ACLE

I must say, this is the most tiring, emotionally disturbing day in my whole life. and for the first time, i am actually feeling tired of ranting and whining.

Classes were suspended this afternoon to make way for the Alternative Classroom Learning Experience (ACLE). One of my orgs, Union of Journalists of the Philippines - UP Diliman, chose to show one of Howie Severino's documentaries titled "Huling Hala Bira" which talked about a squatters' area literally located under train rails that crosses over Pasig River. We also had the chance to actually have Howie Severino for a mini-forum after the viewing.

With Howie Severino coming, everybody seemed to be focused too much on his coming, nobody cared about the event itself.

One. The younger members had problems looking for an LCD projector saying that all the projectors in the Journalism Department are already taken and reserved for someone else. It's actually impossible, with the Department having three projectors. Weng and I couldn't take that answer. When Weng talked to Ate Raquel, we were able to get one without any effort.

And, god, projector set-up. Nobody knew how to do it.

Two. No registration sheets. Someone forgot to print one and so they had to resort to blank pink papers manually writing the details needed, which by the way will be given to the University Student Council. You're kidding me on this one, right? I went to the Department, asked if I can type and print a page for the org.

Three. Since Jam had to leave and pick up Howie at GMA, everybody was just waiting for her. The event was to start at 1pm, but it was until 1:45pm when a talk on the UP situation started. Why? Nobody felt the urge to act or at least be concerned of the people inside the room waiting for something to happen.

And so I had to ask, do we have any instructions? No. So what do we do? Wait for them? We don't know. What do we have in our program? We don't have any program. Ah, ok. That's nice.

We had to think of something. Since Jem had been planning on a UP Situation discussion, fine, have her start. Apparently she needed some visual aids when she didn't have one. We had to look for someone who had a copy of that specific powerpoint. After ten years, funny, we didn't find the one we needed but rather an older version.

Four. Token for Howie. A recycled box filled with mamon. Not that I hate mamon, or I have some issues against being thrifty, but seriously, I will never give such gifts even to student speakers. Please, a little sense of decency here. What we give him will reflect the org's name. Mamon doesn't set a good impression. Sorry.

We volunteered to buy the token as originally planned however, MJ decided that she be the one to go. We gave Howie a bottle of wine. Hapi.

So ok. The ACLE was rather good. We even had music majors as audience, which is quite interesting actually. What I didn't like about the discussion actually was that we all found Howie playing the safe take on media, that he doesn't have any advocacy since it connotes propaganda, that the audience are intelligent enough to interpret and elicit their own forms of actions, and that he didn't answer when asked of his struggles while doing the documentary (pertaining to government restrictions or a bigger issue than just a simple housing and relocation).

Five. When Howie left, everybody left. Only three of us decided to clean the room, arrange the chairs, return the projector to the Department.

I'm sorry but I have to say it but by event organizing standards, this ACLE flops.