Archive for December, 2009

The Schoolyard

The Schoolyard

A friend of mine from elementary school took a picture of the Fr. Ghisleen de Vos lobby of Saint Louis University Laboratory Elementary School. In a few weeks, we’ll be having our grand reunion, and I’m sure my batchmates have a good memory of this place. During recess time, my classmates sat by the corridors playing jacks. The floor of the lobby was a place for patintero, Touch-the-Body, and Cops and Robbers. For many of them, this was the place that elementary school memories are made of.

Save for Recognition Week, skits, First Friday Mass, and plays, I don’t have a fond memory of this place at all. I wasn’t allowed here. To go home or out to lunch, I had to take the other way out: down the stairwells at the far end, and into General Luna, hail the jeepney, and realize at a young age that I’m missing playtime and I’m not making friends. No, none at all; my best memories of this place is Mr. Kitma with his wooden meterstick, Mrs. Mendoza with her file folders, and a very vague memory of me playing a one-man version of “The Shoemaker and the Elves.”

December 10, 2009 2 comments Read More
Demand and Content

Demand and Content

Almost every major name in the running probably already has a blog, a microblog, a social networking account, and a few people in charge of running his or her social media campaign.  I had high hopes for the Internet being a great tool for positive and proactive campaigns for the national elections in 2010, but from what I have observed, social media is used along the same lines of the traditional campaign.

The same things you’ll see in the paper trail are pretty much the same things you would see on the Internet today: negative campaigns, mudslinging, and the occasional snarky campaign manager/public relations specialist using analog methods for a digital medium.

That’s great and all – I’m sure the race to 2010 has lucrative returns written all over it – but it kind of looks ridiculous.  The Internet is supposed to help elevate political awareness and translate that to political action.  Yet if people treat social media like they would pamphlets or comic books distributed at the polling precinct right before voting, it somehow renders the tool sorta-kinda ineffective.  If a digital tool is used in an analog way, the impression fails.

I’m not the be-all-end-all of anything except jologs lyrics translations, and I’m not an expert on the Internet, but here are some of my thoughts on how social media could be used to great effect on the road to 2010.

December 8, 2009 21 comments Read More
Enough Said

Enough Said

pamatong

(Click on the image for a larger picture)

At least in the Philippines, I’m taking over the Ely Pamatong 2010 campaign.  Or so it seems, when you bring me your tired, your  poor, your huddled candidates waiting to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your political shore.  Send these so-called nuisances tempest-tossed to me, I lift my computer monitor beside the golden door.

Now that’s how you execute a social media campaign.  Ely Pamatong, thank me later.

December 7, 2009 4 comments Read More
Cicatrice IV

Cicatrice IV

We were taught to live in the footsteps of Jesus, yet we ended up walking down the road taken by lesser men.

We came of age, and came into sin.  The host became bread, the prayer an excuse for rest and sleep.  Rosaries passed through my hand once; now, I hold cigarettes between my fingers.  I used to kneel and reflect at the chapel longer than I did eating breakfast.  Somehow, I strayed from the path I was raised to follow.  Sin, perhaps, was my best excuse to live.

The Church was nothing more than shelter as I entered it again, until I saw the dying figure of Christ again.  Judas brought Him there, I remembered; for 30 silver pieces, the King of the Jews was scourged at the pillar and made to carry a heavy cross to Calvary, where He was crucified like a common criminal.

We were taught to follow the path of Jesus.  Like many of us, I ended up following the path of Judas.

December 4, 2009 4 comments Read More
Win Marocharim’s Notebook… And Random Stuff Thrown In

Win Marocharim’s Notebook… And Random Stuff Thrown In

Hi!

I’ll be taking a blog break really soon, because there are a lot of things for me to do (good heavens, I’m sounding like an awfully nice guy).  Yet I don’t want to leave you just yet without spreading a bit of Christmas cheer to whoever reads my blog.

As some of you know, I love writing stuff.  As a simple way of thanking my loyal readers (if I have them), I’m giving away a notebook.

Yup, a black notebook finished in cool leather and Spanish paper made by Schützen.  I’ll also throw in some stuff at random… hmmm, a Marocharim.com T-shirt?  A fresh banana?  Plushie?  Again, what I’m throwing in is completely random.

I know it’s a simple Christmas gift, but I hope that you, my friends and readers, can find it the wonderful gift of expressing yourself through words this Holiday season.

To win a wonderful gift for writing, you’ll have to do something for me.

December 3, 2009 8 comments Read More
Excellence of Execution

Excellence of Execution

Allow me to be a bit cynical.

I think it was Montesquieu who formulated and clarified the idea of “separation of powers.”  Basically, you have three branches of government: the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary.  The doctrine of separation of powers ensures that all branches of government cooperate with each other without one impinging or curtailing the responsibilities of another.  As a bastardization, here’s how checks-and-balances would work:

  • Executive: enforces and upholds the laws of the land.
  • Legislative: makes the laws of the land.
  • Judiciary: determines the scope and jurisdiction of the laws of the land.

Don’t get me wrong, platforms and such are great and high-minded, but I sometimes think we’re getting too far ahead of ourselves and our expectations – and the ought-to-be, for that matter – when we stress it.

December 1, 2009 29 comments Read More