Meet-Up #3: Coffee & Kristel

Coffee & Kristel

by Camille R.

Meet-up #2 was interesting and opened a good deal of many firsts, while solidifying the foundations and discussion flow for the group. Meet-Up #3, done on April 17, 2013, proved again to be refreshing, and everyone came home satisfied at having been able to successfully discuss the case of Kristel Tejada’s suicide.

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The Preparation 

It was a week after the last meet-up, when Ces initiated an email thread between Avon and myself. “Hi guys!”, her email begun. “So far, our first meetings have been great! Looking forward to our next discussions this April.”

Avon immediately responded, and concurred with Ces. She then piped up, “So excited for April, do you want to discuss the very recent suicide in UPM?”

Kristel Tejada’s suicide issue was very prominent in the headlines of news publications then. Why wouldn’t it be? It dealt with a public university, featured an unfortunate event by an unfortunate student, and somewhat highlighted the issue of the so-called “unreasonable” tuition fees.

Student activists were clamoring “Justice for Kristel”, while the university itself allowed classes to be suspended for a day in Kristel’s honor. There were a lot of things we could discuss with Kristel’s suicide, and I could already imagine bullet points of discussion questions forming in my head.

“Oh my, I love that topic, Avon. That would be great!”, I responded. Ces, too, agreed that it would be a good discussion choice. It took some working out, but in the end we all decided on having a forum to air our thoughts surrounding the untimely death of this freshman.

We threw a couple of emails back and forth, and after looking carefully at all our schedules, the three of us finally set April 17, 2013 as the next date for our meet up.

(I suppose it’s worthy to note that during these emails, the thoughts of making a blog and on finalizing the group’s name came about. More about that on another page.)

Since my coffee tasting was also talked about in the last meeting, I thought that it would be a great start – indeed, a kind of icebreaker – for the next discussion. So I volunteered to do a quick coffee tasting before the actual discussion proper.

The Discussion Proper

We pegged our discussion to start at around 8pm on April 17, 2013. (We did look forward to having dinner before the discussion first, plus I wished to talk to the store manager of the coffee shop we were going to about assisting me for the coffee tasting.) 

It was a very hot day, and the Wednesday evening proved to be little different from the morning. It was as hot in the middle of Taft Avenue as it was almost anywhere else in Metro Manila. We were thus very glad to duck into the Starbucks at D' Students Place after eating dinner (and catching up with each other).

The Icebreaker: Coffee Tasting

So once we were settled, I went off to get the implements for our coffee tasting. (The store manager was nice enough to help me out for this activity!) I borrowed the store's French press, asked for a couple of paper demitasse cups, bought some cinnamon rolls for food pairing, and sat down with my friends, officially opening the discussion.

(c) Avon

I decided to present Starbucks' Kape Vinta Blend for the night's coffee tasting activity. It's a special blend that was crafted when the first Starbucks store in the Philippines opened. It hasn't been in the market for some time, so I was pretty excited that it was made available at this particular moment. 

The reason I was excited to present it to the group was because of the special beans they added to the blend - they're arabica beans from the Philippines! It's available all over the world, I believe, so anyone in the world drinking a cup of Kape Vinta coffee is drinking Philippine coffee. It's pretty interesting to think about, since it means that we actually have beans in this country that are good enough for a blend for Starbucks International.

I did the 4 steps of coffee tasting (smell + slurp + locate the experience + romance the coffee), discussed Kape Vinta briefly, and allowed my companions to enjoy the coffee. They asked questions, which I answered at the best of my ability. At the end of around 15-20 minutes, we all sat back, thought about the activity, and mentally readied ourselves for the discussion to ensue.

The Discussion: The Case of Kristel Tejada's Suicide

After clearing our cups and taking out our notes, we started the discussion by bringing to the table what we knew about the case. Just simple basic facts, like how her family moved to Metro Manila to support, how she may have been having boyfriend troubles before she did the deed, how she still went to class even though her professors did not acknowledge here since she was no longer part of their rosters.


(I'm not sure whether all those who have released a comment about the issue knew all the facts, but we three at least wanted to make sure that everyone was on the same page, and thus reviewed what we knew about the subject.)

After setting down what we knew about the subject, we steered the conversation into different points.

We began with discussing Kristel as a herself, a character. Among other points, we noted:
- How she was coddled by her family / parents (some kids would come to Manila on their own and make it just fine, but they had to come along themselves - with their entire family in tow)
- How she must have had high expectations of herself (since she's from UP, and her family was rather poor)
- How she may have had few friends (she was not in the professor's list of enrolled students, so she sat in classes she wasn't supposed to be in - it may have given her a sort of stigma to others)
- How she may have been having anxiety and poor support (notably, how she may have been having troubles with her boyfriend, how her family was busy supporting itself, and how she was still going to classes even though she wasn't supposed to be there -- these influences may have been too tough for her to handle)

We also talked about how one of my officemates, when I asked for his opinion, said that it was better that she died early - like what if she were older and with a kid and had troubles - would it mean that she would have had suicide and killed her child too? (It's a very controversial look at the entire thing, of course - and that was why we kept going back at it.)

We then dwelt on the system that may have pushed her to do such an action. We looked at:
- How the university did not have the late fees policy until the latest chancellor was installed
- How the tuition fees of before the latest increase (around 5,000 per sem) were compared to the tuition after the increase (around 18,000 per sem)
- How significant socialized education was as opposed to delivering quality education
- What the university has done in order to have not have the late fees policy / tuition fees increase in the first place (e.g. UP Diliman's active partnerships with Ayala for their idle lands)

This was rather difficult to discuss without going too far from the subject, but when we did feel it was moving towards another angle, we got back on topic of Kristel by talking about the different reactions her death triggered.

We all agreed that people exaggerated more than a little bit. (Avon noted especially how it was unnecessary to suspend classes for her.) Given that the election season is also coming up, it was definitely an issue that almost anyone can use to help (or hurt?) their images.

We reviewed our points, added a few more arguments (such as having a support group, and of religion) and ended up with a letter to Kristel, written by Ces when she first heard of the tragedy. (I'll post a copy of it here if I get a hold of it.)


The Aftermath

After a rather grueling 1.5 hours (yes, the discussion took that long!), we turned in the towel and declared it a night. We were all able to discuss our opinions about the subject, and I think we all ended up enriched by our shared thoughts.

We cleaned up our table, left a tip or two for the store manager and baristas, and filled up some customer satisfaction surveys. (It was the least we could do for staying in the coffee shop for so long!) 

We then talked about what we were to discuss the next time, and Avon came up with a brilliant idea - that we could choose to specialize in the tenets of a specific political philosopher, and debate using these perspectives the next time we meet.

(We typically finalize our discussion topics a few weeks before meeting, so I couldn't tell for sure if that's final!)

Then, we split, each with her own thoughts - and the probable promise of more people to come the next time.





(c) Ces
 
It was fun being able to debate with other people about a common subject, and it was just as enjoyable that we trusted each other enough to know that no one would flip out too much, and that we'd all get heard (and respected) by each other.

Res ullus!