Magad ng araw, ito po ang ikaining na episode ng aming show na Kultura, Cine and Iba pa. Ang topic po ngayon ay teatro sa Pilipinas, contemporary Philippine theater. At meron po kami ng tatlong mga panawihin, sila po ay mga practitioners ng Philippine theater, isapong director at dalawa po ang manonulat or playwrights. Ang aking co-host ngayong araw ay si Professor Cecil Dela Paz na natuturo ng art study sa UP Diliman. Siguro Cecil simula natin by introducing our guests. Would you do the honors of introducing from the right? Maganang araw sa manonulod ngayon ang ating mga visita mula sa UP Diliman, natuturo ng teatro si Professor Jose Estrelia. Former director ng Dalang UP at natuturo sa theater arts program ng UP Diliman. Beside her is a multi awarded playwright and translator and also writes scripts for theater and for film, si Rudi Vera, Rudolfa Vera. To your left is a professor of theater arts in Ateneo de Manila. Playwright who comes from Panay Island and also is a Hiligay Nuan playwright and also writes plays in Filipino and English. Kinaraya. Professor Glenn Sidilia Maas. Okay. So we begin our discussion with a very personal question which is usually how we begin. We would like to ask our guests to describe their personal journey into this art form. How and why did you end up in theater doing directing or writing scripts for the stage? I use Jose. Jose bina yung real name ko. But I use Jose because high school po yan yun na. So it's my favorite. I prefer that. Are you bothered that sometimes people who haven't seen you will mistake you as male? No, it's okay. I can take it. It's part of the thrill. Yeah, it's part of the mystery. Anyway, I got into theater. I think like most, a lot of those who got into theater. Agong bisayin sa grade school. You know, you know how in English classes and Filipino classes, et cetera, music. You're always being asked to perform, somehow. So may attraction na yun. I mean, it's just a vague memory. I just got stronger sa high school where very distinctly, for some reason na punta ako talaga sa directin. Or in writing. But writing meaning, not really necessarily original stuff. But kung ano yung assign the novel or... Tinasat na na. Inadap mo. So may mga kasama kung may friends ako sort of like, you know, we like working together. So parang high school pa lang parang may team ako. In college, actually I was torn between film and theater. I wanted to go to film, actually. Because malaki yung influence sa akin ng television and movies. So pretty much blew up on western stuff. I mean, for good or not. So I wanted to be a movie director, actually. Pero I think nung time na yung wala pang film major, as a major. Pero may theater arts na. Meron na. Meron na. May speech, parang speech yung drama. And then may theater arts. And then, inisip ko pa nang English, even. Like comparative lit. Because I love literature. So anyway, matagal na ano yung. Then I decided on theater arts. Which of course, this please, my father. Who sa generation nila, dapat punin mo commerce. Okay, yeah. Commerce. Business ad, bang ganyan. So kanya, okay, may commerce. May title. Commerce, commerce kanyan. So anyway, so I entered theater arts. Pero first year ko, di ko pa... Hindi pa ko active dole nisa. Sa theater. Parang kumakapapa. Pero very studio type ang ating theater program. So freshman ka pa lang. Parang pinapahipuhipo ka na sa likod. It's different. Because you're talking about the certificate program. Which is newer. Hey, much, much later. Sorry, sorry. So nung time ko ko, which was... Akademically talaga siya. B.A. program siya. So I entered the B.A. program. So I wasn't able to get into a theater course until my second year. So and then to sa baptism of fire. Kasi si Tony Mabesa akadang. Director ko. Ibang kultura yan. So nasi gawan ako agad. I should talk about that later. Kasi it's part of the training of theater artists, particularly in UPD-Liman, that they have to sort of be strong and have fortitude. Kasi part of the kultura ng theater ay masisigawan, mamumura. May gano na, no? And I think within limits naman. Pero I think everyone has gone through that. And it's in the consensus it has actually made you stronger and fortified your love for it. I can't speak for everybody. But generally, yes. I think it will make you stronger. Did you pursue it after college, theater? You took an M.A.? Yes, I took an M.A. first. Kasi actually after my B.A. Sukang-sukako sa theater. So all I wanted to do was to leave the country. I wanted to go to the U.S. just to visit my sister. I didn't want to do anything theatrically related. Although na sa U.S. ako, tinitin na po na yung mga schools. Kasi I was interested to go abroad. Anyway, but I went back. And my first job was really sa film. Nag-PA'y ako, nag-AD'y ako. And then for some reason nag-tatago ako sa theater people. And the last person I wanted to hear from would be Mr. Mabesa. Although he's my mentor. One day, basta after eight, siguro mga eight months of doing film, ganyan. Big line na lang may tumawag sa bahay. And ito na yung booming voice niya, hoi sa... magturukah. Ganyan, ganyan, ganyan. So, I was up against the wall. Hindi ko alam na sa sabihin ko sa kanya. Sabi ko ayok, parang ganoon. I was really very hesitant. Because I actually never thought I would teach. Parang hindi yung interesting for me. So, hindi ko alam exactly what made me say yes. Aside from yung... Mahirap kumindike Tony. I think up to now, a lot of people would say that. If you've been asked to teach naman in a beautiful campus like UPD-Liman, shouldn't be that hard to decide? No, it was hard for me. It's still hard? Yeah, because I won't fight. Ang lakas-lakas ng resistance ko to teaching. And just going back to the theater. Sigo rin yung idea lang na, maybe I can now direct one day. Wala naman siyang promise na ganoon ay. Pero, inisip ko nalang, maybe that's my way into directing.  Sasabi yung spoiled ko talaga. Ganon, sasabi ko, o sige. Ganon lang. And that was... Just a little later. So, magandang lesson from that take away from that is para you really start from low. Panang may hierarchy naman talaga siya. You have to work your way up.  Sigo ron, after one year. Oh, it's welcome ha. After one year, nag-direct ka na. Ano eh, because si Tony used to do all of the directing. Patalagang yung boong season siya. So, we all served him in a way. But of course, we learned a lot. Basta one day, sabi niya, dapat... You remember the first production? Ito si mo, I don't know if you remember, Mon Hoxon. Ano yan, sa Filipino department. So, yung nang ano niya, mag-direct ka mo na ng one act play. Dun ka mo na sa THY, yung that small, still theater. That's the thing to play right theater. Panang ano. So, yun. Ano yan, palaging, if you get his approval, then may future. Parang ganyan niya. So, he was pleased with what I did. Just as, I, akala ko nga niya kung may director nung una, kasi, nung college palang, yung to get, to get to do a directing thesis. Akala niya kasi PMSM ako e, because that's what I was doing. Kasi I was good at it. So, parang feeling niya, dapat ina, ganyan mo ay, sabi ko, but I want to be a director, sabi, no. Really? You want to be a director? Parang ganyan ng directing, one-two na ako. Parang, bakit? Ano yung time pa na yun, yung si Tony was, parang hermit siya. Ano yung siya sa gardens, niya sa, sa, Tony will watch this episode. I'm just telling the truth. Yes. So, that was a face of Tony na yung, he didn't go to the department a lot. And then, so nag-garden siya every afternoon and morning. Walking the dog. Kaya, iya. Pero mas-garden ng siya na niya. So, parang makausap mo siya, kailangan, puntaan mo siya. Hahanapin mo siya kung masan siya. So, I went to the garden sa, dun sa area, near da ano, yung ubal, malapit sa chocolate kiss now. And, sabi niya, why? Why do you want to direct? Because that's what I want to do. Pinilit, parang, ano siya, very skeptical na magagawa. Oh, hindi snainis ako sa kanil. Parang, my God, I've been directing since high school. And, in my mind, I can do it. I know how to talent.  That is, that was the most, up to now, it is a touchstone play. Mag-garden, tagali na, so parang sinasabi. I had never seen a production. It was like downhill all the time. No, of course not. No, no, no. You had several, but you know, just going back to your story, the love of literature, I think it's clear in you the way you direct it, because you do very good direction if you're devising, rather than giving us a script that's fully there, you do a good job sort of imagining or translating from word, the written word to the stage. Thank you. That is your wonderful, wonderful gift. You're not the director who works well with scripts, na finished. You work well to devise texts. I don't know. I don't know. I don't want to define myself that way, because I've worked with, I've worked with Roddy. Iba mga bagong scripts, nilaman si Roddy, even before. I guess I like the challenge. My profound effects go into America to study, because I wanted to go because and I made sure I could go. So luckily, I got a scholarship and madami talagang akong na panodin, naturo sa akin. Naturo in terms of critique. See, it's not, you don't learn directing by one, two, three. It's not like that. There's no formula to these things. Not to acting, not to design. But you need to get your fundamentals really down pat. No, and then you start looking at things differently. So it's more of that. Malaki yung difference to me nung how I approach text. Ever since I went to Columbia, I think it's not just because of Columbia, but yung teachers ko doon, yung mentors ko doon. The experience of theater is not experience of reading. Because when I watch a play and I'm familiar with the text you're working with, you have really envisioned it na and you have rested it from the page and you've turned it into a theatrical experience. Because I think that's the job. That's the job of the theater director. I cannot do na pagpinanod nila yung ginawa ko. It's just, ah, okay. This is what I read. This is what I saw. That's it. So it's a translation project. You translate talaga reinterpret. In a sense, although interpretation, I'm not writing. I mean something original. But yung reimagining this whole, this text. You're reimagining it into a different world altogether. That's my thing. It's not a job. I mean, that's my challenge. You translate from one language to the other. And the language of theater is something you know very, very well. That is why it's a visual and auditory language and experiential language. And that's what you give na. That's such a big fan of Ossesio. It's obvious. Obvious fan. Such a huge fan. She's our best director. Thank you. I think you say that to every director. Clearly. And one of our best playwrights. I can't say the only best one but marami naman sila. But one of my favorites is Rodi Vera, of course. I first became aware of this work when I saw the better production of Kupanok Pinatay Si Dayana Ross which was probably your first major di naman. Niba. But that was the first time I heard about you. And I was already blown away by that wonderful script. And the director was Soxy. Soxy. That's why it was also handled very sensitively by Soxy.  That was a wonderful long journey. Yes. Now I'm going to hear a long journey also. This is probably longer. By age, masyayong. Rodi has more years to cover. Kasi yung pamilya ko naman came from my grandfather established Sampag ito pictures. Oh, so ayan na. Si Don Petrovera. Pero hindi ako sa film nagsimula. Nagsimula ako sa teatro. Katulad niya atulad ni Jose grade two ang first encounter ko sa theater when I was listed to be auditioned sa isang father James Reuter play. Kasi nagkarol kami sa theater. And dun siya nagdut magdidereksya sa college of the Holy Spirit. So it's a mindi o lahat. So kailangan niya ng mga bata na mamamatay kasi gilagawa yung Francis of Nabar. So I was one of the Indian boys. Extra lang. Oh, extra lang. And I did miserably bad talaga. Kasi hula ka naman speaking part kasi may baril yun e. Pag nagsound yung baril mamamatay ka hindi nagsound yung baril. So nakatingin hindi nagsound yung baril. Ititimigil yung show. Pero mga ganoon na that was my first encounter but I loved it so much not because I really understood what was going on but I was with so can you put your finger on the nature of that love? Even maybe Jose can also try to answer what is it about theater that's ang sayasayan nung mga kasama ko. Kasama ko si Vic Diaz. Nakalakon nakikita ko siya sa TV na nakakatakot pandido. Tapos on his playing the devil in the play. Okay. But he's so lovable. And he's so ebatapano. So and then yung mga co-actors na ang sayasaya lagyakong maagap mong kontadong kait wala ba rehearsal. It's the company I guess that made me feel so at home. Parang ganoon. But after that mga high school na that that's when I started when I entered a workshop sa PETA sa teen theater workshop. Yun yung talagang an-realize ko hindi lang pala masaya. Masaya. Meron din palang sinasabi. Kasi nila ka 13 men. Ano na yun? 1976 na yun. So ano na siya our way of making theater had to be based on the social reality. So ang unanang dun ko na realize ah, kailangan na exposure. So we were exposed. We went to a squatters area. And then we built our improvisations there. So siguro pa kong taro o ano na ano na nakikita ko na nagsusulat ako kasama ko sa writer's pool ng teen theater, et cetera. So I guess masikidong sa PETA when I entered that parang dun na nila ko na nakikita na yun nagiging parang reference ko na gagawin. But I really didn't think of theater as a career. Kasi wala naman talaga ang career. Can we think of theater as a career even now? Or is it something like a passion lang that you need a real job? Mang hirap mag-recomend na... That's the consensus I've been hearing from all the artists we've been talking to in this show. Even the visual artists may mga day jobs. Tapos this is something you pursue as a passion which also protects it from compromise. Kasi hindi mo siya talaga pinakakitaan e. Ginagawa mo siya kasi mahal mo siya, gusto mo siya ang gawin. So siyose may day job ang tawal pagtuturo at pareho siya ng job day job namin e sessil at ni Glenn. So ikaw, ane day job mo? Full time ka ba? Nde, susulat ako para sa pelikula. Medyo ang formula films, iba? Nde, naman while I can help it. Yeah. O kung ganoon man, nag-e-check... Mami at ako nga namin, similar ba yung karanasan ang pagsusulat para sa tiyatro at pagsusulat para sa pelikula? At kung merong kaibahan, ano yung difference sa sanyoan? Sige. Kasi patura rin very different. Kayo pareho silang collaborative, iba? Pero I think mas maraming compromise nangyari sa film e. Kasi may producer, may star system, may mga celebrities, may mga givens. Or even kahit sa indie, iba pa rin. Tapos yan, kanina pinagusapan namin yung indeed versus mainstream mas alimut na usapin. So continue with your story. Anyway, pas high school na tayo. Past high school na e ang pinuhako, biology. Kasi... Gusto kong... Nga ganoon mo? Hindi ko iniisip ka. Habi ko, hindi ko naminisip na magiging career talaga yung theater. Pero so when I entered UP, I entered as a biology major. So pre-med siya. So nung pero... Moving towards Edson na tayo na yung time na yan. Lipa. Lipa. Oh my God. Sorry, my God. Okay. Okay. So 70... Oh my God, 70 pa di pala tayo. Okay. Pero nung bandang 80... 70 tayo. Nakatapos ka ba ng biology? Hindi. Hindi ako natapos ng biology naging activista ako. Pero naging activista ako sa PETA. Don ako na organized. Pero dahil doon, naging masyadong importante sa... Don ang mas naging important sa akin. Yung pagiging activist. But using theater. So theater for me was the secondary kwan. Dahil doon, nagshift ako to Philippine studies. Nung 80... At yun na naging B.A. mo in Philippine studies. Hindi ako nakatapos. Wala kang degree. Wala kang degree. Ang gangayon. Ang gangayon. At tumigil ako ng iyan. Pag katingyan balakit para sa buhay ng isang artista. Degrees are really not as important. I remember in our program creative writing, anong na yan? Anong namin? And full professors namin si Frans Arciliana at si N.V.M. Gonzales. Wala mga degrees. High school graduates lang. Pero kasi di ba? What really establishes your credibility, your reputation, is really your work. So actually, pwede kama professor ng playwriting. So all the production all the all the place you've written and translation. You can teach translation also. Because already you have that track record. Way to see good. That's a good thing for the art system. Yeah, we will try to get you. Just say, maliitam. Ano palatang? Application palatang. Recruitang. You can write. So let's go to the contemporary Roddy there na. Kasi hindi ka lang playwright.  Oh, hindi mo ako pina-note sa fathers and sons. I mean, sorry. Artista rin siya. Actually, hindi mo ginalaw yung book mo for that. For a while, dito mo na nagpagupeta. And who can say no to Tony mo besang? And you cannot say no to Tony. Directly he called me para. Imagine that story from Jose Anggang ngayon, Tony is still there. But I wanted to say you actually are a translator. And that is another discipline altogether. At an tanong ko, siguro mamaya sa'yo will be to also talk a little more about translation for theater. And what are the challenges of a translator and ibabayon sa pagsusulat ng original play. Okay. Okay, so maybe we can start now and ask him for his story. Tagapurbain siya sa pinangalak sa Iluilo, lumaki sa antike. And then right after college sa Iluilo. Kinaraya. Okay. Although I also speak aheligay non. Okay. Dahil I spent na tapos ako ng elementariya sa Iluilo at ang tapos din ako ng college sa Iluilo din. So right after college yung Puntang Manila and then worked sa Itbulaga as assistant writer and then so masaya. And then dahil bagong salta. Take production na. Take production na. Okay. Nang enjoy naman ako except that I got tired of writing yung scripts for paing pagtinatang ako sa Provincia. Mas, kong graduate ako. So anong ginagawa mo ngayon? Sa ABS ako because Itbulaga was then with ABS-CBN. At anong show Itbulaga o bilang assistant writer ano sinasulat mo dun? Itbulagaan scripts. So parang many times in you think of knock-knock jokes. So but mat yan, nag-enjoy naman. But at some point nanuod ako ng isang palabas na yung Pilipino ang palabas doon ang bone ulan bahan ni Frank Rivera. I like what I saw and then in-invite nila ako na gusto mo mag workshop so nila ako sa theater sa Mandilim Metropolitan Theater sa Teatro Metropolitano. And then after maybe a year with Teatro Metropolitano pinag-audition kami sa actors company ng Tanghalang Pilipino for a scholarship and then I got in oh, sa CCP and then I spent two theater seasons with Tanghalang Pilipino. So we had all these classes under Sina Sernonon. We had karate lessons, dance lessons kay teacher Agnes Luxin. So ang saya-saya. I guess katulad di rodi din parang if I think of the most memorable summer that I had ano siya, yung summer na nag acting workshop na acting workshop pa ako sa Teatro Metropolitano kailin Frank Rivera kasi so ang saya di pa parang bata ka and then ang saya maglaro maggunya ko niya rin aswang maggunya ko niya rin ganyto rapist ganyan o rapee rapee and then right after either a show or rehearsals pupunta sa kiapo maglalakan sa kiapo kakain ang show pa magpagwentuhan at feeling mo theater artist ka talaga kasi ito yung manila na panuod ko ng bata pa ako sa mga pelikula nila yung broca ganyan so yun and then after doing yung sa Tanghalang Pilipino with all these classes and all these plays nagturo sa high school for the arts stayed there for seven years and then at sulat ng play on the side pero at some point ano yung dati pa nung isajanti pa lang ako fascinated ako sa palangka scripts mahilig akong basahin siya out loud nagkokolek talaga ako pa paano ba to pa paano ba to ganyan ay so yun and then ano yung I did my best kineril kayong pagsasulat based on what I read sa palangka ganyan so okay naman third second parang before I die saan ang maranasan ko yung lagyan ng medal sa harap ng lahat iiak et cetera et cetera so sabi ko hindi ata enough hindi ata enough yung nagpupuyat at ang arti-arti ko noon para pag magsulat di takantike ganyan mag-rent ako ng puputa ako sa aninii sa Siraan Hot Springs I will rent a cottage isang buong building ako lang siya dahil nabasa ko yung paola na libro ni Isabel Allende at sabi niya may rondo siyang ritual na every new year nagsisimula lang siya magsulat ng bagong obra pag new year so habang wala 11.59 wala pa pag 12 o'clock magsusulat na siya so ginaya ko siya so ni-rent ko yung buong during the day na nanood na ako sa mga naliligo huy hello kung musta kayo ganyan ako-artista ko I am preparing myself actor training kasi ito I am focusing on my objectives and ganyan et cetera hindi pag ating 12 o'clock ok naman except that the farthest I got to a second kinari din contest mas sabi ko ano kayo papano ba ito papano ba medal papano ba yan so I thought of an MFA program so nag-enroll nag-aral sa katulad ni Jose sa America and then on a Ford Foundation Fellowship and then on my first year of graduate school so kinari ko talaga siya di ba and then yung pala I didn't have ang exposure ko sa Shakespeare yung nabapanood ko lang usually sa pelikula pa so sa grad school sumakatang ulu ko dahil may mga classes na we will talk about four Shakespeare plays in one lecture pa pano pa I'm representing ngamay country sa papano ito so anyway so yun sa inaral class course et cetera kinari ko talaga siya and then ang feeling ko pa noon I shouldn't have any problems here in the U.S. because I studied English the same number of years that I studied by national language sesame street and friends and all these American TV shows yun ang unang sinabi ko sa sa klasi and then sabi na classmates ko oh Glenn that is so not the English that is at each other so yun wala dadak-dak lang talaga ako so anyway so the MFA went back to Manila and then nagturo sa ateneyo where I have been teaching for 11 years and then I do sometimes my plays get staged I'm the artistic director tahan lang ateneyo so I like you've written plays in different languages now you have kinari a play already ang tag dito kinari at least English play pero nandunay your linguistic plurality is in the things you write that's a good development yeah and that encouraged my students to do exactly that also I wonder da palang ka siya daba category na mixed language para ma-free na siya so I'm thinking particularly now the next question is Philippine Theater in English original Philippine Theater in English so many of the award-winning kasi it's a category that's still alive da palang ka still has short one act and a full-length category for theater in English it used to be that when people like Wilfredo Maraguero and let's say Montano were alive there really was original Philippine Theater in English scene that was practically all that there was theater in Filipino then and these plays judging from the biography and from the accounts I've been reading were really being sort of like moved from venue to venue around the Philippines and may audiences siya in public school system basically and can you imagine how it must have felt to be a member of that audience watching this play like Sabina by Montano which is set in the rural a rural place but it's an anglophone play they're all the characters are all speaking in English and it's obviously translated because people like Sabina and the others wouldn't have spoken perfect English throughout like for one whole day talking in English to each other so that that kind of theater it's I don't know we can't suspender disbelief anymore about that so most of the plays that win in the palang ka now for for English the one actress full-length win and don't ever get staged anymore so maybe my question is is there hope for original Philippine theater in English pa or as Glenn was saying the way to do it is actually free the language if I have to write let's say a play now my characters are let's say UP students probably they will code shift from English to Filipino to mother tongue or to gay speak or whatever people talk but if you have to do it straight English throughout that stretches credulity and I don't know theater is the most mimetic of the arts you can't quite suspend your disbelief in the same way you can for a novel in English a Filipino novel in English you can't suspend your disbelief kasi sabihin mo hindi naman realism talaga lang yan maybe it's magic realism but theater you expect imitation of life so it's hard so maybe my question pa lang ka to just diso the category or or maybe look at some of these plays that have one and maybe translate them into Filipino will you be willing to do that Roddy? para maipasok para ma-stage sila adaming nanalo na ilan na siguro ilang two decades worth of plays na hindi na i-stage actually baga ng idea yun and we have done that in PETA ang actually ang play na tungkol kay ang one in English and then we had it translated into Filipino but I think one of the more successful playwrights writing originally in English now is Floyd Kintos with his evening at the opera yung ganyang fluid yata was in English next so para angry Christ I mean nga ano siya pero siya pag ganon yung play mo limited yung yung world like yung angry Christ for example well o na naging English nila lahat pero siya na kukod-shift din nagpapalamga nag-iilongbu yung carapos pero smattering lang neat lang actually siguro baka nga kung gusto mo conversation baka anupal lang siya baka directorial pa yun let's put some I mean it goes along in the process of rehearsal but as a playwright he would I would like to believe that he wrote it in English entirely and then chakagin ano para makarunang flavor dahil kailangan i-locate yung play parang ganon so hindi ako masyadong maanod dun sa ganon kasi ako pag nanunod nako ng play at sinet na sinabi ng ng anot at display will be in English kung unta ako dun tapos na nakinig ako inexpect ko naman na maging English na ang English naman nila o di siya pero tingnan mo yung character kasi the reason why angry cries worked and I did review the play and I think of the recent productions of gula ang UP talagang yun ang massively review the daming nag review at medyo positive yung trend ng mga review I think that the language issue was not really noticeable because it was actually a period play matter speaking and the main characters are actually they are like Filipino Americans but the tenants you see the peasants in the province particularly of the time nag-English naman din talagang nag-try yung parish priest para nagtutok siya in English tapos nakikita mo naman na yung character ng English yung quality ng English yung mga kausap niya is actually very local so na localized I think directorial nalang yun siguro na probably on the page it must have sounded sounded standard English but the delivery of it made it local so that probably is the way to do it but I think those are exceptions if you did the play now and the characters are talking to let's say Bananak-Uvendors naman ganyan tasag-iglisan sila it will be hard to suspend your disbelief kasi ti-enter siya meaning the mimetic requirement is quite strong but then if you extend that argument like for example yung pelikula ni mestegus mana diablo it was set in Ilocos but it was people were speaking in Filipino so tapos may smattering lang ng Ilocano pero minsan may meron Ilocano actor and he will allow this actor to talk entirely in Ilocano pero kasi wala wala baggage naman ng Filipino versus vis-a-vis Ilocano in the others but if you're talking about very similitude if you're talking about di ba bakit siya but we have a Filipino national discourse kasi and we have the bilingual policy so all north and south of the country Filipino is being taught and read and spoken so that's a little different I think from the English thing so really means it's a class question sa aten pag Englishero class di ba may parang ah Englishero siya na Filipino ang Ilocano parang Ilocano parang parang ok lang din yun kung kung nari kung kung nari ang angry cries ba ay ang mga nag-appreciate ba dito ay medyo nasa high class baka baka kung nari na nuhood yung yung pesante napapiganyong it might register a different reaction no that play the problem with that play if at all is that it actually idealize the pesan di ba and you understand it it started deguistically that's the first and then ideally but that play for me it wasn't realistic entirely nga kita naman siya para may mayroon siya transfigured reality siya so I guess baka rin nasa intention nung nasa mode kung yung mode mong di talaga like when I wrote when I wrote dream weavers it was that was in English and they were like workers pesants et cetera but then it was a practical decision because it was supposed to be performed in the Netherlands so yun yung touring nung nung natuan naman yung mga artista kung dating dito halika gawin natin ginawa and it's still I guess it was it worked kasi pinalabas namin sa RCBC doon pa doon pa doon pa doon pa asama sa season ng Romeo and Juliet oh yun na na nga gano kasi inan tenong kung baka is it market driven then meaning to say alam yun ay audience nyo beforehand what if sa university di ba may English version may Filipino version of the same play does that affect the decision those are language use or like you were the director of the U.P. you had to program the season ahead so may mga obligatory gestures na kayo o in Shakespeare yan kasi may audience yan in high schools require Shakespeare plays o kailangan may Shakespeare o kailangan meron tayong Filipino nationalist play or something like that so meron na kayong iili niyang for that all of those are affected also by marketing and you think about programming and looking for audiences right well college pa lang when I entered lang U.P. yan o na so napansin ko yun may English version siya may Filipino version precisely because of marketing na some teachers prefer the English version and then yung mga Filipino those who are teaching in Filipino Filipino subjects would prefer two birds with one stone more or less pero ako personally eventually natin ginagawa ko rin but eventually it didn't make sense to me I cannot hindi ko nang may reconcile kung niya kung pag iniisip ko mag-direct ako na Shakespeare kailangan in translation if I do because iniisip ko kasi na sa Pilipina sa ko yung ganoon ako Filipino yung ganoon yung sensitivity ko so hindi ko siya may isip na so ano sila they're what British pretending to be you know what I mean and then hindi naman makuha talaga yung let's say not even the indexion how do you pronounce what is the correct isip ang parinon even in England every Shakespeare production is a translation because you can't go back to the original Shakespeare anymore they're trying to do it it's very funny the way that the English was spoken actual the English of Shakespeare's time Elizabethan English it's practically cannot be understood even by the contemporary English audience I mean I guess I can just go with what I would say yung just good competent English pronunciation yung mayintindihan ko pero still yung in terms of as a director interpreting the text iniisip ko palaag so kung dalong versions to yung Filipino version ano yung and then pag nag-English so ano nais beti na nag-English di nabay so I don't do it anymore my observation about that is now and then you have the same actor doing both right and you really you really do feel better when you watch the actor doing Filipino kasi yung di siya nang hirapan kitang kitam mo na talagang at na-intindihan yung sinasabi na kititam mo nang na-intindihan niya that's my problem when we do a lot of English mga Shakespeare plays you can tell the actors just memorize the lines I don't really quite understand what they're saying kasi mga medyo malupit yung script analysis na gagawin mo for Shakespeare even for the director so that's why dramaturgs help a lot because can you explain what the dramaturg does because that's a new-ish kind of category in the theater scene in the Philippines relatively new actually to make it even simpler dramaturgy means research so actually everybody does research the director does research the playwright does research so a dramaturg is necessary or if the director is particularly adept and diligent pwede siya na rin ang mag-dramaturg pwede rin, pwede rin pero kasi ang what I see na advantage of having a dramaturg is to have that you know the other perspective yes and somebody to in a way protect you that's the job of dramaturg to protect the whole production to protect you as a director to make sure somebody's asking you pa lako ng play at may nakita ko ang questionable understanding of the philosophy of dramaturg pa lak ay naka hindi naman kaya pa lalut ang pwede rin ang review kong isang play ang misupa na yun ang misupa na yun kong ulang masensin na because the director can still hindi na german romanticism ifang hindi ang play ba to at pwede pa at pwede pa pwede pa pwede pa pwede pa house house no, no, no no, pareho ibay ang dramaturg ng isang pareho sila may problema yeah but well in the end director pa rin yan nyan at least in my case i guess they're directors for me for me i can't speak for all directors but i will always say well in the end ako nag-decision right so ganun talaga i mean that's part of the deal director gets all the blame most of the time as it ever happened like you two have collaborated that you disagreed on how let's say the vision is because you envision the play you turn to translate it you have a theatrical vision of it and let's say the play is a script have you actually come to heads regarding let's say the way you chose to do it tapos hindi na type pa nang wala na kung napatayin ganun yung grave wala, wala wala nang like nung sa pier nung sinabi nga halika gamin natin yung pier ang unang ko tanong bakit so parang hindi ko maano it took a while it took a number of of discussions sessions at heal the Ferdlando's plays na lagi kami naga hindi ko mailagay hindi ko mailuga hindi ko mailagay hanggang na na work naman siya slowly i mean na you found the analog there were drama terms and there were analog were really trying to break that I mean so if so sometimes you have a director like I'm not really a very talkative or you know articulate director pag ayoko ng explain sabihin kung kung wari kinan I'm real ganito lang yan ay can you explain to Roddy and kaya hindi yung matay okay explain it to Roddy parang ganun di ba? because may be hindi ka na confrontation house kaya si Andrew lang ane nung mo hindi naman because I choose my battles pero hindi wala naman kaming major problems ni Roddy in terms of working together maybe we can ask Lynn and how do you choose your material parang sa company? for the season do you do programming for teatro at it? at it? so what should you consider marketing things also? yeah so among other things yung nasabi na na first time Filipino department ang nag-require department et cetera so that's taken into consideration and then what's going on in the country sometimes I go through the issues of guidance ano yung or go online sa pages ng ating incidents is it okay to ask if the owners of your university ever actually tell you kailangan natin ng jasuit play wala at saka ano siya life unsatignation we did middle finger we did middle finger wala, a rin subsidy ka we did middle finger which was soft sustaining yeah we thrive on ticket sales and mga iso jante yung nagahanap ng sponsors et cetera the heroic mahirap mahirap in the state of most no kami subsidized oh okay a little bit government anyway we're sponsoring a process of programming so yung nga anong nangyari sa bansa et cetera and then sa kanyari sa second semester we're doing yeah and then we did middle finger before na nananood na mga jasuits it's anti-catholic yes but they liked it naman actually I was just kidding the jasuits were the most open minded exactly oh kailangan mga una they'll be the most troubled of all kailangan mga siya dung payos diba so yeah since this is still akadim based theater and of course ang UP akadim based theater you have done non akadim based na peta can you can we talk about the difference between akadim and non akadim based theater what would be the most important difference and what are the advantages of doing akadim based theater for example now you've done because you've done both let's hear from Roddy because peta is also a peculiar theater company because educational theater siya but at the same time during that time when I entered mas ano siya sa social political issues but peta has been doing musical plays now building all production around pop songs you'll never UP will never do that talaga baka naman dahil sa copyright issues siguro kung okay lang ng libril lahat kasi ang laki ng binabayad nila nila pero let's may commercial imperative of peta na Hindi ng UP masyado na nga rin nalang na endless endless season ng care ulit-ulit-ulit kasi talagang commercially appealing diba UP will only do it once let's say tapos hindi naman kami talaga will not pursue it for profit but that's just seeing peta on one side kasi lalo ngayon dahil they have a theater center that they need to to really sustain they have to be sustained it's really an expensive building so isa yung sa mga nagiging pa in fact it's the fifth time na nag-run in the rap of ages medyo para hindi naman preset kung hindi alam nila na minimilk nalang nila ito alam yun pero at the same time they have a lot of other programs sa sa grassroots for example yung Yolanda may anong sila mga kailangan these are things that you don't really hear and they're not in that building anymore it's really out-reach out-reach tapos noon lalo ngayon sa 50th and then yung festival of windows para ipakita ishokis yung lahat ng people's theater practices na ginawa ng PETA throughout the anong so I guess yung talagang nakatambad ngayon talaga sa if you're going to say mainstream so very peculiar ngang PETA because hindi naman siya nakabaysa university or any college but it's actually it's been doing educative work through all the decades and people don't normally know it they don't know that nandun yung sa communities but I'm thinking meron tayong commercial talaga na mga theater companies like let's say repertory, philillines ang mga nyan or ano pa ba ibayang mga actors-actor mga nyan or new boys they're still into producing and talagang kailangan laga sila they make profit because that's the way they assure future production so very different set of variables and sort of constants for them pag-accadene base yung theater more or less meron din tayong we have to work with the curriculum and make sure that we have a Shakespeare play because it's required et cetera okay now how do we ensure quality control I think in theater are you sensitive to critics do you read reviews are you happy about critical recognition like you joining the palanka for your scripts is it important that you win have you have you ever written a play that you never entered in a palanka or that you entered that didn't win and yet you actually believe is better than some scripts that won yes yes but you're a holofamer aren't you yeah okay so we shouldn't listen to him Glenn, wala pang masyadong holofame but it's critical recognition is it important and is that a good way to assure quality in the theatrical as far as sa tahala atina yung is concerned nagbapa sa syempre ng what other people have to say about the production because to begin with naman sa sa theater yung merong apeta night or merong bloodbath right before opening and of course you are interested in hearing what your potential audience members have to say critics night or in our case kung nakamarket if you are in a department then the entire department watches and then gives comments but in the long run so okay siya na opportunity to know what your audience is what your audience thinks about your show but in the long run kung misan you agree with reviews you not agree with reviews so okay din siya although maganda syempre pag okay ang review pwede mong magamit sa pagmarket ng show but other than that pero as a writer yung recognition you kept entering the pala ang kasabi mo because it's important to be recognized I haven't joined in a long time but yes I think it's one way for a new writer beginning writer to diwad na papansyan and more than mapansyan I guess in joining writer's workshops for instance it's aside from na pumasaka and parang inannoun sa lahat kasi may press release but other than that it's the opportunity to meet the literary lions people you look up to and then get the opportunity for any new artists it's important to be validated because it's such a counter intuitive decision and why would anyone want to be an artist and so you do want to get affirmation somewhere that your decision is actually the right one and it comes in the form of awards and I think the palangka is let's be fair it's actually one of the better awards to get because hindi naman sya kabal of group think your play that you enter now may lose this year because the particular composition of the judges is not incline that way enter it next year magbabago yung composition ng judges you know meron ako mga na meet I've been judging na palangka na nanalo sila eventually after 10 tries of the same play of the same nina mga play the same story or the same poetry collection tini tweak tweak nila of course kasi na agree it also gives them time to revise but they believe in the work and probably that's the best piece of advice we can give if you believe in your work then to help with the world to help with what critics say and that's true also for productions you know you did a good job and you believe in the work so what if the critics didn't get it I think you have to have your own personal meter some personal way of measuring if you've done well if you're happy with what you've done so I choose who to listen to who to read but I pay attention ako yung pinaka first and last judge because sakin ang galing so I have to suffer to enjoy whatever it is moabalik sakin but of course that being said yung process of collaboration with your creative team is also so important so yun I mean siyempre nakikita lang if you look at reviews di ba pa pinapanod lang naman nila siyempre yung final product they might come on a bad day because you can't you can't sort of pa hindi naman parang ano yun it's a perfect show every time because actors are human yung staff ganun din nakakarunan tech problems and so on so sometimes it's a bad day I mean those are just little things I mean of course you can just be a bad director all together and production is really bad but if you don't have some way to measure or to say yung parang self-awareness na ganang pangit to show di ba kahit natapus na kasi ginagawa mo yung paninindigen mo kilang panindigen mo yun no matter what it's like the child the ugly child that only you will really have to love it minsan yung collaborators mo iiwang ka na or di ka na pinapansin din ang sila nanunod but you have to be there for your actors every single time you can't abandon your actors sila re and they're in a terrible position terrible but exciting position of facing a live audience who would clap for them whatever not react to them that's why it's props to theater people because it's really you are really putting yourself there to be judged yung film you can actually more or less detach yourself from the product but theater you can't you're there physically if you're the actor if you're the director and you get to bear the reward and you get to receive the reward or bear the consequence if it's a bad production now we unfortunately have no more time and so we would like to ask all of you to more or less give your last words probably your last words can be also bit of an advice for theater artists whether they're actors or future directors or playwrights maybe a words of encouragement would be another way of putting it what should they prepare for what does this calling or vocation require what should you have let's begin with Glenn advice line to go to a theater to read as many places as possible watch as many places as possible attend ito bang a festival so lower virgin lab fest short and sweet et cetera plan to develop friendships with some theater people that you look up to get mentored by people you look up to do you recommend getting a degree getting a degree helps then because about the university will make things a bit easier for you by introducing you to professors and industry people yun so persevere and hard work and nothing beats yun na ba should we you also fall in love kahit naman nya tanong career mo nakaad ng spice yun inspired bits of advice para sa akin I guess ang pinaka practical especially since I was advisor for Philippine high school for the arts for theater for a good number of years for a good number of years ang nariyalize namin importante na sumali sila sa isang group o magtayo o sila na isang group that napapractice ng theater dahil kung hindi din din na nariyalize ang possibilities nito for turning it into some kind of sustainable that will keep them sustainable kasi yung iba sa kanila pag katapos Grumadway they had on to other different katulad ko if I work kung tumuloy-tuloy ako I would have been a doctor Dami mo na saan or a nurse pero pero para sa aking important makomino nang theater work so it's good to be in community a play like a playwright cannot survive alone he has to find some group or person who will be interested to stage it and that already is a group and also for actors it would be good to be part of a company or a group or at least you always you keep together parang ka namin mo yung you're either kung Tanghalang Pilipino yan or even sa UP et cetera dun mas pinakam makikita mo pinaka-active yung yung mga individuals ng theater That's wonderful advice and who says actually yung kinabi mo kanina-advice na yun Yung kinabi more more Nga ba you can't do theater or you can't be in theater without doing theater so just to supplement what they said You learn by practice talaga You cannot learn theater through books You have to practice it Yung iba naman madayang magaling na director na hindi naman nag-directing class but they for some reason they kept doing it so with actors a lot of actors di ba sa film na din hindi naman tayo yung industry natin hindi kasing laki sa America or sa Europe so madaming pag-ukulang sa curriculum so kung ano naman yung kulang dun sa you need to keep on looking for work for projects di ba yung mga director parang haldi yung get to direct ang hirap na ne so it's either you found the company yun which is so difficult so to me kaya ako siguro na ano magturo because nakita ko agad yung connection ok, I'll teach pero that to me the price is really to be able to direct so you need to find that or you need to you need to start apprenticing with directors you like start looking for good people that you want to work with look for a mentor lalo na dito it has to be so informale because it's not the industry it's not practical ok, thank you very much to all our guests yet again we find ourselves running out of time we would have wanted to extend the discussion to forever so many other issues to cover but I hope you guys viewers of this show have enjoyed our episode today we look forward to the next episode and so til then goodbye


And in this presentation, I'm going to be giving an overview of the meta-median package. This is an R package that can be used to meta-analyze studies that report the median of the outcome. I'm gonna begin with going over the context of where this package can be used. So I'm gonna consider the setting where we have an aggregate data meta-analysis that has a continuous outcome, say the age. And in this type of setting, I'm gonna consider that sum, or perhaps even all of the primary studies, report the sample median of the outcome. One case where this very commonly occurs is when data are skewed, so authors may choose to report the median. But this happens in all sorts of settings. There's a few statistical challenges that one faces when meta-analyzing this type of data. Standard statistical methods for performing meta-analysis of continuous data often assume that the primary studies report the sample mean and the standard deviation of the outcome. And where median's become a bit problematic is that studies rarely report the standard error of the median. And these sort of, these standard errors are needed to compute the weights in an inverse variance weighted meta-analysis. Another challenge is that some studies may report the mean and other studies may report the median. And now we have the case where different studies are reporting different outcome measures and we need a single outcome measure for standard methods. So these challenges have resulted in lots of statistical, lots of developments in the statistical literature over the last few decades. One group of methods we're gonna refer to as mean-based methods. And we're later gonna talk about median-based methods, but for these mean-based methods, the approach can be described as follows. We first impute the sample means and estimates of their standard errors from all studies that report the median. Then we're gonna apply standard methods based on either the sample means or the imputed sample means. And so this is going to be estimating a pooled mean or perhaps a pooled difference of means for two group studies. For performing this first step of imputing the sample means and their standard errors, there's been a huge amount of estimators that have been proposed in recent years and particularly over the last five years or so has been well over, I think, a dozen papers. And they typically consider that studies report the median of the outcome and possibly that either the minimum and maximum values or the first and third quartiles of the outcome or perhaps both. So these are denoted by scenarios S1, S2 and S3. In all three of these scenarios, they're assuming we have the sample size as well, which we're denoting by N. So the advantage of these mean-based methods are that they're applicable in very general meta-analytic settings. There has been proposed a few median-based methods. These are a bit more case-specific, but in any case, we can describe them as follows. All of these have been proposed fairly recently. So the median of the different, the median of median's method or for two group data, it's gonna be the median of the difference of median's method. This is an approach that completely avoids having to estimate the standard error of the medians. There's been a few approaches that try to estimate the standard error of the medians and then apply standard meta-analytic inverse variance weighted methods. And so this quantile matching estimation, which we're denoting by QE, this approach uses a parametric estimator. There was a paper that followed shortly after, which uses a non-parametric estimator of the standard errors, but the idea is quite similar. The meta-median package implements both these mean-based methods and these median-based methods. The mean-based methods are implemented in the meta-mean function. The median-based methods are implemented in the meta-median function. There's a few example data sets to play around with when getting familiar with the methods. These three data sets are from a recently performed meta-analysis that aim to identify risk factors for a severe course of COVID-19. They contain data on different variables and they're comparing COVID-19 survivors and non-survivors. So the dat.age data set has data on the age of these COVID-19 patients, which I'm gonna be focusing on this data set throughout this presentation. And one other thing to note about the structure of the package is that a number of these approaches eventually use inverse variance type weighting to perform meta-analysis. And so internally in our package, we're gonna apply the metaphor package to perform the pooling step. And note that the object that's returned by many of the functions in the meta-median package, they return the object that's returned by the metaphor package. So this enables data analysts to use a lot of the functionalities that are available in the metaphor package that many may be familiar with, such as generating force plots and funnel plots and testing small study effects and all these types of subsequent analyses that users may wanna perform who are familiar with the metaphor package. Okay, so the main functions in the meta-median package require users to supply a data set. And so in this data set, the rows are gonna correspond to the primary studies and the columns are gonna correspond to the summary statistics. So for instance, in the example data set, I show the first three rows for the first seven columns. So they contain the optionally, they contain the author name of the primary study and the different columns here contain the sample size, the median and all sorts of other summary statistics for the first group. This is the group of non-survivors and their additional columns for the group of survivors which is noted by G2 for group two. The meta-mean function has a few main arguments. So it has the input data set, of course. And then the next argument, which is noted by your mean method, this is the method that's gonna be used to impute the means from medians. And the next argument, SE method, this is gonna be the method for estimating the standard error of these imputed means. There's a couple different options. The naive option, this uses the imputed standard deviation divided by the square root of the sample size. This is an approach that has traditionally been used in the literature very recently. I've explored with a few colleagues a parametric bootstrap of a parametric bootstrap approach. The idea being that this may help better incorporate the variability of these imputed means. We'll explore that in a very recent paper. Now for the outcome measure that's gonna be used in the meta-analysis, this depends on how the input data set is structured. So when the input data set consists of just one group studies, it's gonna meta-analyze the mean of the outcome. When the input data set consists of two group studies, such as in our example, it's gonna meta-analyze the difference of means across the two groups. So at the bottom of the slide here, you have an example where we're implying the meta-mean function, supplying the input data set, specifying one of these mean-based methods. And then I'm using the bootstrap standard error estimator for the within-study standard errors. The output is perhaps very familiar for those who use the metaphor package. This is the object that's returned by the RMA function in the metaphor package. And this is indicating a pooled estimate of 12.8. So this corresponds to the difference of means between survivors and non-survivors. So this is indicating that the non-survivors are 12.8. The average age is 12.8 years larger in the non-survivor group. The meta-mean function is, the user interface is quite similar. We have an input data set. We have the different median-based methods are specified by the median method argument. And once again, the structure of the input data set is gonna determine what type of outcome measure that's gonna be used in the meta-analysis. So at the bottom of the slide here, we have an example of using the meta-median function where I'm supplying the same input data set, the age data set, and I'm applying one of the QE median-based method. And here the output is, the structure of the output is the same. And here we're getting a pooled estimate of 13.2 years. So this is the difference of medians now instead of the difference of means. So this is saying that the median age is 13.2 years larger in the non-survivor group compared to the survivor group. All right, so in summary, the meta-median package allows data analysts to apply several of these mean-based methods as well as these median-based methods to perform meta-analysis in this setting. And our hope is that this package will help facilitate data analysts applying several of these different methods and perhaps evaluating how their conclusions may change depending on the choice of method. And then one reminder is that this is integrated in the metaphor workflow, so it enables you to use these functions you may be familiar with in the metaphor package such as generating force plots very easily after using the meta-median package to obtain a fitted model here. To access the package, the released version is available on CRAN, the development version is available on GitHub, and we just released today a pre-print describing the meta-median package it's available on Archive here on the bottom of the slide here. So thank you very much.


Professor Sarah Sherman Stokes has been the clinical supervisor for the IRC for the past four years. She says for her clients, the ban has hit close to home. My initial reaction was one of shock, of anger, of fear for my clients. And for some of my students, we have a lot of international students. We have a lot of students who are immigrants themselves or who are from immigrant families. I felt a palpable sense of fear and anxiety among my students, not just because they were worried about their clients, but because they were worried about themselves and their communities and their families. We certainly have had an increase in fear and anxiety among our clients. 2014, the IRC has recorded over 60 successful cases for their clients, whether it's obtaining lawful permanent residents, humanitarian family visas, or work authorization. After the orders were put in place, Stokes took students to Logan Airport in collaboration with the ACLU to assist travelers and assure that their rights were not being violated. It's important, I think, for students to know that lawyers have to show up when there's something going on that we don't agree with. We should show up and we should be there and we should get in the way and bear witness to what's happening and try to do good. Law degree is a very powerful tool and I think that was the goal, was to use that tool for good.


The history of the European project has thrown up the issue of referenda as a substantial issue in a number of countries, but nowhere remotely comparable to our own. Thus, only 14 of the 27 existing members even have the referenda to join the European Union, let alone the plethora of referenda that we have had in regard to various amending treaties. The United Kingdom, of course, held a referendum subsequent to joining on whether they should stay in, or depart, and may indeed have another one. We've taken, as we all know, a different course, as is our right. We have had nine referenda on seven treaties. Nobody in Europe has anything comparable to this record. The Danes are the closest that come to it. They've had six, including two repeats. As we know, the history of referenda in this country has been a tortuous one. We've been dispiriting for those of us who believe in Ireland's place at the heart of Europe, at the heart of an ever closer union of the peoples of Europe. Our fellow members have, on more than one occasion, been required not merely to witness our travail, but to recognize that if we finally said no, treaties that they considered vital for their future would have to be discarded. Now, there have been others, of course, who have famously failed in referenda as well. The treaty establishing a constitution for Europe, signed in October 2004, didn't come into force. The Dutch and the French declined to ratify it. Some people say in part because it was simply called a constitution for Europe. But the history of our difficult engagement in the process of treaty change has been very hard, as many in this room know, to explain to our partners. For we're not seen as Eurosceptics, and Eurobarometer polls consistently from the moment of our accession to the present day appear to confirm that we're believers in Europe. And yet, we have thrown or attempted to throw a spanner in the works from time to time that less than 1% of the population of the European Union could stop its progress in terms of the integration to which we all signed up and which is stated in the Treaty of Rome itself has been mystifying to others. Some of those who have opposed the treaties here that have been presented to the people have presented themselves, indeed, with a certain arrogance, one might say, as saviours of the other peoples of Europe who have not been given a vote. Or so it has been said. The surprise evinced at our results was compounded by the apparent contradiction and implicit in our public proclamations of our European destiny. And yet we have said no before our changing our minds when the enormity of what we had done became evident to us. Reference has been made to the fact that we passed, by a substantial majority, a physical compact, a debate which, like so many others, was distorted by extreme interpretations of what might result and of which, in this case, as in all others, never did. And yet we passed it by 60% to 40%. Perhaps John referred to the blackmail clause. Perhaps that's precisely why there was no difficulty in passing it, because there was a price to be paid for saying no.  And there was no price, apparently, for saying no. So it's an appropriate moment, 40 years after our accession to the European communities, to question why this has happened and whether it is right that it has happened or whether, in some way, what has happened should not be allowed to happen in quite the same way in the future. I want to focus today somewhat on the legal aspects of this. I think it's appropriate, myself, to have referenda on vital issues like joining the European Union. I think, perhaps, like the Lisbon Treaty or the Maastricht Treaty. But even in those other ones, I'm not so sure. Incidentally, the Lisbon Treaty was the subject of an exhaustive examination in the Karlsruhe Court, the German Supreme Court, Federal Court. And the judges approved the treaty. It may be said that the judgment, while it's not without grounds for criticism of what had happened, didn't require a referendum in a state with a vigorously independent judiciary and a vigorously independent legal frame of mind. So how did we uniquely find ourselves required to have referenda on the treaty changes that have taken place? John referred earlier to Crotty. And Crotty is the key. In the judgment of the Court in Crotty, Vientischek, on Title II of the Single European Act, which was the part of the Single European Act, which introduced, for an example, majority voting, previously unanimity was required, and therefore removed what might be described as a veto in a whole range of areas relating to the completion of the internal market. This was something which might properly be described as a clear change in terms of the limits of sovereignty. And yet, the judgment of the Court, and that means the whole Court on that issue, was that this did not call for or require a referendum. It was stated that the original amendment passed on our accession should be construed as an authorization given to the state, not only to join the communities as they stood in 1973, but also to accept amendments so long as they didn't alter the essential scope or objectives of the communities. Now, it's in my case that those words, the essential scope or objectives of the communities, when taken in conjunction with what the communities are now after the authorization contained in the Lisbon Treaty and the other treaties that we've endorsed since, including Maastricht, leads us to a situation where we can, with some confidence, look to any foreseeable treaty changes, for an example in the issue of monetary union, if that were to arise. But generally on monetary issues, I would say that it's very arguable that there is no need or will be no need for future references to the people. The clear parameters of where we're going and what is implicit and explicit in having a single currency should be clear enough. In fact, one can argue that the fiscal compact is no more than is what is absolutely required if you have a single currency. You cannot have individual states playing fast and loose with a currency with which they share with others. You don't have to be an economic genius to see the necessary implication of what is meant in having a single currency. You can't have currency in a part of a currency area playing fast and loose with deficits and debt. Ultimately, the cost falls on the balance sheet of all. Amongst the provisions, therefore, that I've mentioned that were in the single European Act and which were declared not to require a referendum, a subject which I think has been largely forgotten ever since, are the vital areas that I mentioned, but not merely those. They also dealt with economic and monetary policy up to a point, social and economic cohesion, social policy, the amount that you pay into the community budget and various other issues directly touching on national sovereignty. What the Supreme Court did in Crotty, and which everybody has some sort of removed recollection as being the cause of the requirement of all subsequent referendum, was that it struck down Title III. Title III dealt with foreign affairs. In this, the Supreme Court was, in my view, clearly wrong. Any political scientist of any repute would tell you, without blinking an eye, that sovereignty is not ceded in the area of foreign policy in the European Union. Nobody can deny it, and even in the United Kingdom, not the most positive or constructive engagee in debate on treaty change, there was no difficulty at that time with the foreign policy provisions. No great argument about this causing a loss of sovereignty. So we were virtually unique in finding this terrible and dangerous impediment to our future independence of action. But in his minority judgment, the Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Finley, put the point pretty clearly in his dissenting judgment. He said these provisions do not impose any obligations to cede any national interest in the sphere of foreign policy. They do not give other parties any right to override or veto the ultimate decision of the state on any issue of foreign policy. Explicit and clear and absolutely corroborated by subsequent events. Europe couldn't even get its act together on the Iraq war. They split, they went different ways, and on so many other issues. Nobody can be compelled in foreign policy and you may say that's correct, it's the way it should be or you may not, but nobody can be compelled by a majority view to follow a particular foreign policy direction. So that this should be the cause of all of our subsequent referenda is a matter which some of us may question. Majority judgment on Title III has led to serious consequences, therefore, as we all know, and that has remained decisive for 25 years. Its effects have been damaging and considerable, not least in that it has propelled successive governments in the negotiation of subsequent treaty changes to take an extreme minimalist view as to what we, our self-proclaimed great Europeans, believed could be done to push forward European integration. Let me take one example. We were formidable advocates for the proposition that the Commission should contain a member from each state. In recent days, the 27, incidentally, is now being pushed up to 30. Those who understood the issue properly might well have argued that a small commission with the rotating rights that were on offer which gave a small little state like ours a far greater rotating role relative to others and those others, the bigger ones, were prepared to cede on this was and is damaging, seriously damaging to the commission. The commission today, unlike the commission of which I was a member, never meets effectively for more than 30 minutes. We had day-long debates. I myself pushed numerous acrimonious votes on competition policy, disagreeing as I did often with the president of the commission and winning some of the votes. But we had a serious attempt to develop policies and everybody knew that they were doing it in the common interest. The nationalization that has followed from the position which we pushed and I don't think any political party disagreed with here as far as I can remember has been a serious erosion of the most important element in the supranational identity in my view with the European Court of Justice in the whole construction of Europe. We need a commission that's independent. So I think it's very worrying. John referred to Pringle stealing it from my speech again but I believe that. But what I will say is this. The Treaty of Westphalia of 1648 is something which set out the independent nature of nation-states. We're beyond that. And if we have any sense as a people, we will recognize that as Irish people we need an integrated Europe. Otherwise we're a marginalized island floating off the west coast of a continent.  So I hope it's revisited and quickly by the Supreme Court and if we're having amendments to the Constitution I should also say it might be no harm to have an amendment in the Constitution which would allow the government and not just the president to refer to the Supreme Court legislation to test its constitutionality in advance rather than being so intimidated and fearful that after a treaty has been ratified and comes into force somebody to bring a court case and that the court case will in some way cause us to have to revoke a treaty which everyone else is already enforcing. It's time we really gave thought to this. Instead of avoiding issues and avoiding the development of the European Union in which we believe by being afraid of referenda, understandably afraid, I can understand politicians not wanting to have to deal with the incredible debates that have taken place here in the past with arguments which everyone forgets the minute the referendum is over. But if they were ever revisited that we were going to lose our neutrality we'd be part of a military bloc against Russia or against somebody I don't know who it was that we were going to be subject to an immediate taxation policy a divestiture which would destroy our capacity to attract foreign direct investment because of the treaties and conscription not to be forgotten that famous old story which this is what has affected national debate and it's all very well to say that we must be concerned about elites. John mentioned it. Who are elites? We've a 271 page document the Treaty of Lisbon. How can a 271 page document which is analysed and produces all sorts of weird theories as to what it contains be something that is helpfully debated in this context. It can't be. That's the truth of it and everybody here in this room knows it. You have to have in the end of the day with some issues. Some issues are black and white but some are very definitely more complicated and important though the referendum commission has been in helping to improve this matter it's not something which is answered by that issue. So, I would finally like to mention two other points there are two other issues which have interfered with referendums in this country. In the McKenna judgment principles such as equality under Article 40 fair procedures and respect for democratic process were called in age to reach what the court believed was a justifiable conclusion. This is a conclusion which clearly the court is not going to revoke because it has reiterated it recently in McChrystal. So, whilst I rail against the wind I know that I am not going to be able to change or argue for a change but let me say something. As things stand the government cannot use public funds to support its position in a referendum. Two very famous legal men who railed against the original judgment in this were the ones who had direct political experience Declan Castillo and T.F.O. Higgins both of whom said this was ludicrous interference with democracy. But now if money is to be spent from state funds at all it has to be shared equally with two sides. Let's assume as was the case in the children referendum that virtually every member of every parliamentary party in the Dahl is in favour of one side and a tiny minority somewhere is against it. Equal sharing of resources. Well, some people say that it wouldn't actually come to that but it has been coming to that. How can the people be other than confused as a result of all of this? As I said, if one no vote had been upheld in our various and in our torturous as I said progress through ratification of referendum we would have stopped Europe in its tracks. We could actually have derailed the whole process of what to me is the most noble project in the history of Europe. In a thousand years of history based upon the principle of sharing sovereignty one conclusion one might draw is that the Supreme Court has defined the constitutional principle of equality in a manner which is excessive and in conflict with the separation of powers. Compounding however the decision in McKenna is the majority's ruling in Cochlan via the Broadcasting Corporation Co-Complain Commission. There are arguments in favor of McKenna. One can understand and it may be absolutely held that if you have a government using all the state resources to push one side in a referendum you get a distorted outcome and that this isn't right either. Now there are a lot of places in between in other countries for an example that are particularly concerned with this issue they have regard to the breakdown of parliamentary support in determining how much goes to one side or another in a debate. But Cochlan has a very wide application. It has been interpreted as requiring broadly equal time to the protagonists on either side of a referendum debate. We've all seen it. Even if the majority judgment in the case didn't actually require such a division it was not indicated by that judgment what sort of division would be appropriate and naturally, or TE, thinks that the best way of dealing with this is giving it 50-50. So every discussion, everything else, every broadcast is equal. The law I think correctly requires impartiality and fairness on the part of the national broadcaster both under legislation and the Constitution but to go so far as to require broadly equal equality for both sides of the debate is surely an unwarranted interference. If has been the case the three largest political parties in the state are in favor of a yes vote are they to be compressed in debates on an issue into roughly 50% of the time thereby permitting a mixture of individuals and smaller groups or again in theory just one individual to have equal time. This in my view is quite wrong. A very eminent jurist Dr. Blana Rouhan of UCD wrote the application of McKenna two principles in Cochlan reinforced some of the problems caused by the removal of government funding in favor of the proposal. It gives, she said, a potential publicity bonanza to small groups opposing the proposal out of all proportion to the actual support the group reflects. This encourages opposition not for the sake of principle and opposition but for the sake of getting exposure for extraneous purposes, in other words to the purpose of the discussion for the people. This to my mind is something that really needs to be revisited. Legislation responded to these issues by establishing a referendum commission and that is to be highly admired and the effect of the referendum commission has been very positive and has undoubtedly improved the situation by providing a means for the clarification of the meaning of a proposed amendment. Maybe it deals with some of the issues that I have been referring to but not completely. It has resulted in further litigation and in my opinion this matter has to be clarified and dealt with further. So the effect of the result of the judicial interventions that I've referred to I think has been to create distortions rather than improvements in some respects in the processes of democracy in this country. I'm mindful of the fact that we have to ensure that the people are fully consulted on vital national interests where that is appropriate by referendum. But we have to also recognize that a referendum is a very blunt instrument for the discussion of torturous issues. It's not easy to rely on a national debate when the simplicities of much public debate reduce the arguments to the banal from the complicated and sophisticated. And I think we would do well to recognize that there are other democracies in Europe. Some of them much longer standing than our own and none of them have taken the roots that we have taken when you combine the issues that were described. Not one. Does this suggest that we're right and everyone else is wrong? I think that we need to look very seriously at these issues. Now, on the positive side to conclude I'm going to say that we can, I think for the moment at least, discuss them with relative tranquility in advance of an issue with respect to the people. I'm doubtful as to whether another treaty is in fact going to be required. I think that the instruments that already exist notwithstanding the concerns of Germany in regard to banking union are covered and can be dealt with within the array of instruments which John referred to that already exist, the fiscal compact, the six-pack, the two-pack and so on and so forth. We already have a large number of instruments which had they been in existence when the Maastricht Treaty was adopted might have avoided landing us in the terrible mess that we're in today. The problem with Europe today is in conclusion not that we went too far in Maastricht and didn't go anything like far enough and I suspect that even in that debate at the time our politicians may at least in a quiet way have been applauding the minimalism rather than criticizing the fact that we had not gone far enough. Thank you very much.


In this week, we have not only done a recap of what we have learnt in the previous weeks, but we have also seen some expert practices. We have seen how experts tend to spend a lot of time in the initial phases of design, such as understanding the problem, creating models, checking whether these models make sense in different scenarios before actually going on to create the solution. Through this course, we have presented you with the various steps and processes that you could do before you actually implement a software. This is the process of software conceptual design.


All right, so let's finish things up for our basic terrain pipeline by getting the terrain layers generated and all the appropriate attributes hooked up. So that way when the asset link goes and cooks this inside of Unity, all the textures and splat maps and stuff like that are already hooked up for us. Okay, so let's jump back into Houdini and get it set up. Alrighty, so let's go create our final HDA or SAP level HDA. So again, we're going to need another file. No, so we need to just copy that guy. So I just held down alt and left click and dragged it off there like so. And let's go and create another subnet because this particular HDA is going to be responsible for creating all the terrain layers and assigning all the terrain attributes. So we're going to call this IP texture layers. I think or actually let's do I didn't spell that correctly. Anyways, let's do terrain layers. There we go. Cool. So let's go and right click on this and say create digital asset and we will go and set this guy up the usual way here. And then make sure we place it into our Houdini project. All right, hit accept and accept. And there we go. So there we go. We're all set up there. So we don't need to add anything just yet and hit apply and accept. And then let's go in now to this particular HDA and start working on the input data. All right, so the first thing I want to do is just create a full mask. All right, so I'm going to drop down a volume wrangle node. All right, there's a couple ways you can do it, but I'm going to do it with the volume wrangle. And I'm literally just going to say at mask is equal to one. That'll just put a mask over the whole thing. All right, so this basically is going to represent our rock layer or whatever layer you want, whichever is the lowest layer underneath all the other textures. Basically, this is think of this as like layer zero or layer one, wherever your indexing starts for your layers. Okay, so with that, let's go and do a feature. So I'm just going to add two layers to this particular terrain just to keep things nice and quick. So we don't spend too much time fussing about. Okay, so I'm just going to do like a rock layer and a dirt layer. All right, so for this particular mask by feature node, I'm going to set this up like so. I'm going to put this to full 90 so we have a way to select, you know, where all the cliffs are basically cool. So I think that's going to work just fine. And so I'm going to invert that and that's basically going to represent where all of my dirt is. Alrighty, and now what we can do is we can go and drop down a height field layer node and extract out where all of our rock is. All right, so we're going to say height field layer and I'm going to put that full mask as the base terrain. And then the terrain to layer is going to be this mask by feature. And I'm just going to work on the mask. So I'm going to get rid of that wild card there and just type in mask. So we only focus on that particular height field layer. And what I want to do is get the difference. That will give me my rock. There we go. All right, so now I have my dirt and my rock. So all we need to do now is just drop down a copy height field copy layer like so. And this allows me that to put all this mask information. All right, but this is like a this is an actual layer. If we if we hover over this layer node right here and hit the info button, you'll see that we have tons of layers already. Each one of these represents a volume height field volume. All right. And so we have tons and tons, but this mask is also a volume. And now that I'm here, we should actually get rid of a lot of those because I don't really need them coming through. So what we can do is just drop down a blast node and blast away all those like the bedrock get rid of debris. Those are all generated by the road node. So I don't need them right now at least not for this basic example. So we want to keep height and masking it rid of everything else. These other layers are useful when you start creating more advanced train layers. Okay. So in this copy layer node, I want to take all the data that's in this mask volume. All right in this mask layer here and send it to a new volume called rock. All right, so now if I hover over this guy, I hit the little info button. You can see I have a rock layer there. Cool. So I'm going to go and actually hit this little button again. We're going to call this dirt. The reason why I'm doing that is because I really just want to set up all my layers in this one node here. So you can see in the geometry spreadsheet, if you have primitives turned on, we now have dirt and rock as layers on our height field here. So what I can do is I can drop down another layer node. All right. And I'm not collision layer. We want a height field layer. So height field layer. There we go. And we'll feed that guy in there like so. And then I'm going to take the result from our mask by feature and pump that into that second input and we'll just replace. All right, we'll replace the dirt layer with the dirt layer that's coming in up here. Cool. So with that, we can now use our visualize node over here to take a look at all of our layers. All righty. And we need a height field visualize. So let's do height field. Let's do that one more time there. There we go. Height field visualize. All right. I'm going to get rid of all these guys like so. Go. We also should clear the mask and drop down a height field mask clear. There we go. Very cool. So now I can go in and select, you know, rock from these drop downs and then dirt. And that shows me all of my layers and I already know right off the bat that our dirt layer is not correct. All right. So let's take a look at what's going on around here. So that's the mask there. Oh, and what we need to do is make sure that we actually put so we need another copy layer. So I need to make sure I put this particular mask over here also into a dirt layer. So we need to say dirt. That way when we go to replace it, it can utilize the masking information that's in that dirt layer and replace it over here. Okay. Hopefully that makes sense. So now if I were to take a look at this, you can see we now have the appropriate looking masks. So if I were to colorize these a little bit more naturally, look at that. You know, I have something that resembles a rough terrain with some layers on it. Alrighty. So with that all set up, let's put this guy right here and we're going to have to go and create a couple of attributes now. So we need to do. Well, let's first do the material. So I'm going to have to do a wrangled node for this. So it needs to be a primitive wrangle because we need to assign the material to our high field. Now this is new to unity terrains and Houdini engine. We actually need to assign the material for to show up in the editor. So when you say s at underscore unity material like so it was equal to some path, some relative path inside of unity. All right. So let's go and get that set up. I'm going to go switch over here to unity. I'm going to go and art and create a new folder called material like so. And let's go and create a new material inside there. So drop down the new material. And this is going to be called my default terrain met. Now, since we are using the universal render pipeline and actually moving forward in unity 2018, you need to utilize different shaders for this. You can't just utilize the standard shader for terrains or you're going to get some weird artifacts. And so what we want to do is we want to go to the universal render pipeline because that's the render pipeline that we're using. All right. And you want to go to nature. And we want to whoops, I went and selected the wrong one there. Oh, I want to go to terrain. There we go. And let's there we go. That's what I'm looking for. Cool. So that's the particular shader that we want to use. If you're just using the 3D, you can always go to the nature, terrain and standard. All right. So because I'm using the universal render pipeline, we need that. So let's go and copy our relative path. So I'm going to right click on it and say copy path there. And then we're going to go back to Udini and we're just going to paste that into that attribute. So now you can see we have that attribute on all of our layers, which is actually not what we want. We want to only put this on our height. All right. So let's actually assign that. So it's only assigned to the height. Cool. Now we need a couple more things. All right. So I'm going to say attribute create. And I want to create the rock layer. So we're going to call this rock layer. And I'm going to turn that guy on and we're going to put this onto the rock layer itself. So we need to do that. And we need to assign this a special attribute name. So if we come over here and we come into our attributes and groups. All right. What I need to do is I need to utilize this attribute right here. And now keep in mind we need to put it onto the prim class and the type is a string. All right. So cool. So this is the attribute name that needs to be on a primitive. It needs to be of type string. And then we need to assign some local value to this or this relative some relative path to a texture inside of unity. All right. Or to a train layer inside of unity. Okay, so let's go back in unity and get that path. Okay, so we're going to have to create a couple of new assets in here. So I'm going to go and right click on the art fuller and say terrain layers like so. And inside of here we're going to go and create two new terrain layers. So I'm going to create a train layer called rock layer. And I'll just duplicate that by hitting control D on the keyboard. And we'll call this one dirt layer. So in each one of these layers, we can control all the textures for it. All right. Very cool. So I actually imported a couple of track textures here. So I have these grids. All right. So I'm just going to assign that to the dirt layer. And then I'm going to assign a texture to the rock layer with some colored grids just to give us something to look at. All right. Cool. So what we need to do is we need to copy the relative path here of that terrain layer assets and pump it into the string value here. That way the Houdini engine can read it. So all we need to do now is go and call this the dirt layer. And we need to ship this over. So it's now using the dirt layer itself. So let's select that and let's go and get our path to the dirt terrain layer. So let's copy that and go over here and just replace this. Awesome. All right. So there we go. We now have a terrain. Now one thing that needs to be noted here is we are using a very large string here. This is a 4097 terrain and by default unity clamps the splat maps down to 2048. So what we have to do is we have to split this stuff out. Okay. So I need to go and drop down a height field tile split like so. And I'm going to just set this on two and two. All right. That way because we're using a 4097 terrain each one of these splat maps basically will be 2048. All right. So we'll just call this hf1. And I'm just going to duplicate it and we're going to send the tile number to one. And we'll just do this again. We'll send this to two. We'll do that one more time for the final one. And that'll be tile three or tile four but index three. Cool. So with that done all we need to do is just merge these guys together. So I'm just going to merge them together by holding down alts on the keyboard and dragging out from one of the outputs. And that now is our merged terrain. But you can see I have four terrains that are 2048 and that will work perfectly with unity. So now I'm just going to drop down and all and do that and say out terrain textured. We'll say textured terrain or whatever you want. Cool. So now let's save this node here. And we are going to go and test it out first inside of Houdini here. So let's go and drop down another HDA processor. There we go. Cool. We'll move the cook flag down there and let's go assign our HDA here. So terrain layers. Cool. And that's that's going to be fine right there. We need to make sure we turn on our create files up inputs and the naming will be fine for now. So the defaults usually work pretty well, at least for something like this. So let's do one quick test here and I'm just going to hit shift V on the keyboard and we are going to cook just the terrain texturing portion here. Let's move that guy over there and this one shouldn't take too long. And there we go. So now we have our final textured terrain. So if I were to now go and select that work item there, I'm going to hit up a couple of times or you on the keyboard. And what we can do or what we can see here is we actually are importing that tile terrain now. And if we inspect its attributes, we have the terrain map of the terrain material on each height layer and we have all of our terrain layer assets assigned appropriately. We also have the tile index. Super cool. So that makes it all work perfectly. So with that, let's just save our node type and let's actually just do one more quick check here. I do want to make sure that I put $PDGdir right here, so PDGdir, so it picks up our working directory. All right, just make sure that this one is set as well. If you don't, then it most likely won't work. So just make sure it's pulling in the working directory. Awesome. So there we go. We now have everything good to go. Let's go and save this. And in the next lecture, we will go and test this out and cook a terrain inside of Unity. Thanks so much.