Waging peace via information technology

Waging peace via information technology

By Maurice Malanes
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:18:00 09/10/2008

BAGUIO CITY – Through two movie house-size screens installed at the Baguio Convention Center, over 1,000 high school students played a scissor-paper-rock game, held workshops, exchanged testimonies and ideas, and prayed and sang with their fellow students in Cotabato City.

The theme of the three-hour Internet-based video conference on Aug. 29 revolved around building peace and mutual understanding through dialogue between and among Christian, Muslim and even non-Christian and non-Muslim youth.

The virtual conference’s theme struck a relevant chord with the conflict and violence in a few areas in Mindanao, which were ignited by a scuttled proposed agreement based on an expanded Bangsamoro territory.

Organized by PeaceTech, the video conference enabled students of Baguio and Cotabato, who were grouped into 10 to 12, to reflect during a 25-minute workshop on how ignorance breeds prejudice, which eventually leads to conflict.

PeaceTech is a nongovernment organization holding peace-building-geared video dialogue series among Muslim and non-Muslim youths in various countries. Among its supporters is Queen Rania al Abdullah of Jordan.

In the same workshop, the students pondered upon how they could benefit if Filipinos were united and how they would envision the future of their country.

In another workshop, the students were asked about what they loved in their faith, what three steps they could take to promote better Muslim-Christian understanding, and what they could do to help promote peace.

Battling ignorance

Volunteer facilitators synthesized the reflections of each of the workshop groups and two representatives from Baguio and one from Cotabato were chosen to report a summary of what transpired in both workshops.

The representatives recognized ignorance as the root of prejudice, which, in turn, leads to stereotyping and generalization that create distrust and hatred and ultimately conflict. Both underscored the need for more education and enlightenment to fight and overcome ignorance.

“For our part as youth, we can no longer afford to be apathetic. We should get involved and seek to deepen and broaden our knowledge and understanding about our Muslim brothers and sisters if we are to overcome our ignorance and prejudice,” said the Baguio representative.

The Cotabato representative noted that both Christianity and Islam are religions of love and peace so conflict, he said, could be resolved only through dialogue.

“We love our own faith and we are committed to understand each other’s faith even as we have to remind one another to appreciate and work with what is good in each of us,” he said.

Rahana Ganda, an Office of Muslim Affairs staffer who moderated the video conference in Cotabato City, said the youth of Baguio and Cotabato were united in their vision to achieve peace as they stressed the need for open minds and tolerance.

The activity also enabled two women to share their experiences of prejudice and violence under the hands of some Filipinos from both Christian and Islamic faiths.

A girl introduced only as Jeryl said she, her family and relatives were abducted in July while traveling in Mindanao. An armed gang flagged down a van, in which Jeryl and her relatives were riding, and demanded all Christians to alight.

“We, girls and women, were sent home, but the gang members mercilessly killed my two uncles,” Jeryl said.

She said she had difficulty overcoming a feeling of hatred against Muslims after what happened.

“But as a born-again Christian, I had to open my heart and mind to forgiveness,” she said, noting the incident was not the fault of all Muslims.

Theater actor Bart Guingona, the PeaceTech video conference moderator in Baguio, and Ganda in Cotabato appreciated Jeryl’s boldness and strength in moving toward healing through forgiveness despite her experience.

In Cotabato, a Muslim girl, Yas, also shared her experience during an evacuation of civilians in Kauswagan, Lanao del Norte, who were fleeing an all-out war against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in 2000.

“Would you believe, only Christians were being rescued [and allowed to board the boats]?” said Yas. “So I was crying, pitying myself for the misfortune of being a Muslim.”

Like Jeryl, it took Yas some time before she overcame the bitterness she felt after that experience. And like Jeryl, Yas leaned on one important teaching from her faith – making room in her heart for forgiveness.

Asked about how she perceives Christians now after the experience, Yas said: “I realized it would be unfair to regard all Christians to be the same [as those who refused us to board the boat]. I also realized that we can have inner peace only if we are able to forgive.”

Common humanity

Speakers for the video conference stressed that all religions, if unmasked of all their external trappings, essentially talk about how all human beings are interconnected. They also said Christianity, Islam and other religions all advocate peace and harmony.

Fr. Rene Oliveros, a Jesuit priest who also specializes in Islamic studies, said Christianity’s ideal core teaching on peace could be summarized by the Beatitudes, a passage from the Sermon on the Mount declaring what makes a man blessed.

He said the Beatitudes, among other things, talks about how “blessed are the peacemakers for they are children of God.”

Oliveros lamented, however, that Christianity today has become “far removed from the teachings of Christ.” He traced this to “institutionalized Christianity, which became a tool for colonization.”

“The kind of Christianity brought by our colonizers already had a prejudice against Muslims. We need to liberate ourselves from this,” he said.

Prof. Moner Bajunaid, Marawi State University chancellor, said Islam is a religion of peace and peacemaking and its followers have to continuously work and struggle for peace.

Former Bukidnon Rep. Nereus Acosta, who attended the Baguio event, reiterated Albert Einstein’s edict on peace and asked the students from Baguio and Cotabato to remember this passage: “Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved through understanding.”

As war continues to be waged in some villages in Mindanao, PeaceTech has embarked on waging peace via information technology, primarily banking on the youth who are going to inherit the country.

And why wage peace?

“It is in the minds of men that war begins, so it is also in the minds of people where peace must be waged,” said Imam Bedejim Abdullah, one of the event’s organizers.

Einstein gives vital clue for Filipino inventor

Einstein provides vital clue for inventor

By Maurice Malanes
Northern Luzon Bureau
First Posted 21:40:00 09/14/2008

BAGUIO CITY -- THE CURRENT fuel crisis does not worry Victor G. Ayco at all.

A scientist and inventor, Ayco sees the crisis as an opportunity for the country to tap the inexhaustible potentials that science can offer in finding alternatives to fossil fuel.

“Many seem to anticipate a bleak future because of the prospect that one day the world’s fossil fuel deposits will finally run dry,” says Ayco, 70. “But fossil fuel is not the only source of energy that can run engines of cars and other machines. There are other inexhaustible alternatives [to fossil fuel].”

He based his radical optimism on what he regards as a vital clue from one of the geniuses of the 20th century -- Albert Einstein. That clue is the theory of relativity, or E=mc², where E is energy, m is mass, and c is the velocity of light.

The Mandaluyong-based chemical engineer says Einstein’s theory helped him perfect his gas-saving product, which he demonstrated recently before Baguio City motorists.

Essentially, Einstein’s relativity theory, says Ayco, states that “from matter we can produce energy.”

His invention called “aero-nitro power injector” took 15 years of research and experiment. Patented on Dec. 11, 1985, the device has been marketed only recently through Energy Philippines Inc., a private firm, which Ayco co-owns with other partners.

The inventor says his device “converts ordinary nitrogen (a noncombustible substance) in the atmosphere into combustible nitro-gas, and serves as gasoline and diesel additive in gaseous form for efficient engine combustion.”

With efficient engine combustion, a vehicle can run more kilometers with less fuel and emits almost zero toxic pollutants.

Like a science teacher

In introducing his product, Ayco explains like a science teacher how an internal combustion engine performs two processes. One is the chemical process, which involves combustion or burning. The other is mechanical, which involves motion.

The combustion process for gasoline or diesel involves burning hydrogen and carbon. Incompletely burned fuel leads to the formation of three chemicals -- hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and oxides of nitrogen, all of which have been proven hazardous to health and the environment.

Incompletely burned or unburned fuel can also cause other harm. This is because carbon gets stuck inside the engine and can lead to “spark knock” or detonation, which can destroy an internal combustion engine.

Detonation occurs when, after spark fires, it creates a small fireball that spreads across the cylinder.

Unburned carbon sticks to the engine chamber walls and are emitted from the exhaust pipes as carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.

With unburned carbon, a car engine runs roughly, fuel easily runs out, power gets lost during acceleration, toxic black smoke gets emitted, and carbon deposits are formed within the combustion area and intake valve.

Saving fuel

Noxious wastes, Ayco says, deprive a vehicle of fuel economy and performance, leading to costly repairs.

Ayco’s “aero-nitro power injector” is encased in a stainless steel cylinder, measuring five inches long and two inches in diameter, which can be attached to the intake manifold of any diesel or gas engine.

He says the gadget enhances engine performance, eliminates smoke-belching, provides stronger engine power, and saves on fuel.

Activated chemically during fuel and air intake, the invention harnesses the air’s potential elements by producing up to 99.5 percent burning efficiency of fuel in the combustion chamber of an engine.

Ayco says he is processing how to get credits through what is called carbon trading because his invention prevents by 30 to 40 percent the formation of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides -- substances that are ruining the ozone layer.

Using a chemical catalyst, which Ayco has refused to identify calling it a trade secret, the gadget converts unwanted carbons and other volatile elements present in the atmosphere into combustible gaseous form.

Since the invention helps a car attain perfect fuel burn with near-zero nitrous oxide emission, which gives more power to a vehicle, using the gadget is like converting low octane fuel into high octane gasoline, he says.

The gadget also increases engine power by a maximum of 25 horsepower and increases torque by a maximum of 1,000 RPM (revolutions per minute).

Torque, also called moment of a force in physics, is the tendency of a force to rotate the body to which it is applied.

Ayco says his invention is “like a catalytic cracking reactor using a catalyst material that assists in a chemical reaction but does not take part in it, thus giving greater gasoline yield.”

Increasing mileage

Based on tests by government agencies, including the departments of energy, science and technology and environment and natural resources, Ayco’s invention can increase engine power by 35 to 60 percent, mileage by two to four kilometers to a liter, and engine life span by six to 10 years.

The tests also show that the gadget can cut down maintenance costs by up to 50 percent, can prolong life span of spark plugs and glow plugs, can decrease frequency of tune-ups and oil changes, and can reduce carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide emissions by 99.5 percent.

Ayco also says his gadget is not bulky and easy to install without having to alter engine as it can just be attached to the engine air intake manifold.

Suitable to most types of stationary and mobile combustion engines, the gadget can also last six to eight years and can be recharged after maximum use.

Ayco says that two important substances used in his gas-saving gadget are carbon and hydrogen derived from limestone.

Synthetic fuel

If taken a step farther, these limestone-derived substances combined with water plus a catalyst, which again he will not disclose, can produce synthetic fuel, which is much cleaner and more efficient than fossil fuels.

“My car actually runs on this synthetic fuel,” he says.

He invented his synthetic fuel in the 1980s and had sought government help to protect and mass produce it. But government agencies were lukewarm to his invention.

“This is understandable because Ayco has invented something which can change the course of civilization,” says Bob Roldan, one of the marketing executives of Ayco. “You can just imagine the implication over those who control the oil industry.”

In the meantime, Ayco and his business partners are busy marketing the aero-nitro power injector not only locally but also in Canada, Belgium and other countries.

At P9,000 per unit and with a 10-year warranty, where payments may be returned if one is not satisfied with the performance, Ayco’s invention is making brisk sales in urban communities seeking to reduce air pollution.