The Secret of Paula Herrera, from Tiaong to Tayabas circa 1891

by curatormuseo

“In 1891, WHEN my great great grandmother Paula Cerrada Herrera was arrested, her arms tied behind her elbow-to-elbow, and made to walk all the way from Tiaong to the town of Tayabas escorted by four guardias civiles, she was no ordinary peasant even if she could neither read nor write.”

After reading this first sentence of Angela Stuart-Santiago’s engrossing Revolutionary Routes: Five Stories of Incarceration, Exile, Murder and Betrayal in Tayabas Province, 1891-1980, the innocent reader falls into a beautiful trap. After all, who wouldn’t be curious to find out what sin, or crime (is there a difference?) Paula committed 120 years ago that deserved all 50 years of her aching body to walk for about 30 kilometers and to be imprisoned for about 67 “harrowing” days?

read on 

vitug, UST, online journalism

read on (the) line: credibility, the academe, journalism for radikalchick‘s take on marites danguilan vitug‘s UST breaks the rules to favor Corona (rappler.com) and lito zulueta‘s response, UST: CJ Corona earned Ph.D. (inquirer broadsheet).

not surprisingly, the online community, beyond taking sides, vitug vs. corona, is most offended by zulueta’s, or is it UST’s, clear disdain for online journalism and rappler.com.

“Is that a legitimate news organization? What individuals and entities fund Newsbreak and Rappler? Do these outfits have editors? Who challenged Miss Vitug’s article before it went online so as to establish its accuracy, objectivity and fairness? Why was there no prior disclosure made? What gate-keeping measures does online journalism practice?”

to which the center for media freedom and responsibility (CMFR) responded with Specious and Ingenuous, referring to zulueta’s piece, and taking the side of vitug in no uncertain terms.

The argument that as an example of online journalism Ms. Vitug’s article did not go through the gate-keeping process standard in print journalism is similarly misleading. Gate-keeping is indeed an issue in online journalism, but as editor-at-large of Rappler, Ms. Vitug is herself that site’s lead gatekeeper. Vitug, who has been a journalist for 30 years, is also the founder ofNewsbreak, “which has operated as a magazine and online for more than a decade until it joined Rappler in December 2011.”

CMFR notes that Ms. Vitug’s attempt to get the side of UST and Corona, and her disclosing that she was either rebuffed or ignored, were both in keeping with journalistic ethics and protocol.

hmm.  i must confess, it feels strange to be disagreeing with CMFR on this one.  but UST’s tack, which everyone presumes is zulueta’s, questioning the credibility of rappler.com if not of vitug, a journalist of long standing, was the perfect riposte.  by the standards of mainstream journalism, vitug’s piece failed to put the dissertation issue in the context of the big picture — is it something that happens, too, in other universities?  did corona pressure UST into granting him exemptions, or was it purely on UST’s initiative?

that she tried to get the side of UST and corona but was rebuffed shouldn’t have stopped vitug from further investigation.  in keeping with journalistic standards of verification and fairness, her researcher could have checked out the matter with CHED, and maybe she would have learned what zulueta gleefully pointed out, that UST is allowed by CHED to grant academic degrees to individuals “whose relevant work experiences, professional achievements and stature, as well as high-level, nonformal and informal training are deemed equivalent to the academic requirements for such degrees.” then perhaps she would have come to a different, less biased, conclusion, as befits a journalistic piece?  unless, of course, it was part of a diss-corona campaign in aid of his conviction sa impeachment trial, no more, no less.

interesting tuloy ang tanong ng UST about who’s funding newsbreak.ph and rapper.com.  pro-palace ba?  pro-RH and -FOI malamang, in accordance with the majority mood.  pero pro-what else?  anong agenda?  at puwede rin namang wala, banat lang nang banat according to the wishes of the crowd, which would not help the discourse any, but it would keep netizens all fired up all the time, good for digital advertisers which that ceo maria ressa hopes to attract for a “sustainable commercial venture.”

but wait.  isn’t advertising the no-no of what ressa calls “uncompromised journalism?”  googled it and found this definition (from Politics: An Introduction to Modern Democratic Government pages 151-152) that’s specific to public radio and tv broadcasting but would seem applicable to new media as well, where “funding comes from the state … and broadcasters are…released from the imperatives of pleasing advertisers and appealing to the markets that advertisers want.”

so where is rappler’s funding coming from?  who’s spending for the iligan coverage, for example?  the state?  the palace?  philanthropists?  NGOs?  the rappler team mismo?  if any of the first four, then what’s the trade off?  if the last, then mabuhay kayo, good job, i wish you all deep pockets!

interesting din yung question about gate-keeping.  so vitug gate-keeps herself and that’s okay?  but that’s so like blogging, which i do, and which is nothing like rappler’s thing.  radikalchick is right: if the site wants to be taken seriously, ressa et al must define  terms, draw lines, and maybe rethink their concept.  that is, if rappler hopes to earn the respect of mainstream and online media and, in the process, upgrade the quality of and standards for citizen journalism in the pinoy blogosphere and social media.

otherwise, puwede rin namang status quo lang, let rappler be whatever it is they envision claim it to be, pero stop with the grand promise of inspiring smart conversations and igniting a thirst for change, because the question becomes: what kind of change?  small change a la phnoy?

my only prayer is, let it not be as blogger benignO fears: More traditional “branded” journos = more inbred thinking.

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BREAKING NEWS from radikalchick

Or what to do after UST shoots you down, invoking academic freedom and autonomy

Vitug et al could have gone to the CHED website, searched for ETEEAP, clicked on the link that explains what this is exactly, scrolled down this ETEEAP page, and  found a downloadable document entitled “list of HEIs.”  upon opening that document dated December 2010, they would have discovered that while the University of Santo Tomas is indeed granted by CHED the right to give any person a degree based on years of experience etc etc., a Doctorate in Law is not included in that list of degrees.

University of Santo Tomas (UST)
Bachelor of Arts; BS Engineering; BS Nursing; BS Music;
Graduate Programs (MBA; MA Music)

granted the possibility that this list has since been updated, this was still the right “journalistic” reaction to UST’s statement, yes?  and it took me all of five minutes to do.

 

on self-help and the Pinay

or let’s begin 2012 by talking about oppression, shall we?

radikalchick

My issue with self-help books is that they are mostly American. And anyone who lives off of the Philippines’ contradictions and silences, crises and sadnesses would know that not much of American self-help applies to the every Pinay.

The 11 stupid things women do by Veronica Pulumbarit, based on the book by Dr. Laura Schlessinger Ten Stupid Things Women Do To Mess Up Their Lives among other sources, reeks of a universalizing and stereotyping of the woman that just fails to consider how differently women – and men – live in third world Philippines. Of course Dr. Schlessinger and every other self-help guru or magazine would have its own market in this impoverished nation, but that’s really the phenomenon of a first-world-pocket in the age of transnationalization, where social class differences are becoming more and more stark, and Pinays of a certain class can actually live believing in the ideologies of the first world.

read on

No Closure Yet Nor Goodbye To All That

By Elmer Ordonez

The disaster/tragedy in Mindanao struck about two weeks after Rony V. Diaz and other writers sounded the alarums about the apocalyptic effects of climate change at the Philippine PEN national conference early this month.

Many factors contributed to the rampaging floods that engulfed whole communities in Cagayan de Oro, Iligan City, and other parts of Mindanao along Typhoon Sendong’s path– something unheard of in the past. Among these factors are the results of global warming such as unseasonable or unpredictable weather conditions. Man-made factors such as such as burning of fossil fuels increasing carbon emissions that get to the atmosphere, deforestation as a result of logging and mining (legal or illegal) — depletion of natural resources that have disturbed the ecological balance. The wiping out of communities built on sandbars on mouths of rivers, riverbanks, under bridges reflect lack of government control of housing sites either due to corruption or political expediency (informal settlers can vote). Deficient warning systems also contributed in large measure to many dead, injured, and missing. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources has urged local governments to follow the geo-hazard map in urban planning. They also need to enforce the total log ban

We like to say that Typhoon Sendong disaster is a wake-up call. Didn’t we say this after Typhoon Ondong hit Marikina Valley/Greater Manila in 2009. There were other wake-up calls like the Bataan and Ormoc landslides and floods years ago. As Pete Seeger would sing, “When will we ever learn?”

Other notable events of 2011:

1) The case of electoral sabotage against the former President and her election commissioner. This should lead to prosecutions of more corrupt poll and military officers involved in the 2004 and 2007 elections as brought out in congressional investigations.

2) The impeachment of a chief justice whose “midnight appointment” by the former president he is close to has left a bad taste in the mouth of the incoming president who decided to take his oath of office with an associate justice instead. His sentiments for impeachment are shared by more than two thirds in the House of Representatives including militant party-list members.

3) The charging of retired general Jovito Palparan (lionized by the GMA Palace but called “berdugo” by many) and several other army officers for the kidnapping of two U.P. female student activists in 2006. Palparan was stopped by immigration in Clark International Airport as he tried to leave for Singapore, and has since disappeared evading arrest under court warrant. Palparan had left a lurid trail of human rights violations such as summary executions, torture. rape, forced disappearances of activists in the regions where he was assigned as military commander. He is now a fugitive belying his promise that he would not resist arrest. His successful escape would frustrate the hopes of victims of human rights violations for justice and for the end of the culture of impunity among violators under past and present administrations. Reports from the countryside are that the supposedly new “Operation Bayanihan” has spawned fresh human rights violations. Palace claims of “zero political prisoners” are contradicted by detainees like Alan Jazmines and Ericson Acosta (both poets); the latter recently went on hunger strike together with more than 300 political prisoners who were all charged with criminal offenses. Under unrescinded Marcos decrees, it is a standard way of denying the existence of political prisoners by simply having the military or police concoct charges of criminal offenses such as illegal possession of firearms or explosives, robbery, or murder against persons who otherwise are just liable for rebellion or sedition.

It is notable that the electoral sabotage and impeachment cases are basically manifestations of the rifts between ruling elite factions. This is not to deny the gravity and significance of the cases. Historically, rival ruling elites have a way of coming to terms. They may fight tooth and nail in the struggle for power but ultimately they do not annihilate each other. This was true during the time of Osmena, Quezon, Laurel and Roxas. Ninoy Aquino’s assassination need not have happened if Marcos, his frat brod, was not incapacitated at the time.(At least this is what their brods think.) Joseph Estrada, convicted of plunder, was pardoned by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

I still hope that the laudable though belated moves of the President and his Justice Secretary Lelia de Lima in pursuing the cases against GMA, Renato Corona, and Jovito Palparan would result in some reforms in government. We do need some relief before another set of self-serving oligarchs take over in 2016.

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I started the “The Other View” in 2004 in the Sunday Times Magazine, writing on culture, education and the arts, but my column was transferred to the editorial page of the Saturday paper. I continued writing on the original topics but extended my views to include politics and governance.

As intimated in the last several columns, I need to take a break to attend to a deeply personal matter. As circumstances permit I will be writing pieces now and then.

Happy New Year!