ultraelectromagneticblog

I just realized...

2009-09-12T03:24:00.002+08:00

...that I haven't updated this blog in a long time. I don't know what to put here anymore; it used to be a place where I put these things:

thing I wanted to share/pass along
thoughts about sports
thoughts about politics and issues
book reviews
various kwento about love life

#1 has been pretty much replaced by Facebook; there's no more need to share links here when it's just as easy to post a link and a quick thought on the Facebook wall. #2 went away after I started Fire Quinito.

I've been doing a lot of #3 elsewhere, for the PCIJ and for FHM. It's odd, FHM's managing editor for the web contacted me about writing for the site, and I thought I was going to get to write about hot babes; instead, my articles for them have been about politics: political speeches, a Cory Aquino tribute, and a Ninoy Aquino tribute. In between, I was able to write about basketball and music.

I still pinch myself about how lucky I am to have the opportunity to work for the PCIJ. A few months back, the whole staff drew lots for potential presidential and vice-presidential candidates, with each person keeping tabs on his or her candidate for a later feature. I drew Noynoy Aquino, and at the time we all figured it would be easy since he was a long shot candidate. Show what we know.

My feature on Noynoy was the first big story I wrote for the center, and it is perhaps the biggest story I'd written in my life, ever. Let me point out, too, that our editor is so mind-blowingly good. The final piece is about a thousand times better than my drafts, just because of great editing. I'm grateful too that the spirit of the story was retained, and my voice was unchanged. If you'd been reading me, it's not hard to figure that I wrote the story, even if you didn't see the byline.

The story was published by the Manila Times, and also posted by GMA News and ABS-CBN News. So that was nice.

(I also wrote this cheeky blog post after Mar Roxas' announcement last week, if you're interested in this sort of thing.)

I'm embarrassed to report that I haven't been doing #4, writing about books, as much because I haven't been reading books as much. The last book I read was Nick Hornby's Slam, a light breezy read, which is just about the only thing I have energy for reading right now. Hey, I'd been reading up on Senate bills authored and filed by Noynoy.

Oh, and happily (or sadly), I don't do #5 anymore. This month, I will have had a blog for 10 years now. Took me long enough to figure this one out.

Kitakits

2009-08-20T06:07:00.001+08:00

Hayup talaga si Conrad:

Me mga nagsasabi na hindi naman tayo nawalan ng tapang, nawalan lang tayo ng paki. Gano’n din ’yon. Kaduwagan din yon. O higit pa ro’n. Dahil ngayon hindi ka lang takot mamatay, takot ka pang mabuhay.

Bukas, maraming mga pagtitipon-tipon sa paggunita ng makasaysayang Agosto 21. Isa na dyan ay ang prayer rally sa Ninoy statue sa Ayala na gaganapin sa ika-3:00 ng hapon hanggang gabi. Na ang hiling ng mga organizers ay kung maaari ay magsuot ng dilaw ang mga tao para ipakita ang pakikiramay, pagpupugay, at pakikiisa kay Cory. Hanep din tayong Pinoy ano: Dilaw ang kulay ng kaduwagan sa ibang bansa, dilaw ang kulay ng katapangan sa ating bansa.

Pwede kang sumama rito at sumigaw ng “Tama na, sobra na, palitan na” para sa kinabukasan ng mga anak mo. Pwede kang sumama rito para magsabi kay Inang Bayan, “Hindi ka nag-iisa,” handa rin kaming mamatay nang dahil sa ’yo, at higit na handang mabuhay nang para sa yo. Pwede kang sumama rito para ipakita na hindi pa nawawala ang katapangan sa bayan ko, binihag ka, ang dugo ng mga bayani ay nananalaytay sa mga ugat mo.

O pwede kang huwag sumama rito dahil ang bukang-bibig mo ngayon ay hindi na “Hindi ka nag-iisa” kundi “Bahala ka sa buhay mo.” Pwede kang huwag sumama rito dahil marami ka pang mahalagang gagawin, kagaya nang manuod ng “G.I Joe.” Pwede kang huwag sumama rito dahil mas okay sa yo ang maging patay kahit buhay pa kesa maging buhay kahit patay na. Pero kung gano’n:

Mag-isa ka.

Conrad

2009-08-07T17:47:00.000+08:00

By now, everyone should have watched or read Conrado de Quiros' beautiful elegy for Cory, and if you haven't, go read it here. His column the next day went into further detail about his conversation with Cory at his mother's wake, and is just as good a read.

But I finally found his column from last November, I guess even before he and Cory became friends. It was just after the election of Obama, and he wrote:

Can we produce our own Obama?

Well, I do not share the pessimism of those who say none of the “presidential aspirants,” remotely carries the spark. That is looking at the wrong place. We did have a Cory Aquino long before the US had an Obama, and she did not come from the ranks of the “presidential aspirants,” or “Ferdinand Marcos’ successors” as they were called then. She came from far afield, “an ordinary housewife,” as Marcos derisively called her, a “walang alam” [ignoramus] in contrast to his being a man of experience, just as McCain tried to belittle Obama as someone without experience. Well, having no experience in wreaking evil, or being party to it, is the best qualification there is in a situation like that. Cory became the symbol of someone who quested for justice, who longed for an end to the oppression. Just like all of us. “Hindi siya nag-iisa.” [She was not alone.]

I don’t know that we can have another Obama or Cory. I do not discount the possibility; darkness has a way of compelling light by the sheer need for it, though as Obama, Cory and “Lord of the Rings” show, light has a way of coming from the most unlikely places. Abominations are not ended by kings and elves and wizards, they are ended by lowly Hobbits, who are least impervious to the temptations of power.

In any case, “Obama” doesn’t have to take the form of one particular face or person. It can always be an idea. The only thing to thank people like George W and Gloria for, if you can thank them for anything, is that they make you want change, even so radical a change as driving you back to your fundamental roots or condition as a human being. If Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has done us a service, it is to show us a tyranny that can make us shout, “Never again!” and truly mean it. It is to make us crave the kind of “radical reforms” Archbishop Angel Lagdameo and several other bishops were calling for last week, the kind that “conquers complacency, cynicism and apathy.” It is to make us see the face of utter evil and rediscover the need for unrelenting good.

Darkness does make light bright.

Cory

2009-08-06T19:40:00.002+08:00

I know everyone's a little Cory'd out at this point, but I just wanted to point everyone to a bunch of stuff I wrote about the former President. Here's a report (with video I took) from the ground at Ayala Avenue, when Tita Cory's remains were transferred from La Salle Greenhills to Manila Cathedral. I also wrote a Cory feature for FHM (yes, FHM--I figured you wouldn't miss it because you go there to read the articles, but on the off-chance you did). Then today, my article on Cory and Edsa from the point of view of a People Power Baby, was posted on the PCIJ blog.

I didn't have...

2009-07-27T18:16:00.002+08:00

...much of a weekend, after working on the formatting of the SONA articles uploaded on Saturday and Sunday, and the additional tweaks for the interactive graphic. I did manage to write a couple of things for Fire Quinito, about the last couple of games of Powerade Team Pilipinas and the UP upset over Ateneo.

Today was a fun day, with the SONA going on. I stayed behind at the office while most of my colleagues got to go out to cover on the field, but I had a fun time manning the PCIJ twitter desk. It was just me and our executive editor, Malou Mangahas in the office, and she actually got pretty into it with the Twitter thing. Awesome. I love how the updates weren't particularly different from the updates I do on the Fire Quinito twitter feed.

(Sample tweet from me: "Angelique Lazo to Sec. Peter Favila: 'Happy SONA!' Happy SONA?!")

Also loved how the media completely embraced the social networks for this event: SONA was second on the trending topics list this afternoon, while GMA News and Sun Star rolled out impressive streaming coverage of the event using different social media tools. Nice.

Oh, and I also spent the weekend researching and writing my first piece for the FHM website. I was hoping it would somehow involve boldstars, but alas! It was about political speeches, in time for today's events.

In the piece, I quoted an excerpt from a Ninoy Aquino speech (which is available on the Internet in nine parts, starting here). I would recommend watching the whole thing, if you have the time, but again let me post my favorite part here:

I am a human being, my friends. I have suffered eight years of imprisonment, I have suffered loneliness like no other man has suffered loneliness in my life, I have been away from my children and my family, and I am financially ruined after eight years. It is only instinctive for a man to look for his peace. I debated with my mind, and I debated with myself, and I debated with my wife and my children whether I should go back to the arena of combat. I felt that I have already earned my peace, I have done my best, I waited for seven years and seven months, and the Filipino people did not react, and they would even give me the impression that they love their chain and their slavery. What can one man do if the Filipino people love their slavery? If the Filipino people have lost their voice and would not say no to a tyrant, what can one man do? I have no army, I have no following, I have no money, I only have my indomitable spirit.

But the letters kept pouring in, and they said, We waited for you for eight years. Will you now abandon us?

Grading Gloria

2009-07-27T01:47:00.004+08:00

The PCIJ has been publishing stories ahead of today's SONA all weekend long. The past two days, it looked at her SONA promises and looked deeper into the numbers behind her economic record.

Today, Dr. Benjamin Diokno, former Estrada budget secretary and current UP economics professor, wrote a perspective piece looking at Gloria's record, and handed out grades. As most university professors are wont to do (heh), his piece is long and full of facts and figures. I stitched together this interactive graphic for Prof. Diokno's grades.

A yellow ribbon for Cory Aquino

2009-07-24T20:48:00.004+08:00

The ‘yellow ribbon’ that became the symbol for the revolution that toppled the Marcos dictatorship is a takeoff from Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree, a pop song by Tony Orlando and Dawn – the same group that gave us Knock Three Times. Former Talking Heads main man David Byrne noted the peculiarity of the choice during his 2005 visit to Manila:

Yellow was adopted due to the song “Tie a Yellow Ribbon” which was adopted in celebration of the return of Aquino to the Philippines — the welcoming crowd wore yellow. Surreal, these pop connections — a connection between Tony Orlando and Dawn and a grass roots uprising that overthrows a dictator — it makes my head spin.

Unfortunately Ninoy Aquino was gunned down at the airport…but Cory and her supporters kept with the yellow from then on.

Before it was co-opted by the revolution, the song belonged to Cory and Ninoy, their theme song while Ninoy was incarcerated. The tune about the return of a long-lost lover helped tide the couple over during more than seven years Ninoy spent in prison.

I remember reading somewhere, I don’t know if it was an interview or a book about Cory, where she related how she felt when her husband died (unfortunately, I couldn’t find the exact quote). She said that she wished that it was her who was killed instead, so that Ninoy could live. But then, she thought to herself, why in the world would anyone care if it were just a plain housewife who died?

It was the sweetest, most heartbreaking thing I'd ever heard.

Stakeout

2009-07-19T18:05:00.000+08:00

A few weeks ago, I went with a colleague at work to go to the office of the Total Information Management Corp., who were then embroiled in a controversy over their breakup with foreign partner Smartmatic, putting the election automation project of the Comelec in jeopardy. We staked outside their office building, and when we saw one of their senior officials alight a van, we chased him across the lobby all the way to the elevators.

I'm mentioning this because I caught the John Lloyd Cruz-Sarah Geronimo starrer You Changed My Life over the weekend, and I noticed that Sarah Geronimo's office building was the same one where we waited to ambush-interview the TIM official.

Clandestine

2009-07-13T22:04:00.003+08:00

As I mentioned last week, I missed the FHM 100 show to go out-of-town for work. The result is this report about the communities in Tanay, Rizal affected by the Laiban Dam project. It was a follow-up on a previous report by the PCIJ on the San Miguel Corporation's clandestine deal for the P52-billion dam project with the MWSS.

Coincidentally, I spent the weekend bitching about another San Miguel clandestine deal, this time about the Beermen acquiring superstar forward Arwind Santos from Burger King in exchange for a plate of roasted highland legumes.

Musical

2009-07-13T01:45:00.000+08:00

Last night, I trooped to Greenbelt along with Tseri to watch a musical, which Mika and her organization were presenting.

Anyway, I chuckled when I saw the poster for the musical and noticed that the male lead looked like one of Kuya Germs's alaga on Walang Tulugan with the Master Showman (no, not Shalala). And it turned out, it was him!

I had...

2009-07-09T22:23:00.001+08:00

...tickets for tonight's FHM 100 Sexiest Women in the World Party, but had to give away my tickets at the last minute because I had to go out-of-town to do some field research for work. The town we visited wasn't that far away from Manila, but we had to go visit a couple of really remote villages. We had made preparations to stay the night, but it started to rain, so we decided to head back to the city because getting stuck might mean staying there for the next few days.

The places we visited had neither cellphone signal nor electricity. But they were not quite as remote as the place we had originally wanted to go to, which required a river crossing (ideally on a 4x4 vehicle). We did not end up going but we did make plans to go next time.

Overall, it was a fun day. Also, if it would make for a great excuse if I ever end up having an affair; I could always use the excuse that I couldn't reply to calls or text messages because, "Walang signal sa [name of remote village]."

I wrote...

2009-07-03T15:28:00.001+08:00

...a short sidebar for the PCIJ's latest two-part report on the automation project for the 2010 elections, and it made it to the front page of the Manila Times this morning. It's odd because I've been writing online (a lot!) for a long time, and I think this is the first thing of mine ever printed. Like, ever, ever.

The Times version was (poorly) cut, which is always a danger with print media. It's funny though, because the lopped off most of the meat of the story, but left in the Transformers joke.

The full version of the sidebar, which makes infinitely more sense, is online at the PCIJ site. Of course, you also owe it to yourself to read the first and second parts of the report.

UPDATE: Here's Ed Lingao's video on the story, drawing on the second part of the report.

Gossip

2009-07-01T07:41:00.002+08:00

A couple of months back, a friend and I were discussing the different trends of journalism on the web, and I shared with him a piece I found that featured a talk at Cal's J-school on the subject. Curiously enough, the resource person was Harvey Levin, the guy who runs the popular TMZ gossip site (and the centerpiece of the related TV show). While I am a fan of the show -- and Levin comes off as a smart guy on it -- I didn't really take him for the type who would be able to impart sage knowledge to J-school kids. But Levin was actually really good, and his stuff really was worth sharing. The guy gets it.

Levin and TMZ are now back in the spotlight after they broke news of Michael Jackson's death -- just the latest in their long line of accurate breaking exclusives. For all the flak it gets because of the tabloid sensationalism and the smug snarkiness, sites like TMZ, with smart guys like Levin at the helm, might be the future of journalism as we know it.

Funniest Eraserheads interview ever

2009-06-29T02:02:00.001+08:00

This was just a train wreck from start to finish.

Little Miss Sunshine

2009-06-25T00:35:00.002+08:00

Just caught an interview of Abigail Breslin on Jimmy Fallon, and well, dalaga na siya. She was talking about how excited she was about turning 13, and I just realized, my sister Icay is turning 13 later this year. How fast is time going? I would freak out that I'll be turning 30 in a couple of years, but seriously, I'm feeling like such an old man at 27.

Game show

2009-06-05T16:12:00.001+08:00

I was making a presentation this afternoon to the PCIJ board, including members David Celdran, Howie Severino, and Malou Mangahas, among others. When David, the board chairman, asked me a question, it gave me a moment's pause, thinking, "Hey wait, why am I on Battle of the Brains?"

Con-ass

2009-06-04T00:55:00.002+08:00

I wrote about the con-ass at Fire Quinito, just because there's a bigger audience there. It's a sports blog, and I intend it to remain one, so I tied it up with our biggest sports star.

Fire Quinito: Maybe Manny Pacquiao won't be so out of place in Congress after all

PCIJ report on press freedom in Timor-Leste

2009-05-29T17:23:00.000+08:00

As Timor Leste turns 7, PCIJ's Ed Lingao takes a look at the state of the country's press and the challenges that journalists still face in the world's youngest democracy.

Read the full story here.

Video: PCIJ report on access to information issues

2009-05-28T21:57:00.003+08:00

The PCIJ’s Multimedia Producer, Ed Lingao, produced this short video on the issues surrounding the difficulty of accessing information from various government agencies:

I got home early from work today...

2009-05-27T23:17:00.000+08:00

...because I didn't go to the office. I was in the field the whole day, beginning with a press conference at Blue Wave. I wasn't there to cover the event, but as a show of support, as it involved a bill that would require government agencies to provide easy access to documents and other information to the public for greater transparency; the PCIJ was part of the civil society group pushing for the passage of the bill. As I was just there to look pretty (heh), I ended up in a photo-op for the different member groups, because my colleagues (naks, naki-colleagues ampucha) didn't want to be part of the picture.

Then we headed off to the Senate to get some documents for some research projects that the center is working on. I was with Ms. Tita, PCIJ's training director and a former beat reporter with the Congress, and it was fun seeing her in action and hearing her chitchatting with all the people she knew. I heard a lot of interesting things, unfortunately, stuff I couldn't share on this blog. But everyone working there was abuzz with what's going to happen tomorrow, as the plenary will be busy hearing the Katrina Halili case.

I was MIA...

2009-05-22T19:48:00.000+08:00

...for the past couple of days as I was in Pampanga to hold a lecture/workshop on blogging. The participants were teachers and students from various public high schools across the country. While I'm not exactly sure how the experience went for them (boses-puke kasi yung instructor nila), it was a very enriching experience for me, and I was just grateful to be part of the whole thing.

The teachers were more thrilled to be there than the students. It was a especially challenging trying to teach certain members of the class who were not at all comfortable with surfing the Web or even operating a personal computer, but everyone came through in the end. Everyone ended up taking to blogging, at siyempre, sila ma'am at sir, kinarir ang pag-upload ng pictures, kasama ang kanilang mga boypren, gelpren, asawa, at mga anak.

Most of the blogs ended up looking like your usual Multiply blogs, peppered with pictures, but they were happy with the result. It wasn't all just meaningless fun though. Some of them told me of plans to use the blogs to share their lessons for their students, others mentioned that they'll be passing on their knowledge to their students, while a couple even started blogs for their respective schools to be able to keep in contact with alumni who are already in Metro Manila or abroad.

Some of the other teachers, though, had to temper their excitement a bit. "Sir, we'll continue blogging," they told me, "once we finally get Internet connections in our town."

Best article on the book blockade...

2009-05-20T18:16:00.001+08:00

...by Conrado de Quiros, natch.

Awesome news

2009-05-18T12:53:00.003+08:00

Chuck has been renewed for a third season. Yay! Now we get to see our favorite nerd doing kung-fu. Now I'm just hoping he finally gets to nail Sarah. Also, I hope he does it with the lights on and for one whole episode.

Hoops exchange

2009-05-11T21:27:00.001+08:00

Fire Quinito gets some love over at the Basketball Exchange. Thanks Gary!

Did Espele Sales really say that novels and reading books are not educational?

2009-05-11T12:08:00.004+08:00

By now you've probably heard of the hold-up of all imported books at the Bureau of Customs because of a new interpretation of officials such as Department of Finance Undersecretary Espele Sales. Book importers are now being levied duties by customs, which are apparently against international agreements.

Anyway, recently, a new meme has started over Facebook and the blogosphere because Sales said that novels and reading books are "not educational". All references to that statement can be traced back to this story from the Philippine Star:

Sales and the BOC agreed that “only books or raw materials to be used in book publishing” are to be exempt from taxes and duties.

Critics said their interpretation has violated the 1950 Florence Agreement on the Importation of Educational, Scientific and Cultural Materials, of which the Philippines was a signatory in 1952.

The treaty has provided for duty-free importation of books to guarantee the free flow of “educational, scientific, and cultural materials” between countries and declared that imported books should be duty-free.

But Sales reportedly brushed off this argument, saying novels and reading books are “not educational.”

(Emphasis mine.)

The word "reportedly" bothers me here. Who "reported" this? Apart from the McSweeney's report, all other stories about the issue do not contain any such quote attributed to Sales. In fact, the only time the quote appears in the timeline for the issue is during the Star report itself.

So if it was not a previous report, then it must have been the author's sources who reported the quote. If that is so, then it was irresponsible for the author to (1) not indicate that this was the case; and, (2) not make an attempt to contact Sales before attributing the quote to her.

I'm not saying that Sales did not really say that, what I'm saying is that with the Star report, there really was no way to know if that really was the case.

I know I'm splitting hairs here, but this should be a big deal. I agree with the cause, and I'm a big lover of books, so it is important for me to make sure that the facts that my side is reporting is absolutely correct

As Roger Ebert wrote about Michael Moore:

The pitfall for Moore is not subjectivity, but accuracy. We expect him to hold an opinion and argue it, but we also require his facts to be correct. I was an admirer of his previous doc, the Oscar-winning "Bowling for Columbine," until I discovered that some of his "facts" were wrong, false or fudged.

In some cases, he was guilty of making a good story better, but in other cases (such as his ambush of Charlton Heston) he was unfair, and in still others (such as the wording on the plaque under the bomber at the Air Force Academy) he was just plain wrong, as anyone can see by going to look at the plaque.

Because I agree with Moore's politics, his inaccuracies pained me, and I wrote about them in my Answer Man column. Moore wrote me that he didn't expect such attacks "from you, of all people." But I cannot ignore flaws simply because I agree with the filmmaker. In hurting his cause, he wounds mine.

(Emphasis mine.)