Hippie Colors

I was fiddling around with my cell phone and realized that there was a way for me to store a total of 250 contacts each in 3 phonebooks instead of squeezing in 250 contacts in one phonebook. I’m always at 250 so every once in a while I’ve had to delete names and record them in my written directory. Imagine, the phone has been with me for years and it’s only now that I discover that it was more potent than I had realized.

I remember when the 128 sim came out, I was excited and went to the Globe center to have my sim changed, only to find out after it had already been changed that I had a 128 sim card all along. The people at Globe were not nice enough (or nice enough) to tell me that I was wasting money.

This is par for the course for me. Sablay talaga.

Anyway, those who know how ancient my phone is will be happy to know that I am changing to something less ancient, now that Globe has this promo where they give away cellphones to loyal subscribers. I know nothing of the new phone except that it has a radio and a camera but I figured it will be more advanced than the dinosaur I have now.

I’ve always been someone who invests quite a lot emotionally when watching basketball and my father used to tease me a lot about it. I sometimes cried when Toyota lost and my brother got mad at me once for making so much noise while watching a Ginebra game on TV.

Nowadays, it’s the Utah Jazz that affect me and this season has been a roller coaster ride. An improbable 12-1 start making me wonder if that was for real after missing the playoffs last year. Improbable wins against strong teams like Dallas and Phoenix and equally improbable losses against weaker teams. A series of 4 game losing streaks and a regular season debacle toward the end that landed them in 5th spot instead of 4th. A 0-2 start in the playoffs, being written off when they were down 2-3 and look at them now, 2-0 against Golden State in a series that was nowhere near what was expected by pundits. Even Game 2 was a roller-coaster in itself. Down 5 with a minute to go and I was already prepared to be disappointed. And then the improbable happened and all shots were made and 3 out of 4 free throws were missed on the other side. If you want to know my mood, check the internet for the state of the Utah Jazz. I can’t help it.

I’ve been a Jazz fan since the Stockton era because they play good basic basketball. Nothing fancy. No Carmelo Anthony or Kobe Bryant or Gilbert Arenas or Steve Nash or Nowitzki. Very rarely do they make the Top 5 plays of the week except for some assist or other. They just play good team basketball. I’m a fan too because noone pays any attention to them. When they were 12-1, pundits were calling it a fluke. When they were losing a lot toward season’s end, everyone was saying I told you so. And everyone picked Houston over Utah.

Fancy is overrated. The game after all is basketball and the winner won’t be the team with the stars but the team which plays the best basketball.

Elections are coming soon and here’s a list of senatoriables I will vote for. This initial listing is based on party affiliations. I’ll deal with individuals later:

For whatever it’s worth, I’m voting for the three candidates of Ang Kapatiran. Martin Bautista, Adrian Sison and Zosimo Parades. If you want principled politics, these three are the way to go. They may not win (even if Bautista is number 29) but better to waste my votes on them than waste my votes on the others.

Then I’m voting for the two candidates of the Liberal Party: Noynoy Aquino and Francis Pangilinan. The Liberal Party is probably the most principled of all the mainstream parties.

And finally, I’m voting for Sonia Roco of Aksyon Demokratiko (currently 15th in SWS).

I don’t know who else I will vote for but I’m clear on who I am not voting for:

• John Osmena for his consistent stand against agrarian reform.
• Ed Angara. Ed Angara and principled politics?
• Joker Arroyo for not being brave and for saying recently he doesn’t think that agrarian reform should be extended
• Tito Sotto and Tessie Aquino-Oreta, for obvious reasons
• Honasan and Trillanes for resorting to extra-constitutional means
• Pichay and Zubiri for calling for the abolition of the Senate while they were in the House
• Cesar Montano and Richard Gomez
• Chavit and Magsaysay? Hindi pang Senado.
• In general, I am not inclined to vote for anyone in the administration ticket. So bye-bye Recto and Defensor.

Some of the others are not even worth mentioning.

So that leaves me with Villar, Legarda, Lacson, Escudero, Cayetano, Pimentel, Coseteng. I have nothing against Cayetano and Pimentel for being related to sitting Senators. Pimentel, especially who is competent on his own. If you want to talk about dynasties, pag-usapan na lang natin si Gloria, Mikey, Dato and Iggy. Now that’s a dynasty.

Good luck to us all. Let’s also not forget the local elections. Danton Remoto is running for 3rd district of Quezon City. Let’s support him!

Last night, I was showing my three-year old daughter my photo album which covers everything from baptism until college. I’d tell her stories about each picture and she listened attentively while pointing out Baby Papa every once in a while.

As I was going through my pictures through to elementary, my daughter saw a picture of her lolo and she said, "There’s lolo" and I realized that my father had very few pictures in the album because he was always the one taking the pictures (He was very protective of his camera :-).

I realized that what I had in my hands were pictures of me and my family through my father’s eyes, that the pictures, which rarely showed my father included a father who was very much part of the entire scene except that he was behind the camera.

My father died shortly after I graduated and in the midst of many challenges I face today, I find it consoling that my father, whom I loved dearly and who always was the epitome of God’s love for me, is probably still looking at me from somewhere in the great beyond.

There are some days when I feel like I want to lock the world out and this is one of them. A student of mine didn’t get an award I thought she clearly deserved. Hindi na ako natutong maging manhid sa mga bagay na ito. Anytime there is a board of judges, expect the unexpected.

And a friend of mine whom I hadn’t seen for 14 years shows up (and I thought he was a Godsend to cheer me up) but after a while, he said his wife was selling some sort of investment plan and started making arrangements to see me again. He gave me his card and after he left, I threw it away. Mabuti pa yung mga tumatawag sa opisina para bentahan ako ng credit card, puwede ko pang babaan ng phone o yung mga naglalako ng credit card sa mall, puwede mong tanggihan. Pero para gamitin ang pakikipagkaibigan para makapaglako ng investment fund, oh man.

I watched the launch of Pinoy Big Brother last weekend and was amused to find that 2 out of the 6 contestants were Fil-something. One was a Filipino raised in Australia and another one is a Filipino based in Switzerland who speaks German. And of course, who can forget Sam Milby from the first season?

A cursory look at the Philippine National team (basketball of course. also shows the same phenomenon. Caguioa, Helterbrand, Menk, Taulava, etc. etc. Fil- representing the Philippines.

Now we are feeling the effects of out-migration. All these offspring of migrants are coming back and making a name for themselves in the land of their parents.

I wonder where it all started, I mean the projection of these Fil- Filipinos in local media? Of course there are the Filipino-Chinese but they’ve been around for some time. The earliest I can recall is the Fil- in the PBA. Of course that was for economic reasons (Sometimes I wonder why bother with a Reinforced Conference with imports?) But then again, the Fil- phenomenon in showbiz including Pinoy Big Brother is no less for economic reasons. Ay talaga nga naman, popular culture can be so contrived.

All this of course raises questions of identity. Who is the Filipino?, especially when the Philippine National Team is composed of Fil-. It also raises the spectre of new hierarchies, which no matter the innocent protestations to the contrary, will inevitably be created.

The presence of the Fil- in Pinoy Big Brother makes the song of Orange and Lemons even more relevant Just imagine the Fil-Australian and the Fil-Swiss singing along with the homegrown Pinoys, "Pinoy Ako, Pinoy Tayo". 

I’ve been reading old issues of The Guidon and ran across an entire series of articles on the Filipinization movement which seemed to be accelerated by the publication of "Down From the Hill" (Aside: funny how the Filipinization movement was accelerated by an article written in English). Filipinization, of course, meant many things. Teaching courses in Filipino, teaching Filipino, teaching about the Philippines and things relevant to the Philippines, a school run by Filipinos and not Americans, among other things.

I ended up thinking to myself that it is more difficult to think about Filipinization in this day and age of cultural globalization. When I go home every night I look forward to watching shows churned out by Hollywood. Amazing Race on Mondays, Desperate Housewives on Tuesdays, American Idol and Grey’s Anatomy on Wednesdays, Grey’s Anatomy again on Thursdays. During the day, I track the score of the Utah Jazz when they are playing and read up on articles about them on the Salt Lake Tribune.

I remember when I was in grade school, before the internet and cable tv, I’d watch the noontime shows (Student Canteen and Eat Bulaga) and it was only on Saturday mornings when I’d get to watch Saturday fun machine with foreign cartoons and during the evenings when there were Hollywood tv shows. I remember having nothing else to watch in the middle of the day except old movies from Sampaguita pictures (whose themes kept repeating themselves) and in the early afternoon Flordeluna and Annaliza.

There’s an old saying that we are what we eat and I guess it applies to what we watch. I won’t be a hypocrite and say I’ll stop watching what Hollywood churns out and only watch what the Philippines produces (I couldn’t imagine myself doing that anymore). They’ve got my hooked since I could remember the shows I watched like CHIPS, Hawaii Five-O, Mission Impossible, and that old soldier show with Vic Morrow. I guess, nowadays, now more than ever, our tastes are decidely cosmopolitan, i.e. American. Don’t they also say that Hollywood is currently the sole solid basis of American hegemony?

I wonder how Montemayor (one of the authors of the "Down from the Hill" article who is still around) feels about how things are today. I wonder if he or his children and grandchildren watch the shows I watch and if their tastes are like my tastes. 

I assumed early on in my teaching stint that teaching is all about teaching. But as soon as I got started, people started pressuring me to finish my M.A. then my PhD. Then circa late 1990s, the institution incentivized publication and just so that you can survive on a teacher’s salary there are opportunities available in socsci to engage in contract research, consultancies and trainings.

A colleague of mine at the University once said, "Can’t I just teach?" to which another said upon learning of that remark, "Eh di dapat magturo na lang siya sa high school". [I have nothing against my friends who teach in High Schools, of course]

Early on, I realized that the University does not do a very good job of explaining to people like me what a position in the University is all about. A number of people like me entered just wanting to teach and ended up initially confused or resistant to all the myriad pressures they bring to bear on us.

It was late in the game when I had my awakening and it was only last week when I could put words to that awakening. A university is different from a teaching college in that it produces new knowledge and does not merely transmit knowledge. It was Fr. Joey Cruz who said something in a way I could understand; that new knowledge could also mean a new way of looking at things, a new way of proceeding, a new way of saying things and not necessarily a new discovery. 

Last week, while listening to my U.P. teacher I also realized that someone in a University must be aware of methodologies, or ways of comprehending what is true and how to comprehend that truth. In the past, we would have said that a professor produces new knowledge using the scientific method. But today, with so many approaches beyond positivism, academics can also handle knowledge using approaches that are interpretative, constructivist, post-colonial, feminist, post-positivist, post-structuralist, post-modern, etc. Nonetheless, an academic must pick one methodology (or craft a new one or use methodologies alternatively) and run with it producing paper after paper after paper.

I realize now that what truly makes an academic is not knowledge of the field per se (although obviously that is important). Knowledge of the field plus good communication skills and classroom sociability makes you a good teacher. A good academic must know the various methodologies, what could be considered the tools of the academic trade and apply them (or apply some) with great skill. That is why we study for our M.A.s and our PhDs, not so much for the content but for the tools, the mastery of which is manifested by a thesis or a dissertation.

I look around at my colleagues and realize that the people who are respected are those who demonstrate mastery of the tools as seen in their publications. Sometimes I wish though that their works weren’t just things of academic beauty but papers that move forward discussion on development (praxis, of course, is my methodological bias).

To teach is a craft learned best by experience. But to be an academic is also a craft which involves the mastery of tools available to academics.

I am temporarily reactivating my Bourdieu blog for at least a month, updating it maybe once a week. Feel free to visit http://bourdieublog.blogspot.com/. The re-entry essay is entitled Skirting Rules and Jewelry.

On another note, I am now committed to doing a paper for one of my classes on the Institute of Philippine Culture in its early years in the 1960s, studying the emergence of a social scientific research institute in the context of a humanities-dominated teaching University. As a starting point, I read parts of the book published by the Ateneo entitled: University Traditions: The Humanities Edition. The book contains transcripts of interviews (in itself a wonderful approach) with famous teachers in the Humanities (including Ferriols, Manny Dy, Roche, Beni Santos, sol Reyes and others) and for my topic, I got a lot from the interviews with Ramon Reyes and Leo Garcia of philosophy and Fr. Balchand of theology (and Fr. Bernad of literature).

It was interesting to learn that literature defined Ateneo education the way that philosophy does today. It was also interesting to learn that the students of that time took 24 units of Theology (!), 12 units of Latin for AB majors (6 units for BS majors) and took 24-27 units per semester.

It seems appropriate that the Traditions series starts with Humanities because the Humanities seemed to define Ateneo education back then (and still does to some extent now). What I also found interesting was that the social sciences were hardly mentioned. History was mentioned but back then History was considered Humanities. In the pages that I scanned, I remember that sociology was only mentioned once (in connection with Fr. Doherty) and people like Lynch of sociology and McPhelin of Economics were not mentioned at all.

Pretty soon I’ll be going over old Guidon articles circa late 50’s and early 60’s and will provide updates on other interesting tidbits I pick up.

I think it is Nietzsche who says we are all prisoners of our culture. My daughter is three and a half and I begin to see this more and more now.

I wanted to raise her in a gender-neutral way, not necessarily making her wear pink and play with dolls or kitchen sets. But it’s so hard to swim against the tide.

The difficulty became apparent early on when relatives were giving my daughter pink dresses.

Then my wife decided some time back that it was time for my daughter to go through the princess stories: Cinderella, Snow White, Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, etc. My child is enamored with Cinderella (although she identifies herself more readily with Gus, the mouse with a big tummy). Sometimes she picks up a broom, sweeps the floor and starts singing "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes". She has a princess and a prince doll and she’d make them dance to the tune of "So This is Love". Yesterday she was making her two other dolls, both females, dance to "So This is Love". At least she is still free that way. 

On a different note, I think it is stories like Cinderella that make us believe in love at first sight. Imagine, the Prince and Cinderella see each other for the first time and instantly Cinderella sings, "So This is Love". Poor children don’t know that the filmmakers just had to cut the scene short so that the movie wouldn’t be too long. (Imagine a child growing up thinking THAT is love).

I was asking my wife if there is a story with a girl who is not princessy and she was saying Pocahontas because Pocahontas does not go with John Smith in the end (Didn’t she?) But then, that doesn’t break the stereotype enough for me.

Then this Christmas, two relatives gave my child dress up dolls including a Barbie.

I’m not exactly ranting at society. I am extremely grateful to those who love my child and give her gifts. All I’m saying is that I’m seeing my daughter become gendered before my very eyes.

I’m also beginning to wonder how we all were gendered ourselves. Who were the icons of manhood and femininity during our times? What were the toys we played? What were the clothes we were made to wear?