stories from the middle earth press room

"...Because the conflict has been going on for years, they have coined a term for it -- "the great divide." Yet many professors and school officials do not even know it exists. On one side are students who came from private schools like Ateneo and La Salle. On the other side are those who did not. They are all bright and talented, except that perhaps the minority from private schools have better communication skills and a better command of English, though there are exceptions. Because they always speak English, and perhaps exude a certain kind of self-esteem and confidence, they have been the object of hatred by others. More so my daughter Bernadette. She is a candidate for summa cum laude, vice president of her organization, and a possible topnotcher for UP's entire graduating batch, and was singled out...."

i refuse to believe speaking good english is the reason why the accused cheaters were "singled out", "discrimated against" by the other students, as the father of one of the accused, Bernardo Lopez, claimed. Maybe there are narrow-minded people in the UP system but speaking good english IS NOT one of those the reasons why they will pick on you. I don't know where Lopez studied in college but i hope he did not come from UP because it seems like he does not know UP at all.

ok let's say give him benefit of the doubt...

but speaking good english is a very lame excuse. as celeni puts it succintly:

"...I do not think that the greater student body has a knack for condemning people based on their socio-economic background or their choice of vernacular. I find it particularly offensive that even if you generalized the student body as "bright and talented", you still condemned some of them as baseless accusers who will falsify events based on their slightly inferior English-speaking skills..."

like what the ---???

i just don't understand why they keep on harping on the loss of the Gawad. is that award very important to validate your intelligence? is it a validation of your self-worth?

the issue would not come out to the media and blogosphere if it weren't for them anyway. i mean the UP admin decided to be silent about it and i guess the local media did not bother to cover it since -- as i've said earlier -- the UP community was mum about it until the issue was resolved, i think. and it was good para so that the accused would not be nailed to the cross further.

anyway, these are the classic examples of pompous asses, in my opinion, who are too drunk in their own consequence, their self-glorification. the way bernadatte (one of the accused) wrote her letter was indicative of what kind of character she has. para bang walang humility. yes, she is angry and she should be. but read again her letter. ang yabang eh. makikisimpatya pa sana ako pero...

as i've experienced in my college and post-college years, i discovered that my self-worth is not tied to whether i was cum laude or not. at the end of the day it would all boil down to whether i've been good to my brethren or i did a good job and i know i worked my ass for it. yes it's so cliche.

i'm not bitter that i wasn't able to have those awards, the cum laude thing that was supposed to be attached at the end of my name when i went up the stage during graduation. anyway, kasalanan ko din naman bakit nagpabaya ako. basta i know i did not kiss asses, did not compromise my principles (hello soc sci!) and lived my college life to the fullest (*hik*). i know i am intelligent enough for whatever i'm doing right now. i know that the cum laude thing would be negated by my performance at work and by my character. just the same the stigma of being called a cheater during their college years would be erased when they will be out in the field and do their thing.

as long as your self-worth is not attached to these accolades, you'll be all right.

ang question is, binawian ba sila ng cum laude, magna cum laude and summa cum laude nila? mukha namang hindi. point is -- let it go. life is too short to dwell on such petty things like cheating scandal and the loss of the Gawad. yes, it's easy for me to say but if you let yourself be burdened by this, you will only let this haunt the rest of your life. besides, people's attention span now is only up to 15 minutes so by next year people will completely have forgotten about this by then.

but let's go back to the main point. the great divide in UP exists when there are students who drive around the campus during enrollment in their BMWs while there are students who are already at their wits' end trying to find ways how to pay for their increasing tuition fees for the semester. i suppose the animosity (if there is any) towards these rich kids would rear its ugly head when those who try to survive in the university without knowing how they would be able to stretch a measly P500-a-week budget (if they are lucky to have such budget) sees that the "haves" are just wasting away this opportunity to study in a premier university by showing up in school stoned and drunk and yet they have more chances of staying in UP because they have pamasahe and lunch money in their pockets.

my mother adopted this kid from her hometown when she learned that the reason why this student was always absent is because wala siyang pamasahe papasok. muntikan na kasi madismiss yung bata pero nung nalaman ng faculty na yung excessive absences nya eh dahil sa kahirapan, inimbita na siya ng nanay ko tumira sa amin hanggang makatapos. maraming utang pala 'to sa mga kaibigan nya kasi wala siyang pangkain and may mga panahong papasok siya na hindi pa kumakain maghapon.

she stayed in our house for a while and during the time na inampon siya ng nanay ko, hindi siya kumakain ng pagkain namin. akala namin ayaw niya. yun pala nagiguilty dahil siya masarap daw kinakain sa bahay namin samantalang mga kapatid nya daw walang makain. she cannot bring herself to eat good food.

in the end she left our house and did not enroll that coming semester. i guess she ended up as a panadera somewhere to support her siblings, as was her original plan before she came to our house. my mom was powerless to stop her. guilt was eating this kid alive.

marami silang ganyan. kaya nga naimbento sa amin sa elbi yung "101 ways to cook pancit canton and 555 sardines" (i had a good friend who taught me ways to cook lucky me and 555 and she came from a poor family)....kasi yun lang ang kayang bilhin ng karamihan ng estdyante sa amin sa UP para tumagal lang ang allowance na kayang ibigay ng magulang nila o ng kinikita sa pagiging student assistant o serbedora sa mcdo.

pero dahil sa kahirapan, maraming tumitigil sa pag-aaral.

AND THAT, MR. LOPEZ, WHERE THE GREAT DIVIDE LIES.

i'm soooo huli na sa balita. just got wind of it when a brod forwarded these links to our egroup. sorry, i'll just copy and paste the letters here and links first before i react later. work is calling.

--

got this from beachbaby, one of the accused.

I gave this letter to each of the above addressees last Wednesday, March 5, 2008 (some notes in parenthesis were not included in the original). It's about time I defend myself to the greater UP Community as well. Sobra na toh. What were mere malicious rumors before have now blown up to threaten ruining our lives.

THOSE OF YOU WHO DO NOT KNOW ME AND WHO DO NOT KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED, STOP JUDGING. THIS HAS GONE TOO FAR. STOP SPECULATING. THIS IS THE TRUTH.

THOSE OF YOU WHO KEEP ON SAYING FALSE THINGS TO DESTROY US. THERE IS NOT ONLY SPIRITUAL KARMA, BUT LEGAL KARMA AS WELL.

***

AN OPEN LETTER TO PRES. ROMAN, CHANCELLOR CAO, DEAN DE DIOS (& THE UP DILIMAN COMMUNITY)

March 4, 2008

Merit and excellence have always been the battle cry of this prestigious University, as articulated by President Emerlinda Roman. The theme of the UP Centennial celebration is aptly “UP: Excellence, Leadership, and Service.” Merit and excellence have always been my battle cry as well.

I have devoted my life to the pursuit of academic excellence and purposeful leadership. I compete with no one but myself. I have thus achieved to be a Summa Cum Laude candidate, a Features Editor of our college organ, a Vice-President of the UP Junior Marketing Association, and winner in various national competitions.

This commitment to merit and excellence was recognized by the Office of the Vice-Chancellor for Student Affairs (OVSCA) as they selected me to be one of the three recipients of the 2008 Gawad Chanselor sa Natatanging Mag-aaral, the most prestigious award that the University bestows to students each year. (They gave me a call to notify me of the official results last February 22, 2008, Friday.)

But this commitment to merit and excellence was also desecrated. Two days before the Gawad Chanselor awarding ceremony (February 26, 2008), I received a call that my award had been suspended due to the malicious allegations that my friends and I have committed academic dishonesty. This was done based on a mere phone call of a college professor warning that the University would be put in an embarrassing position were they to give an award and recall it afterward. On the contrary, in my view, the University would be put in a more embarrassing position if it failed to recognize merit and excellence based on mere rumors and suspicion, without specific charges, evidence, investigative data, or due process. It would be more embarrassing if the University failed to uphold the rights to recognition. These rumors have been the basis for the suspension of a highly-scrutinized and intensely-screened award.

Days were spent collating my resume, a nomination letter, and evidence and documentation of my achievements since my first day in the University. Along with those requirements, I obtained and submitted an SDT (Student Disciplinary Tribunal) clearance and a college clearance signed by the College Secretary himself—evidence that I indeed had no academic or disciplinary cases to my name as of the time of nomination and selection for the Gawad Chancellor Award.

Seven months ago, on August 6, 2007, we took an exam in one of our majors. Days after, some students complained that cheating happened during the exam. They insisted that those accused should be punished. However, it was said that they did not want to write and sign a formal complaint, hence, proper investigations could not ensue. To resolve the issue, the teacher asked the consensus of the students to take a retest to nullify the first exam. In the retake, my friends and I obtained the same high marks; I got a score of 100%.

From then on, rumors filled the halls of the UP School of Economics. In one instance, my name was even written on the freedom bulletin board and labeled a cheater. Countless emails had been sent by random students from the batch, condemning the accused. These malicious rumors even reached my friends at the De La Salle University in Taft.

On October 5, 2007, the UP School of Economics Faculty released a position paper and posted it in each and every single classroom door of the college, “expressing its extreme disappointment that these students have violated not only the rules of the University but our trust.” It is so painful, even though our names were not mentioned, (everybody knew from hearsay anyway) that we were condemned without evidence or trials by our own teachers. This was prior to any formal investigation or the opportunity to hear out our side.

You know the feeling when one day you wake up and suddenly your life is over? When in just a snap there was nothing to work hard for or to live for anymore. It’s hard to walk into a room full of haters and accusers. It’s hard to report in class when everyone stares at you with cold, accusing eyes. It’s hard to receive the highest score on a test when people around you think you’ve cheated again to get that 99. It’s hard to consult with professors regarding your thesis when their fellow teachers look as if they abhorred your mere presence. I felt I didn’t belong in UP anymore. As if I didn’t belong to me anymore. In a single instant, I was no longer myself. The career path I had laid out in front of me was suddenly blocked. All the things I spent twenty-one years to build were suddenly gone. My reputation and my integrity were suddenly tainted. The person that I am suddenly lost credibility. And I don’t deserve this.

It made me see indeed the realness and bitterness of this world. That one is susceptible to hate. People hate you without you ever really doing anything to them; when you’re just really minding your own business. Apparently, your business is their business and they want to destroy it. My group and I, the alleged “cheaters” have been a victim of hate and hostility in our immediate environment. We were dubbed as “conyo,” the group from private schools who thought them better than anyone else. In the pursuit of service to fellow students, a good number of us had also run for the Student Council and subsequently lost to the hate-driven political agenda of the majority. They said we had everything—the money, the leadership positions in various student organizations, the grades, and the resumes. They said we resorted to bribing professors and authorities. These are nothing but absurd, hateful propaganda against us. One of the accusers even sent a text message to one of us saying that the only way to save himself was if “idiin mo sila” (referring to us). What a coincidence that the reported accused is a group of friends, composed of Summa, Magna, and Cum Laude-standing students. And what more, these students were also Presidents, Vice-Presidents, and Officers of their respective student organizations. During these moments, I learned about the crab mentality that plagued the world, the abhorrence for merit and excellence. When you’re up, people try desperately to bring you down. When I told some school officials about this ‘great divide’ in the college, they were surprised, and, apparently, they still do not know that this hate campaign had been a problem not just in our year but reportedly in the previous years. This campus culture is a bad reflection of the entire university.

I did not cheat to get high grades. I have not cheated my way through college. All that I am and all that I have right now are the product of hard work and sheer dedication. Any logical person would agree that it is much, much easier to study for four years than to cheat for four years. My professors, past and present, and the people who really know me can vouch for my performance. Thus, I call for justice and due process. I call for the stop of trial by publicity and biased judgments. I call for the University’s commitment to merit and excellence in its proceedings.

Bernadette G. Lopez

IV Business Economics, School of Economics

University of the Philippines Diliman

here is the letter of her father published in businessworld. got this from celeni.

Business World, 12 March 2008

UPSHOT

UP's Great Divide
Bernardo V. Lopez

There is a strange conflict ranging in the School of Economics (SE) of the University of the Philippines.

SE is reputed to be the best in Southeast Asia, a center of excellence, yet there are forces within SE trying to suppress this excellence.

Because the conflict has been going on for years, they have coined a term for it -- "the great divide." Yet many professors and school officials do not even know it exists. On one side are students who came from private schools like Ateneo and La Salle. On the other side are those who did not. They are all bright and talented, except that perhaps the minority from private schools have better communication skills and a better command of English, though there are exceptions. Because they always speak English, and perhaps exude a certain kind of self-esteem and confidence, they have been the object of hatred by others. More so my daughter Bernadette. She is a candidate for summa cum laude, vice president of her organization, and a possible topnotcher for UP's entire graduating batch, and was singled out.

It began with accusations of cheating during an exam last semester. The report was rumor-based. No one wanted to come forward and make a formal charge. The accused group was said to be the cream of the graduating class - one summa, Bernadette, and the rest, all magna and cum laudes. They were presidents, vice presidents, and officers of various student organizations. It seemed excellence was the target of hatred. The freedom bulletin board and the batch yahoogroup were splattered with anonymous derogatory accusations. Text messages spread that they would graduate without honors.

The class gave their consensus for a reexamination on one subject, where the accused group received the same high marks; my daughter got a score of 100%. The final grades for the subject were released, accepted, and encoded by the SE. However, the proctoring teacher, who denied there was cheating, was accused of being incompetent. One angry SE professor took the cudgels for the accusers and wanted the teacher thrown out despite the absence of charges, evidence, and due process.

Because the rumors had spread to other schools, the accusers now had a problem. There was pressure for hard evidence from witnesses. A fact-finding committee was formed. There was no more time. Graduation is around the corner. At the last moment, the committee started shopping for witnesses and even cited incidents from several years back. Now the image of the entire university is at stake, if it denies recognition to those who deserve it, assuming innocence.

The angry SE professor succeeded in blocking Bernadette from the Gawad Chancellor Award, the most prestigious in the university, on a mere phone call, no documents, arguing that the university would be put in an embarrassing situation if it gave an award and recalled it later. On the contrary, it would be more embarrassing if it denied students the right to recognition, as guaranteed by the faculty manual, only on the basis of hearsay. The blocking action is seen by many as tantamount to presuming guilt. A university official later admitted that the award committee was amiss in making a decision based on insufficient information.

Bernadette, in a letter to the university president, the chancellor, and the dean of the School of Economics, wrote, "[the university's] commitment to merit and excellence was desecrated."

She further wrote, "On October 5, 2007, the UP School of Economics Faculty released a position paper and posted it in each and every single classroom door of the college, “expressing its extreme disappointment that these students have violated not only the rules of the University but our trust.” It is so painful, even though our names were not mentioned, (everybody knew from hearsay anyway) that we were condemned without evidence or trials by our own teachers. This was prior to any formal investigation or the opportunity to hear out our side.

"You know the feeling when one day you wake up and suddenly your life is over? When in just a snap there was nothing to work hard for or to live for anymore. It’s hard to walk into a room full of haters and accusers. It’s hard to report in class when everyone stares at you with cold, accusing eyes...

"I did not cheat to get high grades. I have not cheated my way through college. All that I am and all that I have right now are the product of hard work and sheer dedication. Any logical person would agree that it is much, much easier to study for four years than to cheat for four years. My professors, past and present, and the people who really know me can vouch for my performance. Thus, I call for justice and due process. I call for the stop of trial by publicity and biased judgments. I call for the University’s commitment to merit and excellence in its proceedings." (See http://beachbaby.multiply.com for the full text.)

The Constitution guarantees everyone, including my daughter, the right to presumption of innocence. The Revised Penal Code of the Philippines also holds crimes of dishonor, whether committed by fellow students or angry teachers, as punishable by law.

eastwind@motherignaciaministry.com

and this is celeni's reply:

Dear Mr Lopez,

I am currently a student of the UP School of Economics, and yes, I am a batchmate of your daughter (she was actually my editor last year). Your recent Upshot column in Business World (March 12) was rather a double-edged sword, and quite frankly, offensive. I do know that you are trying to protect your daughter and her reputation with the rest of the world, but there was a gross mischaracterization of the institution (that is the School of Economics), that I assume moulded your daughter in the past four years. I will not comment on the incidents that led to this controversial issue in campus, but I would like to remark to the salient points of the critique of our school.

The title itself "UP's Great Divide" is particularly misleading. The social dynamics of our school cannot be reduced to a dichotomy between the private-school-kids-who-speak-better-Eng

lish vs "the others". I also came from a private, Catholic high school upbringing, with above average oral and written English skills. However, even if I do speak in English in regular hallway conversations and exude the confidence that you characterised in your article, I do not feel ire and dismay from the greater student body. In fact, I do not think that the greater student body has a knack for condemning people based on their socio-economic background or their choice of vernacular. I find it particularly offensive that even if you generalized the student body as "bright and talented", you still condemned some of them as baseless accusers who will falsify events based on their slightly inferior English-speaking skills. I do believe that almost everyone in our University, especially the School of Economics, are bright and talented. And to be consistent with this belief, I do not believe that people would be petty enough to create life-destroying judgements only because they're jealous about other people's confidences. This generalisation about the great divide of our school becomes more problematic because you have published this information on a paper read by a lot of our future employers, mentors and colleagues.

Furthermore, it seems as if a lot of the university's action towards resolving the case has been put in question. The article insinuates that there is no form of due process that addresses the issue, when in fact, there is. While I do not know who the "angry SE professor" is, in his or her defence, I believe that any authority in an academic institution will naturally be enraged by academic dishonesty, even by the sheer idea of it occurring. The suspension of the Gawad Chanselor could probably signify a continuous investigation process, one that wasn't resolved yet, and not merely based on a professor's appeal based on rumours. I think that the award committee, led by the Chancellor himself, would be rational enough to weigh the costs and benefits of the suspension given that the entire issue functions on asymmetric information. It is rash to make immediate judgements about actions taken when a lot of tangential issues have not been settled.

In the same way you defend your daughter's innocence, I also defend the character of the university in how they handle affairs that involve morality and ambiguity.

Here's to hoping that things get clearer in the near future.

Cheers,

--
CELENI KRISTINE G. GUINTO
School of Economics
University of the Philippines
Diliman, Quezon City

reactions later.

this is the direction that Other Half and I would want to go within the next few years. actually ako lang naman ang may utang (yoohoo credit cards! the most expensive debt one can ever have!).

"We didn’t strike it rich in real estate, we didn’t luck into some crazy stock tip, and we don’t even have extremely high paying jobs (we started at $85,000 gross combined).  Instead, we systematically controlled our spending so that our expenses were well below our income.  We then took the savings and aggressively paid down our debts while at the same time investing for our retirement..." --  How My Net Worth Went from $-40,000 to $285,000 in Five Years

read more here.

at pinagsasabong na po ni brian gorrell ang PDI and phil. star.

and the plot is getting thicker. hmm...maybe other newspapers would take advantage of the fact that advertisers are pulling out of star. *wink wink*

i'm soooo bad...biyernes santo pa naman. tama na ang pagkakasala. iba na lang muna atupagin ko.

--

i've been so inspired by what this guy did...




...that i decided to declutter the mess of a computer station that Other Half occupies (i have my own workstation here)


imagine, i've been carrying that big toshiba on my back everyday for a year. everyday. yup, that's my part of my home office. the thing underneath my toshiba is a laptop cooler i bought from cdr-king for P330 yata.

ANYWAY...

this is how Other Half and i decluttered his workstation.


those are some nasty wires, especially that 5.1 creative speaker system. our extension cord used to be on the floor with a lot of electrical wires tangled. then my our modem was located at the back of the monitor together with the rear speakers while the wireless router was on the other table. basta magulo (it's messy). first thing we did was we mounted the extension cord with switches on the side of the computer table that i bought years ago from office warehouse in araneta cubao.


then we mounted the wifi router and modem using screws and tied and tacked the wires on the sides of the table.


the speakers used to hog a lot of space on top of the computer table shelf and on the table itself where our 17" monitor sits. Other Half and i drilled holes on both sides of shelf and screwed the speakers in place.


stapled the wires in place at the back


and tried to tame the wires at the back


voila! tidier workstation. note the speakers mounted on the sides. the one that's hanging on one speaker is the volume control that we have yet to stick on the side using a double-sided tape. the subwoofer stayed in its original position. i still have to do something with the wires at the back though.

--

UPDATE:

Other Half and i found a better solution for our printer and cd-dvd storage.


that's a plastic drawer with bleached plywood for its top that was on the other side of the room (near the entertainment system) that was used to display our 8R photo and some knick knacks. now it was put to better use. the color or the top complements the computer table and it's much neater too. inside the drawers are the scratch papers for printing, blank DVDs and CDs for burning and DVD and CD cases. we also have our disc markers, several pens, pencils and writing pad inside. no more clutter!


this looks much better than the old glass-topped printer table

march 18

everywhere i go, people are talking about brian gorrell and the gucci gang. it seems like the scandal deserves more attention than GMA's whoring of the philippines. baka sa susunod di natin namamalayan nai-annex na tayo ng china and magmamala-tibet na lang tayo. as of this morning (i watch BBC, CNN and bloomberg every morning before going to work) tibet and lhasa has been closed to tourists and media. i fear that what the dalai lama said will come true, that there would be a cultural genocide.

dapat iboycott ang olympics.

yes, exaggeration pero dahil sa ginawa ng presidente nyo sa spratly's baka susunod na nya ia-annex nya ang kalaayaan islands then palawan. huwaw!

oh well, mas nakakatuwa nga naman pagbalingan ng atensyon ang nangyayari kina dj, celine et al. hahaha. i'm still hooked with brian's blog.

--

march 19

i used to love i still love long vacations. but long vacations entail scrounging for stories. lots of them. and writing all of them in one sitting. just like what i did today. finished at past 6 pm. my nose was already bleeding my head was already aching with all that writing to last me until monday.

hooray it's holy week! the only time in a year that presses stop. literally. they stay dead for at least two days, some three to four days (depending on management) only to start printing again by saturday night for easter sunday's issue.

unfortunately, i'm not going anywhere this year. no beach, no elbi -- nothing. we'll be staring at the ceiling (or computer screens) the next 5 days.

Fate is kind of playing a cruel game with me like s/he's getting back at me for not buying those tickets to visayas last week. but i've been pestering Other Half since january when cebu pacific offered the piso fare promo. told him we should buy the tickets "NOW!" (that time). quick before the cheap seats run out.

BUT for some reason he dilly-dallied.

you see we can't easily get away from our jobs, especially if we have a boss like ours. last day of work is wednesday and we can fly thursday ("ganun? sayang pamasahe hindi sulit kasi ang ikli lang ng stay..."). that has been the schedule for the last two years. holy wednesday is the last day private and government offices close, ergo, the last day for scrounging news. if we didn't get any, we'll be forced to pull something out of our magic hats.

told him he can go ahead without me i'll just catch up so he can maximize his stay in his hometown. i certainly CANNOT leave early lest i earn the ire of my reliever... he knows that. those are one of the many hassles we face in our profession. but he said, no, it's too much trouble picking me up from the airport from his hometown (which was 2 hours away from the nearest airport). told him i can manage and all he had to do was call the service vehicle that would take me away. been in a lot of situations worse than being stranded in some provincial airport. i can manage.

and now i am being penalized.

he only told me to buy the tickets last week, when fares have gone astronomically high in an era of budget airfares. i calculated that we would be spending more than what we spent for our fare going to hong kong for our honeymoon. told him no way we can afford that now, especially when he has just arrived from singapore.

and now i am suffering stuck here.

i need to go somewhere. to unwind. to get away from my job for a while. to float. to be near the sea or mountain (elbi would be nice). to be out of metro manila. to recharge. be dead to the world.

but i'm stuck. here. now.

really now, it's so mean of me to feel or exhibit a schadenfreude over what is happening right now. you know, the brian gorrell and gucci gang brouhaha. Other Half is now telling me i've become tsismosa na that i've immersed myself the whole afternoon reading chikatime, a local gossip blog. deliciously wicked.

but the thing here is baka balikan ako (i.e. "karma") sa ginagawa kong 'to. haha. baka balikan din ako sa mga ginawa ko sa blog ni sisa noon.

--

ON BLOGGERS VS. JOURNALISTS

Malu Fernandez once again ignited a debate (probably a reaction to the hate campaign against the gucci gang) that got the goat of a lot of bloggers.

i'll not start a tirade of criticisms on MF again but rather i'll try to flesh out an issue which has been on my mind for quite some time now that i even suggested to my adviser that this could be a good subject to study for a thesis or a paper. however, the subject is still under debate, ergo, i would have a hard time getting related literature on the subject, she told me.

what i can say is the two are different things and shouldn't even be compared on an apples-to-apples basis. for me, the main difference lies in the gatekeeping mechanisms of the medium or whatever you categorize it. when i say gatekeeping, there is/are some mechanism(s) involved in the delivery of the message i.e. the gatekeepers hold the key/decision to what would come out as messages or how the messages would be delivered to its audience.

in print, the gatekeepers may come in the form of the publishers and editors -- people who have the control over the messages (or the articles) that will come out. the articles are edited, re-edited, re-angled, re-hashed (sometimes mutilated beyond recognition). information is verified, they see whether the piece is appropriate (but in MF's case they're kinda remiss in that respect), whether it is libelous and so on and so forth. there are checks and balances. that's why editors meet and brainstorm on how the banner story should look like etc. etc. the creator of the message (i.e. the writer/reporter) or the functions of the creator/source may be independent of the gatekeepers.


Karine Barzilai-Nahon, Assistant Professor, The Information School, University of Washington

in blogging, on the other hand, the producer of the message (blogger) is also the gatekeeper of the message. bloggers can argue that they also employ self-restraint, checks and balances and whatever but basically the bloggers themselves control the message. (just look at the contents of brian gorrell's blog. i'm not saying that all bloggers are irresponsible. hell, a lot of journalists are also irresponsible).

and that makes a whole lot of difference.

the thing here is with blogging, the traditional set up of generating a message has eroded since generating messages is not confined to the traditional sources of traditional medium anymore. the audience now has the power to create messages themselves or react to the information/messages generated by traditional sources of messages.

point is the two different kinds of information sources (or producers -- bloggers and journalists) shouldn't be compared on an apples-to-apples basis (i couldn't bring the phrase "same level" lest i want to earn the ire of both camps) since the bloggers have all the control over their messages and their medium whereas journalists don't have that kind of freedom. some have (depending on their gatekeepers) but basically their messages are still at the mercy of the gatekeepers especially for straight news and news features.

however, a lot of bloggers and journalists don't see it that way. they see one another as enemies of some sort or whatever, reading from the posts/comments of other bloggers. it's like, "hey you journos, we're gonna replace you because what we're doing is also journalism and what we're doing is more relevant than what you do!" then the other camp would say, "hey, you too, bloggers, you're just wannabe-journalists but what you're writing is crap! you're just a bunch of diarists!" or something to that effect.

hay, the never-ending crap debate. for me it's a non-issue because both use one another, therefore, should co-exist peacefully (unless some ethics/rules were breached). bloggers use news items written by journalists to generate content and journalists also use blogs as a source of news.

as for journalist-bloggers, blogging is another outlet to communicate. for me it's a way to get out of the gatekeeping mechanism of my medium (of my job). in some sense it may be an extension of my profession but blogging is more of a way to express on a more personal level. in writing news stories, i can express myself a little bit (in so many creative little ways just to be able to deliver the punch) but that's it, i'm confined to the square box that the gatekeepers and the medium provide me.

i'm sorry i have to be academic about it since there is no other way i can explain what's inside my head without receiving hate comments or being too biased.

ooh. everyone in the blogosphere is abuzz with dj montano, celine lopez and the rest of the gucci gang and their hedonostic ways and bad manners. i've always dismissed celine lopez as nothing. wala naman laman yung pinagsususulat nya eh...

bago pa ako magkasala, i'll just click the link here, here and here for the whole story. just google it.

that is the reason why i don't read the back pages of local fashion magazines and society mags because all you see are the same people i.e. gucci gang. it's much more fun to read vogue, however pretentious they (people there featured by william norwich and andre leon talley) may be. at least they have the moolah, real moolah...or so, i think.

--

i'm really bad.

Other Half and i read the blog(s) about the gucci gang until 1.30 am. went to sleep. woke up. went to work but no work is done. it's 12:57 pm i'm still reading them...brian reuploaded the entries. i recognize the names. geez. i'm so bad. it's like i went out deliberately to smell their dirty laundry.

but i can't help it. reading the blog(s) is sooo addictive. make me stop. i have to work.

"President Arroyo's agreement with China for a joint seismic study was controversial in several respects. By not consulting other Asean members beforehand. the Philippines abandoned the collective stance that was key to the group's success with China over the South China Sea. Ironically, it was Manila that first sought a united front and rallied Asean to confront China over its intrusion into Mischief Reef a decade earlier. Sold the idea by politicians with business links who have other deals going with the Chinese, Ms. Arroyo did not seek the views of her foreign ministry, Philippines officials say. By the time the foreign ministry heard about it and objected, it was too late, the officials say..." -- Barry Wain, Far Eastern Economic Review, Jan-Feb 2008

i had already read this before lozada came out (yikes! the things i read for leisure...luthien should go out more). i already had an inkling that this has something to do with all the China deals this government is making. all i had to do was to connect the dots...

when i was in thailand one november mornning, i almost choked on my bacon when i read the day's issue of The Wall Street Journal: the Philippines was on the front page, not because of its economic performance but because the World Bank found something amiss with the road project in mindanao it is funding. surprise surprise! it involves another chinese firm.

click on this pdf if you want to read more of Manila's Bungle in the South China Sea.

i used to like her when she was still cute, as in joey-cute (remember dawson's creek?). but if being mrs. tom cruise makes you this haggard-looking and un-pretty then i think i'll pass. never been fascinated with scientology anyway.


PLEASE DON'T LET HER LEAVE THE COUNTRY!

i know this girl has been lampooned, lambasted and torn to pieces pero dadagdag pa ako. hehe.


point is, kahit ano pang sabihin nila, isa sa mga ginegrade sa beauty pageants is how you conduct yourself under pressure. tipo bang grace under fire. top candidates should have their wits with them even under pressure. clearly this girl should not represent us in an international competition. it's not about her english abilities (or lack thereof) but rather how she's supposed to compose her thoughts quickly and intelligently. if she can't speak english, she could have answered in tagalog but i think these days it's taboo since filipinos are known to be good english speakers. problem is she caved in.

paano pa kaya pag mismong miss world na?

yes she's 17 but age shouldn't be an excuse to answer immaturely. there were a lot of 17-18-year olds out there who competed in international beauty pageants who had more brains and poise. maybe i could forgive her for stammering and speaking gibberish but what undid her (in my opinion) is when she tried to make excuses for herself like she's only 17 and that was her first competition...really now...i don't think you should make excuses in front of national television for your shortcomings if you are in a pageant. there are more intelligent and "poised" way of worming out of that situation. unfortunately, immaturity took over. making excuses...

who to blame? the judges.

according to the youtube comments:

here are some of the judges:
1) Marian Rivera
2) Dennis Trillo
3) Chris Tiu

tsk tsk tsk.. MGA JUDGES ang may KASALANAN!!!...
GINAMIT ng GMA7 ang KASIKATAN ni MARIMAR para gawing JUDGE but wala xang ALAM sa ganito eh kaYa ganun ang RESULT!!

another one:

simpleng tanong= simpleng sagot
kelan pa naging qualified judge si marimar pati si zaido? hahaha!! kawawa ang credibilty ng pageant na dedegrade... woo-hoo! mag bold ka nalang!

ewan ko ba. baluktot na ba talaga ang mundo ng mga pilipino ngayon? we're number one in corruption, as one international survey said. the president is so corrupt that she already sold the philippines literally to foreigners via the spratly's oil exploration issue. and now we're sending half-wits to international beauty pageants. beauty pageant na nga lang yun eh...

Today is supposed to be my father's 60^thbirthday. Still 5 years shy of mandatory retirement age but he retired from this world too soon. He has been gone for almost 3 years now. I wonder what he's up to now. Probably organizing some anti-GMA movement up there. He would have loved watching the televised circus at the senate and seeing all those senators making a fool of themselves there.

He would have loved our newly refurbished piano and would have played it after watching tv. He would have been annoyed at the sight of the almost bald tired of our isuzu crosswind and would have admonished us for not buying new tires.

I wonder what he would say about my weight now. He would probably think I am pregnant now with the way I eat/inhale my food.

My father was outlived by Might Mouse, the big unseen rat living above our ceiling, who munched at my sister's electrical outlet recently. That dratted rat kept on scratching our ceiling. My mother had set a trap for Mighty Mouse but I guess he's smarter than we thought. I wonder what my father would have done. He probably would have sent a cat – which would have been smaller than Mighty Mouse – to the ceiling opening near our second floor bathroom. But our cat is now missing in action.

I wonder what he thinks of us now. I hope he's happy up there. It has almost been three years.