Category Archive for: edukasyon

komentaryo

explaining Kristel away

as i continue to wrap my head around the aftermath of Kristel’s death, as one grapples with what ultimately is an injustice, one is also forced to respond to the most insensitive comments cloaked in notions of being “more objective” or being “scientifically, medically correct.”

and while we mourn, we are also fuelled to fight. and as many others are out on the streets, are boycotting their classes, i fight the best way i know how: with words.

at a time when social media Pilipinas is revealing its elitism, its utter lack of sensitivity, its denial of the real conditions of poverty that a majority in this nation suffer, i will fight word for word. word for fucking word.  (more…)

komentaryo

black monday: mourn the StateU

because as i try to wrap my head around this, the more urgent task has been to respond to what to me are the more unthinking and insensitive assertions about Kristel Tejada’s suicide, in relation to her unpaid tuition fees at the University of the Philippines Manila.

and because if there’s anything that is even sadder here, it’s that those who assert that this is no political issue, are those who fail to see that their mere articulation of such is the most useful assertion that this government can use in their political favor. yup, y’all are on the matuwid na daan. it’s got elitism and bourgeois ideology written all over it. you’ve also got blood on your hands.

via pixel offensive.
via pixel offensive.

(more…)

komentaryo

on #noynoying & Rocamora’s failed response

if there’s anything that #noynoying must take credit for, it is more than just that it has trended and landed in international media sites. the activist youth sector — and when i say that i mean Anakbayan — must take credit too for the fact that #noynoying has annoyed the likes of Joel Rocamora enough to speak out against it.

and boy, does he speak out. and does he draw those lines like no one else has done. and boy does he reveal so much more about his kind of activism even as he imagines that what he did was discredit completely the ideological political line upon which Anakbayan and #noynoying stand.

this is the only explanation for Rocamora invoking the concept of the RA (reaffirmist) activists in his essay for rappler.com. here he was drawing a line, one that he must have thought was important to make, yet other than that title he lets it slide and nowhere in the essay does he explain what it means. then he ends with the national democrats as the bane of development as he and PNoy believe it to be.

now i will not pretend that i am equipped to discuss the RA-Rejectionist dichotomy and division at length, but it doesn’t take a genius to see that Rocamora, as does Llamas, are wanting to make a distinction between themselves and the RA activist. and while it would be exciting to find out how they identify themselves as separate from the national democrat, it seems the better question is: what have they done as non-RA activists, as non-national democrats?

alas Rocamora doesn’t quite tell us that in his defense of PNoy — which is really all that his rappler piece was. there Rocamora spoke like he’s with the President day-in day-out, he spoke with all credibility about how the president is no lazy man, about how he is hardworking and diligent behind the scenes (woohoo!). yet it seems that because Rocamora was so ready to point a finger at the kind of activism that has brought about #noynoying, he failed at properly responding to it, too.

the proper response being about oil price hikes and tuition fee increases. the proper response being one that’s about the question of what it is the PNoy government is doing about either of these two things, other than having a Dept of Energy that says it is beyond their control, and a Commission on Higher Education (CHED) that calls on schools to be “prudent” in hiking up its tuition fees. probably the better response, seeing as the PNoy government’s tendency is to think that the answer “we can’t do anything about it” is a valid one, is for Rocamora’s kind of activist to respond to the question of why.

why are they not up in arms about the fact that instead of actually truly thinking about the majority who suffer with these oil price hikes, this PNoy government has celebrated its ability at putting together short-term dole-out programs like the Pantawid Pasada program? why are they not up in arms about the growing number of children who will not have access to education because their parents will have no money for it?

why are Rocamora and his kind of activist not insisting that the CHED memorandum that includes miscellaneous fees in consultations for tuition fee increases be honored this year instead of next year, when the only reason it has yet to be honored is because it missed its February 28 deadline? what can they say about CHED statistics that say that for every 10 students who graduate from high school only 2 will go on to college, and for every 10 students in college only 2 will graduate?

where does Rocamora stand on the issue of the value added tax on oil, which presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte has said is not anti-poor, yet it is 12% of what we pay for all petroleum products? where does Rocamora stand on the fact that since the Oil Deregulation Law of 1999, we have been treated to about P15 pesos overpricing on all petroleum products? what does Rocamora have to say about the IBON Facts and Figures claim that 58% of total revenues from VAT go to debt servicing and not to social services as Malacanang claims? or the fact that a Dept of Finance official has said Malacanang is about to get a whooping 4-billion-peso windfall from VAT within March? what do the good non-natdem activists have to say about this:

Initial estimates of IBON indicate that the oil firms have been charging an additional 20-22% more for diesel, for instance, than is called for by the increases in the price of Dubai crude. Meanwhile, Shell, Chevron and Petron have reported net income of at least Php152 billion over the period 2001-2010. The government is also benefiting from high oil prices, collecting Php239.6 billion in oil VAT revenues in the last five years, or an average of some Php48 billion per year.

certainly we all knew that #noynoying was not so much about what PNoy is like behind the scenes; #noynoying was always — and is — about how PNoy has responded to the issues of these times, the ones that we feel in the pits of our stomachs because prices are at an unprecedented high, and confidence in our capacity to avail of basic services is at an unprecedented low. #noynoying is about PNoy saying the most absurd thing on this side of oil price hike earth:

“There is an economic reality that if something becomes cheaper, normally, there will be more consumption of it—universal po ‘yan,” Aquino told reporters Sunday night in Baguio City.

“Kunwari ‘pag tumataas ‘yung presyo ng fuel, syempre magtitipid ka, gagamitin mo lang ‘yung kailangan mo. So ‘yung kailangan natin angkatin is ‘yung dapat lang na na kino-konsumo natin,” he added.

ano daw? so as more and more Filipinos cease to have the capacity to afford three square meals a day, we shall imagine it all good because they can live off just one meal, and that is the right amount they must consume? so we do not want to control the price of oil because it is teaching us to consume only what we need? PNoy seems to think that the Filipino has lived excessively and in over consumption, which is a horrid misreading of the situation that the majority in this country is in.

which brings us back to the non-natdem activist that is Rocamora, who takes pride in his position in government (wow!), highlighting it as the success of the “left” as they see it. what do they have to say about these assessments of PNoy’s, about these small but brilliant pieces of insight that give us a sense of where he really and truly stands about the dire situation the country is in? certainly the non-natdem activist has a better response than just throwing out the term RA without explaining what it means. certainly they must have more up their sleeve than just pointing at how the numbers here are a lie. certainly the answer must be about real concrete measures like, oh i don’t know, letting go of that 12% vat on oil? certainly they should know to go beyond the false rhetoric of development via stock exchange numbers that PNoy likes to revel in?

meanwhile it has to be said that if anything, Rocamora’s defense of PNoy revealed that while he is so into discrediting the activists who are out on the streets and gathering signatures and easily getting support for #noynoying beyond the online world, Rocamora and his non-natdem friends are still dependent on the idea that they remain leftist, that they are progressive, that they are the ones making the important changes from within. so you’re non-natdem, non-RA, but you remain relevant even as you do not take a stand on oil price hikes and tuition fee increases? oh right, you have to believe the rhetoric of your president. got it.

Rocamora says in that rappler piece that the national democrats “see reforms as obstacles to the realization of their illusory revolution.” it sure looks like it’s Rocamora who’s living quite happily in the bubble of PNoy’s illusory reformist government.

at least Gilda Cordero-Fernando admits that all she’s written in response to #noynoying is a rah-rah piece.

#noynoying
#noynoying

mula rito ang imahe.

komentaryo

on (the) line: credibility, the academe, journalism

truth to tell i didn’t care much about this “expose” of Marites Danguilan Vitug because it was a non-Corona non-issue to me. non-Corona, because exposing the lack of a dissertation, the number of years he took to finish the phd, his ineligibility for the honors he was given, point to the fact that this was always a UST issue. the basic question being: why make corona an exemption to university rules?

and i didn’t care for that question because i knew without a doubt that Corona’s phd could easily fall under the purvey of academic freedom and autonomy (as the UST statement has said) — within which of course patronage politics and favoritism and everything horrid you can imagine actually exist. that this was UST’s prerogative is truth. this doesn’t make this an easier truth to swallow.

but maybe we should swallow our egos and admit that as with every other institution in this country, the academe is not one that we must comfortably equate with “academic rigor” or “quality and calibre.” if you are realistic about the academe here, and truthful even to yourself if you’re a member of it, then you’d know that patronage and politics are the invisible hands that put and keep people in power there, and in fact this can get you everything from the good raket outside of the academe to the positions of power within it, or just an easier time at an MA and/or a PhD. what we should be looking at in fact, is output: how many of our degree holders are actually relevant to nation? how many of those dissertations will hold up to scrutiny?

and what did the UST faculty and panel think of corona’s scholarly treatise in place of the dissertation? baka naman brilliant at hindi lang natin alam. for all we know he deserved that phd, because too, UST touches on something crucial to the discourse of the university in this country. UST says that they

can grant academic degrees to individuals “whose relevant work experiences, professional achievements and stature, as well as high-level, nonformal and informal training are deemed equivalent to the academic requirements for such degrees.”

i haven’t heard of this kind of freedom from and within the two universities i’ve been part of as student and teacher. ang galing that UST can award Naty Crame Rogers a doctorate degree because certainly she and many other literary and cultural stalwarts deserve it. not that they need a phd to be productive, but truth to tell Corona didn’t need this either: a phd is not even a requirement for becoming supreme court justice. go figure.  

but Vitug insists questions are still unanswered:

“What UST is saying is that they can flout their own rules because they’re an ‘autonomous’ institution,” says Vitug. 

well, yes. wouldn’t any independent private institution defend itself based on those grounds?

“There is no quarrel with academic freedom. UST should be clear with its rules and state in what instances do they give exemptions. In the case of cj [Chief Justice Renato Corona], a lecture was enough (instead of a dissertation) and the 5-year residency requirement, to qualify for honors, was disregarded,” Vitug also says.

well, yes. and i say, if you demand that UST be clear about the rules it bends, then i demand it of all universities in the country. accountability for all (count the number of faculty members who will be given tenure if we were to be transparent about these rules!). which is still to say this: even the bending of rules based on whether a person deserves something, is totally within the university’s prerogative. again, non-corona, non-issue.

if i were the one who had blogged about this, i would’ve already backtracked and told my readers i had barked up the wrong corona tree, and missed the university prerogative point. but that’s me. and i’m no journalist.

which is really what this has become about, yes? beyond corona, it has become about that UST statement which raises questions about credibility and online journalism, ones that on Twitter and Facebook it seems people would rather dismiss as the questions of the ignorant. ah, but Shakespeare always said ignorance is bliss.

and it is with bliss that UST in fact dismisses Vitug as journalist, because they ask:

“Does <sic> anyone claiming to be an online journalist given the same attention as one coming from the mainstream press?” the statement said. “We understand that while Miss Vitug used to be a print journalist, she’s part of an online magazine, Newsbreak, which has reportedly been subsumed into ‘www.rappler.com.’ What’s that?

i’m sorry, but this was funny to me both on the level of UST’s dismissal but also on the level of  its utter refusal to acknowledge Vitug as a credible figure, period. because for UST where she writes is of utmost importance as they go on to ask:

“Is that a legitimate news organization? What individuals and entities fund Newsbreak and Rappler? Do these outfits have editors? Who challenged Miss Vitug’s article before it went online so as to establish its accuracy, objectivity and fairness? Why was there no prior disclosure made? What gate-keeping measures does online journalism practice?”

these are valid questions to ask, aren’t they? and certainly those behind Rappler cannot claim credibility — or demand we give them that — on the basis of who’s behind it and their years of experience. because if there’s anything we know about writing online, it’s that no matter your history of writing (Angela’s got a CV that will put into question countless credibilities online and beyond, excuse me), you’re only as good as that last piece, your mistakes are for the world to see, your ability at humility and apology crucial.

in this sense it is important that Rappler respond to these questions properly and accordingly, and not brush it off by invoking Vitug’s years as journalist or by saying that they are ” journalists <who> have worked for global news organizations and top Filipino news groups.” certainly if they take pride in being “online journalists” who “promise uncompromised journalism that inspires smart conversations and ignites a thirst for change” they must begin by answering questions on legitimacy and credibility, banking as they do on the names that are on their roster.

of course this will mean drawing lines between online journalism and non-journalism, news reporting and opinion, blogging and tumblelogging and tweeting, but this is a discussion worth having, now better than later, if only because that UST statement is a challenge to make those definitions clear.

if only because given such unquestioning love for the Vitugs and Ressas of this world, we now see revealed the bubble of friendship and camaraderie and mutual-admiration that uncritically exists online.

maybe we all only hate UST for daring to pop that bubble and reveal us for what we are: no better than the mainstream.

komentaryo

Luisa Mallari-Hall, teacher

in April 2000, Prof. Luisa Mallari-Hall died in a plane crash, along with her husband and two children. she was a wonderful woman/teacher/friend/human being whose teaching continues to resonate with me, 15 years since she was first my teacher in 1996. these two essays were written soon after she died, the first one for a SEA newsletter, the second one i read at the tribute put together by the DECL in U.P.

in 2010, i give birth and lose a child. i named her Luisa.

1
Homage to Luisa

It is said that teaching is the most important profession of all – doctor or lawyer, engineer or businessman, even the teacher, is shaped by teachers. But teaching, beyond being a profession is also, ultimately, about being an example to those one teaches. Whether in a private catholic school or a liberal state university, teachers are inevitably icons of the subjects they teach and the institutions they serve. They are, whether they like it or not, models against which students will measure themselves.

This makes teaching a taller order than one thinks. For one does not only need to have the knowledge to impart and the ability to get this across, a teacher also needs to live what he or she teaches. The classroom is only a venue for teaching. Outside the classroom, teachers are testament to what they teach. A teacher who does not practice what he or she preaches debunks the very things he or she says are important inside the classroom. This to me is the line drawn between professional teachers and real teachers. The former teach for a living, the latter live what they teach.

Prof. Luisa Mallari-Hall was the epitome of the latter. More important than what I learned from her inside the classroom was what I learned from her outside. Unlike any of the other teachers in U.P.’s Department of English and Comparative Literature, Ma’am Mallari decided to learn Bahasa-Malay instead of French, German, or some other Western language. And she didn’t learn it out of a need to – that would have only meant taking the 12 units the University could offer her of a foreign language – she learned it because she wanted to. Because it would only be through learning the language that she would live up to her own standards of comparing literatures in Asia. That is, comparative literature not in translation, but in the original. Because, as she would always tell me, there is just no other right way of doing it.

And really, no other way of studying Asian literature and culture. While it is true that the English literatures in Asia are a valid area of study, to celebrate these literatures invariably leads to the marginalization of cultural texts in the Asian national languages, at the same time that it encourages the study of Asian texts in translation. For why waste time and energy in studying another language, when there is English to fall back on? Ma’am Mallari, by choosing to study Bahasa-Malay, taught me that beyond expertise in a certain area of study is the more important question of relevance. What is gained for Asia by the study of the literatures in English it has produced? What, other than the possibility of winning international writing contests and getting published in the West? What, other than removing oneself from the region you are part of by focusing and using a language that continues to be spoken by a few in it? Further, to study Asian literature in translation is to do an injustice to the original texts and to scholarship on Asia in general. While admittedly, we Asians come together through and with the use of the English language, Ma’am Mallari’s choice of Bahasa-Malay tells us that the use of English should only be a phase in the kind of scholarship we should be doing on Asia. To rely on what is written in and translated into English of Asian literature is, ultimately, to take the easy way out in our study of Asian culture. It is settling for second best.

Ma’am Mallari didn’t settle, and she taught me not to, regardless of the probability of marginalization or marked difference. In this country, to seriously take Asia as an area of study (i.e., to study Asia in an Asian national language) is a liability – for how would one get grants from the U.S. or Europe if one is studying a region that is not considered important? A region that doesn’t see itself as such, the countries within it being so diversified by colonization that they find more affinity with the West than with the East that they are part of? And why would one get a European or American grant, when one insists on writing in a foreign Asian language? Ma’am Mallari’s answer was that one does not get those grants – one does not need them. She took pride in not having traveled outside of Asia other than to her husband’s Australia. She was even more proud that she did not find the need to go, nor dreamt of ever going, beyond Asia. When she made the choice to study Bahasa-Malay, she did so because she felt that it was the only way she could do justice to the literature of Malaysia and, in effect, to scholarship on Asia. That this would limit her to the region, even to Southeast Asia only, meant nil to her.

This, however, meant more to me than she ever knew. For she did not only teach me not to settle for second best in any endeavor, she also taught me not to settle for anything less than what is due me – both as a Filipino and as an Asian. And she showed me that what is due me is only about as much as I am willing to give of myself to this country and to Asia. In the end, Ma’am Mallari did not only personify the kind of comparativist she wanted to be, but also proved herself to be the rarest of Asian scholars, particularly in the land of neo-colonial Philippines. To me, she proved to be the rarest ever of real teachers, who lived to teach, and who lived what she taught.

Before Ma’am Mallari died, she was happy and high from a recent trip to Malaysia that she thought was to be a standard affair on Asian culture but turned out to be a surprise tribute to her. She was the guest of honor, with a streamer welcoming her and her picture in the program (if she had known, she would have sent a nicer picture daw). Her dissertation, written in Bahasa-Malay, was also posthumously published by her university in Malaysia – a moment she had been looking forward to, and an achievement that we should all be proud of, unparalleled as it is by any other scholar in this country.

We encounter too many teachers in our lifetimes, but few become our teachers for life. Prof. Luisa Mallari-Hall, beyond her lifetime, will always be mine.

2
Thanking Luisa

Last week, a friend from the Collegian asked if he could interview me about Ma’am Mallari. I said maybe later, it was too soon, I wasn’t ready just yet, I couldn’t do justice to her memory, anything I’d come up with would be insufficient.

Writing this now (as there was no saying no to Mayo) I am swamped by snippets of memories, slices of life shared with her. Like, how scary she was in that first class I took under her, and how difficult it was. She was the classic “terror” teacher – she’d enter the classroom and the class would throb with intense fear. She expected brilliant students, and given otherwise, would resort to the most difficult exams, pushing us to measure up.

Later, when she ended up being my adviser, and I was comfortable enough with her to say that she was the scariest and the most difficult teacher I had ever had, she said that she was conscious of it and loved being such. Her own teachers were worse, she said, and she had found that she learned more from those who instilled a certain amount of fear in her.

I couldn’t see myself taking a class under her again. But while she was on her long maternity leave, I realized that I missed her kind of teaching. That I worked harder in her class because I feared her, and that ultimately her strictness was always all about teaching her students the value of disciplined scholarship. The kind which doesn’t bark up the wrong trees or just pounce on issues because they are popular. The kind which didn’t compromise – which could take a stand, be clear about its assumptions, and, even, double-guess itself.

When she came back, I took three of her classes — another literature class and two of her Bahasa language classes. She insisted that, like her, I should learn an Asian language, because it would give me an edge. I saw her everyday that semester at 7 am for Bahasa class which she held in her office. After class, I’d usually stay and chat while she finished her first cigarette of the day. She’d lend me books, we’d talk about all sorts of things, from the latest gossip to alternative medical therapies, to the literature class I had with her the day before — the syllabi of which had Mao Tse Tung, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Salman Rushdie, and Zeus Salazar all at the same time. She’d talk about the projects she was working on, how she needed to come out with her own book, and how she hadn’t written anything in such a long time, she was not even sure she could come up with anything substantial.

When she found out that two literature majors, Mayo Martin and I, had won a two-week travel grant in Thailand, besting social science majors, she was thrilled for us. These were venues, she said, that didn’t usually consider or welcome literature majors, and this was where we could assert ourselves and prove our worth.

On her birthday last year, she treated our Bahasa class to breakfast in Katipunan, and we talked about U2 and MTV Asia. Since then, I had kidded her a couple of times about how she seemed to have mellowed. She admitted that she had been wondering about it herself, and wasn’t sure why.

Thinking back now, she was also the happiest I had seen her. Blissfully content with her family, enjoying her work in Seasrep and Public Policy, excited about teaching and putting together new reading lists, and all sorts of projects she had lined up

I had been looking forward to working with her and continuing to learn from her.

Unconsciously, I realize now, I was planning my life based on what she had done with hers, just because she was not only the kind of teacher I want to be, she was also the kind of woman and friend I want to be.

My one regret is, I never got to thank her, I never got to tell her how special she was to me. Hopefully, now I have. ***