Thursday, August 29, 2013

If Porkstrada calls you a LIAR

Image from inquirer.net
SINator Jinggoy Porkstrada  tried to appear calm as he claimed that he had nothing to hide, and that if only Janet Napoles spoke the truth and nothing but the truth, that he had nothing to worry about.

I agree with Porkstrada that he has nothing to hide.  After all, his greed is too exposed that he can no longer do anything to hide it.  Only a fool wouldn’t see how Jinggoy made fools of the Filipino people, posturing as a do-good, pro-poor Senator only to hoodwink every Filipino by signing away hundreds of millions of pesos to fake NGOs with fake projects to help the downtrodden – particularly hapless farmers and the poor masses who, in a supreme act of irony, probably voted for him into office.

If Janet Napoles tells the truth, true, Porkstrada has nothing to worry about.  Because in the crook’s world, truth is about not admitting to fault, however damning the evidences are.  Their version of the truth is that some powerful forces are conniving to cast aspersions on their immaculately clean personhood.

That means you and I who like them to rot in jail are liars.  You, who have been robbed blind, ARE A LIAR!

How do you like the sound of that?

You must be angry.  You must.

You must not let up until the plunderers who wantonly burned public money end up in jail, not for negotiated sentences, but for the entire duration of a just sentence.  The social networking world where this and other blogs, and other posts, comments, demands and advocacies find currency is, as we Filipinos and the “truth-tellers” are finding out, a very powerful gong in awakening more and more previously apathetic Filipinos into a state of activism.  This is people power without the march – spontaneous and equally potent.

Porkstrada, Juan Ponce Pigrile, Bong Ribsvilla and Gringo Honaswine would wash their hands, deny involvement and claim that these are all politically-motivated attacks – they would say anything except the truth; blame everyone except themselves.  That’s how it works in a crook’s world.  Ask Gloria, she would instantly profess her innocence.

These are just four greedy animals in a stinking corral called the Senate; there are more and they are likely wishing that the cry of the people do not reach their doorstep. There are more beasts in the bigger sty called Congress; a lot of them were able to trudge their slimy feet inside the halls of congress by way of family connection, guns, gold and grand promises. 

The 10 Billion pesos being investigated covers only a period of 3 years.  For Porkstrada and the gang to so conveniently withdraw PDAF without seeming fear of being found out means that this has been going on for a very long time, and that the 10 billion, however staggering it already is, is simply the tip of a fuckingly huge iceberg.

And that is simply putting it into perspective.

So yes, if you could get angrier than you already are now, go ahead seethe.  And let these leeches feel the wrath of a people who finally found the collected voice to shout and demand: ENOUGH YOU PIGS!


If their conscience cannot put the fear of God in their being, then let your vigilance put the fear of jail and humiliation in these scalawags.  They are now feeling it.  Try as he might, Jinggoy could not hide the anxiety in his voice.  He and the rest of the pigs thought that this day would never come.  Thank God, it seems the clock is finally ticking.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Disabusing the Concept of Bullying



Disabusing the Concept of Bullying

  

An Essay based on

Bullies, Victims and Bully-Victims:
Psychosocial Profiles and Attribution Style
By Stelios N. Georgiou and Panayiotis Stavrinides



Written by
Marcial I. Enginco


For
Dr. Grace S. Koo
Professor, EDFD 206 Affective Learning
College of Education, University of the Philippines Diliman




SUMMARY
The study conducted by Stelios N. Georgiou and Panayiotis Stavrinides was aimed at establishing a link between a child’s tendency to either bully, be bullied, or both based on his physical appearance, temperament and degree of peer acceptance.  The study covered 377 young Cypriot children with an average of 11.6 years, with the cooperation and parallel self-presentation of their mothers.
The study concluded that bully-victims were more temperamental and more different than the typical student.  Consequently, he was more socially isolated than the bully, the victim, or the passive student.


BODY
Bullying, in recent years, has been used to describe a wide array of situations that involve either an individual or a group exercising or showing power and advantage, perceived or real, over another presumably more vulnerable individual, resulting in physical and/or emotional and psychological injury to the latter.  Even stressing a point or strongly echoing a sentiment that is shared by many others against a person who had committed something unpopular or unacceptable is often labeled as an act of bullying.  Hence, Janet Napoles, Senator Tito Sotto, and Hayden Kho mistake popular opinion against them as an affront to their person, never mind that the outcry was merited by their acts and not their personhood.

Sometimes, I feel that bullying is taken out of context and that discussions surrounding it tend to focus on surface concerns rather than zeroing in on its core issues, which should unearth or at least understand the underlying causes and therefore aid in crafting solutions or intervention programs where they are truly needed.  This is also my conclusion after reading Georgiou and Panayiotis’ journal which details their research on the psychosocial profiles and attribution styles of bullies, victims and bully-victims.

Stating the obvious
Researches are essential to gaining new knowledge and perspective toward an existing subject or problem; at the very least, it should tend to support findings already made in previous studies.  This one, though thoroughly and scientifically conducted did not, in my appreciation, further the cause of understanding bullying and therefore did not contribute to the proper evaluation of its existence and the mitigation of its resulting effects.  The study merely reiterated previously established notions about bullying, such as being different in a negative way in appearance or behavior puts a child at risk for victimization, or that bully-victims are disliked by their peers and are lonely, having few friends or no friends to support them, which without the benefit of a full-blown research may be confirmed and replicated through simple observation.

Digging deeper than skin
While I am not comfortable with the term used, the researchers’ contention that “peer violence is a universal problem” is correct and is, in fact, supported by data.  Numerous studies have shown that behavior consistent with bullying initially manifests when children reach the age of 10 (middle gradeschool) and peaks in intensity and prevalence when they reach mid-teens (junior highschool), but gradually tapers off as the child gains more maturity and perspective.  

What this suggests is that children will inevitably undergo a stage where they will begin to explore who they are and what they can and cannot do in a social setting and in the process may show behavior consistent with the description of bullying.  But while this errant behavior is not to be tolerated, it is however more crucial to look into why the child is exhibiting such aberration than trying to identify a personality profile and using it to preempt bullying behavior from manifesting, or if it can’t be helped finding a way to penalize or sanction him for this perceived truancy.  I subscribe to the line of thinking that being a bully or being a magnet for bullying is an offshoot of relational discrepancies at home, and that bullying behavior merely reflects a lack of security and guidance from the home.

While I am not questioning the research data nor the manner by which these are derived, I am under the impression that how these were analyzed and read was purposedly designed to skew toward a foregone conclusion or to a reinforce a bias previously held by the researchers; resulting in somewhat self-fulfilling interpretations that bullying can be identified through a child’s physical appearance, and behavioral and attribution patterns, and thus possession of this knowledge will help authorities to preempt bullying by identifying who are bound to behave in a certain manner based on flimsy and highly-contestable information.

Security as a learned value
I know a group of three brothers who physically would fit the typical candidates of victims based on this study’s assertion.  They are, thanks to the genes they inherited from their parents, short in stature but heavy in weight.  The eldest wears thick eyeglasses, while the youngest is blind in one eye.  Nevertheless it would be difficult to find a more sunny dispositioned set of brothers than them.  They are neither bullied nor exhibit behavior that would suggest that they are not comfortable with how they look, especially the youngest who does not resent his condition, or see it as a barrier towards achieving his personal and professional goals.  They have, by the way, supportive and caring parents.

Contesting the findings
I will cite and provide a contradicting reading on several lines and contentions made in this article to buttress my contention that the root cause and therefore intervention programs of bullying lies embedded in the quality of a child’s familial relationships and the security that he derives from it. 

I am a bit alarmed that the researchers do not give children with aggressive behavior and those who experienced being bullied credence when they attribute their behavior to external factors such as parents and teachers.  The researchers add that while such attribution may shield the children’s emotional health, it is however detrimental to any effort to change their destructive behavior.  This presupposes that the adults in the children’s lives are in no way responsible for how they behave with and against one another, and that any errant behavior and its consequent mitigation rests solely on the ability of the child to accept blame.  This is a particularly distressing interpretation as the children in question are in the median age of 11, far from being expected to think like adults. The way I see it, the fact that a child points to adults as the culprit for his demeanor is a clear indication of what he perceives is lacking in his life – direction, guidance, maybe even love.  A child exhibiting aggressive behavior then placing blame on adults is actually crying for help.  Ignoring such plea and instead imposing arbitrary punishment will only help foster the belief in the child that adults can never be trusted to provide guidance and care.

On a parallel note, the researchers stated that children with the ability to appraise negative events by claiming that they simply were at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and will never place themselves in a similar situation in the future are the most likely to adapt positively.  While I am not contesting this assertion, to neglect the role of adults in developing such a positive attitude in the child leaves the impression that children have acquired this on their own, which I highly doubt; they are, after all, a little more than a decade old.

When the researchers found a strong correlation between the student’s self-report of his personal characteristics and the mother’s perception of the same, they readily use it to support the veracity of their findings rather than casting a critical eye on such an interesting finding.  I believe that how children see themselves reflects how their parents viewed and taught them.  If a parent makes it known to the child that he is pretty, or intelligent, or talented then that’s how the young one will report his or her characteristics, in the same manner that he will report that he is unattractive or deficient in some way if he is made to feel and believe that, too.  Again, it is the parents who mold the child’s perceptions, not the other way around.  The case of the three brothers who all consider themselves as beautiful and love-worthy individuals is proof of how influential parents are in developing their children’s perspectives about themselves.  On a side note, I am curious why only mothers were made to take part in the study, and that if both parents were involved in the study, would the data gathered have remained the same or would it have been drastically altered?

CONCLUSION
People, including children, are social beings.  However, acceptable social behavior is learned through the push and pull of relationships beginning at the home for schoolchildren and extending to the schools where they will meet other young ones who are also struggling to learn socialization in the context of being around with peers.  When children reach the age of 10, his tendency is to ascertain his status amongst this group.  Unfortunately, for some who have insecure attachment values at home, this period of exploration may be characterized by aggression, or at the other end of the extreme – timidity and passivity.

We humans are not alone in this behavioral pattern.  A litter of lion cubs would routinely engage in rough play intended to identify their pecking order in the pride.  This determines who follows whom when the pack is devouring a kill.  Pigs do this too, and also for the same reason.  In a study documented by the Discovery Channel, a brood of piglets is shown engaged in simulated fights to assess each individual’s weight in the family.  The strongest one gets to choose the nipple that produces the most milk, followed by the runner-up, and succeeded by the next, until the runt finally gets the nipple that nobody wanted.  To test this principle, the researchers wrote big numbers on the flank of each piglet while they were feeding: 1 for the strongest, 2 for the next, and so on and so forth until the weakest is assigned a number.  They then removed the brood and placed them in a holding pen.  When they were released back to their mother, they promptly assumed their designated spot in the order that they fought for or were allowed by their rank, with nary a complaint or hesitation. 

What these behavior show is that we share a lot in common with how animals develop into maturity than we care to think, or admit.  However, we humans have the unique ability to put this in its proper context – that this stage has a purpose and whatever may be realized at this point is not permanent and may be crystallized into something positive and life-changing.  Parents, caregivers and teachers should be aware of this role.  This is what parenting and child-rearing is all about, to take responsibility in not only showing the young child what is wrong or right, but more importantly being there to provide emotional and psychological security in the home so that his interactions with his peers outside of it won’t be characterized by aggressive or timid behavior.


The tendency to bully is not determined by looks, or temperament as this study wants to suggest but rather in the values that children have learned about themselves and others as imparted by their parents.  When bullying happens, it is not recommended for teachers or parents to immediately punish or sanction the culprit.  But rather it would be best to examine the underlying insecurity that triggered such behavior and tailor interventions using this information.  On the other hand, children who experience bullying should not be readily shielded since this would impress in him the victim attitude which would not help him process the situation in a positive, constructive light.  Responsible teachers and parents should take this as an opportunity to teach the child a thing or two about adversity and overcoming it.  This way, the child is better equipped to handle similar situations in the future and will not take it negatively, but rather as a motivation to be a better and more capable individual.  When human’s response to a situation is based on a firm understanding, then that’s where real growth and development occurs.  That’s how a human being grows and develops as a person. 



Wednesday, August 21, 2013

What Napoles and plundering lawmakers deserve

Everyone is spewing his and her wrath on Janet Napoles for how she plundered money from Filipino taxpayers without batting an eyelash, or a hint of a conscience, and then living a lifestyle that would put to shame even legitimate self-made billionaires.  If the wrath is made of fire then she would have been toasted to bits by now, dark foul-smelling bits.  That is if she could be found.  Or if she understands wrath in the first place.   Or if indeed fire can penetrate her thick skin because apparently, she is made of sterner stuff, if you didn’t notice.

She deserves the scorn, hatred and punishment that is commensurate to the desecration of the lives of millions, such as being toasted to bits.  But something is wrong.  Alarmingly wrong.  We are, it seems, missing the point, mistaking the rotten Napoles tree for the entire dark corruption forest.  She couldn’t do it alone.  That’s a fact.  She is merely a rotten opportunist taking advantage of an opening made possible by bigger and more rotten opportunistic worms who bore holes in the pork barrel.  They are also known as Senators, and Congressmen, and people in high government positions; those whose positions demand that they be called “Your Honor My Ass.”

At least Napoles did not promise she would serve the people, she is a rotten thief after all, not a public servant; thieves do not announce when they are going to strike.  But politicians promised they would, not that they are believed that they really would, but at least they can be made accountable to their word, for whatever it was worth, which to many poor voters, apparently is everything.

Where is the righteous indignation Jinggoy Estrada regularly dishes when he interrogates hapless witnesses and resource speakers in Senate investigations?  Hundreds of millions of pesos of his pork barrel disappearing in a black hole and the best he could do is wash his hands?  Or claim that he is too big to check the little details, like for example if the NGOs he is signing the citizens’ money to are in fact legit?  Or maybe he knows that they are not that’s why he signed them away with gusto, and that probably explains his lamest of lame alibi.  Come on, you could be more imaginative than that, Your Honor My Ass Senator Jinggoy.

At least Bong Revilla, your childhood buddy and co-B movie actor, who by the way also released tons of money away to phony NGOs, does not actively take the stage in senate investigations, he is too busy acting as if he is listening and contemplating the facts and evidences, reading them as if they were lines in the scripts of his unimaginative Panday movies.  And mind you, he is setting his sights on the presidency in 2016, a fact that he conveniently uses to deflect questions why his pork barrel also found its way into the Napoles black hole: Gusto-lang-nilang-idiskaril-ang-aking-political-plans My Ass.

The grand old lord of Philippine politics, Juan Ponce Enrile is likewise silent, which is golden, and which is also probably the worth of his pork barrel over centuries of his servitude to the Filipino people My Ass.  Yup, he steered the Corona impeachment mighty well, showcasing his encyclopedic knowledge of the Philippine laws.  And perhaps because of this knowledge combined with his grasp of the Philippine political psyche which he, himself, helped shape since Martial Law days, has greatly helped him deduce that using money to fund ghost projects – or giving away Senate money as Christmas gifts to allies -- is a magic trick that one can pull off even with the clumsiest sleight of hand.  And when confronted he just needs to scowl, whip up the imagined unblemished centuries-long track record of servitude to motherland My Ass, and dare accusers to show evidence to prove any wrongdoings.  If that’s not enough, he can always resign from a post (Senate Presidency) that is certainly not going to be his anyway.

Oh, and they are not the only ones.  I’m sure many senators and congressmen, even those who are allied to the administration (calling the surprisingly silent Trillanes) have their own share of disappearing pork barrel funds, or if they’re not involved in such trickery then they are still equally guilty because they know that such things happen regularly but instead they choose to look away, washing their hands by claiming, but-we-are-true-to-our-part-of-the-pork My Ass.

So yes we can spew our wrath on Napoles and her family as we should and we must.  But hey, the biggest and most vile scorn must be dealt to the politicians who allowed this system to be institutionalized.  While mothers scrounge for grains to line their starving children’s stomach, politico’s children nimbly wipe away the slightest grease off their lips after partaking of bland tasting meals from fancy restaurants before hopping on to their sleek shiny rides that would spew high-octane exhaust on the noses of streetchildren who would perhaps wish that they too had parents who could afford such lavish things.

And to think society places great respect to those who look disente, mabango and kagalang-galang My Ass.  Well, rotten politicians and their families can certainly dress and look the part because that’s all that they could do – dress and look the part, because they are rotten as hell to the core.

Mr. President, before your mother died and you announced your candidacy, I was prepared to not vote for any candidate because I didn’t believe that those who signified their intention for running really had good intentions.  I voted for you not because I believed in you, but because I believed in what your parents stood for, and never mind that I consider your sister Kris as the most self-centered individual in the face of Philippine show business.  You have shown streaks of hardheadedness, show some of it now.

Please, stop the pork barrel system now and send to jail everyone who abused it – friend or foe, more so if he is a friend.

I would love to hear you say to your friends in politics: Kaibigan kita pero boss ko ang mga tao at gusto ka nilang maparusahan sa pandarambong mo sa kanilang pera at tiwala.

If all 24 senators and the almost 300 congressmen go to jail if they are found guilty of shaming a nation, then so be it.  I don’t think our nation’s government will stop.  In fact, it may even move, at last.

I am not thirsting for blood, or seeking to see heads roll.  I simply want change.  Not only in the system but in the blanket of apathy that shrouds the citizenry.  “Bakit nga naman mag-iingay o makiki-alam kung wala rin namang mangyayari.” This is the mantra of the common people that must be turned around.

Only when people can see that those that have mocked and deprived them of their lot and dignity burn into rotten bits can there be a cathartic release for a citizenry looking for change, but too tired and too numb to care.

Let us not forget that it is not only the Napoleses that deserve our wrath.  It is everyone who promised service in exchange for our votes.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Angelito's Miracle

He kisses his daughter’s forehead as he looks at a distance, waiting for someone, a handful of petals clasped in one hand, his arms supporting the length of his three year-old daughter as it straddles his thin frame, a tattoo of barbed thorns peering just beneath his sleeve.   His grayish eyes which are framed by thick eyelashes betray his steely resolve that seems to battle an air of quiet despair.  His name is Angelito.

His daughter has a pair of blue flowers clipped to her hair, certainly not to part her sparse hair which barely covers her scalp, but as a defiant touch of love from parents who are prone to primping their children so that they look their best.  Something about the baby will surely catch anyone’s attention; her head is shaped like a heart and it is twice as large as her torso.  Angelito’s baby has hydrocephalus.

Angelito tenses his body, he spots what he was waiting for – the image of San Pedro Calungsod which is making the rounds of Lipa City churches, it stops today at the Chapel of Saint Benedict, in Pinagtungulan.  Angelito rearranged his baby in his arms, as the convoy neared the church, making sure that his arm would be free to welcome San Pedro Calungsod with the petals that he was waiting to cast in air, along with the prayer that his humble supplication will be looked upon kindly.

A relative is helping the baby with her hospital needs.  Though after three operations, it is obvious that she needs more and better care.  Angelito admits that he can’t do much else, he is physically and emotionally tied up with taking care of his baby, and a wife who was once an OFW but has since been relegated to a wheelchair by a stroke.  She wanted to come too, but Angelito can only bring one.

He admits that he is finding it difficult to make ends meet: milk for the baby, medicines for the wife and the daily sustenance to keep his small family strong enough to keep going.  Because he has his hands full, he no longer has time to clamber up coconut trees to take down fruits which he could sell, or find manual jobs in construction sites.  “Hindi ko po maiwan ang aking mag-ina,” he says matter-of-factly, without a hint of seeking sympathy.  When asked what he needed, he simply smiled, “Wala naman po.”

Angelito is not looking for help for himself.  He came to seek a miracle for his baby.



I believe in miracles, and I believe that every tap of the keyboard as I write this is one letter nearer to one.  I believe that we are the miracle waiting to happen.  I believe that my chance encounter with him and his baby is the first step in that direction.  I’m doing this simply because I believe.  In miracles.  In the innate goodness of man.  In the power of selfless love.

If you’d like to partake of this miracle, these are Angelito’s and his wife’s contact numbers: 0946-7200966 and 0916-6157797.

You may also share this post so that it may reach other kind hearts who can create miracles for the child in prayer, in kind, or in medical expertise.

 ____________


I shouldn’t have met Angelito and his child that fateful August 11, 2013 morning if not for a divine plan.  We were supposed to attend the regular Sunday 8AM mass at the Fernando Air Base Chapel.  But for some reason, there was no mass scheduled that day.  We decided to celebrate mass somewhere else.  I was about to turn left after I exited the base’s gate to where Lipa poblacion and its famed churches such as Carmel, Redemptorist and the Cathedral was, but at the last minute decided to turn right, with my sight on St. Benedict church, a good 4 to 5 kilometers away.  When we arrived, the 7AM mass had just concluded and people were already piling out of the premises.  A tarpaulin sign caught my wife’s attention – San Pedro Calungsod’s image will be brought to the church at 8:30AM.  It is while waiting for the image that I encountered Angelito and his baby.



Saturday, August 10, 2013

The broadening meaning of literacy and the marginalizing effects of education on indigenous and disabled peoples

The broadening meaning of literacy
and the marginalizing effects of education on
indigenous and disabled peoples







A PAPER FOR
Educational Anthropology

Written and prepared by
Marcial I. Enginco

For
Eufracio Abaya, PhD
Professor, Educational Anthropology
College of Education, University of the Philippines Diliman




This document presents the author’s views and reflections on a diverse set of issues presented in several papers, in the process detailing previous misconceptions, skewed social views, as well as reinforcing previously held personal beliefs, attitudes and observations.

In Institutionalized (Mis)Definition of Literacy, the author discusses how the powers that be in society including the government, educational system, and big industries seemingly, wittingly or unwittingly, conspire to define literacy so narrowly that those who don’t fall under such parameters are automatically marginalized both in personal development and economic and social opportunities.  This arbitrary definition, as the author suggests, does not take into consideration the many ways knowledge can be learned and expressed outside the realm of the classroom.

Meanwhile, in the essay From minority to mainstream: The dilution of peoples, the author weighs in on the marginalizing effects on indigenous peoples of the introduction of western-style education and lifestyle to their ways of life, which, in his view, undermines the very core that makes these people unique and special.  He seeks to examine through the lens of social justice the implications of the forays of educators into the psyche and literacy of indigenous peoples which invariably result into weakened cultural identification and the assimilation of market-driven values.

The last essay Disabling Disabilities, on the other hand, discusses the dire and often helpless situation persons with disabilities invariably find themselves in as dramatized by a case study of a physically disabled child living in a Communist China that has put tremendous pressure on its citizens to produce and perform to meet the national goal of economic prosperity.  This section also highlights the need for institutionalized reforms and policies that should in effect level the playing field between the able and the disabled in as far as contributing to the good of the society is concerned.  Likewise, this section delves on the resistance of society to readily accept physical and mental disabilities as regular members of the community and the society.


Institutionalized (Mis)Definition of Literacy
According to the National Statistics Office, 86.4% of Filipinos in 2008 are either simple or functional literate; with a simple literate person being defined as someone with basic reading and writing skills, and a functional literate as one who can read, write and also do basic computations.   This means that out of 90 million Filipinos in 2008, 12.5 million of whom are lumped together as illiterate – with no reading, writing and computing skills.  In a society that equates literacy with functionality, does that mean that those with no literacy skills are inutile, and thus a burden to society and the government?

While it is easy, and almost a default reaction to blame the government for what appears to be a glaring statistic, it is more prudent and perhaps more critical to question the veracity of the information vis-à-vis what is truly happening on the ground, and thus its implications as a statistic when taken at face value.  When literacy is narrowly defined as a set of skills that are normally acquired from standardized schooling, then it is easy to conclude that the 12.5 million Filipinos who do not conform to the set standard for being literate are also unproductive and thus valueless to a society that demands production measured in letters and numbers.

I find this conclusion unacceptable.

The pervading narrow definition of literacy runs in contrast to the breadth and depth of literacy as discussed by James Collins in his paper Literacy and Literacies, which attempts to reexamine commonly accepted dichotomies in educational Anthropology that have far ranging, albeit often unnoticed and therefore not subjected to open discourse outside of academic circles, effects on society and how it views certain structures that govern learning.

Collins opines that power resides in knowledge, and that knowledge – or literacy, for that matter -- may be expressed in other ways than reading and writing, and can be situated not only in key Western parts of the world, where the invention of the printing press coupled by its leading nations’ colonizing thrusts have made its pedagogies and literacy values almost the homogeneous standard, but more importantly, any where there is exchange and development of knowledge whether in writing, spoken word or functional know-how as an adaptive practice to the changing times or as a means to find gainful means to enhance one’s lot in life.

This broad-based outlook on literacy offers a more realistic view of how knowledge resides in various cultures and in different forms.  Collins writes that the concern with multiple literacies has focused on the diversity and social embeddedness of those ways with text we call literacy, emphasizing the ways as much as the text (Collins, 1995), which is actually what the current educational system does when it puts too much weight on norms instead of focusing its attention on situations and peoples that lie in the peripheries of the mainstream.

Should this find currency in the Philippines then the concept of literacy will find greater meaning and relevance to a greater number of people across the entire social spectrum.  The 12.5 million people who fall under the illiterate class would no longer be labeled as unproductive and worse, a burden to society because, in reality, they have different sets of inclusive literacy such as trade knowledge, local know-how, and situational expertise that allow them to function and even thrive under their particular circumstance.

From minority to mainstream: The dilution of peoples
Today’s Filipino cultural minorities are reduced to caricatures of their old, once proud selves.  When the man on the street would be asked what his idea of an indigenous person is, chances are that the range of his responses would correspond to trivial clichés: The Mangyans of Mindoro who don’t know how to cross the street, the Badjaos of Sulu and the Aetas of Central Luzon who roam urban areas for alms, or the Igorots of Baguio whom tourists can pose for photographs with for a nominal fee.

In all these skewed images of the cultural minority, the common theme is that the indigenous person comes across like fish out of water, an oddity; they just don’t fit and are destined not to fit – unless they radically change who they are, to the point that they may no longer recognize their ethnicity, and even then getting accepted into the mainstream is not even a guarantee.

Indigenous peoples from all over the world – from the Maoris of New Zealand (Bishop, 2003) to the Aborigines  of the Australian Outback (Collard, 2003), to the Indians of Brazil (Episcopal Commission on Indigenous Peoples, 2007), to cite just a few -- have been in a state of cultural upheaval ever since men from outside their well knit community, and dare I say society, decided that they needed to be assimilated into a much larger world where opportunities abound provided that they start to learn what others in the mainstream know, and in the process unlearn and even forsake who they are and the values that, for generations, had mattered most to their tribes.

The United Nations have long known about the dangers posed by the encroachment of mainstream cultures into the ways of life of indigenous communities and have thus declared a set of liberties enshrined in the 1993 United Nations Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Episcopal Commission on Indigenous Peoples, 2007) in the hope of giving them and their culture protection from outside forces and have greater determination on the course of their lives and culture. 


Article 3 in the same Declaration states that “Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination (Italics mine).  By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”  While this is fair and well, the idealism contained in the tenet seems lost in the way countries have institutionalized measures, particularly through the vehicle of education, that practically ensure that any indigenous community that mainstream schooling reaches either through full integration or modified curriculum would have relinquished, in part or in full, its identity as a people.  This is evident in the reformulation of the educational curriculum in New Zealand to accommodate Maori culture and sensibilities (Bishop, 2003), and the integration of the English language in the education of Aborigines in Australia (Collard, 2003), and the Indigenized Formal Education and Alternative Learning System implemented in the Philippines (Episcopal Commission on Indigenous Peoples, 2007).

Article 14 in the same declaration further states that “Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations their histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies, writing systems and literatures…”  Again, this is noble in spirit but does not reflect how many cultures of indigenous peoples are and have been diluted by mainstream society, leaving the minority indigenous only by looks and cultural affiliation, and with hardly a say or choice to continue and pass their indigenous ways to the next generation or not.  While there are individuals and groups belonging to the cultural minority who push fervently to preserve, or at least balance their native culture against the onslaught of the mainstream, it is apparent that the power of the latter is too great a force to stem and abate.  This is evident in the Cordillera Region particularly in the Banawe Rice Terraces area where the younger generations leave the local community to work in the city because they find farming and, to a great extent, their way of life difficult and no longer appealing.

Disabling disabilities
A normal person is described as having all his physical, mental and psychological faculties intact and functional.  Anyone with damage, weakness or impairment to any of these is technically considered disabled.  Being disabled is often a product of circumstance or biology or both; however, the modern world is not exactly constituted to give disabled people all the conveniences and opportunities available to their normal or abled counterparts, to balance the playing field, so to speak.  In many parts of the world, especially in underdeveloped and developing nations, a person with disability is often viewed as a liability both to the family and society; thus underlining the systemic source of discrimination against people with disabilities.

The journal Discrimination against children with disability in China by Xiaoyuan Shang, Karen Fisher and Jiawen Xie illustrates the dire predicament that a person with disability faces in a developing world (Xiaoyuan Shang, 2009).  The narrative in the study follows the life of Maomao, a child stricken with physical disabilities and epilepsy, in an impoverished rural town of China.  To make matters worse, Maomao is half of a brood of two in a nation that strictly enforces the one-child policy.  Because his parents are too poor to pay for the state-sanctioned fine for exceeding the allotted number of child, Maomao is not eligible to enjoy the state subsidy which, at least on paper, he is entitled to get.  Needless to say, Maomao’s parents also could not afford to give him special education that could be had outside of the public school system.

Maomao’s travail is well documented, from the physical abuse that he gets from his father, to the psychological bullying of his peers and other youngsters, down to the deliberate neglect of teachers and school administrators who deem that the time and meager resources of the school are better served elsewhere, specifically to children with no disabilities.  Not surprisingly, Maomao has not had the chance to develop and discover his potentials to at least become a productive member of the community.  On the contrary, he has turned to be recalcitrant; picking fights and damaging properties on a whim, or to vent out his anger toward his self, family and society.

Societal acceptance of disability apparently takes time even in developed countries.  This is evident in the route that Americans took before they began to have a clear dichotomy of mental and learning disabilities (Sleeter, 1984).  In the paper Why is there learning disabilities? A critical analysis of the birth of the field in its social context, the term learning disability was once used to draw the line between those who have power, meaning money, resources and influence, and those who have none or less of it.  It was almost exclusively used to call white middle-class students who did poorly in school, to differentiate them from blacks, Hispanics and other minorities who performed just as poorly but were conveniently labeled as laggards, or worse mentally retarded.  The use of the word disabled, even the term brain damaged to describe poor performing white students somehow abated the shame parents felt for having sub-performing children.   The words disabled and brain-damaged somehow absolved their children from blame and ridicule and mitigated their shame as parents with stature to protect.

However, this branding slowly lost traction as America uncovered scientific truths behind learning disability, mental retardation and just sheer lack of motivation to learn.   This underscores the obfuscating effect of power and perceived influence and prestige in really determining the root causes of problems, which then makes finding solutions that work doubly difficult.


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I have always held on to the belief that respect for human life should be the starting point of any well-meaning action that could change another person’s life; and that respect is not just about providing opportunities and developing potentials but also understanding and giving importance to the values that one person or community finds vital and thus inalienable to his identity.  Respect, for me, starts with accepting what is already there.

I have to admit that before this semester began my idea of literacy and illiteracy was no different from those of the majority – it’s about who can read and write.  However, I have never looked down or made people who have less education than me feel inferior, or less happy or less fulfilled than I am.  I talk the same way to people, regardless of their state in life: with respect.  I am not one to cast a sorry eye on a janitor mopping the floor as students from affluent families trudge along carelessly.  He is simply doing his job that puts food, however meager and simple, on his family’s table; and that is fulfillment, the same fulfillment that a corporate executive gets when he dines out his family in a fancy restaurant.  Not surprisingly, I have made friends and connections with janitors, vendors, and even the neighborhood trash recycler.

When we bear in mind that happiness and fulfillment are relative concepts, we begin to understand that not everyone will strive for the same goals, or will find contentment in pursuits that have not been theirs in the first place.  This is specially true in the invasive role of education and modern society on indigenous people in far-flung areas who have lived for generations, centuries even, under their communities set of values and with the resources that have been available to them right outside their home.

Educators, evangelists, big businesses and even government offices should be respectful of these people’s way of life and think only of inviting assimilation if the community, not just leaders who may be coerced or cajoled by bribes or gifts as in the APECO case in Aurora, itself decides so.  I believe that in mainstreaming, the minorities will always bear the brunt of the sacrifice and will almost always signal the end of a culture, till it only becomes part of memory and history books when integration becomes complete.  And when that happens, the distinct physical look of a minority will serve as a reminder that he is, despite his adjustments, still merely an outsider invited in.  This will happen when people with good or opportunistic intentions act on their drive without exercising respect for the people whom they intend to assimilate.

Respect, too, is the most important thing that can be shown to people with disabilities.  If I am a person with disability, I wouldn’t like people to look at me as if I am helpless, inutile or incapable of finding and achieving victories and, ultimately, happiness – all these are relative to a person’s capacities, or anthropologically speaking – agency.  This is condescending and smacks of ignorance and utter disregard for another person’s worth.  I would simply want people to accept me and allow me the opportunity that I, too, in my own little ways can bring change and fulfillment not only to myself and my family, but perhaps to other people as well.