OFF THE PRESS: The UP Forum Special 20th Anniversary Issue is now online

CONTENTS the UP Forum Elena E. Pernia Editor in Chief

Frances Fatima M. Cabana Art Director

Celeste Ann L. Castillo

1 The Burden of Being a National University

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Re-imagining the Nation’s Future

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Nurturing Wisdom through the Liberal Arts

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Managing Editor

Flora B. Cabangis Copy Editor

Celeste Ann L. Castillo Frederick E. Dabu Andre dP. Encarnacion Jo Florendo B. Lontoc Khalil Ismael Michael Quilinguing Arlyn VCD Palisoc Romualdo J. Mikhail G. Solitario Writers/Researchers

Peter Paul D. Vallejos Layout Artist

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Abraham Q. Arboleda Misael A. Bacani Jonathan M. Madrid Photographers

Nena R. Barcebal Databank Manager

J. Mikhail G. Solitario

Forum Online Website Administrator

Poverty, War and Peace: Lumad and Muslim Women’s Issues in Mindanao

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UP Forum Roundtable Discussion

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Science in UP

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Alicia B. Abear Michael R. Basco Roberto G. Eugenio Tomas M. Maglaya Cristy M. Salvador Administrative Staff

22 Flight as Fight for Survival

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Literature Engineering in West Visayas

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Champions League: A Salute to Athletic Excellence Beyond the UAAP

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Rainbow Connections: Making UP Safe for LGBTQs

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Uplifting Lives through Interior Design

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Is This Man the Father of UP?

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UP Media and Public Relations Office University of the Philippines System, UP Diliman, Quezon City Trunkline (632) 981-8500 local 2550, 2552, 2549 E-mail: upforum@up.edu.ph up.edu.ph

Something old, something new.

The newly restored fountain of the Oblation Plaza in front of Quezon Hall, UP Diliman, which opened in late February 2019, calls back memories of UP’s earlier years. Photo by Misael Bacani, UP MPRO. Cover design by Timi Cabana and Peter Paul Vallejos, UP MPRO.

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Welcome to this issue of UP Forum that brings back the past. In celebration of its 20 years, this issue of UP Forum features a retrospective of articles dealing with how the University has faced the challenges of transformative leadership in academic and national issues.

The articles bring back the words of esteemed professors from the University’s different constituent units who remind us of our roles as academics to “nurture wisdom,” to provide “conceptual clarity, critique, and concrete proposals for finding solutions to problems,” and to “direct our intellectual energies toward re-imagining our nation’s future” in issues spanning poverty and development, war and peace, the arts and the sciences, national patrimony, and gender identity, among others.

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UP Forum exists to tell stories of the University— stories that are inspired by its people, programs and resources. It is our hope that these stories about the UP’s successes and struggles inspire our readers and develop in them an appreciation for the dynamism and creativity of the national university.

As UP Forum begins its next two decades, former editors in chief and Vice Presidents for Public Affairs weigh in on its legacy and future.

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Join us in UP Forum’s continuing journey and enjoy being enlightened about our beloved UP.

Elena E. Pernia Editor in Chief

The Burden of Being a National University Randolf S. David Exerpts from the original article published in the UP Forum July-August 2009 issue

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The Burden of Being a National University

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Photo by Misael Bacani, UP MPRO.

Raising the quality of public discourse Universities like UP are uniquely positioned to intervene in the ongoing public discussion of issues and problems. This is a terrain that tends to be dominated by politicians, social activists, church people, mass media commentators, and opinion writers. Each one of these players represents a perspective, a way of framing, speaking or understanding, a given topic. When the media turn to a professor for his or her views on a topic, however, they do not expect just any type of opinion but a specialist’s opinion that is informed by the disciplines in which he/she operates. There will be times when we may have no basis to give an expert opinion, but an interviewer may nonetheless press us to speak as a sociologist, economist, linguist, biologist, geologist, or physicist.

Under such circumstances, if the statements we give do not proceed from what we know as specialists, then it behooves us to make clear that we are speaking as lay citizens rather than as scholars. To pretend otherwise—i.e., to lend the authority of our institutional or disciplinal affiliation to the plain opinions we hold as members of a society is to risk undermining the authority of our disciplines, and indeed, of the university we represent.

Certainly, the problem that our people face with regard to information cannot be underestimated.

The exponential growth in the

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capacity of the mass media to bring a broad range of issues into the realm of public discourse has not been matched by an increase in the high-mindedness of public discussions. This is a social need that the university, especially one that calls itself the national university, must attempt to systematically address.

It should not be difficult for us, with commensurate support and encouragement from the university administration, to form working groups on a variety of public issues. Our interventions need not be couched in the language of advocacy—it is enough that they offer conceptual clarity, critique, and concrete proposals for finding solutions to problems. Such think pieces need not always be based on new research either; they could be syntheses of existing studies and data, new interpretations that can bring out the blind spots of current analysis.

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The mandate we have earned for ourselves as a subsystem of society is not so much for us to take sides in the conflict of partisan interests as to be arbiters of what constitutes knowledge in our time, of what is true and what is false, and of what can be claimed as a rational idea or course of action. But we are not precluded from drawing conclusions that are politically consequential. It is important, however, that as we perform this task, we need to

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remind ourselves that political strife, even if we cannot entirely shield ourselves from it, is not the business of the university. Knowledge is. Reason is. No less important than writing these is getting them into the circuit of public discourse—by way of symposia, press conferences, media interviews, television appearances, and articles in the popular media. We could aspire to do this until we reach a point when, as far as the public is concerned, no issue is considered closed until UP has spoken.

Forming our students as the future leaders of the nation We love to say that every UP graduate is more than just a college degree holder. He/she is, above all, a leader with a clear sense of purpose, a profound awareness of the basic problems of the country and of the world, and a passionate commitment to the national good. I still believe that, in general, this is true, although that is no reason to place upon the shoulders of UP graduates the entire weight of the Filipino nation’s past and future.

Our students come to us as young adults already equipped with basic ideas of right and wrong. The values of their families and of the communities in which they are raised are already impressed on their character when they enter UP. But the public forgets that we do not run a monastery or a total institution that regulates every aspect of a student’s existence.

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And so, during the period they are with us, our students remain open to a variety of other influences—the mass media, their families, their churches, their political organizations, their friends, and what they see in the larger society outside.

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Still, we make sure our students pick up some important values while they are with us, notably those associated with the General Education Program: love of country, social justice, solidarity, the need to think for oneself, rational argument, critical inquiry, thirst for knowledge, etc.

Among the things we teach our students is precisely that they must learn to differentiate—e.g., that what is good for their family is not always good for the country, that what is profitable is not always legal, that what is

legal may not always be moral, etc.

I have always believed, in this regard, that the so-called moral crisis gripping our country today is not due to Filipinos’ lack of any moral sense, or a weakness in their values.

Much of what we call corruption stems precisely from a failure to differentiate the multiple dimensions of human activity.

Whether we like it or not, our graduates, more than the graduates of any other tertiary school in the country, are today called upon to lead the nation through these difficult times—to inspire our people by their example, to personify the heroic ideals of public service, and to commit themselves to the unfinished task of building the nation.

To me, this is the biggest burden that being the national university of our country has placed upon us.

It is a reminder that we don’t just train professionals, we produce the nation’s leaders—Filipinos who, on top of what they must learn as professionals, are especially educated to become familiar with the nation’s history, to identify with its aspirations, to take on its manifold problems as their personal responsibility, to integrate commitment to the public good in everything they do, and most of all, to chart the nation’s future.

Prof. Randolf S. David is a professor emeritus of sociology at UP Diliman. He currently writes a weekly newspaper column for the Philippine Daily Inquirer and is a member of the board of advisers of the ABS-CBN Corp.

Whether we like it or not, our graduates, more than the graduates of any other tertiary school in the country, are today called upon to lead the nation through these difficult times—to inspire our people by their example, to personify the heroic ideals of public service, and to commit themselves to the unfinished task of building the nation.

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Photo by Jun Madrid, UP MPRO

The Burden of Being a National University

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Re-imagining the Nation’s Future Jay L. Batongbacal Condensed from the original article published in the UP Forum March-April 2013

Philippine national territory was legally described by the 1935 Constitution as being comprised of all territories ceded to the US by Spain in the Treaty of Paris of 1898 and the Treaty of Washington of 1900, as well as territories under the 1930 Convention between the US and the United Kingdom.

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The territorial lines drawn by the first and third agreements, combined and appearing as an irregular “box,” have comprised a technical description of our territorial boundaries. But such description creates anomalies, because the Treaty of Paris left some features (e.g., the Batanes Islands, the Turtle Islands, one-half of Sibutu Island, Scarborough Shoal) outside the box, while the Treaty of Washington states that such islands also deemed to have been subject to the cession are part of Philippine territory.

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The Philippine claim to Sabah is disconnected from this legal definition. The 1930 Convention draws a line separating the islands belonging to the Philippines and the islands belonging to North Borneo.

The claim to Sabah is based on a document of cession executed by the Sultan of Sulu in 1962. The Sultanate transferred to the Philippine government its rights over the territory of Sabah, which was previously and perpetually leased to the British in 1878, but included among the federated states of Malaysia when it was constituted in 1963.

The Philippine claim to Sabah has been described as merely “proprietary.” It is not a claim to sovereignty by a State, but to ownership by an ordinary property-owner, which impliedly admits that it can be subject to the sovereignty of the State where the property is located rather than the State of its owner. Complicating this peculiarity is the assertion by the current Sultan of 5

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Sulu that his family revoked the 1962 cession to the Philippines and reverted all rights to the Sultanate in 1989.

In the meantime, there have been changes in international law affecting national territories and jurisdictions.

Foremost is the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that expresses international consensus on the extent to which State territories and jurisdictions can be exercised beyond their shores. UNCLOS recognizes a system of maritime zones radiating from baselines. Inside the baselines, the State has complete sovereignty over internal waters; beyond them, its sovereignty is subject to allowing innocent passage of foreign vessels within 12 nautical miles, reduced to specific jurisdictions within 24 nautical miles, and then limited to only exclusive resource rights in the waters from 24 to 200 nautical miles seaward (or to a maximum of 350 nautical miles on the seabed).

In the 1970s, the Philippines pushed for recognition of the Treaty of Paris and the Treaty of Washington lines as the outer limits of Philippine territory, but this was rejected by the international community. The Philippines then officially agreed to the compromise formula of the maritime zones in UNCLOS. But even with the enactment of Republic Act No. 9522 in 2009 to establish archipelagic baselines conforming with the technical requirements of UNCLOS, the Philippines has not

Art by Tilde Acuña.

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Lack of familiarity with the historical basis and continuing evolution of our national boundaries is the source of government’s (and the general population’s) seeming lack of agreement and consistency in the conception of the national territory and how the Nation-State should respond to external challenges to its integrity and stability.

Re-imagining the Nation’s Future

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officially defined an UNCLOS-compliant territorial sea or contiguous zone extending from those baselines. Yet, it has asserted rights to a 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. Just [recently], it secured validation of its claim to an additional continental shelf area in the Benham Rise Region—its first successful expansion of national resource jurisdiction in accordance with international law.

Around the same time it fought diplomatically for expanded maritime space, the Philippines exercised and consolidated its sovereignty over the Kalayaan Island Group west of Palawan. It entered a complicated contest, over the islands and the maritime spaces they generate, with Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, China and Taiwan, in an area that is also a focal point of interest for the maritime trading and naval powers of the world.

Cooperation and compromise are the only means by which these disputes should be resolved, because the Philippines cannot even hope to engage in a contest of force.

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The global economy’s shift toward Asia, the rise of China as world power, the American rebalancing in Asia-Pacific, the ASEAN attempt at regional integration, the resurgence of maritime trade, and the regional drive toward economic development place the Philippine national territory at a maelstrom of competing domestic and foreign interests.

The issues that bedevil us today are outcomes of unresolved clashes between the rich cultural legacies of our past and the barren colonial worldviews that define our present. The University should now direct its intellectual energies toward re-imagining our nation’s future.

Atty. Jay L. Batongbacal is an associate professor at the UP College of Law, and the director of the UP Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea. He was a member of the technical team that prepared and defended the Philippines’ claim to a continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles in the Benham Rise Region.

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Nurturing Wisdom through the Liberal Arts Silvino V. Epistola Condensed from the original article published in the UP Forum May-June 2000 issue

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Finally, for many Filipinos, education has become much too old-fashioned to fit in today’s scheme of things. Even those who hold college degrees now say that education has lost its efficacy, but as many would hasten to add, this is so only because now it is not 1950 but 2000.

Old-time education is simply no longer attuned to the rapid pace of our technological times.

Since the 1960s, the University of the Philippines, for one, has been changing. The old College of Liberal Arts was split three ways into the University College, which was given the new General Education Program; the College of Arts and Sciences, which would offer the Bachelor Arts and Bachelor of Science degree programs; and the Graduate School, which would run the highly specialized Master of Arts degree programs.

The resulting arrangement was logical. But someone should have taken into account the careerism endemic in the faculty. For instance, it did not look good career-wise for a faculty member not to belong to the Graduate School. Certainly no professor would accept an appointment in the University College, for this could mean standing on the lowest rung of the faculty hierarchy till one’s retirement. To solve the impasse, the UP Regents abolished the University College and the Graduate School and allowed another three-way split, after the usual heated faculty debates.

To this day, the various undergraduate and graduate arts and sciences degree programs are administered each by the College of Arts and Letters, the College of Science and the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy.

Did this mean that the old College of Liberal Arts was restored to life through a different name? Sadly, no! As some realized even then, the operative part of the title, College of Arts and Sciences, was not “College” but “Arts and Sciences” with emphasis on “and.” What waylaid the mind was the idea that the arts and sciences were component subjects of the College of Liberal Arts as well as that of the College of Arts and Sciences. Hence the mistaken notion that the College of Arts and Sciences restored the College of Liberal Arts to life.

We also have forgotten the meaning of “liberal arts.” Actually, all we understood is the separateness of the arts and sciences. For this reason, those working in the sciences regard the arts as so much superfluous baggage, and those working in the arts think that the sciences are an oppressive imposition on their spirit.

Today, President Francisco Nemenzo, the man who brings back the Liberal Arts to UP, presides over its Commencement Exercises, his first.

He will confer the degrees which had been earned by graduates whose minds are still dominated by the notion of the separate cultures

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of the arts and sciences. His hope is that this will be the last Commencement Exercises in which degrees are conferred a graduating class alienated from the unity of the arts and sciences.

All this, of course, lies in President Nemenzo’s dream of making the UP a university that would have the knowledge to make nuclear bombs and the wisdom not to use them. The important thing, then, is wisdom. As he put it in a speech not too long ago, “Only an authentic university has the appropriate organization, scope of learning and academic freedom to nurture wisdom.”

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A university cannot teach students everything about anything, but it can teach them to teach themselves. In its heyday, the UP had a full-blown Liberal Arts Program to do just that. Today, a 40-yearold General Education Program is continuously being revitalized to produce a UP graduate who understands the unity of the arts and sciences well enough to teach himself not only what he wants to learn, but also to learn, as Alvin Toffler puts it, “to make decisions and to relate to other people.”

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Prof. Silvino V. Epistola was a professor first at the UP Department of English, before moving on to teach Asian studies and philosophies at the UP Asian Center and UP Department of Philosophy. He was also an award-winning fictionist and essayist.

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Poverty, War and Peace Lumad and Muslim Women’s Issues in Mindanao Ma. Arve B. Bañez Condensed from the original article published in the UP Forum January-February 2010 issue

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Background Mindanao is home to diverse communities, with 13 ethno-linguistic groups and around 30 Lumad groups. Of its total population of 25.73 million, some 18 percent are Muslims and approximately 5 percent are Lumad; the rest are migrants and their descendants. Females comprise half of the population. Hence, by sheer number, women are a vital resource for Mindanao’s development.

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However, according to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Gender-related Development Index (GDI), “which measures the inequality in the achievement of women and men based on life expectancy at birth, educational attainment and standard of living,” are also low in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). Sulu had the lowest GDI in the entire country at 0.322. According to a report: “Mindanao women need urgent attention in the areas of economic opportunities, reproductive health, political participation, education, and even basic services such as water and power.” Poverty, it said, “is deepest and most severe in the provinces where the indigenous peoples and Muslims reside.”

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In December 2009, I visited Mintal gym, where more than a thousand Lumad families camped while they begged for pinaskuhan in downtown Davao. The Mintal gym is just one of the places provided by the city government to accommodate the so-called “exodus of

In UP Diliman, the Lakbayan participants call to end attacks in Lumad schools, to lift Martial Law in Marawi, and to stop the imperialist plunder of Moro territories, among others. Photo by Pau Villanueva, taken from her September 7, 2017 article for CNN Philippines Life, “Following the Lumad, from Bukidnon to Manila.” Check out her other works at www.pauvillanueva.com.

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Poverty, War and Peace: Lumad and Muslim Women’s Issues in Mindanao

Strategies to deal with poverty Lumad” every Christmas season. There were piles of sacks containing clothes and crockery. The people slept inside the gym and cooked in the makeshift communal kitchen located outside. There was a crowd at the children’s park where some enterprising Lumad put up stalls that sold packets of coffee, sugar, oil, salt, and soy sauce. Candies, biscuits, hotdogs, and barbecued chicken necks and feet were for sale.

Begging to survive Lolita, an Ata Manobo from Bukidnon, arrived at Mintal gym together with 18 family members. Lolita said the rations allotted by the city government cannot feed her troop, so they have resorted to begging. As a strategy, they identify themselves as Matigsalog when they beg. Had she not spent the Christmas season begging, Lolita would be in Bukidnon, tending to her vegetable patch.

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Poverty, War and Peace: Lumad and Muslim Women’s Issues in Mindanao

Stashing the Christmas presents received from the Davao City government Eva, a Matigsalog from Marilog, went to Davao with four of her children. Begging is not her game plan for she considers it ulaw (shameful). Instead, she keeps the ration of two cans of sardines and two packs of Quick Chow noodles.

To feed her brood she cooks only

two cups from her ration of two kilos of rice and vegetables from the nearby Mintal market. When she goes home on December 26, she brings with her 34 cans of sardines, 34 noodle packs and 17 kilos of rice, addressing somehow the food security of her family.

Before she got married, Eva was employed as domestic helper in

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Manila for 14 years.

Their strategies may differ, but it is clear that severe poverty caused these Lumad women to go to Davao over the Christmas season.

Their situations demonstrate the feminization of poverty.

Poverty, War and Peace: Lumad and Muslim Women’s Issues in Mindanao

IRIN (formerly Integrated Regional Information Networks) reported in 2008 that women suffered the most in the Mindanao conflict.

Displacement due to evacuation engenders problems and risks such as lack of water and privacy, susceptibility to diseases given

the cramped space shared with other evacuees, sexual violence, trauma caused by death of family members, and loss of livelihood.

Sohaili, a Maguindanaon evacuee, said that to get by, her family simply relies on the relief assistance extended by international humanitarian organizations. They have deserted their homes for fear of getting caught in the crossfire between the armed men of the Ampatuan and Mangudadatu families.

Lumad and Muslim women in Mindanao bear the brunt not only of poverty but also of violence. A groundbreaking project aimed at empowering Muslim women as peace advocates, especially the aleemat or Muslim women religious scholars, was organized in partnership with women leaders from civil society, academe, government, youth, balik-Islam, and indigenous peoples. Former Senator Santanina Rasul, one of the prime movers of the project, said that the project aims to work for peaceful and clean elections, especially in ARMM, now known as Photo by Abraham Q. Arboleda, UP MPRO.

Muslim women waging peace

the “cheating capital” of the Philippines. To realize this, they will focus on educating voters in time for the automated elections.

The Muslim women of Sulu are calling for the dismantling of the Police Auxiliary Unit, which is being used as private armies of political families. At the community level, they intend to restore the moral leadership of the ulama and aleemat to propagate Islamic values and peace education. To Dr. Amany Lubis, an aleemat from Indonesia, there is no sexism in Islam based on the Qur’an. Islam promotes gender equality and respect for human beings. But because of biased interpretations of this text, Muslim women are marginalized.

Every day, Lumad and Muslim women in Mindanao deal with poverty and violence. They strategize to survive and take concrete measures to attain peace and development in Mindanao.

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Prof. Ma. Arve B. Bañez is currently a faculty member of the Division of Professional Education, College of Arts and Sciences, UP Visayas, Iloilo City campus. She is also a PhD Candidate in Development Studies at the Ateneo De Davao University, working on her dissertation entitled “The Narratives of Development of Lampirong (Placuna Placenta) Fishers of Oton, Iloilo.”

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Interviews Eva (not her real name), interview by Ma. Arve B. Bañez, 17 December 2009, Barangay Mintal, Davao City.

Lolita (not her real name), interview by Ma. Arve B. Bañez, 17 December 2009, Barangay Mintal, Davao City.

Sohaili (not her real name), interview by Ma. Arve B. Bañez, 23 January 2010, Barangay Mintal, Davao City.

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UP Forum Round

What do you think is the

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The UP Forum was created to serve as a venue for University-focused and University-related think pieces. Appearing quarterly, it’s different from a newsletter or a research journal; it was meant to talk about issues important to the University community—not just the faculty or administration, but also the students, the staff, and even the campus residents and alumni.

I had the unique privilege of serving as UP Forum’s editor twice, on the two occasions that I was appointed Vice President for Public Affairs between 2003 and 2005 and between 2017 and 2019. Being a writer and a journalist myself, I felt personally invested in the UP Forum (as in our other media) and sought ways of broadening its appeal while deepening its coverage.

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The first time, I had it reformatted into something a bit more formal but devoted to the hot topics or issues of the hour, such as “Financing the University,” which I felt was needed at a time when very few UP people—including administrators—understood what it took to keep the University afloat. I also introduced the UP Forum Roundtable—and I acknowledge the slight redundancy in the title—to bring in more personal viewpoints and responses from all the University’s eight CUs.

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This second time around, I again supported the reformatting of the Forum into a color magazine in a handier size, with better pictures, and shorter, more engaging pieces on less ponderous but no less interesting topics as our campus greens and architecture, UP in the movies, cherished UP traditions, and music in UP life. The Roundtable remains, although I’d like to see more divergent and provocative opinions, less safe answers, and as always, a truly broad representation of UP sectors and campuses.

Our many academic journals provide a record of UP’s contributions to intellectual life, but the UP Forum’s legacy for me will be that of providing space for the things that mean something to us not just as scholars but as people in a community—a very special community with a very special mission.

Dr. Jose Y. Dalisay Jr. Vice President for Public Affairs UP System (2003-2005, 2017-2019)

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I cannot talk about the paper’s “legacy,” since I was no longer able to follow it after I retired as a full-time UP faculty member. In fact, I considered requesting the office of the VP for Public Affairs that Professors Emeriti be given a kind of lifetime subscription. But I never got around to it.

What I can do is describe what we wanted it to be during my term as its Editor in Chief. Our idea was to devote each UP Forum issue to just one theme, e.g., the World Financial Crisis of 2008, the Philippine Population Problem, Health Care

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for the Future, The State of Higher Education, The Undervaluing of Sports in UP, the State of the Arts in the Philippines, etc.

There would be one lead article written by the University’s leading expert in the field. There would be a round table discussion, featuring members of different sectors in UP (faculty, administrators, students, alumni). There would be related feature articles, sometimes an interview story, and, when possible a book review. The idea was to ensure that the issue was explored as

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legacy of the UP Forum?

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Professor Emeritus Teresita Gimenez Maceda Director UP System Information Office (1999-2001)

I conceptualized the UP Forum with President Francisco Nemenzo. We were in agreement with the idea of an official system-wide newspaper that would not only be a channel to communicate administration programs and policies but would be also be a venue for a vibrant and free exchange of ideas of members of the UP community across UP constituent units.

The tagline “Popular na Pahayag ng Malayang Komunidad” expressed the philosophy behind the newspaper. Using the format of a broadsheet, the UP Forum gave space to different voices within the UP community—administration. faculty, research staff, UP employees—on varied academic issues as well as national concerns that affect the community. It had a front-page regular column by the UP President, a section for news coming from the different constituent units, an opinion page with an editorial and monthly columns by faculty from different disciplines and persuasions, a section that featured innovative research and achievement of the UP faculty and research staff, essays contributed by faculty, staff and administrative personnel, a forum on contending views on UP and national issues.

Our first issue in November 1999 with a frontpage story and photos of the sorry state of disrepair of urinals in the men’s room of Palma

Hall may have shocked readers, but it certainly made clear to all that President Nemenzo was serious in prioritizing the repair of rest rooms to make life better for UP students.

Now and then, the UP Forum came out with special issues such as the detailing of the budget process from proposal to Congress approval in order to stir interest and involve the UP community in the process itself; a presentation of the proposed Revitalized General Education Program together with a background on the history of the GE and the varied views on the RGEP.

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Reminiscing the early years of the UP Forum is to acknowledge the research-based news gathering capability, informed writing, creativity and tireless effort of the staff of the UP System Information Office in making the broadsheet a popular venue for untrammeled discourse.

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thoroughly as possible, given the time and space constraints, by people who enjoyed the respect of the community, as scholars and/or practitioners in the field. We deliberately did not include an editorial section or a column section, so that the paper would not run the risk of being suspected of representing a single point of view, least of all that of the UP Administration. I felt that this was one way of encouraging our colleagues to engage with important national issues, since the general public looks to UP, as the national university, for badly needed intellectual leadership.

Dr. Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo Vice President for Public Affairs UP System (2005-2010)

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Science in UP Thriving despite Constraints Arlyn VCP Palisoc Romualdo Condensed from the original article published in the UP Forum January-February 2004 issue

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“I expect the Filipino scientist to contribute towards establishing a scientific culture in the Philippines,” Dr. Caesar A. Saloma, director of the National Institute of Physics (NIP), said when he received the first Concepcion Dadufalza Award for Distinguished Achievement in 2001.

Indeed, Saloma wasn’t and isn’t alone in this expectation. In science teaching and scientific research, he’s joined by hundreds of colleagues in UP, long the acknowledged leader in this field of endeavor in the Philippines. But in this new millennium, what is the state of science in UP, and how does UP stand in science against the rest of the best in the region?

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High marks UP clearly leads in science education and research in the country. Science majors from UP consistently win awards for outstanding performance in their research efforts. Just as significant as these awards are the publications posted by University scientists, teachers, and students in internationally refereed scientific journals.

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Aside from these, several units of the University have become national centers of excellence by virtue of presidential proclamations. These include the National Institute of Geological Sciences, the Marine Science Institute (MSI), the Natural Sciences Research Institute (NSRI), the NIP, the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (BIOTECH), and the National Institutes of Health. Other departments across the UP System have also been declared centers of excellence and development by the Commission on Higher Education.

Technology and talent The quality of research done in UP relies on the communion of technology and talent. UP has striven to match the brainpower it has to generate outstanding scientific outputs with the facilities to accomplish them.

The University prides itself in being the only university with a DNA Analysis Laboratory (DAL) as well as being the only institution in the country with a Femtosecond Laser Facility and a High-Resolution Picture Transmission (HRPT) receiving station.

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Dr. Pablito Magdalita shows one of the papaya varieties he is working on in his laboratory at the Institute of Plant Breeding, UP Los Baños.

Photo by Misael Bacani, UP MPRO.

Science in UP: Thriving despite Constraints

Triumph over tragedy The DAL’s mettle as the Philippines’ own “CSI” was put to the test in a heartrending tragedy a few years ago. In December 1998, a fire gutted the orphanage run by the Asocacion de Damas de Filipinas, a social welfare institution in Paco, Manila. The fire killed 25 children and five adults, whose remains were charred beyond recognition. Three months after burial, the bodies were exhumed, and the DAL used painstaking DNA analysis to identify the victims; eventually, 18 bodies were given names.

Lasers and oceans In the field of physics, UP’s NIP boasts of its P18-million femtosecond laser—one of a handful around the region. Lasers have played a major part in research and NIP, in fact, owns several types.

Its latest acquisition, however, is a huge step forward in the study of physics because it emits high peak powers of light energy in short intervals—one-quadrillionth of a second, too fast for the naked eye.

In marine science, UP is proud of the MSI’s HRPT. The remote sensing facility receives pictures taken by satellites at least twice a day. The images are processed by determining the amount of chlorophyll detected in the water. This is important because areas with the most chlorophyll are those with the most plankton. And where plankton is abundant, fish are plenty.

The resulting images pinpoint potential fishing grounds for Filipino fishing fleets.

High-value products In UP Los Baños (UPLB), BIOTECH has done some impressive studies of its own. The Environmental Biotechnology Program undertakes activities like evaluating the potentials and environmental

impact of distillery waters, effective waste management, utilization and recycling of waste materials as fertilizers, and the deodorization of livestock waste.

The UPLB College of Veterinary Medicine has a Virology Laboratory that studies in-depth molecular biology in the areas of animal vaccine, animal biotechnology, and animal disease diagnosis. Also being undertaken is research on Multiple Ovulation-Embryo Transfer to hasten the genetic improvement of livestock, promote the conservation of animals with superior or unique genetic traits, and provide an alternative to the importation of cattle.

UP Visayas leads in the study of fisheries and aquaculture so it’s no wonder that many of UPV’s research efforts have been recognized here and abroad. UP Manila, meanwhile, leads in the medical sciences and public health. It is looking forward to the completion of the Sentro Oftalmologico Jose Rizal this year, among its many projects. It will serve as a specialized facility for ophthalmology and will become the field’s research center in the University.

Money and manpower Despite all these achievements, UP still faces formidable obstacles— mostly financial—to the growth of science education and scientific research. Its annual subsidy from the national government has never been enough, especially given the pace of developments in science and technology around the world.

UP cannot afford to lag too far behind.

Of course, money matters in research, but so does manpower.

Lured by better pay and better labs, some scientists and researchers have taken their talents elsewhere.

Despite those who have left for greener pastures, NSRI Director The UP Forum

Ernelea Cao stresses the value of those who have remained, the ones who have stuck with UP because they love their work and appreciate their mission as the avatars of science in a developing country.

The path to excellence Dr. Edgardo Gomez, former MSI director, has this vision of the path to excellence: “Everything considered, UP is not a bad home for science, especially in a developing country context.

We have relatively free rein on directions to take, the only major limitation for some being logistical support. But for creative scientists who have the drive and vision, there is scope for progress in the international arena, making contributions to specific fields of research that are of interest globally. The recent surge in the marine sciences and in physics attests to this.

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“I continue to hold the position that the support services that should make the life of scientists (and of other academics) more pleasant and productive are sorely inadequate, although there is a slow progress in some areas.

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“It’s the intellectual assets that are the salient strengths of this university. We manage to capture some bright minds every so often, but it’s sad to note that we also lose a significant percentage of them because of the weaknesses I mention above. The leadership should face this situation squarely, and it should consider being elitist rather than populist in its approach if we are to make real headway in the intellectual world.”

Making that kind of headway is a tough challenge for UP’s scientists and administrators—but one which, against all odds, UP has been surmounting, bravely and boldly.

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Flight as Fight for Survival Fred Dabu Condensed and updated from the original article published in the UP Forum May-June 2012 issue

*This article reviews the domestic and overseas Filipino workers’ situations as of 2012. It also articulates hope through policy interventions pertaining to wage hikes and better opportunities as feasible solutions that will help the working-age population in the daily fight for survival here in the Philippines.

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The Filipino workers’ hopes for a better future take them to countries where they think they may improve their economic status. Their flight is most of all a fight for survival.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) reported a total of 2.8 million unemployed Filipinos in 2011 while the April 2012 Labor Force Survey (LFS) of the National Statistics Office (NSO) estimated that some 7.3 million Filipinos are underemployed out of the 40.6 million it considers part of the labor force.

The same NSO survey showed that the majority of employed and underemployed Filipinos are in the services sector (51.4 percent of employed, 40.2 percent of underemployed) and the agriculture sector (33 percent of employed, 43 percent of underemployed).

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UPDATE: The Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA)

October 2018 LFS indicated that there were 2.2 million unemployed and 5.5 million underemployed, out of the 71.9 million Filipinos who are 15 years old and over.

Filipinos in the services sector comprised 56.8 percent, the agriculture sector showed 24.1 percent, while the industry sector registered only 19.1 percent of the total employed.

“Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) are not considered part of the labor force in the Philippines.”

IBON Foundation Inc. estimated that 4.64 million Filipinos were unemployed in 2017 and “inflation has increased the family living wage (FLW) needed for meeting basic needs to Php1,175 for a family of six in the National Capital Region (NCR) as of June 2018.”

Flight as Fight for Survival

The country’s more than 300,000 registered nurses remain either unemployed or “mis-employed,” although Philippine government hospitals need a whopping 300-percent increase in the number of nurses to meet the ideal 1:10 nurse to patient ratio.

UPDATE: Nurse-patient ratio in hospitals ranges from

1:50 up to 1:80 as of February 2018, according to #LabanNurses Movement.

These numbers point to what Migrante International (MI) calls the “primary push factor” for workers to seek jobs abroad.

“Underdevelopment—aggravated by the perennial lack of livelihood, income and opportunities—forces Filipinos to migrate, separating them from their loved ones while working in another country.”

According to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), a total of 1,470,826 Filipino workers were deployed overseas in 2010. The data do not include undocumented OFWs whom MI estimates to be as many as 900,000 as of 2007.

UPDATE: The POEA reported that 1,992,746 work-

ers were deployed as OFWs while MI claimed that there were almost 1 million undocumented OFWs in the US alone for the year 2017.

Filipinos unite to call for nationwide wage and salary hikes and an end to the contractualization policy on May 1, Labor Day 2018, Manila.

Photo by Fred Dabu, UP MPRO.

MI also says that there are 12 million to 15 million Filipinos overseas, and that 30 percent to 40 percent of the entire Philippine population depends on remittances from their relatives abroad.

Among those interviewed for this story were former employees of the University of the Philippines Manila.

One of them served the public sector for four years before flying to Dubai to allow her to meet her family’s growing needs. “Salary was just enough for the most basic commodities; we could hardly make both ends meet,” she said, adding that her take-home pay was only good for paying off their bills and debts. That is why she decided to work abroad.

Outside the Philippines, she said, “There are many companies that offer better salaries and benefits. Even skilled workers are empowered and can attain a better life.”

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Aside from economic reasons, she decided to leave the Philippines because she no longer sees it as a safe country.

“The Myth of Migration for Development” report by IBON and MI states that “the income benefits from remittances for households are arguably considerably offset by the social harm for families due to separation for long periods of time.”

“The country still suffers economic backwardness despite increasing migration and remittances over the last decades and since the start of the government’s labor export policy in the mid-1970s,” the report states.

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She and many other overseas Filipinos hope to see the progress and opportunities they saw abroad become attainable here in the Philippines.

She proposes the “leveling of employees’ wages to the cost of living, coupled with the provision of better benefits and proper protection.”

She says that policy-makers should “create a better system that allows employees to have a progressive career and not just a stagnant job.”

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“If employees are given better wages, better benefits and better career paths, I think nobody has to leave,” she says.

UPDATE: Filipino workers,

legislators, and peoples’ organizations are pushing for a national daily minimum wage of Php750 and the abolition of the regional wage boards for the private sector, and for substantially increasing the monthly salaries of public sector personnel, along with hikes in benefits and allowances, as urgent and realistic measures for families to be able to cope up with rising prices.

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Literature Engineering in West Visayas Leoncio P. Deriada Condensed from the original article published in the UP Forum March 29, 2000 issue

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West Visayas is designated Region 6. Its lingua franca is Hiligaynon, but unknown to many, there are more speakers of Kinaray-a than of Hiligaynon. Kinaray-a in its many variants is spoken in all of Antique, all the southern coastal towns and central towns of Iloilo, and all the towns and hinterlands of Capiz. Aklanon, likewise in its various versions, is spoken in all the provinces of Aklan.

Sadly, people usually lump these languages together as Hiligaynon.

Worse, Kinaray-a and Aklanon are labeled as dialects, as if they were not capable of expressing the best in the minds and hearts of their users.

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The Mother Language The mother language of West Visayas is Kinaray-a. It must have been the language of the ten Bornean datus believed to be the ancestors of the West Visayans as recorded in the Maragtas and Panay epics. The ten noblemen allegedly got the island of Aninipay (the ancient name of Panay) from the Ati chief Marikudo in exchange for a headgear of gold and a necklace that touched the ground.

Hiligaynon developed through the Chinese of Molo, Iloilo’s Chinatown. It is an early example of how colonial mentality works and how economic and cultural power can shape the language of power. The natives spoke Kinaray-a but instead of forcing the Chinese who controlled commerce to master the language of the place, it was the natives who accommodated the linguistic deficiencies of the foreigners. Thus the r in wara (none or zero), daraga (young woman), harigi (post), uring (charcoal), parigos (to take a bath), etc. became wala, dalaga, haligi, uling, paligos, etc.

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Literature Engineering in West Visayas

As Hiligaynon developed into a language of the elite, Kinaray-a lost its position and dignity as the mother language. It became associated with the soiled workingman of the farms and the highlands, of the vulgar and uneducated, of the muchacha and the sakada.

Meanwhile, Aklanon also developed from Kinaray-a without Chinese acculturation. The most peculiar aspect of the language is its exotic /l/ sound. The so-called normal in Aklan, ulo (head), balay (house), dalaga (young woman), etc. is sounded with the tip of the tongue touching the upper teeth—Akean, ueo, baeay, daeaga, etc. There are words that have the normal /l/, but only Aklanons know them. The Hiligaynon bala (the Tagalog and Cebuano ba) is baea, but bullet is bala, not baea. The provincial capital is Kalibo, not Kaeibo, and there are towns like Balete, not Baeete, and Malinao, not Maeinao.

The folk explanation for this is that Datu Bangkaya, the Bornean who appropriated for his territory the present province of Aklan, had a speech defect. He had a short tongue, and he lisped. So that their chief would not feel abnormal in his speech, his followers imitated his mangling of the /l/ sound.

The Engineering The 1986 EDSA revolution is a milestone in the literary history of West Visayas and the country. Three new writings emerged in the region: Kinaray-a, Aklanon and Visayan-influenced Filipino.

It started with the new management of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), which encouraged the establishment of local art councils; subsidized conferences, workshops and publications; and awarded writing grants and venue grants at the National Arts Center (NAC) on Mt. Makiling. The first writing workshop I directed as CCP literature coordinator for West Visayas was at UP Visayas in 1987. The following year, the Sumakwelan, the association of Hiligaynon writers, won a venue grant at the NAC, with me directing the writing workshop.

In the group were two writers from Antique—Ma. Milagros C. Geremia, a research assistant at UP Visayas’ Center for West Visayan Studies, and Alex C. de los Santos, a former student of UP Visayas and then a senior English major at St. Anthony’s College. Like any other Kinaray-a speaking writer before them, the two never thought of writing in their home language. Then during one of the discussions, I asked them: Why don’t you write in Kinaray-a?

A participant at an Ati-Atihan festival in Kalibo, Aklan. Photo by Bernardo “Berniemack” Arellano III, taken January 25, 2014, from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ati-Atihan_Festival_Participant.jpg

And they did. After the workshops, they swamped me with poems, all written in Antique Kinaray-a. I found them very good, some in fact extremely good. The two eventually formed Antique’s first ever writers’ group which they called Tabig.

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Liberating itself likewise from literary oblivion was Aklanon. Emerging Aklanon writers formed the Aklanon Literary Circle in Kalibo, spearheaded by UP Visayas librarian Melchor F. Cichon and UP Visayas student John E. Barrios, who took on my challenge to the Kinaray-a writers. Soon the Aklan issue of Ani was published by the CCP and launched in 1993. Cichon turned out to be the leading poet in his language and is the first Aklanon to publish a book of poems in his own language. Cichon and Barrios soon won writing grants from the CCP. New localities, richer nationhood More deliberate is my involvement in this radical, more calculated engineering of a brand of Filipino, which I believe is the intention of the Philippine Constitution.

The national language is not Tagalog, but the natural fusion of words from Philippine languages and from Spanish, English, Chinese, Arabic and other foreign languages. Left alone, this fusion will take centuries.

The development of language can be hastened with planning and judicious implementation.

I believe the country needs a national language, and the sooner we junk English as the language of instruction in our school system, the better it is for our people. I resent, however, the manner Tagalog is being forced on us as the national language contrary to the constitutional provision. I have always believed that the national language will be something like the lingua franca of Davao City where I grew up. It is a natural combination of words from different languages, mostly Tagalog and Visayan and a sprinkling of Iloko and other northern languages, Chabacano, and the ethnic languages of Mindanao.

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So I proposed that the CCP create a category for Tagalog in writing grants, and the CCP eventually separated the Tagalog grant from the Filipino grant. The first winner of the writing grant in Filipino poetry—in Filipino that was not pure Tagalog—was John Erimil E. Teodoro of San Jose, Antique, a product of my workshops. Teodoro won the first prize in the Gawad Amado Hernandez the very next year.

The emergence of new writing in West Visayas—in Kinaray-a, in Aklanon and in a Visayan-influenced Filipino—has produced three new literary localities in the region. These three, combined with the more established writing in Hiligaynon and in English, make the literary geography of West Visayas an extremely visible landmark in the country’s mapping out of a richer, more diverse yet more defined nationhood.

Prof. Leoncio P. Deriada is a multilingual writer and professor emeritus at the UP Visayas, where he was the head of the Sentro ng Wikang Filipino. He is also an associate of the UP Institute of Creative Writing and a Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards Hall of Famer, and is recognized as the Father of Contemporary Literature in Western Visayas.

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Champions League Athletic Excellence beyond the UAAP Arlyn VCD Palisoc Romualdo Condensed from the original article published in the UP Forum May-June 2008 issue

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The University Athletics Association of the Philippines (UAAP) is a collegiate league giant. And in UP, athletes who compete here get the most attention and support.

UP doesn’t lack non-UAAP athletes who bring honor and glory to the University and the country.

But they are hardly recognized, perennially falling under the UAAP’s shadow. A look at some of them reveals athleticism that is no less excellent and exciting.

Climbing the highest mountain Alumna Noelle Wenceslao was literally on top of the world.

On May 16, 2007, she was the first Southeast Asian woman to reach the summit of Mt. Everest.

Minutes later, she was joined by fellow alumna Janet Belarmino and teammate Carina Dayondon.

They were part of the First Philippine Mt. Everest Expedition.

Not only were they the first Southeast Asian women to reach the world’s highest peak. They were also the first women to traverse it—ascending on the north side (Tibet) and descending on the south side (Nepal).

Looking at this petite, energetic, and unassuming woman, one wouldn’t think she had climbed the highest mountain in the world.

Noelle doesn’t want to say “conquered.”

The first Southeast Asian women to reach the summit of Mt. Everest: (from left) Carina Dayondon, Janet Belarmino, and Noelle Wenceslao. Photo

by Peewee Wenceslao.

“To conquer it makes it sound adversarial.

Nature isn’t something you’d want to go against. You’re at its mercy.” Noelle should

know. She suffered from pulmonary edema due to the cold, thin air during the expedition.

“Climbing Mt. Everest wasn’t just a personal accomplishment. We represented the Philippines and showed our nation can overcome the impossible and face the most difficult hurdles life throws our way.”

Hitting the target Amaya “Aya” Paz is taking a break from archery for a semester. She needs to finish her remaining subjects and earn her BS Psychology degree in October.

For someone who has been in the sport for less than ten years, Aya has accomplished much. In the last Southeast Asian Games, she bagged the individual women’s gold in the compound bow event and helped her team win a collective gold in the same category.

As the youngest member of the Philippine Team, this is certainly impressive. In 2005, she swept all the individual events in the compound bow category at the Asian Grand Prix.

And all these came from one boring summer in 2001, when Aya, who liked to keep busy, was faced with the prospect of doing nothing and just decided to try archery.

“It’s true that sports [on the national level] aren’t given enough support—financially and facilities-wise. In our case, we don’t only compete, we also look for sponsors.

We manage our finances. That way, we can enter as many prestigious competitions as possible.”

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Aya admits she has never considered tapping UP as a source of financial support. As she is the only national team member from UP, Aya feels it would be unreasonable to expect the University to support the whole team.

After graduation, Aya looks forward to going back to archery.

“If I feel that I have accomplished all that I could in the national and regional events, it’s time to enter the larger arena and compete with the world’s best.”

Catching the ultimate throw Danny Dematera has been an athlete for twenty-one years and working at the Institute of Mathematics for the past seventeen. As full-time staff member, Danny has to report for work eight hours a day, five days a week. For an athlete, this is doubly hard.

He plays ultimate frisbee, or what is simply called “ultimate.” Since its beginnings in the Philippines five years ago, Danny has been actively involved in the sport. Prior to that, he was an adventure racer, a rower, and a triathlete. He started out as a member of the track and field team of the UP Integrated School and eventually went on to other sports.

His team, UP Sunken Pleasures, just won the overall championship at the Ultimate Summer League this year. The team, composed of UP students, faculty members, and administrative staff, is working on getting accreditation from the University as an official sports organization.

Danny also coaches the UP Dragon Boat team, which is often selected to represent the country in international competitions. The team has received financial support from the University.

Though he was invited to join the National Dragon Boat Team, Danny begged off. “The living conditions aren’t exactly appropriate for someone who works hard to bring honor to the country.”

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Rainbow Connections Making UP Safe for LGBTQs Celeste Ann L. Castillo Condensed from the original article published in the UP Forum March-April 2012 issue

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As the country’s premier secular institution of higher learning, UP takes pride in being a haven of liberalism, open-mindedness and independent thinking. But the university is hardly free from the discrimination, ostracism, harassment and violence inflicted upon LGBTQs. Nevertheless, where else but in UP can we begin to create a safe place where LGBTQ rights and identities are not only recognized and tolerated but actively affirmed, included and promoted as well?

Three contexts for LGBTQs “In the LGBTQ literature, we make a distinction among three kinds of contexts,” says UP Diliman Department of Psychology Prof. Eric Manalastas.

“On one hand, we have contexts that are hostile to LGBTQs, such as in places where you have policies against cross-dressing or same-sex relationships, or where there is a certain amount of jeopardy in being ‘outed’ as an LGBTQ in the institution. On the other end of the spectrum, you have the LGBTQ-affirmative context” such as an institution with “an explicit inclusion policy, a policy that says we do not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, among others.”

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Somewhere between the two extremes is a middle ground marked more by a mild or negligent tolerance of LGBTQs. LGBTQs are not exactly marginalized, but are not fully integrated into the mainstream either.

LGBTQ rights and issues are regarded as esoteric, frivolous or even as the latest in-thing, and discussions of these never go beyond the superficial.

Hence, Manalastas regards the issue in terms of bringing the LGBTQs into the center “of creating those spaces that are LGBTQ-specific, and then the spaces that integrate LGBTQs issues into the mainstream”— of transforming the environments for LGBTQs, including UP, from hostile or neutral to affirmative.

One way to do this is by addressing the lack of concrete data, including actual number of cases of sexual harassment and discrimination of LGBTQ students, faculty and staff within the UP campuses. LGBTQ discrimination and harassment can take several forms, from the non-recognition of one’s gender identity to the “classical” forms of stigmatization based on sexual orientation or gender identity, including exclusion from

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or ostracism by a group or organization, ridiculing and name-calling, bullying, violence and sexual assault.

Unfortunately, formal complaints of sexual harassment and discrimination of LGBTQ students, faculty and staff in the UP campuses are rare, and officially resolved cases are even rarer.

Sharing stories Still, many stories are shared by the LGBTQ victims of sexual harassment and discrimination or by friends and witnesses, with the intention to vent, to seek counsel, to protect the victim or to inform. Very few of these stories were shared with the intention of actually filing a case.

One common situation among the UP campuses is that of peer harassment between two LGBTQ students, with one forcing his or her unwanted attentions on another. The stories of LGBTQ discrimination— from ridiculing, stigmatizing and bullying LGBTQs to failing to recognize or respect their gender identities— are also common.

For UPLB Gender Center Director Maria Helen Dayo, the lack of LGBTQ cases filed with the OASH may be due to under-reporting. “Only an insignificant percentage gets reported, if you look at it in terms of the population on campus.”

UPV Gender and Development Program Director Diane Aure concurs: “In some informal interviews, some students think that it might affect their grades if they report an incident where the perpetrator is a faculty member.”

Others in a similar bind simply choose to grin and bear it, perhaps out of a sense of shame and humiliation, or for fear of retaliation or of making the situation worse. Some LGBTQ students who experienced harassment, discrimination, violence, bullying or abuse opted to transfer to another university. “It’s a kind of double-victimization,” says former UP Baguio Kasarian Gender Studies Center convenor Prof. Jennifer Josef. “The students become victims of violence, and because they don’t want to complain and don’t see any support or progress in their case, they just leave UP, so they are deprived of a UP education.”

Rainbow Connections: Making UP Safe for LGBTQs

Participants in UP’s Pride March of June 2013.

Photo by Misael Bacani, UP MPRO.

Coming out of the closet one semester at a time Despite these, UP remains a sanctuary of openness, acceptance and liberalism for members of the LGBTQ community. This leads to another common story for LGBTQ students in UP: their dual life as openly lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered while in UP, and as “proper” boys and girls who conform to traditional hetero-normative rules when at home with their parents and families, who, more often than not, are unaware of their children’s sexual orientation and gender identity.

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As for UP helping its LGBTQ students deal with their families’ lack of acceptance, “definitely we can do something,” says Manalastas. “Our students are part of our community, and I don’t think we can make an artificial divide between the moment they step inside the campus and outside the campus. We should be concerned about our students, that is why we equip them with the tools they can use outside the campus—critical thinking and resourcefulness, for example, and all those analytical tools that we give them.”

At heart, LGBTQ issues in UP are about creating a safe, open space where people of all sexual orientations and genders are shielded against homophobia, transphobia, sexism and sexual harassment, beginning in the classroom. “The challenge is extending this shield outside the four corners of the classroom, to create a safe space for LGBTQs,” Manalastas says.

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UPDATE: At the time of writing, there was still no national law offering any form of protection for LGBTQs against discrimination, not even in RA 7877 or the “Anti-Sexual Harassment Act of 1995.” The latest attempt in passing national legislation that will prevent various economic and public accommodation-related acts of discrimination against people based on their sexual orientation, gender identity or expression is the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression (SOGIE) Equality Bill, also known as the Anti-Discrimination Bill. The current versions of bill are championed by Reps. Kaka Bag-ao, Geraldine Roman, and Tom Villarin in the House of Representatives, and Sen. Risa Hontiveros in the Senate. The House version passed its final reading last September 20, 2017, while the version in the Senate is currently in the period of interpellation.

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Uplifting Lives through Interior Design Jo. Florendo B. Lontoc

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Reprinted from the UP Forum January-March 2018 issue

Which school should lead in integrating public service in its undergraduate courses but the public service university itself, UP? UP’s Interior Design program is a trailblazer. Since more than 15 years ago, it has left the studio for its application course in order to embrace public service, an initiative that has given its students an edge over others.

The decision to take this untrodden path followed an era of soul-searching in the University, where a study in the early 1990s revealed that students ranked social orientation and moral uprightness far down in the order of importance of the qualities their colleges were developing in them. Reaching out to the community became a buzz-word, with UP Vice President for Public Affairs Ledivina Cariño promoting service learning as “learning to serve, and serving to learn.”

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A basic need The College of Home Economics led by Dean Cecilia Florencio was one of the first to respond by serving the poor of nearby Libis. The Interior Design program saw an opportunity to turn the impression of Interior Design as elitist on its head. From the beginning, it was the wrong impression, Interior Design professor Adelaida Mayo says. She places Interior Design as a basic need.

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“There’s food, clothing, and shelter. Architecture deals with shelter, but where is its soul? It’s in the space people use. It’s inside. The shelter will just be the shell of it,” Mayo says.

She raises the question of livability: the lack of finances precludes enjoying the benefits of proper interior design. “In low-cost housing, for example, there is really no Interior Design team to do it. And that has led to problems and accidents.”

The advocacy for democratizing Interior Design must start with students. They must have the opportunity to directly touch people’s lives through the discipline they have been studying in the past three years, and to understand the enormous public service potential of their field.

Going into direct public service was a practical alternative for an application course, which aims to “apply the knowledge, skills and competencies acquired and developed during the first three years of extensive training in interior design through a special project of their choice.”

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Beyond the studio For a long time, students of Interior Design were applying their skills only in the studio. This is understandable as designing actual interiors and implementing them requires a license, which students could not possibly have before graduation. They were compelled to simulate interior space, staging mock-ups of walls and ceilings and floors, furnishing, decorating and then exhibiting them inside halls, which was an expensive affair.

But the resources went to waste in the inevitable dismantling for the egress. The students had no idea how their designs would have held up in actual use.

Mayo and Raquel Florendo, who were handling the two classes of ID 179 Special Projects Class, broached the idea of merging their classes to serve financially challenged institutions whose spaces were in dire need of rehabilitation.

The students would be under the close supervision of the professors, whose licenses would take care of the legal requirements for the projects.

The students discussed the proposal among themselves and accepted the new challenge of the class.

Grouped into teams, they helped look for project sites. They consulted with, and proposed designs for screening by, their professors. They coordinated among themselves to unify their concepts. Making cost estimates, they then set out to raise funds and get sponsorships.

In academic year 2001-2002, ID 179 Special Projects rolled out in eight cottages of the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s Reception and Study Center for Children; the clinic and therapy rooms of the Golden Acres Home

Uplifting Lives through Interior Design

for the Aged; and a model unit for Gawad Kalinga. At the end of the first semester, what had been dark, dreary, and beat-up spaces had turned into bright and proper spaces to welcome back children recovering from trauma, the aged regaining strength and positive outlooks, and the poorest of the poor reclaiming their dignity.

The bar was set for future batches.

Since then, students have worked on important sections of public hospitals and clinics; schools and dormitories; halfway houses and shelters for women, children, the recovering sick and the disabled; dance studios for the talented poor; libraries; and Gawad Kalinga housing.

“Caring for the sick child not only needs competent healthcare professionals,” said Dr. Julius Lecciones, director of the Philippine Children’s Medical Center, “but also an appropriate healing environment in the hospital… With the use of smart colors, lighting and design, the students were able to transform clinically drab and impersonal outpatient consultation rooms into a welcoming haven that exudes warmth, brilliance and comfort.”

Bringing joy to families “I can’t thank the students and the teachers enough for their sacrifices, work, physical struggles, and good heart,” says Donald Geocaniga, a Gawad Kalinga director. “They brought joy to seven families whose houses they fixed. They raised the level of their living. They showed the way in caring for the poor, as they volunteered their services to us.”

Aside from the gratitude of partner institutions, the students had more benefits going their way. As expected, the students got to learn the practical side of their discipline and expanded their competencies into community work. Limited resources stretched their creativity. Also, they got the rare portfolio edge of having implemented designs on special sites, and getting critiques from the end-users.

“What they did gave us a place that is very comfortable for the body and beautiful for the eyes. Before, cleaning seemed to make little difference in our unit. It’s much better now,” says one Gawad Kalinga beneficiary.

“At night, we finally have the sleep we could only crave in the past.

And when we wake up, wow! Our home now energizes us. I am now more active in serving the Lord, bonding with neighbors and other people,” says another.

Balancing aesthetics, function, and safety By working on actual spaces with their beneficiaries, all the more do the students realize the importance of consultations, understanding the idiosyncrasies and needs of different people, and temperance and balancing aesthetics, function, and safety.

Students also get to feel they are very much needed in the world.

By making a difference in people’s lives, they contribute to an awareness of Interior Design as essential to the quality of life.

But public service requires commitment, which may be hard to afford at times. Sometimes, the logistics are too much to grapple with, and piecemeal efforts could prove wasteful. Sometimes, the students feel they have too much on their hands. In such cases, the students could opt to go back to mounting studio exhibits, which, though not less expensive or less expressive of their talent, is less complicated and formidable.

In the end, serving a needy institution is a decision by students deliberating among themselves. The students’ public service, when they choose to do it, thus stands as an act of voluntarism. And for some, this is the kind of public service that gives UP students a real defining edge.

AFTER BS Interior Design Batch 2019 realizes their theme “Hilom: Rebuilding Spaces, Rebuilding Lives” in healing spaces for the shelter of End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT) Philippines, filling interiors with images of Philippine flora and colors associated with hope, healing, and wellness, as typified by the re-designed living room shown above.

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Is This Man the ‘Father of UP’?

Andre DP Encarnacion Condensed from the original article published in the UP Forum October-December 2017 issue

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Murray Bartlett, the first President of UP. Ignacio Villamor, the first Filipino UP President. Guillermo Tolentino, sculptor of the Oblation. Great men in UP’s history, all of them. But none of them is known as the ‘Father of UP.’ Is there even anyone who deserves such an honor?

Enter Juan Alvear, a famous espiritista and former Pangasinan congressman. According to Philippine studies scholar Dr. Maria Crisanta Nelmida-Flores, this remarkable individual was actually behind the establishment of the University in the early 20th century. Here are a few fast facts about Alvear:

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• According to Flores’s research, Alvear was from San Fabian, Pangasinan and a member of the Malolos Congress. He founded several schools, including the School of Arts and Trades in Lingayen.

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• He is better remembered (if at all) as a major figure in Philippine Spiritism, having also founded the first Spiritist Center in San Fabian, Pangasinan in 1901.

• The book, Pangasinan, 1901-1986: A Political, Socioeconomic and Cultural History, by Rosario M. Cortes described Alvear as a former Philippine revolutionary who became a member of the Partido Nacionalista during the American occupation.

• The Partido Nacionalista advocated absolute independence from the United States. As a member of this party, Alvear won a seat as a delegate in the First Philippine Assembly as a representative of Pangasinan’s 3rd district.

•Alvear made higher education history as a representative by first proposing the need for a ‘national university.’ This came after his equally important proposal that a ‘national hospital’ was also needed by the nation.

• His latter proposal eventually became Act No. 1688, which was passed in 1907. This Act appropriated the sum of P780,000 for the construction of the Philippine General Hospital.

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The UP Forum

Oil portrait found at the Pangasinan Governors Gallery, Capitol Building, Lingayen, Pangasinan. Photo from Ms. Joy Napolitano, Provincial Tourism and Cultural Affairs Office, Pangasinan.

• The former resulted in Act No. 1870, which was passed in 1908. It established the University of the Philippines—an institution to provide “advanced instruction in literature, philosophy, the sciences and the arts, and to give professional and technical training.”

The seeds of what we know now as the UP System had been planted.

• After his tenure in the House, Alvear ran for Pangasinan provincial governor and won. Details of his life after the governorship are sparse but sources indicate he passed away in 1918.

• Today, in spite of his role, this leading candidate for the title of the ‘Father of UP’ is all but forgotten. Flores hopes that more historians would be inspired to look into Juan Alvear’s life and tell us more about this all-important figure in our history.

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The newly restored Oblation Plaza at night.

Photo by KIM Quilinguing, UP MPRO.

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University of the Philippines

Shaping Minds that Shape the Nation