Dear Ms Ensor
Thank you for your letter.
This column, hopefully, ends this series of open letters that started two columns ago with a letter to Cebu Pacific Air CEO Lance Gokongwei. The second letter/column was in response to a comment by reader, now regular correspondent and hopefully soon, finally-we-meet good friend, Paul Gerschwiler.
In his letter Mr. Gerschwiler suggested that Cebu Pacific can play a major role in funding promotional materials on how to treat tarsiers and other wild life more respectfully.
In my response to him in the previous column that I did not forward to you, I said that I was more sanguine than him.
I said that it would be a good enough first step for you to admit that to continue to promote the misrepresentation of the wide-eyed tarsier, especially through a photo taken so obviously at daytime, is detrimental to the tarsiers.
I ended by saying that that step is still forthcoming from them or you.
Your letter is indeed a step. A half-step, actually.
You thanked me for 'highlighting the issue of the tarsiers.' Further, you 'very much value our comments.' And, lastly, you 'will make sure that Smile promotes ecologically sound tourism in the country and the region.'
You are most welcome.
But, I suggest that you do more than just two sentences worth of action.
With Cebu Pacific Air's increased passenger load – so much so that it is causing bottlenecks at major domestic airports, your vaunted boast that it is the airline that is 99 percent of the time on time is now wearing very thin and one of your pilots has complained that the 30 minute turn-around time mandated by management is simply not workable – you wield tremendous influence.
Not just because passengers are captive audiences, but also because your magazine is well designed, well written with articles that have or try to have more meat than the usual travel fluff.
For you to publish a statement to the effect that in the interest of your commitment to ecologically sound tourism you recognize that the picture that was judged as among the winners in your photo contest is not the best way to promote this would be wielding this influence positively and responsibly.
It is not necessary to rescind the award.
But it is necessary as one of the leading actors in the tourism industry in the Philippines, that you make your stand on what you would call ecologically sound tourism but I consider simple decency and respect afforded to other creatures, especially those who are threatened with extinction, or immediately, with grave abuse and wanton exploitation.
Should you do this, you will contribute much towards an enlightened attitude towards the tarsiers who because of the description that they are creatures with large, round, staring eyes and photos to go along with it are now expected, nay, obligated to keep those eyes open even when it is in the middle of the day where, as if that were not bad enough, it is then subjected to a million blinding lumens of flash bulb white light.
You might even lead the way when the tourism and environment authorities are clearly not.
This you can do as a publication.
As an airline, Cebu Pacific Air can then go into campaigns of the kind that Mr. Gerschwiler has suggested. Put up promotional and educational billboards in Bohol and elsewhere. Distribute in cabin educational materials. Go into creative overdrive to support your drive for ecologically sound tourism.
And, then there are other creatures and habitats that need equal support and attention.
There are many things to do. You are in a position to influence the doing of these things. Should you wish so.
Thank you, again, for your letter.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
06.21.07 kulturnatib
Dear Paul
Thank you for your letter. You hit the proverbial nail right on the head. Several nails, actually.
Ignorance and not malevolence is, indeed, often the root of behavior that is, at the very least, disrespectful of other creatures – humans included -- and their habitats.
Yet, when it is ignorance from up and down the whole chain of actors, which you have rightly identified as from the Department of Tourism (DOT) officials – which you can then extend all the way to the top of the executive link in government – to airline and travel magazine executives to the lowly tourist attraction stall attendants – though you should excuse the last as they really have no say in that matter – then you have to wonder if this is not a question of willful ignorance and not all that simple ignorance.
Is this not the ignorance of the wide-awake who are the most difficult, as to be impossible, to awaken?
Thank you for mentioning and quoting extensively from a travel guide book, The Philippine Travel Atlas, that identifies Bohol as being an “emerging prime tourist destination,” home to the tarsier that, among its other features, has “large, round, staring eyes.”
I do not think that you meant to single out this publication among the dozens out there that more or less say the same thing and would show the almost obligatory picture of a clinging tarsier with eyes that are in varying degrees of largeness, roundness and fixedness of stare.
But, yes, your point in mentioning this publication is that airlines, airline and travel publications are but cogs – important ones – in the tourism industry. While they mouth the correct sound bites about eco-tourism, responsible tourism, etc., the fact is that everything, or nearly everything is only second voice to the soaring solo of the higher registers of the cash box.
Here is where there is serious disconnect between the promotional and the regulatory functions of the DOT and the Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DENR). In fact, the disconnect is serious enough to believe that the DOT is all promotion and hardly any regulation, and with the DENR, regulation is so obviously selective as to be mostly ineffective.
What else to make of a photo in an entry on the Philippine tarsier in Wikipedia that shows a sign that says, “DENR PERMITTED CAPTIVE TARSIER!?” This sign is in Loboc, where this Wikipedia entry identifies as the only place that tarsiers can be seen not in the wild but in such conditions that necessitated the very law in the first place that the DENR is supposed to implement in order to prevent the tarsiers abuse and extinction.
This is a case – one of the numerous in this country – where the authority of a government department is invoked against its very self by (supposedly) permitting something it has no authority to permit, and if so, which this sign purports, such permission can only be a mockery of that very same authority.
Still, as you suggest, most people, tourists are better than that. True, in many zoos and wildlife sanctuaries elsewhere that are accessible to the public, the public will respond accordingly to instructions about how to behave towards the animals. The place is designed, too, in such a way as to encourage compliance and discourage abusive behavior sometimes with disincentives like fines.
Fortunately, there is such a place for the tarsiers and tourists in Bohol, in Corella, where both can meet – though this is by no means always guaranteed – in a manner that heightens the enjoyment of the latter and hardly at the expense of the former.
You admit that you haven't seen a tarsier, but your wife has. I encourage you to visit the Philippine Tarsier Foundation's Tarsier Research and Development Center in Corella. This is a bit out of the way – off the tourist path, as that Wikipedia entry puts it -- and the roads there may not all be that well paved. This, as far as I remember, from the last time I was there years ago. It might have actually been improved now.
However the present condition of the sanctuary, it still remains, for me, one of the best places for visiting tarsiers that are truly in the wild. You can inquire before going there as to when the best time and season to go, or you can just wander in as I did. The wardens are really very knowledgeable and there are plenty of instructional, informative material around.
As for your suggestion that Cebu Pacific can play a major role in funding promotional material, i.e., billboards, on how to treat tarsiers and other wild life more respectfully, I am more sanguine.
I just think that it would be a good enough first step to admit that to continue to promote the misrepresentation of the wide-eyed tarsier, especially through a photo taken so obviously at daytime, is detrimental to the tarsiers themselves even if they are somehow cute and it is how everybody else is promoting them.
So far that step is still forthcoming from them. Or, so, I hope. Otherwise, there are, fortunately now, other airlines.
Thank you for your letter. You hit the proverbial nail right on the head. Several nails, actually.
Ignorance and not malevolence is, indeed, often the root of behavior that is, at the very least, disrespectful of other creatures – humans included -- and their habitats.
Yet, when it is ignorance from up and down the whole chain of actors, which you have rightly identified as from the Department of Tourism (DOT) officials – which you can then extend all the way to the top of the executive link in government – to airline and travel magazine executives to the lowly tourist attraction stall attendants – though you should excuse the last as they really have no say in that matter – then you have to wonder if this is not a question of willful ignorance and not all that simple ignorance.
Is this not the ignorance of the wide-awake who are the most difficult, as to be impossible, to awaken?
Thank you for mentioning and quoting extensively from a travel guide book, The Philippine Travel Atlas, that identifies Bohol as being an “emerging prime tourist destination,” home to the tarsier that, among its other features, has “large, round, staring eyes.”
I do not think that you meant to single out this publication among the dozens out there that more or less say the same thing and would show the almost obligatory picture of a clinging tarsier with eyes that are in varying degrees of largeness, roundness and fixedness of stare.
But, yes, your point in mentioning this publication is that airlines, airline and travel publications are but cogs – important ones – in the tourism industry. While they mouth the correct sound bites about eco-tourism, responsible tourism, etc., the fact is that everything, or nearly everything is only second voice to the soaring solo of the higher registers of the cash box.
Here is where there is serious disconnect between the promotional and the regulatory functions of the DOT and the Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DENR). In fact, the disconnect is serious enough to believe that the DOT is all promotion and hardly any regulation, and with the DENR, regulation is so obviously selective as to be mostly ineffective.
What else to make of a photo in an entry on the Philippine tarsier in Wikipedia that shows a sign that says, “DENR PERMITTED CAPTIVE TARSIER!?” This sign is in Loboc, where this Wikipedia entry identifies as the only place that tarsiers can be seen not in the wild but in such conditions that necessitated the very law in the first place that the DENR is supposed to implement in order to prevent the tarsiers abuse and extinction.
This is a case – one of the numerous in this country – where the authority of a government department is invoked against its very self by (supposedly) permitting something it has no authority to permit, and if so, which this sign purports, such permission can only be a mockery of that very same authority.
Still, as you suggest, most people, tourists are better than that. True, in many zoos and wildlife sanctuaries elsewhere that are accessible to the public, the public will respond accordingly to instructions about how to behave towards the animals. The place is designed, too, in such a way as to encourage compliance and discourage abusive behavior sometimes with disincentives like fines.
Fortunately, there is such a place for the tarsiers and tourists in Bohol, in Corella, where both can meet – though this is by no means always guaranteed – in a manner that heightens the enjoyment of the latter and hardly at the expense of the former.
You admit that you haven't seen a tarsier, but your wife has. I encourage you to visit the Philippine Tarsier Foundation's Tarsier Research and Development Center in Corella. This is a bit out of the way – off the tourist path, as that Wikipedia entry puts it -- and the roads there may not all be that well paved. This, as far as I remember, from the last time I was there years ago. It might have actually been improved now.
However the present condition of the sanctuary, it still remains, for me, one of the best places for visiting tarsiers that are truly in the wild. You can inquire before going there as to when the best time and season to go, or you can just wander in as I did. The wardens are really very knowledgeable and there are plenty of instructional, informative material around.
As for your suggestion that Cebu Pacific can play a major role in funding promotional material, i.e., billboards, on how to treat tarsiers and other wild life more respectfully, I am more sanguine.
I just think that it would be a good enough first step to admit that to continue to promote the misrepresentation of the wide-eyed tarsier, especially through a photo taken so obviously at daytime, is detrimental to the tarsiers themselves even if they are somehow cute and it is how everybody else is promoting them.
So far that step is still forthcoming from them. Or, so, I hope. Otherwise, there are, fortunately now, other airlines.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
06.14.07 kulturnatib
Dear Lance Gokongwei
my apologies, kulturnatibists, for that screw up in last posting's date. it should have been 06/07/07. thats not what came out. but it seemed like not too many of you tripped on that one. still, i should acknowledge that mistake. and, no, that was not deliberate to try to see if you are paying attention. im sure you are.
salamat.
Even before your airline was founded, I had always patronized airlines that went up against the then monopoly Philippine Airlines. I flew Aerolink, the upstart that first tested the waters even when the liberalization of the airline industry was still a white paper in the economic plans of then aspiring Pres. Fidel Ramos.
Unfortunately, this company went belly up. Before they could get their full franchise from Congress, one of their planes went literally belly up due to pilot error – he was reportedly drunk -- and crashed into the swimming pool of one the houses of Mervil Subdivision in Paranaque, killing every one on board and a few on the ground as well.
Your airline went on to take full advantage of airline liberalization and since then, I have always made it a point to fly with you. With the launching of your cheap fare campaign whose slogan is the sexist “It's time every Juan – what about Juana? -- flies,” this point has been easier to make, even if the success of this campaign is beginning to be its own undoing. But, that is another matter.
Concomitant with your aim to make flying accessible to every Filipino, is your aim to promote local tourism. And not just any kind of tourism but one that is sustainable and responsible; in a word, ecotourism.
For this you have your inflight magazine, Smile, which features stories about local – and now, foreign -- tourist destinations where your planes fly.
These have been quite interesting and informative and are a good company especially when one is flying alone, as I often do.
But, during my last trip, your magazine, the June-July issue, didn't give me much reason to smile. In fact, it gave me all the reason to be indignant, which, fortunately, was tempered somewhat by the fact that, this time, I wasn't flying alone and I had company other than just your magazine.
This issue featured a four-page spread of the top ten entries to a photo competition you sponsored to commemorate your 11th year.
On the title page were four of these entries. The very first one sickened me.
Some years back I had written about how, in Loboc, Bohol, a tourist stall there had some tarsiers put out like they were circus creatures. The tourists, locals mostly, behaved accordingly. Like they were in a circus. They proceeded to manhandle the tarsiers, going so far as to blow on the poor creature's eyes in a bid to open them for the cameras that, then, proceeded to explode their flashes which, for these nocturnal animals, is not far off from an electroshock for humans.
I would not be surprised if this winning entry that has the cutesy and totally clueless accompanying caption, “Don't cringe at the sight of this creature peering at you! It fits comfortably in a human hand,” was taken at some place like this place in Loboc. It could very well have be taken at this very same place.
It is evident in the photo that it was taken in the daytime. It is very difficult to find tarsiers at daytime in the wild. You simply won't find them. The wardens at the Tarsier sanctuary funded by Prince Charles in Corella, also in Bohol, will warn you against looking for them. Not only because it is difficult but more so because it is rude, inconsiderate and downright immoral.
A picture is truly worth a thousand words. Your distinguished panel of judges sadly missed six of those very important words – DO NOT TAKE PICTURES LIKE THIS!
Pictures like this should not have space in your magazine, let alone win in your competition. It sends the wrong message. It makes your claim or advocacy for ecotourism sound hollow, hypocritical. Or, at the very least, it pops a flash on your inexcusable ignorance.
Ecotourism, most of all, means respect. This picture does not show respect. It shows the exact opposite.
It is not only high time that every Juan and Juana flies but, more importantly, that they fly with a socially responsibly carrier that not only values profit, promptness, service -- good values all -- but more so, the most important value of all, respect.
You can still be that carrier.
my apologies, kulturnatibists, for that screw up in last posting's date. it should have been 06/07/07. thats not what came out. but it seemed like not too many of you tripped on that one. still, i should acknowledge that mistake. and, no, that was not deliberate to try to see if you are paying attention. im sure you are.
salamat.
Even before your airline was founded, I had always patronized airlines that went up against the then monopoly Philippine Airlines. I flew Aerolink, the upstart that first tested the waters even when the liberalization of the airline industry was still a white paper in the economic plans of then aspiring Pres. Fidel Ramos.
Unfortunately, this company went belly up. Before they could get their full franchise from Congress, one of their planes went literally belly up due to pilot error – he was reportedly drunk -- and crashed into the swimming pool of one the houses of Mervil Subdivision in Paranaque, killing every one on board and a few on the ground as well.
Your airline went on to take full advantage of airline liberalization and since then, I have always made it a point to fly with you. With the launching of your cheap fare campaign whose slogan is the sexist “It's time every Juan – what about Juana? -- flies,” this point has been easier to make, even if the success of this campaign is beginning to be its own undoing. But, that is another matter.
Concomitant with your aim to make flying accessible to every Filipino, is your aim to promote local tourism. And not just any kind of tourism but one that is sustainable and responsible; in a word, ecotourism.
For this you have your inflight magazine, Smile, which features stories about local – and now, foreign -- tourist destinations where your planes fly.
These have been quite interesting and informative and are a good company especially when one is flying alone, as I often do.
But, during my last trip, your magazine, the June-July issue, didn't give me much reason to smile. In fact, it gave me all the reason to be indignant, which, fortunately, was tempered somewhat by the fact that, this time, I wasn't flying alone and I had company other than just your magazine.
This issue featured a four-page spread of the top ten entries to a photo competition you sponsored to commemorate your 11th year.
On the title page were four of these entries. The very first one sickened me.
Some years back I had written about how, in Loboc, Bohol, a tourist stall there had some tarsiers put out like they were circus creatures. The tourists, locals mostly, behaved accordingly. Like they were in a circus. They proceeded to manhandle the tarsiers, going so far as to blow on the poor creature's eyes in a bid to open them for the cameras that, then, proceeded to explode their flashes which, for these nocturnal animals, is not far off from an electroshock for humans.
I would not be surprised if this winning entry that has the cutesy and totally clueless accompanying caption, “Don't cringe at the sight of this creature peering at you! It fits comfortably in a human hand,” was taken at some place like this place in Loboc. It could very well have be taken at this very same place.
It is evident in the photo that it was taken in the daytime. It is very difficult to find tarsiers at daytime in the wild. You simply won't find them. The wardens at the Tarsier sanctuary funded by Prince Charles in Corella, also in Bohol, will warn you against looking for them. Not only because it is difficult but more so because it is rude, inconsiderate and downright immoral.
A picture is truly worth a thousand words. Your distinguished panel of judges sadly missed six of those very important words – DO NOT TAKE PICTURES LIKE THIS!
Pictures like this should not have space in your magazine, let alone win in your competition. It sends the wrong message. It makes your claim or advocacy for ecotourism sound hollow, hypocritical. Or, at the very least, it pops a flash on your inexcusable ignorance.
Ecotourism, most of all, means respect. This picture does not show respect. It shows the exact opposite.
It is not only high time that every Juan and Juana flies but, more importantly, that they fly with a socially responsibly carrier that not only values profit, promptness, service -- good values all -- but more so, the most important value of all, respect.
You can still be that carrier.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
05.17.07 kulturnatib
Lesson for teachers
Almost a month after I was in Davao City to participate in the opening of an exhibit there – 'Miting de Abanse' -- with a performance art piece, I was, once again, back there. I had promised I would be back and I was, last weekend, to keep my promise.
The commitment was simply not to be back but, more importantly, to conduct a performance art workshop. The idea for a workshop and the impetus for it came from, one, I was going to be in Davao City anyway during those dates and, two, those I had broached the initial idea to were very enthusiastic and encouraging.
So, upon my return, I sent a formal proposal for the workshop, detailing the requirements and how the workshop would be conducted. The reply was positive. The requirements present no insurmountable problem, came the reply, except for a minor one: fees.
My idea of a token, was, for them, too keen. Could it be lowered, they asked. Expected participants are mostly students. No problem, I answered. So, it was a go. I made final preparations for the workshop which, involving editing video presentations, took me up until the early hours of the morning of my departure.
Arriving at the airport, a flurry of text messages welcomed me. Good news, bad news; 100 more people were interested in joining the workshop. They were from a multinational youth group of Christian missionaries, Y-WAM, on a 3-month outreach program in Davao.
That is simply too big a crowd to handle, I answered. I will adjust and do two sessions, but that number will still have to be cut. Before I arrived at the hotel, we had agreed on 50 as being the cut-off number.
Fortunately, I had one more day to fine-tune preparations. The first session will simply be an introduction to performance art, I decided. The second, in the afternoon and lengthier, will have the workshop component consisting of video and live performance art presentations and subsequent critiquing.
A little past 3 pm the following day, the workshop started. Late. The morning sessions, to my relief, had, after all, been scrapped. Back to the original plan.
For the most part, I explained, the method for the workshop will be show and tell. This will be preceded by a short discussion on the historical background of performance art, followed by its philosophical and art-practice underpinnings.
The show and tell part will consist of showing performance art videos and live performances followed by discussion and critiquing.
The live performances, it turned out, were the best part of the activity. The prepared performances of the participants – that was part of the requirements -- were quite good. The impromptu performances -- also a surprise -- had some rough edges, as expected.
The performance piece that most impressed me was that of three very young girls, aged 12, 14 and 15. Mitzi Jules, Dhyris Cajes and Sheera Mae Peñaranda, respectively. They are peer facilitators of a group called Anak OFW. Their parents, one of them, are either out of the country or are preparing to leave.
Their performance consisted of them sitting on the floor, in a triangle about 3 meters from each other. They brought with them sheets of white paper that they then made into paper airplanes. These they made carefully, deliberately, slowly. Just as the first planes were finished, the audience knew – or thought so -- what was next. Still, they continued making the planes, building up the impatience of and the tension in the audience. This was released only when they flew the planes towards each other, then towards the audience.
It was a short, simple performance art piece. Yet, within that short span of time and that simple set of actions was distilled the emotional experience of children of OFWs. The waiting, the seemingly meaningless activities, the tension, then the flight either towards or away from them. We know it, right? No, we don't.
Experiencing those performances, I experienced what can happen best to teachers: In teaching, to be taught.
Almost a month after I was in Davao City to participate in the opening of an exhibit there – 'Miting de Abanse' -- with a performance art piece, I was, once again, back there. I had promised I would be back and I was, last weekend, to keep my promise.
The commitment was simply not to be back but, more importantly, to conduct a performance art workshop. The idea for a workshop and the impetus for it came from, one, I was going to be in Davao City anyway during those dates and, two, those I had broached the initial idea to were very enthusiastic and encouraging.
So, upon my return, I sent a formal proposal for the workshop, detailing the requirements and how the workshop would be conducted. The reply was positive. The requirements present no insurmountable problem, came the reply, except for a minor one: fees.
My idea of a token, was, for them, too keen. Could it be lowered, they asked. Expected participants are mostly students. No problem, I answered. So, it was a go. I made final preparations for the workshop which, involving editing video presentations, took me up until the early hours of the morning of my departure.
Arriving at the airport, a flurry of text messages welcomed me. Good news, bad news; 100 more people were interested in joining the workshop. They were from a multinational youth group of Christian missionaries, Y-WAM, on a 3-month outreach program in Davao.
That is simply too big a crowd to handle, I answered. I will adjust and do two sessions, but that number will still have to be cut. Before I arrived at the hotel, we had agreed on 50 as being the cut-off number.
Fortunately, I had one more day to fine-tune preparations. The first session will simply be an introduction to performance art, I decided. The second, in the afternoon and lengthier, will have the workshop component consisting of video and live performance art presentations and subsequent critiquing.
A little past 3 pm the following day, the workshop started. Late. The morning sessions, to my relief, had, after all, been scrapped. Back to the original plan.
For the most part, I explained, the method for the workshop will be show and tell. This will be preceded by a short discussion on the historical background of performance art, followed by its philosophical and art-practice underpinnings.
The show and tell part will consist of showing performance art videos and live performances followed by discussion and critiquing.
The live performances, it turned out, were the best part of the activity. The prepared performances of the participants – that was part of the requirements -- were quite good. The impromptu performances -- also a surprise -- had some rough edges, as expected.
The performance piece that most impressed me was that of three very young girls, aged 12, 14 and 15. Mitzi Jules, Dhyris Cajes and Sheera Mae Peñaranda, respectively. They are peer facilitators of a group called Anak OFW. Their parents, one of them, are either out of the country or are preparing to leave.
Their performance consisted of them sitting on the floor, in a triangle about 3 meters from each other. They brought with them sheets of white paper that they then made into paper airplanes. These they made carefully, deliberately, slowly. Just as the first planes were finished, the audience knew – or thought so -- what was next. Still, they continued making the planes, building up the impatience of and the tension in the audience. This was released only when they flew the planes towards each other, then towards the audience.
It was a short, simple performance art piece. Yet, within that short span of time and that simple set of actions was distilled the emotional experience of children of OFWs. The waiting, the seemingly meaningless activities, the tension, then the flight either towards or away from them. We know it, right? No, we don't.
Experiencing those performances, I experienced what can happen best to teachers: In teaching, to be taught.
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