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USC 2005: Media and the Youth in Building the Nation

The Philippines is facing another crisis –a moral crisis, that is.

So said Oliver Tuazon, author of the book “Back to the Basics: Fundamental Principles and Values of Nation-building, before some 40 male University of the Philippines students in a recently-concluded conference on the media’s crucial role in forming the values of the youth held at Kapuluan Center for Men in UP Village, Quezon City.

The conference, called Universitas Student Conference, was organized by a group of scholars, youth leaders, and volunteers that aims to foster among its members a spirit of excellence and service to society and promote values education on the youth.

Now on its third year, the conference centered on the theme “Media and the Youth for Rebuilding the Nation” and featured guest speakers from print and advertising sectors for each of the three sessions from Feb. 12, 19, and 26. Among the guests were: the country’s celebrated editorial cartoonist Jess Abrera; Philippine Star columnist Atty. Jose Sison; Manila Times School of Journalism dean Benjamin Defensor; and Jimmy Puno, former chairman and CEO of Dentsu Young and Rubicam Advertising Agency.

In the conference, Tuazon, a UP biology professor and Universitas adviser, talked about how an individual could could contribute in nation-building.

“Before we dream of changing the world, we have to start changing ourselves,” he said.

Tuazon emphasized that not only the media, but also its consumers, particularly the youth, lack serious formation of values in which in turn would give them enough good reason to be more discerning in their forms of entertainment.

Writing letters to the editor for instance, he said, is one way of alarming the media that they have crossed the line.

“The media now is trying to be expert on things even faith and morals,” Tuazon said before sharing his published letter to the editor in Philippine Daily Inquirer rallying against an advertisement that “had a ‘thought box’ of guys in a library wearing only undergarments with the caption ‘in your mind.”

“What is it trying to say? That we look around imagining people in underwear?” Tuazon said in the letter.

Puno, now teaching advertising in University of Asia and the Pacific, said that in whatever profession, values are important. A good advertiser, according to him, should be able to face reality even when it is uncomfortable, communicate candidly even when it stings, and embrace change for it is an opportunity, not a threat. He stressed that the most important thing was having intellectual honesty, advertising what the product really offered, not the deluding the audience of something that did not exist.

“If you do these, you sanctify your work because you do your best in an ordinary way,” Puno said.

Meanwhile, Business World writer Defensor also said that ethics seem to wane in the field of print and TV journalism. I f you either read or watch news, he said, at the end there would always be sensationalized showbusiness stories.

“Is this the information we need to be free?” asked Defensor.

Deriving from one of the nine basic principles in the book “Elements of Journalism: What the Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect,” Defensor stressed that in order to have a free society, the journalists should provide informeation about the government to the people. However, because of beating deadlines, reporters tend to fail to verify facts and get the other side of the issue for people to see it in context, he said.

Defensor also said that journalism schools such as in UP Diliman lack liberal arts education. He said that writing skill could be developed in one subject for stories much call for analyses.

Meanwhile, a survey presented by Miguel Litao, Universitas Secretary and Research Officer, showed that UP students see music as something that influences the youth’s lifestyle.

“The common perceived theme was more focused on the creative aspect of life, whereby love was the most emphasized category. With this in mind, we can fully asses that there is a strong inclination towards this idea, but the question here is that whether it is brought about by the cultural background due to desire to marry or to have sex,” Litao said.

The survey, Tuazon said, was quite revealing. “These are scholars. A certain level of clean-up can be done.”

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‘Galing’

Leaving with a stench of nicotine and a hoarse voice, my non-smoking friend Jaypee told me that he lost count of the number of times a twentysomething guy beside him said “ang galing ng UP.”

Late Saturday night, we watched a streetdance competition called “5,6,7,8: A Streetdance Challenge” at the Basement in Eastwood, Libis, Quezon City. Just like any other dance contest, I expected the host, a Wave 89.1 DJ who always mistook UP Diliman for UP Manila, to present the panel of judges. But no, it wasn’t going to be a battle for intersubjective consensus but rather a battle for decibels.

Yep, you heard it right – decibels. The result of the challenge would greatly depend on audience impact, literally, as they put up a meter to measure which team gets the loudest shouts.

This leads me to my first criticism: Decibels as a way of judging who gets the P40, 000 worth of Nike products and P8, 000 cold cash is inconclusive. Aside from the presence of the Miriam College Army, the probability of a fair competition lies whether the audience or segments of it would be passive or active participants.

Speaking of the audience, what annoyed me were those of the Miriam College Army booing the Crew, a UP Diliman team, after presenting their piece. What did this mean? That they felt threatened by what they saw? If they didn’t like it, they should just discuss it to themselves. I’m not saying that they’re dumb but their disrespectful act helped raise the decibels intended for The Crew. Tsk. Tsk. Really, I’m not saying that they’re dumb.

Meanwhile, the Mapua Institute of Technology team gave us a concrete manifestation of girls who commodify their femininity by showing their skins. They successfully degraded themselves by dancing drunk (thanks to Red Horse) and strip teasing while showing their panties. To think that it’d been just days after the International Day for Women’s Rights, they reinforced my belief that some women don’t really deserve of men’s respect.

I couldn’t even believe that the Mapua team would be part of the final four alongside Miriam and UP Diliman’s The Crew and Streetdance Club. People said that they were given a chance for one of them dropped her bra. I really do think that the dance companies from the University of Santo Tomas and UP Los Baños were much better than they were.

If the Mapua team wanted to be sexy and still be respected, it should get pointers from the two UP Diliman teams. The Crew and the Streetdance Club, who eventually won the two top places, proved that you could be sexy without showing skins and touching their boobs. For them, it was just straightforward – good choreography, visibility and mastery of the steps. To see girls do the breakdances guys were most frequently seen to do, that could solely capture a guy’s attention.

What’s more, they won because they gave their best in an ordinary way. They didn’t need to boo the other teams just to boost their egos. They even clapped for them.

With all that, I can only say ---ang galing talaga ng UP!

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Bolt,the University Scholar
the first and probably the last

Bud Krammer and yours truly at UP Cine Adarna (formerly UP Film Center), February 22.

Jepiboy!

Crosswise

Lengthwise

Ester, the Korean turned "Most Outstanding International Student of the Philippines

The girl beside Mark is Karen,the one I told to join another journalism org. Too bad,it happens that she's a close aquaintance of mine.:P

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Disheartened

The task of being a God is the hardest thing to do. You have to make people love you without affecting their freewill.

Ask me what I felt when our broadcasting 100 professor enjoined us to react on a film about a TV reporter who was endowed with divine powers after railing against God and I’ll answer you with one word: dread.

At first, I found Bruce Almighty to be just one of the surreal flicks I have encountered. Even finding a very clear copy of it in a supposedly genuine video shop was frustrating. How was I going to react on something I haven’t fully seen?

Perhaps, the dread just didn’t come out of the blue. Saturday, I had to cover a youth conference sponsored by Opus Dei UP students to make up for my flawed crime story. The afternoon on that day, I had to watch a Christ-centered streetdance concert and react on it for my P.E. class. Came Tuesday, you guess it --- had to see a guy next door become the guy upstairs.

In just four days, I bumped into things all related to God. Came Thursday, our Communication 140 professor told us that the existence of God is a metanarrative, a dominant culture that people just accepted without any questions.

I admit it. The uneasiness of writing a reaction paper about God came due to this series of events just popped out at a time I was disheartened by a lot of things and wanted to give myself a break from my spiritual life. But a part of me wanted to write about Him, to think and analyze the things I intentionally delude myself into.

Let’s start with the basics. My name is Jerald and I’m a Roman Catholic. Okay, but do I practice all the things a Catholic should do? Let’s try it again. My name is Jerald and I’m a Christian. Dude, that’d be either to broad or associated with Born Again Christians. Okay, how about this? My name is Jerald and I believe that God saved me when He died on the cross. That would be fine, but what just happened to you last week?

My mind was in a haze last week. For the nth time, I found myself crying mutely inside my bedroom. I was tired of a monotonous life of experiencing the same problems. It was like every day brings tears and depression. I came to realize what I have read in a book “when pain is acute, the human mind will try to find reasons for living and ways to banish the pain.”

I have forgotten the words I thought that night but I know I had bad feelings towards God. Still, I tried to acknowledge the waning faith that He is my God and that I deserved to be struck by a lightning bolt for having detested and indirectly blamed Him for all the pain I was feeling. Nothing came.

Consequently, I decided I needed some downtime. I don’t know if that was the wisest thing to do. I believed that perhaps it would be better to be just listening to or observing people with strong faith rather than professing it.

While walking with me at the Academic Oval, my friend just talked about God. He told me how he became frustrated in cramming all his requirements for a certain course, and how a simple prayer helped him finish all of those in one day.

Two days after, in one of those melancholic nights, I texted another friend if we could just exchange places for I hated myself. He replied, though this came from a concert we watched, “Jerry, God looks at the heart,ok?”

After that, I was flooded with God-related requirements and then, this paper. I found out that just like the TV reporter in the film who failed to see the God’s love through the love of his girlfriend, I did not look at the other things or people that make life easier for me. I only looked at those that make life difficult or “incomplete.”

However, I admit that I still am looking for prudent answers and that there’s a list of things I need to overcome to be worthy of his love. I’m still that weak kid pretending to be strong.

With all these things I ran into last week, I ask now, what does God want to tell me?

The answer, of course, is already written on the first paragraph.

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