This has meant, for example, that universities have been laying a stronger and greater claim to the fruits of research undertaken under their auspices. At the University of the Philippines, plans and discussions are afoot to establish an equitable system of establishing and sharing IPR benefits.
The flipside of this is that a university like UP then also has to respect IPR – even in such basic areas as the software it uses on its machines. Don’t ask me how I know, but I’m presuming that the software piracy rate in our schools (not just UP) can’t be too far from the 90 percent-plus rate we’ve been internationally indicted for. And so UP’s implementing an "Acceptable Use Policy" that requires, among others, the use of only licensed software.
UP President Francisco "Dodong" Nemenzo has every right to complain about what he calls "digital imperialism," or the way global giants like Microsoft hold us by the throat in one too many aspects of our lives. But knowing that this argument probably won’t stand up in the courts, he has sanctioned a move for UP to switch, as an institution, to free, open-source software like Linux and StarOffice. These programs – developed by people who feel that the world deserves good and practically free alternatives to pricey software – can run just like Windows and MSOffice on any PC (or Mac), and they cost next to nothing.
As a weekend geek and Mac addict, I’d been curious about Linux for some time but never got around to playing with it (the new Mac OS X also runs Linux programs); last week, to get into the UP’s new "digital rebel" spirit, I bit the bullet and bought myself a copy of Red Hat Linux for Dummies and installed the accompanying software on my PowerBook. It actually looks good. I’ll tell you soon how well this pocket revolt goes.
We thought and the Uleps thought that we had found a donor – who’s already been very kindly helping with the dialysis bills – who was willing to underwrite the whole operation, but we realized sadly, the other day, that this source might not be able to afford much more. Mrs. Ulep, a former OFW whose own savings have long been drained by her husband’s struggle, was understandably in tears; they had just spent some precious thousands they had collected for the donor-compatibility testing – and who else but Florita herself would end up offering her kidney? The test results have been promising – it just might work – and the Uleps had thought that the transplant could be taking place within a month.
The news that the operation might not push through for lack of funds gutted Florita, who now does some housework for us twice a week. Ironically, it had been a happy day for the Uleps – Dionisio had just gotten new eyeglasses, courtesy of a donation from my friend and drinking buddy Charlson Ong (it’s just a few beers, Charles, I’ll make it up to you); his eyesight had been ravaged by the disease but now he could see again. Florita was laughing for joy one minute then weeping in grief the next.
Is there some miracle-worker out there – maybe someone like Mike Arroyo, or one of the taipans – who might be able to bring a happy conclusion to this wrenching tale? It’s a quintessentially Filipino story whose ending I refuse to yield to my own writerly pessimism. I even feel awful for having helped the Uleps come this far, only to fall short in the end. If someone can help, please e-mail me below, or send me a text message at 0917-5300951. Many thanks and all good karma to you.
Ed Gomez – one of the very few to whom UP has accorded its highest academic rank of "University Professor" – got to be where he is because of an uncompromising and lifelong devotion to excellence and a no-nonsense work ethic that requires him and his subordinates to put in at least eight hours of solid, honest work every day at the office or at the research lab. (And lest you imagine Ed’s a sourpuss, think again; he smiles and kids around as much as anybody else.) What struck me, as his achievements were being related, was that Ed had graduated from La Salle summa cum laude (that’s not the surprising part of things) – with a double major in Social Sciences and English. He then went on to take a master’s degree in biology in the United States, doing his thesis on ferns, and finally moved from botany to his true passion, oceanography, at the world-renowned Scripps Institute in San Diego. (I’m no Ed Gomez, but I went around things the other way – enrolling in UP right out of Philippine Science High School as an industrial engineering major, before dropping out and, many years later, finding myself in English. Fellow writer, English professor, and STAR columnist Isagani Cruz, on the other hand, took a physics degree before moving on to literature.)
In his remarks praising Ed, Dodong Nemenzo also took the opportunity to honor the person after whom the award was named, Professor Ching Dadufalza, who was too infirm to attend the ceremonies. Dodong recalled how Professor Dadufalza, who recently turned 80, had inspired generations of Filipino thinkers and doers – including even exiled Communist Party leader and former student (and English major!) Joma Sison, who sent in an essay acknowledging Dadufalza’s superb teaching (along with the obligatory demurrer to her ideas). "Good teaching does not mean cloning oneself," Dodong sagely observed.
My warmest congratulations to Ed Gomez, with whom I had the privilege of serving on a committee, and whose example should remind us that, with the right resolve and support, Filipinos can become world-class scientists, on top of being world-class ex-English majors.
Like thousands of other high schoolers in the mid-‘60s, I cut my dramatic teeth on Florentino’s The World Is an Apple – which, at least until Paul Dumol’s Ang Paglilitis ni Mang Serapio came along, was everybody’s obligatory high school play. Bert would move on to write many other memorable plays – first in English, then later in Filipino – but Philippine literature owes him a great debt for yet another reason: his boldness and his vision in publishing some of the best works of Filipino authors in his landmark "Peso Books" series, so-called because they sold for a peso a copy (sigh – those were the days).
Based these past many years in the United States, Bert Florentino comes home now and then – often enough, actually – to touch base with both his contemporaries and new writers and their works. He’s always welcome in literary gatherings, one of Philippine literature’s genuine enfants terribles now become one of its grand old men. But it must give Bert an extra lift in his step to have his own plays revived and mounted by the likes of Cecile for the enjoyment and edification of a new generation.
My own brush with theater and playwriting also owes much to Cecile and to the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA), which she headed and which I joined as a summer trainee in 1970, in my senior year in high school. Several of us had been urged on by our drama teacher, a very young Lorli Villanueva, to take more theater courses with PETA. There are worse things you can do at 16 than hang out at Fort Santiago all day and half the night with guys (and, uhm, gals) imbibing Chekhov, Brecht, and one another’s energy.
I spent that summer learning not just how to write plays, but how to mount stage lights, sell tickets, and even act (I had one line in one play, Brecht’s The Good Woman of Szechwan: "Would you like another cup of tea, Mrs. Yang?" I went around for years afterwards, mumbling that line.) On summery days like this, I remember what it was to be 16, and can’t help grinning.