Charter Change

I favor Charter Change.

I want a federal form of government instead of our current centralized republican model.


Let's start with Language.
I want my children to learn to speak well in my native language. I want them to learn about their abcs in Bisaya and not in tagalog. In our current situation, even the speaking of Bisaya is prohibited in school!

It is extremely degrading when Bisaya is delegated as a "dialect" when in fact it is a language, just as Tagalog is its own language. A dialect is a sub-branch of a language. Cebuano, Boholano, Waray, etc are Bisaya dialects. Pampangueño, Bicolano, etc are dialects of Tagalog.
Bisaya must be taught alongside English.

Next, let's go with Income.
In our current system, we send all of our provincial revenues to the central government while they allocate a trickle which is sent back to the local government. This must be changed. The provinces which are working hard (Cebu for example) only gets spare change while the provinces in the Central Government get all the allocation they want.

The provinces should keep most of their income and they should only send a portion of their income to the Central Government. Growth should start at the roots.

Laws.
The Local Government is closer to the people compared to the national government. It only makes sense that they would know what is best for their people. It's highly impractical that the locals have to wait for project approval from the people "upstairs" when the solution is right in front.

Judiciary.
By this I mean the Supreme Court. Currently our Justices are appointed by the president. This MUST be changed. Many times our high court has interpretted and liberaly construed laws in favor of President Arroyo. It's easy to see why they do that because they're all her appointees!!!

The change I want to see is that future justices are nominated by their fellow judges, and "elected" by the justices. The Chief Justice voting only on tie breakers.

Schedule of activities for my group.


December 21 - January 4
Assignment of responsibilities.
Researching of the issues.
Read the news. =)


January 5
Gathering of findings


January 12 (tentatively before or after our Crim 2 class)
Presenation of Arguments. Soft rehearsal.


Januray 19 (Exact time TBA)
Rehearsal with simulated opponents


January 25
Final Rehearsal


January 26
D-Day

Obama vs McCain

Yeah, the election is over and their debates are immaterial now. But this is an academic exercise of what debating is.

There were three presidential debates between Obama and McCain.

First Presidential Debate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-nNIEduEOw
The Rules:
An hour and a half is divided into nine segments.
Direct exchanges between the candidates are permitted, along with follow ups from the Moderator, after the candidates have finished answering the lead question in two minutes.
Questions are chosen by the Moderator and these questions have not been shared by anyone to avoid bias.

Second Presidential Debate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkBqLBsu-o4&feature=channel
The Rules:
Townhall Format
80 "neutral" people submit questions to the Moderator who will then select certain questions to be asked to the candidates.
Questions are not pre-screened by the candidates, and they will not know what it is until the question is asked.
Each candidate is allowed two minutes to respond to the question, and there will be a one minute follow up and discussion.

Third Presidential Debate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvdfO0lq4rQ&feature=channel
The Rules:
One hour and a half will be divided into nine segments. Moderator will ask a question at the start of each segment.
Each candidate will have two minutes to respond. Followed by a discussion.
Candidates are encouraged to ask follow up questions of their opponent's answer, otherwise the Moderator will.




I dislike watching political candidates "debate". It doesn't matter what their plan of action is. It's always who can throw more dirt at their opponent.
This debate was no different from what I expect to see. Senators Obama and McCain were out to prove that their plan is better, while making the other party look bad.
(Of course I understand the need to inform people of how they are going to fix the issues, but frankly dirt slinging isn't a very civilized way to do it)

Opinion polls reportedly favor Obama in that he "won" all three of the debates.

There are no official winners in a debate like this. It all depends on the people's perception.

Now, regarding the rules for the debate. They were followed but sometimes the candidates get too "excited" that they forget about the time. Several times, especially during the second debate, the Moderator had to remind them about it.

The debate however does not meet the academic standard. Clear indication of this is that there is no Burden of Proof. Nobody had facts to support their claims. The opponent doesn't even have to destroy the testimony of the opponent. The candidate can simply say "not true" and not even have to support it.

Assignment on Argumentation

Argumentation is concerned primarily with reaching conclusions through logical reasoning, that is, claims based on premises.

Although including debate and negotiation which are concerned with reaching mutually acceptable conclusions, argumentation theory also encompasses eristic dialog, the branch of social debate in which victory over an opponent is the primary goal. This art and science is often the means by which people protect their beliefs or self-interests in rational dialogue, in common parlance, and during the process of arguing.

Argumentation is used in law for example in trials, in preparing an argument to be presented to a court, and in testing the validity of certain kinds of evidence. Also, argumentation scholars study the post hoc rationalizations by which organizational actors try to justify decisions they have made irrationally.
(source: Wikipedia.org)


For this assignment, the Oxford-Oregon debate will be used. This is a debate that includes constructive argument, cross examination, and refutation.

There are two parties: the Affirmative, and the Negative.
The former will "win" by proving all aspects such as the practicality, necessity, and beneficiality of their case.
The latter will "win" by destroying only one aspect on the former's case: the practicality, necessity, and beneficiality. But they can not bring up a topic that the former hasn't brought up.

The Affirmative side has 3 members (a practicality, a necessity, and a beneficiality speaker) who are each allowed 5 minutes to present their aspect. Likewise, the Negative side has 3 members who are given 3 minutes to refute.

Both teams have 4 members total which, in addition to their three speakers already mentioned, include either a team captain or a scribe.
They will state the summary, and the defense of their team's arguments and evidences.
(Source: http://spcpquedebatevarsity.tripod.com/id27.html)


I found this video on youtube regarding this type of debate. However, the video looks chaotic and it's difficult to understand the speakers. It looks like the purpose of the video is to brag about how their team trumped their opponent. Well, see for yourself. You'll know what I mean.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU4ah5YSs64)

First post

Hello.

I had never imagined that I would be making a blog. My professor believes that it is a good way of learning, so he has required his students to have their own blogs.

I was thinking that social network sites like facebook and friendster were blogs. I even signed up for that believing that those sites was what he wanted.


Why do I call myself the "foreign alien"? Because the world of blogging and social networking is alien to me. Plus I wanted a "cool" sounding name.