Just Some Write-Ups

A little bit of a disclaimer: I took the TPI quiz twice not because I wanted to make sure my results were consistent, but because I forgot to take note of some of the questions that I needed to write this paper. Both instances, however, yielded the same results in terms of my highest and lowest priorities: social reform for the former, and transmission for the latter. 1   The disparity between both has much bearing. When I think of transmission in relation to teaching, terms like pedagogy, methodology, assessments, and outcomes come to mind—concepts that, as someone who did not major in education in college, I am neither enamored by nor excel at in making documents for. What I lack on the pedagogical side, though, I try to make up for in content.   Prior to joining academia, I was a graduate student taking up an MA in Literature while working a full-time office job. Not being saddled with checking test papers or preparing lesson plans after office hours afforded me the p...

There’s a couple of days every June where self-professed geeks like yours truly feel relegated to the peripheries of public discourse so that the louder, more pumped-up jocks and dedicated sports fans can have their moment of uninterrupted enthusiasm. The reason for this sidelining? The NBA Finals. As early as the middle of May, NBA fans begin jeering at each other and start placing bets on the last two teams remaining in the league and jostling for that much-desired championship trophy. There are a number of ironies one can note about this phenomenon from our context: the fact this is a sport that originated half a world away, that we have no stake in it (it’s not like there are any Filipino citizens playing in the league), and most notably, our biological limitations (the average Filipino males’ height is just a little over five feet; a good number of NBA players exceed six). Still, I can understand why it can be entertaining to watch. There’s a lot of movement and contact involved t...

This short article was originally read as part of a discussion on contemporary Philippine literature on Sari-sari: Panitikan at Kulturang Filipino ng Radyo Katipunan 87.9 (Ateneo de Manila University), held via Zoom and recorded on March 4, 2021. * * * When I was first asked by CB [Christian Benitez] to participate in this discussion on contemporary Philippine literature, I figured this would be a great opportunity to highlight the work of a fellow millennial writer from the province of Cebu, but one who, in some ways, subverts certain expectations or assumptions many of us may have upon hearing the term “Cebuano literature.” At first, said term may seem pretty easy to pin down. In his essay “Ang Sugboanon: The Cebuano,” scholar Resil Mojares states that the most obvious hallmarks of a Cebuano include “language, local residence, or orientation to Cebu province as a cultural or sentimental ‘homeland’” (266). To add to this, the average Cebuano also tends to be trilingual, with Cebuano s...

This paper was originally presented at the NCCA 2021 Research Colloquium: "Salikultura Research Methodologies, held via Zoom on September 24, 2021. It was eventually published in the second volume of Tugkad: A Literary and Cultural Studies Journal (August 2022). * * * I. Introduction Every presidential administration of recent memory seems to bring with it a novel term, phrase, or expression that ends up getting added to the wider public’s lexicon. The “Hello, Garci” scandal from the Arroyo administration, for instance, birthed a meme of sorts in a nascent internet age. During the Aquino years, the term “pork barrel” entered into popular usage, despite the concept of it having already existed for years, albeit under different names such as the Countryside Development Fund, the Congressional Initiative Fund, and—at the time of the scandal’s revelation—the Priority Development Assistance Fund. [1] In the case of the current administration, perhaps no other term has entered into...