OVER-REACTED: Cebuanos on Diaz

"Kasi when you think about a Cebuana can hardly speak English and of course Tagalog so maybe she should answer in Bisaya." -Gloria Diaz

These are the exact words which came from the mouth of Miss Universe 1969 and the very first in our country. If we analyze it thoroughly, we can say that she criticized Cebuanas to the highest level. However, I believe that Cebuanos are not shallow minded. I thought that we would just let this pass by because it is not the truth and we have proven we can speak Tagalog and English really well.

If we are not good enough in English, Business Process Outsourcing companies will not make Cebu an IT Hub because most of these BPO's are call centers which requires efficient and effective use of this universal language. Second, we can never be behind in terms of Tagalog because all our lives we spent studying Filipino subjects from elementary to college, watched Philippine TV shows and love Original Pinoy Music (OPM).

If Cebuanos are intelligent enough to really dig deeper into what Ms. Diaz said, we would realize how much she cared about our culture, our Cebuano culture: our pride as Cebuanos of unique kind and not our pride as people who speak other nation's language. True it is that we are proud that we can speak Tagalog or English fluently but do we ask ourselves if we are proud being Cebuanos who speaks and loves our own Cebuano language (not anymore a dialect based on national linguists society)?

This is the video from TV Patrol of ABS-CBN where Ms. Diaz was interviewed.

Cebu's IT and BPO Industry assessed by Tholons

Tholon's, an advisory company on global outsourcing and investments, in cooperation with  Cebu Investment Promotions Center, government, and industry was conducting an assessment of Cebu's talent pool.  This was done via on-line tests which was conducted on August 8, Sunday at 3:30-6:00pm at Room 230, 2nd Floor Main Building, UC-Banilad, Arch. Reyes St., Banilad, Cebu City (in front of Country Mall).

The results of this assessment will be used in determining where the IT industry of Cebu is now, including it's IT human resources, and help develop a roadmap for Cebu that will develop further Cebu's IT and BPO industry. Various schools and companies in Cebu attended the activity.

I was sent to the said assessment and was a little bit disappointed. I cannot successfully entered their examination page and was advised to transfer from one computer to another. However, it took me more than five times (changing computer) and more than half an hour to gain access. According to the proctor, the reason behind that issue was the slow internet connection used in the facility. Well, that was actually acceptable.

The examination contains reading comprehension and grammar, problem solving and mathematical calculations, and program code tracing. The most challenging part of the test was its strict time limitation. The time limit of those first two tests were enough. But, in program code tracing test, the limit was impossible! Maybe the time was miscalculated. Some of my workmates weren't able to take the last test because the system automatically sent the results skipping the last one.

The results of the assessment will be sent to the respective participating schools, companies and others.