Dahil sa mga ganito, nakakamiss ang probinsiya...

Happy moments in Ambagiw My Love…

That's our new found friend, White Lady, of Ambagiw, Besao.

It’s Women’s Month na…

… are you in or out? The world is waiting for what you have to offer.

Trifles by Susan Glaspell- A reaction

Trifles, a play about a woman, Mrs. Wright, who strangled her husband while he’s asleep and the investigation of the police and their wives on the crime is a very clear depiction of the status of men and women in a society. This is the glaring binary opposition found in the story – men being the dominant creature and the superior one while women the inferior ones.

Contextually speaking, in a male-dominated society, the men are regarded as the primary and focal person in all activities followed by women. Lots of women’s oppression and men’s adulation are widespread all over the world. Though lots of feminists are trying their best to fight for equality, the hierarchy is still very hard to balance.

In the story, the murder of Mr. Wright by his wife is an inversion of the hierarchy. She emerged victorious after killing her husband through strangulation. She earned triumph and freedom from all the verbal abuses and abandonment of her husband. However, morally speaking, murder is a sin against God and the husband himself.

In the deconstructionist point of view, Mrs. Right had been experiencing abuses from her husband that led her to murder him. From the pieces of evidence of abuse that the two wives (Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters) discovered and observed in the home of the couple, it could be deduced that Mr. Wright had deprived his wife of her freedom and what she wanted to do for herself. He made her follow all his whims and orders. These are the account of observations by the two women: Mrs. Right loved to sing and quilt, that was her love besides her canary. Mr. Wright never gave Mrs. Wright any children to raise because he was not interested in having any at the time. Mr. Wright  controlled what Mrs. Wright could and could not do. Mrs. Wright never talked to her neighbors much; she basically alienated herself from others due to her unhappiness. Nobody ever saw much of her; they began to think that she was getting depressed because all she would do is stay inside in her rocking chair and quilt. Her house was a mess because it finally set in that she was in the middle of doing everything when the shock of her husband’s death set in.

In this play, women’s inferiority is blatantly shown. The topics of women’s conversations were regarded by the men as very simple and illogical in a case that they are holding. They didn’t find any relevance at all. Fortunately, it showed that it’s the women who found the evidence to pinpoint that indeed, it’s Mrs. Wright who killed his wife. It was under the nose’s men that they prove that women are equal to the abilities of men. Personally, I believe that men and women are equal. It’s in the kind of activities and abilities that both sexes are excelling that differ. There are some men’s thing that women can’t do and vice versa.

In the story, the men’s failure to recognize the small details that must be related to the murder tells how men value themselves and not so emotional that the women successfully taken into account and led them to the truth or the missing link. The messy kitchen, the quilt, the bird cage, the dead canary wrapped in a silk clothing, and other things and parts of the house were considered as trifles by the men, which were given accreditation and life by the women. This suggests that women needs accreditation. The small details suggested by the title of the play itself is comparable to women in a society taken for granted by men because they were regarded as small creatures – weaklings and nothing but to serve the men and to follow them.

Lastly, another binary opposition that could be found in the play is the hierarchy of truth and lie. The intentional act of women to conceal the evidence from their husbands is recognition of the fact that the hierarchy could be reversed for the good of some people, for the good of Mrs. Wright whom they had known suffered abuse emotionally from her husband. It is their way of fighting against the societal-recognized hierarchy of men and women. They wanted to reverse the two hierarchies and giving justifications through accounting the different pieces of evidence and marks of abuse and oppression.

In this story, in the structuralist point of view, all the texts and the ideas are connected to mean only one – the irony of knowing. It is the situation when you feel that you know someone because she is your neighbor, a barrio mate, a classmate, and the like but in actuality, you don’t know him/her deeply unless you got to be with her. This was the realization of Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, especially the first. For her, if she should have known that Mrs. Wright had been living in loneliness, she would have find time to visit her and talk to her. However, alas, she never did.

This is the reality that people only remember in times of anguish, death, and sorrowful moments. The mask that as if concealing a person’s true life and situations will be unveiled and put into open during the times stated earlier that other people will find out and will, of course, have nothing to do to help because it’s too late.

Whereas speaking on the feminist views, the effort of the two wives to conceal Mrs. Wright is an act of protecting their own gender and sister who they’ve learned were being mistreated by her husband and who is living in loneliness, without love and children. They could relate to the experiences of Mrs. Wright and at times felt responsible why Mrs. Wright did such dreadful act. On the other hand what they are doing is immoral.

Yesterday, I heard… a regional hospital that never was…

… that the student nurses who attended to an emergency situation last night in a regional hospital were intoxicated. They were under the influence of alcohol.

this is just one of the worst scenarios in that “regional hospital. ” i called it a “regional hospital that never was” taking into consideration the different alleged neglect of of duties, sanitary problems, “sepsis,” mysterious death of patients, and many more that it  underwent and still being experienced until now…

Billboard at its best and worst

The following is a reaction paper about the situation of outdoor advertising, specifically billboards, passed to Ma’am Mari-an Santos, our Journ 132 instructor (S.Y. 2005 – 2006).

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It was almost 12 years ago when I first step here in Baguio City, the internationally-acclaimed “City of Pines.” The song “Baguio, lungsod ng pino…” pertaining to the vast forest of pine trees the city had, become popular as well. In the yesteryears, no one contested this since it was then very evident.

However, nowadays, it is very disheartening that the mountains of trees changed to mountains of houses and different infrastructures, which devastated the natural balanced habitat, and scenery the city had once been priding of internationally. On the other hand, admittedly, up to now it is still a tourism driven city and still the “city of pines”. However, the freshness and greenery that captivates and entices visitors and tourists are very different compared before. As the city became highly urbanized, it is also being deforested and both huge and small billboards also mushroomed on different areas of the city to give way for the advertisements of swarming businesses. With this, no longer are pine trees the first to be seen when you look up, but billboards and buildings.

Additionally, while going up to Baguio from the lowlands through the zigzag road at Kennon, Halsema, Naguillian and Marcos Highway, you will also be welcomed by fresh air, mountain breezes and lush pine trees. However, these days some tourists are complaining that different billboards and other outdoor advertisements replaced the pine trees, which really disappoint them. Not only do billboards upstage the scenery but also caused for some trees to be cut to give way for its construction and lastly, as the article says, billboards are traffic hazards especially those glaring, attractive and catchy ones.

Due to this, the regional tourism office here in the Cordillera Region had proposed the removal of all ads along the zigzag road as well as prohibits the placement of ads there. However, I have no updates about it.

Billboard making or outdoor advertising in general are really a good income-generation business. As the article told, it has so many advantages than advertising to other media vehicles not only to the advertisers, makers, but also to commuters since billboards in a way “entertains”. However, billboards also became nuisances today. It had caused various instances of accidents as the article is saying.

As a media person point of view, I will wow outdoor ads. Imagine what great sum of money it will give. Whew, it must be very good to work in an outdoor ad company considering that according to surveys, many Filipinos are in the poverty line. Thus, practicality must first set in. If I am also an advertiser, I will surely opt for outdoor advertising considering how cheap it is compared to others.  However, in an environmentalist point of view, never will I wow outdoor ads.

“If only money were everything,” the article reads. For me, “If only money were not everything.” Yeah, it is all about money! They say nobody is above the law but I say, money is above the law. This is the reason why even though there are laws on the proper use of billboards, there are still many violations and public officials or local government units are not exempted with this. Example would be the city of Makati.

Thus, all of these adverse effects of billboards boil down to only one, the rules and guidelines over their usage are not properly implemented. When there are clear guidelines and the vague rules on the putting up of billboards are attended then the cited problems in the article will be resolved. And of course, the rules should be strictly implemented and there should be no sacred cows and no biases!

Sentiments

“Recently, it seems that the world turned its back on me. My hopes of a better future shattered; this is hopeless.

I am trying to ignore this depression slowly penetrating my whole system. I can’t help it. I need someone to talk to – someone who will tell me it’s all right. Nevertheless, I should cling to myself. Nobody could help me best but myself.”

Kiddingly aside, these first two paragraphs are my lines every time something unusual happens to me. I am grateful that I never scoffed at God with what is happening to me. I even draw myself closer to him and pray for His perpetual guidance. I regard those occurrences as God’s ways of giving me strength and courage in life. This, He successfully did. I am forever thankful.:)

I Sit and Look Out

I Sit and Look Out

by Walt Whitman
(1819-1892)

I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame,
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men at anguish with themselves, remorseful after deeds done,
I see in low life the mother misused by her children, dying, neglected, gaunt, desperate,
I see the wife misused by her husband, I see the treacherous seducer of young women,
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love attempted to be hid, I see these sights on the earth,
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny, I see martyrs and prisoners,
I observe a famine at sea, I observe the sailors casting lots who shall be kill’d to preserve the lives of the rest,
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;
All these–all the meanness and agony without end I sitting look out upon,
See, hear, and am silent.

Three Women: A Poem for Three Voices

Nowadays, the discrimination and the oppression against women are not so widespread unlike before. Women are now empowered, and their rights are recognized in most countries in the world. Thanks to the movements and organizations that consistently and persistently fought for these.

If we are to study the life of a woman, biologically speaking, she experiences and endures more physical pain since birth than a man. The experiences during her monthly menstruation (especially if she has dysmenorrhoea) and the agony when giving birth are some of the examples. These are innate characteristics of women given by the Creator (This sometimes make me think that the patriarchal system in our society is God-given.). Nevertheless, as most women claimed, these feelings equate the joy they feel soon as they see their babies.

To have a baby according to some is the fulfillment of being a woman and makes one complete. As one of the critics of the poem said, women feel completion and wholeness, especially after childbirth. However, this depends upon the situation a woman is into. Undeniably, unwanted and teenage pregnancies are proliferating in our time. I believe women who go through these are not happy. In addition, even some mothers are not taking into consideration poverty (the ill of society at present and even before). Families who belong to the middle and lower classes believe that to have many children means they have to endure poverty. These are the reasons why many cases of abortion are recorded.

Recently, there was a news about a widow who poisoned her children because she has no means to feed them. For her (I think), it pains her more to see them suffer and die of poverty and hunger so she decided to end their agony. This is an example of a glaring fact that leads many people to choose some decisions contradictory to their principles because of poverty.

In the poem Three Women, the women represented in three voices related about their feelings towards their pregnancies, when they give birth, and until they returned in their respective lives. The first voice represents a mother who gave birth happily, the second voice represents a woman who had miscarriage, and the third is a young lady, a student who gave birth to an unwanted child.

The first voice said she is happy and ready to motherhood and I quote her said, “I am ready.” She as well added that despite the difficult situation she went through, she is now able to enjoy maternity in full after giving birth. This is opposed to the third voice who said she is not ready. It is an unwanted pregnancy for her and it scares her. She doesn’t know what to do. At some point, she even thinks of murdering the baby. Finally, she decided to give the baby for adoption in order for her to return to her old life and start anew. Of course, the memory of her baby still haunts her.

The second voice, happy to have a baby, is depressed when she underwent miscarriage. It is emptiness, uselessness, restlessness, and somewhat guilt that she feels towards the death of her unborn child. Repeatedly, she is asking people not to accuse her of killing the baby she wanted the most.

Clearly, their cases illustrated how women though inclined to motherhood are given different fortune when it comes to it. There are many reasons that prompt other women to undergo abortion, to give away their babies, and not to have children at all. Sometimes, there are some who should not be condemned and ridiculed. However, whatever the reasons may be, the most important is for the women and their partners to take caution.There really is a right time for everything. And it is when they are ready emotionally, physically, and financially.

On a feminist point of view, their situations depict that in the end, after undergoing painful experience, she will still be at loss, will still be the one ridiculed and be blamed for the consequences of the unavoidable situations she has no control of, and will always be haunted of it.

According to a woman I talked to, there is no such thing as unwanted pregnancy except for rape cases because to engage in copulation is a 50% share of responsibility among the couple. She added though that in the case of “unwanted pregnancy,” abortion for her is acceptable explaining that it is a woman’s right to decide whether to continue with her pregnancy or not. After all, she knows the consequences of such.

For me, I am resolute with my stand towards unwanted pregnancies and abortions. I confirm with the teachings of religion – life is precious and to procreate is only for married couples. In view of this however, every person has his/her own feelings and principles towards such situations that should be respected.

Finally, with regards to Plath as a poet, a criticism I read said that in Three Women, she divided her own voice into three so that each one of them can have a different point of view about the female situation inside a patriarchal world. “The voices are extremely independent; each possesses their own individuated range of emotions.”

Furthermore, they added, “If one considers the relative short period of the poet’s life and writing career, the poem tells the story of her pursuit of her own poetic voices, especially after years of being influenced by many other writers. It also suggests her final achievement of poetic wholeness.”#