March For Climate Justice

March for Climate Justice

(c) Jena T.

March for Climate Justice Philippines - November 28, 2015

In the Philippines, to see people marching on the streets with colorful costumes, streamers, and banners, followed by a band playing loud and upbeat music, signify that there’s a fiesta going on. On the other hand, to see people gathered by the roads, chanting protests, would mean totally different - there is a rally. This time, however, it was a little bit of both.

Last November 28, 2015, many people flocked Quezon City Memorial Circle to march for climate justice. This was held in line with the Global Climate March happening in 150 other countries prior the COP21 in Paris. COP21 refers to 21st Conference of Parties, wherein global leaders discussed and agreed on actions to take in the future that will prevent climate change from reaching catastrophic levels.

Spearheaded by the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice, the march in Quezon City is just one of the many staged marches across the country; other sites (in Luzon only) were in Semirara Island, Batangas, Occidental Mindoro, Laguna, Bataan, and Zambales. Given that the Philippines is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, it is paramount for people here to stage a nationwide mass action. It is time everyone in the world considers more seriously and carefully the negative impacts of carbon emissions and our reliance on fossil fuels.

Many people from different sectors of society came together, may it be religious groups, labor unions, youth organizations, even groups of foreigners, just to name a few. Hearts all beating as one, we lobbied for Climate Justice around the 25-hectare QC circle. 

Among the themes that echoed during the protest are energy transformation, right to food, land, and water, justice and reparations for affected people, protection of our common home, jobs and just transition, and youth. I was part of the Cut it Deep, Cut Now group demanding the increase in global temperature be limited to 1.5°C. Whether it’s reducing exposure to severe drought, flooding, spread of disease, intensity of typhoons or sea level rise, scientific studies conclusively say the damage will be profoundly reduced by staying within 1.5° of warming --- which was actually SUCCESSFULLY agreed upon in COP21 a few days after the global march! YES, you read that right!

For the first time in COP history, representatives to the COP21 finally reached a universal and legally-binding agreement on climate change last December 12. One of the agreed upon terms is that developed and developing countries will ensure and are required to limit their emissions to relatively safe levels - 1.5°C. Finally! If you want to see list of other agreed terms, check this link: http://www.c2es.org/international/negotiations/cop21-paris/summary.

COP21, as well as the March for Climate Justice Philippines, were momentous. I’m really proud to have been part of this grand, festive, and historic march. However, this is just the first step in the battle against climate change. There’s still a lot to be done, one of which is standing by the agreement. I hope the Philippines, the government and its people, act and contribute to this fight as it is our homes and lives that hang in the balance.

When things seem to be not going well in one or two aspects of your life, do you know what would help keep you going? It’s habit. It’s discipline. When you’re so demotivated and/or depressed, it’s habit that will pull you out of your bed and get you to work. The month of April began terribly for me but because I’ve set myself up at the start of the year to be that person who wouldn’t stop no matter what happens until she reaches her goal, I was able to get myself out of the sad hole I was about to dig myself in again. 

“The world is so much bigger than your brain, stop living inside your head.” 

Often times I let my mind enslave me to my indelible past and be held by beliefs in the promised future that never arrives. I let fear, pain, and sadness due to terrible circumstances control me for days on end. There is nothing morally wrong with doing so but how long should I let it? Allowing emotions to sweep me away, I realized, is to miss the point that life only consists of the now. 

Why am I still alive today? What should I do in this present moment? These are questions I - we - should ask ourselves constantly. Constantly, constantly be relieved by the realization and the fact that there is another way to live other than the one you know. It is work that you put out there in the world or what you do afterwards that is of most value. It is action. Cliché as that may all be, but really, you have to remind yourself of what is there to continually live for. To help the poor, to spend quality time with your family, to rally for your advocacies, to form a political voice, or to study your lessons. As John Tapene said, develop a backbone not a wishbone. Don’t live in your head so much that you miss the world and all that it can offer. Do not forget what is important in life.

© Photos by Out of the Box Team & Collage by Jena T.

Out of the Box’s Media Literacy Bootcamp held May 9, 2015 was a great opportunity for people like me who are new to media literacy efforts, want to be part of creating awareness, as well as those who want to take action and counter the messages in media and help others become critical viewers of media.

Out of the Box (OOTB) is an initiative by UP students to promote media literacy in the Philippines. They hold workshops, forums, and trainings, to campaign for media literacy and educate people about it. I was fortunate enough to attend one of their workshops last May, which I am happy to talk about in this post.

But first, you may be asking yourself, what is media literacy? In basic terms, media literacy is the ability to discern information from entertainment, the fact from fluff, in the media we consume. It empowers one to be critical of everything he watches, reads, and hears from media.

Together with 59 other attendees, I was able to participate in discussions regarding issues in media, create spoof ads for the spoof ads contest, and listen to talks by speakers who work for media. I learned a great deal, many of which I only realized through the workshop. Let me summarize them into a list of three:

There is a growing problem with media, its use, and its consumerism here in the Philippines – but many are not aware of it yet.

         The media issues that most know of are only those whose impact they have felt the most recently, such as the repression of freedom especially in the Philippine news media with the murders of 32 journalists in the Maguindanao Massacre back in 2009; and, of course, the filing and long-awaited passing of the FOI bill in the Congress. It should be brought more to people’s attention that not only is the right to freedom of expression suffering in society but it’s also being curtailed in the film and television industry. How so? 

          Let us note that the Philippine traditional media landscape has always been dominated by family-owned corporations, for instance, the Lopezes own ABS-CBN and GMA is owned by the Gozon-Duavit-Jimenez triumvirate. Media ownership in the Philippines is part of a monopolistic approach by business tycoons. There is manipulation in what is being featured in media because there is money to be made. When the Pope came here last January, these two leading channels, for almost twenty-four hours, chose to televise his visit and little of anything else aside from advertisements. 

           In the Philippines, ubiquitous also are the films and television shows that are only a re-make of previous successful films and television shows in order to repeat a huge hit (and the raking in of money, more likely). Our cinema is invaded by romantic-comedy films and little of any other genres. This is so because rom-com is what appeals most to the masses, as said by one of the speakers in the workshop; and at the end of the day, the cinema industry is a business after all. The business angle has obviously taken over journalism and mass media.

    2.  Media messages are constructed for a purpose.

         What do I mean by this? When I say media messages are constructed, I mean that all media messages have been assembled by someone. That “someone” could be a single person, or it could be a large organization. For instance, in photographs, the photographer's own vision of what she wants to show within the frame demonstrates her own values and beliefs. A newspaper writer’s articles may be based on his own beliefs, or on the beliefs and ideologies of his publishers, or perhaps even the beliefs of the companies who advertise in that particular newspaper.

         The messages and values embedded in these particular pieces of media are those of the people who created it. Thus, we must always be wary of their purpose behind the creation of their work.  Media messages may be organized to gain profit and/or power, which is usually the case in print and television advertisements. I’m not asking you to frown upon ads entirely - they are, after all, made for the purpose of selling a product, but we have to be nonetheless conscious of what we see. Misrepresentations are widespread in ads. They create idealized notions of beauty and identity. As a media literate individual, remind yourself not to take everything at its face value.

    3.   We can do something about it.

          You have the power to counter these media problems. How do I become media literate? For one, be critical. Before believing a piece, ask questions. Getting your news from only one source will skew your opinions and beliefs about important issues so it’s better to vary your sources. Read the newspaper, listen to the radio, watch your local news, and test out different outlets. Remember that facebook, twitter updates, and hashtags are no replacement for journalistic reporting. Understand the facts before being overridden by the desire to tweet the news. And most importantly, let yourself be heard.

We must realize that being a conscientious news consumer is vital to a successful democracy. Understanding the issues helps keep those with power in check. Recognizing problems amidst a flurry of contradictory media messages is essential to letting the government, as well as those behind media, know when we disagree and when we have a problem. Public opinion will only be powerful if our media literacy is sharp. We know that the media we have is far from perfect and thus, we must do what we can do to improve our media literacy and account for the media’s deficiencies.

For more info about Out of the Box, you can check out their facebook page. Support the initiative! Be media literate! :)

Also, let me share to you the winners of the Spoof Ads contest! Spoof ads aim to reconstruct an ad and deliver a more truthful message.

(c) Jena T.

11/6/15. I can’t remember the last time I took a walk around the campus alone. Oh how I cherish these moments of solitude and quiet.

Year 2016

One thing has become clear to me as I look back this past year: it’s that I have to stop giving into it –  to self-doubt, to sorrow, to pain. 

There are so many instances in my life in which I allowed myself to fall and be bruised. I let myself be broken. I let myself be paralyzed by failure in fear of having to go through it all over again. Our society seems to think nowadays that it is completely okay to romanticize pain and nestle it in our hearts – and so we do and stay broken. But here’s the shocking line that not all of us take time to realize, and only this year did I learn; being in pain is not a way to live. We have to be smart enough to rise above that pain. 

Earlier in the year, I had someone who I genuinely loved walk away from my life. The first days of grief were the hardest. It was an incredibly difficult concept to accept that some stories of love only exist for a certain period. It isn’t his fault nor mine. A failed relationship isn’t a reflection of who the individuals involved are as a person. It’s just that no could have predicted the future and no one could have known that it was simply not meant to be. Both parties were only doing the best they could at the time, and he and I both owed it to ourselves to take a leap of faith. Of course I learned all these in hindsight. But before it sunk in that was truly over, I carried the pain and what I believed then to be a defeat with me for months on end. I thought it was only natural to do that and therefore, okay. They say a good cry is what you need after a break-up — but crying and thinking about it longer than you should? No. To berate and lose yourself in regret and self-doubt? No.

What I failed to factor in in all this wallowing was myself. Showering someone with love and care may be beautiful and noble, but I have to bestow these qualities upon myself too. I deserve to give myself the same love that I keep giving to someone else. Hanging onto negativity and self-pity only hinders me from growing. Blanketing myself with sadness only tears me down, not build me up. Pain and sadness are not armors to wear until I become strong again. Strength, I now fully realized, is gained when one rises above and overcomes all these miseries.

This coming 2017, I hope that I stop being hard on myself. I should let light flood in and loosen my grasp on the pain that I’ve held onto for so long. I hope to embrace happiness when given it and treat myself with as much kindness and care that I keep on insisting I be able to impart to others. Loss, in any form, shouldn’t have to be an indication to doubt ourselves but a revelation to love ourselves better.  

July 2015

Insights from Rizal Park

It felt, in the beginning, as if I wouldn’t be able to endure the stress of coming to and from a park because of public transportation and traffic issues here in Metro Manila. But time changes everything, as the saying goes. With each passing productive day spent there, NSTP ended with me not minding the stress so much anymore.

My many experiences in Rizal Park trained me to serve and serve well. Never did I imagine that the norm for at least three weeks would be for me to tour local and foreign tourists, bravely communicate with strangers, stay during opening and closing hours of a visitor’s center, memorize Rizal’s story by heart, watch and support cultural presentations, and to fully immerse myself in the daily on-goings of a park. All these experiences strengthened the impression that there is so much to explore within the city and that new adventures are around the corner, just waiting to be discovered. 

During the NSTP Common Module, I remember a Professor Ivan Henares saying that we should take the time to tour places that are found here in the Philippines and support local tourism because our country is filled with hidden gems and scenic spots. I must say Rizal Park is one of them. Natural aesthetic appeal isn’t the only criteria for great tourist destinations, anyway. Forget for a minute that the park is man-made. Forget that there is a photo-bombing building behind Rizal’s monument. Marvel instead at the historic and cultural value of the place. Rizal Park or Luneta was the spot where people died, only to be born again as heroes. It was the place where Jose Rizal was martyred in the name of love for our country. It is the place where people from all walks of life come together so that they could bask themselves under the tropical sunlight and remember what it means to be a Filipino, or for foreigner’s case, to be enlightened of the Filipino struggles. It is the place where symbols of friendship with other nationalities were made, such as the Germans, Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans. Rizal Park already became kind a of home to me, not because I spent a great number of hours there, but because for the first time in a long time, I was able to identify with my countrymen, work with people from different backgrounds, and revel at our national hero’s life and sacrifice. I truly love historical places because they remind me of where my countrymen have been and where else we could be going. Don’t you?

One of the challenges Rizal Park is experiencing at present is the weak promotional work and publicity of its recreational activities and facilities. However, I do believe that if people would just bear in mind the park’s value to our history, then the number of advertisements don’t need to matter. People would continue to visit and, hopefully like I did, gain a sense of a cultural home in Rizal Park too.

© Photos by CPAD Documentation Team, friends from NSTP (Pau & Ell), & me, Jena T.