We Have Moved!!!!

Our site has moved... Please adjust your bookmarks accordingly to the following URL. http://blog.rocesfamily.com/ Please note there is also now a guestbook at the new site. Please feel free to comment within it.

Begin Phase 2, no really begin it already

I've not been thinking about it at all. I've been elbow deep in trying to understand just what the software applications can do so that I can implement from a resonable expectation and not be confounded by limitations of the software. While I do have a grand vision, I've tried to temper it with some limitations in mind, some because of future potential growth and others by seeing that the software can only accomplish so much out of the box and that some of the "grand vision" is going to cost money to implement" While I'd love to do "the works" money and time are finite. (I honestly don't know what "the works" would be...)

I have been looking at many other content management systems and how they are melded together into a seamless experience. There is such variety in the ability to customize these software front ends into something that looks so incredibly different from each other. I see that as a strength on one hand, but for me a weakness because too many choices can make me indecisive. I'm going to give myself a research deadline of the end of the week in order to make sure that I don't keep the process hampered in analysis paralysis.

While I'm still poking around with the technology. I did make a goal of having to gather and prepare a process for interviewing people. I'd like to make it as simple and flexible as possible. I don't want to move forward only to find that I need to backtrack to add some extra questions or re-acquire video/audio footage. The interview questions have been gathered, I now need to form them into a cohesive process which I will also complete by the end of the week.

One of the things that I want to be careful of is making sure that I document the processes so that they can be used and handed off to anyone. This way someone else can continue my work or even work in concert with me. This will ensure that everyone gets their story collected in the same manner and it be as complete and as thorough as possible each and every time.

Maria Alexandra "Sandy" Prieto Romualdez

"I've always been proud of that heritage (being a Roces) and it's something for me to remember…(and) constantly go back to…," claims fourth generation Roces progeny, Sandy Romualdez.

Maria Alexandra Prieto Romualdez or Sandy is currently the president of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. She is the daughter of PDI chairman of the board, Marixi Rufino, and businessman, Alejandro "Alex" Prieto. Born on the 18th of March 1967, Sandy is the younger sibling of the late PDI president, Louie Prieto. She is also the granddaughter of Benito "Bibelo" Prieto, who is the former president of the Manila Times and brother-in-law of then publisher, Chino Roces.

At present, she is married to Philip Romualdez and has an 8-month old child.

She finished elementary and high school at the Assumption Colleges of Antipolo and San Lorenzo, Makati. In her first year in college, she enrolled as an AB - Sociology student at the University of Santo Tomas. Later, she transferred to the University of the Philippines and shifted to Social Work. But after some time, Sandy migrated and went to the College of Notre Dame. She continued her course in Sociology with a minor in Psychology and graduated in 1989. When she was in her third year, she applied for a Management Study Abroad Program and went to Kenya for six months. After college she came back to the Philippines. Sandy got employed at a Singaporean restaurant and at the same time became a student coordinator at Assumption. She also went into teaching at Assumption. However, she later resigned for her masters at AIM (Asian Institute of Management) where she took Development Studies and earned her degree in 1994.

Her involvement with PDI began in 1995. "My brother, Louie, who was representing the family at Inquirer, unfortunately, passed away in a motorcycle accident. That time my mom is the chairman of the board. (She) asked (me) if that (the position) is something I'm interested in. (But) more than the interest I think (she) wants someone who is capable and competent enough…so what we (did) is sort of I'll join, try and, in a year, evaluate if I could handle. So that's how I joined the company," Sandy narrates. When she started with Inquirer, her position was as executive assistant to the president. Then she became executive vice president and eventually president. Prior to this, she mentioned that, "…when I first joined the paper I spent about a month in each department…I spent time with (the) reporters, circulation managers…(just) to get a good sense of (this) and that…there's no better teacher than experience."

In her almost seven years with PDI there have been people who became part of her career in the newspaper industry. These people include Ben Pangilinan, former PDI president during her executive assistant days, Letty Jimenez - Magsanoc, PDI editor-in-chief, and Marixi Rufino - Prieto, PDI chairman of the board and her mother. For Sandy, these people are the reasons she continuously believes in the company. With Ben, she learned the mindset that one is "never too big or high to look at smaller details". Furthermore, she acquired from him the attitude of looking at things in all angles and being rigid with them. On the other hand, she describes Letty as someone with "unquestionable credibility". Also she admires her ability to maintain a strong integrity in work. With her mother, Sandy recounts an instance when Marixi guided her to "reaffirm (the) values" that the paper and its people stand for. With admiration she narrates, "…when we went through that difficult time (during the) boycott, last 1999, (it) really affected not only our revenue but also our profit. For her to say, 'we will still continue and…print…even if it means coming up with a 12-page paper, we just have to do it'…very few businessmen can say it's 'more than just business'…"

Aside from experience and people she deals with, her family also plays a part in her positive outlook on life and career in the print media. She acknowledges her grandfather's ways in handling the business and his philosophies during his days in the old Manila Times. According to her, "…I know my grandfather was always an open person…he would always walk in the printing press and listen to people. He was really approachable." She further describes him as a kind-hearted person and the one who taught her how to balance work and family. Likewise, she recognizes her being a Roces as another aspect in her good career in the newspaper. She remarks, "…as far as independence is concerned in being able to print what…needed to be printed, that is a Roces trait. I know from a fact that Manila Times was like that so they closed down. In a way I can relate to that…it's probably in my genes and I'm glad that its there and…(also being) able to stand for what you believe in is definitely something (Roces)…"

For her words of advice to young journalists, Sandy explains, "…the print medium is, as far as media is concerned, (is) the best medium to be in….it's only in print where you have the time to be able to really gather enough information and digest it…print is the least fragmented (media)…" She also adds, "I think print is where you can hone your skills and be able to really experience what it is to gather news and be able to inform people." Moreover, she stresses, "…pursue your dreams because that's really where you have passion for…of course when you come to our job there are certain things that you don't expect…but there are certain things and values that would last, and practice, it pays off if you practice your writing…"

(READ FULL INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTION)

Family Tree transferred and "House" foundation laid

I finished transferring all the names from the Sassy Mae created family tree. I need to make some corrections since there are some errors where people like Marlene Roces is cited as being married to her father instead of being her daughter. I also have to fill in the holes of cousins and people at my generation and beyond that were not included which will take some time.

At work I'm currently working on a logging and transcribing system for collecting all the field tapes they use for reality TV creating. I found a neat tool (read: gadget) the Sony Visual Voice Recorder ICD-CX50 which I'd love to get since it would make for some easy digitizing interviews and also take some simple 1.2mp pictures to annotate the conversation. What makes this neat besides the fact it looks like I can shave while I'm interviewing and taking snapshots, is that I can use technology to transcribe the interview. Voice regonition software is quite accurate nowadays that one can pretty much let computers do automatic transcription. This brings to bear a whole new way of collecting oral tradition from the elders of the family.

I purchased a vbulletin forum software this past week and have been tinkering with it. It's quite powerful. I'm going to learn how to code php a little more just so that I can understand what mods are going to do to the system before I apply them. No need to kill the system before it's even launched.

I'm working on a content management system now which will help organize and present the material so that it stays somewhat fresh and you don't keep coming to a static page day after day. There's going to be a lot of material in biographies, pictures, videos, and stories.

I need to make sure that I sit with Kain the website designer this coming week. He's done some very impressive websites most notably a fan site for a cult movie and the special f/x makeup artist of that movie. I really would like to determine just what day I can make an official launch and announcement to the whole family. In order to get that, I'll need to know just what work is left to be done and just what kind of time he's going to need to do the layouts and graphics. We're also going to have to make sure that there is a simple front end to allow family member to upload their pictures, video, and audio easily. This week I will make sure to test the streaming server so that I can start collecting movies from family members even if they are done via email or FTP server.

If there's any family members out there reading this that has any ideas or graphics to submit from family stationary, old business letter heads, family art, seals, marks, etc. I would love to incorporate them into the mix.

An Amazing Find!

As I've stated before I'm really working on the technical side of putting this thing together. But every once in a while I get tempted and I just poke around and see what comes up. It's currently hit and run looking but I'm amazed at what I've been able to find so far.

My friends all think that I'm a google-master. I've learned how to find things quickly and efficiently without a lot of effort and I get the right results over 90% of the time on the first try. I'm only as good as the tools I have, and for this project it is no different. I was looking around passenger lists and found this interesting tidbit of Lolo Rafael and Lola Enchay taking a trip across the Pacific from Manila to San Francisco in 1952 aboard the S.S. President Cleveland. They were heading to South Bend, Indiana ultimate destination Notre Dame University I'm assuming to visit Tito Ding.


click on the picture for a full size picture of the manifest page.


S.S. President Cleveland

I'm looking forward to doing this searching stuff, it's going to be a great challenge. First I really do need to finish up the technology and then get the biographies done.

Falling into place

I got a phone call this afternoon from Genealogy.com regarding my recent membership. Apparently they have merged with Ancestry.com recently and was asking me if I wanted to transfer my account from Genealogy to Ancestry. Since the Family Tree Maker 2005 hooks directly into Ancestry.com it was a no brainer to move over to a site that has a larger database tightly integrated into the software.

Family Tree Maker 2005 is very interesting. I've been adding names into it and what's amazing is that it will automatically search databases to corroborate names and locations. With myself, it picked up all the locations that I had listed phone numbers in the past 10 years.

I have installed vbulletin software onto the server last night. I spent today setting it up and I'm testing the different sections now to make sure that what I'm envisioning is actually possible out of the box. I am a moderator on a very large vbulletin community of about 52,000 members from all over the world. I've seen some of the back end pieces, but I was completely floored to see the whole backend. It's quite intricate and is going to be more than capable of doing what is needed.

I won't have time to meet up with the web designer this week which I was hoping to do. We need to work on the flowchart of how all these components are going to work together. As I get the software components it really is helping me see how they will connect together.

One of the next things that I need to do is settle on a standardized set of interview questions so that I can start talking to people and getting their biographies done. Again, I have a template in mind and how it's going to flow on the webpage. This information doesn't need to wait for the technology pieces so I should stop wasting time and just get that part done already.

The process of fleshing out the design

I've been meeting with the web designer for most of the weekend. We've talked about how all the components and parts will meet together into one cohesive document. The process we are following in creating is an established design process by a well known desing firm in Chelsea. We are focused on Phase 2.

The technology parts are falling into place rather easily once I identified the needs to address multimedia aspects. I still have to settle on a couple other software pieces, but the delay in selecting those pieces is more about upgradability, easy of maintenance, and security.

I will have to settle on them soon because that's a portion of the architecture. There's a few items that I'd like to leave as "future upgrades" because the whole project at once seems a little overwhelming to implement all at once, which is where Phase 5 comes into play.

One of the parts that I know I have to start doing immediately is contacting each and every living family member currently from the Alejandro Roman Domingo Roces line that I can find and contact. It is quite a daunting task since just the in my own line of Rafael Filomeno Roces, he had 11 children of which 8 are still going strong and are spread out all over the world.

We Have Moved!!!!

Our site has moved... Please adjust your bookmarks accordingly to the following URL.

http://blog.rocesfamily.com/

Please note there is also now a guestbook at the new site. Please feel free to comment within it.

A find at Ellis Island

I took off Friday to stay home to have some furniture delivered. As I waited for it all to arrive, I threw myself into the project.

I signed up for database subscriptions to different genealogical sites. I registered host names. I made screen layouts. I compared various software packages from freeware to off the shelf. It was all in all quite an advancement for this project.

Our family portrait is in Ellis Island. If you go there and walk about the grounds you'll find a Kodak kiosk and it has stories of immigrant families along with photos of various immigrants to America. If you get the chance to visit it, you'll see a photo of me when I was in high school c. 1984. The way we got our pictures into it is a story in and of itself since when they created the project they approached Kodak employees to help fill the database and mom was fortunate to submit her picture and get it accepted.

Saturday night just as a goof I decided to see if that photo was online anywhere. Imagine my surprise to find Roces that crossed the Atlantic as far back a little over 100 years ago.

Ellis Island

Alfredo "Ding" Reyes Roces

Alfredo Reyes-Roces is a gifted artist-writer from the known Roces clan in Philippine print media. He is the author of the latest book on the Roces family, "Looking for Liling" and the National Book Award-winning title, "Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo and the Generation of 1972".

Currently a freelance artist and writer, Alfredo or Ding, as he is fondly called, has been living in Australia since 1977. He married Irene Pineda on May 24, 1958 and has three daughters, Grace, Mina and Mia.

The youngest among nine brothers, Ding was born on April 29, 1932 at Sta. Cruz, Manila. His parents are Rafael Filomeno Roces and Inocencia Reyes.

He finished elementary at St. Mary's College in 1946. He transferred at the Far Eastern University for his high school and graduated in 1950. For college he went to the University of Notre Dame and completed a degree in Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1954. He also attended the Arts Students' League of New York in the years 1955 - 1956 with the well-known German Dadaist, George Grosz, as his mentor. Finally, for a year (however not mentioned when) he trained at an advertising firm in New York called Donahue and Coe.

His early years in the journalism profession were for him "a crash learning process". He started off as a ghostwriter and later acquired a column in 1958 with the Daily Mirror. "I chose to write about subjects I was familiar with and close to my interest, mostly art and culture…I did not start as a copy boy or as a reporter…which makes my journalistic background and approach different from most journalists. (But) in later years I expanded my topics to cover politics and current events", explains Ding. His column was titled "Light and Shadow", which he continuously wrote for the Manila Times until 1959. Reminiscing his experiences, he realizes that, "…living off journalism in the 50s to the 70s was extremely difficult. I was paid 20 pesos a column, and I had to write everyday, seven days a week including Christmas and all holidays, whether I was sick or not or I did not get paid for that day. Until the last day I wrote for the Times my fee was still 20 pesos a day. I never got an increase for over 10 years"! Despite this he feels privileged that in his years of working he always had a very "free hand in writing and doing" what he wanted which he believes was "not (a) typical journalistic experience".

In 1972, Manila Times closed down upon the declaration of Martial Law. "I lost my job. It was even harder because I could not write freely and although I was offered jobs in the Marcos' papers, I begged off", narrates Alfredo. Notwithstanding his unemployment he became editor-in-chief of the Filipino Heritage, which was a ten-volume study on Philippine History and Culture. It was a position he handled until 1978. A year before Filipino Heritage was published he migrated to Australia where he became editor of the Austral Asia's quarterly Geographical magazine called "Geo" after two years. His work with the magazine lasted until 1990.

In his years of being in the career of journalism and arts, there are several unforgettable people he had worked with. "The person I most associate with was my brother Alejandro…we shared interests in Philippine culture", Ding first mentions. He also adds, "my cousin Chino (who) was publisher (of the Manila Times)…and while I kept an arm's distance from him to avoid his telling me what to write, I developed a rapport with him". He also enumerates Frankie Sionil Jose, who was then the editor of the Sunday Times Magazine, Joe Luna Castro, Sunday Times' editor-in-chief, Mirror's editor Abe Cruz, whom he used to ghost write editorials for, cartoonist Nonoy Marcelo, Chronicle cartoonist Liborio Gatbonton and brothers, Bencab and Badong, who used to work with Manila Times. These people became Ding's close friends, who still share memorable experiences with him even until now.

Aside from journalism, column writing and editing, he was also into advertising. He once managed a public relations and advertising agency. Yet, he lost interest because he "discovered (that) buttering up to clients was the only thing that mattered not professional merit". Ding then focused on his real inclination, arts and writing. By training, Alfredo is actually an artist. He does pottery, sculpture, photography and painting, which was his major back in college. Moreover, according to him his minor of philosophy has equipped him in his writing. This is clearly manifested through several selections he already came up with. Examples of his works are "Legaspi: The Making of a National Artist", "Medals and Shoes: Political Cartoons of the Times of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, 1965 - 1992" and others which he personally produced and co-authored. In addition to book production he also does book cover designing. At present, he is doing another career-related interest, which is digital art, and writing over the Internet.

Alfredo's multi-faceted persona in the fields of arts and journalism cannot but be attributed partly to his being a Roces. He declares, "you are a Roces by accident of birth, but I suppose there are family values and culture imbibed through the years". He adds, "My parents also cautioned us against using our family name for personal advantage stressing that we should get ahead on merit". And despite the demands and pressure of bearing a family name that's well-reputed, Ding feels that, " I have always been extremely proud of my family roots, especially my parents who were living examples of humility and responsibility; and also of my eldest brother Liling who gave his life for his beliefs during World War II. With three other brothers preceding as columnists for the Manila Times, I was conscious I had to live up to their reputation. But having said that, I have also sensed resentment on the part of other writers and editors who think I have established myself through my family connections. So I felt I had to prove myself as a writer and a journalist".

For his final words of advice to starting journalists, he reiterates, "it's (journalism) a hard slog, a difficult career. I believe more so now than in my time, because the quality of journalism in the Philippines has declined and journalists of integrity have a harder time getting established. There's very little financial reward. There is also now a language problem to confront in the coming years. But the satisfaction of self-expression and of communicating with others is fulfilling. So my prime advice is that you must keep your integrity no matter what for that is the only true measure of a good journalist. To strive to be professional requires much work and discipline. Without study, diligence and discipline you will always remain mediocre. If you try to get away with just pure talent and 'bola', your printed words come back and haunt you. Keep an open mind. You have to be objective and not let your personal feelings obscure your insights and your reportage. Cross check and double check. Read. Read. Read. Write. Write. Write. And please do not transform journalistic success into political career".

(READ EMAIL INTERVIEW)

The Wheel: The technology of reinventing it

I have commited to a 2 year hosting contract with Dreamhost.com. It is a very robust hosting service that provides the most storage and bandwidth along with many tools to get one started on just about any project quickly and easily.

One feature that I found to be very interesting is a Donate Directly to Host system where one can donate directly to the host service provider elimating the wonder of if donations are actually going to fixed costs or enhancing the lifestyle of the website creator. As you can see on the side and below there is a donate button. A funny message is given when you actually click the button and are taken to the Paypal donation link.

Donate to rocesfamily.com!

Your donation will go toward rocesfamily.com's web hosting bill here at DreamHost Web Hosting! Because you're donating directly through DreamHost, rest assured that your donation will only be used to pay for this site's hosting fees. The site owner won't be able to run off and spend your donation on DVDs, fine steak dinners, or anything else completely unrelated to their web hosting bill! Please select the amount you'd like to donate now!

The host provides a number of free tools and open source software such as blogger, email, forum, merchant carts, and security tools.

The domains have been registered, roces.org and rocesfamily.com. When they go on sale again, I'll register some others like familiaderoces.org and rocesfamily.org. The other week I had a handful or registrations that should have only cost me $40 but because I delayed and didn't do it right away, in the 2 weeks the price soared from $40 to over $150.

The blog will be moved to the family server as soon as I can figure out how to point the existing URL to the new blog page. This will ensure that anyone who stumbles upon the blogger.com page gets funneled to the right direction. Since blogger.com is a google product it will also be good for me to keep it there and allow it to get ranked and cataloged into google. This will help when someone types in ROCES at google.com they won't just get pages on where to buy rollerblades.

I can host email for anyone who would like to have @roces.org or @rocesfamily.com, had this been the mid-90's it would have much more cachet, but like telephone numbers we all have way too many of them. I think I have about 4 different email addresses between work and personal activities. The rocesfamily@gmail will still be a collecting point since again, google does a better job at preserving information than any one else on the planet. I will just configure it so that it eventually goes to a @roces.org/@rocesfamily.com mailbox.

Another tool provided is a phpbb forum. Forums are the modern equivalent of the old 300 baud bulletin boards of the 80's. While I know vbulletin much better from an administration point of view, I have seen some pretty impressive phpbb boards that have user photo galleries which is a key element to this project. I'm hoping that I can allow people to create video galleries as well.

The family tree is morphing from a simple organizational chart into the multimedia family tree. The ability to annotate each family member with photos, audio, video, will help preserve their memories over time. I can recall one conversation with Lola Enchay but only remember that I did not understand her since I did not speak Spanish very well.

I do also want to respect people's privacy to collect some of this information without revealing themselves to other family members. This is a tricky concept because of course we all think that family is family and why would they care? Some people just like the anonymity of the internet and I need to strike a balance of being an adminstrator first and a family member second in some cases. So as I stated before there will be a public area for the general public, but I also need to figure out a way to validate family members as family members. The actress Susan Roces has no affiliation with the family but has the moniker. I know that it's going to be tricky especially as I encounter people whom I have not been able to attach to the family tree.

There are a few items that I have to pass over with some legal friends, such as COPPA compliance here in the US, privacy policy, copyrights, and of course one has to be concerned with legal liabilities.