ON GETTING MY FACTS STRAIGHT
By: Iris P. Concepcion

I am back in Yala, a beautiful ode to structural mixes.  I had visited upon my return its spacious and serene park, a Central Park-themed oasis for university students who exchange blabbers under shades of eloquently-built trees.

The youths are taking their afternoon snack with food-in-stick palate appeasers and I had exchanged a word or two about the trickling rain and how it cast a shadowy bliss over  bridges and man-made ponds.

I, on the other hand, am reading a book on formal research writing as well as acquiring tips on how to use the library. This is Jorge Luis Borges in thematic exploration with his imaginative Tlon universe.

With the emergence of Google and other search engines, the rules to proper citations had radically altered. It does make intelligent sense to learn the old and basic research rudiments though. Every writer must know this. Each student is obliged to follow proper sourcing in non-fiction works as the teacher had implored. I direct the uninitiated to Wikipidea's site on Thailand. It bears the correct bibliography styles  and similar research references even online. Not knowing these basics is not a badge to while away in Belgium on a paper grant.

The blogsphere has introduced a post-modernist alternative to traditional information gatekeepers and it is rattling writing nerves quite unceremoniously. Formalities withdrawn, raw inking has gained a modern edge and is challenging word traditions in the print world. It is exciting as I am centered within the vortex of this explosion in both print and visual forms. Index cards could be usurped by the words : "According to the Master Jedi blogsite__________."  Further verifications are always handy when video clips are posted to supplement the writings. Personally, that too, is research.

I do confess that I had been tested by some of these stalwarts, ranging from "naivete" (really) to the outright hood language of "you look like a slave beside me". I believe the originator of this rather enterprising, billowed assessment did not question my own motive of protracted reply.  It is pure bollocks but I took the classicist writer by his mouth and piddled with his emotional content. I do win despite my miniscule treks right inside the "real" fields of argument. I credit the people who did and are still dreaming for blitzkriegs of light becoming affordable. The battle is half-won.

I suppose I had explained myself amply and need not expound. I express my thanks for these benignly  exciting encounters. Everyone came out victorious with, this is what I was hoping, altered forms about the world and about themselves.

The roles are well-kept; housekeeping to policy formulations drafted roughly on flotations of views and ideas. It is some crooked mastery but you are talking to people who can subsist on a P20,000.00 budget to last a lifetime. They scrub the dirt off their own back with stones gathered from a streaming, rural river. Some may wilt under the heat, the rest are simply itching to dip their kaleidoscopic brains on those offices where customers pay for their basic utilities.

I admire these experts for their thoughts without closing my eyes to the trodden more, toilers who had silently championed the sensibility of balance and foresight. They were fed to the foxes but delivered.  I never throw a tomato to a work if it upsets my own work. I glorify in the ingenuity of people; I celebrate communal, artistic spirits.

I had often wondered in the past why I could not sufficiently post the beautiful visages of Manila with its renowned improvements. They are "uglified" when posted. This happened to my camera grabs several times. My visual documentations on how I view my country never seem to be adequate in pigments. Even the Wikipedia entry about the Philippines needs better photographs. The President said it right when he lamented over the fact that some consider it a sin to document the good things that is happening in the Philippines. I have seen with my own two  eyes how our buildings have become more embracing of historical lineages (Quezon City) but no smart writer would dare break his limb to have this lithographed on the front page. I think it is a worthwhile material than reading a bit about a neighbor's fence razed by a bull.

I write this as a realization after I had encountered students who were tasked to write a research paper on pollution. I had noticed that they already formed a conclusion even with the absence of questionnaires to support their hypothesis.

I asked: " Have you been to that place?"

In unison, these tech-savvy students answered: "No."

I advised them to visit the countryside, take photographs of what is truly happening in the area and attach the video grabs to their study. It became a source of joke between us as I ribbed them if they already took the golden bus to observe the greenery of the forest wildlife. I likewise advised them to take  pictures of  garbage bins if ever they exist in the plowed fields. If they can make noontime dancers gyrate to the beat of  novelty songs, they sure can locate a garbage bin in a northern swamp filled with bottled water.

A long treatise on environmental concerns can be made moving by a video clip. That, too, is research I presume.

I had delivered quite a litany on paper highlighting these stories. I write as a citizen about my own political beliefs but I can be wildly free with my essays and  fictional pieces. Both sides, I heavily treasure.

I therefore conclude without the aid of references that I am now a suspect for plagiarism; that an inquisitive mind with a good, public intention could be viable starting off points for research studies. Making it a qualifier point for a scholarship grant makes it burdensome. If the purpose is to serve this universe its long-lasting conservation through further education, then, the pursuit is nobler.

The best way to engage here is an enlightened reporting of what is fair; of tracing back  roots outside of its silhouettes; of meeting face-to-face the majestic fruits of unheralded presences who could not afford to buy a comma nor punctuation marks for frontpage news.

I believe that I do exist not to create a blurred view of a world. It does contain shining moments of unspoken wisdom and unsung imagery. I am simply brave enough to write about them.

My line is a Henry Greene-inspired. Pardon the pun.

An attempt at eliciting some grins:

Knee socks. Knee caps. Knee Son. Underlining words could create mumps. Bawdy turds. Stop twiddling with the wife's words, says the teacher with a corn wife. Hubby has a knife the size of Thailand's geographical mass.Return to the moviestar with JK cups. Have you met God? His bologna is meatier than yours. Ditch the hair, cut the skirt and pay attention to the Princess poet. Children of the corn mouth off lines direct from Saturn. Stay away from the curly one. He is over protective and a genius. He named a lake after his enemy, in bold graffiti. I was flown by a scallop from a football field. I, therefore, ate a football field.

I just realized I had evolved two different styles of writing and am comfortable with both. I shall try to write in Scandinavian next time.