2012.01.24.
One on corner sits a 30-something woman. Single, yet unavailable. Piles and piles of tasks, both for official business and secret missions alike. Thank technology for paperless information transfer, otherwise, only her eyebrows would be seen atop her boringly messy table.
She thinks herself my boss. She is, in a way, although in a way, she is not. She is senior by rank, senior by years of service, and senior by years of age, but not my boss. She sits there, day after day, doing holy trinity knows what. Something personal, we suspect. Something that can bridge the gap between the meager salary of public servants, which we are, and the lavish needs of a geek. What she saves her money for – I have no idea. With no extra mouth to feed, no unemployed husband to sustain, she is obviously after the fame, not the fortune. She is after the bragging rights – an “in-demand” consultant ECONOMIST.
I asked her for data today. The same set of data I asked from her a gazillion weeks ago, or has it already been months? I can’t seem to remember. All I can say is I wish I didn’t ask. That was two minutes of my life I can never get back. She’s a like a one way mirror. She gets information from me but somehow I cannot get through to her. I’m charging the wasted time to experience.
And like any other human being with lapses of stupidity every so often, I did not follow my own advice. Here is what I don’t understand – why would anyone return the question to the inquisitor if he/she was asked for the source of his/her report? I don’t get it. My question: What is the source? Her answer: look for it in the website; see if you can find any news clipping or article that can back up what I reported.
WHY DON’T YOU JUST GIVE THE F***ING SOURCE TO ME. I rest my case. I rest any case against you. I want to rest.
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Workforce Blabber 2: The Kiss-Ass Chapter
2012.01.25.
I would like to call him an Ass, but I would use Donkey instead. Fittingly, he has a photo of a Donkey’s face covering his own, but I will not post it for obvious reasons.
The Donkey says he wants to learn a new language. At one point last year, he publicly said in his usual monotonic way that he is the most handsome person in our group because he was the only boy (not a comedic comment, if you ask me).
He says he hates the boss of the boss of the boss of his boss, but he just can’t seem to stop working for him. He suggests more tasks, more topics, more areas to be obsessed in, and then he complains incessantly when he is asked to do what he suggested. He hates that boss, but he just can’t wait for the next moment that he impresses the latter. It is just so unfortunate that the latter is beyond all measures of bravado, and clearly is an empty head using the easily “useables” for building his pseudo-intellectual image.
His presence, somehow, gets me to my boiling point faster. Maybe it’s the geekiness, maybe it’s his need for attention, maybe it’s his 5-second lagged response to any question, or maybe it’s just his whole demeanor of being a donkey.
I would like to call him an Ass, but I would use Donkey instead. Fittingly, he has a photo of a Donkey’s face covering his own, but I will not post it for obvious reasons.
The Donkey says he wants to learn a new language. At one point last year, he publicly said in his usual monotonic way that he is the most handsome person in our group because he was the only boy (not a comedic comment, if you ask me).
He says he hates the boss of the boss of the boss of his boss, but he just can’t seem to stop working for him. He suggests more tasks, more topics, more areas to be obsessed in, and then he complains incessantly when he is asked to do what he suggested. He hates that boss, but he just can’t wait for the next moment that he impresses the latter. It is just so unfortunate that the latter is beyond all measures of bravado, and clearly is an empty head using the easily “useables” for building his pseudo-intellectual image.
His presence, somehow, gets me to my boiling point faster. Maybe it’s the geekiness, maybe it’s his need for attention, maybe it’s his 5-second lagged response to any question, or maybe it’s just his whole demeanor of being a donkey.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
The Other Cemetery Stories
When my grandfather, Lolo Ric, was still alive, he would be the first to go and clean the burial area of our his parents, his sister and her husband, his niece, and three babies including my brother. He'd also be the last to leave. He would wait til all candles are out, all prayers of my lola have been said, and the sun has been long gone.
Lolo Ric would joke about wishing that if he were to die, he'd wish to be placed in hell, because he is so sure his wife, my lola lil, would be in heaven since she spends almost all of her waking hours in prayer.
Everyone knew he was deathly scared of dying.
He passed away in June 2005, and my tito deo took his place in cleaning up in the pancho since. I remember when we were younger, he would tell me about the death of my eldest brother. My mom's first child, kuya isaac, was born Sept 2, 1979. He died the same day. My mom, in her fragile condition, did not know right away. My lola did not want her to know just yet. Just as my dad was signing the death certificate, my mom gained consciousness and asked about the baby. My dad simply said, "nakalalaki kagad si mama (mom had a boy on the first try)". My dad and Tito deo buried kuya isaac in cavite. Tito would say after a week, he would see a line of ants crawling down a small hole to where they buried him. Years and decades later, my mom would tell me that she wish they just told her right away. Her heart was so broken.
I looked at my dad and how his face, his eyes, and his smile reminisced at that moment when my lolo said that. I knew right there he didn't let my lolo down.
___
Photo # 1: Lolo Sebio and Lola Para, the parents of Lolo Ric, when they were married.
Photo # 2: Lolo Ric, who passed away June 12, 2005. Born in 1929.
Photo # 3: My mother's side of the family. She's the one on the left most of the photo.
Photo # 4: My dad and I last year.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Hitting a Wall: The Deadline of Three Years and Shortening...
This is one of the things that you have to experience a lot of before you know. In everything you love -- being in a relationship, working til wee hours and losing yourself in the perfect job, and all else that requires some form of intense commitment and effort -- there is a saturation point.
Mine is three years. Three years in a relationship is easy. A week or even a day after that, the boat starts to shake. Heck, it doesn't shake, it miraculously bears big fat holes where it matters. The job is a lot shorter. For a job, it takes me just about a year and I'm so sick and tired of it already. Like I feel that I'm doing everything mechanically and practically waiting for death to salvage what's left of my worn out soul.
Then, there's always that moment, that spark that makes you know for sure (even if you really don't) that this is it. This is the one. I will never get tired of this. It feels right. Everything just fell into place. Magic.
I think that's how the idea of fairy tales started, by the way. And I guess more and more people are realizing that it may have started as a fairytale, but not all fairy tales get a happy ending.
I am in a similar point in my job. There's so much growth and potential, but unfortunately, the people who should have stayed, the people who are so much more qualified and mature to handle management and technical issues are gone. Can you blame a young boss who doesn't really know how to act like one? Whose patience is as short as a toothpick? Someone who is only familiar with her tasks and no one else's on the team?
Whenever I feel like I'm hitting a wall, I only think of two options: one is to walk away and find some other easy door to pass through, or hit the wall even harder. Maybe it'll crack, make me tougher, and lead me to the other side.
Isn't there a cheat sheet for being an adult? Ay caramba.
Mine is three years. Three years in a relationship is easy. A week or even a day after that, the boat starts to shake. Heck, it doesn't shake, it miraculously bears big fat holes where it matters. The job is a lot shorter. For a job, it takes me just about a year and I'm so sick and tired of it already. Like I feel that I'm doing everything mechanically and practically waiting for death to salvage what's left of my worn out soul.
Then, there's always that moment, that spark that makes you know for sure (even if you really don't) that this is it. This is the one. I will never get tired of this. It feels right. Everything just fell into place. Magic.
I think that's how the idea of fairy tales started, by the way. And I guess more and more people are realizing that it may have started as a fairytale, but not all fairy tales get a happy ending.
I am in a similar point in my job. There's so much growth and potential, but unfortunately, the people who should have stayed, the people who are so much more qualified and mature to handle management and technical issues are gone. Can you blame a young boss who doesn't really know how to act like one? Whose patience is as short as a toothpick? Someone who is only familiar with her tasks and no one else's on the team?
Whenever I feel like I'm hitting a wall, I only think of two options: one is to walk away and find some other easy door to pass through, or hit the wall even harder. Maybe it'll crack, make me tougher, and lead me to the other side.
Isn't there a cheat sheet for being an adult? Ay caramba.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Being-Good-At-Everything Dilemma
When I was younger, my parents and my school wanted kids to be well-rounded. That means a student is not only excellent in academics, but he/she is also good at other areas like sports, music, and the arts. Looking back, I think I did not disappointed them.
Here's the problem in being good at everything: there are too many options. You can practically be anything you want. And I thought in the beginning that the hardest part of this dilemma was deciding what to do for the rest of your life, but no. An even harder challenge was to let go of the other things that you're good at, so you can be even better at your chosen career. If you know what I'm talking about, you should feel what I feel -- heartbroken.
As I learn more and try, to the best of my ability, to stay on top of all my games, the day does not do me any favors. 24 hours is the limit. No more, just less.
I am an Economist. I'm getting better at what I do. I want to be even better, sooner.
I am a mountaineer. Sports addict. I run half marathons for fun and curse whenever I run more than that. But I do it anyway.
I am a writer and editor of a monthly art newsletter. I love writing. It takes time and some quiet concentration to take down the first word.
I do writing for charity and I am an officer of a non-profit organization.
I rarely play the piano, but I do love music. It is my escape.
...and 24 hours is all I have.
Here's the problem in being good at everything: there are too many options. You can practically be anything you want. And I thought in the beginning that the hardest part of this dilemma was deciding what to do for the rest of your life, but no. An even harder challenge was to let go of the other things that you're good at, so you can be even better at your chosen career. If you know what I'm talking about, you should feel what I feel -- heartbroken.
As I learn more and try, to the best of my ability, to stay on top of all my games, the day does not do me any favors. 24 hours is the limit. No more, just less.
I am an Economist. I'm getting better at what I do. I want to be even better, sooner.
I am a mountaineer. Sports addict. I run half marathons for fun and curse whenever I run more than that. But I do it anyway.
I am a writer and editor of a monthly art newsletter. I love writing. It takes time and some quiet concentration to take down the first word.
I do writing for charity and I am an officer of a non-profit organization.
I rarely play the piano, but I do love music. It is my escape.
...and 24 hours is all I have.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
CGMA to PSBA: It's the Economy, Student!
IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUDENT!
By Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, PhD
[I wrote this article on and off in my spare time during my house recuperation, re-hospitalization and hospital detention from October to December 2011.]
The economy I turned over
Countless studies have shown that rapid increases in average incomes reduce poverty. Policy research, notes economist Stephan Klasen, has shown that “poverty reduction will be fastest in countries where average income growth is highest.”
When I stepped down from the Presidency in June 2010, I was able to turn over to the next Administration a new Philippines with a 7.9 percent growth rate. That growth rate capped 38 quarters of uninterrupted economic growth despite escalating global oil and food prices, two world recessions, Central and West Asian wars, mega-storms and virulent global epidemics. Our country had just weathered with flying colors the worst planet-wide economic downturn since the Great Depression of 1930. As two-thirds of the world’s economies contracted, we were one of the few that managed positive growth.
If you look around you in our cities as you drive by the office towers that have changed the skyline, if you look around you in our provinces as you drive over the roads, bridges and RORO ports where we made massive investments, that is the face of change that occurred during my administration.
By the time I left the Presidency, nearly nine out of 10 Filipinos had access to health insurance, more than 100,000 new classrooms had been built, 9 million jobs had been created.
We built roads and bridges, ports and airports, irrigation and education facilities where they were sorely needed. To millions of the poor, we provided free or subsidized rice, discounted fuel and electricity, or conditional cash transfers and we advanced land reform for farmers and indigenous communities.
No amount of black propaganda can erase the tangible improvements enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of families liberated from want during my decade at the helm of the nation. But these accomplishments have simply been part of the continuum of history. The gains I achieved were built on the efforts of previous leaders. Each successive government must build on the successes and progress of the previous ones: advance the programs that work, leave behind those that don’t.
I am confident that I left this nation much stronger than when I came into office. When I stepped down, I called on everyone to unite behind our new leaders. I was optimistic and I was hopeful about our future.
However, the evidence is mounting that my optimism was misplaced. Our growth in the 3rd quarter of 2011 was only 3.2 percent, well below all the forecasts that had already been successively downgraded. The momentum inherited by President Aquino from my administration is slowing down, and despite his initial brief honeymoon period, he has simply not replaced my legacy with new ideas and actions of his own.
The politics of division
In the last year and a half, I have noted with sadness the increasing vacuum of leadership, vision, energy and execution in managing our economic affairs. The gains achieved by previous administrations – mine included – are being squandered in an obsessive pursuit of political warfare meant to blacken the past and conceal the dark corners of the present dispensation. Rather than building on our nation’s achievements, this regime has extolled itself as the sole harbinger of all that is good. And the Filipino people are paying for this obsession--in slumping growth, under-achieving government, escalating crime and conflict, and the excesses of a presidential clique that enjoys fancy cars and gun culture.
Vilification covering up the vacuum of vision is the latest manifestation of the weak state that our generation of Filipinos has inherited. The symptoms of this weak state are a large gap between rich and poor — a gap that has been exploited for political ends — and a political system based on patronage and, ultimately, corruption to support that patronage. Recently, politics has seen the use of black propaganda and character assassination as tools of the trade.The operative word in all of this is “politics” – too much politics.
I know that the President has to be a politician, like everybody else in our elected leadership, whether Administration or Opposition, and we must all co-exist within this system. But what really matters is what kind of politics we espouse, not how much. The enemy to beat is ourselves: when we spread division rather than unity; when we put ego above country and sensationalism above rationality; when we make everyday politics replace long-term vision in our country’s hour of need.
Everyday we draw nearer to what may be our country’s hour of greatest need, because an increasingly ominous global environment is aggravating our self-inflicted weakness. The leadership’s palpable deficiencies in vision and execution are hurting our economy at a time when the rest of the world faces the ever more real threat of a double-dip recession, one that we may have escaped the first time during my term, but might not be able to avoid again.
Our dream of growth
In order to avoid such a grim outcome, we must pursue the economic growth of our country as the permanent solution to our age-old problems of poverty and even corruption. Every postwar Administration to my recollection has sought to advance the economic growth of our country as a matter of highest priority. Only by enlarging the economic pie can there be more and bigger slices for everyone to enjoy.
It is in poverty that we find the material roots of the problem of corruption – because the political system based on patronage--and ultimately, corruption to support patronage--is made possible only by the large gap between the rich and the poor. This will persist until and unless we enlarge the economic pie. Unfortunately, the present Administration has chosen to turn the problem upside down, anchoring their entire development strategy on one simplistic slogan: “Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap.” If there is no corruption, there is no poverty—this is a proposition that also tells us that the undeniable persistence of poverty to this day therefore means the continuation of corruption under this Administration.
The Economist commented earlier that: “…The President’s approach to fighting corruption…is to punish the sins of the past rather than try to prevent crime in the future. Mr. Aquino has proposed few reforms to the system.”
Meanwhile, most analysts are downgrading their growth forecasts for this year and the next. The Dutch bank ING cited the government’s “under-spending in the name of good governance” as the reason for lowering its growth forecasts.
Now more than ever, as the rest of the world faces renewed threats of financial and even sovereign defaults as well as economic recession, it is high time for us to return to the commitment to growth that has been the primary objective of every administration in the past.
Sunshine industries
Returning to this mainstream commitment to growth enables the country to tap the opportunities of the 21st century. In line with this, during my time we promoted fast-growing industries where high-value jobs are most plentiful.
One of them is information and communication technology or ICT, particularly the outsourcing of knowledge and business processes. My Administration developed the call center industry almost from scratch: in June 2010 there were half a million call center and BPO workers, from less than 5,000 when I took office. It was mainly for them that we built our fifth, virtual superregion: the so-called “cyber corridor”, the nationwide backbone for our call centers and BPO industry which rely on constant advances in IT and the essentially zero cost of additional bandwidth.
These youthful digital pioneers deserve government’s continuing support – by upgrading instead of downgrading and politicizing CICT, the government agency that oversees our digital infrastructure; by continuing to fund related voc-tech training programs; by wooing instead of alienating foreign companies seeking to set up shop here. As countries like China and Korea rapidly make their own way up the value-added ladder of outsourcing, we must work harder to stay ahead of them.
[Graph: No. of IT / BPO employees (‘000) Source: BPAP]
I had coffee with some call center agents one Labor Day when I was President. Lyn, a new college graduate, told me, "Now I don't have to leave the country in order for me to help my family." I was touched. With the structural reforms we implemented to promote ICT and BPOs, we not only found jobs but kept families intact.
We created appealing employment opportunities by focusing on the development of priority sectors, such as BPO. We need to create more wealth and keep people working here at home. That is why I remained so stubbornly focused on the economy. Many times during my tenure I expressed how much I longed for the day when going abroad for a job is a career option, not the only choice, for a Filipino worker. My economic plans were designed to allow the Philippines to break out of the boom and bust cycle of an economy dependent on global markets for agricultural commodities, and pursue consistent and sustainable growth anchored on a large domestic market and the resiliency of Filipino workers at home and abroad.
My successor flattered me by parroting what I said, but tried to frustrate me by distorting what I did. Instead of acknowledging his debt to his predecessor, he accused me of doing the opposite of what I had achieved, by describing my government as “…[one] that treats its people as an export commodity and a means to earn foreign exchange”. Then he promised to install what I had already established and which he appears bent on dismantling: “… a government that creates jobs at home, so that working abroad will be a choice rather than a necessity; and when its citizens do choose to become OFWs, their welfare and protection will still be the government’s priority.”
Indeed, it’s so easy to claim achievements that have already been accomplished by others, and take credit for what is there when the one who did the work has gone. Just make sure she is forgotten, or, if remembered, vilified.
The President’s words were brave indeed—and yet his government has consistently failed to back them up: by failing to rescue our countrymen from China’s death row, or promptly evacuate them from national disaster in Japan, or comprehensively secure them from political unrest in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East. Now we are facing a new challenge of “Saudiization”, as the government of our largest OFW market, Saudi Arabia, sets out to implement a massive program of replacing OFW’s with its own nationals, starting next year.
Will this government have the will and the skill to properly navigate such uncertain waters? Protecting our overseas workers will urgently require contingency planning and continuous backdoor diplomacy with their host governments, while creating alternative jobs at home for them will require—again—the kind of commitment to economic expansion that I cannot overemphasize.
Infrastructure
Infrastructure strengthens our competitiveness and enables us to attract new levels of jobcreating foreign direct investment. Infrastructure investment not only drives economic growth, but also creates a more efficient, competitive economy, by improving productivity and lowering the costs of doing business.
I am alarmed that the pace of infrastructure build-out has slowed dramatically under this Administration, with some projects even being cancelled outright for no good reason—such as the earlier-noted flood control projects in Central Luzon—and our country being sued by investors. At a time when we should be wooing their money, we are inviting litigation from them instead. This kind of flip-flopping may help explain the tepid investor response to the Administration’s flagship public-private partnership (PPP) program, where only one project has been awarded after all of eighteen months.
I was heartened to hear the President announce recently his willingness to resume government infrastructure spending next year. However, one cannot help but notice the timing, so close to the upcoming 2013 election campaign.
Land productivity
In my first State of the Nation Address in 2001, I said that the first component of our national agenda should be an economic philosophy of free enterprise appropriate to the twenty-first century, while the second should be a modernized agricultural sector founded on social equity.
Within a couple of months after taking office in January 2001, I personally conducted Cabinet meetings to implement the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act of 1995, which had never been implemented for lack of funds. After several discussions with selected department secretaries as well as heads of government banks, we uncovered budget items and available credit to channel more than P20 billion a year to provide fertilizers, irrigation and infrastructure, extension services, more loans, dryers and other post-harvest facilities, and seeds and other genetic materials to our farmers and fisherfolk. This was perhaps the biggest reason for the decline in poverty that was posted during my first few years in office.
The current Administration originally fixated on the single goal of achieving self-sufficiency in rice by 2013. I too wanted to achieve rice self-sufficiency, but I knew the odds were tough. Since the Spanish period we’ve been importing rice. While we may know how to grow rice well, topography doesn’t always cooperate. Nature did not gift us with a mighty Mekong River like Thailand and Vietnam, with their vast and naturally fertile river delta plains. Nature instead put our islands ahead of our neighbors in the path of typhoons from the Pacific. So historically we’ve had to import 10% of our rice, and so I took care to keep our goals for agriculture wideranging and diversified.
Recently the Administration seems to have retreated from the original objective of rice selfsufficiency by 2013. In its place, do they have an alternative vision in mind for our all-important agricultural sector?
The real challenge in this century is broader. The real task at hand is to make the finite land that we have planted to agriculture ever more productive, through agricultural modernization founded on social equity.
Higher productivity from farm lands is critical for our development. By making more food available at lower prices especially to our poor, we are effectively bringing down the required level of real wages in our country—already among the highest in the world, according to UP Professor Manny Esguerra—and helping to make our manufacturing industries globally competitive again.
As for social equity, being the daughter of the late President Diosdado Macapagal, the father of land reform in our country, I am gratified by the evaluation of one of my favorite Economics teachers, UP Professor Gonzalo Jurado: “The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, to the extent that it is a land distribution program, can now be described as having almost completely succeeded in attaining its goal. [CARP] should now be a developmental program aiming explicitly to raise farm productivity…so that the country as a whole will benefit from the tenurial rearrangement.”
And of course it is the landowners who must set the example of compliance with the law in order to allow the rest of us to move forward—such as the Arroyos in my husband’s family, who voluntarily submitted long ago to land reform even without an order from the Supreme Court to do the right thing.
Our children
For Filipinos, family is everything and the future of our children is sacred. That is why I invested so much time and effort in rejuvenating our education system. I met with teachers and other educators to get a first-hand look at the improvements that we need to make. I listened to what these fine public servants had to say, and in response to their advice, I increased the country’s total budget for education by nearly four times: from Ps 6.6 Billion in 2000 to Ps 24.3 Billion in 2010 when I stepped down. Those funds went into the following critical areas of educational spending:
[Graph: Invested on Crucial Resources for Learning (in PB)]
We built 100,000 new classrooms, more than the three previous administrations combined.
We supported one in every two private high school students—a total of 1.2 million students-with the GASTPE financial voucher program.
In 2009 alone, we doubled TESDA’s budget.
For the long term, key recommendations were also submitted by the educational task force I created in 2007--comprising representatives from the major educational and private sector bodies under the leadership of former Ateneo president Fr. Bienvenido Nebres--in order to fashion a new educational roadmap with special attention to the needs of the youth and our growing knowledge-driven industries.
The task force report is the only document I personally handed to President Aquino, when we were together in the car being driven to his inauguration last year. Unfortunately that report seems to have landed in his circular file, making our schoolchildren yet another casualty of the ongoing vilification being waged against me.
I’m now saddened by news reports that the administration has been under-funding state colleges and universities without offering alternatives to the more than ten percent of our student population who attend these institutions.
Moreover, to my knowledge, any major educational reforms implemented by this administration have been limited only to adding another two years to basic education. I do not know how sound this is, or how widely supported among education professionals.
The poor
I often said during my Administration that we need to continue translating our economic and fiscal achievements into real benefits for the people. We must continue to invest in what I like to call the three “E’s” of the Economy, Environment and Education. These include such pro-poor programs as enhancing access to healthcare, food, housing and education, as well as job creation. They are central to lifting our nation up.
Over the past decade—fuelled by the windfall from our mid-term fiscal reforms—I initiated or expanded a raft of social programs for the poor. We increased PhilHealth insurance coverage, set up nearly 16,000 Botika ng Barangay outlets to deliver affordable medicines to the poor, ordered the drug companies by law to reduce their prices, energized 98.9 percent of our barangays, provided water service to 70 percent of previously waterless municipalities. And of course, we also introduced “Four P’s”, the highly successful conditional cash transfer program aimed at encouraging positive behavior among the poor in exchange for cash assistance.
But perhaps more than our social services, what the poor benefited the most from was the low inflation and the low unemployment we made possible through effective management of the economy. Despite the global food and oil price spikes of 2008, domestic inflation slowly declined on my watch, bottoming out at 3.9 percent by the time I stepped down in June 2010. And unemployment, which had peaked at nearly 14 percent under President Estrada, was averaging only around 7.5 percent toward the end of my term in office.
The problems of the poor are serious indeed, and they deserve serious thinking and serious solutions—not empty slogans, not the bloating of the cash transfer program for patently political ends, and certainly not the inability of this administration to keep the price of rice affordable or create more jobs by continuing the growth agenda. The moment that agenda is compromised, it is the poor who will feel first and the hardest the dire consequences.
The environment
No nation can aspire to become modern without protecting its environment.
On my watch as President, the country’s forest cover increased from 5.39 million hectares in 2001 to 7.17 million hectares by 2009. And we registered 40 projects abroad to reduce greenhouse gases—the sixth largest number of such projects among all countries.
I also signed a large number of laws to codify environmental protection—including new legislation to promote Ecological Solid Waste Management, Wildlife Resource Conservation and Protection, Clean Water, and Biofuels. And I tried to set the example for our countrymen by dedicating every Friday to environmental concerns.
I created the Presidential Task Force on Climate Change in 2007, which was later enhanced into the Climate Change Commission under the Climate Change Act of 2009. Under the law, the Chief Executive chairs this Commission, just one of only a few bodies headed by the highest official of the land. And yet President Aquino to date has not convened the Commission even once. The country can ill afford his lack of interest in this matter, now that climate change is causing calamities at the most unexpected times and places, such as the December typhoon floods in Cagayan de Oro and my home town of Iligan City.
Presidential drudgery
As my father, the late President Diosdado Macapagal, used to say: “The Presidency of the Philippines is a tough and killing job that demands a sense of sacrifice.” At the end of the day, it comes down to plain hard work. A president must work harder than everyone else. And no matter what he thinks he was elected to do — even if that includes running after alleged offenders in the past — he must not neglect the bread and butter issues that preoccupy most of our people most of the time: keeping prices down, creating more jobs, providing basic services, securing the peace, pursuing the high economic growth that is the only way to vault our country into the ranks of developed economies.
Good management begins with planning ahead, not pointing fingers and blaming others after the fact. It means spelling out your vision quickly and clearly so your team grasps their mission at once and immediately starts to execute it.
Unfortunately, planning and preparation seem to be absent from this administration, whether it’s for taking OFWs out of harm’s way on short notice, or evacuating flood victims—or rescuing foreign tourists held hostage by a crazed gunman. By comparison to that incident, not a single life was ever lost in all the coup attempts against me that I had to put down by force. There is no secret behind this: it against any crisis, implemented with hands-on leadership from the very top.
Once the plan is in place, the leader must proceed to hands-on execution. There is no room for absenteeism, nor for coming to work late and leaving early. There is simply not enough that can be done if the Cabinet meets only four times in an entire year.
The last major task for good management is to exercise control without fear or favor. This was the principle I was following when I brought AFP controller General Garcia up on charges in 2005, and cancelled the NBN/ZTE deal in 2007.
These days—alas—there is absolutely no fear in the administration when they’re running after me or my allies. But there is definitely a lot of favor involved when they excuse— and even defends—their friends even from misdeeds committed in full view of the public.
This is not the kind of ethics that should be practiced by one who claims to have a genuine reform agenda. Neither will it attract capital from investors who desire regularity and a level playing field. Nor do our people deserve to be consigned to economic stagnation, government lethargy, and nobody-home leadership.
Neither the President nor anyone else can truly expect to govern the next five years with nothing but a sorry mix of vilification, periodically recycled promises of action followed by lethargy, backed up by few if any results, and presumptuously encouraging gossip about one’s love life in which no one can possibly be interested. Given the electoral mandate that he enjoyed in 2010— the same size as mine in 2004, as predicted by every survey organization at that time—our people deserve more, and better, from him.
[taken from http://www.scribd.com/doc/77989441/Its-the-Economy-Student-by-Gloria-Macapagal-Arroyo]
By Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, PhD
[I wrote this article on and off in my spare time during my house recuperation, re-hospitalization and hospital detention from October to December 2011.]
The economy I turned over
Countless studies have shown that rapid increases in average incomes reduce poverty. Policy research, notes economist Stephan Klasen, has shown that “poverty reduction will be fastest in countries where average income growth is highest.”
When I stepped down from the Presidency in June 2010, I was able to turn over to the next Administration a new Philippines with a 7.9 percent growth rate. That growth rate capped 38 quarters of uninterrupted economic growth despite escalating global oil and food prices, two world recessions, Central and West Asian wars, mega-storms and virulent global epidemics. Our country had just weathered with flying colors the worst planet-wide economic downturn since the Great Depression of 1930. As two-thirds of the world’s economies contracted, we were one of the few that managed positive growth.
If you look around you in our cities as you drive by the office towers that have changed the skyline, if you look around you in our provinces as you drive over the roads, bridges and RORO ports where we made massive investments, that is the face of change that occurred during my administration.
By the time I left the Presidency, nearly nine out of 10 Filipinos had access to health insurance, more than 100,000 new classrooms had been built, 9 million jobs had been created.
We built roads and bridges, ports and airports, irrigation and education facilities where they were sorely needed. To millions of the poor, we provided free or subsidized rice, discounted fuel and electricity, or conditional cash transfers and we advanced land reform for farmers and indigenous communities.
No amount of black propaganda can erase the tangible improvements enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of families liberated from want during my decade at the helm of the nation. But these accomplishments have simply been part of the continuum of history. The gains I achieved were built on the efforts of previous leaders. Each successive government must build on the successes and progress of the previous ones: advance the programs that work, leave behind those that don’t.
I am confident that I left this nation much stronger than when I came into office. When I stepped down, I called on everyone to unite behind our new leaders. I was optimistic and I was hopeful about our future.
However, the evidence is mounting that my optimism was misplaced. Our growth in the 3rd quarter of 2011 was only 3.2 percent, well below all the forecasts that had already been successively downgraded. The momentum inherited by President Aquino from my administration is slowing down, and despite his initial brief honeymoon period, he has simply not replaced my legacy with new ideas and actions of his own.
The politics of division
In the last year and a half, I have noted with sadness the increasing vacuum of leadership, vision, energy and execution in managing our economic affairs. The gains achieved by previous administrations – mine included – are being squandered in an obsessive pursuit of political warfare meant to blacken the past and conceal the dark corners of the present dispensation. Rather than building on our nation’s achievements, this regime has extolled itself as the sole harbinger of all that is good. And the Filipino people are paying for this obsession--in slumping growth, under-achieving government, escalating crime and conflict, and the excesses of a presidential clique that enjoys fancy cars and gun culture.
Vilification covering up the vacuum of vision is the latest manifestation of the weak state that our generation of Filipinos has inherited. The symptoms of this weak state are a large gap between rich and poor — a gap that has been exploited for political ends — and a political system based on patronage and, ultimately, corruption to support that patronage. Recently, politics has seen the use of black propaganda and character assassination as tools of the trade.The operative word in all of this is “politics” – too much politics.
I know that the President has to be a politician, like everybody else in our elected leadership, whether Administration or Opposition, and we must all co-exist within this system. But what really matters is what kind of politics we espouse, not how much. The enemy to beat is ourselves: when we spread division rather than unity; when we put ego above country and sensationalism above rationality; when we make everyday politics replace long-term vision in our country’s hour of need.
Everyday we draw nearer to what may be our country’s hour of greatest need, because an increasingly ominous global environment is aggravating our self-inflicted weakness. The leadership’s palpable deficiencies in vision and execution are hurting our economy at a time when the rest of the world faces the ever more real threat of a double-dip recession, one that we may have escaped the first time during my term, but might not be able to avoid again.
Our dream of growth
In order to avoid such a grim outcome, we must pursue the economic growth of our country as the permanent solution to our age-old problems of poverty and even corruption. Every postwar Administration to my recollection has sought to advance the economic growth of our country as a matter of highest priority. Only by enlarging the economic pie can there be more and bigger slices for everyone to enjoy.
It is in poverty that we find the material roots of the problem of corruption – because the political system based on patronage--and ultimately, corruption to support patronage--is made possible only by the large gap between the rich and the poor. This will persist until and unless we enlarge the economic pie. Unfortunately, the present Administration has chosen to turn the problem upside down, anchoring their entire development strategy on one simplistic slogan: “Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap.” If there is no corruption, there is no poverty—this is a proposition that also tells us that the undeniable persistence of poverty to this day therefore means the continuation of corruption under this Administration.
The Economist commented earlier that: “…The President’s approach to fighting corruption…is to punish the sins of the past rather than try to prevent crime in the future. Mr. Aquino has proposed few reforms to the system.”
Meanwhile, most analysts are downgrading their growth forecasts for this year and the next. The Dutch bank ING cited the government’s “under-spending in the name of good governance” as the reason for lowering its growth forecasts.
Now more than ever, as the rest of the world faces renewed threats of financial and even sovereign defaults as well as economic recession, it is high time for us to return to the commitment to growth that has been the primary objective of every administration in the past.
Sunshine industries
Returning to this mainstream commitment to growth enables the country to tap the opportunities of the 21st century. In line with this, during my time we promoted fast-growing industries where high-value jobs are most plentiful.
One of them is information and communication technology or ICT, particularly the outsourcing of knowledge and business processes. My Administration developed the call center industry almost from scratch: in June 2010 there were half a million call center and BPO workers, from less than 5,000 when I took office. It was mainly for them that we built our fifth, virtual superregion: the so-called “cyber corridor”, the nationwide backbone for our call centers and BPO industry which rely on constant advances in IT and the essentially zero cost of additional bandwidth.
These youthful digital pioneers deserve government’s continuing support – by upgrading instead of downgrading and politicizing CICT, the government agency that oversees our digital infrastructure; by continuing to fund related voc-tech training programs; by wooing instead of alienating foreign companies seeking to set up shop here. As countries like China and Korea rapidly make their own way up the value-added ladder of outsourcing, we must work harder to stay ahead of them.
[Graph: No. of IT / BPO employees (‘000) Source: BPAP]
I had coffee with some call center agents one Labor Day when I was President. Lyn, a new college graduate, told me, "Now I don't have to leave the country in order for me to help my family." I was touched. With the structural reforms we implemented to promote ICT and BPOs, we not only found jobs but kept families intact.
We created appealing employment opportunities by focusing on the development of priority sectors, such as BPO. We need to create more wealth and keep people working here at home. That is why I remained so stubbornly focused on the economy. Many times during my tenure I expressed how much I longed for the day when going abroad for a job is a career option, not the only choice, for a Filipino worker. My economic plans were designed to allow the Philippines to break out of the boom and bust cycle of an economy dependent on global markets for agricultural commodities, and pursue consistent and sustainable growth anchored on a large domestic market and the resiliency of Filipino workers at home and abroad.
My successor flattered me by parroting what I said, but tried to frustrate me by distorting what I did. Instead of acknowledging his debt to his predecessor, he accused me of doing the opposite of what I had achieved, by describing my government as “…[one] that treats its people as an export commodity and a means to earn foreign exchange”. Then he promised to install what I had already established and which he appears bent on dismantling: “… a government that creates jobs at home, so that working abroad will be a choice rather than a necessity; and when its citizens do choose to become OFWs, their welfare and protection will still be the government’s priority.”
Indeed, it’s so easy to claim achievements that have already been accomplished by others, and take credit for what is there when the one who did the work has gone. Just make sure she is forgotten, or, if remembered, vilified.
The President’s words were brave indeed—and yet his government has consistently failed to back them up: by failing to rescue our countrymen from China’s death row, or promptly evacuate them from national disaster in Japan, or comprehensively secure them from political unrest in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East. Now we are facing a new challenge of “Saudiization”, as the government of our largest OFW market, Saudi Arabia, sets out to implement a massive program of replacing OFW’s with its own nationals, starting next year.
Will this government have the will and the skill to properly navigate such uncertain waters? Protecting our overseas workers will urgently require contingency planning and continuous backdoor diplomacy with their host governments, while creating alternative jobs at home for them will require—again—the kind of commitment to economic expansion that I cannot overemphasize.
Infrastructure
Infrastructure strengthens our competitiveness and enables us to attract new levels of jobcreating foreign direct investment. Infrastructure investment not only drives economic growth, but also creates a more efficient, competitive economy, by improving productivity and lowering the costs of doing business.
I am alarmed that the pace of infrastructure build-out has slowed dramatically under this Administration, with some projects even being cancelled outright for no good reason—such as the earlier-noted flood control projects in Central Luzon—and our country being sued by investors. At a time when we should be wooing their money, we are inviting litigation from them instead. This kind of flip-flopping may help explain the tepid investor response to the Administration’s flagship public-private partnership (PPP) program, where only one project has been awarded after all of eighteen months.
I was heartened to hear the President announce recently his willingness to resume government infrastructure spending next year. However, one cannot help but notice the timing, so close to the upcoming 2013 election campaign.
Land productivity
In my first State of the Nation Address in 2001, I said that the first component of our national agenda should be an economic philosophy of free enterprise appropriate to the twenty-first century, while the second should be a modernized agricultural sector founded on social equity.
Within a couple of months after taking office in January 2001, I personally conducted Cabinet meetings to implement the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act of 1995, which had never been implemented for lack of funds. After several discussions with selected department secretaries as well as heads of government banks, we uncovered budget items and available credit to channel more than P20 billion a year to provide fertilizers, irrigation and infrastructure, extension services, more loans, dryers and other post-harvest facilities, and seeds and other genetic materials to our farmers and fisherfolk. This was perhaps the biggest reason for the decline in poverty that was posted during my first few years in office.
The current Administration originally fixated on the single goal of achieving self-sufficiency in rice by 2013. I too wanted to achieve rice self-sufficiency, but I knew the odds were tough. Since the Spanish period we’ve been importing rice. While we may know how to grow rice well, topography doesn’t always cooperate. Nature did not gift us with a mighty Mekong River like Thailand and Vietnam, with their vast and naturally fertile river delta plains. Nature instead put our islands ahead of our neighbors in the path of typhoons from the Pacific. So historically we’ve had to import 10% of our rice, and so I took care to keep our goals for agriculture wideranging and diversified.
Recently the Administration seems to have retreated from the original objective of rice selfsufficiency by 2013. In its place, do they have an alternative vision in mind for our all-important agricultural sector?
The real challenge in this century is broader. The real task at hand is to make the finite land that we have planted to agriculture ever more productive, through agricultural modernization founded on social equity.
Higher productivity from farm lands is critical for our development. By making more food available at lower prices especially to our poor, we are effectively bringing down the required level of real wages in our country—already among the highest in the world, according to UP Professor Manny Esguerra—and helping to make our manufacturing industries globally competitive again.
As for social equity, being the daughter of the late President Diosdado Macapagal, the father of land reform in our country, I am gratified by the evaluation of one of my favorite Economics teachers, UP Professor Gonzalo Jurado: “The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, to the extent that it is a land distribution program, can now be described as having almost completely succeeded in attaining its goal. [CARP] should now be a developmental program aiming explicitly to raise farm productivity…so that the country as a whole will benefit from the tenurial rearrangement.”
And of course it is the landowners who must set the example of compliance with the law in order to allow the rest of us to move forward—such as the Arroyos in my husband’s family, who voluntarily submitted long ago to land reform even without an order from the Supreme Court to do the right thing.
Our children
For Filipinos, family is everything and the future of our children is sacred. That is why I invested so much time and effort in rejuvenating our education system. I met with teachers and other educators to get a first-hand look at the improvements that we need to make. I listened to what these fine public servants had to say, and in response to their advice, I increased the country’s total budget for education by nearly four times: from Ps 6.6 Billion in 2000 to Ps 24.3 Billion in 2010 when I stepped down. Those funds went into the following critical areas of educational spending:
[Graph: Invested on Crucial Resources for Learning (in PB)]
We built 100,000 new classrooms, more than the three previous administrations combined.
We supported one in every two private high school students—a total of 1.2 million students-with the GASTPE financial voucher program.
In 2009 alone, we doubled TESDA’s budget.
For the long term, key recommendations were also submitted by the educational task force I created in 2007--comprising representatives from the major educational and private sector bodies under the leadership of former Ateneo president Fr. Bienvenido Nebres--in order to fashion a new educational roadmap with special attention to the needs of the youth and our growing knowledge-driven industries.
The task force report is the only document I personally handed to President Aquino, when we were together in the car being driven to his inauguration last year. Unfortunately that report seems to have landed in his circular file, making our schoolchildren yet another casualty of the ongoing vilification being waged against me.
I’m now saddened by news reports that the administration has been under-funding state colleges and universities without offering alternatives to the more than ten percent of our student population who attend these institutions.
Moreover, to my knowledge, any major educational reforms implemented by this administration have been limited only to adding another two years to basic education. I do not know how sound this is, or how widely supported among education professionals.
The poor
I often said during my Administration that we need to continue translating our economic and fiscal achievements into real benefits for the people. We must continue to invest in what I like to call the three “E’s” of the Economy, Environment and Education. These include such pro-poor programs as enhancing access to healthcare, food, housing and education, as well as job creation. They are central to lifting our nation up.
Over the past decade—fuelled by the windfall from our mid-term fiscal reforms—I initiated or expanded a raft of social programs for the poor. We increased PhilHealth insurance coverage, set up nearly 16,000 Botika ng Barangay outlets to deliver affordable medicines to the poor, ordered the drug companies by law to reduce their prices, energized 98.9 percent of our barangays, provided water service to 70 percent of previously waterless municipalities. And of course, we also introduced “Four P’s”, the highly successful conditional cash transfer program aimed at encouraging positive behavior among the poor in exchange for cash assistance.
But perhaps more than our social services, what the poor benefited the most from was the low inflation and the low unemployment we made possible through effective management of the economy. Despite the global food and oil price spikes of 2008, domestic inflation slowly declined on my watch, bottoming out at 3.9 percent by the time I stepped down in June 2010. And unemployment, which had peaked at nearly 14 percent under President Estrada, was averaging only around 7.5 percent toward the end of my term in office.
The problems of the poor are serious indeed, and they deserve serious thinking and serious solutions—not empty slogans, not the bloating of the cash transfer program for patently political ends, and certainly not the inability of this administration to keep the price of rice affordable or create more jobs by continuing the growth agenda. The moment that agenda is compromised, it is the poor who will feel first and the hardest the dire consequences.
The environment
No nation can aspire to become modern without protecting its environment.
On my watch as President, the country’s forest cover increased from 5.39 million hectares in 2001 to 7.17 million hectares by 2009. And we registered 40 projects abroad to reduce greenhouse gases—the sixth largest number of such projects among all countries.
I also signed a large number of laws to codify environmental protection—including new legislation to promote Ecological Solid Waste Management, Wildlife Resource Conservation and Protection, Clean Water, and Biofuels. And I tried to set the example for our countrymen by dedicating every Friday to environmental concerns.
I created the Presidential Task Force on Climate Change in 2007, which was later enhanced into the Climate Change Commission under the Climate Change Act of 2009. Under the law, the Chief Executive chairs this Commission, just one of only a few bodies headed by the highest official of the land. And yet President Aquino to date has not convened the Commission even once. The country can ill afford his lack of interest in this matter, now that climate change is causing calamities at the most unexpected times and places, such as the December typhoon floods in Cagayan de Oro and my home town of Iligan City.
Presidential drudgery
As my father, the late President Diosdado Macapagal, used to say: “The Presidency of the Philippines is a tough and killing job that demands a sense of sacrifice.” At the end of the day, it comes down to plain hard work. A president must work harder than everyone else. And no matter what he thinks he was elected to do — even if that includes running after alleged offenders in the past — he must not neglect the bread and butter issues that preoccupy most of our people most of the time: keeping prices down, creating more jobs, providing basic services, securing the peace, pursuing the high economic growth that is the only way to vault our country into the ranks of developed economies.
Good management begins with planning ahead, not pointing fingers and blaming others after the fact. It means spelling out your vision quickly and clearly so your team grasps their mission at once and immediately starts to execute it.
Unfortunately, planning and preparation seem to be absent from this administration, whether it’s for taking OFWs out of harm’s way on short notice, or evacuating flood victims—or rescuing foreign tourists held hostage by a crazed gunman. By comparison to that incident, not a single life was ever lost in all the coup attempts against me that I had to put down by force. There is no secret behind this: it against any crisis, implemented with hands-on leadership from the very top.
Once the plan is in place, the leader must proceed to hands-on execution. There is no room for absenteeism, nor for coming to work late and leaving early. There is simply not enough that can be done if the Cabinet meets only four times in an entire year.
The last major task for good management is to exercise control without fear or favor. This was the principle I was following when I brought AFP controller General Garcia up on charges in 2005, and cancelled the NBN/ZTE deal in 2007.
These days—alas—there is absolutely no fear in the administration when they’re running after me or my allies. But there is definitely a lot of favor involved when they excuse— and even defends—their friends even from misdeeds committed in full view of the public.
This is not the kind of ethics that should be practiced by one who claims to have a genuine reform agenda. Neither will it attract capital from investors who desire regularity and a level playing field. Nor do our people deserve to be consigned to economic stagnation, government lethargy, and nobody-home leadership.
Neither the President nor anyone else can truly expect to govern the next five years with nothing but a sorry mix of vilification, periodically recycled promises of action followed by lethargy, backed up by few if any results, and presumptuously encouraging gossip about one’s love life in which no one can possibly be interested. Given the electoral mandate that he enjoyed in 2010— the same size as mine in 2004, as predicted by every survey organization at that time—our people deserve more, and better, from him.
[taken from http://www.scribd.com/doc/77989441/Its-the-Economy-Student-by-Gloria-Macapagal-Arroyo]
Thursday, September 1, 2011
DRAFT: Elmer Borlongan
Once an artist, always an artist. Filipino painter and CCP Thirteen Artists awardee, Elmer Borlongan, found love in art, which eventually unfolded into a lifelong affair.
Probably his most treasured influence, his Chemist father had shaped the way he thinks, the manner in which he sees objects, and his ultimate expression of his thoughts and views. At an early age, his father constantly asked him to draw the same object in different versions using, for instance, a top-view perspective, a back-view, and some from the side of the subject. This trained him perceive things in varying lights and angles, and with much substance than what instantly meets the eye. “Kaya naging three dimensional ang tingin ko sa objects at hindi flat” [That’s why I see objects in three dimensional spaces, not flat] he said.
In 1978 at age 11, his budding artistic prowess led his aunt to introduce him to the Father of Philippine Art Workshops, Fernando Sena, who was then conducting Saturday art workshops at the Children's Museum and Library Inc. (CMLI). Borlongan was enrolled at CMLI during his entire high school life, and assumed the role of the assistant to Sena. Together with his mentor, he participated in outreach workshops in Tondo, Sapang Palay, Antipolo and San Juan.
Having practiced drawing and painting earlier on, Borlongan learned how to incorporate structure in his works,as well as the technical aspects of visual art through Sena’s teachings on the proper navigation and use of the pencil, pen and ink, pastel, watercolor, oil, and other media. In learning the tools extensively, he was honed in painting still-life, landscapes, portraits, illustrating various kinds of animals, and figurative drawing. Beyond the two-dimensional picture, Sena educated Borlongan of three things that could enhance a flat drawing: light, shadow, and composition. “Very academic ang training”, Borlongan said.
He recalls that the trainings of Sena were partial to impressionist paintings, but he was more inclined to painting figurative works. “Challenging kasi ang magpakita ng expression ng figures sa pamamagitan ng action at body movements.”
Just like any young and eager artist, he took the challenge of drafting figurative paintings by learning from those who have already proven their expertise. He attempted to recreate works and redo techniques of established and accomplished artists, both local and foreign such as the technique of National Artist Carlos “Botong” Francisco. He also carefully studied human anatomy through the paintings of Michaelangelo, and the chiaroscuro of Rembrandt.
Borlongan soon realized that, after copying these works, it is harder to find and create your own identity by replicating other artists’ styles. In search for the unique identity of his art, he resorted to painting the realities of his most immediate environment in Mandaluyong. “Sa umpisa, naghahanap lang ako ng audience na makakaintindi ng paintings ko. Masaya na ako noon na may nakakaalala ng past works ko kahit hindi nila mabili.”
With an unselfish frame of mind, Borlongan notes that acquiring knowledge on basic art is important so that it is easier to teach and pass it on to others who might be interested in becoming an artist.
Upon stepping into the University of the Philippines (UP) Fine Arts, Borlongan fondly remembers Nestor Olarte Vinluan, an art and literature enthusiast, who told him that good art, is not just based on the techniques of the hand, but also on the expression and the concept of the piece, which deserves nothing less than equal importance. Borlongan and Vinluan often conversed about literary pieces, which had been the root of inspiration for several of the former’s paintings.
Among the great Filipino painters, Borlongan particularly admires Danny Dalena at Onib Olmedo for the strength of their works and their utmost bravery for standing up for what they believe should be painted and revealed to the world.
No sooner did Borlongan find a group of artists, called Salingpusa, to complement and develop his identity as a young artist in UP. With a relentless appetite for discovering deeper meanings of just about anything to their very core, Salingpusa often journeyed to Antipolo to engage in reflections and discussions about art and life in general. Influenced by Dr. Joven Cuanang, the group’s members were instilled with discipline and the drive to continuously produce and improve in their art.
Because of the relentless culture to excel of Salingpusa artists, and the accumulation of works that consistently progress to an improvement from the last, Boston Gallery in Cubao was created to cater to the group’s need to exhibit and impart their works to the public.
Borlongan is confident in saying that what he learned from Salingpusa manifests in all of his works. “Napag-isipan ng mabuti ang bawat painting. Kaya din one-at-a-time lang ako gumawa” he said. Salingpusa members were his influences in venturing into figurative painting. The expressionist approach of each member in painting human figures from memory alone communicates the reflection of personal experiences, as well as a third-person view of urban life. “May soul ang bawat gawa ng members.” Borlongan adds.
Manny Garibay, a prominent Filipino artist, invited Borlongan to join another group called Artista ng Bayan (ABAY). From the built foundations of Salingpusa, Borlongan was further exposed to the realities of life and the injustice that spread throughout the dictatorship of the late President Ferdinand Marcos. With an enlightened frame of mind, he became an activist and contributed to several Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) through visual aids. His first project was a mural for the funeral procession of the slain activist, Lean Alejandro, in 1987. It was immediately followed by graphic designs, posters, streamers, banners, comics, illustrations, effigies, stage and production designs, and more murals used in rallies in Metro Manila and other provinces. He, then, became a co-founder of Sanggawa, an art collective that continuously produced collaborative murals in the mid-90s.
“Hindi lang ang totoo at maganda sa paningin ng iba ang pwedeng ipinta.” With everything and every group that he has merged with at a point in his life, he was able to know himself and his purpose – to be a relevant being to society, and to impart and depict the truth in the lives of ordinary people in his paintings.
“Gusto kong ipakita sa paintings ko and totoong buhay ng karaniwang tao. Ang Buhay Kalye.”
Borlongan’s depiction of Buhay Kalye pertains to stories that emerge out of nowhere, the common people’s way of life, the way they work, how hard they work for their families doing trivial tasks, doing many trivial tasks, in fact, in order for the pooled salaries to be just enough to feed a growing family. The paintings are sometimes depressing, but sometimes are also comical. He intentionally paints them in a way that they cover all aspects of a simple life; that in every frame, no matter how destitute, laughter may be found.
For whatever feeling his paintings communicate, he stands by his belief in the power of a single image.
His trademark of painting bald men, and characters with eyes that catch the viewer’s attention even when they are painted closed, Borlongan consistently invoke the idea of motion and emotion in all his works. They are snapshots of mundane activities, like watching people pass by, line up, or get bored in a designated waiting area. His view, slightly distorted makes the painting all the more dynamic. A viewer is enticed to think of what could have happened prior to that snippet of the day, as well as what happens next. Was there a fight? Did he fall off from the bus? Why are the characters looking at you?
What is exceptionally intriguing in his paintings is the feeling that the viewer is meant to be part of the painting. The angle by which a person sees the painting puts him in a persona who plays a role in the story. Without the observer’s point of view, the painting is not complete.
“Driver’s Lounge” for instance, turns me from a curious admirer of art, to a person walking away from my car in a parking lot towards the entrance of a mall in Ortigas. “Pamilyang Menthol” 1994 conveys to me a family of smokers and what they would look like from the view of the television in the living room, as they gather one evening to watch what I would imagine as a cash-disbursing community-oriented show.
His recent work, “Batang EDSA”, the poster image of this year’s Philippine international art fair, ManilART 11, is an interpretation of Dong Abay’s song called “God Bless our Trip.” The painting shows the harsh reality of children who have limited comforts and opportunities in life – that instead of enjoying their childhood playing games and studying, they spend their days working in very dangerous and risky jobs such as selling cigarettes and threaded necklaces of Sampaguita on the street and jumping in and off of moderately moving buses, all for a few Pesos just enough to sustain themselves for the day.
Borlongan’s paintings remind me of looking at the world for the first time. With all the peculiarities, the dust, the hard labor, the cheap labor. The world in his paintings does not look dirty or poor as he creates a dramatic and captivating scene of what could have otherwise been an ordinary day.
Looking into the future, Borlongan sees himself continuing what he has already started – painting the lives of the ordinary. “Marami pa akong naiisip na subject matter na tulad sa tema ng paintings ko ngayon.” He still intends to use the traditional media oil and acrylic, but he is open to using other media if the opportunity arises.
He refuses to be boxed in to paintings in expressing his creativity. A technologically savvy artist, he says he is now using a modern day touch pad in producing new drawings and digital finger paintings. In terms of photography, he is attracted to the history and mechanics of the single-lens reflex (SLR), rangefinder cameras, and the process of film developing, thus is incredibly fascinated with and fond of practicing analog photography. Also in his list of innovations and expansions is the production of limited edition vinyl toys which is the base of his works.
He admits it is difficult to say for sure what he will be doing in the next decade, but if given a chance, he would still want to create large scale paintings and public art accessible for all to see. He hopes to develop some more in his craft and explore more styles and new media in art.
“Maswerte ako na I’m living my dream as an artist.” The struggle in becoming a recognized artist took long, he said, but through hardwork, perseverance, dedication in his craft, and the support of family and friends, he was able to build a body of work that he is truly proud of. Instead of pitying himself for the hard times that he went through, he has pooled strength and cleverly used his motivations as the running theme in his paintings, in which everyone can relate to. Through his works, he shows the resilience of Filipinos in the face of all types of challenges in life. It is an unlikely trait of a Filipino to give up, and no matter how tough times get, there is always a sliver of humor to be seen to lighten the burden.
In each of his finished works, he guarantees that no compromise was made, and that he is satisfied with all of them. This is what he hopes to be his legacy to the next generation of artists – to inspire them and have them inspired by the beauty and perfection of their own works.
“Malaking contribution ang art and culture sa soul ng isang bansa. Dito natin makikita kung ano na ang naabot ng ating kaisipan.”
Elmer Borlongan graduated from the University of the Philippines Fine Arts, Majoring in Painting in 1987, and is the artist whose painting is ManilART 11’s poster image. He has had 16 solo exhibits to date, and has honored the Philippines with his participation in group exhibits in Copenhagen, Singapore, Madrid, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney, Brisbane, Oakland, Tokyo, New York, and other parts of the United States.He attended several conferences abroad and joined the Metrobank Annual National Painting Competition where he won second prize in oil painting twice during the 80s and early 90s. His fame immediately advanced with his inclusion in the prestigious Thirteen Artists awardees of the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1994.
His works can be viewed in the public collections of the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum and the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art in Japan, the Singapore Art Museum, Queensland Art Gallery in Australia, Pinto Art Museum in Antipolo City and the Metrobank Foundation, Philippines.
(This article is the unedited version of the cover article for Contemporary Art Philippines MANILART 11 commemorative issue)
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