20
Jan

Thank you, Piso Fare!

So, remember the time when I was browsing the internet on the right time and was able to book a very inexpensive flight to CDO and the trip became the highlight of my year?

Well, it happened again (but Mikay was the one who booked it). And this year, we’re going abroad :)

Ok, mangmang (stupid) moment: Mikay and I were curious as to why our flight from Manila to Hanoi will only take two hours, but the flight back will take four hours.

Different timezone. Boom.

We’re months away from the actual trip and we’re proven to be to… err… clueless to be backpackers. Goodluck to us!

Posted in Wanderlust | Leave a comment
13
Jan

enough already already!

Remember this post?

There’s an update, but I don’t wanna go into details. So here’s  summary.

(but before that, a disclosure, which is a pretty important part of the whole thing apparently – a.) I am a Thomasian, proud of it, thank you very much b.) I worked for CMFR, proud of it, thank you very much)

CMFR and Sir Luis Teodoro released a statement about the whole thing. Part of the reply was:

“The real question is whether the UST attempt to reply to Ms. Vitug through an article written by one of its alumni—Mr. Zulueta is a UST alumnus who has in the past written extensive and glowing public relations stories on UST and its achievements—does not constitute a conflict of interest between, on the one hand, the school’s interest in protecting its image before the public, and on the other, the public’s right to an unbiased, accurate and fair report on a matter of public interest.”

Then, Sir Zulueta replied.

Long story short, Zulueta explained that Inquirer asked him to do the article and it went through the whole editorial process, which is basically saying that CMFR is wrong.

Fair enough. I REALLY thought he explained himself well there.

But.

At the end of the article, he pointed out that there’s a “curious case of intellectual theft” between CMFR and Sir Teodoro, since there’s a striking similarity between their respective statements.

Laughter.

Ok, so, Sir Teodoro IS CMFR’s Deputy Director, btw. Boom.

The way Zulueta wrote it, it seemed like he didn’t know that fact, that the two are unrelated at all. He didn’t coin the term “plaigarism”, he called it “intellectual theft”.

Sir Teodoro then said that “Unless I can be accused of stealing from myself, Mr. Zulueta’s attempt to divert attention from his egregious ethical lapses by alleging “intellectual theft” can only be described as pathetic.”

Now, people are claiming that there is such a thing as ‘self-plagiarism”, which I read was mostly used in the academe (as one FB friend explained), which I guess is pretty important in writing technical, academic papers (citation is forever important!).

But how is that different or similar to “intellectually stealing from myself”(which Zulueta could be implying since he used intelectualt theft and not self-plagiarism)? I’m not being sarcastic, I really don’t know.

Read CMFR article here, as well as Sir Teodoro’s reply to Zulueta’s reply: CMFR

Read Sir Teodoro’s article here: Bworld

Another Teodoro reply: facebook link

Here’s Sir Zulueta’s reply to Sir Teodoro’s reply to his reply (and also his original reply): facebook link

The question is…. where’s Corona in this equation? Nada.

Diba anlayo na ng narating ng issue?

I already said in my earlier post “enough already”, but this is just…. entertaining, but in a bad way. Like a show where half-naked girls dances on live television. It’s not really an ideal viewing, but are you even looking away?

Posted in Current Events | Leave a comment
9
Jan

Friday Monday

Today is the Feast Day of the Black Nazarene (and also Walphy’s birthday!). And I find this year’s celebration is very disturbing.

You see, when a person devoted himself to go into a procession where death is an actual possibility, it’s safe to assume that SAFETY is least of that person’s concerns.

But this year, it’s kindov different.

Yesterday, the President revealed that there are terrorist threats that may cause disruptions in today’s feast day celebration.

Sure, i think it’s common that “terrorist threats” surfaces during big celebrations where people gathers. But do you know when I became paranoid?

This morning, Globe sent an advisory:

“Globe Advisory: In the interest of national security, please be informed that mobile subscribers of all telcos in select (sic) areas of manila will experience temporary loss of signal due to security measures being conducted by the government in line with the feast of the Black Nazarene. Thank You.”

Cue paranoid scream.

This brings me to four conclusions:

A.) I am seriously afraid right now. I live near Quiapo and know a lot of people who lives near Quiapo and I very much worry for them.

Not to mention, I am also afraid for the MILLIONS of devotees who flock the procession and Quiapo for the feast. Just thinking about the possibility of… NO! DON’T MAKE ME THING ABOUT IT! *knock on wood* :(

B.) This sh*t is serious. I can’t recall any other instance in recent memory where the government tap the assistance of private companies (the telcos) for security reasons.

Sure, as far as I know, the government can pretty much bend rules (like the right to know, free speech) if national security is involved. So when that happens, you know that this sh*t is serious.

C.) The government CAN do this. I know, I understand why the government is doing it right NOW (and I am glad they do), but there’s a possibility, no matter how little, that the gov’t can tap private companies to stop, say, a very big protest. I feel powerless.

D.) The private companies CAN do this. Telcos can disrupt signals whenever they want, apparently. Again, the situation made me realize how powerful these companies are. I am not saying that they’re going to do it, I’m just saying that they have the option.

I’m sorry, I’m just channeling my inner Jack Hodgins (the character from Bones who has this crazy conspiracy theories about the NBI and the US government). I can now feel his pain.

I am soooo paranoid right now.

[I’m in Quezon City most time of the day so I didn’t even notice the signal delay. When I was home earlier, my phone’s texting powers is normal naman. I was able to text nga Ate Me pa while I was near Malacanang earlier today, and she received it naman. Wala lung, FYI)

I just want this day to end safely. Sige na, Poong Nazareno :)

Viva Senor Nazareno! (vivaaaa!)

Posted in Current Events, Personal | Leave a comment
8
Jan

project 365: lightpainting

So, I started a year-long project of posting random pictures online every single day beginning from the start of the year.

Well, technically, this should be named Project 366 since this year is a leap year, but I thought I might do this as a yearly thing. Fingers crossed.

Please do check it out if you have time.

lightpainting365.whitecrayonsareevil.net

[I used Tumblr because it's easier to use so add me up if you, too, have a Tumble account]

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
3
Jan

enough already!

I know I am in no position to write a comment about this because I know it will be so biased towards UST (this is a personal blog, after all). So from the moment the news broke, I only twitted so little about it.

One of my friends even asked me to explain what the rift was all about, but I didn’t since I really didn’t want to think about it that much to avoid the build up of emotions. Also, it was my birthday that day.

Ok I don’t want to explain the situation, so I’m just gonna post the important links to keep you going.

Last year, meaning last December, which is only, like, days ago, Rappler.com, a relatively new online news website (may offline news website ba?), published this article: UST breaks rules to favor Corona.

Since most of my FB friends are from UST, my feed was devoured by this issue. As I’ve said, I didn’t even bother to comment since I was too busy doing something else so I didn’t read the article that time.

Apparently, it was also published in Inquirer. I also didn’t know that since I do not read newspapers anymore since I read my news online and I prolly missed it somewhere in their site.

Anyway, UST’s replied immediately: [full text]

Rappler.com questioned

UST said it did not reply to Marites Vitug’s query because it was at a loss on how to respond to “online journalism.” It added that Vitug should have made the proper disclosure that she has had a run-in with Corona and the Supreme Court that may cast some reservation about the objectivity of her article.

“Does anyone claiming to be an online journalist given the same attention as one coming from the mainstream press?” the statement said. “We understand that while Miss Vitug used to be a print journalist, she’s part of an online magazine, Newsbreak, which has reportedly been subsumed into ‘www.rappler.com.’ What’s that?

“Is that a legitimate news organization? What individuals and entities fund Newsbreak and Rappler? Do these outfits have editors? Who challenged Miss Vitug’s article before it went online so as to establish its accuracy, objectivity and fairness? Why was there no prior disclosure made? What gate-keeping measures does online journalism practice?”

First of all, UST, what? The statement seemed like you guys were implying that online journalism is the opposite of mainstream journalism which is totally not true. When I read that, I was like “what did you doooo?!?!?!”. But I was not at all surprised.

I am not trying to defend UST here, but maybe you can look at it with a more open mind.

Here me out. But if you already made up your mind against the university, then I rest my case and I also don’t care so please read my other posts in this blog because you won’t like what I’m about to write.

Noticed in the Inquirer reply that they quote-unquoted – or air-bunnied – “online journalism”? Also, it said “Does anyone claiming to be an online journalist given the same attention as one coming from the mainstream press?” and NOT ”Does anyone claiming to be an online journalist given the same attention as one coming from the mainstream press?”

See what I did there?

I don’t think UST is questioning THE online journalism. A lot of people I know who rock online journalism are classmates or fellow Thomasians so I don’t think UST will release a statement attacking their graduates’ profession.

I think UST is questioning “online journalism” – imagine me doing the air bunny.The questionable sites – there. are. plenty. If you’re in the online world long enough, you’ll understand that you’re not supposed to believe everything you read in the internet. And knowing UST (as I’ve said, I’m not surprised), they’re gonna question that for sure.

In that Inquirer statement, I believe that UST has every right to question who they are communicating with.

UST is a KNOWN conservative institution. Why are you guys surprised?

What just confused me is there’s an actual exchange of letters between UST and Purple Romero (which Rappler posted on their site), and UST didn’t question it on the moment of their earlier correspondence.

Again, a disclosure: I am a Thomasian, but I am also FOR online journalism. And the above-mentioned points are theories I made up myself.

Again, if you already made up your mind against UST, I respect you. I’m not going to try to change your mind because that will be an utter waste of my time, and frankly my dear, you’re not worth it.

If you understand, or even TRY to understand what I just said above, i thank you. Even if I wasn’t able to change your mind, at least your brain is open to the idea. Also I want to high-five you sometime please.

PS. This is totally irrelevant and just my opinion, but Rappler.com IS a new site, and I myself doubt the site at first (Rappler? What’s that?) until I found out who the people behind it were. Really, Rappler? Sounds like a Batman villain. No offense meant.

————————————

An Update:

I admire Rappler for revealing this issue on Corona’s PhD- which I think is not at all important in Corona’s impeachment proceeding, btw. But I still admire them for raising questions.

What I really don’t like, however, is it is getting really annoying already. Since I follow rappler’s twitter account and most of the people in my twitter feed are Thomasians, there’s like a twitter debate only visible to me (not even to the debaters!) and I am SOOOOOOOO tired of it so stop already pleaaase. Both of you!

I totally get Rappler getting, err, angry when UST released that Inquirer reply, pero I have this feeling in my gut that they’re “bullying” UST already and they DO have the advantage because they have the audience and UST only released one statement as of date. (left’s face it, the Thomasian people on my twitter feed maybe fierce, but they are not official).

Parang, I think I would rather have it that there’s an actual exchange of statements between Rappler and UST. Pero UST has only one Inquirer article and Rappler has infinite webspace (or however much their host allows them to post).

They released an illustration of UST being offline. They published an article depicting ONLY the hate towards “UST and online journalism” statement. There’s even an opinion piece from Romero (which is OK, since it is an opinion piece).

And all we have is UST’s Inquirer statement. (unless Varsitarian releases another statement, or UST will publish another Inq article. But until now January 3, this is what I’m feeling).

So please Rappler, enough already. Stick to the Corona issue, if he deserved the degree or not. The UST-online journalism thing is getting REALLY REALLY OLD (unless of course if you’re doing that to increase your traffic, then I rest my case and I am really disappointed).

Again, a disclosure: I am a Thomasian, but I am also FOR online journalism. And I just want a fair discussion on things. And I want RELEVANT questions to be raised, not an attack on an institution just because they question your credibility.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment