It is quite difficult to sum up into one paragraph my experience as member of the editorial staff of the Weekly Sillimanian. For one, being a member of tWS was one of the defining moments for me as a student of Silliman University. So my apologies if I go beyond the one paragraph requirement.
I joined tWS in June 1995 as a Junior Reporter, then move as a Senior Reporter by the second semester of that school year. In school year 1996-1997, I was appointed News Editor of tWS. Together with Dinah Baseleres (Editor-in-Chief), Ian Fermin Casocot (Associate Editor), Joanna Ruth Utzurrum (Features Editor), and a bunch of crazy yet talented staff, we publish one of best issues of tWS. And this I say with no apologies!
Since two years prior to us tWS failed to come up weekly, it was then a challenge for us to be a real a “Weekly Sillimanian”. And that we did. We set up a strict schedules and deadlines for everyone to follow (that includes the EiC, the editors and even our adviser). Failure to meet the deadline would mean a deduction from your honorarium and receiving a “verbal lashing” from Dinah (and believe me, that is the last thing you want to hear from her). Writing good stuff and meeting your deadline, however, would entitle you to become one of “staff of the month” where your name will be announced at tWS and you will receive an additional amount for your honorarium. We don’t condone mediocrity, but we were not also short with praises for those who did their job well. At tWS, we were good friends, but when it comes to work and doing our responsibility, we were able to separate personal from official things.
We had good stories during that time. We entered the school year with the news that then SU President Mervyn Misajon just resigned. That was also the year that the registrar tried the computerized enrolment system. Founders day we received news that the Board of Trustees has just appointed Dr. Agustin Pulido as the new SU President which caught everyone in a surprise. During semestral break, Silliman hosted a summit for all the Student Government heads all over the country. It was also during our time that the SU Faculty Association (SUFA) staged a strike against the administration. The heads of the SUSG at that time were also quite a personality that our reporters have literally camped out outside of the house of the SUSG President (She is nowhere to be found in campus), just to get her side on the stories that we run about the SUSG. At that time also, I did a three-part in-depth story of the state of our dormitories and was also able to come out with an interview of an HIV/AIDS victim.
At tWS we took our responsibility seriously. We observed the basic tenets of the Journalist Code of Ethics. This we do because we know that tWS is not just a Campus Publication, tWS can practically be considered a community newspaper for Dumaguete. Thus, the paper is read not just inside the campus, but also by those within in the larger community. To ensure issues are thresh out well, every Wednesday we meet as a whole staff where we critique the issue that was just released and discuss the stories (news, features and opinion) that would come out in our next issue. Everybody participates in this discussion including our non-editorial staff.
That year also, we revive the lampoon issue where I became an instant celebrity of Silliman University (check the Sillimaniana section to find out why).
But we were not also all work. Boy! We had fun. During our Christmas party we decided to have a costume party with the theme, “Philippines 3000” where we don all the craziest futuristic costume we could think (Dinah won the best in costume with her metallic ballerina get up). We held the party at the residence of our adviser Irma Pal in Amigo Subdivision. All of us put on our costume at tWS office in Guy Hall and with our costumes we hailed a pedicab to bring us to Amigo Subdivision. Of course, several pedicabs did not even bother to stop and for those who did, I could just imagine the things that were in the mind of the driver who took us.
There are a lot of stories I could share with my tWS experience, but space is always our constraint. All I could say, what I am now, part of this I owe it to tWS and the people I encountered because of the Weekly Sillimanian.
Damn! I miss those days!
| You Are 50% Boyish and 50% Girlish |
You are pretty evenly split down the middle - a total eunuch. Okay, kidding about the eunuch part. But you do get along with both sexes. You reject traditional gender roles. However, you don't actively fight them. You're just you. You don't try to be what people expect you to be. |
| Your Brain is 73% Female, 27% Male |
 Your brain leans female You think with your heart, not your head Sweet and considerate, you are a giver But you're tough enough not to let anyone take advantage of you! |
THE LONG VIEW
The grand inquisitor
By Manuel L. Quezon III,
(Published on page A15 of the August 14, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
KURT VONNEGUT ONCE OBSERVED, “FOR SOME reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with Tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.” Vonnegut was pointing out the basic immorality of society’s self-proclaimed moral custodians. Hate the sin but love the sinner? But that opens to a possible debate on what is sin.
How much easier, more certain and eminently satisfying to decree, Kill them all. God will know His own.” The result is the perversion of the finer instincts of religion into a false trinity—faith, hope and bigotry, setting aside charity which represents an inconvenient truth: Christ was friend to prostitutes and tax collectors, and He debated even with the devil. Must Christianity end with Christ?
Retired Supreme Court Justice Isagani Cruz says that his vigorous and vicious condemnation of gays,lesbians and transgendered people is not supposed to incite hatred and intolerance—or to be precise, that he is not invoking a blanket condemnation of all gay people. He only objects to some, not all. For example, he has nothing but the most generous and respectful thoughts for those who conform to what he finds tasteful and tolerable behavior. And what is tasteful and tolerable as far as his wounded sensibilities are concerned? A minority meekly and absolutely surrendering to the tyranny of the majority, a sub-culture reduced to the subhuman, in which the individual is instructed to live out, every day, a total repudiation of the self. Cruz demands the elimination of a diverse and rich culture—one that is as much a mirror of society’s larger complexities as it is an alternative to some of the worst instincts and features of the broader culture for which he has stepped forward as spokesman—because the minority displeases and disgusts him.
He would have me, and everyone else like me be a slave, a fugitive, a hypocrite and, most of all, a coward. And I find that disgusting. I find it neither reasonable nor acceptable. I do not even find it understandable. Cruz does not understand us, does not want to, would be unwilling to. Yet he says he hates only some, not all, of us, and expects “some of us” to embrace and thank him?
For what? That he reserves his scorn only for hairdressers and fashion designers? That he respects me, the writer, but heaps abuse on someone else because that someone uses slang I don’t use, speaks louder than I do, wears what I don’t wear—and those superficial differences are the things that guarantee me (and those who behave otherwise) Cruz’s respect?
I will not embrace him, not for that, much less shake his hand or offer him the opportunity for civilized disagreement. For he is blind to the civilization to which I belong, and to the fundamental identity I share with those he despises. Whether we have a little learning or not, whether we speak in the same manner or not, regardless of what we wear and what mannerisms we choose to exhibit, we are the same, for in the fundamental things—those we choose to love, to have relationships with and with whom we aspire to share a life marked by a measure of domestic bliss and emotional contentment—there is no difference. To permit Cruz to make such distinctions is to grant him and all those like him an intolerable—because it is fundamentally unjust—power to define myself and those like me.
When he casts the law as an instrument for prosecution, persecution and discrimination, he must be fought. That he discredits polite behavior by portraying civilized discourse as a fancy disguise for his uncritical obedience and intolerant enforcement of uniformity; that he defames religion by turning it into an ideology of hate; that he makes a mockery of filial piety by insisting that tyrannical instincts should be cultivated among the elderly and enforced upon their direction—these should inspire not pity for his moral dementia; these must provoke anger. And condemnation.
To be different is to be held in suspicion. The nonconformist is a subversive. Subversion and rebellion make societies become more generous, more diverse, more compassionate—and an individual more free. For the inability—or unwillingness—to see rebellion as a virtue and not a flaw is what provokes the uncomprehending hostility that makes the anxious herd stifle dissent and stamp out anything different. But humanity is not a herd, and being human demands a vigilance against the kind of provocations that start stampedes.
I will respect anyone’s convictions, but only to the extent you will respect mine. Goodwill inspires the same; tolerance results in cooperation. But I will not be told whom to love, whom to be friends with, what culture to represent, what mannerisms and interests to adopt and, much less, discard. I will not modify my behavior or limit my pleasures merely to please Cruz or bigots like him. The respect gays, lesbians and transgendered people experience is a brittle kind, but hard-won. Far more has to be won, in terms of actual legislation or in every sphere of our lives where discrimination virtually takes place every day.
The behavior Cruz finds so obnoxious is the price he and everyone else must pay for the pink triangles of the German concentration camps, the labor camps and prison cells of Soviet Russia and Communist China and Cuba, the merciless beatings and taunts endured by so many over so long a time. It is his punishment for representing a society whose instincts remain fundamentally murderous toward anyone different. If he weren’t such a hate-monger, he might realize it’s no punishment at all, and that society is all the better for the increased prominence of gays.
Hate-speech as journalism
(Published on Page A14 of the August 17, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
IN his Aug. 12 column, Isagani A. Cruz ranted about the terrible vulgarity of gay hairdressers and effeminate schoolboys and he warned the Philippine nation lest it loses its masculine virility. (In 2003, he targeted gays on TV shows in a somewhat less hysterical article.) Cruz waxed nostalgic of the simpler days of his youth when hardly a gay could be spotted on the streets of Manila. Was he born during the Spanish Inquisition?
Cruz offered apologies to the "decorously discreet" homosexuals he respects -- among them the "less than manly" dress designers (who are acceptable as long as they manage to repress their "condition"). If he had the guts he would also have apologized to the distinguished heads of several major Philippine corporations, Catholic and Protestant priests, movie stars, famous athletes, military men and millions of Average Filipino men and women who are active homosexuals and lesbians enjoying their "condition" just fine.
Cruz launched himself into plain, old-fashioned bullying and gay-bashing, while trying to pass off hate-speech as respectable journalism. Social commentators are welcome to criticize gay culture all they want, we criticize ourselves mercilessly at times and accept criticisms from straight friends and honest critics when appropriate.
But Cruz is not a friend or thoughtful critic. He is a bigot and a hate-monger. He singled out the most vulnerable members of the gay community -- the youth and transgendered and the marginalized workers among them -- who have few options when dealing with their sexuality. He growled about the "homos" in religious processions and asked if the Philippines would be converted into a nation of "sexless persons." He fumed that some people are advocating that homosexuals be given equal rights as "male and female persons."
He menacingly boasted how gays were "mauled" in the 1970s when his five "macho" sons were in school. Despite being a former lawyer, he conveniently ignored the fact that violent gay-bashing is considered a serious hate-crime in most civilized nations.
Sadly, Cruz's self-righteous tirade is pointed to a direction where so many Demagogues and hate groups have gone before. The Church in the dark days of the Spanish Inquisition proclaimed homosexuals an abomination in the eyes of God and sent hundreds of thousands of gays to be tortured and burned alive. Offending men were tied together and burned like faggots of wood, hence, our modern-day nickname "faggots."
The Nazis used gas chambers and the Red Guards in Shanghai used baseball bats because they felt bullets were too expensive to waste on "bourgeois degenerates." The American Klu Klux Klan castrated and lynched gays. And now Islamic fundamentalist death squads in Iraq and Iran are beheading gay men and lesbians in the name of their "all-merciful" God.
JONATHAN BEST, Tambo, Parañaque City
'Don we now our gay apparel’
By Isagani Cruz
Published on Page A10 of the August 12, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
HOMOSEXUALS before were mocked and derided, but now they are regarded with new-found respect and, in many cases, even treated as celebrities. Only recently, the more impressionable among our people wildly welcomed a group of entertainers whose main proud advertisement was that they were “queer.” It seems that the present society has developed a new sense of values that have rejected our religious people’s traditional ideas of propriety and morality on the pretext of being “modern” and “broad-minded.”
The observations I will here make against homosexuals in general do not include the members of their group who have conducted themselves decorously, with proper regard not only for their own persons but also for the gay population in general. A number of our local couturiers, to take but one example, are less than manly but they have behaved in a reserved and discreet manner unlike the vulgar members of the gay community who have degraded and scandalized it. I offer abject apologies to those blameless people I may unintentionally include in my not inclusive criticisms. They have my admiration and respect.
The change in the popular attitude toward homosexuals is not particular to the Philippines. It has become an international trend even in the so-called sophisticated regions with more liberal concepts than in our comparatively conservative society. Gay marriages have been legally recognized in a number of European countries and in some parts of the United States. Queer people -- that’s the sarcastic term for them -- have come out of the closet where before they carefully concealed their condition. The permissive belief now is that homosexuals belong to a separate third sex with equal rights as male and female persons instead of just an illicit in-between gender that is neither here nor there.
When I was studying in the Legarda Elementary School in Manila during the last 1930s, the big student population had only one, just one, homosexual. His name was Jose but we all called him Josefa. He was a quiet and friendly boy whom everybody liked to josh but not offensively. In the whole district of Sampaloc where I lived, there was only one homosexual who roamed the streets peddling “kalamay” and “puto” and other treats for snacks. He provided diversion to his genial customers and did not mind their familiar amiable teasing. I think he actually enjoyed being a “binabae” [effeminate].
The change came, I think, when an association of homos dirtied the beautiful tradition of the Santa Cruz de Mayo by parading their kind as the “sagalas” instead of the comely young maidens who should have been chosen to grace the procession. Instead of being outraged by the blasphemy, the watchers were amused and, I suppose, indirectly encouraged the fairies to project themselves. It must have been then that they realized that they were what they were, whether they liked it or not, and that the time for hiding their condition was over.
Now homosexuals are everywhere, coming at first in timorous and eventually alarming and audacious number. Beauty salons now are served mostly by gay attendants including effeminate bearded hairdressers to whom male barbers have lost many of their macho customers. Local shows have their share of “siyoke” [gay men], including actors like the one rejected by a beautiful wife in favor of a more masculine if less handsome partner. And, of course, there are lady-like directors who are probably the reason why every movie and TV drama must have the off-color “bading” [gay] or two to cheapen the proceedings.
And the schools are now fertile ground for the gay invasion. Walking along the University belt one day, I passed by a group of boys chattering among themselves, with one of them exclaiming seriously, “Aalis na ako. Magpapasuso pa ako!” [“I’m leaving. I still have to breastfeed!”] That pansy would have been mauled in the school where my five sons (all machos) studied during the ’70s when all the students were certifiably masculine. Now many of its pupils are gay, and I don’t mean happy. I suppose they have been influenced by such shows as “Brokeback Mountain,” our own “Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros” (both of which won awards), “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” and that talk program of Ellen Degeneres, an admitted lesbian.
Is our population getting to be predominantly pansy? Must we allow homosexuality to march unobstructed until we are converted into a nation of sexless persons without the virility of males and the grace of females but only an insipid mix of these diluted virtues? Let us be warned against the gay population, which is per se a compromise between the strong and the weak and therefore only somewhat and not the absolute of either of the two qualities. Be alert lest the Philippine flag be made of delicate lace and adorned with embroidered frills.
AQUARIUS MANAny dissenting opinion? If you want to know your horoscope too, tell, I’ll email it to you and let’s compare notes.
Hot-hearted man who likes to do thing his way. He can suddenly decide to do something without thinking of it's outcome. He is the type of guy with an inside energizer, so if you fall in love with this type of guy be "patient", even if you have to follow him a bit. His creative mind could create fantastic idea any time. If you do not understand or can not follow him, you won't be with him for long.
A man in this Zodiac will less likely to have a pale skin, and if he has a scar, it would be on his face or on his head. He moves very fast and very energetic, and he has a very self confident in himself. He is not the type to sit down and feel sorry or regret anything for long, especially with "Love".
He loves justice. He dares to show his opinion or even argue about certain subject even he knows it might bring him problems (This is so true!). A straight forward type of guy. He hardly lies except if he think it is necessary and he is not a good liar anyway. He will not lie to you about serious matter, but if he lie he will lie only a small little thing.
He is gifted with the ability to be a very social person. He could talk even about subject that he has no knowledge of (You people will agree on this one, right?). He interests only at the present time and look at the world positively. Many times he feels hurt because of reality, but he will not run away and he will overcome that difficulty .
Even he is a high and self confident type and center his own thought as a main focus, but at the same time he is a kind, cute and polite guy( doubts about being cute! HAHAHAHAHA. He certainly is not a mean person. He likes to help people who are in troubles even he is not asked to (and because I love to help people in trouble, I also got into trouble, like how Dr. Sinda got so mad about me for the thing I wrote to defend Melclaire). He is the type who feels sorry if you remember bad things he said to you that he had already forgotten, but you did not. Belief him that he is very sorry and give him another chance.
Once he decides to do something, he will put all his mind and energy in it either in his "Work", or "Love". He is the type who gamble anything in the casino, so do not even take him there. (There is no iota of evidence about this coz I don’t gamble at all)
He does not like pessimistic, low energy, and depress person, especially no brain( am . . . do I need to explain?. Strangely he like to overpowered this type of people to assure that he is more superior. He like to be the first person to do something. You can see sparkling in his eyes, once he meet a new target or new lover. Once he is in love, he will act as if he never has love like this before. This minute he could be real sugar sweet, and later he could also be an icy cold, but do not blame him for that will only chase him away. He could fall in love again with another girl and act again like he never has this kind of love before. He could really love someone, but not a heart broken type for he thinks love is "excitement" and "Love goes on". If you date this kind of guy, do not or avoid showing your face to him with face pack, face mask, always be presentable, nice and cute.
If he is quiet not because he is shy, but he is only quietly thinking(yes dearie, your in trouble when I am quiet, that means I am digesting bit by bit the things you said. Hehehehe). If you have a chance to ask his X-girlfriend, she will tell you that he is not a shy or quiet type. If he is really and truly in love with you, he will never lie to you at all. How do you know if he loves you, bet on your faith! Love him and treat him steadily and do not try to find anything to argue with him, he will be with you for sure. If you are his lover or girlfriend and need to tell him something, go and say it out loud and straight forward because he hate long boring story(Here, I would love to borrow KK's “cut the crap, what’s your point?!”). He hate to play games, chasing for love or being chased, so let him call you first.
He likes a confident woman who also a good follower. If he gets mad at you, let him be for only a short time he will be normal again. You have to like and be able to get along with his friends, but he does not have to do so with all your friends. Don't ever think you could make him jealous by flirting with other man, he will just leave instead of making a scene because he is a confident man and has to be the first in everything .
One call we often hear today, when people ask President Arroyo to resign, is the call to make the ultimate sacrifice for the good of the country.
Now that is a call that we can endorse. No, not the call for the President to resign, but the call for everyone, not just her, to make sacrifices for the good of the nation.
Loren Legarda
You are challenging the legitimacy of Vice President de Castro. If and when the President does resign, de Castro will ascend to the Presidency. That is the constitutional process. Your continuing proclamation of his illegitimacy can become
destabilizing. Can you make the sacrifice of withdrawing your suit and just allowing him to sit as President?
The 10 Cabinet members who resigned
Many of you are known for integrity. Let your record speak for itself. Can you make the sacrifice of just shutting up now and not defending yourselves, for this contributes to further instability?
Frank Drilon
Your salivating for the Vice Presidency leaves a bad taste in the mouth. You manifested extreme hypocrisy and political opportunism in extolling GMA to high heavens and then stabbing her in the back, within the space of one week. Can you make the sacrifice of stopping all moves, including those of your Liberal Party cohorts, of political maneuvering?
All traditional politicians
Kayo ang tunay na salot ng bayan. Can you make the sacrifice of resigning your posts and fading into complete oblivion?
Activist bishops and clergy of the Catholic Church
We appreciate your concern for the good of our people, but we do not appreciate your being at the forefront of political activism. Can you make the sacrifice of sticking to your pastoral duties of ministering to the spiritual needs of the flock and leave the political posturing to the lay people?
Brother Eddie Villanueva
God has blessed you by giving you a big flock to take care of. That is your calling. While many disagree with your entry into politics, we leave that between you and God. But what is difficult to take is your insistence, and that of your apologists, that you won the Presidential elections. For goodness sake, you were number five! If you were cheated, it was not only GMA who did so but Fernando Poe and the others as well. Can you make the sacrifice of leaving partisan politics entirely and focusing on the Father's business?
Imee Marcos, Jinggoy Estrada, JV Ejercito
Is it not enough that your parents plundered the nation and you were part of that, and now you have not only kept all your loot but are also back in power? Can you make the sacrifice of removing yourselves from the limelight? In reality, you are a major reason why the middle forces are not responding positively to the call to a change in government.
Nene Pimentel
Make the ultimate sacrifice to SHUT UP! old man. You have ruined your integrity. You have shown the real you, a bitter old man of politics who never achieved what you have always dreamed of.
Activists
Isn't it enough that you are being tolerated despite the fact that you have never contributed any tax for this country? despite the fact that your existence is based on fault-finding? despite the fact thaat the "bourgoise" that you are so against of are the very people who support your existence?
Big business
Many of you really just care about having a positive environment where your businesses will thrive. Can you make the sacrifice of some of your profits to give more to the poor?
The poor
We understand that, sapagkat kayo ay kapit sa patalim, you allow yourselves to be exploited and brought to rallies of unscrupulous politicians. Can you make the sacrifice of a few pesos, of bearing with your hunger, and not allow yourselves to be exploited, so that you maintain your dignity and you help sow the seed for true liberation and well-being, in God's time?
Cory Aquino
Isn't it enough that you have become President of this country and you will go down in history as the one who gave the Filipinos hope after the Marcos dictatorship? Isn't Kris, your daughter, enough for you to handle? How can you have the heart to call for supreme sacrifice when you cannot even manage to call for the same sacrifice from your daughter who has never given this country something to be proud of? On the country, she is the epitome of bratness and low morals .
The call to sacrifice is a wonderful call. God himself showed us the way. Jesus sacrificed his life on the cross in order to win our salvation. Such a call is pure, noble, worthy of emulation. Let us not use it for selfish motives. Let us not prostitute its purity by polluting it with the filth in our hearts.
"For to me life is Christ, and death is gain." (Phil 1:21
coño wannabee girl: There was actually this guy who auditioned. That was Piolo. Kailangan niyang mapa “I Love You” si Bea to pass the audition. (Can you believe that this coño-talking girl watched “Dreamboy”?) It’s a nice movie talaga (WHAAAAT?!) as in kilig talaga! (OHMIGAD! What happened to this world!)
coño wannabee’s friend: By the way, napanood mo na ba ang “Darna”?
coño wannabee girl: Ay! Oo, napaka jologs naman ng special effects. Mas mabuti pa ang “Krystala” and “Spirits”. Ayaw ko talaga ng mga soaps sa siyete, ang jologs (and you think di ka jologs?!). Pero grabe talaga ang “Save The Last Dance”, napanood mo ba ang ending? Naiyak ako, di ba it’s so sweet? (Bus Driver pakibilisbilisan nga ang pagpapatakbo at ng makababa na ako or else masapak ko pa tong babae nato!)
nagpapacute na chubbing coño: Kasi naman, di naman talaga ako ganun, di ba? I mean sa relatioship kailangan naman kayong dalawa di ba ang mag work? Eh yung sa ex ko (aba! At nagkaboyfirned ka pa pala!), lagi na lang ako ang naghahabol (aba naman iha! Umasa ka pa! At please lang no, di bagay sayo magpacute-cute ng boses kasi ang laki-laki mo!)
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