Gavin's Public Notes

1. Dial *143#
2. Select “Gosakto"
3. Select "Create promo"
4. If using Tattoo:
   1. Choose “Text and surf"
   2. Register for 1000 Globe/TM texts, 10MB data for 30 days.  (P136 for text/surf only.)
5.   If using on our phone:
   1. Select "Call, text and surf"
   2. Register for 1000 Globe/TM texts, 10MB data, and 10 min Globe/TM calls for 30 days.
   3. Dial *143# again and register for more minutes of Globe/TM calls for 1 day. These minutes will actually last for 30 days.
   4. If you need to call outside the Globe/TM, you can optionally add all network minutes by dialing *143#. These minutes will only last for the actual number of days you select.
      1. As a shortcut, you can use gocallalla20 for 10 min calls to all networks. Lasts only 1 day.
6. Text gotscombokea37 to 8888 and add 1 GB internet for 1 day. This actually lasts 30 days. Send this text again as needed to keep your internet balance above zero.
7. Regularly check your internet by texting gosakto status to 8888. Don’t let your internet balance run out! If it does, additional gotscombokea37 will only last for 1 day.
8. Register hundredgocall18 for another 100min of Globe/TM calling that will expire at the end off the registered 30 days. Must be done before the last one runs out. 

• 100 minutes to Globe/TM
• 250 Text to Globe/TM
• 10240KB surfing. VERIFY! 
• Valid for 7 days
• Costs P74
• Works out to 400 minute calls, 1000 texts, 4GB internet for 4 registrations (28 days), which is cheaper than the above, and also easier to register since it only requires texting gocomboeead74. 

Dec 23, 2015

A huge victory for education in the Philippines!

DepEd has confirmed that the Philippines will participate in PISA in 2018!

Thank you to everyone who supported the campaign!

____

Poor education underlies nearly all other problems in the Philippines. If education improves, everything improves.

Unfortunately, education in the Philippines is in crisis, and since Department of Education (DepEd) refuses to participate in international assessments, the degree and scope of the crisis is unknown.

The last international assessments in the Philippines were completed in 1999 and 2003. In those years TIMSS compared the math and science skills of Filipino students with students from many other countries. The results showed that the performance of Filipinos students was appalling. These studies revealed how poor the quality of public education in the Philippines really is.

After receiving this bad news, DepEd did not embark on a campaign to do more extensive testing and improve its scores. Instead, it decided to stop participating in international assessments. Instead of fixing the problem, DepEd decided to hide it.

DepEd has an obligation to provide unbiased information to the public that shows how well – or poorly – our children are being educated. Other countries do this. They shine light on their education problems so that they can be solved. They want facts so that they can measure and improve.

The most reliable and comprehensive facts come from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). This is a study conducted every three years involving half a million students from more than 60 countries around the world. It shows participating countries exactly how well – or how poorly – their students are being educated.

Since PISA started in 1997, the Philippines has never participated. Consequently, Filipinos can’t compare their education with their neighbors in Asia and other countries around the world. Those countries have the facts. We don’t

The worst-performing countries in PISA are Indonesia and Qatar. Yet, these countries are better off than Philippines. First, they know where they stand and can take steps to improve. And second, the TIMSS studies from 1999 showed that the Philippines education is worse than Indonesia's. We're just hiding by refusing to participate.

DepEd needs to have the courage to admit that it has a serious education problem. If it doesn't, it condemns our children to suffer in a terribly broken system. By failing to properly educate our children, DepEd robs them of their potential in life.

The scale of this problem must be made public for everyone to see. The government cannot be allowed to hide such an important fact. It must be held accountable. Filipinos must demand that DepEd participate in PISA and take corrective action based on the results.

The next PISA is scheduled for 2018. Ask Secretary of Education Bro. Luistro to publicly commit to participating in it.

Resources

• 2012 TED Talk on PISA

Sign the petition.

Filipinos have to pay a Travel Tax of up to P2700 per person to depart their own country. Foreigners don't pay this tax. Only Filipinos. This is discrimination and a significant inconvenience.

The Travel Tax staff say that foreigners pay this tax too, that it is included in their ticket price. This is not true. Foreigners and Filipinos pay the same price for tickets. Only Filipinos are burdened with a Travel Tax.

This must end. There should be no discrimination against Filipinos, especially in their own country.

The Travel Tax can be repealed without any loss of revenue to the government. Simply increase the airport tax on all departing passengers, foreigner and Filipino alike. Either everyone pays, or no one does. That's fair.

The Travel Tax was created by a decree of President Marcos in 1979. Many of his decrees have been repealed. This one should be too.

Ask President Aquino to repeal Presidential Decree No. 1183, a law that discriminates against Filipinos.

Sign the petition.

Each year that passes here in the Philippines (9 and counting!) increases my dismay at how slow I've progressed in learning Visayan. After only two years of living in China and Brazil my Chinese and Portuguese, though rusty, are still better than my Visayan. Why is this?

It turns out, Visayan is a surprisingly difficult language to learn, even compared to Chinese. The way it’s spoken depends a lot on where the speaker is from and – to some extent – his age. Young people in town often have difficulty understanding older people from just a ways up a mountain road. Visayan is mostly a vernacular. Until recently almost no one really studied it. They just spoke it. The form spoken in Cebu, known as Cebuano, is considered the standard, but everywhere else the language is spoken differently.

This isn't the only reason, or even the primary reason, it’s difficult. Sometimes Visayan feels like a Turing-incomplete programming language. Ideas that are trivial to express in other language can be difficult or even impossible to express in Visayan. This seems to be true not only of Visayan, but also for other indigenous Filipino languages, and even leads speakers to prefer to use English if they need to think about or discuss complex ideas.

Good Visayan study resources are also hard to find. One great free one is Tom Marking’s Cebuano Study Notes. Some of the words and grammar are considered “deep" in Dauin where I live. (“Deep" to Visayan speakers means the language as it is spoken by grandpa up in mountains but not by people in town. This is probably a more “pure" form of the langauge and it may be more common in Cebu, but that’s just a guess.)

Vocabulary is more than half the battle in learning a new language. To help with this I created about 400 Visayan flashcards over the years that are useful. I study these cards using Flashcards Deluxe on my iPhone. (It’s also available on Android.) Working through these cards for just a few minutes every day really makes a difference.

For grammar, probably the best resources to use alongside Tom's Study Notes are those produced by Philippines Department of Education. They have a long and growing list of Visayan study materials – and many other Filipino languages too – that are designed for school children, but are great for adult learners too! You have to register for the site, but it’s free.

If you know of any other useful resources for studying Visayan, please share them in the comments!

2015-12-09 Update

A just found a better option than my flashcards. Memrise has a vast number of language courses created by users. I just signed up for this Visayan vocabulary course. I might create my own course on here in the future. They also have iPhone/Andriod apps that sync with the website.