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Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Top Ten Prospect Books

List of books I want to have or to read before sem break ends! wala nga lang datung! hehe..

1. GEOPOLITICS OF EMOTION: HOW CULTURES OF FEAR, HUMILIATION AND HOPE ARE RESHAPING THE WORLD
Dominique Moisi

2. NONVIOLENCE
Mark Kurlansky

3. THE NEW ASIAN HEMISPHERE: THE IRRESISTABLE SHIFT OF GLOBAL POWER TO THE EAST
Kishore Mahbubani

4. PRESENT CONCERNS
C.S. Lewis


5. THE FOUR LOVES
CS Lewis

6. OF MAN (GREAT IDEAS)
Thomas Hobbes

Friday, October 17, 2008

UP did not participate in THES-QS university rankings


http://www.up.edu.ph/features.php?i=93



In the 2008 university rankings recently released by the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), only the University of the Philippines and the Ateneo de Manila University (among Philippine universities) made it to the top 400. UP rose from 398 in 2007 to 276 this year; Ateneo rose from 401-500 to 254. De La Salle was ranked 415th and UST was ranked 470th.

According to UP Vice President for Public Affairs Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo, UP President Emerlinda R. Roman did not receive any invitation to participate in the survey this year or any questionnaire to answer. What President Roman received was an email message from QS Asia Quacquarelli Symonds’ Regional Director (Asia Pacific), Mandy Mok, informing her that UP had “gone up in the rankings.”

Since UP had not been invited to participate in the survey and had not provided any data, UP officials do not know where and how the figures were obtained on which the ranking was based.

Hidalgo revealed that the message also contained this statement: “In view of the good news, would you like to consider signing up the following at a very attractive package price?” The “package price,” which includes a banner on topuniversities.com, a full page full color ad in Top Universities Guide 2009, and a booth at Top Universities Fair 2009, amounts to $48,930.

“UP can hardly be expected to spend more than 2 million pesos on publicity for itself involving a survey conducted by an organization that refuses to divulge where it obtains its data,” Hidalgo said.

In 2007, UP was invited to participate in the survey, but when THES-QS refused to explain where it obtained the data used to determine UP’s rank in the 2006 survey (where UP was ranked No. 299), university officials decided not to accept the invitation to participate in the 2007 survey. Moreover, the university was given barely a week to respond to the questionnaire.

UP wrote THES-QS in July 2007, informing them of this decision, and again in September 2007, requesting the organization to respect UP’s decision. In response, research assistant Saad Shabir wrote back saying that if it did not receive the information it would be “forced to use last year’s data or some form of average.”

These rankings are supposedly meant to serve as “the definitive guide to universities around the world which truly excel.” In evaluating institutions it computes half of the index based on its reputation as perceived by academics (peer review 40%) and global employers (recruiter review 10%). Since it does not specify who are surveyed or what questions are asked, the methodology is problematic.

An earlier statement, released by UP in August this year, and carried by several national dailies, said: “Even peers require standardized input data to review. But according to the International Ranking Systems for Universities and Institutions: A Critical Appraisal, published by BioMed Central, the Times simply asks 190,000 ‘experts’ to list what they regard as the top 30 universities in their field of expertise without providing input data on any performance indicators (http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/5/30). Moreover, the survey response rate among selected experts was found to be below 1%. In other words, on the basis of possible selection biases alone, the validity of the measurement is shaky.”

According to the statement, the other half of the index is based on such indicators as student-to faculty ratio, the number of foreign faculty and students in the university, and the number of academic works by university researchers that have been cited internationally. “Data for these indicators, however, typically depend on the information that participating institutions submit. An institution’s index may be easily distorted if it fails to submit data for the pertinent indicators, or if it chooses not to participate.”

As Dr. Leticia Peñano-Ho said in an article carried by the UP Forum last year: “The crux of the matter is to identify the indices that can approximate the different landscapes of universities. There might be a need to relate these indicators to the unversities’ mission statements. UP’s constituents can identify their own indicators and decide on their desirability, relevance and reliability. These criteria should, as an added value, provide international comparisons."

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Nation Building In Some Parts Of Asia: Learn From Our Neighbors

  • My basic principle in nation building is to unite the majority and minority race in Singapore, to impart to them common values, and to make them committed to share good and bad times together.
- Lee Kuan Yew, in an interview with Takuhito Tsuruta,
25 November, 1981
  • 1. Nation before community and society above self.; 2. Family as the basic unit of society.; 3. Regard and community support for the individual.; 4. Consensus instead of contention.; 5. Racial and religious harmony.
-the "Shared Values" of the Singaporeans
  • Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (unity in diversity)
- Indonesian strong nationhood motto
  • Fukoku Kyohei (a rich country and a strong army)
- Japanese Nationhood Slogan


Monday, October 13, 2008

Filipino Diaspora In A Proposition

"Diaspora" does not consist in the fact of leaving Home, but in having the factuality available to representation as such- we come to "know" diaspora only as it is psychically identified in a narrative form that discloses the various ideological investments.

1st thesis: Phenomenon of Filipino Dismembership

Given that the Philippine habitat has never cohered as genuinely independent nation-national autonomy continues to escape the nation- people in a colonial setup- Filipinos are dispersed from family or kinship webs in villages, towns, or provincial regions first, and loosely from an inchoate, even "refeudalized," nation-state, This dispersal is primarily due to economic coercion and disenfranchisement under the retrogressive regime of comprador-bureaucratic (not welfare-state) capitalism; migration is seen as freedom to seek one's fortune, experience the pleasure of adventure, libidinal games of resistance, and other illusions of transcendence. So the origin to which one returns is not properly a nation-state but a village, a quasi-primordial community, kinship network, or even a ritual family/clan.

2nd thesis: What are the myths enabling a cathexis of the homeland?

They derive from assorted childhood memories and folklore together with customary practices surrounding municipal and religious celebrations; at best, there may be signs of a residual affective tie to a national heroes like Rizal, Bonifacio, and latter-day celebrities like singers, movie stars, athletes, and so on. Indigenous food, dances, and music can be acquired as commodities whose presence temporarily heals the trauma of removal; family reunification can resolve the psychic damage of loss of status or alienation. In short, rootedness in autochthonous habitat does not exert a commanding sway, experienced only a nostalgic mood. Meanwhile, language, religion, kinship, the aura of family rituals, and common experiences in school or workplace function invariably as the organic bonds of community. Such bonds demarcate the boundaries of the imagination but also release energies and affects the mutate into actions-as performed by Garcia's characters- serving ultimately national-popularity emancipatory projects.

3rd thesis: Unification in Alienation

Alienation in the host country is what unites Filipinos, shared history of colonial and racial subordination, marginalization, and struggles for cultural survival through hybrid forms of resistance and political rebellion. This is what may replace the none existent nation/homeland, absent the liberation of the Filipino nation-state.

4th thesis: Return due to Economic Security

Some Filipinos in their old age may desire eventual only when they are economically secure. In general, Filipinos will not return to the site of misery and oppression- to poverty, exploitation, humiliated status, despair, hunger, and lack of dignity. Of course, some are forcibly returned: damaged, deported, or dead. But OFWs would rather move their kin and parents to their lace of employment, preferably in countries where family reunification is allowed, as in the United States, Italy, Canada, and so on. Or even in places of suffering and humiliation, provided there is some hope or illusion of future improvement.
Utopian longings can mislead but also reconfigure and redirect wayward adventures.

5th thesis: Nationalist Struggle

Ongoing support for nationalist struggles at home is sporadic and intermittent during times of retrenchment and revitalized apartheid. Do we see any mass protests and collective indignation in the United States at the Visiting Forces Agreement, for example, and the recent invasion (ca. 1998-2000) of the country by several US Marines in joint US-Philippines military exercises? Especially after September 11 and the Arroyo sycophancy to the Bush regime, the Philippines- considered by the US government as the harbor of homegrown ''terrorists"
like the Abu Sayyaf- is plausible to be transformed in to the next "killing field" after Afghanistan.

6th thesis: Filipino Collective Identity

In this time of quandary, the Filipino collective identity is in crisis and in stage of formation and elaboration. The Filipino diasporic consciousness is an odd species, a singular genre: it is not obsessed with a physical return to roots or to land where common sacrifices are remembered and celebrated. It is tied more to a symbolic homeland indexed by kinship or particular traditions and communal practices that it tries to transplant abroad in diverse localities. So, in he moment of Babylonian captivity, dwelling in "Egypt" or its moment of building public spheres of solidarity to sustain identities outside the national time/space "in order to live inside, with a difference" may be the most viable route (or root) of Filipinos in motion- the collectivity in transit, although this is, given the ineluctability of differences becoming contradictions, subject to the revolutionary transformations emerging in the Philippine countryside and cities. It is susceptible also to other radical change s in the geopolitical rivalry of metropolitan powers based on nation-states. There is indeed deferral,postponement, or waiting- but history moves on in the battlefields of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao where a people's war rooted in a durable revolutionary traditions rages on. This should not allow the Filipino Diaspora and its progeny to slumber in the consumerist paradises of LA, NY, Chicago, or Seattle, Dubai and so on. It will certainly disturb of those benefiting from the labor of OFWs who experience the repetition-compulsion of globalized trade and endure the recursive traumas of displacement and dispossession.

notes on the book: BALIKBAYANG SINTA by E. San Juan

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Random Thoughts:

  • Janina San Miguel withdraw her title as the Philippines 2008 Miss World Representative.
  • Opportunity from 'Melamine' Scare- http://www.inquirer.net/vdo/player.php?vid=1679
  • The perfect way to promote Philippine tourism: Survivor Philippines was held in Thailand!
  • The best way to help and feed the refugees in Mindanao due to the war between the Moros and Government forces is through a 40 tons of biscuits!
  • Filipino-made gadgets: myphone, myscreen and now.. mybook. support them, buy them. The said Filipino-made gadgets are manufactured by Solid Group Inc.
  • Afraid of tainted milk from China? try CARABA- milk from carabaos!

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Questions for the Future of UP by: Washington Sycip

PRESIDENT Emerlinda Roman, members of the faculty and friends of U.P.

Not being a graduate of the leading educational institution of the country, I am deeply honored that you have invited me to be one of the speakers in your celebration of a hundred years of service to the nation.

In today’s talk I intend to raise a number of very frank questions. since you receive more government funds than any other educational institution in the country, I, as a taxpayer, may claim the right to do so.

I hope you will not consider this as an abuse of the gracious invitation extended me by President Roman.

1. Going over the book “The University of the Philippines — A University for Filipinos” which was published as U.P. celebrated its diamond jubilee twenty five years ago, one cannot miss the introduction that says “…a U.P. degree holder is generally believed to be more capable than most college graduates, as well as imbued with a sense of purpose…with minds capable of new ideas and perceptions and passionate commitment to the social good.”

If U.P. has accurately claimed that during the past 62 years, after we left the U.S. umbrella, U.P. graduates have occupied the presidential chair for 46 years, then I may ask you “why are we in such a mess?”

Over fifty years ago, we were told that with our advantages of being a christian nation and a democracy, we will be, next to Japan, the leading nation in East Asia. Today we find ourselves in a steadily declining position regardless of what measure we go by: poverty index, per capita spending on education, crime rate, corruption ranking, peace and order, rural health, the list goes on.

Unfortunately, we have even found ourselves, in spite of our large population, with the lamentable distinction of being the only major Southeast Asian nation that did not win any medal at the recently concluded Olympic games.

Can we blame the religion Spain brought to our shores five centuries ago for our limitations or the U.S. for the failure of our democracy? Shouldn’t our decades of freedom be long enough for us to correct any inherited disadvantages?

With all the talented people we have, why have we not been able to produce a Lee Kwan Yew, who in one generation brought his people in Singapore to income levels of the U.S. or Germany?

Or a K. T. Li of Taiwan, a physics graduate of Cambridge, who introduced the computer to every age group in Taiwan so that this small country has become the largest exporter of computers and components?

Or a Mahathir of Malaysia who greatly improved infrastructure and increased income levels of all citizens in a mixed society of Malays, Chinese and Indians?

Or a General Park of South Korea whose tough and disciplined administration industrialized a country where the large firms successfully competed with the companies of its former colonial master?

Or a Deng Hsiao Ping who released the energy of his people to achieve in 25 years the greatest reduction of poverty in world history?

We did have the promise of a Ramon Magsaysay who as secretary of defense greatly improved peace and order but whose unfortunate early death 50 years ago prevented him from carrying out a program to improve the lives of the bottom group of our people.

Then we had Rafael Salas, a brilliant graduate of U.P. in 1969, fresh from managing the transformation of chronic shortage into an astounding Philippine rice sufficiency breakthrough, Salas accepted a United Nations offer to head a fledgling fund. He believed at the U.N. there would be a possibility of making a contribution to solving what he thought was becoming one of the world’s major problems — population. He thought that the same strategies employed in the rice sufficiency program, would work in a sophisticated international environment as they did in tradition-bound Philippine rural communities. In fact he was proven right. Alex Marshall of the United Nations Population Fund writes:

“The consensus which Salas built is more than an act of diplomacy. It is the solid evidence of the recognition worldwide of the importance of population in development programmes. It has helped to change the policies of governments; it has helped to change the lives of millions of people. It has set men and women free to make choices for themselves, and helped secure the future of children yet unborn. They and all of us stand in his debt.”

But Filipinos have surmised that Rafael left the Philippines because his integrity and competence could not survive in a climate of government corruption.

Will U.P. be able to produce other leaders like Salas and can they succeed in the Philippine political soil?

In 1983, thirty years after he had graduated from this University, and at that time an under secretary general at the United Nations, he returned here to receive an honorary doctor of laws degree from his alma mater. As Salas thanked the University for the honor conferred on him, he also took leave by asking the question:

“What can the scholars of this University do to solve the problems of the Philippines when it will be a country of 70 million people”?

His widow, Carmelita R. Salas, the highly respected Philippine ambassador to the Czech Republic, speaking at the World Population Day forum in Manila this last July, pointed to this very same concern. Today, she said, the Philippines is a country of 89 million, and in 2030 will be close to 140 million. Again, Rafael would have asked the scholars of this University the same question today.

I ask: what would be their answer?

Post Edsa I, in February of 1987, when freedom in the Philippines had been won with what the world would know as “people power,” Salas was keynote speaker at the district meeting of Rotary Clubs in Manila. In a speech that one Rotarian referred to as the best SONA he had ever heard, Rafael spoke on “managing the aftermath.” Let me read to you part of what he said:

“But this freedom cannot be fully exercised unless there is order. Governments are instituted to insure peace, stability and continuity; to enable the citizens to plan their future and insure the survival and growth of their children. The resumption of hostilities with the NPA and the constant threat of rebellion in Mindanao and a very high incidence of crime are pointers of the lack of order I speak of. Insecurity stifles productivity. No long-term investment and high productivity can be encouraged when businessmen feel uncertain and insecure. The administration has exerted a sincere effort to resolve these problems. But time presses. Order must prevail. A free society cannot be mobilized for development unless there is a feeling of safety and confidence in the future.”

The same speech would have been relevant post Edsa II.

How prophetic and unfortunate that things have not changed the past 20 years!

But “why” we must ask ourselves.

Let us begin by focusing on education.

We tend to unfairly blame every current administration for our problems. But can’t we see that the steady decline of educational standards is the cumulative effect of the neglect of many administrations and the unwillingness to adopt long term solutions to problems that cannot be solved by a ribbon cutting event!

The success or failure of any organization depends upon its policies and efforts on developing its human resources. For a nation to adopt short term policies on education is national suicide! doesn’t the solution of peace and order problems depend upon relatively equal educational opportunities for the rich and poor, for the Christians and Moslems?

2. We as a nation are proud to have a University older than Harvard. Proud that U.P. celebrates the success of a hundred years. We are proud of Ateneo, La Salle and many other Catholic universities where men and women of upper income groups are educated.

We praise these institutions of learning but as a nation we seem to accept the scandalously high national dropout rates of students in basic education. The figures are worse in Moslem areas and in poor communities.

In many towns and villages, Synergeia, led by Nene Guevara, and working with mayors and community leaders who want change, has improved literacy rates. But much, much greater national efforts are needed.

As the recipient of the largest of government education funds, shouldn’t U.P. endeavor to enlist its many successful and wealthy alumni in a campaign to return to their alma mater the benefits they have received from the school and thus enable more funds to be diverted from U.P. and allocated to basic education?

Should the students from upper income groups not be asked to pay for the full cost of education? When upper income families send their children abroad, they do pay “full tuition.” Should they not be asked to do the same in their own country?

Has U.P. studied how neighboring countries have dropped poverty levels?

The Asian Development Bank just released a report pointing out that the Philippines and India, who claim to be democracies, lag behind East Asian countries in reducing poverty. China and Vietnam, both authoritarian states, are the two countries that have rapidly reduced poverty. Are there lessons to be learned here?

Why have Singapore and Thailand developed hospitals for “medical tourism” while we send our excellent doctors and nurses to developed countries? Should we not advocate some system where destination countries compensate us for training these professionals?

Are inward remittances of poor overseas workers with divided families offsetting outward remittances of upper income Filipinos, educated in subsidized schools like U.P., and setting up households abroad?

You can, of course, tell me that the world is flat and young people should be free to move anywhere. yes — our young men and women should go abroad — it widens their horizon and gives them the skills to better serve their country. But we should strive to keep their hearts Filipino and with a resolve that they will return to serve in their country’s development. and government policy should work with them to use its limited resources to reduce poverty and improve the lives of all citizens.

Is U.P. doing its part to help government adopt long term educational measures to ensure this?

3. We all agree on the need of national unity. Can we point to the politics of fraternities as the root of the excessive time spent on national politics? Or is the lack of unity a basic disadvantage of an island nation?

Is the sluggish pace of economic development the result of blind acceptance of western thinking that political freedom or democracy comes ahead of economic freedom? Doesn’t democracy assume that there must be the “rule of law” which implies an independent judiciary with well trained and well paid honest lawyers? Where judges may be poorly paid and subject to political pressures is it possible to have an independent judiciary let alone a working democracy?

U.P. has produced excellent lawyers and many of the bar topnotchers that are managing the large law firms — but are they leaders in reforming the judicial system?

4. U.P. and Asia

How close is U.P. to recognizing that the Philippines is part of Asia and that China, India and Japan will be exerting more influence on our future than the U.S. and Europe?

Is the faculty of U.P.’s School of Asian Studies deeply knowledgeable about the culture and the political thinking of our neighbors and are they proficient in other Asian languages?

Even Japan, very closely allied to the U.S., does not have the government or economic structure of the Western world. The party in power has not changed for over 50 years and its corporate structure and behavior are very different from Western firms.

With the Toyota donation, you will at least have the physical structure for the School of Asian Studies. But the faculty is even more important than the building.

Does our being the only Catholic country in Asia, with an extremely conservative church leadership, seen only in Poland and Malta, hamper our capacity to understand our Asian neighbors? What is the role of U.P. as the only well known Philippine university that is not Catholic?

With a 6-percent Moslem minority and our dependence on imported energy, does U.P. have a faculty that is knowledgeable in the history and culture of the Middle East and fluent in Arabic languages?

To follow U.S. policy, which will have to favor Israel, can only spell disaster for the Philippines.

Has U.P. studied what measures should be taken to narrow the education gap between Christians and Moslems?

5. U.P. Campus

About 10 days ago I was present at the ceremonies when Toyota, responding to the efforts of George Ty, agreed to donate the very attractive P100 million building to U.P. Its architect, Jose Danilo Silvestre, dean of the College of Architecture, assured me that he and other alumni like Mr. Palafox, noted urban designer, would be willing to donate their time and expertise to landscape the present campus.

Maintenance of a “new” campus can be assigned to building occupants or fraternities, or student organizations. Maybe you can collect parking fees from cars parked in the campus. Talented Filipino artists and sculptors can then be encouraged to display their work in the campus!

Does U.P. have a development plan for its large campus?

6. U.P. and Tourism

Our 3,000,000 arrivals a year are way behind our neighbors’ 10 to 12 million visitors. Tourism benefits all the people in the countryside. Our people are known to be the most hospitable and friendly. We are ahead of our neighbors in English, the first language of tourism.

When I visited Bohol last year I was told the influx of German tourists to the attractive island is due to the 200 Germans who have happily settled there with their Filipina wives.

The hospitality industry will be the growth area of the country. Will your different schools play a major role in assisting Secretary Durano achieve his targets?

7. U.P. and Agriculture

I have met many Thais who are graduates of the prestigious Los Baños agricultural school. But I wonder why the Thais, who usually bring back a Filipina wife, have made Thai agriculture much more productive and efficient than what we have been able to do here.

Let us take notice of the dole success story. As dean of the Business School, Cesar Virata had strongly advocated cooperation with Los Baños. Through his efforts, Dole established their very successful and productive agri-business operations in Mindanao.

With the Catholic Church’s campaign against a sound government population policy, which in turn hampers the country’s capacity for addressing its population growth rate, perhaps U.P.’s contribution to increasing rice production, can prevent a recurrence of the problem that we had this year!

I was on the board of a Malaysian palm oil company that was diversifying into bamboo, they told me the bamboo experts were in Los Baños. Yet we import bamboo shoots from China!

Since agriculture is still the most important part of our economy, shouldn’t U.P. then, in cooperation with successful farmers, put particular focus on the study and implementation of efficient food production to bring food costs down?

8. Alumni Relations

A new university has the disadvantage of not having a successful alumni group that you can tap for funds.

U.P. has the advantage of celebrating a centennial with very distinguished and wealthy graduates in practically every field of activity. But has your dependence on government funds resulted in a neglect of your alumni? How many buildings, laboratories, auditoriums, professorial chairs have been donated by your many prosperous alumni?

Many of the facilities at the Philippine General Hospital needs improvement. Yet this was the training ground of many doctors from U.P. One very socially responsible U.P. medical school graduate in the U.S., who is planning to retire here, told me he was shocked when some of his classmates here were bragging about how little taxes they were paying in spite of their luxurious houses, cars and trips abroad!

Are your alumni aware that they can legally reduce taxes by donating to U.P.? Maybe yearly seminars to update your graduates on the latest developments in their profession can encourage them to give an annual amount to U.P.

I have no doubt that a well organized and aggressive alumni relations office will yield large dividends for U.P. and the nation.

9. Faculty

The greatness of a university is always measured by its faculty. Faculty that will inspire not merely instruct. mentors that will encourage learning and the use of this knowledge towards nation building.

A nation’s progress is also determined by what it does to develop its human resources.

I read the report of your National College of Public Administration and Governance and was very impressed with the qualifications of the faculty and lecturers. Aside from seminars, publications and workshops, won’t it be wonderful if they can implement the many changes they are advocating, in basic education, in the civil service, in local government and in the fight against corruption?

My contacts with your faculty are mainly from your excellent School of Economics and the Business School and, of course, with Cynthia Bautista who has given invaluable help to the Magsaysay Foundation in focusing on its plans for the next 50 years.

Is this standard of excellence I see also found in the other departments?

Can U.P. encourage its bright faculty to publish objective position papers on national issues that will stop the endless and confusing debates that are in full page ads in the daily newspapers?

Considering the contribution U.P. can make in our nation’s future, should this university not have a “think tank” with experts from its different schools, possibly also working with non U.P. graduates, to study where the nation is today, its negatives and positives, and how it could move forward in the next 25 and 50 years?

Hopefully, our many bright people will unite behind this program to reduce poverty and put the Philippines again in a respectable position in Asia.

Maybe some of the questions I have raised may be expecting too much from an educational institution, with limited funds, to solve all of our national problems.

But it is the price of leadership. the brightest young men and women come to your campus and for these young minds, you must endeavor to attract and retain the best faculty in every school.

It is my profound hope that against all challenges, this great University, with an inspired administration, a strong faculty and an alumni conscious of its responsibility to the nation, can, together with the Secretary of Education, take the lead in the implementation of major reforms in our public schools, without which poverty reduction will be difficult. And without which, equal opportunity for all its citizens to benefit from economic growth will not be attainable.

With the present financial difficulties facing the developed world, optimists are in short supply. But can we hope that we could follow the path of Ireland, also a very strong Catholic country, that was able to convince the political parties to adopt a common economic program which resulted in the return of the young talented people that had migrated to the United States and United Kingdom? Can the very competent and disciplined economists of U.P. lead in such an effort?

Only then can a united, peaceful and prosperous nation become a reality!

U.P. alumni closely identify the Oblation with their alma mater. But how many of them really know that when the sculptor Tolentino created this figure of a young man whose arms are outstretched in a gesture of sacrifice to his country and humanity, the artist also placed at its feet a cluster of “katakalanta” leaves, a plant that rapidly multiplies to symbolize, as Tolentino tells us the “undying stream of heroism in the Filipino race.”

As this University celebrates its hundredth anniversary I ask a final question: can we expect from U.P.’s leadership this heroism the country begs for?
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- -
Delivered September 3, 2008 in the NISMED Auditorium, UP Diliman.
Dr. Washington Sycip is founder of the accounting and management firm SGV, as well as the Asian Institute of Management. He is a recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding. He holds a BS Commerce degree from the University of Santo Tomas, graduating summa cum laude. He also holds two Masters of Science degrees, one from UST, and the other from Columbia University, New York, in the United States. He also holds a Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, from the Unversity of the Philippines.

Friday, October 3, 2008

MAN IS A POLITICAL ANIMAL

Twenty times in an hour, Senator Estampador
Uttered the word: "democracy"
Uttered the word in the snare of a sad snore:
His tongue as a clapper, metallic, on his steeled palate.

In the bed of Procustes: hardly a mind to matter.

But his speech had imperceptible blasts.
He spoke like a queen of harlots, for,
He suffered to be bought and sold by the phallic paroxysm of the hoi polloi.

Senator Estampador had exultations.
He fed upon the cunning of impossibility, fed upon
The foul pollution of proletarian insensibility: the foul
Humbug of bourgeois incompatibility.
"Woe to you suckers! woe to capitalist racketeers!"
Occasions of anguish by Catholicism? Mind you, one can hardly suspect...

His party machine was a Roman phalanx.
The gauntlet of propaganda slightly narcissistic.
I remark however in his manner the public darling of Coriolanus.

Senator Estampador had ecstasies.
He entertained a flair for the Supreme, i.e., fasces and swastika.
Obscenities of rabble-rattlers on the dungheap of comrades-in-arms
Mephitical as they beat hurrah-hurrah, hammer on kettle-drum,
The fleshpots, majestic, of their damned Utopia!

Die! Gunshot!
Amid the infernal age,
load- with gunpowder of meter and rhyme-
Exultations, ecstasies: blackout in the lure of labyrinths-
Yes, surely the media were used for misinformation:
"... exhumed lately from the balloting booth..."

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Mental Colonization

I am colonization personified.
The foundation of my being,
my language of thought
belongs not to those ancestors
whose blood now feeds my freedom,
but to the slave master
whose oppressive bark
echoes deep in my mind.

I am colonization personified.
My strengths have died
as I have tried
with Filipinocentricity exemplified,
to show my mother; whose eyes cry
as they scan the horizon
and leave her with a sigh,
that in her smile
Philippineswill never lie.

I am colonization personified.
Read these words
and you will know this is true!

(originally by Thabiso Nkoana, an African... modifed for Filipino contextualization)

Thoughts V: Mental colonization by Mondar M. M. A. NOVO

The greatest colonization is the colonization of the mind. In the initial stages of colonization, the conquered people are enslaved and controlled with the force of arms. The weakness of this form of colonization is that the colonized people can rise up in revolution and send the colonizer packing, permanently. This colonization is transient. However, the colonizer has other weapons in his arsenal and these are used to colonize the minds of the conquered people, since colonization of the mind has more permanency.

There are various degrees of this mental colonization. Specialized education and exposure to carefully controlled media are used to partially colonize the minds of the people. This is not a thing of the past and is still done with greater vigor. The big guns for this colonization are the televisions, radios and newspapers and other forms of media – often this is called deculturization by people labeled as conservative.

Entertainment, News, TV, and radio programs are slanted to allow the people to form the “desired” opinions and the “desired” prejudices. Primarily, however, it is education that is controlled. The media adds to the colonization by controlled education.

Books and curricula are chosen more or less by the existing powers (corporate, government, and religious) reflecting their wishes. Students learn what the “powers” wish them to learn. The choice of material for the student from which the student learns is pre-selected. The material which will enable the student to go beyond the classroom are also controlled either by subtly discouraging the student from going too far from what is taught in the classroom or it is controlled directly by making certain types of material more available than others and some simply unavailable.

This affects the freedom of thought. Freedom of thought depends heavily on the diversity of knowledge and the control of education greatly curtails this freedom. Where the freedom of knowledge is controlled, freedom of thought is dead and thus freedom of speech becomes irrelevant. And democracy thus becomes a mere tool of the existing powers.

Effects of even this partial colonization can be seen in much of the world. It has grave cultural effects such as in India (subcontinental) where many people, however they shout out their nationalism, associate native male clothes with the “lower class” and western clothes with the “higher class”. Even on national days, such as the Language Martyrs’ Day in Bangladesh , wearing the Lungi is considered unseemly. Even eating with forks and knives is often considered more “civilized” than eating with the hand, which is the Indian tradition. Many do not stop to think that eating utensils and many other customs of the west developed out of what their environment demanded. For people in colder climates eating with the hand meant washing it, which is not comfortable in their climate and as such, there was a necessity to invent eating utensils. This also goes for shoes that enclose the whole foot. Those kind of shoes are not necessary and rather uncomfortably hot in warm weather but today, Indians and many other warm climate inhabitants use the shoes where more stringy sandal-shoes would suffice.

Much of India (subcontinental) is westernized – and this does not exclude Gandhi who wore Indian clothes but was an utter admirer and supporter of the British Raj. The attitude towards clothes and utensils represents the mindset of the still colonized Indians. Westernization (the culture of the colonizer) is seen as modern and more acceptable. Apparently, Macaulay was successful.

... The mentally colonized individual even looks for his heritage in the land of the colonizer. They feel pride in the colonizers’ history and glory. They hero-worship the very aggressors who parasitize their country like leeches as colonizers or in their most recent form – neo-colonialists. Still slaves just without chains!

... A very tiny section of the colonized, usually those who were affluent before the arrival of the colonialists or those who were servants of the colonizer deal with the colonialist to achieve pseudo-independence and gain power, just as Marx said. Through these “educated” natives, the colonialists practice neo-colonialism, in which the wealth of the colonized nation still flows to the colonialists. This tiny group becomes the elite and extremely rich and powerful while the rest of the people fight each other, intoxicated by the scarcity principle, for the scraps that fall down the cracks of the system according to Reagan’s highly insulting “trickle down” theory.

One might trivialize the use of foreign names. However, it is a bigger issue than one realizes. It does not only symbolize the loss of culture and ultimate colonization, it also has many consequences. A name is one of the most intimate possessions and control of the name has a lot of significance
and effect on one’s mind. It molds the world around a person. It encourages generalization. A person with a Bengali name will be perceived generally as a Hindu and the circle of friends around him will form partially filtered by that name. The outlook of the person born in an Islamic family with a Bengali name will be much different from that of one with an Arabic name...

LET US LEARN FROM OUR NEIGHBORS...