An eye for an eye…

Who would forget that tragic event last August 23 of last year? When an ex-policeman hijacked or rather say, kept a bus hostage for 12hours at the Quirino Grandstand where many of the passengers didn’t make it alive? Wherein, the tourist bus passengers were all international, and some were Chinese.
Right now, Philippines were grieving for the lost of 3 Filipinos who were sentenced to death by China. Many actions were taken especially by Vice-President Jejomar Binay to prevent this from happening but China had closed their eyes to negotiation. They really were eager to do this even if many Christian groups and associations plead them not to…
Mosaic Law tells of a rule, “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth”. Is this what happened in our current situation? A country taking avenge of other country because some of their people had bad experience with them. Would we really end this way? Who would have known this will happen… Who would have thought that this could happen…

A Tragic Happening...

It is a big problem if a country wages war against another country. But, it would be a greater problem if a country, a nation will face such conflict inside its own boundary.
Libya... A Muslim country who is currently facing a tremendous problem today, a war within its territory. Its leader, a long time dictator, Moammar Gaddafi, stands out to his idealism even if the whole nation oppose.
UN have decided to help, US did also stood out for the people of Libya who wishes to be freed upon the dictatorship of the so-called leader. Many innocent people were affected and been victimized by the situation.
How long will this lasts? Who knows? As the Muslims say, "Inshallah!", or as we say it, "God's will be done"...

The Worst Has Yet To Come...

Earth is now deteriorating because of men... Technologies everywhere, advancement of men to make life easier. Yes, surely this helps a lot to mankind but the thing is, nature is being destroyed. And nature won't keep silent about it.
Right now, calamities are now happening all over the world, one after another... The most recent was the tragic happening in one of the most advance country in the world, Japan, who experienced an 8.9magnitude earthquake and a very huge tsunami at the same time. With the advance technology they have, who would have thought that they will end up like the lowest of all? Technology did helped them in the past, but not at the moment that they really need to be warned for future happenings. Men, children, old people, doctors, scientists and everyone is included to the tragedy, no one is exempted...
When are we going to learn our lesson? Let us try to act accordingly, to somehow lessen whatever future circumstances might bring... And lastly, let us pray to God, for help, guidance and wisdom.
"In Him, everything is possible..."

What I wanted to be...

We had our mass communication field trip last March4-5, 2011. Students who were currently taking up Video and Television Productions and Internship were required to go. Though we took off a little late because of some transportation problems (I don’t want to blame the travel agency because I felt that they want to give their best), basically this changes the whole itinerary.
Instead of going to Makati Palace Hotel after eating breakfast at Jollibee Harbour Square in Manila, we have gone to our first itinerary which is Greater Media Arts or what is well known to be GMA. Everyone is excited in going there but to our great disappointment, the network seemed to be not well accommodating, sending us to two not well knowledgeable facilitator, who either tell us that they don’t know the answer because it’s not their job (how come they’re doing that?) or tell us things that make their network stands out from the rival network. All in all, it’s a big mistake that we have gone to that network. It just made us compare how good their competitor is in terms of PR compared to them…
After which we had our lunch at Traumway in Timog where we ate at our heart’s extent before we went to our second location, Full Circle Communications Inc. A Public Relations outfit who told us how PR is essential to a public figure/company. The people there were all friendly, and accommodate us in all possible way. Surely they know their craft and you can see that they love their job because all of our questions were answered.
The next morning, we visit Unitel Productions. They told us about what they are doing, from the beginning to end. They are one of the biggest production company who makes great commercials not only here in the Philippines but also in other countries. This made my day!
From that moment on, I know what I want… I know in myself I’m not that talented as a person in terms of dancing, singing and whatsoever, but now I know what I can do. I want to be with Unitel Productions, who can edit videos and produce a very competitive output. I want to learn everything about video and audio editing.
What my goal right now is, to be a great editor that will be known in the near future…
So help me God…

P-noy now owns responsibility for the hostage taking

After the “blame game” that happened wherein PAG-ASA official was terminated in his job due to wrong information regarding the typhoon Basyang which brought tremendous casualties in the country, next is where you see our president blamed the media for the coverage of the hostage taking which took place at the Quirino Grandstand last August 23, followed by the blaming of the PNP, and now, P-Noy just realized he has to take full responsibility for the hostage taking.
The hostage crisis took more or less 12 hours before the hostage taker was taken down by a sniper. The situation left eight Hong Kong tourists dead, and witnessed live in all parts of the world. During the crisis, even the slightest glimpse of P-Noy’s shadow was never seen and this causes a bad impression in most of the other nations.
President Aquino III has claimed full responsibility over the Philippine National Police’s (PNP) botched hostage rescue operations last week saying he has direct supervision over the police. The President’s admission was contrary to his earlier claim that Rico E. Puno, Interior undersecretary for peace and order, was directly in charge of the hostage rescue operations.
Clarifying Mr. Aquino’s statement, Presidential Communications Operations Secretary Herminio "Sonny" R. Coloma said the president is emphasizing the principle of accountability in taking full responsibility over the event.

* * *

The Manila hostage taking was deemed as a “local crisis” even if the hostages were foreign nationals, Interior undersecretary Rico E. Puno said last Friday (Sept. 3) in front of the fact finding committee who investigates the police rescue operations done at Quirino Grandstand.
The very same day of the hostage crisis, Puno was informed of the incident four hours earlier before he flew to Cagayan de Oro City to attend an “official function”. He just let it happen for he thought that it was only a local crisis, for it was in the city of Manila and the hostage taker was a former Manila police.
As being asked by the president of the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkater sa Pilipinas, Mr. Herman Basbano, Puno said that during the incident, the local crisis committee was in charge of the situation while the national crisis committee which he headed, was on “standby” in case the situation worsened. And their assessment of the situation was that the hostage taker was very cooperative, which made them think that the situation was bearable and can be handle by the police and no need for it to be considered as a national crisis.
Mr. Puno admittedly told Justice secretary Leila de Lima that he is not capable of handling hostage taking crisis, and was only verbally instructed by the president to oversee PNP.

* * *

The woman behind on how Mendoza was brought to Quirino Grandstand appeared, Meliccia Gonzales, 65, a widower, claims to have been Mendoza’s “best friend”, drove him from Tanauan, Batangas to Manila, knowing that he would only turn over his service firearm, an M-16 rifle to the authorities, and that she did not know he would use it to hold people hostage. She said she became suspicious when she saw Mendoza wearing his police uniform, but Mendoza had told her he needed to be in uniform to avoid being pulled over because their car’s license plates were banned on the main roads on Mondays.
Gonzales, accompanied by her lawyer, surfaced at the National Bureau of Investigations’ main office in Manila last Tuesday afternoon to clear her name.

Hardships...

Second year, first trimester. Not that too much for me to handle. But right now I am starting to experience what really a college student should feel especially now that I am taking 5 majors at the same time.
Right now, one of the majors included is THEATER and I can say that it is quite exciting to take because we learn how to act, express emotions and we get to produce our own theater play production. That is our final requirement which is fun and worries some at the same time. My group mates here are mostly third years and it’s kind of hard to adjust with their time schedules because first and foremost, they are graduating and they have lots of things to worry for, not only the theater. They also have their thesis and they spend too much of their daytime for that. So, we had agreed that we need to suffer our time for sleeping to have our rehearsal. We figured this suits us (but not me, because I really love sleeping but I know that I need to sacrifice that). This set up went well, although we all complain of lack of sleep. Another problem that we faced is that the revision of the script which brought conflict to some of our members. We only have one more week before we present it and there they are, coming up with the idea of revising the lines in the script… As my instructor always tell us, “My goodness!” Yes, they had it revised and gave us the problem on how to memorize it and deliver the lines on such a short span of time.
Hmmm… All’s well that ends well. Maybe we will just hang on to that saying. Hoping that after the presentation, we will all have smile on our faces… So help us, God!

The use of technology in education

Education is the greatest inheritance that our parents can give to us. Yes, I believe in this saying. For education, is a treasure that no one can take away from a person. You might say that diplomas can be lost, burn, or steal. But education is not merely things that you can easily grab or take hold, and neither is easily give or take away from you. Education is the stepping stone to man’s success. But as years passed by, great changes are happening around us. Is the education or the way of delivering it to the students in our grandparent’s time still relevant and useful these days?
We now live in the modern days where everywhere you look, what you will see are things that are run or operated by machines that we call technology. People nowadays were helped greatly by it, from their own houses, offices, even in churches and busy streets. And now, schools are opening the doors for technology. The use of technology in the classroom as an aid in teaching the students is a great help to the instructors.
But before it was appreciated by many, there came a time that people doubt it if it will be a great help to students or will it have harmful effects to them because the technology will lessen the interaction between the students and teachers, and it even scares the teachers that they might lose their jobs and technologies will take over their position in educating students. But this allegations were also true with the coming of radio and television, and in the end, they were proven wrong. Technology has become tools for the development of higher order thinking skills, if appropriately use, interactively and with proper guidance.
In a classroom setting, teachers were now advice to use technology and even students are now encouraged to do reports with the use of it. Interactions among them were sufficed to absorb knowledge because compare to traditional methods which is that the teachers were just relaying the message to the students, the students can now interact.
In international flight schools, flight simulators are use to train the students. This is a virtual reality kind of technology wherein students can experience how to fly an airplane as if it is real.
In the U.S., home study is practice by many people. This type of education is really helpful because most of them who take home study education were employees. They want to finish studies and at the same time, work to finance their education and this type is more convenient to them. They just need to use the internet, study whatever time that suits them, and pass the requirement for a certain date also through the net.
Basic technologies that we can observe in the classrooms are television, DVD players, and even CD players. We might not notice it, but they are part of technology that is widely used and of great help in education.
As for my answer to my question, yes, what they teach or how they teach in the old days is still useful today. What we just need to do is somehow, upgrade it and go with the flow. We need to use technology as part of relaying knowledge in school, so that students as early as possible can cope with the fast moving technology. But let us not forget the traditional way of life, because if everything else fails, that is still a stronghold that we can turn to…