Blog-Boggle

The time I heard about blogs, I wanted to publish one of my own. I find it as a venue to practice what I enjoyed doing during high school – writing. But why is it just now that I published my blog?

I ain’t that confident with my writing. Ever since, I shop carts of criticism. I have a problem with fluidity, that is, I tend to jump from one idea to another without transitions.

But why now?

This semester, I took Sociology 10 under Nicole Curato. In this course, we are required to submit think pieces. Luckily, I got a 1.0 on the second one! Haha! It boosted up my morale that I too could write. Also, my friends started creating their blogs. Suddenly, there wasn’t anything that holds be back from publishing. Bwalaah!! This is my blog!

Later, I just realized that I don’t care if people would not appreciate my writing, why I really wanted to make a blog is for it to be an outlet – both for my frustration as a writer and for my depressions. Writing makes me forget about my worries.

Here is my Think Piece #2:

When I stay in the dormitory during weekends, I wake up at around 8:00 in the morning. I do my oatmeal and open my desktop computer. After surfing a number of web pages, I’ll find time to practice solving some exercise problems in textbooks for an upcoming exam. To unwind from a headaching dose of complex math equations, I turn to my PC and enjoy hero-killing in Defense of the Ancients (DotA). I was just wondering; what if the corporations that brought about these stuffs didn’t exist? What would I eat? What would I surf? What would I study? What would I play?

Indeed, corporations rule my world. Unconsciously, they imposed on me my lifestyle via mass media. I live in the one-dimensionality that television and cyberspace enforces, as Marcuse would put it. And certainly, I am not alone in this experience. Through exposition of certain choices on screen that you aren’t really choosing, you tend to manifest your preferences from this slate. In the end, you still are a finish product of the conspiracy of these corporations.

On the other hand, the much visible authority figures are the helpless ones. Ironic as it may seem, though the government has a number of agencies to exercise power, the people’s compliance to the order they are trying to establish is not achieved completely, unlike the corporations’ ‘Propaganda Model”, if I may borrow the term from Chomsky. The question of legitimacy even adds up to the resistance to the current administration. The government even uses the resources and media of the corporations to advocate their aspirations. The Department of Tourism needed to be hand-in-hand with SMART to boost its WOW Philippines. What if SMART refused the partnership? Surely, the company will continue earning big money but what will be left of the efforts to uplift tourism. This only proves the dominance of power of the corporations. They held in their hands weapons that are beyond the perception of the five senses.

Since the administration is enthroned by the elites, the elites have the faculty of supports to maintain an administration, and the elites have the judgement to the termination of an administration. Evidently, the government maintains a good atmosphere and a good relationship with the foreign investors and businessmen to attract them. We still haven’t exhausted all the assets the country has, so for the meanwhile, we loosen up things for these investors for them to flood in. Take tax incentive for instance. Where is the quality of Phillippe Legrain’s so-called ‘control’ there?

Filipinos proved the world the genius in their foreheads, and yet, the government had taken them for granted. It’s already gold, yet it slipped from our hands. The basket of the corporations was just directly underneath. Sampaguita is our national flower, yet we can’t have the patent of its scent. It is a symbol of the nation but still it was bought. Many scholarships are being awarded to the best students and but they don’t have the choice where to work after they graduate. Even a number of researches in our department, DEEE, are already alloted for the sponsor companies like Intel. Before the country could ever behold and hear the projects, the corporations already are reserved the rights to mass produce such because they funded them.

People may subject that money is not the world, but look at the status quo, is it really not? Who isn’t a victim of “media’s bread and circus” (Marcuse)? With the power that corporations possess, they were able to manipulate our way of living discretely. We are starting to lose our distinction, such evident culture hybridization driven by these companies. Even close family ties are being broken by the high mobility of the employed, still brought to us by companies. We are starting to lose our identity and country. We are indirectly being run by these corporations. What do we have that we can call our own? Care to have a critical lifestyle check?

Before I end this entry, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my Socio 10 instructor for an eye-opening semester. I now do not look at certain events flatly, from the words that reverberated PH 108-110 in 7:00 in the morning, I see them three-dimensional. Thank you Neeks, my best teacher! If you don’t believe me, I INSIST!