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Featured Stories

OVERVIEW
Anak ng Jueteng
by Sheila S. Coronel
Like Joseph Estrada, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has been accused of accepting money from illegal gambling.

THE CAMPAIGN
Jekyll-and-Hyde Campaign
by Yvonne T. Chua
Alongside the official Arroyo campaign was a parallel structure that operated secretly and with little accountability.

Presidential Makeover
by Ellen Tordesillas
A foreign PR firm is re-engineering Mrs. Arroyo’s image.

CAMPAIGN FUNDS
Running on Taxpayers’ Money
by Luz Rimban
Billions of pesos in government funds were used to pump prime Arroyo’s candidacy.

THE VICE PRESIDENT
The Man Who Would be President
by Luz Rimban
Noli de Castro has come a long way from his days as a broadcaster; he may even end up in Malacañang.

CHARTER CHANGE
SOS: System Under Stress
by Sheila S. Coronel
Can Congress be trusted to hold a credible impeachment trial and to change the constitution?

IMPEACHMENT
Lights, Camera, Impeachment!
by Alecks P. Pabico
The impeachment proceedings should be the best show in town, but so far, it’s been a sleeper.

VOICES FROM THE PERIPHERY
For Visayans, The Center Does Not Hold
by Resil Mojares

The Moro People Can Be a Part of a Plural Society Without Losing Their Identity
by Omar Solitario Ali

The Time for Federalism is Now
by Rey Magno Teves

TWO AT EDSA
"When the Wheels of History Turn, You Hardly Expect the World to Turn Upside Down”
by Ed Lingao

“I Was at Edsa Out of Pure Disgust”
by Mylene Lising

FOCUS ON FILIPINO YOUTH: THE LOST GENERATION
Finding Spaces
by Katrina Stuart Santiago
They are the hi-tech generation, at ease with technology but otherwise lost when it comes to dealing with the complexities of a globalized world.

So Young and So Trapo
by Avigail Olarte
The Sangguniang Kabataan, training ground of future leaders, has fallen into the grip of traditional politics.

Teen and Tipsy
by Vinia Datinguinoo
More and more adolescent girls are drinking alcohol.

Perils of Generation Sex
by Cheryl Chan
Filipino women are having sex earlier, but are seldom aware of the risks, including sexually transmitted diseases.

The Business of Beauty
by Cheryl Chan
Shampoos, skin whiteners, and assorted other beauty products find a ready market among young women.

Machos in the Mirror
by Dean Francis Alfar
Filipino men are spending millions to look—and feel—good.

Male and Vain
Photos by Jose Enrique Soriano
Men are lining up to get facials, foot scrubs, and even dips in bathtubs filled with rose petals.

Growing Up Female and Muslim
by Samira Gutoc
Moro women still value religion and tradition, but are also responding to the challenges of modernity.

Technology has redefined the barkada.

by ALECKS P. PABICO

	CYBER BARKADA. Teenagers (left to right) Jeric Aragon, Lei Cruz, Roch Lazarte, Margo Flores, and July Tan are the best of friends. They rarely see each other, but the Internet and mobile phones keep their friendship alive. [photos by Alecks P. Pabico]

I'M A CERTIFIED Nethead and I can get down and digital with the best of them. But Rochelle Lazarte and her five friends make me feel as ancient as a rotary phone. Formed only seven months ago, their barkada is basking in its newfound friendship that traces its beginnings — the same way that many relationships among young people are being born and nurtured today — in cyberspace.

With today's fast pace, my own friends and I have found ourselves relying on technology to keep in touch, too. But our friendships were forged long before PCs and the World Wide Web. Born in the late 1960s, our peer interaction was primarily face to face, complemented by letters and telephone conversations — well, that is if your family was among the fortunate lot to have acquired a landline connection in the pre-"zero backlog" era of a telecommunications monopoly.

These days, people still meet each other face to face. But new technologies, very much an indispensable part of our daily social life, have significantly influenced and altered the way we interact and communicate with each other. This is especially true among the so-called Generation Y, or those born after 1979, who have been "the first to grow up in a world saturated with networks of information, digital devices, and the promise of perpetual connectivity." Yet while technology has opened a universe of possibilities regarding a lot of things, it hasn't really changed the nature of friendships and how these are maintained. Which is quite comforting for not-so-old fogies like me.

Take Rochelle — better known as Roch — and her cyberkada. They may have been all strangers pre-chat, but except for Lei Cruz, they did have something in common from the start: they all went or are still going to the St. Joseph's Academy in Las Piñas. Roch is now a sophomore English major at the Philippine Normal University. July Tan is in his freshman year at the University of Santo Tomas. Jeff Din is a senior at the academy, while Jeric Aragon and Margo Flores are both juniors there. Only Jeric and Margo were already friends before that, although they had been introduced to July when he was still the editor of the academy's school paper and they were contributing artists.

Actually, they have seen each other only twice since they officially became a group — the second time being when they had a physical get together for this piece (minus Jeff, who couldn't make it). But just like any other barkada, they are in constant touch. The twist is they do so virtually, meeting daily via the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) in a chat room called #rochy.

Begun in the chatter's realm of IRC's Undernet late last year, #rochy is obviously named after Roch, who at 17 is one of the oldest in the group and is regarded as the ate, a role she takes rather seriously. But it was really the bubbly chinito July who gave the channel its name, which he says was inspired by a lengthy private chat with Roch via Yahoo!'s instant messaging service about her musings on her trip to her hometown in Batangas during the last Christmas break. Before that, most of what would later make up their group were only faceless denizens lurking in #josephians, the chat channel set up by members of Batch '99 for fellow students — former and current — of their beloved alma mater.

"When she came back, she immediately started chatting. She sent me a PM (private message) telling me about her problem...something about a budding romance. She met a guy, two boys actually," reveals July half in jest.

In truth, the source of Roch's melancholy was her pining for the extremely wonderful time she had (including perhaps meeting some boys on the side) during her stay in the province. Her mood was even spelled out in her online status in Yahoo! — "Ibalik niyo ako sa Batangas (Bring me back to Batangas!!!)"

Because he had to pick up something from Margo's place, July had to momentarily excuse himself from the sharing session with Roch. Somehow he and Margo got to talking about Roch's "problem." So the next thing July did was to create a channel that for reasons only known to him was named in Roch's honor. That night till the wee hours of dawn the following day, he and the rest of the boys would also listen to each other's thoughts and feelings.

IT MAY seem odd that Roch and company prefer the Net over mobile phones, the gadget of choice of many Filipinos, young and old alike. But the group does use cellphones as a secondary communication tool. In fact, once they go offline, they make the most of their common telco's offer of unlimited call and texting among its subscribers.

Anj Heruela, a 17-year-old second year broadcast communication student at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, has not exactly sworn off the mobile phone either. She still uses it but mainly for the "practical uses" of calling or sending SMS.

But when she was younger, the cellphone was her lifeline. Originally from Iloilo, Anj went to the Philippine High School for the Arts in Los Baños, Laguna. During her freshman year, she got a text message from an anonymous texter, who turned out to be a friend of a grade school classmate's friend. Their relationship began with the usual exchange of forwarded "Hallmark"-type messages, witty quotes, and jokes. Much like what sometimes happened between phone pals in pre-digital times, Anj and her textmate soon had a romance going. At its most intense, it had Anj consuming P250 week with her prepaid subscription. Yet Anj and her cyberboyfriend never had a chance to "eyeball" (meet), and it was all over in eight months.

While it lasted, though, the romance gave the homesick Anj the attention and company she craved. Anj now has a real boyfriend. But she also chats on occasion, as well as blogs, which she says is more about "wanting people to read what I write," which is essentially poetry and other stuff out of spontaneous bursts of creativity. So far, she has authored four blogs.

The yearning for attention and recognition is of course inherent in the youth, who find in the new media the venue for exploring and defining their own identities, and establishing their independence. That is why teeners have populated the blogosphere in droves, using blogs, being essentially personal online diaries, as their podium for self-expression. At the same time, blogs are also becoming hubs of virtual communities of friends.

One Filipino collective blog of adults is aptly named blogkadahan. Teen blogs in Live Journal, for instance, are only accessible by bloggerfriends. Members of the Rochy gang are themselves bloggers who make it a point to visit and post comments on each other's blogs as a way to maintain the flow of communication.