The Presidio Trust confirmed today noted Filipino historian, journalist and National Book Award-winning author Ambeth Ocampo will deliver a special presentation at the Presidio as part of a series of special programs accompanying the Presidio’s ambitious new historical exhibit, War and Dissent: The U.S. in the Philippines 1898-1915. Mr. Ocampo will give his free talk entitled: “Annual Redmond Kernan History Lecture: Ambeth Ocampo Offers a Filipino Perspective” on Wednesday, October 29, at 7 pm at the Presidio Officers’ Club.

“We very much wanted the leading historian in the Philippines to take part in the exhibit and deliver its keynote presentation,” said Jeffrey Weik, Presidio Trust public programs manager. “His writings have earned Ambeth Ocampo numerous awards and honors, and the Filipino-American National Historical Society highly recommended him. We couldn’t be more excited he will be returning to the Presidio to highlight our exhibit programming.”

Mr. Ocampo last visited the Presidio on a typical, i.e. foggy, San Francisco Sunday in 2007 when he tried in vain to find General Frederick Funston’s gravesite in the National Cemetery. As part of the agreement to bring him back to the Presidio, Weik promised to escort him to the site during his visit.

Born in Manila in 1961, Ambeth Ocampo is a professor of history at the University of the Philippines and an internationally syndicated columnist. He has served as Chairman of the Philippine National Historical Institute since 2002 and served as Chairman of the National Commission of Culture and the Arts from 2005-2007. He has won three National Book Awards for the Essay, Literary History and Bibliography.

The Spanish American War of 1898 and the Philippine War that immediately followed it were turning points in both the United States’ role in the world and in the history of the Presidio of San Francisco. A free, mixed-media exhibit, War and Dissent: The U.S. in the Philippines 1898-1915 tells the story of a little-known war that had momentous consequences for both Americans and Filipinos. The exhibit chronicles the growth of the Presidio into a major military installation and the rise of the United States into an imperial power. It explores the dissent that erupted around the war and examines the war through the eyes of a Filipino family caught in the conflict and an American soldier who trained at the Presidio. The exhibit’s nine themed galleries feature San Francisco monuments, photographs, diaries, letters and political cartoons that trace the full sweep of the conflict.

About the Redmond Kernan History Lecture: Each fall the Presidio Trust present a free public history lecture by a noted speaker. The annual lecture is named in honor of Redmond Kernan, a former Army officer and long-time Presidio advocate, in recognition of his long-standing commitment to history at the Presidio. The inaugural Redmond Kernan History Lecture was given November 15, 2007 by Renee Klish, Army Art Curator with the U.S. Center for Military History in Washington, D.C.

The Presidio Trust was established by the United States Congress in 1996 to manage the Presidio of San Francisco, a former army base located at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge. The 1,500-acre site contains the infrastructure of a small city as well as expansive open space, a 300-acre historic forest, spectacular views, and rare and endangered plants and wildlife. It comprises nearly 6 million square feet of buildings, including 469 historic structures that contribute to its status as a National Historic Landmark District, making it unlike any other national park. In establishing the Trust, Congress mandated that it make the park financially self-sufficient by 2013. The Trust is the only federal agency with this mandate.

Following is a schedule of special programs and events, and accompanying briefs, surrounding War and Dissent: The U.S. in the Philippines 1898-1915 for inclusion in events calendars. A complete schedule of programs and events is available at presidio.gov/calendar.

New Exhibit

War & Dissent: U.S. in the Philippines, 1898-1915
October 22, 2008 - February 22, 2009 Wednesday to Sunday, 11 am to 5 pm
Presidio Officers’ Club, 50 Moraga Avenue, Presidio

War and Dissent: Behind the Scenes in the Gallery
Curator and historian Dr. Randolph Delehanty holds a question and answer session and discusses the making of War and Dissent and the people who helped make it happen.
Wednesday October 22, 7-8pm
Presidio Officers’ Club, 50 Moraga Ave., San Francisco

The Annual Redmond Kernan History Lecture: Ambeth Ocampo Offers A Filipino Perspective
Filipino historian, journalist, academic and author Ambeth Ocampo will present The Philippines War of Independence. Mr. Ocampo is the chair of the Philippines’ National Historical Institute and a past chair of the National Commission for Culture in the Arts.

(from the San Francisco Sentinel)

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Topic: Exploring the Philippine Knowledge Space

Speaker: Baripov Guerrero, OIC - WikiPilipinas.org

Date and Time: July 1, 2008, 2:50 PM – 3:40 PM

Venue: DOLE Ople Hall, Intramuros, Manila

Mr. Baripov “Bari” Guerrero began his talk with two words: Knowledge Revolution. Its end goal, he said, is knowledge sharing. He then asked what made the Ifugao Rice Terraces different from the Great Wall of China and the Pyramids of Egypt. The Terraces, he said, were built through community effort while the other two were built by forced labor. Even in ancient times, Filipinos knew the value of community effort.

The problem faced by knowledge-sharing, according to Mr. Guerrero, is distance plus cost. The Internet, however can slash the distance and bring people closer although they live in different places around the world. Many people and organizations worldwide thus realized that the Internet can be a good venue to share knowledge.

According to the Alexa website, the top websites in the world are Yahoo, Google, YouTube, MySpace and Wikipedia, while the top websites accessed within the Philippines are Multiply, YouTube, Google, Yahoo and Friendster. The top Philippine websites, on the other hand, are PEP, ABS-CBN.com, GMANews.tv, Inquirer.net, and Sulit.com.ph. Mr. Guerrero said that Filipinos thus seemed to be most interested in entertainment and celebritites, news, and bargains. Meanwhile, he added, a survey of the top websites accessed by Filipinos showed that they liked buy-and-sell sites, search engines, news sites, social networking sites, and porn sites!

Unfortunately, according to Mr. Guerrero, as the Philippine population grows, our capacity for knowledge sharing lessens. Fortunately, there are local groups (like Vibal Foundation) with websites that spread knowledge for free in what is termed the “Knowledge Revolution”.

Mr. Guerrero then gave brief overviews of each of the four Vibal Foundation websites: Filipiniana.net (digital library and image bank aiming to preserve Philippine history and culture); Wikipilipinas.org (online encyclopedia aiming to document information about the Philippines); E-turo.org (educational site aiming to supplement basic Philippine education online); and POC (news site aiming to aggregate news and viewpoints from multiplicity of perspectives to create an archive of Philippine news). Each of these sites represents one of the four objectives of Vibal Foundation: Read, Write, Learn and Share.

The websites of the future, concluded Mr. Guerrero, will have the following characteristics: Their audience will be the world; they will build knowledge in a pluralistic and participatory environment; and they will empower people by allowing them to share what they know.

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Topic: Writing for the Web: The Do’s and Don’ts of Web Writing

Speaker: Kristine Mandigma, Editorial Director of Vibal Foundation

Date and Time: July 1, 2008, 2:15 PM – 2:45 PM

Venue: DOLE Ople Hall, Intramuros, Manila

“Readers on the web don’t read. They only scan. Also, they don’t read pages in sequence,” stated Ms. Kristine Mandigma as she began her lecture. First of all, she said, it’s tiring to read onscreen, so users tend to just scan the material and see what’s interesting. They then tend to download long articles or documents for printing and read the hardcopy. Also, users don’t read web pages in sequence the way books are read from the first to the last page. Because of hyperlinks, users tend to jump between pages depending on what they’re interested in. Also, users tend to read only 20% of the text in a webpage, and they place importance on credibility. Ms. Mandigma reminded the audience that the web is a user-driven medium and each page has to compete with a million other websites.

According to Ms. Mandigma, web users look for highlighted keywords, meaningful sub-headings, bulleted lists, one-idea paragraphs, inverted pyramid or journalistic style of writing, and half the word count than conventional writing. Therefore, to write for the web, she said, one must: summarize first; be concise; write for scanning; and break up the information into logical chunks connected by hyperlinks. Also, a web writer should be frugal in writing, should stick to the point, should cultivate a voice, and should think globally.

She also reminded the audience of the importance of using links to reinforce one’s message and maintain context. Finally, she recommended some reading materials to supplement her lecture

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Topic: Legal Challenges in the Web 2.0 Environment

Speaker: Atty. Michael Vernon “Berne” Guerrero, Creative Commons Philippines and the E-Law and IT Centers of the Arellano University School of Law

Date and Time: July 1, 2008, 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM

Venue: DOLE Ople Hall, Intramuros, Manila

“Ignorance of the law excuses no one from compliance therewith,” said Atty. Michael Vernon “Berne” Guerrero by way of opening his lecture. This maxim, enshrined in Article 3 of the Civil Code of the Philippines, is applicable to the new legal challenges posed by the Web 2.0 environment. The major legal issues on the web may be grouped into four: security, libel, pornography and copyright.

Of the thousands of Philippine laws that were enacted in this country, only one affords some means of protection on the Internet: the E-commerce Law, which governs electronic documents and information. Atty. Guerrero discussed some of the provisions of this law which governed confidentiality and lawful access to information. According to him, everyone can only access certain information if they have a right to do so. There are two kinds of data access: authorized and unauthorized.

Unlawful access or interference to information provided in the facilities is called “cracking” or “hacking” in layman’s terms. “Cracking” refers to unlawful access to a site or account without being the owner, while “hacking” refers to unlawful access to a site or account without being the owner and making changes in it. “Denial of service attack”, which refers to the method of bombarding a website with information until it crashes, is a form of “hacking” according to Atty. Guerrero. However, there is a conflict between the technical and the common meaning of the term “hacking”, because technically, the term “hack” also means “to create a solution”. Some of the different ways of protecting electronic data are electronic signatures, technical mechanisms for Internet security, access policies, and precautions and contractual agreements in the handling of devices.

Atty. Guerrero also talked about libel, discussing the concept of absolute immunity as compared to qualified immunity. He said that like Batas Pambansa Blg. 22, the payment of a fine is now prioritized as a penalty for libel as against imprisonment.

Finally, Atty. Guerrero discussed the concept of copyright and copyright infringement. He identified who could be copyright owners: authors, co-authors, employees and employers, creators, producers, writers and assignees; and who could be made liable for copyright infringement. He also introduced to the audience the concept of Creative Commons and talked about the different Creative Commons licenses.

The audience asked varied questions concerning copyright infringement, ownership of commissioned works, posting of content on other sites without the owner’s permission, assigning of copyright as compared to licensing of copyright, the use of creative commons licenses, and the privacy of employee communications/workstation within the work premises.

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