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[05 Jun 2008|10:33pm] |
The breakneck ruin of the natural world has brought about a renewed torrent in attending to environmental issues. It is in this light that we see various concerned assemblages mobilizing against the rampant deterioration of our environment. Just this past eventide of June 4, we attended the Center for Environmental Concerns' CD launch of Rapu-Rapu Atbp.: Taghoy ng Kalikasan at the 70s Bistro (Rapu-Rapu refers to the island in Albay wherein Australian transnational firm Lafayette Mining Limited operates a flagship mining project of the Arroyo regime).
Furling back into the cognition Buklod and Asin’s days on the [mainstream] pinnacle, the songs in the album tackle the present state of affairs the Philippine environment is plunged in. The composers are community members of Bicol and Southern Tagalog, as well as university students belonging to progressive formations.
Environmental degradation calls for change. However, it should be understood that while human activities tote up to environmental decline, essentializing individual efforts alone shall simply yield limited triumphs. These cannot be more meaningful without political actions advancing likewise progressive campaigns. Hence, it is only through collective action can the ecologically damaging industrial activities of US, China and India be stopped.
Progressive formations have long been engaged in environmental campaigns which comprehend environmental issues aren’t separate from issues of the basic masses. The oil exploration activities in Tañon Strait (protected area under RA 7686 National Integrated Protected Areas System Law), for instance, not only entail threats to the environment but also to the local fisherfolk. Environmental campaigns should not jar against pro-people interests, as these are entwined advocacies. Best put by Kalikasan People’s Network for Environment (Kalikasan PNE), “The struggle for the environment is the struggle of the people.”
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[03 May 2008|10:52pm] |
 
Union leader Ka Tom discussing workers' issues with students of UP Diliman during the International Labor Day Commemoration at Liwasang Bonifacio (1 May 2008)
"Hindi ko kayo pakikinggan dahil wala kayong pinag-aralan."
This is what an official of a certain pipe manufacturing company told its workers in response to their request for meaningful improvement in the conditions of their low-wage, low-productivity job.
Disgusting how pretentious "educated men" could be when it comes to dealing with laborers. It's another case fresh from the sundry of inequitable practices in the workplace. Tanginis 'yan. To quote a placard by AGHAM Youth which I saw during the Labor Day Commemoration, "High tech man ang Makinarya, hindi rin malilikha kung walang Manggagawa."
Perhaps there are some who would suggest the aforesaid laborers to "flee and find another job," but these men are simply trying to endure such hardships in regard of the fact that there is indeed a scarcity of jobs with decent remuneration.
Through the decades, the government hasn't properly addressed the labor sector's need and demand for significant wage increases, security in job tenure, respect for laborers' and trade union rights, and meaningful economic reforms. The Arroyo Regime swaggers about the country's so-called economic deliverance, but this is simply not consonant to Arroyo's failure in granting a monthly P3,000 across-the-board (nationwide) wage hike. How could economic relief be achieved by the poor when production and earnings merely end in the pockets of the privileged few and when policies implemented by the government merely benefit businessmen, most especially their foreign counterparts? Now more than ever, there's the pressing need for the people to converge and put an end to the Arroyo Regime.
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[02 Apr 2008|06:09pm] |
Following my Psychology 162 Final Paper’s submission to the Department, my semester just got its dénouement yester afternoon. The central forethought is not long seized by the need (and I emphasize: “need”) to land in a job, to obtain ample finance for a PI 100 (Rizal Studies) class, to catch up on Educational Discussions, and to partake in Basic Masses Integration with UP informal settlements facing obliteration soon.
Before bounding a trike home, Elsid and I had a fix of lugaw at the Balara traysikelan. A horror, the eight-peso rice nosh is now two pesos dearer. Painting a picture at the back of our heads are our fellow victualers’ wailing wallets. Consider that there are already millions of Filipinos enduring a famished status, and what is the countrywide quandary we face right now? Damned rice shortage.
Local authorities partly impugn consumers for supposedly being the culprits to the declining rice supplies. They have been saying that the crisis is attributable to those who leave unfinished plates, let bits of palay and bigas go to wastage, et cetera. To date, the Arroyo regime has launched mechanisms and campaigns in the attempt to confer instantaneous relief. Local fast food chains have been requested to shrink down rice portions so that there wouldn’t be much leftover. Bravo! It’s as though they actually dole out gargantuan heaps of rice and serve the vast majority which include rural folks. Their analyses and suggestions, these are as superb as smearing pre-masticated bubblegum on the manhood's tip of for barrier-type contraceptive.
Much can be done apart from having McDonalds vend half-rice and instructing people to lick their plates spotless. If there is anyone who must be halted, they’re the rice cartels that keep on hoarding rice by the tonnage. Hoarding leads to escalating costs as it obeys the law of supply and demand. Even so, people must be guarded enough that the Arroyo regime does not make this a pretext for extensively dispatching the military to purportedly guard versus hoarding rice traders. With or without a rice crisis, posting constituents of the repressive state apparatus in a certain district (militarization, to you and me) is intolerable.
Raising rice imports is certainly no solution to dearth, as this is an untenable tactic. Philippines counting solely upon Vietnam for rice imports puts us in a blind-guiding-blind status. Vietnam also needs to safeguard its own rice supply with the conversion of its farmlands. Importing rice from other countries, in contrast, drains the national subsidy on mere procurement instead of having these allocated on support services that shall aid in significantly redoubling local rice production. Moreover, funds could have instead went to local farmers if only the government chose to acquire stocks from them.
The crisis on rice is not a predicament isolated to the Philippines. Insecurity in the global rice supply owes much to agricultural restructuring imposed through trade liberalization. Under this, Philippines has conceded to produce high value cash crops for sale overseas rather than producing harvest for the domestic front. What must be implemented are regulatory schemes that shall help create circumstances for self-sufficient, self-reliant production. There is the necessity for a genuine agrarian reform program that shall pave way for free land distribution and support services for farmers.
For further reading, you could go to the following links:
The imminent crisis in rice by Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism
Agricultural Trade Liberalization Behind Insecurity In Rice Supply by IBON Foundation, Inc.
Palaasa sa inangkat na bigas by Ilang-Ilang D. Quijano/Soliman A. Santos for Pinoy Weekly
Reverse “Globalization” of Agriculture and Promote Self-Sufficiency to Address Rice Crisis by BAYAN (Bagong Alyansang Makabayan)
Conflicting government data bare gravity of rice shortage by BAYAN (Bagong Alyansang Mkabayan)
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[03 Aug 2007|02:00pm] |
Sleep did not soothe the twinge that has permeated the marrow after seeing the talipapa at Balara (right behind Vinzons) get demolished by the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) for the extension of Circumferential Road 5 (C5).
At around 5PM yesterday (August 2, 2007), two truckloads of men from the MMDA demolition team came hauling the Balara vendors’ makeshift stalls and merchandise into their trucks. 74-year-old Aling Senyang recounts seeing her table, along with the very vegetables she places on it for display, towed by a member of the demolition team.
Elsid discloses how members of the said demolition team ‘looted’ from the vendors. He was right outside the OSR when he initially heard the clamor from the clearing operation ensuing at that time. When he went over the wall that served as the periphery for the Vinzons Hall and C5, he saw the MMDA’s men heaving into their trucks foodstuffs being retailed by the vendors: heaps of bananacues, stacks of softdrink bottles, chunks of ice, mga tali ng kangkong, et cetera. There was even a pregnant vendor from the talipapa whom a member of the demolition team snatched a bundle of goods from.
Earlier, one of the supposed heads in the venture to extend C5 had personally informed the vendors that they wouldn’t be included in the ongoing demolition until December this year. Before the clearing operation began, the head of the aforesaid demolition team came to inform them at around 2PM yesterday that they have to clear the talipapa of their goods, as the operation will be executed the next day. A stall owner even left for home to prepare for the demolition. Much to the vendors’ surprise, there was a sudden change in the notice. “Tumawag yung boss nung head sa cellphone tapos sinabi, ‘Hindi, ngayon na... Ngayon na yan i-de-demolish,’” Aling Senyang told us.
Ate Anabel, co-owner of the small barbershop in the talipapa, said to us that had they been duly informed, they would have deconstructed the stalls and put away their merchandise themselves. The area where the modest souk used to be was nothing but a patch of tumbledown booths laced with damaged goods.
According to the vendors, their stalls were all legal as they were registered at the City Hall. They are hoping that the barangay captain of Pansol will help them find relocation for them.
Aside from the talipapa at Balara, other stalls along the road across the Narra Residence Hall, together with a makeshift stall between the Vinzons Hall and the Narra Residence Hall that is already within the UP’s terrain, were also forcibly evicted. More than 1,500 families from Pook RIPADA (Ricarte, Dagohoy and Palaris) are also facing the risk of being evicted because of the same MMDA venture aimed at the extension of C5.
“Andito na kami mga dekada sisenta pa,” Aling Senyang recounted as we accompanied them to Pansol’s Barangay Hall to coordinate with the barangay captain. “Nagsimula kami sa dyaryo lang ng asawa ko. Panagarap naming magkaroon ng diploma ang aming mga anak. Awa ng Diyos, napagtapos naman naming sila. Sa pagtitinda kami nakapagtapos ng mga anak namin.”
While Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo swanked in her latest State of the Nation Address (SONA) about her infrastructure projects that are supposedly for the development of the nation, it is indeed ironical that the route undertook to implement such projects tramples upon the right to livelihood and to residence of those whom these projects are supposedly devoted for. If there is indeed sincerity in the Philippine government’s intent to serve to the Filipino people, then they will not have paid henchmen branding MMDA shirts burgle from these vendors whilst leaving their stalls in shambles. They wouldn’t begin by making the poor even poorer.
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[28 Jul 2007|02:16pm] |
Having it reworded from the Bio 11 students’ delight Biology by Campbell, adenosine triphosphate is indeed the respiring meat sack’s petroleum. It’s the very same glop we’ve been exhausting, abusing to manage STAND UP’s June 20 Acquaintance Party and invite people to June 23 People’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) 2007 (all that, of course, could never be without executing scholastic obligations). But we’re obese with victories, bitches. Turnouts in the aforesaid activities did beat the margins tallied in the past years: the Vinzons rooftop was crammed to the lip during the alliance’s bash, as UP Diliman marched to the People’s SONA 250-student strong.
You just have to see me flash these wire-laced grinders while students keep on contacting us to become STAND UP individual members themselves.
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[18 Jul 2007|10:54pm] |
With every ounce of honesty possible, the last thing I needed without sleeping for Friday morning’s Chem 1 quiz and a Psych 118 exam is free GSM Infinit cocktail drink on Folkways ‘07. There was this one hour interval when I was resolved to back out from the concert upon 'losing' my ticket. But I curled within his lovely petition (I think I often do on every... he took the bill for a new ticket just to get me in), and I don’t regret doing so. His endeavor to summarize the petition I consented to with “What a great night” just doesn’t suffice.
On another note: Tae, ang galing ng Aki.
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[09 Jul 2007|01:29am] |
Certainly not in mood’s most fantastic a few hours before this week began given beefy hints of queasiness in the stomach and the cranium. Three uninterrupted organizational assemblies on a supposed rest day, a long exam on Freud and Adler on the following twenty-four hours, an optical pursuit for cellular division phases under the microscope, and two other after-class organizational meetings. Wearisome, really, that I've been gaping like your regular automaton throughout our Friday morning lecture on atomic fashion and periodic trends, lacking any significant reaction towards the supposedly disturbing “Das Experiment”.
Affirmative of absurdity. Just as absurd was having Korean missionaries contend with then abruptly Buddhist Elsid on CASAA, give us whimsical Korean toothbrushes thereafter, and pose away in Elsid and I’s first photograph together. Ayos.
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[04 Jul 2007|09:49am] |
... So these concrete and lampposts, this greenery
Their slight glances now land on limbs interlaced
Rendering our fervor uncoiled to the senses
Teaching vespers as I learn your taste
Least to say, I am more than satisfied in having someone to see me dabble disaster with a djembe as STAND-UP performed “Kume” (Komersalisasyon) for the UP School of Library and Information Science freshmen, to have pancitpalaboklumpiangshanghaiporkbarbeque repast courtesy of the SLIS Student Council, to jointly sink at the Sunken after sampling coffee-flavored cigarettes and conversing with a batch mate of mine from high school, to stream through the campus eventide beneath marigold lamps.
We’ve been inhabiting our private poetry’s womb. We've been spilling the stellar.
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[13 Jun 2007|04:49pm] |
Scratches adorn the appendages to denote how ROTC officers and other marshals pinned us down from coming up the stage during yesterday’s Freshmen Welcome Assembly at the University Theater, took the Student Regent’s slot out of the afternoon round to grant us the you-just-effing-barged-in air, kept the UP Concert Chorus and UP Pep Squad load the stage until “UP Naming Mahal” so as to leave no space for us the supposed entrants to the rostrum, turned down the sound system for us upon making it on the limelight’s obverse, and jammed us from registering the students’ protest against Tuition and Other Fees Increase by turning up the in-house orchestra.
Araw ng Kalayaan within the premiere state university that swanks its supposed vanguard role in upholding civil liberties and justice? Fucking hypocrites, I must say. The affair’s organizers should stop flinging about some insincere apology here and an innocent glance there when to an extent they are fellow conspirators with their inactivity to the aforesaid exercise.
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[11 Jun 2007|06:51pm] |
Am hurtled back to the preliminary selfhood with, naturally, a mouthful of brewing qualms. Still, “drenched in endorphin surfeit” describes the recent option. He who holds the present days is the cosmic debris resonating my own entrails.
Perhaps I won’t always best you on comfort room minutes, have robust hands to disrupt the strain upon your collar, or bare unto you the ID branding my freshman veneer sans the metal-mouth. There shall be "deviations" to behold, yes, but that's because we still have a long way to go. Apir.
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| Before the Forenoon |
[08 Jun 2007|12:40am] |
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the morphemes that seep through our lips they own frail entwinements of phosphor lazily sketching smoothness like your fingertips drifting to gather throbbing splendor acres await all that is left unfurled but patience owns my entirety’s fraction without truly needing to warn the world we shall be a lunar conflagration for in every monsoon that burns the day white our breaths declare us as quivers that tint epochs beyond the awning in sight melded and ceaseless, comrades and lovers crickets have sung it nightly to the moon now, we’ll croon it before the forenoon
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[06 May 2007|03:54pm] |
Pauwi kasi akng cavite ngay0n.. Sa bus na lang ako natutulog. Bumili ako ng inquirer at umaga pa lang sira na araw mo, nabasa ko yung mga sagot nila cesar, zubiri, ‘ulol’ mike defensor and the rest of those cr0oks about sa hello garci issue. At grabe, kahap0n 11 ang namatay. Puro bad news.
From: Elsid
9:24am 5-MAY-07
Weeklong pulsations have kept the muscles trembling, harshly black and blue beneath the pelt. The denied rawr!'s are trussed by commitment to reports on a fellow KABATAAN Partylist coordinator illegally arrested and detained by the Manila Police District after the Labor Day mobilization (you would absolutely wish to go here if you want a second helping about what happened) and Alyansa ng Magbubukid ng Bulacan coordinator Jonas Burgos abducted in some not-so-obscure mall where we have our Sunday groceries. But hey-oh, endorphins do surge in tagging along with comrades who operate on Tatalon to help in contriving “Jam for Freedom: Rock Concert ng Kabataan”, as well as being under our own steam to execute YouthVOTE’s (Youth Volunteers for an Orderly and Transparent 2007 Elections) Alay Lakad in the call to have clean elections. To appease lactic assaults are kanto fare with Che (Ate Edith’s siomai, Mang Larry’s isaw, Villa España II – Sto. Domingo Church's calamares, Mini Stop's pork asado kariman with C2 Lychee) plus chummy dialogues with CWTS 1-2 CHE classmate, fellow Tool-APC adherent slash Alay Sining orgmate Elsid (yes, the brilliant voice behind KABATAAN Partylist's Kumilos Ka.
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| Barbara, do read this! |
[15 Apr 2007|03:08pm] |
In the hallowed flukes in space and time that we thwart the dismal lot of failing to meet as intended, we are but kids (yeah, so I’ve come to accept and momentarily enjoy “that” label Moe’s friend had for us, as time has the nature that harks Houdini and the likes into the cognition – escapes real’ swift sans mortal attention), flailing for mirth, love, music, alcohol, infinity, sanity. There shall always be the thousandfold next time’s for us to piece it all together but you know how impatient I can get. Then again, because I luuurve you so so sooo much, I can wait. I will. We’ll somehow get our backpacks, tees, board shorts and sneakers on to entire sun down moments in joviality’s best. The boys, well… they can wait. Haha!
So how will I end this, eh? Ah, “’Til next time, Baba…”
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[29 Mar 2007|02:02pm] |
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It was a Tuesday afternoon in the verdant lawns the campus that I watched comrades of mine hurtle a guryon into infinity’s accessible regions. Wondrous was Madonna's breeze-straddling plaything from where we lay for open-air respite.
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[24 Mar 2007|12:03am] |
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In caffeinated glow I typed away, winkless for two consecutive days. It was Thursday that some catered repast (love to that emerald citrus drink) punctuated the day on heeled white pumps and a query-broke panel for our round (panic-inducing, says logic) in Psych 115. Expected was the carcass of mine by Friday, but only upon our STS term paper and final examination’s assignment into our conclusive thump. It just so happens that I got to walk away animate to revere Tao and Hermin’s miscellany on the Alay Sining Cultural Night, an eventide of Filipino youth's battle hymn in aesthetical delineation's best.
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[20 Mar 2007|11:39pm] |
The Tribunal had this sunny-sounding haze of memoirs for my paternal senior, an assortment that would have not been imbibed into notice if not for a would-be litigation on the fingertips. He worked with them years ago, way back when we his progeny were diminutive monsters in their preparatory school days. Norms (perchance alongside wariness, too) prescribed my prudishly limited responses. These ensued throughout breaks, as the assignment to a threesome of hearings this day made venue for such social circumstance. This situation amongst “adults” kept me in clumsy distress. Anyhow, there is always Ate Cecile’s kid son in the quarters to get all congenial with, perhaps also acquire from some sheepish but jovial “Hi” as I just did while entering the room.
On the plurality of notes, the following simply identified as "extraneous bullcrap": These eye bags are impregnated by lethargy. And hot damnation, these shall continue to bloat up for the subsequent days. We’re merely left with consecrated flukes (such as those Che, Kikay, Flip and I entired on afternoon as well as eventide) for “chummy-han”, plus weird stuff (e.g. having this tall foreign guy in Melchor Hall's corridor bid me "Good luck" in our Finals, right before our GE 1 class plunged into our Third Examination... Dear Sir Paringit, we love you.)
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[18 Nov 2006|09:01am] |
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(-) Busy until 2009.
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[30 Oct 2006|08:59am] |
Did you know that the female opposum has a paired vagina,the male a forked penis(& sperm cells travel in twos too!)?I wonder if that means they have double the pleasure? :p Ito ang nagagawa ng walang pasok,ö.
From: Ma'am Kay
8:11am 28-SEP-06
"patayin na kaya kita? ako may ari ng mundo!" -mang romy(sbi sa kn)
From: Mel
10:05am 19-OCT-06
Ang pg-inom at pgrerebolusyon ay ngkkpreho sa ilng bgay. Prehong kdlsng tinthk ng mga mmmyang gus2ng umibbw s problemang lipunan. Ngunit ang mtlinong rebo at mtlas n mnginginom ay nkikita n kulang ang dating paraan at hhkbang psulong dhil nkikita niya n d n sspt ang dting paraan - gawel, manginginom n rebo
From: Joms
3:12am 24-OCT-06
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[13 Sep 2006|02:58pm] |
The most engaging three-year-olds just made me relive my olden days at Early Literacy Clinic – only that the class nowadays beckons me as “Teacher” or “Ate”. Scribbling creepy-crawlies and zoo regulars, cadenced shuddering throughout puerile melodies, tales told in milky cheeriness, and the notion that you’ve assumed their safety blankets’ function. I’m even handling clever Matthew who, three years ago, was an infant swooned over by Curie-III at the Dofitas’ residence.
Unearthing yesterday the mutual literary keenness with our comrades from the komyu, I am considering letting my books afloat among the cadres just as Chad is doing, and penning verses more often like Edel. I fancy becoming a poet with broken Russian – explicates the love for my current linguistic course.
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| Because "we're one big happy Xientian-Activist family..." |
[26 Jul 2006|08:10pm] |
I cried. I laughed. I panicked. Charge it to Laudemer "Omer-adik" P. Mejia and Globe Unlimitext.
bet! Ü astig. 'domestic front'! haha. lahat na lang may war front anez? Ü
From: Omer
1:15pm 25-JUL-06
maulan. wet look ako. wahehehe. sexy me. charot! Ü tumugtog ang datu's tribe.
From: Omer
2:35pm 25-JUL-06
Gandang umaga frances the heartthrob! Ü
From: Omer
8:14am 26-JUL-06
teka, si anton dulce ba yan? gigilitan ko talaga yun! hahaha! Ü
From: Omer
9:01am 26-JUL-06
hahaha! apir! Ü adik ka rin.
From: Omer
10:17am 26-JUL-06
Syet. may split ends ako.
From: Omer
10:23am 26-JUL-06
teka! break muna sa kulitan. di na ako makapagreview. Tawa lang ako ng tawa dito! mamaya na tayo magtuos!
From: Omer
10:25am 26-JUL-06
"Ano b ung malabo, ung terms of pagrereciprocate o ung mismong sentiment?" nice question! Ü my answer: sigh! Edad? hahaha! ang chaka! hindi ba maydialectical interaction ang dalawa. potek. basta, mainlab talo! wahahaha! haha... ha.. ha.. hu.. hu.. huhuhu.. *hikbi*
Apir! Ü
From: Omer
12:14pm 26-JUL-06
So mamumuhay kayo sa pagsuway at kasalanan? tsk tsk.. Ü may ganitong kaso na akong hinawakan. Ayun parehong lielow. beer tugtog sa jeep.
From: Omer
1:22pm 26-JUL-06
Kasama ko engg ngayon. tingin ko turn off sa akin yun ksi inum ako ng inum. hehe.. well beer o pag-ibig nya? hmm.. pwede bot? Ü
From: Omer
2:15pm 26-JUL-06
Baka turn off hobby ko. hehe.. sweet dreams! hehe.
From: Omer
2:37pm 26-JUL-06
Oist! gising ka na? Ü apir!
From: Omer
7:35pm 26-JUL-06
Sadly, my registration for unlimited texting has already ended. Last message to the afro-psycho:
Outbox Msg 2
Baliw ka! Kni-knino mo finorward ung txt q ukol sa buhok at bagyo? Pero idol kta kc special mention ka ng kiko machine. Oha, oha!
Sent:26-JUL-06
8:22pm
... why such retaliation?
"At least may buhok pa. Ako nga ay bnabalakubak na. Sbi ng tatay q s kptid ang nalungkot n wla na bagyo: e d higupin mo pabalik." - Frances, Alay Sining - CSSP
From: Em
11:15am 26-JUL-06
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