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About penmanila

A Filipino collector of old fountain pens, disused PowerBooks, '50s Hamiltons, poker bad beats, and desktop lint.

Qwertyman No. 83: It Isn’t Just Money

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Qwertyman for Monday, March 4, 2023

MY RECENT column titled “An F for Philippine Education” apparently struck a chord among many readers who messaged me to say how appalled they were by the findings of the Second Congressional Commission on Education or Edcom II. Released just last January, the commission’s report graphically displayed just how poorly young Filipinos are faring in their schooling, especially when compared to the Asian neighbors they’ll be competing with for jobs down the road. 

To recapitulate just one particularly distressing finding, our best high-school learners are performing at a level comparable to the worst of Singapore. I read as much as I could of the report not just to be able to write about it, but—as an educator myself—to find out how this disaster happened.

There’s clearly a lot of blame to be thrown around for this situation, but to be fair, the report makes it clear at the outset that Philippine education’s systemic failures and shortcomings go back many decades, to problems being recognized by previous studies (notably Edcom I in the early 1990s) but left unattended rather than decisively acted upon. 

“This report was not crafted to point fingers,” say the report’s framers. “Our intention, instead, was to find things out and to instill a sense of urgency, along with a sense of doability—a clear horizon, and perhaps a sketch of the map toward that horizon.”

Its noble intentions notwithstanding, the report is a 400-page indictment of what successive Philippine administrations have failed to do, and it isn’t like they didn’t know or weren’t told. There’s been a plethora of studies of Philippine education between the two Edcoms in the 30 years separating them, and they’ve identified many of the same chronic problems plaguing the system today. The report identifies 28 “priority areas” such as governance and financing, in each of which specific problems and their implied solutions are discussed. 

One aspect that drew my attention was that of funding, which many of us, including myself, have thought to be the big problem of Philippine education: throw more money at it, and maybe it will go away. It turns out to not be the case, or in the very least, not the only major issue. Our “more” still isn’t enough, and even with more, the money needs to be spent, and spent wisely.

At the time of Edcom I, the report notes that the Philippine government spent only 2.7% of GDP on education, rising to 3.6% from 2014 to 2022, and to a high of 3.9% in 2017 (do take note that these are percentages of Gross Domestic Product, not the national budget). That comes very close to the global minimum of 4.0% set by the Incheon Declaration, but still falls short of Malaysia’s 4.2% and Singapore’s incredible 25.8% in 2018. Even so, our expenditures on education are rising to an average of 16 to 17% of the national budget for 2023 and 2024, compared to 10.7% in 1987.

Nevertheless, we still spend significantly less on education than our Asian neighbors, and the PISA results show a direct correlation between levels of spending on education and national scores in math, reading, and science. It’s also possible that we’re spending our education money in the wrong places. The report notes that “Between 2015 and 2020, increased government allocations to education were actually mostly at the tertiary level, with per student expenditure rising from only P13,206 to P29,507. In contrast, during the same period, investments at the primary level modestly improved and even fluctuated.”

And it seems like in some cases, we’re not even spending it at all. As I noted in my earlier column, from 2018 to 2022 alone, the Department of Education had a total budget of P12.6 billion allocated to textbooks and other instructional materials, but only P4.5 billion or about a third of this was obligated and only P952 million or less than 8% of it was disbursed for only 27 textbooks for Grades 1 to 10, since 2012. The budget of the Commission on Higher Education grew by 633% from 2013 to 2023, but it wasn’t spent on the additional people that its expanding responsibilities required, with its staffing complement increasing by only 22.7%, from 543 to 666 within the same period. 

There’s a lot of room for reform in education, but Edcom II zeroed in on a problem even more basic than funding in trying to change things—one of institutional culture. “Scholars have criticized the sector’s inability to implement reforms due to frequent changes in leadership, resistance to change within the government, and the agency’s ‘culture of obeisance’ (Bautista et al., 2008)—a bureaucracy accustomed to jaded compliance.”

This reminded me of a point raised by a reader named Peter Traenkner, an expat who recently visited Norway where their youngest son and his family live.

“Almost everybody admires the Nordic educational system,” Peter wrote me. “Their economic growth took off just after 1870, way before their welfare states were established. What really launched the Nordic nations (Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland) was generations of phenomenal educational policy. The 19th-century Nordic elites realized that if their countries were to prosper they had to create truly successful ‘folk schools’ for the best educated among them. 

“They realized that they were going to have to make lifelong learning a part of the natural fabric of society. Education meant for them the complete moral, emotional, intellectual and civic transformation of the person. For them education is intended to change the way students see the world, to help them understand complex systems and see the relations between things—between self and society, between a community of relationships in a family and a town.

“The Nordic educators worked hard to cultivate each student’s sense of connection to the nation: ‘That which a person did not burn for in his young years, he will not easily burn for as a man.’ That educational push seems to have had a lasting influence on the culture. All Nordic countries have the lowest rates of corruption in the world. They have a distinctive sense of the relationship between freedom and communal responsibility.

“High social trust doesn’t just happen. It results when people are spontaneously responsible for one another in the daily interaction of life, when institutions of society function well. When you look at the Nordic educational system, you realize that the problem is not only training people with the right job skills. It’s having the right lifelong development model to instill the mode of consciousness people need to thrive in a complex pluralistic society.”

In other words, we have to remember that education is about much more than teaching people the right skills so they can become good workers and earn good money. It has to teach them good citizenship, and their stake in the success of the nation.

Qwertyman No. 82: How Young Filipinos See Their Future

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Qwertyman for Monday, February 26, 2024

THIS SEMESTER, I’m teaching an undergraduate class in UP called “Professional Writing,” a course I designed more than twenty years ago to help English and Creative Writing majors (and other seniors in search of interesting electives) get a handle on what the “real world” out there expects of them, in the kind of everyday jobs they’re likely to land. Not Shakespeare, not Jose Garcia Villa, not lyric poetry and neither the full-length play, but rather the more mundane assignments you get paid a salary for: business letters, press releases, feature articles, AVP scripts, brochures, and speeches. 

I find myself telling my students that, in a way, what I’ll be teaching them—which is basically how to conform to organizational or institutional standards and norms—is counter-intuitive to what’s been thought of as the UP way of asserting oneself and even questioning authority. This mythified UP “yabang” or “angas” could be one reason why UP graduates don’t rank at the top of employable prospects for corporations. 

So I feel like I have to teach my students the virtues of humility and sufferance, of sticking with a job and doing it well even if it’s not the coziest or smartest thing in the world to do, and of the importance of execution and delivery with no excuses, no (audible) complaints, on time, and against all odds. Before they break the rules, they should know the rules, so they’ll know exactly what they’re breaking and why (I bring up how Picasso was a realist before he turned to Cubism).

Of course, I also tell them that the door swings both ways—they can also walk out of a job they can no longer take (like I’ve done a few times in my own career), but not before thinking through the consequences and figuring out one’s options. Innovation and initiative are great to show on the job—but they can also backfire if not handled well, given people’s (and many managers’) ingrained resistance to change. In other words, prepare for and learn how to deal with adversity, which can be a better teacher than I’ll ever be.

It’s going to be an interesting semester, seeing how the students are responding to my provocations. One of those provocations was our first in-class writing exercise, which was a “visioning” of sorts, where I asked them to look 20 years ahead (preparatory to their next task, which is to write a job application letter). I’m sharing some of their responses below (excerpted here with their authors’ permission) to give readers an idea of how young Filipinos see themselves in their own future. There’s a palpable strain of pessimism in these responses—and that’s understandable, but it worries me. We shouldn’t saddle our successors with the notion that things can only get worse. So I’m making a note to myself: teach reality, teach adversity, but above all, teach hope. Having survived this long, despite everything we had to go through, should yield a useful lesson or two.

Student A: I remember telling myself upon entering college, “If I end up becoming one of those people I despise—a heartless doctor, a vain lawyer, all in the name of shameless success—I’d rather not enter UP.” Twenty years from now, the Philippines—and by extension, me included—will probably still be trying to heal from all the abuse that accumulated through time. In my dejection, I see the country still having a hard time distinguishing the morally right from wrong. Yet I hope that it would be otherwise. My hope sees differently from my rational musings, my hope sees the tide calming, a time I no longer have to convince my father of a reality so transparent it bites us in the face like a serpent.

Student B: I struggle to think of what the future holds for me. Truth be told, I struggle to think of a future with me in it at all. I find that thinking of the future brings with it a wave of dread, because even if the state of the country miraculously improves, there will always be a bigger power that inevitably ruins things for everyone else. However, if I somehow manage to be present still, (through either sheer luck or spite), I will likely be working at an office or a school somewhere. I’ll have a cat or two if the landlord allows it. Who knows if I’ll ever get married. The only thing I’m sure of is that I won’t have children—I can’t, in good conscience, bring someone else into this mess of a world.

This all sounds pessimistic, but in reality, I would actually call myself an optimist in day-to-day life. I want to think the best of people, and I believe that people are inherently kind. There is still a chance for things to improve, for everything to work out, but I can’t ignore the sinking feeling that it’ll only get worse from here. It might seem like we’ve already hit rock bottom, but somewhere, some world leader has brought a shovel and they’re ready to dig.

Student C: In many ways the country is a better place. People are more free to be who they are and love who they love, without fear. We have made leaps and bounds of progress in research and development. Science creates new technology, and we artists learn new ways to create, adapt, and keep toe-to-toe. Because I’ll be damned before I let the machines win. Yes, life is better. For those who can afford it. I want to afford it. But those braver than me fight for a future where everyone need not to. Because that’s the thing about human nature. Fighting is instinctual. Through war, poverty, and inequality, there will always be people fighting for something better. Many because they have no choice but to fight or die—fight to survive. Others because they owe it to someone, maybe themselves, to be the source of hope they want to see or have seen before. 

The country is far from perfect in 2044. Those selfish, like myself, have found a good life amidst a rotten core. We have survived. I have survived. Now it’s time to finally be brave. In 20 years, I know I’ve learned so much. Let me teach what I can. 

Qwertyman No. 81: An F for Philippine Education

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Qwertyman for Monday, February 19, 2024

AN IMPORTANT document that’s been showing up in the inboxes and on the desks of both government and private-sector policymakers these past couple of weeks leaves no room in its title for misinterpretation: “Miseducation: The Failed System of Philippine Eduation.” Released last month by the Second Congressional Commission on Education or Edcom II, the report covers just the first year of the commission’s comprehensive review of the state of Philippine education. But the scenario it presents is so grim that, in the words of one of its crafters, “If this were Singapore, they would be declaring a national emergency.”

But then again, that may be the whole point. We are no Singapore—and indeed one of the report’s most damning and embarrassing findings is that “Our best learners are comparable only to the average student in Malaysia, Thailand, Brunei and Vietnam, and correspond to the worst performers in Singapore.”

Edcom II picks up from where its predecessor left off more than three decades ago, when Edcom I was set up under the leadership of then Sen. Edgardo J. Angara to undertake a similar review. In July 2022, RA 11899 created Edcom II to find ways of harnessing the educational sector “with the end in view of making the Philippines globally competitive in both education and labor markets” over the next three years. Edcom II was also charged with drafting the necessary laws to make this happen. It’s just begun its work, with in-depth studies and assessments of our educational system from the ground up, but its early findings already show how difficult the road ahead will be toward the global competitiveness the commission was set up for.

I’ll just quote a few observations from a summary of the highlights of the nearly 400-page full report: 

In terms of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) undertaken by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2018 and 2002, “Grade 10 Filipinos scored lowest among all ASEAN countries in Math, Reading, and Science, besting only Cambodia, with more than 75% of our learners scoring lower than Level 2, or the minimum level of proficiency in Math, Reading, and Science…. Grade 10 Filipinos scored lowest among all ASEAN countries in Math, Reading, and Science, besting only Cambodia, with more than 75% of our learners scoring lower than Level 2, or the minimum level of proficiency in Math, Reading, and Science.” This was the same survey that showed our best learners barely catching up with Singapore’s laggards.

“The proficiency level of our children across social class, rural and urban residence, gender, language at home, type of school, and early childhood center attendance is dismally low.” This means that our deficiencies cut across the social and economic spectrum and can’t be put down to just a question of money.

To underscore the global crisis in education (yes, it isn’t just us), the World Bank and UNESCO have come up with the concept of “learning poverty,” which they define as a child’s inability to read and understand a simple text by age 10. Among some Asian countries recently surveyed for learning poverty, Singapore and South Korea scored the lowest at 3; China came in at 18, India at 56, and the Philippines was highest at 91.

And for those who insistently argue that the problem with our education is that we don’t use English enough, and early enough, Vietnam, which uses Vietnamese as its medium of instruction in the primary grades, has consistently outscored us in nearly all indices, as have Malaysia and other countries that rely on their own languages to move ahead.

A good part of the report dwells on how important it is for government to intervene as early as possible in our children’s growth and development, to prime them for a proper education. Edcom II looked into the problem of “stunting,” a measure of childhood maldevelopment, most easily seen when children are too short for their age, because of malnutrition or poor health. This has implications for the child’s ability to learn.

“The Philippines has one of the highest prevalence of stunting under-five in the world at 26.7%, greater than the global average of 22.3%. Policies are in place, but implementation has been fragmented, coverage remains low, and targeting of interventions has been weak.” (For example, more than 98% or 4.5 million children 2-3 years old are not covered by the DSWD’s supplementary feeding program.)

Here’s another eye-popping revelation: “Since 2012, only 27 textbooks have been procured for Grade 1 to Grade 10, despite  substantial budget allocations. DepEd’s budget utilization data shows that from 2018 to 2022 alone, a total of P12.6 billion has been allocated to textbooks and other instructional materials, but only P4.5 billion (35.3%) has been obligated and P952 million (7.5%) has been disbursed.” Not to mention the fact that many of these textbooks are riddled with errors!

Higher education presents its own host of problems and challenges. “Higher education participation is high given our income level,” the report notes. However, “Access to ‘quality’ higher education narrowed in the last decade…. Most beneficiaries of the tertiary education subsidy were not the poorest…. Between 2018 and 2022, the proportion of the poorest of the poor [in higher education] declined markedly, from 74% to 31%.”

A key part of the problem is the quality of our teachers, who themselves are poorly educated. “Between 2009 and 2023, the average passing rate in the licensure examinations for elementary (33%) and secondary (40%) has been dismally low, when compared to passing rates in other professions. Worse, between 2012 and 2022, 77 HEIs offering BEEd and 105 HEIs offering BSEd continued operations despite having consistently zero passing rates in the LET.”

Our supervisory agencies themselves need to be properly staffed. “The staffing levels in CHED and TESDA have not kept pace with the growing responsibilities of the agencies and the increased investments in education from both the public and private sectors. 

CHED’s budget increased by 633% from 2013 to 2023, but the agency’s staffing complement only increased by 22.7%, from 543 to 666 within the same period.”

The money’s clearly there, but it’s not being spent where it should be. “Budget allocated to education is increasing, but there is a tertiary tilt despite profound gaps in basic education….While government investments have increased substantially, the bulk of the additional resources went to higher education–which is typically regressive. From 2015 to 2019 per capita spending surged from P13,206 to P29,507. Meanwhile profound gaps remain in Early Childhood Care and Development and basic education…. 30–70% of the school MOOE budget is spent on utility bills alone, which leaves meager funds available for improvement projects and initiatives that could address local needs and support better learning.”

We could go on and on—and the full report (downloadable at https://edcom2.gov.ph/) does. But you get the picture: Philippine education gets an F. The question is, will our national leadership recognize this as the national emergency that it clearly is, and respond accordingly?

Qwertyman No. 80: Bringing UP to the People

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Qwertyman for Monday, February 12, 2024

SINCE IT was established in 1908 as a “university for Filipinos,” the University of the Philippines has grown into a system of eight “constituent universities,” each with a certain degree of autonomy but all of them unified by a common vision, shared practices, and high academic standards. UP began in Manila, followed by Los Baños and then Diliman, which became UP’s flagship campus after the war. 

Of course, as the country’s premier public university and with its relatively hefty budget, there was pressure on UP to go out even farther, especially beyond Luzon, to become truly more representative of the Filipino people. In the past, that form of democratization was achieved to some extent by UP’s old policy of accepting valedictorians and salutatorians from high schools all over the country; once in UP, these provincianos did well, and many went on to positions of national leadership. 

But the general decline in public education and UP’s more stringent admissions policy have changed all that, so that the majority of successful UPCAT applicants now come from private high schools in the big cities. As nearly everyone agrees, that’s not what a presumably “national” university is supposed to do—meaning, giving quality education to the children of the affluent at the expense of ordinary taxpayers (I say “nearly,” because there are a few on the “excellence” side of this “excellence vs. equity” argument who also argue that the State’s best strategy going forward is simply to fund and support the country’s best minds, no matter where they come from—kind of Singapore-style, but then we’re no Singapore). 

Also, a UP education doesn’t happen just with a student’s admission. Even now that the law has made public university education free (ironically, again, subsidizing rich metro kids), many UPCAT passers from the regions never show up, or drop out early on, because of the prohibitive costs of living and studying in Manila, especially. They could have gone to UP if it were closer to where they were, pointing to the continuing need for more UP units to be opened in our far-flung regions. (To this day, for example, no UP has been established in Bicol, although to be fair, that region is already being served by many excellent universities.)

The traditional reluctance by the UP Board of Regents to open UPs here and there has been based on sound academic reasoning: building and opening a physical school is easy, but establishing academic programs with qualified faculty is much harder, especially in so-called “hardship” posts, to which presumably Manila-based faculty will have to be enticed to relocate until enough local capability is built up. A UP education should come with a guarantee that a degree earned, say ,in Baguio or Iloilo is equivalent in quality and efficacy to one earned in Diliman or Manila. 

There were early attempts to “democratize” UP by setting up teaching outposts as far north as Vigan, where a UP Northern Luzon Junior College was opened in 1930, complementing a similar Junior College in Cebu. (That college in Cebu, interestingly enough, was almost shut down shortly after it opened for lack of funding. Then UP President Jorge Bocobo was too proud and proper to accept a P5,000 donation from Cebuano UP alumni, because it had been raised from sweepstakes. Politicians jumped into the fray, with some arguing that Cebu needed support as a “moral alternative” to Manila, only to be reminded that Cebu was no prelapsarian paradise, with at least “three cabarets and five moviehouses,” according to an unofficial history of UP. The day was saved only when Gov. Mariano Cuenco threw P8,000 into the pot.)

In the late 1950s, President Vicente Sinco set up a Department of Extramural Studies to undertake extension classes in Iloilo, Davao, Zamboanga, San Pablo, Subic, and Clark Airforce Base. 

Thus were the seeds sown for today’s full-blown UP System, which has Diliman, Los Baños, Manila, Visayas, Mindanao, Cebu, Baguio, and the Open University among its constituents.

Each of these CUs has its own specific strengths, history, and traditions—Manila is also UP’s and the country’s health sciences center, with the Philippine General Hospital as its crown jewel; Los Baños celebrates Loyalty Day, which began in honor of faculty and students who took part in World War I (yes, I). UPOU is a regional leader in distance learning, providing a UP education even to OFWs abroad.

A particularly bright spot in this stellar array is UP Mindanao, which is marking its 29th anniversary later this month. When it was established by RA 7889 on February 20, 1995 under President Fidel V. Ramos, it was met with much skepticism even from within UP, and there were dire predictions that it would fail within a few years. The indifference was caused by the fact that UPMin was the first CU to come into being through legislative fiat, rather than the usual process of study and approval by the Board of Regents. What had happened was that UP alumni from Mindanao had banded together to demand a UP on their island, given its economic and political importance. Mindanao’s political leaders led by Reps. Prospero Nograles and Elias B. Lopez rallied to their cause, and UPMin was born.

Almost three decades later, it’s clear that that decision was the right one to make. Despite many teething problems—the path to UPMin’s hilly campus in Mintal was so rough that people took to calling it “Abortion Road”—UP Min has gone on to become an educational powerhouse in the region, particularly in such specializations as Agribusiness Economics. On the cultural front, UPMin leads in such studies as “Mindanao epics as pre-colonial roots of Philippine nationalism” and “Planning and architecture from the vernacular dwellings of Mindanao.” Its writers such as poet and former Chancellor Ricardo M. de Ungria and fictionist and Dean Jhoanna Lynn Cruz are nationally renowned. 

It was no accident that, when he was choosing a site for his investiture last September as UP’s 22nd president, Atty. Angelo A. Jimenez—UP’s first Mindanawon and lumad president, having been born a Manobo in Butuan City—chose UP Mindanao. Keenly conscious of his opportunity to make historic changes, Jimenez has pledged to improve access to a UP education even further, especially for the poor and the underrepresented. 

We look forward to a time when the children of farmers, fisherfolk , and factory workers can walk UP’s hallways again with their heads held high—if not in Diliman, then in a capital city closer to home. It will go a long way toward making UP a truly “national university,” and help build a stronger and more cohesive nation.

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Penman No. 459: Spartan but Splendorous

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Penman for Sunday, February 11, 2024

WE OFTEN think of ecotourism in terms of swimming with whale sharks or encountering rare species of flora and fauna in some faraway forest. But not too far from Metro Manila lies a natural haven that will satisfy adventurers and conservationists alike—and the ecotourists who are both.

That haven is the Masungi Georeserve, a 3,000-hectare tract of largely reforested land marked by sharp karst or limestone shards jutting out into the sky amid bamboo groves, exotic orchids, and Benguet pine.

The unlikely remainder of an aborted housing project for DENR employees, Masungi now serves as home to hundreds of species, many of them rare and some even unique, such as the purple jade vine and the Masungi microsnail.

These sightings alone would be well worth the trip—a pleasant 30-kilometer drive from Quezon City through Masinag and Antipolo on the Marikina-Infanta or Marilaque Highway, on some of the country’s best and widest roads. (On the weekday morning we went there, it took us just a little over an hour from UP Diliman.) 

Masungi straddles the Sierra Madre boundary between Baras and Tanay, Rizal, much of which is occupied by the Upper Marikina Watershed, across the Kaliwa Watershed on the northern side. Its name comes from the Tagalog sungi, meaning sharp, a reference to the profusion of limestone outcrops looking like sharp teeth across the mountainous landscape.

The georeserve—now being managed by the Masungi Georeserve Foundation—wasn’t set up as any kind of pleasure park. Indeed “pleasure”—except the visual kind—was the last thing this septuagenarian thought of when he went up the steep trails to a vantage point that afforded a spectacular view of Laguna de Bay and the surrounding metropolis far below. Younger and fitter visitors, however, will surely find the challenge pleasurable and even exhilarating.

When the housing project with the DENR failed to materialize—the DENR couldn’t evict the squatters already there and the land, in truth, was simply too steep and inhospitable to permanent human habitation—engineer Ben Dumaliang and his Blue Star company (the housing project contractor) took it upon themselves to rehabilitate what land they could and regrow the forest that would have been lost forever. In 2015, Ben’s daughters established the Masungi Georeserve Foundation to oversee the place, and in 2017, the MGF entered into a contract with the DENR under then Sec. Gina Lopez for the georeserve’s replanting and conservation.

Masungi now features a Discovery Trail for hikers aged 13 and up that takes about three to four hours to complete, although it can be shortened depending on the hikers’ preference. The challenging trails feature hanging bridges, a giant spiderweb, rope walls, caves, and other points of interest (or maybe not, for acrophobes like me). Protective headgear is provided.

Typical reviews on Tripadvisor include comments like this one, from a Singaporean visitor: “Perfect day at Masungi Georeserve. The hike was well-organized and well-paced with sufficient rest stops. Our guide was knowledgeable and friendly, allowing us to take our time and helping to take our photos. You do need a certain level of fitness and daring to tackle the ropes, steps, and hanging bridges, but you will be rewarded with stunning views of the limestone karst formations. There are alternative paths to take for those who have a fear of heights but these detours may take longer. Best not to rush and go with people who won’t judge you if you feel like dropping out! Well done to the Foundation and for educating the public on biodiversity and sustainable tourism. Book ahead and pray for great weather.”

This one came from a repeat visitor, Ronald R: “Had the privilege of visiting Masungi Georeserve for the ninth time (six times on the Legacy Trail, thrice at side trails and once on the Discovery Trail) and every visit was a memorable learning and life-changing experience. All dedicated forest rangers are well versed in the changing landscape and diversity of flora and fauna. The experience differs depending on the weather. I prefer windy, cloudy weather when going up there. The Sierra Madre is more dramatic with rain clouds. Beyond the transformations, the team behind Masungi Georeserve is focused on restoring the lost and abused part of the Upper Marikina Watershed Area. Masungi Georeserve is a platform to make anyone fall in love with nature in a much deeper level. The Masungi Georeserve experience should be in every nature lover’s bucket list.”

Experienced rangers—most of them recruited from the local community, including indigenous Dumagats—serve as guides for these treks. To support the place’s upkeep—it gets no funding from the government—the georeserve charges guests P1,500 each on weekdays and P1,800 on weekends, covering the tour and simple but satisfying snacks (including a refreshingly minty tea made from the kayumanis, a native plant; a set lunch buffet is also available at the hilltop Silayan restaurant). The number of daily visitors is strictly controlled to minimize wear and tear to the area, and groups are kept manageably small. (For more helpful and detailed instructions, as well as photos of the various features along the trail, visit willflyforfood.com and look for “The Masungi Georeserve Survival Guide.”)

It’s a spartan but bracing experience, minus the spa, the massage, the gourmet menu, the uniformed attendants, and all the other amenities we associate with more genteel and patrician hideaways. This is nature in your face—but what a splendorous sight it is to behold, a painterly tableau of rock, tree, bird, and flower set against a radiant blue sky, 640 meters up and far removed from the smog and sludge of the metropolis. 

It’s sad and alarming that Masungi continues to be threatened by powerful landgrabbing syndicates as well as by the indifference if not hostility of the government people who should be supporting it, but that’s another story (check out my Qwertyman column last January 29, “Fighting Windmills at Masungi”). In the meanwhile, avail yourself of this chance to encounter nature like you never have before, and enjoy Masungi while it lasts.

Qwertyman No. 79: Hymns of Repentance

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Qwertyman for Monday, February 5, 2024

A CERTAIN senator was quoted some time ago as saying that Filipinos supporting the intentions of the International Criminal Court to probe the Duterte administration’s bloody tokhang campaign should be made to sing the national anthem 1,000 times to regain their sense of patriotism. The clear message was that, if you were in favor of an international body looking into local crimes and liabilities, you were being anti-Filipino. 

It wasn’t surprising, of course, given that the good senator was among those prominently mentioned as possible defendants in the case. In jest, he said that if he were found guilty, he would miss his grandchildren if he were incarcerated in the Hague. And just to be sure, he added that not all people in jail are guilty—he certainly wasn’t.

Without commenting on the merits or demerits of a hypothetical ICC case against officials of the previous administration—something we have enough lawyers on both sides to perorate upon—I’ll just observe that the quality of justice the senator and his likely dock mates can expect from the ICC will surely be far better than that received by the victims of summary and extrajudicial executions under the regime of tokhang. In the very least, guilty or not, they will be alive and reasonably comfortable, although they might temporarily miss the company of family and friends, as those bereaved by tokhang have come to experience for all eternity.

I was intrigued by the suggestion that repeated singing of “Lupang Hinirang” would make a better Filipino out of me, or at least make me think of the ICC as some kind of fire-breathing Godzilla threatening to incinerate the Filipino race off the face of the earth.

There are far more effective songs  for instilling love of country. Yoyoy Villame’s “Philippine Geography” will teach us more about the country we say we’re dying for than our anthem, which must have been sung hundreds of times in the halls of Congress without much palpable effect on the patriotism of some occupants. At least I’m assuming it’s regularly sung there; if not, then perhaps our senator can start a little closer to home.

(As for professing one’s innocence, oldtimers will remember Diomedes Maturan’s “Huwag Kang Manalig sa Bulong-Bulungan” (remade by Victor Wood). Even Billy Joel warbled that “Although this is a fight I can lose, the accused is an innocent man!”)

On a more serious tangent, let me swipe a page from a recent talk given by UP President Angelo A. Jimenez, himself a lawyer, at a seminar of police officials on the thorny topic of national security and human rights:

“Our police officers should be commended for the seizure of a total of P6.2 billion worth of illegal drugs in the first half of 2023. The PNP’s Intensified Cleanliness Program, aligned with the Philippine Anti-Illegal Drugs Strategy, has employed a coordinated approach among government agencies to create drug-free communities. This shows that a serious and successful war on drugs can be undertaken without any needless loss of life, for as long as we observe the law, fight corruption, and remember the need for compassion in a just society. Even drug suspects have rights—indeed, even convicted prisoners—and we maintain our moral superiority by respecting those rights, even as we dispense justice. Only then and only thus can we regain our people’s trust.

“Ours is a society that operates on leadership by example. If people see their public officials and law enforcers doing the right thing, they will follow suit. If they see the law being flouted by these very same people—such as unauthorized government SUVs using the bus lanes along EDSA—they feel entitled and emboldened to do wrong themselves. Exemplary behavior at the top will create and strengthen the moral foundation for a responsible and law-abiding citizenry. We cannot demand what we ourselves cannot supply or enforce.”

Frankly, I myself doubt that a full-blown ICC investigation will prosper under the present dispensation, which reportedly promised the senator that not a hair of his (but then, where’s the hair?) would be touched by the ICC, back when the two camps were—just to use an idiomatic expression, and meaning no malice—as thick as thieves.

Now that the knives are out between the erstwhile allies, the ICC card seems to be in play again, teasing us with the possibility of justice being done, but I’m not holding my breath. It’s just too big a risk for those in power to take, too wide a door to open—like Cha-cha for ostensibly just economic provisions. Who knows what other crimes the ICC will unearth, who else they will indict, and how far back they will go? Once you give people a taste of respect for human rights, why, they’d be at it like potato chips—they’ll keep wanting more. There’d be chaos in the streets and no, sir, we can’t have any of that, just when we need law and order.

For this reason alone, I don’t think our good-humored senator has anything to worry about, neither from the Palace nor from the Hague. He can finish his term, retire to his farm in peace, shoot the breeze (or something else) with his old boss, and have his memoirs ghost-written. Unless, of course, a certain lady succeeds in clawing her way to the top, in which case the senator—still fairly young as senior politicos go—can expect a new lease on his public life and serve afresh, perhaps in the Cabinet, where men and women of action belong, rather than in the Senate, where they’re reduced to preening and tweaking their moustaches.

Someone with far greater and indisputable jurisdiction will take over this case and pronounce ultimate judgment; he will need no rapporteur, no investigating party, no authorization, no earthly prison; his verdict will be unappealable. His brand of justice will make the ICC look like talent-show judges by comparison. Those found guilty will be killing lots of time in a very warm place. Some people better start learning and singing hymns of repentance.

Qwertyman No. 78: Fighting Windmills in Masungi

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Qwertyman for Monday, January 29, 2024

“ONDOY STARTED here.” If that memory of the catastrophic flood that turned much of Metro Manila into a deadly swamp in 2009 doesn’t chill you, then little else will.

The man telling me this as he sweeps his hand over the vast Upper Marikina Watershed below and around us is Ben Dumaliang. At 68, Ben is exceptionally articulate for a civil engineer, but he needs to be, because he’s no longer just building houses. For almost 30 years, he’s been building the Masungi Georeserve—a 3,000-hectare expanse of mostly forest land on the slopes of the Sierra Madre along the boundary of Tanay and Baras, Rizal.

Masungi sits on the watershed that both nourishes and protects Metro Manila, providing it with fresh water while helping to keep flooding in check—if things like trees and streams are where and how they’re supposed to be. And there’s the problem, that helped a freak downpour like Ondoy become the biblical torrent it turned out to be. 

“Much of this was logged over not too long ago,” says Ben. “We had to reclaim the land from the loggers, the quarry companies, and the land speculators, and then reforest it.”

Today the Masungi Georeserve is about as close to a natural Eden as you can get this close to the city—about 30 kilometers from where I live in Diliman—with lush new growths of Philippine trees, unique plants and animals such as the purple jade vine and the Masungi microsnail, and hundreds of endemic species including 72 kinds of birds.

But it wasn’t always that way, as Ben recalls the georeserve’s unlikely beginning. “This was government land that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) intended to use for employee housing back in the 1990s. In 1996, my construction company, Blue Star, won the bidding for the housing project, and we began building roads on the property and making improvements on it. However, the land had been chopped up among various syndicates, and the DENR failed to deliver on its obligation to clear the land of settlers, and after a while people lost interest in living here, and the housing project stalled.”

In the meanwhile, Ben had begun to appreciate the natural beauty of the place, despite its ravaged state, and started developing parts of it—particularly the centrally located Lot 10, which remains the hub of the georeserve. He began taking the land back from its illegal settlers, who included rich and powerful people who had put up cottages in the area.

Almost immediately, he began to get blowback. “Our rangers were shot at and mauled when they tried to do their job, and the police did nothing about it.”

Not surprisingly, Ben says that a group of police generals had apportioned parts of the watershed among themselves, citing the Marcos-issued PD 324 which had declared these lands alienable (conveniently forgetting that PD 324 was effectively repealed by Marcos himself under the Forestry Code aka PD 705 and by Presidential Proclamation 1636 prohibiting tree cutting and dwelling in the watershed). 

In 2015, Ben’s daughters Billie and Ann set up the Masungi Georeserve Foundation, to which Blue Star entrusted the care and management of the area. (Ben is a principal in both entities, and both daughters remain active in the foundation.)

It was in 2017 that the most auspicious turn happened for Masungi. Then newly appointed DENR Secretary Gina Lopez visited the place, liked what she saw—particularly what Ben and his people were doing to restore and conserve the forest—and had a contract drawn up between the DENR and the foundation granting it the right and obligation to replant the georeserve. 

Today sturdy growths of Benguet pine crown the hilltops of the watershed. The georeserve is thick and picturesque with trees, orchids, and returning wildlife. A limited number of ecotourists come every day to hike trails that weave through the sharp karst limestone landscape.

But not far below the pine trees, Sitio San Roque in Baras remains host to a bustling community (that reportedly includes, yes, at least one police general and one high-ranking government official who owns a pool resort, against whom a case had been filed but who was allowed to retire with full benefits). “The syndicates and rogue officials are the root cause of deforestation and environmental degradation,” says Ben. “I fear for my life and my family’s,” he admits. “It’s very easy to die in a place like this.” (For more background information, refer to my fellow columnist Jarius Bondoc’s piece from September 13, 2023, titled “DENR ignoring public appeals to evict watershed landgrabbers.”)

The threats are more than personal. Insanely, the Bureau of Corrections managed to secure 270 hectares in the heart of the reserve to build a new national penitentiary and its headquarters there. The DENR also reportedly agreed for Tanay to build wind turbines on the ridge overlooking Lot 10. Neither project can possibly be good for jade vines, microsnails—and people, for that matter.

Some days, Ben feels like he’s fighting windmills in Masungi—and not just the literal ones, either. He doesn’t understand what he sees as the antipathy of the DENR toward him and the foundation. The DENR wants his contract canceled, ostensibly because he had gotten Sec. Lopez to sign it when she was ill and just before she left office after failing to be confirmed (Ben denies this, saying she was the one who insisted on the contract getting done. “They seem to think I’m getting rich from this, but in fact I’ve been drawing from my own resources for the georeserve,” he explains. The MGF gets no funding from the government and relies on its limited income and on private support for its operations.) DENR Sec. Ma. Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga, he says, has ignored all his letters and requests to meet to thresh out any issues between them.

Nature reserves don’t grow just trees—they breed enemies, few of them natural; most walk on two feet.

(On a rather distressing side note, I have good and trustworthy friends on both sides of this issue messaging me to believe this and not to believe that. For the moment, I’ll have to believe the evidence of my eyes, but to be fair, I invite the DENR to send me their comments, and specifically their answer to this simple question: “What is the Masungi Georeserve Foundation doing wrong?”) 

Qwertyman No. 77: Taylor Swift 101

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Qwertyman for Monday, January 22, 2024

THERE WAS a lot of snickering around the local Internet a couple of weeks ago when the University of the Philippines announced that it was going to offer a course on the American megastar Taylor Swift. “Why???” seemed to be the most common hair-trigger response, expressing consternation over the need or rationale for such a course. “This is where your taxes go,” lamented another netizen.

The clear suggestion was that spending a semester—that’s 16 weeks—on a pop phenomenon like Taylor Swift was a grandiose and frivolous waste of teaching time and people’s money, scarce resources better allocated to studying worthier topics like, say, Gomburza, the South China Sea, endemic species, and sovereign wealth funds. (Not incidentally, all these other topics are already covered in other UP courses, so no one need worry that they’re being sacrificed for in-depth analyses of “Cruel Summer” or “You Need to Calm Down.”)

Before we go any further, I have to declare that I’m no Swiftie, as her adoring fans call themselves, and I had to look up and listen to those two titles I just mentioned. At my age, my idea of a diva I’d pay good money to listen to is Barbra Streisand, Laura Fygi, Lisa Ono, and Dionne Warwick, none of them below 60. I have to admit that the only Swift song I was aware of before she exploded into global stardom was “You Belong with Me,” which my then-teener niece Eia used to bounce her head to (an effect that, I’ve since discovered, many Swift pieces tend to induce). 

Still, my instinctive reaction to the announcement of the UP Swift course wasn’t “Why?” but what I suppose is the academic’s default of “Why not?” When I looked into how the course was going to be taught by its instructor—Cherish Aileen Brillon, a mass communications specialist who had previously published a paper on, among others, “Darna and Intellectual Property Rights”—I could see that this wasn’t going to be just party time for 15 kids listening through Taylor Swift’s ten albums (yes, I counted) over a semester, but serious study connecting material from the singer’s songs and of course from her life as a 21st century celebrity to our reception of her and whatever she represents, as Filipinos. 

The course—an elective under the BA Broadcast and Media Studies program of the Colle of Mass Communication—will focus on “the conception, construction, and the performance of Taylor Swift as a celebrity and how she can be used to explain our and, of course, media’s relationship with class, politics, gender, race, and fantasies of success and mobility…. Gender should be part of the discussion because Taylor is a woman operating in a highly patriarchal and misogynist entertainment industry,” Brillon told the STAR in an earlier interview. “Transnationality is also a large part of the discussion,” she added, defining the term as a “media-driven flow of goods, products and services from various nations” in this globalized age. “Celebrities have always been transnational anyway. The class will look into the transnationality of Taylor and how Filipinos are appropriating their relationships with celebrities.” 

If you know anything about what’s being taken up in universities worldwide today as media and cultural studies, that mouthful I quoted above is heavy-duty academic work of the kind I myself may not be too keen to undertake, but the results of which I’d be deeply interested to find out. And that because there’s nothing more pervasive and influential in our world today than the media, which includes the Internet, TV, radio, and newspapers, plus all the advertising, the tweets, the Facebook feeds, the Spotify music, and the Amazons, Lazadas, Shopees, and eBays you find in them. How the media draws our attention and often subliminally persuades us into buying certain products and ideas can’t be worthier of academic research and investigation. 

And it’s not as if this hasn’t been done before. New York University, Stanford, Arizona State University, the Berklee College of Music, Rice University, UC Berkeley, the University of Florida, the University of Delaware, and Brigham Young University are among the American universities offering Taylor Swift courses from different approaches ranging from the music itself to social psychology, marketing, and literature.

So, okay, they’re Americans—why us Filipinos? Because the singer has a huge Pinoy fan base, despite the slight that local Swifties felt when she left the Philippines out of her 2024 Southeast Asian “Eras” tour, for which well-heeled Pinoys then rushed online to book expensive ticket packages for her shows in Singapore. (She’s been here twice before, in 2011 and 2014.)

But never mind Taylor Swift. Back in 1995, scholars attending the first International Conference on Elvis Presley at the University of Mississippi’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture got academia “all shook up,” according to reports, with papers bearing titles like “A Revolutionary Sexual Personae: Elvis Presley and the Acquiescence of Black Rhythms,” which discussed sensuality and spirituality in Elvis’s acts.

And then, of course, there are all the college courses on Frank Sinatra at Suffolk University, and on the Beatles at MIT and Oxford, among many other places. At Carnegie Mellon University, flautist and Prof. Stephen Schultz alternates teaching 18th-century Baroque music with a class on the Beatles; guess which class attracts 200 students a semester.

I’m sure that, despite these precedents and rationales, there will remain many skeptics who’ll still believe that all this academic mumbo-jumbo is just an excuse for both professor and student to kill an hour and a half doing nothing but nodding their heads to pop tunes and chatting about which song’s lyrics were cooler. (Don’t be too surprised, but that’s also basically what happens when we discuss poetry and fiction, sans the rhythmic nodding.)

But then you could be talking about Taylor Swift and her songs—or you could be talking about how Adolf Hitler and his deadly message were packaged and sold to the German people, not to mention Donald Trump and other despots closer to our time and place. This is what media and cultural studies are ultimately about—the power of media and other cultural forces to shape our minds, our purchases, our votes, and therefore our history. 

Perhaps our students can even learn more from a semester of Taylor Swift, BTS, and Justin Bieber than the Shakespeare they’ll merely turn to AI to write papers on. Like I told one naysayer, “We keep studying history, religion, law, etc., and yet we seem to learn nothing—just look at how a former human rights lawyer suddenly justifies EJKs.” So there may yet be more to Taylor Swift 101 than meets the eye. As another Swift—Jonathan—put it, “Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.”

(Image from Sky News)

Qwertyman No. 76: What I Have Learned

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Qwertyman for Monday, January 15, 2024

PARDON ME if I wax a bit personal today, as I turn 70, much to my great surprise, coming from a generation that didn’t expect to live past 25. I’ve often noted that in your 20s, you seek purpose and direction; in your 30s, stability in terms of love, family, and work; in your 40s, professional success and serious money; in your 50s, acclaim and reputation; and in your 60s, good health and comfort. Now, on the threshold of my 70s, I find myself accepting and preparing for the inevitable, the average life expectancy of the Filipino male now hovering at 72.

More significantly, my wife Beng and I are also celebrating our 50th anniversary. I’ve never quite resolved if it was a good idea to get married on my birthday—and just my 20th at that—but there was never any doubt that marrying Beng was the smartest decision I ever made, and that waking up beside her every January 15 is the best birthday gift I could ever ask for.

But I’ll spare you the love story, which, like all good love stories, has had its fragile moments. For now, let me share some lessons and insights I’ve learned from surviving the First Quarter Storm, martial law, EDSA, GMA, Ondoy, Yolanda, tokhang, and, for the moment, BBM. They’re by no means complete, and I still have a lot of learning to do in what I hope to be at least another decade of avoiding the lyres up there (or the pitchforks down there). But they’ll serve for now, hopefully to encourage newlyweds and young ones to hang on for the long and bumpy but also often exhilarating ride. 

First, survival matters. Fifty years ago, my comrades and I were all prepared to give up our lives for our cause, but today I’ll have to ask, “Must I?” Heroic self-sacrifice is symbolically important and can inspire others to take personal risks for the greater good, but a genuine and strategic movement for change cannot consist solely of martyrs willing to die in combat; its core must be formed of patient plodders willing and able to undertake the mundane tasks and chores of nation-building within their families and communities. For that one will need to co-exist with evil, if need be, if only to survive it and be able to do better. Co-existence does not necessarily mean surrender or acceptance, merely an affirmation of one’s right to live as well as anybody else. Resistance can take many forms, not all of them fatal; we need to be clever and resourceful in championing the truth, which is often starkly simple and clear but sometimes also just as complicated as the well-fashioned lie. 

Second, tolerance and cooperation are key to every successful relationship, whether it be a marriage or co-existence in a deeply fractured society. But also key to this idea is self-knowledge, which builds self-confidence and a greater willingness to understand and accept the other, and to educate oneself. Many early marriages falter because the protagonists are simply too young, too vulnerable, and still struggling to define themselves. Growing up on one’s own is difficult enough; growing up together is even more challenging, but necessary. I was 20 when I became a husband, and later that year, a father, and didn’t really know how to be either. Thankfully Beng and I had good role models in our own parents, and enough love to work things out and see things through. Eventually, we learned to define ourselves in terms of the other—so that today, for me, no trip is worth taking without Beng, and her joys and successes are mine as well. Forgiving oneself and accepting one’s imperfections are not only as important as acknowledging the other’s, but are prerequisites to mutual self-improvement.

Third, “compromise” is not a bad word, if we are to survive as a nation together and as individual citizens. In our 20s—much surer of our convictions than of our own squishy selves—we viewed the world in black and white, certain that the enemy was out there, was not us or within us, and had to be rejected and battled in all arenas, on all levels. I’ve since learned that life can’t be lived on an all-or-nothing, take-it-or-leave-it basis, and that one has to negotiate with oneself as well as with others to keep whole and sane. An absolutist will never find peace, nor satisfaction, and likely never happiness. Learning to take things as they are—and working from there—can be harder than to merely insist on things as they should be, and to do nothing when they are not. Just as important as highlighting our differences are finding and building on the things we can agree upon—like resistance to foreign encroachment on our territory, which helps clarify our self-image—regardless, though still mindful, of our suspicions of the other’s motives. Opportunistic politics can sometimes be the inadvertent handmaiden of good outcomes.

Fourth, I’ve learned my limitations, and to do my best within my foreshortened horizon. I’ve realized that I can be happy in not trying to do too much, living in the moment, and finding fulfillment in small achievements that bring change and hope to other people. I haven’t given up my dreams for a more just, progressive, and provident society, and will continue to fight for those ideals, but I will choose activities and means that will lead to something I can see and hold (and that others can repeat, improve upon, and grow for the future). Big ideas are great, but small deeds can be just as valuable. I want to make a difference in someone’s life today. 

And finally, there is an afterlife. I frankly don’t know if there’s a heaven or a hell as the colorful posters in my grade-school religion class depicted them, but what I’m sure of from having attended countless funerals is that an important part of that afterlife and of its very proof is the life of those you will leave behind. When you die, others live on; they’ll talk about and even shed tears for you for a few days, and then they’ll move on to more pressing matters like tax amnesties and next Tuesday’s price of gas. Now and then your name will come up over morning coffee or a late-night beer, and the smile, the laugh, the sigh, the wince, or the cuss word that your memory will provoke will say everything about who you were and what your life was all about. I’ll be happy with a smile—maybe a bit regretful, but mostly pleased to have crossed paths with and even to have learned something from me. Mabuhay!

(With many thanks to May Tobias-Papa for the illustration)

Penman No. 458: An Artist in Leather

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Penman for Sunday, January 7, 2024

FEW WILL remember this, but one of the very first things I wrote about when I began this column for the STAR back in mid-2000 was my passion for leather. By that I mean good, well-crafted leather briefcases, bags, watch straps, and such accessories beloved of both men and women seeking a timeless alternative to today’s synthetics. There’s still nothing like leather to suggest authenticity, tradition, pedigree, and care—care because it requires skillful crafting as well as devoted maintenance by its user.

All these came to mind when I first met Raymund Nino Bumatay, who goes by the trade name “Amon Ginoo,” at the Manila Pen Show last March, where he introduced his Leather Luxe line of luxury pen cases. At my age, and having seen quite a bit of what’s out there, I’m a difficult man to please, but Amon’s work ticked all the boxes (except perhaps one—affordability, which we’ll get to later), particularly the quality and craftsmanship that connoisseurs demand. He catered to a highly specialized clientele, so I wanted to know how he could merge art and business and succeed on both counts. 

Amon was engaged in graphic design and marketing when the pandemic hit, hitting his profession badly. Over the long lockdowns, he began thinking of ways to both express himself creatively and make some money. That was when the idea of making leather cases for fountain pens came to him, spurred on by instructional YouTube videos. Why pens?

“I have been a fountain pen enthusiast since 2015,” Amon told me. “I started out with a simple and reliable Lamy Safari that’s still with me, and while journaling and writing were a common pastime during the lockdowns of 2020, I yearned to make something by hand that would house my humble fountain pen collection. This was why the very first and noteworthy leathercraft that I successfully completed was a fountain pen case.”

Amon, it must be said, is but one of a new generation of fountain pen collectors and users, among whom Filipinos now rank among the world’s largest and most enthusiastic communities. The Fountain Pen Network-Philippines (FPN-P), which I helped found in 2008, began with 20 members but now counts more than 13,000 in its Facebook group, most of them successful young professionals between 30 and 45, along with more senior CEOs, Cabinet undersecretaries, topnotch lawyers and doctors, and aging professors like me. 

This was Amon’s ready-made market. Most people will do with just one pen that they’ll typically clip into their breast pocket or toss into a bag, but for fanatical collectors who amass hundreds of pens and carry a dozen of them around to pen meets, good cases are de rigueur. For everyday use, a three-pen leather case is normal. 

Amon wouldn’t be alone in supplying this market. Aside from imports, some other local artisans have been making quality pen cases. But Amon’s are on a whole other level, employing the choicest leather and featuring exquisite and even bespoke designs, which account for their premium pricing. His cases are, to put it plainly, truly world-class.

First, of course, he had to learn his craft. “After making a couple of leather fountain pen cases with one of my daughters, my wife asked what I was planning to do with all those prototypes. I explained that those were just practice pieces that I wanted to perfect and play around with. She insisted that I sell them so I could make this venture sustainable. My wife urged me to start branding these handmade pieces, saying they would serve as great homes for the pen collections of other enthusiasts. It took me a year and a half to muster the courage to finally put a brand to the craft I started and to begin offering my goods to FPN-P members. Thus was LeatherLuxePh born.” 

He was soon spending long hours trying out new methods and designs, aside from amassing leathercrafting tools from around the region and from Europe. And then there was the key aspect of the leather itself. “When I was just starting, I got my leather from Marikina, but when things began to get serious, I had to resort to Italian and French leather, sourced from distributors in Singapore, South Korea, and Hong Kong. I’ve also sourced leather from Brazil and Indonesia.” Aside from top-grade hides, he also uses exotic leathers such as snakeskin, ostrich, and stingray. “Each pen case is meticulously handcrafted, handstitched, and assembled by hand. The hand stitching alone needs a calm and steady hand, but I find it relaxing. We have spared no expense in choosing the best leathers, tools and supplies available and continually reach out to our clients to be able to share in their experience and further improve on what we have started.”

Amon found a receptive audience among FPN-P’s advanced collectors, whose five- or even six-figure Montblancs and Nakayas couldn’t just be carried around in pedestrian plastic or cardboard boxes. Among Amon’s repeat clients is CEO Jun Castro, who says that “I need a pen case for my big pens. Normal size pen cases would not fit them or be too tight to easily take them out.” Amon, who is based in Baguio, would even come down to work with clients to make sure he meets their very specific needs.

Of course, I had to ask Amon if he planned to expand LeatherLuxePh’s line beyond fountain pen cases, given the narrow niche it occupies. Yes, he says—but not too far from his base that he would compromise quality. “I’ve noticed that most Pinoy leathercrafters flock to bags, wallets, belts, and the like. New entrants usually resort to pricing that tends to undermine the artisan side of the craft. We decided to focus on pen cases precisely because very few of us do it. But we’ll venture into related items such as leather covers for journals and even a traveler’s kit for fountain pen enthusiasts. We’ll also tap the international fountain pen market this 2024 as a proud Pinoy brand.”

The upcoming 2024 Manila Pen Show on March 16-17 should be the perfect venue for LeatherLuxePh’s new products and designs. Can’t wait to see what this artist in leather comes up with next! (Meanwhile, check out LeatherLuxePh on FB and IG.)