blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

On October 4 each year animal lovers celebrate “World Animal Day” in kind remembrance of Saint Francis of Asissi, the poor man who considered animals and all of nature as his brothers and sisters. Of course St Francis is now considered to be patron saint of 1) animals, 2) environment, 3) environmentalists, 4) ecologists and environmental scientists 4) San Francisco and 5) All people named Francis. The Mass for All Creation  was once celebrated on October 4 but is now celebrated in the Sunday nearest October 4. I attended the Mass at our Carmelite parish. There was a lot of dogs, birds, cats, fish and of course the snakes and lizards. After all snakes and lizards are creatures of the Creator. There was a cacophony of barks and meows and chirps. Saint Francis is believed to have preached to birds, fish and tamed the man-eating wolf of Gubbio. Francis believed that all animals and nature praise God. This was a rather unusual theological position to take in the Middle Ages. The Ju...

I am a martial law baby. I was four when Mr Marcos through Secretary Tatad read Presidential Proclamation 1081, placing the whole Philippines under martial law. Mr Marcos wanted to radically restructure the body politic, shutting Congress, arresting his political opponents and gagging once Asia’s “most free wheeling press”. Nonetheless, the early gains were remarkable. There was a decrease in crime rate, new infrastructure made, orderly traffic and disciplined pedestrians. My older cousins who were teens then, had to stay at home after 12:00 AM as there was a curfew till 4:00 AM. This was to the delight of my uncles and aunts. Their sleepless nights were over, at least with regards to teenagers. I was an innocent child then. I thought that “curfew” pronounced in Philippine English as “karpew” was akin to having no cars for all. A fact that as an adult, I realized, was not far off the mark, there were no cars on the street after 12. My days after school were spent at play with the nei...

I first read John Steinbeck in High School. While in the USA, Steinbeck is part of the American Canon for high school, in the Philippines he is hardly read in schools except by English Lit students in college. The first Steinbeck book I read was the short novel “The Pearl”. Later on I tackled “Grapes of Wrath”, “Of Mice and Men”, “Cannery Row” and “Winter of Discontent”. Steinbeck is best remembered for these novels. But he isn’t generally known for his essays and non-fiction. My interest in Steinbeck deepened when my marine biology professor suggested I read the “Log from the Sea of Cortez”. In this travelogue, I learned about the other Steinbeck, the devoted marine biology student and scientist. The scientist has to keep an eye on nature and fish for pattern. And if you keep on doing so you may feel something “religious” and realize that you are related and linked to all and with all of nature. It is then advisable to “look from the tidepool and into the stars”. Perhaps the best li...

Black or White? The recent impeachment complaint against the Philippines President Gloria Arroyo has made people think about the truth about the “Hello Garci” recordings. The is a new organization of civic society people who are for the impeachment of the president. They call themselves as “Black and White”. To them the truth about the impeachment complaint is black and white.  The Black and White Movement “believe the issues surrounding the presidency and the impeachment complaint are as clear as Black and White. There are no shades of gray when it comes to the Truth.” But what is truth anyway? Is it black and white? Has truth have many shades or colours for that matter? The best remembered rhetorical question in the Gospels is that of Pontius Pilate who asked his prisoner Jesus Christ, “What is truth?” Take note that the Black and White Movement spells truth with an uppercase T, while the Evangelist writes it with a small “t”. Pilate asked the most famous rhetorical question...

It is heartbreaking to see New Orleans submerged under 20 feet of water. This is one of the loveliest cities in the United States, perhaps second only to San Francisco. I was there in 1992. I spent some time in Texas and I made the trip to New Orleans. I fell in love with the city that I resolved that I will find the opportunity to do some research work in Louisiana. Last year I was offered to do post doctoral work in marine evolutionary biology at Louisiana State University and was supposed to leave in late July of 2005 until bureaucratic bungles made me decide to put off the offer until next year. If I had gone, then I should be atop a roof waiting for the Louisiana Air National Guard to pluck me out! Baton Rogue (where the university is located) and New Orleans are among the worst hit of Katrina's wrath. New Orleans is between two mighty bodies of water. One is the Mississipi River and the other is Lake Ponchartrain with its long causeway. The levees that protect the city were...

Teaching the undergraduate environmental science 1 course at UP is extremely challenging since I had to consign the syllabus to the trash bin! Why? It is because the traditional idea of chopping down the environmental system into its spheres e.g. lithosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere etc with their problems may not reflect what is happening in nature. Of course we have to introduce these "sphere" concepts because it allows us to have a good initial grasp of the various physical and biological processes happening. However in nature, what happens in the hydrosphere for example has a direct effect on the atmosphere and of course on the biosphere. All these processes are linked. That everything is linked in nature is the central tenet of environmental science and environmentalism. The natural processes are linked and so too is the damage we humans inflict on these processes. Perhaps the history of our dealings with the environment can be simply summarized...

It was meant to be an old style war movie in which the Nips all die and the Yanks all live (with two exceptions). Too bad we no longer have John Wayne or ol' blue eyes on the screen. Nonetheless, it is a refreshing change from what Hollywood has dished out in the last 12 years or so. The 1990s slop of war pics focused on the futility of war and this started with Schindler's List and peaked with that Saving Private Ryan. By the time that Pearl Harbor movie came along, people were fed up. BTW, Pearl Harbor is the only movie in history to have offended all sorts of war vets. The Army nurses protested their being depicted as "sluts", the Pearl Harbor vets complained of the inaccuracies, the Japanese hated the idea that they were stereotyped once more and most especially the Japanese-Americans, whose painful experiences in America's concentration camps were once again put to light. After watching the movie, I immediately grabbed hold of 5 books on the Cabanatuan Raid f...

My Environmental Science freshman class recently planted several indigenous Philippine trees on unused land at the UP. The trees were Dao, Tamyo, Kaliskis, Molave,Kupang, Balacat, Bagras, Narra, Lankang-Gubat, Kamagong and Balite. Some of these trees are remembered just as place names. For example, Dau and Mabalacat in Pampanga used to abound in these trees. Today not a single Dao or Balacat tree can be found there. Likewise, Kaliskis,Kupang, Balite are names of many barangays in the Philippines. You would be lucky to find the trees for which the places were named in these places. Most of these trees grow tall and majestic. They were real landmarks all over the Philippines. Thus many of the trees are rare and some are endangered. But the memory of these trees on the landscape can only be gleaned from place names. In place of these trees, we have replaced them with alien species like Gmelina. At the University of the Philippines, much of the trees growing are foreign. The iconic tree of...

My freshie students planting a molave tree on unused land at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City

Talin Bay, Batangas. It is early morning and the shore is quiet for now at least.

In clearest terms in her State of the Nation address to Congress, Philippines President Mrs Gloria Arroyo expressed her wish for a parliamentary system of government for the Philippines. The term parliamentary is not very accurate. What is more accurate is the term "cabinet system". The cabinet is a collective executive of ministers headed by a prime minister and they are all responsible to the legislature. Mrs Arroyo would want a system similar to the Philippines' neighbours as she has indicated. But what kind of cabinet system would we have? We have several choices. 1) Singapore, 2) Malaysia, 3) Thailand 4) Indonesia and if we consider the following as close neighbours, 5) Australia and 6) Japan. Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Japan and Thailand have systems modelled after that of Europe. Singapore, Malaysia, Australia being former British colonies are modelled after the Westminster parliament in London. Although they have introduced modifications to their parliamenta...

Today my students and I planted indigenous Philippine trees on the University of the Philippines common. Why do we have to plant a tree? Martin Luther, the great Reformer was heard to have said "If God revealed to me that the world will end today, I will still plant a little apple tree". The Confucian sages adviced that a man wouldn't had lived a full life if he did not 1) sire a son, 2) plant a tree. For Luther and the sages a tree represents life beyond one's own and we pray that this life will be full of hope. Like your children, trees are likely to survive you. An English saying has it best "When the tree is tall and wide, the planter has long died". The man has joined the elements and the tree remains. The oldest trees are conifers. The Bristlecone pines, cypresses in the Sahara and some southern araucaria pines in Australia, Chile and New Zealand are thousand of years old. The trees have their memory of their environment in their rings. Trees provide ...

President Macapagal-Arroyo is unlikely to resign now that former President Ramos has given his support. Protests are on the streets still led by parties with various agendas. The focus of the protests is on Ayala Avenue, the heart of the Philippines' business district. A cursory chat with a lot of people revealed that many people who support the resignation of the president seem no longer able to trust the constitutional processes. The constitution provides the process by which a sitting president may be removed and the grounds for this to happen. Because of United States influence on our history, the impeachment process is modelled after that of the US Congress process. Nonetheless, in American history impeachment has been few and far between. Andrew Jackson was impeached but remained in office. Richard Nixon resigned before he was impeached. Bill Clinton was impeached and the case went before the senate for trial. He was acquitted. If there was a likely successful impeachment ...

God save our gracious Queen, Long live our Gloria Queen, God save the Queen! Send her victorious, Happy and glorious, Long her FVR to reign over us; God save the Queen! O Lord our God arise, Scatter her enemies And make them fall; Confound their politics, Frustrate their Coryist and MBC tricks, On Thee our hopes we fix, God save us all! Thy choicest EVATs in store On her be pleased to pour; Long may her FVR reign; May she defend our laws, And ever give us cause To sing with heart and voice, God save the Queen! Not in this Manila alone, But be God's mercies known, From shore to shore! Lord make the nations see, That she will not resign be, And form one Parliament to see, The wide world over. From every latent foe, From the Cabinet’s blow, God save the Queen! O'er her thine arm extend, For Philippines ' sake defend, Our taxman, prince, and friend, God save the Queen! Lord grant that her General May by thy mighty aid Victory bring. May he sedition hush, And like a torrent rus...

Caveat lector. Political commentary ahead. Allusions to English History ahead. (Sorry, I am a keen student of English constitutional history!) Now that Mrs Aquino has said her piece three time, what the public likes to know and Mrs Aquino should clearly say so is who advised her to take this “GMA please resign” stand. Obviously Mrs Gloria Arroyo is unlikely to stand down. Now that Mr Fidel V Ramos has literally saved Mrs Arroyo’s presidency, the chances of her resigning is nil. Mr Ramos has emerged as the de facto prime minister or better yet President Protector. Doesn’t this sound like Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell seizing the Crown but not wearing it? As long as Mr Ramos won't put the crown on his head, he is still within the bounds of the law. Our own Ollie Cromwell should say to Mrs Aquino and her fratres in politics to at least shut up and respect the rule of law. Mrs Aquino by demanding Mrs Arroyo’s resignation as in the words of Thomas More himself, is cutting down eve...

From my travel log 17 August 1998 Lizard Island, the Great Barrier Reef, Australia From Cairns airport I took a light plane to Lizard Island, one of the interesting islands on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. I was on an expedition sponsored by the Australian Geographic Society. I was with my skipper Juan Cruz of Venezuela (who is now at PhD student at Sydney University). The plane landed on the sandy airstrip and we disembarked. The sandy beaches are postcard perfect. This is paradise. The island is covered in scrub that tells me about the exposed nature of the island. The task now is to describe the patterns of distribution, of life, the ecological relations of the animals of the shore, all a mystery. The shore as Steinbeck and Ricketts always knew will hold its secrets very well and give it up very slowly, as slow as the motion of the nerite on the rocks. Surprises are in store and at the end a better understanding of nature is inevitable. The question is whether this will make me pl...

Dear Sir The critics are right. There is a decline in English proficiency among Filipinos. However, I disagree that it is not only at UP but also in "exclusive" schools like Ateneo or La Salle. Like what the critics believe, I believe students don't write and speak good English because they don't read. But what should trouble us is our confused language policy that mixes nationalist and globalist orientations. Unfortunately there are still people that believe English must be taught as a foreign language. However, while it was a foreign language imposed by the Americans, it became a medium to express our nationhood. In time, the language became our own. It is now not a foreign language but a second language. By appropriating their language, we both thank and damn our colonisers. According to Frankie Sionil Jose, that may yet be the best revenge! Our confused language policy promotes English language use only as a means of economic advancement. An example: Those who ca...

From my travel log 6 November 2002 Delaware, USA It might be a bit strange that to study the biodiversity of the Philippines, one has to go to America. But we were once a colony and once a colony, always a colony. With political independence we are guaranteed historical dependence. So it is really not strange to for a historian to go to Spain to study the Philippines and a scientist to spend time at an American natural history museum. Our historical ties to Spain and the United States will always be there. The question is whether Filipinos will look with lingering affection at their colonisers the way the Commonwealth countries do at England. The United States was never an imperial power until the war with Spain having spent the last half of the 19th century dealing with the Civil War and westward expansion. So in 1898, the USA ended up winning the Philippines, together with Cuba and Puerto Rico as war indemnity. The first thing the Americans did was to crush the Philippine Republic, i...

From my travel log 31 March 2004 Townsville, Queensland Australia I spent four years in Townsville as a PhD student. These years though at time lonely and difficult were the best in my life. I was lucky and free then. When I was a student and things became too burdensome for me, I went overseas, across the water to Magnetic Island. This island is 8 kilometres from Townsville, a mere 25 minute ride from the mainland. The island became my place apart. I spent long hours on the walking trails and the lonely beaches. The journey starts by boarding a ferry at Ross Creek and stepping onto Picnic Bay jetty. Sometimes I had friends on the journey and we stepped on the island together. At times I see my friends boarding as I disembarked. At all times, there is a wave of a hand and a smile even though the swells were big and storms are about.That was a comforting thought as one sets off to sea. So in my last visit to the island in 2004, the ferry no longer landed at Picnic Bay but at Nelly Bay. ...

Seven things I have done (and so I can die now!) 1) Be a teacher 2) Swim with a whale - Tanon Strait 3) Swim with sharks - Donsol and Mindoro 4) Dive in at least four of the world's oceans - Pacific, Atlantic, Indian and Southern (brrrr. The last one was the coolest!) 5) Take long bushwalk in Bartle Frere - Australia 6) See an endangered animal in the wild 7) Stare at the full moon like a lover while on a boat alone. Seven things I need to do before I die 1) Be a good teacher. 2) Get married 3) Be a father and take my son/daughter on a nature walk 4) Climb Mount Pulag 5) Publish a scientific paper in "Nature" 6) Learn a healing art 7) Write a book on natural history