Monday, September 05, 2005

Arangkada for September 6, 2005

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            ALSA BATOK CSCST

 

Daghang kasayuran ang akong nadawat—pinaagi sa email, text, suwat, tawag sa telepono ug linawas nga pakigkita—pagdason sa mga pasangil sa anomaliya sa Cebu State College of Science and Technology (CSCST) main campus. Matod nila di ang main campus ray nabiktima kay hasta ang satellite colleges sa tibuok Sugbo giingong naputos sab sa daghang panguwarta ug nahimong mga tinubdan sa pekeng mga diploma.

Nanghinaot ko nga karong nasugdan na nilag pangisog pagbisto sa dugay nang gitan-ogan nga mga reklamo, tiwason na lang gyod sa mga kawani ug mga tinun-an sa CSCST ang kawsa sa paglimpiyo sa eskuylahan. Nanghinaot sab ko nga ang mga ahensiya nga ilang gidangpan—apil nang Visayas Ombudsman, Department of Budget and Management ug Commission on Audit—motinuod sab pag-imbestigar sa mga pasangil aron madasig ang uban pang mga biktima pagbarug sa ilang katungod.

-o0o-

Niang pipila lang sa kapid-an ka mga reklamo nga akong nadawat batok sa mga tagduma sa mga eskuylahan sa kinatibuk-ang sistema sa CSCST:

  • Mga opisyal motanyag og mga kurso nga sila ray mga magtutudlo ug mga tinun-an, magdungan silag gradwar, dayong tak-opan ang kurso, magtanyag na sab og lain, nga sila ra gihapoy mga magtutudlo ug mga tinun-an, usahay magbalhin-balhin og gradwar sa nagkalainlaing eskuylahan aron di kaayo mabantayan;
  • Inilang mga politiko sa Sugbo ug ubang bahin sa nasud nang-gradwar sa mga kurso bisan wa katungha bisan kausa, kasagaran mas dagko pa silag grado kay sa tinuod gyong mga tinun-an;
  • Mga non-teaching personnel gi-suweldohan isip teaching assistants ug instructors aron lang masuweldohan sa trust fund ug malutsan ang pagdili sa DBM sa honorarium ug overtime pay;

-o0o-

  • Gibayran ang mga opisyal baleg 100 ka oras bisan kon ang gitudloan nine units ra sa tibuok semestre;
  • Mga opisyal namugos nga suweldohan sila sa pagpresentar ug pagpanalipod sa kaliboan ka thesis proposals bisan kon wa sila makatambong;
  • Pipila ka opisyal nagpuyo sa mga eskuylahan sa way pagbayad sa abangan ug konsumo sa tubig ug kuryente;

-o0o-

  • Dugay kaayong modugo ang administrasyon para sa chalk ug ubang batakang panginahanglan sa mga eskuylahan pero sayon rang mapagawas kon mamalit nag computers, aircon, LCD projectors ug cell phones para sa mga opisyal;
  • Mga opisyal nitudlo sa ilang mga asawa, mga anak ug ubang mga kadugo sa sensitibong mga posisyon sa mga eskuylahan, usahay gituyo pag umol ang mga posisyon aron lang makasapi ang ilang mga pinalabi; ug
  • May mga opisyal nga tagsa rang igkita sa ilang giduma nga mga eskuylahan, maong ang ilang mga kawani nga igo lang mo-punch-in sa ilang daily time cards sa bundy clock sa buntag pero mamauli sa ila ug hapon nang mamalik sa trabaho. [30]  leo_lastimosa@abs-cbn.com

Welcome to Arangkada

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Uncertain Future

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High Ground : The Unseen Force: The YOUng and the Young

William Esposo wmesposo@hotmail.com
INQ7.net

I have always advised anyone who entertained ideas that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo could get away from it all to pause and ponder the reality of today's political undercurrents. While she may be escaping accountability through the constitutional process, the truth is she is driving the political equation towards uncharted political waters.

All the thump and thunder of protests denouncing the illegitimacy of her presidency and a host of other issues create highly visible public outrage which is corroborated by scientifically-derived data. However, silent waters run deep, and deep and foreboding indeed are stirrings that come from groups that are usually quiet and uninvolved.

I am referring to the YOUng, the Young Officers Union of the New Generation on the one hand and the young people of our society on the other. Young officers commanding our soldiers have categorically asked Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to step down while student organizations have become increasingly recalcitrant. The officers of the YOUng are mostly products of the mid-80's Gen-X – described as pragmatic, creative, strongly independent, self-reliant and hard-working while today's crop of Filipino youths are now part of that group referred to as Gen Y – super sized Gen Xer of sorts, now larger in number and more diverse, individualistic and boldly frank.

As though rallying behind a call to arms for "their country, their future," young people drove the critical mass that made EDSA II possible. The founders of YOU, newly established then, were also major participants in the 1989 coup attempt against President Cory Aquino which was only aborted after US fighter planes flew over Metro Manila to signal US support for Aquino. Had we been left alone to our own devices, that coup of 1989 would have succeeded.

Youth sentiment

Youth sentiment against Macapagal-Arroyo is unmistakable. Surveys authenticate a range of between 65% and 80% of Filipinos wanting her replacement. Expect the recent scuttling of the impeachment to fuel the intensity of the ouster call. Since 70% of the population is 34 years old or younger, it goes without saying that the survey correspondingly represented dominantly youth sentiments. A quarter or 25% of our population is between 20 and 34 years old. This translates to 21 million employed, underemployed or unemployed Filipinos that pack enough energy and idealism to want to seize control of their destiny and that of their country's. Among adults ranging from age 18 to those over 80, those aged 18 to 34 count for 49%. In the military, the young officers who are between 22 and 34 years old are the lieutenants, captains and majors who are in direct contact with soldiers. Given the fact that Macapagal-Arroyo has managed to charm the generals with patronage and promotions, the reality is that junior officers have the numbers and the passion to mount a coup. Soldiers under their command know first hand the meaning of extreme poverty in the same way that it affects more than half of Filipinos. Sharing the same foxholes, junior officers and soldiers see the same patch of dirt and the same piece of sky – it will not take much for these junior officers to convince soldiers into taking a course of action they deem necessary. The image of senior officers has gone from bad to worse, having been implicated in a string of scandals, including complicity to thwart the real outcome of the 2004 presidential elections. Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia with his multi-million- peso caper has become the icon of military decadence and crookedness among the senior officers. Regardless of rank or stature, civilian, officer or soldier, young people are connected to each other by the values and imperatives necessary for the survival of their generation and those yet to come. They will challenge, seek new answers and discover new ways of doing things because the future is theirs. Society's elders are no longer predisposed to agitating for change – instead they want to spend their energies accepting things they believe they can no longer change. Take note of these three items that are foremost in the hierarchy of values of today's young people (sourced from top global ad agency McCann-Erickson's Philippine Youth Study, 2001):

1. True character, no false fronts, no duplicity. Notice some of the most successful advertising slogans that successfully sold brands to young people – Sprite's 'Magpakatotoo ka' (live your true character) and Nike's 'Get real'. 2. Connectivity – the supremacy of technology and the symbols, places and events that facilitate inter-connectivity; selectivity in their choice of people they want to connect with. The recent World Youth Day in Germany is a magnificent display of young people who sought connectivity. The rapid development of communications technology and the convergence of communication tools and gadgets are all dictated by the young's insatiable demand for connectivity. 3. Idealism, a constant virtue of the youth. They seek the 'Holy Grail', fancy themselves tilting with La Mancha's windmills and are attracted to icons that represent their values. Ideals may vary among young people of different eras but their idealism and their loyalty to the cause that they believe in have remained constant. During the early days of Marcos's Martial Law, it was the young activists who were the most consistent in resisting the dictatorship.

On the basis of these three important values revered by our young, it is obvious that their perspective and mindsets will never find a place for traditional politicians and Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo. Young or not, people hate liars and the young certainly hate liars more than others. Any self-respecting young person who says he or she believes traditional politicians and Macapagal-Arroyo can only be born yesterday. Indicators

When the Magdalo junior officers launched their misadventure in July 2003, I was surprised when I learned from parents of families living in Forbes Park and Dasmarinas Village that their daughters and sons wanted to rally in support of the Oakwood mutineers. Two of these parents were Rosemarie "Baby' Arenas and former Congressman Jose 'Peping' Cojuangco, who I would have considered least likely to have children identifying with the mutineers. But these young people did. And they felt this at a time when discontent against the system and issues hurled against Macapagal-Arroyo were relatively mild. If rich kids can think this way, how do the poor kids in the population majority think and feel today?

I consider the potential attraction between the YOUng and the young people of the country the strongest, albeit invisible undercurrent in this Gloria-Garci issue. The YOUng has the armed might and our young, the numbers and the passion to inspire action. It is their future, their country and they have the most to lose and the most to gain when things are set right. Young minds do think alike and this is even truer now in our present era of fast communications and borderless connectivity. Seeking answers to end the country's tribulations, they find none. Throughout the time they spent in their earlier school years, they have been exposed to the country's backward crawl to worse economic conditions. They have witnessed the varied ways in which poverty and dearth of opportunities have exacted their toll on classmates, friends, relatives and parents taking overseas jobs, even at the cost of severe loneliness and breaking up of families. They have seen how the rest of Asia has recovered and how the country has become even poorer in the aftermath of the 1997 Asian Currency Crisis. With about 40% of Filipinos said to be worried about the next meal, hunger has become a monster with a mind of its own. Way back in the 1960s and 1970s, when quality education was still in vogue, a college degree bought you a secure future. Today, a young person with a master's degree cannot even find a job. Doctors abandon local practice to learn nursing so that they can work in hospitals overseas and earn five, ten times more. People with MBA and engineering degrees have found themselves working in call centers. They are employed only because they are cheaper to hire than their counterparts overseas.

Nothing best underscores the desperation of the Macapagal-Arroyo era than the results of the Pulse Asia Coping Survey that was released to media last August 31. It showed that 33% of Filipinos are now open to resorting to illegal means in order to obtain relief (In table 7 of the survey, 21% are for going into illegal livelihoods and 12% are for supporting an overthrow of the government). Violent upheavals do not require the consent of the majority, merely enough hotheads and radical thinkers. And 33% delivers about 28 million of those.

And what do the young people see from their leaders? What do they think of the clowns in Congress who spend taxpayers' money on actions that defy logic and moral propriety? And what do they think of a president who represents the opposite traits of the qualities they find most important in their hierarchy of values which places true character, no false fronts, no duplicity most paramount? How else do we expect these idealistic young people to react if not to take charge of their fate and their future by means they find most suitable?

The officers of the YOUng present a promise of redemption from the failed system and the rule of the exploitative elite. By default, the system is unable to provide the people an alternative that will deliver the long sought after reforms and the end of the traditional politics that brought us to this abyss. Hardly anyone sees hope or promise of relief from the option of charter change peddled by Fidel V. Ramos, Joe de Venecia and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. If anyone sees any gain at all in this move, it is only that of averting the looming prospect of political oblivion for most of its proponents. To the young, the officers of the YOUng may just about offer real and meaningful change, not one which gapes with loopholes designed to accommodate vested elite interests. Disgust for the traditional politicians and the oligarchy is so overwhelming that it threatens to overpower most people's usual dread of armed political players and takeovers. Hating the devil to the worst possible, the deep blue sea now becomes a cooling option.

And that is where Macapagal-Arroyo's ego-centric lust for power is bringing us. Her obsession with power, gained by whatever means, generated this crisis that has just about destroyed all our institutions. She may seem to be surviving the crisis for now, thanks to congressional allies who cannot separate narrow political interests from the demands of the country's survival and an inept and discredited opposition. But the fact is she is also taking all of us deeper and deeper into a point of no return in unknown and dangerous political waters.

De Quiros' Column

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There's The Rub : One night in La Salle

Conrado de Quiros dequiros@info.com.ph
Inquirer News Service

GOING to La Salle Greenhills last Friday offered a metaphor of sorts. I took the MRT, figuring it would be the hardest thing in the world to park inside or near the campus. What I didn't figure was that it would be a long walk from the nearest station. When I finally got to the place though, my shirt clinging to my back from sweat-it was a warm night, after intermittent rain in the day; thunder and lightning would break out later in the night-I was glad I commuted.

There was a fair-sized crowd gathered there, people with disparate political beliefs come to affirm a truth. Namely, that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) was not the President of this country. The pro-impeachment representatives were there, the resigned Hyatt 10 were there, the heads of various groups calling for GMA to resign were there. Above all, Susan Roces and Corazon Aquino were there.

My first thought was to wonder if I hadn't studied in the wrong school. La Salle has been far more consistent with its moral principles. Ateneo discovers righteous anger only with tyrants it doesn't like. Maybe being a "Brother" gives a sharper sense of right and wrong than being a "Father." Maybe, I am rooting for the wrong basketball team.

My second thought-which is really the metaphor-was that I might have underestimated the length and arduousness of the walk, but I was finally there. Seeing Susan and Cory sitting side by side, hearing Mass, I had a sense of another long and sweat-inducing walk nearing its end.

If the Church, the holdover businessmen, and an apathetic public still cannot see which is the side of the angels and which of the devils, then they will never see anything. Then this country will have been stricken incurably blind. The images offer stark contrast: Cory and Susan on one side, GMA and Joe de V on the other. Public officials who have gotten richer from the goodwill of their constituents on one side, congressmen and local officials who have gotten poorer from being bought by an unelected president on the other. The power of boundless faith on one side, faith in boundless power on the other.

I told a friend that I thought the gathering at La Salle was the most powerful statement yet issued by those seeking GMA's ouster. The mere fact of The Two Widows standing side by side, arm in arm, said a lot more than a hundred speeches or manifestos combined. This was potent symbolism, as potent as Ramon Magsaysay carrying the lifeless body of Moises Padilla (for the kids who've never heard of Ramon Magsaysay or Moises Padilla, go research), or Ninoy Aquino lying lifeless on the tarmac. These were two widows who lost more than their husbands, these were two widows who lost their innocence by the hand of tyranny. Seeing them together conjured a phrase that had been lost for a time in the haze of public apathy and forgetfulness, "Hindi ka nag-iisa." You are not alone. Except that there you wanted to say, "Hindi kayo nag-iisa."

My friend said, yes, it's the women who are doing everything in this country today. I said, yes, the good and the bad.

I just have a couple of quibbles with the gathering last Friday. The first is that the theme of the gathering being "Bukluran Para Sa Katotohanan," or "Unity for Truth," it could have done with proffering the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. One of those fundamental truths being that many of the people there were also fully to blame for the bane they now wanted to end. It wasn't just that they created the monster that was GMA-it was their support till well past midnight that emboldened her to become what she is. (Feel free to supply your own descriptions.) It was also that some of them actually helped her cheat in the last elections. Not least some of the leaders of the Black and White Movement, who called for that gathering along with the La Salle brothers, who used Namfrel to trend the counting and insisted afterward the elections were fair and clean. I have yet to hear them retract that contention.

I wish the next gathering for truth would have Bill Luz and Dinky Soliman, among others, vowing never to help create another Frankenstein monster and promising to atone for their sins by never counting another vote or serving in government again-quite apart, of course, from returning the ill-gotten Peace Bonds. What they say about GMA applies to them too: No rectification without admission. No contrition without restitution.

The second is that Susan Roces never spoke last Friday. For reasons I cannot fathom. She it was who did the heroic thing by agreeing to forget hurts and be one with the people now, fighting to restore justice, notwithstanding that many of them committed the injustice of helping GMA cheat her husband of his rightful place, which is MalacaƱang. She it was who had all the moral authority to talk about being aggrieved and tyrannized, who stood to coax the people into saying, "Hindi ka nag-iisa." By all rights, she should have been the one inviting the others to join her cause, not they she.

But I will leave all that aside for the nonce and join in the spirit of prayer. For the nonce, I will believe in the capacity of human beings to change for the better, to pull themselves up to their true height, which at its best is always higher than their physical one, after having fallen so low. Heaven knows nobody's perfect, though some are far more consistently imperfect than others. For the nonce, I will believe in the capacity of people to rise above themselves, and driven by the compelling force of God, history, or truth-however you choose to call it-move to rectify their mistakes. Heaven knows nobody's perfect, but some strive to be more so than others.

Who knows? Maybe God is a woman, too. That should make it three against one.