Easter 2014 is very significant to the fifteen Political Science students who were among the 196 students from UP Tacloban who cross enrolled at UP Cebu. To recall, classes were already in full swing for the second semester when these transferees were accommodated by the different programs at UP Cebu.
Special mention is the accommodation of the fifteen graduating Political Science students (twelve female and three male) with Prof. Henry Francis Espiritu, the Political Science coordinator who opened and handled a new section for Pol. Sci.199, a course on research and thesis writing for graduating students, even if it meant carrying a teaching load of 24 units. Prof. Espiritu even held special sessions with the group just so they could catch up with the course requirements.
Coping with the loss of homes, relatives and even their schoolbuilding (UP Tacloban was swept away with only the statue of Oblation remaining), these students made Yolanda and the affected areas in Leyte as their topics of research for their requirement for graduation. Last week, Prof. Espiritu was so elated with the outputs of the class and informed me that they defended their theses with flying colors.
Prof. Espiritu was joined by two members of the Humanist Political Circle, Ms. Jovelean Borces and Mr. Brian Sua in the oral defenses of the five studies.
The researches were carried out with the group divided into five with three members in each group. The topics of their researches all focused on Yolanda ranging from the perception on the concept of “pamumulitika” and its effects on the delivery of goods and services in the barangays of Leyte, a comparative assessment on the level of responsiveness and effectiveness between GO (Department of Social Welfare and Development) and NGO (Catholic Relief Services) in the delivery of goods and services to the victims of Yolanda in the barangays, the perceptions of barangay residents on the efficiency of the delivery of basic needs in the aftermath of Yolanda, a case study on human rights violations in the aftermath of super typhoon Yolanda, and a content analysis on the extent of partisanship among Cebu City-based local dailies in their news coverage of typhoon Yolanda.
These students conducted interviews with the selected resident-respondents of the barangays in Leyte and as they said it, they were given the overexposure of the disaster in the trimedia which they utilized as reference literature.
The researches found out that there exists an unsystematic and inefficient management of the agencies in the government with regards to the distribution of goods and services after the calamity, and a lack of orderliness and systematic response among the different agencies concerned with respect to disaster response and relief system in the country. With regards to the level of responsiveness and effectiveness between the GO and NGO, one study revealed that both were effective and responsive, however, their nature of disaster intervention was different.
One research revealed that one barangay in Tacloban City was not able to assess the degree of the damage and so fell short in providing the actual needs of the residents. The results of the study on human rights violations showed that most of the human rights violations that occurred in the aftermath of supertyphoon Yolanda are economic in nature and were done with the view of its perpetrators striving to survive economically in the aftermath; as such, the people perpetrated human rights violations in the process of their struggle for economic survival. These violations also made them perceive that the government was ineffective in addressing the situation.
One group collected relevant articles of the conflict between the Local Government unit of Tacloban and the National Government from all the three local Cebu dailies : Cebu Daily News, The Freeman, and Sun.Star Cebu to evaluate how these three local dailies reported the conflict and to determine the extent of political partisanship in their news coverage.
It was determined that all of the three local dailies positively feature the National Government more than the local government unit of Tacloban with regards to their news reportage about the political conflict. However, they claim that this result does not consider the assumed political inclinations of the three local dailies as the dominant factor of this preferred exposure of the National Government over the Tacloban LGU. Other factors were considered to be the primary reasons for such kind of exposure such as the marketability of the news articles and the availability of data.
The results further had a negative implication with respect to the newspaper agencies’ adherence to the Philippine Journalists Code of Ethics. The researchers proposed policies that would strengthen this code of conduct by creating stronger media laws and the establishment of a coherent media organization that will safeguard the unbiased news reporting of all newspaper agencies in the country.
Given such a short time and to be able to deliver good researches and defending them with flying colors is no ordinary feat for a group of young people displaced by a supertyphoon and coping with the losses while struggling to finish their college education in a different environment. From the ruins, these fifteen Political Science students braved the displacement, adjusted to a very different environment, struggled to go back to their hometowns to observe how relief work is being carried out and to interview people about the aftermath of the storm and put them in writing together with their own recommendations for good governance.
Within a brief period of time, these young students have bounced back to life! Easter 2014 belongs to them! Happy Easter to everyone!
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