[ARTICLE WRITTEN FOR THE COMPANY NEWSMAGAZINE]

Recharging at pristine Sagada

Where’s the best way to take a break and recharge from the hustle and bustle of working for [name of company]? Most of the time, the answer by default is a beach (we’re not 7,000-plus islands for nothing). But one big combined Philippines and Nijmegen group recently took advantage of a long weekend by going to pristine Sagada.

Fresh air, sparkling waters, native living, delicious vegetables, spelunking paradise… Sagada is one of the towns of Mountain Province, nestled in the middle of Northern Philippines. It’s a 10-hour travel from Manila via Baguio or Banaue, but the long trip just pass fleetingly along the breathtaking views of Benguet or Ifugao provinces. The ride is by bus then jeepney, until the road opens to a serene town, seemingly straight out of a Paul Theroux travelogue: buy one map then get overwhelmed by the number of places within the town that begs to be put in the agenda. Among others, there are big and small waterfalls, underground river, limestone “crystal caves” with running waters, fresh lakes, and rice terraces, which [a colleague] admired: “unbelievable how they could build them thousands of years ago.”

Indeed, Sagada has “better” rice terraces than the more tourism-exploited, crumbling ones in Banaue. The terraces of Banaue seems to be there just for pure tourism now; not anymore for it’s original purpose of agriculture for food. And the people seems to have forgotten the technique to make to right clay material to maintain the paddies. The knowledge on materials seems to not have been duly passed on (an analogy for a situation that should be prevented in a company's own handling of materials development).

“Every place we came, the people were friendly. Strange that this kind of nice places are not found if you go to Travel Agencies in Europe, because it’s really worthwhile to go [to Sagada],” [said a colleague].

The interesting places in the town made the group forget the load, focus, click of film camera yore. With film, you would like to choose the perfect picture composition before clicking, because every picture will cost. But digital offers point and shoot, then the option to print only the ones you want to keep in a “physical” album. As a result “an awful lot of digital pictures have been made. When I take a look again, I immediately want to come back to the Philippines.” said Rik. “We have a whole evening at my house [just] to share all pictures,” added [name of a dutch colleague].

The usual extended weekend (read: 3 days) is not enough to visit the whole of Sagada. Interesting places range from as “tame” as the many ideal picnic places—especially apt during the months of April and May when the summer sun is pleasant and the blackberries are ripe for picking—to the “for the adventurous” caves which have two route choices--one “easy” and another for the truly daring, called “cave connections.” Many sites are guaranteed breathtaking, figuratively and literally. It’s quite an exercise to reach the big falls, for example, and there are also amazing rock formations where it’s possible to rappel, from top to bottom of a sizeable cliff.

The group shared that good accommodation can be had for just 2 Euros a day. Most locals express themselves better in English than in Filipino, complete sometime with American slang. Local culture, on the other hand, can be glimpsed through animist hanging coffins, carved in tree trunks, put inside holes on cliffs, or caves, … perhaps the culture’s symbol of death as going back to a mother’s womb. While a native meal must have Tapuy (rice wine) and a chicken dish called Pinikpikan.

Said [name of colleague]: “I'm working for [company] for almost 37 years. The people are very friendly and warm. [And] the team spirit is striking! That's what most Europeans can learn, because most of us are quite individualistic. Being individualistic can also be OK, but I think that I have several new friends since that marvelous weekend in Sagada,”

All-time favorite movies

Ive been maintaining this list since 1999. After adding Ratatouille, I was surprised to see that the list is just two short to 100. Hhhhmmmn. I don't know if I just fail to recall any good ones that Ive watched before 1999, but I sure am opening this list everytime I get to catch a good movie.

Kailangan sigurong magpursigi para makumpleto na ang isang-daan. Wala lang, di naman sya matinding hangarin, pero bukas ako sa mga suhestyon.

Silipin na lamang at mapapansin na walang partikular na genre na namamayagpag sa listahang ito.

1. A Bug’s Life
2. About a Boy
3. Air Force One
4. American Beauty
5. Annie Hall
6. Antz
7. Any Given Sunday
8. Apocalypto
9. Armageddon
10. As Good as it Gets
11. Back to the Future
12. Big Lebowski, The
13. Blast from the Past
14. Boogie Nights
15. Braveheart
16. Brokeback Mountain
17. Casino
18. Chasing Amy
19. City of God
20. Clear and Present Danger
21. Closer
22. Contact
23. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
24. Dances with Wolves
25. Deconstructing Harry
26. Departed, The
27. Devil’s Advocate
28. Dogma
29. Empire Strikes Back
30. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
31. Everyone Says I Love You
32. Family Guy: Stewie Griffin the Untold Story
33. Fargo
34. Flirting with Disaster
35. Forrest Gump
36. Full Metal Jacket
37. Full Monty, The
38. Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon?
39. Ghost
40. Hannibal
41. House of Sand and Fog
42. Incredibles, The
43. Insomnia
44. Iron Giant, The
45. Last Emperor, The
46. Last of the Mohicans, The
47. Little Miss Sunshine
48. Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels
49. Lord of the Rings, The: The Fellowship of the Rings
50. Lord of the Rings, The: The Return of the King
51. Lord of the Rings, The: The Two Towers
52. M:I 2
53. Magnolia
54. Match Point
55. Matrix, The
56. Me, Myself, & Irene
57. Memento
58. Midnight Express
59. Mighty Aphrodite
60. Million Dollar Baby
61. Minority Report
62. Miracle Mile
63. Moulin Rouge
64. Mystery Men
65. Natural Born Killers
66. Office Space
67. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
68. Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros, Ang
69. Platoon
70. Pulp Fiction
71. Raiders of the Lost Ark
72. Ratatouille
73. Return of the Jedi
74. Ronin
75. Royal Tenenbaums, The
76. Rushmore
77. Saving Private Ryan
78. Scorpio Nights
79. Shakespeare In Love
80. Shawshank Redemption, The
81. Shrek
82. Shrek 2
83. Silence of the Lambs
84. Sky High
85. Snatch
86. Spider-man 2
87. Star Wars
88. Thin Red Line, The
89. Tomorrow Never Dies
90. Toy Story 2
91. Training Day
92. Trainspotting
93. Transformers
94. Tuhog
95. U Turn
96. Usual Suspects, The
97. Wag the Dog
98. Y Tutu Mama Tambien

GETTING YOUR DEGREE FAST FROM MAPUA

[AN OLD RAMBLING AS A FIRST POST]


Imagine an 18-year old engineering graduate—afraid to take the board exam because he feels he forgot his lectures as fast as he took his classes in a 3-year spree. In this blazing period, he even forgot how to play billiards right. Last week he heard a fellow-graduate denied of a cadet engineering program of a company, in favor of 21-year old newly-grad counterpart from other school. The company’s bosses preferred to train someone older, “more mature in life.” (Everyone knows the sinking feeling for that first rejection).

Another friend and former classmate is mad at having lost his one year in the school that accepts students over the quota as easy as it expects to kick-out the likes of him who “cannot cope up.” The school he transferred to refused to accept the credits he managed to pass. His parents depleted the family’s savings allotted for his tuition in one year. Now he must ask work from Jollibee.

Since the Yuchengco group bought the school from the feuding the Mapua-Lim family two years ago, major changes was done on the old Mapua Institute of Technology at Intramuros. One of the first steps was hiring Dean Rey Vea at the UP College of Engineering to become President Vea of the school. We then soon exchanged emails discussing the spanking new airconditioned MIT library, new chairs, new spectrum generators, everything refurbished, they said, and turned “high-tech.” My Mapua-alumni friends felt so proud, albeit being years late to actually enjoy these improvements. Our mapua@egroups.com even received the detail of the first case in the country of a graduating student defending his thesis via streaming video over the Net, done in a Chicago-Mapua connection.

But the most radical change that Mapua will now implement is the shift from a 2-semester- to a 4-semester-a-year academic calendar.

This big move passed the eyes of CHED and DECS supposedly on the central idea that the country needs more engineers. And doing the schooling fast should not hurt, although there is a recurring proposal to add one year in high school or college, supposedly to add to our “quality of education.” In Asia, the basic 14 to 15 years needed to finish a degree here are two years faster than in other countries. And now here comes Mapua to trim out two more years. It promises the freshman to finish his/her engg degree in 3 or 3.5 years instead of the normal 5 years.

Many would like to be engineers explicitly to get better financially someday. (I’ve met many who would have taken fine arts if not for pressure from parents and social stature). And this “graduate-young-get rich-young” promise will surely attract many HS graduates and parents. Many impressionable 15-year old minds will enroll without having a picture of the downsides of the scheme.

Like for one, they are expected to shell-out close to half-a-million in school fees in three years, higher than it would take if the program were for five years. Why? For even then that Mapua will adjust the academic load lower per sem, the same huge miscellaneous fees will be times four instead of two per year. (While doing the math, think why colleges charge the same amount of miscellaneous for the regular 5-month sem and the 2-month summer). Or even worse if the student fails some subjects (of course because he/she has to pay to take them again) or, pray-not, got kicked-out of the school.

Mapua is notorious for having one of the easiest entrance exams, consequently accepting so many freshmen (crowded Mapua stairwells demonstrate the Physics of “strong smell via forced convection” when blocks transfer to rooms for their next class), but then weeding-out close to 50% of these children as easily by their third year. You’ll know that you got kicked-out after seeing a simple “R” in your grade sheet. The innocent paper will not even tell you that you can appeal this “Rejected” case, say, because you have been hospitalized for a month during the sem. (Proof of this being easy with the boot is one school in the university belt being called Mapua Annex for having a large population of Mapua transferees). Finally when the school where the expelled student transferred to (if at all, the student managed to recuperate from the emotional blow of the expulsion) refused to credit the subjects he/she already took, then gone are the tuition money of the past. And now, Mapua wants to do this weeding out faster.

For the survivors, they will become even more focused on getting a degree and a nice job after graduation. And this leads to the support of the prevailing culture in engineering colleges that cultivate the engineer without a conscience. This also means total disregard for the Arts: Humanities subject that teaches to memorize who wrote what and remembering the title of three favorite books of Rizal. “Wala nang art, art, pulitikahan, pulitikahan; mga engineers tayo!” said one Mapuan friend once. For one, they are blameless because they were loaded with tons of [useless] works—inches-thick, hand-lettered laboratory reports which even then are just copied from so-called “Old Testament” reports). A professor that collects and checks the notebook of students to check if they taking notes in class. Even more, the engineer without an obligation to society would be available faster in 3 years.

The last time I asked a cousin, now on his third year at Mapua, he said that many surely don’t want the change. When I asked why are they not speaking, he said “Saan kami magsasalita? Sino?” Apparently, the scheme will be implemented without a hitch partly because Mapuans are not known to air even the slightest protest. The Student Council exists just to organize the Foundation Day fair. The Builder—Mapua’s “student newspaper”--can’t even fulfill a regular monthly outing (the staff have hectic schedules too), and if it indeed comes out it does nothing but to glorify the administration’s new rooms and greet friends of the columnists. To digress a bit though, this of course what to expect of faculty advisers that control the paper and writers who are afraid to lose their scholarship for writing something that might get the ire of the school admin.

Many wonders then if President Vea, a former editor-in-chief of the Philippine Collegian, is still at the helm of this change or is it just the Yunchengcos and stakeholders who wants payback for the price they paid for the school faster.

Regardless if this want for faster payback will have disastrous effects to the students even after graduation. Would graduates really get the job of their dreams young? There is even a big chance that the graduate will use a year out of school just to “rest.” Or if indeed he finds a job immediately, surely he would also want to get payback of his tuition quicker, will get into the bureaucracy, and if given the chance, find the “easy ways,” “under the tables” at once, Getting a jumpstart is not always right. Mapua graduates could just become hinog sa pilit or worse pinitas nang di pa hinog only to become rotten.

The two, three year difference will make for greater learning outside the classroom, not even to expect the student to become involved in advocacy (almost becoming a thing of the past), but extra time to learn to a hobby or two, or hopefully become a volunteer.

Everyone is impressed by Sir Rey Vea’s and the Yuchengcos first moves in Mapua and it seemed at the start that Mapua is in better hands. But this change appears just for faster payback than anything else.

My apologies to friends that might be offended, but sometimes the only way to get attention, and get people involved, is to get their ire first.

[Hayskul gradweyt ng Mapua si Turmukoy. Oo, yung bilding sa gilid ng LRT Doroteo Jose Station. Yung sa gilid ay ang dating sikat na Galaxy Theater. Sa harap ay dating istasyon ng Sapalay Celygusto buses.
Yung dating klasrum namin ay pinapaupahan na yata ngayon. Matatanaw mo sila mula sa LRT minsan na may may mga nakasampay ng mga damit sa labas. Kakaiba.]