Skip to content

Women Rights

International Women’s Month Celebrates The Filipina

she-ka guestingIt seems FilipinaImages.com is getting more attention these days. Perhaps because March is International Women’s Month. The black “Yan ang Filipina” shirt customized by wikipilipinas refused to fit me. I felt like a “suman”. So I ditched that and wore something that won’t make me look ten pounds heavier on TV. I had to drag my lethargic body at 6:00 AM thinking the She-Ka TV magazine (aired over NBN 4) was at 7:00 AM. At the last minute, the show was pushed to 8:00 AM. It was worth it.

Read More »International Women’s Month Celebrates The Filipina

FamPics: Learning

dina and noemiOnce again, it’s the first Monday of March Over at PinoyMomsNetwork, it is the day to publish FamPics. For March, the theme is LEARNING.

Dine is almost unrecognizable without her sleeveless tops but you know, we were invited to speak in front of local women leaders from different local government units nationwide such as mayors, vice-mayors, vice-governors, Board members etc. Business suit seemed like a suitable attire for this event and not our casual “blogger” wear during blogger or new media events. Dine and I laughed because Wikipilipinas.org staff barely recognized her.

Read More »FamPics: Learning

Modern Day Moms and Truth, Accountability & Reform

noemi and raqAs a little girl, I often thought adults talked too seriously. I figured in my little girl’s mind that it must be boring to be all grown-up. When mom’s friends converged at our home for afternoon chit-chat, the conversations revolved around gardening, orchids, roses, baking and other household matters. I am sure they had fun too.

Read More »Modern Day Moms and Truth, Accountability & Reform

WikiPilipinas Filipina Stories, A Contest

Awarding of the Winners of the WikiPilipinas Filipina Stories

Date: March 28, 2008
Time: 11-12:00 Noon
Venue: SMX Convention Hall # 3, SMX Convention Center, beside SM Mall of Asia, Manila
Map: Click on thumbnail

smx_map1.jpg

This is our tentative program for the March 28 event, 11-12nn

1. Opening Remarks
2. About Vibal Foundation
3. Empowering Women Through Internet
4. Walkthroughs: Filipiniana.net and Wikipilipinas.org and Filipinaimages.com
5. Raffle iPod Nano
6. Announcement of Winners
7. Closing

Wikipilipinas will host lunch in a restaurant in Mall of Asia after the program.

wikipilipinas.jpgDine, Gus Vibal, founder of WikiPilipinas, his staff and I met up last week to discuss ways to support their first online Encyclopedia of Philippine Women that they started in WikiPilipinas.org. I believe Gus is truly sincere in his WikiPilipinas’ vision to be ““the largest Philippine knowledge database”. I mean, Gus pratically invested a lot on WikiPilipinas. (A few sponsors helped though).

Dine, Lorna, myself and most of you will agree that we all want to raise the profile of the Filipinas, and be part of a larger movement in uplifting the status of Philippine women. I believe that WikiPilipinas is sincere in their mission as we all are. Here is our collaborative project which I hope you will be a part of:

230px-Filstories1.jpgIn line with the principle of honoring the diverse, beautiful, and powerful image of a Filipina, WikiPilipinas will launch a special portal Encyclopedia of Philippine Women inside the site which will compile and detail the achievements and triumphs of Filipinas everywhere. Its sister site Filipiniana.net will also have a Philippine Women Microsite containing documents discussing Filipino women, as well as selected texts from the oeuvres of Filipina writers. Through a combined effort for advocacy, WikiPilipinas partnered with Filipina Images to help promote a more empowering image of the Filipina. By having an online platform to showcase Filipina intelligence and talent, surely the goal will be closer.

To promulgate the advocacy, WikiPilipinas and Filipina Images websites will launch ““Filipina Stories,” a writing contest with the mission of uplifting the image of the Filipina.

Check the prizes and mechanics of this contest.

Read More »WikiPilipinas Filipina Stories, A Contest

Happy Slip Peelings Video and My Dad

The other night, my husband and I slept at 2:00 AM because we enjoyed watching Happy Slip’s YouTube videos. You know, we needed our endorphin fix. The Peelings video hits close to my heart for many reasons because of my dad. The quirky characters played by Happy Slip as the “aunt” and “mom” display so many similarities to my dad’s Filipino personality. Is it old-school now?

(gasp), I see myself in them too.

Read More »Happy Slip Peelings Video and My Dad

The Filipina Heart

Marie (not her real name) only knew bitterness and heartache after two failed marriages. Now 50 years old, her eyes glimmer with hope as her fiancee’s trip to the Philippines nears. I felt her excitement as I asked “How did you meet him?” and Marie replied “Filipinaheart.com”. She added “My friend is lucky she found a loving husband in the midwest. For years, she knew nothing but verbal and physical abuse from her husband-addict . She introduced me to the FilipinaHeart.com site”. I never expected Marie to resort to a dating site to find another love, a third chance to find a man for keeps. Oh yes, I understood her loneliness. “You know, even if we are 50 years old, we are still attractive to men”, she teased me. Of course I wouldn’t know that since I have dated no other man in my life other than my husband for 29 years now. If I were in her shoes, I’d date all over again though. Her eyes lit up as she shared her webcam conversations with her fiancee. It felt like high school all over again as we continued on with our girl talk. Marie is just one of the many faces of the Filipina. She is is an upper middle-class, educated, pretty and kind person. I’ve never met anyone who used a dating site so her experience really piqued my curiousity. I asked tons of questions and her answers? Well, I ‘d rather keep them to myself.

What I realized now is those photos in the Filipina dating websites are just photos. We don’t know the story of their lives. The image of a Filipina is not merely a photo as she can be your friend who’s there for you, no matter what, your sister, mom or the broken-hearted woman.

Read More »The Filipina Heart

Filipino Kids and Their Lifestyle

cartoons.jpgAre you curious about the lifestyle of 7 to 14 year old Filipino children? Sure, we know they have the inherent ability to assimilate new technology and adapt to change at such phenomenal rates but how much? Today, I attended the presentation of Cartoon Networks’ New Generations Philippines results of the first fully-localized study dedicated to Filipino kids with previous studies done in 2003 and 2005. Cartoon Network believes that such study is an integral part of its on-going quest to learn about kids, their lifestyle , opinions and behavior. The approach in conducting the study was based on face-to-face interviews with 1,000 child and parent pairs, surveying Filipino kids aged 7-14 years and their parents from socio-economics classes A to D in three metropolitan areas of Cebu, Davao and Manila in September and October 2007. Synovate Philippines was commissioned to conduct the survey.

media_consumption.jpg
The results are quite disappointing. TV is the number one choice for kids among various forms of media consumption.

  • 46% are internet users of which three quarters have their own homepage.
  • More than 75% go to malls with their parents at least once a month.
  • They’ve got PHP 37 billion to spend annually.

Read More »Filipino Kids and Their Lifestyle

Suicide, Media and Mariannet Amper

suicide preventionI am disappointed in the lack of balance on how media (and some blogs) are treating [tag]Mariannet Amper[/tag]’s death. Even the Catholic Church, for goodness sake. Today is Mariannet’s burial but our beloved [tag]Catholic Church[/tag] in St. Francis of Assisi Parish Church in Barangay Ma-a is in a dilemma. She might not be given funeral rites despite being a devout Catholic because of some old-fashioned priest.

Is it because he or some of us are still living in the dark ages where [tag]suicide[/tag] is taboo? Or are we in denial, uncomfortable or just limited in our knowledge that some young kids like Mariannet may suffer from [tag]depression[/tag] or chemical imbalance which may have pushed her to die by suicide?

Much of this stigma is is a carryover from the Middle Ages. Victims were forbidden traditional funerals and burials, and suicide was considered both illegal and sinful by the laws and religions of the time.

Today, we understand that most suicides are the result of biochemical illnesses such as clinical depression. Yet, the stigma associated with suicide often forces family members to choose between secrecy about the death and social isolation. Even media avoids talking about it except for a few radio stations that invited a doctor to speak on depression and suicide.

I will emphasize my points below:

1. Focus on poverty situation is one-sided. Almost all the news and blogs talk on poverty or blaming the government (except for news reported here and here). What about the suicide awareness and prevention? We do not know for sure what caused Mariannet to die of suicide. For all we know, Mariannet may have suffered severe depression, which is not the same as merely sad or something that you can snap out of it in a second. Depression affects both the wealthy and economically disadvantaged individuals.

Media needs to address a balance of both the poverty and Suicide Prevention and Awareness as well.

2. Suicide is an illness, not a sin.. Fr. Zenon Ampong, their parish priest in Davao is uncertain about the request of the family of Mariannet for her to be brought to the church for funeral rites citing the policy of the Catholic Church on suicide. Not all Catholic priests are like Fr. Ampong. I bet he is the same type of priest who refuses to bless the dead if the death is caused by suicide but bless cars, pigs, houses…what hypocrisy! May Mariannet rest in peace even without that priest’ blessing.

(Update: November 11, 2007: Fr. Ampong’s gives funeral rites but his sermon shows his ignorance on depression and suicide.. How simplistic his reasons are! But then understanding suicide is not an easy matter either.)

He said that the Mariannet’s death was the result of the sins of other people….The world has been overwhelmed by the sins of the people against others, and this has been paid by Mariannet’s own life, he added.

Read More »Suicide, Media and Mariannet Amper

Filipinos are Emotional?

For news on Mariannet Amper : visit my entries at Suicide, Media and Mariannet Amper and Childhood and Adolescent Suicide Deaths in the Philippines

One of my proudest primetime adventure is speaking in a dialect that I am not fluent in TV or radio interviews. Though raised a Cebuana, my first language has always been English. My parents often spoke in Tagalog between themselves. I learned to understand basic tagalog but never spoke it at home. Same with Cebuano. I have been skirting from a certain radio station mainly because I just cannot speak tagalog properly. How will I ever explain grief as pagdadalamhati without getting my tongue all twisted up in knots? How does one translate the word denial in Tagalog? Or Depression?

Do you want to talk to my husband?, I bargained. He speaks fluent Tagalog.

The executive producer pursued “It’s alright to speak in English”. Yeah right, English is fine. The listeners will understand but what will they think of me? But I remembered that I am in an advocacy and I needed to hurdle my speech limitations at all cost. I asked for the guide questions and with the help of my husband, I praticed the tagalog definitions of most grief terminologies including pronouncing the tongue twisting pag-da-da-lam-ha-ti. The good news was I can do the interview via phone patch which meant that I can have a cheat list in front of me. Goodee. I clapped my hands.

Read More »Filipinos are Emotional?

Desperate Housewives Episode on Some Med School in the Philippines

UPDATE: ‘Desperate Housewives’ apology over Philippines slur

[tag]Desperate Housewives[/tag]’ latest episode (the first episode of the 4th season) had Teri Hatcher’s character saying this: ““Okay, before going further, can I check these diplomas cause I would just like to make sure that they’re not from some med school in the Philippines.”


(This is the complete video of that scene)

I wonder if the writer meant it to be funny or what. Considering there are a large number of US-based doctors and nurses who are graduates of Philippine Medical Schools, then I think not. These Philippine Medical School graduates took up further training in the States. Before they can even practice in the US, our Filipino doctors called Foreign Medical Graduates have to take a USMLE (United States Medical Licensing Exams) which consist of 3 parts to get into residency:

Part 1- Basic Subjects (can be taken in Philippines)
Part 2 CK – Clinical Knowledge (can be taken in Philippines)
Part 2 CS – Clinical Skills (to be taken in the US)

Read More »Desperate Housewives Episode on Some Med School in the Philippines