blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

One of the major national security issues that face the Philippines and neighbouring countries is massive environmental changes that can cause the displacement of hundreds of thousands if not millions of citizens. As of this writing, metropolitan Bangkok is now being innundated by massive monsoon floods and the engineering interventions made by the Thai government in the last 20 years of rapid economic development are proving of very little use. The Prime Minister of Thailand  Ms Yingluck Shinawatra, has to call on the Thai armed forces to offer relief and rescue. Like the Philippines, the massive evacuation of thousands of citizens is a logistical challenge that will tax the capacity of the government of Thailand. However the Kingdom of Thailand is in a much better position to respond. Why? The Armed forces of the ASEAN countries have seen improvements in training, equipment and recruitment. These countries armed forces have enough strength to call in times of national environmen...

The families of the 19 soldiers killed in an MILF-Abu Sayyaf ambush in Basilan are now starting to bury their brave dead. The flag draped caskets are blessed by the priests, taps and the final salute is fired. The coffin is then laid into the tomb. At the end of these military ceremonies whatever the rank of the dead soldier, the flag is lifted from the casket before entombment and folded in the way that every boy scout learns on the first days of service to God, Country and People. The folded flag is presented by the senior officer on graveside duty to the spouse, or if the soldier is not married, to the parents with the words "A grateful Republic thanks your son/daughter/husband/wife for his/her service" The Republic will forever be grateful. The soldier does not guarantee freedom as mistakenly assumed by some. It is the Constitution that does so. The soldier takes the oath to defend the Constitution and rest of the citizenry are just asked to live it and perhaps de...

The Holy Church of Apple has given the Vatican a run for its money (or more accurately a run for its franchise on heaven) by ensuring by iPad acclamation that its founder Steve Jobs gets canonized as a saint. St Steve Jobs has been given a job as the patron saint of gadgets and this is just few days after his death. The Vatican says that there is a heaven but Catholics have to accept that on faith while non-believers seriously doubt that given the recent peccadilloes many of which are scandalous, by priests and bishops. In a sense St Steve Jobs has had it better leading a rather mysterious life and having a lot of cash. Many of the Roman Catholic saints led mysterious lives in the cloister or seeing mysterious things as visions or by dying for the Faith, but the main requirement is and was, to give away the moolah to the poor . Sounds familiar? It's in the Gospel! All these are quite remote for the typical layperson. Similarly St Jobs led a rather mysterious life far detached fr...

Perhaps I have a teeny weeny bit of right, by right as the English would have it, to comment on things about National Artist Sionil Jose's essays, novels, short stories and plays. I will have to confess, I have read all his books and I have all his books, save one "Vibora" which some idiot of a friend never returned (Never lend books. There was a legit reason why in medieval England they had them chained to the desks!). This is a fact that my mother was so proud of  during one formal cocktail shindig at the US Embassy's historic Chuck Parson's ballroom. Mom, my sister and myself had been Fulbright grantees and so was F. Sionil Jose. During the usual literati banter that accompanies these events, my mother told Mr Sionil Jose that "My son has read all your books" . To which Sionil Jose replied "Give my condolences to your son" . This I heard within earshot since I was at a nearby cocktail table talking to then  US ambassador Kirstie Kenney! (Ken...

Students plank at Palma Hall, University of the Philippines. Photo courtesy of the UPIO I have seen people plank but as Wikipedia says it is just fad , or even a prank, or even an art form that draws attention. Some commentators have called it idiotic , but now one Filipino lawmaker wants it banned for compromising public safety! Plankers want to plank in the most unusual of places . Then the photo is uploaded onto a social network platform like Facebook. But a few people have been killed in accidents for doing so. But lately, Filipino students have planked in a usual place like Espana Blvd in Manila as a protest against budget cuts to the higher education sector by the Noynoy administration. Lying on the pavement is not a novel way of peaceful and confrontational protesting. In Mike de Leon's film Sister Stella L, there was a scene on the picket line where the strikers and the nuns laid down to prevent scabs from entering the factory. But that was not planking. "Di...

Add caption The Bill of Rights in the Constitution of the Philippines remains as the most relevant part of the charter for the citizen. In the latest book "Our Rights, Our Victories" (Cleverheads Publishing, 2011), authors Marites Danguilan Vitug and Criselda Yabes tackles landmark cases in the Supreme Court of the Philippines which deal with the rights and protections afforded by the Bill for the citizen. Ms Vitug and Ms Yabes both respected investigative journalists have to be lauded for coming out with this book that deals with civil rights in the whole tumult of our history as an independent nation. This is indeed a first in Pinoy publishing history. The book is written without much of the legalese that accompanies ponencias by the Pinoy Supremes. This would make it more intelligible for the educated Pinoy reader who knows English. Even among the educated, civics was hardly ever taught and thought about unlike in the days of my parents and grandparents during the Im...

With the University of the Philippines (UP) and the rest of the public higher education sector facing Noynoy Aquino's budget cuts which resulted in UP slipping down in international university rankings, Alfredo E Pascual was formally installed as UP President today at the University Theatre in Diliman. The following photos are from the UP Information Office Pascual is presented with the University Mace as symbol of his authority as chief academic officer Mr Pascual reviews the Rayadillo Honor Guard. The following photo is from my camera Giving the investiture speech In a ceremony with medieval roots, Pascual received from CHED Commissioner Dr Patricia Licuanan the symbols of office, the Mace and the Chain of Office. In one video spiel presented before the ceremonies, Fred Pascual seems to carry the Mace as if he were to hit and bludgeon those who threaten the UP with a budget cut! Very appropriate and true to the medieval ideal!   For the original use of the Mace is f...

Whoever thought an answer to a Ms Universe question would make Pinoys ask about what they think of their religious beliefs and to what extent will they give them up? Ms Philippines, Shamcey Supsup's answer to juror Viveca Fox's question "If I had to change my religious beliefs, I would not marry the person that I love because the first person that I love is God who created me and I have my faith and my principles and this is what makes  me who I am. And if that person loves me, he should love my God too." Anyway, at least on Facebook or Twitter, Pinoys have as expected, discussed what this answer is all about. Some consider the answer to have shot down Shamcey's chances of winning the crown (she got the 3rd Runner up plaudit), which fell on Ms Angola, another woman who would not change what she was for something else! ABS-CBN was the first to start the trend by asking Shamcey's dad what he thought about his daughter's answer. Dad replied that he ra...

Di masasabing hindi ka mamamtay sa katatawa sa pelikulang Zombadings: Patayin sa shokot si Remington na ngayo'y palabas pa rin sa mga sinehan. Sa pamagat ng komedya, ang salitang "shokot" ay marahil nagmula sa "shock" at "takot". Isang katagang nanggaling sa "gayspeak" nag karoon ng ibayong ibig sabihin ang bagong kataga. Ngayon nasa balita ang kaso ng isang sikyo na sinuntok daw ng isang congressman or representante ng isang distrito sa Mindanao sa UP Ayala Technohub ng kinailangan para sa seguridad na suriin ang sasakyan ng congresista. Hindi daw itutuloy ng sikyo ang reklamo dahil isa lamang siyang maliit na tao. Si pelikulang Pinoy, may mga sinasabing "memorable" na eksena ng mga "maliit na tao" na lumaban. Kasama na dito ang ginampanan ni FPJ na isang maliit na police sergeant sa "Kapag Puno na ang Salop" laban sa di makakalimutang Judge (na ginampanan ni Eddie Garcia). Hay naku napuno na nga ang salop. K...

I do not know James Soriano but those netizens who know him say he is an Ateneo de Manila senior. The essay he wrote for the Manila Bulletin is honest on his experience in the use of English and Filipino in Filipino society. The mass of Filipino society especially on the net will label him as conyo , but we cannot fault him for that. The class stratification in Philippine society is sharply demarcated by language use as this blogger writes . This cuts across regional and cultural boundaries. Since in almost all political jurisdictions, those who are elected to public office belong to the elite, we can observe that signs in public buildings are in English or may be bilingual but the sign in a Philippine language is less conspicuous than the one in English. I have seen and stared at these while peeing  in countless toilets in the Visayas and Mindanao, where a warning (pahibalo) in not flushing the toilet will result in a fine. The warning is in large font English and the one in ...

Former UP Law dean Raul Pangalangan wrote probably the most sane comment on the "Poleteismo" brouhaha at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP).  He exposes Philippine society's "grave misconceptions on why we offer communal protection for expressive freedoms".  The law dean notes the hate mail and messages sent the CCP which threatened the safety of CCP employees and so the center shut down the exhibit. For starters following Thomas Jefferson, I swear to be"in eternal enmity over any tyranny over the mind of man". I am against any entity that censors and/or vandalizes art. Rightly so because the Nazi Holocaust started by vandalizing "degenerate art", then burning books which then led to burning people! However not all art is uplifting, some are offensive. For me the only way to deal with offensive art is not to look at them. Another example: offensive literature cannot be banned without shooting liberty and democracy in the foot....

UP President Alfredo Pascual gives his views on research at the UP With apologies to Blaise Pascal we paraphrase his famous wager as "If the fact that UP is really a top notch university cannot be revealed by reason alone, then a rational UP alumnus should wager as if UP really is tops!" This probably was in the mind of UP President Alfredo Pascual when he spoke to the scientists and researcher academics at the latest "Kapihan" at the UP Marine Science Institute newly refurbished auditorium last Friday, August 5, 2011. Diliman Diary has reported on what was discussed. Do you notice what is wrong with the above wager? Answer: Any rational mind will be able to conclude that the wager has a false predicate! UP is not tops! To insist it is, is to hold on to a delusion! The University of the Philippines is faced with a serious and increasing budgetary shortfall. The coming fiscal year saw the university budget slashed by Congress to the tune of 800 millio...

Dear Chris You were never my student in Environmental Science 1 but some of your classmates from Malcolm Hall were. One of them told me the tale of the floating car before I saw it plastered on Facebook! But despite you being taken for a fool, I don't think you really are! You were just one exasperated taxpayer! As I have written earlier, Metro Manila is an extremely dangerous urban environment where the mere act of using the streets as a pedestrian or as a motorist (as you have found out to your humiliation by an unkind Pinoy social networking community) can kill! Example: At one flooded street in Manila, several people were reported to have been electrocuted when they held on to a fancy lamp post for support during a flood. It appeared that the lamp post had no insulation that makes them "all weather"! I heard you are about to take the Bar and some of my lawyer friends hope that you will pass so that ALL will be informed (the networks included). But more than th...

Almost every year I teach an undergraduate course in environmental science where towards the end of the semester we discuss relevant issues. In the first half of the semester we discuss and learn about the physical and biological processes that make the environment an interesting thing to observe and in the latter half, we deal with how we poor humans have to deal with a changing environment using our 1) wits and 2) technology! It is no secret that Metro Manila is one of the most dangerous urban environments to live in. Architects and city planners Paulo Alcazaren and Gerard Lico have written so much about how Metro Manila's unplanned urban sprawl, booming population and bad governance has made the problem worse. The two gentlemen have pointed out that these problems bedeviled Manilans even in the Spanish colonial period, except then, there were only less than a million Manilans compared to the 13-14 million today. Thus in a time of rainfall shifts, a moderate downpour of 10-15 ...

I am in the process of finishing lectures to the Science, Technology and Society (STS) class and we were discussing the medieval origins of science. In this tale, two popes are significant. Pope Sylvester II or the mathematical pope reigned from 999-1003 and is credited by setting the mathematical foundations of modern science in the West. The other one Pope John XXII (reigned from 1316-1334) is not very known to us today but he issued an edict that all scientific studies must have experimental proof since alchemists were into making fake gold at that time. Also we discussed that the university is really a medieval institution and what we call pompous rites of passage like the college recognition and university graduations are medieval survivals in a 21st century University of the Philippines. The students don't realize that there is even a more significant medieval survival at UP. And this is none other than the closed door election of the Board of Regents of the UP president!...

A still from "Amigo" by John Sayles The late William Henry "Scotty" Scott, esteemed American historian and lay minister of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines wrote in "Ilocano Responses to American Aggression 1900-1901" that a few years after the Philippines was finally recognized as independent, the nationalist trend of the 1950s led the Department of Education in 1951 to interview the few surviving veterans of the Filipino War against American Imperialism a.k.a "Philippine-American War" and the then present generation of Filipinos about the war. So thorough was the American colonial education system and its historical cleansing of that period in history that Filipinos knew more of the revolt against "backward" Spain and friar abuses than the American atrocities of the anti-imperialist war. This historical amnesia poisons US-Philippine relations to this day. No amount of dancing to the beat of "Papaya" by former US ...

Pope Paul VI famous for the "Smoke of Satan" homily   "The smoke of Satan has entered the Temple of God"  quote is probably Pope Paul VI's most (in)famous soundbite. He allegedly said it during a homily at St Peter's basilica and delivered in Italian on 29 June 1972. I remember very well that in the turbulent 1970s, a fiendish spell of "Devil" and "Antichrist" movies starting from the iconic "Exorcist", "the Omen" and to the equally infamous and atrocious "Amityville Horror" became the staple of cinemas. And my sisters were fans of this genre and so I got to see them all!  Of course a Pope giving a public address with something like "Satan" in it would, to understate it, attract public and media attention (and thus became the inspiration for the "Devil" movies of the 1970s)  So to this day Catholics and non-believers want to find out what the Pope really meant. And so that will inclu...

The blurbs have it that President Noynoy Aquino sold his Porsche . He says it puts undue "risk" to his security detail. It's about time that the President develops a sense about the office he was elected into. Besides he wasn't elected against his will! The Porsche ended up as a PR disaster and caused the President's approval ratings to crash and burn. The Juana Change spoof tells it all But despite the Palace apologists saying that he used his own money to buy, the question is what on earth will he use it for? This is the same question is now thrown at the "Pajero bishops" of the Catholic Church! He was reported to need it for "stress release" and the rumor mill started to grind. The "tsismis" mill said that he releases stress and the accelerator on deserted Hacienda Luisita roads. Any idiot would know that it would be easy to make the Porsche crash by 1) putting a roadblock without reflectors, 2) put a pipe laying type of dig...