Animals, humans

Pinoy Kasi : Animals, humans

First posted 00:51am (Mla time) May 31, 2006
By Michael L. Tan
Inquirer

Editor's Note: Published on Page A13 of the May 31, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

WHAT’S your dog trying to tell you as it gives you that adoring look, tail wagging away? Does she really love you for you, or for your doggie treats? Or does she simply accommodate you as an alpha dog, the leader of the pack?

And your cat? As he purrs away, rubbing himself against your leg, is he expressing affection for you, or is he just marking you, telling the world you’re his, or at least part of his territory?

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein famously summarized the dilemma, and I paraphrase: If lions could speak, we still wouldn’t be able to understand them.

Now comes an extraordinary animal behaviorist, Temple Grandin, to help translate with a book entitled, well, “Animals in Translation.” She’s so good she makes her living working as a consultant advising governments and private businesses on how to slaughter animals more humanely. Vegetarians and animal rights groups will of course say that “humane slaughter” is an oxymoron, but Grandin says that cows, pigs, sheep and other food animals are there only because we domesticate and bred them to be eaten, so we have to assume the responsibility as well for insuring a “happy death” for them.

Reading minds

Whether you agree with that argument or not, Grandin does present a wealth of information that isn’t limited to humane slaughter.

I read the book initially as a veterinarian, picking up quite a few new lessons on handling animals. Sadly, vet schools offer minimal training around animal behavior. One reason, and Grandin emphasizes this in her book, is that relatively little research has been done in this field compared to studies in human psychology. Many scientists will even question whether there’s anything worth studying in animals, presuming that their behavior is mechanical, driven by software wired into the brain. Many scientists, too, will argue that animals don’t think, or feel and really, they’re just inferior to humans.

Grandin questions these assumptions, and to support her many hypotheses about animals, she cites the growing number of studies -- in laboratories as well as out there in the wild, in nature -- that show animal behavior can be even more complicated than that of humans.

Grandin draws from many insights from her own work and experiences, much of them in slaughterhouses. She says that if we humans are to read animal minds, we have to put ourselves, literally, in their position. She found herself crouching lower to ground level, to understand what animals see at that level, as they’re being led into pens. For example, puddles of water seem to spook many farm animals, making them freeze in their tracks. Frustrated animal handlers will shout at the animals, prod them, all to no avail, and yet totally oblivious to a simple solution: mopping up the water.

Cows also get nervous seeing anything fluttering in the wind, especially if it’s colored yellow. And, closer to our homes, many of us know that if we run into a nervous, hostile dog, the worst thing is to run because abrupt movements trigger them to chase after us -- and possibly attack.

Good dog, bad dog

But animals can be “rewired” so they don’t act on instinct alone. A puppy raised with kittens will coexist peacefully with cats. Some of this is common sense: I’ve written about how dogs raised with constant close and friendly contact with humans will not attack and bite, but they still make good watchdogs because instinctively, they will bark if someone enters their territory. Now if you confine them in a cage or keep them chained, you overemphasize their territoriality and they could attack even their owners.

Grandin emphasizes how animal learning is very much tied to contexts. Dogs learn not to chase after the children at home, even if they run around. But you also have to train them to “respect” other children who visit, and also to behave when they’re out in the streets. It’s a bit like theater, with different settings, different casts.

Grandin describes differences across animal species. Many animal species work mainly on fear, but dogs have co-evolved with us so closely that they’re really almost “social” in a human sense, which is why, when you train them, even verbal praise goes a long way. They don’t really “understand” what “good dog” means but they’re doing their own translation as well, more or less sensing that the tone of your voice in “good dog” means you approve of what they just did ... unlike the “bad dog” you give when they do something bad.

Different?

There’s so much more in Grandin’s book; in fact, if you’re in a hurry, I suggest you go to the last part first, with a concise “Behavior and Training Troubleshooting Guide.” But if you have the time and the interest, do go through the whole book and marvel with the knowledge that Grandin is autistic.

She reminds us constantly about this, and says that it is her autism that makes her so good as an animal behaviorist. Autistics think more often in visual images than in abstract language, and Grandin says this is probably the way animals function as well.

This explains why autistics can become so fixated -- with the electric fan, for example, or particular sounds. A friend of mine told me recently her autistic brother has to have a radio or television on all the time, even if he doesn’t actually listen or watch.

These fixations can work to the advantage of autistics. For example, Grandin suggests that non-autistics working on X-ray machines for security checks of luggage will eventually tire, seeing everything as clutter, while autistics will still be able to see through the mess. It’s a similar principle that works with security dogs. They’re fixated on finding drugs, or weapons, and can do this the whole day.

I’m going to use parts of Grandin’s book for my anthropology students as well because the book tells us as much about humans as about animals. Grandin’s book helps us to come to terms with how much we’re wired, wanting to run when we see a growling dog for example; on the other hand, we also realize how we (and animals) can also work on different “circuits,” how we can be rewired.

Grandin also reminds me of the very common misconception that we’re sitting on the top of the evolutionary scale. We like to think our brains evolved to make us reflective and wise, but this has not been without trade-offs: being “conscious” and “rational” also means we also have to deal with more anxieties and apprehensions. Ironically, it is this rationality that sometimes drives us to lash out in fear or in anger, even as we claim to be civil and civilized. As we learn more about animals and their worlds, we just might realize that what we often contemptuously call the “animal” in us might actually be all too uniquely human.

Vet conference

The Veterinary Practitioners Association of the Philippines (VPAP) will hold its annual convention at the Wack Wack Country Club on June 1 and 2. Call the VPAP office at +632 9266603 and 4103809 for more information, or go directly to Wack Wack for on-site registration.

Calle Real

Pinoy Kasi : Calle Real

First posted 01:27am (Mla time) May 26, 2006
By Michael L. Tan
Inquirer



Editor's Note: Published on Page A15 of the May 26, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



THERE’S an excellent exhibit, “Handurawan,” at the 3rd Floor of SM City mall in Mandurriao, Iloilo City, running up to May 30. Part of the National Heritage Month celebrations, “Handurawan,” which means a glimpse of the past, is actually several exhibits rolled into one, organized by the University of the Philippines (UP) in the Visayas.

One photo exhibit focuses on the “nikkei-jin,” people of Japanese descent, on Panay Island. The exhibit is the product of laborious research conducted by Prof. Maria Luisa Mabunay of the UP. I have written about her work in a previous column.

Another exhibit looks at the “patadyong,” that versatile cotton weave, with 20 samples of different geometric designs, each with their own name -- like “binuskay gamay” [small pebbles], “pulahan” [lots of red] and the “linibat” [literally, cross-eyed, referring to asymmetrical designs].

A third exhibit is devoted to photographs of Iloilo’s old buildings in the central business district, around what used to be called Calle Real (Royal Street, or translated by a 19th-century British writer as High Street) but since renamed J. Basa Street.

I was fortunate to be with Leo Quintilla and his wife Zen. Leo is a historian and an anthropologist teaching at UP. He had pulled me out of the hotel to visit some heritage sites in Iloilo. The instant tour included a sunset peek at the ruins of the old Casino Español and dinner in an old house, reincarnated as Afriques restaurant, and a drive around the central business district.

The district, which includes Basa, Mapa, Guanco, Aldeguer, Guanco and Iznart streets, is home to many old buildings built from the 1920s to the 1950s, mostly in Art Deco style. Many are still functional, the first floor used as shops, and the upper floors as residences. The combinations are wonderfully eclectic -- one of my favorites has a bakery on the first floor, while the second floor has residences with wide windows through which you can peek in to catch exquisite woodwork.

Model

Iloilo could be a model for other Philippine cities when it comes to the preservation of heritage sites, which they define as any place more than 50 years old. The city government has passed a World Cultural Heritage Conservation Ordinance, together with guidelines for conservation planning and development.

That same day I was in Iloilo, a local newspaper, The Informer (with an Inquirer look-alike masthead), publicized a campaign to save Calle Real. That article led me to the website of the Canadian Urban Institute (www.philippines.canurb.com), where I was able to download a hefty 10 megabyte document describing the conservation ordinance and providing guidelines.

The document should be required reading for college students, in or out of Iloilo. The city government, in partnership with local architects and conservationists, has done its homework describing the historical context of the buildings, from Iloilo’s sleepy beginnings as the village of Arevalo in the 16th century, through its urban development in the 19th and 20th centuries. There’s a catalogue of heritage buildings, from religious houses to Lucky Auto Supply, with architectural drawings and descriptions of the façades.

The document gives a rather glum description of the current situation in the central business district. While many buildings are intact, many are deteriorating. Others have been “maligned” by ugly signs (one photograph showed a “Wanted GROs” sign posted on one of the old buildings). The guidelines are almost confessional, admitting that the city government’s own skywalks (overhead pedestrian bridges) have “blighted” the historical landscape.

Incentives

The conservation law offers some hope by forbidding the buildings’ alteration or demolition without permission from the city government. There’s a list of prohibited uses for the buildings -- new warehouses to funeral parlors, and “recreational activities, lewd shows, betting and gambling stations, massage and saunas.”

The ordinance offers incentives by way of tax exemptions, for property owners who will spend for conservation. This is where the guidelines come in, with suggestions on everything down to garbage bins. The guidelines explain what can be done in the area of architecture -- for example, the space between buildings, and the preservation of “arcaded sidewalks” for pedestrians. Reading that section on the sidewalks reminded me of how so many of these old buildings are actually so much friendlier to people—the building owners sheltering passersby from the sun and the rain. Of course, their intentions were also to attract possible shoppers, who would pause and look at their display windows, but the arcaded sidewalks were so much more humane, and aesthetically pleasing, than our malls today.

Public, private

Yes, I did realize the irony of a heritage exhibit in a mall like SM City, but maybe the exhibit did speak, too, of how heritage preservation need not clash with modernity, or with commercial interests.

Easily, as the central district goes through a renaissance, the city gains as well. Property values are bound to soar and businesses prosper. This could mean the district becoming too upper-class or too “touristy,” and that, too, would be a shame. The city government might want to think of ways of keeping it friendly to all Iloilo residents or tourists, rich or poor alike. There are plans for sidewalk cafés and a night market, properly integrated, of course, into the overall design of the area. Providing fairly low rentals could make the market friendlier to all classes.

Iloilo’s conservation guidelines keep going back to the point of making a heritage site more people-friendly, not necessarily just for shoppers and consumers. The guidelines emphasize convenience for pedestrians as they walk through, and the removal of any obstructions that might prevent them from appreciating the heritage sites.

In a way, that conservation ethic is reflected as well in the “Handurawan” exhibit, which gets people to appreciate a whole range of our heritage, from the designs on the “patadyong” to the fine architectural details of old buildings.

Conservation is, of course, more than visual stimulation. The revival of Calle Real can be catalyzed, too, by breathing in culture, allowing it to become a venue for cultural events. Iloilo is, after all, home to so many great artists, from the Kabayao family of musical virtuosos, to the painter Rock Drilon.

With well-planned public activities and public education (a good start is the way they’ve offered a raffle for MP3 players to people who send in comments on the conservation guidelines), Iloilo’s residents -- young or old, rich or poor -- will understand they’re conserving not just buildings and public space, but their identities as Ilonggos, as Filipinos. Eventually, they’ll feel they have stakes in keeping all of Iloilo a city of Royal or High Streets.

Scholars

Pinoy Kasi : Scholars

First posted 00:52am (Mla time) May 24, 2006
By Michael L. Tan
Inquirer



Editor's Note: Published on Page A15 of the May 24, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer



IT USED to be that people would bring jewelry to the pawnshops when they needed money. But these days, they bring their cell phones to the Greenhills Shopping Center to sell.

There’s a whole section now of used (or, to use the nice term, “pre-owned”) organizers, digital cameras and even an occasional laptop or two. On a recent visit, I noticed how some of the gadgets were practically brand new. I did wonder aloud to one vendor if they were “GSM” (“galing sa magnanakaw,” or hot stolen goods). The vendor gave me a hurt look, followed by a sad one, explaining in Filipino that they get more of these items around the month of May, the sellers needing cash to pay for tuition.

This year more than in previous ones, I sense that Filipinos are finding it harder to keep their children in school. The really poor ones talk about pulling their children out of a public school. Tuition may be free but they can’t afford the transportation, food allowance, books and supplies. What’s shocking, too, are the number of middle-class parents who are transferring their children from private to public schools.

Government scholarships are hard to come by, so many of us have to take up the slack, often with poorer relatives. But I feel strongly, too, that if we do have the resources, we should also be helping those who are not related to us. The country’s going to lag behind even more if we allow so much human potential out there to go to waste.

Decisions

Given the number of people in need, it can be difficult making decisions on whom to support, what courses to take and in which school. I’ve learned, often the hard way, so I thought of sharing a few lessons I picked up with the ones I put through school.

First, whom to support? It’s hard to say. “Bright” is difficult to measure, given that there are actually multiple intelligences. A kid may not be good in math, but excel in the arts, for example. Trust your instincts; I’d go more for diligence and an eagerness to learn.

Grade school, high school or college? I’d give first priority to support kids through high school or college, but I occasionally help out with a promising child in grade school. In many cases, investing in good elementary education means a strong foundation that can get a child into a government science high school, or into a state college later on, with lower tuition but with good quality education.

If you do decide to support someone for tertiary education, sit down with the student and the family to explore options thoroughly. Frankly, unless the child is exceptional, I wouldn’t invest in a four-year course. Be extra careful about males; sadly, even poor families privilege their sons too much and they tend to just squander their opportunities.

Ladderized education

If you do want to go for a four-year course, avoid “commerce” and “computer science” and other fads. Work out a ladderized arrangement that allows your scholar to obtain a certificate or diploma through different steps. Start out with vocational-type courses. Electronics is still a good one to go for, given how people are always looking for a good person to repair household appliances.

Perhaps the best initial “investment” is still a six-month caregiver course which could mean an overseas placement. (I say this with a heavy heart, but for so many families, this may be the only way to move out of perpetual dependency.)

After the six-month caregiver course, promising students can go on to take a two-year course in practical nursing or as a nursing aide. That can be followed by another two years to get a bachelor’s degree in nursing. If the student really does well, hold your breath, you can go on to support him through medicine.

You can take a short cut (as I do), and simply support medical students. They tend to be a more mature and reliable lot, and these days, more genuinely interested in the profession than in finding a way to migrate.

Schools

If you don’t have anyone asking you for help, I’d advise you visit your alma mater or a school which you feel is worth your while, and ask how you can put up a scholarship fund. You can leave the screening to the scholarships office, although you can always give certain specifications in terms of grade requirements, courses, or even ethnic and religious background. I’m a firm believer in affirmative action, of giving an added advantage to those who have been marginalized by historical circumstances -- Muslims, for example.

If you are supporting individuals on your own, take time out to help a scholar look for a school. There are so many diploma mills around. Be careful about schools that make extravagant claims such as instant employment. Be realistic with the prospects. A six-month caregiver course, for example, isn’t enough for Canada, which requires two years of college units as well.

Visit the schools yourself to check out facilities, faculty, students. Probe their tuition and payment plans. Go for paying an entire year’s tuition since installment plans sometimes border on usury.

Also make sure to ask about incidental fees that might turn out to be more than incidental: for books, supplies, even computers for those computer courses. Always negotiate as well with the family about a local counterpart, taking care of allowances for example. But be prepared, too, for unanticipated expenses.

Find ways to check, regularly, on the student’s progress. Don’t wait until his grades come in to find out something had gone wrong. The scholar’s needs go beyond the financial; for example, if the student comes from a low-income family, or from a rural area, you will need to keep encouraging the scholar and building his self-confidence, as he grapples with a new environment, like the University of the Philippines (UP) or the Ateneo de Manila University.

You don’t have to be rich to have scholars. Share what you can with poorer relatives, or children of your employees, taking care of just the tuition, or books. For older scholars, offer part-time work so they can feel they’re supporting themselves.

Even fairly small amounts will go a long way. For example, UP suggests P50,000 to support a scholar’s living costs for a school year. If I may appeal to overseas Filipinos, that’s less than $1,000. At West Visayas State University’s medical college, P20,000 pays for a year’s tuition. That’s less than $400.

It was P10,000 a year when I first pitched in with West Visayas. One of my scholars graduated last year among the top students in his class, and romped off with several awards as an outstanding intern, sending me a text message me as he got each award. He’s now reviewing for the board exams.

Even in developed countries, there will always be good students who need just a little help to get going in life. For a country like the Philippines, doing our share, no matter how small, becomes a matter of national survival.

Side effects

Pinoy Kasi : Side effects

First posted 00:32am (Mla time) May 19, 2006
By Michael L. Tan
Inquirer

Editor's Note: Published on Page A15 of the May 19, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE government’s annual family planning surveys are becoming almost too predictable.

The latest survey, conducted in 2005 among 50,000 households and released early this week, shows the CPR to be 49.3 percent. CPR here isn’t cardio-pulmonary resuscitation or the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration’s “calibrated preemptive response” policy on protest rallies, but contraceptive prevalence rate, a fancy term for family planning usage. The National Statistics Office (NSO), which is responsible for conducting the survey, notes that this CPR has not increased in the last five years.

The release of the family planning survey (FPS) statistics came only a few days after Economic Planning Secretary Romulo Neri came out with the claim that the country’s annual population growth rate had dropped from 2.36 percent to 1.95 percent. Neri came under fire after the announcement as people wondered how he could make that claim when the government has not conducted a national census since 2000.

The release of the latest FPS shows that little is happening in the area of family planning, so it would be a major miracle indeed if the population growth rate has dropped. Yet, President Arroyo came out shortly after Neri’s announcement noting that drop in population growth rate and suggesting that family planning funds now be transferred to school-feeding programs.

The President was obviously responding to bad publicity from the latest survey by the Social Weather Stations research group on hunger in Filipino households. I wonder though if she has ever wondered if there’s a connection between hunger and rapid population growth, one which is likely to continue if family planning usage remains at its current low rates.

Let me put the CPR figures in context. First, the national average of 49 percent reflects wide discrepancies. Cagayan Valley has the highest CPR with 58 percent, while the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao has a dismal 16 percent. The National Capital Region -- Metro Manila -- has a rate of 44 percent, lower than the national average.

One reason the national CPR of 49 percent is so infuriating is that we can’t seem to at least break the 50 percent mark, even as other countries all over the world are racing ahead. To give a few examples from among our neighbors, Vietnam has a CPR of 79 percent; Thailand, 72 percent; Singapore, 62 percent; and Indonesia, 60 percent.

In these countries, a large percentage of the family planning users employ modern methods, meaning those that are reliable. In the Philippines, the 49 percent figure includes some 13 percent who are using methods like withdrawal, a crude method with a very high rate of failure.

Fears

Why aren’t more Filipinos using family planning? The main reason, one which has persisted through the years, has not been religion. Muslim leaders in Mindanao, for example, issued a fatwa or religious edict a few years ago supporting family planning. And while Roman Catholic bishops oppose “artificial” family planning, most Catholics who are not using family planning have never heard of the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae, or the theological explanations of the “unitive” and “procreative” functions of marriage which are used to forbid “artificial” contraception.

What many Filipinos have heard are stories of “side effects” of family planning methods. In a research I conducted a few years back, these fears revolve mainly around the pill, with perceived dangers ranging from cancer to putting on weight. (I should say quickly that many low-income women actually saw the weight gain as a good thing, a sign that they had a good fit or hiyang with a particular brand.)

There are also “side effects” described for other modern methods. Tubal ligation, for example, is believed by many to lead to increased libido for the woman ... and a potential for extramarital affairs.

The fears are often unfounded, based on hearsay as well as popular misconceptions about how the body works. For example, pills are believed to cause cancer because they are taken daily, leaving residues (“latak”) in the uterus that accumulate.

The connection between tubal ligation and increased libido may have been based partly on husbands’ (and wives’) observations that women are more sexually responsive and relaxed after the ligation. That shouldn’t be surprising, considering that the fear of an unwanted pregnancy has been removed, but to equate that with nymphomania and extramarital pregnancies requires a fertile imagination.

The male imagination, that is. Many of the fears around contraception are really male-based. The irony is that as our family planning program weakens, men become even more powerful.

How so? The misconceptions going around in relation to family planning are often perpetuated by a mixed bunch of men. A vocal few are opposed to family planning for religious reasons, but others couldn’t care less about religion, their opposition based on machismo values that equate masculinity with having as many children as possible. Opposition from husbands was in fact mentioned together with a fear of side effects as the main reason for women wanting to drop out of family planning.

Losers

Perhaps what’s so painful about the FPS findings is that women generally seem to want family planning, and are even willing to pay for services and methods. Yet their access to family planning has been shrinking under the present government.

The President claims she is in favor of choices, and, claiming that too much had been poured into “artificial” family planning methods like the pill, she has called for more resources to be poured into natural family planning (NFP). The Catholic organization Couples for Christ received P50 million from the Department of Health two years ago to do this, but the impact doesn’t show in the FPS, which found NFP usage to be at a measly 0.4 percent. Reproductive health groups also observed that more time seemed to be spent spreading more misconceptions about “artificial” methods rather than promoting natural family planning itself.

Low family planning usage has many side effects for the nation. And who are the biggest losers in all this? It’s the women, who have to face up to one unwanted pregnancy after another, often finding themselves having to raise children alone as the men abscond. It’s the children who lose, with poorer health and nutrition, and higher dropout rates from schools.

There’s a story going around about one city mayor in Mindanao who asked his parish priest, “Father, we have so many street children now. Could you allow them to sleep in your church?” The priest hesitated, and then explained that it would be too difficult for him to handle so many children. The wise mayor smiled and said, “Then, Father, would you mind keeping quiet when I promote family planning?”

Summer's rituals

Pinoy Kasi : Summer’s rituals

First posted 01:30am (Mla time) May 17, 2006
By Michael L. Tan
Inquirer

Editor's Note: Published on Page A15 of the May 17, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE weekend typhoon reminded us that summer may be ending soon, which means time is running out for that ritual of passage of “pagtutuli,” or male circumcision.

I’ve written in the past about this practice, mainly to point out that its medical basis has come under question. The American Academy of Pediatrics, for example, issued a statement in 1999 saying the health benefits of the practice “are not compelling enough.”

You should have seen the angry feedback I got from readers -- mainly men -- whenever I did a column questioning the need for circumcision. “It’s cleaner” was the most common argument, to which I’d say that you can be circumcised and still quite, uh, sloppy.

Others argued that circumcision was needed to produce children. To which I would respond that circumcision is not practiced in mainland China so how come we now have more than a billion Chinese? (A side story: Some angry readers asked if I had been cut and I’d say, with a bit of dramatic flair, yes I’ve been mutilated, as with most Chinese-Filipinos.)

‘Supot’

Another popular Filipino belief is that circumcision is needed, around puberty, to spur growth.

I should share a little story here to refute that argument. Many years ago, the NGO I worked with got a Dutch volunteer agriculturist, Michiel, assigned to us. He arrived shortly before summer and promptly noticed all the free circumcision missions being offered. When he asked about this one time, over lunch, the NGO staff explained that an uncircumcised boy would end up “bansot,” or with stunted growth.

Michiel mustered all his Tagalog to protest: “Hindi ‘yan totoo.” [“That’s not true.”] The staff broke out in hysterical laughter, realizing Michiel, who was like 6 feet 3 inches, was, as most Dutch go, uncut. And yet the Dutch are said to be the tallest people on earth. Really now, if circumcision produces tall people, why do we still have to import basketball players, some of whom are probably “supot” [uncircumcised]?

“Supot.” Paper bag. Let’s face it -- we drag our sons to get circumcised to save them from ostracism. The term “supot” stigmatizes people for life, marking them as poor lovers and poor basketball players (not only are they shorter, they’re also said to be poor shots). The word is even used to insult people, as in a sign I saw the other week posted on a wall as a warning: “Supot lang ang umiihi dito.” [“Only the uncircumcised will pee here.”]

The worst is when someone “supot” passes and naughty friends wrinkle their noses, claiming the poor hygiene wafts through.

HIV/AIDS

Some readers are probably now itching to tell me, hey, what about all these reports now that circumcision can prevent HIV/AIDS.

We need to be a tad careful here. Yes, it’s true: Medical researchers have found that there generally seems to be fewer HIV infections in countries where circumcision is practiced. In Asia, the lower infection rates have been noted in the “cut league” of countries, which includes the Philippines, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Indonesia (yes, circumcision is part of our pre-colonial Muslim heritage).

Generally, the studies seem to suggest some “protective” effect from circumcision, not just for males but for their female partners. The reduced risk isn’t just for HIV/AIDS. In a paper issued last month, the US Agency for International Development noted that circumcision has been known to “greatly reduce a man’s risk of penile cancer . . . and it also reduces risk of some other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including chancroid, herpes and syphilis. It eliminates problems such as phimosis (narrow foreskin opening) and balanitis (infected foreskin), and has been shown to significantly reduce the risk of cervical cancer among female partners of circumcised men.”

How does this protective effect work? It’s interesting that the anti-circumcision camp has argued that uncircumcised males experience more sexual pleasure because the extra skin is sensitive, but now the pro-circumcision camp says the foreskin actually has more “target cells” that attract infectious microorganisms like HIV. The foreskin is also said to be more susceptible to tears and abrasions, which means easier infection by HIV and other microorganisms causing STDs.

No magic bullet

Where does this leave us now? USAID is careful in saying “MC” (sigh, Americans probably gave Filipinos this love for acronyms) is not a “magic bullet” and that it “it will not provide full protection against HIV.” Rather wryly, USAID also points out that circumcision “will provide little or no protection against urethral STDs such as gonorrhea and Chlamydia [known locally as “tulo”] and obviously will not prevent unwanted pregnancies.”

It’s important then to keep repeating that just because Filipinos are “cut” does not mean we’re immune from HIV. The HIV epidemic in the Philippines, previously described as “low and slow,” is now considered to be “hidden and growing” so we need to continue to be vigilant and to promote a package of prevention methods, including condoms.

USAID, in fact, warns that there may be a need to have programs of behavioral “disinhibition” among circumcised males who might return to high-risk behavior thinking they’re adequately protected by circumcision.

Since circumcision is already being practiced here, I’d go a step further and look at how we might want to borrow from a program in Kenya, where circumcision, which is practiced as a traditional ritual, now integrates preventive health education.

In the Philippines, circumcision is only one of summer’s rituals of passage. It used to be that after young men had recovered from circumcision, their older male relatives would bring them to a brothel for their “binyag,” a second, more profane form of baptism.

Times have changed and we should be rethinking these rituals. Circumcision may be a good time to explain that the passage from boyhood to manhood isn’t just a matter of being brave during the cutting ritual, or of going off to conquer women in brothels.

There is a folk belief that the circumcised male should “protect” his wares from the female gaze, lest this swell and redden like tomatoes. That belief could well be used to explain that manhood is a matter of learning to be responsible, and of respecting women.

Tomato metaphors aside, I’ve found in the Philippines that it’s especially useful to remind young men to see, in every woman, their own mother or sister. That kind of thinking may yet be a more effective preventive action against HIV/AIDS and STDs than circumcision.

Global mamas

Pinoy Kasi : Global mamas

First posted 01:25am (Mla time) May 12, 2006
By Michael L. Tan
Inquirer

Editor's Note: Published on Page A15 of the May 12, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

FILIPINOS like to boast about how much we love our mothers, but I’ve often wondered how much of that loving translates into real caring.

The other day, I stumbled upon the “State of the World’s Mothers” report for 2006 compiled by Save the Children USA. Apparently, they’ve been doing this global report card for a few years now, rating and ranking countries by how mother-friendly they are, by using several indicators, which I’ll describe shortly.

Before looking at the indicators let’s look at the Philippines’ ranking for the Mothers’ Index, relative to the world, and to Asia. Globally, among 125 countries, the Philippines ranked almost exactly midway at 63rd. Other Asian countries had the following ranks: Japan was 12th, China and Thailand 39th, Vietnam 44th, Malaysia 52nd, Indonesia and Sri Lanka 69th, India 93rd, Laos 94th, Bangladesh 106th, Cambodia, Nepal and Pakistan 107th.

How was the Mothers’ Index constructed? Save the Children combined several indicators to construct a Women’s Index and a Children’s Index, which were then combined to yield the Mother’s Index. This research method makes some sense since a mother’s situation depends on how she is treated as a woman, and how much of support services are available for children.

The indicators for the Women’s Index are lifetime risk of maternal mortality, percent of births attended by skilled personnel, percent of pregnant women with anemia, percent of women using modern family planning, literacy rate for adult females and percent of national government seats held by women.

For the Children’s Index, the indicators are infant mortality rate (how many children die before the age of one), percent of children enrolled in primary school, percent of population with access to safe water and percent of children under the age of 5 who suffer from moderate or severe nutritional wasting.

Certainly, the indicators themselves will have limitations. For example, the percentage of women with national government seats is very important for advancing women’s (and mothers’) concerns but, as we only too sadly know in the Philippines, even having a woman President does not necessarily mean we have a champion for women’s issues.

Mother-friendliest

I’m sure we can all think of many other indicators we’d like included in both the Women’s Index and Children’s Index, but when you’re trying to compare more than a hundred countries, you have to be quite selective in choosing the indicators.

The global report card for mothers does allow us to draw some insights as to how countries might become more mother-friendly. When I first glanced at the rankings, I could already tell that the situation of mothers does not correlate with a country’s economic status.

The oil-rich Middle Eastern countries ranked lower than the Philippines (Saudi Arabia was a dismal 83rd). The United States, the world’s most economically powerful country, ranked only 10th in the Mothers’ Index because its healthcare system is so deficient. US infant mortality rate, for example, is even higher than those of some developing countries.

Similarly, Japan, the world’s second largest economy, ranked only 12th in the Mothers’ Index, the poorest performer among industrialized countries. This shouldn’t be surprising since women’s status continues to lag far behind men’s in that bastion of male conservatism. The contraceptive pill, for example, was not approved in Japan until a few years ago, with Japanese women’s groups grumbling that it took their government more than 30 years to do so and less than a year to allow Viagra for the men.

Not surprisingly, the Scandinavian countries topped the league for mothers, with Sweden leading the pack, followed by Denmark and Finland. These social-welfare states are well known for their package of benefits for mothers, including maternal leaves for as long as two years.

If you look at the Asian countries that do well in the Mothers’ Index, you’ll find that they too generally have strong, state-supported social services. Note that it isn’t just health services that count. The Save the Children report has extensive discussions on the importance of girls’ access to education. Countries where girls are taken out of schools early will also fare poorly with women’s and children’s health.

Surrogate mothers

Being midway in the global rankings tells us we’re not doing too badly, but we certainly can do much more. Our health centers are good, with services like immunizations and prenatal care, but we’re neglecting one vital area, which is family planning. A new twist to this neglect is the way we seem to want to wish away the problem, through the statistics. The Inquirer’s front page yesterday quoted Socio-economic Secretary Romulo Neri as claiming that the population growth rate has dropped. But how can he make this claim when we haven’t had a national census since the year 2000, canceling the 2005 census supposedly because government had no money?

Our mothers deserve more than headline statistics and publicity gimmicks, like the city of Manila herding in more than 3,000 mothers so it could claim a new world record of simultaneous breastfeeding. This in a city that bans the promotion of “artificial” family planning in its health centers.

There is one indicator that is important if we really want to assess our situation, and this is the number of mothers who are forced by economic circumstances to work overseas, separated from their children. I have no exact figures but I am certain this runs into a million at the very least. We have to remember, too, it’s not just overseas work that separates mothers from their children; many of our rural women end up working in urban households as domestic helpers, leaving their children behind.

This Mother’s Day, in many countries throughout the world, children will be honoring Filipino nannies and housekeepers who have become their second mothers. Many Filipinas aren’t just global nannies, they’re now global “nanay” [mothers], global mamas, often at great cost to their own children back home. This Mother’s Day then, we would do well to honor the country’s many surrogate mothers -- the aunts, grandmothers, godmothers, adoptive mothers and many others, men included -- who try to fill the vacuum, no questions asked, no conditions on the love for the children they’ve taken into their homes.

Juvenile justice

Pinoy Kasi : Juvenile justice

First posted 01:17am (Mla time) May 10, 2006
By Michael L. Tan
Inquirer

Editor's Note: Published on Page A13 of the May 10, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

I HAVEN’T been able to thank Unicef and the Philippine Press Institute for the “Outstanding Column on Children” award they gave me last month. It’s the third year in a row that they’ve given me the award, and this time, it was for a column (“Kids behind bars”) that I did last August, focusing on the plight of Filipino children thrown into jail, sometimes held for extended periods without trial.

A week after the awards, I read that the President signed Republic Act 9344, the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006. We should be congratulating Sen. Francis Pangilinan for being so persistent in getting that law passed, a major victory for child welfare advocates. Now the hard work begins, and the first step is to get the public to understand this new law.

Not criminals

Even without detailed implementing rules and regulations, the law is quite comprehensive and could eventually become a model for other countries. Let’s look at some of its major provisions:

A Juvenile Justice Welfare Council will be set up to implement the law. This council will be under the Department of Justice, but headed by a Department of Social Welfare undersecretary.

The law is clear in explaining that we are not dealing with criminals. What we have are “children in conflict with the law.” A child 15 years old or below at the time he or she commits an offense “shall be exempt from criminal liability.” The same provision applies to those aged 15 to 18, but with a difficult provision: “unless he/she has acted with discernment.” For serious offenses, the offender could be sent to a rehabilitation center, but definitely not a prison. (The situation was so bad at one time that we even had minors sent to Death Row!)

There are additional safeguards now even for the initial apprehension and investigation. For example, the police are not supposed to display or use firearms, weapons or handcuffs unless absolutely necessary, and only after other methods of control have failed. I have to commend Senator Pangilinan and others involved in drafting this law for being so sensitive to the needs of the young. I’ve talked with so many young urban poor youth with traumatic memories of handcuffs, for example.

Exemption from criminal liability does not mean total impunity, with provisions for “diversion programs” that will include, among other activities, mediation and conflict resolution, reparation for damages, a written or oral apology and counseling, anger management training, vocational training and community service.

Child-rearing schizos

The new law talks about the role of the family, the educational system, even the mass media in the prevention of juvenile delinquency. We could start by “interrogating” our culture, as it relates to child-rearing.

When it comes to child-rearing practices, we can be quite schizophrenic. We can be very loving, to the point of being excessively indulgent and giving in to whatever the child wants. Yet, I’ve seen this indulgence alternating with great harshness, often depending on the parent’s mood. I know many Filipino parents, very good and kind people, who will insist corporal punishment is necessary for discipline, with the punishment becoming quite extreme. I’ve seen Filipino children being pinched, slapped, kicked, boxed in public. “Milder” but still reprehensible forms of child discipline involve verbal abuse: I am shocked at how a child is called “gago” and “stupid” for the mildest of slip-ups.

To complicate matters, we often resort to the use of external authorities to try to get kids to behave. Note how, with younger misbehaving children, Filipino parents will threaten to call the police. With adolescents, parents may actually drag the child to a police station and beg them to jail the child “to teach him a lesson.”

Child psychology studies have shown corporal punishment and shaming tactics don’t work. The handcuffs, the police and “barangay” [village] officials’ own verbal abuse -- these do not help the young to respect the law. Instead, they become even more contemptuous of authority. With young boys raised on machismo values, defying the law might even be seen as a sign of courage and valor.

‘Mabait’

Besides looking at the deficiencies in our child-rearing, we also need to interview the children who have already come into conflict with the law and to find out what were the trigger points that turned them into offenders.

My own experience, working with students and with urban poor communities, is that when something goes seriously wrong, it’s often an unhappy home environment (often a failed marriage where the couple is forced to stay together) that produces tensions, even hostility. When the child comes into conflict with the law, it’s usually a mixture of motives: defiance together with a desperate cry for attention.

There are, too, youthful offenses involving petty theft, and this I blame on a consumerist society where the young, grappling with questions about who they are, begin to believe all those ads that tell them: “You are what your clothes’ brand names say you are” or “You are what your cell phone is.” I challenge those in the private sector to put their words where their mouth is with regard to “corporate social responsibility” and examine their marketing gimmicks.

And the adults?

As I read Republic Act 9344, I kept thinking, “What about the adults?” Some of the proposed interventions in RA 9344 could be useful for adult offenders, whether in jail or out. Anger management skills are one. Even in the hallowed “civilized” halls of the University of the Philippines, I’ve had to live in the shadows of faculty and administrative personnel who fly into rage and inflict physical harm, which then results in administrative charges and hearings that just drag on and on for years, making life more difficult for the victims. I’ve always felt a better solution is to negotiate with these offenders: “Go through psychiatric counseling and we won’t file charges.”

Helping adult offenders will eventually benefit the young. Think about it: Most of the adult offenders with cases of assault are really little boys who refuse to grow up. And when these guys become fathers, their sons look up to them as role models, picking up the idea that to get your way, you need to rage and to resort to force.

RA 9344 is really a form of affirmative action, addressing a question of class inequity. Let’s face it, rich kids don’t get thrown into jail. The less fortunate, the poor, are thrown into jail at age 14 or 15. In the company of street-wise, hardened inmates, these kids are condemned for that one raging lapse of judgment, while their richer counterparts just go on to become nastier bullies.

RA 9344 will keep our young out of jail, but they will still have to cope with the harsh realities of home and street life. Juvenile justice will require more than one law and much, much more work with the adults who shape the lives of the young.

Docents

Pinoy Kasi: Docents
First posted 01:42am (Mla time) May 05, 2006
By Michael L. Tan
Inquirer

Editor's Note: Published on Page A13 of the May 5, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

"JELLYFISHES don't jam," Carlina quipped with a straight face.

Carlina was this little elderly woman who had been assigned to guide our group around the Monterey Aquarium when I visited last February. She was a walking encyclopedia, ready to answer questions about the exhibits and the Aquarium itself, with a few jokes on the side like the jamming jellyfish.

That's not an easy job, when you consider the varieties of marine life they have in the Aquarium. But Carlina handled it like a breeze, whether explaining how tuna fish get heart attacks from too rich a diet, or the filtration processes for the different aquariums. We think of them mainly as tourist or museum guides, but some of these docents live up to the original Latin meaning of the word, which is "teacher."

I first encountered the term in the Netherlands, where a docent meant a professor. Then a few years ago, while touring a redwoods forest in California, I heard the term again, this time used to refer to the person who was guiding us on a walking tour of the woods. He knew everything about these giant trees, from the way they reproduce to how they gave the city of Palo Alto its name. (I could imagine the early settlers looking at the trees and gasping, "Palo alto!" That's Spanish for tall trees.)

Docents do all this without salaries, almost like a hobby. During the week, our redwoods forest docent earned a living as a computer programmer, while Carlina had long retired but still had the stamina to docent in the aquarium.

Ku Klux Katipunan

Impressed with the docents I met in the United States, I've often wondered if we had similar volunteers in the Philippines. I got my answer the other week when Ken Esguerra of the Ayala Museum called and asked if I could lecture at a training workshop for their museum docents.

I got extremely short notice, but I said yes right away, thrilled that we did have docents here. In the case of the Ayala Museum, these docents' main function is to guide people around the museum's famous dioramas, which give a brief but comprehensive overview of the history of the Philippines from the pre-colonial period to the present.

A docent needs to be ready to answer all kinds of questions. I've had a taste of these questions doing my own informal docent work with foreign friends whom I bring to the Ayala Museum. For example, one time, in front of a diorama depicting a secret Katipunan ritual, with its members in white hoods, one of my American visitors exclaimed with distress, "Oh dear, is that the Ku Klux Klan?"

It was easy explaining that the Ku Klux Klan never established a foothold here. More difficult was going into details about the Katipunan, starting with its kilometric full name. You give it a try: Kataastaasang Kagalanggalangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan.

History's stories

Like docents elsewhere, the Ayala Museum's volunteers work out of a love for the museum. They're asked to put in at least four hours a month, whether as guides or as researchers. In exchange, they get free admission to the museum, discounts at the shop and invitations to all the museum events.

I think, though, that their greatest perk is the teaching and learning experiences. To teach, docents need to keep learning, and the museum gives a good head start with the training workshop.

Inquirer columnist Manolo Quezon, who handles much of the docent training, briefed me right before the workshop, and explained that the training wasn't meant so much to give facts and figures than to help the docents to think differently about history itself and make it more alive and relevant. I watched as he tried to do this with the docents themselves, asking them to share what they knew about the origins of their surnames and their hometowns.

I tried to do something similar with the pre-colonial period, getting them to think about the stories behind each of the dioramas. For example, I reminded them that when there's trade, there are all kinds of social interactions, people learning about each other's cultures and borrowing words for the supernatural as well as for the mundane, such as food. Trade lubricated the borrowing of words from Arabic, Javanese, Malay, Chinese, and that includes terms to describe the feelings hosts and visitors had. (Here's one example I didn't use in Ayala: The word "mahal" is imported, and I don't think we adopted it in the context of trading alone.)

Columnists and docents

We need to train docents throughout the country. I am certain even the smallest and most remote of our towns already have potential docents. Elderly people are already telling and retelling their stories to their captive audiences, meaning their grandchildren, so why not get them to do this for the town's visitors as well?

In Palawan, I once visited a mangrove area with local residents serving as guides and explaining the flora and fauna. I felt the tour was a bit too mechanical, too facts-and-figures in its approach, but it was a good start.

I guess in a way columnists like Manolo and myself find affinity with docents because doing a column is one variation on docent work. We get paid for our columns, but beyond the writing, we often put in much time and effort for research, for interviewing people, for finding ways to transform learning into a fun process. That's a docent's work.

Docents, and columnists, work with a sense of mission. When I have American visitors, I stay longer with the dioramas depicting the Filipino-American war, talking about the hardships Filipinos went through, as well as the anti-imperialist movement in the United States, which included the likes of Mark Twain. A recent visitor said sorry, she had not known about that war, and then lamented, "How sad that we're repeating our mistakes-this time in Iraq." (The regular docents told me they've also had Japanese visitors apologizing for World War II, completely with the bowing.)

But docents should be more than glorified tourist guides for foreigners. Even more importantly, the work of a docent is to bridge the generations among Filipinos. There's much that docents can do -- organizing heritage tours, eating tours, nature tours -- and we should be doing this with our own hometowns, retrieving the knowledge from older people and passing this on to the young. Each child, who is fortunate to have a good docent, will remember the stories for life, taking away insights that will give him or her a better sense of who we are as a people.

Nature watch

Try to visit the Diliman campus of the University of the Philippines this weekend. The fire trees (also sometimes called flame trees) are beginning to bloom. If you're lucky, you should be able to catch the sunflowers we planted for our new graduates.

A tree watch could also be combined with a bird watch. Mike Lu of the Wild Bird Society sent me a text message the other day about how, in their neighborhood, the regal fire trees seem to succeed quite well in calling in the birds. One of his neighbors has spotted, among others, kingfishers, woodpeckers and “kulasisi” (the winged type).

'Probinsya'

Pinoy Kasi : 'Probinsya'

First posted 01:45am (Mla time) May 03, 2006
By Michael L. Tan
Inquirer

Editor's Note: Published on Page A15 of the May 3, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

TWO of my former work colleagues in an NGO here in Manila have packed up and are returning to the “probinsya,” with hopes of carving out a better life.

I'm sure that sounds very strange, considering that in the Philippines, "probinsya" means a place that's less developed, even "backward." Generally, that means any place outside Metro Manila, so that even a huge and bustling metropolis like Cebu might still be probinsya.

The upper classes will use the English word, as in, "Are you going home to the province this Holy Week?" In this case, "province" has positive connotations: a hometown to return to, with beaches and a more sedate pace of life.

Yet even a home province is seen only as a second home. Many of our urbanites would cringe at the very thought of living there. Holy Week's fine, but not much longer than that. The fact is that probinsya, even in its most positive sense, still implies a standard of living several notches below that of life in the city.

My NGO colleagues' idea of returning to a “probinsya” seems terribly anachronistic; after all, everyone seems to want to move to Metro Manila, or overseas. But their move did get me thinking hard about how our attitudes to “probinsya” may reflect a very serious defect in the way we look at national development.

'Promdi'

In the last 100 years or so, from the American colonial period onwards, we've equated the country's future with urban development, while neglecting rural areas. “Probinsya” now means being stuck in poverty and over the years, this view has developed into the idea that anyone who stays in the “probinsya” is probably not smart enough for the city.

About 20 years ago, the term "promdi" was coined, capturing the snobbish attitudes people had developed toward rural areas. Promdi meant "prom di province," a close equivalent of the English "country bumpkin."

The neglect of rural development has worsened through the years. About three weeks ago, a top official of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) spoke at a press conference on the development outlook for the Philippines and observed, with undisguised alarm in his voice, how we were paying too much attention to the development of call centers, while forgetting that we are still a predominantly agricultural country and that we need to develop the agriculture sector.

He was right. Even in the smallest towns, I now see advertisements from diploma mills offering to train people for call centers, or for export as caregivers. Yet, last Sunday's Inquirer had a special feature on the job market, and it showed how agribusiness still leads in terms of potential jobs, ranking higher than cyberservices (which include call centers) and tourism.

Primate city

I'm afraid the potentials in agribusiness will go to waste, simply because agriculture is seen, like “probinsya,” as backward. It didn't help that during the American colonial period, our educational system put down farming and created the idea that the way to social advancement was through white collar jobs. Why dirty your hands in farming when you could make money as a government clerk? (At that time, you could live quite comfortably on a low-ranking civil servant's salary, and without necessarily becoming corrupt.)

Prof. Felipe Jocano, in a recent lecture at the University of the Philippines, pointed out how the song "Planting rice is never fun" reinforced our bias against agriculture. In its original Tagalog, "magtanim ay ‘di biro" simply referred to how difficult it was to farm, but the English translation went a step further to depict farming as totally undesirable.

But even as we abandoned rural development, we made another big mistake and this was to equate urban development with that of Metro Manila. It was almost as if no other cities existed. Metro Manila was The Primate City. All roads led to Manila, literally (just look at our airline routes).

Many of our neighbors chose a different path, one of developing several urban centers. Even more importantly, the cities' development was tied to those of adjoining rural areas. Thailand is a good example, where the government poured resources into helping farmers to increase their agricultural yields while connecting the farms to markets in urban centers.

In the Philippines, the rural areas were and still are seen mainly as areas for extraction of wealth, as Manila-based landlords lived off agricultural produce from their tenants.

New roots

Today, there are new potentials in rural areas, around agribusiness and tourism. And the national government is bent on developing the mining industry.

But I also have fears about the way we will develop rural areas around agribusiness, tourism and especially mining. If we continue to look at rural areas mainly as places from which we extract wealth, we will see a worsening of rural poverty. Big businesses will rake in huge profits and leave nothing but destroyed environments for rural residents.

The way to national development is to develop rural areas for rural residents. This means helping small and medium businesses through a package of physical infrastructure as well as technical support.

Rural development also means putting more resources for the children in these areas, for their schools and social services. I had long discussions with my NGO friends who were returning to the probinsya, mainly about the future of their children. We knew all too well the biggest risk they were taking was that their children might end up in schools with lower standards.

And yet in the end we agreed that there are good schools now even in smaller cities like Iloilo (whose residents like to compare their city to Athens, with all the schools) and Cagayan de Oro.

My NGO friends also argue that the young might stand a better chance outside Metro Manila, in terms of growing up less materialistic. I wasn't quite sure there, considering how consumerism has invaded even remote rural areas but maybe, yes, smaller towns and cities offer a healthier environment for the young.

Meanwhile, I read with interest a recent Newsweek article about Japanese baby boomers -- those born in the decade after World War II -- now taking agricultural courses as they prepare for retirement. I have other baby boomer friends in the United States and Europe with similar plans of retiring in a rural or “rurban” (rural-urban) place, where they can continue to keep busy by renewing their ties with the land.

Notice how we have a Philippine Retirement Authority that concentrates on attracting foreign retirees, and yet have no incentive packages for Filipino retirees to settle in the “probinsya.” Retirement's a long way off yet for me, but yes, I can imagine joining a small army of white-haired retirees when the time comes, helping to develop the “probinsya.” Like plants, its older humans who are sturdier and who stand a better chance of being moved around and growing new roots.