Andy Warhol, Prophet

Fame is just a YouTube upload away. Moymoy Palaboy was on the Inquirer today. I decided to check them out. Their work is derivative of the Chinese Backstreet Boys, but what the heck. I dare say they're funnier. :)

This is my favourite so far. The brothers singing Avril Lavigne's Girlfriend



And Marimar comes in a close second. Hahaha.

Internet Art

Butch says its internet art. I like. Here's Matt Harding showing us how the world is getting smaller and smaller.

A Forum on the Brand of Political Leadership in Today's Nation-Building

Ateneo de Manila University-School of Government
and the
Ateneo de Manila University-Department of Political Science

would like to invite you to:

A Forum on the Brand of Political Leadership in Today's Nation-Building

featuring talks by our most inspiring Local Government Leaders today:

Gov. Eddie Panlilio (Pampanga)
Gov. Grace Padaca (Isabela)
Mayor Jesse Robredo (Naga City)
Mayor Sonia Lorenzo (San Isidro, Nueva Ecija)

July 30,2008 (Wednesday)
4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Leong Hall, Ground Floor, Ricardo and Rosita Leong Center for Chinese Studies,
Ateneo de Manila University, Loyola Heights, Quezon City, MM

Seats are limited. Please confirm your attendance to this event by sending at email to Kai Pastores at kai.pastores@yahoo.com or you can contact us at (02) 426-5657.

musiKolokya

The UNIVERSITY STUDENT COUNCIL
COMMITTEE FOR CULTURE AND THE ARTS

in cooperation with the

Department of Musicology
UP COLLEGE OF MUSIC

and the

CMu STUDENT COUNCIL

musiKolokya: Musical politicking, political musicking: a forum on the interaction of music and politics

Speakers:

Jonas Baes, Ph.D.
Raul Navarro, Ph.D.
and
Noel Cabangon

Thursday, July 10, 2008
4:00 pm
Museum of Instruments
UP College of Music

The forum explores the impact of politics on musical creation and reproduction and, conversely, the role of music in the political arena. Of particular interest will be the function of music as a tool of social persuasion, transformation or dissidence.

Dr. Jonas U. Baes is a composer, ethnomusicologist and activist who has written on the Iraya-Mangyan of Mindoro and issues of hegemony and cultural politics. He currently chairs the Department of Composition and Music Theory.

Dr. Raul C. Navarro is chair of the Department of Conducting and author of Kolonyal na patakaran at ang nagbabagong kamalayang Filipino: Musika sa publikong paaralan sa Pilipinas, 1898-1935. He has also lectured on the music of the Martial Law era.

Noel Cabangon is an acclaimed singer, songwriter and musical director; he is the voice behind the popular song “Kanlungan”.

Ang musiKolokya (dating kilala bilang Music Colloquia) ay tagpuan ng mga mag-aaral, guro, mananaliksik, manlilikha, artista, kritiko at manunulat sa musika. Layon ng tagpuan ang pagpapalitan ng mga ideya at pananaw tungo sa pagpapayaman ng kaalaman sa musika, kultura at lipunan. Ang mga diskusyon, bagama’t malalim ay impormal at kaayaya. Ang tagpuan ay bukas para sa lahat. Para sa karagdagang impormasyon, tumawag sa telepono bilang 981-8500 lokal 2635 o magpadala ng e-mail kay Dr. Verne dela Peña, Tagapangulo ng Departamento ng Musikolohiya, sa verne.dela_pena@up.edu.ph.

An 'End' Too Late

This pronouncement has probably come a decade too late. Now people recognise the failure of deifying 'markets.' Well, experiments have been done, with countries in the 'Third World' as guinea pigs, but we can hardly turn back to the clock. No use crying over spilled milk. Joseph Stiglitz writes:

The world has not been kind to neo-liberalism, that grab-bag of ideas based on the fundamentalist notion that markets are self-correcting, allocate resources efficiently, and serve the public interest well. It was this market fundamentalism that underlay Thatcherism, Reaganomics, and the so-called “Washington Consensus” in favor of privatization, liberalization, and independent central banks focusing single-mindedly on inflation.

For a quarter-century, there has been a contest among developing countries, and the losers are clear: countries that pursued neo-liberal policies not only lost the growth sweepstakes; when they did grow, the benefits accrued disproportionately to those at the top.

Though neo-liberals do not want to admit it, their ideology also failed another test. No one can claim that financial markets did a stellar job in allocating resources in the late 1990’s, with 97% of investments in fiber optics taking years to see any light. But at least that mistake had an unintended benefit: as costs of communication were driven down, India and China became more integrated into the global economy.

While I am now far too old to reify global regulating institutions like the IMF and the World Bank and label them as 'evil' and such, maybe it is time to recognise them as open to politicisation and personal interests. Robert Zoellick, current WB President, was appointed by El Dubya. This might explain why the biofuel report was suppressed - Zoellick didn't want to make his benefactor look like an ass. Among other things.

Maybe it is also time for a bit of diversity amongst the twin institutions' staff. They have not benefited from intellectual in-breeding - their staffers coming from pretty much the same universities and such. And wouldn't it be great if they actually put a non-American and a non-European as heads of these institutions? Especially for the World Bank. I mean, come on. This should be common sense. How can you make policy prescriptions for the Third World having never lived there?

I volunteered for a development conference in Brisbane last January. I took away a couple of things from the week-long experience. First, 'development' really has become an industry of sorts. There is an army of professionals out there who make 'developmen' their business. Second, there were two moments that would forever be etched in my mind.

I sat in the opening plenary session where Graeme Wheeler, WB Managing Director, was speaker. I sat there and heard him tell me that the world has experienced 'unprecedented growth' in the last forty years. I do wonder where this 'growth' has occured. In the same breath he then said that income inequality has increased in less developed countries. And with new calculations based on purchasing power parity, surely there was now more than one billion people living on less than a dollar a day. Huh?!?

During one of the coffee breaks I had a bit of talk with a young economist from Portugal. I think my questions became a bit too critical, I mean, questions are by nature critical aren't they? He had a bit of a start as though a thought had just occured to him. After which he looked me accusingly in the eyes and said, "Oh wow. You're one of the NGO types aren't you?" As though that invalidated everything else I had said. I was not an economist and therefore I was not worth wasting his breath on. He said the words as though they left a filthy aftertaste in his mouth. I cringe now at the memory. I hope he doesn't ever climb the ranks.

For Shame

With my imported degree, people are constantly asking me if I have any plans of joining the Philippine diplomatic corps. Pasensya na ha. I have absolutely no wish to engage in the fiction that diplomacy works for the "national interest." If you mean living the high life at the expense of tax payers' money, then that constitutes self-service, not public service. And then you hear of news like this:

NEW YORK -- AMBASSADOR Lauro Liboon Baja Jr., who headed the Philippine Mission to the United Nations from 2003 to 2007, is one of four defendants in a civil complaint alleging trafficking, forced labor, peonage and racketeering.

...The complaint was filed by 39-year-old Marichu Suarez Baoanan through lawyers Aaron Mendelsohn of Troutman Sanders and Ivy O. Suriyopas of the Asian merican Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Ambassador Baja, 71, was also president of the UN Security Council in June 2004.

Baoanan...said she stayed at the five-story Philippine consular residence at 15 East 66th Street, New York—a townhouse where she was made to work 16 hours daily, seven days a week, in the Baja household.

Baoanan said she was paid only a total of $100 for three months of work, and another $100 for taking care of Facundo’s son who, she said, was allowed to hit her.

Wow. If the allegations are true, how many articles of the UN Declaration of Human Rights was violated by this big-time diplomat? You can also read more about Ambassador Baja's sterling diplomatic record here.

Oh my Ambassador. How far you have strayed. If the allegations are true - all that you have achieved and all you have done - will have become meaningless.

The Saudi-Filipino Democratic Deficit

How bizarre the transnationalised Filipino experience. Speaking with some colleagues over at the Polsci department, I learned that the Ghanan and Nigerian hackers my old company battled with everyday may have come all the way to the Philippines to train. Apparently, our people provide world-class cyber criminal expertise. So there I was, a Filipino policing our sites - trying to watch out for transnational prostitution and pedophilia, working with a staff from all corners of the globe, battling with Africans who may have been trained in Southeast Asia. Whew.

Last week I found out about this Arab News article written by Abdullah Al-Maghlooth praising Filipinos in Saudi Arabia. Red's Herring posted the item at Filipino Voices. Al Maglooth writes:

Saudi Arabia has the largest number of Filipino workers — 1,019,577 — outside the Philippines. In 2006 alone, the Kingdom recruited more than 223,000 workers from the Philippines and their numbers are still increasing. Filipinos not only play an important and effective role in the Kingdom, they also perform different jobs in countries across the world, including working as sailors. They are known for their professionalism and the quality of their work.

Nobody here can think of a life without Filipinos, who make up around 20 percent of the world’s seafarers. There are 1.2 million Filipino sailors.

So if Filipinos decided one day to stop working or go on strike for any reason, who would transport oil, food and heavy equipment across the world? We can only imagine the disaster that would happen.

In an exercise of futurology, let us imagine a Saudi Arabia without its 1 million Filipino workers. More importantly, what would this absolute monarchy look like without all of its 6-7 million migrant labour? The symbiotic relationship between the Kingdom's foreign workers keeping the balance and stability of the Saudi society will be broken.

If migrant labour were to leave en masse, nobody will be left to man Saudi industries. The co-opted middle class - all feeding off the riches of the Saudi rentier state - will be galvanised into action. There will be mass discontent among the likes of Mr. Al-Maghlooth as he is forced to really work hard for his living. Social forces - i.e. the nascent working and middle classes as well as civil society types best embodied by (moderate) Islamists - will be unleashed to topple the Saudi political tyranny. The reign of King Abduallah and his 10,000 or so princes will come to an end. Saudi Arabia, doubtlessly the political linchpin of the Middle East, and the geo-economic linchpin of the world, will finally join the twenty-first century.

A democratic Saudi Arabia will probably try to gain better control of its oil industries, and may have some ambition to unite the fragmented heart of Islam. For this to happen, all of the Arab world's migrant labour will also have to leave. The GCC alone has most of its nationals working for their States - highlighting the fact that there are no independent social forces to challenge the State's supremacy.

External powers, however, will not sit idly by and allow such events to happen. Superpowers to West and the East will make sure that all of the Middle East do not do another Iran.

Ha. So. Imagine a world without migrant Filipinos.

Dangerous Questions About Bananas

Intresting blog post at SocFinance. The author points to a New York Times op-ed piece which asks the question: why is the banana, grown waaay down in the tropics, cheaper than an apple grown on US soil? This spurs the author to further ask:

We do not doubt that objects can be valuated differently, but my question is about the calculative underpinnings that sustain inequalities between food producers (humans). It is one thing...to show that pricing and valuation of goods is socio-technically produced. It is quite another to pinpoint just how these prices have, in actual cases, participated in created economic inequalities capable of wiping out entire agricultural industries and shifting the geo-politics of production in favor of some populations over others.

And then this exchange on the blog comments yield yet more interesting questions:

alisonkemper1: "I see in this post some concerns about economic justice. Can SSF help to explain why economics that reinforces unequal distribution of value created has increasingly dominated the landscape?...Are we another form of dirty hippies guised as social scientists? Why do we care about the price of bananas?"

marthapoon: "Is interest in inequality necessarily about justice? SSF has a bad rap in sociolology for being about elites. I thought the post was about ‘bredth of question’ more than anything else…! "

alisonkemper1: "The range of discourse is itself a political decision, is it not? If you begin to speak of the inequality of distribution, you will begin to look for an answer to some difficult problems that others do not wish to open.

The only rightist response to the creation and buttressing of systems of unequal distribution of goods is willful obfuscation. If you ask why the low prices of bananas picked by black people in Jamaica are predicated upon the lower worth of the pickers’ labour, you are asking a dangerous question. BTW, isn’t almost all fruit in North America picked by Mexican and Caribbean people, whether as migrants or as workers in their homes and native lands?"

marthapoon: "A choice of discourse may be political but the question is, is this politics always necessarly defined on a classical spectrum of left and right? Aren’t there analytic questions that (are politically interesting precisely because they) defy these (rapidly shifting) classifications?

What you write about labour is interesting, becuase contrary to your reading, I actually thought this piece was about how the labour of the local Carribean worker is potentially higher in value than elsewhere since this fruit is actually more expensive that the one coming from abroad."

alisonkemper1: "I have no idea why North Americans needed bananas so cheap that it was worth having paramilitary forces aligned with fruit companies. It makes little sense to me.

But we must also explain why tropical fruit prices have fallen in real terms so radically. We don’t demand cheap bananas and pineapple, we demand them at a cost not much higher than zero.

We are willing to pay for mangoes, papayas, durian, pomelos and lichis. But we have to use masked goons all over Latin America to gain the prices we want for bananas.

We must explain both phenomena: the violence as part of the price, and the difference with other tropical fruit."

Yes, Economics is Politics

And here is a classic example. A World Bank study authored by Donald Mitchell never would have seen the light of day had it not been leaked to The Guardian recently.

Contrary to President Bush' claim that price increases can be blamed on more Indians and Chinese eating, the report shows in detail how world food prices have gone up 75% in the last six years due to the drive for biofuels in the world's largest agro-producing regions - the EU and the US.

It argues that production of biofuels has distorted food markets in three main ways. First, it has diverted grain away from food for fuel, with over a third of US corn now used to produce ethanol and about half of vegetable oils in the EU going towards the production of biodiesel. Second, farmers have been encouraged to set land aside for biofuel production. Third, it has sparked financial speculation in grains, driving prices up higher.

In what world is it possible for some investor (i.e. food speculator) in one of New Yorks finance firms able to influence the price of wheat??? Tom Philpott writes:

But when you think about it, why did speculators suddenly start bidding up the price of grains and soybeans two years ago? Answer: because they knew the U.S. and European governments were insuring a steady, and rising, market for those goods in the years ahead. So the big speculation wave stems from the welter of mandates and subsidies propping up the biofuels market.

In the meanwhie, 100 more people join the ranks of the starving poor. Yes, including those whom you see queueing for susbidised rice on Visayas Avenue and elsewhere. Including those random people knocking on you doors asking for lose change to buy food.

Aside from speculators, multinational agro-industries such as Monsanto are also raking it in. Forget the sub-prime crisis Nomi Prins writes, "The next price bubble to watch is food speculation.":

But without strong regulation of electronic exchanges and the derivatives products that enable speculators to move huge proportions of the futures markets underlying commodities, putting a bit of regulation into the London-based exchanges will not alleviate anything. Unless that's addressed, this bubble is going to take more than homes with it. It's going to take lives.

In the meanwhile, the world's rich country club meets in Tokyo to find solutions for problems they do not directly experience and which they cause either directly or indirectly through policy prescriptions. Of course they know better. Governments which represent 2/3 of the world's population (i.e. the suddenly ravenous Indians and Chinese) are invited, but they hold meetings in a separate room. Still not quite part of the 'club.'

Energy crises + food crises + casino capitalism = globalised misery.

Seriously, what kind of world is this?

At the Mercy of the Global Oil Markets?

Roads are blissfully free these days. One can have a ball driving on EDSA, even at peak hours. This is probably because petrol prices are going up almost a peso a day.

Walden Bello fo TNI writes:

What is so shocking about the current state of affairs is that our capacity to influence developments in oil has deteriorated from 25 years ago. Then we had a pro-active energy strategy, we had a government energy complex working to diversify our energy sources and we had mechanisms to influence the domestic
price of oil.

Today, in the era of oil deregulation, we are 100% at the mercy of Chevron-Caltex, Shell and Aramco, which controls Petron — the Philippines formerly state-run oil company. The OPEC countries that dominate the production of crude are often cast as the villains, yet the last few years have been years of record profits for the oil majors.

In the first three months of this year, the five largest US oil companies made a record $36 billion in profits, prompting the Democrats in Congress to push a bill to impose a 25% tax on “unreasonable profits”.

In the Philippines, the subsidiaries of the majors have been doing very well. In 2007, Shell’s net profit rose 54% over 2006, from P4.12 billion to P6.36 billion. Petron’s net profits rose 6.3%, from P6.02 billion to P6.4 billion. These are the reported figures, not necessarily the real profits, which are most likely higher.

The major oil companies act as a cartel and pretty much set whatever price they agree on, with no government intervention and little monitoring. All our officials can do is to exercise what economists call “moral suasion”, but we still have to find an oil company that will allow itself to be swayed by morality.

In the US, it takes four to six weeks before a rise in the price of crude is reflected in the pump price. In the Philippines, with the rapid succession of pump price rises, the truth is we no longer know how prices are being determined.

We don’t know if prices are being determined in response to actual past rises in crude prices or in anticipation of future price rises. Non-transparency is the rule in the oil industry.

Blast from the Past

Via Sir Martin, here is an invaluable historical artifact some generous soul uploaded on YouTube. This is Manila in 1938 - just before the Second World War. Just have one thing in mind - history is written by victors.

Manila Queen of the Pacific



Manila Castillian Memoirs

Stop Sulpicio Lines

In support of Tingog's Blog Swarm.

Civility

How does one teach civility to civil servants? I have found that the antidote to "masungit" bureaucrats is asking for their names.

Yesterday I went to the spanking new building of the UP Registrar to follow up my request for yet another batch of my Transcript. For some magical reason I was apparently underassessed by my old college waaaay back in 2002. At the clearance station I gave my claim stub to the man behind the window. Apparently the ToR claim stub was not the same as the clearance stub - which unfortunately did not have my name. I noted it was this same man who gave the same form to me some weeks back. It was in fact his fault that he did not put my name on it, and had not adviced me that I needed to do the seneseless act of writing my name when in fact all I needed to present him was a valid ID for him to process my request.

I give respect where it is due. However I will not tolerate being disrespected, even with the tone of voice. I particularly despise being made to feel like an inconvenience, as though I were a supplicant to the almighty public office of the man behind the desk. I noticed he had not bothered to look at me, and must have assumed I was a fresh grad - a youngling he could afford to intimidate.

"Eh pa'no ko hahanapin yan wala namang pangalan?" (So how will I find this if you don't have your name?"

I pointed to the ToR claim stub which bore my name in capitals. "Di ba pwede na ho ito?" (Isn't this enough?)

"Eh iba namang form yan eh." (No, but that is a different form).

Pasensya na ha, nagpanting talaga ang tenga ko.

When I am upset my eyes usually widen into huge saucers and my voice deepens noticeably. I realised this even as I looked him in the eye and asked him for his name. He asked for my ID. I asked for his name again. He said ID. Again I asked for his name. This went on for about 30 seconds. It would have been comical had I not been so incensed. Finally he gave his name. And I gave him my ID. Afterwards he became noticeably more civil.

Ah these bureaucrats. I have been on your case since before I left. And here I am doing battle with you again. Argh. To reiterate:

The Bureaucracy, unfortunately, is unavoidable in any modern society. They are supposed to provide the backbone for any government. They are assured tenure so that they may continue to provide services irrespective of who occupies Malacanang. It is assumed that the Bureaucracy is immune to politics.

Tenure and a modicum of "isolation" from politicians jockeying for position makes for a cadre of government workers who may serve tenure until they die or retire, whichever comes first. You wonder why they wear a certain kind of expression on their faces as they sit behind those desks and windows? Well they have security of employ running at the back of their mind. Whether they actually do work or not, they simply need to show up to get paid.

So you know they have a certain attitude, coupled with a notion that they are entitled to work as slowly and as inefficiently as possible because they are government employees, then what have you got? A bureaucracy that will move as slo.o.o.owly as possible. A bureaucracy that will seek to work as little as possible because there is nothing prompting them to do otherwise. A bureaucracy ripe for all sorts of rent-seeking possibilities.

Click here to read the rest.

Meaning

Although I was on campus at 6am this morning, I couldn't bear to go up to my department. I remember too well the events of Monday, and the idea of spending an hour and a half alone wasn't very appealing.

In my classes I gave the requisite pep talk to my students. That yes life is hard but we must continue the battle. It is in the fight that we know ourselves truly - and we come to grips and learn to live with our strengths and our weaknesss. Hopefully it is also in the fight that we find meaning. That we are not here, occupying space, merely to eat, shit and breathe.

There were a few of us who responded to the invite of the former dean to pray for LT's passing. Flanked by two colleagues from my department, I was a few minutes late. They had already started the ceremony, but the secretary ushered us in and gave us a prayer pamphlet. It was a long prayer - one obviously meant to redeem the soul of someone who has wilfully taken his life. I did not know LT well. He only came to class a handful of times. And yet I was truly saddened by his death. The prayer was awfully repetitive. We must have said his name dozens of times. It was saying his name that made me cry. One moment there was a living being. And another there was none. Where has he gone?

It is moments like these where I am glad I have not made my final decision not to believe. And yet I knew, even as I said the words along with everyone else, that I was not praying for LT. Yes, I was paying my respects, but I also understood that the ceremony was for us who are still living. To reassure us that he has gone to a better place. Thankfully the ambiguity of an agnostic allows flirting with such a notion. The ceremony was also to assuage us of our guilt. The rational part of me knows that I could not have done anything to stop what happened. And yet there is a also a part that feels strangely complicit.

Confronted with death, it is unsettling not having any anchor onto which to frame the loss. A devout Christian will have faith in God - that embodiment of Truth under which all of life's events are subsumed. In God such a loss becomes rational - it has meaning. His death was God's plan. He will go to a better place. The rationalisations of the faithful give hope.

I remember a lengthy talk with a friend I left in Oz, a devout Baptist. Being the snob intellectual that I am, I still cannot reconcile intelligence with religiosity. And yet she is without a doubt brilliant. After this talk, filled with plenty of sobbing, I understood that her religion allowed her to function. I had since become more sensitive of the faithful, having also become fast friends with a devout Muslim. I also lived with a young atheist. How uncomfortable was one dinner conversation when we were all sitting at the dinner table. Whilst I did not believe in any of their religions, I thought it was worth defending their right to believe as they chose.

What of my own philosophy? I have no faith in god. Humanist that I am, I have faith in people. In redeeming myself, and in wishing redemption for others, I see reason. I see meaning.

Queueing and Democracy

This afternoon I did the simple thing of paying my electricity at a Bayad Centre and then buying some bond paper at the store right next to it. At the pay centre, the lady in front of me had her electricity, water and phone bills in hand. As she was counting her money, a young man came in. He made the motion of cutting in front of me, but then I was much taller than him, and I made tiny motions to signal with my body that he was not going to make singit. I stood my ground and so he backed off.

At the school supply shop I waited patiently for the boy to have his photocopying business done. When he was about to finish a woman came in and had the audacity to want to be served first. Incensed I asked the sales person to serve me first, as I arrived earlier. My tone of voice clearly communicated I was upset. The lady who came after me had the audacity to smile knowingly, as though she actually thought I was reprimanding the sales person and not her.

Ah. The courtesies of the bourgeoisie. We queue and wait our turn because we expect to be treated fairly - by the school supply shop, by the bus stop, by the restaurant, by the government bureau. We often turn up our noses at this rude and uncouth practice of the 'masses.' Cutting in line over everyone else. It is, after all, the ultimate sign of disrespect. But coming from their perspective, it is completely rational behaviour. Because the system does not treat everyone fairly. Those who have the means purchase public service 'more expensively' to avoid inconvenience. And those who have no means invent ways to circumvent the system.

In the society we have evolved into these past few decades, it is clearly every person for herself. Everyone wants to "one-up" everyone else. From the littlest things, as the queuing incident, to the biggest multi-billion-Peso-worth things. How cruel. And how feudal.