a cybernotebook

why not?: notes on tedx fort bonifacio

2010-02-18T12:42:00.012+08:00

Yesterday's TEDx at Fort Bonifacio was, in keeping with TED tradition, a celebration of ideas. Not of the abstract kind, but of the practical kind. Ideas that inspire, challenge, and make one think.

First off, Ana Arce posed a challenge: make the world a little more Deaf-(with a capital "D" as opposed to "deaf") friendly. Have closed captioning and subtitles in movies. Or better yet, have sign language interpreters. For more about Ana's talk, read this.

Dr. Lourdes Cruz, who has worked extensively with the Ayta community in Morong, Bataan, presented the 4-helix model for S&T-based economic development. It's a mouthful, but it basically means giving the community a say in their development. It's a doable alternative to the usual development model, which relies on a 3-way interface between government, the academe, and business.

The inventions of the prolific Dr. David Manalo were actually very simple solutions to common and simple problems. As he said in this talk, "Why complicate the solution when the problem is simple?" His inventions had been awarded grants from the World Bank, no less. An audience favorite was the carabao decoy: kept outside the house, mosquitoes are supposed to flock to it, effectively sparing the people inside the house from mosquito bites. A simple solution, indeed -- but no awards or grants for that one.

Young photojournalist VJ Villafranca showed the audience a different way of seeing the world -- through the lens of a digital camera. From this vantage point, he explored the grit and grime of BASECO, an urban poor community in Manila. Each photo is a story in black and white, framed in stark contrast and harsh reality.

The husband-and-wife team of Drs. Chris and Marivic Bernido ended TEDx with a presentation on the sorry state of science education in the country -- and what they have done to turn it around. The figures are certainly impressive: 1% of high school seniors performing excellently in the sciences, and higher percentages getting average and above-average scores. At an estimated 700,000 high school seniors, 1% is 7,000 students. Wow.

TEDx organizer Gene Battung introduces the next speaker while Veronica Perez, dean of the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde School of Deaf Education and Applied Studies, signs for the Deaf community.

In the end, what defined my TEDx experience was the fact that the ideas presented in the talks entered not only the broad realm of possibility, but more importantly, of doability.

So why not have more sign language interpreters? Why not involve communities in rural development? Why not use water to generate electricity for communities in the mountains? Why not use photos to tell stories and document life? Why not improve students' performance in the sciences? It's possible after all. So why not?

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I'm a TED fan, so it was only natural that, when I heard about TEDx happening at the Fort, I wanted to go.

But just to be clear, this wasn't the first TEDx talk in Manila. And hopefully not the last.

vote for efren peñaflorida

2009-10-16T01:27:00.001+08:00

If I could choose a beat, good news would be it -- stories about people like Efren Peñaflorida, Jr., people who make a difference.

More than 10 years ago, Peñaflorida and his friends founded an organization called Dynamic Teen Company, which has taken great strides in helping less fortunate children. He and his friends were in high school at the time. Since then, this young man has worked untiringly for the children under his organization's care.

Vote for Peñaflorida as CNN Hero of the Year.

To learn more, click here or watch the video below.

facebook regulation, anyone?

2009-10-02T12:31:00.002+08:00

A few days after I blogged about how Facebook could be used to alert people and disseminate critical information during emergencies, I came across this story on the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility site.

It seems that Mikey Arroyo, a congressman and the son of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, wants Facebook regulated, after a story and photo about him allegedly buying liquor just a day after Ondoy slammed Metro Manila were posted on the popular social networking site.

I'm not familiar with FB's policies, but I'm sure that, like other sites, FB requires its members to read and agree with certain terms of usage. Whether these terms extend to regulate libelous, defamatory, or malicious content, I really don't know. One might argue that FB users are there not to malign public figures or even to overthrow the government, but to engage in meaningful discourse with friends and family. What the acceptable definitions of "meaningful" might be, would again be subject to some sort of consensus among its users. If users found meaning in posting photos and videos of Metro Manila floods caused by Ondoy's rains, then surely their contacts (fellow users) also found meaning in viewing them.

The more important point, I think, is that any regulation of FB or other social networking sites begs several questions, the first of which might be: "Who is to regulate it?" There are millions of Facebook users all over the world uploading thousands of posts in a day. Does anyone have the resources/manpower to censor each post, each user, each day?

I used the word "censor" just now, because in effect, that's what is being proposed here. To regulate a social networking site means to control who can post what, and when. Again, I'm unfamiliar with FB's policies, but I'm assuming that the onus is on FB users themselves. After all, they are no longer just consumers or passive receivers of information, but are thrust into the role of producers of information.

And with this comes the responsibility of being their own gatekeepers as well.

Click here to read the story on CMFR's site.

an "ondoy" survival story

2009-09-30T08:59:00.008+08:00

What makes survivors out of ordinary people? Is it luck? Being at the right place at the right time? Will and determination? The Forces That Be?

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I was waiting in line at the supermarket the other day and a lady at the other counter was telling the guy beside her the story of how a child miraculously survived the floods caused by tropical storm "Ondoy" while its mother, beside her, perished. "For some, it was their time -- but not for this child," I heard the lady saying in Pilipino.

Doubtless, everyone has a story to tell about "Ondoy," whether it's his/her own or someone else's, or something heard or witnessed. These stories will be told over and over to anyone who will care to listen, passed on to those who were not there, and remembered for the lessons they contain. For these are survival stories -- stories that inspire us, move us, and give us hope; stories that strengthen us and validate who we are and more importantly, who we can be in the face of even the most devastating appearances.

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The following was part of an email written by Nadj B., an underwater hockey player and triathlete. With her permission, I am posting it here as a first-person account of the floods caused by "Ondoy." Like thousands of Filipinos living in Marikina, Cainta, and other parts of Metro Manila hardest hit by the storm, Nadj and Chari O., also an underwater hockey player and triathlete, had to climb onto roofs and wait until either the waters subsided or help came.

This is their story.

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I was having lunch with Chari in her house when it struck. We were supposed to ride that morning with FF in Alabang and/or do endurance training for underwater hockey that afternoon. All of which thankfully didn't push through, else her elderly parents would've been alone in the house with one frightened helper and five terrified dogs -- three of which are now missing.

I don't even know where to begin telling the story. Pretty much how we all felt when we went back to the house and saw the ruin. The floor was covered in foot-deep mud, the ceiling looked like it was going to fall any minute; heavy cabinets, pots and pans, electronic system, tables, sofas, beds... eveything was either floating or just on top one another stuck in mud. There was a dining chair on top of their gate, a barking dog atop their perimeter wall, cars on top of each other outside. You've seen the news. But it's much much different when you're actually there and seeing all the shambles; much much different when you actually have to wade through rising flood in grounded water (most terrifiying for me); much much different when it's your story to tell. Chari and I cut our feet in attempts to reach loved ones who were yelling for help in other parts of the house; Chari cut her wrist when she broke the glass door in our desperate attempt to save all her dear dogs. Her parents were wet and shivering on top of the roof. Everything played out like it was in the movies only this time it was (really) real.

On the rooftop, you could see other people madly scrambling to get to the top. People hanging on to branches of trees yelling for help; a lola (grandmother) who was hanging on for dear life while she literally hung like a butiki (gecko) on the bottom side of their rooftop. We helped everyone up. We helped comfort those who needed comforting. Sometimes, a gentle talk and just a little encouragement were all they needed to bravely get from one point to another. We helped people cross roofs and make paths where people rapelled and pets were guided from one roof to the balcony of another. We managed to reach the 3rd floor of a neighbor's house where it was safe and dry.

There, the experience was altogether surrreal. Everyone had a story to tell. A woman was crying her eyes out as she told the stoy of all her dogs being trapped in a closed room. A woman from the other roof was having a seizure. After everything had somehow settled, Chari and I tended to our wounds. Luckily, we were able to ask for some betadine and cotton before the 2nd floor rooms became inaccessible. The adrenaline was going down and we were both starting to feel the pain. Chari's cuts on her right foot and right hand were all much much deeper than mine. We wrapped our bandaged wounds in torn grocery platic bags just to keep them dry.

We were dry, safe; we ate hot food, and we had toilet and water. Other people on other roofs were not as lucky as they sat wet and cold huddled under flimsy umbrellas. They stayed that way for more than 12 hours. I couldn't help but feel guilty for all the "comfort" we had. If only there was something more we could do other than try to survive the night.

At around 10am we were walking through the filthiest water we've ever been in: dead dogs, dead rodents, dead cats, garbage, feces... it was the longest, dreariest 500m. But again, we were still lucky. Other people were dead in other areas.

Afterward we proceeded to the hospital to get tetanus shots. The doctors didn't stitch Chari as her wounds were already more than 24 hours.

Thank you to all our friends who kept us in their prayers. I'm sure that it was your loving and sincere thoughts that kept us safe and serendipitously sent RY our way yesterday.

More stories to tell but we'll probably just tell you in person.

help for victims of typhoon ondoy ('ketsana')

2009-09-28T23:39:00.004+08:00

posted on YouTube by user mcfly1151985

For donations and/or inquiries:

ABS-CBN Sagip Kapamilya Hotline: +632 4132667 / +632 4160387 / +632 4163641
Bureau of Fire Protection Region III (Central Luzon) Hotline: +6345 9634376)
Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD): +632 9517119 / +63918 4217890
GMA Kapuso Foundation: +632 9289351 / +632 9284299
Marikina City Rescue: +632 6462436 / +632 6462423 / +63920 9072902
Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA): 136 / 16220 / 16211 / +63917 5592884
National Capital Regional Police Office (NCRPO) Hotline: +632 8333203 / +632 8383354
National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) : +632 9125668 / +632 9111406 / +632 9115061 / +632 9122665
NDCC Help hotlines: +632 7342118 / +632 7342120 / ndcchelpdesk@gmail.com
Pasig Rescue Emergency Number: +632 6310099
Philippine Coast Guard: +632 5276136
Philippine National Red Cross: 143 / +632 5270000
Philippine National Red Cross Rizal Chapter operations center hotline: +632 6350922 / +632 6347824
Quezon City Rescue: 161
San Juan City Hall Command Post: +632 4681697

posted on YouTube by user bongvideos

typhoon "ondoy" (re)told through social media

2009-09-27T22:08:00.009+08:00

26 September 2009. The day will go down in history as the day the skies opened and released the most rainfall in a single day that the nation had seen since 1967 -- 455 millimeters, as compared to 344 millimeters on 7 June of that year. That's more than what "Katrina" dumped on Louisiana a few years ago, according to this story. In fact, as much rain fell in just six hours as in a month.

It wasn't so much that it rained hard as that it rained continuously. And with this record rainfall came the worst flood the nation had ever experienced. Even at storm signal #1, which was what PAGASA said it was, Metro Manila streets were flooded in no time. One can only guess what the final estimates of damage to life, property, and infrastructure will be.

Nobody saw it coming. Nobody could have.

mobile technology + social networking

Many Metro Manila residents, unmindful that "the great flood" was coming, went about their usual business. Some remained unmindful as it was happening and were alerted later on.

It was only through their trusty mobile phones that most who were stranded sent SOS's to tell loved ones and friends of their situation. Cristine Reyes, for example, stranded on the roof of their Provident Village, Marikina home, was interviewed on TV via mobile phone patch.

By Saturday afternoon, my sister's Facebook account was showing a number of photos and videos of flooded areas -- most shot with mobile phones from windows of tall buildings. They were forwarded by friends who also received them on Facebook or on their mobile phones, or found on YouTube.

Later in the day, calls for help circulated via SMS -- a friend whose husband and young children were stranded on a flooded street, a family stuck on the roof of their house, among others.

= communicating in emergency situations

Communicating in emergency situations has come a long way since the days when one had to go to a radio or TV station to air a panawagan (roughly, a public service request or call for attention). In the rural areas, radio or TV may still rule -- but there, as in Metro Manila, the mobile phone is ubiquitous.

Add to this the popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook, and you have probably the best way to exchange information and communication, especially among Metro Manila residents.

This doesn't necessarily spell the end for traditional mass media, but with more and more people relying on SMS and social networking sites, we should certainly think about harnessing these media to benefit all.

After this experience, I wonder: If weather/flood alerts or such notices from PAGASA and other government agencies were to be disseminated via SMS or Facebook, would they reach more people faster?

Would we be more prepared for a situation like this?

Perhaps only while mobile phone batteries and Internet connections last.

"shooting the messenger"

2009-09-18T22:18:00.005+08:00

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) issued a statement on former President Joseph "Erap" Estrada's libel case against the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI).

I reproduce it here because it is worth reading. If you've been following the news on this issue lately, and if the libel case left you scratching your head as well, then read this:

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18 September 2009
NUJP statement on Erap's libel case vs PDI
Reference:
Nonoy Espina, NUJP Vice Chair, 09127196633

Estrada is shooting the messenger

Former president Joseph Estrada is barking up the wrong tree by including editors and reporters of the Philippine Daily Inquirer in the libel suit he has filed against taipan Alfonso Yuchengco, who claimed Estrada had forced him to sell his shares in the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co.

Yuchengco was backing allegations raised by Senator Panfilo Lacson in a privilege speech against his former boss.

It is unfortunate that Estrada has chosen to target the messenger instead of addressing the message.

What the Philippine Daily Inquirer did was simply to publish a factual report on a matter of interest, quoting one of the players in Lacson's expose. In short, it was simply following up on a story, and rightly so, since the truth or falsity of Lacson and Yuchengco's allegations could impact tremendously on a major sector of our economy as well as become another benchmark of the quality of governance in this country.

As reported by the Inquirer, Estrada, in filing his case, claimed Yuchengco's statements were not true and were only maliciously meant to destroy his reputation. We will not even argue his assertion for that is for him and Yuchengco to prove either way.

What we will dispute is his assertion that the Inquirer should not have printed the September 16 story because Yuchengco's statement was not a verified document because it did not have the businessman's signature.

Surely, as an actor and politician, Estrada realizes that his statements have been quoted probably a million times without the need for his signature, as many other public or even private figures involved in matters reported on by the press have been. Surely, there have been countless times when he has, in fact, sought media out to quote him on this issue or another. In this instance, in fact, media did seek him out for his side of the issues hurled against him.

And in this instance, it is not only media's right but, in fact, its responsibility to dig deeper into the allegations of Lacson since these involve matters of public interest. And who better to seek out than the very person Lacson claimed had been victimized?

It is, of course, not the first time the Inquirer has felt the wrath of Estrada. When he was president, he pulled out government ads from the paper in retaliation for its reports on his mansions and other issues of governance.

It is unfortunate that Estrada, who time and again has professed to be a victim of injustice, has not learned that the best and only defense in times like this is the truth, unless of course it is not on your side to begin with. Shooting the bearer of bad news has never helped. You may silence the messenger but the bad news will still be there to haunt you.

whose rights? whose wrongs?

2009-09-14T00:28:00.008+08:00

The title of the Southeast Asian Press Alliance's (SEAPA) report says it all: Philippine Ombudsman tightens rules on release of statements of assets and liabilities of government officials.

With these rules, what is going to happen to the public's right to know?

Is the Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth supposed to be confidential? The last time I checked it was a public document.

Are public officials supposed to be protected? From what, I wonder. And here we all thought they were supposed to be held accountable for their actions.

Kudos to Vera Files for their vigilance.

Read the Southeast Asian Press Alliance's report (SEAPA) here.

"no news is good news"

2009-09-11T23:19:00.004+08:00

The title above is meant to justify my absence from this blog. I have not been blogging elsewhere, and though there was a lot to blog about, I just didn't have the time.

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I wonder (a little) about how 9/11 was remembered today. I didn't see any coverage of special ceremonies or other acts of commemorating the historic event that certainly changed lives -- at least on the news programs I watched.

Food for thought for the day:

How has 9/11 changed media coverage?

How would peace journalists have covered 9/11?

How can peace journalism prevent another 9/11?

notes on cotabato city

2009-04-08T22:43:00.006+08:00

Fact: Cotabato City is not located in North nor in South Cotabato. It used to be the capital of Cotabato Province, which used to be the largest province in the entire country. The province has since been divided into North Cotabato, South Cotabato, Maguindanao, and Sultan Kudarat.

Fact: Cotabato City is found within the borders of the province of Maguindanao, but is not considered part of that province. (It used to be, though.)

Fact: Cotabato City is "the regional center of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao," but it is not part of the ARMM. It is actually part of Region XII or SOCCSKARGEN.

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The members of the Cotabato City Tourism Council were very accommodating and patient in answering all our questions. More than this, one could sense their genuine pride in sharing with us various facets of their collective story as Cotabateños -- from the Palasyo ng Masa (People's Palace) to the etymology of the name "Cotabato," from the uses of inaul to the "lost wax" brass making process, from the finer points of eating durian to the hows of preparing agar-agar (seaweed) and the different delicacies of the area.

It was an experience I don't think I'll ever forget, and I do hope to return there someday.

journalists in a 'peace-time democracy'

2009-03-23T22:58:00.007+08:00

The "peace-time democracy" mentioned in the title of this post is the Philippines. Under normal circumstances, I would have cheered that my country was being called this. At today's presentation of the 2009 Global Impunity Index of the Committee to Protect Journalists, however, it is most definitely an irony -- considering that, of all the peace-time democracies included in the index, the Philippines ranks highest.

Overall, it is sixth in the index rating of 14 countries -- higher than Afghanistan -- with 24 unsolved journalist murders from 1999 to 2008.

Though the countries topping the list are those currently caught in armed conflict -- Iraq, Sierra Leone, and Somalia -- most that made the list are peace-time democratic countries. Aside from the Philippines, these countries are Russia, Mexico, Brazil (the only newcomer to the index), Bangladesh, and India.

The index measures the number of unsolved journalist killings in relation to a country's population. As such, the Philippines has 0.273 unsolved journalist killings for every one million people.

an emblematic case

Impunity is defined by Merriam-Webster Online as "exemption or freedom from punishment, harm, or loss."

The fact that the murders of journalists have gone unsolved shows the incompetence or unwillingness -- maybe both -- of the powers-that-be to do anything about them. But more than this, they encourage more killings. They send the message that if you're going to kill a journalist, you're going to get away with it scot-free.

The launch of CPJ's Global Impunity Index today was a way of marking the murder four years ago of Marlene Esperat. Esperat was killed in her own home and in front of her children.

Though charges were filed late last year, the arrest warrants have not been served.

The case has become "emblematic of the struggle against impunity," said Elisabeth Witchel, CPJ's impunity campaign coordinator.

just doing their job

Killing a journalist is the ultimate censorship.

Most -- if not all -- of the journalists killed were playing watchdog in their own localities. And all but one journalist were based in small towns outside Metro Manila, which rarely get any attention from national media.

The journalists were reporting on corruption and crime. They were speaking out against those who had misused and abused their power.

They were just doing their job. And they were killed for it.

What a thankless job it is indeed.

If this is the kind of treatment journalists get at peace time, I would not want to know what kind of treatment they would get during a war.

many small fish

2009-03-10T21:41:00.008+08:00

Some very striking concepts and vivid images will remain with me now that the PJ1 workshop has ended.

One of these was the image of a small fish up against a huge, mean-looking fish (a shark?) -- one of the last slides in PECOJON International Coordinator Antonia Koop's presentation.

That is what peace journalists are. No longer part of the status quo, they swim against the tide. They are aware that how they report can contribute to the escalation -- or resolution -- of a conflict.

Many times, we have seen media practitioners making mountains out of molehills, or fanning the flames of conflict. It is unfortunate. But now we know that we don't have to sell conflict, pitt A against B, or report things from the same tired old box. Though we've been trained to recognize conflict as one of the things that make news newsworthy, we know that we don't have to highlight it in our reporting.

It won't happen overnight. But one day, maybe peace journalism will become the status quo. And many small fish together will have the power to change things.

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I had the opportunity of a brief but educational exchange with Antonia. What she said strongly echoed James Nachtwey's sentiments: It's all about the people most affected by conflict situations.

People caught in conflict situations are very much like small fish in the sea of humanity. Media practitioners often reinforce this. While journalists focus on the powerful, the top brass, the big players, and the celebrities, any reportage that examines ordinary people's lives is lost.

Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel said journalism's first obligation is to the truth. Certainly, to tell the truth means more than just to meet the standards of veracity. I think that philosophically -- and maybe from a human interest perspective -- it means finding an ordinary person's truth and telling it.

So this is how we fulfill another of Kovach's and Rosenstiel's journalism standards: to give voice to the voiceless. When we point our cameras and our voice recorders or microphones to tell their stories, it is a glimmer of hope to them, a possibility that maybe -- just maybe -- they matter after all.

'evoking a sense of humanity'

2009-03-08T14:11:00.009+08:00

Yesterday's sessions ended with War Photographer, a film documentary about photojournalist James Nachtwey. I found it to be an eye opener not just for Nachtwey's stunning photos, but more so for his insights about his work. Certainly, covering war is one of the most dangerous things one can do -- yet, Nachtwey seems to have succeeded in capturing heartbreakingly truthful images.

Through it all, he has kept a level head. "The people I photographed were much more important than myself," he said in the film. This explains his success in being "invisible" in his documentation of people living in difficult conditions. He is not a paparazzi but a sensitive storyteller. The photos are not eye candy but they must be seen. In the film, he says of his photography, "We must look at it. We're required to look at it. We're required to do something about it." A long pause, and he continues: "If we don't, who will?"

One might describe Nachtwey as an advocate of the power of photojournalism: "The strength of photography is its ability to evoke a sense of humanity," he said. "If used well, it can be a powerful antidote to war."

Fittingly, Nachtwey has won numerous awards. In this TED talk, he accepts his 2007 TED Prize:

when the word 'press' can kill

2009-03-06T22:20:00.003+08:00

Today was the start of Peace and Conflict Journalism 1, a training workshop given by the Peace and Conflict Journalism Network (PECOJON) to media practitioners involved in reporting conflict situations. From today up to 10 March, I will try to blog daily about the workshop.

One of the things PECOJON International Coordinator Antonia Koop talked about briefly, by way of introducing tomorrow's sessions, was the changing media landscape. The above title, borrowed from the Al Jazeera documentary Shooting the Messenger, underscores the shift in attitudes toward the press -- and for that matter, toward their work: Previously, identifying oneself as a member of the press could get you a measure of protection, if not respect, for what you did. Today, it can get you killed -- in places like Gaza, for instances.

But we don't have to go very far to cite other examples. Right here, in the Philippines, three journalists have been killed since the start of 2009.

Antonia left us with these thoughts as the last session for the day ended: With such changes in public perception and treatment, how do journalists adapt?

life happened

2009-02-28T23:53:00.000+08:00

It's been a while since the last post, and I have no real excuse except this: life happened.

Since the previous post, and as of this writing, a number of issues have cropped up involving the media. Indeed, as long as press freedom is curtailed in any way, the media will continue to be beset with issues.

As such, what I might post on these issues may very well be anticlimactic or even irrelevant at this point.

So, life goes on.

when the media are the message: looking back on the manila pen siege

2008-11-30T18:20:00.006+08:00

On November 29, 2007, those who report the news became the news.

At last year's standoff at the Manila Peninsula between Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim, and their men on the one hand, and government forces led by the Philippine National Police on the other, the media found themselves in the middle -- a sort of gray area where the reporter met the reported and became both victim and culprit.

For even as the reporters were teargassed and shot at along with the rebel soldiers after the PNP's 3pm deadline for leaving the hotel, they were among the more than 100 people arrested that day.

The Manila Peninsula incident not only raised many questions on the arrests and on the sometimes opposing sides the media and the government take, it also called attention to how journalists make judgment calls.

They were asked to leave the hotel by 3pm, but did not. A story was unfolding, and they had to be there to cover it.

What happened after the deadline is now known and has been the subject of many editorials, reports, debates, and perhaps most important of all, dialogue.

In a story by Newsbreak's Carmela Fonbuena last year, journalism professor and media ethics advocate Chay Hofileña pointed out that things could have been different:

[S]he expressed the belief that the media should have left the hotel as requested. She agreed that to leave an area of coverage was a reporter’s call, but she questioned the news judgment that was employed in this case. To her, the story did not merit extensive media coverage.

By the time the police requested the media to vacate the hotel shortly before the 3 p.m. deadline, Hofileña said that surely the reporters had already “enough” coverage for their stories. And because the incident occurred in a confined area, “chances of your reporters getting hurt are higher,” she added. “Is it worth putting your reporter’s life on the line? Was the story of such importance? My sense is it was not. There was no massing of people and there were only a few soldiers. It appeared that it wasn’t well organized. From the onset, as experienced journalists, you had an indication that it was doomed to fail.”

Of course it would have been a bigger story had Trillanes and his men succeeded. But the more important point here is the threat to the journalists' safety.

Fortunately -- and no thanks to the soldiers who later on sealed all exits and kept the reporters effectively trapped inside the hotel -- no one was hurt.

When the press conference turned into a war zone, the reporters didn't have to be there. But their being there didn't make them rebels. And it certainly didn't make them conspirators.

At the end of the day -- after the wet handkerchiefs, the smoke, and the handcuffs -- the media were there simply because they had a job to do.

How well they continue to do that job will rest on many things. One of these is how well they make judgment calls to secure their safety or to secure the story no matter what.

notes after a workshop in banaue

2008-11-28T23:14:00.004+08:00

The other week, my colleague and I gave a workshop in Banaue, Ifugao Province.

I guided the participants through the basics of news writing while my colleague talked about design and layout-related matters.

It was our first workshop in Banaue -- and I must say, our first at a resort, the Banaue Ethnic Village Inn. The participants, however, were students from the four high schools of Asipulo. Also for the first time, we had older participants as well: the students' advisers, and the editorial staff of the LGU of Asipulo.

Aside from the change in location and environment, it was much like the previous workshops. The participants were there because they wanted to be able to write for and produce their newsletters.

But because it was a mixed group, we had a wider range of questions.

Some of the teachers and LGU staff showed much interest in the practical side of newsletter production -- offset printing and photocopying, for example. An LGU staff wanted to know if identifying people "left to right" in photo captions meant the viewers' left to right. A teacher asked me if the basics of news writing could be applied to the Filipino language, and if their newsletter could be in more than one language.

In all, it was interesting to have this surge of interest in producing school -- and for that matter, LGU -- newsletters. Our LGU contact, in particular, expressed concern that the absence of a newsletter among the community translated to their lack of awareness of ongoing community projects. Did the community members know, for example, that their LGU had bested all the other LGUs in the country to win an award for a community project?

All this should tell us that no matter how small the circulation or how few the pages, a newsletter has very real use -- especially in a remote town like Asipulo. With some areas yet to be electrified, and radio broadcasts and cellphone signals hard to come by, people have to rely on -- and even produce -- their own print media to keep the information flowing.

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There's more I'd like to say about this workshop: how inspiring it was to interact with the students and teachers, how gracious the owners and staff of the resort all were, how cold and crisp the air was in this part of Banaue, how verdant the mountains and trees were, how fresh the vegetables tasted, how special it felt to be served lemons when I had asked for calamansi.

But my colleague has already blogged about all this. For a much better story, see her blog here. Anything I write after her account is, to be honest, a bit anticlimactic.

ma journ fellowship application period starts

2008-11-28T22:59:00.001+08:00

Applications for the 2009 Fellowships for the Master of Arts in Journalism are now being accepted by the Konrad Adenauer Asian Center for Journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University (ACFJ).

Fifteen fellowships are awarded yearly.

Deadline of applications for the coming academic year is January 16, 2009.

The fellowships are awarded to full-time Asian journalists who have outstanding professional and academic record, a strong commitment to good journalism and leadership qualities. A grant covers tuition and other expenses for the two-year MA Journalism program offered by the Ateneo de Manila University.

As of March 2008, about 60 working journalists from Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka have earned the degree.

Designed for working journalists, the MA Journalism program is an online distance learning program with limited classroom sessions held at the Ateneo campus in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines.

The curriculum consists of 12 courses including specialized reporting and writing courses such as International Reporting, Investigative Journalism and Reporting about Religions. The program is designed to allow working journalists and other media professionals to study at their own pace and time, and in their own homes or workplaces. The international faculty includes experienced journalists and academics from Australia, Canada, US, UK, Germany, the Philippines, India, and Malaysia.

ACFJ, a joint project of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) and the Ateneo, was founded in June 2000 to promote good journalism in Asia by providing training opportunities primarily for working journalists.

For admission to the MA program, a separate set of application forms are required. These are also available from ACFJ or the
Ateneo's Office of Graduate Studies (OGS).

For more details, please contact Rose Madjos or Clara Baquilod at (+632) 4266001 locals 5296 and 5211. Or visit the ACFJ website at http://www.ateneo.edu/acfj.

online youth unite

2008-11-25T20:58:00.005+08:00

It's about time young netizens of the world were recognized as a force to reckon with.

This article from inquirer.net strengthens the idea that today's online youth can do much, much more than IM and connect with their friends on Facebook or Myspace.

According to the article, the US State Department plans to tap online youth groups in the fight against terrorism and crime.

To get things started, 17 youth groups will come together on December 3 to 5 for a conference at the Columbia University Law School.

Although groups without an online presence will also participate in the conference, these plans demonstrate that having an online presence is an empowering force.

In many cases and for countless organizations and even individuals worldwide, it spells the difference between having a worthwhile cause and mobilizing people for that cause.

Read more about the US State Department's plans to empower online youth here.

ap photographer moved by readers' response

2008-11-20T22:41:00.001+08:00

He could have snapped the photo and then disappeared from their lives. But he didn't.

Associated Press photographer Jerome Delay is a seasoned journalist who has taken many photos of war and refugees.

On November 6, he shot 11-year-old Protegee and her niece, three-year-old Reponse, in the town of Kiwanja in eastern Congo.

The girls had been separated from their families in the war in Congo. Delay's photo showed Protegee carrying a sobbing Reponse on her back, while wiping tears from her eyes with her shirt.

According to Delay's own account, he was "particularly moved" by the hundreds of emails that had poured in after the photo was published.

Himself a father, he set out to find the two girls and help reunite them with their family.

Delay's actions would seem to be atypical of photojournalists and journalists in general. Not every journalist would have done what he did.

Which causes one to wonder: Did Delay violate any rule or code of conduct?

Should he have just maintained distance between himself and the girls?

Are his actions something that other media practitioners should emulate?

Aside from the obvious risks, reporting on conflict situations -- especially on wars -- presents many challenges. The reporter must know how to cover such situations in a sensitive manner, showing the human conditions (grief, rage, fear, poverty, and so on) while giving space and due respect to the people in them.

It's not easy being a journalist in Delay's position. Reporting on conflict in any form can harden anyone.

What Delay did -- and I'm sure there are others who have performed or are performing similar acts of kindness -- was his duty not only as a journalist, but as a human being.

Another point worth making is that Delay was pushed to do what he did because of the reactions of readers.

When the audience responds positively to a journalist and his/her work, it can be a very powerful force.

All this made for a happy ending for Protegee, Reponse, and their family.

Read more about Delay, Protegee, and Reponse here.

burmese blogger sentenced

2008-11-15T15:31:00.003+08:00

It was a first for the Burmese blogosphere: on November 10, the military junta sentenced a blogger, Nay Phone Latt.

According to a report by Mizzima, the blogger, who was arrested earlier this year, was sentenced to more than 20 years. The bulk of this sentence was for violating the Electronics Act.

The 2007 Annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index of Reportiers sans frontieres (Reporters without Borders) ranked Burma 164th out of 168 countries for both 2006 and 2007.

Also notable in the 2007 index is the observation of "serious, repeated violations of the free flow of online news and information." RSF says that 64 people around the world have been sentenced for something they have posted on the Internet.

In Burma, though the number of blogs is still very limited -- perhaps only 200, by one Burmese national's estimate -- outside the country, there are more.

With the junta monitoring and restricting Internet usage in Burma, it is a wonder that bloggers like Nay Phone Latt are even able to maintain a blog. An Internet Law has been in place in the country from as early as 2000.

According to Burmese nationals, the government server bans even free email sites like Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail.

Click here for the full story on Nay Phone Latt.

the trend towards entertainment news

2008-08-17T22:52:00.001+08:00

An interesting story on the Newsbreak website by Aries Rufo, entitled "Changing media landscape sidelines labor stories" points to a growing trend: "less and less stories about work" and more and more stories on entertainment.

Quoting National Federation Italian Press President Roberto Natale, the story says that one of the causes is of this phenomenon is journalists and the owners of media organizations abdicating their "social role."

BBC's Steve Schifferes says the rise of the 24-hour news service also has something to do with it, as it lends itself to more "superficial" content.

The irony should not be lost on anyone. What Natale and Schifferes are saying here is that the culprits are 1) the gatekeepers themselves -- that is, those who determine what news is -- and 2) the media through which the news is transmitted.

Is this an international phenomenon? Even without hard figures, one would agree that there seems to be more showbiz news on local TV and print media than, say, even 5 years ago.

This might not necessarily mean that media organizations and practitioners are going soft. In the spirit of fairness, it would help to remember that the news industry does not exist in a vacuum. There is the audience, with its preferences for TV (and perhaps increasingly, the Internet) and for light news are a key factor here.

And then there is the availability of all sorts of information. What previously had to be dug up, researched, and reported by a resourceful and hardworking journalist can now be easily accessed online. With the gatekeeper function now in the hands of anyone with a computer and Internet connection, any information is now being passed off as news.

For now, it's hard to say where this is going, or what kind of news coverage we will have 5 years from now. It's a trend, after all.

Let's hope that's all it is -- a trend.

a worldwide moment

2008-08-07T13:19:00.001+08:00

Among the many ways to celebrate 8 August 2008 (080808): World Wide Moment.

acfj alumni in action

2008-07-20T23:41:00.003+08:00

The trade-off: while I was in Paris, alumni of the MA Journalism program of the Konrad Adenauer Asian Center for Journallism (ACFJ) at the Ateneo de Manila University converged in Manila for a homecoming conference.

The conference was the 3rd Forum of Emerging Leaders in Asian Journalism held on 11 and 12 July at the Ateneo Loyola campus.

It turned out to be a productive gathering. Aside from the conference itself, the group met and decided on a number of things, among them:

The formal establishment of the Ateneo ACFJ Alumni Association: With alumni coming from many different countries in Asia and diverse backgrounds, this group has the makings of a solid network for cooperation and unity among journalists and media practitioners. From day one of the MA program, it was evident that we would make good contacts, if not friends, from across the region.

Putting up a blog for the association: In all things, we must practice what we preach. We profess to be producers and gatekeepers of information, so we ourselves must be able to keep up. Convergence and multimedia are the buzzwords of the day, and we must be able to talk the talk, as they say.

Read more about the conference here.

ooh la la, paris!

2008-07-20T12:56:00.012+08:00

I actually considered buying one of these -- a little piece of French history, all my own -- but realized it would be of no use to me, as my French is extremely basic.

Aside from hello and how are you, I know only the barest minimum for survival:

Je ne comprends pas.
Parlez-vous anglais?

And the all-important

Je suis végétarienne/végétalienne. (I am a vegetarian/vegan.)

My inability to speak and understand French did cause some inconvenience. I expected this, and was prepared for it (see above phrases). What was frustrating was when people would try to strike up a conversation with me, in French, of course. Unable to communicate in English, they would smile, shrug or shake their heads, and give up.

Despite warnings from some quarters that the French are rude, I found the opposite to be true. The French people I encountered were helpful, friendly, and gracious.

Even those I could not communicate with tried to be of help.

The "reputation" of rudeness, I would say, comes from those who try to talk to them in English off the bat. If you didn't understand English at all, and someone came up and started talking to you in a strange language, how would you react?

If you at least preface what you want to say with, "Parlez-vous anglais?" that wouldn't seem so rude. At least you tried, right?

----------------------------

To say that the French appreciate culture and history is an understatement.

In Paris, not only will awe-inspiring monuments and landmarks greet you at every turn, but each day is like a mini-film festival. According to Aude Hesbert, festival director of the Paris Cinema International Film Festival, there are 300 films showing in Paris everyday.

Lucas Rosant, a Paris Cinema programmer and head of the Paris Project, says these are not all French or even Hollywood films. One-third are from Asia and Africa.

I don't think any other city can claim this.

The French would go out of their way to discover new cultures, says Martin Macalintal, the audiovisual attaché of the French Embassy in Manila.

And that's exactly what they did at Paris Cinema 2008, filling up the theaters of the MK2 Bibliotheque to watch the films in competition, as well as the Filipino films.

The Philippines was the "country of honor" at this year's Paris Cinema, from 1 to 12 July.

This photo was taken during Brillante Mendoza's talk before the screening of his film "Serbis" at the MK2.

diverse and dynamic

2008-07-17T00:05:00.006+08:00

The annual conference of the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC), held at the Manila Hotel this year, was an eye opener.

The list of topics and names on the program was certainly exhaustive enough to overwhelm. But to actually be there and see researchers and practitioners sharing their experiences and talking about future directions made one feel how diverse and dynamic the region and the field are.

The session on alternative media was an interesting mix of old and new: Sanskrit writings and their relationship to journalism principles, and a survey of community-based approaches to broadcasting as practised by Church-owned radio stations in the Philippines on the one hand; and citizen journalism as practised by a news organization in Malaysia, and a uses and gratifications analysis of Facebook uses at the University of Singapore, on the other.

It was an interesting session, not only because the presentations were interesting in themselves, but also for the selection of these presentations under the classification of alternative media. Indeed, the term "alternative" is broad enough to apply to old and new -- the traditional and the cutting-edge -- as represented by these topics from the societies of India, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore.

During the conference, AMIC launched six new publications, including the Asian Communication Handbook 2008, Media and Conflict Reporting in Asia, and Media and Development in Asia: Regional Perspectives.

reflections after a workshop

2008-06-22T01:44:00.007+08:00

We recently had a news writing workshop with the members of the Providential Youngsters Society (PrYS)-Kiangan in Ifugao.

The young people of Kiangan, I discovered, are a lot more media-savvy than their counterparts from Asipulo -- a municipality where some barangays are not accessible except on foot and have no electricity.

Some participants attended the workshop with earphones glued to their ears.

After the workshop, some participants asked us if we had Friendster accounts.

How does their exposure to media affect them? How do they use it? Do they use it to their advantage? For research? For entertainment?

Do they feel empowered to use it to tell the world about their community? Or do they use it to get out of it?

If they could only feel empowered, think how much richer the national and even global dialogue would be. Citizen journalism is this dialogue, proof of empowerment, an alternative to the established media.

In the end, I believe that these young people can contribute. This is why we do these workshops: to help them contribute. A newsletter isn't just a newsletter -- it's citizen journalism.

Perhaps my hoping they'd be citizen journalists someday is too ambitious, but there are stories only they can write. There is knowledge only they can share. And there is a future only they can create.

----------------------

This photo shows PrYS organizer Gerald Puguon, Jr. accepting a book donation on behalf of PrYS. The books were given by the Konrad Adenauer Asian Center for Journalism (ACFJ) at the Ateneo de Manila University to support PrYS's efforts to publish a newsletter.

lessons learned

2008-06-19T23:20:00.005+08:00

I haven't been following the Ces Drilon kidnapping as much as I would have wanted to. So when I came across this story on inquirer.net, I begin to wish I had.

Here is an excerpt:

(PNP Director General Avelino) Razon said that if there was any lesson from the kidnapping, it was also to properly exercise press freedom.

"Ang aral po dito laging sinasabi hindi natin puwedeng i-exercise press freedom na malalagay ang [The lesson here is we can't exercise press freedom by putting] reporters or journalists in harm's way, na hawak ng terrorista or criminal elements," said Razon.

Was caution thrown to the winds in this case? Was there a lapse in judgment? Was there a violation of trust, an unreliable source or contact?

As I said, I wasn't able to follow the case, so these are sincere questions, not mere rhetoric. My point is to learn from this, as any media analyst or observer -- armchair, virtual, or real -- would want to. After all, we all have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.

What Razon said is simply another way of saying that no story is worth a reporter's life. Even if you're not a conflict or war reporter or correspondent, you would know this by heart or at least would have heard this enough.

But this begs the question: "journalist par excellance" or not, why, oh, why would anyone not a war reporter be sent into a war or conflict zone?

No story is worth a person's life.

"how was it?"

2008-06-19T06:06:00.005+08:00

By now I'm sure everyone in the Philippine blogosphere has put in his/her two cents' worth about the kidnapping of ABS-CBN senior reporter Ces Oreña Drilon and her companions cameraman Jimmy Encarnacion and Professor Octavio Dinampo.

I must admit, I haven't been following it much so I don't feel I can really comment.

But yesterday, after seeing her press conference on TV, I felt like I just had to say something.

Drilon, Encarnacion, and Dinampo were held for more than a week by the Abu Sayyaf. When they were finally released, they had to endure a 5-hour hike in the hinterlands of Sulu to get to where "friendly forces" were waiting for them.

At the press conference, a tired-looking Drilon gamely and bravely answered questions.

And then one reporter asked: "How was it?"

"How was it?" Drilon repeated the question, leaning forward, eyes on the reporter.

Was that a deliberate pause? And was it me or did her voice -- and her eyebrows -- rise a bit higher than usual?

One can only imagine what the woman had just gone through -- the terror, the mental and emotional anguish, the dark uncertainty of having your fate in the hands of a group such as the Abu Sayyaf, not to mention the living, eating, and sleeping conditions.

And after all that, she gets asked: "How was it?"

In that slight nanosecond of a pause, I remembered the reporter who asked a child trapped in the rubble after an earthquake (or was it a landslide), "Anong nararamdaman mo ngayon (What are you feeling now)?"

Drilon could have come up with a dozen snappy answers (in the tradition of the MAD series "Al Jaffee's 'Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions'") for the reporter.

But to her eternal credit, Drilon remained silent. The reporter asked a follow-up question.

I forget what that question was, but it must have been a more appropriate question, as Drilon answered.

At the risk of getting some snappy answers myself, I ask:

Can't we have a little more empathy for the people we interview?

Aren't there more sensitive questions we can ask in such situations?

Aren't there more effective ways to get soundbites or quotes?

Aren't there better ways to get the story?

can the internet fill in the gaps?

2008-06-03T19:42:00.003+08:00

I came across this talk by Alisa Miller on TED, entitled "Why we know less than ever about the world."

Miller, who heads Public Radio International, makes valid -- if not disturbing -- points about how the quality of news coverage in the US and on the Internet has dropped. So much so that today's young American knows more about Britney Spears and less about what's going on outside his country than his counterpart 20 years ago.

With much of international news dependent on coverage by US-owned networks, where does this leave the rest of us? Are non-Americans as much in the dark?

Can the Internet -- blogs and other alternative or indie news sites -- fill in the gaps in news coverage?

the catholic church as media practitioner

2008-05-03T12:10:00.006+08:00

A report posted yesterday on the CBCP News site urges Filipino Catholics to support the Church's media apostolate, as Catholics everywhere celebrate World Communications Day tomorrow.

I don't know how aware Filipino Catholics are about the media apostolate of the Church. In any case, the report caught my attention because it is related to my master's project.

media and vatican II
Even before the Vatican II conference, the Catholic Church had already recognized the importance of media in their mission. It was only during Vatican II, however, that they issued their first official document on the topic -- the Inter Mirifica.

The document introduced the term "social communication" -- a catchall for any form of interpersonal communication. This included media, literature, theater, film, dance, music, and the visual arts. The term is broad enough to include the Internet and even SMS.

A follow-up document called Communio et Progressio established the Church's media apostolate. It recommended that the Church set up media offices and assign priests, nuns, and lay workers to manage these offices.

Today, one will find a media office at almost every level of the Church hierarchy -- from the Vatican to the smallest local parish.

In the Philippines, there is the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) Episcopal Commission for Social Communication and Media, the National Office of Mass Media, and media offices at the level of the archdiocese and diocese. Different congregations own and manage their own media arms. The secretary of the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences Office of Social Communication (FABC-OSC) also holds office here.

why a media apostolate?
In the above Church documents, there is recognition that social communication -- including media -- is necessary as a means to evangelize.

Undoubtedly, the Catholic Church wields influence in Philippine society. It is active in the lives of most Filipinos, who are baptized, married, and buried in Catholic rites. Its presence is felt in even the smallest and remotest barrios, where parish priests are respected members of the community. Churches are crammed with faithful followers on at least two days of the year -- Easter Sunday and Christmas.

Considering the pervasiveness of the Catholic culture in our society, is a media apostolate still needed? On the other hand, are Church-owned or otherwise Catholic media effective in their mission of evangelizing or of deepening the faith of Filipino Catholics? Do Filipinos read Church-owned newspapers and publications, watch or listen to Catholic programs, or visit Church-run websites?

"a choice"
Bishop Bernardino Cortez, who heads the Episcopal Commission on Social Communication and Media, described Catholic media as "a choice" that allows us "to be strengthened in our faith" in confusing times.

After all is said and done, this is probably the best way to describe Catholic media: a choice. Such a choice would not be available in other countries, particularly those where freedom of expression is not guaranteed by the constitution. The presence of Church-owned media is, at the very least, an indication that we are still a democracy. We are still free -- free to worship as we please, free to choose what we read or watch or listen to, and free to decide for ourselves which course of action to take.

what is news?

2008-04-30T21:40:00.001+08:00

At a news writing workshop with the youth of Asipulo, Ifugao, we went through the preliminaries of defining the term "news."

Is news anything reported in the papers, on TV, or on the radio?

Is news anything that happens to a celebrity like Kris Aquino?

Could anything happening in their remote municipality be news?

The young people of Asipulo had a simple definition. To them, news is information that must be known and reported because it is important.

Given that they hadn't been taught the concept of news values before the workshop -- formally, at least -- the recognition of news as something that must be known (from the audience's perspective) and reported (from the journalist's perspective) is exactly what we were going for.

To them, the long lines to buy rice in Quezon City was news. The recent wedding of a foreigner slash community volunteer was news. The death of a community member would be news.

We talked about why some events would be considered news, and why some would not.

The difficulty in buying rice, for example, was of interest to them perhaps because it was an alien concept. As children of farmers, they could not imagine it ever happening in their locality.

They considered the wedding of the volunteer to be news because he was an important member of the community. The same was true of the death of a community member -- especially if s/he were an elder or a prominent figure.

One of the workshop participants related the concept of news to an advocacy: you report something because it is your advocacy. I must admit I didn't expect to hear this from them. Nevertheless, this is certainly true. Whether journalists acknowledge it or not, they are advocates of truth, democracy, development, justice, and peace.

Another thing that surprised me was when some of them asked about the killings or otherwise repression of journalists. This told me that they were somehow aware of the concept of freedom of expression and its importance.

The workshop was an enriching experience for me. I learned a lot through the perspective of an audience who are not media-savvy and who are in fact underrepresented in media.

I realized that young people -- in particular, this group in Asipulo, Ifugao -- have a lot to say, and that a newsletter such as the one they are planning to publish would indeed give them a voice.

And I remembered why and for whom we do what we do.

Thank you, Providential Youngsters Society!

an ifugao child

2008-04-28T12:03:00.006+08:00

What will life be like for this Ifugao child?

Everyday, this child will wake to cheerful birdsongs and glorious sunrises. At night, she will be lulled to sleep by cool mountain breezes and the rhythmic calls of the crickets.

In time, she will learn the ways of her elders, and wear the colors of her tribe with pride. She will walk with the grace and dignity of her people, sure footed on even the steepest and most winding mountain trails. She will learn to work closely with Nature, knowing when the grains of rice will be ready for harvest, relying on the sun and the stars for the time, and the clouds for the weather.

And yet, this child will grow up differently.

As the times change, so will her future.

Another path is opening up to children like her. She will have more opportunities than those before her. The world will be at her feet.

She will have the best of both
tradition and modernity. She will retain the wisdom of her people, yet learn to harness technology for her needs.

She will stand tall beside people of other cultures, sure of her own identity. She will defend her rights -- as a woman, as an Ifugao, and as a person, above all -- and stand up for the rights of others.

Her spirit will soar, free and unfettered, even as she stays grounded in her reality. She will live with purpose, claiming all that is hers, and giving back all that she can.

With the grace of God, the love and support of her family, the blessings of Nature, and the benefit of a good education, this child will be all she can be.

electricity in pula: good or bad?

2008-04-26T11:03:00.016+08:00

Sitio Pula in the mountains of Asipulo, Ifugao*, which has gone without electricity for years, will reportedly have electricity in a few months.

The news has been met with different reactions. There is anticipation, if not relief, and maybe even eagerness from the residents. This opens up a whole new world for them -- of lights, more appliances, and radio and television programs. Already, one of the women we spoke with is certain that early bedtimes will become a thing of the past for her family, as they will most likely spend their nights watching TV.

On the other side of the spectrum, those who have visited or lived in Pula think that electricity may not necessarily be a good thing for the community.

"It will take away some of the charm," a volunteer said.

"You'll see the effects of electricity -- good and bad. I guarantee it," said another.

Now no one ever talks about the dangers of owning and running electrical lights, refrigerators, or even carpentry equipment. So quite obviously, the concern stems from the perceived negative effects of television and radio on the quiet little community.

media consumption
According to the National Statistics Office 2003 Functional Literacy, Education and Mass Media Survey (FLEMMS), the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), of which Ifugao Province is a part, has a functional literacy rate (able to read, write, compute, and comprehend) of 85.4%. CAR also has a high proportion of population vis-a-vis college education, second only to the National Capital Region (NCR).

Despite the encouraging figures, Pula is not teeming with newspapers and magazines; the nearest place to buy a newspaper is the capital town of Lagawe or even Kiangan, both about an hour away. In the 2003 FLEMMS, CAR showed one of the lowest rates of frequency of newspaper reading. Only 51.1% of the population in CAR relied on newspapers for knowledge and information. Radio was the most popular medium at 69.9% -- the highest number of radio listeners anywhere in the country -- while television registered only 53.3% -- not surprisingly, the lowest.

If the literacy rate in CAR is so high, why are the people listening to radio and watching TV more than reading newspapers? Their media preference might be a result of media infrastructure more than anything. Limited accessibility -- especially of Asipulo -- makes newspaper delivery difficult. On the other hand, the region as a whole has the advantage of geographic height, making it able to receive radio signals clearly.

an electrified pula
With electricity, the stillness that envelopes Pula will most likely be punctured by blaring stereo, radio, and TV sets.

Media exposure will undoubtedly continue to be heavily slanted towards radio and TV. This means faster availability and more effective delivery of news and information, which are so important to remote communities.

But -- and especially for TV -- this also means exposure to imported telenovelas, noontime variety shows, showbiz gossip, and programs with violence and sex.

These programs do nothing to support the Ifugao way of life or reinforce traditional values and ideals. In fact, it would be accurate to say that, with media's tendency to be Manila-centric, the Ifugao are underrepresented in TV and radio.

Would this be the end of a way of life? Only the people of Pula can say.

Without electricity, Pula has stayed disconnected from the rest of the country for years. It has kept their way of life intact, and their culture pure. But no one has the right to impose that this community community without electricity and its conveniences forever.

Exposure to TV and even radio programs may very well be an imposition of non-Ifugao culture on Pula. But for Pula residents, having electricity means being connected through TV and radio to life outside Asipulo and Ifugao. Good or bad, it is something that can't be avoided.

All we can do is hope that Ifugao culture and traditions are strong enough to withstand the introduction and intrusion of media and Manila-centric culture.

* I first wrote about Asipulo, Ifugao here.

a national identity

2008-04-16T10:56:00.005+08:00

In this age of globalization and the resulting homogenization of culture, does a Filipino identity stand any chance of surviving and prospering? Even without external influences, are our lifeways too diverse, the differences too pronounced, to produce a unified culture?

Section 3 of Republic Act 7356 discusses national identity this way:

Culture reflects and shapes values and beliefs and emulates the aspirations of the people’s cultural wisdom, thereby defining a people’s national identity. A Filipino national culture that mirrors Philippine economic, social, and political life shall be evolved, promoted and conserved.

Republic Act 7356, also known as "The Law Creating the National Commission for Culture and the Arts," defines culture as "a human right" in Section 2, as follows:

Culture is a manifestation of the freedom of belief and of expression, and is a human right to be accorded due respect and allowed to flourish.

Is it too naive or pretentious to think that the culture of the lowlands is as important as that of the seaside or the mountains? In Manila, a veritable melting pot, culture seems to be absent -- but this absence, of course, is in itself a culture. The farther away from Manila, the more evident the culture, it seems. Can one residing in a remote mountain barrio really embrace the culture of another on the opposite side of the country as being "Filipino?"

It is no big surprise that those living outside Manila strive to preserve their way of life. Take Filipino communities in other countries, for example. They seem more bent on celebrating, if not preserving, their Filipino-ness than the average Manileño.

Section 7 of the same law emphasizes the importance of preserving Filipino heritage:

It is the duty of every citizen to preserve and conserve the Filipino historical and cultural heritage and resources.

The reality is, no one can claim a monopoly on being Filipino or on living a Filipino life. Being Filipino is not just one particular characteristic or set or characteristics. Nor is it one dialect, one dress, one dish. One's duty to preserve and conserve is, simply, one's duty to be a Filipino.

for whom?

2008-04-09T12:41:00.008+08:00

When people hear the word "culture," they often think of expensive antiques, classical paintings and sculptures, fine dining, orchestras playing cerebral music, or high-society, black-tie events.

Such concepts, though not entirely unfounded, couldn't be more wrong.

Culture, as defined in the 1982 Mexico City Declaration on Cultural Policies, and approved by members of the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO) is:

...the whole complex of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features that characterize a society or social group. It includes not only the arts and letters, but also modes of life, the fundamental rights of the human being, value systems, traditions and beliefs.

This definition tells us that culture is simply how we live in a given time and place.

The Declaration goes on to affirm that:

...it is culture that gives man the ability to reflect upon himself. It is culture that makes us specifically
human, rational beings, endowed with a critical judgement and a sense of moral commitment. It is
through culture that we discern values and make choices. It is through culture that man expresses
himself, becomes aware of himself, recognizes his incompleteness, questions his own achievements,
seeks untiringly for new meanings and creates works through which he transcends his limitations.

The document lists more than 50 principles on culture and how it relates to development, democracy, education, communication, international cooperation, and peace.

Culture is therefore not limited in scope and object. It is as much a part of the life of the museum goer as it is the factory worker; the schoolboy and the matron; the businessman and the housewife; the call center agent and the market vendor.

It is for everyone.

media as cultural workers

2008-03-15T21:22:00.004+08:00

My previous post quoted Felice Prudente Sta. Maria's take on media organizations and practitioners as cultural workers.

The idea of media as contributors to culture should be nothing new to those of us who believe that the media do not act as mere documenters or recorders, but as active participants in the life of a nation.

Broadsheets, tabloids, magazines, radio, TV, the Internet -- all reflect current culture. More importantly, however, they highlight aspects of a way of life that their audience can relate to or otherwise react to. They may also -- knowingly or unknowingly -- set trends, or act as channels for these trends, in thought, behavior, speech, and fashion.

Take any newspaper. The different sections reflect what is current -- what is worth knowing -- in that particular aspect of our lives. As both storehouse and channel of information, the newspaper's success depends on how complete the information is, and how accurately it conveys it. But as the nature of news media goes, the newspaper must accomplish that work today. Tomorrow is another day, with new demands for completeness and accuracy.

The relevance and effectiveness of our media as cultural agents also lies in how effective they are as communicators, if not creators, of our common memories and aspirations. That is, the different media mirror not only the present, but also the past and the future. These memories and aspirations -- whether good or bad -- form part of our culture.

How a newspaper covers an event is the present. But how it celebrates or commemorates that same event years later -- such as its specials on the 1986 Edsa Revolution -- rekindles our collective memories as a nation. In the same way, how it looks ahead -- by reporting new developments or infrastructure projects, for example -- gives hope.

Media tell stories and paint pictures of our lives, of our society, of our nation -- and these become rooted in our culture. The telling of these stories and the painting of these pictures must be done responsibly, ethically, and with the welfare of the audience at heart. For the workings of media -- whether good or bad -- also form a culture of its own, which become part of the larger culture of our nation.

media and culture

2008-03-11T23:21:00.002+08:00

From A Cultural Worker's First Manual: Essays in Appreciating the Everyday, by Felice Prudente Sta. Maria:

Are those in media and education automatically cultural workers?

Whether they know it or not, all companies and institutions involved in media and education provide tools for cultural education, cultural information and cultural attitude formation. Unfortunately, not everyone in these fields accepts responsibility for cultural development. Cultural workers within the fields are those who promote a positive attitude for culture, preferably knowing it.

fr. honti's 'pananagutan'

2008-01-18T12:14:00.006+08:00

"Walang sinuman ang nabubuhay para sa sarili lamang, walang sinuman ang namamatay para sa sarili lamang (No one lives for himself alone, no one dies for himself alone)."

These simple words, plus an equally simple melody, make up the song Pananagutan. I remember learning this and other Catholic Mass songs as a second grader in a school run by nuns. The songs were all very easy to learn, and very "hummable," especially for me and my classmates. At the time, of course, I had no idea that the songs were a result of Vatican II -- and that they in turn would inspire other composers like Fr. Manoling Francisco, SJ, known for Hindi Kita Malilimutan (I will Never Forget You) and Tanging Yaman (One Treasure), and Fr. Arnel Aquino, SJ, of the Lauds series of CDs and tapes.

Neither did I know that I would one day get to meet the man who composed Pananagutan and the first Filipino mass songs -- Fr. Eduardo Hontiveros, SJ, better known as Fr. Honti. I had the opportunity to work with him for his CD entitled "Pananagutan" -- a tribute to him by his younger Jesuit brothers in the music ministry, known collectively as Himig Heswita. By then, he had had a couple of strokes or maybe more. He kept his arm at his side, his hand in a fist.

He could hardly speak but he tried to communicate in other ways. When asked to describe his songs, he bent over and laid his hand, palm down, at knee-level. It was a simple gesture, but it said a lot. He composed simple songs so that the common man, the masa -- anybody -- could sing them, and not just the trained singer or church choir member. In a Catholic world experiencing change after Vatican II, and striving to remain relevant, Fr. Honti was part of that change and part of that relevance. His songs were his pananagutan (responsibility) to all of us as both priest and composer.

Fr. Honti passed away a few days ago. But his songs have made their mark in the Philippine Catholic community. He has helped mold a generation of Filipino liturgical music composers, not to mention a Filipino mass culture. From the humblest chapel to the grandest cathedral, his songs have taken flight. They may not be as well known now as the newer mass songs, but he was the composer who started it all. His legacy lives on. Because of this, Fr. Honti will be remembered as "the father of Philippine liturgical music."

'no to war. yes to peace and human rights.'

2008-01-03T13:50:00.001+08:00

The above title is from Worldpress.org's interview with Shirin Ebadi entitled "Follow the Path of Negotiation and Peace" -- a hopeful keynote with which to start the new year, as well as a firm stand against what seems to be the impending US bombing of Iran.

Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian human rights lawyer and the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate -- the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to have been named as such. In 1969, she began serving as a judge -- the first woman in Iran to do so.

Ebadi continues her private practice as a lawyer, taking on cases of national interest, most involving children's rights and freedom of expression. She teaches human rights courses and has written several articles and books. What strikes me most about Ebadi is that, in a paternalistic society, she espouses and represents equality between men and women.

I'm sure I'm not alone in the hope that any and all efforts towards peace -- such as Ebadi's National Peace Council -- will succeed. Let's hope that 2008 will see more of such initiatives.

wishing for a firecracker-free new year's eve

2007-12-31T15:05:00.001+08:00

The midday news on TV reported a fire in Bocaue, Bulacan caused by -- what else? -- the spark from a firecracker.

Around this time every year, print, radio and TV coverage of the yearend revelry are full of people -- mostly young children -- injured by firecrackers. Scores of victims are rushed to hospitals everywhere with blown-off fingers or hands. Will we ever learn?

a luxury?
A friend told me of a woman interviewed on a TV news program, lamenting that in previous years, her Php20,000 could buy more firecrackers. This year, the woman complained, the economy has not been as supportive of her firecracker-buying habit, and she got much less for her Php20,000. I didn't catch that news report myself, but I definitely think that woman is lucky enough to even have that kind of money to spend on firecrackers.

While children roam the streets begging -- or worse, rummaging through other people's garbage for food -- many Filipinos do not think twice about spending money on firecrackers. It has become almost a status symbol: one's ability to usher in the new year with the most, the biggest, the loudest firecrackers can make one the object of his neighbors' admiration or even envy. Never mind how big or small your house is, where you live, what you do for a living, or how educated you and your children are. All that matters is that, for new year's eve, you literally have money to burn.

effects on health
What many of us don't know -- or perhaps would rather overlook -- is how damaging firecrackers can be to our bodies.

The most obvious effects are to our ears and lungs. The website stop-fireworks.org lists the following effects of firecrackers (and even fireworks) to the ears:

Traumas due to crackers and explosions of fireworks are caused by impulsive bangs (bangs caused by high pressure blasts). The blast of exploding fireworks can reach more than 130 dB; in the immediate vicinity of public fireworks top levels of up to 190 dB can be reached and around 150 dB at farther distances. (In comparison: 130 decibels are measured at a distance of 100 m from jet enginges; 160 or 170 decibels are louder than a pneumatic hammer.) The hearing organ is not adaptable to acute high pitched sounds (sudden impulsive noise endangers the ear more than continuous noise; it can result in a blast and explosion trauma; ear buzzing and hearing deficiency (tinnitus, etc.); sometimes it results in an explosion trauma followed by tearing apart the tympanum. A trauma caused by a blast with damaged capillary cells in the interior ear can lead to permanent hearing deficiency. ("The incidence of acoustic trauma due to New Year's firecrackers", Stefan K.-R. Plontke, Klaus Dietz, Cornelius Pfeffer, Hans-Peter Zenner, Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol (2002) 259: 247-252, DOI: 10.1007/s00405-002-0451-4)

Children:
Firework, crackers and rockets can injure children's ears permanently. An explosion creates a blast trauma in the sensitive child ear which, besides the initial damage, can end in lasting, non-reparable injuries. [Please take a look at the site "Dangerous Decibels" (A public health partnership for prevention of noise-induced hearing loss) http://www.dangerousdecibels.org/hearingloss.cfm.]

A document entitled "Happy Diwali without Crackers 2006" lists other effects. Firecrackers contain fine particles that we breathe in, which can cause respiratory illness such as chronic bronchitis and asthma, and heart diseases. Particles that remain in the air (suspended particulate matter) can lead to asthma, cancer, restrictive lung diseases, and pneumoconiosis. The sulphur dioxide (SO2) in firecrackers can cause eye burning, headaches, cancer, heart diseases, and respiratory problems such as pulmonary emphysema. Another ingredient, nitrous oxides, can cause lung irritation, chest tightness, viral infections, and airway blockages.

And these are just the effects on humans. Who knows how much more damage fireworks can cause in birds, whose lungs are much smaller than ours, and in dogs, whose ears are more sensitive than ours?

effects on the environment
It's true that new year's eve comes around only once a year. But that means nothing in the face of all the havoc mankind have already wrought on the environment. Firecrackers release gases that affect not only our bodies but also the environment. Aside from air and noise pollution, firecrackers leave behind nonbiodegradable waste -- which will contribute to our already choked-up landfills. After all the discourse on global warming, climate change, and saving Mother Earth, you would think we would have actually learned something. You would think all our choices would be responsible ones.

In all this, what is the government doing? Two cities in Metro Manila -- Marikina and Mandaluyong -- have been declared firecracker-free zones. Kudos to their city officials for taking such a stand. But as I drove along a crowded street in Mandaluyong yesterday with a friend, I had to avoid some firecrackers thrown my way. Apparently, small children have learned from their elders that they must throw the firecrackers as soon as they light them, as far away from themselves as possible. It just so happens that as far away sometimes means onto the street.

I wonder at the uniquely Pinoy way we celebrate our holidays. Just a few weeks ago, we crowded into churches for the misa de gallo (dawn mass). Hopefully, tonight, we won't crowd into hospitals with injuries caused by firecrackers.

A peaceful -- and hopefully firecracker-free -- 2008 to all!

the round tuit

2007-12-30T16:34:00.000+08:00

I came across this the other day, while surfing the Internet, and decided to post it as a yearender.

Upon Googling, I found that there are actually different designs, not to mention real -- as opposed to cyber, as in this case -- ones.

May we all get a round tuit!

THIS IS A TUIT.

Guard if with your life, as TUITS are hard to come by, expecially the round ones. This is an indispensable item. It will help you become a more efficient worker. For years we have heard people say, "I'll do it as soon as I get a ROUND TUIT." Now that you have one, you can accomplish all those things you put aside until you got a ROUND TUIT.

With thanks to the Roundtu-it Eco Caravan Park for the graphic.

the fly on the wall

2007-12-01T17:23:00.000+08:00

Reading Lillian Ross's book Reporting Back: Notes on Journalism, I came across a phrase I have not heard or read in a long time: "fly on the wall," a technique used in journalism.

Journalists were once thought of as flies on the wall -- that is, passive, impartial observers and documenters who report what they observe and see from the scene of a news event. Do such journalists still exist? Is this technique still effective?

Ross thinks that it is "craziness" to think of journalism in this way, and to teach would-be journalists to use this technique.

A reporter doing a story can't pretend to be invisible, let alone a fly; he or she is seen and heard and responded to by the people he or she is writing about; a reporter is always chemically involved in a story.

The job of the media has long ceased to be that of a mere fly on the wall. I don't know how journalism is taught in other schools, but our instructors never told us to be flies on the wall. They taught us to be active -- to engage both subject and audience, and to anticipate and ask the questions that our audience might ask.

In teaching us that reporting is all about being the public's eyes and ears, Dr. Eric Loo, head of the University of Wollongong Graduate School of Journalism, used the acronym ORACLE. A journalist's job, he says, is to observe, reflect and report, analyze, contextualize, learn, and enlighten.

I prefer the ORACLE framework of reporting, but I don't think Dr. Loo meant it to mean that journalists are supposed to know it all. There might be some "mysticism" to the fly on the wall technique, in a Zen sort of way -- and I have no doubt there are situations when it might be needed and it might actually work as well. But it seems to be a one-dimensional approach to a very complex job.

Observation is integral to a journalist's role, but it doesn't end there.

mariannet's story

2007-11-17T16:08:00.000+08:00

When the news about the suicide of 12-year-old Mariannet Amper first broke out, it seemed to be an open-and-shut case. After all, she came from a poor family; that's why she took her own life. She lived with her parents and brother in a tiny house without electricity and water. Her parents took odd jobs: Magdalena earned Php50 (less than $1.25) a day working part-time in a factory and washed other people's clothes on the side, while Isabelo did construction work. So poor were they that other kids in their community in Davao reportedly would not even play with her and her brother.

If not for Mariannet's diary -- a class project -- and an unsent letter to the television program "Wish Ko Lang" (How I Wish), the world would probably never have known what life was like for this little girl. Her dreams were simple -- jobs for her parents and an education for herself. Yet, for want of transportation money, she was unable to go to school; nor did she have a bag and shoes to use.

So on 2 November -- All Souls' Day -- Mariannet took some nylon rope and hanged herself. End of story. End of life.

Or so everyone thought. Yesterday, the newspapers reported that Mariannet had been raped. And this most likely contributed in a big way to her taking her own life.

But suicide is never a simple case. Especially if it is committed by a 12-year-old, whose life at that age is really just beginning. After all the finger pointing, the preaching, and the hype Mariannet's suicide has generated, how will the media now report the case? Poverty is not uncommon in this country. Nor is it something you can hide. You can see it wherever you go. What about the sexual molestation of young -- and poor -- girls, often by people they know and trust? It's not uncommon either. The only difference is that the latter is a more delicate issue. It speaks of a deeper malaise. No one wants to talk about it.

Mariannet's story has become darker, more sinister, yet no less common -- that of innocence lost and hopes dashed. How many Mariannets are out there, still hoping for a better life? Will their stories even be told?

the princess and the paparazzi

2007-11-01T10:31:00.001+08:00

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines paparazzo as "a freelance photographer who aggressively pursues celebrities for the purpose of taking candid photographs." The term came into use after the 1959 film La dolce vita, by Federico Fellini, featured such a photographer whose name was Paparazzo.

The paparazzi -- plural form of "paparazzo" -- feed on the public's insatiable appetite for delving into the private lives of movie and television stars, politicians, and in Europe, royalty. The lens of the paparazzi's cameras function much as the lens of the microscope does: examining, enlarging, and exposing details of these celebrities' lives in the name of sensationalism and tabloid journalism. And for a quick but hefty buck; photos of public figures and celebrities, especially "exclusive" ones, sell.

The truth is, photos can tell a story much more eloquently and dramatically than words can. They have greater impact, according to the rawness of emotion captured through the lens. The paparazzi know this. But their purpose is different. Impact, in the case of the paparazzi, is measured in the fleeting and secret moments in the lives of celebrities, snapped while hiding in the bushes after hours of waiting in the dark, or while chasing the subject down a busy street. It is in what they are able to capture, and when: exclusive photos of this politician dating that actress, the first photos of the pregnant princess, the last photos of the celebrity couple together. And it is in how human or ordinary the stars are seen in the photos: they dine, shop, marry, divorce, make mistakes -- and yes, suffer fatal accidents, as mere mortals do.

Because of their methods -- not to mention the resulting photos -- the paparazzi have had run-ins with the celebrities they cover. The most famous controversy involving the paparazzi was 10 years ago, after a vehicular accident killed Princess Diana, Dodi Al Fayed, and their driver, Henri Paul. With the inquest into their deaths having already started at London's High Court, the paparazzi and their practices are once again thrust into public scrutiny.

According to a news report on BBC yesterday, a paparazzo named Romuald Rat called one of the British papers from the site of the accident. He was offering exclusive photos of Princess Diana -- taken as she lay dying -- for GBP300,000 (roughly USD600,000). The inquest also repeated witness accounts of the paparazzi at the scene, taking photos of the princess just seconds after the crash, instead of helping her and the other passengers in the car.

There is something so glaringly wrong with the picture of the crash site painted by these accounts. After all, in real life, one could only hope that anyone arriving at the scene of an accident would call for help or otherwise provide assistance to the injured. The fact that the paparazzi did not -- according to the statements of witnesses -- and even sought to capitalize on the accident, as in the case of Mr. Rat, speaks volumes about the ethics (or lack thereof) of that profession.

The evidence raises important ethical questions. How far will the paparazzi -- and all media practitioners, for that matter -- go to get the story? Would they break rules of conduct, overstep boundaries of human decency? Would the job take precedence over morality?

Were the paparazzi directly responsible for the car crash, and ultimately for the death of Princess Diana and her companions? Should they be held accountable for it? These questions may very well be not just for the paparazzi, but for the tabloid editors, publishers, and readers whose demand for such photos necessitated the supply.

rituals and remembrances

2007-10-31T13:26:00.000+08:00

It's not even All Souls' Day yet, but already the police are on heightened security, maintaining a presence at bus terminals and at the bigger cemeteries in Metro Manila where crowds have descended and are expected to continue to do so. Meanwhile, the news on TV earlier showed cars at a standstill on the expressway as Filipinos head for the provinces to remember the dead. The fact that this is a long weekend, on the heels of last weekend -- last Monday was a holiday, and so are tomorrow and Friday -- contributes to the traffic situation greatly.

It is interesting how deeply rooted in our culture the ritual of remembering those who have gone before is. It has a Christian origin, as the Church encourages the faithful to pray for the departed, especially those who are in purgatory. In fact, commemorating All Souls' Day with prayers and special rituals, after All Saints' Day on November 1, was begun by monastic orders. And with Christians comprising more than 80% of our population, the whole country is on a national holiday to observe All Souls' Day.

But I would think that even before the introduction of Christianity into our culture, the early Filipinos were already practising some sort of remembrance, as Asians. Ancestor worship is important to the Buddhists and the Taoists, and with the strong Chinese undertones in Filipino culture, I would say that our rituals of remembrance leans more towards this practice.

I'm not sure about early or indigenous Filipino practices of remembering the dead, nor about the practices of other faiths in the country (the Islamic community, for one). Definitely, we Filipinos have made these rituals of the East and West our very own -- and then some. We flock to the cemeteries with not just candles and flowers, or incense and offerings, as is applicable -- but also with tents, playing cards, mah jong sets, and karaoke machines. Our version of All Souls' Day has turned out to be not just a day to remember and honor the departed, but more so, an occasion to celebrate being alive, in true Pinoy fashion. I have no doubt that those going out of town are making the most of the trip, by visiting relatives. Or maybe even stopping by the beach.

Those in Manila who are unable to visit their loved ones' tombs in the provinces will have their own little rituals, lighting candles at home and offering prayers for their souls. In all this, we see how much of a melting pot the Philippines is. As with many things, we have integrated two influences -- the Christian practice of the West of remembering our departed loved ones, and the older Asian practice of ancestor worship. This makes us part of a larger community, the rituals of which continue to find expression in our culture.

let there be light!

2007-10-28T18:34:00.000+08:00

Speaking of being earth friendly, I came across an interesting cartoon about the incandescent light bulb. Well, I must admit, I never knew there was anything wrong with these light bulbs. But, as the cartoon says, it's so 19th century!

See for yourself:

With thanks to Mike Adams for the illumining idea, and to NewsTarget for the use of the cartoon.

earth-friendly elections

2007-10-27T19:41:00.000+08:00

I think we Filipinos have a tendency to overdo things. It's the pandesal mentality at work, the principle behind it being saturation. Take our business establishments, for example. A few years ago, it was pearl shakes -- when the pearl shake business was doing well, there was a pearl shake stall every few hundred meters near residential areas. Nowadays, it's coffee. On almost every street corner in middle- to upper middle-class neighborhoods, you're sure to find a coffee shop. Where there's a call center or commercial area, there will be more than one.

The same principle is at work during election season, when candidates compete for our attention in every possible way. Not an inch of approved space is wasted in hanging posters, streamers, and banners. Campaign jingles blare over and over from loudspeakers. Flyers, pocket calendars, cardboard fans and visors are given away. On election day itself, the precinct grounds get littered with discarded sample ballots.

Besides the stress on our well being from the visual and aural pollution -- because even just the sight of clutter and the noise, of course, do add to one's stress levels -- there is the stress on the environment. If each candidate were to produce some 5,000 (a low estimate) each of their flyers, posters, streamers, pocket calendars, stickers, and other printed campaign materials, how many kilos of newsprint, matte, or sticker paper would it all add up to? How many trees? How many cans of ink? Multiply that by the number of candidates, and you'll get a good idea of how much paper is consumed in the process -- and consequently, how much waste ends up in our landfills.

But that's not all. That is just campaign material. Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez has this to say about the trash this election would generate on the side of the campaign workers alone:

There are 41,995 barangays all over the country. There will be 16 elective positions up for grabs, with each elective position attracting at least one candidate - most will be fought over by two or more. If each candidate - assuming each position will have two contenders (unlikely as some have as many as 5 or 6), and that each contender has 20 campaign workers (barangays have a minimum of 2 thousand inhabitants, and each candidate is allowed 1 campaign worker for every hundred) working for 9 days (campaign runs from the 19th to the 27th), and eating 3 squares out of one styro pack and one plastic bottle, by the 28th of October we will have 6,531,062,400 styro packs and 6,531,062,400 plastic water bottles to dispose of, all over the country. And that’s not even counting the candy wrappers and the plastic baggies (and drinking straws) used to sell soda in, and the torn up plastic packs of various junk food.

A different kind of campaign was launched by the EcoWaste Coalition before the May elections -- a campaign for waste-free elections. Undoubtedly, the May elections were dirtier -- I'm speaking in terms of waste here -- but it would be good to review the guidelines for the prevention and reduction of waste.

With climate change inevitable, we should start voting along the lines of which candidate has a sound platform for zero waste or otherwise earth-friendly policies.

Read Jimenez' post here. And read more about the EcoWaste Coalition's campaign for waste-free elections here.

pinoy, and proud

2007-08-06T23:25:00.000+08:00

This is the winning entry in the Proudly Pinoy competition.

I had forgotten all about this until today. Reviewing the entries, it was interesting how the concepts of being Pinoy (Filipino) and of pride were translated as badges.

What makes a Filipino proud? What makes one proud to be a Filipino?

To all the participants, thank you for reminding us of our being Pinoy.

And to the organizers of the competition, thank you for the badge.

self, identity, existence

2007-07-11T10:24:00.000+08:00

Everyone has a story to tell.

Maybe my college friend, poet Ralph Semino Galan, was right when he said -- with apologies to René Descartes -- "I write, therefore I am."

Now, millions of people find their own little nook in cyberspace to tell their stories, assert their identities, define their existence. Their mantra -- again, apologies to Descartes, and also now to Ralph -- "I blog, therefore I am."

Blogging is different things to different people: a liberating experience, an exercise in democracy, and for some, a ritual for healing and self-expression. But as all these -- by no means a definitive list, I'm sure -- does blogging define us? Has it become a measure of identity and existence?

I ask this each time I have the urge to blog. The precious minutes of downtime that can be used for rest or study, I blog away. Not necessarily here, as I have more than one blog, as many bloggers do. The point is that we have associated ourselves so much with our blogs and with the act (and art) of blogging that to some, it is utterly unthinkable not to blog.

Of course, we are bigger than our blogs, our blog topics, and even blogosphere in general. The snippets of life that we manage to capture and note down, recorded in cyberspace -- virtual air, a system of 1's and 0's -- are precious, fleeting, and almost ethereal. But that's all they are: snippets. Life is too big to be encapsulated in a blog. It is too simple to be rendered as code, and too complex to be confined to bytes.

Simply put, a blog may be proof of one's existence -- not unlike a composer being remembered for his music or a painter being known for her art. Seen in this way, we are not only what we blog -- we are when we blog. We are as good as our blogs, with blog stats as our yardstick. We measure our worth by the number of blogs and sites linked to us. Badges and widgets, we wear with pride.

What then, if we are unable to maintain our blogs? Abandoned blogs -- are they like the "old, abandoned shells" in Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince? The prince said there's nothing sad about old, abandoned shells. Can the same be said for abandoned blogs?

What happens to a blog or a site when its owner passes away? Julia Campbell's blog and the MySpace and FaceBook sites of the Virginia Tech students killed last April -- these are indelible proof of lives now gone. They're all that's left of a measure of space-time once spent on this earth. And for us who never knew them, they're desperate ways of connecting, getting to know, and paying tribute.

All this is a long way of saying that this blog may end up like theirs -- abandoned, for a time, as I give up blogging. At least while I work on completing my Master's Project -- which, again, is just another piece of who I am, proof of a facet or phase of my life as MA student.

I may use this blog to take note of my research... but only if time will allow it.

Everyone has a story to tell. And I have a story to write.

faith in media

2007-07-10T12:45:00.000+08:00

One night last week, I was chatting with my friend when he said, "Minsan iniisip ko... may naniniwala pa ba sa news? (Sometimes I think... does anyone still believe the news?)"

This intrigued me, so I asked him if it meant he doesn't read/watch/listen to the news anymore -- or if he knows anyone who doesn't.

He thought about it for a while, and said no.

But I knew what he meant -- and I knew he wasn't alone in his sentiment. It wasn't the news he doubted. It was those who report it.

various reactions, one thread
People's distrust for and disenchantment with media are rooted in many things. The feeling that traditional or mainstream media "just don't get it" is one. Sensationalized news is another. "Envelopmental" journalism and other corrupt media practices are yet another.

Filipinos' reactions to media are varied. We are enamored by media personalities -- thus those huge billboards with newscasters advertising the latest product or service -- or distrustful and wary of them. There are Filipinos who applaud journalists and media practitioners, and those who think that anyone with a press card is "dirty." Some have taken advantage of the media to gain mileage and influence. And others, regrettably, have gone as far as to silence members of the press to keep the truth from coming out.

In all these reactions, however, lies a common thread: the recognition that journalists and media practitioners function in the public sphere. Whatever information the media receive, whatever news they gather, is meant for the public. It goes out in the form of a news report or feature that is published or broadcast. The media act as our eyes and ears. They report to us a world that is beyond our immediate sphere of existence.

the need to know
The need to know what's going on in the world or even in our immediate circle is basic. We express this need whenever we greet one another by saying, "What's up?" or "Ano'ng balita?" -- roughly, "What's new?"

The mass media fulfill this need -- or are supposed to, at least. But if we are dissatisfied with the media, then we will increasingly turn to other sources of information and news. With the Internet, we can get news and information from more sources now than we had ever dreamed. And with mobile phones, we can get it much faster than we had ever imagined.

If my friend's sentiment is indicative of how majority of young Filipinos today regard the media, I wonder if faith can be restored. Maybe it's time to reexamine how the media do their job -- and even what job it is they're supposed to do. Otherwise, the mainstream media could lose their audience to the Internet and mobile technology.

news?

2007-07-04T18:25:00.000+08:00

Over a million people watched this particular video on YouTube.

What a statement this reporter made. I can't quite imagine this happening on Philippine television, though.

pinoys on the web

2007-06-27T12:34:00.000+08:00

My "Proudly Pinoy Blog" badge (to the right of the screen) will soon get a replacement.

A competition to design a "Proudly Pinoy" logo to be used without charge on Filipino-owned web sites and blogs was recently launched.

The organizers of this competition, which ends on 11 July, no doubt realize the importance of establishing a distinct Pinoy identity on the web.

Displaying this badge on your site or blog is the virtual equivalent of planting the country's flag atop a mountain. But more than being a symbol of Pinoy pride, the badge identifies you as a member of the community of online Filipinos.

How many Filipinos own web sites? How many are bloggers? The number can't be that big, considering that as of last year, there were only a little over seven million Internet users in the Philippines. That's about nine percent of our total population.

But consider this: for such a small nation, we are on the Internet map. Pinoys are on the Internet and not just as consumers, but more importantly, as producers -- whether as web designers outsourced by foreign companies, or as bloggers whose hits come from all over the world.

So a "Proudly Pinoy" badge makes sense.

The winning designer will get P10,000 (a little more than $200). As of this post, 71 entries have been submitted and can be seen on the site.

she loves me, she loves me not...

2007-06-22T22:13:00.000+08:00

As I write this, Asia News Network associate editor and former Bandillo ng Palawan editor-in-chief Jofelle Tesorio is free again.

She was released after some 10 hours in prison. Why was she even there, to begin with, considering that she had already posted bail?

love-hate relationship
This happened just a day after the newspaper headlines screamed that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was seeking the media's help in the last leg of her presidency. It makes one wonder about her relationship with the Philippine press -- a love-hate relationship, to my mind.

I still remember that infamous press conference that members of the Foreign Correspondents' Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) were banned from attending. FOCAP members observed that not even the late President Marcos did such a thing.

Then came Proclamation 1017, which placed the country under a state of emergency. Though it lasted for just a week, it was enough to create a chilling effect. The office of The Daily Tribune was raided, and a military presence was established in other media organizations.

change of heart
And of course who can forget the First Gentleman's libel suits against some 40 journalists last year? These were all magnanimously dropped after Mr. Arroyo's successful heart surgery in April this year. Looks like he had a sudden change of heart (sorry, I couldn't resist the pun).

But he wasn't the only one. On 15 June, the Philippine Daily Inquirer carried a story about the President promising "to end the killing of journalists and protect them from libel suits and arbitrary arrest." She also called upon all journalists to join hands with her administration "in mutual trust and common purpose so that all the violence will be stopped."

Since Ms. Arroyo assumed office in 2001, 51 journalists have been killed.

ask not what the media can do...
This is undoubtedly a president who knows what the media can do for her and her administration.

She is aware that the media can play a huge role in the downfall of a president, as it did in the case of her predecessor. She knows how relentlessly the press can pursue a story to uncover the truth, as what happened in the "Hello, Garci" affair. And she feels the watchful gaze of international media and human rights organization who are determined to make her administration accountable for infringements on the freedom of the press.

Is she now eager to show what she can do for the media?

relief
The Philippine press heaved a collective sigh of relief as Jofelle walked out of detention in Quezon City. Whether this relief is temporary and short-lived will depend on whether the President makes good her promise to put a stop to the killing, suing, and arresting of journalists.

Read more about Jofelle's arrest here.

the bugo-bugo in the senado

2007-06-20T13:36:00.000+08:00

Along with Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, there are three newly elected retired or otherwise former military officers and graduates of the Philippine Military Academy in our Senate: Panfilo Lacson and Gregorio Honasan (PMA '71) and Antonio Trillanes (PMA '95).

I was able to catch the first part of the recent edition of ANC's "Strictly Politics" with all of these cavaliers (as PMA'ers are called) as guests, except for Trillanes. The fact that there are four of them in the Senate has become a cause for recent concern and discomfort. The presence of former military officers in the Cabinet and other areas of public service, and now in the Senate -- what is this, some kind of club? Unfortunately, the proverbial fuel was added to the fire with the statement of one of them, editorialized in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a few days ago, that essentially -- yes, there is some sort of club.

My interest is the commonality among the four. What binds them together is the PMA experience -- the discipline, the values, and the lessons learned within the walls of Fort del Pilar as well as out on the field. It is not necessarily the same experience, but the bond exists, forged by a code of conduct we can only wonder about. Yet, is this bond enough for them not to go head to head over matters that may arise in the future?

Belongingness, as I mentioned in my previous post, stems from such commonalities. They all are PMA graduates, and so we can assume that to some extent, they shared one community. But years after the PMA, and with years apart among them (except for Honasan and Lacson, who were classmates) -- were their communities still the same? Was Biazon's cadet life the same or at least comparable to Trillanes'? What about Lacson and Honasan, mistahs though they are, did they experience the same military experiences after leaving the PMA?

I wanted to see where the discussion was going, but didn't have much time to watch. I stayed long enough to hear Sen. Honasan say that in the Senate, it's the national agenda they are pushing, not the agenda of the bugo-bugo -- a term of endearment used at first for plebes, and later, for fellow PMA'ers. Can we trust their definitions of the national agenda, considering the very different personalities and alignments of the four? All of them were involved in their own different interpretations of service to the nation at some point in their careers -- whether mutiny, coup d'etat, or defense.

Commonalities or not, their first duty -- as well as that of the other senators, for that matter -- is in the exercise of their responsibilities as elected senators. It is to the public, the people that elected them, that they must prove themselves and be accountable. Not to the PMA, as institution and community, and certainly not to the bugo-bugo.

belonging

2007-06-15T23:35:00.000+08:00

Today, I went to school and waited for my turn to have some papers processed. I was one of only three graduate students in the waiting area, apparent not only by our dress, but also by the fact that we three were the only ones unaccompanied by friends -- and therefore, the only ones who were quiet. Most interesting was the conversation going on around us during that wait. Everyone was speaking in English. If anyone spoke in Pilipino, it was with a distinct non-Filipino accent, or it was actually Taglish.

One guy was engaged in a particularly loud and annimated conversation with another guy. His speech was peppered with four-letter words:

...and then, you know, this guy was beating the **** out of him! He was really like... wow, man... **** talaga!

Sitting there, I felt a bit out of place, not just because of the difference in age -- I'm almost sure these kids would call me "ma'am" or say "po" when talking to me -- but because of the difference in language.

I got the same feeling not long ago, before a recent trip up north (part of which I blogged about here). Standing in line to get a ticket at the bus station, I felt as if I were no longer in Manila. The dispatcher and everyone in line ahead of me were transacting business in Ilocano. One could tell that this bus was bound for the north, where Ilocano is spoken; in fact, this bus company made trips only to that part of the country.

Again, the language was a hindrance. I could understand snatches of conversation, but on the whole, it was a different culture altogether. Similarly, though the teenagers in the first incident were speaking in a language I understood very well, the difference in how we used this language was the key.

These experiences represent two different communities -- that of the undergraduate students of that particular university, and that of the Ilocano speakers. A community assumes many things. A shared language is one of them. With close to 200 dialects spoken in the Philippines, is it any wonder that regionalism exists? A given locality can speak more than one dialect or language, in fact, and this makes it all the more challenging.

More than a shared language, a community also involves shared ideas and the shaping of a common world view. In particular, I refer to a discourse community -- one in which participation means the use of jargon or terms and, at the very least, familiarity with the written and spoken train of thought unique to the community. The world view of that male teenager who spoke English as an American his age might, for instance, would be entirely different from that of the bus company dispatcher who spoke Ilocano and perhaps very little Tagalog or even Pilipino. Even if they lived in the same locality, their very perceptions of that locality would be different.

What language could the Philippines lay claim to as a national language? What world view would this language produce and represent? In my experience, when some residents of Asipulo wanted to communicate with me, they did so in English. This may represent the hopes and aspirations of many Filipinos, but certainly not their daily experience.

If there are as many world views as there are tribes and dialects in our country, what is to define our sense of belonging? When national events unfold and are represented and reported in media in a language that a great many people cannot relate to or worse, do not understand, belongingness must be found in other forms, through other commonalities.

mabuhay!

2007-06-12T19:04:00.001+08:00

I'm posting this video of Lupang Hinirang as a reminder that Philippine society is far from perfect.

Not all our presidents were great. Not all our heroes were selfless. Not all our athletes bring home the gold. Not all our public servants are noble. Not all our families are happy and intact. And not all our babies are healthy and well cared for.

It will take some time before we are rid of all our ills and become the people we want to be.

In the meantime, we are free. And while we are free, there is hope.

Mabuhay!

a real community

2007-06-07T16:54:00.001+08:00

In his book Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, anthropologist Benedict Anderson defines a nation as "an imagined political community":

It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.... (A)ll communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact (and perhaps even these) are imagined. Communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined....

The nation is imagined as limited because even the largest of them encompassing perhaps a billion living human beings, has finite, if elastic boundaries, beyond which lie other nations. No nation imagines itself coterminous with mankind. The most messianic nationalists do not dream of a day when all the members of the human race will join their nation in the way that it was possible, in certain epochs, for, say, Christians to dream of a wholly Christian planet....

Finally, it is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. Ultimately it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries, for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited imaginings.

I remembered this a few days ago as I looked out over the mountains of Ifugao Province, en route by tricycle to the municipality of Asipulo from Kiangan. The trip was nearly an hour over roads that were thankfully concrete in some places, rough and bumpy in most, and generally winding up and down through some of the prettiest views I had ever seen in my life.

The farmers who hosted our stay in Sitio Pula and the locals who guided us through the thick mountain forest -- what did I have in common with them? Not geographic location, nor way of life, nor language. The place I've called home for most of my life seems a world away from here; the dialect I speak (Tagalog) is foreign to these people. The mountain trail that took me a painful hour to traverse (and not without their help and patience, I might add), they breeze through in half or even a quarter of that time. Indeed, we measure time differently -- they, by seasons of planting and harvest, and I, by semesters and projects.

They would probably never understand what I do -- how I can spend up to hours in front of a computer in my little room, my dependence on an unseen yet powerful thing called the Internet that travels through cables and allows me to reach out to other members of a community not only imagined but also perhaps previously unheard of. In the same way, try as I might, I would probably never fully grasp what life on a mountain is really like -- how to read the signs of the sky and the earth, how to live in harmony with Nature and with other beings who make the mountain their home.

But in our minds, did "the image of our communion" already exist even before we met? Did we each imagine that hundreds and thousands of kilometers away from our homes were people who led lives the polar opposite of our own? They, Ifugao, and I, Manileña -- did we see ourselves as actually sharing a nationality, a Filipino-ness? Did the fact that we are both Filipino -- a term that signifies membership in this imagined community -- compel us to appreciate each other before we had even met? And having met, did we find that we shared more than what we had ever imagined?

In Asipulo, I was in a totally different place from where I live, in a situation I would not quite have imagined myself to be, amid people who were strangers to me. Yet, I felt I belonged, perhaps because this place was part of my nation -- imagined or not -- but more importantly, because the people recognized in me a co-member in a very real community called mankind.

And recognizing me as such, the people of Asipulo reached out to me, as I did to them, shared their food and their homes, offered me a glimpse into their lives -- and simply made me feel welcome.

the peace agenda

2007-06-01T12:19:00.000+08:00

One of the topics I've been thinking of focusing on when I do my master's project is peace journalism, or the peace initiatives of Philippine media. Obviously, this is still very broad, but my interest in this stems from the idealistic notion that journalists can contribute to peace as they go about their work.

Ten years ago, the term "peace journalism" first came into use when Professor John Galtung of Peace Studies and Peace Research lectured at the Summer School at Taplow Court in the UK. Since then, the term has been used to both refer to and recognize approaches to reporting conflict that focus on peace initiatives, and ultimately, promote nonviolence.

This is not to say that peace journalism is new. I remember Carol Arguillas of MindaNews saying that she'd been practising journalism from a peace perspective for years without knowing that there was a name for it. Indeed, the term "peace journalism" can be applied to any journalist's efforts to report on war or conflict situations guided by conscience and from the desire to bring about change.

The history of wars and other conflicts played out throughout the world shows proof of the media's role in either perpetuating such conflicts or helping to end them. The truth is, we have gotten so used to the "conflict frame" -- "A versus B" or "us versus them," a two-dimensional, myopic approach that tends to pit a protagonist against a sometimes unwitting antagonist -- that we forget that there are other options, other angles, and other players. The coverage of the Subic rape case, for example, was done mostly from the frame of "Nicole" versus Daniel Smith, female versus male, or even the Philippines versus the US. Other media practitioners did well to go a step further, and reported on the impact of the Balikatan exercises in general, the Visiting Forces Agreement, and the history of crimes committed by US military personnel while here.

A conflict frame ends up justifying the conflict in the guise of rallying the public in support of the cause, and soon leads to divisiveness. This is what happened during the Vietnam War, when the media were initially manipulated for the purposes of propaganda. We see this locally as well, with the use of such terms as "Muslim rebels" or "Muslim extremists" by the media, reflecting a bias against those who are not of the dominant religion. Though perhaps done unconsciously, it is unfair and damaging. Why not "Catholic murderer" or "Protestant corrupt official" then?

Peace journalism provides a more holistic approach to the coverage of conflict, one that considers all sides without making judgments, focuses on the goals of the different parties, and allows for solutions. Where there is war or any sort of conflict or violence, there is the opportunity for journalists to report from such a perspective. Doing so sends a strong message to the audience and will go a long way in contributing to peace. But beyond the presence of war or conflict, peace journalism can be practised anytime -- as a conscious effort to prevent future conflict, no matter what the status quo.

advantage: internet

2007-05-31T22:59:00.000+08:00

It's still a source of both amazement and amusement to me that from time to time, whenever I open my email, I'm offered links to articles from publications such as the International Herald Tribune or the New York Times. There was a time when I would never have had access to these publications -- and now, here they are, as accessible as anything, thanks to AdSense!

Getting news on the Internet has perks such as this. And though it is a new experience, to me, the use of the Internet as a news medium is a matter of course. In the days when radio fulfilled the need for speed, families gathered around it to listen to the news; why wait for the morning paper when you could hear the news in real time? Then came television, which not only proved to be instant but also more engaging and appealing. Hearing and seeing the news as it unfolded became more than a novelty. It became plain necessity. Not content with regularly scheduled news programs, we demanded hourly news updates, and from there, 24/7 cable news was born.

Which brings me back to the Internet. It is fast, it is capable of multisensory news delivery, and it is available 24/7. But more importantly, it is affordable. It has leveled the playing field for news organizations: small players can have as much (and as credible) of an online presence as the bigger establishments. Mainstream media organizations benefit from the Internet, but more so the alternative media -- those who would not have a fighting chance in the arena of print or broadcast, both of which are costly to manage and maintain.

The Internet's "free-for-all" nature, however, presents a challenge, especially for small organizations. This challenge is to stand out. It's a competition to capture and hold the reader's attention. After all, the Internet is for anyone and everyone with an agenda. Whether you are selling or buying, preaching or searching, educating or learning -- you can make the Internet work for you. Interestingly enough, it is the small groups -- more than the big players, who can provide variety in their news reports -- who use the Internet well. Mainstream media organizations, despite their resources and opportunities for expansion and skills training, seem stuck in providing nothing more than shovelware. Visit the web site of any major Filipino news agency, compare it with the day's print version, and you'll see what I mean.

But for organizations with no print version, the Internet provides a liberating experience. No more nagging anxiety that your story may be cut -- or worse, axed altogether -- due to lack of space. No more waiting for the following day to get your story out, or to publish an erratum. You get the benefit of multimedia capability and interactivity as well.

Hands down, the advantage seems to belong to the Internet. Traditionalists will argue that the Internet is a cold medium; there are rituals of getting your news from print or broadcast that the Internet will never be able to provide. Most of these rituals have to do with a sense of socialization or of having a common experience -- such as reading the morning news at the breakfast table, for instance. Or gathering around the radio or TV set with your family. However, iIn parts of the country where the literacy rate is low or there is no electricity, radio remains the medium of choice.)

Will the Internet ever replace print, radio, or TV as the news medium of choice? To be sure, there are many factors that will determine this. But on the whole, the Internet has greatly aided the delivery of news and the journalistic imperative. It has certainly changed things, and in a lot of ways, made things easier and more convenient. Journalists must take advantage of this and harness all that the Internet can offer. Ultimately, it can change the way news is presented and delivered -- and journalists must upgrade their skills and learn to view the news in light of convergence.

Shovelware or convergence? The choice is really up to journalists. The Internet is a liberating new medium, but writing and planning for it is not without its challenges. One thing I can say a journalist might miss is having something to clip and frame or paste in a scrapbook.

real people power

2007-05-14T23:00:00.000+08:00

This year's election has left more than 100 people dead since the campaign started -- 114, according to Inquirer.net, and 116, according to International Herald Tribune. Five of these people were killed today alone.

These figures are lower than those for the 2004 elections. And though still not violence-free, elections 2007 has already been called peaceful and clean. Hopefully, this is not a premature proclamation.

Despite the violence, this has been more of a democratic exercise than ever. Inquirer.net's election coverage includes a blog site that accepts posts from readers, while on ANC, photo and video contributions from citizen journalists have been encouraged in TV spots that sell the idea of going beyond voter education to "voter empowerment."

And in the end, that's what this is all about: putting the power back into the people's hands. It is about the voter -- the Filipino -- his voice, his hope. It is about how empowered he feels and how much he values his vote, despite -- or maybe, more properly, because of -- the killings, the cheating, and the politician's promises.

Let us hope the people elected today never forget this.

two books

2007-05-11T19:19:00.000+08:00

On 3 May, the Philippine media watchdog group Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) launched the primer Philippine Press Freedom Primer: Quick Answers to Your Questions at a forum on press freedom in Jakarta, Indonesia. The forum was organized jointly by the Unesco, the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) Indonesia, and the Indonesian Press Council.

The book contains information on laws that affect press freedom, and the codes of ethics of the country's various press organizations. It should be a valuable resource for students, researchers, and even the general public.

Back home in Manila, another book was launched, also on 3 May. Blood on Their Hands: Infanticide in India and Other Stories was launched at the Diamond Hotel at the Konrad Adenauer Asian Center for Journalism (ACFJ) at the Ateneo de Manila University's Second Emerging Leaders in Asia Forum.

Blood on Their Hands can be described as a book of firsts: it is actually a compilation of excerpts from the Master's Projects of ACFJ's first batch of MA Journ students, and is the first in ACFJ's "Projects in Asian Journalism" series.

With these books, as with books previously published on the topic, it is hoped that the standards of journalism in the Philippines and in the region can continue to be both reviewed and upheld.

world press freedom day 2007

2007-05-03T01:07:00.000+08:00

In 1993, the United Nations General Assembly first proclaimed 3 May of every year to be a day to celebrate the freedom of the press.

More than ever, these are dangerous times to be a journalist. According to the Unesco, the Iraq War has been "the deadliest conflict for media professionals since the Second World War" -- with 137 journalists and media staff killed in the line of duty since the war began.

Other circumstances, not only war, can present danger to journalists. Journalists are not spared from election-related violence, for instance. The ambush of PDI's Delfin Mallari, Jr. and DZMM's Johnny Glorioso is a clear example; more so, the murder of DZRB's Carmelo Palacios just the day before.

Even in "peace-time" Philippines, journalists are ambushed on the road, shot on their way home from work. Worse, they are killed with impunity in their own homes, in the presence of their families.

Anywhere journalists are killed for doing their jobs, thrown in prison from speaking out, or bribed to shut them up -- the press is not free. The irony is that anywhere these crimes are committed, the press is most needed.

Here's to a free press, and a free world!

dr. stephen quinn in manila

2007-04-29T18:03:00.000+08:00

When Australian author and journalism professor Stephen Quinn -- who also happens to be our Convergent Journalism professor -- came for a brief visit in March, my classmate Erwin Oliva managed to squeeze in some questions on his ongoing projects and his take on technology in Asia and in the Philippines, in particular.

It was an interesting interview, with Dr. Quinn discussing "the future for journalism" in the Philippines. True to the concept of convergent journalism, the whole Q&A was captured on video via Erwin's mobile phone. Watch the full interview below:

With thanks to Erwin for letting me use this.

the new battleground

2007-04-27T22:50:00.000+08:00

The Internet seems to have become a new battleground for this election's candidates.

It seems logical for candidates who lack the machinery or the numbers -- or both -- to use the Internet for their campaign. Blogs in particular are free, easy to maintain and update, and accessible even to Filipinos outside the country. Perhaps more importantly, they cater to a new audience, the informed citizenry, the online activists who are engaged and empowered to make changes.

Kapatiran senatorial candidate Martin Bautista for one, a virtual unknown, maintains a blog called On My Way Home. It begins with a blog post titled "My First Blog Post" on 18 January 2006, and is updated regularly. What makes this blog noteworthy is that it is true to the nature of blogs. It is a faithful chronicle of Bautista's journey back to the Philippines, including his personal insights, hopes, doubts, and misgivings. One can picture Bautista blogging away at his computer at the end of a long day, despite his busy schedule.

Contrast this with the blog of another senatorial candidate, Tessie Aquino-Oreta of Team Unity. Unlike Bautista's blog, Oreta's blog's title, Tessie sa Senado! says it all. But again, unlike Bautista's blog, which is religiously maintained, Oreta's contains only one post, entitled "Why blog? Why education?" dated 28 March 2007. On the other hand, it looks and feels suspiciously like the blog of Tito Sotto, another Team Unity candidate, entitled Tito Sotto sa Senado! and containing only one blog post, from around the same time.

I have yet to see the other candidates' blogs, but this is just an example. If one were to vote based on blogs alone, Bautista would win, hands down. On the other hand, Oreta and Sotto can certainly afford not to have a blog, as they both have the resources for a full-blown, tri-media campaign. But only one post?

This makes me wonder what the Comelec says on the use of blogs for the campaign. If there are no restrictions on this as yet, it would be interesting to see how this year's elections might change that.

the media's choices in the coverage of the virginia tech shooting

2007-04-21T21:53:00.000+08:00

In times of crisis and tragedy, the challenge to media organizations remains the same: aside from adhering to the basic tenets of journalism, reporters and decision makers must exercise greater sensitivity and responsibility in their reportage.

The Virginia Tech shooting last Monday was certainly no exception.

But if in the past, the challenge would mostly revolve around getting a reporter or crew to the scene and transmitting footage as quickly as possible, the shooting presented challenges we would not have even had to consider in previous years.

unique challenges
For one, citizen journalism played a large part in how the shooting was reported. CNN's now familiar footage of the incident taken from a cellphone camera was courtesy of Virginia Tech undergrad Jamal Albarghouti. While a bit shaky and below broadcast quality, the footage put CNN's viewers on the scene. The message: Albarghouti was there. Not a single reporter or cameraman from a mainstream media organization was.

But there's more. On Wednesday, NBC received a package containing materials from the gunman, Virginia Tech student Cho Seung-Hui, portions of which they aired on NBC Nightly News. A video showed Cho ranting, while photos showed him in various "Rambo"-like poses, pointing a gun at the camera.

media response
Citizen journalism draws mixed reactions from professional journalists. Armed only with digital cameras and mobile phones, citizen journalists might find themselves in the same kind of danger more experienced ones might be more prepared for. Does this make them heroes? Without them, what would we know, see, or hear of the Virginia Tech shooting?

Albarghouti was the world's eyes and ears in those moments. He documented those moments as he perhaps thought a good citizen -- any citizen -- should do. And he turned in his footage online via CNN's I-Reports. It was his choice to make -- one for which he reportedly got paid, after CNN used his footage on the air.

The case is the same with the NBC footage. It was a choice. Though Steve Capus, president of NBC News, assures us that the decision to air photographs and parts of the video was "not taken lightly," is it one we will remember if a similar incident takes place in the future? Remember that Cho's model was Columbine. Besides being disturbing and graphic, could the images -- and the fact that they've been aired countless times -- turn Cho into a misunderstood underdog kind of hero in some way?

Sure, the airing of Cho's material might allow us some insight that may aid in identifying future gunmen, but would it help us prevent such carnage in the future? What are the effects on viewers -- on one hand, the families of the victims, the survivors; and on the other, children, extremists, the mentally and emotionally disturbed?

It may be a long shot, but NBC's airing of Cho's material can be compared to giving in to a hostage taker's demands. It is an attention-getting device, a call for attention. Nowhere among Cho's material can an apology be found; no mea culpa, no confession, no remorse. Instead we find reasons -- a man justifying his actions by hate, anger, and the need to act out his aggression. It is distressing and painful to watch.

we, the audience
All of this brings us back to the audience. What does this kind of coverage say about the audience? Are we starved for speed and scoops? Why did Albarghouti's footage sell? Would we make the same decision he made?

There are more questions, none of them easy: Is it all just part of the mad scramble for ratings? Do we really, truly want to watch the rantings of a killer and know why on God's earth he conceived of and carried out such an act? Do we really want to get inside the minds of such criminals? What kind of coverage do we really want?

In times of crisis and tragedy, what do the media think we, the audience, want? Judging by their response to the Virginia Tech shooting, it is clear: we all had to be there at that moment, and we all had to be the gunman too.

blogging history

2007-04-10T23:59:00.000+08:00

While the Sydney Morning Herald counted 10 years of blogging yesterday (click here for the story), the real score -- according to New York Magazine -- is 13.

The magazine's timeline of the history of blogging names Justin Hall's links.net as the first blog ever published. The year: 1994.

But ironically, Hall -- the man hailed by the New York Times Magazine as "the founding father of personal blogging" -- said goodbye to blogging in 2005. (Read the whole tearful story here.)

Today, Technorati counts 71 million blogs. For all the junk that is actually out there, there are good blogs, those that are useful and worth reading.

Blogs. Hard to imagine life without 'em.

more notes

2007-04-01T12:15:00.000+08:00

Though the semester is officially ending, this blog will continue. Or at least try to.

Thanks to Stephen Quinn for the encouragement. If not for the Convergent Journ course and the required blogging, I would not have become comfortable enough with the medium.

more on "the techie nun"

2007-02-22T09:36:00.000+08:00

Watch an interview with Sr. Judith on Robert Scoble's "Scoble Show," here.

high-tech habits

2007-02-19T23:34:00.000+08:00

At the LIFT conference concluded a few days ago, one of the stars of the show was a nun -- Sr. Judith Zoebelein, editorial director of the Internet Office of the Holy See. In short, Sr. Judith -- a fiftysomething American nun -- is the Vatican's web mistress.

Despite wearing a nun's habit, Sr. Judith breaks the stereotype of nuns being uncool and hopelessly outdated, if not ignorant, when it comes to technology. Not only that -- her job situates her at the helm of a typically male-dominated field in a very patriarchal system. No wonder the other LIFT participants such as Robert Scoble, the prolific blogger formerly with Microsoft, just had to sit down with her for a side interview.

But the interesting thing about Sr. Judith is her take on the Internet. She believes in using the Net to build communities -- not just online communities, but real ones. In an interview with BusinessWeek last year, she was said to be working on a site that would bring Catholics together, a sort of "MySpace.com for Catholics," as the article said.

This is similar to one of the aims of journalism. When done well, journalism engages its audience and makes them citizens in the true sense of the word. Combine this with the power, speed, and convenience of the Internet, and you have a truly global online community.

As I've said before, when you strip the Internet of all its bells and whistles, what you'll get is a tool for communication and information dissemination. It lends itself to journalistic ends because of this. Sr. Judith, in the BusinessWeek interview, talks about connecting and using the same technology, albeit for a different purpose:

"For (Sr. Judith), the Net is the ultimate way to reach millions of people and to connect them with their deity. 'It's about something much bigger than myself, and it's also very Franciscan: You can touch it, you can change it, and you can touch people with it,' she says."

Does Sr. Judith have a blog, you ask? Unfortunately, the answer is no.

blogging gone global

2007-02-12T20:17:00.000+08:00

In case the power of blogging hasn’t sunk in yet, or if you’re one of those in denial, check out Global Voices Online.

Here are some excerpts from a case study I did:

Global Voices Online (www.globalvoicesonline.org) is a “citizens’ media” project (Global Voices Online, 2006) that networks bloggers from some 160 countries around the world. Existing purely online, it makes use of a blog and other Internet technologies to enable interaction and discussion among bloggers. Most of the bloggers are from or in countries underreported by mainstream media -- i.e. countries outside North America and parts of Europe.

The project took off from a meeting of bloggers entitled “Global Voices Online: Blogging for Independent Journalists, Concerned Citizens, and Activists,” which was part of a conference called “Internet and Society 2004: Votes, Bits, and Bytes,” held in December 2004 and sponsored by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School. The meeting was organized by technologist Dr. Ethan Zuckerman and former CNN correspondent Rebecca MacKinnon, both research fellows at the Berkman Center.

A manifesto states the project’s core beliefs and values -- the commitment to free speech, and aims to use the power of citizens’ media in addressing the needs of people and societies marginalized or even disenfranchised by mainstream media. (Global Voices Manifesto, 2005) The Global Voices “About” page lists the following goals:

to call attention to the most interesting conversations and perspectives emerging from citizens’ media around the world by linking to text, audio, and video blogs and other forms of grassroots citizens’ media being produced by people around the world;

to facilitate the emergence of new citizens’ voices through training, online tutorials, and publicizing the ways in which open-source and free tools can be used safely by people around the world to express themselves; and

to advocate for freedom of expression around the world and to protect the rights of citizen journalists to report on events and opinions without fear of censorship or persecution.

With the estimated one million visitors the site receives monthly, many of them reporters and editors from the mainstream media, Global Voices has truly created a global blogging community. Aside from this, it has helped call attention to the parts of the world that have been underreported or marginazlied in traditional/mainstream media.

if james bond were a journalist

2007-01-27T13:28:00.000+08:00

According to Ifra, “A primary task for Mobile NewsGear 2007 is to keep journalists at a remote news scene connected to each other, to the Internet and to the newspaper office.”

The latest and most high-tech NewsGear selection is a “complete mobile online newsroom built into a Volvo XC90” -- like a TV remote broadcast van, but designed to produce news in multiple formats. This will enable journalists to drive to a live event, shoot digital video, record broadcast-quality sound, work on print stories with a laptop, scan and print to PDF -- and send everything live to a newsroom or straight to the Internet.

At our chat session a few nights ago, my classmates Nanette and Marieton, and I discussed how much this souped-up Volvo looked like something straight out of a James Bond film or that 1980s TV series Knight Rider -- or Mission Impossible, for that matter. If this vehicle were to become the newsroom of the future, it would mean infinitely more mobility and speed for the journalist, who could report in any or all platforms at any time and from anywhere -- a far cry from the days when we would have to report back to the office to file a story after a coverage on the opposite end of the city.

This mobile newsroom would streamline tasks -- but not, as I mistakenly noted during the chat, necessarily cut costs. Dr. Quinn says in Convergent Journalism, content does not cut costs in the content-producing areas:

“…(s)ome editorial managers and publishers… think that multi-skilled journalists should potentially be able to produce more news for the same or little more money. They reason that their organizations should be able to cut costs because of increased productivity -- more multi-skilled reporting means the organization needs fewer reporters. This remains one of the most popular myths about convergence.”

Could the mobile newsroom eventually render the tickler, pen, and even voice recorder obsolete? Not before journalists are trained to function in a cross-platform environment. Or at least rid themselves of their technophobia.

ever changing, ever constant

2007-01-20T20:27:00.000+08:00

For years, journalists have been in control of what the news is, and when and how the public gets it. Now, they are learning -- they have to, anyway -- that they do not have a monopoly on this.

Not everyone who blogs/moblogs is a reporter or a journalist -- or wants to be -- but bloggers/mobloggers have speed, access to sources, and low-cost, portable technology on their side. Journalists will benefit from these tools with reduced production times. More importantly, blogs/moblogs are adding a new dimension to journalism, in the form of “user-generated content.” This opens the way for a two-way flow of news, which gives journalists a new source of news and information.

It makes no sense for journalists to be in competition with bloggers or mobloggers. Nor must they become complacent and leave all the work to the blogging/moblogging public. It is important to harness the potential of blogs/moblogs in newsgathering. But more than ever, journalists must be able to make sense of all the information out there, fact-checking, framing stories, and providing context -- skills that are necessary regardless of medium. They will have to separate the chaff from the grain.

As Howard Rheingold writes in “Moblogs Seen as a Crystal Ball for a New Era in Online Journalism:”

“… the most important remaining ingredient of a truly democratized electronic newsgathering is neither a kind of hardware nor a variety of software, but a species of literacy—widespread knowledge of how to use these tools to produce news stories that are attention-getting, non-trivial, and credible.

Journalism, if it to deserve the name,… is about the journalist’s intuition, integrity, courage, inquisitiveness, analytic and expressive capabilities, and above all, the trust the journalist has earned among readers.”

Journalists must continue to exercise their conscience in their work. Ethical standards must never be compromised by speed and technology. There is nothing wrong with speed -- but “instant” should not mean “reckless.” The ability to produce instant news must be balanced by sound judgment calls.

Blogging/moblogging will continue to change the way journalists work. Nevertheless, much will remain the same.

virtually free

2007-01-17T23:29:00.000+08:00

Recently, I was chatting with a Burmese journalist in exile who works with an online Burmese news site and monitors the country’s blogosphere. A study he did just last week revealed that there are not more than 200 Burmese bloggers. Of these, only about 10 admitted to blogging from Burma. Of all Burmese blogs, less than 10 percent have political content.

According to him, the junta does not censor the blogs of those from outside Burma. Still, all bloggers -- political and otherwise -- hide their identities and take great care to go under the radar, so to speak. Censorship of the Internet in Burma is strictly and successfully accomplished, so much so that Reporters sans frontieres has included Burma in its list of 13 “enemies of the Internet” and has declared its Internet policies to be “even more repressive” than those of China and Vietnam.

Perhaps Internet restrictions have resulted in the small number of Burmese bloggers. But blogging does not necessarily indicate a free press. Take China as an example. Despite its estimated 17 million bloggers (and more than 10,000 newspapers and magazines, and 600 radio and TV stations), control of the media is still strong. Web and blog sites are either blocked or forced to shut down.

Imprisonment is another form of censure. In Burma and China, as in other countries with limited freedom of the press, any journalist working in any medium can be thrown in prison. But bloggers can be seen as a bigger threat because they work in a medium with the fastest publishing time and the widest reach. RSF maintains a list those journalists and other individuals who have been imprisoned for their Internet activities, including blogging -- 59 at last count, 50 of whom are Chinese. Some of them have been in jail since 1999.

In places where the traditional media are not free, blogging is journalism. But until bloggers can successfully evade a clampdown, they are only virtually free.

in the line of duty

2007-01-16T23:58:00.000+08:00

This is just a postscript to my earlier entry.

In the Philippines -- despite being a democracy, named by the Committee to Protect Journalists as “one of the most dangerous datelines” in 2006, second only to Iraq -- anyone might cover the conflict in Mindanao, the stampede in Quezon City, the elections in May.

But it is still the traditional or “professional” journalist receiving death threats or getting killed in the line of duty.

Of course there can be many factors behind this. I was just thinking, though, that perhaps the local blogs are not yet considered as much of a “threat” as the mainstream press.

news for all, by all

2007-01-16T23:50:00.000+08:00

Perhaps the most common argument I’ve heard against citizen journalism is in reaction to the idea that anyone can be a journalist. When you have studied and trained for years to be one, slaved as a cub reporter, covered beats, conducted interviews, and risked your life as a journalist, being told that your work can be done by anyone with a cellphone, a computer, no experience, and no training, takes some time getting used to.

Nevertheless, citizen journalism is important because it empowers the people. As Dan Gillmor writes in his book,We the Media, “Once mere consumers of news, the audience… is learning how to join the process of journalism.” Journalism has always aimed to be a forum for public discourse. Citizen journalism is proof that the public is aware and engaged. It tells us that the public wants to participate in and contribute to journalism’s watchdog role. Whether this speaks of a distrust of the press is another story.

I agree with Mark Glaser’s observation in MediaShift, that “mainstream media reporters and producers are not the exclusive center of knowledge on a subject.” Traditional journalists are not supposed to know all the answers, but acting with the public’s interest in mind, are supposed to ask the questions the audience would want to ask. Citizen journalism is the public exercising its right and its ability to ask their own questions and to document the world as they see and understand it.

Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel wrote in The Elements of Journalism: “People have an intrinsic need -- an instinct -- to know what is occurring beyond their direct experience.” Citizen journalists are born from this instinct, just as traditional journalists are. And if traditional journalists have done their job well, citizen journalists will share and exhibit the same news values. Good journalism, by whatever name and through whatever medium, should always aim for the truth.

story 2: veterans at a standstill (broadcast)

2007-01-15T22:47:00.000+08:00

Two members of the Veterans Freedom Party, or VFP, are claiming their lone party-list seat.

The seat was vacated with the passing of VFP representative Ernesto Gidaya on December 4.

The two VFP members are Estrella Santos and Rodolfo Gutang. Both were party-list nominees in the 2004 elections.

Santos is the next nominee in VFP’s list. She is qualified to take Gidaya’s place under Republic Act 7941. The said act automatically designates the next nominee to fill any vacancy in the party list.

But Gutang says the Commission on Elections, or Comelec, "cannot proclaim Santos automatically.” He says he should be the next VFP representative.

According to a VFP resolution approved in 2004 a nonveteran cannot be the party’s lone representative. The resolution also states that a nonveteran “who would have qualified is considered resigned or should resign his position.”

Santos is a nonveteran, while Gutang is a retired constabulary general.

The VFP seat remains vacant pending a decision by the Comelec.

story 2: veterans at a standstill (print)

2007-01-15T22:43:00.000+08:00

MANILA, 11 December – The passing of Rep. Ernesto Gidaya, party-list representative of the Veterans Freedom Party (VFP), on 4 December, has left the party’s future uncertain.

Two VFP members are claiming Gidaya’s seat in the House of Representatives.

The position remains vacant, pending a decision by the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

If Republic Act 7941, also known as the “Party-List System Act,” is to be observed, the vacancy should be occupied by Estrella Santos, next on VFP’s list of nominees. Santos, a nonveteran, is a member of the Sons and Daughters Association, Inc. (SDAI), an organization of veterans’ children.

According to a VFP resolution, however, the party cannot be represented by a nonveteran. Under this resolution, Rodolfo Gutang, a retired constabulary general, will take over.

only one seat
During the 2004 elections, the VFP earned one seat in the House of Representatives.

Gidaya, who headed VFP’s list of nominees, occupied the lone seat. The second nominee, World War II veteran Atty. Andres Bustamante, passed away in January 2006. The other nominees are Santos, Gutang, and retired general Vicente Buenaventura.

Section 16 of the Party-List System Act states that, “in case of vacancy in the seats reserved for party-list representatives, the vacancy shall be automatically filled by the next representative from the list of nominees in the order submitted to the Comelec by the same party, organization, or coalition, who shall serve for the unexpired term.”

Under this law, Santos would take over as party-list representative.

But in an interview, Gutang said, “The Comelec cannot proclaim Santos automatically.”

In a memo to the Comelec, Gutang cited VFP Resolution BT 04-04, approved in 2004, which states: “In the event that only one nominee is qualified and proclaimed by the Comelec to represent VFP, that nominee should be a veteran.” It further states: “The non-veteran who would have qualified is considered resigned or should resign his position.”

Santos could not be reached for comment.

on hold
Gutang said the Comelec has to study the matter carefully. “This is the first case of its kind in the party list. Wala pang ganitong nangyari, eh (nothing like this has ever happened).”

Meanwhile, Gidaya’s projects are on hold. “The implementation of the projects will need the presence of a congressman,” explained Gutang. “The replacement of Congressman Gidaya will take over the pending projects.”

With the lone seat at the House of Representatives being contested by both Santos and Gutang, the VFP is at a standstill.

story 1: a different market (print)

2007-01-15T22:38:00.000+08:00

MANILA, 9 December – It was a different kind of market yesterday at the Goldcrest parking lot in Ayala Center, Makati.

Instead of food, clothing, or Christmas gift items, the items sold at yesterday’s Waste Market were recyclable waste. Used paper and paper products, electronics such as computers and computer parts, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottles, aluminum cans, used toner and ink cartridges, and polystyrene packaging waste were brought and exchanged for cash.

Paper products were exchanged for Php 3.50 to 8.50 per kilo. Defective computer parts went for Php 15 to 80 per piece, and CDs for Php 5 per kilo. Even cables were exchanged, at Php 25 to 30 per kilo.

The Philippine Business for the Environment (PBE), organizers of the Waste Market, had to extend market hours to accommodate more people.

Mila Antofina, senior project officer of the PBE, said that the market collected more waste materials than expected.

“Maganda ‘yung naging response ng public (the public’s response was good),” she said in a telephone interview. “Some even called to say sayang (too bad), they did not know about it.”

Unofficial results of the Waste Market showed that paper waste topped the list of recyclables collected in terms of volume. But by economic value, paper came second to electronics, which was estimated at Php 40,000.

The waste materials are evaluated by volume, economic savings, landfill space saved, and for paper waste, the number of trees saved.

pilot phase
The Waste Market, which was open to the general public, had its pilot run in September. It was then held every first Friday until December. Its initial areas were the cities of Makati and Muntinlupa.

Antofina says the PBE will first assess the project’s viability then decide whether to continue the Waste Market in 2007. But she is optimistic. “May trend na pataas (there was an upward trend),” she says.

If continued, Antofina says, the PBE could take the Waste Market to other areas.

recyclables collection events
The Waste Market was a small-scale version of PBE’s Recyclables Collection Event (RCE), which targets industries, big businesses, and establishments such as malls and condominiums.

The Waste Market is hoped to replicate the success of the annual RCEs.

Since 2002, the RCEs have been held to coincide with Earth Day in April. Venues have been Makati City, Quezon City, Muntinlupa, Calamba City, Baguio City, and Davao City.

multimedia = multiskilled + multitasking

2006-12-13T00:48:00.000+08:00

It sounds like a simple formula, but in reality, it’s probably anything but.

Much has been said and written about the waning interest -– especially of the younger generation –- in news or in reading newspapers. Multimedia journalism is a way of adapting to the changing habits of our audience. It is about providing a multisensory experience to an audience that wants or requires information quickly and more easily.

dumbing down vs. stepping up
Multimedia journalism caters to short attention spans. But this doesn’t mean dumbing down –- far from it. In my view, multimedia journalism is a way for us to meet the demands and expectations of our our audience. And they do demand more from us. After all, they are techno-savvy, more sophisticated, pickier about what they read or watch or listen to.

Therefore, venturing into this field of journalism requires us to step up to its challenges. It is expanding our skill sets to enable us to better engage the audience. Multimedia journalism helps us become better practitioners as well. And since we cannot expect a linear thinker to produce nonlinear reports, the more we can think like our audience and anticipate their needs, the better we can give them what they want or need to know.

multimedia journalism in the philippines
I was a bit surprised (to put it mildly) to learn from the UC Berkeley grad school of journalism that the sites of some of the major news organizations are not considered multimedia journ. For this reason, I don't think there's any Philippine media organization that has gone multimedia in the true sense of that word.

True, training is ongoing and equipment being upgraded. And that is a sign that we are heading in that direction. Maybe in a matter of months, we will see the practice of journalism evolving –- from shovelware and blogs, from merely making video and audio available in news portals, to real multimedia journalism.

It is not just about the medium and the technology. It is about changing our own views about news and about our audience, adapting to change, and being better equipped.

it is not the medium

2006-12-07T23:30:00.000+08:00

One of the issues raised last night during our first chat session was that of the quality of journalism in light of convergence. Technology, convergence, and speed should be tools for delivering the news -- not excuses for bad journalism. The principles of journalism defined by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel are not limited to one medium -- they should be practiced across media. Any journalist worth his salt should remain mindful of this.

Reflecting on this, I am reminded of Stephen Glass, formerly of The New Republic. Writing in Forbes.com, Adam Penenberg -- who kept digging until he uncovered Glass’s deception -- said, “It is ironic that online journalists have received bad press from the print media for shoddy reporting. But the truth is, bad journalism can be found anywhere. It is not the medium; it is the writer.”

print: strengths and weaknesses

2006-12-04T11:32:00.000+08:00

In Chapter 2 of Convergent Journalism, print is described as a “portable and permanent” medium –- you can take a newspaper or magazine anywhere and read it at anytime, referring to it again and again.

Because of portability, newspapers and magazines are still the most accessible news media. We can find them on street corners and in convenience stores, in waiting rooms and hotel lobbies, and even –- at least in this country –- peddled on the streets during morning rush hours. They are also the cheapest way of getting the news, at Php20 for a broadsheet or Php75 for a magazine.

However, while readily available, the print medium is limited by production schedule. Local broadsheets come out only once a day, but events don’t stop after the newspapers are printed. So after reading the news in the morning, you would have to rely on the broadcast or online media for updates. Or wait for the following day’s paper.

in today's converging world
The print medium is threatened by the immediacy with which TV, radio, and the Internet deliver the news. But because of the amount of space available, a newspaper or magazine lends itself to long and detailed news reports –- such as investigative reports. This can also be said of the Internet, but with a difference: stories are archived and fees charged for retrieval, or worse, links to stories can become inactive.

In the Philippines, newspapers are not about to be replaced by the Internet as a medium. Not everyone has access to a computer or laptop, and to the Internet. Also, local news sites feature mostly reproductions of reports found in print. Perhaps that is more a question of economics than anything else. But online news must be written for the Web to adapt to the “scanning” behavior, as Jakob Nielsen describes it, of Web readers. See the CyberJournalist site and Nielsen’s columns (click here for guidelines on writing for the web, and here for web reading patterns).

Meanwhile, the print medium continues to survive because it adapts to the habits of its readers. The Philippine Daily Inquirer, for instance, is now seen in other forms that offer the news to specific readers –- to commuters, in the form of free tabloid-size papers; and to younger readers, in compact format that delivers more concise news in visually interesting layouts.

media redux

2006-11-26T20:36:00.000+08:00

In my last post, I made reference to an ever-shrinking world. Convergence has made it so. The speed with which technology has developed and continues to develop is astounding. We have gone from wired to wireless in just a few short years.

Thanks to these technological advances, we have 24-hour cable and satellite broadcasts, podcasts, and streaming video to inform us of global events. While the Vietnam War was brought into American living rooms via radio, the Iraq War was pretty much played out on cable TV and the Internet.

Convergence has redefined not only the media, but more importantly, the field of journalism and its practitioners.

globalization
Behind the phenomenon of convergence is another buzzword: globalization. As trade becomes increasingly liberalized, goods, services -- even manpower -- move more freely and more quickly among countries and regions. Most recently, the global economy has made business process outsourcing, whether it’s telemarketing or medical transcription, a lucrative venture.

The impact of globalization on the media goes beyond technology. Media regulations are less stringent now, allowing for more competition both locally and internationally. True to economic integration, media companies buy out or merge with each other. This gives rise to the question of control. With ownership limited to a few big players -- those who can afford to go high-tech and incorporate telephone, broadcast, and Internet services -- the media are in danger of becoming homogenized in content and commercialized in approach (i.e. if it doesn’t sell, it’s not news).

a convergent philippines
Convergence is already happening in the Philippines. Local print and broadcast media organizations have gone online. In some cases, blogs even serve as significant news sources, as with the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) blog, which gets more hits than its institutional site, as reported in its anniversary blog post.

Another indication of convergence is media ownership. Our Constitution does not allow foreigners to directly own and control media, but about a month ago, reports said that opening media ownership to foreign investors was being considered to put local media “at par” with international media agencies.

As with other Southeast Asian countries, the Philippines must continue to keep up and take advantage of the technology available. Otherwise, it will be counted as nothing more than a consumer of technology.

introductions and confessions

2006-11-17T12:31:00.000+08:00

When the Internet was introduced in the Philippines in the early 1990s, our family eagerly got a modem and a dial-up subscription. I was the first among my friends with an email address. I joined a small community of chatters using mIRC, though I never attended EBs (“eyeballs”). I tried my hand at designing websites, starting with one for our design group during the early stages of HTML. (The site disappeared when we terminated our ISP subscription.) I had Geocities sites, frequented sites such as Salon.com (which had just started), and participated in newsgroups. I was hooked on the Internet.

My little love affair with cyberspace took a back seat to work and other concerns. During this time, I had short-lived careers as -- in no particular order -- a theater actress, an indie film art assistant, a researcher, and a freelance photographer. I finally took a job as a feature writer in a now-defunct business newspaper. I then went on to freelancing while designing, proofreading, and editing books. Now, I work as a writer/editor and editorial consultant for a communication and consultancy group. I hope to do more news writing and editing, too.

I didn’t start blogging until recently. My wait-and-see attitude to blogging stemmed from many things -- the demands of work, for one. Then there was caution: there’s a lot of hype out there, and one can easily get sucked in. Part of my caution was a reaction to consumerism and the “misuse” of the Internet. A big part of it was wanting to remain anonymous online.

Things have changed since my early traipses into cyberspace, but despite the bells and whistles, here's the bottom line: the Internet is still a tool for information and communication -- one that engages and empowers people. Hopefully, Convergent Journalism will help me adapt to the demands of an ever-shrinking world.