Just because I want to prove that you're cornier.

Me: Tapos ka na ba mag-MIDTERMS, ako naman sagutin mo.
Him: Tapos na ko midterms, e kaw? Ako naman ang pagpuyatan mo.

What do you guys think?

Lonely Afternoon

Listen to the song

An old man walks along the path, it isn't raining anymore.
The hotel sign reflects upon a lorry parked below.
A kid goes walking home from school, and stands there at the door.
Behind the windows people sit waiting for the bus to go.

Another long, lonely afternoon away from you,
And a long, dark, lonely night ahead.
It's been a long, lonely afternoon here on my own,
Such a long, dark, lonely night ahead.

The heavy clouds are forming for another dark and rainy night.
A woman hurries home before the storm begins to break.
And as she turns to cross the street, waiting for the walking light,
She glances quickly at her watch, hoping that she won't be late.

Another long, lonely afternoon away from you,
And a long, dark, lonely night ahead.
It's been a long, lonely afternoon here on my own,
Such a long, dark, lonely night ahead.

-----
one last hirit before i go back to studying CORP...

Peter Pan

The story of the distracted and destructive woman begins. Amidst the soothing wind that touches her hair that's framing her tired-looking face, she looks at the cars that are passing her by. While listening to what seems like the african beat of voices that drowns her much needed silence, the wind comes. Smile. She likes the wind.

The wind reminds her of him, of how he can instantly make her smile while making a mess out of her carefully organized desk. The wind insensitively sweeps off everything on her table of solitude with that romantic glamour that makes her feel special and loved. She used to not mind the wind, she knew that it comes and goes unapologetically while she is left trying to reorganize what's left of her organized life. She just got out of a storm and at the back of her mind, she's baffled by the presence of a synonymous fate that's waiting for her.

The story of the distracted and destructive woman begins and the end is not so near....

Tinkerbell

Sometimes, you feel like that thing you've always wanted is right in front of you, you recognize it, you feel happy, excited and contented. But you suddenly realize that you can't have it... It's the saddest feeling, it's the most painful thing. You smile knowing what you want, but you cry alone knowing its impossibility. You get into thinking of whether you're better off not knowing that he exists. You hate yourself for feeling regret about something that simultaneously brings you to heaven and hell. You are faced with the dilemma of letting the days pass you by just craving or of moving on to chasing a new rainbow. You feel confusion, you start to write to clear your head...

You start to write to analyze your emotions. You are hit with the reality that the one thing you're scared of is back and suddenly... you start to FEEL again.

SHADES

I wear it so I can look you in the eye behind that darkness....
It gives me courage knowing that although you're in front of me, you can't see right through me...
I wear it so I can hide and protect myself from letting you into my soul...
I wear it so I don't have to wear you, so you can't wear me out...
Just so I can look away discreetly, so I can distract myself and so I can have that break that I've been consciously longing eversince I gave you the right to look into my eyes...

I hide from you because I seek you...

It's Complicated.

I started to write "literally" again. The old school writing on your journal high school-y thing just because there are things that I cannot write in my blog as of the moment. My girlfriends and I have been discussing stuff which, instead of making my mind clearer and ideally ready for the Midterms, made my mind so clouded and all mushed up. I mean, I think it just goes to show that THE GREAT COUNTDOWN TO VALENTINE's HAS FINALLY BEGUN. And well, we are all getting sooooo hungry for churva.

Let's take the case of my girlfriend no. 1: Well, she claims that she has finally moved on from a head-over-heels crush situation re: THAT GUY. And quoting her, "Alam mo yun, ito na yung LINYA, handa na ako tumalon e, pero bigla na lang nandyan sya!". This of course pertains to her finally moving on until she was bombarded with a lot of kilig moments with THAT GUY recently. Then she's all confused and kilig all over again. The usual siraulo that we are asked her, "Bakit linya? Tinatalon ba ang linya? Diba dapat mountain o kaya uhmm, basta mataas? Linya? Bakit ano un PIKO?". There goes the mush. I shall now call girl friend no. 1 MS. Twitcher.

TWITCH: force developed by muscle fibre in response to a unique electrical or nervous stimulation.

I guess THAT GUY was uniquely stimulated. Bakit kaya.

Girl friend no. 2: She spent the whole night saying what seemed to be a mantra or a chant that went something like, "Gusto ko ng CHURVA. Ihanap nyo ako ng churva." All we ever did was to look at her and well make her understand that he best friend MIGHT BE A GOOD CANDIDATE for a "panawid gutom slash pwede na rin forever" churva. But she refuses to give in. Therefore, we found her a pseudo-CHURVA in the persona of STEP - UP guy.

Girlfriend no. 3: She's the most uhmm, "sure" to have plans on Valentine's Day because for the past few days, she's been spending time with her newfound friend, confidante, dinner-mate and everything that a churva does. Technically, she's not in a relationship with the guy, BUT... Isang malaking BUT!!! everyday, it becomes clearer and clearer that she has a potential CHURVA.

GIrlfriend no. 4: I'd like to call her and her "pseudo-churva" the IT MAY NEVER COME AGAIN couple. We've been, for the longest time, trying to team them up... but something seems to be stopping them. Until now, we're still eating our popcorn while waiting for their lovestory to finally begin.

Girlfriend no. 5: Well, she has a "best friend" whom she claims to be "di talo" and that they will never stand a chance to go THAT WAY. We think otherwise. Like what we always tell her, "If you guys get married someday, we'll do a cartwheel and a couple of splits just because you are soooo EATING YOUR WORDS"

Then there's ME. And because it's my blog, I have the right to protect myself from self-incrimination. However, only for the sake of fairness, equity and love for my other girl friends who will definitely kill me if they find time to read my blog during the MIDTERMS FIASCO, I will say my own little piece. I don't have an official churva, i don't even have an unofficial churva... what i have is a potential complication that might end up ruining me, and other "real parties in interest". I am eyeing this guy whom by now everyone calls Peter Pan. Well, he's not eyeing me. Then there's study buddy who seems to be stepping up. Then there's him, Mr. Complicated who's always there at the right place at the right time but CAN'T REALLY BE THERE because he should be "SOMEWHERE ELSE WHERE HE BELONGS". Therefore, I am in one of the most complicated periods of my life. Notwithstanding the fact that I choose to talk about churvaness when I should be studying PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL LAW. [When my Midterms is over, I PROMISE TO WRITE ABOUT THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE]. So there, like Meredith Grey, I am twisted, and I ruin lives. Unintentionally. Still.

I'd like to say, CHOOSE ME, PICK ME, LOVE ME but that's too much to ask right?

Patring and Eunice's Legalisms:

1. Mabuti pa ang pleading... DATED.
2. Mabuti pa ang COMPLAINT... sinasagot.
3. Pag nagpunta ka sa CA sigurado mananalo ka.. ang lakas kasi ng APPEAL mo e.
4. Mabuti pa ang CLASS SUIT, sufficiently numerous ang parties.

Ok, i shall stop. One blog a day. That's my "CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITATION"

TOLERANCE is a Bitch.

It's MIDTERMS-mania again and as much as i want to devote all of my time to studying, I want to invoke my right to giving in to my being human. THEREFORE, I am blogging. Starbucks finally transferred in front of Ateneo and it's a mix of being a good thing and a bad thing. On the positive side, it's really just a street away and all we have to do is say, "I want coffee." and we're there... also, I met new sort of friends slash acquaintances now that a lot of law school peeps are hanging out around the area. The downside is, there is a decrease in the supply of chairs and tables and it was aggravated by the increase in the demand. Therefore, people are easily pissed off.

One manifestation of the supply and demand problem which I just mentioned is that "thing that happened last night". Well, a group of gay men [not that there's anything wrong with it, i just had to paint the picture here] went to starbucks hoping to relax. They just instantaneously found out that the Starbucks that they were supposed to hangout in is law student-infested. They waited for quite an irritating period of time until they finally got their seats near the door. Then, they began to say things intended to make everyone "overhear". One of 'em told the person that he was talking to on the phone, "Oo, puno. Ginawang library ang Starbucks!". Then to add more pizzaz to their predicament, they talked to one of the baristas, Jay and demanded that they be given those evaluation forms that the baristas give out to customers. We very well know why they want to "evaluate". They didnt stop there, they gave Jay a litany on how inappropriate it is for students to leave their stuff around while having a "much-deserved YOSI BREAK" and even used their expensive camera phones to take a video of the situation. It was funny, really... not only because we understand where they're coming from but because we know that they didn't have to be such PRIMADONNA's about it. One of the law students commented that this precisely is the reason why Starbucks is strategically-located near Ateneo, to attract students. Also, one of my study buddies also suggested that they should "file a class suit" so the "law students" could promptly tell them that their class suit won't prosper because they're not SUFFICIENTLY NUMEROUS.

What is my point in this whole thing? The point is, it could not have turned ugly if they knew how to face the situation the right way. There's nothing wrong with voicing out your opinion, but you don't have to be arrogant about it as if you're trying to stir a coup d'etat inside a coffee shop. We all are civilized people, though some more refined than the others, we all are entitled to being able to do things which may at times irritate other people, but are reasonable enough. After all, existence is a looong test of patience, tolerance and intelligence.

Guess who failed THAT TEST? Oopsie.

DUDE RULES [repost from Ian's blog]

From an email... Let's just say I'm guilty of breaking rule #2 quite often.

1. Never hesitate to reach for the last beer or the last slice of pizza, but not both. That's just plain mean.

2. Under no circumstances may two men share an umbrella.

3. Any man who brings a camera to a bachelor party may be legally killed and eaten by his fellow partygoers.

4. When you are queried by a buddy's wife, girlfriend, mother,father, priest, shrink, dentist, accountant, or dog walker, you need not and should not provide any useful information whatsoever as to his whereabouts. You are permitted to deny his very existence.

5. Unless he murdered someone in your immediate family, you must bail a friend out of jail within 12 hours.

6. You may exaggerate any anecdote told in a bar by 50 percent without recrimination; beyond that, anyone within earshot is allowed to call BULLSHIT. (Exception: When trying to pick up a girl, the allowable exaggeration rate rises to 400 percent)

7. If you've known a guy for more than 24 hours, his sister is off-limits forever.

8. The minimum amount of time you have to wait for another guy who's running late is 5 minutes. For a woman, you are required to wait 10 minutes for every point of hotness she scores on the classic 1-10 scale.

9. Bitching about the brand of free beer in a buddies refrigerator is forbidden. You may gripe if the temperature is unsuitable.

10. No man is ever required to buy a birthday present for another man. In fact, even remembering a friends birthday is strictly optional and slightly gay.

11. Agreeing to distract the ugly friend of a hot babe your buddy is trying to hook up with is your legal duty. Should you get carried away with your good deed and end up having sex with the beast, your pal is forbidden to speak of it, even at your bachelor party.

12. Before dating a buddy's ex, you are required to ask his permission and he, in return is required to grant it.

13. Women who claim they "love to watch sports" must be treated as spies until they demonstrate knowledge of the game and the ability to pick a buffalo wing clean.

14. If a man's zipper is down, that's his problem --- you didn't see nothin'.

15. The universal compensation for buddies who help you move is beer. If you own a sleep sofa or live on the second floor it is pizza and beer. If you own a sleep sofa and live on the second floor it shall be eaten inside a restaurant. If you are over 35 years old hire some movers you cheap bastard.

16. A man must never own a cat or like his girlfriend's cat.

17. Your girlfriend must bond with your buddy's girlfriends within 30 minutes of meeting them. You are not required to make nice with her gal pal's significant dick-heads --- low-level sports bonding is all the law requires.

18. When stumbling upon other guys watching a sports event, you may always ask the score of the game in progress, but you may never ask who's playing.

19. When your girlfriend/wife expresses a desire to fix her whiney friend up with your pal, you may give her the go-ahead only if you'll be able to warn your buddy and give him time to prepare excuses.

20. It is permissible to consume a fruity chick drink only when you're sunning on a tropical beach... and it's delivered by a topless supermodel... and it's free.

21. Unless you're in prison, never fight naked.

22. A man in the company of a hot, suggestively dressed woman must remain sober enough to fight.

23. If a buddy is outnumbered, out manned, or too drunk to fight,you must jump into the fight. Exception: If within the last 24 hours his actions have caused you to think, "What this guy needs is a good ass-whoopin", then you may sit back and enjoy.

24.Phrases that may NOT be uttered to another man while weightlifting:

"Yeah, baby, push it!"

"C'mon, give me one more! Harder!"

"Another set and we can hit the showers."

" Nice ass, are you a Sagittarius?"

25. If the breasts are fake you can stare all you want. The poor girl paid for ten thousand dollars worth of attention and dammit we are going to give it to her.

26. If you compliment a guy on his six-pack, you better be referring to his beer.

27. Never join your girlfriend/wife in dissing a buddy, except when she's withholding sex pending your response.

28. Never talk to a man in the bathroom unless you're on equal footing: either both urinating or both waiting in line. In all other situations, a nod is all the conversation you need.

29.If a buddy is already singing along to a song in the car, you may not join him...too gay.

30.Before allowing a drunken friend to cheat on his girl, you must attempt one intervention. If he is able to get on his feet, look you in the eye, and deliver a "FUCK OFF!" You are absolved of your of responsibility.

31.The morning after you and a babe who was formerly "just friends" have carnal, drunken monkey sex, the fact that you're feeling weird and guilty is no reason not to nail her again before the discussion about what a big mistake it was.

32.Threesomes are girl-guy-girl only. No swordfighting allowed.

Can the Law Survive as an Autonomous Academic Discipline?

Professor Marvic M.V.F. Leonen

There is a prevalent view that law mirrors social consensus. And there is the belief that because it does, its interpretation can be done in a manner that will allow lawyers and judges to be neutral. Passionate political standpoints give way to the sterile objectivity of exogenous articulate of law and legal principle. The Rule of Law prevails over the unending human struggle to dominate over others.

The law largely justifies its existence as a separate discipline on the basis of these principles. The ideal, in traditional law schools, is for students to hermeneutically seal themselves in law libraries, pondering over reports of past cases trying to discern what the law is and the legal principles that animate its interpretation. In a sense, the concept of the Rule of Law fundamentally requires some distance from the crudest forms of reality.

II

But legal institutions are human institutions. This is easy to see in the legislature. We only need to witness the current exchange in the floor of the House of Representatives to see how political arguments are crudely represented as legal principles. However, owing to tradition, the human nature of the judiciary is more difficult to accept.

A few examples however will readily reveal this reality.

On January of 2004, the Supreme Court of the Republic of the Philippines was confronted with a case that would determine whether foreign corporations—or those with more than forty percent of its capital stock owned by foreigners—could operate and manage a large scale mining concession in Mindanao. In 1995, the President of the Philippines signed a Financial and Technical Assistance Agreement with one of the world’s leading mining corporations. The area awarded under that agreement was initially 95,000 hectares.

The petitioners were members of several B’laan communities in Sultan Kudarat and South Cotabato. They were principally motivated by a desire to protect their ancestral domains and pursue a path to development that would involve their efforts at self-determination. They were convinced that the contract awarded to the transnational mining company was unconstitutional. In the seemingly restrictive words of the 1987 constitution, the President may only enter into “agreements involving either technical or financial assistance” with foreign corporations. The text departed from the words found in the 1973 constitution which apparently allowed a more liberal regime for foreign investments. It allowed foreign corporations to enter into service contracts “for financial, technical, management or other forms of assistance.” The petitioners and the indigenous peoples they represented depended on a reasonably apparent reading of the constitution. Winning the case would have meant having more control over their domains and doing much more than simply depending on the exploitation of non-renewable metals dug from the ground.

In January 2004, the Supreme Court voting 8 to 5 ruled that foreign corporations or their subsidiaries are not allowed to enter into contracts that would allow them to operate and manage. Reading the text of the constitution, the Supreme Court advised that such corporations can only provide “technical or financial assistance” to government or to other qualified corporations.
To the respondents, which included the Republic of the Philippines and much of the mining industry, the results of the case would define the openness and stability of Philippine policy towards foreign direct investments. Estimates submitted to the Supreme Court valued metallic mineral resources as 47.3 trillion pesos. Understandably, motions for reconsiderations were filed. The Chamber of Mines filed a full blown intervention to present their arguments relating to the proper reading or interpretation of the provision in question.

Within less than eleven months, or in December 2004, the Supreme Court reversed itself. There were now ten justices that sided with the interpretation of the respondents and the mining industry. Only four justices stuck to their position that the contract with the foreign subsidiary was unconstitutional from a plain reading of the provision of the constitution in question.
The majority opinion in La Bugal Tribal Association et al v Western Mining Corporation et al expressed its doubts that a literal reading of the provisions of the 1987 constitution was warranted. It read the text as ambiguous: capable of carrying different meanings. The main opinion assumed that foreign direct investments in the mining industry carried all the risks in the commercial enterprise and that the state was burdened with none. From there, it concluded that a more relaxed interpretation—one that would provide more prerogatives to foreign corporations—was necessary.

This case would later on become the subject of a number of passionate discussions: both academic and polemical.

In Association of Small Landowners et al v Department of Agrarian Reform, the court upheld the constitutionality of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program in spite of the fact that the law prescribed compensation to landowners in both cash and government securities. Prior to this case, jurisprudence consistently required cash to be paid in cases where there were takings of private property for conversion to public use. The constitutional provision in question was quite sparse. It mandated that “private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation.” For the court, there was room to distinguish two types of condemnation of private property. First, there was the taking of single pieces of property that characterized most of the eminent domain cases. But there was also the “revolutionary taking” such as in a comprehensive agrarian reform program, which required a cash strapped government to supplement modes of payment through other government securities, if only to implement the constitutional mandate to meet its social justice objectives clearly laid out in the constitution.

Speaking for a unanimous court, Justice Isagani Cruz noted: “We don’t mind admitting that a certain degree of pragmatism has influenced our decision on this issue, but after all, this Court is not a cloistered institution removed from the realities and demands of society or oblivious to the need for its enhancement.”

Just what degree of pragmatism is truly acceptable? Does it depend on a political result, perhaps even an overarching theory of interpretation?

Words are malleable. Reading, which is the exercise of putting meaning to text, requires fundamental paradigms in semantic method and the use of the words that are read. Whether the phrase “either technical or financial assistance” for foreign corporations implies a conjunctive or is simply an enumeration of possible contractual arrangements; whether “without payment of just compensation” really means only in cash depends as much on how we interpret as well as what are the results we desire. In the context of a Supreme Court decision, the deliberations might ensure against individual bias but they do not assure the public of the court’s collective persuasions.
In La Bugal, ten justices were convinced that foreign investors assumed all the risks as compared with the state. Implicitly, they also saw that more foreign investments are necessarily a good thing.

Of course, there are views from other disciplines that would regard this position as naïve. Herman Daly, a celebrated ecologist and economist, believes that nature is as much “capital” as financial contributions. The uncertainty of farmers displaced by mining activities is as much a risk as the uncertainty of returns from financial investments. The natural resource curse, or the empirical finding that the more an economy depends on natural resource extractive industries the less its rate of growth, has been argued by noted economists like Andrew Werner and Jeffrey Sachs.
Jurisprudence is replete with unexamined causal claims that may not withstand more rigorous inquiry. Thus: flight of an accused is indicative of guilt; moving away from approaching police is enough reasonable suspicion to allow a search; deliberations of delegates in constitutional conventions reflect the understanding also of people who would later on ratify the resulting constitution; public officers will regularly perform their duties; insanity or psychological incapacity only exist if defined medically. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the law, unexamined judicial predicates and causal claims can be devastating.

III

Then there is the political nature of courts. Rightly or wrongly, they have provided legitimacy to resolutions of political crises by simply proclaiming what is constitutional or legal.
In 1973, after martial law was declared, the Supreme Court was presented with a new constitution that government then claimed to have been approved without any plebiscite. Instead, the President called for barangay assemblies. The clear consensus among the sitting justices in Javellana v Executive Secretary was that the constitution, contrary to all existing doctrine, was not validly ratified in accordance with the earlier constitution. However, the court proceeded to declare that there was “no further judicial obstacle to the Constitution being considered in force and effect.” The court was divided on a novel issue: whether there could be a doctrine of acquiescence.

This is of course not the last time that a fundamental shift in our political order would require statesmanship in the interpretation of the constitution. In Lawyers League for a Better Philippines v Corazon Aquino the reorganized Supreme Court in 1986 took only two paragraphs to dismiss a petition which questioned the legitimacy of the government post EDSA. Proclamation No. 3 issued in 1986 promulgated a Freedom Constitution. The document declared that this constitution was to take effect notwithstanding the 1973 constitution. Understandably, the lawyers representing the petitioners took this to mean that the entire government post EDSA was unconstitutional. Instead of examining whether the Freedom Constitution’s promulgation was done in accordance with the provisions of an earlier constitution, the Supreme Court unanimously took refuge in a constitutional principle that borders on a political standpoint, i.e. that the people are sovereign and all governmental authority emanates from them.

Then there is Estrada v Desierto decided in 1993. After EDSA II, former President Erap Estrada claimed immunity from any criminal prosecution on the ground that he was still the President of the Republic of the Philippines. The constitution provides that a President ceases to become president in case of “death, permanent disability, removal from office, or resignation”. Elsewhere in the constitution, removal from office implies impeachment for and conviction of high crimes. The petitioner claimed that he neither resigned from office nor was he convicted in an impeachment tribunal. In point of fact, he argued, he sent official communication to the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives that he was simply going on a leave of absence.
The Supreme Court declared that, in spite of the lack of express words of resignation, he was declared to have “resigned” from office because the “totality of the circumstances” should be taken into consideration. Among the details that the court considered were published diaries allegedly of his Executive Secretary serialized in a major daily broadsheet.

The study of the law cannot end with the knowledge that courts are deliberative bodies. Those that practice law must go beyond and understand the nature of influence, deliberation and perhaps even the impact of values and frames on decision making. Those who argue in legal forums should also understand the political value of the interpretation and result they intend to win. The law and lawyers cannot remain blind servants to vested interests.

IV

Increasingly, science and scientists have been deployed in legal arguments. Patent applications imply an understanding of the state of the art in a given field. Trademark infringement suggests the need to present a scientifically viable survey of an acceptable sampling of the relevant consuming public. Liability in tort requires a showing of cause and effect, i.e. the toxicity of a product, the carcinogenic potential of foodstuffs or even the propensity that children will absorb violence in television. Forensics is also heavily based on science.

Scientific justification of some regulatory measures is now required by the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures within the context of the World Trade Organization. It is considered the golden standard to ensure that measures purportedly enacted by a member state to protect human, animal and plant life is not a disguised restriction to trade.

Hence, the Dispute Settlement Body has affirmed WTO Appellate Body Decisions declaring that regulatory measures are not being compliant with the treaty because of the insufficiency of the supporting science. The United Kingdom was not allowed to impose a ban on the importation of bovine meat injected with synthetic growth hormones because there were no studies specific to showing its effect on human health. Japan’s quarantine measures against red mature apples in view of its fear of pests causing fire blight was not allowed because the scientific studies presented on balance did not support its perceived risk. Australia was asked to amend its regulations banning the importation of fresh, frozen and chilled salmon because the ban was broader than what the scientific studies suggested.

It is not simply a matter of lawyers working with experts for testimony. Today, courts and arbitral panels are becoming true gateways of what is good or bad science.

V

The study of the law cannot remain isolated. The law cannot survive as an autonomous academic discipline. In many places and in the various law journals, faculties have dabbled in critical legal theories, policy science, law and economics, law and culture, law and social science, feminist legal approaches and even postmodern legal theories. The law has ceased to be the domain of those who view legal argument as a refined logical skill or as an extension of morality or ethics.
Effective legal argument should reveal a knowledge of the law and critical use of the current conventions of legal interpretation. But, every legal argument congeals positions with respect to the lawyer and client’s identity, ideology and politics. Gone are the days when the law student and professor inhabited only their own versions of history and logic. It is time to traverse disciplines. We live in a multi-layered, multi-dimensional world where the law should be seen only as one of its representations.

Of course, there are still those who are faithful to the majesty of the Rule of Law. Perhaps, they can tolerate some of us: the truly agnostic.

--------
from the UP WEBSITE

Open Letter to the UP Community on the Proposed Tuition Fee Increase

Friday, December 8, 2006
UP President Emerlinda R. Roman

When I assumed my post as UP president, I announced, as part of my ten-point plan, the review of our existing undergraduate tuition policy and structure. Even then, I acknowledged that it would be a “tough decision,” and determined that it would involve studying how financial responsibility could be shared among our different stakeholders. (University of the Philippines Plan, 2005-2011)

Shortly after that, I created a committee for this purpose, headed by Dr. Emmanuel De Dios of the UP Diliman School of Economics. The committee has completed its work and submitted its report. Copies of the complete report have been distributed to all CUs. A primer, containing a simple summary of the report’s most important points, has also been widely distributed.

I also created another committee, headed by Professor Edgardo Atanacio of the UP Diliman College of Engineering, to propose a restructuring of the Socialized Tuition and Financial Assistance Program (STFAP), based on the De Dios Report. This committee has also submitted its final report, and copies have been sent to the chancellors, the Faculty Regent, the Student Regent and the Alumni Regent.

As expected, some students are opposed to the proposed tuition adjustments. Had there been no opposition at all, we would have been surprised, even perhaps disappointed. What would UP be like without debates? However, because public statements have been made which—deliberately or unconsciously—contain distortions of the facts, I wish to take this opportunity to clarify the issue.

This proposed tuition adjustment is the first since 1989. Under the proposed adjustment, the cost per unit in UP Diliman, UP Manila and UP Los Baños will be P1,000. In UP Baguio, UP Visayas and UP Mindanao, it will be P600.

The reason for the proposed adjustment is inflation. The P300 per unit which UP students are paying today is worth only P98 today. If we were to take the actual rate of increase of prices for educational services in particular, it is worth even less—P42. As pointed out by Professor Solita Monsod, “this means that the UP student on the average is being subsidized for about 80% of the cost of instruction. (PDI, 18 November)

Miscellaneous fees will also be adjusted to reflect rising costs, from around P600 to P2000 for UPD, UPM and UPLB; from P595 to P1405 for UPB and UPV; and from P830 to P1,640 for UP Mindanao.

One very important detail which protesting students often ignore is that the new fees will affect only new students, i.e., freshmen and transferees, who will enter UP in 2007. Moreover, only students belonging to the highest income bracket—Bracket A (over P1 million a year)—will pay the full rate (the base tuition of P1,000 per unit x 1.5). In fact, students eligible for assistance under the UP Socialized Tuition and Financial Assistance Program (STFAP) will enjoy larger benefits.

Students in Bracket E (annual income of P80,000 or less) will pay no tuition at all, and will receive a stipend of P12,000 per semester. Students in Bracket D (annual income from P80,001 to P135,000) will enjoy a 70% discount, which means they will pay P300 per unit, the existing rate. Students in Bracket C (annual income from P135,001 to P500,000) will pay P600 per unit. Only those in Bracket B (annual income of P500,001 to P1 million) will pay P1,000 per unit.

It should be noted that this bracketing is different from the old one, so to claim, as UPD student council chair Juan Paulo Alfonso does, that under the old bracketing, 3 out of 9 income groupings are given full subsidy, whereas under the new one, only one will get it, is an oversimplification.

For example, under the existing STFAP, ownership of a cell phone automatically places the student in Bracket 9. Under the proposed STFAP, a cell phone will be considered just an addition to the number of phones a family has. It is families with swimming pools, private security services, international credit cards, and personally-financed travels which will be assigned to Bracket A.

Additionally, the adjusted fees remain significantly lower than the true cost of an undergraduate UP education, not to mention the cost of an undergraduate education in other comparable universities in the country.

Finally, alongside the tuition adjustment and the revised STFAP, we intend to: (1) strengthen the student loan program; (2) increase the number of student assistance posts; and (3) campaign for more scholarship grants from the government, the private sector, and the alumni.

Mr. Alfonso, has been quoted as saying that it is wrong to use students as a “source of income” for the university. “They tell us that it’s not the government’s role to subsidize tertiary education, but we believe otherwise.” (PDI, 24 November). During the congress of student councils held in Davao, which I personally attended, Mr. Alfonso declared that the difference between the students’ position and that of the UP administration was “philosophical.” In other words, their position is that tertiary education should be entirely subsidized. But, as Professor Randy David has observed, while basic education is indeed a right, enshrined in the Constitution, tertiary education is not. (PDI, 26 November)

In any case, we have never suggested that state subsidies for education should be removed. What we have done is recognize they are diminishing, not just nationally, but globally. Nonetheless, UP students coming from families up to the 97th percentile of the national income distribution (maximum annual family income of P500,000) shall continue to enjoy a tuition subsidy even under the restructured STFAP.

Nor have we any intentions of forgetting about the need to get a larger budget from government. Our position is simply that while waiting for this miracle to take place, we cannot simply stand our ground and do nothing.

Even while the two committees were conducting their studies, we were working on a three-pronged program to improve the University’s finances: (1) the UP Centennial Fund Campaign, designed to build up our financial endowment; (2) the aggressive campaign in Congress and the Senate, to secure exemption from the Salary Standardization Law for the UP faculty, and additional funding for UP programs and projects; and (3) the negotiations with Ayala Land, Inc. for the development of the UP North Science and Technology Park along Commonwealth Avenue.

I might add that we have been successful in obtaining P500 million from the supplemental budget for the National Science Complex, through the good offices of Congressman Luis Villafuerte and Senator Franklin Drilon; and that we have signed the Memorandum of Agreement with ALI for the S&T Park. Governments all over the world have recognized the all-important link between scientific expertise and economic development, and universities have set up S&T Parks adjacent to their campuses. The S&T Park, which will soon rise on our campus, is not only an important part of our efforts to address the University’s financial needs, but fits right in with our vision of UP as being at par with the leading research universities around the world.

It is to be hoped that the sectors that are now loudly objecting to our proposed adjustment of student fees, and insisting that we find more “creative” ways of compensating for our budgetary constraints, will not be as vociferous in objecting to our efforts to become more financially independent by developing our idle assets. Or, at the very least, that they will first examine the Q&A on the S&T Park prepared by the Office of the Vice President for Development, and published in the UP Newsletter, October and November issues, and also available on line.

Atty. Gari Tiongco, president of the UP Alumni Association, and also a member of the UP Board of Regents, has endorsed the tuition adjustment. So have the faculty members of some of the colleges in UP Diliman. I hope other members of the UP community will at least study the proposal carefully, before proclaiming their opposition to it.

In the meantime, we in administration must continue to do our jobs and run the University as best we can under the circumstances.
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from the UP Website

I'm a Narcissist...so?

An excessive preoccupation with one’s own personal importance, or with achieving one’s own chosen goals rather than bonding with others, or with associating only with others whom one chooses.

The ability to be stimulated by one's own body. Most people have this ability as a normal property.

self-love: an exceptional interest in and admiration for yourself
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Narcissism is the pattern of characteristics and behaviors which involve infatuation and obsession with one's self to the exclusion of others and the egotistic and ruthless pursuit of one's gratification, dominance and ambition. In everyday use outside the field of psychology, the word generally refers to people who just are inordinately fond of themselves, without the pathological connotations.

I was reading Youngstar last night and something caught my attention... this woman started her article with the statement that she rarely or at least try to not write using the pronoun "I" because she didn't want to be associated with those "narcissistic bloggers" who only talk about themselves. I felt sort of offended by such statement because I wrote a reaction regarding the same topic a few years ago and I am firm in my stand that narcissism is not a bad thing and people have the freedom to talk about themselves and to love themselves if they want to without being judged as someone who doesn't care about other people.

Narcissism as defined above need not be a negative characteristic if it's with moderation. I know that strictly speaking, Narcissism is sort of an "extreme characteristic" but if it's in the context of a normal person, i see narcissism as "embracing one's being and accepting yourself as someone who is at par with everybody else". I know it's kind of a cliche but it's not everyday that you see someone who is ready to flaunt herself together with her bad side. I'm not saying that we should glorify even these bad traits but we must admit that we are a totality of all the good things and the bad things that comprise our personality.

Now, moving on to the more pertinent issue of whether or not one must be judged for being a "NARCISSISTIC BLOGGER". There is a genre called Creative Non-fiction, [a creative writing subject which i took under Ms. Fernandez when I was still in UPdiliman] and this genre for me is a good guise for writers who have a lot of things to share and are just sort of afraid that they'll be wrongly construed as "narcissistic". One of the most important characteristics of a good writer is his/ her ability to write about things that are close to him or her. That "personal touch", that "sentimental value" that you get when you talk about your personal experiences draws the readers closer to you not only as a writer but as an "invisible friend." That for me is the most wonderful thing about being able to blog... It's a shotgun approach of connecting with people whom are very different from you at some aspects but who can relate to you in at least one aspect. One's experience no matter how personal sometimes are triggered by the most general things. They're all triggered by emotions that are felt by everyone whose heart beats, who breathes and who just plainly watches the world pass him by.

The personal touch that a "narcissistic blogger" may sometimes be the same "reason" why people get interested. The honesty that comes with talking about yourself, what you feel what you think and what you experience is the same honesty that people hold on to.

Narcissism is not a negative adjective if you'll ask me. After all, my world revolves around me as the sun and how my warmth [or heat, hehe] affect the other astrological bodies [other people] whom I interact with.

I'm a Narcissist. So?


Let me end with this interesting quote from Ally Mc Beal:

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Georgia Thomas: Ally, what makes your problems so much bigger than everybody else's?
Ally McBeal: They're mine.