february 2012
Photo courtesy of UPV-IPO
French Embassy counselor meets with UPV officials
Anna Razel L. Ramirez
Christian Merer, cultural counsellor of the French Embassy in the Philippines, visited UP Visayas (UPV) and met with Chancellor Rommel Espinosa and other university officials last January 20. Merer briefed the UPV officials on the 40-year partnership between France and the Philippines in the areas of education, arts and culture. There are 350 Filipino students in France on scholarships, most of them are enrolled in Mass Communication courses. There is also a link between French institutions and Philippine museums in the propagation of arts and culture between the two countries. He noted that UPV had been cooperating with the embassy in a study on the Epics on the Silk Route, which include the Hinilawod epic of Central Panay in 1996. Merer believes that there are still more possibilities of cooperation between the university and his embassy, particularly in the areas of film, food security and student scholarships. Also present during the meeting were Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs Emilia Yap; Vice-Chancellor for Administration Nestor Yunque; ViceChancellor for Research and Extension Ricardo Babaran; College of Arts and Sciences Dean Ma. Luisa Mabunay; School of Technology Dean Emeliza Lozada; College of Management representative, Prof. Christine Hernando; and UPV Committee for Culture and the Arts Chair Roman Sanares. After the meeting, Merer visited the UPV Art Gallery.
A ‘wiki’ for the UP Diliman community Continued from page 10
cannot access it. It’s really very flexible.” iskWiki for everyone And that’s just the serious, academic/ administrative side. However, the members of the UP community are also known for their vibrant creativity, witty humor, the UP angas, and the willingness to open the university to the rest of the country. Again, iskWiki serves as a platform for all of these. For visitors to UP, iskWiki can serve as a repository of relevant and useful information, such as seminar and conference venues (with locations, rates and contact information); hotels, hostels and dormitories; schedules of art shows, theater and musical productions and other events; alumni reunions and events; short courses, workshops and community recreation programs, and the like. There are other aspects of UP life that people outside find fascinating and useful: the many restaurants and assorted cuisine for food-trippers; date-spots on-campus for lovers or would-be lovers; historical landmarks for day-tourists; jogging and sports facilities for athletes and the healthconscious; even the collections of clever graffiti, humorous witticisms and “onlyin-UP” anecdotes that set UP people apart, and, for UP alumni, bring back fond memories of their own UP experience. All of these are waiting to be written up and archived in iskWiki. While these are not considered “official” information, “these are still part of the knowledge-base of UP,” says Sy. “So where do you aggregate them? Certainly not in the front page of the official UP website. There
A recent photo of the research vessel
U.P. Newsletter 11
UPV turns over TRV Sardinella to PASUC 6 Anna Razel L. Ramirez
UP Visayas (UPV) Chancellor Rommel Espinosa and Philippine Association of State Universities and Colleges in Region 6 (PASUC 6) President and West Visayas State College of Science and Technology (WVSCST) President Luis Sorolla signed an agreement finalizing the sale of the Multi-Purpose Fishery Training and Research Vessel TRV Sardinella by UPV to PASUC 6 last January 19 at the UPV Iloilo City campus. The agreement is on an “as-is-where-is” basis in the amount of P8 million. Only P5 million of the total amount will be paid by PASUC 6, with the remaining P3 million to be donated by UPV as a charitable act for the association. The vessel will be used as a training facility for research and maritime programs of the PASUC member state universities and colleges. Former UPV Chancellor Minda Formacion, UPV College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences Dean Carlos Baylon, and presidents and representative of PASUC 6 member-institutions witnessed the signing of the agreement. The TRV Sardinella was made by the Nippon Kaiji Kykai. It has a length of 114.35 feet, a breadth of 28.95 feet, and a depth of 10.75 feet. It has a gross tonnage of 411.35 tons and a cruising speed of 11.5 knots. The TRV Sardinella arrived in the Philippines as a donation of the Japanese government through the Japan International Cooperation Agency to be the research and training vessel of the College of Fisheries.
Scholar tackles Rizal and the woman question Continued from page 7
babaylan to reveal the fate of women unable to assimilate to the roles assigned to them by the syncretisation of the church. San Juan claims that colonial society ascribes its “vices, crimes and ignorance” to a portion of the female population and in doing so, “acquits male authority of any wrongdoing.” In Rizal’s novels, the sacred and profane are but two sides of the same coin and it is his duty to “enlighten his women compatriots...of the need to liberate themselves from...mind-forged manacles by their own collective effort and initiative.” The author then returns us to Rizal’s address to the young women of Malolos where he pinpoints Rizal’s revelation of the efficacy of colonization’s subalternization of
women. Rizal bewailed “blind submission to any unjust order” and urged the use of the rational faculty in all facets of their lives. This rejection of the stereotype of “modesty, passivity, and docility” is also an attempt to include women as qualified participants in the fashioning of the “General Will.” According to San Juan, motherhood for Rizal is not merely a natural attribute but an acquired social role. He would then praise the civic consciousness and unity of Spartan women – their “austere independence” and their “giving birth to men who were willing to sacrifice their lives in defense of their homeland.” Finally, the reader is called to the legend of Maria Makiling, who, betrayed by her mortal lover, took revenge and left the world of mortals thereafter.
Invoking Rizal’s suggestion that perhaps she was incensed by the attempt of Dominican friars to strip her of half the mountain, San Juan says: “The original harmony of humans and the ecosystem is sundered by predatory acquisitiveness, by the exploitation of nature to yield subsistence…” “And so,” San Juan claims “did Salome abandon her home in the forest, so did Sisa and Juli depart from the fallen world… And with Rizals’ ultimate sacrifice, Sisa’s revenge is viewed through his plea to pray or “our unhappy mothers who in bitter sorrow cries.” And after honoring the role and exposing the suffering of women, San Juan, quoting Zaide, poses a challenge to their children: “The furrow is ready and the ground is not sterile!” (1984, p. 74)
has to be a place where [information such as these] can be shown, and there’s no other place like iskWiki.” iskWiki for the UP community and beyond In addition to being a powerful storage facility for documents, photos, media and video files, and a repository of every bit of information about UP, iskWiki has many other advantages. The most prominent is that information uploaded in iskWiki is easily collected, sorted and aggregated into any category. Entries about student organizations, for instance, can be aggregated into a directory and may be further sub-categorized. UP faculty profiles and directories can be aggregated according to fields of specialization. Theses, papers and conference materials uploaded on iskWiki can be sorted according to subject, author, date or any other category, which makes it easier to do content analyses of theses and research work. It also makes it easier for UP faculty to create lists of publications or published papers, and for UP administrators to access such a list when considering promotions. IskWiki’s capacity to aggregate data can be invaluable. “It [makes things] very efficient,” says Sy. “You can maintain this little piece of information, you can make
it accurate, and then it could be aggregated to some other category.” Data categories depend on how the information is tagged, and “there is no limit to the number of tags you can put. For as long as we have categories, and that our tags are accurate, then we can have many choices” with regard to categories of data. In addition to this, iskWiki is extremely flexible and easy to use. (To contribute content, simple visit the Contributor’s Page [http://iskwiki.upd.edu.ph/index. php/Iskwiki:Contributors_Page] for instructions.) It is easily indexable and search-engine optimized. It is also immune to vandalism, since its restriction to people with UP Webmail accounts makes it easy to track down changes. It can also be updated quickly, which gives UP a means to respond promptly and efficiently to the public’s need for information during crises such as natural disasters. With regard to traditional websites, libraries and social networking sites, “our aim is complementation, not competition,” Sy stresses, adding that iskWiki can be used to address the gap between the need for information and the comparative lack of updated information about the University. In fact, given that iskWiki is more easily updated, UP units and student organizations
are encouraged to upload their information and update these via iskWiki as well, and maintain these alongside their websites. Information stored in iskWiki also tends to last longer than information stored in social networking sites, especially once the DILC’s off-site backup system is up and running. (Although Sy does make it clear that iskWiki is neither a blog nor a microblogging site. Lolcats and other Internet memes not related to UP are also not allowed.) iskWiki ng bayan Beyond its promise of being the goto place for anything UP by anyone UP, iskWiki will be an invaluable tool for enhancing the sense of community among UP constituents, as everyone is encouraged to add to the body of knowledge and information about the university. “It has to be a community effort. It takes a village to maintain a wiki, so it takes the whole UP community to maintain iskWiki,” says Sy. The DILC is currently working to expand iskWiki to other UP constituent units, thereby creating a UP System-wide iskWiki. But there is a greater aim to this. “The larger vision [for iskWiki] is to open this to all knowledge producers,” says Sy. “We have a lot of knowledge producers in the country. We have to find a way to document all this [knowledge].”