Allan is an employee and a new father of a baby girl. Married for two years, he and his wife were not planning to have a baby, until it suddenly came. His boss noticed that his absences have been more frequent, with him giving excuses of being sick. He was given a written warning for absenteeism, which turned out to be not because he was sick but was of parental responsibilities he had to share with his wife like during times when they did not have a nanny. For men like Allan, juggling both roles is not easy. While Republic Act No. 8187 or the Paternity Leave Act of 1996 entitles all married males with seven days of paternity leave, a lot of fathers, who are a part of the 12.3 million or 62% of wage and salary workers in the Philippines,[1] may find it insufficient to fulfill the duties that go with being a new parent. The law stipulates that paternity benefit may be availed before, during or after delivery, as long as it will only total to seven days. The benefit can be availed only within 60 days from the date of delivery. Old school labor policies related with parenting reinforce traditional sets of gender roles, e.g., that child-rearing is a role of women and that the father is merely a financial provider for the family - that being a father is less important as being a mother. Fathers also have the right and motivation to take care of their newborn baby and participate in child-rearing activities. Contrary to traditional assumptions that fathers prefer non-caretaking roles, “evidence from cross-cultural, historical, comparative and biological sources show men’s interest and involvement with newborn infants and being nurturing as mothers in their interactions with their infants. While mothers spend more time than fathers in feeding and caretaking activities, fathers are capable of playing an active role in childcare and do not differ with that of mothers’ caretaking competence.”[2] The laws and legislation of a country reflect not only its vision but also the culture and values that it wants to promote, just like in organizations. Topping human development index charts, Scandinavian countries are known for their generous labor policies for working parents. Their family-friendly policies include parental leaves for both parents, such as the fully-paid 46 weeks or 56 weeks off paid at 80% in Norway, going beyond the 14 weeks of time off per the International Labor Organization. Moreover, ten weeks of these are exclusive for fathers to encourage their use of the benefit. And it works: 90% of Norwegian fathers are participating in the program.[3] Despite having undergone a deep financial crisis, Iceland pushed for the 3-3-3 paid leave scheme, i.e., three months for mothers, three for fathers, and three to split between the two, which in 2016 will be upgrades to 12 months. In Bulgaria, women can take one to two years of parental leave (second year at minimum salary), but its gives the flexibility of the father or even a grandparent taking it in lieu of the mother. Japan and the United Arab Emirates also have made amendments of their parental leave laws based also on statistics of their birth rate and population growth.
Of course, for these policies to work, governments also need to reach out to other stakeholders. Organizations need to be educated on the purpose and implementation of these initiatives, as among the fears of workers in participating in these programs, especially in countries where workholism is prominent, are issues that go with reincorporation in the job. In the case of the Philippines, we have a culture of hiring nannies (as is more affordable) to take care of the baby after childbirth, or having the grandparents or other members of the extended family live with the couple so that both can continue working. Aside from economic constraints, this could also be a reason for a slow insistence for generous childcare leaves in the country, although there are a lot of couples now who live on their own and find it more difficult to find help. While this practice makes it easier to be a worker and a parent, parents still need to maintain a certain amount of quality time spent with the baby. The parents themselves need to be present for the newborn - otherwise, there comes a lack of emotional attachment with the parent along with other positive outcomes. Perhaps the first step is House Bill 5544 which seeks to extend what is stipulated in Section 2 of RA 8187 to 15 paid leaves and give another 15 unpaid leaves to lengthen the time every man spends with his wife and newborn after delivery.[4] Aside from time off, new parents also need ample social support such as antenatal an postnatal education programs to develop problem-solving and stress coping mechanisms related with the birth process and baby care. A study[5] indicates that depression is a problem for both women and men in the postpartum period and while fathers have reported similar levels of stress as mothers, they have lower perceived social support. Maternal depression is also associated with paternal depression. The phenomenon of post-partum depression has serious impact for both parents and needs to be further understood. Females undergoing it need their husband’s presence and support. At the same time, ”one parent’s depression may have a serious impact on the psychological health of the other parent and of the family as a whole,” so both partners should be involved in the diagnostic and intervention process. Some fathers like Allan undergo the dilemma of keeping their full-time jobs and dealing with the responsibilities and challenges both as a husband and father for their newborns. Governments and organizations need to acknowledge this too and find ways to help this equally relevant group of the labor force. -JB
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Have you ever reflected about our lack of real sidewalks? In Metro Manila, what we generally have are either pseudo-sidewalks or the total lack of it. Just looking at the term itself, one does not have to be a genius to know that a sidewalk is a paved path at the side of the road where pedestrians can walk. Sidewalks are occupied by parked cars, invaded by the construction a condominium, or queues of tricycles or pedicabs. Ergo, pedestrians are left walking on the road. Are barangay offices or outposts meant to be built along sidewalks? Is a sidewalk meant to be a market for sellers and food vendors? A place where people should stay long (“tambay”), to run a parlor business cut peoples' hair or a carinderia, or even a home for the homeless? I am not saying that they should lose their livelihood. On the other hand, don't they deserve a more decent place, and not the sidewalk? Here are seven questions you might want to ponder on and ask if we need real sidewalks in Metro Manila. 1. Is mobility an essential part of our daily life? Metro Manila has a population of almost 12 million. A lot of people including workers and students from as early as elementary school commute and walk along the streets every day. For any person out in the street, a real sidewalk is necessary for mobility. Isn't it where we should find people and not on the road itself? 2. Do we care about pedestrian safety and health? Isn't it a safety hazard both for pedestrians and motorists when pedestrians end up walking on the road either because there is no sidewalk at all or because it is occupied by what shouldn't be occupying it? Functional sidewalks also contribute to better well-being. Wouldn't people have a better disposition and experience less stress if they can skip that uncomfortable and unpleasant experience of walking on the road and fighting for space with cars? Isn't the last thing that we want to do before getting home after a whole day’s work? Is this what we deserve from the taxes that get deducted from us? 3. Do we need better traffic flow? The lack of sidewalk contributes to the poor traffic conditions. If sidewalks are devoted for pedestrians, wouldn't our streets be less congested and wouldn't that help ease traffic? 4. Do people with disabilities also deserve the freedom to be mobile? In Europe, people with disabilities (PWDs) can be seen in the streets and are integrated in society. Foreigners once asked me where our PWDs are, as they barely see one, aside from the beggars along the streets. Our streets are not for them. Doesn't it come across to people that they need proper sidewalks to be mobile? This and our public transportation system are not PWD-friendly. How can they use the MRT or LRT with non-functioning elevators? Even riding a taxi alone is difficult for them. Sidewalks should be functional for all types of pedestrians, including people with disabilities like those using wheel chairs. 5. Do we want organization and better-looking streets? Aside from being big enough for the number of pedestrians passing by and functional enough for all types of pedestrians, there are lamps and trashcans along real sidewalks. Streets will look cleaner and there will be more organization in the streets. 6. Do we want progress? One characteristic of development is the existence of sidewalks. Here in Metro Manila, real functional sidewalks can be found in Bonifacio Global City, which is a center of economic growth right now. Having sidewalks is a sign of good urban planning and organization, factors that investors consider when they choose an area to establish business. The Makati Business District also has real sidewalks, although there are areas where a person using a wheelchair ends up on the road itself like along parts of De La Rosa Street. Metro Manila is the business center of the Philippines. If we want progress, shouldn't we look like it to be it? 7. Do we want to promote a lifestyle of good health?
Real sidewalks promote walking and jogging. We don't want to jog in polluted areas, but there are areas where people can actually go out just to have a walk or to jog or run, but the lack of sidewalk doesn't permit people to do it. In the University of the Philippines Diliman campus, they even devoted one whole side of the street for people who want to walk for leisure or run for fitness. If you mostly answered "no", maybe we shouldn't demand for sidewalks. Maybe that's why nobody protests. Why should we demand for real sidewalks if we have been used to what we have right now? If you mostly answered "yes", then it's time to rethink our lack of sidewalk culture. Don't we all want and deserve something better? We need it. If we want it, there's a way to achieve it. According to www.ethnologue.org, which has an accurate and more or less updated catalogue of the human languages, the Philippines has 171 live languages. I am saying languages, not dialects. Including dialects, we have even more. As the eminent linguist Max Weinrich said: "a language is a dialect with an army and a navy", meaning clearly, that a dialect is a language without political support. From this 171 languages, 61 have already less than 10000 speakers, 30 being spoken by the Aeta, Ita, Agta or Negritos -and it is not a coincidence that the most discriminated indigenous people in our archipelago have the most threatened languages, since a long history of abuses has reduced them to indigency, semislavery and even alcoholism, as reported Danilo B. Galang in Among the Agta of North Sierra Madre (Anvil, 2006) and other scholars. Summarizing, what I want say is, unless we do something about it, in less than 100 years we are going to lose at least, being optimistic, 50% of the languages that are currently spoken in the Philippines, which would be a cultural catastrophe, losing a huge part of the rich heritage which make us distinct and original. Globalization tends to uniformity and language is a useful tool. The consequence is that parents are refusing to talk to their children using their ancestral language. So should we care about that? Well, a person asking such a question is probably claiming the naive idea that "sharing a single language is a guarantor of mutual understanding and peace, a world new of alliances and global solidarity" (27). Examples showing just the opposite thing in the history are thousands. Here are eight reasons why we should start taking care of our linguistic heritage: 1. "There is not such a thing as a primitive language: every language is capable of great beauty and power of expression" (30). Many people should know this before saying anything about languages. In the same way, there is no connection between the complexity of the language and the intelligence of the speakers or of the culture: both are language myths. 2. "From the point of view of the 'human capital theory', language is a part of the resources people can draw upon in order to increase the value of their potential contribution to productivity" (31). Then, investing money in that is not exactly wasting it. 3. "They promote community cohesion and vitality, foster pride in a culture and give a a sense of self-confidence to a community" (31). It is a shame that there are Filipinos overseas who refuse to talk to me and to other Filipinos in our local language, as if they have forgotten the language they grew up with, believing that English is cool and is a superior language. My local languages are a source of pride. English should be reserved for situations in which we do not share the same language. 4. "The preservation of linguistic diversity is essential, for language lies at the heart of what it means to be human" (31-32). 5. "When language transmission breaks down, through language death, there is a serious loss of inherited knowledge" (32). We cannot access anymore the source of our history because they are written in Spanish and, probably, we are the only country in the world which has to read the national novel through translations. The consequence is clear: we do not know anything about our Prehispanic or Spanish Colonial Period, only misconceptions and established prejudices, as we can learn through the astonishing works of Fernando Zialcita and Nick Joaquin, two brilliant brains. Moreover, the situation is worst in the case of languages without written tradition. We can learn Spanish if we feel like and want to access a vast collection of literature. However, most of those endangered Filipino languages have not been written ever: once the last speaker dies, there will not be a come back. 6. "Any language is a supreme achievement of a uniquely human collective genius (Krauss); each language constitutes a certain model of the universe, a semiotic of understanding of the world (V. Ivanov)" (36) Or expressed more poetically: "Every language is a temple, in which the soul of those who speak it is enshrined" (O. Wendell Holmes) (37). I feel lucky of being polyglot: speaking different languages clearly increases our knowledge of the world. Each language is, in fact, another view of the world. "Each language reflects a unique encapsulation and interpretation of human existence" (44). 7. "As each language dies, another precious source of data -for philosophers, scientist, anthropologists, folklorists, historians, psychologists, linguists, writers,- is lost" (53). 8. "Languages are interesting in themselves" (54). Unlike the Mangyan poetry ambahan which is engraved in bamboo tubes using their ancient script surot, the literary traditions of most indigenous groups are oral in form, meaning the death of their spoken language is also the death of its literature if not preserved and documented. (Photo credit: http://www.jacobimages.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/mangyan_1939_1901.jpg) Unfortunately, almost nothing is being made to save this rich heritage in the Philippines. In many cases, an active program of language revitalization would provide new life to many languages. In another cases, the only thing we can do is to send an ethnolinguist capable of making a work of documentation and recording with the last few speakers before the language vanishes forever.
It has even been reported by several scholars while doing fieldwork that there is a tendency among Filipinos to avoid belonging to a certain local community, as if being a source of shame or discrimination. In my opinion, the rarest the language a person speaks, the uniquest it is, and this is the way everybody should look at languages. While in the European Union, Taiwan or Australia, many steps have been made in order to preserve their respective language heritage, the Philippines, being one of the richest countries in terms of human biodiversity, does not even have a very museum of ethnology where urban Filipinos could learn about the many cultures inhabiting our archipelago. Unluckily, protection or documentation (production of grammars and dictionaries, especially) of threatened languages does not seem to be among the important tasks of our Linguistic Society of the Philippines, as you can read in the link. We cannot expect our government to develop policies to encourage the maintenance of our precious linguistic heritage, since they see -wrongly- heterogeneity as a danger for the unity of the country, when it is just the opposite: heterogeneity, since the very foundation of this country, is the nucleus of our real and prismatic identity. Therefore, keeping alive this non-tangible, cultural and intellectual heritage only depends on us. -Gyrovago This article was originally posted in Critical Thinking Manila (www.lailustrada.blogspot.com). I am a Filipina with morena or brown skin color. I have never been ashamed of my skin color, despite the fact that I would not miss comments about it even in my own home. A dermatologist once suggested that I take glutathione shots to make my skin lighter, while the reason that I was expecting her to say is that so that I will have healthier skin which is more important. Another usual comment to those with dark skin, or even of those who have dark skin to themselves, is "Maganda sana siya, kaya lang maitim." ("She could be beautiful, it's just that she is dark."). This mentality on having white skin or the so-called mestiza madness is very prevalent in the Philippines today, as reflected by the success of whitening products in the Philippine market. A study of which shows that one out of two Filipinas uses skin whitening products, and it is still a growing market. This figure is also the highest compared to other Asian countries who are said to share the same view that white is beautiful, such as Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan and Hongkong. In Manila, skin whitening advertisements are everywhere – on television commercials, billboards in highways, women’s magazines, and road advertisements. Women are usually the target market of these products and advertisements, although there also have been a growing male market having a lot of male endorsers also for such products. Almost all personal beauty and healthcare products such as soap, lotion, moisturizer, toner and creams have whitening agents in it that make these products more marketable to Filipinos. Filipinos seem to be using more and more whitening products, with a lot of new brands coming out in the market. Popular products even come in sachets, similar to the “tingi” system in sari-sari stores to make it more affordable and accessible. In the television, most actors and actresses are light-skinned, and people notice that the more an actress becomes popular, the lighter her skin becomes. Movie stars are white-skinned, and everybody wants to look like a movie star. Thanks to the discovery of glutathione, which for a lot of Filipinos is revolutionary given its properties that make having lighter skin in no time very attainable, as compared to the time when Filipinos solely rely on products such as the very popular ‘Block and White” at least a decade ago to have lighter skin. A cosmetic corporation in Manila which manufactures one of the more popular brands of whitening products that are very much available to the market even to those in lower socio-economic classes given the affordability of their products, foresees growth in the skin whitening product market despite the economic slump. Although there are whitening substances that are safe for the skin, there are still dangerous consequences to women who use it in large and harmful doses with the obsession to become white at the shortest time as possible. Also, for a long time, the use of whitening products with hydroquinone has been very popular in the Philippines, as well as in other Asian countries, despite it being cancerous especially if used over an extended period of time in large doses, which was highly possible given its availability and easy access to buy it in the market such as in grocery stores and personal care sections of malls. Hydroquinone, which is a chemical that is also used in photo processing, has been shown to cause leukemia in mice and other animals. Some nations have banned the use of this ingredient in cosmetics, but in others it remains widely available. Another product is the Magic Cream, a bleaching agent that was found to contain corticosteroids. At Php300 for 15 grams, it must be a good bargain for beauty-conscious Pinoys who want to have whiter skin in no time. There have been several cases of problems related to this Magic Cream, including having steroid acne or the simultaneous appearance of pimples, skin atrophy wherein the skin’s layers get thinner, and other negative effects such as suppressed adrenal glands, bone osteoporosis and obesity. Trends show that Filipinos still want to look good, i.e., look whiter, despite financial constraints as well as the possible negative effects of skin-whitening products. This means they resort to cheaper alternatives that could have harmful effects on the skin despite the regulation done by the Bureau of Food and Drugs. There are also victims of dubious glutathione products, the cost of which can reach up to five digits of pesos, who instead of getting whiter skin, experienced itching, rashes and other skin problems. These cases and dermatological caution seem to not alarm Filipinos, as more and more still use these products and dream to be white. Most of the indigenous Filipino have brown skin color, which anthropologically speaking is logical given our geographical position which is near the equator, thus having darker skin is safer and healthier despite long sun exposure. Having more melanin and in turn having a darker skin color is specifically protective against skin cancer. So in spite of this, where does this desire of having whiter skin comes from? Why do Filipinos believe that white is beautiful, and on the contrary, that dark skin is undesirable? Why do we have this absurd complex of wishing to be something we are not? For one, having a whiter skin is associated with wealth and higher education. Those who belong to the lower classes, such as farmers, laborers and fishermen, work under the sun and have darker complexion. In a way having a whiter skin gives others a perception that a person is “sosyal”, and in turn upgrades one’s socio-economic class that others perceive that person belongs to. It is a reflection of the importance that people place on social status, and a feeling or sense of inferiority. Those with darken skin are highly subject to teasing and prejudice, just like those who have other physical features similar to that of indigenous peoples such as the Negrito and Aeta, with mentality that peoples of these groups are inferior. This skin-whitening craze could not be considered as only a fad, and also has historical roots that go with it. On top of this status obsession even before the colonial times of which socio-economic classes are being associated with certain physical features, colonial mentality has developed in the brains of Filipinos, i.e., associating being mestizo with a higher class in society, and being white is close to being American which is considered as superior. I think that this is something that we should rethink about, i.e., the validity of such mentality and the things that it reflects about us in terms of our belief in our identity, and certain complexes that we may have. I personally believe that we should truly be proud of being Filipino, and of having dark skin or whatever skin color that goes with it. We should be proud of being who we are, no matter what color we were born with. Real beauty is not just skin deep. * repost from the author's blog Critical Thinking Manila dated 10/06/2010 |
About the AuthorThoughts on politics, economy, education, development and policy while stuck on traffic and what not. Archives
August 2015
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