Back on the fringe, again

Published in Mindanao Times 06/02/09

Davao City’s problem on human rights has been around for a long time now, but one that’s often left unnoticed. Fortunately, it was pulled out on the fringe and brought into the mainstream when the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) launched a widely publicized public inquiry on the unchecked killings. But from the looks of it, it seems to be back again to where it was before: on the fringe.

Just two months ago, when the CHR came here to investigate the series of killings in the city allegedly done by the Davao Death Squad (DDS), Davao City became the talk of the town. National broadsheets ran headlines regarding the CHR investigation. Newspaper columnists and cartoonists, human rights advocate and full fledged activists, street philosophers and street sweepers also joined the fray.

Why we need to weed out wordiness?

Wordiness, Robert Hartwell Fiske argues, is not only an obstacle to effective communication. It also impedes:

• Success --- Almost all professional people know that success in business partly depends on good communication skills, on writing and speaking clearly and persuasively. Businesspeople who cannot express well are often at a disadvantage in the corporate world.


• Companionship --- Few of us enjoy being with someone who speaks incessantly or incoherently...We lose interest in what a person says and, ultimately, in who a person is.


• Self-knowledge --- A superfluity of words conceals more than it reveals. We need time to be silent and still, time to reflect on the past and think about the future; without it, no one is knowable.

Everyone should learn to write well

Judging from the book card---it's usually found at the back of the book---of On Writing Well, I am, at least in our school, what you might consider its most frequent borrower. Written by William Zinsser, it's a valuable book for people who want to learn to write well, with lessons ranging from the principles of writing to the methods of writing a memoir, an interview article, a travel article, a science article, etc. In fact, I have borrowed it for four times already, while some borrowed it only once. And still others haven't heard of the book.

My female friend once noticed my fondness for the book. She wondered why I always borrow it. Then she asked me, "Do you want to be a writer because you seemed hell-bent on learning to write well?" I didn't know then what to say. It wasn't until several months after my friend asked me that I came up with an answer.

Yes, I want to learn to write well. But no, I don't want to be a writer. That is to say, I don't want to earn my living just by writing though I want to write just like professional writers do.

It's true that to learn to write well is what professional writers badly need. Their very survival depends on their ability to write lucid and readable product---either in the form of a newspaper article, or a feature story, or a short story, or a novel. Otherwise, they'll find it increasingly difficult to survive---financially and professionally. But it doesn’t mean other professionals should be exempted from learning to write well.

But, one might ask, is there a need for others to learn to write well?

Do the youth still need parental guidance?

In one of the courses I enrolled in college, I was once part of a group assigned to make a documentary film on pre-marital sex and its attendant problem, teenage pregnancy. I hated my teacher for that because filmmaking, or so I thought, is reserved only for MassComm students. What has an education student got to do with filmmaking? But the hate was supplanted by appreciation, for the exercise gave me an opportunity to take a glimpse of the life of a teenage mother.

If there’s anything I learned from the documentary we made, even though it’s amateurish by any acceptable standards, it is this: Sex is a make or break experience—make because it can give instant euphoria; break because it can wreak endless havoc especially to young people who are adventurous and in constant search for excitement.

Do most of the youth know it?

Go for Gordon

[caption id="attachment_572" align="alignleft" width="162" caption="Sen. Richard Gordon"][/caption]

Who will you vote for as president this 2010 elections?

William Esposo's choice is Senator Richard Gordon. Esposo is convinced that Senator Dick Gordon is the right president to have in 2010 because "more than his proven track record as Olongapo City Mayor, SBMA Chairman, Tourism Secretary and now Senator," Dick Gordon recognizes our core problems --- "not knowing his real history and possessing counter-productive values."

Senator Richard Gordon is my choice, too, for very much the same reasons. Dick Gordon offers the kind of politics this country has been wanting for many years --- transformational, not transactional.

But his critics say he is  no different from trapos who take advantage of, say, a boxing match, to make their candidacy known and thereby enhance their winnability. A case in point is Dick Gordon's involvement in the negotiation for the release of the three ICRC volunteers kidnapped by the Abusayyaf. Because Dick Gordon will be running for president this coming election, his critics say, he is capitalizing on the situation to enhance his winnability.

That's just off the mark. To begin with, Gordon has many achievements he can use to buttress his candidacy. Consider Olongapo. Or SBMA.

By refusing to reform CARP, GMA is corrupt just the same

In response to my piece on Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), Herbert Docena, a researcher at  Focus on Global South, has this to say:

It cuts to the heart of the land reform issue and exposes the anomaly in the way the public reacts to — or is made to react — to corruption. I suspect that part of the reason why most in the middle class are not outraged enough to want GMA out is because they still think she's "not corrupt" — in the usual sense of the word, i.e. she has not pocketed government funds. And yet her very inability — or refusal — to extend and reform CARP allows her and her family, as well as those of her class, to get away with blatant corruption — that of using the government to hold on to their lands, as you correctly point out.

'Lung fields are clear'

I had my annual X-ray examination yesterday as part of the Scholarship's requirement. It wasn't my first time to have my lungs photocopied, as we jokingly call it. But every time I go through the process, I'm anxious of what would be the result. Yesterday was no exception.

How could you not be anxious when what's at stake is the Scholarship itself. It's not that I will be terminated, but I've seen some of my colleagues whose lung results are suspicious were advised to take a one semester leave. They can only come back if the Doctor says so. But what if, he won't?

That's what I fear the most. Since this morning, I kept on thinking of my x-ray result, until i got it this afternoon.

"Lung fields are clear," the result says. Sigh.

To give or not to give

No education student gets out of an Educ F. (Principles of Teaching 1) class without learning that giving rewards motivates the student to learn. When a student shows good performance in every activity---the argument goes---give him a reward in the form of, say, a plus point. The reason? To motivate the student to continue what he is doing.

But "for decades, psychologists have warned against giving children prizes or money for their performance in school. “Extrinsic” rewards, they say — a stuffed animal for a 4-year-old who learns her alphabet, cash for a good report card in middle or high school — can undermine the joy of learning for its own sake and can even lead to cheating," according to a New York Times article.

Although the practice of giving rewards has become more popular in some parts of the world, the danger with it is that "rewards may work in the short term but have damaging effects in the long term."

Empty

It's already May. And I haven't written a single word yet. Oops! I just did.