I have started blogging here and will soon be leaving this old home -- **sniff sniff**. Exactly when that "soon" is, I can't tell yet as I have no way of knowing, at this time, when I can move all my posts and comments to the other site.
Henceforth, all my new posts will be found in this site. Goodbye TypePad! Thanks for all the good days.
First, I am preparing to transfer to this site by the end of this month. I love TypePad and have been with this site since I started in 2004 but, like I wrote last time, I don't see myself blogging everyday or even 3 or 2 times a week when classes start in June so paying $8.95 a month for this blog does not make any cents, er, sense. If I am successful (I'm still deliberating on whether it will be worth all my time to transfer all my posts which have been archived here), I will post a thank-you-and goodbye-see-you-in-the-other-blog message here.
A few months ago - I think it was around Christmas - the taxi I was in was caught in a traffic jam. The driver was listening to a news report but all I could hear was the hysterical sobbing of a woman.
"Why is she crying? What happened?", I asked the driver, a big man about in his 60s. I didn't expect his reaction - he was angry but he also sounded like he was on the verge of crying. When I heard the story, I understood why. The driver's narrative started with a cuss.
As you can see by the title, I can't make up my mind but I have to make up my mind. Does that tell you how confused I am?
I should (but I don't want to) say goodbye to blogging because ...
But this is not really goodbye because I know I won't be able to resist blogging once in a while (there really is no telling when) and if I do, maybe I will write about the books that I'm looking forward to read (they've been parading on my desktop for many months as my "summer inspiration") or maybe about a place or two that I might visit (which is really a remote possibility). But, of course, while school is out, I will be seeing you in your blogs.
My other dilemma is this: why would I need to pay for this blog ($8.95 a month) when I won't be blogging regularly? Ah, that's a problem that must be resolved some other time (hopefully before another school year starts).
In the meantime, enjoy your summer! I am so excited about mine (the books, the books!).
A cousin forwarded to me an email which showed a reproduction of a post written by Ricky Carandang (of ANC, the news channel of ABS-CBN) in his blog, Ricky Carandang Reporting. The post is entitled Treason.
It is actually a follow-up of a story that Ricky did for The Correspondents, a news documentary program. It is about how it seems GMA has sold us to China when she signed an agreement with that country to explore the Spratly Islands or what is more popularly known to Filipinos as the Kalayaan Islands. Unless you took a long vacation to Mars, you should know that this group of small islands has been the subject of disputes among several Asian countries because of its potential wealth of oil and natural gas. Why would she do that? Well, the answer is obvious: money, money, money (sing to the tune of the Abba song). How did they sell us? Find out by reading Ricky Carandang's post. You can also watch this episode of The Correspondents via You Tube, starting with this.
Also, that post and the comments posted therein point to yet another anomaly ... the lease of a million hectares (yes, dear, 6 zeroes!) of agricultural land to, who else, a Chinese corporation, Fuhua Co. Again, this was done in apparent violation of our Constitution. You can read more here, you can even download the "vague and ambiguous" memorandum of understanding between the Philippine government and Fuhua Co. thru a link provided in that sight.
Outraged? You should be! We all should be! I feel like this government has sold our children's future down the drain. Spread the word. It is about time that we do our part to stop the greed.
I am now listening to Sec. Ignacio Bunye being interviewed by broadcaster Pinky Webb over ANC. He is saying that Pres. GMA never admitted saying that she knew, before signing that now infamous contract with ZTE, that the contract was flawed.
OMG. Now I am confused. I was also watching TV when they showed Pres. GMA on the radio show of Joe Taruc, speaking in Filipino, making a statement which made me understand that she knew the night before she left for the signing or whatever it was (Bunye denies that it was a "signing" ... so what did the President do?) that there was something wrong with the contract but she also said something like "since we were dealing with another country ... blah blah blah", she had to do it anyway. Although I cannot quote her verbatim here because I cannot remember the exact words she used, in my simple mind, that was what she conveyed: she signed it even if she had knowledge that something was wrong. I can still recall my reaction as soon as she made the statement: "tapat!" (an Ilonggo word akin to "lagot!"). Then came a string of questions in my mind, "Why did she say that? That's the smoking gun! Why is China more important than Filipinos? Why could she not postpone it and be frank and truthful to the President of China that she needed more time to study the contract? Who advised GMA to admit this?" An admission. That's what it sounded to me. That's how many others understood it too.
Now Malacanang is denying the President made an admission. It's like telling me there is something wrong with my hearing, there is something wrong with my comprehension, that I just misinterpreted the President, blah blah blah.
Maybe this is why GMA and her administration is losing its credibility. I can't help but think back to the time when she promised she would not run for president (I applauded her when she said that!) and the time when she denied making any calls to Mr. Garci. We all know what she did after these.
If I have began entertaining serious doubts about this government, it is certainly not because of all the noise that the opposition is making (I have doubts about their intentions and abilities, too). It is because this government is committing suicide right before my very eyes.
Whenever my students get stuck up solving a problem, I always tell them "back to basics". This is why I picked the book I am currently reading: All I Really Need to Know I Learned In Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum (15th Anniversary Edition).
When I read the part I am reproducing below, I remembered Jun Lozada, the senators and congressmen, GMA and all the President's Men, the priests and the nuns and all of us.
Remember the story of the emperor's new clothes? The emperor had been duped by a tailor into believing that the clothes he made were so magnificent that only the pure of heart could wear them. When the emperor strutted his stuff in the non-existent clothes, a kid said what everybody could plainly see: "The emperor is stark naked." What happened to that kid? He was hauled off home and sent to bed without his supper for being a big mouth and making trouble for his family.
The kid had always been told: "Be truthful, speak your mind, be true to yourself and have courage of your convictions." But the kid found out the hard way what the real rules were: "Don't make waves, keep your mouth shut, cover your butt, don't be a hero and mind your own business." Whistle-blowers, like girls who marry a prince, do not live happily ever after. The kid wrestled with this reality as long as he lived."
Who is the kid? Are you one of the parents who sent the kid to bed without supper for embarrassing the family? Who is the emperor? Are you one of those in the crowd who chose to keep quiet or who applauded the new clothes even if you saw that the emperor was stark naked? Are you the tailor - or one of the tailors - who convinced the emperor that his new get-up is magnificent?
Which of the basic rules should I tell my students to follow? "Keep your mouth shut, don't make waves..." or "just say the truth and nothing but the truth, so God help you"?
Everyone now knows who Jun Lozada is. I don't know him personally and this post has actually nothing to do with the national impact of JLo's disclosures.
This is about how watching him before the Senate summoned memories and evoked emotions of an incident that happened to me about ten years ago ... something which I had long been wanting to delete from my memory but apparently had failed to do.
I do not often read editorials even if I read almost all the other columns in the same and opposite pages. But this morning's editorial in the Philippine Daily Inquirer immediately caught my attention because of its heading: Hacenderos.
Although hacienda means a farm which in Webster's definition is a tract of land devoted to agricultural purposes ... or to the raising of animals ... or some aquatic life form, here in the Philippines, when you say hacienda or hacenderos, you are likely referring to a sugar plantation and to sugar planters (or "sugar barons", a term which I despise because of the negative connotation attached to it). And, more often than not, you mean someone from Negros Occidental, my home province. Correct me if I am wrong.
First, I like to announce that I have finally gone and done it! I went to the mall, filled out an application for Smart Bro and in a few minutes, I was done. So far, I'm happy (but sometimes I can't help feeling edgy whenever I put my notebook on, wondering if my connection will work).
Second, my new post in Blogging Bugs is about a local high school teacher who was jailed for allegedly raping his student.
Have a happy weekend!
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