Category Archive for: akademya

kultura

hypocrisy, plagiarism, and four (not just three) plagiarized speeches from MVP’s speechwriters

Jessica Zafra posted this in her blog, thank goodness for her, as I had been putting it off, even when it has been in my public Facebook account since yesterday morning.

here is the list of three speeches and their sources that’s been going around, with an additional one — the first one — which hasn’t been posted before.

1. at the ateneo family congress, 2009 — MVP’s speech, original 1, original 2

2. at the opening of the new Ateneo lib, 2010 — MVP speech, original

3. post-Ondoy speech on corporate social responsibility, 2009 — MVP speech, original 1, http://www.google.com.ph/search?hl=tl&source=hp&q=These+trials+also+remind+us+that+we+are+tied+together+in+this+life,+in+this+nation+%E2%80%93+that+the+despair+of+one+touches+us+all.+&meta=&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=”>original 2, original 3

4. commencement speech in Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan, 2007 — MVP speech, original 1, original 2, original 3

why did i think twice about posting it here? i didn’t, still don’t, want it to seem like 1) i’m out to do MVP in and 2) i’m being a hypocrite here.

the hypocrisy, I’m told, comes from my own personal knowledge of how plagiarism happens all the time, in the academe in particular, maybe within the walls of the institutions that I have served as student/researcher/writer in U.P. Diliman, and teacher/writer in the AdMU. hypocrisy has to do with this: to make MVP resign, tell him at this point to leave Ateneo, is to pretend that we — the academic community — are clean.

I beg to disagree. I don’t understand why we can’t work from the big fish that’s caught and let the smaller fish freak out and come out, of their own volition, about their own intellectual dishonesties.

i do not doubt this truth: the moment MVP’s plagiarized speeches are proven to matter because the academe kicks him out despite all his money, then every other academic and scholar will be scared shitless about his or her own intellectual dishonesties. MVP himself says it:

The challenge of leadership precisely is to create an environment where honesty is paramount, where integrity emanates from the top and builds success from the ground.

i think at this point, what would be hypocritical is to deny that money is talking pretty loudly in this case of plagiarism versus MVP. and please, read these speeches, read the originals. you will find that it isn’t true that what he was reading/saying was essentially about him. some of the more emotional/personal/beautiful lines weren’t his at all.

and now for other lessons in citing your sources, Abs-cbnnews.com, when your source quotes another source, then please revert to the primary source, i.e., me. Jessica had the grace to say that her source about the MVP speeches was my public FB note. the least you could’ve done was to cite me the way she did, diba? if not find that original site where the information first appeared.

as with MVP’s plagiarized speeches, all you needed to do was Google me.

komentaryo

Why Sorry Ain’t Enough

Plagiarism is a major offense in the Ateneo de Manila University. Penalties range from disciplinary probation to suspension as outlined in your Student Handbook. Plagiarized work will receive a grade of zero.

This section was part of all the syllabi I put together when I was teaching English and literature in the Ateneo de Manila University, most recently from 2005-2008. And this is why it will be very sad if Manny V. Pangilinan’s resignation/retirement isn’t accepted by the Board of Trustees of the University. I have warned students about using other people’s words, have spent enormous amounts of energy at teaching them about proper documentation, have told them time and again that plagiarism is unacceptable, and is a crime. Rejecting MVP’s early retirement would do nothing for the cause of intellectual honesty.

MVP has done the honorable thing in writing what was in effect a resignation letter to the University President. All it takes now is for the Board of Trustees to see that while the apology was appropriate (in Fr. Nebres’ words), it cannot be enough.  Because in fact, this issue is bigger than itself.

This isn’t just about MVP pretending that he wrote his speech, or us all presuming that he had a speechwriter, or his speechwriters committing the act of plagiarism (for whatever reason including that they allegedly wanted to discredit him). This isn’t just about an Ateneo community discerning what it is that must be done here, given all notions of justice and fairness, owing to all the good things MVP has done for the school (yes, he has done plenty). This isn’t just about celebrating MVP’s admirable and manly act of taking full responsibility (it has even been called a gallant act) and owning mistakes that aren’t technically his own. This isn’t just about taking his side, and pointing a finger at his speechwriters.

Ateneo has to realize that its decision on this matter will affect every classroom from here on in within and beyond the Ateneo. It will have an effect on every student who sits in front of every teacher who spends precious time talking about intellectual honesty, and plagiarism, and the value of using one’s own words in telling one’s own stories. This is about whether or not we tolerate plagiarism as (ex-)members of the Ateneo and as part of the bigger academic community.

It is not surprising of course that the reactions haven’t been all about what’s right and wrong here. Because in mababaw-ang-kaligayahan Philippines, many are already happy with an apology. In kampihan Philippines, we demand that somebody else be reprimanded. In utang-na-loob Philippines, we will condone a mistake because we have benefited from it or from the man who admits to it.

We will focus on the fact that since MVP didn’t write the essay, he therefore didn’t plagiarize, forgetting that he was passing this off as his own speech, no speechwriters in sight. We will forget that someone like MVP should be writing his own speeches, or at least enough of it to know when the thought and sentiment of an essay aren’t his at all. We will make excuses and say he’s a busy man who still agreed to do the commencement speech for two graduation ceremonies, when in fact the right thing to do was for him to say no if he didn’t have enough time and energy to spend on writing a speech.

We will find a way to say it’s ok, you don’t have to go, even when that person has already said goodbye out of shame and embarrassment.

In fact, at this point, the kinder thing to do would be to accept MVP’s resignation and retirement. Maybe strip him of the honorary doctorate degrees, too. And know that he doesn’t have to be part of the Board of Trustees to continue to give to the University – in fact, wouldn’t that be the greatest judge of his character, if he continued to give? We know he has the capacity to do just that, tax cuts on donations to schools notwithstanding.

MVP, after all, is no small man. Which is the reason why he was able to admit to this mistake, but most importantly why we can’t just let him off the hook. Plagiarism is no small thing, and when it happens to such a big man, it becomes larger than (his) life.

It isn’t so much that we want MVP’s head on a plate. It’s the fact that if it weren’t him, that head would already be rolling. Most importantly, it’s the fact that if he gets away with this, no other head could ever be on that plate again.

kultura

Reconsidering Identity in the Aquilizan retrospective

a version of this was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Arts and Books Section, March 15 2010.

I almost balked at the sight of the U.P. Vargas Museum from afar. I was there for the retrospective exhibit of Alfredo Juan and Isabel Aquilizan, but was unprepared for the fanfare of a book launch and a grand re-opening. Once inside the museum though, I realized I would’ve regretted not seeing this retrospective in the context of precisely this moment: when the University of the Philippines administration (with no less than the President and Chancellor present) celebrates the presence of, and a book on, a politician’s contributions to the University. In the midst of the heat (closed windows, bright lights, no air conditioning), and talks of how much the politician donated for the museum’s renovation, the Aquilizans’ works seemed to be in the most perfect space, my spectatorship in the most perfect moment.

Here, in the midst of a celebration obviously spent on, within state education that has come to disenfranchised poor students, the Aquilizans’ retrospective exhibit Stock became more powerful. The opening night of the whole museum, its anti-thesis; the exhibit, a response to the party itself.

Identity and the State U

Because while the Aquilizans’ installations talk about the usual migrant concerns of keeping memory and wanting to remember, finding identity and redefining it, these works also question precisely the materialism(s) of the world, our own found need to accumulate and consume in order to find our identities, and how we limit people to identities they might not want.

This dynamic between the material and the human, the things we hold in our hands and the identities we create, is what makes this exhibit more interesting in the context of the museum. The U.P. Vargas Museum is the University’s pride, and that night it was up for show: look at us, here is the art we have, we are the best there is, we are fine.

But as the Aquilizans’ works prove, we are farthest from being fine. There is nothing stable about the identities we keep, because it can only be forced into constantly changing, redefined by our loyalties and betrayals, and what it is we disregard. It’s everything and violent, everything and sad. (more…)

kultura

2009’s Notable Cultural chevers*

As with all year-ender lists, this is necessarily full of itself, and can be accused of having a false sense of power, imagining itself to be comprehensive and truthful and correct. Unlike many of those Best of 2009! lists though, this is conscious of itself and its limitations, and is willing to be shot in the foot for missing the point entirely. Too, this isn’t really a Best Of list (haha!); this is really just a list of my top 10/11/12? spectacular (-ly negative, positive, happy, disappointing) things that did happen in our shores as far as popular, alternative, online, indie culture was concerned, as distinct from what have been termed notables of the year in books, theater, art and music. All these terms of course are highly arguable, but then again, culture is highly arguable, and is in process, as with everything that is lived. So maybe this is really just a way of reckoning with the past year, looking at what we did, where we are, what else is there to do, given the good the bad, the sad the happy, the almost-there-but-not-quite, that happened for and to culture in 2009. The hope is that we will continue to argue in the year 2010, over and above – and more importantly because of – the relationships we hold dear, the interests we treasure, and well, where we clearly stand about real and relevant change.

1. Uniting Against the Book Blockade. In the summer of 2009, poet and teacher Chingbee Cruz blogged about being taxed at the Post Office for books that she had ordered online. This would begin the fight against the taxation of imported books which, according to U.P. Law School Dean Marvic Leonen is against the law: books are tax-exempt, no ifs and buts about it. And yes, the last we heard, we are going to court on this one. (more…)

komentaryo

big bad randy

it was a joy to find Victor Agustin writing about the issue of U.P. Prof. Sarah Raymundo’s tenure vis a vis Randy David’s announcement that he would run for congress if GMA does so in Pampanga. this was long in coming for mainstream, i.e., print media, and has yet to happen on the pages of the big-time dailies like the “http://www.inquirer.net”>Philippine Daily Inquirer.

but i guess that’s no surprise? other than Randy being a long-time opinion columnist of the Inquirer, it is telling how the blogging world was all agog and celebratory when he announced his plans to run: idolatry much? the philosopher as king, they screamed! yey, the good one gives politics a try! let’s help him out! and yes, let us slap people who criticize randy!

much of what needs to be said with regards to Sarah’s case and Randy’s political plans has been discussed via stuartsantiago and kapirasongkritika. and while the virtual noise has died down — no one has taken on my challenge to prove Sarah culpable in any student-activist disappearance, nor have Randy’s fans been able to prove that he isn’t responsible at all for the refusal to grant Sarah tenure — some truths remain clear here.

somewhere in quezon city, in a tiny apartment, a woman who has proven herself a competent and well-loved teacher and scholar is technically jobless — without courses to teach — because her own Sociology Department has unjustly refused to give her tenure.

this woman is activist. the kind who lives her politics everyday, within and beyond the classroom, the way all teachers do. her difference is that her politics has been deemed unacceptable by the same Sociology Department — and University! — within which she grew and became, within which she had nurtured her love for nation and nationalism.

this woman is daughter, sister, breadwinner. now left without the one house and home she always thought the Sociology Department was, without the friendships she had nurtured there, without the stability she thought it could afford her.

this woman is friend. someone i grew up with, who affected my formative years in the University we both love, and whose life — yes, political and activist and kikay and baduy in turns — has taught me more than any of those theorists we read in school. more than someone like randy david could ever teach me through his writings.

the dignity with which Sarah lives her life — her refusal to sell-out, her ability to stand strong on principles that are important to and true of nation — over and above her competence as a teacher and her intelligence as a scholar, is what the current crop of UP students are missing out on.

THAT is the saddest truth of all.

and that is also enough reason to keep this fight going against the big bad wolves of this world. be it GMA or be it Randy David and his Sociology Department.