blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

The University Council of UP Diliman has deliberated on its resolution regarding Noynoy Aquino's budget cuts to state universities. Some interesting pieces of information emerged from the "academic puffball" to borrow a Harvard phrase, discussion UP needs an allocation of at least 30 B pesos a year for at least a decade if it aims at least start catching up with top Asian universities like NUS in Singapore, Beida in China or Todai in Japan. UP proposed an 18 B budget this year. The University will require about 18-20 B per year if it is to maintain its present standard. A significant percentage of this budget goes to the operation of the university's teaching hospital PGH. PGH is not just an ordinary teaching hospital with a few beds, it is the largest tertiary hospital in the country that services a lot of indigent patients (and trains the best physicians and surgeons!) But UP's budget averaged only between 6 B every year and now it has been cut by 1.39 B. ...

If I were a rationalist, I would die laughing not because God doesn't exist or He/She does, but because a Western parody of Freethinking has been transplanted in a comedic way in Intramuros. And I have nothing to blame but Carlos Celdran! It also exposed how unscientific some in our upper middle class and the elite could be! The verbal exchange on the evening telly is in a form of English I have heard somewhere. However I think discussing about the Devil is a waste of time! The poor don't refer to the Devil this way, not in that language. The Devil is all around them and we elect them every time! If we can j ust get rid of the Devil as William Roper once said to Thomas More, then we should be in Paradise. However Thomas More, who later lost his head and canonized by the Church of Rome, said we have to give the Devil the benefit of Law, for our own safety's sake! I now shift into a thinking rational mind. The Filipino Freethinkers and the pro-life Catholics make fuss ov...

Pope Benedict XVI surprised his flock and the rest of the world for practically stating in an interview with a German Catholic journalist that condoms can be used in certain cases, and he even gave an example of what that case could be. The interview will come out in a book "Light of the World", excerpts of which have been made public with Vatican approval. The BBC has the excerpted transcript. What is indeed unexpected is that His Holiness was not just speaking in theological terms but even gave an example of when condom use may be allowed. This is what can be called a pastoral application. However the remarks don't definitely say a judgment on the morality of condom use, which is still under study by Vatican theologians. However the Pope's remarks will not drastically alter Church teaching on contraception nor its moral stance in human sexuality. The remarks cannot be taken out of its context. The Pope insists that sexuality must be humanized and people have ...

he untimely deaths of Leonard Co and Professsor Dan Lagunzad within 36 hours of each other (Co was shot in the field and Lagunzad to cancer), both excellent botanists and plant taxonomists from the University of the Philippines should be a wake up call for the Philippine science establishment and scientists. They should not take taxonomy for granted and give more research funding for this important science. Taxonomy is rightly the Queen of the Sciences . Without Aristotle trying to classify things of nature due to their essences and attributes, there would not be any Western Science, Western Thought, Western Theology and Catholic doctrine. I would not go into why this is so, but anyone who got a liberal education will know that Aristotle's works form the basis for Western thought in all its aspects. In the natural sciences,  Taxonomy is the Queen of the Biological Sciences . As Leonard Co told me 6 months ago, without taxonomy no one can really understand biodiversity. Now we kno...

With much sadness and shock I learned from WWF chair Lory Tan that internationally renowned botanist Leonard Co was killed together with a guide and a forest ranger last Monday, 15 November in a firefight in Leyte between Armed Forces of the Philippines soldiers and Communist guerrillas. As the Philippine Daily Inquirer reports it ,  Co and his researchers were surveying a forest plot of the Energy Development Corporation (EDC) for native Philippine trees and plants especially those that are in danger of extinction, like this Rafflesia flower (the picture I got from Dr Julie Barcelona's blog . Thank you Julie) The 41 year old Communist insurgency has again claimed another life of the best and brightest of the Philippines. In Leonard Co's case, a bright life that cannot be replaced. For he was one of if not the last of  the classically trained botanists in plant taxonomy and systematics in the Philippines. While one can learn the basics of these disciplines i...

The unpleasant reality of President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III's 1.39 billion peso budget cut for next year has finally dawned on faculty, staff and students of the University of the Philippines , the Philippines' national university as defined by law. Administration officials have warned university constituents that the university will likely not hire anyone for next academic year. This includes non-academic staff (clerks, records examiners, department secretaries etc), research staff and faculty. This also means that professors who will retire at the end of this year won't be replaced by young assistant professors, research projects and programs can't hire new graduate students to work in the labs, and no new clerical staff will be hired. And we haven't even touched upon the subject of salary adjustments and promotions, which are even more likely to be cut or put on hold! This bodes ill for the university (and a "baptism of fire" for the new...

As Juned Sonido  once told me, while electronic connectivity is available to a vast majority of the planet Earth's sentient denizens, only those with the cash can get access anywhere and everywhere! So it is still "money talks" and money connects! But in ecology (and I believe is manifest of the infinite wisdom of the Creator!), we have creatures that sponge off the detritus and here we belong, the creatures that always look for renewable WiFi ! I found out how essential this was to survival when I was attending an environment conference in Washington DC two years ago. I and a lot of other delegates were booked into a hotel now famously called the "Hillary Clinton Hotel" (a block away from the White House) for it was here that Hillary first planned her unsuccessful ascent to the White House , As history has it, the thought of a Woman (or This Woman) occupying the Oval Office was too much for the American electorate to consider. And so we have the Obama (who...