Why do we call it soccer?
BY DUCKY PAREDES
‘Hay Moritos en las costas’
A.G ROMUALDEZ JR., M.D
‘It is an attitude behind the insistence by some quarters that the youth be shielded from any corrupting information about reproductive matters.’
IN the diminishing number of Spanish-speaking Filipino households, whenever the conversation turns to sensitive family issues or scandalous gossip or – horror of horrors – sex, one will eventually hear the warning: "Quidao, hay Moritos en las costas" (literally meaning, "Be careful, there are little Moros on the beaches"). This phrase is a warning to the speakers that a stranger or a non-adult or anyone deemed incapable or unworthy of participating in the discourse is within listening or hearing distance.
Whenever the warning is sounded, one or more of the following will occur: a) the subject matter is hastily dropped or changed; b) the volume of voices is abruptly lowered; c) a sudden silence ensues; d) there is a quick consensus that it is about time that the outsider or the child be informed about the topic.
The phrase obviously dates back to Spanish colonial days but it has its Filipino counterpart in "May nakikinig" followed by the peculiarly Filipino way of pointing at people with side to side twitches of the lips and other parts of the face. It is a remnant of the colonial racial and religious biases still prevalent in Philippine society that create a cultural attitude that compartmentalizes knowledge and parcels out information to different classes or groups on a "need to know" basis. It is an extension of the secretive habits of the Philippine ruling classes – whether they are sectarian or religious, corporate or bureaucratic, tribal or regional.
"Hay moritos…" is also characteristic of a mind-set that is closed to the possibility that excluded groups such as the other gender, the poor or unschooled, and especially children are capable of enlightenment and using information for their own benefit.
It is an attitude behind the insistence by some quarters that the youth be shielded from any corrupting information about reproductive matters and partly explains the on-going sex education controversy.
An extension of this attitude is the basis for the assertion that only parents can teach children about procreation and parenting (Who teaches orphans, one may ask). It also explains why many conservative religionists believe that only clerics (or those authorized by clerics) can determine correct values and can pass these on to the rest of us "ignorant natives".
As a matter of fact, "hay moritos" may in part be responsible for Filipino society as a whole being resistant to the notion of transparency as the norm for all transactions between individuals, groups, agencies, and institutions. This also explains the difficulties in passing "freedom of information" legislation.
Monday, June 13, marked the opening of the three-day 10the Conference of the Science Council of Asia at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza. It was hosted by the National Research Council of the Philippines with the cooperation of a dozen agencies of the Philippine government including the Department of Science and Technology and the Department of Health. Participants included delegates from all over the country as well as the representatives of about twenty organizations from the 11 member countries comprising the SCA.
The theme of the meeting was "Meeting the Health Challenges of the Asia Pacific Region – Responding through Integrated and Multidisciplinary Approach in Science and Technology". The variety of the papers presented reflected the growing awareness within the global science community of the increasing importance of interactions between biological, social, and environmental factors on the various domains comprising the various health systems of the world.
The first day of technical discussions, for instance, was introduced by a World Health Organization presentation on surveillance and response to emerging communicable diseases followed by an analysis of village-level social issues affecting parasite infections in children. The same session featured a discussion of gender and other reproductive health issues linked to disasters and natural calamities as well as cultural issues linked to health concerns. It ended with a presentation of the connection between health care financing and health equity.
Masao Miyoshi is a Japan-born and raised scholar who specialized in Victorian literature. As Professor of English Literature in the University of California Berkeley, Miyoshi became deeply involved in the defining political issues of the 60s and 70s such as the free speech movement and the Vietnam War protests. Following these experiences, the English Professor became a very strong advocate of a strong political role for the academe and the transformation of universities as focal points of political activism.
In the years immediately before he died in 2009, Professor Miyoshi, whose last post was that of Hajime Mori Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Japanese, English, and Comparative Literature at the University of California San Diego, became concerned with environmental issues and climate change. This was reflected in his essay entitled "Literary Elaborations" in which he traces the long history and evolution of contemporary universities and concludes by emphasizing the need to incorporate environmental protection studies within the core of all academic disciplines.
To do this, Miyoshi suggested the development of environmental justice studies grounded in the principles of ecology to replace "the now denervated humanities" as the basis for all higher learning. Although he noted that most of the core natural sciences have evolved academics interested in ecology, applied disciplines such as law, economics and political science as well as the health professions are lagging behind.
In this country, the academic community having so recently been exposed to the high profile lecture of former American Vice President Al Gore can hopefully begin to develop an environmental consciousness that identifies justice and equity as major concerns of social development.
Every year, on the opening day of the school year, news is dominated by the shortage of space in public schools to accommodate the ever increasing numbers of Filipinos in need of education. As is true with most social services, the poorest members of Philippine society suffer the most from these shortages. It is in the poorest of slums and rural areas that the greatest numbers of young people are excluded from the educational process.
Social commentators have long ago pointed out the link between the lack of appropriate population management government policies and this annual educational crisis. It is ironic that, this year, the opening of schools was preceded by a controversy on reproductive health and sex education.
Emaiul: alberto.romualdez@gmail.com)