Posts published during September, 2007
May 30, 2007. On the way back south to the southern bay area, we passed by Tiburon, a small and picturesque seaside town along San Francisco Bay. We had lunch at this fancy restaurant at the town’s docks where tens of yachts where docked. It had a nice view of San Francisco from across the bay. After the late lunch, we also drove through Sausalito, another picturesque seaside town north of San Francisco before re-entering the highway back to San Francisco.
September 13, 2007. It was a day after former President Joseph Estrada was convicted of plunder. Groups of students from different schools in Metro Manila marched from Espana to Morayta and near Mendiola under the scorching heat of the sun to demand for greater state subsidy for education.
Prior to the collective march, students from the University of the Philippines gathered at the lobby of Palma Hall in Diliman and held discussions and a program to continue calling for the junking of the Tuition and Other Fee Increases policy and to protest against the demolition of residential communities in UP, among other issues. After the program, the bulk of students held a snake rally through the halls of the building to invite students to join the march.
May 30, 2007. After dropping by our second vista point of the Golden Gate Bridge, we continued driving north of San Francisco to Muir Woods National Monument in Marin County. It’s apparently one of the last ancient coastal redwood forests in the San Francisco Bay area.
Together with my friends in a Broad Comm 130 class, we finally finished shooting Lloyd of all Trades last Wednesday afternoon. This is the same production I mentioned here. Boy, was that an awkward and odd experience.
Lloyd is a Architecture freshman who’s on the verge of dropping out of school and being kicked out of his boarding house because of financial difficulties primarily due to the tuition and other fee increases imposed on their batch in UP. Fortunately (or not) for him, after almost being run over by a jeepney, he overhears two Fine Arts students talking about job opening as a nude model. Despite all his inhibitions, he gives it a thought but immediately calls it off. By some twisted comedic turn of events, his last fifty peso bill flies off from his wallet and he ends up in the nude modeling audition as he chases his bill off.
[Continued from here]. August 26, 2007. After the trip to Itogon, we went back to have lunch at UP Baguio. After which was a whole afternoon of writing resolutions and passing them through sessions. It got a little tedious towards the end but interesting and enlightening nonetheless, as it affirmed our solidarity with student councils of other UP System colleges and units.
[Continued from here]. August 26, 2007. The morning of the second day of the KASAMA sa UP assembly was spent with some indigenous peoples’ rights advocates in one of Benguet province’s open pit gold mines. It took three packed jeepneys almost an hour to transport all of us delegates to Itogon, Benguet from Baguio City.
The open pit mine is operated by one of the oldest and most infamous mining corporations in the Philippines, Benguet Corporation, set up by occupying Americans more than a century ago. You know, it’s really disturbing how we’ve all been lead to believe that mining will help our economy and our people, but all they’ve done for the past century is to plunder our mineral riches out of the country. Of course, to sugarcoat and compensate for these companies’ exploitation of the local’s resources, destruction of its ecology and the plundering of its riches, they build schools, a few houses and roads which in reality only reinforce hegemonic status quo and make the people dependent on foreign aid, foreign goods and foreign intervention. We were told that despite the relatively recent enactment of laws that protect and promote the rights of indigenous peoples in the Philippines, it serves little use to the people of Itogon because of Benguet Corporation’s insistence on their immunity due to their incorporation in 1903.
Last Saturday, I went to Philippine Science High School for the first Bloggers’ Kapihan event organized by my co-bloggers Jhay, Mong, Sarah, Shari, Sir Martin and Vencer. It all started one Saturday morning in August when we conceived the plan for a forum on blogging. Somehow, it became part of the plan for me to speak and talk about student blogging to high school students.
Up until the day before the event, I didn’t know what to say. I’ve been blogging for almost seven years without consciously following any set of tips nor rules, and I didn’t know what new idea to impart to high school students. I never thought of myself as a resource speaker on blogging. My having a blog for almost seven years is only an incidental function of having the privilege of having a computer with an internet connection at 12 years old, seven years ago, and having enough time and personal experiences to share, and not really because I actively pursued this “pioneer blogger” status. Hehe.
After briefly talking about how I started blogging, I eventually gave out a handful of random tips to the audience with a crammed PowerPoint presentation to boot. I’ll write about it in another entry, though, when I have enough time. As you can see, I haven’t blogged for a week now because of the heap of academic and extra-curricular school work I’ve been attending to.
[Continued from here]. August 25, 2007. After being dropped off at one of the bus terminals, we hailed a taxi to our assigned dormitory in Quezon Hill. It was the first time I rode a taxi in Baguio, and I was pleasantly surprised at how low the fares are. Within a few minutes, we reached AKAP dormitory. I was given a small room with a double-deck bed. Later that day, a brod of mine, Jay, who came to Baguio as a representative from the College of Arts & Letters student council joins me as a roommate.
Last Wednesday, as a response to some prodding from a few friends in Mass Comm, I auditioned for a Broad Comm 130 class’ “dramedy” pilot episode. I auditioned for the lead role of Lloyd, who, according to the audition ad, was supposed to be a young college freshman who has an expressive face and an innocent appeal. Fair enough. When I went to the auditions on Wednesday morning, I found out more about the story, and found myself glad to be auditioning for it, because it tackles an issue close to what we do in STAND-UP. I eventually got the role.
Lloyd’s supposed to be a freshman on the brink of dropping out of school because of financial difficulties due to the tuition and other fee increases (TOFI) imposed on their batch. To save himself from dropping out and from being kicked out of his boarding house, he decides to take on jobs to earn money. Unfortunately for me, one of those jobs turns out to be a nude modeling stint for an art class. I was assured however, that, I need not strip all the way during the shoot. Whew.
I had refrained from posting about the death of Cris Mendez the past few days, because it might be misconstrued as a politicized statement, no matter how genuine my intentions might be. First, because I am a member of the Upsilon Sigma Phi; second, because I’m an officer of STAND-UP, where the implicated fraternity is highly associated with during campus elections. A knee-jerk reaction (even from me) might have caused more trouble or problems that the ones already at hand. But this shall go beyond my affiliations. I have been asked why I haven’t blogged about this nor said anything. Let me then at least speak as a UP student, and perhaps, as a new recruit myself. (I was recruited late January this year).
law student, national democracy activist, film school graduate, photography hobbyist