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This prayer was composed and is being offered for the bar candidates of Project Phoenix of the Arellano University School of Law. 

Lord, thank you for the opportunity of gathering us together in Project Phoenix.
We know that this is not a matter of coincidence.
You chose this moment for a particular reason.
And that is the fact that we are destined to become a full-pledged member of the Bar by this time next year.

We thank you for uplifting our spirit.
We thank you for giving us the right attitude to face every adversity as we prepare for the bar examinations.
We thank you for our good state of physical well being.
We thank you for the sound knowledge of law and jurisprudence.
We thank you for the enlightenment and the gift of expression.
And most of all we thank you for all the blessings knowing fully well that there are more less-privileged in our midst.

Rest assured our dearest Lord that whatever human triumph we reap, we will always offer, dedicate and uplift it in Your Name and for Your Greater Glory. Amen.

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) – 13 January 2008 Issue

 There is probably no mass media technology that could compete with cyberspace in terms of propagating and circulating ideas and human expressions. The Internet is now the leading repository of music, video, photographs, live journals, books, presentations, documents, and other forms of artistic, literary, educational and even scientific creations.

The existing copyright regime applies, and provides legal protection, to this intellectual property works expressed in digital form. The arrangement is of course perfect especially so that in many countries copyright attaches to the work from the moment of creation. But this legal safeguard could also stifle creativity, public exposure, and in a sense impose some restraint on the creator’s freedom of choice particularly on the manner on how the netizens could use, exploit or distribute the work. And this is what Creative Commons seeks to address.

Creative Commons, a non-stock, non-profit global movement of prestigious organizations and stakeholders now existing in more than fifty countries, provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. They can use CC to change copyright terms from “All Rights Reserved” to “Some Rights Reserved”.

Creative Commons is not anti-copyright. On the contrary, it is based on, and works within the framework of, copyright and recognizes that every intellectual creation in the digital world is entitled to both legal and moral respect.

Certainly, Creative Commons does not deny the commercial use or distribution of works. Come to think of it, it can even open up better avenues for subsequent commercial opportunities.

Pure and simple, what Creative Commons provides the authors, artists, educators, and scientists is the option, to let the world knows exactly how they want their works or creations used, distributed or even exploited, as a legal alternative to the default regime called copyright. In short, Creative Commons is all about freedom, promoting free culture and knowledge sharing.

While copyright principles are almost uniform in every country that recognizes it since the 1886 Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, some of its terms still vary.  Thus, Creative Commons embarked on porting its licenses in each country affiliated with it to make sure that local CC licenses conform to domestic copyright laws.

In the Philippines, this author is the legal and public lead of the project jurisdiction with the Arellano University School of Law, through its e-Law Center, as the lead public institution.

The country has successfully ported its local Creative Commons license last December 15, 2007 and is now available for pinoynetizens to use.

Tomorrow, January 14, the Arellano Law School will hold the official public launching of Creative Commons – Philippines and its ported licenses. The launch will be preceded by open sessions on free and open source software and e-learning. The event will be capped with a CC-PH concert featuring local bands and the Arellano Law Singers, who will perform their original works under a Creative Commons license.

Artists, educators, scientists, authors, bloggers and creators of works who use the Internet as a medium may now avail of the Creative Commons Philippines License Version 3.0 by visiting the website – http://www.creativecommons.org/ or http://www.philippinecommons.org/, and there they can choose their option or freedom.

With Creative Commons, it is perfectly legal to share, remix and share.

“To correct a mistake is a beauty. To repeat the same mistake is a tragedy.” – Law Dean Jose Sundiang (in a casual conversation at the faculty room of Arellano School of Law, 26 August 2006)

“I may have the right to destroy my name but not my children’s name.” – Law Dean Jose Sundiang (in a conversation at the faculty room of Arellano Law School, 22 July 2006)