Text Messages 31

It's tongue twister time! Read it fast:
BOUQUET
BUFFET
BALLET
WALLET

Walley?
Pag-sure oi!
Usabon na niya ron.
Edwin Gutierrez, August 1, 2011

Kung kinabuhi nako ang bayad para sa imong kalipay...
padayon na lang sa imong kaguol.
Jericho Bolo, July 27, 2011

Reasons why senior citizens are given discounts:
Food- daghan na bawal
Transpo- maglisod nag sakay
Grocerieis- di na makaalsa'g bag
Sine- hanap-hanap na ang mata
Medicine- di na magdugay
Concerts- maglisod na'g dungog
Motels- mag-unsa man pud uroy sa sulod?
Enjoy life while young. Don't wait for discounts.
Edwin Gutierrez, July 9, 2011

Girl: Hawa dira bi! Ako man naglingkod dira!
Boy: Hambuga jud nimo oi. Basi gusto ka imudmod ko nang simud nimo sa simud nako?!
Edwin Gutierrez, July 7, 2011

Ulan ka ba?
Eh bakit paulit-ulit kang nahuhulog sa'kin?
Edwin Gutierrez, July 5, 2011

Holdaper: Holdap to!
Girl: And so? Walang nagtatanong.
Holdaper: Holdap nga to!
Girl: Kelangan ipagsigawan? Proud ka? Proud?
Holdaper: Holdap sabi eh! Holdap nga! Holdap!
Girl: Paulit-ulet? Unli tayo teh?
Holdaper: Pag di ka tumigil, papatayin kita!
Girl: Weeh? Holdap naging patayan? Ano to? 2 in 1?
Holdaper: Leche! Maka-alis na nga!
Girl: Ayyy? Walk-out? Best actor?
Edwin Gutierrez, June 21, 2011

Time and things don't really last. What matters are the people we care about and the values we dare to live and share. Let life be as beautiful as your heart.
Mary Ann Andicoy, June 19, 2011

Muslim and priest at a party:
Priest: Pork really tastes good. Tell me, when are you going to break the rules and have some?
Muslim: On your wedding.
Edwin Gutierrez, June 16, 2011

"Hindi lang naman karma ang kinatatakutan ng mga two-timers eh... kundi pati ang wrong send."
Jericho Bolo, June 1, 2011

A loveless life is like a fruitless tree. But a friendless life is like a rootless tree. A tree can survive without a fruit, but it cannot survive without roots.
Mary Ann Andicoy, May 23, 2011

Vertical Farming

This is an interesting article from Spiegel, the German news site. As an excerpt:

Vertical farming is an old idea. Indigenous people in South America have long used vertically layered growing techniques, and the rice terraces of East Asia follow a similar principle. But, now, a rapidly growing global population and increasingly limited resources are making the technique more attractive than ever...


Vertical farming has the potential to solve this problem. The term "vertical farming" was coined in 1915 by American geologist Gilbert Ellis Bailey. Architects and scientists have repeatedly looked into the idea since then, especially toward the end of the 20th century. In 1999, Dickson Despommier, a professor emeritus of environmental health sciences and microbiology at New York's Columbia University seized upon the idea together with his students. After having grown tired of his depressing lectures on the state of the world, his students finally protested and asked Despommier to work with them on a more positive project.

From the initial idea of "rooftop farming," the cultivation of plants on flat roofs, the class developed a high-rise concept. The students calculated that rooftop-based rice growing would be able to feed, at most, 2 percent of Manhattan's population. "If it can't be done using rooftops, why don't we just grow the crops inside the buildings?" Despommier asked himself. "We already know how to cultivate and water plants indoors."

With its many empty high-rise buildings, Manhattan was the perfect location to develop the idea. Despommier's students calculated that a single 30-story vertical farm could feed some 50,000 people. And, theoretically, 160 of these structures could provide all of New York with food year-round, without being at the mercy of cold snaps and dry spells. 

Apart from being a relatively new technology, vertical farming has several barriers it must hurdle before it becomes market-ready. The article mentions the most important one: where can one find the power to provide light for all those indoor crops? Since sunlight is to be replaced by artificial light most of the time, the questions now are: 1) what are the best, most efficient methods of gathering as much natural sunlight as possible and 2) how can a building converted to vertical farming be able to generate the much needed electricity to power all its light-emitting diodes?

Still, the perceived technical difficulties fail to dampen the exciting possibilities that vertical farming has to offer. Given more research, vertical farming has the potential to greatly reduce world hunger, especially today where the world has less arable land than ever before, where water is becoming scarcer, where the weather is transforming previously robust farm land into either deserts or floodplains, and where the human population is putting a strain on our planet's resources.

To close, do I see vertical farming being practiced in the Philippines anytime soon? Ayoko magsalita ng patapos but I doubt it. Vertical farming implicitly thrives on the idea of several high-rise, abandoned buildings in the city, just waiting to be converted to agricultural purposes. As we stand now, with the exception of Makati and Taguig, there aren't that many cities in the Philippines which do feature skyscrapers. What I can see though is the rise of home-grown food products, organically cultivated atop residential and commercial buildings, grown and harvested in line with the principles of vertical farming. Now, that would be lovely to look at.

Working Out The Labels

Okay. In an earlier post, I explained the labels in this blog and what they meant. Back then, I was hesitant with creating labels, favoring a small list with which I could work with. However, this arrangement soon became cumbersome, as I delved into topics which were difficult to classify with the limited labels I had before.

I also thought belatedly that some people might not understand my labels at all, having chosen to write these in interrogative form and in Cebuano. I would probably do the passersby a better service by pursuing the more conventional form of labeling; that of using keywords in English.

So here I am, after having edited these labels. All in all, I'm happy with the results and I hope you are as well. 

The Routine

Turn on laptop.

Check FB, then HomeDesignFind, then a host of other websites I've bookmarked in Firefox.

Log into Google Accounts. Go to Blogger. Again, read any new blog posts from my reading list.

After the warm-up, go to the list of my posts. As expected, what greets me are drafts, dozens of them, posts half-finished then left to be published for another day.

After much procrastination, I start writing. Target: five posts in one sitting, although most often, I settle with less.

After three hours, I'm off. Come next weekend, I start again. Such is my life as a blogger.

NSTP

It's a bit late. Look at me. I'm a college graduate already. But one of the things I think about whenever I think of college is NSTP.

NSTP: National Service Training Program

NSTP was well and nice. The program forced Ateneo kids to remove their blinders, get out of their comfort zone, and assist the community in a way they saw fit.

But it could be improved because, to tell you honestly, the process sucked. You have a bunch of kids every semester. They do a project, implement it, and move on. Then another batch comes along and does the same thing.

The problem about this approach is that, first, there's no sense of continuity. The community knows its needs and, most often, these needs cannot be addressed in a single semester. Most needs are complex, requiring special intervention for months or even years.

However, since kids are only in the area for one semester only, the solutions they propose is equally piece-meal in proportion to the community's needs. And since a given class is not entirely sure whether their project will still be implemented even after they're gone, the timelines for these projects are limited to that single semester alone.

This situation is a recipe, not for community building, but for pent-up frustration and waste over time. It also doesn't benefit the students as well as it should. By focusing on short-term solutions, students miss out on the discipline of planning and implementing multi-year community work, work which is best done in stages and which will involve hundreds of actors, including the other batches who will be working in the area in the next few years.

If I had my way, facilitators of this program would have done the community a greater deal of service by mapping out what exactly the school, as an institution, should do. There must be a 'road map' about what kind of service the community needs and how the different classes can meet these needs in the future.

By establishing where to start, there's a lot of waste that is eliminated. Currently, every semester begins with a class brainstorming about what to do with the community and they do it. Then, the next semester begins and the cycle starts anew. The community members tell the class what they need, the class figures out if they can do it, and they start a project. Over and over again. On the other hand, by agreeing on a set condition of what must be achieved through the school's NST Program, both the facilitators and the community are saved of this redundant fact-finding stage.

Through a road map comes a more unified vision of what the school intends to accomplish over the years. And with a vision comes a more comprehensive plan of what to do, a plan that will transcend the limitations of what a 'one-semester' timeline can impose.

Anahaw

When I was a kid, I drew an island. I just finished reading Things People Do then. It was a book detailing the work of the people living in Banilla Island. It was an interesting book but what interested me the most was the page featuring a panoramic view of the island. There on that page were the numerous buildings which provided the backbone of the island's economy, from the hotel to the movie studio to the airport. I resolved to do the same and I did.

I drew Avanilla, a small island city in itself. It had all the buildings it needed to resemble a civilized society.  Looking back, I think I made a monopoly out of every business. There was only one marketplace, one wharf, one bakery, one everything. It also sported buildings which I, as a kid, wanted in my city. There was the circus, the carnival (because circus and carnival were two different things or so I remember), the local mall, and the arcade.

Unfortunately, I lost that drawing. I don't know where it went. So I resolved to make another one and name it Anahaw to make it more Filipino. But I lost interest. The closest thing I got was a street map of Anahaw, detailing where I should place the church, the government buildings etc. 

Now, I'm resurrecting the idea again, this time, not because of some misplaced sense of childhood nostalgia but because I need Anahaw to portray something for me. I need Anahaw to depict what urban planning should be in the near future, where sustainability and  community is the name of the game.

If I'm finished, I might just create a website out of Anahaw. 

Parlor Games

I knew I could have done something, knew I could have stood up for what I believed was right. But I merely sulked at a corner, hesitant, afraid of being regarded a kill joy by the audience.

In our recently concluded company summer outing, the parlor games featured food and animals as part of the entertainment. The food part featured an egg yolk to be broken. I went along with that, all the while remembering my NSTP class, where we were admonished by our moderator for wasting food (We were also playing with egg yolks, I think. What the hell is with egg yolks anyway?) while many in the world were going hungry.

The second part of the contest featured several mice, to be lifted from one box to another. It was supposed to be harmless for the creatures but several of us were icky when it came to handling animals and proceeded to unceremoniously and forcefully dump the mice to the second box. Some were holding them too tight; some were just hurling them into the box. In sum, we were being cruel to these mice. We were inflicting pain.

I was a witness but I was simply a spectator that day.

Guilt trip na naman. Bwisit.

A New Look At Activism

Perhaps, I was too harsh before. Then, I was exposed to a single brand of activism: the confrontational, angry kind you see marching down the streets. Now, I see another kind, a more sustainable brand aimed at forging bonds across factions instead of burning bridges down.

Sam Daley-Harris, founder of RESULTS, a US nonpartisan citizens' lobbying group, provides a step-by-step approach to a new type of activism that focuses on cooperation among multi-sectoral groups:

So you've 1) gotten in touch with your commitment to serve, 2) faced a problem that concerns you, 3) faced the hopelessness you feel about the problem, 4) looked for solutions, and 5) connected with your courage. That logically leads you to step 6: find others to work with, both locally and, if it's a national or international problem, with an institution and people that are working at that level. In other words, don't do it alone. If you try to do it alone, you'll never make it.

One interesting observation with this approach is the lack of villains in the scene. The government is not a villain. Instead, it is seen as an ally, a partner in resolving the issue. There are no scapegoats as well for everyone is a participant to promoting the needed change. 

This is the kind of activism that we need, although not something that we would want for ourselves.

Bringing In The Green Roofs

In college, I came across this project: Green Roofs for Buenos Aires.

Below is a project brief from the Holcim Awards 2005 website:

Type of project: Urban intervention
Start of construction: not foreseen
Principal authors:

Hugo E Gilardi, architect, Gilardi y Asociados Arquitectos, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Juan Cristobal Rautenstrauch, industrial engineer, Sociedad Bracht SA, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Raul Halac, architect, Instituto del Ambiente, University of Cordoba, Cordoba, Argentina

Project Summary: A conceptual project for a public policy to promote roof gardens (green roofs) on existing buildings in the city of Buenos Aires on a large scale.

Comment of the Holcim Awards 2005 Jury for Latin America:

The conceptual project aimed at improving urban policy is refreshingly innovative in proposing roof gardens throughout the city. Highly commended is the ambition to improve the conditions of individual buildings as well as more extensive environmental problems at a metropolitan scale.

Benefits for the buildings include a substantial improvement of the energy efficiency of housing, as well as increased comfort due to optimized thermal insulation. Benefits for the city include mitigation of urban flooding as a result of water retention as well as the reduction of heat islands due to vegetal transpiration.

At a world scale, such measures have a positive influence in that they help to reduce global warming both by minimizing the consumption of fossil energy for heating and by controlling CO2 during plant growth.

Important is that the proposal can be applied equally to existing and new buildings. A beneficial social component of the work is that is promises the potential of creating new jobs in the region for construction and maintenance, but is not necessarily limited to this context.

Not only demonstrating how the overall material quality of the city can be ameliorated, the project presents an ecologically responsible vision for large urban conglomerations.

I'm contemplating over how to bring the concept to Davao City. However, as of today, I do not have the time nor the resources and connections to do this just yet. Plus, it's going to take more research to ensure the project's success, from studying what endemic plants can be used for the rooftops to figuring out the necessary building requirements for such an endeavor. On top of this is the nagging question of how to win over property owners and building tenants to the idea.

If I can pull this off, it's going to be my legacy.

Save Davao Shrine Hills

Save Davao Shrine Hills.

I credit Mel for introducing me to this group. Actually, it's an NGO whose advocacy is focused on halting any further development in Shrine Hills. The group has issued a statement inviting the government to pursue a rigorous study assessing the quality of the soil in the area in order to ascertain once and for all if Shrine Hills is fit for further residential/commercial zoning.

The stand of the group is that Shrine Hills is increasingly becoming unstable and landslides (similar to the Cherry Hills tragedy of 1999) can become a reality if developers are allowed free reign in the area. Right now, DMCI UPDI, Filinvest, Alsons, and Camella hold sizable properties across the face of Shrine Hills.

I wrote in a post before at my distress at seeing hectares of trees being cut off to pave way for a new subdivision project (of what will become Royal Pines). Now, the same thing can happen again, this time, at other spots in Shrine Hills if ever the city government grants these developers the license to continue improving their purchased lots.

The group has, time and again, lobbied against such a motion with varying degrees of success. But limited resources and political will can only do so much against determined and well-endowed corporate entities.

What can you do?

MISSION

MISSION  

Movement of Imaginals for a Sustainable Society through Initiatives, Organization, and Networking.

Recently, I was invited by Mel Penaflor to attend a workshop to be conducted by Nicanor Perlas, peace advocate and former presidential candidate. What transpired in the next two days was an orientation to the MISSION organization and its proposal on how to effect social transformation. 

I guess I won't be as good at explaining the organization's underlying principles as the members of the group itself. But I can point out some interesting points which make MISSION special and which, I believe, puts it in a unique position to actually apply concrete changes in today's society.

First, the organization's holistic approach to the nation's issues sets it apart from the other activist movements. For MISSION, the government (and the constant whine to change it) is simply one factor, the political. One has to consider as well the ecosociocultural (what a word) dimension of the problem for one to arrive at a resolution tailor-fitted to it. There are no 'simple' solutions to complex problems and MISSION acknowledges this.

Second, the organization's focus on cultivating small networks of passionate individuals is an acknowledgement of a rapidly growing trend. Whereas, before, people affiliated themselves into groups with a common goal, with MISSION, the individual is encouraged to pursue his or her own advocacy in the context of a support group composed of individuals who are also pursuing their respective vocations. Such an arrangement brings about a greater degree of collaboration and resilience as people from different backgrounds and different fields of expertise enrich and embolden each other.

Finally, the organization's emphasis on personal self-mastery underlines the need to put the development of leaders ahead of developing the nation. For to transform society, one must rely on individuals with excellent leadership acumen to spearhead the process.

Will I join? I don't know. I'm tantalized but at the same time hesitant. Nevertheless, I'm happy that MISSION exists and I'm hopeful that it will achieve its purpose of building a sustainable society in the next few years.

Banning OFWs

Something I picked up from the blog of maverick journalist  Raissa Robles:

"Saudis consider maids as part of their furniture", a labor official once told me.

This was what Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Jose Brillantes told me when he was still a Department  of Labor and Employment undersecretary.

He said this to explain why many Saudi employers treat Filipino domestic workers inhumanely and abusively, such as kicking, punching or branding them with a hot iron if they make mistakes or take daily baths; or working them half to death with little rest and food; or sexually abusing them.

I was shocked by his explanation. I could not use it of course because I was then writing for Saudi newspaper Riyadh Daily.

In recent days, amid an announced ban on recruitment of Filipino and Indonesian domestics imposed by the Saudi government starting yesterday July 2, I confirmed from two separate sources that what Brillantes told me years ago was true.

A Muslim ambassador recently shared this startling bit of info: Unknown to us Filipinos, the Saudi government used to stamp on passports of Filipino domestics being deployed to the Kingdom words in Arabic that stated what Brillantes had told me. That the bearer of the passport was a household worker whom the employer could treat in a sub-human manner. Like slaves.

The other instance of confirmation came from news reports following the Saudi government’s beheading of a female Indonesian domestic worker who repeatedly stabbed her Saudi employer to death in January last year after being berated constantly.

Saudi authorities had refused to give Indonesian diplomats access to Ruyati Binti Sapubi because they said she had already confessed to the crime. Indonesia tried to ask for clemency and a chance to defend her in court. But over a week ago, it learned from news reports her head had been chopped off with a sword.

The beheading prompted Salim Said, a former Indonesian diplomat-turned-political analyst, to state bluntly to Joe Cochraine, my fellow correspondent covering Jakarta for South China Morning Post:

In Saudi Arabia, they do not have a tradition of having maids or helpers – their ancient tradition is having slaves. So the mental attitude of their culture is treating their helpers and maids as if they are slaves.

Said even shared the information that when he was Indonesia’s ambassador to Prague, his embassy became a de facto shelter for runaway domestics whose Saudi employers were vacationing in the Czech Republic.

Let's put this in context.

As gleaned above, this blog post came out after Saudi Arabia banned work visas for Filipino domestic workers. As if on cue, various factions in the private sector expressed apprehension over this state of affairs, citing, understandably, concerns over the welfare of the thousands of would-be OFWs who have been suddenly cut off from another chance to work abroad.

However, this turn of events can be looked upon as an opportunity in disguise. What I hope would happen is that the government will see this as it is. 

For years, Saudi Arabia has gotten away with many human rights abuses against domestic helpers and this chronic issue of abuse has not been limited to Filipinos. The article linked above also mentions Indonesia prohibiting its citizens from working as domestic servants in Saudi Arabia after the beheading of a maid.

With this, I believe it is wise for the government to review its policies of exporting low-skill labor to countries with questionable human rights records. In effect, the government should emulate what Indonesia had done and impose prohibitions on the movement of OFWs to countries which put them at risk of violence and abuse.

It will not be easy and it will take a person with tremendous political stamina to stick with this direction despite the initial backlash. But, in the end, it will still be for the benefit of our OFWs and their continued success (and survival) abroad.

Something About Uniforms

School uniforms ought to become more practical.

Every morning, when I go off for work, I pass by SMILE (Saint Mary's Initial Learning Experience), a thriving kindergarten school in our neighborhood. The boys' outfits are fine but the girls' skirts definitely need to change. The skirts are candy yellow, not a good color choice, considering these are kids who play outside. I can imagine laundrywomen, trying their best to wash of the mud stains from these skirts, and little girl's ears being pinched by their parents or their yayas for sullying their uniforms.

I'm also a product of ADDU and the uniforms of the ladies also need to change. For one thing, white skirts don't hide blood or dirt stains very well. In hindsight, I would have done better myself had I opted for slacks instead of the more popular khaki pants. If I had done this, I would have saved myself countless hours spent ironing and starching my pants to near perfection.

Come to think of it, school uniforms ought to be simple and comfortable as well as classy. A good school uniform should also be a symbol of understated elegance. Hence, I don't like SPC tolerating boys who wear school polos with their maong pants. I also don't like neck ties, scarfs, and pins. Not only are these completely unnecessary, students actually waste time putting these on. On the extreme side, I also don't like skirts at all, preferring that girls wear slacks instead. Not only do these skirts limit girls' movements, they also offer limitless opportunities for thriving Peeping Toms to practice their craft.

I maybe just ranting (actually, I am) but everyone has got to make this world better. Why not start with the small stuff?

A Love Scene

Wife: Hon, if you could choose, who would you want to die first? Me or you?
Husband: Of course, you.
Wife: What? Why?
Husband: So you won't have to go through the pain of losing a spouse.

I've been meaning to insert this dialogue piece in a future short story. A friend of mine commented that the husband simply got away with the witty retort. My sister thinks it's just plain morbid.