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LINK: ‘Note Verbale‘, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Section) - 3 August 2008 Issue

It is safe to assume that Filipinos, as a people, are among the ‘easily pleased’, as compared to the other nationalities of the world. This notwithstanding, they also get hurt very easily, very onion-skinned in a manner of speaking. Little things make Filipinos in general happy but even the slightest incident could also trigger their disappointments.

Thus, a typical Filipino would always have something to complain about. More likely, however, he will keep the matter to himself than openly express, confront or even directly settle his gripes.  A Filipino would rather open his heart to, and seek comfort from, people who are close and dear to him even if they do not have any stake in his concerns. Many times, complaints are settled, or even exacerbate, through the grape vine in the chain of gossips and rumors.

Nevertheless, Filipinos love to communicate and express themselves. The Philippines would not be the text capital of the world if it were otherwise. Filipinos are everywhere in the digital divide with their blogs. Internet social networks like ‘friendster’ in fact are dominated by Filipinos. Filipino passion for music as a form of human expression is simply amazing.

While Filipinos are generally expressive, it is wonder why they would rather endure for as long as they can perhaps up to boiling point, than break the status quo. Make no mistake about it but the average Filipino has the heart for change, and would always hope for it, but he will never stake his person on it, especially if it would put his immediate family in jeopardy. He would rather suffer and protest in silence in this case until the clamor for reform or change has put the bandwagon in locomotion, that is when the battle lines are drawn.

Filipinos would openly express their love for their country but judging from how they live their daily lives as citizens, it is a source of wonder whether in fact they do. What should have been good for the country more often than not has to take a back seat in favor of convenience and parochial personal satisfaction. Choosing between what is good for the country and what is good for his very own or even his family’s interests (a usual line to justify his actions), a typical Filipino would obviously take the latter.   

A typical Filipino would have big dreams, high ambitions and would love to idolize and look up at a role model in pursuing his direction. What is disturbing these days is the impatience of many Filipinos to embrace the dignity of labor and hard work to ensure their economic success. Many are easily lured to professions, false opportunities, and even criminal endeavors that offer a quick fix. No wonder that when times are hard, there are more Filipinos lining up lotto betting stations, the illegal number game of jueting continues to flourish, there are incidence of corruption both in the public and private sector, the news never get tired of reporting people being duped of investment and money scams, and many young people abandon their dreams in favor of the career fad of the times. Nowadays, the only perceived measure of true success is money, and more money. Of course, this country is not alone in today’s highly materialistic environment.

Filipinos are generally reactive than proactive. They do not anticipate, or maybe refuse to aniticpate, difficulties and problems before they arise.  And when things go wrong, finger pointing starts, there would always be somebody to blame, and seldom would someone actually take responsibility for the mess.

In good or bad times, what is striking about Filipinos is their ingrained nature of finding joy in simple things and putting humor even to the most catastrophic situation. A Filipino is usually affective and easily shed tears while at the same time laugh at the situation without being necessarily happy about it.

There is no mutual exclusivity in the psyche of the Filipino. Anything goes so to speak. Whether this is good or bad could be seen where this country is, right now.

LINK: ‘Note Verbale‘, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Section) – 13 July 2008 Issue

Being the only predominantly Catholic country in Asia, the Philippines does not have a “no-fault” and ‘uncontested’ divorce to put a formal end to marital relationships, in the same way that is recognized in many legal regimes in the western world, particularly in countries like the United States and Australia.

To make sure that this state policy is not transgressed by legislation, the country’s fundamental law made explicit that marriage is an inviolable social institution and the foundation of the Filipino family which should be protected by the State.

But it does not mean that in this country spouses cannot terminate their marital bond before the death of either of them. They can certainly contest the validity of their marriage based on the legal grounds provided for by the Family Code through a protracted litigation. And one of the most usual grounds invoked to have a marriage declared a nullity by the court is the so-called ‘psychological incapacity’ of one of the spouses.

The psychological incapacity here as defined by law and jurisprudence relates to the inability (and not mere refusal) of the guilty spouse to assume the basic marital obligations of living together, observing love, respect and fidelity and rendering mutual help and support brought about by some mental (not physical) conditions that already existed at the time of marriage. It is also required that the mental disorder is serious and incurable.

They say that the legislative intent for including such a ground is to harmonize civil law with canon law of the Catholic faith, which similarly recognize psychological incapacity as a basis to terminate church marriages.

Perhaps, the legal set up is fine. It is logical to provide a legal escape to a spouse who suffers, and continues to suffer, in the hands of a spouse with grave and incurable mental disorder. In the end, no amount of a legal provision can dictate what would make a good, happy and successful family life, except the individual resolve of the members of the family, principally the husband and the wife, even if conditions of psychological incapacity actually exist.

But the same legal set up also provide a convenient legal excuse. Psychologist and law educatee Marah Sharyn M. de Castro asked – if the guilty spouse is judicially declared psychologically incapacitated so as to render the marriage null and void, how come he or she is still allowed by law to re-marry? Obviously, if the degree of mental unfitness required by law is serious and incurable, the same cannot be remedied by having another lovelife. For this, they should be disqualified to remarry as a social deterrent for a continuing breakdown in the family as a social institution, or at least there must be a legal system to re-qualify them into entering another marital life. After all, the judicial determination should be binding before the whole world, in legal parlance.

While it is axiomatic in Philippine law and jurisprudence that termination of marriage cannot be the subject of stipulation and agreement of the parties, this is more apparent than real because all the offending spouse needs to do is not to put up a legal fight. At the end of the day, the guilty spouse still benefits from the proceedings by just being silent, especially if there is contemplation of having another relationship. It is not even impossible to feign his or her psychological incapacity.

If the country wants to sustain its avowed national policy of preserving marriages through a legal mechanism, maybe there is a need to re-engineer the concept of ‘psychological incapacity’, either by law or jurisprudence, to make it work in context.

Although law is the state’s response towards the preservation of the family, one thing is sure – only love can make a marriage work. It may not be necessarily the love for each other anymore. Oftentimes, the love of parents of their children is worth the sacrifice if only to breed the next generation of a good and successful family.

LINK: ‘Note Verbale‘, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Section) - 6 July 2008 Issue

The phrase ‘act of God’ has usual reference to fortuitous events or force majeure, an unavoidable situation brought about by natural causes that disrupts the expected course of events.

From legal contemplation, no person shall be responsible for a fortuitous event which could not be foreseen, or which, though foreseen, was inevitable, so said the Philippine Civil Code. And for a person or entity to be exempt from any obligation or liability arising from act of God, there must be an entire exclusion of human agency from the cause of injury or loss, so said the Supreme Court in a long line of decided cases.

The rationale for the legal precept, as explained by the High Court in one case, is – “when the effect is found to be partly the result of a person’s participation—whether by active intervention, neglect, or failure to act – the whole occurrence is then humanized and removed from the rules applicable to acts of God.”

The fateful sinking of MV Princess of the Stars (allegedly Sulpicio Line’s main star among its fleet) at the height of typhoon Frank last June 21 caused this nation to grieve over the tragic death of several hundreds of passengers and crew, many of whose remains would surely just be consigned beneath the surface of the deep sea. The irony of it all is that no one would ever take legal or even simply some moral responsibility for the tragedy.

Did anyone ever say “I am sorry” for this unfortunate incident?

Sulpicio Line is strong in its position that it was the result of the weather bureau’s inaccurate forecasting of the direction of the typhoon. The weather bureau said that it was never remiss in its duty of providing advisories and warnings every quarter of the day while the typhoon was here. Some observers even note that the duty of the agency is just to predict, plain and simple, and forecasting the course of nature would never be perfect. The coast guard said that it adherred strictly to existing policies and regulations, particularly on the fact that sea vessels may sail during signal no. 1 at the discretion of the ship owner.

The arguments and counter-arguments of the stakeholders could be endless and circuitous until such time that the event is relegated to the inside pages of news stories.  At the end of it all, the debate before the courts, the halls of Congress, and the various government initiated investigations would  boil down to the sole issue whether the sinking was the result of God’s will or not.  Because if it is, the families of the victims should probably claim their just compensation in heaven.

In the next few months, business, as in the past, would just be as usual until the next sea mishap.

Why cannot government require all shipping companies carrying passengers to procure a compulsory insurance of say a million pesos per passenger under a no-fault arrangement? Why cannot government allocate enough money to oversee and ensure that maritime regulations are strictly enforced considering that the more than 7,100 islands of the country are connected by water lanes and suspend or cancel the franchise of violators even before an accident struck? Surely, there are other why’s that would come to mind.

And perhaps the most reasonable explanation is that there is God to blame, after all. Or stated differently, maybe the government and the shipowners prefer to act like God.

In the case of the MV Princess of the Stars, the God in heaven cannot be blamed with certainty. But the gods of this country should be, all because there is human intervention, neglect, and failure to act.

LINK: ‘Note Verbale‘, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Section) - 29 June 2008 Issue

There is a common notion that human beings often survive life or death and even emergency situations because of the so-called ‘adrenaline rush’. It is a situation where the processes in the human anatomy automatically react or respond to a given situation which the mind perceives to be critical.

In science, adrenaline, or epinephrine, is a hormone produced by the adrenal gland found directly above the kidney of the human body. They say that when adrenaline is secreted into the bloodstream, the hormone prepares the body for action by boosting the supply of oxygen and glucose to the brain and muscles while reducing considerably non-emergency processes in the body like that of digestion. Short bursts of physical prowess results from dilated blood vessels and air passages that makes the body pass more blood to the muscles as more oxygen are put in into the lungs in a timely and precise manner.

They say that the discovery of the adrenaline as a substance produced by the adrenal gland was first reported in May 1886 by American physician William Bates in the New York Medical Journal. It  was Napoleon Cybulski, a Polish physiologist and a pioneer of endocrinology, who isolated and identified the substance in 1895. German chemist Friedrich Stolz, however, was the first person to synthesize the hormone artificially in 1904.

Since the hormone causes an increase in heart rate and stroke volume, constricts the small blood vessels in the skin but dilates the arterioles in skeletal muscles, the pupils and air passages, starts the breakdown of lipids in fat cells, elevates blood sugar and suppresses the immune system, they say that it is important to douse the adrenaline released in the human system after a stressful situation. Before, this is done naturally because man is habitualy engaged in a lot of physical activity. But in today’s world where human exertion is less, the amount of adrenaline left in the body results in insomnia, palpitations, high blood pressure, and restive nerves.
 
In 1915, American physiologist Walter Bradford Cannon theorized the so-called ‘fight-or-flight’ response by holding that animals react to threats through a general discharge of the sympathetic nervous system that prepares the animals either to flee or to fight. And they say that this response system was later recognized as the first stage of a general adaptation syndrome which regulates stress reaction among vertebrates and other organisms. Thus, the ‘fight-or-flight’ response is often used to characterize the situation known as adrenaline rush.

To be sure there is always the adrenaline that serves as a lifeline in every severe and extemporaneous situation man is confronted with. But summoning the aid and comfort of this hormone in normal times would only mean stress, a condition that produces unneeded bodily strain and causes much of the physical maladies and human ailments known in today’s world.  Unfortunately, this is how nature works.

If human beings would only heed this law of nature, they would realize that life is all about perfecting or working for that state of constant peace and tranquility in this hectic, fast-paced and crazier world. And it is all because everyone has this adrenaline that rushes automatically in times of great need. 

Reality dictates that putting the adrenaline to work unnecessarily could spell the end of life.

LINK: ‘Note Verbale‘, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Section) – 15 June 2008 Issue

An average Filipino devotes at least fourteen years of his or her life in school from elementary to college. Some others would spend a couple of years more.

Student life in the country is very stressful. Pupils have to be in the campus early morning and stay there for most of the day for academic instructions and other school activities. By the time they reach home, they need to spend another time to study and prepare for homework for the next day. Some unlucky others are under obligation to fulfill household chores or even help the family earn a living. The more diligent and serious students may need to deprive themselves of a balanced way of life – unfortunately only to learn what American philosopher John Dewey referred to as dead facts and mere memorization of lessons. 

Students go to school to complete a formal education in the hope that their diplomas could be their passport for a better life for themselves and their families. After years and years of enduring the life of a student, many would land a job for which they did not prepare for. Many would have to compete for employment that does not even pay more than the minimum wage. Others would seek greener pasture in a foreign land engaging themselves even in lowly occupation. The more unfortunate of them would just probably be sitting endlessly at home searching and responding to job openings, or preparing biodata for submission to prospective employers.

This is what fourteen or more years of labor for knowledge generally await ordinary Filipino students.

There is no argument that education is essential to a civilized human existence. Ancient thinkers had long recognized that education is the process of satisfying man’s quest for perfection. Education is the key to building both the intellectual and moral fitness of human beings to serve the ultimate aspirations of individual happiness and produce a bunch of good and productive men and women who will promote the welfare of society.

Existing educational systems in almost every nation, this country included, are premised on a liberal model, a framework that promotes free thinking, free expression and self-determination. As early as the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, Scottish moral philosopher and political economist Adam Smith proposed a minimum general education for all citizens arguing that men who do not use their intellectual faculties properly are not fully human.

Some philosophers of long ago, including Dewey, abhorred specialized education or vocational training or pure craftsmanship because it is a mere training for slaves to make them fit as cogs in the industrial machine.

The irony of it all in this country, that adopts a liberal education for its citizens, is that the long and stressful years of academic pursuit make many young minds merely end up as slaves of the corporate world and of foreign employers.  Perhaps, it is safe to assume that nine of every ten Filipino graduates would always look forward to a fruitful employment after graduation rather than look at entrepreneurship or self-employment as a more viable alternative simply because they lack the skills and the talent to pursue  their own craft.

Filipino students are stucked to long years of liberal education taught over and over again in elementary, high school and even during the first two years of college. The entire process obviously delays their strong potential to become productive and responsible citizens of this country at the soonest time. At best, the process suspends their becoming a part of the unemployment and underemployment statistics of this country. Worse, the system unduly prolongs the economic burden of parents and families if only to keep them in school.

There must be another framework of a blended liberal education and craftmanship that government could adopt to reverse the predicaments confronting the country’s educational system. Of course that requires a lot of political will and conscience.

LINK: ‘Note Verbale‘, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Section) – 8 June 2008 Issue

Jessica Price is a nineteen year old lass from South Africa, a world-class and champion debater in her home country and participated in the World Schools Debating Championships in South Korea and Wales as part of her national team. Price is the daughter of the incoming Vice-Chancellor of the University of Capetown.

She visited the country as part of her educational tour before pursuing her college education in medicine. Before coming over, she knew of the Philippines but never had any particular impression of the country and its people except that perhaps this political territory is mostly rural in orientation.

After more than a week of stay, Price finds Filipinos as very family-oriented, hospitable and kind.  In the process, she was introduced and met new friends, hopefully to keep.

She was surprised with the enormous developments particularly in Metro Manila that at one point she gave up touring the malls and some entertainment centers feeling that she had enough of them..  She thinks that the average Filipino inulges more on consumer spending rather than on savings.

She finds Filipino dishes very much different from her home country, which were more European and American tasting. But the hamburger from this country’s very own Jollibee certainly suited her taste buds.  In fact, even her senses rated the smell of the metropolis in general to be like its food, sweet, tasty and spicy; although she did observe the heavy smog in the skyline during early mornings.

Like any other tourists who visited this country, Price had a taste of the rural areas and the beach front facing the South China Sea. For someone like her who loves to swim and scuba dive but lives in the landlocked city of Johannesburg, the sea puts a smile on her face.

Much as she wanted to visit the more than seven thousand islands of this beautiful country, she too got the caution from where she came from that Mindanao and some areas in the Visayas are not suitable for foreigner like her travelling alone because of the perennial terrorism tag brought about by kidnapppings for ransom of long ago.

She had been to historical places and museums particularly in Manila and saw first hand the richness of the country’s cultural heritage and traditions under colonial rule. After driving around some nook and corner of the Old City, she feels that it is still highly influenced by Spain.

Price shares her country’s problem on poverty and the quality of, and access to, public education which are almost akin here. She and her people are particularly proud of Nelson Mandela, a South African statesman who was released from prison to become his nation’s president during the first multi-racial elections in 1994. Old as he is, Mandela seems to be the moving icon of his country. Many of his countrymen like Price feels that his presence is something that continues to hold that nation together despite all the hardships a typical developing country have to brace. This country could only hope that it has a living icon like Mandela whom Filipinos would listen to like a father speaking to his children, especially in times of political uncertainties.
 
Except perhaps for our very humid weather, there was no doubt that Price finds the country and its people likeable. The Philippines is Price’s first taste of Asia and for sure she was not disappointed.

Jessica Price is a young tourist and her observations are as valid as any other foreigners who visited this country for the first time, many of whom in fact fell in love with it.

This nation may not be great in many respects. But certainly it is beautiful in many other aspects. And that is something Filipinos could be proud when they celebrate Independence Day this week.

LINK: ‘Note Verbale‘, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Section) – 1 June 2008 Issue

In economics, stagflation has been defined as a state or period of a slow moving or moribund economy coupled with high unemployment and rising prices.

They say that the term, which combined stagnation and inflation, was first used by a former British politician and minister, Iain Norman Macleod in a 1965 speech to the parliament. But stagflation, they say, was only acknowledged as a serious macroeconomic condition in the seventies after it had stricken many countries. Before that time, the generally accepted Keynesian economic theories of twentieth century British economist, John Maynard Keynes, assumed that inflation and stagnation are not likely to occur at the same time.

In economics, inflation pertains to the general and progressive increase in prices of goods and services. Inflation is like the cholesterol resident in the human body; it can either be good or bad. 

Economists would say that mild or manageable levels of inflation have beneficial effects because it stimulates economic growth or keep the economy active. In the short-term, it encourages people to spend more now in anticipation of higher prices in the future. Borrowing money is more likely because there are less incentives to save. Expected inflation could drive the conversion of savings to take the form of investments than to see the purchasing power of these savings depreciates with inflation.

Inflation is often associated by experts with the excessive money supply circulating in the economy. And the tasks of handling, controlling and regulating this scenario fall on the lap of governments through central banking and its monetary policies. Thus, it is almost predictable for government to increase interest rates during periods of inflation to moderate money supply.

But unpredictable and high inflation rates are like bad cholesterols that could lead to a cardiac arrest of the economy. The uncertainty discourages people to invest and save. Predictably, workers would demand for higher wages to cope up with the rising prices of goods and services, which in turn lead to higher inflation. The currency may then lose its value and the normal workings of the economy is eventually jeopardized.

Having a declining economy, high unemployment, and unmanageable inflation all at the same time in a scenario called stagflation is surely unfortunate.

Many analysts say that the global stagflation in the seventies could be attributed in part to the inflation brought about by the abrupt increase in the price of crude oil. For those old enough to remember, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) met in Tehran in 1973 and doubled the price of oil from US$5.50 to US$11.00 per barrel because, among other reasons, of the desire of the then Shah of Iran for more foreign exchange to acquire more military hardware.

Increases in crude oil prices this year are unprecedented.  In December 2006, per barrel price is about US$63. By October 2007, the price rose to above US$90. In January of this year, it reached the US$100 dollar mark, and last May 21, the price breached the US$130 level only after almost five months. Several days after, the price even went up to more than US$135. Unfortunately, there are forecasts that the price could be as high as US$200 per barrel by the end of 2009. Perhaps, it could be more.

It appears that what drives the escalating prices of oil in the world market to unreasonable proportion is not so much about the economic rationale of supply and demand, although it is often used as the justification.  Political conflicts and greedy speculations are.

While most people of the world would have to brace for higher prices, growing unemployment, economic collapse, and even poverty and hopelessness, a few others would reap the bounty in due course. For obvious reasons, there is nothing much heard of OPEC, an organization which is expected to ensure the stabilization of international oil market prices, even if this issue is the global talk of the town these days. Regrettably, even if the global oil situation improves and normalizes, it is next to impossible to expect that these prices would ever go down below the US$100 level. The more reasonable expectation is for the price to simply stabilize.

Meanwhile and unless oil prices remain stable, many countries in the world are in danger of stagflation. God forbids what would happen after that.

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LINK: ‘Note Verbale‘, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Section) – 18 May 2008 Issue  

With fossil fuel getting scrimpy and prices of crude oil trading beyond $120 per barrel, governments have been pushing to replace a part of the current fuel mix with biofuels, essentially with ethanol and biodiesel, as an alternative.

Biofuel is any fuel derived from organic matter, most commonly from photosynthetic plants that capture solar energy. Unlike fossil fuel, which is derived from dead biological materials of long ago, or nuclear fuels, biofuel is renewable.

The process of creating biofuel as liquid fuel for transportation involves growing crops such as sugar and corn and using yeast fermentation to produce ethanol, or growing plants that naturally produce oil such as jathropa, palm or soybean which when processed chemically creates biodiesel.

Biofuels are regarded by many experts as environment friendly, a more affordable energy source and economically sustaining particularly to farmers.

The Philippines is among the many countries in the world that support and promote biofuels as an alternative source of energy. It is for this reason that the Biofuels Law was fast-tracked on May 6 a year ago.

They say the Philippines was the first country to legislate on the use of biofuel blends within its borders with the enactment of the Biofuels Law (Republic Act No. 9367). The law mandates all liquid fuels for motors and engines sold in the country should contain locally sourced biofuel components in order to reduce reliance from imported oil by providing certain incentives and punishments.

To avoid a potential clash with the issue affecting food security, the Department of Agriculture said that biodiesel would be produced from coconut, which is neither a food staple nor a major ingredient for animal feeds while bioethanol will not be sourced from sugar cane supplies destined for food and beverage application.

Right after Labor Day, BBC News reported that Belgian international law professor and special rapporteur on the right to food of the United Nations, Olivier de Schutter, urged a freeze on biofuel investment calling the blind pursuit of the policy as “irresponsible.” He said that the program drives food prices higher, threatening 100 million of the world’s poorest. His predecessor, Jean Ziegler, had condemned biofuels as a “crime against humanity” and called for an immediate ban on their use.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Rajendra Pachauri, a climate change scientist, cautioned the world in developing biofuels because of its perverse effects on the environment and higher food prices. Some environmentalists also blame biofuel programs for distorted government budgets and much of the deforestation in Southeast Asia and Brazil. Some scientists also claim that some types of biofuel generate as much carbon dioxide as the fossil fuels they replace.

In his article for Time magazine entitled: “The Clean Energy Scam,” Michael Grunwald reported that “new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it’s dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it. Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous . . . Meanwhile, by diverting grain and oilseed crops from dinner plates to fuel tanks, biofuels are jacking up world food prices and endangering the hungry. The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year. Harvests are being plucked to fuel our cars instead of ourselves.”

With the unabated price of fossil fuel in the international market, there is definitely a need to shift to alternative sources of energy. The world obviously needs oil as much as it needs food and needs to protect the environment.

It cannot be said that the use of biofuels is all that good. But it cannot be said also that it is all that bad. Whether it would bear either pernicious or beneficial consequences would heavily depend on how the political management of every nation could strike the balance in terms of state policies.

Like money, biofuels need not be the source of all evil.

LINK: ‘Note Verbale‘, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Section) – 4 May 2008 

With the age of information technology at the center stage of human interaction, there is an emerging global consensus for collaboration in providing access to learning and knowledge and developing a wide range of educational resources in cyberspace that are free and open for everyone to use outside of the traditional models. It is referred to as ‘open education’.

The Cape Town Open Education Declaration in September 2007 and now signed by over 1,500 individuals and more than 150 organizations all over the world urges educators and learners participation in the open education movement, and the promotion of open education resources and open education policies.

Open education operates on different framework from open university, e-learning, open content to wikis, e-books, legal commons or open coursewares. And these methods are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Sir John Daniel, President and CEO of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), in a speech before the William Flora Hewlett Foundation Grantees Meeting in a symposium on Open Learning Interplay at the Carnegie Mellon University on March 12, 2008 said:

“Open education broke open the iron triangle of access, cost and quality that had constrained education throughout history and had created the insidious assumption, still prevalent today, that in education you cannot have quality without exclusivity.”

“Open as to people, open as to places, open as to methods, and open as to ideas. That is a good framework to think about open education.” quoting and paraphrasing a 1969 address of ‘The Economist’ editor, Geoffrey Crowther, an early advocate of open education whose speech was still probably written in a typewriter.

In the first forum dubbed as “Open Education: Are we ready and where are we?” held on April 23, 2008, the Philippine Commons and the e-Law Center of the Arellano University School of Law advanced the idea that ‘open education’ should refer to any scholarly, academic or guided initiative that promotes access to learning and knowledge in a free, open and collaborative environment using the tools and infrastructure of information technology.

Open education is an initiative whose time has come.

In the words of Kristine Mandigma, editor-in-chief of Vibal Foundation: “In leading economies technology and knowledge are the critical factors of economic growth.” She emphasized though that innovation is the key.

Greg Moreno of Bayanihan Books believes that open education would eventually fill the gaps in the educational system as technology attempts to address the issue of content quality and commercial viability.

Lawyer Michael Vernon Guerrero of Philippine Commons submits that open education empowers people. He thinks that open content is the first step toward collaboration as international endeavors in this respect continue to grow, develop and mature.

Miriam Coprado of the Department of Education shares the view that while government continues to pursue the integration of information technology in the educational system, the contribution of the private sector remains a most important element.

But the societal significance of open education was best expressed by Siegfried Herzog, resident representative of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in the Philippines, during the forum when he said:

“Remember, knowledge is power. Whenever access to knowledge is restricted, there is an issue of power behind it – a ruling elite will control knowledge in order to maintain power. If we truly believe that power should be vested in people, not in elites, anything that increases access to knowledge and deepening of knowledge is welcome. Open education is thus not just a nifty tool to enhance skills. It is a way to build a freer society.”    

Certainly, open education empowers because it is built upon a platform of collaboration, equal opportunities, and open access to knowledge that could shift the paradigm of conventional educational systems that are perceived to be discriminating.

LINK: ‘Note Verbale’, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Times) – 27 April 2008 Issue

In romance, they say that the easiest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. And in the life of a nation, the idea is equally true. Depriving the people of the food on their table is a concededly a threat to national security.

For several weeks, news reports on the inevitable rice crisis and the constant rise in the prices of basic food commodities have been persistent. If there is any consolation at all, this country is not alone.

Experts note that the world is actually facing a food crisis that could reach a boiling point. In Haiti for instance, people held angry and violent protests against their government because of soaring food prices and cost of living.

In a recent survey, pollster Pulse Asia revealed that 71 percent of Filipinos consider themselves as poor, with two out of every three Filipinos believing that the economy has deteriorated in the last three years despite the phenomenal economic growth being proclaimed by the government.

Something is obviously wrong with the country’s food production policies. It begins with the lack of serious national land use plan where certain areas would be deemed as protected areas devoted solely for food production. Any agricultural land is expected to give way to the demand of commercialization, industrialization and urbanization at any time. The economic prosperity of localities especially in rural areas is seldom measured in terms of bountiful food production. Lands are better left idle because landowners still gain from speculative pricing. And even with the introduction of the agrarian reform program, lands are still under the control of a few.

Hardly would this country find among the ranks of the youth who would be interested or attracted to pursue a career in agriculture. Students would rather pursue a course or a skill that would land them a job overseas at once. It is difficult to expect children of farmers to carry on the same tasks. But in a country highly populated by young people totally disinterested in farming, who would be expected to take care of producing the food on their table in the future?

It is indeed a Herculean task to convince the youth of today to become farmers. Typical farmers here are typecast as being poor. Typical farming, next to begging perhaps, is the last alternative for economic survival. Every small farmer is imposed the burden of finding viable support for farm inputs, credit facilities, fiscal incentives, support services, and against unfair competition and trade. There is no reason therefore to blame the Filipino youth for not looking at farming as an option for their future. These are just among the problems, there are more.

But despite the gloomy state of agriculture, the country is still fortunate for its very rich natural resources. Even at this time when the country is stricken with hunger, the food shortage is apparently not yet the result of inadequate food supply but the affordability of food on the table of many Filipinos. This is due to the unrelenting escalation in prices of staple food, basic commodities, and fuel prices when family income remains the same. Raising wages to cope up with rising prices would drive prices higher. Prices need to be raised because capitalists need to protect their profits.

The root of the problem that drives the vast majority of Filipinos to forced starvation is the systemic uneven distribution of wealth, with the rich getting richer and the poor becoming poorer, and not the adequacy of food production or supply.

For instance, people line up for their daily rice requirements to partake of government supply not because there is no rice in the market but because the price government offers is the only rice that they could afford. It is a case where people get hungry because they could not afford their family requirements within the limits of their earnings.

It is easier for people to understand and sacrifice if the earth no longer produces the food that they need because everyone is similarly situated. But in a situation where starvation is forced because people do not have the wherewithal, a social volcano is just waiting to break loose.