New Tactic in Fake News!

Do you remember the story in Les Miserables where a Jean Valjean was imprisoned for almost 20 years for stealing a loaf of bread? A news bit came out recently where an old man (61 years old) was imprisoned for stealing food worth 20 pesos. The case went to court where this man had to pay Php2,000 and since he wasn't able to, was put in jail. His case was appealed and then dismissed but because of our lousy justice system, the man stayed in jail until a paralegal saw the error and he was released at once.

The news bit closes by recounting that the poor who aren't able to pay can be imprisoned for up to five years for stealing food worth 20 pesos. Sounds like the Jean Valjean of our times, right? Well, not exactly. I see this tactic being used lately where internet journalists weigh how much was lost versus the punishment without looking into what the act was.

The news bit actually mentions why the old man was jailed at all and it wasn't resolved civilly as the amount involved was just 20 pesos. But they mention it in passing and never mention it again when they weigh the punishment against the act. This old man stole food from a minor. Now, when a minor is involved, one can safely assume this wasn't a quiet theft but most likely a robbery by force.

At this point, you may see why this man was sent to jail at all. I still don't think he should've sent to jail and as his case was in fact dismissed, someone needs to answer for this. But the point of this post is to encourage you, dear reader, to open your eyes to how the media and internet activists try to manipulate information to get you to sympathize with their cause. I agree that this case should be reviewed and something must be done to avoid this from happening again.

We must always be careful to separate the story from the narrative. The story here is that a man was put in prison for a longer time than he was supposed to be held because the courts couldn't get their sh*t together. The narrative here wants you to believe that the poor can be jailed for up to five years for stealing what's essentially twenty pesos. Try to learn to distinguish one from the other.

Marcos, No Entry!

Having gone to school in UP Diliman meant I was well acquainted with activists blocking or protesting certain people from entering the campus to give talks or attend events. The latest case involves several UP activists wanting to bar Ferdinand Marcos' daughter, Irene Marcos-Araneta from entering the campus to attend a that she is one of the sponsors of.

The battle cry was simple. A Marcos should not be allowed on campus because we should never forget the martial law days. UP alumni feelings have been split. Some see that barring entry to the daughter of the late dictator has carrying the sins of the father onto the children which they don't think is right. Others think that since she doesn't acknowledge the sins of her father that it warrants the students rising up to bar her entry into the campus.

I've seen this happen multiple times on campus and have never given it much thought. Activists occasionally attempt to bar entry to several speakers especially ones with close ties to the current administration at the time (PGMA) or some corporate bigwig. I, for one saw how violent these protesters can get.

Because of this, I fear for the safety of Irene should she attend this event she sponsored. Yes, on this point, I'm on Irene's side. While I don't like what her family did and continues to do to our country I don't think we should bar people entry to UP because of it. Conflicting ideas is at the heart of academic freedom in UP. As such, we shouldn't be barring people entry because of faulty beliefs they may have or certain associations they may have with people we don't like.

Translation? We shouldn't bar people entry to the campus just because we don't like their ideas. I'm of the belief that false or faulty ideas will die natural deaths. The number one cause of death for such dangerous ideas is having them presented out in the open in an honest to goodness dialogue and debate.

This is where ideas either flourish or die. As such, barring people entry to the campus simply because we don't like what they have to present or we don't like the topic of their talk is encouraging the idea to flourish in secret. Silencing someone only draws sympathy for the person being silenced as they have technically had their freedom of expression infringed upon.

Welcoming Irene Marcos-Araneta into the campus will in no way diminish the sins of her father. It will not show that UP has somehow forgotten the victims of abuse. On the contrary, it will show that UP isn't afraid of the truth and in the end the truth will come out. It will only come out faster if the lies come out as well.

The Rice Tariff Conundrum

Recently there have been calls to raise the floor price of rice as farmers are now only earning Php7.00 per kilo of rice instead of the normal Php12.00 per kilo. I understand and sympathize with the rice farmers. But to raise the floor price would bring us back to the time when everyone was complaining about the price of rice. Do you guys remember that? Or are our memories that short?

Remember that when prices rise, the heaviest hit by such an increase are the poor. The rich can afford more expensive rice so no one worry about them. The rice tariff law signed earlier this year basically reduced the tariffs to be paid by foreign suppliers of rice. This allowed for more competition in the market and with more competition, prices tend to go down. That's simply how the market operates. Now, demand for rice in our country it seems will not change. Whether rice is expensive or cheap, people will buy rice so for this analysis I'm assuming the demand curve to be a straight horizontal line.

Now, we're at this awkward position where imposing a higher floor price would see to benefit the rice farmers by allowing them to earn more. It also benefits the foreign suppliers of rice by allowing them to earn even more than they are already. This measure will hit the poor the hardest though as to eat rice, they will have to shell out more just to get by. If we don't raise the floor price, the hardest hit are the local farmers.

Now, I'm tempted to side with the farmers and just raise the floor price. It does indeed seem like the fastest solution. But is that wise? A raise in the floor price would be harmful to the poor after all. It seems like a stalemate. What we fail to realize in this situation is that competition is good and lower prices for commodities is a good thing for our countrymen. Why ruin competition to cater to the weakest player?

Yes, our palay farmers are the weakest players. While other countries' farmers have made use of technology to make their rice cheaper, we're stuck with old outdated ways of farming which produce more expensive rice. Business is tough and it might be best for our palay farmers to either accept the low price of Php7.00 per kilo or look for another line of work which pays more. Such is the nature of capitalism. If a player is unable to compete, its best move might just be to provide another goods or service.

The farmers right now are suffering and I feel for them. But when the Philippine government allowed foreign players to participate in our economy more, I feel that was the right decision. The solution to our problem is more competition - not less. The palay farmers should be able to move on to something different and it might even end up being better than what they have now.

Rice rice baby

I had a chat with a good friend of mine over the recent issue with the rice farmers. I'm still in shock how me and her came up with the same idea though we haven't been in contact for several years now. The reason that the rice farmers have to sell their rice at a lower price is because foreign players have entered the country and are able to sell rice a cheaper price.

This then begged the question. If foreign competitors, who still have to pay tariffs (up to 35% of declared value) to bring their goods into our country are able to sell at a cheaper price and still make a profit, why can't our farmers turn up a bigger profit if they don't need to pay tariffs?

I'm no business major but the basic concepts are simple enough. To turn up a profit, your revenue must exceed your expenses. Also, smaller volume sold tend to be more expensive as the fixed cost (the ones unaffected by volume) will have to be compensated by a smaller volume. So the problem lies in any one of the variables in the equation.

I personally think the problem lies in a low volume, high fixed cost and high variable cost or the operational costs. The high operation cost can be attributed to our equipment being outdated, the absence of farm to market roads, etc. As such, the solution seems clear. We should invest in heavy equipment for farming. The capital expense might be larger but in the longer run, the operational expenses will go down, provided we get the right equipment for our needs.

Who knows what farming requires more than the farmers? I say no one. As such, they're important in solving this crisis. The second part of the equation is seen as the bad guy by the activists but they are not! Who has the dispensable income to invest in modern farming equipment? While some people would say the government, I say it's private enterprises who have this money to invest. And I'll explain why in very vague terms so as not to draw attention to certain private groups.

Months back, we decided to buy a machine that could help us in our composting in our family farm. We had heard of a good machine that the Department of Agriculture (DA) bought in bulk. Since they did buy in bulk, they were able to purchase these at a lower price than regular - or Php250,000. Their regular price was Php300,000. Being as composting is essentially a non-profit activity of a business, we decided to skip on this. We later found a different supplier selling a similar product for one-fourth the cost!

This got me to thinking why the DA would purchase a very expensive machine when cheaper alternatives were available. And that's where it hit me. The government has the biggest purchasing power in the country and so like rich man, it doesn't care if it spends more for a certain thing. All it cares about is that it provides the machinery. Unmentioned in this analysis is the probable kickback everyone involved in the purchase of these machines is able to get.

Compare that kind of spending to that of a private entity whose main goal is to minimize cost and maximize profit. They will no doubt try to get the most for their money and as such be a more efficient way of investing in these types of endeavors.

What's keeping private enterprise from coming in an attempting to modernize the agricultural sector? First, we have very restrictive laws which make it difficult. Add that to the the activists always painting the private sector is such a bad light. It's no wonder rice farming is seen as a tedious business. That's also why the Chinese just stick to rice milling and rice distribution!

Let's stop vilifying the author of the Rice Tariffication Law. Senator Cynthia Villar's only fault is not introducing this into law years ago. Here's something to think about before I close. Why did we see the need for Villar's law? It was in response to heavy criticism from the public that saw the highest inflation rates in 20 or so years! Remember the figure of 6.8%? Economists agree that it was due to the high prices of rice and food that caused this inflation rate. Now, with cheaper rice, we do indeed see a lower inflation rate, though no one talks about that, now do they?

Does Rallying Really Work?

Or course, they do! History has shown time and time again that collective action and even violent action has changed society. The French Civil War, the American Civil War, our very own EDSA revolution have all had an impact on society in either deposing a corrupt leader or abolishing an inhumane practice.

Recently, the Hong Kong protesters did win a huge battle where after weeks of protesting, Hong Kong's leader pull the extradition bill, which was the cause of the protests in the first place. So yes, protests work. Almost as soon as this bit of news broke out, many of my UP friends pointed out that if Hong Kong can stand up to China, why can't we? And that we should protest as well!

Well, no - not really. The activists in our country are at it again. For all five years of my life in UP, activists have been calling for mass action, walk outs, and protests consistently. For five years... consistently. I can only assume they've been doing the same since 1986 until now. That means they've been discontent with our government for more than 30 years.

It's hard to describe how I feel about the activists calling for rallies for every single small thing that they don't like. It makes me wonder if they took the time to approach the issue calmly with open dialogue and discussion. But one more accurate analogy I can think of is the feeling of the villagers about the boy who cried wolf. If rallies are the done consistently for more than 30 years, what makes the Filipino people think that this time will be any different.

Do I think we should voice out our ideas to our government? Most definitely. The best avenue would be a calm discussion with our political leaders. Like I've said previously, the best antidote to faulty ideas is to put them out in the open... calmly. Rallies, protests, and mass action should be a second to the last resort with civil war being the last resort.

Let's give our current system a chance. For 30 years, the activists have not once given it a chance. I think it's about time they stop crying wolf.

Define the Terms Please (SOGIE at it again)

SOGIE is hot on the news yet again. I'm against it's passage for the plain and simple reason that the bill has way too many ambiguous terms. Some terms are way too broad to have any place in a legal document. Even when defined, they are still very much too broad.

Take the act of discrimination, for example as defined by the bill.

I shall lift from Senate Bill 1271 as not to miss anything:

"Discrimination refers to any distinction, exclusion, restriction, or preference based on the grounds of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, hereinafter referred to as “SOGIE”, and has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, access to, enjoyment, or exercise by all persons on an equal footing of all rights and freedoms. For purposes of this provision, the actual sex, sexual orientation or gender identity of the person subjected to discrimination shall not be relevant for the purpose of determining whether an act of discrimination has been committed."

 This definition alone should be cause for alarm. Let's zero in on what I think the problematic part of this definition is - "imparing the recognition". This means everyone must acknowledge the woman-ness of a trans-woman as doing otherwise would impair their recognition as such.

What I find odd is that the bill even states that a person's actual sex is not to be relevant in determining if discrimination occurred as such terms like man, woman, male and female need not be defined - or at the very least their definitions don't matter.

Here's another definition that proves my earlier point:

"Gender Identity - refers to the personal sense of identity as characterized, among others, by manner of clothing, inclinations, and behavior in relation to masculine or feminine conventions. A person may have a male or female identity with the physiological characteristics of the opposite sex."

 Here's a bill which, in enacted into law, would penalize criminally, not recognizing the gender identity of someone. And the only way one would know of someone's gender identity would be through a "personal sense" a.k.a. "very highly subjective".

The terms we should be defining if we want to move forward are male, female, man and woman. One of the speakers in the Senate Hearing for the SOGIE bill has said that these terms have already been defined by the Supreme Court. I'll admit that the Supreme Court isn't always right (but we all have to somehow think they are) and I'll admit that things can change so let's go on.

Here's something that I don't understand and wherever you are on the spectrum, I think it's a valid point.

How can anyone know what it feels like to be a (blank) if they've never been a (blank)?

I will never know what it's like being a woman as I've never been a woman. I'll never know what it's like to be a rice farmer as I've never been a rice farmer. Now, in both cases, I can definitely try. I can spend a week as a rice farmer and can probably get an idea or a glimpse but that's it - a glimpse. Unless I quit my job and get a job as a rice farmer, I will never truly know.

In the same vein, a man who says they feel like and know they're a woman, can never truly feel like a woman as they've never been a woman. They may feel like they like wearing women's clothes and using women's products but such simplifies what a woman is to what a woman wears or looks like (a.k.a. stereotypes) and we're taught not to bound men and women to stereotypes as there are strong and powerful women and very nurturing or motherly men

I've heard that to bypass this logic, transgender men and women will say that they've always been that gender. Meaning, a trans-woman had always been a woman if when he was a little boy and a trans-man had always been a man even when she was little girl.

As such, you'd expect that once someone has come out as transgender, one would have to accept that they've been that gender their whole lives, even when they competed in sporting events of the opposite gender. Remember that denying this would be among the prohibited acts of the bill.

Say they truly have felt like the opposite gender. As I've never been them or in their shoes, I will never know and as such I have sympathy for transgenders. I'm in no place to question that but in a society where things we believe must have basis, it must be noted that when a person looks at their body, they know what sex they are and public policy cannot be based on subjective feelings that say the contrary.

You may be thinking, "What's the harm in accepting them for who they say they are?" I've felt this as well. In fact, who are we to push our beliefs on others? But this is where it gets tricky. If I can't push my belief upon a trans-woman that he is a man, then a trans-woman should also not be able to push their belief on me that he is a woman. However, pushing for the SOGIE bill does protect one act as non-discriminatory while categorizing the other as discriminatory. That's why there's such an uproar especially from people who don't buy into this ideology.

Proponents of the SOGIE bill have tried to spread the lie that this bill seeks only to protect the rights of the LGBT community and that religious freedom will not be compromised. But read it more closely and ask questions. In a senate discussion, it's already been categorically stated that if an all girl's school denies a trans-woman admission because they were born male, that this would be one of the prohibited acts.

I'll end this post here. But I encourage you, dear reader to read the SOGIE bill and educate yourself. I wouldn't want to live in a society that can't get the basic definitions right. Maybe that's were the LGBT community needs to start if they want this bill to pass. So please, define the terms, for our sanity.

The Essence of a Woman

Last week, senator Tito Sotto, in response to the SOGIE bill being pushed in the said that a man can never be a woman because a trans-woman cannot have a baby, he doesn't have ovaries or the sexual organs associated with the fairer sex.

Social media blew up with people from the LGBT community and their allies attacking the senator saying he was reducing the worth of a woman to that of child bearing. Vice Ganda put it very bluntly saying that women who have their ovaries removed or women who don't want to have children are no less women because of they don't have ovaries or don't want children. He then ended by saying, "Sila ay babae dahil sila ay babae."

What Vice considers a huge mic drop moment is actually meaningless. It's as meaningless as saying that "Chukabas are chukabas". Vice has missed the opportunity to move the conversation forward by putting words that Tito Sotto's mouth. Now, I'm no fan of Tito Sotto but the man's got a point in his original statement.

Trans-women want to be accepted as women in our society but they have failed to define what a woman is. Actually, no one is concerned about it from the LGBT community. Here, we have Senator Tito Sotto give his definition and the LGBT community and their allies just bash him saying he got the definition wrong without giving their alternative definition. This is what I find to be the most problematic part of the SOGIE bill. No one seems to be concerned with the definitions of a man or a woman - they just are.

What makes me, for example, "not a woman" and my mother and sisters, "women"? Men and women are terms whose meanings we've known very well for thousands for years. It's only now that we pretend we don't know.

Like it or not, being a woman has something to do with the reproductive system (Tito Sotto's point). Even the LGBT community knows this - why do you think gender reassignment surgery is a thing? We all know that our plumbing (if you will) is directly related to what it means to be a man or a woman. Men have penises and women have vaginas.

Part and parcel with the woman is her inherent ability to carry a child in her womb. Such is not possible at all with a man. This is why we say a woman has a healthy reproductive system if she's able to get pregnant. A woman who cannot bear a child even if she tried so much, is just a woman who doesn't have a healthy reproductive system. A woman who chooses not to have children is simple a woman who's chosen not to use her reproductive system.

It bothers me a bit that people - mostly women - think it's an insult to women when we say that childbearing is one of the things that comes with being a woman. Women, to the exclusion of men, are the only people who can carry children. As such, they are the only people who are able to bring about the next generation. No man has the honor of being able to do that.

Now, some people will not agree with me and that's fine. From the few online debates I've been on, no one seems keen on defining what a woman is. So if you don't agree with me, open my mind and tell me what a woman is.

Laughcry nalang

Hahahahahahahahahuhuhuhuhuhuhu...

That's probably the best way I can describe an emotion I feel when going through social media or the news. Laughcry. It's where you start off laughing and end up crying inside. Feelings of "how did we get here?" usually accompany laughcrying. Now, this is not to be confused with laughing so much that tears form. Laughcrying starts off with a laugh and ends with a cry with actual sad emotions.

Many things make me laughcry. One in particular caught my attention so much I think I died a little when I read it. Well, after I laughed so much first then I died a little.

Just recently a Catholic school in the US removed the Harry Potter series from their library because of the risks of "conjuring evil spirits". I read this thinking it was some weird news bit and laughed until I died a little. I've since read the article and it doesn't seem to be as bad as it was originally made out to be.

But removing the Harry Potter series because it contains magic and conjuring of spirits or that their characters made questionable decisions is downright absurd! Following that logic, the Chronicles of Narnia and the Lord of the Rings series should also be removed. But those two series are very Christian in their writings.

From a Catholic perspective, I understand their qualms but to remove a book because of potential threats is downright lazy. A more effective way to go about it is to properly form the students so they can watch out for these things by themselves. Teach the students to separate fact from fiction, right from wrong, etc. But I digress.

Laughcrying is an emotion I'm sure many people have expressed. Another meme (I'm unsure how newsworthy it was) posted a picture of Gretchen Diaz saying that there should be schools exclusive to LGBT students. I laughed because the idea itself is silly and one that I'm sure the LGBT community doesn't actually want. And then I cried because I'm not sure anymore that everyone thinks it's a bad idea.

In our world today where things are losing their meanings and people put meanings into things that don't have them, well, laughcry nalang.

Let's Get a Few Things Straight... or LGBT. I don't know anymore

I hate fake news. This is not news. I think nobody likes fake news. So in the spirit of fairness, I have to call our fake news even when they support my position.

Now, certain memes have been circulating more conservative circles which features Gretchen Diaz (the trans-woman who was denied the use of the female restroom) complaining about things like Jose Mari Chan's Christmas songs which only mention boys and girls. There's a lot more with one I mentioned in a previous post here he suggested that there should be LGBT exclusive schools in every municipality.

This is a caricature of what the LGBT community wants with the SOGIE bill. If we simply want to tear down a caricature of the LGBT's position, then what we're essentially doing is destroying a straw man. Even if this is done for fun and nobody really believes them, these types of jokes overstayed their welcome and actually make the divide between the LGBT community and the non-LGBT community that much larger. I'm of the belief that if we can't talk about the strongest version of the argument, we are actually just dealing with a straw man.

I'm not from the LGBT community nor am I sympathetic to their causes - I'm currently against the legalization of civil partnership and SOGIE - but I know some of the things they do what as opposed to the things we think they want.

• Third bathroom? Nope! The LGBT community doesn't want a third bathroom. Such a thing could "other"-ize them and I know that inclusion is their goal. Not exclusion.
• Trans-women don't want to have another category for sex just for them. What they want is the legal protections that come with being a woman. Their battle cry in this regard could not be more clear - "Trans-women are real women."
• Gay man does not mean the same trans-woman. Also, lesbian does not mean the same was trans-man. I wish I could make a matrix for this but this can be confusing and even I don't get it. Let's just agree that those four things mean different things... I think. Maybe. I don't know - See, this is why I'm not for the SOGIE bill (Joke. But yeah. It's all really confusing).
• The LGBT community does not want special rights. They want equal rights. This is common misconception. I think that if we want to move the conversation forward, it must be established that they do in fact have equal rights.

These are all I can think about at this point. I've said this before but the best way to see if an LGBT cause is worth pursuing, is to hear it out and to listen to it. Adding what we think they're saying will not help the conversation.

If this topic interests you, a good thing to do is to read the full text of the bill which is now in the Senate and to listen to the senate hearings. It's there you can get the information straight from the other side's mouth.

Discrimination should be allowed

Did I get your attention? We, as humans, have learned to discriminate and that's actually part of why we've become so successful as a species. Now, there are levels of discrimination. There's systemic discrimination like women not being allowed to vote or only atheists can hold a political position in some countries. And then there's personal discrimination like some older Filipino-Chinese who think Filipinos are not trustworthy.

It's systemic discrimination that's harmful. The state should not be allowed to discriminate against any person on a systematic basis. For example, granting only one sex to vote or disallowing certain groups to associate or form an assembly is harmful.

However, when people discriminate against other groups in their own personal lives, I think the state should allow for such a form of discrimination. Now, before I continue, I should state that I think discrimination is not good but it does more harm for the state to police discrimination than it does good.

(As SOGIE has been in the news more times than any other issue, I might mention more SOGIE related cases on here.)

Take for example a man who refuses to date trans-women but will date any other woman. Is he being discriminatory in that case? A more common form of this kind of discrimination is one that involves the Filipino-Chinese community. Many/most of the will constrain their dating lives to members of the Filipino-Chinese community. Is that discriminatory and should that be policed?

Let's move to a larger scale like businesses. Would it be wise to police business that hire only one gender? For example, spa that only hires women, or a small business that does not want to hire foreigners as it wishes to be a Filipino only company? Catholic seminaries, for example, accept only natural born males (i.e. No trans-men). Should a homophobic business owner be forced to consider a gay man for a position or should we allow this business owner to be homophobic so that this gay man would not have to deal with a homophobic boss? Should an old woman be forced to consider as her nurse, a trans-woman or man even if it makes her uncomfortable to have him help her change clothes?

How about cases that infringe on religious freedom? It's no secret that the Catholic Church isn't a friend to LGBT causes. The RCC believes that sex and gender are one and the same (the same thing we've all thought until a few years ago) and so no one can be another gender other than the one they were born as. Can a Catholic parish refuse to marry a trans-woman (born male) to a straight man? Can convents refuse trans-women because their order only allows women to be part? Can a Christian photographer be allowed to refuse his services to a gay civil union because his conscience tells him not to?

These cases may seem farfetched to some but we're already seeing some cases of these happening in the West. One case in Canada saw the closure of a women's waxing salon because the women who worked there refused to wax a trans-woman's balls - strange as that may sound.

Hard as it might be to admit but we should allow discrimination. The best course of action for everyone on all sides should be to encourage dialogue among the people. Thrusting anti-discrimination laws down our throats, in my opinion, is counter productive.

Right now, in our country, the LGBT community enjoys the exact same rights as everyone else. You heard that right - the exact same rights as everyone else! All of them can vote, can own property, can assemble, can protest, can run for office. Many in the LGBT community are successful people in business, music, show biz, etc. Anyone in the LGBT community can marry anyone of the opposite sex as them - just like the rest of us. Anyone in the LGBT community can use the bathroom of their sex.

I have yet to see one right afforded to just one group of people but denied to the rest on the basis of SOGIE, race, etc. If you find one, please tell me.

The Moral Greys of War and Fire Emblem

A few weeks ago, a game came out called Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Fire Emblem has always dealt with war and the moral grey of it. While you may not agree with other people on certain things, it helps to see the humanity of people and see what their motivations were.

Ironically, almost all war is started with the hope of achieving peace. Hitler believed he was in the right by eliminating the Jews as he believed they were the cause of many problems. Now, to be clear, whether or not the allies won the war, it wouldn't have changed that Hitler was dead wrong on this. What can be of some discussion, however, is the nature of the soldiers on each side.

While we can say that Hitler was definitely a bad man, could the same be said for each individual German soldier in his ranks? Of course not. It might have been the case that many of those who died in the German army didn't believe in their cause but followed out of love for their country.

Three Houses tells the story of a group of students who belong to three different territories. Each house represents a territory. Early in the game, you choose one of the three houses to ally yourself with. The story is largely the same regardless of which house you choose but it's interesting to see how the three territories and their students respond to key events in the story.

Depending on your choices, you'll might end up with the stereotypical "good guys" story which shows that even as the good guys, your allies and the people around you may not be complete angels. You may also end up with with a story which puts you in the shoes of the stereotypical "bad guys" which then fleshes out their motivations which you learn to sympathize with. The point of the whole affair is to drive home the point that in war, no one side is completely guilty nor completely innocent. Now that isn't to say that there are individuals who are beyond redemption. But the point still stands.

Fire Emblem Three Houses forces old friends onto opposing sides of a war. You then get to see how they handle certain events afterwards. In my first play-through, one character lamented how our army had just killed one of her old classmates. She didn't just say his name but said the nickname that only she uses to call him which hit me right in the heart.

Of course Fire Emblem is more neat compared to an actual war but it's helpful to see these things so we're constantly reminded about the horrors of war and how we should avoid it unless there's absolutely no other choice.

UP and the Military

Many of my UP alumni friends are voicing out their frustration that the current administration wants to put up a bigger military presence in UP campuses nationwide. I agree with them that UP should not be policed so closely by the military. It does in fact sound very much like the martial law that Marcos declared back in the 70's.

The government says that they want to keep a closer eye on communist groups have reportedly taken a stronghold in UP campuses. Ironically, this is one of the reasons I don't support the government subsidizing 100% of the tuition of the students.

Let's look at this from the perspective of the government. The government provides free college education for everyone in UP. Now, it's mentioned that it's actually the people of the Philippines who send the UP students to school and not the government, but living in a democracy, we should see that those two are no different - the government is the entity that represents the people.

This administration, being the one that's technically paying for the education of the UP students would naturally want to know how education is being handled (i.e., how the money of the people of the Philippines is being spent). Because the government is spending for UP education, they do in fact have every right and in fact a responsibility to closely monitor this expense.

This is why I can understand why the government would want to have a larger military presence on campus. I would not want it in any lifetime but I understand their motivations. It's been noted that more UP students and alumni appear in the ranks of the NPA. Coming from UP, I know this to be true. Many people who go to UP join the ranks of the NPA when they leave. They never say they are though. They're always just, "graduate students" or "scientist" or "medical workers". These are actual words used in the newspaper to report certain cases where they were either detained or killed by the military.

Now, people might say I'm making outlandish claims but it doesn't take a genius to put two and two together. Student activists make up roughly 10% of the student population of UP. However, reports of people being "detained illegally" or "killed in a military altercation" are almost always from this 10% group. That's why when I talk about this, I used to belong to the group that defended these people. But when I saw that it's almost always from a small group of students, I stopped to think that maybe they were the problem.

I still don't want my alma mater to be overrun by the military. But every time I see UP students call for walk-outs or rally for causes instead of studying harder for their education, I can't help but sympathize with the military.

To UP students, you're given the golden opportunity to get a good education to help our country grow. Focus on that for now. Please.