The Wandering Savant

This morning, I was a bit shocked to learned of the death of former Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes. We might recall that Reyes figured in a recent high-profile senate investigations involving graft for pocketing millions of pesos during his tenure as chief of staff of the AFP. Reyes when  days were better Reyes was pronounced dead on arrival in a Manila hospital after sustaining a single gunshot wound in the chest. Reportedly, Reyes visited his brother's grave before the incident. Authorities are mum (at least for the meantime) as far as the reason behind his death. He is believed to have committed suicide resulting from the aparrent anxieties he had to suffer brought about by the exposes against him before the senate floor. The corruption scandals in the Philippine military are quite telling considering the meager budgetary allotments the AFP receives from the government. Military spending has been on a downhill slide since 1996 until the present, with the 2009's allot...

Quadragesimo Anno, authored by Pope Pius XI was conceived out of the necessity. Forty years after pope Leo XII issued the encyclical “Rerum Novarum”, and appealed to the good sense of the Christian community to care for the poor, of providing what is due to each and every member of society, much had yet to be done in achieving those. While Pope Pius XI lavishly praised Rerum Novarum,  he nevertheless reasoned that much had to be done to correct the order of society. Herein, he attacked the capitalist market economy and the folly of communist ideals as both oppressive. He  intoned that the product of capitalism is imperialism. Moreover, the encyclical reminded Catholics of the church’s social teachings of caring for the poor and strongly castigated the institutions that oppressed them. These were--and currently too--are the structures that made it hard for the oppressed poor to rise above their social conditions. It is worthy to note that in the same encyclical, the Pope ment...

 Theoretical and Conceptual Framework (Gestalt Theory) (draft introduction of a research paper unpublished) Gestalt is a German word for “configuration” or pattern. The theory emphasizes the integration of individual components of a situation or concept. It maintains that concepts should be taken on its organic whole. Its conception is divisional and that it starts with the “whole”. The whole is herein perceived as a relation of parts (H-Q, 564). As applied to learning process and education, Gestalt Theory takes into account the relationship among all the factors involved. Example, a child does not learn to walk by piecemeal involving body posture, plus knee-flexing, plus toe and heel action, plus hip swing. A child attempts to walk as a totality of organic behavior. For this reason the theory came to be known as organismic or natural method of learning. It has particular significance educationally in problem-solving and appreciation, where context or setting is all-i...