The Kaingin System (Slash and Burn Farming)

               It is always a question why humans continue to do the slash-and-burn farming (kaingin). One reason often being associated with this dilemma is economic reasoning of poor people where in fact the great question of ethical consideration of preserving nature is being sacrificed. Some consider kaingin as their means of earning money to finance their basic needs by utilizing any possible natural resources within their area of residency and sell them on the market. They claim that it is only through this system that they can feed their family since most of them haven't had the chance to go to school to earn a decent degree. Many had attested that the elimination of trees in the mountains had greatly affected the overall hydrologic cycle of nature and that kaingin is the major attributor on this argument. Can we stop the kaingin system? Can we really blame poverty on this predicament?

               I am interested on the rampant problem of kaingin system because, like many developing countries, Philippines had been facing this problem for decades without any new advancement in alleviating the existing problem. Philippines had been recently visited by a lot of water runoff from storms and regular rains and consensus said that this is due to excessive overflow from the mountains because there are not enough trees that can help soil in seeping water on the surface. Since this problem catches the hydrology and hydraulics area which is part of my academic interest for my undergraduate degree, I always wanted to make use of whatever knowledge I have to save mother nature.

               I know that kaingin is a process where trees are being cut and turn into charcoal by burning the woods without replacing the trimmed trees. From where I live in the Philippines, it seems that this activity was always perform every night because I can always see the mountains burning. Kaingin had been addressed several times in the Philippine Congress as a threat because of the domino effect of removing trees in the mountains and the catastrophic loss that may occur once kaingin will never stop.

               I need to do more research on obtaining and relating the consensus of having a great flood to the depletion of trees on the mountains. I would like to explore other possible options that we can follow for solving the continuous kaingin system and asses each options in their weaknesses and strengths to develop a new efficient and effective way of alleviating this problem. Also, if the blame is all paid to poverty, I would like to seek out some solutions on this matter and discuss their practicability.

Elements of a Good Argument

               Argumentation is often times being relate to disapproval of two different sides to confront in a single idea. Mostly, we associate argumentation on debate which I guess true on the other perspective of what argumentation was defined. But put it this way, debate is very specific when it comes to how argumentation is being decided and that is with an affirmative and a negative side but the word argumentation itself covers a broader notion.

               In its broader sense, argumentation tap two things, opinion and evidence (Wood, p. 5). If one have a strong point of view about a certain proposition, supported by substantial evidences his or her claims would surely persuade a lot of believers. But the question of how to make one's standpoint tough is a question even elites on argumentation could sometimes find troublesome.

               Argumentation can be from any of the two different forms. It can either be traditional or consensual. But either of the both have one thing in common and that is the difficulty on how to persuade others to believe on one's claim. Out from what I have read so far, I guess I would like to point out the following as elements necessary to a good argument.

               First is consistency on one's claim. Being consistent on one's point of view eliminate any doubt in the part of the arguer that his or her argument is weak to persuade others to believe him or her. It is inevitable that there will always be some questions raised whenever someone wanted to persuade other to believe his or her viewpoint. Often times, these questions are confusing and it test whether one's claim is also what he or she believes no matter how they construct their questions in a very rhetorical manner. For me, if I want to persuade others what I believe on a certain topic, I should first convince myself about what my stand is and by that be consistent on believing on that claim.

               Second is proper research for evidences that will construe the claim as correct. In debates that I had joined in my country, I can really attest that lack of research for the evidences of one's claim affects the overall forte of the argument. Say, there's a proposition that states "Resolved that engineers are more important than nurses" and it happen to be that I fell on the affirmative side, of course I have to research on facts that touches the topics on job opportunity, what country was the proposition was been proposed and what does engineer do that gives them more importance than nurses. Facts on the internet must be carefully selected because an argument will not be dependable if the sources of the facts are also autonomous. Remember, to make our claim as believable as what we think, we need to support it with proper evidences that people will not going to question its credibility.

               Third is diplomacy which means engaging in handling any argument without arousing hostility (Merriam Webster Dictionary). It is always wise to express our opinion without brute or raising our voice to insist our stand on others. By experience, I can really say that people listen if I share my thoughts by speaking to them smoothly. Try to imprint this question in our mind, if I speak out my thoughts by raising my voice to others, surely they will do the same when they speak out their thoughts to me and will I like that?

               In this blog assignment, I guess everyone has its own view on what elements would they consider to make their argument good and that's all that matters. Actually, the success of making our argument good depends on how committed we are to believe, stand for it and persuade others that my point of view is correct.

Accent, Does it Matter?

Recently, the Filipino community had received a great rudeness when a Korean actress Lee Da Hae imitated how we speak in English. The actress was asked to speak the following phrases "Excuse me, I'm a little bit thirsty. Can I have a glass of water please?" comparing how American, British and Filipino deliver the said phrase. After imitating American and British accent, Lee made fun of how Filipinos say those phrases. The link for the video is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8V9X6E56i0.

In our generation right now, where everything is evolving, does accent really matter? I know it sounds improper to be very upset on what Lee did but for me, making fun of other incapacity is insulting. Lee speaks better than her countrymen but is it proper to condemn others? I honestly dislike what Lee Da Hae did. Filipinos do not speak the way she portrayed it. We speak better English than other Asians because English is somewhat our third language and the module of instructions of our classes are all in English. Lee Da Hae is just stupid and she chose the wrong country to pick in terms of English language proficiency. Yes, we are not as good as we used to be but still we are significantly better than others. We are not perfect but I can say that we are more competitive in terms of our command of the language.

Lee Da Hae expressed her apology on her twitter account saying that she did not knew that it was the Filipino teachers that she was imitating. She thought it was the southeast Asian teachers. She's a brat. She just made her mistake worst. Condemning her fellow Asians, making fun of them in the national TV worsen everything. What does she think about herself? Perfect? Yeah she is beautiful but for me she lacks attitude. What she showed on her twit is only a proof that she is dumb. She might not probably knew that a lot of Koreans went to the Philippines to study English. So try to put it this way, insulting those people mentoring her fellow countrymen to become proficient in English language also insult the latter. What we all need is a public apology and admit to herself that she really did a mistake. A twit can be done by anyone and what she did was not supposed to be only credited to the show but also to herself. Expressing her sorry indirectly and continuously denying what she did only show how unprofessional and futile she is.

Right now, the main question is, does she really worth our rage? A very good saying from a movie that I forgot the title says that "Don't level yourself to the commoners!" But I believe that each of us are unique and not perfect. Whatever flaws one have must not be make fun of by others. Hopefully Lee Da Hae will give her apology in the national TV as well as admitting that she did a mistake.

How Eco-friendly My Way of Living

Carbon footprint is also known as one's carbon profile that measures the overall amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with a certain product, both referring to goods and services, along with how it is being supplied, being used, being recovered after its end-of-life period and being disposed. Causes of these emissions are, for example, electricity usage, water usage for shower (including the use of heater), transport operations, type of food intake, type of electronics used inside the house and other industrial processes.

Since on our generation, we are experiencing climate change due to excessive emissions of these greenhouse gases, the challenge for sustainability is the greatest test on how we will change for the good of our planet . Sustainability, defined as the capacity to endure, have a very wide scope. Relating carbon footprint to sustainability engulf the issue of climate change and the question what can we do. Carbon footprint is an assessment analyzing how much we contribute to climate change in our daily ways of living. By this, we can assess if we are doing good or not for our planet by knowing quantitative figures of how much greenhouse gases we emit based on how we live and do our daily activities. From these figures/numbers, we can figure out what alternatives modes must be changed from our day-to-day activities that will create a significant impact on sustaining the balance of our planet.

From the computations of my carbon footprint, the estimated greenhouse gas emissions based on my inputs on every questions are 16 tons of carbon dioxide (CO₂) equivalent per year, which is below the U.S. national average (27 tons of CO₂) by 178.65 percent. This assessment gives me the idea that people living in America emits more GHG than I did but still it is 290.91 percent higher than the world's average emission. This value only shows that I should change how I lived my life daily, from the food that I consume to how I utilize energy in my dormitory. By this, I can help save our planet from the danger of unsustainable future.

I know the reasons why my carbon footprint reached this mark. One is because for the past 6 months, I had been travelling through an airplane. To count, I had 1 long major flight of going here in America and 7 short flights in my country. Another reason is the food that I ate. Everyday, I eat meat whether it is pork, beef, turkey or chicken from either Perch or Sovie. So for this week, I will try to eliminate eating any meat (hopefully I can stop the temptation until Friday) to check whether it will lower my carbon footprint by a significant value.

Research Tutorial

Part 1: Summary and Reflection

     The tutorial we did on Skunk Ape was very productive and educational especially for students who conducted a research already. The tutorial was one way of knowing whether a researcher followed the standard format of presenting a research paper or not. Some points that I want to highlight for the beneficiality of this tutorial are:

1. The tutorial made me realize that I miss some important details of conducting a research like finding a scholarly journal and how to utilize scholarly magazines. When I did my research, I had been dependent on books and articles related to my subject of study only but good thing that I learned that there are other credible sources for a research aside from what I mentioned.

2. Citation is very important. This is to recognize the work of the author of the reference material that enrich your research. But we still keep on committing accidental plagiarism.

3. Databases is very amazing. In my country we don't have online databases. You have to find your sources manually. What I mean with manually is going to different libraries to find books and scholarly journals and using card catalogs.


     For this tutorial, every part is vital in conducting a research. So for me, we need to utilize whatever skills we have in doing our research because if we don't, we might commit errors that will result to plagiarism. Skills like knowledge on the correct mechanics of English language, on how to present your topic of study to avoid duplication on an existing research, audience consideration, clearly defined purpose of doing the research, credible sources inclusion and citing sources are all important. We have some websites that can do the basic parts like citations but bear in mind that some of these websites are prone to errors so it is best that we know how to do it by ourselves.


     I guess I still have a lot of things to learn in conducting a research. Learning is evolving so I cannot say that I know a lot about research already. What I am sure now is that it is very important that we know how to do the different sections of a basic research because this will be our foundation in conducting our case study before we earn our degree. Not only that, research is also very useful in our daily lives. Let us put it this way, in a news, in our jobs someday and even in a normal conversation, basic research on information about certain things from credible sources can avoid miscommunication and misunderstanding between two opposing parties and this could avoid further conflicts.


Part 2: New versus Old


     Here are the top three things I did not know before I started the tutorial:
1. Utilization of online databases
2. Information about scholarly journal
3. Citation of sources using an online pre-modified program


     Here are the top three things that I already knew before the tutorial
1. Different forms of informations
2. Citation of sources manually
3. Locating informations by books using card catalogs.

Library, a Silent Place of Beauty

          Yesterday I was sitting in front of the library, studying when suddenly I remember the task that we had in Comp 1. I then looked in any angle from where I am sitting. A big-wide field is in front of me, green surrounding, noisy because a lot of people are passing from any direction; there are bikers; and skateboarders; and it is a sunny day. But I noticed that the temperature now is different than the temperature before I arrived here in Fort Myers. Last month, the temperature here during daytime is the same as in my country. I guess winter is fast approaching and that's explain why the wind breeze is cold as it passes by in my skin. That's on my front view but on my right side view you will see a lake. For me it's a mysterious lake since all I can see is a fountain and a bunch of plants growing on the surface. There are alligators underwater for sure but I was just wondering if there are also big alligators habiting the area and if so, how big is it. Also, you can see chairs and tables which are exposed under the heat of the sun and there are people also who loved to stay under the sun and doing their stuff of reading their books and doing their assignments and papers.


          As I blazed my vision to the surrounding for a couple of minutes I notice a small centipede walking, crossing the trail from where all the people are passing. As a typical description of a centipede, it is an animal that is covered in a black shell type skin with about a hundred of feet connected to its body. I stared at the animal and it seems that it doesn't care if people look at them and crosses their path. They will just stop a few seconds and then continue to walk afterwards. I can see the beauty of the movements of his feet although I could not count them but it is the same as a piece of nylon thread joined together and then operated on a very high torque machine. But I can't explain why there are curves on the movements of its feet. As it completely crossed the trail I then turned away and started to write down any observation I had on that moment.

The Difference of Writing a Letter for a Friend and for an Editor of a Newspaper

The differences of writing letters to different audiences are being affected by formality, grammar, choosing the content to be included on the letter and the approach of writing. Writing a letter to a friend is informal compared to writing an article to an editor. Informal in the sense that you can include in your letter whatever topic that comes out from your mind as long as it touches your interest. Experiences, meeting new people and involvement on activities in school are some of the ideas that you share to your friend without thinking the grammar, punctuation marks and periods. You can even add some jargons that makes your letter more interesting and sometimes makes your story funny.


On the other hand, writing a letter to an editor is formal in the sense that you must organize your ideas so that you can address your topic in the most convenient way that is straightforward and not confusing. In this type of writing, you need to consider your grammar, the approach of writing (opinionated, clamored on problems that occur or informative about a topic that is new to the reader) and the content of your essay (a very important aspect that covers the body of your article).


For me, writing in Filipino is easier compared to writing an essay in English because I can easily express my thoughts and ideas about a certain topic. Whereas in English, I need to think first what is the equivalent translation of my ideas so that the understanding of the main thought of my article will not be sacrificed. For example, telling a friend of how difficult it is to access food in where I am right now and what are the reasons behind is easier to draft in Filipino. In English, I still need to state the whole thought in a way that the reader will not misunderstood my main point.


Errors such as the spelling and grammar are being watched out of course if your writing an article and this is my weakest area in writing essays in English. I am very weak in using tenses and I always use words spelled differently but sounds the same like compliment versus complement, meet versus met and the use of has, have and had. But of course in writing an essay, I also formulate my ideas in English first but in times that I do not know how to express it in English, I then try to draft it in Filipino. Probably this is a good thing because you can easily asked help if you establish clearly what you really wanted to say and understand what you really wanted to share.


I think with constant practice and exposure to the community speaking pure English will later on improve my skills in writing, speaking and listening in English language.