Diliman Video of the Week: This Could Be Your Love Story

Palace: No apology to League of Filipino Students | Sun.Star

President Benigno S. Aquino III refused to back down and apologize to the League of Filipino students for remarks he made which compared the militant youth organization to the Marcos dictatorship for its demands that the budgets of State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) be increased.

Read the rest here:

Palace: No apology to League of Filipino Students | Sun.Star

UP Diliman Speech Communication and Theatre Arts Workshops 2011

There are a lot of things going on in UP Diliman and on October 15, 2011, the University of the Philippines Diliman Department of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts will be holding speech workshops for professionals, teens, and adults. Voice and diction, performance and presentation skills are included in the module and one can learn how to ace job interviews and improve public speaking skills through the workshops too.

The workshops will be held from 1:00 pm to 3:30 pm for teenagers and from 3:30pm to 6:00pm for adults on four Saturdays. For more information you may call Mr. Jose Carlo G. de Pano or Mr. Ronnie Amuyot at 924-8589 or 924-3224, or send the department an e-mail message at dscta50@gmail.com.

Manila Shopper: Freego, Vans & Team Manila BRAND SALE at UP Diliman

Manila Shopper: Freego, Vans & Team Manila BRAND SALE at UP Diliman: Freego, Vans and Team Manila BRAND SALE is happening NOW until Sept 11, 2011 from 9am to 6pm at Solair, UP Diliman! Get 30-50% off on Vans shoes and apparels and up to 70% off on Freego and Team Manila Lifestyle apparels!!

SOLAIR U.P. Diliman map

College Editors Guild of the Philippines to launch "Strike Lead"

SEPTEMBER 7, 2011

MEDIA ADVISORY

STRIKE LEAD

Official newsdesk for the youth strike against the education budget cut

This is the season of strikes.

This month, students in several state universities and colleges will go on strike as a form of protest against the grossly insufficient allocation not only for education but also for other social services. As build up for the strikes, different sectors of the society will conduct an array of activities in various areas across the country.

As members of the press, it is important that we report on the campaign against the cutbacks on basic services because it is an issue of constitutional rights – right to education, right to affordable and prompt health services, among others.

For press releases, media advisories, schedule of activities, analysis, factsheets and backgrounders, you may contact Strike Lead, the information desk of the youth strike. Strike Lead was organized by the College Editors Guild of the Philippines, the widest and longest-running alliance of student publications in the country.

We are also accepting reports, media advisories and other notices from organizations that engage in the fight for quality and accessible basic services. If you want to be part of Strike Lead, you can volunteer as a correspondent/photographer/artist for the desk. For inquiries, contact Gidget Estella, CEGP national deputy secretary general, at 0915.335.2021.

Directory of the 15th Congress: Dear Readers please help us update this!

Editor's note: With the looming budget cut of the University of the Philippines System and other State Universities and Colleges, we are encouraging all of our readers to write all the Senators and Congressmen they know to restore U.P.'s and other SUCs budgets to their optimal levels. We have posted the directory of the Senate here. Unfortunately, in the case of the 15th Congress, there is not a lot of transparency, and we have only managed to piece together a partial list of Congressmen from primary, secondary and tertiary sources, because the House of Representatives secretariat itself has thrown a massive cordon sanitaire between the representatives and the people they represent by making their contact details (by email in particular) unavailable to members of the public.

Troubled with the thought of such a lack of transparency, we went to sleep over the problem and we woke up this morning with the bright idea of asking our readers to help us in this massive quest!

We would like to ask our readers to help us out in producing this definitive guide which is of great use to individuals, NGOs, people's organizations, foundations, etcetera to email their congressmen and women about SUCs budget cuts, the RH bill and other pressing matters.

The Diliman Diary has posted a Google link, which allows readers to edit the information by posting the names and contact details of the congessmen and women they know. If you have any contacts please go to the link and you will be able to edit the information. This is an incredibly precious resource for members of the public, so please help us out with this. You won't regret it!

Here is the link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmwZxG_XzknNdFpJU2pmQ0llZ1RTTk4xZFB0U25WZ2c&hl=en_US

Knowledge Run at UP on September 25

The Knowledge Run or K! Run 2011 organized by the UP Library and Information Science Students’ Association and SLIS@50 will hold a fun run on September 25 at the University of the Philippines Diliman campus' Academic Oval.

2010-2011 Directory of the Philippine Senate

Interest groups and other citizen's organizations may access the directory of the 2010-2011 Philipine Senate from this link: http://diliman-diary-sidebars.blogspot.com/2010/12/2010-2011-directory-of-philippine.html

The Diliman Diary is surrently working on updating the directory of the House of Representatives (especially emails), and here is what we have so far.

Thank you and happy lobbying in furtherance of a more transparent and democratic Philippines!

Conditional Cash Transfers forum at CSWCD sheds light on flaws in CCT conceptualization and implementation

By Chanda Shahani

A forum held yesterday on Conditional Cash Transfers at the College of Social Work and Community Development (CSWCD) at the University of the Philippines (U.P.) at Diliman revealed deep problems with the Aquino administration's centerpiece project which is set to receive a significant chunk of the national budget in 2012.

The forum had four speakers: Professor Marivic Raquiza, of U.P. Diliman's National College of Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG), Sonny Africa, Head of Research of IBON Foundation, Christian Deloria, Focal Person, 4Ps Monitoring and Evaluation of Department of Social Work and Development (DSWD) and Rommel Millora, Focal Person, 4Ps Grievance and Address System of DSWD.

Dr. Rosalinda Pineda-Ofreneo, Dean of U.P. CSWCD gave the opening remarks. Also distributed during the forum were the results of the Roundtable Discussion of the UPCSWCD Social Protection Cluster, November 17, 2010 which gave in tabular format both the arguments for and against CCTs.

Mr. Africa, referring to the Philippine Development Plan from 2011 to 2016 which is essentially the development blueprint of the administration of President Benigno S. Aquino III, said the document specifically states that CCTs are to be given directly to the poor through the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program(4Ps) “which shall be the cornerstone of the government's strategy to fight poverty.”

Mr. Africa said that this approach will not solve poverty because it is being used as “a smokescreen” to cover more fundamental structural problems bedeviling Philippine society for decades.

He also criticized the CCT program for not having a clear exit strategy, since the program is destined to end in five years. He likened this to the Ozone Disco tragedy where 164 people died in 1996 in a disco club fire in Timog Avenue, Quezon City when they could not flee due to a blocked exit.

Setting the conceptual framework, Mr. Africa said that 20.9 million Filipinos were unemployed or underemployed. Of this number,4.4 million were jobless, 4.2 million were "unpaid family workers" and 12.3 million were "own account" workers. He said the average unemployment rate in the country was 11.2% from 2001 to 2010, with 65 million living on PhP 104 a day. He said according to the government's own definition of "poverty threshold," only PhP 46.00 a day per person was needed to remain above this threshold, which he said was clearly not enough.

He said problems with the implementation of CCTs including administrative concerns such as non-deserving beneficiaries receiving CCTs, including as those classified as non-poor who owned well-built houses, assets, tricycles and even stores. On the other hand, other problems had to do with deserving non-beneficiaries not receiving CCTs such as those living in remote areas or those not living in permanent or fixed households. Another problem, he said was lax implementation such as those who received CCT funds with unmet conditions or falsified compliance.

Unintended consequences of CCTs including putting additional burdens on their chief recipients - women upon whom the responsibility fell to ensure compliance; misspent cash transfers such as on gambling and alcohol and manipulation of extraneous conditions: granting or witholding of cash due to patronage politics or to discourage activism within a community. He also pointed out that if some people received cash within a community while others did not, friction would be created within a community due to jealousy. He also said that there was a lack of a convincingly strong health component to the CCTs: as those requiring medical help beyond a few pain killers did not have access to affordable quality health care.

He said that there was no true empirical basis to allot such a huge number of household beneficiaries for CCTs under the 4Ps program. The breakdown was as follows with the following number of beneficiaries with corresponding amounts: 2007 (4600), 2008 (320,411), 2009 (734,691), 2010 (1 million and PhP 10 billion), 2011 (2.3 milion and PhP 21.2 billion), 2012 (3 million and PhP 39.5 billion). He added that from the period 2012-2016, a total of PhP 307 billion would have been allocated for CCTs.

Mr. Africa said the problem is that these huge expenditures were backed by skimpy data based on a January to May 2010 study from IPC Ateneo which only targeted 207 respondents from 18 barangays in three provinces, a January 2010 SWS pilot spot check which targeted 760 households, 57 schools and 16 health facilities from 33 barangays in one province and a November 2010 and February 2011 SWS spot check which covered only 8 towns of four provinces.

Professor Raquiza, who is also the co-convener of Social Watch Philippines said that  there were problems with CCTs from a women's rights and gender rights perspective; even if CCTs in fact directly  targeted women as the chief recipients of government funds.

A kind of a caste system was created by choosing some types of poor to receive government funds while other types of poor were excluded from receiving CCT funds, she said.

She said that just because women were the majority recipients of CCTs it did not mean they were its beneficiaries. She explained that the concept of CCTs was  problematic from a feminist perspective because the assumption of the government was that women were rational beings and will engage in optimal behavior which runs counter to the basic tenets of feminism which states that people and the relationships that bind them are determined by society.

She said that her conclusions were derived from an analysis of data which came from a Social Watch Philippines (SWP) study of the 4Ps and a recently held Visayan consultation organized by NCPAG and DSWD.She said she also relied on conclusions and findings from the papers of Corina Rodriguez Enriquez and SMERU Research Institute on women and CCTs in Latin America and Indonesia, respectively.

She said that there is a lack of consideration of gender in the design and implementation of the 4Ps in particular and CCTs in general.

She said that while an overwhelming majority of household beneficiaries of CCT programs including the 4Ps are women, this does not necessarily mean that CCTs are focused on gender or guarantee that these will contribute to the promotion of women's rights and gender equality.

She said that in the 4Ps apart from the goal of achieving Millenium Development Goals on maternal mortality, there are no other explicit program goals related to women's rights and gender equality.

Professor Raquiza also said that CCTs were "dole outs" that discriminated against those who did not have access to the labor markets, such as persons with disabilities. The DSWD estimates that at least 10% of the population is made up of persons with disabilities.

While she did admit that the situation in the Visayas showed that CCTs resulted in enhanced relations between spouses in households; these did not necessarily solve the structural problems leading to the disempowerment of women and other disadvantaged groups in terms of the creation of macroeconomic policies to create the right environment for job creation which will lead to a heightened demand for labor within the country, she said.

In terms of decision making over the cash grant, she pointed out that the experience of Indonesia's CCT Program Kelauraga Harapan (PKH) showed that CCTs did not bring about significant changes to the position of women or in intra-household gender relations. Moreover, the bargaining power of women in relation to her husband remained unaltered because while the wife decided on daily household expenses, the men decided on matters that were deemed more strategic or important including the more prominent expenses.

Professor Raquiza said that a fundamental weakness of CCTs in general and the 4Ps in particular was that women were singled out as being the main participants in the program leading to gender stereotyping of women such that women were forced into the role as primary caregivers within the family, thus freeing their partners from this responsibility.

She said this is controversial because it perpetuates the notion that women must be the primary caregivers within the family and reinforces the traditional gender division of labor which is at the root of gender inequality.

Professor Raquiza's colleague in Social Watch, its Convenor and NCPAG Professor Leonor Briones has also said in the past that CCTs by themselves are not capable of substantially addressing the issue of poverty. CCTs also need to be augmented with a package of other measures for there to be a real dent in levels of poverty in the country.

Meantime the DSWD's Mr. Deloria acknowledged that there were many criticisms regarding the 4Ps program. He added that the proposed funding submitted by the Aquino administration to Congress for 2012 had DSWD receiving PhP49 billion with PhP going to DSWD's traditional services and PhP39 billion for CCTs.

"CCTs are not the solution; but we recognize that the Aquino administration is really pro-CCT," he said, adding that "it was not a magic bullet," and that several politicians, such as Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago were not in favor of CCTs. Senator Santiago has questioned the premise for allocating such huge amounts of cash to CCTs at the expense of other legitimate and vital government expenditures such as allocation to State Universities and Colleges (SUCs).

He said that in 2012, 700,000 households would be the target beneficiaries of CCTs with the end goal of human capital development such that the behavior of the recipients would need to be changed in order for them to engage in more ideal behaviors leading to a greater probability of their becoming more successful in economic terms.

He said that cash was an ideal commodity as opposed to some physical commodity like rice because money does not spoil and can easily be transferred and disbursed throughout the banking system of the country. Money can be used for priority expenditures of households, he said.

Responding to Professor Raquiza's comments on CCTs not being gender-responsive, he said that CCTs and the 4Ps were not meant to be gender-responsive per se.

Mr. Deloria said that important evaluations of the success of the 4Ps would be done in November and December of 2011 where 8000 households would be surveyed. He also said the program was dynamic, and that after three years, there would be a mid-term assessment and an end-of-program assessment when the program is finished in 2016.

Mr. Millora, also of the DSWD said that any interested party could complain about the 4Ps program at the DSWD hotline at 0918 912-2183. He said that in general, money is not disbursed without the conditions of the transfer being met. "If we cannot monitor you, then the conditions do not exist for us to transfer cash to you," he said, referring to recipients of CCTs under the 4Ps program who had complained about not receiving their funds.

President Benigno S. Aquino III himself has said that CCTs are intended to infuse cash directly into the countryside creating a pump-priming effect benefiting the less advantaged sectors who cannot benefit from traditional trickle down growth expectations coming from economic growth.

A U.P. study co-authored by U.P. School of Economics (UPSE) Dean Arsenio M. Balisacan and released in 2010 found that CCTs worked well in their pilot form under theadministration of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and had the potential to help end the vicious cycle of poverty.

The UPSE study said that assessments of CCT programs show significant positive impacts on nutritional intakes, schooling performance,and reduction in poverty and inequality. "Of all the government's current subsidy programs, the CCT initiative holds perhaps the most promise for breaking the vicious cycle of poverty and, hence, is a good candidate for upscaling toward a national anti-poverty program," the study said.

Meantime, Lila Ramos Shahani, an assistant secretary of the national Anti-Poverty Commission in the Office of the President said in a letter to the Philippine STAR that was uploaded on September 8, 2011, that "for those who maintain that CCTs cannot be the cornerstone of the government's anti-poverty strategy, the fact of the matter is that, quite simply, they're not." Assistant Secrtetary Shahani's explanation of the government's conceptual framework of CCTs can be accessed here.

Notice of full disclosure: Assistant Secretary Shahani is the sister of this writer. Professor Marivic Raquiza is a contemporary from U.P. Diliman when we were both students there and Professor Leonor Briones is a personal friend of this writer's mother, former Senator Leticia R. Shahani. Nevertheless, every effort has been made by the Diliman Diary to present a balanced account of CCTs which remains a contentious issue that we will continue to cover at every possible opportunity.

President Benigno S. Aquino III's 2012 Budget Message

Year 2012

THE PRESIDENT'S BUDGET MESSAGE

Ladies and Gentlemen of the 15th Congress of the Philippines: 

Through the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, I have the honor to submit, for your consideration, the proposed National Budget for 2012.

THE DIVIDENDS OF REFORM

Last year, you gave your overwhelming support for the 2011 National Budget, this administration’s first financial blueprint. You diligently and meticulously scrutinized the same, while making sure that it is enacted before the Fiscal Year 2011 started: the first time in over a decade. 

But that timeliness meant not only promptness: it also meant relevance. It reflected your belief that the programs we proposed are able to respond to the immediate and pressing needs of our people, while making sure that our long-term agenda for reform is on track. And I laud you, the men and women of Congress, not only for enacting the current year’s budget on time but also for giving this administration a stable first footing by supporting the 2011 Reform Budget. 

Our pursuit of reform in the long-term cannot blind us from our people’s current concerns. In other words, change also has to be felt now. 

This administration was hoisted to power by the overwhelming mandate of our people, fatigued by the preponderance of corruption and abuse of power. They have expressed their deep yearning for Philippine society to be transformed into one that truly empowers them to pursue their aspirations for themselves, their families, their communities and the country. Through People Power via the ballot, they have demonstrated their longing to be emancipated from poverty and helplessness through honest and effective governance. 

This is the core inspiration by which this administration crafted the 2012 National Expenditure Program that I am hereby proposing to Congress: to deepen the reforms we are setting in place; to go one notch higher in our fight against corruption and our pursuit of good governance, in poverty reduction, and in employment generation from inclusive and sustained economic growth.

Noong nakaraang taon, tinangkilik po ninyo ang aming pakay na tahakin ang landas Tungo sa Paggugol na Matuwid. 

Sa paparating na taon, hinihikayat ko po kayong patuloy na sumama at lumahok sa biyaheng ito: sa pagsiguro na ang benepisyo ng Paggugol na Matuwid ay nakatutok sa ating mga prayoridad at Diretso sa Tao.

THE RESULTS-FOCUSED BUDGET OF 2012
 

With the same degree of political will and sense-of-duty, I ask you to examine, deliberate on, and thereafter approve this P1.816 trillion National Budget for 2012.

This proposed budget is higher by 10.4 percent than the current year’s budget of P1.645 trillion. With the reduction of leakages, inducement of efficiencies and better selection of project priorities, we can ensure that more of our people’s hard-earned tax money is spent on programs, projects and activities that benefit them the most. 

More importantly, this budget—the first that this administration is fully crafting—embodies our commitment to lift the poor from poverty through honest and effective governance. It is intently focused on fulfilling my administration’s Social Contract with the Filipino People as I heeded their clamor for a leadership that will emancipate them from the shackles of hopelessness. It is firmly anchored on our vision and priorities, and focused on results. 

This proposed budget is a Results-Focused Budget. 

Read the rest here.

MAXIMUM GROOVITY 7 UP STREET DANCE CLUB DILIMAN

The Diliman Diary donates a rare edition of the Sept. 13, 1979 Philippine Collegian to the U.P. System

August 27, 2011

Professor Danilo A. Arao

Assistant Vice President

University of the Philippines System Information Office

Quezon Hall

U.P. Diliman

Diliman, Quezon City

Dear Vice-President Arao:

It was a pleasure meeting you yesterday at the U.P. System Information Office at Quezon Hall. I would like to thank you for the discussion we had on story ideas, and the material you gave me, including the 1972 speech of former U.P. President Salvador P. Lopez which I have uploaded in the Diliman Diary today (Please refer to: http://diliman-diary.blogspot.com/2011/08/science-policy-for-university-1972.html).

It is also with great pleasure that I would also like to confirm in writing my donation to the University of the Philippines System (through the U.P. System Information Office) of a 1979 edition of the Philippine Collegian which I acquired through Ebay. This is XXXV No. 11 issue, dated September 13, 1979.

Some features of the donated Collegian are as follows: It has a headline of "BOYKOT: Nasa pagkakaisa ang lakas, Nasa pagkilos ang tagumpay!". It also has a story of "Loyalty and Arbor Day" which was met with protests. Inside is "Four poems written in blood" by Jose Maria Sison. with 8 pages.

I am attaching two scanned pictures of two pages of the donated Philippine Collegian. I attach no stipulations to this donation, and it is up to the U.P. System Information Office and the U.P. System to make use of this donation in any way deemed appropriate.

Thank you very much.

Sincerely yours,

Chanda R. Shahani

Editor

Diliman Diary

Mabuhay! Have a Great Day!

Chanda R. Shahani

Editor

The Diliman Diary

http://www.dilimandiary.com

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President Noy: From Zero Coke to Zero love life to Zero Capital Outlay for State Universities and Colleges and Hospitals

(Source: U.P. Kilos Na)

Feeling thirsty? Dehydrated? Need a drink? Sure, go ahead and have your pot-belly busting Coke Zero but while you are doing that, please spare a thought for State Universities and Hospitals who have been given zero capital outlay by the administration of President Benigno S. Aquino III making it difficult for them to carry out their missions effectively.

It would be different if we were a Somalia or some other bankrupt failed state. But we are in the Philippines and have been at least nominally democratic and self-governing since 1946, and we can certainly do much better with our existing resource base. After all, if the Department of Budget and Management Secretary Florencio "Butch" Abad can allocate P800 million for his home province for capital expenditures in 2012 for the national budget when Batanes only has a population of 15,000; and allocates zero capital expenditures for capital expenditures for 2012 for the province of Davao del Norte which has a population of more than 700,000 then you know that something is seriously wrong. It becomes even worse when the proposed budget of the University of the Philippines System is slashed by 64% from P15 billion to P5.1 billion which is P800 million less than it got in 2011.

The problem boils down not to a lack of resources but to a misallocation of resources by the administration of President Benigno S. Aquino III and its distorted priorities.

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U.P. Cebu Dean, 2 allies dismissed

University of the Philippines President Alfredo E. Pascual and the new U.P. Administration proves decisively that it is serious about combating irregularities inside the U.P. System. Read the rest here: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/52397/up-cebu-dean-2-allies-ordered-dismissed

Tunog Wunder Ground at the AS Steps, U.P. Diliman on Sept. 8, 2011 at 6:00 p.m.

To enlarge the graphic, just click on it