6 days in siam
Day 1
3 p.m. ---- Refillable wine and choice of liquor aboard Thai Airways. Seems primary goal of flight attendants is to get passengers drunk. Not complaining. Food is scrumptious with my white wine. Three hours to Bangkok. Giddily copy down critical Thai phrases from in-flight magazine, Sawasdee, to my notebook while stewardess refills my glass.
Paeng maag – Very expensive!
Hong nam yoo tee nai – Where is the restroom?
Cannot find Thai translation to “Yes, I would like to live in your beach house and eat sweet mangustin all day for free”, so decide to fend off invitations from fabulously wealthy Thai men who cannot speak English for now. Should any come, I mean.
6 p.m. --- Bangkok airport looks and feels bigger than all our runways put together. Meet fellow media folk and attendees to Travel Mart. Affect air of bored nonchalance to blend in. Fail. Whip out camera and begin clicking at anything that moved.
9 p.m. --- Eddie, our tour guide, is cross at me for taking too long in the rest room. Was snapping pictures of the toilet. Siam Niramit, Thailand’s ultimate cultural show, set in the world’s tallest stage, was set to begin in a few minutes.
10 p.m. --- In awe at world’s tallest stage’s real river and rainfall effects. Dances largely similar to our own, except without people flying, half-rooster gods and real, live elephants padding about in the background. Decline having photo snapped with elephant trunk wrapped around torso, four feet in the air. Other eager tourists happily pay 20 baht for the momentous occasion.
11 p.m. --- Repair to Amari Watergate hotel. Spend 30 minutes jumping on bed after realizing entire deluxe room was to own. Sink deliciously in hot tub, dreaming of elephant trunks and flying buddhas, popping grapes in mouth.
Day 2
7.30 a.m. --- Eat everything in sight at breakfast buffet. Overlook sausage and eggs corner. Go on third round.
9.30 a.m --- Siam Ocean World. Only the cichlids, by virtue of their chubby cheeks, look cheery. Slightly depressed by caged animals, but impressed also at largeness and variety of aquatic displays. Bump forehead on glass trying to get closer look at predatory sharks. For a moment, feel like fish wanting to get out.
11.00 – 12.00 ---Ensnared in 60 baht store. Buy Japanese lantern and bamboo placemat. Had to restrain self from purchasing stainless steel soap and kitchen gloves.
12.00 nn --- Shabu-shabu at famous MK Gold store. Almost went to different MK store across the mall. Eddie tusk-tusks. “MK across mall not MK Gold. Not as good.” MK Gold good. Devour copious amounts of duck and three bowls.
7 pm --- Opening ceremonies of Thailand Tourism Festival at Impact Muang Thong Thani, organized by Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT). Sight of another buffet table this time perplexing. Round of speeches are boomed out in microphones. Thailand’s Minister of Tourism is followed by parade of people and flashing cameras. Gather he is important man. Gather entire tourism industry in Thailand is. They’ve got 15M tourists to prove it.
9 pm --- Night Market. Can hear imaginary whistle and timer in head as ply winding avenues of stalls selling 100th version of Singha shirts, silk scarves and Muay Thai shorts. Momentary black out stops wild-eyed, shopping-crazed tourists (me included) in tracks. Confusion ensues. Lights return as I bring down price of dress from 350 baht to 280. Eddie later informs me of efficient cleaning agents as colors of dress likely to merge and/or completely disappear.
Day 3
9 am --- Scout around Travel Mart. Feign casual disposition whilst asking about resort prices. Island resorts incredible. Island resort prices likewise.
Scuttle to Domestic display at adjoining hall and purchase herbal balm for 15 Baht, inclusive of Thai massage.
12 nn --- Try to lose self in winding, whirling street markets of Bangkok. Purchase meat of unknown origins on stick and pure carrot juice. Food cart options fascinating and endless. Try to wander off some more. Alas, Amari Watergate tower too tall to miss.
4 pm --- Shuttle to Pattaya, a.k.a. Sin City
7 pm --- There is hip tub inside white, red, black and gray hotel room. And hip piped-in music along hallways. Entire hotel screaming of hipness. Beach a few meters away. Hotel containing packs of foreign men in uniform. Immensely grateful to former self for great Samaritan acts performed in former life.
8 pm --- Dinner at Thai restaurant with a busload of Vietnamese. Discover sinfulness of tom yum (the soup, not some Asian man named Tom).
9 pm --- Refrain from any other sin, as might affect hotel standing in next life. Disappear in immaculate fluffiness of bed sheets.
Day 4
7.30 am --- Oh, lord. Breakfast buffet bigger and tastier here.
9.30 am --- Supatraland Agrotourism. Genius venture. Fruit farmers opened up farm and for a fee, tourists can roll around the land in a tram, stopping at certain points to stuff face with lovely fruit.
Stuff face with rambutan, lansones, dragon fruit, not so with durian, then papaya, balimbing and some unidentifiable ones. Old Japanese women most delighted out of our tour bunch.
12.00 nn--- Feast at Tamnanpar restaurant, with replica of Thailand’s 9 known waterfalls, forest trees and swans in the background. Possibly best sea bass, pad thai and tom yum in planet. In sheer elation, mistakably chew on chilli pepper camouflaged as kangkong. Rising panic quelled by spoonful of sugar (First inspect sugar as back in fruit farm, chilli was mixed in with sugar).
2 pm --- Sanctuary of Truth. Amazing. A tower made entirely of wood carved by Thai artists over a hundred metres high. Continuous building since 1981, with wood imported from Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. Feel sad over fate of giant trees, but at least not turned to politician mansions or replica elephants for sale.
4 pm --- Royal Gems. The world’s biggest jewelry store. Horror-train-ride-like into a moving presentation of the history of jewels before emerging into hall of craftsmen and jewellers at work until finally ushered into shop with message firmly implanted upon subconscious to buy, buy, buy! Too bad I don’t wear jewelry, and fairly opposed to mining.
5 pm – Curl up at beach with bottle of Singha beer, a bag of rambutan and Sherlock Holmes. Water not exactly enticing to plunge in.
6 pm --- Ask men in uniform if they came from war. “No, but feels like it,” one says. Turns out they’re aid workers trying to deliver supplies to Burma. “It’s slowly tricking in, but just barely,” cute soldier says.
“Why don’t you just fly over in a helicopter and drop food to those in real need?” I query.
“That’s what we’ve been saying, too.”
Apparently there’s a danger of getting shot down.
9 pm --- Explore sleazy, gritty, lively side of Pattaya down Walking Street. Souvenirs, alcohol, meat and flesh for sale. Note that San Miguel is usually most expensive among all beers. Hawker tries to deposit baby monkey in my hands and take picture for 150 baht. Am terrified but take baby monkey for few seconds as monkey happily nibbling on corn. Decided monkey would take wild nibble at my fingers if corn runs out, so immediately return primate to owner.
11 pm --- Inside hip tub, contemplating a round of beer out at Walking Street.
11.08 pm --- Bundled cocoon-like in wonderful sheets and refuse to get up.
Day 5
9 am --- Back to Bangkok
10 am --- Chatuchak Weekend market. Listen to briefing and solemnly clutch maps, as if holy grail. Chatuchak enormous and dirt cheap. Good, as left with meagre assortment of bahts to spend. Buy two 20 baht ties, a 180 baht dress, five ugly 10 baht keychains, two spiffy hats for 100 baht, and an Asterix comic book in French for 150. Will learn to read French later. Return to meeting point, smelly, spent but in record time.
12 nn --- Lunch at the largest restaurant in the world: Royal Dragon. Chinese and Thai food. Utter bliss. Waiters in roller skates. Heaping plates of lobster, lechon, tom yum, sea bass, vegetables on our table. Muay Thai match on TV. Getting amply used to such elaborate banquets.
6 pm --- Plan to skip dinner. Buy bag of deep-fried crickets from the street outside hotel and a liter of Yakult in 7-11. (Seriously. They have a liter).
7 pm --- Position hapless crickets on plate as if toy soldiers marching off to battle.
7.05 --- Run over possible consequences of ingesting bugs. Slightly repulsed.
7.06 --- Take mad crunch and dismember a soldier’s head.
7.07 --- MMM.
7.30 --- Plate is empty except for few pieces of cricket legs.
8 pm --- Dave of TAT manages to get me off my content little ass to join them for Japanese buffet at DAICHI. Restaurant playing Tiffany songs and sappy Thai tele-drama at once. But food fantastic; sushi just bursting with roe.
10 pm --- Still digesting entire day’s food intake.
Day 6
8 am– Feel guilty over ridiculous amounts of food ingested at time of world food crisis and eat only small piece of toast in protest. And cereal.
12 nn – Scared for huge possibility of going over baggage limit at check-in counter. (Scared more for own self’s weight rather than luggage’s).
5 pm – Drink 3 glasses of red wine along with scrumptious airline meal as protest is momentarily adjourned.
7. 15 pm – Touch down at NAIA. Feel glad to be back home and be rejected by taxi drivers and read signs and food labels I can understand again.
Day 7
11 am--- Miss the buffet.
Barring politics, religion and puffy-sleeved colonizers, the similarity between Thailand and the Philippines is uncanny. As even Eddie, our sometimes cheerful, sometimes surly Thai guide told us over bowls of shabu-shabu at a Japanese restaurant inside one of many gleaming Bangkok malls, “In terms of looks, Thai people and Filipinos are the only two races in the world you cannot tell apart.”
I concur. That, tight traffic jams, little pockets of commerce and a shared passion for tacky evening soaps make Thailand our likeliest Southeast Asian Siamese twin. Last week I was navigating the bustling bellies of Bangkok , and I may have been anywhere in Central Manila. The scene---hordes of splayed-out wares, and hordes of people unflustered by the blazing tropical sun---was so Filipino I half expected the stalls to bust out Flo’ Rida.
Unlike us (and our hip-hop-blaring habits) however, Thailand has their King, street shrines, a staunch belief in the Law of Karma, barely any English translations for their signboards written in Thai, blissfully fat birds and street dogs (who happily consume food offerings left on the sidewalk) and the entire cast of Antz deep-fried as snacks. They also have a tourism industry fuelled by billions of dollars in investments and revenue, a hotel, a mall and presumably something exciting being built in every corner, and close to 15 million tourist arrivals just last year alone. (The Philippines welcomed 207, 272 arrivals --- a sum slightly bigger than the number of Filipinos who went shopping in Thailand in 2007).
In the several instances I’ve seen their proud culture on display, references to our country’s own automatically surfaced. They had the tinikling, the bao, the bobbing, dancing, oversized paper-machê heads. Their dances were our dances, their instruments were our instruments, and their rituals --- at least in terms of agriculture--- were our rituals. The islands and beaches touted in the domestic and international Travel Mart were our kith and kin. The fruits, the rice fields, the smiles---they were mirror images of ours. Even the laidback Thai mentality, translated as “Mai pen rai (‘never mind’),” is curiously akin to our notorious “Bahala na.”
Only, in Thailand, everything looked better produced, more efficiently executed, more developed, more understood, generally bigger, better, and altogether sweeter.
For all our conviction in Pinoy hospitality, the Thais own the title “Land of Smiles,” not us.
One stall I came upon sold atis fruits as large as melons and mangoes as long as my feet. (I literally held one against my size 8 foot).
Moreover, Thailand’s baht, although higher than our peso, buys clothes, shoes, electronics, and pretty much everything cheaper there when you compute it.
Fact of the matter is that the Philippines and Thailand are so alike that the differences therefore quadruple in size and sprout gargantuan wings, impossible not to notice. And for the rest of the world, these differences spell out which tropical country wins their bid ultimately, to plunk their euros, dollars and yens in.
Sadly for us, Thailand---undecipherable street signs and all--- remains the undisputed choice.
The summer is sticky and there are men blasting the asphalt outside but I have reason, reasons! to be merry, la di la.
Number one, I have found myself an abode. Yes. Indeed, after logging a thousand kilometres on my rabbit slippers I have found the prefect nest.
Perfect meaning:
a) ridiculously cheap
b) is atop a flimsy, dubious stairway
c) is within earshot of chirping birds
d) is within the vicinity of true-style Manimalian ghetto, from which I could extract heaping quantities of inspiration and bemusement from
e) has all the character of a starving artiste’s hole, complete with busted shower, toilet and holes on screen
f) I can do whatever the hell I want with it and in it!!! (visions of puttering around half-naked with Michael Jackson turned way up and jelly ace in the freezer. Bliss)
Perfect despite the fact that bathroom ceiling has in fact NO ceiling but roof of structure itself and therefore convivial atmosphere to mammals, insectoids and golliwogs.
Last Saturday while painting the room the sky split open and a hundred days worth of unwept rain came pouring forth. It was too rich to resist. I scrambled down the red tin steps and found myself in a street filled with jubilant natives. Fat men had awakened from drunken stupors and were then rubbing shampoo on their scalps. Teenaged guys were whooping with maddened power and tumbling into shapes and limbs splaying right on the cement. The girls walked back and forth, their arms stretched across their chests, long, soaked hair dripping with rain, giggling giggling giggling. The children ran amok. A playful ol’ chap chased a terrified little toddler down the street, waving a dead ipis in his hands. Sheer, manic life.
I stayed there until drenched and finally cold, and did my best not to slip and crack open my skull going back up my room. I can’t wait for the rest of the rainshowers.
Number two, I can finally crank out Heart’s ‘Alone’ on the gee-tar. Hyah! I’ve skinned the tips of my four fingers raw but truly, an accomplishment to behold. Clap, clap. Next--- Deff Leppard’s ‘When Love and Hate Collide.’
Number three, mon bebe still wants to marry me, despite despite despite. He truly is THE ONE eh? I’ve got to just sit still and believe it.
Life is good, mad fun.
This week has been one big BALL OF MADNESS I’m surprised I haven’t flung myself yet onto the rusty LRT tracks to invite death by tetanus (rather than train grindage).
Here’s the review of related lit.
Some three weeks ago Tita Rose cutely decides to rent out the house (the HOUSE!) to this Japanese dude with a preggy Pinay wife. Hai. Watashi wa Jepang.
So before we knew it, Karen, Steph, JF, Letty and Coco and Bailey and I found ourselves evicted and all house articles however termite-chomped hauled out into the garage to await prospective buyers.
None came, but a few people down the street snapped up five peso kubiertos and came back the next day asking for a refund. And, the guard waltzed by wanting to buy my bike. I refused so he attempted to buy one speaker instead, which Letty refused to sell because it still worked.
The next couple of days were a fuzz of strange men trooping in and out of the house, hammering on things and turning the walls white. I spent nights disoriented, bumping into tables and cardboard boxes. Bailey, just as confused, usually got high on the fumes and therefore turned more maniacal than usual, forcing his snout into our space whenever she could. I walked Coco almost every night, urging her to start appreciating each inch of asphalt.
Saturday came and I had to scrape off the blotches of paint I had slapped on my wall over a year ago, in a fit of crazed mental imbalance, and thinner it off and then repaint the whole thing white (which was fun). I had to scavenge through my mountains of books, doodles and letters and declarations of insanity from now vanished people, dating back to the stoned ages, e.g. college, which I just can’t, for the life of me, throw away. I finally convinced myself to go minimalist and was just about to fling everything into the wastebasket when at the last second I madly gathered everything back into my arms, hushing them crackly yellowed papers and apologizing for my rashness.
Next came the clothes. And man, for somebody who likes wearing only two shirts I surprisingly have a lot. I filled up a whole sack and half a box with holey shirts I really ought to have burned and garments that’ve been faithful compatriots too long I just couldn’t.
In all, I filled up an entire box with letters and journal entries that more or less begin with statements like:
If Pepe Smith’s a pessimist specimen of peppermints, then pessimist pepe smiths are specimens of peppermints…
or..
A czekoslovakian chiken n chips wil tingaling d buchikik. Den jakichan wil brk his nik lintik na intsik hu kismi sa chik
And normally end with such profound conclusions as:
Pakner’s nose has shut down.
In addition, there’s another box filled with riff raff like square saucers I looted from the kitchen, one sack of clothes, one bag of things I will never use and one garbage bag of apparel I excavated from my dead grandparents’ chest.
For somebody who never buys stuff I surprisingly have a lot.
Soon it was our last night in the house we all grew up in, and in the middle of pious observance of earth hour, JF and Jason decide they want to buy rum and coke. Karen magically produces a big bag of alcoholic drinks, like one serious party pack bursting with all possible variants and in ten seconds we’d lit katols and formed a huddle underneath the coconut trees, opening bags of peanuts and merrily pouring alcohol into powdered juice mixes.
By 2am we were denouncing the evils of imperialism and I was drunk texting Ernest (and must have said something seriously stupid cause have not heard from him since).
By 5am we had consumed a whole bottle of vodka, premium gin and Gran Matador.
By 7am Tita Rose was yodelling for us to get the hell up, the movers were here and we had to move our asses.
it was both hysterically funny and miserable for all of us.
So now I’m displaced and drifting like driftwood, parasiting off my parents one day and squatting at my ex’s on another. I’ve looked at condos, rooms, apartments and have been frightened off by rotund landladies, horrific rent, babbling grandmothers and units that for some creepy reason have childish scribbles on the ceiling. I’ve walked the entire length of Taft ave and Malate and have seen everything from coffin spaces to creek-colored pools, have gotten lost a hundred and five times and had had to fend off overeager brokers, one of them an old pervert who liked to say the word “panties.”
My sacks of junk are scattered all over the city, some deported to Jopet’s, others hunkering down at Steph’s. Coco is going hungry in BF and I have absolutely NO idea where my school I.D. and underwear are.
So in less than three weeks have lost those articles stated above, our house, and as it’s starting to seem more and more like, my boyfriend.
No, this summer is not off to such a dandy start.
My Philosophy of Education
“Ours is a world where we have science without humanity; knowledge without character; politics without principles; religion without sacrifice; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work and business without ethics.”
Mahatma Ghandi
“It seems that the more civilized we become, the more incapable of maintaining civilization we are.”
F.S. C. Northrop
Educational Aim
To form in students a desire to learn not with profit as the end goal nor to merely assimilate unquestioningly into the status quo, but to create students who will vigilantly seek to build a social order that is nationalistic, humane and just, anchored firmly in profound human values that espouse genuine solidarity and love for earth, spirituality and fellow man.
Key Ideas
My educational philosophy takes concepts structured by existing philosophies such as Social Reconstructionism, Romantic Naturalism, Marxism, and by teachers and philosophers such as John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Mahatma Ghandi and Paulo Freire. It is a philosophy that has as its end goal the reformation of society, by transforming the values people consider valuable; a shift from a selfish attitude to a thinking and questioning one, absorbed not with the mission of landing a high-paying job, but with the healing of a world fraught with misplaced priorities and inequalities.
This philosophy rests upon German philosopher’s description of reality as a continuous state of “becoming,” therefore schools must do its part in helping society change into what is ideal--- in this case a social order that is egalitarian in nature. I adhere to the Marxist theory of truth which states that “knowledge helps society unfold its authentic possibilities and become ever more humane and just.”
This philosophy therefore recognizes the Philippines as a nation plagued by social injustices and class struggles, and believes that only a complete overhaul in man’s frame of thinking and moral values could bring about needed change.
This philosophy also aims to break away from our neo-colonist mindsets, and create a new breed of citizens who are passionate and sincerely proud of their Filipino heritage. Societal change would then be effected because of love for the country, and the ardent desire to elevate it from oppression. The goal is to remove wrongly held beliefs of inferiority to foreigners, and emphasize rather the independent greatness of
the Filipino people. From this, dependence on foreign employers/ investors should be reduced, and the country’s resources should be responsibly allocated to its rightful
benefitors: the Filipino people. (There is an emphasis on responsibly because this philosophy also espouses an urgent and proper response to ongoing environmental degradation by instilling in students an inherent love for the earth, at the same time exposing them to the inevitable realities and consequences of man’s insatiable but modifiable greed).
This educational philosophy places man and the value of humanity back at the center, overthrowing longstanding but grossly misplaced priorities such as adapting quietly into a system of often abusive profit-making. The goal, as I see it, is not just to create socially aware students, but to create socially active graduates who will act and effect discernible and genuine changes against the status quo. The goal is to create real leaders, intelligent and immersed in the social realities, fervent in their desire to build a society rid of ills and injustices.
Students must be boldly oriented and engaged in the values of compassion, integrity, truth, love, justice, and in an understanding of what it truly means to be human---one above selfish desires and materialism, and rooted fervently in morality and a deeper spiritual context.
Curriculum
The curriculum will still provide for the holistic competence of the student, and will not remove anything from the basic program of studies as prescribed by the Department of Education. Greater emphasis, though, should be dedicated to the critical assessment of social realities, social history and current events in the Philippine setting.
Theology and Values Formation must take precedence over other subject matter, and be practically integrated in all lessons, especially in the Social Studies context. Theology must include the moral principles of Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, and other world religions, from which should stem not conflict but a harmony of core human values.
Extensive studies in Philippine history, culture and nationalism should also be firmly rooted in the student’s subjects, along with global education and environmental studies, with focus on the students’ thinking, critical thinking, problem-solving, leadership and oratorical skills, especially. All other subjects must integrate with what considerably are the more significant ones, namely Philippine history and appreciation, social studies, environmental consciousness and proper values.
The curriculum should be both Essentialist and Progressivist: a thorough study of the great masters’ contributions to concepts such as human rights, social justice, freedom, society and nature must be balanced with practical applications and solutions relevant to pressing Philippine needs.
This curriculum does not take away from students the ability to excel in their chosen fields, only that they will practice these vocations and occupations with integrity and spiritual and nationalistic values intact, so they should not fall passively into the system but work courageously at finding ways to bring the system closer to what is morally just and ideal. It is in fact expected that students use their chosen professions to direct the needed moral transformation and social change.
Role of Teacher
The teacher must him/herself be a true advocate for social change and the environment, deeply nationalistic, credible and learned in the field of social realities, with strong moral and convictions and a belief in the potential of his/her students, with the ability to motivate, inspire, encourage and lead.
He/ She must engage the class in activities, group investigations and discussions intended to draw out the students’ leadership and critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, through analyses of present social conditions, with nationalism and values used as main guiding principles.
He/She must lead by example, and encourage students to aim for spiritual and social nobility, and to find fulfilment not in monetary rewards and through unjust means, but through goodness and acts based on respect for the earth and humanity.
For this, the teacher must be well-versed in the religions and philosophies rooted in spiritual and social transformation, such as Confucianism, Buddhism and Christianity.
The teacher must be open and innovative, able to ask questions and facilitate discussions and discourses that should ultimately shape students into becoming brilliant speakers and intelligent leaders bound by integrity.
The role of the teacher is to facilitate the birth of ideas and opinions, and to work with the students on a level of mutual respect and understanding directed at societal change.
Role of Student
As the teaching method used is largely the “dialogue method,” meaning the teacher “does not think for the students, but thinks with them,” then the students are expected to generate new ideas and moral insights from the lessons.
Students should be encouraged to reflect on religion and values, and on how moral order can be attained first within themselves and then by the greater humanity.
They must understand present social realities clearly, including cultural and environmental issues, and be able to formulate realistic plans of action.
They should effect change through unyielding values, which should be used as the ultimate foundation for learning and leading, in living and working harmoniously with others, and in acquiring and using knowledge necessary to transform the social world.
Students must be vigilant and inquisitive leaders who are morally strong, ready to solve problems and take courageous action as citizens pursuing a humane, just, and nationalistic Philippine society.
Weaknesses
There is a danger for this educational philosophy to be misconstrued as overly radical, as with any ideology that questions the status quo. In the Philippine setting, radical thinking is often dismissed as illogical conspiracies hatched by “rebels” and
“dissidents” that seek only to disrupt social order. As such, people with vested interest in the current status quo will obviously oppose an intention meant to distribute wealth and resources equally, and will work at interfering and deterring the school’s mission.
There is also the considerable difficulty in formulating an effective methodology to use in teaching resolute core values to students. Unless the students themselves willingly enter a solid and mature frame of mind---and this is rare at a young age---the instruction of values usually become contrived and theoretical at most, rarely embodied seriously unless the student voluntarily undergoes a complete reformation, and even this does not guarantee a total adherence to good morality. (Spiritual strength, as we know, takes years, even a whole lifetime to achieve).
The same issue could be raised in the teaching of genuine environmental consciousness and nationalism. So deeply embedded is the culture of disposability, recklessness and colonial mentality in our people that it would take a severe (and extensive) cultural overhaul to succeed.
Lastly, there is the visibly overwhelming task of the entire philosophy itself: to work at breaking down the status quo and building a completely new one is a dream pursued since the rise of civilization. The premise sounds completely utopian, and therefore unrealistic, even with the most genuine of intentions. It seems as if mankind has fallen into a collective acceptance of existing social norms---rising against what has long been established as “proper” is a challenge not many might want to risk taking.
Given the above weaknesses, critics may write off this philosophy as purely idealistic and merely a hindrance to our nation’s real “progress.”
Strengths
This philosophy’s main strengths lie in its clear potential for genuine change. Educators and leaders can not continue to pretend the dreadful social inequalities of the Philippines do not exist. Without action, the gap between the classes and the masses will continue to widen, the inhumane conditions will continue to worsen, resources will continue to be exploited, and humanity will be another step closer to becoming “God’s most unsuccessful experiment” on planet Earth.
It being a real and honest response to man’s apparent moral and social decay is this philosophy’s biggest strength. It appeals to man’s romantic and idealistic aspirations and encourages actual plans of action. It is a call for hope, which for some is a good enough reminder to not give up. And if there is one thing this country could not afford to lose, it is that.
This philosophy is grounded on the belief that education, if properly ministered, could and should change how society is run. If the young are educated early enough, then positive change, however little, is inevitable. At the risk of
sounding trite, it must be remembered that these young people are the future leaders of this country. If taught real leadership based on integrity, nationalism, love for earth and positive values, then our future has a fighting chance.
The strength of this philosophy lies on the very concepts that constitute it. These are age-old sentiments of some of this world’s greatest philosopher-teachers---great thinkers who were able to positively contribute to man’s intellectual and emotional evolution. And because this is a philosophy that draws from universal truths and virtues, it should appeal to man’s innate goodness and continual search for meaning and spirituality.
The goal of this ideology is clear enough: to effect a social and moral change in man. How this will be done exactly is an answer only education could provide.
“Education today is the most valuable repository of hope not just for the Philippines but for all developing nations. It embodies their deepest aspirations for survival, for development and for the creation of just and contented societies.”
Carlos P. Romulo
UP NORTH
If there is but one golden lesson that truly paid off in high school it would have to be those grand pole-swinging showdowns we held during lunch break and dismissal. Beside our tambayan are these slender, steely poles--- cold to the touch and sort of chipping with paint---but perfect for grasping and serving as fulcrum to our bulky masses as we spun around as many times as we can, shrieking with adolescent inanity.
Well, only a couple could pull it off effortlessly. Most of us just slid and dislocated our shoulders. Exactly why we were compelled to hurl ourselves at lunch counter poles in the first place is unclear, but then again we were the sort of kids who pelted each other with iced tea when bored.
I never thought I’d get within (sorry) a ten-foot pole from a pole again after graduating, but I forget: Life is one big tub or recurring themes. Last week I found myself scouring the secret alleyways of Pasay for high heels, innocuous really, were it not for the duty the heels were expected to serve. I was to divaesquely rock them out while hanging from a pole inside a Greenhills studio that evening for an assignment--- wearing short shorts and absolutely no gunk whatsoever on the body, as the text message informed.
(It might be useful for readers to know at this point that this is a woman who’s never set foot inside a heeled apparatus before, and anything over a centimetre could get ugly, and there she was jolly choosing between taxi-cab yellow and My Little Pony turquoise-colored heels, without a thought to what probable horrors this faulty equation may produce).
Yes, yes. Dancing with a stiff pole brings to mind visions of sleaze and smut and loin-clothed women gyrating to “White Lion.” Exactly why it’s so appealing. Climb the pulpits if you must, but I think all women secretly want to be sex sirens, just like all men secretly want to marry a version of their mothers. So to be able to lose vats of fat and look racingly hot doing so, is the sheer, God-given genius of the entire thing.
There were six of us that night. Three tottering first-timers (including me), two in the advanced level, and the gorgeous Ed Aniel, whose body instantly put mine to cringing shame. We did the obligatory warm-up: stretching and reaching for body parts I‘d rather not (as is painful), and orienting ourselves with our shiny steel cohorts (pole). Then Ed taught us the basics, like how to hang up there for hours if you felt like it, how to land on the floor like a phoenix, how to firmly grasp the pole between your legs without needing medical attention--- all of which I more or less pulled off with the grace of a lumbering pachyderm.
Midway between grappling desperately with the pole and watching CD and Judy hang upside down and jabber away like possums who could speak, I knew I had to continue taking the class. Neither of them was sporty nor liked exercise prior---CD’s been at it less than 6 months, and Judy swore she used to own butter arms--- and there they were hoisting their entire body weights up the pole in two seconds flat.
They were so fit I nearly forgot we were wearing ridiculously tall heels, swatches of cloth for shorts and doing something originally intended to indulge the desires of drooling men. It seems the sexual smut of pole dance has evolved into a serious gymnastic workout and yes, dear, dubious reader, a competitive sport at that.
Not entirely though, thankfully. Near 9 pm, Ed turned off the lights, switched on a lone, sensual disco ball and put on Sade. The last thirty minutes were to be devoted entirely to adlibbing---meaning doing whatever the hell you wished to do with a pole, a huge mirror and really sexy music.
CD says it’s normal for the class to do their routines in just their underwear. Something to do with friction, I think. The more skin exposed, the better. Now, if we only knew that in high school.
revolution, baby
I know kids today hate hearing it, cause I did too, back when I was in jumpers and ruffly collar myself, but I couldn’t help concluding my revolution rants this week with the whole change the world shtick.
Verbatim:
“Well, I’m sorry to place such a huge burden upon your 14-year old shoulders, but it’s true. You are the future of this country, and what happens next is up to you.”
I tell them that all the old people screwing up the world today are eventually gonna croak anyway, so they shouldn’t get too depressed, really. We’ve done everything we could do wrong and so blatantly it would take microbe morons not to know how to make things right. What feeling human could afford not to? What surviving animal by instinct would stand inert and allow the hideousness, the idiocy to go on?
It will get better.
The world will get better.
We know what to do. The kids know what to do.
(Yes, the old ones don’t but we’re taking over soon anyway. hell, we already are.)
epilog
In bits,
fits of eloquence
I smooth you out on this
my table wooden, wounded
Bed of firsts;
soiled and chewed by men
whose hearts i pricked with pencil lead
and pretty eyes
were ripped and spilling:
piles of lust
piles of us
tiny blackened piles of was
Piles of black and sawdust red.
February 26
#2
I’m licking off the Dreadful.
Line divided
Line of conquered ,
ruthless beast
Within this breast
And Panting
Wanted
Tongue
Of
His.
2- 18- 08
# 1
To plod along helpless in stringed disability Held vicious
by else and fate matters too big to properly consider and
attempts by self are consistently inept for feet are
marionettes and hands and head; necks
snapping to which fanciful aim
is hoarsefully declared by
tolling bells and dumbly
nodding to somebody
else/ I do I do
I do
I d
o
.
.
.
Hail love and heart and vanquished flesh
Mortared mortal
Pestled self.
2-17-08
to you !
