Alin, alin, alin ang naiba? Ang pagkakaiba ng Tagalog at Filipino

Ayon sa Google, matagumpay ang naturang akda sapagkat kabilang ito sa unang limang resulta ng search na “pagkakaiba ng tagalog sa filipino” o “pagkakaiba ng tagalog at filipino”. Samakatuwid, kinagigiliwan ng mga estudyanteng nabigyan ng naturang asaynment ang aking blog.

Higit pa sa 25 na comment ang tunay na bilang ng comment sa post na iyan… marami diyang comment na hindi ko na in-approve. Ang ilan sa mga comment na iyon ay nakakairita lamang sapagkat nagtatanong sila ng mga bagay ukol sa wikang Filipino na higit pa sa nasasaad, e.g., mga tanong tungkol sa balarila at panitikan.

Patawad, mga bords. Hindi ako guro sa Filipino. Kinagigiliwan ko lamang ang pagsusulat sa wika na ‘to.

Maligayang Araw ng mga Ama!

Reading the following passage made me reminisce about my high school alma mater, which with its reputation and demanding curriculum, such stories are not unusual at all:

One graduate was Kim Soo-yeon, 19, who was accepted by Princeton this month. Daewon parents tend to be wealthy doctors, lawyers or university professors. Ms. Kim’s father is a top official in the Korean Olympic Committee.

Ms. Kim developed fierce study habits early, watching her mother scold her older sister for receiving any score less than 100 on tests. Even a 98 or a 99 brought a tongue-lashing.

“Most Korean mothers want their children to get 100 on all the tests in all the subjects,” Ms. Kim’s mother said. [The New York Times, emphasis mine]

I also had a batchmate who would freak out and weep when he got 99/100 in quizzes. He supposedly got beatings from his parents from such scores. It’s toll on the guy was obvious: he was socially inept. And by inept, I do not just mean that he’s a dork: by inept, I mean that, at 14 or 15 years old, he exhibited the emotional maturity of a 9 year old.

I’m not kidding, nor do I mean it in a degrading nor insulting way — he genuinely exhibited the emotional maturity of a 9 year old. While a lot of people was dealing with their adolescence hormones (although many, who are similar to him, are not), dealing with their relationships with the opposite sex, this guy was drooling (literally) in front of his Game Boy trying to finish The Legend of Zelda. He acted in this weird, comical way, as though he was always acting out a skit from some sort of cartoon. He wrote in the school paper, but his material never went beyond echoing the preachings of parents who made sure that their little boy behaved properly.

And all of that to satisfy the whims of parents who determined from day one that they will measure their child’s worth through the name of the school he went to, and through the numeric scribbles of some stranger on a thickened piece of paper.

While I agree that honing the talents of a gifted child is necessary so that talent does not go to waste, I believe that elevating perfection to some sort of sadistic standard and measuring a child’s worth through their adherence to that standard is pure and unadulterated child abuse. Indeed, many of us from that school, myself included, reached a point during our college years where we just burnt up, bombed out, and got disillusioned by the meaning of all the numbers ruling our lives, despite the absence of pressure from our parents at the time. It was simply expected of us because we came from that school.

It was tough being unable to distinguish one’s self worth from that stigma, the label of being a graduate of an elite school. Many people, upon learning that you’ve come from that school, immediately expect you to be some kind of superhuman or ubergenius; a person who is expected to be “successful” by excelling in all aspects of life, especially in academics and, years later, in a career. It’s as if failure is not an option.

I deeply appreciate my parents for not burdening me with the kinds of expectations some of my batch mates had to go through.

I am not discouraging people from sending their children to Philippine Science High School, or to any other science high school, or for aspiring for entry into Ivy League schools for that matter. Neither do I regret going to Pisay, because the challenges there certainly made me a stronger, more resilient, and more reflective person.

However, fourteen years’ worth of hindsight makes the repercussions of a high-pressure academic environment much, much clearer. Now that I am also a parent, at least the effort becomes more conscious: never ever make your child feel that they are only worth the grades they get. Being in an elite school is hard enough — lowering their self esteem will only make it worse.

They will thank you for it when you get older.

Melynn, who operates I-NAV Travel & Tours, got pissed yesterday. She arrived at the Cebu Pacific ticketing office at 10 in the morning. By the time she was done, it was already 3 in the afternoon. The office was simply overwhelmingly jampacked.

Nope, there was no Piso Fare promo going on. Everyone was doing their transactions manually because Cebu Pacific just changed their perfectly fine online reservation system with a massively confusing online facility made by Navitaire.

I don’t know precisely why Cebu Pacific replaced their previous online system. It was working fine last time. But a few weeks ago they changed it and it is now what it is.

At first the bugs seem to be really simple, and as a web developer myself I understand how bugs such as this could happen:

That’s a screen shot of the online reservation system jumbling its div tags in Internet Explorer 7.0.

And the online reservation system absolutely doesn’t work in Firefox 2.0. Or at least doesn’t go beyond the flight search page. Which renders it useless for FF users. I wonder how it is in Safari.

However, the above are simple bugs really. It’s easy (at least for me) to excuse these kinds of errors.

But along the way they also changed things that shouldn’t be changed. A guy named Phen commented this on a previous thread about Cebu Pacific’s service:

I used to fly Cebu Pacific for my personal trips, the reason being cheap. However with what happened to me last April 4, 2008 for my Davao-Cebu flight, I will never be on this carriage again. I was supposed to fly to Cebu at 6.30 am, I was there at Davao airport 5am. Upon checking in, I was told that I couldn’t take the flight because my ticket wasn’t confirmed! I purchased it online with confirmed status clearly indicated in my print-out. The not-so-customer-oriented staff pointed out that the status for payment was pending, which was written at the bottom part of the ticket. Who on earth would think that you were not able to pay when you got a confirmation?! And worst, nobody from Cebu Pacific thought of calling me to let me know. I was denied right on the spot, and when I asked for their assistance to at least get me in, the lady in the check in counter just instructed me to go to the ticketing office.

Here comes the worst part, no one from the ticketing office had the consideration to prioritize me or give me a confirmed reservation for the next flight at the least. The ticketing staff, Mr. Jonathan Leonor, just told me to wait so that they could check. I was waiting already for an hour, and got the same response when I asked for a reservation. He had even the gut to go out for a cigarette break, what kind of staff are these? [Is Cebu Pacific hoodwinking its passengers into empty flights?]

I verified the above with my wife, and she said it was true. Their e-tickets now have two statuses that you have to check: reserved and paid, and instantly confusion is introduced into the system. Let me illustrate:

• Reservation is pending and payment is pending. Can you board the plane? No.
• Reservation is confirmed and payment is pending. Can you board the plane? No.
• Reservation is pending and payment is confirmed. Can you board the plane? No.
• Reservation is confirmed and payment is confirmed. Can you board the plane? Yes.

There is exactly one and only one set of conditions where you can board the plane, and that is when both reservation and payment are confirmed. Why did they have to break the two down and confuse the passengers? This disambiguation which instead of making things clear has led to utter confusion is an act of monumental stupidity on the part of both Cebu Pacific and the software developer Navitaire.

Passengers do not care if either their reservation or their payment is confirmed or not. Passengers only care if they can board the plane or not. This is the question that needs to be answered, and clearly Cebu Pacific does not answer this question clearly in their system, and the result is pissed, inconvenienced passengers who have suffer the hassle of being turned back and made to cancel their travel plans because Cebu Pacific did not make things clear to them.

Yes it sounds cliche, but I really have to say it here: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Cebu Pacific should not have changed their previous online system. Or at least Navitaire should’ve entered a more intensive QA phase wherein they hallway-tested the results of their system where it would be revealed that their e-tickets are absolutely confusing.

So for the record: Avoid Cebu Pacific at all costs. At least for the next few months — until they fix their system, or bring the old one back.

We can get on the DLSU bus, which comes and goes every hour and a half, bringing students and teachers to La Salle Greenhills, from where we walked short of a kilometer to the EDSA Shrine. It was 11 AM; the sun was scorching hot, and only a few hundred people, in groups of 10 or so, where hiding in the shade provided by the imposing EDSA-Ortigas flyover. Many of the other participants were having lunch; we have had ours at the “flying kaldero”-shaped canteen of LSGH.  Before leaving the campus we had a glimpse of the President speaking of snap elections. We practically ignored it and went to the shrine.

The feeling was electrifying: two nights before I had come from the protest march at Mendiola. We assembled at Liwasang Bonifacio prior to that, where Teofisto Guingona gave his speech calling on the President to resign. I was confident nothing bad would happen, and nothing bad did: the daughter of no less than the PNP chief Edgardo Aglipay was an officer of the DLSU Student Council and was part of the protest crowd.

He knew — and he wouldn’t let anything go out of hand.

All of this had started earlier that week: everyone was spending too much time at the library where a TV was set up tuned to the impeachment proceedings. For many, it was just another telenovela until, without warning, Tessie did her dance number. It all went downhill after that.

So there we were, under the curve of the causeway that turns left from EDSA into Ortigas Ave., just waiting things out. I was greeting familiar faces from other universities — usually high school batch mates who went to ADMU or UP. Someone called my attention and pointed towards the north: just beyond the MRT rails the horizon was filled with banners and placards, in red, white, black, and blue. “Erap Resign”. That was the fever.  People were up on the flyover now, hanging house-sized banners from the railings.

I regret I didn’t bring my Canon SLR then. The way the wind sways them, the light the slowly setting sun casts on the banners, the photographs would have been fantastic.

A few hours more and the area surrounding the shrine was overflowing with people, an unlikely combination of students, yuppies, and militants. A Cessna was flying by at around 250 ft. pulling an “Erap Resign” banner, people gave more notice and cheered to the chopper that took off from the nearby Ortigas Center helipad, sporting a neon orange mask-taped-on “Erap Resign” message at its side.

People were euphoric: even the flyovers were filled to the brim by 4 pm. Then the news came: AFP Chief Angelo Reyes has withdrawn support from Estrada. That was the reason for the snap elections message we saw earlier. The crowd cheered in unison when Reyes came on stage.

It was getting dark by the time Reyes finished his speech. Text messages filled my phone; my parents asking me where I was, and wondering if they should even try going to Ortigas. I told them it might already be too late in the day, and I was headed back. A friend accompanied me on the way back to MRT Ortigas station. But even as we were boarding the train, people were alighting in droves in either side of the station. “Erap resign! Erap resign!” they started chanting as they exited the trains.

I stayed home the day after, watched everything else in TV. I wonder if I would’ve been seen on TV with ABS-CBN’s swinging boom cam.

In the years that followed, especially when EDSA Tres came about and Gloria lost her popularity — what could have happened? What would have happened if Estrada finished his term? What would have happened if he was properly impeached? What would have happened if we had stuck with the institutions?

I still wonder to this day.

And I still regret not being able to bring the Canon.

In that blog entry, I posited that the “the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer” mantra was part of a “gospel of hopelessness” that poisons people’s minds into believing that there is absolutely no way for them to rise up above a life of poverty.

In turn, Sidney pointed out an article from Newsweek describing how, in many countries – even our more progressive Asian neighbors with so-called “tiger economies” – the gap between the rich and poor are widening, with the already-rich hogging any economic gains that a country achieves, leaving the poor to settle for the scraps from the dinner table which they fight for their lives for.

It was very painful for me to read that issue of Newsweek, and it boggled my mind as to how to answer Sidney’s challenge. I was in a quandary as to how view the situation – for every story of a successful individual borne out of poverty and raised in poor families but are now in the upper echelons of corporations or own businesses, there are a thousand stories of despair and failure in the filthiest of slums and squatters’ areas.

How do I resolve that? I knew that somewhere, somehow, there was an answer to this contradiction.

Then finally, I read about Gilbert, and posted my rather controversial take on his story.

Education has been the traditional answer to the scourge of poverty. It is the silver bullet that many believe to be the true ticket out of subsistence living. Finish college, find a secure job, perform well, get promoted, receive raises, and you’re on your way to becoming big. Gilbert’s story belies that – despite finishing an IT degree, he went abroad taking on a menial job more suited to a person who had finished high school.

While taking a job overseas is absolutely fine, he totally wasted his education in a field that promises big bucks and ample opportunities both within the country and abroad.

On the other hand, there is the story of Mariannet Amper. Although her alleged suicide is undergoing reinvestigation, assuming that her suicide note is true, she is a case of a person who has given up long before she could even start. The irony is that there are tycoons that have started from exactly where she was, and have made it big 40, 50 years down the line.

So now I ask, what was the difference between Gilbert, Mariannet and the big business figures we know that hadn’t finished college, and actually started from poverty-stricken backgrounds – Socorro Ramos of National Bookstore, Henry Sy of SM, John Gokongwei of Robinson’s, Julie Gadiongco of Julie’s Bakeshop to name a few?

Is it just a matter of, 40, 50 years? Was that world really so different — one that was devastated by war — that opportunity was just there right for the picking? If that were true, why isn’t every one of our grandparents filthy rich by now? Is it that the rich weren’t “preventing” the poor from getting richer back then?

There is no question that the answer to Sidney Snoeck’s challenge is no. Mariannet Amper cannot possibly have gotten out of poverty. If her suicide note is to be believed, she simply didn’t have the fight within her to have what it takes to get out of her rut. The same goes with Gilbert – his choice of career – or lack thereof – clearly shows the inability to take advantage of opportunities presented to him.

However, for a person who has both characteristics – that is, the relentlessness by which they refuse to succumb to adversity in their situations, and the ability to spot and exploit opportunities in every situation, whether positive or negative, being successful is inevitable. Throw in some talent, and you’ve got an achiever. Throw in a lot of guts, and you’ve got a surefire winner — rich preventing poor from taking a share of the pot or not.

There are a lot of talented people out there who don’t have the guts, or a lot of people who have the guts but do not or do not know how to hone their talents, and unless these change, it is unlikely that they will even be able to rise up to the nearest higher socio-economic stratum.

Some people will argue that there’s also luck — that some people are extremely lucky to have had certain opportunities in their lives. I, however, would argue that luck is a talent — it is no different from the ability to spot opportunities and make the best use out of them. For example, there are cases wherein people rose out of poverty because they had a benefactor — who gave them a scholarship and saw them through their education and eventually employed them or helped them put up a business. While some would think that the person is extremely lucky, it is unlikely that he will find that luck had he been not recognized by the benefactor by performing well in school.

Fortunately people are not born with these characteristics. These traits — skill, opportunity spotting, risk taking, and I dare say even luck — are learned, whether through others or through one’s life experiences.

In the end, it is totally up to an individual if they decide to fight back, or if they will believe that they do not have what it takes to rise up to the challenge of life.

In the West, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the highest official of the Church of England, held closed door negotiations with its US branch, the Episcopal Church. The point of contention: the Episcopal Church’s liberal stance with regards to homosexuality, and a moratorium on same-sex marriage and consecrating openly gay bishops.

Makes me wonder if the Anglican God has homophobia, despite all His might and power. We will see.

In Nebraska, however, God finally responds to the lawsuit filed against Him. In the response, God argues that He, the defendant, is immune from earthly laws and the court lacks jurisdiction over God.

I’m not really interested in God’s response, I am interested in the answer to some questions:

a) If God is omniscient, does He need a lawyer?

b) If God is omnipresent, how much will a lawyer charge Him for being there all the time even on the lawyer’s breaks?

c) If God is called to the witness stand, how does He respond to the “so help me God” clause of the oath?

Gay pride and humor aside, that’s boring compared to the East, where some real action is brewing.

In China, all is fine and well with the Vatican’s approval (finally) of a Beijing-appointed Catholic bishop when Joseph Li Shan was appointed to the post. Beijing and the Holy See has long been at odds over the earlier’s insistence on meddling with the Catholic church’s power structure, despite the communist state’s officially atheistic stance.

Sign of the times? Or maybe China also wants to manufacture plastic rosaries and crucifixes for cheaper at wholesale? Better ask the guys at Catholic Trading in Tayuman if Divisoria’s 168 has been threatening them too.

A totally different god is at odds with the military junta in Myanmar, wherein monks lead “100,000″ protesters in a peaceful rally through Yangon. The military has, however, issued a warning against the monks. I will imagine they could hold Buddha under house arrest alongside Aung San Suu Kyi.

In the local blogosphere, a high school student of a certain science high school (made “certain” by yours truly, a proud alumnus) complains about the seemingly anti-atheistic stance of some of its teachers and officials despite its non-sectarian and taxpayer-funded nature. The ensuing comment thread reveals nothing less than a Da Vinci Code twist to the story.

Ah, nothing like the feeling of god being shoved up your ass.

In UAAP Season 69 last year, the Green Archers were suspended after school officials admitted that the records of two students were tampered with to allow them admission into the university.

This time it’s game fixing again.

Paolo Orbeta, member of the sister-school DLS-College of Saint Benilde Blazers basketball team, was arrested on allegations of game fixing. Apparently, Orbeta, with several accomplices, are being accused by classmate Wilfred Uy of being in the process of defrauding him of millions of pesos.

It saddens me that members of the DLSU community is embroiled in yet another scandal; lessons should have been learned with the DLSU main campus’ experiences.

Despite this, however, I believe this is yet another opportunity to look into the supposedly amateur sports leagues, which is being manipulated by both alumna and probably even illegal-gambling mafia.

Animo Benilde! Animo La Salle!

What made this talk special was that it was for students of CSB’s School of Deaf Education and Applied Studies, specifically those under the Business Entrepreneurship track. My partner (read: interpreter) for this presentation was Ms. Ninfa J. Viernes, head of the Office of the Academic Programs.

It was quite a different experience, having no need to modulate one’s voice (you only need be heard well by the interpreter, who did the real work). Instead, you need to be slow (so that your interpreter can catch-up with you) and concise (so that your interpreter won’t get tired). Jargon should be kept at a minimum because these usually have to be spelled-out letter-by-letter in sign. Sometimes some signs for terms have to be made up — I was particularly amused at the sign for “piracy” and “pirated software”; a clenched fist lightly jabbed into the right eye, mimicking the medieval pirate’s eye-patch.

The lack of spoken words didn’t hinder the students from expressing their enthusiasm and appreciation, despite the fact that in they live in a society that does not completely accept them and address their needs. Given the difficulties faced by entrepreneurs who have all five senses intact, they need all the help that they can get to be able to set up their own trade.

I really enjoyed doing this talk, and I’m looking forward to doing a repeat of the presentation I made — and maybe learn a little more of sign language along the way.

While it does allow tutoring for individual subjects, once you establish any sort of program or syllabus that can constitutes as a curriculum of sorts, you’re already considered as having a “review course”:

REVIEW COURSE – refers to the set of non-degree program of study and/or instructional materials/module, offered by a school with a recognized course/program requiring licensure examination, that are intended to merely refresh and enhance the knowledge or competencies and skills of reviewees. [CMO 49]

And a review center is defined as:

REVIEW CENTER – refers to a center operated and owned by a duly authorized entity pursuant to these Rules intending to offer to the public and/or specialized groups whether for a fee or for free a program or course of study that is intended to refresh and enhance the knowledge or competencies and skills of reviewees obtained in the formal school setting. The term review center as understood in these rules shall also embrace the operation or conduct of review classes or courses provided by individuals whether for a fee or not. [CMO 49]

That means that if you have any kind structured tutoring program for medical, dentistry, nursing, or engineering, you’ll have to register as a review center, even if you’re alone and render your services for free.
And how much does the registration cost? Oh, no more than PHP100,000. Gives a whole new meaning to the word extortion, doesn’t it?

Of course, as long as you don’t teach in a structured way, you don’t have to worry about registering.

• 299 University of the Philippines
• 392 De La Salle University
• 484 Ateneo de Manila University
• 500 University of Santo Tomas

I did a quick check on the top 200 universities on the list, checking out which “developing” countries had universities with good standing. Five of the top 200 are universities from India, Mexico, and Thailand.

What immediately got my attention was Jawaharlal Nehru University in India:

In the early 1970s, when JNU opened its doors to teachers and students, frontier disciplines and new perspectives on old disciplines were brought to the Indian university system. The excellent teacher-student ratio at 1:10, a mode of instruction which encouraged students to explore their own creativity instead of reproducing received knowledge,and an exclusively internal evaluation were a new experiment on the Indian academic landscape; these have stood the test of time. The very Nehruvian objectives embedded in the founding of the University, national integration, social justice, secularism, the democratic way of life, international understanding and scientific approach to the problems of society had built into it constant and energetic endeavour to renew knowledge through self-questioning. [TopUniversities.com]

What struck me was the explicit wording of traits that I have long wanted to see in a local university: exploration, creativity, internal evaluation, renewal of knowledge through self-questioning.

These are all the ingredients of rational and critical thinking individuals who are out to solve the problems of society, instead of the usual fare who seem to be trained to look for blame for their own woes. These traits are what I believe, if incorporated in our local education system, will be the key to solving our country’s problems.

I dream of the day that more local universities will adapt such an introspective and creative paradigm to education, instead of the traditional classroom lecture “cookbook” approach to education. And then maybe we will finally find the “push” we need to turn our country around, if not have more universities from our country in the top 500.