Films Slump

Poor films explains box office slump - survey

LOS ANGELES - The main reason for the box office slump is the quality of the movies themselves, according to a survey of moviegoers' opinions found in Internet chat rooms and posted on message boards.

Even when moviegoers cite other reasons for going to theaters less often than they used to, they still circle back to the quality of films as the root cause for their disaffection, according to research company Brandimensions.

For example, potential moviegoers who cited the ease and selection offered by DVD rental firm Netflix as one reason why they visit the multiplex less, then said they were driven to try Netflix because of the dearth of decent theatrical releases.

The study found that audiences also cited such other factors as the rising costs of movie tickets, onscreen commercials shown before films and even inadequate parking. But those consumers whose views were collected in the study also said that if the movies were more appealing, they would put up with the other factors.

This year's box office take is about 8% lower than it was for the same period a year ago, and the number of tickets sold is off about 11%.

Brandimensions searched 1.9 million Internet blogs and chat rooms where users were discussing the box office slump. Relevancy algorithms were used in choosing 1,350 posts to dissect by using software coupled with human data analysts. The result was a 16-page analysis.

The sites that were culled in creating the study run the gamut from the obvious, such as iFilm and other movie-related sites, to the not so obvious, such as a site for criticizing the president and another dedicated to professional musicians.

In one of its findings, the study said that when a movie's DVD release closely follows its theatrical debut, consumers often consider it the sign of a bad movie.

Many Internet chatters also expressed dismay about what they see as Hollywood's incessant focus on piracy and said they'd gladly wait longer for DVD releases if the trade-off were better theatrical releases.

The demographic that indicates most that it is seeing fewer movies are males ages 25-49, followed by females in the same age bracket. Those age groups are increasingly deciding that a sporting event or concert offers more value than movies do.

"They're not only cross-shopping movies against each other, but they're also cross-shopping movies against other entertainment experiences," Brandimensions chief operating officer Bradley Silver said.

Silver said that 44% of Internet chatters on the subject of the box office slump cite bad movies as their reason for shunning theaters, and among those citing other reasons, the quality of films is usually their second or third reason. He also said that the data indicates that even movie stars don't have the same cache as they once did.

"With Charles Bronson and Clint Eastwood, you knew what you were getting," he said. But, he added, with many current stars, audiences don't often know exactly what a movie promises.

Asked to sum up the attitude of disaffected moviegoers, Bradley said: "Going to the movies used to be fun and exciting. It used to be an event. It's none of those anymore."

Learn To Let Go

Sense and Sensibility : Letting go

Bambi Harper
Inquirer News Service

(With all the gloom and doom hanging over us like the pollution over Makati City, I thought I'd make your day by writing something to tickle your funny bone. Actually I did write something, but for some reason it didn't ring true. Instead I remembered that Junior's wife, Nancy, had asked when I intended to write another piece on "Centering Prayer." Anyone under 40 may not necessarily identify with what it has to say, but anyone in mid-life will recognize certain truisms. I have to thank my friend Cris for sharing the following article with me. I hope that it touches the right chords in you. Unfortunately the name of the author was not indicated.)

WHEN Nikos Kazantsakis was a young man, he interviewed an old monk on Mount Athos. At one stage, he asked him, "Do you skill struggle with the devil?"

"No," the monk replied. "I used to, but I've grown old and tired and the devil has grown old and tired with me. Now I leave him alone and he leaves me alone!"

"So your life is easy then," Kazantsakis asked. "No more struggles?"

"Ah, no," replied the monk, "its worse. Now I struggle with God!"

Someone once quipped that we spend the first half of our lives struggling with the devil and the second half of our lives struggling with God. While that captures something, it is too simple, unless we define "the devil" more widely to mean our struggles with the untamed energies of youth: eros, restlessness, sexuality, the ache for intimacy, the push for achievement, the search for moral cause, the hunger for roots, and the longing for companionship and a place that feels like home.

Its not easy, especially when we're young, to make peace with the fires inside us. We need to establish our own identity and find, for ourselves, intimacy, meaning, self-worth, quiet from the restlessness, and a place that feels like home. We can spend 50 years, after we've first left home, finding our way back there again.

But the good news is that generally we do get there. In midlife, perhaps only in late mid-life, we achieve something the mystics call "proficiency," a state wherein we have achieved an essential maturity -- basic peace, a sexuality integrated enough to let us sleep at night and keep commitments during the day, a sense of self-worth, and an essential unselfishness. We've found our way home. And there, as once before the onset of puberty, we're relatively comfortable again, content enough to recognize that our youthful journeyings, while exciting, were also full of restlessness. We'd like to be young again, but we don't want all that disquiet the second time. Like Kazantsakis' old monk, we've grown tired of wrestling with the devil and he with us. We now leave each other alone.

So where do we go from there, from home? The second half of life, just like the first, demands a journey. While the first half of life, as we saw, is very much consumed with the search for identity, meaning, self-worth, intimacy, rootedness, and making peace with our sexuality, the second half has another purpose, as expressed in the famous epigram of Job: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I go back."

Where do we go from home? To an eternal home with God. But to do that, we have first to shed many of the things that we legitimately acquired and attached ourselves to during the first half of life. The spiritual task of the second half of life, so different from the first, is to let go, to move to the nakedness that Job describes.

What does that entail? From what do we need to detach ourselves? First and most importantly, from our wounds and anger. The foremost spiritual task of the second half of life is to forgive -- others, ourselves, life, God. We all arrive at mid-life wounded and not having had exactly the life of which we dreamed. There's a disappointment and anger inside every one of us and unless we find it in ourselves to forgive, we will die bitter, unready for the heavenly banquet.

Second, we need to detach ourselves from the need to possess, to achieve, and to be the center of attention. The task of the second half of life is to become the quiet, blessing grandparent who no longer needs to be the center of attention but is happy simply watching the young grow and enjoy themselves.

Third, we need to learn how to say goodbye to the earth and our loved ones so that, just as in the strength of our youth we once gave our lives for those we love, we can now give our deaths to them, too, as a final gift.

Finally, we need more and more to immerse ourselves in the language of silence, the language of heaven. Meister Eckhard once said: "Nothing so much resembles God as silence." The task of mid-life is to begin to understand that and enter into that language.

And it's a painful process. Purgatory's not some exotic, Catholic doctrine that believes that there is some place in the next life outside of heaven and hell. It's a central piece within any mature spirituality that, like Job, tells us that God's eternal embrace can become fully ecstatic only when we've learned to let go.

(Practitioners of Centering Prayer believe that it is through the practice that we learn to let go.)

Stray Cats

Mixed Media : Stray Cats in the Neighborhood

Sylvia L. Mayuga
Inquirer News Service

No excuses. I missed the opening of a new chapter of Filipino soul history at the CCP's Cinemalaya festival of independent films a month ago. More faithful cineastes may find the reason lame – a choice between closely following and relaying the unfolding of Gloriagate to a global nation OR "playing hooky" in movies of my heart.

A sense of duty won that round, but the heart would not be denied. No sooner was the opening of Ellen Ongkeko-Marfil's "Mga Pusang Gala" (The Stray Cats) in commercial theaters announced last weekend than I was dragging an expat media buddy to Robinson's Ermita. The movie was not part of Cinemalaya, but its opening at the gay Pink Festival the month before, with glowing reviews spilling into July, gave a factually erroneous yet accurate impression: "Mga Pusang Gala" is part of this new chapter of Filipino film history – more interesting, on its own terms.

It's two hours of toothsome viewing – impeccable set design, fluid blocking, first-rate lead acting, delicious music, tight editing. Together they briskly deliver a story of two foolish loves – of a sweet and sentimental gay pulp fiction writer (Ricky Davao) for his blue-collar male lover, and his sparring partner, a fast-talking advertising gal (Irma Adlawan), for her hide-and-seek executive, a lover addicted to dark suits and averse to commitment. Between them is a progress report of the evolving Filipino idea of family, a worthy frontier for artistic exploration in Catolico cerrado country.

These two main characters in an adaptation of the Palanca-awarded play 'Mga Estranghero at ang Gabi' (Strangers and the Night) by Jun Lana come perilously close to two-dimensional protagonists in the shadow of Beverley Hills. But the treatment – sympathetic, understated and blessed by humorous grace notes, again, so Pinoy – avoids the pitfalls. There was a tiny fly in the ointment in the climax, as stage actress Adlawan becomes a tad too theatrical and the camera slightly overactive. Excusable, when the stud who made you pregnant won't marry or even say he'll help raise the child, but it does mark room for future improvement in the realm of understatement, say á la Ishmael Bernal.

Overall, Pusang Gala is a well-told tale locking a full Nelson on lingering notions that local commercial film and a whole lot of imported Hollywood have anything over indie, but for the inertia of rest in a boring, wasteful system. Viva, Regal, Seiko et al have their supermarket-like formula plots, marketing and distribution systems in place; indie originals must work their butts off to reach a general audience. But with quality, leveling the playing field is only a matter of time. Foreigners usually see this first in their film festivals where so many Filipino films, mostly indie, have won prizes. Pusang Gala is one such film, bringing the sparkle of surprise, the intimate feel, the rush of insight and a sense of new life opening in the dark of a movie house. Catch it while you can.

Buoyed by a sense of history in the making, Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros" (The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros) was next. Its young lead actor Nathan Lopez won a special Jury Prize, its set designer Lily Esquillon Best Production Design at Cinemalaya. Here began further discovery of digital filmmaking as a brave new world in form, substance and culture.

Where and when else than in Manila, right now, can one scoot off to see a prizewinning film's producer – Raymond Lee, himself a first-rate screenwriter (Anak, Tanging Yaman, Kailangan Kita) – to pick up CDs of a film at the eve of departure for the Montreal Film Festival with him and its director Auraeus Solito? No, it wasn't the power of the press, just plain logistics – with respective deadlines breathing down both our necks, and the fact that Pagdadalaga and the rest of Cinemalaya's festival winners are still negotiating for commercial theater showing a month after their triumphant media splash. We'll get to that story behind the story, but first let me repeat what earlier reviews of other Cinemalaya films have already recognized.

Pagdadalaga is a great film, if "great" means art that brings you closer to your core and provokes awe and gratitude. Why? Well, there's its light-handed take on Manila's slums, whose objective misery has the UNDP, IMF and World Bank throwing up their hands. Pinoy wonder of wonders, amid the garbage, potholes, stinking drainage, clogged esteros, drug abuse, too many children and catch-as-catch-can livelihood is unfailing, idiosyncratic good grace – a deeply philosophical nature barely conscious of itself, much less able to spell the word. This nature shines through in Pagdadalaga the way it has eluded many a polemical conscience film. That's by no means saying that our slums now qualify as paradise. What it's saying is that art alighting on Maxi's world compels identification with this pubescent 12-year old gay's grace and innocence in a dark, brusquely loving home in the slums. He's content with being "lady of the house" – cooking, cleaning and mending for his widowed father and two brothers who make their living as cell phone snatchers. But they accept his gender with gentle, tolerant affection. Maxi spends his leisure on DVD films and gay fashion shows with the neighborhood sisterhood – until the day Patrolman Victor Perez (JR Valentin) arrives in his life. When this handsome 24-year old rookie rescues Maxi from neighborhood toughies, beating him up for the fun of it, the inevitable happens – first gay love, unrequited and every bit as lyrical as Romeo and Juliet waxing poetic around her balcony.

The straight Patrolman Perez proceeds to do his duty in the warren of petty criminals that is Maxi's world and the key of tragedy begins to strum an inexorable end. Indeed, killing and dying happen – yet, to the film's credit, the end surprises. I won't ruin your future enjoyment by spelling it out, but no doubt about it – indie is another word for aerating the stagnant backwaters of lazy filmmaking by formula.

Now a word about the lighting because it says a lot about production culture in indie country -- the uncorrected CD version I saw on my PC had several scenes too dark to see and I had only voices to tell me what was happening. "Did you use natural light all throughout?" I asked cinematographer and master graphic artist Nap Jamir, who just added Maximo Oliveros to his lengthening filmography with the local best, among them Tikoy Aguiluz.

"No, we used redheads of 650 watts, those lamps you use for docus," he said, adding, "This is indie. We had to be economical. But our Panasonic 24 P camera is light sensitive, so we shot most of it with incandescent bulbs and used the redheads only to bounce off light."

"Impressive," I said. "Mike de Leon told me once that lighting a set is like painting. No wonder the look is so consistent," I said.

"Yes, and now the new print with light and color corrected has a very unified kind of look," Nap said gleefully. "The external scenes are uniformly warm, the internal uniformly cold. Eighty percent of that movie was shot indoors."

"What about the crowd? It looked almost like a documentary -- so casual and natural, seemingly undirected, everyone doing their neighborhood thing like there was no camera – quarreling about garbage disposal, bathing in the open, flirting in mini-skirts," I said.

"We shot in Auraeus's Sampaloc neighborhood where he's done with earlier documentaries. This is first feature. He's lived there for 30 years. His mother is barangay captain. They're used to him. He doesn't attract any attention with his cameras anymore. There was no need for crowd control," said Nap.

"You've worked with commercial films Nap," I pursued. "What would you say is the difference between that experience and this?"

"Well," he said, "this was a very comfortable filmmaking milieu, more intimate, more intense. You feel really part of it. And the scriptwriter (Michiko Yamamoto) was there for the shooting, so we always got the feel of the script's intentions."

"Parang siya ang(It's like she's the) auteur," I said.

"Si Auraeus, pero madaling mag-usap-usap." (It's Auraeus, but it was easy to discuss things.)

The way of the counter-culture, I thought – wondering how long before, if ever, more of its style would filter down from indie eyries to the commercial world. Pepe Smith's music and cameo appearance in this film alone speak volumes of the endurance and sense of family that makes film work a whole lot easier, especially in Pinoy counter-culture.

"What was the editor like?" I asked. "Oh, the editor was perfect," said Nap of the high standards, chuckling, "Everyone got along so well in this film."

"And Raymond Lee calls himself a 'creative' producer, as opposed, I suppose, to a plain moneybags, fund-raiser or talent coordinator. It feels like we're into a new film era in this country with digital, Nap. You think it's another nouvelle vague, like the 60s abroad and the 70s here?"

"Oh, yes," he chuckled some more, "it's a new generation, with so many talented kids winning prizes in festivals abroad."

And so many new storylines coming closer and closer to the Filipino gut and dream, never explored by the commercial world. Now if only indie marketing and distribution could be worked out with half the creativity, imagination and generosity of this new filmmaking generation – an indie generation, "indi-genes" for short. Like stray cats wandering the neighborhood with new messages, they bring us secrets of sanity.

Click into the Cinemalaya website to see what more of what I mean:

Respond to: slmayuga@yahoo.com

Feminista Filipina

At Large : Angels and suffragists

Rina Jimenez-David
Inquirer News Service

A HUNDRED years ago, a group of young women, led by Concepcion Felix and including Trinidad Rizal, sister of the national hero, met and organized the Asociacion Feminista Filipina, dedicated not just to defending and upholding the rights of Filipino women but also to advancing the nationalist cause.

A year later, in 1906, Pura Villanueva, at that time an 18-year-old lass from a prominent family in Iloilo, convened the Asociacion Feminista Ilonga. But while their sisters in Manila chose to concentrate on improving the welfare of women and children widowed and orphaned during the Filipino-American War through Gota de Leche, the first private social welfare institution initiated by women in the country, the Ilonggas embraced a loftier cause: winning the right to vote for Filipino women.

Little did they know that 31 years would pass before they would finally win for women the most basic right of citizenship. But if the suffragists ever lagged in their determination, or flagged in their dedication to the cause, they showed little proof of it. When the Philippine Assembly placed an additional imposition before the suffrage measure could be passed, subjecting the issue to a national plebiscite, the suffragists, Concepcion Felix de Rodriguez and Pura Villanueva Kalaw among them, hitched up their long skirts, pulled their "panuelos" [shawls] tighter around their shoulders and campaigned from town to town, city to city. On April 30, 1937, Plebiscite Day, women trooped to the polling centers and voted overwhelmingly in favor of suffrage.

Finally, on Sept. 15 that year, President Manuel Quezon signed the Woman Suffrage Law, bringing to fruition the dreams that drove the country's first feminists.

* * *

SADLY, a movie or even a TV special has yet to be made documenting and dramatizing this epic struggle to gain for Filipino women the most basic recognition of their rights as citizens.

But if anybody's contemplating such a project, he or she would have a wonderful template in "Iron Jawed Angels," an HBO original movie that will have its Asian premiere on Sept. 6. Starring Hilary Swank and Angelica Huston, "Iron Jawed Angels" tells the story of a group of younger women who, impatient with the slow and conventional political struggle being waged by the mainstream suffragist movement, decided to take a bolder, more confrontational approach.

Swank stars as Alice Paul, the Quaker activist who defies the counsel of older suffragists, such as Carrie Chapman Catt, portrayed by Angelica Huston, who prefer a policy of accommodation through the slow, painstaking means of getting state legislatures to pass suffrage laws.

The younger women, who set up the American Women's Party, are bent on getting President Woodrow Wilson's personal endorsement of the 19th Amendment, citing his own lofty rhetoric about democracy and the people's right to proper representation. Even as America finds itself embroiled in World War I, they persist in their confrontational tactics, including mounting a vigil by the White House gate. When the women are finally arrested for "obstructing traffic," they are hauled off to prison where, launching a hunger strike and refusing all attempts to get them to eat, they earn the sobriquet "Iron Jawed Angels."

* * *

THIS made-for-TV movie succeeds in dramatizing the sacrifices made by American suffragists in winning a right women today take for granted.

The sacrifices include not just enduring imprisonment, forced feedings and maltreatment, but also forsaking romance and marriage, and in the case of a sympathizer married to a senator, even placing a "successful" marriage, as well as her social standing, at risk. But the biggest sacrifice of all is paid by Inez Mulholland (played by Julia Ormond), a beautiful lawyer and brilliant speaker, who agrees to go on a grueling national speaking tour despite her health problems, leading to her death.

More than once, I've heard younger women declare themselves "post-feminists," which I take to mean that they no longer feel the need to confront the "women's question" in their lives and in society. And indeed, thanks to women like Alice Paul and Concepcion Felix and Pura Villanueva and their followers in the women's movement, "post-feminists" can afford to take their rights, dreams, aspirations and autonomy for granted. "Iron Jawed Angels" should remind all of us how difficult has been the struggle, how fragile are our gains, and how easy everything we have won can be taken from us.

* * *

ABOUT the same time that "Iron Jawed Angels" will be airing, another movie, destined for the big screen, will be tackling women's issues from a more intimate, smaller and more personal point of view.

"The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" is adapted from a popular novel for juvenile readers that tells the story of four friends who, before starting summer vacation where they will be separated for the first time, find a pair of vintage jeans that, by some miracle, fits all of them perfectly.

They agree to share the "lucky" pants among themselves, convinced that only good things can happen to anyone wearing the jeans. In that one summer, the four teens live through the perils of first romance, divorce and the re-marriage of a parent, the death of a friend, and the dangers of living in denial.

Suffragists and feminists might scoff at the treatment given to the problems faced by four young women of privileged backgrounds and what may seem like self-imposed emotional crises. Then again, who are we to tell women what is important and not important? If feminism is about giving everyone choices, then it is imperative that we respect those choices as well, even if we feel we would not have made the same ones.

Cosmetics

Looking Back : Cosmetic surgery in 1675

Ambeth Ocampo aocampo@ateneo.edu
Inquirer News Service

EXAMINING our restaurant bill on a night out with friends, I noticed that the orders of food and drink came with short descriptions of people. I looked around our table and realized that it was the way our waiter remembered who ordered what.

This would not have been a problem if he merely described the color or print of our clothes, but one description said "pat girl" (i.e., fat girl). Restraining my laughter drew attention to the bill. One of the two "healthy" women in the group grabbed the bill, called the waiter and demanded to know who the "pat girl" was. To our horror, the waiter calmly pointed at our friend just as he would pick out a criminal from a police lineup.

This humiliating experience called for another round of drinks and laughs. When we finally asked to settle the bill an hour later, we checked the order form and noticed that the waiter had become more discreet: he just wrote "Pat."

I have grown 50 pounds heavier since that dinner and would probably be listed on the order form today as "pat boy," so I pay attention to ads for Xenical, herbal slimming tea and gym packages. On the Edsa highway, I gaze at Kris Aquino endorsing the Belo medical clinic and wonder when I will be man or vain enough to endure the post-operative pain and the hole in my pocket just to be thinner and sexier. Bench billboards with those beautifully sculpted gods and goddesses in their underwear move me to enjoy life with "lechon" [roasted pig], "chicharon bulaklak" [crisp fried pork intestines] and, of course, "chicharon" with "laman" [meat]. Why bother?

Decades ago, society gossips would always wait for Elvira Manahan to emerge from her annual Holy Week "retreat" beautiful as ever. This had nothing to do with penance and spiritual renewal; she checked in at the Makati Medical Center and had a makeover. Once I asked her why she endured liposuction, teasing her on her vanity. She replied, "It's not vanity, 'hijo' [son]. I'm only removing what [fat] shouldn't be there in the first place." She insisted that fat, once removed, would never grow back again, that diet and exercise were not required. Now that was real incentive.

Today doctors will tell you that nothing works better than regular exercise, a balanced diet and a healthy stress-free lifestyle. How do all these fit into history? Well, one of the obscure stories hidden in the 55-volume compilation of documents known as "Blair and Robertson" is a case of drastic cosmetic surgery, actually a lypectomy, performed on the Spanish Governor General Don Manuel de Leon in 1675. An excerpt from the Augustinian Casimiro Diaz's "Conquistas" reads:

"At this time in the year 1675, Governor Don Manuel de Leon was in great danger of dying, on account of having placed himself under medical treatment, without being actually sick, solely for the sake of improving his health… Don Manuel was a corpulent man and had grown so fleshy that he was almost unable to move about without aid, at which he grieved much because he could not attend to many functions which belonged to the obligations of his office. In view of this hindrance and his desires, Juan Ventura Sarra bound himself to cure Don Manuel and remove from him that great encumbrance [of flesh] -- confident because he was a very expert surgeon, and the governor a man of great courage and reared in and accustomed to the perils of war.

"The governor accordingly accepted this treatment; and the skillful surgeon opened his abdomen in many places and removed from him many lumps of fat, and then sewed up and treated the wounds. In a few weeks, the governor became well, and his flesh was much reduced, to the wonder of those who saw how the surgeon cut the flesh from his body, and the courage which the governor displayed…"

Anaesthetic was not readily available at the time, and the governor, a veteran of many battles where he was called "Iron Head," submitted to the painful ordeal armed only with his bravery (or should I say stupidity?) because he was almost 70 years old at the time.

While he survived the operation, he still grew fat and that led to some of the wounds reopening. While attending the funeral of Doña Maria Cuellar in Sto. Domingo Church, he started to bleed, but nobody noticed because he was in mourning clothes, and his chair and cushion were black. After a while he swooned and fell into the chair. He was attended to and was made to rest outside Intramuros, in one of the country estates by the Pasig River where he died in his sleep on April 8, 1676.

Another cause of death was proposed by the historian De la Concepcion who wrote in his "History of the Philippines":

"Governor Don Manuel de Leon was sick from excessive corpulency; and Don Juan de Sarra treated him by making cruel cuts in the flesh of his body.

"He attended, when these incisions were not yet quite healed, the funeral of Doña Maria de Cullar … and in the church the vapors which exhale from buried corpses -- which, experience proves, cost those so dear, who enter the church with sores or wounds, as those are poisoned and corrupted by those vapors—had the effect on the governor of opening his wounds and bringing on a hemorrhage which exhausted him … [and he died, April 11, 1667]."

Then as now, you are not covered by insurance for cosmetic surgery. Then as now, people will risk life and limb to look better.

Top Pinoys

Musician, physicist, priest honored as top educators

Inquirer News Service

A MUSICIAN, a scientist and a priest are this year's honorees for the "A Tribute to Teachers," which continues the tradition of giving recognition to exemplary Filipino educators who have touched the lives of their students and have given deeper meaning to their vocation.

Alma Fernando-Taldo, Dr. Caesar Saloma, and Father James Reuter, SJ, were given this year's recognition for going beyond their duties to improve the lives of their students and uplift their profession, according to organizers from Bato Balani Foundation.

Devoid of any musical talent, Taldo saw the potential in an unknown children's choir from a small town in Bohol province, and single-handedly honed their talents.

Today, the 30-member Loboc Children's Choir has won accolades and recognition from various international chorale competitions.

The awards include first prize in the 2003 Europe and its Songs 6th International Folksong Choir Festival (Children's Choir Category), and the Europe and its Songs 2003 Cup for having achieved the overall highest mark in all categories.

Saloma, a physicist and executive director of the University of the Philippines' National Institute of Physics, earned the respect of the academic community for his patriotism and zeal for guiding the NIP towards attaining outstanding work in physics.

He was the recipient of the 2004 Galileo Galilei Award from the International Commission for Optics in recognition of his outstanding contribution in optics.

"Teachers end up molding souls," were the words of Father Reuter, who has found a unique way of serving the Church -- by teaching. He is the national director of the National Office of Mass Media, an office under the auspices of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines.

Today, Father Reuter is not only teaching in the classroom but is also putting into better use the influence of mass media -- television, radio and newspapers -- to affect the lives of more people.

The 2005 "A Tribute to Teachers" is part of the Bato Balani Foundation's advocacy to improve the quality of Philippine education by providing role models for teachers and helping them find meaning in their vocation.

For the first time, the foundation is also bringing this year's Tribute outside Metro Manila. It will be held in Cebu City on Sept. 10.

"A Tribute to Teachers" is sponsored by leading academic publisher Diwa Learning Systems Inc., Cebu Pacific, and Microdata. For more information, call Sheng Segura at 893-8501 or e-mail tribute@diwamail.com. Also visit www.diwa.ph.

Kadayawan

Kris-Crossing Mindanao : Davao's harvests

Carlos Isagani Zarate
Inquirer News Service

DESPITE THE not-so-smart pullout of a telecom giant from major sponsorship, last week's Kadayawan Festival in Davao City still proved to be successful or "bongacious," as the lead organizer described it. Dubbed as the "Festival of all festivals" in Mindanao, the week-long event, capped by a colorful floral float parade yesterday, showcased not only the city's bountiful harvests of fruits and flora, but also the rich culture and tradition of Mindanao's peoples-the lumad, Moro and Christians.

Notwithstanding the security concerns raised by some quarters, the city teemed with local and foreign tourists competing to savor the southern hospitality that only the "City of Durian" offers. Aside from the sounds of gongs, kulintangs and other indigenous musical instruments and the scents of fresh flowers like waling-waling and the mouth-watering durian, there were other revelations in last week's Kadayawan celebration. Among them, the city's budding short-film industry.

Five skillfully created productions by talented and rising Davaoeño filmmakers were entered for Kadayawan's "Puting Tabil Short Film Festival." The films tackled themes like the complex relationship among friends ("24 Hours," by Camboy Productions, formed by students from the Philippine Women's College School of Fine Arts and Culture); the dilemna of a "feel-good elitista" ("Hulagway" by AdDunay Productions, formed by students from the Ateneo de Davao University); the celebration of a "family's triumph over life's infinite trials" ("Lata," by Gruppo SaliDavao and gatchi&gatchi productions); people with diverse cultures confronted by the triad of love, faith and betrayal ("Sangan-daan," by PLUM Productions, formed by students from the University of Mindanao); and the gripping travails of a mother pushed into insanity by the destructive lifestyles of her seven children, whose fathers are of different nationalities ("Tandog sa Baryo Sanghay" by Phat J Productions).

During the Aug. 18 Awards Night, "Tandog sa Baryo Sanghay," written and directed by GMA Davao news reporter John Paul Seniel, emerged as a runaway winner, bagging the awards for best picture, best director, best screenplay and best actress, among others. Seniel, whose debut work "Torture" grabbed major awards in the 2003 Davao Guerilla Filmmaking, is also the director of the 2004 opus "Amuma, Hands for Nobody," now an official entry to the 2005 New York International Independent Film and Video Film Festival slated in November this year.

One can readily admire the remarkable skills, depth and talents shown by the people behind these indie short films. In this sense, all the five films are winners in their own respective right.

* * *

In the past, especially during the celebration of the Kadayawan Festival, it was not uncommon to see piles and piles of durian husks in places where these fruits were sold or processed into candies. Sunstar Davao reported that during peak season, garbage collectors collect up to 10 truckloads of durian husks every night. To many durian eaters, the thorny durian husks are useless. That "uselessness" may now be a thing of the past.

Last week, while scouting for souvenirs to be given to the speakers of our Kadayawan IBP continuing legal education seminar, lawyer Chin-Chin Barrios-Talaver stumbled on a durian-smelling paper lampshade at the Mindanao Trade Expo in the Central Bank Convention Center. If there is a durian-flavored ice-cream, why not a durian-smelling paper, she wondered. But, no, the paper lampshade and other paper products that she saw were not just laced with durian; they were, in fact, made out of durian fibers.

The durian fiber-made products were launched only Aug. 10 by the Kababayen-an alang sa Teknolohiya nga Haum sa Kinaiyahan ug Kauswagan (Katakus or Women for the technology that is appropriate for the environment and development). Katakus is an NGO that focuses on the promotion of "sustainable agriculture through integrated systems of organic agricultural production and use of technology among subsistence farmers" in the Davao region.

"Maraming fiber ang durian; ang ibang materials konti lang-ang cogon mga 20 percent lang ang ma-extract na fiber. Sa durian, mga 75 percent," Betty More, of Katakus, told journalist Stella Estremera of Sunstar Davao. She said that fibers extracted from durian can be stored for a longer time compared to those from other indigenous materials, thus, giving women reserved materials when durian is not in season. While they still use fibers extracted from cogon, bananas and abaca, she admitted that they found in durian an additional and cheaper yet bigger source of raw material.

Katakus' products, although still in small quantity, are now exported to other countries.

So, for durian lovers, the next time you eat durian, don't just throw its husks away. Think of them as another dollar earner.

* * *

Multi-awarded fictionists Dr. Macario Tiu and poet Don Pagusara, both literature professors of the Ateneo de Davao University, once again bagged the country's most coveted awards in literature: the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards. Tiu's "Balyan," a tale about a lumad shaman, won first prize in the Cebuano short story category; Pagusara's "Mga Landas ng Pangarap," a story about an FQS activist, won first prize in the Pilipino category. "Bangka sa Kinabuhi," which tells the life of Moro women in the Liguasan Marsh and also written by Pagusara, won second prize in the Cebuano short story category.

Feminism

At Large : The personal is political

Rina Jimenez-David
Inquirer News Service

The following are excerpts from a talk I gave yesterday at the National Leadership Training for Student Government Officers held at the Teachers' Camp in Baguio City. I was invited by Businessworks, which is managing the training along with Ateneo Student Trainers (Strains) and the Department of Education, to speak on "My Organization, My Community" during a break-out session for teachers.

Though most of the talk is based on personal reflections and recollections, I must acknowledge drawing from the "Pinay Rosebook," a primer on the history and guiding principles of Pilipina, the national feminist women's organization of which I have been a member since 1981 and currently chair. The "Rosebook" was written mainly by Jurgette Honculada.

* * *

A GUIDING principle in my women's group Pilipina as well as in feminism is that "the personal is political." One cannot be a feminist merely in theory, spouting the politically correct terminology, but living a life of subordination or, worse, oppression. A feminist always has "to bring the issue home." To call oneself feminist is to question the very basis of one's self-identity, to assess and re-assess the most intimate relations of one's life, to dig deep into the roots of one's notions of self and society.

So allow me to begin with the personal. In the beginning, my identity was that of the sixth of nine children, the middle of five daughters, of a middle-class couple with roots in provincial privilege. My mother had trained as a teacher, while my father was a lawyer and a writer.

You could say I had my education in feminism at the hands of the best teacher, my mother. Though she eventually stopped teaching as her family grew, you might say she channeled her ambitions to her children, especially her daughters. Growing up, I never had the sense that I was valued any less than my brothers. Though of course I sensed the usual pressure of social expectations to marry and bear children, equally compelling was the message that we girls had to make something of ourselves. "Never depend on a man for your survival" was a mantra throughout my childhood and adolescence. "Always be sure that you can support yourself and your children."

My mother belonged to the generation and class of women for whom choices in life were constricted, though they embraced their options with equanimity, if not always serenity. But I always sensed that she wanted more for her daughters, and that, despite her motherly vigilance and words of warning, she may have even envied the many other doors opening for us as the Age of Aquarius gave way to the Age of the Power Suit.

* * *

BUT having a richer menu of life choices than our mothers didn't mean life was any less complicated for women of my generation. It may even have made the pressure that much greater. I have been fortunate in that in this long and still ongoing search for meaning and self-hood, I have been accompanied by a man who has no issues about boundaries or control, and has embraced the uneven, helter-skelter nature of our life together.

Someone has said that there can be no more important decision than that of a choice of one's partner for life. But when friends comment how "lucky" I am to be married to my husband, I say luck has nothing to do with it. I don't think I could ever have fallen in love and stayed married to someone else, because I had very clear ideas of what I wanted in life and what sort of man I would need -- whose company I would enjoy -- as we journeyed together.

Indeed, finding the right partner, or working to make sure one's current partner evolves into the right one, is essential if we are to stand conventional family values on their head. I don't know what verdict my children would hand down if asked to assess the impact of having a mother who is a feminist on their own lives. My daughter says she laughs when her own friends wonder how "different" we are, because she considers our family life "normal and boring."

Let me hasten to add, though, that it hasn't been easy, achieving this "normal and boring" state of affairs. Fighting for shared parenthood when my children were much younger was not without its moments of high drama. And I have had bouts with guilt about being a "bad" mother much too often for comfort. Breaking society's rules on gender divides and socialization, the proper toys for a boy and a girl, having my son learn to cook (from his father) or dealing with their growing curiosity about sex, all these call on our creativity and daring, simply because we choose "none of the above" among the available and conventional lessons around us.

* * *

BUT as I said earlier, the "personal is political." And in my case, the political has served the personal well. For if it wasn't for my embrace of the label of "feminist," and for the company of women in Pilipina, I don't think I could have brought home the issue with as much success-or at least a minimum of upheaval.

In 1980, four women -- Irene Santiago, Teresita Quintos-Deles, Remmy Rikken and Sr. Mary John Mananzan -- came together during a bigger gathering of development workers and began talking earnestly, late into the night, about "a question without a name." Their talks led to a series of consultations with women from different sectors, highlighting issues of exclusion and subordination that women felt, even when working with men of a supposedly "progressive" bent (the worst of the machos, it turned out).

The consultations eventually led to the founding of Pilipina in 1981, with the group embracing from the beginning feminism and socialism, because "the struggle for social transformation would have to be waged along gender lines, not just among the lines of class and property relations."

Feminism

At Large : The personal is political

Rina Jimenez-David
Inquirer News Service

The following are excerpts from a talk I gave yesterday at the National Leadership Training for Student Government Officers held at the Teachers' Camp in Baguio City. I was invited by Businessworks, which is managing the training along with Ateneo Student Trainers (Strains) and the Department of Education, to speak on "My Organization, My Community" during a break-out session for teachers.

Though most of the talk is based on personal reflections and recollections, I must acknowledge drawing from the "Pinay Rosebook," a primer on the history and guiding principles of Pilipina, the national feminist women's organization of which I have been a member since 1981 and currently chair. The "Rosebook" was written mainly by Jurgette Honculada.

* * *

A GUIDING principle in my women's group Pilipina as well as in feminism is that "the personal is political." One cannot be a feminist merely in theory, spouting the politically correct terminology, but living a life of subordination or, worse, oppression. A feminist always has "to bring the issue home." To call oneself feminist is to question the very basis of one's self-identity, to assess and re-assess the most intimate relations of one's life, to dig deep into the roots of one's notions of self and society.

So allow me to begin with the personal. In the beginning, my identity was that of the sixth of nine children, the middle of five daughters, of a middle-class couple with roots in provincial privilege. My mother had trained as a teacher, while my father was a lawyer and a writer.

You could say I had my education in feminism at the hands of the best teacher, my mother. Though she eventually stopped teaching as her family grew, you might say she channeled her ambitions to her children, especially her daughters. Growing up, I never had the sense that I was valued any less than my brothers. Though of course I sensed the usual pressure of social expectations to marry and bear children, equally compelling was the message that we girls had to make something of ourselves. "Never depend on a man for your survival" was a mantra throughout my childhood and adolescence. "Always be sure that you can support yourself and your children."

My mother belonged to the generation and class of women for whom choices in life were constricted, though they embraced their options with equanimity, if not always serenity. But I always sensed that she wanted more for her daughters, and that, despite her motherly vigilance and words of warning, she may have even envied the many other doors opening for us as the Age of Aquarius gave way to the Age of the Power Suit.

* * *

BUT having a richer menu of life choices than our mothers didn't mean life was any less complicated for women of my generation. It may even have made the pressure that much greater. I have been fortunate in that in this long and still ongoing search for meaning and self-hood, I have been accompanied by a man who has no issues about boundaries or control, and has embraced the uneven, helter-skelter nature of our life together.

Someone has said that there can be no more important decision than that of a choice of one's partner for life. But when friends comment how "lucky" I am to be married to my husband, I say luck has nothing to do with it. I don't think I could ever have fallen in love and stayed married to someone else, because I had very clear ideas of what I wanted in life and what sort of man I would need -- whose company I would enjoy -- as we journeyed together.

Indeed, finding the right partner, or working to make sure one's current partner evolves into the right one, is essential if we are to stand conventional family values on their head. I don't know what verdict my children would hand down if asked to assess the impact of having a mother who is a feminist on their own lives. My daughter says she laughs when her own friends wonder how "different" we are, because she considers our family life "normal and boring."

Let me hasten to add, though, that it hasn't been easy, achieving this "normal and boring" state of affairs. Fighting for shared parenthood when my children were much younger was not without its moments of high drama. And I have had bouts with guilt about being a "bad" mother much too often for comfort. Breaking society's rules on gender divides and socialization, the proper toys for a boy and a girl, having my son learn to cook (from his father) or dealing with their growing curiosity about sex, all these call on our creativity and daring, simply because we choose "none of the above" among the available and conventional lessons around us.

* * *

BUT as I said earlier, the "personal is political." And in my case, the political has served the personal well. For if it wasn't for my embrace of the label of "feminist," and for the company of women in Pilipina, I don't think I could have brought home the issue with as much success-or at least a minimum of upheaval.

In 1980, four women -- Irene Santiago, Teresita Quintos-Deles, Remmy Rikken and Sr. Mary John Mananzan -- came together during a bigger gathering of development workers and began talking earnestly, late into the night, about "a question without a name." Their talks led to a series of consultations with women from different sectors, highlighting issues of exclusion and subordination that women felt, even when working with men of a supposedly "progressive" bent (the worst of the machos, it turned out).

The consultations eventually led to the founding of Pilipina in 1981, with the group embracing from the beginning feminism and socialism, because "the struggle for social transformation would have to be waged along gender lines, not just among the lines of class and property relations."

Diet soda warning from a friend's email

Subject: Diet Soda Concerns

A retired nurse friend sent this to me today. I may have to check it out further, but thought it was interesting enough to send on to you.If you drink any diet drink, read this.
Mary

This is important to read all the way through.
In October of 2001, my sister started getting very sick. She had stomach spasms and she was having a hard time getting around. Walking was a major chore. It took everything she had just to get out
of bed; she was in so much pain.

By March 2002, she had undergone several tissue and muscle biopsies and was on 24 various prescription medications. The doctors could not determine what was wrong with her. She was in so much pain, and so sick...she just knew she was dying.

She put her house, bank accounts, life insurance, etc., in her oldest daughters name, and made sure that her younger children were to be taken care of. She also wanted her last hooray, so she planned a trip to FL (basically in a wheelchair) for March 22nd.

On March 19th I called her to ask how her most recent tests went, and she said they didn't find anything on the test, but they believe she had MS.

I recalled an article a friend of mine E-mailed to me and I asked my sister if she drank diet soda? She told me that she did. As a matter of fact, she was getting ready to crack one open that moment... I told her not to open it, and to stop drinking the diet soda !!! I E-mailed her the article my friend, a lawyer, had sent.

My sister called me within 32 hours after our phone conversation and told me she had stopped drinking the diet soda AND she could walk!!!! The muscle spasms went away. She said she didn't feel 100% but she sure felt a lot better. She told me she was going to her doctor with this article and would call me when she got home.

Well, she called me, and said her doctor was amazed! He is going to call all of his MS patients to find out if they consumed artificial sweeteners of any kind...

In a nutshell, she was being poisoned by the Aspartame in the diet soda... and literally dying a slow and miserable death.

When she got to FL March 22nd, all she had to take was one pill, and that was a pill for the Aspartame poisoning! She is well on her way to a complete recovery .. and she is walking!!! No wheelchair!!!

This article saved her life If it says "SUGAR FREE" on the label, DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!!!

I have spent several days lecturing at the WORLD ENVIRONMENTAL CONFERENCE on "ASPARTAME," marketed as 'NutraSweet,' 'Equal,' and 'Spoonful.'

In the keynote address by the EPA, it was announced that in the United States in 2001 there is an epidemic of multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus. It was difficult to determine exactly what toxin was causing this to be rampant.

I stood up and said that I was there to lecture on exactly that subject. I will explain why Aspartame is so dangerous: When the temperature of this sweetener exceeds 86 degrees F, the wood alcohol in ASPARTAME converts to formaldehyde and then to formic acid, which in turn causes metabolic acidosis. Formic acid is the poison found in the sting of fire ants. The methanol toxicity mimics, among other conditions, multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus.

Many people were being diagnosed in error. Although multiple sclerosis is not a death sentence.. methanol toxicity is!

Systemic lupus has become almost as rampant as multiple sclerosis, especially with Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi drinkers. The victim usually does not know that the Aspartame is the culprit. He or she continues its use; irritating the lupus to such a degree that it may become a life-threatening condition. We have seen patients with systemic lupus become asymptotic, once taken off diet sodas.

In cases of those diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, (when in reality, the disease is methanol toxicity), most of the symptoms disappear. We've seen many cases where vision loss returned and hearing loss improved markedly.

This also applies to cases of tinnitus and fibromyalgia.

During a lecture, I said, "If you are using ASPARTAME (NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc.) and you suffer from fibromyalgia symptoms, spasms, shooting, pains, numbness in your legs, cramps, vertigo, dizziness,headaches, tinnitus, joint pain, unexplainable depression, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, blurred vision, or memory loss...you probably have ASPARTAME poisoning!"

People were jumping up during the lecture saying, "I have some of these symptoms."

Is it reversible?" Yes! Yes! Yes! STOP drinking diet sodas and be alert for Aspartame on food labels!

Many products are fortified with it!!!

This is a serious problem. Dr. Espart (one of my speakers) remarked that so many people seem to be symptomatic for MS and during his recent visit to a hospice; a nurse stated that six of her friends, who were heavy Diet Coke addicts, had all been diagnosed with MS. This is beyond coincidence!

Diet soda is NOT a diet product! It is a chemically altered, multiple SODIUM (salt) and ASPARTAME containing product that actually makes you crave carbohydrates. It is far more likely to make you GAIN weight!

These products also contain formaldehyde, which stores in the fat cells, particularly in the hips and thighs. Formaldehyde is an absolute toxin and is used primarily to preserve "tissue specimens."

Many products we use every day! contain this chemical but we SHOULD NOT store it IN our body!!!

Dr. H. J. Roberts stated in his lectures that once free of the "diet products" and with no significant increase in exercise; his patients lost an average of 19 pounds over a trial period.

Aspartame is especially dangerous for diabetics. We found that some physicians, who believed that they had a patient with retinopathy, in fact, had symptoms caused by Aspartame. The Aspartame drives the blood sugar out of control. Thus diabetics may suffer acute memory loss due to the fact that aspartic acid and phenylalanine are NEUROTOXIC when taken without the other amino acids necessary for a good balance. Treating diabetes is all about BALANCE. Especially with diabetics, the Aspartame passes the blood/brain barrier and it then deteriorates the neurons of the brain; causing various levels of brain damage, seizures, depression, manic depression, panic attacks, uncontrollable anger and rage.

Consumption of Aspartame causes these same symptoms in non-diabetics, as well.

Documentation and observation also reveal that thousands of children diagnosed with ADD and AHD have had complete turnarounds in their behavior when these chemicals have been removed from their diet. So called "behavior modification prescription drugs" (Ritalin and others) are no longer needed. Truth be told, they were never NEEDED in the first place!

Most of these children were being "poisoned" on a daily basis with the very foods that were "better for them than sugar."

It is also suspected that the Aspartame in thousands of pallets of diet Coke and diet Pepsi consumed by men and women fighting in the Gulf War, may be partially to blame for the well-known Gulf War Syndrome.

Dr. Roberts warns that it can cause birth defects, i.e., mental retardation, if taken at the time of conception and during early pregnancy. Children are especially at risk for neurological disorders and should NEVER be given artificial sweeteners. There are many different case histories to relate of children suffering grand mal seizures and other neurological disturbances due to the use of NutraSweet.

Unfortunately, it is not always easy to convince people that Aspartame is to blame for their child's illness. Stevia, which, which is a sweet herb, NOT A MANUFACTURED ADDITIVE, helps in the metabolism of sugar, which would be ideal for diabetics. It has now been approved as a dietary supplement by the FDA. It is known that for many years the FDA outlawed this true sweet food," due to their loyalty to MONSANTO Chemical Company."

Books on this subject are available:

EXCITOTOXINS: THE TASTE THAT KILLS written by Dr. Russell Blayblock (Health Press 1-800-643-2665) AND: DEFENSE AGAINST ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE-written by DR H. J. Roberts, also a diabetic specialist.

These two doctors will soon be posting a position paper with case histories on the deadly effects of Aspartame on the Internet. According to the Conference of the American College of Physicians, "We are talking about a plague of neurological diseases directly caused by the use of this deadly poison."

Herein lies the problem: There were Congressional Hearings when Aspartame was included 100 different products and strong objection was made concerning it's use. Since this initial hearing, there have been two subsequent hearings and still, nothing has been done. The drug and chemical lobbies have very deep pockets. Sadly, MONSANTO'S patent on Aspartame has EXPIRED!!

There are now over 5,000 products on the market that contain this deadly chemical and there will be thousands more introduced.

Everybody wants a "piece of the Aspartame pie." I assure you that MONSANTO, the creator of Aspartame, knows how deadly it is. And isn't it ironic that MONSANTO funds, among others, the American Diabetes Association, the American Dietetic Association and the Conference of the American College of Physicians? This has been recently exposed in the New York Times. These cannot criticize any additives or convey their link to MONSANTO because they take money from the food industry and are required to endorse their products.

Senator Howard Metzenbaum wrote and presented a bill that would require label warnings on products containing Aspartame, especially regarding pregnant women, children and infants. The bill would also institute independent studies on the known dangers and the problems existing in the general population regarding seizures, changes in brain chemistry, neurological changes and behavioral symptoms. The bill was killed.

It is known that the powerful drug and chemical lobbies are responsible for this, letting loose the hounds of disease and death on an unsuspecting and uninformed public.

Well, you're informed now!!!! YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW!!!!

Please print this out and/or e-mail to your family and friends. They have a right to know too.

Silent Lessons

Lessons in silence

Javier Mata
Inquirer News Service

I'VE done some pretty unusual things in the quest for new experiences. One time I went an entire weekend blindfolded in order to know what it was like to be without sight.

This time, instead of learning on my own, I would be interacting with people who lived a different lifestyle 24 hours a day. I would be taught by those who have the genuine deal.

I signed up to join a sign language class for the deaf. Anyone who've been around deaf people would see that they are an interesting group. They have their very own culture that they carry with pride, and the more you see that culture the less it seems that the lack of hearing is a "disability." To learn even an inkling of their world is to marvel at human perseverance and flexibility.

The setting was at De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde during College Week 2005, an entire activity week that DLS-CSB uses to promote its course offerings. Since the college has a school for the deaf (with degree program tracks in multimedia arts and entrepreneurship), a free introductory sign language class was given to 4th year high school students, parents and interested college students. I decided to give it a shot as well.

The class wasn't what I had expected, to say the least. The thing that surprised me most was the lecturer and his staff. Because the room was full of people who had no knowledge of sign language, I assumed they would be sending a professor who wasn't deaf. Instead, Mr. Rey entered the room. He was deaf, silent... and one of the best teachers I would ever encounter. And so were his assistants.

What proceeded was a lecture that displayed Mr. Rey's natural talent for expressing ideas without actually saying anything. Throughout the whole session, he taught us the sign language alphabet, various words and phrases, and a little background on the sub-culture of the deaf. He did it all by not saying a single word and by being as animated and expressive as he could possibly be.

It amazed me how he managed to make us understand him, considering we didn't even know sign language. He resorted to playing charades to get the message across, and the fact that we understood him clearly was a testament to his teaching ability.

Seriously, this guy was more interesting to "listen" to than some of the professors I've had who were "normal." With him, something as simple as the words "student" and "teacher" were suddenly interesting to comprehend. He could be funny, too. He reminded me that mime and non-verbal humor is an art (anyone old enough to remember Charlie Chaplin?).

The session eventually ended with the mandatory feedback form and the complementary farewells. Mr. Rey gave a courteous smile and a very meaningful thumbs-up to everyone.

I suppose I could conclude the whole thing by saying that deaf people are far from disabled. But that would be a cliché now, wouldn't it? I'd rather say that they actually are superior to us in some ways. If there's one thing you get to realize from interacting with them, it is that the use of our tongues can sometimes become a crutch. Double meanings, veiled words, loaded questions, vague riddles all serve to muddle basic understanding and communication.

Take it away, however, and you are left with your expressions, actions and the force of your personality. The fact that these people have "lost" something and yet somehow function the way they do leaves a "normal" person to wonder if we've become stagnant, complacent and comfortable with how things work.

These people, on the other hand, are forced to break barriers to become something more. So who truly are the disabled ones then?

Call DLS-CSB at 5267441 to 47, or visit www.dls-csb.edu.ph.

Stargazing

Youngblood : Still counting stars

Hannah Faye M. Muralla
Inquirer News Service

WHEN I was younger, I would climb to the roof of our house whenever there was a power interruption in our neighborhood, which was often. As I climbed up the ladder, I would mumble words of disgust with the electric cooperative for being so inefficient. I'd continue to complain as I lay on my back, but once I turned my gaze to the heavens, my mood would change. Evenings without electricity were always the best times to go stargazing. The darkness and silence that draped the night made the stars twinkle even brighter.

The heavens have always fascinated me. I would spend a lot of time reading books about the constellations during the day and when night came, I would try to locate them in the evening sky: Cassiopeia, Andromeda, the Big Dipper, etc. Sometimes, I would just count every star that was visible to my eyes.

My love for stargazing began when my father called my sisters and me "Tres Marias" [Three Marys] He pointed to a row of three bright stars in the sky and told me they were sometimes called the Tres Marias, too. The three stars, I found out later, composed Orion's Belt in the constellation Orion.

And so began a hobby that I'd do to relieve stress or when I was just plain mad that there was no electricity at a time when I most needed it. On the first year I spent looking up to the heavens, questions began to pop in my head: Were aliens real? What made falling stars fall? Why did they twinkle? What was beyond the dark space? Most importantly, I asked: Who made all these heavenly bodies?

I asked my father, hoping to get clear-cut answers. He told me God made them all.

I pursued the question: Who made God? "No one," he said. "He's God, you know. No one ought to question his authority and power."

"But God doesn't hate you for asking such questions," he hastened to assure me. "Young kids like you tend to ask questions a lot."

I persisted: "How can it be that the universe just came to be? Did God just appear, too?"

"In time, you'll understand. You just have to have faith," my father replied, smiling.

Faith is such a vague word. We say to see is to believe, but faith requires you to believe even without seeing. And for a young child like me then, faith was hard to understand.

But I didn't have to wait too long. As soon as I entered school, science began to teach me a lot of things about the world I didn't fully understand and the faith I was trying to fathom. Pre-school saw me grow my first plant and identify its parts. Elementary school taught me all about the human body and the flora and fauna of the earth. High school made a little clearer to me the world I lived, with my Physics, Chemistry and Science Research subjects. I was introduced to the universe further, learning the physical laws that governed it. Thirteen years of school prior to college required me to learn and understand the concepts and processes involved in sustaining life. I had to learn more than stoichiometry and thermodynamics in an attempt to understand life and the laws of the universe. And whenever I learned something new and fascinating, I was awed and then I would say to myself, "So that's how God does it! Wow."

It's most amazing that the world and the universe operate by a certain logic that is unmistakably similar and consistent. The more we learn of something, the more we appreciate the powerful intelligence behind the many wonderful designs and functions that benefit humanity and the rest of creation. Faith comes at a much later time, when we've been enlightened and we acknowledge what we still don't know and cannot do as mere humans.

In college, we are taught things at a higher level and encouraged to gain a more profound understanding of our existence. I have realized that faith doesn't need to be blind. Faith doesn't even require us to believe without seeing with our eyes at all. God reveals Himself in all creation -- on land, on sea, and in the heavens and beyond. God reveals Himself both in the simplest and most complex of creations.

Questions I previously asked, like why a falling star falls or why stars twinkle, have been answered. As to the existence of aliens, I'm still not sure and all the more is my uncertainty as to what goes beyond the outer space. But ask me any time who made the universe and I can answer you with conviction. Science may have not opened the last window of creation yet (as depicted in the film "The Creation of the Universe"), but I believe that the billions of years' worth of evidence (and the future discoveries to come) all point to an intelligence beyond human comprehension.

At times, I also ask why humans feel the want and the need to know things. It may be that we were hard-wired to be curious beings that are also intelligent enough to find answers to our own questions, though not all the time. After all, we were made in the image of the Creator who's behind all these wonder. But since we are mere mortals, we could never be all-knowing like Him. Gaining the profoundest knowledge of everything would be quite impossible. My father was right: we were not meant to understand all things. Sometimes, you just have to have faith.

Last summer, free from the pressures of school, I once again looked up to the heavens at night and I wished upon a falling star that I may never be deprived of star-gazing and that I would continue to appreciate every spectacle I see and deepen my faith further in the One who made them all possible.

And just like what I did in my younger and more carefree days, I looked up to the heavens and attempted to count the stars that twinkled brightly. I kept counting even though I knew that I could never count them all in one sitting, just like the questions that I kept asking them although I knew that most of them would never be answered in a lifetime.

I will continue to counting stars at night -- for the fun and beauty of it, and because it enriches my faith.

Hannah Faye M. Muralla, 18, is a third year Bachelor of Arts in Communication student at Ateneo de Manila University.

ATENTION,

I AM 35 YEAR OLD AND MY NAME IS STANLEY SANKOH,ELDERST SON OF LATE CHEIF
FODAY SANKOH OF TUNGO DISTRICT,SIERRA LEONE.I GOT YOUR CONTACT FROM A
REPORTER
THAT WORKS WITH THE MINISTRY OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY WHO RCOMENDED YOU AS
A PERSON OF GOOD INTEGRITY AND REPUTATION THAT CAN BE TRUSTED.

I WANT YOU TO TREAT THIS PROPOSAL WITH ALL ATTENTION POSSIBLE.THIS IS MY
LIFE AND MY BRIGHTER FUTURE,WITHOUT THIS I AM NOBODY,I HAVE BEEN KEEPING
THIS ISSUE FOR THE PAST 4YEARS AGO.I DO NOT HAVE FAMILY ANY MORE AND NO
RELATIVES.THE WAR SPLITED EVERYBODY.MAYBE SOME OF THEM ARE STILL ALIVE
WHICH I DON'T KNOW.MY YOUNGER BROTHER AND MY LITTLE SISTER DIED DURING THE
WAR.
PLEASE,I WANT YOU TO TREAT THIS ISSUE WITH ALL RESPECT.

MY LATE FATHER,CHEIF FODAY SANKOH,POPULARLY KNOWN IN OUR COUNTRY AS GIPU,
WAS THE INDEPENDENT DIAMOND MARKETER IN KONO DISTRICT,SIERRA LEONE.
UNFORTUNATETELY HE WAS AMONG THE TWELVE PROMINENT CITIZENS EXECUTED BY OUR
PRESIDENT AHMED TEJAN KABBAH.MY FATHER,ALONG THE ELEVEENTH PROMINENT
CITIZENS[BOTH CIVILIAN AND MILITARY]WHERE ACCUSED OF SUPPORTING AND
SPONSORING THE FORMAL DICTATOR,MAJOR.PAUL JOHNNY KOROMAH TO OVERTHROW
THE DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT IN 1991 BEFORE THE WAR FINALLY BEGAN THEY
WHERE EXECUTED IN 1999.

BEFORE THEIR ARREST,MY LATE FATHER HANDED OVER SOME DOCUMENTS TO ME,
WHICH CONTAINED THE DEPOSITED TWO SEALED BOXES,ONE CONTAINING 652CARACT
OF BLUE ROUGH CUT DIAMOND GEM AND ANOTHER CONTAINING CASH IN A SECURITY
COMPANY IN AMSTERDAM,THE NETHERLANDS WHICH CONTAINED $16.8 MILLION US
DOLLARS PUTTING MY NAME IS THE NEXT OF KIN.MY LATE FATHER STATED THAT,
HE REGISTERED THE BOTH BOXES AS CONTAINING PRECIOUS ITEMS AS AT HE TIME
OF DEPOSIT.THE SECURITY COMPANY DOES NOT KNOW THAT ONE OF THE BOXES
ACTUALLY CONTAINS CASH.I AM PRESENTLY IN REFUGEES CAMP IN THE NETHERLANDS
WHERE I FLEE \TO BECAUSE OF THE WAR IN OUR COUNTRY.

I WANT YOU TO COME DOWN TO AMSTERDAM,THE NETHERLANDS TO ASSIST ME
FACILITATES THE REMOVAL OF THE DEPOSITED BOXES FROM THE SECURITY AND
DEPOSIT HOUSE,AND LATER BUY HOUSE IN YOUR COUNTRY,AND INVEST THE REST IN
ANY BUSINESS SINCE WE DO NOT WANT TO RE-SETTLED IN AFRICA DUE TO THE
INTRUCTION OF MY LATE FATHER FOR PEOPLE NOT TO SET THIER EYES ON OUR
FAMILY.

FOR YOUR CO-OPERATION,I WILL SEE THAT YOU ARE GENEROUSLY
COMPENSATED.PLEASE,INDICATE YOUR INTEREST BY REPLYING TO ME ON THE EMAIL
STATED BELOW SO THAT I CAN PREPARE THE NECCESSARY AGGREEMENT THROUGH
MY LAWYER TO CLAIM THE CONSIGNMENT ON MY BEHALF AND FAMILY.

YOURS FAITHFULLY
STANLEY SANKOH
EMAIL: stansankoh@netscape.net

A Fil-Am's View

Filipino-American is wrong on Philippine politics

Inquirer News Service

I READ Rina David's column, "A Filipino-American's view." (Inquirer, 7/29/05) I live in the United States, and from what I see and hear, Filipinos are also divided on the issue that is President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Not everyone shares the view of JP Paredes. Frankly, Paredes is looking through an "American" looking glass, thus he applies a different set of standards with regard to Philippine politics. If he turns his sight on the opposition, he will see how terribly underhanded and ruthless the opposition has been, how it has been responsible for most of the troubles we are now facing. It is easy for him to demand President Arroyo's resignation, as he would be far removed from its effects. Calling the President and her family "stooges" and "squatters" already makes his opinion suspect, malicious and below the belt.

A lot of people in the media have already decided what the "truth" is. Just like Paredes, they have already acted as judge, jury and executioner, peppering their arguments with such nonsense as "moral ascendancy" and "moral regeneration" from a high perch. I think their arguments are all hogwash, intended to make them feel righteous and important.

These are not the martial law years, where people are being killed left and right simply on suspicion of being a communist or a criminal. People should be able to defend themselves. Joseph Estrada was given a chance to defend himself. I think Ms Arroyo deserves that chance, too, regardless of the opinion of any "high and mighty" Filipino-American. I also think Ms Arroyo should be given the chance to finish her term without the constant sniping from the opposition. She won that election and she should be able to complete her term.

ARIEL TORRES (via e-mail)

Roco's Camelot

Human Face : Roco in search of Camelot

Ma. Ceres P. Doyo
Inquirer News Service

"THINK back," the late Raul Roco had mused, seemingly swallowed up in a fog of memories. "Think back on all the tales that you remember of Camelot."

The words from the 1960s Lerner-Loewe musical often cascaded from Roco's lips, as he thought back on how King Arthur sang about that "fleeting wisp of glory, called Camelot."

Roco, former congressman, senator, education secretary and presidential candidate, died of cancer on Aug. 5. He was 63. He will be buried today in Naga City. Roco and another 2004 presidential contender, Fernando Poe Jr., died within eight months of each other.

"We were the Camelot boys," Roco recalled when I interviewed him in his Antipolo hillside retreat named An Maogmang Lugar (Bicol for "the happy place") famous for its tropical blooms that became the signature design of his campaign get-up.

The dream -- how far back did it go, when first did the glimmer of the presidency come into view?

It was in 1961, Roco said, when he was president of the National Union of Students in the Philippines (NUSP), that something stirred in him. "Those were the Kennedy years. President Kennedy spoke of Camelot. 'Right is might.' When he said, 'Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country,' it was as if he was addressing me.

"I was popular on campuses. People would say, continue on and run for president. That is the Filipino dream, like the American dream that every one could be president. As a student leader you start thinking of it, but you don't really dream of it."

In November 1963, Kennedy was assassinated. "All of a sudden Camelot vanished," Roco recalled. "But dreams never die, never die." And being a student leader then, he saw the value of politics, that "power can serve."

The tragedies that stalked those he idolized were not lost on Roco. He remembered the day President Ramon Magsaysay died in a plane crash in 1957, the people weeping, lining up to buy newspapers. Here was someone he had not even met but for whom he, like so many people, shed tears.

Roco was chosen one of the Ten Outstanding Students of the Philippines of 1964. He would later marry the most outstanding student of that batch, Sonia Malasarte, with whom he has six children.

Roco finished law, magna cum laude, at the Benedictine-run San Beda College. He finished his master's degree in comparative law at the University of Pennsylvania.

After he passed the bar in 1965, Roco lobbied for the holding of the Constitutional Convention. With the ConCon law passed in 1967, Roco campaigned for a seat to represent his district in Camarines Sur. He won.

He later joined the staff of Sen. Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. He drafted the study-now-pay-later bill, which was part of Aquino's campaign promise. Then President Marcos declared martial law.

Roco moved on to corporate law and joined the ACCRA law office that produced several national politicians. As a legislator and self-styled "honorary woman," Roco authored pro-women laws. He was also known for authoring laws reforming the Central Bank.

Aksyon Demokratico, Roco's fledgling party, pushed his 1998 and 2004 presidential bids. In 2004, Aksyon linked up with Promdi and Reporma, the party machines of two 1998 also-runs Lito Osme¤a and Renato de Villa, to form Alyansa ng Pag-asa (Alliance of Hope). Roco had an incomplete senatorial slate composed of political virgins. He ran on the "agenda of hope" that stood for major reforms in the government.

Roco rated high in pre-election surveys and was considered a strong presidential contender in 2004. But halfway through the campaign, illness forced him out of the campaign trail. He was back soon enough to rally the Roco die-hards but by then his chances had greatly diminished.

Roco was arguably the most intellectually prepared among the presidential candidates. One could easily imagine him taking his place among world leaders, or steering the ship of state through rough waters.

Roco was a great public speaker, using just the right decibel, inflection and cadence in his words. He often quoted from poetry and put human faces on his data. He spoke not only to inform but to inspire. His spiels were punctuated with Filipino witticisms and truisms. He could even sing.

He described himself as a follower of Peter Drucker, management guru and author. Management is like conducting a symphony orchestra, Roco said. His management style gave the people in the education department, which he headed briefly, a culture shock.

Roco proudly said that the department was stricken off the corrupt list after seven months. Over a year later, Roco resigned in a huff. He resigned on a point of honor, he said.

To An Maogmang Lugar, Roco often hied off to smell the flowers. Great world leaders, Roco often reminded, needed solitary moments to find the strength within themselves.

His idea of God? Roco laughed while recalling a story. "The ant was asked what its idea of God was and it answered, 'I have one sting, God has two.' God is an eternal presence. One could believe in a supreme deity, or in creation or in extreme patriotism to serve. As a Christian, I believe that Christ is God. The Christian tenets were what kept us fairly civilized."

Faith and politics, Roco believed, could mix, if both could translate into good works.

Roco dreamed of a Philippine image before the world -- that of a nation striving to be honest and honorable. "Filipinos are honorable," he told the Inquirer. "It's our leaders who are not. There is no nation that has grown without a sense of honor."

Raul Roco was ever in search of Camelot. He passed on during this very tumultuous time in Philippine politics.

My Skin

Youngblood : Picking black

Michelle F. Cheidjew
Inquirer News Service

I REMEMBER a television commercial that was popular when I was a kid. It was an ad about a brand of paint. Two black tribesmen, each trying to win the chief's favor, competed in a "who could paint more zebras" challenge (the zebras were made of cardboard). One tribesman went for brand X, while the other, knowing better, went for the product being advertised. Naturally, the one who went for brand X lost. What fascinated me most was when the defeated tribesman poured the white paint over his body. I have never forgotten how his ebony figure was engulfed by the white background.

The first time I saw the commercial I did not think it was selling paint. I thought that it was selling the color white.

The ad's impact went beyond my perception to that of the people around me. My family and neighbors would kid me to try using white paint "para pumuti ka agad" [so your skin would whiten fast]. Although they meant it as a joke, I saw it as a possibility.

The reason I took the ad literally was that I was already using whitening products even then. No, it wasn't out of childish vanity; I was not the type who rummaged through some adult's dresser to try on make-up. I did it because my grandmother told me to.

"Nanay" (as I called her) was a white beauty, thanks to her Chinese blood. But my "mestiza" [mixed-blood] mother married a black man and, according to nature's formula, a white woman and a black man produced a black kid, which was me.

When I was young, I thought that Nanay had made it her lifetime mission to transform her black and perpetually ridiculed "apo" [grandchild] into a white girl to be perpetually admired. At home, we had a steady supply of whitening soaps, creams, lotions and what-have-you to make Nanay's dream apo a reality. To my young mind, she seemed ready to do just about anything to make me white. It even occurred to me that Nanay was considering something as drastic as surgery (like the one that the King of Pop had), except that we didn't have the resources needed.

So when the ad appeared, I could not help but worry (ridiculous as it may seem) that she would go as far as pouring white paint over me to achieve her goal. She seemed so determined, even desperate.

All those whitening products hardly made a dent on my skin's melanin content. Obviously, no one can reverse one's genetic make-up. My genes dictated black to be the color of my skin and no whitening cream or lotion could alter that. It was also apparent that the money Nanay was spending on those products was merely going down the drain.

I guess Nanay knew that, too. But in her case, acceptance didn't follow awareness.

The products I used could not change my complexion, but they greatly affected the way I saw myself. Before Nanay made me use those creams, I was aware that my complexion set me apart from other brown kids. But though they called me names, I did not really make a big deal of it. Color, to me, was just color.

But I was wrong. Dead wrong. For when Nanay started buying those creams, it dawned on me that something about the way I looked was "wrong" and needed to be changed. What she did gave me the message that my complexion was something I must get rid of. Since Nanay took care of me since birth, I looked up to her as the authority on everything. Her actions were my truth. When she said that I should be white, I agreed and stopped being black.

Now I think I am beginning to understand what moved Nanay to do those things. I have ruled out the idea that she harbored contempt for the black race. I believe she made me use those products more out of love than intolerance. I guess it was her way of shielding me from people who believe that black is beautiful, except when it's the color of your skin. Although her efforts to protect me proved disastrous to my self-esteem, it will not blot out the fact that Nanay recognized the evils of discrimination and tried to do something about it.

One time, Nanay accompanied me to the park. We were walking towards a vacant swing when some kids began yelling, "Baluga! Baluga!" Nanay did not confront or reprimand those kids. Instead, she looked me in the eye and said, "They will always look down on you because…"

I did not hear her complete the sentence; I already knew what she meant. In her eyes I saw sympathy and a strong resolve never to let incidents like that happen again.

My days of using whitening products are over, and I no longer see the black tribesman and his cardboard zebras on TV. But white still abounds, not just on television ads. Whether in bars of soap or bottles of lotion, the preference for the color predominates.

I guess there is nothing wrong with wanting to look better. But there is something wrong when we rely solely on color or appearance to accept others. No one gets to see beauty unless one learns to appreciate what is real or natural.

Color is perception; it can spell inclusion or exclusion. Color can be status; it can mean superiority or inferiority. Color is an idea or an identity. But color is a choice, and I choose to be black.

Michelle Faulan Cheidjew, 18, is a third year Bachelor of Arts in English Studies student at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City.

You Are Beautiful

At Large : A beauty 'debate'

Rina Jimenez-David
Inquirer News Service

AN UNUSUAL advertising campaign, unusual at least for beauty, skin and body-care products, will soon be hitting the streets. The campaign doesn't seek to "sell" physical attraction and the ideal of beauty as the promised result of continued use and patronage. Rather, it raises questions about the nature and definition of "beauty" itself, challenging consumers to rethink their concept of beauty and to begin to think of themselves as beautiful.

This indeed is revolutionary change. Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty" stands beauty advertising on its head. The cosmetics and skin-care industry has mostly sought the loyalty of women consumers with advertising based on "fear," as The Body Shop's Anita Roddick postulates. To Roddick, it was a crime to market products aimed at 40- and 50-year-olds by using 18-year-old models. Such campaigns not only created unnecessary paranoia about "old age" conditions like wrinkles, age spots, dry skin and gray hair, but also tended to create a cycle of frustration.

Scared into thinking that they were turning into hags, middle-aged women would buy so-called "age-defying" products by the sackload, only to be frustrated time and again when the results were nowhere near those promised by the glossy ads. The women could not be aware, of course, that no matter how one tried, and even with "scientific" intervention, there was no way a middle-aged woman could look like a youthful model, or even regain the looks and body she sported in her teens and 20s.

But even younger women are not spared this cycle of aspiration and frustration. Teenagers, especially, are vulnerable to unreachable expectations created by most consumer advertising (as well as editorial material) touting everything from toothpaste to deodorants, fashion to fitness, cell phones to jewelry. And when even possession of all these trendy and fashionable items fail to transform their ordinary-duckling selves into the ravishing swans of commercials and lay-outs, teenage girls could end up with a serious case of self-loathing that at times are expressed through self-mutilation, eating disorders and depression.

* * *

INSPIRED by a groundbreaking study conducted a few years ago among American and European women by Unilever and Harvard University on women's concept of beauty, on which was based Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty, Unilever conducted a similar study covering more than 2,000 women across 10 Asian countries.

Not surprisingly, the Asian study came up with nearly similar results. Fewer than 3 percent of the female respondents in the Asian study said they were "beautiful," about the same result in the Western study.

Filipinas, in fact, proved to be most confident of their looks, with 5 percent saying they believed they were "beautiful." Filipinas also top the "beauty happiness scale," with 87 percent (compared to 34 percent in Korea, say) saying they were satisfied with their appearance. Perhaps fatalism has something to do with this. Very few of us may believe we are beautiful, but we are by and large resigned to living with our looks.

The Filipina respondents also had quite a mouthful to say about the media and their role in creating the near-impossible ideals of beauty. A total of 77 percent wished that media did a better job of portraying women of diverse physical characteristics, while 84 percent wished that media "could give women more confidence in their own looks and beauty." But oddly enough, 68 percent said they also thought models used in beauty ads were "good role models for young girls."

Like it did in United States, Canada and Europe, Dove has created advertising that challenges conventional Asian attributes of beauty, such as fair skin, flawless complexion, long shiny hair, svelte figure and even large breasts.

The only Filipina model in the campaign, dusky skinned management trainee Mia Sebastian, is featured in an ad that asks the consumer to decide: Dark? Or Dazzling? These ads, asking the public to "join the beauty debate" by ticking boxes that best describe the "real women" shown, will soon be seen in magazines, billboards and posters.

* * *

TO LAUNCH the campaign, the Women's Media Circle, an NGO working for the empowerment of women and girls in the media, partnered with Dove on a "debate" on beauty last Wednesday, with a panel of speakers moderated by talk-show host Boy Abunda, himself an object of beauty.

It was an interesting mix of personalities, persuasions and opinions, with the participants including Sebastian, Unilever marketing director Noel Lorenzana, the ageless former Miss Universe and actress Gloria Diaz, MTV VJ Nicole Fonacier, global debater and media personality Patricia Evangelista, talk-show host and commercial model Drew Arellano, renowned cosmetic surgeon Dr. Florencio Lucero, sociologist and University of the Philippines professor Dr. Josefina Natividad, and this columnist.

Boy set the discussion going by asking the glorious Miss Diaz to repeat her assertion that "99 percent of beauty is based on youth, so older women have to work hard on the remaining one percent." Dr. Lucero confirmed the perceived link between youth and beauty, saying most of his clients come to him asking him to "make me look younger" and not necessarily more beautiful.

Nicole, who became a plus-size role model when she won in the MTV VJ search, debunked myths about beauty standards, saying it was all a matter of "self-confidence" and belief in oneself. And indeed, we are attracted to many other things besides the physical -- things like good health, confidence, poise and humor. And when the physical is deficient, or past its prime, then it behooves one to develop the intangibles, qualities that time can neither wrinkle nor sag.

Boycott Zoos

Relics of unenlightened past

Inquirer News Service

THE RECENT death of Hook, a 13-year-old female whale, at Ocean Adventure Park illustrates why marine mammals do not belong in captivity. ("Whale death revives calls for Subic park's closure," Inquirer, 7/18/05)

In open waters, marine mammals, such as killer whales and dolphins, may swim up to 100 miles a day. In marine parks, these animals face the same walled environment day in and day out, swimming in endless circles. A killer whale in a marine park will have to swim around the edge of a typical tank more than 500 times just to cover 50 miles.

Marine park trainers force newly captured dolphins and killer whales to learn tricks by withholding food from those who refuse to perform and by isolating them. According to former dolphin trainer Ric O'Barry, "positive reward" training is a euphemism for "food deprivation."

Captivity may also drive some of these highly intelligent animals insane. Dolphins navigate by echolocation, bouncing sonar waves off objects to determine their shape, density, distance and location. In a tank, says Jean-Michel Cousteau, dolphins "are bombarded by a garble of their own vocalizations…. Because these are sounds of communication as well as navigation, their world becomes a maze of meaningless reverberations."

Marine mammal parks are relics of our unenlightened past; and facilities such as the Ocean Adventure Park should close their doors for good. In the meantime, the best thing any of us can do is to refuse to visit parks and zoos that have captive marine mammals on display.

DAN ABRIL, representative, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta Asia-Pacific)

Doyo's Column

Human Face : A small scary story

Ma. Ceres P. Doyo
Inquirer News Service

WHILE big national issues rage, while the big guys slug it out in the national arena and play to the bloodthirsty gallery, many Filipinos continue to live their lives in the shadows and in quiet desperation. If these skirmishes were projected on a big video wall, we, the spectators and passersby, would only cower as the big, dark shadows and images overwhelm us. The cheering and the cajoling come from the bettors lusting for the spoils.

Many Filipinos keep on with their day-to-day chores, wondering when and how it will all end. In the meantime, the stereophonic, cacophonic, dumbing din becomes even more assaulting to the senses. We are the proverbial lonely crowd waiting for an intermission and the exit door to swing open so that we could take in a chestful of fresh air.

While the fighting goes on in the big arena, thanks to its life-size projection in the media, our so-called peace and order guardians are busy looking after the top. The rest of us down below have to look after our own survival and safety. Evil is abroad in the land and stalks its prey with freedom and impunity.

During the President's State of the Nation Address, when it seemed all the police and security forces were concentrated in one battle area, the petty and big criminals must have had a field day.

Here is an account from Cierlene Rivera, a mother who saw evil up close. The incident happened two months ago when the "Now Showing" political drama was just unfolding.

"Last June 3, at about 9:30 p.m., my seven-year-old daughter, her 'yaya' [nanny] and I had dinner at Pancake House on Quezon Avenue. When we were almost done, a man came inside the restaurant, headed straight to our table and pulled out a gun. He pointed the 9mm at me and demanded for my cell phone. I was stunned and tried to convince myself that it was a dream. After all, I was inside a respectable restaurant.

"Again, the man asked for my phone and then my bag. Out of fear for our safety, I handed them over. He then pointed the gun at the yaya and my daughter who was trembling with fear. The man wanted my daughter's backpack and the yaya gave it to him. Then he went out of the restaurant.

"I immediately held my daughter who was trying to hold back her tears. She had turned white and couldn't speak well and just kept on mumbling. I looked at the waiters and the lady who looked like the manager. They were all standing by the counter, looking at us as if watching a movie. When I asked if nobody saw what happened, they answered that they saw a man come in, go to our table and point a gun at us. They said they saw him take all our belongings. 'Akala ho namin kasama ninyo' ['We thought they were with you'], they said. The manager even insisted that she thought the man was my husband!

"I couldn't, for the life of me, understand how someone who was supposedly my companion (or my husband) would do such a thing and divest us of everything at gun point. Even if that were so, would they allow a crime to be committed right inside their restaurant? They just stood there and worse, after the incident, nobody even bothered to call the police. The only call I heard was that of the manager calling someone from her cell phone to say that a customer will not be able to pay because she was just held up!

"I had to take my daughter to the area near the kitchen which was farthest from the entrance because she was so scared the hold-up man would come back. Everyone was just staring at us. I even had to instruct the manager to lock the door so that my daughter would have some feeling of assurance.

"I was so furious and disgusted at the manager and staff of Pancake House for not being able to do anything. I asked where the security guard was. There was none.

"I then thought of the cell phones, the credit and ATM cards that were taken. I asked the staff if I could use their phone so I could have the cell phones blocked. Their phone had no dial tone. This was Pancake House on Quezon Avenue. The manager lent me her cell phone, but I was trembling and had a mental block and I could not remember any number. I sought their help for the hotline of Smart and Globe and the credit card companies and the banks but nobody knew anything. I just dialed home.

"On June 15, I reported the incident to the Baler police station which had jurisdiction over the area. Everyone in the station was surprised to learn about the incident. They wondered why no one from Pancake House reported the incident right after it happened so they could do an investigation. On my part, I could not report right away because I wanted the phones and the cards blocked that very night. I did not want my daughter with me at the police station as that might add to her trauma. We also had a death in the family and school was about to start.

"Friends who learned about the incident wondered why I was the only one held up and why it happened when it was almost closing time, why the hold-up man did not go to the cashier to get the day's cash and instead chose to get my bag, why only my phones were taken and not those of the staff, why none of the waiters went to seek help from the guard of Red Ribbon next door.

"Now my daughter is suffering from her trauma. She is fearful of men who enter restaurants. She asks whether I am holding to my bag tight enough, where my cell phone and car key are. She is scared someone might take her and that she would never see me again. Her school guidance counselor has been very sympathetic and has counseling sessions with her."

Cierlene says she is still waiting for the police report that Pancake House claimed they had.