November 2007 Archives

There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. -- Victor Hugo I HAD the wonderful opportunity to meet and speak with Education Secretary Jesli A. Lapus. Gigi and Pam of the Philippine Embassy in Vietnam invited me and Michelle to the despedida party of Consul-Gen Baisa and Ms Bel. Secretary Lapus was the guest of honor and luckily, Ambassador del Rosario asked me to join them at their table. We talked about life, family, careers, and of course, CyberEducation! Here are some of the insights I gained from Secretary Lapus and from my own research about CyberEd: What is Cyber Education? I’m sure you’ve heard of open and distance education (a.k.a. distance learning). This is a hot topic in our generation because of the availability of fast-paced information and communications technology (ICT), which includes e-mail, the Internet, multimedia resources, etc. Distance learning (DL) is not new. [1] It was invented in 1840 by the Englishman Sir Isaac Pitman when he started giving lessons to his students by mail. What a revolutionary idea! You don’t have to go to a classroom anymore to learn. All you have to do is correspond with your teacher by mail. You don’t have to pay for expensive classroom space! No more costly transportation fees! Distance learning gives every one access to learning, wherever, whenever. Progressive countries picked up on the idea right away. In the 1900s, DL was established at the University of Chicago. In 1911, the Department of External Studies was created at the University of Queensland, Australia. And in 1969, The Open University was founded (after much objection by conservatives) in the UK [2] with the mission of bringing high quality degree-level learning to people who don’t have the opportunity to attend campus universities. In the 21st century, Distance Learning is growing at an even faster pace, thanks to e-mail, satellite broadcasts, videos, teleconferencing and, most recently, the Internet. With the arrival of hundreds of online universities, DL is now more commonly known as online learning. The concept is still the same -- by using ICT, we can provide quality education to those who don’t have access to it. So what is CyberEd? The Cyber Education Project (CEP) is the name of DepEd’s revolutionary project that will institutionalize distance learning in our public school system. By using satellite and computer technologies, public school administrators, teachers and students will have access to video instructions and online resources that are sure to raise the standards of teaching and learning, especially in public schools that are at risk. What a wonderful idea! I think, this alone, is reason enough to support CyberEd. But if you’re not yet convinced, then here are seven more reasons which will make you a supporter of CyberEd: 1) CyberEd will level the playing field US Education Secretary Horace Mann, the Father of American Education, once said, "Education is the great equalizer of the conditions of men." And we all agree! But the problem is, not all education systems are created equal. We all know that private schools are somewhat better than public schools. And urban public schools usually have higher standards than the ones in the rural areas. The disparities can be lessened by CyberEd. By accessing short instructional videos presented by “master teachers,” public school students and teachers can increase their knowledge in the subject areas of Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies. The “master teachers” will also prepare lesson plans that go with their videos so that public school teachers will be guided in their teaching. They will also have access to shared online resources including worksheets, websites, etc. As a teacher, I know that this kind of support will immediately increase the quality of teaching and learning, for sure! 2) CyberEd will assist teacher-training The “master teachers” in the instructional videos don’t have to be teachers. Some of them can be resource presenters. For example, the topic is about lawmaking, the presenter can be a senator. So, the public school teacher and the students learn first-hand from experts. Teachers will improve their subject-matter mastery and this will boost their confidence in teaching. Plus of course, with CyberEd, teachers can have access to online degrees to further their professional development. Some people have the misconception that as soon as a teacher graduates from a teacher-training course, that’s it. This is certainly not the case. Even teachers who have masteral and doctorate degrees will admit to the fact that there’s always a need for continuing professional development. Even wealthy private schools who have highly-qualified teachers, allocate thousands of dollars every year to make sure that there is sufficient on-site and external training for their teachers and administrators. 3) CyberEd will help standardize education Depending on its implementation, CyberEd can promote consistency in the standards of teaching and assessments in public schools. I can see the potential of having an online portal where teachers from anywhere in the country can access easy-to-use lesson plans and digital resources prepared by experts. We have a national curriculum but its delivery varies from school to school depending on available resources, human and/or financial. By using the same videos, lesson plans, and online resources, there can be more consistency in the delivery of the national curriculum. We are already seeing improvements in our students’ performance in the standardized tests. I’m sure we will see more when we implement CyberEd. 4) CyberEd will improve communication CyberEd will promote online networking among public schools and DepEd offices. Administrators and teachers will have access to e-mail and websites. Memoranda, letters, reminders, and all kinds of messages will be communicated instantly. I don’t think there’s a need to point out the benefits of having direct communication in any organization, and in any relationship for that matter. It’s simply a must! 5) CyberEd will lessen our dependence on textbooks Back in 2000, Microsoft’s Bill Gates predicted that “Less of the school budgets will be spent on textbooks and more on learning through technology.” [3] Bill Gates’ dream is obviously a textbook publisher’s nightmare. I won’t be surprised to see some of the textbook publishers supporting protests against CyberEd. Somewhere along the way, we have been conditioned to believe that the only way we can achieve quality education in public schools is by having a student-textbook ratio of 1:1. Every year, the government spends billions of pesos on textbooks. What’s worse is that there may even be some irregularities in textbook procurement, according to Senator Lacson. [4] Maybe it’s time we let go of this system. Maybe it’s time we realize the vast potential of having an online portal that will store teaching materials and resources. A portal that will allow access to teachers so that when they like to use something, they just access it, print it and make enough photocopies for their students. No more textbooks. In the not-so-distant future, when we really get our act together, we may not even have to print documents because each public school student will have their own laptop. Believe it or not, many schools abroad are now providing a laptop for every student, as early as Grade 1. 6) CyberEd will increase Internet access in the country, especially in rural areas The December 2000 Report of the Web-Based Education Commission to the President and the Congress of the United States has this to say about the Power of the Internet for Learning: "the Internet enables education to occur in places where there is none, extends resources where there are few, expands the learning day, and opens the learning place. It connects people, communities, and resources to support learning. It adds graphics, sound, video, and interaction to give teachers and students multiple paths for understanding. the Web is a medium today’s kids expect to use for expression and communication." Not surprisingly, the Commission made key recommendations that all point toward the implementation of tech projects with features similar to that of CyberEd’s. [5] 7) CyberEd will help the marginalized and the disadvantaged Oxfam International says in their campaign, "Education is critical to breaking the cycle of poverty… Education is a key to enable poor individuals and marginalized communities to take control of their lives and stand up for their rights." We all know that this is true. We can argue about the different paths to social development, but we all recognize the central role played by education in helping the poor help themselves get out of poverty. The tragic death of Mariannet Amper has awakened our senses to the harsh realities of poverty and now, many of us are asking the question, "How can we help?" Well, here’s one answer: You can help by writing the Education Secretary, your congressman, senators, and the Office of the President and let them know that we, the people, support CyberEd! Your voice counts I read an article in the Inquirera few days ago saying that the Cyber Education Project is still under review by government panels as its credibility was affected by another Chinese-financed government project, the National Broadband Network. I think we need to let our voices be heard by our leaders so that they can make the right decision. I hope you can find time to promote CyberEd. Blog about it, e-mail your friends and write your representatives about this project. It’s a project that will directly assist in providing quality education to the future citizens of our great nation. === References: [1] The Origins of Distance Education and Its Use in the United States. Contributors: Diane Matthews - author. Journal Title: Technological Horizons in Education Journal. Volume: 27. Issue: 2. Publication Year: 1999. Page Number: 54. COPYRIGHT 1999 T.H.E. Journal [2] http://www.open.ac.uk/about/ou/p3.shtml [3] School Textbooks Are Doomed but Kids Will Always Need Teachers; GATES PLANS LAPTOPS FOR ALL. Contributors: Richard Garner Education -- author. Newspaper Title: The Mirror. Publication Date: February 2, 2000. Page Number: 14. COPYRIGHT 2000 [4] http://www.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2006/1011_lacson1.asp [5] The Power of the Internet for Learning: Final Report of Web-Based Education Commission. December 2000 (http://www.ed.gov/offices/AC/WBEC/FinalReport/index.html) (Also posted in www.lestercavestany.com)

An Open Letter To: The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources Red alert on possible massive human poisoning and fisheries disaster in the Philippines and Malaysia This is in relation to the news circulating worldwide that “an official go signal to dump 500 tons of urea into the Sulu Sea near the Philippines for a large scale “carbon sequestration” experiment without an Environmental Impact Assessment. The experimental urea dumping may happen this year (2007). According to press reports a further 1, 000-ton urea dump is planned for Malaysian waters in 2008 and the company is also considering additional ocean sites close to the United Arab Emirates, Chile and possibly Morocco.” If the Ocean Nourishment Corporation (ONC) of Sydney (?) in collaboration with some academic institutions in the Visayas (?) would really dump urea in the seas between the Philippines and Borneo we could positively expect massive toxic phytoplankton blooms and/or fish kills in the area including the inland waters of the Philippines and Malaysia. If we had experienced thousands of human poisoning from toxic algal blooms in the Philippines in the past we should expect and prevent more from this possible disaster. Please see these news articles circulating all over the world. http://www.etcgroup.org/en/materials/publications.html?pub_id=660 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/05/eapacific105.xml http://www.etcgroup.org/en/materials/publications.html?pub_id=659 http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/11/carbon-offset-c.html http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/11/common-sense-an.html Rhodora V. Azanza, PhD Professor and Scientist Harmful Algal Blooms/Red Tide Laboratory The Marine Science Institute UP Diliman

IF we take the Philippines' political events onto the world stage, it definitely shows that Filipinos are gullible. It seems that they buy into all kinds of lies being peddled, especially by authorities. Let's take the "cash gift" as an example. When it was first brought up by Governor Panlilio, nobody wanted to admit that it actually happened. The poor governor looked like he concocted a story to gain media mileage. However, it turned out that many actually received a bagful of money. While nobody was quick to come out and take responsibility for it, now everybody is eager to acknowledge that they are the source. But why only now? Will the people buy these now? If they do, Filipinos are indeed gullible. If lies are peddled by sidewalk vendors struggling to bring food on the table, it is understandable. But if governors and congressmen, looked upon as trustworthy and transparent, do not tell the truth, what hope do we have as a country? If the things that are happening [took place] in other countries, many of these government officials would have already resigned their post. They value their names and honor more than their positions and the mighty peso. What else can be done when the heart is already callous? The only thing left to be done is to institute a moral revolution. This should start from the people and not from the present set of elected officials. In the next election, forget the name and the political affiliation. Rather, vote for those who are least in the eyes of men but great in the eyes of God -- the honest, the truthful, the ones who are willing to become servants of all, those who treat their office as a position of trust and thus are willing to give it up when accused of irregularities. May God bless the Philippines. -- Teck Uy, Ontario, Canada (via e-mail)

IN SOLIDARITY with Neo-Angono Artists Collective, the artists of TutoK express their indignation at the censorship of the mural on the History of Press Freedom, commissioned by the National Press Club (NPC), and ironically defaced and revised shortly after the same mural was installed and transferred to the NPC's custody. The mural unveiled on October 26 on the 55th anniversary of the NPC was changed without the artists' consent. Our initial reaction was of lament. This act would be deemed unexpected of an institution representing a profession that we hold in high esteem. In the interest of social responsibility, artists, like writers and journalists, are practitioners of creative craft in the service of truth and the pursuit of justice. As the mural aptly means to depict, the history of the struggle for press freedom is not the struggle of press and media people alone, but the struggle of a nation seeking freedom from imperialist and fascist bondage. Sadly, what should have been a pictorial vista affirming NPC's place in history in unity with past and more recent heroes and martyrs for freedom's cause has been besmirched, defaced and censored by the NPC leadership itself with its smug and misinformed claim -- that since it commissioned and paid for the mural, it has the absolute right as owner to change it and ultimately decide its fate. The NPC leadership is in effect saying that it's nobody else's business because it’s their property. Two fallacies come to surface in the NPC leadership's feeble defense. First, it denies that it committed censorship, and insists on calling it an act of alteration. Was it just pure whim on their part to authorize the painting over of the International Federation of Journalists' statement on behalf of press freedom against the implementation of the anti-terror law? Why erase the news on abduction of Jonas Burgos? Why did it try to disguise or change names and personages integral to the artist's depiction of past and progressive crises on the right to free expression? The NPC leadership conveniently denies that the so-called alterations -- hurriedly implemented right before the launch graced by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and right after an ocular inspection by the Presidential Security Group -- are connected to the said events. NPC president Roy Mabasa insists that no one influenced their decision. Indeed, there is no censorship in the Philippines. Authorities lash against criticism in the most furtive ways; there will always be minions to do the dirty work. If we are besieged by extra-judicial killings and abductions at large, NPC's current leadership has enacted the killing and abduction of the constitutional right to freedom of expression by hiring other artists to deface the work of the Neo-Angono artists. The next fallacy manifests itself in the NPC leadership's invocation of its authority, presented in news reports as expressions of magnanimity. NPC director Joel Sy Egco asserts that: 1) the alterations are not permanent and will not harm the artwork; and 2) the alterations were not meant to offend and therefore the artists have not been harmed. These statements would have us believe that the issue is simply a contractual dispute between Neo-Angono and the NPC. Who owns the mural and who gets to control what it should speak of eventually, and for all posterity? This is the reductive question posited by NPC in its defense. The answer is clearly stated in the Intellectual Property Code (IPC) of the Philippines. What applies to writers and other authors and creators of original works clearly applies to Neo-Angono. The collective and its artist members alone have the right to revise the artwork as a whole or by parts, unless the artists themselves elect to disclaim or assign that right to others in writing. The law applies even if the artwork has been bought or paid for by an owner. It therefore follows that the owner of an artwork is expected to act as custodian of the artist's right and is committed to protect the original integrity of the artwork once the artist or artists declare it has already been created and done. The sum of 900,000 pesos for an 8 by 32-foot mural becomes even paltrier, given the NPC leadership's reckless notion that the amount paid entitles them to violate the law. Chapter X, Sec. 193.3, under the Law on Copyright in the IPC states that the author of a work has the right to: "To object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to, his work which would be prejudicial to his honor or reputation" These and other rights are guaranteed and binding under laws on copyright, and need not be declared in contracts and registrations. The Philippines is a signatory to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, and is therefore bound to the rule that the artist's moral and economic rights to his work is automatically in force upon creation, locally and internationally, even without being asserted and declared, and will continue to be applied up to fifty years after the creator's demise. Having clearly violated the rights of the Neo-Angono Artists Collective, the NPC leadership must account for a larger moral affront in the public realm: that of being complicit in the gagging of free expression and the distortion of an expressed facet of our own history. Claiming not to take sides does not give NPC the license to silence and censor what is meant to be expressed. Otherwise, it should not have commissioned a mural on the history of press freedom and should have opted for something safe and decorative to grace the wall of its Headline Restaurant. The NPC as a senior organization of journalists should be the bastion of ethical practice and the protection of universal human rights. The freedom of the press is staked not on its practitioners alone but on the freedom of everyone, and it only follows that it entails great responsibility. Neo-Angono Artist Collective's assertion that it stands firm, that it will not back down, that it will not agree to any change in what its artists have painstakingly researched and expressed is already a declaration of responsibility. We artists and citizens look in askance as to when the current leadership of National Press Club will take a similar act of responsibility. -- TutoK (via e-mail)

A SUPPOSEDLY good corporate citizen like Ayala Land Inc. (ALI) was unlikely to do anything that would be a great disservice to the country. But ALI showed what is under its hood by paying its own so-called experts to contradict the findings of the PNP and volunteer experts from the Australian Federal Police and Israel. ALI should have picked the proper time and forum to bring its experts out from the closet. As it was, ALI frittered away the fine corporate image it nurtured over many years. It took a foreign dignitary, US Ambassador Kristie Kenney, to remind everybody, including ALI, that those saying otherwise should realize what a terror attack in Metro Manila would mean to the country as a whole. ALI must rethink its hidden suggestion that terrorists or political agitators were behind the Glorietta 2 explosion. The ploy -- obviously an advance defense for possible charges of gross negligence resulting in deaths and injuries to persons -- is a public relations disaster. -- Armando Batara, Parañaque City, Philippines (via e-mail)

IT strikes me as odd that the University of the Philippines, especially its "militant" community, is quick to point out excesses in government and in the private sector but is slow in taking action in cases of fraternity hazing. To my mind, there is no clear justification for violence especially for those who only seek a semblance of affiliation and brotherhood in an academic community such as UP. Perhaps university officials should start to crack the whip on these fraternities, if only to show that it can serve justice to victims of hazing in the same way the university community calls for transparency and honest-to-goodness governance. -- Kjell Aboy, Bajada, Davao City, Philippines (via e-mail)