Pardon me, but I won’t be doing any linkage for this entry.  It’s just a stream-of-thought thing.

Jester has been taking a lot of flak (OK, crap), from a certain post made by a certain Dennis Relojo on his blog.  The lot of you may already know about the “UP Students = Fake Scholars” controversy, and I think that at least one of you may want to know where I stand, as an exponent of the University of the Philippines.  I’m not going to make any friends with what I’m going to say anyway.  Don’t worry, I’ll try my best to be very, very nice just so that nobody will get offended.

Reading the comments makes me want to challenge the claim that UP students are “likas na magaling at matatalino.” I do not question the intelligence of UP students.  In my long (insert coefficient here) stay in UP, there is no doubt in that assumption.  To doubt “native intelligence” would be to doubt my own intelligence (which I do a lot anyway, so argument is rendered moot).  Yet doubt, ladies and gentlemen, can be raised to the circumstances as to how a UP student got there.  So while we’re in the business of raising doubts, let me raise doubt as to how each and every one of us got to UP anyway:

• Statistics. Some smart-ass invented a thing called an “examination” to determine one’s native intelligence and capacity to enter an institution of higher learning.  In order to evaluate one’s intelligence and mental capacity, a statistical limit to the right of the Bell curve - the cut-off - is set in order to determine if someone “deserves” whatever reward there is.  When you reach this limit set by the examiners of the UPCAT, then you can say you deserve to enter UP.  This cut-off is the bare minimum necessary to determine if you “possess the native intelligence” necessary to make it to UP.  Like many things about UP, everything boils down to numbers.
• Injustice. Some smart-ass decided that for the exam to be profitable, one has to charge a fee in order for someone to take an exam.  A reasonably priced P450 fee was instituted for someone to be able to take the UPCAT.  Now P450 may not seem much, but you can imagine a very bright girl from the provinces who walks barefoot for five kilometers to get to school, with nothing but five pesos to buy fish crackers to go along with her baon of cold rice.  She tops her class and possesses the “native intelligence” necessary for a UP student; but she could not, by any means, afford the fee necessary to take the UPCAT.  Or much less, afford the board, lodging, and other necessities for a college education at UP Diliman.  Thanks to an injustice, we were all able to step on the dreams of this girl to be able to make it to UP.

Is there really anything else that determines one’s place in UP other than statistics and injustice?  Like destiny?  God’s will?  Fate?  Because we drank milk and ate peanuts the day of the UPCAT that we ended up having diarrhea?  Well… not really.

This brings me to the third - and perhaps my favorite - reason why we all got into UP:

• Damn luck. For all this talk about being “entitled” or “owed,” we forget that a lot about this world works around, well, a helluva lot of swerte. It’s so difficult to enter UP; the difficulty of the UPCAT is the least of those reasons.  Chance, that only morality in a cruel world that’s unbiased, unprejudiced and fair (I’m lifting off lines from “The Dark Knight” all of a sudden), made it possible for you to overcome the statistical difficulty of the UPCAT, and also made it possible for P450 to be within the means of your parents.  Yes, for all our collective bravado of “native intelligence,” we all are just… well, lucky people who happened to be at the right place at the right time.

Let’s not dunk our heads on the “activist” and “social” part of these circumstances, and let’s just dwell on the epiphany of being “UPians” (sheesh, that’s irritating) on the basis of statistics, injustice, and damn luck.  I don’t want to say that you’re behooved to work for the greatest good of the greatest number, liberate them from oppression, free them from the chains of injustices, yadda yadda yadda.  But then again, that is what makes us different from other schools.

It’s called “defining your situation,” ladies and gentlemen.  The fact that we’re “Iskolar ng Bayan” is not a license to be entitled for anything except that imperative to be worth something, to be a cog in the wheel of the improvement of the lives of the people, regardless of whether or not the subsidize you or subsidize you enough.  To say that you’re entitled to this and that is a formality, a technicality, a non-necessity.  The same UP that is capable of being the cradle of this country’s history is capable of unmaking it; the same institution that is capable of fostering excellence is also capable of fostering mediocrity.

That itself is superheroic, and is now usually taken as a suggestion, mainly because being a “UPian” these days means to have the entitlement to be chosen by a company above someone else from a different school.  That’s a bag of bollocks.  The expectation is not that you will get your much-needed slap-in-the-face when you graduate and get a job, but you get it while you’re still in school.  It’s not a matter of learning humility (which is a superhero ability), but a matter of learning perspective before arrogance - which comes from a lack of perspective, not necessarily the right one - sets in and takes you over, and give you that paranoid delusion that yor loyalty lies in UP, not the people.

I’ll treat you to a cheeseburger if you can name me a call center that does not, in one way, shape or form, employ a UP graduate.  I’ll treat you to two cheeseburgers if you can honestly say to yourself that you made it to UP for reasons other than statistics, injustice and damn luck.  That’s a fair enough reward for a challenge.

I hope that my little stream of thought dignifies this controversy, or at least lowers my blood pressure.

   I just came from my “lecture” at UP Baguio, where I got Best Thesis honors along with Rosanna, Cherry, and Danileen.  Somehow, the eager young minds of tomorrow really enjoyed my “presentation,” which came across more like the random rantings of a man who has spent too much time in an office cubicle.

   I enjoyed being around familiar ground and familiar people: Prof. Liezl Astudillo, Dr. Mark Calano, Dr. Ray Rovillos, Dr. Lorelei Mendoza, and young scholars working on their thesis proposals for Social Sciences 199.  I appreciated the receptiveness of my audience, some of whom were inspired to do study on virtual environments.

   During my presentation, I had to defend my post-structuralist take on Friendster.com, if only because there is still a lot of resistance against a “nothing outside-the-text” perspective in textual analysis.  One of the more interesting questions came from a young lady who asked if I was unduly influenced by that very perspective.  I wasn’t looking for “the truth” in my research as much as I was looking for patterns.  Another interesting question came from a young man who wanted to know how I analyzed 417 Friendster Profiles: I told him that it was a matter of staying up until the wee hours of the morning reading each and every single one of them.

   But it was nice to be back in UP Baguio, for a change.

   Karlo Mongaya of Postcard Headlines wrote some thoughts about postmodernism yesterday.  To be honest, I have had my own fair share of “paradigm shifts” over the course of my active intellectual life: like most UP students, I started out reading Marx, but eventually moved my own line of thinking parallel to anthropological theory, where names like Tylor and Morgan come to the fore.  Then I became a bit radical: later on in college, I became riveted to the ideas of Louis Althusser, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, and nowadays I’m doing some self-study on the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari.

   I can’t say I understand every bit of them, but I try.

   I met up with Tano, a philosophy instructor and a friend of mine back in college, yesterday, and she put things rather bluntly: “That’s the problem with you: you are the exact opposite of Ockham’s Razor.”  To which I playfully responded: “Because I don’t shave.”  Did William of Ockham have a beard, a stubble, or was he clean-shaven?

   I’m reminded of the Sokal Affair: basically, a physicist named Alan Sokal wrote a “piece of nonsense” and the paper was eventually published in a journal.  I don’t know: I can claim publicly right now that my own thesis on Friendster played on the Sokal Affair (although I’m not saying that my own thesis is a bunch of bullshit).  I could have entitled my thesis “It’s Complicated,” but I opted against it.  My own “philosophy of social science” can be summed up in one sentence:

   “When confronted with a social problem, fuck it up.”  To which the response would be, “Depends on how you fuck it.”  Basically, a social problem is a whore, and you can penetrate it by the ear or the nostril if need be.

   I’m off to Manila, and I’ll be explaining this through a 20-minute lecture in two weeks.

   I went to UP Baguio yesterday to check things out, to see what happened to my school.  It felt great to be back home, but I was greeted with the most disgusting thing to ever grace the beautiful lobby of the IB’s…

   Shit, USC elections na naman.

   Don’t get me wrong: in one of my past lives, I was a member of the UP Baguio University Student Council.  While I’m not exactly the best-functioning member of the USC, I did my part in making the USC work.  I am merely a footnote to some of the greats: Ace Quijada, Ben Fernandez, Deo Onda.  If anything, I would probably be remembered for being the councilor who came from the oddest of places: not because I came from Outcrop, or because I was a 5th year student running for a 4th year seat, but because I deride campus politics.  To stand on that stage a couple of years ago to deliver my “You have nothing to lose but your chains” gimmick-speech is one of the low points of my stay in college.

   In the perfect world, I have nothing at stake now when it comes to the welfare of the UP Baguio student community: I ran under ACS a few years ago, but I do not have strong ties to ACS.  But this is not the perfect world: maybe this old dog still reserves the right to teach the puppies the way of serving the studentry.  UP Baguio faces different problems and issues now compared to what we experienced before.  Perhaps even bigger problems, now that this year’s USC will be saddled with the onus of being the “Centennial Council.”

*     *     * 

   If there’s any single ax I can grind against campus politics, it’s that nobody that I know of will stand for student-centered politics.  There’s a lot of non-issues - for all intents and purposes, bullshit - being hurled around in questions like oil price hikes, the legitimacy of GMA, political killings, and so on during the conduct of an SC election.  So freaking what?  I’ve been in UP for such a long time to know about what the issues of the students are: long lines at the photocopying machines, the lack of running water, the absence of drinking fountains, the dearth of tambayans. 

   I think that at least one student will agree with me that he or she could care less about what a particular candidate thinks about Jun Lozada if he or she can’t flush the toilet at the 20’s.  Or have a proper tabo, not the kind of pail fashioned out of a gallon bottle.  Non-issues?  I don’t think so.

   Laugh all you want about a person who will propose to give you a roll of toilet paper in every comfort room, but given the chance, I will vote for that person.  Student-centered politics means, to play on Theda Skocpol, “Bringing the student back in.”  That, I think, is a catchy way to put it, or perhaps a “students-first” policy.  To me, the inalienable right to an equitable and affordable education is just as inalienable as the right of a student to drink clean water.  The inalienable right of a student group to stay on campus beyond extremely restricting curfew hours is just as inalienable as this very same student’s right to have a safe, properly-lighted campus.  The inalienable right of a student to have a “smoke-free UP” is just as inalienable as this very same student’s right to have a trash can inside a classroom.

   If you don’t have those things at your disposal, maybe yes, you do suffer from campus repression.

*     *     * 

   Ganito lang naman sa akin, mga ading sa UP Baguio.  Isyu ng estudyante ang intindihin ninyo: kung di niyo mabigyan ng solusyon ang mga “mabababaw” na isyu, di niyo mabibigyan ng solusyon ang malalalim na isyu.  Kung aasa na lang kayo sa kakanta at huhubad na estudyante sa miting de avance, umasa na rin kayo na mapagkakatiwalaan ninyo ang kandidatong ito na kakanta at huhubad pagdating sa trabaho sa SC.

   Galing sa isang matanda na na tulad ko, sana’y alalahanin ninyo na isang taon ng buhay-estudyante niyo ang inilalaan ninyo sa susunod na Konseho ng Mag-Aaral.  Huwag ninyong sayangin ang boto ninyo.  Kung bakit binibigyan ko ng halaga ang malinis na tubig at mga lugar na puwede kayong tumambay ay dahil nung nariyan pa kami, hindi namin naranasang magkaroon ng ganoong mga bagay.

   Iboto ninyo ang estudyanteng magsisilbi sa interes ninyo bilang mga estudyante: hindi sa interes ng kanino man, partido man ito o iba pa.

   Unawain ninyo: ang isang Iskolar ng Bayan ay estudyante rin, na may pangangailangang pang-estudyante.

   Because 2008 is the Centennial Year of the University of the Philippines, selling UP-related stuff is big business.  Stuff for sale include UP t-shirts, UP jackets, UP planners, UP car plates, UP mugs, mini-Oblations, and so on and so forth.

   Here’s my problem: almost every UP student already has a UP t-shirt and/or a UP jacket.  Every professional jots down notes in a UP planner, drives to work with a UP car plate.  UP students and alumni drink coffee from UP mugs, and have the mini-Oblation in their curio cabinets.  And every important date is marked on a commemorative Centennial Calendar (the UP Baguio version is available from SayoteRepublic).

   Here’s the thing: I want more.  I think that if we, as a University, would really milk the Centennial out of everything it is worth, Centennial products should not be limited to commemorative stickers.  As such, here are my ideas for what UP should be selling as Centennial products.

Idea #1: Commemorative Portable Ashtray + Cigarette Lighter

   Remember when you could still freely smoke at UP?  Well, thanks to an administrative order, you can no longer do so.  However, you can still smoke with fond memories of UP by buying this commemorative portable ashtray and cigarette lighter.  The commemorative ashtray is specially designed to hold the ashes of two packs of cigarettes and their butts: an ecological marvel you won’t see in any other ashtray.  The cigarette lighter runs on biofuels, consistent with UP’s support of environmental initiatives.  A must on every smoker’s Centennial wishlist.

Idea #2: Anahaw-leaf jockstrap 

   Are you a fashion-conscious “UPian” who already has a UP jacket, a UP shirt, maroon jogging pants, and maroon rubber shoes?  Well, you can never be the well-rounded Iskolar ng Bayan without having your own piece of commemorative UP underwear!  Designed for the scholar-on-the-move, this jockstrap comes with a polyester anahaw leaf seen on the Oblation.  This marvel of clothing technology is designed for easy removal, especially for students who come down with incontinence on drinking parties and LBM on Hell Week.  It can also withstand years of careless washing by laundry shops.  Comes in maroon and green.

Idea #3: ”Captain Oblation” action figure

   Ever thought that Oblation was just a statue symbolizing freedom?  Heck no: when night falls, and freedom is threatened, Oblation breaks away from his granite skin and becomes Captain Oblation.  Possessing laser-sight, the power of flight, super-strength and super-intelligence, Captain Oblation searches deep in the night to fight injustice, oppression, and saves the world before 6:30 AM Varsity practice!  Now you can have Captain Oblation with you in this fancy new action figure.  Using the most advanced toy-making materials and the best in toy engineering, Captain Oblation action figures come with their own superpowers!  Batteries and accessories not included.

   Back in high school, we were processing spreadsheets in Lotus 1-2-3, typing documents in WordStar 7, and making databases in Foxrun.  Even having Windows 3.11 was a rarity in those days: the operating system of choice was MS-DOS 6.22.  This was at the turn of the 21st century: in the year 2000, the computers were upgraded to the earliest versions of Windows 95 and Microsoft Works.

   So you can understand my sense of relief, now that my alma mater - Baguio City National High School - has its own website (accessible here).  While I am disappointed with some bits and pieces of the website, I find it a bit weird: it took too long.

   Having been exposed to a more robust information infrastructure in college, I am of the belief that computer literacy is paramount in high school education.  The biggest universities of the Philippines - UP, Ateneo, de la Salle, and UST, among others - have information infrastructures that are integral to their other infrastructures.  For example, UP’s campuses all over the Philippines are connected to each other in one of the strongest connections in the country.  I am told that in UST, the wireless broadband grid goes well up into 1 GB of bandwidth, for a reasonable cost paid every semester.

   This was supposed to be the Department of Education’s “Cyber-Education” program.  However, the sad thing is that there are a lot of things about public schools that demand urgent attention more than computers and Internet connections, like classrooms, books, facilities, competent teachers, and reasonable teacher-to-student ratios.  But for urban schools, I think that strong information infrastructures are necessary for their graduates to stand a chance at university education.

   Back in high school, the class named “Computer” was more of an exercise in operating an overpowered cash register: at the turn of the new millennium, we were still running Windows 3.11 and learning the basic commands at MS-DOS.  In time, my school improved its computer structures and now has its own website.

   I advocate the general idea of “cyber-education:” the thing is, it is important to situate any kind of development into the proper frame of context.  In my view, what kept the Department of Education from implementing “Cyber-Ed” was not the inherent corruption in the National Broadband Network deal, but that the timing of such a priority was questionable.  At the time, it didn’t make sense to wire schools into broadband when there is a shortage of classrooms chronic enough that some classes are held under trees.

   Last night, I was watching a BBC World documentary on One Laptop Per Child, and it seems that the people of Africa are doing a better job at “cyber-education” than we are.  It makes perfect sense: free laptops.  I like the XO Laptop: while you won’t catch me blogging with one, or that no self-respecting high school DoTA player would even touch one, it is purpose-built to serve the purposes of cyber-education.

   If you asked me, the Philippine government would do well in recruiting the services of OLPC: this isn’t about laptops, this is about education.

   I’m not talking about the old Nickelodeon show that puts a kid-spin on “American Gladiators.”  I’m talking about my usual audacity for everything ambitious and new: a few weeks back, I submitted a paper to an international conference, with my thesis as the focal point.  I look forward to this event: if anything, it will make or break my career as a social scientist.  And it will make or break my opportunity to see a part of the world I may never get a chance to see.

   On the matter of earning at least P100,000 to cover all the expenses of my possible trip, I’ve been thinking about writing solicitation letters, and perhaps work a few months to some companies I’ve applied for to cover my pocket money.  I’ve scheduled myself for January to process travel documents (and a haircut) for my trip.  But the magnitude of what I’ve done has only set in lately: here was an opportunity and I took it.  How many times did I not do that?

   It hit me: I suppose that with all the work I put into my thesis and to my paper, the possibility of going to America for that conference is not a remote one, ceteris paribus.  I entered that conference because I wanted to prove that I can: in the dog-eat-dog world that is the academe, I’m not planning on being a teacher.  But for all this talk of being a “scholar of the state,” I’m planning to earn my credits on being a scholar.  And for all its faults, I want to see America up close and personal.

   I was doing some calculations a few days ago, and wondered if $300 (roughly P12,000) would be enough to cover a week in America.  Maybe I should cancel out the idea of meeting friends and relatives and think about a week of SPAM lunches and Hormel dinners.  The most expensive factors for me would be plane tickets, registration fees, and my stay at a halfway decent hotel.  I suppose if I worked freelance for three months, I would earn my $300 and see my bit of America.

   That’s all I got left, basically: a dream.

   Ah… bowling.  It lends itself way to double-entendre: holding a ball, rolling it out of the palm of your hand, hitting pins at the end of the lane.  You grunt and groan when the ball hits either canal, and whoop when your ball hits the rack dead-on.

   Olympian Lanes have been around ever since I was a kid: back in the day, it was still pretty much a wholesome family-friendly bowling alley that had a candy store in the entrance.  Back then, we gorge ourselves on cotton candy and big swirly lollipops, and leave balls sticky with damp sugar when we loft the balls around in the lanes our parents play in.

   The candy store has given way to a stall that sells warm beer, but it’s still pretty much the same alley that me and the family went to when I was a kid: same balls, same pins, and it still employs pinboys.

   In all honesty, I can’t bowl good: today, I bowled two 75-point games in duckpin.  During Christmas, I tag along with my uncle and my cousins to play ten-pin at the AMF Puyat lanes at Baguio Center Mall.  While I would pose a legitimate challenge in ten-pin, I suck at duckpin.  Maybe it’s a psychosomatic Freudian impulse of having two big boulders than three small grapefruits.  Is hitting the heckling pinboys a strike, a spare, a break, or a bad sprain?