Bloggers Kapihan took note of my post on Blog Action Day, privileged enough to be included in the roundup. I was surprised and impressed that BK actually read my post and bothered to quote a couple of paragraphs in it.
That BK took the initiative to promote the Blog Action Day (more than 13,000 blogs from 155 countires with 18 million readers participated) in the Philippines proves that they are serious in blogging — blogging for the people, should I call it. BK surely leads the way.
More power to Bloggers Kapihan! More power to Blog Action Day!
I take the recent flooding in the Philippines personally, not only because it caused so much inconvenience, not only because it involved evacuated relatives who lost properties, and not simply because it made me part with a small amount of money which represents a big chunk of my lifetime savings, but more importantly because of bigger reasons which though externally distant feels more like one with proximity to me .
I do not simply take it personal that power failure, food shortage, worsened traffic, epidemic and all other things that I despise in this already miserable world would further complicate my burdens but that further and beyond all these lies the original sin of this damned lives of ours.
The deluge brought about by the back-to-back typhoon cum flood brought out the best in Pinoy spirit and the worst in Philippine state of affairs and demands that the issue of calamities and natural disaster be finally raised to a higher discourse and not simply get buried in the mud and debris of the aftermath.
When the extent of devastation and its frequency of occurrence undeniably increases it is not correct to view the disaster as simply a charity issue where every conscience responds with a token donation and volunteer work.
The masses of poor people are always the worst hit by any calamity owing to their sub-human living conditions — living in their makeshift houses in flood-prone areas — and lack of resources to restart their lives. It is necessary that direct government responsibility be stressed as it is the chief overseer of the country’s affairs. It demands of accountability as the state and its apologists try to obscure the issue.
But this should not stop at government action, reaction or inaction.
Beyond its response or lack of it to the calamity, it should be made to answer for the laws it passes and the policies it upholds not only about disaster preparedness but also relative to the overall economic and political system it protects that exploits the people and condemn them to poverty — making them suffer the most during natural disasters.
Further beyond this is the mother issue of climate change, a wanton destruction of our fragile atmosphere by the corporations of rich industrialized countries, chief of them the US, whose greed for profits not only destroyed our environment but exploited the peoples of the world as well.
The global capitalist order has caused so much poverty and destruction through wars and climate change that its criminal record against humanity warrants a deluge by the people more ferocious than the ones the exploiting countries have caused nature to produce.
This has been causing me serious anxiety and sleepless nights, so I take climate change personally.
River giant paddlefish, bigger than the giant Mekong catfish and the Amazon arapaima, vanishes.
the amazon arapaima a.k.a. pirarucu
Along with the Yangtze River Dolphin, the only known freshwater dolphin (this species separated from the other marine mammals like whales 40 to 20 million years ago), the 7 meter long giant Chinese paddlefish joins the growing list of extinct animals. For six long years, scientists have not seen a live species and have failed to find, locate and catch a single fish during its three-year survey. For full story click here
Yangtze river dolphin: the world's only freshwater dolphin.
The yangtze river dolphin, aka baiji, is the first species of cetacean – the group containing all whales, dolphins and porpoises – to have become extinct as a result of human activities. Read here for more accounts and sad story of baiji’s extinction.
Meanwhile, the declining number of the Giant Mekong catfish has prompted scientists to track this critically endangered other freshwater fish in Cambodia. See full story here.
the giant mekong catfish
One thing that definitely affects these and other migratory species is the altered river systems, i.e. the establishment of dams, aside from massive-scale human environmental impact like uncontrolled and unselective fishing.
The news was so telling, an electrician, while buying something from a neighborhood store, was beaten up for not knowing the song one of the suspects was singing when asked, and then finally stabbed to death. The song? Nobody.
How could a song be so influential to cause death? The song apparently was so popular that “nobody” should not know it – under pain of death.
So what is this “Nobody”? This Korean song (which has an English version) is by an all-girl Korean pop group called Wonder Girls formed in 2007 and whose members were products of an extensive search-audition.
A global hit with fans from Paris to Pasay, Wonder Girls is a sensation no Filipino pop group has ever accomplished. Which is a shame to a people who prides itself as the most musically talented people in this side of the globe.
How could Koreans who are not well known for their musicality become popular in such field which Filipinos claim as their God-given field of expertise and hold with virtual license and instinctive pride? They don’t sing and dance ad nauseum like Filipinos do. They don’t have Arnel Pinedas and Charice Pempengcos who make it in America. Filipinos are better English singers.
Well, not even Pineda’s older and most watched Youtube video can match WonderGirls’ more recent video’s view hits. They have more fans, they are more popular, and they are known for their own songs!
How could this be?
Simple. Rather than developing our own, we insist on copying others, trying to claim their audience as our own by imitating the original in the vain hope that the adulation would be ours as well. By endlessly aping our colonial masters, we have ceased to know and see who we truly are, and what we can do.
Pineda and Pempengco have better voices and are more talented. But these pathetic copycats are left biting the dust in the popularity and identity race by the underrated and allegedly less talented Koreans.
The Koreans have now Wonder Girls and we only have a fake Steve Perry, a Dion-Houston wannabe and a fake president.
Is it any wonder that we are left behind even in a field where we proudly yet foolishly thought we were the race to beat?
Nepenthes attenboroughii. Found on Mount Victoria in central Palawan, Philippines in 2007 after a tip from two Christian missionaries who saw it in 2000 when they climbed the mountain.
Where else could you find rare wildlife but in Palawan, and who else would discover them but foreign scientists. It amuses me that it would take people from halfway across the globe — a country with less people than ours — to take great interest in nature’s great wonders and make important scientific discoveries in our own backyard.
Is it too much to expect from our close to 90 million people to discover and protect its own? Isn’t it ironic that we have presence in all countries in the world and yet fail in conquering our own land?
But this is nothing really new. We always look at the others to find something good, aping them by all means because we find them superior. Our standards of greatness lie in the achievements of others and not what we have attained on our own. We take pride not in discovering, asserting and developing our own, but in imitating and conforming to the others.
We would rather morph into somebody else than be ourselves. And we find nothing wrong with it.
I wanted to write something about Martin Nievera’s controversial rendition of the National anthem during the last Pacquiao match, but decided not to when a friend showed me a facebook, yes the FB, link to this blog about Nievera. And I found it too good not to post here.
So what makes a blogger forget he had a blog? Facebook.
I have migrated from one social network to another for the past 5 years. Starting from the cheesy Friendster to the now-insecure Myspace to the current fave Facebook. Some people insist that social networks are for those without real social life, living in their virtual social world where interaction is as real only as your computer games.
Of course this is untrue. Scoial network is an extension of your social life, keeping you connected to people you know and interacting as a group in a more regular fashion. One interacts with real people, not virtual characters. The medium of interaction is the only thing different. It’s akin to a “tambayan” or a place where one can hang out without the physical travel.
Logging on to your account is like a short trip to this place which you can do while at work or doing your school paper, while in a boring meeting or downloading multimedia.
It’s not for people without a life but rather for those who actually have a lot to share with others. Imagine your updates without activities, photos, notes.
It is also for those who are bored. I myself have answered quite a number of quizzes. “What Greek God are You?” or “Which middle earth character are you?” and so on.
Of course this can’t replace real socializing. But hey, whoever said that? One thing is sure, it does enhance it in the same way that blogs did not replace literature or the press but contributed to it.
Oh by the way, Happy Second Anniversary to Full Circle! Two years, bah.
Posted by diego rojo banaag 
Posted by diego rojo banaag 
Posted by diego rojo banaag 
