A full two weeks before this year's State of the Nation Address, Malacañang's public relations machinery went on the offensive with a preview of July 28. If the two full-page spread ads in the major dailies are any indication, the major theme of the 2008 SONA is the promises fulfilled by the Arroyo administration since coming to power in 2001. A recent editorial of the Manila Times boasts: "In fairness to the President, her critics must admit that the lists are impressive."
Indeed, with an annual budget of P1.127 trillion -- reenacted for several years in succession -- a government would have to be truly incompetent to post no signs of progress and development. So, yes, we'll grant that the Arroyo administration has positive achievements; but as to whether they are at all impressive, we should wait until we sift through the figures. You see, when this administration quotes statistics, it often presents them without any context for consequence or comparison, the better to put it in the best possible light. That is what they call the art of spin.
For example, one of the highlights of the coming SONA will be education. "I want a school building in every barangay," Arroyo was said to have quoted in a previous address; and in supposed fulfillment of that promise, "of the 1,617 target barangay without schools in 2001, only 267 still have no schools today." Impressive, indeed. If you go through the Department of Education fact sheet released last June 3, there are other positive developments to crow about.
A closer look at the numbers, however, reveals some disturbing trends. For instance, the net enrollment rate, i.e., the actual number of primary school pupils enrolled, has been steadily going down. In 2002, the figure was at 90.29%; last year, it was only 83.22%. On the other hand, the net participation rate for high school has remained steady in the past five years, but at an impressively dismal 58.6%. All in all, there are more than 11.6 million Filipinos between the ages of 6 and 24 who are out of school.
Likewise, it behooves us to ask: what of the quality of the public schools that have been constructed? Last month, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers raised an alarm over the 2006-2007 statistics released by the Department of Education. Based on that report, in public elementary schools, one toilet bowl serves 51 pupils; worse yet, for public high schools, one toilet bowl serves 102 high school students. The actual figures in some schools are astounding: in Silangan Elementary School in Taguig, there is only one urinal for an entire population of 2,031 pupils.
Using the reenacted budget, the allocation for education last year was P138-B. Again, the figure sounds impressive; but not so when you consider that it is less than 12% of the national budget, or that it really only amounts to P12 per student per day. Of the impressive P138-B, an equally impressive P597.8-M was used in construction projects for schools that did not need them. This according to a Commission on Audit report released in June. In at least eight regions, including Metro Manila, 111 construction projects amounting to P44.135M were left unfinished, unutilized, or abandoned.
The devil, as they say, is in the small details.
Black Pencil Project is a personal initiative to help provide pencils through resources mobilizations to public elementary schools in the remote barangays accross the country. It aims to encourage localized participation and individual commitment of goodwill in support to government education programs in the countryside.
There is a logic behind the black pencils, usually this is the type of pencil prescribed to kinder up to grade 3 because of its size and grip for most public schools around the country. So logically, we're targeting only those who are entering Grades 1 to 3.
Why?
These ages are the segment where they're most excited to go to school and yet very vulnerable.
In the remote places, only Primary School is offered (Grades 1-3), so kids entering Intermediate (Grade 4- 6) will have to walk to the nearest barangay in their area to be able to attend classes.
In some areas, because of poverty, kids instead of going to school, opt to help their parents doing farm errands in particularly during cropping season which happens in the middle of school year.
How often is it that the creator of your favorite game from way back when you were a kid writes you? Not often, but it does happen. And it happened to me.
Last week, I got this email:
I noticed on your Village Idiot Savant blog that you liked the old PC game, Star Fleet I - The War Begins! I am the author of that game. Please reply if you get this. Thanks.
Trevor Sorensen
Glad to meet a member of the Fleet! Did you ever play Star Fleet II - Krellan Commander? It is also text-based graphics for the PC, but is much, much richer game with planets, planetary invasions, many ship types, fleet tactics, etc. I can provide you the zipped files if you like although I think it might be available from Underdogs. The exciting news is that a few years ago two programmers and I got together and made a Windows-based version of Star Fleet, which is a cross between SF I and SF II. It's called Star Fleet Deluxe and has the same basic navigation, ship resources, and combat systems as SF I (and your heavy cruiser is the only UGAS ship to be seen), but also has multiple Krellan ship types (battlecruisers, destroyers, freighters), planets (on which you can establish sensor and logistics bases), colonies (UGA planets), and upgraded starbases. Anyway, I am enclosing the SFD files and manual. I hope you like it.
An interesting thing happened while we were gone. There were lots of soldiers and sailors in the area. Daniel saw a Kansas flag and left Chuck to go talk to them.
They were headed for the Philippines, following the 20th Kansas, to which Daniel would have been attached in Topeka, had I signed for him to join under-age. So he wouldn't have gone to follow the Rough Riders to glory in Cuba, after all. The Kansas troops were shipped overseas to, as the man who talked to Daniel put it, "go kill niggers in the Philippines."
Thank God Daniel hadn't gone with them. The truth of the Filipino insurrection was decades in coming, mainly because it was too horrible to accept: American soldiers killed at least 200,000 -- women and children as well as soldiers -- and Kansas was at the front of the slaughter.
Pressed into my diary at this point is a later article from the Anti-Imperialist League Journal. Yellow and crumbling, it dropped into two pieces when I unfolded it. It quoted letters from the 20th Kansas: a captain said, "Caloocan was supposed to contain 70,000 inhabitants. The 20th Kansas swept through it, and now Caloocan contains not one living native." A private under him repeated that he himself had torched over fifty houses, killing women and children.
Not a big Will Smith fan, especially not after he ruined "The Wild, Wild West", but I had to go see "Hancock" anyway. And boy, I was pleasantly surprised.
I still don't like Will Smith but where Hancock got me was in its story. It still uses the conventional superhero tropes, but since it was not based on a comic book, the story managed to surprise me. I don't want to give anything away so let's just leave it at that.
The problem with Hancock is that it is advertised as a comedy. In reality, it's not. It's actually more of a drama with comedic elements. That's why the movie comes out a little uneven. Most of people's complaints come from this unevenness, but if you view it counter to expectations, it feels more whole.
My only real complaint is Will Smith himself. Onscreen, he's not Hancock, he's just Will Smith. Worse still, it feels like he's channelling his character from "The Pursuit of Happyness."
Ah, now this one, I really liked. Great animation, stylish visuals, smooth direction, and a story that hews closely to the classic wuxia plot (but with a nice twist to the main character.)
I suppose what really got me was the voice casting and performance, vis-a-vis the visuals. I knew for a fact that Jack Black was doing Po, but I had forgotten all the others. Throughout the movie, I was wondering who played who, and that's a testament to the quality of the voice acting and the character animations. I could even conveniently forget that Black was playing Po. (The only actor I recognized was James Hong -- he of "Big Trouble in Little China.")
Special mention also goes to the highly stylized opening scenes, reminiscent of Samurai Jack. They could just as easily do a movie in that fashion.
Five minutes into "Wanted", I was already comparing it to "The Matrix." That, unfortunately, is the fate to which the movie is consigned: comparison after comparison to its predecessors.
Don't get me wrong: "Wanted" is fun and entertaining with its stylish violence, so frenetic and kinetic that you really have no choice but to, as they say, switch your brain off. (Warning: some spoilers ahead.)
Ah, but what comparisons can we make? What immediately comes to mind:
Possibly the only innovation "Wanted" really brings is the "curving bullet" schtick, and even that is overdone to absurdity in Fox's last killing shot. Compared to that, Lito Lapid's "split-bullet" technique is more believable.
Hmmm...I'd like to see that on Mythbusters.
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