UP Newsletter December 2011

U.P. Newsletter 1

Wired UP

e-genomics The Philippine Genome Center launched its website at www.pgc.up.edu.ph where interested parties may get information on the next major activity of the center, “Colloquium on the Legal and Regulatory Challenges in Genomic Research in the Philippines.”

Protesters storm Senate gates Arbeen Acuña

University of the Philippines Community Newspaper V O L U M E X X XII

N U M B E R 12

DILIMAN, QUEZON CITY

DECEMBER 2 0 11

Read UP Newsletter online at http://www.up.edu.ph/upnewsletter.php

Philippine Genome Center launched Jo. Florendo B. Lontoc

Revolutionizing the way the country La following the first meeting of its As sessions resumed last November does health, forensics, agriculture and drug international advisory board that morning.

15, various sectors under KILOS NA!, research is the task of the newly-launched The center was created on July 31, 2009 the national alliance against budget cuts Philippine Genome Center, an institution upon the initiative of UP, which realized on social services, also re-opened, and led by the Department of Science and the potential of its molecular biologists managed to break through, the gates of the Technology and the University of the in helping improve Filipino life by finding Senate of the Philippines. The last time that Philippines. radical solutions to problems based on this happened, according to UP Diliman A symbolic launch of PGC was held genomics.

Vice-Chancellor for Community Affairs last November 28 at the Makati ShangriSince then, the PGC proponents had Melania Abad, was drawn up its structure, in 2005, during formed a core group of scientists and heated deliberations r e s e a r ch e r s, a n d regarding the UP created partnerships char ter and the with academic centers education budget. in the country and The All-UP abroad. The PGC is Wo r ke r s U n i o n currently a “virtual” and the College of center which seeks to Human Kinetics be the link between shouldered the cost academic research, of transportation g o ve r n m e n t a n d for UP Kilos Na’s private industries motorcade from for the development UP Diliman to the of genome-based Cultural Center of applications and the Philippines from training. where they marched It is cur rently to the Senate. The led by an executive demonstrators committee composed opened the gates of a director, Dr. and held a program Carmencita Padilla of right in front of the Students from different state universities and colleges pave the way for the break-in. the UP Manila National (Continued on page 4) Institutes of Health; a deputy director, Prof. Ernelea Cao of the UP Diliman Institute of Biology and Natural Sciences Research Institute; and Jo. Florendo B. Lontoc directors of the PGC’s seven programs.

The university’s flagship environmental Philips, Rico Gonzales, country manager.

Prof. Rita Laude of UP Los Baños is project “Green UP” is off to a good start UP was represented in both MOUs by the director of the Agriculture-Livestockwith two industry giants agreeing to lend President Pascual.

Fisheries Program; Prof. Maria Corazon de their support.

T h e u n d e r s t a n d i n g w i t h b o t h Ungria of the Natural Sciences Research According to President Alfredo Pascual, corporations entitles UP to be a showcase Institute—Forensics and Ethnicity the project aims to make UP System for their pilot environmental projects. Program; Prof. Peter Sy of the UP Diliman operations environment-friendly.

UP will also be open to the tapping of its Interactive Learning Center—Ethics, Legal In a memorandum of understanding experts in related fields by both PNOC and Social Issues Program; Vice-President with the Philippine National Oil Company (Continued on page 2) for Academic Affairs Gisela Concepcion of Renewables Corporation, UP agreed to work toward such a goal by auditing its operations for energy efficiency and carbon footprint, efficient utilities management, and exploration and use of alternative During its 1,273rd meeting last September Investment Law in the country in 1995. He energy in the different campuses. The 29, the Board of Regents (BOR) approved the was a bar examiner for Commercial Law university also has an MOU with Philips appointment of lawyer Hector Danny Uy as in the 2009 Bar Examinations. He was a Electronics and Lighting Inc. which will UP vice-president for legal affairs. He took professor of commercial law at the Lyceum make UP’s lighting system energy efficient over the position left by law professor Danilo of the Philippines University’s College of and environment-friendly.

Concepcion who has been appointed dean of Law and at Arellano Law School from 1995 PNOC RC is a government-owned the College of Law. to 2010. corporation tasked with searching for Uy served as undersecretary of the Office Uy is also a reservist with the rank of renewable energy, while Philips is a leading of the Chief Presidential Legal Counsel from Lieutenant Colonel in the Philippine Air company in efficient lighting systems.

2006 to 2007. He was, in the same year, detailed Force.

Both MOUs were signed last November at the Office of the Solicitor General.

From 1985 to 1989, he took up law at UP 9 at the Board of Regents (BOR) Room at He has been practicing law since 1990. Diliman, becoming a member of the editorial Quezon Hall, UP Diliman. The signatory He developed the first academic course board of the college’s Philippine Law Journal Journal. He for PNOC RC was Engr. Roger Victor on the Law on Corporate Finance in 2002 also earned a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy Buendia, OIC president and CEO, and for and developed the first course on Foreign from UP in 1984.

PNOC RC, Philips support ‘Green UP’

the UP Diliman Marine Science Institute— Biodiversity for Drug Diversity and BioEnergy Program; Prof. Cynthia Saloma of the UP Diliman National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology— DNA Sequencing and Genotyping Facility Program; Prof. Arturo Lluisma of the UP Diliman Marine Science Institute— Bioinformatics Core Facility Program; and Dr. Eva Maria Cutiongco-de la Paz of the UP Manila National Institutes of Health—Health Program.

Each program has a Scientific Advisory Committee composed of pioneers and internationally recognized scientists.

The PGC has a national advisory board chaired by DOST Secretary Mario Montejo and co-chaired by UP President Alfredo Pascual, with members consisting of the chairs of the House and the Senate Committees on Science and Technology, the Agriculture, Health, and Energy and Natural Resources Secretaries, the Executive Director of the PGC and two representatives from the private sector.

The International Advisory Board currently consists of Chair Prof. Lap-Chee Tsui Oc of the University of Hong Kong, Dr. Yuan-Tsong Chen of Academia Sinica, Prof. Michael Purugganan of New York University, Dr. Hans-Hilger Ropers of the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics and Prof. Sumio Sugano of the University of Tokyo.

All were present during the launch to assess and make recommendations on the PGC and to present their own institutions’ experience in birthing a successful genome center. They said that all scientific research starts at the grassroots level and in these terms, PGC is on the right track. Aside from the branches of genomic applications they are already involved in, they endorsed research proposals which they found unique such as dengue detection and diagnostics, Philippine crop diseases, drug-resistant TB, (Continued on page 9)

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4th Kapihan addresses faculty, staff issues

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‘Heckling’ at the Clinton forum fires up debate online

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PNOC EC invests P500 M in UP

Photo byBong Arboleda

UP appoints new VP for legal affairs

Uy’s expertise covers trial and public law, investment and finance.

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Newborn screening facility moves to new home

2 U.P. Newsletter CSC reflects on its goals at 31 (Abridged article of Narcisa Canilao, Ti Similla)

CoE faculty and staff showcase new fun and fitness moves Celeste Ann Castillo Llaneta

Dancing to the tune of ‘60s and ‘70s hits, several faculty members, administrative staff and research, extension and professional staff of the UP College of Engineering (CoE) showed off their latest moves in a colorful and fun-filled dancerecital at the UP College of Engineering Theater in Melchor Hall.

CoE Dean Aura Matias, who was one of the top-billed performers during the recital, welcomed the audience, which included UP President Alfredo Pascual, UP College of Architecture Dean Mary Ann Espina, and faculty members, staff members, students and friends of the CoE and UP College of Human Kinetics (CHK). Engr. Matthew Oliver Dimal of the UP Department of Geodetic Engineering emceed the event.

The dance recital was the culminating activity of a 12-week line-dancing program held jointly by the CoE and the CHK. According to Dean Matias, the dancerecital was an early Christmas treat from the CoE as well as a demonstration of the achievements of the CoE faculty and staff under the tutelage of the CHK faculty.

President Pascual, for his part, expressed his appreciation of the performance and showmanship of the CoE faculty and staff.

“This is a good experiment, and I hope it spreads throughout the campus,” he said.

Speaking on the spirit of collaboration that has emerged between two colleges, he said: “This is one thing I would like to encourage in our university, that we break down the walls that divide our university into different silos…This is a good start, with having fun. Eventually, I hope this filters down to work in the classroom, research and so on.”

The line-dance program, said CHK professor Rachelle Peneyra at the start of the program, began as an idea for an alternative fitness program among faculty members of the CHK. When CoE Dean Aura Matias contacted CHK Dean Leilani Gonzalo asking for a fitness program for the faculty and staff

of the CoE, the idea developed into a project between the two colleges, with the CHK faculty offering to teach the CoE faculty and staff line-dances for free. In exchange, the CoE faculty and staff would serve as research subjects in a research study by CHK faculty on “Line dance as a Fitness Intervention for Office Workers.”

According to Prof. Peneyra, linedancing as a fitness activity has several advantages over other activities such as walking or jogging. The steps are simple and easy, fun to learn, enjoyable, requires no special gear or outfit, and poses no harm to bones, joints and muscles—a concern particularly of senior citizens.

The CoE-CHK line-dance program consisted of 20 dances that were taught over a period of 12 weeks, with twiceweekly, one and a half- hour sessions. The program began with simple line-dances in order to familiarize the dancers with the basic steps, and progressively got more challenging in order to increase heart rates. The music was also specially chosen by the CHK faculty. “Mas maganda kung

pamilyar sa mga kasali ang mga tugtog na napapanahon sa kanilang edad,” said Prof.

Peneyra.

At the end of the 12-week program, the participants were surveyed and their physical measurements taken. It was found that on average, waistlines decreased by 3.44 cm, while hip sizes decreased by 2.92 cm. Because the line-dancing activity tended to stimulate appetites, weight loss averaged only 0.88 kg, although there were participants who lost a minimum of one kilo, and one who lost 2.3 kilos. On the average, the regular line-dance activity resulted in a 0.49 percent decrease in body fat.

Among the intangible benefits of the line-dance activity, as reported by the participants, were: (1) it is an alternative fitness routine that was fun, exciting and can be done no matter the weather; (2) it gave them the chance to move and exercise the body without straining it or causing discomfort or pain; (3) it was a physical activity that led to a good night’s sleep; (4) it was a chance to learn how to dance, and for some, to (Continued on page 4)

After the recital, members of the audience get up and try out for themselves the many joys of line-dancing.

only the most comprehensive history of the Cordillera during the Spanish period. It also corrected the myths of a “pan-Cordillera,” and the “highlander-lowlander dichotomy” constructed by colonial histories. H. T. Fry’s A History of the Mountain Province (1983) covering the American Period to post-World War II, G. Finin’s The Making of the Igorot (2005), and the Cordillera Schools Group’s Igorot: A People Who Daily Touch the Earth and Sky, Vol. 2 (1986) notable for its “insider view,” are examples of regional histories from the period of study.

Regional historians face many challenges: the daunting breadth of the geography one has to cover, the necessary linking of regional to the national lest the regional history succumb to isolationism, and critical examination of the politically motivated “territorialization” or “spatialization” of ethno-linguistic groups.

A second thematic grouping, said

Florendo, are the histories written for centennials within the three decades of her study, for instance, Baguio City’s centennial (2009), preceded or followed by other centennials, among them of educational landmarks (The Teachers’ Camp), and missionary schools (SLU). 100-year histories were mostly written out of that “historical emotion” called nostalgia. Furthermore they became occasions for “memorymaking,” and thus are grouped under the motif, “Nostalgia, Memory, and History.”

Other centennials that generated historical memoirs were those of the St. Louis Trade Fair (2004) which evoked retellings and recollections, fond or otherwise, of the Japanese pioneers (2003) and of course the centennials of the Philippine revolution (1996) and Philippine Independence (1998).

Under the third g roup are the ethnohistories and local histories, which far

Photo by Jun Madrid

The Cordillera Studies Center (CSC) launched, in tribute to UP Baguio’s 50th year, its UP Baguio Golden Jubilee Lecture Series last September 12 with the theme “The State of Research in Cordillera Studies: 1980-2010.”

In his opening remarks at the launch, CSC Director Delfin Tolentino Jr. announced that the lecture series will have two components: a year-long series of lectures on key areas of research conducted under the rubric Cordillera Studies, and the publication of those lectures.

Experts will lecture on a breakthrough research or the general state of research under the key areas of historiography, material culture and oral traditions, local governance and indigenous political institutions, economics and institutions, natural resource management and biodiversity, traditional medicine and health practices, and a final lecture that will look into what Cordillera studies has been, could have been, and/or might be.

Tolentino set the tone for the lecture series when he remarked that while Cordillera studies has clearly been the niche of UP Baguio from the time of its founding, it has not so far been interrogated. Finding out if indeed Cordillera studies is a field, what are its parameters and distinctions, and its contributions to understanding Cordillera communities were identified by Tolentino as the main aims of the Golden Jubilee commemorative project.

CSC’s initiative to take a critical look at what it is a center of research in, is seen as both urgent and timely. The CSC was established in 1980 as a research institute under the College of Social Sciences, and was transformed into UP Baguio’s research center when UP Baguio became the seventh autonomous unit of the UP System.

What has been the state of Cordillera historiography in the last 30 years?

History professor Ma. Nela Florendo, former Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs, delivered the inaugural lecture, tackling the first key research area - Cordillera historiography. The paper’s title “Moving Beyond Critique: Cordillera Historiography in the last 30 years” sums up Florendo’s assessment that “initiatives to re-write Cordillera history and to re-interpret Cordillera indigenous society” from 1980 to 2010 have “made significant strides” beyond criticizing Cordillera history as colonial history.

Florendo tried to group history materials by following a schema that loosely “clustered” or “grouped” works together. Under the first cluster are works that look at the history of the Cordillera as a geographical region. Prototypical of such works are the colonial histories that started to delineate the distinctiveness of mountain-dwelling peoples from lowlanders. To her, W.H. Scott’s The Discovery of the Igorots (1974) is not

december 2011

outnumber other histories. “Appropriating ethnohistory by the former subjects of ethnohistory is a major paradigmatic shift. Significant ethnohistories have been produced by those who belong to their cultures. Coming from an inside view, the assumption is – this is us, this is what we are, this is what we want the world to know about us.”

To that end, Florendo believes A People’s History of Benguet by A. Bagamaspad and Hamada-Pawid (1985) is a “nodal point in local history and ethnohistorical research in terms of method (that blended archival with oral history – specifically interviews that resulted in the construction of genealogies), perspective and social purpose.”

The dissertation of history professor Dr. Leah Enkiwe-Abayao (“Mayoyao, Ethnohistory and Death Ritual Practices: Continuity and Change 1857-1990,” published in 2009 in the Journal of History (Continued on page 4)

Photo by Jun Madrid

Photo by Bong Arboleda

PNOC RC, Philips support ‘Green UP’ (Continued from page 1)

PNOC RC’s Buendia shakes hands with President Pascual after an exchange of contracts, while Philips’s Gonzales hands over a symbolic state-of-the-art LED light bulb to the president.

RC and Philips. PNOC RC is looking at exploring solar energy for UP Diliman and geothermal and biomass for UP Los Baños. Philips began by doing a lighting audit of the BOR Room and the Office of the President.

Buendia and Gonzales are both alumni of the university and look at the MOU also as another way of giving something back to UP.

DECEMBER 2011

U.P. Newsletter 3

Balitang Unyon Ulat sa Ikalawang Union-Management Coordinating Body (UMCB) sa pagitan ng Administrasyon ng UP at ng All-UP Workers Union Matagumpay na naidaos ang paghaharap ng All-UP Workers Union at UP Administration nitong nakaraang Oktubre 26, 2011 na ginanap sa SOLAIR. Naging bahagi ng panel sa panig ng UP sa pamumuno ni Vice-President for Administration Maragtas Amante, sina outgoing UP Manila Vice-Chancellor Orlino Talens, HRDO Director Angela Escoto at

Makialam

Atty. Aragon ng UP System legal office.

Ang panel ng unyon ay kinabilangan nina Felix Pariñas, Clodualdo “Buboy” Cabrera, Noel Marquina, Benjamin Santos, Diosdalo Gaddi at iba pa mula Diliman, Manila at Los Baños bilang mga observers.

Sumentro ang talakayan sa mga usapin kaugnay ng union official time, grievance machinery, hazardous work, FAHPE, 10

days recognition pay, PMS o performance monitoring system at regularisasyon ng mga kontraktwal na manggagawa kaugnay ng pagpupuno ng unfilled plantilla positions.

Dahil na rin sa bigat ng gawain ng mga opisyal ng unyon, napakahalagang maipatupad ang napagkaisahang official time sa Collective Negotiation Agreement.

Inihapag ng unyon na ihanay ang pagtantos

UP KILOS NA LABAN SA BUDGET CUT!

HINDI PA TAPOS ANG LABAN PARA SA MAS MATAAS NA BUDGET SA UP, EDUKASYON, KALUSUGAN AT SERBISYONG PANLIPUNAN Unang Semestre ng 2011-2012: Unang Yugto ng Ating Laban Nagpupugay ang UP Kilos Na Laban sa Budget Cut sa masigla at malawak na paglahok ng komunidad ng Unibersidad ng Pilipinas sa buong system para igiit ang mas mataas na budget sa UP, ibang SUCs, edukasyon at kalusugan nitong nakaraang semestre.

Nairehistro natin ang pagtutol sa iba’t ibang anyo. Nagpalabas ng mga pahayag si UP President Alfredo E. Pascual at UPD Chancellor Caesar Saloma. Naglagay ng mga tarpaulin na naglaman ng mga panawagan para sa dagdag na budget sa UP, edukasyon at kalusugan ang maraming mga kolehiyo sa UP Diliman. Nagdaos ng mga fora, office-to-office, room-toroom ang mga estudyante, kawani at guro para matalakay ang 2012 budget proposal ni Aquino at ang epekto nito sa UP at sa mamamayan. Nagkaroon din mga delegasyon sa mga kongresista at mga senador para maipaliwanag bakit hindi makatarungan ang budget ng UP at iba pang SUCs at dumalo sa mga hearings na ginanap sa Kongreso.

Ang mga martsa’t pagkilos noong Setyembre 21-23 sa iba’t ibang kampus ng UP sa Diliman, Manila, Los Baños,

Baguio, Cebu, Tacloban at Iloilo upang sama-samang ihayag ang kahilingan ng mga iskolar, guro at kawani ng bayan ng UP, kasama ang iba pang mga state universities at colleges, ang rurok ng pagrehistro ng ating pagtutol.

Ang resulta ng unang yugto ng ating laban Hindi matatawaran ang pagkakaisa na nabuo sa makatarungang kahilingan para sa dagdag na budget sa edukasyon, kalusugan at iba pang serbisyong panlipunan at ang paglalantad sa makadayuhan (prayoridad ang debt servicing) at ang mga antimamamayang balangkas ng budget ni Aquino. Naisalin ang pagkakaisang ito sa masigla, malikhain at malaganap na mga pagkilos sa loob at labas ng unibersidad.

Dahil sa naiguhit natin sa opinyong pampubliko ang mga makatarungang kahilingan natin, napilitan ang pamahalaang Aquino sa sagutin ang mga inihapag nating puna sa mga layunin at laman ng kanilang panukalang 2012 budget. Tulad sa nakaraang taon, minaliit ng tagapagsalita ni Aquino na si Abigail Valte ang pagkilos ng mga state universities and colleges at sinabihan pa ang mga mag-aaral na magkonsentra na lang sa kanilang pag-aaral.

Pero maagap na natugunan ito ng mga

organisasyon ng kabataan-estudyante na nagpaalaala sa kasaysayan ng kabuluhan ng sama-samang pagkilos kabilang na ang pagpapatalsik sa diktadurang Marcos.

Malaki ang tagumpay na nakamit natin kaugnay ng pagbubuo ng ating pagkakaisa at sa militansya ng ating mga pagkilos.

Ngunit sa kabila nito, napakaliit ng nakamit natin sa HOR na halos buung-buo na ipinasa ang budget ni Aquino.

Noong Oktubre 16, 2011, ipinasa ng House of Representatives ang panukalang 2012 General Appropriations Act .

Napag-alaman nating may ilang masasabing nakamit sa ating mg a kahilingan: Sa UP: Dinagdagan ng P200 milyon ang alokasyon para sa UP na nakatalaga para sa PGH Sa kalusugan: Ayon sa Alliance of Health Workers, naragdagan ng P600 milyon ang budget ng Department of Health: P100 milyon para sa East Avenue Medical Center, P50 milyon para sa Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital, P50 milyon para sa Research Institute for Tropical Medicine at dagdag na P100 milyon bawat isa para sa Philippine Heart Center, Lung Center of the Philippines, National Kidney and Transplant (Sundan sa pahina 9)

4th Kapihan addresses faculty, staff issues

ng official time tuwing ika-anim na buwan dahil may mga buwan na marami ang mga aktibidad at may mga buwan naman na madalang ang mga ito. Inihapag ng unyon ang mga problema kaugnay ng mahigpit na mga supervisors na hindi nagre-recognize ng union time. Napagkaisahan na kausapin ang mga naturang pamunuan ng opisina at ipaliwanag ang kahalagahan ng bawat pagdalo sa mga aktibidad ng unyon at maipabatid na ito ay nay kinalaman hindi lamang sa pagpapahusay ng kalagayan ng kawani kundi sa pagtulong na rin sa pagganap ng unibersidad ng tungkulin nito bilang “public service university.”

Tinalakay din ang mga partikular na katangian ng gawain ng mga opisyal ng unyon. Ang mga nakatalaga sa gawaing clerical sa karanasan ng mga opisyal ay nakakahanap ng paraan para magampanan ang mga gawain sa opisina kahit na may mga aktibidad ang unyon. Maaaring pumasok sila nang mas maaga para harapin ang kagyat na pangangailangan. Mas may partikular na problema ang mga opisyal ng unyon na nagbibigay ng direktang serbisyo sa mga estudyante at guro tulad ng mga lab technicians at audio-visual operators.

Nagmungkahi ang unyon na kailangan ng isang substitute ang opisyal ng unyon na may ganitong gawain laluna kung may malaking responsibilidad na tinatanganan sa pagpapatakbo sa unyon.

Kaugnay ng Financial Assistance Program for Hospitalization Expenses o FAPHE inihapag ng unyon ang magandang praktika sa UP Manila kung saan hindi lang nakatali sa aktwal na pagpapaospital ang binibigay na tulong. Isinama na rin ang pagbigay ng tulong sa mga kaso na seryoso tulad ng chemotherapy o dialysis na hindi kailangan ng confinement pero mahalaga para mailigtas ang may malalang sakit.

Hiniling din ng unyon na sana magkaroon ng Memorandum of Agreement ang UP (Sundan sa pahina 10)

Arlyn VCD Palisoc Romualdo

Photo by Misael Bacani

Consistency and uniformity—these are purely in the undergraduate or graduate increase and additional compensation cultural, recreational and sports facilities. what UP policies need to be to prevent levels or a mixture of both. Undergraduate allowance (ACA) or personal emergency Faculty and REPS are also eligible for demoralization of faculty and staff according units may place more emphasis on teaching, relief allowance (PERA), they have different awards like professorial chairs, faculty grants, to Faculty Regent Ida F. Dalmacio, who was while graduate units may place equal weight leave privileges. outstanding faculty or REPS, retirement pay, the main speaker during the 4th Kapihan on teaching and scholarly work. Some Dalmacio also enumerated other equity-based pay and awards for service, last October 12 at UP Manila. points in the teaching category are culled benefits such as the financial assistance achievement, and merit sagad. Other The Kapihan is an informal venue for from the student evaluation of teacher program for hospitalization expenses incentives include the ranks of University system-wide interaction on UP issues . The (SET) scores.

(FAPHE); discounts from government Professor Emeritus, University Professor, fourth Kapihan discussed the issues of Dalmacio said that faculty members are hospitals; free annual physical examination; Professor Emeritus, UP Scientist and UP compensation, promotion and extension hired based on qualifications such as degrees voluntary health insurance; life insurance Artist and recognition for international of service of faculty members and research, earned (bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate) for UP Provident Fund members; tuition, publications, innovative teaching, policy extension and professional staff (REPS). and honors received. She added that while library, and housing privileges; hazard pay papers, creative and research scholarships, Prior to the Kapihan, Dalmacio conducted faculty and REPS receive rice, grocery, and for public health workers; honorarium and outstanding publication in Filipino. consultations with faculty members on the clothing allowances; 13th month pay and or representation and transportation On the extension of service, Dalmacio assessment and rationalization of faculty cash gift; merit and productivity incentives; allowance, if applicable; loan programs; said that appointments to extend the terms recruitment, renewal, tenure and retention; performance bonus; loyalty award; longevity study leave with pay; and health service, of retired faculty members should only be (Continued on page 7) the promotion and rewards system; and the institutionalization of consultancies and faculty mentoring. These consultations led her to conclude that a system must be established to ensure that all academic units “adhere to the same procedures and standards.”

Dalmacio said the number of faculty members to be promoted and the number of steps for promotion are “largely determined by the amount of promotion funds made available” to the units. Priorities are then set by the departments, colleges, and the constituent university (CU).

There are four evaluation categories for faculty promotion: teaching, scholarly or creative work, service or extension and professional growth. While these criteria are used by all the CUs, the weight range given to each category differs between units. Some also distinguish between courses taught Vice-President for Administration Maragtas SV Amante in lively discussion with UP faculty at the 4th Kapihan.

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december 2011

Social media for social change How about using Facebook or the social media to write a new Philippine Constitution?

This is one possibility hinted at by Maria Ressa, former CNN Jakarta bureau chief, in a meeting before the Move.Ph Chat Series at UP Baguio last September 28. In her actual chat session, Ressa presented cases around the world that showed how the social media can be harnessed to effect social change, and not only for self-promotion which is how most people use them now.

Ressa, also former ABS-CBN News and Current Affairs head and now authorin-residence at the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at the National University of Singapore, is among the founders of Move.PH, an Internet-based media outfit that is focused on enabling people to tell stories that move them toward effecting

change in society. She works with other Philippine journalists like Glenda Gloria, executive director of Newsbreak, Gemma Mendoza, editor of Newsbreak, and Patricia Evangelista, documentary producer and writer, among others.

The chat series at UP Baguio was organized in coordination with the deans of the College of Social Sciences and the College of Arts and Communication, through the networking efforts of Voltaire Tupaz, a UP Baguio alumnus who is also now working with Move.PH. Because of the relevance of the activity theme to the current environmental concern of UP Baguio, the chat series was also supported and attended by members of the Balili River System Revitalization Coalition.

The first part of the chat series included presentations of actual use of the social media in UP Baguio and in the Cordilleras.

UPLB celebrates 93rd Loyalty Day

CSC reflects on its goals (Continued from page 2)

Aladdin P. Dominguita

Different university units, alumni jubilarians, and local as well as the regional and international organizations that comprise the UP Los Baños Science Community marched past the DL Umali Hall for the traditional Loyalty Day parade and celebration last October 10.

A contingent from Maejo University, composed of university officials and students who were on an official visit to UPLB as part of the Student Cultural Exchange Program, joined the parade. The Maejo Cultural Dance Troupe also gave a performance.

The contingents that won various awards during the Loyalty Day Parade were the UP Rural High School (Most Colorful), College of Engineering and Agro-Industrial Technology (Most Creative), College of Economics and Management (Most Symbolic) and College of Arts and Sciences (Best Presentation).

CoE faculty and staff showcase new fun and fitness moves (Continued from page 2)

as “Mayoyao Ethnohistory, 1857 to 1960”), is another exemplary ethnohistory for demonstrating “how the history of a people may be captured through death rituals through time.”

Biographies and prosopographies constitute the fourth cluster, exemplified by the biographies of three men (Juan Villaverde, Dean Worcester, and E.G. Halsema), and a prosopography of the “white apos” – the American governors of Ifugao. Florendo challenged biographers to resist the “great man theory” that “individuals make history,” and to write instead life histories of multiply-located actors in “dialogical relation” with their social context. Thus, Macli-ing Dulag’s life was interwoven with the community’s struggles to resist the damming of the Chico river, in E. Javar’s masteral thesis.

The fifth cluster consists of institutional histories. Those written in the past three decades usually follow a standardized format: “the beginnings, which trace arrivals, foundations and founders, then the period of building/establishing presence, concluding with a highlight of what the institution has achieved.”

The sixth group covers ancient to precolonial Cordillera history, relying on the combination of history and archaeology.

Ethnoarchaeological studies provide probable information on the peopling of

re-learn how to dance and live their dreams of becoming a dancer, while for some it was a chance to learn how to move more gracefully; (5) it developed self-confidence and openness to other fitness activities (most if not all participants were asking for more at the end of the program); (6) it led to a decrease in stress and an increase in physical endurance, resistance, and a general sense of well-being; and (7) it developed camaraderie and community, and bonds of friendship among the participants.

After the performances, special prizes were given participants who had improved the greatest, who showed the most energy and enthusiasm while dancing, who had the biggest weight loss, and who was overall best student-participant in the line-dances.

The faculty of the CHK was also given tribute during the recital: Prof. Peneyra, Prof. Mynette Aguilar, Director of the CHK Graduate Studies Program, Ms. Michiko Sangalang, and Ms. Zyra Ruth Brebanta.

Crisostomo, spokesperson of KILOS NA! At the end of the recital, the audience, including President Pascual, stood up and tried Senate building to demand higher state out for themselves the lighthearted fun and support for social services. wholesome exercise activity that line-dancing Aside from youth groups from UP, is, with CHK Prof. Zyra Ruth Brebanta and the Polytechnic University of the Philippines CoE and CHK people leading the audience in and other state universities and colleges, a mass line-dancing session. the protest action included delegations

Jimmy Fong, Ti Similla

JP Alipio, UP Baguio alumnus and executive director of the Cordillera Conservation Trust, showed how his group used email and then later on Facebook to gather international support for their forest building efforts in the region. He said it is now possible to give instant updates to all their partners and donors about their projects and activities.

CSS Dean Raymundo Rovillos gave the audience an orientation on the ongoing activities of the Balili River System Rehabilitation Coalition, a broad alliance in Baguio and Benguet that is now busy working on cleaning up the Balili River system as the rallying point for a wider public consciousness and positive action on garbage management. This river movement still needs to engage social media in the process of this ambitious project.

Newsbreak editor Gemma Mendoza identified the areas where the Balili project may use social media. She said the project may use the social media for public information, for monitoring the progress of the project, for research activities, etc.

B e f o r e R e s s a ’s p r e s e n t a t i o n , international speech champion and now media personality Patricia Evangelista said she is telling stories not because she is good, because she said she knows she is not, but because of a slim chance that positive change might come about.

Ressa said that there is wisdom in using the social media for social change. She pointed out that there are more people

on Facebook than the audience of ABSCBN. She also said that the combined knowledge of a group of people would be better than Einstein alone. Crowdsourcing may not be a bad idea in infor mation sharing as a reasonable truth may be arrived at and vetted by the public.

Ressa also said that the public may already be addicted to social media and to the tabloid nature of information from mainstream media. She presented research on dopamine, the substance that causes addiction, which may already be present in people and which, Ressa thinks, is causing the public to want more of Facebook and other media.

T he chat series also included a workshop where 50 volunteers from the audience were subdivided into smaller groups. After a briefing from Chay Hofeleña, journalist and professor at the Ateneo de Manila University, each group proceeded to produce, using whatever media technologies were available that afternoon, “stories that move them.”

The short video outputs were then presented at the end of the program.

Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility-Marshall McLuhan fellow Glenda Gloria said everyone must be warned that the social media not only contain a wealth of information but that they also constitute a virtual archive.

Anything that is posted or uploaded could be retrieved and used against those who irresponsibly use them.

the Cordillera, pre-hispanic Igorot identity, indigenous lifeways and belief systems and participation in trade.

Under the seventh cluster are other types of history, such as the indigenous Cordillera economic histories of the Ibaloi cattle industry (Bienvenido Tapang, Jr.), the vegetable industry (Rowena Reyes-Boquiren), and the reinterpretation of Abra historical texts through the postmodern lens of discursive construction in the dissertation of College of Social Sciences Dean Raymundo Rovillos.

In concluding her extensive research, Florendo suggested that a point of convergence can be identified in the Cordillera histories of the past three-decades: “Cordillera historiography has been and will continue to be a historiography of identity.”

However, identity is not without its own array of issues – it is both empowering and constraining; rather than real and discrete, it is a malleable construction. Most of all

it marks off the identified from many other possibilities and opportunities. Florendo hinted at the many elisions that can be committed by identity markers like the replica of an Ibaloi couple at the welcome arch to Kayapa, Nueva Vizcaya, along the newly constructed Aritao highway. Emotions evoked would vary depending on what one sees as inclusions or exclusions in the marker. But just as identity politics elsewhere calls attention to the ethical primacy of recognition of differentially located persons and communities in the world, Florendo is hopeful: “...through historiographies of identity...peoples in the Cordillera locate their ethnicities and aspirations in various levels of collectivity, trace inter- and intra-community relations, understand the relations of the Cordillera to other regions and to the Philippine nation-state.”

The audience was composed of historians, history teachers, development workers, and UP Baguio faculty and friends.

Protesters storm Senate gates

(Continued from page 1)

Photo by Tilde Acuña

from Confederation for Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government E m p l o y e e s (COURAGE), Alliance of Concerned Teachers ( AC T ) , J u d i c i a r y Employees Association of the Philippines (JUDEA), Gabriela and International Alliance of Filipino Migrant Organizations (Migrante).

T he November 15 protest action ended peacefully, despite the presence of fire trucks.

However, after a series of demonstrations opposing the budget, including the nationwide strikes last September and the November 17 protest action for International Students’ Day,

the Senate approved the P1.8-trillion national budget for 2012 on November 22.

Prior the approval of the 2012 national budget, Kabataan Partylist said in a statement that the budget “currently being deliberated in the Senate, was earlier amended in the House of Representatives to include a P200-million additional budget” for the Philippine General Hospital.

Rep. Raymond Palatino called this increase “loose change.” Youth group Anakbayan, in a statement, mentioned that the P200-million increase “means that not a single SUC will actually get any additional funding. On the other hand, the already insufficient health budget was slashed by the same amount.”

As of press time, concerned sectors and organizations, under KILOS NA!, continue to hold various forms of protest and declared “Days of Rage” until the first week of December.

DECEMBER 2011

THEIR KIND OF ‘JOURNALISM’ Luis V. Teodoro

‘Heckling’ at the Clinton forum fires up debates online As initially disseminated through social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, Philippine Collegian editor-in-chief Marjohara Tucay was escorted out of the forum “A Conversation in Manila with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,” after he unfurled a “JUNK VFA” banner and shouted that “There is nothing mutual in the Mutual Defense Treaty.”

The act triggered debates on different issues online, especially after Howie Severino, editor-in-chief of GMA News Online, interviewed Tucay as regards his

“disruptive” act during the said forum. After attracting criticism from academics and journalists, Severino’s interview which GMA uploaded and distributed online was deleted, just like his comments on Alaysa Escandor’s facebook note “Reflections on Heckling” (https://www.facebook.com/notes/alaysaescandor/reflections-on-the-heckling/ 10150362581494599?ref=notif&notif_ t=like).

On the ‘Heckler’ and Hillary Clinton

Given the expected lack of moderation in online forums and discussion threads, initial reactions reprimanded Tucay on a photo in the Facebook page of GMA News showing his raising of the JUNK VFA banner (https://www. facebook.com/photo.php?fb id=10150375814666977&set =a.10150333555791977.3443 46.116724526976&type=1& ref=nf). Among the first ten comments on this particular thread are as follows: “Iba talaga effect ng communism sa mga estudyante.” “yodipota yan dapat bartolena yan” “nakakahiya ka boy wala kang modo naka formal ka pa ah! para kang walang pinagaralan” “They shouldn’t allowed that person! That’s stupidity!

Ashamed.” “nakakahiya pero karapatan nila yan kaya lang sa tamang lugar nalang sana...”

Most of the comments against Tucay were either attacks on his person, on activism, or on the University of the Philippines. Besides

Arbeen Acuña

providing a venue for debate, these discussion threads also served as venues for airing out sentiments, if not propaganda, against activists and/or UP. Anarchy in the comments section gave space to glorifying the US and tagging activists as NPA, to the point of calls to privatize “UP that trains rebels” pumped up with the claim that “UP student activists are being used,” the thread ended with discussions on the socialism of USSR and China being obsolete, and the fall of “revisionism” in the Soviet Union.

This is, more or less, the case in most threads moderated by GMA (http://www. gmanetwork.com/news/story/238793/ news/nation/a-candid-conversation-inmanila-with-hillary-clinton) (http://www. gmanetwork.com/news/story/238691/ news/nation/student-leader-disruptsclinton-forum-in-manila). More articulate contenders often reference history and suggests a recollection of how we are as a (neo)colony.

Some commenters, however, tried to keep the thread on the topic of MDT. According to a commenter with the monicker of Aian Umiibig, the US has been meddling with (our) affairs for the last one hundred years. There were also sentiments deviating from the issue of sovereignty to the spectacle.

Among other comments that lauded Tucay’s act are the following: “mga nagcocoment n walang saysay ang ginawa nya, mga walang alm..mas nahiya pa kayo sa amerikanang yan. Hindi nyo kayang ipahiya ang sarili nyo para sa Pilipinas!” “I admire the courage, the understanding, and the passion. At least, some Filipinos still know how to analyse and read between the lines.

Kudos!” “What he did was protected by our law. Pag nag-rally, NPA na agad? Di ba pwedeng activist (Continued on page 12)

CMC joins mass action to end impunity Jo. Florendo B. Lontoc

“How many more must die?”

This was the question raised by selected students, faculty and staff of the UP Diliman College of Mass Communication (CMC) last November 23 as they commemorated the second year of the Ampatuan massacre.

They held symbolic rites and a march at UP Diliman before joining mass actions and a march from the University of Santo Tomas (UST) in Manila to Mendiola.

They condemned the passive attitude of the Aquino administration in resolving the massacre, two years after it happened.

Calling for an end to impunity and justice for the victims of the massacre—32 of whom were journalists and media workers— CMC constituents and sympathizers from other colleges wore black shirts.

As the Carillon played “Bayan Ko” and videos about the massacre played on monitors in CMC halls, students led by Dean Roland Tolentino and former deans Georgina Encanto and Luis V. Teodoro lit candles in front of a marker commemorating the massacre at the lobby of the CMC Annex. They also offered white roses for the victims.

Among those present at the CMC ceremonies were Vice-President for Administration Maragtas Amante and Assistant Vice-President for Public Affairs Danilo Arao who is also a faculty member of CMC’s Department of Journalism.

Prof. Teodoro read the CMC statement which noted the continued killing of journalists, numbering 12 since the massacre on November 23, 2009. It criticized the Aquino administration which “has taken almost none of the steps agreed upon between media advocacy and journalists’

organizations and his communication group was held before proceeding to Mendiola. and the department of justice in August, The march left a “trail of impunity” on 2010 as necessary stop the killings.” the street—chalk marks of fallen bodies to The statement added that Aquino has symbolize the victims. rejected the dismantling of private armies, At Mendiola, the UP contingent joined which are believed to have been coddled symbolic “scene-of-the-crime” rites of by the previous administration and were remembering the dead and swore by responsible for the massacre. the “Panata sa Katarungan at Malayang The international media community Pamamahayag” (Pledge for Justice and Press designated November 23 as the International Freedom).

Day to End Impunity in direct recognition of the international significance of massacre in the Philippines and the need to end impunity, or the failure of states to punish the killers of journalists, political activists, human rights workers and others.

The ceremonies in UPD included statements by representatives of UP organizations, mostly CMCbased. These organizations joined the march from Plaridel Hall to Vinzons Hall. The group, estimated at 100, then proceeded to UST along España in Manila, where various groups converged to commemorate the massacre.

Family members of massacre victims, lawyers’ groups, human rights organizations, party list, student and youth g roups also joined the demonstration.

T he g roup mar ch ed toward Far Eastern University With a lighted candle, a student marks a spot on the “scene (FEU) where a short program of the crime” at Chino Roces Bridge in Manila.

Photo by Jun Madrid

In a supposed interview with Marjo Tucay, editor in chief of the University of the Philippines student newspaper the Philippine Collegian,GMA7 TV’s Howie Severino implied that by expressing his opposition to the Visiting Forces Agreement in that alleged press conference with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the latter was in violation of the ethics and professional standards of journalism. In so many words, Mr. Severino asked if what Mr. Tucay did was the journalism his generation was being taught.

With even more reason can we ask if, while demanding “objectivity” on the part of Tucay, Severino was also being “objective” when he practically harangued the latter in favor of his own views-- and over his own network, which also described Tucay as the Collegian editor who caused a disturbance (nanggulo) in the GMA 7 event?

We might also ask if the media spectacle GMA7 and Severino put in place in behalf of Clinton is what his generation has learned about journalism.

Apparently their idea of “objective” journalism is to stage and script what could have been a meaningful interview by planting in the audience brain-dead actors and actresses charged with asking the most asinine questions ever asked of anyone, in a too obvious attempt to shield Clinton from being asked the hard questions that journalists not only can ask, but should be asking.

Among those questions, for example, is what Clinton meant by saying she was visiting Asia and the Philippines in behalf of peace: is Asia, in the US view, then at war? Or is the US, by using the Spratlys issue to justify establishing bases in Australia and the Philippines through the VFA, actually fomenting conflict, specifically with capitalist China? And what of the Aquino government, which has assumed the usual role of its predecessor puppet governments as the US Trojan Horse in the latter’s current focus on once more penetrating Asia? Is the Obama administration not in fact following the Bush blueprint of projecting US power all over the planet in furtherance of its strategic, political, and economic interests, with Asia being currently in its sights? Have these anything to do with the US elections next year, given the US Republican Party’s demand that the US turn the screws on China?

These questions, among others, should have been asked, the answers being significant to this country’s future, its development, and the kind of “democracy” that has mutated in it. What GMA7 staged may have been a media event; it was certainly not a journalistic one. In these circumstances, Tucay had every right and indeed the responsibility not only to express himself, but also to demand some sanity in an alleged press conference. By assuming that it was a press conference, Tucay was being too charitable: a press conference that event wasn’t, which means that Severino had no business demanding compliance with the ethics and professional standards of journalism, violations of which GMA7 could be more justifiably accused than student journalists, most of whom, in the University of the Philippines, for example, know better than to behave like fawning and simpering colonials.

U.P. Newsletter 5

6 U.P. Newsletter

december 2011

PNOC EC invests P500 million in UP

NSC moves to new home

Photo by Bong Arboleda

Arlyn VCD Palisoc Romualdo

PNOC EC’s Lopez presents to President Pascual the company’s roster of hired UP alumni during the signing of a deed of donation at PNOC headquarters in Taguig.

CoE receives P6 M from Maynilad

The NSC-NIH is the first newborn screening facility accredited by the Department of Health (DOH). It is also the biggest and the most advanced. Apart from the NSC-NIH, there are three other screening centers: NSC-Central Luzon at the Angeles University Foundation Medical Center, Angeles City; NSC-Visayas at the West Visayas State University Medical Center, Iloilo City; and NSC-Mindanao at the Southern Philippines Medical Center, Davao City.

The DOH and the Newborn Screening Reference Center (NSRC), also at the NIH, work together to establish screening centers in strategic locations all over the country. The NSRC is responsible for the national testing database and case registries, training, technical assistance and continuing education for laboratory staff of all NSCs. It also defines testing and follow-up protocols for the NSCs.

Arlyn VCD Palisoc Romualdo

The UP Diliman (UPD) College of Engineering (CoE), through the UP Engineering Research and Development Foundation, Inc. (UPERDFI), received a P6-million donation from Maynilad Water Services, Inc. last November 22 for the establishment of the Maynilad Faculty Retention and Development Fund. The amount will be given in increments of P2 million from 2011 to 2013.

UP President Alfredo E. Pascual expressed the University’s gratitude to Maynilad and said that the donation will “certainly help us maintain our status as the top university in the country.” He assured the donors that the UP administration is doing its best “to make efficient use of the money that we have and to make sure that there is no waste.”

UPD Chancellor Caesar A. Saloma also thanked Maynilad, saying that financial assistance for faculty development allows the University to use its funds for more immediate concerns. An example is the need to repair the campus water system because leaks have cost UPD millions in water utility bills. In addition, the donation will also aid the intellectual and career advancement of UPD CoE junior faculty.

Maynilad Chair Manuel V. Pangilinan,

meanwhile, replied that they “rely on good universities to provide us with experts in various fields and so it is incumbent upon the private sector to help.” The business sector, he added, continues to look to and is in fact increasing its reliance on academic institutions for advice on sustainable projects. The water industry, in particular, Pangilinan explained, needs “intellectual input” from the academe in restructuring the country’s water system to make it more sustainable and accessible to everyone.

Isidro M. Consunji, Maynilad vice-chair, added that partnerships between universities and the private sector are always mutually beneficial.

The private sector can learn from the academe’s experts and the A medical technician works at one of the laboratories of academe can learn about the needs the new NSC facility at the UP-Ayala Technohub. and practices of industry.

The donation is a contribution to chairs as well as teaching and research the development of Filipino engineers, grants.

The signing of the deed of donation according to Maynilad Chief Finance Officer Randolph T. Estrellado. CoE Dean was followed by the unveiling of the Aura C. Matias stated that the Maynilad marker of the room named after Consunji, Faculty Retention and Development Fund which formerly housed the now-defunct will go to the establishment of professorial Department of Engineering Sciences.

Christmas in UP Mirroring the country, UP’s diverse community, which includes its alumni, uses the Christmas season to unite in celebrations as they take a much-needed break from routine.

Much effort is poured into making the celebrations spectacular. The meagerness of the participants’ logistics is easily overcome by creativity nourished by UP’s tradition of academic freedom. Thus, they are able to mount one-of-a-kind presentations that delight even the larger community which the UP community welcomes to its usually open and public grounds.

The highlight of UP’s community life in all campuses is the annual lantern parade, a tradition that began in the 1920s and was institutionalized in the 1930s.

Biggest and most popular among the parades or parolan is the one at UP Diliman, the largest campus in terms of population.

Participants include units outside the Diliman campus such as the UP Diliman Extension Program in Pampanga and the UP Open University. The show-withinthe-show contingent from the College of

Jo. Florendo B. Lontoc

Fine Arts, whose preparations begin at the beginning of the semester as class projects, has for years made the parade a showcase of UP talent and creativity.

UP campuses in the provinces extend their lantern parades to participate in or incorporate local celebrations such as Penagbenga in Baguio, Dinagyang and Sinulog in the Visayas, and Kasadya in Mindanao.

Each campus has its own distinct kind of lantern parade, which showcases the constituents’ immersion in the community and pride in being one UP while celebrating its uniqueness. Featured are not only the parol, but costumes, make-up, props, and parol performances as well.

Campus Christmas celebrations usually begin with a lighting ceremony at the main edifice of the campus. In UP Diliman, the traditional Pag-iilaw at Quezon Hall and University Avenue is marked by a dance or choral concert capped by community singing. The Carillon rings out with Christmas tunes. At UP Los Baños, the Pag-iilaw is highlighted by lighting up the

Christmas tree and belen installations at the Carabao Park.

There are competitions for which unit has best façade decorations, lanterns, and belen. Choir and musical groups hold free performances and sometimes compete against each other. Tiangges sprout for convenient Christmas shopping and eating out. At UP Diliman, the College of Music offers a performance of Handel’s “Messiah”.

Health outreach programs and AdoptA-Ward projects for the Philippine General Hospital mark the season in UP Manila.

Programs are held to entertain indigent patients, especially the children. UP Mindanao’s Christmas season includes participation in the town fiesta of Mintal.

Christmas in UP is also famous for the annual Oblation Run of the APO fraternity, which is held in campuses where they have members. The biggest line-up of naked runners is seen at the UP Diliman Oblation Run, usually held at the steps, hallways, and walkways of Palma Hall. As these attract a sizeable crowd (Continued on page 8)

Photo by Misael Bacani

The Philippine National Oil Company Exploration Corporation (PNOC EC) has committed to establish an endowment fund of P500 million over the next three years for the benefit of UP. The fund will be used to fund scholarships, research grants and professorial chairs for students and faculty members of the National Institute of Geological Sciences of the College of Science; the Mining and Energy Engineering fields under the College of Engineering; and other fields of study in UP. “The PNOC EC’s endowment fund represents the industry leaders’ recognition of the role UP can play in addressing the need for an increase in the supply of competent technical and managerial human resources needed by our local natural resource companies and the policy issues confronting the industry. This indicates the high level of confidence in the teaching and research functions of UP as the national university,” UP President Alfredo Pascual said.

Recipients of scholarship grants shall either work with PNOC EC for a period of one year for every year of scholarship or practice their profession in the Philippines within the same period. Pascual said that this provision supports UP’s desire to have its graduates give something back to the country that is subsidizing their studies, adding that the service provision is consistent with the university’s policy of “return service” which has been implemented in the health sciences.

On the other hand, recipients of research grants and professorial chairs shall “focus their research, studies, and/ or lectures to topics that are applicable and/or related to PNOC EC’s core businesses.”

Pascual said that the endowment shows how government corporations can support the university and foster stronger industryacademe partnership in producing the critical human resources needed for industries.

He added that the agreement between UP and PNOC EC can be the model by which other government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) can directly support UP, especially in other industries where more graduates and more research studies are needed.

Under the memorandum of agreement (MOA) between UP and PNOC EC, the latter “shall initially set aside P125 million from its funds, starting year 2011, and P125 million each year in the next three years.” The agreement explicitly states that “no portion of the fund nor its income or interest shall be utilized for the construction of any buildings, offices, facilities, or any structure whatsoever.”

The MOA was signed by UP President Pascual and PNOC EC CEO and Chair Gemiliano Lopez, Jr. PNOC EC is the oil, gas and coal subsidiary of the state-owned Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC).

Goodbye, Manila. Hello, Quezon City.

The Newborn Screening Center (NSC) of the UP Manila National Institutes of Health (NIH) has moved out of the building along Pedro Gil St. and into the UP-AyalaLand Technohub along Commonwealth Ave. The inauguration of its new home was held last November 18.

UP President Alfredo E. Pascual and UP Manila Chancellor Manuel B. Agulto congratulated the NSC-NIH and were in agreement that the new facility will further improve the screening services provided by the Center. Pascual, who noted in his message that many live births in the country are still done at home, said the national situation still leaves much to be desired. The challenge, therefore, is how to make the process of newborn screening available to all Filipino babies.

DECEMBER 2011

U.P. Newsletter 7

The UP Debate Society (UPDS) has once again brought glory to UP by winning the championship title of the National Debate Championship (NDC) for three consecutive years.

On its 13th year, NDC was held in Xavier University, Cagayan de Oro from October 17 to 23, 2011.

Angelique Pearl Simbulan (IV BA Political Science) and Valeri Filia Marie Inting (III BS Social Work) defended the grand finals motion: In the interest of economic and geopolitical stability, the ASEAN should cede Spratlys to China, as closing argument. They were against teams from Xavier University, Far Eastern University and Ateneo de Manila University.

Simbulan was named Best Speaker of the Grand Finals and 3rd Best Speaker of the tour nament while Inting was the Overall Best Speaker of the tournament.

UPD teams showcased strong performances throughout the tournament. Carlo Raphael Borromeo (III BS Business Economics) and Miguel Sevilla (IV BA Political Science) finished at the quarter finals. Borromeo was awarded 5th Best Speaker of the tournament. Weston Coleman Lee (II BS Industrial Engineering) and Garie O u a no (III BS Economics), John Cedrick de Leon (III BS Economics) a n d A n n a C a r m e l a Q u e ( I I I BA Political Science), Ayzeris Ong (IV BA Political Science) and Juan Miguel Sevilla (IV BS Psychology) finished at the octofinals.

Ro u n d i n g u p a p e r f e c t b r e a k , other UPDS teams composed of Candice Kimberley Chung (III BS Business Administration) and Martin Daniel Qui (I BS Molecular Biology and Biotechnolog y), Jose Fernando Escalante (II BS Psycholog y) and John Lenard Robles (III BS Business Administration and Accountancy), Chrysologus Herrera (I BS Computer Science) and Lawrence Angelo Katigbak (I BA Broadcast Communication) were part of the top 20 teams of the tournament. Chung was also named 6th Best speaker.

UPDS adjudicators also rendered quality adjudication for the tournament.

Alistair Jan Zosa (V BS Business Administration and Accountancy) was named Overall Best Adjudicator while Benedict Bismark (III BS B u s i n e s s E c o n o m c s ) wa s t h e 6 t h Best Adjudicator and was par t of

to be started with a dream: our collective dream of genuine and lasting peace in Mindanao, a dream of sustainable and equitable growth and development for all Mindanaoans, and a dream of deeper understanding among and solid unity of all people despite differences in religion and ethnicity.”

These words from valedictorian Ar-Nusharief E. Hassiman summed up the hopeful mood at the November 17 completion ceremony of the 12th Batch of the Congressional Internship Program for Young Mindanao Leaders (CIPYML) held at the Rolando Andaya Hall, House of Representatives, Quezon City.

Youth leaders from Mindanao sing the Philippine National Anthem during the completion T h e C I P Y M L i s a f o u r- m o n t h ceremony at the House of Representatives. internship offered to young people from Mindanao’s conflict-affected communities work, how policies are formulated, how Outstanding Roundtable Discussion to give them the opportunity to gain laws are crafted and enacted, and how G r o u p s, M e n t o r ’s C h o i c e Awa r d , firsthand experience in public policy compromise ought to be made among Best Policy Paper and Advocacy Plan, formulation. It develops the aptitude of and between people of different ethnic Best Policy Paper and Advocacy Plan these young leaders in policy analysis and groups.”

Presentation, Best Performance by a advocacy planning for the benefit of their These exceptional qualities of the Male and Female Intern, in addition to respective localities. program were also echoed by House the Valedictorian were distributed during I t i s a l o n g - s t a n d i n g p r o j e c t Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. when the ceremony. of the National College of Public he remarked that the interns learned The celebration took an inspirational Administration’s Center for Policy firsthand “the dynamics of people turn when batch valedictorian Hassiman and Executive Development (CPED) working with one another.” shared his past struggle with cancer, in par tnership with the House of “The members of Congress, not which ultimately inspired his policy Representatives, the Mindanao State just those that represent Party Lists, but paper’s bent towards alternative medicine University, and USAID through the almost everybody have an angle, their and his future ambition to become a latter’s Growth with Equity in Mindanao own ambitions, their programs and so doctor.

III (GEM 3) Project. Twenty-seven forth, And how is it that we are able to, In the batch’s graduation ceremony interns completed the program’s 12 th held last November 10 at the UP through discussion, through compromise, cycle.

NCPAG Assembly Hall, NCPAG Dean “T his prog ram is the outcome through give and take, how are we able to Edna Estefania Co shared the challenges of a unique partnership between the come out with decisions?” said Belmonte. before every CIPYML batch and the Philippine and US governments,” said US “That is one of the most important college’s contribution to the people of Ambassador to the Philippines Harry K. things that you doubtless learned among Mindanao.

Thomas Jr. in his message. “It is the only us in the House of Representatives.”

“This is our modest contribution to program in the Philippines which provides Belmonte also inspired the graduates the promotion of peace and development highly motivated, dynamic young people to give back to their communities, urging in Mindanao, which as you noticed over from Mindanao the opportunity to learn them to secure a prosperous future the past few weeks, has become even more about good governance and public for their regions under the auspices more challenging and more complicated. administration, and to immerse themselves of a democratic society. He advised And I think all of us as Filipinos in actual policy formulation.” them to assist the “current national are challenged to contribute to the Ambassador Thomas further lauded and regional leadership, as well as the resolution of peace and development the unique approach of the program, many leaders all over Muslim Mindanao in Mindanao.” which provides firsthand experience “in - of neighborhoods, of barrios, of She was joined by CPED Director a way that textbooks and universities municipalities.”

Prof. Dan A. Saguil, HOR Secretary cannot.” According to him, such an “Nobody is too small to be ignored,” General Atty. Marilyn B. Yap and GEM 3 experience more effectively teaches he concluded.

Program Manager Atty. Emma G. Salmani interns “how democratic governments Aw a r d s f o r M s. C o n g e n i a l i t y, in congratulating the graduates. the Shadow Adjudication Core for acing the adjudication test. Pamela Dyan Carbonell (II BA Broadcast C o m m u n i c a t i o n ) , Ju s t i n A l b e r t o Castro (I BS Business Economics) and Analiza Kiat (I BS Molecular Biology and Biotechnology) were adjudicators in the quarter finals round.

Photo courtesty of UPDS

Simbulan and Inting during the grand finals of NDC 13.

4th Kapihan addresses faculty, (Continued from page 3) staff issues done “under highly meritorious cases” because these extended appointments can sometimes be to the detriment of the younger faculty members’ development.

She also discussed some concerns of the REPS. The ceiling salary grade (SG) of 24, for instance, needs to reviewed because some researchers have qualifications that are comparable to faculty members, and yet, they cannot be promoted further. The publication requirements for the REPS, in addition, are also considerably higher than those for the faculty, especially on the number of sole or senior authorship.

At the end of her presentation, Dalmacio had four suggestions: to improve the criteria for tenure and promotion, if needed; for the highest rank of the REPS not to be pegged at SG-24, but to be equal to the ranking system of the faculty; automatic promotion for the REPS upon finishing graduate or post-graduate degrees, similar to the faculty; and to form a committee under the Office of the Vice-President for Academic Affairs

(OVPAA) that would look into faculty and REPS concerns.

During the open forum, the main issue the faculty focused on was research—how to encourage the conduct of research, how to create a culture of research and how to compensate those who are doing research.

VPAA Gisela P. Concepcion addressed these issues by citing her experience as a professor at the UP Diliman Marine Science Institute, where they put a premium on research and where it is an integral part of their academic life. She also reiterated the incentives mentioned

by Dalmacio earlier, that these are ways by which research can be encouraged.

She also stressed the importance of mentoring, where senior faculty members and researchers guide the junior members of their departments and their graduate students in the conduct and completion of their research. Finally, Concepcion encouraged the faculty members to conduct interdisciplinary research to create more holistic studies.

Photo by Bong Arboleda

UP Debate Society, 12th batch of Young Mindanao Leaders honored at HOR three years Andre Encarnacion “What we have today, what champion we are now, and who we evolve

8 U.P. Newsletter

december 2011

UPV initiates regional partnership for fisheries research action plan

Conference takes on challenge of enhancing Jo. Florendo B. Lontoc social security coverage Photo by Misael Bacani

Anna Razel L. Ramirez

The world’s fisheries sector needs an action plan.

A seminar-workshop among UP Visayas (UPV), Japan’s K ag oshima University, the Southeast Asian Fisheries and Development Center/Aquaculture Department (SEAFDEC/AQD) and the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN) was held at UPV, Iloilo City campus last November 21 and 22 to generate a collaborative fisheries research action plan.

The first session focused on minimizing the dangers on coastal fisheries in Southeast Asia. Reports were presented in connection

City and environment stakeholders in Int’l Conference on Green Urbanism UP SURP Research Unit

SSS’s CEO De Quiros answers questions from union leaders during the opening ceremonies of the conference as Profs. Bach Macaraya and Sale listen.

How can the benefits of social security be extended to the informal sector?

This was the focus of the regional conference “The Uncertain Road: Social Security in Globalizing Asia and the Philippines” organized by the Philippine Society for Labor and Social Security Law Inc. (Philsi) in cooperation with the Social Security System (SSS) and the UP Center for Labor Justice.

Social Security researchers and academics from the Asia-Pacific and UP, SSS administrators, and labor welfare advocates delivered talks before an audience of mostly workers unions and NGOs from November 17 to 18, 2011 at the UP School of Labor and Industrial Relations (SOLAIR).

From abroad, the speakers included Marius Olivier of the University of Western Australia, who spoke on “The Extension of Social Security Coverage to the Informal Sector: Global and Asian Perspectives,” and Kihan Lee of Korea’s Dankook University, who lectured on “A Comparative Study on Migration Policies in East Asia.” UP speakers included SOLAIR Dean Jonathan Sale, the College of Law’s Prof. Froilan Bacungan, the UP College of Social Work and Community Development’s Dean Rosalinda Ofreneo, and Prof. Virginia Teodosio, also of SOLAIR. The keynote was delivered by SSS President and CEO Emilio de Quiros, who spoke about government’s critical role in achieving universal coverage. Much needs to be done to encourage the country’s large informal sector and overseas Filipino workers to have themselves covered, de Quiros said. But he pointed out key entry points such as cooperatives, NGOs, the Department of Labor and Employment, the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency, and the Overseas Workers Welfare Association. The informal sector also includes the “flexies,” contractuals, and workers in public transport and construction.

Giving the conference overview, former SOLAIR Dean and conference director Rene Ofreneo spoke about the need to convince the new Congress about the People’s Social Protection Agenda (PSPA), which was drafted in 1999.

At the end of the conference was a workshop where participants identified ways toward universal coverage. The talks of the speakers aided the participants in finding solutions using the experience of neighbor countries. According to Ofreneo, these activities would be helpful in deepening the PSPA. The conference was sponsored by the Congressional Oversight Committee on Labor and Employment.

Christmas in UP

Photo courtesy of UPLB-OPR

Close to 600 stakeholders in developing the country’s urban centers, climate change adaptation, and disaster risk reduction capacity from the academe, national government agencies, local government units, civil society organizations, industry professionals, and the private sector attended the International Conference on Green Urbanism 2011 from October 18 to 20, 2011 at The Heritage Hotel Manila.

Hosted by the UP School of Urban and Regional Planning (SURP) and the Kyushu University Faculty of Design, with the support of the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and in cooperation with various partners, sponsors and exhibitors, the conference served as a venue for the exchange of ideas and practices of integrating green urbanism strategies in planning cities and communities. Sustainable urban planning, in this context, is a valuable contribution to the efforts to address and adapt to climate change impacts and disasters.

With the theme, “Planning Greener Cities,” the conference featured international and local experts who presented case studies illustrating principles and trailblazing practices on green urbanism, climate change adaptation, and disaster management aimed at more sustainable patterns of development.

UP officials led by President Alfredo Pascual welcomed the conference guests and participants while top government officials addressed the conference. Undersecretary Annaliza Teh of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) delivered the conference message of President Benigno Aquino who emphasized the need to work together “to explore effective methods and green technologies” that will address the global challenges brought about by climate change.

Japanese Ambassador to the Philippines Toshinao Urabe reiterated Japan’s commitment to environmental conservation, which he referred to as a “multi-faceted issue that calls for an equally multi-faceted involvement.” The Australian Ambassador to the Philippines Rod Smith underscored Australia’s interventions “in building the resilience of cities and communities to natural disasters and climate change impacts.” His message was read by Andrew Bryne, Deputy Head of Mission.

Prof. Steffen Lehmann, a professor from the University of South Australia and who concurrently serves as the UNESCO Chair in Sustainable Urban Development for Asia and the Pacific, delivered the keynote speech.

Participants and guests conferred on various topics under five themes: Green Cities; Green Architecture and Ecological Landscapes; Green Infrastructure; EnvironmentallySustainable Transport; and Developing Climate-Adaptive and Disaster-Resilient Urban Centers. Plenary speakers were from Japan, France, Germany, South Korea, the United States, United Kingdom, and the Philippines. Experts from the Philippines,

with the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Asian Core Program.

Kagoshima University scientists shared their findings on the status of the oil spill pollution in Guimaras; the attempts to apply microbial activities to the bioremediation of oil-contaminated tropical and subtropical marine coastal environments; an outline of bioremediation subgroup activities in the Asian Core Project; and the use of marine biomass culture for oil production, reduction of carbon dioxide, waste water treatment and aquaculture feeding.

The sessions also discussed various methods of fishing such as payao fishery or the use of floating fish aggregating devices (FADs), fine-meshed net fishery, purse-seine, and LED fish lamps. These also include setnets and the use of escape vents to improve selectivity of the collapsible pot.

T here were also discussions on minimizing the negative impacts of marine pollution and the role of the UPV-MPE Laboratory; ectoparasites of farmed marine fishes; the reproductive performance of fish exposed to dispersed bunker oil; and single cell protein as an alternative protein source for fish feed.

The two-day activity also exhibited poster papers on the abundance of small pelagic fish populations in the northern Sulu Sea; DNA and liver morphology discrimination between juvenile yellowfin Thunnus albacaceres and bigeye T. obesus tunas; the situation of tourism projects in Guimaras Island; the periodic movement of squid Todarodes pacificus hooked on branch line; the effect of shape and solidarity ratio on hydrodynamic resistance of traps; the capture function of cuttlefish trammel-nets; bioremediation of heavy oil-contaminated seawater by immobilized bacterial cells; bacterial community structure in sulfidic fish farm sediments of Bolinao, Lingayen Gulf; and identification and biochemical characterization of photosynthetic bacteria.

The participants came up with a research action plan for each session during the second day of the event.

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and media attention, runners incorporate socially relevant messages into their streaking.

The occasion is marked by the loudest screaming, jampacked crowds, and many girls blushing.

Christmas time in UP is truly a colorful and lively event, giving credence to the saying that those who work hard, party hard. What’s more, the enjoyment they experience also extends to the communities they serve, as the University continues to open itself to the public and joins the rest of the Filipinos in celebrating Christmas.

At UP Los Baños, the Pag-iilaw is highlighted by lighting up the Christmas tree and belen installations at the Carabao Park.

including UP faculty members, also served as reactors grounding the discussions on Philippine perspectives and realities.

Conference partners such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID-Philippines) through its Climate Change and Clean Energy Project (CEnergy), Foundation for the Philippine Environment (FPE), San Miguel Corporation, TeaM Energy Foundation, Inc. (TEFI), Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA) and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Biyaheng Pinoy Program actively participated either as presenters, reactors, participants and exhibitors.

Participants and guests were entertained with a cultural presentation from the UP-

based ethnic music and dance ensemble Kontemporaryong Gamelan Pilipino (KontraGaPi), while the Philippine national folk dance company, Bayanihan, through the support of the Department of Tourism, performed folk dances from various regions of the country during the welcome reception.

The conference also showcased some initiatives and services of organizations and companies that adhere to green and sustainable principles. It encouraged a multistakeholder commitment toward planning greener cities and communities in the process of addressing climate change and disaster risk reduction challenges through the ceremonial signing of a joint conference statement.

UP Diliman Chancellor Caesar Saloma was represented by Vice-Chancellor for Research

and Development Benito Pacheco in delivering his closing remarks.

The conference, which coincided with the SURP’s 46th Foundation Day, formed part of a two-year research on green urbanism spearheaded by the UP SURP Research Office and the Kyushu University Faculty of Design.

The research was funded through a grant from the Toyota Foundation. These advocacy and research initiatives on green urbanism as a climate change adaptation and disaster management strategy are envisioned to be consolidated at the level of the educational institution, particularly the UP SURP, in its plan of establishing a Center for Green Urbanism where studies, venues for discussions, planning assistance, capacity-building and advocacy activities can be housed.

DECEMBER 2011

College of Law launches dictionary of international law Photo by Bong Arboleda

Prof. Magallona explains his book.

The Philippines now has its own dictionary of international law.

Last November 10, the UP College of Law launched the dictionary as the second title in a textbook series published in celebration of the college centennial.

It was written by

U.P. Newsletter 9

Jo. Florendo B. Lontoc

former Law Dean and foremost public international and constitutional law expert Merlin Magallona, who was recently elected arbitrator in the Permanent Court of Arbitration based in The Hague.

Magallona’s Dictionary of Contemporary International Law is a valuable aid in research and study to students, professors, and practitioners in their legal work, according to Law Dean Danilo Concepcion. According to the author, the book has more than 200 entries and carried the general theme of reflecting shifts in norm creation in the last 50 years of the last century, including

globalization which has figured prominently in the configuration of international law. It also considers helping the state prepare for its role in the international community.

Reviewing the book, former Law Dean Pangalangan said that the book distinguished itself from the current books in use in law schools that make definitions from an outside point. He added that this book gives access to materials which are otherwise very difficult to find in the country. He also praised Magallona for his passion about what he teaches.

Philippine Genome Center launched

Remembering UP Diliman | A Review of Killing the Spider: Memoirs of Engr.

Vicente C. Ponce as told to Rolando E. Villacorte (2010) Francis Paolo M. Quina

and drug discovery from marine snails.

Having led genomic research in the world, the international advisers said there is still much to discover and the Philippines’ initiative to develop in the field of genomics is not too late.

But the PGC must hurdle the initial challenges of funding, training manpower for such areas as computational biology and analytics, synergizing of the network, and the lack of a physical center. They advised PGC, vis-a-vis the presence of corporate multinationals, to focus on finding solutions not for commercialization but for the public good at affordable prices.

In welcoming the guests during the launch, President Pascual expressed UP’s commitment in hosting the PGC and reiterated his support for the “continuing search for new and effective solutions to old and emerging problems faced by our people and humanity as a whole.”

“With UP having the largest concentration of scientific experts in the country, I am confident that as host to PGC, UP will be able to develop useful solutions based on genomics,” he added.

Secretary Montejo described the focus on genomics as a “breakpoint in scientific histor y” and encouraged continued cooperation between academia, government and the private sector through the PGC. The PGC’s website can be visited at www.pgc.up.edu.ph.

Reviewing a memoir can be tricky.

Unlike analyzing a novel , in which the reviewer is free to scrutinize the incidents that make up the plot of the story, the reviewer of an autobiography and memoir has to accept the incidents related in the story as they are, for we assume they are factual. What is left for the reviewer to do then is to look at form – the construction of the book itself, the pacing and the author’s use of language in the book, among others.

Killing the Spider (2010), the self-published memoir of UP alumnus Engr. Vicente Ponce, however, is an entirely different creature, in that even that part of the reviewer’s task is complicated by the very nature of the book which is told from the point of view of Ponce, but is attributed to both Ponce and Rolando Villacorte.

The book’s subtitle suggests that Ponce dictated the text to Villacorte who then acted as the book’s editor.

Odor of sanctity This much is suggested by Villacorte’s “Editor’s Notes” at the start of the volume, where he openly acknowledges that some readers might find parts of the book “reek(ing) of the odor of sanctity” which he then qualifies by stating that “the main character,” Ponce is “a frustrated priest” and “a devout Catholic.”

Villacorte’s note might seem odd,

but reading the book, one does see his point. Killing the Spider is told effusively from Ponce’s point of view; and his is one where the hand of god is visible in almost every moment of our lives. This might be disconcerting to some readers but it is this “odor of sanctity,” as Villacorte puts it, that makes Ponce’s recollection all the more unique and engaging.

The UP Years For readers who are from UP Diliman, Ponce’s memoir has a wealth of stories

about the country’s national university.

Ponce, who graduated with a degree in engineering, supervised the construction of two of UP Diliman’s most enduring landmarks – the Carillon Tower and the UP Parish of the Holy Sacrifice.

The book even begins with an incident sparked by rumors that the Carillon was leaning to one side and not completely vertical as it should be. The incident involves then UP President Vidal Tan fetching Ponce from a seminary where he had exiled himself after the rumors of the leaning Carillon spread to the national dailies.

This first section of Killing the Spider feels like an oral history of the Diliman campus. Ponce belongs to the batch of students that first studied in UP Diliman and he was even there to help with the transfer of the Oblation from its original perch in Padre Faura to its current home in Diliman.

But more than the stories about the Diliman campus’ landmarks, Ponce’s recollection also offer us a glimpse into some of the personalities we only now know because their names are etched on buildings around campus. Names like the aforementioned Vidal A. Tan and Fr. John Delaney, after whom the NISMED and UP Chapel buildings were named, respectively, come to life fully on the page.

ito ng bandang Nobyembre 21. Malamang kaysa hindi na maipasa ang 2012 budget sa Senado na walang substansyal na pagbabago at ganito rin ang mangyayari sa gagawing bicameral committee meeting na maaaring gawin sa Nobyembre 29.

Kung gayon, mas malaki ang hamon para sa atin na lalong paigtingin ang ating laban para ilantad ang pagiging bingi ng Kongreso sa ating mga kahilingan hindi lamang para sa dagdag na budget sa UP kundi para sa pampublikong serbisyo laluna ang edukasyon at kalusugan na responsibilidad ng pamahalaan na bigyang prayoridad.

Mahalaga ring mairehistro natin na ang limitado na ngang budget ng UP sa 2010 at 2011 ay hindi pa buong nabibigay sa pamantasan. May P20 milyon ang College of Social Work sa 2010 budget para maging mas accessible ang kolehiyo sa matatanda at may mga kapansanan. Patapos na ang taong ito pero ang P200 milyong alokasyon para sa ERDT ng College of Engineering sa 2011 budget ay hindi pa rin ibinibigay.

Ang mga ito ay bahagi ng P6.39 bilyon na “unreleased annual appropriations “ sa UP mula 2002 to 2011 (P6.19 bilyon mula 2002-2010 ayon sa Center for National Budget Legislation at ang P200 milyon para sa ERDT sa 2011 approved budget) Ito’y Pakikibaka ng Sangkatauhan Mahalag ang mag ag ap natin ang

internasyunal na katangian ng ating kasalukuyang laban para sa mas mataas na budget sa panlipunang serbisyo.

Sumambulat noong taong 2008 ang krisis ng pandaigdigang kapitalismo nang ang mga naglalakihang bangko o insitusyong pampinansya sa daigdig ay nagdeklara ng bankruptcy dahil na rin sa sarili nilang mapanlinlang na iskema sa pagkamal ng tubo. Malupit ang naging epekto nito sa mga mamamayan sa USA. Libu-libo ang nawawalan ng tirahan, trabaho at karapatan sa edukasyon dahil sa tuluytuloy na pagbulusok ng ekonomiya na nakaangkla sa mga neoliberal na mga polisiya. Ipinapatupad ang mga neoliberal na polisiyang ito upang salbahin ang kasalatan sa kita ng mga malalaking mamumuhunan, ngunit nauwi ang istratehiyang ito sa pagkalugmok ng sistemang kapitalista sa mas matindi pang krisis. Marahas at nakakamatay ang epekto nito sa mga ordinaryong mamamayan ng daigdig, lalo na ang matagal nang namumuhay sa kahirapan sa ilalim ng sistemang nahuhumaling sa akumulasyon ng kita.

Kung kaya’t makikita ngayon na libulibong mag-aaral at manggagawa ang halos araw-araw na nagpoprotesta sa iba’t ibang sulok ng daigdig. Kung kaya’t ang ating kasalukuyang pakikibaka ay bahagi ng ating pakikiisa sa mamamayan ng sangkatauhan.

Isa itong dakilang pagkakataon na makiniig

at makasama sa paglikha ng kasaysayan ang mga mamamayang nakikibaka, anuman ang lahi, kasarian, etnisidad, edad o sektor.

Maisasapraktika ngayon ang lahat ng ating pagtataya sa progresibong pagyakap sa pagkakaiba at pagkakaisa. Nakikiisa tayong mga iskolar, mga guro at mga kawani ng bayan sa pandaigdigang pakikitunggali sa sistemang nagpapanatili ng maliit na bilang sa itaas habang pinaghaharian at pinagkakaitan ang karamihan. Sa makauring tunggalian na ito, hamon natin sa sarili ang ating mapagpasyang pagwawagi.

Ang laban para sa karapatan sa edukasyon at kalusugan ay laban sa sistemang inuuna ang dayuhan at iilan kaysa serbisyo sa mamamayan!

PA I G T I N G I N A N G L A B A N SA KONTRA-MAMAMAYAN AT MAKA-DAYUHANG BUDGET AT ADMINISTRASYON NI AQUINO! BUDGET PARA SA MAMAMAYAN! DI SA IILAN! DI SA DAYUHAN! E D U K A S YO N, K A LU S U G A N AT SERBISYONG PANLIPUNAN, KARAPATAN NG MAMAMAYAN! MAKIBAKA PARA SA TUNAY NA PAMBANSANG KALAYAAN AT DEMOKRASYA! PAGHANDAAN ANG KAMPUHAN N G M A M A M AYA N L A BA N S A K A H I R A PA N S A M E N D I O L A Disyembre 6-8, 2011

(Continued from page 1)

Makialam

(Mula pahina 3)

Institute, at Philippine Children’s Medical Center.

Sa edukasyon: Naisama sa ipinasang house version ng GAA ang mga special provisions na itinulak ng ACT Teachers Partylist: Special Provision No. 4 sa ilalim ng DepEd budget ay nagtalaga ng P1,000 chalk and other classroom supplies allowance mula sa dating P700. Naipasok din ang Special Provision No. 8 sa DepEd budget na nagbibigay prayoridad sa mga kwalipikadong contractual at volunteer teachers sa pagempleyo ng bagong guro sa Deped o sa mga LGUs. May ganito ring kahalintulad na probisyon para sa mga state universities and colleges, ang pagbibigay prayoridad sa mga kwalipikadong kontraktwal o part-time faculty para punuan ang mga nabakante o bagong regular na mga posisyon.

Sa laban para sa serbisyo sa mga migrante: naibalik ang P100 milyong Legal Assistance Fund para sa mga OFWs sa budget ng DFA na nawala sa orihinal na panukalang budget ng DBM. Ang laban sa Senado at laban sa bicameral committee Inumpisahan na sa Senado ang talakayan sa 2012 budget at ayon sa kanilang plano, minadali ang deliberasyon para maipasa

10 U.P. Newsletter

december 2011

IUCr holds mathematical crystallography workshop Photo by Bong Arboleda

The Commission on Mathematical and Theoretical Crystallography of the International Union of Crystallographers ( I U C r- M a T h C r y s t ) c o n d u c t e d a n international workshop on mathematical crystallography at the National Institute of Physics in the UP Diliman campus.

According to the IUCr Online Dictionary, crystallography is the” branch of science devoted to the study of molecular and crystalline structure and properties, with far-reaching applications in mineralogy, chemistry, physics, mathematics, biology and materials science.”

Held from November 2 to 6, the workshop, “intended for young scientists (graduate students and post-doctoral associates) and researchers in mathematics, materials science, structural chemistry, solid state and condensed matter physics,” was partly sponsored by the Institute of Mathematics of UP Diliman.

The welcome address was delivered by Dean Jose Maria Balmaceda of the College of Science, while the opening address that discussed the activities and aims of the workshop was delivered by Prof. Massimo Nespolo, Chair of MaThCryst.

In a written welcome statement, Profs. Rene Felix and Ma. Antoinette De Las Peñas, chairpersons of the Local

Prof. Nespolo welcomes delegates.

Organizing Committee, stated they “hope that through this workshop, greater dialogue and collaboration will be achieved within the community of researchers and practitioners from various fields that employ the concepts and techniques of crystallography.”

Forum looks at HE relevance to nat’l policy Arlyn VCD Palisoc Romualdo Photo by Misael Bacani

Representative Garin responds to a question as PCW Director Verzosa looks on.

The College of Home Economics (CHE) must speak out on pending bills in Congress. This was the challenge posed by CHE alumna and Philippine Commission on Women Director Emmeline L. Verzosa in a forum held during the 90th anniversary of HE as a discipline in UP last November 11.

The discussion, which also featured Dr. Janette L. Garin, Representative of the 1st district of Iloilo, focused on the significance of home economics to national government policies. Garin talked about how laws are

Balitang Unyon

made, while Verzosa gave the advocate’s view on the process of lawmaking.

Garin explained how a bill goes from filing, to three readings, to the Senate, and finally to the President of the Philippines.

“It’s a highly complicated and highly political process,” she stated. In her experience at the Lower House of Congress, some members try to stall the progress of “controversial” bills with delaying tactics such as going through the proposed measure line by line and paragraph by paragraph, and even going into debates on why a certain word is

(Mula pahina 3)

sa iba pang pampublikong ospital bukod sa PGH para sa pagbayad sa gastos ng mga kawani na na-confine. Sinabi ni HRDO Director Escoto na may ganito na ring mga rekomendasyon galing sa UP Diliman pero kailangan pa ng pag-apruba ng BOR. Binigyang-pansin din ng unyon na maliban sa UP Manila at UPLB, walang union representation sa mga komite para sa FAPHE sa ibang mga constituent universities. Hiniling ng panel ng unyon na maiwasto ito dahil malinaw sa CNA ang union representation sa mga komite kaugnay ng kagalingan ng mga kawani.

Nakasalang pa rin ang pagkakaroon ng Performance Monitoring System o PMS. Hindi pa rin ipatutupad ang controversial na OPES para sa susunod na evaluation

period at gagamitin pa ang dating PES. Gayunpaman, kailangang maupuan na ang pagbabalangkas ng bagong PMS na akma sa katangian ng mga gawain ng mga kawani ng UP at makakatulong din sa pagbabalangkas ng mga programang makapagpapaunlad pa sa mga kasanayan at kaalaman ng mga kawani.

Habang naka-agenda ang usapin ng hazard pay, nilinaw ni VP Amante na sa kasalukuyan ang coverage lang nito ay ang mga nagtatrabaho sa PGH, UP Manila, at mga infirmary at clinics ng UP dahil sa pag-alis ng hazard pay ng lahat ng mga pampublikong kawani noong panahon ni Fidel Ramos. Napagkaisahan na kailangan mas mapag-aralan ano ang iba pang mga maituturing na (Sundan sa pahina 11)

Indigenized research proposed versus Western research hegemony Jerry Bangcawayan and Jonardine Briones, Ti Similla

UP Baguio’s Program for Indigenous Cultures (PIC) has launched a year-long series of seminar-workshops focusing on indigenous peoples (IP) studies. The series will hold lecture-discussions on indigenous research methodologies, frameworks, and perspectives; share completed or ongoing researches centering on indigenous peoples; and provide a cultivating venue for students to be more exposed to IP studies, especially those interested in doing IP studies themselves.

Dr. Narcisa Canilao, chair of the Department of History and Philosophy of the College of Social Sciences, commenced the series of lectures with her talk on “Indigenous Research Methodologies and Frameworks” last September 19 at the PIC office before students of the university, and members of the PIC committee.

Canilao highlighted the relevance of learning, developing, and applying indigenous research methodologies and frameworks. She scored the long-standing dominance of Western theories and methodologies in the academe. Western theories and methodologies have for a long time been treated as the mainstream or inappropriate and should be changed.

“Less controversial bills are easier to pass,” she declared. These bills would be those that call for the renaming roads, for example, or those that call for the restructuring of government schools. She advised those who want to amend or to have certain laws passed to “choose a legislator who believes in the proposal and who will defend it without question” and to “submit proposals to members of the House of Representatives as soon as Congress opens” because the process of legislation takes years. Submitting a proposal too late will result in the proposal being shelved.

It will then need to be re-filed in the next Congress.

Verzosa, on the other hand, said that a good strategy in lobbying for the passage of bills into law involves policy analysis, political mapping, and a communication plan. A good advocate or lobbyist is one who is armed with information— information that is backed by sound research from the academe—and one who studies the political players involved—their positions, their power and influence as well as their commitment to the measure being proposed.

Advocates usually conduct various activities to show and gather support for bills—fora with experts, exhibits, dialogues with the public and rallies, where they also invite members of the media; give away memorabilia like pins, buttons and shirts; and feature personalities who also support the bills.

The relevance of home economics to society is unquestioned but needs to be highlighted further. There are pending bills where CHE, in particular, can make its presence felt, according to Verzosa.

She explained further that the college can release position papers or lend its expertise on nutrition labeling, food safety, calorie count display, food price posting, school health and nutrition, free public pre-school education, socialized and low-cost housing loan restructuring, toy gun safety, welfare of workers in the informal economy, amendments to the family code, antiprostitution, anti-sexual harassment and anti-rape, and reproductive health.

Home economics, as defined by the CHE, “is the study of families and the management of resources available to

conventional tools of discourse, research, and analysis in the academe. Western thinking, therefore, has had a stable base of power in the academe. Dr. Canilao called for an indigenized rather than Western focus in research.

The overly-universalizing view of Western thinking imbued with such aggrandized concepts of modernity as positivism and empiricism has pushed to the sidelines other modes of thinking indigenous to other parts of the world, on the assumption that the structure, propositions, and aims of non-Western cognitive modalities are insufficient in contributing to the generation of an objective truth, a non-relative and frontward epistemological direction of knowing, and the achievement of an encompassing state of knowledge system which could apply to any people irrespective of creed or ethnicity.

Canilao’s lecture was specifically pertinent to young students born at a time when the general structure of Philippine society has been permeated with the ideals and ideas of the colonial powers.

These students readily acquire and process forms of knowledge heavily influenced by Western reasoning.

Predicaments on the fragility of nationalism and the never-ending questions on the authenticity of Filipino identity arise from this gridlocked position. Canilao thus called on the students to engender studies rooted in their indigenous identity.

She encouraged them to seek forms of knowledge traditionally scorned by Western dogmas for being unsound or unscientific but which are actually representative of their history, their indigenous culture/s, and the bequests of the very people from which they have sprung.

This aim can be understood as pedagogical redemption, for while such studies are seen as unnecessary and irrelevant in Western eyes, these are actually the kind of studies which could spur more relevant understanding of local and global issues. Indigenous identity that has been hitherto swept aside can be thus awakened, and a stable and unambiguous consciousness shielded from Western ideological enslavement established.

As examples of growing theoretical and methodological trends which are alternatives to Western-dominated research, efforts to revive and re-learn languages which have been annihilated by colonialism have been done in linguistics; “history from below” and “ethnographies from below/communityled ethnographies” which give voice to and empower marginalized peoples have been developed in History and Anthropology; indigenous philosophies/metaphysics have been explored in Philosophy; and multi/interdisciplinary studies have been conducted in documenting and analyzing Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS).

These academic developments are starting points in ending Western academic imperialism. In the long run, the inaccuracies of a monocentric academic standpoint can be corrected and the contributions of other forms of knowledge recognized, said Canilao. them for the satisfaction of the basic needs in changing environments. It seeks to understand the multi-dimensionality of daily living, in the context of the home, workplace and community by drawing from a range of disciplines (science, arts and humanities) and integrating its specialized areas within a home economics core.”

DECEMBER 2011

U.P. Newsletter 11

Centennial lectures present two views of 1987 Constitution Celeste Ann Castillo Llaneta

The 1987 Philippine Constitution— from a historical perspective and from the perspective of text and metanarratives— was the focus of the eighth and ninth UP Law Centennial Lectures, delivered by a former dean of the UP College of Law, and a former Solicitor General and Minister of Justice, respectively.

“The text of our present Constitution, regardless of where it came from, can accommodate the aspirations of our

Balitang Unyon

(Mula pahina 10)

they are the product of individual decisions made socially and culturally, whose choices are limited by their present political reality.

Hence lawyers must go beyond the doctrine provided by the law.

Leonen also described the ways the law may be interpreted and the fallacies of interpretation that may come into play when discerning the meaning of the law. Interpreting the law based on history will also bring a certain amount of ambiguity, given the concept of the post-colonial and cultural imperialism.

However, the Constitution’s provisions, and its concepts of “people,” “indigenous identity,” ”ethnicity,” “Muslim Mindanao” and so on recognizes the possibility of different people, not just of one dominant culture. “The Constitution works best at its margins,” Leonen concluded. “’Never again, President Marcos!’

This seems to be the primary, dominant mission of the Constitutional Commission in drafting the 1987 Constitution,” said Former Solicitor General, former Minister of Justice, head of the Estelito P. Mendoza and Associates law firm and distinguished UP Law alumnus Atty. Estelito P. Mendoza.

Atty. Mendoza spoke on “The 1987 Constitution: A Marcos Legacy?” during the ninth UP Law Centennial Lecture held on November 22.

Working seemingly with the image of

Photos by Bong Arboleda

hazardous na gawain labas ng mga ospital at health clinics tulad halimbawa ng mga forest guards ng UPLB. Naihapag din ito sa UMMC ng All UP Academic Employees Union at UP Administration kaugnay ng mga faculty at REPS na nasa mga laboratoryo at mga faculty at staff ng UPD College of Human Kinetics. Ang usapin ay hindi lamang hazard pay kundi ano ang mga hakbang na kailangang gawin ng unibersidad para mabawasan o tuwirang maalis ang mga kondisyong mapanganib sa kalusugan at buhay ng mga kawani.

Wala pa ring implementing guidelines para sa ating 10-days service recognition pay. Matatandaan na inaprubahan ito in principle sa pulong ng BOR noong Abril 1, 2011—ang huling pulong ng ating unang Staff Regent. Ayon sa UP panel inaantay pa ang tugon ng UP Cebu, UP Mindanao at UP PGH kaugnay ng pondo para rito.

Patuloy na tinatanganan ng unyon na ang pagpapatupad nito ay retroactive sa April 1, 2011 at hindi bababa sa 10 days bawat taon ng serbisyo.

Nagwakas ang pulong sa pagkakaroon ng pagkakaisa na magbuo ng dalawang technical working groups—isa para sa pag-review ng grievance procedure para sa mga kawani at isang technical working group na joint sa All-UP Academic Employees Union para sa mga usapin ng hazard pay and hazardous work, FAPHE at health insurance. Isa naming Task Force para sa Performance Management System ang kagyat na buuin para makapaghapag ng rekomendasyon para sa isang bagong PMS. Inaasahang mabuo at makapagpulong na ang mga TWGs at TF ngayong Nobyembre para muling makapagpulong ang UMCB sa katapusan ng Enero 2012.

Nagwakas ang pulong sa pagkilala at pasasalamat kay UP Manila Vice-Chancellor for Administration Orlino Talens na naging bahagi ng Administration panel sa nakaraang anim na taon. Nagtapos ang panunungkulan ni Dr. Talens bilang Vice-Chancellor nitong Oktubre 31, 2011.

Ulat hinggil sa ikalawang pagpupulong ng Union-Management and Monitoring Committee (UMMC) na binubuo ng Administrasyon ng UP at All-UP Academic Employees Union) Naganap ang ikalawang pagpupulong ng Union Management and Monitoring Committee (UMMC) sa ilalim ng pamunuan ni Pangulong Alfredo E. Pascual sa BOR Boardroom sa UP Diliman nitong nakaraang Nobyembre 18. Ang pangunahing mandato ng UMMC ay matiyak ang pagpapatupad ng mga probisyon ng Collective Negotiation Agreement (CNA) sa pagitan ng UP Administration at ng All-UP Academic Employees Union. Regular na magpupulong ang komiteng ito na binubuo ng tatlong kinatawan mula sa panig ng unyon at administrasyon.

Dalawang pangunahing paksa ang napag-usapan sa huling pulong ng UMMC. Nakatuon ang una sa opisyal na pagkilala sa union time privilege ng mga pambansa at

indigenous peoples and can lay the basis for fundamental solutions to the Moro question, provided that we are conscious of the reason why we read the Constitution in a particular way, and even more aware about whether we succumb simply to the inertia of a given metanarrative.”

This was emphasized by Prof. Marvic MVF Leonen, for mer Dean of the UP College of Law and the Philippine Government’s Chief Negotiator with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Prof. Leonen was lecturer during the eighth UP Law Centennial Lecture held on November 15 at the Malcolm Theater on the theme, “The Constitution at Its Margin: Postcolonial Issues and the Flexibilities of Legal Metanarratives.”

Leonen also made a sub-claim—that “there can be no permanent reading of the Constitution”—and described the Constitution as fundamental simply because it is necessary. Stripped of their historical background and the stories behind their creation, the laws of the land are human creations represented by words, which contain certain meanings, ideas, values and representations that arise from the context in which the laws are being applied, and which may no longer be relevant to the present situation.

In addition, laws do not depend on either morals or justice for their existence—

Prof. Leonen and Atty. Mendoza deliver their lectures at the Malcolm Theater.

lokal na opisyales ng unyon at ang ikalawa naman ay ang pangkalahatang kasunduang naabot hinggil sa implementasyon ng isang standard grievance procedure para sa mga faculty at REPS. Batay sa nakaraang mga karanasan ng mga constituent university (CU) sa pagimplementa ng mga probisyon ng CNA hinggil sa official union time privilege, napagkasunduan na ang mga opisyal ng unyon na faculty na nagtuturo ng mas mababa sa minumum na load na labindalawang yunit ay hindi ituturing na underloaded kapag nasasakop ang naiwan na bilang ng mga yunit ng nakasaad sa CNA na nakalaan sa kanila bilang mga opisyal ng unyon. May karapatan pa ring tumanggap ang mga opisyal ng unyon ng overload pay kapag hindi nila pinakinabangan ang kanilang official time privilege at ang kanilang aktwal na load ng mga tinuturong sabjek ay mahigit sa minimum.

Ngunit hindi maisasama sa pagkwenta ng kanilang overload pay ang bilang ng mga yunit ng nakalaan sa kanilang official time.

Ang mga komputasyon ng loading ay para sa bawat semestre. Sa kabilang banda, ang official time na nakalaan para sa mga opisyal ng unyon na REPS ay kakalkulahin batay sa bilang ng oras bawat buwan sang-ayon sa nakasaad sa CNA para sa bawat posisyon sa unyon. Upang matiyak na mabisang matutugunan ng mga REPS na opisyal ng unyon ang kanilang mga tungkulin, napagkasunduan din na itutugma ang kanilang mga performance target sa bawat semestre sa nakalaan sa kanilang official time.

May pangkalahatang pagkakasundo na naabot ang unyon at ang panel ng UP administration hinggil sa detalye at implementasyon ng isang standard g r i e va n c e p r o c e d u r e. L ay u n i n n g mungkahing procedure ang pagresolba ng mga hinaing at reklamo sa pinakamabilis at pinakamakatarungang paraan upang mapangalagaan ang interes ng indibidwal a t n g ko mu n i d a d n g Pa m a n t a s a n .

Sinasaklaw nito ang mga isyung ekonomik at di-ekonomik, mg a kondisyon sa

Marcos prominently in their minds, the members of the Constitutional Commission drafted a new Constitution that deviated from the 1973 Constitution, exorcising the specter of Marcos completely. The result is a Constitution that reduced the powers of the president as Commander in Chief, particularly in terms of the conditions for the declaration of martial law and the time limit for the suspension of habeas corpus.

The Constitution also broadened the powers of the judiciary as the ultimate checking power, to the point where, Mendoza remarked, “the judiciar y, particularly the Supreme Court, has become the ombudsman of the entire government, and may end up “inflicting wounds on itself.” The Constitution also reduced the power of the legislature, and even granted the Supreme Court the power to declare laws unconstitutional—thus dismantling various laws, the enactment of which is the main purpose of the legislature.

Unfortunately, the Constitution failed to grant the judiciary a high degree of independence from the influence of politics, due to its provisions on the appointments of justices. In the end, Mendoza said, “the Supreme Court must draw its strength from the support of the people,” and this depends on the perception of the Court as independent and impartial, and able to displease justice expeditiously.

However, the Supreme Court tends to drag its heels when it comes to deciding cases, which is an “unpardonable” situation, according to Mendoza, who exhorted the faculty, researchers and students of the UP College of Law to look into the problem.

F a c u l t y, a l u m n i , students and officials from the UP College of Law and from other UP u n i t s, i n c l u d i n g C o n g.

Rufus Rodriguez and UP President Alfredo Pascual, attended the Centennial Lectures. In both lectures, U P L aw D e a n D a n i l o L. Concepcion gave the welcome remarks. UP Law College Secretar y Prof.

Ma. Gisella N. DizonReyes was emcee. paggawa, arbitraryong ehersisyo ng mga prerogatibong pang-administrasyon at mga tanong kaugnay ng pagpapatupad at interpretasyon ng mga alituntunin sa tenure na inaprubahan na ng mga partikular na pang-akademikong yunit.

Pangatlo, nirekomenda ng UMMC ang rebyu ng mga guideline ng Financial Assistance Program for Hospitalization Expenses (FAPHE) upang maiangkop ito sa mga konkretong karanasan at pangkasalukuyang kaalamang medikal.

Magbubuo rin ng Committe e on Health and Safety na may mga kinatawan ng unyon upang matalakay at magbuo ng mga rekomendasyon hing gil sa pagiwas at pagsasaayos ng mga hazardous o peligrosong lugar na paggawa.

Ang mg a napagkaisahang ito ay maipaabot ng mga myembro ng UMMC sa kani-kanilang mga principal (President Pascual sa panig ng administrasyon at sa National Executive Board sa panig ng Unyon) at pormal na mapagkasunduan at maipalaganap sa kagyat na panahon.

12

U.P. Newsletter

DECEMBER 2011

Photo courtesy of Suyin Chua

PHL Cheerdance Team wins 3rd place

Members of the UP Pep Squad-Philippine Team do a jump shot during a break in the Hong Kong competitions.

Team Philippines bagged the 3rd prize in the Cheerleading Mixed category of the 6th Cheerleading World Championships in Hong Kong. Japan finished first, followed by Thailand.

Held November 26 and 27 at the Hong Kong Coliseum, the competition also included teams from the United Kingdom, Poland, Germany, Greece, Slovenia, Russia, Ecuador, Peru, China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Singapore and Indonesia.

The Philippine contingent, although primarily composed of cheer dancers from the UP Pep Squad, was a mixed group with some members from the Centro Escolar University, and the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.

This was the contingent’s first time to formally join the competition after its inability to participate in 2009 due to lack of funding.

‘Heckling’ at the Clinton forum fires up debates online (Continued from page 5) muna? hehehe...wew...grow up fellas!”

Commenters who asked questions on the validity of the VFA and MDT were flooded by comments in dummy accounts that would rather discuss the de/merits of activism, rather than the VFA and the MDT. According to Anton Dulce, another commenter, these “r ude” for ms of protest are “nor mal” in “Western” countries. Pertaining to UP/activistbashing commenters disappointed by Tucay’s heckling , Dulce said, “sabi ni Hillary, ok lang. pero sa kanila, hindi. ang talagang nakakahiya yung mga OA.” He also added, “‘sock puppets’ ang tawag jan. gumagawa ang isang ‘operator’ ng multiple accounts para maimpluwensyahan ang talakayan sa online.”

The debate between those who lauded and those who criticized Tucay paved the way for another series of debates and exchanges on the role of journalists, during which Severino was roundly criticized.

On Howie Severino

Escandor’s “Reflections on Heckling,” with 244 ‘likes’ and 139 ‘shares’ as of press time, posted on November 18, triggered the debate on the profession of journalism.

In a comment, Severino thanked Escandor for opening the discussion and said, “if other ‘journalists’ use those occasions not to gain information but instead push a political agenda or be disruptive it creates a cloud of doubt about the motivations of other professionals.”

Commenters engaged Severino in the comments section of the note. Isabelle Ana and Karl Castro respectively asked “wasn’t the forum being conducted another way of pushing a political agenda?” and “Are journalists not people, not citizens as well?” This led to a lengthy exchange of takes on the issue of alternative media and activist journalism versus the socalled “objective” journalism.

In the same thread, Vencer Crisostomo said, “Without the renegade radical journalist, event would’ve been what it was organized to be: a Hilary fans club

Aside from the spot on the Cheerleading Mixed category, Team Philippines also landed 5th in Cheerdance category and 5th in the Cheerleading All Female category.

Accompanying UP Art Studies Professor Eloi Hernandez, who livetweeted from her Twitter account, said that she was “proud of our UP Pep kids. I know they did their absolute best. We’re happy.” Prior to the competition, Hernandez and UP Business Administration Professor Grace Gregorio launched a donations campaign for exercise mats which can be used in the practices of the cheer team.

In an inter view with the UP Newsletter prior to their departure for the competition in Hong Kong, Coach Lalaine Pereña said “Win or lose, we want to represent our country well…

we did the best we could, and competed fairly.”

Team Philippines’ win would be another feather on the UP Pep Squad’s cap this year, which finished as champions in the 2011 UAAP Cheerdance Competition last September. The UAAP Cheerdance win was the seventh time the squad has grabbed the title after winning in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2007, 2008 and 2010.

The Pep Squad has also represented the country on several occasions. In 2002, some of its members performed at the Asian Games in Busan, South Korea. While in 2008, several members also competed in the Cheerleading Asia International Open in Tokyo, Japan.

The squad also competed in the 2009 Cheerleading Asia International Open in Tokyo, landing 3 rd place in the international category. ((KIM Quilinguing with reports from Andre Encarnacion and

International scholarship for PhD students Students seeking a PhD in rice or wheat plant breeding may apply for the Beachell-Borlaug International Scholars Program (MBBISP).

Monsanto Company established this scholarship program in 2009 in honor of two of the world’s most pre-eminent rice and wheat breeders: Drs. Henry Beachell and Norman Borlaug. According to Monsanto, Beachell and Borlaug’s lifelong work “laid the foundation for the tremendous increases in rice and wheat production that continue to help feed the world today.”

Administered by Texas Ag riLife Research (an agency of the Texas A&M University System), the MBBISP provides a “full package of support.” This includes

stipend, tuition, applicable fees, health insurance, research and travel fees, as well as funds for the collaborating institution and advising professor.

The MBBISP requires its scholars to complete part of the research or course work for the PhD in a developing country and also in a Western country (which includes Australia, Canada, USA or Western Europe).

Interested applicants may visit http:// www.monsanto.com/mbbischolars for the requirements and other details.

Deadline for applications is on February 1, 2012. For more information, please call Charina Ocampo, corporate affairs lead of Monsanto, at (+632 ) 809-4848.

general assembly. The truly ‘objective’ and truthful journalist should thank Marjo Tucay for bringing forth the reality that was being suppressed by corporate media.”

Among the commenters that engaged Severino and lauded Tucay were Kenneth Guda and Prof. Sarah Raymundo. Guda said in a comment that “Collegian editors and writers form part of that tradition, not just of ‘shouting in the middle of a forum,’ but of activist journalism. Ditto Sarmiento was a campus journalist, and he made famous the quote ‘kung hindi tayo kikilos, sino ang kikilos. kung hindi ngayon, kailan pa.’”

On the same thread, Raymundo said, “The weight of symbolic violence in Severino’s statement is unacceptable and distasteful. Yet it is a good example of how practitioners are in fact oblivious of the kind of violence they inflict via claims to their field’s unquestioned assumptions. I’ll be sure to use it time and again in my classes as the best counter-example of the practice of ethics in this age of necropolitics. I suppose none of that sounds familiar to Mr. Severino. And that is why people like him get a lot of air time.” Raymundo’s note (https:// www.facebook.com/notes/sarahraymundo/of-g atekeepers-andyoung-turks/10150389529094825) on the issue entitled “Of Gatekeepers and Young Turks” was later published in the Philippine Collegian. Severino later deleted most of his comments, but it was saved in a screenshot (http://2. bp.blogspot.com/-AUO75pEWleA/ Pagtingin sa nakaraan. / Sa ilalim ng mga puno sa Diliman. / Pagmumuni sa mga kalungkutan, TshU4gW5LOI/AAAAAAAAAqw/ kasiyahan, /At mga pagkakataong lumisan. / Kuha ni E. San Juan, Marso 2011, UP Diliman. s9QhBI_LXb8/s1600/howiemarjo%2Blayout%2Bcopy.jpg).

Prof. Luis Teodoro, former dean to Tucay’s “heckling.” He said that being asked th e hard questions that of the UP Diliman College of Mass “their idea of ‘objective’ journalism is to journalists not only can ask, but should Communication and a columnist of Business stage and script what could have been a be asking.” Teodoro’s note, which had, World, also wrote a note, titled “Their kind meaningful interview by planting in the as of press time, 196 ‘likes’ and 275 World of ‘Journalism’” (https://www.facebook. audience brain-dead actors and actresses ‘shares’ was later published in the website com/notes/luis-v-teodoro/their-kind- charged with asking the most asinine of the Center for Media Freedom and of-journalism/10150388234686267) as questions ever asked of anyone, in a too Responsibility. (See article on page 5 for the regards Severino’s interview and reactions obvious attempt to shield Clinton from full text of Teodoro’s note.)

Buhay UP

U.P. NEWSLETTER PROF. DANILO ARAÑA ARAO Editor-in-Chief JO. FLORENDO B. LONTOC Managing Editor LLANETA, JO. FLORENDO B. LONTOC, KIM QUILINGUING, ARLYN VCD P. ROMUALDO Writers OBET EUGENIO Editorial Assistant TOM MAGLAYA Circulation

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The U.P. NEWSLETTER is a monthly publication of the UP System Information Office, Office of the Vice-President for Public Affairs. We welcome contributions from the faculty, non-academic staff, REPS and students. Please send your contributions to: THE EDITOR U.P. Newsletter ewsletter Mezzanine Floor, Quezon Hall, UP Diliman, Quezon City 926-1572, 436-7537 e-mail: upnewsletter@up.edu.ph upsio@up.edu.ph