Paru-parong Bukid (English translation)

Butterfly from the field English Translation by Roberto Verzola

Paru-parong Bukid Traditional Filipino folk song

I just saw a butterfly, flitting and floating by; waiting by the main trail, fluttering in the air. Sari wrapped around her, sleeves as wide as my palm, Skirt’s a trifle oversized, ends dragging on the ground. – Her hair held with a pin Oh! Her hand twirling a comb Oh! Decorated half-slip, drawing others to peep. Then she faces the stage, ogling her own image, She would come and tease us, hips swaying like a duck.

Paru-parong bukid na lilipad-lipad Sa tabi ng daan papaga-pagaspas Isang bara ang tapis Isang dangkal ang manggas Ang sayang de kola Isang piyesa ang sayad. – May payneta pa siya Uy! May suklay pa mandin Uy! Naguas de ojetes ang palalabasin Haharap sa altar at mananalamin At saka lalakad nang pakendeng-kendeng.

Leron, Leron sinta (English translation)

Leron-leron my love English translation by Roberto Verzola	Leron, Leron sinta Traditional Filipino folk song
Leron, leron my love, papaya seeds above. He took a bamboo box to keep the fruits he’d get. Then as he neared the top, the entire branch broke up. “It’s not my lucky day; I’ll find another way!” – I offer you my love, my courage suits you fine. I’ve got me seven knives, I’m keeping nine more guns. A journey, I will make to distant parts beyond. A plate of noodles is the foe I will engage!	Leron, leron sinta buto ng papaya dala-dala’y buslo sisidlan ng bunga pagdating sa dulo nabali ang sanga kapos kapalaran humanap ng iba! – Ako’y ibigin mo, lalaking matapang Ang sundang ko’y pito, ang baril ko’y siyam. Ang lalakarin ko’y parte ng dinulang. Isang pinggang pansit, ang aking kalaban!

Electronic voting, electronic cheating?

When I was awarded a six-week research fellowship by the University of Oxford’s Internet Institute, I chose to focus on electronic voting. (The term more commonly used in the Philippines is “automated elections”.) My research confirmed my initial suspicion that electronic voting and counting machines bring their own set of troubles. I realized that the COMELEC, as well as the media and the public, should therefore take extra steps to ensure the integrity of automated elections.

One of the things I did was review the experiences of countries that had earlier automated their elections. And I found well-documented cases of problems, errors and failures (download: Automated elections: voting machines have made mistakes too).

These cases included: uninitialized machines, which made ballot stuffing possible; votes not counted or lost; candidates’ votes reversed; contests not counted; ballots not counted; the wrong winner comes out; allowing voting more than once; vote totals that exceed the number of registered voters; negatives votes; unauthorized software replacement; and other problems.

I traced these troubles to deep-seated causes that were inherent with complex technologies, such as: software bugs, which are always present even in high-quality software; hardware problems such as miscalibration; environmental stresses that may worsen hardware problems; poor or flawed design; human errors; and malicious tampering. Since these factors were inherent with complex technologies, we can expect the electronic machine troubles to persist.

In my research, I also found out that insoluble problems associated with direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting machines have already led to their phase out in some states of the U.S.

I also compiled typical costs for DREs and optical scanners (download: The cost of automating elections), and found that DRE technology was much more expensive to implement that optical scanning. (However, because an increasing number of states are junking DREs, their prices are expected to go down, as they are dumped into the Third World.)

Halalang Marangal (HALAL), an election monitoring group that I work with, has already submitted two specific recommendations to the COMELEC as a result of my Oxford study:

1. Use double-entry accounting methods in election tabulation (download: Double-entry accounting in election tallies)to minimize the clerical errors that plague the COMELEC’s current single-entry tabulation system; and

2. Conduct a transparent post-election audit of machine results (download: Post-election audits using statistical sampling), by manually counting ballots from a random sample of precincts to confirm if the electronic voting machines are giving us correct results.

Given the reported problems in the August 2008 ARMM elections, which seem to confirm these troubles with automated elections and voting machines, I again strongly urge the COMELEC to heed our warnings and suggestions.

Sustainability through permanent agriculture

How does one design a farm so that it is environmentally-friendly and economically viable as well?

To many Filipino farmers, this question has not even occurred. Most tenants and farm workers have little say in running the farms they work in, much less in redesigning them. Even farmer-owners often simply take the existing farm set-up as given, preoccupied as they are in the day-to-day problems of keeping their farms afloat.

Yet, a farm’s design is a key factor in its survival and sustainability. In poorly-designed farms, farmers will always feel as if every day were an uphill climb, because the poor design makes the farmer work against the natural flow of matter and energy in the farm. In well-designed farms, farming will feel like a downhill joyride, as the natural forces and components in the farm themselves do most of the work that the farmer normally shoulders.

A sustainable approach to farm design called permaculture, first developed in Australia, is now proving its worth under Philippine conditions. In permaculture (from permanent agriculture), the farmer carefully lays out a system of water containment and channels within the farm, so that water naturally flows slowly, by gravity, from one containment to the next. Then, the farmer gradually “assembles”, following certain principles and guidelines, an increasing variety of plants and animals. These are laid out in a way that each additional farm component performs one or more functions or provides matter or energy which, in a conventional farm, have to be provided by the farmers themselves. After many years, a well-designed permaculture farm will look like a lush forest of food and cash crops. And this forest will essentially maintain itself. Then, the farmers’ job will consist mainly of tending the “forest” and regularly harvesting its products.

Successful permaculture farms in the Philippines include the Center for Ecozoic Living and Learning (CELL) in Silang, Cavite and Cabiokid in Cabiao, Nueva Ecija. Permaculture practitioners and advocates have set up the Philippine Permaculture Association (PPA), which conducts regular trainings and supports those who want to try permaculture in their own farms.

Why buy what you can copy for free?

Computers today have become standard equipment in government, businesses, schools and even non-government organizations.

In the past, when one bought a computer, it came with the operating system and applications software at no extra cost. Today, commercial software — Windows and MS-Office of Microsoft, for instance — cost several thousand pesos for a single copy. If you have 10 computers, you also need 10 copies of the software, and must now pay for each copy. If you don’t, you run the risk of being sued or, worse, raided by the software giant.

This makes using computers very expensive indeed.

There is an alternative. It is called free software, because you are free to copy it and to share it with others. You are even free to modify it, if you have the inclination and skills to modify software. Best of all, it gives you freedom from fear of harassment, suit or a raid by the local software police.

Free software is also called open software. The most well- known is Linux/GNU, which replaces Microsoft Windows. It is as good, and in many cases, better than Windows. To replace MS- Office, there is OpenOffice which often comes on the same CD as Linux/GNU. For every major type of commercial software, there is usually a free software counterpart.

Where do you get these free/open software? Computer shops might sell them. Shops that sell software often sell Linux CDs too. There is even a Philippine Linux Users Group. Look for it on the Web.

It is not difficult to learn how to install and use these programs. As former President Francisco Nemenzo Jr. of the University of the Philippines said, when he explained why the U.P. System was shifting to free software: we managed to shift from Wordstar to WordPerfect, and then from WordPerfect to MS-Word; we should be able to shift from MS-Office to the compatible OpenOffice will less problems.

Companies like IBM, PAL, Jollibee, Globe and Smart are already using Linux and other free software. If it is good enough for them, it should be good enough for the rest of us.

Indigenous microorganisms (IMO)

A new concoction is becoming increasingly popular among farmers. Usually called indigenous microorganisms (IMO), this concoction has been successfully tried by government agriculturists, academic researchers and non-profit foundations alike. They have found it useful in removing bad odors from animal wastes, hastening composting, and contributing to crops’ general health.

To make your own IMO, follow these simple steps:

1. Cook a kilo of rice, preferably organic. After cooling, put the cooked rice in a wooden, earthen or ceramic container. Avoid plastic or aluminum.

2. Cover the mouth of the container completely with cloth or paper, fixed in place with a rubber band, to prevent water or small insects from getting in.

3. Put the covered container, protected from possible rain, under the trees, in a bamboo grove, a forest floor, or wherever a thick mat of leaves has formed. Leave it there for three days.

4. After whitish moldy filaments have formed, transfer the entire contents of the container to a larger glass or earthen jar and add one kilo of brown sugar or molasses, preferably organic.

5. Cover the jar with clean cloth or paper, fixed with a rubber band. Keep the jar in a dark, cool place. Let it ferment for seven days, until it appears muddy. This is your IMO concoction.

To use, mix two spoonfuls of the concoction with a liter of water. Spray the diluted solution around chicken coops and pig pens to remove unpleasant odors, on your compost pile to hasten decomposition, or on your crops to improve their general health by controlling pests and serving as foliar fertilizer.

By making their own IMO, farmers can free themselves from the need to buy inputs for their farms. By reducing their costs, using IMO keeps them away from debt and improves their income.

Truly, these tiny beneficial organisms are a farmer’s friend.

Worse than colonialism

According to most estimates, some 85% of the entire Philippine national budget now goes to debt payments – principal and interest. This is often cited as the reason more taxes, such as the VAT, the E-VAT, and now the R-VAT, have to be collected.

Consider the significance of this fact: it means that 85% of any income the government collects goes to banks, mainly to international financial institutions who are our biggest lenders. Of what remains, around half is further dissipated through corruption, going into the private pockets of politicians and bureaucrats. The little that is actually spent for social services, furthermore, may go to projects of questionable benefit to the people.

This means that every time government bureaucrats invoke the need to provide basic social services as the main reason for raising taxes, they are lying. The main reason is to pay off government creditors. Most of the tax collections will go to them, automatically appropriated.

In the 18th century, Filipinos were forced to pay the Spanish king, in one year, in cash and kind, tributes totalling around 250,000 for the entire Philippines. Of this, 187,229 pesos (74.9%) went to the local Catholic hierarchy, 59,303 pesos (23.7%) went to the local bureaucracy, and 3,467 pesos (1.4%) went to the royal treasury. Even assuming that all the Church’s share went to Spain or Rome, that plus the share of the royal treasury would still be a lower percentage of the total than the 85% that the government today hands over to our creditors.

In effect, we are in a financially worse situation today than during the Spanish era. The Spanish king has been replaced by the banks and other international lending institutions. The governor-general has been replaced by a president as their principal tax collector.

We are more exploited today than anytime in the past. The colonial period has returned, with a vengeance.

(Source: Francisco Leandro de Viana, Royal Fiscal, “Financial Affairs of the Philippine Islands”, 10 July 1766, from Zaide’s Documentary Sources of Philippine History, Vol. 6, p. 98).