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...

My comment on the recent Supreme Court decision on plagiarism The court's majority decision says " Can errors in preparing decisions be prevented?   Not until computers cease to be operated by human beings who are vulnerable to human errors.   They are hypocrites who believe that the courts should be as error-free as they themselves are." While humans may err, humans cannot just blame the spreadsheet or the word processor! This is something I learned in the Math department. I cringe at the decision's consequences for academic liberty and integrity.      

 No amount of CBCP spin doctoring can repair the damaged credibility of the Philippine Catholic Church with the rest of the Universal Church after CBCP president Bishop Nereo Odchimar unleashed the "e" word (excommunication) in an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer. The Philippine Church is now the laughingstock of the whole Catholic world!   This will not amuse His Holiness at all! Odchimar speculated on the grounds that the President of the Philippines could be excommunicated for doing his Constitutional duties. For that irresponsible statement,  he should resign his position. Pinoy Catholics should  ask the Holy Father Benedict XVI to translate him to a titular see. He deserves to be the Archbishop of Leptis Magna and he can excommunicate Muammar Kadaffy for all we care.

I am a staunch supporter of the disestablishment of the Catholic Church in the Philippines. By disestablishment, I mean the Church will relinquish all pretensions to political power and by doing so, she becomes closer to the will of her founder, Jesus Christ. Well it seems that She is headed that way even if her bishops don't think it that way. By calling for civil disobedience on the RH (Reproductive Health) Bill, the bishops enjoin Catholics to "obey God first rather than the Government". If we were in Tudor England, such a statement is treasonous. I don't think a majority of Catholics will follow the bishops. After all, hardly anyone believes using artificial contraception is a matter of proscribing the faith.  In short people will think it is daft to go into civil disobedience over a condom!  This whole call for civil disobedience will be a guaranteed flop.  Unfortunately the whole idea of contraception according to Catholic teaching offends morals. The Chur...

The blurbs have it wrong. The Philippine Flag has no right side up or up side down. The flag's designers envisioned equality in the flag. So whichever side you fly it, it should not matter. However the Flag is unique in that it is the only National Flag which by flying the red side up, becomes a War Standard. Of course we Filipinos want the nation to be at peace. So we would want the blue side up. But the red side up was first hoisted during the Revolutionary War against the Imperialist United States of America (to show that a Sovereign Nation was at war)   which eventually crushed the Philippine Republic.  The American occupiers banned flying the National Flag blue or red side up for 12 years from 1907-1919 on pain of stiff jail terms, fines or even death. This is the time when the flag could be displayed either covertly or as part of Zarzuela costumes. The red side was also up when the Philippine Commonwealth was invaded by the Japanese in 1941 and the Field Marshal...

Buendia during Ondoy? No Orchard Road last June 16! Photo credits from http://www.about-knowledge.com/orchard-road-flood/ Typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana) will be memorable for me since it flooded my house and sending my techie gadgets to the computer in the sky. Also I was trapped in Quezon City, at a charismatic church where I helped evacuees get some assistance with three medical students from UERM medical school who were to report for duty in the hospital, but couldn't. By then UERM hospital was up to its second floor in flood. The polluted San Juan River burst its banks.  I could not forget the long line of schoolchildren with drums and bugles as they were in school for a show when the flood struck and sank their school. But many people lost more in terms of property and worse in lives.  While damaged houses can be repaired, IPods, flat screen TVs and Digicams can be replaced by "cooler" models, a human life lost to the floods cannot be replaced. The blurbs today mark th...

I am reposting my 2006 essay on the burning of books, any kind of book, holy, secular or even heretical Do we have to repeat the same mistakes that have caused millions of human lives? Holocausts begin with the burning of books but if a holy book is burned this time, could a book be enough to stop it? [A pastor's plan to burn the Koran was canceled due to global condemnation] 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 bo...

Former dean of the UP Law school and nominee for the UP presidency, Raul Pangalangan writes something on foreign scholarships in today's Philippine Daily Inquirer that should be interesting reading for students. The Philippines has been sending students overseas for more than 200 years. The first students sent were clerics during the Spanish period. In the closing decades of Spanish rule, a more moneyed Filipino upper class was able to send their kids to school in Europe. This is the generation that founded the nation which included, Rizal, del Pilar, Lopez Jaena and the Luna brothers. The less financially able were not able to study in Europe but imbibed the radical, nationalist and enlightened attitudes of Rizal and company. To this generation belonged Mabini, Ricarte, Manuel Quezon and one of my ancestors who attended at the UST. After Republica Filipina collapsed, the American occupiers sent government scholars or pensionados to the USA. To this class belonged people who w...

I watched The Cove at the Cine Adarna theatre of the University of the Philippines on September 3. It was a free screening sponsored by Earth Island Institute .  The cinema was packed by environmentalists and advocates of keeping dolphins and other whales out of captivity. However, I had to ditch my environmentalist mode so I can watch the film more objectively and I had to see it with  my ASIAN AND THIRD WORLD EYES ! My assessment is that the documentary was well made but MISERABLY FAILS on  cultural and historical sensitivity . And so it can easily be criticized as an ENVIROIMPERIALIST attempt to trump down Japanese culture. First of all the film shows an all WHITE crew of environmentalists trying to save the dolphins. I do not see any problem with saving cetaceans and many Japanese do so too, but a balanced treatment would have been better if a historical aspect was introduced. Wholesale whale slaughter was first made an efficient industry by who else, White Eu...

I am a member of my college's Filipino language committee whose main goal is to promote the use of the National Language. Today the University of the Philippines just concluded the August National language month celebrations with a workshop on what has been done to promote Filipino. Almost all of the UP's colleges in Diliman sent in their progress reports. So far the main efforts were on 1) Translating the administrative and other bureaucratic forms from English to Filipino 2) Coming up with a Filipino language glossary for each discipline 3) Coming up with textbooks on the various Philippine languages. A textbook for elementary Ilocano was unveiled. 4) And coming up with many ways to make translation a less laborious endeavor. Speakers showed their on-line translators, search engines and a translator that makes translation from English to the major Philippine languages a breeze. Another is an on-line GIS of translators for the Philippine languages. Well I found out tha...

Hong Kong residents plan to have a huge indignation rally today on the bungled rescue of a tourist bus in Manila's Luneta park which resulted in the deaths of 8 hostages. This according to my good friend and UP Viasyas history professor Bruce Hall, is not really a cry for justice but to express sorrow cum outrage. Staging rallies like these are one of the few real liberties that HK citizens have. The China-UK treaty that ceded the territory back to Beijing in 1997 guaranteed that the capitalist system be maintained for 50 years. Take note of the word CAPITALIST. Capitalism in order to survive does not need DEMOCRACY. However DEMOCRACY in order to flourish requires CAPITALISM. Hong Kong citizens still cannot elect their Chief Executive (CE) directly. An election committee whose members come from HK's functional constituencies elect the CE who in the end is still a Beijing appointee. Limited direct democracy elects legislators but majority have to be vetted by Beijing. Althou...

In the wake of the hostage taking incident in Manila last August 23 which ended in tragedy, we have noticed things that Filipinos may pass on as humor and others as plain insanity. First of all are the jokes on what SWAT means. It supposed to mean Sorry wala akong training Sugod, wait, atras, takbo among other meanings Nonetheless while we Pinoys may use these as a coping mechanism, other cultures may think it's offensive. None was as offensive as a group of college students taking photos and smiling in front of ill fated bus. And worse the police officers posing for a group shot in front of the same bus! In both instances, they were smiling! These photos are all over the social media sites. The Philippines is now on the map for hostage tourism! It is good that there are still sane voices, almost all (or practically all!) of them came from the Chinese side. Take for example HK gigastar Jackie Chan's remarks which came out as the headline in the print edition of t...

Then Russian President (now Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian Special Forces to use a top secret nerve gas to resolve the Moscow October 2002 Nord Ost theatre hostage crisis. Thrity-nine Chechen Islamist separatists (some of them women with strapped on bombs on their bodies) took hostage more than 700 theatre goers and performers during act 2 of the hit musical "Nord Ost". The separatists demanded that Russia withdraw its armed forces from Chechnya, if not the separatists would start killing hostages. The Russian government sent in negotiators and even allowed the media to interview the chief hostage taker so that his demands will be known. However the media was not allowed to spin the story. The Russians jammed broadcast signals near the theatre. As the demands were unacceptable to the Russians and the separatists refused concessions as being allowed to fly to a third country, President Putin ordered the storming of the theatre at dawn of October 26. The ...

The Philippine Daily Inquirer should be commended for reprinting Senator Benigno Aquino's essay "What's Wrong with the Philippines" for Ninoy Aquino's martyrdom anniversary today. Aquino must be tossin an turnin' in his Manila Memorial Park tomb. For the Presidency of his wife, Corazon is also one answer to his question. The barest summary of Ninoy's question is this. There is an acute need for redistribution and access to education is the major peaceful way this can happen. The Americans may have wanted to mold the Filipinos in their own image and thus their institution of public education which is now remotely being seen as a liberating force, having fallen for crass profiteering. This is also extremely true for the Roman Catholic Church and the schools it operates. Holy Mother Church cannot escape blame here. She must be put in the dock too for the ills of Philippine society and not hide forever from the separation of church and state curtain for which ...