The Pinoy Jeepney

On my way to the Commission on Higher Education, I got a good tete a tete with Tatang, the taxi driver. Tatang was just so surprised to see a Sarao jeepney still on the road. He could tell the engine type of that jeepney and then he asked: Ba't nawala na yang Sarao?

While I was in Bahrain I happened to work with one descendants of the Sarao clan who pioneered the jeepney phenomenon in the country. He was my boss, a fellow English teacher. If I remember from his story, Sarao is not really gone, the patent on its engine is bought by a huge car company that operates in the Philippines. The Sarao family may have divested into other businesses. But I don't care. What is with the jeepney is the representation of the Filipino inguinity.

As what Tatang and I shared, you could look at other cars on Philippine roads, but the elegance, the strenght and the pride of the jeepney is really incomparable. One could only imagine, that jeepneys have longer life spans than that of other cars manufactured here or abroad that run on the roads. The engines in the jeepneys, are they ever new? 'Newness' of a jeepney is just virtual. The engines, according to my brother who is jeepney operator, are just refurbished, reconditioned, cannibalized from old jeepneys and then accessorized with new parts.

Wow! The jeepney is the mother of the transformers. It changes shape, sizes, colors and parts, but there are parts that are kept, the most important of all - engines. Tires are sometimes just recapped, the flooring is just sometimes padded or welded with new iron sheets. The chassis is sometimes just extended. Yet, the jeepney remains the king of the road.

There are jeepneys all over the country. There a laughing jeepneys. There are jeepneys with huge music amps. There are jeepneys with aircons. There are jeepneys used as trucks to transport goods. There are jeepneys with grills. There are jeepneys with fans. There are jeepneys with television. There are jeepneys without breaks. There are highly accesorized jeepneys. There simple jeepneys. There are jeepneys with ceilings painted ala Sistine chapel. There are jeepneys with seat springs that could prick your ass. There are just so many jeepneys to choose from. But during rush hours, its just an enduring challenge to get on one.

The jeepney is a representation of the Filipino inguinity. There is nothing in the wolrd like the jeepney. It's a symbol of the Filipino value for community and the sense of kapwa. At one time, I got a chance to ride a jeepney with several Korean students learning Tagalog. They were with their teacher. The teacher asked one student to pay. The Korean bent forward, bumping his head on the ceiling, was stopped by the teacher. She told her student that he didn't need to stand. He just had to stretch his hand then politely say "bayad po". She added someone else will get your fare and pass it on to the driver.

So, the jeepney can be classroom to learn manners, politeness,servitude and gratitude, and to learn about people's psyche and communicative behavior. Why did the jeepney engineers think of the seats to be placed that way? I could only rationalize that it must be because we value each other, we wanted to see each other while talking, and we wanted to be near with each other. The "bangko" in the pondohan or tiendas, are positioned in the same way. The stores are a place for small talks and gathering, a place called "tambayan" where friends gather.

I love the jeepney. There is just so much to learn about our nature as a Filipino as we try to understand more about the jeepney and the poeple we ride with it.

Farce, Fantasy and the Philippine Election 2010

There is a farce now showing on stage of the Philippine 2010 Elections. This farce is all filled with fantasy and humor, which probably happens only in the 'd Pilipins.

In one speeech activity we had in the class, I asked my students to present a profile of the person who they were fans of. Some named presidentiables, others popular icons,and some more other cartoon heroes. What thsee make sense of me, is that the young generation in the Philippines is needing a leader to look up to, such as a hero whose powers can do the unimaginable. Yet, that leader is confused to iconic images of popularity, fame and fortune. In another way, such can be understood as fantasy merging into the "reality", or a desire for something greater, that seems to be impossible.

No wonder names of presidentiables like Manny Villar, Nonoy Aquino, Dick Gordon and Gilbert Teodoro, and vice presidentiables such as Jejomar Binay and Loren Legarda came as exemplars of whom my students were fans of. But, they came along with names of Michael Jackson, Marylyn Monroe, Madonna, Kelly Clarkson, Kris Aquino and Manny Pacquiao. Other names that were dropped included cartoon characters and anime icons such as SpongeBob, Naruto, Ironman and Barbie. Objects personified and personalities that people look up to, idealized and idolized are to me a reflection of the sublime effect of repressed desires coming into our conscious lives. In one training I attended, one speaker commented that the superheroes we look up to are our alterego.

We get fascinated with them, because we just don't have what they have, which we would like to have. The abilities that they possess, and the powers that they have, the popularity that they gained, which we enjoy seeing, reflect our inequities as individuals. Thus, we fantasize with our desires, then we think we would want to be like them. Last night, I brought my neice and nephews to see Ironman, and after the movie, while having dinner, there I noticed how they would like to defeat Tony Stark's talent and genius in producing the element. One wanted to make a wired house with computer holograms. They thought of so many magnanimous things far beyond the reach of reasons. What they saw seemed to be so real to them, fantasy seeping into their realities.

This is the same situation that I sense among some voters today. Manny Villar presents himself to be the messiah of the poor, who could make the Filipino masses rich and wealthy, as he claims he was able to rise from poverty. One of my student justified that he would vote for Manny Villar so that "at least" Las Pinas, where Villar had been elected representative to the congress, could be better, and whatever he had done there could also be done in the Philippines. I retorted, Villar had been a representative, and was a senator for several years. With the billions of pesos alloted for his pork barrel, nothing much has improved in Las Pinas except for his subdvisions. Manny Villar is not for the Philippines, but for his own business interest. How could he give house to the homeless, when his business is the housing business. A true philanthropist never takes anything that is not his own, most especially if that is from the poor. Would he be able to house the poor of payatas in his mansion in the US?

Some Filipino voters are still not liberated from applying traditional knowledge, that lacks logical thinking, as to making their decisions for the election. A local axiom says: "Kung ano ang puno, siya ang bunga" translated "you'll know the tree from its fruits". The English translation goes beyond the meaning of the Filipino axiom. For a local, the axiom means that children take after their parents. The English version would say otherwise, because it could mean that the fruit is yielded by the tree. Hence, good-rearing of the tree will yield good fruits. This applies to how some voters look at Nonoy Aquino. Even though he has not done much in the lower house or in the senate, some people are drowned into the iconic image of the deceased Former President Cory Aquino, and the late senator martyr Benigno Aquino. These are the parents, but who are the fruits? Kris Aquino who had several affairs, got STD from a partner, and who has been using her popularity to promote the candidacy of Noynoy. Her Brother Nonoy is now 50, single and plays PSP in the senate sessions. How could a Peter Pan who just never wants to grow up lead the country when he was not able to manage his life by his own?

Visionaries are good leaders, but good leaders have focus and consistency to realize their visions. Admirable indeed, Dick Gordon had had great visions for the subic base as a free-port version of HongKong in the Philippines. But, all those dreams are gone, as swift as the Americans fled the Philippines after the Pinatubo eruption. When he was a mayor, was it part of the city ordinance to allow the Filipinas to prostitute themselves for a few dollars in Olongapo? Is it our national duty to service the Americans through prostitutions? Visit Subic, there is just no comparison to HongKong, the bats even have fled because of the disturbance to their natural habitat. This could be the responsibility of the SBMA chair, Gordon used to be one before he became the Tourism secretary and then a senator. Such positions would grant him the means and the power to put through his visions into reality. Visions are like children that one fathers. Leaders don't just conceive visions, then abort or abandon them to the streets.

The hardest laugh one could get is to see an impeached president, thrown over by people power, publicly known plunderer, and eminent womanizer to be up there again running for the presidential seat. Joseph "Erap" Estrada, the action star has turned to be comedian. But, this is the acid test to the intelligence of the voters. He may have been allowed by the Commission on Elections to run, because of legality loopholes. It would be the damnest thing that the Filipino people could do to mock their selves, if they should vote Erap again. There would be no fraud if he wins, for him, or for anyone who will win, because fraud is just for the losers.

There is one presidentiable among the six who have a base of supporters and possible voters. However, this guy seem to be neglected by the President Glore herself, as her party's official candidate. One interesting information a student shared to me, is that Gilbert Teodoro, "will not win", just because he is just a decoy since Macapagal's "manok" was really Manny Villar. But Gilbert Teodoro is the silent warrior. He might be ignored and left out, and so tandemned with movie actor who has lost his flare, but he honorably kept himself through the race. Among all the presidentiables, Gilbert Teodoro's integrity is one that is tainted. He is not just articulate in speech, but his ideals and visions for the country are just what the Filipino needs right now. His educational background is outstanding. He has performed his duties well. He dreams and pursues his dreams, his are realities are not just fantasies. He couldn't even be and should not be compared to Obama, jsut because he is young and promising. But, the truth is all the Philippines need is probably a change of people in the government. With that we can hope for something new if not better.

The Filipino will make a tough decision this May 10, 2010 election. Fraud is a far fethched idea unless the systems have been pretampered. We've always been tried to be conditioned with this. Historically, except for during the Marcos regime, no election fraud had ever been verified in the national election. What we ought to remember in this election is that we can not make mistakes in marking our ballots, or that would make our vote invalid. The reality in this new mechanics of voting, is that we can not make mistake with whom to vote. We need to vote. We need to vote not for the candidate. We need to vote for the Filipino people and for our country's sake.

Learning in Facebook?

I embarked on an exploratory journey towards pre-assessing the potential of integrating the use of social networking sites to instruction. In my content analyis, the five most popular sites all over the world are Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, Friendster and Hi5, they are visited and subscribed to by millions to billions of users. Facebook top all of them.

My interest was drawn out of the observation of their popularity among young people. Everyone in my classess, had bugged me for several months as whether I have an FB account. Surprisingly, but I just forgot I had an idle account. I used to be active in friendster, posting pics and reading testimonies, nothing else. I have reserved that to very close friends, relatives and some previous students.

I signed up for a new FB account. Out of the need to communicate with some of my students for some very important reasons, I invited a limited few into my network. Then everyone else sent me friend add requests. Online, I would see them in the Net, some would send me private message in the chat with simple "hi" or "how are "you" but other's would simply ignore my presence.

One morning in the faculty room, during the conduct of my investigation, a math teacher came in and with a farce tone exclaimed: "Tomorrow, I will have my laboratory class in facebook. Many of them are absent, but they are all in Facebook." Funny, indeed. I have never heard of anyone from the faculty using an OSN to augment instructional processes. Some teachers are using Moodle, or maximizing yahoo groups, but none was into using Facebook.

In one news over the television, a teacher was featured to be using Multiply in instruction. That was a high school teacher, and the students interviewed appreciated her effort, because for them, it was convenient since they can go through the lesson modules the teacher uploaded and shared in the site.

I know of some teachers using texts, objects, files and other stuffs from the Internet. Many of my colleagues use videos from Youtube, or other games, quizzes that are avaiable as freewares from the Internet. I myself use them sometimes, like when I sense that my students are just not interested to listen to what I have to share anymore.

As a teacher, it surprises me that I have more of my present students (25%) than my actual friends (16%), or my relatives (24%) or my previous students (22%) out of the 255 listed people in my FB network, and only 5% of those in my network are my present colleagues. Allowing a few of my present students to add me into their network has provided me access to their networks.

At several times, it was useful for me to reach students whom I didn’t have email accounts, when I needed to remind them of deadlines or check on their progress with their assigned projects. Sometimes, I just happen to connect with those students who hardly get to hear participating in classroom discussion. Those casual conversations gave me the chance to get to know more my students at personal level and an opportunity to encourage them to do well in the class.

At one time, I tried to upload some videos on climate change, and posted a message seeking on what an ordinary person can do about it. None of my students commented on them. When I am online, some students would bother to greet me, and most of them exploit FB’s chat function with me as their teacher only when they need something. At the end of the term, students tagged in the photos I have with them. There are just three instances that I got many comments from my students to what I posted in my FB wall: 1) when I gave ‘heart-hitting’ assessment of my experience with one class as comment over a photo; 2) when I edited my stats; and 3) when I coined a funny word to refer to some kind of people. But through the chat, there were several instances that I get to help some students develop a thesis statement for their essay, one on one.

I may be able to share video, audio and other links, but FB can’t support instructional needs to share word documents or presentation slides, not unless I scan them or upload them to other online applications.

How much have I impacted the students whom I have encountered in FB? Much, not all, moderately? Affectively, if I were to consider their replies, the emoticons they added in our conversations, I can assure myself that probably I am making an impact. As to what degree that affects their learning, I can not approximate. I guess, my exploration has not finished yet.

Personally and based on the data that I have obtained, OSNs are useful tools to communicate with students outside the class borders, with some limitations. Theoretically, communication bridges, it moves people into action, it enlightens, it inspires,it teaches -- and so we learn. How it is useful, does not really rely on its power or potential, but as to how it is actually implemented and integrated to achieve some educational purpose.