Sheila Coronel

There's a nice article on Sheila Coronel in the Columbia University alumni magazine.

Microplace

Theirs were the only ads on the Paypal homepage, and I clicked on it.

Apparently, EBay has a subsidiary company called Microplace that allows its website users to invest in microfinance project across the developing world. Very very cool idea.

Unfortunately, you can't invest in the Philippines yet (I would've made a payment right then and there had there been a Philippine project). I hope the Pinoys working in microfinance have explored this.

A year of taking the Bible literally

Former Esquire editor A. J. Jacobs, a secular Jew from New York City, decided to spend one year, living out all the Old Testament laws and many of the New Testament ones too as literally as possible, (when it wasn't illegal or impossible to do so, as was the case with the law to "kill magicians").

According to this article, it seems to have started out as a tongue-in-cheek, try-it-just-for-fun experiment (before this, he spent a year reading an entire encyclopedia) ... but it became for Jacobs a true year-long spiritual pilgrimage that ultimately transformed his views in surprising ways. (Well, maybe it isn't that surprising .... I say that, not because I believe that the Bible should be taken so literally, but because I do believe that sacred ritual truly is transformative.)

I'm interested in buying the book.

Palestine

Condi: "It's time for the establishment of a Palestinian state."

It was actually "time" half a century ago ....

Fine-tuning Argument

In past school years, I didn't enjoy teaching Aquinas' Five Ways in my Philosophy of Religion class. I only taught it because I do think it's important to teach at least one text that includes a rational proof for God's existence, and it's the shortest. :) (I did Anselm before--the entire Proslogion--which is very nice [if you do the whole thing and not just the "Ontological" Proof], but it takes too much time.)

But this year I decided to spice it up a little by accompanying the discussion of Aquinas with contemporary arguments for God's existence.

And the result is that I'm enjoying myself a lot more with this discussion. I've especially enjoyed myself with Robin Collins' Fine-tuning Argument (his version of the argument from design). I like. I used to use the entropy argument (look up William Lane Craig if you're interested), but this school year I'm enjoying Collins' more.

College, and the meaning of life ....

From the Boston Globe:

"In the past few weeks, tens of thousands of young men and women have begun their college careers. They have worked hard to get there. A letter of admission to one of the country's selective colleges or universities has become the most sought-after prize in America.

The students who have won this prize are about to enter an academic environment richer than any they have known. They will find courses devoted to every question under the sun. But there is one question for which most of them will search their catalogs in vain: The question of the meaning of life, of what one should care about and why, of what living is for."

The rest of the article is here.

Free will.

Free will is not just in the brain.

Educational Reform.

People keep complaining about the state of public education in our country, but a lot of people who complain, don't think of concrete, feasible ways to improve the system.

I like pragmatic, replicable, feasible ideas and although I'm not directly involved in public education, stories like these make me want to stand up and cheer.

Academic Life.

Please ignore this post. I'm just going to babble nonsensically for a few minutes.

My brother once quoted a professor of his who said, "When you get your bachelor's degree, you think you know everything. When you get your master's degree, you realize you don't know anything. When you get your Ph.D., you realize nobody else knows anything either."

There are lots of things I love about the academic life, and I really shouldn't complain, because I know how lucky I am to be here, to be living the kind of life that I do.

But every now and then, one thing about academic life gnaws at me: the creeping insecurity of a mediocre academician. I know I'm never going to really be an expert at anything ... so why am I here?, I sometimes want to ask myself. And with my field, I don't even know if I'm really contributing anything of value to the world, to the country. :-/

I know what I'm competent at: teaching. Oh how I wish I could just be a teacher.

But sigh, this is the academic life, and while it may look like a walk in the park from the outside, it has its own ratrace, it's own crazy rules of engagement....

It doesn't help that at least once a month, some senior faculty member asks me about my Ph.D....

Sigh.

Creationism reaches the Philippines

Do you remember Sonia Zaide, the history textbook writer?

Apparently she's gone Creationist, in the most extreme sense of the word.

I went to National Bookstore the other day and bought the latest edition of her textbook for 1st year high school students, because I wanted to see what textbooks are out there. The textbook is called,"Philippine History and Government."

Here are some direct quotes.

"Origin of the Philippines. There are many explanations about the origin of our land. As Christians, we believe that the land forms were made by God as part of His creation. Therefore, the Philippines was a part of God's creation of the world. After the Great Flood in the time of Noah, many continents and islands appeared. So the descendants of Noah spread out to many parts of the world."

There's a Bible quote from Genesis, then she mentions legends and myths in the next paragraph. Then in the paragraph after that, she talks about scientists' and geologists' ideas.

Some pages later, she talks about the first Filipinos.

"Who were the first people to live in the Philippines? ... The best explanations we have about our distant past come from three main sources: (1) the story of God's creation in the Bible; (2) the story of evolution made by human scientists; and (3) legends and fairytales made up by imaginative people.

"We will study about all these three explanations about the origin of our ancestors. But because we are Christians, we believe that the story of God's creation of man, as described in the Holy Bible, is the real truth. Therefore, any other explanation about how early man came into being, is only the product of human theory or thinking, and it cannot be the truth....

"According to the Holy Bible, all men and women originated from the first man (Adam) and the first woman (Eve). After the Great Flood, Noah and the three sons left to settle the earth. Noah's sons--Shem, Ham and Japheth--themselves had sons after the flood. One of the sons of the youngest, Japheth, was named Javan (See Genesis 10:1-4). Out of Javan, Noah's grandson, came four sons named Elishah, Tharsis, the Kittim and the Rodanim. According to the Bible, 'From these maritime
peoples spread out into the r territory by their clans within their nations, each with its wown language.' Thus, Fr. Francisco, Colin, a Jesuit historian, wrote that the frist settlers of our country was Tharsis, son of Javan and great grandson of Noah, together with his brothers and their descendants. In time, the descendants of these Biblical characters settled in the parts of the world that e know as Asia, including the islands of the Philippines."

On the opposite page is a chart which shows the names of the descendants of Adam leading to Noah, then: "Noah --> Japheth --> Javan --> Elisha, Tharsis, the Kittim and the Rodanim --> their descendants were the early Filipinos"

===========

Argh.

I'm Catholic who studied in Catholic schools and in my Catholic education, we never had trouble reconciling an allegorical understanding of the Genesis accounts with the theological truths that: (1) God is the Creator of all, and that (2) there was a historical moment, even with the history of evolution, that a distinct creature called "man" emerged, different from all previous primates. It was never an irreconcilable issue.

A colleague told me that the notion of young-earth Creationism is very recent. The early Church fathers--even Fundamentalists' favorite St. Augustine--read the Genesis accounts as allegories, and they were never apologetic about it. I'll write more about the Church fathers and their exegesis of the Genesis creation accounts another time, but feel free to Google them.

The Beatitudes.

This excerpt, from the book The Political Teachings of Jesus, is reminiscent of my liberation theology classes in college.

Seventh-year sabbatical.

I've always just taken for granted that academicians have a special perk not found in most other jobs -- a year-long paid leave from classroom and administrative responsibilities, to produce research. The seventh-year sabbatical.

Only today did I realize that the tradition has its roots in the Jewish idea of the seventh-year jubilee: a sabbath of complete rest taken every seven years, after six years of harvesting.

Interesting.

Growing up with Harry Potter.

I had a delightful epiphany today when I realized that my college junior students have grown up with Harry Potter.

A few of them (girls and guys, I should add) were talking about the latest book, when another guy joined in and said, "Harry Potter?!" when he realized what they were talking about.

"Why? Don't you read Harry Potter?" I asked.

He looked at me incredulously. "Not read Harry Potter! Of course I read Harry Potter! All of us read Harry Potter!!!"

Then I realized that they were just about Harry's age, so I smiled and I said, "You're the perfect age group for Harry Potter, aren't you? You were pretty much the same age Harry was when each new book came out."

And three of them--all guys--excitedly nodded their heads. "I started reading Harry Potter when I was in grade 5," one of them said, and another agreed. The third said, "I started in grade 7." (Remember, these are 19-year-olds I was talking to.)

I find it so fascinating that theirs is an entire batch of young men and women who really did grow up with Harry Potter, going through the same joys and pains that Harry was at each stage of his adolescence.

And I find it more fascinating that Harry crossed the gender divide, creating a shared mythology and childhood memory for an entire batch of boys and girls (now men and women).

=======

After I got home, GMA's "Palaban" was discussing the proliferation of men's magazines.

It occurred to me that in an age when teenagers and young adults are often thought of as victims of a sex-obsessed, sex-saturated culture, one topic that can delight and fascinate all of them, male or female, is a whimsical story about a boy-wizard and how he found the courage to fight Voldemort.

=======

Anyway. Mike was telling me to get the hardbound version of HP1, since it's the only one I own that's paperback. (I started reading after HP2 came out.) What I really want, though, is not the hardbound HP1, but the British English versions of the entire set. (The American English edition was the one that came to the Philippines.)

Richard Rorty, 75

Richard Rorty, one of the most famous philosophers to visit Ateneo (my employer and alma mater), died a few days ago. Slate has a collection of poignant reminiscinces about the man from colleagues, fellow-philosophers and friends.

An Optimistic Filipino.

I was talking to my colleagues at school this afternoon, and many of us felt, all things considered, pleasantly surprised with the outcome of this election.

I remember talking to a friend of mine last year, and intimating to her that, despite the despair that a lot of people were feeling about the country at the time, I had a gut feeling that the country was getting better. She was incredulous when I said that (this was during the aftermath of the whole Garci debacle), and asked me to explain. I said that I had a mysterious sense that the political crises of 2001-2006 were all a kind of purgation process for the country, the kind of "bottoming-out" experience that the Philippines needed to lay bare the flaws of its political system, before it began to mature, like the bottoming-out experience that an alcoholic has to go through before she begins her process of recovery, I explained, and I cited a social activist whom I respect very much, who had expressed the same.

If you keep abreast with local politics, then you are aware that a quiet revolution has been taking place in local government units across the country. In one town after another, people have been supporting, not necessarily the candidate with the biggest song-and-dance during campaign period, not necessarily the candidate with the hacendero surname, not necessarily the candidate with the private army ... but the candidate who delivers results. In one town after another, traditional politicians, "trapos," have been losing in elections to idealistic technocrats or the progressive intellectuals. This is not to say that there are no longer any trapos, or that political dynasties have disappeared from local politics; however, their hold on power is no longer the impenetrable monolith it once was, or at the very least, their hold on power is conditioned by their ability to produce tangible results.

I do feel that this change that has been taking place at the grassroots is beginning to trickle up to national politics.

In the weeks leading to the elections, I was feeling dismayed that I couldn't fill up my twelve senatorial slots, and many of my colleagues felt the same. (I ended up voting for only six senatoriables last Monday.) But I began to smell the winds of change when I noticed that many of the senatoriable's political ads on television were very different from the ones in previous elections: the new ads actually talked about issues, or highlighted an aspect of the candidate's platform or one of the candidate's legislative accomplishments. I didn't vote for Zubiri, but I was impressed that his TV ad emphasized the Biofuels Act. I didn't vote for Defensor, but I appreciated the discussion of the housing issue. The few ads that focused on personality rather than issues (e.g., Villar's "Sipag at Tiyaga" campaign, and the Kapatiran party's campaign materials) seemed to talk about character traits as foundations of an ideology for nation-building.

And now, as the tally comes in, my colleagues and I look at one another and nod, rather impressed, with the way the results are shaping up.

Of the top fifteen contenders, there is only one that I absolutely abhor. With all the rest in the top slots--even with the ones I didn't vote for, and even with the one other candidate whose victory fills me with real dismay--I can see, at the very least, some perceived quality of nobility or competence which allows me to understand their popularity. It appears that candidates who thought they could win by sheer name recall alone and little else, are going to be disappointed: Cesar Montano isn't going to win; Chavit Singson is not even close; Richard Gomez is barely in the running. Even Manny Pacquiao will be staging his heroics in the boxing ring, rather than in the halls of congress. (Another way of putting it: of Harvey Keh's "Seven Things Which, If They All Happen, Will Make Me Leave the Philippines", only one seems likely to happen.)

Another thing. If reports are accurate, a whopping 85% of registered voters in the Philippines voted. I'm impressed with that. Most Filipinos, it appears, still feel that their votes count for something, and went and accomplished their civic duty. I'm sad that so many youths did not register (something I don't understand; when I was in college, almost everyone I know was registered for the elections!!), but maybe after this election, they will regret not having registered, and will change that in the next polls.

Finally, perhaps it was an indirect way of grandstanding, but in a surprise move, Ali Atienza showed more post-election maturity from a candidate than I have seen in a long time, conceding to Mayor Lim when the canvassing was far from finished. As I told my husband, "Wow, the city of Manila is actually behaving like a mature democracy!"

I'm not saying that all is fine and dandy in the Philippines. Even one instance of election violence is an instance to many, and I was disturbed by every report of violence that I saw in the news. But if the PNP reports are accurate, and the number of violent incidents truly have decreased in comparison with previous elections, then that is something to be thankful for, and I just pray that the next elections have almost no violence at all.

Also, cheating hasn't disappeared, and hearing the reports from Maguindanao, I'm not sure whether to laugh, cry, or throw up. But the Maguindanao farce notwithstanding, I really do feel that with this election, the people are making their voices felt, and sending a message to the politicians at the top that they aren't dumb.

To all the Pinoys who spent the last five years groaning in despair, to all those who packed up and left out of disgust and frustration ... friends, give your country (and your countrymen!) some credit. At the end of the day, this is the country that started People Power. This is the country that showed the world that we make miracles happen with enough faith, passion, and willpower. We may not be the smartest country in the world; we may not have the most mature democracy. But we're certainly not hopeless. And you shall see, we are going to get our act together, and we're going to all feel proud of the country that we're building.

David's Non Sequiturs

I have a lot of respect for Randy David. I feel that he is one of the most intelligent voices in the Philippine public sphere today. I was reading, however, a PCIJ blog post outlining some points he made at a forum last March. In the PCIJ article, Randy David is quoted as having raised the following questions:

• "If it was right to force (Joseph) Estrada out of Malacañang in 2001 for plundering the public coffers, why is it wrong to oust GMA today extraconstitutionally for an even more grievous offense of stealing the presidential elections?


• "If it was right for the Catholic bishops to demand the resignation of an incompetent and immoral president and mobilize people to flock to the streets in 1986 and in 2001, why aren’t they demanding today the resignation of a president who has made a mockery of the democratic process?


• "If it was right for the Armed Forces in 1986 and in 2001 to intervene in the political sphere, why was it wrong in February 2006?


• "If it was right in 1986 to set aside the Constitution in order to give way to a revolutionary government when such powers are needed to dismantle the structures of authoritarianism, why would it be wrong today to seize the government and set aside its Constitution in order to pave the way for a formation of a truly just and free society?"

I have no love lost for the current administration, but as a philosophy teacher, I am allergic to poorly formed arguments as well. If David had directed those questions at me, here's how I would've responded to some of them:

• "If it was right to force (Joseph) Estrada out of Malacañang in 2001 for plundering the public coffers, why is it wrong to oust GMA today extraconstitutionally for an even more grievous offense of stealing the presidential elections?"

David begins with a shaky premise. The question, of course, is: WAS it right to force Estrada out of Malacañang?

Lest we forget, the country was divided among three camps in relation to Estrada at the time: those who wanted him to stay on, those who wanted him to voluntarily resign and therefore for power to change according to constitutional means, and those who wanted him to be ousted by any means.

I personally never felt comfortable about the circumstances surrounding Estrada's ouster. I clamored for Estrada to voluntarily (and constitutionally) resign, not for him to be "ousted," and when the circumstances surrounding his act of "leaving Malacañang" became public, I for one was very disturbed.

That having been said, we might say that in relation to GMA, the country is probably divided among parallel camps: those who support Gloria and want her to stay on indefinitely, those who want a change in power through constitutional means (through, for example, her resignation, through impeachment proceedings, or through the 2010 elections), and those who want her ousted by any means.

• "If it was right for the Armed Forces in 1986 and in 2001 to intervene in the political sphere, why was it wrong in February 2006?


• If it was right in 1986 to set aside the Constitution in order to give way to a revolutionary government when such powers are needed to dismantle the structures of authoritarianism, why would it be wrong today to seize the government and set aside its Constitution in order to pave the way for a formation of a truly just and free society?"

There are differences among 1986, 2001, and 2006.

First of all, in 1986, the Philippines was not under a true democratic Constitution. The 1973 Constitution was not a true contract that reflected the will of the people; it was imposed by then-President Marcos through dubious, undemocratic means. In the spirit of democracy, then, it could be argued that the 1973 was not binding.

It was only after the 1987 referendum that the country came under a truly democratic, freely chosen social contract among citizens and state, enshrined in the Constitution that was promulgated through democratic process. If a person insists today that we follow constitutional processes to punish and prosecute those who desecrate our Constitution, then it is probably because that person considers himself to be bound to the promise of the current Constitution.

I am sickened by Gloria's shenanigans, but I really do believe that the only way we can reach our dream of a working democracy in this country is by starting now, by allowing our democratic processes and institutions--as imperfect as they are--to work. Some people are impatient, they despair, and would have us throw out all our processes with the bath water, and to be honest, I am sometimes tempted by quick-fix solutions as well, especially given the urgency of our nation's problems to those who are suffering the most.

But at the end of the day, the kind of country I want my children to be living in fifty years from now is one where there is true, lasting democracy, not one destroyed by a series of stop-gap solutions that proved more harmful in the long-run. And global history shows us that democratization is a process, a slow transformation of both institutions and culture.

An era is ending.

From the very start, I was a Tony Blair fan. I thought, from the very beginning, that he had the heart, the compassion for the oppressed, the fair-mindedness, the openness, and the candidness to accompany his intelligent mind and awe-inspiring communication skills.

In the past ten years, there have been moments when I have been disappointed with Blair. I was crushed that he supported the Iraq War, and annoyed that he didn't apologize, when the mistake became clear, for his error in judgment; in those moments he sounded sickeningly like an American (or Filipino) politician, refusing to admit a mistake--so uncharacteristic of someone who at other times has been so forthright. I was sad that he didn't stand up to the United States more, and exercise the leadership that I felt he was capable of. I wished--and still wish--he'd developed the Third Way further.

But despite the disappointments, and despite the many things I disagree with, I still hold Tony Blair in extremely high esteem for his sincerity, intelligence and thought. I never for a moment felt that he was not trying his best to do his best for a country and a world that he loved.

I fell in love with the England that was under Blair, the England that Blair helped shape. And even if only the three littlest toes on my left foot can truly be called British, I am, as a citizen, Mr. Prime Minister, grateful to you.

Update: I'm listening to Blair's speech at Sedgefield, and again he reminds me why I admire him and will always admire him so much. "Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right."

The Broken Body of Christ

The president of the Evangelical Theological Seminary in the United States has returned to the Roman Catholic Church.

Saigon letter-writer.

An interesting story about the power of words.

Updates

First, a fun post forwarded to me by my husband.

Second ... I'm rereading Arendt's Human Condition for a class I'm teaching and I'm enjoying it immensely! It's amazing how a few years can bring about such a different way of reading Arendt; I'm discovering exciting insights in her work that I had merely glossed over before. It's a wonderful, exciting journey. :)