Category Archive for: bayan

komentaryo

a resigned Ressa, a resigned us

why ABS-CBN? why would any network, in fact, let Maria Ressa go? it barely makes sense, if we know of her and her news and current affairs management and the ways she’s changed the news as we see it. and no, I don’t buy that whole refusal-to-renew-the-contract story, because really you can beg/ plead/ grovel to keep someone on your side,  especially when they’ve done so well, have outdone too many, in fact.

and this Maria has done for ABSCBN, allowing for ANC on Channel 27 to be the one and only reason we are still on Lopez-owned HomeCable even when they continue to provide horrible service especially since they forced subscribers to shift to the digiboxes. her management has single-handedly raised the bar for current affairs shows allowing for something as creative as Storyline to be on air, and bringing back the talk show that ain’t showbiz. of course all these have been on ANC, a cable news channel, but  at least for those of us who can afford cable, there’s a better alternative to news that happens so late in the evening because of the stretch of soap operas (beginning at 7PM and ending at 11:30PM).

and if you don’t agree with any of these, or just don’t have ANC (good for you for refusing the cultural empire of the Lopezes), then at least under Maria’s leadership, local channels have again started to do live broadcasts of senate hearings and such, because ANC was doing it.

this is not to agree with Maria’s management decisions all the time, nor is it to absolve ABSCBN (or any other network for that matter) from responsibility in the Manila hostage tragedy. in fact, I didn’t like that her Wall Street Journal article appeared so soon after the tragedy, adding salt to the wound, if not cutting deeper into it.

BUT I appreciate Maria’s chutzpah, her daring, even when faced with the probability of a collective disgust, or just a critical reader. I remember on Twitter soon after the hostage tragedy, her timeline was riddled with angry followers asking her in so many words what was she thinking!?! I thought Maria handled it with much grace and control, responding when she needed to, when it was a new question that she had yet to answer, and ignoring the redundant and the rhetorically angry.

this also isn’t to say that this was all good, or that we agreed all the time with the way the news was delivered/chosen/spun by ABS-CBN under Maria’s watch. this is to say that in truth there were such real and palpable and concrete changes in news and current affairs, and in which case, there were also better conversations about politics, and more creative documentaries about this country.

of course there’s still i-witness on GMA 7 which is still the best local docu-show I continue to see, and there still is Cheche Lazaro Presents on ABSCBN, whose Vizconde Massacre feature last night was just wonderfully done. but really, where else would Storyline see the light of day, or Strictly Politics, or Media in Focus? this doesn’t mean that we don’t complain about these shows, or that they are always without fault, or are always intelligently done. but this is to say that these are wonderful testaments to what can still happen for local news and current affairs, that we need not be stuck on CNN and BBC for better versions of the local.

in fact, under Maria’s watch, I remembered how I grew up with Randy David and Louie Beltran having their regular political and public affairs shows. yes, this was the time of public affairs versus current affairs, the time when relevance was still most important, versus just being news worthy. but that would be stuff for another blog entry.

here and now the question remains: but why? why let Maria Ressa go, what’s the real score here? though maybe we should be happy enough with, uh, tsismis being infinitely more interesting, even when – or maybe precisely because – it’s in relation to news and current affairs.

and as far as ABSCBN’s concerned?  I don’t think they fool anyone anymore given that the network’s the flagship of a Lopez empire. If anything, it has also become obvious that while they demand that politicians and government be transparent, they can only be farthest from being so themselves. now, in light of their maltreatment of workers finally becoming newsworthy, well, it’s easy to see how Maria’s notions of fairness and justice might not have worked in her favor after all.

so maybe she didn’t resign as damage control would like to point out, but this does feel like resignation, in the i-concede-my-hands-are-up kind of way. and Maria may deny it, but the rest of us can’t: the times when someone like her decides that it’s time to let go, it’s those times that we are forced to concede to the way things are or will inevitably become.

and for some reason, i have a sinking feeling that Maria’s leaving will mean having Kris Aquino back on TV, in what i imagine will be that past-publicized current affairs show. sana ‘wag na lang.

komentaryo

dear P-Noy, on Teachers Day 2010

which has just passed, this day that should be more momentous than most because you yourself spoke of your own teachers at this speech you delivered to commemorate it two days ago. there is no person who was not affected by a teacher in a good way, and that teacher need not be in the classroom.

in the ideal world though, in a world where education is all important in a real sort of way, that teacher would be in the classroom, inspiring students to become teachers too, if not become productive/honest/compassionate citizens of nation. but that is an ideal, and this is not the most ideal of situations we’re in as you yourself say.

but maybe we must start with agreeing on this: if we value education and learning, we must first and foremost value our teachers, and yes, even more so public school teachers. no government has done so in the longest time. no government has cared truthfully and sincerely enough.

why? because it isn’t an easy task to value teachers. because this isn’t about spending on infrastructure and giving students textbooks. to value teachers is to hear them out, to hear them out is to know that their lives within the halls of the public school system are really and truly the most horrid for any teacher across the world. the answer to the question of “why?” is so simple that i will, instead, take you up on all the things you said you are doing for teachers’ benefit and welfare.

(1) you said you were going to build infrastructure where it is needed, and yes it is needed as pictures of overfilled public school classrooms must be floating in your head, as we know of how 60 students fill up classrooms across this country.

BUT. won’t dividing this 60-student classroom just mean having the same teacher running across two rooms, repeating the same lesson? and then imagine doing that in those uniforms with horrible thick and hot tela, and the required heeled shoes, and tadah! a teacher who suffers because there are now more classrooms, but still the same number of teachers.

2) in aid of de-congesting our public schools, you say that there’s now the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education or GASTPE, which is suppose to “make our private school system better so that it can be a viable alternative for parents who want to put their kids to school.”

I translated this section of your speech from Filipino with a smirk. because you don’t need to change anything in the private school system: you need to talk to them owners of private schools to bring down their tuition fees. because in fact, parents who used to be able to afford private schools have been bringing their kids to public schools. the private school tuition fees have killed the middle class families, believe you me. so to think that you can use the private school to decongest the public school? HAH!

3) you say that to help teachers “develop their skills” you are for the National Competency-Based Teacher Standards or NCBTS which will give teachers a whole new set of rules to follow, and some guidelines on which they will be tested, through which they will learn the new ways of teaching.

my question is this: have you seen the NCBTS? the only way it will be used properly and effectively is if all public school teachers are made to go on leave for a full year, un-learning what they’ve practiced all these years, and learning these new ways of teaching and learning. give them a year off with pay, where they will learn to teach again using the NCBTS, during which they can go through real seminars for their areas of specialization, and for English skills as well. have the peace corps teach our public schools for a bit, get volunteers from the private school system (where teachers are paid infinitely better). or sige, compromise tayo: give public school teachers time off with pay, even if just twice a week, thrice if you include saturdays, and have them go through seminars for all the changes you want for a full year or two. it’s only though something like this that this NCBTS plan of yours will be fruitful.

otherwise, it will just be something that will be used by the tenured/regular faculty members in public schools to threaten the job security of the younger/contractual/casual faculty members. and just so you know, as a perfect example of how the NCBTS will just be another test that will not be a measure of teachers’ competencies, check out the fantastic grammar on this site that talks precisely about NCBTS.

your government has said that the “wrong identification of the problem leads to the wrong solution.” well, this is exactly what ails your decisions with regard to education in this country, no matter the kindness of Bro. Luistro’s heart.

you think our problem is the lack of two years in our curriculum: the real problem is that the current curriculum for 10 years isn’t being taught well and doesn’t have corresponding relevant/correct/ critical textbooks for the times. you think our problem is too much homework for kids: the real problem is that this homework is nothing but a reflection of the kind of (non-)teaching that goes on in most public schools, where copying off the board and memorizing without understanding is the point. you think our problem is that our teachers are incompetent: the bigger problem is that they aren’t given enough respect and value to be wanting to teach better and learn more in the process.

the bigger problem is that competent contractual faculty members are at the mercy of the tenured regularized faculty members in the public schools. and while this is not to generalize, you need to have a sense of this struggle, and with whom the change can lie: the teachers who are still excited about teaching are DepEd’s and CHED’s allies.

but protect them. protect our teachers. allow them an amount of job security even when they’ve only been teaching in for a year. don’t treat the academe like a government office where regularization takes forever: teaching is a highly skilled job. telling teachers they need years to gain tenure is to say that they’re nothing but workers. kill off that bundy clock: it’s the worst kind of oppression for teachers who work overtime every day, planning lessons and checking papers outside the classroom, researching and studying on their own outside of school. to require teachers to stay in school beyond their class time is only fair if the schools are equipped with the things that make studying and checking and planning lessons easy: an internet connection, a good school and teachers’ library, desks and tables for studying and writing versus desks that are attached to each other, assembly line style.

protect the teachers, P-Noy, by taking steps to pay them what’s due them from the GSIS and the SSS, where teachers are treated horribly, from which I personally got my benefits a full 22 months after I needed it. protect the teachers, P-Noy by paying them better when you require them to serve during elections.

and quite simply P-Noy, protect teachers by giving them a salary increase. and just in case you think they don’t deserve it, here’s the truth.

when I taught in a public school last year (SY 2009-2010) I was forced to bundy in for six hours a day, regardless of my hours in the classroom. six hours times 10 days (which is half the month that I’m required to be in school) equals 60 hours for the 7,000 pesos or so that I would get on the 15th and 30th of every month. subtract the amounts taken by Pag-Ibig and GSIS and PhilHealth (all of which I have yet to receive IDs for), and that goes down to about P6,500. that means I would get P108 pesos per hour.

yes you read that right: that’s P108.00 pesos per hour. sakto lang sa pamasahe at pagkain. kulang pa para sa pentel pen, manila paper at white board marker na ako pa ang bumibili dahil ang haba ng pila sa paghingi sa school.

if you want to value your teachers, P-Noy, start by telling your Congress to sign House Bill 2142 or the “Public School Teachers’ Salary Upgrade Act” which only has 48 signatures out of 277 house representatives. if you want to value your teachers P-Noy, do so by treating them a little better than you would your regular employee. you are telling your teacher that the future is in their hands, that you want them to mold minds and change this country’s children’s perspectives about the world. this is an infinitely bigger responsibility than that which falls on the shoulders of too many — if not most — government officials.

the public school teacher’s life is really quite difficult enough. it would do your government well to see that everything you’ve wanted to do thus far will not mean any concrete or tangible change in the educational system, and is only going to make things worse.

and yes, P-Noy, if you’re a teacher like me, who’s taught within the tragedies and travesties of the public school’s space(s), you would know that making things worse is the easiest thing to do.

kultura

the revolution cannot be staged

I had high hopes for Banaag at Sikat, The Rock Opera, a promise of good music and singing, a contemporary retelling of Lope K. Santos’ original novel on the winds of change that would bring the country to revolt against the overwhelming conditions that capitalism and feudalism wrought on the nation. But as it began with fake guitar playing between friends Delfin (Al Gatmaitan) and Felipe (Roeder Camañag), attached to what then becomes a fake amplifier, and with dancing from a chorus many of whom seemed uncomfortable doing the robot and dancing hiphop, I had to wonder if this musicale meant to be funny.

Love and revolution, not necessarily together
Because it didn’t stop, not the fake guitar-playing, not the requisite head bang. The beautiful love song between Delfin and Meni (Ayen Munji-Laurel) could only lose its tenderness with Delfin fake-playing the song. In this First Act, the beginnings of love are introduced to us at the same time as the characters, all of whom are perfect stereotypes that exist in an oppressive feudal society. Cigar factory El Progreso is owned by Meni’s father Don Ramon Miranda and Don Filemon, both unforgiving and unapologetic capitalists, who refuse to raise the wages of their workers who are ready to revolt. Nyora Loleng is wife of Don Filemon but is mistress to Don Miranda, a seeming pawn to macho control more than a powerful woman.

the rest is up at gmanews.tv!

komentaryo

month three of P-Noy: notes of a pinay*

and so it must be said, that September might have been the best month ever for P-Noy, at least compared to those first two months where things just weren’t going his way, or his way just seemed to be going wrong.

the past month, P-Noy conveniently left the country for a visit to the US at around the same time that the Incident Investigating and Review Committee (IIRC) submitted its report on the August 23 hostage tragedy to Malacanang. in the midst of questions on the report — on the fact that it was sent to China before it was revealed to us, on the fact that what we finally saw lacked the section on the IIRC’s recommendations — P-Noy left, with a 57-person delegation to go to the US and address a United Nations delegation.

and as they celebrated the 25 MILLION PESOS to be spent on that trip, it became clear that we were really just hungover from GMA and the kind of spending she did, that we are out to just draw these comparisons, forgetting that 25 MILLION PESOS is a fluggin’ huge amount for any trip. this amount, given the number of travel companions of P-Noy (which apparently includes his barber, baka nga naman humaba ang hair niya, baket ba), could be bigger than that of the Queen of England‘s (oh but maybe sister Kris would be proud?).

but let’s forget about that amount, why don’t we? after all, what should matter is that he has done well, he has done us proud. he delivered a speech at the UN General Assembly, where he promised justice and the fulfillment of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, where he enjoined the world to come up with its own people power (naks) towards balancing inequality and finding unity (naks ulit).

never mind that injustices continue in the country, ones that for some reason P-Noy doesn’t want to handle differently from his predecessor: there are the extrajudicial killings and the forced disappearances of activists, there remain political prisoners including the Morong 43.  maybe P-Noy needs to be reminded that the UN itself had sent Special Rapporteur Philip Alston to the country in 2007, and he promptly “convincingly attributed” these injustices to the armed forces. now i imagine that the P-Noy government thinks (1) that those armed forces aren’t his, which therefore absolves him of responsibility, and (2) that he has delegated this to CHR Head Etta Rosales who will promptly act on this.

if the former is true, then P-Noy has every reason to Free All Political Prisoners, yes? if the latter is true, then P-Noy has every reason to Free All Political Prisoners, yes.

but there’s more to that US trip than just that UN speech. P-Noy also brought home the bacon, the ham, some eggs to boot, all of which are extensions of or improvements on previous agreements with transnational American companies, none of which mean being freed from our foreign debt, something that was offered to Cory during her time, something that i wish P-Noy would ask for now, because i have to believe that it’s possible to repeal all debt.

more than anything else, versus how this US trip might have “saved” the Philippines in whatever way (including meeting Obama, naks, one more time!), the fact is that it was P-Noy who was saved by this trip from what was going on in Manila while he was away.

there was the question of jueteng, the ensuing debate, the truth that what’s needed is a creative alternative to it, versus its abolition which is downright impossible. make the government alternatives better than the illegal jueteng, and it will kill the latter. send me an email if you want a copy of this proposal, which really is premised on good ol’ common sense and a whole lot of living in a province where jueteng lords it over.

there was the attempted demolition of a squatter community in North Edsa QC, in favor of the Ayalas who are going to build (another!) mall on what was government property. now i don’t know about P-Noy, but conversations must be had with people from squatters’ communities because only then will he find that (1) they are squatters in Manila because they are victims of land grabbing and its contingent devaluation of rural livelihood in the provinces to big landowners (like the Cojuangcos) and developers (like the Ayalas); and (2) some of these individuals and households put out money to have the right to this space: there’s always money exchanged between squatters/vendors and local government officials and police. this is all under the table of course, and more than anything explains why Pinoys who live in squatters areas think they have a right to the space. the province-to-city migration meanwhile tells us what the government needs to develop for the squatter problem to be solved. (and pray tell, anti-squatter people, how it is productive that you are nothing but anti-squatter people who are ready to pounce on these people?)

ah, all these P-Noy left behind for his OICs to handle or mishandle. when he finally came home, he did so with a bang by saying that he was now for a birth control and family planning policy, which does tie in — though not completely — with the Reproductive Health Bill.

i can only cross all my fingers and toes that P-Noy doesn’t back down in the face of this Pinoy Church. that he doesn’t back down in the face of the devout Catholics in his life, which include his sisters.

that he doesn’t fear excommunication, reprimand, the loss of the Pinoy Church’s support. because in fact it’s about time that we see the separation of Church and State in this country. because only then will women cease to be sacrificial lambs to notion(s) of morality and correctness, the ones that maims and kills them every day.

come on P-Noy, you can do it!

*because the Aquino sisters are already counting down the months to their brother’s and family’s freedom from us all, seeing us as the burden in their lives as if their brother didn’t choose to run for office and didn’t want to win.

kultura

relevant RockEd culture: notes on contemporary Pinoy rakenrol

The noise is overwhelming. SaGuijo isn’t made for long conversations with friends, not even when you’re all outside sitting at the farthest table from the entrance, having drinks and cigarettes. The truth is you’ve been here since dinnertime when it was empty and bright. You almost forgot it was the place of noise and crowds and youth, the one you hadn’t gone to in a while.

It had been a long day and, both emotionally and literally, food was what you needed. You also wanted to get eating out of the way while it was quiet enough to have a meal. The bagoong rice, salpicao and tokwa’t baboy, and ice-cold San Mig Lite seemed about right. Except that it was already noisy in your head, the kind of noise that apparently can’t be erased by a filled stomach. You came from the Maximum Security Compound of Bilibid Prisons in Muntinlupa, and after two years met an old friend—one who’s been there for almost a decade, the one for whom freedom is such a remote possibility, you cannot even see it.

The NGO Rock Ed was reason for that visit to Bilibid. Every Wednesday of every week, a bunch of prisoners expect Gang Badoy to arrive and teach them some creative writing.

the rest is up at pulse.ph!