Homework and learning are not the same thing. When students leave the classroom without homework, the potential for learning continues. Vocabulary, grammar, and ideas grow when parents and caregivers have conversations with their children. Cooking reinforces science, math, and reading skills. Eating or playing together cultivates socioemotional resilience. Homework is a poor substitute for these.

The heat around the no-homework policy will probably cool, like most reactive policies in the country. But it should be seriously considered.

Finland sets a promising example. Students in the Nordic country have little to no homework, spend shorter hours in the classroom, and have lengthy school breaks. Young Finns in the Lapland will have watched the sun not set for 6 weeks by the time their English or Welsh peers get out of school for summer break. Probably driven by the long and cold winters, Finns celebrate their summers so passionately.

And they still beat the competition. Finn students consistently rank high in science, math, and reading, according to the Program for International Student Assessment. PISA looks at student performance among rich member OECD countries and their not-so rich neighbors willing to be scrutinized. Finn students also report higher levels of life satisfaction and lower levels of school-related stress.

Those students who spend 60 or more hours on schoolwork score lower in science, math, and reading compared to those who do the same work in 40 hours, according to PISA. These include hours in and out of school.

Of course, we are no Finns. Time spent on schoolwork is a poor benchmark of overall quality of education. But a no-homework, or an alternative “less-homework” policy, could be part of a comprehensive overhaul of how we cultivate the growth and development of our kids.

Finn students do well because their environment enables doing more with less. For one, forward-looking governance means education policies are tested with time. Evidenced-based plans are stable and have a shelf life beyond electoral cycles. Finn students are doing well not only because their educational system values their future but also because it nurtures everyone else’s future.

Here in the Philippines, policies change as soon as people in positions of power change. We think writing the policy is the same as giving it a chance to work.

Another is trust in teachers. Whereas our teachers are overburdened with dubious performance checklists, robotic outcomes-based testing, and other asinine “accountability” measures, Finn teachers have greater academic freedom. This trust translates to a high-paying, high-status profession.

The low wages, limited school supplies, and poor classroom conditions for Filipino teachers mirror how little we value them. Teachers here in the country struggle, but we do not care because suffering is partly our expectation of what it means to be Filipino. We believe suffering is virtuous. And our students suffer for it – and we probably do not care about this, too.

The no-homework position is not perfect. Singapore, Japan, and Taiwan – where homework and after-school instruction, or “cram school,” are a blood sport – also rank high in the PISA proficiency tests. And as it turns out, they outrank Finland.

However, the higher ranking of our 3 Asian neighbors probably has less to do with time spent on homework. Like Finland, a supportive environment – familial, social, and structural – as well as cultural values attached to the meaning of learning are linked to why homework and after-school activities are expected – and not how much is required. 

But we are no Singaporeans, Japanese, or Taiwanese, either.

Compulsory basic education here in the country means that many of our kids do attend school. But as any stressed, sleep-deprived college student would tell you, being physically present in the classroom is not the same as learning in it. Despite our young population – nearly half of us are under 25 years old – we fail to maximize this potential. Fewer and fewer Filipinos end up in college and much fewer in postgraduate training. Many are unemployed or underemployed. 

Rankings are also an alluring substitute for student experience but belie the reality. The overwhelming number of students are not admitted into the so-called selective universities nor are they accepted into the "top performing" in exams-obsessed programs. For every student that engineers a space probe or discovers a cancer treatment in snails, millions more are just trying to make it to a classroom with a decent desk. These rankings are drawn to competitive elitism, not student learning.

New industries require new types of jobs. New competitive jobs require interdisciplinary solutions, which are natural outgrowths of innovation-capable workers – and the innovation-enabling teachers and mentors who guide them.

But our educational system is not preparing students for the future. It is shaping the next generation according to the country’s present – bureaucratic, inequitable, and stifling.

No amount of homework will remedy this skill-demand mismatch. It seems that the potential of the no-homework policy has nothing to do with homework after all. – Rappler.com

Dr Ronald Del Castillo is professor of psychology, public health, and public policy at the University of the Philippines-Manila. The views here are his own.

The Sibutu Passage is a deep channel that divides Borneo from the Sulu Archipelago. Though it has a limited width of more or less 29 kilometers, it is estimated that 17,000 vessels pass through this passage every year. 

The deep draft vessels that cannot be accommodated by the Malacca Strait pass Lombok and Makassar Straits, then cross the Celebes Sea and enter the Sibutu Passage – as vessels departing the Philippine archipelago traverse the Sulu Sea through the Mindoro Strait. This vital passage links international shipping routes, and the amount of trade can be translated into US$ 40 billion annually. Primarily, the trade volume is expected to increase tremendously in the coming years due to the emerging economies in Southeast Asia.

In 2016, the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia reported an upsurge of piracy not within the passage but in the vast seas that surround the islands of Mindanao, Sabah, East Kalimantan, and Sulawesi.

These waters became the new place of operation for the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) to carry out their hybrid kidnap-for-ransom activities. An Indonesian security minister even dubbed waters surrounding the Southern Philippines as the "next Somalia" because of these crimes. It is said that from 2016 to 2018, a total of 66 crew members were seized by pirates and the ASG executed 10 of them.

As one of the relevant agencies tasked by President Rodrigo Duterte to put a stop to piracy and the abduction of seafarers in 2017, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) crafted various memorandum circulars that could strategically prevent such activities. The two most significant are the following:

• The implementation of the Security, Safety, and Environmental Numbering System for all Philippine-registered vessels and watercraft to stringently monitor whether these boats are being used for illegal activities like kidnapping and piracy
• The establishment of the recommended transit corridor at Moro Gulf and Basilan Strait

However, it is still evident that despite the rotating presence of the two dedicated newly acquired 44-meter Multi-Role Response Vessels (MRRV) from Japan within the vicinity of the Sibutu passage, there is still a need to have a staging area for immediate response to piracy attacks. It is essential to underscore that the MRRVs deployed in the Sibutu Passage could only last 5 straight days at the most, and they need to return to Zamboanga City for refueling and reprovision. 

It is also necessary to underscore that an established staging area could be outfitted with high technology radar and communication equipment for a much more enhanced maritime domain awareness. Regrettably, the PCG had been dependent on the MRRV’s radar and Automatic Identification System (AIS) in tracking the vessels which are within its proximate vicinity. Thus, if the MRRV is patrolling the vast waters of the Sulu and Sulawesi Seas, the Sibutu Passage could be a blind spot. 

Coast Guard Base

In consideration of this, the national government allocated P485 million for the establishment of a Coast Guard Search and Rescue (CGSAR) Base in Sibutu Island in 2017. Presently, the CGSAR Base in Sibutu is already 67% completed. This 4.3-hectare base will be equipped with a Marine Radar, Automatic Identification System (AIS) Receiver, and Coast Watch Monitoring System.

Moreover, a port will also be constructed and will serve as a berthing space of the PCG vessels and fast rescue boats. It is also proactively planned to incorporate fuel storage facility at the base to ensure the operational readiness of the PCG assets.  

The support of President for the establishment of this CG base is not just limited to his desire to put an end to ASG’s source of funds to sustain its terrorist activities. Rather, he also understands that it is our country’s responsibility to ensure the safe navigation of international vessels in the Sibutu Passage.

He also comprehends the fact that if piracy went unabated, this would affect the global market since the marine insurance premiums for all transiting vessels in the Philippine waters will exponentially increase. 

It is also important to highlight that our energy requirement may be jeopardized if the Philippines failed to address piracy in the Southern Philippines.

Way back in 2016, the country had a moratorium on coal shipments from the Indonesian government after several Indonesian sailors were abducted that year. Though it was also immediately lifted, this moratorium dramatically affected the instability of the imported coal prices that caused the fluctuation of the power cost.

Remarkably, 48% of the Philippine energy mix comes from coal-fired power plants, which is the reason why coal is a necessary raw material. Should Indonesia decide to once again stop its exportation of coal to the Philippines because of the risk of abduction, we can forecast the impact of losing more than 70% of coal supply to our national grid.

Piracy and terrorism

Lastly, in the context of maritime security, the ASG remains to be the most ruthless and violent terrorist group in the Philippines that can brazenly wage terror in various means and forms.

The success of this terrorist group to make piracy and abduction of seafarers a lucrative way of getting paid by the wealthy shipowners dispels the argument that the nexus between piracy and terrorism never existed.

Whether or not ransom was used to support their fight in Marawi, the mere fact that the money they received through maritime piracy is being used to support their activities to wreak havoc and disturb peace and order, it unquestionably shows that piracy could support terrorism and terrorism perchance could be the cause of piracy.

In conclusion, the establishment of the CGSAR Base in Sibutu is a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, it serves the international obligation of the Philippines to ensure that sea trade at Sibutu is safe. On the other hand, it protects its national interest.

The flexibility of the PCG as an organization transcends its domestic role without raising concern from foreign flag vessels that the passage is being militarized. Notably, this development is even welcomed by neighboring states.

Such a gesture supports the claim that a coast guard is a tool of the state in addressing non-traditional security threats and preserving the global maritime order. – Rappler.com

Philippine Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander Euphraim Jayson Diciano grew up in Cagayan Valley and is currently station commander of the Coast Guard Station Central Tawi-Tawi. He studied at the Philippine Military Academy and would have joined the Philippine Army but was commissioned in the Philippine Coast Guard.

It’s a very bad time to be a rice farmer.

A precipitous drop in rice prices is endangering the incomes and livelihoods of more than two million Filipino rice farmers nationwide.

Many blame the Rice Tariffication Act, which President Rodrigo Duterte signed last Valentine’s Day.

The law replaced the old import quotas with tariffs, so that anyone can import rice as long as they pay the requisite tariffs or import taxes. (READ: Will rice tariffication live up to its promise?)

But more than 6 months after its implementation, some government economists were reportedly “surprised” by the magnitude of the recent price drops.

Has rice tariffication gone overboard? What can government do to help those whose boats were not buoyed up – but instead submerged – by the tide of cheap rice from abroad?

Free fall

Data confirm that rice prices are dropping like a rock.

As of mid-August the average farmgate price of palay nationwide was recorded at P17.62 per kilo.

Figure 1 shows that’s a whopping 21% drop from last year. Retail prices of regular-milled and well-milled rice, by contrast, have dropped by 10% and 7%, respectively.

There’s considerable variation in rice prices across the regions. Farmgate rice prices have reportedly plummeted to as low as P9 per kilo in Pampanga and P7 per kilo in Nueva Ecija and Bataan. Farmers fear rice prices will only drop further come next harvest season.

Figure 1.

There are many reasons behind the free fall of rice prices.

First, we’re coming from a period of unusually high rice prices. Around September last year farmgate prices were actually rising by as much as 19%. This was due largely to the near-depletion of subsidized rice, which propped up commercial rice demand and prices.

Second, the harvest season kicked in late last year, accounting for the drop of rice prices even before 2019.

Third, the Rice Tariffication Act, as expected, inundated the market with cheap rice from abroad. This is in keeping with the law’s primary goal of making rice more affordable for the vast majority of Filipinos.

Lower rice prices are especially good news for the poorest fifth of Filipino households, who consume as much as a fifth of their budgets on rice alone. (By contrast, the richest fifth of households spend only about 5% of their budgets on rice.)

Rice tariffication was also touted as a way to combat last year’s runaway inflation. Figure 2 shows that most regions are now experiencing rice deflation, with prices decreasing the most in Soccsksargen, Caraga, and Davao.

Even so, retail prices have yet to drop to P27 per kilo as initially foreseen by the economic managers. 

Figure 2.

While lower rice prices benefit rice consumers, they hurt rice producers, mostly our local farmers.

Economic managers justified rice tariffication by arguing rice-farming households are, in fact, “net purchasers” or “net consumers” of rice. Simply put, they consume more rice than they produce. Hence, lower rice prices should benefit them in the end.

But Figure 1 shows farmgate prices are dropping 2 to 3 times faster than retail rice prices. For anyone whose income is pegged to farmgate prices, this is a recipe for disaster.

Even without rice tariffication, farmers are already among our most economically vulnerable workers.

A friend who teaches in Nueva Ecija told me some rice-farming families have already stopped sending their kids to school on account of depressed rice prices.

Coping mechanisms

Government officials are now scrambling to ameliorate the impact of rice tariffication on our farmers. But will their proposals work?

1) Rice fund

In anticipation of the hurt it will cause local rice farmers, the Rice Tariffication Act provided for a P10-billion fund called the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF).

Financed from the tariff revenues, RCEF is to be earmarked for machinery, seeds, and interest-free loans that will help our farmers stand on their own feet once we’re flooded with cheap rice imports.

But in a recent Senate hearing, Senator Cynthia Villar expressed dismay at how RCEF has been handled thus far by the budget and agriculture departments.

Apart from budget issues, some experts also doubt if spending on machinery and seeds is best for improving the competitiveness of our farmers, vis-à-vis credit and insurance. Dr Ramon Clarete of the UP School of Economics suggests using conditional cash transfers.

Past agricultural funds were also corruption-prone (think of the P728-million fertilizer fund scam). Just how corruption-proof is RCEF?

2) Price support

Various forms of price support are also on the table, with varying levels of feasibility.

First, some say government can boost the incomes of embattled farmers by aggressively buying palay at subsidized prices.

After all, the National Food Authority (NFA), which previously monopolized rice importation, is still around. In fact, the NFA is mandated by the Rice Tariffication Act to “maintain sufficient rice buffer stock. 

But some say that the RCEF – which aims to develop farmers’ competitiveness – is far superior compared to simply handing out money to farmers.

Some farmers are also clamoring for a price floor on rice, or a minimum price by which rice must be bought from them. They suggested that it be set at P10-P12 per kilo to match current production costs.

When such price floor kicks in, Econ 101 tells us government will have to contend with perennial rice surpluses as artificially high prices induce farmers to produce more than consumers will buy.

Farmers can always dispose of these surpluses by selling them in the black market at prices lower than the price floor.

Unless government can commit to always buy such surpluses, it will be very hard to enforce and sustain such a price floor.

3) Prohibitive tariffs

Finally, Senator Imee Marcos suggested that government raise tariffs against ASEAN or non-ASEAN countries.

She said, “If South Korea and Japan have imposed import tariffs of 500% to 800% to protect their local farmers, why can’t we?”

But such prohibitive tariffs will, by themselves, cause more distortions in the market and defeat the very purpose of rice tariffication: to make rice more affordable for millions of Filipinos.

Good intentions not enough

Unquestionably, we need to support all farmers whose incomes and livelihoods are now hurting because of rice tariffication.

Yet at the same time we shouldn’t demonize rice tariffication per se. Retail rice prices are also going down, albeit to a lesser degree than farmgate prices. This could go a long way to reduce overall hunger and poverty.

Politicians must also tread carefully when it comes to helping our farmers. Policies driven by good intentions, yet lacking in careful thought, can often do more harm than good. – Rappler.com

The author is a PhD candidate at the UP School of Economics. His views are independent of the views of his affiliations. Follow JC on Twitter (@jcpunongbayan) and Usapang Econ (usapangecon.com).

Chief Presidential Legal Counsel and Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo is in hot water for dipping his hands into the failed attempt to grant clemency for convicted rapist and killer Antonio Sanchez earlier this year.

The Senate investigation on the aborted early release of Sanchez showed that Panelo had referred a request of the Sanchez family to the Board of Pardons and Parole (BPP) to grant executive clemency to the former mayor. Panelo later admitted that he met with the members of the family thrice in his office.

Panelo insists that he did nothing wrong or unethical. He says his actions were merely ministerial and that as a public official, he was duty bound to meet with and act on the request of the Sanchez family.

This is, of course, untrue.

When I was in Congress, I would receive many requests to facilitate this or that action from another government agency. There were reqeusts for me to ask some agency or official to do their jobs. There were requests seeking recommendations for certain government posts. Some would ask help for their transactions to be acted upon favorably, and some would ask me to simply inquire about the status of their permits or applications.

The power of your office

In all cases, the objective was to have a powerful official, in my case a congressman, express interest or intervene in their dealings to elicit some favorable action. The thinking behind this was that no agency or government official could refuse a member of Congress, especially since we could make things hard during the budget hearings.

I would have two basic options on these kinds of requests:

One, if the request were self-serving, dubious, involved any conflict of interest, or was not related to my function as a congressman, I would simply inform the requesting party that I am not in a position to act on their request or that it is not my office’s policy to act on such requests. End of discussion.

Two, if the request was valid, I would write a letter to the concerned agency referring the matter for appropriate action, monitor and even follow it up if needed.

In Panelo’s case, it is important to note that he served as Sanchez’ lawyer in the rape and homicide case that landed his client in jail. This immediately puts him in a conflict of interest situation. As defense lawyer, he argued that his client was innocent and did everything he could to avoid a jail sentence. A grant of clemency for his former client would certainly be in his and his client's interest.

Panelo says that he lawyered for Sanchez a long time ago. It does not matter. Take note that judges are often asked to inhibit in cases involving lawyers who were their law school classmates even 30 years ago.

Moreover, Panelo is the legal adviser to the President. His opinion would most likely be sought in any grant of clemency by the President. Thus, prudence dictates that he avoids prematurely acting on a matter that would most likely end up on his desk.

Was Panelo obliged?

Was Panelo duty bound to refer Sanchez’s request for clemency to the BPP? Would he be legally or administratively liable for not sending such a referral? Of course not.

To be sure, he was required by law to answer the email request of the Sanchez family within 15 working days. But he could have just emailed the family back, informing them that he could not act on their request. That would have been enough to comply with the law.

But no. He referred the request to the BPP in his official capacity as chief presidential legal counsel.

On its face, there is nothing irregular or illegal in the wordings of Panelo's referral. What the letter implies, though, is that the presidential legal counsel finds the request valid, thus the positive action of referring it to the concerned agency for appropriate action.

In my experience as a congressman, I only referred requests which I found just and reasonable because I knew my referral, however benign, carried some weight owing to my office.

Panelo should know

That's why it was not surprising that to BPP chief Reynaldo Bayang, Panelo's letter constituted a positive recommendation for clemency. Because that's how it is with these “referrals” from people higher than your pay grade.

Panelo knows this, I'm sure. He wasn't exactly born yesterday. And that's probably why he kept mum despite repeated questions from Palace reporters about his involvement in the Sanchez affair.

To the credit of the BPP, it stuck to its earlier decision junking Sanchez's plea for executive clemency. Between the dire implications of reversing its ruling and earning the goodwill of high officials like Panelo and Imelda Marcos, perhaps they put greater consideration on the former.

And to be fair to Panelo, maybe sending a referral was his way of effectively denying the Sanchez family's request without hurting their feelings, being their former lawyer. But imagine if the BPP reversed itself and granted clemency on account of his referral? Then he would really be in deep shit.

The BPP's action notwithstanding, Panelo’s actions could still be considered unethical and, should I say, an attempt to use the power of his office to favor a former client. – Rappler.com 

Aaminin ko, na-fascinate ako at patuloy na napa-fascinate sa viral at trending posts sa social media. Kinunsinti ko rin ang mga nagpa-like at nagpa-hear-heart reax dati. Na-curious din ako sa dynamics at sustainability ng katanyagan ng ilan sa lubos na mapagkunwaring social media. Ganoon na lamang ang fascination ko kaya naglakas-loob akong magturo ng New Media sa unibersidad, armado ng kung ilang aklat at pananaliksik na nabasa at isinabuhay.

Pinag-aralan ko sa antas ng produksiyon, uploading time, shareability, timeliness of issues, or sheer pleasure ang dahilan kung bakit dinudumog ang isang post na buhat naman sa kung saang tagong barangay na kinuhanan ng kung sinong kargado lamang ng cheap consumer electronic device at aandap-andap na internet connection. 

Naramdaman at nasaksihan ko ang paggamit sa social media bilang armas. Alam ko ang uniqueness ng social media weaponization sa ating bansa kumpara sa ibang kumukonsumo nito sa rehiyon. Mas madali tayong maapektuhan ng kung anong ibinabato sa atin sa social media dahil mas marubdob tayo sa paggamit ng platform na ito. Sige, konserbatibo ako sa pagsasabing “paggamit ng platform na ito.” Ang totoo, dahil sa dami ng gumagamit at sa dami ng panahon na ginugugol sa harap ng monitor, hindi lang tayo basta gumagamit ng socia media, nalululong na tayo. 

Laganap ang cyberbullying sa atin. Lalong laganap ang tahasang panlilinlang at pangmamangmang gamit ang social media. Samantalang maraming malalakas magsigamit ng teknolohiya at gadget, siya namang hina sa paggamit ng kukote sa pagsusuri ng nababasa at napapanood sa social media at sa kabuuan ng internet.

Kunsabagay, nitong huling mga nagdaang buwan na lamang naman naging concerned ang mga kompanya sa paglaganap ng kabulastugan sa kanilang platform. Kailan lang ba sinimulang linisin ng mga kompanya ang kanilang platform laban sa mga nagpapakalat ng mali o pekeng balita? 

Pangunahing agenda ng mga kompanyang nagmamay-ari at namamahala ng social media platform ang sinasabi ni Eugenia Siapera, isang propesor ng Digital at Social Media at may akda ng Understanding New Media (2^nd Edition, Sage, 2018), na magbenta ng patalastas: “The main business model of social media is to sell advertisements, or rather users (and their data), to advertisers.” 

Tayo na ang consumer, tayo pa rin ang produktong ibinebenta. Tayo ang gumagawa ng content sa mga post na nagiging produktong kinokonsumo ng marami sa atin na akala natin ay libre. Ano nga ba naman ang babayaran mo sa pag-share ng status? Pag-haha o pag-heart-heart? Pero ang ibinabayad talaga natin sa paggamit ng social media ay oras at damdamin natin. At saka ang pagpapaubaya ng kritikal na pag-iisip. O sige, minsan pera na rin nga kabibili ng kung anong-anong produktong akala mo ay kailangan mo dahil paulit-ulit na lumilitaw sa newsfeed mo.   

Nang dahil sa social media metrics 

Pamilyar na rin ako dahil may ilang viral posts na rin ako. Batay sa dami ng “ha ha” o heart reax, inaakala kong kinatuwaan ng marami; may na-inspire daw, batay sa mga komento; mayroon din namang nam-bash, at, seryoso, nagbanta sa buhay ko. Ilan na ba ang naging totoong kaibigan kong natuklasan sa sintetikong ugnayan ng Facebook? On the other hand, ilan na bang inakala kong totoong kaibigan naman ang naglaho dahil sa hindi pagkakaunawaan sa prinsipyo, lalo’t lumulunsad sa social media ang bungangaan? Sa social media na isang nagmamadaling abenidang bihira ang makabuluhang diskurso? 

Mula nang pahalagahan ng marami sa atin ang trifecta of instant gratifications ng social media – reactions (like lang ito dati, ngayon may heart na, haha, wow, sad, at angry), comments (sige, isama na ang sangkatutak na emojis, memes, GIF, at iba pang uri ng multimedia comments), and shares – lumunsad na palayo sa makabuluhang talakayan ang platform. Ano kung bopol ang argumento, ang mahalaga, ni-like at nai-share ng maraming netizen. Ang mahalaga nag-trending. Kaya nakakatakot sa mga tulad kong nagtuturo sa unibersidad ang social media. Bihira sa platform na ito ang may kakayahang magbasa nang medyo mahaba, bihira ang gaya mong nagbabasa ngayon (salamat, nakarating ka sa bahaging ito ng pagbabasa, apir!).  

Kunsabagay, aminin man nila o hindi, complicit sa pangangalakal ng virality at trending posts ang media outfits, traditional man o ang new media. Ilang ulit na ba tayong pinakitaan ng ganitong banner o pamagat o lead ng balita: “Trending ngayon sa social media ang kuha ng CCTV sa <insert lugar> tungkol sa <insert pangyayari>”? O “Trending ngayon ang status ni <insert personality o about-to-be virtual personality> tungkol sa <insert paksa> na umani na ng <insert bilang ng likes at/o shares>.” Huwag ninyong sabihin hindi kayo pamilyar? 

O kung hindi pa quantifiably viral at trending ang post, magiging viral dahil gagawing balita ng mga friendly neighborhood news outlets ng bansa na ang karamihan ay umaasa sa dami ng online interaction. Ilalagay ang link sa balita, at voila! Magiging trending talaga ang kababalita pa lamang na paksang nagte-trending diumano sa social media.   

Naging by-product ng virtual metrics (bilang ng shares, reactions, o followers sa social media) ang pagkakaroon ng mga tinatawag na influencers o iyong mga personalidad na nag-aakalang nakakaimpluwensiya sila sa kanilang mga “followers” na ang totoo ay subscribers lang naman sa kanilang social media accounts. Nagbunsod na rin ito ng mga personalidad na itinatalaga sa matataas na posisyon ng pamahalaan na ang pangunahing kalipikasyon marahil ay maraming followers sa social media *ubo, Ex-Usec. Mocha, ubo* kahit pa kuwestiyonable kung may organic reach ba talaga ang kanilang account. Minsan na rin naging requirement ang metrics ng social media para makakalap ng balita sa Palasyo. Kaya naman nagbigay ito ng kapangyarihan sa ilan para maglabas ng opinyon hinggil sa kahit anong isyung kaya nilang sawsawan. Katuwiran siguro: pakinggan at basahin ninyo ako, marami akong followers, may saysay ang opinyon ko. Or so they thought. 

Kaya malaking bagay sa akin na malaman ang hakbang ng social media giant na Facebook, na pinag-aaralan nang tanggalin ang bilang ng reax sa mismong status. Isang hakbang ito para maibalik ang kalidad sa diskurso at hindi lamang matuon sa bilang ang masasabing pananaw, huwag nang pag-usapan kung may saysay o wala. Madaling mabulag sa dami ng interaksiyon ang kahit sinong nasa social media na sumusubaybay sa kahit anong isyu. Kaisipang baka tama ang pananaw kasi popular? Sa hakbang na ito ng tech giant, hindi na mapapahalagahan kung nag-trending ba o hindi ang isang status bagkus posibleng matutuon na lamang – at mabuti ito – sa mismong nilalaman o mensahe, sa sustansiya, sa talino ng kuro-kuro.

Gayunman, nararamdaman kong maraming malulungkot, thus the Sad Reax Onli title, sa gagawing hakbang na ito ng Facebook. Pangunahin na sa malulungkot ay iyong nagkakaroon ng patol dahil sa dami ng interaksiyon sa kanilang account, organic man o hindi ang interaksiyong ito.  

Ikalawa ay iyong naghihintay ng tiyempong mapansin nang lumunsad ang katanyagan sa sintetikong platform ng social media. Huwag mag-alala, kung talagang may saysay ang status – video man iyan, meme, larawan, o kahit isinulat na post lang – may makakapansin pa ring hindi nagpapahalaga sa bilang ng views, reax, like. At, palagay ko, ito ang mas mahalaga: dumako muli tayo sa sustansiya ng diskurso higit sa kung ano na lang ang ipinapauso. – Rappler.com 

Bukod sa pagtuturo ng creative writing, pop culture, research, at seminar in new media sa Departamento ng Literatura at sa Graduate School ng Unibersidad ng Santo Tomas, research fellow din si Joselito D. delos Reyes, PhD, sa UST Research Center for Culture, Arts and Humanities. Siya ang coordinator ng AB Creative Writing Program ng Unibersidad ng Santo Tomas.

Hindi tamad ang Papa ko. Marami lang masisipag na demonyo at sa sakahan naghahasik ng lagim.

Sa isang papaunlad pa lamang na bansa tulad ng Pilipinas, kung tatamad-tamad ka raw ay baka mahuli at maghirap ka. Paano naman ang ating mga magsasaka?

Sagana sa yaman ang lupa ng Pilipinas. Ang sektor ng pagsasaka, pati na ang pamamalakaya, ang sumusustena sa pagkain ng malaking populasyon ng bansa. Mabubungkal ang katotohanang kung sino pa ang nagtatanim ng ating makakain ay sila pa ang kadalasang nakabaon sa kahirapan. Gayumpaman, hindi ako naniniwalang tamad ang mga taong ito kaya sila mahirap. Sabihin nang mahirap lang kami, ngunit hindi tamad ang Papa ko.

Sa aming munting hapag sa probinsiya, lagi't laging sumasagi sa aking isipan ang mga salita ni Papa: Huwag magtitira ng kanin sa plato, sapagkat mahirap magsaka. Kung kaya't sa bawat pagsubo, ninanamnam ko ang bawat butil, dahil hindi lang ito butil na galing sa uhay, handog ito ng marangal na kamay. Ito ay buhay.

Bilang isang kabataang anak ng magsasaka, namulat ako sa kalagayan nila. Bagaman parehong nakalubog ang ating mga paa sa marahas na lipunan, sadyang mas maputik ang kanilang nilulubugan, nilalakaran. Putik na natutubigan ng pawis, ng luha, ng dugo.

Masasabi kong hindi biro ang magsaka – ang yumuko maghapon, ang magbanat ng buto, ang umasa sa ulan habang natutuyot ang bulsa sa kakapatubig (mahal na krudo), habang wala nang masalok na salapi dahil naipambayad na ang kita sa mga utang, sa ospital noong nagkasakit ang isang kapamilya at sa paaralan; ang maging tagatanim ng mga kapitalista; ang kinakaya-kayanan lang ng mga nasa tuktok dahil sa kakayahan nilang kontrolin ang presyo ng mga produktong agrikultural; ang maging salamin ng kasipagan, ngunit sa huli ay salamin pa rin ng kahirapan.

Kung masaklap na ang balewalain sila, ano pa kaya ang paslangin sila? Sa Negros Oriental, naglabas ng magkakahiwalay na search warrant ang mga kinauukulan upang samsamin ang mga ilegal umanong armas sa panig ng mga sinasabing kumunista roon. Magsasaka ang mga sinasabing kumunista. Pinagbabaril ang 14 na magsasaka kaya sila umani ng bala, hindi ng bigas. Alalahanin din ang mga karumaldumal na pagpatay sa mga magbubukid dahil sa walang katapusang away sa lupa. Ang marahas na girian sa Hacienda Luisita.

Minsan, buhay ang kapalit ng pagbubungkal ng lupa. O kung minsan, kultura. Upang makatakas sa pag-a-ala-kugon ng Maynila, napagpasiyahan kong bumiyahe nang maaga pauwi sa probinsiya noong Huwebes Santo. Ngunit naabutan pa rin ako ng pagputok ng umaga bago nakasakay, dahil sa ragasa ng mga pasahero sa Cubao na biyaheng Lingayen at Dagupan. Ang mga nabanggit ay ilan lang sa mga ruta na bumabagtas sa aming bayan sa Tarlac, ang probinsiya kung saan itinatayo ang New Clark City, ang sinasabing magiging bagong sentro ng kalakaran sa labas ng Maynila at pagdadausan ng Southeast Asian Games ngayong 2019. “Back-up city” kung ito'y tawagin. Dahil sa mga konstruksiyon, sinasabing nanganganib mabura ang mga sakahan at lupain (ancestral lands) – sa kabuuan, kultura at tirahan – ng mga katutubong Aeta sa mapa ng Capas.

Hindi naman maitatangi ang mga panganib na dala ng mga land developer sa kabuhayan ng mga magsasaka. Dahil sa pag-convert nila sa mga lupang sakahan bilang mga komersiyal na espasyo at subdibisyon, nawawalan ng masaganang lupang mapagtatamnan. Saan na lang pupulutin ang mga obrero o manggagawa sa bukid na umaasa lang sa pakikisaka?

Ngunit hindi pa riyan natatapos ang kalbaryo ng iba pang mga magsasaka.

Sa social media kamakailan, nalitratuhang ipinapamudmod ang mga sobra-sobrang mangga sa isang bayan sa Ilocos Sur. Kaysa mabulok at patusin pa ng mga kapitalista, minabuting ipahingi na lang daw ang mga ito. Mabuti naman, ang sabi ng ilan sa comment section. Tagtuyot ang sinabing dahilan ng pagdami ng supply ng mangga sa merkado.

Naibalita rin ang pagkalugi ng mga maggugulay sa mga bulubunduking sakahan sa Benguet, dahil sa oversupply. Naibalita rin ang pagkalugi ng maraming magsisibuyas sa mga sibuyasan sa Nueva Ecija. Napilitan ang mga magsisibuyas na magbagsak-presyo, dahil sa sapilitang pagsasara ng mga sinasabing cold storage facility doon. Sinasabing lumuluha na raw ang mga magsisibuyas dahil literal na raw na nakakaiyak ang sibuyas sa Pilipinas – hindi na kailangang gayatin pa para may tumangis. Hindi rin nalalayo ang naging hinaing ng isang netizen sa social media matapos itong mag-post ng larawan ng sandamakmak na kalabasa, na inilako niya sa pinakamurang halaga: 6 pesos per kilo!

Pagdating naman sa pagpapalay, dismayadong-dismayado ang mga maliliit na magsasaka o may-ari ng mga maliliit na lupang sakahan sa murang presyo ng palay. Sa Nueva Ecija, ang Palabigasan ng Pilipinas, bumagsak na sa 7 pesos per kilo ang farmgate price (ang presyo ng produkto na direktang nabibili mula sa producer) ng palay.

Sa nilagdaang Rice Tarification Law, tinatanggal ng batas ang restriksiyon sa importasyon ng bigas, na inaasahang magpapataas sa supply ng bigas at magpapababa naman sa presyo nito. Sa batas, papatawan ng tariff (buwis para sa mga import) ang mga angkat na bigas. Ang malilikom na buwis ay sinasabing para sa kapakanan din ng mga magsasaka.

Ngayong liberalisado na ang lokal na merkado ng bigas, aarangkada ang pagpasok ng mga angkat na bigas kung kaya't sinasabing magkakaroon ng masidhing kompetisyon. Paano na lang ang lokal na industriya ng bigas? Ang mga lokal na magsasaka ng bigas? Maaaring malugi ang maliliit na magsasaka o may-ari ng mga maliliit na lupang sakahan sapagkat mapipilitan silang ipagbili ang kanilang mga ani nang mas mura. Nangangamba rin ang ilan na baka makapasok sa bansa ang mga bigas na may mababang kalidad. Kung iisiping maigi, mayaman ang lupa ng Pilipinas, ngunit bakit nag-aangat pa rin tayo ng bigas?

Kahit ngayong madali nang gawin ang mga bagay-bagay, mayroon pa ring paghihirap ang – at pahirap sa – mga magsasaka.  

Ngayon natin sagutin ang tanong: Kaya ba sila mahirap o pinapaslang ay dahil tamad sila? 

Hindi tamad ang Papa ko. Marami lang masisipag na demonyo at sa sakahan naghahasik ng lagim. – Rappler.com

Mark Christopher Viuda, 21, is the son of a farmer. He is a graduate of BS in Development Communication and works as a textbook editor in Quezon City. He was raised in an agricultural community in Tarlac, and it was his father who introduced him to farming at a young age. His father has spent half of his life farming, but he remains marginalized. 

When Queenmelo Esguerra was 14, the high school principal suspended her and her friends for leading and organizing a gay group. “I was actually asking my friends to look at my fashion magazines and teaching them how to do a catwalk,” said Esguerra.

Esguerra went home to tell her parents about what happened, and her father would have none of it. “They can’t do that,” her father, a police officer, said. 

The next day, Esguerra’s father went to school with her to see the principal, who immediately went into the problem: “Your son is very gay.”

Esguerra’s father replied: “With all due respect, Father, I know my son better than you do. Allow him to grow as who he is; otherwise, he will never reach his full potential. Your only responsibility as the principal of this school is to allow every single student to reach their full potential. Let’s just end this conversation here.”

“Yes, Sir,” the principal replied.

Even if it happened more than 33 years ago, Esguerra remembers that conversation between her father and high principal, word for word.

She had always been accepted by her family, but that day left an indelible mark on her. “The most important person in my life accepted and celebrated me for who I am. I will never forget that,” said Esguerra, founder of Love is All We Need, a collective of LGBTQ+ organizations in the Philippines.

Esguerra shared her story at a recent gathering, where legislators, community leaders, and other advocates came together to launch Humanizing SOGIE, a national campaign that shares stories of Filipinos and the everyday discrimination that they experience. It also includes stories of cis gender (also known as straight) who have experienced discrimination.

Recognizing that there are no legal protection in the Philippines specifically for SOGIE individuals, Humanizing SOGIE  will organize a series of community dialogues among the LGBT and allied communities to call for the passage of the anti-discrimination bill that prohibits discrimination on the basis of SOGIE. 

“The Humanizing SOGIE Campaign gives a face to the SOGIE experience and makes sure their stories are not left in the margins. Canada is proud to support organizations advancing inclusion and equality in the Philippines,” said Warren Mucci, Canada’s charge d’affaires.

Humanizing SOGIE is supported by the government of Canada in partnership with SPARK! Philippines, Love is All We Need and Propel Manila.

What is SOGIE?

SOGIE or sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression became a topic of national conversation after transgender woman Gretchen Diez was prohibited from using her preferred restroom in Farmers’ Market in Quezon City and sent to the Quezon City Police District’s Anti-Cybercrime Division after she took vidoes of the incident. The videos, which showed Diez verbally accosted and sent to the police station in handcuffs, went viral. Quezon City passed its Gender Fair ordinance in 2014.

Advocates said the issue highlighted the need for national legislation that would prohibit the discrimination and called for the passage of the anti-discrimination bill, which seeks to prohibit discrimination on the basis of SOGIE

Over 20 local government units have gender fair or anti-discrimination ordinances to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities from abuse, exploitation, bullying, and other discriminatory acts that restrict employment, education, and other opportunities for LGBT members. However, there is no national law that provides legal protection for SOGIE individuals. 

The latest version of Senate Bill No. 689, the “Anti Discrimination on the Basis of Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression,” has not been passed in Congress for almost two decades. At recent hearings, several religious and gender rights groups showed support for the bill. Advocates are hopeful that this will galvanize support for the bill. 

LGBT-friendly country?

The representation of the LGBTQ+ community in high-profile platforms, like beauty pageants and entertainment, gives the Philippines a reputation for being a gay-friendly country. In 2017, Geradline Roman became the first transgender woman to be elected to  Congress.  

But there is little acceptance in places where it matters the most: in schools, in government, and among families. A study across 59 transgender, lesbian, and bisexual women conducted by advocacy group Rainbow Rights revealed that they felt a “significant level of invisibility and devaluation” mostly  across 3 groups: family, religious institutions, and law enforcement. 

Family abuse ranged from verbal and emotional abuse to sexual abuse usually perpetuated by male family members, like a brother or an uncle. 

‘Personal, not religious, beliefs’

At the 3rd hearing of the anti-discrimination bill or the SOGIE equality bill, various religious groups against the bill raised concerns about religious freedom and questioned the readiness of the country for such a law.

“No religious denomination can claim a monopoly on values. We cannot base our legislation on religious beliefs,” said congresswoman Roman, who was also at the gathering of advocates.

“These are not religious beliefs but personal beliefs. There is nothing in the Bible that says that you cannot hire a gay man. Let’s stop using religion to discriminate,” Roman added. – Rappler.com 

Was it right or wrong for Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo to forward the written plea for clemency of convicted rapist-murderer Antonio Sanchez to the Board of Pardons and Parole (BPP)? Was Senator Bato dela Rosa right or wrong in claiming that it’s acceptable for policemen to accept gifts?  

These recent controversies have sparked public debates about what is proper and improper behavior in and outside of government. 

In this piece, I argue that what is proper and improper behavior in government and in society depends to a large extent on our understanding of what should be considered “public,” “private” and when the public and the private should be linked or de-linked.  

I further argue that many of the problems that we face in Philippine society today have to do with our fragmented – and oftentimes convoluted – understanding of these concepts.  

Mandates and favors

Panelo has been insisting that he did nothing wrong when he forwarded the written plea of the family of the convicted Sanchez to the BPP because this was just standard practice. Panelo claimed that Sanchez’s letter was just one of the many letters that his office often forwards to other government agencies. No less than President Rodrigo Duterte supported this claim, saying that Panelo did the right thing to send the letter to “the proper entity.” 

The elephant in the room is the fact that Secretary Panelo is the President’s spokesperson and Chief Legal Counsel. Spokespersons are supposed to work with the political communications team, not the BPP.

What Panelo did then was a favor, not a mandated task. That he was a former lawyer aiding a former client beyond his mandate clearly puts himself in a conflict-of-interest situation. That he apparently forwarded the letter of just one convict and not all possible convicts already smacks of favoritism or of doing someone a favor. But nobody seems to be pointing this out. For many Filipinos, it is a trivial thing: “Wala 'yun. Maliit na bagay 'yun.”

The Panelo incident is not the only time that we see the blurring of the line between “mandates” and “favors.”

When Senator Bong Go insists that it is alright for him to continue his stint as the President's close-in aide even now that he is a senator, he is actually doing the President (and I guess, himself) a favor and not fulfilling any mandate. 

When Senator Bato dela Rosa says gifts to policemen are acceptable, he is actually undermining the principle that people need not be grateful to policemen in that way because that’s what taxes are already for: public safety and protection.   

The basic difference between a favor and a mandate is that the former can be withheld while the latter must be fulfilled. The idea of gift-giving suggests that only those who can give gifts can be secured.  This is the seed upon which corruption often grows. 

Public office as family enterprise 

Right after the 2019 elections, pictures of “empty” public offices vacated by losing candidates immediately started circulating in mainstream and social media. The images of public offices stripped of property because these were supposedly “personal” property illustrate the erroneous concept that people can treat public property as personal belongings.  

Obviously, what is public is what is paid for by taxpayers’ money and what is private is what is paid for by private individuals or entities. One can understand if a losing mayor brings home his/her personal effects, but to strip an office of all supplies and all property is clearly a breach of one’s mandate.  

The overreach of “the personal/the private” is so deeply embedded in our political culture that we can no longer seem to imagine having alternatives to political dynasties. The very notion of a political dynasty suggests an overreach of “the personal” and thereby the distortion of “the public.” (See map of major political clans after the 2019 elections)

A public office should not be viewed as a family enterprise because viewing it as such undermines the democratic principle of political equality: everyone has a right to vote and to compete for public office.   Nobody is deemed entitled to any public office. Nobody is supposed to “own” any public office. 

Another example of how convoluted the Filipinos’ sense of the public-private divide is the notion that President Duterte is a father (Tatay Digong). Many would dismiss this as part of “Filipino culture,” a sign of respect for our elders, but this is in reality an aberration from the concept of accountability.  

We are not supposed to view our politicians as our fathers because in families, fathers often can do no wrong. In politics, a politician can make a mistake or commit a crime that is unforgivable. To treat our politicians as relatives is regressive, not progressive. No one can be a father to more than 100 million people. 

The sacred versus the secular

Another "standard practice" is when senators and congresspersons invoke Catholic teachings to assail public policies that run counter to Catholic Church teachings. When they do this, they are actually going beyond their mandates and, in fact, are abusing them to favor their church. 

This is not to say that the Catholic Church may not hold or express views on public policies. Any church has the right to express its views in public and to participate in public discourse.  

Public officials,  however,  should not be guided primarily by their personal religious faiths when crafting public policy, because said policy is supposed to be for everyone. That is what having a secular state entails (as stipulated in the Philippine Constitution). Public officials can of course be informed by their religion, but they cannot impose said religion on policy because policy is meant to be inclusive.    

Whenever this kind of secular argument is made, a counter-argument is often given: that the reason the government is corrupt is because it is devoid of (religious) values. This point is unacceptable because it neglects the fact that values already underpin laws and that not one religion has the monopoly of what is right or wrong. Even in a country where majority are Catholics, government’s standpoint should be that not everyone is Catholic and there is nothing wrong with that.  The metric for a sound public policy should be what works for everyone.

The blurring of the public and the private and the sacred and the secular has been happening not only in government but even in our social institutions. In our public schools we see teachers praying even if public schools, by virtue of their being public entities, are expected to implement the state policy of the separation of the church and the state. 

More notions to discuss

There are many other facets and notions of the public, the private, and the public-private divide.  

The Gretchen Diez case, for example, brings to light the question of inclusivity of public spaces. This case, however, needs a separate articulation because it is embedded in the entire discourse of the personal being political.   

There is also that issue of privatization – when public goods are being provided by private corporations and the lines between public service and profit get blurred. The recent water shortage controversy also needs proper articulation. Where public goods are concerned, should citizens really be treated as costumers? 

Finally, there is that notion of the public as “everybody,” the notion that the community/nation is important, not just the individual. Filipinos can’t seem to get this right. A glaring piece of evidence is traffic. Motorists always think that only they have the right to the road – not the cyclists or the pedestrians. We just can’t seem to get this: everyone has the right to the road. 

Indeed, many notions of the public, the private, and the public-private divide need to be discussed. But first, let’s resolve that Panelo case: that was a favor, not a mandate. – Rappler.com

Carmel V. Abao is an assistant professor of the Department of Political Science of Ateneo de Manila University.  

Any transgender person would probably tell you that no one wakes up one day and decides they’re transgender. However, my moment of truth was just as sudden as that.

It’s not so much a choice as it is a realization – it’s part of who you are, and just like any other aspect about your identity, you have to discover it for yourself. That’s usually where the trouble lies, considering the conservative, predominantly Catholic Philippines.

Looking back, I’m now aware of the little things that hinted that I was non-binary while I was growing up. I felt confusion towards both my male and female peers. I acknowledged and affirmed the differences between men and women, regardless of whether they were progressive feminists or not. I inexplicably liked cross-dressing for acting projects in school. I felt familiar towards characters with androgynous gender presentations, belying a truth about myself that my upbringing kept hidden from me.

I didn’t feel quite like myself during those years before I realized it. As young and naïve as I was with a fickle mind and an equally fickle heart, I knew even back then that I wasn’t being myself. I didn’t feel like I was me. I felt like I was being limited by something I didn’t have the mind to comprehend at the time; like wild animals born in captivity looking beyond their confines and wondering vaguely why they felt like they belonged out there.

That was all I ever really knew about my gender identity, until years later, as 12th grade me sat in a social science class where the topic for the week was about gender. Suddenly, the vague, subtle hints I grew up with all made sense, and I felt the inspiration and pure joy moments of self-actualization bring you. I was, for once – and I never expected to be able to say this so soon into my journey through life – genuinely happy.

Internally, it was a perfect moment. Externally, however, the perspective told of a different story.

Realizing it was one thing, coming out with it was another. I trusted that the friends I have would be accepting of me, and sure enough, they were. In fact, they’re my best supporters.

I wish I could say the same for my family, though. I’m a firm believer in cutting ties with anyone, biological family or not, if they’re toxic in your life and only bring you down, but even I have to admit that part of me still wants to give them a chance. I wanted to see if they really can love and accept me like they claim they do.

But I knew they wouldn’t. Sure, they won’t disown me or physically harm me, but I know they would just merely shrug me off, disregard me and still insist on my assigned gender at birth, and dead-name me.

I decided to hold it off. I’m still holding it off now, a year after. I still don’t know when I can tell them.

My issues with feeling isolated and not belonging worsened as well. I didn’t know anyone else in my circle who was transgender, and the amount of proper representation in media was severely lacking. Not that I felt like I was adequately represented either when I was still cisgender – again, I always had the itching feeling that something didn’t feel quite right with myself, even then. I wouldn’t swap that with what I’m feeling right now, either. Why go hide and try to fit in now, when I never really did anyway to begin with? I did not venture so far to retreat so soon.

I can tell myself this all I want. Sometimes it works in convincing me that I don’t hate my circumstances. A lot of times, however, it doesn’t. I can’t deny the fact that it really hurts. It hurts that I have to feel even more alone than before; it hurts that I have one more secret to keep from my family; it hurts to realize more about myself just to realize, at the same time, that I actually don’t know who I am.

It hurts that I can’t just simply be.

…

It’s been a year of settling into my non-binary identity, and from the initial discomfort of it all, I managed to fashion it into the closest thing to home that I know of, thus far.  A storm rages outside, a flurry of hostility and uncertainty that threatens to break down these walls, but I rest assured knowing the blood, sweat, and tears that make the foundation are no stranger to adversity.

I’ve made it this far. I’ll make it even farther. – Rappler.com

Roni Navarro, a student at the Ateneo de Manila University, identifies as non-binary and has been out to friends for a year now.

Soon, the Philippines is expected to be an aging population like Japan, Italy, or Finland, where at least 14% of the population are senior citizens. The Commission on Population and Development expects this to happen by 2030 or 2035. It has been suggested that Filipinos are leading longer lives partly because of breakthroughs in health sciences, technology, and advances in medical care. Is the Philippines ready for this demographic transition? How are we preparing for the inevitability of an aging society? 

Within our own families and communities, we may not yet see or feel the implications of population aging. We may be more used to interacting with children and young people since they form a significant bulk of the population. Further, we may not see as many old people yet in our daily lives as compared to countries with a bigger aging population. For example, the old in the Philippines are currently an estimated 8.4% of the total population in 2019, while Japan has quadruple that proportion.

Beyond population counts, however, the dearth of elderly people in public spaces is most likely symptomatic of a larger yet invisible issue of a lack of representation. The Department of Social Welfare and Development manifested earlier this year its support for the creation of a commission for senior citizens to ensure that the needs of the elderly are represented in policies and affirmative action.

By the time the Philippines becomes an aging society, more elderly people will be needing support from the government, and not just from their families. More lolos and lolas will be needing affordable and accessible medicines, routine checkups, and additional support from the community to ensure their well-being.

As Filipinos, many believe that it is both our duty and obligation to care for our parents when they are no longer able to take care of themselves. Rising health care costs, out-of-pocket expenses for medicines, and lack of access to social services for the elderly have also made this the only option for many families. However, Filipino families that opt to shoulder unpaid care tasks, whether out of choice or necessity, would necessarily have to make sacrifices in terms of time, finances, and even family well-being, more so where the elderly family member is suffering from chronic illness or disability. In some instances, the elderly also take on unpaid care tasks such as household chores or childcare. 

Imagine if we can take care of the elderly with sufficient systems and structures in place. On an individual level, we can also do smaller but equally relevant shifts, such as strengthening our mindset of care towards the elderly in our own circles of influence. Closest to home are our parents, who now, or in the near future, will be part of the aged population. Ensuring that we honor and respect them can make a big difference. Knowing that all people, whether our parents or not, have the right to be treated well can help us develop more compassion towards all people and an interest in issues that may not appear relevant to us at the moment, but will confront us as we grow older. 

Indeed, it is timely to have conversations to increase awareness of issues of the elderly and act on ensuring a stable fiscal capacity to fund pension systems with gender equity, a robust health care system that encourages healthy aging, strong networks and communities of support, and creative strategies of providing more opportunities in employment or education.

It is time to reflect on whether we are keeping health services or medical treatment accessible and affordable. The Department of Health is currently capping retail prices for medicines to address the urgent problem of the Philippines having the highest medicine prices in Asia.

These much needed policies reflect the urgency of fundamental reforms in social systems and structures that can be sustained by an expanding and "graying" population. We must confront these demographic shifts head-on. – Rappler.com

Sheena Kristine Cases is the senior officer for knowledge, accountability, and learning of Oxfam in the Philippines. Oxfam is an international confederation of 19 organizations working together with partners and local communities in more than 90 countries.

To fight for one's rights, and in defense of family and community, is an honorable thing. For decades our communities have been marred by armed conflict because of injustices and oppression – including a number of massacres – that have triggered some of our people to arm themselves.

Now that we have the opportunity to work and build a lasting peace, those same hands that fought war will build the peace for which we have sought for so long. 

Presidential Adviser on Peace Reconciliation and Unity Carlito Galvez Jr highlighted the significance of the decommissioning process and its impact on the Bangsamoro peace process. 

"We are celebrating another key milestone in the peace process: The decommissioning of MILF-BIAF members and their weapons. The decommissioning process will enable the MILF combatants to return to mainstream society as productive and peaceful citizens," Galvez said. 

On Saturday, September 7, more than 1,000 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) combatants were decommissioned, a process witnessed by no less than President Rodrigo Duterte and Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) Interim Chief Minister and MILF chairman Murad Ebrahim.

"By and large, the decommissioning of MILF-BIAF members is a clear testament of the MILF's desire to sustain the gains of the peace process, and President Rodrigo Duterte's political will and unwavering commitment to fulfil all signed peace agreements," Galvez added. 

Critical stage

This is the second phase of the decommissioning of the MILF's fighting forces, with the first phase done during the tenure of President Benigno Aquino III. Some 1,060 former MILF combatants were decommissioned, along with 920 firearms, and 20 high-powered rifles on Saturday. 

This decommissioning takes place against the backdrop of the ratification of the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) and the establishment of an autonomous Bangsamoro region. 

We are now at a critical stage in the Mindanao peace process leading up to the fulfillment of the commitments made by both the government and the MILF. 

In April, President Duterte signed Executive Order (EO) No. 79, Implementing the Annex on Normalization Under the Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro, bringing together at least 17 government agencies to work on the normalization track.

Under EO No. 79, members of the Inter-Cabinet Cluster Mechanism on Normalization include the departments of defense, interior, justice, social welfare, agriculture, education, finance, health, labor, budget, trade, information and communications technology, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, National Economic and Development Authority, National Security Council, National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, and Commission on Higher Education.

What the decommissioning means for these MILF combatants is that they will return to being civilians after years, perhaps even decades, of conflict. For some of these people, their whole lives were spent defending the cause of the Bangsamoro and their guns have meant everything to them – weapons with which to defend themselves and their communities from oppression, and injustices, including land-grabbing.

"As we proceed with the decommissioning process, let me assure our MILF combatants that the government will assist you as you reintegrate into society and enjoy fruitful and productive civilian lives," Duterte said in his speech at the decommissioning rites. He also said he looked forward to having the decommissioned MILF fighters "as government's partners as we take further strides in securing lasting peace and order in Mindanao."

"As our [decommissioned] combatants open a new chapter in your lives, I hope that they will be inspired to take this opportunity to improve their lives and create a better future for your families and loved ones as well," Duterte said. 

Like those who came before us, it is to these combatants that we Moros owe what we have right now – including the BARMM – and the continuation of our struggle for justice and genuine autonomy and self-rule.

It is but right that we honor these people with the help they need that we can offer so their families will have the good lives they fought so hard to provide, so their children will have the education they need to ensure that they will not end up fighting against oppression and injustice ever again.

It is under this premise of peace, justice, and autonomy that the BOL was passed and ratified. Let's make sure that we deliver this, for the generations to come. – Rappler.com

Amir Mawallil is a member of the 80-person Bangsamoro Transition Authority. He worked for 7 years as the director of the Bureau of Public Information of the defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. A former journalist, Mawallil used to write stories on the MILF-government peace process from 2010 to 2012. In 2018, he published a book of essays that narrates his people's struggle.

Dapat nang magtirik ng kandila para sa isang bangkay sa templo ni Tatay Digong.

Maraming pumatay sa kanya. Andyan si Chief Presidential Legal Counsel and Spokesman Sal Panelo na mabilis pa sa alas-singko magdemanda ng apology nang ibalita ng Rappler at Inquirer.net na siya ang nagrefer sa clemency request ng pamilyang Sanchez. Matapos naman ibigay ng isang online network ang paumanhin ay bigla niyang nireject ito. Sabi nga ng Rappler, ipaliwanag niya muna ang conflict of interest niya.

Salarin din si kamakailan ay Bureau of Corrections Chief Nicanor Faeldon. Parang langaw laging nadidikit sa fly paper ng kontrobersiya itong si Nic – kahit saan siya pumunta mula Customs hanggang Bucor. 

Pangunahin sa kumalabit sa gatilyo si Pangulong Rodrigo Duterte. Pansinin na habang tinawag niyang "honest man" si Faeldon nang pumutok ang kontrobersya sa mga inismuggle na droga sa Customs, sinisante niya ito dahil hindi sinunod to the letter ang bilin niya sa pagsagot sa media. 

Mukhang kahit may "whiff of corruption," okay ka kay Digong, 'wag mo lang suwayin ang isang utos.

Ano ang tinutukoy nating templo? Ito ang kulto ng personalidad ni Pangulong Duterte na tumuklap sa propesyonalismo ng mga taga-Malacañang.

Tulad nga ng ipinaliwanag ni dating congressman Teddy Casiño sa opinyon niyang pinamagatang “Sal Panelo's sleight of hand,” ang “referral” letter na may seal ng opisinang nag-eendorso ay hindi simpleng pagpasa lamang ng isang animo’y naliligaw na sulat.

Ito’y nagtataglay ng kapangyarihan ng opisinang nagrerefer – at batid ng lahat na hindi pipitsugin ang kapangyarihan ng opisina ng Chief Presidential Legal Counsel at Presidential Spokesman. Kapag ini-refer mo ang isang sulat, wala kang nakikitang mali sa sulat at kailangan nito ng agarang atensyon. Hindi ba ito endorsment na maituturing?

Kung tunay na busilak ang dangal ni Spokesman, dapat ay kitang-kita niya na unethical magpasa ng sulat ng dati niyang kliyente. Doon pa lang sablay na. 

Bilang isa sa mga malalapit at pinagkakatiwalaang opisyal ng administrasyong Duterte, walang nakikita si Panelong palyado sa sulat ng dati niyang kliyente. Kahit na ilang beses nahulihan ng shabu, marijuana, at aircon sa kanyang selda si Antonio Sanchez. 

Sa labas nga ng Munti, tinotokhang ang nahuhulihan ng marijuana. Sa templo ni Tatay Digong, narerefer pa ang sulat ng misis mo kahit ikaw ay rapist-killer. Tsk, tsk. ‘Yan ba ang tinatawag na koneksyon?

Dapat ay sinagot ni Panelo ang email ng pamilya at tahasang sinabi na wala siyang magagawa dito. Pero lumitaw sa paghahalungkat ng mga reporter na 3 beses pa palang nakipagmeeting si Panelo sa pamilya ni Sanchez.

Anong business meron ang mga Sanchez na magmemerito ng 3 meeting? Akala ba nati’y limot na niya na minsan siyang naging abogado ng pamilya? Hindi ba niya nakikita na sa pinakaminimum ay improper ito?

At nakipagkita rin pala siya sa pamilya ng dating kliyente na Ampatuan na sangkot sa masaker na kumitil sa buhay ng 58 na mamamahayag at sibilyan.

Sino ulit si Antonio Sanchez? Siya ang dating mayor ng Calauan, Laguna, na matapos makursunadahan ang isang estudyante ng University of the Philippines-Los Baños, ay ipinadukot ang coed pati na rin ang kasamahan nitong si Allan Gomez. Matapos halayin ay ipinagang-rape sa mga bodyguard 'tsaka pinatay ang dalaga, pati na rin ang kasama.

Pero higit diyan si Sanchez. Siya ang halimaw na nagbibigay ng nervous breakdown sa mga magulang sa Los Baños hanggang ngayon. Siya ang bangungot na nagpapataas ng balahibo ng lahat ng dalagang naglalakad mag-isa lampas takip-silim sa Laguna. 

Pero para kay senador at dating Bureau of Corrections chief Bato dela Rosa, may karapatan siyang magkaroon ng “second chance.” 

“May hawak na bibliya palagi, nakapalda, naka-lipstick. Bagay pa ba sa 'yo na magsiga-siga? … Hindi naman ibig sabihin na 'yun ang basis. Puwede na rin na masabi mo na mabait na ito, naka-palda na.” Ito ang baluktot na lohika ng dating hepe ng Bucor.

Ayon na rin sa retired judge ng Sarmenta-Gomez rape-slay na si Harriet Demetriou, dapat daw ay magbitiw si Panelo: "It is impossible that Panelo didn't maneuver the decision to favor his former client, given his position in the Duterte administration.”

Simpleng-simple sa mata ng dating huwes, dapat simple rin sa mata ni Duterte at ng kanyang mga tauhan. Pero walang sala si Panelo sa mata ni Digong.

Lumipat naman tayo sa sistema ng hustisya. Lahat sila’y sinisisi ang Good Conduct Time Allowance law (GCTA) na maaaring magpaikli sa mga sentensya ng mga nakakulong. Pero magkaiba ang kuro-kuro kung sakop ba nito ang mga tinatawag na heinous crimes katulad ng krimen ni Sanchez. Kailangan daw itong iakyat pa sa Korte Suprema dahil kulang sa linaw ang batas.

Lahat ng mga pagpapaikli ng sentensya ay batay sa pag-abruba ng hepe ng Bucor na si Nicanor Faeldon at ng justice department. Ay teka, hindi raw dumaan sa justice department! 

Gustong palabasin ni Faeldon na sumusunod lang siya sa batas ng GCTA. Kasinungalingan ‘yan, dahil batay pa rin ang lahat sa approval ng Bucor at DOJ na kanyang na-bypass sa maraming pinaikling sentensya at pawang mga nakalaya na.

Gusto raw maiyak ni Faeldon nang marinig niya ang salaysay ng GCTA for sale sa Bucor. Hay naku, Faeldon, clueless ka ba talaga o nagbubulag-bulagan?

Kung ano man ang kahinaaan ng GCTA na layong bigyan ng bagong buhay ang mga tunay na nagrepormang convict – tungkulin ng Bucor at DOJ na bantayan ang pag-aabuso nito.

Malinaw na inaanay ang templo ni Digong, at pruweba ang mga palusot ni Panelo at Faeldon. 

Sa kabila ng panata laban sa korupsyon ng administrasyon, mas matimbang sa maraming pinuno ang panata sa kaibigan, dating kliyente, sa amo. Para sa mga empleyado ng Bucor na nagpapalakad ng "GCTA for sale," mukhang may panata sila sa sariling bulsa.

Sino kamo ang namatay? Paglamayan na natin ang bangkay ng delicadeza sa gobyerno.– Rappler.com 

I’m on both sides of suicide prevention. I mean that on one side, I’m working towards becoming a mental health professional. In working for a mental health research project, I’ve gotten involved in conducting suicide prevention seminars. Suicide prevention is something I’ve written about a number of times, too; earlier this year, I wrote about the discourse on suicide in a less personal manner, but I’ve also laid my heart out writing about how a then-favorite book glamorized suicide. I’ve been on the other end of a conversation where a friend knows that they’re not alright, coping with half-meant jokes about suicide all the while.

But it turns out that 5 years of treatment for Generalized Anxiety and Major Depression, participation in suicide prevention lectures, and pages of deep-dives on the matter do not make you immune to relapse. Sometimes, I’m the friend calling for help – trying not to seem needy, aware that I’ll look back on our conversation, cringing at my convoluted ways of thinking and feeling.

At times, it’s insidious. You could be focused on other things you’ve deemed more important than getting enough sleep or taking your meds. Before you know it, you’ve spiraled into a panic attack in public. Other times, there’s a trigger – a big presentation or a breakup or a backhanded compliment, to name a few examples – that derails you for weeks on end, taking up ungodly amounts of time that should’ve been spent on rest and recuperation. During these times, I feel like I need help myself.

In her article on passive suicidal ideation on The Outline, Anna Borges likens her experience to treading the ocean’s waters: “Some days are unremarkable, floating under clear skies and smooth waters; other days are tumultuous storms you don’t know you’ll survive, but you’re always, always in the ocean.”

What stuck with me, other than the immense relief in someone so deftly articulating what I’ve felt for so long, was the point that suicidality can be seen as a continuum. Mental well-being isn’t just the simple presence or absence of a check mark beside glaring red flags such as “Have you thought of killing yourself?” or “Have you been thinking about death in the past weeks?” In the aforementioned article, mental health professional Eric Beeson states, “We’re all a few life experiences away from a major mental health crisis whether we like to admit it or not.” 

And I’m one of the luckier ones in terms of accessing mental healthcare in the Philippines—it’s frustrating that access to help is gated by privilege. On more than one occasion, I’ve had my eyes water up while reading our research participants’ stories. The financial cost of mental illness has led them to compromise their careers and living expenses. (READ: PODCAST: Battling depression and anxiety)

Seeking help can feel labyrinthine even among the middle to upper classes. The onus is on the individual to seek help where leads to it are scarce: Online posts “to save a life,” while well-meaning, are mostly a slew of suicide hotlines – some of which have been infamously hard to reach. There are about 600 psychiatrists in the entire Philippines, most of whom practice in Metro Manila.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t do anything; the point I want to make is that we can all do something about this. With the passage of our National Mental Health Law (RA 11036), we can expect mental health education to be integrated in school systems, leading to a more informed general public down the line – but that will take years. The role of the community in mental health is oft-overlooked, as mental health discourse is usually clinical in nature.

It isn’t just the prerogative of clinicians, psychologists, or mental health professionals, though; suicide prevention is everyone’s business. We do our part now by informing ourselves and others. For emergency situations, the Foundation for Advancing Wellness, Instruction and Talents, Inc. (AWIT) has concise resources in both English and Filipino. But that is neglecting the vast majority in the continuum that suicide prevention is concerned with: There are risk factors, and conversely, protective factors, outlined in a primer by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center.

I learned from both my psych classes and years in therapy how my distorted thinking was affecting the way I was feeling, and vice versa. Psychologists, counselors, and therapists equip you with better ways to cope with what you’re going through, and even those without diagnoses can go if they feel like they need the guidance.

Of course, it’s not just having the resources. You need to put in the work. On social media, self-care has warped into something cutesy or indulgent, but is in fact necessary for survival; taking care of others effectively necessitates that your own needs have been taken care of.

Most importantly, I’ve learned to understand my tells: crying spells, lack of sleep, and an inability to concentrate tell me that it’s getting bad again. It helps to know what rattles me so that I can plan accordingly, like overpreparation and a half tablet of Alprazolam before a big test.

The common element in both sides is empathy, something that isn’t methodically taught in psych classes, but cultivated in our relationships. Suicide prevention is very much relational; it’s an exercise in being perceptive with ourselves and towards those close to us. From self-care and insight, we can move towards being more understanding towards the struggles of others. Even simple affirmations may help validate otherwise hidden cries for help. It’s much better to openly express concern, rather than being vaguely aware of someone’s suicidal thoughts or tendencies then sweeping the situation under the rug.

I’ve since come to terms with the lack of distance between what I do and what I am; I’ve taken to intellectualizing my pain, as well as informing my career with firsthand experience (crying spells at work be damned). I’m still on meds and I’m certain I’ll have bad days again, but that doesn’t change how lucky I’ve been. My entire story, and my being able to tell it, is a function yet again of my privilege. I may not have a resolution that it will all be better 100% of the time, but what people need to hear is that it’s okay if it’s not, as long as you’re gentle to yourselves and those around you. – Rappler.com 

Rissa Coronel is a freelance writer and researcher currently completing her graduate studies. She tries her best to maintain her advocacy for mental health through her organization, Silakbo PH. She was also featured in a Rappler podcast on battling depression and anxiety.

A few weeks from now, from September 20 to 27, millions around the world will walk out from their workplaces, homes and classrooms to join young climate strikers in sounding the alarm on the climate emergency. This will be the largest global climate strike yet in a series of protests inspired by teen climate activist Greta Thunberg about a year ago.

The science is clear. The world is facing a climate breakdown with catastrophic consequences for humanity. In the landmark report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s leading climate scientists warn of irreversible consequences and severe climate impacts as temperatures reach beyond 1.5 degrees, hitting the poor and most vulnerable the hardest.

We have about a dozen years to hold temperature increase below 1.5 degrees. (READ: Facts are facts: World is changing)

The climate breakdown

Since April this year, at least 6 countries including the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Ireland, Portugal and Argentina have declared a climate emergency. Almost a thousand local jurisdictions in 18 countries have made climate emergency declarations, including New York City and Sydney. 

In the Philippines, Bacolod City and Tolosa municipality have voted to declare a climate emergency. (READ: Jefferson Estela, changing the climate for strikes in the Philippines)

A climate emergency declaration sends a strong message of how the the climate breakdown is so urgent and serious that the climate agenda has to be placed at the core of decision-making. It is a commitment to develop a just and ambitious climate emergency mobilization framework, and to consolidate resources to achieve deep emissions cuts by 2030. 

The climate crisis is already causing and will have more severe impacts, affecting millions of vulnerable Filipinos now and in the future. For the Philippines, the climate crisis is multifaceted: it is at the same time a biodiversity crisis, food and water crisis, and finally, an existential crisis. (READ: Should the Philippines declare a climate emergency?)

Biodiversity in crisis

The climate breakdown will have irreversible impacts on marine biodiversity and ecosystems, including fishes, coral reefs, and a million animal and plant species globally that are now threatened with extinction.

Coral reef ecosystems in the country may not survive beyond our lifetime.

There will be very little chance for survival for virtually all coral reefs under the 2-degree warming, wiping out 98% of them by 2050. According to the IPCC landmark report, even a 1.5-degree warming could lead to 70-90% decline in coral reefs.

The Philippines, being at the center of the world’s marine biodiversity, will suffer immensely. Losing our coral reef ecosystem will have a chain reaction on marine fish species, livelihoods of local communities, food security, and recreation and ecotourism.

Food and water crisis

The climate crisis will take a toll on food and water resources.

Both aquatic and agricultural yields will be affected, impacting the livelihood of millions of Filipino fishermen and farmers.

The IPCC report projects that fish catch yield in the Philippines could decrease by as much as 50% in 2050 compared to 2000 levels. Meanwhile, longer and more severe droughts and dry spells, including exacerbated El Niño, will result in lower crop yield and spikes in food prices.

Water will also become increasingly scarce with intensified water cycle, causing shorter but more extreme rainfall and longer droughts.

Earlier this year, more than 6 million people in Metro Manila were affected by water shortages. Several local governments throughout the country also experienced varying degrees of water supply pressures. This resulted in spikes of social and economic disruption for many people.

Coupled with growing local demands and bad governance, the climate breakdown could lead to major food production instability, water shortages, and social instability.

Our house is on fire

Finally, the climate crisis is an existential crisis in that it will lead to large irreversible consequences and fundamental changes in the way humans live. The heating planet will challenge our adaptability to more severe and frequent extreme weather events and climate hazards.

The 2015 Global Climate Risk Index, developed by Germanwatch, shows that the Philippines is the number one country most affected by climate change, ahead of Cambodia and India. 

Rising sea levels would cause waves of displacement in millions in major capitals like Mumbai, Jakarta, Bangkok and Metro Manila, among many other coastal cities.

The science is clear. For the Philippines, the climate crisis is a biodiversity crisis, a food and water crisis, and an existential crisis, affecting millions of Filipinos, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, now and in the future. 

On the importance of declaring a climate emergency, I borrow the words of Greta Thunberg during her speech at the British House of Parliament:

“Sometimes we just simply have to find a way. The moment we decide to fulfil something, we can do anything. And I’m sure that the moment we start behaving as if we were in an emergency, we can avoid climate and ecological catastrophe. Humans are very adaptable: we can still fix this. But the opportunity to do so will not last for long. We must start today. We have no more excuses.”  – Rappler.com

Marvin Lagonera (@marvinlagonera) is a millennial climate emergency activist. He is currently affiliated with C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. Views in this article his own.

The sequel to the controversial TRAIN law, called Citira, pits two key economic agencies against each other.

Citira, which stands for Corporate Income Tax and Incentive Rationalization Act, is previously known as the Trabaho bill, which the House already passed on third and final reading in the previous Congress but ran out of time in the Senate.

On September 9, the House of Representatives passed Citira on second reading.

The Department of Finance (DOF) claims Citira will do the country good. Yet the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) claims this tax reform measure will drive away investors and hurt the economy at large.

What does Citira aim to do? Will it really hurt foreign investments and kill the goose that lays the golden egg for our economy? 

Declining foreign investments

First, note that foreign investments are falling fast.

Figure 1 shows that after a steady climb over the years, foreign direct investments (FDIs) have started to plummet since the middle of last year. 

Of all the components of FDI, the steepest decline can be been seen in “net equity capital,” which just equals incoming net of outgoing investments. Simply put, investments are pulling away at a faster rate than they are coming into the country. 

In particular, FDIs in manufacturing and those from the European Union and ASEAN have fallen the most.

Figure 2 below shows there’s also a steady decline in the number of approved foreign investments. 

Investments approved by PEZA have seen the largest drop, partially counteracted by investments approved by the Board of Investments (BOI).

‘Unli’ perks

It is against this bleak foreign investment backdrop that the Duterte government is pushing for the Citira bill.

Citira has two main objectives which, on close inspection, actually make a lot of economic sense.

First, Citira aims to reduce the tax rate paid by corporations on their incomes.

Today the Philippines has the highest corporate income tax (CIT) rate in ASEAN at 30%. Lowering this to 20% over the next decade will go a long way in making our tax system more competitive in ASEAN and helping attract more investors.

At the same time, though, Citira aims to make it harder for some investors to enjoy the “unli” perks they have been enjoying – nay, abusing – for the longest time. 

In 2017 our government spent P441 billion worth of investment incentives on just 3,150 firms. That’s 2.8% of our nation’s income funneled to just 0.3% of registered firms, solely to entice them to continue doing business in the country.

About a fifth of all firms in economic zones have also been enjoying investment incentives for more than a decade already. In contrast, other ASEAN countries’ investment perks are highly targeted, conditioned on performance, and expire after some date.

In sum, the DOF sees Citira as an opportunity to curtail some of these extravagant yet needless investment perks.

Killing the goose that lays golden eggs?

Naturally, PEZA has a completely different take on Citira. To them, such law will kill the fabled goose that lays the golden egg. 

Right now PEZA operates nearly 400 ecozones nationwide, hosting around 3,558 firms (“locator enterprises”) in various sectors like manufacturing, agro-industry, and IT.

PEZA contends that the incentives received by its firms pale in comparison to the value they generate for our economy.

From 2015 to 2017, PEZA claims its firms got a total of P879.1 billion in investment incentives but generated over P7 trillion in export receipts, on top of other spending items. 

By PEZA’s reckoning, every peso spent on incentives yields P11.4 in economic benefits. 

This figure, although seemingly impressive, may be bloated because it includes not just the value of final goods (as is commonly the case) but also the value of workers’ salaries and corporate taxes. 

Unsurprisingly, this number is also far from the DOF’s own estimate of incentive benefits, which range from just 60 centavos to P1.23 per peso of incentives. 

PEZA Director-General Charito B. Plaza’s opposition to Citira has been loud and clear. 

In one of PEZA’s presentations before Congress, one slide showed in all caps, “PEZA IS NOT BROKEN. PLEASE DON’T FIX IT.” At the very least, Plaza hopes that PEZA will be spared from Citira once passed.

Because of this adamant stance against Citira, some surmise Plaza is the female economic manager that President Duterte wants out due to alleged underperformance.

Caught in the crossfire

Amid continuing debates and quarrels on Citira between the DOF and PEZA, one thing is certain: investors are caught in the crossfire. 

Some analysts even blame the recent decline of foreign investments on the cloud of uncertainty spawned by Citira. 

Recently the DOF trumpeted a 112% increase in approved foreign investments during the first half of 2019. For them, this belies the claim of “noisy naysayers” that investors are getting spooked by Citira.

Although the figure is correct, it hides the overall downtrends in foreign investments seen in Figures 1 and 2.

Right now prospective investors are reportedly holding off their expansion in the Philippines or else eyeing to invest in other ASEAN countries like Vietnam. This is completely understandable: investors will not invest until they know exactly the taxes and perks they will end up paying and receiving.

Tax competition in ASEAN is indeed getting stiffer, and Vietnam is now proving to be the region’s fastest-growing investment hub. 

For instance, most of Samsung’s smartphones are now made in Vietnam, and Samsung plans to further expand there alongside other tech giants such as Intel and Microsoft. 

Many Chinese firms hit by the ongoing US-China trade war are also seeking refuge in Vietnam. Hence, Vietnam is widely expected to turn escalating trade tensions to its advantage.  

A recent study by the Asian Development Bank also found that the Philippines, too, could stand to gain from the US-China trade war – but only if we can attract enough investors our way. 

Until Citira is settled soon, though, we can’t expect foreign investors to flock in droves to our country just yet.

Worse problems

For all we know, investors may be bluffing.

Even if Citira does pass, many investors will likely choose to enter and stay because of our economy’s other redeeming factors, such as our young, educated workforce and our investment grade ratings. 

Yet our government must also ensure that the country’s investment climate remains alluring enough even without a surfeit of fiscal incentives.

Disquietingly, red flags are beginning to crop up throughout our economy. In the last quarter GDP growth continued to plummet below target, private investments shrank, agriculture remained anemic, and construction of infrastructure projects faltered. 

In other words, many other things could make or break our country’s attractiveness to investors. Citira's stricter investment incentives may be the least of our worries. – Rappler.com

The author is a PhD candidate at the UP School of Economics. His views are independent of the views of his affiliations. Thanks to Jerome Abesamis for valuable insights and comments. Follow JC on Twitter (@jcpunongbayan) and Usapang Econ (usapangecon.com). 

The League of Provinces of the Philippines (LPP) has conveyed a formal appeal to President Rodrigo Duterte, seeking his “prudent intercession” in the implementation of the decision in the case of Mandanas vs. Ochoa.

This landmark decision significantly expands the revenue base from which the Internal Revenue Allotments (IRA) to local government units (LGUs) are computed. 

Henceforth, the national levies to be included in the computation of the IRA, which should now be called National Tax Allotment (NTA), would include the following: 

• The national internal revenue taxes enumerated in Section 21 of the National Internal Revenue Code collected by the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs;
• Tariff and customs duties collected by the Bureau of Customs;
• 50% of the value-added taxes collected in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, and 30% of all other national tax collected in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao;
• 60% of the national taxes collected from the exploitation and development of the national wealth;
• 85% of the excise taxes collected from locally manufactured Virginia and other tobacco products;
• The entire 50% of the national taxes collected under Sections 106, 108 and 116 of the NIRC as provided under Section 283 of the NIRC; and
• 5% of the 25% franchise taxes given to the National Government under Section 6 of Republic Act No. 6631 and Section 8 of Republic Act No. 6632.

Under this new regime, the NTA will obviously be a significant windfall for LGUs.

Hence, it is easy to understand why the LPP wants President Duterte to facilitate the release of the NTA this year, contradicting the suggestion of the administration’s economic team to implement the Mandanas decision in 2022. 

The central government’s position was explained by Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo this way: “Due to the various commitments of the President to the people, such as the implementation of programs designed to combat crime and corruption, as well as activities of the national government to promote human development and poverty reduction, to name a few, it was agreed that the adjustment of the IRA may not be feasibly effected during this administration.”

Ironically, the LPP reached out directly to the President for the immediate release of the NTA reasoning that, “LGUs need the additional resources now under your administration, more so with the implementation of the Universal Health Care as well as with your other priority programs.”

So, the central government and the LGUs are palpably at loggerheads here, with both using the desire to help the President to justify their claim to the Mandanas money. 

Core issue

But this impasse on when to implement the decision unravels a deeper pathology in the current decentralization arrangement in the Philippines, which is the fact that there is no unequivocal allocation of responsibilities between the central government and LGUs.

The prevailing local autonomy framework allows the national government and LGUs to simultaneously assert responsibility over certain public service deliverables. Consequently, permitting both levels of government to make legitimate claims to the national coffers to fund efforts that basically deliver the same services.

Accordingly, the “funds follow the function” rule in public fiscal administration cannot be applied in resolving the Mandanas stalemate. In fact, defining the respective competencies of the central government and the different levels of LGUs is a long-term solution for it requires amending the Administrative Code and the Local Government Code. 

Obviously, improving the current decentralization structure via legislative reform must still be pursued by Congress independent of the political stoush concerning the Mandanas case.

End deadlock

But there is another option that can lead to the immediate resolution of the deadlock and this is a resort to the principle of Intergovernmental Relations or IGR.

IGR is explained in academic literature as fundamentally the coming together of different orders of governments within a political system, through formal or informal processes, to work towards the achievement of common goals. 

IGR mechanisms are utilized to avoid redundancies, duplication, unreasonable fragmentation and ineffective amalgamation in both the policymaking process and in the delivery of public services.  Hence, IGR is now considered an integral component of good governance. 

The concept of IGR is traditionally associated with federal systems. IGR processes have been described as the “lifeblood of federalism in practice.” But many scholars maintain that IGR mechanisms can and do play a key function in unitary systems with embedded decentralization arrangements such as the Philippines. 

The fact is the growing complexity of public mandates means that different levels of government are now mutually dependent in many regards. And as the demands of modern governance intensify, having a deeper understanding of the fundamentals of IGR has become extremely important for a state with a multilevel system of government.

Such caveat is particularly more urgent for the Philippines because cooperation and collaboration by and between the central government and LGUs have yet to be instinctively and consistently practiced.

Building consensus

Nevertheless, the prospects of resorting to IGR in resolving the Mandanas impasse is high.

And the reason for this because the LPP ultimately concedes that “both national and local governments share the common objective to ensure compliance with the Constitutional provision guaranteeing the just share of LGUs in all national taxes without necessarily disrupting the fiscal and deficit targets of the country and thereby maintain macroeconomic stability.” 

More importantly, the group is very open to explore options to arrive at a mutually beneficial solution.  And a willingness to dialogue expressed by the LPP opens the possibility of the President organizing and presiding over a roundtable discussion with local chief executives and pertinent members of his Cabinet to find alignment and cohesion in implementing the Mandanas decision. 

An approach anchored on consensus-building will not only significantly increase the chances of resolving the deadlock, but it can also herald more cooperation and collaboration between the central government and LGUs under the Duterte administration.

More critically, the proper use of IGR moving forward will definitely complement efforts by Congress to reform the current local autonomy framework. – Rappler.com 

Michael Henry Ll. Yusingco, LL.M is a non-resident research fellow at the Ateneo Policy Center of the Ateneo School of Government.

MANILA, Philippines – Marami sa ating binubuno ang malaking bahagi ng araw na nasa loob lamang ng office cubicle, nakatali sa mesa’t silya, sa harap ng computer.

Tila walang katapusan ang trabaho. Buti na lang, hindi nauubos ang mga kuwento at diskarte para magkaroon ng kahit na papaano'y peace of mind sa office.

Mula sa pakikitungo sa iyong boss hanggang sa pakikipag-date ng officemate, pakinggan ang ilang tips nina Chito, Paul, at Michael para ma-survive ang buhay opisina.

– Rappler.com

Before I start this short essay, I’d like to cover my bases first: To all Pia Wurtzbach stans out there, I assure you that this piece is not an affront to our Miss Universe 2015. Her grace and calm I can only aspire to, and her collarbones will continue to be worshipped long after we are gone. 

—

I write this piece on my 34th birthday. It’s usually just like any other day, except I treat myself to a thing or two, and am inundated on Facebook by many warm well wishes. I wake up, then, to quite a few notifications on my phone, which leads to me to just continue browsing Facebook while I’m still in bed. 

So I was watching this random video, only for it be interrupted by an ad, as usual. I figured I’d just let the ad play itself out, but I was not expecting what I saw and heard in the next 15 seconds. Pia Wurtzbach – beautiful, stately Pia Wurtzbach – stared directly at me and said something like, “If today is your birthday, happy birthday from me and [product]!” Then the video resumed playing, and I was left staring at my phone as if it were possessed.

Having worked in digital media for many years, I knew full well it was because of the personal information I had willingly shared with Facebook when I’d first signed up for it. Facebook knew my birthday (and location, and closest friends, and food preferences, and shopping habits, and probably the part of the body I soap first in the shower), and sold this information to advertisers. The advertisers then orchestrated this ad to come out right when they knew it was my birthday and when my eyeballs and ears were in rapt attention. (READ: Why Facebook's new 'privacy cop' is doomed to fail)

It’s not magic. It’s not a dystopian daydream. It’s the here and now, and we’ve consciously steered ourselves in this direction. Personalized greetings used to come from, well, persons. Now they come from a few seconds' worth of Pia, who has no idea who she’s saying happy birthday to. 

That we have signed off our private lives to corporations has been a major issue these past few years, and this hold on our online behavior has had world-shaking consequences, from Brexit, to Donald Trump, to our own dirty daddy Duterte. We see this on the news more and more, and to call attention to it is certainly crucial for all of us. (READ: Did Cambridge Analytica use Filipinos' Facebook data to help Duterte win?)

But I suppose it’s also worth pointing out the smaller, seemingly harmless phenomena as well, starting with the way a super-quick, super-simple online ad just managed to co-opt the day I was born – a fact once significant to just me and my loved ones – as a way to sell me sore throat lozenges.

No, I was not harmed by this ad. It will not stop me from going about my day like I’d planned. But once I swing by a pharmacy and see a pack of Pia’s lozenges, I will have no choice but to have a bizarrely clear acknowledgement of it, given how personally its ad was able to target me, and that is exactly what the corporate overlords want. 

What will the next years (or even months) bring? Julia Barretto congratulating you on your wedding day? #KathNiel cheering you on before your college entrance exams? Derek Ramsey consoling you after your father’s death? I may be exaggerating (or am I?), but my point is that our privacy (and, frankly, our own mind) is being used on us, to someone else’s benefit, in ways that we never could have predicted a few years ago.  

So today, I will try to make a humble prediction: The rise of deepfakes in targeted ads. And I don’t just mean manipulating celebrity likenesses to make it seem like they’re holding an intimate conversation with you (while sipping X brand of soda). The likenesses could be that of our loved ones – the people we trust, the people whose lives are so closely entwined with ours. Want to look good? A deepfake of your ex can show you where to shop so you can win his heart back. Feeling hungry? A deepfake of your mom could recommend a new restaurant with pasta almost as good as hers. (READ: Chinese 'deepfake' app goes viral, puts user faces on actors)

You know they’re fake. You know it’s because corporations have photos of everyone, because everyone has willingly submitted selfies to one face swap app after another. But these ads will strike a chord with you whether you like it or not, because a roomful of ad executives are on a hefty payroll to make sure they do.

This may all sound silly and unlikely right now, but if someone last year told me Pia Wurtzbach would look straight into my eyes the morning of my birthday and wish it were a happy one, I would have laughed it off too. So if I may ask for a birthday wish from you, it’s to be mindful of the content that blips by you, and to say something when it instinctively feels wrong.

It would be best to speak up for yourself, before a deepfake does the speaking for you. – Rappler.com

President Duterte has found his poster boy, the emblem of his regime, the embodiment of its character, the personification of its beliefs and codes of conduct. 

That poster boy is Nicanor Faeldon.  

Duterte has proclaimed him Mr Upright, the one to look up to for inspiration and emulation. Imagine him cast in bronze, feet held together straight up in the air, arms outstretched at his sides for balance, and head stood on the plinth in the circus act that precisely illustrates the perspective from which Duterte rules: wrong side up.

That perspective, being contrary to the one promoted by Guillermo Tolentino’s Oblation, the iconic monument to openness and selflessness that all these 84 years has welcomed you to the University of the Philippines, strikes a chord that gives off a portentous resonance specific to that state university: Duterte wants to starve it of funds for being too liberal for his own taste. 

Needless to say (but said here for Duterte’s sake), as only expected of all institutions of learning, UP offers to educate its students in every ism across the ideological spectrum. If they choose to lean left, it’s a choice made not only freely but knowledgeably – although our democratic Constitution says that freely is fair enough. 

But since the very idea of freedom, and, in particular, of education conducted in an atmosphere of freedom, is anathema to him, Duterte may as well build a Nicanor Faeldon University that will turn humans into loyal canines.

Only a Duterte presidency would find a fit for Faeldon. In fact, he received his Duterte testimonial for uprightness while under Senate investigation as prisons director, for liberating inmates who had been sentenced to life imprisonment for heinous crimes, like murder and rape, therefore automatically ineligible under the law rewarding good conduct in confinement; yet another issue is whether they and even those nominally eligible had been truly behaved enough to deserve liberty.

Duterte, however, views the case as a mere “misapplication” of the law largely and has been quick to come to the defense of prison officials and staff who found themselves involved in it but acted “in good faith” – whatever that means. 

Obviously, he counts Faeldon among them, but is firing him even so. Anyhow, there’s really nothing to being fired from the Duterte regime: it is the position that is found undeserving of its occupant, not the other way around, again in keeping with the regime’s wrong-side-up perspective. That’s why no one fired has been punished. In fact, one is more likely rewarded with a new position, as was Faeldon himself. 

He had been Customs commissioner before prisons director. He was fired after a methamphetamine (shabu) shipment worth P6.4 billion had slipped past him. 

Also, not a month into his prisons directorship, his son Nicanor Jr, in a strangely coincidental case of bad luck but good faith, found himself in the home of his girlfriend in the exact moment of dawn that it was raided for drugs. Shabu was found and seized. Junior was arrested along with everyone else, but soon cleared, thus saved, in case his father had meant his filicidal public ranting: “I will kill that idiot….”   

It’s now the father’s turn to prove himself upright. Well, he had better look genuinely incredibly idiotic, although even that may not work, given the stark findings that continue to emerge from the Senate hearings. 

It is becoming more and more evident that just about any privilege a prisoner might desire, not only liberty, has a price – from a cellphone, a television set, and other amenities that make for a more comfortable prison life than the prescribed one to gambling, drugs, and sex. How could Faeldon have missed all that, and missed it “in good faith”?

Duterte himself has no chance with a good-faith defense. That simply will not wash with his unremitting persecution of critics or the thousands of dead in his brutal war on drugs or his treasonous ceding of Philippine sovereignty to China over the West Philippine Sea and the continuing betrayals arising from it. But the insanity defense may just work for him. 

Operating wrong-side-up is definitely not normal or sane. But it’s something he cannot help; it is a compulsion driven by a psychological disorder, properly clinically certified: he is a remorseless narcissist.

Still, he will have to end up confined. – Rappler.com

“Act like a man.” That was the motto of my high school. Growing up, I was surrounded by boys who were always eager to prove their masculinity. Some ended up in fights, others in sports, others in parties, but almost all seemed to loathe one thing: Being gay. I studied in a school where being labeled a faggot was an attack on your masculinity, where coming out to your barkada meant possibly losing your best friend. 

I was forced to go through this every single year, with a religion teacher that read us the same bible verse that said homosexuals were an abomination. I had to sit through teachers telling me that I was an abomination, that my love was a sin, that my feelings were a phase. 

In my Grade 9 class, our religion teacher went as far as saying that being gay or lesbian is a mental disorder. My teachers never told me God hated me. In fact, they were very clear God loved all sinners. But I was still a sin that I couldn't change. They never needed to tell me he did because, after all, he must. Regardless, I'm an abomination. I'm mentally-disordered. 

I studied in a school where being anything but straight made you afraid of whether or not you were going to be allowed to stay. I heard the story of a girl in our sister school who had to transfer because she was caught making out with another girl on campus, stories of students who got kicked out because people found out they were gay. Some of them weren't true. A lot of them were. But to us it didn't matter because the only thing we knew to be true was that we were afraid.

This fear is one that many young LGBTQIA+ students share – the fear of being kicked out of school, the fear of being sneered at on the street for holding someone’s hand, the fear of losing friends, the fear of being disowned by their families, the fear of not getting a job. 

But not all hope is lost. 

In 2018, I joined the Philippine Anti-Discrimination Alliance (PANTAY), a nationwide network of young LGBT advocates fighting against discrimination. We continue to fight for the SOGIE equality bill, a proposed law that would criminalize all forms of discrimination against people on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. It would protect students like myself from being kicked out of school because they were gay, prevent parents from forcing their children to go through conversion therapy, and bigots from spreading hate through textbooks.  

While many say the Philippines is one of the most LGBT-friendly countries in the world, I feel that it just isn’t. Fighting for this bill is one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. Whenever I go online, all I see are people calling young LGBT people disordered, against the will of God, and part of the destruction of the moral fabric Philippine society; sometimes I feel like I’m back in that school. 

The SOGIE equality law will seek to end discrimination on the basis of SOGIE in the public sector, public spaces, the workplace, in schools, and in the household. If this gets passed, people wouldn’t be able to try to force us through conversion therapy because we’re gay, beat us because we like dresses more than pants, or kick us out of school for our sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expression.  

When this gets passed, the message comes loudly and clearly from a state policy: that LGBT kids like me need to be protected, and that discrimination in all forms is inherently wrong. We must build a society where people like me don’t have to be afraid of who they are. 

This is for the thousands of children who were taught that they are nothing but abominations, for the kids who are disowned by their parents, for the students kicked out of schools, for young people harassed in the streets.  

Things need to change. And that change should start with a SOGIE equality law that recognizes equal rights for LGBT persons like me, a law that tells me, “No, you are not disordered nor an abomination”.  

In school, I needed to hear that. Thousands of LGBT kids need to hear that.  – Rappler.com  

Jake is a second year AB Communication student from the Ateneo De Manila University. He is 18 years old.