Folk dance and rhythmic exercises seminar: the best cardio work out for rheumatics

After two days of lectures and bytes and the upgrading of our computer skills, the ICT seminar was over and we preceded to second part of the school INSET, the Folk dance and rhythmic exercises workshop. 

They were already starting when I arrived on the first day but I was able to catch the first basic steps which was the bravado and the basic foot patterns after which the hand and arm movement were demonstrated by the instructors. After a few minutes of imitation, I (or we) were able to perform the steps on our own, sort of.

Even the lecture part was fun because of the laughter from the participants which grew even louder during the practice sessions because most of the teachers especially the middle age and the seniors who do not have the agility and the coordination of youth were humored, but despite lack of coordination and grace the "generation gap" they participated wholeheartedly to the performances. The seminar was short, so the mastery was not really the aim, I guess, this is more of an introductory workshop and I hope there will be a thorough workshop in the future.

Last night, I was showing off my Itik-itik steps to my wife. I was doing the fancy footwork and the salok, sarok, lateral and other hand moves. She told me that the dance looked fun and it could be a good cardio work out for me, like zumba or aerobics. She's the health conscious between us and she's always worried that I am not getting enough exercises. I said yeah, maybe she's afraid of making comments but she was smiling. Anyway, she's right. Though at the surface our folk dances seemed too light to be considered a serious work out routine, but after a few minutes of practice, believe me, it did awaken the arteries and burned a lot of calories. The proof was the aching muscles and joints. Ok, I guess I'm old and had rheumatism and is in no position to evaluate, but still the routine broke sweat glands. And you should try it. In fact I saw a group of individuals on early TV promoting our folk dances as a an  alternative to zumba.

Anyway, it was fun and that's what counts.

ICT and why our forests are fast disappearing

The projector screen where projection is
projected. (Photo not ine, but I did not steal it.)

It’s been a while since I have written a post. I have been busy in fact the whole school has been very busy with contests, scouting activities etc, and wrapping things up for the end of the semester. We are also engaged in an ongoing school based seminar on ICT.

The school has been conducting seminars on ICT for years and its getting more complicated as the years go by. Now we are into bits of animations and other inter active web enhanced stuffs, a long way from word processing, spreadsheet and PowerPoint presentations of five years ago.

But despite all the advances in computing, the paper works seem to be multiplying exponentially as we advanced into the wireless and paperless internet age.

The audience listening, obviously. (Photo mine, not theirs)

I agree some manual paper works like word processing and computations of grades have become a cinch because of MS Word and Excel and other office applications but the amount of papers being used did not decrease, in fact, it almost doubled!

Take for example class records, the traditional way to do it was to record the pupil’s performance and test scores in the class-record then after each grading period the class-record is fine-tuned and reconciled and then rewritten and consolidated in the rating sheet.

With the introduction of the e-grading system, I thought this intermediate stage, this raw-class record stage can be disposed of because the spreadsheet is easily editable and the figures are automatically computed on Excel.

Me, scratching my head. (Photo mine)

I guess its a bit disappointing to find out that we still need to submit the traditional class records  as one of the performance checklists in our job evaluation. I was sharing my reservations about this with the school’s ICT coordinator because it beats the computerization and the e-grading system project of the department, and she agrees with me.

I guess there’s still the divergence between the old and the new which will take time to converge. I guess the 21st century teacher is still trapped in the manual records keeping, so technically we are 21st century teachers who still uses 19th century technology and I guess it would be in the 22nd century before  the 21st century teacher would be realized to its fullest. 

Am I being sarcastic here, hell no!

Most countries have been using the 12 grade basic education system for millennia and it's just now in the second decade of the year 2000 that we have adapted it. See! And now Finland, the country with the best educational system in the world is showing the world that less is more. And yet our educational system is on the early stage of the 12 Grade system while one of the most advanced nations on the planet is experiencing a paradigm shift in its educational system by adapting the unorthodox less is more philosophy. And it would be a matter of time before the other countries will see the advantage of this system and later on adapt it if not in its entirety at least in phases or in part. There are already indications that the educational tide is going the other way around and yet we are still on the beginning stage of adapting an already deteriorating educational paradigm.

My co-teachers enjoying the seminar. (Photo not mine, again)

Anyway, I guess traditionalism still has hold in the system. Our retired master teachers have insisted on the importance of keeping a physical records and I wouldn’t blame them because this was the way they have been trained in the service. The tedious effort of writing figures in small fields in a class record is part of their identity, it is a job ritual and even the slow and progressive introduction of computer technology has had little effect on that psychology. I guess it’s hard to give up the concrete, touchable paper for the digital records.

So, those who have not adapted did not adapt and retired in the service without benefiting from the modernization and I guess they are looking forward to retirement and saw little benefit in learning new skills given the little amount of time they have left in the service, logical. Those who have adapted have adapted well.  

I have run out of stuffs. My mojo needs recharging...tomorrow.

This post sucks!

So Delima is one hot momma. What's the fuss?

Senator Delima is proving to be one tough lady. She is being tormented by the Duterte administration for her opposition to the president's anti-drug war that has resulted to thousands of death from police operations and other drug related torture and executions perpetrated by vigilantes styled killers. 

She is accused by the DOJ of being part of the New Bilibid Prison's drug cartel where she allegedly asked the gang leaders in the prison facility to sell shabu within and outside the Bilibid complex. Quotas were assigned to the gangs and the proceeds were used to finance her senate candidacy.  

I for one find these accusations difficult to believe. Delima's record in government service is impeccable aside from the fact that she's one brilliant lawyer who, I think, would not stoop to the level of narco-politicking. Another thing, the witnesses being paraded against her are hardened prisoners who will sell their mothers for a stick of cigarette. The prosecutors will need credible witnesses and hard facts to nail Delima down with the Bilibid Conspiracy charges. But the combined attacks of Digong's social media and the House of representative trolls are doing a good job of demolishing the poor senator's image.

Is she guilty? I am not defending her but all the allegations against, which is backed by a bunch of criminals, is not that convincing, at least for me.

There's a new twist to the mob lynching, the sex video.  I have not seen the video but there's a possibility that this  could be edited. So, I cannot judge but granted that the video is true, I guess Delima would, at the very worst, be guilty of engaging in extra-marital affair and at the very least, producing bad porn. 

Her alleged amorous relationship with her driver-body-guard, is, for me, probably true. She has never denied it categorically and the witnesses who corroborated this allegation is a former body-guard who saw the video from Dayan's cell phone.

Delima's hell is just beginning. She still has five years to go. I don't think she'll back down but I hope the President would be true to his words when he said that vindictiveness is not in his system.

Anyway, the thought if watching the video did not even enter my mind. I guess, it's just too...too much even to the imagination.

Figuring out Duterte's theology (or the lack of it)

I love our president for his candor. In fact, his seemingly disorganized meandering speeches, though at times excessive (I hated his Hitler comparison, but the guy apologized), shows a man of very practical thinking, a man who absconds abstractions. Of course, this does not mean he does not possess the faculty for abstract thinking. The guy is a lawyer and lawyering is one job that requires a very meticulous and logical intellect, but it just seemed that he avoided the rigorous scrutiny of details which leads to, as former VP Binay accused Mar Roxas and Pnoy of,  "analysis paralysis." 

But what I find most interesting about the man is how he disarmed the meddling clerics of different churches and how he virtually shut the door of Malacanang to their faces.

Presidents, because they fear the religious unthinking (not all of them, just the unthinking) mob, have this tendency to listen to theological but highly impractical suggestion of the clerics. 

No go, appointed son of God.

But not Duterte...

It is well known that Duterte is a friend of Pastor Quiboloy, the self proclaimed "appointed son of God" (BTW, I'd love to see his appointment papers) of the Davao based Kingdom of Jesus Christ church. During the campaign period, Quiboloy gave his church's resources to support Duterte's candidacy including his private jets. 

There's no such thing as free lunch, Quiboloy was not doing this for his love of Duterte or to bring glory and praises to his appointed father in heaven, God.  He was expecting to be appointed as a spiritual adviser to Duterte like what the past presidents had done with church and cult leaders who has financed and supported their elections. I don't know if there's even a law that say's a president could have a spiritual adviser, but I guess the position was invented to appease these bloodsucking clerics. Though the title does not mean anything, it does give the holder of the title influence in the government; the card could open doors.

I suppose Quiboloy was after the appointment to give a sense of legitimacy to the outlandish cult he leads. 

Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, Quiboloy's hope was quashed when Duterte didn't even mention his name to thank for during his inaugural speech. Quiboloy was hurt but the elected president stood his ground and rejected any spiritual position for the alleged "appointed son of God."

But Quiboloy and his cult is provincial compared to the Roman Catholic Church. The Church has exerted great influence in government and even played king maker in Philippine politics. The church, because of its antiquated dogmas, has stymied a lot of government programs especially the reproductive health law which after fourteen years of stonewalling, the government finally won under Pnoy's term.

Duterte has made known his contempt of religion from the beginning. The church has always used morality as its primary weapon in criticizing what it perceives to be morally questionable government activities and programs. When it attacked Duterte for his alleged sexual immorality and murders, the president did not flinch instead it engaged the church in mudslinging to the chagrin of many religious Filipinos.

Awkward, Pope!

His blasphemous (to the Catholics) cursing of Pope Francis and his attacks on the church's child sexual molestation cases and how the church has protected its ranks from accountability showed a deep  Nietzschean contempt for organized religion. A contempt rooted from experience.

What does this make of Duterte? Is he an atheist or an anti-theist?

A couple of days ago I saw a video of the president asking where is God? He was talking about the death and the justice. Pain and suffering in the world is one 

question where the Christian religion have difficulty reconciling with God because in the Christian faith God is the absolute. This means that evil, the root of suffering, cannot be given a separate and independent personality which equals God. Though common Christians believe that evil is the enemy of God, the anti-thesis of God, and there's idea that God is in constant battle with Satan, this idea or picture is actually blasphemous because God is the absolute, the ground of being, and there is no other like him or equal to him. 

Photo from ABS CBN.  I hope you guys don't take this
photo down.

This doctrine makes the problem of evil problematic for the Christian faith because the only possible explanation for evil and suffering is that God made it to be. The toned down idea that God allowed suffering just doesn't hold water because it makes God a cruel sadist. 

Anyway, though the president's question seemed impertinent, it does touched real issues. It also show his religious and human side. I could only surmise that he does not accept the mythologies and the bibilicism spewed by the pulpit to bring comfort to the suffering. He is not counting on divine justice for the victims of heinous crime, instead he is offering something concrete for the victims by instituting the death penalty.

Yuck Fou Obama and why Duterte is right to wean us away from our former colonial masters

First of all I don't hate Americans.  Many if not most Filipinos like the American people and things Americans. I love burgers, French fries, Hollywood movies, Traci Lords and AIDS. Ok, maybe not the last  two items. 

Though at times they are a bit condescending, I and most Filipinos (I guess) have no ax to grind against most citizens of the United states of America. So when I speak of the Americans here, I'm talking about their effing government.  

Lately, our president Duterte has been cursing Barrack Obama and his curses are not terms of endearments but a vitriolic contempt filled curses that are usually reserved for the low life drug pushers.  Duterte, it seemed to me, is not a bit intimidated by Obama who still holds the CODES to thousands of Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles nuclear warheads that could literally turn the whole country into a radio-active magma. No, our president is not impressed by the US of A.

I guess the actuation shocked many Filipinos for we have looked upon the Americans as not only an ally but a big brother protector and Pinoys are used to seeing Filipino presidents kow towing to the Americans and aligning their foreign policies to that of the foreign government's interest. In our collective mind as a nation there's this inculcated idea that we could not survive without US's suzerainty .

How do I read our president's actuations?

The president is correct in saying that the US will not automatically defend us. Of all the US's mutual defense treaty partners in the region, the Philippines got shortchanged. Why do I say this? In the Chinese-Japanese disputed islands in the South China sea, the US affirmed the Japanese sovereignty in these islands. Obama even warned the Chinese that they would go to war in defense of Japanese' sovereignity.

Another thing is what happened in Taiwan in 1996 known as the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis. Because mainland China felt betrayed by the US when the then Taiwanese President Lee Teng-Hui visited Cornell and spoke about the democratization of Taiwan. The recognition of Lee by the State Department and his visit violated the One China policy agreed upon by the US and the Mainland. In reaction, the PLA deployed missiles and conducted military exercises to intimidate Taiwan. The US, true to its commitment to the mutual defense pact with Taiwan, sent two carrier battle groups to defend the Island. The Chinese, upon seeing the US resolve to protect the renegade province and the overwhelming firepower in front of them,  backed down.

While in the case of Scarborough Shoal, which is well within our exclusive and territorial zone, the US kept mum. Pnoy has kept his ground and initiated a diplomatic war against the Chinese aggression citing the US-Philippines mutual defense pact as a deterrent, but did the US gave the country any assurance of retaliation? When Obama visited the Philippines he assured the country that the US would respond to Chinese attacks subject to the approval of US congress which means it is not automatic like that of the Japanese and the Taiwanese! I guess the US does not see us the way it sees these two economic powerhouses.

Where are the USS Nimitz and USS independence battle groups when the Chinese are invading these islands? Nothing came and instead our mutual defense protector sold us two effing World War II Hamilton class frigates, to add insult to injury, stripped of its main weapons. Our most trusted ally and the most powerful navy in the world gave us two floating WWII museum pieces!   

While Obama was still trying to make up his mind, the Chinese had built fortresses which defense experts now call unsinkable aircraft carriers.  Obama only realized the enormity of the situation when his intelligence people realized that these islands virtually neutralized their aircraft carriers at very little cost to the Chinese. The chain of island fortresses also gave the Chinese control over the shipping lanes which gave the Chinese strategic military and economic leverage  against the US.

Well, Obama sorry for you, you deserve all the disrespect our president dished at you and more.

This is the reality. The Chinese is there to stay. The US, despite it's military power, can not dislodge the Chinese short of starting a nuclear war. The only thing the US could do is parade it's fancy warships in the South China in the hope that Chinese navy would die of irritation. But here's the catch, keeping an armada in the South China is expensive and all the Chinese has to do in their island-resort fortresses is fish and enjoy the beach. 

The US navy would need ports to call to while the Chinese are comfortably entrenched in their unsinkable carriers. And now, as they see it, the Philippines, their beloved ally is starting to look good and smell like roses, again. They are wooing us. 

Well, the president sees through the charade and how, again, we would be used to forward the American's interests at our cost. I hope that the president stand firm because the Philippines should definitely deny the US armada access to its port as a revenge for its dilly dallying and inutility during the early phase of the crisis, and at the same time because we cannot afford to irritate the Chinese.

The only thing we could hope for is for the Chinese to allow us to fish there, which is what is foremost in Duterte's mind. Coitus you Americans!

Zero drop out and zero bonux and the new currency

I was browsing my FB when I saw posts from subject coordinators reminding concerned teachers of the deadline for the second quarter tests. I scratched my head. wasn't it just a few days ago that we had our first quarter examinations?

Christmas decors are already hanging in the hallways and in the classrooms and Jose Marie Chan now owns the airwaves. What's the rush?

Anyway, I have been to a few inter-school and inter-district competitions and though there are more misses than hits, our school have its share of winners. Being one of the coaches in the school, I am used to being awarded a piece of paper as a prize (and as form of consolation when my ward loses) by the contest facilitators with the school principales telling us teachers that we could use this document for our Result based Performance Management Shalalalala (or RPMS) evaluation. 

So, the lower part of the Department has been spewing out certificates, which it has done even before the implementation of RPMS, but this time with fury, and now these paper seemed to have become a sort of currency within the department. The things is I usually insert my certificates in whatever book is on my table. So, usually I ended with a few missing only to find them inserted in text books when the year ends, during general cleaning.

I don't know exactly how the RPMS works in education because unlike any other departments in the gov't, education has a lot of intangibles and factors beyond the teacher's control. It's not as if teachers are building structures where an inspector could measure the output to the dot to check for compliance. Not teaching because teachers deal with human beings. 

But the system was adapted and we were oriented on how it works, the documentary part is fair enough because efficiency in records management is very important but aside from the fundamentals there are other criteria that is if implemented would be discriminatory and could be discouraging for the teachers.

Let me cite a specific example. In the RPMS one of the checklist in the matrix is the number of drop outs in the school. Many school heads noticed that schools who reported zero drop outs achieved a higher performance rating which translated to a higher performance based bonus. 

The thing about zero drop out is that small schools with a hundred or less enrolees could achieve a hundred percent zero drop out, but for a central school with thousands of enrollment, the statistics alone make it highly improbable (even impossible) to achieve a zero drop out. 

Naturally, some school heads analyzed the result of the RPMS and realized that a reported zero drop out improved a school ranking came up with an ingenious solution on the problem of drop outs and that is to report pupil who dropped out as failed pupils.  

When I heard about the plan, I was dumbfounded and so was my co-teachers for reasons. First, pupils dropping out of school is usually not a teacher factor. In our experience there are five main reasons for drop outs in the class: 

1. Financial challenges,  the parents have no means to support their children's studies so one or two have to stop temporarily.

2. Relationship in the Family. Either one of the parents is an OFW, or the parents have separated, etc. Pupils stopped going to school because they lack parental supervision and at times have lost their interest in their studies because of this.

3. The pupil is over age.

4. No interest in schools for whatever reasons.

5. Bullying.

All of these are factors that are not controlled by the teachers. except number five. Though teachers can initiate interventions but in the end it is still the pupils and the parents who will decide whether their children continue schooling. 

But failure is a different thing. Failing a pupil is undeniably and directly a teacher factor. When our school was still using the homogeneous sectioning of pupils, I was assigned to the last section, the worst group of pupils, it was a stigma really. I thought I was doing a good job when I fail a pupil or two. But when the principal asked me why my pupil failed, I reasoned that they did not meet the competency. The principal replied, "What have you done in a year?" The message is clear: your pupil's failure is your failure. I have kept that in mind. Anyway, I was surprised to see that some of the pupils I almost failed were doing well in high school some even ranking in the top ten of their classes.


What happened to the "zero-dropm out scheme"? It was implemented in the school and we ended up, I think, with one of the highest reported failed pupils in the division but we achieved a reported zero  pupil drop out. Now, why am I not excited about the coming performance based bonus this October....Hmmmm.

Of all the effing people, why Hitler?

I guess like most of my countrymen, I was shocked when our president compared himself to Adolf Hitler. I know that President Duterte knew the Fuhrer and what he had done.  

"Between 1939 and 1945, the Schutzstaffel (SS), assisted by collaborationist governments and recruits from occupied countries, was responsible for the deaths of at least eleven million people, including 5.5 to 6 million Jews (representing two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe),and between 200,000 and 1,500,000 Romani people.Deaths took place in concentration and extermination camps,ghettos, and through mass executions. Many victims of the Holocaust were gassed to death, whereas others died of starvation or disease or while working as slave labourers. In addition to eliminating Jews, the Nazis planned to reduce the population of the conquered territories by 30 million people through starvation in an action called the Hunger Plan. Food supplies would be diverted to the German army and German civilians. Cities would be razed and the land allowed to return to forest or resettled by German colonists. Together, the Hunger Plan and Generalplan Ost would have led to the starvation of 80 million people in the Soviet Union. These partially fulfilled plans resulted in the democidal deaths of an estimated 19.3 million civilians and prisoners of war.

Hitler's policies resulted in the killing of nearly two million Poles,over three million Soviet prisoners of war, communists and other political opponents, homosexuals, the physically and mentally disabled,Jehovah's Witnesses, Adventists, and trade unionists. Hitler did not speak publicly about the killings, and seems never to have visited the concentration camps."

From Wikipedia

Why in the world would he compare his war against drugs to Hitler's holocaust. I guess he was trying to tell the world that unlike Hitler who killed the Jews for no reason at all he is willing to kill millions of people who are criminals for a noble reason, to make his country safe for the Filipinos. 

This has always been his argument against the hypocritical west.  Well, the US is commuting mass killing by dropping bombs on innocent civilians killing thousands while me, I am killing a few thousand criminals, so what's the difference? 

He is waging a war against drugs but unlike conventional warfare that uses bombs and destructive weapons, he is using precise and surgical operations that target individuals which results to controlled and minimal collateral damage.

His arguments is good and it is still holding, I think. But that Hitler thing...

I know that he would not intentionally say that he is imitating Hitler, no one in his right mind would (unless his is off) he is just saying that he is willing to kill many, like Hitler, in order to achieve his objective of eradicating drugs in the country, which for him is the root of all evil. 

But his analogy sucked. It opens up a lot wounds especially among the Jews and the other cultural minorities that died and suffered under Hitler's rule. Wasn't it only a few days ago that he mentioned the American butcher Gen. Smith and the Balangiga massacre which killed about a hundred Filipinos and how he used that historical fact to attack the Americans? Now he mentioned the holocaust to compare himself with Hitler. I have no problem with the idea of killing drug pushers but citing hundreds of Filipinos killed to humiliate the Americans and then citing Hitler who killed 6 million Jews to justify his war on drugs? Just doesn't jive. 

If only he had used Magneto instead of the Fuhrer...

Miriam Defensor and my Alta Presyon

I was nineteen years old when Miriam Defensor Santiago first run for the presidential race. My friends and I volunteered as poll watchers for her for free. We even spent our own money for our snacks and lunch which was unusual because watchers, though called volunteers, were normally given cash for allowances and packed snacks and lunch through out the election and the counting, which was manual then. 

But since we were enamored by Defensor's no nonsense, fierce image, especially when dealing with death threats, we were attracted towards her. We were amazed at the way she talked to the press especially when she confronted illegal aliens who tried to answer back to her. Her vocabulary was also something, she used unusual words to insult her enemies eliciting laughter and thought at the same time. 

I guess, to our young mind then, she was the opposite of president Cory Aquino who was soft spoken and politically correct.

She ran for the second time but Erap got my imagination which in retrospect was a waste of my vote. The third time, I was rooting for her but her deteriorating health was already showing. I voted for Digong.

She had her faults when in a brief moment of  illogicality she sided with Erap Estrada. But other than that, she is one the brightest and the funniest senator I have seen and heard.

She will sorely be missed especially now when the senate and congress is being filled up by people who could only be described as below average mediocre.

_________________________________

I thought I was about to have an asthma episode because I am getting short of breath untilI  checked my blood pressure. I admit I was eating a lot lately and have not been walking in weeks due to the weather and also from the exhaustion of teaching. I guess I need to get back to my routine and stop being a sloth.

I avoid our school office. One of the reasons is that I always associate that office with paper works and memos. I have this belief that if I avoided that office, I would be spared being one of the subjects of the memos. This is not actually a belief but it is based on the premise that if the boss do not see me, he/she will not know that I exist, And if I do not exist, at least with in his/her field of vision, chances are my name would not be brought up for a task or an assignment. I have survived under the radar for so long that being called to a meeting  in the office rattles me. I guess once in a while my butt sticks out. 

I always feel safe under the radar, and I'm not the only one who feels this way.