..
& 
g0 t0gether..Üö jz like 
& 
..Üö
sure..
presenting my dance troupe.. 
para kay 
ito..kyut noh?..ö maayo kay nalipay ka!Ü 
..
it made me into a better person. as the saying goes, trials in life are supposed to make you better not bitter.
sana naman may nagmamahal din sakin. *biglang tingala sa alapaap* mahal na mahal ko ang batch namin. walang makakatalo sa pinagdaanan ng bawat isang miyembro nito.
but i'm too lazy to start a new entry.
Hindi ko mahulaan kung ano ang ulam ng aming bagong kapitbahay o kung may ulam nga ba sila sa ngayon o wala. Sa pagkainip ay paminsang ginagawa na lamang namin itong isang laro, iyon bang parang The Price is Right o kaya nama’y Name that Tune. Kung sa bagay, hindi naman karamihan ang mapagpipiliang sagot – maaaring pritong alikabok, nilagang lata ng Coke, kalderetang damo, adobong upos ng sigarilyo, ginisang lumang dyaryo, at kung anu-ano pang maaaring mapulot sa daan. Kamakailan lamang ay ipinarada nila ang kanilang karitong bahay sa bakanteng lote sa harapan ng aming tinitirahan, at tila nagpasyang hindi na lumipat kailanman. Bawat araw ay nakikita ko silang nakikipagsapalaran sa magulong mundo ng mga walang lamang bote ng softdrinks, dyaryo, punit-punit na papel, itinapong karton, at mga sira-sirang bagay na mas mainam na hindi na ilarawan pa. Nalilikom lamang ito sa paghahalungkat ng mga naiwang basura. Dahil hindi namin alam kung ano ang itatawag sa aming mga bagong kapitbahay ay napagpasiyahan ng mahusay at kahanga-hanga kong pinsan ang bansag namin sa kanila. Ika nga niya isang araw ‘There goes that basura--wheelbarrow-family again, they look like binugahan ng apoy ni Godzilla!’
Maraming beses ko na rin silang nakasalubong habang papalabas ako sa aming tarangkahan. Abalang-abala sila sa paghahalungkat ng nilalaman ng mga supot ng basurang inilabas ko noong huling araw – iyon bang parang hindi magkandaugagang paghahanap ng kuto sa makakapal na buhok. Sa isang sandali ay nagtagpo ang aming mga mata. Naipit kami sa kawalang kaalaman sa kung anong dapat gawin. Para bang may naitapon na pansit luglog sa aming harapan, o hindi naman kaya’y biglang ikinalat ang putol na mga bahagi ng katawan ng isang chop-chop lady. Hindi ko malaman kong mapapasigaw ba ako ng “Hoy basura ko iyan!” na parang kakapanalo pa lamang sa lotto o video karera, kung mapapabulyaw ng ‘Hoy, ano’ng ginagawa n’yo?’ na kagaya ng nasa pelikulang ‘Patayin sa Sindak si Barbara’, o hindi kaya’y mapapangiti na lamang, iyong tipong ngiti ni Freddie Krueger bago hiwain ang kanyang biktima. Kung sa bagay, kapitbahay rin naman namin sila. Mahirap rin nga naman ang buhay sa ngayon.
At nakatitiyak akong marami ang katulad nila. Sa sanlaksang pook-iskwater ay siguradong may mga basura--wheelbarrow-families na maaari mong alukin ng pagkain na paniguradong kapitbahay mo na kinabukasan – mga pamilyang tila ikinalat kung saan-saan na walang ibang matirahan kundi ang parehong karitong siya ring kasa-kasama nila sa paghahanap-buhay. Sila’y mga naturingang mahirap, walang makain, walang maipakain, nakatira sa pinagtagpi-tagping tarpaulin at pira-pirasong plywood, palipat-lipat. `Ika nga nila, mga NPA (No Permanent Address).
Marumi. Maliit. Malamig. Madaling masira. Mapanganib. Ganito ang tirahan ng milyun-milyong ding mga Pilipino. Madaling maunawaan na sa ganitong uri ng pamumuhay ay palasak ang mga mapanirang epekto sa kalusugan at kaligtasan ng mga residente. Ngunit ang tanong: alam nga ba ng karamihan sa mga Pilipinong saklaw nito na ang doktor ay para sa mga taong may sakit at lapitin ng sakit?
Madalas ang kanilang nilalapitan ay ang mga albularyong wala naman talagang kakayahang manggamot. Hindi ba’t malimit na ipinapalabas sa telebisyon ang isa na namang hydrocephalic-baby-for-the-day na may ulo ng tila napakatalinong batang bida sa pelikulang Mars Attacks o hindi kaya’y E.T.? Hindi ba’t mas nakalulungkot pang isiping sumasaklolo lamang ang kanilang mga magulang kung kaila’t malala na’t ikamamatay na ng bata ang kaniyang higanteng kalabasang ulo, at mangiyak-ngiyak pang haharap sa kamera dahil walang panggastos sa operasyon?
Sa kabila ng lahat ay tila madadagdagan pa ng pabigat ang halos naghihingalo nang kalagayan ng bansa. Nakapanlulumong 1.1% lamang ang itinalagang pondo sa kalusugan ng Administrasyong Arroyo para sa taong 2005, kung ikukumpara sa 5% na inilaan para sa sandatahang lakas, at ang nakapagpapanting-tainga na 33% na badyet para sa pambayad utang. Sa taong 2006 iminumungkahing may pinakamalaking bahagi pa rin ang national defense na hahawak ng 32% ng pambansang pondo, at 28% lamang ang paghahatian ng edukasyon, pabahay, at kalusugan.
Sa taong 2000, ang badyet para sa kalusugan ay humigit kumulang P14.66 bilyon, kung saan P191 lamang ang nailaan para sa bawat Pilipino sa taong iyon, o P0.52 bawat araw. Subalit ang ilalaang pondo para sa taong 2006 ay bumaba ng 7% at naging P13.66 bilyon na lamang. Nangangahulugang P119 lamang ang maitatalaga ng gobyerno bawat Pilipino sa buong taon, o P0.33 bawat araw. Marahil hindi pa ito sapat upang makabili ng dalawang bote ng cough syrup. Ayon din sa pagsusuri ng World Bank, pumapangalawa ang Pilipinas sa mga bansang may pinakamababang pondo para sa kalusugan sa buong Asya-Pasipiko.
Matindi ang epekto ng paglalaan ng akma at sapat na pondo ng pamahalaan, upang maayos na magampanan ang tungkulin ng mga bawat sangay nito kagaya ng sa Kagawaran ng Kalusugan. Ang kakulangan ng pondo ay nangangahulugang kakulangan din sa de-kalidad na serbisyo. Ayon sa pagsusuri ng Health Alliance for Democracy (HEAD), lima sa sampung Pilipino ay namamatay nang hindi man lamang nakatatanggap ng serbisyong medikal.
Naaala ko tuloy ang kasabhang ‘Health is wealth.’ Noong nasa elementarya pa lamang ako’y iyon na ang pinakauso sa mga memory verses na hilig ipukpok ng mga guro sa aming murang isip, kabilang na dito ang ‘Silence is golden,’ ‘God is love’, ‘John 3:16’, ang multiplication table (wan times wan ekwals wan!) at ang ‘Bawal umihi dito’. Malay naman namin at baka balang araw, maging philosophy in life namin iyon. Subalit ngayong saulong-saulo ko na ang mga bagay na ito’y napagtanto kong may halaga kahit papaano ang mga katagang ito. At kung magpatuloy ang papaliit pagpapahalaga ng gobyerno sa antas ng pambansang kalusugan, marahil ay lubos na marami pang batang may ulong sinlaki ng langka ang hihingi ng tulong. Marami pang susulpot na mga albularyo. At tiyak na dadami pa ang mga kapitbahay naming hindi ko pa rin mahuhulaan kung ano ang ulam.
napaisip tuloy ako. ano nga ba ang kahahantungan ng lahat ng ito? alam kong bata pa ako para sa mga ganitong bagay, ngunit unti-unti naring napupukaw ang tulog kong diwa. hindi naman sa nagbabalak akong makisali sa mga radikal at aktibista. nais ko lang iparating ang hinaing ng marami. nais kong maipagmalaki na minsa'y nakatulong ako sa pag-unlad na lumulubog na bansa.
this is a follow-up entry..
With Hwang's scientific credibility in shambles, the status of the world's most famous dog hangs in the balance. The embattled scientist maintains that Snuppy is the world's first canine clone, and he even hired an independent Korean DNA lab, HumanPass Inc., to verify that assertion. The verdict: HumanPass CEO Seung Jae Rhee told TIME last week, "There is no dispute about these results, and so I am 100% certain on Snuppy's authenticity." But since HumanPass is in essence working for Hwang, that's hardly good enough for the investigative panel at Seoul National University, which is carrying out independent tests, or for the editors of Nature, who have ordered an investigation.
If Snuppy really was cloned from the ear cell of a 3-year-old male Afghan named Tai, it shouldn't be tough to prove, even to those outside investigators. As long as they have tissue samples from both the clone and the parent, they should be able to determine whether DNA in the nuclei of both animals' cells is identical--the first hallmark of a true clone. Ian Wilmut, the Scottish scientist who created Dolly the sheep in 1996, had to provide such samples to prove to skeptics that he had created history's first mammalian clone.
Even with the controversy raging over his stem-cell paper, Hwang could have forestalled some of the questions about Snuppy if he had offered one additional bit of confirming proof in his original paper in Nature. That piece of critical evidence comes from the animals' mitochondria, tiny energy-producing structures within each cell. While most of a mammal's DNA resides in the nucleus, there's also some in the mitochondria. (Nuclear DNA forms the animal's basic genetic blueprint; mitochondrial DNA contains instructions for making proteins involved in various metabolic functions within the cell.)
Mitochondrial DNA is passed down from the mother as part of the egg's genetic contribution. Identical twins, for example, have the same nuclear and mitochondrial DNA, since they're produced when a single egg is fertilized and the resulting embryo splits in two. With a clone, the situation is different. Because the cloning process that Hwang says he used to create Snuppy involves two dogs--one for the nucleus and another for the egg--Snuppy's mitochondrial DNA should not match Tai's. That's what Rhee's scientists say they've found and what Hwang undoubtedly hopes the university and Nature will find as well. Final, ironclad proof of Snuppy's provenance would involve showing that the dog's mitochondrial DNA matches that of his egg donor. It's not clear, however, whether that test is being done.
i feel terribly bad for the people of Korea whom he tried to outwit. tsk3!ö
i don't know but i've been very much attached to biotech issues such as that of cloning. well school stuff and all. but i just can't help but feel curious about it. now, i am just sooooooo disappointed with what i have read. ambition can indeed kill you. haha. greed for fame!
it was a month ago, i think. i posted an entry about the first cloned dog. now, check this one out. i don't feel like commenting on this. i'm so upset.
The Rise and Fall of the Cloning King
Woo Suk Hwang led the world in human cloning and became a national hero in South Korea. Now he's a scientific pariah. Inside his demise
When Woo Suk Hwang burst into international prominence back in 2004, seemingly out of nowhere, his story seemed too good to be true. Here was a poor Korean farm boy who had overcome his humble origins to become a leading veterinary scientist, and then gone on to achieve a scientific landmark: the first therapeutic cloning of a human embryo. That transformed him into a biomedical superstar and made his native South Korea--a country better known for its serial television dramas than its scientific accomplishments--into the undisputed leader of a technology that could revolutionize modern medicine.
Over the next year or so, the tale only got better. Hwang, aided by a tireless, dedicated and underpaid laboratory staff that venerated him, went on to create multiple lines of thriving stem cells with unprecedented efficiency and ease. He topped his performance off last summer with yet another feat that had eluded some of the world's most talented scientists: the first cloning of a dog, called Snuppy. TIME named Snuppy "Invention of the Year" for 2005, but that was merely the icing on a cake of praise and recognition for Hwang. Scientists from around the world were clamoring to collaborate with him. Volunteers besieged his operation, offering themselves as research subjects. The South Korean government began pouring millions into his chronically underfunded lab. He was given round-the-clock security and free travel on Korean Air for life.
But in the months since Snuppy's debut in the journal Nature, Hwang's saga has been rewritten--as a Greek tragedy. One by one, he has faced an escalating series of charges: first, that some women had been paid for the eggs they provided for his research, and that eggs also came from his employees, both ethical violations in the rigorous world of high-level research. Then came the allegation that some of the photos of cells he published did not show what he claimed. And finally, as he was forced to admit two weeks ago, before submitting his resignation to Seoul National University (S.N.U.), that nine of the 11 stem-cell lines he described in Science weren't from clones at all. Last week, in a kind of scientific coup de grace, a university panel declared it could find no evidence to support the validity of the remaining two lines either.
Now the university is investigating the Snuppy report, along with Hwang's original 2004 stem-cell paper in Science. Hwang maintains that the current imbroglio involved no fraud on his part. He claims that a mix-up with the stem cells resulted in the wrong stem-cell lines--ones he did not create--being published in Science. Despite his failure so far to prove it, he still insists that he has developed the technology to create human stem cells that could be used to grow resistance-free replacements for damaged nerve, organ and muscle tissue. Despite black, billowing smoke, says Hwang, there is no fire.
But it's hard to find any scientist today who believes him. Even if Hwang's two remaining triumphs, Snuppy and the first human cloning, emerge untainted, urgent questions remain. How did his now invalidated stem-cell paper get into a major scientific journal? How did such serious flaws go undetected for months? And could he have knowingly taken such foolish risks?
Evidently, the risk-taking began in 2004, with Hwang's first major scientific paper on therapeutic cloning. In order to clone an adult, you need to put one of its cells into a human egg cell from which the nucleus has been removed. After electrical fusion and chemical activation, the egg can then start dividing, creating embryonic stem cells. (If left to mature, the embryo could eventually grow into a clone of the original adult--something no reputable scientist would let happen.)
But because egg donation is a painful and potentially risky process, paying women to do it is considered a form of coercion. Indeed, the 2004 study said women had "voluntarily donated oocytes ... and no financial reimbursement in any form was paid." But last spring, two of Hwang's researchers let slip to a journalist working for Nature that they had donated their own eggs--which raised questions, since Hwang was their boss, about whether they had been coerced.
The women retracted their story, claiming that their poor English had caused them to misspeak. But by then an aggressive investigative team from MBC, a Korean TV network, had got wind of the allegations. The reporters interviewed many of the egg donors, some of whom said they had not been told they were part of a study, and confirmed that their eggs had been paid for. MBC was also hot on the trail of something even bigger: a tip that Hwang's 2005 Science paper might contain fraudulent data. To verify the allegations, MBC requested samples of the stem cells, which Hwang provided. Pursuing their lead, the journalists tracked down two of three researchers from Hwang's lab who had gone to the University of Pittsburgh to work with his American collaborator and co-author, Dr. Gerald Schatten. They tried to strong-arm the Koreans into confirming the charges of data manipulation, and soon after, Schatten abruptly announced that he was terminating his partnership with Hwang, citing "information ... suggesting that misrepresentations might have occurred." A day before the MBC report aired in Seoul on Nov. 22, Sung Il Roh, head of Seoul's MizMedi Women's Hospital, which processed the egg donors for Hwang's study, admitted publicly that he had paid 16 of the women participating in Hwang's research about $1,500 each for "transportation expenses." Hwang, said Roh, knew nothing about the payments.
At the same time, Korea's vibrant Internet culture started buzzing with allegations by two anonymous posters that photos in the 2005 paper purported to be of different stem-cell cultures were in fact identical, and that DNA fingerprints used to prove that the stem cells were derived from clones seemed suspicious. In retrospect, says Dr. Katrina Kelner, a deputy editor at Science, "these looked too clean" to be legitimate.
On Dec. 7 a group of young professors at S.N.U. upped the ante by demanding an investigation--a demand the university's president initially refused. But a week later Hwang, who had been hospitalized on and off for "stress and exhaustion," appeared publicly to announce that he was retracting the suspect Science paper. MBC's request for samples had led him to do a retest, and to his surprise, he said, they were invalid. His theory: someone had switched the samples when they were at MizMedi to be photographed (his lab didn't have the right microphotography equipment) and stored. Later he accused Sun Jong Kim, one of the scientists cornered in Pittsburgh by MBC, of making the switch.
In turn, Kim has accused Hwang of asking him to forge the suspect photographs. Kim also says Hwang paid him a total of $30,000 (that Kim has returned to the university), which Hwang says was simply to cover Kim's living expenses in Pittsburgh. Korean press reports suggest that total payments to Kim and a colleague, Park Jong Hyuk, may amount to more than $50,000. These allegations are being investigated by Korean prosecutors.
MizMedi's Roh, meanwhile, says that after a visit to Hwang at the hospital, he was convinced that "there are no embryonic stem cells." In response to Hwang's retraction, the university finally launched its investigation and announced last week that there is no evidence that any of the stem-cell lines Hwang claimed he had derived from adult cells ever existed (the full report is expected in mid-January). Until any further rulings come down--from the university's continuing inquiry or from the prosecutors, who are also looking into Hwang's allegations of cell switching at MizMedi--that's pretty much all we know about what happened.
But why it happened is still a mystery. By all accounts, the tales of Hwang's dedication and personal discipline are all true. Hwang was one of the first to arrive in the lab, at 5 a.m., and rarely left before midnight. He rejected the role of aloof, inaccessible scientist to become a father-like figure for his young charges. And he introduced some genuine innovations into the science of cloning--gently squeezing the nucleus out of a donor egg rather than sucking it out violently and inserting the entire adult cell, not just its nucleus, into the hollowed-out recipient egg. Hwang insisted he had no interest in profiting from his discoveries; indeed, he turned over his patent rights to the university and the government.
That being the case, it seems unlikely that Hwang set out to perpetrate fraud. But it wouldn't be surprising if he, or someone in his lab, believed strongly enough in the work to be willing to cut corners. If that's true, the precipitating event could have come last January, when some of his stem-cell samples became contaminated, possibly by a fungus circulating in poorly shielded air vents.
Hwang claims it took six months to recover from the disaster. But it also might be that Hwang's team couldn't recover quickly enough and began taking shortcuts to fill the gap. Under pressure from the government and the university, and with a deadline looming for publication in one of the world's most prestigious journals, the temptation to stretch the truth might have been irresistible. "I can only speculate that Dr. Hwang was driven by ambition. He may have thought he could manipulate the data to secure research funding and compensate for his actions with follow-up results," says Ki Jung Kim, a political scientist at Seoul's Yonsei University. In short, fudge it now, fix it later.
It wouldn't be the first time. In 1996 chemists from the University of Utah claimed they had discovered "cold fusion." They hadn't, it turned out, but a combination of ambition, fear of competition and pressure from the university led them to announce the discovery before they had any proof.
In Hwang's case, it may be that mistakes were made or frauds committed without his knowledge, but as head of the research team and lead author of the published results, he's stuck with the responsibility. No matter what the investigation concludes about his two other landmark papers, Hwang will be remembered for the fiasco that embarrassed his university and the South Korean government--and deepened the public's unease and ambivalence about stem cells and human cloning.
back to blogging.
after a hiatus, i'm back.
2005 has been a rollercoaster ride for me. it was just WHOA! full of mishaps. well. my fault. anyway, i never planned to reminisce. it's hard for me. i know you're thinking that i am just so gutsy to tell ya'll that the previous year was really hard for me. you decide.
anyway, 2006 started out RIGHT. i mean, it's like i woke up at the right side of the bed. that's why i'm optimistic that this year will be better and more fun. i'm crossing my fingers on it. 
OMG. i just love this year. school's nice. everything about it ROCKS! goodvibes--> 
well.. we can't simply live a happy, oh-so-perfect life. there will always be antagonists. i'm referring to the new dorm manager, Ms. Ava Leuterio. boy, she's just so annoying. she always ruins my day. i know i'm being mean. she's new and all. but everyone hates her, including me. i hope this 1st impression changes coz i don't wanna culminate this school year with a bad record for being upfront and harsh in the dorm.
ellipses, i love you!<3 i'm glad we're back. hahai.. my dear prens. i'm so thankful to the Lord. praise HIM! hmm..i'm so happy right now. i can't help it. 
i had this realization. you can choose to be happy - if you want to. la lang.
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