Author Archives: Stephen Cuyos

Why Pinoys Should Opt for Linux

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Today I finally said goodbye to Bill Gates. And I did it with a certain sense of fulfillment. Just after lunch I reformatted my entire hard disk, erased every trace of Windows OS in it, and installed Suse Linux 9.2 Professional. The installation process was a breeze – in fact faster and easier than installing XP.

I have been using Linux since early last year. My first distro was the Red Hat Fedora Core 1. Later on I experimented with Mandrake Linux 10.1. Thus Suse is the first professional version that I use. I am no techie, just an enthusiast who devoutly believes in the principles behind open source.

And I never studied computer programming. Everything I know about hardware and software applications is self-taught. I learned Linux by reading the embedded "help", by browsing online discussions on open source, and by searching for specific explanations with Google. What I am saying is (a) that you don’t have to be a computer expert to understand Linux, and (b) that even if you have not used any other OS except Windows all your life, don’t worry, your migration to Linux will be smooth and painless.

In my next blogs I will talk about specific Linux desktop applications but for now I limit myself to the top 2 reasons why I think Linux is best for us pinoys:

The first reason is also the most important: Linux is open source! Open source essentially means that users are given the freedom to run any Linux program for any purpose, including the right to study, customize and modify the program, as well as to redistribute copies of either the original or modified program. All that without having to pay royalties to previous developers. Programmers and distributors are obliged to include the source code of the programs they distribute, and must allow its free redistribution. So as not to discriminate individual persons or groups and fields of endeavors, the open-source license forbids the programmers and distributors from locking anybody out of the process.

In stark contrast, Microsoft, being a ruthless bully, takes every effort to lock others out of its source codes. And competitors who manage to develop windows-based softwares are always obliged to pay sky-high royalties. Not only are Microsoft royalties steep, its licenses are also very restrictive.

The second reason why I think Linux is best for us pinoys is that Linux is more affordable! I do not have to mention how expensive Microsoft products are. And this is the main reason why software piracy is rampant in the Philippines and in other developing countries.

Linux is cheap and often free. Yet, while it is affordable the quality of Linux products is never compromised. The Fedora and Mandrake operating systems I used last year were included for free with the Linux magazines I purchased from a small bookstore. You could also download Linux for free from many online distributors.

Of course not all Linux software is free, but for the most part it doesn’t require users to pay ongoing licensing fees or royalties (which makes Microsoft infamous), and typically costs less than software from the big commercial developers like the one based in Redmond.

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99% of My Blood is Cappuccino

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Of course I am exaggerating. But if you drink three cups of cappuccino a day, you’d feel like you can’t live without it anymore.

I am a late bloomer when it comes to coffee drinking. It is probably because nobody in my family wontedly drank coffee. Or that I never tasted a good one until I came to Italy. And it did not help that I learned in elementary school that coffee contains caffeine – that awful stuff that was supposed to kill you young. God, did I hate that ink-like beverage.

But I had a metanoia in 2002 when I began studying in Italy. My first cup converted me at once and all the negative biases of my childhood was shuttered. It was a July morning when Michel, a French classmate, invited me to a bar during the routine 15-minute break from our Italian language lessons. At first it looked unimpressively small – the cup was only slightly bigger than a jigger. And it looked fairly simple to prepare it. The barman took some freshly ground coffee granules from a small grinding machine and inserted a spoonful into an electronic coffee maker that looked like a giant bread toaster. A minute later the barista deftly poured frothy milk and a dash of chocolate powder over it. He handed it to me nonchalantly, as if I was the millionth customer of the day. I added two sachets of sugar – Michel’s suggestion – then stirred it like I was God creating tsunami-grade whirlpools in the Pacific Ocean. The sugar slowly descended as coffee and latte became one, yet the cream formed again after the sugar was stirred. The cream was particularly dense and had a gorgeous light brown color. Like a suspicious monkey, I first looked at my cup from every imaginable angle, smelled its aroma, and hesitantly took my first sip.

The feeling was like that of a first kiss – you’d want more but you’re afraid to spoil its firstness. The taste was persistent. In fact it tasted better than it looked. It was a good cappuccino and it was a moment of real pleasure for me. From that day on, my mornings became caffeinated rituals.

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dominicspics/2756648951/

Portrait of a Filipina in Italian Media

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Whenever I browse through both online and offline Italian dailies I am always on the lookout for a mention of pinoys or anything remotely connected with the Philippines. As a foreigner, I could not help but be curious about how my host country regards pinoys like me.

Four afternoons ago I read with much interest a special feature on one kababayan in Il Passaporto, a multiethnic Italian journal. The title of the article is quite catchy, “Marilou Berain: dalla clandestinità alla presidenza delle donne filippine” (literal translation: from clandestinity to presidency of Filipino women). The official Italian word for illegal migrant is clandestina (or clandestino for men).

According to Il Passaporto, Marilou Berain originally came from Mindoro and has been working here in Italy for the past 11 years. She is now 32 years old. A few weeks ago she was elected as the new president of the Filipino Women’s Council (FWC), a nongovernment organization established in 1991 to promote and protect the rights of Filipino women in Italy.

Marilou was 21 years old when she left the Philippines. From Manila she flew to the Czech Republic. After a week of hiding in a hotel, she traveled by car with some strangers to Italy. She never knew the places they passed by nor the languages they spoke, although she could recall that one of her companions mentioned Denmark in passing. It is impossible for her to remember everything that happened in that long and tortuous journey, but she could not forget that she was never afraid. It was enough for her to know where she was headed – to Rome, to work as a babysitter.

Marilou’s story is a story so familiar to millions of migrant Filipinos but is still worth telling. Born into a poor family, she is the eldest of 8 children. Desiring to save her family from poverty, she went to Manila to work as a tailor for a Japanese multinational company after finishing first year college. In just a short while she became the assistant to the Japanese designer of that company. She loved her work but it constrained her from continuing her studies. An invitation to work in Italy presented her an opportunity that she wanted all along.

Marilou’s plan was very clear – to work in Italy for a maximum of 5 years, make enough money, and return to the Philippines to finish her studies while helping her family at the same time. At first she found it very hard to adjust and communicate. She worked as a babysitter to two Italian children, aged 9 and 3. The parents spoke a little English but the children didn’t. It was the children who eventually taught her the Italian language. She learned to read in Italian through the fairy tales the children were reading.

When Marilou began to speak Italian fluently she also began to look into herself to find something that would stimulate her. That’s when FWC entered her life. FWC has not only given her a lot of opportunities but also a good formation. She participated in a research called “Me, Us and Them: Realities and Illusions of Filipino Domestic Helpers”, which was published for the EQUAL project on “The Image of Migrants in Italy: in the Media, the Civil Society and the Labor Market.” The study made Marilou understand concretely the situation of the Filipinos in Italy. And because of that she organized a course on empowerment for Filipinos. Since then she has been helping many of our kababayans empower themselves and promote and protect their human rights.

Her interests, possibilities and perspective have widened yet up to now she still continues to wok as a babysitter while serving as the president of FWC, because that’s the only way she could support herself and send money to Mindoro for the education of her siblings and to make ends meet for her parents. She has decided to continue her studies in Italy. She feels that an important part of her has evolved in Italy and for these past eleven years many things have changed in her. For now she thinks that her life and her future is in Italy.

Today we celebrate the International Women’s Day and I salute Marilou for being such an extraordinary pinay.

Pinoys Among Top Bloggers in the World

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My professor in Journalism once declared in class that blogging has turned the publishing industry upside down. People can now “publish” their news, ideas, and opinions without going through the trappings of mainstream media. All they need is a computer and an internet connection. Many authors and even journalists have turned to blogging as a way of freeing their work from editors. Others use it as a diary or journal. While some others use it as forum for uncensored, unmediated, uncontrolled expression. Thus it is now considered a fact that the real power of blogging is the democratization of the distribution of information.

I used different kinds of blog search engines to find out just how many pinoy bloggers are out there. Pinoyblog, a free service for Filipino blogs and bloggers, is home to 1123 online members. Perhaps the most accurate statistics, in terms of comparing the number of bloggers by country, can be found in Blogwise. It lists pinoys among the top bloggers in the world. The following is the top ten line-up:

1. U.S. 19,812
2. United Kingdom 3,008
3. Canada 2,486
4. Brazil 1,395
5. Spain 1,260
6. Australia 1,087
7. Italy 900
8. Philippines 814
9. Singapore 654
10. Portugal 695

Although Blogwise is not an exhaustive record of all the bloggers in the world, it will still give you an idea how strong the presence is of pinoys in the whole blogosphere. Based on Blogwise, pinoys take the eighth slot in a top ten line-up and conspicuously outrank all other third world countries, except Brazil, which has 176 million people. The main reason for this is probably the high level of education pinoys have and the importance pinoys place on freely expressing one’s opinions and ideas.

For pinoys all over the world, blogging is becoming more and more an alternative to commercial sources of information. With blogging comes not only the freedom of expression but also the ability to demonstrate that freedom in an easy and relatively cheap way. Blogging has also proved itself to be an ideal way to foster links among people and provide an easy way to get feedback and comment that was missing from many other ways of communicating.

The “First”

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It is often the “first” that defines the greatness of an achievement – first to set foot on the moon, first to reach the summit of mount Everest, first to discover the polio vaccine, first to photograph deep sea vents, first to map the human DNA structure, etc.

The “first” of Ricky Bermudez is a 16-track music CD. He composed each note, penned each word and played every instrument creating moving, occasionally catchy, and surprisingly intense music. Heavily acoustic, the album is called “The Treasure In You”. The impression that one immediately gets is that Ricky is sharing with his listeners the treasure that comes from within him. Not only that he composed all the tracks, he also sings most of them. His voice is distinct, crisp, and tender.

The song that immediately became my favorite is “D’yos Ang Pag-ibig” (God is Love), sung by Kristine Camille Morales. Its melody is quite melancholic but the message is incredibly uplifting. It begins with a soft acoustic passage which reminds me of Jim Brickman, then Kristine’s voice takes over and brings the tune to sweet-sounding harmony bordering on the divine. Kristine’s voice pierces me like a hypodermic needle and moves me with its sheer depth.

The other titles are: May the Sacred Heart of Jesus Be Loved, Being With You, Own Me My God, Diyos Ang S’yang Ating Kasama, Gift, Sa ‘Yo Na Ama, Jesus My Guide, Your Love, Dahil Tanging Ikaw, In Your Heart, Greatest Joy, The Treasure In You, His Love, God’s Greatest Love, and Memorare. The thread that weaves all the different tracks into a unified motif is the message that in the journey towards a life of fulfillment and holiness the treasure that we all need to discover is God’s love.

Ricky’s music relies heavily on piano for mood. His rhyming syllables, coupled with his trademark piano hooks sometimes make the songs reach melodrama, as with the lyrics, “satisfy me with your forgiving love that I may never look again for a surrogate of your warmth”. He can also be emotional and romantic, as with the words, “only in your heart that I can be this way”.

No professional singer is involved in the production. Ricky Bermudez himself, who is undeniably gifted, has no professional music career to speak of. A priest and a Missionary of the Sacred Heart (MSC), Ricky currently serves as co-pastor of the Sto. Nino Parish in Mactan, Cebu, Philippines. Another MSC priest involved in the production is Noel Galido, who sings “Own Me, My God”. Noel and Ricky have a characteristic kind of musical alchemy. Other talents involved in the production are Jeanine Sandoy, Kristine Caress Morales, Charina Arellano, Algen Canete, Esmeraldo Jumao-as, Gilbert Gelig, Moises Manabat, Ben Murillo, and Felecitas Inot.

Better sound engineering, packaging and cover design would have brought the album to greater heights, but when I consider that everyone involved in it are non-professionals in the technical sense, then I could not help but admire the results. It is, after all, a collective labor of love.

I’ll hold out hope that this music CD can be the beginning of a sustainable Music Ministry of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in the Philippines.

Well, it is too early to say that his first album will define Ricky’s greatness. In the meantime let us enjoy his music – his treasure – and his message of love.

Please press the play button to listen to Diyos Ang Pag-ibig.



Photography as Poetic Statement

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If you show a photo of canine food to a dog, it wouldn’t salivate much less eat the picture. However, a mother who sees a snapshot of her dead son would cry. Only humans react emotionally and physiologically to a photograph.

Whenever I look at that sunrise photo I took one frigid morning last December in the Netherlands, I re-experience all the emotions associated with that image. Yes, that is a simple shot of the morning sun and the silhouette of some trees, but what else is it? The “what else is it” is a very important question if you are interested in knowing what makes an image meaningful and beautiful.

Seeing the sunrise as only a sunrise is a denotation, a literal interpretation. What the sunrise connotes, what it signifies, is what makes it memorable and meaningful. To me, the sunrise photo is a visual metaphor of how my weeklong stay with the Van Vlissingen family in the Netherlands brought about extraordinary joy to me last Christmas. And it never fails to prompt me to recall with such fondness a very dear friend who loves sunrises more than anything else in the universe. Thus when I showed her that picture it became a poetic statement of how I valued our friendship.

There are emotions and ideas that can only be expressed through photographic images. As such, an image is always subjective – it is best understood from the perspective of the artist.

What particularly excites me is to imagine what the artist wants to communicate through his/her photo. I try to examine all the available elements – color, framing, depth of field, texture, direction, movement, symmetry – and how these elicit certain personal feelings, ideas, and experiences. The pleasure I get from doing it is equivalent to listening to my most favorite music or to holding the hand of my loved one.

On a deeper level, personal imagery and inner experiences come into play when we look at photographic works of art. Only when a photo (regardless of quality, subject and format) triggers our memory, resonates emotions and evokes ideas can we experience it as something beautiful and meaningful.

Kids’ Use of TV

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Today’s class discussion zeroed in on children and how TV affects them. The professor particularly focused on children aged 3 years and below. Children at such age, he said, are exposed to TV in two ways: background and foreground TV. By background, he meant that the child is incidentally exposed to TV, being present as another family member watches it. Foreground watching on the other hand means that the child deliberately attends to or interacts with the TV.

 

Both background and foreground TV have effects on children. On the positive side, TV (especially educational programs) could improve school readiness. On the negative side, TV viewing may inhibit child interaction with parents and siblings, my disrupt normal learning, and may negatively impact on brain development. Research shows that heavy TV is potentially very disruptive of normal development since it displaces time for social interaction and creates a habit of passive entertainment.

 

The psychologist Jean Piaget once said that “play is the work of children” because through it they learn how to do things, how to make things work, and how to manage their world. Thus the more a child plays the better is his brain development. For example, if you were to ask a child to assemble a toy house, you could evaluate his dexterity and coordination, how s/he expresses feelings such as frustration or success, and even social skills by his ability to ask help from siblings or parents. The quality of play and social interaction of 3-year-olds is a significant factor in their cognitive, language and social development.

 

It goes without saying, then, that parents should keep their young children away from TV as much as possible. Reading stories to them, solving puzzles with them, assembling toys with them are much much better that letting the TV babysit their children. I think parents who take the time to be with their children will find that it is a terrific way of interacting with them and teaching them about the ways of the world.

 

Even for adults play can enhance the quality of life. An attitude of playfulness can turn everyone’s day more sunny and colorful and make life more interesting and delightful.

Fiat 500

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Here is another addition to my growing photo collection of Italian micro cars. I spotted this two-door roadster parked a few meters from my residence in Via Asmara. It is the Fiat 500. Most Italians simply call it the Cinquecento (the Italian word for five hundred). It has a rear mounted engine driving the rear wheels and all four wheels have independent supensions. The most notable feature of this car was the air-cooling system of the engine, which was a first for the Fiat line of automobiles. The Cinquecento first hit the roads in 1957. Please click here to see the other micro cars.

Film Review: Constantine

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I watched the  movie “Constantine” movie last night. Since the original version is not screened here in Rome, I watched the Italian-dubbed edition of the film. The character of Keanu Reeves introduced himself in an 007-like fashion, saying, “Sono John. John Constantine. Stronzo!” or something to that effect.

From a Christian standpoint, suicide is immoral, unacceptable and unlawful. This is essentially based on the principle that life is sacred, thus taking one’s own life is an infringement on God’s territory. But what if a person attempts suicide to save another person?

Although the movie Constantine is not a moral discussion on suicide but the main character’s slashing of his own wrists is a pivotal scene in the film. Constantine attempted suicide to save Angela (and eventually to spare the world from Satan’s son). Later on in the film we would learn that the suicide attempt was actually a self-sacrifice on the part of Constantine – he shed his blood to save the world from evil .

The film is loaded with Christian symbols – heaven, hell, angels, Satan, God’s Son, the bible, the names of the characters (John Constantine, Gabriel, Isabel, etc), and countless others. In fact the very first things the viewers see when the film begins are two crosses. The presentation of the Christian symbols were mostly cliché, although some were not stereotyped – Lucifer wears matching white outfit, angel Gabriel is androgynous, etc.

I particularly liked the use of extreme close-ups (that of the cigarette, for example) because it never fails to give me an impression that the subject up close is of prime importance to the scene. I also like it when a character’s reaction is first shown before the actual scene is revealed – like when we first see the mother’s horrified look before the camera moves to show her daughter crawling on the ceiling. The use of subliminal jokes was also something that caught my attention. When Constantine was coughing blood, it was intercut with a billboard that says “Your Time is Running Out” and when the Mexican antagonist was about to attack a helpless driver, a billboard behind him asked, “Got Faith?”.

My most favorite scene was Constantine’s incomplete ascension. As he levitated, he made a funny effort to show the dirty finger to Lucifer. I could not help but smile that on his way to heaven a person would still do something like that. The worst scene for me was hell. I mean, can’t the scriptwriters think of another image of hell aside from eternal fire? Can’t they conceive something as creative as the Hades in Vincent Ward’s “What Dreams May Come”?

The most oft-repeated line in the film is that God has a plan for each person. If this is the underlying theme of the film then Constantine’s suicide attempt must also be understood from that perspective – that God, being all wise and powerful, would use even the shedding of blood and pain and suffering for a higher purpose.

Way of the Babysitter

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On my way to church this afternoon I met this middle-aged Filipina babysitting her employer’s son Lorenzo. Filipinos are hard to miss in Italy, considering that they number more than 200,000 here. Or a hundred thousand if you don’t count those who have no legal permit of stay in the country.

In the church I participated in the Via Crucis since today is a Lenten Friday. Actually I was late (due to traffic of course!), they were already in the 2nd station when I arrived. Just in case you forgot it, the second station is Jesus receiving His Cross. Every station begins with: we adore you O Christ and we bless you, because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

Not only was I late, now my mind wandered a bit. It was not my first time to participate in the Way of the Cross nor was it my first encounter with a Filipina babysitter. Yet somehow I saw a strong connection between the two. The visual artist in me saw successions of superimposed images: that of Jesus carrying his cross and that of the woman pushing the stroller. As the words “because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world” rang in my ears I thought of how Jesus must have carried the cross with gladness in his heart, though in physical pain, for he was doing it out of love for us.

I also thought about the woman. The heavy stroller she had to push everyday could only symbolize the weight of her sacrifices for her family and for the other people who will benefit from every single euro she earns here in Europe. Somehow I wished that everyone would remember and take the time to thank all those people who have sacrificed for them.

And I asked the Lord to teach me how to give up myself for the sake of the others.