The Flip Side

I moved to Sweden

2009-11-26T20:37:00.001+01:00

I already left Hungary, and moved to Sweden! I started a new blog at http://laktosefri.blogspot.com/

In Wowowee Country: A Death that's Full of Surprises

2009-08-04T21:08:00.011+02:00

Cory Aquino addressing US Congress (1986): "We shall honor it (foreign debt)." (Claps. Standing Ovation. $200 Million assistance package.)

Nope, this is not another eulogy.

I didn't follow the all-day all-night coverage of Cory Aquino's wake but I saw enough to make me a little flabbergasted. The bishops were near canonizing Cory for her saintly feat of "combining power with virtue" while she was President. Alright, I thought, it may be fair to say that it is superhuman for a Philippine president to resist the urge to cling to power. But is clinging to her hacienda virtue? It's just amazing how little stench Cory left in her wake. Even my friends, who are all enlightened people who know recent history and especially Cory's presidency like the back of their hands thought her "shortcomings" (a long list consisting of, among others, human rights abuses (remember Ora Pro Nobis?) which exceeded even the violations during the twenty years of martial law) were, in the end, forgivable or eclipsed by her supposed bravery. They were thanking Cory for standing up to Marcos, now hailed as a "historic responsibility" she so bravely took upon herself, but which, not so long ago, was seen as a "grand bonanza" for herself and her clan. So I try to put myself in my friends' shoes to figure out why this is so. Soon I discovered I just need to tune in to the live broadcast of the Cory funeral long enough and I can swear I also love Cory!

But then, my friends surprised me once again. This time, they were cursing Willie Revillame (that's not the surprising part) for what he did recently in his show Wowowee (that's the surprising part). I knew I just had to take a peek at the youtube clip. In the same TV screen, the Cory funeral procession is telecast live together with Wowowee. A lady contestant in Willie's popular noontime show is shown gyrating while mourners/protesters march beside Cory's coffin. Happily, Willie Revillame takes the podium and asks the TV station to stop telecasting the funeral procession because "it doesn't look good". Either they show Wowowee or the procession. "Brazen!"/ "Callous!" / "And yabang!" No matter how I try to see how Willie could have been brazen or callous in doing what he did, I could not get myself to disagreeing with Willie because I would have done the same thing. Was he perhaps callous towards the TV crew by criticizing them on air? Well, I don't know whose decision it was to show the gyrating lady and Cory's coffin side by side, but whoever he was, he deserves the beating! Stop beating Willie!

Did I just defend Willie Revillame? Gosh, I surpise myself!

Kita Sana'y Mabasa: Was the Calatagan Pot code cracked?

2009-06-01T12:00:00.016+02:00

photo from PCIJ Blog (http://www.pcij.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/calatagan-pot.jpg)

I heard from U.P. friends that Ramon “Bomen” Guillermo, known to the circle of student activists as a kind-hearted fellow and a very serious scholar with a passion for Philippine studies (he wrote a Ph.D. dissertation on Jose Rizal’s translation of Schiller’s “Wilhelm Tell” from German to Tagalog), came out recently with the announcement that he discovered a method to decipher the inscription in the Calatagan Pot. In the most recent paper of Bomen Guillermo co-written with another U.P. scholar Myfel Paluga which is awaiting publication in an international academic journal, it is also claimed that the language used in the Calatagan Pot inscription is Bisaya. By the way, the copy I got from Guillermo’s better half (not Paluga) says on the header “Do not disseminate or cite”, so I’m not going to make direct quotations from the paper (and will leave the “best part” untouched). I will only deal with the method he used which he already made an exposition of in a UP symposium and was written about in the PCIJ blog.

For those who are clueless about the Calatagan Pot, it is an artifact from Philippine pre-history which is considered very rare because it contains writing around its mouth. Apparently, there are only three other artifacts that contain inscriptions in them, namely, the Laguna copperplate; the Butuan ivory seal; and the Butuan goldleaf. (See the wonderful blog A Philippine Leaf by Hector Santos.) The Calatagan Pot was discovered during the extensive archeological excavation of Calatagan, Batangas conducted by the National Museum some fifty years ago.

Although a number of experts and enthusiasts alike have attempted to do it, no one has been able to say what language the inscription was written in and therefore also no one has been able to read the inscription in the Calatagan Pot. Not until very recently.

We know from Spanish accounts that ancient Filipinos had their own writing systems (not one but several). The Spaniards recorded several syllabaries used by speakers of Bisaya, Ilocano, Pampango, Pangasinan, and Tagalog, among others (these were collected by Trinidad Pardo de Tavera (1884) in matrix form). Also, the Mangyans of Mindoro and the Tagbanuas of Palawan continue to use their own writing systems even to this day to write poetry, among others.

However, the writing in the Calatagan Pot contains unfamiliar symbols different from those found in any of the recorded Philippine syllabaries. To compound the problem of aspiring decipherers, the writing on the pot has been incorrectly transcribed or rendered on paper by the National Museum. Instead of making yet another artistic and possibly inaccurate paper rendition of the writing on the pot, and to avoid any mistake due to faulty transcription, Guillermo photographed the inscription under various lighting conditions and traced the grooves thus revealed.

When Guillermo announced his discovery that he is able to partially read a few lines of the Calatagan Pot inscription during a forum held last year at the University of the Philippines, it surfaced that a medical doctor Quintin Oropilla has also already claimed to have deciphered the Catalagan Pot inscription ahead of Guillermo. However, Guillermo appears not to have been aware of Oropilla’s work which was cloaked for many years in absolute secrecy and which differs from his in the method used. Moreover, Guillermo later pointed out photographic evidence indicating fatal mistakes in Oropilla’s paper rendition of the inscription on the pot.

So how did Guillermo crack the code of the Calatagan pot? How did he and Paluga figure out that the message was written in Bisaya? Were they able to establish that there really was an intelligible message written there?

First, we have to describe the inscription itself.

Description of the Calatagan Pot inscription

(1) a six-part string: It consists of 45 symbols strung together around the mouth of the pot. Of these 45, five are simple horizontal bars or strokes. The five bars are distributed in such a way that they appear to divide the string into six groups of symbols of roughly equal length, so it is very convenient to treat the bars as not really symbols but simply as string dividers. That leaves 40 symbols. Of these 40, only 19 are unique symbols. Of these 19, five appear to resemble other symbols (which can be thought of as their base symbols) and differ from them only by the inclusion of a small “c”-shaped mark placed above or below them. If these small “c” marks are to be treated like diacritical marks, then there are really only 14 truly unique symbols in the Calatagan pot.

(2) a broken circle: If the start and the end of the string join each other as in a circle, there would conceivably be more problems for aspiring decipherers. Fortunately, the writing on the Calatagan Pot is inscribed in such a way that one node is placed below the other node (rather like a “9” than an “e” shape). Because of this feature of the inscription, we know at least where the start and the end are (but not which is which). Based on the physical properties of the pot revealed by his photographic examination (I can’t say more, you will have to check the journal article), Guillermo convincingly opined that the start is the node which is above the other node, and that the writing should be read in a clockwise direction.

Two Ways to Figure Out what the Symbols Stood for

Guillermo makes use of a combination of two different approaches:

(1) Closest Resemblance approach: Guillermo assumed that the inscription is in a syllabary essentially similar to the recorded Philippine syllabary. If this assumption is true, then (1) each of the 40 symbols in the inscription probably represented syllables (vowels only or consonant-vowel combinations) (Guillermo actually asserted that one of the 40 symbols, viz., the symbol at the start had no syllable value but only functioned as a start marker); (2) the six symbols which had “c” marks above or below them probably stood for consonant-vowel syllables ending with an e/i (if the “c” mark is placed above the symbol) or an o/u (if placed below the symbol); and (3) since the recorded Philippine syllabaries did not have a way for representing consonants only, the inscription does not contain symbols for consonants only.

He compared the Calatagan symbols with the symbols of the known Philippine syllabaries and hypothesized that the symbols probably stood for the same syllables as the ones that most closely resembled them.

He thought four of the 13 unique symbols in the Calatagan pot were very similar to four of the symbols in the Tagalog syllabary. The Tagalog symbol for “ba” which looks like an inverted heart is probably the least controversial of the equivalences he made, because the inverted heart symbol in the pot and in the Tagalog syllabary are exactly alike. Guillermo also noticed that one of the Calatagan pot symbol looked exactly like the Tagalog symbol for “ma”, only in an inverted position. Guillermo also judged that the Tagalog symbols for “ka” and “na” most closely resembled two more symbols from the mystery pot. In these guesses, Guillermo actually simply joins Juan Francisco (1973) before him.

He also endorsed four of Oropilla’s assignments (the values “ga”, “da”, “wa” and “ya”) based on comparisons with the Tagalog syllabary as used in the 1593 publication Doctrina Christiana (a book written in both Roman alphabet and the then current Tagalog script). Incidentally, the “da” in the Calatagan pot is actually closer to, if not exactly like, the “da” in the Bisaya syllabary than the “da” in the Tagalog script. In fact, Guillermo asserts that the Bisayan “da” symbol is unique to the Bisaya syllabary because the only known sources attest that it is Bisayan, though it has very many antecedents outside the Philippines (in Southeast Asia).

Finally, he and Paluga make their own assignments of “nga” and “ha” to two pot symbols based on the observation that they are mirror or rotated images of the Mangyan “nga” symbol and Bisayan “ha” symbol.

In total, 10 pot symbols were judged similar to symbols in the known Philippine syllabaries. Seven symbols (not counting “da”) were similar to those in Tagalog; two Bisaya (including “da”); and one Mangyan.

Comments on the “closest resemblance” approach: Guillermo is in effect saying here that the Catalagan Pot inscription is in a syllabary whose symbols share many resemblances with Tagalog, and a few with Bisaya and Mangyan as well. In itself, the proposition that there could be a syllabary (unrecorded until Guillermo) that has similarities with the Tagalog, Bisaya and Mangyan syllabaries should not be controversial because in the end all known Philippine syllabaries have the same ancestry anyway (they are supposedly derived from ancient Indian scripts). But shouldn’t the fact that the symbols of the Calatagan syllabary (if we may call it that) have more resemblances to Tagalog symbols argue against the conclusion that the language of the pot writing is Bisaya? If the Calatagan syllabary has far more resemblances to the syllabaries of Tagalog than Bisaya, why not conclude that the language is Tagalog rather than Bisaya? Guillermo and Paluga think that in the determination of the language of the inscription, the greater number of resemblances to Tagalog symbols is outweighed by the fact that a symbol exactly like the form of “da” apparently unique to the Bisaya syllabary was used in the pot. If we follow Guillermo and Paluga, we will be committed to the conclusion that at one point in time and space, speakers of Bisaya used a syllabary with many resemblances to Tagalog. At another point in time (later or earlier) and/or in a different place (maybe farther away from the Tagalog region?), Bisaya speakers used a syllabary that has no such similarities but all the while retaining a specific symbol for “da”.

One could, of course, also opine that the writer of the Calatagan Pot inscription did not draw from one syllabary (the one we called Calatagan syllabary) but combined symbols from different existing syllabaries and perhaps even invented new ones.

In an e-mail to me, Guillermo said:

“The diversity of forms among Philippine scripts require some explaining. For example the circular “ba” of the Bisaya and the kidney-shaped “ba” of other Philippine scripts have other relatives in Southeast Asia and are intimately related if not considered identical. This goes for “ma” and all the other seemingly more “Tagalog” forms. In fact, the theory was that the Bisayans had earlier copied their script from Tagalog at a later date. (Divergences would therefore be phenomena occurring after or contemporaneous with the CPI.) But if the Bisayans had copied their script from the Tagalogs, why did they preserve the seemingly more ancient forms of “ba” and “da”? There may have been a multidirectional flow of sources from which the total script was finally based. There is also no reason to suppose that very strong distinctions had existed among syllabaries at the presumed time of the pot. We may be projecting our own modern notions of regional identity on the past.”

Speaking of the closest resemblance approach more generally, how do we say that a symbol resembles another anyway? There would be no controversy if two symbols were exactly alike; we would then expect them to have the same syllable values. Guillermo has also asserted that inverting a symbol does not result in a change of syllable value. (This sort of reminds me of the inverted “E” in “EMINEM”. Was the Calatagan Pot writer doing just that kind of trick with existing symbols?) As for the rest of the symbols he judged similar to those in the known Philippine syllabaries, what we rely ultimately is the thorough familiarity of Guillermo and others who have seen and studied these later syllabaries. In other words, we are relying here on the judgment of experts. Perhaps, the objectivity and reliability of expert judgment can be enhanced by soliciting the opinion of many such experts. I suppose, since Philippine scripts ultimately derive from ancient India, experts in ancient Indian scripts should also take a look at Guillermo’s work.

Finally, I add this highly skeptical view of the closest resemblance approach to deciphering unknown script from one scientist who himself is credited (along with Michael Ventris) for deciphering a previously undeciphered script from Greek pre-history (called the Linear B script first found in Mycenaea) using purely cryptanalytic/statistical method:

“Now classical Cypriot was obviously related to Linear B. Seven signs can be easily equated, and there are others showing varying degrees of resemblance, but about three-quarters of the signs could only be equated by pure guesswork, and we now know that most of the guesses were wrong. … Nonetheless, almost all who approached Linear B started by transferring the Cypriot values to the Linear B signs, though even the most elementary study of the history of writing shows that the same sign, even in related systems, may stand for different sounds.” (John Chadwick, The Decipherment of Linear B (Cambridge University Press, 1958), pp. 23-24)

“There are two methods by which one can proceed. One is by a methodical analysis…; the other is by more or less pure guesswork. Intelligent guessing must of course play some part in the first case; but there is a world of difference between a decipherment founded upon careful internal analysis and one obtained by trial and error. Even this may produce the correct result; but it needs to be confirmed by application to virgin material, since it can gain no probability from its origin. A cool judgment is also needed to discriminate between what a text is likely or unlikely to contain.” (Ibid., p. 26)

Unfortunately, we have no other sample of the Calatagan script except the Calatagan pot itself. The extreme scarcity of material prevents the application of purely cryptanalytic/statistical method which involves finding combinatory patterns in a sufficiently large sample of code. (“It is now generally known that any code can in theory be broken, provided sufficient examples of coded texts are available…” (Ibid., p. 41)) Happily, we have a good supply of “cool judgement” in Guillermo’s and Paluga’s use of the essentially trial and error method of the symbol resemblance approach, which is all that we have to compensate for the scarcity of material.

(2) Cross-word Puzzle approach: Where Guillermo truly departs from his predecessors is his use of what he called cryptographic method. This is how I understood his method. Each symbol is to be assigned a syllable value which should be the same value it gets in all occurrences of the same symbol in the string. Thus, the six-part string of symbols in the Calatagan Pot can be seen as a kind of crossword puzzle where the six groups of symbols (lines) cross each other in those spots were they share symbols.

Guillermo plugged the four Tagalog values offered by Francisco into the puzzle and noticed that the fifth line (consisting of seven symbols) had the least number of still empty spots. In the fifth line, the second, third and seventh symbols were still not decided but the third and seventh symbols were the same (i.e., there were really only two spots to be filled).

The fifth line read: “ke/ki”- (x) - (y) - “na” - “ma” - “ba” - (y).

Each of these still empty slots x and y (but not both at the same time) could be "a", "e/i", "o/u", "da", "ga", "ha", "la", "nga", "pa", "ra", "sa", "ta", "wa", or "ya".

Considering only the fifth line, he then simply generated all possible combinations of symbols (there were 182 possibilities). Of these, he was struck by one particular combination where the second symbol is “ta” and the third and last symbols are “sa”. This value assignments gives: “ke/ki”-“ta”-“sa”-“na”-“ma”-“ba”-“sa”.

Kita sana mabasa? Kita sana[’y] mabasa! (I hope I will be able to read you!)

I could just imagine what Guillermo must have felt like when he chanced upon this particular possible combination. Did the pot just give him a message? a message that reflected his ardent desire?

Guillermo then checked the values “ta” and “sa” for symbol resemblance, and after being satisfied that the “ta” in the Tagalog and Bikol syllabaries and the “sa” in the Mangyan syllabary resembled the Calatagan pot symbols in question, he finally decided on those assignments.

Finding this procedure promising, he plugged the two new decided values into the puzzle and saw that the first line has the least number of still empty spots (only one empty spot) and already seemed partly “readable” notwithstanding this incompleteness. It “read”: (x)-“na”-“bi”-“sa”-“ka”-“ta”. He thought he found here two words, namely, “bisa” and “kata”. (Earlier Guillermo thought x could be “i/e” which would yield yet another word “ina”, but he changed his mind and chose the value “ga” instead producing the word “gana”.)

In summary, Guillermo assigned values for ten Calatagan symbols based on symbol resemblance, and two based on his cryptographic method (“ta” and “sa”) supported by symbol resemblance. This gives 12. Also, Guillermo proposed to treat the start symbol as having no syllable value (but was merely a start marker) based on the observation that the part of Doctrina Christiana written in Tagalog script also employed (a different) start marker.

And finally, to complete the assignments for all 14 unique symbols, the remaining unassigned symbol is deemed as “la” (the remaining choices were “a”, “e/i”, “la”, “o/u”, “pa” and “ra”). Why “la” was chosen instead of the six more options was not explained.

Plugging all decided values into the puzzle, the result is the following:

(start marker)-“ga”-“na”-“be/bi”-“sa”-“ka”-“ta” |

“do/du”-“na”-“ke/ki”-“ta”-“ha”-“la”-“ba” |

“ya”-“wa”-“sa”-“la”-“ka”-“ka”-“ga” |

“ya”-“ya”-“la”-“ne/ni”-“ma”-“no/nu”-“de/di” |

“ki”-“ta”-“sa”-“na”-“ma”-“ba”-“sa” |

“ba”-“da”-“ke/ki”-“ba”-“nga”.

Final step: reading

According to Guillermo, the next and final step is to discover meaningful words in each line. Here, Guillermo and Paluga uses what amounts to trial-and-error using a dictionary “as a feedback mechanism” (Guillermo’s e-mail). The reader seems to have a wide latitude of discretion in that he can insert any consonant he wants after any syllable he chooses. This is due to the fact that the known Philippine syllabaries do not have a way of representing consonants only (as opposed to consonant-vowel syllables) but the pot writer may have intended the inscription to be read as having them.

Another matter over which the reader appears to have unlimited control is the choice of language. It appears that the “reader” can chose to read the inscription in any (presumably Philippine) language he likes though constructing a coherent utterance from just any dictionary of a Philippine language is not an easy task, and in many cases simply impossible. “Anyone who tries this will know,” says Guillermo. As already mentioned, Guillermo and Paluga, however, think it should be read in Bisaya because of the fact that the inscription makes use of the symbol for “da” in a form unique to the Bisaya syllabary.

What reading did the writer of the Calatagan pot inscription intend? Guillermo appears to be of the view that any number of readings can be constructed. (Besides Guillermo and Paluga, Salazar has also constructed other reading/s based on Guillermo’s symbol equivalences.) However, some readings can be judged as more plausible than others based on a number of criteria which he and co-writer Myfel Paluga devised on the basis of the virtues of their own reading. They called these criteria: lexical coherence (the words hang together, i.e., they shouldn’t just be a jumble of words; grammatical correctness and attested vocabulary are here important); historical emplotment (i.e., the reading shouldn’t be unhistorical, e.g., we shouldn’t expect the words “Facebook” or “cellphone” in it); and sociological mapping or embeddedness. I personally think we should only test for lexical coherence if we assume that the writing on the Calatagan Pot was indeed a sort of intelligible message or text. But why shouldn’t the pot writing be a jumble of words instead? As for “sociological embeddedness”, this means that “for example, the practices and social institutions it seems to refer to are attested to exist.” In the Guillermo/Paluga reading, for example, there was mention of “Gana”, a version of the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesh’s name, “barang” (curse), and the objects “banga” (pot) and “halabas”, a kind of cutting instrument, which could be woven into a social context (e.g., babaylanic ritual practices) that fits well into what is known about pre-Hispanic Philippines.)

Another criterion they employed (against Oropilla’s reading) but did not name as such is statistical plausibility. This criterion demands that a reading that inserts too many consonants is less plausible than those where the number of consonant insertions is within an acceptable range. (As Guillermo and Paluga are aware, the acceptable range can be computed, i.e., we can observe how many consonant “deletions” (if we may call them that) are usually made in existing samples of writings of similar length (40 symbols) in Philippine syllabaries, e.g., Mangyan/Tagbanua poems.)

With Guillermo’s permission, I reproduce at the end Guillermo’s and Paluga’s own favored reading. I will have to say that the construction and justification of their favored reading has got to be the most creative part of their decipherment work.

Concluding Impressions

Guillermo and Paluga think that if there is any undisputable contribution that these efforts have made, it is to encourage and inspire further “actual” readings of the CPI. (At least six or maybe even more readings have been made or publicized since Guillermo announced his initial results. This is a much better situation than the mute inscription of fifty years past.) But as Guillermo himself acknowledges “scientific skepticism must be upheld at all times” so that when a final consensus is reached as to what the pot really says it would be based on scientific reasoning, not wishful thinking.

Without a doubt, the work of Guillermo and Paluga makes standard-setting contributions in bringing reason, patience and creativity to bear on the solution of the fifty-year old mystery that is the Calatagan Pot writing. But as Guillermo and Paluga themselves admit, theirs is not meant as the final solution to the Calatagan puzzle. I myself hope that Guillermo’s substitution of syllable values for the symbols of the pot are correct. Because if they are correct, then the puzzle is 50% solved. Only 50% solved, I say, because there still remains the matter of inserting consonants. Unless a method is devised for constructing a reading other than inserting any number of consonants the reader desires, the construction of readings of the Calatagan puzzle will be as it is now a level open field.

The Guillermo/Paluga reading of the writing on the Calatagan Pot:

[01]Barang [02]king [03]banga

[04]Kita [05]sana [06]magbasa

[07]Yamyam [08]la [09]ni [10]Manugdait:

[11]Yawa, [12]sala, [13]kakaga

[14]Duna [15]kita'y [16]halabas

[Batara] [17]gana [18]bisa [19]kata

Spell of this pot

Let us read that

Just chant this Shaman:

Evil spirit, evil-doing, falsehood

We have a sword

Ganésa can say.

Internet Sources:

A Philippine Leaf: Hector Santos

PCIJ BLog on Dr. Ramon "Bomen" Guillermo's presentation at U.P. (photos of the Calatagan pot and Bomen Guillermo)

"Ina Bisa Kata": Bomen Guillermo's paper made available by PCIJ

Zeus Salazar's powerpoint presentation

Next: Was the Ibalon epic confirmed? Evidence of ancient civilization in Bicol (for a background: http://zasalazar.multiply.com/journal/item/9)

Power to the NGOs? National Government, Local Communities and NGOs in the Alternative Mining Bill: A Personal Reaction

2009-05-14T15:59:00.021+02:00

I learned yesterday (May 13, 2009) that Reps. Lorenzo Tañada III (Quezon, Liberal Party) and Risa Hontiveros (Akbayan) filed the so-called Alternative Mining Bill (AMB) in the House of Representatives.

Since the AMB is intended to replace the Mining Act of 1995 (really an entire Code!), it is understandably very long (40 pages) and its inter-related provisions are quite complicated. In fact, it took several years for Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center (LRC) to finish writing the draft which Tañada and Hontiveros are now championing. (Lets not even mention the obligatory consultation processes with "experts", partner NGOs and their "client" communities--those took even longer!) This personal reaction is not an exposition of the entire bill but focuses only on the provisions that I'm most familiar with. I happen to have been consulted in the re-writing of an existing draft of LRC's AMB and particularly to suggest additional provisions about "governance", i.e., what mechanisms/governmental organizations are most appropriate to implement the alternative policies embodied in the existing draft. (However, the draft underwent further revisions after I worked on it and the bill as filed differs somewhat from the said draft.)

But, OK, a very brief (and selective) overview as you wish:

A well-considered "summary" of the AMB in one sentence is this pronouncement of a Cagayan de Oro priest: ""The AMB aims to bring back [mining] within the framework of national development, the right of peoples to self determination, and respect for human rights and the environment."

This statement would sound less "big" if only we consider the main headings and key themes of the AMB. I would identify the main headings/key themes this way:

- economic provisions, or HOW the economic benefits from mining can be expanded from merely earnings by the national government from the export of mineral ores (the current policy) to generation of downstream industries and real job creation for local communities (now that's national development!);

- self-determination provisions, or WHY mineral resources should be thought of not merely as "national wealth" but more importantly as "local wealth", which is also WHY local communities' (including indigenous peoples') decisions whether and how to exploit this wealth matters;

- environmental provisions, or HOW we can better ensure that the mining industry does not create environmental problems that outweigh the economic benefits it brings, and that the industry cleans up the mess when they do mess up (e.g., through an environmental insurance scheme);

- governance provisions, or WHO will implement all these above-mentioned neatly conceived policies and HOW will they make their decisions? (a.k.a., the realpolitik of the new mining regime).

In my humble opinion, although the most substantive innovations of the AMB deal with the HOWs and WHYs, the really crucial question is WHO? Who should be given the power to make these dreams reality?

Quite obviously, the AMB rejects the current emphasis on the powers and discretion of the National Government (a.k.a., the President) over mineral resources. There is a very strong localization current in the AMB's economic and self-determination provisions. For example, mineral resources within ancestral domains are formally recognized to belong to the indigenous peoples not to the State (a consequence of historic title); and while those outside such domains do belong to the State, the State is obliged to ensure that benefits from mining these resources accrue first to local communities affected by mining operations.

But WHO will ensure these newly recognized interests of local communities (including indigenous communities)?

Here, the AMB, I think, only half succeeds.

The AMB makes a basic conceptual advance by defining the term "local community", previously a mere buzzword with rhetorical uses but no legal meaning. The AMB says "local community" shall be defined in relation to a watershed so that all those who depend on the watershed threatened by a (proposed) mining operation form a community. Its an innovative concept which, as far as I can tell, has its origin in Sixto K. Roxas. The eco-system defines the boundaries of the local community, and for the purposes of a mining law, the relevant eco-system is the watershed. It recognizes the political boundaries of barangays, municipalities, cities or provinces do not cordon off the environmental effects of a mining operation; rather, they can spill over to the entire watershed. Hence, the "local community" in the AMB is not the barangay, not the municipality or city, nor the province. Rather, the "local community" is an environmental community.

I say the AMB only half succeeds because it does not really carry through the full implications of this newly minted concept of "local community" as an environmental community. If this is how "local community" is to be defined as the AMB says it should, then who should represent the interest of this "local community"?

The AMB does not identify representatives of local communities beyond the existing local government units and NGOs themselves. Under the AMB, the Multi-Sectoral Mineral Council is the political body that makes all the mining decisions from deciding whether to open a demarcated area with known mineral reserves to monitoring compliance by mining companies with mining agreements the Council approves. The Council is composed of representatives from LGUs and NGOs as well as the National Government and indigenous peoples.

But it is not so obvious that the boundaries of local communities coincide with the boundaries of local governments. If the boundaries of a local community is determined by the affected watershed, then a local community can be as small as a cluster of a few contiguous barangays or as large as the entire island of Mindanao. It will not do to simply say the local community will be represented by all the affected provinces or cities. The NGO advocates who prepared this bill know only too well that different levels of local governments (e.g., baranggay vs. city vs. province) often disagree about mining within the same territorial jurisdiction. Conflict can also exist among different territorial jurisdictions within the same watershed. In fact, one weakness of the Mining Act of 1995 that NGO advocates of the AMB have always drumbeat is the potential chaos that it incites among different local governments.

With all due respect to NGOs, it is also not so obvious that the interests of local communities can be conflated with the interests of unelected NGOs no matter how well-meaning and how good their track records are in empowering people.

The rationale behind the composition of the Multi-Sectoral Mineral Council therefore escapes me. The National Government is a minority in the Council (2 representatives); all the affected provincial and city governments (but not baranggays -- why?) and NGOs get represented. The number of LGU representatives is equal to the number of NGOs. What's happening here? Is this the AMB's formula for local community representation? Half part LGUs, half part NGOs?

It would be simpler if "local community" were also seen as a new unit of local environmental governance (specific to mining) and independent of the LGUs, and if members of the local community are directly represented through elections. Unfortunately, the AMB as it now stands stops short of doing this.

Instead, the local community (insofar as they are not already theoretically represented by LGUs and NGOs) is relegated to good old-fashioned "consultation" (which is the same as in the current Mining Act of 1995 and Local Government Code, and which NGOs ironically have previously criticized as insufficient).

And what about indigenous communities? Will they themselves manage the mineral resources that they supposedly own under the provisions of the AMB?

I regret to say this but the AMB actually makes a total mess here. After saying that indigenous peoples own and should administer mineral resources within their ancestral domain without external interference etc. etc., it nevertheless gives the power to manage their minerals to the Council. Oh yes the affected indigenous communities get represented in the Council (see Sec. 38 of the AMB) but as far as I can tell, they can be minoritized there easily. So much for self-determination.

Actually, my motivation for sharing this personal reaction is a bad dream. During the day, I fantasized that Tañada et.al. miraculously managed to convince the House that the AMB should be passed without any major revisions. Then I dozed off. In the ensuing dream, the DENR then drew up the implementing rules and regulations. In the implementing rules, the NGO representation in the Multi-Sectoral Mineral Council was indeed honored, except that the President gets to appoint which NGOs get to sit.

To the AMB, the best of luck!

A Transsexual Saint?

2009-05-13T09:52:00.007+02:00

Is it a sin to have a serious transsexual wish? Well, apparently not. It seems that there was, in fact, a transsexual saint in the Orthodox Christian church that once existed in Cappadocia, now part of Turkey.

This is a fresco depicting St. Onuphrius shown as a naked bearded man with a woman's breasts (and a halo). (Beside him/her, are two more saints: apparently, St. Thomas and St. Basil. This is just to show you that the naked wo/man is really a holy figure, i.e., s/he gets depicted alongside more obviously saint-looking figures.) According to the tour guides, St. Onuphrius was once a woman whose strong desire to be transformed into a man was granted by God (well, at least she grew a beard). Unfortunately, I couldn't get a reputable online source for this story beyond the Wikipedia article on St. Onuphrius (which cites a "mere" travel blog as source-- a case of circular citation). Most sources do not make any mention of the transsexuality of St. Onuphrius, but the fresco speaks for itself.

The picture was taken from our trip to the Goreme Open Air Museum in Kapadokya, Turkey. The fresco can be found in the so-called Snake Church, one of 400 cave churches in Kapadokya.

Traveling in Turkey with a Baby: What to Watch Out for

2009-05-08T17:44:00.007+02:00

Things we learned about traveling in Turkey with a baby:

1. Although a Turkish guy told us there are plenty of baby food and all sorts of baby formula available in either groceries or pharmacies all over Turkey, we learned (the hard way) that hypoallergenic baby formula (for babies allergic to milk protein) is not generally available there.

As we spent two weeks in Turkey, our supply of Nestle BEBA HA 2 (the equivalent of NAN HW 2 in the Philippines) naturally ran out. We were in the city called Denizli (on our way to Selcuk) when this happened. Though we asked all the pharmacies and grocery stores within a 2 km. radius from the otogar (main bus station) in Denizli, we couldn't find one that sold it. Surprisingly, the clerks in the pharmacies did not even know that such kind of milk existed! Happily, in Selcuk (where there seems to be a high concentration of pharmacies--another oddity), we found a knowledgeable person in the pharmacy that gave us Humana Aptamil HA. We made do with one can (though baby Ir. seemed to be always hungry--we suspected the milk was not appropriate for her age; that it could be for newborns instead of for elder babies like Ir.) until we reached Istanbul. But Istanbul was no different. There (specifically in the Sultanahmet area), we spent one whole morning just searching for hypoallergenic baby formula. After asking ten pharmacies and not finding it, we gave up and enlisted the Tourism Information office for help. The staff, who was very helpful, methodically searched in the Turkish internet and personally called about as many as ten more pharmacies before finally finding one pharmacy (simply called Sultanahmet Pharmacy) that did sell Humana Aptamil HA.

Also, in Goreme and Derinkuyu which are really small towns, the pharmacies don't have ready-to-eat baby solid food in bottles. It was our mistake not to have gone to the bigger city Nevshehir first and done our groceries before proceeding to Goreme. We then fed baby Ir. with rice. But, Turkish rice usually have peanuts mixed in, and peanuts is a very common food allergen for babies. (We learned that only later.)

2. They don't generally have high chairs in Turkish restaurants. We ate out in Goreme, Nevshehir and Urgup (Cappadocia region), Pamukkale, Denizli, Selcuk, Sirince and Istanbul but not one of the restaurants we went to had high chairs for babies. The only exception, an Italian restaurant behind the Tansas supermarket in Nevshehir.

3. They pinch your baby's cheeks without any warning! The Turks (man, woman and even children) are so baby-loving. Its endearing at first, but it could also be annoying since repeated pinching by dozens of passersby a day can make your baby's face red with irritation. After a few days, we had to devise means to keep baby Ir. away from pinchers, including ducking whenever a Turk stops to notice the baby's cheeks.

4. They smoke everywhere, even when they're walking on the street. The tourists too!

Chinoy Tourists in Europe

2009-04-11T23:52:00.004+02:00

Budapest is now teeming with tourists! This afternoon, at the West End Mall at Nyugati, there was a strong presence of Chinese tourists. We were sitting across a bunch of them as my wife and I were feeding our baby in a coffee shop (and slurping on caramel gelato). And then, a question: "Mga Pinoy ba kayo?" The most senior of the bunch directed his question at us. It turns out they were Chinese-Filipinos. They are here on a package tour of Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria and Hungary.

"Opo. Akala namin Chinese kayo. Chinese from China. Pinoy pala kayo."

"Chinese-Filipino," he further clarified.

My wife volunteered the information that I too was of Chinese ancestry, but I had to clarify that I did not speak Chinese. As intended, the result was he didn't have to ask about my ancestry as my lack of Chinese language competence meant I was not really one of them.

Being the ever sociable person that she was, my wife proceeded to ask about the circumstances of their tour and that's how we found out that they spent USD 3,000 per head on this two-week tour; that they were staying in a five-star hotel in the Castle District; that this tour was a graduation gift for the eldest daughter; that like the daughter, the father and uncle were Ateneo alumni; and that there were sixty of them who were on the same tour, all of them Chinoys!

I made a quick computation in my head: USD 3,000 times 6 (Daddy, Mommy, Uncle, three children) = USD 18,000. My golly!

Chocolate Buddha

2009-04-04T23:26:00.008+02:00

I know I might offend some religious Buddhists by posting this photo. But that is not my intent. My intent is to expose, and incite reflection.

My wife and I received this box of chocolates as a gift from a visiting friend who lives in Belgium. (She bought them from a well-known chocolatier in Bruges.) The chocolate on the photo is the last piece. Yes, it's a Buddha figure! When we saw this piece of chocolate, the first thing that entered my mind was: the controversial Danish cartoon of Muhammad depicted as a terrorist. My wife thought of the Spanish chocolate-covered white biscuit called "Filipinos" (brown outside, white inside) which caused such a brouhaha in the Philippines not unlike the recent reaction to Chip Tsao's article.

Is this offensive? Well, I can just imagine if, say, an enterprising Chinese had manufactured Jesus Christ chocolates (or Jesus Christ hopia!) and sold them in Hong Kong! Will you buy them? Will you eat them?

My wife said maybe the Buddha chocolate idea might be a better sell than the Jesus Christ one. Well Buddha looks so jolly and plump, eating him almost evokes a happy thought. But eating Jesus Christ? Don't we need to do confession first?

P.S.

Well what do you know? After I wrote this blog, I goggled "chocolate Jesus" and found this news article "Chocolate Jesus exhibit canceled" by the Associated Press (March 30, 2007). Read on. Or better yet, watch this debate.

There's more apparently: a song entitled Chocolate Jesus. "Well its got to be a chocolate jesus/

Make me feel good inside/ Got to be a chocolate jesus/ Keep me satisfied"

And there's a chocolate Mary too!

And yes, chocolate Hindu deities! “In the case of [Krishna and Ganesh], Hindus asked me to make them … and many of the folks who buy them are Hindus”

What's funny about Chip Tsao and the Filipinos

2009-03-31T12:46:00.001+02:00

(Warning: For adults only)

Rumor is circulating that Chip Tsao's column "The War at Home" was in fact ghostwritten by her Filipina maid, a college graduate who speaks and writes better English than Tsao.

There is considerable evidence from the language of the column itself which shows Chip Tsao was actually making fun of the Hong Kong Chinese. And in some places, he actually succeeds in being funny. For instance, Tsao says Barach Obama and the US military are behind the Filipinos! (Laughs) He paints a picture of the ignorant Chinese who feels threatened by the nation of his maid. Then he exposes himself and his friends as abusive towards their own maids. Either he intended to send himself straight to the fiscal's office, or, which is more likely, he was simply lampooning the abusive Chinese.

Tsao's maid was not only a really clever writer but had some political savvy as well. (Well, she studied International Politics in college! - and she lets us know!) She knew that by calling the Philippines a "nation of servants", many Filipinos, especially the influential middle class, will be offended. Nothing stings Filipino pride more than being called "servants" right to our faces, and by the Chinese to boot! Yes, we clean their toilets but we are not servants! (Laughs)

So, the ghostwriter very well knew that there will be an uproar in the Philippines to withdraw Chip Tsao's column. The column was therefore a test: who is really better the master or the servant? Will the Chinese give in to the Filipinos demand?

The HK Magazine withdrew the column and apologized to those offended. It turns out the Chinese were really scared of their maids. (Laughs)

Where are Pinoys Welcome and Whom do Pinoys Welcome? The Complete Lists

2009-03-25T20:50:00.011+01:00

Hahaha! I was trying to re-invent the wheel without knowing it. It turns out that my little project has already been carried out by Wikipedia. Thanks to a friend, I was referred to this wiki article which says there are 62 countries in total where Pinoys can travel to visa-free or where visa upon arrival is possibly available (but not certain), and lists them down according to geographical regions. The article relied on data organized by Northwest Airlines, apparently similar to what Delta Air is using; and in case in some countries, no source was cited or the cited source does not really say as much as the wiki article claims. (And Cyprus was not mentioned.)

From the lists I made below, you can see that there are:

32 countries where Pinoys may travel visa-free,
or 40 countries if you add the 8 countries where Pinoys may obtain a visa upon entry, "probably" free of charge.
In contrast, according to our DFA, there are 145 countries whose nationals can enter the Philippines visa-free for up to 21 days (up to 90 days for Brazil and Israel).

According to the maximum length of stay (and not counting countries that issue visa upon arrival for a fee), Pinoys are treated more favorably in 20 countries, and just as favorably in 6 countries compared to the way the Philippines itself treats those countries. Pinoys can stay visa-free for up to 6 months in Bermuda; 3 months in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Israel, Morocco, and Peru; 59 days in Bolivia; 31 days in Cook Islands; and 1 month in Costa Rica, Micronesia, Indonesia, Laos, Macau, Niue, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turks and Calcos Islands, and Vanuatu. Pinoys can stay the same number of days (21 days) visa-free in Cambodia, Dominica, Mongolia, and Vietnam as we allow nationals of these countries to stay in ours.

Since the Philippines apparently requires visas from nationals of Sri Lanka, Turks and Calcos Islands and Vanuatu, we are treating them treating them rather un-neighborly.

Pinoys themselves are treated disfavorably by 105 countries (or probably 113 countries if the 8 countries are added). Pinoys need a visa to enter these countries but their nationals do not need any visa to enter the Philippines and stay up to 21 days. They are not just the rich countries like the US, Japan, Italy, etc., but countries much poorer than the Philippines in terms of Human Development Index like Somalia, Papua New Guinea, Chad, and Burkina Faso.

COUNTRIES OR TERRITORIES WHERE PINOYS CAN TRAVEL VISA-FREE AS TOURISTS (as per Northwest Airline data):

B Bermuda (up to 6 months)

Bolivia (up to 59 days)

Brazil (up to 90 days)

Brunei (up to 14 days)

C Cambodia (up to 21 days)

Colombia (up to 90 days)

Cook Islands (up to 31 days)

Costa Rica (up to 30 days)

Cyprus (onward transit only for up to 5 days)

D Dominica (up to 21 days)

E Ecuador (up to 90 days)

F Federated States of Micronesia (up to 30 days)

H Haiti (up to 3 months)

Hongkong (up to 14 days)

I Indonesia (up to 30 days)

Israel (up to 3 months)

L Laos (up to 30 days)

M Macau (up to 30 days)

Malaysia (up to 1 month)

Mongolia (up to 21 days)

Morocco (up to 3 months)

N Niue (up to 30 days)

P Peru (up to 90 days)

S Saint Vincent and the Granadines (up to 1 month)

Saint Kitts and Nevis (up to 14 days)

Seychelles (up to 1 month)

Singapore (up to 30 days)

South Korea (up to 30 days)

Sri Lanka (up to 30 days) *

T Thailand (up to 30 days)

Turks and Calcos Islands (up to 30 days) *

V Vanuatu (up to 30 days)*

Vietnam (up to 21 days)

Total No.: 32 countries

* The Philippines requires visas from nationals of these countries.

COUNTRIES WHERE PINOYS CAN OBTAIN A VISA UPON ARRIVAL PROBABLY FOR FREE

I say "probably" because the data of Northwest Airline does not indicate the fee but the wiki article assumes its free of charge. So, I'm relying here on knowledge by reputation only. (If I have the time, I just might call up their consulates to check this.)

Egypt (limited to South Sinai only) (up to 14 days)

Fiji (up to 6 months)

Maldives (up to 30 days)

Marshall Islands (up to 30 days)

Palau (up to 30 days)

Samoa (up to 60 days) - a "Visitor's Permit" is issued instead of a visa.

Tajikistan (up to 45 days)

Tuvalu (up to 1 month)

Total No.: 8 countries

COUNTRIES WHOSE NATIONALS MAY ENTER THE PHILIPPINES VISA-FREE FOR UP TO 21 DAYS BUT DEMANDS A TOURIST VISA FROM PINOYS

I'm counting in the countries issuing visas upon arrival, but for a fee (indicated if in US dollars).

A Andorra

Angola

Antigua and Barbuda

Argentina

Australia

Austria

B Bahamas

Bahrain

Barbados

Belgium

Benin

Bhutan

Botswana

Bulgaria

Burkina Faso (visa upon arrival for stays up to 3 monts)

Burundi

C Cameroon

Canada

Cape Verde

Central African Republic

Chad

Chile

Comoros

Congo

Cote d’Ivoire

Czech Republic

D Denmark

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Djibouti (visa upon arrival for stays up to 10 days or 1 month depending on the fee)

Dominican Republic

E El Salvador

Equatorial Guinea

Eritrea

Ethiopia

F Fiji

Finland

France

G Gabon

Gambia

Germany

Ghana

Gibraltar

Greece

Grenada

Guatemala

Guinea

Guinea Bissau

Guyana

H Honduras

Hungary

I Iceland

Ireland

Italy

J Jamaica

Japan

K Kenya (visa upon arrival for stays up to 3 months for USD 50)

Kiribati

Kuwait

L Lesotho

Liberia

Liechtenstein

Luxembourg

M Madagascar

Malawi

Maldives

Mali

Malta

Marshall Islands

Mauritania

Mauritius

Mexico

Monaco

Morocco

Mozambique (visa upon arrival for stays up to 30 days for USD 25)

Myanmar

N Namibia

Nepal (visa upon arrival for stays up to 60 days for USD 30)

Netherlands

New Zealand

Nicaragua

Niger

Norway

O Oman

P Palau

Panama

Papua New Guinea

Paraguay

Poland

Portugal

Q Qatar

R Romania

Rwanda

S Santa Lucia (visa upon arrival for stays up to 6 weeks for USD 50)

Samoa

San Marino

Sao Tome and Principe

Saudi Arabia

Senegal

Slovakia

Solomon Islands

Somalia

South Africa

Spain

Suriname

Swaziland

Sweden

Switzerland

T Togo

Trinidad and Tobago

Tunisia

Turkey

Tuvalu

U Uganda (visa upon arrival for stays up to 6 months for USD 50)

United Arab Emirates

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

United Republic of Tanzania

United States of America

Uruguay

V Venezuela

Z Zambia (visa upon arrival for USD25-80)

Zimbabwe

Coming Next: Nationals of which countries need a visa to enter the Philippines

Where are Pinoys Welcome? Countries Where Philippine Nationals may Enter as Tourists Without a Visa: A-E

2009-03-25T18:01:00.006+01:00

I'm starting a project. I'm determined to list all the countries where Pinoys don't need a visa to enter as tourists. (Will explain why in a later blog.) I found a very useful website (of Delta Air, which I assume is fairly reliable being in the business of travel/tourism) where data for this little project can be taken. So here are my findings:

1. Bermuda (the length of stay is to be decided by Immigration officials, but theoretically, up to 6 months!)

2. Bolivia (up to 59 days)

3. Brazil (up to 90 days--yehey!!!)

4. Brunei (up to 14 days)

5. Cambodia (up to 21 days)

6. Colombia (up to 90 days--yehey!!!)

7. Cook Island (up to 31 days)

8. Costa Rica (up to 30 days)

9. Cyprus (only for onward transit for maximum of 5 days)

10. Dominica, not to be confused with the Dominican Republic (up to 21 days)

11. Ecuador (up to 90 days--yehey!!!)

Coming soon: F-J

Hello, Japan! A Call from the Underground

2009-03-17T12:07:00.000+01:00

(Tokyo, January 4, 2008)

“K---, Good afternoon!” goes the greeting to the fourth caller, a Filipino alien in Japan.

“Yes, I have something to consult you. It’s about my husband’s loan. They want me to pay it, but I don’t think I should.”

“Can you tell me more about this loan. What was it for?”

“They said my husband bought a car. But I don’t know about that. I have not even seen my husband for several months now. They know that.”

“Who are asking you to pay? Did they say why you should pay?”

“They said I signed a contract. I may have signed but they didn’t tell me it was a loan for half a million yen. They are asking me to pay so many things. Like my niece’s spouse visa. They are asking me to pay two hundred thousand yen for their lawyer. I already paid them one hundred thousand yen. But they want more.”

“Who are they?”

“My husband works for them. They fixed my marriage, you know, ‘imitation’ marriage. They control everyone. My husband, Mother, the attorney. I got my visa from that attorney too because Mother told me to get his services. Because they control Mother, you know. So now, my niece too has to go through that lawyer. I only agreed because Mother has been so kind to me since I was little. Actually, Mother is so afraid of them that she offered to get the car instead. She said she will pay the loan instead. But I don’t want her to pay, you know.”

“Where is the car now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you even seen that car?”

“That’s the thing, you know. I don’t even know if my husband even drives that car. And if he does, then it is his debt, not mine.”

“If your mother pays for the car, shouldn’t that solve your problem? It will become hers; the car as well.”

“Yeah, but Mother keeps paying them for my supposed debts. So I have become indebted to Mother more and more, you know, debts of gratitude. She took care of me, you know, since I was little so I call her Mother.”

“I see. She’s not your real mother. How did you meet her?”

“She brought me to Japan to work in her bar. She’s very kind to me. When I decided last year to go back to the Philippines, she did not prevent me from doing so. But she pleaded me to send her a relative to replace me in the bar. That’s why I brought my niece to her.”

“How old is your niece?”

“Well, she’s young alright, but of all my nieces she’s the most excited to come to Japan.”

“Does she know what kind of life awaited her in Japan?”

“Well, yes. But the truth is I’m now a little bit afraid for my niece than I have been for myself. Because they haven’t given her her visa yet. And now they don’t want us to live in the same apartment. They are keeping us apart.”

“What kind of visa does she have now?”

“Tourist.”

“I think your niece can inquire personally from Immigration if they have approved her application for spouse visa. Why don’t you accompany her to Immigration?”

“That’s the thing, you know. Her tourist visa is expiring and they haven’t given her her spouse visa yet. And if they found out that I have been taking her to Immigration, they will get mad. They might keep us further apart.”

“I see. How about inquiring by telephone? I’m just thinking maybe you don’t really need to pay the lawyer all that money if the visa has already been released.”

“Don’t you think so too? I mean, they are overcharging!”

“You know the spouse visa is processed by Immigration. Actually you don’t need to have a lawyer to have it processed. But if it is true that your niece applied through a lawyer, she can also ask the lawyer. She can ask why he is charging two hundred thousand yen more.”

“Actually, we never talk to the attorney directly, just to his staff who stays at Mother’s place too.”

“You have never met this so-called lawyer? What’s his name?”

“Well, I’ve seen him once before when I was introduced to him, when I was getting my own visa. But not since. I only know he is called Y----.”

“He must have at least given you his business card. Do you still have it?”

“I’m not sure. I will try to look for it.”

“Where does he hold office? Maybe we can check if he is really a lawyer or at least an immigration specialist.”

“His office is in K-----shi, K------ken.”

“OK. Let’s do this. Look for his business card and make inquiries with Immigration about your niece’s visa. We will check if Y--- is really a lawyer. If he is, then its a grave matter. It is clear that this lawyer is working for a criminal syndicate. Then, call us back again.” The call has taken about an hour now and its time to cut it to allow for time for reflection. “You have been very courageous for calling us and telling your story. I can see that you have had enough of this syndicate. You shouldn’t pay those debts that they are making you pay. If Mother wants to pay for the car, you shouldn’t feel indebted. Now, regarding your niece, let’s first check if her visa application has been approved already. When will her tourist visa expire?”

The caller says a certain date.

“Alright. Call me again when you get any information from Immigration and if you find the business card.”

We said our goodbyes and hung up. Only later did I realize that the date she mentioned was the very date of her call.

digital and global migration: some wild thoughts

2009-03-15T22:35:00.000+01:00

Second Life creator Philip Rosedale is supposed to have said: "I'm not building a game. I'm building a new country."(Terdiman, 2006 cited by Alexandra Bal)

What if we take this assertion seriously and consider virtual worlds as countries?

After all, it's not far-fetched to speak of people "living" in virtual worlds. I heard that some people are spending a lot of time in Second Life, even more time there than in their real life. They're building enduring relationships with their assumed identities, some even marrying there and getting pregnant and giving birth, well, to avatars. They are also buying real estate, or should I say virtual estate, in Second Life. (You can see the price of real estate in Second Life in its wikipedia article.) Apparently, just like in the real world, nasty things happen in there too, like a friend of mine said she got raped in Second Life! There's even an academic book published recently about the "culture" in Second Life. Watch some of these clips to have an idea of what's going on in there.

Some people (computer experts who design tradable "items", like the experience of giving birth, in Second Life) are also "working" or making (real) money in Second Life, and of course, we are all familiar with the term "digital economy".

If people like Nicholas Negroponte will have their way, children with access to computers and the internet now will not only be used to the digital economy when they grow up, they will also be completely at ease with "mixed" social realities, i.e., environments in which real people interact not only with other real people (as we are now doing with Skype and Facebook) but also with digital creatures in cyberspace. Bal argues that this is the idea behind the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project that big corporate names like Google and eBay are investing on. One can just imagine what virtual worlds would look like a generation from now! I'm betting it would have well-developed economies, societies and cultures of their own.

If today's virtual worlds, or better yet, tomorrow's virtual worlds were to be treated as countries, then we can speak of "digital migration", can't we? Surely, it is some kind of transnational or circular migration in the sense that people who migrate to digital countries are still connected to their real countries. (Obviously, now, people who "live" in Second Life must still pay their electric bills in the real world; and people who make a living in Second Life are aiming to earn US dollars not Linden dollars.) Most real world migration nowadays involve people keeping loyalties or connections to two or more countries anyway (as opposed to discarding one for another), so the fact that migration to virtual worlds are dependent or tied to real world existence is not an argument against "digital migration".

So here are some wild thoughts:

1. Internet connectivity is not spreading out evenly throughout the world (no thanks to uneven economic development). Digital migration become more common among people in advanced industrialized, or should I say, post-industrial countries.

2. In places like the Philippines where the ratio of computers to households are still relatively low compared to more advanced states, people connect to each other via the cellphone. Sixty-one percent of mobile phone subscribers are in developing countries, according to the UN's telecommunications agency ITU. And for a simple reason, cell phones are cheaper and easier to acquire than land lines in developing countries. Unless virtual worlds move into cellphones as well, digital migration will not be as common in developing countries.

3. Real world migration has become a structural feature of globalization (Castles 2002); it can't be stopped, not with restrictive migration policies, not with militarized borders. Also, what's driving migration is not only underdevelopment, its uneven development. Don't just look at Filipinos who seek overseas contract work; look at the Singaporeans and Malaysians who still leave their relatively more developed countries to live in the United States.

4. Digital and global migration are happening simultaneously. As post-industrial nationals move to their digital countries, migrants move into post-industrial and other developed countries. Well, they need highly skilled technicians to maintain the network of hardware that run their digital countries. They also need an army of workers to clean their real houses, take care of the elderly, lay their fiber-optic cables, not to mention, build the fences that keep the unwanted immigrants out for them while they "live" and "work" in cyberspace. So they need migrants! Hence, as Westerners go virtual, post-colonials will run the real world.

cheap flights, big taxes

2009-03-14T23:58:00.000+01:00

Since we relocated to Hungary, I am amazed by how cheap traveling can be from this part of the world. There are so many budget airlines and so many promos from travel agencies! Traveling overseas from Japan or the Philippines was so much more expensive in comparison, although this too may be changing as our bargain hunting friend, who recently found a cheap flight from Osaka to Manila via Cebu Pacific, learned to our amazement.

But what I noticed is that the tax that you have to pay on top of the airfare that budget airlines offer is often as much, and sometimes, more than the airfare itself. So, you often end up paying double the amount advertised by the airlines or the travel agencies that make use of these airlines.

Which makes me wonder: is this why Europeans seem indifferent to the economic consequences of their taking a lot of vacations (not that I myself care, but a Filipino friend studying in Switzerland is complaining that their department clerk is always on vacation and never seem to be really working)? (Their governments are getting taxes anyway, so the heck with labor productivity!)

Because of the big taxes on cheap flights, it is even cheaper to travel by bus. In fact, I am now ignoring the budget airlines altogether and concentrating on the bus tours to Eastern Europe because there is no airport tax. This may even be better for the environment as planes consume more gas, or is it so?

What can we flip today?

2009-02-10T10:15:00.000+01:00

According to the dictionary, people flip coins (they flipped a coin to decide the issue) or switches (he flipped a switch to open the door) or pages (mindlessly flipping through the magazine). But really, anything that can be suddenly turned over, moved or changed can be said to flip over (the plane flipped over then exploded), including our composure and equanimity (she clearly flipped under pressure).

Almost everything that has or can be said to have a backside--a flip-side--can flip. But all flipping happens in an instant. Either we physically flip them, or flip them in our minds.

I particularly like the thought that things we cannot escape from can nonetheless be flipped.

Take for instance the laws of gravity. Applied to two massive objects (say the moon and the earth), the laws of gravity completely fix the paths of these objects in space. They are "deterministic". (If the location of these two objects in relation to each are known at any one moment, your physics teacher can compute and draw a path which tells you where they were at any given moment in the past, or at a time in the future.) But this deterministic character of the laws of gravity can be flipped. If just another massive object is added, the laws of gravity will not be able to determine the paths of these objects after a certain point. (The objects can appear in completely different places than your physics teacher would predict. Chaos sets in.) But what is the point of having laws of gravity if they cannot even do that?

As philosopher Brian Massumi puts it, flipping is central to our freedom.

"Freedom is not about breaking or escaping constraints. It’s about flipping them over into degrees of freedom. You can’t really escape the constraints. No body can escape gravity. Laws are part of what we are, they’re intrinsic to our identities. No human can simply escape gender, for example. The cultural ‘laws’ of gender are part of what makes us who we are, they’re part of the process that produced us as individuals. You can’t just step out of gender identity. But just maybe you can take steps to encourage gender to flip."

So there, for freedom's sake, lets flip!

My Gentle Introduction to Budapest

2009-01-17T00:23:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, I left the Japan network on Facebook and joined the Hungary network. That was my way of saying hello to my new beautiful host city Budapest. I haven't really met any Hungarians as of yet because I stay at home most of the time. But some of the Hungarians I have casually encountered remind me a lot about Filipinos.

Number one, they also have "singit". Last week at the market, while lining up to pay for a handful of tomatoes I was buying from a vegetable stall, an old lady just inserted herself in front of me. I was either too short (she was burly), or she simply pretended not to notice that I was falling in line. I observed this again in the pharmacy, where again an old lady walked from the door to the front of the rather long queue. My wife says old Hungarian ladies do that all the time.

Number two, the shops often will not give you your exact change. At the supermarket, you don't get back your 20 or 30 forint change. And they don't expect you to ask for it. Its like not getting back your 10 or 15 centavo change from SM supermarket. Apparently, however, this takes place in restaurants as well. We experienced this once when the waiter did not return our change of some 200 forint or so. Maybe he thought we intended him to keep the change by way of a tip? We would have wanted to give a bigger tip, but since our change was not returned, we didn't bother. (Incidentally, I tasted my first goulash in this restaurant. What can I say? It tasted exactly like mechado!)

Souvenir Shop, Hungarian Museum of Agriculture

Number three, the shop clerks say "no" or "we don't have it" too easily. Scene one (100 forint shop): "Do you have a match here?" (illustrating by gestures) "Nem." (No.) "Like this." (illustrating again just to make sure) "Nem." Scene two (big supermarket): "I'm looking for goose liver pate, not duck." "We don't have it." (Are you sure? this is a big store!) "Well how about this. Is this goose?" (showing the pate with Hungarian label) "No."

This makes me miss Japanese service so much. The Japanese shop clerks never say "no" or "we don't have it", or at least not right away. They first try and check, and they let you see that they are checking. And when they need to say "no, we don't have it", they make this facial expression which says "so very sorry that we couldn't be of any help to you". But that's Japan.

Or maybe I'm just blogging about these nasty things because this afternoon, in the souvenir shop of the Hungarian Museum of Agriculture (shown on the photo), I picked this nice postcard hologram from this revolving card stand under a label that says 100 forints, and when I handed it to the shop keeper, he said: "That will be 400 forints, sir." Grrr!