Bear's rumbling thoughts

Kapag Sinabi Ko Sa'yo

2010-12-08T13:18:00.005+03:00

This folk song by Gary Granada cuts through classes, age and gender. I heard of it when I was active in campus journalism way back in college. This ballad sings not of unconditional love, but one that is true and genuine, love with conditions and limits; Because people are limited by their status, by time, by opportunities, by society. This song is not superficial but one that really says what love is. Isang pag-ibig na nakalapat sa lupa ngunit kayang itawid sa langit.

Para sa isang tao mula sa aking nakaraan. Salamat sa Kanya, sa panahon at oras na pinahiram Niya. Nakakalungkot hindi ko siya pwedeng sabihin ang tunay nyang pangalan. Paalam Ysabelle, pinakamahalaga ang iyong mga ngiti.

Kapag sinabi ko sa iyo na ika'y minamahal

Sana'y maunawaan mo na ako'y isang mortal

At di ko kayang abutin ang mga bituin at buwan

O di kaya ay sisirin perlas ng karagatan

Kapag sinabi ko sa iyo na ika'y iniibig

Sana'y maunawaan mo na ako'y taga-daigdig

Kagaya ng karamihan, karaniwang karanasan

Dala-dala kahit saan, pang-araw-araw na pasan

Ako'y hindi romantiko, sa iyo'y di ko matitiyak

Na pag ako'y kapiling mo kailanma'y di ka iiyak

Ang magandang hinaharap sikapin nating maabot

Ngunit kung di pa maganap, sana'y huwag mong ikalungkot

Kapag sinabi ko sa iyo na ika'y sinisinta

Sana'y yakapin mo akong bukas ang iyong mga mata

Ang kayamanan kong dala ay pandama't kamalayan

Na natutunan sa iba na nabighani sa bayan

Halina't ating pandayin isang malayang daigdig

Upang doon payabungin isang malayang pag-ibig

Kapag sinabi ko sa iyo na ika'y sinusuyo

Sana'y ibigin mo ako, kasama ang aking mundo.

From her recent messages, she was neither happy nor elated with the post (originally from my FB account). Nevertheless she can never ever agree with what I feel. No she denies everything that has transpired as if history can just be neglected or erased that easy.

You can hear the audio from this link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAWVrLlXEG8

My take on the May 10 polls

2010-05-05T18:28:00.020+03:00

My sister was nagging me on whom to vote for on May 10 for the Malacañang post. I haven’t really convinced myself yet, even for VP and senators. There should be something I need to do in order to counter asymmetric information so that I’ll be properly informed given that I am not in the Philippines to actually observe the campaign. The only thing I heard of are the muds that are being thrown left and right against various candidates and how the Comelec and Smart(?)matic are going to "manage" the election, with the news reports about the ballot testing, I wish them luck.

Unfortunately for me and hundreds of thousands who cannot go to Riyadh, Jeddah or Al-Khobar to cast our votes personally, we will be unheard of this May 10 (not only on May 10, mind you). The Comelec and DFA didn’t make any arrangements to enable us to vote even by mail here; one of the many efficiencies of the bureaucracy. We have to visit the embassy or consular office in order to do so. Considering the expenses and danger we will incur and meet if we travel, some of us are settling to voice out our stand either by convincing our families to vote in our behalf or to campaign for a candidate back home.

I am an Overseas Filipino Worker, and I do not feel anything more than that. Basically I am still a proletariat. I am not even elated on the label Bagong Bayani because I can't hardly feel it or is it only lip service to entice thousands more to leave the country every day for the dollars? What do these dollars do for the poor anyway? Yes it floats our economy’s dollar reserves and saves us from BOP deficit and interest repayment for the nation’s debt, other than that, wala naman talagang nararamdaman na ang mahihirap. Ramdam ng Pinoy ang paghihirap yun ang klaro. In 2009 alone, despite the dismal US economic recovery and poor influx of foreign direct investments in the country, it is OFW dollars that has kept the Philippines almost immune from financial crisis with their whooping $15.78 Billion remittances, and not La Gloria's macroeconomics and social welfare programs as what her administration has been falsely trumpeting.

I haven’t heard any candidate, except for Toots Ople, who has a solution and plan for OFWs. The problem of us OFWs having to leave our families is a deeply-profound one, the dynamics are numerous if you gets to dissect it. The benefits might really outweigh the costs in terms of financial gains, on the one hand, but the social cost is something unbearable at times, on the other. Manny Villar may have repatriated hundred of OFWs (is it on his own account or charged to PDAF?) but still a comprehensive program for OFWs is wanting and POEA and OWWA are just raking in billions from us. Hey where’s our take on the cake?

Of the several candidates running for president, I have considered looking only to those who were serious enough to wage a campaign and is serious enough to take the steering wheel from La Gloria. My take on Gibo Teodoro, Dick Gordon, Manny Villar, Noy Aquino and Erap Estrada (the rest I consider to be waging a lonely battle, if not nuisance enough to end up in that kilometric automated ballot) follows in the order of how I prefer them. Ultimately though, like microeconomic choices, the logical option doesn’t necessarily mean the best choice, it is after all a decision the individual should make given specific constraints.

I think therefore I am for G1BO. I heard of Gibo’s feat as congressman and defense chief way back. I admire his remarkable and impressive credentials and in what he has done for Tarlac. His clarity and articulateness on issues during debates makes him a favorite. Aside from having a model as a wife, he can fly planes. I am a plane lover and hearing about him flying one of those C-130s really amaze me. “Gibo is a licensed commercial pilot and a reserve colonel of the Philippine Air Force. His commercial pilot's license has a Learjet 31 rating, and he can fly C-130 military planes.” He really is hands on in steering the wheel. However the message didn’t get to be embraced by the masa, Class C, D, E who didn’t feel any connection with Gibo. The Harvard scholar could really attract investors and confidence with his Galing and Talino and all the intrinsic values he possesses. I am turning a blind eye on his decision to ditch NPC in favor of the Partido Lakas-Kampi (PALAKA) (whose members are one-by-one doing the dumping of Gibo) obviously for political survival chiefly because it seems that Uncle Danding has not given him the anointment. He could have been Top One in May and in all aspects in the political sense (track record, machinery, finance, positioning on issues) except for one external factor he willingly carries. The fingerprint of La Gloria smudges all the positive points and trumps his capabilities to govern. Her kiss of death is more than enough to end Gibo’s chances this election. I remember Conrado de Quiros saying that the best president we have are those who didn’t made it to the ballot. So I guess Gibo’s campaign ends there even if the God of Quiboloy has anointed him to succeed Gloria.

Dick Gordon’s hard stance on Subic and how he managed to straighten the people of Olongapo is something that I have been admiring for in years. The way he handled Olongapo as Mayor and later as Administrator of SBMA has really highlighted how the Filipinos can be disciplined and straightforward. His track record as a local executive is truly outstanding one that can really help the Philippines towards development. His stint as Tourism secretary, Red Cross chair and senator has led to successful feats in their respective areas. Reading from an observation would make one WOW on the achievement of this candidate. For me he is the president that this country needs to put an end to scrupulous corruption, pagsasamantala and poverty. He is more than qualified to be the president. However, there are pretty differences in the dynamics of the local and national politics. Although all politics are local, the Filipino electorate is not yet ready for Dick to be president. The electorates see all the bragging and he being a literal dick-head. One observer notes that “People ignore the side of Dick Gordon who is passionate and genuinely cares for the well being of his fellow Filipino” the problem is not Gordon but in what manner he delivers his message to the people. Well with a big attitude I really do not see how the common voter will be able to grasp the message wrapped in kayabangan, ironic as it may seem, voters still look for some degree of humility from public servants. The recent howl of Patricia Evangelista's Method to Madness says of one observation on Dick Gordon as he is labeled chickens*it by one interviewer who happens to be a friend to Evangelista. Tweeters left and right, and this one guy in Facebook, have liked, refuted, hated and even cursed Evangelista’s observation even to the extent that of blaming her that if Gordon didn’t make it to Malacañang they will all rain it all on Evangelista as if she has the capability to do so. She may have some readers and clout (you can count me in) but I doubt that she can wreck that damage to Gordon’s campaign. I do not always agree with Evangelista’s treatises in Inquirer, it is her opinion and she’s very much entitled to it, but to curse her to the ends of the Earth is absurd and foolish. I will leave the analysis to you. The thing is some of us may like abrasive, harsh, arrogant and what-call-you leaders, others just do not and the capability to accept that adobe fact is a sign of maturity. Filipinos are not dump, however it is sad to say that political maturity is nowhere in the vocabulary of voters.

Housing magnate and businessman Manny Villar has used his being once in poverty to push through with his presidential campaign. His Sipag and Tiyaga slogan has been here with us for some time since he ran for Senator. The phrase is almost synonymous with Villar and with the story of how he managed to get out of poverty, or was it really poverty? This election season gave another definition to his claim of being mahirap. Though Erap had almost lord it over the domain of the Mahirap, Villar now comes with a claim of his being from Tondo and being also a Mahirap, even telling voters that because of their poverty they were unable to save his brother from death. His campaign jingle si Villar ang Tunay na Mahirap utilizes kids and singing absurd situations he claimed to have experience has become an object of spoof and fame for him. And I just like to ask sino naman ang may sabi na bawal ang mangarap ang mahirap, eh yun na nga lang ang ilan sa mga natitirang libre sa komersyalisadong mundong ito? Claims that are widely refuted not by words of chimosos and chismosas or the barberos, but by hard evidence presented in an article by no less than an intellectual elite in the person of Prof Solita Monsod of the UP School of Economics, Inquirer and the GMA7 Network. She was NEDA chief during Cory Aquino’s administration. The article on the Inquirer wasn’t the only piece of her clarification on Villar’s claim to poverty, Prof Monsod has already made her analysis on the allegation on C5 extension road project. A project, she said was “unnecessary, financially disadvantageous to the government, and would only yield Villar enormous financial benefits.” As the ethics case was being heard in the Senate, all Villar and his allies have been doing is to dodge the issue instead of facing them head-on. Not to be forgotten is his supposed links with the Arroyo government giving birth to the Villarroyo tag, his unusual presence in a Philippine Stock Exchange meeting where he “follow-up” on his company’s request to unlock a certain part of his company’s shares of stock for market selling and just recently the complaints about unfinished housing projects where it was alleged that he illegally enriched himself and his company.

Erap Estrada had his chance but blew it altogether. The jueteng payola, the undeclared assets and the work ethic has not all been helpful. The poorly concluded impeachment trial could have been hi saving grace, but his allies all the way let him down by not opening the second envelope. The plunder trial at Sandiganbayan and his conviction and subsequent pardon all the more made his credibility and his objective to return to Malacañang all the more suspect.

Which brings me to Noynoy Aquino, heir apparent to martyr Ninoy Aquino and democracy icon Cory Aquino. The dismal legislative performance in the House and Senate makes him a least achiever in this respect judging by his sponsorship to which was passed into law. In the over-all he is banking on the legacy left by his parents and the torrents of support of the masses for a credible change. He campaigns on the issues of corruption, accountability and honesty. Walang bahid as his supporters would say. I am not saying that 100% Noynoy deserves the votes of the people. I am not also calling out for you to join the Aquino bandwagon just because the surveys say that he leads the pack of presidentiables or that because the 7 million strong Iglesia ni Cristo, known to be voting as a bloc (sabi ni Kabo llamadista daw kse sila, dun daw nataya sa siguradong panalo), would throw their hat for Noynoy, no please do not make that as one of the reasons to choose your president. I say that these extraordinary times call for a extraordinary solution. Noynoy is no extraordinary, he is not the savior this country needs. But for the love of the country we are better off with him. Another Aquino presidency would put an end to an Arroyo, a reboot is all that the Filipinos need. The contenders to Noynoy have no issues to throw against him that's why one after the other they always insert his question his psychiatric health. Boo-boo for those black props, if they think they are pretty much the victims of these black propaganda it would be better if they answer them directly and please do not use your mother to solicit sympathy for your undoings. Do not blame them for knowing that you have illegal transactions, or that you used your position in order to get a favorable contract, do not blame them if they caught you lying because not all Filipinos are stupid. You cannot have us all hook, line and sinker.

Election is a divisive exercise though a democratic one. It sends a positive signal that democracy breathes in this country in spite of the Ampatuan Massacre and the tyranny of Gloria and her manipulation of political institutions (Executive, Legislative and Judiciary). We may have difference in opinions and varied preferences for president. At the end of day, it is important that we stand behind the elected president after the ballots have been casted, counted and canvassed it is all our duty to protect it and to stand by the decision of the majority of our countrymen, that is, after all, the essence of democracy.#

*My apologies for the inaccurate grammar, language and logic. Please feel free to point out any of my errors. My stay in Saudi Arabia has not progressed my using of the English language.

Although You'd Never Know

2009-12-07T20:28:00.000+03:00

(to all who broke Shagami's heart)

To all of you
Who have brushed me aside
Neglected, turned their backs, ignored me.
Although you'd never know

For not returning any calls
For not replying every note
For not smiling back
For not being there

Felt the cold shoulders
The unwarmth in the rubs
Seen true lies, fake smiles
Although you'd never know

Each day I write a poem for you
And burn it in the air
Everyday I pen the saddest lines
Because you barely read a phrase

That is like rubbing salt
And squeezing lemons on my wounds
Stepping on my soul
Although you'd never know.

Pablo writes the saddest lines tonight
And I do mourn with my meter
The letters liberate my fate
Let no one put asunder

I may forgive, I may forget
Let the good things beget
I miss ur smiles, the calls, and all your might
I'm setting aside the fight
Although you'd never know.

When such solitude becomes

2009-11-19T11:00:00.000+03:00

Shades of red are nowhere
Flowers bloom after a hundred century
Smiles are scarce and fright abounds.

Yellow sunny morning
Butterflies, cardinals and squirrels
Are not in sight, even in periphery.

Excitement, glee, fondness, bliss
Are replaced by winter-cold fear
The whole sky is enveloped in darkness.

Abundant humid desert and barren wasteland
Are playgrounds for ragged kids,
Whose laughters are taboo.

Pristine dark abodes jail the most
Soul-less faces, who were marked for death
Leaving nothing, anything to boast.

Sans a single hope to rise
Without chances to cope
Just the suchness of solitude.

Another blank verse for a blank afternoon

2009-08-17T11:19:00.010+03:00

Ringing, I wish my phone is

Out there I wait what lies ahead

Mingling with the remaining memories

Understanding where I stood

Leaves me with nothing but the truth

Outraged I am on the steps I took

Incessant still my destiny moves.

Awry, flurry and fury mixed within me

Mistakes have been done before

Insistent still I am to once more be there and

Sadness ruins me, leaving me in solitary

Torn and tortured by the things I chose

Although love is living in me

Dying I am with everything I am to see

Just as the Sun shines on me

Rains have inundated my insanity.

The Cory Poem

2009-08-05T18:35:00.003+03:00

(based 100% on quotes of Cory Aquino)

I just do whatever it is that I believe I should do,
Regardless of the risks to my life.
I would rather die a meaningful death
Than to live a meaningless life.

Faith is not simply a patience
That passively suffers until the storm is past.
Rather, it is a spirit that bears things
With blazing, serene hope.

It is true you cannot eat freedom
And you cannot power machinery with democracy.
But then neither can political prisoners turn on
The light in the cells of a dictatorship.

The nation was awakened by that deafening shot
They came out in the millions
All the world wondered as they witnessed...
A people lift themselves from humiliation.

Reconciliation should be accompanied by justice,
Otherwise it will not last.
While we all hope for peace
It should peace based on principle, on justice.

My tribute to the Democracy Icon

2009-08-01T10:11:00.010+03:00

Corazon Cojuangco Aquino (January 25, 1933 – August 1, 2009) Housewife, Philippine President, Democracy Icon, Mother, Prayer Warrior.

My first minutes of the morning of first day of August wasn't so good. President Cory, the President that I remembered so well way back in my childhood, has joined her Creator in Eternity. He also reunites with her husband, the National Hero Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino.

Facebook kept me awake until 11 in the evening local time here in KSA. And so I as surf my FB there were status from Filipino friends that the President has indeed breathe her last 3:18 in the morning Philippine time.

Well I do not have so close encounters with the former President way back in the Philippines, but I indeed have two vivid memories of her to reckon with. I saw her in Edsa 2 in 2001. She was upstage delivering her message to the throngs who were there in support of overthrowing another president, Joseph Estrada. Aquino, FVR, GMA, Cardinal Sin and almost all high people in government were there.

But really there was no radiance like how Cory have it. I am Cory follower I didn't imagine a woman leading the nation and steered clear out of authoritarian rule from that of Ferdinand Marcos. The Philippines was all in chaos, anarchy and civil unrest, but Cory, the housewife helped the country resuscitate its dying democracy. I was only five way back then but I later on realized that the Housewife made the World looked up on the Philippines as it made history.

The second time I saw her was when she heard mass in Edsa Shrine near Mercury Durg in Robinsons Galleria. She was wearing black and shortly followed by daughter and actress Kris Aquino. That was so sudden, they were passing just three feet away from where I stand and the goose bumps that her presence gave me was so unique and patently hers that I felt that I was so lucky. She smiled and waved in my direction and I really felt so in luck. I was having my Slurpee.

The most lasting memory she has given our generation and my kids as well is really her tough fight against dictatorship, her rising up to seven coup d'etat, her unselfish service to the country and her unmatched belief in democracy. She is the Icon of Democracy not only for the Philippines to look up to, but for the World to treasure and cherish. She may have succumbed to her illness, but that didn't busted her radiance. For me and maybe for millions of Filipinos around the world, what she has left in this world is something for all the people to remember and would not forget. We owe Cory our freedom, the democracy that the we enjoy to the is the product of her love for Filipinos. And she deserved to be honored, remembered and beloved just like her husband the national hero Ninoy

Jessica Zafra's short piece tells:

President Corazon Aquino is dead, and with her dies the last shreds of civility in our public life. She was a good person. Say what you will about her administration, the illusions dashed and opportunities missed, but she was decent to us. She never mocked us, made fun of our hopes, or knowingly insulted our intelligence. Born to privilege, she never acted the spoiled brat. She was a lady, a rarity in this day and age and especially in this political system. She tried. We miss her like a limb. In mourning for Tita Cory we’re really mourning for ourselves and what could’ve been.

From my dashboard, Tonyo Cruz' blogs what the Filipinos worldwide Tweets and blogs for the late President. UP mentor Nico Ravanilla wrote something so unique and heart-warming, personifying the President and mother that was Cory. It is a first hand experience. Barrio Siete's bloggers have also published their pieces online and every media outfit in the Internet local and international, have carried banners for Cory's death.

It is a time of mourning for the Philippines and for Filipinos who are also in abroad. We mourn the lost of a torch, a light that is very much needed in these trying time under a crooked regime. Nevertheless, her light, her beacon stays with us. The accolades and state ceremonies (the Aquino family refused a State Funeral) maybe fitting and proper, but we will fail her if we do not live what she fought for during her reign. We will be lost in state if we would surrender the democracy she has fought for and died for. Let us not fail her. Thank you very much Madam President Cory.

More of Cory Aquino here the Essential Cory Aquino.

Elipsis and unfinished blogs . . .

2009-07-22T12:48:00.007+03:00

I have been here and there about what to write . . .

> > > > Checks my email. Reads a message from my sister telling me she has asthma attack again. Replies that she should stop eating too much and please don’t make love with the jeepney mufflers and all.

Well there really are a thousand, even million, things to write about. I was thinking of going to Netherlands and visiting the Dutch and ask them about their tulips and how they manage to keep-up and maintain their Red-light district, the never-ending wanting for beer, proliferation of booze, Jane and all, and still become one of the . . .

> > > > Boss calls if there are new messages for him, new applicants for the yet to be vacated manager positions and if the newspapers have been delivered to his house. Says he might not make it to the office today because it's weekends (good for me).

One of the what? I stopped and tried hard what’s next. Netherland is a good place I want to be with one day either be with myself or just my shadow. And then I really wanted to have a harvest (ala Farmville and Farmtown in Facebook) experience with tulips. I mean don’t you just love their colors, the way they appear and I am not just sure how they smell but oh I’m sure they’re as good as heaven and angels. And Netherlands is . . .

> > > > The Office Manager buzzes me up and tells me he needs me at his office now. I replied “Khamsa dagiga” (five minutes). I went to the bathroom, wore my shoes and drink a glass of water from the bottle and brushed my way up his office, only to find out that he just want me to reach down for the Establishment stationery because his arthritis and back pain is not affording him to reach below. Well can we just hire a caregiver here? I mean the Mudir (manager) is 62, smoking non-stop and has his share of memory gaps and judgment lapses. Hello you know the word retirement? I am attempting for the umpteenth time to write a blog.

So where am I? Oh yes I am still in the middle of the desert and was trying to wander out in Netherlands and their tulips. Lost in my thoughts, I turned to something different.

> > > > Browses My Facebook and writes - Rael Felizco is struggling to blog.. a blogger’s block.

Now I really am lost about Netherlands and tulips. Next time write something about things that you really know and then try not to fantasize things that really are of complete strangeness to you.

> > > > My mobile rings and an Arab asks me “Kif Halak”. What who got a sipon or ubo? No he was really asking me how am I, same thing as “Kumusta Ka” in Filipino. So I answered back “Taiyib” (better) and that’s better because you have ruined my blogging. Then the conversation drags on for 5 minutes of asking and answering about Exit and Vacation visa and Iqama renewals of some employees. Well good thing I read my to-do list (yes I have one now, one that is functional and somehow brilliant) and answered him back satisfactorily. He hangs up but told me that he’s paying a visit to the office later to pick up some things. Aiwa, mafi mushkila (yes, no problem. finished, khalas.)

Then I saw a blink on my Facebook update and saw that Lucien has some reactions over my status, then comes Leah, a college acquaintance, and old-friend Brian telling them their pieces. Lotis buzzes me up for the latest in the UP School of Econ, with her thesis cramming and Grendell’s (yes she doesn't have Facebook or Friendster, but she has an email) new hair dye. Cris is pouting about his finances and the lengthy DepEd requirements for new teachers. And then realizing and sinking all of these I reckoned that I am lost with my thoughts about Netherlands and tulips.

I wanted to start and, of course, finish a blog in order to keep sanity and whatever left of it in my brain. It is only in blogging, writing and reading that I get to hold, use and exercise precious, not exactly perfect, English. The loneliness and ineptitude of available time there is in me is really asylum-headed. I need to wrack whatever there is left of my brain. I cannot even speak straight English because it is seldom used here. It’s either I hear of Filipino, Arabic or Bisaya. And if you speak straight, good English here, the thing is you’ll lose the conversation with Arabs. I don’t know about their oil reserves, but their English reserves are really all-time low. I remember Development Economics, whatever is abundant in one place, there sure is lacking of it in some; reminds me of initial endowments, human capital, comparative advantage and other statistically significant details of my abated Graduate School journey.

> > > > Mobile rings again a Filipino cook on the other line inquiring about the status of his request for a plane ticket to the Philippines on December. Believe me as early as June I have requested flight booking for that guy and one month and a week has passed the flight is yet to be booked. All flights to Manila on December are closed, waiting list is on a meager 30% probability.

Back to my keyboard.

> > > > Then I was interrupted again. Phone 2 rings and someone is asking for a fax tone, 10 seconds later Phone 1 rings and one of the driver inquires when to pick-up some of the moving and transferring fellow from one branch to the other. These drivers are nuts. They only listen for me for these sorts of things but are half-ears when I tell them that they should follow whatever I say or else earn the ire of the Amo. I mean I have encountered all kinds of drivers and I would say that they have one general thing in common: They hate it when they are assigned to drive. Not that I have something against drivers, my father used to drive a jeep, when I was young he drove a tricycle, when he was in Saudi (as I do now) he met an accident by driving a motorcycle and was also, at one point, a truck driver. His driving fed me and sent to school together with my siblings. But these drivers that I have, even when I was in the Philippines, are all patama (they like to waste time so that there would be little left for them to do other things.

Wondering what to write anew? My blog.docx has been holding on for some seven (7) unfinished things, scattered ideas and unscrupulous innuendoes that my feeble mind has thought of once in a while. All of them unfinished, wanting and without any signs of affection, maybe a sign for my young yet devastated soul.

Then the clock ticks 2PM and it’s time for my break. Another unfinished blog which makes my seven rubbish eight. Please give me not only the time to write but also the spirit to write. Sometimes the souls is really willing but the flesh is really weak.

Ciao!

postcripts

I was interrupted three times while I was editing this blog. Mudir inquires for the flight bookings, the moving and transferring of people and then asks me again to get some stationery. A Filipino calls me to ask about the driver. The driver inquires about the Filipino. Where do these people come from?

post postscript

I was also interrupted by Facebook, I remember that I have to harvest in Farmtown and Farmville too, I am also flying planes in Airline Manager.

Some randomness

2009-06-10T11:48:00.005+03:00

After surfing the net and hoping to find some nice people to talk to, I just decided to scribble something just to ease some tensions on my mind.

Been days of mind-boggling and brain-whacking thoughts. I feel like shooing away all things, dismissing them all the same. I wanted to be in solitaire in an attempt to get things clear. Problems are abundant and omnipresent, left and right, top and bottom, north, east west and south. And it seems to be no scarcity of such.

As I leave my troubled room, where I temporarily leave the doubts, aversions and fears, I welcome more complications and bigger fears. Out of the comfort zone, inside the jail-like zone. And now comes more rubs for career and endless demands. I need to dispatch them in a flash. I need to rid of these lucid randomness.

And it seems there's no halting them. They become undeterred unsubmissive and ever winning whatever the war they are waging against.

They fire from my back like dragons from its chains, a heart attack to an old man, stroke for the hags and like a thief in the night. There seems to be endless like fires in hell, deep water in the well. And as I search for refuge, nothing comes my way. Everything seems to be in rage, war-mongering and ever hungry for revenge.

I’ve been wanting to take a break from the traffic that consumes me everyday. But there seems to be no escaping the fate that I chose to be with. This is supposed to be the better destiny, the best option, the benefit-maximizing alternative. If only Superman (or Supergirl) would come to rescue me out of the fire, then there would be peace. At the least maybe.

I would lie on the bed like a fallen leaf and would let the wind carry me in his arms to everywhere where there is less of grief, suffering and horror. Less anger, more peace. A paradise for solitaire. A place to retreat, where surrender and dying becomes a sweet pleasurable pick.

But then, just minutes away from the real world, the truth would come flashing again. Torturing and haunting me. Inescapable, I succumb in defeat knowing there is nothing for me to do to heal the wounds that severs pain.

Then with the last straw of strength, I rise and look up the sky, and attempts a Superman fly. Or will I be overwhelmed by the Kryptonite again?

Not for everybody, for the wide-mind only

2009-06-10T11:35:00.003+03:00

Maselang Bagay Ang Sumuso Ng Burat

Maselang bagay ang sumuso ng burat
Baka hindi mo magustuhan kaagad,
Huwag kang basta-basta mandadakma sa dilim
Kung ayaw mong masubo sa alanganin.
Huwag rin naman sanang magsisinungaling
Sa sariling nakakaalam ng hilig,
Gumagamit ng sukatang panlipunan
Nang hindi iniisip ang pinagmulan.

Maselang bagay ang sumuso ng burat
Hindi parang kaning madaling iluwat.
Dapat tama ang pagkakahugis ng bibig
At walang tulis ng ngiping sumasabit
Bukas din dapat ang daang-lalamunan
Para kung sumagad ay di mabubulunan.
Pag hindi pa siya napaungol sa sarap,
Baka naman ang pinapaltos mo'y sapsap.
Maghanap na lang ng ibang maturingan
Hitik ng sirena ang ating lipunan.

Maselang bagay ang sumuso ng burat
Hindi dapat iniaalok sa lahat.
At di totoo ang mga sabi-sabi
Na darang ang pag-ibig ng lakambini.
Kung ang hamak na pastol na katulad ko
Ay nakatagpo ng guwapong binatilyo.
Habang naglalakad sa may tabing-ilog,
Kinudlit niya ang gulok ng aking libog.
Matapos ang mainit na espadahan
Nagsumpaang wagas sa lilim ng buwan.

Maselang bagay ang sumuso ng burat
At langit ang makahanap ng katapat.
Mag-iiwan sana ng munting habilin
Payo lang naman, huwag sanang dibdibin
Ang marubdob at itim na paninira
Gawa ng santo-santong paniniwala.
Sapagkat ang sukatan ng pagkatao
Wala sa dunong, kulay o astang pabo.
Nasa pagkabusilak, pagkadakila
Ng tunay na pagmamahal sa kapwa.

Maselang bagay ang sumuso ng burat
Iyan ang kailangang malaman ng lahat,
Walang dahilang itago't pandirihan
Bumangon sa dilim aking kaibigan!

(seen this in the internet, worth reposting, author unknown)

The Half-Blood Bookworm

2009-05-27T08:43:00.004+03:00

I have to admit something. I am slow reader though I love reading so much. It amazes me on how some people get to finish a Tagalog pocketbook in one seating or less than an hour while I endure it for a week (yes those thin pocketbooks authored by the likes of Gilda Olvidado, Lualhati Bautista and others whose names I have lost in my memory). Worst is if I get hold of an English novel (Sidney Sheldon, Danielle Steele [can’t withstand a chapter]).

I remember in my freshman in college. I borrowed John Grisham’s The Client and The Firm. I finished The Client after a month and The Firm, well I didn’t get to finish it after I reached second semester. Those books cost me frequent travels to the library and familiarized me with the Who’s Who is inside the then humid, dusty and ventilated Tobias Y. Enverga Memorial Library (which after four years was replaced by the highly sophisticated MSEUF Library Complex).

Reading and the habit of reading was embedded by my mother who happens to be a teacher. She used to make it a habit for me to read signs and billboards along highways while travelling back and forth Lucena from Manila. I know it was just a diversion to prevent me from vomiting during that 4-hour bus travel. I remember buses then were not air-conditioned yet and the smell of screeching tires makes my stomach churn and subsequently pukes everything what I have just ingested.

Finishing the Half-Blood Prince

It was of recent time, and yes I mean just this year that I escaped that dilemma of reading so slow-paced as if digesting every letter I meet. Truly J.K. Rowling has not stopped astonishing people with her storytelling. I have proven for a record of a week (for an English novel) that her books are one of those hard-to-put-downs. In between meals, laundry time, afternoon siestas that I can, indeed, finish the book.

Love. Apparate. Sectumsempra. New DA teacher and Magic Minister. Pensieve and recollected memories. More Magic. Treachery. Death. That would very well summarize this hard-to-put-down JK Rowling book. The sixth sequel saw the death of the Hogwarts Headmaster and the creeping victory of the Dark Lord and his minions the Death-Eaters. The novel has poured much of its pages on recollecting old memories in the pensieve and on the identity of the Half Blood Prince who happen to be the same wizard who would cast the Avada Kedavra spell on Dumbledore: Severus Snape. The same wizard Harry’s father has been not so friendly with. After reading it, I find it very interesting to pursue a copy of the Deathly Hollows, the last of Potter's adventure in magical world of Hogwarts.

The half-blood bookworm I maybe but with one of those Potter novels, I can never be a Mud blood no more (with my excuses to Ms Granger). Anyways add to that I have pursued the full volume of the Twilight Saga and the philosophy book Sophie’s World. So wish me luck as I accompany Sophie in her quest to know Socrates, Kierkegaard, Plato, and Sartre; and lovers vampire Edward Cullen and her muggle (hehehe) lover (what was her name again?).

Storms in Summer

2009-05-16T09:23:00.004+03:00

Those words are opposing one another. But it is one of reality that we are experiencing right now...

And while browsing the Inquirer online I come across some explanations under its Talk of the Town section under the Opinion page which comes out every Sunday. It is to my glee that I found a familiar name, someone I am quite familiar with. Prof. Carmina Villariba-Tolentino, Ph. D. wrote an article worth reading for for those who are wanting to have an idea why oh why on this part of the Earth we are being visited by two storms (or was it already three) even though it is obvious (as the calendar used to show) that it is indeed Summer (where is the Sun?). She (as of this writing) is currently Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences of the Manuel S. Enverga University Foundation, my Alma Mater.

I was under her stead twice as student in Physical and Biological Sciences (NS101 and NS 102) and modestly I got some curling grades from her (the point is I passed her subject twice and not twice under her in a single subject). Not that I hate her or her subjects, she was actually one of those few professors that I like. I say modestly because I know that I would meagerly use knowledge from whatever hardcore facts I get from her subject, and I say this with utmost respect and esteemed look at her and all those Science buffs out there, excuse me of my manners. She understands my stand and opinion (though it does not entirely qualify for my absences). I heard her one time with another professor say that her subjects are one of those anathema maranatha to me. What that does mean by the way? Well checking whatever left there is of knowledge that I have I can say that it connotes something not so good, as if I disregards her subjects. Neglect, deadma, kaliwali, wapakels something to those effects and that's another story together with other subjects that found miserably misplaced in the college curriculum.

Well Class this is her article and I hope everybody gets the idea of why we are having storms in the midst of summer. Enjoy whatever there is left of your Summer and of the Sun...

Grad school paper (teacher quality)

2009-05-05T10:35:00.006+03:00

A REVIEW OF HANUSHEK AND RIVKIN’S ARTICLE

“PAY, WORKING CONDITIONS AND TEACHER QUALITY”

Summary

By interpreting time-series data and employing regression analyses, Professors Hanushek and Rivkin’s paper analyzes how teacher’s salary, working conditions and teacher quality in Texas public schools affect the quality of instruction in the classroom. The paper made use of aspects of the teacher labor market in order to explain how the given variables affect the value of education imparted and to identify implications for teacher policies.

The study’s methodology involved a survey of variations of salaries and working conditions of United States’ public schools by regions and by community type. An inquiry on teachers’ working conditions, choices, education and turnover extend the discussion as to how these factors contribute to student achievement.

Salary differences were charted over time and revealed that variation in urban and suburban teacher salaries is far less systematic and that there is weak evidence that more highly paid teachers are more effective. As expected, school working conditions in urban districts stand apart from all others in almost all respects and, not surprisingly, urban teachers are less likely to report general satisfaction with their jobs. The data manifests that any causality between varying salary rates and job conditions with the quality of teaching are likely to be complex. Although teachers’ education and experiences are what primarily determines their salary, they do not have a strong effect on student achievement.

Believing that quality teachers could help offset the deficit of home environment or help students with good school preparations, policy implications points to lifting entry limits to the teaching profession while focusing on student performance and administrator accountability.

The paper puts forward that overall salary increases for teacher would be both expensive and ineffective. From a policy perspective, it is wise for quality of instruction to be improved, for barriers to becoming a teacher to be lowered (such as certification) and for teacher’s ability to raise student performance to be linked with compensation and career advancement.

Review Proper

Hanushek and Revkin’s analyzed issues in teachers’ pay, working condition and quality using economics and econometric methods. They reviewed time-series data or observed data collated over time composing of teacher salary which gauged teachers’ pay including their incomes from other sources; teachers working condition through administrator and parental support, commuting to work, and student demographics as proxy variables; and student test scores as a measure of teacher quality. Said variables were studied to see whether there are salary, and working condition effects when teachers move from one place to another and whether turnover affects teacher quality and student achievement. Said information was estimated by regression analysis using econometric models. After the examination of the evidences, the paper enumerates some policy implications.

Salaries and Working Conditions

Salary primarily determines teacher supply; higher salaries should attract more able teachers. The data used in the study pertaining to teacher salary reveals variations in teacher salaries by region that potentially contribute to unequal instructional quality. The study reveals that “The complexity of variations in salary and other job characteristics . . . suggest that any links . . . are likely to be complex.” It should be noted that unlike in the Philippines, there are teacher salary differences according to region and district in the United States where they are paid according to the various geographical locations they are in. In imposing varying salary scales in the US, Chambers and Fowler (1995), in a survey of more than 40,000 public school teachers, supported the same saying that such differences in ”teachers’ salaries reflect not only the cost of living in a geographic labor market, but also a school district’s preference for teachers who are better educated or more experienced.”

Public school teachers in the Philippines are among the lowest paid, they even received salaries lower than those in professions of comparable qualifications. Similarly in the US, the relative pay of teachers has slipped over the past half-century and many observers have begun to call for increasing teachers’ overall pay. Improving teacher quality, they assert, requires making salaries competitive (Hanuskek et al., 2008: 81).

Salary scales for civil servants, public school teachers included are governed by the Salary Standardization Law, which promoted a series of salary adjustments. While the increases in salary improved teacher’s welfare, they also resulted in some unintended effects. For example, by 1997, salaries of public school teachers were found to be almost 70 percent higher than the salaries of private school teachers (Catanyag, 2001: 8).

In the Philippine setting, new entrants to the public school system are given salary grade that corresponds to the entry level pay despite of possessing an advanced education, several years of teaching experience and any other qualification. A probationary period is in necessary prior to regularization and a salary raise commensurate a teacher’s qualifications.

Hanushek et al. (1999) believe that salaries may affect teacher quality in a number of ways. Although from a policy perspective, there is no analysis that suggests that student achievement would improve from simply raising the salaries of all teachers across the board. It maybe is plausible that increasing the average teacher salary would expand the pool of applicants, its impact on student achievement would depend on two factors.

First, an increase in salaries likely enlarges the pool of applicants, but, even an expansion that raises average quality does not guarantee a positive relationship between teacher quality and salaries. Evidence suggests that teacher quality depends on the ability of the school districts to identify the best teachers out of the pool of applicants without observing them in the classroom. Past evidence suggests that this is difficult and very imprecisely done (Hanushek, 2006).

Second, higher salaries might raise achievement by raising the effort of current teachers. It depends on the number of new, higher quality teachers that would be hired as a result. Increasing compensation of all teachers would provide incentives for both high and low quality teachers to enter and remain in the profession and would cut down teacher turnover – but this also lessens the possibilities to bring in newer, and better, teachers.

As to school working conditions as reported by teachers, urban districts stand apart from all others in almost all respects. Hanushek et al. found out that the relatively small average salary difference between urban and suburban schools does not imply that the typical urban school is able to attract as large a pool of teacher applicants as the typical suburban school.

As it is obvious and showing, the article has linked teachers’ (or any other profession) negative perceptions of working conditions with their exit from schools, but makes a qualification that poor working conditions is not closely tied to the quality of teachers in the classroom. An important agenda item, both for research and for policy, is to learn which working conditions are most important for teachers.

Generalizing it, as in all occupations, teachers value working conditions as well as salary. Examining differences in working conditions gives a more complete picture of differences in the average attractiveness of different types of districts.

Teacher Quality and Student Achievement

Whenever teacher quality is talked about and what makes a good description of teacher quality creates, the discussions is dominated by “widely held views on the characteristics that are needed – deep subject matter knowledge, love of children, knowledge of child psychology, pedagogical training, and the like.” The items intuitively make sense and seem reasonable, however, there is virtually no evidence that links these strongly to student achievement and performance in the classroom (Hanushek, 2006). A more measurable teacher experience and level of knowledge given their graduate education and in-service training may be attractive enough to commensurate it with teacher quality but research has found nothing to prove the same.

In the hope of a much more precise estimate of school scores and test gains, Hanushek et al. (1998: 3) surveyed about 500,000 students, 200,000 teachers and 3,000 schools and recorded large differences among schools in their impact on student achievement. These differences are centered on the differential impact of teachers, rather than the overall school organization, leadership or even financial condition.

Hanushek and associates (1998: 24) estimate suggest that the first, and to a lesser extent, the second year of experience significantly improve teacher quality, but that additional years rarely have a significant impact. Goe and Stickler (2008: 5) even expanded the period by five years. During these first few years, they say, teachers appear to gain incrementally in their contribution to student learning. After five year, however, the contribution of experience to student learning appears to level off. In economic terms, their production function when it comes to teacher experience is one of those diminishing marginal utility, a concave function in a graphical representation.

The effect associated with a teacher’s possession of an advanced degree are strikingly counterintuitive, especially given the salary incentives offered to encourage teachers to pursue graduate degrees. The study found out that there is no significant evidence that post-graduate degree education improves the quality of teaching; the point estimates for the effects of a master’s degrees are generally negative and always statistically insignificant from zero (Goe and Stickler, 2008; Hanushek, 2008). Not only do recent empirical studies not find a substantial benefit for students of teachers with advanced degrees, but the majority of such studies also indicate that teachers with master’s degrees and beyond may negatively influence their students’ achievement. Betts, Zau and Rice in 2003 (Goe and Stickler, 2008) find marginal benefits for middle school mathematics achievement when teachers hold master’s degrees though this effect is not practically significant. Rowan et al. (1997 in Goe and Stickler, 2008) speculate that graduate-level study may produce teachers who cannot simplify their advanced understanding of the subject matter, at least for students at the elementary and middle school levels.

Given this alarming find, Goe and Stickler even raised questions about the prevalence of teacher pay scales that reward these characteristic of having graduate degrees. At a minimum, they say, these results raise doubts about policies that require or strongly encourage graduate education for teachers.

Especially that the position taken by the article is that teacher experience and graduate education explain much of the overall variation in teacher compensation. Hanushek cites Ballou and Podgursky’s estimate that on average 17 percent of the teacher wage bill reflects extra payments for experience and an additional 5 percent reflects payments for a master’s degree, though the premium for a postgraduate degree varies substantially.

Quality Issues Across Countries

In the experience of South Korea (Kim, 2001: 4), the quality of teacher candidates has fallen significantly since many bright young people are now lured into other occupations and new industries. Problems in teacher remuneration, working conditions and poor conditions of teacher training institutions seem to hinder quality control in teacher training. Even if the supply-demand balance of teachers at the primary level has been controlled by the Korean government more than 8,000 vacancies could not be filled because the supply of elementary school teachers was inadequate and is anticipated to continue for several more years.

In India, Indiriyanto (2001: 7) has emphasized that teacher quality has remained to be an unfinished item of India’s educational agenda. The most prominent of which is the declining quality of teachers at the basic education level who still lack teaching skills and mastery levels. A survey conducted by the Centre for Policy Research (May, 2001 in Indiriyanto, 2001: 7) shows that more than 70% of teachers do not consider that they lack teaching skills or have low mastery levels. Most of the teachers expressed, instead, that the lack of teaching materials and other education facilities affect their teaching competencies.

Pay, Conditions and Quality: Relationships and Causalities

In an earlier study in 1999, Hanushek et al. said that the empirical evidence on the link between teacher quality and pay is decidedly mixed—raising doubts that there is a strong relationship between the two.

Two explanations have emerged in response to this evidence. On the one hand, some argue that the true relationship between teacher quality and salaries is quite strong, but methodological and data problems have impeded the identification of salary effects. Although weak, the evidence is quite strong on one point, that teacher quality is an important determinant of achievement.

Methodology Issues

Similar to the position of Hanushek et al., Goe and Stickler (2008: 3) validates the claim to further enhance methodology problem in teacher education stating that “while many studies attest that some teachers contribute more to their students’ academic growth than other teachers, research has not been very successful at identifying the specific teacher qualifications, characteristics and classroom practices that are most likely to improve student learning.”

The current US research agenda on have been fixated with the use of student achievement as a barometer of the effects of teaching. Goe and Stickler remind that while there may be important reasons to value teacher experience, above and beyond it impact on student achievement, teachers’ character, classroom management skills, stability and leadership qualities may contribute to smooth school and classroom functioning. However this may not be reflected in significantly higher student achievement because they simply are not directly measurable. They continue:

Researchers have not yet developed the tools that measures, and data sources that allow them to state with a strong degree of certainty and consistency, which aspects of teacher quality matter most for student learning. This does not mean that no relationships exists among other measures of teacher quality and student achievement; in fact, studies that show positive relationships between particular indicators of teacher quality and student achievement are numerous in literature (Goe and Stickler, 2008: 10).

A lot of important outcomes besides performance in standardized tests may be strongly and consistently related with improved student achievement such as students’ self-esteem, student attendance, teacher collaboration and collegiality and school culture.

Many of the studies that Goe analyzed find no significant relationship between teacher experience and student achievement, but they do not focus on traditional public schools. This situation suggests that the evidence supporting the relationship between teacher experience and student achievement may be more relevant to current US policy concerns than the evidence that finds little or no relationship. Hiring teachers with more than five years of experience may not result in improved student achievement, but there are other ways that teachers’s experience benefits schools. Thus, experience is one of many factors that should be taken into consideration when hiring teachers and determining assignments.

We have to remember that the study was viewed from an economic perspective and that the setting is within a competitive labor markets. Such assumes that people will sort across occupations and industries according to their skills, the salaries being offered, and working conditions because a rational consumer would want to maximize utility absent asymmetric information; And that as long as working conditions are roughly comparable, higher salaries should attract more able people as a primary microeconomic consideration. Justifiably “if the relative attractiveness of working conditions in teaching and in other occupations changes little over time, salary changes in teaching should provide a good measure of changes in average teacher quality and should therefore provide an important benchmark for considering policies related to teacher quality” (Hanuskek, et al. 2008: 72-73).

Research Agenda

Hanushek and Rivkin's paper engages educational institutions and scholars in the Philippines to either vindicate their findings or to rebuff it taking that condition in the Philippines are very different with the United States. The methodological underpinnings on the data (student achievement test scores) they have used, as Goe observes, is a variable in play that could have affected its result. The non-experimental nature of the data itself can very well be substituted by other data that would otherwise determine student achievement viz-a-viz teacher pay, working conditions and pay.

This brings about a new research agenda for the academic community especially the counterintuitive findings on obtaining a master's degree by teachers and yet having only marginal effects on their achievement.

References

Chambers, Jay and Fowler, William, Jr. J. (1995) Public School Teacher Cost Differences Across the United States: An Analysis and Methodology Report, Washington D.C.: American Institute for Research in the Behavioral Sciences.

Goe, Laura and Stickler, Leslie M. (2008) “Teacher Quality and Student Achievement: Making the Most of Recent Research” TQ Research and Policy Brief, “Washington D.C.: National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality.”

Hanushek, Eric A. (2006) The single salary schedule and other issues of teacher pay, Paper prepared for the University of Arkansas Department of Education Reform Technical Board of Advisors Conference Agenda, October 19-21, 2006, Kauffman Conference Center

Hanushek, Eric A. and Rivkin, Steven G., 2007. “Pay, working conditions and teacher quality,” The future of children, Vol. 17 (Spring 2007), New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Available: www.jstor.org/stable/4150020, [Date accessed: 9 December 2008].

Hanushek, Eric A., John F, Kain and Steven F. Rivkin (1999) “Do Higher Salaries Buy Better Teachers?” NBER Working Series Paper, Working Paper 7082, Cambridge, Massachusetts: National Bureau of Economic Research, Available: www.nber.org/papers/w7082 [Accessed: 27 December 2008].

__________________ (1998) “Teachers, Schools and Academic Achievement”, NBER Working Series Paper, Working Paper 6691, Cambridge, Massachusetts: National Bureau of Economic Research, Available: www.nber.org/papers/w6691 [Accessed: 27 December 2008].

Indiriyanto, Bambang (2001) “Management of Teachers in Basic Education in Indonesia, Issues and Innovations”, ANTRIEP Newsletter, Vol. 6, No. 1, January - June 2001, Indonesia: Asian Network of Training and Research Institutions in Educational Planning.

Kim, Hye-Sook (2001) “Management of Teachers: Efforts and Issues in Korea”, ANTRIEP Newsletter, Vol. 6, No. 1, January - June 2001, Seoul, South Korea: Asian Network of Training and Research Institutions in Educational Planning.

Wooldridge, Jeffrey (2000). Introductory econometrics: A modern approach, 2nd ed.

Grad school paper (agrarian reform)

2009-05-05T09:52:00.006+03:00

AGRARIAN REFORM AS A PATHWAY OUT OF POVERTY:

THE PHILIPPINE EXPERIENCE

Introduction

The development of agriculture remains to be an unfinished task for developing countries in spite of global concern over recent shakeups in the world financial market and a looming downturn of the giant US economy brought about by the sub-prime mortgage woes. In the midst of these pressing concerns, people in developing and least developed countries remains to be in the quagmire of poverty and the issue of land has been seemingly left behind.

Although agricultural importance, land and agrarian reforms are issues for Third World and some developing countries, development in the agricultural sector should not be undermined or abandoned, but efficiency and sustainability in production systems should be pushed and pursued if governments are serious in taking poverty out of rural areas. A first step is to make incentives right by strengthening property rights.

In developing countries, land continues to constitute as the principal source of livelihood, security and status. In his foreword to the 2008 World Development Report, Robert Zoellick has emphasized that, “three out of every four poor people in developing countries live in rural areas, and most of them depend directly or indirectly on agriculture for their livelihoods.” About six families out of ten are still engaged in agriculture (Prosterman, et. al 1990). Agriculture remains as the key sector of economic activity in the developing countries of the Asia-Pacific Region. Relatively, agriculture’s contribution to GDP is from 8.4% in Malaysia to more than 50% in Myanmar, although its share in employment is higher (Khundkher, 2007).

Developed countries (those who have strong industrial and services sectors), have already departed from improving agriculture (though protectionism has been prevalent) and instead concentrated in developing technology and accumulation of capital. Still, a portion of the world’s economy depended on agriculture as its main export. Asia, for one, remains as a basket of agricultural goods, most of the agricultural produce of the worlds are sourced from this continent. It accounts for almost 39% of agricultural value added of world gross product (WDR, 2008: 340).

The large share of agriculture in poorer economies suggests that strong growth in agriculture is critical for fostering overall economic growth.

Agrarian Reform Policies and Development

The choice of the issue of agrarian reform is anchored on the importance of agriculture in developing the economy. Agriculture’s role is important because most people in poor and developing countries are still in agriculture and make their living from land. Perkins, Radelet and Lindauer (2006: 614) see the need to explore the problem of land prior to agricultural production. For them, the property right that matters most in the agricultural sector is the right over the use of land.

There is a need to redistribute land in order to propel agricultural productivity. Eswaran and Kotwal (2006) presuppose that “the greater the amount of land (capital) a worker has access to, the greater is his or her productivity. In developing countries, land-to-labor ratio is a crucial determinant of the productivity of the poor in agriculture.” A study on redistribution between landholding classes found that transfers between landholding classes do increase the poverty-reducing impact of land-based targeting, though the extra impact is not large (Ravallion and Sen, 2006).

As countries develop, their labor force shifts to industry and services and in the process the well-being of the people improves. Agricultural productivity is the key to poverty alleviation. The process of secular decline in poverty is inevitably associated with a movement of labor from agriculture to other sectors and how agricultural productivity growth facilitates such movement.

In many countries the highly unequal distribution of land arose originally not from market transfers but from the allocation of land to politically privileged groups (Binswanger, Deininger, and Feder 1995). Land and agrarian reforms[1] have always been very politically-intense issues. So political that the economic side of it has always been neglected, if not totally ignored. Regimes have used such a policy as a matter necessary for its survival or legitimacy[2].

From an economic point of view, it is argued that growth would be enhanced if wealth were redistributed from the rich to the poor, because the marginal productivity of capital is higher for the poor (Chenery in Dagdeviren, et. al., 2001).

The underlying thought in implementing a policy of land distribution is that it is aimed at dividing the land, deconcentrating it from the hands of the few so that the gains of the economic pie is shared, equality is achieved, poverty is reduced and the economy back on the track to progress (Hayami, et. al. 1987; MacDonald, 1999; Caymo and Celonanga, 2007). The stylized fact has put forth that poverty incidence in agriculture is high relative to other sectors; therefore development efforts should be in place in reducing poverty level in this sector.

Because land continues to constitute the principal source of livelihood, security and status, landlessness is at the root of some of the world’s most serious and persisting problems, with consequences frequently extending to severe exploitation and deprivation of minimal political rights and basic human needs. Yet, for decades[3] this problem, an issue that should be at the heart of the development process, has been neglected or ignored (Prosterman, 1987: 10).

Putzel (1990: 8) emphasizes that the rapidly growing population has put enormous pressure on land resources. He observes that the skewed pattern of landownership means that as many as 70% of those who earn their living from agriculture do not own and do not have secure access to land. In one of his papers on agrarian reform and development economics, Balisacan (2007) adds up that “high inequality in land distribution is bad for both equity and overall economic growth.”

Agrarian Reform in the Development of Economies

The most remarkable accomplishment of agrarian reform as a redistributive policy can be gleaned from the experience of the so-called East Asian Economic Miracle. The literatures on land reform have proclaimed as a success those policies that were carried out by Japan, Taiwan and South Korea; successful in the sense that those policies were instrumental in ensuring a highly egalitarian agrarian structures (Hayami and Godo, 2005: 214) and transforming the structure of the economy from an agricultural to industrial (Adriano, 1991).

The timing and setting of these economies played a crucial role in carrying out the reform. The land-to-the-tiller programs in the Asian countries were implemented immediately after the war and were accomplished in a short period of time (Hayami and Godo, 2005; Adriano, 1991: 70).

Kay (2001) also presses on the element of timing on the implementation of an agrarian reform policy as he studies Asian and Latin American countries development. He differentiates that in South Korea and Taiwan, agrarian reform came before any significant industrialization had taken place and was a key ingredient in the subsequent successful industrialization process. He continues:

“Most agrarian reforms in Latin America happened after industrialization was already firmly established and were often seen as a way to revive the flagging industrialization process dues to what has been termed the ‘exhaustion of the easy phase of import-substitution industry’. But land reform was not considered as a prerequisite for industrialization in Latin America while in Taiwan and South Korea land reform was a major factor in getting their industrialization started.”

It was not only the Philippines where land reforms were pursued; various Asian and Latin American countries have their share in implementing agrarian reform although with great and far success.

Traditional agrarian system abound most of Latin America, in which most of the people are subsistence farmers working on land of large landholders and that landlords have little incentive to divert part of their income from consumption to investment in their estates, since they tend to receive an acceptable income, “a mere redistribution of the land in Latin America will not automatically bring about an improvement in production and productivity” (Alexander, 1963: 561-2).

Agrarian reform can be seen as an effective program of redistributing wealth and, for some, in improving a country’s economic well-being. In studying the difference in the economic development of Latin American and East Asian countries, Aquino (2003: 27) concludes:

Most of East Asian countries did Agrarian Reforms and carried out comprehensive agrarian development programs, where governments have supported farmers by giving them credits and protecting them from foreign competition. Especially this has been the case in Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

When landowners have a big political clout, like in Philippines and in some Latin American countries, it is difficult to carry out agrarian reform programs (Aquino, 2003).

It should be learned that agrarian reform implemented by governments is not a stand alone policy that by itself would transform the whole economy into a developed country overnight.

In endorsing land reform as an redistributive strategy, Chenery (1979) has warned that redistribution of assets may be accompanied by significant reductions in productivity, which is attributable to the failure of providing the necessary institutional infrastructure and complementary inputs to maintain the earnings potential of the redistributed asset.

In earlier stages of developing strong economies of Taiwan and South Korea substantial land reforms were implemented, with great emphasis on education, and an overall strategy favoring labor-intensive expansion in the nonagricultural sectors, especially labor-intensive manufactured exports (Ahluwalia, et. al., 1979).

Grindle (1990: 179-80) tells that despite the extent of agrarian reform in Mexico, underproductivity, landlessness and marginality characterize most of the country’s rural people. The lesson of Mexico’s experience is that in the absence of a supportive policy environment; in the absence of significant investment in credit, infrastructure and research, extension, Green Revolution technology and human capital formation, and in the absence of a legitimate capacity or rural people to make sustained political and economic demands on the government, agrarian reform cannot resolve deep-seated problems of rural poverty, underproductivity and inequity.

Keyder and Kudat (2000), in analyzing the agrarian transformation in Eastern Europe and some parts of the former Soviet Union, have emphasized that “regime change brought with it faith in the advantages of private ownership and market system, thus redefining the task of reform as making agriculture work efficiently in a market economy.”

In contrast with the Philippine experience, “land reform in the ex-socialist bloc were generally in terms of economic efficiency rather than social goals” (Keyder and Kudat, 2000; 7). The economic reasons that were brought up was that “land reform stressed the efficiency of private ownership and market regulation, rather than concerns for equity, landlessness, social stability and rural-to-urban migration,” which was the opposite for the Philippines.

It has been almost 60 years since Bangladesh introduced land reform legislations and the “overall impact was thus insignificant in terms of both efficiency and equity.” Recent similar legislative measures were also carried out but with “limited impacts on settling the landless poor.”

The legislative measures undertaken by successive governments in Bangladesh do not appear to have brought perceptible benefits to the land poor and landless in Bangladesh. However, some polarization and awareness might have been created among the rural poor and the landless relating to their rights and prerogatives within a highly unequal and inefficient agrarian structure as indicated by unequal distribution of landownership and increasing trend of landlessness (Saha, B.K. 2000-2001 in Sato, 2004).

Even with its considerable industrial development, India’s agriculture remains as its largest sector, the government has since put agrarian reform a priority in its development agenda. The past 50 years have been characterized with significant changes in land ownership with its estimated 17.3 million acres of redistributed land (Sato, 2004). Aided by available panel data, Besley and Burgess (2000: 391) found out that land reforms do appear to have led to reductions in poverty in India. By affecting access to land, land reform may have more a lasting effect on poverty.

In neighbor Indonesia, not only “the imbalance of land authority, uncertainty of protection to land rights at the village community levels and imbalance in land use and utilization pattern due to different geographical composition and population distribution among the islands are the problems.” Sato has recorded “the rapid conversion of meager agricultural land to non-agricultural usage” as causing severe threats to sustainability of agricultural practices and aggravating the problem of landlessness among the farmers in villages in Indonesia.

Thailand’s Agrarian Land Reform Office has revised its objectives under its program (Sato, 2004: 41). It has now emphasized its resolve to a) distribute land to farmers according to ALRA; b) enable farmers to access capital resources; c) ensure self-development of the farmers in the land reform area; and d) increase the perennial plantation, food resources and income generation activities and processes. Similar to the experience of the Philippines, Thailand has met resistance from “rich farmers, and fund constraints” as stumbling blocks in proceeding with land reform.

The diverse experiences of developing countries in carrying out agrarian reform have mixed results. While it was a success for others, some have made conditions worst.

Impacts of Agrarian Reform

The available studies on agrarian reform have produced varied consequences and results. It is noteworthy to consider that there should be complementary programs that are laid side by side with agrarian reform for it to prosper and spur development of the agricultural sector, only then can it reduce poverty in rural areas.

Aside from having to redistribute land as a source of income, agrarian reform has also brought about changes in agriculture and in the economy as a whole. Land redistribution is politically feasible, its economic effects on poverty can be ambiguous (Bardhan, 1995).

A cross country observation, which includes the Philippines, by Binswanger and Deininger (1997: 1962), revealed that by implementing large public investment programs in rural areas and partial land reform programs, which addressed structural problems, can result in modest increases in agricultural output and modest reductions in rural poverty.

The same authors have also noted that redistributive land reform not only gives land to more efficient produce but also reduces credit market imperfections, which lead to improved investment decisions by the poor in the economic side. Greater wealth also increases the ability of the poor to directly participate in the political process.

Ranis (1995) has observed that as a result of the land reform and the increasingly labor-intensive mix of agricultural outputs, the distribution of rural incomes in Taiwan also improved dramatically. At the same time, farmers’ ability and willingness to take advantage of new investment opportunities outside of agriculture increased. Both trends further encouraged the growth of rural, small- and medium-scale industries and services.

Pranab (1995) has pronounced doubts that land redistribution may not always boost productivity and reduce poverty if small farmers will not be able to access production credit (particularly significant as purchased inputs become more important in modern agriculture), to information and marketing networks, and to the capacity to diffuse and insure against risk. According to him, the redistribution of land from large to small farmers may also reduce the demand for hired labor (while correcting the under use of family labor on small farms) and depress the wage rates for landless laborers, particularly if they get no land in the land reform. This would put the larger farmers as having better access to these resources.

Banerjee (1995) makes the case for land reform suggesting that “with more assets the poor are able to obtain more credit and better insurance coverage, which helps them invest more effectively.” He also believed that the children of the beneficiaries of land reform may have better health and more education, which may make them more productive.

The land given to them may even be used to start small businesses of their own by using their land as loan collateral. He emphasized that “land can be a permanent source of income for poor families.”

On a final note, Barlowe (1953: 180) summarizes that “the impact that land reform has on economic development varies considerably according to the nature of the land reform program, the manner in which it is carried out, the resources of the country and the extent to which they have already been developed, and the social, economic, political, and legal institutions of the country. In a sense, the greatest contribution that land reform can make in some countries lies in its ability to improve the institutional setting within which economic development is expected.”

However the magnitude and intensity of studies conducted in understanding Philippine agrarian reform, and even in international scene, there remains to be more room for much needed quantitative data that could clearly and definitively conclude the impact of such policy on economic development.

Agrarian Reform in the Philippines

In the Philippine context, the skewed land distribution pattern is not a product of recent history but a legacy of its long colonial experience (Adriano, 1991).

The Philippines has implemented a myriad of land and agrarian reform programs for almost a century[4] now, all aimed at improving the backbone of the economy, but still lay in the quagmire of poverty and inequality. The gap between the rich and the poor is yet to be bridged and poses an insurmountable task not only to the Philippines but to other developing nations.

The first real attempt to implement a redistributive land reform was marked by the passing of Presidential Decree No. 2 (PD-2) by President Ferdinand Marcos in 1972 under a dictatorial regime with similarly authoritarian settings in China, and very high US influence in Japan and South Korea (Aquino, 2003). According to PD-2 the whole country was declared as land reform area. Subsequently, PD No. 27 initiated the distribution of rice and corn lands to actual tillers through operations land transfer (OLD) whereby tenants were to become full owners after paying 15 equal amortizations (Khundker, 2007).

However, Marcos’s land reform attempt achieved only limited gains due to lack of support services and cumbersome process of obtaining land by the intended beneficiaries. Further, high retention limit (7 hectares) and limited coverage of the reform area (only rice and corn lands were being distributed to the actual tiller) also led to limited results. Despite limited success, some observers are inclined to term PD 27 as the springboard of the CARP introduced later.

In its continued struggle to redistribute land, the Philippine government’s newly-installed Congress in 1987, after overthrowing the 20-year Marcos dictatorship, passed the RA 6657 or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law. The law was signed by Pres. Corazon Aquino in June 10, 1988.

Aquino, herself coming from a land-rich clan in Tarlac, was criticized for not grabbing the opportunity to truly implement an agrarian reform policy but instead passed the opportunity to the landlord-controlled Congress. Though the administration of Aquino has failed (Hayami, et. al., 1987; Putzel, 1990; Gordoncillo, et. al. 2003) to live up to the promise of putting the CARP as the centerpiece of her government (Bandyopadhyay, 1985; Putzel in Silliman, 1998), the agrarian reform program has been comprehensive in comparison with all the past policies related to land distribution in the country (Khundker, 2007; Navarro, 2007). It is but more harder for the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and other line agencies concerned to implement the reform especially in a resistant and hostile atmosphere.

Hayami, Quisumbing and Adriano (1990) observe:

“In terms of scope and coverage, Philippine land reform laws have actually surpassed most land reform laws in South and Southeast Asia. Yet, the reform efforts have faller short of the country’s needs, as indicated by the intensified insurgency problem in recent years.”

CARP and the ARC Approach

Approved in 1987 by Pres. Aquino, CARP is composed of three critical elements which enable its service-delivery aside from the redistribution of land: Land Tenure Improvement, Program Beneficiaries’ Development and Agrarian Reform Justice.

The expired CARP is being administered under an extended 10-year program within the premises of RA 8532 and was allotted P50 billion pesos for its implementation. Three phases of agrarian reform execution involves: 1) the democratization of land ownership which is focused on the acceleration of land transfer and land tenure improvement programs, 2) enhancement of farm productivity through better access to support services: basic rural infrastructure, credit, market, technology and extension services, 3) optimization of farm management to realize the full productive and income potential of awarded lands and to promote global competitiveness (Prestoza, et. al. 2003).

Table 1.1. CARP Scope and Accomplishment, as of December 2006
Land Type/Mode of Acquisition		Scope (in hectares)	Accomplishment (%)
DAR		*4,428,357*	*86.4*
Private Agricultural Lands		3,093,251	69.5
	Operation Land Transfer	616,233	91.1
	Government Financing Institutions	243,434	66.1
	Voluntary Offer to Sell	437,970	127.9
	Compulsory Acquisition	1,507,122	17.7
	Voluntary Land Transfer	288,492	208.6
Non-Private Agricultural Lands		1,335,106	125.5
	Settlements	604,116	119.2
	Landed Estates	70,173	115.0
	Government Owned Lands	660,817	132.3
DENR		*3,771,411*	*81.0*
	Public A&D Lands
	Integrated Social Forestry/	2,502,000	68.7
	Community Based Forest Mountain	1,269,411	105.2
TOTAL		8,199,768	83.9
Note: Subject to the ongoing inventory of CARP scope.
Source: DAR and DENR as cited from Balisacan, 2007

To implement CARP, Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) made a strategic decision to comprehensively focus its activities on agrarian reform committees (ARCs). Agrarian Reform Communities is a barangay or a cluster of barangays where a critical mass of farmers and farm workers were awaiting the full implementation of agrarian reform. The ARC concept was partly responsible for reinvigorating the interest of foreign donors in CARP.

The ARC development strategy emphasizes on institutional development and participation. It has been proven to be an effective approach for support service delivery and has contributed in the promotion of self-reliance and the capacity of ARC members to manage their projects (Arlanza, et. al., 2006). The ARC development strategy composed of Land Tenure Improvement, Social Infrastructure and Local Capacity Building, Sustainable, Area-based Rural Enterprises Development and Basic Social Services System Development.

In a published manual, (Basconcillo, et. al. 2005: 81-146), the DAR lists down eight elements to be considered so that a viable ARC is established: 1) land tenure improvement; 2) organizational building and strengthening; 3) economic and physical infrastructure support services; 4) farm productivity and income improvement; 5) agri-based rural industrialization; 6) basic social services; 7) balanced ecosystem development and 8) gender and development.

With the passage of a law extending CARP for another ten years, the ARC concept has evolved and developed to be known as the KARZones or the KALAHI Agrarian Reform Zones which are the convergence sites of DAR operations in collaboration with other rural development agencies. They serve as convergence venues of various government-initiated extension services and technology promotion programs for agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs).

KALAHI Agrarian Reform Zones are defined as a sub-provincial area comprising of one or more municipalities with critical mass of ARBs and farming households. The zone is composed of ARCs and adjacent AR barangays within the DA’s SAFDZ; areas covered by DSWD-CIDSS: KKB (KALAHI – Comprehensive and Integrated Development Support Services: Kapangyarihan at Kaunlaran sa Barangay) each zone should coincide with the boundaries of congressional districts. Kalahi Zones should have at least two ARCs, existing ARCs have high level of development, at least 50% of barangay are covered by CARP, at least 75% LTI accomplishment in the whole zone and with at least 30% of the farming population are ARBs.

After the term of Sec. Ernesto Garilao, the concept and principles of ARC development were viewed and evaluated. Two major findings were identified: 1) the need to expand the coverage to increase the magnitude of ARB reach, and 2) the lack of resources to address perceived ARC needs given the limitations of government resources (Basconcillo, et. al. 2005).

CARP Assessments

In more than 20 years of its implementation, the CARP has been studied and assessed in almost all its aspects that it deserves to be reviewed and presented.

CARP impact assessments were available as early as 2003 (Reyes, 2001; Gordoncillo, et. al., 2002a and 2002b; Habito, et. al., 2001; Paunlagui and Rola, 2001; Bautista and dela Cruz, 2002; Manasan and Mercado, 2001). The impact assessment delved on the micro; meso; investment, productivity and land market; social capital and civic entrepreneurship; fiscal aspect; impact on poverty; and institutional and organizational assessment. These seven studies on the impact of the agrarian reform program constitute a valuable and comprehensive analysis of how land asset reform implemented under a democracy has affected the quality of life of the ARBs, and how financial resources were utilized towards this end (Lim, 2003).

Among the highlights (Lim, 2003) of the impact assessments are its results on the tenurial relations brought about by the CARP, bottlenecks to its implementation were also identified, the persistence of share tenancy and land mortgaging are still prevalent, although there significant declines in share tenancy, leaseholding and incidence of owner non-cultivators between 1989-1999.

There was also no evidence of improved distribution of land and income in the rural areas and that poverty incidence remains to be high at 63% which is even higher than the national poverty incidence. At the bottom of the eight-volume impact assessment are policy recommendations aimed improving the administration of agrarian reform. Among those policy suggestions is for the government to resolve existing land distribution, land valuation and other conflicts and to finish agrarian reform in the targeted areas.

Habito, et. al. (2003) confirm that land acquisition and distribution has been relatively slow-paced among proprietors, with numerous instances of subdivision of threatened land among non-cultivating children (with one sibling taking care of the management of all other sibling’s parcels). This sluggishness contrasts with the dispatch with which LAD has proceeded in corporate farms outside sugarcane. The respondents in their study indicated shared tenancy decreased to 17% in 2000 and 23% in 1990. Owner-cultivators increased from 29% in 1990 to 40% in 2000, while those who were amortizing owners also increased from 12% in 1990 to 17% in 2000. Likewise, rice farmers who were already ARBs in 1990 significantly improved their labor productivity more than the non-ARBs.

In a recent study (Arlanza, 2006) commissioned on the performance in area coverage by DAR with the German Technical Cooperation:

Based on the performance in terms of area coverage, the implementation of the Program has already accounted for 82 percent of the total estimated scope. However, a more stratified assessment of this performance reveals that the rate of completion was pulled up by the extremely high performance in distributing government-owned lands (120 percent), voluntary land transfers (179 percent), voluntary offers to sell (126 percent), and the final completion of OLT (95 percent). The more important task of distributing lands under compulsory acquisition (CA) has not been prioritized. The cumulative coverage of this category has accounted for only 16 percent of the estimated scope.

Conclusions

As numerous studies on agriculture and land reform have confirmed, agrarian reform is not the only way out of poverty reduction. While agrarian reform programs were promoted to be a redistributive program in order to lower inequality, there remains be more for government to provide in terms of improving the quality of institutions, pouring more infrastructure investments in agriculture, provision for technological growth, and allowing credit access to farmers. Empirical studies have proven this point.

Barlowe (1953) emphasized that land reform offers no panacea. It can carry and give life to the seeds of economic development, but the process of development must be nurtured by many forces and factors that lie beyond the scope of land reform. In the same line, land and agrarian reforms should be viewed only as a part of a comprehensive economic and social development strategy rather than a cure-all (Adriano, 1991 and Balisacan, 2007).

Dudwick, et. al. (2007; 2) notes that although land reform may potentially contribute to pro-poor growth by the increasing farm efficiency and by distributing land widely, it is only one of many important complementary reforms and cannot be expected to stimulate sustainable pro-poor growth by itself.

Balisacan (2007) draws lessons from developing countries from a historical perspective. He emphasized, among others, on the speed and credibility by which the program was implemented, the institutions in place, the political legitimacy and acceptability of the program, its simplicity, transparency, and uniformly enforceable rules of participation. As early as 1991, Adriano has identified the major bottlenecks and loopholes of the CARP, a) limited coverage, b) issue of single versus variable retention limit and award ceiling; c) non-land transfer and priority areas: provisions favoring agribusiness corporations, d) co-existence of two modes of productive organizations (i.e. small farms and large-sized agribusiness-operated farms), e) inefficiency and inequality arguments of tenancy regulation and f) cumbersome land valuation.

Eswaran and Kotwal (2006: 120, 126) draws from the outcomes of the Green Revolution where the high-yield variety technology was introduced. The green revolution increased income inequality in relative terms. An important lesson from this is that public investment in appropriate irrigation schemes, the development of credit institutions and primary education are essential to ensuring an equitable distribution of the gains from agricultural productivity growth.

In order for agriculture to grow, it should go hand-in-hand with the expansion of markets, infrastructure and producer services so that land and labor can be shifted continuously toward their most profitable uses. Improving the productivity of agriculture is the single most important step a developing country can take to reduce poverty. For this to happen, agrarian reform should be implemented before agricultural productivity can be attained, only then can it be said that it has become a pathway out of poverty.

REFERENCES

Adriano, Lourdes Saulo (1991). A general assessment of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, Paper prepared for the consultation-workshop on the Dynamics of Rural Development organized by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, held 30-31 August 1991 at Ternate, Cavite

Alexander, Robert J. (1963) “Nature and Progress of Agrarian Reform in Latin America” The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Dec., 1963), pp. 559-573, Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Economic History Association. Available www.jstor.org/stable/2116216 [accessed: 03/09/2008 04:17].

Ahluwalia, Montek S., Carter, Nicholas G. and Chenery, Hollis B. (1979) “Growth and poverty in developing countries,” World Bank Staff Working Papers, WP Number 309, The World Bank: Washington.

Aquino, Carlos y Rodriguez (2003), Differences in the economic development of Latin American and East Asian countries. Available: http://www.geocities.com/Eureka/Plaza/1406, [Accessed: 21 February 2008].

Arlanza, Ricardo S., et. al. (2006). The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program: Scenarios and options for future development, Available: www.dar.gov.ph, (accessed: 21 February 2008).

Balisacan, Arsenio M. (May 2007). Agrarian reform and poverty reduction in the Philippines, Second Regional Policy Dialogue on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development: The Case of the Philippines, Paper presented during the Policy Dialogue on Agrarian Reform Issues in Rural Development and Poverty Alleviation, Traders Hotel, Manila, 30 May 2007.

Banerjee, Abhijit V. (1995) “Prospects and strategies in land reform,” Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics, Pleskovic, Boris, and Joseph Stiglitz, eds. The World Bank: Washington D. C.

Bardhan, Pranab (1995) “Research on poverty and development: Twenty years after Redistribution with Growth,” Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics, Bruno, Michael and Pleskovic, Boris, eds. The World Bank: Washington D. C.

Barlowe, Raleigh (1953) “Land Reform and Economic Development,” Journal of Farm Economics, Vol. 35, No. 2 (May, 1953), pp. 173-187. Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Agricultural Economics Association, Available: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1233204, [Accessed: 03/09/2008 04:07].

Basconcillo-Aguila, Remedios, et. al. (2005). Enterprise-based agrarian reform community organizing and development (E-ARCOD) manual, modules and session guides, 1^st ed., Department of Land Reform: Manila.

Bautista, Germelino and dela Cruz, Leland R. (June 2002), “Institutional and Organizational Assessment of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program” CARP Impact Studies vol. 6, Quezon City: Department of Agrarian Reform.

Binswanger, Hans P., Klaus Deininger, and Gershon Feder. 1995. “Power, Distortions, Revolt, and Reform in Agricultural Land Relations.” Handbook of Development Economics, Jere Behrman and T. N.Srinivasan, eds. Vol. 8. Amsterdam: Elsevier.”

Caymo, Andrea Christina Q. and Celonanga, Ian Michael (2007) CARP and rural development: Effects and impacts on income. Unpublished undergraduate thesis, School of Economics, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City.

Chenery, Hollis, Ahluwalia, Montek S., Bell, C.L.G., Duloy, John H. and Richard Jolly (1979) Redistribution with growth, World Bank’s Development Research Center and the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, Oxford University Press, New York.

Department of Agrarian Reform (1999). Agrarian Reform in the Philippines: Status and perspectives for 1998 and beyond. DAR: Quezon City.

Department of Agrarian Reform (2005). The institutional framework for the implementation of the CARP. DAR: Quezon City.

Dudwick, Nora, Karin Fock and David Sedik (2007). “Land reform and farm restructuring in transition countries: The experience of Bulgaria, Moldova, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan,” World Bank Working Paper No. 104, The World Bank: Washington D.C.

Eswaran, Mukesh and Kotwal, Ashok (2006). “The role of agriculture in development.” Understanding poverty, Banerjee, Abhijit Vinayak, Roland Benabou and Dilip Mookherjee, eds. Oxford University Press: New York.

Goño, Cielito C. (1997) CARP implementation scope and accomplishment. Occasional Paper, Institute of Church and Social Issues: Quezon City.

Gordoncillo, Prudenciano U., Escueta, Eva F., Peñalba, Linda M., and Javier, Filomena A. (2003) “An assessment of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program and its impact on rural communities: Household (micro) perspective,” CARP Impact Assessment vol. 2, DAR: Quezon City.

__________. (2002, b), “An Assessment of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program and Its Impact on Rural Communities: Community (Meso) Perspective” CARP Impact Assessment vol. 3, Quezon City: Department of Agrarian Reform.

Habito, Cielito F., Briones, Roehlano and Paterno, Elizabeth Martha (2003) “Investment, productivity and land market impacts of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program,” CARP Impact Assessment Vol. 4. DAR; Quezon City.

Hayami, Yujiro and Godo, Yoshihisa (2005). Development economics: From the poverty to the Wealth of Nations, 3^rd ed., New York: Oxford University Press.

Hayami, Yujiro, Ma. Agnes Quisumbing, and Lourdes Adriano (1990), Toward an alternative land reform paradigm: A Philippine perspective, Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press.

Kay, Cristobal (May 2001). Asia’s and Latin America’s development in comparative perspective: Landlords, peasants and industrialization, Working Paper Series No. 336 Institute of Social Studies Working Papers, The Hague: The Netherlands.

Kudat, Ayse, Stan Peabody and Caglar Keyder, eds. (2000). “Social dimensions for agrarian transformation in Central Asia and Turkey,” Europe and Central Asia Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development Services, World Bank Technical Paper No. 461, The World Bank: Washington D.C.

Khundker, Nasreen (30 May 2007), Status of agrarian reform and rural development in CIRDAP member countries, paper prepared for the Regional Dialogue on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development, organized by the Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific (CIRDAP) in collaboration with Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), Manila.

Lim, Joseph Anthony Y. (2003), “An Integration of the First Round of CARP Impact Assessment Studies,” CARP Impact Assessment Studies, Vol. 1, Quezon City: Department of Agrarian Reform.

MacDonald, Christine (1999) The value of discourse analysis as a methodological tool for understanding the KwaZalu Natal Land Reform Program. Paper presented at the South African Sociological Association Conference, University of Stellenbosch, Scottsville, South Africa.

Manasan, Rosario G. and Mercado, Ruben G. (August 2001), “An Evaluation of the Fiscal Aspect of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program” CARP Impact Studies vol. 6, Quezon City: Department of Agrarian Reform.

Navarro, Conrado S. (30 May 2007), Institutional aspects of policy implementation and management of the Philippine Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, Paper presented at the Policy Dialogue on Agrarian Reform Issues in Rural Development and Poverty Alleviation, sponsored by the Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific (CIRDAP) and the Philippine Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) on May 30, 2007, in Manila, the Philippines on the occasion of CIRDAP’S 26TH EC and 16th GC meetings.

Prestoza, Lilian, et.al. (2003). Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan (KALAHI) Farmers’ center for agrarian reform and rural development operations manual, Department of Agrarian Reform.

Prosterman, Roy L. and Jeffrey M. Riedinger (1987). Land reform and democratic development. The John Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, Maryland.

Putzel, James (1990). The politics of the Aquino Agrarian Reform Program: Influence on bilateral and multilateral donors. Paper presented on the conference on Agrarian Reform and Official Development Assistance in the Philippines. St. Anthony College, Oxford.

Reyes, Celia M. (2003) “Impact of Agrarian Reform on Poverty,” CARP Impact Assessment Vol. 5. DAR: Quezon City.

Sato, Yoichiro, ed. (2004) Growth and governance in Asia, Honolulu, Hawaii: Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies.

[1] Land reform is the transfer of agricultural landholdings (i.e. land) to landless tenants or laborers, while agrarian reform includes land reform and essential as well as supportive measures required to make the beneficiaries of land reform economically viable and self-reliant.

[2] Agrarian reform has been seen by many and still is considered as the answer to stabilize the socio-political being of the country (Prosterman, 1987; Hayami, Quisumbing and Adriano, 1987; Thorbecke, 1988; Putzel, 1992; Kay, 2001).

[3] The problem of landlessness and its relationship to economic development, social equity and political stability faced today by leaders in the Philippines and Central America, in Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, were faced in sixth century B.C. Athens by Solon and Pisistratus, in second century B.C. Rome by the Gracchi brothers (who were assassinated as a result of their attempts at land reform), and in ancient China, where land was periodically divided on an equitable basis. Prosterman, et. al. (1990: 1).

[4] The DAR has recorded the Philippine Organic Act of 1902 which has set the ceiling for lands to be acquired (16 has. for private individual and 1,024 has. for corporation.) The law, however, was hardly implemented because it only enabled the American agricultural interests to control huge tracts of land.

The preceding article is a paper submitted to Dr. Arsenio Balisacan as DE291 (Development Economics) requirement during my graduate school stint (Master in Development Economics) in the School of Economics, University of the Philippines - Diliman, October 2008. This paper induved a worth of 1.50 in final grade...

Book blockade of 2009

2009-05-04T11:28:00.009+03:00

I read this interesting blog by Manuel L. Quezon III (is it Manolo or Manuel?) entitled "The Great Book Blockade of 2009" http://www.quezon.ph/2009/05/04/the-long-view-the-great-book-blockade-of-2009/

I couldn't agree more. By taxing books, it discourages people to read and power up their minds. Maybe this is just another way for the Customs to jack up its collection thereby enjoying the privileges of the Lateral Attrition Law (well we are yet to hear of anybody who has been axed because of poor collection but we always here incentives even if they have engineered some figures). The taxes on books are being collected for self-serving ends. As if we don't know to whose pockets and bank accounts it would land, only a miniscule of it would benefit the poor Filipino.

In doing so, the government has failed to look into the social benefits foregone by taxing books and bookworms. It discourages private individuals (myself included) to enrich themselves of foreign literature and encourages them to resort to e-book piracy on the Internet. We all know the discouraging effects of taxes on all its point of view. It is nothing more but discouraging and deadweight that everyone carries. Giving free basic education and taxing books is but a one-step move and two steps backward act, no wonder our educational system remains in a quandary of all sorts: lacking teachers, classrooms, supplies even students are dropping and resorting to early employment rather than invest more broadening their educational and their productivity possibilities frontiers.

It is so narrow and feeble-minded of these people from the Customs to just base their decision merely on Twilight import volumes alone since it just comprise a small portion of books imported from other countries. Thus explains the high cost of books, not only of Twilight and Harry Potter genre but also those NCLEX, CGFNS and other reviewers (among many others) being used by professionals who fled the country to work and subsequently send dollars to afloat our economy.

A book blockade is no different food a food blockade. How can we feed our minds if the government is doing everything to prevent us from availing these books. We can never fill our shelves and our soul.

The good Undersecretary and the entire Bureau of Customs should start rethinking things over taxes and tariffs imposed on books. There are a lot of ways to boost collection other than taxing people who just wanted to learn and enjoy the world of literary magic. Why have some people stopped using their brains? The Philippine government seems to have an abundance of all sorts, however, unthinkable bureacrats are unscarce, overflowing and bouncing everywhere.

Billet doux

2009-04-28T10:04:00.001+03:00

Ysabelle,

I quest for you in the midst of nowhere. And without much work I found you right beside me telling me that you’re ready to be a friend. There was smile, love, passion and all was history.

Your advent made me realize that I am not alone. That as a normal human being, I could again fall in love, this is the only moment that I realized how wonderful I am as a creation of Someone up there.

I may not be that knowledgeable about everything that you know. Your thoughts, aspirations and goals I may never understand. But the more I don’t comprehend these things, the greater urge in me to discover you more.

I may not that vocal about how I feel, for I know that it is clearly implied you knew it. Others call me insane and stupid knowing how I feel for you. In defense, I would say that there is much insanity and stupidity if I deny how much I desire of you.

Your eyes would tell me how good your soul is. Yours lips would give me a smile that would make me blissful for the next 24 strikes of the clock. How I wish those were of my possession.

Each day my craving for your attention increases, my demand goes up, my satisfaction isn’t fulfilled. Tonight, I’m looking at the endless sky. The darkness of the night gave me a wonderful thought of you that busied my senses. Suddenly, the drops of the evening dew showered upon my face, never expecting for you to come and fill up my senses. It was too late that I realized how deep I slept that night.

My heart and mind just can’t accept why there’s no possibility of you becoming mine; that you belong to another world, to another someone whose face I’d rather not see.

I know of love as a thing to be reciprocated it was only in my case that it could never go that way.

With great affection,

Louise

====================================================================================

Louise,

Everything seems to be in order tonight. The cool clouds are enveloping the sky, preventing me from seeing those stars; the stars that the two of us have together chained as our constellation of love.

There is serenity in that October affair, when the sun is at its softest ray and the breeze is blowing with star dust reminding people of the approaching yuletide.

We were unmindful of the unfriendly weather; we ignored the howling of the dogs and the crisp laughter of the jackals. All we know is that Cupid has conquered both of our worlds and fused it into one serene paradise.

We barely know each other and we don’t recognize the art of love yet, we blindly accepted each other. Like poor begging for alms, we opened up and embraced the miracle we are in.

Day by day your letters were regular visitors knocking at my doorsteps. Now I could spell ugly as beauty and boredom, glee. You turned my world from a crazy maniac to one tamed beast. I couldn’t ask for more.

From that day that I found that the God of Love is with me in my heart, I started to appreciate the blue sky and the red cardinal, the golden wheat and the tired peasant. It was but a world full of color.

But then it was only the beginning. Until I awake from the deep slumber that was fantasy, the sweet dream was nothing but grim nightmare. And with a hundred decibels I cry, awakening the monster of the underworld; the same beast that claimed the Adonis of my life.

Alas! It is still time for sorrow. For our worlds are separated by the great distance of heaven and earth; of jealousy and hatred. And I can only cry as what is used to be until I am eaten by Misery. My love isn’t love, until I set you free.

Ysabelle

The Other Friend

2009-04-28T08:10:00.000+03:00

WORRIED.

Days after my birthday I got a strange sms from one of my classmates in high school. It was a shocking news to hear that my former high school buddy, Alfred Mendoza y Ortiz met an accident while on board a motorcyle somewhere in Agdangan, Quezon where he works for a construction firm.

It could have been any accident met by anybody I know. But Alfred was someone who I closely hold dear into my heart. His cranium (a part in his skeletal system or what we mostly know as skull) was fractured that brought severe effects on him. He was on coma for some days but was able to recover with only his left extremities paralyzed.

Days after that I found out that he's already home resting and recovering from the accident. I was, of course, worried and sad about his fate, but there is really nothing that I can do but to pray for his fast recovery.

If you would ask me if I bother visit him in the hospital, I did not. for some reasons that I have hidden deep in my heart and mind.

THE STORY THAT WAS ALFRED

I met Alfred when I was freshman in high school. He was sure a cute guy that almost all admired and looked to with a smile. He was snappy, neat, smarty casual and appealing. He was from Manila, from Tondo to be specific, where he graduated from elementary. He told that me has no father anymore because he died when he was still young. He has four siblings and the second among the brood.

When we were in our high school, he would always join my barkada (I'm not going to mention them here) because he likes it when I play jokes and just be myself and play with them. Then he told me one day that he really wanted to be with me always because it was all fun and all happy whenever he's with me. So i welcomed him like a brother. That was how it used to be until when we're in our second year in high school.

In our Sophomore year, we would be together almost every single day. We would eat lunch together, go to recess, do our homework, projects and just about any other things in class, even outside the school. Stroll the city suburb, go to parks and garden, play chess and arcade. We would go to my place or his place whenever shortened period every Friday would come and just hang out with each other's company. We were close buddies that all, I assumed and I assumed correctly, were not giving this a good credit. But I don't need that. The important thing is we are happy as very close friends.

He was such a nice friend. He was so generous of everything that he has, time and attention included. It was only Alfred and Ysrael then when we were in high school. no more or less. But there's no romantic things between us, just plain friends.

But then I forgot to entertain other people inside the class. They would become jealous how Alfred and i were going on for the last 5 months of class because we tend to seclude them from our friendship. It's because we're best of friends and I see nothing wrong with that, the same sentiment goe with him too.

A bad thing happened between the two of us when we were caught sleeping together (not sex damn you) and then people begun speculating, giving comments, spreading rumors and every disgusting things that you can think of (sex included).

Then I have to make a move. I talked to him and told him that we should separate ways in order to protect him from their "heavenly" speculations. I kept it a secret up to now. I didn't told anybody what was it between the two of us. Only alfred and i knows about it.

And so i stayed in the dark room without him. It was nothing but sadness that i felt. Yes i did found some new friends but they were of no comparison to what Alfred has given me for the last months of our friendship. From then on i know i am doomed to be lonely and left alone. I may have brought smiles to just about anybody in the class, even to Alfred. But not to myself. Sure it was Sadness that accompanied me until graduation in March of 1997 came.

And then I have to go on with the thing called life. I had a girlfriend, i graduated college, i broke up with my girlfriend, i discovered more about my sexuality, i involved myself in writing, get serious sometimes during college, engaged in sexual activities, had bfs, had gfs. But Alfred would always be there on the backdrop of my mind. Because he was an unfinished business, I had an unfinished memory of him.

By now, I am only mustering some of enough courage to face him and tell him, all the things that he missed about me (if he still thinks of such) and ask him of things that I did not get to see. Now that I have a family of my own and he has a family too, I am still looking forward to that very day that we would sit and talk about our abated friendship.

Alfred is supposed to be the friend that I have till now, until they all ripped us apart just like any other intermediate paper that is asked to be cut lengthwise or crosswise for a lengthy quiz. He was and still is the friend I am looking for for years. I was happy with him, I discovered myself with him and I got to know myself more when he is around. Am I foolish to task if at random times he still thinks of me? Or even remember our friendship?

Currently prior to hibernating he used to text me, forwarded sms, at times just to say hi and how are you. But then there were also months of no-sms from him. If ever there is some courage in me to face him again, all is ruined by the very thought of him turning his back on me.

I am scared and worried.

Bottom line is, I miss the guy more than I miss myself.

A blogging rebound (repost)

2009-04-25T16:53:00.000+03:00

I told myself some five years ago, that in order for me to retain whatever writing skill I have, I should to maintain some journal or a diary so that I could express some things and thoughts on my mind.

However, time has been so selfish. I find it hard to again familiarize myself with letters and manipulate them. If such would be the predicament, I'll be defeated by Numbers and Letters and the next thing I knew they would be surging forward towards me and reduce me to rubles. But before they do that to me, let me prove my self then.

Well, early on, I was interviewed for a job (for the nth time) that I find both exciting and challenging unlike the current job. Not that I am tired of interviews, it's just that I do not know in what part of it I fail? Yes I do have my share of failures in job applications. Don't ask me how many times I failed, I just want to be honest that after five years of leaving school, the job I did not applied for in 2003 is still my job right now in 2008. Get the thought?

Although not of all the interviews of mine failed me. The University of the Philippines - School of Economics has recently approved my application to enter their ground and study Masters in Development Economics.

Prior to that I already have doubts I can ever pass the admissions exams and interview. Yes another oral exam. After the interview conducted by She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, I already raised the white flag. She was never a minute impressed of my academic track records. She was even doubtful of the results of the thesis which I have written and earned me an award. My castle are now sands as I exit her door although with still a cup full of hopes within my sleeves.

But just as I thought that the UPSE interview would add up to the statistics of my failures in interview, the UPSE sent me a positive note. Yehey! I am now on track and am continuing my Balik Aral.

A lesson learned after almost five years in government: Don't wait the hands of the clock to reach 5 PM, you'll get so so bored. I am saying this without remorse. To enable yourself to avail of a career growth in government, you must be able to castrate the office with obsolete people after then can you climb the career ladder. But I am not going to wait for that thing to happen. Good things are not given on a silver platter. One must strive in order to grab a food to eat.

Be that as it may, my five-year stint in government has opened my eyes into lots of possibilities and impossibilities, corruption (small time and big time), the principles of of politics, a terroristic department head and ugly local politics which has sowed a culture of patronage and dynasty.

Again, I will try my best to write about my five-year civil service experience in order to open up some closed eyes and make some people realize in what mud they are in right now.

Wish me luck.

The Sea washed my Apples away

2009-04-03T19:40:00.000+03:00

I laid my Apples on the sand
To take a warm bathe in the
Sea It took me all courage and might
Before I enjoyed the swim.

The warm Sea gave me comfort and heat
Soothing my pained and stressed life
Relieving me from the worries of the past
And conflicts of the present time.

I remembered how relaxed I was whenever I am soaked
The splashing waves massage my body
The salty liquid makes me grin
And leaves an indelible smile.

I can hear the Sea crying, roaring his secrets to my ear
Banging me with the constant currents
The Sea confides with me,
Telling me his dreams, his wants, his stories I can only be there to listen

To stay and swim, and be a friend.
Abruptly, I rose from his loving arms
And attempted to rest on the sand
And eat some of my Apples

Still beside the beach.
A sigh of pleasant grief!
Now I blissfully mourn
Gone are the shiny, wild Apples

The fruits are washed by the friendly Sea.
In disappointment I wept
There she floated with him
Eaten whole and selfishly

By the companion I thought to be.
She was ravaged by the amiable Sea
The crimson, sweet Apple
And I can only cry
With joyous tears in my eyes,
I say She is no longer for me.

Idle Times

2009-04-03T19:08:00.000+03:00

These are idle times. I am quite sure of that.

And I wish that the times would usher into me a spirit to fill these void spaces of my blog.

Wish me luck. For now I will be posting some not so old things that I've written...

See you soon!