komentaryo

stimulus via SSS? utang na loob!

i will not even get into the legality of Chairman Romula Neri’s decision to use Social Security System’s funds for Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s stimulus package — Rep. Liza Masa is doing a good job of that already. nor will i get into the probability that this will expectedly be used by GMA to win the 2010 elections, because her government always seems to think that the downtrodden will be easily impressed by contractual jobs, with little pay and no benefits (oh such little faith in the intelligence of the oppressed masses!).

what i will insist on is this: the Social Security System is in no position to give out its money, because it has yet to even serve its members. and you know i’m not even one to complain about long lines (i come from the University of Pila after all) and rude employees (i’ve had my share of government offices after all).  all i ask is that the SSS be able to give its members what’s due them: our I.D.’s when we need them and access to our benefits with as little of those bureaucratic hassles as possible.

and yet what we are treated to is an unfair system that puts members through hell because it is disorganized, unjust, and downright unacceptable.

let me begin with this: those of us who live in the Mandaluyong and Pasig areas have to go all the way to Quezon City to get our Identification Cards processed because both the Mandaluyong and Pasig SSS branches have broken I.D. card machines. Mandaluyong has had a broken machine for oh, three years? and the Pasig branch for over a year. this is not just inconvenient, it is unforgivable given the fact that in order to get any — ANY! — of your benefits you must have at least your SS ID claim stub.

but of course when you are desperate, and in need, you will go that length of traveling from wherever you are in this country to that rare SSS branch that has an SS I.D. machine. so i get there at 7:30 AM, thinking that i was to early only to find that i was too late. i was number 442 — four hundred f*** forty two! — and my I.D. application was only going be entertained four hours later.  i had to wait outside the building, in the heat, with no food and no clean comfort room.

when you finally face the scowling SSS employee, she processes your papers with nary a smile, and you are told to return at 7AM the following day for the I.D. picture. and i do, at a little over 7AM, only to find that they started giving out cards at 5:30, when the first member arrived. and i was now number 96 — an improvement nonetheless, i think.

but now the issue is this: you are told to wait inside the building and not outside, and you are told to sit in proper order on the row upon row of seats. you are also told by the Security Guard that if you step out for any reason, you might lose your place and there will be no getting it back, sorry na lang kayo. and as the airconditioning is on high (it’s a huge space after all), and i’m stuck in my assigned seat (the guard is a scary scary man), i am forced to keep my pee in, kidney stones and UTI be damned!

i listen to those around me, and i realize that i am better off.  two men who met while waiting, started talking about having to leave — one for Dubai, the other for “Saudi” — both as construction workers. they expect to get their I.D.s today because they need it to travel.  meanwhile, a pregnant lady two seats to my left who, by the looks of it was well into her third trimester, was talking about how much money she needed for giving birth, and how difficult it has been being pregnant and trying to get her SSS maternity benefit. the old man beside me was holding his forms for dear life, newly-employed as he was, and needing an SSS I.D. to get his employment papers properly processed. he should’ve been there to collect retirement benefits.

we were all finally being told to enter these cubicles with the oh so rare computers for I.D. processing, one-by-one. and when we are done with the process of putting in a Personal Identification Number (P.I.N. — which not everyone had a sense of), and giving our electronic thumbprint and signature, we are told this: your I.D.s will be delivered via snail mail in seven months. SEVEN F*@%^ MONTHS!

and i couldn’t help but wonder about those who needed it already, because they are due to fly out and work elsewhere for home and family. i wonder about the old man whose papers might only be processed when he has his I.D. in hand. i do think about how unfair the whole process has been, because the difficulty is uncalled for.  had there been a machine in Mandaluyong, i can’t imagine that i would be number 442 OR 96. had there been more machines, and more people manning them, as well as more people printing out those I.D.s, i can’t imagine that it should take seven months to get these via mail.

and ultimately, i can’t imagine that any of this can’t be fixed with the P12.5 billion pesos of SSS money that Romulo Neri has so generously decided to dole out for the stimulus package. it is unbelievable that given the horrible third world system of the SSS, which puts its members through hell in its incapacity to serve properly and punctually, it is so willing to spend on “saving the world” even when it is not clear about where the money’s going. that the SSS will be “spending” its members’ money — that which they work hard for, that which they fall in line for, that which they expect must be easy to claim — makes this all the more despicable.

SSS Chairman Romula Neri wants to save the world. and as a member who has been oppressed by the SSS’ (lack of a) system, my response is simple: utang na loob!

komentaryo

Shameless

It’s a downright shame that on the year of the University of the Philippines’ Centennial, one that has been celebrated with much publicity and fanfare and cash, we hear many stories of how the university has turned on its own. Students have to deal with a higher tuition fee and the difficult process of qualifying for the STFAP (one full scholar? unacceptable!). Janitors like Mang Meliton are given P.92 centavos as retirement pay after 41 years of service. Where is the justice in that?

And then there’s the story of Prof. Sarah Raymundo – one that has done the rounds of blogs, has warranted statements from scholars and activists here and abroad, and has been the bane of the Department of Sociology’s existence since everything blew over. And rightfully so. Because what happened to Sarah can happen to anyone who plays by the rules, does more than what’s required, but who is still deemed unworthy of permanent status in the University. What has happened to her can and will happen again, in a University of the Philippines that allows its departments to unilaterally decide on the future of its faculty members, ignoring what it is they have contributed to the University. What has happened to Sarah will happen again, in a Department of Sociology that has yet to come clean about her case.

In the meantime, one can’t help but ask: what is it that’s more important than Sarah’s academic work (international conferences, published essays in books and refereed journals, extension work, a graduate degree) in a University that teaches us about the value of getting published and the need for continuous study? What is it that weighs heavier than teacher evaluations that prove how students learn from her, and would take her classes again and again?

The answer seems simple enough: it’s Sarah’s politics. That’s as much as she’s been told by her superiors in the department, and this is all that this can be about given how Sarah has met all requirements for tenure. This is about her involvement in issues within and beyond the academe, it’s because she has decided not to sit on a fence and watch the world collide. It’s because Sarah’s an activist, and not the kind that only panders to what is politically correct when it is popular (for that is really just an opportunist). Instead she involves herself in issues that are important because relevant, and for this she is being made to pay dearly. What is wrong with getting involved in the issue of the missing U.P. students Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno? What is unacceptable about her volunteer work for the human rights organization Karapatan? Why must she be made to apologize for the kind of teaching she does – which the Department of Sociology has deemed wrong – because some of her students have become activists themselves?

Any person who has been a student would know that some teachers can change our lives. Any student who changes her ideological leanings may pinpoint one teacher who has made her re-think her beliefs, re-assess her practices, without realizing that in fact she is only reacting to her own history, her own class contradictions. If and when a student becomes an activist, no teacher can take credit for it. To do so would be egotistical, and that’s to imagine that all students enter the classroom tabula rasa.

And yet it seems that the Department of Sociology’s active imagination has created a picture of Sarah as someone who consciously and conscientiously works towards turning students into her clones. Something that is impossible to prove, and is really more a matter of the pot calling the kettle black: there are undoubtedly teachers who want to create little mini-mes who will repeat what they say as if they are gods, who will put them on a pedestal and pinpoint them as mentors, who will forever be unable to look them in the eye and presume equality. Only teachers who see this as the correct order of things, will imagine that Sarah is the same. Only the powerful administrators can use this to take away the house and home Sarah has known the University and the Department of Sociology to be, political and ideological disagreements notwithstanding.

Sarah is a leftist, and the last time I looked there was no need to apologize for being so. Not when the work one does, the essays one writes and gets published, the conferences one is invited to attend, the M.A. one gets, is a product as well of that activism. There is nothing extraneous to one’s ideology, yes? So why is Sarah being made to suffer for what she believes in? Given so many tenured faculty members who are at the other end of the ideological spectrum, what can this be but a witch hunt? An academic killing of the progressive faculty of the University?

This is so much bigger than Sarah of course, as in this country real killings and disappearances of activists continue to happen everyday. But what has happened to Sarah, in the context of the publicity that has surrounded U.P.’s Centennial Celebrations, is proof of what the University has become.

So I take it back. It is perfect that this happened to Sarah on the year of U.P.’s Centennial. It reveals to us all, alumni and students, faculty and employees, that the University’s activist past is all lost glory, and is only celebrated when it is convenient and romantic. In truth, it is now anti-progressive and anti-activist, and it will endanger the life of its own, take away house and home, for reasons that are nothing but petty, everything and unacceptable. In many ways, this Centennial showed U.P. to be ultimately and unabashedly shameless.

kultura

KC as guilty pleasure*

There aresongs that become your guilty pleasure, the kind that you don’t admit you like, just because they’re too pop, or are downright cheesy. Many albums get hidden in the back of your closet, a little secret you keep to yourself, even when you’ve memorized it inside and out.

This is exactly what A.K.A Cassandra, KC Concepcion’s debut CD is. Because truth to tell, there is really nothing spectacular about it. It’s an album that subsists on plenty of remakes of mostly foreign songs (save for “Haring Ibon” by Joey Ayala), and originals that are everything and cheesy (“An Updated Version of Me” comes to mind). Many of the songs remain about love, if not about the universal notions of happiness and going with the flow and relaxing. All of them are pop, in the sense that they are easy to listen to. (more…)

kultura

on Sugarfree Live*

The collaboration between a rock band and an orchestra isn’t new. But an OPM band that does it well, a collaboration that reinvents the band’s songs, and a band that survives through a live concert with a full-piece orchestra? That’s something else in these shores. In Sugarfree Live! Sugarfree and the Manila Symphony Orchestra as conducted by Chino David proves all of these as possible, and becomes a testament to how concerts and CDs like these can be done well. (more…)

kultura

The Nostalgia of the Eheads

Many things were said about the Eraserheads Reunion concert, not one of them critical, every one hopeful for a repeat or continuation. Which is understandable for those of us who are fans. To us, a reunion has always seemed impossible, even if – or maybe because – all we knew about the breakup was that it was a bad one. Too, loyal fans who have followed the individual careers and lives of Ely, Raimund, Buddy and Marcus must rightfully feel ambivalent: insisting on a reunion is, to a certain extent, an affront to the lives they’ve lived beyond the Eraserheads. To demand a reunion concert seemed selfish. (more…)