The Death of a Profession: Insult and Truth

So this is what you get when you’re the last one to know stuff. Posted almost a week ago, this embedded video of Cynthia Villar—who is currently gunning for a Senate seat this year—explaining her decision as to why she allowed the operation of 23 subpar nursing schools bares heck in 2004 against the CHEd’s recommendations that they be closed down is the latest thing to hit my feeds this morning. If you haven’t seen it yet, then skip to the 3:14 mark… unless you want the full setup leading to the oft-quoted… err, “quote” (yep, just like a punchline), then better watch the whole thing.

To be sure, the outrage against her statement was pretty well-deserved. Like Pacquiao before her, she insulted a whole bloc of voters in this country without meaning to just because she dared to express her opinion; in this case, she thought of nurses as nothing more than—if we have to be truthful about it—glorified atsays. And the floodgates of comments which have been prompted by her remarks include many like these. A sampling, if you will:

Dirk and Jeah: Notes from the Wedding, February 8, 2013

A wedding happened sometime this weekend. Common decency states that this blog should be updated because… well, the occasion calls for it, really. And if there’s anything that is certainly true about this blog—and our collective lives in general—it’s that events like these should be kept for posterity not only for keeping our sanities intact, but as a simple way to celebrate the little things we have accrued over the years. God, I feel like I’m cribbing a line from a Mastercard ad with the last line…

Anyhoo, please be reminded that, contrary to earlier posts, I’ll be keeping this post as short as humanly possible. You can only hold real life at bay for so long, after all. So, without further ado, here are some randomly itemized “notes” yours truly have gathered over the course of one day. Let’s get it on!

Self-shillin’: July 15, 2012

Yes, Dolphy-mania may have been laid to rest (literally *shudder*), but that doesn’t mean we’re forbidden from remembering the man, are we? Just up was the post we have written for Ilonggo Pop! laying out what it feels like to be face-to-face (well, almost) withe The King of Comedy. Enjoy!

The First-Ever Ricnians Travelogue–Day Two: BOHOL OR BUST!

So full of win.

Yes, yes… apologies for yet another hotly delayed blog post. If there was only some way that I can get paid for this, then I would have been on it sooner like it was the eve of December 21, 2012 (check your Mayan calendars, y’all). But what the hell, we still adore our (very limited and minuscule) reading public, so here it is—DAY TWO! Click on the jump to get to the rest of the meat…

The First-Ever Ricnians Travelogue–Day One: THE CEBU CAPER!

Cue This Is Our City.

Hey there!

Don’t be shocked, y’all—this isn’t specifically a nursing/medicine page. If it is, then it’s just another meaningless addition to the dozens of spammy Nurses’ pages that have been popping up recently. And we don’t even earn anything through this blog (although having more than a dozen hits can be quite nice), so what we’ve been doing until recently is giving out free shout-outs with nothing in return.

Well then… it’s time to change tack.

As the slogan on the right of the banner read, this is all about “Everything and Anything Ricnian-Related”. More than anything, we’re doing this for the love of the Ricnian Foundation and nothing else (more on that on Day 2 of this post). So yes, while it’s been a long time since this page was updated, one can only wrack his/her brains so much to find anything meaningful to write (which is one of the reasons why we’ve been urging the rest of you kids to contribute something to the page); thus, the most we can come up with is a clichéd travel blog. But since this is our first stab ever at writing one, we ask you to be gentle with us; otherwise, we’ll bleed to death (*wink wink* *nudge nudge*).

Ohh-kay… time to get minds off the gutter now. If you can be bothered to read something that might concern you, then go ahead and read after the jump (A note before you proceed, though—for reasons of “continuity”, we’ll be dividing all three days into three separate posts, with all of them appearing as a sort of personal “time log” because… you know, that’s the cool thing to do nowadays).

RENAP Expo to be Held at Iloilo City on February 19, 2012

Note: For those who are still putting up with visiting the page only to see if there are any updates, let me be the first one to apologize for the very loooooonnnnnnnggg delay between this and the last post. No matter how valid the excuse is, I know I deserve to be scourged at the pillar (Holy Week’s just a few days away, after all). With that said, the Head Ricnian himself deserves as very deserving shout-out for this post.

 It never hurts anyone to attend a single lecture every now and then. That’s why it’s called “continuing education”, isn’t it? Thankfully, the good folks at the Renal Nurses’ Association of the Philippines (RENAP) know this truism all too well. Hence, they will be conducting a seminar–in Iloilo City, no less–this February 19, 2012 at the MO₂ Westown Hotel. If you know your nightspots well enough like the local kids there do, it’s at the heart of this town’s version of Yuppie Central, the Smallville Complex.

Well, pre-reg may be over, but that doesn’t mean you should miss out on this possibly-once-in-a-year-event. They’ve got topnotch speakers coming aboard for this shindig (using this word oddly makes me feel like I’m writing for Cream Magazine), plus it gets you the chance to co-mingle with some of your fellow nurses present on that seminar.

To paraphrase from emo heroes Taking Back Sunday, tell all your friends about it. As always, the details are on the poster and please don’t hesitate to contact the organizers if you want some more info. See y’all there!

RN Heals 2 Gets ₱294-M Funding

Not sure who this person is supposed to be, but still an effective tool, nonetheless. Image courtesy of Blog For Noob.

In a move that will surely be welcomed by the thousands of unemployed nurses that undoubtedly comprise a major sector of the current Philippine labor force,  Budget Secretary Florencio Abad had called for a press conference last  October 27 to announce that, out of the ₱72-B national fund that Pres. Aquino had approved for release this year,  ₱294-M will go to the much-vaunted Registered Nurses for Health Enhancement and Local Service (RN Heals) program which the Department of Health (DOH) has already been gearing up for since the impromptu announcement that they are, in fact, already hiring some two weeks ago.

To any casual observer, the amount may seem awfully paltry at first. After all, claims have been coming out lately that some nurses who make up the first batch of the RN Heals program have only been receiving half of the intended ₱8,000 monthly allowance that the program is supposed to provide them with. But we have to also remember that–in a time where government is being pressured to employ former President Estrada’s shock-and-awe tactics in a sudden renewal of hostilities between the army and the Muslim insurgency–there’s a very huge possibility that a chunk of the ₱294-M may have gone to, say, re-equipping the local troops with better equipment instead of serving the needs of an undervalued healthcare sector. Also, delayed salaries are very much an expected–although no less harsher–reality in the confines of government-sponsored employment; just ask your local public school teacher about it.

For sure, news like these may bode well for the unemployed nursing professionals who are the ones who should benefit from the RN Heals program. It may stand to reason, however, that this current program–similar to the stimulus packages that are slowly becoming the hallmark of the American and European financial markets–only protracts the problem rather than solving it in the long run. Oh well, a nurse can always hope for something better, right?

Thanks to the Nurse Today page for the heads up.