Category Archive for: aktibismo

komentaryo

post-SONA blues 2: what’s in a txt (message)?

In her last SONA, the one thing that seemed like a good thing was this:

Para sa mga namamasada at namamasahe sa dyip, sinusugpo natin ang kotong at colorum upang mapataas ang kita ng mga tsuper. Si Federico Alvarez kumikita ng P200 a day sa kaniyang rutang Cubao-Rosario. Tinaas ito ng anti-kotong, anti-colorum ngayon P500 na ang kita niya. Iyan ang paraan kung paano napananatili ang dagdag-pasahe sa piso lamang. Halaga lang ng isang text.

 

Texting is a way of life. I asked the telecoms to cut the cost of messages between networks. They responded. It is now down to 50 centavos.

The first paragraph was complete with the presence of Manong Federico, in a barong, obviously uncomfortable, but who apparently had more reason to be there than elsewhere. The second was greeted with canned applause, and GMA’s wide smile.

But of course it took only a day to realize that the promise of 50 cents per txt message is an empty one.

Both Smart and Globe have been selling their own versions of “unlimited text messaging” for the longest time, where you pay a certain amount for a fixed number of txts within your network. For Smart’s Unlimitxt for example, you pay P20 for 100 txts to other Smart numbers, plus 10 free txts to other networks; Globe’s version of this is called EverybodyTXT20. These promos in fact, defeat the point of GMA’s promise.

Which as it turns out, can only be availed of if and when we pay P20 pesos to register for the 50-cents-per-txt promise. And you wonder: given the P20 pesos=100 txts promos, why would you settle for a P20 pesos for 50-cents-per-txt promo? Considering that both these options only last a certain amount of time – which, by the way, is never mentioned in these telecom companies’ advertisements, nor was it mentioned by GMA – none ofthis makes rational sense.

Malacanang’s press office itself released a statement talking about the telecom companies’ promise to continue with their “promos” – all of which require a P20-peso registration fee. Without realizing it, that press statement admitted to one thing about its boss: that she had lied through her teeth about the 50-cents-per-txt promise.

Kaya pala isang sentence lang ang inaksaya ni GMA sa pangakong ito. Mas mahaba pa ang pasakalye gamit ang kuwento ni Manong Federico.

And without knowing it, GMA, in her desperate need to make a promise – any promise! – that would deserve some amount of celebration from the ignorant and/or ill-informed, had opened up a can of worms. As TxtPower via Tonyo Cruz has pointed out, if there’s anything that these promos tell us, it’s that both Globe and Smart are overpricing their consumers with the standard rate of P1.00 per txt, and even with a false promise of 50 cents per txt. TxtPower also insists that it’s entirely possible that without interconnection charges and GMA’s beloved VAT, both of which can be removed, txt messaging could cost as low as P1.00 for 100 txt messages.

TXTPower: one point. GMA: liar with zero points.

Globe and Smart: m/tr/illions of pesos in profit.

komentaryo

post-SONA blues: LFS one point, Dep Ed zero

Other than the fashion both inside and outside the halls of Congress (which will be topic for another entry), what’s also exciting about the President’s annual SONA are the discussions that lead up to it, where once a year, media actually sort of asks the right questions (finally!). Then again, with a past SONA to diss, and a new one to compare it to, how can any show go wrong?

And so on the new TV show Harapan with Korina Sanchez and Ted Failon last Monday sat Vencer Crisostomo, secretary-general of the League of Filipino Students, and Department of Education Undersecretary Vilma Labrador, face-to-face (kasi nga harapan, hindi ba?) to talk about GMA’s presidential promises on education. Suffice it to say that in this harapan, Crisostomo had the upper hand, primarily because he was faced with a Dep Ed undersecretary who, like her boss GMA, had her way with truth. That is, she had a way of lying by not talking about the full picture of our public schools.

So Labrador says with pride in her voice and a sparkle in her eyes that the teacher to pupil ratio has consistently been kept down to 1:35 or 1:36, thanks to GMA’s administration. Barely able to contain his laughter, Crisostomo responds that this is only so because the classrooms have been cut in half — as in literally in half with makeshift walls! — so instead of 1 teacher to 70 pupils, it can truthfully be said that it’s now 1 teacher to 35 students at any given time.

He also points out that it’s the logic of having three shifts – that is, three different classes – for any given day, any teacher, and every halved classroom, that allows for the 1:35 ratio to be true. In fact Dep Ed Order No. 62, s 2004, speaks of these shifts as a way of solving the problem of classroom shortage, which at that point was at 51,947. Inthe said order, it’s even recommended that for certain public schools, they must have as many as four shifts, not three, and the maximum number of students for every classroom is set at 65. Wait, is that a whole, or a halved classroom?

But Labrador seemed surprised at Crisostomo’s response, if not flabbergasted. How could she respond? Well, with no answer at all. So she starts talking about statistics on the number of graduates in public schools, and how statistically, the numbers have been consistent. To which of course Crisostomo responds by mentioning the now higher drop out rate, which would technically allow for the number of graduates to be consistent, because you’re not counting the growing number of students who leave school because they can’t afford it.

But public schools are suppose to be free, yes? Failon asks. No, according to Crisostomo, as there are fees that students continue to be required to pay, to which Labrador says, report those schools that still have fees and the Dep Ed will take care of it. To which Crisostomo says, “hindi naman maiiwasan ‘yon.” Because really, if a school has to collect money for a bathroom that students can use, or an electric fan to ease the heat of a classroom with 70 students, who would complain?

Meanwhile, Labrador is left with nothing to say, and nothing to be proud of. Someone should’ve warned her that speaking of truths based merely on gov’t statistics, doesn’t hold in the face of someone like Crisostomo who has a real sense of what it is that actually happens on the ground, in the public schools, that half the time seems to only be a theory to the Dep Ed and GMA.

Of course it helped that Crisostomo was not your grim-and-determined scary activist. For most of Harapan, his charm was difficult to miss, informed as it was with knowing that truth was on his side – the kind that sustains organizations like his, because it is the truth that is lived by the majority who aren’t invited to speak in shows like this one.

LFS: one point. Dep Ed: zero.

komentaryo

presidential torture

of course this president is torture enough. that grimace that she seems to always have on her face. her capacity at giggling in kilig and laughing at jokes made at the expense of a nation in calamity. and we’re not even talking about her ability to say one thing and do another. and to lie through her teeth.

and then this, a perfect example of how torture is but part and parcel of GMA’s presidency. and how people still suffer for their politics – when it’s the kind that is not one of a heckler’s, or a rightist’s, or that of an America-loving-Pinoy – in the closet and otherwise.

According to the Manila Times editorial today, the NCR director for the Human Rights Commission Dr. Renato Basas has confirmed that various forms of torture have been employed by the GMA administration. And while she has also ratified the U.N. Treaty Against Torture, the editorial also says that obviously

“The unfortunate reality is that absolutely prohibiting the police, the jail managers, the military and others charged with the duty of ensuring that law and order prevail is not among the top priorities of Malacañang.”

A measure as well of GMA’s fear in the military’s power over her, thus the decision to coddle the Palparans of this world and celebrate then as fantastic officers, despite witness upon witness saying otherwise. Proving otherwise.

i caught Storyline‘s episode on the desaparecidos of the present. And while sometimes the show’s format doesn’t work (more on this next time), last night, it just did, as it allowed King Catoy to just speak to the camera, with no real sense of an interviewer. Catoy told the story of his 2003 abduction, and spoke of the activists with him who were summarily executed: human rights worker Eden Marcellana and peasant leader Eddie Gumanoy.

what struck too close to home was the fact that he and two others had identified Master Sgt. Donald Caigas as one of their abductors. Caigas would also be the one name that would surface in relation to Karen Empeno’s and Sherlyn Cadapan’s disappearance, and apparent torture and rape. the latter story was witnessed and told by the abducted farmers who would come to be known as the Manalo brothers, Raymund and Reynaldo.

it was Raymund Manalo who claimed that he saw Palparan twice during his three-month detention, before he and his brother escaped to tell their story. in one of those instances, Palparan told him to tell his parents to stop going to protest rallies.

blindfolded, hands tied behind him, and kneeling on the ground, King Catoy was also told the same thing: stop going to rallies, stop whatever it is you’re doing with these activists. stop being yourself.

and everyday, we live through the torture of knowing that many others are disappearing and dying for doing what they do, believing what they will, living a life for justice and democracy that we all should want to live. because people are stolen, are made to disappear, are tortured and raped, and are killed, not simply for their politics. in GMA’s time (as with Marcos’), they are being made to suffer for being themselves.

kultura

the rich and their notion of nation

i did say i was aching to write about Rogue Magazine‘s independence day issue, but was overtaken by the NHI’s accusations, Joey Mead’s naked body, and Argee Guevarra’s defense.

suffice it to say that it was as i expected of a high-end P180-peso english “literary lifestyle” magazine, and their notion of the “State of the Nation” — the title of the month’s issue. save for Lourd de Veyra’s literary piece on an imagined exchange between two friends, one in Dubai and another in the Philippines, there is no mention AT ALL of the crises that beset this country. (more…)

kultura

making bastos the flag

i was aching to write about the independence month issue of Rogue Magazine, for reasons farthest from what has made it controversial the past two days. the National Historical Institute’s historians have pointed a finger at the cover and called it “bastos”. and while i’m a flag-loving Pinay – I bought everything that had a philippine flag on it during the centennial celebrations, never mind that it had Ramos’ “Philippines 2000” as well – i didn’t think anything of that cover. in fact it was the reason why I even picked up the magazine and thought it was worth buying. (more…)