published 31 Aug 2009, Manila Standard Today
Punishment does not guarantee discipline.
Miggy is now 15 and in high school but he remembers how it was. When he was younger, he was subjected to several forms of punishment by his father, all supposedly meant to “discipline” him. He was slapped on the nape of his neck if he was slow in carrying out his father's instructions. If he fought with his sisters, he was made to squat on the terrace of their house, in full view of the neighbors. He was once made to run naked on their street. If he left his toys lying around, he was made to do jumping jacks and was not supposed to stop, even rest, until his father said so. If he spilled his juice on the table, he was made to lick the spilling until the surface was dry.
Now let's try something a little less extreme and a little more familiar to most people. Getting pinched on the ear for low marks on one's report card. Being spanked, with bare hands, with a slipper or with a belt, for playing outside after dark. Being denied dinner for refusing to eat vegetables. Having one's mouth washed with soap or stuffed with sili for uttering bad words.
We may think Miggy's case is bad but believe that the subsequent anecdotes are commonplace, even acceptable. We may have experienced them firsthand when we were children; our parents most likely did, even more so our grandparents before that. And look, we did not turn out so bad.
Who's to say we know better – that so long as the treatment is not as patently abusive as that given to Miggy, the latter examples are acceptable? They have been practiced for generations and have been viewed as necessary evils in order to ensure that kids grow into upright citizens. What is to stop us from passing on the tradition of pain infliction to our own children in an attempt to teach them a lesson?
Many things, say advocates against corporal punishment. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child defined corporal (from the root word corpus, referring to body) as any punishment in which physical force is used and intended to cause some degree of pain or discomfort, HOWEVER LIGHT. However, other forms of punishment may also be considered corporal punishment even if they re not physical in nature. They are word and actions that belittle, humiliate, denigrate, threaten, scare or ridicule the child.
Surveys and researches around the globe reveal that corporal punishment is a generally accepted form of disciplining children. It cuts across cultures, economic classes, education and origins. It persists because it is socially accepted, encouraged and in some societies even legally sanctioned.
Save the Children, an international organization that champions children's rights, conducted a Philippine study in 2005 and discovered that 85 percent of respondent-children reported being subjected to physical punishment at home. Eighty-two percent said they got hit on different parts of their body. A nationwide community survey conducted in 2003 by the National Health Institute, Department of Health said that 83 percent of 2,704 adolescents interviewed said they had been physically maltreated. The 2002 World report on Violence and Health revealed that 75 percent of Filipino children said they were spanked.
But studies have also shown that such methods of punishment have negative effects on the psyche of a child. Foremost, it perpetuates the cycle of violence. Children are made to see that violence is acceptable since it is done by their own parents or guardians. These kids get bruises, scars and other physical marks that remind them of the pain. Even more damaging are the emotional and psychological effects. They are found to be more anxious and aggressive than other children. They have low self esteem and even grow to have a deep-seated anger toward the parents who punish them. They may bully their siblings and other kids in school. They may even carry this baggage to their future marriage and family life.
Only 24 countries around the world have adopted laws that prohibit the corporal punishment of children in settings that include the home. Here, there is House Bill 6699 or the Anti-Corporal Punishment bill filed by Rep. Nikki Teodoro and co-authored by 56 others. The bill says any parent, ascendant, teacher or guardian who uses any form of corporal punishment, whether verbal, physical, mental or psychological, can suffer lawful penalties under existing penal laws, like the Revised Penal Code, Special Protection of Children Against Child Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act and the Anti-Violence Against Women and Children Act.
An important feature of the bill is that if the penalty imposable is only arresto menor (one to 30 days) or arresto mayor (one month and one day to six months), the prosecutor may, instead of filing the case, refer the accused to the local social welfare and development office for assessment and intervention.
But are Filipino parents ready for the State's interference in the way they assert their authority over their children? They may argue that the manner in which they enforce discipline is their business alone. Most of these parents, after all, do have the best intentions in mind. They love their children and want them to grow up into responsible adults. These parents are not willful child tormentors. Perhaps they just occasionally become so frustrated at their children's behavior that they blow their top. And, by the way, does not the saying go that if you spare the rod, you spoil the child?
**
If the House bill, together with its counterpart in the Senate, does become a law, does it not in effect punishing the punitive parents and thus constitute a participation in the cycle of violence? Are parents stripped of their authority over their kids? What happens to the enforcement of discipline in the home? And are advocates now pushing for permissive parenting as well, a case where anything goes?
Certainly not. Wilma Bañaga, advisor for Child Protection, Civil Society and Child Rights for Save the Children, in a forum last week at the Sulo Hotel, talked about positive discipline as an alternative to corporal punishment. It's admittedly a more thoughtful way of parenting because it is more long-term in nature. Apparently, punishment does not guarantee discipline, and there are other ways to make sure kids grow up the right way. Whereas punishment is a short-term reaction to a particular misdeed committed by the child and ensures immediate compliance with the rule at hand, positive discipline is concerned with teaching, shaping and molding the child to possess lifetime skills and values.
The approach is participatory and emphasizes cooperation in the home rather than authority. It seeks to build a culture of mutual respect between the elder and the child. It starts with identifying long-term goals for children: What kind of child do I want mine to become? Then it makes the effort to understand how children, depending on their age and their natural temperament, think and feel. And then comes the balance between warmth (a close, affectionate relationship between parent and child) and structure (yes, there are rules, but these are discussed and are reasonable rather than whimsical). The interaction comes into play not only when special situations arise but more importantly in mundane day-to-day routines.
Positive discipline is not instantly attainable, especially for this generation of parents who grew up being subjected to punishment for their own misdeeds. It's a process because this takes deliberation and effort as well as constant evaluation. It takes some getting used to. Even the term “positive discipline” is not absolute. It recognizes that there are numerous kinds of children as there are numerous kinds of parents and that there is no single approach that fits everybody.
We are all familiar with the line parents tell their children when they are spanking them: “I am doing this because I love you.” Well, positive parenting is likewise an act of love because parents, stressed and desperate at times, decide to take the trouble to restrain themselves from spanking or shouting. They make the effort to think about far-reaching consequences of their acts and review them every step of the way.
Our children whom we love are worth the effort. This thoughtful alternative, after all, is for their own good. This time, it doesn't have to hurt.
adellechua@gmail.com
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Big Hair, Big Hands
Here is a photo uploaded to Facebook by my kumare Grace Pineda (Veloso). This was taken when we were in the 6th grade. I am the one on extreme left. To my right are Leah Dizon (Mantaring), our adviser Ms. Beverly Pantaleon (wonder where she is), Grace and Joan Quijano.
Notice the teased and Aqua-netted bangs and my butterfly ribbon. Rumor had it that this statue of the Blessed Virgin would come to life at midnight and strangle an unfortunate victim with its bare hands. I'm pretty sure this information did not come from the RVM sisters.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Reunions and new old friends
published 24 Aug 2009, Manila Standard Today
Sixteen years and counting
My high school batch is now in the thick of preparations for a reunion next Saturday, September 5. There was no significant occasion that prompted us to organize one. It's been sixteen – not silver 25 or gold 50 – years since we graduated. But ever since pockets of class members have started getting together for dinner and drinks occasionally over the last few months, talk of a batch-wide reunion, has always come up.
And now it is about to happen. Right there in one of the buildings of our RVM-run school, even though it has now been renamed St. Mary's Academy and has allowed boys to form part of its population. During my time, we were called Graceans – students of Our Lady of Grace Academy – and then the most we got to see of boys was if we looked past the fences to the adjacent school, Notre Dame of Greater Manila.
The past 16 years have occasioned many changes. Most of us have pursued careers which were either consistent with the inclinations we showed in those early days or totally different from them. Several of us have gone abroad to either work or settle there. Many have married and borne children. One has died, two have been widowed and a handful have ended their marriages. Most friendships have stayed – and why not? The strongest ties are perhaps those formed during adolescence. Too many firsts shared, I suppose.
The Internet has helped maintain these friendships, regardless of a class member's location or line of work. There is e-mail, of course. But in particular, the social networking site Facebook has done wonders in keeping our batch intact. Being able to “comment” on a friend's status (which can reflect emotional, professional, domestic or pseudo-existential concerns) or photos and occasion a conversation, not just with that friend but with members of the network as well, provides that real-time feel.
And who is not familiar with chatting? Chatting cuts across the constraints of time zones and telecom costs. It's not limited to a conversation between two people in a given window. “Conferences” can bring several participants together, and one would not be able to tell that one user is in Manila, another in London, another in California or Abu Dhabi – not unless somebody asks another, “what time is it there?”
We have invited some of our former teachers, as well, even as only a few have remained in the school. Some of those who have move on and transferred to other institutions remain only a text or e-mail away. We are thankful for that – and look forward to dealing with them, adult-to-adult. We see them now as persons who happen to teach for a living, with their own share of life issues, not like before when they were two-dimensional authority figures who gave the tests and reprimanded us for going against what was written in the handbook.
So now the ideas keep flowing for the reunion even though there's not much time. We are requesting our classmates to bring anything that would remind us of what happened between the years 1989 and 1993. There will be music from that era, as well. We were joking about holding a contest to see who would still fit into the blue-and-white uniform that comprised our wardrobe.
**
Everywhere else, people have been known to obsess over reunions. Not in the tracking down of each class member, because that's always a daunting task especially when too many years have passed. What I mean is that some have been known to put in too much effort in presenting the best versions of themselves to the people they knew many years before. There is a compulsion to say “this is where I am now.”
Can this be helped, at all? Do we not, in one way or another, try to show the people we grew up with how far we have gone and how well we have done? By itself, the practice is not altogether bad. Being able to share your progress with others without worrying whether they would think you were bragging is a hallmark of true friendship. In good times as well as in bad, indeed.
What is not so ideal, however, is adopting an I'm-better-than-the-rest-of-you poture and distancing yourself from your old friends, even your old self. As a result, other members of the class who have not been as successful -- if you define success in terms of conventional measures like a important position at work, a fat paycheck or a happily-married status – are discouraged to attend.
Fortunately, we organizers believe most members of our batch are beyond this. After all, we have pretty much stayed cohesive, if not as a whole then in smaller groups, over the years. There is not much room for a grand entrance. Still, we are prepared for surprises – and prepared, too, to remind everybody of the better reasons for attending a reunion. Would it not be nice to be reminded of the days when life was so uncomplicated? Who we were then, without the affectations, growing up within those sheltered nun-administered halls?
As for myself, I am learning a few things keeping in touch with my batch in the last few months. See, during our time, we had six sections with about 45 girls each. Thus it was impossible to have the opportunity to be friends with people from the other sections. The tendency was to have your own little group or set of friends and to stay with them during your free time. People from other groups and other sections were nothing but names and faces. It's nothing personal, it's just that one cannot be friends with everybody at the same time and on the same level of closeness.
The recent nights out and interactions over Facebook have re-acquainted me with my schoolmates. Except that now, we are not in high school anymore, our struggles are more difficult. The names and faces are fast acquiring substance and becoming more real. And so I might just end up with more friends from the the batch than I did in March 1993 when we graduated. Lovely.
Imagine how dramatic the reunions would be after 15 or 25 years. That's something to really look forward to – but first we have to make sure the September 5 event will not be a parade of stars but a gathering of friends.
**
For more details about the reunion, please contact Aileen Alonzo (09278592907), Rosemarie Tan-Tunay (0917-8801699) or Charmaine Mactal (0917-5822855) or drop me a line at adellechua@gmail.com.
**
Reader's Reaction
Dear Ms. Chua
I wish to react to your article about your high school class reunions and I see threads of affinity to our high school batch whose demographic distrubution decidedly would be more senior in age compared to your high school class.
With this note that I am taking the liberty of copy furnishing my batch mates in our blog site, i did observe that,like you/your class, we in our batch of some 7 sections in first year to 5 sections in 4th year really do not know everyone in the other sections that well and that we tend to congregate into/within our own small groups or barkada. It is in these reunions that we really get to know MORE of one another and not be restricted to one's barkada.
You did mention the daunting part of efforts on the part of a few to paint a glossier picture of oneself or , in your words, a here-is-where-I got-to picture versus everyone else. It is my view that this part of your article is not very pronounced in our batch's case although I did hear a few comments in the past about how some of us tend to congregate in the MACRO Economics level while the rest dabble in micro economics.Class distinctions/aggrupations tend to appear and comparisons are always inevitable - even during our younger days as some of us are more intelligent in academics, more handsome(ehem... for many of us), more athletic, have deeper pockets, etc. than the rest.
Family breeding deviations get to be evident in some cases. I had always felt that being invited to business/personal events are not supposed to be a 'carte blanche' or opportunities to abuse the hospitality of your host. I had always told my children and grandchildren about this - you make do with what is served by your host and never, never order expensive or extra food items or expensive drinks which your host did not pre-arrange.Wealthy people got to be rich because they were probably more stingy or expense conscious than everybody else.
Even at the so-called big companies in Makati, there is always a continuing battle for corporate funds and bigger budgets and everyone has to watch his budget and how his subordinates spend the budgets. I had always reminded my subordinates that the guy treating us for lunch is also watching his spending, like we do. Let us avoid ordering hard drinks and steaks at his expense and let us do it on another occasion at our personal expense.In the end, real friends are the ones who arre with us/you during good and bad times.
Sorry to digress, I wish to end by telling you how much I enjoyed/got refreshed reading your article on reunions because almost all of it run parallel to our batch reunions that had been going on over the years. Thank you again.
peteampil@yahoo.com OR peteampil5@gmail.com
Sixteen years and counting
My high school batch is now in the thick of preparations for a reunion next Saturday, September 5. There was no significant occasion that prompted us to organize one. It's been sixteen – not silver 25 or gold 50 – years since we graduated. But ever since pockets of class members have started getting together for dinner and drinks occasionally over the last few months, talk of a batch-wide reunion, has always come up.
And now it is about to happen. Right there in one of the buildings of our RVM-run school, even though it has now been renamed St. Mary's Academy and has allowed boys to form part of its population. During my time, we were called Graceans – students of Our Lady of Grace Academy – and then the most we got to see of boys was if we looked past the fences to the adjacent school, Notre Dame of Greater Manila.
The past 16 years have occasioned many changes. Most of us have pursued careers which were either consistent with the inclinations we showed in those early days or totally different from them. Several of us have gone abroad to either work or settle there. Many have married and borne children. One has died, two have been widowed and a handful have ended their marriages. Most friendships have stayed – and why not? The strongest ties are perhaps those formed during adolescence. Too many firsts shared, I suppose.
The Internet has helped maintain these friendships, regardless of a class member's location or line of work. There is e-mail, of course. But in particular, the social networking site Facebook has done wonders in keeping our batch intact. Being able to “comment” on a friend's status (which can reflect emotional, professional, domestic or pseudo-existential concerns) or photos and occasion a conversation, not just with that friend but with members of the network as well, provides that real-time feel.
And who is not familiar with chatting? Chatting cuts across the constraints of time zones and telecom costs. It's not limited to a conversation between two people in a given window. “Conferences” can bring several participants together, and one would not be able to tell that one user is in Manila, another in London, another in California or Abu Dhabi – not unless somebody asks another, “what time is it there?”
We have invited some of our former teachers, as well, even as only a few have remained in the school. Some of those who have move on and transferred to other institutions remain only a text or e-mail away. We are thankful for that – and look forward to dealing with them, adult-to-adult. We see them now as persons who happen to teach for a living, with their own share of life issues, not like before when they were two-dimensional authority figures who gave the tests and reprimanded us for going against what was written in the handbook.
So now the ideas keep flowing for the reunion even though there's not much time. We are requesting our classmates to bring anything that would remind us of what happened between the years 1989 and 1993. There will be music from that era, as well. We were joking about holding a contest to see who would still fit into the blue-and-white uniform that comprised our wardrobe.
**
Everywhere else, people have been known to obsess over reunions. Not in the tracking down of each class member, because that's always a daunting task especially when too many years have passed. What I mean is that some have been known to put in too much effort in presenting the best versions of themselves to the people they knew many years before. There is a compulsion to say “this is where I am now.”
Can this be helped, at all? Do we not, in one way or another, try to show the people we grew up with how far we have gone and how well we have done? By itself, the practice is not altogether bad. Being able to share your progress with others without worrying whether they would think you were bragging is a hallmark of true friendship. In good times as well as in bad, indeed.
What is not so ideal, however, is adopting an I'm-better-than-the-rest-of-you poture and distancing yourself from your old friends, even your old self. As a result, other members of the class who have not been as successful -- if you define success in terms of conventional measures like a important position at work, a fat paycheck or a happily-married status – are discouraged to attend.
Fortunately, we organizers believe most members of our batch are beyond this. After all, we have pretty much stayed cohesive, if not as a whole then in smaller groups, over the years. There is not much room for a grand entrance. Still, we are prepared for surprises – and prepared, too, to remind everybody of the better reasons for attending a reunion. Would it not be nice to be reminded of the days when life was so uncomplicated? Who we were then, without the affectations, growing up within those sheltered nun-administered halls?
As for myself, I am learning a few things keeping in touch with my batch in the last few months. See, during our time, we had six sections with about 45 girls each. Thus it was impossible to have the opportunity to be friends with people from the other sections. The tendency was to have your own little group or set of friends and to stay with them during your free time. People from other groups and other sections were nothing but names and faces. It's nothing personal, it's just that one cannot be friends with everybody at the same time and on the same level of closeness.
The recent nights out and interactions over Facebook have re-acquainted me with my schoolmates. Except that now, we are not in high school anymore, our struggles are more difficult. The names and faces are fast acquiring substance and becoming more real. And so I might just end up with more friends from the the batch than I did in March 1993 when we graduated. Lovely.
Imagine how dramatic the reunions would be after 15 or 25 years. That's something to really look forward to – but first we have to make sure the September 5 event will not be a parade of stars but a gathering of friends.
**
For more details about the reunion, please contact Aileen Alonzo (09278592907), Rosemarie Tan-Tunay (0917-8801699) or Charmaine Mactal (0917-5822855) or drop me a line at adellechua@gmail.com.
**
Reader's Reaction
Dear Ms. Chua
I wish to react to your article about your high school class reunions and I see threads of affinity to our high school batch whose demographic distrubution decidedly would be more senior in age compared to your high school class.
With this note that I am taking the liberty of copy furnishing my batch mates in our blog site, i did observe that,like you/your class, we in our batch of some 7 sections in first year to 5 sections in 4th year really do not know everyone in the other sections that well and that we tend to congregate into/within our own small groups or barkada. It is in these reunions that we really get to know MORE of one another and not be restricted to one's barkada.
You did mention the daunting part of efforts on the part of a few to paint a glossier picture of oneself or , in your words, a here-is-where-I got-to picture versus everyone else. It is my view that this part of your article is not very pronounced in our batch's case although I did hear a few comments in the past about how some of us tend to congregate in the MACRO Economics level while the rest dabble in micro economics.Class distinctions/aggrupations tend to appear and comparisons are always inevitable - even during our younger days as some of us are more intelligent in academics, more handsome(ehem... for many of us), more athletic, have deeper pockets, etc. than the rest.
Family breeding deviations get to be evident in some cases. I had always felt that being invited to business/personal events are not supposed to be a 'carte blanche' or opportunities to abuse the hospitality of your host. I had always told my children and grandchildren about this - you make do with what is served by your host and never, never order expensive or extra food items or expensive drinks which your host did not pre-arrange.Wealthy people got to be rich because they were probably more stingy or expense conscious than everybody else.
Even at the so-called big companies in Makati, there is always a continuing battle for corporate funds and bigger budgets and everyone has to watch his budget and how his subordinates spend the budgets. I had always reminded my subordinates that the guy treating us for lunch is also watching his spending, like we do. Let us avoid ordering hard drinks and steaks at his expense and let us do it on another occasion at our personal expense.In the end, real friends are the ones who arre with us/you during good and bad times.
Sorry to digress, I wish to end by telling you how much I enjoyed/got refreshed reading your article on reunions because almost all of it run parallel to our batch reunions that had been going on over the years. Thank you again.
peteampil@yahoo.com OR peteampil5@gmail.com
Monday, August 17, 2009
The Double
I don't know if this is a scary story or a crazy one.
I went out Saturday night to spend time with some of my batchmates from Our Lady of Grace Academy. The meeting place was just across the street from my house. We weren't that many, either, there were just four of us: Melani Maderazo (Aninon), my neighbor, was at her parents' house for the weekend. Catherine Ang who was on vacation from Abu Dhabi and Nora Ymata (Lopez), who took a break from her job, husband and kids that night, were in the Maderazo home by early evening. When they texted me I was still with Sophie who was practicing a dance number for a school activity. I was able to come by at around nine o'clock already.
The next few hours flew by so fast. I felt like I was getting to know my batchmates for the first time. See, back in high school, we did not have the opportunity to be close. But that evening, like all the other reunions that have taken place in the last few months (thanks to Facebook!), a shared history was enough to make me instantly comfortable with them. Not even a few insects flying around could distract us.
So comfortable, in fact, that when I looked at the time, I was surprised to learn that it was already a little past one in the morning. I was not anxious because after all, I could see my bedroom window from where we were and knew the big kids were both deep in sleep (the small kids were in their father's house). The night lamp was on.
As I turned the key and opened the front door of my apartment, Josh was peeking from the stairs. He looked very surprised to see me. He could not believe that I had just walked in.
“Why, i just talked to you a few minutes ago,” he said in Tagalog. “You were in your favorite worn-out daster.”
Now, I was wearing jeans and an old P.E. t-shirt. “You must have been dreaming,” I told him.
“I was not,” he insisted. Josh said he even poked fun at my staying up late downstairs, telling the daster-clad me that there were a lot of cockroaches at night and why didn't I just postpone my ironing chore to the following day. “And what answer did you get?” I asked. He said “I” did not say anything, which he found weird, too.
After a while, I went upstairs and settled into bed. Josh did not say anything more about his “vision,” which I took as an admission that he did, in fact, dream it all.
But this morning, Josh had an explanation why his tattered-daster-sporting mom did not bother reacting to his joke. “Oh, these things don't really talk,” he said matter-of factly.
“These things?” Did my son in fact see a double – a doppleganger, I think it is called – or was he just dreaming at the time he said he saw me? I knew Josh to be rational – kids these days are. He was also not inclined to exaggerate just to get attention; I make sure all my children get enough from me. I am not superstitious, either. I'm well grounded and have no qualms spending my days alone.
I think Josh's subconscious is just not used to my going out, especially at night. The kid may just want me to always be there, downstairs, busy with chores yet always there when he calls me. Maybe he does not even like the idea of my getting dressed up to go out. He feels better seeing me in those unflattering (house)work clothes. Hence he dreamed I was hanging out downstairs, getting ready for an ironing job.
I stand by this explanation and am comfortable knowing I've got that episode all figured out. All other possibilities just don't exist.
I went out Saturday night to spend time with some of my batchmates from Our Lady of Grace Academy. The meeting place was just across the street from my house. We weren't that many, either, there were just four of us: Melani Maderazo (Aninon), my neighbor, was at her parents' house for the weekend. Catherine Ang who was on vacation from Abu Dhabi and Nora Ymata (Lopez), who took a break from her job, husband and kids that night, were in the Maderazo home by early evening. When they texted me I was still with Sophie who was practicing a dance number for a school activity. I was able to come by at around nine o'clock already.
The next few hours flew by so fast. I felt like I was getting to know my batchmates for the first time. See, back in high school, we did not have the opportunity to be close. But that evening, like all the other reunions that have taken place in the last few months (thanks to Facebook!), a shared history was enough to make me instantly comfortable with them. Not even a few insects flying around could distract us.
So comfortable, in fact, that when I looked at the time, I was surprised to learn that it was already a little past one in the morning. I was not anxious because after all, I could see my bedroom window from where we were and knew the big kids were both deep in sleep (the small kids were in their father's house). The night lamp was on.
As I turned the key and opened the front door of my apartment, Josh was peeking from the stairs. He looked very surprised to see me. He could not believe that I had just walked in.
“Why, i just talked to you a few minutes ago,” he said in Tagalog. “You were in your favorite worn-out daster.”
Now, I was wearing jeans and an old P.E. t-shirt. “You must have been dreaming,” I told him.
“I was not,” he insisted. Josh said he even poked fun at my staying up late downstairs, telling the daster-clad me that there were a lot of cockroaches at night and why didn't I just postpone my ironing chore to the following day. “And what answer did you get?” I asked. He said “I” did not say anything, which he found weird, too.
After a while, I went upstairs and settled into bed. Josh did not say anything more about his “vision,” which I took as an admission that he did, in fact, dream it all.
But this morning, Josh had an explanation why his tattered-daster-sporting mom did not bother reacting to his joke. “Oh, these things don't really talk,” he said matter-of factly.
“These things?” Did my son in fact see a double – a doppleganger, I think it is called – or was he just dreaming at the time he said he saw me? I knew Josh to be rational – kids these days are. He was also not inclined to exaggerate just to get attention; I make sure all my children get enough from me. I am not superstitious, either. I'm well grounded and have no qualms spending my days alone.
I think Josh's subconscious is just not used to my going out, especially at night. The kid may just want me to always be there, downstairs, busy with chores yet always there when he calls me. Maybe he does not even like the idea of my getting dressed up to go out. He feels better seeing me in those unflattering (house)work clothes. Hence he dreamed I was hanging out downstairs, getting ready for an ironing job.
I stand by this explanation and am comfortable knowing I've got that episode all figured out. All other possibilities just don't exist.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Equilibrium
I'm liking my life very much these days.
All the children have to be in school by seven o'clock. In the full hour before this I am the picture of frenzy. (Recall that I chose not to hire a maid anymore, except a cleaning lady who does just that, and thoroughly, every other Saturday. The rest of the time I am on my own.) I cook breakfast, set the table, help the small ones get dressed, help out with assignments not finished the night before, sign all four diaries and see the kids off. In the case of first-grader Elmo, I have to bring him to the lower elementary campus one street further. Have I said anything about the weight of bags of school children? If you've seen AiAi delas Alas in action in the movie “Tanging Ina,” I can tell you that it's not entirely fiction.
But as soon as I make it back home, and the empty house greets me, a feeling of peace descends upon me. This is something that I miss when I have company. I am titillated by the prospect of spending the next five hours alone, with total discretion on what I would and would not do. Oh, of course I do have vague plans. Mondays and Wednesdays are ironing and closet fixing days. Tuesdays and Thursdays are laundry days. Of course, in between, I also fix the lunch boxes I would bring Sophie and Elmo and whip up an actual lunch meal for Bea and Josh who go home at 1230 for the break.
Often I begin this glorious phase by some tv. What channel? Depends on my mood. It's a toss-up among NatGeo, BBC, CNN and Fox Crime. The news on ANC does not come by until 8. If I don't fall asleep while watching, that is. I write a blog entry or that day's editorial or plan my next column. I listen to music while tackling the chores. Yesterday I was doing jazz and some standards. Chris Botti on the trumpet. Sinatra. Joshua's downloaded performances by his current idol, twentysomething bassist Tal Wilkenfeld. Maybe later I will play the soundtrack of Il Postino, with recitations of the poetry of Pablo Neruda (I like for you to be still.) Sometimes I watch concerts on DVD. Sting is a favorite. So is Maroon 5. My Michael Bubble concert, the one where slugs it out with Josh Groban, is missing. Oh well. The music clears my mind and takes me to the beautiful future I will yet embrace.
This morning I saw Kaleldo (Summer Heat), that film directed by Brillante Mendoza who had clinched the Best Director Award in Cannes last May.
I enjoy lunch with my teenagers. When they go home, though briefly, for lunch, they tell me what went on at school that morning. I do the dishes when they leave and then rest. I have to pick up Elmo at 130. If I must fall asleep (again), I should at least not be late.
The pace changes when I bring Elmo home. I tell him to put his used uniform and accessories into the right basket. He asks for Milo, errr...Ovaltine. We do his homework. When he's done he is free to draw his robots or watch SpongeBob on Nickelodeon. I myself get ready for work. And then I take him to Bambi, his father's house, where his grandfather and their maid would watch him until he is brought back to my house later that evening. I do not wait for Sophie anymore; she waits for her Ate Bea. I have to go to work and I don't like being late (although I am, most of the time.) The stress from hurrying affects not only my attendance at the story conference but also the quality of my editing.
I commute -- and there are no sweat-proof ways to get to my workplace from where I stay in Valenzuela. I take a tricycle, then a jeep, then the LRT, then another jeep. Sorry,no Fxs or buses ply that route. Yes I expose myself to the misfits of Metro Manila. Sometimes I feel I should be beyond the risk of petty crimes. I've been working so hard. Then again, maybe I have to work even harder. Anyhow if I feel deserving (accomplished) enough, I treat myself to a cab ride.
I am grateful for the changing of hats. By the time I get to the newsroom it is like I am a different person altogether. And I think I do my stuff really well, too. It matters little that the pay is pathetic, even for my position, or that the office is decrepit that baby cockroaches run about, earning the label “correspondents.” Five days a week I edit all the columns in the op-ed page. In two of those days I write the editorial. In one, I turn in my own column. Anybody would be formidable in the workplace if he or she focused hard enough. I'm trying to do that.
After I send my pages to the printer, I am ready to go home. but not without visiting the social networking sites so I can still get in touch with my friends and batchmates. Or my blog. When I'm good to go, I set off for the hour-and-a-half journey. I only pray that the traffic is not so bad, that there are no drunks or thieves in my jeep, and that my back doesn't hurt too much.
I am exhausted, but that's all right. I have the weekend to look forward to. This is when I get to talk to friends over lunch/dinner and coffee, spend time with loved ones or simply do anything without a time constraint.
“Tired” would be an understatement, but so is “contented”. My work (my job, my duties to my kids and the house, my writing and my occasional treats) is my life. My life is my work. I am fine today; I know tomorrow would not be bad, either.
All the children have to be in school by seven o'clock. In the full hour before this I am the picture of frenzy. (Recall that I chose not to hire a maid anymore, except a cleaning lady who does just that, and thoroughly, every other Saturday. The rest of the time I am on my own.) I cook breakfast, set the table, help the small ones get dressed, help out with assignments not finished the night before, sign all four diaries and see the kids off. In the case of first-grader Elmo, I have to bring him to the lower elementary campus one street further. Have I said anything about the weight of bags of school children? If you've seen AiAi delas Alas in action in the movie “Tanging Ina,” I can tell you that it's not entirely fiction.
But as soon as I make it back home, and the empty house greets me, a feeling of peace descends upon me. This is something that I miss when I have company. I am titillated by the prospect of spending the next five hours alone, with total discretion on what I would and would not do. Oh, of course I do have vague plans. Mondays and Wednesdays are ironing and closet fixing days. Tuesdays and Thursdays are laundry days. Of course, in between, I also fix the lunch boxes I would bring Sophie and Elmo and whip up an actual lunch meal for Bea and Josh who go home at 1230 for the break.
Often I begin this glorious phase by some tv. What channel? Depends on my mood. It's a toss-up among NatGeo, BBC, CNN and Fox Crime. The news on ANC does not come by until 8. If I don't fall asleep while watching, that is. I write a blog entry or that day's editorial or plan my next column. I listen to music while tackling the chores. Yesterday I was doing jazz and some standards. Chris Botti on the trumpet. Sinatra. Joshua's downloaded performances by his current idol, twentysomething bassist Tal Wilkenfeld. Maybe later I will play the soundtrack of Il Postino, with recitations of the poetry of Pablo Neruda (I like for you to be still.) Sometimes I watch concerts on DVD. Sting is a favorite. So is Maroon 5. My Michael Bubble concert, the one where slugs it out with Josh Groban, is missing. Oh well. The music clears my mind and takes me to the beautiful future I will yet embrace.
This morning I saw Kaleldo (Summer Heat), that film directed by Brillante Mendoza who had clinched the Best Director Award in Cannes last May.
I enjoy lunch with my teenagers. When they go home, though briefly, for lunch, they tell me what went on at school that morning. I do the dishes when they leave and then rest. I have to pick up Elmo at 130. If I must fall asleep (again), I should at least not be late.
The pace changes when I bring Elmo home. I tell him to put his used uniform and accessories into the right basket. He asks for Milo, errr...Ovaltine. We do his homework. When he's done he is free to draw his robots or watch SpongeBob on Nickelodeon. I myself get ready for work. And then I take him to Bambi, his father's house, where his grandfather and their maid would watch him until he is brought back to my house later that evening. I do not wait for Sophie anymore; she waits for her Ate Bea. I have to go to work and I don't like being late (although I am, most of the time.) The stress from hurrying affects not only my attendance at the story conference but also the quality of my editing.
I commute -- and there are no sweat-proof ways to get to my workplace from where I stay in Valenzuela. I take a tricycle, then a jeep, then the LRT, then another jeep. Sorry,no Fxs or buses ply that route. Yes I expose myself to the misfits of Metro Manila. Sometimes I feel I should be beyond the risk of petty crimes. I've been working so hard. Then again, maybe I have to work even harder. Anyhow if I feel deserving (accomplished) enough, I treat myself to a cab ride.
I am grateful for the changing of hats. By the time I get to the newsroom it is like I am a different person altogether. And I think I do my stuff really well, too. It matters little that the pay is pathetic, even for my position, or that the office is decrepit that baby cockroaches run about, earning the label “correspondents.” Five days a week I edit all the columns in the op-ed page. In two of those days I write the editorial. In one, I turn in my own column. Anybody would be formidable in the workplace if he or she focused hard enough. I'm trying to do that.
After I send my pages to the printer, I am ready to go home. but not without visiting the social networking sites so I can still get in touch with my friends and batchmates. Or my blog. When I'm good to go, I set off for the hour-and-a-half journey. I only pray that the traffic is not so bad, that there are no drunks or thieves in my jeep, and that my back doesn't hurt too much.
I am exhausted, but that's all right. I have the weekend to look forward to. This is when I get to talk to friends over lunch/dinner and coffee, spend time with loved ones or simply do anything without a time constraint.
“Tired” would be an understatement, but so is “contented”. My work (my job, my duties to my kids and the house, my writing and my occasional treats) is my life. My life is my work. I am fine today; I know tomorrow would not be bad, either.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Tables in heaven
I know I made a stand against posting the editorials I write for my newspaper in this blog. The anonymity that these pieces assume is part of my job and once I turn in the draft, it is not mine anymore but the entire paper's.
I'm making an exception with regard to the editorial that appeared today, because I was informed by a colleague that it was quoted and acknowledged in the morning radio program of broadcaster Ted Failon.
I tried not to indulge in sensationalism even though most people were inclined to feel this way.
**
MALACAÑANG did not deny that the President and her party dined at Le Cirque restaurant in New York City last week, even though nobody volunteered that information until a tabloid reported it over the weekend.
The New York Post, which ran the article on its Page Six, said the bill came up to $20,000. The newspaper said the President “ordered several bottles of very expensive wine” with her “large entourage enjoying the good life.”
It is easy to imagine how critics of the administration would jump on this opportunity to attack Mrs. Arroyo. Even a Palace ally, Senator Miriam Santiago, calls the dinner “outlandish.” The bishop of Caloocan wants the matter probed. Members of the opposition want the President to “justify” the meal.
But Palace officials insist that the report was “exaggerated,” the dinner was was “simple” and that a lawmaker, Rep. Martin Romualdez, paid for it to celebrate the First Couple's 41st wedding anniversary.
As always, those who claim to speak for the President do her more harm than good. The press secretary's portrayal of the meal as “simple” insults the intelligence of Filipinos who can at least go to the Internet and learn that Le Cirque is one of the city's finest restaurants. It is so successful that the life of its owner, Sirio Maccioni, has been made into a documentary called “A Table In Heaven.”
And yet Rep. Danilo Suarez, one of those who had wined and dined at Le Cirque, said in an interview that the restaurant was “lower middle class” and there were no buildings in sight, “just a store.” Le Cirque is at the Bloomberg Tower, also known as One Beacon Court at the Upper East Side of the city.
These spokesmen also presume that nothing is wrong since it was not taxpayers' money that paid for the meal. But such ostentation is inappropriate in these trying times, regardless of who made the actual payment and even as Suarez estimates the bill to be “only” $12,000.
Moreover, a lawmaker paying thousands of dollars for the anniversary party of the President and her husband puts himself and the First Couple on the receiving end of ethical questions. At the House of Representatives yesterday, everybody waited for Rep. Romualdez to talk about that evening, perhaps show the breakdown of expenses and tell who actually paid for the meal. Romualdez was not there.
Suarez says he cannot understand why people are talking about this issue instead of the accomplishments of the President during her US trip. The President's team, however, should do all of us a favor and refrain from giving us distractions. And then we can proceed to discussing the really important things.
I'm making an exception with regard to the editorial that appeared today, because I was informed by a colleague that it was quoted and acknowledged in the morning radio program of broadcaster Ted Failon.
I tried not to indulge in sensationalism even though most people were inclined to feel this way.
**
MALACAÑANG did not deny that the President and her party dined at Le Cirque restaurant in New York City last week, even though nobody volunteered that information until a tabloid reported it over the weekend.
The New York Post, which ran the article on its Page Six, said the bill came up to $20,000. The newspaper said the President “ordered several bottles of very expensive wine” with her “large entourage enjoying the good life.”
It is easy to imagine how critics of the administration would jump on this opportunity to attack Mrs. Arroyo. Even a Palace ally, Senator Miriam Santiago, calls the dinner “outlandish.” The bishop of Caloocan wants the matter probed. Members of the opposition want the President to “justify” the meal.
But Palace officials insist that the report was “exaggerated,” the dinner was was “simple” and that a lawmaker, Rep. Martin Romualdez, paid for it to celebrate the First Couple's 41st wedding anniversary.
As always, those who claim to speak for the President do her more harm than good. The press secretary's portrayal of the meal as “simple” insults the intelligence of Filipinos who can at least go to the Internet and learn that Le Cirque is one of the city's finest restaurants. It is so successful that the life of its owner, Sirio Maccioni, has been made into a documentary called “A Table In Heaven.”
And yet Rep. Danilo Suarez, one of those who had wined and dined at Le Cirque, said in an interview that the restaurant was “lower middle class” and there were no buildings in sight, “just a store.” Le Cirque is at the Bloomberg Tower, also known as One Beacon Court at the Upper East Side of the city.
These spokesmen also presume that nothing is wrong since it was not taxpayers' money that paid for the meal. But such ostentation is inappropriate in these trying times, regardless of who made the actual payment and even as Suarez estimates the bill to be “only” $12,000.
Moreover, a lawmaker paying thousands of dollars for the anniversary party of the President and her husband puts himself and the First Couple on the receiving end of ethical questions. At the House of Representatives yesterday, everybody waited for Rep. Romualdez to talk about that evening, perhaps show the breakdown of expenses and tell who actually paid for the meal. Romualdez was not there.
Suarez says he cannot understand why people are talking about this issue instead of the accomplishments of the President during her US trip. The President's team, however, should do all of us a favor and refrain from giving us distractions. And then we can proceed to discussing the really important things.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Graceans 1993
I thought the pictures would do a better job. Here I am with my batchmates (high school) from Our Lady of Grace Academy, which has since been renamed St. Mary's Academy of Caloocan City. Dinner was at Italianni's Trinoma and then we proceeded to Pier One in Morato. Is it obvious we had fun?
Freedom and passing on/ Surviving Cory
published 10 Aug 2009, Manila Standard Today
Current TV is a politics and youth-oriented television channel in the United States. The start-up network has been on the air barely four years and hasn't made much money. It targets the 18-34 year old age group and “is best known, if known at all, for a mix of YouTube-style segments about technology, current events and culture,” says the New York Times.
Still doesn't ring a bell? Current TV is the employer of 32-year-old Chinese-American Laura Ling and 36-year-old Korean-American Euna Lee, who were arrested on the Chinese-North Korean border while working on a story about North Korean refugees. They were detained by North Korean authorities for five months, charged with committing acts of hostility against the hermit kingdom and sentenced to twelve years of hard labor. But last week came their knight -- former US President Bill Clinton; the girls flew back to US soil with him.
Ling had grown up in a California suburb and headed her network's vanguard journalism department. She had reported from various flash points that included Mexico, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. On the other hand, Lee came to the United States in the mid-1990s and had worked as editor for television; North Korea was her first risky assignment.
Video clips of the two women's homecoming showed an emotional reunion with their families. Ling was met by her husband,sister and parents. Lee was welcomed home by her husband and daughter. What a relief it must have been after months of not knowing what lay ahead. But it is interesting to know whether the journalists' experience would affect their willingness to take on similar assignments in the future.
Kevin Sites, a freelance reporter who covers international conflicts for Yahoo, talks about the inherent risks that reporting for a start-up media organization carries. “There’s an impetus with any upstart news organization that you have to be bolder and you have to be more aggressive than other news organizations to get attention for your stories,” he tells the New York Times in June after the 12-year sentence was handed down to Ling and Lee.
Sites adds that there are “generational changes” in news coverage, especially in television. In these unconventional assignments, the reporters also double as camera operators, sound technicians and producers. The flexibility then emboldens the reporters to seek fresh angles to the story and tell them in a way the bigger networks (or the more widely-read newspapers) don't, or cannot.
But there is a trade-off. Start-up organizations are mostly on their own out there in the conflict zones. In the face of trouble, bigger outlets “have resources that they can call upon to come to the aid” of journalists, said Robert Mahoney, the deputy director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. “You have a huge treasure of resources behind you.” For example, when BBC reporter Alan Johnston was kidnapped in Gaza two years ago, his network made use of the air waves and tapped its diplomatic and military contacts. But the smaller players do not enjoy the same support system. Mahoney's committee reports that in 2008, “at least 56 of the 125 jailed journalists worked for online outlets and that 45 of the total were freelancers.”
Chances are, we have not heard of the 125 who are in jail in various countries all over the world. They are mere numbers, not faces or names. That's precisely the point. In this case, Ling and Lee were a bit luckier because the founder of their network was no less than former US Vice President Al Gore.
The figures also speak volumes about how media players respond to developments in technology and adjust to the trend going against more traditional news organizations. The Internet gives ready access to anybody willing to tell a story. But with numerous others wanting to do the same thing, the test is how to stand out among the too-many voices. Many journalists take this challenge seriously.
**
Less than nine months ago I saw the tip of her hand and maybe the top of her head. From the front row of the Meralco Theater, former President Cory Aquino faced the rest of the audience and waved. But I was several rows back and the rest of the spectators were on their feet. It was gala night for Cory The Musical and the audience was applauding the woman whose days as wife, mother and reluctant politician were remembered by the just-finished performance. I wrote about that musical in this space (Music, lyrics and history, 22 December 2008).
That was about it. It was the first and last time I saw Aquino in the flesh.
Today is the last day of the government-declared mourning period for the former leader, and people are not running out of things to say about her. How she was as an icon, a rallying point, a boss, a mother, a friend. What she gave to the country. How much hope she inspired in the darkest of times. Her strength, her aura of peace, her spirituality. Some believe she could have done better managing the country, but you know us Filipinos. We feel compelled to say the best things about people when they are gone.
I was too young then to form my own opinion. My knowledge of Mrs. Aquino was second-hand but nonetheless personal because of my late mother, Liza Chua, who worked the Palace beat for this newspaper (and some other publications) during the Aquino incumbency. As a child of ten or eleven I was freely going in and out of Malacanang, often on Saturdays, tagging along and hoping my mom and I would still have time to stroll around after work.
I also remember my mom going on a trip to China and it being a big deal for our family, so that a jeep-load of our relatives fetched her from the airport when she arrived. Fellow columnist Alvin Capino e-mailed me photos of Malacañang reporters (that included both him and my mom) taken in the Forbidden City in 1988.
But the most poignant thing I could think about the former president was when she visited my mom in the latter's hospital bed during her confinement at the Chinese General Hospital. This was in 1990 or 1991 when Mom was already sick with colon cancer (she died in 1992). I was in school when the actual visit took place, but I had enough stories from my grandmother to compensate.
The visit was a major project, I learned, with presidential guards and sniffing dogs securing the place as much as twelve hours before the actual arrival of the VIP. When the president arrived, my mother's doctors were by her bedside. The nurses gushed. Mrs. Aquino asked my mom how she was feeling and said she looked forward to the days he could cover her again. And no, this was not a photo op. There were no other reporters or cameramen around. I thought then, how thoughtful of this great woman, who took time to personally visit a newspaper reporter who had fallen ill.
How Mom adored Cory. The centerpiece of our living room was a blown-up photo of the two of them taken in a Palace event. Mrs. Aquino was in a straight-cut green dress bearing her trademark understated elegance. She towered over my petite mother who was grinning from ear to ear. What would Mom have thought that she and her idol succumbed to the same kind of cancer?
Now that the former president has been laid to rest, we shall see whether the outpouring of love would go beyond her wake and funeral. It's not about wearing yellow or singing Cory's favorite songs or even revering her to the point of sainthood. The best tribute would be living in compassion, honesty and dignity and working towards empowering the Filipino, not through doles or short-term preoccupation but through opportunities that would enable them to improve their lot.
adellechua@gmail.com
Current TV is a politics and youth-oriented television channel in the United States. The start-up network has been on the air barely four years and hasn't made much money. It targets the 18-34 year old age group and “is best known, if known at all, for a mix of YouTube-style segments about technology, current events and culture,” says the New York Times.
Still doesn't ring a bell? Current TV is the employer of 32-year-old Chinese-American Laura Ling and 36-year-old Korean-American Euna Lee, who were arrested on the Chinese-North Korean border while working on a story about North Korean refugees. They were detained by North Korean authorities for five months, charged with committing acts of hostility against the hermit kingdom and sentenced to twelve years of hard labor. But last week came their knight -- former US President Bill Clinton; the girls flew back to US soil with him.
Ling had grown up in a California suburb and headed her network's vanguard journalism department. She had reported from various flash points that included Mexico, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. On the other hand, Lee came to the United States in the mid-1990s and had worked as editor for television; North Korea was her first risky assignment.
Video clips of the two women's homecoming showed an emotional reunion with their families. Ling was met by her husband,sister and parents. Lee was welcomed home by her husband and daughter. What a relief it must have been after months of not knowing what lay ahead. But it is interesting to know whether the journalists' experience would affect their willingness to take on similar assignments in the future.
Kevin Sites, a freelance reporter who covers international conflicts for Yahoo, talks about the inherent risks that reporting for a start-up media organization carries. “There’s an impetus with any upstart news organization that you have to be bolder and you have to be more aggressive than other news organizations to get attention for your stories,” he tells the New York Times in June after the 12-year sentence was handed down to Ling and Lee.
Sites adds that there are “generational changes” in news coverage, especially in television. In these unconventional assignments, the reporters also double as camera operators, sound technicians and producers. The flexibility then emboldens the reporters to seek fresh angles to the story and tell them in a way the bigger networks (or the more widely-read newspapers) don't, or cannot.
But there is a trade-off. Start-up organizations are mostly on their own out there in the conflict zones. In the face of trouble, bigger outlets “have resources that they can call upon to come to the aid” of journalists, said Robert Mahoney, the deputy director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. “You have a huge treasure of resources behind you.” For example, when BBC reporter Alan Johnston was kidnapped in Gaza two years ago, his network made use of the air waves and tapped its diplomatic and military contacts. But the smaller players do not enjoy the same support system. Mahoney's committee reports that in 2008, “at least 56 of the 125 jailed journalists worked for online outlets and that 45 of the total were freelancers.”
Chances are, we have not heard of the 125 who are in jail in various countries all over the world. They are mere numbers, not faces or names. That's precisely the point. In this case, Ling and Lee were a bit luckier because the founder of their network was no less than former US Vice President Al Gore.
The figures also speak volumes about how media players respond to developments in technology and adjust to the trend going against more traditional news organizations. The Internet gives ready access to anybody willing to tell a story. But with numerous others wanting to do the same thing, the test is how to stand out among the too-many voices. Many journalists take this challenge seriously.
**
Less than nine months ago I saw the tip of her hand and maybe the top of her head. From the front row of the Meralco Theater, former President Cory Aquino faced the rest of the audience and waved. But I was several rows back and the rest of the spectators were on their feet. It was gala night for Cory The Musical and the audience was applauding the woman whose days as wife, mother and reluctant politician were remembered by the just-finished performance. I wrote about that musical in this space (Music, lyrics and history, 22 December 2008).
That was about it. It was the first and last time I saw Aquino in the flesh.
Today is the last day of the government-declared mourning period for the former leader, and people are not running out of things to say about her. How she was as an icon, a rallying point, a boss, a mother, a friend. What she gave to the country. How much hope she inspired in the darkest of times. Her strength, her aura of peace, her spirituality. Some believe she could have done better managing the country, but you know us Filipinos. We feel compelled to say the best things about people when they are gone.
I was too young then to form my own opinion. My knowledge of Mrs. Aquino was second-hand but nonetheless personal because of my late mother, Liza Chua, who worked the Palace beat for this newspaper (and some other publications) during the Aquino incumbency. As a child of ten or eleven I was freely going in and out of Malacanang, often on Saturdays, tagging along and hoping my mom and I would still have time to stroll around after work.
I also remember my mom going on a trip to China and it being a big deal for our family, so that a jeep-load of our relatives fetched her from the airport when she arrived. Fellow columnist Alvin Capino e-mailed me photos of Malacañang reporters (that included both him and my mom) taken in the Forbidden City in 1988.
But the most poignant thing I could think about the former president was when she visited my mom in the latter's hospital bed during her confinement at the Chinese General Hospital. This was in 1990 or 1991 when Mom was already sick with colon cancer (she died in 1992). I was in school when the actual visit took place, but I had enough stories from my grandmother to compensate.
The visit was a major project, I learned, with presidential guards and sniffing dogs securing the place as much as twelve hours before the actual arrival of the VIP. When the president arrived, my mother's doctors were by her bedside. The nurses gushed. Mrs. Aquino asked my mom how she was feeling and said she looked forward to the days he could cover her again. And no, this was not a photo op. There were no other reporters or cameramen around. I thought then, how thoughtful of this great woman, who took time to personally visit a newspaper reporter who had fallen ill.
How Mom adored Cory. The centerpiece of our living room was a blown-up photo of the two of them taken in a Palace event. Mrs. Aquino was in a straight-cut green dress bearing her trademark understated elegance. She towered over my petite mother who was grinning from ear to ear. What would Mom have thought that she and her idol succumbed to the same kind of cancer?
Now that the former president has been laid to rest, we shall see whether the outpouring of love would go beyond her wake and funeral. It's not about wearing yellow or singing Cory's favorite songs or even revering her to the point of sainthood. The best tribute would be living in compassion, honesty and dignity and working towards empowering the Filipino, not through doles or short-term preoccupation but through opportunities that would enable them to improve their lot.
adellechua@gmail.com
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Killing a cockroach
I like to think I'm made of mean stuff. Every night as I come home from work, I brave the more notorious streets of Manila on board a jeep. I once took a plunge at the world's steepest WOODEN roller coaster. I think I can talk to anybody of any position and nationality and express myself well. I also have had more than a generous share of personal battles and I am still in one piece.
But not when it comes to cockroaches. I cannot remember not being deathly afraid of them. I have really bad memories about these creatures. My late uncle, Papa Edwin, would scream when he saw one flying around the room. On a rainy morning when I was in the fourth grade, I wore a sweatshirt over my blue-and-white RVM uniform. I was packed into the school service and felt an itching on my arm. And out it crawled. We kids screamed and the startled driver almost bumped into another vehicle on our way to school.
I think I passed on this trait to my children, especially to the girls. We used to joke that if ever we hired a maid, one of the qualifications would be that she should be able to kill a roach even in the middle of the night when needed. We often ponder this insect's reason for being. The caterpillars grow into lovely butterflies. The worms fertilize the soil. But those coca-cola-colored cockroaches, who we hear have been around for millions of years, are they just here for the heck of it, or what?
I have always griped about my need for privacy and quiet but have not explored its trade-off in terms of not having anybody to call when a cockroach does appear. Yes, I know am being silly but believe me, this is a legitimate concern and I am not trying to be cute.
I've been there. Remember how I whined about the presence of my sister,niece and nephew as well as of our 65-year-old helper (actually, any helper)? One magical day I found that they have decided not to stay with me any longer, and so I went home anticipating lovely evenings by my lonesome after the kids have gone to sleep. That evening Josh went on a sleepover at a friend's house and so it was just Bea and me. After I was sure Bea was asleep I set out to do some work. And there was the damned thing,under Bea's bed and happily moving around.
Who could I call? My impulse was to go downstairs and hope that the roach disappears. But just as I turned on the TV, hoping to catch a good movie on HBO, guess what appeared on the kitchen? Two of my favorite insects, as well. I decided one enemy was better than two.
It was already past midnight and I was getting sleepy. But how could I sleep knowing that there was a cockroach in the room? I had to meditate and pep-talk myself. “You can do it,” I said, realizing that darned thing would not just go away. When I saw it crawling, I threw a slipper on its direction. I missed. Darn. I did this two other times. No such luck. I might as well go to sleep wrapped in a blanket. But what if it crawled into my blanket?
I stood up with a new resolve. There it was climbing the door of my closet. A slight opening and it would have settled comfortably into my clothes. I was not going to let that happen.
Pak! I did not throw a slipper but slammed it nice and heavy into the insect's dark, fat torso. I thought I heard a crackling sound. The impact and the knowledge that only the slipper came between the roach and me gave me a really weird feeling. My head felt light and my arms were weak and tingling. At least it was over.
In the last two weeks I killed maybe two or three more roaches. It is not easy or instinctive. The moment I see it I wish it would just see me and go away. When it stays, I talk to it in my mind. “Go away you f***ing bas**rd,” I whisper. When it doesn't go away or looks especially menacing, I will myself to pick up a killing tool. I almost have to drag my arms. The hairs at the back of my head begin to stand. I try to be very calculating lest I miss and have to go through the motions from the very beginning.
And when I do strike, it's like there is a current that goes from the crushed insect to the slipper on my hand to my arms. This sensation never fails. Afterwards I feel like I am about to faint, I have to take a seat and distract myself to regain composure.
They say one can get used to anything. Can I get used to conquering a deep-seated fear and eventually not feel anything? We will see. I will need a few more ipis episodes to prove that.I am certainly not looking forward to these.
But not when it comes to cockroaches. I cannot remember not being deathly afraid of them. I have really bad memories about these creatures. My late uncle, Papa Edwin, would scream when he saw one flying around the room. On a rainy morning when I was in the fourth grade, I wore a sweatshirt over my blue-and-white RVM uniform. I was packed into the school service and felt an itching on my arm. And out it crawled. We kids screamed and the startled driver almost bumped into another vehicle on our way to school.
I think I passed on this trait to my children, especially to the girls. We used to joke that if ever we hired a maid, one of the qualifications would be that she should be able to kill a roach even in the middle of the night when needed. We often ponder this insect's reason for being. The caterpillars grow into lovely butterflies. The worms fertilize the soil. But those coca-cola-colored cockroaches, who we hear have been around for millions of years, are they just here for the heck of it, or what?
I have always griped about my need for privacy and quiet but have not explored its trade-off in terms of not having anybody to call when a cockroach does appear. Yes, I know am being silly but believe me, this is a legitimate concern and I am not trying to be cute.
I've been there. Remember how I whined about the presence of my sister,niece and nephew as well as of our 65-year-old helper (actually, any helper)? One magical day I found that they have decided not to stay with me any longer, and so I went home anticipating lovely evenings by my lonesome after the kids have gone to sleep. That evening Josh went on a sleepover at a friend's house and so it was just Bea and me. After I was sure Bea was asleep I set out to do some work. And there was the damned thing,under Bea's bed and happily moving around.
Who could I call? My impulse was to go downstairs and hope that the roach disappears. But just as I turned on the TV, hoping to catch a good movie on HBO, guess what appeared on the kitchen? Two of my favorite insects, as well. I decided one enemy was better than two.
It was already past midnight and I was getting sleepy. But how could I sleep knowing that there was a cockroach in the room? I had to meditate and pep-talk myself. “You can do it,” I said, realizing that darned thing would not just go away. When I saw it crawling, I threw a slipper on its direction. I missed. Darn. I did this two other times. No such luck. I might as well go to sleep wrapped in a blanket. But what if it crawled into my blanket?
I stood up with a new resolve. There it was climbing the door of my closet. A slight opening and it would have settled comfortably into my clothes. I was not going to let that happen.
Pak! I did not throw a slipper but slammed it nice and heavy into the insect's dark, fat torso. I thought I heard a crackling sound. The impact and the knowledge that only the slipper came between the roach and me gave me a really weird feeling. My head felt light and my arms were weak and tingling. At least it was over.
In the last two weeks I killed maybe two or three more roaches. It is not easy or instinctive. The moment I see it I wish it would just see me and go away. When it stays, I talk to it in my mind. “Go away you f***ing bas**rd,” I whisper. When it doesn't go away or looks especially menacing, I will myself to pick up a killing tool. I almost have to drag my arms. The hairs at the back of my head begin to stand. I try to be very calculating lest I miss and have to go through the motions from the very beginning.
And when I do strike, it's like there is a current that goes from the crushed insect to the slipper on my hand to my arms. This sensation never fails. Afterwards I feel like I am about to faint, I have to take a seat and distract myself to regain composure.
They say one can get used to anything. Can I get used to conquering a deep-seated fear and eventually not feel anything? We will see. I will need a few more ipis episodes to prove that.I am certainly not looking forward to these.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Brat Pack
One of my columnists, Alvin Capino, forwarded these pictures to me. These are some members of the Malacanang Press Corps in the Forbidden City in China in 1998. The journalists accompanied then-president Cory Aquino to her state visit.
Both Alvin and my mom (guess where she is in the photos...) are members of the so-called Malacanang Brat Pack.
The talented Mr. Noche
(written Tuesday night, Aug 4)
Tomorrow's editorial cartoon is one of Cory Aquino,flashing a big smile and the Laban sign, victorious. It is Mr. Dario Noche's last piece for the Manila Standard Today.
Our cartoonist's retirement coincides with two issues. First is the death of the former president and the grief it occasioned. Second, and this is of less importance, is the alleged meddling of the Palace in the selection for this year's national artists.
And so not much fanfare marked Mr. Noche's last day in the newsroom. I did not even know that it was going to be his last day until page four was all laid out. His retirement – he had turned sixty last month, and he was the only senior citizen I knew who could pull off the sneakers, the faded jeans, the t-shirt and the shoulder-length gray hair – was not due to take effect until the end of August. But he chose to use up his remaining leaves and stop reporting to work sooner. He had many other things to work on, he said. May as well start the soonest.
Mr. Noche is one of the pioneers of the newspaper. He was there when Manila Standard was born in 1987, months after the revolution that Cory herself catalyzed. I think he even knew my mom who worked as a reporter here and in some other papers. I met him in late 2006 when I assumed the editorship of the opinion page and authorship of the paper's editorial three days out of six in a week.
Over the years we became a quiet but consistent team. Unlike in other papers, our cartoon and our editorial went together. When it was my day to write, I would normally advise Mr. Noche of the topic and the slant as soon as an idea was firm in my head. Sometimes this happens at five o'clock. Sometimes, seven. On a good day, my full piece would be waiting for him at his desk; it means I got inspired early on. When it was not my writing day, both of us wait. On some days Chin is early, too, and that is a treat. Even when I was six hours behind the rest of the newsroom during my two months in Germany, we still managed to put the right things in the right boxes.
I cannot put my pages to bed until Mr. Noche's cartoon is there in its usual box, at the right side of page four (or six, as the case may be), right beside the staff box. The time it takes him to churn out a corresponding drawing varies – as the time it takes me to think of a topic and write also varies – but the work,no, the art is always there. Day after day, for twentysomething years, Mr. Noche never failed the Standard. He does not just draw. He makes a statement, as well. And consistently. His many awards prove this.
Between the two of us, we were brisk and businesslike. There was none of the joking around or the easy familiarity common among people who have worked together for years. I was thus surprised when Mr. Noche gave me a CD compilation of his previous work. His portfolio! It was priceless. He also asked me a few questions when his daughter sought to be a scholar at the Ateneo; he knew I had been one. He happily told me a few months later that she had passed, earning a 100-percent grant, and under a really fancy course (BS in Physics/Computer Engineering, I think), too. He whipped out her graduation picture for me to see. A father's pride.
Before I left this evening I went to him to say goodbye and shake his hand. The stench of finality was saddening but the seeming nonchalance, the lack of pomp and circumstance that accompanied this unassuming artist's last day at work was, to me, heartbreaking. Mr. Noche deserved so much more.
A deep sense of loss is in vogue. And so is the honor that comes with dedicating one's life to art. And no, I am not talking about Cory Aquino or Carlo Caparas. Sir Dario says he will see me in Facebook, but it won't be the same.
Tomorrow's editorial cartoon is one of Cory Aquino,flashing a big smile and the Laban sign, victorious. It is Mr. Dario Noche's last piece for the Manila Standard Today.
Our cartoonist's retirement coincides with two issues. First is the death of the former president and the grief it occasioned. Second, and this is of less importance, is the alleged meddling of the Palace in the selection for this year's national artists.
And so not much fanfare marked Mr. Noche's last day in the newsroom. I did not even know that it was going to be his last day until page four was all laid out. His retirement – he had turned sixty last month, and he was the only senior citizen I knew who could pull off the sneakers, the faded jeans, the t-shirt and the shoulder-length gray hair – was not due to take effect until the end of August. But he chose to use up his remaining leaves and stop reporting to work sooner. He had many other things to work on, he said. May as well start the soonest.
Mr. Noche is one of the pioneers of the newspaper. He was there when Manila Standard was born in 1987, months after the revolution that Cory herself catalyzed. I think he even knew my mom who worked as a reporter here and in some other papers. I met him in late 2006 when I assumed the editorship of the opinion page and authorship of the paper's editorial three days out of six in a week.
Over the years we became a quiet but consistent team. Unlike in other papers, our cartoon and our editorial went together. When it was my day to write, I would normally advise Mr. Noche of the topic and the slant as soon as an idea was firm in my head. Sometimes this happens at five o'clock. Sometimes, seven. On a good day, my full piece would be waiting for him at his desk; it means I got inspired early on. When it was not my writing day, both of us wait. On some days Chin is early, too, and that is a treat. Even when I was six hours behind the rest of the newsroom during my two months in Germany, we still managed to put the right things in the right boxes.
I cannot put my pages to bed until Mr. Noche's cartoon is there in its usual box, at the right side of page four (or six, as the case may be), right beside the staff box. The time it takes him to churn out a corresponding drawing varies – as the time it takes me to think of a topic and write also varies – but the work,no, the art is always there. Day after day, for twentysomething years, Mr. Noche never failed the Standard. He does not just draw. He makes a statement, as well. And consistently. His many awards prove this.
Between the two of us, we were brisk and businesslike. There was none of the joking around or the easy familiarity common among people who have worked together for years. I was thus surprised when Mr. Noche gave me a CD compilation of his previous work. His portfolio! It was priceless. He also asked me a few questions when his daughter sought to be a scholar at the Ateneo; he knew I had been one. He happily told me a few months later that she had passed, earning a 100-percent grant, and under a really fancy course (BS in Physics/Computer Engineering, I think), too. He whipped out her graduation picture for me to see. A father's pride.
Before I left this evening I went to him to say goodbye and shake his hand. The stench of finality was saddening but the seeming nonchalance, the lack of pomp and circumstance that accompanied this unassuming artist's last day at work was, to me, heartbreaking. Mr. Noche deserved so much more.
A deep sense of loss is in vogue. And so is the honor that comes with dedicating one's life to art. And no, I am not talking about Cory Aquino or Carlo Caparas. Sir Dario says he will see me in Facebook, but it won't be the same.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Plane crashes and ethnic quirks
published 03 Aug 2009, Manila Standard Today
Superior-subordinate relations in the cockpit may spell the difference between life and death.
Chapter Seven of Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers (published November 2008) is called The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes, which might appeal to avid followers of Air Crash Investigation on the National Geographic Channel. However, while the hour-long NatGeo show examines the mechanical causes of a flight-gone-wrong, this part of Gladwell's bestseller gives readers a peek into the more complex and deeply rooted causes of failure in mid-air.
“Plane crashes rarely happen in real life the same way they happen in the movies,” the author says. Apparently, ill-fated planes go down not because of a single lethal problem but of “an accumulation of minor difficulties and seemingly trivial malfunctions”: a tired, stressed-out pilot, poor (not necessarily terrible) weather, flight delays. In 44 percent of crashes, the two pilots – the captain and the first officer – have never flown together before “so they are not comfortable with each other.” The errors thus committed are rarely issues of flying skill but errors of teamwork and communication.
Earl Weener, once chief engineer for safety for Boeing, says: “The whole flight-deck design is intended to be operated by two people, and that operation works best when you have one person checking the other or both people willing to participate.” But those two people are the first officer (the subordinate) and the (the superior) captain. What happens when each becomes too wrapped up in subordination or superiority? Some cockpit tension, perhaps, on a non-problematic flight. In a troubled flight, however, the dynamics may spell the difference between life and death.
In January 1990, the Colombian airline Avianca Flight 052 was traveling from Medellin, Colombia to Kennedy Airport in New York. As the plane was preparing to land, it encountered severe wind shear, which is a difference in wind speed and direction on a relatively short distance in the atmosphere. The pilots added extra power but when the head wind dropped the next instant, the plane was already traveling much too fast to hit the runway. The plane then went on a “go-around” but ran out of fuel as it was doing so. The plane crashed into an estate in a nearby town. Seventy-three of 158 passengers died.
Transcripts from the cockpit voice recorder showed a disturbing passiveness on the part of the first officer, both as he dealt with his captain and with the Air Traffic Control in New York which, by he way, had a reputation for being “rude, aggressive and bullying.”
Exhausted, the captain could have done many things to prevent the crash but didn't. The first officer, whose job it was to talk to the traffic controllers, did not even utter the word “emergency.” He said, rather abashedly, that they were “running out of fuel,” which was an oxymoron because every plane technically ran out of fuel as it progressed in its flight. One of the controllers was interviewed later and said the first officer spoke in a very nonchalant manner, without any sense of urgency. He even said to ATC: “I guess so. Thank you very much.” He was being extremely polite moments before the crash.
Linguists describe the first officer's manner of speaking as mitigated speech.” We mitigate when we are being polite,when we are ashamed or embarrassed or when we are deferential to authority. And as much as the first officer mitigated his speech when talking to air traffic control, he also mitigated his speech in talking to his boss, the captain. He knew the pilot should be doing a better job but he did not make suggestions; he hinted at them. Clearly, the captain was not in a condition to pick up the hint.
**
Geert Hofstede (www.geert-hofstede.com), a Dutch, is emeritus professor at the Maastricht University and is an expert in cross-cultural psychology as it applies to business. Between 1967 and 1973, while working at the human resources department of IBM's European headquarters, he interviewed IBM employees in more than 70 countries to find out how they solved problems, worked together and viewed authority. From the responses, he was able to cull what is now known as Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions.
There are five dimensions but the most controversial among these is the power distance index, defined as the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. It represents inequality as defined from below, and suggests hat the inequality is endorsed by the followers as much as by the leaders.
You guessed right; Colombians had a high power distance index.
On Augut 5, 1997, Korean Air Lines Flight 801 flew from Seoul to Guam. The pilots missed the runway and crashed into a mountain just three miles southwest of the airport. Two hundred twenty-eight of the 254 people on board died.
According to the transcripts, the captain had been complaining of exhaustion. “Really...sleepy,” he said, to which his first officer replied: “Of course.” In the flight's first critical juncture, the subordinate asked his boss “Don't you think it rains more? In this area, here?”
Another subordinate, the flight engineer (the third in command), spoke up after a few moments: “Captain, the weather radar has helped us a lot.” Duh. Actually, what the first officer and the flight engineer wanted to tell their captain was, according to Gladwell: “This isn't a night when you can rely on your eyes to land the plane. Look at what the weather radar is telling us: there's trouble ahead.”
You guessed correctly again. Koreans had a high power-distance index too, according to a study conducted by aviation safety expert Robert Helmreich among pilots all over the world. South Korea was number two (the Philippines was fifth, incidentally) among countries surveyed. Indeed linguists say the Korean language has no fewer than six levels of conversational address depending on the relationship between the speakers. “This is a culture in which enormous attention is paid to the relative standing of any two people in a conversation,” says Gladwell. And there was a time when Korean Air Lines were crashing more frequently than any other.
Eventually, Boeing published safety data that showed a clear correlation between a country's plane crashes and its score on Hofstede's Dimensions. The publications was not easy. We are talking about cultures here, patterns of speaking and living that have made nations peculiar for hundreds of years. It was very likely that many cultures would take offense and say that they were being judged for being the way they were. But why are we so squeamish, Gladwell asks.
Fortunately, the aviation world realized that something must be done to correct the power dynamics inside the cockpit if it means preventing crashes and saving lives. This did not include writing off pilots from high power-distance index countries as incompetent or high risk. Rather, trainings were conducted in air lines all over the world to enable the subordinates to speak up, and assertively, without fear of insubordination or backlash. This was the opportunity to step out of culture-dictated roles. Language made that transformation possible.
The reforms are not limited to Korean Air Lines, which has since been renamed Korean Air and has turned itself around in the last few years. A pilot from the Philippine Air Lines (who could not give me a lengthier interview because he was leaving in a few hours for a flight to the United States) gives an example of a tense moment in the cockpit. “During final approach where the captain lands the aircraft,” he says in a text message, “the first officer assesses that the aircraft is too fast. The captain ignores [this], which results in landing beyond the runway end.”
The situation is being corrected through the crew resource management program, he says. “Although the captain has the final say, everybody could always suggest.” As a result, “before, some captains were very resentful but nowadays most are receptive [to input from subordinates],” the Filipino pilot says.
Interestingly, the example given by the Filipino pilot is more revealing of the nature of the superior rather than that of the subordinate. Could this be a sign that in this part of the world, it is the superiors, not the subordinates, that make much of the gap? This is a dangerous statement, too, and we don't have the exhaustive study to back this claim or explain it.
Hofstede says in his Web site that we are wrong in assuming that deep inside, we are all the same. So much for illusions of universality...but isn't diversity just as challenging?
adellechua@gmail.com
Superior-subordinate relations in the cockpit may spell the difference between life and death.
Chapter Seven of Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers (published November 2008) is called The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes, which might appeal to avid followers of Air Crash Investigation on the National Geographic Channel. However, while the hour-long NatGeo show examines the mechanical causes of a flight-gone-wrong, this part of Gladwell's bestseller gives readers a peek into the more complex and deeply rooted causes of failure in mid-air.
“Plane crashes rarely happen in real life the same way they happen in the movies,” the author says. Apparently, ill-fated planes go down not because of a single lethal problem but of “an accumulation of minor difficulties and seemingly trivial malfunctions”: a tired, stressed-out pilot, poor (not necessarily terrible) weather, flight delays. In 44 percent of crashes, the two pilots – the captain and the first officer – have never flown together before “so they are not comfortable with each other.” The errors thus committed are rarely issues of flying skill but errors of teamwork and communication.
Earl Weener, once chief engineer for safety for Boeing, says: “The whole flight-deck design is intended to be operated by two people, and that operation works best when you have one person checking the other or both people willing to participate.” But those two people are the first officer (the subordinate) and the (the superior) captain. What happens when each becomes too wrapped up in subordination or superiority? Some cockpit tension, perhaps, on a non-problematic flight. In a troubled flight, however, the dynamics may spell the difference between life and death.
In January 1990, the Colombian airline Avianca Flight 052 was traveling from Medellin, Colombia to Kennedy Airport in New York. As the plane was preparing to land, it encountered severe wind shear, which is a difference in wind speed and direction on a relatively short distance in the atmosphere. The pilots added extra power but when the head wind dropped the next instant, the plane was already traveling much too fast to hit the runway. The plane then went on a “go-around” but ran out of fuel as it was doing so. The plane crashed into an estate in a nearby town. Seventy-three of 158 passengers died.
Transcripts from the cockpit voice recorder showed a disturbing passiveness on the part of the first officer, both as he dealt with his captain and with the Air Traffic Control in New York which, by he way, had a reputation for being “rude, aggressive and bullying.”
Exhausted, the captain could have done many things to prevent the crash but didn't. The first officer, whose job it was to talk to the traffic controllers, did not even utter the word “emergency.” He said, rather abashedly, that they were “running out of fuel,” which was an oxymoron because every plane technically ran out of fuel as it progressed in its flight. One of the controllers was interviewed later and said the first officer spoke in a very nonchalant manner, without any sense of urgency. He even said to ATC: “I guess so. Thank you very much.” He was being extremely polite moments before the crash.
Linguists describe the first officer's manner of speaking as mitigated speech.” We mitigate when we are being polite,when we are ashamed or embarrassed or when we are deferential to authority. And as much as the first officer mitigated his speech when talking to air traffic control, he also mitigated his speech in talking to his boss, the captain. He knew the pilot should be doing a better job but he did not make suggestions; he hinted at them. Clearly, the captain was not in a condition to pick up the hint.
**
Geert Hofstede (www.geert-hofstede.com), a Dutch, is emeritus professor at the Maastricht University and is an expert in cross-cultural psychology as it applies to business. Between 1967 and 1973, while working at the human resources department of IBM's European headquarters, he interviewed IBM employees in more than 70 countries to find out how they solved problems, worked together and viewed authority. From the responses, he was able to cull what is now known as Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions.
There are five dimensions but the most controversial among these is the power distance index, defined as the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. It represents inequality as defined from below, and suggests hat the inequality is endorsed by the followers as much as by the leaders.
You guessed right; Colombians had a high power distance index.
On Augut 5, 1997, Korean Air Lines Flight 801 flew from Seoul to Guam. The pilots missed the runway and crashed into a mountain just three miles southwest of the airport. Two hundred twenty-eight of the 254 people on board died.
According to the transcripts, the captain had been complaining of exhaustion. “Really...sleepy,” he said, to which his first officer replied: “Of course.” In the flight's first critical juncture, the subordinate asked his boss “Don't you think it rains more? In this area, here?”
Another subordinate, the flight engineer (the third in command), spoke up after a few moments: “Captain, the weather radar has helped us a lot.” Duh. Actually, what the first officer and the flight engineer wanted to tell their captain was, according to Gladwell: “This isn't a night when you can rely on your eyes to land the plane. Look at what the weather radar is telling us: there's trouble ahead.”
You guessed correctly again. Koreans had a high power-distance index too, according to a study conducted by aviation safety expert Robert Helmreich among pilots all over the world. South Korea was number two (the Philippines was fifth, incidentally) among countries surveyed. Indeed linguists say the Korean language has no fewer than six levels of conversational address depending on the relationship between the speakers. “This is a culture in which enormous attention is paid to the relative standing of any two people in a conversation,” says Gladwell. And there was a time when Korean Air Lines were crashing more frequently than any other.
Eventually, Boeing published safety data that showed a clear correlation between a country's plane crashes and its score on Hofstede's Dimensions. The publications was not easy. We are talking about cultures here, patterns of speaking and living that have made nations peculiar for hundreds of years. It was very likely that many cultures would take offense and say that they were being judged for being the way they were. But why are we so squeamish, Gladwell asks.
Fortunately, the aviation world realized that something must be done to correct the power dynamics inside the cockpit if it means preventing crashes and saving lives. This did not include writing off pilots from high power-distance index countries as incompetent or high risk. Rather, trainings were conducted in air lines all over the world to enable the subordinates to speak up, and assertively, without fear of insubordination or backlash. This was the opportunity to step out of culture-dictated roles. Language made that transformation possible.
The reforms are not limited to Korean Air Lines, which has since been renamed Korean Air and has turned itself around in the last few years. A pilot from the Philippine Air Lines (who could not give me a lengthier interview because he was leaving in a few hours for a flight to the United States) gives an example of a tense moment in the cockpit. “During final approach where the captain lands the aircraft,” he says in a text message, “the first officer assesses that the aircraft is too fast. The captain ignores [this], which results in landing beyond the runway end.”
The situation is being corrected through the crew resource management program, he says. “Although the captain has the final say, everybody could always suggest.” As a result, “before, some captains were very resentful but nowadays most are receptive [to input from subordinates],” the Filipino pilot says.
Interestingly, the example given by the Filipino pilot is more revealing of the nature of the superior rather than that of the subordinate. Could this be a sign that in this part of the world, it is the superiors, not the subordinates, that make much of the gap? This is a dangerous statement, too, and we don't have the exhaustive study to back this claim or explain it.
Hofstede says in his Web site that we are wrong in assuming that deep inside, we are all the same. So much for illusions of universality...but isn't diversity just as challenging?
adellechua@gmail.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)