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Rock Ed Celebrates Batch HS 2009! (www.rockedphilippines.org)

Project: Fresh Take is our way of celebrating High School graduates. It is a program that engages photographers to volunteer their services in order to provide graduation pictures for public schools.

Many public schools across the country do not offer nor provide graduation photo options for their students. Usually, it is a relative with a camera or the ones who show up to take your photos anyway then charge you after. So Rock Ed decided to offer this service for free. All we need now are donors to help with the printing so each graduate can have 20 copies each to give away or keep or hang in their homes. A testament to the endurance and work they put in to become high school graduates.

Right now, all our resources go towards renting lights, togas, setting up tents and a decent photo booth. The photographers will take care of the cameras, memory cards, editing and sorting by class. Rock Ed is still on the look-out for financial support so that we can carry this project through to fruition. That translates to: we REALLY need cash (or equipment support) donations in order to print at least twenty (20) copies per high school graduate. So far, all we have are photographers, the physical set-up of booths and tents. We were able to rent a set of lights for a good price (thank you, David Hanson) and the willingness to wake up at 5am to start taking photos all the way til 3pm on an ordinary Tuesday.

Make this your alumni batch project! (Batch '89 HS, this is what hard sell looks like.)

If you’d like to help out with this project we need:
1. Photographers with DSLRs willing to wake up early and take photos.
2. Rent money for lighting set-up – or lend us your lights, OR come and take the photos with your lights.
3. Rent money for tents that serve as temporary photo-studios.
4. Rent money for togas OR maybe if you have a dressmaking business (tailoring, too) maybe you can donate togas instead. (whee)
5. Tell us where or how we can make or buy our own graduation hats. (is that what they’re called?)
6. Water, juice, some food for the FRESH TAKE TEAM on photo days in schools.
7. Administrative coordination with the public school near you, if you can talk to their Prinicipal, ask them for: a) number of Seniors graduating b) available schedule for photo day c) willingness to attend a Fresh Take gathering of seniors early April.
8. Volunteer marshals to facilitate movement of student lines on photo-day.
9. Money for printing out copies to be given out to students. (or donate a decent photo printer! ßthat’s the dream)
10. Donate or solicit for a decent photo-printer from Canon, HP or Epson.
11. Donate or solicit for a decent photo-printer from Canon, HP or Epson. (Wait, I think I said that already. Okay, we end at #10 then.)

Email: freshtake@rockedphilippines.org

Lupang Hinirang

Lupang Hinarang is a film in two parts about a fierce and deadly battle raging between farmers and landowners in the Philippines. The documentary opens with the tribal Sumilao farmers, Ka Rene, Linda and Bajekjek, who, inspired by Gandhi’s protest march, journey on foot for two months from their mountain village in Bukidnon to the presidential palace in Manila.

It is a gruelling 1,700 kilometer journey through scorching heat, rains, fatigue, and great uncertainty. After weeks of walking, the farmers reach Manila, rally at the corporate offices of San Miguel, confront the agrarian reform secretary and grapple with anti-riot police before finally meeting the President.

The second part tells the story of the sugarcane workers from Negros. When the landowner’s armed guards kill one of the farmers in 2007, Chay Lindy, Chay Gamay, and Chay Biray go on a harrowing 29-day hunger strike with other farmers on the steps of the agrarian reform office in Manila. The hunger strike results in victory for the farmers until the film ends in a shocking climax.

Lupang Hinarang is a timely documentary set against ongoing debates in Congress to extend and reform CARP (CARPer) or to kill it.

Reproductive Health Bill - Updates

Recent surveys say:

• 76% of Filipinos want family planning education for the youth (SWS)
  
• 71% favor the passage of the RH Bill (SWS)
  
• Family planning education and RH Bill are supported by 76% of Catholic and 78% of non-Catholics (SWS)
  
• 75% of men and 77% of women support family planning education and the RH Bill (SWS)
  
• 82% of Filipinos think that government should not only educate couples regarding modern methods of family planning but also provide them with services and materials on these methods (Pulse Asia)
  
• Almost all Filipinos consider it important for one to have the ability to plan the family for the welfare of both the family (93%) and the country (90%) (Pulse Asia)
• Most Filipinos are aware of the reproductive health bill pending at the House of Representatives (68%) and are in favor of the bill (63%) (Pulse Asia)

Yay!

• The RH Bill remains a priority of the House of Representatives.
  
• Despite the vicious backlash from the "pro-life" camp, all 113 co-authors continue to support the bill.
  
• The plenary debate in congress resumed last 27 January 2009.

Nay!

• Anti-RH legislators are delaying the proceedings.
  
• This is not only obnoxious, it's expensive. For every day that drags on, they're wasting about about P12.5 million pesos (the House's daily budget) of tax payers' money.
  
• The deceitful tactics they're employing are disgusting. Rep. Roilo Golez was recently slammed for deliberately misleading the House and the general public when he misrepresented data during his interpellation. He claimed his figues came from the Department of Health, the National Statistics Office and the Food and Nutrition Research Institute but all three agencies officially denied producing such data.

Hey!

We're not going to stand for this. We RH Bill advocates will be heard. Ms. Elizabeth Angsioco, Secretary-General of the Reproductive Health Advocacy Network (RHAN) suggests five simple things we can do:

• Write to your Representative and let him/her know your stand on the issue.
  
• Write Letters to the Editor and send them to your favorite broadsheets.
  
• Monitor the proceedings in Congress.
  
• Sign/invite more people to sign the Declaration of Support for the Immediate Passage of the Reproductive Health Bill into Law
  
• Wear your sentiments on your sleeve or your car, as the case may be. (Pro-RH stickers and pins are available from the RHAN Secretariat. Call 927-1766 from 9 am to 6 pm.)

In addtion, let's harness the power of the Internet and use our e-mail, blogs and social networks to engaged others. Let's use every opportunity to educate people and counter propaganda with factual information and sound arguments.

If you believe that access to comprehensive reproductive health programs is a basic right, if you are against eleven women dying every day due to pregnancy and childbirth complications, if you are against the growing number of medically unsafe back-alley abortions, if you are against the youth engaging in risky sexual behavior without understand the full consequences of their actions, if you are against more children being born into poverty because their parents simply don't know any better -- now, more than ever, is the time to make your stand.

On the Reproductive Health Act of 2008: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Juana Change - The Movement for Good Governance

WE DESERVE BETTER . PH

Word of the Lourd.