Social Networking Tales

We are in the post modern age and as predicted people who own information virtually rule the world. The founders of Facebook are called accidental billionaires for launching one of the most popular sites in the world. We hear that a film about the Facebook story is underway and we are looking forward to this in October this year. Anyway, let me share stories about social networking. On the top of my list is a friend who announced that he is very proud that he cannot be accessed on Facebook simply because he wants to keep his privacy. Last year, while I was in Europe, one of the heads of a government intelligence agency had to resign because his wife unwittingly published in Facebook their family whereabouts (as in where they were or where they usually go) which was of course a breach of security, as it turned out for the well meaning wife, after the fact. If they were ordinary people not working for gathering intelligence for Her Majesty, the act of publishing these photos or album would have been just very benign.

Employers are able to access these social networking sites to learn about prospective applicants. Which is why, it is important not to misrepresent ourselves in these sites. But, social networking is a wonderful medium. One is able to connect with friends from a half a century ago and from many parts of the globe with the option to do all these all at once.

Now and for the future, it is no longer difficult to write history or biography or the obituary of a person by just culling information from these sites. Lately, one of the sites has apologized for not being able, in the meantime, to monitor deaths of users and so they are not also being able to update other users.

The obvious downside to the use of these social networking virtual sites is that these sites can derail you from the more important things in life like actual bonding with family and friends or finishing tasks related to making this world a better place or simply by derailing us in doing our livelihood or paid work. One can really get lost in connecting with friends. We connect in these sites with friends that are beside us, or sitting with us in one table or with officemates working with us in the same room.

Some employers have discouraged accessing these sites during working hours. Of course, these sites can also be tools for doing one’s work like the announcement of a product or a meeting schedule or to interact with clients and partners or for virtually almost anything imaginable that will make work easy.

One of the most powerful usages of these sites is that it was one of the tools that was used for the campaign and election of President Barack Obama to the most powerful post in the world.

Today’s challenge in the Philippines, though, is making these social networking sites available to most everyone in the countryside. Many towns in the Philippines are still not connected to the wired world.

The other challenge is how to harness these social networkers in the wired world (who are just, otherwise, going on with their business oblivious to the many problems in our immediate communities) to the great task of making this world a better place than it is now.

The University: Promoting Equality Through The Classroom

Going Back To The University

After decades, I have gone back to the university to teach which is a kind of renaissance for me. Friends in the academe have warned me that there is a different crop of students now. Of course, what the academicians mean is that many students today do not regard themselves as serious scholars plotting to change society and the world. Then, I saw some young student activists exercising their freedom of speech on television and their core message was about the tuition hike and the processes that should be part it.

I am teaching the social sciences (Political Science & Sociology) and I am filled with much hope that I can contribute to the mentoring of the successor generation. Some of these students will be future leaders. On the first day of class, I was trying to introduce a quality of mind that allows a student to understand one’s personal circumstance in the context of society and various institutions or what C. Wright Mills calls as the interplay between history, society and biography. It is revealing that advancements in science and technology have not solved much of the problems of humanity. Much of our problems are called social and the solutions involve changing social structures. For example, scholars are asking why is it that even as the Philippines is the most "western" country in Asia, it is also one of the poorest? China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia are performing well economically. What is it in our culture that hinders economic growth? I told my students that to say that the Filipino is lazy is a misrepresentation of social reality. But, the answer to the study of why we are still poor is a very long overdue report. Perhaps, the more incisive question is why is it that majority of our people do not have access to the wealth of our country?

Or why is it that across time, women have become subordinate to men? Ah but looking at the classroom now, I am much pleased that there are more women. But, then again, one can also accurately say that a private elite university is one of the social institutions that are accessible to one strata or class of society. The poor have been pre-excluded by virtue of their belonging to a particular class. And for the poor, the economic system has failed not just female students but male students too, and who have been excluded from school due to poverty. Which is why, one of the ideal functions of a good government is to subsidize the education of its people.

I was once asked what it was in my well rounded education that socialized me to enter the world of social development. During the activism of the 70’s when we were debating whether we wanted to be doctors, we asked ourselves, “ so when we treat a patient for malnutrition, what will happen to him or her when s/he goes back to his or her poverty?” So we said,” Let us address the poverty first by contributing our bit.” At that time and even now, the disciplines that are inspiring us and allowing us to look forward to good social change are the social sciences.


Promoting Equality Through The Classroom

I am about to go to the classroom to teach and I have to churn out words for my Wednesday column. There is so much to say and I always start up with a framework for saying things. Today, my frame of mind is about poverty and all sorts of inequality in society.

I am thinking of my two types of students in the classroom : type one is the group mesmerized and fascinated by what I am saying and investing themselves in interaction. The trick for this is the skill to evoke their interest and drawing examples relevant to their worldview and experiences; and type two is what I call the deviant few who are displaying what we call the “shut out” syndrome. Teachers in the elementary grades have a term for this: physically present but mentally absent. It is a challenge always to bring these students back to the classroom.

My topic for later is social stratification and the task is to explain how society is divided according to rank or hierarchy using various indicators that they will understand. My challenge for this is how to promote an egalitarian society given that my students are blinded by their middle or high class socio - economic status and thus have either no empathy for the poor or have aversion for being poor. Then, I remind them that the mission of the university where they are enrolled in is not only for excellence but also to serve others.

The Muslim world will observe Ramadan soon and by practice I have sort of always observed this season for years. We call it Duyog Ramadan. Particularly, in this season for this year, my colleagues will be traveling to Muslim communities about a project in the Shari’a courts and in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao but observing the holiness of the season. Some of my Muslim women friends will be doing paper work during the night and going slow during the day. I share to my class what a Muslim friend once said that the Ramadan season is, among others, a time for solidarity with the poor who have to undergo forced fasting all year round due to poverty.


Then I go about the myriad things about how wealth should be shared by all and how we should just be custodians of the earth’s resources for the next generation; and that the climate changes that we are experiencing are the consequences of the way we have treated the environment.

I will say, for instance, that in gender stratification, women have for centuries been subordinate to men and that there are rich feminists who are advocating for gender equality because they have owned the suffering of their mothers and all women before them. I guess if we are able to promote this kind if social consciousness, somehow this new generation will not allow discrimination because it is wrong. I always tell my students that all of the existing inequalities are socially constructed and amenable to social change but that change will have to involve change in institutions and structures. Institutions and structures are big words but a faster way to really change and promote new behavior is through laws and standards. I guess given that so much inequality is so well entrenched, we will have to think of more creative ways to promote an egalitarian society to a student population whose goal is to graduate from school and join society whose processes generate more inequality. This is a mission of a lifetime. And the classroom is a good place to start.

First SONA of President Noy : Flaming & Blazing Volley of Sordid Facts

The sound bite of President Noy’s ( P-Noy) first State of the Nation Address (SONA) was certainly as vernacular as could be as he spoke in a lingua franca close to the heart of millions of Filipinos. It dawned on me, though, that as one of those “miseducated” in the English language, I was more comfortable reviewing the SONA in the English version. Pundits and politicians described the first P-Noy SONA as: Flamboyant, very inductive, all about facts but no vision, consistently anti-corrupt, very much like his father Senator Ninoy, confident and exuberant, direct, devoid of rhetoric, conversational, simple and meaningful, description of our problems in clear language, etc.

Some were quick to enumerate what were missing in the SONA like the welfare of our overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) which are found in close to two hundred countries in the world, Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) funds issues, agrarian reform, debt servicing, no mention of Freedom of Information Bill, and that there was no new creative articulation of the nuance and framing of the peace issues in Mindanao. But, I agree with what Senator Pia Cayatano said that we should respect the presidential style and prerogative for now, at least.   

Yes, it was inductive because the speech started out with very controversial facts about the way some of our agencies have handled funds & programs and then the SONA ends with proposed solutions. Many think, though, that the proposed solutions are puny and simplistic compared to the grave problems presented. Anyway, these agencies that were put on the spot for alleged mismanagement were the Metropolitan Water & Sewerage System (MWSS), National Power Corporation (Napocor), Metro Rail Transit (MRT) and the National Food Authority (NFA). Manila was waterless for days and so I am sure that the revelations that top honchos of MWSS received bonuses allegedly worth about thirty (30) months were not lost on the urban poor of Manila. Or that these MWSS officials have allegedly awarded themselves with hefty bonuses while being in arrears for the pensions of their own retired employees. If this is true, this is a case of perceived deprivation of due benefits and entitlements. Others feared that because top honchos know the law all these could be justified legally. Well, as we always say, what is legal is not always moral. One thing sure, all these will help in crafting new legislations and in the creation of new oversight functions by Congress for these agencies. 

P-Noy hinted to please not give his cabinet policy team a rough time at the Commission on Appointments so that as he says “the best of us will not hesitate to be public servants.” The Commission on Appointments is an administrative body composed of legislators and is a mechanism for checks and balances and thus it is a powerful limitation on the presidential prerogative. 

P- Noy has outlined to Congress his priority policies and bills, namely: zero based approach to budget to open up all items in the budget to question, Fiscal Responsibility bill to limit legislations to bills with sources of funding since we have many existing legislations which cannot be implemented for lack of funds, Anti-Trust Law for integrity in our corporate businesses.

My favorite which our Alternative Law Group (ALG) network is promoting and that is the National Land Use plan, amendment of the archaic National Defense Act, protection of the witnesses under both the Whistleblower bill and the Witness Protection Program. 

To sum up in a few words the SONA which is very consistent with P-Noy’s election platform and promises wishes to promote integrity and good governance in the bureaucracy towards a good life and abundance for the Filipino. And so, the Filipino is exhorted by P-Noy to dream again.