Category Archives: Pinoys

Penman No. 454: Revenge Travel, Local Edition

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Penman for Sunday, September 3, 2023

WE PINOYS don’t really know what “summer” is any longer, with heavy rains falling out of the sky as much in March as they do in September, but especially with the new school calendar in place, most of us now do what used to be our summer traveling between May and August, if Facebook posts are any indication.

Many Filipinos—those who can afford it—still seem to be in “revenge travel” mode, flying off to Prague, Helsinki, Myanmar, and other parts off the usual travel charts. My wife Beng and I had a couple of dream spots halfway around the world in mind—recalling our pre-pandemic spree in 2019 when we blew a chunk of my retirement kitty on an escapade to Penang, Tokyo, England, Scotland, Singapore, the US, Turkey, and Macau—but our shrunken pesos and aching knees urged something kinder and more affordable: go local, and suffer no jetlag.

As it happened, we visited at least four places these past few months that I’d like to share with our readers looking for alternatives to the usual weekend destinations, ie, Tagaytay, Subic, Baguio, and Boracay. Some of these trips were partly for work, although I have to admit that pleasure pretty much overpowered anything else on our minds once we got there.

The first was a treat for the whole household—Beng, myself, my 95-year-old mom Emy, her caregiver Jaja, our housekeepers Jenny and Ara, Jenny’s husband and Beng’s assistant Sonny, and Jenny’s and Sonny’s kids Jilliane and Buboy. This is our extended family, whom we genuinely enjoy being with, so every year I promise to take them out on an overnight trip to water resort, as everyone (well, at least below 65) loves to swim. That means a wave pool, a place to cook, good and clean rooms for sleeping and showering, and not too long a ride (for my mom who gets carsick). 

Last year it was the Villa Excellance Beach and Wave Pool Resort in Tanza, Cavite that did the trick for us—and it’s still worth a weekend for your family—but a little Googling yielded me something much closer to our home on UP Campus: the Ciudad Christhia Nine Waves Resort in San Mateo, Rizal, just a 30-minute hop away via the Commonwealth/Tumana route. The place had everything we were looking for—it’s an ideal venue as well for teambuilding seminars, if you don’t want to go too far, with very helpful staff and prices that won’t break the bank; you can do your broiling right beside the huge pool, and the cabanas were clean and cozy. While I flailed around in the knee-high water, six-year-old Buboy had a blast in the wave pool, which was all that mattered.

If you don’t mind driving through the mountains on a zigzag road for about three hours, then a trip to Infanta, Quezon will make the effort worth it. Facing the Pacific, but with Pagbilao Island buffering the waves in between, Infanta offers a bevy of beach resorts, of which Beng and I went to the Marpets Beach Resort, which was run by an American expat and his Filipino wife. Aside from its stretch of beach, the resort had three swimming pools, very livable quarters, and deliciously cooked food. The great thing about a roadtrip to Quezon—which is reachable via the zigzag Marilaque Highway from Marikina and also via the equally scenic though more moderate route passing Antipolo, Famy, and Real—is that the journey itself is an adventure, with much local produce to buy along the way, and breathtaking views to snap. 

Our third destination was almost a random but providential choice. Looking for an inexpensive getaway far enough from Manila to require a plane, and with some airline credits to expend, Beng and I looked up Cebu Pacific’s destination map and settled on one spot we’d never been to—Virac, Catanduanes. We Manileños often hear of Virac only in the context of incoming typhoons, for which it’s probably unfairly used as a reference point, but if you catch it on a sunny day like we did, then you’d rather be here than busy Boracay. I found a new boutique hotel on booking.com called Happy Island Inn in San Vicente, a short tricycle ride from downtown fronting the water, and it turned out to be a winner, priced very reasonably with the friendliest front desk fellow I’ve ever met in all my travels.

Soon we learned that nearly everything in Virac is reachable by tricycle, which we hired for a day tour that included a beachside lunch at the ritzy Twin Rocks resort, a visit to the historic Bato church, hewn out of stone and coral, and a bracing dip into the cool and clear waters of Maribina Falls (entry fee, P25 per person). We made new friends of a lovely couple, Bobby and Myette Tablizo, with whom we shared stories under a full moon. There’s a lot more to be discovered of Catanduanes up north—the island can be circled on a first-class circumferential road—but we’ll save that for next time.

My last sortie was by my lonesome and work-related, but work gets doubly hard in a place meant to transport you to blissful oblivion. This was in Panglao, Bohol, which, the last time I looked many years ago, was little more than a cluster of huts. Imagine my surprise when we stepped off the plane into a world-class airport and then, just minutes later, were wheeled into the kind of resort you find on some glossy magazine cover or on the travel channel but never thought was right in your backyard. (Well, of course there’s a whole class of Pinoys who do know about such places, and I’ve been fortunate to have been invited to a few, but my poor-boy’s jaw still can’t help dropping in the face of luxury.)

The Bellevue Resort in Panglao is one such place that will make you wish you’d studied something like plastic surgery so you could spend a few weekends here every year. The rooms are as plush and comfortable as you should expect at its price point, but it’s the waterfront that will captivate the first-time visitor, with its white-sand beach, tour boats, infinity pool, and multilevel restaurant. Breakfast or dinner beachside is an option, and a tour of the rest of Bohol can be arranged.

Of course, there’s always Bali or the south of France, but with the new travel paperwork requirements, who needs the hassle at immigration? Save yourself the travel tax and go local. It’s still more fun in the Philippines, if you know where to look.

Qwertyman No. 57: An Invitation to SERVE

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Qwertyman for Monday, September 4, 2023

AT 5 PM next Saturday, the 9th of September, a new book will be launched at Fully Booked in BGC. Published by the Ateneo de Manila University Press and simply titled SERVE, the book has 19 authors—yes, I’m one of them—and one editor, the much-respected Jo-Ann Maglipon. What connects all is that they were college editors during the first Quarter Storm of the early 1970s, and survived to go on to distinguished careers in media, education, business, and public service. The book dwells much less on martial law—a previous volume titled Not on Our Watch: Martial Law Really Happened, We Were There that came out in 2012 dealt with that—than with its aftermath, and the afterlife that the activists of our generation were fortunate to have, given how many of our comrades gave up their lives to the cause of justice and freedom.

What did these activists do after martial law? What are they thinking now? Some of the names in this book will be familiar to the contemporary reader, who may not even have known of their activist background (reg-taggers, pay close attention).

Some of us—like Jimi FlorCruz, Sol Juvida, and Thelma Sioson San Juan—remained journalists all their working lives, stationed in very different places and capacities but bound by a commonality of interest in the truth. Others like Sonny Coloma, Manolet Dayrit, Ed Gonzalez, Diwa Guinigundo, the late Chito Sta. Romana, and Judy Taguiwalo took the path of government service, finding themselves in a position to effect real change, although sometimes under very difficult if not adversarial circumstances. Yet others including Angie Castillo, the late Jones Campos, Mercy Corrales, and Senen Glorioso found fulfillment in entrepreneurial and corporate work, applying their progressive values to management. For Elso Cabangon, Bob Corrales, and Diwa Guinigundo, their circuitous journey led to a re-encounter with their spirituality, and to embracing their faith as their personal advocacy. Like many veterans of the First Quarter Storm, Alex and Edna Aquino were able to build new and productive lives overseas, without yielding their investment in Philippine concerns. Quite a few of us—Derly Fernandez, Ed Gonzalez, Judy Taguiwalo, Rey Vea, and myself—chose to pursue our activism in academia, if only to ensure the transmission of critical inquiry to another generation. 

The authors were under no compulsion to conform to an ideological standard, except to extol the spirit of service to the people, the overarching theme of their youth and now their continuing commitment, indeed their legacy. There’s pathos in these accounts, but also humor and, inevitably, irony, perhaps the defining tone of our postmodern age: Thelma Sioson San Juan finds herself seated across Deng Xiaoping’s granddaughter at a Ferragamo show in Beijing’s Forbidden City; Manolet Dayrit learns of his appointment as Secretary of Health on a visit to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in Malacañang; Ed Gonzalez becomes president of the Development Academy of the Philippines under President Joseph Estrada, but then joins EDSA 2; Sonny Coloma looks out the window of his Malacañang office to where students like him had demonstrated against Marcos.

With most of the writers here now in their seventies or inching close to it, we could have been chronicling the joys of grandparenting, journeys to far-off places, exotic menus, succulents and bromeliads, and homeopathic remedies for the aches of aging. Having retired from the formal workplace, we thought we had settled into a privileged and imperturbable kind of peace, earned over decades of political, economic, and spiritual struggle. 

We celebrated our seniorhood as the ultimate victory, for a generation that did not expect to live beyond thirty, and not because of some acquired disease but because of the throbbing cancer at the core of our society that claimed many of our peers in the prime of their youth. We may have thought for a while that we had defeated and expunged that cancer, only to realize that it had never left, was always there, lying cruelly in wait for a chance to ravage us again—and not only us this time, but our children and grandchildren as well.

And so—albeit no longer lean and shaggy-haired, perhaps benignly forgetful of car keys and personal anniversaries—we gather again at the barricades we put up against a fascist dictatorship fifty years ago, of which our memories remain surprisingly and painfully sharp. They say that the old remember distant things more clearly than what happened yesterday, and we offer proof of that. The experience of martial law coded itself into our DNA, and even the few among us who surrendered their souls to Mephistopheles cannot shake away that indelible past—one we bear with pride, and they with guilt and shame.

This time our barricades consist not of desks and chairs but of memory itself and, more formidably, of hope, courage, and a continuing faith in the good. Beyond memoirs, more than recollections of our youthful selves, we now present the stories of the lives we built and the paths we took after martial law, along with our reflections on how time and experience have reshaped us, clarified our values, and strengthened our resolve to serve our people in multifarious ways. 

Our view of politics inevitably evolved over time as the world itself changed over the past five decades. These essays and stories cover a wide range of themes and treatments, and demonstrate how “serve the people” has grown and evolved with its advocates, taking multifarious forms from working in civil society and practicing good governance to promoting artistic expression, academic freedom, and insightful journalism. We wish to prove that even the worst of times and the worst of leaders are not only survivable but can be changed, so that whatever lies ahead, the better Filipinos in us will prevail.

Given the number of authors and their families and friends, we expect a full house at the launch, so you might want to wait and get your copy of the book from Fully Booked or from AdMU Press’ online channels. However the book finds its way to you, it will be worth your while.

Qwertyman No. 56: The Rule of Rules

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Qwertyman for Monday, August 28, 2023

HAVE A problem? No worries—the Philippine government will make a rule to fix it (maybe). Don’t have a problem? No matter—the Philippine government will make a rule to give you one.

Some days it feels like all that government exists for is to make new rules, because, well, it’s the government, and so it has to look and sound like one. Never mind what the preamble to our Constitution states, imploring the aid of Almighty God to “establish a Government that shall embody our ideals and aspirations, promote the common good, conserve and develop our patrimony, and secure to ourselves and our posterity, the blessings of independence and democracy under the rule of law and a regime of truth, justice, freedom, love, equality, and peace.” Forget the rule of law and all that jazz; all hail the rule of rules.

Two pronouncements by our hallowed poohbahs caught our attention in recent weeks. 

The first was an order from the Vice President and Secretary of Education, DepEd Order No. 21,  directing in its implementing guidelines that all public schools must ensure that “school grounds, classrooms and all their walls and other school facilities are clean and free from unnecessary artwork, decorations, tarpaulins, and posters at all times…. Classroom walls shall remain bare and devoid of posters, decorations, or other posted materials. Classrooms should not be used to stockpile materials and should be clear of other unused items or items for disposal.”

Why? Because these were distractions to learning, explained the good secretary, presumably including in her edict the pictures of past presidents, national heroes, posters of Philippine birds and plants, TV-movie idols, Mama Mary, cellphone and softdrink advertisements, half-naked women, CPP-NPA recruitment posters, the periodic table of elements, weapons of Moroland, and the winking Jesus. 

I actually found myself agreeing with the removal of some of these popular items of wall décor, especially the pictures of politicians, which doubtlessly produce anxiety and despair in those who might contemplate them seriously. The good presidents will make you ask, “Where did all that goodness go?” The bad ones will invite only dismay and even self-loathing: “How did these jokers even make it to Malacañang? So you can still be that kind of person and become President? What on earth were we thinking?” This leads to even more profound and troublesome questions about the nature and practice of democracy, which a poorly trained and underpaid sixth-grade teacher will be hard put to answer, undermining whatever little authority she still exerts over her students. (To her credit, Sec. Sara reportedly removed her own picture from a classroom she visited.)

But Rizal, Bonifacio, Mabini, Tandang Sora, and the usual pantheon of Philippine heroes decking our classroom walls? Will removing their visages encourage students to think more deeply about their Science or Math problems, or will young minds simply drift off to Roblox, Taylor Swift, and Spongebob Squarepants? Will making our classrooms look as bare as prisons (and even prisons have calendars and pinups) lead to a spike in student attentiveness and performance? What does it say of DepEd—with all the academic resources and intelligence funds at its disposal—that directives like this are issued apparently on a whim and without prior and proper study? Where was the attention to science and education that the secretary was aiming for?

The other new rule that sent us screaming to our group chats was the imposition of new guidelines for foreign travel by the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking, announced by the Department of Justice, supposedly to curb the incidence of human trafficking, which we all acknowledge t0 be a serious problem. But is this a serious solution?

Under the new guidelines, Pinoys going abroad to see the sakura in Tokyo or to watch the New Year’s Eve ball drop in Manhattan won’t get past NAIA immigration without showing their flight and hotel bookings, proof of their financial capacity to afford their trip, and proof of employment. That’s a lot of paperwork to bring along, and if you’ve seen how long the queues can get at NAIA even without these papers in the way, you can imagine what they’re going to be like with each single document having to be scrutinized by an immigration officer. There’s an even longer list of additional requirements for people traveling under sponsorship and for OFWs—including a requirement for a child traveling with his or her parents to present a PSA-issued birth certificate, which was already a requirement for that child to have been issued a passport.

Exactly what this rigmarole adds to the reduction of trafficking is unclear to my muddled mind, because it seems to me that any good trafficker worth his or her illegal fees will be smart enough to produce the fake documents their wards will need to slip through airport security. As experience has shown, it isn’t even fake documentation but corruption and connivance that have greased the wheels of trafficking. 

Which reminds me, I received a letter some time ago from an expat Briton and a longtime Philippine resident named Thomas O’Donnell, complaining about such unnecessary requirements as the filing of annual reports by foreigners in this country. The Philippines has a reciprocity agreement with other countries such as the UK, Thomas says, but the UK doesn’t require Philippine residents there to do the same thing. So was it—like many of our other rules—just something to keep our bureaucrats occupied (or possibly, profitably occupied)? Where was the fun in the Philippines, Thomas lamented, and how was a fellow like him supposed to love it? 

Having lived here for 23 years, Thomas clearly has found other, countervailing reasons for staying on, but he has a point. Despite an anti-red tape law in the books, we still invent ways to complicate the simplest things. And answer me this: if the DepEd chief thinks that bare walls can lead to clearer thinking, shouldn’t we declutter our travel processes as well, so we can all sit in the departure lounge in peace with an hour to spare, waiting for our flight (that will likely be delayed, but that’s another story)?

Qwertyman No. 55: Persona Non Grata

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Qwertyman for Monday, August 21, 2023

THE HON. Victor M. Dooley was in a foul mood, and no one knew that better than his Chief Political Officer and rumored girlfriend, Yvonne Macahiya.

When his whiskers began to twitch like he was about to sneeze—but didn’t—then something was upsetting her boss. He was trying to say something but couldn’t find the words for it, so his pursed lips went this way and that way, and Yvonne understood that it was an SOS from the senator whose maiden speech she had crafted a year earlier.

“What’s up, boss? Looks like you have a great idea trying to wiggle out of your brain.”

“Have you seen the latest surveys? 2025 is coming up and my poll numbers are going nowhere! There’s 12 slots and I’m in No. 16, behind two lawyers with a hair piece and buck teeth! These preschool feeding and rural literacy programs you’ve come up with are doing nothing for me—babies don’t vote, and even their mothers prefer cash!”

She bent low and purred into his ear. “We needed to soften your macho image, to make you look cuddly and caring—“

He put his arm around her waist. “You mean I haven’t been cuddly and caring enough?”

She slunk out of his grip and pretended to dust the plaster Maneki Neko cat on his corner table. The senator liked to wave back to it and giggle when he entered or left the room, feeling like it gave him good luck.

“Boss, you have my vote. One vote. You need ten million more from people who’ll never know how kind and generous you can be when I blow air behind your ears to put you to sleep.”

He smiled at the pleasurable memory and nearly forgot what he was all upset about. But then the Three O’Clock Prayer came on the Senate PA system and he suddenly remembered. Yvonne respectfully lowered her eyes and mumbled her devotions but the Hon. Dooley’s eyes grew wide with  realization.

“Holy Mamaw, I know what we should do! You hear that prayer? You know that—that Luka Luka something who impersonated the Lord and who, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority, offended 85 percent of Filipinos?”

“Yes, the drag queen who performed the Lord’s Prayer and who was declared persona non grata by eight municipalities. Why?”

“You see the media mileage he/she/they got?” Dooley had attended an obligatory gender-sensitivity program and was very careful with his pronouns. “It’s all over the news and social media! Even when I’m watching all these sexy reels on TikTok, I keep seeing this, uhm, person!”

“So what do you want to do? Get yourself declared PNG? Are you out of your mind? You want me to dress you up as Mary Magdalen?”

“No, no, no, that’s not what I meant. Let’s declare someone persona non grata! I’m sure it will make waves. Not Luka, that’s done. I hear even Barangay Suluk-sulukan in Tawi-Tawi, which isn’t even Christian, is declaring him/her/them PNG. We need to find someone new.”

“And who might that be? It will have to be someone everybody hates.”

For a minute, the two sank into deep thought. Dooley stared at Maneki Neko as though the white cat had the answers. He had brought it back as a souvenir from an official visit to Japan, tossing aside the Yayoi Kusama teapot gifted to him by the Ministry of Culture to Yvonne, who promptly sold it on eBay.

The Japanese figurine gave him an idea. “You know, with what’s happening out there, everyone in the region hates China. I mean, not Chinese food or Chinese fakes, everybody loves those, just Chinese bullying. So why don’t we declare Xi Jinping PNG?”

“Why, is he coming over for a visit anytime soon? No point in naming him PNG otherwise. And who cares about Xi when we’re letting in 150,000 POGO workers from China?”

“You’re right. Chinese presidents don’t come here—ours go to them.”

“Even exes,” remarked Yvonne. “

“Oh, him?” said the senator. “Now that was one ballsy guy! Imagine him cursing the Pope and calling God stupid? And there wasn’t one barangay or parish that declared him persona non grata for it!”

“Oh, he’s already PNG upstairs for sure, although I guess he already knew that,” said Yvonne.

A new song came on over the PA system and Yvonne recognized it instantly, emoting with its lyrics. Soon she was singing along: 

But she wears short skirts

I wear T-shirts

She’s Cheer Captain

and I’m on the bleachers….

“Who’s that?” asked the senator.

“Who else? Taylor Swift! She has  79 million Facebook fans, and last year Spotify listed her as the most listened-to artist in the Philippines. And she’s coming soon to Tokyo and Singapore!”

“Hmmm, that’s interesting. Why don’t we declare her persona non grata? I’m sure that’ll generate a lot of buzz!”

“Are you crazy? Taylor Swift? She’s not even coming to the Philippines for her Eras Tour!”

“That’s exactly it. We declare her PNG for excluding us from her world concert.”

“We can’t declare someone PNG and stop them from coming here because they’re not coming here—“

“Let’s call it racism or something. No, that won’t work if she’s going to Tokyo and Singapore. Those Tamils are browner than us. Let’s think of something else.”

And then the song changed, and Yvonne went into an even dreamier state, gliding across the floor with some cool stops and turns.

Cause I-I-I’m in the stars tonight

So watch me bring the fire and set the night alight (hey)

Shining through the city with a little funk and soul

So I’ma light it up like dynamite, whoa oh oh

“Who’s that?” asked Dooley.

“You never heard of BTS? No—no, boss, don’t even think about it! They have what’s called an Army, and it’s bigger than all the people who ever voted for you!”

Qwertyman No. 54: Two Valedictories

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Qwertyman for Monday, August 14, 2023

TWO SPEECHES delivered by graduating students of the University of the Philippines made the rounds of social media last week, garnering generally positive responses for their forthrightness. One was more strident than the other, but both carried essentially the same message: we need to reframe the way we look at the education of the poor, and what true success should mean for the working student.

The first was Val Anghelito R. Llamelo, summa cum laude and class valedictorian, Bachelor of Public Administration. The son of an OFW, Val began working at a very young age at a BPO, as a marketing assistant, and as a tutor to support his needs and that of his family’s. He was, almost needless to say, the first UP graduate his family produced, and finishing summa against all odds was the icing on the cake.

He wasn’t there, he said, to deliver the usual valedictory speech you’d expect from a person with his kind of success story. He was grateful for his opportunities, but he didn’t feel like celebrating his hard-won triumph, which people would typically applaud for its sheer improbability. And that, precisely, was the problem, according to Val.

“Why should I be an exception?” he asked in so many words. “Why can’t more Filipinos from my background do well in college and finish like I did? Why does access to a quality education remain the privilege of a few? During the pandemic, how many poor students underperformed because of their lack of access to digital technology?”

Again I’m paraphrasing here, but Val went on to say, “I don’t want to be your inspiration or role model. No one should have to endure what I faced. I want you to be disgruntled enough with the system to demand something better and not settle for less, to yearn for a system where working students, indigenous people, and individuals from impoverished families can have fair opportunities to study and to succeed. Praising us gives politicians in power an excuse to renege on their commitment to improve our lives. We overvalue resilience. Using the familiar analogy of the glass that’s half-full and half-empty, we’re often made to feel that we should be contented with the fact that it’s half-full, but we should focus on the fact that it’s half-empty, and should hold our leaders accountable for filling it up.”

The other speaker was Leo Jaminola, a BS Political Science cum laude and MA Demography graduate who juggled six jobs—as an encoder, transcriptionist, library student assistant, tutor, writer, and food vendor—to complete his bachelor’s degree. 

“Graduating with honors back then was nothing short of a miracle,” says Leo. “In the years that followed, the list of jobs I took just grew longer as I became a research assistant, a government employee, a development worker, and a consultant for different projects with some engagements overlapping with each other.  

“The past years have been a long-winding maze of seeking financial security and I have still yet to find a way out of this crisis. From full-time work, part-time work, and competitions, I did my best to provide not only for myself but also for my family. 

“While some of my peers have hefty investments in high-yield financial instruments, here I am still overthinking whether I deserve an upgrade to a large Coke while ordering at the local fast food chain. 

“During my childhood, I saw how poverty manifested itself in the form of cramped makeshift houses, children playing near litter-filled canals, and senior citizens succumbing to illnesses without even getting a proper diagnosis. Growing up, I thought of these as normal occurrences that should be accepted as it is the way of life. Now, I do not think that this should be the norm. 

“Some people will say that poverty is a personal failure and that the members of my community should work harder but I know better. One of the things that I learned from my experience is that hard work as the primary factor in being successful is a myth. That’s not to say that it doesn’t play a role but privilege and access to resources have greater impacts on whether a person ends up successful or not. 

“If hard work is all it took, then the many young breadwinners I know who continue to support their families while chasing their own dreams would not be constantly organizing their budget trackers to find ways how to stretch their salary until the next payday. 

“Others will read this and use it as some kind of living proof that people, even those from the most marginalized groups, can make it in life simply by working hard rather than addressing structural barriers. But what of those who didn’t make it despite working as hard or even harder than me? How are their experiences not evidence of the continued inaccessibility of education and opportunities in our country? 

“Rather than success, we should see my experience and the stories of so many others as systemic failures. If anything, my story should make us angry and move us to demand a much better society—one that allows our people to live with dignity, dream freely, and enjoy equal opportunities.”

The speeches echo each other, but then so have the “model” valedictories that Val and Leo so forcefully seek to subvert. Indeed, the usual narrative we hear is that of the poor boy (or girl) made good, followed by congratulatory praises for his or her tenacity and faith in Divine Providence. (Some of them, like the poor boy from Lubao, even become President.)

I have to admit that we find such stories inspiring if not necessary, because they offer the possibility of salvation for a lucky and plucky few. But we have to bear in mind as well—as Val and Leo emphasize—that for every summit achieved like theirs lie hundreds if not thousands of others who never got past base camp, not for lack of talent or will but simply for lack of means. To succeed as a nation and society depends much less on producing exceptional one-offs than on leveling the playing field for most.

(Photos from Philstarlife and pep.ph)

Qwertyman No. 53: Too many laudes?

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Qwertyman for August 7, 2023

LIKE MANY alumni and casual onlookers, I couldn’t help but be bothered by the announcement that more than half of this year’s graduating class of the University of the Philippines Diliman were finishing with Latin honors—2,243 out of 3,359 undergraduates, 305 of them summa cum laude, 1,196 magna cum laude, and 742 cum laude. Critics were quick to point out that it was a sure sign of grade hyperinflation, that UP had turned into a diploma mill, and that a UP education was no longer what it used to be.

Having taught in UP for almost 40 years, I disagree with the harshest of these conclusions—there are many external indicators to prove that UP graduates and UP as an institution are globally competitive and remain high above national averages in terms of professional certifications and such. 

But the surge in honor graduates is indeed so high that it leads many to worry if a summa today means the same thing it did ten years ago, when only 15 out of 4,365 graduates claimed that distinction. What happened in between? Did both UP students and their professors become so suddenly much better that they outperformed historical expectations? Can we back this up with scientific data, or at least with some reasonable conjectures?

My own guess—and that’s all it is, an educated guess—is that we’re seeing the outcome of an enforced leniency in grading during the pandemic, when the normal grading rules were stretched to be as accommodating as possible to the situation that our undergraduates found themselves in—under lockdown, taking classes on Zoom under highly variable conditions of connectivity, with little or no access to physical libraries and laboratories, with little social interaction face to face, and under the critical eye of hovering parents and siblings at home. 

During the pandemic, in UP (and perhaps in other universities and colleges as well), a “no-fail” policy was put into effect; no student could be given a failing grade, except in cases of intellectual dishonesty. The normal one-year period for resolving “Incomplete” grades was extended. Professors could not “drop” students for absences or lack of communication. Students could opt to have their grades “deferred.” University rules on scholastic delinquency and retention were suspended. And because universities worldwide had to shift abruptly to online teaching, resulting in many adjustment problems on both sides of the video camera, UP decided that numerical grades earned during this adjustment period would not be factored into the General Weighted Average (GWA), on which Latin honors are based. Note that under normal rules—which, to my knowledge, are mostly if not entirely now back in effect—any one of these infractions or deficiencies could have cost you your laude; their relaxation meant that the door was now open for many candidates who might have been disqualified on technical grounds. 

But then again, that’s just my personal explanation for this aberration (which statistically it is, if you’ve seen the charts). I don’t mean for any of this to diminish the pride, happiness, and sense of accomplishment that I saw on the faces of the graduates and their parents that waterlogged morning of July 30 when UP Diliman held abbreviated commencement exercises despite the weather. No speeches were made to put safety over ceremony, but then perhaps none were needed, as the swell of “UP Naming Mahal” rose defiantly over the rain. You could not walk up to any one of those honor graduates and tell him or her “You don’t deserve your medal,” because you had no idea what he or she went through during the pandemic to earn it. If the system failed, then let it be faulted, and let the post-mortem happen, but don’t take it out on the students who only did what they were supposed to do. 

Even as professor emeritus, I’m still teaching after retirement, and last semester I chose to teach Fiction Writing to a class of undergraduates, wanting to see for myself what our young people were thinking and also to give them the unusual experience of being taught by a grizzled old fellow. I was generally pleased with the level of talent and enthusiasm I encountered. As expected, two or three students stood out above the rest, many sat in the middle, and a few lagged behind, not for incompetence but for such other factors as attendance and class participation, both important in a writing workshop. Most did well enough, in my estimation, to earn at least the 1.75 that would have qualified them for honors. Was I part of the grade inflation? But if they did much worse than that, then they had no business being in UP. I didn’t give out any “1.0”s, but I didn’t flunk anyone, either. If anything, my chief complaint would be how alienated our young people are from their social and cultural environment beyond their cohort and from their history. They can write well, but they still have to learn and understand what truly matters.

As far as Latin honors are concerned, it might help to see what the financial website Investopedia has to say on it, adjusting for the fact that it’s US-based:

“While Latin honors can look good on a diploma, college transcript, or résumé, do they make any difference in real life? Two researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Pauline Khoo and Ben Ost, attempted to answer that question in a 2018 paper titled ‘The Effects of Graduating With Honors on Earnings.’

“’We find that obtaining honors provides an economic return in the labor market, but this benefit only persists for two years,’ they wrote. ‘By the third year after college, we see no effect of having received honors on wages, suggesting that firms may use the signal for new graduates, but they do not rely on the signal for determining the pay of more experienced workers.’ They also found that the economic benefit applied only to students who had graduated from selective schools.

“Critics of Latin honors are less concerned with their potential post-graduation benefits than the unintended effect they may have on students while they’re still in school. A 2011 editorial in Harvard University’s student newspaper, the Crimson, called for their abolition at the school.

“By rewarding students who achieve a minimum GPA across classes, the Latin honors system does more to discourage academic achievement than to encourage it. It encourages students to view classes outside of their concentration as a means to an end, the end being the highest possible grade, rather than an opportunity for intellectual exploration.”

Given our Pinoy penchant for titles and distinctions, I don’t see us getting rid of laudes anytime soon, but it may be time to find another and better way to recognize and reward student achievement beyond book learning.

(Photo from upd.edu.ph)

Qwertyman No. 52: Joe Biden’s SOTU

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Qwertyman for Monday, July 31, 2023

BECAUSE OF a glitch that happened when Chinese hackers tried to hijack America’s C-Span network so they could replace congressional programming with X-rated cartoons (on the theory that no one would miss the analogy), for a few minutes in the early morning of July 24, 2023 (Eastern Standard Time), the channel’s viewers were treated instead to the live coverage of an apparently big event happening in faraway Philippines.

Celebrities and bigwigs were getting dropped off by their limousines and luxury SUVs at some place called the “Batasan,” which a commentator helpfully explained was the building that housed the Congress of the Philippines—the Philippine Capitol, in other words, minus the dome.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was just about to go to bed in his home in Bakersfield—he had flown back to California for the weekend to avoid the screechings of the Freedom Caucus in his ears—and he had been having a hard time sleeping, wondering which was worse, having to deal with Joe Biden or with Donald Trump. Just when he was about to drift off to dreamland, his cellphone rang. It was an aide back in Washington, and immediately Speaker Kevin wondered if something earthshaking had happened—like Biden resigning after being diagnosed with dementia or Trump discovering honesty and humility and turning to God. “Boss, you have to see this. Tune in to C-Span!”

Grumbling, the Speaker did as asked and had to rub his eyes as he watched a woman step out onto the red carpet dressed like some aboriginal priestess, complete with warlike tattoos. Others came in headdresses, butterfly sleeves, heavily embroidered gowns, and sashes with pictures of dead people. “What’s going on? What the hell am I looking at? Is this some movie premiere or what?”

“It’s a live feed from the Philippines, what they call a SONA—the president’s State of the Nation Address, their version of our State of the Union. The president’s arriving shortly to deliver his speech.”

“You woke me up to get me to listen to some political crap in some backwater country? Are you out of your mind? Don’t we get enough of this in DC?”

“No, no, boss, it’s not about the speech—that’s the whole point, forget the speech, it’s about the fashions! Look at them, preening like peacocks and peahens. Look at the coverage, I’ll bet you, tomorrow, all the papers and social media in Manila will be talking about the dresses, not the speech!”

“And so?” Kevin got up from bed, sufficiently intrigued to pour himself a scotch in anticipation of a longer chat. This aide was his top PR strategist, and sometimes the guy came up with truly inspired ideas, like plucking Ms. Horseface away from the Freedom Caucus to boost his conservative credentials and keep the restless natives in check. Joe Biden was the enemy, but his own crew members could be a bigger pain.

“Well, don’t you see, boss? Joe Biden’s next SOTU is coming up, and… we need a distraction. We don’t want him lecturing the American people about how we’re stripping women of their rights to safe abortions, or teaching the young that slavery had some real benefits, or carving up congressional districts to make sure that dark-skinned people don’t get too much sun on election day. I mean, he’ll do that anyway, but these Filipinos know something we don’t—it’s not the speech, it’s the party! We can turn the SOTU into a fashion show and no one will care what Old Joe says!”

McCarthy took a closer look at the screen and listened to the commentators blabbering about this and that gown and comparing it to last year’s versions—the more outrageous, the better. He recalled being canceled back in January for appearing in a picture wearing a blue suit with brown shoes—par for the course in cool Europe but never in redneck America!—and smiled in anticipation of his revenge. 

As it turned out, the Speaker and his aide weren’t alone. Before the footage could be pulled off C-Span, it had made the rounds of the bars around Washington, DC, and someone found even more detailed coverage on YouTube, and when daylight broke over the Potomac it was all that the senators, congressmen, and their flunkies could talk about over their morning coffee. 

“So what are you going to wear to the SOTU?” reporters asked Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as soon as she stepped out the door of her DC apartment. She had a ready answer for that, having pondered the question over her Wheaties: “I’ll come in a long black dress,” she said, “with the word IMPEACH running down the front!”

It didn’t take long for Marjorie’s arch-rival on the right, Rep. Lauren Broebert of Colorado, to announce that she was coming “As Annie Oakley, in defense of the Second Amendment, the biggest victim of all the mass shootings happening in America today!”

Even Kari Lake, who was still refusing to accept her defeat for the governorship of Arizona, revealed that she was attending the SOTU as a guest, and that she was coming dressed as a Mexican muchacha—“Not to glorify diversity or any of that woke garbage, but to draw attention to illegal immigration, which is sucking the lifeblood of this great country and its legal, blue-passport-carrying citizens!”

Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, who had stubbornly and singlehandedly been holding up the confirmation of dozens of generals because he didn’t want the military to pay for the abortions of women in the service, had his own idea: “I’m having myself fitted for the uniform of a Confederate general.” Inspired by something he had seen on a related YouTube clip, he added, “And for good measure, my wife Suzanne will be wearing a gold necklace made from the excavated medals and buttons of Union Army officers!”

Reached for comment at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump declared he wasn’t coming, and fumed when a reporter reminded him that former presidents were invited to the event. “Who’re you calling a former president? That thievin’, lyin’ Joe is a never president—never, never, never! I should be the one giving the SOTU, not him—and I will, again!”

Alerted to the SONA brouhaha by his butler, Joe Biden passed the sugar on to Jill as the video played in the background. He listened briefly to the other president’s speech and smiled. “A New Philippines, hmmm…. How does ‘A New America’ sound to you, honey?”

“I think not,” said Jill. “In fact, we rather miss the old one, don’t we? When America was a kinder and gentler place?”

“That’s George Bush Senior’s line, honey. From the 1988 GOP convention.”

“Exactly. Back when even some Republicans got some things right.”

Qwertyman No. 50: Doro’s Times and Ours

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Qwertyman for Monday, July 17, 2023

THE NEWS of Amando “Doro” Doronila’s recent passing in Canberra at age 95 marked the end of an era, as Doro was the last of his generation of journalists who made newspapers and their Op-Ed pages compelling reading. Whichever side of the political fence they were on, these journalists and columnists gave it all they had; many reveled in their prominence and some shamelessly parlayed their influence into all manner of profitable enterprise, back when it seemed the sensible thing to do, before the darker complicities of martial law set in.

Doro seemed to me to be above all this. His personality was, shall we say, poorly suited for TV or even radio, which was just as well, because it drew a clear line between journalists who did nothing better than think and write deeply, and those who confused their calling with show business.

I didn’t really know Doro personally. My one memorable encounter with him was when I was 18, a freshman dropout from UP who was dying to get into the newspapers, by hook or by crook. (Like some precocious teenagers, I was convinced I had the writing talent to skip journalism school. I would later pay for that hubris in tearful rewrites in the newsroom.) 

One of the doors I knocked on was that of the Manila Chronicle, which Doro was the editor of in 1972. I remember striding into its office and walking up to Doro’s desk, sucking in my stomach. He seemed puzzled to see my pimply face, which probably belonged to a messenger boy’s, except that I came empty-handed. “Yes?” What did I want? “Sir, I want to apply for a job—as a reporter,” I must have croaked, mumbling something about my writing for the Collegian and my high school paper. “How old are you?” I said that I was “going to be nineteen soon”—“soon” being about nine months away. 

I can’t recall if he looked back at me with pity or sympathy, or if he was laughing inside. I do remember him saying something like “Why don’t we talk again in a few years?” I was disappointed but not dejected; at least he didn’t throw me out of the place, or ridicule me before a roomful of the kind of people I wanted to be—hunched over typewriters, smoking up a storm, shaping tomorrow’s news, their bylines embedded crisply and imperishably on fresh paper.

Eventually, sometime that summer, and through sheer persistence, I did land a newspaper job, as a features writer and then a general-assignments reporter with the Philippines Herald, very likely the youngest fellow working full-time for the papers then. With the Herald and later Taliba  just before martial law, I met all kinds of journalists on the job, and saw how human we all were, the creatures of our noblest ambitions and pettiest grievances. One reporter I was on the police beat with loved playing cop, interrogating suspects each one of whom he was convinced was nursing a confession. Many had an enormous capacity for alcohol and the unapologetically macho bluster that came with it. Despite their gruffness, some had marshmallow hearts; two or three even took me under their wing to spare me from the usual gauntlet that rookies had to undergo. We were the peons of the profession, entry-level Hemingways and Woodwards chasing stories down the city’s tenebrous alleyways, and we loved every minute of it.

That was our world, but when I reported to the newsroom in the afternoon to file my story, I was ever aware that even above the copyeditors’ desk was another tier of men (as they mostly were) who perorated boisterously in a corner office on the day’s politics over scotch and cigars, the people whose opinions mattered and who made opinion matter. Never having worked with or for Doronila, I could only imagine him in that company, sitting sagely with his fingers crossed while allowing the thunder to roll above his head.

Today, half a century later, and finding myself just as old or even older than those titans of Philippine journalism then, I can savor the irony of having the privilege to write an Op-Ed column in times that mirror, in many ways, the early 1970s—with a Marcos in Malacañang, an opposition at bay, a scandal a week, and yet a people hard at work, striving for economic and moral deliverance. 

The great difference is that newspapers no longer have a monopoly of opinion-forming; that ground has been taken over by the Internet and social media (and elsewhere, by early-morning and late-afternoon AM radio, perhaps the hardiest of public platforms). Certainly, some Op-Ed stars remain—again on either side of the political divide—with faithful followers in need of sharper articulation and affirmation of their own sentiments. But even those readers tend to be aged or aging, people with the time and patience to read prose in paragraphs instead of bullets and memes, and who might even look for and appreciate that elusive quality called “style.” (Doronila’s no-frills prose, to be honest, was straight and guileless to the point of being starchy.) These 1,000-word pieces we produce now belong to what they call “long-form” writing, as if to write and read them were a test of endurance. 

But against the cheeky punchiness of Twitter and the ugly street brawls on Facebook, and above all stylistic considerations, I have to applaud this new generation of journalists (not all of them for sure) for their adherence to the truth and to fact-based reporting, and for holding themselves up to a higher standard of ethical behavior than their predecessors. Battling the bots and trolls of disinformation, they put their lives and well-being on the line, story by story, column by column; most are young, many are women, some even gay—the old gray men of the newsroom no longer dictate the headlines or the editorial slant. I think Doro himself would have been happy to see this, having mentored many of his successors.

And so as we grieve Amando Doronila’s demise at an age few of us can hope to approach, we can celebrate the continuity of upholding courage, virtue, and incorruptibility in Philippine journalism, with deepest thanks for the example the man set for us to follow.

(Photo by Pablo Tariman on FB)

Qwertyman No. 47: An Open Door

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Qwertyman for June 26, 2023

A FEW weekends ago, the traffic was tied up in knots around the University of the Philippines campus in Diliman, where we live, and we knew why. Many thousands of high school seniors hoping to enter UP were taking the university’s UPCAT or entrance exam, which had gone back to its old physical, face-to-face format after two years of being suspended in favor of a statistical formula because of the pandemic. This year, over 100,000 applicants took the UPCAT, out of whom about a tenth will be taken in, the actual number of admissions being determined by the capacity of UP’s eight “constituent universities” like UP Los Bañ0s and UP Mindanao, aside from Diliman, to absorb new freshmen.

As a campus resident and now a retired professor who still teaches a course every semester (an option I avail myself of, just to keep my foot in the classroom and know what the young people are thinking), I witness this ritual every year, and smile every time I see those bright and eager faces, squinting at the sun and looking a little lost; the first challenge every UP freshman faces is finding out where things are and the fastest way to get from Point A to Point B. 

That’s literally thinking on your feet, which is a survival skill we inculcate in our students. If there’s a smarter way to solve a problem than brute force, we’ll find it. (I recall how, in the middle of an exam for a Shakespeare class which I usually aced, I was stumped for the right answer, and in despair just responded with a quotation from A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “So quick bright things come to confusion!” My professor let me off with a 1.25.)

Frankly or perhaps unkindly, UP people are called pilosopo, magulang, or maangas by those unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the forthrightness and cleverness that our academic culture encourages. At worst, we’re called “godless communists” by those who don’t see how packed our chapels and parking lots are (although of course, today, the most successful communists are called oligarchs). On this point, I can guarantee you that no one can be more annoyed if not enraged by a UP person than another UP person; our faculty feuds are legendary. Indeed that has become a liability with some employers who prefer to hire graduates who will simply do as they’re told without asking “Why?”

“Why?” may indeed be the wrong entry-level thing to say, but it’s also what has moved science and society forward, quickly followed by “How?” If no one asked it, we’d still be chasing animals over clifftops for food and sacrificing our first-borns for bigger harvests. This urge to apply reason to the most basic of human and natural functions again can be occasionally irritating, especially when it is accompanied by the unflinching (or perhaps juvenile) certitude that one is absolutely right. 

As a teenage activist in Diliman, I was sure that the only way out of the mess we were (and continue to be) in was an armed revolution; Marxist logic said so. Approaching 70, I’m just glad that I lived long enough to reason my way out of it, but looking back at that pimply 17-year-old who carried Harry Shaw’s College English in one hand and Mao’s Little Red Book in the other, I can understand why I thought the way I did. And no, it wasn’t like my professors force-fed me with rebellious notions. I was a reasonably bright kid who read the news—murders and massacres here, extreme poverty and hunger there, corruption and scandal all around, with few of our leaders seeming to care—and I was looking for a comprehensive and compelling framework to explain all this and map out a route forward. The Left offered that.

It’s important to note that then, as now, most UP students and certainly most Filipino students didn’t feel the same way and do as I and my comrades did, which was to put activism over academics. Our protests may have hogged the headlines and typecast UP for good as a school for rebels (although it had been a hotbed of student protest since Quezon’s time), but the majority of UP students then continued attending their classes, turning in their assignments, and picking up their diplomas, as was their right. Like I often emphasize, as vocal dissidents, we were (and are) in a distinct minority. That comes with the territory of resistance—not just in a university but in society as a whole.

Given what’s happened since, were we wrong to protest and did we waste our youth (and, as some politicians and red-tag-happy trolls might say, our people’s money as well)? Some of us persisted and stayed on that path; many paid with their lives, or devoted the entirety of their lives to their cause. Some turned 180 degrees and now rabidly renounce their past, casting their lot with their former enemies. Some, like me, now see moderate liberalism as the only viable way forward—to endure and survive, gaining ground from one generation and one community to the next, instead of in one fell swoop. Somehow I understand all of these outcomes, which are all human, all fallible, and none of them assured of success. I can only be hopeful, and not certain, that my option is the best one.

As I looked at the UPCAT examinees posing for selfies in front of the Carillon and the Oblation in Diliman, I remembered that eight UP students are now facing charges for their recent attempt to storm past a closed door at Quezon Hall to protest an unpopular decision by the Board of Regents. Among the complainants’ grievances, ostensibly, was that the wooden door was part of UP’s heritage, and had to be protected at all costs.

That saddened me, because the last image that one could imagine to stand for a university like UP is that of a closed and impregnable door. UP’s true heritage doesn’t lie in its furniture but in its tradition of free speech, and even of protest, the occasional overflow of passion included. I can only pray that UP’s new and compassionate president, Jijil Jimenez, can draw on his own activist past to see that point, and to keep an open door for his constituents to his mind and heart.