and heal the pain.
Maybe not enough time has passed.
Maybe his passing gets harder with time.
But surely, in mourning—I am on my passage to recovery.
He loved reading. He memorized by heart his favorite poems and works from his favorite writers—Plato, Aquinas, Shakespeare, T.S. Elliot, Rudyard Kipling, Edgar Alan Poe, Lewis Carroll, Pablo Neruda in the original Spanish—among many others. He kept reading and when he could not manage to hold a book anymore began to recite for his pleasure and my amusement whole passages from those literary giants. I inherited his passion and love of reading.
He believed everything could be learned with perseverance, hard work and determination.
In the last months of his life, he found peace with himself in the little time left he had for deep reflection. The few times he would cry out in pain, he would immediately apologize to the Lord for complaining. And thank Him. He was ready to meet his Creator.
He once told me, “Never look back. Move on.”
Recently, the NAIA 3 Airport Terminal opened and started operations. Few people know that the President and Executive Secretary Ermita had been consulting him regarding this issue. It was his last project, no politics involved—for our country he offered his legal expertise crossing party lines. Fate would have it that the project would end up with Mike Defensor who early in his political career also sought my father’s wisdom and advice.
The last movie we saw together was The Last Samurai. In the last scene, the Emperor asked how Katsumoto, his most noble and loyal general, had died. The reply given was, “I will tell you how he lived.”
My father died with the convictions of our heroes who died before him, planting the seeds of change for the next generation to sow.
I ask now that we all remember Raul Roco and how he served our country.
Let us remember how he lived.
The Manila Times
www.manilatimes.net
“Mourning is the language of memory…the passage to recovery.”
(Canon Without Closure by Rabbi Ismar Schorsch)
On August 5, my father, Raul Roco will be with our Lord for three years. It seems longer to me, his daughter, who misses him terribly. Time is supposed to ease the loss and heal the pain.
Maybe not enough time has passed.
Maybe his passing gets harder with time.
But surely, in mourning—I am on my passage to recovery.
He loved reading. He memorized by heart his favorite poems and works from his favorite writers—Plato, Aquinas, Shakespeare, T.S. Elliot, Rudyard Kipling, Edgar Alan Poe, Lewis Carroll, Pablo Neruda in the original Spanish—among many others. He kept reading and when he could not manage to hold a book anymore began to recite for his pleasure and my amusement whole passages from those literary giants. I inherited his passion and love of reading.
He believed everything could be learned with perseverance, hard work and determination.
In the last months of his life, he found peace with himself in the little time left he had for deep reflection. The few times he would cry out in pain, he would immediately apologize to the Lord for complaining. And thank Him. He was ready to meet his Creator.
He once told me, “Never look back. Move on.”
Recently, the NAIA 3 Airport Terminal opened and started operations. Few people know that the President and Executive Secretary Ermita had been consulting him regarding this issue. It was his last project, no politics involved—for our country he offered his legal expertise crossing party lines. Fate would have it that the project would end up with Mike Defensor who early in his political career also sought my father’s wisdom and advice.
The last movie we saw together was The Last Samurai. In the last scene, the Emperor asked how Katsumoto, his most noble and loyal general, had died. The reply given was, “I will tell you how he lived.”
My father died with the convictions of our heroes who died before him, planting the seeds of change for the next generation to sow.
I ask now that we all remember Raul Roco and how he served our country.
Let us remember how he lived.
Never fear English
By Danton Remoto
The Business Mirror Front Page
www.businessmirror.com.ph
This series of columns has been commissioned by the Britisi insurer, Pru-Life, for its Planet English project to promote the use of English and to encourage English writing in the Philippines.
***
THE Philippines is still the third-largest English-speaking country in the world. But more and more, we have to qualify this statement. Does it mean a deep knowledge of English, or functional English just enough to get by? And what does this statement mean—that there is only one kind of English in the world?
Linguists and language specialists have concluded that there is nothing wrong with code-switching, i.e., using English and Tagalog, when discussing difficult concepts in subjects like science and math. Moreover, they found out that students in their early years (Grades 1 to 2) learn concepts better when they are taught in their native languages. In short, one’s first tongue—or the language one has imbibed like mother’s milk—is best in laying the foundation for learning.
But this doesn’t indicate the uselessness of English. Learning in English can be introduced in Grade 3 for those whose first language is not English, and we are talking here of a majority of Filipinos. The foundations having been prepared, the students can now navigate the shoals of concepts and arrive at insights using another, borrowed tongue. How so? Because they would already have the confidence to form concepts and insights without translating them in their minds three times, i.e., from Ilocano to Tagalog to English.
Dr. Isabel Pefianco Martin, former chair of the Ateneo’s English Department, wrote that in our country, “The language most feared is English. I see this in my students who joke that their noses bleed after they talk in English; in my friends who claim that they speak English only when they’re drunk; and in my doctor who suddenly switches to Tagalog after I tell him I teach English. We see this fear of English in classes where students feel stupid because they mispronounced a word; in contact centers where applicants take accent-neutralization sessions; and in English review centers that continue to mushroom in Metro Manila. Fear of English is also manifested in predictions that the country is approaching an English-deprived future; in House bills that seek to make English the sole medium of instruction in schools; and in courses or training programs that focus only on developing grammatical accuracy.”
How can we banish this fear of English?
As in relationships, we stop fearing somebody when we look at him or her as a friend. Thus, what Stephen Krashen calls “affective filters” should be eliminated. These are the emotional barriers that prevent one from liking, or even loving, a language. And, logically, one can like or love a language when these “affective filters” are gone.
I’ve been teaching English for 22 years at the Ateneo and have taught all kinds of students—from the poor, book-deprived but bright scholar from Malaybalay, Bukidnon, to the cool, casual and book-hating Fil-Am from Queens, New York. There’s also the occasional Cambodian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Vietnamese who has enrolled for my undergraduate or even graduate classes in English.
What to do with them?
I tell them to be familiar with English. In short, to live in that language, to inhabit it, to embrace it. They should read their texts, watch English-language films, listen to language tapes and love songs, keep a journal or a blog in English. I encourage them to talk to each other in English. So, in my class, Vith the Cambodian talks to Hanh the Vietnamese in English that may be slow now, but we are going there. Maria of Malaybalay begins to string together longer sentences in English, describing the hills of her province. To learn a language is to know its culture. Therefore, I tell them (especially students from other Asian countries) to be more open to other cultures and ways of being. In short, to open the doors and windows of their houses to the call of another language.
Another way to banish this fear is to remember that there are now many varieties of English. Its ownership is now shared by many countries and continents. English is no longer talked about in the singular form. Rather, like the atom, it has split, and like an organism, it has mutated into many forms. When I was studying in the UK, I heard Kenyan English from Peter Okeke and Nigerian English from Orufemi Abodundrin. When I studied later in the US, my conversations with Felicity (from Isle of Skye, Scotland), with Marta (from St. Lucia, Caribbean) and with Bob (from Malta) sounded some kind of rich, varied and musical English to my Filipino ears.
English is important and will always be so. It’s one of the 150 languages we use in the Philippines today. Studies show that Filipinos—a talented lot—speak at least three different languages. Who knows, one of them could even be English!
As the poet and UP professor Jimmy Abad has said, English is no longer a foreign language. It’s already ours, for we have already colonized it. As with a T-shirt or a pair of jeans that you own, you should wear it proudly—and wear it well.
The Business Mirror Front Page
www.businessmirror.com.ph
This series of columns has been commissioned by the Britisi insurer, Pru-Life, for its Planet English project to promote the use of English and to encourage English writing in the Philippines.
***
THE Philippines is still the third-largest English-speaking country in the world. But more and more, we have to qualify this statement. Does it mean a deep knowledge of English, or functional English just enough to get by? And what does this statement mean—that there is only one kind of English in the world?
Linguists and language specialists have concluded that there is nothing wrong with code-switching, i.e., using English and Tagalog, when discussing difficult concepts in subjects like science and math. Moreover, they found out that students in their early years (Grades 1 to 2) learn concepts better when they are taught in their native languages. In short, one’s first tongue—or the language one has imbibed like mother’s milk—is best in laying the foundation for learning.
But this doesn’t indicate the uselessness of English. Learning in English can be introduced in Grade 3 for those whose first language is not English, and we are talking here of a majority of Filipinos. The foundations having been prepared, the students can now navigate the shoals of concepts and arrive at insights using another, borrowed tongue. How so? Because they would already have the confidence to form concepts and insights without translating them in their minds three times, i.e., from Ilocano to Tagalog to English.
Dr. Isabel Pefianco Martin, former chair of the Ateneo’s English Department, wrote that in our country, “The language most feared is English. I see this in my students who joke that their noses bleed after they talk in English; in my friends who claim that they speak English only when they’re drunk; and in my doctor who suddenly switches to Tagalog after I tell him I teach English. We see this fear of English in classes where students feel stupid because they mispronounced a word; in contact centers where applicants take accent-neutralization sessions; and in English review centers that continue to mushroom in Metro Manila. Fear of English is also manifested in predictions that the country is approaching an English-deprived future; in House bills that seek to make English the sole medium of instruction in schools; and in courses or training programs that focus only on developing grammatical accuracy.”
How can we banish this fear of English?
As in relationships, we stop fearing somebody when we look at him or her as a friend. Thus, what Stephen Krashen calls “affective filters” should be eliminated. These are the emotional barriers that prevent one from liking, or even loving, a language. And, logically, one can like or love a language when these “affective filters” are gone.
I’ve been teaching English for 22 years at the Ateneo and have taught all kinds of students—from the poor, book-deprived but bright scholar from Malaybalay, Bukidnon, to the cool, casual and book-hating Fil-Am from Queens, New York. There’s also the occasional Cambodian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Vietnamese who has enrolled for my undergraduate or even graduate classes in English.
What to do with them?
I tell them to be familiar with English. In short, to live in that language, to inhabit it, to embrace it. They should read their texts, watch English-language films, listen to language tapes and love songs, keep a journal or a blog in English. I encourage them to talk to each other in English. So, in my class, Vith the Cambodian talks to Hanh the Vietnamese in English that may be slow now, but we are going there. Maria of Malaybalay begins to string together longer sentences in English, describing the hills of her province. To learn a language is to know its culture. Therefore, I tell them (especially students from other Asian countries) to be more open to other cultures and ways of being. In short, to open the doors and windows of their houses to the call of another language.
Another way to banish this fear is to remember that there are now many varieties of English. Its ownership is now shared by many countries and continents. English is no longer talked about in the singular form. Rather, like the atom, it has split, and like an organism, it has mutated into many forms. When I was studying in the UK, I heard Kenyan English from Peter Okeke and Nigerian English from Orufemi Abodundrin. When I studied later in the US, my conversations with Felicity (from Isle of Skye, Scotland), with Marta (from St. Lucia, Caribbean) and with Bob (from Malta) sounded some kind of rich, varied and musical English to my Filipino ears.
English is important and will always be so. It’s one of the 150 languages we use in the Philippines today. Studies show that Filipinos—a talented lot—speak at least three different languages. Who knows, one of them could even be English!
As the poet and UP professor Jimmy Abad has said, English is no longer a foreign language. It’s already ours, for we have already colonized it. As with a T-shirt or a pair of jeans that you own, you should wear it proudly—and wear it well.
SONA Statement -- better late than later...
Let the real state of nation be heard, Go out and protest on July 28!
On July 28, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will deliver her eighth State of the Nation Address amidst rising fuel prices, a rice crisis and persistent allegations of corruption. A week before her address, Arroyo has already gained the infamous distinction of being the most unpopular leader since the Marcos dictatorship was dismantled in 1986.
It is a well-deserved distinction.
Mrs. Arroyo is responsible for some of the worst economic policies that have wrought ruin on the people. Her insistence on imposing the Value Added Tax on oil smacks of gross insensitivity towards the plight of the people. Her so-called targeted subsidies are nothing more than dole-outs aimed at quelling unrest. So far Mrs. Arroyo has refused to take any responsibility for the mess her administration has created.
The administration battle cry "Ramdam ang Kaunlaran" has fallen flat on its face. The rallying call "Labanan and Kahirapan" has also been discredited as nothing more than political gimmickry.
This year's SONA by Mrs. Arroyo will not bring any hope for the people. As in previous SONAs, this year's speech will be marked by motherhood statements and a firm denial of the gravity of the crisis under her watch.
For the people however, we hold a completely different version of the SONA. The real state of the nation is that of grinding poverty and hunger, repression and widespread human rights violation, massive unemployment and sky-rocketing cost of living.
The real state of the nation is that of a sinking ship, whose captain robs then abandons all those on board.
We call on our fellow Filipinos who have had enough of Arroyo to come out and protest on July 28. Let not the lies of this regime go unchallenged. Let us hold accountable those who have conspired to plunder the nation's coffers and plunge the country into economic
ruin.
On July 28, join us in protest as we denounce the anti-people Arroyo regime throughout the country.
Signatories:
Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr.
Dr. Bienvenido Lumbrera
Maita Gomez
Fr. Rex Reyes, NCCP
Fr. Joe Dizon, Solidarity Philippines
Fr. Rudy Abao
Sr. Mary John Mananzan, OSB
Prof. Fidel Nemenzo
Prof. Connie Paz
Adel Tamano, United Opposition
Antonio Tinio, ACT
Dr. Carol P. Araullo, BAYAN
RC Constantino
Atty. Feliciano Bautista
Sec. Josefina Lichauco, Concerned Citizens Movement
Sr. Maureen Catabian, RGS-WJPIC
Fr. Gerry Sabado, Promotion of Church People's Response
Alain Pascua, Kaakbay/BnA
Wilson Baldonaza, KMU
Danilo Ramos, KMP
Himpad Mangumalas, KAMP
Atty. Nasser Marohomsalic, Union of Muslims for Morality and Truth
Gat Inciong, Movement of Concerned Citizens for Civil Liberties
Ver Eustaquio, Kilusang EDSA Tres
Rez Cortez, FPJMTD
Dr. Giovanni Tapang, AGHAM
Netty B. Sillacos, NEFFAI
Natsy Verselles, Babala
Renato Reyes, Bayan
Connie Regalado, Migrante
Marie Hilao-Enriquez, Karapatan
Rep. Satur Ocampo, Bayan Muna
Rep. Rafael Mariano, Anakpawis
Rep. Liza Maza, Gabriela Women's Party
Emmi de Jesus, Gabriela
Ferdie Gaite - Courage/All Government Employees Unity
Roy Velez, Gloria Step Down Movement
Prof. Roland Tolentino, UP Aware
Prof. Danton Remoto, Ateneo de Manila University
Prof. Maria Lourdes Agustin, White Ribbon Movement
Nixon Kua, Be Not Afraid
Mark Louie Aquino, Youth Revolt
Iggy Rodriguez, Sining Bugkos
Mavi Deocampo, Concerned Artists of the Philippines
Prof. Bomen Guillermo, UP Contend
George San Mateo, Piston
Carmen Deunida, Kadamay
Clemente Bautista, Kalikasan-PNE
Karen Jamora, Health Science Students - Act Now!
Alvin Peters, Youth Act Now
Ken Ramos, AnakBayan
Vencer Crisostomo, LFS
Caloy Salvador, FQSM
Dayling Java, Moro-Christian People's Alliance
On July 28, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will deliver her eighth State of the Nation Address amidst rising fuel prices, a rice crisis and persistent allegations of corruption. A week before her address, Arroyo has already gained the infamous distinction of being the most unpopular leader since the Marcos dictatorship was dismantled in 1986.
It is a well-deserved distinction.
Mrs. Arroyo is responsible for some of the worst economic policies that have wrought ruin on the people. Her insistence on imposing the Value Added Tax on oil smacks of gross insensitivity towards the plight of the people. Her so-called targeted subsidies are nothing more than dole-outs aimed at quelling unrest. So far Mrs. Arroyo has refused to take any responsibility for the mess her administration has created.
The administration battle cry "Ramdam ang Kaunlaran" has fallen flat on its face. The rallying call "Labanan and Kahirapan" has also been discredited as nothing more than political gimmickry.
This year's SONA by Mrs. Arroyo will not bring any hope for the people. As in previous SONAs, this year's speech will be marked by motherhood statements and a firm denial of the gravity of the crisis under her watch.
For the people however, we hold a completely different version of the SONA. The real state of the nation is that of grinding poverty and hunger, repression and widespread human rights violation, massive unemployment and sky-rocketing cost of living.
The real state of the nation is that of a sinking ship, whose captain robs then abandons all those on board.
We call on our fellow Filipinos who have had enough of Arroyo to come out and protest on July 28. Let not the lies of this regime go unchallenged. Let us hold accountable those who have conspired to plunder the nation's coffers and plunge the country into economic
ruin.
On July 28, join us in protest as we denounce the anti-people Arroyo regime throughout the country.
Signatories:
Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr.
Dr. Bienvenido Lumbrera
Maita Gomez
Fr. Rex Reyes, NCCP
Fr. Joe Dizon, Solidarity Philippines
Fr. Rudy Abao
Sr. Mary John Mananzan, OSB
Prof. Fidel Nemenzo
Prof. Connie Paz
Adel Tamano, United Opposition
Antonio Tinio, ACT
Dr. Carol P. Araullo, BAYAN
RC Constantino
Atty. Feliciano Bautista
Sec. Josefina Lichauco, Concerned Citizens Movement
Sr. Maureen Catabian, RGS-WJPIC
Fr. Gerry Sabado, Promotion of Church People's Response
Alain Pascua, Kaakbay/BnA
Wilson Baldonaza, KMU
Danilo Ramos, KMP
Himpad Mangumalas, KAMP
Atty. Nasser Marohomsalic, Union of Muslims for Morality and Truth
Gat Inciong, Movement of Concerned Citizens for Civil Liberties
Ver Eustaquio, Kilusang EDSA Tres
Rez Cortez, FPJMTD
Dr. Giovanni Tapang, AGHAM
Netty B. Sillacos, NEFFAI
Natsy Verselles, Babala
Renato Reyes, Bayan
Connie Regalado, Migrante
Marie Hilao-Enriquez, Karapatan
Rep. Satur Ocampo, Bayan Muna
Rep. Rafael Mariano, Anakpawis
Rep. Liza Maza, Gabriela Women's Party
Emmi de Jesus, Gabriela
Ferdie Gaite - Courage/All Government Employees Unity
Roy Velez, Gloria Step Down Movement
Prof. Roland Tolentino, UP Aware
Prof. Danton Remoto, Ateneo de Manila University
Prof. Maria Lourdes Agustin, White Ribbon Movement
Nixon Kua, Be Not Afraid
Mark Louie Aquino, Youth Revolt
Iggy Rodriguez, Sining Bugkos
Mavi Deocampo, Concerned Artists of the Philippines
Prof. Bomen Guillermo, UP Contend
George San Mateo, Piston
Carmen Deunida, Kadamay
Clemente Bautista, Kalikasan-PNE
Karen Jamora, Health Science Students - Act Now!
Alvin Peters, Youth Act Now
Ken Ramos, AnakBayan
Vencer Crisostomo, LFS
Caloy Salvador, FQSM
Dayling Java, Moro-Christian People's Alliance
Panlilio, Padaca, Robredo launch 'Kaya Natin!' search
By ANGELO GUTIERREZ
www.abs-cbnNEWS.com
Four local executives have started recruiting principled local government officials for a group that wants to change the country’s deteriorating political situation.
"After others learn about this new group, Kaya Natin! (We can), hardworking and ethical local government officials will come out, hopefully," Isabela Gov. Grace Padaca announced during the group’s launch at the Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City on Wednesday.
Padaca and three other local government officials – Pampanga Governor Eddie Panlilio, Naga City Mayor Jesse Robredo, and Mayor Sonia Lorenzo of San Isidro, Nueva Ecija – have agreed to come together and lead Kaya Natin.
The group claims its members are "good Filipinos from different sectors of society that aim to espouse genuine change and ethical leadership in our country."
The Isabela governor, who was able to topple a political dynasty in her province, said Panlilio and Lorenzo know other local politicians who are also idealists and who have made gains in uplifting the quality of life in their own localities.
Robredo, a multi-awarded local official, however, said local politicians who may have vested interests cannot easily breach the group.
"It’s not the four of us who will choose the members. There is a group that strictly studies [the politicians]," the mayor said, adding that there were already a few politicians who have been excluded from the group.
He said the group needs politicians who "stand by their principles" and abide by the ethical standards of good governance.
‘Selfish means started the group’
Robredo said the group was formed after months of informal meetings between him, Padaca and Panlilio.
He said the three of them have been speaking in several forums, separately. Some faculty members of the Ateneo School of Government then convinced them to form a group that would promote reforms in the local government system.
Last month, the three officials invited Lorenzo to join them in launching the group.
Panlilio said discussions during the initial meetings were about their experiences of political harassments, problems with the police and gambling, graft and corruption, and their similar styles of eradicating "illegalities and criminalities" in the local scene.
The priest-turned-governor said the four of them wanted allies for the "selfish" motive of getting protection from political harassments.
"Kaya Natin started because we have common problems. We have realized that we have a common goal, common vision and common ways of governing our locality," Robredo said.
He added: "We said that maybe we should come up with a group and let’s share our own experiences, let’s share our problems and practices."
Robredo said they came out hoping their ethical way of governance would be "replicated" by other localities and eventually "multiplied" around the country.
A fifth politician, Ifugao Gov. Teddy Baguilat Jr., has been invited to join the group.
Exposing them young in politics
On top of the group’s agenda is to recruit and convince young Filipinos who "adhere to good governance and ethical leadership."
Lorenzo said her town, San Isidro, has become a haven of young political wannabes.
She said the municipal government, with the help of Ateneo School of Government, has been conducting seminars that teach the youth how to run for a seat in government, particularly in the Sangguniang Kabataan elections.
She said majority of the students are "poor, talented, ideal and energetic."
The Nueva Ecija mayor said the group will recruit and train future politicians who may provide good leadership for the country in the future.
She said campus talks will be conducted by the group around Metro Manila and other regions to encourage the youth to get involved in the coming elections, not only by running for posts in the barangay or municipal level but to help well-meaning incumbent officials to win the elections.
Padaca said the volunteers will also be asked to prepare early to fight election cheating.
The group is also planning to put up a website intended to promote its cause to Filipinos around the world.
Harvey Keh of the Ateneo School of Government said several Filipino groups around the world have responded positively to the group’s invitations.
Keh said the group's website will have video streaming and live online chat for the overseas Filipinos to directly interact with local government officials.
Eradicating corruption, ‘jueteng’ doable
Panlilio also said during the launch that in his first year as a politician and governor of Pampanga, he was able to eradicate corruption.
The governor said his group simply warned construction and medical suppliers that the local government of Pampanga will not accept commissions or kickbacks.
"Surprisingly, kaya pala (it can be done)," he said, adding that the provincial government did it with the help of civil society.
Panlilio said that with corruption eradicated in Pampanga, he is now concentrating on killing the illegal numbers game, jueteng.
The campaign to eradicate jueteng in Pampanga started with the filing of a plunder case against alleged jueteng lord Bong Pineda, the former governor.
Panlilio said jueteng should be stopped at the local level to prevent it from "poisoning" Malacañang and the President.
Pineda is a close political ally of President Arroyo in Pampanga. Mrs. Arroyo is also a native of the province.
Robredo, meanwhile, said one of the hurdles that local government officials would have to overcome in fighting illegal gambling is erring policemen.
He said the group would be pushing for amendments in the Local Government Code to be able to regain their power over the local police.
"One of the reasons why we decided to form this group is our common problem with the local police," he said, adding that the four of them have been wanting to replace the police commanders in their localities but they don't have the power to do it.
www.abs-cbnNEWS.com
Four local executives have started recruiting principled local government officials for a group that wants to change the country’s deteriorating political situation.
"After others learn about this new group, Kaya Natin! (We can), hardworking and ethical local government officials will come out, hopefully," Isabela Gov. Grace Padaca announced during the group’s launch at the Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City on Wednesday.
Padaca and three other local government officials – Pampanga Governor Eddie Panlilio, Naga City Mayor Jesse Robredo, and Mayor Sonia Lorenzo of San Isidro, Nueva Ecija – have agreed to come together and lead Kaya Natin.
The group claims its members are "good Filipinos from different sectors of society that aim to espouse genuine change and ethical leadership in our country."
The Isabela governor, who was able to topple a political dynasty in her province, said Panlilio and Lorenzo know other local politicians who are also idealists and who have made gains in uplifting the quality of life in their own localities.
Robredo, a multi-awarded local official, however, said local politicians who may have vested interests cannot easily breach the group.
"It’s not the four of us who will choose the members. There is a group that strictly studies [the politicians]," the mayor said, adding that there were already a few politicians who have been excluded from the group.
He said the group needs politicians who "stand by their principles" and abide by the ethical standards of good governance.
‘Selfish means started the group’
Robredo said the group was formed after months of informal meetings between him, Padaca and Panlilio.
He said the three of them have been speaking in several forums, separately. Some faculty members of the Ateneo School of Government then convinced them to form a group that would promote reforms in the local government system.
Last month, the three officials invited Lorenzo to join them in launching the group.
Panlilio said discussions during the initial meetings were about their experiences of political harassments, problems with the police and gambling, graft and corruption, and their similar styles of eradicating "illegalities and criminalities" in the local scene.
The priest-turned-governor said the four of them wanted allies for the "selfish" motive of getting protection from political harassments.
"Kaya Natin started because we have common problems. We have realized that we have a common goal, common vision and common ways of governing our locality," Robredo said.
He added: "We said that maybe we should come up with a group and let’s share our own experiences, let’s share our problems and practices."
Robredo said they came out hoping their ethical way of governance would be "replicated" by other localities and eventually "multiplied" around the country.
A fifth politician, Ifugao Gov. Teddy Baguilat Jr., has been invited to join the group.
Exposing them young in politics
On top of the group’s agenda is to recruit and convince young Filipinos who "adhere to good governance and ethical leadership."
Lorenzo said her town, San Isidro, has become a haven of young political wannabes.
She said the municipal government, with the help of Ateneo School of Government, has been conducting seminars that teach the youth how to run for a seat in government, particularly in the Sangguniang Kabataan elections.
She said majority of the students are "poor, talented, ideal and energetic."
The Nueva Ecija mayor said the group will recruit and train future politicians who may provide good leadership for the country in the future.
She said campus talks will be conducted by the group around Metro Manila and other regions to encourage the youth to get involved in the coming elections, not only by running for posts in the barangay or municipal level but to help well-meaning incumbent officials to win the elections.
Padaca said the volunteers will also be asked to prepare early to fight election cheating.
The group is also planning to put up a website intended to promote its cause to Filipinos around the world.
Harvey Keh of the Ateneo School of Government said several Filipino groups around the world have responded positively to the group’s invitations.
Keh said the group's website will have video streaming and live online chat for the overseas Filipinos to directly interact with local government officials.
Eradicating corruption, ‘jueteng’ doable
Panlilio also said during the launch that in his first year as a politician and governor of Pampanga, he was able to eradicate corruption.
The governor said his group simply warned construction and medical suppliers that the local government of Pampanga will not accept commissions or kickbacks.
"Surprisingly, kaya pala (it can be done)," he said, adding that the provincial government did it with the help of civil society.
Panlilio said that with corruption eradicated in Pampanga, he is now concentrating on killing the illegal numbers game, jueteng.
The campaign to eradicate jueteng in Pampanga started with the filing of a plunder case against alleged jueteng lord Bong Pineda, the former governor.
Panlilio said jueteng should be stopped at the local level to prevent it from "poisoning" Malacañang and the President.
Pineda is a close political ally of President Arroyo in Pampanga. Mrs. Arroyo is also a native of the province.
Robredo, meanwhile, said one of the hurdles that local government officials would have to overcome in fighting illegal gambling is erring policemen.
He said the group would be pushing for amendments in the Local Government Code to be able to regain their power over the local police.
"One of the reasons why we decided to form this group is our common problem with the local police," he said, adding that the four of them have been wanting to replace the police commanders in their localities but they don't have the power to do it.
Learning to be Pinoy
by By Gilda Cordero-Fernando
GCF is one of my role-models and mothers. Ateneo gave her the prestigious Gawad Tanglaw ng Lahi for her immense contributions to Philippine culture as a writer, publisher, art gallery owner, playwright, cultural icon. The following is her response.
***
One of the realizations I had when advised that this Gawad Tanglaw ng Lahi award had to do with preserving Filipino identity was that being Filipino wasn’t natural with me, I had to learn how to be Pinoy.
Like other middle class Filipinos, I had a Western upbringing, I studied in a convent school run by Belgian nuns. My doctor father was a two-time Cambridge pensionado all fired up about American democracy. Mommy adored Shirley Temple and tried her damnest to make me look like her. We ate meat loaf and mashed potatoes and apple pie. My first book had a lot of snow and fir trees, squirrels and children with blonde hair. I had no idea I was Filipino.
One day when I was eight, I had a glimpse of the primer of my playmate who studied in a public school. It had an illustration of a boy on a pair of high stilts and a girl walking with two coconut shells under her feet connected to strings in her hands. The drawing was by Amorsolo. I did not recognize the provincial games but immediately related to the obviously Filipino scene. I remember being terribly envious of my playmate’s beautiful book.
Talaga kayong “mental colony,” as my apo would say. Realizing that one is Filipino can be a “Eureka” moment. Most continue valuing their identity, others just maintain their foreignness.
The author (center) flanked by fellow awardees, Dr. Fernando Hofileña (left) and Eugenia Duran-Apostol.
Lately, however, I have come to the conclusion that being a foreigner in your own land is not such a bad beginning-hopefully one gets over it. When Filipinos migrate, they somehow get more attached to their roots and research even more about them. All of the early 20th century reportage on Filipino life was done by foreigners who must have found us exotic or cute-like Lambrecht, Fansier, Vanoverberg, Cooper Cole and also the Thomasites.
Another realization is that after you have learned to be Pinoy, you have to protect it and fight for it, against other Filipinos who think everything’s wrong with our culture and find the need to apologize for it constantly.
When we were raising our kids in the early ‘50s, there was not a single Filipino song being aired on radio, no OPM (Original Pilipino Music) yet and hardly any Filipiniana books. (“Noli Me Tangere” was on a list of volumes condemned by the Catholic Church). I remember being so protective of the Filipino I wanted my family to be that I prohibited them from listening to Bing Crosby’s “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” for a long , long time.
I would acquaint the children with things Philippine, once, with some reluctant help from my husband, even taking them on a freight boat to Mindanao (where we knew no one) so that they could observe what was loaded and unloaded at every port. Such was my reaction to my colonized upbringing that I dragged them yearly to the haunting but bloody Holy Week rituals in Bulacan and Pampanga until they felt like nailing me, too, on a cross. We attended many town fiestas to experience regional food and local color.
It is so easy, after all, for children to imbibe notions of “native” being “inferior” and “Pinoy” being “baduy.” But isn’t it incredulous and outrageous for adults to perpetuate the notion that “world class” can only be Western (shouldn’t we be Pinoy first before going global?), that we have no culture because culture is only opera, and ballet, and big museums, and auditoriums of glass and steel, that the best cultures are in the west when India and China are far older and richer civilizations?
Thus do we overlook the quality leaps that art, theater, music and indie movies are making right in our midst because we never bother to look for them. It’s like someone saying “There’s no such thing as a UFO because I never saw one.” But you ask, “Did you ever look up at the sky?” And they never have.
As recently as two weeks ago, at a cocktail party, I ran into a wealthy and very influential culture vulture whom I admired. “I now go to Hong Kong for my culture fix,” he said. “There are three cultural festivals a year with the works-classical and contemporary, even Cirq de Soleil-everything you can dream of.”
Then he followed it up with “Dapat naman tayong mahiya! How backward we are! Our shows are so ramshackle, the CCP is getting so shabby, the government does not support the arts” etc, etc. I almost lost my cool. I wanted to lash out, “And what have you, with all your money and power and taste, done about it?”
It is the same privileged class who, when you are promoting something Filipino-whether book, performance, painting, bamboo house-will say, “Don’t impose it on me, please!” Implying, I’m perfectly fine with a Broadway play, a Korean telenovela, a Mediterranean house and “Sex and the City.” Why would I want to contribute ( or buy a ticket) to whatever weird project you’re up to? People who complain never put their money where their mouth is.
Being Filipino is considered by many average educated Pinoys as such a lowly calling-the bahay kubo, the aswang, the sinamay, the sinigang, the kundiman, the moro-moro. Note that even some of the powers-that-be of culture itself rarely show our lumad in costumes other than as curiosities and with as little respect as they were once displayed in the St. Louis Exposition of the 1920s.
And how many times have we been asked, “Aren’t you migrating? Think of your children, what future do they have here?” What future indeed, as the eminent Prof. Jun de Leon would say in his landmark UP centennial speech “when the cultural sources of our education are Western and it is inevitable that the expertise graduates acquire is better applicable to a Western industrialized society than to a rural, agricultural setting which most of the Philippines is.” And Florentino Hornedo adds, “It looks like the Philippines is spending money for the training of our country’s citizens to become another country’s assets.”
Filipinos have always been a special race beloved by God-creative and beautiful, graceful and multi-talented, a connecting, resilient, hard-working and big-hearted people, loyal to the max. After finding one’s particular calling as a Filipino, one must never let go of it. Everything is interconnected and into one’s life will spontaneously drop all those helpful occurrences, chance encounters, coincidences and synchronicities to cheer one on. Don’t be impatient. Because five or so years down the line, or maybe when you’re old like me, there will be a convergence. Suddenly you are no longer the underdog. The time for your initiative-whether arnis, saya, aswang or bamboo house, has ripened. And its fruits are very sweet. The convergence is what brings me here today.
GCF is one of my role-models and mothers. Ateneo gave her the prestigious Gawad Tanglaw ng Lahi for her immense contributions to Philippine culture as a writer, publisher, art gallery owner, playwright, cultural icon. The following is her response.
***
One of the realizations I had when advised that this Gawad Tanglaw ng Lahi award had to do with preserving Filipino identity was that being Filipino wasn’t natural with me, I had to learn how to be Pinoy.
Like other middle class Filipinos, I had a Western upbringing, I studied in a convent school run by Belgian nuns. My doctor father was a two-time Cambridge pensionado all fired up about American democracy. Mommy adored Shirley Temple and tried her damnest to make me look like her. We ate meat loaf and mashed potatoes and apple pie. My first book had a lot of snow and fir trees, squirrels and children with blonde hair. I had no idea I was Filipino.
One day when I was eight, I had a glimpse of the primer of my playmate who studied in a public school. It had an illustration of a boy on a pair of high stilts and a girl walking with two coconut shells under her feet connected to strings in her hands. The drawing was by Amorsolo. I did not recognize the provincial games but immediately related to the obviously Filipino scene. I remember being terribly envious of my playmate’s beautiful book.
Talaga kayong “mental colony,” as my apo would say. Realizing that one is Filipino can be a “Eureka” moment. Most continue valuing their identity, others just maintain their foreignness.
The author (center) flanked by fellow awardees, Dr. Fernando Hofileña (left) and Eugenia Duran-Apostol.
Lately, however, I have come to the conclusion that being a foreigner in your own land is not such a bad beginning-hopefully one gets over it. When Filipinos migrate, they somehow get more attached to their roots and research even more about them. All of the early 20th century reportage on Filipino life was done by foreigners who must have found us exotic or cute-like Lambrecht, Fansier, Vanoverberg, Cooper Cole and also the Thomasites.
Another realization is that after you have learned to be Pinoy, you have to protect it and fight for it, against other Filipinos who think everything’s wrong with our culture and find the need to apologize for it constantly.
When we were raising our kids in the early ‘50s, there was not a single Filipino song being aired on radio, no OPM (Original Pilipino Music) yet and hardly any Filipiniana books. (“Noli Me Tangere” was on a list of volumes condemned by the Catholic Church). I remember being so protective of the Filipino I wanted my family to be that I prohibited them from listening to Bing Crosby’s “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” for a long , long time.
I would acquaint the children with things Philippine, once, with some reluctant help from my husband, even taking them on a freight boat to Mindanao (where we knew no one) so that they could observe what was loaded and unloaded at every port. Such was my reaction to my colonized upbringing that I dragged them yearly to the haunting but bloody Holy Week rituals in Bulacan and Pampanga until they felt like nailing me, too, on a cross. We attended many town fiestas to experience regional food and local color.
It is so easy, after all, for children to imbibe notions of “native” being “inferior” and “Pinoy” being “baduy.” But isn’t it incredulous and outrageous for adults to perpetuate the notion that “world class” can only be Western (shouldn’t we be Pinoy first before going global?), that we have no culture because culture is only opera, and ballet, and big museums, and auditoriums of glass and steel, that the best cultures are in the west when India and China are far older and richer civilizations?
Thus do we overlook the quality leaps that art, theater, music and indie movies are making right in our midst because we never bother to look for them. It’s like someone saying “There’s no such thing as a UFO because I never saw one.” But you ask, “Did you ever look up at the sky?” And they never have.
As recently as two weeks ago, at a cocktail party, I ran into a wealthy and very influential culture vulture whom I admired. “I now go to Hong Kong for my culture fix,” he said. “There are three cultural festivals a year with the works-classical and contemporary, even Cirq de Soleil-everything you can dream of.”
Then he followed it up with “Dapat naman tayong mahiya! How backward we are! Our shows are so ramshackle, the CCP is getting so shabby, the government does not support the arts” etc, etc. I almost lost my cool. I wanted to lash out, “And what have you, with all your money and power and taste, done about it?”
It is the same privileged class who, when you are promoting something Filipino-whether book, performance, painting, bamboo house-will say, “Don’t impose it on me, please!” Implying, I’m perfectly fine with a Broadway play, a Korean telenovela, a Mediterranean house and “Sex and the City.” Why would I want to contribute ( or buy a ticket) to whatever weird project you’re up to? People who complain never put their money where their mouth is.
Being Filipino is considered by many average educated Pinoys as such a lowly calling-the bahay kubo, the aswang, the sinamay, the sinigang, the kundiman, the moro-moro. Note that even some of the powers-that-be of culture itself rarely show our lumad in costumes other than as curiosities and with as little respect as they were once displayed in the St. Louis Exposition of the 1920s.
And how many times have we been asked, “Aren’t you migrating? Think of your children, what future do they have here?” What future indeed, as the eminent Prof. Jun de Leon would say in his landmark UP centennial speech “when the cultural sources of our education are Western and it is inevitable that the expertise graduates acquire is better applicable to a Western industrialized society than to a rural, agricultural setting which most of the Philippines is.” And Florentino Hornedo adds, “It looks like the Philippines is spending money for the training of our country’s citizens to become another country’s assets.”
Filipinos have always been a special race beloved by God-creative and beautiful, graceful and multi-talented, a connecting, resilient, hard-working and big-hearted people, loyal to the max. After finding one’s particular calling as a Filipino, one must never let go of it. Everything is interconnected and into one’s life will spontaneously drop all those helpful occurrences, chance encounters, coincidences and synchronicities to cheer one on. Don’t be impatient. Because five or so years down the line, or maybe when you’re old like me, there will be a convergence. Suddenly you are no longer the underdog. The time for your initiative-whether arnis, saya, aswang or bamboo house, has ripened. And its fruits are very sweet. The convergence is what brings me here today.
A call to overseas Filipinos
by Harvey S. Keh
Contributor
Philippine Daily Inquirer
www.inq7.net
JUST a few weeks ago, I listened to a National Situationer report given by the Simbahang Lingkod ng Bayan (SLB), the socio-political arm of the Jesuits here in the Philippines.
SLB is known to be one of the most credible institutions who can give an honest to goodness analysis of what is the real state of our country and in their report they emphasized the following:
a.) Yes, the country’s economy continues to grow and, in fact, we have one of the highest growth rates in Asia. However, despite the economic growth, more than 25 million Filipinos continue to languish in poverty.
b.) 62 percent of Filipinos actually die without even having the chance to be seen by a healthcare professional. To make things worse, medicine prices are 5 to 45 times higher here in our country compared to other countries in Asia like Thailand, Pakistan and India.
c.) 3.7 million families continue to be homeless in our country despite efforts being done by non-profit organizations, such as Gawad Kalinga.
d.) P1.2 trillion had been lost to corruption in the last 5 years.
e.) Out of 10 Filipino students who enter Grade 1, less than 2 will be able to finish College.
f.) The brain drain continues in our country as 121 Filipinos leave the country every hour. By the end of this year, we can expect that there will be approximately 8.5 million Filipinos abroad.
These sad realities made me discern the reason why we continue to remain a poor country, despite the fact that we have such a beautiful country blessed with the brightest people in the world. Is it because many of our best people choose to work and live abroad?
Was Conrado De Quiros correct when he mentioned in one of his columns that the middle and upper classes of our country couldn’t care less about what happens because we always have an escape hatch of migrating and living abroad when all else fails in the Philippines? I don’t think that these are entirely correct assumptions since I continue to believe that majority of Filipinos still want to see genuine change and reforms in our country.
Many Filipinos living and working abroad whom I have talked to and corresponded with via email still continue to hope and dream that they will one day be able to come back and live in a Philippines that can provide them and their families with the right opportunities to live a just and prosperous life.
In the end, I think everyone will agree with me that one of the major reasons why we are here is the fact that we continue to elect poor leaders who would rather protect vested interests of their own families and those that have supported them in the last elections.
It’s depressing to note that the reality of Philippine politics is that a good, competent and decent person cannot be elected to power if she or he doesn’t have millions of pesos to use in the campaign.
Of course, we have already seen some exceptions to this “rule,” in the persons of Pampanga Governor Eddie Panlilio, Isabela Governor Grace Padaca and Naga City Mayor Jesse Robredo. All three have clashed with moneyed and well-entrenched political dynasties and have come out victorious. But their victories remain only at the local level and it seems that we will need a more herculean effort to finally elect a President that will not become beholden to a few individuals, interests and families.
According to some friends who have had experience in being part of a national campaign, they say that you need at least P1 billion to have a chance at the Presidency.
Is it impossible then to elect a President that will not become beholden to a few wealthy families and will genuinely serve the interests of Juan dela Cruz?
I don’t think so but if we want that to happen, we should all make that happen starting with the growing Filipino middle class who are mostly living and working abroad.
Imagine if every single Filipino living and working overseas will pledge to donate at least $5 each to support an upright, ethical and God-fearing candidate who has a proven track record in public service, then that would amount to $42,500,000 or a whooping P1.9 billion!
This candidate could then have a fighting chance of being our next President and if she or he wins, she or he can govern properly without being beholden to a few people and their vested interests. As soon as we have enough pledges from Filipinos all over the world, we can then do something similar to a primary process to select the right person whom we can all support.
I propose this idea to every Filipino working or living overseas who still dreams of a new Philippines. I think it’s time that we all invest in choosing the right President for our country. We have less than two years to go before the 2010 National election. Thus the time to act is now. The power to choose our next President should not be in the hands of a few but rather it should be with each and every Filipino.
If you believe in this idea and proposal, please send me an email at harveykeh@gmail.com so we can work together in choosing the right leader for our country who will run a government that will genuinely work towards promoting the common good.
Harvey Keh is Director for Youth Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship at the Ateneo de Manila University-School of Government, and is also the Executive Director of AHON Foundation, a non-profit organization that builds public elementary school libraries all over the Philippines. Harvey also teaches Theology at the Ateneo de Manila University-Loyola Schools.
Contributor
Philippine Daily Inquirer
www.inq7.net
JUST a few weeks ago, I listened to a National Situationer report given by the Simbahang Lingkod ng Bayan (SLB), the socio-political arm of the Jesuits here in the Philippines.
SLB is known to be one of the most credible institutions who can give an honest to goodness analysis of what is the real state of our country and in their report they emphasized the following:
a.) Yes, the country’s economy continues to grow and, in fact, we have one of the highest growth rates in Asia. However, despite the economic growth, more than 25 million Filipinos continue to languish in poverty.
b.) 62 percent of Filipinos actually die without even having the chance to be seen by a healthcare professional. To make things worse, medicine prices are 5 to 45 times higher here in our country compared to other countries in Asia like Thailand, Pakistan and India.
c.) 3.7 million families continue to be homeless in our country despite efforts being done by non-profit organizations, such as Gawad Kalinga.
d.) P1.2 trillion had been lost to corruption in the last 5 years.
e.) Out of 10 Filipino students who enter Grade 1, less than 2 will be able to finish College.
f.) The brain drain continues in our country as 121 Filipinos leave the country every hour. By the end of this year, we can expect that there will be approximately 8.5 million Filipinos abroad.
These sad realities made me discern the reason why we continue to remain a poor country, despite the fact that we have such a beautiful country blessed with the brightest people in the world. Is it because many of our best people choose to work and live abroad?
Was Conrado De Quiros correct when he mentioned in one of his columns that the middle and upper classes of our country couldn’t care less about what happens because we always have an escape hatch of migrating and living abroad when all else fails in the Philippines? I don’t think that these are entirely correct assumptions since I continue to believe that majority of Filipinos still want to see genuine change and reforms in our country.
Many Filipinos living and working abroad whom I have talked to and corresponded with via email still continue to hope and dream that they will one day be able to come back and live in a Philippines that can provide them and their families with the right opportunities to live a just and prosperous life.
In the end, I think everyone will agree with me that one of the major reasons why we are here is the fact that we continue to elect poor leaders who would rather protect vested interests of their own families and those that have supported them in the last elections.
It’s depressing to note that the reality of Philippine politics is that a good, competent and decent person cannot be elected to power if she or he doesn’t have millions of pesos to use in the campaign.
Of course, we have already seen some exceptions to this “rule,” in the persons of Pampanga Governor Eddie Panlilio, Isabela Governor Grace Padaca and Naga City Mayor Jesse Robredo. All three have clashed with moneyed and well-entrenched political dynasties and have come out victorious. But their victories remain only at the local level and it seems that we will need a more herculean effort to finally elect a President that will not become beholden to a few individuals, interests and families.
According to some friends who have had experience in being part of a national campaign, they say that you need at least P1 billion to have a chance at the Presidency.
Is it impossible then to elect a President that will not become beholden to a few wealthy families and will genuinely serve the interests of Juan dela Cruz?
I don’t think so but if we want that to happen, we should all make that happen starting with the growing Filipino middle class who are mostly living and working abroad.
Imagine if every single Filipino living and working overseas will pledge to donate at least $5 each to support an upright, ethical and God-fearing candidate who has a proven track record in public service, then that would amount to $42,500,000 or a whooping P1.9 billion!
This candidate could then have a fighting chance of being our next President and if she or he wins, she or he can govern properly without being beholden to a few people and their vested interests. As soon as we have enough pledges from Filipinos all over the world, we can then do something similar to a primary process to select the right person whom we can all support.
I propose this idea to every Filipino working or living overseas who still dreams of a new Philippines. I think it’s time that we all invest in choosing the right President for our country. We have less than two years to go before the 2010 National election. Thus the time to act is now. The power to choose our next President should not be in the hands of a few but rather it should be with each and every Filipino.
If you believe in this idea and proposal, please send me an email at harveykeh@gmail.com so we can work together in choosing the right leader for our country who will run a government that will genuinely work towards promoting the common good.
Harvey Keh is Director for Youth Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship at the Ateneo de Manila University-School of Government, and is also the Executive Director of AHON Foundation, a non-profit organization that builds public elementary school libraries all over the Philippines. Harvey also teaches Theology at the Ateneo de Manila University-Loyola Schools.
UP failing to serve poor students, ADB study says
by Roderick T. dela Cruz
Manila Standard Today
www.manilastandardtoday.com
STATE colleges and universities led by the University of the Philippines are not serving poor students as they are mandated to do, according to a study commissioned by the Asian Development Bank.
“Philippine education is in a deep crisis and sees little hope of recovery unless drastic reforms beginning with higher education are immediately implemented,” the report says.
The report is part of the bank’s technical assistance to the Education Department, and it found “a disproportionately small number of poor students in the state universities and colleges,” or a mere 6.7 percent of the student population.
It says one reason is that poverty prevents poor students from properly preparing for a college education, and the result is that many of them flunk the entrance tests given by state colleges and universities.
“The poor are discriminated more seriously in the better quality prestigious state universities and colleges like the University of the Philippines Diliman, for they do not possess competitive college preparatory education,” the study says.
It says the high and persistent incidence of poverty and income inequality also leads to inequality in education, as the poor appear less able to compete with their richer counterparts in state universities and colleges that have restricted admission.
Basic education has its own problems, the report says, noting that student performance is only about 50 percent in the national achievement tests for elementary and high schools, and in the international mathematics and science tests for 13-year-old students.
At the college level, the passing rate in the various professional board examinations except for medicine is below 50 percent.
“There is also evidence that majority of schools at all levels operate inefficiently,” the study says.
Resources in the public school system are concentrated in personnel inputs—representing 90 percent of the total—while financial support for learning materials makes up just 1 percent.
And as a result of poor education and training in high school and even in college, many graduates end up without jobs.
“The unemployment rate among the high school and college educated has persisted over the last two decades at 9 percent or more,” the study says.
“This is the gridlock of Philippine education.”
The report partly traces the problem to the government’s education policy, particularly that relating to higher education.
“Much of the problem is rooted in finance, especially the financial management of state universities and colleges,” the study says.
“Revolutionary reforms in the state universities and colleges’ finance would be required for dismantling the gridlock.”
Manila Standard Today
www.manilastandardtoday.com
STATE colleges and universities led by the University of the Philippines are not serving poor students as they are mandated to do, according to a study commissioned by the Asian Development Bank.
“Philippine education is in a deep crisis and sees little hope of recovery unless drastic reforms beginning with higher education are immediately implemented,” the report says.
The report is part of the bank’s technical assistance to the Education Department, and it found “a disproportionately small number of poor students in the state universities and colleges,” or a mere 6.7 percent of the student population.
It says one reason is that poverty prevents poor students from properly preparing for a college education, and the result is that many of them flunk the entrance tests given by state colleges and universities.
“The poor are discriminated more seriously in the better quality prestigious state universities and colleges like the University of the Philippines Diliman, for they do not possess competitive college preparatory education,” the study says.
It says the high and persistent incidence of poverty and income inequality also leads to inequality in education, as the poor appear less able to compete with their richer counterparts in state universities and colleges that have restricted admission.
Basic education has its own problems, the report says, noting that student performance is only about 50 percent in the national achievement tests for elementary and high schools, and in the international mathematics and science tests for 13-year-old students.
At the college level, the passing rate in the various professional board examinations except for medicine is below 50 percent.
“There is also evidence that majority of schools at all levels operate inefficiently,” the study says.
Resources in the public school system are concentrated in personnel inputs—representing 90 percent of the total—while financial support for learning materials makes up just 1 percent.
And as a result of poor education and training in high school and even in college, many graduates end up without jobs.
“The unemployment rate among the high school and college educated has persisted over the last two decades at 9 percent or more,” the study says.
“This is the gridlock of Philippine education.”
The report partly traces the problem to the government’s education policy, particularly that relating to higher education.
“Much of the problem is rooted in finance, especially the financial management of state universities and colleges,” the study says.
“Revolutionary reforms in the state universities and colleges’ finance would be required for dismantling the gridlock.”
Ten Things Young Filipinos Can Do to Help the Philippines
by Harvey S. Keh
Manila Bulletin
www.mb.com.ph
1.) Stay informed and updated about what is happening in our country. It’s so easy to stay in our comfort zones and just turn a blind eye to what is happening to our country, especially if we aren’t directly affected by these problems. Find time to read the newspaper, watch the news on TV, surf the Internet or listen to the radio. Attend forums and discussion groups on the national situation.
2.) Organize discussion groups among your friends and peers to discuss current issues in our country. Don’t be apathetic and also encourage your friends to know more about what is happening to our country. By talking about these issues, you can make more people aware and ultimately be made more vigilant against rampant corruption in our government. The government is just waiting for us to stop talking about these major scandals such as the corruption-laden ZTE Broadband Deal, Hello Garci and the P780-million fertilizer scam. Let us not allow them to get away with it by ensuring that these issues are very much in the minds and consciousness of the general public.
3.) Share your thoughts and opinions to the public by writing blogs on what you think about these current events and national issues. Many young Filipinos maintain Livejournal, Blogger, Friendster, Multiply and Facebook accounts and these can be used to make many other young Filipinos aware of what is happening to our country. Use these Internet tools to post and promote statements by credible institutions and individuals on the current state of our country. You can even make a video blog expressing how you feel, thus sharing your thoughts with others. Whether you are pro-GMA or anti-GMA, it doesn’t really matter as long as you are able to take time out to think critically and share your thoughts with others. Visit my blog and read my thoughts at http://filipinochangemaker.blogspot.com
4.) Take a stand and join activities that will promote greater truth, accountability, and reform in our government. A good friend of mine once told me that even if we replace our President, nothing will change in our country unless we put into place policies and mechanisms that will ensure truth, accountability, and reform in our government and its leaders. Examples of such are the lifting of E.O. 464 which bans any Cabinet member from appearing before Senate hearing without the President’s consent and revising the Government Procurement Act to ensure greater transparency in the use of taxpayer’s money. Billions of pesos are lost to corruption every year and that money can be used to send more students to school, build homes for the homeless and provide quality healthcare to every Filipino. Will we just allow this to happen?
5.) If you can, don’t leave the country. Many of our best minds like our teachers are leaving the country in search of better opportunities and the effects are already showing in our public schools where there is a lack of highly skilled English, Math and Science teachers. I totally understand and don’t blame those who come from very poor families who decide to work abroad to provide a better quality of life for their families. Some of them may have no other choice than to leave. But for those who have a choice and live a relatively comfortable life here, then I hope you can consider staying and working here to contribute towards moving our country forward. For those who decide to leave, I hope you don’t forget to give back to the Philippines by helping send a poor but deserving student to school or sending books that our public-school students can still use.
6.) Register and vote. In my conversations with my students, they told me that many of them failed to register for the last elections. Their reasons varied from being too lazy to stand in line to not being interested at all to vote. Our right and duty to select our leaders is one of the main pillars of our democracy and if many of us fail to exercise this right properly or exercise it at all then we have no right to complain about how bad our leaders are. By voting, we are given the opportunity and power to select the right leaders that will help solve our country’s most pressing social problems in the fields of education, health, shelter and employment.
7.) Write letters to your Congressmen and local officials. Many of my friends always complain about the services that our government provides and yet when I ask them have you brought these complaints to the proper authorities, they just shrug and say “no.” If we want something to change with how our country is being run, then we have to tell our leaders what we think they should do. Remember the reason that they are there right now is because we voted for them and at the same time, they are spending money from the taxes that we pay. Thus, I think we have the right to engage them by informing them about our stands on certain issues.
8.) Volunteer your time and share your skills for causes that are bigger than yourself. According to studies on what makes people genuinely happy, being able to help and take part in causes that are bigger than yourself is one of the most fulfilling and happiest experiences. There are so many non-profit organizations and foundations that are currently doing their own share in helping change the Philippines. But for them to reach more people and do more good work, they often need volunteers who can commit time to help in their activities. For example, Pathways to Higher Education-Philippines needs volunteer tutors who can commit 2-3 hours a week to help poor but deserving public high-school students gain access to quality higher education. Another example is Museo Pambata, which looks for volunteer tour guides and storytellers who can help in entertaining and educating children who visit the Museum. You can visit the Pathways website at http://www.pathwaysphilippines.org or call them at (02) 4266001 local 4048.
9.) Pray, reflect, and act. Take time every day to pray for our country and ask God to lead you towards what you can best do to help our country. The challenge here is that we just don’t end with prayer and reflection, but rather, our prayer and reflection should lead us towards doing something concrete in helping our country. I have always believed a faith that does not do justice for the poor and powerless is nothing, since for us to be truly called Christians, we need to follow the example of Jesus Christ who not only preached social justice but more importantly, lived this out in His way of life.
10.) Pass this on to your friends. If you think this can help many other young Filipinos to actively take part in nation-building, then I hope you can pass this on to your family and friends.
*Harvey S. Keh is Director for Youth Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship at the Ateneo de Manila University-School of Government and a Lecturer at the Ateneo de Manila-Loyola Schools’ Development Studies Program and Department of Theology. Aside from this, Harvey is also the Executive Director of AHON Foundation (http://ahonfoundation.blogspot.com), a corporate foundation of Filway Marketing, Inc. that helps build public elementary-school libraries.
Manila Bulletin
www.mb.com.ph
1.) Stay informed and updated about what is happening in our country. It’s so easy to stay in our comfort zones and just turn a blind eye to what is happening to our country, especially if we aren’t directly affected by these problems. Find time to read the newspaper, watch the news on TV, surf the Internet or listen to the radio. Attend forums and discussion groups on the national situation.
2.) Organize discussion groups among your friends and peers to discuss current issues in our country. Don’t be apathetic and also encourage your friends to know more about what is happening to our country. By talking about these issues, you can make more people aware and ultimately be made more vigilant against rampant corruption in our government. The government is just waiting for us to stop talking about these major scandals such as the corruption-laden ZTE Broadband Deal, Hello Garci and the P780-million fertilizer scam. Let us not allow them to get away with it by ensuring that these issues are very much in the minds and consciousness of the general public.
3.) Share your thoughts and opinions to the public by writing blogs on what you think about these current events and national issues. Many young Filipinos maintain Livejournal, Blogger, Friendster, Multiply and Facebook accounts and these can be used to make many other young Filipinos aware of what is happening to our country. Use these Internet tools to post and promote statements by credible institutions and individuals on the current state of our country. You can even make a video blog expressing how you feel, thus sharing your thoughts with others. Whether you are pro-GMA or anti-GMA, it doesn’t really matter as long as you are able to take time out to think critically and share your thoughts with others. Visit my blog and read my thoughts at http://filipinochangemaker.blogspot.com
4.) Take a stand and join activities that will promote greater truth, accountability, and reform in our government. A good friend of mine once told me that even if we replace our President, nothing will change in our country unless we put into place policies and mechanisms that will ensure truth, accountability, and reform in our government and its leaders. Examples of such are the lifting of E.O. 464 which bans any Cabinet member from appearing before Senate hearing without the President’s consent and revising the Government Procurement Act to ensure greater transparency in the use of taxpayer’s money. Billions of pesos are lost to corruption every year and that money can be used to send more students to school, build homes for the homeless and provide quality healthcare to every Filipino. Will we just allow this to happen?
5.) If you can, don’t leave the country. Many of our best minds like our teachers are leaving the country in search of better opportunities and the effects are already showing in our public schools where there is a lack of highly skilled English, Math and Science teachers. I totally understand and don’t blame those who come from very poor families who decide to work abroad to provide a better quality of life for their families. Some of them may have no other choice than to leave. But for those who have a choice and live a relatively comfortable life here, then I hope you can consider staying and working here to contribute towards moving our country forward. For those who decide to leave, I hope you don’t forget to give back to the Philippines by helping send a poor but deserving student to school or sending books that our public-school students can still use.
6.) Register and vote. In my conversations with my students, they told me that many of them failed to register for the last elections. Their reasons varied from being too lazy to stand in line to not being interested at all to vote. Our right and duty to select our leaders is one of the main pillars of our democracy and if many of us fail to exercise this right properly or exercise it at all then we have no right to complain about how bad our leaders are. By voting, we are given the opportunity and power to select the right leaders that will help solve our country’s most pressing social problems in the fields of education, health, shelter and employment.
7.) Write letters to your Congressmen and local officials. Many of my friends always complain about the services that our government provides and yet when I ask them have you brought these complaints to the proper authorities, they just shrug and say “no.” If we want something to change with how our country is being run, then we have to tell our leaders what we think they should do. Remember the reason that they are there right now is because we voted for them and at the same time, they are spending money from the taxes that we pay. Thus, I think we have the right to engage them by informing them about our stands on certain issues.
8.) Volunteer your time and share your skills for causes that are bigger than yourself. According to studies on what makes people genuinely happy, being able to help and take part in causes that are bigger than yourself is one of the most fulfilling and happiest experiences. There are so many non-profit organizations and foundations that are currently doing their own share in helping change the Philippines. But for them to reach more people and do more good work, they often need volunteers who can commit time to help in their activities. For example, Pathways to Higher Education-Philippines needs volunteer tutors who can commit 2-3 hours a week to help poor but deserving public high-school students gain access to quality higher education. Another example is Museo Pambata, which looks for volunteer tour guides and storytellers who can help in entertaining and educating children who visit the Museum. You can visit the Pathways website at http://www.pathwaysphilippines.org or call them at (02) 4266001 local 4048.
9.) Pray, reflect, and act. Take time every day to pray for our country and ask God to lead you towards what you can best do to help our country. The challenge here is that we just don’t end with prayer and reflection, but rather, our prayer and reflection should lead us towards doing something concrete in helping our country. I have always believed a faith that does not do justice for the poor and powerless is nothing, since for us to be truly called Christians, we need to follow the example of Jesus Christ who not only preached social justice but more importantly, lived this out in His way of life.
10.) Pass this on to your friends. If you think this can help many other young Filipinos to actively take part in nation-building, then I hope you can pass this on to your family and friends.
*Harvey S. Keh is Director for Youth Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship at the Ateneo de Manila University-School of Government and a Lecturer at the Ateneo de Manila-Loyola Schools’ Development Studies Program and Department of Theology. Aside from this, Harvey is also the Executive Director of AHON Foundation (http://ahonfoundation.blogspot.com), a corporate foundation of Filway Marketing, Inc. that helps build public elementary-school libraries.
Lessons from the July Pulse Asia survey
For President:
1. The ads of Noli de Castro for Pag-Ibig seem to be working. He also has a Saturday radio show at DZMM. But is it true that he did not appear in his show two Saturdays ago to protest the ad for San Jose Builders of Chiz Escudero -- the production of which was funded by a scion of ABS-CBN Channel 2?
2. The ads of Loren Legarda for Lucida backfired. She was two weeks late in asking for the product owner to dismantle the billboards that showed her fair face and pink dress flowering all over the metropolis.
3. The sorties of Erap Estrada -- and their widespread publicity in the tri-media of TV, radio, and print -- are paying off. That, plus his magnificent gift of gab. Remember what he said regarding the food crises? He did not cite statistics, the way other learned candidates did. He simply said: "Dati pagkain ang nasa mesa, ngayon ipis na lang." I am not sure if any other presidentiable can top that!
4. The visits of Mar Roxas in Panay Island after Typhoon Frank struck are well and good -- but he should visit more, and other non-Visayan public places, often. He should also capitalize on the good will generated by the passage of his Cheaper Medicines Bill. An AM radio show is in order. Now.
5. Sen. Chiz Escudero is heard to have called himself as the Barack Obama of the Philippines. Well, they do look alike -- tall and gangly and with close-cropped hair. And boy, oh boy, those ads for Circulan vitamins and for San Jose Builders seem to be working.
6. Mayor Jojo Binay is going around the country, but I suggest that he -- and also Bayani Fernando -- should visit not just the governor, or the mayor. They should talk to the vendors in the market and the common folk in the barangays, the students in the campuses, the people on the streets. In the end, the LGU leaders are useless in getting votes. They will just sniff the political wind come 2010, and their noses will lean in the direction of the winnable candidate.
For Vice President:
1. Same-same comments for Loren and Chiz.
2. Sen. Kiko Pangilinan needs to wean himself away from his image as Mr. Sharon Cuneta. Bumenta na 'yan. And the voters are now shying away from showbiz candidates, or those endorsed by showbiz wives.
3. Or showbiz superstars, as shown by the dismal showing of Ate Vi as VP. This ghel who dismissed the PhP 500,000 allegedly given to governors by GMA in Malacanang as "this whole hullaballo thing" should just stick to governing it over Batangas, which she does best.
4. Same-same with Bong. He may win in Cavite, or even in Cebu, but never ever forevah in the rest of the country.
5. Sen. Jinggoy has his father's backbone of supporters to thank for. That is at least a solid 20%. But it is not enough to overthrow the juggernaut coming from Chiz Whiz.
As for the senatoriables:
When will Pulse Asia do a non-commissioned survey for senatoriables?
1. Cesar Montano has his Hocim seminars for masons, with a certificate of completion to boot and free Hocim products.
2. Sen. Pia Cayetano is seen more often in her Downey ad.
3. Ace Durano is plastering his face on TV and in print ads for tourism. BTW, how did they arrive at those figures regarding tourism income? And why did they say that more tourists will come in 2010? To watch the elections?
4. Sen. Jamby was on TV last night, with Sen. Bong. They raided a warehouse that stored child porn. Bong is head of the Committee on Entertainment so he had a right to be there. What about her? Malagay lang sa TV...
5. Ralph Recto is crowing his lack of economic knowledge in NEDA by being a bad echolalia of GMA. Listen to his pronouncements regarding the free texting. I am sure the late, brilliant Senator and nationalist Don Claro Mayo Recto must be twisting, turning, and break-dancing in his grave. The poor man.
And I have only this blog, my wicked radio and TV interviews, and my newspaper and online columns.
1. The ads of Noli de Castro for Pag-Ibig seem to be working. He also has a Saturday radio show at DZMM. But is it true that he did not appear in his show two Saturdays ago to protest the ad for San Jose Builders of Chiz Escudero -- the production of which was funded by a scion of ABS-CBN Channel 2?
2. The ads of Loren Legarda for Lucida backfired. She was two weeks late in asking for the product owner to dismantle the billboards that showed her fair face and pink dress flowering all over the metropolis.
3. The sorties of Erap Estrada -- and their widespread publicity in the tri-media of TV, radio, and print -- are paying off. That, plus his magnificent gift of gab. Remember what he said regarding the food crises? He did not cite statistics, the way other learned candidates did. He simply said: "Dati pagkain ang nasa mesa, ngayon ipis na lang." I am not sure if any other presidentiable can top that!
4. The visits of Mar Roxas in Panay Island after Typhoon Frank struck are well and good -- but he should visit more, and other non-Visayan public places, often. He should also capitalize on the good will generated by the passage of his Cheaper Medicines Bill. An AM radio show is in order. Now.
5. Sen. Chiz Escudero is heard to have called himself as the Barack Obama of the Philippines. Well, they do look alike -- tall and gangly and with close-cropped hair. And boy, oh boy, those ads for Circulan vitamins and for San Jose Builders seem to be working.
6. Mayor Jojo Binay is going around the country, but I suggest that he -- and also Bayani Fernando -- should visit not just the governor, or the mayor. They should talk to the vendors in the market and the common folk in the barangays, the students in the campuses, the people on the streets. In the end, the LGU leaders are useless in getting votes. They will just sniff the political wind come 2010, and their noses will lean in the direction of the winnable candidate.
For Vice President:
1. Same-same comments for Loren and Chiz.
2. Sen. Kiko Pangilinan needs to wean himself away from his image as Mr. Sharon Cuneta. Bumenta na 'yan. And the voters are now shying away from showbiz candidates, or those endorsed by showbiz wives.
3. Or showbiz superstars, as shown by the dismal showing of Ate Vi as VP. This ghel who dismissed the PhP 500,000 allegedly given to governors by GMA in Malacanang as "this whole hullaballo thing" should just stick to governing it over Batangas, which she does best.
4. Same-same with Bong. He may win in Cavite, or even in Cebu, but never ever forevah in the rest of the country.
5. Sen. Jinggoy has his father's backbone of supporters to thank for. That is at least a solid 20%. But it is not enough to overthrow the juggernaut coming from Chiz Whiz.
As for the senatoriables:
When will Pulse Asia do a non-commissioned survey for senatoriables?
1. Cesar Montano has his Hocim seminars for masons, with a certificate of completion to boot and free Hocim products.
2. Sen. Pia Cayetano is seen more often in her Downey ad.
3. Ace Durano is plastering his face on TV and in print ads for tourism. BTW, how did they arrive at those figures regarding tourism income? And why did they say that more tourists will come in 2010? To watch the elections?
4. Sen. Jamby was on TV last night, with Sen. Bong. They raided a warehouse that stored child porn. Bong is head of the Committee on Entertainment so he had a right to be there. What about her? Malagay lang sa TV...
5. Ralph Recto is crowing his lack of economic knowledge in NEDA by being a bad echolalia of GMA. Listen to his pronouncements regarding the free texting. I am sure the late, brilliant Senator and nationalist Don Claro Mayo Recto must be twisting, turning, and break-dancing in his grave. The poor man.
And I have only this blog, my wicked radio and TV interviews, and my newspaper and online columns.
Dreaming in English
The Business Mirror
www.businessmirror.com.ph
Front Page
This article forms part of a series on the importance of English language and writing commissioned by the British insurer Pru-Life UK. The series is published every Monday on the front page of Business Mirror.
***
In her introduction to Stories, Kerima Polotan said: “Life scars the writer but he is not without weapons of vengeance. The art [of writing] is a prism that he can use to refract human experience. That one can write about something gives him courage to endure it; that he has written about it gives him, if not deeper understanding, some kind of peace. In other words, the writer is first a human being before he is anything else, prone, like much of mankind, to fits of joy and pain. What happens to those around him – and yes, to him – is legitimate material, but only if he is able to illumine it with a special insight.”
I enrolled at the Ateneo for a Management degree, but my heart was not in it. Every day I went to the Rizal Library and sat near the books in PS 9991 – Philippine writing in English. I would get the books, read the names of the Ateneo writers who have borrowed them (Gilda Cordero Fernando, Rolando Tinio, Eman Lacaba, Freddie Salanga), and borrowed the books.
I talked to my father and told him I wanted to shift to Interdisciplinary Studies, so I could choose the English subjects I wanted to take – and have my Management subjects credited as well. He reluctantly agreed. So the next semester I was on a roll. During our first day in Modern Poetry on the third floor of Bellarmine Building, the teacher arrived in a brown jacket, his hair tousled by the wind.
My teacher was Professor Emmanuel Torres, and he taught us how to see. Before his class, I did not like poetry too much, preferring instead to read nonfiction, since I thought they were the real stuff. But Professor Torres introduced to us – in English translations –Baudelaire and Rimbaud, Verlaine and Rilke, Neruda and Garcia Lorca. We also read the lords of the English language – T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stegner, e.e. cummings. Why, he even taught us the songs of the Beatles – the mop-haired gods from England – since he considered their songs as poems.
My professor, who went to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, taught us to listen to the sounds of words rising and falling. He reminded me of the words of Joseph Conrad in his introduction to The Nigger of the Narcissus: “My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel – it is, before all, to make you see.”
Writing in English is not an easy thing because it is not our first language. But as they say, if you can dream in it, then you can write it.
I shared my room with my brother, and he said he would wake up to hear me talking in my sleep – in English. Instead of being embarrassed, I would smile. For in school, Professor Torres was in his element, tearing our juvenilia apart with irony and wit. But I was not daunted. I have always been brave, especially when dealing with things I like to do.
And so every Monday morning, I stepped into the Art Gallery where Professor Torres was also the curator. I would show him my latest poems in English, which he would welcome with a smile. Silently he would read my poems, his red ball pen poised in the air, then like an arrow it would hit the page to delete a word here, a phrase there. He would return my poems with a sly smile, calling them “effusions.” I would thank him and say goodbye.
I continued writing. One of the personal essays I wrote was “A Quick Visit to Basa.” I went to the Art Gallery one hour before class started, so I could consult with my Professor. He said he liked the essay, but it could be improved. So we went through it sentence by sentence, punctuation mark by punctuation mark, the way he did it with our poems.
He always told us to avoid stereotyped situations and words, which he called “rusty razors.” Later, he said that my essay “is written by somebody on his way to being a writer.” I was happy and went home as if I had won the lotto. Five years later, that essay would win in the Don Carlos Palanca Award in Literature.
After graduation from college, I flew to Dumaguete City to attend the Silliman University National Writers’ Workshop run by the formidable husband-and-wife team of Dr. Edilberto K. Tiempo and his wife, Dr. Edith. The Silliman Experience has become a rite of passage for any young Filipino writer. While en route to Dumaguete City, I read in the newspaper that I had won in a poetry-writing contest. I wanted to jump up and down, but since I could not, I just looked outside the plane. Literally and otherwise, I was up in the clouds.
www.businessmirror.com.ph
Front Page
This article forms part of a series on the importance of English language and writing commissioned by the British insurer Pru-Life UK. The series is published every Monday on the front page of Business Mirror.
***
In her introduction to Stories, Kerima Polotan said: “Life scars the writer but he is not without weapons of vengeance. The art [of writing] is a prism that he can use to refract human experience. That one can write about something gives him courage to endure it; that he has written about it gives him, if not deeper understanding, some kind of peace. In other words, the writer is first a human being before he is anything else, prone, like much of mankind, to fits of joy and pain. What happens to those around him – and yes, to him – is legitimate material, but only if he is able to illumine it with a special insight.”
I enrolled at the Ateneo for a Management degree, but my heart was not in it. Every day I went to the Rizal Library and sat near the books in PS 9991 – Philippine writing in English. I would get the books, read the names of the Ateneo writers who have borrowed them (Gilda Cordero Fernando, Rolando Tinio, Eman Lacaba, Freddie Salanga), and borrowed the books.
I talked to my father and told him I wanted to shift to Interdisciplinary Studies, so I could choose the English subjects I wanted to take – and have my Management subjects credited as well. He reluctantly agreed. So the next semester I was on a roll. During our first day in Modern Poetry on the third floor of Bellarmine Building, the teacher arrived in a brown jacket, his hair tousled by the wind.
My teacher was Professor Emmanuel Torres, and he taught us how to see. Before his class, I did not like poetry too much, preferring instead to read nonfiction, since I thought they were the real stuff. But Professor Torres introduced to us – in English translations –Baudelaire and Rimbaud, Verlaine and Rilke, Neruda and Garcia Lorca. We also read the lords of the English language – T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stegner, e.e. cummings. Why, he even taught us the songs of the Beatles – the mop-haired gods from England – since he considered their songs as poems.
My professor, who went to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, taught us to listen to the sounds of words rising and falling. He reminded me of the words of Joseph Conrad in his introduction to The Nigger of the Narcissus: “My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel – it is, before all, to make you see.”
Writing in English is not an easy thing because it is not our first language. But as they say, if you can dream in it, then you can write it.
I shared my room with my brother, and he said he would wake up to hear me talking in my sleep – in English. Instead of being embarrassed, I would smile. For in school, Professor Torres was in his element, tearing our juvenilia apart with irony and wit. But I was not daunted. I have always been brave, especially when dealing with things I like to do.
And so every Monday morning, I stepped into the Art Gallery where Professor Torres was also the curator. I would show him my latest poems in English, which he would welcome with a smile. Silently he would read my poems, his red ball pen poised in the air, then like an arrow it would hit the page to delete a word here, a phrase there. He would return my poems with a sly smile, calling them “effusions.” I would thank him and say goodbye.
I continued writing. One of the personal essays I wrote was “A Quick Visit to Basa.” I went to the Art Gallery one hour before class started, so I could consult with my Professor. He said he liked the essay, but it could be improved. So we went through it sentence by sentence, punctuation mark by punctuation mark, the way he did it with our poems.
He always told us to avoid stereotyped situations and words, which he called “rusty razors.” Later, he said that my essay “is written by somebody on his way to being a writer.” I was happy and went home as if I had won the lotto. Five years later, that essay would win in the Don Carlos Palanca Award in Literature.
After graduation from college, I flew to Dumaguete City to attend the Silliman University National Writers’ Workshop run by the formidable husband-and-wife team of Dr. Edilberto K. Tiempo and his wife, Dr. Edith. The Silliman Experience has become a rite of passage for any young Filipino writer. While en route to Dumaguete City, I read in the newspaper that I had won in a poetry-writing contest. I wanted to jump up and down, but since I could not, I just looked outside the plane. Literally and otherwise, I was up in the clouds.
Pulse Asia's July 2008 nationwide survey on 2010 elections
Ulat ng Bayan
www.pulseasia.com.ph
This survey just mirrors what I wrote in my blog a few weeks ago, except that Noli de Castro seems to have risen in the rankings. Well, you have to thank the Pag-Ibig ads for it, the fact that he is the only administration candidate, and that he has been treading very, very carefully on sensitive political issues. Like walking on eggshells. -- Danton
***
Pulse Asia is pleased to share with you some findings from the July 2008 Ulat ng Bayan national survey on 2010 Elections. We request you to assist us in informing the public by disseminating this information on Filipino perceptions, opinions, sentiments, and attitudes relating to current developments here and abroad.
Based on a multistage probability sample of 1,200 representative adults 18 years old and above, Pulse Asia’s nationwide survey has a +/-3% error margin at the 95% confidence level. Subnational estimates for each of the geographic areas covered in the survey (i.e., Metro Manila, the rest of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao) have a +/- 6% error margin, also at 95% confidence level. Face-to-face field interviews for this project were conducted from July 1 to 14, 2008. (Those interested in further technical details concerning the surveys’ questionnaires and sampling design may request Pulse Asia in writing for fuller details, including copies of the pre-tested questions actually used.)
In the period prior to and during the conduct of this survey, the news headlines focused on developments having to do with the increasing demand for NFA rice across the country, the granting of various subsidies to the Filipino poor particularly through the administration’s “Katas ng VAT” program, the signing into law of the cheaper medicines and tax exemption bills, the President’s call for a review of the power rates being charged by MERALCO and GSIS President Winston Garcia’s efforts to take over the management of MERALCO, several natural disasters in the Philippines and other parts of the world that resulted in loss of lives and destruction of properties (e.g., especially the aftermath of Typhoon Frank which hit the country in late June 2008), the investigations into the sinking of the M/V Princess of the Stars by the House of Representatives and the Board of Marine Inquiry (BMI), the worsening global food crisis, the continuing increase in oil and food prices, the depreciation of the local currency, and sustained calls for further wage increases and fare hikes.
The survey’s sampling design and questionnaire are the full responsibility of Pulse Asia’s pool of academic experts and no religious, political, economic or any other form of partisanship has been allowed to influence the survey design, the findings generated by the actual surveys or the subsequent analyses of survey findings.
Pulse Asia undertakes Ulat ng Bayan surveys on its own without any party singularly commissioning the research effort.
De Castro and “Erap” Estrada lead the presidentiables
If the May 2010 elections were held today, Pulse Asia’s July 1-14, 2008 Ulat ng Bayan survey shows that Vice Pres. Noli de Castro and former President Joseph “Erap” Estrada would lead the presidential race. Some 22% of Filipino adults express support for VP de Castro, while 16% support former President Estrada. Given the survey’s margin of error of ±3%, the two are essentially tied for first place.
Closely following on the heels of former President Estrada are Senators Francis “Chiz” Escudero (14%), Loren Legarda (14%), Manuel “Manny” B. Villar (12%) and Manuel “Mar” Roxas (8%). These four senators are essentially tied for second place, while the rest of the possible presidential candidates included in the list of 10 names are essentially tied for third place. On the other hand, some 4% of Filipino adults have no presidential preference, refuse to name them or are undecided. (See Table 1).
Results indicate that Vice Pres. De Castro essentially maintains the voter support (21%) that he enjoyed in March 2008. On the other hand, inclusion of the name of former President Estrada in the list appears to have drawn voter preference away from some candidates identified with the opposition namely, Senator Panfilo “Ping Lacson” (down by 5 percentage points from 10% in March ’08 ), Senator Legarda (down by 4pp) and Senator Roxas (down by 2pp). But two possible presidential candidates also identified with the opposition, Senators Escudero and Villar, register marginal increases (1% and 3%, respectively) in voter support. (See Table 2).
Escudero and Legarda lead the vice-presidential race
As for the vice-presidential race, Senators Escudero and Legarda would be tied for first place if the May 2010 elections were held today, with the former obtaining 25% of the votes and the latter, 23%. Tied for a distant second place with voter preference in the 5% to 11% range are Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, Makati Mayor Jejomar “Jojo” Binay, Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla, and Batangas Governor Vilma “Ate Vi” Santos. Three other possible candidates included in the list obtain voter preference of 4% or lower. On the other hand, about 7% of Filipino adults have no vice-presidential presidential preference, refuse to name them or are undecided. (See Table 3).
A comparison of the current survey results with the results in the previous round shows that preference for the possible vice-presidential candidates is essentially unchanged since March 2008. (See Table 4).
Legarda-Escudero is preferred among three tandems
If the May 2010 elections were held today, the Legarda-Escudero tandem would obtain the highest voter support (40%). The Villar-de Castro and Roxas-Pangilinan tandems obtain 26% and 13% voter preference, respectively. However, about one in five Filipino adults do not prefer any of the three tandems presented. The percentage of adults without a preference for any of the three tandems is particularly high in Balance Luzon (31%). (See Table 5).
www.pulseasia.com.ph
This survey just mirrors what I wrote in my blog a few weeks ago, except that Noli de Castro seems to have risen in the rankings. Well, you have to thank the Pag-Ibig ads for it, the fact that he is the only administration candidate, and that he has been treading very, very carefully on sensitive political issues. Like walking on eggshells. -- Danton
***
Pulse Asia is pleased to share with you some findings from the July 2008 Ulat ng Bayan national survey on 2010 Elections. We request you to assist us in informing the public by disseminating this information on Filipino perceptions, opinions, sentiments, and attitudes relating to current developments here and abroad.
Based on a multistage probability sample of 1,200 representative adults 18 years old and above, Pulse Asia’s nationwide survey has a +/-3% error margin at the 95% confidence level. Subnational estimates for each of the geographic areas covered in the survey (i.e., Metro Manila, the rest of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao) have a +/- 6% error margin, also at 95% confidence level. Face-to-face field interviews for this project were conducted from July 1 to 14, 2008. (Those interested in further technical details concerning the surveys’ questionnaires and sampling design may request Pulse Asia in writing for fuller details, including copies of the pre-tested questions actually used.)
In the period prior to and during the conduct of this survey, the news headlines focused on developments having to do with the increasing demand for NFA rice across the country, the granting of various subsidies to the Filipino poor particularly through the administration’s “Katas ng VAT” program, the signing into law of the cheaper medicines and tax exemption bills, the President’s call for a review of the power rates being charged by MERALCO and GSIS President Winston Garcia’s efforts to take over the management of MERALCO, several natural disasters in the Philippines and other parts of the world that resulted in loss of lives and destruction of properties (e.g., especially the aftermath of Typhoon Frank which hit the country in late June 2008), the investigations into the sinking of the M/V Princess of the Stars by the House of Representatives and the Board of Marine Inquiry (BMI), the worsening global food crisis, the continuing increase in oil and food prices, the depreciation of the local currency, and sustained calls for further wage increases and fare hikes.
The survey’s sampling design and questionnaire are the full responsibility of Pulse Asia’s pool of academic experts and no religious, political, economic or any other form of partisanship has been allowed to influence the survey design, the findings generated by the actual surveys or the subsequent analyses of survey findings.
Pulse Asia undertakes Ulat ng Bayan surveys on its own without any party singularly commissioning the research effort.
De Castro and “Erap” Estrada lead the presidentiables
If the May 2010 elections were held today, Pulse Asia’s July 1-14, 2008 Ulat ng Bayan survey shows that Vice Pres. Noli de Castro and former President Joseph “Erap” Estrada would lead the presidential race. Some 22% of Filipino adults express support for VP de Castro, while 16% support former President Estrada. Given the survey’s margin of error of ±3%, the two are essentially tied for first place.
Closely following on the heels of former President Estrada are Senators Francis “Chiz” Escudero (14%), Loren Legarda (14%), Manuel “Manny” B. Villar (12%) and Manuel “Mar” Roxas (8%). These four senators are essentially tied for second place, while the rest of the possible presidential candidates included in the list of 10 names are essentially tied for third place. On the other hand, some 4% of Filipino adults have no presidential preference, refuse to name them or are undecided. (See Table 1).
Results indicate that Vice Pres. De Castro essentially maintains the voter support (21%) that he enjoyed in March 2008. On the other hand, inclusion of the name of former President Estrada in the list appears to have drawn voter preference away from some candidates identified with the opposition namely, Senator Panfilo “Ping Lacson” (down by 5 percentage points from 10% in March ’08 ), Senator Legarda (down by 4pp) and Senator Roxas (down by 2pp). But two possible presidential candidates also identified with the opposition, Senators Escudero and Villar, register marginal increases (1% and 3%, respectively) in voter support. (See Table 2).
Escudero and Legarda lead the vice-presidential race
As for the vice-presidential race, Senators Escudero and Legarda would be tied for first place if the May 2010 elections were held today, with the former obtaining 25% of the votes and the latter, 23%. Tied for a distant second place with voter preference in the 5% to 11% range are Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, Makati Mayor Jejomar “Jojo” Binay, Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla, and Batangas Governor Vilma “Ate Vi” Santos. Three other possible candidates included in the list obtain voter preference of 4% or lower. On the other hand, about 7% of Filipino adults have no vice-presidential presidential preference, refuse to name them or are undecided. (See Table 3).
A comparison of the current survey results with the results in the previous round shows that preference for the possible vice-presidential candidates is essentially unchanged since March 2008. (See Table 4).
Legarda-Escudero is preferred among three tandems
If the May 2010 elections were held today, the Legarda-Escudero tandem would obtain the highest voter support (40%). The Villar-de Castro and Roxas-Pangilinan tandems obtain 26% and 13% voter preference, respectively. However, about one in five Filipino adults do not prefer any of the three tandems presented. The percentage of adults without a preference for any of the three tandems is particularly high in Balance Luzon (31%). (See Table 5).
8 Lessons from Mandela
by Ellen Tordesillas
www.malaya.net.ph
In the cover story of Time magazine’s July 21 issue, Nelson Mandela shared the lessons that he gained in his 90 years of extraordinary life.
An article by Richard Stengel, Time’s managing editor, who had collaborated with Mandela on the latter’s book, "Long Walk to Freedom," listed the great man’s eight lessons of leadership.
What struck me was a paragraph in the sixth lesson about "the historical correlation between leadership and physicality."
That probably explains Gloria Arroyo’s perverse brand of leadership.
Stengel shares Mandela’s rules in life "calibrated to cause the best kind of trouble: the trouble that forces us to ask how we can make the world a better place."
Number One: Courage is not the absence of fear – it’s inspiring others to move beyond it.
Number Two: Lead from the front but don’t leave your base behind.
Number Three: Lead from the back and let the others believe they are in front.
Number Four: Know your enemy and learn about his favorite sport.
Number Five: Keep your friends close and your rivals even closer.
Number Six: Appearances matter; remember to smile.
Number Seven: Nothing is black and white.
Number Eight: Quitting is leading too.
On lesson number one, Stengel related the time the engine of a small propeller plane Mandela was riding failed. His co-passengers began to panic but Mandela, who was then campaigning for South African presidency remained calm. When they touched down, he confessed that he was terrified.
Stengel said that Mandela told him that he experienced fear during his underground days. It would have been irrational not to be, Mandela said. But as a leader, Mandela believes that he has to put up a front to inspire others.
On lesson number two, Stengel said Mandela’s party, the African National Congress had been against negotiating with the government. When Mandela launched a campaign to persuade his party mates to negotiate with the government, many thought he was selling out. Stengel said Mandela went to each of his comrades in prison and explained what he was doing. Slowly and deliberately, he brought them along. "You take your support base along with you," said an ANC official.
Stengel said for Mandela, refusing to negotiate was about tactics, not principle. Throughout his life, he has always made that distinction.
On lesson number six, Stengel said "size and strength have more to do with DNA than with leadership manuals," but Mandela understood how his appearance could advance his cause. As a leader of the ANC’s underground military wing, he insisted that he be photographed in the proper fatigues and with a beard, and throughout his career he has been concerned about dressing appropriately for his position.
On lesson number seven, Stengel said he would ask Mandela questions like, when you decided to suspend the armed struggle, was it because you realized you did not have the strength to overthrow the government or because you knew you could win over international opinion by choosing nonviolence?
Mandela replied, "Why not both?"
Stengel said Mandela’s message was clear: Life is not either/or.
"Decisions are complex, and there are always competing factors. To look for simple explanations is the bias of the human brain but it doesn’t correspond to reality. Nothing is ever as straightforward as it appears."
On lesson number eight, Stengel said, "In the history of Africa, there have been only a handful of democratically elected leaders who willingly stood down from office. Mandela was determined to set a precedent for all who followed him – not only in South Africa but across the rest of the continent....He knows that leaders lead as much by what they choose not to do as what they do."
Someone should send the Time Magazine article to Arroyo and highlight that paragraph.
***
www.malaya.net.ph
In the cover story of Time magazine’s July 21 issue, Nelson Mandela shared the lessons that he gained in his 90 years of extraordinary life.
An article by Richard Stengel, Time’s managing editor, who had collaborated with Mandela on the latter’s book, "Long Walk to Freedom," listed the great man’s eight lessons of leadership.
What struck me was a paragraph in the sixth lesson about "the historical correlation between leadership and physicality."
That probably explains Gloria Arroyo’s perverse brand of leadership.
Stengel shares Mandela’s rules in life "calibrated to cause the best kind of trouble: the trouble that forces us to ask how we can make the world a better place."
Number One: Courage is not the absence of fear – it’s inspiring others to move beyond it.
Number Two: Lead from the front but don’t leave your base behind.
Number Three: Lead from the back and let the others believe they are in front.
Number Four: Know your enemy and learn about his favorite sport.
Number Five: Keep your friends close and your rivals even closer.
Number Six: Appearances matter; remember to smile.
Number Seven: Nothing is black and white.
Number Eight: Quitting is leading too.
On lesson number one, Stengel related the time the engine of a small propeller plane Mandela was riding failed. His co-passengers began to panic but Mandela, who was then campaigning for South African presidency remained calm. When they touched down, he confessed that he was terrified.
Stengel said that Mandela told him that he experienced fear during his underground days. It would have been irrational not to be, Mandela said. But as a leader, Mandela believes that he has to put up a front to inspire others.
On lesson number two, Stengel said Mandela’s party, the African National Congress had been against negotiating with the government. When Mandela launched a campaign to persuade his party mates to negotiate with the government, many thought he was selling out. Stengel said Mandela went to each of his comrades in prison and explained what he was doing. Slowly and deliberately, he brought them along. "You take your support base along with you," said an ANC official.
Stengel said for Mandela, refusing to negotiate was about tactics, not principle. Throughout his life, he has always made that distinction.
On lesson number six, Stengel said "size and strength have more to do with DNA than with leadership manuals," but Mandela understood how his appearance could advance his cause. As a leader of the ANC’s underground military wing, he insisted that he be photographed in the proper fatigues and with a beard, and throughout his career he has been concerned about dressing appropriately for his position.
On lesson number seven, Stengel said he would ask Mandela questions like, when you decided to suspend the armed struggle, was it because you realized you did not have the strength to overthrow the government or because you knew you could win over international opinion by choosing nonviolence?
Mandela replied, "Why not both?"
Stengel said Mandela’s message was clear: Life is not either/or.
"Decisions are complex, and there are always competing factors. To look for simple explanations is the bias of the human brain but it doesn’t correspond to reality. Nothing is ever as straightforward as it appears."
On lesson number eight, Stengel said, "In the history of Africa, there have been only a handful of democratically elected leaders who willingly stood down from office. Mandela was determined to set a precedent for all who followed him – not only in South Africa but across the rest of the continent....He knows that leaders lead as much by what they choose not to do as what they do."
Someone should send the Time Magazine article to Arroyo and highlight that paragraph.
***
Shooting the messenger
www.malaya.net.ph
Editorial
Here’s a suggestion to Malacañang. Stop complaining about the methodology of polling outfits like the Social Weather Stations and Pulse Asia. Put up your own in-house polling team or secretly bankroll a nominally independent but mercenary outfit. Then publish the results of their findings.
The people will know soon enough which findings are truly reflective of their sentiments and which ones are cooked in pursuit of propaganda.
Press Secretary Jesus Dureza has been complaining about the results of a recent Pulse Asia survey which shows that more people feel they are worse off now than they were a year ago. The exact figure of Pulse Asia is 75 percent, a 16 percent increase from a March 2008 survey.
Dureza’s beef is that Pulse Asia could have framed survey questions in such a way that a negative response would be elicited. He said he would ask the Marketing and Opinion Research Society to look into the methodology of Pulse Asia because if the latter is playing fast and loose with accepted research methods it could destroy the integrity of other polling institutions.
We wish Dureza all the luck. Pulse Asia is not a member of the Marketing and Opinion Research Society and we doubt Pepe Miranda or Anna Marie Abunda (and even Mahar Mangahas of Social Weather Stations) give a hoot about what an association of polling outfits servicing the needs of shampoo and toothpaste sellers would say..
In fact, Pulse Asia and Social Weather Stations are subject to a more rigorous scrutiny of their methodologies than Dureza wants to make it appear. They are subject to a review by their peers. If Dureza had just a nodding acquaintance with the academic community, he would know that methodologies are wide open to criticism and woe unto the pollster who could not frame his questions appropriately or who neglected to pre-test his questionnaire exhaustively.
But let’s not belabor the point. The issue is not Pulse Asia’s credibility. It’s about arrogance and hubris. It’s a case of a despot ordering that the head of the bearer of bad news be cut off.
Editorial
Here’s a suggestion to Malacañang. Stop complaining about the methodology of polling outfits like the Social Weather Stations and Pulse Asia. Put up your own in-house polling team or secretly bankroll a nominally independent but mercenary outfit. Then publish the results of their findings.
The people will know soon enough which findings are truly reflective of their sentiments and which ones are cooked in pursuit of propaganda.
Press Secretary Jesus Dureza has been complaining about the results of a recent Pulse Asia survey which shows that more people feel they are worse off now than they were a year ago. The exact figure of Pulse Asia is 75 percent, a 16 percent increase from a March 2008 survey.
Dureza’s beef is that Pulse Asia could have framed survey questions in such a way that a negative response would be elicited. He said he would ask the Marketing and Opinion Research Society to look into the methodology of Pulse Asia because if the latter is playing fast and loose with accepted research methods it could destroy the integrity of other polling institutions.
We wish Dureza all the luck. Pulse Asia is not a member of the Marketing and Opinion Research Society and we doubt Pepe Miranda or Anna Marie Abunda (and even Mahar Mangahas of Social Weather Stations) give a hoot about what an association of polling outfits servicing the needs of shampoo and toothpaste sellers would say..
In fact, Pulse Asia and Social Weather Stations are subject to a more rigorous scrutiny of their methodologies than Dureza wants to make it appear. They are subject to a review by their peers. If Dureza had just a nodding acquaintance with the academic community, he would know that methodologies are wide open to criticism and woe unto the pollster who could not frame his questions appropriately or who neglected to pre-test his questionnaire exhaustively.
But let’s not belabor the point. The issue is not Pulse Asia’s credibility. It’s about arrogance and hubris. It’s a case of a despot ordering that the head of the bearer of bad news be cut off.
Grace Padaca wins RM Award
www.abs-cbnnews.com
Let us all celebrate the victory of our friend, Governor Grace. With her and our other clean politicians in government, the ship of state still has hope -- Danton
***
Isabela Gov. Grace Padaca and a Laguna-based microfinancing organization are among the eight winners of the 2008 Ramon Magsaysay Awards, Asia’s version of the Nobel Prize.
Padaca, 44, won the Magsaysay Award for Government Service for "empowering Isabela voters to reclaim their democratic right to elect leaders of their own choosing, and to contribute as full partners in their own development.”
Padaca, a former commentator on radio station Bombo Radyo in Cauyan, Isabela, toppled a political dynasty in her province after winning the gubernatorial elections in 2004 and again in 2007. During her childhood, she suffered from polio, which has forced her to walk with crutches for most of her life.
She recently teamed up with Pampanga Governor Eddie Panlilio, Naga City Mayor Jesse Robredo, and Mayor Sonia Lorenzo of San Isidro, Nueva Ecija to launch "Kaya Natin", a group that seeks to recruit principled local government officials to change the country’s deteriorating political situation.
The other winners are:
- Center for Agriculture and Rural Development Mutually Reinforcing Institutions (CARD MRI) in San Pablo, Laguna for Public Service
The group is being honored "for successful adaptation of microfinance in the Philippines, providing self-sustaining and comprehensive services for half a million poor women and their families.”
- Therdchai Jivacate from Thailand for Public Service
He is being honored for “his dedicated efforts in Thailand to provide inexpensive, practical, and comfortable artificial limbs even to the poorest amputees.”
- Prakash Amte and Mandakini Amte from India, for Community Leadership
They are being recognized for “enhancing the capacity of the Madia Gonds to adapt positively in today’s India, through healing and teaching and other compassionate interventions.”
- Ahmad Syafii Maarif from Indonesia for Peace and International Understanding
He is being honored for "guiding Muslims to embrace tolerance and pluralism as the basis for justice and harmony in Indonesia and in the world at large.”
- Akio Ishii from Japan for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts
He is being recognized for “his principled career as a publisher, placing discrimination, human rights, and other difficult subjects squarely in Japan’s public discourse."
- Ananda Galappatti from Sri Lanka for Emergent Leadership
He is being recognized for “his spirited personal commitment to bring appropriate and effective psychosocial services to victims of war trauma and natural disasters in Sri Lanka.”
RMAF president Carmencita Abella said this year's Magsaysay awardees “are indeed pathfinders in a changing Asia, charting new ways to address persistent, often intractable problems in their societies. Working in different countries on diverse issues of poverty, prejudice, politics, livelihoods, and health, these awardees nevertheless share an uncommon faith in the tremendous potential of people and social institutions.
"They share as well an indomitable will and persistence to tap into this potential and thus create greater, and lasting, good."
The eight 2008 Magsaysay awardees join 263 other laureates who have received Asia’s highest honor to date.They will be formally conferred the Magsaysay Award during the presentation ceremonies to be held on August 31 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
Established in 1957, the Ramon Magsaysay Award honors the memory and leadership of the third Philippine President and is given yearly to individuals and organizations in Asia who manifest the same selfless service that Magsaysay had.
Let us all celebrate the victory of our friend, Governor Grace. With her and our other clean politicians in government, the ship of state still has hope -- Danton
***
Isabela Gov. Grace Padaca and a Laguna-based microfinancing organization are among the eight winners of the 2008 Ramon Magsaysay Awards, Asia’s version of the Nobel Prize.
Padaca, 44, won the Magsaysay Award for Government Service for "empowering Isabela voters to reclaim their democratic right to elect leaders of their own choosing, and to contribute as full partners in their own development.”
Padaca, a former commentator on radio station Bombo Radyo in Cauyan, Isabela, toppled a political dynasty in her province after winning the gubernatorial elections in 2004 and again in 2007. During her childhood, she suffered from polio, which has forced her to walk with crutches for most of her life.
She recently teamed up with Pampanga Governor Eddie Panlilio, Naga City Mayor Jesse Robredo, and Mayor Sonia Lorenzo of San Isidro, Nueva Ecija to launch "Kaya Natin", a group that seeks to recruit principled local government officials to change the country’s deteriorating political situation.
The other winners are:
- Center for Agriculture and Rural Development Mutually Reinforcing Institutions (CARD MRI) in San Pablo, Laguna for Public Service
The group is being honored "for successful adaptation of microfinance in the Philippines, providing self-sustaining and comprehensive services for half a million poor women and their families.”
- Therdchai Jivacate from Thailand for Public Service
He is being honored for “his dedicated efforts in Thailand to provide inexpensive, practical, and comfortable artificial limbs even to the poorest amputees.”
- Prakash Amte and Mandakini Amte from India, for Community Leadership
They are being recognized for “enhancing the capacity of the Madia Gonds to adapt positively in today’s India, through healing and teaching and other compassionate interventions.”
- Ahmad Syafii Maarif from Indonesia for Peace and International Understanding
He is being honored for "guiding Muslims to embrace tolerance and pluralism as the basis for justice and harmony in Indonesia and in the world at large.”
- Akio Ishii from Japan for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts
He is being recognized for “his principled career as a publisher, placing discrimination, human rights, and other difficult subjects squarely in Japan’s public discourse."
- Ananda Galappatti from Sri Lanka for Emergent Leadership
He is being recognized for “his spirited personal commitment to bring appropriate and effective psychosocial services to victims of war trauma and natural disasters in Sri Lanka.”
RMAF president Carmencita Abella said this year's Magsaysay awardees “are indeed pathfinders in a changing Asia, charting new ways to address persistent, often intractable problems in their societies. Working in different countries on diverse issues of poverty, prejudice, politics, livelihoods, and health, these awardees nevertheless share an uncommon faith in the tremendous potential of people and social institutions.
"They share as well an indomitable will and persistence to tap into this potential and thus create greater, and lasting, good."
The eight 2008 Magsaysay awardees join 263 other laureates who have received Asia’s highest honor to date.They will be formally conferred the Magsaysay Award during the presentation ceremonies to be held on August 31 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
Established in 1957, the Ramon Magsaysay Award honors the memory and leadership of the third Philippine President and is given yearly to individuals and organizations in Asia who manifest the same selfless service that Magsaysay had.
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