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I was news editor of the Far Eastern University’s Institute of Arts and Sciences newsletter called ‘The SeaGull’ in the 90s.
Before us, our term that is, the institute’s student government body had been accused of releasing the newsletter ‘occasionally or accidentally’ — the line used by the more active (read: activist) candidates running for student council posts then. And they won overwhelmingly! When the new student council was set up in office, a friend invited me to attend meetings for the newsletter project and there I was assigned as news editor.
We came up with 4 spreads (16 pages) of a real newsletter covering all aspects of university life from the university president’s ‘official’ points-of-view down to what a regular working student had in mind to share.
At that time FEU was upgrading its status, starting from the bottom, as a requirement by the Commission on Higher Education and had to undergo a lot of tune-ups to maintain the ‘university’ structure by keeping up with a tiered program provided by the CHED. Or else, the university will be reduced to a vocational learning center, which the stakeholders did not want.
I know so, because I was the one who interviewed then FEU president Felixberto Sta. Maria for my ‘Access’ column. And because of the tiered upgrade program, tuition fees on all courses accross all institutes had been increased, much to the disagreement of most working students.
The team handling the newsletter production then from news- and other content-gathering was really great. I was able to come up with a sponsorship with Dunkin’ Donuts across Morayta to handle our coffee meetings, which was almost everyday. The store would provide all the members of the newsletter team with free coffee and a doughnut. There were more than a dozen of us! The extra order, the individual had to shoulder.
Then Dunkin’ Donuts store manager was a guy named Eric. I didn’t get his last name but he provided us with a pass that we can show anyone at Dunkin’ Donuts Morayta that we were entitled to a cup of their freshly-brewed coffee and any doughnut of our liking. I was aware that Eric was doing something for us that had possibly sent his store’s inventory to mayhem but he did not ask for anything in return, such as an ad space, perhaps.
The paper gained the respect and trust of the student body for we provided, first of all, balanced news and fearless views (hey, I read that line somewhere!).
It was in the layout and printing aspect of the newsletter that I was able to meet Cochise Bernabe, then a law student, with his team or partners — students from varied courses also from UP, who manned and serviced that two-storey printing press business they had in Pasay.
Cochise and his partners were warm. Despite some tensions because of the deadlines their business had to face — for they had other projects, too — we were always accommodated. We were almost always there during that process. I had seen Beebom Castaños there only once. There was an energy in their tandem and was a very promising couple.
After class hours at noon or in the afternoon, I would go to the printing press to check on the status of the production. It was merely cut-and-paste then, so there was still a guy who had to set all those things on a page before it has to be shot and placed on the iron sheets. The setter, Andy, was that one-man team. He had to cut, paste, set, and shoot before the machine operators would set them on the machines for running. We had to help him if we had to come up even with partial copies before the end of the week.
After the first release of the newsletter during our term, we were all elated. Cochise would always ask when we would go back for the next issue and the next. The following semester I was voted editorial board chair of the newsletter. We had three or four issues of ‘The SeaGull’ printed there at Cochise’s printing press.
After the sad summer news of Cochise and Beebom’s disappearance that led to their senseless killings, we had to look for another printer.
It is also so senseless now to let those men responsible for cutting short their lives, intentionally, be set free. Each of those murderers were locked up for double life sentences; what justification will undo what they did.
After reading the front-page news on the Inquirer this morning, what else will make your heart sink? (On Cochise and Beebom: PDI news 1, PDI news 2). Have we become so freak a nation to let criminals roam our streets and make a mockery of our laws? Or is it part of our heritage as a race that we easily forget the errors of the past and wonder why we cannot move on as we should? This is like setting all the Jack-the-Rippers free!
But this is not the first. There were Teehankee, Jalosjos, the Aquino-Galman murderers. To top that, there was Erap! Now, who will be the next?
Ironically, the spread also carries the news on the apologies of Hong Kong columnist Chip Tsao who previously called the Philippines a nation of servants.
Oh, I know what you are thinking.
I received this Invitation Code BB92 from the Friendster Blog Team, telling me of some changes that will take place here.
I’d rather assume that Wordpress took over Friendster’s blogging system, for it will be in better hands, technically.
It’s been awhile before I could get back to update my corner here. The last time I looked, it was in great disarray for, yes, Wordpress took over, and therefore the default template used was “Contempt” (by Vault9). So I tried other new templates for the look of this nook; sadly, though, most of all of the ones i chose didn’t work. Most of them still needs a lot of tweaking guys.
And, yes, aside from the ‘default’ confusing look, I also lost all the sidebar elements I had before (blog roll and links) and I had to manually add each of them back, which I hadn’t done yet, so far. No worry, though, that will be easy with the widgets.
What really took me so long was making the look of the pages consistent. What before was a text wrap in the former blogging system is now not applicable in this template design I chose. So I tweaked all posts with the HTML view and merely centered all the photos in most of them. It is a tedious upgrade, especially for those who had posted quite a lot; but worth it, I would say.
The best feature, really, is finally finding your page when you try to google it, plus the tags will hugely be so helpful. Wordpress has its own built-in search engine optimizer. (I know so!)
I am looking forward to blogging with ease, as much as it is in wordpress. I hope the technical guys behind this great shift will not overlook all the necessary tweaks and that complacency will never get its way in among them.
Great job! Now, we are truly blogging. Suh-weet!
Oh, and here are other links that share my sentiments:
PS. I hope the space limit will be bigger, too!
This is the peak of MMDA’s show of arrogance, ego-tripping and defiance to public expression against the infuriatingly stupid scheme it set last week. Its men even had the audacity to use for its dim-witted U-turn closure conspiracy the line “for the good of the many”. (That brought to mind Jack Nicholson in “A Few Good Men” when he screamed “You can’t handle the truth!” at Tom Cruise.) And continued to reason out that only residents of Xavierville and La Vista are the ones complaining! (Read article.)
Hello? If the residents of Katipunan cannot do their daily jobs efficiently because of the brainless manipulation of traffic routes, isn’t that tantamount to economic sabotage? Plus, as I will keep on saying, the additional spending on gas brought about by this injudicious act of an ego-centered agency when we are in deep crisis already in all aspects of our daily affairs.
MMDA also claims that commuters find the new Katipunan traffic system fine. Hu-whatttt?! The commuters are themselves stuck in the confusion! Which commuters are they referring to, anyway?
The issue is Katipunan Avenue, sirs. You can’t displease motorists, commuters, businessmen, students, and residents on Katipunan Avenue so you could please those who will go to Marcos Highway for the opening of the new SM-Marikina, which will also create another foreseeable chaos.
I wasn’t able to contain myself this morning as I had to go to the hospital for a checkup and saw the gridlock inching under the flyover bridge to Aurora Avenue while there was only one tight lane left for those bound for C-5; where six-or-more lanes bottle necked towards the two-lane road to Aurora (for
the right turn) and the one-lane route under the bridge for the U-turn, I had to scream.
Mga walang-hiya! Mga bastos! I’m sure they’ve been hearing harsher words since last week. The MMDA men were just watching the muddle going on right before their very eyes. They were doing practically nothing! An ambulance, in desperate blast of siren, was caught in the middle of this mad ordeal. I just couldn’t imagine what the patient inside had in mind.
This is MMDA’s definitely splendid act of abuse of power and disregard to public thrust!
There is a culture permeating among MMDA men I noticed this afternoon as I walked from my clinic on Katipunan. There were a number of them along the avenue (they were playing a numbers game, I presume, with infuriated motorists), feeling busy but were really doing nothing, just staring at the confusion they inflicted. They have that sense of pride, an air of something, I don’t even know where it’s coming from after all the disaster they have started. No wonder some of their men get into some fix with other law enforcers. Arrogance and ego-tripping sweep within its ranks like a disease. What a shame.
Mind you, Katipunan Avenue, the national road, has no traffic problems until MMDA’s thoughtless execution came in, contrary to what the agency’s bigwigs claim:
If we have to abandon the scheme completely, we’ll do so. We’re here to improve traffic, not to worsen the situation. (Full article.)
Duh-huh! And for someone to run for public office come 2010, the least he could do is ire the voters. Voters remember and they never forget who NOT to elect. Well, the SM-Marikina is a good fall back for a lame duck, evidently.
Above are some shots I took from 6:15 a.m. to about 9 a.m. this morning. The foolish traffic scheme created this horrible traffic jam until 12 noon. How long before this stupid plotters realize their folly? I don’t think these losers will unless they get themselves in the middle of this MMDA-made rut, which, by the way, is their brainchild.
Starting Tuesday morning (August 5), Katipunan Avenue has been a more pathetic sight and a more stressful experience for motorists who have been plying the stretch for, say, a lifetime! For those who cruised on that avenue for the first time that day, they could have mumbled all sorts of curses for getting trapped in such a miserable spot because those who were used to the previous route have.
The reason? Well, the fantastic MMDA closed the last U-turn slots that could’ve saved the last drop of gasoline in someone’s tank. There used to be five U-turn slots along Katipunan (Ateneo-Miriam College area): one fronting Ateneo, three along the Miriam College frontage, and one in front of La Vista’s gate. The MMDA closed down two slots in the middle, leaving the one in front of Ateneo and two others way off farther Miriam’s gate ― one for each side of the street.
In a whiff, MMDA closed all three remaining U-turn slots and planted concrete slabs in the middle without bothering to come up with any announcements at all to those who will be affected. For seemingly, they want to give us.
All motorists will now take U-turns from the one end under the fly-over at the Aurora Avenue intersection and the other just right after the C.P. Garcia Avenue junction. Naturally, traffic jams on both sides ensued during the rush hours, which, in the Katipunan area, are morning, noon, and night. It is now a nightmare to be caught in the area during those times.
That road to and from Aurora Avenue, on both sides of the the flyover, only holds two lanes. It is impossible to smoothly accommodate traffic on both sides without the service provided by the already closed U-turn slots. The MMDA should know how these things work; if it doesn’t, then it should at least get into the habit of studying the mechanisms of such matters. No development will take place if it just keeps throwing its weight around. Its authority must work, not displace nor destroy.
We had been long-suffering with the MMDA’s overbearing attitude in changing and re-defining traffic routes and painting pink lines on sidewalks, let alone its senseless devices planted in the middle of our highways. We had been so patiently keeping up with the MMDA’s ugly contraptions on the streets: its tasteless advertisements on dress codes, on sidewalk usage and of Bayani Fernando.
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We could take all that, albeit with too much acid rising from our bellies; but adding more gas in our tanks, just so one can reach the closest U-turn slot that is so jam-packed because three or four other highly valuable U-turn slots in the middle were closed, so that we can go by our daily routines, that is so unforgivable, so irresponsible, so unthought-out. And for those who don’t want to be caught in that wretched trap under the bridge, they will have to go farther ― to the next U-turn slot on the Katipunan-Boni Serrano intersection!
With the price of gas crazily sky-rocketing because of external factors and the fashionable workings of Republic Act 8479, a.k.a. the oil deregulation law, the MMDA is an unnecessary burden to our already extremely heavy yokes.
Also, we cannot take its inhumane act of driving out sidewalk vendors and destroying their wares around the metropolis. This agency has gone mad. It is a barbaric and arrogant institution! The people of Metro Manila should start reviewing the mandate that created this monster (Metro Manila Destructive Authority, photos grabbed from GMA’s 24 Oras).
It is time this agency is stripped of too much of the power it assumes, or should I say, it enjoys. It is time we stop tolerating it, too.
YOU TELL ME