in Siquijor Island, Philippines

Transcription

Silliman Journal
Margaret Helen Udarbe-Alvarez, Ph.D., Editor
Warlito S. Caturay Jr., MA, Associate Editor
Ian Rosales Casocot, BMC, Production Editor
Nenith P. Calibo, Business Manager
Editorial Board
Myrish Cadapan-Antonio, LlM
Jane Annette L. Belarmino, MBA
Gina Fontejon-Bonior, MA
Jose Edwin C. Cubelo, Ph.D.
Roy Olsen D. De Leon, MS
Theresa A. Guino-o, MS
Enrique G. Oracion, Ph.D.
Muriel O. Montenegro, Ph.D.
Betsy Joy B. Tan, Ph.D.
Lorna T. Yso, MLS
Overseas Editorial Board
Dennis Patrick McCann, Ph.D.
Alston Professor of Bible and Religion, Agnes Scott College, Decatur, Georgia, USA
Ceres E. Pioquinto, Ph.D.
English Lecturer, HMZ Academy/Dialogica Zug, Baar, Switzerland
Laurie H. Raymundo, Ph.D.
Director, University of Guam Marine Laboratory, Mangilao, GU, USA
Lester Edwin J. Ruiz, Ph.D.
Director, Accreditation and Institutional Evaluation,
Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada,
The Commission on Accrediting, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Dr. Margaret Helen Udarbe-Alvarez, Chair
Volume 52 Number 2 | July to December 2011
Prof. Marleonie M. Bauyot, Ph.D.
Dean, Graduate School, San Pedro College,
Davao City, Philippines
Prof. Gina Fontejon-Bonior, MA
Coordinator, Center for Excellence in Learning,
Teaching and Assessment,
Silliman University, Dumaguete City, Philippines
Prof. Rafe M. Brown, Ph.D.
Curator in Charge, Herpetology Division,
KU Biodiversity Institute
Associate Professor, Department of Ecology
and Evolutionary Biology
University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, U.S.A.
Prof. Roy Olsen D. de Leon, MS
Assistant Professor, Biology Department,
Silliman University, Dumaguete City, Philippines
Prof. Ma. Louella L. Dolar, Ph.D.
Tropical Marine Research for Conservation, LLC
San Diego, CA, U.S.A.
Prof. J. Neil C. Garcia, Ph.D.
Department of English and Comparative Literature
University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines
Prof. Nelly Zosa Limbadan, Ph.D.
School of Arts and Sciences,
Ateneo de Davao University, Davao City, Philippines
Prof. Eric Julian Manalastas, MA
Department of Psychology and Center for Women’s Studies,
University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines
Aileen Maypa, MS
Zoology Department, University of Hawai'i at Manoa,
Honolulu, Hawai'I, U.S.A.
Prof. Myrna Peña-Reyes
Poet, Dumaguete City, Philippines
Prof. Laurie H. Raymundo, Ph.D.
Director, University of Guam Marine Laboratory,
Mangilao, Guam, U.S.A.
BOARD
OF
REVIEWERS
Silliman Journal
Volume 52 Number 2 2011
The Silliman Journal is published twice a year under the auspices of Silliman
University, Dumaguete City, Philippines. Entered as second class mail matter at
Dumaguete City Post Office on September 1, 1954.
Copyright © 2011 by the individual authors
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Or go to the Silliman Journal website at www.su.edu.ph/sillimanjournal
Cover and book design by Ian Rosales Casocot
Cover painting, “ Fish in River” by Jaruvic Rafols, courtesy of the artist.
Printing by SU Printing Press, Dumaguete City
Editorial Notes
Margaret Helen F. Udarbe | 13
A Gerontologist’s Idea of the World,
Time, and the Cure for the Present:
T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost,
Wilfredo Pascua Sanchez,
Wallace Stevens, Jose Garcia Villa,
and Their Poems From or About Old Age
Ian Rosales Casocot | 19
The Lived Experience of Male Sex
Workers: A Qualitative Study Using
Husserlian Phenomenology and Colaizzi’s
Method of Data Analysis
Evalyn E. Abalos | 40
The Conformity of Test Construction
of the Achievement Test Papers
of College Teachers: A Case Study
Pablito A. dela Rama | 73
Status of the Vertebrate Fauna
in Selected Sites of Pagatban River,
Negros Oriental, Philippines
Abner A. Bucol, Esther E. Carumbana,
and Leonardo T. Averia | 91
A Survey of the Riparian Vertebrate Fauna
of Señora River, Siquijor Island,
Central Philippines
Michael Lawton R. Alcala, Abner A. Bucol,
Rosalina Catid, Jocelyn Elise Basa,
Irish Sequihod, Albert Pagente,
and Will Kilat | 106
CONTENTS
Notes on the Biology of the
Green Tree Skink Lamprolepis smaragdina
philippinica (Scincidae) in
Siquijor Island, Philippines
115 | Abner A. Bucol, Michael Lawton R.
Alcala, Rosalina Catid, Jocelyn Elise Basa, Irish
Sequihod, Albert Pagente, and Will Kilat
Fishes and Macroinvertebrates of Señora
River, Siquijor Island, Philippines With New
Records on the Occurrence of the Genus
Puntius (Cyprinidae) in the Visayas
123 | Abner A. Bucol and Rosalina Catid
Assessment of Mangrove Management Areas
in Four Coastal Barangays of
Bolinao, Pangasinan, Philippines
137 | Annie Melinda Paz-Alberto
and Annie Rose D. Teñoso
Notes
The Dynamics of Culture
163 | Frederick D. Abraham
Where I Come From
184 | Ian Rosales Casocot
Three on Three
189 | Myrna Peña-Reyes
BOOK Review
The Poet as Prophet and Punster
On Cesar Ruiz Aquino’s In Samarkand
197 | Karlo Antonio Galay-David
NOTICE TO AUTHORS
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SILLIMAN JOURNAL
12
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
JULY TO DECEMBER 2011
VOL. 52 NO.2
13
We ought not to heap reproaches on old age,
seeing that we all hope to reach it.
Bion
2nd Century B.C.
Age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.
Longfellow
Morituri Salutamus
1874
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me.
… I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens.
Jenny Joseph
EDITORIAL
NOTES
I
n this new, wonderful issue of Silliman
Journal are interesting topics of research and
viewpoints. First, the poems from or about old
age of T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Wilfredo Pascua
Sanchez, Wallace Stevens, and Jose Garcia Villa
are discussed in Ian Rosales Casocot’s essay
entitled “A Gerontologist’s Idea of the World,
Time, and the Cure for the Present.” The poet
Myrna Peña-Reyes (in this issue’s Notes Section)
says a fitting epigraph for this article would have
been the Oliver Wendell Holmes line, “Poets are
never young … their delicate ear hears the far
off whispers of eternity.” And this is why I say
this is a wonderful issue!
VOL. 52 NO. 2
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
EDITORial notes
14
Next, Nursing Associate Professor Evalyn Abalos qualitatively
studies the lives of male sex workers (MSWs), daring—through her
respondents’ lens—to experience the realities of living dangerously and
illegally. The study recommends intensive information dissemination
and formulation of policies related to health practice and disease
prevention as well as the creation of multidisciplinary teams to address
MSW concerns.
Third, Silliman University Instruction Director Pablito dela Rama
investigates test construction with special focus on the rules commonly
observed and violated by college teachers. Interestingly, sex of teacher
and instructional workshops attended correlated significantly with rule
adherence and Prof. de la Rama recommends more in-service training
on test construction primarily for male teachers.
Next, Abner Bucol, Esther Carumbana, and Leonardo Averia
investigate vertebrates at Pagatban River, Negros Oriental, Philippines
and find 82 species of birds, eight species of amphibians, fourteen
species of reptiles, and nine species of mammals as well as report on
the population estimates of the endangered Limestone Frog Platymantis
spelaeus.
The paper is then followed by three studies on another river,
this time on the neighboring island of Siquijor. The vertebrate
fauna are described by biology assistant professor Michael Alcala
and colleagues who found forty species of birds, five species
of amphibians, thirteen species of reptiles, and ten species of
mammals. The same biologists studied, in particular, the Green
Tree Skink Lamprolepis smaragdina philippinica (Scincidae),
signaling a need to monitor the population of this arboreal
skink because most of Siquijor’s forests have been converted
to open agricultural lands, mainly for corn and cassava. The
third study, again by Abner Bucol and Rosalina Catid, reports
thirty-three species of icthyofauna (fishes) in 22 Families and
four species of shrimps, nine species of crabs, and six species
of mollusks. The authors also state a first record of the Spotted
Barb (Puntius binotatus) of the Family Cyprinidae in the Visayas
region of the country. These three studies, with funding from
the Commission on Higher Education-Grants-in-Aid, are part
of a larger research project; six other papers will see print in a
later issue of SJ.
The full-length papers are rounded off by a study of mangrove
management areas elsewhere in the country, in Pangasinan, Luzon
region by Professor Annie Paz-Alberto and Annie Teñoso. This research
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
VOL. 52 NO.2
Margaret Udarbe-Alvarez
15
included an assessment of mangrove diversity and other biological,
physical and chemical conditions of four coastal areas. A strong
recommendation for cooperation, coordination, and involvement of
key stakeholders was made by the authors.
Notes Section
Coincidentally, the three essays in our Notes Section relate to social
realities and multicultural issues. Visiting Professor Frederick Abraham
reflects on “The Dynamics of Culture,” beginning with the rationale
that systems, including those of self and society change only as the
dynamics of the system become unstable, creating the conditions
for change. Dr. Abe then uses as backdrop the Philippine setting to
conclude among other things that “emancipation means the challenge
of tribal cultures, the proper education of our youth, [and] governance
free of greed and corruption,” and for the intellectual community to
provide “the metaperspective to give voice and inspiration to the
desires for liberation.”
Writer and English instructor Ian Rosales Casocot also relates a
Manobo tribe folktale in “Where I Come From.” Based on the thesis
that “a sense of place” is often necessary in our writings, Ian quotes
Filipino fictionist Timothy Montes: “We are not creating a Nation from
an abstract perspective; we are building it town by town, city by city,
house by house, character by character.”
Finally, the poet Myrna Peña-Reyes, in the process of critiquing
Ian Rosales Casocot’s “A Gerontologist’s Idea of the World, Time, and
the Cure for the Present” (the first article in this issue), came up with
an interesting write-up, adding to Ian’s treatment of aging (another
social reality) in poetry.
Book Review
The lone review in this issue of SJ is by a creative writing graduate
student Karlo Galay-David who reflects on Filipino poet César Ruìz
Aquino’s In Samarkand (which was published in 2009 by the University
of Santo Tomas Publishing House). Karlo says that the placement of
newer poems at the beginning of this collection and the older poems
toward the end gives the book a kind of retrogressive movement with
a “blossoming” occurring in reverse, and observes that “across time
Aquino’s stylistic peculiarities remain constant.”
VOL. 52 NO. 2
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank artist Prof. Jaruvic Rafols (a guidance counselor
at Silliman University) for this issue’s cover art, which is titled “Fish
in River.” We have tried to showcase the works of local artists on our
covers, but while it does not have to relate to any of our featured articles,
it is remarkable that this issue has four river studies, and particularly
fish studies—an interesting meeting of science and the arts.
I am grateful, as always, to my staff and editorial board, and
especially, to our contributors and reviewers. Writing is no mean
feat, but because we in the academe are still guided by “publish or
perish,” we all have to do it. “Alternatives, and particularly desirable
alternatives, grow only on imaginary trees,” said Saul Bellow in
Dangling Man (1944), once.
Please learn and enjoy from the variety this issue offers you.
Margaret Helen F. Udarbe
Editor
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
VOL. 52 NO.2
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
VOL. 52 NO.2
A Gerontologist’s Idea of the World,
Time, and the Cure for the Present:
T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost,
Wilfredo Pascua Sanchez,
Wallace Stevens, Jose Garcia Villa, and
Their Poems From or About Old Age
Ian Rosales Casocot
Department of English and Literature
Silliman University
Old age does not always engender a positive poetic response.
In specific works by five poets—T.S. Eliot’s “Gerontion,” Robert
Frost’s “Directive,” Wallace Stevens’ “The Man With the Blue Guitar,”
Wilfredo Pascua Sanchez’s “Adarna,” and Jose Garcia Villa’s “The
Anchored Angel”—we get disparate views of the aging condition.
We get a sense that old age is the ripe time for reflection on the
meaning of the march of time. The poets in this study render their
very specific judgment of the meaning of time, ranging from the
wistful to the raging to the quietly accepting. This paper observes
that the younger poets (at the time of the writing of the works in
question) are relentless in their view of old age as a time of decay
and decrepitude; the older poets (at the time of the writing of the
works in question) are gentler, more optimistic about growing old;
the passage of time for these poets has a moral dimension, with the
past almost always perfect, and the present and the future awash
in chaos and corruption; and that for these poets, there are ways
of mitigating or making sense of this chaos in life, and the older
personas in the poems consider these two as the best methods:
spirituality and art.
Keywords: old age and poetry, gerontology, spirituality and old
age, art and old age, the passage of time in literature, T.S. Eliot,
Robert Frost, Wilfredo Pascua Sanchez, Wallace Stevens, Jose
Garcia Villa
VOL. 52 NO. 2
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
20
C
A gerontologIST IDEA OF THE WORLD IN POETRY
onsider an old man. Consider “time” or “history” for that old
man. Consider his place in that flow. The past, the present,
and the future must weigh differently for him. When he writes
poetry, how does he sing of time and impending mortality? Will it
be of the morbid, nostalgic sort? Or gentler and full of gratitude for
having lived a life? Will poetry about time and old age by a younger
man be any different?
Liver spots, wrinkles, aching joints, gray hair, and mortal
knowledge have always inspired the writing of poetry. A tradition of
it can actually be argued for—poetic ruminations, after all, seem like
an apt recourse for going over the drooping details of the weathering
body, the nostalgia for vanished youth, the keen preoccupation of
what lies on the other side of the mortal divide. The tone for the subject
matter varies, however, from the sense of regret and a yearning for
a youthful second chance in William Butler Yeats’ “When You Are
Old”—
When you are old and gray and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
to the morose understanding of bodily pains and the biological
breaking down in Matthew Arnold’s “Growing Old”—
It is to spend long days And not once feel that we were ever young. It is to add, immured In the hot prison of the present, month To month with weary pain.
to the acceptance of the coming end as natural and inevitable, such as
in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Nature”—
So Nature deals with us, and takes away Our playthings one by one, and by the hand Leads us to rest so gently, that we go Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay, Being too full of sleep to understand How far the unknown transcends the what we know.
to an acknowledgment of it as a time for playful rebellion against the
tyranny of convention, such as found in Jenny Joseph’s “Warning”—
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
VOL. 52 NO.2
I.R. CASOCOT
21
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens . . .
to the rare expression of jubilance regarding old age’s coming in Lu
Yu’s “Written in a Carefree Mood”—
Old man pushing seventy, In truth he acts like a little boy,
Whooping with delight when he spies some mountain fruits, Laughing with joy, tagging after village mummers; With the others having fun stacking tiles to make a pagoda, Standing alone staring at his image in the jardinière pool. Tucked under his arm, a battered book to read, Just like the time he first set out to school.
I say “rare” because old age does not always exactly engender a
positive poetic response. For instance, in the article “Images of Old
Age in Poetry” published in The Gerontologist in 1971, the researchers
Mary Sohgen and Robert J. Smith have written of a study of the texts
of 127 poems listed under “old age” in Granger’s Index of Poetry. They
indicated strongly negative attitudes about physical, emotional, social
losses, and they noted in their conclusion that the reading of poetry,
a sensitizing experience, “serves to reinforce negative stereotypes
persistent in the media of mass culture.”
That may be. In specific works by five poets studied in this
paper (T.S. Eliot’s “Gerontion,” Robert Frost’s “Directive,” Wallace
Stevens’ “The Man With the Blue Guitar,” Wilfredo Pascua Sanchez’s
“Adarna,” and Jose Garcia Villa’s “The Anchored Angel”), we get
disparate views of the aging condition, or of the unfolding of life as
told from somebody in the throes of this very condition. Always in the
ruminations by the aforementioned poets, we get a sense that old age
is the ripe time for reflection on the meaning of the march of history,
of time. The poets in this study render their very specific judgment
of the meaning of time, ranging from the wistful to the raging to the
quietly accepting—viewpoints that are almost always centered on the
fact of a betraying body which is now showing signs of decay. It pays
VOL. 52 NO. 2
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
22
to note, however, that these viewpoints can be critiqued by taking
into consideration the ages of the poets writing these specific works
during their specific time of creation.
What I have gleaned from the five works are the following general
observations:
1. The younger poets (at the time of the writing of the works in
question) are relentless in their view of old age as a time of decay
and decrepitude;
2. On the other hand, the older poets (at the time of the writing of
the works in question) are gentler, more optimistic about growing
old;
3. The passage of time for these poets has a moral dimension, with
the past almost always perfect, and the present and the future
awash in chaos and corruption;
4. According to these poets, there are ways of mitigating or making
sense of this chaos in life, and the older personas in the poems
consider these two as the best methods: spirituality and art.
In this paper, I shall try to explicate the meanings of the poems
considered for study, and at the same time consider how they exactly
reflect the four observations I have made above.
In T.S. Eliot’s “Gerontion,” old age becomes a metaphor for the
inevitable corruption of history, his image of an old man ruing an
empty life in a world that has gone astray, indicative perhaps of
Eliot’s own view of what ageing entrails. This is typical, of course, of
the high modernists—of which Eliot was an iconic figure.
Eliot wrote “Gerontion” in 1920 when he was only 32 years old,
and there lies something to think about: a young man has penned a
powerful, if damning, poem about old age set in a time of great decay.
What to make of it? (In later poems, especially the suite that makes
up Four Quartets, published in 1943 when he was 55 years old, he is
increasingly hopeful for man’s redemption—which may be attributed
to his later embrace of Christianity.)
It is best to think of the poem first as being situated in a period
of history—the earliest years of the 20th century—that had seen so
much ferment and change. The old institutions and the old beliefs and
the old conventions were dying or were being leveled to considerable
death. Think of the fundamental changes that burst into the first
thirty years of that century—the reordering of distance via Charles
Lindbergh and Henry Ford, the plunge into the unconscious via
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I.R. CASOCOT
23
Sigmund Freud, the discovery of radioactivity via Marie Curie, the
burst into the atomic age via Albert Einstein, the startling magic of
moving pictures via Eadweard Muybridge, the revolution into (often
bloody) class warfare via Karl Marx, the abstractions in art via Pablo
Picasso, and the nimble linguistic games in literature via James Joyce.
The Great War of 1914-1915 (otherwise known as the First World
War) until then proved unequalled in its widespread devastation—a
loss of so much humanity and a plunging into technology-assisted
barbarity that seemed to prove true a nihilistic reading of Friedrich
Nietzsche’s statement that “God is dead.” Imagine Eliot sitting down
one day to begin the first draft of this poem, all these things weighing
heavily into his consciousness.
And so we begin this dramatic monologue by a gerontion—an
old man (the word comes from the Greek, which specifically refers
to a disrespectful term for old men)—who acknowledges, from the
start, his wasting away at present, cognizant of an approaching end
(the epigraph, perhaps a deliberate misquotation from Shakespeare’s
Measure for Measure, recalls solace being given to a man awaiting
execution). He is being humored out of cantankerousness by a youth
who reads to him (I find that contrast in age telling), and finally, he
wishes for some kind of replenishment:
Here I am, an old man in a dry month
Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.
The first stanza moves on to consider the lot his life has taken.
At its basic level, the lines speak of his life as somebody who has
not done anything worthwhile, which would have been enough to
amount to a lived life:
I was neither at the hot gates
Nor fought in the warm rain
Nor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass,
Bitten by flies, fought.
Here is an empty man contemplating an empty end in an empty
time. And yet, farther on in our reading of the poem, when its take on
history becomes clearer, we go back to these lines and get a jolt from
a new insight upon rereading: the old man’s consideration spans
centuries—the “hot gates” he speaks of may be that of the Greek battle
at Thermopylae, a crucial event in Western civilization that speaks of
holding fast against the encroachment of Persian “barbarians”; and
VOL. 52 NO. 2
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
24
being “knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass” pertains to
the Edwardian adventures in world exploration. This is a man who
weighs all of history—and later on, we discover that he has found
it wanting. It is of course, easy enough to be scornful of such bleak
assessment of history. Who is this old man to tell us what is so?
Does he even have a handle on keen, clear truth? And yet we get this
somewhere in the poem: “I would meet you upon this honestly.” This
is an honest man talking, and his confession comes not from “any
concitation of the backward devils.” What he has to say bears reading
and pondering over.
From that brief, albeit contemplative, biographical sketch in the
first stanza, the gerontion sees what surrounds him, perhaps as a
projection of his own decrepitude, the harsh physical reality of living
in “a decayed house,” which resembles a hodgepodge of dreary places
(an “estaminet,” for example, is a shabby café), and that is bordered
by the jagged, dirty edges of “rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds….”
And then, before going into a startling monologue that contains the
exquisite details of his damning worldview, we get a swift break—a
stanza onto its own, indented to create a contemplative emphasis:
I an old man,
A dull head among windy spaces.
which indicates a promise of expanse, a vastness that moves, and
yet: that dot of “a dull head,” an unmovable thing in this undulating
space—old age as stubborn inertness.
And from that, the poem jumps into five stanzas that distill history
as a degenerating actuality, perhaps from the loss of grounding
spirituality. That spirituality—in Eliot’s poem, clearly Christian—
is foregrounded by the biblical-sounding pronouncements in the
third stanza (allusions to the “word,” the mention of “Christ the
tiger,” the significance of “juvescence of the year,” which is Eliot’s
playful reinvention of “juvenescence”), as well as in the symbolisms
contained in the fourth (the flowering dogwood is considered by many
Christians as a religious symbol because of its showy cross-like shape
and often because it blossoms during the springtime Easter season,
and the judas tree, in myth, is the tree from which Judas allegedly
hanged himself).
But what is important about the third stanza is this insight
(“Signs are taken for wonders…”) into the eventual hollowness or
muteness of the marvels we believe in, “[t]he word within a word,
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
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I.R. CASOCOT
25
unable to speak a word,/Swaddled with darkness…” (The “marvel”
being Christ the child, of course—helpless, wordless, useless.) This is
particularly striking, given a youthful beginner’s belief in a ferocious
spirituality (the image presented here is that of a “tiger”), which
ends—by depraved May—digested (“to be eaten, to be divided, to
be drunk”—quite like the empty ritual of communion) by shadowy
figures represented by the boarders of the same house the old man
lives in (Mr. Silvero, Hakagawa, Madame de Tornquist, Fraulein von
Kulp—names suggestive of the sinister).
In the fifth stanza, the old man paints history as “cunning,”
“contrived,” a deceiver “with whispering ambitions,” something that
guides “by vanities.” History is likened to a woman who deals in
futility, someone who gives “when our attention is distracted,” and
when she does give, the very act itself “famishes the craving.” The old
man conceives of history as having become nonsensical:
…. Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
It is important to note, in my estimation, that the old man refers
to history as a woman. It is not too difficult then to make a leap to
understanding the sixth stanza’s sudden segue to a rumination of
love lost:
I that was near your heart was removed therefrom
To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition.
I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it
Since what is kept must be adulterated?
I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch:
How should I use it for your closer contact?
Here is an impotent man remembering lost passions. The imagery in
this jarring memory is sexual, tactile, something involves all of the
senses, but all of it irrevocably lost. The old man rues that all of these
have been removed from him, having lost all that beauty “in terror,”
which is “terror in inquisition.” Is this beauty, the thing that has to be
“adulterated” in order to be kept, the corrupted history he has come
to condemn? And where does this corruption of history come from?
We learn: from a loss of a grounding faith, from the disappearance of
the spiritual—so much so that the Christ “springs in the new year,”
not as a compassionate figure, but a devouring one, a tiger. All of
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history is heading to an end, and the end is not redemption.
But in the last stanza, we sense that the old man’s final
acknowledgment of tragedy comes from the fact that history rams
on, unheeding of warnings of its own corruption (the “wilderness of
mirrors”). But he understands the unfortunate momentum—
… What will the spider do,
Suspend its operations, will the weevil
Delay? …
In the end, this is where he finds himself: “a sleepy corner” in a
draughty house, looked over by a careless housekeeper (a woman
who “keeps the kitchen, makes tea, / Sneezes at evening, poking the
peevish gutter”), in company of transients. And finally, in the end,
after the long monologue strong in its condemnation, bedevils us
with a disclaimer, that all these are just “[t]houghts of a dry brain in
a dry season.”
Old age, it seems for the young Eliot, is a time of frantic
contemplation of man’s place in time and history—but since time and
history are corrupted, there can be no place, only a loss of anchor, not
just for one man, but for all of humanity. It is a dreary consideration
of old age. And becomes even drearier because it presents man as
a passive observer of things around him (which is history), and
becomes even drearier that he resents it for what it means—or does not
mean—to him. That his prescription (for it is a prescription) for this
bankruptcy is a return to a state of spirituality strikes me as even more
passive, even a betrayal to Modernist principles, a strange longing for
a kind of Deux ex machina for angst that does not come.
In many ways, Robert Frost’s “Directive” is the gentler cousin
of Eliot’s “Gerontion,” albeit it is as equally damning as that poem
with regards its consideration of unfolding history. But at least Eliot
is direct in his assessment for why history falters: it is because of the
loss of spirituality.
In Frost’s poem, we can ask the same thing: what is the reason for
the present’s state of “confusion”? Is it spirituality? That Frost ends
his poem with the metaphor of the Grail—that cup said to be used
by Christ during the Last Supper, and according to legend, the very
same cup that collected his blood during his crucifixion—may skew
this poem towards the very same concern as Eliot’s.
Frost wrote “Directive” in the twilight of his years, and made it a
part of his 1947 collection Steeple Bush, when he was already 73 years
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old and during a time of great personal loss. (His wife had just died of
a heart attack and his only surviving son had just committed suicide).
It is understandable then that in a close reading of “Directive,” we
finally note that Frost’s project is ultimately to make a kind of fetish of
the past—or at least the memory of the past—as something inherently
better than the present. But unlike the Eliot poem, this is an old man’s
poem by an old man who is all-too-aware that what he is writing is
actually an illusion (the past without details), but still clings anyway
to that past.
What it has to say is simple: the poet is giving directions to a
house, an old one, which is metaphorical of all that has vanished. The
monologist travels a familiar road back to an old house where he once
lived, and as he journeys past familiar but now forgotten landscapes
and byways, he becomes aware that this journey back to the past is
more ideal than the present he is living in.
It helps to consider where the starting point is for the imagined
reader who is to take this journey, for whom the poet is giving
directions. Both the first and last lines of the poem give us a hint of that
starting point. From the last line, it is a place (or time) of “confusion,”
which is reflected by the exhortation that bursts from the first line—
”Back out of all this now too much for us”—which signals retreat
from everything that confuses. But to where?
Back in a time made simple by the loss
Of detail, burned, dissolved, broken off
Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather…
This is the past—a weathered one, which the poet tries to bring up
from the similarly weathered hazes of memory. This past is a house,
but it is something that is caught in the tail-end of changes (note the
changes denoted by the negative qualities):
There is a house that is no more a house
Upon a farm that is no more a farm
And in a town that is no more a town.
This flux of “being” aside, the poet notes that it is difficult to
journey to this house, and the only way to get there perhaps is to
become lost (although becoming lost here is hinted at as being ideal,
since it is something that your guide—the poet—has, at his heart, as
his primary mission). The road, the poet says, “should have been a
quarry” that the town (symbolic of the present) has long since given
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up—”[g]reat monolithic knees the former town / Long since gave up
pretense of keeping covered.”
The next two stanzas cover much of the journey the reader
undertakes to get to this house—each geographical detail painting an
immense clash of past and present—the “wear of iron wagon wheels”
beside the ledges versus the “the chisel work of an enormous glacier”;
the “wood’s excitement over you” being nothing compared to the
greater march of what came before (“They think too much of having
shaded out / A few old pecker-fretted apple trees”). In this journey
through the landscape, on towards that house, the poet reminds us
of things that have come this way before, treading this same road
(his past self, for example, who is more assured, more positive and
gregarious):
Make yourself up a cheering song of how
Someone’s road home from work this once was,
Who may be just ahead of you on foot
Or creaking with a buggy load of grain.
This glimpse of what came before is reassuring, like a welcoming
ghost leading you to what was once certain and energetic and
purposeful and bountiful, in contrast to what the road is now:
forgotten, overran with neglect. Frost seems to be saying, “The
present is traitor to the promise of what came before. The past is
always glorious because it is yet untainted by this treachery.” This is
magnified by the emphatic lines that seem to leap out from the rest
of this poem:
The height of the adventure is the height
Of country where two village cultures faded
Into each other. Both of them are lost.
Here the adventures of history and the changes that come with it that
lead to the bankrupt present become a process of erasure, of negation.
Only in the acknowledgment of being lost in this landscape,
however, does one finally come, paradoxically, to the destination,
and the poet exhorts the traveler to make the ultimate gesture
of exiting from all that he had come from, to “pull in your ladder
road behind you” and also to “put a sign up CLOSED.” It smacks
of hermetic romance. Only in shuttering away the present, to be
lost in the very house of the past, can one finally make oneself “at
home,” even if the place itself is dotted only with relics (“a house
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that is no more a house”) and ruinations—a small field “no bigger
than a harness gall,” a “children’s house of make-believe,” some
“shattered dishes underneath a pine,” the “belilaced cellar hole,”
and so on and so forth… The poet proclaims these as evidences of a
“house in earnest,” which contains both our destiny and our source
of replenishment. And in the middle of this house, lying in secret, is
the aforementioned metaphor of the Grail, which is memory, and not
the state of spirituality (borrowing from Eliot) that I have hinted at
earlier. Here we are merely told that if we persevere, we can partake
of glorious remembering—and only then can we be whole again.
Frost insists that the Grail, which occupies the metaphorical
center of his poem’s ending, is the wholehearted partaking of the
past, illusory it may be, which is antidote to the confusions of the
present. In Wilfredo Pascua Sanchez’s “Adarna,” however, to drink
from the Grail (which, this time, takes the form of the magical bird
from Philippine mythology and the life-giving blood wrung from its
broken neck) is to partake of the (eventual horror) of immortality—an
endlessness of future time.
Sanchez wrote “Adarna” as part of a collection that won Second
Place in the 1975 Palanca Awards for Poetry in English (when he was
only 31). Here you can see a young man contemplating of death,
old age, and decrepitude, and contrasts these with a young man’s
bedeviled grappling with responsibility, temptation, and encounters
in an unwanted quest that are etched in pain; it dwells as well on the
tantalizing fantasy of escape from all that, only to give the realization
that the escape is its own unpredicted horror.
It is also, upon close reading, a meditation on art. Art as the grail,
the bird of magic.
The poem is a recounting of the popular mythological journey of
three brothers, all of them princes. There is, of course, a focus on one
prince (in the myth he is named Don Juan; in this poem, he is named
O, or Prince Omega1)—and O’s painful and cathartic monologues in
the narrative is the emotional crutch the poem leans on.
We are, of course, already informed (even before reading the
poem, at least if you know Philippine Spanish colonial mythology)
of the particulars of this story. The king is sick, and his three sons
are then sent on a perilous quest to find the cure: the magical Adarna
bird—the “cinnabar” (mercury), “Adamantine” (hard as diamond)
bird—whose songs can cure anyone of grave illness. Of the two
older brothers, the poem does not say much, although mythology
fills in the blanks and informs us of their failures in the quest, and
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their ultimate acts of treachery over their successful and kind-hearted
younger brother. Their treachery is not the poem’s point: this one is
centered on the inner demons of the youngest, most favored prince—
and uncovers a twist that details his own act of treachery. The bird,
we are finally told, is the poem’s Holy Grail—and its powers do not
just rest on healing; they have repercussions as well on time (or at
least the consideration of time and its passing).
The poem’s first part details what is known of the magical bird—
that it is a “Bird of Death” (capable of turning the unsuspecting into
stone, once entranced and made to fall asleep by its singing), as well as
a “Bird of Life” (capable of giving immortality, if seized by the throat
and made to sing). (“Seizing” is a recurring objective correlative in
the poem.) What is apparent in close analysis is the emphasis on the
double-nature of the bird’s “singing”—that it can lead to either life
or death, that it is death when received passively, that it is life when
it is seized. The first part also contains a coda near the end that gives
us an idea of what the Bird is finally symbolic of—life itself, and the
exhortation we get (the “carpe diem” of the poem’s fifth part) about
seizing it. Also this: what is most important about it is the “singing.”
What of “singing”? What is it a metaphor of? Poetry? Art?
Perhaps, generally, the hard and labored pursuit of the artistic, with
the knowledge of the weight of tradition? (This reminds me of Harold
Bloom’s contention of the “anxiety of tradition,” which is the very
engine of literary production and its evolution.) The beginning of the
second part alludes to this—
Thus laboring day and night
Lonely sons struggling to go one better
Than their fathers, risking adventurous wounds…
The search for the Adarna—the antidote to decrepitude and
mortality—can be said to be the search for immortality in the artistic.
But there is a price to pay:
And all this time, the journey
Exhausted and took him nearer to himself
Like all concentric journeys
Into the middle of things
No sooner than out of its horrid depths
A plethora of monsters called into question
Laughingly imploring
Is it this that he was sent out on a mission for…
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The price of song/poetry (the price of possessing the magical bird)
is self-knowledge—and, it would also seem, an acknowledgment of
one’s inner demons. To undertake that journey is to do an exhausting
confrontation from the depths of the self, which attempts to question
the journeying hero of his strongest resolve regarding the quest. The
stanza here also presents to us this idea that to go on a journey like
this is to start moving towards the destination, towards an end—and
there is a reason why the hero of Sanchez’s version of the tale is named
Prince Omega, or O: from the Greek, he is the embodiment of “the
end.” Even his place in poetry, he comes to symbolize the ultimate end,
perilous and hard his journey may be to get to where he is (“…hold
up your wheel and ride rough-shod / Past calloused alphabets that the
godheads exhaled / That he and no one else /Subscribed in cracked
syllables…”). It is a journey he must take regardless of anything, it
is something that rightfully measures him (“That’s his fitting cross
to track the diamond / Flawless, surpassing the pale marquise / And
bluest vowel of opposing cults…”), if only to continue the legacy of
his father or of what came before (“… his father’s fate / Rescinded like
a crushing O / As driven he was, no holding back / And nothing can
hold him back / Except that old man skulking in awed silence”).
The third party contains a rumination over the possibility of Prince
O not leaving to take the journey. This alternative does not seem
particularly joyful. Life without this journey becomes an existence
fraught in shadows and uncertainty (“… only time’s / Chiaroscuros
will show: labyrinthine caves”), where meaning is lost and confusion
and small terrors reign, unless the journey is started (“Masks and
symbols in a calamitous heap / O-rings, rockets, uranium farms /
The hierarch’s clock ticking tangled ultimatums / A few exhilarating
climaxes ensconced / In empty-handedness, a sweet cipher / Of
closed fingertips melting down / The bulk of his portals in pendulous
brick…”), or even where “sybaritic moulds” (e.g., a richness of
luxurious pleasure) may be had, but it becomes a “guardianed cage /
[a]nd life’s every moment’s granite girdle / [t]iptoeing under lock and
key,” so much so that “dying would be as good as living.”
And so, having “squealched in a stale vacuum of expectancies” to
the journey our hero goes to find the “unhumbled bird.” The journey
commences, our hero suffers the ravages (“the vowel shrunken / Into
an eyeball, a dot, an interregnum”), the days and places pass (“Marking
time, counting days / Severed depths, cleft horseshow losing thread /
Inconsonant with time…”)—but the very act of journeying, of finding
the song, sets him free.
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Always, however, the specter of failure. Of life, of the quest, as
a failure. In the fourth part of the poem, Prince Omega gives us his
first direct address from this perilous journey to song/self (“Lost in
a dazzling forest of mirrors”—which recalls, perhaps aptly, Eliot’s
“wilderness of mirrors” in “Gerontion”). For him, this journey is
something from “the deepest of despair,” and completing the quest
seems futile, “a pendulum afraid to come into full circle.” What
accounts for this? He remembers tradition, of what came before, all of
it dying (his father’s “gaunt face / Etched in despair / An old man with
a long beard skulking / In the shadow of stones”). And yet,
If he couldn’t avail of the magical cure
It is unlikely he would live
Lands tranquilized, lost in darkness
In the wrangle of the dysfunctional
And always, like a threat that consumes our hero, the wrenching
figure or vision of the father wasting away—decrepitude, old age, a
waning tradition, muteness, a specter without poetry or song.
In the beginning of the poem’s fifth part, the Omega Prince
succeeds in capturing the magic bird, and still the fraught journey
does not end there; dangers remain, and even the prize, already in his
hand, promises betrayal:
And yet not daring to close his eyes
Afraid the frail-psyched bird trembling in hand
Feigning death, would betray him
One imagines the prince (the “prince of despair and lonely
migrations”) dead-tired and flailing in his solitary journey, the
path going back home endlessly teeming with danger and perhaps
disease and the constant smell of death (“grop[ing] his way / Into his
paralyzed land”). There are temptations, and in this stanza, it takes
the form of a woman in a dream “exhort[ing] him to carpe diem,”
which leads us back to the seizing theme made prominent in the first
part of the poem. He holds the bird in his hand to give his father life;
but also he holds the bird in his hands to give him renewed strength,
too.
The irony of the poem lies in the fact that the magical bird promises
life when it is seized, and death when it is not. Prince Omega seizes—
That magical bird he caught
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And grasping it by its throat
Broke its singing blood.
It poured into his own throat
Like a sieve…
—but this act of seizing also becomes his biggest act of betrayal, not
just because he disregards the original quest (he betrays the father),
but because also in so doing, he betrays himself by giving himself a
terrible gift he could not anticipate. We know that he returns home
empty-handed, in “a hushed voice,” “chastened,” to a land which has
now become (from a mere “dazzling forest”) a “congested island of
mirrors,” a metaphorical shorthand of a person guilty of betrayal, and
for which he explicates. Prince Omega says he has killed the magical
bird—both the Bird of Life and Bird of Death—to attain immortality at
a grave moment of need, but finds out in the end that this immortality
is a ranker reality, because death in his final estimation is better.
He had “shuddered” upon drinking the bird’s blood because—
How so close to death it left me with no choice
Seeing the face of the beautiful woman
I’ll marry, but whose beauty I will long outlive
Seeing day to day the anguish
Bequeathed to my orphaned land
Lengthen like a shadow, shadowing me
And the dead desperate for attention, taunting
Pinpointing me in the direction of death
Where, no matter what,
The shut door is closed to me forever
To be mortal (a “simplicity” … “[a]mong satisfying lands / Purged,
inured to toxins of despair”), is the principal wish of Sanchez’s hero,
almost the antithesis of Eliot’s wasted man, or the delusions of Frost’s
fetishist.
But we go back to that hidden theme of the magical bird as
metaphorical for song, for poetry, for Art. Something that augurs
death if unseized, and life if seized. Something that makes us
confront our “plethora of monsters” from the “horrid depths” of
our “concentric journeys into the middle of things.” Something that
revitalizes, but also something that is dangerous—it tempts with its
promise of immortality, of release—Art as the best method for living
forever. And yet also the very horrors of that achievement. Still, in
the final analysis, Sanchez proves unsatisfying in threading the
loose threads of these associations—which cannot be said of Wallace
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Stevens’ project.
Like Sanchez, Wallace Stevens pinpoints to Art as the glue—the
Grail—to confronting the future and the present, but unlike Sanchez,
he has a different sensibility and take of it. Whereas Sanchez suggests
that the life-giving immortality Art can bring can be tinged in regret
and darkness, Stevens says otherwise—that only through Art can a
life be at its truest. We must also take note that Stevens was an old
man when he came to his truest form as a poet—but his poetry signals
a more positive take on life (and history) than the young Eliot or the
older Frost. In fact, the literary critic Harold Bloom considers The Man
with the Blue Guitar [the book as opposed to the title poem included
in that collection] as the poet’s “triumph over ... literary anxieties,”
and that “the poet … [have] weathered his long crisis, and at 58 was
ready to begin again.”
In the “Man with the Blue Guitar,” Stevens posits that poetry is
the antidote to the world that comes to us bathed in chaos. For him,
in the imagination, “reality” can best be reconstructed and perceived.
Meaning comes from this, and from nothing else:
The man bent over his guitar, A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.
They said, “You have a blue guitar, You do not play things as they are.”
The man replied, “Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar.”
And they said then, “But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,
A tune upon the blue guitar Of things exactly as they are.”
Here in this poem is an old man with a guitar being provoked by an
audience to sing of the world as it is—but he refutes them by saying
that the guitar will sing of the world the way it wants to sing of it. This
is Steven’s answer to having order in the chaos of the world.
The poem is long, written in thirty-three parts, and we can best
understand this as a dialogue between three perceived personas: the
man with the guitar, the audience that listens to him, and the poet that
massages (and comments on) their contributions to the conversation.
But everything is simply about one thing: Stevens, in this poem,
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was concerned with the imagination and what he considers to be its
transformative power over us. (For this, he is in fact often called “a
philosopher of the aesthetic.”) What this means is that, at least for
Stevens, reality is what is actively produced because of what we
imagine. That while we go on with our lives, we are always in the
process of actively perceiving the world, making sense of what is
otherwise chaos. For Stevens, this is our biggest undertaking, our
purpose: to be passionately engaged in making meaning (through
Art) and to make world become coherent.
In this project, he continues the Modernist’s allergy to religion as
the maker of meaning. (He is different from Eliot in this regard.) For
him, religion no longer suffices, and in fact, in his idea of “supreme
fiction,” Stevens tries to replace the idea of God—which he says is
known to be fiction but is willfully believed by people anyway. For
him, poetry is now the supreme fiction—that is, it is the “supreme
fusion of the creative imagination and objective reality.”
In “Sunday Morning,” for example, he replaces Christianity with
nature. But probably the key to understanding the poetics of Stevens
is “The Idea of Order in Key West,” where he writes about strolling
the beach with a friend and finding a woman singing to the ocean.
The persona in that poem notes that what the girl is doing is creating
order out of the chaos by fashioning a song about it. Song and poetry,
according to Stevens, is order—an idea that is clearer than the muddle
of Sanchez’s “Adarna.”
“The Man with the Blue Guitar” is an attempt to further his
philosophy—that the poet’s purpose is to interpret the outside world
of thought and feeling through the imagination. For Stevens, the blue
guitar is a metaphor for the power of imagination, which, in turn, was
“the power of the mind over the possibility of things” and “the power
that enables us to perceive the normal in the abnormal.”
Again, what is the poem about? It is about a singer, and the poem
is his way of articulating his world, a chaotic one that somehow
becomes meaningful once its story is strummed out of the blue guitar.
Here, the singer voices his “personal woes in a world of harsh reality:
a lost love, the cruelty of police officers, oppression at the hands of
white folk, [and] hard time.” The objective reality is discordant. But
when he sings about it, the discordance vanishes and meaning is
made. (One way we could see this happening are in the parts of the
poem where Stevens seems to be describing objective reality. In these
parts, his lyricism ceases. But when he is in the subjective mode of the
imagination, his lines sing with concordance. Consider:
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Do not speak to us of the greatness of poetry, Of the torches wisping in the underground,
Of the structure of vaults upon a point of light. There are no shadows in our sun,
Day is desire and night is sleep. There are no shadows anywhere.
The earth, for us, is flat and bare. There are no shadows. Poetry
Exceeding music must take the place Of empty heaven and its hymns,
Ourselves in poetry must take their place, Even in the chattering of your guitar.
This is the audience clamoring for “things as they are” strummed out
by the man with the blue guitar. The effect is discordant. Compare to
the lyricism we find in the guitarist’s speech, as he beholds a world,
not as it is, but something transformed by the blue guitar:
The vivid, florid, turgid sky, The drenching thunder rolling by,
The morning deluged still by night, The clouds tumultuously bright
And the feeling heavy in cold chords Struggling toward impassioned choirs,
Crying among the clouds, enraged By gold antagonists in air—
I know my lazy, leaden twang Is like the reason in a storm;
And yet it brings the storm to bear. I twang it out and leave it there.
What sets apart Stevens for me from the other poems is his
positivity about the change in life. “The Man With the Blue Guitar”
is in essence a repudiation of the dismal attitude of “Gerontion,”
or the escapist fantasy of “Directive.” For Stevens, the two specific
provocations in life—pain and evil—are actually part of life, and are
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necessary aspects of it, and in fact, seconding Nietzshe, he believes
that evil is both inspirational and profitable to imagination. (In his
last poetry collection, he finally also reflected on the mundane as
capable of sublime.)
In some ways, like a roundabout vision of Wallace Stevens’, the
works of Jose Garcia Villa can be considered the embodiment of poetry
as the lens by which the world can be reconstructed and reordered.
(Although one can make the argument that the world through Villa’s
poetry is not only reconstructed and reordered, but regurgitated and
made beautiful madness through the prism of poetry.)
This can be seen in “The Anchored Angel,” in particular. The poem,
collected in Selected Poems and New, which was published in 1958, first
saw print (without commas) in 15 September 1954 as the lead poem in
The Times Literary Supplement in London, England when Villa was 46
years old—not quite an old man, still relatively young—but this was
to be his last book at the height of his reign as the premier poet of the
avant garde in Greenwich Village in New York. (His last book was
Appassionista: Poems in Praise of Love, published in 1979, right after his
reputation as a poet in the West had considerably declined—although
his literary star continued to shine brightly in the Philippines. He was
proclaimed National Artist for Literature only in 1973.)
In “The Anchored Angel” (which Sanchez’s “Adarna” echoes in
idiosyncracies and sometimes syntax, although Villa himself echoes
much of Eliot’s “Gerontion”), Villa takes God (as opposed to Steven’s
replacement of God or religion with poetry as “supreme fiction”) and
he anchors the Divine to the ordering magic of Art (”verb-verb, nounnoun”):
And,lay,he,down,the,golden,father,
(Genesis’,fist,all,gentle,now)
Between,the,Wall,of,China,and,
The,tiger,tree,(his,centuries,his,
Aerials,of,light),…
Anchored,entire,angel!
He,in,his,estate,miracle,and,living,dew,
His,fuses,gold,his,cobalts,love,
And,in,his,eyepits,
O,under,the,liontelling,sun—
The,zeta,truth—the,swift,red,Christ.
By the last line of the poem, Villa finally makes God human—
in a sense saying that to understand the divine, one must start by
fleshening it, by giving it carnal dimension. In other words, this poem
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is essentially the entire act of sex rendered to poetry, rendering sex
as akin to poetry, rendering God to order, rendering the chaos to
divine order. This is echoed by Luis H. Francia in his Introduction
to Doveglion, Penguin’s volume of Villa’s complete works, where he
writes: “In ‘The Anchored Angel,’ in my estimation a great poem, we
witness a peerless musicality, muscular language, startling imagery,
and a fusion of transcendent and erotic love…” Francia goes on to
say, “The poem ends with the stunning and iconoclastic portrait of a
complete Messiah.” Consider:
—Or,there,ahead,of,love,vault,back,
And,sew,the,sky,where,it,cracked!
And,rared,in,the,Christfor,night,
Lie,down,sweet,by,the,betrayer,tree.
To-fro,angel! Hiving,verb!
First-lover-and-fast-lover,grammatiq:
Where,rise,the,equitable,stars,the,roses,of,the,zodiac,
And,rear,the,eucalypt,towns,of,love:
—Anchored,Entire,Angel:
Through,whose,huge,discalced,arable,love,
Bloodblazes,oh,Christ’s,gentle,egg: His,terrific,sperm.
If God is all of time and history (“…his,centuries,his,/
Aerials,of,light …”), Villa says there is a way to make sense of all
this glorious chaos and mystery (“The,sun,the,hermit’s,seizures, /
And,all,the,saults,zigzags,and / Sanskrit,of,love”), and comes up with
the same solution as Sanchez and Stevens: art, or poetry. But in this
case, this is “poetry” (“To-fro,angel! Hiving,verb! / First-lover-andfast-lover,grammatiq…”) that can be embodied by something even
more physical: sex.
In the final analysis, this is what is apparent enough in all five poems,
all seen by old men on the verge: history, the passage of time, or
the present is corrupt or undergoing corruption. Life can lead to
decrepitude, literally and metaphorically.
And all poets in this study give an eventual cure for it: For Eliot, it
is spirituality, which has been lost. For Frost, it is memory of the past,
and he urges a journeying towards it. For Sanchez, it is the seizing of
life and of art, but posits that this can contain its own betrayals. For
Stevens, it is nature or poetry, which can replace God. And for Villa, it
is poetry and sex, which is God made flesh. I like the older poets better;
the younger ones are all gloom, they miss the point of what life and
time and the march of history are really all about: a celebration—a
carnal, artistic, or whatever else that Holy Grail becomes, which
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makes it worth of this quest called living.
END NOTE
This is reminiscent of Arthur Rimbaud’s “mysterious origins” and colors he
considers for the vowels in “Voyelles,” and for O, he writes that it is blue and that,
1
O, suprême Clairon plein des strideurs étranges,
Silences traversés des [Mondes et des Anges]: —O l’Oméga, rayon violet de [Ses] Yeux!
Translated:
O, sublime Trumpet full of strange piercing sounds,
silences crossed by [Worlds and by Angels]:
—O the Omega! the violet ray of [His] Eyes!
REFERENCES
Francia, L. H. (2009). Introduction. In J. Cowen (Ed.). Doveglion: The collected works
of Jose Garcia Villa. New York: Penguin.
“Poems about aging.” (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/
prmMID/5877.
Sohgen, M., & Smith, R.J. (1971). The images of old age in poetry. The Gerontologist,
18(2), 181-186.
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The Lived Experience of Male Sex Workers
in Negros Oriental, Philippines
Evalyn E. Abalos
College of Nursing
Silliman University
This study is a descriptive phenomenological inquiry that utilized
the Husserlian methodology and Colaizzi’s method of data
analysis to explore and describe the lived experience of male
commercial sex workers (CSWs) engaged in direct sexual contact
with clients and practiced unsafe sex in the province of Negros
Oriental, Philippines.
Seven participants, aged 18-28 years, were purposively
selected to be part of the study. The unstructured in-depth
interviews were guided by the main question: “Puede ko nimo
istoryahan kun unsa para nimo ang kahulugan sa imong sitwasyon
karon?” (“Can you please tell me the meaning of the situation in
which you are in?”). Four central themes were revealed namely:
struggle, realization, approval, and invulnerability.
The following implications and recommendations were
made in the areas of nursing practice, education, research, and
health care policy: use of tele-consultation (use of phone or text
messaging) to address queries of male CSWs in a confidential
manner; the creation of a multidisciplinary team composed of a
nurse, doctor, spiritual adviser, social worker, and a psychologist
to address their concerns; information dissemination using
leaflets, brochures, and educational films on sexually transmitted
diseases in schools; inclusion of ‘knowing persons as caring’ in
the nursing undergraduate and master’s curricula and use of
this study as an example in the discussion; conduct of followup/replication studies; use of the study in the development of a
middle range-theory related to the care of CSWs; and formulation
of policies related to the creation of health and livelihood programs
and policies on mandatory health education in private and public
schools that include sex education with emphasis on safe sex
practices and disease prevention.
Keywords: male sex work, commercial sex work, prostitution,
male prostitution, phenomenology
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INTRODUCTION
here is a paucity of accessible studies on male prostitution (Nery,
1979; Grimes, 2001; Escoffier, 2005; Tan, 1999) particularly in
the Philippines (Nery, 1979) and if there are , these are written
by non-Filipino researchers (Tan, 1999). It may appear that not
much is written about it even if there are anecdotal reports that male
prostitution exists as it did in the ancient civilizations of Europe, the
Middle East, Asia, and the Americas (Escoffier, 2005). According to
Kempner (2005), commercial sex work refers to a number of various
activities including “street prostitution, massage parlors, brothels,
escort services, strip clubs, phone sex lines, and pornography”
(para. 1). Anyone then who renders sexual services for money can be
referred to as a ‘sex worker,’ a term “used to describe those who work
or are engaged in prostitution” (Grimes, 2001, p. 12). ). Tan (1999 )
opined that in the Philippines, it is difficult to trace the start of formal
sex work. Male sex worker in this study refers to male prostitutes or
those who engage in unsafe sex (without use of condom) with men
for a fee. This study focused on freelance male sex workers who can
be found in accessible places such as public parks, shopping malls,
public toilets and cinemas (Tan, 1999) and have experienced having
unsafe penetrative sexual activity without use of condom. This study
does not intend to discuss the paradigm that male sex workers are
psychopathological nor the typologies of male sex work (Bimbi,
2007) but embraces the paradigm of contemporary researches which
views sex work as a job (Bimbi, 2007).
Male prostitution is a phenomenon which needs to be further
understood as it is multifaceted. Not only is it surrounded by issues
concerning health such as the spread of HIV and other sexually
transmitted diseases (Morse, Simon, Osofsky, Balson, & Gaumer,
1991; Estcourt et al., 2000; Belza et al., 2001; Lau & Wong, 2002; Choi,
Operario, Gregorich, & Han, 2003; Sethi et al., 2006; Wong et al., 2008).
In fact, in relation to condom use, Tan (1999) mentioned, “Condoms
are not popular for many reasons: ‘they reduce sensitivity’ or ‘they
don’t work’. But most importantly, HIV and STDs are not seen as
immediate risks…” (p. 52). Thus the perceived risks are not diseases,
but of not being able to earn money. It is also associated with
poverty (Ramos-Jimenez & Lee, 2000; Bousfiha, Fdaïl, & Mekouar,
2006; Udoh, Mantell, Sandfort, & Eighmy, 2009; Khan et al., 2010),
abuse of drugs and alcohol (Morse, Simon, Balson, & Osofsky, 1992;
Newman, Rhodes, & Weiss, 2004), and human trafficking (Barnitz,
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LIVED EXPERIENCES OF NEGRENSE MALE SEX WORKERS
2001). The practice of male sex work can include, among others,
direct sexual contact with both males and females, thus, infecting
more men and women and serving as disease vectors to both the
homosexual and heterosexual world (Morse et al., 1991; RamosJimenez & Lee, 2000) and indirectly to potential future children of
infected parents.
A review of the social scientific work on sex work from 1990-2000
by Vanwesenbeeck (2001) revealed that the literature produced is not
more about sex work but about sex. Among the recommendations
for future studies was to include the type of sex work in relation to
issues of health and well-being (Vanwesenbeeck, 2001). Hence, this
study aimed to describe the lived experience of male commercial sex
workers who engaged in unsafe same-sex activities for a fee in the
province of Negros Oriental, Philippines. The results of this study can
inform the design of future health promotion and disease prevention
programs for this particular population as well as help advance
future researches. Understanding the experience of these individuals,
therefore, enhances the appreciation of what it is like ‘living as persons’
engaged in such activities, and can be a step towards a better way of
informing the nursing profession, consequently impacting policy
formulation for the health and well-being of this marginalized group.
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Using the appropriate keywords, the review of literature was done
electronically using CINAHL and MEDLINE online library databases.
Ascendancy and descendancy approaches were likewise done to
trace relevant sources. Searches were complemented using general
search engines Yahoo and Google. The James Cook University online
library database was also used to access journal articles. Relevant
quantitative and qualitative studies as well as unpublished reports
and conference papers were included in the review.
Male Prostitution
Prostitution, commonly referred to as the oldest profession, is also
called commercial sex work (Kempner, 2005). Commercial sex work
refers to a number of various activities including “street prostitution,
in massage parlors, brothels, escort services, strip clubs, phone sex
lines, and pornography” (para. 1). Anyone then who renders sexual
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services for money can be called a ‘sex worker.’ The term ‘sex work’ is
more inclusive than the term prostitution. Similarly, the usage of this
term exists in a continuum—from fantasy to direct sexual activity in
different degrees (Escoffier, 2005), including direct sexual contact and
cybersex. Furthermore, the term ‘sex worker’ is also more popular
than ‘prostitute,’ is less stigmatizing, and more descriptive of the
experience (Ricardo et al., 2007).
Male commercial sex workers (CSWs) can be included in the
category of men who have sex with men (MSM) since MSM would
include all situations of male-to-male sexual interactions (Cáceres,
2002) although they were differentiated by Weinberg, Worth, and
Williams (2001) from other men who have sex with men (OMSM)
who are not paid. Prostitution does not always involve a cash
exchange. For some, it is the exchange of sexual favors in return
for food or shelter (Grimes, 2001), drugs, or other items, always
with some value to one of the partners, but often of monetary value
(Morse et al., 1991).
There are different forms of male prostitution. The two most
common types of male prostitution (involving direct sexual services)
are the hustler and the escort. The hustler typically deals with his
customers on a face-to-face basis—either on the street, at adult
bookstores (a disappearing venue), bathhouses, and, especially, in
bars. In contrast, the escort generally arranges his business over the
telephone, through an escorting agency, or on a website (Escoffier,
2005). In the last decade though, cyberspace has impacted sex work
and more men sell sexual services on the Internet (Scott et al., 2005).
There is a difficulty in estimating the number of persons engaged
in prostitution due to various reasons. In the USA, based on average
prostitution arrests in the 1980s, 20% were males, 70% were females,
and 10% were customers (Prostitutes’ Education Network, n.d.).
The proportion of male to female prostitutes varied from one city to
another. For example, in San Francisco, 20-30% of the prostitutes were
male (Prostitutes’ Education Network, n.d.). Despite diligent search,
the researcher has not found available data statistics related to aspects
and concerns of male sex workers in the Philippines. There are only
few, to the point of rarity, research and published literature related
to male prostitution in the Philippines (Nery, 1979). The study by
Ramos-Jimenez and Lee (2000) on the sexual risk behavior of males
aging 15-44 years in the three major urban cities in the Philippines
was not specific for men who have sex with men for a fee.
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Male Prostitution and Sexually Transmitted Diseases
Health promotion, in the nursing perspective, includes understanding
the complex social, political, and economic forces that affect the
lives of individuals (Hellman, 2005). Promoting health included
behaviors that lead to wellness. However, there are behaviors that
predispose individuals to diseases. In the case of male CSWs, they
are more prone to HIV/AIDS (Morse et al., 1991) and other STDs like
gonorrhea, genital herpes, chlamydia/NSU, syphilis, trichomoniasis,
genital warts, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, and non-gonococcal urethritis
(Sethi et al., 2006).
Several studies have also investigated male prostitution in
relation to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases on a countryand culture- specific context (Morse et al., 1991; Choi et al., 2003;
McFarland, Chen, Weide, Kohn, & Klausner, 2004; Prestage et al.,
2007). These studies often reported on HIV statistics. According to
UNAIDS (2006), as of 2005, 1.6 million adults and children have
been living with HIV in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. In the
Philippines, whose population has reached 92.2 million in 2008, 8,300
were reported to have HIV/AIDS in 2007 (HIV InSite, 2010).
Human Immunodeficiency Virus or HIV is spread through certain
sexual practices such as insertive anal or vaginal sex (if condom
is used, this is considered as probably safe as long as the condom
does not break), oral sex, and blood exchange (e.g., transfusion
of blood and blood products and transplantation of tissue/organs
contaminated with HIV) (Black & Hawks, 2005). The vectors of HIV
and other STDs can be bisexual and heterosexual male commercial
sex workers who spread such to the heterosexual world through
their partners (Morse et al., 1992). The study of Bousfiha et al. (2006)
in Morocco revealed that clientele of male prostitutes is composed
of heterosexuals, homosexuals, and pedophiles. Similarly, a study
involving male prostitutes (N=211) in New Orleans, USA, showed
that the respondents perceived that their male customers were
heterosexual or bisexual (39% of which were married), thus male
prostitutes can bridge the spread of HIV infection into populations
of low infection rates directly and indirectly through the spouses of
their customers (Morse et al., 1991).
STDs can also be acquired through the behavior of the prostitute
or the prostitute’s clients. Lau and Siah (2001) studied the adult
male general population in Hong Kong (N=1,020) aging 18 to
60 years to establish a behavioral surveillance system (BSS) for
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sexually-related risk behaviors. Some of the findings were: 27% of
the male commercial sex clients did not always use condoms when
having sexual intercourse with CSWs; 1.5% of the respondents had
contracted STDs in the past six months; and STD incidence was
significantly associated with practicing commercial sex since 5.6%
of those who engaged in commercial sex self-reported having an
STD (Lau & Siah, 2001).
Demographics also play a role in the spread of sexually
transmitted diseases. A 10-year study was done by Sethi et al.
(2006) on men who sold sex (N=823 for baseline survey; N=628
for follow-up) in London in relation to HIV, sexually transmitted
infections (STIs) and their risk behaviors with the aim to describe
their changing characteristics. Results showed that there was an
increase in HIV rate of seroconversion (becoming HIV positive from
a previously HIV negative state based on blood test results). There
was also an increase in cases of gonorrhea. One of the factors that
were significantly related to this was clinic attendance. The changing
demographics (such as country of birth, self-identified gender
orientation, and sexual risk behavior) are also associated with the
patterns of infection.
Consequently, Belza et al. (2001) studied the socio-demographic
characteristics and HIV risk behavior patterns of male sex workers
in Madrid, Spain. Among the results was a higher percentage (60%)
of those who were HIV positive from those who were injecting as
opposed to those who were not injecting drug-users (17%). Also,
immigrants were found to be less educated, used condoms less often,
and had more condom failures.
Prostitution, Poverty, and Trafficking
Prostitution is also related to issues of poverty, violence, and
trafficking not only of women but also of male and female children.
These children’s right is exploited when they are sold into prostitution.
The Subgroup against the Sexual Exploitation of Children of the
Convention on the Rights of the Child (2005) defined the commercial
sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) as “a fundamental violation
of children’s rights. It comprises sexual abuse by the adult and
remuneration in cash or kind to the child or a third person or persons”
(p. 59).
The United Nations estimated that there are 2.5 million people
being trafficked around the world at any given time, majority
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(80%) of which are women and children. Some have attempted to
differentiate prostitution from trafficking when trafficking can be
simply described as “the global form of prostitution” (Farley, n.d.,
para. 1). Sex trafficking as part of human trafficking is described by
Farley (n.d.) as “a high-technology, globalized, electronic market”
(para. 1). The sex industry generates billions of dollars annually. Las
Vegas City alone can gross as high as $5 billion (Farley, n.d.).
When immersed in poverty, young boys can easily be allured by
money and what money can buy. In a survey of three Philippine cities
which included respondents who were 15-24 years old (considered
young, N=960 of the total 3,615), most young men who had experienced
anal receptive sex were paid by their partners (Ramos-Jimenez &
Lee, 2000). They also noted that aside from poverty, materialism and
immediate gratification drove a number of adolescents and young
adults in urban areas to exchange sex for money.
Poverty is linked to issues related to condom use as a means to
prevent the spread of HIV. Chattopadhyay and McKaig (2004) noted
that in India, which has the highest number of HIV/AIDS cases in
the world, condom use is considered a disease prevention strategy.
However, CSWs could not insist to have their clients use condoms
since they (CSWs) are disempowered, marginalized, and economically
deprived. Moreover, Bousfiha et al. (2006) showed that poverty was
the number one perceived reason that drove men to prostitution in
Morocco.
Other Factors Related to Male Prostitution
Use of illegal drugs and alcohol are also linked to prostitution. In
a study by Cates and Markley (1992), 15 male prostitutes (hustlers)
and 15 non-prostitutes (non-hustlers) were compared in relation to
some demographic, clinical, and personality variables. Significant
findings include heavier drug and alcohol use, and more limited
vocational successes and aspirations among the male prostitutes.
There was also greater alcohol use among the family members of the
male prostitutes. In fact, trading sex for drugs is closely related to
conditions of poverty and homelessness, conditions that especially
affect many crack smokers (Elwood et al., 1997).
Alcohol and drug use in heterosexual and homosexual prostitution
and its relation to protection behavior was also investigated by
de Graaf et al. (1995) in the Netherlands. The respondents of the
study included male prostitutes (N=27), female prostitutes (N=127),
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clients of female prostitutes (N=91), and clients of male prostitutes
(N=24). Some of the findings showed that those meeting their clients
in clubs or bars reported the highest consumption of alcohol while
hard drugs were used predominantly by street prostitutes. The use
of hard drugs (e.g., cocaine, heroin) plays an important role in their
engagement in unsafe sexual activities. The study of Minichiello,
Mariño, Khan, and Browne (2003) also suggested that consumption
of drugs and alcohol was statistically related to the length of the
commercial sex encounter and that clients obtained through escort
agencies or brothels were significantly associated with marijuana,
heroine, and other drugs.
There are few accessible qualitative studies related to male
prostitution. One of which is a report by Bloor et al. (1990) on a pilot
ethnographic study on HIV-related risk practices among rent boys
and their clients in Glasgow, United Kingdom. The study concluded
that rent boys differ from each other in terms of locations of work,
ways in how they contact clients, services offered, and kinds of
services they perform. Minority of them practiced safe and unsafe
anal sex both as insertors or insertees, but majority practiced safe sex
with clients.
Kidd and Kral (2002) did qualitative analysis of the narratives
on the topic of suicide. The participants consisted of 29 street youth
(19=males; 10=females). Of these, 69% were involved in prostitution
(74% males, 60% females). Of the total, 76% have attempted suicide
at least once, mostly by overdosing or slashing. Generally, they have
“prostituted themselves” by trading sex for drugs, being picked up
by customers in cars, or working in escort agencies.
METHODS
The phenomenology of Edmund Husserl was deemed appropriate
for this study. The intent to understand the male CSW, as relevant
in the nursing perspective, is consistent with the study of their
lived experience. Eidetic or descriptive phenomenology, sometimes
referred to as objective hermeneutics, is guided by the work of Husserl
while hermeneutics (interpretive phenomenology or existential
phenomenology) is guided by the work of Heidegger (Koch, 1995;
Dowling, 2004). Descriptive phenomenology was founded by
Edmund Husserl who sought to establish a science of cognition of
essences (Annells, 1999). This type of phenomenology is defined as
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a “descriptive analysis of the essence of pure consciousness” (Scott,
2003, p. 1). Essence is defined by Husserl as “the very central core of
reality” (Lauer, 1958, p. 20). It may be understood as meaning since
“to say that one has grasped the essence of something is to say that one
has grasped its meaning” (Lauer, 1958, p. 21). “In order to concentrate
on the contribution of consciousness, Husserl wanted to capture it
in the purest state possible. Consequently, he developed a method
he called phenomenological reduction” (Giorgi, 2005, p. 77) which
means holding in abeyance the assumptions, beliefs, and biases about
a phenomenon under investigation, thus, isolating pure phenomenon
from what is already known about a particular phenomenon (Speziale
& Carpenter, 2007). Bracketing or separating out of consciousness
what is already known about or believed about the phenomenon
being experienced is part of the reductive process (Burns & Grove,
2005; Speziale & Carpenter, 2007; Polit & Beck, 2008). This process
entails that in order to grasp the essential lived experience of those
being studied, the researcher should shed prior knowledge related to
the phenomenon being studied (Lopez & Willis, 2004). This technique
is termed epoché, which is not meant to eliminate existence (which
Husserl called “transcendence”) but is just bracketed (Lauer, 1958).
“With epoché in operation, whatever is known is known as essential
and necessary” (Lauer, 1958, p. 50). To this end, the phenomenology
of Husserl was used so that biases and preconceptions would not
interfere with the object of the study (Lopez & Willis, 2004) which is
the male sex worker. Culture, society, politics, and how these affect
an individual are not central to Husserl’s thoughts (Lopez & Willis,
2004). Therefore, the descriptive phenomenology of Husserl was
utilized in order to have “direct exploration, analysis, and description
of particular phenomena, as free as possible from unexamined
presuppositions, aiming at maximum intuitive presentation”
(Spiegelberg, 1975, p. 57).
The Study Population
The seven male participants were recruited through purposive
sampling. The researcher already knew one male commercial sex
worker through a referral from a friend and asked this person to refer
other male CSWs whom he thought would want to participate in the
study. In the end, six other CSWs were referred and added as study
participants.
All seven were known to work within the province of Negros
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Oriental in the Central Visayas region of the Philippines. The province
has an agriculturally-driven economy but is also booming in the
tourism and information and communication technology sectors,
due to its abundance in natural resources and international standard
workforce produced by several high quality educational institutions
(ONe-IPC, 2006a). To illustrate, Dumaguete City, the capital seat of
the province, is dubbed “university town” due to the presence of four
universities and several colleges (Dumaguete University Town, 2013).
The city is also known as Gateway City due to its convenient location
and accessibility from Cebu (a major business and tourism hub) and
other tourist hotspots (Dumaguete University Town, 2013). Negros
Oriental has a population of approximately 1.1 million as of 2000,
with a fairly equal sex ratio (50.43% males, 49.57% females) (ONeIPC, 2006b). Like most provinces, the residents of Negros Oriental are
predominantly Roman Catholic.
All participants met the following inclusion criteria: at least 18
years of age; had at least one experience of direct sexual contact with
a male customer without the use of a condom; had been paid in
exchange for sexual activity; willing to participate in the study; and
able to narrate, describe, and explain their lived experiences.
The Setting
The venue for the interviews was in a mutually agreed-upon place
(e.g., at a restaurant in the outskirts of the city), which allowed for
relative privacy during the interview. The researcher sat herself
approximately at a 45-degree angle from the participant.
Data Collection
The first part of the interview sought the written consent of the
participants in accordance with the ethical considerations in
conducting research. Since all the participants were not fluent in
English, the interviews were done in the local language of Bisaya.
The main question for the interview was “Can you please tell me
the meaning of the situation in which you are in?” (Puede ko nimo
istoryahan kun unsa para nimo ang kahulugan sa imong sitwasyon karon?).
Further prompts or probes to elicit further descriptions of their
experiences were made when deemed needed, such as “Can you
please tell me what you mean by that?” or “Please tell me more about
it.” Permission was also sought from the participant for the use of a
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digital audio recorder to record the interview and for taking down of
notes. The interviews had a duration of 30-45 minutes.
Data saturation was reached with five participants, but with the
advice of the methodology supervisor, two more participants were
interviewed to ensure the rigor of the study. As expected, the two
additional participants rendered redundant data and no other new
themes were revealed. At this point, the study was closed to additional
participants.
Data Analysis
After each in-depth interview, the researcher listened to the recorded
interviews two to three times before transcribing the narratives. The
study utilized Colaizzi’s (1978) analytic method which is consistent
with Husserl’s descriptive phenomenology. This method consists of
seven steps as follows:
1. Read all of subjects’ descriptions (protocols) to acquire a feeling
for them.
2. Return to each protocol and extract significant statements.
3. Formulate meanings. This is done by spelling out the meaning of
each significant statement.
4. Organize formulated meanings into clusters of themes.
• Refer these clusters back to the original protocols to validate
them.
• Note discrepancies among or between the various clusters,
avoiding the temptation of ignoring data that do not fit.
5. Integrate results into an exhaustive description of the investigated
topic.
6. Formulate an exhaustive description of the phenomenon under
study in as unequivocal a statement of identification of its
fundamental structure as possible.
7. As a final validating step, return to each subject and ask them how
the descriptive results compare with their experience.
A total of 232 significant statements were extracted from the
verbal transcriptions. Two hundred fifty-four formulated meanings
were consequently derived from these significant statements. The
formulated meanings were then clustered to produce 21 themes. The
themes were further grouped under four central themes namely:
Struggle, Realization, Invulnerability, and Approval.
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The final step in Colaizzi’s method of data analysis is validation
of the findings. This was achieved by having the participants verify
the thematic clusters and asking them to corroborate the accuracy
of the descriptive results (exhaustive descriptions) with their actual
experience. This was done by meeting four of the seven participants
(as the three were either not available or could not be reached through
their contact numbers). Each was met separately, and was given a
copy of the exhaustive descriptions translated into Cebuano (with
translation validated by a professional editor) to read. On a separate
sheet of paper, they were asked if the exhaustive descriptions
accurately described their experience and if they had anything
more to add. All participants acknowledged that the descriptions
accurately described their experience, except for one who suggested
including an aspect regarding life-threatening situations such as being
murdered. He expressed this in a sentence: “Ang uban na salvage kay
ilang pangawatan ug butang o kwarta ang ilang customer” (“Others were
‘salvaged’ (slang or street word for ‘killed’) because they robbed their
customers of things or their money”).
RESULTS
To maintain confidentiality, fictitious names were used in the
presentation of results.
Theme Cluster: Struggle
The Webster’s Universal College Dictionary (2001) defined struggle
as “to contend vigorously with an adverse condition or to contend
resolutely with a problem” (p. 781). In this study, “Struggle” as
a theme cluster is expressed in the following themes: Meeting
financial sexual and social needs; Wanting to get out of prostitution
and yet still continuing it at times; Keeping the practice secret; Being
influenced to be gay and/or being doubtful about his sexuality and
consequently needing to affirm that he is not gay; Longing for the
sexual experience; Desiring for a better or changed life, a dislike or
discontent of present state; Living in embarrassment, humiliation,
helplessness, and anger; Being sought more if one is young; Seeking
awareness; Non-approval by family and society; and a consequence
of lack of education.
The following statement by Carlito exemplifies his struggle as a
father wanting to provide the basic needs of his family:
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I have tried other jobs, Ma’am. I tried being a ‘kargador’ [porter], but it was only on
contractual/limited basis. That is why I went back to the park [place where they wait
for customers] and back to being a ‘call boy.’ This is so I can support my children.
On the other hand, this is how Anton described his struggle to get
away from prostitution and yet continuing it:
I drink because when I get drunk, I could not go out. I would not be enticed to go
there [place where they wait for customers]. But there were times when I went there
because I was enticed, like when somebody ‘texts’ me to go there. I would go. There
were times when I said, I don’t care, I will not go there for now. But after several days,
I’d still go back again…
A better and changed life and consequently a brighter future is
also sought after as evidenced by the following statement of Benedict:
I am praying that I will succeed, that I can regain myself even if I was just a ‘stand
by’ [one who waits idly for a customer] before. I can be proud of myself that even if
I am just like this, that I would change. I have good thoughts about myself and my
future…I need to have a stable job. I am thinking of my future…
Meanwhile, non-approval from society is realized from this
statement from Anton:
They see it as dirty. They see it as dirty since it [sexual activity] is done by both males,
then it is dirty.
Carlito also verbalized the non-approval of his family when his
wife and family left him when they knew he was into prostitution:
When my wife knew that I was doing it with another person, they left me.
Anton is striving to keep the practice secret due to the shameful
nature of the practice and said:
…Because this is a secret among us [prostitutes and customers]. You are brought
somewhere, you see each other, check in [in a hotel], then go home after…You cannot
be recognized because you are just with a male…It’s really difficult [to be identified
as a male commercial sex worker]; there are also gays who look manly. They look so
manly but they are in fact gays. That’s why you will never be found out unless you
are with a woman…
Anton further said:
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…But if you are with someone who is clearly gay, then you will be known…People
tell you, ‘hey, man, you are with a gay person,’ then they will know what you are.
Enjoying sex with the same gender has led Benedict to doubt his
sexuality, a struggle he has to contend with. He said:
That—that is the number one [fear]…I told myself I will never be like them [prostitutes
who become gay]. I stopped [prostitution] for three years but I was longing for
them [male customers], because I have not experienced doing it with a female for
a long time. I was longing for them, the men…Yes, like that, [I’m] a ‘double-blade.’
I evaluate myself, which one do I like? I like women, not men, that is why I force
myself…They say it’s in your blood, and it depends on you if you will allow yourself
to become one [gay]. If you don’t allow yourself, then it will not happen…I doubt if
I am really a man.
Seeking awareness of his experiences in prostitution is reflected in
the following statement of Anton:
For me this job is, I don’t know…it’s like there are a lot of things running in your
mind.
Similarly, Fermin also expressed his struggle for the longing of
sexual activities with gays and not just for the money:
I got into this [prostitution] not to earn money, but just to be ‘game’ [a term used to
denote that you just enjoy each other] with the gays.
Likewise, participants also showed the struggle in living a life of
embarrassment, hurt, helplessness and even anger. The following is a
description from Benedict:
We [prostitutes] also feel hurt; it is not good for our reputation that we are called ‘call
boys.’ I have tried those [customers] who would not pay, [I was] left on the road.
One time, I was left alone. I was crying while walking, asking why he [the customer]
did this to me when I have not done him wrong…There was a time when I thought
of shooting this guy [customer who left him] because he has done me wrong several
times. But I don’t want to commit a sin or have a bad record because I don’t want to
tarnish my name or reputation.
Anton also exclaimed, “It is shameful but what can we do? We are
looking for money.”
On a similar note, Carlito verbalized that his struggle to live
in prostitution is a consequence of his lack of education: “… had I
finished schooling before, I would not have been involved in this,
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being a ‘call boy’…”
Younger male CSWs are more vulnerable to the enticement of
customers. This struggle is described by Gaston when he claimed that:
Fourteen. That was when I did it the first time; I was in the internet [café]. When I
went out, somebody invited me; we ate. I did not know him. I went with him because
it was about eating. I was young, I was easily enticed. He brought me to his house. I
was surprised, he touched me; he asked me to watch X-rated films. I said to myself,
this is something. He said he would use me and would give me money. I was young
then so I was enticed that I could earn money.
Theme Cluster: Realization
To realize is “to grasp or understand clearly” (Webster’s Universal
College Dictionary, 2001, p. 655). The theme cluster “Realization”
is comprised of the following themes: Realizing the possible
consequences, risks, and dangers of prostitution; Owning
responsibility for choices; Acknowledging the spiritual component;
Recognizing that prostitution is not totally unethical (bad) but a
practice justified by its “good” results; and Sharing burdens within
the group.
To have engaged in unsafe same-sex activities was acknowledged
by all participants. These activities were done with same-sex
customers. The realization of contracting sexually-transmitted disease
(STDs) due to the nature of the sexual activity like penetrative anal
sex was verbalized by Carlito:
Usually Ma’am, there are those who want ‘magpalubot’ [penetrative anal sex], like
that, that cannot be avoided…we don’t use condoms. We don’t use because they
[customers] don’t like it. What they want is only natural…It’s up for us to look for
ways how to get medicines so we will not be affected.
The risks in prostitution are also endured by the study participants
in order to survive. This is well described in the statement of Anton:
I was forced to become a prostitute because of poverty. If you don’t have money, you
would really be forced to do anything. In other words, ‘kapit sa patalim’ [expression
which means that you will do anything, no matter how dangerous it may be, just so
you can have what you need].
Furthermore, there is also the realization of entering into
prostitution as a personal choice or with personal accountability, as
reflected in Benedict’s words:
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It was my fault because I did not want to go home and sleep early. I liked hanging
out with my gang because we were close, and there were many girls with us. We
were always ‘jamming’ [a term used to refer to enjoying together as a group]. My
grandmother did not like this. It was me; it was my fault why my grandma sent me
away…
With realization is regret that prostitution is linked to spirituality
and one’s belief about what is sinful. These statements made by
Enrique are descriptive of such belief:
Personally, I am miserable that I am into this. I was just influenced. I was influenced
by the devil. In my mind, I want to be changed. I don’t want to go back to this
[prostitution]. I hate this.
Enrique acknowledged the destruction of his soul as he repented:
The meaning of this [prostitution] to me is destruction, destruction of your body,
destruction of what they call…[stopped for a while as if thinking]—I confessed to a
priest about this. The priest said I have destroyed my soul, that I have so many sins
against God and that I needed to repent. But that’s it. After repenting I still go back to
this work. When will I stop doing this?
In contrast was another realization that illustrated a grasp of the
other side of prostitution—the happiness that the study participants
were able to give to the gay customers and the happiness they in
turn also received. This was reflected in Enrique’s statement: “I told
myself, being a call boy is better than stealing…There is a saying that
goes that when we make the gays happy, in return, they make us
happy with their money… It [Stealing] makes people sad.”
He also acknowledged the support his gay customer gave him
during the time when he badly needed financial assistance:
When I texted a gay [customer] informing him of my youngest brother’s death that
time, he paid [for] everything…” [His voice became mellow and soft to the extent
that the researcher could no longer hear his story. This gave the researcher the clue
not to pursue the topic about death or loss].
There was also a realization among the study participants that
their burdens were being shared by their fellow prostitutes. One
study participant said that he had knowledge about which customers
had STDs. Since they (male prostitutes) share this kind of information
with each other, they also caution each other not to go with a certain
customer by giving each other non-verbal signals as described below:
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We get information from among ourselves. At times, I ask from other boys, they signal
by hitting my elbow meaning that you should not go with that certain customer
because that customer has a disease. We really help each other, we carry the load
together. If we see that one of us has a problem and just stays quiet, we immediately
go near him, make jokes, we laugh…and tell him it’s okay...We tell him that we can
cry together, and we also talk to each other.
Theme Cluster: Approval (by Family)
To approve means “to have a favorable view, to confirm or sanction
formally” (Webster’s Universal College Dictionary, 2001, p. 40). In this
study, the theme cluster “Approval” refers to the theme condoned by
family, referring to acts or behaviors of family members approving
prostitution. This theme is opposite to the family and society’s
disapproval of such practice that is considered part of the ‘struggle’
of the participants. There were participants who stated that they were
doing prostitution together with another family member, have been
helped, or have even been “sold” by a brother.
As a recipient of gifts and material things of her husband’s
earnings from prostitution, the wife of Dino fully approves of this
practice. In some instances, it is the wife who sends text messages to
her husband’s customers:
None Ma’am [referring to both his wife and himself not seeing any problem with his
engagement in prostitution]. My wife approves of this because I can earn money.
Sometimes, before I come home I buy something for her. I buy hamburger or foot long
[sandwich], she would be happy if I bring something for her. When I go somewhere, I
ask for her permission, and she will just ask me to buy something for her.
Dino further said: “Sometimes when I am lazy to send text
messages [to customers], I let my wife send the text messages.”
Enrique, being close with his brothers, goes with his two younger
brothers for prostitution. Together, they share the same routine in
going to the park to wait for customers and waiting for each other
before going home:
The three of us sleep on one bed. We have a big bed. The three of us were together
[before the youngest died]. When we work as ‘call boys,’ we go together, wait for
each other, and come home together. The following day we wake up, eat, take a bath,
and go back to the park.
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Theme Cluster: Invulnerability
Invulnerable is defined as “incapable of being hurt” (Webster’s
Universal College Dictionary, 2001, p. 431). “Invulnerability” in this
study is seen in the following themes: Happiness in their present
situation; Non-realization of health risks; Abiding by customer’s
decisions; and Conquering embarrassment.
Fermin verbalized that he likes his situation although money is
not his main concern: “It is nice Ma’am, it is good [referring to his
situation]…I ask for a fee, but if they don’t pay, it’s okay with me.”
However, Fermin also articulated non-realization of health risks
as he said:
I have not thought about that [AIDS or HIV]…That HIV, AIDS, that does not seem
to be there…Why will I have sira [disease] when I am not ill? I don’t have…[head
moved from side to side] what is this…about sira.
Dino was also unperturbed of the danger of HIV/AIDS, not
realizing any problem or risks about not using condoms during direct
sexual contact because of his customer’s preferences:
Sometimes if they do it [have sex], they [customers] are the ones who decide if it
[condom] will be used or not. For me, it’s fine with me if [condom] is not used...There
is no problem [if condom is not used].
Enrique who has engaged in prostitution for about five years got
so used to it that he is not embarrassed by it anymore. In fact, he
freely talked about his experience during the interview:
…when I was 17 years old, I met a friend who was a call boy. He brought me to the
park and he introduced me to a gay. Then that was it; I got used to it, that whenever
I don’t have money, I did it…I always did it…until I got used to it that I was not
ashamed of it anymore…
Exhaustive Description
The lived experience of the male CSWs who practice unsafe sexual
activities with customers of the same sex is living life as a struggle.
This engagement is a realization of the strength of human needs as
stimulus and motivator of behavior—the need for food, meeting
sexual needs with same sex partners which they have gotten used to,
and their need to belong and be with others (i.e., gangs). This practice
is perceived as a source of income especially for one participant who
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sees this practice as a consequence for not finishing his studies.
Due to the shameful nature of prostitution and the disapproval
of family and society as a whole, male commercial sex workers are
struggling to keep their practice secret while consequently living
a life of embarrassment, hurt, helplessness, and even anger. This
struggle is particularly felt by those who are younger, as they are more
vulnerable to prostitution, and are more sought after by customers.
Some participants have experienced discontent of their present state,
thus, wanting a change for a better life yet continuing to struggle—one
participant in particular wants to know his sexual identity, doubting
if he is straight due to his sexual desire for male partners.
The male commercial sex workers have made realizations in their
lives. Some have an understanding that they are not shielded from
consequences including health risks such as contracting sexually
transmitted diseases, encountering threats to life such as being
murdered, and even causing unwanted consequences to their future
children, that of also becoming prostitutes. Nevertheless, they have
realized that their engagement in prostitution is their own choice,
and that there is a spiritual component to it, a realization that it is a
sin. On the contrary, there are those who do not see prostitution as
entirely bad, claiming that it is at least better than stealing. It makes
others happy, such as their family members and their customers.
Prostitution allows them to gain financial and even emotional
support.
In addition, there were participants who had approval from
their families. These gestures of approval were illustrated by a wife
assisting her husband in contacting customers since she is given gifts
and other things that she wants from her husband’s income from
prostitution; a brother who sold a participant when he asked how to
earn money during his time of need; and a group of three brothers
who did prostitution together sharing the family expenses from their
income.
Invulnerability is seen in participants who did not feel embarrassed
in what they were doing, those who had no feelings of discontent but
rather happiness in their situation, and those who had not realized
that they are prone to sexually transmitted diseases by not practicing
safe sex (use of condom) with their customers.
DISCUSSION
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The three-year study of Allen (1980) on young male prostitutes
revealed that although male prostitutes differed in their personal
characteristics, one common denominator was their return of sexual
relations for money, usually in cash, or in the case of kept-boys (livein partners), living expenses (full package). Except for one, all the
other six participants claimed that prostitution was for financial gain
and for meeting basic needs such as food.
On the contrary, Craft (1966) believed that parental attitudes
and behavior were of prime importance in preparing a child for
misconduct, thus seeking affection and money through prostitution
are the motivating factors. Craft (1966) concluded that most of the
subjects in his study lacked parental love and training and lacked
personality organization. Their spending of long hours on the streets
made them susceptible to chance influences as well as seduction
especially by older male partners. This is seen in one participant who
wanted to be with his gang because of their “jamming” (enjoying
together as a group). Also, his income from prostitution allowed him
to defray expenses for gang activities. Thus, Craft’s observation is still
evident in the present time.
Living in an embarrassing, hurtful, helpless, and frustrating
situation is another struggle among the participants. One study
participant felt hurt when he was referred to as a call boy. Collins
(2007) who did an interview-based research exploring the lived
experience of gay hosts who worked in Manila, Philippines posited
that sexual identities enforce social distinctions between male sexual
laborers (e.g., CB for call boy, GRO for guest relations officer, escort,
host, and Afamista (Afam is a Tagalog word for foreigner which is
the most derogatory term used to describe Filipinos who prefer to
have foreigners as customers because of perceived high-income). One
participant claimed that he was given PhP6,000 by a foreigner whom
he had sex with, a rather big amount compared to the usual PhP150
to PhP500 from a Filipino customer.
On the other hand, Collins (2007) further mentioned that in Malate
(Manila, Philippines), heterosexual call boys state that they have
sex with men for money, not because they are “gay,” which allow
them to establish a clear distinction from gays which they regard as
socially disreputable. Malate is dubbed as the center of gay night
life (Considine, 2006). This ‘third sex’ is often stigmatized in many
countries including India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Thailand, and
the visibility of such sexual interests varies considerably from one
country to another (Dowsett, Grierson, & McNally, 2006).
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In the Philippines, Nery (1979) disclosed in his study that the
callboy subculture functions through informal and simple mutual
cooperation as it is inconsistent with the prevailing socio-cultural
norms. Also, in the study by Onyango-Ouma, Birungi, and Geibel
(2006), they showed that men who have sex with men are vulnerable
to stigma, discrimination, and violence as most respondents
perceive such as the major problems in their lives. Kong (2009) aptly
summarized this by saying:
The perceived stigma of male prostitution is that this is not a “normal” occupation—
“not a proper job”—as (1) it is “immoral” (selling the body for sex); (2) it is the result
of either not having a choice or of making an incorrect choice; (3) it entails reduction
to the status of an object, without control; and (4) it entails becoming a vector of
sexually transmitted disease. Thus male prostitution is a job with no respect (e.g.,
immoral, “money machine,” “sex machine”), and the prostitutes are irresponsible
(e.g., by choosing wrongly and becoming disease carriers. (p. 730)
Keeping prostitution secret is another struggle of the participants.
One participant remarked that prostitution is a covert practice since
he and his customers do it in a private setting, like in a hotel. Another
participant hid this practice from his family even though he had been
supporting his nephew and giving money to his grandmother. The
study by McCannish (1999) involving 43 male commercial sex workers
in Thailand is consistent with the study since most participants
claimed that their parents did not know that they sold sex even if the
money they sent to their families were incompatibly bigger than the
work they claimed to have in a hotel or restaurant. In such culture, the
child is expected to repay his/her mother for her care as soon as he/
she becomes independent (McCannish, 1999). Similarly, this is what
one participant claimed he was obliged to do as instilled in his mind
by his mother, but because he felt he was unable to do so through
more decent ways, he resorted to prostitution.
Contrary to Craft’s (1966) findings were the results of Wilson and
Widom’s (2010) study. Their study was a prospective 30-year followup on whether physical abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect in childhood
increased the likelihood of same-sex sexual relationship. The results
of physically abused (N=85), sexually abused (N=72), and neglected
(N=429) children (ages 0-11) showed that childhood physical abuse and
neglect were not significantly associated with same-sex cohabitation
or sexual partners. This study, though failing to substantiate that
having same-sex partners was related to prostitution, did show
that there were participants who struggled with their longings for
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the sexual experience with the same sex. Similarly, one participant
claimed that he would have sex with male customers regardless of
whether he would get paid or not.
Russell (1971) described young male prostitutes as fatherless,
runaways, and lived with men characterized as “friends” who
helped them out, someone who used them and gave them money
and presents. This is also consistent with the findings of Mariño,
Minichiello, and Disogra (2003) that street male sex workers were
younger and had less formal education.
Two of the seven participants in the study started prostitution
when they were 14 years old. Gaston claimed that he was easily enticed
when he was invited to eat before he was brought to a customer’s
house for sex. This participant had parents who were drug addicts
and left him in the care of his grandmother.
Benedict had a similar experience. When his parents separated, he
was also left in the care of his grandmother, but he left her. Eventually,
his brother sold him to a customer and he started wanting to be with
his gay customers since he felt happy being with them. When he was
sold by his brother, he instantly got a customer because he was very
young. Moreover, Enrique received financial help from a gay friend
when his younger brother died.
Both Gaston and Benedict stopped schooling when they started to
engage in prostitution. The said benefits from their initial experiences
in prostitution may well have become the push and/or pull factor in
discontinuing their schooling. This is similar to the results of Coombs’
(1974, as cited in Allen, 1980) study which found that rewards such
as money and favors were used to seduce other males at an early age.
Theme Cluster: Realization
The participants had many realizations. The participants realized that
prostitution could involve the risks of contracting sexually transmitted
diseases through unsafe (non-condom use) same-sex practices.
Participants accepted the fact that they practiced ‘palubot’ (a Cebuano
term for penetrative anal sex as insertor or insertee) without the use
of condoms. This suggested that condoms were not consistently used
during anal penetrative sex. The study of Ramos-Jimenez and Lee
(2000) on male sexual risk behavior of men (N=3,615) in three big
cities in the Philippines (Quezon, Cebu, and Davao) revealed that less
than one-third (29.6%) of the few men (N=115) who had ever engaged
in anal sex had used condoms in their lifetime. The findings of this
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study though is contrary to the conclusion of Escoffier’s (2005) study
that male CSWs used condoms with clients but were more likely to
practice unsafe sex with non-work partners.
In the interviews, none of the participants had a clear understanding
of STDs even though they acknowledged that these were transmittable
through unsafe same-sex activities. This is an issue in the Philippines,
according to Nierras, Austero, Santos, and de Real (1992), because
HIV/AIDS information and education is severely constrained due to
widespread poverty and traditional Catholic conservatism. Also, the
majority of Filipino men do not self-identify as being “gay” (Nierras
et al., 1992). According to the most recent articles from Doctors for
Life (1997), a non-profit NGO composed of medical practitioners
that produce scientific documents on issues such as prostitution and
cloning, condoms tend to be more effective in preventing the spread
of HIV, Hepatitis B, Chlamydia, gonorrhea, bacterial vaginosis, and
trichomoniasis but less effective in those spread by direct contact
such as Herpes, Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), pubic lice, scabies,
and chancroid. Prostitutes and their clients are a high-risk population
for HIV/AIDS because they become vectors of such diseases to the
heterosexual world (Morse et al., 1991).
Prostitution also bears other negative consequences such as
physical dangers. Benedict recounted once having sadistic customers
and being afraid of getting murdered. There are many instances
wherein prostitutes can be physically harmed. Among these is
insistence in condom use. A study conducted in South Africa found
that nine out of 12 male sex workers asked their clients to use
condoms. Of the nine, only four cancelled when their customers
refused. Insistence to use condom use is responsible for losing clients,
non-payment by customers, lower fees, and or frequent beatings after
sex (Doctors for Life, 1997).
One participant claimed that it was his personal choice to be
engaged in prostitution. His choice was a reflection of contempt
against the rules imposed by his former guardian, his grandmother.
Scott et al. (2005) likewise averred that sex work cannot be described
as a psychological condition but rather an outcome of a dignified
rational choice for financial gain—a worker, who, like other persons
is impacted with the same socioeconomic forces.
One participant realized that prostitution was a sin while
another one claimed that he was tempted by the devil into entering
prostitution. The former realized this because he claimed he had been
active in church. The same participant confessed his sins to a priest
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and he was told to repent as he had destroyed his soul.
Similarly, Bousfiha et al. (2006) concluded that the Muslim society
in Morocco is highly attached to their religious values and principles.
Therefore, freedom to express homosexuality is hindered because
in Islamic faith, homosexuality is considered a sin. This is amply
summarized in the words of a sociologist interviewed by Bousfiha et
al. (2006):
…most people have very deep-seeded reasons for keeping this issue concealed.
Some are religious (against God’s laws of nature), some are social (being taught that
it’s wrong), and some just knee-jerk reactions of disgust (for heterosexuals). The
overwhelming majority of most cultures treat homosexuals in the realm of “wrong/
evil/unnatural”: a taboo. (p. 18)
The “good” side of prostitution was also realized by some of the
study participants. This good side was that of a positive nature—
being helped by a customer in times of need and being able to make
their families and customers happy and sharing problems within
their group. The qualitative study of Kong (2009) on Chinese male sex
workers (N=18) revealed that male prostitutes stressed the positive
side or the “intrinsic” values of male prostitution for reasons that they
had sexual pleasure, freedom, flexibility, and self-esteem aside from
money. In addition, one participant verbalized, “…it’s not that we are
doing bad or what, but we do direct sexual contact/sexual intercourse
with men like us.” Another participant also said: “…I told myself,
being a call boy is better than stealing.” These perceptions, according
to Kong, reduced the “money machine” stigma but instead enabled
the male prostitutes to affirm that they should be respected since they
are closer to the “hegemonic ideal of a working-class individual—
powerful, self-reliant, and competent” (2009, p. 736).
Theme Cluster: Approval (By Family)
The help given by a brother of a participant can be understood in the
light of the results of the study of Luckenbill (1985) involving male
hustlers (N=26) in Chicago. This study examined the conditions leading
to their first sale and their movement into regular involvement. One
of the two ways in which boys went into prostitution was called the
defensive involvement, which was utilized by 15 of the respondents.
Defensive involvement starts when a boy, being embedded in a
situation of financial needs, seeks to make ends meet and learns about
prostitution from an older man or an experienced hustler who then
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proposes the sexual sale, thus finding a practical solution to a lifethreatening situation. Defensive involvement was experienced by
one participant who was “sold” by an older brother to a customer at
a time when he ran away from his guardian’s (grandmother) home
and was in need of money. Being a 14-year old boy then, he easily
attracted older male customers.
A wife of a participant who sent text messages to his customers
gave evidence that prostitutes do not have to be single. There are
CSWs whose permanent relationships with the same sex or opposite
sex have remained despite the nature of their work. The profile of the
211 male street prostitutes in New Orleans in the study of Morse et al.
(1991) showed that 39% of respondents were thought to be married.
In the study, the participant’s wife assisted him in his work as it had
become their source of income; so was the case of the three sibling
prostitutes.
Theme Cluster: Invulnerability
Some participants reflected invulnerability in their statements. The
non-realization of some participants of the health risks brought about
by prostitution and their inability to describe their understanding of
STDs indicated a lack of knowledge or information. This is consistent
with the study of Wong et al. (2008) on the HIV risks among gayidentified and non-gay identified migrant boys in Shanghai, China
that showed that among other findings, participants had little
knowledge of HIVs.
Findings of the study of Meng et al. (2010), however, are contrary
to the previous study. Meng et al. (2010) did the first exploratory
study of Chinese men (N=86) who provided commercial sex services
to other men (“money boys”) in Jilin Province, China. Some findings
revealed that in spite of their exhibited high level of basic HIV/AIDS
transmission knowledge, none of the participants reported regular
use of condom during their sexual activities.
Some participants were happy and contented with their situation
and were not embarrassed to be prostitutes. Walby (2008) opined
that a way to counter the moral bias of discriminatory laws is to
demonstrate that male sex work is like other kinds of work, and
can even be seen as less exploitative than the regular wage slaves in
terms of their labor, if all labor is seen as exploitative in the capitalist
system. Walby (2008) stated that male sex work should be treated as
work because it is such.
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Seeing prostitution in a different light was also shown in the
study of Minichiello et al. (2002) on the socio-demographic and sex
work characteristics of male sex workers in three Australian cities.
Their study claimed to have debunked the myths surrounding the
popular view of male sex workers. In their study, more than half
of the prostitutes were in a permanent relationship, only 7.3% of
this group used heroin daily, and most of them offered safer sex,
among others. Such study though is contrary to the findings of this
research since all the participants had instances of non-condom use
while two participants were not concerned about the health-related
consequences of non-condom use. Also, in this study, only one of the
seven participants was in a permanent relationship.
Implications and
Recommendations
The lived experience of the male CSWs who practice unsafe same
sex with clients revealed four central themes. Struggle was expressed
between human needs (food, sex) and shame (shameful nature).
Struggle was also expressed between money (source of income)
and acceptance (disapproval of family and society and feelings of
embarrassment, hurt, helplessness, and even anger) and between
contentment (belongingness, better life) and morality (sin, sexual
identity). The male CSWs also had realizations. These realizations
pertained to the health and physical risks involved in prostitution, a
consequence of their own choice, and the ‘good side’ of prostitution
(financial and emotional support). The study participants also gained
some measure of approval from family (spouse, brother, family).
Invulnerability was also evident in participants who did not feel
embarrassed in what they were doing, had no feelings of discontent
but rather happiness in their situation, and in those who had not
realized that they were prone to STDs by practicing unsafe sex. These
findings affirm that unsafe sex is being practiced by male CSWs in
Negros Oriental with implications for the health and well-being of
the CSWs, their partners, and the community in general.
Nursing Practice
The findings of this study can assist nurses particularly in the
community health settings to find creative ways to address the
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concerns of the male CSWs in a non-threatening and confidential
manner. It is known in this study that participants consider sex work
as shameful and that family and society disapprove of it. The nurse
as a caring person can enhance the personhood of the male CSWs
by enabling them to care for themselves. This can be by avoiding
biases and prejudices since the nurse “is not called upon to judge the
other, but to care for the other” (Boykin, Schoenhofer, and Linden,
2010, p. 378). One way in which this can be achieved is through
telenursing, which is a program of health care delivery through a
telecommunication system (Kozier et al., 2004). A tele-consultation
(use of phone or text messaging) can be employed to address queries
of male CSWs in a confidential manner.
Government agencies could also consider forming a
multidisciplinary team that caters to the health needs of those who
are at risk of or already have HIV. This multidisciplinary referral
system can be initiated at the local level by a community health nurse
employed at the city health office, soliciting the services of a city
health doctor, a social worker from the Department of Social Welfare
and Development, and a psychologist from the Philippine Mental
Health Office. Non-government advocacy groups (e.g., religious
groups) could also provide spiritual counseling services since some
view this as a sin.
The findings of the study can also be considered as additional
content in the undergraduate and master’s curricula, enhancing the
learning for knowing persons (e.g., male CSWs) as caring individuals
that need to be understood as persons who are “caring by virtue of
their humanness” (Boykin et al., 2010, p. 378) even if they see their
sex work as shameful and embarrassing. The themes which describe
the meaning of their lived experience embody their value system to
which the caring nurse should respond with respect, mindful that
male CSWs are also persons of value.
Nursing Education and Research
A theory of compassionate nursing can be developed, particularly
for nursing interventions emphasizing the process of care, valuing
respect, and safeguarding one’s self as a caring person. The four
central themes of the study can provide the structure from which
evolves the appreciation of the person as invulnerable, in which the
realization of self is critical in understanding the survival instinct to do
what is best for oneself and family, to sacrifice for the good of oneself
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67
and family. Furthering these conceptions can serve as basis for the
nursing process framework of compassionate nursing and towards the
development of an intervention theory that will “provide empirical
support for the propositions of the theory” (Covell, 2008, p. 94).
The male CSWs of this study, although aware of the risks
of contracting STDs, still lack the concern for this realization
(invulnerability). It is thus recommended that subsequent studies be
made to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and behavior of male CSWs
toward STDs.
The study involved participants aged 18 years and above. It is
not known if there are those engaged in prostitution younger than
18 years old. Conducting a replication study for a younger age
group may provide a different description of their experiences,
therefore enlightening and furthering the theoretical description of
compassionate nursing. Replication studies should be done in other
locations and settings and with other types of sex work as well.
The study revealed that male CSWs lived in embarrassment because
their behavior was often not approved by their families and accepted
within social norms. Consequently, it was found that male CSWs did
not seek professional help for their health needs. Of particular interest
was one participant who shared that drinking liquid soap was his way
of treating STD, prompting the consideration that investigations on the
health-seeking behaviors of male CSWs to enhance understanding of
the health needs of this sector should also be done.
Health Care Policy
What was known in this study is that unsafe same-sex (non-condom
use) is practiced by male CSWs in Negros Oriental, Philippines
primarily as a means of livelihood. The non-use of condom during
direct sexual contact has implications to the spread of STDs. In this
regard, the following are recommended:
1. Formulation of policies relative to the creation of health and
livelihood programs by the Department of Health (DOH), the
Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), and
the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), which would
include male CSWs, among others.
2. A policy on mandatory health education in private and public
schools about STDs with emphasis on HIV and Hepatitis B, which
have yet no cure. Health education should include sex education
VOL. 52 NO. 2
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68
with emphasis on safe sex practices and disease prevention.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The paper is a condensed version of the author’s dissertation. The author would
like to express her heartfelt gratitude to the following: Silliman University for the
FADECO grant; the seven key informants of this study; her adviser, Dr. Rozzano C.
Locsin, for his expression of caring and valuable suggestions; the panel members of
her dissertation defense—Dr. Betsy Joy B. Tan, Dr. Letty G. Kuan, Dr. Rey Rivera, and
Dr. Margaret Helen U. Alvarez; to Dr. Maria Teresita Sy-Sinda, Dean of the Graduate
Programs; Prof. John Raymond Drury, her methodology supervisor; Dean Florenda
F. Cabatit of the Silliman University College of Nursing; friends and colleagues who
have prayed, assisted with their technical skills and in participant recruitment; her
family; and the Lord Almighty who makes all things beautiful in His perfect time.
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SILLIMAN JOURNAL
VOL. 52 NO.2
The Conformity of Test Construction
of the Achievement Test Papers of
College Teachers: A Case Study
Pablito A. dela Rama
Office of Instruction and Evaluation
Silliman University
This paper examines the rules in test construction that are
commonly observed and violated by the college teachers of
Silliman University and measures if significant relationship
exists between the profile of teachers—sex, number of years in
teaching, number of education units taken, number of seminars in
test construction attended, and academic background—and their
ability to observe the rules of test construction. Although majority
of the rules of the five types of tests investigated were observed
by teachers, particularly the True or False type, there are still rules
where violations were greater than compliance, particularly in the
Matching and Enumeration types. Moreover, the sex of teachers
and number of seminars in test construction attended by these
teachers are significantly related to their adherence to the rules
of test construction. Therefore, more credits or time to courses in
teacher training and seminars in test construction among in-service
teachers are recommended to address the need, particularly of
male teachers, to enhance their skills in constructing quality test
questions.
Keywords: conformity, rules of test construction, achievement
test, types of test, Silliman University
A
Introduction
n achievement test is a systematic procedure for measuring
a representative sample of learning tasks which are of two
types: standardized and teacher-made (Salkind, 2003, p.
129) and done by every teacher since the teacher plays an important
role in the instructional programs. As Gronlund (1993) puts it, the
evaluations teachers make can have a tremendous influence on
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conformity of test construction of college teachers
the lives of their students; hence, they should not be lightly made.
He further stressed that the role of evaluation is so intrinsic to the
teaching-learning situation that even hasty consideration seems to
indicate the advantages of a systematic use of planned evaluation
procedures. This is so because decisions about the amount of learning
that students have done, emanates from achievement test results.
Therefore, there is a need to investigate this matter to generate data
useful for developing a re-orientation program for faculty about the
rules of testing and why these are necessary for achieving realistic
measurement and evaluation of the learning of their students (e.g.,
Linn & Gronlund, 2000).
In this paper, the ability in complying with the rules in test
construction of full time college faculty in the preparation of their
final examinations was examined using Silliman University as a case
study. The findings and recommendations in the end may be found
relevant to other colleges and universities in the Philippines having
similar conditions. What these rules in test construction relative to the
type of test that are commonly observed and violated were identified
using the final examination test papers of the sampled teachers
from different academic units. It further examined any relationship
between the teachers’ sex, number of years in teaching, number of
education units taken, and number of seminars in test construction
attended and their ability to observe the rules of test construction.
The similarities and differences in the observance of the rules of test
construction among teachers from Humanities; Mathematics, Science
and Technology; and Social Sciences are likewise looked into.
Review of Related Literature
Achievement testing is frequently viewed as an end-of-unit or endof-course activity that is done primarily for the purpose of assigning
grades or certifying mastery (see also Popham, 2002). Because of
this commonly held view about the utility of test, the teachers have
acquired a great deal of power over the lives of the students, for
they decide who pass or fail, or proceed to higher course and finish
degrees. Moreover, teachers may also find themselves wanting to
make rational decisions that will help to improve achievement in the
students’ performance in the whole program (e.g., Mamhot, Mamhot
& Kilat, 2007). Or they may find a need to make and justify changes in
materials, facilities, and teaching strategy. Such decisions most often
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should be made with the aid of achievement test scores (Salkind,
2003, p. 129).
In coming up with sound decisions about the achievement of
students and about ways to improve that achievement usually
involves testing to find out how much each person has learned within
the program. Hence, an achievement test should be constructed in the
context of the particular course. This requirement necessitates that the
achievement test be directly based on course objectives. Achievement
tests must not only be designed to measure the objectives of a given
course but also be flexible enough to help teachers readily respond
to what they learn from the test about the students’ abilities, the
students’ needs, and the students’ learning of the course objectives.
In other words, a good achievement test can tell teachers a great deal
about their students’ achievements and about the adequacy of the
course (Brown, 1996).
Effective teachers are responsible to their students because of
their broad range of impact on their lives. Among their multifarious
responsibilities is proper evaluation of the learning of students,
therefore, the teachers need to ascertain that the rules governing test
construction are observed to ensure fair evaluation. In other words,
the test items should be of the type found in the recommendations
of educational communities. Teachers have at their disposal a great
variety of sources and methods for gathering information about their
students. Their decisions pertaining to each of the students should be
built around reliable indicators and sources of evidence. This needs
to be done in order to come up with decisions which are fair and just
to each of the students (Brady & Kennedy, 2001).
However, Gronlund (1993, see also Kubiszyn & Borich, 1999)
said that despite the widespread use of achievement testing and the
important role it plays in the instructional programs, many teachers,
particularly in college level, do not have education units, receive little
or no instruction how to construct good achievement tests. Moreover,
accrediting agencies such as the Philippine Association of Accrediting
Schools Colleges and Universities (PAASCU), where the author had
the opportunity to deal with, has noted that there are some test
papers included in exhibits of colleges that violate some of the rules
in constructing good examinations.
Silliman University, which aims to provide quality education, is
undoubtedly composed of dedicated and committed teachers. They
aim for excellence in their teaching function, however, toward this
end two basic requirements should be met which include willingness
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and capability. It is in this perspective that this study had been
conducted. As mentioned earlier, the first requirement is already a
given, but the second needs verification. A teacher might be so willing
to come up with an appropriate and reliable achievement test, but
if he or she does not have the skills in doing it, his or her aspiration
remains as is, since he or she cannot achieve it. As Protagoras (cited in
Lorber, 1996) said, “Art without practice, and practice without art, are
nothing.” It can be drawn from the preceding passage that in order
for the teacher’s evaluation of students’ learning to be meaningful, his
or her tests should conform to the rules governing test construction
(see also Linn & Gronlund, 2000).
Generally, there are two types of test to measure the learning of
students in the cognitive domain: objective and essay or subjective
(Linn & Gronlund, 2000). An objective test is a kind of test wherein
there is only one correct answer to each item. On the other hand, an
essay test is one wherein the test taker has the freedom to respond to
a question based on how he feels it should be answered. Moreover,
there are generally two types of objective tests namely: selection and
supply. In the selection type, the student chooses the right answer
to each item. Conversely, the student constructs his or her own
answer in the supply type. Included in the selection category are the
following: arrangement type; grouping type; matching type; multiple
choice type; alternative response type; key list test and interpretive
exercise. Supply type, on the other hand, includes the following:
completion drawing type; completion statement type; correction
type; identification type; simple recall type; and short answer type.
Methods
There are three types of assessing the learning of students which include
formative, summative and diagnostic testing (Oosterhof, 1996, p. 5).
For this study, the final achievement test papers for the first semester
of school year 2009-2010 of fulltime college teachers of Silliman
University were used because they were summative and contained a
variety of test types. The test papers were classified according to the
disciplines of teachers as listed here with the corresponding sample
sizes identified through cluster random sampling: Humanities (17);
Math, Science and Technology (33), and Social Sciences (42). Only
these numbers of test papers per classification which total to 92 were
finally included in the study since some teachers did not give written
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final examination and some gave problem solving or computations
which were not covered in this study.
To facilitate the collection of data, the researcher communicated
with the unit heads through the Vice President for Academic Affairs
for their administrative support. A self-administered questionnaire
was employed to obtain the profile of the faculty in terms of sex,
number of years in teaching, number of education units taken, and
number of seminars in test construction attended. The collection of
the final examination test papers of teachers was done by a research
assistant. In order to determine the conformity of the college faculty,
the sample achievement test papers were analyzed using the rules
adopted from Gronlund (1993). The specific rules and to what extent
they were observed or violated in the construction of the sample
test papers are listed in Tables 1 to 5. Meanwhile, the types of test
covered in this study only include True or False, Matching Items,
Multiple Choice, Short Answer and Enumeration because these were
commonly employed by teachers.
The data gathered were statistically analyzed using percentage
distribution, chi square, Pearson Product Moment Correlation
Coefficient and analysis of variance. Percentage was used in
determining the distribution of teachers who demonstrated
conformity to the rules of test construction. To test whether or not
a significant relationship existed between the teachers’ sex and their
test construction ability, chi square was utilized while Pearson r was
employed in determining whether or not a significant relationship
existed between the teachers’ number of years in teaching, number
of education units taken, number of seminars in test construction
attended and their test construction ability. Finally, the analysis of
variance was used to find out if the teachers’ ability to conform to
the rules in test construction significantly differed when they were
grouped according to their disciplines: social sciences; math, science
and technology; and humanities.
Results
Table 1 shows that rule numbers 1, 5, 6, 7, and 10 are the ones
commonly observed by the teachers; in fact, 100% of the 51 samples
who included True or False type in their final examination followed
these rules. This means that all of them used declarative sentences;
used negative statements sparingly and did not use double negative;
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attributed to some source statements of opinion; and used true
propositions in statements with cause-effect relationship. Rule number
9, which requires not providing any pattern in the arrangement of the
answers, was used by 96% of the teachers. Closely following next is
rule number 3 with 82% of the teachers demonstrating it.
Moreover, Table 1 shows that rule number 8 is the most frequently
violated which was committed by 45% of the respondents. They
missed to observe it and had test items that contained words which
provided clues to the answers. The use of words considered as
determiners such as: always, never, all, none, only which tend to
be false and usually, may, sometimes which tend to be true was
also violated. The other rules which are commonly violated by the
teachers are numbers 4 and 2. Number 4 is closely related to number
8. Using any of the determiners makes the statement difficult to
judge whether it is true or false. The percentage manifested in rule
number 2 indicates that the teachers have violated such by having
more than one central idea in an item. Though these percentages
are not so high, but any violation to the rule puts students at a
disadvantage.
Table 1.
True or False Type of Test.
Rules in Test Construction
Observed (%)
Not Observed (%)
1. Declarative sentences should be used
2. Include only one central idea in each statement
3. Keep the statement short and use simple
vocabulary and sentence structure
4. Word the statement so precisely that it can
unequivocally be judged true or false
5. Use negative statement sparingly and avoid
double negative
6. Statement of opinion should be attributed to
some source unless used to distinguished
between facts from opinion
7. When cause-effect relationships are being
measured, use only true propositions
8. Avoid extraneous clues to the answer
9. In arranging the items avoid the regular
recurrence of “true” and “false” statements
10. Score is number of correct answers (This
holds true to all objective types of tests)
51 (100.00)
33 (64.71)
—
18 (35.29)
42 (82.35)
9 (17.65)
32 (62.75)
19 (37.75)
51 (100.00)
—
51 (100.00)
—
51 (100.00)
28 (54.90)
—
23 (45.10)
49 (96.08)
2 (3.92)
51 (100.00)
—
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Meanwhile, Table 2 shows that in the matching type items, four of
the six rules are commonly observed by the 36 teachers who included
this type of test in their examination papers. These rules are the
following: include only homogeneous material in each matching item,
put all the matching items on the same page, use a larger or smaller
number of responses than premises and permit the response to be
used more than once, and there should only be two columns. These
were observed by 94%, 83%, 72% and 69% of the faculty, respectively.
On the other hand, two of the rules are commonly violated namely:
place the responses in alphabetical, numerical, or chronological
order (83.33%), and specify in the directions the basis for matching
and indicate that each response may be used once or more than once
(77.78%).
Table 2.
Matching Type of Test.
Observed (%)
Not Observed (%)
1. There should be two columns. Under
column “A”are the stimuli which
should be longer and more descriptive
than the responses under column “B”
25 (69.44)
11(30.56)
2. Include only homogeneous material
in each matching item
34 (94.44)
2 (5.56)
3. Use a larger or smaller number of
responses than premises, and permit
the responses to be used more than once 26 (72.22)
10 (27.78)
4. Place the responses in alphabetical,
numerical, or chronological order
6 (16.67)
30 (83.33)
5. Specify in the directions the basis for
matching, and indicate that each
response may be used once, or more
than once
8 (22.22)
28 (77.78)
6. Put all the matching items on the
same page
30 (83.33)
6 (16.67)
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As delineated in Table 3, all the thirteen rules are commonly
observed by the 63 teachers who used this type of test. The teachers
complying ranged from 70 to 100%. Rule number 12 being the highest
with 100% of the teachers’ compliance, followed by rules number 3,
5, 9, 11, and 13 with 98% of the teachers’ compliance. Rule number 8
followed having 95% of the teachers’ compliance then by rules 1 and
2 with 89%, then by rule number 4 with 84%. Rule numbers 6 and
7 have been observed by 79% of the teachers while rule number 10
comes last in the order with 70% of the teachers complying. While all
the rules are observed by the teachers, there are also some violations
committed. The rules which are considerably violated are number 10
wherein 30% of the teachers violated, 6 and 7 with 21%, rule number
4 with 16% and rules 1 and 2 with 11% each.
Table 3.
Multiple Choice Type of Test.
Observed (%)
Not Observed (%)
1. Construct the stem of the item in
question, completion, or direction form
56 (88.89)
7 (11.11)
2. Present a single clearly formulated
problem in the stem of the item
56 (88.89)
7 (11.11)
3. State the stem of the item in simple,
clear language
62 (98.41)
1 (1.59)
4. Put as much of the wording as possible
in the stem of the item
53 (84.13)
10 (15.87)
5. Use a negatively stated item stem only
when significant learning outcomes
require it
62 (98.41)
1 (1.59)
6. Emphasize negative wording whenever
it is used in the stem of an item
50 (79.37)
13 (20.63)
7. Make all alternatives grammatically
consistent with the stem of the item
and parallel in form
50 (79.37)
13 (20.63)
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Table 3.
Multiple Choice Type of Test.
Observed (%)
Not Observed (%)
8. Verbal associations between the stem
and the correct answer should be
avoided
60 (95.24)
3 (4.76)
9. Avoid “always” and “never”
62 (98.41)
1 (1.59)
10. Avoid using the alternative “all of the
above” and use “none of the above”
with extreme caution
44 (69.84)
19 (30.16)
11. Vary the relative length of the correct
answer to eliminate length as a clue
62 (98.41)
1 (1.59)
12. Random occurrence of responses
should be employed
63 (100.00)
—
13. Make certain that each item is
independent of the other items in the test 62 (98.41)
1 (1.59)
Table 4 shows that among the seven rules governing short answer
items, number 7 came out to be the one having no violation among
the 63 teachers who used it, or not one of them formulated an item
which requires the numerical answer. Rule number 1 registered a 90%
compliance among the teachers. This indicates that they construct the
items in such a manner that only a single, brief answer is required.
Rule number 3 came third with 83% which indicates that a good
number of the teachers provided only with one blank in each item.
Rule number 2 registered 77% compliance indicating that most of
the items in this test are stated in interrogative form. The same table,
on the other hand, delineates that there are violations in all the rules.
Rule number 4 got the highest violation (41%) which indicates that a
considerable number of teachers did not have the blanks in the same
length. Following are rules 6 and 5 with 35% and 32%, respectively.
This means that these teachers provided some clues to the correct
answer and at the same time failed to put the blanks near or at the
end of the sentence. In terms of rule number 6, one instance wherein
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a clue is provided is by having the blanks at different lengths as well
as having articles a or an right before the blank.
Table 4.
Short Answer Type of Test.
Rules of Test Construction
Observed (%)
Not Observed (%)
1. State the item so that only a single,
brief answer is possible
28 (90.32)
3 (9.68)
2. Start with a direct question and switch
to an incomplete statement only
when greater conciseness is possible
by doing so 24 (77.42)
7 (22.58)
3. Leave only one blank and it should
relate to the main point of the statement
26 (83.87)
5 (16.13)
4. Blanks should be of equal lengths
18 (58.06)
13 (41.94)
5. Place the blanks near or at the end of
the sentence
21 (67.74)
10 (32.26)
6. Avoid extraneous clues to the answer
20 (64.52)
11 (35.48)
7.For numerical answer, indicate the
degree of precision expected and the
units in which they are to be expressed
31 (100.00)
—
As shown in Table 5, enumeration is not popular among the teachers.
Of the 92 teachers only 12 have used it. Nevertheless, information
pertaining to how the teachers observe the rules governing this type
of test is manifested. Of the three rules, number 3 has the highest
percentage (75%) which indicates that a good number of the teachers
did not use the phrase “at least.” This is followed by rule number 1
with 67% indicating that the teachers used letters to designate the stem
of the item. It is also evident that all the three rules are being violated
by some of the teachers. The rule most violated is number 2 with 58%,
followed by numbers 1 and 3 with 33% and 25%, respectively. Meaning
to say some of the teachers were redundant. This can happen when the
teacher still provides instruction in the stem or the specific item. For
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example, in an item the teacher will say give/list/enumerate. For this
type of test, further instruction in each item is unnecessary since the
type of test already serves as an instruction.
There were also some teachers who designated the items with
numbers making it difficult to reconcile with the table of specifications.
It is to be recalled that the items in the table of specifications are
designated with numbers. Another controversial violation is the use
of the phrase, at least. This is something that should be avoided since
this indicated that the teacher sets the minimum number of answers,
but not prohibiting the students from giving all the answers. Hence,
a student who committed some mistakes in the other types of test in
the examination can compensate if he/she can provide all the answers
in the enumeration type of test.
Table 5.
Enumeration Type of Test.
Rules of Test Construction
Observed (%)
Not Observed (%)
1. Items should be designated with letters
not numbers
8 (66.67)
4 (33.33)
2. Avoid redundancy
5 (41.67)
7 (58.33)
9 (75.00)
3 (25.00)
3. Avoid using the phrase “at least”
In order to determine whether or not a significant relationship
existed between the teachers’ ability to conform to the rules of test
construction and their profile, the percentage of the rules being
observed was computed. As shown in Tables 6 to 9, in terms of
the profile of teachers and their ability to follow the rules in test
construction, the succeeding discussion shows that two variables are
significantly related to the latter: sex and seminars attended. Table
6 particularly indicates that the teachers’ ability to construct the
different types of tests is influenced by their sex. The data suggest
that the female teachers are better than the male teachers in terms
of observance to the rules in test construction. The present data,
however, cannot provide explanation to this and it is decided that a
more focused inquiry on the matter has to be done in the subsequent
study.
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Table 6.
Test of Independence between Test Construction Ability and Sex of Teachers.
Variables
X²
Computed
Test construction
ability and sex
of teachers
4.767
Decision
Remarks
Reject Ho
Significant*
Tabular
3.841
*ᾳ=0.05; df=1
It can be gleaned in Table 7 that the computed r is less than the
tabular. This indicates that no significant relationship existed between
teachers’ ability to conform to the rules governing test construction
and their number of years in teaching. In other words, irrespective of
whether the teacher has been into teaching for few or more years, his
or her test construction ability remains the same.
Table 7.
Test of Relationship between Test Construction Ability and Number of Years in
Teaching.
Variables
r value
Computed
Decision
Remarks
Tabular
Test construction
ability and
number of years
in teaching
-0.020
0.203
Accept Ho
Not
significant
Similar to the number of years in teaching, test construction ability
is not influenced or affected by the number of education units taken
by the teacher as shown in Table 8. This may be test construction is
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
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85
only offered in the College of Education or taken by those who are
taking up teacher education and not in other degrees. This result
might also indicate that in order for the teacher to acquire skills in
test construction, he/she needs to enroll in the subjects which deal on
it. In the revised curriculum, there are already subjects or equivalent
to six units intended for test construction. In fact these subjects are
among those required by the Professional Regulation Commission to
be taken in order for the applicant to take the licensure examination
for teachers.
Table 8.
Test of Relationship between Test Construction Ability and Number of Education
Units Taken.
Variables
r value
Computed
Decision
Remarks
Tabular
Test construction
ability and
number of
education units
taken
-0.009
0.203
Accept Ho
Not
significant
As shown in Table 9, the computed r value is greater than the tabular
which indicates that there is a significant relationship between the
ability of teachers to comply with the rule of test construction and the
number of seminars in this area they attended. This finding delineates
the importance of providing seminars on test construction especially
among teachers who are not graduates of Teacher Education. Earlier
it was shown that the number of education units teachers have do
not relate significantly with their ability to observe the rules of test
construction which suggests that regular seminars can help check the
deficiency of teachers in testing.
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86
Table 9.
Test of Relationship between Test Construction Ability and Number of Seminars in
Test Construction Attended.
Variables
r value
Computed
Decision
Remarks
Reject Ho
Significant
Tabular
Test construction
ability and number
of seminars in
test construction
attended
r = 0.636
0.205
But as delineated in Table 10, the F value of 2.583 is less than the
F critical of 3.099 when the three groups of teachers were compared
in terms of ability to follow the rules of test construction. The result
indicates that no significant difference existed among the three
groups of teachers. This is confirmed by the p-value of 0.081 which is
greater than the margin of error or the alpha which is 0.05. So even
if a difference is evident between any two of the three mean scores,
where the Social Science teachers (including Education teachers)
registered the highest mean, such difference is not significant but
only suggestive. In other words, the ability to observe the rules of
test construction is not inherent in the discipline or degree earned by
the teachers but on their attitude and willingness to apply the rules
in order to realistically test the amount of learning of their students.
Table 10.
Analysis of Variance Result.
Groups
Count
Sum
Average Variance
Social Sciences
42
Math, Science, and Technology 33
Humanities
17
3592.6
2614.5
1270
85.538
79.227
74.706
Sources of Variation
Between Groups
Within Groups
df
2
89
MS
F
P-value
817.53
2.583
0.081
316.5
SS
1635
28168
Total29803
91
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
173.98
505.8
303.11
F critical
3.099
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Discussion
Of the five types of test whose rules were the subject of this paper,
the rules of the True or False type of test were the most followed or
observed by the college teachers included in the study. Five out of
the 10 rules were followed by all the teachers while the rules for a
statement to be precise so it could “unequivocally be judged true
or false” and to “include only one central idea” were violated by a
good number, although these were complied with by a majority of
the respondents. So True or False test may be easy to prepare but
the teachers perhaps failed to closely review the statements to truly
measure the learning of students.
Meanwhile, only one each out of the several rules of the construction
of Short Answer and Multiple Choice types of test was observed by
all the teachers. Respectively, the aforementioned rules include the
need to indicate the unit of measures of numerical responses and
to randomize the occurrence of responses. Having blanks where
students should write their answers that are of unequal length was
the leading violation committed by teachers in the Short Answer type
of test while the common or indiscriminate uses of choices such as
“all of the above” and “none of the above” were noted in the Multiple
Choice type. While having unequal length of blanks may offer clues
to the answer, the use of “all of the above” and “none of the above”
choices suggests that the teacher runs out of possible answers or is in
a hurry to finish the test paper.
None of the rules of Matching Type test and Enumeration Type
earned 100% compliance from the teachers as compared to the first
three types of test discussed earlier although these are seemingly easy
to prepare. Nonetheless, majority of the teachers had observed about
67% of the rules in both types of tests as compared to the 33% of the
rules being commonly violated. The use of homogenous material or
topic in each matching item was observed by the majority, but the
requirement to place the responses in alphabetical, numerical or
chronological order and to specify in the instruction the basis for
matching and how this should be done were the most violated rule
under the Matching Type. Meanwhile, the rule of avoiding redundant
instruction was violated by the majority of the teachers, for example,
the teacher says give/list/enumerate in every item asked.
In general, although the majority of the college teachers included
in the study followed or observed the rules in test construction, the
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88
number who violated certain rules in particular types of test demand
a closer examination so that appropriate and specific interventions
may be designed and introduced to improve testing and rating
of the learning of students. The data show that the sex of teachers
and the number of seminars they had attended in test construction
are significantly related to their observance of the principles of test
construction measured by the number of rules in particular types
of test they had complied with or violated. Specifically, the female
teachers and those who had attended more seminars were able to
register higher adherence to the rules of test construction.
Incidentally, the number of years teaching and education units
taken in college and the academic units or disciplines of teachers were
not significantly related to their observance of the principles of test
construction. This means that new or old teachers, those who earned
or not baccalaureate degrees in education or earned the mandatory
18 units in education, and those who came from various types of
disciplines do not differ with regard to their observance or violations
of the rules of test construction. Teacher Education graduates may
have greater advantage and familiarity about test construction rules
as compared to those from other disciplines. However, Test and
Measurement is just one of the courses the former had taken.
The foregoing observation may explain why attendance in a
number of seminars in test construction is significantly related to the
observance of test construction rules than the number of education
units earned. Although an added value, it is not a guarantee that a
degree in education means greater ability to develop and implement
a valid test; rather the data suggest that it is the regular exposures
of teachers to seminars in test construction that sharpen their ability
to justly measure the learning of students and to realistically reward
them so they can be inspired to pursue more learning encounters
than to be frustrated due to dubious testing process. Interestingly,
that the female teachers were reportedly more compliant than their
male counterparts to the rules of test construction may be due to their
inherent or stereotyped nurturing traits, which made them perhaps
more careful in formulating test questions.
Conclusion
The results of this case study of Silliman University in terms of the
observance to test construction rules of its teachers may be unique or
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
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89
similar with other higher education institutions in the Philippines, but
what is important to highlight is the fact that not all teachers are able
to satisfy the requirements of good test questions that fairly measure
the learning of students and allow them to be realistically rated. For
example, although the rules of constructing True or False type of test
is the most commonly followed or observed by teachers compared to
the other types included in the study, there are still a number of them
that unmindfully re-examine the quality of their test questions before
administering them. Other problems found in other types of test are
related to the format and test instructions that offered hints about the
answers, confused the students, or are redundant.
Among the profile of teachers hypothesized to relate with
adherence to the rules of test construction, only sex and attendance
in seminars in test construction were found out to be significantly
linked. Specifically, the female teachers tend to follow more the rules
of test construction than their male counterparts which may be due to
their inherent qualities and attitudinal differences in the teaching and
testing processes. But this finding has to be explored more in future
investigation because attendance in seminars was found to improve
the quality of test questions prepared by teachers. In fact, number of
years teaching and academic preparation related to Teacher Education
cannot guarantee that teachers will be adept in test construction.
Thus, giving more unit credits or time in pre-training and continuing
education program of teachers in test and measurement are needed
because the principles and techniques of testing is as important as the
art and science of teaching students.
Acknowledgements
The study was funded by the Faculty Development Grant for Research of Silliman
University through the Research and Development Center. In this regard, I am
grateful to the following people who are instrumental in the completion of this
study: Dr. Enrique G. Oracion, the Director of Research for his inspiration and expert
guidance; Dr. Betsy Joy B. Tan for her administrative support; Dr. Reynaldo Y. Rivera
and Dr. Earl Jude Paul L. Cleope for reviewing the initial draft of this paper; Ms.
Alma Banabana who helped in the distribution and collection of the final examination
papers of teachers; and to the teachers whose participation and cooperation played
a significant role in this study. Needless to say, I owe sole responsibility for any
opinions, errors and shortcomings this paper has.
VOL. 52 NO. 2
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References
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MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Kubiszyn, T. & Borich, G. (1999). Educational testing and measurement: Classroom
application and practice (6th ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Linn, R.L. & Gronlund, N.E. (2000). Measurement and assessment in teaching (8th
ed.). New Jersey: Merill.
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Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Mamhot, M.R., Mamhot A. A., & Kilat, K.S. (2007). The pre-algebra course: A bridge
program for mathematically under-prepared college entrants. Silliman Journal,
48(1), 101-115.
Oosterhof, A. (1996). Developing and using classroom assessments. New Jersey:
Prentice-Hall.
Popham, J.W. (2002). Classroom assessment: What teachers need to know (3rd
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Salkind, N.J. (2003). Exploring research (5th ed.). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
VOL. 52 NO.2
Status of the Vertebrate Fauna
in Selected Sites of Pagatban River,
Negros Oriental, Philippines
Abner A. Bucol
Silliman University Angelo King Center for Research
and Environmental Management (SUAKCREM) /
Esther E. Carumbana
Biology Department
Negros Oriental State University Main Campus I
Dumaguete City
Leonardo T. Averia
and Environmental Management (SUAKCREM)
An assessment on the status of the vertebrate fauna of Pagatban
River in southwestern Negros Island was conducted from February
to April and August to November 2010 using purposive sampling
techniques. There were 82 species of birds, eight species of
amphibians, 14 species of reptiles, and nine species of mammals
observed. Data on the population estimates of the Endangered
Limestone Frog Platymantis spelaeus is also presented. The
Philippine Crocodile Crocodylus mindorensis is probably extinct
in the area.
Keywords: Negros Island, Pagatban River, status, vertebrates
Introduction
he Philippines is well known for its terrestrial vertebrate
diversity and endemism (Heaney, 1998; Ong, Afuang, & RosellAmbal, 2002; Brown & Diesmos, 2009). Negros Island has a
share of this rich biodiversity, and is home to several endemic species
and subspecies of terrestrial vertebrates (Brown & Alcala, 1978, 1980;
Brooks et al., 1992; Alcala, Alcala, & Dolino, 2004; Alcala & Alcala,
T
VOL. 52 NO. 2
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
92
status of vertebrate fauna in pagatban river
2005). However, there is only about 4% of forest left on Negros
(Peterson, Ball, & Brady, 2000), and may continue to decline as most
of the lowland forests have been cleared for various reasons including
shifting agriculture and illegal timber poaching.
Brooks et al. (1992) summarized the studies on the land
vertebrates done on Negros prior to 1991 (e.g. Alcala & Carumbana,
1980). Subsequent works include Paalan (1993) in Cuernos de Negros,
Paguntalan et al. (2000) in various sites of Negros. Paguntalan et al.
(2002) in Banban, Ayungon, and Paalan et al. (2004) in Cauayan,
Negros Occidental. In the northern part of Negros, Turner et al. (2002,
2003) summarized the studies done in the area. Several birding trips
have also been done, including Woods et al. (2003) and WBCP in 2007,
listing the species in selected sites.
This report on the terrestrial vertebrates of Pagatban River in the
southwestern Negros Island will contribute to the inventory of certain
groups of animals associated with this river system. The inventory
is presented to serve as a baseline for measuring future changes in
faunal composition in the area. Other aspects of this project (i.e., socioeconomic, physico-chemical, fishes and macrobenthos and riparian
vegetation) will be reported separately.
Methods and Materials
Description of the Survey Stations
Three survey locations were established, in the upper reaches (Cabigtian), middle segment (Aya-aya), and lower reaches (Pagatban-Actin
area) of the river. These were designated as stations 1, 2, and 3,
respectively (Figure 1).
The vegetation in Station 1 is predominantly composed of exotic
trees used in reforestation projects in the area such as gmelina (Gmelina
arborea), mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla), and mangium (Acacia
mangium). About 300m from the river is an abandoned mining pond
formerly owned by the Construction and Development Corporation
of the Philippines (CDCP), a mining company. The surrounding area
of the pond has been converted by the locals to rice paddies. Cutting
of trees for charcoal production was also observed in the area.
Station 2 (Aya-aya) has steep karst topography. Most of the area is
privately-owned and planted with mahogany, gmelina and coconuts,
except in steep slopes where some karst-adapted trees like Ficus, alum
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
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a.a. bucol, e.e. carumbana, & l.t. averia
93
Figure 1. Map of Negros Oriental showing the locations of the sampling stations
along the Pagatban River.
(Macaranga tanarius), and Alstonia sp. remain.
Station 3 is mainly of agricultural-plantation type. Coconuts
and other fruit-bearing trees like mangoes (Mangifera indica) are also
common. Some mangroves and associates such as Nypa fruticans,
Avicennia marina, A. officinalis, Pandanus tectoreus, and Terminalia
catappa (talisay) were also noted near the mouth of the river.
Field Techniques
Birds were surveyed using transect walk method (MacKinnon &
Philips 1993; Bibby, Jones, & Marsden, 1998) with the aid of binoculars
for identification using the field guide Birds of the Philippines by
Kennedy et al. (2000). In addition, calls of some birds were recorded
either using a digital (Sony®) MP3 recorder or a TCM-Sanyo®
microcassette recorder for verification and documentation purposes.
List of birds follows the sequence in Kennedy et al. (2000).
Bats were surveyed using mist nets (same nets as utilized for bird
surveys). Taxonomic identification followed Ingle and Heaney (1992)
for bats while Heaney (1998) was used for both bats and non-volant
mammals.
The reptiles and amphibians were surveyed mainly through
cruising (as used by Alcala et al., 2004; Alcala & Alcala, 2005).
Identification of amphibians followed Alcala and Brown (1998) while
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SILLIMAN JOURNAL
94
that of reptiles follow Brown and Alcala (1978, 1980), Alcala (1986)
and Herpwatch Philippines (HWP, 2008).
Surveys on the population density of the Negros Limestone (Cave)
Frog Platymantis spelaeus in limestone forest patches were carried
out in Stations 2 and 3 using plotting method (10m x 10m quadrats)
during rainy nights.
Ethnobiological surveys
Reliable community members were also interviewed through
informal oral interviews to supplement data obtained from the field.
Results
Avifauna
A total of 82 species of birds (Table 1) were recorded from the three
survey stations, two of which are currently recognized as threatened
species by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature
(IUCN), according to BirdLife International (2008). These species
are the Philippine Duck Anas luzonica and the Visayan Flowerpecker
Dicaeum haematostictum, both are currently categorized as Vulnerable.
Majority of the species are country residents (49 species), the
remaining species are migrants (16 species) and Philippine endemics
(11 species).
Stations 1 and 2 had higher species (61 and 62, respectively) than
Station 3 with only 52 species. The high species diversity in Station
1 could be attributed to the presence of an abandoned mining pond
with surrounding reed beds which are favorable to waterbirds (ducks,
moorhen, crakes, and rails). It should be noted that in Station 2, the
majority of the species are forest birds.
Mammalian Fauna
Only nine species of mammals are known in the three survey stations,
consisting of seven volant mammals (bats) and only two non-volant
mammals (rodents) (Table 2). All nine species were observed in
Station 3 while seven species were found in Station 1 and only five
species in Station 2. The palm civet cat Paradoxurus hermaphroditus
was also reported by local hunters in Stations 1 and 2. Insectivorous
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
VOL. 52 NO.2
VOL. 52 NO. 2
Anatidae
Ardeidae
Sternidae
Accipitridae
Rallidae
Scolopacidae
Turnicidae
Phasianidae
Charadriidae
Columbidae
Anas luzonica
Philippine Duck
Ixobrychus sinensis
Yellow Bittern
Nycticorax nycticorax
Black-crowned Night-Heron Nycticorax caledonicus
Rufous Night-Heron
Butorides striatus
Striated Heron
Bubulcus ibis
Cattle Egret
Egretta garzetta
Little Egret
Chlidonias hybridus
Whiskered Tern
Haliastur indus
Brahminy Kite
Gallirallus torquatus
Barred Rail
Porzana cinerea
White-browed Crake
Amaurornis phoenicurus
White-breasted Waterhen
Gallinula chloropus
Common Moorhen
Actitis hypoleucos
Common Sandpiper
Gallinago megala
Swinhoe’s Snipe
Turnix suscitator
Barred Buttonquail
Gallus gallus
Red Junglefowl
Coturnix chinensis
Blue-breasted Quail
Charadrius dubius Little Ringed Plover
Treron vernans
Pink-necked Green Pigeon
Geopelia striataZebra Dove
Streptopelia bitorquata
Island Collared-dove
Streptopelia chinensis
Spotted Dove
Family Species
Common Name
Station 3
(Pagatban)
Continued to the next page...
PE, Vu
X
M
X
X
X
M
X
R
X
R/M
X
X
R/M
X
X
X
M
X
X
M
X
X
R
X
X
X
R
X
X
X
R
X
X
X
R
X
X
X
R/M
X
M
X
X
X
R
X
R
X
R
X
X
R
X
R/M
X
X
R
X
X
X
RXX
X
R
X
X
X
R
X
X
X
Station 1
Statio 2
(Cabig-tian)(Aya-aya)
Species of birds known from the three stations of Pagatban River. Note: Status follows Kennedy et al. (2000) and BirdLife International
(2008); PE—Philippine endemic; R—resident; M—migrant; R/M—resident migrants; Vu—Vulnerable; (X)—present
Table 1.
95
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SILLIMAN JOURNAL
Cuculidae
Strigidae
Caprimulgidae
Apodidae
Alcedinidae
Meropidae
Capitonidae
Pittidae
Sylviidae
Chalcophaps indica
Phapitreron leucotis
Ptilinopus leclancheri
Cacomantis merulinus
Cacomantis variolosus
Cuculus fugax
Centropus viridis
Eudynamys scolopacea
Ninox philippensis
Caprimulgus manillensis
Collocalia esculenta
Collocalia troglodytes
Hirundapus celebensis
Halcyon chloris
Halcyon smyrnensis
Ceyx lepidus
Alcedo atthis
Merops philippinus
Merops viridis
Megalaima haemacephala
Pitta sordida
Gerygone sulphurea
Phylloscopus borealis
Emerald Dove
White-eared Brown Dove
Black-chinned Fruit Dove
Plaintive Cuckoo
Brush Cuckoo
Hodgson’s Hawk-Cuckoo
Philippine Coucal
Common Koel
Philippine Hawk-Owl
Philippine Nightjar
Glossy Swiftlet
Pygmy Swiftlet
Purple Needletail
White-collared Kingfisher
White-throated Kingfisher
Variable Dwarf-Kingfisher
Common Kingfisher
Blue-tailed Bee-eater
Blue-throated Bee-eater
Coppersmith Barbet
Hooded Pitta
Golden-bellied Gerygone
Arctic Warbler
Family Species
Common Name
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Station 3
(Pagatban)
R
X
X
PE
X
X
PE
X
R
X
R
X
M
X
PE
X
X
R
X
X
PE
X
X
PE
X
X
R
X
X
PE
X
X
MX
R
X
X
M
X
M
X
M
X
X
R
X
X
R
X
R
X
X
R
X
RX
MX
Station 1
Statio 2
Table 1. (Continued...)
96
VOL. 52 NO.2
VOL. 52 NO. 2
Artamidae
Campephagidae
Laniidae
Oriolidae
Corvidae
Dicruridae
Motacillidae
Monarchidae
Hirundinidae
Cisticolidae
Muscicapidae
Pycnonotidae
Acrocephalus orientalis
Oriental Reed-Warbler
Megalurus palustris
Striated Grassbird
Megalurus timoriensis
Tawny Grassbird
Locustella ochotensis
Middendorff ’s Grasshopper-Warbler
Orthotomus castaneiceps Philippine Tailorbird
Artamus leucorynchus
White-breasted Wood-swallow
Lalage nigra Pied Triller
Lanius cristatus
Brown Shrike
Lanius schach
Long-tailed Shrike
Oriolus chinensis
Black-naped Oriole
Corvus macrorhynchos
Large-billed Crow
Dicrurus balicassiusBalicassiao
Anthus novaeseelandae
Richard’s Pipit
Hypothymis azurea
Black-naped Monarch
Hirundo tahitica
Pacific Swallow
Hirundo rustica
Barn Swallow
Hirundo daurica
Red-rumped Swallow
Cisticola exilis
Bright-capped Cisticola
Cisticola juncidis
Zitting Cisticola
Muscicapa griseisticta
Grey-streaked Flycatcher
Cyornis rufigastra
Mangrove Blue Flycatcher
Rhipidura javanica
Pied Fantail
Pycnonotus goiavier Yellow-vented Bulbul
Family Species
Common Name
Station 3
(Pagatban)
M
X
R
X
X
X
R
X
M
X
PE
X
X
X
R
X
X
X
R
X
X
X
M
X
X
X
R
X
R
X
X
X
R
X
X
X
PE X
X
R
X
R
X
R
X
X
X
M
X
X
X
M
X
R
X
R
X
MX
R
X
X
X
R
X
X
X
R
X
X
X
Station 1
Statio 2
97
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82 species
Station 3
(Pagatban)
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61 sp.
62 sp.
52 sp.
PE
X
X
R
X
X
X
R
X
XX
R
X
X
X
R
X
PE, Vu
X
R
X
X
R
X
X
R
X
X
X
R
X
R
X
X
X
R
X
X
X
38 Families
Philippine Bulbul
Asian Glossy Starling
Coleto
Oriental Magpie-Robin
Pied Bushchat
Visayan Flowerpecker
Orange-bellied Flowerpecker
Yellowish White-eye
Olive-backed Sunbird
Crimson Sunbird
Eurasian Tree Sparrow
Chestnut Munia
Ixos philippinus Aplonis panayensis Sarcops calvus
Copsychus saularis
Saxicola caprata
Dicaeum haematostictum
Dicaeum trigonostigma
Zosterops nigrorum
Nectarinia jugularis
Aethopyga siparaja
Passer montanus
Lonchura malacca
Station 1
Statio 2
Sturnidae
Turdidae
Dicaeidae
Zosteropidae
Nectariniidae
Ploceidae
Estrildidae
Family Species
Common Name
98
VOL. 52 NO.2
99
Table 2.
Mammals observed in three stations from March to November, 2010.
Note: En—Endangered; Vu—Vulnerable; X—present
Family Species
Common Name
Pteropodidae
Cynopterus
brachyotis
Common Short-nosed
Fruit Bat
Station 1 Statio 2
Station 3
(Cabig-tian)(Aya-aya) (Pagatban)
X
X
X
MacroglossusDagger-toothed
minimus
Flower Bat
X
X
X
Ptenochirus
jagori
Musky Fruit Bat
X
X
X
Eonycteris
spelaea
Common Nectar
Bat
X
X
Rousettus
Common Rousette
amplexicaudatus
X
X
Pteropus
pumilus, Vu
Little Golden-mantled
Flying Fox
X
X
Nyctimene
rabori, En
Tube-nosed Fruit Bat
X
Muridae
Rattus tanezumiOriental House Rat
X
Soricidae
Suncus murinus Asian House Shrew
X
X
3 Families
9 species
7 sp.
9 sp.
X
X
5 sp.
bats were also seen at dusk (around 6:00 pm) in all stations but were
not captured.
Two threatened species (based on IUCN 2010) of bats, Nyctimene
rabori (Endangered) and Pteropus pumilus (Vulnerable) were caught
with mist-nets during the dry season (March-April 2010) but were
no longer captured during the wet season (August-September 2010).
Five individuals of the Tube-nosed Fruit Bat Nyctimene rabori were
captured near a fruiting “Aya/dalakit” tree (Ficus balete) adjacent to
the Pagatban River in Station 3.
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100
Table 3.
Checklist of amphibians and reptiles observed in the three stations of Pagatban
River. Note: En—Endangered
Family Species
Common Name
Bufonidae
Rhinella marina Giant Marine Toad
Ceratobatrachidae Platymantis
spelaeus, En
Station 1 Statio 2
Station 3
X
Negros Cave Frog
X
X
X
X
Platymantis
dorsalis
Common Forest Frog
X
Ranidae
Rana erythraea Common Green Frog
X
Fejervarya
vittigera
Luzon Wart Frog
X
Fejervarya
cancrivora
Asian Brackish
Water Frog
Racophoridae
Polypedates
leucomystax
Common Tree Frog
Microhylidae
KaloulaTruncate-digit X
conjuncta
Chorus Frog
X
Bataguridae
Cuora
amboinensis
Malayan Fresh-water
Turtle
X
X
Agamidae
Hydrosaurus
pustulatus
Sailfin Water Lizard
X
X
Draco
spilopterus
Common Flying
Lizard
X
Varanidae
Varanus
nuchalis
Water Monitor
Lizard
X
Gekkonidae
CosymbotusFlat-bodied
platyurus
House Gecko
X
X
HemidactylusCommon
frenatus
House Gecko
X
X
Gekko gecko
X
X
Tokay Gecko
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
GekkoMindoro
mindorensis
Narrow-disked Gecko
X
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101
Checklist of amphibians and reptiles observed in the three stations of Pagatban River.
Note: En-Endangered
Family Species
Common Name
Station 1 Statio 2
Station 3
Scincidae
Mabuya
multifasciata
Common mabouya
X
X
X
Lamprolepis
smaragdina
Common Tree Skink
X
X
X
Boidae
Python
reticulatus
Reticulated Python
X
Striped Bronze Back
X
Colubridae
Dendrelaphis
caudolineatus
terrificus
X
Lycodon
capucinus
Wolf Snake
X
Oxyrhabdium
modestum
Shrub Snake
X
12 Families
22 species 18 spp.
9 spp.
13 spp.
Herpetofauna
There were 22 species of herpetofauna documented during the study
(Table 3). Between stations, Cabigti-an (Station 1) had the highest
number of species with 14 species followed by Station 3 with 13 species
while Station 2 had the lowest number with only eight species. Of the
22 species, eight are amphibians including the Endangered Negros
Limestone Forest Frog Platymantis spelaeus. The species was observed
in the karst forest in Station 3 on a rainy night (95-100% humidity) of
17 April 2010 with an estimated density of 250-300 individuals per
hectare based on the number of calling males heard. In August 2010,
the species was heard consistently from 6:00pm to 9:00pm even in the
absence of rain, probably coinciding with the species’ mating season.
The species was also heard in the fragmented karst forest in Station
2 during August and September surveys but of lower densities (ca.
200 individuals per hectare at 100% relative humidity). As far as can
VOL. 52 NO. 2
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102
be ascertained, the density of P. spelaeus at 100% relative humidity
(based on the number of calling males) in the karst forest in station 3
was between 250-300 individuals per hectare. The current estimate is
lower than as reported by Alcala et al. (2004) and Alcala and Alcala
(2005). In Station 1, another frog species (Platymantis dorsalis) was
consistently heard from August to November 2010. Juveniles of the
ranid frog Fejervarya vittigera were also observed in the same station.
The remaining 14 species include one species of turtle (Cuora
amboinensis), two agamids (Hydrosaurus pustulatus and Draco
spilopterus), one monitor lizard (Varanus nuchalis), four gekkonids
(including Gekko mindorensis), two skinks (Mabuya multifasciata
and Lamprolepis smaragdina), and four snakes (e.g. Dendrelaphis
caudolineatus). The Philippine Crocodile Crocodylus mindorensis which
used to inhabit Pagatban River (Ross & Alcala, 1983) is probably
extinct in the area.
Discussion
Although the riparian vegetation in our study area is mainly degraded,
the certain forest patches, especially on karst, still support a number of
forest-dwelling species. It has been established that karst or limestone
habitats support endemic vertebrate species (Clements et al., 2006;
Siler et al., 2007, 2009, 2010). In this study, the Negros Limestone
Frog Platymantis spelaeus was found only in the karst habitats while
its congener P. dorsalis was found in a non-karst habitat. This pattern
was also reported by Alcala et al. (2004).
Most of the bird species are known to thrive in degraded habitats
such as agricultural forests, scrubs, and grassland (Kennedy et al.,
2000). The threatened fruit bat Nyctimene rabori was captured in a
degraded coastal forest in Station 1 probably while foraging on fruiting
Ficus balete. Contrary to our observation, Heaney and Peterson (1984)
assumed that this fruit bat is “a relatively uncommon bat in upland
dipterocarp forest and apparently absent outside of forested regions,
and may be typically a high-canopy forest species.”
The abandoned mining pond in Cabigtian is a habitat for some
water birds, including the threatened Philippine Duck Anas luzonica
and some migratory species (e.g. Actitis hypoleucos). The estuarine area
also harbors migratory shorebirds such as Egrets (Egretta garzetta),
Striated Heron (Butorides striatus), and plovers (Charadrius spp.).
Except for E. garzetta, which has a population that may remain in the
country after the northward migration season (Kennedy et al., 2000),
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
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103
these migratory bird species were not observed during the months of
May through July.
Human activities, particularly farming and charcoal production,
are ongoing and therefore pose as a primary threat to the remaining
habitats of vertebrates in the area.
Summary and Conclusion
Preliminary assessment on the vertebrate fauna of Pagatban River
indicates that in three survey stations, there are 82 species of birds,
nine species of mammals, and 22 species of herptiles (amphibians
and reptiles). There were five threatened species observed, including
two species of birds (A. luzonica and D. haematostictum), two species
of mammals (P. pumilus and N. rabori), and one species of frog (P.
spelaeus).
The Philippine Crocodile (Crocodylus mindorensis), however, was
not encountered and is probably extinct in the area.
We hope that the presence of endemic and threatened species
in the study area would eventually stimulate the concerned local
government units and local non-government organizations to help
preserve the species and their habitats.
Acknowledgments
We thank the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) for funding the research
project. Dr. Angel C. Alcala and Dr. Orencio Lachica of SU-CHED Zonal Research
Center facilitated the approval of this project. The LGU of Bayawan City provided
transportation used by the survey team. Desmond Allen of the Oriental Bird Club
(London, UK) confirmed identity of some doubtful species and Dr. Thomas Brooks
(Conservation International) provided additional reference materials. Jez Bird of
BirdLife International, London donated a copy (CD-ROM) of the latest assessment
on the threatened birds (Threatened Birds of the World 2008). We also thank our local
field assistants for much help during the conduct of the field surveys. A.C. Alcala
reviewed an earlier draft of this manuscript.
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VOL. 52 NO. 2
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A Survey of the Riparian Vertebrate Fauna of
Señora River, Siquijor Island,
Central Philippines
Michael Lawton R. Alcala
Biology Department
Silliman University
Abner A. Bucol
and Environmental Management, Dumaguete City
Rosalina Catid
Siquijor State College
Larena
Jocelyn Elise Basa
Biology Department
Silliman University
Irish Sequihod
St. Paul University
Dumaguete City
Albert Pagente and Will Kilat
Larena
An assessment on the status of the riparian vertebrates of Señora
River in Siquijor Island was conducted from February-May, 2011
using purposive sampling techniques. This study observed 40
species of birds, five species of amphibians, 13 species of reptiles,
and 10 species of mammals.
Keywords: assessment, riparian, vertebrates, Siquijor,
Philippines
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
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M.L. ALCALA, A.A. BUCOL, ET AL.
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Introduction
he Philippines is one of the 17 megadiverse countries in the
world, with high species richness and endemism (Heaney &
Regalado, 1998; Ong, Afuang, & Rosell-Ambal, 2002; Brown &
Diesmos, 2009). At the same time, it shares only with Madagascar the
distinction of also being one of the world's top 25 global conservation
hotspots (Myers et al., 2000).
Siquijor is a coralline island with an area of 344 km2 located in
northwestern side of the Bohol Sea and about 75km southeast of
Negros Island. The highest elevation in Siquijor is 600 m.a.s.l. on Mt
Malabahoc in Bandilaan Natural Park, the largest forest reserve in the
island.
The island’s vegetation consists mainly of secondary forest growth
and agricultural crops and fruit trees. Steep limestone outcrops occur
in the western and northwestern part of the island, with trees such as
Alstonia, Ficus, and Erythrina growing on them. Palms (Heterospathe)
and lianas are found common on this part of the island. Degraded
areas are dominated by the exotic lantana (Lantana camara), cogon
(Imperata cylindrica), and several species of shrubs and weeds.
Earlier workers published papers based on materials collected
from Siquijor. For example, Leviton (1963, 1978) reported two
species of snakes, Brown and Alcala (1978, 1980) reported scincid
and gekkonid lizards and Rand & Rabor (1957, 1959) described the
endemic subspecies of birds in the island.
This study on the riparian vertebrates of Señora River in the
Siquijor Island is an attempt to contribute to the inventory of certain
groups of animals associated with this river system.
T
Description of the Survey Stations
Señora River (Figure 1) is located in the municipality of Lazi, Siquijor.
Three survey locations were established, in the upper reaches
(Capalasanan), middle segment (Cambugahay), and lower reaches
(Simacolong) of the river. These were designated as stations 1, 2, and
3, respectively.
VOL. 52 NO. 2
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
108
survey of riparian vertebrATE FAUNA OF SEÑORA RIVER
Figure 1. Map showing the location of the survey sites along the Senora River,
Lazi, Siquijor. Map Layouts: A. Bucol and J. Maypa.
The vegetation in Station 1 (Capalasanan near the Kawasan Cave)
is predominantly native tree species such as balete, labnog, etc. (Ficus
spp.), lomboy (Syzygium cumini) and buto-buto (Ardisia pyramidalis).
Exotic trees such as gmelina (Gmelina arborea), and mahogany
(Swietenia macrophylla) were also observed.
Station 2 (Cambugahay Falls and vicinity) has steep karst
topography. The presence of small falls formed by a series of karstic
slopes attracted both local and foreign tourists. The periphery of the
area is planted with coconuts, and other agricultural plant species
except in steep slopes where some karst-adapted trees like Ficus,
alum (Macaranga tanarius), and Alstonia sp. remain.
Station 3 (Tigbawan-Simacolong, vicinity of the Senora Bridge)
is mainly of agricultural-plantation-residential type. Coconuts and
other fruit-bearing trees like mangoes (Mangifera indica) are also
common. The estuarine mangrove nipa (Nypa fruticans) was found
abundant near the mouth of the river.
Field Techniques
Birds were surveyed using transect walk method (MacKinnon &
Philips, 1993; Bibby, Jones, & Marsden, 1998) with the aid of binoculars
for identification using the field guide Birds of the Philippines by
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
VOL. 52 NO.2
109
Kennedy et al. (2000). List of birds, however, follows the updated
sequence used by the Oriental Bird Club (OBC), available in www.
orientalbirdimages.org/checklist.
Mist nets measuring 6m x 4m were also set near fruiting trees and
flyways to maximize capture. Individuals captured were immediately
identified, photographed, and released.
Bats were surveyed using mist nets (the same nets as utilized for
bird surveys). Taxonomic identification of bat species was based on
Ingle & Heaney (1992) and Sedlock & Ingle (2010). Captured bats
were immediately released after identification.
The reptiles and amphibians were surveyed through cruising
only (as used by Alcala, Alcala, & Dolino, 2004, Alcala & Alcala, 2005).
Identification of amphibians followed Alcala and Brown (1998) while
that of reptiles follow Brown and Alcala (1978, 1980), and Alcala (1986).
Results AND Discussion
Avifauna
A total of 40 bird species (Table 1) were recorded from the three
survey stations from February through June, 2011, comprising
of 36 resident species (six are Philippine endemics), and only four
migrant species. Most of the species were recorded in Station 1 in
Barangay Capalasanan, Lazi with 33 species, followed by Station 2
(Cambugahay Falls and vicinity) with 29 species while only 19 species
were recorded in Station 3 (vicinity of Señora Bridge).
Out of the six threatened species known to occur in Siquijor, only
the Streak-breasted Bulbul Ixos siquijorensis was encountered in this
study. This species is currently recognized as an endangered species
by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN),
according to BirdLife International (2008). This study recorded the
Striated Grassbird Megalurus palustris, a species previously unreported
on Siquijor, based on the range map provided by Kennedy et al. (2000).
Mammalian Fauna
Ten species of mammals are known in the three survey stations (Table
2). Only one threatened species Pteropus pumilus (Vulnerable) was
mistnetted during the survey. The Cave in Station 1 hosts a population
of the insectivorous bat Hipposiderus diadema.
VOL. 52 NO. 2
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
110
Table 1.
List of birds observed in the three sampling stations of Señora River. Note: X—
present; R—resident; M—migrant; PE—Philippine Endemic; M—migrant
English Name
Scientific Name
Status
STRIATED HERON
CATTLE EGRET
LITTLE EGRET
BRAHMINY KITE
BARRED RAIL
WHITE-EARED
BROWN DOVE
SPOTTED DOVE
EMERALD DOVE
ZEBRA DOVE
PHILIPPINE COUCAL
ASIAN KOEL
PHILIPPINE HAWK-OWL
PHILIPPINE NIGHTJAR
GLOSSY SWIFTLET
PYGMY SWIFTLET
COMMON KINGFISHER
COLLARED KINGFISHER
HOODED PITTA
BARN SWALLOW
PACIFIC SWALLOW PIED TRILLER
STREAK-BREASTED
BULBUL
BLACK-NAPED ORIOLE
LARGE-BILLED CROW
ORIENTAL MAGPIE-ROBIN
GOLDEN-BELLIED FLYEATER
PIED FANTAIL
BLACK-NAPED MONARCH
MANGROVE BLUE
FLYCATCHER
WHITE-BREASTED
WOOD-SWALLOW
BROWN SHRIKE
LONG-TAILED SHRIKE
STRIATED GRASSBIRD
ASIAN GLOSSY STARLING
COLETO
PURPLE-THROATED
SUNBIRD OLIVE-BACKED SUNBIRD
ORANGE-BELLIED
FLOWERPECKER
EURASIAN TREE SPARROW
BLACK-HEADED MUNIA
Butorides striata
Bubulcus ibis
Egretta garzetta
Haliastur indus
Gallirallus torquatus
R
R
X
M
X
R
X
X
R
X
X
Paphitreron leucotis
Streptopelia chinensis
Chalcophaps indica
Geopelia striata
Centropus viridis
Eudynamys scolopaceus
Ninox philippensis
Caprimulgus manillensis
Collocalia esculenta
Collocalia troglodytes
Alcedo atthis
Todiramphus chloris
Pitta sordida
Hirundo rustica
Hirundo tahitica
Lalage nigra
PE
X
X
R
X
X
R
X
X
R
X
X
PE
X
X
R
X
PE
X
X
PE
X
X
R
X
X
PE
X
X
M
R
X
X
R
X
X
M
X
X
R
R
X
X
Ixos siquijorensis siquijorensis
Oriolus chinensis
Corvus macrorhynchos
Copsychus saularis
Gerygone sulphurea
Rhipidura javanica
Hypothymis azurea
PE
X
X
R
X
X
R
X
R
X
X
R
R
X
X
R
X
Cyornis rufigastra
R
Artamus leucorynchus
Lanius cristatus
Lanius schach
Megalurus palustris
Aplonis panayensis
Sarcops calvus
R
X
X
M
X
X
R
X
R
X
R
X
X
R
X
Nectarinia sperata
Cinnyris jugularis
R
R
X
X
X
X
Dicaeum trigonostigma besti
Passer montanus
Lonchura malacca
R
R
R
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
33
29
19
Total Number of species = 40 SILLIMAN JOURNAL
Station
123
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
VOL. 52 NO.2
111
Table 2.
List of amphibians, reptiles, and mammals observed in the sampling stations of
Señora River.
Family
Species Common Name
Station
123
HERPETOFUNA
Bufonidae
Ranidae
Ceratobatrachidae
Agamidae
Varanidae
Gekkonidae
Scincidae
Colubridae
Typhlopidae
Rhinella marina
Giant Marine Toad
X
X
X
Fejervarya vittigera
Common Pond Frog
X
Limnonectes visayanus
Stream Frog
X
Occidozyga laevis
Puddle Frog
X
Platymantis corrugatus
Forest Frog
X
Hydrosaurus pustulatus
Sailfin Lizard
X
Draco spilopterus
Flying Lizard
X
X
Varanus nuchalis
Monitor Lizard
X
Gekko gecko
Tokay Gecko
XXX
Hemidactylus frenatus
House Gecko
XX
Hemidactylus platyurus
House Gecko
XX
Lamprolepis smaragdina
philippinica
Emerald Tree Skink
X
X
X
Sphenomorphus steereiSkink
X
Cerberus rynchops
Dog-faced water snake
X
Lycodon capucinus SnakeX
Dendrelaphis terrificus
Vine Snake
X
Chrysopelea paradisi
Gliding Tree Snake
X
Ramphotyphlops cf.
cumingii
Blind Snake
X
Number of species: 18
9
12
6
MAMMALIA
Pteropodidae
Cynopterus brachyotis
Common Short-nosed
Fruit Bat
XX
Macroglossus minimus
Dagger-toothed Flower Bat X
X
Ptenochirus jagori
Musky Fruit Bat
X
X
Eonycteris spelaea
Common Nectar Bat
XX
Rousettus amplexicaudatus Common RousetteX
Pteropus pumilus, Vu
Little Golden-mantled
Flying Fox
XX
Hipposideridae
Hipposiderus diadema
Insect Bat
X
Vespertilionidae
Scotophilus cf kuhlii
Insect Bat
X
Soridae
Suncus murinus
House ShrewX
Muridae
Rattus tanezumi
Common House RatX
Number of species: 10
7
2
VOL. 52 NO. 2
X
X
8
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
112
Herpetofauna
This study encountered 18 species of herptiles, comprised of five
amphibians and 13 species of reptiles (Table 2). Forest dwelling species
such as the Pit Viper (Parias flavomaculatus) reported in the remaining
forests of Siquijor (e.g. Bandila-an Natural Park) by Beukema (2011)
and arboreal skinks of the genus Lipinia reported by Brown and Alcala
(1980) were not encountered in this study.
Acknowledgments
The completion of the research project “An Assessment of Señora River in Lazi,
Siquijor, in terms of its Biodiversity and Socio-economic Condition of the Inhabitants
along the River Bank” implemented by Siquijor State College would not have been
possible without the funding support from the Commission on Higher Education
(CHED) Grant-In-Aid Program through the Silliman University-CHED Zonal
Research Center (SU-CHED ZRC). We are also thankful to Drs. Angel C. Alcala
and Orencio D. Lachica (Former Director and Asst. Director of SU-CHED ZRC,
respectively) for their guidance and encouragement. The untiring support of Dr.
Baldomero Ramirez, the President of Siquijor State College, in this project is deeply
appreciated. Dr. Ely L. Alcala (Acting Director of SUAKCREM) is also thanked for
allowing us to rent field equipment used in this study. We also thank an anonymous
reviewer for helpful comments that greatly improved the manuscript.
REFERENCES
Alcala, A.C. (1986). Guide to Philippine flora and fauna. Amphibians and reptiles.
Natural Resources Management Center, Ministry of Natural Resources and
University of the Philippines (Vol. 10). Quezon City, Philippines: JMC Press, Inc.
195 pp.
Alcala, A.C., & Brown, W.C. (1998). Philippine Amphibians. An illustrated field guide.
Quezon City, Philippines: Bookmark.
Alcala, E.L., Alcala, A.C. & Dolino, C.N. (2004). Amphibians and reptiles in tropical rain
forest fragments on Negros Island, the Philippines. Environmental Conservation,
31: 254-261.
Alcala, E.L., & Alcala, A.C. (2005). Aspects of ecology and threats to the habitats
of three endemic herpetofaunal species on Negros and the Gigante Islands,
Philippines. Silliman Journal, 46, 169-194.
Beukema, W. (2011). First record of the genus Tropidonophis (Serpentes: Colubridae)
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
VOL. 52 NO.2
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and rediscovery of Parias flavomaculatus (Serpentes: Viperidae) on Siquijor
Island, Philippines. Herpetology Notes, 4, 177-179.
BirdLife International (2008). Threatened birds of the world. CD-ROM. (also available
at www.birdlife.org).
Bibby, C., Jones, M., & Marsden, S. (1998). Expedition field techniques: Bird surveys.
London: Royal Geographic Society.
Brown, R.M. & Diesmos, A.C. (2009). Philippines, Biology. In R. Gillespie & D. Clague
(Eds). Encyclopedia of Islands. Berkely, California: University of California Press.
Brown, W.C., & Alcala, A.C. (1978). Philippine lizards of the Family Gekkonidae.
Brown, W.C., & Alcala, A.C. (1980). Philippine lizards of the Family Scincidae.
Heaney, L.R., & Regalado, J.C. (1998). Vanishing treasures of the Philippine rain
forest. Chicago, USA: The Field Museum.
Ingle, N.R., & Heaney, L.R. (1992). A key to the bats of the Philippine Islands.
Fieldiana Zoology No. 64, 44.
Kennedy, R.S., Gonzales, P.C., Dickinson, E.C., Miranda, H.C. Jr., & Fisher, T.H.
(2000). A Guide to the Birds of the Philippines. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Leviton, A.E. (1963). Remarks on the zoogeography of Philippine snakes. Proc
California Acad Sci 4th series 31(15), 369–416.
Leviton, A.E. (1970). Contributions to a review of Philippine snakes, XII. The
Philippine snakes of the genus Dendrelaphis (Serpentes: Colubridae). Manila:
Manila Bureau of Printing.
MacKinnon, J. & Philipps, K. (1993). A field guide to the birds of Borneo, Sumatra,
Java and Bali. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Myers, N.A., Mittermeier, R.A., Mittermeier, C.G., da Fonseca, G.A.B., & Kent, J.
(2000). Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities. Nature, 403, 853–858.
Ong, P. S., Afuang, L. E., & Rosell–Ambal, R. G. (eds.) (2002). Philippine biodiversity
conservation priorities: A second iteration of the National Biodiversity Strategy
and Action Plan. Quezon City: DENR–PAWB, Conservation International
Philippines, Biodiversity Conservation Program UP Center for Integrative and
Development Studies and Foundation for the Philippine Environment.
Rand, A.L. & Rabor, D.S. (1957). New birds from the Philippines. Fieldiana Zoology
42, 13-18.
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Rand, A.L. & Rabor, D.S. (1959). Birds of the Philippine Islands: Siquijor, Mt.
Malindang, Bohol and Samar. Fieldiana Zoology 35, 221-441.
Sedlock, J.L. & Ingle, N. (2010). Cave bats of the Philippines. Retrieved from www.
seabcru.org.
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
VOL. 52 NO.2
Notes on the Biology
of the Green Tree Skink
Lamprolepis smaragdina philippinica
(Scincidae) in
Siquijor Island, Philippines
Abner A. Bucol
and Environmental Management
Michael Lawton R. Alcala
Biology Department
Silliman University
Rosalina Catid
Larena
Jocelyn Elise Basa
Biology Department
Silliman University
Irish Sequihod
St. Paul University
Dumaguete City
Albert Pagente
Larena
Will Kilat
Larena
VOL. 52 NO. 2
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
116
NOTES ON BIOLOGY OF GREEN TREE SKINK IN SIQUIJOR
Observations on the biology of the Green Tree Skink Lamprolepis
smaragdina were conducted in Siquijor Island, Philippines.
Morphological features such as body proportions, scale counts,
and coloration of the population in Siquijor were contrasted
with those from neighboring population on Negros Island. The
population density of the species was also determined. Incidental
observations on the foraging behavior are also presented.
Keywords: biology, behavior, Lamprolepis smaragdina, skink,
Siquijor
T
Introduction
he Green Tree Skink Lamprolepis smaragdina philippinica Mertens,
1929 is widely distributed from Taiwan and the Philippines
southward and eastward, through the Indo-Australian
Archipelago, to northern Australia (Cape York), the Solomon Islands,
Santa Cruz Islands, and to easternmost parts of Micronesia (Brown &
Alcala, 1980; Perry & Buden, 1999; Iskandar & Erdelen, 2006; Linkem
et al., In Press).
The species is characterized by having only the head and anterior
part of the body green and the rest of the body brown (Brown &
Alcala, 1980; Brown et al., 1996). However, some of its populations in
small islands like in Micronesia (Perry & Buden, 1999), Caluya Island
(Siler & Linkhem, 2011) and Siquijor (this study) in the Philippines
are generally green with black blotches on dorsum while the brown
or rufous region is limited only in the proximal dorsal portion of hind
limbs.
On several occasions, we made several opportunistic observations
on the biology of Lamprolepis smaragdina in Siquijor (Figure 1) on the
following dates: 15-20 February, 18-20 March, 05-08 April, 15-16 May,
20-21 June, and 16 July, 2011.
In addition, short-term observations of the species in other islands
such as in Luzon (15 May 2009), Negros (July, August, September
2009), Panay and associated smaller islands of Gigantes (15 December
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
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A.A. BUCOL, M.L. ALCALA, ET AL.
117
Figure 1. Map of Siquijor Island showing the location of the study area.
2009) and off Carles, Nasidman and Calbazas off Ajuy (12 May 2010)
made by the first author were also noted.
Preserved specimens at the Silliman University-Rodolfo Gonzales
Museum of Natural History (SU-RBG) were also examined.
Results AND Discussion
Morphological Variations
In most regions within the Philippines, the species is characterized
by having only the head and anterior part of the body green and the
rest of the body brown (Brown & Alcala, 1980; Brown et al., 1996).
The color pattern of the population in Negros appeared consistent in
other populations such as in Luzon, Mindanao, Panay and associated
islets except in Caluya (see photos by C.D. Siler in Herpwatch.org).
The population in Siquijor has generally green body with black
longitudinal streaks forming obscure blotches on dorsum while the
brown or rufous region is limited only in the proximal dorsal portion
of hind limbs.
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118
Figure 2. Live photo of the Green Tree-skink (Lamprolepis smaragdina)
in Lazi, Siquijor. Photo by J.E. Basa.
A summary of the morphometric features of the skink is presented
in Table 1. Compared with the available specimens of the neighboring
population in Negros Island, the Siquijor population appears to
have [1] higher SVL measurements (76-105mm vs. 83mm SVL); [2]
higher dorsal (48-51 vs. 42-44) and ventral scale counts (52-59 vs. 51);
and [3] color (predominantly green vs. generally brownish). These
characteristics were consistent in both juvenile and adult stages of the
two populations.
The overall green coloration of isolated population in Siquijor
Island (Figure 2) has been documented elsewhere such in Micronesia
(Perry & Buden, 1999) and Indonesia (Iskandar & Erdelen, 2006). This
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
VOL. 52 NO.2
119
Table 1.
Summary of Morphometric Features of Lamprolepis smaragdina in Siquijor.
Characters
N
Mean±S.E.
Ranges (mm)
Total Length (mm)
Snout-Vent Length (mm)
Tail (mm)
Axilla-Groin Distance (mm)
Forelimb (mm)
Hind Limb (mm)
Head Width (mm)
Head Length (mm)
Body width (mm)
Dorsal Scales
Ventral Scales
Axilla-Groin Scales
Upper Labial Scales
Lower Labial Scales
Fourth toe Lamellae
7
8
6
8
8
8
8
5
8
8
8
7
8
8
8
245.57±9.39
97.63±3.28
142.67±7.37
49.75±1.81
33.63±0.65
42.25±1.51
13.88±1.18
21.90±0.33
19.25±1.01
49.50±0.42
55.25±0.84
32.00±0.69
7.88±0.23
7.88±0.23
33.25±1.50
217-283
76-105
130-178
41-57
30-36
34-47
10.5-19
21-23
15-23
48-51
52-59
29-34
7-9
7-9
30-43
case might be attributed to “founder effect” as suggested by Perry
and Buden (1999).
It should be noted that Siquijor Island has been isolated from
the rest of the Visayan Ice-age Islands (also known as the Visayan
Pleistocene Aggregate Island Complex by other authors) during the
last glacial maxima (Brown et al., 2001, 2008). A molecular phylogenetic
study of the L. smaragdina by Linkhem et al. (In Press) revealed that
the population in Siquijor is more affiliated to the populations in
Camiguin Sur and Palawan and not of the Negros and neighboring
islands like Bohol. Aside from L. smaragdina, another lizard (Draco
spilopterus) has been known to exhibit slight morphological variation
in Siquijor (e.g., color differences; McGuire & Alcala, 2000; McGuire
& Heang, 2001).
Habits and Behavior
The species is generally arboreal but may reach the ground and nearby
man-made structures when foraging (Reyes, 1957; Brown & Alcala,
1980; Buden, 2000). The species was often encountered foraging on
trees, especially near colonies of ants and termites. It was also seen in
VOL. 52 NO. 2
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120
mangroves, probably feeding on insects. In one occasion, it was seen
feeding on the flying lizard (Draco spilopterus) in Siquijor (E. Basa and
M.L.R. Alcala, pers. obsrv.).
Sightings of active L. smaragdina (presumed foraging) were usually
between 09h00-14h00, with ambient temperatures ranging from 2630°C. The skinks were not observed during heavy downpour of rain.
Skinks were also seen basking about 30 minutes after a short duration
of rain had completely stopped.
Population Density
In a coconut plantation (with an area of 0.5 ha) in Lazi, Siquijor, we
counted 22 individuals, thus the species’ extrapolated population
density would be 44 individuals/hectare in that area alone. It appears
that the density of the green skink is dependent on the availability of
trees. This species is most frequently observed in coconut plantations
around Siquijor’s heavily populated coastal areas.
It is interesting to note the significant decline (from about 1,500
individuals in the early 1960s to about 10 individuals in 2010) in the
population of L. smaragdina in Silliman University Campus where
A.C. Alcala monitored the population of L. smaragdina for at least
three years (1962-1965). Although the number of rain trees (Samanea
saman) is more or less the same as it was in the 1960s, it is possible
that the skink’s food items (mainly Lepidoptera, Coleoptera and
Hymenoptera) may have declined as a result of recent developments
such as contruction of new concrete buildings. Another potential
reason for the species’ population decline is that more skinks may
have been sacrificed for classroom studies (as initiated earlier by
Reyes, 1957). These possibilities, however, needs further quantitative
investigations.
Conclusions
and recommendations
The above findings highlight the need to conduct a more detailed
study on the biology of the green skink L. smaragdina in Siquijor
Island. There is also a need to monitor the population of this arboreal
skink because most of Siquijor’s forests have been converted to open
agricultural lands, mainly for corn and cassava.
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121
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) through its GrantIn-Aid (GIA) Program for funding the research project “An Assessment of Señora
River in Lazi, Siquijor, in terms of its Biodiversity and Socio-economic Condition of
the Inhabitants along the River Bank” implemented by Siquijor State College. Dr.
Angel C. Alcala and Dr. Orencio D. Lachica were instrumental in conceptualizing the
project. Dr. Rafe M. Brown (University of Kansas, USA) provided useful comments
on an earlier draft of this manuscript.
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Esselstyn, J.A., Oliveros, C.H., Moyle, R.G., Peterson, A.T., McGuire, J.A. & Brown,
R.M. (2010). Integrating phylogenetic and taxonomic evidence illuminates
complex biogeographic patterns along Huxley’s modification of Wallace’s Line.
Journal of Biogeography 2010, 1-13.
Iskandar, D.T. & Erdelen, W.R. (2006). Conservation of amphibians and reptiles in
Indonesia: Issues and problems, 4(1), 60-87.
Linkem, C. W., Brown, R. M., Siler, C.D., Evans, B. J., Austin, C.C., Iskandar,
D.T., Diesmos, A.C., Supriatna, J., Andayani, N., & McGuire, J. A.. (In Press).
Stochastic faunal exchanges drive diversification in widespread Wallacean and
Pacific Island lizards (Squamata: Scincidae: Lamprolepis smaragdina). Journal
of Biogeography, 40, 507–520.
McGuire, J.A. & Alcala, A.C. (2000). A taxonomic revision of the flying lizards (Iguania:
Agamidae: Draco) of the Philippine Islands, with a description of a new species.
Herpetological Monographs, 14, 81-138.
McGuire, J.A. & Heang, K.B. (2001). Phylogenetic systematics of Southeast Asian
VOL. 52 NO. 2
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flying lizards (Iguania: Agamidae: Draco) as inferred from mitochondrial sequence
data. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 72, 203-229.
Perry, G. & Buden, D.W. (1999). Ecology, behavior and color variation of the green
tree skink, Lamprolepis smaragdina (Lacertilia: Scincidae), in Micronesia.
Micronesica, 31(2), 263-273.
Reyes, A. Y. (1957). Notes on the food habits of a Philippine skink Dasia smaragdina
philippinica Mertens. Silliman Journal, 4, 180–191.
Siler, C.D. & Linkem, C.W. (2011). Lamprolepis smaragdina philippinica (Emerald
Green Tree Skink. Color variation. Herpetological Review, 42, 605.
Materials Examined
Lamprolepis smaragdina philippinica
SIQUIJOR ISLAND (1 specimen), Siquijor, Caticugan, coll: A. Bucol, L. Averia, and
M.L.R. Alcala; 7 August 2010; (7 specimens); Lazi town; coll: A. Bucol, M.L.R. Alcala,
E. Basa, I. Sequihod, and R. Catid; 1 July 2011.
NEGROS ISLAND, Damsite, Murcia, Negros Occidental; coll: Bago River Project
Team; 12 February 2010; 1 specimen.
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
VOL. 52 NO.2
Fishes and Macroinvertebrates
of Señora River, Siquijor Island,
Philippines with New Records
of the Genus Puntius (Cyprinidae)
in the Visayas
Abner A. Bucol
and Environmental Management
Rosalina Catid
Larena
An assessment on the fishes and macroinvertebrates of Señora
River in Siquijor Island was conducted from February-May, 2011
using a combination of fishing gears. The icthyofauna (fishes)
consist of 33 species in 22 Families while macroinvertebrates
included four species of shrimps, nine species of crabs, and six
species of mollusks. The Spotted Barb (Puntius binotatus) of the
Family Cyprinidae was documented in Señora River and this is
the first record of the genus in the Visayas.
Keywords: fishes, macroinvertebrates, river, Siquijor, Visayas
R
Introduction
ivers are running water bodies (lotic) that provide food (fishes
and macroinvertebrates) and other consumer processes for
humans, from provision for drinking water to their use as
important conduit for industrial, domestic, and agricultural sources
(Giller & Malmqvist, 1998). Contrasting with a common view of rivers
as continuous, longitudinal gradients in physical conditions,Thorp
et al. (2006) in their riverine ecosystem sysnthesis (RES) portrayed
rivers as downstream arrays of large hydrogeomorphic patches
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124
FISHES AND MAcroinvertebrates OF seÑora river
(e.g. constricted, braided and floodplain channel areas) formed by
catchment geomorphology and climate.
Rivers are generally understudied (Ward & Tockner, 2001) but
among the most threatened ecosystems, especially in the tropics
(Dudgeon et al., 2006).
Tropical Asian rivers, particularly in Southeast Asia, support a
rich but incompletely known array of fishes (Allen, 1991; ZakariaIsmail, 1994; Kottelat & Whitten, 1996; Fu et al., 2003; Davies 1999;
Bhakta and Bandyopadhyay, 2008), benthic invertebrates (Chase
& Bruce, 1993), and vertebrates adapted to riverine wetlands
(Dudgeon, 2000). Despite their importance, Asian rivers, including
those in the Philippines, remained poorly studied (Kottelat &
Whitten, 1996).
Philippine rivers have been studied in the past decades but
were mainly focused on the taxonomy of fishes (Herre, 1923, 1924,
1927, 1953; Roxas & Ablan, 1940) and crustaceans (Chase & Bruce,
1993; Ng and Takeda, 1993a, 1993b). Recent studies on river fishes
include Carumbana (2002), Chavez et al. (2006) and Hubilla, Kis, and
Primavera (2007).
This study aimed to present a comprehensive listing of the fishes
Figure 1. Map showing the location of the sampling stations in Señora River
relative to the Land Use Classification of the Municipality of Lazi, Province of
Siquijor, Philippines (Map courtesy of Geographic Atlas of Siquijor, 2000).
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
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a.a. bucol & r. catid
125
and macroinvertebrates found in Señora River on Siquijor Island. In
this river, fishes and crustaceans are harvested intermittently by the
locals, often with the aid of noxious chemicals and other gears such as
small-mesh gillnets. However, there has been no published account
on these organisms including their distribution in Señora River.
Survey Stations
Señora River is located in the municipality of Lazi, Siquijor (Figure
1). Three survey locations were established, in the head waters
(Capalasanan), middle segment (Cambugahay), and estuarine portion
(Simacolong) of the river. These were designated as stations 1, 2, and
3, respectively.
Station 1 (Figure 2) is one of the tributaries of Señora River
located in Barangay Capalasanan (9°10’37.6” N; 123°36’55.3” E).
It has a generally shallow (ca. 0.5m) and has a narrow (ca. 1m)
channel, originating from a subterranean (underground) stream.
The stream probably originated in the upper barangays as springs
or streams and is the source of small-scale irrigation system in
the area. Water velocity was strongest in this station with 0.27
m/s during the wet months and 0.11 m/s during the dry months.
However, average water discharge appears very minimal (below
0.5 cu.m/sec) throughout the year. The substrate is composed
Figure 2. Small streams in Station 1 (Capalasanan), near the cave entrance (left
photo); near coconut plantation (right). Photo by E. Basa.
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126
Figure 3. Small waterfalls (Cambugahay) in (Station 2) of Señora River. Photos
by A. Bucol.
mainly of limestone with sand and silt. Patches of smaller forests
can be seen in the vicinity but in most areas are rice paddies as
well as corn and cassava farms.
Station 2 (Figure 3) is located at Barangay Canclaran, near the
junction of the main channel and the tributary which drains water
from Capalasanan (9°08’48.3” N; 123°37’24.4” E; 50m above sea level).
Width ranged from about 10m (dry season) to about 20m (wet season).
Depth (0.32-0.73m) is irregular following the contour of the channel.
Because of the abrupt slope of the channel, three small “falls” are
visible, the highest of which is about 5m. Several boulder-sized rocks
can be found flanking the main channel. Average water discharge was
observed highest in this station (3-5 cu.m/sec). The adjacent banks are
steep with karst forests and bamboo grooves.
Station 3 (Figure 4) is the estuarine portion of the river (9°07’50.8”
N; 123°38’15.7” E, sea level), located in between the barangays of
Tigbauan and Nagerong. Width ranged from 15m to 20m while depth
ranged from 0.48 to 0.75m. It is located about 300m away from Lazi
Figure 4. Station 3 (estuarine) near the Nagerong Bridge.
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127
town. Average water discharge was measured between 1-2 3-5 cu.m/
sec. The substrate is muddy to silty in the middle and a combination
of limestone and silt in the shallower (littoral) portion. The immediate
banks are covered by nipa (Nypa fruticans), bamboo (Bambusa blumea)
thickets and other plant species including cultivated trees (e.g. mango
Mangifera indica), and several grasses and shrubs.
Collecting Techniques
Fishes and crustaceans were captured by means of gillnets, hook-andline, and fine-mesh nets. Mollusks were collected primarily by bare
hands. In addition, one of us (A. Bucol) made underwater observations
with the aid of an underwater camera to document certain fishes and
macroinvertebrates.
All samples were immediately preserved in 10% formalin then
brought to the Research Laboratory of Siquijor State College (SSC)
for further processing and taxonomic identification. A few samples
were also deposited at the Silliman University Rodolfo B. Gonzales
Museum of Natural History (SURBG). Gobioid fishes that need
further confirmation by specialists (ichthyologists) were deposited
at the Division of Fishes of the Smithsonian Institution, Maryland,
USA thru Dr. Jeffrey Williams, the collections manager. These
samples were verified by Dr. Edward Murdy, a specialist on gobies.
Dr. Ronald Watson of Florida Museum of Natural History and
Dr. Helen Larson of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern
Territory, Australia confirmed the identity of gobioid fishes while
Dr. Gerald Allen of Western Australian Museum confirmed
the identification of the brackish water damselfish based on
photographs. Dr. Hiroshi Senou of Kanagawa Prefectural Museum
of Natural History, Japan identified the mullets. The Spotted Barb
Puntius binotatus was confirmed by Bonifacio V. Labatos of UPLB, an
authority on Philippine cyprinids.
Species identification was based on available taxonomic
references: Allen (1991, 1999), Harrison and Senou (1999), and Larson
and Murdy (2001) for fishes, Chase and Bruce (1993) for shrimps, and
Serène and Soh (1970), Ng, Guinot, and Davie (2008), Bouchard et al.
(In Press) for crabs.
Fishes are classified ecologically based on Froese and Pauly (2011)
and Nelson (2006): (D)-diadromous: regularly living part of their
lives in lakes and rivers and part in the oceans; (C)-catadromous:
spawns in the ocean but returns to freshwater; (M)-marine species
VOL. 52 NO. 2
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Table 1.
List of Fishes Sampled From Señora River. Nelson (2006): (D)—diadromous: regularly
living part of their lives in lakes and rivers and part in the oceans; (C)—catadromous:
spawns in the ocean but returns to freshwater; (M)—marine species that sporadically
enters freshwater; (E)—euryhaline: species regularly entering brackish water from
either the oceans or rivers or both; (CF)—confined to freshwater
Family
Species
Classification* Herre
Station
(1953)1 2 3
Muraenidae
Gymnothorax tile
M
X
Elopidae
Elops machnata
E/M
X
Megalopidae
Megalops cyprinoides
E/M
X
Carangidae
Carangoides ferdau
M
X
Chanidae
Chanos chanos
E
X
Clariidae
Clarias batrachus
CF
X
Hemirhamphidae Zenarchopterus dispar
E/M
X
Mugilidae
Chelon subviridis
D
X
Chelon macrolepis
D
X
Mugil cephalus
D
X
X
Moolgarda? seheli
D
X
X
Kuhliidae
Kuhlia rupestris
E/D
X
Kuhlia marginata
E/D
X
X
Apogonidae
Apogon hyalosoma
E/D
X
Lutjanidae
Lutjanus
argentimaculatus
E/D
X
Lutjanus russelli
M
X
Sparidae
Acanthopagrus berda M
Toxotidae
Toxotes jaculatrix
E/D
X
X
Chandidae
Ambassis interrupta
D
X
Gobiidae
Periopthalmus
argentilineatus
E
X
Awaous ocellaris
D
X
X
X
Stiphodon
atropurpureus
D
X
X
Exyrias puntang
E
X
Glossogobius celebius
E
X
Glossogobius giuris
E
X
Eleotridae
Eleotris fusca
D
X
X
Ophiocara porocephala
D
X
Ophieleotris aporos
D
X
X
Butis amboinensis
D
X
Oxyeleotris gyrinoides
D
X
X
Tetraodontidae Arothron reticularis
E/M
X
Cichlidae
Oreochromis niloticus
D
X
X
Cyprinidae
Puntius binotatus
CF
X
X
Poeciliidae
Poecilia reticulata
CF
X
Pomacentridae Pomacentrus
taeniometopon
D
X
Syngnathidae Microphis leiaspis
E
X
Number of species = 33 species
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
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8
10
23
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129
Table 2.
List of Macroinvertebrates From Señora River.
Family
Species
1
Station
2
SHRIMPS
Palaemonidae Macrobrachium mamillodactylus
Macrobrachium equidens
Macrobrachium australe
Atyidae Caridina endehensis
X
X
X
X
Number of species = 4
3
3
X
1
1
CRABS
Varunidae
Varuna litterata
X
Portunidae
Scylla serrata
Thalamita crenata
Sesarmidae
Geosesarma hednon
Perisesarma sp.
X
Uca dussumieri
Uca vocans
Macropthalmus sp.
Paguridae
Pagurussp.
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
1
7
Gastropoda
Melanoides granifera X
X
Thiara scabra
X
Littorina scabra
Nerita polita
Nerita pulligera
X
Clithon corona
X
X
3
1
MOLLUSKS
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1
3
X
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130
Table 3.
Morphometrics of four representative specimens of Puntius cf binotatus from Siquijor
Island.
Morphometric Characters
(Measurements in mm) 1
Specimen
2
3
4
Mean
S.D.
Total Length
Standard Length
Fork Length
Pre-anal Length
Pre-dorsal Length
Pre-pelvic Length
Pre-pectoral Length
Body Depth
Head Length
Eye diameter
Pre-orbital Length
34.5
30.5
33
22.5
15.5
16.5
8.5
9
7.5
2.5
2
30.88
26.63
29.13
19.63
13.75
13.50
7.75
7.75
7.13
2.25
2.00
6.73
4.05
5.78
2.53
2.06
2.68
1.19
1.76
1.11
0.29
0.41
38.5
29.5
35
21
15.5
15
9
9.5
8.5
2.5
2.5
26
24.5
25.5
17.5
11.5
11
6.5
6.5
6
2
1.5
24.5
22
23
17.5
12.5
11.5
7
6
6.5
2
2
Meristic counts
Dorsal IV, 8
IV, 9
IV, 8
Anal
III, 5
III, 6
III, 5
Pectorals
I, 15
I, 16
I, 16
Ventral
I, 9
I, 8
I, 8
Lateral line scales
24
ND
ND
Transverse scales
4.5/2.5 ND
ND
Scales from nape to dorsal 8
ND
ND
Scales from ventral and
lateral line
2.5
ND
ND
Scales around caudal
peduncle
12
ND
ND
ND—not determined, scales incomplete/detached
IV, 8
III, 6
I, 16
I, 8
22
4.5/2.5
8
IV, 8.25
III, 5.5
I, 15.75
I,8.25
23
4.5/2.5
8
0.50
0.58
0.50
0.50
1.41
0.00
0.00
2.5
2.5
0.00
12
12
0.00
that sporadically enters freshwater; (E)-euryhaline: species regularly
entering brackish water from either the oceans or rivers or both; (CF)confined to freshwater.
Results and Discussion
There were 34 fish species belonging to 22 Families identified in this
study from Señora River (Table 1). Between stations, most of the
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131
Figure 5. Spotted Barb (Puntius cf binotatus) from Cambugahay Falls (Station
2).
Figure 6. Other specimens of Puntius cf binotatus obtained from various
localities in Central Visayas: [A] Pagatban River, Cabigtian, Basay, Negros
Oriental; [B] Forest Camp, Cuernos de Negros, Valencia, Negros Oriental;
[C] Mabaho Cave, Mabinay, Negros Oriental; [D] Mt. Bandilaan Natural Park,
Siquijor Is.
fishes were collected in Station 3 (24 species), near the mouth of the
river. In stations 1 and 2, only eight and 10 species were recorded,
respectively.
The number of fish species in the Señora River is lower compared
to the larger rivers in the country like the Ilog River with 87 species
belonging to 44 families (see 2012 CHED unpublished report) and
the Bago River with 56 species in 33 families (Pacalioga et al. 2010);
both in Negros Occidental; Jalaur River, Iloilo with 51 species in 35
VOL. 52 NO. 2
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families (Alcala E. et al. 2010); the Agos River in Central Sierra Madre,
Luzon with 53 species in 38 families (Carumbana 2002). However,
the number of fishes in Señora River is much higher than the fish
species reported in the Siaton River, Negros Oriental (Carumbana
2006 unpubl. manuscript) with 33 species in 28 families.
According to the ecological classification of fishes described
by Nelson (2006), majority of the species (14) can be considered
diadromous. Only three species can be classified as true freshwater
fishes, two of which are introduced species (Clarias batrachus and
Poecilia reticulata) while only the Spotted Barb (Puntius binotatus) can
be considered as a primary freshwater fish which has a widespread
distribution (Froese & Pauly, 2011). The rest of the species are classified
as marine (four species), and a combination of euryhaline and marine
species (four species) or euryhaline and diadromous species (five
species). Anguillids (catadromous fishes) were not sampled in this
study.
The aquatic macroinvertebrates consist of four species of shrimps,
nine species of crabs, and six species of mollusks (Table 2). Most of the
species listed are found in one or two sites only.
First Visayan record of
the Cyprinid Genus Puntius
This study documented for the first time the presence of the freshwater
cyprinid genus Puntius (Figure 5). Herre (1953) concluded that the
genus has a limited distribution in the following Philippine islands:
Mindanao, Palawan, and Mindoro. At least 10 specimens from the
upper reaches of Señora River and three in small freshwater streams
of the Bandilaan Natural Park were collected by the survey team.
At present, these specimens are tentatively considered under the
variable species Puntius binotatus Valenciennes, 1842. This highly
variable species, especially in terms of coloration, has a wide
distribution in Asia (Froese & Pauly, 2011). Herre (1940) suggested
that the species might be the parental stock of all Philippine endemic
members of the genus (see also Herre 1953). Table 3 provides detailed
measurements of four representative specimens of Puntius binotatus
from Siquijor.
During various visits in some river systems of Negros Island,
one of us (A. Bucol) also collected specimens of this genus in small
tributaries of Pagatban River in Basay, small streams in Mt. Talinis
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
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133
(Cuernos de Negros), Valencia, and springs and streams in Mabinay,
all in Negros Oriental province (Figure 6). It is remarkable that the
species was never reported in Negros Island, being one of the most
well explored islands of the country. The Mt. Talinis and Mabinay
areas have been explored by Silliman University biologists since the
1940s up to the present. It is possible that the genus Puntius may
have been confused as juveniles of the Common Carp Cyprinus carpio
Linnaeus, 1758 but can be easily distinguished from the latter for
having shorter dorsal fin base.
Conclusion
and recommendations
This study documented 33 species of fish and macroinvertebrates
composed of four species of shrimps, nine species of crabs, and
six species of mollusks. The Spotted Barb (Puntius binotatus) of the
Family Cyprinidae was documented in Señora River and this is the
first record of the genus in the Visayas. Future investigations should
aim to determine whether or not the genus is native to the Visayas.
Despite its small size, it has the number of species comparable to
some of the larger rivers such as the Siaton River in Negros Oriental.
However, fishing by means of noxious chemicals has been reported
to us in the upper reaches of the river. Conservation plan should
consider stopping the said activity of the locals.
Acknowledgments
We thank the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) for funding the research
project. Dr. A.C. Alcala (SU-AKCREM) provided initial comments on this manuscript.
The following are also thanked for the identification of fishes and crustaceans listed
in this study: Bonifacio V. Labatos (UPLB) for the cyprinids, Dr. Edward Murdy
(National Science Foundation), Dr. Ronald Watson (Florida Museum of Natural
History), Dr. Helen Larson (Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory,
Australia) for the gobies, Dr. Gerald Allen (Western Australian Museum) for the
brackish water damselfish, and Dr. Hiroshi Senou (Kanagawa Prefectural Museum
of Natural History, Japan) for the mullets.
VOL. 52 NO. 2
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134
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Thorp, J. H., Thoms, M.C., & Delong, M.D. (2006). The riverine ecosystem synthesis:
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Applications, 22(2), 123-147.
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
VOL. 52 NO.2
Assessment of Mangrove Management
Areas in Four Coastal Barangays of Bolinao,
Pangasinan, Philippines
Annie Melinda Paz-Alberto
Institute for Climate Change and Environmental Management
Central Luzon State University,
Muñoz, Nueva Ecija. Philippines
Annie Rose D. Teñoso
Pangasinan State University
Binmaley, Pangasinan, Philippines
This study aimed to assess the diversity of mangroves, fish, and
other economically important aquatic species and to determine the
physical, chemical and biological characteristics in the mangrove
management areas at Balingasay, Arnedo, Victory and Binabalian,
Bolinao, Pangasinan in order to evaluate the present condition of
these mangrove areas.
Based on the assessment made, the municipality of Bolinao has
established several projects and programs on the management of
the mangrove ecosystems. In the mangrove management areas,
24 mangrove tree species were found with Rhizophora mucronata
as the most dominant and densest among the species in each
area except in Balingasay where Nypa fruticans was the densest
and most dominant. Only 18 fish and invertebrate species were
identified from the four mangrove management areas. Polinces
aurontius, Trachycardium orbita, and Terebralia polustris had
the highest importance value index for the fish and invertebrate
species. Diversity index values of mangrove and other marine
species in the mangrove management areas are very low.
The physical, chemical and biological characteristics of
the mangrove ecosystems of Bolinao were found to be of good
water quality being within the optimum level set by the DENR for
marine species to thrive and replenish. However, all the mangrove
ecosystems obtained high total coliform and Barangay Balingasay
got also high fecal coliform which are attributed to domestic
wastes.
The mangrove management areas still have low diversity of
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138
mangrove management areas of bolinao, pangasinan
mangroves and other marine species and high total and fecal
coliform due to human activities. Hence, for the attainment of
sustainability of the mangrove management areas, it is imperative
that there should be a strong cooperation, coordination and
involvement among the key stakeholders such as local and national
government and the local community to address the issues and
problems present in the mangrove areas.
Keywords: Mangrove management areas, total coliform, fecal
coliform, species diversity, mangroves, fish and invertebrates
T
Introduction
he Philippines has rich coastal resources. With its numerous
islands, the Philippines has a total coastline of about 36,289
km or 22,549 mi (BFAR, 1996). However, management of these
resources by national level has failed to curtail the degradation and
overexploitation of these coastal resources that became widespread in
the Philippines (White & Cruz-Trinidad, 1998) indicating a high level
of degradation primarily from fishing practices, overexploitation,
siltation, pollution, and habitat loss.
In order to optimally utilize and reap the benefits without
hampering the fragile balance, adoption of integrated coastal
management strategies must be done. Based on solid scientific
foundation, this will allow multiple uses of the resources without
causing serious damage to the environment. Unlike land resources,
marine resources are not easy to fence-off and moreover, are often
considered as “common property” and available to all. Protection
and management of these resources are extremely difficult without
the support and cooperation of the stakeholder community.
In Lingayen Gulf, several studies were made by concerned
agencies. McManus and Chua (1990) compiled reports on the
coastal environmental profile of Lingayen Gulf which was the
basis for management interventions. The earlier study undertaken
by Mines (1986) in the Lingayen Gulf disclosed the dismaying
status of the gulf of which the exploitation rate has reached its
critical point. This report triggered concerned agencies to save
the gulf. Silvestre et al. (1991) outlined several measures to save
Lingayen Gulf. Coastal Resource Management (CRM) is one of the
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VOL. 52 NO.2
a.m.p. alberto & a.r.d. teÑoso
139
Figure 1. Geographic location of the four coastal barangays in Bolinao,
Pangasinan.
key management strategies.
Bolinao, one of the coastal municipalities of Pangasinan, has
experienced the challenges of degrading resources in its coastal
areas. With its 23 coastal barangays, most of the residents depend
on coastal resources for living. To maintain these valuable
resources, the local people in Bolinao have taken the initiative to
conserve their resources through the coastal resource management
programs like the establishment of marine fish sanctuary and
mangrove management areas. This kind of intervention started
in 1998 and has been adopted by some of the coastal barangays
of the municipality. Through the years, they have managed
to slowly deal with the problems on the degradation of their
coastal resources hoping to revive and save these resources and
their biodiversity. This study was aimed to assess the diversity
of mangroves, fish and other economically important aquatic
species and to determine the physical, chemical, and biological
characteristics of the mangrove management areas in Arnedo,
Balingasay, Victory and Binabailan, Bolinao, Pangasinan in order
to evaluate the conditions of these mangrove areas.
.
Methodology
Data Gathering
This study was conducted in the four coastal barangays of Bolinao
Pangasinan from November to December 2009: Arnedo, Balingasay,
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Binabalian and Victory (Figure 1)—areas identified to have active
coastal resource management programs. In these areas, mangrove
ecosystems were managed by the local communities and other
stakeholders. The data on mangrove management programs and
activities in the four coastal barangays were gathered by means of
an interview with the Municipal Agricultural Officer of Bolinao,
Pangasinan.
Mangrove Fisheries
Three sampling stations were established in the mangrove area with
a total area of 1500 m2 per barangay. A random sampling of different
species of mangrove, fish and other economically important species
in each station was done using the quadrat method. Ten quadrats
were laid in each station measuring 10m by 5 m. Mangrove species
were identified and counted for every quadrat. Fish and invertebrates
present in the mangrove area were assessed using two kinds of gear:
a gill net and cover pot. The gill net with a panel length of 10 m and
depth of 1 m were set along the mangrove fringe within the quadrats
for two hours on a falling tide in such a way that the flowing water
did not escape outside the limit of the net. The nets were hauled after
two hours. Likewise, the cover pots were used as supplemental gear
to catch those fishes and invertebrates trapped in the mangroves. The
cover pots were used during low tide to facilitate the catch. For gill
net, entangled fishes and invertebrates were disentangled and their
pictures were taken for identification. Species were identified based
on the works of Munro (1967), Conlu (1986), Fishbase (2010) and
Matsuda and Kaneda (1984). The number of individuals per species
was recorded.
Mangrove Community Structure
The mangrove community structure was determined in the four
coastal barangays of Bolinao such as Arnedo, Balingasay, Binabalian
and Victory. For each species, the following parameters were
determined (Smith & Smith, 1998 as cited by Paz-Alberto, 2005): [1]
Number of individual species in each quadrat; [2] Frequency (F); [3]
Relative frequency (RF); [4] Density (D); [5] Relative Density (RD);
[6] Dominance (Do); and [7] Relative Dominance (RDo). Importance
Value Index (IVI) was also measured and computed for each mangrove
ecosystem in four barangays and the formula used is: Relative
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141
Frequency (RF) + Relative Density(RD) + Relative Dominance(RDo).
The species diversity of the mangroves and fish and invertebrates
was determined and computed using the Shannon Diversity Index
formula (Smith & Smith, 1998):
S
H` = -Σ pί ln (pί)
i=1
where H`= Shannon Index of Diversity
pί = Proportion of species from the total species
ln = Naperian logarithm or natural logarithm
S = Total number of species
Water Sampling and Analysis
Two sampling stations from each of the four coastal barangays in
Bolinao were selected. Two stations from the mangrove management
areas were identified. The physical, chemical, and bacteriological
characteristics of the coastal water within the sampling sites were
determined.
Physical Parameters
In situ analysis of physical parameters was done. Temperature was
analyzed using a portable laboratory mercury thermometer. This
was submerged immediately below the water surface for 5 minutes.
Reading was done while the thermometer was in the water to avoid
inaccuracy during temperature reading. This was done three times
per station at varying depths within the coastal area.
Light penetration was determined by using a graduated secchi
disk. This secchi disk was lowered into the water until the black and
white colors of the disk were not clearly noticeable. The water mark
on the string was noted and recorded for the depth. The process was
repeated and the average of the two readings was computed to get
the measure of sunlight pevetration.
The pH of the water samples from every sampling station was
taken by using a digital pen-type pH meter. In measuring the salinity,
a drop of water sample was taken in the sampling site and placed into
the glass mount of the refracto-salinometer.
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Chemical Analysis
The pH and salinity were analyzed in situ. The pH of the water
samples from every sampling station was taken by using a digital
pen-type pH meter. A sample was taken and placed in a beaker then
the pH meter was dipped until the probe mark. When the readings
appeared on the pH meter screen, and it was stabilized, this reading
was recorded as pH measurement.
In measuring the salinity, a drop of water sample was taken in
the sampling site and placed into the glass mount of the refractosalinometer. The salinity reading was based on the blue level mark
of the screen of the said device and expressed in parts per thousand
(ppt). The glass mount was cleaned with distilled water for every
sampling made.
The water sample was collected from each sampling station for
the analysis of ammonia, nitrite, phosphate, and total suspended
soil solids (TSS) including the bacteriological analysis for the total
fecal colifrom. Water samples for laboratory analysis were collected
at 4 to 5 feet depth from the four sampling stations during daytime.
Sterilized bottles were dipped 6 inches below the surface of the
water. The bottles were held by the hand near the base and plunged,
neck downward from the middle of the surface water then turned
them until the neck pointed slightly upward against the water flow.
These bottles were labeled according to the station where these
were collected. These were put into a cooler with ice to maintain the
temperature of 4°C while being transported to the laboratory. The
samples were examined within 24-hours period after they were taken
from the site.
Two hundred milliliters of water sample was collected for each
sampling station between 9:00 AM to 10:00AM for the analysis
of ammonia, nitrite, phosphate and total suspended solids (TSS)
including the bacteriological analysis for total and fecal coliform.
Laboratory analysis for composite water samples was done in the
BFAR-NIFTDC Limnological Laboratory in Dagupan City.
Gathered data on water quality were tabulated and analyzed
using their mean/average. These were compared to the standards
set by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources
(DENR) and Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) for
marine water.
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Results and Discussion
Mangrove Management Programs
The municipality of Bolinao has established several programs
and projects in order to manage its coastal resources. Some of these
can be found in Barangay Arnedo, Balingasay, Binabalian and Victory
where marine areas are protected and mangroves are managed by the
LGU and NGO’s or people’s organizations (Table 1).
Table 1.
Mangrove Management Programs in Arnedo, Balingasay, Binabalian and Victory
Bolinao, Pangasinan
Programs
Activities
In-charge in Management
Mangrove Planting and Management
- Mangrove planting
LGU
- Coastal clean-up
KAISAKA Federation
- Nursery development
and management
SAPA
- Replenishment and planting SAMMABAL
- Monitoring and evaluation SAMMABI
- Patrolling and protection
SMMV
Community-based mangrove conservation projects were observed
in all four barangays. Mangrove management area in Arnedo is
8.65 hectares which started in 2004 whereas the management of 8.8
hectares in Binabalian commenced in 2004. The widest of the four is
the 15 has. in Victory which started in 1999. Meanwhile, conservation
of the mangrove area is naturally occurring along Balingasay (Figure
2.)
Marine protected areas and mangrove management areas in these
barangays were part of the coastal resource management programs
implemented by the Local Government Units (LGUs). These were
established to bring back the integrity of the coastal resources
which were degraded since the Lingayen Gulf was declared to be
an environmentally critical area. The marine protected areas were
established to be a “no take” zone where fishing and other activities are
prohibited to ensure the freedom of the species to replenish in the area.
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144
Figure 2. Marine protected
areas and mangrove
management areas in Bolinao,
Pangasinan.
Regular consultations with the community and information
campaigns were being done to ensure the progress of the program.
Guarding and patrolling had been included in the activities in the
areas in the form of deputizing “bantay dagat.”
In the mangrove management areas, different activities were also
done to implement the program including nursery development,
replenishment and planting of mangroves, coastal clean-up,
monitoring and evaluation as well as patrolling and protection.
These activities had been supported by the Local Government Units
through the leadership of the municipal mayor and his staff in-charge
in cooperation with the people’s organization. The allotted budget for
all the coastal resource management programs for the whole coastal
area of Bolinao is PhP 1,105,000 in 2009 and PhP 500,000 in 2010.
All of these programs were launched and managed by the local
government units (LGU) in partnership with the People’s Organization
(PO), the Kaisahan ng mga Samahan Alay sa Kalikasan, Inc.
(KAISAKA) federation. Management of these projects is specifically
given to the member organizations of the KAISAKA in every barangay.
The members are the “Samahang Pangakalikasa ng Arnedo” (SAPA)
in Barangay Arnedo, “Samahan ng mga Mangingisda at Mamamayan
ng Balingasay” (SAMMABAL) in Barangay Balingasay, “Samahan
ng Mangingisda at Mamamayan ng Binabalian” (SAMMABI) in
Barangay Binabalian and “Samahan ng Maliliit na Mangingisda ng
Victory” (SMMV) in Barangay Victory.
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145
Assessment of the Diversity of Mangrove,
Fish and Other Economically Important
Aquatic Species
Mangrove Identification.
Table 2 shows that 23 species belonging to 14 families can be found in the
selected mangrove areas. These are Rhizophora mucronata, Rhizophora apiculata,
Rhizophora stylosa, Bruguiera gymnorhiza, Bruguiera cylindrical, and Ceriops
tagal under family Rhizophoraceae, Avicennia lanata, Sonneratia casoelaris,
and Avicennia officialis for family Avicenniaceae, Nypa fruticans under
Palmae, Aegiceras floridum of Myrsinaceae, Acanthus embractitus for family
Acanthacaeae, Acrostichum aureum of Pteridaceae, Sonneratia caseolari and
Sonneratia alba of Sonneratiaceae, Excoecaria agallocha under Euphorbiaceae,
Barringtonia asiatica for family Barringtoniaceae, Heritiera littoralis of
Malvaceae, Terminalia catappa for family Combretaceae, Xylucarpus granatu
and Xylucarpus molluccensis under Meliaceae, Dolichandrone spathaceae for
Bignoniaceae, Pongamia pinna and Derris trifoliata for Fabacceae. Seven
mangrove species were observed in Arnedo, 21 magrove species were seen
in Balingasay, eight mangrove species were found in Binabalian, and only
three mangrove species were observed in Victory.
Fish and Invertebrates Within the Mangrove Management Areas
There were four species of fish and 14 invertebrates belonging to
16 families identified from the four selected mangrove management
areas (Table 3). These are Trachycardium orbita (Carditidae), Terebralia
polustris (Potamidae), Periglypta reticulata (Veniridae),Tectarus
pagodas (Litiorinidae), Murex aduncuspinosus (Muricidae), Strombus
labiatus (Strombidae), Pinctada radiata (Pteroidae), Atlantahelicimoides
(Atlantidae), Placuna placenta (Anomiidae), Liza argentea (Mugilidae),
Periopthalmus barbarous (Oxudercinae), Siganus canaliculatus, Siganus
javus (Siganidae), Alpheus spp., Nenalpheus spp. (Alpheidae), Percnon
plannissimum (Grapsidae), Polinces aurontius (Naticidae), and Cypraea
maculifera (Cepraeidae). Fourteen of these species were found in
Arnedo, 17 in Balingasay, nine in Binabalian, and 11 in Victory. With
the increase or improvement of habitat, different species could have
found their way to find shelter. With existence of these mangrove
areas, different species were also observed to be thriving. The species
now found in the mangrove management areas indicate the benefits
gained from the management of marine habitats.
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SILLIMAN JOURNAL
Balingasay Binabalian Victory
Rhizophora mucronata Lam Bakawan babae
X
X
X
X
Rhizophora apiculata Blume
Bakawan lalaki
X
X
X
X
Rhizophora stylosa Griff
Bakawan bato
X
X
Bruguiera gymnorhiza
Busain
X
Ceriops tagal (Perr.) C.B. Rob
Tangal
X
Bruguiera cylindrical (L.) Blume
Pototan
X
X
Avicennia lanata
Bungalon
X
X
X
X
Avicennia officinalis L.
Api-api
X
Nypa fruticans Wurmb
Nipa
X
X
X
Aegiceras floridum Roem. and Schult. Saging saging
X
X
Acanthus embractitus
Diliuatiao
X
Acrostichum aureum L.i
Lagolo
X
Sonneratia caseolaris
Pagatpat
X
X
X
Sonneratia alba
Pedada
X
Excoecaria agallocha
Buta buta
X
Barringtonia asiatica
Botong
X
Heritiera littoralis
Dungon-late
X
Terminalia catappa
Talisay
X
Xylucarpus granatum
Tabigi
X
Xylucarpus molluccensis
Piagau
X
Dolichandrone spathaceae
Tui
X
Pongamia pinnata
Bani
X
Derris trifoliata
Tuble
X
Arnedo
Rhizophoraceae
Avicenniaceae
Palmae
Myrsinaceae
Acanthacaeae
Pteridaceae
Sonneratiaceae
Euphorbiaceae
Barringtoniaceae
Malvaceae
Combretaceae
Meliaceae
Bignoniaceae
Fabacceae
Common Name
Scientific Name
Family
Mangrove species identified at the mangrove management areas of four coastal areas of Bolinao, Pangasinan
Table 2.
146
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VOL. 52 NO.2
VOL. 52 NO. 2
Common Name
English Name Local Name
Arnedo
X—species present
INVERTEBRATES Carditidae
Trachycardium orbita
Cardila clam
Giritan
X
X
X
X
Potamidae
Terebralia polustris
Mud creeper
Bangar
X
X
X
X
Veniridae
Periglypta reticulata (L., 1758) Venus shell
Piwisan
X
X
X
X
Litiorinidae
Tectarus pagodas
Periwinkle
Trokos
X
X
X
Muricidae
Murex aduncuspinosus
Murex
Hermet shell
X
X
X
Strombidae
Strombus labiatus (Roding, 1798) Plicate conch
Kumukusay
X
X
X
X
Pteroidae
Pinctada radiate (Leach, 1814) Pearl oyster
Talaba
X
X
X
Atlantidae
Atlanta helicimoides Sobol
X
X
X
Anomiidae
Placuna placenta Linnaeus, 1758) Window-pane oyster Kampis
X
X
X
Alpheidae
Alpheus sp.
Nenalpheus sp.
Shrimp
Hipon
X
X
Grapsidae
Percnon plannissimum
Shore crab
Crab
X
X
Naticidae Polinces aurontius
Moon shell
Balabalatong
X
X
X
X
Cepraeidae
Cypraea maculifera Schilder, 1932 Shell
X
FISH
Mugilidae
Liza argentea
(Quoy and Gaimard, 1825) Flattail mullet
Burasi
X
X
X
•
Gobiidae
Periopthalmus barbarus
(Linnaeus, 1766)
Mud skipper
Bannasak
X
X
X
X
Siganidae
Siganus canaliculatus Siganid/white-spotted Baraangan
(Park, 1797)
spine foot
X
Siganus javus (Linnaeus, 1766) Streak spine foot
Malaga X
X
Family
Scientific Name
Fish and other invertebrates within the mangrove management areas of four coastal areas of Bolinao, Pangasinan
Table 3.
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Table 4.
Importance Value Index of mangrove species in Balingasay, Bolinao, Pangasinan
Species
Importance Value Index
Arnedo
Rhizophora mucronata
41.34
26.42
47.34
Rhizophora apiculata
40.49
1.70
36.42
Rhizophora stylosa
2.89
18.30
Bruguiera gymnorhiza
15.13
Bruguiera cylindrica
25.40 28.73
Ceriops tagal
3.29
Avicenia lanata
35.19
4.86
23.50
Avicenia officialis
13.03
Nypa fruticans
18.60
53.03
17.83
Acanthus embractitus
5.36
Acrostichum aureum
2.00
Aegiceras floridum
18.10
9.87
Sonneratia caseolaris
21.89
15.47
18.99
Sonneratia alba
16.73
Excoecaria agallocha
6.79
Barringtonia asiatica
0.11
Heritiera littiratis
3.12
Terminalia catappa
3.83
Xylucarpus granatum
6.62
Xylucarpus molluccensis
9.31
Dolichandrone spathaceae
8.28
Pongamia pinnata
2.50
Derris trifoliata
0.51
84.13
101.97
14.90
Mangrove Management Areas
Seven species were found within the sampling area in Arnedo,
Bolinao, Pangasinan (Table 4). The most dense, most frequent, most
dominant, and most important mangrove species are Rhizophora
species having importance value indices of 41.34% (Rhizophora
mucronata) and 40.49% (Rhizophora apiculata). There were 21 species
found in the mangrove area of Balingasay. Nypa fruticans has the
highest importance value index of 53.03% followed by Rhizophora
mucronata with 26.42%.
However, eight species were identified in Binabalian where
the Rhizophora species dominated having the highest importance
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149
Table 5.
Importance Value Index of fish and invertebrates in the mangrove areas of Arnedo,
Bolinao, Pangasinan
Species
Arnedo
FISH
Liza argentea
13.08
7.91
16.95
4.27
Periopthalmus barbarus
11.71
6.78
10.27
Siganus canaliculatus
7.91
14.63
Siganus javus
6.85
10.42
INVERTEBRATES
Terebralia polustris
50.98
36.05
70.77
Polinces aurontius
63.74
68.15
46.67
Trachycardium orbita
19.87
13.35
26.76
Periglypta reticulata
17.60
12.50
23.43
Murex aduncuspinosus
3.03
4.45
Atlanta helicimoides 0.88
3.18
Strombus labiatus
0.51
4.33
0.63
Placuna placenta
0.47
3.37
0.60
Tectarus pagodus
0.43
4.47
Pinctada radiata
0.43
3.78
0.56
Alpheus sp.
13.08
Nenalpheus sp.
7.18
Percnon plannissimum
5.19
6.59
Cyprea maculifera
4.15
45.88
35.88
46.41
30.29
6.14
1.38
6.38
3.69
value index of 47.34% for Rhizophora mucronata. This was followed
by Rhizophora apiculata (36.42%). Table 4 also shows that in Victory,
only three species were identified thriving in the area. Rhizophora
apiculata showed the highest importance value index of 101.97%.
Fish and Invertebrates in the Mangrove Management Areas
Four species of fish and 14 species of invertebrates are present in the
mangrove areas of Arnedo (Table 5). Polinces aurontius had the highest
importance value index of 63.74%. This is followed by Terebralia
polustris with an importance value index of 50.98%.
The mangrove areas of Balingasay, Bolinao, Pangasinan is
dominated by Polinces aurontius also which got the highest importance
value index (68.15%). This is followed by Terebralia polustris (36.05%)
and Trachycardium orbita (13.35%).
Also reflected is that the mangrove areas of Binabalian, Bolinao,
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150
Pangasinan is dominated by Terebralia polustris and Polinces aurontius
(Table 5). These have importance value indices of 70.77% and
46.67%, respectively. These species covered almost every area of the
mangroves that is why even in the presence of seven other species,
diversity was only 0.030. Their importance value indices were 46.41%,
45.88 and 35.88%, respectively. Meanwhile, in Victory, Trachycardium
orbita, Terebralia polustris, and Polinces aurontius are the most abundant
species (Table 5).
Diversity in the Mangrove Management Areas
The diversity index values of mangroves, fish, and other invertebrates
observed in the four coastal barangays (Table 6) were very low. This
is because only a few species dominated the areas and the rest of the
species had few numbers of individuals.
The Physico-chemical and Bacteriological
Characteristics of the Coastal Waters
Physical Parameters
In the mangrove management areas, the temperature values ranged
from 27.5oC (Balingasay) to 29.9oC (Victory) (Table 7). In terms of
turbidity, the values were lower ranging from 0.5 m (Victory) to 0.8
m (Arnedo). Likewise, the water depth ranged from 0.5 m (Victory)
to 1.0 m (Balingasay). The temperature values in the mangrove areas
were within the standard value set by the DENR (Table 2). In terms
of turbidity and water depth, although the values were surprisingly
lower, these are still allowable since the sampled areas are mangroves
thriving in shallow portions of the water.
In the mangrove areas, the chemical characteristics were
monitored showing surprising identical salinity values in the four
stations at 35 ppt (Table 8). The DO concentrations ranged from 6.51
mg/l (Arnedo) to 8.32 mg/l (Victory). The pH values varied from 7.8
(Balingasay) to 8.44 (Binabalian) while the TSS differed from 4.19 mg/l
(Balingasay) to 69.88 mg/l (Binabalian). The phosphate values taken
fluctuated from 0.010 ppm (Balingasay) to 0.043 ppm (Binabalian).
The nitrogen components; ammonia and nitrite, ranged from 0.015
ppm (Balingasay) to 0.031 ppm (Victory) and 0.031 ppm (Binabalian)
to 0.048 ppm (Arnedo), respectively. The values of each chemical
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VOL. 52 NO.2
VOL. 52 NO. 2
Number of Individuals in 1500 m2
DENR Standard (SA)
26-30
28.07
Mean
28.00
27.50
27.90
28.9
Arnedo
Balingasay
Binabalian
Victory
0.59
0.50
0.20
0.10
0.40
Temperature (oC)
Mean
SD
Station
0.20
0.10
0.20
0.05
0.10
>100 0.75
0.80
1.00
0.70
0.50
Turbidity (M)
Mean SD
>3
0.77
0.80
1.00
0.70
0.50
0.17
0.10
0.20
0.05
0.14
Average Depth
Mean SD
Physical characteristics in four Mangrove Management Areas (MMA) of Bolinao, Pangasinan.
Table 7.
1.08
1.09
1.13
1.43
14
17
9
11
1.74
2.09
1.77
0.71
Fish and
Invertebrates
Diversity Index Values
Fish and
Mangrove
Invertebrates
Number of Species
Mangrove
Fish and
Mangrove
Invertebrates
Arnedo
3,704
132,125
7
Balingasay
3,795
111,228
21
Binabalian
3,100
87,933
8
Victory
2,108
41,423
3
Barangay
Diversity Index Values of mangrove, fish, and other invertebrate species in four coastal barangays in Bolinao, Pangasinan
Table 6.
151
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52.42
4.19
69.88
30.45
39.24
28.39
80 50 Tss
(Ppm) 0.011
0.010
0.043
0.025
0.022
0.015
0.5 0.48 Phosphate
(Ppm)
53
290
23
0
200
200
Arnedo
Balingasay
Binabalian
Victory
DENR Standard (SA)
ASEAN Criteria
> 1,100
> 1,100
> 1,100
> 1,100
1,000 1,000 Fecal Coliform
(Mpn/100 Ml)
Total Coliform (Mpn/100 Ml) Bacteriological characteristics in four Mangrove Management Areas (MMA) of Bolinao, Pangasinan
Table 9.
6.51
7.28
7.95
8.32
7.52
0.79
5 5 Arnedo
35
Balingasay
35
Binabalian
35
Victory
35
Mean
35
SD
0 DENR Standard (SC)
ASEAN criteria
8.34
7.80
8.44
8.40
8.24
0.30
6.5-8.5
6-8.5
D.O.
pH
(Mg/L) Salinity
Chemical characteristics in four Mangrove Management Areas of Bolinao, Pangasinan
Table 8.
0.023
0.015
0.029
0.031
0.024
0.007
< 1 0.5 Ammonia
(Ppm) 0.048
0.034
0.031
0.039
0.038
0.007
1.00
0.395
Nitrite
(Ppm)
152
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153
parameter taken from the four stations were within the criteria values
set by DENR and ASEAN (Table 3).
Bacteriological Characteristics
The bacteriological characteristics in all the mangrove areas (Table 4)
indicate that the total coliform concentration was similar in all four
stations at > 1,100 MPN. With regard to fecal coliform, the highest
concentration was obtained in Barangay Balingasay at 290 MPN. Only
Barangay Victory had no fecal coliform. Unfortunately, no mangrove
area met the standard set by DENR and ASEAN for total coliform
(Table 9). In terms of fecal coliform, three stations passed the criteria
set by DENR and ASEAN. Barangay Balingasay failed to meet the
criteria.
Discussion
The Philippines is an example of a tropical country where significant
mangrove forest areas have been lost and degraded. Forested
mangroves have been reduced from about 450,000 ha in 1920 to only
about 120,000 ha. in the late 1990s. The most common reason for the
reduction of mangrove areas in the Philippines has been the conversion
of these coastal mangrove areas to fishponds for aquaculture purposes.
This situation has prompted the Philippine government to attempt
mangrove reforestation of abandoned fishponds and other previously
occupied mangroves with the assistance of development projects and
new policies .The municipality of Bolinao has a total mangrove forest
stand of 93.4 hectares, out of which 70.63 is natural and 22.77 hectares
are established plantations.
Rhizophora species were found to have the highest in importance
value index because these species survive in the characteristics of
the environment in Arnedo. Diversity of mangroves in Arnedo is
quite low, although this is the area where the mangrove nursery of
the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist is situated because almost all
the newly planted mangroves were washed out during the Typhoon
“EMONG” in May, 2009.
Balingasay is the area where majority of the mangroves are
naturally occurring and are preserved. Only a small part is planted,
that is why there were many species found during the survey. These
were dominated by Nypa fruticans and Rhizophora mucronata which
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154
were observed to be suited and easy to grow and they reproduce and
survive in the area. Among the four study areas, Barangay Balingasay
has the most diverse species. Twenty-one species were identified to
thrive in the area. However, in Binabalian and Victory the management
areas were mostly affected by typhoon ‘Emong”, that is why only a
few species were found to survive in the mangrove areas. Most of the
species found were planted and are only a few years old.
Overall, Rhizophora mucronata is the most dominant and densest
species in each area. However, Balingasay had Nypa fruticans as the
densest and most dominant among the species. In terms of diversity,
Balingasay had the most diverse species of mangroves compared to
the other areas. This can be attributed to the area having naturally
occurring species and having mangrove trees which are already old
and sturdy. Thus, the effect of environmental disturbances is minimal
in the survival of the species.
According to the people’s organization, the natural regeneration
potential of mangrove areas in Bolinao is high with two seedlings per
square meter. This is attributed to the muddy substrate and sheltered
areas where natural mangrove stands of the municipality are mostly
growing. However, a large track of degraded mangrove areas
remains open and needs rehabilitation to improve the condition of
the mangrove resources in the municipality.Planted mangroves need
total management and surveillance to ensure their survival. To date,
many of the mangroves planted were destroyed during the typhoon
“Emong.” Few survived after the typhoon particularly in Arnedo
and Victory where the mangroves planted are still in their recovery
stage; many were washed out. This was why during the survey, the
densities of the species in the area were quite low, and despite the
many planting activities undertaken. Balingasay and Binabalian were
also affected by the typhoon although this was minimal. Also, majority
of their mangroves are naturally occurring and are on their adult
stage and planted areas are only a small portion. A positive feature
for mangrove ecosystem management is that mangrove forests are
relatively easy to restore through natural regeneration, or via artificial
restoration using planted seedlings. That is why Rhizophora species
are the major species planted in the area because it can survive easily
and grow faster in the areas. Duke (1983) reported that this is the only
Malayan mangrove which can survive daily inundation. On the other
hand, Nypa fruticans was found to dominate in Balingasay because of
its muddy characteristics. Little (1983) described this species as the
one most likely to be found in deep soft mud.
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Overall, 18 species of fish and invertebrates were found within
the mangrove areas of Arnedo, Balingasay, Binabalian and Victory.
Of these species, three were found to be of relative abundance in the
areas. These are Polinces aurontius, Trachycardium orbita, and Terebralia
polustris and were found to be of great number in the area. Polinces
aurontius were documented in thousands being scattered around and
can be seen clinging within the small mangroves. However, it cannot
be eaten although it is used as a material for different accessories.
Trachycardium orbita and Terebralia polustris also appearing in great
number are the two species which can be eaten. Even with the
dominance of these three species, the diversity of the species in the
area is still very low. The other species exist only in small number,
because a crucial aspect of biodiversity for mangrove management
is that many species use the mangrove forest ecosystem only part of
the time (e.g. fish, birds, crustaceans, shellfish). Moreover, diversity
of species in the mangrove management areas is very low due to
the conversion of mangrove ecosystems to fishponds and the strong
typhoons which affected the coastal areas. The continuous illegal
fishing within the municipal waters of Bolinao, Pangasinan has
resulted in the rapid depletion of fish stocks and the destruction of
the coastal and marine resources. These could also be the reasons for
the low diversity of organisms in the mangrove management areas
as well as the low catch and poverty in the area. This was also the
problem of the whole Lingayen Gulf as stated by White and CruzTrinidad (2000).
The temperature readings taken from the mangrove management
areas of the four barangays of Bolinao, Pangasinan were within the
optimum level for tropical fishes from 27.5-28.9oC (DENR, 1997,
2001). The turbidity of the water may be influenced by the water
depth. The shallower the water is, the more likely the water would
be turbid because the bottom friction is higher than the deeper water
(Reid, 1983). Also, the variation of water depth in the study areas can
be attributed to location or sampling station. In the mangrove areas,
the little variation on the temperature readings in the four stations
maybe linked to water depth of the sampling stations. Mangroves
are found along the coastal margins and river banks where water is
shallow (Reid, 1983). The identical values of turbidity and water depth
could have been caused by the physical structure of the mangroves.
Mangroves are regarded as buffer zone receiving more wave impact
from the ocean and runoff from the inland causing more agitation
and resulting in higher turbidity (Reid, 1983).
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The higher salinity values in the mangrove areas might be
attributed to the location of the mangroves. The mangroves are
situated along the coastal margins of Bolinao, Pangasinan and exposed
to the sea. The shallow characteristics of the mangrove contribute to
fast evaporation thereby increasing salinity (Reid, 1983).
Mangroves exposure to the sea might have caused the water
pH slightly alkaline. Likewise, the constant agitation could have
increased the TSS concentrations of the mangroves. Since mangroves
are productive ecosystems (Nybakken, 1992), the TSS levels may
increase due to presence of diverse organisms.
However, the phosphate, ammonia and nitrite concentrations
were within the desirable range set by the standards of DENR and
ASEAN on marine waters. Results indicated that there was a great
improvement in the water quality of Bolinao as compared to the
previous studies conducted by Azanza et al. (2006) which revealed
that the nutrient concentration in Bolinao waters had been increasing
which had been attributed to the increase in fish pens and fish cages.
However, significant decrease in nitrate and nitrite had been observed
between 2002 and 2003 which was parallel to the decrease in fish
pens and fish cages due to a massive milkfish kill. On the other hand,
ammonia, a more reduced form of nitrogen was higher in 2003 which
implicates a low oxygenated environment that favors its formation
that can be contributed to continued build up of decomposing
products (fish feeds) and other organic materials. In addition Azanza
et al. (2005) also reported that the death of milkfish was clearly the
result of lack of oxygen mostly from the collapse of the algal bloom.
The optimal level of dissolved oxygen is about 5 mg/l for milkfish
growth in tropical waters. The observed dissolved oxygen during the
fish kill was 2.1 mg/l in 2002 (Azanza et al. 2005).
According to Fortez and Paningit (2009), the uncontrolled
milkfish culture such as the high feeding input and the proliferation
of fish cages and pens have contributed to the deterioration of the
water quality of Bolinao coastal areas. The number of fish pen and
cage structures in the area increased from 242 in 1995 to 1170 in 2001,
contributing to the nutrient enrichment in the area. The nutrient
enrichment leads to the excessive growth of algae at the water surface
and the onset of hypoxic and anoxic conditions in the bottom water.
As a consequence of the depletion of dissolved oxygen, a massive
milkfish kill took place, incurring a loss of approximately P500 million
in 2002. Another fish kill incident happened again in the area in June
2007. This study corroborates the study conducted by McGlone et al.
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157
(2008) which reported that the most significant effect of the major fish
kill event in 2002 coincided with the first reported Philippine bloom
of a dinoflagellate Prorocentrum minimum. Days before the bloom,
dissolved oxygen was < 2.0 mg/l in the waters that were stratified.
These conditions may be linked to the uncontrolled proliferation of
fish pens and cages to more than double the allowable limit of 544
units for Bolinao waters. Mariculture activities release organic matter
from unconsumed feed and fecal material that accumulate in the
water and sediments. In over 10 years, water quality conditions have
become eutrophic with ammonia increasing by 56%, nitrite by 35%,
nitrate by 90%, and phosphate by 67%. The addition of more fish pens
and cages placed additional stress to this poorly flushed, shallow area
that affected water quality due to changes in the water residence time.
However, results of the analysis of chemical characteristics of
water particularly the DO concentrations, phosphate, ammonia and
nitrite in Bolinao waters in this study revealed an enhanced water
quality, passing the limit set by DENR and ASEAN for marine water.
The constant wave impact and phytoplankton/algae abundance might
have contributed to the high DO levels. The improved water quality
may be attributed to the coastal resource management programs
being implemented in the four coastal barangays such as coastal
cleanup, mangrove planting, protection, monitoring and evaluation
of the coastal resources by the local government agencies, NGOs, and
people’s organizations.
The higher total coliform concentrations in all the mangrove areas
can be attributed to its proximity to land being on the coastal margins.
Its proximity is tantamount to receiving first the domestic wastes. This
scenario might have aggravated the situation in barangay Balingasay
having exceeded the fecal coliform count set by DENR and ASEAN.
The extreme value may have been caused by human population in
the area. The lack of sanitary toilets may have influenced people in
the area to use the mangroves as their “toilets.” Likewise, the lower
fecal coliform counts in the three mangrove areas could be attributed
to the management interventions of people’s organizations.
Conclusion
Barangays Arnedo, Balingasay, Binabalian, and Victory in Bolinao,
Pangasinan had established mangrove management areas and other
conservation activities such as mangrove planting, coastal clean-up
VOL. 52 NO. 2
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158
and patrolling and protection activities in order to manage its coastal
resources. Based on the assessment made, 23 species of mangroves,
four species of fish and 14 invertebrates were identified in the selected
mangrove areas. The diversity of species in the mangrove areas in
the four coastal barangays are still very low. This is attributed to the
conversion of mangrove ecosystems to fishponds and strong typhoons
which affected the coastal areas. The physico-chemical characteristics
of the mangrove management areas are within the desirable range set
by the standards of the DENR and ASEAN on marine water which is
extremely better and enhanced the water quality compared with the
water quality three-five years ago (Azanza et al.,2005; Azanza, 2006;
Fortez & Paningit, 2009; McGlone et al., 2008) due to the management
activities conducted in the areas. However, all the mangrove
ecosystems obtained high total coliform and Barangay Balingasay
got also high fecal coliform which are attributed to domestic wastes
present in the four coastal barangays.
Recommendations
1. Regular biodiversity assessment and monitoring should be done
in the mangrove ecosystems in order to determine the success of
the management initiatives in the mangrove areas.
2. Information, communication, and education on the management
of mangrove areas should be strengthened by the local
government particularly by the ICRM department, and the
people’s organization should also heighten public awareness
and encourage community involvement and participation in the
management of mangrove areas.
3. A long-term participatory research should be conducted by the
local government units and cooperating research institutions
particularly in the academe and other national research institutions
such as DENR and BFAR should strengthen, improve, and develop
further mangrove management programs and activities.
4. Water quality monitoring should be done not only in the mangrove
management areas but also in the nearby milkfish cage culture
areas in order to further improve the quality of marine water in
the coastal ecosysytems.
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159
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endosymbiotics of Pyrodinium bahamense var compressum. Microbial Ecology,
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Project)( 2001). Coastal Management Orientation and Overview. Guidebook for
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City, Philippines.
Duke, J. A. 1983. Handbook of energy crops. Retrieved from www.host.purdue.edu/
newcrop/duke_ energy /Rhizophora_mucronata.html
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environmental change and human impacts on tropical ecosystems in East
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McGlone, M.L.S., Azanza, R., Villanoy, C. L., & Jacinto, G.( 2008). Eutrophic waters,
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NOTES
The Dynamics of Culture*
Frederick David Abraham
There is a Monobo folktale about a poor boy who set out to beg some meat from
the chief’s principal hunter, despite his mother’s admonition that poor people are
despised. When refused, the boy eats the rice he brought, while smelling the meat as
it cooks. Later, the chief complains that the meat tastes bad, and blames the boy, who
being fetched, goes willingly to the chief. As punishment, the chief condemns the boy
to become his slave. The boy pleads for mediation; the chief allows the boy to pick
his mediator, which he does, offering the mediator to refuse since it could put him in
danger of also being enslaved. The arbitrator has the boy tell his story, and the hunter
verifies it. The chief adds an additional penalty of ten carabaos. The mediator offers
his prized brass gong, worth more, in place of the ten carabaos, to which the chief
agrees. The chief hankers for the gong, has the hunter play it, and is pleased with it.
The arbitrator then declares that the chief has been paid back by the sound itself, its
being on a par with the equivalence of the odor with the meat. The chief acquiesced.
Wiggglesworth
(1981)
I
Change and Instability
approach the discussion of the dynamics of oppression and
emancipation from the perspective of postcolonial theory as
especially exemplified by Bhabha, and in fact, my title is based
on the title of his famous work, The Location of Culture. In my
own thinking I use some concepts metaphorically from dynamical
systems theory for their close affinity to some basic ideas of
postcolonial theory, mainly, that systems, including those of self and
* In praise of Sillimanians who are dedicated to emancipation and the preservation and evolution
of cultures: Betty Cernol-McCann (formerly Abregana), for research on farm workers and the
accessibility of education; Ceres Pioquinto, for developing enlightened campus programs and
for the liberalization of the Silliman Journal while its editor-in-chief; Gina Abol Fontejon-Bonior,
for praxis and social theory in teaching, and for action-oriented ethnographic research; and
Priscilla Magdamo, for the preservation of Visayan cultures through the beauty of their music.
These members of the Silliman community contributed to a climate of respect, fulfillment,
dignity, and emancipation, both at Silliman and for Filipino society.
VOL. 52 NO. 2
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164
THE DYNAMICS OF CULTURE
society change only as the dynamics of the system become unstable,
creating the conditions for change. We need not give more details of
systems theory beyond that, but do realize that it is but one of many
philosophical and scientific perspectives that can yield insights about
social change.
Several of these features are embodied in a statement by Gina A.
Fontejon-Bonior (2006, p. 37):
I shared the paradigm shift I was going through ... about my philosophy of teaching,
particularly language teaching ... in a multicultural setting, and I was eager to discuss
the Bakhtinian reaction to 'the structuralist view of the signifier ... as having idealized
meanings, and linguistic communities as being relatively homogeneous and
consensual.” ... [He] argued that the signifier has no idealized meanings because 'the
signifying practices of societies are sites of struggle, and that linguistic communities
are heterogeneous arenas characterized by conflicting claims to truth and power.
First is the emphasis that language and culture are holistically
intertwined. Second, she implies that conflict and struggle and
diversity are important aspects of cultures, and these qualities imply
instability. Third, she identifies the instability in language in Bakhtin’s
reaction to structuralism, and its relation to homogeneous consensus
versus heterogeneity in linguistic communities. And, finally, fourth,
she shows a passion to carry her philosophic sophistications into the
arena of her teaching. It is amazing that an interview for a teaching
position reveals this confluence of passion, intellect, and praxis is
most compelling.
Another example comes from the world of art, which like language,
is also imbedded in culture. Surprisingly, perhaps, this quote comes
from the great existential Protestant theologian, Paul Tillich:
The combination of the experience of meaninglessness and of the courage to be as
oneself is the key to the development of visual art since the turn of the century. In
expressionism and surrealism the surface structures of reality are disrupted. (1952,
p. 146)
First, it is interesting that the mentioning of instability in
the evolution of art enables Tillich to contain the essence of his
existential philosophy. Mainly that meaningfulness emerges from
meaninglessness. This flows from the roots of existentialism and critical
theory in Nietzsche and Heidegger. I strongly recommend Tillich’s
concept of God as an antidote to many popular traditional concepts.
This critique is especially powerful coming from a leading Christian
theologian, and to me, much of his thought in this respect is very close
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F.D. ABRAHAM
165
to that of Jewish mysticism. While Tillich is thus like Heidegger’s
holding Being as “ontological prior to conception” (Tillich, 2010), his
critique is more like Habermas’ critique of Heidegger in denying the
‘ontological difference’ between Being and beings” (McCarthy, 1987,
p.xi.). Habermas is concerned with two lineages out of Nietzsche, one
through Heidegger to Derrida (we could add, Tillich and many other
postmodern authors as well), the other through Bataille to Foucault
(McCarthy, 1987). However, I digress, my main point here is that this
inner conflict is a source of great personal instability and personal
transformation.
Second, this personal struggle is also a struggle with cultural
convention. The artist brings into the culture, this conflict, and its
need to break ‘surface structures.’ I can mention a couple of additional
examples, which also occurred within religious contexts. One is
Giotto (cited in Kristeva, 1980), Italian pre-Renaissance artist, painting
in Assisi as well as Rome and Florence, who disrupted traditional
Byzantine religious artistic style by introducing a start at the use
of perspective and 3D effects. He also reflected the kinds of social
changes ushered into the church by St. Francis, such as depicting
priests in peasant cloaks. Another comes from a now famous, award
winning PhilAm Sillimanian artist, Paul Pfeiffer. Paul presented
some of his work to Moses Atega’s art class at Silliman University
in the Philippines (Paul grew up on that campus) a few years ago.
Some of his most interesting works were floor plans of cathedrals,
which were created by extremely small images of body parts, seen
only by major zooming. This is partly sacrilegious, perhaps, but also
very postmodern in showing the emotional ferment that belies its
containment by rigid emotional-cognitive structures. Also it is very
Freudian, which is one of the major roots of postmodernism, along
with Marxism and existentialism (Poster, 1989.) Julia Kristeva has
also identified that in addition to such innovative artists as Giotto and
Bellini, three types of people are likely to contribute to destabilization
and innovation in cultures, namely, the mad, the holy, and the avant
garde (Kristeva, 1980; Sarup, 1993, p. 124.)
Another introductory example of instability comes from
paleoclimatology and paleoanthropology. We will start the story
with temperature-driven planktic δ18O at “ODP Site 769 in the
shallow silled Sulu Sea” (Linsley, 1996; Oppo et al., 2003). Why start
with the instability of the temperature of the Sulu Sea over the past
60,000 years (60 kya), when one is trying to understand instabilities
leading to the extinction of Neanderthals in Europe, and the rise
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of modern humans? Actually, the site in the Sulu sea is but one of
many measures of ocean sediments, ice cores, and pollen worldwide
that corroborate the chaotic instabilities of climate in Europe which
affected life styles, mental, behavioral, and cultural changes in H.
sapiens and H. neandertalensis, which affected their survivability and
the curse of human evolution. Europe underwent several glacial
and interglacial episodes that included when H. Sapiens migrated
into Europe some 40 kya, until the last enclave of Neanderthals
disappeared, some 23-28 kya (Wong, 2009). Recent research has
yielded finer temporal resolution, revealing these rapid deglaciation
events, including the Younger Dryas (11 kya), and several others over
the isotope stage 3 (OIS-3, from 23-60 kya), a period that included
the period of coexistence of H. sapiens and H. neanderthalenesis (or H.
sapiens neanderthalensis).
Neanderthals had considerable cognitive capabilities, Mousterian
tool-making skills, and symbolic skills on a par with that of modern
humans (Feliks, 2011). But it has been conjectured that interactions
between ecological, biological, cognitive, and cultural factors gave
slight, but critical advantages for survival of modern humans.
Ecological factors included shift in forests and tundra and types of
game available. Biological factors included biometric, bioenergetics,
and longevity factors. Social factors included family structure with
division of labor making Neanderthals less adaptive to the extremely
rapid, glaciations. The genderization of social skills and increased
longevity in modern humans may have promoted the transmission of
cultural information to the young. That is, longevity may have created
families with grandparents whose life-styles could provide additional
caregiving. This longevity factor occurred rather suddenly about 30
kya in modern humans during their coexistence with Neanderthals
(Finlayson, 2009, Caspari & Lee, 2004; Wong, 2009).
This evolution illustrates the nature of instability in the
environmental-socio-behavior interactions. But it also provides
evidence of colonial thinking in contemporary society to “portray
ourselves in the role of victors and reduce the rest [of the human
lineage] to the lower echelons of the vanquished” (Finlayson, 2009,
as quoted by Begley, 2009). There have been a popular tendency
(and formerly sometimes scientific attempts) to portray sapiens’ as
superior and dominating over neanderthalenesis (“Neanderthals in
Popular Culture,” 2011).
Moving on, critical theory itself exhibits destabilization and change.
Habermas (1987) took on a new direction with his ‘communicative
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rationality’ which moved it very close to postanalytic theory, also
known as neo-pragmatism (Rorty, 1985). Another criticism of the
limits of the first generation of critical theory was made by Mark
Poster in Critical Theory and Poststructuralism, when he suggested that
critical theory had hit a kind of dead end and needed the new ideas
of poststructuralism:
I believe that a strategy of contextualizing theory serves to destabilize the concept
of reason in its Enlightenment forms, to maintain a tension between discourse and
situation, truth and fiction, theory and politics. My main concern in this book is
to define the relation between theory and context and to outline a contemporary
context (the mode of information) which poststructuralist positions are admirably
suited to investigate. One of the chief problems with earlier critical theory is that its
definition of the context, capitalism, was inappropriate to and worked against the
full elaboration of the most promising impulses of its analysis of mass culture. (1989,
pp. 5-6.)
Many American poststructuralists, especially deconstructionists, appear to
believe that a political position and a social theory are built into their interpretive
strategy. If one avoids closure and totalization in one’s discourse, they contend, if one
unsettles, destabilizes, and complicates the discourse of the humanities, if one resists
taking a stance of binary opposition in relation to the position one is criticizing, one
has thereby instantiated a nonrepressive politics. Yet such a utopian epistemological
vantage point may be more difficult to sustain than deconstructionists believe. (p. 9)
And deconstruction itself is based on this idea of destabilization
leading to emergence of new effects.
The guiding insight of deconstruction is that every structure—be it literary,
psychological, social, economic, political or religious—that organizes our experience
is constituted and maintained through acts of exclusion. In the process of creating
something, something else inevitably gets left out. These exclusive structures can
become repressive—and that repression comes with consequences. In a manner
reminiscent of Freud, Mr. Derrida insists that what is repressed does not disappear
but always returns to unsettle every construction, no matter how secure it seems.
(Taylor, 2004)
A Few Bifurcations on the Path to Critical Theory
While Hegel barely broke the “surface structures” of metaphysics
and the “foundational project of Western philosophy” he did crack
them. While the egg was cracking, the chick of the postmodern was
not yet out of the modernity shell. Hegel’s triadic formulations,
inherited from Kant, possess some dynamical characteristics. For
example, his triad of being, nothing, and becoming, could be viewed
as a self-organizational sequence of bifurcations to new attractors of
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being (Hegel, 1807, 1811; see also, Redding, 2008). I view the triad
which resolves the tension between two parts (being and nothing)
into a process, becoming, as dynamical interaction between being and
nothing, a process itself, undergoing, self-organizationally influenced
bifurcations; a sequence constituting becoming and the resulting
attractors constituting a new view of being. In dynamics, we might
refer to these as catastrophic bifurcations. But that is just me and my
dynamical metaphors. Other triads behave accordingly to the same
principles:
What is wrong with the “thesis-antithesis-synthesis” approach is that it gives the
sense that things or ideas are contradicted or opposed by things that come from
outside them. To the contrary, the fundamental notion of Hegel's dialectic is that
things or ideas have internal contradictions. From Hegel's point of view, analysis
or comprehension of a thing or idea reveals that underneath its apparently simple
identity or unity is an underlying inner contradiction. This contradiction leads to
the dissolution of the thing or idea in the simple form in which it presented itself
and to a higher-level, more complex thing or idea that more adequately incorporates
the contradiction. The triadic form that appears in many places in Hegel (e.g. beingnothingness-becoming, immediate-mediate-concrete, abstract-negative-concrete)
is about this movement from inner contradiction to higher-level integration or
unification. (“Hegel,” 2009)
Hegel, in proposing the first clear concept of modernity, also
proposed dynamical concepts of historical change, “the spirit
has broken with what was hitherto the world of its existence and
imagination and is about to submerge all this in the past; it is at
work giving itself a new form...” (Hegel, 1807) reflected in “words
such as revolution, progress, emancipation, development, crisis,
and Zeitgeist” (Kosellect, 1985, p. 246). “Modernity can and will no
longer borrow the criteria by which it takes its orientation from the
models supplied by another epoch: it has to create its normativity out
of itself” (Habermas, 1987, p. 7). Unfortunately, as some critics have
pointed out, his vision was that of the ideology of his age, 19th century
Vienna, a fixed point attractor, the end goal of history, which has been
blamed as laying the ground for both fascism and communism (See
“Hegel,” 2009).
In Heiddegger, we can see his recognition of the idea of bifurcation,
in this case, a dynamicist might say, subtle bifurcations, in his concept
of poiesis:
Martin Heidegger refers to it as a ‘bringing-forth,’ using this term in its widest sense.
He explained poiesis as the blooming of the blossom, the coming-out of a butterfly
from a cocoon, the plummeting of a waterfall when the snow begins to melt. The
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last two analogies underline Heidegger’s example of a threshold occasion: a moment
of ecstasis when something moves away from its standing as one thing to become
another. (“Poiesis,” 2009)
Mark Johnson, extending Heidegger,
suggest[s] that the distinction between praxis and poiesis is one of ‘codifiability’.
Whilst the praxis of scientists results in codified concepts, poiesis produces artefacts
of often uncodifiable complexity. This view of codifiability accords with Bateson’s
cybernetic characterisation of ‘sacraments’ as objects of unmanageable complexity.
Using this conception of sacraments we paint a picture of the complex and materiallygrounded relationships that exist between the artwork and the observer.
In conclusion, we argue that the critical realist perspective helps us to see the artist
engaging in a form of depth praxis, producing artefacts which in their dissemination
retain their sacramental qualities—qualities which are themselves deeply entwined
with the material springs of synchronic emergent powers: a domain which is beyond
the reach of conventional social science. (2006)
Not only is this dynamical, but Johnson even mentions cybernetics
(which is the same as systems theory) and Bateson, an anthropologist
who was part of the American cybernetics group which grew
out of WWII efforts by scientists in the fields of communications
engineering. Obviously there is an abundance of philosophies and
philosophers that exhibit such characteristics, and which are relevant
to the program of emancipation and liberation. But let’s turn our
attention to some more contemporary examples taken from liberation
psychology, liberation theology, and liberation pedagogy. Virtually
all fields of human intellectual and political curiosity could be mined
in a similar vein.
A Few Examples from Liberation Psychology,
Theology, AND Education
Kurt Lewin, after escaping Nazi Germany, went to the Unites States
where he established concepts of field theory (another version
of dynamics) in psychology and started a whole field of social
responsibility in social psychology, leading to the formation of SPSSI,
the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues in 1951. He
too had a triadic theory of cognitive change of unfreezing, change,
freezing:
An early model of change developed by Lewin described change as a three-stage
process. The first stage he called "unfreezing". It involved overcoming inertia and
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dismantling the existing “mind set.” Defense mechanisms have to be bypassed. In the
second stage the change occurs. This is typically a period of confusion and transition.
We are aware that the old ways are being challenged but we do not have a clear
picture as to what we are replacing them with yet. The third and final stage he called
“freezing.” The new mindset is crystallizing and one's comfort level is returning to
previous levels. (“Lewin,” n.d.)
He applied this theory to social as well as individual change, and
embodied it in his ‘action research,’ as a process of emancipation.
Lewin, then a professor at MIT, first coined the term ‘action research’ in about 1944,
and it appears in his 1946 paper “Action Research and Minority Problems”.[7] In that
paper, he described action research as “a comparative research on the conditions and
effects of various forms of social action and research leading to social action” that
uses “a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of a circle of planning, action, and
fact-finding about the result of the action.
Lewin [is] often associated with the early Frankfurt School, originated by an
influential group of largely Jewish Marxists at the Institute for Social Research in
Germany. (“Lewin,” n.d.)
Thus he was part of the original cabal of social philosophers at
the Institute dedicated to emancipation and who spawned critical
theory. Others included founder Max Horkheimer, a sociologist,
Theodor Adorno, a psychologist and musicologist, Herbert Marcuse,
sociologist, Walter Benjamin, social critic, and Jürgen Habermas,
sociologist.
You can see that Lewin’s ‘action research’ involved instability, with
the collection of research data, say on discrimination, a court case with
its great instability of adversarial methodology, and its interaction
within society, and the ‘freeze’ of the judicial result into social behavior
(or not!). Thus his theory of social change followed that of his threestage model of personality or behavioral change, the unfreeze-changerefreeze stages. In this example: unfreeze the university admissions’
policy via legal challenge; change the discriminatory practice via a
court order; refreeze a new nondiscriminatory admissions policy.
Martín-Baró was an adoptive Salvadoran Jesuit priest and social
psychologist who founded liberation theology and psychology (la
psicología social de la liberación, PSL). He was assassinated in 1989
by the Salvadoran army. He
... embraced liberation theology in opposition to a theology that oppressed the poor.
As a social psychologist, he believed that imported North American psychology
also oppressed marginalized people and that what was necessary was a liberation
psychology. Martín-Baró believed that much of the standard, prevailing psychology
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served the interests of the ruling class and promoted alienation of oppressed people.
“Generally,” he said, “psychologists have tried to enter into the social process by way
of the powers to be.” (Levine, 2009)
He was convinced about the “de-ideologising” potential of social psychology,
and therefore he questioned the theoretical models of mainstream psychology. He
considered these models inadequate to confront the situations of structural and
direct violence that prevailed in El Salvador. (“Martín-Baró,” n.d.)
Prevailing psychology's focus on individualism, he wrote, "ends up reinforcing
the existing structures, because it ignores the reality of social structures and reduces
all structural problems to personal problems." Martin-Baró also pointed out, echoing
Lewis Mumford, that when knowledge is limited to verifiable, observable facts and
events, we "become blind to the most important meanings of human existence." Much
of what makes us fully human and capable of overcoming injustices—including
our courage and solidarity—cannot be reduced to simplistic, verifiable, objective
variables.
The prevailing psychology, according to Martin-Baró, is not politically
neutral, but favors maintaining the status quo. Reducing human motivations to the
maximization of pleasure fits neatly into the dominant culture. Martin-Baró astutely
observed that most prevailing psychology schools of thought—be it psychoanalytic,
behavioral, or biochemical—accept the maximization of pleasure as the motivating
force for human behavior, ignoring other human motivations, including the need for
fairness and social justice.
In contrast to Martin-Baró, U.S. American intellectual activists have a considerable
degree of free speech and it requires no great heroism for U.S. citizens to hear them
speak and discover truths. The U.S. corporate-government partnership is increasingly
unafraid of its citizens hearing truths because it has increasing confidence that, even
when social inequity is thrown in their faces, U.S. citizens are too broken to act on
truths. (Levine, 2009)
I was one of those American intellectual activists, who, in a less
threatening environment, nonetheless lost my job at UCLA while
fighting sexism and racism at that institute in the early 1970’s when
apparently Martín-Baró was also there. I have written occasionally
about the similar shortcomings of both academic psychology and
academic institutions in general (Ehrlich & Abraham, 1974; Murphy
& Abraham, 1995; see also Hook, 2005, on critical psychology.).
Paulo Freire, Brazilian educator, developed a liberation educational
philosophy that made many of the same critiques of education as
liberation psychology and theology did for their disciplines.
There is no such thing as a neutral education process. Education either functions
as an instrument that is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation
into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes
‘the practice of freedom,’ the means by which men and women deal critically and
creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their
world. (cited in Shaull, 2006, p. 34)
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Freire is considered the founder of critical pedagogy, an extension
of critical theory. Hegel has a strong influence on Freire’s philosophy
(Torres, 1994), especially in its phenomenology, which is an important
feature in the educational liberational experience. Gramsci, Italian
Marxist, whose ideas were very influential on the founders of critical
theory as well as on Althusser, Bhabha, Chomsky, Foucault, Said,
Cornell West, and many others, also had a strong influence in Freire’s
thinking. Fontejon-Bonior, as mentioned before, has put these ideas
into practice in the Philippines.
Some of my friends are involved in pedagogy/praxis efforts with
a strong involvement of dynamical systems, such as Carlos Torre in
New Haven, CT, USA and his native Puerto Rico (Torre, 1995), Linda
Dennard in Ireland and the US (Dennard, 1995, 2008), and VanderVen
(2004). These are natural metaphorical extensions of dynamics to the
field of education where reform, as in all social movements, depends
on destabilization.
Linda Dennard’s instability-narrative comes from an incident she
had teaching in a university classroom in which a struggle between
her class and bureaucratic control by janitors over her attempts to
use art to make her classroom space more hospitable. Her principles
involved the confluence of aesthetics, education, and democracy
using appeals to John Dewey and Frank Lloyd Wright. This unstable
struggle led to a self-organizational bifurcation in that the struggle
highlighted the very principles of the evolution of democracy that
was the subject of the course, by means of its self-similarity to those
principles.
… civic space is the pattern of relationship that emerges from the interaction in time
among two or more individuals in a context, by which I think she means to be art and
bureaucracy. Democratic culture ...emerges as a co-adaptation of social relationships
within the conditions in which they occur… [and is] is identified by a specific pattern
of relationships that is the result of the co-evolution of individuals within the context
of the ‘third.’ These relationships create (self-organize) the regulating social dynamics
(here civic architecture) by which society transforms and sustains itself.
Secondly, the story illustrates the intimate connection between aesthetics and
democracy. However, aesthetics is concerned here, not with how the Arts or music
convey certain values or political ideas, rather it is concerned with the emotional/
sensory nature of aesthetics, those which draw an individual toward an interaction
with another (Adorno, 1997, p. 160). These attractors may indeed be art or music, but
for the purposes here the attractor is human relationship which, like art and music,
has a destabilizing effect on habitual patterns of thought —a liberating pre-condition
of human learning and which therefore is a foundational element of equalitarian
democracy. (Dewey 1980, p 21, 41)
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I remember one of my first classes that I taught at Silliman, which
was held in the faculty senate room, one of the most dismal spots on
campus. Just by itself it spoke oppression, an environment in which
it was impossible to achieve true dialogue, Freire’s ‘the practice of
freedom,’ or Dewey’s or Adorno’s aesthetics of the educational
experience. My solution, with this and many of my classes, while
not as creative as Linda’s, was to get out among the Acacia trees
surrounding the Amphi on the campus green, or on occasion, to
wander the Boulevard ‘by the sea,’ Aristotle’s peripatetic style.
Postcolonial Theory and Critical Psychology
The colonial condition in this context involves discrimination,
oppression, and exploitation of people. While the postcolonial
condition ostensibly involves nations that once were, but no longer are,
under the direct control of another more powerful nation, postmodern
theory includes any nation-state or non-national cultures for which
these colonial-like conditions exist. These include totalitarian regimes,
democratic regimes, and multicultural diaspora. All these conditions
share various forms of economic oppression, social and psychological
debilitation, and a loss of humanity. Postcolonial theory refers to
discussions of their dynamics.
These dynamics exist in the intersection of personal experience,
local and regional socio-economic factors, and global forces of
coercion, whether economic, diplomatic, or military. Bhabha is one
of the grand masters at expressing these dynamics. Bhabha uses
postmodern theories and literature and other cultural artefacts in
his development of postcolonial theory. He is aided in this endeavor
from a metaperspective derived from his own experiences growing
up in multicultural environment in Mumbai (then Bombay) and
from his diasporic experience while studying in Oxford. One of
his fundamental postcolonial ideas is that multicultural diasporic
communities incubate the insight into the postcoloonical condition
and the growing energy that empowers resistance to that condition.
This is a condition that some systems’ theorists refer to variously as
self-organizational, emergent, or autopoetic.
Bhabha is not the first intellectual expatriate who became
passionate about issues of freedom and emancipation. Rizal studied in
Madrid, Paris, and Heidelberg, where he learned about the economic
and dialectal theories of Hegel, Marx, and Engels and realized
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their relevance to colonial conditions in the Philippines. His novels
expressed this influence and led to his founding La Liga Filipina
which spawned the Katipunan revolutionary movement. The goals
of the Katipunan included uniting the Filipinos into a single nation,
winning independence for the Philippines, and establishing the
Philippines as a communist republic. Thus the Philippine revolution
like the Russian revolution, shared its Marxist roots with the later
founding of critical theory. Juan Luna, the famous Filipino artist
and friend of Rizal during their days in Spain, captured much of the
colonial dynamics in his painting, España y Filipinas (1886), which
also helped to inspire the Katipunan movement.
There is usually a struggle and tension, often unrecognized but
nonetheless felt, between ‘dual economies,’ a phrase coined by Joseph
Stiglitz, Senior Vice-President and Chief Economist of the World Bank
who wrote
... [the IMF and the World Bank have] the feel of the colonial ruler ... they help to
create a dual economy in which there are pockets of wealth ... But a dual economy
is not a developed economy. It is re-production of dual, unequal economies as
effects of globalization that render poorer societies more vulnerable to the ‘culture of
conditionality’ through which what is purportedly the granting of loans turn[s] into
the peremptory enforcement of policy.” between the cultures of the oppressed and
those of the privileged. (2002, p. 40; cited by Bhabha, 2004, p. xv)
Bhabha characterizes these dual economies as two varieties of
cosmopolitanism. The first
is a cosmopolitanism of relative prosperity and privilege founded on ideas of
progress that are complicit with neo-liberal forms of governance, and free-market
forces of competition. Such a concept of global 'development' has faith in the virtually
boundless powers of technological innovation and global communications.
A global cosmopolitanism of this sort readily celebrates a world of plural
cultures and peoples located at the periphery, so long as they produce healthy profit
margins within metropolitan societies. States that participate in such multlicultural
multinationalism affirm their commitment to 'diversity, at home and abroad… (p.
xiv)
Bhabha’s second variety of cosmopolitanism is about how out of
a wounded cosmopolitanism (Kristeva’s term) there emerges a ‘right
to difference in equality’ (Balibar, 1994, p. 56) which represents the
views of ‘national minorities and global migrants’ and the desire to
revise customary attitudes toward participatory representation.
The vernacular cosmopolitan takes the view that the commitment to a ‘right to
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difference in equality’ as a process of constituting emergent groups and affiliations
has less to do with the affirmation of origins and ‘identities,’ and more to do with
political practices and ethical choices. Minoritarian affiliations or solidarities arise
in response to the failures and limits of democratic representation, creating new
modes of agency, new strategies of recognition, new forms of political and symbolic
representation . . . (pp. xvii-xviii)
You can see why I like this statement, not only for its recognizing
minoritarian identifications, but because it possesses the point of
view of systems’ thinking of destabilization and transformation, an
evolutionary process.
An example of an ‘off-center’ author who captured his admiration
was V.S. Naipal, himself Indo-Carribbean, whose novels examined
survival among the poor in Trinidad:
It was the ability of Naipaul's characters to forbear their despair, to work through
their anxieties and alienations towards a life that may be radically incomplete but
continues to be intricately communitarian, busy with activity, noisy with stories,
garrulous with grotesquerie, gossip, humor, aspirations, fantasies—these were
the signs of a culture of survival that emerges from the other side of the colonial
enterprise, the darker side. (p. xii-xiii)
Sounds a lot like Ralph Ellison’s protagonist in Invisible Man
(1947). Naipal and Bhabha have lived the multicultural life, and reflect
not only on the enrichments it offers but also on its oppressions and
prejudices.
Naipaul's people are vernacular cosmopolitans of a kind, moving in-between cultural
traditions, and revealing hybrid forms of life and art that do not have a prior existence
within the discrete world of any single culture or language.
The cosmopolitan ethic that emerges from the colonized Trinidadian's embattled
existence — ironic style, tolerance, a refusal to take the eminent at their own estimation
— now delivers a withering judgment on the masked intolerance and posed piety of
the supposedly 'advanced' metropolitan world. Naipaul's early intimation of what a
'vernacular cosmopolitanism' might be is extremely useful in discriminating between
two forms of cosmopolitical thinking that are deeply ingrained in contemporary
discourses of globalization. (pp. xiii-xiv.)
Bhabha then reflects upon the social and de-personalizing effects of this
domination on the underprivileged who suffer the consequences of this discrimination
and exploitation: and upon the emergence of a second style of vernacular cosmopolitan
culture that can form paths of resistance to domination.
Globalization, I want to suggest, must always begin at home. A just measure of
global progress requires that we first evaluate how globalizing nations deal with 'the
difference within' – the problems of diversity and redistribution at the local level,
and the rights and representations of minorities in the regional domain. (ibid, p. xv)
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I think what he is saying here is that the lack of empathy and
sympathy at the local level toward the poor and minorities allows
acceptance of their poverty, or even the sustaining of an exploitive
attitude toward them, and thereby sustains globalization. I think this
point of view suggests not just a one-way effect, local to global, but that
there is an interaction between local production and consumption,
and the psycho-social-economic practices of global capitalism that in
turn supports this local inequality.
These considerations suggest concern for the plight of the Ati,
Sulod, B'laan, Monobo, Bagobo, Lumad, T'boli, Maguindanao,
Maranao, Tiruray, Cuyonin, Bontoc, Ifugao, and Kalinga, to mention
but a few of the many disenfranchised tribal minorities in the
Philippines.
Bhabha cautions us to be aware of subtle aspects of discrimination
that impede attempts to provide not only retribution to such people,
but recognition and dignity as well:
There is, however, an ingrained insouciance, a structural injustice [toward such]
peoples whose ethical and political demands for equality and fairness are based on
issues of reparations and land-rights. These rights go beyond 'welfare' or 'opportunity'
and make claims to recognition and redistribution in the process of questioning the
very sovereignty of national traditions and territories. (p. xv)
This comment provides probably one of the principal lessons
that social philosophical theory provides for guidance and goading
for nations, which, like the Philippines has disadvantaged ethnic
minorities. Almost all parts of the world must confront this challenge.
These concerns apply to the emerging cultures in urban
populations, as well as rural and have long existed in large cities
worldwide. For example, in the 1920’s W.E.B DuBois proclaimed:
We must conceive of colonies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as . . . [part
of] the local problems of London, Paris and New York. [Here in America, and] in the
organized and dominant states of the world, there are groups of people who occupy
the quasi-colonial status: laborers who are settled in the slums of large cities; groups
like Negroes in the United States who are segregated physically and discriminated
spiritually in law and custom . . . All these people occupy what is really a [quasi]
colonial status and make the kernel and substance of the problem of minorities.
(1970, p. 183)
Latin America provides examples of new forms of resistance which
include a strong rejection of the neo-liberal model of integration and
development. For example,
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The Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean (ALBA) is a different
proposal of integration. Whilst the Free Trade Area of the Americas (ALCA or
FTAA) responds to the interests of transnational capital and pursues the absolute
liberalization of trade in goods, services and investment, ALBA puts the emphasis
on the struggle against poverty and social exclusion and, therefore, it expresses the
interests of the Latin American peoples. (Dominguez, 2006)
There are six billion people in the world, and one billion of them live
in slums like this or worse. Q & A (Swarup, 2005), the novel that was
adopted into Slumdog Millionaire, was set in one of them, the Juhu
slums of Mumbai. The story reveals severe prejudice against the poor
and minorities. The protagonist’s mother was killed during the antimuslim riots. This is prejudice much like what Magasa faced in the
Monobo folktale, though far more severe. The oppression of the poor
is also reminiscent of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (2006).
The author states that part of his inspiration was from the Holein-the-Wall project (Mitra et al., 2005; Mitra, 2008), an experiment in
a Delhi slum where a computer was installed that kids learned to use
on their own. Additional inspiration came from a cheating scandal on
a British quiz show, where the cheater was a major. “If a British army
major can be accused of cheating, then an ignorant tiffin [merienda
but also lunch box delivery] boy from the world’s biggest slum can
definitely be accused of cheating (Swarup, 2009).
Besides confronting discrimination, oppression, and violence,
the protagonist reveals, in winning the prize of the TV quiz show,
that incidental and self-developed learning, what Freire has called
the ‘pedagogy of curiosity’ (Papert & Freire, 1980s) can trump these
forces of oppression. A similar project a few years ago at Silliman
Elementary School, showed this same ability to learn with minimal
instruction, including going beyond the Hole/Mitra tasks of browsing
and Googling, by teaching computer programming and elementary
robotics, using Logo (Papert, 1993; Papert & Freire, 1980s)
Finally I have found my segue from Mumbai to Manila, where we
find a different approach to reaching children in the slums. So first
let’s take a quick look at three slums there that well illustrate the ‘dual
economies’ of Stiglitz, which we also saw in the Trinidad article about
the wall for the economic summit and Obama’s visit. Ironically, our
first view of the slums will be Tondo, which was the launching site of
the Katipunan (July 7, 1892, Bonifacio founded in a house in Tondo,
his home town). Now famous due to CNN’s Hero of the Year Award
of 2009, Efren Peñaflorida who took a more personal approach into
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the slums. He took his experience on how he broke free of the coercive
efforts of the street barkadas to recruit him into a life of drugs, crime,
scavenging, dropping their education, to dead end lives. He took his
‘pushcart classrooms’ into the slums of Cavite City’s and Quezon’s
City’s massive dumps, and enthralled the children there into a love
of learning. His was a more personal approach to the ‘pedagogy of
curiosity,’ in this case, with the even more important qualities of
empathy and friendship of Efren and his friends.
Finally, in the progression of the ‘pedagogy of the oppressed’
from computerized holes in the walls, to the compassion of ‘pushcart
classrooms’, we illustrate the emancipation potential by returning to
Gina Fontejon-Bonior acting at the rural barangay level (2005). Her
experiences with disenfranchised students in a rural barrio elementary
school, combined with her postmodern metaperspective and personal
hutzpah and enthusiasm for praxis, led to her conclusions about the
contextual issues which framed the students’ powerlessness.
From these multiple sources of information and multiple methods of data collection,
four topic emerged from the data: 1) ways in which authoritative discourses, such as the
commonly accepted notion that one’s ‘intelligence’ is measured by one’s proficiency
in English; 2) ways in which disciplinary technology, such as labeling of students
as ‘taga-bukid’ (people from the mountains), silence and marginalize students and
teachers; 3) the extent of agency that students, teacher, and administration exercised
as well as the strategies they use to address unequal power relations; and 4) factors
internal and external to the school that limited the agency of students, teacher,
and administration and contributed to the marginalization and silencing of some
participants. (Fontejon-Bonior, 2005, p. 25)
In a sense, this is the story of Megasà, the students can smell
the education, but they cannot partake of the educational meat. The
systems must be destabilized by the agency of the intervener, the
arbitrator in the Monobo barrio, and Gina in the Negros barrio school,
and the system must self-organizationally accept the need for change,
for bifurcation, represented by the chief in the former, and the school
principal in the later who are proxy for the social context in which
these changes occur.
Thus we have come full circle from the folktale and through
Fontejon-Bonior’s participatory-ethnographic trajectory. Similarly, we
could come full circle to instabilities in social theory through Bhabha,
with his quotes of Heidegger on instability, that is a boundary that is
the point of bifurcation, change, from the opening quote of his book:
A boundary is not that at which something stops but, as the Greeks recognized, the
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boundary is that from which something begins its presencing. (Heidegger, 1971)
Epilog: Summary AND Conclusions
We started with a few examples of instability in social theory (FontejonBenior, Tillich, the Sulu Sea and its influence on the evolution of
humans, and Poster). Then we introduced a bit of systems theory to
establish that instability, bifurcation, and self-organization are general
properties of all things. Then we continued our journey through the
beginnings of some of these ideas in contemporary social theory
from Hegel, through Heidegger, Johnson, and Lewin. That was the
introduction and excursus.
All these were closely allied with critical theory. But with Kurt
Lewin, we were able to segue to the liberation psychology of Ignacio
Martin-Baró, and thence into education with Freire, Dennard, and
Dewey.
Then we moved on to the global perspective, and at Bhabha’s
insistence, its intersection with the local and the experiential. We
started with the Katipunan, then reviewed some of the principal ideas
of Bhabha, a quintessential postcolonial writer, though his writing and
self-image transcended being pigeon-holed. And finally we moved
on to some examples of oppression and poverty in slums and barrios,
going from computer bootstrapping in India, to pushcart classrooms
in Manila’s slums, to emancipation in a Visayan barrio school.
From these examples, I do not mean to imply that all social and
cultural bifurcations end up with improved social conditions, only
that the dynamics involve institutions which tend to resist change,
and that something needs to unstabilize them for progress, and that
this is a never ending process. The more oppressive and conservative
a culture, the more unbearable it becomes, and it thereby seeds
the roots of either its own destruction or its retrenchment. Social
philosophies give us a more mature metaperspective which guide the
discourse. And that these should be founded not upon ideologies and
fixed interpretations of nature, humans, and society, but on discourse
and the tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty. And to accomplish
these we must pay more attention to pedagogy and language.
In the Philippines, emancipation means the challenge of tribal
cultures, the proper education of our youth, governance free of greed
and corruption, and for wealth to flow from the slums of Makati
to the slums of Tondo. Above all, if the intellectual community is
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to provide any assistance to these efforts, it should be in providing
the metaperspective to give voice and inspiration to the desires for
liberation. Freire’s emphasis on pedagogy is crucial for this effort.
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VOL. 52 NO. 2
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Where I Come From
Ian Rosales Casocot
Department of English and Literature
Silliman University
I
will begin with two stories, both of them myths from the
Philippines, plucked from an ancient tradition of oral tales largely
unknown, and untold, to the rest of the world. One is a creation
story and the other is a kind of adventure story. The reason why I am
sharing them to you is that I believe they will help explain, the way
mythology often elucidates, why “a sense of place” is often necessary
in our writings. They will also illumine why I happen to write in the
first place.
But let me put forth my thesis first: the idea of “a sense of place” for
me goes beyond the expected catalogue of sensory details, rendered
in literary magic-making, that evokes home. While a travelogue
through geography-specific nostalgia is a big part of the process, a
writer’s “sense of place” ultimately contributes to a bigger project—
that of laying the geography of imagination for one’s country. In
my stories, I concoct an embracing image of the city where I come
from—Dumaguete, in the heart of sugar land that is Negros Island—
knowing full well that it is part of a project to flesh out an idea of the
country. I shall try to explain this later on.
According to the Bagobo, the world came into being with the
cosmos in chaos. All the heavenly bodies—the sun, the moon, the
stars—were in such close contact with the earth that the world proved
inhabitable: it was scorching, and the mythic beings that came before
men had no choice but to scatter into the shadows of the earth’s caves
and crevices to cool themselves from the steady broiling. One day,
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Tuglibong, the female leader of this band of mythic beings, went out
of her abode to pound rice with her mortar and pestle. And while she
went deep into the rhythm of her pounding, Tuglibong looked up and
began to scold in a sing-song the nearby sky and the heavenly bodies.
She chided them in song, and called them names—and in response,
perhaps to get away from Tuglibong’s tirade, the sky (the sun, the
moon, and the stars with it) began to rise higher and higher, up into
the appropriate distance where they could still give light without
making French fries out of everybody else.
If one thinks about it, Tuglibong’s angry song—which can stand
for my native tradition of literature—put order to the universe, and
gave her people a sense of habitable home, a kind of a sense of place.
Here is another story. According to the Manobo, there was once a
prince who went by the name of Baybayan. The prince, who abhorred
war and loved to only sing and dance, was soon sent on a peculiar exile
by his grandfather the king. He was given the specific instructions to
circle the world seven times, and en route was told to sing and tell
the stories of his kingdom’s greatness. Prince Baybayan did as he was
told, and circled the world seven times, where he prospered in his
long journey by singing the old stories about his ancient land—and I
am overstretching this now—to the peoples of Bhârat, Uyashima, Ur,
Egypt, Nubia, the Middle Kingdom of Ch’in, Hellas, Vinland, and
Mesoamerica.
In his travels, Baybayan sang perhaps of the hero Lam-ang, who
was swallowed by the giant fish berkahan, which perhaps became the
Hebrew story of Jonah and the whale. He sang of the kidnapping of
the sea maiden Humitao by Lord Aponi-to-lau, a depraved act which
unleashed the wrath of the sea god Tau-mari-u who proceeded to
let loose a great deluge on all the land, which perhaps became the
story of Noah and the Great Flood. He sang of the virgin birthing
of gigantic heroes, which perhaps became the Babylonian story of
Semiramis and her son Nimrod. (Or Mary and Jesus.)
If one thinks about it, the Manobo could very well be the origin
of world literature—and explains why, all over the world, we share
similar motifs and tropes in our stories.
I like how I see these two ancient stories as metaphors for how I
understand the workings—at least some of it anyway—of literature,
and more specifically, of creative writing. In this particular context,
these are the best stories I can begin with to understand, in my terms,
what “a sense of place” means for me, especially in my writing.
In Tuglibong’s story of singing away the chaos of the universe
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WHERE I COME FROM
to put order to things, I see writing as that magical song that carves
out a definition of home—we make sense of where we live, of where
we come from, by rendering the chaos of the details that surround
us—the texture of geography, its smell, its sounds, its tastes—into
the realm of the familiar that can be accessed only by the exquisite
rendition in literature.
In Baybayan’s story of seven journeys in song, I see this literature
of evoking home as having two meanings: that writers become
architects of how where we come from can be imagined by the rest
of the world, and that the exercise of telling about home can best be
done as an exilic endeavor.
This exilic mode is interesting because we know of so many writers
who seem to subscribe to it, believing that we often need to go away,
to seek a little distance, in order to obtain some sort of objectivity.
The Philippine novelist and national hero Jose Rizal had to leave the
Philippines to write his masterpiece about it, Noli Me Tangere. James
Joyce, too, with Ireland, and so it was with V.S. Naipaul and Milan
Kundera and Salman Rushdie and Jessica Hagedorn. It surprised
me little that before arriving in Iowa City, I had come up with the
fervent resolution to begin here the draft of my second novel—which
I meant to be a paean to the loveliness and sinfulness of where I come
from. I honestly thought that the distance provided by Iowa City
would enable me to see beyond the ghosts I wanted to escape, these
phantom obstacles that proximity often brings. I thought it completely
impossible to write about Dumaguete if I were still in the middle of
all that familiarity. Like Baybayan, I had to go far to be able to sing
about the place I call home.
This urge to do a fictional rendering of the story of one’s own
place has always been the silent project for many writers, whether
they admit it or not. There are easy examples to highlight. Alice
Munro’s Ontario, Canada. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Macondo. John
Updike’s Olinger, Pennsylvania. William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha.
Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio. Edith Wharton’s New York.
When we think of these writers and many more like them, what
immediately comes to us is a sense of a specific world that they
conjure in their works. With story after story, they essentially give us
the bricks and the seeds and the atmosphere to make up this specific
sense of place, which becomes an embracing stage upon which
their diverse characters play out their conflict and their drama. The
Filipino fictionist Timothy Montes once wrote that a “sense of place”
is linked to, but is not necessarily the same as, “setting,” which itself
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is an often “overlooked as an active element” in the creation of stories,
always secondary to plot and character, and often scaled down to a
“cosmetic role.” But he noticed that many writers return again and
again to a particular setting that in the end what they have created is
a believable world whose “air” blends so well with the characters and
their stories that we begin to feel they could only have existed in the
very place they occupy. He goes on:
I think most writers, especially those writing short stories, operate from this singleminded creation of a sense of place. They take great pains to make each story
complete or self-enclosed, but the sense of place can only be formed by an accretion
of stories, the building of worlds that will be more subtle than the alien worlds of
science fiction, and sooner or later they will see that the sense of place will loom
larger than the individual stories that make them. The impulse may be conscious or
unconscious, and one has to drink deep from the well of memory to be able to tap
into it.
Needless to say, Dumaguete is my mythical place of roots. In
Dumaguete lay the secrets of my blood, my history. Also here is the
setting of my mother’s bedside stories, of those moments when I was
a young child and she’d tuck me to bed and gamely recall a life when
she was a young woman and World War II was brewing, or much
later when she had returned to Bayawan town as a married woman
in the sugar boom of the late 1960s and became, for a while, one of its
fairer society hostesses. Those were the heady days, when sugar cane
oiled the pockets of young hacenderos on the make, and everybody
was rich… Dumaguete means memory—and this word alone means
so much in the ways it must mean: as a threshold of recollections both
happy and tragic.
In the final analysis, however, the sense of place that I try to
cultivate in my fiction eventually comes sidled with a higher agenda—
to help create a sense of nation, a sense of the Philippines, with my
stories. I, apparently, am not alone in this “endeavor,” as the poet
and anthologist Gemino Abad once deftly observed in his exhausting
survey of Filipino short stories in English that were published between
1956 to 1972.
But Timothy Montes says it better:
For me, the Ilocanos are fixed in a small town called Nagrebcan in La Union because
of the stories of Manuel Arguilla, [the island of] Mindoro in the works of N.V.M.
Gonzalez, [the province of] Tarlac in the Camiling stories of Gregorio Brillantes, and
the old Manila in the works of Nick Joaquin. I never believed in a monolithic National
Literature because my impression of Philippine literature was that of the variety of
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particular worlds created by writers I admired, worlds that felt as concrete as the
jutting stones in the unpaved streets of my town as well as the smoothness of the
streets of the poblacion [downtown] under my chinelas [flipflops]. So the Philippines
would be an act of the imagination as different writers so rooted in their regional
origins would reveal to me…
I believe that we are forming our literature in the story-telling projects that
our writers have made of their particular towns, their particular cities. We are not
creating a Nation from an abstract perspective; we are building it town by town,
city by city, house by house, character by character. The imagined community is
not only formed by a daily newspaper with a national headline informing us what
happened in the national center; it is also brought forth by ordinary sights, smells
and sounds that a ten-year-old boy in a small, obscure town in Samar would try to
convey through stories.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This paper was delivered for the Iowa City Public Library Panel on “A Sense of
Place” at the International Writing Program of the University of Iowa, Iowa City, 10
September 2010.
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Three on Three
Being three comments on three of the readings in Ian Rosales Casocot’s “A
Gerontologist’s Idea of the World, Time, and the Cure for the Present: T.S.
Eliot, Robert Frost, Wilfredo Pascua Sanchez, Wallace Stevens, Jose Garcia
Villa, and Their Poems From or About Old Age.”
Myrna Peña-Reyes
Dumaguete City
A
fitting epigraph for the long-titled essay would have been this
quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes: “Poets are never young…
their delicate ear hears the far off whispers of eternity.”
The essay states that, for all the poets “the passage of time…has a
moral dimension, with the past almost always perfect and the present
and the future awash in chaos and corruption.”
The essay then suggests that “According to these poets, there are
ways of mitigating or making sense of this chaos in life, and the older
personas [character(s) assumed by the poet] in the poems consider
these two as the best method: spirituality and art.”
It’s this last point that engages this reviewer. The aspects of “the
world,” “time” (the past and the present), and “old age” are only
peripheral concerns in this graceful, elegantly written essay whose
title, however, promises too much. In fact, the essay’s title could be
changed to something like: “Poetic Prescriptions for Making Sense of
the World” because that is the main focus of the readings of the five
poems. Some of its conclusions, though, can be debated.
In explicating T.S. Eliot’s “Gerontion” (written after the First World
War when Eliot was 32), the essay adds another competent elucidation
to the scores of generic readings of the poem by others. The readings
build on the commonly-held interpretation of the poem as an old
man’s contemplation of the futility of history and the worthlessness
of action; the weight of historical knowledge destroying the capacity
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for wonder and illusion, the ability to act.
The essay states that the reason for the “corruption of history”
as the old man protagonist in the poem observes comes from “a loss
of grounding faith, from the disappearance of the spiritual,” adding
that Eliot’s “prescription (for it is a prescription) for this bankruptcy
is a return to a state of spirituality.” Elsewhere, the essay says, “That
spirituality—in Eliot’s poem—[is] clearly Christian.”
The essay does not define its use of the term “spirituality” here.
Is it spirituality in a religious sense as we normally understand it,
or something else, and if so, what or how else? After all, there is a
distinction between “spirituality” and “religiousity.”
I have tried to see the essay’s interpretation of the need for a
return to the spiritual—the Christian variety—as supposedly Eliot’s
prescription “to mitigate or make sense of the corruption and chaos
in history” in “Gerontion.” But I do not see this demonstrated in
the poem. Other readers have pointed to the question of belief as the
problem plaguing the old man and society, but that’s not exactly the
same as “a lack of spirituality,” especially in the essay that leaves out
its definition of “spirituality.”
True, there are Christian religious elements alluded to in the poem
but, like everything in the poem, they are already part of “corrupted
history,” associated with darkness and death, are frightening if not
ferocious. The poem does not show me how, if uncorrupted, these
Christian religious elements would be restorative or redeeming forces.
As they are in the poem, they are hardly positive forces. What were
their positive characteristics before they got corrupted? Was there
such a time, ever? Down through history, organized Christianity has
been responsible for so much death and destruction in the world,
its leading proponents more faithful to the form rather than the
substance of their faith. Filipinos were themselves victims under
Imperial Catholic Spain and Colonial Protestant America.
Much has been made by readers of Eliot’s baptism in 1927 into
The Church of England (Anglicanism), what Eliot called “The English
Catholic Church,” when he abandoned the less restrictive Unitarian
faith of his American grandfather. Some readers use this Roman
Catholic religious link as a key to interpreting the poet’s work.
Although “Gerontion” was published earlier in 1920, Eliot’s
interest in Catholicism was already known to some of his colleagues.
But it has been argued convincingly that his was a surface interest.
The argument goes so far as to say that even in his later poem “Ash
Wednesday” (1930)…
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[Eliot] employs Biblical references as well as passages which are strongly reminiscent
of Anglo-Catholic liturgy, just as much of its imagery and symbolism derive from
his reading of Dante, but these elements are pressed into the service of a narrative
expressing dryness and solitude. Eliot evokes the tone of ‘religious verse’ without
any faith being articulated or convictions expressed… Belief falls away…what we
find is the expression of an unattached religious sensibility—the instinct for belief.1
Eliot’s contemporaries viewed his Catholic conversion with
suspicion, in Virginia Woolf’s words, smacking of “cultural
exhibitionism” and ”affected integrity.”
Peter Ackroyd cites Eliot’s essay “Shakespeare and the Stoicism of
Seneca” which discusses Dante’s Vita Nuova where Eliot “described
Dante’s attempts in VN to construct something ‘permanent and
holy’ out of his ‘animal feelings’, out of ‘private failures and
disappointments’: religious belief plays its part in such a construction
only as surface material, employed to provoke recognition and assent
from the reader while the obscure or at least unclarified substance
below does its own work.”
The fact is, Eliot was attracted to the form of the Roman Catholic
religion. It was his sense of tradition and an instinct for order that
drew him to Catholicism, the Roman Catholic Church’s long tradition
of order, hierarchy, and unity. He also admired the writings of St.
Thomas Aquinas and Dante. In a letter, Eliot remarked to a friend
that “Aquinas’s work embodied the unity of European culture in the
13th century, and he [Eliot] believed an examination of that culture to
be the best possible training for the contemporary mind.” In an essay,
“he described dogmatic religion as one means of learning to train and
discipline the emotions—but, he added, such discipline can only be
talked about by those who have peered into the abyss.”
In Aquinas’s and Dante’s writings Eliot saw the culmination of a
cultural and social order and lucidity that he advocated for modern
times. Might this be a possible interpretation of that “spirituality”
that the essay claims is Eliot’s “prescription” to cure the effects of a
“corrupted history,” a kind of “secular spirituality” perhaps? But
there would still be the problem that this idea is not organically
integrated within the poem and is merely another reader’s overlaying
of a possible interpretation based on an external factor, a knowledge
of the poet’s life.
The essay needs to spell out what it means by Eliot’s prescription
1
Peter Ackroyd, T.S. Eliot: A Life (1984)
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of “spirituality.”
And, perhaps, consider the possibility that “Gerontion” has no
“prescription for mitigating the chaos of life.” It’s probably enough
that Eliot dramatizes our human situation in memorable powerful,
evocative language that moves us to always seriously consider the
implications of this major societal predicament.
The essay suggests that, for Robert Frost, the way to make sense
out of the confusing present (the poet’s “this now too much for us”)
is with memory: “…we can partake of glorious remembering—and
only then can we be whole again,” in the essay’s words. Memory,
specifically the act of remembering, or getting lost in the past.
The explication of the poem is done sensitively and intelligently,
but how the past or remembering it achieves its restorative power as
explained in the essay may be debatable.
For one thing, it does not explore adequately the obvious question
of how one can take memory too seriously if the poet says the past is
“a time made simple by the loss/ of detail.” The loss of detail implies
inaccuracy. How can one trust inaccuracy?
Robert Frost’s “Directive” was written when the poet was 73 and
just after he had lost his wife and a son. The essay doesn’t say anything
about Frost’s family life, but the fact that it was an unhappy one
wouldn’t support the idea that he looked at the past with longing. Yet
the essay declares: “It is understandable then that in a close reading
of ‘Directive,’ we finally note that Frost’s project is ultimately to make
a kind of fetish of the past—or at least the memory of the past—as
something inherently better than the present…But…this is an old
man’s poem by an old man (sic) who is all-too-aware that what he is
writing is actually an illusion (the past without details), but still clings
to that past…What [the poem] has to say is simple: the poet is giving
directions to a house, an old one, which is metaphorical of all that
has vanished…and as he journeys past familiar but now forgotten
landscapes and byways, he becomes aware that this journey back to
the past is more ideal that the present he is living in.”
I’d like to believe that the poet is not pushing an “illusion” as
the solution for fixing our present situation. I think that the essay’s
phrases: “…to make a kind of fetish of the past—or at least the memory of
the past—as something inherently better than the present... clings to that
pass... journey back to the past is more ideal than the present” are rather an
exaggerated, if not faulty, interpretation of what’s in the poem. And
the essay even states that what the poem “has to say is simple.” But
like Frost’s other poems written in his plain-speaking folksy style, it
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may be just deceptively simple.
The height of the adventure is the height
Of country where two village cultures faded
Into each other. Both of them are lost.
Are those lines to be taken as dismal and negative as they seem?
Couldn’t the poet be describing or alluding to the formation and
growth of community (“village”) through assimilation from and into
a former community (the past): “two village cultures faded into each
other”?— resulting in the culmination of a people’s collective dream—
(a children’s “make-believe playhouse” is balanced by a real house,
“a house in earnest”)—and their collective labor: “the height of the
adventure…the height of country”? That “Both of them [“two village
cultures”] are lost” is just the natural way of things, they flourish and
fade, as seen in geologic and human history.
Your destination and your destiny’s
A brook that was the water of the house,
Cold as a spring as yet so near its source,
Too lofty and original to rage
.........
Here are your waters and your watering place,
Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.
The essay makes much of the Grail tradition when referring to a
broken drinking goblet in the poem found in the ruins. But it’s not
so much the “Grail,” which was, after all, “stolen” from the children’s
make-believe playhouse, as much as the water that is at the heart of
the passage, that has the symbolic power of restoration.
The essay says the Grail is a metaphor for memory. The adventure
aspect of the traditional search for the Holy Grail may be somewhat
echoed by the adventure feature of the poem’s journey to the past, so
that could be the “memory” part. But what about the sacred, holy,
therefore restorative, aspect of the Grail? In fact in the poem, the
allusion to the Grail is made in a light, joking manner, the poet-guide
saying he had hid it “under a spell so the wrong ones can’t find it/ So
can’t get saved” (in reference to a passage from St. Mark). The lines
suggests to me a tongue-in-cheek tone regarding the goblet as seen
within the Grail tradition (and maybe religion?), much like the poet’s
earlier tongue-in-cheek statement with its humorous implications
about a Glacier still exerting its coolness on a side of Panther Mountain.
Revisiting, remembering our past, tasting of its headwaters, so
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to speak, can make us “whole again beyond confusion.” In life, the
“destination and destiny” of the present is towards what will also be
a past in the future. And then that past will be the foundation for a
new present that will rise from it. Symbolically, the waters from the
brook, which is located in the setting of the past village, has restorative
powers for the present. We need to look at the past to help us make
sense of the confusions of the present.
The poem then may not be so much a contrasting of the present
and the past, favoring the past, as it is a simple recognition that we
must not forget the past; we must remember what happened before
us. That is the poet’s “directive.” Doing so could give us some
direction, some “grounding,” help us make sense of the present and
move “beyond confusion.”
I agree with the essay’s readings of the other subject poets.
The interpretations are done intelligently and sensitively, and I am
especially delighted with the section on Jose Garcia Villa’s “The
Anchored Angel.”
The intensity of the poem’s heightened language reaching
orgasmic power rightfully allows one to understand and accept the
essay’s interpretation that the poem is about and is itself the act of
creation, the sex act itself.
As with other readers familiar with Villa’s theme in his other
poems of humanizing God, the essay insightfully concludes that:
“…to understand the divine, one must start by fleshening (sic) it, by
giving it carnal dimension. In other words, this poem is essentially
the entire sex act rendered to poetry, rendering sex as akin to poetry,
rendering God to order, rendering the chaos to divine order.” The
essay explains further the nature of that poetry: poetry that can be
embodied by something even more physical: sex.”
Mischievously, though, a reader cannot help extending the
argument, facetiously of course, thus: If we are to understand that
the poem is taken as a demonstration of God in the act of creation—
creation being depicted in human terms as the act of sex itself—since
God acts by Himself alone, may the conclusion be drawn that creation
is a masturbatory process, perhaps?
One can well imagine how this would be one more addition to the
charge of blasphemy and sacrilege that the poet’s work presumably
contains, according to what Villa terms “illiterate” readers.
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
VOL. 52 NO.2
REVIEW
César Ruìz Aquino
In Samarkand:
Poems and
Verseliterations
Manila: University of
Santo Tomas Press, 2009,
148 pages
The Poet as Prophet and Punster
Review by Karlo Antonio Galay-David
I
n Samarkand by César Ruìz Aquino, a collection of poems and
verseliterations, illustrates the poet’s development from the lush
lyricism of his salad days to the word-obsessed economy of his
more erudite later life. But the placement of the newer poems at
the beginning of the book and the earlier ones at the end lends the
collection a retrogressive movement, with the succinct newer poems
“blossoming” into the more ornate eloquence of younger days. This
“blossoming,” occurring in reverse of Wilde’s proposed development
of wisdom in the decrease of earnestness, is skewered with the gradual
decrease of what T.S. Eliot describes as high intellectualism in poetry:
the later poems are whimsical but are dense with allusive reference,
while as the collection backtracks the allusions diminish but the poems
acquire a graver tone. This is such that the first “X-Sight” of the book
appears to be a more succinct but more parodic version of the richer
“X-Sight” that concludes the collection. Serving as transition between
the younger and older poems are the verseliterations – poems crafted
by taking lines of prose – which are on their own works of a certain
gravitas easily accessible on closed reading but are in fact crafted
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REVIEW OF IN SAMARKAND
experimentally, portending perhaps the poet’s departure from his
lyricism into the laboratory of words.
But this generalization would not mention the consistencies
found throughout the collection, for across time Aquino’s stylistic
peculiarities remain constant. For one thing, many of the poems rely on
deft execution of solidity of specification. In the early poem “Song” for
instance, the oft discussed unrequited love is concretely demonstrated
in all its hopelessness with the lines “your smile was the ripple I made/
on your surface of eternal water.” The same concreteness is evident in
the later poem “Like the moon,” with the lines “in the gut of craters that
you left” demonstrating the emptiness of absence. This also occurs in
the violence of language that borders on surrealism reminiscent of Jose
Garcia Villa. This is evident in early poems, like “Verb lovely flesh” as
well as in later poems like the haiku “Signs of the times.”
Perhaps the most pervading consistency in the collection is the
poet’s own voice of erudition, if not that Eliotian high intellectualism
in the poem’s intertextuality then in the poems’ collective portending
“of what is yet to happen” to quote the introduction by Edith Tiempo.
As mentioned, the poems are often heavy with allusion, revealing
there not only the poet’s vast store of knowledge but also his deep
connection to the Philippine poetic tradition. The several “Kalisud”
poems, for instance, are given a new dimension if the reader is familiar
with the allusion (Rowena Torrevillas gives useful commentary on one
of the poems, “Kalisud ala Superman”). In his lyricism the poet does not
hesitate to cite spiritual references, from the Kabalistic allusion of Adam
Kadmon in “Name” to the Indochinese sanctity of the river Chao Phraya
in “In the sign.” In less lyrical works the allusion is almost central to
the poem, as the case in “Tendril.” The long poem “Eyoter,” a tour de
force of allusions and linguistic puns, is so allusive it even throws in the
names of the poet’s writer-friends Susan Lara, Krip Yuson and Ricky
de Ungria. Aquino also admits to his influences, and Jun Lansang is
oft alluded to in the poems as well. But perhaps the verseliterations
are the most concrete demonstration of allusion, as at times the very
point of the verseliteration is the content of the source prose.
Many of the poems are of an inherently contemplative nature,
departing from pure experience and delving into the humanistic – and
sometimes sociological – implications of the experience, demonstrating
what Edith Tiempo describes as the “Aristotelian Heresy” in the
introduction. In “She” for instance the poet imagines the embers of
passion burning within the woman even after the act of intercourse
(“she retains the fire”). The speculation begins when the poet declares
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that “she is the fire” – that in woman sex becomes being. The same goes
with “X-Sight” (in both versions). The persona begins by describing the
strangeness of the addressee’s lack of impact when he tries to recall her.
But then it moves on to realizing why: for the trivialities of the flesh do
not last in light of the eternal subject, revealed when the persona “runs
into” who the addressee really is. The almost occult poetic wisdom of
“Song” is described vividly in Wilfredo Pascua Sanchez’ commentary
at the book’s end.
A selection of best poems would not be definitive of the collection’s
quality and would come out with pronounced heterogeneity. But
undoubtedly the best poems are the two “X-Sight”s, “She comes with
horns and tail,” “Shock of Recognition,” “Eyoter,” “Idea,” “Plain Blues,”
“Song” and “Word without end.” For the verseliterations, “words,”
“The hunt for plums,” “the unprintable word” and “the birds.” “She
comes with horns and tail” earns recognition for its transforming image
of the crescent moon comet as horns and tail. “Shock of recognition”
demonstrates that near madness typical in poetic expression. “Eyoter”
almost does not make sense but demonstrates the poet’s deft use
of puns (“Cesar Aquino in pun y vino”). “Idea,” like “Shock of
Recognition,” demonstrates how the fantasy of imagery can be used
to express unpronounceable emotions. “Plain blues” gets recognition
for its delightful mockery of the formal device of metaphor in its last
lines. The stylistic complexity of “Word without end,” demonstrated
simply by the fact that the quatrains’ initials are anagrams of “love,”
are analyzed more thoroughly in a closed reading by Ralph Semino
Galan. Almost all of the verseliterations are excellent, and the above
selection is almost arbitrary. But perhaps special mention should be
made of “The college sits down,” which is so well crafted it piqued
the curiosity of the writer of this review to try Malachi Martin’s “The
Final Conclave.”
The eponymous poem, “Samarkand” deserves special mention
because it is the most prototypical piece in the collection. Like most
of the poems it demonstrates not the immediate experience but the
possible implications of the experience, in this case the persona’s
hopelessly romantic “stopping for you to catch up forever.” The
allusion to the ancient capital of Tamerlane’s Mongol empire is perhaps
to mirror another poem about a Mongol Khagan, Coleridge’s Kubla
Khan, and the aversion of women described in that poem to Kublai
Khan. The allusion is strengthened by the subtle pun “tamarind,” an
allusion to Tamerlane.
In Samarkand’s lofty intellectualism comes in both densely allusive
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REVIEW OF IN SAMARKAND
lines and in the almost deranged nature of its speculative gravitas. As
such it is a daunting collection to read. But the reward of tapping into
that “abundance of poetic substance of highest merit” (again taken
from the introduction) is worth the effort. In Samarkand demonstrates
what makes Cesar Aquino one of the country’s foremost poets.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Karlo Antonio Galay-David is pursuing his MA in Creative Writing at the Department
of English and Literature in Silliman University.
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VOL. 52 NO. 2
SILLIMAN JOURNAL
Silliman Journal
Volume 52 Number 2 2011

in Siquijor Island, Philippines

Transcription

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