Photo Credit: Felipe Andrade

This is something we could all learn from here in the philippines. We have our own versions of the work done in Bogota, Colombia, but it would be great to have more and more cities in the Philippines doing this.

It starts with eradicating corruption. And people doing what they are paid to do, and were elected to do. And it also includes everyone else’s cooperation. But it is possible. It can be done. We do not have a choice.

Can We Design Cities For Happiness?
by Jay Walljasper
Shareable

Happiness itself is a commons to which everyone should have equal access.

That’s the view of Enrique Peñalosa, who is not a starry-eyed idealist given to abstract theorizing. He’s actually a politician, who served as mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, for three years, and now travels the world spreading a message about how to improve quality-of-life for everyone living in today’s cities.

Peñalosa’s ideas stand as a beacon of hope for cities of the developing world, which even with their poverty and immense problems will absorb much of the world’s population growth over the next half-century. Based on his experiences in Bogotá, Peñalosa believes it’s a mistake to give up on these cities as good places to live.

“If we in the Third World measure our success or failure as a society in terms of income, we would have to classify ourselves as losers until the end of time,” declares Peñalosa. “So with our limited resources, we have to invent other ways to measure success. This might mean that all kids have access to sports facilities, libraries, parks, schools, nurseries.”

Peñalosa uses phrases like “quality of life” or “social justice” rather than “commons-based society” to describe his agenda of offering poor people first-rate government services and pleasant public places, yet it is hard to think of anyone who has done more to reinvigorate the commons in his or her own community.

Transforming Bogotá

In three years (1998–2001) as mayor of Colombia’s capital city of 7 million, Peñalosa’s Administration accomplished the following:

* Led a team that created the TransMilenio, a bus rapid transit system (BRT), which now carries a half-million passengers daily on special bus lanes that offer most of the advantages of a subway at a fraction of the cost.

* Built 52 new schools, refurbished 150 others and increased student enrollment by 34 percent.

* Established or improved 1200 parks and playgrounds throughout the city.

* Built three central and 10 neighborhood libraries.

* Built 100 nurseries for children under five.

* Improved life in the slums by providing water service to 100 percent of Bogotá households.

* Bought undeveloped land on the outskirts of the city to prevent real estate speculation and ensured that it will be developed as affordable housing with electrical, sewage, and telephone service as well as space reserved for parks, schools, and greenways.

* Established 300 kilometers of separated bikeways, the largest network in the developing world.

* Created the world’s longest pedestrian street, 17 kilometers (10.5 miles) crossing much of the city as well as a 45– kilometer (28 miles) greenway along a path that had been originally slated for an eight-lane highway.

* Reduced traffic by almost 40 percent by implementing a system where motorists must leave cars at home during rush hour two days a week. He also raised parking fees and local gas taxes, with half of the proceeds going to fund the new bus transit system.

* Inaugurated an annual car-free day, where everyone from CEOs to janitors commuted to work in some way other than a private automobile.

Quality of Life = Common Wealth

All together, these accomplishments boosted the common good in a city characterized by vast disparities of wealth. Peñalosa is passionate in articulating a vision that a city belongs to all its citizens.

David Burwell—a strategic analyst with Project for Public Spaces who has long experience working on environmental, transportation, and community issues—calls Peñalosa, “One of the great public servants of our time. He views cities as being planned for a purpose—to create human well-being. He’s got a great sense of what a leader should do—to promote human happiness.”

Bogota is now held up as an international model for sustainable innovation, even for cities in the developing world. Peñalosa of course, didn’t do this alone. Antanas Mockus, who both preceded and succeeded him as mayor, and Gil Peñalosa, Enrique’s brother, who served as parks commissioner under Mockus, are among the many who deserve credit. Bogota mayors are limited to one consecutive three-year term. Peñalosa ran again for mayor in 2008, losing according to some observers because a leftist opponent also embraced a commons-style agenda, including the promise of a new subway system.

Enrique Peñalosa has become an international star of sorts among green urban designers, so I assumed he was trained as a city planner and inspired by long involvement in the environmental movement. But the truth is that he arrived at these ideas from a completely different direction. “My focus has always been social—how you can help the most people for the greater public good.”

Growing up in the 1960s, when revolutionary fervor swept South America, Peñalosa became an ardent socialist at a young age, advocating income redistribution as the solution to social ills. He studied economics and history at Duke University in the United States, which he attended on a soccer scholarship, and later moved to Paris to earn a doctoral degree in management and public administration. Paris was a marvelous education in the possibilities of urban living, and he returned home with aspirations of bringing European-style city comforts to the working class of Bogotá. Several years working as a business manager moderated his ideological views but not, he hastens to tell me, his quest for social justice.

Thinking about Equality in New Ways

“We live in the post-communism period, in which many have assumed equality as a social goal is obsolete,” he explains. “Although income equality as a concept does not jibe with market economy, we can seek to achieve quality-of-life equality.”

Quality of life is not just a phrase to Peñalosa. He is firmly dedicated to giving everyone in a city more opportunity for recreation, education, transportation and the chance to take pleasure in their surroundings. That explains his emphasis on parks, mass transit, childcare facilities, bikeways, schools, libraries and other forms of the commons that enhance people’s lives. And that focus on serving the disadvantaged extends to public space—which he explains is where poor people who do not have backyards, vacation homes and private clubs tend to hang out.

Peñalosa is proud of how his administration tamed the automobile in Bogota in order to meet the needs of those who do not own cars. Nearly all cities around the globe accommodate motorists at the expense of everyone else, turning the streets—a commons that once was used by everyone, including pedestrians and kids at play—into the exclusive domain of motorists. In the developing world, where only a select portion of people own motor vehicles, this is particularly unfair and detrimental to a sense of community.

The streets were reclaimed for people through policies that used both carrots and sticks. As expected, the sticks—driving bans during rush hour and enforcement of long-ignored laws prohibiting cars on the sidewalks—drew howls of outrage from a small but powerful group of people, who had always treated sidewalks as their own personal parking lot.

“I was almost impeached by the car-owning upper classes,” Peñalosa recalls, “but it was popular with everyone else.”
However, the carrots were embraced by almost everyone. The pedestrian streets, greenways and bike trails he created are well used on weekdays by commuters and on evenings and weekends by recreational bikers and walkers out enjoying the Latin custom of a paseo—an evening stroll.

Streets for People, Not Just Cars

Another hit is the Ciclovía, in which as many as 2 million people (30 percent of the city’s population) take over 120 kilometers of major streets between 7 a.m. and 2 p.m. every Sunday, for bike rides, strolls and public events. This weekly event began in 1976 but was expanded by Peñalosa. It now has spread to numerous Colombian cities as well as San Francisco; Quito, Ecuador; El Paso, Texas; Las Cruces, New Mexico; and is being explored for Chicago, New York, Portland and Melbourne, Australia.

Oscar Edmundo Diaz, senior program director for the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), who was Peñalosa’s chief mayoral aide, proudly notes that even wealthy people who own cars are now enthusiastic users of the BRT. “You don’t want to build a transit system just for the poor,” he counsels. “Otherwise it will be stigmatized, and even poor people will look down on it. If everyone uses it, it will help the poor more.”

Wowed by the success of TransMilenio, six other Colombian cities are developing their own systems. And Peñalosa and Diaz have been very influential in spreading the idea throughout the world. In 2004, Jakarta, Indonesia, inaugurated TransJakarta, a Bogotá-inspired BRT system that now features six lines with three more under construction. Dozens of other cities around the globe have BRT projects under construction or up-and-running, including Hong Kong; Mexico City, Mexico; Johannesburg, South Africa; Taipei, Taiwan; Quito, Ecuador; and Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. The idea is now spreading to cities in developed countries including Sydney, Ottawa, Pittsburgh, and even the city known for decades as the world center of automotive glory, Los Angeles.

It’s not that Peñalosa hates cars. It’s that he loves lively places where people of all backgrounds gather to enjoy themselves—public commons that barely exist in cities where cars rule the streets. These sorts of places are even more important in poor cities than in wealthy ones, he says, because poor people have nowhere else to go.

Urban Sustainability Goes Global

Peñalosa has been taking this message throughout the world in lecture tours sponsored by the World Bank and the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), a New York-based group promoting sustainable transportation in the developing world.
“You cannot overestimate the impact Peñalosa has had, on a personal level, in 10 or 12 countries,” notes Walter Hook, director of ITDP. “He takes these ideas, which can be rather dry, and speaks emotionally about the ways they affect people’s lives. He has the ability to change how people think about cities. He’s a revolution that way.”

“Economics, urban planning, ecology are only the means. Happiness is the goal,” Peñalosa says, summing up his work. “We have a word in Spanish, ganas, which means a burning desire. I have ganas about public life.”

“The least a democratic society should do,” he continues, “is to offer people wonderful public spaces. Public spaces are not a frivolity. They are just as important as hospitals and schools. They create a sense of belonging. This creates a different type of society—a society where people of all income levels meet in public space is a more integrated, socially healthier one.”

This is partly a nostalgia trip. and partly an indictment of the things we have done as a country and as a people over the past fifty years. I hope we are shamed enough to do something about it. We have the capacity and the potential to be great once again.

This is Avenida. Notice the cleanliness and order. Nobody’s wearing slippers. San Miguel was number one. And they’re still number one till now because Filipinos are brand loyal.

Notice the streets and side walks: streets were “shiny”, much like the streets of Singapore and Hong Kong today. People were disciplined. They walked on the side walks and not on the streets. Everything was clean because stores cleaned their own mess.

It was a “walkable” city. People can walk and not be afraid of getting mugged or poisoned by the pollution in the air. Manila (and the philippines) was truly “pearl of the orient”. Oh, and I love how fashionable our people were. We could rival Europe.

I didn’t know our jeepneys were that small. Hehe. Dencia’s was famous for Pansit Mami. Mami sold for P1.50. Coca cola sold for 10 centavos, sarsaparilla was 5 centavos. Dencia’s was very near Villalobos and Carriedo.

Manila was just beautiful. Look at this aerial shot.

This is Dewey Boulevard (what is now Roxas Boulevard) from above. Environment was just so clean, air was refreshing, and take a look at the sea. Pretty right? Some parts of the world are still as clean as this.

And I realized they are all from Asia!

10. Thai Insurance: “Marry Me”

9. Family.Org: “Funeral”

8. Family.Org: “Family”

7. Lenovo: “Always Online”

6. Thai Life Insurance: “I Want More Time”

MAKE SURE TO CLICK ON PAGE 2 OF THIS POST!

This is what we are about. This is the Ateneo Way.

GO TO PART 1 (1–50). PART 2 (51–100).

The story of the Ateneo de Manila will not be complete without mentioning the other Ateneo and Jesuit schools around the country (there are nine as of last count including Ateneo de Manila):

101. The Ateneo de Zamboanga began in 1912 as Escuela Catolica, a parochial school run by Spanish Jesuits at the old site of the Immaculate Conception Church, right across the Sunken Garden. Fr. Manuel Sauras, S.J. was the first director. In 1916, the Escuela Catolica became the Ateneo de Zamboanga.

102. Ateneo de Cagayan or Xavier University in Cagayan de Oro City opened in 1933 with just 17 pupils enrolled in first year high school.

103. At the request of the Most Reverend Luis del Rosario S.J., Bishop of Zamboanga, which then included Davao, the Jesuit Fathers took over St. Peter’s Parochial School and founded the Ateneo de Davao in 1948.

104. The Ateneo de Naga University is a private university in Naga City in the province of Camarines Sur, philippines. It was established in 1940.

105. Sacred Heart School-Jesuit was built in 1954 along Gen. Maxilom Ave., Cebu City. The school transferred to a much bigger campus in Canduman, Mandaue City, Cebu in 2007.

106. In 1958, with nine students as enrollees, Frs. Andrew Joliet, a French Jesuit, and Santiago Leon, a Spanish Jesuit, acting as Founder/Director and Principal respectively, opened a parochial school that came to be known as Sta. Maria Catholic School (SMCS). In 2004, the school officially became known as Ateneo de Iloilo-Sta Maria Catholic School.

107. Founded in 1956 as Kuang Chi School by a group of Jesuits expelled from China, Kuang Chi School opened its doors on June 6 of that year. Kuang Chi School was named after Paul Hsü Kuangchi, Minister of Rites during the Ming Dynasty. Xavier School currently bears the name of St. Francis Xavier.

108. In 1939, the Philippine government recognized and authorized the operation of Culion Catholic Primary School, run by the Jesuits. It The establishment of this first private education institution in Culion, Palawan, was made possible under the auspices of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). It was exclusively for the victims of leprosy, until the mid-50’s, with the enactment of the Liberalization Law for Lepers. The demand for higher learning was the clamor of the time; thus, the school was expanded by having a secondary education. Consequently, from 1951 to 1955, it was named St. Ignatius High School. In 1962, it was elevated to an academy, thus, was renamed St. Ignatius Academy. And later on, with the establishment of a College, it was named St. Ignatius College, but was changed later to its present name, Loyola College of Culion.

109. Jesuit educational institutions in the Philippines which are no longer existing:

• Ateneo de San Pablo: San Pablo, Laguna. Founded 1947. Closed 1978.
• Ateneo de Tuguegarao: Tuguegarao, Cagayan. Founded 1945. Closed 1962.
• Berchmans College of Cebu: Cebu City. Founded 1949. Closed 1963.
• Immaculate Conception School: Ozamiz, Misamis Occidental. Founded 1929. Closed 1939
• Colegio de San Ildefonso: Cebu City. Founded 1595. Closed 1769
• Universidad de San Ignacio: Manila. Founded 1590. Closed 1768

[110–111 are notes from Lamberto J.V. Tajonera, G.S. 54, H.S. 58, A.B. 62]

110. 1948–1954: The Age of Innocence: “We stand on the hill…”

We started our Ateneo education in 1948 as Grade One pupils corralled into two sections, section A under Mr. Florendo Garcia and section B under Mr. Jesus Villanueva.

For the next six years of our lives we would wear khaki pants, white shirts with the “Lux in Domino” patch sewn on our left breast pockets. In our hip pockets were two important items: our rosary beads and 25 centavos which took care of our hot dog sandwich and Coke, or Clicquot Club during recess time. In October, our school uniform included the compulsory October medal.

In our innocence, we believed the Padre Faura ruins were the coolest playground for our fantasies. We fought with John Wayne in Iwo Jima before he was shot and killed. We were cowboys chasing and being chased by Cochise and a horde of Apaches. We helped Errol Flynn rout Blackbeard and his pirates. It wasn’t the ruins. It was our imagination.

We believed that Acme Supermarket was created for our comic-reading pleasure and bubble gum-chewing delight, for free. We would dash to Acme during recess, speed-read the latest Captain Marvel and Superman comics, pocket a Tootsie Roll or Double Bubble gum when the salesclerk wasn’t looking and then dash back to school and brag about our loot. Some would swap a Tootsie Roll for 5 sigays and 10 teks and 5 balimbing marbles. Some would simply sell a Roll for 5 centavos.

We believed that our schoolmates who felt Father Maximo David’s “yantok Mindoro” on their butts were the real tough guys in the Ateneo. As a badge of honor, these “toughies” would walk around massaging their butts even long after the pain had gone.

We believed that Luis “Moro” Lorenzo was the best basketball player in the world as we watched him take practice shots in the sawali-walled gym. We would look in awe as Poch Estella, Oli Orbeta, Rusty Cacho and Chole Gaston scrimmaged.

We believed everything taught us in religion class and pitied our Chinese classmates who would never go to heaven because we thought they were not Catholic.

111. In those days, life was simple. We saw life as either black or white, mortal sin or sanctifying grace, good or bad, angel or devil. Our eyesight was a perfect 20/20, and sharp. We believed our eyesight would never dim with age because we would be forever young.

We were also sure that the 1953–54 Blue Eagles of Tiny Literal, Bay Ballesteros and Frankie Rabat would win the NCAA championship and beat the San Beda Red Lions of Caloy Loyzaga and Loreto Carbonnel. And our guys won — because our nightly prayers and weekly masses did it. Our basic belief: Ateneo had to win or God did not love us.

Black and white. We never saw the other tones, the subtle shades of gray. After all, we were young, and young meant pure of heart. We were uncompromising. We were resolute. And by golly, we were more zealous than Saul of Tarsus. We were virtuous and innocent, euphemisms for naïve and inexperienced. So what. That was our right.

We possessed a moral certainty and smugness still unblemished, untouched and untried by the sorrows and ugliness of the real world. We were above it all. We were standing on the hill. We were the last grade school graduating class in the Padre Faura campus in 1954, and we were ready to go down, nay, to gallop and romp down the hill like Hopalong Cassidy and the Lone Ranger to combat the challenges and unknowns of our high school years. And we did.

1958. It was the year we graduated from high school. That made us the last high school graduates of the Ateneo’s first century. Those four years of our lives opened our eyes to God’s most exquisitely inspired creation, girls our age. Our eyes opened wider in wonderment when we were told by our Student Counselors that we were going through a phase called puberty.

We were like Adam and Eve when they discovered — first the apple, then each other, then the pleasurable knowledge of each other and finally, the necessity for the fig leaves. Like Adam and Eve, we never knew what puberty was. We just felt it. And many of us acted on it with alacrity and pleasure.

Our first two years in high school were spent in today’s College campus where we had a clear view of Katipunan Avenue, the Pink House, Eagle’s Nest and St. Joseph’s Hall. No buildings obstructed our view then. In our junior year, we transferred to the high school campus overlooking Marikina Valley and the rooftops of bawdy houses in Calumpang.

In our first and second years, we learned our Latin declensions and conjugations as we chanted the mantra of “a ae ae am a, ae arum is as is” and then struggled through Caesar’s Gallic battles. In junior and senior years, we went on to Cicero and even now, we still remember “Quo usque tandem abutere Catilina patientia nostra…” The more advanced guys in honors class were into Virgil’s “Arma virumque cano Trojae…” We hated this dead language then, but Latin in later years helped us in logical thinking and expanded our English vocabulary.

113. As a part of our memory trove of those days, this is what our parents spent for our 4th year in high school (1958):

Annual tuition – P 300.00
Laboratory Fees – 40.00
Diploma Fee – 10.00
Textbook Rental – 25.00
Activities Fee – 40.00
Blue Book – 15.00
Locker Fee – 5.00
Total expenses for the year – P 435.00

Our children will be crying over their latte when they compare 435-pesos with 100,000 pesos for our grandchildren’s high school education, with no Latin.

We were between two worlds – the world of grade school child-like innocence where swiping a wad of bubble gum from Acme Supermarket was the acme of adventure, and the world of high school “sophistication” and experimentation — girls, smoking, drinking, first dance, first kiss, fake sideburns, low-waist pants, blue movies, live shows.

114. For teachers and mentors, we had Mr. Dimasangal and his memorable “Que mas, balasubas?” and laughed at Mr. Alinea’s Tampolano stories, and oohed at Mr. Pagsanghan’s dramatic reading of Father de la Costa’s “Jewels of the Pauper” which everybody had to memorize.

Mr. Ocampo, a.k.a. GRO, implanted in our brains his own jewels of knowledge which many of us still remember, Alzheimer’s or old age notwithstanding. We still remember GRO jewels like: easy to remember memory aid on the 11 phyla in Biology class – PP-CC-PN-AAMEC, and M VEM J SUN P for the planets of our solar system in correct sequence, and his classic Tagalog pronunciation of the alphabet as in the rhythmic “Ka In Na, Ta In Na, Kintin,” and “Ba O, Ta E – bote.”

115. We felt pious and sinful at the same time. We always had an unexplained tingle in our bodies whenever we saw photos of Rita Hayworth, Kim Novak and Marilyn Monroe showing more skin than clothes. We’d go ape over Rhonda Fleming’s exposed thighs.

At night we entertained dozens of excitingly impure thoughts until our Catholic conscience made us feel guilty. We knew confession was the only way to avoid hell. So with the exception of Grupo58’s sodalists and acolytes, 95% of us confessed to either Father Eliazo or Father Pollock, and these two Jesuits, in their wisdom, always saved us from hell with a penance of three Hail Marys, no matter how often we disobeyed the sixth commandment.

The bargain-priced penance would never be enjoyed by non-Ateneans of our days, making Grupo58 a lucky bunch of habitual sinners indeed. This would go on week after week, a spiritual cycle of Passion, Death and Resurrection, sin and forgiveness, hell and heaven, impure thoughts and confession, the two beloved Jesuits and their penance of three Hail Marys and voila, salvation. Alleluia.

In the athletic world, the 1957–58 Blue Eagles, led by Bobby Littaua, Jimmy Pestano and Ed Ocampo, steamrolled all the NCAA teams and made mincemeat of the Mapua Cardinals in the final game to nail that year’s NCAA championship. We even believed that our graduation years were Ateneo’s lucky years in basketball. First it was 1954, now 1958. Our college graduation year in 1962 was sure to bring us the championship. That, we firmly believed. So, it shall be done.

GO TO PART 1 (First 50). PART 3 (101–150).

GO TO PART 1 (First 50). PART 3 (101–150).

51. Philosophy and Theology. They say you can’t consider yourself an Atenean if you have not gone through Philo and Theo. These subjects also “spawn” (hehe) the most beloved teachers in the college partly because the subject itself is great but also because the teachers are great themselves: Padre, Ediboy, Gus, Tonette, Leo Garcia, (add your favorite Philo teacher here), Fr. Dacanay, BobbyGuev, (add your favorite Theo teacher here).

Ateneo will not be the same without the experience of Philo and Theo.

52. By-words and catchy terms: “We Believe”, “Ang Sarap Maging Atenista”, “Iba ang Dugong Bughaw”, “Nobody does it the way we do it”, “Win or Lose It’s The School We Choose”, etc. These phrases may sound cliche-ic, but they’re easy to remember and encapsulate so many things about our experiences inside the Ateneo.

53. Ateneo de Manila University Vision-Mission Statement

As a University, the Ateneo de Manila seeks to preserve, extend, and communicate truth and apply it to human development and the preservation of the environment.

As a Filipino University, the Ateneo de Manila seeks to identify and enrich Philippine culture and make its own. Through the education of the whole person and the formation of needed professionals and through various corporate activities, the University aims to contribute to the development goals of the nation.

As a Catholic University, the Ateneo de Manila seeks to form persons who, following the teachings and example of Christ, will devote their lives to the service of others and, through the promotion of justice, serve especially those who are most in need of help, the poor and the powerless. Loyal to the teachings of the Catholic Church, the University seeks to serve the Faith and to interpret its teachings to modern Philippine society.

As a Jesuit University, the Ateneo de Manila seeks the goals of Jesuit liberal education through the harmonious development of moral and intellectual virtues. Imbued with the Ignatian spirit, the University aims to lead its students to see God in all things and to strive for the greater glory of God and the greater service of mankind.

The University seeks all these, as an academic community, through the exercise of the functions proper to a university, that is, through teaching, research and service to the community.

54. The Ateneo Seals (long format).

This seal was introduced for the 50th Anniversary or Golden Jubilee of the Ateneo de Manila. Father Joaquin Añon, SJ (1905 — 1910) was then the Rector.

Granted to the Ateneo in 1909, the seal was circular in form framed by two semi-circular ribbons. The upper ribbon of the Ateneo seal bore the motto “Lux in Domino” — Light in the Lord, a phrase taken from St. Paul. The lower ribbon bore the school’s name: Ateneo de Manila.

Within the circular frame, upon a gold background, was a large silver star, six-pointed like the Star of David. This was the emblem of Mary, Mother of God, of the House of David, Patroness of the philippines and of the Ateneo.

Encased in the center of this silver star was the oval escutcheon of Manila, which had been granted to the City in 1596 by King Philip II of Spain with an oval shield divided (as the heraldic experts would say) “per fesse”: that is, it was divided horizontally into two portions. The upper portion showed a castle or battlemented tower on a red field. The lower portion was blue (signifying the ocean) upon which swam a golden animal with the head of a lion and the body and tail of a dolphin. This sea-lion brandished a sword in its right paw. Surcharged upon the Manila escutcheon was the emblem of the Jesuits: a tiny green shield upon which was a white (or silver) circle containing the letters IHS — the first three letters of the Name of Jesus in Greek.

Father Richard A. O’Brien, SJ who was a Marine Officer and Chaplain was Rector for the period 1927 to 1933. Possibly as part of his preparations for the Diamond Jubilee of the Ateneo, he introduced the use of the seal of the Soldier-Saint Ignatius Loyola in 1929.

Like the seal of 1909, this seal is circular in shape, with the identical border: “Lux in Domino” on top and “Ateneo de Manila” below. Jesuit monogram — IHS is contained in a circular sun emitting rays in every direction. Under this sun is a shield divided “in pale” into two parts.

On the dexter or right side (but to the left of the beholder) is a bendy of fifteen pieces, alternating in color, red and gold. On the sinister or left side (but to the right of the beholder) is a white field upon which are the wolves and pot (lobos y olla) of Loyola. The wolves are standing on their hind legs, reaching with their forepaws for the pot which hangs from the ceiling. Tradition tells us that this was an emblem of generosity: the lords of Loyola used to provide so much food for their followers that there would be plenty left over in the pot to feed the wolves of the countryside.

In 1952, under the direction of the Father Rector James J. McMahon, SJ (1950–1956), the Ateneo’s College and High School Departments transferred from Padre Faura to Loyola Heights. In 1959 when Ateneo was celebrating its centenary at the Loyola Heights campus, it was decided during the tenure of Father Rector Francisco Araneta, SJ (1959–1965) to combine the old seal (1909) with the new one (1929) — to synthesize the past with the present. Since then, this joint seal has been used as official seal of the University, together with the 1929 seal originating from the family of St. Ignatius Loyola.

55. Information Technology. In February 1978, the Ateneo opened the Ateneo-Univac Computer Technology Center, one of the country’s pioneering computer centers. This later became the Ateneo Computer Technology Center.

In 1994, the Ateneo was one of the first Philippine schools on the Internet, and was part of the conference that connected the Philippines to the world wide web. In 1996 the Ateneo relaunched the Ateneo Computer Technology Center as the Ateneo Information Technology Institute.

56. The Big Three: ACLC, ACIL and ATSCA. These are three of the oldest orgs in the Ateneo and were known as the Big Three. They have the longest history among the orgs in the Ateneo, and were core members to what was known as the Socially Oriented Activities (SOA) Cluster of the Ateneo (the present crop of students don’t have SOA anymore). They used to be stationed in the old Colayco Hall before it was torn down. Now they have their own rooms in the new Org building in the MVP Center.

Tina Montiel and Susan Evangelista, in their book Down from the Hill: Ateneo de Manila in the First Ten Years under Martial Law mentioned the critical role of the three orgs during Martial Law:

“According to alumni members of the student orgs, Jesuit Fathers Noel Vasquez, Francis Reilly, Pasquale Giordano, Paul Limgenco and Raul Bonoan were among the moderators who spearheaded the efforts to revive the three organizations. They (also) personally invited their students to join (or rejoin) these organizations. Their mentoring were instrumental to the growth of these organizations from 1973–1982.”

“The students heeded the call heeded the call to join these orgs for a variety of reasons…and the formation programs made a lasting impact on them. In many instances, the commitment to social change continued beyond their student years and extended into their professional lives.”

57. Jesuit Volunteers Philippines. JVP is a community dedicated to the task of nation-building by promoting volunteerism and rendering faith-driven service. It recruits, trains, forms, and sends young men and women volunteers to work in under-resourced schools, non-government organizations and parishes all over the country for at least one year. The JVP community provides the youth with the support and opportunity to engage in meaningful relationships that will fuel their drive to serve.

Birthed in the 1970’s, grown through the 1980’s. Men and women for others. This was the challenge posed by Jesuit educators to their graduates in the different universities. However, in the late 1970s, their options were rather limited because of martial law. The government held little hope for such persons and non-government organizations (NGOs) were not yet in fashion. For those coming from the Ateneo de Manila, the summer work camp was offered but this was only for two months. The question then was what to do and where to go.

However, this concern did not go unnoticed. Fr. Joaquin Bernas, SJ, then provincial of the Society of Jesus in the Philippines, and Fr. William Kreutz, SJ, then the college chaplain of the Ateneo de Manila University, considered this in a lunch meeting they had in Washington, DC. They discussed the possibility of setting up a program for those interested to do service and agreed to get information on a similar program, Jesuit Volunteer Corps. Upon returning to the Philippines, Fr. Kreutz consulted with the other Jesuits that eventually led to the birth of the Jesuit Volunteers Philippines (JVP).

With then scholastics Noel Vasquez, Jemy See, and Victor Labao to help Fr. Kreutz run the program, nine volunteers were sent in June 1980 to the different Jesuit mission areas in Mindanao. Of these, seven were graduates of the University while two were graduates of the Holy Spirit College. There was no special training, no preparations. They were the first who boldly left everything behind and had that fire in their hearts to offer service to others.

The first batches of volunteers were sent to assist the Jesuits in rural parishes in Bukidnon as well as special programs in other Jesuit schools in Cagayan de Oro City, Davao City, Zamboanga City, and Naga City. But as years went by, JVP was no longer confined to the different Jesuit mission areas in Mindanao but to non-Jesuit and non-sectarian apostolates in the different parts of the country as well. It developed into a lay organization of young men and women who assist in social, pastoral, and development work of missions, apostolates, NGOs, schools, and social development agencies. The program became more well-known as an alternative career.

58. Admission Statistics. The Ateneo receives thousands of applications every year. Applications from foreigners to the college and graduate school programs are quite common. In 2005, the Loyola Schools admitted 2,023 freshmen, a figure larger than the projected average of 1,800 freshmen from recent years. 20% of the entering class was composed of valedictorians (83), salutatorians (62), and honorable mention graduates.

59. Tambayans. Ateneo won’t be complete without its tambayans.

“Part of the atmosphere and the culture is TAMBAY. Tambay means to sit around with your friends, groupmates, classmates, blockmates, orgmates, course mates. So that one of the first things people will ask you if you do get to study there is: saan ka nagtatambay? That means, where do you spend your free time in school? Where are you accepted? From what group are you?

My point is that it is this sense of tambay—of learning things outside the 4 walls of the classroom, of not being too consumed by school work makes the experience of studying in the Ateneo very enriching.” [Eric Santillan, Life at the Ateneo]

And the tambayans (and the people who are in them) have been christened names with their own characteristic: Dog House, Assoc, Pink House, Cono Bench, “the Admin Kids” (really the bench in Xavier Hall), RSF, Mecolayco (but there’s no Colayco anymore :( ), Snake Pit, Berch’s Boys and Girls, and then there are the kids who make “tambay” in the library to study.

Tambay is one of those experiences that makes the Ateneo experience complete.

60. Pocket gardens. A fairly recent Ateneo phenomenon, the pocket gardens (or SPG–Smoker’s Pocket Gardens or the more cutesy name: Smocket Gardens) were made around the year 2000 when the Ateneo college became a smoke-free campus. The compromise are these beautifully designed pocket gardens for smokers.

Oh, and there’s even a Smoker’s Pocket Garden Profile in Friendster (sorry, could not find a similar one in FB).

61. Theater in the Ateneo. Mr. Pagsi remembers 1941 vividly. Not only was it the year he was admitted to the Ateneo in Padre Faura as a high school freshman at the age of 14, it was also the year he saw his very first play. The play was “Who Ride on White Horses,” which told the story of St. Edmund Campion, one of the very first Jesuit missionaries sent to England during Elizabethan times. It was directed by Fr. James B. Reuter and Fr. Horacio de la Costa, then two young Jesuit scholastics, and staged at the grand Ateneo auditorium, touted as “the finest auditorium in the Far East” in those times.

It is said that the Ateneo productions in those times, although performed by an all-male cast, were social events often graced not only by Manila’s elite but also by American governors general and Filipino politicians. After that night, the seed of dramatic arts has been forever planted in Pagsi’s heart. Only briefly did his passion for theater take a respite – when the war broke out and the Ateneo at Padre Faura had to close down, but not before the traditional December 8 Mass had been celebrated, amid the drone of combat helicopters. [From Sibol’s Journey: From Shylock to Serapio]

62. Fr. Henry Lee Irwin. It was July 1946, about one and a half years after its brief harbor at Plaza Guipit, when Ateneo reopened at Padre Faura. The resurrected campus was also dubbed the “Ateneo-Quonset huts” because two dozen of the semi-cylindrical structures, originally manufactured for the US Navy, were used in place of classrooms and even the chapel. The once great Ateneo edifices – the Manila Observatory, the Mission House, the St. Ignatius Church and the famed Ateneo Auditorium – were all in shambles.

But drama in the Ateneo remained very strong. When he was in college, Mr. Pagsi recalls, there would be a dramatic night for each year level and all the productions were Shakespearean plays. “The Tragedy of Julius Caesar,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “Romeo and Juliet,” and “Othello” were among the memorable plays then. Each group strived to put on a quality production in spite of the tight budget. But perhaps one of the most effective teachers on resourcefulness was Fr. Henry Lee Irwin.

“For me, Father Irwin is not a building; he was my teacher and I learned much from him,” says Mr. Pagsi. From scraping off the left-over lipstick from its tube to writing on the clean side of a used sheet of paper, Fr. Irwin showed his students by example how to use everything as wisely as they possibly could. His ingenuity was brought into play again when he directed a post-war production of “Hamlet,” in which he transformed the very ruins of the Ateneo, with its majestic arches, into the Castle of Elsinore. It helped too that he had excellent orators in the cast in the persons of Teofisto Guingona (Hamlet) and Vic Silayan (Ghost). [From Mr. Onofre Pagsanghan on Fr. Henry Lee Irwin]

63. Sibol. In 1956, Mr. Pagsi earned the nod of the principal to organize the high school’s own drama club, the Ateneo High School Dramatics Society, and became its moderator. Although the club debuted with “MacBeth,” “The Merchant of Venice” was its first major production in 1957, starring a brilliant Noel Trinidad as Shylock.

It was in 1966 when the name “Dulaang Sibol” became official. The move to change the name of the drama club to something Filipino was a response to the stirrings of nationalism that started to be felt by many sectors of society in the late 1950s. The first two Filipino productions of Sibol were “Paa ng Kuwago,” Soc Rodrigo’s adaptation of an English short story, and “Sino Ba Kayo?” By Julian Balmaceda. Soon after, the group was adapting other works to Filipino – J.M. Barrie’s “Dear Brutus” became “Wala sa Ating Mga Bituin” and Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” was adapted into “Doon Po Sa Amin.” Mr. Pagsi, a great motivator, also succeeded in turning his students into his co-authors, and together they turned out plays which have become classics and staples of every Dulaang Sibol season: “Adarna,” “Sa Kaharian ng Araw” and “Sinta.” By then, Sibol started collaborating with neighboring girls’ schools Miriam and St. Bridget’s in order to tap female talents for its plays.

However, Pagsi’s indefatigable work of coaxing out the collective talents of his students was to bear even more precious fruit. In his lifetime, he has mentored some of the country’s most admired leaders and artists, such as Jim Paredes, Noel Trinidad, Subas Herrero, Johnny Manahan, Leo Martinez, Basil Valdez, and Jun Urbano.

He is particularly proud to have been a teacher to the creative geniuses behind two of the most enduring contributions to the Philippine music and theater scene springing from the ranks of high school students. One of these “geniuses” he says is Manuel (Manoling) Francisco (GS: 1979; HS: 1983; Coll: 1990; PostGrad: 1999) who set to music the prize-winning liturgical composition “Hindi Kita Malilimutan” when he was but a high school freshman. A member of the Society of Jesus, Father Manoling is co-founder of Bukas Palad Music Ministry and composer of numerous popular liturgical songs.

The other is Paul Dumol (GS: 1965; HS: 1969; Coll: 1973) whose masterpiece, “Ang Paglilitis ni Mang Serapio,” won the second Paglisahang Pandulaan in 1968, when he was in fourth year high school. “Serapio” is touted as the first Filipino modernist play and the most frequently staged Filipino one-act play of all time. Dumol is also credited for two other important Filipino plays: “Ang Puting Timamanukin,” critically acclaimed as the first major breakthrough in the writing of Philippine theater, and “Ibong Adarna,” which he wrote when he was in the Ateneo Grade School. [From Sibol’s Journey: From Shylock to Serapio]

64. Ang Paglilitis ni Mang Serapio. One of the best plays to ever come out of the mind of an Atenean.

“Dulaang Sibol and Mr. Pagsi consider “Serapio” as their passion play, not unlike the passion plays that were traditionally performed in the glory days of the Ateneo auditorium. And it has traveled across every kind of stage, from the grand Cultural Center of the Philippines, to the lowly streets of Balic-Balic.”

“We see Serapio as the Christ image. He dares to be different, he dares to love in a society that forbids love. Paul Dumol says that no one is as poor as the people who cannot love because they are forbidden to love,” Mr. Pagsi elucidates.

He adds that every aspect of the play is thus carefully conceptualized and executed – from the design of the three kinds of crosses in the backdrop, to the inclusion of the “passion” elements in the various scenes: the agony of solitude, the betrayal, the bearing of false witness, the scourging, the stripping, and finally the crucifixion (gouging out of the eyes). The director also adds a touch by including in the cruelest moment of the play a Gregorian chant that translates to: “Where there is love, there God is and when there is no love, where is God?”

In closing, Mr. Pagsi shares with his audience an experience in another performance of “Serapio” that starred Cholo Malillin years ago. He narrates that when Cholo was asked during the open forum why he chose to be in the play even if he had to be slapped and hurt repeatedly at each performance, the young actor gestured towards the crucifix at the back of the theater and uttered, “Because…”

To his young audience (and their parents) Pagsi then turns and asks, “What is your ‘because’?” [By Gia Damaso-Dumo]

65. Sinta The ultimate play for holding hands. And I think it is the longest running play in the Philippines as well.

The story is told, part of urban legend and Sibol folk lore, of a time when a couple watched Sinta with their three children. When the play began, the children sat between them in the intimate theater of Tanghalang Onofre Pagsanghan. By the second act though, the husband had sig­nalled the children to make way for their mother to sit beside him. And they remained seated beside each other, holding hands for the rest of the play.

The story is told more convincingly and more beautifully by Mr. Pagsi himself of course, so you have to watch it yourself.

GO TO PART 2 (51–100). PART 3 (101–150).

1. The Name. The name Ateneo is the Spanish form of Atheneum, which the Dictionary of Classical Antiquities defines as “the first educational institution in Rome” where “rhetoricians and poets held their recitations.” He further explains that Hadrian’s Roman school drew its title from a Greek temple dedicated to Athena, the goddess of wisdom, where the Encyclopedia Britannica says “poets and men of learning were accustomed to meet and read their productions.”

2. The Ateneo became a university on December 11, 1959, its centennial year.

3. The seal. The central symbol of the Ateneo de Manila seal is the shield of Onaz-Loyola, a device used by many Jesuit organizations. In heraldic terms, the shield may be blazoned thus: Party per pale: Or, seven bendlets Gules; Argent, a two-eared pot hanging on a chain between two wolves rampant. In plain English, the shield is gold, divided vertically. To the viewer’s left is a red and gold bendy of seven pairs—seven red bars on a field of gold—the arms of Onaz given in honor of the seven heroes of the family who fought with the Spaniards against 70,000 French, Navarrese, and Gascons. To the right is a white or silver field with the arms of Loyola: a two-eared pot hanging by hooks on a chain flanked by two rampant wolves, also symbols of the ricos hominess or nobility. The name Loyola itself is a contraction of lobos y alla, wolves and pot. The Loyolas were reputed to have provided so well for their own that they could afford to feed wild wolves.

4. The Motto. Lux in Domino (“Light in the Lord”, the Ateneo’s motto, is not the school’s original motto. The Escuela Municipal’s 1859 motto was Al merito y a la virtud (“In Merit and in Virtue”). This motto persisted through the school’s renaming in 1865 and in 1901.

5. The colors. The Ateneo has adopted blue and white, the colors of Our Lady, as its own school colors. The school colors are therefore signs of the Ateneo’s devotion to Mary and its commitment to become, like her, a constantly true and faithful servant of the Lord.

Marian blue, or ultramarine, is the purest and most enduring of blues. It is also the rarest and most expensive of pigments, and exceeds gold in value. The color must be extracted in tiny amounts from crushed lapis lazuli, a gem. Medieval artists therefore reserved blue for the robes of the Virgin and the Child Jesus.

White is also the color of Mary, conceived without sin and clothed with the sun. It is at once colorless and yet bears the entire spectrum of color. White is the color of openness, truth, purity, and hope.

6. The Blue Eagle. The Ateneo adopted the eagle as its mascot in the late ‘30s. The choice of mascot held iconic significance. It was a reference to the “high-flying” basketball team which would “sweep the fields away;” the dominating force in the NCAA. Furthermore, there was some mythological—even political—significance to the eagle as a symbol of power.

The eagle also appears in the standards of many organizations, schools, as nations as a guardian of freedom and truth. It is also worthwhile to note that the national bird of the philippines is an eagle as well.

The eagle is also often seen as a bird of God, the only bird that could fly above the clouds and stare directly at the sun. In fact, the eagle represents St. John, the Evangelist, in honor of the soaring spirit and penetrating vision of his gospel.

7. Before the Ateneo. The first Spanish Jesuits arrived in the country in 1581. While primarily missionaries, they were also custodians of the ratio studiorum, the system of Jesuit education formulated about 1559. In 1590, they founded one of the first colleges in the Philippines, the Colegio de Manila (also known as the Colegio Seminario de San Ignacio) under the leadership of Antonio Sedeño, S.J. The school formally opened in 1595.

8. In 1621, Pope Gregory XV, through the archbishop of Manila, authorized the San Ignacio to confer degrees in theology and the arts. Two years later, King Philip IV of Spain confirmed this authorization, making the school a royal and a pontifical university, the very first university in the Philippines and in Asia!

9. After the Jesuit Suppression in 1773, the Jesuits would return to the Philippines a century after. Authorized by a royal decree of 1852, ten Spanish Jesuits arrived in Manila on April 14, 1859. This Jesuit mission was sent mainly for missionary work in Mindanao and Jolo. However, despite almost a century away from the Philippines, the Jesuits’ reputation as educators remained entrenched in the minds of Manila’s leaders. On August 5, the ayuntamiento or city council requested the Governor-General for a Jesuit school financed by public money.

On October 1, 1859, the Governor-General authorized the Jesuits to take over the Escuela Municipal, then a small private school maintained for 30 children of Spanish residents. Partly subsidized by the ayuntamiento, it was the only primary school in Manila at the time. Under the Jesuits, the Escuela eventually became the Ateneo Municipal de Manila in 1865 when it was elevated to an institution of secondary education. The Ateneo Municipal offered the bachillerato as well as technical courses leading to certificates in agriculture, surveying, and business.

American Jesuits took over administration in 1921. In 1932, under Fr. Richard O’Brien, third American rector, the Ateneo transferred to Padre Faura after a fire destroyed the Intramuros campus.

11. Devastation hit the Ateneo campus once again during World War II. Only one structure remained standing – the statue of St. Joseph and the Child Jesus which now stands in front of the Jesuit Residence in the Loyola Heights campus. Ironwork and statuary salvaged from the Ateneo ruins have since been incorporated into various existing Ateneo buildings. Some examples are the Ateneo monograms on the gates of the Loyola Heights campus, the iron grillwork on the ground floor of Xavier Hall, and the statue of the Immaculate Conception displayed at the University archives.

But even if the Ateneo campus had been destroyed, the university survived. Following the American liberation, the Ateneo de Manila reopened temporarily in Plaza Guipit in Sampaloc. The Padre Faura campus reopened in 1946 with Quonset huts serving as buildings among the campus ruins.

12. In 1952, the university, led by Fr. William Masterson, S.J. moved most of its units to its present Loyola Heights campus. (See Loyola Heights and Fr. Masterson below). The Padre Faura campus continued to house the professional schools until 1976.

13. The first Filipino rector, Fr. Francisco Araneta, S.J. was appointed in 1958. And in 1959, its centennial year, the Ateneo became a university.

14. The Padre Faura campus was closed in 1976. A year after, the University opened a new campus for its professional schools in Salcedo Village, in the bustling business district of Makati. In October 1998, the University completed construction of a bigger site of the Ateneo Professional Schools at Rockwell, also in Makati.

15. Jose Rizal. Some call him the greatest Filipino who ever lived. He was one of nine hailed as sobresaliente in his graduating class of twelve from the Ateneo Municipal. He loved the Ateneo. Walking to his death by firing squad in Bagumbayan (what is now Luneta), he was supposed to have asked the Jesuit fathers who were marching with him if the school they were passing through was the Ateneo Municipal. When he learned that it is, he said, “I spent so many happy years there.” Like Rizal, I think we can also say the same thing every time we pass through the Ateneo of our times in Katipunan. “I spent so many happy years there.”

In Loving Memory
URL: http://inlovingmemory2009.blogspot.com/

This site is an interactive art project by a good friend of mine (and member of my barkada, the Wednesday Group) Fr. Jason Dy, SJ. He’s a great artist, and you might want to check out his website, BatikBatik na Kariktan (the title is a Filipinization of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem Pied Beauty).

The concept is simple, and is explained here:

Open Call
for parishioners of Sacred Heart Parish
both artists and non-artists

IN LOVING MEMORY
Bottled Memories of Our Beloved Dead

An interactive art exhibit
for parishioners of Sacred Heart Parish
both artists and non-artists
in the month of November

a way of remembering
our beloved dead
using empty recycled bottles
and sharing these bottled memories
for the living to honor and cherish.

November 7–30, 2009

November 7, 2009 Opening Ceremonies
November 13, 20, 27, 2009 Bottled Memory Testimonials
November 30 Closing Ceremonies

Sacred Heart Parish
242 D. Jakosalem St.,
Cebu City, philippines

Guidelines for submission:
1.Get your empty recycled bottles in the Sacred Heart Parish Office. Limited bottles only. If we ran out of bottles, you may use your own empty recycled bottle of Sola Iced Tea. No other type of bottle is allowed.
2.Creatively use the bottle as a commemorative object of your beloved dead and/or put commemorative objects of your beloved dead e.g. photographs, mementos, cards, letters, prayers, etc. inside the bottle.
3.Write a brief description of your bottled memory of your beloved dead.
4.Sign your bottles by writing your name and contact numbers at the bottom of the bottles.
5.Submit your bottled memories to

Sacred Heart Parish
242 D. Jakosalem St.,
Cebu City, Philippines
253.6479; 253.4359
254.4359; 254.3950
255.1149; 255.6336 (fax)

sacred_heartchurch@yahoo.com
inlovingmemory2009@gmail.com

6.Deadline of submission is on or before October 29, 2009, Thursday.
7.Each submitted bottled memory will be posted at http://inlovingmemory2009.blogspot.com/.
8.After the exhibit, all bottled memories are returned to the owners.
9.They are encouraged to display the bottled memories of their beloved dead in a suitable place within the home or office.
10.For more information, please contact:
Fr. Jason K. Dy, SJ (project curator)
dyjask@yahoo.com

Check out what has been submitted so far!

This one I got from the Business Mirror. My work constantly reiterates how there are really no such things as accidents. “Accidents”, as we know them, are really due to many man-made factors: lack of training, a lack of systems, or procedures to follow, and/or plain old stupidity. This is one of those things. 32 years ago, there was a study that showed how Marikina is unsuitable for development.

We did not listen to that study. And so it is proven for the nth time, there really are no accidents.

Government study foresaw flood–Palafox
http://businessmirror.com.ph/home/top-news/16610-government-study-foresaw-floodpalafox.html

THE government was warned 32 years ago that ceding control of urban development may have adverse consequences, such as the devastation experienced by the metropolis on Saturday.

“Some are saying it’s [the flooding of key Metropolitan Manila areas] an act of God. It’s not. It’s neglect on the part of the government,” architect Felino Palafox Jr. told the BusinessMirror on Monday as casualties of Typhoon Ondoy grew to more than a hundred dead and thousands of people displaced.

In the document sent by Palafox, the Metro Manila Transport, Land Use and Development Planning Project (Mmetroplan) already cited the Marikina Valley as among the areas deemed “unsuitable for development.”

The area that includes the city of Marikina were among those that sustained the most damage, according to news reports. In one hard-hit site alone, Provident Village, TV reports said 58 bodies had already been recovered, presumably people who never had time to leave their homes as floodwaters rose too quickly.

“Development should be restricted by the application of controls in three major areas—in the Marikina Valley, the western shores of Laguna de Bay, and the Manila Bay coastal area to the north of Manila,” said the report submitted in July 1977 to then-Public Works and Highways chief Alfredo Juinio.

“We’ve told government all along [that] this would happen because of the flooding [in] the same month in 1970,” Palafox said.

He said he was working for the government then when he and a group of researchers undertook this World Bank-funded study on a land-use plan that was finalized by Hong Kong-based consulting firm Freeman Fox and Associates.

Palafox cited a recommendation from the study that the government should monitor the Marikina Riverbank so that the water would not reach 90 meters. Likewise, no structure should have been allowed within nine meters from the riverbank, he added.

“Dahil hindi sinunod ’yun, parang massacre ang nangyari [Because the recommendation was not heeded, what occurred was virtually a massacre],” he said.

The three-volume report also noted that “urban development is spreading into [these] areas which are, in their present state, unsuitable for development—either because they are low-lying and liable to flooding, or because development is without adequate facilities for the treatment and disposal of sewage [the norm in Manila] and so will continue to contribute to the severe pollution of areas, such as Laguna de Bay.”

The study added: “The unsuitable areas for development, where pressures are nevertheless considerable, are primarily the flat coastal areas to the north where extensive areas are liable to flooding and where increased pressures for reclamation are likely to further exacerbate this problem.”

Another is “the Marikina Valley, to the east, where the land is liable to flooding and where development with inadequate provision for the treatment and disposal of sewage is contributing to the severe pollution of Laguna de Bay and where flooding is a problem in the adjacent areas.”

Finally, the study said the pressure for development, but requiring control, includes “the western shores of Laguna de Bay where development without adequate facilities for the treatment and disposal of sewage is contributing to the severe pollution of Laguna de Bay and where flooding is a problem in the adjacent areas.”

“In order to avoid development contributing to longer-term flooding and water pollution, it is necessary that the short-term development is restricted in these areas. Only when remedial measures to deal with the problems have been implemented, should the development of these areas proceed on a significant scale,” the study said.

“Lessons are to be learned, for sure, but these have been taught three decades ago,” Palafox said.

NO HOLDS BARRED
By Armida Siguion-Reyna
The Daily Tribune
10/06/2009

NEW YORK — Skype-ing with my brother Sen. Juan Ponce-Enrile the other day was an unusual treat for both of us, but especially for him, as it was his first time to use the technology. The Ilocano in him made him ask how much the conversation was costing, and boy was he amazed to find out it was for free, thanks to VOIP or voice over Internet protocols.

Johnny chortled at the first sight of me, and laughed when I said, “Sorry, ha? Natagalan ako, kasi nagkilay pa ako. Pagka ganitong nagkakakitaan na tayo pag nag-uusap, dapat naman, magpaganda ako.”

“My sister,” he said over and over again, “my sister.” He was clearly amazed at what was there before him on the computer screen, as I was when my children introduced Skype to me sometime last year.

The Senate President and I are not “techies.” We were born years before World War II, the age of manual typewriters and heavy, clunky telephones that first came into use with party-lines and operators that connected overseas calls, light years away from cell phones and computers and even just the concept of Internet.

As a probinsiyano from Cagayan on his way to meet our father for the first time, Johnny entered the Soriano Building, or the “Edificio Soriano” as it was then called, intending to go to the seventh floor where Papa’s law office was. Johnny stopped in the lobby, awed by people rushing in to go inside a small room where “there was an arrow similar to the arrow of a giant clock on top of the door.”

Natatawa siya, to this day, pag naaalaala niya ang una niyang enkuwentro sa elevator. He found it strange that those who entered the small room were not the same ones who came out. “The arrow, as it moved forwards, pointed to numbers 1 to 7… now and then it would stop at one of the numbers… then it would move again… it took me a while to decide whether I would enter the door or not. This was my first time to see a thing like that, I was afraid that I would not get out of that door.”

Senior citizens like us exhibit childlike delight when state-of-the-art gadgets are brought to our attention, even if we are not “techie.” It takes me forever to learn using a new cellphone, lalo na si Johnny, whose anger at his “vanishing” prepaid cell phone loads really came from his not knowing how to use his mobile phone the way teen-agers do. Informed by the telcom that he was charged for “downloading” a ringtone, he bellowed: “I cannot even text on my own, how can I download?”

Our generation is unable to master the ins and outs of digital stuff, but I tell you we appreciate it. We are grateful to have reached the era where scientific breakthroughas occur every other blink of the eye. The results of this medical exam I’m going to have, for instance, will be sent to me in Manila, through e-mail. X-rays and MRI’s are now sent through e-mail, from a doctor, say, in Manila, to a doctor in New York. The two doctors are able to confer if not through e-mail, through chat, then through Skype.

And just as you think Skype is the latest in computer overseas communication, hindi pala. There’s a newer one called Oovo, the free version makes it possible to simultaneously converse with two other persons at the other end of the line for a mini-conference of sorts. Of course I’ll never be able to operate this on my own, as even Skype has to be set up for me, but it’s heartwarming to think of how much easier the new protocols make it for families who live apart. Isipin mong nasa Dubai ang anak mo, and you don’t need to rely on snail mail that takes days to arrive. You also needn’t rely on texting alone. Pag talagang miss na miss mo na ang asawa, anak, magulang o kapatid, go on the Internet!

The recent “Ondoy” rescue and relief operations could not have been mounted without computer audio/video technology. Digital video shot on cell phones were transferred to Facebook and Multiply and other such Web sites with such speed, kaya naman ang bilis din ng response.

Two of my US-based granddaughters were fund-raising via Facebook. Another granddaughter based in Hong Kong was doing the same. And this were just my grandchildren, there were thousands out there, forwarding video of swirling water surrounding a family huddled on the roof of a shanty, of cars and vans trapped in the whirlpool of a center court of a hospital, shots through cell phone MMS showing how deep water was in specific spots, so please, can someone come to the rescue?

Kalinisan Steam Laundry Inc., in Quezon City does more than provide food and shelter to flood refugees and announces, first on FaceBook, free washing sa lahat ng apektado, for bed sheets and comforters, curtains and clothes that drowned in the muck, and again the response is swift. So, too, the praises.

And this turns out to be another wondrous thing about the technology. Ang dapat purihin, agarang napupuri. Ang dapat punahin, agarang napupuna. Heroes are lauded, heels are thrashed, pictures of styrofoam packs marked “Tulong ni Manny Villar” are displayed as are packs of noodles stamped by stickers bearing the likeness of Mr. Sipag at Tiyaga.

Hark back to way before Ondoy and recall how the tastelessly expensive Le Cirque dinner was discovered and so quickly spread, but through the Internet. As were all other fancy-schmancy high-priced meals. At the height of the storm a picture quickly made the rounds, that of someone who suspiciously looked Mikey Arroyo, squat on his haunches facing the liquor section of Rustan’s in Katipunan, looking for hard liquor.

The First Brat reportedly got depressed by the posting, saying it was malicious and completely untrue as he was in Malacañang “trying to mobilize rescue and relief operations for the people of Metro Manila.”

That Saturday of the storm, thanks to the Internet we knew that Malacañang was still at a loss and didn’t know what to do. Gloria Arroyo’s first declaration of the Palace as a relief center was recalled, it took days before evacuees where brought to the Ceremonial Hall “where the President traditionally meets foreign dignitaries.” The Press Office had to say this over and over in case we still didn’t get how philanthropic Arroyo truly was, but was curiously quiet over the congressman from Lubao’s claim that rescue and relief operations were going on in the Palace at the height of Ondoy.

The Internet is our boon, it’s the government’s bane.

(For comments, write to armida114@yahoo.com)

I give the floor this week to Randy David. Randy David’s article below is a great remembering of Martial Law, and the dangers it still holds for us as a nation. I hope we read it in the spirit of remembering but also in the spirit that warns and puts us on our toes. Tides are turning and a better philippines is just around the corner. But we have to fight for it. And we have to be constantly vigilant. We do not want to be caught in a darkness that will set us back another 20 or so years and another two or three generations.

Thirty-seven years ago
By Randy David
Philippine Daily Inquirer

When Marcos declared martial law in September 1972, my wife Karina and I were both just 26. We were university instructors freshly embarked on an academic career. Our first-born, a boy, was barely 2 and had just learned to walk by himself. The rest of our children, three girls, were born after martial law. Today, my wife is retired from government service, and I have less than two years to go before I say goodbye to my career at the University of the Philippines. Our little toddler has retraced our steps and has become a professor himself in the same UP campus where we started out as instructors. He and his wife are educators, and their newly-born daughter may likely be one too. Thirty-seven years can indeed constitute a lifetime—enough to create a sense of eternal recurrence, of events endlessly repeating themselves.

The precise feeling that I have right now is that, as a nation, we too are back to where we were just before Marcos assumed martial law powers. Marcos won an unprecedented second term in the presidential election of 1969, one of the dirtiest in the country’s history. That term would have ended in 1973, with no possibility of re-election.

A democratically-elected Constitutional Convention was winding up its work in 1972. Marcos had done everything to shape the final draft of the new constitution. He wanted the existing term limits lifted, under the same presidential system or under a parliamentary government. But the opposition was determined to stop him from extending his stay beyond 1973. This was the situation a few weeks before Proclamation 1081. The air was filled with rumors of an imminent martial law declaration.

The term held little meaning for many Filipinos; it was not yet part of their experiential map. The closest analogue to martial law that the older people could summon was the Japanese occupation. But we who were born after the war had no experience of this terror either. And so while impending martial law created in us a vague uneasiness we could not grasp, it did not bother us enough to prod us into making defensive preparations. Instead what we chose to imagine was the impending end of a hated regime, seeing in the threat of martial law no more than the hostile whimper of an exhausted presidency.

How wrong we were! We underestimated Marcos, and overestimated our people’s inclination and capacity for resistance. When the arresting military forces rolled out into the streets on that early morning of Sept. 23, picking up regime critics, protest leaders and potential rallying figures one by one, there were no countervailing forces to block their way, and no radio or television flash reports to announce their deed. There was only stillness, a silence occasionally broken by frantic phone calls. We spoke in whispers, and learned to communicate in a cryptic language that presumed the presence of a third listener. As the morning light settled in, we were told who had been arrested, but we had no idea who else was on the list.

That morning, the newspapers did not come, the TV screen was blank, and the radio emitted only static noise. Later in the day, Metro Manila would learn what had just happened: the whole country was now under martial law. Fearful and confused, people stayed home to await an official announcement from government. With clockwork precision, Marcos had taken over all the reins of government without resistance. Even as we had talked about its possibility, martial law still came as a surprise. The ease with which the dictatorship was installed—and the length of time (almost 14 years) in which it was able to rule our lives—still baffles me.

Martial law changed the whole political landscape in our country. It shattered all the certitudes which had previously governed the seasons of our nation’s life. Marcos erased all the existing boundaries of Philippine politics. While he took pains to cloak his actions in legal pieties, these came through as brazen and whimsical. No one knew how the dictatorship would end. The only thing about which we felt certain was that, to get rid of Marcos, everything was now permissible—including revolution. Whatever his ultimate motives, Marcos had unwittingly opened the road to radical social transformation.

Edsa I came as a lucky break for the moderate forces that had joined the battle against Marcos in the dying years of the regime. It pre-empted the birth of a military regime and the full ripening of a leftwing revolution. It reconstituted the old order, cleansing it of traces of the aberrant order that Marcos represented. The popular forces of discontent that had fed the revolution were subsequently absorbed into the populist campaign of Joseph Estrada.

Estrada’s unceremonious ouster from the presidency in 2001 revived the fault lines of the elite-led political order. The succession of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her decision to run for a fresh six-year presidential term in the 2004 election further exacerbated these instabilities. Ms Arroyo today is in the same position as Marcos in 1972—the position of someone who, having repeatedly bent the law to stay in power, can no longer afford to relinquish it. To continue in power at the end of her term, Arroyo has to get her allies to amend the Constitution, or, failing that, create the conditions under which she can continue indefinitely as president in a holdover capacity. Martial law is undoubtedly one of the cards she’s holding. Whether or not she decides to play it, I hope we are better prepared than 37 years ago to oppose it.