The GUIDON - August 2014

T HE OFFICI A L S T UDEN T P UBLIC AT ION OF T HE AT ENEO DE M A NIL A UNI V ER SI T Y theguidon.com

VOLUME LXXXV, NO. 3 · AUGUST 2014

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SPORTS The Blue and Lady Shuttlers are ready to win.

BEYOND LOYOLA Remembering the Ateneo's forgotten heroes

FEATURES Can "bad" people make "good" art?

INQUIRY The intellectualization of the Filipino language

VANTAGE Lost in history

OPINION Reigniting the Sanggunian

The GUIDON

Comelec decision casts doubt on elections

By Joline S. Acampado and Ennah A. Tolentino THE ATENEO Commission on Elections (Comelec) was criticized by the student body for its decision to withhold information on a system glitch that occurred during the 2014 Sanggunian Freshmen and Special Elections held on August 11 to 14.

After voting hours on the 14th, the Comelec released a memorandum to announce that the votes for the course representatives of fourth year Bachelor of Science in Management, Major in Communications Technology Management (BS COMTECH) and third year Bachelor of Science in Management (BS MGT) course representatives were “not properly counted.”

Comelec assured that should the aforementioned positions reach quota, they would ask the affected students to recast their votes for their course representatives only. The Comelec planned to do so based on their database of voters’ identification numbers.

The same memorandum states that the Comelec discovered the glitch on August 13 but refrained from releasing the information “so as to let the natural flow of elections take place on the last day.”

The students of the affected courses were asked to use hard ballots on August 14.

In an interview with The GUIDON, Comelec Chief Commissioner Denise Olondriz said they did not want to affect “the way people thought.”

“Like last semester, they might think ‘I don’t want to vote since it’s not going to be counted,’” said Olondriz, referMORE INSIDE Marcos at ASF event outrages community news, 2

Movie version of Sugod!

Filemon Mamon! wins Famas award news, 3

Ateneo student groups take action to address IPR case news, 4

CAS, FMO to probe campus trike fare system news, 4

Laura Lehmann: The new face in the crowd sports, 10

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ring to the 2014 Sanggunian General Elections.

During the said elections held last February, a system glitch prompted a petition for an extension to be raised.

In an interview with The GUIDON, newly elected Sanggunian Secretary-General Polo Martinez said that system glitches have been a recurring aspect of the elections.

“Why can’t we pinpoint exactly what’s wrong and give a decisive answer to what it is? It’s indicative of bad management on [the Comelec’s] part–bad logistics, bad planning,” said Martinez.

Newly elected Sanggunian Finance Officer Ray Gomez said that the nature of the glitch did not necessarily affect the quota.

However, he is still against the withholding of information “just to make it seem that [the elections is] natural.”

Despite Comelec’s claim that hard ballots were used by fourth year BS COMTECH and third year BS MGT students, management junior Nicole Veloso said that she voted on the last day using the computer program.

Olondriz said that the poll officers were informed to utilize hard ballots for the said courses.

“However, there may have been people who were overlooked, like Nicole Veloso. If such were really the case, then we’ll also ask them to vote again for the course reps,” she said.

Olondriz also mentioned that on August 11, voters had pointed out that there were missing names from the list of candidates for the course representatives of fourth year BS COMTECH and fourth year Bachelor of Arts in Diplomacy and International

Relations with Specialization in East and Southeast Asian Studies, which prompted Comelec to also use hard ballots.

She said this only affected one day of the elections and the voters for the said positions were properly informed.

Olondriz said the use of hard ballots on the 11th was not included in their prior memorandum because the August 13 glitch “was of graver matter.”

Backlash

In a statement made on August 14, the Ateneo Debate Society said the Comelec is violating its “very purpose” of ensuring transparency and of upholding the laws of elections by choosing to withhold information on the glitch until voting was over.

“The issue has moved past doubting the capability of Comelec to guarantee a glitchfree system. It is now a matter of questioning whether or not it can fulfill even the bare minimum of providing an honest and transparent system,” the statement read.

In an interview with The GUIDON, Christian Union for Socialist and Democratic Advancement (Crusada) Premier Abbo Hernandez emphasized that the Comelec is an apolitical institution that should not be making political moves.

“Their argument as to why they withheld information is [that they don’t want to have] voter’s fatigue like last year.

My thought is, who are they to decide?” Hernandez continued.

“It’s a political move when they want to control the way the elections will happen.”

ELECTORAL SANCTITY. The transparency of the elections is being questioned after the Ateneo Commission on Elections reveals a system glitch that occurred during voting.

Comelec decision ›› 5

PHOTO BY PIA R. NICOLAS

Ateneans clear names from plunder and impeachment raps filed vs. 2 top gov’t officials

By Carlos L. Arcenas and Ennah A. Tolentino ATENEO PARTIES have denied their involvement in the plunder and impeachment charges filed against Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Chief Florencio Abad and President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, respectively, over the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).

The DAP is a stimulus program for public spending and economic growth implemented

by DBM and introduced by the Aquino administration.

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Several parts of the DAP were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on June 30.

In a statement released on July 10, Ateneo student publication Matanglawin clarified that there was a mistake in the inclusion of its name as a signatory of the plunder case filed against Abad on July 8.

“Hindi intensyon ng pamunuan ng publikasyon na paratangan ang Kalihim [Abad] ng pandarambong (It is not the intention of the publication’s leaders to accuse Secretary Abad of plunder),” read the statement.

Included in the list of petitioners with Matanglawin Editor-

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in-Chief (EIC) Dyan Francisco is social science sophomore Jerome Flores, who is named as the Youth for Accountability and Truth Now! (Youth Act Now!)Ateneo de Manila University chapter coordinator.

In an interview with The GUIDON, however, Flores said he is not a member of Youth Act Now! nor is he aware if a Youth Act Now!-Ateneo chapter exists.

Youth Act Now! is an alliance of student leaders, campus journalists, youth groups, out of school youth and young professionals. The alliance, along with

SIGNATORY. Matanglawin Editor-in-Chief Dyan Francisco said that it was not her intention to sign a plunder charge against Budget Secretary Abad.

Ateneans clear ›› 3

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Editor: Ennah A. Tolentino · Editorial Assistants: Joff D. Bantayan and Katrina M. Bonillo Layout Artist: Nikki G. Solinap

2014 Ignatian Festival celebrates Jesuit restoration

By Vince M. Estrada and Samantha O. Subida IN COMMEMOR ATION of the 200th anniversary of the restoration of the Society of Jesus, the month-long 2014 Ignatian Festival carries the theme “Responding to the Continuous Challenges of Restoration.”

The Society of Jesus is a religious order founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola that engages in evangelization and apostolic ministry.

“Restoration is always a meaningful movement in our life of interiority and in our service of others in society,” said University President Jose Ramon Villarin, SJ. This year’s Ignatian Festival also highlights sustainability and its role in environmental restoration.

Sustainability is under the environment and development thrust, one of the three that Villarin wants to achieve for the university under his term.

The other two thrusts are mission and identity, and nationbuilding, which were the focus of past Ignatian Festivals.

During Reignite Day, Villarin explained that the Jesuits were suppressed in the 1770s due to a host of “political and religious forces” during the time of Pope Clement XIV. Reignite Day featured a series of talks held in the Ricardo and Dr. Rosita Leong Hall Auditorium on July 19.

After 41 years of suppression, Pope Pius VII reinstated the Society of Jesus through the papal bull Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum (Concern for all churches).

The lectures featured Simbahang Lingkod ng Bayan Executive Director Xavier Alpasa, SJ, Office of the Alumni Relations Director Norberto Ma. Bautista, SJ, Ateneo Institute of Sustainability Director Assunta Cuyegkeng, PhD and

Jesuit Provincial Head Antonio Moreno, SJ as speakers.

The other activities in the course of the month were a series of talks on Ignatian spirituality, and bird walks on campus, spearheaded by the Ateneo Institute of Sustainability together with the Wild Bird Club of the Philippines.

This year’s activities commenced with a Mass presided by Villarin on July 1 in the Church of the Gesù.

The Ignatian Festival was organized by the Office of University Development and Alumni Relations, and the Office of Mission and Identity.

Present-day restoration

The focus of the lectures on Reignite Day was restoration in the sociopolitical, environmental and spiritual contexts.

According to Moreno, after the Jesuit’s triumph against suppression, they had to start from scratch in re-establishing their ministries. “It’s not about the return of the glory of the Jesuits or the power of the Jesuits… I think, rather, it’s an invitation to humility.”

Moreno mentioned that a current problem of the Society of Jesus after restoration is the decreasing number of Jesuits in the Philippines.

He said that 70% of the Jesuit population in the country consists of priests aged 70 years old and above.

According to Moreno, he is considering having a non-Jesuit university president for Ateneo de Manila because of the insufficient number of Jesuits available for the position.

“I don’t want that kind of situation, but what I am trying [to tell] the board members is to be prepared for a lay university president,” he said.

The Ateneo, formerly named Escuela Municipal de Manila, remains the only Jesuit

NEST. The Ignatian Festival featured bird walks on campus which allowed the participants to spot the various species that habituate the campus.

PHOTO FROM ATENEO.EDU

university in the world being run by Jesuit priests since its establishment in 1859.

Environmental restoration

During her lecture, Cuyegkeng dealt with the concerns rega rding env ironmenta l sustainability as a way of restoring the environment. “[The environment] becomes sustainable only when the needs of the society, of the economy and the environment are addressed at the same time,” she said.

Furthermore, she gave concrete methods of sustaining the environment, such as the use of reusable food containers to reduce waste disposal.

In line with this, Cuyegkeng also mentioned the breakthrough done by Ateneo Innovation Center (AIC) Director Greg Tangonan, AIC Operations Officer Paul Cabacungan and Engineer Jun Granada in developing a water treatment system.

The said project was utilized for the irrigation of the campus’ Marian Garden and as a water system for the comfort rooms in the New Rizal Library and the Matteo Ricci Study Hall.

A response

As a conclusion to Reignite Day, the lecturers reminded the community to participate in combating the current

challenges of restoration.

“Go out, give and serve, then you will become a generous person,” Bautista said in a mix of English and Filipino.

However, Moreno reminded the community that mission should not be equated with work, as work could become an addiction.

Moreno added, “Everything is now covered by work as if we’re doing this for the greater glory of God, but [it’s] actually already a form of [our] own greater glory.”

With all the current struggles of restoration, Alpasa hopes that Ateneans expose themselves to the sociopolitical issues surrounding them.

Alpasa also mentioned two Ateneo alumni, Atty. Bobby Gana and Atty. Caloy Ollado, who participated in the fight of the Sumilao farmers to keep their land in 2007.

“Ang pinaghuhugutan kong pag-asa ngayon… nagpapatuloy ang ‘factory’ ng Ateneo to push for the reform. Ikalawa, nai-involve ang mga ibang tao sa usaping pulitika, usapin ng pagtulong, kahit hindi na sa loob ng Ateneo (I draw my hope from the continuous ‘factory’ of Ateneo to push for the reform. Second, people are getting involved with the discussion of politics, the discussion of helping out, even if they’re outside Ateneo),” he said.

Marcos at ASF event outrages community

By Katrina M. Bonillo THE ATENEO community expressed its displeasure over former First Lady Imelda Marcos’ attendance at the 40th anniversary dinner of the Ateneo Scholarship Foundation, Inc. (ASF) held on July 5.

Photographs of Marcos posing with ASF scholars while flashing a “peace” sign went viral online.

While the sign is a harmless gesture for recent generations, it was recognized as the Marcos camp’s victory sign during the Martial Law era from 1972 to 1981.

Marcos served as first lady of the Philippines during the twodecade reign of her husband, former President Ferdinand Marcos, who placed the Philippines under Martial Law. Martial Law was enacted during the onset of a supposed Communist insurgency against the Marcos administration. It entailed the creation of a new constitution which allowed the president absolute control of the entire government.

The ASF, established in 1974, is a non-profit, non-stock corporation that provides scholarships for Ateneans. While financed by contributions from the Ateneo alumni and the university’s partners, it is autonomous from the university.

Following the criticism on social media, University President Jose Ramon Villarin,

SJ released a statement that read: “I apologize for any doubts that may have arisen on the mission of the school and the pain that this event may have caused. We would like to assure you that we in the administration have learned our lesson to be more mindful of those we invite in our celebrations.”

In an interview with The GUIDON, Villarin said Marcos’ presence at the ASF dinner was “not part of the plan” and that he learned about it only hours before the event took place.

“It was really more of a lastminute thing, which some people felt should have been done as a matter of social obligation,” he said.

Marcos organized a Van Cliburn piano concert in 1974 that yielded around P6 million in proceeds—a sum that helped start the ASF. Villarin clarified that he has no control over the ASF’s decision. He was invited to the event as a guest, being an ASF scholar himself.

ASF Chair Hector Tagaysay has not replied to The GUIDON as of press time.

Necessary apology

According to Villarin, while many people deemed his apology needless, there are also those who believed it to be insufficient.

Villarin mentioned that after he released his statement, he received messages from the Marcos GUEST OF HONOR? Imelda Marcos is accompanied to the Ateneo Scholarship Fund event at the PLDT-CTC building.

Marcos at ›› 5

PHOTO BY ALEXANDRA L. HUANG

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The GUIDON August 2014

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Movie version of Sugod! Filemon Mamon! wins Famas award

By Vince M. Estrada A FILM adaptation of the Ateneo Enterteynment para sa Tao, Bayan, Lansangan at Diyos’ (Entablado) stage play, Sugod!

Filemon Mamon!, was recognized as the Best Advocacy Film by the 62nd Filipino Academy of Movie, Arts and Sciences (Famas) Awards.

Famas is an organization composed of writers and movie critics that was established in 1952. It hosts an annual award show. This year’s ceremony was held on July 13 at the Solaire Resort and Casino.

Sugod! Filemon Mamon! is based on a children’s story book titled Filemon Mamon, written

by Filipino Department Assistant Professor Christine Bellen.

The story was converted into a musical by Filipino Department Instructor Jethro Tenorio. Entablado held their opening night for the said play last November 19, 2013.

Over the summer, Tenorio and Bellen collaborated to rewrite the script for the movie musical adaptation and shortened the title back to its original.

Aside from Tenorio and Bellen, Entablado Coordinator Jerome Ignacio and former Entablado member Maynard de Guzman (BS ECE ‘14) were also part of the film production.

Ignacio played the titular character of the movie while de Guzman was tapped as a song composer.

Filemon Mamon was produced by Meg av ision , a company that specializes in making advocacy films. The movie has not yet been released to the public.

The advocacy

In an interview with The GUIDON, Tenorio said that Entablado’s staging of Sugod!

Filemon Mamon ! wa s in commemoration of Andres Bonifacio’s 150th year.

In the original story written

by Bellen, t he na r rat ive focuses on proper health and

nutrition alone; Bonifacio was only mentioned as a character that the protagonist wanted to play in their stage production.

Tenorio shared that one of the main challenges for him in writing the play was how to make Bonifacio more prominent.

He then decided to alter Filemon Mamon’s character into an avid fan of Bonifacio who is able to memorize and quote his works, such as “Pag-ibig sa Tinubuang Lupa,” “Ang Dapat Mabatid ng mga Tagalog” and “Katapusang Hibik ng Filipinas.”

“In the film, we went back to the importance of health because it’s the primary intension of the book; it’s about child obesity and how we can address it,” said Tenorio in a mix of English and Filipino.

Tenorio added that the characters in the film are now set in high school instead of elementary, because the former is the film’s primary target.

“Mas health-conscious na kasi [and mga bata], ‘di ba, kapag nasa adolescence na? (Children become more health-conscious in their adolescence, right?)”

He said that the film wants the viewers to recall the common misconception of Filipinos that “ang mataba ay malusog, ang malusog ay mataba (those who are fat are healthy, and those who are healthy are fat).”

Production

Tenorio said that Bellen was initially approached by Megavision owner Donna Sanchez to create a film based on one of Bellen’s children’s books.

Tenorio expla ined t hat Sanchez had watched the Philippine Education Theater Association’s staging of Batang Rizal and intended to create a film version of it.

However, he said that Sanchez changed her mind and opted for Filemon Mamon upon watching Entablado’s stage version.

According to Tenorio, scriptwriting for the movie took around two months—more than double the time it took for him

to write the play’s script.

As for the filming, Ignacio said they had six shooting days spread out over three weeks with additional days dedicated to recording songs.

“It was really a culture shock because, unlike in theater where something is always happening, there are long periods of time during movie production when you are just sitting down and waiting for the crew to set-up,” he said in a mix of English and Filipino.

Unexpected

Tenorio, Ignacio and even the Entablado cast are grateful for the recognition.

“Nakakagulat. Sabi ko rin, nakakataba ng puso, kasi for a f irst timer, na-recog nize agad ‘yung possibility na may bigat ‘yung sinasabi rin namin doon sa script (Surprising. It’s heart-warming, because for a first timer, it was immediately recognized that what we said in the script made an impact),” said Tenorio.

As for Ignacio, he initially thought the award was for the film’s producer, since he knew the company specialized in advocacy films.

“To be honest, ‘di ko inexpect… Nalaman ko lang sa Filemon Mamon mismo no’ng nagtapos na ‘yung gabi [ng awards show], so nagulat ako (To be honest, I didn’t expect it… I only found out that the award was for the Filemon Mamon movie itself when the awards night ended, so I was surprised),” he said.

Legal management sophomore Gabriel Marmeto, the actor who played Filemon Mamon for Entablado, is also proud of the success of both Ignacio and Tenorio.

“First of all, I feel proud about the film winning a Famas, since Sir Tenorio and Jerome [Ignacio] were pretty involved in its production… It makes me prouder and feel more privileged to have been part of this production,” he said.

LEAVING A MESSAGE. Filemon Mamon was recognized as the Best Advocacy Film for its emphasis on proper health and nutrition.

PHOTOS FROM DONNA SANCHEZ

Ateneans clear... ‹‹ 1

the Kabataan youth party-list, spearheaded the filing of the said charges against Abad.

On a separate case, the Sanggunian released a statement on July 14 to condemn the misuse of its name, and consequently that of the Ateneo, in relation to an impeachment complaint against Aquino.

The statement refers to a Manila Standard Today article which quotes Kabataan Representative Terry Ridon during his Super Radyo DZBB appearance on July 13.

According to the article, Ridon said he will endorse the Ateneo and various other student councils and leaders belonging to Youth Act Now! in the impeachment charge they will file against Aquino.

The Sanggunian’s statement emphasized that it is not a member of Youth Act Now! and that it is not participating in the alliance’s impeachment complaint.

Misinformed

Both Francisco and Flores said they were not aware that they were signing for a plunder charge. “[The College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP) National

Deputy Secretary-General Jian Gomez] didn’t say it was a plunder case. He said it was just a petition regarding DAP—a complaint against Abad,” said Francisco in a mix of English and Filipino.

“That’s what [Gomez] told me about it, complaint lang,” said Flores.

Gomez handled Francisco and Flores’ signing of the document.

CEGP, which Matanglawin is a member of, is an organization of student journalists and student publications advocating for press freedom; CEGP is affiliated with Youth Act Now!.

Francisco said Gomez initially contacted her on July 6 but he was not able to present any document.

On July 8, Francisco said that Gomez went to the Ateneo to personally acquire her signature.

Gomez arrived at noon with the documents and said that the complaint needed to be filed by 2:00 PM of that day.

“I said, ‘How will [the Matanglawin editorial board (EB)] be able to read that?’” said Francisco.

“The other EB members also read the documents while I also skimmed the others. I did not see any mention of plunder at

all,” said Francisco in a mix of English and Filipino.

Francisco said that they had good intentions in signing a document they thought to be a complaint; she said the fault on their part was they were pressured to sign it despite not being able to read the document as a whole.

As for Flores, he said that when Gomez met with him, the pages were already turned to where he needed to sign, and Gomez was in a rush to have the document signed by other parties.

In a statement sent to The GUIDON, CEGP said the intention to file a plunder charge against Abad was stated on the cover letter of the complaint.

“Marahil sa kakulangan ng panahon upang magtalakay pa ng mas malalim, hindi gaanong naipaliwanag ang layunin ng dokumento (Perhaps because there was a lack of time to have a more in-depth discussion, the purpose of the document was not properly explained),” said CEGP in the statement.

With regard to his alleged title as Youth Act Now!-Ateneo chapter coordinator, Flores said he immediately confronted Gomez when he found out.

A c c o r d i n g t o Fl o r e s ,

“[Gomez] said that [Youth Act Now! was] really planning to put me into the position of the coordinator… He thought I was already aware of it.”

Gomez has not replied to The GUIDON as of press time.

Affairs Head Owdylyn Lee, the Sanggunian has taken no further action regarding the matter.

“A f ter [relea sing ] t he statement, it cleared out that [Sanggunian is] not a part of [the impeachment complaint],” Lee said.

Dropped names

Fourth Year John Gokongwei School of Management Central Board (CB) Representative and former Sanggunian CB Liaison Ga-el Mendoza said that the Sanggunian’s only connection w it h Yout h Act Now! is participating in a meeting attended by representatives from its affiliate, the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP).

NUSP is an alliance of student leaders and organizations that is geared towards protecting Filipino student rights.

Mendoza said representatives from the NUSP presented about Youth Act Now! in a CB meeting on July 25.

“We made them present what [NUSP and Youth Act Now! is] and how we could help… but we didn’t have any official decision [on partnering with each other] after they presented,” he said.

According to Sanggunian Depa r tment of Externa l

DAP stands

In separate interviews with The GUIDON, Matanglawin and Flores said that they are working to retract their respective signatures from the plunder charge.

“We are undergoing the legal procedures now… We have created a manifesto and we have spoken with the ombudsman,” Francisco said.

Flores expressed that he still wishes to file a complaint against Abad, but not to the extent of filing a plunder charge.

With regard to the DAP issue, Francisco said that Matanglawin is standing by their initial statement: “Manaig ang katotohanan na buhat sa mga ebidensya (For the truth to prevail based on the evidences).”

On the other hand, the Sanggunian has not yet released an official stand on the DAP issue as of press time.

As for the Ateneo’s view on the matter, University President

Jose Ramon Villarin, SJ believes there is still no cohesive stand.

Villarin said the the Ateneo “is more than a monolith,” and he needs be careful because he is not only speaking for himself.

“I have to take care [as well]; one lesson learned from [this issue is that] I need to know whether I speak as Jett Villarin or as Ateneo de Manila.”

Villarin also said that the school administration stands behind the parties involved in the signing of the plunder charge against Abad. “We would run to their rescue if needed… I believe them when they say that they didn’t sign up for [the case].”

Editor’s Note: The GUIDON is a member of the CEGP and was also asked to sign a complaint concerning the DAP issue. The EB then requested to have a full copy of the text to be sent via email for proper perusal and evaluation. Because the CEGP failed to do so, no documents on the DAP were signed by The GUIDON. The CEGP also did not mention that what it intended to be signed by The GUIDON was actually a plunder case against Abad.

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Ateneo student groups take action to address IPR case

By Katrina M. Bonillo and Macneil A. Mendoza

COPY AND PASTE. The Ateneo Freshmen Orientation Seminar Layag logo was directly copied unto Bulacan State University's promotional materials.

SCREENSHOTS FROM BULSU OSO FACEBOOK PAGE, PHOTO BY RAP DE DIOS

THE SANGGUNIAN and the Ateneo parties involved have requested Bulacan State University (Bulsu) to implement the necessary sanctions against two of its student groups that committed intellectual property rights (IPR) violations against Ateneans.

The Bulsu Office of the Student Organizations (OSO) and the Bulsu Ecorangers organization used logo designs of the Ateneo Freshmen Orientation Seminar (Orsem) Layag and the Ateneo Enterteynment para sa Tao, Bayan, Lansangan at Diyos’ (Entablado) production Sugod!

Filemon Mamon!, respectively.

The Bulsu groups used the designs without prior consent and without crediting the Orsem Design Team and Entablado for the respective logos.

On July 28, the Sanggunian released a memorandum which stated that the Loyola Schools Office of Student Activities (OSA) and the Bulsu administration have been in constant communication to resolve the issue.

Third Yea r School of Humanities Central Board (CB) Representative Madel Callanta said that the Sanggunian has sent the memorandum, along with a letter from OSA Director Chris Castillo and supporting eviden-

ces, to the Bulsu administration.

Bulsu has already complied with the artists’ request to apologize as an institution and has addressed a letter of apology directly to them, said Callanta.

Four members of the Bulsu administration personally came to the Ateneo on August 1 to discuss and clarify the situation.

Details of sanctions to be filed against the Bulsu students who committed the violations remain unknown.

In a July 26 Facebook post of Bulsu OSO Executive Board (EB) Chair Anna Czarina Marquez, she apologized for the incident on behalf of the organization.

Marquez explained that the incident was an “honest mistake” on the part of the Bulsu OSO EB and that it was not their intention to create an “uncomfortable situation between the two universities.”

The Sanggunian’s memorandum said that the letter of apology issued by the Bulsu OSO EB cannot justify its lack of intent to violate the original artists’ IPR. Intent

In the same statement, Marquez explained that while Bulsu used the logos for their event “Balangayan sa Unibersidad 2014,” the artists did not claim the output as their own.

Orsem Layag Design Head Jan-Daniel Belmonte said this lack of understanding regarding the IPR is disappointing.

He explained that by using the Orsem Layag logo without his consent, Bulsu has already claimed the work as their own.

“As much as I appreciate Ms. Marquez’ gesture of issuing a public apology promptly after the incident, I believe we still need to discuss matters with them in detail so that the incident could be an avenue for them to better understand their faults, and how they and others could avoid plagiarism in the future,” said Belmonte.

He added that he decided to seek the help of the Sanggunian and OSA to raise the issue to an institutional level, so that the “right people” could take proper action.

Belmonte mentioned that the Bulsu artist who used his design has already apologized to him through a personal message on Facebook.

For Belmonte, there is still a long way to go before the issue is resolved. “Fully accepting Bulsu OSO's apology would mean that we dismissed the issue, but for me, there are still some details that need to be clarified.”

Closing the case

Sanggunian Central Board (CB) Liaison Ga-el Mendoza labels the incident as a form of plagiarism which, as an academic dishonesty, is not tolerated in the Ateneo.

The Sanggunian filed a resolution last June 2013, in which

it proactively advertised itself as an avenue where the Loyola Schools can voice out its concerns on IPR infringement.

According Mendoza, the resolution was aimed to protect Atenean artists and their rights.

The resolution is also line with the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines or Republic Act No. 8293, which aims to protect the rights of “scientists, inventors, artists and other gifted citizens” to their intellectual property and creations.

Intellectual property, as defi ned in Part I Section 4 of the said act, consists of the following: Copyright and related rights, trademark and service marks, geographic indications, industrial designs, patents, layout-designs of integrated circuits and protection of undisclosed information.

Section 3 of the 2012 edition of the Student Guide to the Code of Academic Integrity of the Loyola Schools states that plagiarism is not limited to print source but could also take the form of computer programs, illustrations and creative work.

It further explains that plagiarism is identified “not through the intent but through the act itself.”

Editor’s Note: Jan-Daniel Belmonte is the design executive editor of The GUIDON.

CAS, FMO to probe campus trike fare system

By Joff D. Bantayan IN RESPONSE to student complaints regarding the tricycle fare system on campus, the Sanggunian Committee on Administrative Services (CAS) will be working with the Facilities Management Office (FMO) to resolve the issue.

Sanggunian CAS Chairperson Marc Duque said the complaints are mostly about tricycle drivers who do not follow the tricycle fare system.

He said that the Sanggunian has been receiving complaints of a similar nature for the past few years.

Duque said that the CAS will be routinely meeting with the FMO to assess the fare regulation problems before they come up with, and eventually impose, effective solutions.

Duque assured that their agenda will not only focus on the fare system, but on the conduct of tricycle drivers who are allowed to carry passengers to and from the Ateneo campus as well.

Fare matrix

In an email interview with The GUIDON, FMO Traffic and Security Head Josephy Almosera said that the fare matrix being imposed on campus is based on the government mandated standard on tricycle fare rates.

He said that an agreement on the rates was made three years ago by the FMO, the Office of the Associate Dean for Student Affairs, the Office of Administrative Services, the Sanggunian and the officials of the Tricycle Operators and Drivers’ Association (TODA) in the Loyola Heights.

Almosera said that the rate for travel within campus is P18 while the rate for travel from the campus going outside and vice versa is fixed at P25.50.

According to polit ica l science senior Ace Dela Cruz, however, it seems that there is no longer a clear agreement in determining the correct tricycle fare rates on campus.

“Before, from Loyola Heights to any point to Ateneo, the fare being asked is only P22 for students; but now, they ask P25, regardless of [location],” Dela Cruz said in a mix of English and Filipino.

Dela Cruz also pointed out that most tricycles do not have the fare matrix displayed. “[The Ateneo has] a significant number of public commuters, so it would be nice for [the Sanggunian] to update us and continue negotiations with the TODA here in Loyola Heights,” he added.

Almosera said that the FMO will be meeting with the TODA official to reassess the current rates. “Due to the one-way traffic scheme, there is a need to revisit the matrix.”

The one-way traffic scheme is a reconfiguration of routes aimed to facilitate smoother vehicular flow on campus. It was made effective starting last February 11, 2013.

Aside from concerns on the fare system, Duque said that the CAS has also been receiving complaints regarding the unsafe driving habits of some drivers and their refusal to bring passengers.

Dela Cruz noted that most tricycle drivers refuse to convey passengers going to the Ateneo from 7:00 to 8:00 AM and from 12:00 to 1:00 PM because these are the times of the day when traffic builds up along Katipunan Avenue.

FARE CONCERNS. The Facilities Management Office will be meeting with the Tricycle Operators and Drivers' Association in the Loyola Heights to finalize the fare matrix for tricycles allowed to enter the Ateneo campus.

PHOTOS BY JOSHUA E. CABALINAN

As for management-honors sophomore Kim Maris, she said that some tricycle drivers would refuse to bring her from her dormitory outside of the Ateneo to the campus.

“Sinasabi [ng mga tricycle drivers] na ‘Ay, wala po akong [Ateneo] sticker eh,’ but then makikita mo na may sticker naman sa harap (The tricycle drivers would say, ‘I don’t have an Ateneo sticker,’ but then you can see that

they do have one),” she said.

Only the tricycles with Ateneo stickers are allowed to go inside the campus.

Maris said that some tricycle drivers are often honest with their refusals, and they would cite the heavy traffic along Katipunan Avenue as their reason for not bringing passengers inside the Ateneo.

The GUIDON tried to get statements from some of the

tricycle drivers waiting for passengers inside the campus but they refused to comment.

Constant vigilance

Almosera urges Ateneans to report cases when tricycle drivers do not comply with the fare matrix or show any form of misconduct to the FMO. According to him, the students can send their complaints to the FMO email address, comcen@

ateneo.edu, with the following details: Date and time of the incident, body number and color of the sidecar, and nature of complaint.

Almosera said that the details will help the FMO act accordingly, as they want to observe due process before imposing any sanctions.

If caught, the tricycle driver and his or her unit will be prohibited from entering the campus for one week; three violations will result to a one-year suspension.

News

The GUIDON August 2014

55

Ateneans granted membership into Mensa International

By Joff D. Bantayan and Jin U. Lampasa MANAGEMENT ENGINEERING seniors Miguel Co and Ryan Yu were accepted into Mensa International after passing its entrance examination, which they took on July 19 at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business campus in Makati.

Mensa International is a high intelligence quotient (IQ) society that fosters intellectual exchange between their members through informationexchange lectures, journals, international gatherings and research assistance.

It currently consists of

121,000 members in 100 accredited chapters worldwide, including the Philippines.

In an interview with The GUIDON, Co said he is excited to meet the people in the organization who seem to be diverse and interesting.

He said that he is willing to be an active member in the organization if it means being able to contribute to national productivity.

“I want to do something to make the country better. I’m just happy that perhaps another avenue opened up for me to be able to do so,” he said.

As for Yu, he said he is honored to be part of the organization.

“I'm excited to meet the other members and possibly partici-

pate in [Mensa’s] future events.”

He said he does not feel a greater responsibility for being accepted into Mensa because his responsibility is something that he shares with all Ateneans: “Becoming a person for others, particularly towards the goal of nation-building.”

“I strongly believe in the brilliance of Ateneans in all kinds of intelligences, and perhaps it would be important to echo the call for all of us to discover what we are good at and how we can come together to achieve this common goal,” Yu added.

Driven

According to managementhonors senior Aldrin Chua, Co

Comelec decision... ‹‹ 1

As for Movement for Ig natian Init iat ive for Transformative Empowerment President Luigi Del Rosario, he said he understands that Comelec was trying to avoid discouraging voters but he finds their decision “very undemocratic and unjust.”

Rosario added that that while it is difficult to have an error-free system, Comelec should have been “honest from the start.”

Validity

In its August 14 memorandum, Comelec explained the nature of the system glitch.

Only the votes chosen on the first drop down menus of were counted. All other positions only had one drop down menu due to the availability of one seat.

Some course representatives have several seats available, therefore, a multiple dropdown list was utilized.

The Comelec further explained the system glitch in a separate memorandum released on August 19.

Comelec said they noticed some inconsistencies in the voting tally for the aforementioned positions on August 12.

A partial tally of the results was released the same night with the disclaimer that the votes for fourth year BS COMTECH and third year BS MGT course representatives were unavailable.

The system glitch was only discovered on Aug ust 13, when Comelec contacted its programmer.

In the same memorandum, Comelec said it “does not see the nondisclosure of the information about the glitch upon discovery as any method that pushes for quota.”

“Nondisclosure of the information was aimed at making sure that the mindset of the students and their view of voting is not affected positively or negatively by the system glitch,” as stated in the memorandum.

However, Hernandez said that the decision of Comelec to withhold of information leads the people to question the truthfulness of the election results.

“If something irregular such as withholding information comes out under the argument that [they] want to make quota, it so believable to think that there are other things they are hiding just to reach quota,” he said.

The Comelec assured that the votes for other positions were not affected and were accurately counted.

As of press time, the commission has already asked permission from the program directors of the affected courses to take time from subjects of the affected students to get the students to recast their votes.

Furthermore, “to protect the sanctity of the ballot, the

and Yu are people who have a passion for success.

Chua has known Co and Yu since their freshman year and co-owned the John Gokongwei School of Management Student Enterprise Center stall Top Slice with them.

“I think [Co and Yu] would naturally pass [Mensa] given their academic capabilities,” he declared.

“They are smart people who have plans and a set goal in mind,” Chua added.

Co has been in the first honors dean’s list for five semesters and is currently a candidate for cum laude.

Yu is a Merit Scholar and has been in the first honors dean’s

list for six semesters. He is a current candidate for summa cum laude.

To be in the first honors dean’s list, students must have a Quality Point Index (QPI) of at least 3.70 and above in a semester.

To graduate with a cum laude, a student must have a cumulative QPI of 3.50 to 3.69. For a summa cum laude, a student must reach a cumulative QPI of at least 3.87 and above.

The Ateneo Freshman Merit Scholarship is awarded to the top 40 applicants of the Ateneo College Entrance Test.

It grants a 100% waiver on tuition and other fees throughout the recipient’s entire stay in the Ateneo.

Getting in

leadership” for apologizing over the incident.

“By owning up to the actions of the ASF, which carries the Ateneo name, he took the opportunity to reaffirm what the Ateneo’s values ultimately are,” he said.

politics,” he said.

For their application into Mensa, Co and Yu were required to answer a 30-minute, 45-item abstract reasoning test.

A properly administered and supervised IQ test is the only eligibility requirement into Mensa, according to its official website.

Membership is granted for people who attain a score in the upper 2% of the norm.

Once accepted, off icial members have to pay an annual membership fee of P700.

Presently, Mensa Philippines has approximately 160 members.

Mensa does not issue a list of members or disclose individual IQ scores. Only members can choose to release the said information.

Marcos at...

Commission plans on giving away hard ballots to all students in the class while explaining that only the votes of those who voted during the Freshmen and Special Elections are going to be counted.”

Making quota

On the same night that Comelec released the first memorandum on the system glitch, it also posted the official results of the elections.

The votes for the Top 4 candidates reached 4,656, surpassing the 4,477 votes needed to meet the quota.

Ryan Yu was re-elected as vice president with 3,336 votes, while Martinez and Gomez earned 3,196 and 2,008 votes, respectively.

Martinez said that he hopes the Sanggunian can amend the constitution due to a “clear lack of power and respect in the bureaucracy.”

“The Sanggu as an institution is a governing structure that is imperative in honing the identity of the student body,” he said.

Gomez said, in a mix of English and Filipino, that the newly elected officers have to make the most out of their seven months in office. “First off, we have to manage our expectations, but at the same time, we need to be organized so we’re efficient.” “[The officers] are really hopeful,” Gomez added.

‹‹ 2

camp that said they understood where he was coming from.

However, some people from the Marcos camp thought the apology was an impolite gesture since the former first lady merely accepted an invitation to the event.

As for Villarin, he felt the apology necessary, “if only to stem the anger” of the people who may have “felt wronged” by the incident.

Ateneo Debate Societ y President Inah Robles said the apology was well-meaning, but not well-phrased.

“It seemed more concerned about creating a distance between [the] Ateneo and ASF, and it seemed to put the blame on Imelda for an event she was merely invited to,” she said.

On the other hand, Ateneo School of Government Dean Tony La Viña, PhD, said that Villarin’s decision to issue an apology was the “right thing to do.”

“He didn’t have to do it because there’s a distinction between [the] Ateneo Scholarship Foundation and [the] Ateneo de Manila University. But for the eyes of the public, they don’t see the distinction,” he said.

He further added, “There was no way you can justify to the public that invitation.”

The Ateneo A ssembly Executive Director for Research and Advocacy Leo Abot said Villarin showed “good

Not forgetting

Villarin said it was clearly stated in his memorandum where the Ateneo stands amidst the controversy.

“We are not blind to the darkness that happened during [Martial Law] and we recognize [that darkness].That’s why we’re doing double-time on nationbuilding. It’s because of what happened during those terrible years,” he said.

Villarin added that the Martial Law period under former President Marcos represents a painful time in history, during which a number of civilians suffered.

Ateneo alumni Edgar Jopson, Emmanuel Lacaba and Evelio Javier were among those who died fighting against the Martial Law regime.

Abot said that the era of activism exhibited by these martyred Ateneans remains relevant today.

“Though it’s a complicated issue, I believe that the university should do its part in honoring the memory of these martyred Ateneans. Their courage should be emulated, in contrast to the aversion of today’s youth toward

PHOTOS BY PIA R. NICOLAS

Wake-up call

Villarin described the incident as a wake-up call for the Ateneo to refrain from complacency and to reignite its sense of history.

He added that the challenge now is to think of creative ways on how to know more about these significant milestones in history.

Likewise, Robles said there are many students who are uninformed about the sufferings experienced by Filipinos during Martial Law. “I think that this also shows that there is a need for the university to make students and even the staff more socially aware,” she said.

For Abot, the issue serves a reminder and a challenge for student leaders to help Ateneans play a more active role in historymaking and nation-building in a way that “does justice to our predecessors.”

La Viña commended student groups such as the Christian Union for Socialist and Democratic Advancement and the Ateneans for Agrarian Reform Movement.

He said that while student groups today are not as political as they used to be during the Martial Law period, their efforts in directly working with basic sectors in society is laudable.

“I think every generation has its own challenges and every generation all saw people that rise up to the challenge,” he said.

6

Opinion

VOLUME LXXXV, NO. 3 AUGUST 2014

The GUIDON Founded 1929 by Rev. Frank O’Hara, SJ First Editor-in-Chief, Manuel C. Colayco, AB ‘30

EDITORIAL CARTOON BY GM A. ESPELETA

PURPOSE To serve as a record of Ateneo history in the making; to serve as an organ of journalistic expression; to serve God and country.

A false dichotomy Mara Alyssabel D. Cepeda, AB COM ‘15 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Vernise Allison L. Tantuco, BS COMTECH ‘15 ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Katherine Mary E. Pearson, AB SOS ‘15 MANAGING EDITOR

Jan-Daniel S. Belmonte, BFA ID ‘15 DESIGN EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Ennah Faye A. Tolentino, AB PSY ‘16 NEWS EDITOR

Ignacio Gregorio C. Razon, AB PSY ‘15 SPORTS EDITOR

Roxanna May Y. Ramirez, AB COM ‘16 BEYOND LOYOLA EDITOR

Pia Josefina H. Posadas, BS COMTECH ‘15 FEATURES EDITOR

Lyssa Minette A. Marquez, AB POS ‘17 INQUIRY EDITOR

Santiago Jose J. Arnaiz, BS LM ‘16 VANTAGE EDITOR

Ryan Paul Y. Racca, AB IS ‘15 PHOTOS EDITOR

Catherine Margaret C. Quintos, BFA ID ‘15 GRAPHIC DESIGN EDITOR

Arthur Jarred D. Tan, BFA ID ‘16 MULTIMEDIA EDITOR

Karen Therese Romina G. Sison, AB HI ‘16 TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

Julie Diane T. Lim, BS ME ‘15 EXTERNALS MANAGER

Ma. Josephine C. Unas, AB COM ‘15 ONLINE MEDIA MANAGER

NEWS Joff D. Bantayan, Katrina M. Bonillo; Editorial Assistants, Joline S. Acampado, Carlos L. Arcenas, Vince M. Estrada, Jin U. Lampasa, Bianca N. Martinez, Macneil A. Mendoza, Samantha O. Subida SPORTS Faith R. Decangchon; Editorial Assistant, Robi R. Andres, Lorenzo C. Aycardo, Joseph J. Bautista, Raizza P. Bello, Jeremias Esguerra, Beatrice T. Go, Gian Y. Go, Jaime Katigbak, Noelle M. Recio, Vincent D. Soliven, Cedric B. Teng Ampo BEYOND LOYOLA Aaron M. Tanyag; Editorial Assistants, Pamela P. Baluyot, JC A. Beltran, Regine D. Cabato, Alexa B. Fontanilla, Cristina A. Gadiano, Kyle N. Mitschiener, Ina M. Morales, Janella H. Paris, Chynna A. Santos, Frances P. Sayson FEATURES Isabel A. Rodrigo; Editorial Assistant, Marguerite R. Andrews, Ishbelle L. Bongato, Patricia C. Concepcion, Marco G. Dayrit, Tricia T. Lao, Raf S. Nakpil, Benny G. Tañedo, Jasmine P. Ting, Andrea V. Tubig INQUIRY Nicolo A. Fortuna; Editorial Assistant, Alex A. Bichara, Uriel N. Galace, Nathan V. Javier, Eugene G. Ong, Mivan V. Ong, Jairus I. Paul, Van T. Siy Van, Vicah P. Villanueva VANTAGE Rissa A. Coronel; Editorial Assistant, Paul G. Alcantara, Deany R. Cheng, Dre L. Chua, Gaby Gloria, Belle O. Mapa, Ashley Martelino, Matthew K. Olivares, Andre Orandain, Katrina Pimentel, Carlos A. Quiapo PHOTOS Pia R. Nicolas; Editorial Assistant, Arielle A. Acosta, Tynie Asprec, Andrea G. Beldua, Francine A. Bharwani, Joshua E. Cabalinan, Alexis A. Casas, RJ Dimla, Alexandra L. Huang, Raquel A. Mallillin, Pia R. Nicolas, Isabella Olivares, Chi D. Punzalan GRAPHIC DESIGN Joey D. Ochoa; Editorial Assistant, Paulina L. Almira, Angelli J. Aquino, Diana F. David, Ian B. De La Cruz, Colleen P. De Luna, Czarina B. Dycaico, GM A. Espeleta, Ellan T. Estrologo, Josephus T. Nugraha, Therese M. Pedro, Tommi G. Principe, Nikki G. Solinap MULTIMEDIA Nikki C. Vesagas; Editorial Assistant, Alfonso G. Abaya, Annie O. Coronel, Miguel Feria, Denise G. Fernandez, Princess T. Flores, Sam F. Ganzon, MV Isip, Igi A. Maximo, Angelo M. Mendoza, Arianna Z. Mercado, Thurees Obenza, Tin S. Sartorio, Shaira A. Mazo, Jillian C. Subido TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT Ven G. Tan; Managerial Assistant, Mariel A. Arboleda, Andrea G. Guevarra, Hannah Guinto, Ysabelle D. Lebrilla, Pepper P. Limpoco, Enrique G. Lopez, Kimiko C. Sy, Ven G. Tan, Eli P. Uy EXTERNALS Kristi de Asis; Managerial Assistant, Patrick L. Balisong, Sabina Co, Gio L. Cruz, Anica G. Gomez, Jus G. Lazaro, Marcy A. Miniano, Isabella Naguiat, Mika O. Reyes, Jeric Santos, Sam C. Tacondong, Jelena Tiu ONLINE MEDIA Gayle G. Carabeo, Kian L. Paras; Managerial Assistants, Lea O. Bolante, Gayle G. Carabeo, Alexander V.C. Collado Jr., Carmel Ilustrisimo, Kian L. Paras, Henna O. Yu COPY EDITORS Rissa A. Coronel, Benny G. Tañedo

Ruel S. De Vera MODERATOR

During his State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 28, President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III claimed that his critics—essentially, those who don’t share his vision—are working against him and the Filipino people.

He believed that these naysayers, threatened by the achievements of his administration, seek to maintain the status quo by any means possible.

If Aquino is to be believed, mass media is just one of the weapons in their arsenal.

“Mga kababayan, [si Maria Cecilla Fruelda, isang Alternative Learning System learner at Aeta tribal leader], at ang marami pang benepisyaryong tulad niya, ang natatabunan sa tuwing umiingay ang orkestra ng negatibismo sa balita (Fellow citizens, it is Alternative Learning System learner and Aeta tribal leader Maria Cecilla Fruelda’s story— and the stories of many other beneficiaries like her—that is drowned out by the din of the orchestra of negativism in the news),” he said.

Contrary to what the president implied, however, his critics—those in the news and

otherwise—are hardly against him. Rather, they are working with him by reminding him that there is still work to be done. These so-called antireformists are Filipinos as well, all of whom have just as much at stake in the development of the nation as Aquino does.

Oftentimes, what Aquino may construe as unfounded negativism is constructive criticism. The concept of check and balance is not limited to the three branches of the government; if the Filipino people is truly his “boss,” as he so claimed throughout his SONA, he must be prepared to be accountable to them.

“Ang totoo po, hindi naman ako ang kinokontra ng mga ito, kundi ang taumbayang nakikinabang sa tuwid na daan (The truth is that I am not the one these people oppose, but the entire Filipino people who are now reaping the benefits of the straight path),” Aquino claimed. He even joked that the members of his office have grown used to negative commentators, personal attacks, insults and intrigue.

It appears, however, that

these comments shouldn’t be taken as lightly as Aquino had tried to portray them. While media in the Philippines are hardly free of sensationalism and irresponsible reporting, it can be said that most of what is presented to the people reflect the truth and, in turn, the concerns of the people.

Shortly after the event, for instance, Interaksyon published an article on the reactions of some senators and representatives on the SONA. While many supported Aquino and his speech, others commented on what it lacked. Buhay Party-list Representative Lito Atienza had expressed that he had wanted to hear about basic commodities, and peace and order. Former President Fidel Ramos was disappointed by the shortsightedness exhibited by the SONA. Closer to home, Ateneans have expressed their desire for change. The Ateneans for Agrarian Reform Movement, for example, fought against the expiration of the land acquisition and distribution component of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms Law, and continue to

stand by their cause today.

On the other hand, the farmers of Casiguran, Aurora, with whom members of the Loyola Schools marched last December 2012 against the Aurora Pacific Economic Zone and Freeport Authority, are still waiting for their Certificate of Renewal Contracts (CSC), which entitle them to rights to their lands. According to the farmers, Aquino had promised the speedy renewal of CSCs before they expire this year. However, the renewal process has, so far, come to a complete stop.

It was issues like these that were pushed aside in favor of other matters, such as a better economy and more transparency in the government, during the president’s term and in his SONA. And while we understand that the president cannot solve the problems of 100 million people all at once—not even in six years—casting them aside as personal attacks and insults is hardly a solution to anything.

“May kasabihan po tayo: Ang hindi lumingon sa pinanggalingan, hindi makararating sa paroroonan (We have a saying: Those who do not look back to the past,

will never get to where they wish to go),” said Aquino. With little more than a year left in his seat, however, perhaps the time has come for Aquino to start thinking about the legacy he will be leaving behind.

Institutions are not established overnight; they are formed gradually by people who are willing to invest their time and effort into what they deem to be a worthy cause.

If the president wants the changes he mentioned in his SONA to be sustainable, he cannot afford to adopt a closeminded attitude towards any of his constituents—even those who disagree with him. By continuing on this path, Aquino risks alienating the very people who will be continuing his policies, long after his term ends.

As such, the president shouldn’t propagate the idea of us-against-them when it comes to his critics. As angry as these voices might be, they nonetheless hope to push the administration towards the right direction. If “the Filipino is definitely worth fighting for,” then we’re all fighting on the same team.

BLUE JEANS

Guest Column

Israel-Palestine conflict: A primer for the politically interested Atenean

By Basilio E. Claudio Groups within campus such as the Christian Union for Socialist and Democratic Advancement and The Ateneo Assembly have condemned the violence in Gaza. We must stand in solidarity with everyone calling for peace. At the same time, the discussion must also evolve towards considering the concrete steps that we can take to achieve it. Here I present an overview of the conflict and its political implications today. I hope this helps to unlock the inner activist in you.

To understand what the fighting is all about, we must begin by talking about Zionism.

It is primarily a political movement that asserts the right of the Jews to establish a permanent homeland in Palestine. Zionists are a specific sect of Jews and their supporters espouse these ideals. “A home with no people, for a people without a home,” goes their popular mantra.

The problem is that the land that we know today as the state Israel had always been occupied territory. According to freelance journalist Alison Weir, the people living there ERRATUM

before World War I consisted of Arabs, 85% of whom were Muslim, 10% Christian and 5% Jewish. They lived in an environment of relative peace.

Such is the backdrop for a conflict that has lasted for generations and has taken thousands of lives. After World War II, immigration into Israel

by Jewish communities from Europe increased. Clashes between the native Palestinians and the newly settled Jews became inevitable.

After the diaspora, international mandates and initiatives of First World countries overwhelmingly favored and consolidated the claim of the Zionists. The United Nations (UN) Partition plan of 1947 gave 56% of the land to the Jewish minority and 43% to the Palestinian majority. Palestinians who comprised of two-thirds of the population now had less property. The Jews in Israel declared independence in 1947, and after a region-wide war, controlled 78% of the area (figures from the Middle East Research and Information Project). In 1967, an offensive attack against Egypt,

Jordan and Syria gave Israel control over the Gaza and the West Bank, where a majority of Palestinians live today.

Fast forward to contemporary times. The Oslo Accords signed in 1993 by both Israel and Palestine formally recognizes Palestinians’ rights to self-determination. It is ironic that a majority of those living in Gaza today have never experienced freedom their whole lives. Barbed wire fences and military checkpoints surround Gaza. This allows Israel to control the inflow of goods and services as well as the outflow of people. It is also not uncommon to see walls of houses covered with holes from artillery fire. In the West Bank, the building of illegal Israeli settlement has not stopped completely, despite the official condemnation of United States officials like John Kerry.

Peace negotiations have repeatedly been stalled due to feelings of animosity from both sides.

The recent confl ict arose when Israel blamed Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist militant group, for the alleged kidnapping of three Israelis. This hap-

pened only months after the reconciliation of Hamas with its more moderate counterpart, Fatah. This unity was seen by Israel as a political threat that they needed to thwart. The result was an Israeli offensive dubbed “Operation Protective Edge.” Sources vary as to what the precise death tolls are.

An Israeli news blog reports that the death toll in Gaza has reached 1,700, 400 of which are children. Noura Ekart from The Nation cites a UN estimate, which says that 74% of those killed are non-combatants.

How should conversations about these atrocities now proceed? Gustavo Gutierrez is a theologian who I look up to. In his writings about the poor in Latin America, he talks about the need to speak about injustice using both a prophetic and a mystical language. I believe that these are useful in trying to determine what our moral responsibilities are to those suffering in places far away.

A mystical language tells us that everyone has a claim to unmerited love and respect. The mainstream discourse on this

conflict has created stereotypes about races and cultures in an attempt to simplify a complex issue. Many Americans still have the impression that all Palestinians are terrorists.

Conversely, many assume that Zionism is a universal belief among all Jews. These caricatures only weaken active dialogue and negotiation that is sorely needed.

A prophetic lang uage demands for us to renounce unjust structures and those that perpetuate them. This means condemning Israel for its attack on civilian targets, but also for its refusal to grant sovereignty to those living in Gaza. Conversely, we must also condemn rocket fire on the side of Hamas that, while less accurate and precise, have also killed Israeli civilians.

I hope leaders from both sides let go of their rockets and engage in dialogue instead. That may prove once and for all that love is all we need.

Basilio E. Claudio is the vice president for Public Relations of The Ateneo Assembly.

Ace Dela Cruz's Blue Jeans entry for the July 2014 issue of The GUIDON titled "Laban lupa, laban buhay!" said that the land acquisition and distribution component of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms Law still has a backlog of 32,000 hectares. It should have been 726,000 hectares. The author and The GUIDON apologize for the oversight.

The GUIDON August 2014

Cornucopia Mara D. Cepeda mcepeda@theguidon.com

Casting hope “Pasensiya na kayo sa bahay namin,” says Nanay Doyet Encio as my immersion partner and I enter their house in Barangay Caingin, Santa Rosa, Laguna.

It’s a humble home: The floor consists of mismatched tiles and cement, the walls made out of wood and tarpaulin, the roof patched together by pieces of yero.

In an area less than 25 square meters,

Great Places Vernise L. Tantuco vtantuco@theguidon.com

Creating culture “Don’t be a writer,” insisted local fiction writer and columnist Jessica Zafra at her talk at the Ayala Museum last August 2.

The first out of the 10 reasons she gave was that the job offered little to no security. The second was that there isn’t a culture of reading in the Philippines.

It isn’t just reading, however. I think that

Middle Ground Karen G. Sison ksision@theguidon.com

Purpose and productivity How do you measure the success of your day? Often, I find myself measuring it by how many tasks I’ve completed on my to-do list. If I complete most, if not all my tasks for the day, I would consider that day successful. Otherwise, I deem it unsuccessful. While I get satisfaction

Reverie Roxie Y. Ramirez rramirez@theguidon.com

Cut, copy and paste The popular entertainment website BuzzFeed came under fire recently over cases of plagiarism. Benny Johnson, one of the site’s editors, was revealed to have lifted passages from various websites and articles. In the 500 articles written

Andromeda Ennah A. Tolentino etolentino@theguidon.com

Naked truth Photos of the Warwick University men’s rowing team went viral a few weeks ago—a widespread acceptance and glorification of the male form.

The college team from the United Kingdom has been posing for the Naked Rowers calendar since 2009 to help support their training and to contribute to Sports Allies, an organization that aims

Nanay Doyet lives with her husband Tatay Jhun, their children Jhelyn, Jhervin, Jherwin and Jhunell, her daughter-in-law Mariel and her twomonth-old grandchild Kendra.

While his two sons already have work and Nanay Doyet sidelines by ironing neighbors’ clothes and caretaking a relative’s house, Tatay Jhun is still the breadwinner of the family. He’s a fisherman, but he rarely goes to the Laguna de Bay these days. There’s barely any fish due to pollution, he says, and he earns more by being a barangay tanod and a tricycle driver.

During my immersion, the Encios ensured that their visitors from the Ateneo were well-fed and comfortable. It therefore pained me to see how the odds are stacked against this family who spent more for my partner and me in three days than they

usually do for themselves in a month.

Barangay Caingin experiences severe flooding every year, with floodwaters taking about three to six months to subside. Several residents have not gone to school, while those who do only finish high school. Unemployment and underemployment are consistent problems, and many of the kids playing in the streets show signs of malnourishment.

Fish pens dot the horizon of the lake.

In the ‘70s, the fishermen of the Laguna de Bay were able to catch an average of 20 kilograms of fish a day. Today, that number has been reduced to around five kilograms, even with fisherfolk toiling in the lake for eight hours straight.

These are some of the problems that plague the area, and those living by the shores of Laguna de Bay are facing their biggest one yet.

During his fifth State of the Nation Address last July 28, President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III described the Laguna Lakeshore Expressway Dike as the biggest project under the PublicPrivate Partnership Program.

The objectives for the 47-kilometer, six-lane dike are commendable: It aims to relieve traffic along the South Luzon Expressway, the Manila South Road and the National Highway from Calamba to Los Baños. The dike is also envisioned not only to lessen flooding in the areas around Laguna de Bay, but also to make the lake cleaner.

What the president didn’t say in his speech, however, is that the dike would call for the resettlement of about 300,000 families, the Encios included.

A good number of fisherfolk would be relocated to an area far off the coast,

where they will no longer have easy access to their main source of livelihood. This isn’t just an issue of relocation and people seeking new jobs to replace the old one; the dike threatens to uproot the lives of thousands to the core.

However, instead of dismantling the project all together, what the Laguna de Bay fishermen are asking for instead is the complete implementation of the fisherfolk settlement stipulated in the Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998. Build the dike, but make sure that the fishermen will still be able to gain access to the fishing grounds within 15 kilometers from the shoreline.

Their call is simple: Allow them to fish where their grandfathers did too, and allow them to live the life that they should. Make the daang matuwid truly accessible for all.

there isn’t much of an appreciation for the arts at all in the Philippines. Philippine theater, cuisine and artistic achievement for instance, cater to a niche audience.

The situation is unsurprising given our economic situation. As sociologist Pierre Bourdieu explained, “taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier.” The extent to which one is able to appreciate culture is an economic identifier. This shouldn’t be a problem in itself—many Filipinos do have more pressing concerns than the state of the arts in our country. It does become a problem, however, when the government and our nation’s stakeholders don’t see the need to cultivate culture, nor see it as an instrument for nation-building.

For instance, the Commission on Higher Education supposedly had the best interests of the nation in mind when

they issued Memorandum Order No. 20, series of 2013. The memorandum causes Filipino to be taught to Grades 11 and 12, rather than on the tertiary level. It also implies, though, that the value of Filipino literature is not enough for it to warrant discourse at the university level.

Another arguable instance is the view that an interest in our designers’ current take on traditional dress during the president’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) is trivial. One can insist that it distracts from the seriousness of the important event, but that begs the question: Why isn’t fashion—a glimpse into our country’s culture and mindset at this point in history—not deemed important?

For a country like the Philippines, where geography alone is a hindrance to national identity, an appreciation of dress and lan-

guage becomes even more important to societal progress—the kind that stems from a love for country. The solution for issues like brain drain, corruption and apathy can be kickstarted by the cultivation of at least an interest in an inclusive national culture—“inclusive,” because our national culture should bridge all gaps be it geographic or economic.

In light of this, I don’t believe that the coverage on SONA fashion is as bad as it is made out to be. I would, of course, prefer that the senators were less extravagant; their excess is insensitive in light of the hardship that many of our countrymen face. But because the SONA is something that’s relevant to our entire country, and the discourse on dress—whether it is mocking or critical—involved many Filipinos from all

walks of life, there may be some value to the SONA red carpet coverage.

The same goes for any aspect of the arts. Culture may be an economic identifier, but that doesn’t mean that it should belong to a niche. Filipinos should realize that their craft, cuisine, way of life, contributes to that underlying something that makes us uniquely Filipino. When we show little appreciation for it, when our government issues policies that demean it, then it should come as no surprise that our progress is at a standstill.

Perhaps there is no culture of reading in the Philippines. And perhaps this aggravates the lack of security that writers— and even artists—typically experience.

But when people like Zafra keep on anyway, it gives me hope.

from completing my to-do lists, sometimes I don’t feel that it’s enough. There are times I feel that I’m simply doing one thing after another, stuck in a rut.

In one of the lectures for my philosophy class, while studying Fr. Roque Ferriols, SJ’s Meron, we were discussing Techne, which, translated in English, is doing by understanding and understanding by doing. Roy Allan Tolentino, my teacher, was explaining how doing without understanding is blind, and understanding without doing is empty.

He illustrated the former in particular, by giving student life as an example: Often, students feel that they just keep doing work again and again, submitting one requirement after the other, to the point where they can no longer see what it’s all for. Hearing this example brought me back to the thought of how I measure

my days based on productivity and how mechanical this makes me feel.

There seems to be this general obsession with being productive, productive in the context of getting things done.

There's a whole array of apps geared towards productivity: 30/30, Wunderlist, Google Keep, Evernote, Penultimate and the like. There are websites and blogs, such as LifeHacker, Bakadesuyo, BufferApp, Harvard Business Review and 99u, that provide a variety of productivity hacks in the content they release. Productivity is no longer simply a concept in economics—it has become a trend.

This obsession with getting things done brings me to the question: “Is it really all just about being productive?”

Some months ago, I stumbled upon an article, ironically from 99u, entitled “It's Not About ‘Productivity.’ It's About

Living Purposefully.” In this article, Sam Spurlin, discusses how we absorb information by bits. He proceeds to show that, given the magnitude of the possibilities we can encounter in the human experience, our attention is horribly limited. Spurlin says that productivity is not simply about getting things done; it’s about making the most out of those limited bits of information, given a certain path you pave for yourself.

What he said made a whole lot of sense to me. However, I thought that the title of the article could be misleading. Without reading the article, you may jump to the conclusion that productivity and purpose are two things that are to be taken separately or that one impedes the other.

I beg to differ, though. Rather than one hindering the other, I think that productivity and purpose have a symbiotic

relationship and support each other in turn. Purpose gives direction to productivity, while productivity strengthens purpose. Much like in Techne, productivity without purpose, like doing without understanding, is robotic and reduces work to mindless tasks. Likewise, purpose without productivity, similar to understanding without doing, is meaningless, and all dreams and plans remain as mere concepts.

It’s all easier said than done though.

I do hope that in time, I will learn not only to measure the success of a day by how many items I’ve ticked off my to-do list, but also by how meaningful these tasks are–maybe not necessarily for that day itself , but hopefully in the long run.

by Johnson, 41 of them had sentences or phrases that were copied word for word from other sources.

Closer to home, a post went around on Facebook showing that the posters of the Bulacan State University’s Office of Student Organizations (Bulsu OSO) used the same logo as the Ateneo Freshmen Orientation Seminar (Orsem) 2013.

Similarly, another poster from the organization used elements from the logo of the Ateneo Entablado’s play, Sugod, Filemon Mamon!.

Both Bulsu OSO and BuzzFeed have since apologized for these cases of plagiarism. BuzzFeed has since fired Johnson and rewrote his articles, even adding an editor’s note for all 41 of them.

They have also released a statement on their website last July 26, saying, “We

will work hard to be more vigilant in the future, and to earn your trust.”

Bulsu OSO also took down the posters in question. It released a statement on their Facebook page, stating that while they were sorry for the lapse in judgment, “the layout artist never claimed [the logo] as it was his own creation.”

And therein lies the problem. While Bulsu OSO did apologize, the way they phrased their apology made it seem like it was okay for them to essentially copypaste the logo, since they never claimed it to be theirs in the first place. It is as if saying that citing a source makes completely copying an idea okay.

We have long been taught that plagiarism occurs when one does not cite your source. This has been drilled into me since grade school. I have had count-

less classes on citation, on how to create reference lists and how to paraphrase, et cetera. But plagiarism also means taking other people’s ideas and passing it off as your own.

While it may only take five seconds to go on Google and right-click-save-as the first image we see, we have to realize that the image that we’re essentially stealing may have taken someone five or more years of training to create and conceptualize.

Art has always been seen as something easy, that it’s something that anyone with the technology can do.

But we have to realize that the simple poster that we think was made in 10 minutes actually needed five revisions.

That 30-second film required two to three days of shooting. That logo that

we think was made in a day was actually made in a year. There is a lot of time and effort involved in making art and creating ideas, and it is time and effort that we almost usually disregard.

Bulsu OSO also claimed in their statement that they had no “intention to make an uncomfortable situation between the two universities.” But this is not a case of hurt feelings. This is a case of intellectual property theft, plain and simple.

There has long been a lack of discussion about intellectual property rights (IPR) in this country, mostly because it is seen as a problem for the rich. But we have to realize that IPR is not just about protecting logos and poster designs; it is also about protecting artists.

to fight homophobia.

In 2013, the women’s rowing team of the same school joined the calendar tradition to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support. While the men’s calendar has been widely accepted for the past years, the women’s photos were immediately met by criticism on tastefulness and propriety.

Following the marketing strategy of the men’s team, the women also created a Facebook page to help promote their calendar. The same social media platform that allowed the propagation of the men’s photos had briefly banned the page of the women’s team.

The women’s photos are no different from the men’s: Stark nakedness paired with careful camera angling. The women’s photos, however, were considered to be a violation of Facebook’s nudity policy; the photos were marked as offensive. Why?

Because they were women.

Next September will mark exactly one year before the deadline of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), one of which is to promote gender equality and to empower women.

It is cases like the banning of the Warwick women’s rowing team’s photos that make us question if we have progressed in the 15 years that the MDG has been in effect.

Sentence-summaries such as “women’s status in the labor market is improving, but gender disparity still exists” and “women’s political participation continues to increase, but glass ceilings remain” appear in the 2014 MDG report.

There are numbers that show improvement in gender parity and labor opportunities for women. While these are commendable, gender equality cannot

be fully illustrated by quantitative data.

Gender equality—inequality, in our state today—is a social issue. It is perpetuated by how people define things. Essentially, the problem does not lie in females exposing their bodies, but in how society has taught us to focus on the exposed cleavage.

A 2013 study of Sarah Gervais, Arianne Holland and Michael Dodd is premised on the objectifying gaze that continues to victimize women. The researchers found that both men and women who were told to focus on appearance stared mainly on a woman’s chest and waist instead of her face. Women are not viewed as their entire person but as body parts—as breasts, as asses.

They also found that the objectifying gaze was more pronounced when directed at “high ideal” women, which the study defines as “hourglass-shaped

women with large breasts and small waist-to-hip ratios,” as if these women were at fault for their bodies.

This sexualisation of women’s bodies— even when clothed—has led women to fear for every inch of skin exposed. Women cannot show their bodies, even just parts thereof, without being tagged as sluts or without being called out because they are allegedly “asking for it.”

I wonder if a social change that has not fully happened in 15 years could occur before the end of the MDG. We cannot deny, however, that the revolution is being fought. The ban on the Warwick women’s rowing team’s Facebook page has been lifted, thanks to the outspoken minority.

There is hope, as the minority influence theory says that there could be no social change without an outspoken minority that is consistent and confident in asking for it.

8

News

Atenean Voice With President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino’s falling approval rate, do you think that the changes he proposed in this year’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) will help the Philippines and improve his image in the eyes of the people?”

Abbo Hernandez Premier, Crusada

Alyana Olivar 2 BFA CW

Alenah Romero 3 AB POS

Paulo Chua 3 BSM AMF

“For me and for the [Christian Union for Socialist and Democratic Advancement (Crusada)], the more important question is grounded on the conversation of ‘Can the president change the political culture he sought to replace?’ Because in so far as ratings go, we first have to be able to analyze the kind of standards people hold the government accountable for. Firstly, why was it harder for the administration to defend itself from any criticism against the DAP (Disbursement Allocation Program) when it argued that it just did what other administrations did in the past? This was because the standard it brought to itself was that it could change the political culture present during the time they were elected through their platform of matuwid na daan. This directly tells us that people no longer hold them beholden to their ability to ‘act as legitimately’ as a previous administration, rather on how well they can veer away from previous practices. What does this tell us? Well, it’s a bit premature to know if everyone will start liking him statistically, especially knowing that these are just words out of a politician’s mouth; but if the main promise the president gives is that he will continue the fight for fiscal reform through defending DAP in Congress, I’d feel as if it’s a move that further puts our branches of government into a gridlock. If the administration is a true reformist, they would focus on striking down the culture of patronage that it promised to destroy to begin with, not strengthen it.”

“In my opinion, he has not given us any new material to expect from him. Yes, he had given statistics and evidence to support his claims [on] our recovering economy, but I don’t see these so-called achievements of his governance. All in all, I feel like President Aquino’s tenure will be ending in a downward spiral. His image is now tarnished by his slow response to national issues. His talk of foresight and historical reviewing will be for naught if he cannot see that all talk of progress is hindered by prevalent corruption. I doubt that the appropriation of funds is strictly monitored or will continue to be so. Maybe the Philippines will benefit from these proposals, if they do push through, but I doubt that we will see the fruit of these endeavors anytime soon. His image to the Filipino people might be too skewed to be rectified as fast as he might want it to be. Seriously, I’m just waiting for the next president to take over.”

“I think no, because people are going to look for certain things that they can actually see and that they actually think that are real. And even though [Aquino] is just saying these things, there are no concrete things that we can see right now, such as the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) modernization. We don’t really see progress if nothing changes. [Aquino] is just saying statistics and the like. We can see if it is really brand new or not. If he really wants to make the people’s opinion of him good, he needs to do something concrete that we can see and we can feel.”

“For me, President Aquino could still improve his approval rate through his proposed changes. However, it could only happen if he is really able to implement most, if not all of them. The reason why his approval ratings are going down seems to be that he is not really true to many of the things he says. There is still crime, and a lot of poor people out there.

With the proper implementation of his proposed changes, he could still improve his ratings amongst the people.”

Glimpses Ateneo, IBM to develop Science and Technology and Analytics competency The Ateneo de Manila University and the International Business Machine Corporation (IBM) signed a memorandum of agreement on July 8 that aims to develop Science and Technology and Analytics competency through research and development. The research and development strategy comprises of high performance computing research and education, big data and business analytics research and education, weather and climate prediction and simulation, computational chemistry and bioinformatics research, disaster and emergency management, and mobile and remote sensing application. Through this initiative, the Ateneo and IBM hope to come up with innovative projects that will help combat and solve current scientific and socio-economic challenges faced by the country. Bianca N. Martinez

ACERD revives Eagle Watch Eagle Watch was re-launched this year through an economic forum and briefing titled “Aquinomics: 2010-2014 and Beyond” held on August 9 at the Justitia Room of the Ateneo Graduate School of Business campus. Eagle Watch is a quarterly macroeconomic briefing spearheaded by the Ateneo Center for Economic Research and Development (ACERD) in early 2002 to educate the public about the Philippines’ fast changing economic landscape. The forum tackled President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III’s economic growth efforts, the fiscal state of the nation and the impact of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Economic Community 2015 in the country.

This year’s speakers were economists and Eagle Watch Senior Fellows Fernando Aldaba, PhD, Alvin Ang, PhD, Cielito Habito, PhD, and Leonardo Lanzona Jr, PhD. In their presentations, the economists forecasted that there will be a 6.2 to 6.4% growth in the country’s economy this year. Samantha O. Subida

For comments, suggestions and contributions, email

desk@theguidon.com

Drive the discussion.

Marco Lopez Assistant professor, Filipino Department

“I don’t remember him asking for specific things from Congress. He was saying that the thrust of this SONA was ‘trust me.’ ‘Trust me in not committing any anomaly. Trust me with the budget, and in the last two years of my term, I will do my best. Trust me that I’m doing the best for the country.’ The thing is, the suspicion of many people is that, this year, people will still follow him because he still has two years, but next year, he will most likely be a lame duck president. People will start to stop following him. My feeling is that we will give him the benefit of the doubt. After the SONA, the complaints against him are not too strident anymore. Instead, people will say ‘You (Aquino) have two years. Make the best of it.’”

Grace Basilisa Aguilar 4 AB DipIR

“He proposes changes—all presidents do, during a SONA. But if he doesn’t manage to pull through with all of his promises, his image is guaranteed ruined. Besides, he shouldn’t be worrying about his image now. There are more pressing matters to be addressed than maintaining an image.”

Maria Elissa Lao, DPA Chairperson, Political Science Department

“I don’t think that improving his image should be his concern now. He should be focused on deliverables which he gave during the SONA. Usually at the end of the president’s term, you are no longer looking at the popularity ratings. You’re really looking at leaving a legacy.”

Jim Matthew Ham 2 AB POS

“Well, he entered into public service. Like it or not, he would have to do well on his programs and promises. Politics is not about popularity; it’s about service and leadership. Yes, his ratings are going down, but it should not be a hindrance in doing his job as the president which includes implementing [the] programs [he said]. Popular or not, he is the president, elected by the people, there to serve his constituents.”

Lauren Ong 3 BFA CW

“Given PNoy’s falling approval rate, I don’t think that whatever changes he says he’ll make based on the SONA will have any leverage on the people’s perception of him unless they see actual results. Year after year, Filipinos have constantly been disappointed by the promising SONA speeches, and now they know better than to immediately believe that all the projects the president said he’d do would come to fruition. Hence, I really believe that not until PNoy starts delivering, only then will the Filipino people alter their currently negative stance on him.”

Matthew Fernand Alano 1 BS HS

“In my opinion, SONA 2014 will not significantly improve President Aquino’s rating to the masses simply because he does not follow through [with] his promises. During SONA 2014, he announced to the public all the promises he kept from SONA 2013, but we can clearly see that these are only a handful compared to the number of promises he made.

This is due to the fact that PNoy is too slow in the implementation of his projects and that causes disappointment within the nation, especially to those in the marginalized sector. The masses want to hear all the good things promised by their leader, but what they really want is that all these ideas turn into reality. If President Aquino can speed up the process of implementing his projects and be more efficient in pushing through with his promises, then we can expect good ratings for him.”

Community Calendar Pre-Medical Society of the Ateneo’s bloodletting activity August 26 to 29 Social Sciences Building Foyer This activity aims to gather blood supply from the Ateneo population for the benefit of the Pre-Medical Society of the Ateneo’s partner hospitals. The event will also include an exhibit and a bloodletting talk, both to be held on the first day.

CORD’s Training Assistant Development Program August 28 to 29 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM Ateneo CORD Training Center, 2/F Höffner Building, Social Development Complex The Ateneo Center for Organization Research and Development (CORD) will spearhead a two-day training program that aims to equip attendees with skills that will allow them to facilitate, document and conduct workshops more efficiently. A registration fee of P9,000, inclusive of meals and materials for the whole program, will be collected from participants upon registration. The program is open to the public.

To register, contact CORD via landline at 4266001 loc. 5263 or via email through cord.soss@ateneo.edu.

Arsamahan Culminating Mass August 31 6:00 to 7:00 PM Church of the Gesù A Mass will be held to cap off the first month of Arsamahan, Cervini Hall’s 50th anniversary celebration. Dormers and non-dormers alike are invited to join the Mass to be presided by Fr. Xave Olin, SJ. CONVERGENCE: The GUIDON 85th Anniversary Celebration Night September 6 7:00 to 9:00 PM Ricardo and Dr. Rosita Leong Hall Roof Deck RSVP at tinyurl.com/CONVERGENCE-TheGUIDON85

Sports

The GUIDON August 2014

99

A COLLECTIVE IDENTITY. Team Ateneo goes beyond the student-athlete community.

PHOTO BY FRANCINE A. BHARWANI

Inside "Team Ateneo"

By Raizza P. Bello and Faith R. Decangchon A LARGE variety of ideas come to mind when Ateneo sports is discussed. Not only does it pertain to the several teams in the university, but it also extends to the individual athletes, coaching staffs, managers and fans inside and outside of campus. The expansion of the Ateneo sports community has created a new realm. It has been molded and solidified with two words, simple, yet striking: Team Ateneo.

But in this fast-growing and evolving world of Ateneo sports, and the many factors and people involved in its shaping, we are led to ask: What exactly is Team Ateneo?

For the love of sports

Different supporters have varied ways of showing how much they have invested in their teams. One of which is how far they’re willing to go to get tickets, such as in junior communication major KD Montenegro’s case.

She shares, “I was a freshman back then, and it was the championship game [against the University of Santo Tomas], so I waited outside the Ateneo at [2:00 AM] even though my Math 11 (Modern Mathematics I) test was at [8:oo AM]. I got my ticket at around 7:15 AM. I didn’t get to study anymore, but I passed the

subject and I witnessed the Ateneo in sweet [five-peat] victory.”

This clamor for tickets is even more evident with its rise in the black market. Scalpers have been actively taking advantage of the highly sought-after games, as they get a handful of tickets from the outlet stores and sell them at a price far more than their actual value. The scalpers’ visibility has increased in Facebook groups such as the Ateneo Book Market, Ateneo Trade and other student-run batch pages. Ticket prices can go as high as P2,000. They are also being offered as a bid to see who is willing to pay the highest.

Claire Lim, a senior communications technology management major, can attest to this issue.

She bought an Ateneo-La Salle game ticket from a scalper in September 2012. The P75 ticket was sold to her at P800.

She reveals in a mix of English and Filipino, “At first, I didn’t know the prices of UAAP (University Athletic Association of the Philippines) tickets...but, of course, I couldn’t do anything because I already bought [it], so I just enjoyed the game.” She shares that it was an experience not worth repeating: “I’d never buy a ticket that expensive ever again.”

Given the amount of sacrifice involving money, time and emotions, one is led to ask why one would give so much effort to be part of Team Ateneo. Karl Cruz, a senior from Barangka National High School who became part

of Ateneo’s Alay ni Ignacio program, offers an answer: Personal inspiration.

At a young age, Cruz was encouraged by his sister to watch the games of the UAAP. This began his fascination with the Ateneo players’ delivery in games and his strong dedication in supporting the teams. “Nadala talaga ako sa laro ng Ateneo, particularly sa volleyball team. Iba ang laro nila compared sa ibang university (I was really fascinated by Ateneo’s gameplay, particularly the volleyball team’s.

The way they played was different compared to other universities),” he exclaims.

Mentioning the Lady Eagles’ come-from-behind feat against National University and De La Salle University last season, Cruz adds that the team became an inspiration for him as a student.

is being built in a different space: The virtual arena.

This is mostly true for popular teams like the Women’s Volleyball team, the Ateneo Lady Eagles. Fans of the group created a Twitter account, @ADMU_WVT, with almost

through proliferation of merchandise. GetBlued, a company started in 2008 by Kirk Damasco (BS MGT ‘08) and Andrew Sy (BS MGT ‘08), has been producing shirts with different graphics and statements stating the Blue and White spirit.

Team Ateneo takes good care not only [of] my athletics life but my whole being as well. It is not only an institution but also a family that guides me along my way.

Building the mold

Aside from the teams, athletes, supporters, social media and the popularity of Ateneo merchandise have affected the perspective and reach of Team Ateneo.

The games do not end on the actual court, as fans always express their dismay or delight on social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Before and after momentous matches, one can see either a rift between opposing teams’ supporters or reinforcement of fans’ belief in their respective teams.

Team spirit, then, is no longer limited to presence in games, whether live or on television, but

— SPENCER GALIT Blue Fencer, Ateneo Fencing Team

90,000 followers as of writing.

Tweets range from recruitment and match updates, to personal shout outs to their idols.

Social media has also become a tool to connect with the athletes, as seen in the huge Twitter following of three of the more known Ateneo players: Kiefer Ravena, Alyssa Valdez and Dennise Lazaro.

With this increase in fan involvement, part of identifying with Team Ateneo has been

As stated in their Facebook account: “GetBlued is for everyone who is proud, bold and one with the community that shouts Go Ateneo, One Big Fight!” Their products—endorsed by Ateneo athletes—have become available not only in the Loyola Schools Bookstore but also in other Ateneo campuses, thus making it one of the most successful merchandising companies tied to Ateneo throughout the years.

Athlete’s eye

For the subjects directly attributed to Team Ateneo, the term goes beyond the field of sports.

Veteran Blue Fencer Spencer Galit reveals, “Team Ateneo takes good care not only [of] my athletics life but my whole being as well. It is not only an institution but also a family that guides me along my way.” He adds that the support Team Ateneo gives to his academic and non-academic commitments—such as providing a study hall and a suitable training area—allow him to strive harder every year, pushing him to do better in all that he does.

Team Ateneo is not merely a label given to athletic teams and their supporters, but a collective identity that supports the Ateneo sports community.

It is the patience and effort in finding tickets for a game. It is the constant watching of the teams’ journey throughout the season. It is the tweets and online posts, and even the wearing of shirts that shout “One Big Fight! Go Ateneo!”

It is the athletes’ development, not just in the sport, but also in other aspects of his or her life.

Team Ateneo is a celebration of belongingness and shared meaning to a community that takes pride in its efforts and successes. It is a testament that sportsmen and fans alike can come together to achieve a common endeavor—to take pride, win or lose, in the Blue and White.

SOCIAL MEDIA CRAZE. Teams like the Ateneo Lady Eagles have more than 90,000 followers on social media.

REINFORCEMENTS. Training facilities and an overwhelming support system serves as Ateneo’s backbone.

GUIDANCE UNDER THE FAMILY. Team Ateneo athletes have facilities like the study hall to help them in areas other than competitions.

PHOTO BY RYAN Y. RACCA

PHOTO BY ALEXANDRA L. HUANG

PHOTO BY ALEXANDRA L. HUANG

10

Sports

The GUIDON August 2014

UAAP SEASON 77

Ateneo basketball first round summary RESEARCH BY Chino C. Razon INFOGRAPHIC BY Meg C. Quintos

KIEFER RAVENA and Danica Jose led the Blue and Lady Eagles in the first round of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines.

Jose consistently crashed the boards with an average of 13 rebounds per game coupled with 13.1 points per game.

Her consistency helped the Lady Eagles exceed last year’s performance of only a single win.

For the men’s team, Ravena’s all-around performance propelled the Blue Eagles to a 6-1 record. Ravena leads the Most Valuable Player race with averages of 23 points, 5.1 rebounds and 5.1 assists.

Here’s a summary of Ateneo’s first round performance in Season 77:

MEN'S BASKETBALL

Ateneo Blue Eagles BRAINS, BEAUTY AND BRAWN. Laura Lehmann has the experience of an athlete and a Binibining Pilipinas contestant to handle the pressure of being a courtside reporter.

PHOTO BY ALEXIS A. CASAS

GALLERY OF EAGLES

L AURA LEHMANN

The new face in the crowd

By Noelle M. Recio EV ERY TIM E a new University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) season unfolds, the crowd does not only eagerly anticipate the new players that will be stepping onto the court. The crowd also looks out for the fresh faces that are tasked to roam the sidelines for each participating UAAP school.

Though these courtside reporters may not be participants of any of the tournament’s 15 sports, they remain an important member of their squads, as they take on the responsibility of being their team’s official spokespersons.

This season, Ateneo’s Laura Lehmann will be one of the newest additions to the group of courtside reporters. Standing tall at five feet and nine inches, the Binibining Pilipinas beauty is set on ensuring that her debut for the Blue and White gallery will be one to remember.

Natural athlete

Having spent the early part of her life in the Philippines, Lehmann is the product of a combination of some of the country’s most notable exclusive and international schools. Though she would eventually graduate from the International School of Manila for high school, Lehmann also spent several years studying in both Assumption College and Beacon International School.

“As a child, I was really active in sports,” Lehmann shares. A self-confessed tomboy from when she was growing up, Lehmann spent a lot of her early years playing touch rugby and softball. Perhaps one of her biggest accomplishments in the realm of sports by far would be making the Philippine Softball team that placed second to the United States (US) in the World Series a few years back.

Lehmann’s young athletic career was put on hold when she chose to accept a scholarship from Occidental College in the US, the same university where US President Barrack Obama

graduated. As much as she loved sports, she was not one to make her studies a secondary priority.

For a year and a half, Lehmann pursued psychology, neurological science and Spanish abroad.

During last year’s Christmas break, an unlikely opportunity presented itself to Lehmann that would have her come home longer than she had planned.

Ticket back home

“I was at a dinner and somebody asked me to join Binibining Pilipinas,” shares Lehmann.

“So I just thought, ‘Why not?

It’s fun and you get to learn a lot of things.’” True enough, her decision to stay and join the competition was one that paid off.

Lehmann, despite being a rookie in the world of beauty pageants, placed first runner-up overall.

It was therefore a natural decision for her to try out to be the courtside reporter of the Blue and White, after some of her mentors from Binibining Pilipinas brought it up to her.

“We’re seven winners for Binibining, but all of the other winners are already done with school, [since] they’re around 26,” continues Lehmann, “I’m the only one who’s still in school, so they suggested that.”

Handling the pressure

Even with pageant experience under her belt, Lehmann admits that the road to being a courtside reporter was one that took almost everything she had, as she went through multiple audition screenings. As difficult as the process was, however, Lehmann admits that courtside

As one of the newest faces in this year’s courtside team, Lehmann is preparing for the worst but definitely expecting the best out of the opportunity she has earned. “I expect it to be really hard actually because I really know Selina Dagdag left a really good mark and left a really good reputation for Ateneo.”

But she shares that much like this year’s Blue Eagles, she is ready to take all criticisms in stride and make all the necessary preparations and sacrifices that will be needed from her. “Coming in especially as a newbie, it’s really hard for me… since there’s pressure to be as good as her, so I definitely expect it to be a hard journey for me.”

She adds that she finds herself motivated despite the pressure of her work. “At the same time, that kind of motivates me to really try my best. I still get super nervous every game, but I really try my best to hide it.”

Balancing act

Coming in especially as a newbie, it's really hard for me... since there's pressure to be as good as [Selina Dagdag], so I definitely expect it to be a hard journey for me.

— LAURA LEHMANN Courtside reporter, Ateneo de Manila University

It was also this experience that eventually led her to the Ateneo. “[Binibining Pilipinas] ended up being a really good experience, and that required me [to] stay in Manila, so I enrolled in Ateneo,” says Lehmann.

Coming from a family of Ateneans, Lehmann always felt a strong inclination to the university. In fact, she says that had it not been for the scholarship abroad she was offered, she would have found her way to the Loyola Heights campus years prior.

reporting is something that she has grown to love.

“It’s really nice because even though I never saw myself doing it, I realized that it was like the best of both worlds, ‘cause number one, it’s related to sports and I really love sports.” Lehman adds that her experience in sports and beauty pageants has helped her handle the pressure. “As a kid, I always played sports and then, number two, it’s in front of the camera, and we did a lot of that for Binibining.

So it was like a combination of the things that I like.”

In between having to fit in photo shoots during breaks, visiting team practices at least thrice a week and attending class, Lehmann does not fail to see how rewarding her journey has been so far.

“With Binibining, I think it’s just learning how to present myself better and becoming more mature,” the psychology junior admits. “A lot of people think that… beauty contests [are just] about looks, but it’s really a mental game, because you have a lot of people talking about you–some [positively], some [negatively]–and you really have to learn to filter that information and control it, and just maintain your composure.”

Lehmann relates this experience as something that can help her when patrolling the sidelines.

“Then with courtside, I guess it taught me a lot about reporting and just being able to make substantial reports in a short of time, so it was an educational experience.”

Lehmann, together with this year’s revamped Blue Eagles, is more than ready to embark on this new chapter in Ateneo sports history.

Ateneo 79 ADU 57

★ Kiefer Ravena 22 points, 4 steals

Ateneo 97 DLSU 57

★ Kiefer Ravena 29 points 5/7 3 pt shooting

Ateneo 86 UP 75

★ Arvin Tolentino 20 points 8 rebounds

Ateneo 60 NU 64

★ Arvin Tolentino 17 points 9 rebounds

Ateneo 81 FEU 78

★ Kiefer Ravena 23 points ★ Chris Newsome 17 points, 7/9 field shooting

Ateneo 63 UST 61

★ Chris Newsome 18 points 8 rebounds

Ateneo 93 UE 91

★ Kiefer Ravena 38 points 9 assists 6 rebounds

WOMEN'S BASKETBALL

Ateneo Lady Eagles Ateneo 54 UP 42

★ Danica Jose 18 points 8 rebounds

Ateneo 58 FEU 50

★ Danica Jose 22 points, 13 rebounds ★ Ther Aseron 14 points, 2/2 3pt shooting

Ateneo 54 UST 55

★ Ther Aseron 13 points ★ Hazelle Yam 11 points

Ateneo 50 NU 59

★ Danica Jose 7 points 14 rebounds

Ateneo 39 DLSU 48

★ Danica Jose 17 points 22 rebounds

Ateneo 47 ADU 59

★ Ther Aseron 12 points ★ Cara Buendia 12 points

Ateneo 50 UE 35

★ Danica Jose 16 points 18 rebounds

Sports

The GUIDON August 2014

11

GALLERY OF EAGLES

Ateneo Swimming Rookies From winning championships to setting records in the juniors rank, three rookie Ateneo Tankers are ready to enter the seniors division of the UAAP.

Getty Reyes

By Beatrice T. Go A FRESH graduate from the Ateneo High School, Gerard “Getty” Reyes is now moving on to the collegiate scene, gearing up to represent the Blue Tankers in this season’s University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP).

Reyes has been swimming competitively for 12 years. He started training in Celebrity Rapids Swim Club under Coach Ronald Cruz. When he enrolled in the Ateneo Grade School, he fi nally settled in training with the varsity under Coach Sherwyn De La Paz. Reyes started setting goals for himself in terms of competitive swimming as he entered high school. “When I got to high school, that [was] when I saw that I had potential. Then, when

I was in first year, I wanted to be Rookie of the Year (ROY),” he explains in a mix of English and Filipino.

Unfortunately, Reyes wasn’t able to garner his desired award.

This pushed him, however, to become more serious in honing his skills. He decided to train under the Ayala Harpoons Swim Club, which was coincidentally coached by Ateneo Swimming Program Director and Coach Archie Lim. Reyes’ subsequent competitions resulted in his great improvement under Lim. Reyes became a key player in the Ateneo juniors team, securing the Most Valuable Player (MVP) award for two consecutive years in the UAAP juniors division.

Reyes believes that his two MVP awards were made possible through the mentality established in him by Coach Lim.

When he was in his junior year, he told Lim that he wanted to be the MVP even though he didn’t train that much. “But Coach Archie would tell me, ‘How can you become MVP if you don’t put effort into it?’ I then started to train even more and I barely missed training,” Reyes shares.

Reyes continued to improve and was able to qualify for the 38th Southeast Asian Age Group Swimming Championships held in Singapore this year. He also garnered the I Am Xtreme award of the Speedo G-League National Long Course Championships held last July.

Reyes is setting his eyes on clenching the ROY title this UAAP season. This promising swimmer will help lead the team towards the crown for the next few years, winning medals and breaking records along the way.

EXPERIENCED FRESHMAN. Getty Reyes sets his eye on winning the Rookie of the Year in his UAAP debut.

PHOTO BY RYAN Y. RACCA

Ariana Herranz

By Beatrice T. Go

WATERS TESTED. Ariana Herranz is ready to take her national team experience and translate it to the UAAP. PHOTO BY RYAN Y. RACCA

NATIONAL TEAM player A ria na Herra nz is now preparing to join the Lady Tankers in their goal to finally claim the championship title in this season’s University Athletic Association of the Philippines.

Herra nz was born in Baltimore, Maryland, but she started her swimming career in San Pablo City, Laguna at a tender age of two. In her first few years of swimming, Herranz was taught by the famous Olympian breeder, Bert Lozada.

At the age of six, Herranz started to represent Lake City Swim Club in different swimming competitions. Under Coach Jayvee Villagracia, her skill in the sport was naturally exhibited by her backstroke and individual medley (IM) events.

By the time she turned 11, she had already garnered gold medals in the 50m and 100m backstroke, and 200m IM events in the 2009 Palarong Pambansa held in Tacloban.

Her swimming prowess caught the attention of National Team Coach Carlos “Pinky” Brosas, who recruited the swimmer into the national training pool.

Herranz’s skill improved through Brosas’ training program.

“I matured in training when I transferred to Coach Pinky,” says Herranz in a mix of English and Filipino. “We had no choice. We’re training with Olympic swimmers, so we had to adapt to their way.”

Herranz entered her first international competition, the 33rd Southeast Asia Age Group Swimming Championships held in Malaysia in 2009. She then qualified for the Philippine team lineup of the SEA Age Group

Swimming until she reached the age limit.

Her ra n z cont i nues to improve greatly, and she is now one of the top backstrokers in t he Ph ilippines. Her performances in other national competitions, such as the Philippine National Games, allowed her to be one of the chosen athletes who were given the privilege of witnessing the 2012 London Olympics.

Last year, Herranz qualified in a major international competition, the 2nd Asian Youth Games held in Nanjing, China. Herranz was able to race until the semifi nals, making it to the top 10 in the 100m backstroke event.

As a promising new addition to the team, Herranz is ready to achieve both her personal bests and to help the Lady Tankers win this season.

Aldo Batungbacal

By Beatrice T. Go A LBERTO “A L D O ” Batungbacal is definitely not new to the Ateneo community.

He has been garnering records and medals in major nationwide competitions for the Ateneo High School—the team that is currently running for a 10-peat in the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP).

Batungbacal was born a swimmer, as he started to swim competitively as early as his toddler years. After switching to different clubs during his first few years of competitive swimming, Batungbacal finally decided to stay in Quezon City (QC) Waves Swim Club.

Batungbacal’s skill greatly improved through the help of the long-time coach of QC Waves, Awad Borja. He currently trains under Coach Cyrus Alcantara.

Batungbacal’s passion for swim-

ming was cultivated through his brother, fellow Blue Tanker Roberto “Robie” Batungbacal. The competitive nature of the UAAP forced the younger Batungbacal to push himself to the limit. “When I was [in] first year [high school], Robie beat me in [the] UAAP [Juniors]. He never beat me ever since,” shares Batungbacal. “After that, whenever he would train, I would have to train more because I wanted to be better.”

This became evident when Batungbacal hit his third year of high school, as his workouts became more specialized to fit his needs. The breaststroker specialist was able to further develop all of his four strokes, enabling him to swim individual medley (IM) events in his future competitions.

Batungbacal then started to bag the medals in most of the national competitions he joined.

His first feat was in Palarong Pamabansa 2013, where he

swept all the gold medals in the 100m and 200m breaststroke, and 200m and 400m individual medley events. He then exhibited his skill in the UAAP Juniors 76 Swimming Championship, finally owning the records of the juniors 100m and 200m breaststroke, and 200m and 400m IM. Aside from his successes i n t he n at ion a l a ren a , Batungbacal entered his first international competition in 2013, the 37th Southeast Asia Age Group Swimming Competition (SEA Age) held in Brunei. Consequently, he also qualified for the 38th SEA Age Championship this year in Singapore.

With all of the achievements under his belt, this freshman aims to help the team win the championship in the UAAP. “We can start a new legacy, along with Jessie [Lacuna] and my brother.”

CONFIDENT AND EAGER. Aldo Batungbacal is aiming high for a championship in his first UAAP in the college ranks.

PHOTO BY RYAN Y. RACCA

Editor: Chino C. Razon · Editorial Assistant: Raizza P. Bello · Layout Artist: Joey D. Ochoa

Sports

10 THE NEW FACE IN THE CROWD Ateneo's newest courtside reporter is more than just a beauty queen.

AT E N E O B A D M I N TO N

The road to repeat and three-peat

By Enzo C. Aycardo SEASON 76 was a year to remember for the men’s and women’s badminton teams of the Ateneo. The Blue Shuttlers, who fell short of the ultimate goal in Season 75 of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP), captured the title in a rematch against defending champions National University (NU). On the other end of the spectrum, the Lady Shuttlers clinched their second straight title at the expense of their archrivals from De La Salle University (DLSU).

These two championship teams were built on a very young core of players. Despite lacking veteran presence, these two teams posted f lawless win-loss records in the elimination round—a feat that earned them a thrice-to-beat advantage in the finals.

Complacency

Season 77 Women’s Team Captain Jana De Vera, however, is quick to admit that their victories have indeed given their team a sense of false complacency. “Medyo hindi na kasing tindi ‘yung desire naming manalo, unlike last year (Our desire to win isn’t as strong as it was last year),” De Vera shares about the drive that powered these ladies to back-to-back titles.

Nevertheless, the team is happy that they were able to bounce back as champions.

“We’re very happy that both the men’s and the women’s teams were able to win the championship,” De Vera adds. “It was an awesome feeling to see our coach extremely happy because she waited a long time for this opportunity.”

Barging into the Finals with a thrice-to-beat advantage also proved to be pivotal for the Lady Shuttlers. They had the momentum and the extra confidence in their showdown against DLSU. When asked what she thinks is the greatest factor in the Lady

Shuttlers’ success, De Vera readily credits her teammates.

Aside from the fact that last year’s crop of rookies was filled with talent, De Vera also highlights the seamless transition from a bunch of talented individual players to one cohesive unit.

Hailing from different badminton clubs, these ladies only got the chance to play for one team when they entered the Ateneo.

Their undeniable chemistry in competition is a result of good relationships off the court. The

Rookie of the Year (ROY) and MVP Bianca Carlos, the Lady Shuttler’s team chemistry on the court is left unbroken.

Despite the departure of seniors Paula Filart and Jaimee Calacday, the future of the Lady Shuttlers remains bright as they will be fielding rookies Cassandra Lim and Samantha Santos into the fold.

The Lady Shuttlers are ready to defend the crown, care of the experiences they’ve gained and shared with each other.

We always remind the young players that these victories [in the UAAP] aren’t our main goal.

Our ultimate goal is to win the championship again.

— JANA DE VERA Team captain, Ateneo Lady Shuttlers

Lady Shuttlers enjoy each other’s company that translated to successes in their competitions.

Back-to-back-to-back?

The Lady Shuttlers are looking to make history this season as they aim to secure the team’s first three-peat. De Vera is well aware of the fact that the road to making history isn’t a stroll in the park. “University of the Philippines (UP) has made the biggest changes in their roster and have defi nitely upgraded from last year, while DLSU is still a strong team,” the team captain shares about the playing field this season.

The Lady Shuttlers are also built on a young pool of talent, as the players from last year’s championship squad remain intact. Led by last year’s

The ladies do realize that the seven other teams see them as the main threat, which gives the Lady Shuttlers enough reason to keep on working hard.

“We always remind the young players that these victories [in the UAAP] aren’t our main goal.

Our ultimate goal is to win the championship again,” the team captain adds. “I ask them to make sacrifices, such as training twice a day.”

With the season starting a bit earlier this year, the Lady Shuttlers have no time to slack off and relax as their title defense is about to begin. From De Vera’s perspective, this squad’s team spirit is lower than last year’s.

When asked what the team captain expects from her teammates, “Gusto ko na nandoon ulit ‘yung spirit, ‘yung laban. Huwag

magpapatalo. Gusto naming ipakita na nanalo man kami last year, hindi pa rin namin ito ibibigay (I want our spirit and our drive to fight to be back.

I don’t want us to back down.

We want to show that even if we won last year, we’re not giving it away).”

Unexpected champions

On the Blue Shuttlers’ side, Season 76 was a preview of the future of the squad and the program. After the departure of former Most Valuable Player (MVP) Toby Gadi, the Blue Shuttlers’ championship hunt was heavily dampened. Many believed that the team underwent the dreaded rebuilding process after relying too much on a single player. Losing the team’s best player did not really paint a picturesque season for Ateneo and the people outside the team.

This was, perhaps, the best opportunity for the Blue Shuttlers to prove all of their critics wrong.

Being counted out from the very start, it gave the team a chance to make everyone stand in awe come the season’s end.

The Natividad brothers, composed of veteran Justin Natividad and Season 76 MVP Patrick Natividad, led Ateneo in their title run. Together with a quintet of up-and-coming rookies, namely, Theodore Co, Sean Tian, Kyle Gosiako, Bryan Garrido and Clarence Filart, the team showed that youth isn’t such a bad thing in a highly competitive league such as the UAAP. All odds were stacked up against the Blue Shuttlers when they were once again in a matchup with title favorites NU. After succumbing in the opening match, the boys rallied back, as they won two straight matches and reclaimed what was rightfully theirs.

Justin Natividad, who is in his last year of eligibility, is excited to defend the crown and finish his playing years in Ateneo with a bang. “My brother [Patrick] and I are excited to don the blue and white for one last time, and

SPACE FOR MORE. Anything less than a championship will be a disappointment for the Blue and Lady Shuttlers as they defend their titles in Season 77 of the UAAP. PHOTOS BY RAQUEL A. MALLILLIN

it would definitely be sweeter if we’re able to go back-to-back.”

New season, same obstacles

Season 77 is déjà vu for the Blue Shuttlers. Tian and Garrido will not be suiting up this year, as academic issues have kept them to the sidelines. The loss isn’t as huge as last year’s, but considering the bond and the chemistry that the boys have formed throughout their championship run, the Blue Shuttlers are yet again left affected before the new season begins.

Garrido’s absence also creates a huge hole in the lineup, as he was Justin Natividad’s doubles partner.

But the void left by Tian and Garrido won’t be blank for long, as the team already has new pieces in Patrick Gecosala and Carlo Remo, who are expected to perform right away for the Blue Shuttlers in their bid to repeat.

The Blue Shuttlers have been preparing their title defense all summer long, heading over to Malaysia for training and having tune-up matches against clubs from Indonesia. Their trip to Los Angeles, California for the Kalayaan Cup also upped the team morale and helped them sharpen their doubles lineup.

“The Kalayaan Cup is mostly in doubles format which is why it helped us develop our doubles lineup. It gave us more confidence because, to begin with, our players are more used to playing singles,” Justin Natividad shares about their international experience.

The Blue Shuttlers will have to do their best to replicate last year’s accomplishment with their new lineup, as perennial powerhouse NU has yet again fortified their lineup with two rookie national team members.

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Editor: Roxie Y. Ramirez · Editorial Assistant: Aaron M. Tanyag · Layout Artist: Nikki G. Solinap

Beyond Loyola

03 TRAVERSING THE LOCAL RAILWAY SYSTEM How does the government play a role in public transport?

Braving the storm This National Heroes’ Day, Beyond Loyola revisits Ateneo in a time of turmoil and the lives of students who have truly gone down the hill.

By Regine D. Cabato and Frances P. Sayson

T

UCKED BEHIND a nondescript gate along Quezon Avenue is the Bantayog ng mga Bayani, a memorial dedicated to honor the fallen heroes of the Marcos dictatorship from 1972 to 1986. The 1.5-hectare area, managed by the Bantayog ng mga Bayani Memorial Foundation, contains a museum, library and research center.

There are no other visitors when we drop by. The first stop in our tour is a 35-foot monument of a woman. She is Eduardo Castrillo’s Inang Bayan, towering over a man who personifies the martyrs of the Martial Law. Nearby is an imposing wall of black granite, the Wall of Remembra nce, where the names of 241 martyrs and missing are etched. Some have been shot, others tortured, and many have become desaparecidos (the disappeared), their fates unknown to this day.

“Karamihan dito, mga kabataan talaga, kasi sila ang kumilos (Many names here belong to the youth, because they fought),” our guide points out, estimating 60%.

At least 11 of the names belong to Ateneans.

University unrest

In a permanent indoor exhibit, there are photos and short biographies of students who rallied against former President Ferdinand Marcos.

“Students as a group are naturally organized… They have logistics, they have pocket money, which farmers and workers may not have,” explains Cristina Montiel, PhD, professor at the Psychology Department, and author of the book Living and Dying: In Memory of 11 Ateneo de Manila Martial Law Activists (2007).

“These [were] the people who will be your leaders later on,” says Mathematics Department Professor Norman Quimpo, PhD, who was already teaching since the 1970s.

He adds that the student desire to be involved was strong then, and not joining in would elicit feelings of being left out.

Across universities, activism was rampant as students arranged and joined rallies. Organizations like the Sandigan ng Pilipinas and Lakasdiwa were moderate, while Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan sa Loyola (SDK-L) and Kabataang Makabayan-Ateneo (KM) were radical and believed that force was necessary for change. The first radical activist group in Ateneo, Liga ng mga Demokratikong Atenista (LDA), was established in 1970. One of its co-founders was Ferdinand “Ferdie” Arceo, an AB Humanities major from 1968 to 1972.

Other Atenean martyrs such as Lazaro “Lazzie” Silva Jr. and William “Bill” Begg were active members of SDK-L and KM. Artemio “Jun” Celestial Jr., was

involved with Student Catholic Action and secretary-general of the student government. Their lives are detailed in Montiel’s book. The book also mentions martyrs who did not spend their collegiate years in Ateneo, like Abraham “Ditto” Sarmiento Jr. of the Ateneo High School Batch ‘67, and Dante Perez, who spent his grade school years and first year of high school in the Ateneo.

“I’d say the administration was more inclined to support the moderates,” Quimpo recalls. His brother Nathan recounted in the family memoir Subversive Lives (2012) how he and his comrades would be censured for “disturbing classes” as they rallied students, encouraging them to boycott classes as a sign of protest. Quimpo’s brothers were active in the radical movement; one of them would be killed, another deemed desaparecido.

“You can imagine how conflicted the administration must have been at the time,” says Brian Giron, a History Department instructor. “You are threatened with closure, if not regulation, if you don’t abide by the policies of Marcos.” Closure would render

time Martial Law was declared, like Manuel “Sonny” Hizon Jr., Nicolas “Nick” Solana Jr. and Emmanuel “Eman” Lacaba, also went underground. Hizon and Lacaba were noted student activists, with the latter being a co-writer of the controversial 1968 youth manifesto, “Down from the Hill,” which was published in The GUIDON. Solana was known for his support for farmers and urban poor. Edgar “Edjop” Jopson was particularly prominent for his leadership.

He headed the National Union of Students of the Philippines and later, after a stint in law school, became a leader in the leftist movement. All seven were killed in military encounters in the provinces.

In 1975, Celestial, who had been giving financial and logistical support to the movement, was found dead in the Montalban River. Nobody has been charged with his death to this day. Emmanuel “Manny” Yap, who pushed for the radical reformation of Lakasdiwa and later became its chairman, went missing in 1976. His fate remains unknown.

At the end of the day, social injustice is just as bad as a tyrant.

Poverty is just as monstrous and as scary and as enslaving as a tyrant.

— BRIAN GIRON Instructor, History Department

the university unable to facilitate any form of discourse. It would have to kick out some students, including Begg, Celestial and Nathan Quimpo.

Life below ground

On display in the Bantayog Museum is the last uncensored issue of the Manila Chronicle, dated September 22, 1972. Beside it is the next morning’s Sunday Express front page, headlined, “FM DECLARES MARTIAL LAW.” Quimpo says that the declaration quieted demonstrations for a time, as policemen showed up at rallies ready to arrest students. Student involvement “was almost like a club” before the declaration, he recalls. “But with Martial Law, it got serious,” he says in a mix of English and Filipino.

“Students were no longer just going to be members of [KM].

They were going to be members of NPA (New People's Army) and the Communist Party, with definite jobs to do to fight the regime.”

Arceo, Silva and Begg all joined the NPA. Ateneans who had already graduated by the

“If you look at these people and their backgrounds, how intelligent they were, how smart they were… how economically viable they would have been, how promising their careers would have been, how talented they were—it leaves a ghost,” says Giron.

“When you kill people like that, it leaves a vacuum that people feel cannot be ignored.”

Carrying on

“At least we are around; we can write [about them],” Quimpo says of survivors. “It reminds us [that] they were not faceless.”

But those who stayed aboveground were not faceless either.

Montiel cautions against forgetting those who rendered their service without armed struggle. “There were many other struggles on campus. Not as dramatic, but just as effective and maybe [as] lasting as what these martyrs did,” she says.

In Montiel’s Down from the Hill: Ateneo de Manila in the First Ten Years Under the Martial Law, 1972-1982 (2008), Ma. Elissa

Jayme-Lao of the Department of Political Science points out that because of the limitations placed by the Martial Law, “the struggle against the dictatorship could be effectively channeled toward social if not openly political involvement.”

After the Martial Law was declared, the university focused on social involvement; organizations like the Ateneo Catechetical Instruction League and the politically oriented Ateneo Student Catholic Action were revived. Sarilikha, an organization known for emphasizing volunteerism without political agenda, fielded members to assist various underprivileged sectors outside campus. It evolved into the Office for Social Concern and Involvement, which institutionalized the university’s ef for ts for nonpa r t isa n community involvement.

The Ateneo student council also began to prioritize social commitment after its radical leaders went underground. It focused on the need for awareness through student-sponsored symposiums that called for political involvement. Despite warnings about possible arrests and detentions, council members joined some rallies, although less than in previous years.

“If you look at it, the other side of Atenistas who didn’t necessarily just fight outwardly, were also fighting demons as bad as Marcos,” says Giron. “At the end of the day, social injustice is just as bad as a tyrant. Poverty is just as monstrous and as scary and as enslaving as a tyrant.”

Artemio Celestial

Edgar Jopson

Emmanuel Lacaba

Down from the hill

Giron adds that these villains are still prevalent. “I think that the need for Ateneans to make an intervention is still as important, as urgent, and as imperative [today],” he says. “It’s for us to go out there and to be among Filipinos. To mix in, to blend in, to be among them, to be no better, to be no worse, to just be a common Filipino who sweats, who toils, who cries, and shares the experience with other Filipinos.” Montiel likewise calls on the youth to be more sincere, to think less about how involvement will help their careers and more on how it will help others.

“I don’t think the picture of Imelda did harm as much as the harm we do our name every day when we don’t act like proper people,” Giron explains. “For every good name, I can name you a politician out there doing bad things who will have a diploma from this place.” His viral blog entry, “The Other Ateneo,” was posted after an uproar on social media over former First Lady Imelda Marcos’ visit to the Ateneo at a scholars’ event last July. Giron’s piece characterized two Ateneos: The ground for service-oriented critical Braving the ›› 3

Ferdinand Arceo

William Vincent Begg

ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOSEPHUS T. NUGRAHA

2

Beyond Loyola

Traversing the local railway system

By JC A. Beltran and Regine D. Cabato

E

VERY DAY, thousands of workers, students and tourists depend on the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) Line 3, and the Light Rail Transit (LRT) Lines 1 and 2 as primary modes of transportation. The transit systems are popular among commuters not only because they reduce the travel time for riders, but also because the fare costs less compared to roadbased public transports such as busses and jeepneys.

Recently, talk of a fare increase for the MRT and LRT have resurfaced. Despite its approval by the Department of T r a n s p o r t a t io n a n d Communications (DOTC) in 2011, all fare hike proposals were deferred. Last year, President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III decided to suspend the implementation after a public consultation was held in which militant and consumer groups opposed the fare hike.

Light Rail Transportation Authority (LRTA) spokesperson Hernando Cabrera explains that “the [projected date] for the implementation, which was slated in June 2013, coincided with the price hike for other household expenses such as oil and jeep fare.”

“We just don’t want to add to the consumer’s burden,” he adds.

But this doesn’t mean that the fare hike won’t happen soon.

Although the implementation date is yet to be finalized, the

price hike seems inevitable as the government plans to reduce subsidy and upgrade the existing rail systems.

Subsidizing the system

Under the new fare adjustment, commuters will be charged based on the distance they travel instead of the number of stations they pass. The formula is simple: Passengers will pay a boarding fee of P11 plus an additional P1 per kilometer travelled.

Currently, the maximum fares for MRT 3 and LRT 2 are P15 per passenger while commuters taking LRT 1 are charged up to P20. Under the fare adjustment, MRT 3, LRT 1 and LRT 2 riders will be paying up to P28, P29 and P24, respectively.

Once imposed, the increase is estimated to rake P3 billion worth of revenue for the LRTA. However, Cabrera admits that even with the additional revenue, government subsidy will still be needed as the earned revenue won’t be able to cover all expenses by the transit systems. He explains that on a yearly basis, the government provides LRT and MRT a subsidy of about P10 B. Given these estimated figures, the government will shoulder the remaining P7 B. According to Economics Department Professor Victor Venida, who has a doctorate in economics, “the aim of mass transit is to provide low- and middle-income commuters access to affordable mobility.”

He argues that even if raising fares reduces the cost of subsidy to the government, “it defeats its purpose of providing an affordable option to commuters.”

Venida also suggests “value capture” as an alternative to subsidy vis-à-vis the trend of malls surrounding LRT and MRT such as Trinoma, Shangri-La Plaza and SM Megamall. “[The] government can claim a substantial percent-

LRTA earns from the current fare scheme is only enough for its daily maintenance and operations cost. “We have to remember that maintenance is maintenance; it is different from rehabilitation and upgrading,” he said. “When you say rehabilitation and upgrading, you have to make changes [in the] system, you have to improve it, not only maintain it.”

The proceeds for the fare adjustment will be used for the rehabilitation and upgrading of the existing [railway] systems.

— HERNANDO CABRERA Spokesperson, Light Rail Transit Authority

age of the property taxes in these areas since the value of property increased precisely because of the access to the trains,” Venida adds.

Under repair

According to Cabrera, “the proceeds for the fair adjustment will be used for the rehabilitation and upgrading of the existing [railway] systems.”

He explains that the money

Metro Manila public transportation fares through time

Cabrera also highlights the perpetual need to improve the depreciating rail system, fixing electrical wirings, escalator, elevator and rails. The LRT 1, LRT 2 and MRT 3 are 30, 10 and 15 years old, respectively.

Allison Lagarde, a junior management major who rides the LRT 1 and LRT 2 daily, says that there is a need to address the current situation of the

RESEARCH BY Frances P. Sayson INFOGRAPHIC BY Meg C. Quintos and Jan-Daniel S. Belmonte

The cost of public transportation for Metro Manila commuters has varied through the years.

transits, especially its facilities and services. According to her, the most important issues that the government must fix are the overloading of train cars, inefficiency of the ticketing system and the overcrowded platforms.

Foresight and privatization

Meanwhile, research group Ibon Foundation sees a lack of basis in fare increase and suspects the move as a bait to lure investors for the LRT 1 privatization. They say that the project poses financial burden to the public, along with the increasing prices in water and electricity.

Recently, both the Metro Pacific Investments Corporation and Ayala Corporation won the bid for the LRT 1 extension project, which goes south to Bacoor, Cavite.

The San Miguel Corporation is also funding the construction of the newly approved MRT 7, which will bridge Quezon City and San Jose del Monte, Bulacan.

Consequently, Business Mirror reported that the government asked for the fare hike to push through to revive the privatization of LRT 1. “If the privatization results in improved management then this will benefit commuters. But if this is financed by fare hikes, then, as stated, this reduces the take home pay and well-being of commuters,” Venida argues.

According to Cabrera, both LRT lines are maintained by private companies but owned and operated by the government. On the other hand, the

SOURCES lrta.gov.ph, ltfrb.gov.ph, dotcmrt3.gov.ph, abs-cbnnews.com, inquirer.net, gmanetwork.com, rappler.com, metroeasy. com, urbanrail.net, news.bbc.co.uk, tripadvisor.com, lonelyplanet.com

government operates MRT 3 despite being privately owned and maintained.

As for the LRT 1 extension project, Cabrera explains that the private sector will gain access to its maintenance and construction. “Once finished and awarded to the [private company, they] will not only maintain what it constructed but also the existing [line]—the whole [LRT 1],” he adds in Filipino.

Cabrera clarifies that fare hike will proceed even without privatization and other projects.

“Even if this one is transferred to the private [companies], they would not decide on the fare adjustment... The government will still decide on it,” Cabrera says in a mix of English and Filipino.

With the fare increase, Venida predicts a reduction in travel, affecting many citizens in “finding work in the main business districts.” “Many will still take the ride as demand for mass transit is price-inelastic, but it will reduce their takehome pay,” he says. Inelasticity implies that fare increase has little effect to the demand.

Despite all of this, Cabrera promises physical changes in all transit lines by 2015. In its vision, LRTA aims to provide “integrated urban rail transport systems of the country by 2017.”

For now, Venida is unsure of how the fare hike helps in system efficiency. “That remains to be seen. It is supposed to, but the competence of current management is questionable,” he says.

DOROTE JO

CARRIED

CENTRA

UNITED NATIONS

PEDRO GIL

LRT 1 AND 2

MRT 3

BUS

JEEP QUIRINO

LRT 1 - Distance

Distance

1987

PHP 1.00

1987

PHP 0.90

18.07 KM

16.9 KM

1990

PHP 1.50

1989

PHP 1.00

Baclaran, Pasay City to Roosevelt Avenue, Quezon City

North Avenue, Quezon City to Taft Avenue, Pasay City

1996

PHP 2.00

1990

PHP 1.50

1997

PHP 2.50

1996

PHP 2.00

Cost

Cost 1999

PHP 3.00

1997

PHP 2.50

PHP 12.00 to PHP 20.00

PHP 10.00 to PHP 15.00

2000

PHP 4.00

1999

PHP 3.00

2004

PHP 6.00

2000

PHP 4.00

2005

PHP 8.00

2004

PHP 5.50

2008 May

PHP 9.00

2005

PHP 7.50

2008 July

PHP 10.00

2008 May

PHP 8.00

2008 Nov

PHP 9.50

2008 July

PHP 8.50

2008 Dec

PHP 9.00

2008 Nov

PHP 8.00

2011

PHP 10.00

2008 Dec

PHP 7.50

2009

PHP 7.00

2011

PHP 8.00

2012 (March)

PHP 8.50

PHP 0.75

2012 (May)

PHP 8.00

Average increase in cost per year

2014

PHP 8.50

Amount Subsidized LRT 2 - Distance

12.56 KM (Recto Avenue, Manila to Santolan in Marcos Highway, Marikina)

77% (PHP 41.46 per passenger)

TAXI

Cost PHP 12.00 to PHP 15.00

1987

PHP 2.50

1990

PHP 3.50

900%

Amount Subsidized

1996

PHP 20.00

Increase in cost after 27 years

59%

2000

PHP 25.00

(P34.74 per passenger)

2004

PHP 30.00

2010

PHP 40.00

VITO CRUZ

GIL PUYAT

LIBERTAD

TAFT

BACLARAN

The GUIDON August 2014

Revamping the bus system

By Roxie Y. Ramirez and Chynna A. Santos

MAL ABON

CALOOCAN QUEZON CIT Y BALINTAWAK

MONUMENTO ROOSEVELT

5TH AVENUE

R PAPA NORTH EDSA

ABAD SANTOS BLUMENTRITT

QUEZON TAYUMAN

KAMUNING

BAMBANG LEGARDA

BETTY GO-BELMONTE

V. MAPA

OSE

DO

3

CUBAO

ANONAS

RECTO PUREZA

AL

KATIPUNAN

Unlike in other countries where the government operates, controls and subsidizes the bus system, the Philippines relies on private companies.

Prior to 2012, many of these companies used the boundary system, wherein the company owned the vehicles. These vehicles are then leased to the bus drivers, provided that they pay a fixed minimum daily fee (called the “boundary”).

Drivers were free to pocket the money left over after paying the boundary fee.

This sort of system brought about severa l problems, however. Since drivers were expected to pay a set fee, many of them would work beyond the legal eight hours just to meet the amount. The boundary system was also accused of creating reckless bus drivers.

On July 1, 2012, this boundary system was scrapped, thanks to Department Order 118-02. The order introduced the implementation of a twotier wage system, ensuring that bus drivers get minimum wage as well as a commission from their daily earnings.

The order also required bus companies to provide work safety, and health policies and programs for their drivers.

The revamped wage system also serves as an answer to multiple bus-related accidents. A mishap involving an Eso-Nice Transit bus falling into a 100foot deep ravine in Benguet

province is an example. The accident, which occurred last August 10, 2010, killed 41 people and injured another nine.

But the new wage system is but a small change in comparison to the Department of T ra n spor t at ion a nd Communications’ (DOTC) plans for a bus rapid transit (BRT) system.

The BRT, simply put, operates similarly to a railway transit system except with buses instead of trains. The buses will utilize routes, roads, lanes and stations designed specially for the BRT so as to avoid traffic and delay.

Although the DOTC only announced plans for the BRT in Metro Manila in October of last year, plans for a BRT system in Cebu formally began in 2008.

The system is expected to be fully functional by 2015, and if successful, the Cebu BRT may serve as a template for the proposed Metro Manila BRT, to span the Quezon Circle-toManila City Hall route.

AccordingtoareportbyABS-CBN News, Transportation Secretary Jun Abaya told reporters last July 2 that the success of BRT systems abroad—most notably in Bogota, Colombia—could be attributed to the segregated lanes and priority routes, which contributed to the systems’ efficiency and safety.

“BRT’s are game-changers,” he said. “They are as effective as rail systems in terms of moving people around quickly and efficiently, but are much cheaper to build and are faster to develop.”

As of now, no timeframe has been set for the Metro Manila BRT system.

GILMORE

Braving the...

J. RUIZ

S

SANTOLAN

SAN JUAN

SANTOLAN

L

MANDALUYONG MANILA

ORTIGAS

SHAW BONI GUADALUPE MAGALLANES BUENDIA AYALA

PA SIG

M A K AT I

‹‹ 1

thinkers, and its ev il t w i n , t he elite, privileged and socially detached brand.

Giron adds that the former Ateneo still exists; it was in the students who spoke out about the Imelda incident.

“It’s not faculty members who make things go viral. It’s the students—it’s the younger generation... The fact that there was outrage is confirmation for me, was affirmation for me, that we teach our kids right.”

Quimpo adds that technolog y today has allowed the youth to be more aware about current events. “A lot of what is happening is actually translated into pressure on your generation,” he says, citing issues on employment and environment. “So I wouldn’t want to think that you have to worr y about the same

things that we had before.

But at least it should direct you… ‘What do I get involved with?’ For us, it was activism and political activism. [With you]… you have to define that.

But certainly, it’s no easier for you than it was for us.”

We pass the Wall of Remembrance once more on our way out of Bantayog. Giron reminds us that the martyrs’ Atenean identity is not written on the wall—here, they are recognized as human, not as Atenean. “I think what these people, these 11 [martyrs], did, was precisely to shed Atenista as a name and just become Filipino.”

We walk out the gate to Quezon Avenue. To the left is EDSA, where two million gathered almost thirty years ago to oust the dictatorship.

Behind and above us towers the Inang Bayan.

ERRATA

PA S AY

•

In the June 2014 issue of The GUIDON, Beyond Loyola’s infographic, “Timeline of United States-Philippine military relations,” read “24” under September 16, 1996. The graphic should have read “25.”

•

In the July 2014 issue of The GUIDON, Beyond Loyola’s banner article, “Providence in prison,” stated that the Philippine Jesuit Prison Services’ executive director was Fr. Eli Lumba, SJ. It should have been Fr. Eli Lumbo, SJ. The same article also stated that the budget of the Bureau of Corrections is at P1,797,591. It should have been P1,797,591,000.

PAT E R O S

TA G U I G

The GUIDON apologizes for these oversights.

4

Beyond Loyola

The GUIDON August 2014

Israel and Palestine continue fighting in Gaza Strip

By Kyle N. Mitschiener and Chynna A. Santos

A

MONTH of fighting along the Gaza Strip has led to the deaths of almost 2,000 people, mostly civilians and children, caught in the crossfire between Israeli forces and Hamas, a Palestinian militant group.

This bout of fighting—the most recent in over four decades of conf lict—began after Hamas agents allegedly killed three Israeli students on June 12. This has since escalated, with Israel executing airstrikes over Gaza and Hamas firing rockets in retaliation.

Both sides have pointed fingers at each other, and attempts at a ceasefire have ended violently. With neither side taking responsibility, international discourse on the issue has been polarized and reactions have been split on whose side to take.

State with its own executive and legislative organs.”

The movement calling for a permanent homeland for the Jews was known as Zionism.

“Their slogan goes,” says Bas Claudio, vice president for Public Relations at The Ateneo Assembly, “‘a land without a people for a people without the land.’ The problem was that Palestine had [already] been inhabited.”

This new state was not recognized by certain members of the Arab League—specifically

It is the role of the international community to formally condemn violence that leads to the deaths of innocent civilians.

— BAS CLAUDIO Vice president for Public Relations, The Ateneo Assembly

Yesteryears

Israel has been at odds with Muslim countries since 1948 when the Jewish People’s Council established the State of Israel in Mandatory Palestine.

The decision to establish the State in Palestine came about because, as the AngloA mer ica n Com m it tee of Inquiry reported, “The Jews have developed a strong and tightly-woven community [in the area]. There thus exists a virtual Jewish non-territorial

conflicts ranged from territorial disputes and military insurgencies, to civil disobedience, and slews of riots and revolts.

While Israel started out as the underdog of the Middle East, it has managed to become the powerhouse of the region.

This is due to its “technological superiority and strategic acumen,” says Richard Heydarian, lecturer at the Political Science Department.

According to Jewish Voice, Israel’s military forces are

Sy ria , Iraq , Eg y pt a nd Transjordan—which marched into the territory on behalf of the Arab Palestinians who opposed the new Jewish state.

In the ensuing decades, numerous armed groups and military units crossed into the territory. Both civilians and soldiers were killed—as were thousands of infiltrators. The

ranked sixth worldwide, “quite impressive when given the size and population of Israel.”

Possession of the Gaza Strip and most of Israel’s territory has been much disputed. While Israel claims the Holy Land as theirs, the establishment of the Jewish state also displaced many longtime Palestinian inhabitants.

Subsequent fighting over

land and territory has confused, displaced and killed those most affected by the disputes—ordinary Israeli and Palestinian citizens.

The latest conflict

“Since 2006, Gaza has suffered from at least three major Israeli military incursions, which constantly led to high civilian casualties, including children,” says Heydarian.

Palestinian authorities have reported that the latest of these incursions has led to over 200 civilian deaths in July alone at the hands of Israel’s missiles.

Israel’s goal in the latest conf lict is to destroy the tunnels that the Hamas used to smuggle weapons and launch attacks at Israel. These tunnels are suspected to have been used for transporting weaponry, such as the missiles used in the initial attack.

What followed was an all out war in Gaza, including several air strikes in areas that have a heavy civilian population. This war is expected to continue and may be prolonged, with Israeli Prime Minister Benja min Netanyahu saying, “We will continue to act aggressively and responsibly until the mission is completed to protect our citizens, soldiers and children.”

The United Nations (UN) Security Council has called for a ceasefire in Gaza. UN SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-moon said both Israel and Palestine have “expressed serious interest” in a 24-hour humanitarian ceasefire.

Despite this claim by Kimoon, “Israel has pushed back against any external pressure, constantly putting the blame on the Islamist Hamas government in Gaza and the inability of the Palestinian Authority to ‘guarantee’ the security of Israel and its citizens,” says Heydarian.

“Israel's ‘right to selfdefense,’ which it keeps on invoking in its bombardment of Gaza, doesn’t hold water because the root cause of the conflict is Israeli aggression and colonization,” says Luther Aquino, a former human rights observer with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel.

Final solution

“It is the role of the international community to formally condemn violence that leads to the deaths of innocent civilians,” says Claudio. Heydarian agrees, saying, “The United States (US),

the European Union and Russia, should push for a lasting resolution of the dispute.”

Recent negotiations seem to be in line with this, as the US has been consistently pressuring Israel to a ceasefire. The UN Security Council also claims that a ceasefire seems highly likely after meeting with both sides.

Even if this should happen, a long-term solution still seems unlikely. As Heydarian notes, “The Israel-Arab conflict has gone through several stages of conflict and high-stakes peace negotiations. So far, however, there has been no lasting resolution of the dispute.”

In recent years, the shortterm solutions have been ceasefires brokered by foreign powers. Heydarian emphasizes that these are only short-term solutions. True peace “will take a combination of committed and honest mediation by external powers,” he says.

ALL OUT WAR. Fighting continues along the Gaza Strip despite calls of a ceasefire from the international community.

PHOTO FROM AFP-JIJI

Presidential pork

By JC A. Beltran and Roxie Y. Ramirez

O

N JULY 1, the Supreme Cour t (SC) r uled that certain acts and practices in the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) were unconstitutional.

Also known as the presidential pork barrel, the DAP used the savings generated by government to augment deficient programs and projects, pending the approval of the president.

The DAP was originally a mechanism designed to ramp up economic expansion. According to Tony La Viña, dean of the Ateneo School of Government, it was also intended to accelerate spending for priority projects, as there was a slowdown in project implementation in 2010 and 2011. The DAP was created and implemented in October 2011

by President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III’s administration.

Dissecting the decision

The SC declared three schemes under the DAP as unconstitutional.

First is the definition of savings.

The SC defined savings as funds that remained unspent after the completion or dissolution of a project or program. However, according to a Rappler article, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad consolidated savings and unused funds to “finance the DAP on a quarterly basis.” This decision shortened the time that these savings were supposed to be available for—according to Congress, savings should be available for a

period of one fiscal year—and made the administration’s own definition of savings unclear.

The second is the crossborder transfer of savings from one branch of government to another. La Viña says that these transfers essentially dilute the independence of other branches of government. “You cannot use the money that you have saved to help another branch of government,” he explains. “It’s like bribing the other agencies so [that they] will do your bidding.”

Lastly is the allotment of funds for projects and activities not outlined in the General Appropriations Act (GAA), also known as the annual budget of the country. According to La Viña, savings from previous projects cannot be used to create a new item or category not already found in the GAA. But the decision is not without its problems. La Viña criticizes the SC for stating that “authors, proponents and implementors of the DAP may be held liable unless a proper tribunal found that they acted in good faith.”

“It seems like the court reversed the presumption of good faith into a presumption of bad faith and the presumption of innocence into a presumption of guilt. That’s wrong. No government employee should feel that they have to prove that they are in good faith every time that they do their jobs,” argues La Viña.

PDAF vs. DAP

On July 14, Aquino defended the legality of the DAP in a televised speech. He mentioned

its stark differences against the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), a discretionary fund given to members of Cong ress for small-scale community projects. He was quoted as saying that the PDAF was distributed to bogus nongovernmental organizations and accused lawmakers. He also assured the public that the DAP money was not stolen.

Hansley Juliano, a lecturer from the Political Science Department, says that the DAP is limited to the executive branch, while PDAF “establishes a relationship with the executive and legislative.” He also says that both were declared unconstitutional due to their violation of “the separation of powers.” While the DAP “gives the executive department undue influence on the legislative,” says Juliano, the PDAF gave lawmakers the power to execute and implement laws, a power that is exclusive to the executive branch.

However, Arjan Aguirre, an instructor at the Political Science Department, both the PDAF and the DAP “are discretionary in nature.” He says that the similar nature of the two stirs confusion among people who mistake the DAP for the PDAF. Aguirre finds the scheme problematic, as both programs are prone to abuse. “[The mechanism] is based on the decision of the executive branch, and at present, our government doesn't have the mechanism to make sure the funds can be spent in a transparent manner,” he says.

CALLING FOR OUSTER. Several groups have filed impeachment complaints against President Aquino over the Disbursement Acceleration Program issue.

PHOTO FROM AFP-JIJI

Juliano agrees, saying, “The issue is whether our public officials source [these discretionary funds] from taxpayers’ money—and that includes the president. And that is the entire problem with DAP.” Political maturity

Impeachment complaints have been filed against Aquino over the DAP. The first valid complaint was filed by Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, an alliance of leftist organizations, but it was later dismissed by Malacañang, saying the president

did not violate the law upon the implementation of the DAP. The second one was filed by youth groups, led by Youth Act Now and endorsed by Kabataan Party-list Representative Terry Ridon.

Juliano sees this impeachment issue as a question of “political maneuvering” over legality. “A violation of the constitution was made. Someone has to be made responsible for it. And if that someone is the president, he is culpable for impeachment,” he says. Juliano adds that there is also a need to take into account

the funds the administration releases. He doubts, however, if the case will succeed.

Aguirre echoes the same sentiments, but he believes that the government can justify the DAP and release documents to support it.

He also observes that people starting to demand for answers, calling it a sign of “political maturity.” “In the past, during the time of Gloria MacapagalArroyo, we just don't want to talk about the issue. Now, the government is so willing to explain,” Aguirre says.

Editor: Pia H. Posadas · Editorial Assistant: Isabel A. Rodrigo · Layout Artist: Tommi G. Principe

Features

03 OF CHAOTIC AND PERFECT WORLDS Dissecting our fascination with dystopian fiction

Art, interrupted

How do the scandals in an artist’s personal life color our admiration of their work?

By Isabel A. Rodrigo

I

n a media culture ruled by tabloids and paparazzi, no stone is left unturned in a celebrity’s private life. This often makes it difficult to separate the personal from the professional, the life from the life’s work.

A few months ago, Filipinos saw actress Nora Aunor at the heart of exactly this kind of debate. The controversy b e g a n w h e n P r e s ide nt Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III removed her from a list of National Artist contenders.

Her near-unshakeable status as an icon—established ever since journalist Nick Joaquin, a National Artist himself, called her the golden girl of local cinema in 1970—did not deter Aquino from passing her over in light of nine-year-old allegations of drug possession.

Similar scandals have often haunted the reputation of celebrities who are otherwise considered “good” artists.

I nt er n at ion a l he a d l i ne s have g rappled w it h t he likes of directors Roman Polanski, Woody Allen and fashion photographer Terry Richardson, who have all been entangled in scandals involving sexual assault. While these men make Aunor’s crime almost petty, they too have prompted people to ask: Can “bad” people make “good” art?

Defending Nora

The answer seems clear enough: Bad people make unquestionably good art all the time, according to a 2012 piece in the New York Times by Charles McGrath.

The question is only misleading

because “badness and goodness in this formulation don’t refer to the same thing.” In the case of the person, these refer to moral judgment, while in the case of art, these serve as signs “of aesthetic merit, to which morality does not apply.”

Poet and critic Louie Sanchez, an instructor from the English Department, agrees with this sentiment. “I’d say that the artists’ deviance should be assessed according to approved social norms—even political or criminal justice systems,” he explains.

“Deviance—or criminal acts for that matter—should be assessed in another space of interrogation.

Art has its own concerns.”

To someone too young to have been around for Nora Aunor’s prime, Alfred Marasigan, a painter and a lecturer at the Fine Arts Program, the situation can seem trivial. “I feel a bit left out of the loop,” he admits, “because I myself didn’t witness the glory days of Nora Aunor, but I think the function of the award is to facilitate education—to let the Filipino people understand the artist’s significance in her field.”

Sa nchez supposes that the National Commission for Culture and the Arts’ (NCCA) decision to support Aquino in this matter was made to stay in line with the so-called daang matuwid. Like many of those who disagreed with Aquino’s decision, he believes that since Aunor passed the screenings, she should have been given the award anyway. “I find the drug issue peripheral; it has nothing to do with her art,” he declares.

He offers up a reference to the French philosopher Roland Barthes, saying that, since the work and the artist are subject to differing standards, art must

be assessed on its own. “In literature, there is the notion of the author’s death, where the author subsumes his personality to that of the work in the moment of creation, and he vanishes altogether in that assigned moment.”

Artist versus predator

Perhaps the question isn’t whether bad people can make good art, but whether good art can justify the actions of bad people. It’s a question of whether Richardson, who is well known for sexualizing his subjects, should still be shooting campaigns and covers despite several models alleging that he coerced them into performing sexual favors. It is also a question of whether Polanski deserves his numerous accolades even after pleading guilty to the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl named Samantha Geimer in 1977; in 2013, she came out with The Girl, a tell-all book describing how Polanski lured her into the home of actor Jack Nicholson under the pretense of a Vogue Paris shoot.

From Laurel Fantauzzo, an essayist as well as a lecturer at the Fine Arts Program, comes a firm no. In fact, she becomes visibly frustrated when asked about Polanski’s lauded return to filmmaking. In her opinion, the delineation between bad people and good art is so blurred that it doesn’t make sense to make distinctions. “In lauding him, your consciousness is required to shrug at his choices. It makes me wonder: How many violent abusers, in everyday life, do we enable with our resigned shrugs?”

In 1993, the personal life Woody Allen had built with his then-partner Mia Farrow

was set on fire by allegations that the former had abused their daughter Dylan. Earlier this year, the younger Farrow wrote an open letter in the New York Times with her take on the issue. In it, she addressed those who had shrugged at her father’s choices by giving him the Cecil B. DeMille Award for Lifetime Achievement and nominating his film Blue Jasmine (2013) for Best Original Screenplay at the 2014 Golden Globe Awards.

Her recounting of her abuse was framed by the question, “What’s your favorite Woody Allen movie?” Her point was well-made: Publicly praising her abuser as an artist was akin to being complicit to both her abuse and that of other chil-

otherwise unapologetic about his own decision to sexually assault another person,” she says. “The viewer or consumer will shrug and say, ‘Well, the film is a masterpiece and the shirt looks good on me,’ and decide that, while the assault was terrible, the products are simply separate from the artist’s sins.”

She would most likely disagree with any attempts to find a middle ground, which is what the Tumblr blog Your Fave Is Problematic tries to do.

Its moderators call themselves “record-keepers” of every “problematic” thing a celebrity has ever said. They propose that perhaps the most comfortable way of dealing with this debate is simply acknowledging that

Deviance—or criminal acts for that matter—should be assessed in another space of interrogation. Art has its own concerns.

— LOUIE SANCHEZ Instructor, English Department

dren. There were readers who dismissed Farrow’s effort to bridge morality and aesthetic judgment, saying that it was possible to see sexual assault as a heinous crime and Blue Jasmine as a work of art.

Fantauzzo attributes these dismissals to our failure to give sexual assault the level of attention it deserves. “The average viewer of a film or buyer of a shirt will usually hear that the maker of the film, shirt or art was creepy, a convicted rapist, or

people, however publicly they live their lives, are more complex than they appear.

Conflict and consensus

The Aunor controversy is not an isolated case. In 2009, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was criticized for naming Philippine Educational Theater Association founder Cecile Guidote-Alvarez, comic strip creator Carlo Caparas, architect Francisco Mañosa and fashion designer Pitoy Moreno to the

Order of National Artists.

Bienvenido Lumbera, a National Artist and a member of the NCCA’s final selection com m it tee, a rg ued t hat Guidote-Alvarez should have had the delicadeza to refuse, as she was the executive director of the NCCA at the time. He also objected to Caparas’ inclusion since his nomination had already been rejected twice in the past.

When it comes to the title of National Artist, it appears politics truly is inescapable. Former President Ferdinand Marcos established it as a presidential award in 1973, giving the president the prerogative to nominate or reject even without an explanation. Aesthetic merit, it seems, cannot stand on its own. “Any artistic recognition is comprised of political, logistic, financial and personal judgments on talent and reputation,” muses Marasigan.

This doesn’t necessarily have to be a cause for despair, however. What Marasigan finds most interesting is that, with or without the award, Aunor’s artistic immortality is entirely up to the people.

“If this issue prompts people to know more about her, her contributions to Philippine cinema, and the industry in general,” he says, “then art will have succeeded in initiating mindset-changing discourse.”

As long as critical thought exists, art will always be relevant. While there may never be a clear way to reconcile the good with the bad or alleviate the discomfort of knowing that someone whose art we love may be unlovable as a person, the discourse sparked is invaluable. “It may not necessarily end peacefully,” Sanchez says, “but the discussion, the interrogation, enriches any artistic experience.”

Features

2

VIRGIN LABFEST

Behind the curtain

By Ishbelle L. Bongato and Jasmine P. Ting

T

he life of an artist is filled with uncertainty.

The search for recognition is just one of its many hurdles—no one can predict when that moment will come or when those 15 seconds of fame will fade away. Perhaps what is needed is a safe space to make mistakes and test the limits of the imagination.

For those who love theater, this is where the Virgin Labfest comes in. With the support of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), this annual local theater festival for “untried, untested, unpublished, and unstaged works” gives newcomers a taste of the limelight.

In the past decade, the Labfest has welcomed students and teachers from the Ateneo as playwrights, panelists and mentors alike. Last June 24 to July 6, Cathy Dario, Giselle Garcia and Glenn Mas got up close and personal with Virgin Labfest X. Cathy Dario

A love for words has always been a constant for Cathy Dario.

Case in point: As if a degree in creative writing weren’t enough, this junior is also pursuing a double major in literature (English).

Although she had more experience with fiction, having been a fellow for Fiction at the 19th Ateneo Heights Writers Workshop, this didn’t stop her from trying her hand at drama.

Along with creative writing senior Ariane Lim and humanities senior Jerome Ignacio, Dario earned a spot at this year’s Virgin Labfest Writing Fellowship Program. A project of the CCP Artist Training Division, the program is open to amateur playwrights and consists of a two-week mentorship program under the best in the field.

She didn’t know much about it in the start, admitting, “I [initially] just thought it was an opportunity for playwrights to come together and write.”

With the multi award-winning playwright Glenn Mas as their mentor, the 10 fellows did more than just that, learning about

THE SHOWSTOPPERS. In their different roles at Virgin Labfest X, Glenn Mas (top), Cathy Dario (upper right) and Giselle Garcia (right) helped make this year’s festival a success.

PHOTOS BY TYNIE ASPREC, ALEXANDRA L. HUANG AND RAQUEL A. MALLILLIN

scriptwriting, stage production and everything in between.

Writing dialogue was a new experience for Dario, as she uses very little of it in her short stories. She also immersed herself in the process of character development. “You really have to think of [a character] in terms of a real human being, complete with strengths and weaknesses,” she elaborates.

At the end of the program, the fellows watched their short plays come to life at the CCP’s Bulwagang Amado Hernandez. Dario’s play was entitled Confessional, which was about a woman who asks a priest to help her mentally incapacitated child; little does she know that the man on the other side of the screen is none other than her former lover.

It proved to be successful, as Dario says that there are talks of it being restaged.

While most find themselves drawn to the fame a career in

theater can bring, Dario seems more fascinated by its transformative power. “It articulates what our concerns are today,” she observes. “I think it’s with the articulation that we are able to see what our problems are and how we can solve them.”

Giselle Garcia

Long before becoming a member of the Labfest’s selection committee, Giselle Garcia (AB LIT (ENG) ‘08) was a copywriter for an advertising agency.

Although she loved her job, Garcia still felt like something was missing.

“I was always trying to find a way back to my literary roots and

use [my degree] pro-creatively,” she explains. “I chanced upon dramaturgy when looking for graduate theater programs and fell in love with the idea that I could read for a living.” This realization led her to pursue further studies and work on developing theater productions in New York.

Aside from being a lecturer for the Fine Arts Program, Garcia is also a dramaturg, which entails critiquing countless scripts daily. Despite her passion for the written word, reading nearly 200 plays for Virgin Labfest X was no easy feat, especially when she was traveling over the summer.

Garcia even laughs as she recalls the Skype deliberations she held with her fellow panelists, playwright Rodolfo Vera and the Labfest’s Festival Director Tuxqs Rutaquio. “It was afternoon in Manila and early morning where I was. My family was still sleeping, so we ‘met’ with me in my pajamas, hiding in the bathroom [and] whispering.

I remember [Vera] saying that I was probably just hiding at home and pretending to be traveling!”

She was also given the chance to share her expertise with the young playwrights at the Labfest’s Writing Fellowship Program. “My artistic philosophy is reflected in my training in that I never try to ‘fix’ a playwright’s play,” she adds. “I’m no play or script doctor, which is what I think most people mistakenly think of me.”

Each dramaturg has his or her criteria for deciding what makes for a good play. For Garcia, it is one that successfully creates a universe of its own. While she may not personally like all plays, she lets the words of Bill Sampson from the award-winning drama All About Eve (1950) guide her: “The Theater’s for everybody— you included, but not exclusively—so don’t you approve or disapprove. It may not be your Theater, but it’s the theater of somebody, somewhere.”

It is this kind of open-mindedness that the Labfest fosters as it pushes today’s budding playwrights towards taking risks. “We need to protect our writers from the fear of drawing the first circle,” she declares.

“We need to nurture potential artists so that we can come up with amazing new work.”

Glenn Mas

One need only spend a few minutes with Glenn Mas to understand why he is the theater arts coordinator of the Fine Arts Program. As he articulates his ideas regarding his craft, his enthusiastic hand gestures punctuate his every point.

For instance, Mas excitedly shares just how nerve-wracking it is for a playwright to watch his or her play unfold onstage.

“Every show is a different experience. Sometimes you get a

laugh in this scene, sometimes you don’t,” he explains. “Normally, playwrights would end up not watching the play but the reactions of the audiences!”

Mas is certainly well-acquainted with the anxiety the stage can bring; he began his career as a full-time stage actor at the Teatro Metropolitano of the Manila Metropolitan Theater, later becoming a scholar at the Tanghalang Pilipino Actors’ Company. Given the breadth of this veteran playwright’s experiences, the fellows of the Labfest’s Writing Fellowship Program couldn’t have asked for a better mentor.

While most writers can only dream of taking home a Palanca Award, Mas has already won nine. One of his award-winning works, Rite of Passage, was selected during the Labfest’s very first season in 2004. The fulllength play, which will be staged

by Tanghalang Ateneo later this year as part of its 36th season, is about a young man from Visayas who wishes to escape the monotony of rural life.

Mas, who jokingly describes himself as a “Virgin Labfest baby,” believes that the Labfest may not be as old, but is still as prestigious as the Palanca Awards. Regarding its origins, Mas answers in a mix of English and Filipino: “People from [CCP] realized that there was a dearth of [new] playwrights, [since] the playwrights that always get staged are the really senior ones.”

The Writing Fellowship Program aims to solve this problem by honing the talents of aspiring dramatists. This year, only 10 were chosen out of 78 applicants. Much like their predecessors, his students showed great promise. “I think it’s consistent throughout the years,” he muses in a mix of English and Filipino. “They’re generally open to constructive criticism and they’re brave in what they choose to write about.”

Perhaps it is because of them that Mas is optimistic about the future of theater. “Right now, we’re in a really, really good place. Before, there was a lack of playwrights, but now, we’re exploding with them.”

Ondoy: Ang Buhay sa Bubong (2010)

Kafatiran (2011)

Written by Remi Velasco and directed by Ed Lacson, Jr.

Written by Ricardo Novenario and directed by JK Anicoche

In the midst of howling winds and a torrential downpour, an emotional storm rages as Mercy and Obet turn their rooftop struggle for survival into a marital battle of wills.

With both itching to throw the other off the roof, the audience is left to wonder: Who will survive Typhoon Ondoy?

On the eve of the Philippine Revolution, the expression “coming out” takes on a double meaning for a special faction within the ranks of the fearless Katipunan.

Young and confused, Antonio Corpus is recruited into this band of brothers and undergoes an initiation to see if he fits in with these mild-mannered men.

Boy-Gel ang Girlfriend ni Mommy (2009)

Kawala (2011)

The Missing Peace (2014)

Written by Sheilfa Alojamiento and directed

by Carlo Garcia

Written by Rae Red and directed by Paolo O’Hara

Written by Carlo Vergara and directed by Marlon Rivera

Now that he has his college diploma, Alwin can finally say goodbye to his part-time job as an elevator boy. Set entirely within the confines of a condominium elevator, Kawala follows Alwin on his last day as he interacts with the building’s intriguing personalities and discovers what goes on behind closed doors.

The year is 2045, and the crown for Ms. Universal Empress is up for grabs. Having won four out of the past five beauty titles, the Philippines seems to have a good shot at winning this pageant with Ms. Philippines Candy Curon. Suddenly, an ancient Spanish era prophecy arises: Candy’s victory will bring about world peace, but at a price.

The unsung heroes WRITTEN BY Jasmine P. Ting PHOTOS FROM 4.bp.blogspot.com, thebullrunner.com, www.flickr.com, carverhouse.blogspot.com “Untried, untested, unpublished, and unstaged,” these riveting plays give us a glimpse into the Virgin Labfest’s colorful history.

In this gender-bending comedy, a separated woman introduces her two children to her new partner, June. Or is it Jun? Confusion ensues as the children bicker about which of the two women wears the pants in the family—June may look like a girl, but she dresses and moves like a boy.

The GUIDON August 2014

3

PHOTO BY ANDREA G. BELDUA

Of chaotic and perfect worlds

By Marguerite R. Andrews and Ishbelle L. Bongato

“

May the odds be ever in your favor,” a smiling Effie Trinket declares to a crowd of grim faces; the pink-haired administrator is about to draw the names of the next two tributes who will represent District 12 at the 74th Hunger Games.

Along with tributes from the other districts, they will be thrown into an arena to fight until only one is left standing.

Their chances of survival are incredibly slim—the truth is, in nearly every dystopian plot, the odds are hardly in anyone’s favor. Oppressed by the system, the characters in these stories must rise to the occasion, challenge the norm and break free from their respective situations.

Various predicaments may make these heroes miserable, but the readers certainly aren’t. After all, their struggles make for an epic adventure.

With the release of The Giver in August, dystopian fiction is again becoming the talk of the town. This film adaptation is a testament to the genre’s enduring relevance and its ability to leave us at the edge of our seats.

Past, present and future

According to Maria Mina, a part-time lecturer at the English Department who specializes in science fiction, the dystopian world is essentially a failed utopia. While utopian novels speculate as to what a perfect society might be like, dystopian novels paint a much bleaker picture of reality.

“We cannot point to a single text and say, ‘This is the beginning of dystopia,’ but we can do that with utopia,” Mina explains. Usually interpreted as

a social satire, Thomas More’s iconic Utopia (1516) was the very first of its kind. It was set in a fictional island with its own unique set of customs, which contradicted those of European society at the time.

“On the surface, dystopia has the appearance of a utopia,” Mina explains. “The majority of the people who dwell in it embrace it, even when it opposes them.” Both feature a regulated society where the fate of the in-

tually took a turn for the worse, especially in the wake of two World Wars and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “Science for us is, at best, a double-edged sword,” Mina says. “We think of it as something that’s far more likely to kill us than save us all.”

Jocelyn Martin, PhD, an assistant instructor at the English Department with a specialization in trauma studies, adds that the popularity of the genre grew

I think the general way of looking at dystopian worlds is, ‘If we keep going along this path, we’re going to end up here.’

— BILLY ATIENZA English editor, Heights Ateneo

dividual rests in the hands of the state. But while totalitarian rule breeds peace and order in a utopia, this desire for perfection can eventually lead to selfdestruction in a dystopia.

Mina cites the release of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine (1895) as a pivotal moment in dystopian literature because of its setting.

Before it was published, most dystopian stories were set in a different place; Wells’ novella, on the other hand, is set in a distant time, following the Time Traveller nearly 30 million years into the future. He is shocked by what he finds because, as Mina claims, “[dystopia] is the nightmare of the future.”

The dystopia largely came about due to society’s disillusionment with science. Although science was first seen as a lifesaving force, its reputation even-

more pronounced after the end of the Cold War, the crumbling of the Berlin Wall and the 9/11 attacks. In this modern day and age, the enemy can no longer be easily identified. “This global unease reveals itself in the interrogation of the status of the hero in recent films,” she adds.

Shifting arenas

Since The Time Machine, many authors have taken liberties with the who, what, when and where’s of dystopian fiction, but the narrative has mostly remained the same. In comparing classic and modern dystopian stories, Mina notes only a few main differences.

Whereas today’s dystopian works are much closer to fantasy, the classics were often allegorical in nature and served as cautionary tales against the

current sociopolitical order.

Some examples include George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), which depicted the dangers of voyeurism and cultural amnesia, and Ayn Rand’s Anthem (1938), which was based on the author’s experiences of Communist Russia. Katharine Burdekin’s Swastika Night (1937) even imagines a world where Adolf Hitler, having won World War II, is worshipped as a god.

“In classic dystopias, the protagonists are all adults,” says Mina. “It’s only recently that teenagers and even children have become the protagonists.”

Billy Atienza, the English editor at Heights Ateneo, believes that this allows modern dystopian fiction to “focus more on the characters and the relationships between those characters.” For instance, romance plays a much bigger role in dystopian fiction nowadays, as seen in the relationship between Tris and Four in Divergent (2011) and the love triangle between Katniss, Peeta and Gale in The Hunger Games (2008).

With more and more dystopian novels being targeted towards young adults, the themes tackled by the genre have evolved as well. Rebellion against the status quo has been a constant in dystopian stories, but lately, Martin sees the youth as specifically being presented as “accessible heroes and figures of resistance.”

The advent of initiation rites, such as the Ceremony of Twelve in The Giver (1993) where Jonas is selected as the Receiver of Memory, was also a sign that dystopian novels were becoming more youth-centric. This plot device embodies the concerns of the young regarding their own rites of passage. “In the midst of a society which seeks to conform, they set out to discover, not only their identity, but

their usefulness in the world,” she explains.

Mirror image

The immense popularity of the genre today says a lot about its readers and their preferences.

Many enjoy the fantastic nature of dystopian fiction because they are able to go on a thrilling journey while remaining unscathed in reality. “There’s a pleasure in seeing it without actually having to experience it,” says Atienza.

When immersed in dystopian fiction, people find themselves equally awed and disturbed by what they see. The genre can also be thought provoking, forcing readers to face uncomfortable questions. For Atienza, “It’s interesting seeing how these societies function and how people act, even if it’s not a world you’d actually want to live in.”

Through the years, dystopian stories have served as a reflection of our collective fears and doubts. The conflicts present in dystopian fiction usually arise from greed, ambition and apathy, problems that exist in reality too.

For example, as a teenager, Ray Bradbury was horrified by how the Nazi Party suppressed subversive ideologies through book burnings. This later influenced the premise of one of his best novels, Fahrenheit 451

(1953), where books are outlawed and burned by firemen in a future American society.

The power of dystopian fiction lies in the fact that no matter how exaggerated it might seem, much of it is based on reality.

“I think the general way of looking at dystopian worlds is, ‘If we keep going along this path, we’re going to end up here,’” explains Atienza. “We know it’s all fiction, but if it’s wellwritten enough and based on real concern, there’s that small part of you that thinks maybe it could happen.”

If dystopian novels were all doom and gloom, no one would bother to read them. Perhaps the secret to this genre’s enduring popularity, then, despite its commercialization over recent years, is the manner in which it reminds us of our common humanity.

More than just championing the values of diversity, freedom and courage, these stories remind us of our ability to survive and our role in constructing our future. As Martin observes, “[Dystopian fiction] campaigns for modern-day heroes… who will not anaesthetize themselves with the pains of memory but, with these and in spite of these, continue to hope and serve.

ERRATUM •

In the July 2014 issue of The GUIDON, Features’ article entitled “Up for Ransom” stated that the name of the band’s percussionist is Jerms Peck. It should have been Jerms Choa Peck. The GUIDON apologizes for this oversight.

•

In the Features article “Drink where you dine” in the July 2014 issue of The GUIDON, Erwan Heussaff was quoted as saying, “That’s why you have places like Opus that never did well.” This quote was not placed in the proper context; it should have been clarified that Heussaff meant that Opus was not successful as a dinner place. However, he acknowledges that it did very well as a drinking place. The GUIDON apologizes for this oversight.

4

Features

The GUIDON August 2014

Cracking the case

By Marguerite R. Andrews

I

t isn’t strange to hear stories of people who sacrifice food and sleep for days on end to finish a video game.

Neither is it unusual to pass by an Internet café on a sunny afternoon and see it filled with students, their eyes glued to the virtual worlds unfolding on the screens before them.

As if computer-generated zombies, serial killers and machine guns weren’t addicting enough, Breakout Philippines and Mystery Manila have arrived to kick the gaming experience up a notch. These live action escape room games have begun to put players in the middle of the scene—literally.

Both promise to give thrillseeking players an adrenaline rush unlike any other. By tearing us away from our consoles and forcing us to solve mysteries with our own bare hands, they are making our spare time a lot more interesting.

Architecture of the game

Originally from Japan, the world’s first live action game, Real Escape Game, was invented

by Scrap in 2007 and quickly spread to countries like Greece, Singapore and the United States.

The concept usually remains the same the world over—the participants are locked in a room and together, they must find clues, solve puzzles and escape the room in a given amount of time.

For Jerie Casipit, a literature (English) junior who tried Breakout Philippines’ Prison Room, where players take on the role of framed inmates, the experience was all too realistic.

“Before the game, you’re offered orange jumpsuits too so that you can feel in character,” she shares.

She and her friends were also blindfolded before entering to the room, heightening the suspense of the situation.

Crafting live action adventures seems to be the specialty of Runtertainment Inc., the group behind both Breakout Philippines and the popular zombie run series Outbreak Manila. Linking Outbreak Manila to Adarna’s Lair, one of Breakout Philippines’ escape rooms, was a stroke of genius on their part as it

easily captured people’s interests: In the room, players must find the information needed to stop the zombie virus before it wreaks havoc in Manila.

Breakout Philippines claims to be the first real life escape room game in the country, but so does its competitor, Mystery Manila.

Apart from the amount of playing time given and the maximum number of players, not much separates the two. Both offer players several themed rooms, abide by similar game mechanics, and try to add a distinctly Filipino twist to the names of various characters and settings.

“The games we come up with are a balanced mix of local and international culture,” observes Mystery Manila Co-creator Marge Chang. “We didn’t want to isolate foreign customers and at the same time, we wanted aspects of the mysteries to be relatable to the local market.”

Mystery Manila has also experimented with redefining the escape room. “We’ve recently launched another first, an outdoor game called the Ticking Time Bomb,” she adds. “Players are not trapped in a room but play the role of a bomb squad exploring the vicinity of Mystery Manila, like a scavenger hunt to look for clues to diffuse a fictional bomb and save the city.”

Pieces of the puzzle

Telev i sion ser ies l i ke Sherlock and board games like Cluedo inspired Chang and her collaborators as they spent countless days bouncing ideas off each other. “Instead of creating puzzles that are nea r-impossible to solve, we’ve carefully crafted and tested our mysteries to offer a good balance of challenging yet solvable puzzles,” Chang explains.

Cracking codes, unraveling riddles and picking locks are just some of the tasks players can expect once they step into the room. For instance, Casipit remembers deciphering strange writings on the wall, leafing through scribbles on old notebooks and piecing together torn bits of a photograph.

“Without giving too much away, we had to solve different puzzles in order to find

they felt the pressure to succeed become increasingly palpable.

“It’s hard not to get caught up in it when they do such a good job of making you feel like you’re really trapped in there,” she notes. Although she says it was overall a fun experience, the stress that mounted as the timer on the wall ticked to a close left them all screaming at one another in panic.

Reality bites

With Breakout Philippines and Mystery Manila priced at around P400 to P600, depending on the size of the team, a question arises: Is their appeal strong enough to counter the cost? This is something that Walfrido Diy, a part-time TICK TOCK. With their complex codes and puzzles, Breakout Philippines and Myster y Manila leave players with more questions than answers long after the time runs out.

PHOTOS BY ARIELLE A. ACOSTA

the keys that would let us out,” she recalls. “There are quite a number of locks though, so it was a matter of finding the right combination, the right key, to open the locks.”

Casipit adds that while it’s good to come prepared with a strategy, staying focused on the task at hand is much easier said than done. “Having six people in such a small space messes with your concentration,” she shares. “One of our teammates [was] more than six feet tall, so it was hard to move around.”

For H a z el Tolent i no, another literature (English) junior who has also tried Breakout Philippines, these challenges are impossible to overcome without cooperation. “[My friends and I] tried, in a very Scooby Doo fashion, splitting up and searching for clues.

When one of us found something interesting, we’d all try to help and piece it together.”

Once inside, they soon realized how difficult it was to put any sort of order into the mess of information in the short span of time. Pitted against the clock,

lecturer at the Computer Science Department and a game design specialist, sees as highly unlikely in the long run. “Once you’ve solved them, that’s it,” he says.

Quick game replay is something that the video game has over the live action game format. If the player fails to solve the case, he or she only has to hit the replay button to have another go at the mystery.

He or she can do this over and over again until he or she is successful. On the other hand, the live action game format not only requires constant gameplay innovation on the part of the creators but also a repeated investment from the players.

However, Diy notes that the experience of playing in a live action escape room simply cannot be replicated by a video game. Pushing buttons and entering cheat codes will no longer cut it; players in live action escape room games must physically stumble upon things entirely on their own.

According to Chang, this is largely where the appeal of the concept lies: The rule is that there are no rules. “It removes the confinement of a computer or a fixed storyline. Players are given much more freedom and power to decide the outcome of each game, unlike in computer games wherein the outcome is pretty much defined from the beginning.”

There is a lot of potential for experimentation in the future, something that Breakout Philippines and Mystery Manila will be taking full advantage of. Both camps promise new ways of delivering the experience in the future; while neither has divulged its exact plans just yet, Chang says that new mysteries are in the works for the opening of Mystery Manila’s Makati branch this August.

Week in and week out, the rooms are filled with people trying to crack the case—it is nearly impossible to get a booking at the last minute. Longevity aside, live action escape room games are injecting a much-needed dose of excitement to our weekends. After all, why go to the mall when you can play detective instead?

Editor: Mint A. Marquez · Editorial Assistant: Nicolo A. Fortuna · Layout Artist: Tommi G. Principe

Inquiry

04 LOOKING LEFT How did the persons for others forget their ideological roots?

Homegrown studies

By Nicolo A. Fortuna and Eugene G. Ong

Contrary to popular belief, the study of subjects in Filipino does not entail the mere translation of works and ideas. A number of fields have developed into disciplines of their own in Filipino, distinct from their Western counterparts. These Filipino fields of study aim to be more reflective of local nuances.

PHOTO BY PIA R. NICOLAS

The discipline of culture

By Eugene G.Ong

F

ilipino is perhaps one of the most misunderstood and underappreciated core subjects in the Ateneo. For some, the point of nine units of the language will never be clear—all they derive is misery and contempt.

Many will leave Panitikan ng Pilipinas (Fil 14), the last core Filipino subject, having only engaged with the language in the shallowest of ways.

A bevy of issues—the Tagalog roots of the language, its being secondary to English—have hounded Filipino ever since its adoption in the 1930s. Recent happenings in Filipino education, however, have highlighted—and hampered—one in particular: Intellectualization.

An othered language

Essentially, an intellectualized language is one that can regularly be used to write research, legislation and other highly intellectual output. The National Commission for the Culture and Arts puts it this way: A language that can be used in “giving and obtaining a complete education in any field of knowledge from kindergarten to the university and beyond” is an intellectualized one.

Intellectualization, however, is not only about translating foreign terms. Rather, it is also a matter of being able to create new terms unique to the language and likewise create a unique body of knowledge.

In the Ateneo, this idea is expressed in the core Filipino curriculum. In Sining ng Pa kikipag ta lastasa n I and II (Fil 11 and 12) and Fil 14, professors focus less on nouns and verbs, and more on appreciating

the distinctiveness of our l i n g u i s t ic a nd l it er a r y traditions. By studying native works and critically analyzing them, students understand better the local perspective of the world, as well as the social and physical realities they live in.

The successful intellectualization of the language represents the dream to completely Filipinize thought. Not to do so, argues De La Salle University professor Antonio Contreras, in a GMA News Online opinion

Efforts against

Many were elated when the government first announced in 2010 that basic education would be expanded from 10 to 12 years. With this announcement came the hope that the contradictory role of Filipino—it is a national language, yet only grammar and shallow literary engagement are taught of it—in education would finally be addressed once and for all.

These hopes were dashed, however, as plans for basic education were fleshed out. One of

Removing the teaching of Filipino as a discipline in college is tantamount to cultural euthanasia.

— ALVIN YAPAN, PhD Associate professor, Filipino Department

piece, would be to surrender back to colonial tendencies. “English is no longer the language of the colonial ‘other,’” he writes. “In fact, it is speaking Filipino that is now the unfamiliar ‘other.’”

As tantalizing as this prospect is to them, however, Filipino in its current state is not as intellectualized as it can be.

Fields like chemistry and physics are especially difficult to study using Filipino alone and even more impossible to write research in.

Needless to say, many have been frustrated by the slow, haphazard intellectualization of the language.

In schools, Filipino subjects are often taught without proper teacher training or materials.

these was what the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) proposed in response to the Kindergarten to Grade 12 program.

In CHED Memorandum Order No. 20, series of 2013, the commission outlined a new General Education Curriculum (GEC) that erased Filipino as a basic, mandated subject of its own.

The plan was widely criticized for being counterproductive to intellectualization efforts.

“What decent curriculum—after teaching the classics, exploring the possibilities of feminist and postcolonial ideology, discusses nationalism—ends a student’s language and literature training with a course on Purposive Communication?” points out

Joseph Salazar, chairman of the Filipino Department and who has a doctorate in sociology. For him, the new policy is “ill-conceived.”

To the ire of many, CHED responded by saying that they were conducting talks with universities to require some of the new units—Art Appreciation, Purposive Communication—to be taught in Filipino. “Conceding nine units to be taught in Filipino will not intellectualize the language,” insisted Filipino Department Assistant Professor Alvin Yapan, who has a doctorate in Philippine studies, in a Facebook post. He goes on to explain that the issue goes beyond the language that the subjects would be taught. The issue, rather, was the treatment of the language itself.

For Salazar and Yapan, the restructuring of the GEC only reinforced the notion that languages—both English and Filipino—were only useful for being means unto ends, a mere medium of instruction. However, what was really being contested was that Filipino would no longer be taught as a subject.

Removing Filipino subjects from basic tertiary education subjects, Yapan f urther argues, would remove the use undergraduate and graduate degrees in Filipino. “Studying a college, graduate, post-graduate degree in Filipino will not provide a student with a job outside of teaching the subject in elementary or high school, [so] why specialize in Filipino when you can instead get a degree in Education?” he contends.

An end in itself

Salazar describes the idea of language as a discipline as “an end in itself and is concerned The discipline ›› 3

➊ Literature Because several countries conquered the Philippines in the past, Filipino literary thought has paid particular attention to postcolonial frameworks. In particular, the questions of national identity and colonial mentality have figured heavily in Filipino literary history.

During the American period, for example, there were frequent clashes between those who wrote for the sake of advancing the artform and those who wrote to pinpoint social wrongs.

These are also carried on to the study of pre-colonial literature, as Filipino scholars usually highlight the suppression of native culture and language, which Western scholars tend to ignore.

➋ Psychology Filipino studies in psychology are heavily influenced by culture, producing concepts and theories distinct to society. While it also incorporates Western scientific approaches such as biological psychology and cognitive psychology, Filipino psychology is a discipline that is heavily rooted in the Filipino language itself— believing that words like pikon, saling-pusa and balikbayan reveal an understanding of the self and social relationships.

Apart from studying the psychological concepts embedded in native vocabulary, Filipino psychology also touches on how imported psychological terms—such as “impression formation”—are translated, and therefore assume different meanings in Filipino. Filipino psychology also carries postcolonial undertones: Much emphasis is given to viewing characterizations of Filipinos—like their laziness—in a Filipino rather than a Western perspective in order to better understand them.

➌ Philosophy The tradition of philosophy in Filipino has its roots in the Loyola Schools. Recently retired Fr. Roque Ferriols, SJ pioneered the field’s early development. He worked hard to bring the phenomenological tradition to the Philippines—in Filipino. According to the article “The language of truth” by Nadine Y. Ramos from The GUIDON’s December 2013 issue, Ferriols chose phenomenology because of its roots in everyday life, as phenomenology looks at and begins with lived experiences. His writings are taught in philosophy classes alongside the works of big names in the field like Martin Heidegger and Immanuel Kant. Ferriols famously asserts that his concept of meron is not a mere translation of the concept of being, saying that a Filipino’s experience of meron is different from the Western experience of being. Meron, as he explains it in Ramos’ article, springs from the Filipino experience by utilizing the Filipino language, and is unique in that way.

➍ Cinema The previous decade saw a rise in the Philippine film industry’s prestige. Directors like Brillante Mendoza and Assistant Professor Alvin Yapan, PhD from the Filipino Department, among others, garnered awards at film festivals both domestically and abroad, even reaching the Cannes Film Festival, for films shot with Filipino dialogue. The films use the Filipino language, along with regional languages, to augment efforts to show Philippine society and its harsh realities. The 2006 film Kubrador, for example, told the story of an aging bet collector for the distinctly Filipino game of jueteng.

2

Inquiry

Like wine

By Mint A. Marquez and Mivan V. Ong

P

erhaps discrimination based on age is not on the list of social issues that one may readily declare present in the Loyola Schools (LS).

A student will experience having an elderly professor at least once—most probably for a philosophy or theology class.

A student may also experience being taught by a teacher who is a fresh university graduate. Ageism is just not intuitive in the LS. But unknown to many, ageism does exist on campus—it is present and institutionalized, made actual in the faculty manual. It affects the very people who shape the minds of the students: The teachers.

Retirement policy

In his Inquirer opinion piece entitled “Still teaching 24/7” dated June 28, 2014, Manuel Dy, Jr., PhD, a professor from the Philosophy Department, opens: “I never thought ageism— defined as ‘prejudice or discrimination against a particular age group, especially the elderly’— would hit me.”

It was in the LS when ageism hit Dy, and it took the form of the retirement policy. Because the faculty manual is not available to students, Dy, Associate Professor Leovino Garcia, PhD of the Philosophy Department and Vice President for the Loyola Schools (VPLS) John Paul

Vergara, PhD, relayed this policy to The GUIDON anecdotally.

At 60 years old, professors are given their retirement pay. They can also get rehired twice. The first time, their contracts last three years. The next time, two years. At that point, the professor would be 65 years old. Should they get rehired, it is then when their teaching loads—and their salaries—drop, from 30 units to 15 units, and their titles are changed from full-time professor to part-time professor.

Dy says that the faculty manual is actually “silent” about what happens after a professor turns 65 years old. In 2002, the then-vice president of the LS, Anna Miren Gonzalez-Intal, PhD, issued a memorandum about it, but until last year, the policy was not put into writing in the faculty manual. Dy even says that he was informed of this policy only verbally.

Garcia, on the other hand, was not personally informed about the policy. He shares that he received an email during the break between the first and second semesters. It was through the email that he was told that he could only teach full-time with a prorated half-load. He was already 67 years old then.

He details the systematic procedure he followed: Requesting two rounds of appointments and talking with School of Humanities Dean Maria Luz Vilches, PhD, VPLS Vergara, and University President Jose Ramon Villarin, SJ. Additionally, Garcia wrote letters

addressed to Villarin, to Chairman of the Board of Trustees Edward Go and to the other members of the Board. According to Garcia, these letters were never answered in writing. However, he received a reply from Vergara immediately after he read Dy’s Inquirer article.

Vergara says that, on the administration level, this policy— giving 65-year-old professors half-time load—forces department chairs to start thinking about intergenerational balance in their departments.

policy is actually subsumed under the fact that, in the end, it’s the department, the requirements of the department or the balance that the chair has to deal with that come into play [when deciding whether or not to retain a professor’s full-time load].”

Vergara is hesitant to conclude that the policy is ageist, because then that would mean that “the whole concept of retirement is ageist.” He also adds that ageism can may even affect the younger faculty members. He says, “For

Your faculty is your gem, is your treasure, so you should treat them well.

— MANUEL DY JR., PHD Professor, Philosophy Department

Vergara emphasizes that the policy by no means prohibits 65-year-old professors from teaching a full load. He emphasizes that they ultimately leave the decision to the departments.

“If there’s a need [to retain a 65-year-old professor’s full-time load], then the department just goes to us and says, ‘We need him [or her] still,’ then we can deal with that,” he says. “This

example, if you say, ‘Let's not bring in new faculty or younger faculty’—that's also ageist.”

A balancing act

Because the policy affects the teachers of the LS, it is easy to see how the LS would be affected by the policy.

For Dy, the problem of this is that it deprives students of the opportunity of being taught by

more experienced professors.

In addition, Dy also warns that this policy could have negative effects on the Ateneo’s education quality, particularly when applying for centers of excellence. According to Dy, accrediting institutions such as the Philippine Accrediting A ssociat ion of Schools, Colleges and Universities, and the Commission on Higher Education, look at the number of doctorate degree holders there are in the faculty—and, of course, the higher the educational attainment, the older someone is.

When talking about the faculty in general, Garcia and Dy also stress the need to keep university tradition and memory alive through the faculty, especially senior faculty. Both professors see the faculty as the university’s means of passing tradition. “They’re the continuity of the university, so if you remove them, there's no more tradition to speak of,” says Dy. For all its negative effects, Dy and Garcia can only speculate about why this policy was suddenly implemented in the first place. The first reason seems to be cost-cutting. Two other reasons betray prejudice against the senior faculty: That they hinder the promotion of younger faculty, and that senior faculty “decline” in their teaching.

Despite the controversy that it is causing, the LS retirement policy, like all policies, would not have been implemented if it

the administration did not deem it necessary. Vergara cites two main reasons in defense of the implementation of this policy: An overall intergenerational balance in the faculty and the cutting of costs.

The intergenerational balance that he talks of is the just proportional presence of senior and junior faculty members. He says that the fact that younger professors outnumber the senior professors is an “expected curve.”

A faculty composed mostly of senior professors, he says, is not sustainable.

Vergara also mentions the need for turnover between younger and older faculty members. The turnover serves as a passing of the torch from older to the incoming faculty members. This marks the passing of tradition. According to him, if there is no turnover, then, there would be no continuity. Worrying about the future, he also says that a senior professor cannot teach the same subject forever, so it would be better to start training a new or younger professor while the senior professor is still around to help.

Besides the need for intergenerational balance, finance was also a contributing factor in the implementation of this policy, because “the more senior you are, the more expensive you get.” The solution of the policy is simple: When professors hit 65, their salaries are cut in half.

Like wine ›› 3

WISDOM WITH AGE. Senior faculty use their many years of experience to enrich their teaching of some subjects, most notably philosophy.

PHOTOS BY JOSHUA E. CABALINAN

The GUIDON August 2014

3

The lost years RESEARCH BY Mivan V. Ong ILLUSTRATION BY Paulina A. Almira

This histogram shows the number of teachers in the Loyola Schools (LS) per age group. Here, it is seen that younger teachers–those below 50 years old–constitute majority of the LS faculty.

At 22%, senior professors make the minority.

160 AMOUNT OF PROFESSORS

140

120

100

80

60

40 20 0 20 to 25

26 to 30

31 to 35

36 to 40

41 to 45

46 to 50

51 to 55

56 to 60

61 to 65

66 and above

AGE GROUPS (IN YEARS)

The discipline... ‹‹ 1

with the inalienable role language plays in different facets of social life.” In particular, studying a language as a discipline in itself entails examining how it “is also conditioned by the social, political, economic and cultural rules.”

“Language is a tool of the thinking process,” wrote historian Renato Constantino in his essay, “The Miseducation of the Filipino” (1966). “Through language, thought develops, and the development of thought leads to further development of language.”

In fact, language was, in his opinion, “the main problem” in education. Because of how English was being imposed on the majority of Filipinos who did not speak it, Philippine society had grown accustomed to only half-understanding everything, content with the vaguest understanding of impressive-sounding English words. This, in turn, hampered their ability to act on social issues.

“Filipino [as a discipline] provides a space for excavating and highlighting issues which are peculiar to the Philippine experience,” wrote Yapan. For him, Filipino is a necessarily interdisciplinary field and it also articulates the unique cultural aspects inexpressible by other fields—words like kilig and pikon, for example, express a deep emotional understanding that cannot be completely be described by the other sciences.

Filipino as a discipline, then,

Like wine represents an irreplaceable one. “Removing the teaching of Filipino, as a discipline, in college is tantamount to cultural euthanasia,” warns Yapan. Without the continued study of Filipino as a discipline, many aspects of the language—the philosophy embodied by the vocabulary, the art embedded within native poetic forms—would be left unexamined and unappreciated.

Our understanding of preHispanic Tagalog society is partly based on the Tagalog language, from which Filipino is mostly derived. If Filipino ceases to be treated as an academic subject of its own right, this understanding would be lost. In turn, a framework in understanding other Philippine cultures and languages would also be lost. In a way, Filipino culture and society would become more alien to Filipinos.

Its loss would represent the denial of, in Salazar’s words, “untapped resources in framing discourses for our development and progress.”

On campus

“Ateneo used to be more vigilant before in promoting and developing bilingualism,” Salazar says. Nowadays, he claims, students place a premium on English over Filipino.

For Ateneans, the entire issue takes on another character. Given the privileged backgrounds of many Ateneans, the role of Filipino in the Atenean education also becomes a matter of class relations.

“If the CHED curriculum is implemented in Ateneo, we will only be contributing to the development of a more arrogant and out-of-touch middle class,” claims Salazar. “[Ateneans] will make many decisions for the Philippines,” he continues, “but when it comes to language, they don’t know anything apart from the affectations they use to reinforce their social positions.”

In Salazar’s opinion, this apathy towards Filipino only becomes more relevant considering that many students already enter the university without any care for society at large at all.

Salazar’s sentiments reflect that of Constantino’s. Constantino argues the English-based education system not only makes relating to the masses harder, but hinders students from developing “proper regards for things Philippine, the selfish concern over the national fate.” For him, an education given primarily in the English language is a colonial education; thus, a nationally relevant education is one that favors Filipino.

The lack of a Filipino component in the Ateneo College Entrance Test is another cause for concern. For Salazar, the omission might represent “a lip service to the constitution and fostering a false sense of nationalism.”

Apart from this, it also testifies to the dominance of English in the Ateneo bureaucracy.

However, Salazar is confident in that Ateneo will not follow the

footsteps of CHED. “Thankfully, Ateneo has different plans and took CHED’s curriculum changes as a challenge to strengthen our own curriculum.”

In fact, the recent special school forum on the issue held last July 25 saw an outpouring of support for the Filipino Department’s own initial suggestions for restructuring the Filipino curricula of both the Ateneo and other colleges.

In the same forum, however, there were also more radical opinions. As has always been with Filipino, the issue of Tagalog dominance came to light, with one professor terming it as “symbolic violence.” Some suggested a more inclusive language policy. There was an idea to expand the Filipino Department into a Philippine Languages Department. Another professor even suggested the creation of a completely new Filipino language based on another language. (In response, the Filipino Department assured them of efforts to be inclusive going forward.)

These sentiments show that the fight for Filipino continues.

Generation after generation of Filipino scholars have fought for the language, but intellectualization seems to be the last thing on the minds of those in power.

Long after Manuel Quezon first dreamed of creating a common Philippine tongue, Filipino is still a work in progress.

Today, it seems like that progress is being put to a stop.

‹‹ 2

Dy also notes that, should the professor take on overload work—18 units, for example— that payment for that only comes later in the year.

Despite its restrictions on the senior faculty, Vergara defends that the policy has room to accommodate the specific needs of the professors, although the option to rehire professors rests in the hands of the department chair. “I think, partly, our retirement policies allow it, allow that flexibility.

The way we do things in Ateneo allows consultation,” he says.

Vergara does not think the policy should be reviewed or amended precisely because of this. “I don't think [the policy] requires any kind of amending because it provides the option [for 65-year-old professors to continue teaching full-time]. It doesn’t limit, really. It gives us some bounds,” he says.

The fight

Garcia emphasizes that he has moved on. But he cannot deny that he is simply “disappointed” that he has been “shabbily” treated by some administrators of the institution that he feels he has loyally served for almost forty years. He stresses that he is not fighting for what has happened to him; he is concerned how the policy will affect the younger faculty. He hopes we are not moving towards a “corporatization of the university.”

Similarly, Dy also has the future generations in mind. He says, “I actually wrote that letter to the Board

precisely to make them think about it, rethink the policy because I was not writing it for myself alone.”

Dy also says that explicitly discouraging 65-year-old professors to teach full-time because of their age—because of something they have no control over—violates one of the driving principles of the Ateneo community. “It's not—to my mind—in accordance with our Jesuit characteristic of magis—more,” he says. Garcia says that senior professors would also want to teach in the LS longer to give back to the school.

For Garcia, how the policy is carried out is one of the more hurtful things about the policy.

He recalls that he was told the news—that he would not return to teach a full load of 30 units, that he would teach half of the classes that he regularly teaches—came on the glimmer of a computer screen instead of in person. He says that emailing teachers that they could no longer teach is inhumane.

Both Dy and Garcia wish that the administration treated the faculty better. “Your faculty is your gem, is your treasure, so you should treat them well,” says Dy. He says that it is teachers who shape the minds of the students, and it is the students who make the school.

Garcia points that in a university setting, experience is gold.

He notes that some subjects, especially philosophy, require long years of experience in order to be taught well.

He likens some teachers to wine—they only get better with age.

4

Inquiry

The GUIDON August 2014

Looking left

PHOTO BY PAULINA A. ALMIRA

By Nicolo A. Fortuna

T

he Ateneo and its students used to be known for living out the mantra of being persons for others through political activity, especially during the Marcos regime.

Names like Edgar Jopson and Emmanuel Lacaba bring to mind images of protests and rallies.

In the dark days of the Marcos regime, there was the inescapable and pervasive reality of someone, something to fight—the dictator, the dictatorship. This made politics relevant, and in that time a lot of politics was leftist.

In contrast to the Marcos regime, there is no dictatorship to fight today. There is no writ of habeas corpus or the right to a fair trial to win back. Clearly, injustice is still present, but most of it is of a different kind altogether. It is borne of corruption and under-the-table deals.

It is—more often than not—the failure to pass and enforce good laws. This form of injustice does not lend itself as easily to protest as the passage and brutal enforcement of bad legislation like Martial Law. What still stands is the political left’s calling to action and solidarity with the marginalized.

By no means is this an agenda exclusive to the left.

In the past, the Atenean figured heavily into leftist political action, but today, the Atenean seems more politically apathetic than ever. Where did this misunderstanding come from?

Conflation

Speaking politically, the left is a diverse set of ideologies and movements concerned with structural injustice—injustice that comes from how society works—and reform that empowers the marginalized. The marginalized of society are those on the losing end of these structures: The farmers and fisherfolk of the countryside, and the hard laborers of the city, for example. Historically, the left also figured greatly in resistance and reform movements against

governments across the world.

Prominent leftist groups from the Loyola Schools community seem to all identify as social democrats. Social democracy is a political movement that advocates for working with the state for gradual change towards a more egalitarian society, rather than a violent revolution.

“Many think the left and the communists are the same,” says Leloy Claudio, assistant professor of the Political Science Department.

He adds that this may be because the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) is “the longest standing group within the left.”

He also says that the issue of aboveground communist orga-

were only the CPP, that stigma would be well-deserved.” The authoritarian approach of communism “is an inherently dictatorial, anti-liberal institution.” He describes that the CPP-NPA operates on the principle that through its study of “the so-called laws of history,” its leadership is always right, even without consulting with its constituents.

“Social democracy was always different from communism because it accepted the liberal value of balancing powers,” he says, comparing the two. “The long term goal of any communist party [of this sort] is a takeover of the state and a monopolization of its power.”

You must think ideologically, or else you’ll be dragged around by the current ideology around you.

— FR. ROMEO INTENGAN, SJ Associate professor, Loyola School of Theology

nizations complicates the confusion. “Nobody knows how they work. People think that all leftwing party-lists, including my own (Akbayan’s Citizen Action Party), are composed of communists.” He goes on to explain that many leftist organizations that do not identify as communist actually do have informal ties to the Communist party, which makes the situation confusing.

“The media distorts [the issue of aboveground communist parties] because it just calls them ‘militant’ groups,” he adds. “This is a stupid term that doesn’t mean anything. The most accurate term would be ‘communist-aligned.’ A lot of the confusion is the media’s fault.”

Is there a stigma against the left? According to Claudio, yes.

But he adds that “if the left

In the Ateneo, the Sanggunian engages in social action and nation-building. However, along the way, Ateneans seem to have dropped ideology from the discussion. Perhaps this is because there is no disagreement about goals, only means. Nonetheless, the discussion of ideology is one that is barely happening.

For a student body reputed for being persons for others, this is a worrisome deficiency. We no longer fully understand or appreciate an entire political system that espouses one of the most significant values taught in the Ateneo: To serve those marginalized in society. This blunts our ability to fully use the ideology to serve our ends.

Abbo Hernandez, premier of the social democratic student political party Christian Union

for Socialist and Democratic Advancement (Crusada), shares that his party has indeed been mistaken for violent revolutionaries who even haze their members. “If you look at the complexion of our members, most of these people are bookworms. What kind of hazing can you do to them?” he asks in a mix of English and Filipino.

He notes that people see the radicalism, leftism and the color red of his party and think, “Ah, komunista.”

Campus dynamics

Claudio notes that the cost of these misconceptions is that they inhibit involvement with activism.

Indeed, the student voice seems rather silent on pressing national issues. The Facebook group for the Ateneans for Agrarian Reform Movement (Afarm), for example, only has 252 members out of the school population of thousands.

Of those thousands, though, a majority also defends the farmers’ cause, despite not being in Afarm.

This goes to show that people’s beliefs do not always translate to activism.

Enrico La Viña (AB Philo ‘14) was a former premier of Crusada and was also involved with the Ateneo Task Force Anti-Aurora Pacific Economic Zone and Freeport (ATFAA) and Afarm.

According to him, this stigma against the left was a cause for the teams behind ATFAA and Afarm to make sure that the groups were seen as church-backed and supported by many sectors.

These misconceptions even affect the very way students a ppr o a c h s o c i a l i s s u e s .

According to Loyola School of Theolog y Associate Professor Romeo Intengan, SJ, people do not think ideologically anymore, explaining “ideologically” to mean thinking in terms of a coherent worldview and guide to action.

He stresses that “you must think ideologically, or else you’ll be dragged around by the current ideology around you.”

Hernandez believes that an apathetic student body maintains a lot of these misconceptions. He says “most of the

people who don’t really care about politics” are the ones with a tendency to keep away from activism.

Beyond apathy, he recognizes that there are people who take an interest in politics but maintain these kinds of views anyway. He suspects a part of this problem may be that being a leftist entails some level of sacrifice and this is intimidating to some people.

“Some students will tell you [that] they come to Ateneo because of all the activists in [the University of the Philippines]. So when they see a Crusada member or leftist member [willing to rally], they get a bit disturbed.”

He notes that identifying with social democracy is definitely demanding of students, in an understandably difficult way.

Taking up a social democratic advocacy involves “completely changing your lifestyle.”

“We don’t patronize corporations that abuse contractual labor.

We don’t enable groups that steal land from farmers,” he says in a mix of English and Filipino. “[Social democracy] changes not only your mindset towards charity, but your very movement in every day of your life.”

He describes that his party has learned to adjust and focus on people who take an interest in politics, and to just point to issues for those that do not, encouraging change little by little while trying to keep a more approachable image.

Preference for the poor

Historically, leftist ideals have also found an outlet in theology.

Liberation theology is a theology from the perspective of the poor and oppressed that focuses on fighting poverty with the political left in parts of the world. Even the Church itself has had a touch-andgo relationship with the idea of liberation theology, with members of the Vatican having condemned it for politicizing religion at times.

The movement has, however, had an undeniable impact that can be felt even here in the Ateneo. The entire point of a core subject every student must take, A Theology of the Catholic Social

Vision (TH 141) deals directly with structural injustice. The goal of this class is to explore what the Catholic duty is in light of structural injustice, and how that relates to being persons for others. The university has required immersion programs in poor communities through this class to truly build solidarity with the marginalized.

Intengan notes that the preferential option for the poor, as well as the distinction between different leftist ideals, was taken much more seriously in the 1970s and the 1980s “because of the heightened social awareness to a large extent fostered by the various kinds of left and of the Church.”

He argues that many of the advocates kept up their vigilance for social democracy in the time of communism and Marcos but that few now do. It seems to him that many were not in the struggle for principle but for reaction.

One should not be acting out of fear of some villain like Marcos, but “because you want a better life for the people, a society with more justice,” he says.

This want for a just society is reflected in the Ateneo community. The mantra of “down from the hill,” for example, recognizes that Ateneans are in a position of privilege in the country and that they have unique opportunities and perspectives. The calling to the community has always been for genuine solidarity and involvement with society at large.

Leftist thought has the potential to play a large role in why Ateneans go down from the hill.

It is an ideological framework that says that they have the duty to do so, that they have a duty to care about the political process and that they have a duty to undo structures that harm the most vulnerable ones in society.

It is in giving a “why” that the left can so strongly color the “how” of this process as well. Social democracy is a concrete direction to take. It is one of many, but surely one with the weight of its development throughout history woven into the fabric of what it is now.