Pasintabi

             The Philippines is famous for its diverse culture. Cultures that the world has never seen before therefore it is worth sharing. One of which is the Filipino way of giving respect elementals. Tabi-tabi po is one of the countries famous culture. Most Filipino children are taught and trained to say these words even if we’re not sure if there are elementals in our midst. This is because Filipinos believe in the unknown. Thinking that we may accidentally step on them especially if or because we don’t see them. Stepping on their houses, even simply brushing against them, is a gesture of humans that is sure to cause the elementals’ anger, although unintended. One gets sick for seemingly no apparent reason. Unexplainable. Incurable. It is actually the elementals’ way of getting revenge. The sickness is incurable unless a local shaman does specific healing rituals to undo the “curse” or “spell.” It can also be cured when the sick individual makes some form of peace offering to the offended elementals to appease them.

           Fear then has been the widespread drive in the Filipino psyche, underwired and developed even more by the dogmatic teachings of the Catholic Church. The Philippines is the only Predominantly-Catholic country in Asia because of the 300 years of Spanish colonization. It’s a commonly long-held belief of the Filipinos. It is a belief that many of us were raised to follow and be afraid of.

           But through the test of time, the practice of this kind of culture dissipates. I am afraid that many of us simply went along with the trends of the world, largely out of arrogance, without really understanding and giving importance with our roots, the elementals’ world and nature spirits’ way of life. This kind of mentality leads to no good since the people who neglect this kind of practice becomes endangered or unlucky. My parents and elders always reminded me to practice saying ‘Tabi-tabi po.’ Before I do follow only because I was told to do so. We were expected to do nothing else but to follow because if you disobey you will be called ‘ill-mannered.’ And I resented that deeply. Fear, instead of respect, was the motivating factor. But I know better now, thankfully.

           Michael Tan’s Pasinatbi article made me realized that there is nothing wrong with keeping the culture alive. The problem is in the people itself. We are only tenants of the world and we don’t own it. There are life forms other than humans to which the Earth belongs. I also don’t want to believe that these beings have it in their nature to be vengeful. It is humans own doing that they act such. Therefore, it is only just to be respectful with the other life forms there is in this world. Moreover, we should choose to live and to be guided by such values as respect, reverence, and kindness.

God Defined in a Linguist Perspective

Many non-Catholics questions our Catholic faith. Questions arise frequently.  Too often, the answers aren’t easy to find. I am a Roman Catholic at birth.  I had many questions about Catholicism as well yet it is my duty to defend my faith. It turns out that many of them were fairly common Catholic questions and I want to help you answer these for you to understand more about my faith. Moreover, if we try to answer these questions in a linguistic perspective it will be easier for you to understand the concepts about God such as identifying what kind of word being used in a certain sentence; whether it is an abstract or concrete, proper or common, countable or non-countable, singular or plural; collective or compound noun in relation with God. Here are some of the common questions:

   Is God concrete or abstract?    Is God proper or common?    Is God countable or non-countable?    Is God singular or plural; collective or compound?

I used scriptural sources to provide answers for these Catholic questions since our Catholic faith are based on the Sacred Scriptures and the Sacred Traditions. This approach is more unbiased for many who have questions about Catholicism.

The Sacred Scriptures, composed in the Bible, is the enthused record of how God dealt with His people, and how they responded to, remembered, and interpreted that experience.  The Scriptures, then, are never to be separated from the people of God whose life and history formed the context of their writing and development.

God reveals himself to us through the following verses: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims His handiwork” (Ps 19:1). In creation, the man holds a special place. God said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gn 1:26). God even gives us a share in His own creativity: “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it” (Gn 1:28). God creates the whole world for us, to support us in life and reveals Himself to us through His handiwork. “Since the creation of the world. . . God’s eternal power and divinity have become visible, recognized through the things He has made” (Rom 1:20). So given the accustomed understanding, it is immediately evident that God is a concrete object.  For God is the source of everything and is, indeed, the cause of everything apart from Himself.  He is a personal being, and no person can be an abstract object.

In the Sacred Scripture, God is described as the personal being who talked to Adam and Eve, the first human beings, in the Garden of Eden. God is also the savior of mankind, coming to earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth to provide the ultimate example of holiness and the ultimate sacrifice for humanity’s evilness, in order to restore our personal relationship with Him. We are referring to God himself the all-powerful first as Creator, able “to do all things” (cf. Jb 42:2) and Ruler of all things, secondly as Love is shown in Christ’s Cross and Resurrection, subjecting all other powers to the ultimate sustaining presence of His love. Hence, we can say that God is considered as a proper noun since it is pertaining to our one and only God and that all names including the names of the members of the Trinity are capitalized.

Considering the monotheistic view of the church that acknowledges only one true God just shows that indeed God having the structure "a God of [X]", when referring to "the God" is in fact Biblical. It also understands that the surrounding cultures are polytheistic. So, often scripture will speak of other "gods", even though it insists that they are false gods. See, for example, Isa 37:19:

[the Kings of Assyria] have cast their gods into the fire. For they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood, and stone.

So despite its recognition of the polytheistic cultures of the day in forms like "a god", at the end of the day the Bible will continue to insist on the uniqueness of God (Jude 1:25): to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. In other words, God is countable since we are referring to the God of the Christians alone and therefore considered as a collective noun.

Proofreading

An American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher named B. F. Skinner once said and I quote: “A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.”  This means that everyone makes mistakes — people in all walks of life, all professions and all age groups.  This shows that we should not let mistakes define us and undermine our self-confidence. Moreover, our mistakes should always be considered as our teacher so we can learn and grow from them. Then we can define ourselves by the best of what we are. As an English major student, we often commit mistakes and reinforce them because we produce sentences too carelessly or too early neglecting to follow the rules. So, this is where proofreading comes in handy. But first, let us know what is proofreading?

Proofreading is the process of finding and correcting spelling, grammar, punctuation and formatting errors. It is the last step in the writing and editing process. Basically, we write and edit our work for general coherence and flow before proofreading. However, when we are revising our own work, we'll probably combine a grammar and spelling check, with proofreading, checking for typos, formatting, and style. Proofreading plays a big role in our life as a student since several minutes of saved time by skipping the check is not really worth the results because one grade can compromise several weeks of work. 

My experience as a proofreader is really an “eye-opening” for me. Given the task to proofread papers coming from other sections, I am able to have a grasp of the things-to-do and not-to-do while proofreading. First, when proofreading it is best to read the work we work on aloud. This is the safest way to catch errors and awkwardness. We should also articulate each word slowly for maximum effectiveness. Second, a proofreader should not rush proofreading. It is a fundamental part of the writing process. Third, we should critique our work more than ones until we see no more errors in the script. It should be checked more than three times or more. It is quite helpful in my formation as a future English teacher to know these things though I still need to polish my skills in proofreading and the other areas of my field. 

Proofreading is difficult. It demands time, patience, and focus. We can never perfect it for the first time. We cannot do any good job of it if we are rushed or tired. So we need to slow down, take breaks, accomplish something else, and come back to it with “fresh” eyes. It takes a lot of effort to master the skill however, we can take big breaks and come back to it when it is easier for our brain to line up words in order. The writings we work on should be given importance enough to take the time to do it right. We should help ourselves to grow, reflect and learn from our mistakes because only then we can be the best proofreaders we can be. 

“Miseducation of the Flipino People,” by Renato Constantino

Education plays a vital role in shaping tomorrows’ leaders. Not only can we become a better nation by acquiring the skills necessary to be productive members of a civilized society. Increasing knowledge can help us to actively achieve and meet challenges that can produce changes in which are productive for attaining business innovations, political and economic objectives. Though our country’s uniqueness as the only Christian and English-speaking archipelago in Southeast Asia impacts our education system more than we acknowledge. Our country’s Anglophonic culture and religious system are all results of colonialism, backed up by our rich history of colonization by the Spanish regime for three centuries, followed by the United States of America’s occupation for nearly five decades.

The colonialism of the Unites States of America has huge impact on the development of the education system here in the Philippines. Filipinos was first colonized through education. This had become their way of capturing the minds and hearts of the Filipino people. This gives me an impression that there is much more to what we see these days about the educational system in our country but in reality the education was for the advantage of the Americans. Reading the “Miseducation of the Filipino” written by Renato Constantino made me realized that there is no Filipino educator that had come up with an educational system that is nationalist. Thus, our educational system is patterned with the American educational system.  We were educated by the Americans to become good colonials. We were taught how to read, write and speak English. We became literate, but we are brain washed and became strangers in our native land the Philippines in our own culture and history. It was never solely for the purpose of educating the Filipinos but rather it was to preserve and control their control to our country. We Filipinos became disoriented on our nationalist goals because we had to become good colonials. In order to be a good colonial we then make use of English as our medium of instruction which later on had caused division among our people.  It was said that we had to forget their past and unlearn nationalist virtue in order to live peacefully, if not comfortably, under the colonial order. Filipinos learned the lives of the American Heroes, sang American Songs and forgot about their past, their culture and from where they belong. Our traditional ways of living are little by little obliterated all because we need to conform.

 All in all, there has been an unending problem that the Philippines is experiencing with regards to the foundation of our education curriculum and the worse thing is that it had affected Filipinos massively and extensively.  No wonder why most Filipinos preferred to work abroad than in our own country we definitely seem to lack the sense of nationalism. Simply because many Filipinos, nowadays prefer to idolize foreign artist. Sometimes rarely using our native language properly. But before we even move out to foreign culture, we must learn our own culture first. There are Filipinos who are really proud when they speak English rather than their native language. Many youths don’t even know the history, culture of our dear Philippines. A great number of the population doesn’t care about the social and political issues in the country. Worst of all, many of our leaders think that we cannot progress without the help of other foreign countries, a concrete example is letting the United States of America to intervene with the way our government leaders run our country. The American education stresses the importance of the ability to compete internationally and we simply follow their belief without knowing that our own nationalism is gone. I also agree when the author said that the truest aim of education is to train people of their unique individuality as one nation. Curriculum planners must come up with a curriculum or educational system that is one hundred percent Filipino. They must provide every Filipino with an educational system that would arouse and develop our nationalism and love for our country. Furthermore, Filipinos should not only go to school to have their diplomas but should also embed to these their desire to graduate and serve the country. This is where change will start. It is in us, the citizens of the Philippines.

What Is an Infographic?

A picture that speaks a thousand words.

That’s the shortest way to describe an infographic. To put it simply, it is a visualization of data or concepts that tries to explain complex information clearly and quickly as possible. It is the easiest form of data visualization or information design. Infographics is the portmanteau of 'information' and 'graphic'. It is amazing as we can gain knowledge and understanding in a simple graphic representation. This can also help us share our own thoughts and talk about wonderful ideas as it let us take things differently with an edge so as to avoid boring communication making it more interactive.

When we use infographics it has something to do with storytelling on its own. The pictures and the data has to effectively go together and show the viewer at a glance what it’s all about. There has to be  a good balance of graphics and text. Applying this skill to make visual presentations easier and creative is a fun experience.