Digital tales

Digital tales


Updated 00:00am (Mla time) Dec 31, 2004
By Michael Tan
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A13 of the December 31, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer


WE'VE seen the footage played over and over again on CNN of tsunami waves moving up the shore and making their way inland like some creatures from outer space, devouring anyone and anything in their path.

Besides its graphic display of nature's sheer power, what's so amazing about the videos is that they were not taken by the network's camera crew. They're home videos taken by families and tourists as the tsunami swept in.

It does seem strange that someone would rush to get a camera as a tidal wave comes in, but that tells us something about human beings' need to record everything. From cave paintings dating back tens of thousands of years to home videos today, it seems we're driven to tell others about what's happened and, these days, what's happening.

I thought I'd share a few insights into these digital technologies, digital tales for the new year to emphasize that the future is here, and we better be prepared for it.

In touch, instantly
The digital technologies have been most dramatic in the way they are so instantaneous. The cellphone companies have cashed in on the "instant" angle to sell their products as a useful tool for emergencies, especially for children who may need to contact their parents.

I'm sure the phones can be useful, but we also have our share of sad stories here, such as the victims of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 calling their loved ones on their cellphones from the World Trade Center and from the planes. More recently, we had the story of KC de Venecia calling her elder sister to ask for help as a fire raged outside her bedroom.

The digital camera--still or video--is amazing in the way it allows us to literally shoot from the hip. There's a whole generation of babies right now who will someday be overwhelmed by the number of photos and videos their parents took of them, most often affectionately and sometimes, well, almost mischievously to record many awkward and hilarious moments of childhood.

And don't forget your pets, which can be as unpredictable as babies. Without a digital camera, I wouldn't have been able to catch one of my cats as she sat in front of a mirror looking at herself. Or of another cat perched on a log, one paw reaching out for orchid blooms.

Professional photographers scoff at how the digital cameras still lack clarity. Don't believe those ads claiming the cellphone can capture awesome sunsets and the smiling faces of your entire barkada. These cellphones still use cameras with a 1.1 megapixel resolution, which gives you pictures that look like the view from eyes with cataracts.

The key here is to ask the dealer about the megapixels: the higher you go, the clearer the resolution. You can get fairly good photographs with low-cost digital cameras offering a 3.3 megapixel resolution, with slight blur even enhancing the photograph. I've had friends asking about a photograph I took of an Italian villa by a lake, shrouded in early morning fog. They were startled when I told them I used a cheap digital camera to take it, "cheap" having actually added on to the misty ambiguity. Also try printing out some of the digital pictures in black and white-sometimes they actually look better!

Digital greetings
The holidays do remind us that cellphones can be useful as a quick way of greeting as many people as you can. Just compare the number of Christmas cards you got this year with the number of texted greetings.

Sure, some of the greetings can be quite banal while others are innovative with their graphic designs. With the miracles of digital technology, you can save the good ones to send to others. I was able to recycle a favorite from last year, a poem by Bienvenido Lumbrera that fits into one text message. The poem compares Christmas greetings to old perfumes that keep their scents forever: "Parang lumang pabango/Ang 'Maligayang Pasko,'/Samyuin, angkinin mo/Pagbating laging bago!"

An important reminder: make sure to identify yourself in your texted greetings. My father was complaining to me about how many "anonymous" greetings he got. Your number is not automatically identified in your friends' phone unless they have it entered completely with country and city code.

A fancy alternative to the cellphone greetings are the electronic cards you can pick out from the Internet. I used it a lot a few years ago but eventually found it rather tedious, both to send out and to receive. With digital cameras now, you can design your own card and send out, but do be careful about keeping their size down. It's not polite to send huge e-mail files out to people, especially if they're all pictures of yourself.

Virtual realities
We live in an age where digital images and sounds can create new virtual realities. Digital technologies are both boon and bane in the way they allow you to modify reality, to flatter or to vilify.

Cellphones and e-mail allow you to pretend to be someone and somewhere you're not. Cellphones have been especially diabolical, expanding the possibilities of deception for the delinquent child or a philandering spouse. I'll never forget passing a student at UP Diliman in the corridor as he shouted into his cellphone, "Honey, I'm still in Cebu." A sign of the times: there's at least one Filipino pop song now playing on the theme of an unfaithful husband lying to his wife with his cellphone.

Of course, Smart offers a service to keep track of your child or spouse, using satellite global positioning systems (GPS) to identify someone's location, down to the street. The problem is that both parties-the checker and the checked-have to be on Smart as well, and the person being checked needs to have his or her phone on. Besides, if you need to keep monitoring someone's whereabouts, you might want to reflect on how such "instant communications" may only be worsening a relationship where you've actually lost touch.

That's what I fear most with digital technologies: the illusion that technology can substitute for direct communications. Parents have to realize that giving a child a cellphone isn't going to strengthen the parent-child bond; in fact, it could create new problems of hooking young children into this cellphone craze, and tempting parents and children to use the phone to evade the need for face-to-face contact.

Two years ago, there was a case in Malaysia where a man texted his wife, "I divorce you," three times. Malaysia's Supreme Court eventually decided this high-tech variation on an old tradition was not valid; you have to say it to your spouse, face-to-face, for it to take effect.

Have a safe New Year and keep in touch.

Wakes, funerals and the Pinoy

Wakes, funerals and the Pinoy


Updated 01:11am (Mla time) Dec 24, 2004
By Michael Tan
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A13 of the December 24, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer


DEATH rituals for a Christmas column? I have to admit I had many second thoughts before doing this column, but then deaths and funerals took center stage in this year's Pinoy Christmas, so it would have been even more inappropriate to shunt these events aside.

On the eve of Fernando Poe Jr.'s funeral, I got a text message from ABS-CBN's Catherine Cornell, requesting if I could go to the TV station at 10 p.m. for a live interview about wakes and funerals in Philippine culture. Catherine has that knack for identifying new angles to a story and her request-which, unfortunately, I couldn't accommodate because of family obligations-did get me thinking about how central to our culture death is, together with its rituals.

Bear with me now as I go into a long and occasionally antiseptic explanation of death rituals before going back to FPJ.

Necropolitics

Death rituals are important in all cultures, with one main objective: a way to bring together relatives and friends for a communal coping with the feelings of grief and anxiety. The rituals vary with each culture, reflecting differences in social circumstances. Western death rituals, for example, are usually very solemn, mainly allowing expressions of grief, through ceremonies that are simple, private and brief. In contrast, many cultures, including our own, have much more elaborate and protracted death rituals, allowing as many people as possible to participate.

Our death rituals become public performances with two extended objectives. First, it is a chance for different people to establish their relationship to the deceased and to stake their claims from that relationship. One of the most dreaded fears at Filipino wakes is the sudden appearance of the deceased's (usually the male's) other families. The emergence of other wives, together with the corresponding "Juniors," is dreaded because it means there are more claimants to the inheritance, often complicating a situation where-even among the legitimate children-there are already simmering rivalries.

The second objective of these public performances is for the bereaved family to validate their status in society. From the language and style of the obituaries to the choices of coffins and a burial place, the family is conscious that they have to live up to public expectations. Failure to meet those expectations could mean losing face while a grand spectacle could boost the family's standing.

The death of a celebrity or politician is more complicated, the death rituals now taking on more public functions. Given that FPJ was both actor and politician (albeit a reluctant one), it was not surprising that his wake and funeral became, as one radio commentator put it, "a last full show." Despite appeals from Susan Roces and other relatives to leave politics out, it was inevitable that FPJ's death rituals would be so eminently political. Death sparks off politics, necropolitics, within the family; and, with a person like FPJ, throughout the nation-the mourning mixed with the jostling for status and power.

When the dead live

Filipino death rituals are noisy affairs, almost rude and blasphemous to the outsider; and they include drinking and gambling during the wake. I was myself shocked watching FPJ's funeral: you could barely hear Fr. Sonny Ramirez as he did the final prayers at the North Cemetery because the background noise was deafening, as much as you would hear in a wet market, no, in a cockpit.

Observing death rituals gives us many insights into our culture. We deal with misfortune by joking, almost as if to trivialize the bad. With death, we become celebratory, literally calling on friends to eat, drink and be merry.

It is almost as if we scoff at death, bringing the dead back to life. During FPJ's necrological services, Dolphy transformed his eulogy into a stand-up comedy act, almost poking fun at FPJ. And when former President Joseph Estrada broke out in tears while viewing FPJ's remains, the people in the church broke out in applause.

Wakes and funerals allow us to involve the dead in acting out and validating social mores. The applause that greeted Erap's weeping was a way of saying, hey, Mister Macho, it's okay, it's admirable for you, and for other men, to cry for a friend.

Our long-winded eulogies are intended not just to pay homage (“parangal” in Filipino) to the dead, but to extol the ideal, what society wants to see among the living. This was where the eulogies for FPJ, stripped of the rhetoric, were important as a way of feeling the national pulse. Most striking was the way FPJ was praised for his loyalty to friends, his magnanimity and simplicity, three traits that I'd always thought were incompatible in a Filipino politician.

In this latest necropolitics, FPJ was presented not as FPJ alone but as a contrast to traditional politicians. The popularity of the story of FPJ's packaging relief goods and his refusing to have his name attached to the packages should be a signal to other politicians, the president especially, of how the public defines sincerity and leadership.

Mass catharsis

The massive crowd that showed up for FPJ's funeral probably included various types, including the plainly curious. Generally though, it was the poor, the dispossessed-many of them simultaneously FPJ movie fans as well as FPJ-for-president supporters who poured into the streets.

Unlike the crowds that flooded the streets for Ninoy Aquino's funeral in August 1983, FPJ's mourners were not an angry lot, mainly because FPJ was not the victim of violence. They were discontented, certainly, but the mourners' frustrations converged with a real love for FPJ, which could help to explain why trouble did not break out. With such a large crowd, provocateurs from the government or from the opposition could have easily triggered a bloody melee, as they did with Edsa III. Wednesday's crowds were unruly and the marshals were often at wits' end trying to keep them in place, but they were also policing themselves. Our funerals may be festive, but they also have their own decorum, in deference to the deceased.

For now, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo should be thankful to FPJ and to Filipino culture: precisely because our oh-so-irreverent death rituals allow mourning and celebration simultaneously, FPJ's ended up as a timely safety valve, allowing mass catharsis. The poor have wept for FPJ and for themselves, and feel better -- for now.

FPJ had no heir apparent, and the opposition is sharply divided by ideology as well as personal ambitions. But, again reflecting about necropolitics, it was during these nine long days of death rituals for FPJ that the nation noted the calm strength of FPJ's widow, Susan Roces. The real power play might yet be coming, now that the funeral is over.

Child safety and the holidays

Child safety and the holidays


Updated 00:39am (Mla time) Dec 22, 2004
By Michael Tan
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the December 22, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer


CHILDREN are the ones who most enjoy Christmas and New Year celebrations, but the recent tragedy that struck the De Venecia family reminds us, too, how the holiday celebrations actually put our children at great risk of injury and even death.

The toll of young lives is bound to continue to increase over the next few days, so I thought of compiling, based on the problems we've had in previous years, a few safety reminders to help prevent some of these tragedies.

Fiery lights

Christmas lights have been getting cheaper each year because of imports from China. It's amazing how cheap these lights have become. The last two years, I've been buying some of my lights from Divisoria but have noticed that the wires are really much too thin and that many conk out after a few days. The De Venecia fire has convinced me there's too much risk with these cheap lights, but mind you, some of the more expensive sets I got from the upmarket outlets weren't that durable either, making me wonder if our Department of Trade and Industry sets standards for the importation of these products.

Also watch out with those Christmas lanterns, especially those made of paper. Still I'd check the wiring and bulb sockets of capiz lanterns.

Follow the advice being given by government agencies about getting lights with parallel connections, and about not overloading the lights. One hardware clerk gave me this additional safety tip: it's better to get lights that blink, rather than those that stay on constantly. Obviously, it's the latter that heat up and burn out all too quickly.

Government warnings have concentrated on the lights, but I'd also be careful about another source of fires: substandard extension plugs and cords. About two years ago, I bought an extension cord from China and it went up in smoke, literally, within a week. Fortunately, the computer equipment plugged into the extension remained intact.

Christmas trees

The lights become extra hazardous when they're on Christmas trees, especially artificial ones. A short-circuit in the wiring can send out sparks and start a conflagration. It's best then to turn off the lights--whether on Christmas trees or not--before the household goes to bed, or when they're unattended.

If there are very young children at home, I'd be even more cautious and avoid putting lights on the trees or any place within reach of the kids. I was carrying a five-month-old baby the other day, while sitting next to a Christmas tree, when the tree came crashing down. I knew she was attracted to the lights the minute we walked into the room, and as we drew closer to the tree, she became even more fascinated because of the ornaments. As babies go, all it took was a split-second, one unguarded moment, as I spoke to friends, for her to pull on one of the branches. Fortunately, I was carrying her so all she had was a bad fright.

It's not just the lights then that we need to watch out for but also the ornaments and the tree itself. The artificial ones made out of plastic or aluminum are very light and are easily knocked over, so it's best to reinforce the base.

No safe firecracker

Besides the lights and trees, we should be extra careful with firecrackers. In many parts of Metro Manila, kids are already roaming the streets setting off firecrackers. The health secretary came out a few days ago to warn about firecrackers, but the mass media have been slow to pick up those advisories.

I just feel there is no firecracker safe enough for use with children around. Even sparklers, for example, can cause minor burns and as you move into the larger and more powerful firecrackers, you run additional risks, from fingers being blown off to firecracker shrapnel flying into the air and hitting someone.

Each year television channels provide us with gory and bloody scenes of firecracker injuries being treated in hospitals but many people are also unaware of the invisible effects of these firecrackers: the sulfur in these firecrackers pollutes the air for hours and can be very problematic for kids (and adults) with chronic respiratory problems--asthma, for example.

We also don't get to see the effects of a particularly deadly firecracker which has been banned, but which continues to be sold: watusi, those tiny pellet-sized firecrackers which you step on to activate. Unused pellets left on the ground can be picked up by infants, very young children and let's not forget, our pets, and in previous years we've had deaths from ingesting them.

Holiday-licious food and gifts

Generally, the holiday season means higher risks of children ingesting small items besides the watusi. Just the other day, I was in a relative's home, watching young toddlers play on the floor. Fortunately, one of the mothers noticed tiny white beads strewn on the floor. She quickly picked them up and traced where they were coming from. It turned out one of the little girls was wearing a "pearl" necklace with a broken strand.

Young children might mistake these tiny objects for candy and swallow them. In other cases, children, especially babies, are just plain curious and will put anything in their mouth. Many toys sold locally have inadequate warnings about small parts which can be wrenched off, or which drop off, and might end up being swallowed.

I'd also be careful about food. Older people tend to be more conscious now about cholesterol and fat in their holiday food, and then forget that we need to watch what the kids are eating. Food with peanuts, even those cooked in peanut oil, should not be given to infants because they may have a peanut allergy. With older children, I'd also watch out for nuts in general and other food items that can get stuck in the throat. In Taiwan, there are warnings about those gelatin cups which you "pop" into the mouth. Even if they're soft, they can still end up being lodged in a child's throat.

If you're trying to instill good eating habits in your children, remember all those parties will be full of temptations as well-soft drinks, sweets and various snack items especially. As to teenage children, don't forget to warn them about alcohol. It's a challenge to parents to keep kids off the junk and find ways to provide foods that are, in the words of my partner, holiday-licious but healthy.

And Bantay, too

Oops, one of my dogs is staring at me, so allow me a postscript. The holidays will mean lots of chocolate, which you should never, never give to Bantay. Dogs lack a digestive enzyme to break down some of the substances in chocolate which are toxic to them, sometimes fatally. And while I'm at it, let me warn you, too, against giving dogs chicken bones, nuts and other stuff that might cause choking.

Let's keep the holidays safe for all our loved ones, human and non-human.

Hard sell, no sale

Hard sell, no sale

Updated 01:59am (Mla time) Dec 17, 2004
By Michael Tan
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the December 17, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer


"BILI na, bili na, libreng kanta."

I was amused by the “tiangge” (bazaar) vendor. She was obviously doing this tongue-in-cheek, offering a free song for anyone buying stuff from her, but she did remind me that even with the influx of cheap goods from China, there are just too many sellers these days, and not enough people buying. Times are hard and people are careful with their shopping budgets.

Since it takes so much more now to catch a potential consumer's attention and to keep that person interested enough until a purchase is made, you're going to find more and more marketing gimmicks, mostly hard-sell tactics. Sometimes they work but more often they don't.

I thought I'd compile a few tips for my friends in business, as well as Bong Austero and others at the Personnel Management Association of the Philippines (PMAP) who train the business people, my way of making up for not being able to speak at their last convention.

Song-and-dance routines

The vendor offering a free song with purchases was probably kidding, but the other week I saw a literal song-and-dance routine used to attract customers.

I had just delivered a lecture at a convention and was on my way home, when I noticed the record store, and thought I'd drop in to pick out some Christmas gifts. As I drew closer to the store, I was greeted with really loud hip-hop music blaring away. Right at the entrance was a young couple, dressed punk-style, gyrating away like the world was coming to an end. I stood by to wait to get in but the music and the dancing continued, and eventually people drifted away, as I did. You just couldn't get into the store.

The hip-hop dancing was an example of marketing overkill. You catch people's attention then prevent them from moving on to browse and buy. These fancy marketing song-and-dance routines attract people but the novelty wears off easily and you lose potential customers. In other cases, as with this loud hip-hop display, people may actually be driven away.

Not quite a song-and-dance routine, but a totally wasted routine nevertheless, is the insistence of tiangge vendors on using obsolete hawking techniques, calling customers to buy. You see it all the time, vendors singing out every few seconds, "Sir, Mam, bili na, rubber shoes." Goodness, I want to tell them, everyone in the entire block is selling rubber shoes so it serves no purpose to call out your wares. In fact, I avoid those who call out because I suspect they'll be too aggressive in trying to sell their goods.

Airheads and stalkers

Rather than expending so much energy to call in customers, business people should invest more to improve customer assistance. Again, whether it's a sidewalk stall or a large department store, many of our businesses make the mistake of emphasizing quantity: hiring too many people and not training them properly.

You get several varieties here. Again, maybe it's because we're such a musical nation, I've been in several business establishments where the sales clerks are idly sitting in a corner singing away. Okay, so I'm being unfair; they're not totally idle, some will sing while filing their nails.

Then you have the cell-phone addicts. I was recently in a shop where the manager suddenly swooped in and confiscated all the employees' cell phones. Apparently, a customer had complained about poor service because the sales staff members were all busy talking or text-messaging away.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have the busybodies who stalk you as you browse, telling you this yellow polka-dotted, itsy-bitsy bikini is really cute (favorite adjective with our sales clerks) and will look great on your wife. Okay, thank you, goodbye. Sometimes, if the store does have good products, I stay on, but I have found that when some product does interest you and you need to ask for more information, the busybodies turn out to be airheads who know nothing about what they're selling.

Quality standards for customer assistance should apply as well to phone inquiries. Local businesses pour so much money into ads announcing new products, with phone numbers to call, and yet invest so little on the people who will receive potential customers' calls. For a country that prides itself with so many call centers, we're really very bad with phones, even with basic courtesies like asking customers to hold the line.

I'm going to have to name one company with a particularly bad record when it comes to phone customer assistance: Globe Handyphone. I've had people who can't speak in English but insist on doing so; then when I ask them to switch to Filipino, it turns out they can't speak Filipino as well.

Management bottlenecks

It isn't just the bad starts that get you into trouble. Don't think that you've got it made just because someone finally reaches for his or her wallet. You can still botch a sale at the last minute, even as the customer is about to pay.

Again, we overdo things here. I was in a long queue at a National Bookstore branch the other day and counted nine women cramped behind three cash registers. It's the same thing with SM and many other large chains, where they hire someone to handle the cash register, as well as a checker and a wrapper. The women at National are fine. They're courteous and helpful, and I mention them because they really deserve better working conditions. In other business establishments, I've seen staff who are adversely affected by the crowding, which translates to slow service and grumpy faces. There's always the temptation to dump what you wanted to buy and look for another shop with shorter lines and more pleasant service.

Problems can crop up anywhere along the marketing process. I call these management or business bottlenecks. All you need to ruin a business is one incompetent person handling a vital function. That includes marketing people hatching up schemes like hip-hop at the door.

Make sure you have staff who can quickly take over when there's a weak link, like a good manager who can crack down on the cell-phone addicts. I would have given up on Globe a long time ago if it were not for the efficient staff in their service centers (thanks, Patrick, at the Rockwell center), who I would turn to after battling a call-center operator.

To sum up, you don't need to sing or dance to make a sale. Hard sell can mean no sales. Stock quality items, hire a few good people who can work as a team and who know more adjectives besides "cute," and you'll have customers coming back for more.

Last chance for Christmas shopping

Last call before Christmas: Drop by Market One, the weekend market at the Lung Center (near the Quezon Memorial Circle) where you should be able to complete your holiday shopping with food items, plants, handicrafts, toys, clothes. For the holidays, coordinator Susa Arcega tells me they're open as well Saturday mornings although it's still Sunday when they have the most stalls.

Nurturing trees, nurturing democracy

Nurturing trees, nurturing democracy


Updated 06:37am (Mla time) Dec 15, 2004
By Michael Tan
Inquirer News Service


Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the December 15, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer


THE NOBEL Peace Prize has usually been associated with people helping to resolve armed conflicts (for example, the United Nations' Kofi Annan) or those who provide assistance to victims of these conflicts (Medecins sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders). This year it was different. The Peace Prize was awarded to a Kenyan environmental activist, Wangari Maathai, known for her Green Belt Movement, which has resulted in the planting of 30 million trees in several African countries.

People will ask, as I did: What does tree planting have to do with peace?

It's a question we should be asking ourselves in the Philippines, as we continue to reel from the destruction caused by flooding in deforested areas.

Biologist, veterinarian, activist

From her biography posted in the Nobel Prize website, we learn she obtained her bachelor's and master's degrees in biological sciences from the United States and went on to obtain a Ph.D. in veterinary medicine at the University of Nairobi, making her the first woman in East and Central Africa to have a doctorate. Maathai taught veterinary anatomy at the University of Nairobi for several years.

In 1977, as a member of the National Council of Women of Kenya, she introduced the idea of women's groups planting trees to improve their quality of life. This led to the formation of the Green Belt Movement, which has since spread to other African countries. The movement uses tree planting as an entry point for community development, and has since spun off many other activities, including eco-safaris, where foreign tourists come in as volunteers to help plant trees.

Maathai combined her environmentalism with political activism, opposing the autocratic Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi and even running against him in the presidential elections in 1997. Her opposition to the Moi regime was based in part on his anti-environmental policies. Maathai was imprisoned several times for her opposition to the government, and was hospitalized once after being beaten up in a rally.

The Moi government was voted out of power in 2002. During those elections, Maathai won a seat in parliament and has since been appointed assistant minister for environment, natural resources and wildlife.

A women's movement

Maathai began her Nobel Peace lecture by referring to the fact that she was the first African woman to receive the prize, and, that in accepting it, she was particularly mindful of the situation of women and the girl child. She started the Green Belt Movement mainly as a response "to needs identified by rural women, namely lack of firewood, clean drinking water, balanced diets, shelter and income." Because women are the primary caretakers for families and the land, they are the first to become aware of environmental damage, with tree planting being "a natural choice."

Maathai was able to mobilize women to plant trees not just for environmental conservation but also for very practical purposes, including income generation, the tree seedlings eventually being sold to nurseries. There are lessons here for Filipinos. We still see tree planting as a token gesture done on Environment Day rather than as a vital tool for survival.

Maathai gives new meanings to tree planting, describing it as concrete action taken to change one's situation. It is, she says, "an act from where you can make a difference."

Once women discovered they had the power to act, the Green Belt meetings became forums to tackle other social issues, from violence within their households to government corruption to unfair international trade agreements that affected the farmers' livelihoods.

In her Nobel lecture, Maathai was emphatic about the relationship between democracy and environmental conservation: "... responsible governance of the environment was impossible without democratic space."

We Filipinos should remember that the plunder of our forests was most intense during the Marcos dictatorship, as concessions were parceled out to his cronies. By the time democracy was restored in 1986, our forests had practically been wiped out. Since then, even with formal democratic institutions restored, political warlords and dynasties have continued to control the country, using their power to destroy what's left of the forests while moving on to pillage the rest of the environment.

In a BBC special, Maathai described how the tree became a symbol for democratic struggle in Kenya. In 1989, the Kenyan government fenced off part of Nairobi's Uhuru (Freedom) Park, where one of Moi's business cronies wanted to build a 60-story building. Maathai joined other Kenyans to protest, and eventually the government backed off. Maathai says that the day authorities removed the fence around the park was "the beginning of the end of the dictatorship."

Through the years, Nairobi's Uhuru Park continued to be the focus of political action, Kenyans planting trees to demand the release of political prisoners and for a transition to democracy. In the BBC special, Maathai used this powerful metaphor: nurturing the trees is like nurturing the seeds for democracy.

And peace?

Maathai said trees were planted during the anti-dictatorship struggle in Kenya as part of a call for peaceful transition to democracy. Eventually, tree planting was also used for conflict resolution, especially during ethnic conflicts in Kenya. These "peace trees" actually drew from traditional practices: for example, the elders of the Kikuyu tribe would carry a staff from the thigi tree and place this between two disputing sides to stop fighting and get reconciliation talks going.

Reading that part of Maathai's Nobel lecture, I thought of our own situation, of the conflicts in Mindanao, for example, that erupt from the competition for scarce land and resources. I thought, too, of our own situation in urban areas, where we continue to use up our rapidly dwindling green spaces, depriving young Filipinos of potential parks and recreation areas. In such a situation, should it be surprising that young people turn to a violent culture of fraternities and drugs?

Maathai links the environment to democracy and peace. "Indeed, the state of any country's environment is a reflection of the kind of governance in place, and without good governance there can be no peace," she says. "Many countries, which have poor governance systems, are also likely to have conflicts and poor laws protecting the environment."

We need to ask ourselves: If we are indeed a democracy, why do we suffer so much from environmental degradation, together with all the problems resulting from the loss of natural resources, from deadly floods to hungry severely malnourished children?

Is there a way out of this quagmire? Maathai would point us to the trees, and the communities mobilized for tree planting, for the answers.

K

K

Updated 10:41pm (Mla time) Dec 09, 2004
By Michael Tan
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the December 10, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer


IT'S been 56 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations; yet the term "human rights" continues to be the subject of many debates.

The most heated arguments revolve around claims that "human rights" is "Western" and "individualistic" and that in many cultures these "Western" ideas often run counter to the interests of the community or even of an entire nation. In our part of the world these debates use terms like "Asian values" and "communalism," pitted against Western "human rights" and democracy.

We hear variations in the Philippines with references to our "demo-crazy" and having "too much human rights" as the cause of our underdevelopment. What we need, we're told, are leaders willing to dispense with human rights and get the country going.

Rights, rights

After years of following these debates, I've come to feel that the debates will be futile if we continue to argue over abstractions. What we need to do is find out what popular perceptions are about rights, and how these perceptions affect our decisions in private and public life, from the household to national governance.

In relation to human rights, we can look at the terms people use locally: the English "human rights" for example, as well as the Tagalog "karapatan." But we don't stop with identifying the words. Even more importantly, we look at how these words are used."Human rights," for example, is still often invoked derisively, best exemplified by the way people spit out the words with sarcasm. I hear this quite often with our AM radio commentators, when they try to explain problems in terms of "too much human rights." To give one common example, we often hear sarcastic references to "rights" in the mass media, with claim that government tolerates the informal settlers (the politically correct term) in deference to human rights. "Pa rights rights pa kasi," people will mumble, the repetition of the term being a way, in local languages, of expressing disapproval.

What should be

Note that while the English "rights" will often be used negatively, the Tagalog "karapatan" is almost always used positively, standing solidly as something that is desirable. The term's root word is "dapat", or what should be, which is in many ways like the English "right" with its ethical connotations: "right" in the sense of "not wrong" is determined by a society's notions of what should be.

The problems come in the way we determine "what should be." Ideally, we should have certain guiding ethical principles in deciding "what should be." Certain ethical principles can be invoked here, dealing with issues of justice (Is it fair?), autonomy (Does it respect the individual?), maleficence (Does it avoid harm?) and beneficence (Does it do good?).

Unfortunately, out in the real world, we tend to be more rigid, defining "what should be" in terms of received traditions, some of which were not necessarily wise or just. In recent years, the term "reproductive rights" has been used to describe, among others, the right to decide how many children one should have, when to have them and in what intervals. That right would seem commonsensical, yet "reproductive rights" have been attacked by religious conservatives. A mural on Shaw Boulevard captures this view showing Jesus with a child and the caption: "This is a child; not a choice." Religions can be regressive in the way they promote this absolute view, often claiming that "what should be" is what has always been.

In other cases, we believe we have the right to do something because everyone's doing it. We complain, for example, about buses and jeeps blocking vehicular flow when they stop at road intersections to pick up passengers; yet, when we're the ones commuting, we stop these public utility vehicles at those crossings to get on. Here, irrational and mutually destructive behavior is transformed into the norm, shaping our ideas of what's "right" and "rights."

Entitlement

We get even more insights into local views of rights by looking at the wonderfully succinct word: K. I don't mean the "k" in texting (which means OK) but the k as in "May k ka ba?" (Do you have k?). The word "karapatan" is drastically abbreviated to one letter, yet this "k" is packed with meanings.

Think of how "k" is used in different situations. I'll just give one example: In sing-along joints, you often hear very bad karaoke singers croaking away with people around him whispering in exasperation that he has no "k" to sing.

"K" tells us that our notions of rights are tied to entitlement. Your bad karaoke singer thinks he sounds like Frank Sinatra and therefore that entitles him to hog the microphone and to do "My Way" over and over again until someone guns him down.

Mind you, these fatal shoot-outs do happen, which leads me to another example of "k": The gunman is probably someone who drives an SUV with a "ProGUN" sticker. He believes it's his right to carry a gun everywhere he goes and, worse, that the gun gives him the "k" to rid society of scum (defined, with time, to refer to anyone who disagrees with him, or who won't yield the karaoke microphone).

I'm not being facetious here. So many of our problems do in fact emerge from these notions of entitlement, notions which are tied to status, whether ascribed as in class, or acquired through a diploma (real or fake), or having a gun.

The privileges are often tied to power with some rather paradoxical variations. The poor, for example, may seem disenfranchised but can, in many instances, play around with entitlements tied, precisely, to poverty. I'm poor, therefore I'm entitled to free services. I'm poor, and there's this empty lot, therefore I'm entitled to use it.

Dissecting concepts of rights and entitlements might help us to deal with all kinds of problems. Just look at corruption for example, with the rationalization: "I have to feed my family so..." Unless people understand that this corrupted entitlement means depriving many other families of what's due them, we will end up with perverted notions of "right" and "rights."

There's much more to karapatan and human rights, but I thought I'd just offer a few insights for today to stimulate more in-depth discussion of rights in Philippine settings so that we can move forward, away from self-centered privileged entitlement toward the original ethical connotations of "dapat," of what should be, for my own and for others' good.

A voice for VOICE

Noel Cabangon sings tomorrow night, Dec. 11 at 7 p.m. Cinema 4, SM Megamall. Proceeds go to the UP-based Volunteer Organizations Information Coordination and Exchange (VOICE), a national network of volunteer organizations. Tickets available at TicketNet outlets, or call +632 9288969 or +63918 9375075. The fund-raiser will also feature Hannah of Session Road.

Taxing virtues, subsidizing vices

Taxing virtues, subsidizing vices

Updated 00:53am (Mla time) Dec 08, 2004
By Michael Tan
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the December 8, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer


MONDAY'S Inquirer featured a full-page open letter to our Senate with most impressive signatories: former National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) director general Solita Collas-Monsod and several former finance secretaries: Vicente R. Jayme, Jesus P. Estanislao, Roberto de Ocampo, Ernest Leung.

The gist of the letter was simple: Bite the bullet and push through with the increases in cigarette taxes. The letter was written in response to Congress' reluctance to support the Enrile Bill (Senate Bill 1815), itself a compromise around the heavily contested proposal to increase so-called "sin taxes" on cigarettes and alcohol.

The rationale behind sin taxes is that practices such as smoking and drinking should be taxed more heavily because they have social consequences, costs that are passed on to taxpayers. Congress' snail's pace in dealing with sin taxes once again shows our distorted priorities, and which can be summarized as taxing virtues and subsidizing vices. Since much has been said about the sin taxes, including Monsod's incisive column about three weeks ago summarizing the reasons we need to hike the tobacco taxes, I'm going to concentrate instead on the matter of "virtue taxes."

Promoting illiteracy

For starters, I'd suggest our former finance secretaries look into the Department of Finance's refusal to reconsider a plan to tax the sale, importation, printing and publication of books. The book trade has been exempted from the 10-percent value-added tax (VAT) but the finance people now want to lift the exemption, despite protests from the Philippine Educational Publishers' Association and the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines.

Currently, Filipinos read far less than many of our Asian neighbors. There are many reasons for this, but the high cost of books is certainly the main obstacle to reading. Just look at the enthusiastic crowds at our book fairs, people of all ages browsing but many unable to buy because of the high prices. If current prices of books already seem astronomical, an additional 10-percent tax will send book sales plummeting even more rapidly. I wouldn't mind if the taxes are plowed back into developing a local book industry but that isn't happening either.

All around us, our neighbors have actually reduced import taxes on books to encourage their citizens to read more. Not only that, in Indonesia, Thailand and China, they've poured in money to translate as many books as possible. For all the international publicity around censorship in China, you'd be surprised at all the books they've been translating: from ponderous French philosophers to management gurus like Covey. Likewise, when I go to India, I go crazy running through their bookstores because they reprint, through special arrangements with the publishers, all the latest books.

We will pay for this neglect of books. Just think of the next generation of Filipino semi-literates teaching in our schools and writing textbooks far worse than the ones exposed recently. I predict, too, that we will lose out to our book-reading neighbors in the globalized international economy. It's not surprising we end up exporting Filipinos mainly to do mechanical work, rather than capturing a greater share of segments of the outsourcing market -- software development, for example -- where critical thinking skills are essential, skills honed from reading.

Penalizing hard work

Let's move to another example of "virtue taxes."

I have been getting complaints from “tiangge” vendors about the Bureau of Internal Revenue visiting and checking if they are issuing receipts. I know these vendors are making money but it's not like they're raking in millions. Many of them come from outside Manila, investing in transportation costs and using their Sundays to bring in extra income, some with homegrown vegetables and home-cooked products.

The government seems to go out of its way to tax entrepreneurship. It's not just the small businesses that are victimized. One reason for our economic stagnation is that we have a very low savings rate. But I'm not surprised here-people aren't strongly motivated to save because interest rates are so low and because the government imposes a 15-percent withholding tax on those tiny savings.

It just doesn't make sense, the way the government taxes frugality and small-business people trying to make an honest living, while corporate tax evaders go scot-free, while we postpone sin taxes.

Wages of sin

Let me get personal here as we move back to the sin taxes. I used to be a heavy smoker. How heavy was heavy? Here in the Philippines there were three-pack days, but overseas, I'd sometimes survive on one pack. Cigarette prices in the Philippines were, and still are, among the cheapest in the world, thanks to low taxes.

The same applies to alcohol. I enjoy my beer and I know that there's always a greater temptation to binge on a night out in Manila because alcoholic drinks are far too cheap here.

Sin taxes can help moderate consumption of cigarettes and alcohol, even as it generates government revenues. Yet we seem so reluctant to work on the sin taxes. Pardon the religious metaphors, but society will reap the wages of sin, if we continue to act so slowly. We hear propagandists for the tobacco firms arguing that impoverished tobacco farmers in Ilocos stand to lose from the proposed hike in sin taxes. But are they aware that diseases caused by alcohol and tobacco consistently rank among the leading causes of death in the Philippines?

Tobacco use isn't just linked to cancer but also heart diseases and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (asthma, bronchitis and emphysema). Much less has been said about the problems around alcohol abuse but liver disease -- much of which is associated with alcoholism -- now ranks 13th as a cause of death. We also don't talk enough about social problems around alcohol dependency, from work absenteeism to domestic violence.

We have to reduce our subsidies on vices. Let's push through with the sin taxes and allocate part of the revenues to public health programs. And yes, let's use part of it to develop alternative livelihoods for tobacco farmers.

A final word here: The government should rethink the cost-effectiveness of its tax strategy. It just doesn't make sense that the government is rushing to impose VAT on books to generate P272 million while dragging its feet on the sin taxes, which could bring in P11.3 billion. As for cracking the whip to collect taxes on small businesses' Christmas sales, amid government neglect of social services, the environment, the economy -- why does the word "extortion" come to my mind?

Bipolar nation

Bipolar nation

Updated 10:55pm (Mla time) Dec 02, 2004
By Michael Tan
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the December 3, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer


LAST year I was asked, on a radio talk show, if I thought we were suffering from national depression. I replied, "Not quite. I think we're more bipolar or manic-depressive, swinging from one extreme mood to another."

Mind you, I have nothing against bipolar people. One of my best friends is bipolar, and in a very extreme way. When she's down, you can almost see a dark cloud hanging over her head as she walks -- no, I should say plods -- around. Then she'll shift to an "up" mood, and I mean up: she'll call and ask me to go shop with her so I can rein her in, lest she end up buying two Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) bags at $1,000 each (yup, the genuine ones) -- same design, one for back-up -- like she did several years ago in a manic mood.

You're born bipolar and you learn to live with it, with the help of a good psychiatrist and a social support network. But when a whole nation goes bipolar, that's another matter.

From Winnie to Yoyong

The idea that we might be a bipolar nation came back to me this week because of the way we've responded to the series of typhoons.

When Winnie was approaching the Philippines last weekend, BBC's weather reports already warned about the storm and another tropical disturbance they'd spotted on their meteorological maps. That other disturbance has developed into Yoyong. Okay, so maybe the British are obsessed with weather, but their warnings were in such sharp contrast to an almost complete silence in the local media, despite the fact that just the other week, we'd been battered by two other typhoons, Unding and Violy.

Maybe because we get more than 20 typhoons a year, we tend to become rather cavalier about each approaching storm, our attention caught briefly by the letter of the alphabet in its name, rather than impending danger.

Even when Winnie finally struck, most of us in Metro Manila were not too concerned, partly because its wind speed was low. So the rains kept coming and some of Manila's streets were flooded. But then flooding is so much part of our lives as well, so we shrugged it off as another inconvenience of life in Manila. Were we shocked to find out, after Winnie left, the number of lives it had claimed.

From our down mood before Winnie struck, we've shifted into a manic frenzy with Yoyong. Day in, day out, we've been surrounded by the shrill voices of radio and television commentators warning about Yoyong. Classes were suspended even before the storm landed, while television and radio crews went around the markets, warning about high prices. I caught one TV host announcing that “bangus” [milkfish] had gone up to P120 a kilogram, only to turn to a vendor who insisted she was selling her bangus at P100. I'm sure that after the TV crew left, prices all soared to fulfill the doomsday prophecies.

Then there were the vultures feasting on Winnie's victims: politicians condoling with relatives of the dead and proclaiming their indignation over illegal logging while reporters went around interviewing mourning women and children and asking them how they felt. (One particularly callous reporter asked a young boy in a hospital why he was sad, right after the child had recounted losing two brothers to the floods.)

Early warning

Alas, after Yoyong leaves, I suspect we'll slide back into lethargy until next year's new typhoon season. The righteous politicians and reporters will take up other issues and we will forget about the need to set up effective monitoring and warning systems.

A few years back, I was in Hong Kong (which is as vulnerable to typhoons as we are) when a strong typhoon lashed in. Even before the typhoon struck, television and radio kept flashing warnings and updates, including what precautions were needed to be taken. There was a sense of urgency, but not of panic and frenzy like we're seeing now for Yoyong. When the typhoon finally struck, the updates continued, again without the hysterical and shrill voices. The public was advised on which streets to avoid because they'd become flooded, but people remained calm despite the ferocity of the typhoon.

We need to have such a system in place to deal directly with the threat of typhoons. But we also need to link typhoon preparedness to environmental monitoring systems, so that places already environmentally damaged can be given top priority not just for warning announcements but for actual evacuation. Here we'd need trained social workers to mobilize people; with the last three typhoons, residents were known to resist evacuation even after the rains began.

Another kind of typhoon

I worry about another kind of typhoon about which we're being too complacent, with the possibility that we'll swing to the other manic extreme in a few years.

I refer here to the population problem. Last Wednesday, a team of economists from the University of the Philippines issued a paper warning that poverty will continue to plague us if the government doesn't face up to the population problem. The economists pointed out that we would need to double our current economic growth rates if it is to keep pace with population growth. But such doubling is unlikely to happen, so poverty levels will continue to be serious. The economists named all kinds of problems related to this poverty-population link, from a lack of jobs to the problems of responding to disasters like typhoons.

This was the same group of economists who had warned, a few weeks ago, about an impending fiscal crisis. The response to that first paper was, well, manic, with no less than the President calling for increased tax collections and government austerity. Other politicians hopped into the bandwagon with all kinds of proposals such as the Bayanihan Fund.

The manic mood around the threat of a fiscal crisis was short-lived. The President announced, like some miracle worker, that the threat was over. Our wise members of Congress agreed with the President's diagnosis, blocking increased taxes on tobacco and alcohol and stubbornly clinging on to their pork barrel. And the nation slipped back into national depression ... or is it national coma?

With the UP economists' new white paper, the public response has been anemic. My own beloved Inquirer buried an article on Page 4, with hardly any mention of the paper itself and focusing instead on the responses of a Catholic bishop and a University of Asia and the Pacific economist, both of course denying that there was a population problem. Other dailies missed out completely on the paper. Only BusinessWorld gave it front-page coverage.

I predict we will continue to wallow in our present "down" mood. Given that the population typhoon is already with us, we seem to be content with retreating into our individual cocoons to weather the raging storm, occasionally peeking out and whining about the congestion but hoping it will go away eventually. Unfortunately, we will reap the consequences of this denial, reaching a point several years from now, when we might shift to the other extreme: to a manic backlash that will include draconian population control measures. Sadly, even those measures may turn out to be too little, too late.

'Sakit ng lalake'

'Sakit ng lalake'

Updated 01:28am (Mla time) Dec 01, 2004
By Michael Tan
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the December 1, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer


I COULD have kicked myself. I was taking my lunch after delivering a plenary lecture at the Philippine Society for Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (PSMID) when I realized I had forgotten to mention something very important: "sakit ng lalake" (men's diseases).

PSMID, which is composed of health professionals working in the area of communicable diseases, had invited me to speak about HIV/AIDS and STIs, with special focus on whether Filipinos had outgrown the stigma around these illnesses.

My answer to the question about stigma was an unequivocal no, pointing out that this stigma was in fact contributing to the spread of these STIs. I thought of sharing some of the points I made during my lecture to explain how this happens and will eventually get back to this point about sakit ng lalake.

Not in my home, please

I started out the lecture by presenting some figures from the 2003 National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS). I know this is the third column in which I'm mentioning that survey but that nationwide study conducted by the National Statistics Office (NSO), covering 13,000 women and 5,000 men, is a rich mine of information on many health issues.

The NDHS included several questions to measure people's knowledge about and attitudes toward HIV/AIDS and STIs. One of the questions was this: "If a member of your family got infected with the virus that causes AIDS, would you want it to remain a secret?" Surprisingly, 76 percent of women and 79 percent of men replied, "No."

I was elated when I first saw that figure, thinking it meant Filipinos were now more ready to accept someone with HIV/AIDS. But my optimism faded quickly when I saw other responses in the survey. Asked if they would care, in their own household, for a relative with AIDS, only 34 percent of women and 29 percent of men answered, "Yes." And when asked if a female teacher with the AIDS virus should be allowed to continue teaching, only 14 percent of women and 11 percent of men said yes.

How do we explain these statistics? It seems that people feel that a diagnosis of HIV/AIDS shouldn't be kept a secret precisely because they fear the disease so much. The responses to the questions about caring for a relative or having an HIV-positive teacher suggest that people want to know who has HIV so they can keep away. The NDHS results show clearly that HIV/AIDS remains heavily stigmatized, to the extent that we would turn our backs on relatives with the disease.

Antibiotics and brake fluid

Although saddened, I was not surprised by the NDHS statistics. Our attitudes toward HIV/AIDS are a carry-over from the way we look at STIs in general. Even the older terms for these diseases-"venereal disease (VD)" and "sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)"--still elicit feelings of dread.

Among these STIs, HIV/AIDS is the most feared because it is seen as deadly and because of widespread misconceptions that it spreads easily. The NDHS in fact found that most of those surveyed still believe HIV/AIDS can be spread by mosquitoes, or by food shared with someone who is infected. (To set the record straight, HIV/AIDS is not spread through those routes. If it were, we'd have an even more deadly epidemic right now.)

But there's more to the fear of HIV/AIDS and STIs than misconceptions. The stigma around these diseases relate to the moralism that has emerged around these diseases. Too quickly, we presume that someone with STI is promiscuous, a term which Margy Holmes defines as anyone who has more sex partners than ourselves.

In the Philippines, the fear of STIs is a fear of women's sexuality, reflected in the widespread use of the term "sakit ng babae" (women's diseases) to refer to STIs. It isn't just any woman that's feared; specifically, it's "liberated" women, "liberated" here taken in its Filipino-English meaning to refer to someone who is "easy" with sex.

STIs are used to reinforce moralistic ideas that sex should be used only for reproduction and that outside of this purpose, it is dirty and dangerous. Discussions about STIs, like those about sex in general, are therefore driven underground. This only adds to the stigma so that when someone is infected, he will not go to a physician and resort to self-treatment with information gathered from the grapevine. The stuff used both for preventing and treatment of STIs is amazing, ranging from the newest antibiotics to brake fluid (yes, I got this from an interview with a taxi driver who argued that if it was powerful enough to stop a car, it should stop STIs as well).

So who's spreading STIs?

Filipino men are actually ambivalent about STIs. There's fear but there's also fatalism, even some attraction to the risks. When an infection does occur--as long as it is not HIV/AIDS--it may even be considered a badge of honor, something to boast about to the barkada (peer group).

The networks for treating STIs are more accessible to men because discussions about sex and STIs are less stigmatized (and because there is, to some extent, pride in being infected). Women, on the other hand, are unable to get the information they need because it's just not acceptable to talk about STIs with other women friends.

Women, in fact, may be aware that they are vulnerable because of a philandering husband, and yet would not dare to even suggest to their husbands that they use a condom for protection. The power relations are too skewed, which is why the theme around this year's World AIDS Day is "Women, Girls and HIV/AIDS," warning that the AIDS epidemic has now taken an alarming trend, where many women are being infected by their own husbands.

"It takes two to be monogamous" is a message I've kept repeating in my lectures. You might be faithful, but if your partner isn't, you're also at risk for STIs. And the risks are greater for women because, contrary to popular misconceptions, it is easier for men to infect women rather than the other way around. The reason is simple: women are the ones on the receiving end, so if her male partner has an STI, he literally deposits the infectious germs in her, and these stay on for several hours. The risks for women are further increased because the vagina is more prone to tearing and injuries during intercourse than the penis.

We can all contribute to removing the stigma around STIs through a more frank discussion of sex and sexuality, including the unequal relationships between men and women that fuel the spread of these diseases, including HIV/AIDS.

At the PSMID convention I asked for greater caution in our choice of words. I've always reacted strongly against the term "core transmitters," often used by AIDS organizations to refer to women sex workers. I did forget to appeal to the PSMID members to also stop using the term "sakit ng babae," which tends to blame women for these diseases.

Should we now call these diseases "sakit ng lalake"? It's your call.