Panorama

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Part of Panorama

Title: Panorama
Issue Date: Volume XIX (Issue No.6) June 1967
Year: 1967
Language: English
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extracted text: PANORAMA needs intelligent readers of: 1. Informative materials 2. Interesting ideas 3. Enlightening opinion^ 4. Broadening views 5. Controversial thoughts 6. Critical comments 7. Idealistic suggestions 8. Humorous remarks 9. Serious statements 10. Meditations on life and work. All these are either original productions or selective adap tions and condensations from Philippine and foreign publica tions. Usually brief and compact, lasting from two to ten minutes to read, each article offers a rewarding experience in one’s moments of leisure. Relax with Panorama. We say this to the busy student and the teacher, the lawyer and the physician, the dentist and the. engineer, the executive and the fanner, the politician and the preacher, the employer and the employee. PANORAMA is specially designed for Filipinos — young, middle-aged, and old, male and female, housekeeper and houselizard. Special rates for new and renewal subscriptions to begin on November 1, 1966: 1 copy ...................................... 1 year ...................................... 2 years .................................... Foreign rate: .......................... 50 centavos P5.00 P9.00 $3.00 (U. S.) For one year’s subscription of 5 pesos, a person receives the equivalent of 12 compact pocketbooks of lasting value and and varied interest. COMMUNITY PUBLISHERS, INC. Inverness, (M. Carreon) St., Sta. Ana, Manila, Philippines TMI WIUFTIMi MAQAZ1NI Of 0000 UADfHO Entered m second elaaa mail matter at the Manila Poet Office on Dee. 1, ItSt Vol. XIX MANILA, PHILIPPINES No. 6 SINCERITY AND TRUTH Just as a tree bears year after year the same fruit and yet fruit which is each year new, so must all permanently valuable ideas be continually born again in thought. But our age is bent on trying to make the barren tree of skep ticism fruitful by tying fruits of truth on its branches. It is only by confidence in our ability to reach truth by our own individual thinking, that we are capable of accepting truth from outside. Unfettered thought, provided it be deep, never degenerates into subjectivity. With its own ideas it stirs those within itself which enjoy any tra ditional credit for being true, and exerts itself to be able to possess them as knowledge. Not less strong than the will to truth must be the will to sincerity. Only an age which can show the courage of sincerity can possess truth which works as a spiritual force within it. Sincerity is the foundation of the spiritual life. With its depreciation of thinking our generation has losts its feeling for sincerity and with it that for truth as well. It can therefore be helped only by its being brought once more on to the road of thinking. Because I have this certainty I oppose the spirit of the age, and take upon myself with confidence the respon sibility of taking my part in the rekindling of the fire of thought. — By Albert Schweitzer from Out of My Life and Thought. ■ Liberal secondary education should be taken up in any additional time for a high school course rather than vocational or specialized education. THE PROBLEM OF LENGTHENING SCHOOL COURSES The most important ques tions to be considered, how ever, in any movement to raise the school-leaving age are: ‘What will be done with the additional period of education, and what pur poses will it serve?’ It is generally agreed that what has traditionally been called ‘elementary education’ does not furnish an adequate in tellectual capital for life. Hence it is doubtful whether an additional year of the same type of education would justify the prolonga tion of the period of com pulsory school attendance. There is, however, another argument against using the extra year for further ele mentary education. This argument is that elementary education, being intended for the masses, is different in quality from the education given to the privileged mi nority in secondary schools. It is a part of the dual sys tem of educational organiza tion which makes very lit tle provision for equality of opportunity. For more than 30 years a movement has been under way to reorganize educa tional systems so as to pro vide a common foundation for all, together with some form of secondary education adapted to the abilities and aptitudes of the pupils. It is as part of this movement that the raising of the school leaving age — for the pre sent to 15 years — acquires significance. The common foundation is to be carried on to about the age of 11, and is to be followed by a variety of types of secondary education for all, occupying about four years. The dif ferentiation of the types of secondary education would be gradual, in order to avoid premature specialization. The issue, then, is whether the unit of secondary educa 2 Panorama tion made possible by the raising of the school-leaving age should be liberal and general in character or vo cational and special. The answer to this question is to be found in the character of modern industry, in which the emphasis is gradually being placed on adaptability rather than on some form of specialized skill. Industry is looking for young persons of intelligence and character, and will itself provide or supervise the specialized training that may be needed. There is, however, a far stronger argument in favour of general or liberal educa tion. This is based on the demands made upon each individual as a citizen, worker, and human being. As 'a worker, he needs a broad education to compen sate for the repetitive activity characteristic of most mo dern occupations. As a citi zen, at any rate in a demo cracy, he is expected to un derstand and participate in political matters which today embrace not only national and international affairs, but social and economic problems of growing complexity. As a human being he enjoys more leisure than ever be fore in history, and should be given a foundation and a start for the cultivation of a variety of interests. Because of the greatly in creased range and variety of intellectual ability, a greater variety of types of secondary education will have to be developed than is at present available. Two difficulties arise here. The first is to avoid imitation of the tra ditional academic types of secondary education, either through inertia or in order to claim the same prestige for the new as for the old types. The second is to de vise methods for discovering the abilities and aptitudes of pupils at the age of about 11 and allocating them to the school best adapted to their needs. The real pur pose of providing equality of educational opportunity may be defeated when it comes to allocating pupils, because of' the prestige en joyed by the older academic types of schools and courses. It will accordingly be neces sary to leave room for the transfer of pupils to the June 1967 3 courses or schools most ap propriate for them if an er ror in allocation is discover ed. This, in turn, means that the raising of the school leaving age, while it makes possible a reorganization of school systems based on the ideal of providing equality of educational opportunity and, therefore, different types of schools or courses adapted to different abilities and ap titudes, also involves the pro vision of arrangements for the guidance of pupils. It may appear that this discussion, which began with a consideration of the ques tion of prolonging education, has traveled far a field. But no other course is possible unless the prolongation is intended as a method of keeping young persons out of the labour market for and additional year, to be devoted to further elemen tary education. The rais ing of the school-leaving age or the prolongation of edu cation cannot be considered without reference to all the other implications involved. Those implications entail so cial and economic as well as educational considerations. In any attempt to answer the question ‘what will be done with the extra time?’ these considerations cannot be neglected. — By I. L. Kandel in Studies on Compulsory Education. GLASSES The old porter looked at the thick lenses of the student’s spectacles and announced proudly, “Sonny, I’m 79 years old and never use glasses.’’ “You should,” the youth advised him. “It is very impolite to drink out of the bottle.” 4 Panorama ■ Something has to be done by our law schools and our Supreme Court to save the law profession and the administration of justice from being swamped by an avalanche of mediocre lawyers. FOR AN EXCELLENT LAW PROFESSION The rate at which Phil ippine law schools are turn ing out graduates seems to compete with the rapid rate of the population growth of the nation. Both are in a process of explosion. By it self this phenomenon of growth ought not to be a deep cause for alarm. On the contrary, it should be a reasonable cause for rejoicing if (and this is an important if) the law graduates turned out by our colleges are well educated ' in legal principles ana have received quality instruction in the discipline of tlaw. For Dr. Robert M. Hutchins, former Chancellor of the University of Chicago and once Dean of Yale Law School, is reported to have said that a good legal edu cation is one of the finest courses in liberal education and culture. There is no doubt that this is so. Most of the eminent Filipino law yers of the past were living examples of this assertion, for they were our outstand ing men of culture and learning, from Marcelo H. del Pilar, Mabini, Arellano, Calderon down to Palma, Apostol, Laurel, Recto, and Briones, and the members of our Supreme Court, to men tion but a few of them. Even among the less known lights, broad culture and ex cellent education were indis putable marks of the men in the legal profession of yesteryear. They knew the official language and they were widely read and signi ficantly knowledgeable. Un fortunately, not many of the Filipino lawyers of today may be frankly counted as possessing these enviable qualities. The reason is not difficult to discover: Nowadays, the June 1967 5 study of law in our country, except in very few colleges, has seriously deteriorated. In terms of quality, law is one of the poorest and most neg lected disciplines in our edu cational institutions. The law course is often treated as an ordinary vocational course with but a slight in tellectual content enough on ly to serve the fleeting me mory for mechanical repeti tion. It is studied not with the idea of broadening and stretching the mind and the critical faculties of the neo phyte but merely for the purpose of training him for the bar examinations. The average law student spends 4 or 5 months preparing for these tests which he and the average teacher hope would cover only those topics they have memorized during their review classes. In case the coincidence does not happen, the law graduate blames the bar examiners and the Sup reme Court as if it is his right to pass the examina tions on the ground that he had already spent eighteen years in school and college. Indeed it is a fact that thousands of law graduates have had eighteen years of schooling; but it is far from true that they have spent those years in educating themselves. Attending school is not necessarily getting an adequate education. The fact is that many of those who take the bar examina tions have not acquired enough knowledge of Eng lish, our most important and widely-used official language, to enable them to write one short understandable and correct paragraph. But this is not all. Thousands of them are deficient in basic understanding of legal prin ciples and ideas not to say anymore of general condi tions obtaining in the world of science, economics, and public affairs. Thus, so few of them could tell us the significance of the U.N., the NATO, the SEAT0, the AID, the Colombo Plan, the ICBM, the European Com mon Market, inflation and deflation of currency, the In donesia Mardeka, the apart heid, and other contemporary ideas and events. There is obviously a big “cultural gap” existing be tween the education that the 6 Panorama law student receives from his college and the actual state of educational progress in the world of today. So there is a marked discrepancy be tween the production rate of Filipino lawyers and the availability of well-educated lawyers. It is not an exag geration to say, for example, that out of five hundred new graduates of law in Philip pine colleges, one can hardly find 75 or 100 of them with enough cultural and intellec tual preparation to under stand and appreciate a deci sion of Justice Holmes, a lec ture of Professor Toynbee, or a book of Bertrand Rus sell. When educated young men and women come in contact with many of this kind of lawyers that literally fill the nooks and corners of our country today, they wonder whether law is really a learn ed profession, as has been claimed, or just an occupa tion fit for any mediocre creature whose chief ambi tion is to be addressed as “Attorney.” If things re main as they are, it is likely that the better educated members of the bar would develop a contemptuous dis like against this appellation. It seems a pity that the associations of the better lawyers of the country are not doing what the American Bar Association did in the United States some 30 or 40 years ago. That body, fol lowing the example of the American Medical Associa tion, undertook an intensive and unremitting campaign against the laxity of law schools and bar examinations which resulted in elevating the quality of American law yers and thus improving the administration of justice in the country. Our own asso ciations, with the assistance of the Supreme Court, would be rendering a real public service if they follow the example of the American Bar Association in undertaking something positive and con crete to raise the quality of legal education. This is a patriotic task. For it con cerns a problem that affects not only the name of the profession but also the qua lity of our judges as well as the competency and worth of our political leaders since most of them are lawyers. June 1967 7 The Supreme Court can do something if they give it a more serious thought and at tention. Increasing the num ber of subjects for the bar examinations and prescribing a longer time for completing a law course are not exactly the right remedies. In them selves they can not and do not guarantee adequate legal education. At best, they may only lengthen the time to acquire more information; but information alone is not education. For education is a process of improving the mind, the ability to think, to analyze, to criticize, to understand, and to form re levant judgments. If stand ards are low and instruction inadequate, if teachers are unprepared or indifferent and discipline lax, the addi tion of two or more years to the length of time to com plete a course in law would not result in improving the products of law schools. One vear of effective instruction by competent and dedicated instructors produces better students, than two more years of slipshod teaching under indifferent teachers. Education involves the ac quisition of the ability to communicate clearly and cor rectly. This is specially so in the case of the education of a lawyer. For if there is any profession that calls for proficiency in the skill of communication, for ability to express one’s ideas and in tentions in speech and in writing, it is the law profes sion. Correct language is the tool, the indispensable tool, of the lawyer. The Supreme Court might require everyone who wants to take the bar examinations to first show his ability to express himself by writing a brief essay on a subject given to him as he presents himself as a bar candidate. This should be a preliminary test, a qualifying test, before he is permitted to take the final bar test. It should serve as an elimination test. This need not be an additional subject. For this purpose, the examination now being given in legal ethics and practical exercises, properly adjusted, could well be used. It should be made the first subject and should be given about one month or two ahead of the other subjects. Panorama In that way more time would be available for correcting the papers of the applicants. And if, for instance, the stu dent fails to produce a pa per clearly and correctly written, he should have no further business bothering the Court for an examination of the rest of the subjects. He should be told to go back to school or to do some other kind of work. Alter natively, passing a language test could be required by the Department of Education before giving its certification for a candidate for the bar examinations. In our system of govern ment, lawyers are officers of the court. The quality of the profession tends to be strongly and faithfully re flected in the quality of the administration of justice. The debasement of the law profession which has been going on for the last decade or so is gradually causing a debasement of the courts if not of the entire govern ment service. As important to the nation as the matter of moral re generation is the problem of i n t e 11 e c tual regeneration among our people. For while it is of prime importance that we should have honest men; it is also imperative that we must have highly competent men, and women with cultivated minds, know ledgeable in the general af fairs of life. Competent lea dership requires both good morals and equally good brains. As many of our lea ders are recruited from the profession, the importance of improving the moral and in tellectual qualifications of the lawyer becomes immense ly pressing and significant. — By V. G. Sinco, 11/14/62. June 1967 9 ■ Experts in education and language are unanimous that school children or young students can learn fastef when the vernacular or their mother tongue is used ift teaching them to as late in their school ing as possible. The following article on this sub ject is taken from a report of UNESCO scholars. MOTHER TONGUE AND SECOND LANGUAGE It is through his mother tongue that every human be ing first learns to formulate and express his ideas about himself and about the world in which he lives. This lan guage in which he first learns to express his ideas need not be the language which his parents use; nor need it be the language he first learns to speak, since special cir cumstances may cause him to abandon .this language more or less completely at an early age. Every child is born into a cultural environment; the language is both a part of, and an expression of, that environment. Thus the ac quiring of this language (his 'mother tongue’) is a part of the process by which a child absorbs the cultural environment; it can, then, be said that this language plays an important part in moulding the child’s early concepts. He will, therefore, find it difficult to grasp any new concept which is so alien to his cultural environ ment that it cannot readily find expression in his mother tongue. If a foreign lan guage belongs to a culture very little different from his own (as for example French is to an English child) the child’s chief difficulties in learning that language will be only linguistic. But if the foreign language belongs to a culture very different from his own (as for exam ple English to a Nigerian child), then his learning dif ficulties are greatly increased; he comes into contact, not only with a new language, but also with new concepts. Similar considerations apply to adults. 10 Panorama Ideas which have been for mulated in one language are so difficult to express through the modes of an other, that a person habitual ly faced with this task can readily lose his facility to express himself. A child, faced with this task at an age when his powers of self expression even in his mo ther tongue are but incom pletely developed, may possi bly never achieve adequate self-expression. For these reasons it is im portant that every effort should be made to provide education in the mother tongue. On educational grounds we recommend that the use of the mother tongue be ex tended to as late a stage in education as possible. In particular, pupils should be gin their schooling through the medium of the mother tongue, because they under stand it best and .because to begin their school life in the mother tongue will make the break between home and school as small as possible. Even when the child has been at school long enough to be familiar with school life, he still has to cope with the incessant stream of les sons in many different sub jects. He will find a lesson in geography or almost any other subject easier if he it taught it in his mother tongue. To expect him to deal with new information or ideas presented to him in an unfamiliar language is to impose on him a double bur den, and he will make slower progress. The use of the mother tongue will promote better understanding between the home and the school when the child is taught in the language of the home. What he learns can easily be ex pressed or applied in the home. Moreover, the parents will be in a better position to understand the problems of the school and in some measure to help the school in the education of the child. Several objections often urged against the use of the mother tongue as the me dium of instruction, which we consider unsound. Later we examine others which do in fact limit the extent to which the mother tongue June 1967 11 can be used in certain cir cumstances. 'This language has no grammar and no alphabet. Frequently someone who has not analyzed the languages of people without a modern technology or civilization is of the opinion that a lan guage which has never been written has no grammar. This is not true. Every lan guage, even an unwritten one has its consistent pat terns or rules by which its speakers combine words into sentences, and so on. Often such grammatical structure is as complicated or as re gular as those of any world language. In fact, we hold that there is nothing in the structure of any language which precludes it from be coming a vehicle of modern civilization. 'The child already knows his mother tongue.' The second objection is that the child already knows his own language before he comes to school, and that there is no need for the school to teach it to him. There are two replies to this. In the first place, he has not completely learnt it before coming to school. He has learnt it enough for his own childish purposes, but he will still need to develop his know ledge of it as he grows older. The English or French child devotes a great part of his time throughout his school career to studying his mo ther tongue. In the second place, the school is not mere ly teaching the child his mo ther tongue; it is using his mother tongue as the most effective means of teaching him other things. ‘The use of the mother tongue will prevent acquisi tion of the second language.’ Some people claim that it is impossible for children to acquire a good use of the second language unless the school adopts the second lan guage as a medium of in struction from the very be ginning. In fact, it is on the basis of this action that some schools in the past have actually forbidden any use whatsoever of the vernacular anywhere in the school. However, recent experience in many places proves that an equal or better command of the second language can be imparted if the school 12 Panorama begins with the mother tongue as the medium of instruction, subsequently in troducing the second lan guage as a subject of instruc tion. ‘Using the vernacular im pedes national unity.’ It can not be denied that the busi ness of government is easier in a monolingual than in a multilingual nation. How ever, it does not follow that legislation or school policy requiring the use of the of ficial language at all times will give the same results as actual monolin^ualism. On the contrary, it is fair ly, likely that absolute insis tence on the use of the na tional language by people of another mother tongue may havq a negative effect, lead ing the local groups to with draw in some measure from the national life. In any event, it seems clear that the national interests are best served by optimum advance ment of education, and this in turn can be promoted by the use of the local language as a medium of instruction, at least at the beginning of the school programme. There are, however, cer tain practical difficulties — some temporary, some per manent — which may com pel the school authorities to abandon the use of the ver nacular as the medium of instruction at some stage. Inadequacy of the vocabu lary. The first difficulty is that the language may not yet have a vocabulary suffi cient for the needs of the curriculum. In this case a second language will have to be intrdouced at an early stage, and as soon as the pu pils have learnt enough of it the second language can become the medium of in struction. The transition to a second language should normally take place gradual ly and should be made as smooth and as psychological ly harmless as possible. Thus, if the second language is completely different from the mother tongue it should be taught as a subject for some years, and until such time as the child has an adequate working knowledge of it, be fore it is brought into use as a full teaching medium. Shortage of educational materials. One of the most important and difficult pro June 1967 13 blems connected with the use of the vernacular lan guages in education is that of providing reading ma terials. It will often happen that even a language which is quite capable of being used as a medium of instruc tion will be almost or en tirely without school books or other materials. Multiplicity of languages in a locality. If a given lo cality has a variety of lan guages it may be difficult to provide schooling in each mother tongue simply be cause there are too few stu dents speaking certain of the languages. In sudi cases it may be necessary to select one of the languages as the medium of instruction, at the 'cost of using a language other than the mother tongue of some of the stu dents. Before accepting this necessity, the school should seek ways and means to ar range instruction groups by mother tongue. It must be recorded that there h a wide variation in the strength and validity of these reasons for not using the mother tongue. In some areas they are indeed very strong; in others they are advanced without complete justification. We must here lay down as a general principle what must have already been made apparent by our general ap proach to the problem: that in order to ease the burden on the child, the mother tongue should be used as the medium of instruction as far up the educational ladder as the conditions permit (in other words that the transfer to a second language, if ne cessary, should be deferred to as late a stage as possi ble); and that authorities should do evertyhing in their power to create the condi tions which will make for an ever-increasing extension of schooling in the mother tongue, and make the tran sition from mother tongue to second language as smooth and as psychologically harm less as possible. — Excerpts from The Use of Vernacular Languages i n Education (UNESCO). 14 Panorama ■ Do we really have in the Philippines more talented persons than what the country truly needs? Or is it not a question of lack of initiative and daring on the part of the talented individuals? UNUSED The Philippines has not exploited in a more serious and organized manner its skilled manpower. Often, one hears laments about the number of unemployed and the low income of those in the rural areas who represent 80 per cent of our popula tion. In the same breath there is the problem of a “brain drain,” with doctors, teachers, and engineers leav ing for more lucrative fields abroad. Our reference to skilled manpower is, of course, from a broad mean ing ' of the term; the rural areas do not produce many technicians, b u t certainly this rural manpower group is skilled in various cottage industry work, such as wood carving, embroidery, and so on. • • • There is some merit in the observation that we have a surplus of technicians who find their talents unused here. They therefore go TALENTS abroad. These technicians, if they do not stay perma nently abroad, will bring in money from their work out side. Likewise, the skilled workers producing items for export are growing in num ber. Demand for their pro ducts is increasing. It is a paradox that while our land is underdeveloped because of lack of vast technological and industrial complexes, our manpower appears overdeveloped in skills, creating a "brain drain” or producing items for export. The eco nomist may have explana tions for all these, we merely make the observation that we have manpower resources at various levels that could be more fully exploited by directing our attention to areas in the international market where these skills are needed. • « • There is now a movement within the local movie in dustry to attract more foreign June 1967 15 producers to make their films here because it can be made here quite efficiently at much lower cost. Likewise embroi dery firms turn cloth into dresses and ship them back because they can do high quality work here at extreme ly low cost. And our doctors, nurses, and teachers have gone abroad because there is little room for their skills in our urban areas here al though they are needed in the rural areas. US and Ca nada have been luring Fili pino technicians because they are easy to train with a minor language barrier; and most important, they are willing to work for less under what would be regarded abroad as below average conditions. Fashion designers have been trying to crash the world market for sometime. Our musicians and entertainers have been servicing most parts of Asia. Our folk dan cers have gone to most cul tural centers of the world. Our painters have been striv ing for international recog nition for sometime. The point is that we have many skills that cannot be absorb ed by our own domestic needs that could be harnessed for world needs. — Alfredo R. Roces. SALTY TEARS Her mother usually jumped to her defense at the slightest provocation but this time she hesitated. “But, Dora,” she protested, “how can you say he doesn’t love you? Why, with my very own eyes I saw him cry over your hand when you cut your finger.” “Certainly,” her daughter explained, “he did that to get salt into the open wound.” 16 Panorama ■ The significance of the first declaration of Phil ippine independence is here explained by a noted professor in the state university. JUNE 12 AND NATIONAL IDENTITY The recognition of June 12 as the chief Philippine holiday, however, has been the most important step taken toward the consolida tion and strengthening of the national identity. Before this act, it was not easy to make people, including some of our countrymen, accept the historical fact that the Filipinos were the first to establish a liberal democra tic Republic in Asia. When we were marking our independence only from July 4, 1946, the date on whidh the United States res tored the Republic which our revolutionary heroes had established toward the end of the nineteenth century as an independent national state, the Philippines was not much older than India, Pa kistan, and Indonesia, be cause these countries won their independence only shortly after 1946. But now we can rightfully claim that our reformists and revolu tionaries were in the van guard of the liberal, demo cratic nationalist movement that began shaking the ram parts of colonial Asia and Africa towards the later part of the nineteenth century and which is still sweeping over large areas of those con tinents in our own days. The declaration of inde pendence at Kawit on 12 June 1898 was the first con certed act of a visible poli tical authority derived from representatives of the people from the different provinces assembled to assert their so vereignty. From it we can trace the clear beginnings of the Filipino national iden tity. The martyrdom of Burgos, Gomez, and Zamora in 1872, the publication of Rizal’s novels (it is signifi cant that Rizal himself des cribed the “Noli” as “novela tagala” and the “Fili” as "novela filipina”), the found ing of the La Solidaridad in 1889 and of the Liga FiliJUNE 1967 17 pina and the Katipunan in 1892, the premature outbreak of the Revolution in 1896 and the martyrdom of Rizal in December of the same year — all these also contri buted to the formation of the Filipino nationality, but it was the Declaration of Independence in 1898 that formally marked the birth of the Filipino nation. This declaration was fol lowed by the convening of the Congress at Malolos which ratified the declara tion and which promulgated a Constitution for a wartime Republic which was inaugu rated in January 1899. That the 'Republic which was es tablished subsequent to the Independence Proclamation was • suppressed by American arms cannot destroy the sig nificance or minimize the importance of the Kawit de claration in the life of the Filipino people. When the Kawit proclama tion was made by Aguinaldo and his associates the follow ing month, it was with the understanding on the part of Aguinaldo that America, on the strength of the promise he claims to have received from Admiral Dewey and the American consuls at Singa pore and Hongkong, would recognize that independence and extend help to the young Republic. That things did not turn out as expected by Aguinaldo and that, instead, the fledging Republic had to fight for its life against the new invaders, has al ready become a significant chapter in our history. In spite of the ill effects of the American colonial rule in the advancement of Phil ippine nationalism, particu larly its economic and poli tical aspects, it must be ad mitted that the rule, also con tributed some definite good to the national life, like the secular and popular public school system extending from the grades to the University, an efficient system of hygiene and public health, and a re presentative democracy kept relatively stable and clean through the use of the secret ballot in the conduct of elec tions. Set against this back ground, the celebration of July 4 as Independence Day is not very appropriate; in the context of the national 18 Panorama history, the Kawit declara tion was much more impor tant than the Truman pro clamation of Independence read at the Luneta on July 4, 1946. The Declaration at Kawit would for us Fili pinos have the same signifi cance as the Declaration of July 4, 1776 of the Phila delphia for the Americans and of the Declaration of August 17, 1945 at Jakarta for the Indonesians. It is inevitable that the Kawit declaration will dev elop into the most eloquent and effective rallying point for those who would want to enhance the Filipino heri tage and the national iden tity. There is very little danger of our suffering the same fate as the Hawaiians, Basques, Guamanians, and Maltese, who have lost their identity to some other and more powerful people. Despite our centuries of subjection by colonialists, neither the Spaniards nor the Americans nor the Jap anese have succeeded in as similating or suppressing us altogether. It is well to re mind ourselves always, how ever, that the national iden tity can always be under mined if we don’t take ne cessary measures to protect it from harm. — Leopoldo Yabes, abstracts from Manila Times, June 8, 967. June 1967 19 ■ A famous biologist and writer, the first head of the UNESCO, gives his idea on man as the sole agent of his own destiny. MAN'S DESTINY Man’s destiny is to be the sole agent for the future evo lution of this planet. He is the highest dominant type to be produced by over two and a half billion years of the slow biological improve ment effected by the blind opportunistic workings of na tural selection; if he does not destroy himself, he has at least an equal stretch of evolutionary time before him to exercise his agency. During the later part of biological evolution, mind — our word- for the mental ac tivities and properties of or ganisms — emerged with greater clarity and intensity, and came to play a more important role in the indi vidual lives of animals. Eventually it broke through to become the foundation and the main source of fur ther evolution, though the essential character of evolu tion now become cultural instead of genetic or biologi cal. It was to this break through, brought about by the automatic mechanism of natural selection and not by any conscious effort on his own part, that man owes his dominant evolutionary posi tion. It is only through possess ing a mind that he has be come the dominant portion of this planet and the agent responsible for its future evolution; and it will be only by the right use of that mind that he will be able to exer cise that responsibility pro perly. He could all too readily be a failure in the job; he will succeed only if he faces it consciously and if he uses all his mental re sources — knowledge and rea son, imagination and sensiti vity, capacities for wonder and love, for comprehension and compassion, for spiritual aspiration and moral effort. And he must face it with out outside help. In the 20 Panorama evolutionary pattern of thought there is no longer either need or room for the supernatural. The earth was not created: it evolved. So did all the animals and plants that inhabit it, in cluding our human selves, mind and soul, as well as brain and body. So did religion. Religions are organs of psychosocial man concerned with human destiny and with experiences of sacredness and transcen dence. In their evolution, some (but by no means all) have given birth to the con cept of gods as supernatural beings endowed with mental and spiritual properties and capable of intervening in the affairs of nature, including man,. These theistic reli gions are' early organizations of human thought in its in teraction with the puzzling, complex world with which it has to contend — the outer world of nature and the in ner world of man’s own na ture. In this, they resemble other early organizations of human thought confronted with nature, like the doc trine of the Four Elements, earth, air, fire and water, or the Eastern concept of re birth and reincarnation. Like these, they are destined to disappear in competition with other, truer, and more embracing thought-organiza tions which are handling the same range of raw or pro cessed experience. Evolutionary man can no longer take refuge from his loneliness by creeping fof shelter into the arms of a divinised father-figure whom he has himself created, nor escape from the responsibi lity of making decisions by sheltering under the um brella of Divine Authority, nor absolve himself from the hard task of meeting his pre sent problems and planning his future by relying on the will of an omniscient but unfortunately i n s c r u table Providence. On the other hand, his loneliness is only apparent. He is not alone as a type. Thanks to the astronomers, he now knows that he is one among many organisms that bear witness to the trend towards sen tience, mind and richness of being, operating so widely but so sparsely in the cos mos. June 1967 21 iMorc immediately impor tant, thanks to Darwin, he now knows that he is not an isolated phenomenon, cut off from the rest of nature by his uniqueness. Not only is he made of the same mat ter and operated by the same energy as all the rest of the cosmos, but for all his dis tinctiveness he is linked by genetic continuity with all the other living inhabitants of his planet. Animals, plants, and micro-organisms, they are all his cousins or remoter kin, all parts of one single branching and evolv ing flow of metabolizing pro toplasm. . . It is hard to break through the firm framework of an accepted belief-system and build new and complex suc cessors, but it is necessary. It is necessary to organize our ad hoc ideas and scat tered values into a unitive pattern, transcending con flicts and divisions in its uni tary web. Only by such a reconciliation of opposites and disparates can our belief system release us from inner conflicts: only so can we gain that peaceful assurance w'hich will help unlock our energies for development in strenuous practical action. Our new pattern of think ing will be evolution-centred. It will give us assurance by reminding us of our long evolutionary rise; how this was also, strangely and won derfully, the rise of mind; and how that rise culminated in the eruption of mind as the dominant factor in evo lution and led to our own spectacular but precarious evolutionary success. Our new organization of thought — belief-system, framework of values, ideo logy, call it what you will — must grow and be dev eloped in the light of our new evolutionary vision. So, in the first place, it must of course itself be evolutionary: that is to say, it must help us to think in terms of an overriding process of change, development, and possible improvment, to have our eyes on the future rather than on the past, to find support in the growing, spreading, upreaching body of our knowledge, instead of in the rigid frame of fixed dogma or ancient authority. Equal ly, of course, the evolutionary 22 Panorama outlook must be scientific, not in the sense that it re jects or neglects other hu man activities, but in believ ing in the value of the scien tific method for eliciting knowledge from ignorance and truth from error, and in basing itself on the firm ground of scientifically es tablished knowledge. Unlike most theologies, it accepts the inevitability and indeed the desirability of change, and advances by welcoming new discovery even when it conflicts with old ways of thinking. The only way in which the present split between re ligion and science could be mended would be through the acceptance by science of the fact and value of reli gion as aYi organ of evolving man, and the acceptance by religion that religions must evolve if they are not to be come extinct, or at best turn into outdated living fossils struggling to survive in a new and alien environment. Next, the evolutionary out look must be global. Man is strong and successful in so far as he operates in interthinking groups, which are able to pool their knowledge and beliefs. To have any success in fulfilling his des tiny as the controller or agent of future evolution on earth, he must become one single inter-thinking group, with one general framework of ideas: otherwise his men tal energies will be dissipated in ideological conflict. . . But our thinking must also be concerned with the indi vidual. The well-developed, well-patterned individual hu man being is, in a strictly scientific sense, the highest phenomenon of which we have any knowledge; and the variety of individual person alities is the world’s highest richness. In the light of the evolutionary vision the individual need not feel just a meaning less cog in the social ma chine, nor merely the help less prey and sport of vast impersonal forces. He can do something to develop his own personality, to discover his own talents and possibi lities, to interact personally and fruitfully with other in dividuals, to discover some thing of his own signifi cance . . . June 1967 23 Population is people in the mass; and it is in regard to population that the most drastic reversal or reorienta tion of our thinking has be come necessary. The unpre cedented population-e x p 1 osion of the last half-century has strikingly exemplified the Marxist principle of the passage of quantity into qua lity. . . Population-increase is al ready destroying or eroding many of the world’s re sources, both those for ma terial subsistence and those — equally essential but often neglected — for human en joyment and fulfillment. Early in man’s history the injunction to increase and multiply was right. Today it is wrong, and to obey it will be disastrous. The Western world has to achieve the difficult task of reversing the direction of its thought about population. It has to begin thinking that our aim should be not in crease but decrease — certain ly and quickly decrease in the rate of population growth; and in the long run equally, certainly, decrease in the absolute number of peo ple in the world, including our own countries. We must make the same reversal of ideas about our economic system. At the mo ment our Western economic system (which is steadily in vading new region) is based on expanding production for profit; and production for profit is based on expanding consumption. As one Ameri can writer has put it, our economy depends on per suading more people to be lieve that they want to con sume more products. This is leading to gross over-ex ploitation of resources that ought to be conserved, to excessive advertising, to the dissipation of talent and energy into unproductive channels, and to a diversion of the economy as a whole away from its true functions. But, like the population explosion, this consumption explosion cannot continue much longer: it is an inhe rently self-defeating process. Sooner rather than later we shall be forced to get away from a system based on arti ficially increasing the num ber of human wants, and set about constructing one aim 24 Panorama ed at the qualitative satis faction of real human needs, spiritual and mental as well as material and physiological. This means abandoning the pernicious habit of evaluat ing every human project solely in terms of its utility — by which the evaluators mean solely its material uti lity, and especially its utility in making a profit for some body . . . Quantity of material pro duction is, of course, neces sary as the basis for the sa tisfaction of elementary hu man needs — but only up to a certain degree. More than a certain number of calories or cocktails or TV sets or washing machines per person is not merely unne cessary b,ut bad. Quantity of material production can be only a means to a further end, not an end in itself. The important ends of man’s life include the crea tion and enjoyment of beauty, both natural and man-made; increased compre hension and a more assured sense of significance; the pre servation of all sources of pure wonder and delight, like fine scenery, wild ani mals in freedom, or unspoil ed nature; the attainment of inner peace and harmony; the feeling of active parti cipation in embracing and enduring projects, including the cosmic project of evolu tion. It is through such things that individuals attain greater fulfillment. As for nations and societies, they are remembered not for their wealth or comforts or technologies, but for their great buildings and works of art, their achievements in science or law or political philosophy, their success in liberating human life from the shackles of fear and ig norance. Finally, the evolutionary vision is enabling us to dis cern, however incompletely, the lineaments of the new religion that we can be sure will arise to serve the needs of the coming era. . . The emergent religion of the near future could be a good thing. It will believe in knowledge. It will be able to take advantage of the vast amount of new know ledge produced by the know ledge-explosion of the last few centuries in constructing June 1967 25 what we may call its theology — the framework of facts and ideas which provide it with intellectual support; it should be able, with our increased knowledge of mind, to de fine man’s sense of right and wrong more clearly so as to provide a better moral sup port, and to focus the feeling of sacredness on fitter ob jects. Instead of worship ping supernatural rulers, it will sanctify the higher ma nifestations of human nature, in art and love, in intellec tual comprehension and as piring adoration, and will emphasize the fuller realiza tion of life’s possibilities as a sacred trust. Thus the evolutionary vi sion, first opened up for us by Charles Darwin a century back, illuminates our human existence in a simple but al most overwhelming way. It exemplifies the truth that truth is great and will pre vail and the greater truth that truth will set us free. Evolutionary truth frees us from subservient fear of the unknown and supernatural, and exhorts us to face this new freedom with courage tempered with wisdom, and hope tempered with know ledge. It shows us our des tiny and our duty. — By Ju lian Huxley, abstract from The Humanist Frame. NEW HUSBAND The dying man gasped pitifully, “Grant me one last request, Martha,” he pleaded. “Of course, Stanley,” she said softly. “Six month after I die I want you to marry Abner Jones,” he said. “Abner Jones! she said in a shocked tone. “But I thought you hated that man.” “Exactly, he said with his final breath. 26 Panorama ■ A lesson from Greek history. THE RESPONSIBILITY OF SOCRATES Among the oligarchies set up or supported by Sparta was a cruel and bloodthirsty group in Athens, known as ‘The Thirty’, led by one Critias, who had been an associate of Socrates. They ruled in terror for a few months, but oligarchy could not long survive in Attica. The democracy was restored, and with a courage and a moderation which do some thing to atone for the folly and the occasional violence which the democracy dis played during the war. It is true that the restored demo cracy was persuaded, in 399 B.C.', to- put Socrates to death, but this was far from being an act of brutal stu pidity. Let the reader re member what had been seen endured by the jury who tried this case — their city defeated, starved and disman tled by the Spartans, the democracy overthrown, and the people harried by a sa vage tyranny. Let him then reflect that the man who had done Athens most harm and had rendered the most out standing services to Sparta was the Athenian aristocrat Alcibiades, and that this Alcibiades had been a constant associate of Socrates — and that the terrible Critias had been another. Let him re flect too that although So crates had been a most cons picuously loyal citizen, he had been also an outspoken critic of the democratic prin ciple. It is no matter for surprise if many simple Athenians thought that the treachery of Alcibiades and the oligarchic fury of Critias and his crew were the direct result of Socrates’ teaching, and if many others, not un reasonably attributing the woes of the city to the up setting of traditional stand ards of behaviour and mo rality, fastened some of the responsibility for this upon the continuous and public questioning of all things by Socrates. In such circums tances, would Socrates be acquitted today by a Gallup poll, especially after making June 1967 27 so uncompromising a de fence? We may doubt if the figures would be more favourable to him — a ma jority of 60 out of 501. That the death penalty followed was of his own choosing; he deliberately refused to offer to go into exile, and, as de liberately, he refused to be smuggled out of prison. No thing can be more sublime than the bearing of Socrates during and after his trial, and this sublimity must not be sentimentalized by the re presenting of Socrates as the victim of an ignorant mob. His death was almost a He gelian tragedy, a conflict in which both sides were right. — By H. D. F. Kitto from The Greeks. ENGLISH Nobody ever imagined that the serious-minded and somber-faced editor of dictionaries would flirt, least ‘of all his wife. But one day she found him kiss ing the maid — and exclaimed: “Why, John, I’m surprised!” He retorted: “Not you, my dear — I am surprised; you are astonished.” 28 Panorama ■ Security depends more upon one’s internal qua. lities than upon the nature of the things we re. ceive from external sources — thus runs the thought of this commencement speech. ABOUT THE PROBLEM OF SECURITY In the life of most men and women in any social group there are special occasions that should give them pause for deep and so ber cogitation. Oftentimes, however, such critical mo ments receive no more value and attention than ordinary incidents and routine hap penings in a world of change. Under such circumstances, they come and go without provoking any thought or feeling for serious self-assess ment or self-examination on the part of those who should be personally concerned. To those who have spent years in an educational institution, one of such occasions is the day set aside to mark the termination of their formal studies. Because commence ment programs nowadays take place with almost me chanical regularity once or twice a year, many of us do not clearly realize their deeper significance; and we look upon each of these events as no more than an ordinary public ceremony when a friend or a member of the family receives his diploma to indicate the end of his four-year peregrination in the classroom and labora tory. If our attitude towards this academic celebration is as casual and as thoughtless as this, if we do not consider college graduation as one of the crucial points in the efforts of a person to rise to a higher plane, we may be revealing in a sense the slightness of the appreciation we have for education and its meaning to the indivi dual recipient and to the community. This indiffer ence to an educational event is a spirit that may infect many others; and it could be one of the reasons why thousands of graduates lose their interest in the real substance of education soon after they depart from the academic environment. Ob viously, this is an attitude June 1967 29 that should be deplored and avoided. The importance of making use of the commencement day as an occasion for sober cogitation should not be ignored or underrated. Every graduate should develop an urge to examine his own re cord in the process of acquir ing the individual improve ment which he thinks he has attained. He should make an effort to measure the qualities of mind, character, and personality he has gained. The successful graduate is not only the student who has received the highest nu merical grade for each of the subjects he has taken in his college years. Men differ in the number and quality of aptitudes and talents they possess. Some have more and higher talents than others. But those who have but a few or even only one talent need not be sorry or depressed. The graduate who has made the most out of his oportunity to develop his one and only talent to the highest degree he is ca pable of reaching is as worthy of praise and reward as the one who has made good in several avenues in his college career. The task of equipping a person with adequate abili ties to meet the challenge of different areas of life in volves several activities. The acquisition of those qualifi cations for living a full life is the indispensable prere quisite for the fulfillment ol the purpose of education. This is not easy to attain; but neither is it extraordi narily difficult of attainment. Common sense tells us that the problems of the indivi dual and the community do not assume a single and uni form pattern. They arejiot constant and static. They are often swayed by uncer tain moods and unpredicta ble factors which do not fol low the regularity of the ebb and flow of ocean tides. Our life itself even in the heart of sleepy towns and rustic barrios is exposed to unfore seeable vicissitudes. It may be peaceful and pleasant at one moment; and it could be turbulent and disturbing at the next. Today we feel and enjoy the warmth and light of the sun; tomorrow a driving rain and a destructive typhoon 30 Panorama may keep us immobile and morose inside our homes and offices. At one particular instant, we take pride in our strong and healthy bodies; but at the next moment, we may be trembling with a high fever or weakened by some unknown ailment. Now we may be expe riencing some measure of happiness and prosperity. Then the scene changes, and we may find ourselves face to face with the misery and pain of failure and poverty. Now we may have friends to praise us; but tomorrow these very people may see nothing good in what we do and say. The facts of history have shown us beyond any doubt that change is the most cons tant, and permanent pheno menon in all life. Science warns us against absolutes and certainties. And yet there still many people who do not seem to learn nor care to learn from these his torical and scientific axioms of precaution. Notwith standing the college instruc tion they have received, they deliberately look for a conditon of permanence envi sioned in their dreams of security. They are the loud est and the strongest de fenders of the status quo as the best guarantor of earth ly peace, order, and blissful existence. But let us not follow in their footsteps and fall into this fatal error; let us not entertain even for a moment the belief that it is the mere posesssion of some property or some particular job that could give us security and a tranquil mind; let us not be fooled by the expectation that a certain place of safety, a certain kind of business, a certain government posi tion could provide us with a permanent source of satis faction in our search for our well-being. It is quite safe to say that whatever lies out side of us cannot give us a firm basis of the stability, the safety, and the security that we seek and desire as enlightened human beings. Security is a condition worth having provided we know what it really is. Un fortunately, the concept has often been misapplied and misunderstood. As a state of absence and avoidance of trouble and worry, security is the goal of the pitiful in June 1967 31 nocent, the dream of the naive, the summun bonum of the parasite and the weak ling. Security is never achieved as a static condi tion. Unfortunately, it has often been aimed at as such; and the results have often been sad and disastrous. After the first world war, France built the Maginot line as a measure of national security. It was made up of massive walls and fortifi cations intended as an im pregnable curtain along her boundary to prevent Ger many from invading her again. The French leaders thought that the position of their country behind those heavy walls would give her security. Subsequent events proved them pitiably wrong. The thick walls did not make her safe. They could not defend the French nation. Hitler and his legions, his tanks, and his war-planes penetrated into the heart of France itself and conquered the entire country. The French people suffered a hu miliating defeat but learned a priceless lesson. The new France has discarded exter nal supports; and following a dynamic policy of self reliance, she now stands firm, progressive, and respected. But you and I want secu rity. If we really do, let us open our minds to under, stand what it is and where to find it. Security depends upon the vitality of a man’s personal qualifications. It lies in a man’s capacity to meet headlong the "slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune.” It lies in the firm ness of a man’s will, in his preparation for the unexpect ed, and in readiness to lock horns with the forces of ad versity, to overcome the threats of changing situations, to beat the temptations of a life of ease, and to shun the spinelessnes of irrespon sibility. Oftentimes the passion for security in a position could mean the sacrifice of per sonal freedom. It is certain ly most pitiful to see a man exchange his freedom for security. He is no better than a habitual criminal who refuses to leave his prison because within it he is always sure of three meals a day, a roof over his head, a bed at night, and no landlord to throw him out into the 32 Panorama street for non-payment of house rentals. Service, not security, is the ideal aim of the man and woman of education and character. The qualifications which every good college should develop in its students are those that fit them to meet the challenges of honest and useful service in any place, at any time, and at any cost. Such are the qua lifications that make for real security. The small country of Is rael has lately impressed the civilized world with her dar ing defensive action against numerically superior enemies. Israel has been insecure from the standpoint of geographi cal size and position. Her total territorial area is but 8,040 square miles, or less than one-fourth of the size of our island of Mindanao. No impregnable walls and fortifications have been erect ed along her boundary as was the Maginot line in France. Surrounded by hostile coun tries and unfriendly nations, Israel is insecure as far as her location and her terri torial area are concerned. But she has worked hard to develop her capacity to plan, to act, and to execute and to raise her qualifications for production and survival. She has sought and found security in the exercise of her intelligence, in the dev elopment of her will to work, in her determination to over come obstacles. And so she has conquered many of the difficulties that usually beset a newly organized state with out an abundance of natural resources such as those we find in our own Philippines. Her government has not been wasting whatever finan cial assets she has earned and received. Her leaders and public officials have not made themselves notorious for graft and corruption or for enriching themselves in public positions. She has developed those qualifica tions that give her the power, the ability, and the integrity to resist external pressures and to stand on her feet. A country hardly twenty years old as an independent poli tical community in this age of fear, uncertainty, and con fusion, Israel offers a shining example of what a small country with a dedicated and determined people can ac complish in practically all June 1967 33 areas of life. In economics, in education, in labor pro blems, in matters of national defense, Israel has been in the vanguard of progress. With a population of about two million five hun dred thousand people, a small fraction of the total number of inhabitants of our own country, she has trans formed herself into a veri table David in more ways than one. Mirabile dictu! Turning now to our own situation, may I say again that this is a propitious oc casion to examine those qua lifications we need to enable us to tackle our own pro blems successfully and to find out how many of them are or are not in our pos session. If we discover that we .do pot have many f them in an adequate mea sure, now is the proper time to work towards acquiring them, now that we, as gra duates, are sufficiently pre pared to commence strength ening ourselves further for our life ahead. Let us then take a brief and rapid inventory of the qualifications we should pos sess in order to face the chal lenge of our present and future work. Our first set of items should refer to men tal qualifications, which cover the ability to think for ourselves, to concentrate on the thing we have in hand, on the problem that we have to solve. Our academic pre paration should enable us to make good use of this qua lification when it teaches us to act only on the basis of actual facts, never to fancies, or unsound beliefs or fan tastic superstitions. Our edu cational preparation should serve as an effective shield against ideas, proposals, or arguments unsupported by reason, facts, or scientific principles. Together with intellectual and academic qualifications, we need to develop and maintain at all times moral qualifications .which should embrace the ability to choose and to do only what is honest, what is just, what is right, what is clean and true. One of the moral values many, if not most, of our own people lack is a highly developed sense of responsi bility. We are reluctant to testify against one whom we know to be a wrongdoer be cause he is our relative or 34 Panorama our friend, or our fellow member in an association. We are prone to support an accusation against an inno cent person because we envy and dislike him or because in doing his duty he has hurt our feelings. There are other instances which show how indifferent we are to the demands of duty and how inactive and dull is our sense of responsibility. Our decisions, both individual and social, can have no meaning nor value unless we have the moral fiber and the moral stamina to carry them out; and lest we forget, it is the habit of purposeful work, unflagging industry, persis tent diligence that usually produces these characteristic traits of moral excellence. Then before we close this brief inventory of essential qualifications for inward greatness, we have to include what are known as behavioral qualifications, the outward manifestations of man’s no bility. They cover the ad mirable traits and practices of refinement in one’s action, courtesy in one’s dealings with others, and the attitude of respect and forbearance towards our fellowmen. These may well be deemed as among the imperatives of a decent, orderly, and res pectable community. For an intellectual who acts as a howling mad man cannot be of much use in a decent and honorable company. A mo ral person who moves about as a prophylactic agent pa rading his goodness among men and women within his circle, will soon be shunned and avoided. The whole some influence of his other wise fine qualities will go to utter waste. As we step out of the aca demic halls to take our places in another atmos phere, it behooves us to re double or. at least, to main tain the qualifications we have known for growth and strength — intellectual, mo ral, and behavioral. In no other way may we attain the security we desire and may we enjoy the freedom we need for individual fulfill ment and community better ment. — By V. G. Sinco from the text of his speech, June 28, 1967, at F.C. June 1967 35 A NEW ORIENTATION It is still the early morning hours of the day of the poli tical emancipation of the Filipinos. It is, of course, an emancipation i m m e diately following a nightmarish in terlude of destruction, blood shed, and moral chaos, after over forty years of gradual and peaceful preparation. Those were not forty years of aimless wandering in the wilderness. They covered de cades of dream, struggle, and restlessness towards a definite goal. They were decades of hectic preparation in educa tion, in social improvement, in political self-management, and to some extent in econo mic self-sufficiency. The na tional structure was being erected step by step accord ing to a. general plan. But all of a sudden the catastrophic event of the World War en gulfed the country and demo lished much of the material assets previously accumulated and shook the moral reserves the Filipino had patiently developed. Over twenty years have passed since that fateful oc currence; they have been years of needed reconstruc tion and rebuilding. It has been a period of changing conditions, changing de mands, and changing atti tudes and relationships in this country and in all parts of the world. In this chang ed atmosphere, the need is urgent and imperative to fol low a new plan for the na tional structure, one adapted for an edifice suitable to meet the tensions and stresses of a different world. To re construct according to the old model is not enough. To build a new structure fit for the new conditions is inesca pable. The young Filipinos whom we find in our colleges and universities today should have a new orientation and should adjust themselves to the new environment. Crea tivity, daring, and integrity are urgently needed for a re constructed society. — V.G.S. 36 Panorama ■ A sound view on the cost of Philippine education. HIGHER TUITION FEES Education fees are going up. People are complaining. Private schools are under fire. We need a clear pers pective about the cost of education, the purpose of education — and the role of private education in this country. Everyone is aware that the cost of education is going up, and will conti nue to go up in the fore seeable future. The need to upgrade education is also a tvell known fact. There fore the only moot points in this higher tuition fees issue are on whether the tui tion increase will go towards the improvement of the edu cational system in that par ticular school. It may be just as well, for parents and students, to be more (Remand ing about the qualily of the education they are getting. There may be a misgiving about a foreseeable chance of a proportionate increase in educational benefits from a raise in tution. The fact is that a great proportion of the increase in costs has been going towards better pay for teachers who have been clamoring for adequate compensation to the point of staging strikes. The President and the de partment of education have in turn sought to scrutinize the present action of private schools. This is always good, except that government has always been quick to impose restrictions on private schools while being very slow with any kind of support. Most people have one misconcep tion. This is that govern ment education, or public schools, should be given allout support by the govern ment, but that government should be antagonistic to wards private education. This probably harks back to our American period when the department of education bureaucracy was built on a strong antipathy for the religious-oriented private school. The fact is that to day private education has assumed a function that is vital to the nation, one that June 1967 37 government has failed to fill. The increasing presence of private education in remote areas where only mission schools thrive or in higher education where a large pro portion of students are in privat* schools, dramatically indicts the feilure of govern ment to fill this need. NoW, an institution like the UP is subsidized by govermhent, and its quality is assured at a high cost of ex penditure per student. The citizens on the other hand are entitled to education but find themselves turning to private education because there are not enough schools. The government should con sider supporting the parent or student who goes to a pri vate school. Perhaps the tuition fees should be tax deductible. After all we are saving the government cost of education by actually pay ing tuition to private schools. Nobody wants a raise in tui tions. We should do some thing about it. But we should not take it out on private educators who are trying to improve education here. — By Alfredo Roces in Manila Times, June 28, 1967. 38 Panorama ■ Education is not a status; it is a process of in volvement in meaningful existence; it is the spirit of eternal questioning and an expandinng attempt at discovery. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE EDUCATED? Magazines and newspapers daily feature man’s cruelty to man; review new and im proved ways of lengthening life; expose man’s continual questioning of God’s role in the universe; analyze the in ventions of scientists and the creations of writers, painters, and social visionaries; an nounce the average age of Nobel Laureates in 1966 as seventy-three in an age of youth worshippers; and, at Christmas time, editorialize the true art of giving as the gift of sdf. In the midst of rampant chaos, confusion, and con trast, it seems timely for thinking persons, in nations holding high average levels of formal schooling for the masses, to ask, “What does it mean to be educated?’’ Public formal education is big business in the U.S. The great financial outlay may well be questioned: Why do we spend so much for what ultimate purpose as far as each individual and/or nation is concerned? Are the people getting mean ingful, worth-while return for their financial invest ment? Establishing a common premise on which “What does it mean tq be edu cated?” may be reviewed, Erich Fromm has indicated that to be educated is a pro cess of searching for that kind of behavior which is most appropriate to unify, harmonize, and strengthen the individual and which promotes the most meaning ful interrelatedness of the individual with human be ings generally in the mutual experience of learning how to live. According to this definition, to be born would mean that life exists as a series of questions, problems, and trial and error living, implying a lifetime involve ment in a meaningful exis June 1967 39 tence for himself and for others. Perhaps, to be educated is not a station to be achieved, as high school graduation, or a series of situations to be endured, as K through 12 programs, but a constantly evolving, expanding indivi dual process in which, from birth to death, a dynamic organism called “man” finds himself in continual series of confrontations with others, with ideas, and with things in his personal search for the meaning of life. The ancient historian Herodotus wrote long ago, “The des tiny of man lies in his own soul”; it is not, therefore, in the effectiveness of mass conformity which seems too often to pass for education today. The dictionary states that educated means giving evi dence of education. How is evidence of education given other than by ma terialistic acquisition of a sheepskin in competitive striving where winners take all and losers lose out — some to become drop outs, failures unemployed, crimi nals? Searching for the ear liest meanings of the Latin derivatives, of the word edu cation, we find: (a) the drawing out of a person something potential or latent, and (b) aiding a person to become self-actualizing. No one ever becomes educated but is always in the process of becoming, each in his own way, at his own pace, limited by his own unique expeperiences and his personal internalizations of the mean ing of these experiences. Michener in his novel Ha waii ably described the job of living in these words: For this is the journey that men make: to find them selves. If they fail in this, it doesn’t matter much what else they find .... Money, position, fame, many loves, revenge — all are of little consequence when the tickets are col lected at the end of the ride, if they tossed into a bin marked FAILURE. But if a man learns why he lives, if he knows what he can be depended upon to do, the limits of his courage, the position from which he will no longer retreat, the secret reser voirs of his determination, the extent of his dedica 40 Panorama tion, the depth of his feel ing, his honest and unpos tured goals both for him self and others — then he has found a mansion which he can inhabit with dig nity all the days of his life. It seems then that man who gives evidence of being educated has found life more than mere repetitive exis tence with its earthly rewards of food, clothing, shelter, re creation, diplomas, jobs ac companied by a regular pay check and business invest ments, until a social security retirement abetted by annui ties. Instead he who gives evidence of education has grown into a vital, creative awareness of his human uniqueness and is involved in the challenge of untang ling the web of human po tential and radiating glow in the process of creative pro duction for others and with others. This continuous nature of awareness seems to be the major evidence of becoming educated. When he becomes continuously aware of him self and the world around him and lives in accord with these conditions of being alive, he is a harmonious part of all being. This is the ability to emphasize or walk around inside another person’s skin and feel the way he does. It is the es sence of universal brother hood. When he distorts awareness of these conditions of being, he loses himself and his human uniqueness is out of harmony with others. For man intends both consecration and change, not destruction and chaos, and seeks both rest and variety, not power and competition; so harmony is not an easily acquired state, but must be earned conti nuously in collaboration with others jointly with self search and development. Unfortunately, today scien tific research tries to narrow man into too concrete, dis crete, simple one-to-one re. latedness; but he is far more than the sum of all his parts. To be educated is much more than experiencing so many years of confrontations in living. To be in the pro cess of becoming educated means that he is growing within himself continuous awareness that he does not and cannot know all that he needs to know to protect June 1967 41 that which he loves or to forestall that which he fears. So long as he accepts respon sibility for his personal choices, which is true free dom, but always recognizes the potentiality of tragedy, a law of life, he is truly aware of his human unique ness. If he persuades him self that he has achieved cer tainty, or th*t he can achieve permanent'security, then he distorts reality. This pre sents a current anomaly since today many feel “If I just get a college degree, I’ll have it made!’’ or "If I make so much money . . .’’ or “If 1 get such-and-such job . But the world of daily hap penings is set in a larger world of human experiences. One life js inextricably inter woven with all other lives. As science shrinks the world, so the gate of any one man is bound to the fate of all men, like a huge interlock ing chain. To be educated means not only becoming more aware, but also becoming more in volved, i.e., more genuine in all encounters, confirmations, engagements, and dialogues with others. This necessi tates the belief that all men are created equally human and only a paper thin skin like the outer layer of onion skin hides the great common heart, soul, and mind of all humans. It is man-made barriers that divide the world of humans into enemv camps; only humans who be come genuinely aware (truly educated) can remove the barriers of hunger, disease, prejudice, jealousies, and in equalities so that all men may more satisfyingly meet their socio-emotional needs and live in harmony. But too many so-called educated persons want to "Let George do it”; so it never gets done. — By Prof. Evelyn G. Rime! in The Delta Gamma Bul letin for Spring 1967. 42 Panorama ■ To be known as a Filipino nation, independent, friendly, and cooperative, the Philippines needs policy makers who are resolved to follow their own definite norms of conduct. A WORD ON PHILIPPINE ORIENTAL POLICY The foreign policy of a country should be predicated on its national interests and actual needs. These should serve as general but concrete terms of reference in the for mulation of any agreement and understanding with any particular foreign state in any part of the world. In our relations and deal ings with what is generally known as Asia, we need to remember that this huge con tinent cannot be treated as one .singly group of political and cultural communities bound together by ideas and beliefs founded on basically similar historical and spirit ual sources as is the Western state system. The Oriental or Asiatic world rests to a great extent on a wide va riety of economic and social conditions at different stages of development, arising from different historical traditions and different conceptions of cultural and moral values. After the last War, however, Western influences have began to enter their life in a gradual way insinuating themselves, as it were, through a newly woven fab ric of suspicious nationalism. Moreover, the problems arising from the conditions prevalent in Oriental coun tries are in such a state of flux and uncertainty that it is not always easy to foresee and anticipate possible solu tions. Th resulting insta bility that prevails should warn policy-makers against arrangement of a permanent character or against assump tions from rigid frames of reference on particular pro blems and relationships. These observations are back ed up by what have been ex plained by competent writers on the subject. As one of them said: "Policy makers do not have the benefit of a June 1967 43 crystal ball.” Sukarno, the so-called adored champion of Indonesia’s independence and so chosen as his nation’s President for life, did not remain long as ruler and po licy-maker. He and his po licies and methods met an inglorious end in a few brief years from the viewpoint of history. The collapse was almost unexpected. At this moment Nasser of Egypt, which is in fact an AfroOriental country, is reported to have fallen down and with him his "crush-Israel” policy is going to pieces in spite of the much vaunted Arab unity. A definite long-term policy can easily be nullified by the uncertainties of unstable conditiqns. The wise thing for the Philippine Republic to do would be to draw up and observe certain general pos tulates based on careful ob servations derived from events currently happening in our environment and from the experience of persons known by their ability to grasp the meaning of inter national decisions and trends with objectivity and keen perceptiveness. Postulates so produced may serve as guide lines for the formulation of specific policies when parti cular problems between this country and a particular Asian nation should call for discussion, counsel, and con sensus. In other words, such general postulates should stand as relatively basic re ferents for and at those mo ments or occasions which call for special arrangements with any particular Asian govern ment. Living in the Orient as we are, we should keep ourselves intelligently and fully inform ed about Oriental affairs. More than that: we need to assess the importance of their actual and possible impact on our country’s problems today and tomorrow. To be ever aware of these condi tions and influences is the only way that would enable us to adopt a specific policy at the proper occasion that could best promote our na tional interests. These words may sound like platitudes to maturer ob servers and students of in ternational relations and pro blems; but in view of our limited experience in the 44 Panorama conduct of international re lations they are worth re peating as constant remind ers of the need for alertness in our association with other governments and of the va lue of being well-informed of the atmosphere and envi ronment in which our coun try is being enveloped in many ways. A general Asian policy of this country that takes into account the foregoing consi derations may be properly formulated and may be ex pected to be seriously res pected when it is based upon a positive proposition (1) that would convince our fellow Orientals that we are.in fact and in theory an indepen dent and sovereign nation; (2) 'that would show our fel low Orientals that we have the will and the potential strength to make ourselves a fully developed nation with readiness and decision to stand on our own feet; (3) that would assure every country in Asia by word and deed that we are one of them — Oriental or Asian, not Occidental or American, or European, nor African; (4) that would express our readiness to cooperate with them in ways that will pro mote a more peaceful, pro gressive, and prosperous exis tence not only with our fel low Orientals but with the whole world that is getting smaller, more and more in terdependent, but also more and more exposed to incre dible but nonetheless exist ing dangers to nations and to humanity itself; and (5) that would respect each and every country’s cultural, social, economic, and politi cal patterns and problems and would avoid interfering with them or with any de cisions involving them unless assistance and support are mutually sought and agreed upon. To one who closely ob serves the attitude of foreign delegates in international conferences toward the Phil ippines in certain matters, it seems quite obvious that these basic propositions cry for an open and sincere re cognition in all the Orient, if not in the entire world. For whether we like it or not, many Asians and Eu ropeans still entertain doubts about the Philippines being June 1967 45 an independent country and not an American appendage; and many still think that this country does not belong to Southeast Asia inasmuch as its interests have not been distinctly associated with those of Southeast Asian countries in any marked de gree. In fact British and European books as of now seldom if ever refer to the Philippines as belonging to the Southeast Asian commu nity. It is not advisable to take for granted the postulates suggested above. In the early years of the government of the United States of Am erica, the stand taken by its policy-makers was based on similar principles in their dealings .with European states. While conditions here and now are not exactly identical with those then and there obtaining, the basic aim and purpose of these foreign policy principles are not dissimilar, namely, that we make our own indepen dent policy decisions, that they be predicated on what we believe to be for the best interests of our nation, and that in such grave questions as non-involvement or in volvement in international affairs we should make our own firm decision based on our free choice and within the framework of our Consti tution. As a general summation for what might be safely de clared to be a broad foreign policy of the Philippines, it should be sincerely affirmed that the Philippines is proud of her place in the Orient and of her own particular national identity and that, without in any way inter fering with the internal af fairs and institutions of other Oriental nations, it is her avowed policy to live with them in harmony as a good neighbor who is ready to do her part in promoting the common interests of all peo ples in order to establish per manently a peaceful, progres sive, and prosperous world community. Needless to add that the broad postulates of foreign policy discussed here are just as proper and applicable in the political relations of the Philippine Republic with Western countries as with the Oriental states. To pro46 Panorama lect and advance peacefully tional identity are basic conthe national interest of the siderations in both our doFilipino nation and to pro- mestic and foreign policy. — mote and maintain its na- V. G. 5. LORD ACTON'S MAXIMS The Reign of Sin is more universal, the in fluence of unconscious error is less, than historians tell us. Good and evil lie close together. Seek no artistic unity in character. * * * The final judgment depends on the worst action. * * * Character is tested by true sentiments more than by conduct. A man is seldom better than his word. * * * fjistory is better written from letters than from histories; let a man criminate himself. * * * No public character has ever stood the reve lation of private utterance and correspondence. * * . * Be prepared to find that the best refute gives way under closer scrutiny. — By Lord Acton in Essays on Freedom and Power. June 1967 47 ■ This is a commonsensical and frank approach on the subject of controls versus free enterprise in relation to the economic growth of the Philip pines. CONTROLS STARTED FILIPINO INDUSTRIES It should not be too sur prising that President Mar cos balks at giving any sug gestion at this time that his administration may be con sidering the restoration of exchange controls. The re turn of controls could be interpreted, after all — and undoubtedly will be so in terpreted by Mr. Marcos’ political enemies — as proof positive that his administra tion had so badly misma naged the economy and so badly run the country that public confidence in the fu ture has practically vanished, those with fortunes to pro tect have salted them away for safekeeping in foreign lands, and the international reserve has consequently plunged below the absolute desirable minimum. Mr. Marcos probably fears that charges like these could hurt him and his party decisively during this election year, de prive him of victory next November, and perhaps nudge him irreversibly down hill to his own downfall in 1969. Furthermore, the myths about "free enterprise” and free competition die hard in this country. These myths, lovingly nursed and propa gated largely by alien busi ness interests, mostly Ameri can, in the Philippines, allege that the unfailing key to the nation’s speedy development and progress is “free enter prise,” just as any move to wards a planned and direct ed economy could only bring ruin on the country. How have these myths ac tually worked out in the light of history? For all the blind homage and fealty paid to the gods of free enterprise, the Philippines is still an under-developed country to day, the Filipinos have re mained drawers of water and 48 Panorama hewers of wood, and the country has not progressed beyond being a fertile field for ruthless and cynical ex ploitation by predatory alien capitalists and investors with out the slightest genuine re gard for the well-being of the Filipino people. It was only during the period of controls not too long ago, as a matter of fact, that the Filipinos began to have the opportunity of mov ing into, and taking over, some sectors of the economy. It was only then that the first faltering steps towards industrialization were taken. The government wielded its powers of import and ex change controls to redress some of the severe handicaps suffered by Filipino business men, at the hands of their wealthier' alien competitors, and to give the former a fighting chance. And even alien enterprises in this country, unable to remit their earnings and profits to their faceless investors abroad, were forced to plough part of their funds back into local expansion. This was the period when the oil compa nies, for example, built their local refineries. When President Macapagal and the Liberal party were voted to power in 1962, how ever, they scrapped the en tire control system and res tored the economy to free enterprise. Curiously, the new dispensation hailed this as a brilliant achievement, and predicted that the magic wand of free enterprise would strew the land with new bustling factories and energetic, productive activity. None of these rosy predic tions, however, came to pass. What actually happened instead was that the fledgling manufacturing businesses set up by Filipinos found them selves swamped and over whelmed once again by their alien, principally American, competitors. Native indus tries plunged headlong to the pits of distress — from which the Marcos adminis tration, to this day, is still trying to retrieve them — while alien enterprises were free and unfettered once again to remit the wealth of the Filipinos to their far away parent companies. An argument repeatedly invoked to justify the liqui dation of controls and the return to free enterprise was June 1967 49 the incredible, massive cor ruption that accompanied the administration of con trols. Undoubtedly the cor ruption was there. The cure that was applied, however, was equivalent to burning down the entire house just because a few posts and part of a wall had been found to be anay-infested. An absolutely necessary and helpful system was discard ed just because its imple mentation was faulty. Today it is the Marcos administration that is paying the prohibitive price of the criminal scrapping of con trols. But Mr. Marcos seems headed towards compound ing the tragedy of sidestep ping the issue instead of meeting it head-on. None of the myths of “free enter prise” hhs proved helpful. They have, on the contrary, succeeded only in suppressing Filipino businesses and in bringing about the current depletion of dollars. A re gulated, controlled, planned economy is a must for every developing country; there is no other way towards swift growth that will keep pace with the population explo sion that as the bane of evety impoverished society. And the time for the Pres ident to act is now; to tem porize in the hope that some thing hopeful may turn up, would be self-deception. It would call to mind the man who fell from the 34th story of a building and assured himself, as he plunged down wards past the 11th floor: “Up to now I’m still all right.” — By J. V. Cruz in Manila Times, June 28, 1967. 50 Panorama ■ Neglected in Philippine schools, Geography is one of the most useful studies. GEOGRAPHY AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT Geography is a forgotten discipline in our school cur riculum both in the elemen tary, high school and college levels. Older people in the Philippines have had the op portunity to take geography classes during our elemen tary schools. Very few in deed had the opportunity to get this in college level. The vounger generations have not had this opportunity because there was what our educa tors called improved curricu lum in the educational svstem., This started in the beginning of the Philippine Commonwealth government in 1935 when the nationaliza tion of our government of fices and educational institu tions took place. American educators were substituted by American-educated Fili pino educators. They abo lished geography and in its place introduced several sub jects under the heading of Social Studies. About 8 years ago, an American geographer who passed by Manila on his way home from an Inter national Geographic Union Congress in Tokyo comment ed that our Manila Times newspaper has 4 to 6 pages of Society and social news items. You may wish to know what a geographer can do or how he can make use of his knowledge and the applica tion of these to his daily life or activities. The geographer can eva luate the physical and eco nomic resources of the country and indicate reasons for its success or failure in the economic development. As a basic and foundation sub ject, it can be used by dif ferent specialists such as the physicist, the oceanographer, the economist, the engineer, chemist, biologist, forester, climatologist, ecologist, mditary strategist, politician and June 1967 51 our science-promotion of ficers. In the routinary work of our science promotion officer and visits to areas of his ju risdiction he may come across a village at Lake Bato (if he is in Camarines Sur) and observe the people’s daily activities. In this area he may notice a married woman with two or three children tagging along, one in her arms and another one ex pected in three or four months. With a good know ledge of geographic funda mentals, such as climate, pre sence or absence of electric light, protein and carbohy drate intake of the people, land form and earth re sources plus a good power of observation, he can easily synthesize the facts on hand and can understand the si tuation prevailing in the community. In military geography, de tailed basic knowledge of geography has been respon sible for a successful military, and naval operation of world powers. In the words of Dr. Alden Cutshall, “Hitler’s timetable of conquest moved with clock-work precision during 1939, 1940 and early 1941 when , General Karl Haushofer, a trained geo grapher, was one of his trust ed advisors. After his break with Haushofer, at the time of the German invasion of the USSR in July, 1941, German conquest was beset by reverses of varying and in creasing magnitude. Allied landings in Africa and Italy were successful, at least in part, because they were timed to wait for optimum geographical conditions of tides and winds. "General MacArthur knew in detail the geography of Tacloban and the eastern coast of Leyte. He was in charge of the topographic crew that mapped the area before World War I. This was probably his first assign ment after graduation from West Point.” And now for engineering, there are geographic needs for almost every science. It is desirable for an engineer to know the sources of his materials in addition to their uses and strength. Econo mic geography can supply such information. There are schools of mines that -require a course in world geography in Latin America so that 52 Panorama their graduates’ may have knowledge of conditions in the foreign lands where ma ny may be employed. Courses in Sociology which empha size labor problem may be of great help to engineers in dealing with their em ployees and in public rela tions. Chemists and chemical en gineers need to know the facts concerning the occur rence of- essential materials, available transportation, la bor supply, power resources, and markets in order to deter mine processing and fabricat ing plants may be located. Other geographic factors af fecting plants locations may include water supply for steel mills and textile dyeing, availability of railroad or other transportation for flour mills, furniture factories and most other sorts of bulky goods, and the occurrence of needed supplies adjacent to each other. A biologist, who specializes in ecology is applying geo graphy in his science. Men concerned with the conserva tion of wildlife and fish need to know the optimum habitats for the animals, otherwise introduction of new birds or fish species may fail for lack of the neces sary environment. The ef fects of animals on a new environment must also be known; and an understand ing of this would have pre vented the introduction of the carp into the lake in Camarines Sur that destroyed the most important fish of the locality. Biologist and agriculturist need to know the climatic regions of the world and the weather requirements affect ing plants and animals. Fo resters use geography in many ways. The species of trees and the rapidity of their growth is related to the tem perature, rainfalls, growing season, soil, steepness of slopes, etc. The distribution of forest types is therefore a phase of geography Physicists find many of their experiments affected by various factors among which are relative humidity and temperature, by changes of pressure resulting from cy clones and to differences in elevation, and by differences in the clarity of the atmos phere, all of which are con cerned with the earth and June 1967 S3 hence are essentially geogra phic phenomena. Like meteorology, oceano graphy is a science which has grown from the geography soil. It is concerned with hydrosphere, a very mobil part of the earth. The tides, currents, temperature, consti tuents, configuration of the coast and ocean floor and the life of one ocean and its distribution are outgrowth and elaboration of simple geography. Certain diseases appear to be related to different geo graphic factors. The inci dence of mosquitoes, tick and other insect-borne dis eases is related to the weather and vegetative conditions un der which the injects thrive. Fungus infections are very prevalent in the wet tropics. When the English occupied Manila during the latter part of the 18th century, an Eng lish woman correspondent sent her description of the climate of the Philippines to her London newspaper in one sentence — "the climate of the Philippines is divided into two seasons, namely: smallpox season and cholera season." That was a beauti ful medical geographic des cription of the wet and dry climate of the Philippines. Mathematics is an integral part of geography. The construction of map projec tions, the explanation for deflection of the winds and ocean currents by the earth’s rotation, the calculation of latitude and longitude, and the determination of the length of day and night and other numerous geographic laws and principles require the use of mathematics which may well be called the mo ther of all sciences. Public planning is one of the recently developed sciences; it is the foundation upon which the planner builds, consisting of resources, physical features and general environmental conditions. All of these are fundamentally geographic. Geography pro vides the base from which planning can proceed. A nation’s power is the proportion to the resources available and the effective ness of their utilization. Everybody in this country has been singing one kind of music — that of the Philip pines having vast natural resources. But no country since the dawn of history has 54 Panorama been too reckless in exploit ing its resources at such a rapid rate as has been done in our country. Situation report made by Dr. and Mrs. Lee M. Talbot, both geo graphers of note working for the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, states that the Philippines is at a cross road of rapidly diminishing natural resources. It revealed the glaring facts of exhaus tion to the extent of ex tinction of these resources. In using the geographical approach to economic dev elopment of our developing countries, we may make use of fundamental knowledge of resource geography. — By Dominador Z. Rosell, from a paper read on Sept. 2, 1966, NS.DB. THEY RAPED THE PHILIPPINE FORESTS The way the natural resources of the Philippines have been exploited after World War II by some Filipino adventurers, most of them financially sup ported by aliens in and outside the country, has caused the virtual destruction of the forests in practically all provinces. This careless exploitation has not only depleted our forest areas; it has also given rise to devastating floods eroding our hills, plains, and valleys. The few adventurers are now turned into millionaires, affluent politicians, and powerful landlords. They deprived the nation of a large part of its natural assets. — Contributed. June 1967 55 ■ Injuripus and disagreeable sounds and their effect. MODERN MUSIC DANGERS Some accoustical engineers in the United States believe that the sound produced by teenage pop bands is actually damaging to human ears; and one in particular, Mr. Robert Larabell, of Phoenix, Arizona, believes that young people are deafening them selves in large numbers. Morton Hochstein, speaking in “Today,” gave readings of some common sound levels as follows: A home at night with the TV turned off and everyone asleep, no one snoring, will produce about 40 decibels; a private office 60 decibels; a general office 75. Someone shouting at you from a dis tance of three feet might produce 80 decibels. People can’t communicate very well at above 85 decibels, and the most avid television or radio listener will not turn his vo lume past 90. The United States Air Force advises that exposure to sound above 90 decibels for more than fifteen minutes can be harmful. The thres hold of immediate pain for most humans is about 120 decibels, but permanent phy sical damage can occur at noise levels far below. In dustrial hygienists recom mend that human ears should be protected from sound levels above 85 decibels, and in the United States workers in sand-blasting, riveting, drop forging, and automotive assembly are required to wear guards against the noise. With this in mind, what is the sound output of the usual teenage band? At twenty feet from the band Mr. Larabells’ equipment registered 90 to 95 decibels — the area of potential harm. At times the meter soared to an alarming 105 decibels. The danger, Mr. Larabell stresses, is that the young people face a rapidly accele rated deterioration in hear ing — so rapid that some teenagers may require hear ing aids by the time they reach maturity. Instinctively some Ameri can teenage musicians have 56 Panorama begun to protect themselves from their own product. Strictly under cover they are known to wear swimmers’ ear plugs, and under the flow ing tresses of John Fitzgerald, a singer in the Phoenix group known as The Caravelles, John hides a secret — he wears ear muffs. — By Mor ton Hochstein in The Lis tener, February, 1967. STUNTED "This wine is fifty years old,” said the host, of fering a visitor a small glassful of it. The visitor took the glass carefully between two fingers and said, "Stunted growth, eh?” June 1967 57 IMPROVING OUR ENGLISH This section of Panorama will be regularly published for the benefit of Filipino students of English. It will be devoted to idiomatic English — noun4, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, and expressive phrases. Idiomatic expressions are distinctive ways or peculiarites of using words and phrases in English. They are usually forcible, terse, and vivid. They are the most difficult part of the language for a person to learn who is not an American or Englishman. They must be committed to memory and frequently used in speaking and writing. 271. Step aside, is to go a little distance to one side. He steps aside to let his teacher pass to the porch. 272. Step in, is to enter: to walk in. 273. Step on it, is to go faster, to hurry up. 274. Step by step, is to go little by little, slowly. 275. Stick at, is to hesitate, to have doubts about. He will stick at nothing to get what he wants. 276. Stick around; is to wait or stay around. Stick around if you want to see the show. 277. Stick to, is to stay and not to change position. He will stick to his friend no matter what may happen. 278. Stoop to, is to go down to a lower conduct. He never stooped to dishonorable acts. 279. Strike out, is to change or wipe out. He took a pen and struck out a few lines from his speech. 280. Submit to. Submit to the judge for decision or action. 281. Subscribe to, is to agree to or to follow an idea. He subscribed to the opinion of the doctor. 282. Supply with. He supplies him with the money he needs. 283. Sweep away the dust from the floor. 284. Sweep the dust off the table. 285. Take after, is to resemble. This girl takes after her mother. 286. Take back, is to withdraw. I take back what I said against him. 58 Panorama 287. Take down, is to bring down, or to record. He takes down what is dictated to him. To take down a scaf folding, take down a wall, a house. You may take down the bottle of wine from the upper shelf. 288. Take for, is to consider one as something else; to sup pose to be. I took him for a lawyer, meaning I thought he was a lawyer. 2H9. Take over, is to have the control of. He takes over the work of the office. 290. Take to, is to apply to an activity. Tired of fishing, he has taken to farming. 291. Take up with a person, is to begin to be friendly with him. 292. Take upon oneself, is to assume, to undertake. He takes upon himself the work that was assigned to his friend. 293. Tear down, is to destroy fiercely. They tear down an old house. 294. Tend to, is to lead into a condition. Thrifty habits tend to prosperity. 295. Think about, of. He thinks of going to Mindanao. He is thinking about the job offered to him. 296. Think over, is to stop and consider. He went home to think over the problem of continuing his work in his office. 297. Throw in a word, is to add a word to what is already said; or an article besides what one buys. 298. Tide over, is to help out of some hardship. A loan from the bank would tide him over a difficult situation. 299. Trade in, with. The farmer trades with the merchant in fruits and corn. 300. Triumph over obstacles, is to succeed. 301. Trust in. Trust in your father and obey him. 302. Try on a coat, is to put it on to see whether it fits or not. 303. Turn against, is to object to an act or a person. 304. Turn in, is to go to bed. 305. Turn off the light is to put out the light. June 1967 59 306. Turn on the faucet for water, or the switch for electric light. 307. Turn over a new leaf, is to change for the better. 308. Turn up, is to appear or to happen. He turned up when least expected. 309. Vote against, for. Ten men voted for the Nacionalista candidate and six against him 310. Wait at table, is to attend at table as a waiter when a meal is being served. 311. Wait on, is to attend a person as a helper would. I shall wait on you at your home tomorrow to show you some articles I have for sale. 312. Wash away, off, out, is to remove by washing; or, to be capable of removal by washing. There was mud on his shoes but the boy washed it off. 313. Wear off, on, out, up. As the day wore on, he became impatient. His wife was worn out with her home activities. To wear out a coat, is to wear it till it can no longer be worn. 314. Wear well. A dress is said to wear well when it is not much affected by time. 315. While away time, is to spend it idly or pleasantly. 316. Withdraw from. It is too late to withdraw from the game at this time. 317. ' Wo/k at, is to be engaged upon. I worked at my lesson. 318. Work on, is to continue working; also, to influence. Let the men work on till sunset. They tried to work on her fears. 319. Work out, is to produce a result; to solve, as a problem. He worked out his own salvation. 320. Worm oneself into favor, is to introduce oneself into one’s favor. 321. Yield to, is to submit to, to comply with, to give up to, to surrender. Yield to one's fate, to reason, to mercy. (To be continued) 60 Panorama Panorama Reading Association PANORAMA invites the educated public to join- its Association of Readers. PANORAMA READING ASSOCIATION is dedicated to men and women who appreciate the variety and quality of its articles as sources of liberal ideas. PANORAMA READING ASSOCIATION includes stu dents, businessmen, professionals, proprietors, employers, and. employees. It is also open to clubs, schools, and other ac credited organizations. PANORAMA has been in existence for over Thirty Yearst PANQRAMA provides excellent material for classes in history, government, economics, political and social studies, lite rature, and science. It may be adopted for secondary and. college use. PANORAMA is not a fly-by-night publication. It was bom in March, 1936. COMMUNITY PUBLISHERS, INC. Inverness, (M. Carreon) St., Sta. Ana, Manila, Philippines Contents Sincerity and Truth ....................................................................... 1 The Problem of Lengthening School Courses ...................... 2 For an Excellent Law Profession ............................................... 5 Mother Tongue and Second Language ..................................... 10 Unused Talents ................................................................................. 15 June 12 and Notional Identity................................................... 17 Man's Destiny ................................................... 20 The Responsibility Socrates ................................................... 27 About Che Problem of Security ................................................... 29 A New Orientation ......................................................................... 36 Higher HBBnkFees ....................................................................... 37 What Does V Mean to be Educated? ..................................... 39 A Word on Philippine Oriental Policy ..................................... 43 Controls Started Filipino Industries .......................................... 4IT Geography and Notional Development ....................................... 51 Modern Music Dangers ...»........................................................ 56 Improving Our English .................................................................. 51