Worse than Marcos?
December 12, 2007 by mlq3
Filed under Daily Dose
Flexing of muscles: will they prove atrophied or not? Metro braces for transport strike.
And the limits of collaboration and cohabitation: Estrada ready to make up with Arroyo but will fight Cha-cha.
The news item on the presidential corruption survey (Survey: Arroyo most corrupt, Aquino cleanest of 5 prexies) is interesting, not precisely because of what the survey says, but the limits the survey reveals, in terms of the public’s frame of reference (and not Palace: Respondents too few to say Arroyo is most corrupt).
But first, in Inquirer Current, John Nery provides a closer look at the data, and makes a cautionary note in his blog, Newsstand, both about the limits of the imagination of respondents, and the risk the findings might get oppositionists salivating again:
While the question is asked against a considerably longer horizon (“sa kasaysayan ng Pilipinas”), note that the options are limited to the last five presidents: Marcos, Aquino, Ramos, Estrada, and Arroyo.
Under such limits, Arroyo is a clear “winner” over Guinness-record-holder Marcos (the national numbers have the standard margin of error of plus or minus 3). Definitely not good news for Malacanang.
But before we wave copies of the latest Pulse Asia survey in the streets, remember that this very survey found that only a quarter of voting-age Filipinos were willing to take to the streets to force the resignation of a corrupt president. The limits of outrage, indeed.
I’m glad though Nery pointed out that the survey asked people to rate presidential corruption in terms of the history of the Philippines, but that respondents on the whole, limited their comparisons to Marcos and his successors. This tells us that for most Filipinos, history is only what’s occurred within living memory; and for this reason I find the survey worthless. Such a limited framework is no framework at all.
But still, politically speaking, this is quite a shocker. Worse than Marcos? Wow. As for how seriously the Palace takes it, see blog@AWBHoldings:
First reaction? The Fortress downplayed it, saying that the survey was commissioned by former senator Serge Osmeña. Since that was not enough, here’s another: the survey was unfair, baseless, and based on perception, which is not reality, says Cerge Remonde, who also blamed the “vicious†(his word) opposition. Then, the Fortress says the respondents were too few. And another factotum said that the perception was due to a media blackout on government’s action versus corruption.
Pathetic.
Anyway, the problem with the Fortress is that they are downplaying surveys that are negative in impact for the Arroyo regime. Yet, at the tail end of the 2004 campaign, the Arroyo campaign kept on harping about Arroyo edging the late Fernando Poe Jr. at surveys. Heck, when the Hello, Garci erupted, they used these surveys to prove that Arroyo won fair, square, and Garci. This line of defense is a two-edged sword, it cuts both ways.
Off hand, I think the reason FM did better than GMA is because of what I called The “vision thing” in October, 2005. Marcos could at the very least, present himself as a leader with “the vision thing” in spades:
The thing is, the “vision thing” is, in many ways, everything. Without it, the prize is less easy to keep, and the stage occupied by a shallow, and not particularly convincing, production number. The President’s critics (and supporters, too, depending on the internal factions they belong to at any particular time), have often criticized her for being unable to either grasp the vision thing, or for her tendency to keep changing it, as if it were a pair of fashionable reading glasses. Political strategy can-and should-change, depending on circumstance, but the vision thing is supposed to remain, well, clear and never blurry…
The problem is, aside from existing posters, some license plates, and walls painted prior to the elections, the Strong Republic has been junked long ago and replaced with other “vision things,” each one weaker than its immediate predecessor. There was the “10-Point Agenda,” then the “Rule of Law” and “Let’s Move On,” and — if the President’s former close associates are to be believed — the real one: the “Fear Factor.”
But how does one demonstrate, much less, articulate “Fear Factor” as a “vision thing”? Particularly in terms of where our presidents tend to be bottled up most of the time, which is in the Palace? This kind of vision only promotes a greater determination to take away the prize; it isn’t much of a vision to communicate from the pulpit. Of course, the President can invoke St. Michael the Archangel to make mighty swipes, figuratively or literally, with his fiery sword at the administration’s critics; however, the “eternal hellfire-and-damnation” kind of preaching is really the specialty of people like evangelist Bro. Eddie Villanueva, whom the justice secretary wants arrested. Even Catholic bishops no longer seem to indulge in that kind of beatific vision thing.
Which brings me to Sylvia Mayuga’s engrossing review of Carmen Guerrero Nakpil’s latest volume of memoirs. Mayuga provides some interesting extracts from Nakpil’s book, concerning the Marcoses and how they handled the assassination of Ninoy Aquino. At one point, as Mayuga puts it, Nakpil found herself “atypically alone” with Madame Marcos:
I asked her whether she and the President had watched Ninoy’s funeral on TV, and she said, yes, they’d done so, together, in his bedroom. And that they’d been crushed, struck dumb by the enormity of what they were seeing on the video screen. She added that they had felt overwhelmingly humiliated because they had little inkling of the public mood, and that Marcos had said, ‘So, after all these years, all our efforts, our trying and striving, it has come to this?’
…Ninoy did not die that day on that sunny Sunday afternoon in August 1983 at the Manila International Airport, for that was when he began to live forever in the hearts of his countrymen. It was Ferdinand Marcos who died that day, and he knew it.
Mayuga’s account of a conversation she had with Nakpil during the launching of the book, where she pressed Nakpil on her views concerning whodunnit as far as ordering Ninoy’s killing was concerned, is very interesting, too.
Is there a “lechon manok” phenomenon, when it comes to OFWs? Ang Kape Ni LaTtEX tackles this, in response to the story of Gilbert Roque in Kabayan OFW:
Reading the whole article, there are simply too many things that make me scratch my head: the lack of the ability to recognize opportunities presented, the lack of any real passion or concern for career other than a means to make ends meet, the treatment of overseas work per se as a career option, the acceptance of an abusive, menial, meaningless job just as long as it pays higher than — a job that could be matched financially and attained locally if only people try.
Gilbert is not alone however; how many people get jobs as call center agents, or take up nursing and caregiving, even if they are not genuinely interested in developing their careers in those fields? How many people work for the sake of working? How many people tolerate 8-5 drudgery just to be able to pay the bills?
In the end, the OFW phenomenon might actually not be driven by simple poverty. Rather, it is being fed by a huge number of mismanaged careers, masquerading as a last resort to be able to feed and clothe one’s family when there are real alternatives that people simply fail to see.
On a cultural note, and related to the debate on our OFW’s, this notice from the Israeli embassy:
You can now watch the multi-awarded film, “Paper Dolls” at Cinema 1, Greenbelt 1 on Dec. 12,13,14,15,16 &18 2007. Screening Schedule:
1:10pm
3:00pm
4:50pm
6:40pm
8:30pm“Paper Dolls” won 1st place at the Berlin Film Festival in 2006 and other honors in many international festivals including Cinemanila (2006). The film tells the plight of a group of transsexual Filipino caregivers working in Israel.
Synopsis:
“Paper Dolls” is a documentary film which explores changing patterns of global immigration and expanding notions of family through the prism of a community of Filipino transvestites who live illegally in Israel. Cast out by their families because of their sexual and gender preferences, these people work 6 days a week as live-in, 24 hour a day care givers (and in many cases as surrogate children) for elderly orthodox Jewish men, in order to earn money to send to their families in the Philippines that had rejected them. On their one free night per week, they pursue their own personal dreams as drag performers in the group they call “The Paper Dolls” in the relative freedom of cosmopolitan Tel Aviv. Despite having to deal with often harsh working conditions, threats by street criminals, fear of terrorist bombings and the constant peril of deportation, The Paper Dolls demonstrate a rare generosity of spirit, humanity and lust for life.
Award winning filmmaker Tomer Heymann enters this unusual world and by coming to know and love these subjects unearths joy, sorrow and humanity which change his life forever.
This is the other side of the phenomenon -the pursuit of opportunities our society won’t permit to some.
My Arab News column for this week is Both Sides Resorting to Old Scripts. In his column, Manuel Buencamino roasts the Spanish monarch, the President, her cabinet, and little brown Americans.
In the blogosphere, smoke takes exception to my pointing out the current standing of on line petitions.
Wow Pare points to a report on the reading habits of Filipinos:
According to the 2007 National Book Development Board (NBDB) Readership Survey, 67 percent of respondents across the country read the Bible the most, followed by romance or love novels (33 percent), cookbooks (28 percent), comic books (26 percent) and religious or inspirational works (20 percent).
Good grief.
A more detailed look is available through the National Book Development Board, which commissioned a survey in 2004:
The National Book Development Board commissioned the Social Weather Stations to conduct a survey on the reading attitudes and preferences of Filipinos. This is the most comprehensive study on book readership in the country. The survey was conducted from March 10 to 25, 2003 with 1,200 respondents composed of 300 voting-age adults from every study area: National Capital Region, Balance Luzon (areas within Luzon but outside NCR), Visayas, and Mindanao. The sample size has an error margin of +/-3% for the entire Philippines and +/-6% for every study area. Of the total respondents, 63.6% are from rural areas, while 36.4% from urban. Of the total respondents, 7.7% belong to classes ABC, 67.4% class D, and 24.8% class E.
Significant Findings of the Book Readership Survey Readership of the 7 -17 years old age group
Nationwide, 60% of the households surveyed have family members aged 7-17. Of these households, 35% have at least one member of the 7-17 age group who reads non-schoolbooks. Of the total family members aged 7-17, only 26% read non-schoolbooks, but most of those who read non-schoolbooks read at least weekly. Readership of non-schoolbooks among members aged 7-17 tends to be higher among females, classes ABC, those with a library at home, and those whose household heads have high education. The most popular non-schoolbooks read by the 7-17 age group are the Bible (22%) and romance novelettes (22%).
Readership of Filipino Adults
The good news is 94% of Filipino adults can read (simple words at least). 90% have read books at least some time in their lives. 68% have read nonschoolbooks. For those who read, 91% read to gain knowledge while 9% read for enjoyment.
Accessibility of Bookstores and Libraries
The survey reveals that many of the respondents (42%) are not aware if a library exists in their locale. 60% say that bookstores are not within walking distance from their residence, and 18% do not know if there is a bookstore in their locale. Data gathered from the National Library show that there are only 511 municipal libraries out of 1,496 municipalities, and 49 provincial libraries out of 80 provinces. Adult readership of non-schoolbooks tends to be higher among: •those with high levels of education, •those who attended private rather than public schools, •those from upper socio-economic levels, •those with higher personal monthly income, •those from urban rather than rural areas, •those younger in age, •those who are not married, •those who have libraries in their homes and offices, •those living nearer to bookstores and public libraries, and •those whose social networks (kith and kin) also like to read. While Filipino adults generally recognize the value of reading books, many (43%) can let a whole year pass without reading a single non-schoolbook. On the other hand, 15% read 2-3 non-school books, and 14% read at least 10 non-school books. Books are read more for gaining knowledge and information, and thus perhaps book reading is considered something to do when the need arises. Watching TV, movies and videotapes, listening to the radio, and going to malls seem much more fun to do. Perhaps parents, educators, publishers, and advertisers ought to do more to portray book reading as fun to do too. Filipino adults generally find books to be good gifts, and although considered costly, a book is not regarded as a luxury item but a necessity.
The survey shows that readership of non-schoolbooks is higher among Filipino adults from the the upper socio-economic classes who have reached high levels of education and attended private schools, are younger, either single or without a partner, and live in the urban areas.
oreover those who live near libraries and bookstores read more often. The Bible (38%) and romance novels (26%) are the most commonly read books by adult readers. The highest percentages of Bible-readers are from Mindanao (51%), class E (43%), females (42%), and 45 and above years old (49%). The highest percentages of romance novel readers are from Balance Luzon (27%) and Visayas (27%), class E (28%), females (37%) and 18-24 years old (46%). After the Bible and romance novels, females like to read about cooking (11%), while males read about politics (10%).
Manner of Acquiring Non-Schoolbooks
Allowing for multiple answers, the following are the means through which Filipino adults who read non-schoolbooks acquire them: borrowing from other people (52%), receiving books as gifts (40%), borrowing from libraries (24%), renting (18%), and buying (15%). Majority of respondents from all study areas and all socio-economic classes do not borrow from libraries.
Buying Non-Schoolbooks
The percentage of those who bought non-schoolbooks for personal reading in the past year increases with social class, educational attainment, and personal monthly income. 58% of Filipino adults who bought non-schoolbooks in the past year spent only a maximum of P200. 16% spent more than P1,000. Among classes ABC, 38% spent more than P 1,000.
Technorati Tags: Blogging, books, Charter Change, constitution, economy, ideas, Marcos, media, military, ninoy aquino, philippines, politics, president, society
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Jeg on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 3:53 pm
How many people work for the sake of working? How many people tolerate 8-5 drudgery just to be able to pay the bills?
Pinoys do often seem to be ‘other-oriented’, often sacrificing personal ambitions for others — siblings, parents. The older siblings toil to give the younger siblings an education and a chance at a better future. Parents do the same for the kids and the kids for parents. At least that’s the plan. They dont seem selfish enough. Self-sacrifice is a virtue Filipinos admire, rightly or wrongly.
“According to the 2007 National Book Development Board (NBDB) Readership Survey, 67 percent of respondents across the country read the Bible the most, followed by romance or love novels (33 percent), cookbooks (28 percent), comic books (26 percent) and religious or inspirational works (20 percent).”
I suppose if we want Filipinos to read about other stuff like history and ideas and all that, the medium to do it in is komiks.
Jozzua on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 4:15 pm
According to the 2007 National Book Development Board (NBDB) Readership Survey, 67 percent of respondents across the country read the Bible the most
Good grief.
—
I had the same reaction. Interesting how Pinoy culture has evolved.
tonio on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 4:17 pm
Jeg:
unless we place inserts about other topics in the bible. hahaha
or maybe mess with those romance novels… how about something with the title, “love in a time of boundless corruption”, or “pusong na-Garci”?
benign0 on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 4:49 pm
“According to the 2007 National Book Development Board (NBDB) Readership Survey, 67 percent of respondents across the country read the Bible the most, followed by romance or love novels (33 percent), cookbooks (28 percent), comic books (26 percent) and religious or inspirational works (20 percent).”
My God. All of these books (maybe except cookbooks) are recipes for utter IGNORANCE!
Kaya naman pala…
cvj on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 4:52 pm
67 percent seems quite high. That, plus the non-inclusion of FHM (and the like) makes the survey results questionable.
Jon Limjap on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 4:53 pm
Thanks for that bit Jeg.
Now I have to rewrite my entry and blame the Bible. LOL.
Jon Limjap on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 4:54 pm
cvj,
That’s just about right. The ordinary can’t afford FHM. It’s the non-inclusion of the Abante-type tabloids that makes the survey questionable. Or were the respondents too “shy” to reveal that?
tonio on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 4:56 pm
cookbooks? really? i’d like a demographic of the survey respondents… i can believe the bible bit (enough people in the office carry them around), but cookbooks?
mlq3 on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 4:58 pm
i recall from previous nbdb surveys, the average annual spending on books is 200 pesos and from talks with publishers, the fail-safe titles are really cookbooks and self-help books, puzzles, and the romance novel industry is pretty huge.
cvj on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 4:59 pm
Jon, i agree, the lack of responses falling under this category is glaring unless this actually falls under “comic books”.
tonio on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 5:06 pm
well, i bought a history book the last time i dropped by NBS.
mlq3 on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 5:10 pm
i wonder, if ours is primarily an oral and aural culture, would properly-priced audiobooks sell?
Jeg on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 5:15 pm
Booksale is still my bookstore of choice. Judging from the Booksale branches everywhere, it seems that Filipinos are spending enough on books to keep the branches in the black. I was in the Makati Cinema Square branch this lunch time and they do have a lot of interesting titles. (There were no pirated DVDs anywhere. Apparently, they got wind of an impending raid. I did see a uniformed OMB agent in the area. By the way, the reason the Senate gave for practically abolishing the Optical Media Board — by giving them zero budget for 2008 — was because they can’t seem to curb piracy. Great. To save more money and using that same logic, we can abolish the Presidential Anti Graft Commission as well. Throw in the Sandiganbayan and Ombudsman too.)
A question for lawyers: are publishers and authors entitled to royalties from sales of used books?
tonio on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 5:15 pm
well enough people have a personal music player. it might be an interesting proposition sir.
ace on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 5:19 pm
I wonder what books our Senators, Congressmen, and people in Malacanang are reading.
DevilsAdvc8 on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 5:32 pm
the survey taken by Pulse Asia is quite myopic. not taking into acct that Filipinos have a very short memory, and for many of the respondents, the present admin is what would stick out the most. so yeah, GMA beat FM. but realistically? cmon! FM ruled under martial law! He destroyed our country utterly. Gloria is just on her way to do that. In my eyes, FM is still the worst president ever. Followed by GMA, Cory, and FVR last.
I’m also curious as to the age ranges of the sample group. hell, if I’m bent on manipulating the survey to show GMA to be the worst president ever, all I’d have to do is survey the post-martial law babies. or survey the 13-20 y/o. and call that perspective.
I’d like to meet whoever wrote this face to face, and ask them pointedly what the alternatives are that he is talking abt that people just fail to see.
Whoever wrote this does not realize that the OFW phenomenon is all abt looking for security. It’s not the last resort, but the first. And more than just feeding and clothing one’s family, working overseas is all about fulfilling dreams. Mismanaged careers my ass. Most people do not have the luxury to pursue careers they truly want bec reality beckons them to forsake it. And there are those who simply cannot land a job in a field of their choice. So why do people flock to call-centers, transcription and outsourcing jobs? Because these jobs are equal-opportunity jobs. They’re the easiest to get bec employers of these companies do not limit their criteria by imposing age, degree, or school requirements (eg must be graduates of Ateneo, UP, La Salle). All they require is that you possess the skills needed for the job. Which is what employers should really look for instead of all these resume bullshit.
I’m a gradute of a 5-year degree course. and yet I cannot practice my profession here bec all hospitals already have their PT staff. and if you want to work even just for “experience” you become a “volunteer.” which in some hospitals mean paying for that privilege. wtf? you cannot have a private practice bec PTs here need doctors’ referrals and permission to treat patients. so if you’re not working for a hospital, you better know some doctors who’ll willingly divert their patients to you instead of referring them to the hospital’s PT clinic.
so what are my choices? one, which most PT grads do, is become a med rep. wow! for all that medical knowledge, you become just a glorified salesman. you don’t even need what you studied to do that. next, you work as a med transcriptionist. ok, one unit of medical note taking is put to use. but what else? last, volunteer in your local PT clinic. though there is no pay, you get patients requesting home service treatment, and that’s where you earn. depending on where you work, it can be as high as 500 per session or as low as 250. plus tips and gifts your patients may give you.
the next choices are not related to your course. oh yeah, i’ve been a call center agent. i did work which an accounting graduate will be hard put to do.
and if i hear business as the “real alternative” this guy is talking abt, i’ll punch him in the face. business is not for everybody. i already know i suck as a businessman.
Jon Limjap on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 5:35 pm
DevilsAdvc8,
I wrote that up. Wanna meet?
You can visit my blog too.
tonio on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 5:39 pm
Devils:
maybe you could conduct a better survey and take that guy’s job.
DevilsAdvc8 on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 5:39 pm
I forgot Erap, he’s next after Cory.
yeah, Cory (for whatever virtues she may have) still governed worse than Erap. but that may only be because Erap had only 3 years to rule and wreck our country.
DevilsAdvc8 on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 5:45 pm
Jon, well. now that you’re here, no need to meet. you can answer my question directly and tell me what “real alternatives” you’re talking about. I believe you wrote that most Filipinos (including me, it would seem) fail to see the obvious you see. so enlighten me, please.
tonio, which guy?
tonio on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 5:50 pm
the person who made that presidential survey.
Jon Limjap on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 5:52 pm
DevilsAdvc8,
Have you read my whole blog post?
Take it into the context of Gilbert, who took up a degree in IT. For the past few years I needed route jobstreet emails to a separate folder in my yahoo mail, because of the sheer volume of job openings in IT, both for local and foreign opportunities — masyado na magulo inbox ko.
Why didn’t he pursue that?
Sayang na yung degree niya, sayang pa yung potential pay kasi mataas ang sweldo ng IT, whether it’s here or abroad. That’s my whole point, really.
Now, I want to ask some questions to you, too, like, why did you take PT? Is that the career that you really wanna take up? Is that really what you want to do with your life?
The alternative that I’m talking about? Find AND Do the thing that you REALLY want to do — and EARN from that. It doesn’t even have to be a business.
DevilsAdvc8 on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 5:57 pm
tonio, Pulse Asia took the survey. and I’m sure more than one person worked on that commission. i only stated that i’m interested in their survey data (most esp the age ranges of the sample group)
Jon, I read your entire entry in your blog. You cannot take Gilbert’s case and apply it to all OFWs in general. You cannot say that just bec Gilbert failed to see other “options,” other OFWs like him also did.
you can read my previous post. i believe i listed there all the options a PT grad like me have. you may know a job in which i can work as a PT (which i may not know), and if that is the case, I’ll include it in my list. but basing from my list, can you tell me if I’m wrong in my decision to work abroad? and tell me if that is career mismanagement, or following the career which i chose to do?
Jon Limjap on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 6:04 pm
Granted that I cannot assume that all OFWs are like him, I’ll go back to a point I made: how many Filipinos mindlessly take up a degree in college that assures them of a job abroad, without considering what they really want to do?
PT, accounting, engineering, IT and today nursing, all these degrees have gone through or are going a phase wherein enrollees sore simply because it will bring one out of the country — but how many Filipinos really wanted to take them up?
Tell me, is physical therapy really your passion?
DevilsAdvc8 on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 6:12 pm
now you’re talking. following one’s dreams. that is idealistic, no?
let me see, between mindlessly following an option wherein you’ll at least be assured of a paying job vs an option wherein you are assured of high rewards only if you succeed, which would i choose?
it’s a question of values, Jon. it’s always been like that anywhere in the world. be a painter or be a company man. join a rock band or be a CEO. arts vs reality.
it’s the world we live in Jon. the system makes sure most people would be a frustrated-something.
and to answer your question, my passion is writing. that and filmmaking.
DevilsAdvc8 on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 6:18 pm
so yeah I’m a frustrated writer. but now that I’ve finished a 5-yr course, and resolved I want to follow this through, is Phils really the place where I will succeed as a PT? or would I rather work as something else?
and all those 5 yrs, my medical knowledge, wasted.
you see, from my POV, I can still write, even if I work as a PT. granted, I dnt get paid for it, but so what? it’s what i enjoy doing, and if I can do that, and still work as a PT (which in the US really pays like crazy) then can you consider that decision as mindless? it’s the best of both worlds!
i weighed my options, and i come out the winner if i choose the OFW option.
Jon Limjap on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 6:28 pm
DevilsAdvc8,
Yes it is a matter of values — you’re quite right. Risk taking runs in my blood, it appears, and so my values revolve around pursuing what I want to do.
I’m in IT, I’ve loved computers since I was 10 years old, so things fell into place for me in that industry, even if I did not finish a degree in IT.
I take that from my mother; my grandmother wanted her to take nursing up so she could go abroad too, but she resisted and took up Education instead. While she thought she’d just end up as a lowly paid teacher, her relentless pursuit of improvement in her career brought her around the world, earns her a more-than-decent salary, and gave her recognition in her field, among other things.
What would have happened had she bowed down to the wishes of my grandmother? What if she had indeed become a nurse?
Perhaps my only mistake in writing what I did was in sounding as if everybody could do what my mother did, or I am doing, or many of my colleagues in IT — several from never-heard-of universities — are doing; that is, pursuing something that we really love to do.
BrianB on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 6:37 pm
“well, i bought a history book the last time i dropped by NBS.”
I used to hang out at Diplomat bookstore scouring the stinky recycled paperbacks and hardcovers. The effort was worth it. I got a library of George Bush rejects (It was George Bush who caused the closing down of many American public libraries that became a boon to the recycled books industry here).
cvj on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 6:42 pm
Jon, your mother and you got lucky. I think whether one goes the safe route (e.g. OFW) or the high risk high reward route (e.g. pursuing your dreams) depends on ones’ degree of aversion to risk. As for “considering what they really want to do” remember how you criticized your deadbeat Uncle for being an activist? Wasn’t he also pursuing his dreams (for the country)?
DevilsAdvc8 on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 6:47 pm
Jon, yes. You assumed everyone would be willing to take the risk and follow what they really want to do. i believe i also owe you an apology if i sounded confrontational. i am just piqued when people think people like me who choose to work abroad do so “unthinkingly.” i’ve given this much thought, so i am offended when people say it’s an “unimaginative choice” or “sunod sa uso lang.”
i could work in IT, too. you know. i love computers as well. i have a natural aptitude for computer languages, and working tech gadgets. gawd, i can be a lawyer and pass the bar w/o trouble. but reality is, i ended up in this course.
yes, i can blame it on my immaturity then. my inability to go agst my mom. in hindsight, i could’ve followed what i wanted, but agn i was too shortsighted. i matured only when I was already a PT grad. but then, it would’ve been too late to rewind time. i could live with regrets, or make the most of what i have. what will you do?
3rdson on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 7:06 pm
devils advocate, change your name to whiner. so you didn’t get a job as a PT – tough luck. Suck it up! I graduated PT too. passed the board. couldn’t find work. so now I’m doing something else. pinili ko na mag-stay dito. and it worked.
yan naman ang hirap sa atin. pag-graduate, sobrang sama ng loob natin pag hindi tayo makatrabaho sa lnyang pinagradweytan natin. e ano naman kung hindi ka makapag ultra-sound? natutuo ka naman mag memorya ng sandamukal na impormasyon. natuto ka rin maging disiplinado. o! bakit hindi mo gamitin yun para umasenso sa ibang field?
e kung magpipilit ka talaga na hindi ka magtatrabaho unless bilang PT, e talagang liliit ang options mo. at talagang magwa-whine ka na lang palagi.
ang mga nagsa-succeed ay yung may drive to win. at yung may flexibility to accept that if one path doesn’t work, he had better find a path that does work. at yung hindi masyadong over-developed ang sense of entitlement. punta ka germany kung gusto mo i-baby ka ng gobyerno.
career mismanagement ba kamo, jon? Tama ka. Merong OFW na talagang wala ng choice; pero parami ng parami ang pumipili na mangibang bansa. HS pa lang, kukuha na ng kurso na nakatutok sa pagiging OFW. Tapos, pag nag OFW na, magrereklamo.
anthony scalia on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 7:16 pm
Jeg,
“I suppose if we want Filipinos to read about other stuff like history and ideas and all that, the medium to do it in is komiks.”
Agreed. Sadly, komiks is still not taken seriously as a legitimate form of literature and education. Snoots still pervade our society
mlq3 on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 7:25 pm
my only (admittedly uninformed) view on comics here is that after the golden age of the 70s (growing up there were many titles on history, literature, etc. published in comics form, esp. by national bookstore), we tend to suffer from being too derivative.
places like filbar’s rake in the cash, but with foreign titles. efforts have been made to compete but the titles that came out were too derivative, and out of synch, i remember in the 90s when manga was already taking over, the local competition was aping marvel and dc comics.
i think the problem goes beyond using whatever styles happen to rule the roost, the marvel style and manga style are authentically attractive in their own rights, i can’t quite explain why i think, though our weakness is to be too slavish in the use of those styles. we also haven’t explored the potential of the graphic novel format which might offer up room for greater individuality in terms of artistic expression.
the process requires a greater collaboration and investments that are difficult to find. a couple of my pet projects for a time were to have a graphic novel version of locsin’s “the heroic confession” or his non-fiction “rizal,” and a manga-style version of mabini’s “la revolucion filipina,” but like my other obsession, a philippine historical atlas, the funding simply isn’t there.
The Ca t on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 7:28 pm
Re: NDBD Survey
I wonder how was the questionnaire structured? Was it the mulitple choice type where Bible is number one in the list?
Who were the respondents?
Catholics are not bible-thumping people. I bet no one among the respondents have read the bible cover to cover.
I tried but the more I read, the more I develop a crisis of faith.
Reading the Psalms or a parable does not qualify under reading.
How many of the respondents are male?
Male don’t read romance or love novels. Even if they do, they won’t flaunt it. why romance novels only? There are many paperbacks and clothbound novels of espionage, adventure, spy thrillers, horror and detective stories.
Comic books- So there are young people in the respondents not unless they’re reading the comic books of Charlie Brown and Dilbert.
Then why is it only a small percentage?
Insprirational and religious books.
So number one is bible but the lowest percentage is bible-inspired books. Amazing.
The survey could have been more informative if the results showed the age brackets, the educational attainment, the profession, the gender and the economic status of the respondents.
Otherwise, it does not say anything.
What happened to the readers of Harry Potter. Why is there no percentage of readership? Was there no item in the questionnaire that distinguishes the kinds of novels read.
Are the respondents mostly female belonging in the young age brackets.
These are the types of respondents who are not ashamed to admit they are loving mushy novels. Because this is the time when reality about love has not hit them yet. So for them, love is always “and they live happily ever after type”.
Recipe book included as reading material? Wow. What I know about reading is to pass the time or to get entertained, get excited or get educated. But recipe book? My foot.
mlq3 on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 7:37 pm
nbdb has a website:
http://www.nbdb.gov.ph/index.php?tid1=0
interesting stats (10 years out of date):
http://www.nbdb.gov.ph/index.php?tid1=2&tid2=3
more recent data (see 2004 survey on readership):
http://www.nbdb.gov.ph/index.php?tid1=4&tid2=2
ex:
The Ca t on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 8:09 pm
The Ca t on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 8:11 pm
One more time.
The Ca t on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 8:12 pm
this is the explanation.
Having been connected in a city-funded university where admission process for those who pass the stringent entrance examination includes a panel interview from the different colleges/departments, I had a first person experience of knowing that many of these entering college have no idea what degree to take. So the interview was not only to determine which college these students would best fit in based on their interests, hopes and dreams for the future. The university aims to reduce attrition rate due to students’ faiure to make it to next school year because their grades did not meet the scholarship requirements.
Attrition rate in nursing was more than 50 per cent. In Engineering, even the third year students are not safe from being kicked out or referred to another college.
In other universities where I taught, freshmen enroll in whatever available GENERAL EDUCATION subjects are available. Mahirap kumuha ng subjects na magkakasunod at parehong araw. So they grab the chance of being in while the subjects are still open for enrollment. Later in the school year, they decide what course to enroll in which may be dependent on the:
a) advise of the parents/relatives
b) influence of the friends/girl friends/boy friends
c) tuition fees
I agree with Jon. It is more of lack of guidance or too much guidance (as in parents asking their children what degrees to enroll in) which cause job dissatisfaction.
I bet those who enrolled in PT were advised by their relatives abroad who thought that this was the job that would be in demand in the US.
That was in the mid 90’s.
They did not speculate that a hospital does not need more than one Physical Therapist unlike nursing where the nurse to patient ratio was mandated by the law.
Then the short term course Occupational therapy was offered in the US city and regional schools for those who wanted a career change. After six months, graduates of this vocational course were given preference in hiring instead of the five-year PT degree from the Philippines. They’re cheaper.
The hiring of PT from the Philippines was halted after a three year-hiring program which included exemption from labor certification for the applicants from abroad.
cvj on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 8:23 pm
I remember back in the late 70’s, Liwayway magazine churned out Filipino comic-series with entertaining and educational story lines. I particularly liked ‘Pantomanok versus Tsindak’ (mix of superhero and science fiction story-line) and ‘Malinche’ (historical fiction set in pre-Hispanic Central America a-la Apocalypto).
The Ca t on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 8:30 pm
The question must have been written as Bible or Koran. But of course Moslems are required to read their bible.
The Ca t on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 8:36 pm
see it confirms my observation of the respondents who read romance novels.
But I doubt the bible reading part for this age bracket.
Magsimba nga lang hindi makatagal sa homily ng pari, magbasa pa ng makapal na bible. This is the age when people would like to impress that they are religious. Beyond this age bracket, many people would cringe touching the bible. Baka sila masunog. mwehehe
I would have included the religions orientation of the respondents.
anthony scalia on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 8:40 pm
Trillanes Fans Club Launched
http://philippinecomedian.com/2007/11/trillanes-fans-club-launched.html
rego on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 9:26 pm
“The alternative that I’m talking about? Find AND Do the thing that you REALLY want to do — and EARN from that. It doesn’t even have to be a business.”
————————-
I completely agree!
vic on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 10:09 pm
Honour- and Horror of the Head Scarf
News of her death was not an hour old when the words “honour killing” were bandied about.
Thanks to freedom, and the fair justice that comes with that, it could be years before we know the exact reason why 16-year-old Asqa Parvez had her life savagely stolen.
But we do know her father, Muhammad Parvez, 57, has been charged with her strangulation murder and her brother Waqas, 26, is charged with obstruction of justice.
Religion and culture clash and a teenager was murdered by her own father:
http://www.torontosun.com/News/TorontoAndGTA/2007/12/12/4720370-sun.html
baycas on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 10:09 pm
baycas on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 10:12 pm
above culled from http://www.up.edu.ph/upforum.php?issue=20&i=152
couldn’t find yet 2007 readership survey online.
Madonna on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 10:27 pm
According to the 2007 National Book Development Board (NBDB) Readership Survey, 67 percent of respondents across the country read the Bible the most, followed by romance or love novels (33 percent), cookbooks (28 percent), comic books (26 percent) and religious or inspirational works (20 percent).
Good grief. — mlq3
Err, what’s the umbrage with the choice of reading materials? I think the Bible contains some of the best and greatest pieces of literature in the world — The Book of Job, Psalms, some of the gospels. And I’m no born-again Christian fundamentalist nut.
I guess it’s the overall picture that’s quite a disappointment with the high-brow crowd in this blog. See it’s not the fault of the masses that a Filipno readership has not emerged — there’s hardly material to read for the kids especially in public schools that go beyond the texbooks and reading is not promoted as a source enjoyment as much as it is a source of knowledge. I don’t about y’all but I enjoyed my komiks when i was a kid — heck the first time i’ve read shakespeare was in a tagalized komiks form.
Madonna on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 10:36 pm
opps sorry mali ang tags ko
Madonna on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 10:49 pm
Besides, it’s high time that Filipino literary writers write for the Filipino reader — not for the critics in the academia, not for the coveted international audience over in the West (which will naturally come if the writing is really good) and not certainly only for a certain market which people in this blog seems to a part of. Go ask Jose Dalisay whose novel Soledad’s Sister had been shortlisted for Man Asia Literay Prize, which unfortunately went to a Chinese writer.
mlq3 on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 10:59 pm
i admire tony hidalgo, he’s a true trailblazer in publishing and among the most innovative. also, personally a very engaging man to talk to.
mlq3 on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 11:07 pm
madonna,
good grief in terms of how unrepresented other topics are in people’s reading habits. in an old thread there was a long discussion between bryan and me about filipino writers. many of the points you brought up were raised by him.
baycas on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 11:53 pm
Classics Illustrated is the best! in the 60’s, my father put up a for-rent-comics stall in front of a high school in Caloocan. he was able to collect boxes of the popular comics. unfortunately they weren’t preserved on account of termites…
visit classicscentral dot com
—–
Pasko ng Komiks @ UP Diliman…
visit read-or-die dot org slash komiks
vic on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 11:53 pm
Senator Miriam Santiago wants the Senate to conduct the probe of who funded the Survey that was released to the Media that shows PGMA is the most Corrupt President Ever.
Now, why don’t the administration fund another surveyor to conduct another survey and compare the results? It was floated around that the survey was commissioned by Serge Osmena, but anyone can commission a survey, and if the survey was maliciously done, then by all means file Libel suits and make a lot of money and vindicate herself and Senator Santiago, smart as she is should know this relief available to anyone, including the President or even her.
But I still suggest to do their own surveys and we’ll have the battle of Surveyors, maybe as dirty as the Election Contest??
perpetual healing on Wed, 12th Dec 2007 11:57 pm
benign0:
“According to the 2007 National Book Development Board (NBDB) Readership Survey, 67 percent of respondents across the country read the Bible the most, followed by romance or love novels (33 percent), cookbooks (28 percent), comic books (26 percent) and religious or inspirational works (20 percent).â€
My God. All of these books (maybe except cookbooks) are recipes for utter IGNORANCE!
Kaya naman pala…
——–
WOW! yabang ah. yet it seems that you never saw the potential in these findings. in UPLB, writing majors are taught to write “lame stories” (of the pocketbook standard) for them to learn how to subvert it and make such an industry a venue for social change or at the least, a vehicle to educate the “lesser” but “interested”. but it seems that for you, these results are apocalyptic! that we need someone like you, who sees the “ignorance” in things, to take over already and tell what is redeeming, what is intelligent, what should be?
supremo on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 12:14 am
mlq3,
Audio books are popular in the US for people with long commutes. Audio books in cd or tape? Audio books in the US are now in CD because new cars are coming out with cd players and no tape players. I don’t know the situation in the Philippines. I suggest that you do it in CD so you can export here.
supremo on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 12:22 am
mlq3,
Please enlighten us on this ‘philippine historical atlas’.
The Ca t on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 12:30 am
Isn’t this a rather unbelievable conclusion in that NBnb commissioned survey.
So these young people do not read comics not until they reach the age of 16. bahh
what about the assignments of the young children which require reading of non-school books? they just don’t get their answers from their textbooks.
That’s why i hate reading results of surveys.
BrianB on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 2:10 am
The most underrated prominent writer along with Cordero. Unfortunately his wife is one of the most overrated.
Bencard on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 2:19 am
gma worst than marcos? hubris. historical revisionism at its worst or jaundiced view from an ignorant mind. consider the source of the data. evidently, most of the “survey” participants have not even been born, or were too young to know the realities, of the marcos reign.
first, are they aware of the true state of press “freedom” under marcos, whose first order of business was to jail, or eliminate, heretofore untouchable media men/women critical of his ways and had the “press” on its knees begging for just the right to sell their mostly contrived, or highly slanted, “news”? most of the eyewitnesses who had personal and direct knowledge ( as distinguished from hearsay) are now gone – locsin, soliven, burgos, the lopez and roces patriarchs, mijares, etc., etc. but the record of their tribulations are preserved for all to see. if you had the resources, you had to sneak out of the country to be able to criticize the marcos dictatorship, his family and cronies, giving rise to “steak commandos” that buencamino loves to refer to here derisively.
second, under marcos, the military had acquired a new power status, giving rise to soldier-politicians whose clout the average juan de la cruz had to pay homage to on pain of being “salvaged”.
third, on the economic world, crony capitalism had its flowering and attained unprecedented heights. known poor boys with shady origins became wealthy oligarch overnight just on the strength of marcosian connection. but the record shows who the all-time champion of ill-gotten wealth is and it would be superfluous to name the one who had absolute control of the nation’s coffers(mostly funded by gargantuan foreign borrowings, economic aid, and questionable schemes bordering on outright extortion).
fourth, the virtual elimination of the legislature under a regime of executive decrees, and the emasculation of the judiciary, were two tragic features of the marcos’ totalitarian rule. it would require voluminous dissertation to described them in detail here but suffice it to say that the aberration was unprecedented in the nation’s history of governance under the aegis of democracy.
in contrast, there is no indication or claim that pgma has not maintained and strengthened all the agencies,instrumentalities and offices of the government according to the law that created them; that she had sent any journalist (real or fake) to jail for attacking her or her family nor closed any media outfit for same reason; that she had personally used her office to amass ill-gotten wealth for herself or her family; that she had ever defied the decisions or lawful order of the courts; that she had ever used the police or the military other than to enforce the law against criminals and enemies of the state; that she had not pursued sound economic policies that have resulted in much improved state of economy than the one she succeeded into.
gma is not a perfect president, but worst than marcos?
how easily could people forget. and what a skewed sense of proportion!
The Equalizer on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 2:48 am
One of the criteria for being the Worst Philippine President is how much lasting damage the President did. The dictator Ferdinand Marcos for instance, did more than words can convey. With Gloria, the historical reckoning is yet to be made.
Let history judge her.
Bencard on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 3:01 am
apropos to the main topic of this thread, i was just wondering what could have happened if ninoy aquino did not die and he succeeded marcos to the presidency, with or without “people power”. how long could he have lasted without being hounded out from office by enemies, both pre-existing and newly-acquired – salivating power grabbers who would want their turn at the till, pronto.
to argue that ninoy was so “loved” by the people at the time so that he was invincible and could do no wrong because he had “moral ascendancy”, is to indulge in fantasy. had he shown strong political will to do what he honestly believed to be the right thing to do, he would have met proportionate (if not overwhelming) resistance from those who believed otherwise and hate his guts. a slight suspicion (no matter how ludicrous) that he would try to cling to power beyond his tenure would have unleashed unrelenting onslaught against his person and presidency until he is regarded by many as “the worst president ever” and ousted from it.
such are the vagaries of present-day philippine politics. i would even venture to say that even the great mlq, taken in the context of the present time, would have encountered the same predicament.
The Equalizer on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 3:23 am
Upon her arrival from the presidential junket,Lady Miriam immediately requested for a Senate investigation to determine who paid for Pulse Asia’s research on public perception on Presidential corruption.In the recently published research,majority of Filipinos considered Gloria the “most corrupt president” in Philippine history.
Where in the world is it illegal to sponsor a research to gauge public opinion?
agnes on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 4:13 am
The survey did not show anything new. We already know she is the most corrupt ever. Of course, her internet brigade are all over the blogs trying to defend her.
BrianB on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 4:53 am
Madonna,
The best novel written about Filipinos is Mona Simpson’s My Hollywood. Not published yet, I think but I’ve read several excerpts. In future, this could be a significant point of debate in Philippine literary circles. I’m not a fan of Dalisays cliched view of Filipinos and his “studied English.”
I agree that a Filipino novel written for Filipinos is the most earnest literary approach. People in foreign lands don’t understand a lot of subtleties on our culture. The problem lies in the appreciation of language used. Hell, some of our literature professors don’t even understand the books they lecture about. That’s one of the reasons why I think Mona Simpson’s approach splendidly opens up a new horizon for Philippine writing. I’ll post a link after this comment.
BrianB on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 4:54 am
“Coins” by Mona Simpson
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2002/08/0079288
BrianB on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 4:56 am
sorry, MacBook keyboard sucks:
The best novel written about Filipinos is Mona Simpson’s My Hollywood. Not published yet, I think, but I’ve read several excerpts. In future this could be a significant point of debate in Philippine literary circles. I’m not a fan of Dalisay’s cliched view of Filipinos and his “studied English.â€
Just so nobody thunk I dunno my commas.
BrianB on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 5:00 am
For another view of Mona Simpson’s work:
http://ireadashortstorytoday.com/2005/04/mona-simpson-coins.html
A little condescending? Literary critics are not used to endearing protagonists. I suppose they should meet a Filipino maid before they dismiss that the main protagonist in coins is a product of the author’s condescension.
Pilipinoparin on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 5:00 am
Sa wakas 100% akong sang-ayon kay Bencard, walang tatalo kay Makoy. Marahil mga pre martial law babies ang mga kasama sa survey. Iba ang basahin mo lamang ang mga nangyari noong martial law kaysa tunay mong ma-experience ito.
Ang makatako lamang, simula pa lamang ito ng “Arroyo era”, paano kaya ang mangyayari sa mga susunod na taon?
d0d0ng on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 6:38 am
“So number one is bible but the lowest percentage is bible-inspired books. Amazing.” – The C A T
Bible is largest in circulation and it is free. I got different bibles when I was young from Seventh Day Adventist, Mormons, Jehovah Witness, Baptist, Lutherans and of course Catholic version. All given. I still remember, the vendor selling pandesal has his bible ready in his tricycle in case you start talking about religion. Iglesia ni Cristo can easily cite the passage of the creation of church of Christ or Iglesia ni Cristo. Those were the days of bible quoting.
benign0 on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 6:46 am
“the process requires a greater collaboration and investments that are difficult to find. a couple of my pet projects for a time were to have a graphic novel version of locsin’s “the heroic confession†or his non-fiction “rizal,†and a manga-style version of mabini’s “la revolucion filipina,†but like my other obsession, a philippine historical atlas, the funding simply isn’t there.”
I don’t think it’s all about funding. REAL artists just do their stuff regardless of whether it is supported or not. Unfortunately talent does not necessarily presuppose passion. I’ve met a lot of talented illustrators who are not artists. They have the technical skill and even the desire to express. But they do not have that all-consuming passion that creates truly world-class artists.
I read somewhere that although Pinoys like singing the ballads and blues-themed songs, their delivery comes out as merely competent at best. Regine Velasquez has a powerful singing voice and delivery routine. But in the world stage she is no more than the equivalent of a programmed synthesizer that we are trying to pit against Eddie van Halen on a 30-year-old electric guitar.
Number one: Masyadong ‘conscious’ ang Pinoy.
Number two: Pinoys lack a deep well of SUBSTANCE.
It takes a complete unself-conscious submission to artistic passion drawing from a DEEP well of SUBSTANCE to deliver truly world-class art.
Unfortunately Pinoys utterly lack both ingredients.
The Ca t on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 6:59 am
my statement was based on my test of the believability of the results by looking at the consistency of the responses.
like if the reason for reading is entertainment and among the results show you that recipebook and bible are among the widely reading materials would you not question the result of the survey. Ano yan, you grab the bible to be entertained or the recipe book to entertain yourself by knowing how many tomatoes should be included in paella or whatever.
Reading preferences and reading requirements are two different things. The latter does not fall under reading habits but rather on obligation to read.
What’s the religion of that pan de sal vendor ? Religious orientation gives a lot of difference when we talk about the bible.
I bet you will not know the differences between the gospels as told by four evangelists. How can you reconcile the fact that even their stories do not reconcile?
d0d0ng on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 7:00 am
“Take it into the context of Gilbert, who took up a degree in IT. Why didn’t he pursue that?” – Jon Limjap
Because Gilbert with his kind of computer programming units could not find an IT job even if IT jobs are in demand in the Philippines. You know how picky are the Filipino employers (discriminatory even from what school). You know how it is when you are done in college there is the pressure to find a job. So Gilbert fall into the common entry level job with minimum requirement – selling. How do we know this is the case? Because same thing happened to Gilbert’s girlfriend Mherry who took up programming units in college (where he met her) and ended up as administrative assistant.
The OFW option was largely monetary consideration.
The Ca t on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 7:05 am
re: survey on corruption. news said that the survey was held in october 20-31, how come the results was published only now.
It could have been published before the Manila Pen incident. The people could have been encouraged to support Trillanes. But why only now? Is it because GMA is hogging the limelight lately? talk about balanced news presentation. mwehehe
Do i see a chess move here? sheesh
d0d0ng on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 7:10 am
“Ano yan, you grab the bible to be entertained or the recipe book to entertain”
I am skeptical of surveys because it can be interpreted in many ways. I am just saying the bible is widely circulated and free, and thus it figured into most Filipino households. Most read refers to number of households and not how many times a household member is reading the bible.
d0d0ng on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 7:16 am
“I bet you will not know the differences between the gospels as told by four evangelists. How can you reconcile the fact that even their stories do not reconcile?” -The C A T
It is even more funny that each denomination claim that the their bible is the only correct version.
Jon Limjap on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 7:20 am
dodong,
I have to point out that many of my best colleagues come from schools the like of STI, AMA and obscure places like Bicol University. Few of them are from the Big 4. They earn big bucks. How’s that for measure?
d0d0ng on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 7:28 am
“I have to point out that many of my best colleagues come from schools the like of STI, AMA and obscure places like Bicol University. Few of them are from the Big 4. They earn big bucks. How’s that for measure?”
It works for you and others but it did not work for Gilbert and Mherry. Those two are still in their 1st year of job so they can still switch if they want to if they can get into an IT position. Unlikely though for Gilbert, once he sucked into isolation, it is not easy to get out.
Jon Limjap on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 7:33 am
cvj,
Yes he was, but after he exited the movement he still failed to temper his idealism with practicality and monetary stability — something that my mother and I got lucky in, perhaps.
Do you know how idealistic my mother is? She’s trying to convince teachers to depart from the formulaic lecture-textbook method of teaching to a more interactive and experience-centric method. How idealistic can one get? But at least she’s earning from all the seminars she’s conducting in different universities around the country.
So my point can be summarized as follows:
a) find out what you love to do
b) do it
c) profit!
Sounds uber-idealist, sure, and it’s definitely very very difficult to turn that to reality, but it worked for a number of people around me (including myself), so I’ll stick with it.
Jon Limjap on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 7:58 am
Well, just to clarify something, it isn’t as if my colleagues and I started out with high salaries.
For most of those 5 years of my career I was earning around 13K a month. 13,000 a month for a familied guy is very, very difficult.
But if I didn’t stick it out and if I didn’t improve my skillset during the time I had meager wages, I wouldn’t have been able to earn the higher salaries that I enjoy today. Same with my colleagues.
The high-paying technology that I know today? I didn’t learn it from school. I’m not even an IT grad. I had to convince my boss to let me use that new tech, when it was in its infancy, just so I could learn it. By the time more companies adopted it, I already had more than a year of experience on my belt, so that allowed me to ask for a higher price.
So what worked for us? The ability to improve our skills on our own. Perhaps that’s what Gilbert, Mherry, and many other people don’t even try to do. And it is waaaaaay easier to improve skills on ones own if it’s on something that they are genuinely interested in.
d0d0ng on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 8:03 am
“Do i see a chess move here?” – The CAT
Yes. All efforts to dislodge the president before her term had failed. So the opposition will be using whatever comes handy.
The current president being on the top of the list is not surprising. The survey started on negative criteria (corruption) and current president going backward to 1972. There is already an assumption that all are corrupt and differs only in the degree.
With all the media noises of the current president, naturally most respondents would bring up the current president. Thats how perception can be manipulated. To have a better perception, a degree of separation should have been made like number of billions or millions lost in corruption between Presidents. That would put the right perspective (Marcos billions is still on top).
Media influence is evident in the survey is evident. Metro Manila which has the noisiest media has the highest negative response. The adverse perception is declining when locations are getting farther.
d0d0ng on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 8:15 am
“So what worked for us? The ability to improve our skills on our own. Perhaps that’s what Gilbert, Mherry, and many other people don’t even try to do.” -Jon Limjap.
That will work if they can start on the right job – an IT field. For Gilbert it is difficult. He might be on contract. Second, he doesn’t want to have a salary cut when he will start with low paying entry level IT job in Philippines. Usually switching jobs only happened after spending more than 5 yrs in no-personal-growth career. By that time it is too much struggle but it still can work if one is highly motivated.
This is what I can advise to most people. Instead of looking at difficulties, the focus should be at “Where do you want to be 10 yrs from now?”. Looking this, it means nothing and everything. Nothing for now, everything for tomorrow.
mlq3 on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 8:21 am
upremo, one of my obsessions has been to produce a historical atlas of the philippines. this stems from my personal love with historical atlases and how useful they were for understanding history when i was studying abroad. part of our culture of poverty is that we don’t have as keen a culture of teaching ads as we should, and which could potentially highly enrich the way people interact in school.
when i was still trying to pitch the idea, there were many options i was open to considering, the most practicable being providing them on cd-rom or putting them up on line, because so much of the cost of publication goes to printing.
there are a tremendous number of gifted map makers in the philippines, among them the people who create philippine maps for wikipedia. one of them has a blog, this guy: http://vaes9.codedgraphic.com/
a historical atlas is a handy and visual reference for many things, for example:
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/20centry.htm
will show you maps not only for political boundaries, but population, etc.
another sample is here:
http://www.euratlas.com/summary.htm
and here:
http://home.versatel.nl/gerardvonhebel/
and flash animation has tremendous potential:
http://www.mapisland.com/?gclid=CPSS6Kv9o5ACFQw3YQodM11MwA
see this, for example, crude as it is:
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/48states.html
and my favorite example:
http://www.animatedatlas.com/movie.html
imagine an atlas that shows you the spanish conquista, town by town or province by province, not to mention the borders and territories of the various leaders at the time of the conquista, maps that show the drawing up of the provincial boundaries of the philippines,the concept of a greater philippines extending up to guam that the spanish held; the territory of the federal republic of the visayas, of the sultanate of sulu over time, the progress of the filipino-american war, our changing provinces (gerrymandering) over time, the portion of our territory with forest cover over the various decades, the progress of the japanese invasion, the ethno-linguistic map of the philippines over time, etc. etc.
i believe that such a book would contribute greatly to allowing students to grasp the past. it would be an invaluable teaching aid. it would be an achievement, on its own, perhaps the first of its kind.
alas, no one was interested in funding it.
mlq3 on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 8:28 am
bencard, that’s an interesting point, and one i’ve been pondering, too. we have lost the mechanisms for establishing successor generations, or put another way, hardly any effort is devoted to mentoring, one of the worst legacies of the martial law years when of course marcos couldn’t consider building up future leaders. of our post-edsa leaders, only ramos made feeble attempts in this regard. the destruction of the party system, too, because of the abolition of bloc voting which gave leaders and followers little incentive to maintain party affiliation, was another example of the law of unintended consequences.
mlq3 on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 8:30 am
brian, what did you think of james hamilton-patterson’s “ghosts of manila”?
mlq3 on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 8:34 am
benign0, it’s about funding. you could, conceivably, rope in talented illustrators to make the maps, but it would be “on spec,” and a sacrifice very difficult to ask, because you not only need the illustrators, you need a team of historians, and while i suppose it’s possible to stimulate all of them to do it por la patria, you would still be stumped on the question of publication, because their efforts do deserve recompense whether in royalties or something; even if you were to put up the results on line free of charge, you would need funding for the hosting and to recompense those who labored on the project. being paid is also the surest guarantee people will work on things methodically and to the highest standards possible to obtain.
but my impression is that companies find no reasons -whether in terms of prestige or promotions- to subsidize knowledge-building efforts like this.
mlq3 on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 8:36 am
anecdotally, i keep hearing from hr people that there is an increasing bias against graduates from the big 4, as too fussy and difficult to train.
cvj on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 8:40 am
In capital budgeting, there is the concept of ’sunk costs’. The corruption (or lack of it) of past Presidents is sunk cost. Gloria’s corruption is not in the same category since she is still in power and is, at this very moment, still doing damage. So i guess the survey is flawed in the sense that it asks people to compares sunk costs with ongoing ones. However, the survey respondents’ reaction is rational in that display the right sense of priorities by caring about who is the most corrupt today.
cvj on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 9:01 am
So aside from idealism and the ability to make money from it, it turns out that you also value the ability to temper idealism (i.e. practicality). I believe that most OFW’s also have the same considerations. You and your mother are lucky in that you can make money from your chosen professions.
There are other professions (like writing) which do not pay well unless you are at the very top. So in those cases, it’s better to be practical and have a day job that will act as a cash cow which will then allow you to fund your ideals which you can then pursue in your spare time (e.g. at night or during weekends).
Jon Limjap on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 9:05 am
dodong,
Perhaps something I saw then as a stroke of bad luck turned out to be a good thing — my company closed down a year after I started working there. I was unemployed for 5 months after that, getting interviews here and there, but nobody calling back. Ironically the first company I got interviewed for — PNB — called me up on the 4th month and the ball went rolling.
It was in PNB that I learned the Microsoft .NET family of programming languages, a skillset that commands a fairly high asking price today.
I was extremely lucky because my company closing down didn’t mean that I had to spend a lot of years there as a “coding monkey” (IT slang for programmer who just programs for pay without improving his skills) and I was encouraged/forced to improve my skillset constantly so that I won’t have to go through 5 months of unemployment again.
I wouldn’t have imagined that losing work from a closed down company and five months of unemployment could be such a good thing.
Madonna on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 9:16 am
BrianB,
Yes, Dalisay was guilty of a “cliched view of Filipinos” in an earlier novel, “Killing TIme in a Warm Place”. Title pa lang, e, already smacked of interpreting the Filipino for the reading pleasure of foreigners. (Besides, he is also an academic). Same went for Fil-Am Jessica Hagedorn’s “Dogeaters”. But I’ve read excerpts of Soledad’s Sister and it’s a simple narrative that’s quite gripping in its own way. I think Dalisay should have won the first Man Asia Literary Prize — a lot of pundits thought so and many were not Pinoys — of course I’m biased — but methinks by having a Chinese win, attests to the economic power and political standing of the newly awaken dragon.
Anyway, as I wrote it’s about time we write for our own reading public and not always be looking self-consciously over our shoulders if the WEst will understand us. Good writing, no matter in what language it is written will be understood by every human being — as as for the snoots, genre or topic is not the ultimate standard for judging a people’s greatness or whatnot. Good writing must be always democratic and accessible.
Benigno,
“I read somewhere that although Pinoys like singing the ballads and blues-themed songs, their delivery comes out as merely competent at best.” — Benigno
YOU READ SOMEWHERE, YOU READ SOMEWHERE????? Fyi, you don’t read about it, you listen…. REPEAT AFTER ME: YOU LISTEN.. I PITY YOU BECAUSE YOU DON’T KNOW A THING ABOUT YOUR COUNTRYMEN, THEREFORE YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT YOURSELF. KAYA NAMAN PALA!
Jon Limjap on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 9:17 am
cvj,
And I have absolutely no problem with that. It’s perfectly fine to pursue your passion while maintaining a cashcow at the same time.
What I do not agree with are people who completely abandon their passions, or who do not seek them at all. Once more — that was the point of my blog post.
I actually have another blog post discussing precisely this: If you’re not having fun, it’s not worth doing, and to quote myself:
benign0 on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 10:05 am
mlq3, I don’t know how you pitched your idea, but the thing with private enterprise is that there needs to be a really good what’s-in-it-for-me (WIIFM) pitch.
Maybe if you establish some kind of alliance with private schools — i.e. get a memorandum of understanding of some kind that you will build this educational facility for them (i.e. your historical knowledgebase website) to be used for free in exchange for a guarantee that it will be made mandatory reference for its students and faculty.
Then you can approach one of those environmentalist NGOs or groups and (Planet Ark, Greenpeace, etc.) and seek an official endorsement from them (i.e. reduced use of paper for history books or something like that).
If you achieve the above two you will have two out of three ingredients you will need to approach private enterprise — (1) a market for their products and (2) association with an entity to address their “social responsibility” objectives.
Re (1) this may be in the form of an exclusive channel to advertise their products (before you are affronted with the commercialism of this idea, think of how Milo sponsors basketball clinics).
Re (2) companies nowadays want to be associated with Green groups. Maybe negotiate with Planet Ark or Greenpeace to allow their logo to be used in the branding of the products of companies who sponsor your project (win-win!)
Finally, as an added come-on, you can propose that, say, 10% of sponsorship cash will go into some kind of charity.
I don’t know much about taxation there but if this is an educational facility ultimately, plus the charity aspect (and positive environmental impact), there may be quite a bit of tax breaks applicable to this venture.
So in effect, your business model will be:
Capital:
- Private investment going into development of the service (your website) consisting of developers, historians, management, and marketing
Revenues:
- On-going sponsorship from private enterprise
- Government funding (once politicians see a PR opportunity in this exercise)
Costs:
- hardware/software to deliver service onto the Web
- permanent staff to continue developing the service and the content of the site
- remittances to charities
- space to host sponsors’ ads (this is a non-tangible if not trivial cost)
Profits:
).
- why not keep some for yourself (Great nations were built not by heroes but by people who found no shame in expecting a buck for their trouble
mlq3 on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 10:13 am
benign0, very grateful for that. i really should heed the advice i got to take an mba.
my problem is i am not really entrepreneurial by nature, i have a salaryman’s mentality when it comes to these things -and a tendency to take on too many small jobs to compensate. a colleague scolded me once for being delighted with a 3,000 honorarium from the deped even if it meant i had to travel several provinces away, and said i didn’t know how to value myself. it was like trying to talk greek with someone.
will file away your scheme and study it.
benign0 on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 10:23 am
mlq, at least you recognise that limitation about yourself (see? you’re a GetRealist at heart
). Recognising one’s limitations is usually the toughest part for most people.
Thing is your key asset is your connections and your influence. Get those to work for you (don’t be bashful).
If you get the funding, you can always hire a business manager (to plug that gap in your personal “limitations”) Let this guy be your ‘bad cop’ (while you play ‘good cop’). Just because you are chairman or ceo of this venture does not mean you have to run operations. Your role will be mainly in getting the right people/organisations together for the venture (establish the relationships, hobnob in parties and schmooze with people who’ve got the dough), then hand over to your BM to execute (kung baga, after that proverbial golf chat with your contact, your parting words should be: “I’ll get my people to talk to your people”).
mlq3 on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 10:53 am
benign0, thanks again. there are many limits to “clout” or “connections,” foremost of which is that the circles in which i operate are alien to those of businessmen, and their language is quite alien to me and vice versa. this is why i have to take an mba (but it’s expensive and requires too much time yaddah yaddah but may be the only way of breaking out of the cycle of peonage).
Silent Waters on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 11:01 am
mlq3
THe idea of a historical atlas is an interesting idea. Another funding scheme may be is to talk to the top 4 universities to basically host the site for free and in exchange,they can use it for their history lessons. That way hosting costs will be lower or nil. or maybe even the National Museum???
One question is: can we possibly commercialize this venture? Yes, it can be. It is possible not only to make it a historical atlas but an actual atlas using census data to derive certain demographic details of the population. You can use the proceeds from doing this to then fund the historical atlas project.
Sounds like a Mapa Pilipinas, Inc. to me.!
Silent Waters on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 11:02 am
mlq3
I understand that UP has an MBA course for part timers. ANd it should not be as expensive since UP siya….
Silent Waters on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 11:05 am
In addition to my comment Dec 13 at 11:01 am
You can then sell the visual demographic data to companies and make it even an ongoing service as you keep on improving the data set of the map. Possibly a subscription fee.
Business has always been an information junkie. ANd if the information can be simplified, so much the better. Demographic data by barangay, town, city, province and country is always a sought after prize. and if it’s visual, so much the better.
mlq3 on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 11:09 am
silent waters, one thing though is one of my personal advocacies is to encourage the talent that lurks in our government institutions. for example, we have NAMRIA:
http://www.namria.gov.ph/
which i believe is located somewhere in fort bonifacio. now i’ve never been there, but according to a colleague who has dealt with them, they’re quite forward-thinking and professional people, working under very big limitations. for example, as i understand it, the last thorough mapping of the philippines took place in the 1950s!
i believe it’s in capiz that they got fed up with outdated maps (for example, in the half century since, rivers have changed their pathways and that’s not reflected in maps) and invested in their own gps system to map their city. i understand namria is working on a japanese grant to enable satellite mapping of the country.
so the idea might be to combine efforts with them, but again, this requires a great deal of time and energy. do you remember the gorgeous atlas produced during the marcos years?
ronin on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 11:10 am
manolo: the golden age of komiks, the time when atlas, gasi reigned, is gone. it’s not even a sunset industry anymore; night has fallen. the local manga-derivatives and graphic novels nowadays for me is too niche. they are not as ubiquitous, nor as popular to a wider range of the population as the komiks published by gasi and atlas.
one thing overlooked here in the survey is the ascendancy of the romance novels. it has a larger share than comics. does this category refer to the Filipino language romance novels? I think this has replaced the komiks in popularity and i believe it’s a sign of improvement.
the comics medium is still visual, it only spoonfeeds its readers. but a novel, even if it’s of the romance genre (hence worthy of disdain by the snooty types
), is text-based, which stimulates the reader’s mind better than comics (i.e. having the reader imagine, say, how the villain looks like, instead of being supplied with a max alvarado countenance courtesy of the comics illustrator). it is also written in the vernacular, to boot, thus attracting a wider range of readership.
the komiks giants in the late 80s and early 90s saw the writing on the wall and tried to transition into the Tagalog romance novel genre, using their star writers like Gilda Olvidado etc to write novels. New players later emerged and now it’s a thriving industry.
some of my friends and i tried to join this bandwagon in the early 90s and came up with several titles. our marketing positioning was romance novels that were written in a literary style (we were snooty at the time
). the idea bombed. seems the komiks style remained as the sure-fire formula (i.e. tried and tested plots like rich-boy-marries-poor-girl, love triangles with histrionics, etc.; with covers that call to mind those of the now-defunct komiks of atlas and gasi).
benign0 on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 11:16 am
The Philippines also lacks the map data to support GPS navigation systems. Maybe this can be incorporated into the effort. It’s got clear commercial WIIFMs.
Silent Waters on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 11:23 am
I actually have a cousin who is working on GPS positioning systems and its related mapping works. And he actually works out of Bacolod, can you believe that?
Anyway, you may want to check them out.
http://icoretechnologies.com/Default.aspx
Silent Waters on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 11:25 am
Yes MlQ3
They ARE gorgeous. Can you still find them??? I love looking at maps. As a Chinese Filipino, I always check out where exactly is the birthplace of my grandfather. Interestingly enough, I was able to visit the place last year and see the ancestral home.
mlq3 on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 11:28 am
silent waters, you can still find copies in the high-priced used bookstores (old manila) of course for an arm and a leg.
Jeg on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 11:28 am
the local manga-derivatives and graphic novels nowadays for me is too niche.
And too expensive for the average Filipino. The old komiks with serialized novels printed on newsprint or recycled paper with 2 or 3 colors would be more within their budget. The problem faced by atlas and gasi at the time was that lots of people werent buying their copies because enterprising sari-sari store type establishments merely rented them out (arkila); one copy for the whole barangay. The publishers and authors like Carlo J. Caparas were losing money on the deal until the movie industry provided them with oportunities. Now they dont even have that since our movie industry is dying. (And dont blame piracy for this, movie people. Your stuff isnt being pirated that much.)
Jon Limjap on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 11:28 am
I’ve raised that issue with Google thru a friend who works there, they have yet to respond. The Google maps data on the Philippines is rudimentary and incomplete.
tonio on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 11:35 am
NAMRIA is in Fort Bonifacio. When I worked for a real estate firm, we visited them quite often. And they do good work.
tonio on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 11:38 am
oh, and it’s never too late to get paid doing what you love to do. this year for me has been one of adding the necessary skills (through courses and a lot of self-study) that will enable me to leave the job that gets the bills paid to the job that makes me happy and gets the bills paid.
benign0 on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 11:39 am
NAMRIA I think also has a direct retail outlet somewhere in Binondo…
benign0 on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 11:42 am
mlq3, why don’t you create a specific section in your blog where people can collaborate with ideas on how to progress your mapping/historical knowledgebase project?
ronin on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 11:45 am
Jeg:Yeah, that certainly helped kill the komiks. I guess we really allocate a minisucle portion of our budget to reading materials, if at all. If it can be rented, why buy?
Speaking of revenue, I always wondered why komiks apparently relied only on circulation. They have the odd ad or two, but no massive ad space as that of newspapers. I undestand advertisers are enticed by big circulation. But if komiks reigned supreme in the ’70s (thus, high circulation)then why did GASI and Atlas didn’t take advantage of it and started selling advertising space?
mlq3 on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 11:46 am
benign0, i’ve long wanted to include a wiki section for such projects but…gastos. sigh.
Jon Limjap on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 12:21 pm
Good for you tonio
Sonus on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 12:57 pm
Books for the most part are hard to acquire the farther you are from the proximity of urban centers. I remember back in high school (in the province) the only means I could grab nonschool books was through renting from a private book club or borrowing from my high school’s library (all donated). The public library run by the LGU did have books but they were so old and musty. Running on high school allowance allowed me to buy a book or two at most when I had the chance to go to Cebu, the nearest urban center.
Books are largely inaccessible and costly. This fact doesn’t help in enticing more Filipinos to read, which is sad. What’s worse, contemporary Filipino books aren’t any cheaper. At times they’re even more expensive than foreign books which you can get at bargain shops or book sales. Comics are cheaper, too since they only cost around a hundred pesos (Kiko Machine, Pugad Baboy) or even cheaper, comic rentals in your typical market corner which costs less than 5 pesos per read.
I think it’s more of an economic reason as to why most Filipinos don’t read books too much and not because we don’t have a culture of reading.
cvj on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 1:15 pm
Jon, point taken. I don’t know whether my Mom or Dad followed that philosophy but thanks to their sacrifices, i’m in a position to do just that.
Jeg on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 2:37 pm
One of our top komiks illustrators has an excellent site on komiks.
http://www.komikero.com/
The depth of talent in this country is astounding. Theyre getting gigs overseas. Maybe like some of our OFWs, they could return and revive the industry like Carlo J. Caparas is doing. I just hope they dont come back snooty.
anthony scalia on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 6:13 pm
was the survey on brand-new book purchases?
i frequent Books-for-Less, Chapters & Pages, and Booksale. i find many people buying from these stores
BrianB on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 9:02 pm
@manolo
I suppose when it only concerns yourself, we have the same attitude towards compensation but what about when it concerns people around you. Do you actually think these middle men, these importers and retailers should keep doing what they are doing?
BrianB on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 9:06 pm
brian, what did you think of james hamilton-patterson’s “ghosts of manila�
Manolo, read a couple of pages of it in a bookstore, wasn’t really interested in his point of view. Same with other Westerners writing about Southeast Asians. I do read Ian Buruma.
Mona Simpson’s book would be very controversial. It would be another debate between Filipinos willing to accept the OFWs as an important part of the cultural development of the Philippines and Filipinos who are just embarrassed by them.
Silent Waters on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 9:36 pm
BrianB
What are you implying about middlemen? Please don’t start another bashing thread on people who actually serve a purpose also.
There is a reason why middlemen exists. It’s because they are the consolidators for people who cannot buy the volume if you got direct to the main supplier/importer/manufacturer of goods. If you go through middlemen, instead of having to buy gazillions of the same item, you can buy a few. Middlemen basically sells a variety of goods.
Baka iba ang iniisip mo kasing middlemen. Yun mga buwaya na laway lang ang ginawa, nagkakakuwarta na. Iba yun.
BrianB on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 9:44 pm
“Baka iba ang iniisip mo kasing middlemen. Yun mga buwaya na laway lang ang ginawa, nagkakakuwarta na. Iba yun.”
Silent, not just those people. I’m looking forward here. Sure, we need people to select the goods for retail shops, store them and properly checkthe process of delivering them to consumers, a make sure they are safe. But middlemen as simply people who have a lot of money and make more money because they have a lot of money should be an anachronism in the age of the Internet. Worse, when their businesses are threatened (a type of business, by the way that asks too much for what little they add) they go on to lobby their political friends to help out, which causes stagnation.
BrianB on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 9:46 pm
“was the survey on brand-new book purchases?”
antony, the survey was probably done only to one bookstore: National Bookstore. Powerbooks and Fully Booked wouldn;t survive if people stopped buying literary fiction and non-fiction.
Silent Waters on Thu, 13th Dec 2007 10:39 pm
BrianB
You made a lot of assumptions in your statement. You assume that middlemen are making a lot of profit when in fact, as we speak, most middlemen make around 5-10% margins gross tops. Secondly, middlemen allows retail shops to buy in reasonable amounts rather than in bulk. No manufacturer will deal with you if you are just going to order a dozen pieces. Only made to order items which are paid highly will do that. FOr fast moving consumer goods like food, clothing, etc., that is not the case.
You are correct in saying that the internet allows prices to be lower but you still have to ship the goods from anywhere in the world, which adds to the cost of the product. The middleman takes that away already.
Of course, at the end of the day, they will have to earn a profit to continue in this business.
Also, you do need a lot of money to be middlemen. Ano kala mo, mamiso lang yung mga pinararating? DO you realize how cheap things are because there are middlemen? You assume kasi it’s expensive due to the middlemen. NO. The middlemen buys from the manufacturers in BULK, therefore they get bigger discounts. Pare, go back to your economics to understand economies of scale.
Lastly, the people who have a lot of clout in business are never the middlemen or importers, as you would like to believe. They don’t have control of what people can bring into the country. So what makes you think they have clout?
ANg mga may monopolya ng isang produkto o serbisyo ang sinasabi mong gumagamit ng mga kaibigan sa politika upang ang kanilang interes ay ma-protektahan.
cvj on Fri, 14th Dec 2007 10:57 am
Middlemen do serve a purpose but to an end consumer like me, they represent an additional cost (around 5 to 10% by your estimate). One way to make the economy more efficient is to eliminate or minimize the role of middlemen via the introduction of new technologies (online direct buying), retail liberalization (bringing in Wal Mart), trade liberalization among others. Not that i necessarily agree with these steps at this point.
DevilsAdvc8 on Fri, 14th Dec 2007 5:09 pm
totally agree with this. my father told me: love your work, and it will seem like work no more. and yet when i told him i wanted to write, he scoffed and said: sa talino mong yan gusto mo lang magsulat?
my mother on the other hand said: pwede mo naman gawin ng sabay yan (PT and writing), ba’t di mo gawin? at least with PT, you are assured of a job.
on the contrary, PTs are still in demand even today. Only that, employers are not that gung-ho in getting these employers, going so far as to sponsor everything. that’s why we PTs need to pay for everything ourselves, and take care of all paperwork, to attract employers. being licensed is the surest way for employers to vie for you.
it is not the patient to therapist ratio that is the problem here, but the fact that Physical Therapy as a field of medicine has never taken off and been accepted by most Filipinos as a serious field. too many misconceptions abound re it. foremost of which is PTs are seen as mere “manghihilot” or “massage therapists.” it is not only in hospitals that PTs can be employed. in sports, in gyms, in nursing homes. the problem was that PTs were boxed right from the start as masseuse, hence that perception of them clung, and its now very hard to change that.
OT is not a vocational course. in fact, OT is a specialized field of therapy. preference cannot be given bec these 2 jobs each have their own expertise. in a clinical setting, PTs and OTs often work together. PTs handle the gross motor skills rehabilitation aspect of the patients, while we refer the rehabilitation of the patients’ fine motor skills, language deficiencies, hand to eye coordination to OTs. Our work is mainly muscle strengthening, balance training, etc.
And just to correct you, OTs have higher salaries than PTs. starting pay of PTs range from $24/hr to $30 compared to OTs with $30-$35/hr.
hiring wasn’t halted. it just became more stringent. hiring still goes on even now. for those who persevere to see through all the difficulties in acquiring their papers (legally, i might add) as i said, once you’ve passed their board exam, employers will be fighting each other to get you. it’s just that employers of PTs right now are gun-shy in sponsoring unlicensed PTs since there’s no guaranteed ROI if their sponsored candidate fails the NPTE (PT’s version of the NCLEX)
Silent Waters on Fri, 14th Dec 2007 8:10 pm
CVJ
For as long as the buying power of the Pinoy does not reach critical mass, you will not get all the things you mentioned.
As I said, they serve their purpose. Online? How many percent of the population is actually online to buy? How many have credit cards? and lastly, how do you actually know they’re going to pay anyway? That’s part of the problem and that’s why the critical mass won;t get there f for a while.
Silent Waters on Fri, 14th Dec 2007 8:13 pm
CVJ
Also, it really bothers me as to why you won’t even allow people to make 10% gross margins. Parang ikaw lang dapat ang kumita sa mundo. The ability to earn money is the incentive for people to create, innovate and develop markets.
Sorry, but that’s the reason why I think of you as a communist. Everything that smacks of capitalism seems to be poison for you.
Di ko tuloy alam ano ba talaga ang ginagawa mo sa Singapore, that’s a purely capitalist country.
cvj on Sat, 15th Dec 2007 11:09 am
Silent Waters, as i said above (December 14th, 2007 at 10:57 am) i recognize that middle men serve a purpose. However, if a more efficient means of distribution comes along that results in lower costs, then so much the better. Far from being a ‘communist idea’, this falls squarely under capitalism’s concept of creative destruction.
Mita on Sat, 15th Dec 2007 4:54 pm
NAMRIA’s main problem is budget. It takes a lot of money to come up with digital maps. I’ve been told there are so many mistakes in coordinates in the old Philippine maps which will present a problem for navigation.
My husband and I met a Filipino who not only makes digital maps with correct coordinates but also manufactures latest-technology GPS vehicle tracking equipment for commercial use. The software and hardware was designed by Filipinos (his chief engineer is actually female!) and it’s better than any Western technology I’ve come across. His units are now being used in several parts of the country (he also has international clients) and his guys are busy mapping areas his clients serve – including offshore for large fishing operations.
The next big step for the economy is manufacturing. IF ONLY we can let go of the “IF ONLY…” attitude. Proof is this company who doesn’t wait for government help but goes ahead and does things…
http://starcomm.com.ph/InsidePages/aboutus.htm
Tris@korea on Sun, 16th Dec 2007 2:57 am
Regarding the OFW thing, it is best to take into account what really is happening inside our country. My point is, the current situation in our country demands that those lacking of monetary power, has no real option but to venture out of the country and do menial jobs. I for one pondered on that option for a long time, whether to follow the lead of most of kababayan and leave your love ones for the sake of money or be debt ridden and hopelessly littering the streets looking for jobs that can feed my family. Starting a business is a good thing but still, the money factor still has the upper edge; how do we start a business if we don’t have a start-up capital. I have been a call center agent, a web designer, a fast food crew and some other odd jobs that give no credit to my education moreso of the University I went to. So, just thinking about it, why not work in a foreign country doing the 3D’s (dirty, degrading and dangerous) jobs that pays well. But if given the chance I would really love to stay in our country as long as I can feed my family. Simple logic to this is, what is pride if you are starving……
Silent Waters on Sun, 16th Dec 2007 9:58 am
Tris@korea
Tama yang attitude na iyan, of what use is pride kung gutom ka. Ok lang, basta marangal na trabaho at kikita ka naman, bakit hindi.
The Ca t on Mon, 17th Dec 2007 5:01 am
In the Philippines,but in the States, it is just a short term course.
Marunong ka pa eh ako nandito.
The Ca t on Mon, 17th Dec 2007 5:05 am
Marunong ka pa ay connected ako noon sa recruitment agency ng mga nurses at physical therapists.
At kasama ako sa nagbukas ng agency na naglalaay ng mga healthcare workers sa hospital on a temp basis.
Butch Dalisay on Sat, 22nd Dec 2007 4:24 am
thanks for your comments on my work, madonna–whether i or others may agree with them or not. i’m just chiming in to clarify a point–i may be a UP professor now (everyone needs a daytime job) but i was a working stiff, a professional writer and a journalist long before i went back to school and did what i always wanted to do, which was to study, write, and teach.
i didn’t get my bachelor’s degree until i was 30 years old–i was out of school for many years. “academic” isn’t necessarily a bad word, but i understand what you might mean–i hate it when professors talk in a way other people (even fellow professors like me) can’t understand, or write in a manner most readers can’t relate to.
understandably, there will always be people who won’t like what i write; that’s par for the course for any writer anywhere. i don’t see that as a problem, or take it against anyone else. i do value clarity of expression. if my reader doesn’t get what i’m saying, then i’m in trouble. i really don’t know where brian’s phrase “studied english” comes from–i’ve never used nor advocated it myself; i suppose an argument can be made that all filipino usage of english is, in a way, studied or artificial, but that’s another issue for another time.
and many thanks for thinking that “soledad’s sister” should have won the man asian, but i of all people (and, at this point, i alone and the few others who have read the draft) know what its flaws are, and i’ll be working to correct them before sending it on to the publishers. i haven’t read the chinese novel that won, but it’s supposed to be something of an epic that appeals to the chinese on many levels (it’s already sold 2 million copies in china, plus many more in bootlegged copies), so i suppose it’s safe to guess that i lost to a superior–and perhaps only incidentally very popular–work. at any rate, better than the prize for me was being spurred on to complete the draft of my novel, which i look forward to revising these next few weeks.
if you care to learn more, just email me at jdalisay@mac.com and i’ll respond when i can. happy holidays to you all here. salamat!