blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

On the occasion of UP’s 98th year The University of the Philippines is the biggest university in the Philippines in terms of programs offered, subsidy from the State, probably student population and its impact on the nation. In two years it will be celebrating its centennial and the nation will have to assess on the role of the university in the past, present and future. Now the question is who really makes the university run? Without these people, one hundred years of UP would have been for naught. Of course the members of the faculty, some of which are famous, the non-academic staff and the students make the university run. But there is one thing that seems to be a major factor; many UP Integrated School (UPIS) graduates are employed by the university! Many are members of the faculty, and even more are members of the non-academic staff. Now isn’t it silly for someone who has spent studying from kindergarten to high school then to college and some even to their PhDs in UP decide to st...

The Philippines Congress has approved a government bill repealing an earlier bill instituting capital punishment. While laudable, the problem is the public seems not to have been part of the debate. The Catholic Church of course was a leading party to the debate and so were organizations that represent victims of heinous crimes. The death penalty has had a long history in human society. It is a logical extension of the individual’s right to self-defence. The theory was society being composed of individuals possesses the same right. While the intended act of self-defence is to protect life, the possible unintended effect is to destroy life. This principle is also extended to the concept of a “just war” and even why we have to slit the necks of innocent chickens if there is a threat of bird flu infections. In the Catholic Catechism, the death penalty is discussed under the section on punishment. Punishment should result in the correction of the offender and if the offender accepts his/he...

Conventional wisdom says that men usually peak in their mid- forties. Their mental powers, leadership abilities and their career and even sex appeal reaches a zenith and this is the so called “high summer” of a man’s life. This is maybe true for lawyers, physicians and other corporate types and professionals, notwithstanding writers and academics in the arts and literature.  In their forties these men have developed a certain respectability and authority. But not for scientists. The truly great ones, Newton, Einstein, Darwin, Galileo and Alfred Russel Wallace have sealed their contributions to science in their mid-twenties to their mid-thirties. There is a painting of Galileo in his 40th year, showing a man, proud and confident  knowing that his contribution (made in his early 30s) was secure (He had figured out and mathematically described the Principle of Inertia. And a few years later he would discover Jupiter’s moons using a telescope). His tiff with the Church h...

When books are burned There is something very sinister with a book burning, an evil that is worse than murder. The world first realized the horrors of what the Nazis were to unleash in Europe when they burned books. A renowned American writer who wrote a biography of Anne Frank rightly placed these events in their proper context. The Holocaust started with a book, (Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”, a book infinitely more evil and lie filled than the “Da Vinci Code”) continued with the burning of more books, then the burning of millions of men, women and children and ended with a the publication of a book.  And that book is none other than Anne Frank’s diary. “The Diary of Anne Frank” is the second most printed book in history, outranked only by the Bible. Why do we burn books anyway? John Steinbeck in an essay about books in 1951 writes that “When a book is burned, the ultimate tyranny has been committed” Why? It is because that books are believed first before other forms of media ar...

Wel I have seen the much talked about film version of Dan Brown’s  book “The Da Vinci Code”.  I can summarize it all in one word… OK two words… ho hummmm. Yawn! Well the movie version has the Opus Dei cast in extreme stereotypical terms. Do Opus Dei members talk in Latin? I don’t think so. I know a lot of Opus Dei people and  many can’t say a single coherent Latin sentence. Their joke is that the best Latin they know is the name of their organization, Opus Dei. Now this writer a taxonomy trained PhD knows enough Latin to read some Latin texts, still can’t construct a decent Latin sentence aside from Mulum spectat Episcopos . Although I do not agree with some aspects of the Catholic expression of belief by the Opus Dei, I have to give the Opus Dei its fair go. And as a Catholic I know that the Opus Dei is just part of the diversity of Catholic expression of spirituality. And why single out the Opus Dei as a conspirator? Why not the Jesuits? who have been tra...

Like many history buffs I am waiting for the movie version of  Da Vinci Code. I read the novel a few years back while convalescing from a possibly mortal illness. It is a work of fiction true and as Frankie Sionil-Jose has for disclaimers in his novels, “The characters and events are real in the reader’s imagination” That is fiction true and through. Now only someone who is trapped in fantasy would believe that fiction is real life, though real life at times play fiction. But that is an extremely rare case. Now what possessed some Filipino Catholic bishops and laypeople to demand the banning of the book? And one of these Catholic groups is an ant-pornography advocacy. Now when I read the “Code” I wasn’t at all erotically stimulated (The Song of Songs in the Old Testament is a better work of erotica) but like a good British procedural, my mind had to follow the clues. Only the clueless would think that the “Code” is porn! These Catholics are extremely scared that the faithful w...

PS: This came out in the March 19, 2004 edition of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Hope you find this interesting reading - Ben I FOUND Jeremias Canonizado's ("Exasperated faithful Inquirer subscriber," Feb. 14, 2004) comments timely. The lapses in journalism that he noted aren't limited to the Inquirer. I have noticed similar lapses in its competitors.Many of the lapses involve spelling, subject-verb agreement, prepositions, tenses, plural and singular forms and sentence construction. To err in spelling is human. But as my high school teacher once told her class, an error in spelling is bound to change the meaning of a word. Subject-verb errors can change the meaning of a statement. Errors in plural and singular forms can also change the meaning of sentences. All these errors can lead to a faulty sentence construction. The true mark of an educated citizen is the ability to be understood clearly in spoken and written language. Since good journalism lies in the ability ...

The entry to the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City is lined by sunflowers in full bloom in mid April at about the time when the university sends out its latest graduates into the world. Not surprisingly not a few commencement speakers in the various colleges and the university as a whole commented on the appropriateness of the metaphor that these flowers represent the graduates themselves. One unusual touch this year is that the commencement speaker Professor Emeritus Edgardo D Gomez, a scientist who almost single handedly raised the marine science academic department from academic mediocrity to world class scientific excellence, wore a garland of sunflowers. The sunflower is the national flower of the Ukraine, a country that has suffered Czarist, fascist and communist agression in the last century, and this year, in April, Ukraine and the world marks the 20th year anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. And today the country is split on whether to fully inte...

Gays are accepted in the Philippines. Although gays may be discriminated, I believe that this is not like the discrimination practiced in other countries. Gays are discriminated in this country in that they are pigeonholed to careers society believe is ONLY suitable for gays, e.g. the beauty and hairstyling businesses etc. But gays have begun to be aware of their rights. Gays work with, stand for basic human values and go to school with non-gays. I am not inclined to use the word “Straight” for non-gays since that would imply gays are “crooked”. Gays are not crooked. It is more likely that there are gay crooks and non-gay crooks and being crooked has no relation to sexual orientation at all. Perhaps the most recent test of gay tolerance among the non-gay population (at least the movie watching kind) is to watch “Brokeback Mountain”. At the cinema, I noticed that there are few men or women watching the movie alone. Most men came with the wives or girlfriends and the women came with othe...

Muslim protests over the cartoon depiction of the Prophet Muhammad in European newspapers may have lessons for us all, especially on the limits of freedom of expression, the press and religious practice and tolerance. These liberties have limits but if these offend sensibilities not of the majority but of a minority, where is the limit? We may have to really define limits of religious expression and press freedom with respect to religion. But in order to understand the Muslim sense of outrage over the cartoons, we have to first understand why Islam frowns upon depicting people as images. It is too simplistic to say that the Prophet may not be depicted in art. People and animals may not be depicted at all since Islamic tradition says this is an “invitation to idolatry”. The birth of Islam is in this context, the Prophet at first being rejected and persecuted by Meccans for preaching about the One unseen God and against the idolatry of the Meccans.   The West prides itself on se...

Ben’s EDSA 1986 The early and mid 1980s are signifcant for many of us, what fellow congener Jessica Zafra calls the Voltes V generation for these times coincided exactly with our entry to adulthood and political maturity (and of course the phenomenal rise of Japanese Anime). In 1983, we were junior high school students who were on a field trip for our mythology class. In this rather uneventful August 21st, we heard on the way back to Manila that Ninoy Aquino had been shot! Six years before, as grade three kids my Araling Panlipunan classroom teacher asked us if Ninoy Aquino was a bad man. The class responded “yes”. This was at the height of Martial Law. And our teacher said, “Oh my poor martial law babies”. But on that 21st of August, we knew who Ninoy Aquino was, but quite hazy on the freedom he was going to lay down his life for. And that was when the haze was lifted. Perhaps nothing in human history can jolt the conscience more than spilled human blood. We rage if blood is spilled i...

Christmas in the Philippines came late as like the winter monsoon.  Perhaps it was the economic and political crises buffeting the country and the world as a whole.  And the winter monsoon brought not cold air but rain, flooding Mindoro and Eastern Luzon. That these regions have been almost completely deforested has contribute more to the sorrow. It seems that the Earth is emptying its goodness. In Greek we call this emptying as kenosis. That Jesus Christ is born today is the joyful announcement of the Mass of Christmas Day. This birth involved a divesting of the True God turned Man of His accidentals of his divine nature (Christian theology does not teach that he lost his divinity). It was just his appearances to Divinity just couldn’t be found in the manger in Bethlehem. And the streets of Manila seem to have more of the poor whereas before their suffering were not easily seen. Human dignity seems to have emptied itself for many of these people are hungry. How can ...

A long time ago people had personal mottoes. These short phrases served to identify an ideal, principle or goal. The motto guides personal conduct.  If this motto is a personal one, it tells a lot about the person it signifies. In the Middle Ages, knights, kings, queens and noblemen had mottoes. Anyone who was capable of bearing arms had one. This developed further as part of chivalry and kings had the right to grant arms and of course mottoes. Thus one of the early Knightly mottoes include “Pro Deo et Patria”, for God and Country. It is still the motto of the Philippine Independent Church. Prince Charles as Prince of Wales has the German “Ich Dien” or I serve. Pope John Paul II’s personal motto is Totus Tuus or All Yours. Benedict XVI’s personal motto is “Cooperatores Veritatis”, although it doesn’t appear in his Arms as Supreme Pontiff. Well mine is the Latin Motto ”Duc In Altum’ or  in English “Put out to Deep Water”. In Filipino the motto is “Pumalaot Kayo” The m...

This was Ligpo Reef 27 November 1995. In the last 10 years the reef has experienced 3 successive bleaching events and a Crown-of-Thorns seastar infestation. I'll be surveying the reef on the 27th. Sadly this reef has been severely damaged.

It seems that NASA has accumulated a lot of indirect evidence for life outside Earth. Of course the prime candidate for extraterrestrial life is Mars. That Mars had lots of liquid water and has detectable methane in the atmosphere and these arguesfor the presence of life or past existence of life. The NASA Viking experiments in 1976, were designed to detect microbial life but the results were inconclusive. The robots landed on Mars but because of the strange soil chemistry, all the biochemistry experiments came out inconclusive. So astro evolutionary biologist Peter Ward argues that we must accept as very probable that life is common at least in the solar system and even more probable in the cosmos. Much of this life is not complex. But if we accept that there is extraterrestrial life then we have to revise our understanding of what life is. In biology class we are taught that living things have or can 1) DNA and RNA, 2) are made of cells, 3) reproduce, 4) develop and grow, 5) metabol...

In 1905, Albert Einstein produced scientific papers that have revolutionised our view of the universe. This was his annus mirabilis (in English, wonderful year). In this year, he published his papers on special relativity and his doctoral dissertation on Brownian motion. In the latter Einstein gives us an empirical way to statistically measure the size of the atom. From the annus mirabilis, we have 1) cellphones and 2) microwave ovens Of course, Einsteinian science has given us more techno gadgetry (digital cameras and MP3 players), but the two I listed are something that many people can't survive the day without. But even if Einstein is one of the two most recognised faces (icons) on the planet, (He ranks with Jesus Christ as the second of the two most recognised faces), there are things that we normally don't know about dear old Albert unless if we are diehard fans. One thing is that Albert Einstein two attempts at a PhD were unsuccessful. He was however able to withdraw his ...

The first CS Lewis book I ever read wasn’t “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” but “Mere Christianity”. You may ask why “Mere” was the first Lewis book I read. This has something to do with my spiritual development. Like Lewis, there was a time in my life that I became agnostic.  While a majority of my family was Catholic, we were a multi-faith family and a diversity of  religious views and practices are tolerated.  I have an uncle who became an Orthodox Bishop, several Seventh Day Adventists relatives, Born Agains, Iglesia ni Cristo relations, Episcopalians and Independientes, Muslims and a Buddhist all in one family. A personal religious position such was always respected. The unspoken agreement was that there should be no proselytizing in the family, especially on the dinner table. In our society that has long become religious plural, what does Lewis’ experience tells us about conversion? Just Merely. “Mere Christianity” should be read with “Surprised...

Yesterday the Institute of Environmental Science and Meteorology got a product demo of a Chinese made electric scooter. The scooter needs only 4 hours of charging time with a fast charger, has no emissions but needs four storage batteries. The scooter can manage to run for 10 hours with a maximum speed of 50 Kph and can carry a load of 200 kg. Not bad! The high cost of petrol has made people to consider "alternate"modes of transport. I put the word alternate in quotation marks since these modes of transport are as old as the internal combustion engine but they tended to cost more. Now that petrol is costly, people have begun to take a more serious look into these technologies. The market has already introduced 1) electric vehicles, 2) hybrid cars, 3) hydrogen powered cars and 4) biodiesel. There are other technologies that are still more experimental such as torque driven vehicles. All of these modes have their own advantages and disadvantages. Electric cars still will have t...

UP was known as University of "Pila" or University of Queues ( as translated in English not UQ as University of Queensland). Under the term of Professor Nemenzo as President, the university emabarked on massive effort to computerise and wire the various colleges and departments. This was quite successful that UP has now on-line enrolment and registration. In theory, a student need not leave the dorm or home to enlist in courses that he/she needs to take. In theory there is no need to queue. But there is a snake like queue outside my faculty office. Why? Upon closer inspection and chatting with those queueing, many students complain that the subjects they wanted had long been filled up. I thought that many students just had little chance to register on-line. But that was not the end of the story. The real reason is that the three major colleges of the university, science, social science and arts and letters have priority in enlistment in Revised General Education Courses. So ...

Many human diseases have their origins in birds. Some of these diseases include malaria, dengue and of course influenza. Some of the diseases use other species as vectors (e.g. malaria and dengue that need mosquitoes) and some have gone one step forward, use aerosols (from sneezing birds and people) to infect other hosts. The feared bird flu pandemic (it is already a pandemic among birds!) has made us think about the evolutionary significance of disease. Much as we would want to eliminate disease, doctors and public health practitioners will never be able to eradicate disease, for diseases are part and parcel of the evolutionary process. Diseases tend to select traits in populations and while a proportion of the population will succumb to the infection, the population over time will develop resistance to the pathogen. In short the population will be immune to the disease and the disease organism will live commensally with its host population. A possible example is the common cold. The...