“Pang-apat na Pasko na ito na hiwalay ako sa pamilya ko,” says Mina, and the note of wistfulness in her tone echoes the sadness and frustration of all the millions of other Filipino migrant workers who must spend this family-oriented season away from their loved ones.
Mina, 49, is only of the roughly 40,000 Filipinos working in Israel, around 80 percent of whom are women, according to the Philippine embassy in Israel. Most women are caregivers just like her.
Mina’s days in Israel are spent taking care of her 80-year old female ward – waking her up and putting her to sleep at the appropriate times, administering her medications, massaging, bathing and dressing her, and generally being the only companion to her elderly ward who is afflicted with Alzheimer’s Disease, and whose children have entrusted her to Mina’s care.
“Maayos naman ang trato sa akin, at pinagkakatiwalaan nila ako sa nanay nila,” Mina reveals. However, the loneliness she feels for her husband, two children and three grandchildren whom she left in the Philippines never leaves her.
For her efforts, Mina receives US$550 each month, or roughly around P25,000. Filipina caregivers in Israel also get free room and board from their employers. However, while Israeli law requires that caregivers be paid about US$1,100 for living in, they are often paid, like Mina, only US$550 to US$600. This is only half of what they are entitled to receive as live-in employees who work on a 24-hour shift, and even less than the approximately $850 minimum wage they are supposed to receive per month for a full-time job.
Despite getting less than what they are entitled to, many Filipina caregivers would rather stay in Israel. After all, they earn more than nurses, teachers, and other professionals in the Philippines. Apart from this, they also have to pay for the recruitment agency’s placement fees, and loans they accrued to leave the country. In Mina’s case, she paid a total P250,000 in fees to her agency before she left in 2005.
Homesickness is a fact of life for OFWs, but more so during the Christmas season. Mina readily admits to the things she misses most – the Christmas trees, carols blaring from the radio, tinsel and bright twinkling lights everywhere. Christmas is not one of the Jewish holidays, so the Filipinos bring their own Pasko with them.
"Pumupunta kami dun sa ilang Christian store na naglalagay ng Christimas decorations,” Mina relates. “Para kahit paano, nararamdaman naming na Pasko na. Yung iba sa amin, naglalagay din ng Christmas decorations sa bahay, pero tatanggalin din pag dumating yung mga may-ari.”
“Pag Pasko, nagpa-party kaming mga magkakaibigan,” Mina continued. “Nagluluto kami ng Filipino food, tapos nagvi-videoke, nagsasayawan. Yung ilan sa amin, nagdadala pa nga ng mga alaga nila. Gustong-gusto ng mga alaga naming sumama, kasi ang saya ng Paskong Pilipino. Yung iba, naka-wheelchair, naka-saklay, pero nagsasayawan kasama namin.”
Mina underscores the importance of a large, organized and supportive Filipino community in Israel. Being together keeps them all grounded, and helps them to feel that, even though they are miles away from home, they have a piece of their country with them.
“Kami-kami rin lang ang nagkakasama at nagkaka-hingahan ng mga problema,” she reveals. This organized community ensures that there are activities where Filipinos in Israel can meet and bond with each other. There are social activities such as Christmas parties, beauty pageants, basketball tournaments, concerts and shows. There are two weekly newspapers for Filipinos. During the Christmas season, some Filipinos go on a guided tour of the holy places in Israel.
Of course, the season can also become a burden to Filipinos who are living abroad. “Kailangan mas malaki ang ipadala mo pag Pasko, lalo na para sa mga bata,” she says. Since workers in Israel are legally entitled to a yearly 12-day vacation leave, a few Filipinos take the chance to go back home. “Ang mahirap lang pag uuwi ka sa Pasko, mas marami ang aasa na mag-uuwi ka ng pera at pasalubong. Sa huli, madaming Pilipinong umuuwi sa Pilipinas ang nauubos ang lahat ng naipon nila, kasi inaasahan na ikaw ang gagastos ng lahat pag uwi mo.”
Thus, many Filipinos opt not to go home, in spite of their yearning to be with their loved ones. They prefer to save the money they would otherwise spend on plane fare and the inevitable expenses in the Philippines. Mina relates that for these Filipinos, the Christmas season means the rush to fill, and send home, balikbayan boxes to their families in the Philippines.
“Pinakamalaking gastos dito pag Pasko, yung padala at saka yung shipping ng mga balikbayan box,” she said. “Syempre kahit paano, gusto mong maramdaman ng pamilya mo na kasama ka nila kahit wala ka dun. Saka dapat may bubuksan yung mga bata.”
Another expense during the Christmas season – cellphone load. “Syempre, tatawag ka ng tatawag sa bahay pag Pasko. Naku, minsan iyakan kami ng iyakan sa telepono, pag naririnig mo na andun lahat sila, tapos ikaw lang ang wala,” Mina reminisces.
For Mina and millions of other OFWs, the Christmas season is one of the most trying times of the year. In this season, they are confronted with endless proof of their solitude and isolation. And it would be doubly harder, if not for the social and emotional support they receive from other Filipinos in the same plight. And yet, they know that being away from their families is one of the costs that they have to pay for leaving the country.
"Sino ba ang gustong umalis? Kung meron lang bang disenteng trabaho sa Pilipinas, maghahanap pa ba kami ng trabaho sa malayo?” muses Mina. And she gazes with longing, out to where she thinks her family sits and waits for her.
these past months have been quite hectic. we were bebsieged by disease, devastating calamities, bad presidential ads. on the personal side, i thoroughly enjoyed, but almost killed myself over, my PhD in Philippine Studies.
lots to tell, but no time to tell it. will share them all, LJ, when time and opportunity are kinder.
i hope you will now find the peace that has so eluded you in life.
Credits:
Music and Me, sung by Michael Jackson. Composed by Canno, Fenceton, Larson and Marcellino. From the album "Music and Me," released by Motown, 1973.
Music and Me video courtesy of youtube.com, uploaded by psygno83 and created by DJ_OXyGeNe_8.
- Mood:
depressed
Edwin Ardener, Cheris Kramerae and their colleagues developed the muted group theory as a communication and feminist approach, because it deals with the exclusion of women in the mainstream and public avenues of expression. Kramerae posits that, since men are the dominant group in society, then their views and perceptions are also dominant (in feminist theory, this situation is called patriarchy), which leads to the silencing of women's voices and participation.
Last Wednesday, the movie Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, opened in theaters worldwide after much anticipation brought about by the fanfare and multimedia publicity created by global media. Based on the long queues that formed in the ticket booths of the main malls, even in the midst of an A(H1N1) scare and the threat of a typhoon, the movie is set to become a blockbuster in the Philippines. Thus, it is a worthwhile intellectual exercise to analyze the film based on Kramerae's theory that the dominant group (men) mostly control the means of communication, and either undervalue, misrepresent or totally ignore women's ideas, actions and feelings as incompetent or unimportant.
Transformers 2 is a movie that is largely populated by males, male figures and male accoutrements. After all, robots, cars, trucks, airplanes, guns, explosions, battles, and their various combinations are traditionally male symbols. All of the Autobots, and their evil counterparts the Decepticons, are male figures, especially their leaders, Optimus Prime and Megatron. The US military establishment, prominently featured in the movie, is shown to have an all-male composition, in spite of the recent figures showing that a vast majority of women have been joining, and rising in the ranks of, the US military. In fact, the movie is so male that the total erasure of women's presence cannot be ignored. Or, looking at it from another angle, this movie is so male-centric and has been so designed that it actually did not even need any female characters at all.
Of the hundreds of characters that populate this movie, there are actually only three important women characters that one can see. One is an attractive college student who pursues and seduces the male lead, only for the audience to discover that she is, in fact, a Decepticon in disguise, out to capture the male lead. Thus, this totally unsympathetic female character is, in fact, is not a woman at all but a male Decepticon who has assumed a female's charm and body in order to carry out its mission.
Another female character is the mother of the male lead, portrayed in the movie as the floopy, unstable foil to her husband's more responsible personality. She cries over her son's departure for college, and sentimentalizes over a pair of his baby booties. At the last minute, she changes her mind about going on a Paris vacation with her husband. She mistakenly (stupidly) eats a marijuana-laced brownie in her son's college dormitory, thus leading to her drug-induced and comic assault of several students in the campus, until she is subdued by her son and husband.
The last female character, and the actual female lead, is the lead male's girlfriend. Throughout the movie she is clothed in tight shorts or pants, and clingy tops, thus playing the role of the male erotic fantasy. She is faithful to her boyfriend, and obsesses over the male lead's inability to say "I love you," even in the midst of a global disaster and near death. She accompanies the male lead in his quest for a solution, goes through the same life-threatening situations, and in the process becomes privy to the same knowledge that he has. But she never gets the same type of credit, or heroic stature, that he does.
Thus the movie Transformers 2 commits the sin of muting women on two levels: first, by making her invisible/absent; and second, by imbuing her with characteristics that show her to be weak, indecisive, sexually objectified.
But the movie commits a further transgression. When this movie's women actually act independently, or make intelligent decisions, or perform feats of courage, the movie undervalues the worth of these actions, such that the audience does not appreciate them for the important plot points that they actually are.
The female lead, Megan Fox, is a car enthusiast who is able to fix complex engines, and is a valuable mechanic in an all-male garage. But this skill is rendered unimportant by the sexualization of her work - she is made to straddle a motorcycle engine in the typical calendar girl pose, clad in skimpy shorts and halter top. She rehabilitates her father, an ex-convict (hints of which we got from Transformers 1) but this aspect is not even developed to further flesh out her character. In one of the key plot points of the movie, she captures a Decepticon robot, and elicits from it important information that leads to the final rescue of the earth. She was so good, in fact, that she even converts the Decepticon into an ally. But the movie downplays this achievement, and even trivializes it, especially in the scene where the Decepticon "humps" her legs and thus turns her deeds into a girl-and-male/robot sexual encounter.
The male lead's mother, kidnapped with the father, was used to lure the male lead, and make him surrender the valuable "matrix" which would bring the leader of the Autobots to life. In the midst of an attack, the father refuses to let his son go off on his heroic mission. But the mother insists, "Let him go," in counterpoint to her earlier portrayal as the protective mother. As a result, the male lead is "set free" from the sentimental shackles of his family life, and is thus able to go off and "fulfill his destiny" of saving the world and ridding it of evil. But the mother character never receives any recognition and does not rise above her original unbalanced characterization.
Muted group theory argues that muting reinforces the domination of men, and the inferior status of women. Media outlets, such as cinema, serve as instruments to strengthen the worldview of male superiority and female subjugation. It is up to us, students of theory, to apply the feminist lens to our analyses and view the world for what it really is.
Any comments? Post them!
Photo credits go to:
http://liveactionanime.org/2009/04/14/tr
http://screenrant.com/shia-labeouf-micha
- Mood:
frustrated
as we celebrate our country's independence day today, let me post something written by advertising expert and teacher par-excellence, mr. vince pozon. it's a grave reminder of freedoms lost and gained, and how the youth should not take these freedoms for granted.
read, and reflect.
Vince Pozon
To my students and young friends:
There was a time when we had to look over our shoulders, check who was within hearing distance, before we could talk. We couldn’t have meetings of more than three people and feel safe.
That wasn’t too long ago.
I need you to appreciate what you have. To know that blood flowed when we fought for the democratic air that you enjoy today. This democracy that you take so much for granted is now being threatened and diluted.
I need you to realize that the people in power today are still of the generation that believes that what you think -- what you have inside your head -- may be considered illegal.
Today you are free. To wear your beliefs when we could not. To have the image of Mao Tse Tung, Che Guevarra or even a hammer and sickle on your shirt. This was unthinkable to your parents. And I am still awed by the fact that you can.
That you wear them as fashion is not the point. That you actually can is the point.
In a country where the generation in power still believes in censorship and controls, how your generation thinks is the check mechanism.
Celebrate today. Enjoy it. Cherish it. Protect it.
- Mood:
grateful
1) House Resolution 1109 - calls on members of Congress to convene as a Constituent Assembly (Con-Ass) to propose amendments to the 1987 Constitution. It was drafted by Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Villafuerte and authored by Speaker Prospero Nograles, backed by 174 congressmen, and voted in a marathon and "secret" midnight session on June 2, 2009.
2) HR 1109 says that under the 1987 Constitution, the Charter can be amended by Congress upon a vote of 3/4 of all its members "without distinction" (either Senate or House of Representatives). This means that the Senate and House will vote as one group.
265 Representatives
+ 23 Senators (should be 24, but remember that Alfredo Lim gave up his Senate seat to run for Manila Mayor)
------------------------
288 Representatives and Senators
HR 1109 says that a 3/4 vote of the 288 "mixed nuts" are needed to pass amendments to the Constitution.
3/4 of 288 Representatives and Senators: 216
So essentially, even if only 1 Senator votes for Charter Change and 215 Congressmen vote for it, then the joint nature of the voting will enable them to to amend the Constitution. Or even if NO Senator votes for it and 216 Congressmen vote for it, it will still pass.
3) But in a bicameral system (which we have), the Senate and the House vote SEPARATELY. Each law is drafted, debated and voted on in each Chamber. So HR 1109 essentially bypasses the Senate.
4) Why is HR 1109 afraid of SEPARATE voting in each Chamber, and seeks to avoid it?
3/4 of 265 Representatives in the House: 199 votes needed from the House so Constitution can be amended
3/4 of 23 Senators in the Senate (or 22 if Antonio Trillanes IV, who is in jail, is not allowed to vote): 18 votes needed in the Senate so Constitution can be amended
This means that for the Constitution to be amended under a bicameral system (WHICH WE HAVE!), the Charter Change proponents need 199 Congressmen to vote for it, and 18 Senators to vote for it.
5) The problem is one of composition. While many of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's allies (who belong to the "rainbow" coaliation of the administration) populate the House of Representatives, and they can easily muster the 199 votes needed (or even the 216 votes), the Senate is composed mainly of opposition Senators. There is no way that 18 out of the 23 Senators will vote for Charter Change.
As of today, Mar Roxas, Panfilo Lacson, Loren Legarda, Benigno Aquino III, Pia Cayetano, Alan Peter Cayetano, Rodolfo Biazon, Francis Escudero, Jamby Madrigal and Kiko Pangilinan have already publicly expressed their opposition to the Con-Ass. That's 10 Senators, and it leaves only 13 who will possibly vote for the Con-Ass.
6) This discusses, of course, only the numbers behind the issue of the Constituent Assembly. It does not even go into the ethical and moral implications (next post! watch for it!).
7) Nor does this delve into the greater issue of Charter Change, and the raging debates about it. While a lot of people assert that the Constitution should not be changed, some also argue that it needs to be amended to better reflect current realities. If so, what provisions should be amended? And is a Constitutional Convention (Con-Con, and what is this? next post!) the better way to do it?
Many fear that should the Constitution be changed (especially by an unscrupulous Con-Ass), the existing provisions setting term limits for Congressmen and Senators, and even the President, will be scrapped. A President, under the current Constitution, can only serve one six-year term. (A Senator can only serve for two consecutive six-year terms, while a Congressman can only be elected for three consecutive three-year terms). This is the basis for fears that the Con-Ass is being pushed by none other than the current President, for self-serving reasons.
Others also fear that the economic provisions will be tampered with should the Constitution be amended. Under the present Constitution, for example, land should be owned 100% by Filipinos. Businesses should be 60% owned by Filipinos (and only 40% owned by foreign entities). The media should be totally owned (100%!!!) by Filipinos. But these protective provisions may be revised or removed, leading to fears that we may all become mere employees and renters to foreign masters in our own country. Do you think this can happen?
So the issue is far more complex than a few soundbytes and screaming headlines can adequately tackle. As students, we need to keep ourselves apprised of developments - which are bound to change the face of our lives as we know it.
For the full text of House Resolution 1109, click here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/14523445/House-R
List of Congressmen who said yes to the Constituent Assembly: (crossposted from http://thechinadoll.wordpress.com/2009/0
ABANTE, BIENVENIDO M. “BENNY” 6TH District Pandacan
ABLAN, ROQUE R. JR, Ilocos Norte, 1st District
AGBAYANI, VICTOR AGUEDO E. Pangasinan, 2nd District
AGYAO, MANUEL, S Kalinga Province
ALBANO (III), RODOLFO T. Isabela, 1st District
ALFELOR, FELIX R. JR. 4th District, Camarines Sur
ALMARIO, THELMA Z. Davao Oriental, 2nd District
ALVAREZ, ANTONIO C. Palawan 1st District
ALVAREZ, GENARO RAFAEL M. JR. Negros Occidental, 6th District
AMANTE, EDELMIRO A. Agusan Del Norte, 2nd District
AMATONG, ROMMEL C. Compostela Valley, 2nd District
ANGPING, MARIA ZENAIDA B. Manila, 3rd District
ANTONINO, RODOLFO W. Nueva Ecija, 4th District
APOSTOL, TRINIDAD G. Leyte, 2nd District
AQUINO, JOSE S. (II) 1st District Agusan del Norte
ARAGO, MARIA EVITA R. 3rd district, Laguna
ARBISON, A MUNIR M. Sulu 2nd District
ARENAS, MA. RACHEL J. Pangasinan, 3rd District
ARROYO, DIOSDADO M. Camarines Sur, 1st District
ARROYO, IGNACIO T. 5th district Negros Occidental
ARROYO, JUAN MIGUEL M. 2nd District of Pampanga
BAGATSING, AMADO S. Manila 5th district
BALINDONG, PANGALIAN M. Lanao del Sur, 2nd District
BARZAGA, ELPIDIO F. JR. Cavite, 2nd District
BAUTISTA, FRANKLIN P. Davao Del Sur, 2nd District
BELMONTE, VICENTE F. JR. Lanao del Norte, 1st District
BICHARA, AL FRANCIS C. Albay, 2nd District
BIRON, FERJENEL G. Iloilo, 4th District
BONDOC, ANNA YORK P. Pampanga 4th District
BONOAN-DAVID, MA. THERESA B. Manila, 4th District
BRAVO, NARCISO R. JR. Masbate, 1st District
BRIONES, NICANOR M. AGAP Party list
BUHAIN, EILEEN ERMITA Batangas, 1st District
BULUT, ELIAS C. JR. Apayao Lone District
CAGAS (IV), MARC DOUGLAS C. Davao Del Sur, 1st District
CAJAYON, MARY MITZI L. Caloocan, 2nd District
CAJES, ROBERTO C. Bohol, 2nd District
CARI, CARMEN L. Leyte, 5th District
CASTRO, FREDENIL H. Capiz, 2nd District
CELESTE, ARTHUR F. Pangasinan, 1st District
CERILLES, ANTONIO H. Zamboanga Del Sur, 2nd District
CHATTO, EDGARDO M. Bohol, 1st District
CHONG, GLENN A. Biliran, Lone District
CHUNG-LAO, SOLOMON R. Ifugao, Lone District
CLARETE, MARINA C. Misamis Occidental, 1st District
CODILLA, EUFROCINO M. SR. Leyte, 4th District
COJUANCO, MARK O. Pangasinan, 5th District
COQUILA, TEODULO M. Eastern Samar, Lone District
CRISOLOGO, VINCENT P. Quezon City, 1st District
CUA, JUNIE E. Quirino, Lone District
CUENCO, ANTONIO V. Cebu City, 2nd District
DANGWA, SAMUEL M. Benguet, Lone District
DATUMANONG, SIMEON A. Maguindanao, Lone District
Dayanghirang, Nelson L. Davao Oriental, 1st District
DAZA, NANETTE C. Quezon City, 4th District
DAZA, PAUL R. Northern Samar, 1st District
DE GUZMAN, DEL R. Marikina City, 2nd District
DEFENSOR, ARTHUR D. SR. Iloilo, 3rd District
DEFENSOR, MATIAS V. JR. Quezon City, 3rd District
DEL MAR, RAUL V. Cebu City, 1st District
DIASNES, CARLO OLIVER D. (MD) Batanes, Lone District
DIMAPORO, ABDULLAH D. Lanao Del Norte, 2nd District
DOMOGAN, MAURICIO G. Baguio, Lone District
DUAVIT, MICHAEL JOHN R. Rizal, 1st District
DUENAS, HENRY M. JR. Taguig, 2nd District (2nd Councilor District)
DUMARPA, FAYSAH MRP. Lanao del Sur, 1st District
DUMPIT, THOMAS L. JR. La Union, 2nd District
DURANO (IV), RAMON H. 5th District, Cebu
ECLEO, GLENDA B. Dinagat Islands, Lone District
EMANO, YEVGENY VICENTE B. Misamis Oriental, 2nd District
ENVERGA, WILFRIDO MARK M. Quezon, 1st District
ESTRELLA, CONRADO M. (III) Pangasinan, 6th District
ESTRELLA, ROBERT RAYMUND M. ABONO Party List
FERRER, JEFFREY P. Negros Occidental, 4th District
GARAY, FLORENCIO C. Surigao Del Sur, 2nd District
GARCIA, ALBERT S. Bataan, 2nd District.
GARCIA, PABLO JOHN F. Cebu, 3rd District
GARCIA, PABLO P. Cebu, 2nd District
GARCIA, VINCENT J. Davao City, 2nd District
GARIN, JANETTE L. Iloilo, 1st District
GATCHALIAN, REXLON T. Valenzuela City, 1st District
GATLABAYAN, ANGELITO C. Antipolo City, 2nd District
GO, ARNULFO F. Sultan Kudarat, 2nd District
GONZALES, AURELIO D. JR. Pampanga 3rd District
GONZALES, RAUL T. JR. Ilo ilo City
GULLAS, EDUARDO R. Cebu, 1st District
GUNIGUNDO, MAGTANGGOL T. Valenzuela City 2nd District
HOFER, DULCE ANN K. Zamboanga Sibugay, 2nd District
JAAFAR, NUR G. Tawi-Tawi, Lone District
JALA, ADAM RELSON L. Bohol, 3rd District
JALOSJOS, CESAR G. Zamboanga del Norte, 3rd District
JALOSJOS-CARREON, CECILIA G. Zamboanga del Norte, 1st District
JIKIRI, YUSOP H. Sulu, 1st District
KHO, ANTONIO T. Masbate, 2nd District
LABADLABAD, ROSENDO S. Zamboanga del Norte, 2nd District
LACSON, JOSE CARLOS V. Negros Occidental, 3rd District
LAGDAMEO, ANTONIO F. JR. Davao del Norte, 2nd District
LAPUS, JECI A. Tarlac, 3rd District
LAZATIN, CARMELO F. Pampanga, 1st District
LIM, RENO G. Albay, 3rd District
LOPEZ, JAIME C. Manila, 2nd District
MADRONA, ELEANORA JESUS F. Romblon, Lone District
MAGSAYSAY, MARIA MILAGROS H. Zambales, 1st District
MALAPITAN, OSCAR G. Caloocan, 1st District
MAMBA, MANUEL N. Cagayan, 3rd District
MANGUDADATU, DATU PAKUNG S. Sultan Kudarat,
MARANON, ALFREDO D. III Negros Occidental, 2nd District
MATUGAS, FRANCISCO T. Surigao del Norte, 1st District
MENDOZA, MARK LEANDRO L. Batangas, 4th District
MERCADO, ROGER G. Southern Leyte, Lone District
MIRAFLORES, FLORENCIO T. Aklan, Lone District
NAVA, JOAQUIN CARLOS RAHMAN A. (MD) Guimaras, Lone District
NICOLAS, REYLINA G. Bulacan, 4th District
NOGRALES, PROSPERO C. Davao City, 1st District
OLAñO, ARREL R. Davao Del Norte, 1st District
ONG, EMIL L. Northern Samar, 2nd District
ORTEGA, VICTOR FRANCISCO C. La Union, 1st District
PABLO, ERNESTO C. APEC Party List
PANCHO, PEDRO M. Bulacan, 2nd District
PANCRUDO, CANDIDO P. JR. Bukidnon, 1st District
PICHAY, PHILIP A. Surigao Del Sur, 1st District
PIñOL, BERNARDO F. JR. North Cotabato, 2nd District
PUNO, ROBERTO V. Antipolo City, 1st District
RAMIRO, HERMINIA M. Misamis Occidental, 2nd District
REMULLA, JESUS CRISPIN C. Cavite, 3rd District
REYES, CARMELITA O. Marinduque, Lone District
REYES, VICTORIA H. Batangas, 3rd District
ROBES, ARTURO G. San Jose Del Monte City, Lone District
Rodriguez-Zaldarria ga, Adelina Rizal, 2nd District
ROMAN, HERMINIA B. Bataan, 1st District
ROMARATE, GUILLERMO A. JR. Surigao del Norte, 2nd District
ROMUALDEZ, FERDINAND MARTIN G. Leyte, 1st District
ROMUALDO, PEDRO Camiguin, Lone District
ROMULO, ROMAN T. Pasig City, Lone District
ROXAS, JOSE ANTONIO F. Pasay City
SALIMBANGON, BENHUR L. Cebu, 4th District
SALVACION JR., ANDRES D. Leyte, 3rd District
SAN LUIS, EDGAR S. Laguna, 4th District
SANDOVAL, ALVIN S. Malabon-Navotas, Lone District
SANTIAGO, JOSEPH A. Catanduanes, Lone District
SANTIAGO, NARCISO D. (III) ARC Party List
SEACHON-LANETE, RIZALINA L. 3rd district of Masbate
SEARES-LUNA, CECILIA M. Abra, Lone District
SILVERIO, LORNA C. Bulacan, 3rd District
SINGSON, ERIC D. Ilocos Sur, 2nd District
SINGSON, RONALD V. Ilocos Sur, 1st District
SOLIS, JOSE G. Sorsogon, 2nd District
SOON-RUIZ, NERISSA CORAZON Cebu, 6th District
SUAREZ, DANILO E. Quezon, 3rd District
SUSANO, MARY ANN L. Quezon City, 2nd District
SY-ALVARADO, MA. VICTORIA R. Bulacan, 1st District
SYJUCO, JUDY J. 2nd Dsitrict, Iloilo
TALINO-MENDOZA, EMMYLOU J. North Cotabato, 1st District
TAN, SHAREE ANN T. Samar, 2nd District
TEODORO, MARCELINO R. Marikina City, 1st District
TEODORO, MONICA LOUISSE PRIETO Tarlac, 1st District
TEVES, PRYDE HENRY A. Negros Oriental, 3rd District
TUPAS, NEIL C. JR. Iloilo, 5th District
UNGAB, ISIDRO T. Davao City, 3rd District
UY, EDWIN C. Isabela, 2nd District
UY, REYNALDO S. Samar, 1st District
UY, ROLANDO A. Cagayan De Oro City, Lone District
VALDEZ, EDGAR L. APEC Party List
VALENCIA, RODOLFO G. Oriental Mindoro, 1st District
VARGAS, FLORENCIO L. Cagayan, 2nd District
VILLAFUERTE, LUIS R. Camarines Sur, 2nd District
VILLAROSA, MA. AMELITA C. Occidental Mindoro, Lone District
VIOLAGO, JOSEPH GILBERT F. Nueva Ecija, 2nd District
YAP, JOSE V. Tarlac, 2nd District
YU, VICTOR J. Zamboanga Del Sur, 1st District
ZAMORA, MANUEL E. 1st District, Compostela Valley
ZIALCITA, EDUARDO C. Parañaque, 1st District
- Mood:working
The Project for Excellence in Journalism by the Pew Research Center conducted a survey of almost 300 members of the Online News Association (ONA), a 10-year old organization of nearly 1,800 members, and the largest organized association of digital journalists. This is the first-ever survey conducted among journalist-members of ONA, most of whom are working for websites that are affiliated to traditional news media, and most of whom have had more than 11 years of experience as journalists. This is why the result are very interesting, and provide fertile ground for discussion on the state, possibilities and issues of digital news media practice.
Let me quote directly from a summary of the findings: (The summary can be found at http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2009/narr
A solid majority of those surveyed (57%) say the Internet is “changing the fundamental values of journalism.” The biggest changes, the respondents said, were a loosening of standards (45%), more outside voices (31%) and an increased emphasis on speed (25%).
When asked what online journalism is “doing especially well these days,” more named aspects of technology like using advancements well (31%) or speed (30%) than named reporting skills like improving storytelling (16%) or exploiting the potential for greater depth (12%).
Six in 10 (63%) of respondents ranked original reporting as the most important type of information they produce. This was more than four times as much as the second-most important information type: aggregated material from wires and other legacy outlets (13%).
For the most part, online journalists say they have been spared the kinds of staff cutbacks their legacy brethren experienced in 2008. Many (39%) reported staff increases compared with a year earlier. Another third said their staff numbers have remained the same. Less than a quarter (23%) saw staff decreases.
Despite current trends, most of these online journalists are pinning their hopes in the future on advertising. Roughly two-thirds of these online journalists predicted advertising would be the most important form of revenue at websites three years from now. Only a quarter of respondents named some other new revenue model.
The online journalists surveyed believed that the medium is changing fundamental values in journalism. They report the loosening of standards and more carelessness in online news gathering, resulting in declining accuracy because online news organizations emphasize speed and breaking news.
However, they also noted that on the positive side, there is more diversity of voices presented, the potential of technology, and even the presentation of more ideological points of view.
(The full report can be found at http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2009/narr
What do you think of the results, and the research instruments used to attain them? Do you think, if the same survey were administered to Filipino online journalists, that the same or different results will be garnered? Would you like to work in the field of online journalism? Post your thoughts!
- Mood: full
anyway, to get back to the point - Packer converses with a roofer, who represents the American everyman/everywoman, suffering and yet forging through the difficult economic climate. personally, i don't think this particular roofer is the American Juan dela Cruz - see references to him as the "boss" and having a "crew" - clearly implying that he is the owner of the roofing business (a roofing contractor, apparently). honestly, couldn't George Packer interview one of this roofer's roofers instead? - that would have more appropriately painted the picture of the American "masa."
choice of interviewee aside, what i loved most about this article is the roofer's opinions on people and his indictment of their overdependence on technology. see his description of their "text shrug," mumbling instead of conversing, their inability to look directly at, listen and talk to another person face-to-face, their use of a "yuppie buffer" to be their intermediary in interpersonal communication contexts.
and the more educated the people are, our sage roofer opines, the more afflicted they are with this disease that Packer calls overcivilization - producing a new class of technophiles who live in a world so symbolic and mediated that they can no longer deal with actual, tooth-and-nails reality.
i actually know a few people like these... heck, sometimes i sometimes am one myself. but let's reserve that for another blog post...
and the roofer's parting shot is such a classic! read on!
so do you agree with the last paragraph? or any part of the article? comment!
George Packer, Interesting Times column
From http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/ge
The upstairs ceiling had a leak, my neighbors’ roofer quoted a decent price, and the crew came this week to lay down new roll roofing over the old. When the job was done, I went up with the boss to inspect the work. He was from an old Brooklyn Italian family that had been in the trade since the Depression. How had the latest hard times hit the family business? “Last year I made half what I made the year before,” he said as we stood on the freshly coated silvery rubber and looked out over the brownstone rooftops. “That was enough to get by, but I can’t save anything. And I don’t know when it’s going to end.”
The roofer seemed to take the recession stoically enough—his grandfather had made it through worse. But something else was bothering him. I’d noticed that the couple of times we spoke on the phone he was irritable, snapping that if I missed his seven A.M. call the morning of the job—if my cell phone was switched off or not at hand—he’d have to send his crew somewhere else that day. It turned out that cell phones had become a major headache in his work. Customers called him all the time, expecting him to hear every little complaint even while he was wrestling with a roof hatch. Meanwhile, they were more and more unreliable, not answering their phones, missing scheduled appointments. Even worse: they had no common sense any more. They called him about a leak in the first-floor ceiling—two stories below the roof—without bothering to check the second-floor radiator, which he discovered to be standing in a pool of water. It had all begun in the last couple of years, and it was driving him and every other contractor he knew crazy. They were all noticing the same thing.
“It’s the technology,” the roofer said. “They don’t know how to deal with a human being. They stand there with that text shrug”—he hunched his shoulders, bent his head down, moved from side to side, looking anywhere but at me—“and they go, ‘Ah, ah, um, um,’ and they just mumble. They can’t talk any more.” This inadequacy with physical space and direct interaction was an affliction of the educated, he said—“the more educated, the worse.” His poorer black customers in Bedford-Stuyvesant had no such problem, and he was much happier working on their roofs, but the recession had slowed things down there and these days he was forced to deal almost entirely with the cognitively damaged educated and professional classes.
“They hire someone—this has happened several times—so they don’t have to talk to me,” he went on, growing more animated and reddening with amazement. “It’s like they’re afraid of me! So they hire a guy who’s more comfortable dealing with a masculine-type person. I stand there and talk to the customer, and the customer doesn’t talk to me or look at me, he talks to the intermediary, and the intermediary talks to me. It’s the yuppie buffer.” He wasn’t slurring gay men—he described these customers as mainly “metrosexuals”—nor was the problem all yuppies, some of whom had been his customers for years. It was a new group who had moved from Manhattan in the past few years, and who could not detach themselves from their communications devices long enough to look someone in the eye or notice the source of a leak. This was a completely new phenomenon in the roofer’s world: a mass upper class that was so immersed in symbolic and digital cerebration that it had become incapable of carrying out the most ordinary functions—had become, in effect, like small children with Asperger’s symptoms. It was a ruling class that, out of sheer over-civilization, was quickly losing the ability to hold onto its power.
“What’s going to happen if these people lose their jobs?” he said after we’d come down from the roof and were standing at the front door. “They can’t do anything else. I’ll tell you what they’re going to do. They’re going to look for help from the government. Socialism! And it’s happening while we speak!”
- Mood:
contemplative
here's a very interesting article from David Owen of The New Yorker, which provides very interesting insights into the age-old problem of environment-versus-economy. in this piece, Owen opines that the recession (and the increases in gas prices) was actually good for the environment, because it motivated people (and even governments) to live and spend more simply, turn back on their excess-driven behavior, and look for alternative, cheaper ways to live.
the point seems to be, from this article and from the findings of other studies, that making significant inroads into saving the environment is PAINFUL. it entails significant changes in lifestyle for individuals (less use of heat, airconditioning, gas, less consumption in general) and for governments (more spending on science and green technologies, cracking down on polluters, seriously considering and spending for alternative sorces of energy). the ongoing economic downturn has FORCED us to do that. but when this recession is over (crossed fingers), will we still willingly do away with our creature comforts for the sake of Mother Earth?
Check out the original article at http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/20
Economy versus Environment
By David Owen
The week before last, twenty-five hundred delegates, from more than seventy countries, met in Copenhagen to prepare for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which will take place there in December and will produce a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which was adopted in 1992 and will expire in 2012. The speakers in Copenhagen were united by a sense of urgency—and for good reason, given the poor record of most participating countries in meeting their Kyoto targets for reducing the emission of greenhouse gases.
So far, the most effective way for a Kyoto signatory to cut its carbon output has been to suffer a well-timed industrial implosion, as Russia did after the collapse of the Soviet Union, in 1991. The Kyoto benchmark year is 1990, when the smokestacks of the Soviet military-industrial complex were still blackening the skies, so when Vladimir Putin ratified the protocol, in 2004, Russia was already certain to meet its goal for 2012. The countries with the best emissions-reduction records—Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, and the Czech Republic—were all parts of the Soviet empire and therefore look good for the same reason.
The United States didn’t ratify the Kyoto Protocol, but Canada did, and its experience is suggestive because its economy and per-capita oil consumption are similar to ours. Its Kyoto target is a six-per-cent reduction from 1990 levels. By 2006, however, despite the expenditure of billions of dollars on climate initiatives, its greenhouse-gas output had increased to a hundred and twenty-two per cent of the goal, and the environment minister described the Kyoto target as “impossible.”
The explanation for Canada’s difficulties isn’t complicated: the world’s principal source of man-made greenhouse gases has always been prosperity. The recession makes that relationship easy to see: shuttered factories don’t spew carbon dioxide; the unemployed drive fewer miles and turn down their furnaces, air-conditioners, and swimming-pool heaters; struggling corporations and families cut back on air travel; even affluent people buy less throwaway junk. Gasoline consumption in the United States fell almost six per cent in 2008. That was the result not of a sudden greening of the American consciousness but of the rapid rise in the price of oil during the first half of the year, followed by the full efflorescence of the current economic mess.
The world’s financial and energy crises are connected, and they are similar because credit and fossil fuels are forms of leverage: oil, coal, and natural gas are multipliers of labor in much the same way that credit is a multiplier of wealth. Human history is the history of our ascent up what the naturalist Loren Eiseley called “the heat ladder”: coal bested firewood as an amplifier of productivity, and oil and natural gas bested coal. Fossil fuels have enabled us to leverage the strength of our bodies, and we are borrowing against the world’s dwindling store of inexpensive energy in the same way that we borrowed against the illusory equity in our homes. Moreover, American dependence on fossil fuels isn’t going to end any time soon: solar panels and wind turbines provided only about a half per cent of total U.S. energy consumption in 2007, and they don’t work when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. Replacing oil is going to require more than determination.
The environmental benefits of economic decline, though real, are fragile, because they are vulnerable to intervention by governments, which, understandably, want to put people back to work and get them buying non-necessities again—through programs intended to revive ordinary consumer spending (which has a big carbon footprint), and through public-investment projects to build new roads and airports (ditto). Our best intentions regarding conservation and carbon reduction inevitably run up against the realities of foreclosure and bankruptcy and unemployment. How do we persuade people to drive less—an environmental necessity—while also encouraging them to revive our staggering economy by buying new cars?
The popular answer—switch to hybrids—leaves the fundamental problem unaddressed. Increasing the fuel efficiency of a car is mathematically indistinguishable from lowering the price of its fuel; it’s just fiddling with the other side of the equation. If doubling the cost of gas gives drivers an environmentally valuable incentive to drive less—the recent oil-price spike pushed down consumption and vehicle miles travelled, stimulated investment in renewable energy, increased public transit ridership, and killed the Hummer—then doubling the efficiency of cars makes that incentive disappear. Getting more miles to the gallon is of no benefit to the environment if it leads to an increase in driving—and the response of drivers to decreases in the cost of driving is to drive more. Increases in fuel efficiency could be bad for the environment unless they’re accompanied by powerful disincentives that force drivers to find alternatives to hundred-mile commutes. And a national carbon policy, if it’s to have a real impact, will almost certainly need to bring American fuel prices back to at least where they were at their peak in the summer of 2008. Electric cars are not the panacea they are sometimes claimed to be, not only because the electricity they run on has to be generated somewhere but also because making driving less expensive does nothing to discourage people from sprawling across the face of the planet, promoting forms of development that are inherently and catastrophically wasteful.
One beneficial consequence of the ongoing global economic crisis is that it has put a little time back on the carbon clock. Because the climate damage done by greenhouse gases is cumulative, the emissions decrease attributable to the recession has given the world a bit more room to devise a plan that might actually work. The prospects for a meaningful worldwide climate agreement probably improved last November, with the election of Barack Obama, but his commitments to economic recovery and carbon reduction—to bringing the country out of recession while also reducing U.S. greenhouse emissions to seventeen per cent of their 2005 level by 2050—don’t pull in the same direction. Creating “green jobs,” a key component of the agenda, is different from creating new jobs, since green jobs, if they’re truly green, displace non-green jobs—wind-turbine mechanics instead of oil-rig roughnecks—probably a zero-sum game, as far as employment is concerned. The ultimate success or failure of Obama’s program, and of the measures that will be introduced in Copenhagen this year, will depend on our willingness, once the global economy is no longer teetering, to accept policies that will seem to be nudging us back toward the abyss. ♦
- Mood:awake
Kevin Carter was a photographer who won a Pulitzer Prize (arguably the world's most famous and prestigious award for journalists) in 1994. Published in the New York Times, Carter's photograph was of a young child in the Sudan, who was trying to get to a feeding center. But before she could get there, she collapsed in hunger. A vulture is in the background, waiting for the child to die. This haunting photo came to represent the horror of famine in the Sudan.
Here is the photo: (taken from http://pachacutec.wordpress.com/2008/02/2
Carter's photograph emphasizes the power of the image, and of those who wield it. With this simple photograph, multiple emotions were evoked from those who saw it: horror at the fate of the people in the Sudan; anger at how people can still die of hunger at a time when excess and consumption have become the fashion; awareness of what was happening in the other parts of the world; a need to reach out and help.
The photograph affected the photographer too. Some two months after winning the Pulitzer Prize in May 1994, Kevin Carter committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.
From http://iusbpreface.wordpress.com/2007/04/0
Witness the shot of a stick-thin, malnourished toddler who stopped to rest on her way to a feeding station in war-torn Sudan. The picture, taken by South African photojournalist Kevin Carter, shows the girl on her knees, bent at the waist with her forehead resting on the dry, dusty dirt.
She is alone except for a vulture behind her, waiting for her to die.
From www.ofstruijk.nl/Blog/
1993. Kevin Carter explores an aid centre in southern Sudan and walks into a wasted busland beyond; a building filled with tiny, famine-stricken children who lay dying on the dirt floor. He had only walked a few metres when he was distracted by a baby's whimper. There, at the side of the dusty road was a small girl trying to drag herself to the clinic. He takes a picture, changes the angle of his lens and notices a dark, ominous shape at the edge of the frame: a vulture eyeing the girl's progress. An image worth more than a thousand words.
The picture made the front page of The New York Times and quickly became the symbol of Sudan's plight, fuelling public outrage over the famine ravaging the country. Donations poured in to African charities -and everyone wanted to talk to the South African snapper about the little girl captured in such a powerful image.
Carter responds he'd chased the vulture away and then sat under a tree and wept. Of the story after that picture was taken, that's the only part he claims to know.
1994. A Pulitzer for Feature Photography to his most hated picture; and finally, four months later, death, at the age of 33.
This picture captivated the world in 1993 and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994. A few months later, Carter taped a garden hose to the exhaust of his pick-up truck and fed the other end into the passenger side window.
Broke and depressed over the loss of a friend, his suicide note read, in part, “I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses & anger & pain . . . of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners . . . “
- Mood: sad
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