Tales from the Dark Side

September is not just the time when, to paraphrase a song, you will see me after summer is gone. September also marks those dark years in recent Philippine history when a man from Batac, Ilocos Norte proclaimed that he was destined by Divine Providence to rule and control our society.

I was not exactly a toddler when the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law on 21 September 1972. I was actually a high school student then. One thing I vividly remember about the first years of Marcos’ martial law reign was the Bagong Lipunan (New Society) hymn, which, as we sang it with gusto, would reverberate in our barrio high school prefab building.

The Bagong Lipunan hymn almost replaced the Pambansang Awit (National Anthem). We would sing it quite over and over – maybe at least six times a day. The first stanza goes: May bagong silang/ May bagong nabuhay/ Bagong bansa, bagong galaw/ Sa bagong lipunan/ Nagbabago ang lahat/ Tungo sa pag-unlad/ Kaya ating itanghal/ Bagong Lipunan. You can easily note that the common key word in almost every line is the word bago (new). The song talks about renewal – a new birth, a new nation, a new society, a new way of behaving, and new forms of action.

I was no longer fond of singing the Bagong Lipunan hymn in the early 1980s when, during a human rights public forum, the late lawyer Arthur Galace shared a story about that hymn. One day soldiers of Marcos came to a village somewhere in northern Philippines. To welcome the arriving soldiers, the villagers sang what the soldiers thought was a spoof of the Bagong Lipunan hymn. The villagers sang: May gagong silang/ May gagong nabuhay/ Gagong bansa, gagong galaw/ Sa Gagong Lipunan… The soldiers were not pleased so their commander reprimanded the village chieftain, warning him that the whole community could be arrested and thrown into military stockades. So the chieftain asked the military commander, “Gakit?”

The villagers, the commander finally learned, didn’t have a “b” in their dialect. Their “b” was “g.”

True or not, the story was one of the likes of Galace’s way of actually coping with the pains and fears during the martial law regime. Humor was actually one way by which many Filipinos coped with the excesses and abuses of that regime, which was ruled by the barrels of guns. It was a regime, which jailed and tortured critics. Many others were summarily killed while others were abducted and disappeared without a trace.

Close to home, it was during the martial law regime when politicians, accompanied by M-16 rifle-welding soldiers, practically grabbed the lands of poor villagers in Taloy, Tuba. It was the martial law regime which snuffed out the life of Macliing Dulag, a Kalinga tribal chief opposed to a series of World Bank-funded mega-dam projects along the Chico River.

Despite the pains the martial law regime brought about, Filipinos kept their sanity through their humor.

One slogan of Marcos’ dictatorship was “isang bansa, isang diwa (one nation, one thought).” But some wag spoofed this into “isang ganso, isang hiwa (one goose, one slice).”

The state-controlled airwaves during those years would also repetitiously hammer into listeners the mailed-fist regime’s slogan, “Sa ikauunlad ng bayan, disiplina ang kailangan (Discipline is needed for the country to move forward).” But a naughty radio commentator parodied the slogan, saying, “Sa ikauunlad ng bayan, bisekleta ang kailangan (We need bicycles for the country to move forward).” The radio commentator was reportedly punished. He was made to bike around an oval until he got exhausted.

And there were those agitating chants from the militants. One famous chant sang to the tune of the “London Bridge” nursery rhyme was, “US-Marcos falling down, falling down, falling down/ US-Marcos falling down, with First Lady.” This was quite famous after the 21 August 1983 assassination of Sen. Benigno ‘Ninoy’ Aquino.

At that time all media outfits – from broadcast to print – were state-controlled. So everything the public heard or read were, as Imelda Marcos would push, only “the true, the good, and the beautiful.”

Many Filipinos would buy the newspapers but they just read the cartoons and answered the crossword puzzles. One time human rights lawyer Rene Saguisag commented that no one could believe the state-controlled newspapers because they couldn’t even be accurate with their dates.

Some Filipinos came out with alternative means to disseminate information. One alternative small paper was called Sick of the Times, which printed humor-wrapped critiques of the Marcos regime. In its first issue, it announced that it was “Volume One, Only One.” After some time, another issue appeared, and it was “Volume One, Another One.” Both issues were sold out. It was too bad I didn’t keep copies of the two volumes, which should have been a highly priced memento of that period. But keeping something like these could cost your life because Marcos’ military intelligence agents even considered as “subversive” the tapes of the Asin folk-rock band.

There were other stories, both painful and humorous, from those dark years of Marcos’ martial law dictatorship. Many of those who were born not just yesterday helped battle the dictatorship. Four regimes after the Marcoses’ downfall in February 1986, however, the country still has to get out of the rut. Given the current state of things, we note with sadness that tyranny still reigns, threatening to resurrect those tales from one of the dark sides of the country’s history, which was Marcos’ regime.

September 11 to Remember

September 11 is a significant date to remember. Some remember it with mourning and grief. But some remember it with triumph. Others remember it as the first day of the rest of their lives.

The most recent memory of a September 11 event was the series of coordinated and well-planned attacks upon the United States on September 11, 2001. That Tuesday morning attack, also often referred to as 9/11, surprised the world’s lone super-power. The world’s super cop was practically caught flatfooted. The account of what happened that fateful morning is now recorded in the Wikipedia free online encyclopedia.

Ninteen men, who were said to be from al-Qaeda, hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners, with each team including a trained pilot. Two planes (United Airlines Flight 175 and American Airlines Flight 11) crashed into the World Trade Center, also known as the Twin Towers, in New York City, one plane into each tower. Within two hours, the towering symbols of America’s economic power collapsed.

The pilot of the third team crashed a plane into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia. Passengers and members of the flight crew on the fourth aircraft attempted to retake control of their plane from the hijackers. That plane crashed into a field near the town of Shanksville in rural Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Excluding the 19 hijackers, a confirmed 2,973 people died and another 24 remain listed as missing as a result of these attacks during which passenger jets, for the first time in history, were used as weapons.

The world, including the Philippines, mourned the attack because some of the casualties were Filipinos. But while others mourned, some of our brothers and sisters elsewhere in the world cheered the hijackers. For them, it was time for America, who invented the phrase “collateral damage” and who has been applying it on hapless people in some powerless Third World nations, to learn its lesson and to get some dose of the kind of medicine it has been prescribing for its own overt and covert wars.

Humiliated and outraged, America’s George W. Bush unleashed his rage on Afghanistan and, later, on Iraq. Afghanistan, which was said to be sheltering the al-Qaeda, was bombed and flattened and sent back to the Stone Age. The attack on Afghanistan exacted more “collateral damage” than the casualties of 9/11 in America. After Afghanistan, America’s Bush and Britain’s Tony Blair shifted to Iraq, which, they said, was concealing “weapons of mass destruction.” Both guys even got the UN’s approval for their war on Iraq. It turned out later, however, that the supposed weapons of mass destruction were weapons of mass deception and that the war on Iraq was about oil.

After 9/11, Bush wanted to count on his allies in the world for support on what he called the war on terror. Saying “either you are with us or against us,” he called on other leaders of the world to support that war. Among the first to respond to Mr. Bush’s call was Ms. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who even offered the country’s ports as refueling stations for America’s warships if need be. Ms Arroyo’s support for Bush’s wars on Afghanistan and Iraq made Arroyo, as one critic put it, “Washington’s little drummer girl in Asia.”

Unfortunately, Mr. Bush’s war on terror didn’t make the world safer. The war has endangered not only the US, but also its allies such as Spain, UK and the Philippines. There was the series of coordinated bombings against the commuter train system of Madrid on the morning of 11 March 2004, which killed 191 people and wounded over 1700. There were other bombings in retaliation to Mr Bush’s war on terror, exacting more collateral damage in Bali, Morocco, Istanbul and elsewhere.

Bush has tried to demonize Osama bin Laden, picturing him as a creature with horns and a thorny tail. But in many sidewalk shops in Bangkok, the portrait of a handsome bin Laden with the charisma of a Che Guevarra is painted on T-shirts for sale, along with other idols of some youth such as Bob Marley and, of course, Che Guevarra. So we are in a world where one person’s demon is another person’s legendary hero. And that is how the world has become after 9/11.

September 11, however, is remembered in a different light elsewhere. For some simple folk in far northern Philippines, whose lives revolve around sowing their seeds and reaping the fruits of their toil, September 11 is a day of hope. It was September 11, 2002 when the indigenous Mabaka folk of Apayao Province, for example, stopped living literally in the dark.

On the evening of that day, the Mabaka folk for the first time switched on their electric bulbs and bade goodbye to their kerosene lamps. Thanks to a 7.5 kilowatt-microhydro power plant, which a UN agency, a development NGO, and the Catholic Church supported. And thanks specially also to the determination and perseverance of Mabaka folk themselves. They had to haul on their shoulders iron bars, cement, pipes, and other materials and equipment from the nearest road because their home community of Buneg is a seven-to-eight-hour hike from the nearest road. All members of the community – men, women, and children – all coordinated to dig canals, haul stones and sand to help build their dream of seeing the light from Thomas Alva Edison’s invention.

Each September 11 since four years ago, the Mabaka folk would gather around their community in celebration to dance their traditional tadek to the tune of gongs as their way of thanking the heavens. So while the rest of the world’s peoples mourn 9/11, the Mabaka folk celebrate September 11 as that day when they have seen the light, both literally and from a much deeper sense.

Disasters Big and Small

The Philippines, though well-blessed, is prone to disasters. At least 24 to 26 typhoons batter us each year. From time to time, earthquakes shake our grounds, sometimes toppling defective buildings and raising the tempers of our seas to tsunami proportions. Volcanoes also throw up hot lava, forcing farming folk and their families to evacuate to safer grounds.

All these natural disasters are beyond our control. But we can learn to cope with and prepare for them. The Tinggians of upper Abra during summer, for example, stock on food and other basic items, which they have to buy from the central capital of Bangued. So during the monsoon and typhoon season, the Tinggians won’t starve and are safe and sound in their upland homes. They don’t have to go to Bangued for their basic survival needs because it is too dangerous to cross the swollen and raging Abra River.

The same is true with the Ivatans of the Batanes group of islands in northern Philippines where they are often literally at the eyes of storms. They have built their homes in such a way that these could withstand the rage of typhoons and cyclones.

On earthquakes, we have a lot of coping and learning to do. We have yet to learn from the Japanese whose earthquake preparedness has become part of their everyday lives. The Japanese are also consciously and continuously upgrading their science and technology in finding ways to help detect when the earth’s tectonic plates shake.

Volcanic eruptions are also part of the natural calamities that we have to live with. When volcanoes throw tantrums, all we need are systematic rescue, relief and evacuation programs that can help lessen the suffering of our affected brothers and sisters.

Given the proper support and foresight from concerned agencies, not to mention the innovations and initiatives of our own people, natural disasters need not inflict too much pain and suffering.

BUT there’s something much worse than natural disasters. These are the ones people create either through their sins of omission or commission.

The oil spill off the shores of Guimaras is one example. The finger of blame now points to the captain of the oil tanker, whom his employer said made the wrong decision to proceed to Zamboanga despite a storm. There might be other people to blame for the disaster, which has threatened the livelihood and ecosystems of coastal folk in Western Visayas. Clearly, the adverse impact of the massive oil spill is much worse than natural disasters. Although nobody was reported killed so far, the immediate and long-term impact of the oil spill on the whole marine ecosystems in central Philippines has killed the sources of livelihood of the people there. When livelihood sources are killed, people starve to death.

Also more painful than natural disasters are the continuing political killings, which have left widows and orphans. We thought we have learned our lessons from the pains and abuses under the reign of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos. But the disaster that was martial law is resurrecting into Marcosian proportions under a lady president whose heart, as a woman, should have love and compassion. As a woman president, she should be a mother to all peoples of all creeds and beliefs in this supposedly democratic country. In fact, at one point, Ms Arroyo’s spokespersons tried to project her image as Ina ng Bayan (Mother of the Nation). But we don’t see a loving and compassionate heart. What we see is an iron-fist, which is generally perceived as belonging only to stone-hearted male tyrants.

From a larger picture, the political killings are related to the continuing rebellion and its roots, which have yet to be uprooted. But political killings cannot uproot the roots of rebellion such as the centuries-old question why only a few hold the political and economic power in this country. Political killings only add gasoline to an already raging fire. Political killings only force many sons and daughters to go underground and take up arms.

Since they are mainly concerned about maintaining their political and economic power, the few elites of this country do everything at their disposal to maintain and hold on to that power. Rigging elections and bribery have become part of the rules of the power game. These, in turn, have led to still unresolved questions of legitimacy and to crisis in governance. This is the bigger disaster, much bigger than super typhoon Florita and the eruptions in Mount Mayon.

In Mourning

Two current major issues are damaging the country. The first is the continuing killings of activists and journalists, which have worried and enraged the international community. The other is the reported leakage on nursing board examinations held last June.

To civil libertarians and human rights advocates such as the UK-based Amnesty International, no persons deserve to die for their political affiliation. But as we are writing this column, a farmer-leader in Obando, Bulacan was reportedly killed allegedly for his affiliation with a farmers’ group, which the military had identified with the Left.

“It should be a deep embarrassment to the government that people in the Philippines cannot freely exercise their rights of political expression and association,” said Tim Parritt, Southeast Asia researcher at Amnesty International in a report that came out August 16.

But a “deep embarrassment” apparently is not part of the conscience of those behind Ms Arroyo’s one-billion-peso campaign to finish off the 37-year old communist insurgency in this Southeast Asian nation. Killings, maiming, and sowing fear continue. So for fear of their lives, villagers in Central Luzon and Cagayan Valley are now rushing to get community tax certificates or cedulas, lest they be mistaken for being New People’s Army guerrillas.

The anti-insurgency drive should be directed at the NPA guerillas, who are definitely armed. And the fighting should be done in the hills. But spare the simple farmer who toils and helps produce food for this agricultural country. Spare the community-based doctor who opted to serve the helpless and the needy; otherwise, he would take up nursing and join the legions of Filipinos leaving the country.

Sadly, the sitting ducks of this anti-insurgency campaign are those legitimate community-based leaders of farmers, workers, indigenous peoples and students, who are exercising their constitutional rights of dissent and peaceful assembly. This worries Amnesty International and even the international church community, which has also denounced the killings of pastors, church workers and lay leaders involved in justice and peace ministries.

Given this situation, some members of the diplomatic community are contemplating of advising their investors not to do business in the Philippines, according to sources. This is akin to some international campaign not to investment in Burma because of its iron-fist rule and widespread human rights violations. The message of the diplomatic community for Ms Arroyo is clear -- the rule of law, and not of men, should be restored in this supposed democracy in Southeast Asia. Otherwise, they won’t do business with us.

The leakage in the last nursing board examinations is also giving us a bad name. It continues to help project the image that we are a nation of cheats. Honesty, as one song says, is such a lonely word, which may be true to many of us from the lowly to the mighty in this troubled land. For its rarity, a news story about an ordinary cab driver returning a wallet or package left by a passenger gets front page or prominent air time. If honesty is part of our psyche and everyday lives, an honest taxi driver should be as common as the common tao. And this should not be news any more.

Honesty is also a lonely word among those who hold power. We have yet to clear the air about unanswered questions over alleged electoral fraud in 2004. These unanswered questions contained in the “Hello Garci” tapes and followed by the “I’m-sorry-for-lapses-in-judgment” presidential confession continue to put into question the legitimacy of Ms Arroyo.

These lingering unanswered questions about Ms Arroyo’s legitimacy are holding her down. Unless these questions are sufficiently cleared, it would be hard for this country to move on. Unfortunately, those who continue to question and challenge Ms Arroyo’s legitimacy under the democratic principles of free expression and right of dissent now fear for their lives. We thought Ferdinand Marcos was long dead and gone in 1986. Apparently, the ghost of those dark martial law years has resurrected from the dead. Now we are again in mourning, and the international community sympathizes with our loss – the loss of our democracy.

On Leaving and Staying

Some years ago, some people tried to convince me to find work overseas. These people wanted me to become part of the legions of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) now scattered worldwide.

Another suggestion was for me and my family to apply for migrant status in another country.

I declined both. I could not imagine myself laboring hard in some sweat shop overseas and sending my earnings home for my family’s upkeep. I already knew it was going to be lonely for me and for my family. Maybe I could endure the separation from my family for at least two years before I could renew again a job contract.

But my first consideration was that I wanted to be with my two growing sons. I wanted to be with them when they would seek some help for their school homework. I wanted to be around when they needed my take-it-or-leave-it advice when they would be in trouble. It is painful enough for a child to be growing up without a father, or a mother for that matter. Depriving a child’s need for his or her parents would be tantamount to being orphaned. The dollars that you, as an OFW, would send would not pay for your absence as a mother or father to your child.

Applying for migrant status in another country appeared to be a better option for me and my family. This was especially so because I am family-centered. But I didn’t entertain the suggestion. I couldn’t imagine myself renouncing my Filipino citizenship and becoming a citizen of another country. This, for me, was also renouncing my roots, my cultural heritage, and all my closely-knit clan and kin folk. There’s just no place like home. I just love staying and making life here – despite our country’s leaders who seem at a loss on how to govern us.

But it’s not surprising that three out of ten Filipinos, says a recent reported survey, are willing to take the last plane out and leave the country for good if given the opportunity. That’s 14 million Filipinos. We cannot blame them.

Every political season, politicians would promise us a Garden of Eden. But once they are in power, these politicians fail to deliver. These politicians have made our once glorious country into the mess we are in now. Maybe we have too many politicians. Politicians are the only species in this country that are never in danger of being extinct. Maybe what we need are real governors and managers, not politicians who are good only at grandstanding but who lack vision and the ability to make that vision come true. Good people in government are too few and are becoming extinct species.

We pride ourselves as the only democracy in Southeast Asia. But under our brand of democracy, the justice system does not work as it should be, the rule of law is a farce, and that a few are “more equal” than the rest of us.

Those who leave have their valid reasons. And they cannot be faulted for leaving.

Similarly, the Philippines is one of the densely populated countries in the world and it is just fine if some Filipinos can help inhabit less populated continents such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

I also have my reasons in opting to stay put and to stick it out here come typhoon, volcanic eruption, coup threats and impeachment. Life maybe difficult here, but we can still count our blessings. We may have typhoons, but we don’t have cruel winters. We may have less money, but we are happier.

Where in the world can you find children still caring for their parents when they grow old? Only in the Philippines. Elsewhere in the so-called developed world, you have to work hard and invest for your old age because no one will take care of you later. Even love has to be bought in the developed world. That’s why you have to go to a psychotherapist, who charges you fees for pouring out your heart. Not here. We have enough friends, relatives, and elders who can help us out in our psychological and spiritual crises. And they don’t charge us fees. They help us out because they love us. In return, we also return the favor by trying our best to be of help to others. So unlike the Beatles, we don’t have to sing, “I can’t buy me love…”

State of the Nation

The real state of the nation began to unfold during the days after Ms. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo delivered her SONA (state of the nation address) last 24 July. The well-scripted SONA ended after the well-scripted 166 sets of claps reverberated at the four walls of the Batasan Complex.

The real state of the nation was revealed in the way our government leadership responded to the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict. While other countries had already rescued their people, we heard our president on TV appealing to the Israeli government to ensure that our overseas Filipino workers would be out of harm’s way as the Israeli Army fired its missiles on Lebanon. As if Israel’s bombs would be kind enough to spare our migrant workers. We clearly saw on TV how the bombs had snuffed out the lives of even innocent children and their parents who had nothing to do with the conflict.

Through the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, we came to learn about how government allegedly misused millions of OWWA funds during the last elections. Like the GSIS and SSS funds, government should not dip its fingers into the OWWA cookie jar, which belongs to overseas Filipino workers. As a country that exports its brain and brawn overseas, the Philippines should set aside emergency funds for its foreign embassies to spend when tragedies such as the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict occur.

Thanks to the noise of the Senate, which sought to probe whatever happened to the OWWA funds and why the administration didn’t immediately send a single cent to the embassy in Lebanon. It was only then that our officialdom began acting to really bring home on chartered planes our troubled brothers and sisters in the Middle East.

That some Filipinos opted to stay in Lebanon despite the war also shows the real state of the nation. These Filipinos would rather take the risks in troubled Lebanon rather than go home to the Philippines and die of hunger and poverty. This, despite Ms Arroyo’s claims in her July 24 SONA of a rosy Philippine economy and of a country with less poverty.

The nation under Arroyo also revealed its real state in the continuing breakdown of the rule of law. Sadly, Ms Arroyo’s envisioned “super regions” are turning out to be fields for the extra-judicial killings of government’s perceived enemies such as social activists and critical journalists.

We thought extrajudicial killings and disappearances were facts of life only under the former strongman Ferdinand Marcos’ martial law regime. But reports now say extrajudicial killings happen almost daily, a trend which both domestic and international human rights watch groups say should not be happening in a supposed democratic nation committed to the rule of law.

Dr. Constancio “Chandu” Claver, a medical doctor, opted to serve his people in Kalinga rather than join the legions of doctors and nurses who seek overseas jobs abroad. But serving his people proved dangerous to his health because he happens to be connected with the Bayan Muna, a militant organization perceived by government as among the fronts of the underground Left.

Bayan Muna’s leaders apparently have been marked for death and Claver, who is well-loved by his people in Kalinga because of his services as a doctor, was not spared. Claver is now fighting for his life due to wounds from armalite bullets but he lost his wife, Alice, during an early morning ambush last July 31, which also injured a bystander and left his daughter dazed and traumatized.

The killings continue. As we write this column, reports say a farmer leader was also killed in Albay. Even while we are already mellowing with age, we continue to ask the question Bob Dylan has been asking since the 1970s: “How many deaths will it take till they know that too many people had died?” The problem is that the answer, as Dylan has said, is blowing in the wind.

The killings are unnecessary in this country, which just abolished the death penalty. Unfortunately, killings are now part of the current real state of this country of our hopes and sorrows.

Short-cut Way

Mayor Braulio Yaranon of Baguio City, the Philippines' summer capital in the north, is still lucky. He was suspended but was reinstated. But the suspension threat may continue to hound him and, before he would know it, it would be election season again. All his efforts of defending himself would certainly get in the way of governance so before he would know it, the former judge would find himself exhausted from all the legal battles waged by his enemies.

The saga about suspension and outright removal at the top post of the Baguio City Hall is not new. It began during the time of former mayor Jun Labo, who made Baguio’s history as the first faith healer elected as chief executive. Labo was still warming his seat when somebody complained about the newly elected mayor’s foreign citizenship. It was too bad for Labo who had the penchant of acquiring the citizenships of the foreign women he fell in love with and whom he eventually married.

And it was too bad the Comelec allowed Labo to run before some people found out that he was not a citizen of the Philippines but a citizen of the world. At that time he was an Australian citizen. Ergo, he could run for an elective position in Australia but not in the Philippine summer capital. The Comelec, however, allowed him to run as mayor and Baguio’s electorate, like the star-struck and showbiz-oriented voters elsewhere in the country, voted for the guy who was almost like a movie star.

The courts finally ruled that Labo was an alien and therefore could not continue serving as mayor. Jaime Bugnosen, the vice-mayor then, was eventually sworn in as the new mayor. That was after the 1988 elections.

In 1992 Labo ran again as mayor and won. But he was again disqualified. Mauricio Domogan, the vice-mayor then, assumed office as mayor. From then on, the former barefoot boy from Patiakan village, Quirino, Ilocos Sur began a colorful uninterrupted political career that has reached the House of Congress.

Hadn’t Labo been removed from office, Domogan’s political career may have been delayed for some years – maybe as long as nine years granting that Labo would have been voted into office for three terms.

So we have a tip for those itching to be the city’s mayor. You need not gun for the mayoralty post. Aim for vice-mayor, and who knows, you are just a breath away from your goal. In Baguio, the vice-mayoralty position is proving to be the short-cut way to a politician’s career.

As vice-mayor, you should not simply act as a spare tire. Like the girl or boy scout, you must be ever-prepared because anything could happen to the mayor.

Multiple Pains

It’s painful enough to leave and be separated from one’s family. But for this country, whose number one export are its people, the pain of being separated from one’s family apparently is not factored in when our leaders report about how overseas Filipino workers have contributed to our economy.

To help our OFWs feel good, government leaders would often sing paeans to them, hailing OFWs as our “modern-day heroes” for their dollar remittances, which help sustain the Philippine economy.

Separation and the psychological impacts that children have to suffer when one or both of their parents have to work overseas are simply not considered. We have yet to learn about government studies on how children of OFWs are reeling from the impact of separation from their parents and how government is helping provide some kind of support system for these children. All we hear are reports about the rise and fall of dollar remittances from our OFWs.

The pain that OFWs and their families suffer is multiplied a hundred times over when tragedy strikes in the countries where OFWs work. The renewed violence in Israel and Lebanon, for example, is an added pain to about 30,000 OFWs there, most of them domestics. The families of OFWs in these strife-torn Middle East countries also have to suffer sleepless nights as they watch on TV how Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants exchange missile bombardments.

Adding to the anxieties of the families of our beleaguered OFWs in Israel and Lebanon is the news about our government’s lack of resources to evacuate our modern-day heroes. While other governments have evacuated their nationals as early as July 17, all our government can do is request the Vatican to offer its churches and other facilities as relocation sites for our besieged brothers and sisters. Our officials are hoping that Israeli forces won’t hit churches and other sacred places.

Our diplomats’ game plan is to first relocate our OFWs to some safe havens such as churches before evacuating them by land to Syria or by sea to Cyprus. Evacuation will begin only when the situation reaches “Alert Level 4,” which is perhaps when bombs are already raining on the heads of our OFWs.

Our foreign affairs officials and diplomats have also appealed to other governments to please let our OFWs hitch a ride with their cruise ships and aircrafts.

As an appreciation for the contribution of OFWs to our economy and as a deep concern for their lives and safety, can’t our government charter a plane or two of Philippine Airlines? It’s not enough to just sing songs of praises for our OFWs while their dollar remittances are helping nourish our ailing economy. It’s time we show we really care for our hardworking OFWs by bailing them out of Beirut and Israel! Such action can at least help ease the pain not only of the troubled OFWs but also of their families back home whose stomachs must have become acidic already from too much worrying.

Storms of Our Lives

Typhoon Florita (international code name Bilis) literally caught us flatfooted. Thinking that the typhoon was not as strong as it was, my family and I didn’t stock on candles and batteries. At least we had food to eat. But for more than two days we were practically out of touch with the rest of the world because we were out of power. We had no batteries for our transistor radio and our mobile phones also ran out of batteries. In short, we were in the dark.

As in the good old days, we came to learn through our neighbors about some extent of damage that typhoon Florita wrought. It was through our neighbors that we came to learn about the landslides in Magsaysay Avenue and some fatalities in San Carlos Heights. So during those dark hours news came through word of mouth and not through the blow-by-blow news accounts on radio or television.

After a long summer, we welcomed the rainy season. For us who depend on a spring for our domestic water, the rains assure us of a steady supply of the universal solvent. Last summer, our water source was on the brink of drying up. But the heavens were so kind: the rains came at the right time when we needed them most.

And now typhoon Florita came and Baguio City was among those declared under a state of calamity. The strong typhoon came at a time when we were about to commemorate a major disaster that hit us 16 years ago – the July 16, 1990 killer quake.

But even with typhoon Florita’s excess rains and strong winds that caused landslides and floods, which snuffed out some lives and brought damage to property, we cannot curse the heavens. We have no right to. Like some challenges that we face in life, even storms and typhoons have a purpose. The sages say challenges or some storms in our lives help build and strengthen our character.

The same thing is true with disasters. The July 16, 1990 earthquake, for example, gave us much insights and lessons about how we should build and develop our city. The killer quake exposed some major engineering and planning errors in the way some hotels and other infrastructures were built.

After the killer quake, the general public sentiment was that it was high time to rethink about how we should rebuild our city. So there was this great enthusiasm about how we could re-engineer our city. There was this BLIST (Baguio, La Trinidad, Itogon, Sablan, Tuba) master plan, which European and local consultants helped design. One idea of the BLIST master plan was to decongest the city by “dispersing development.” New schools and commercial establishments, for example, should not be concentrated in the center of our downtown.

The idea was to also establish new schools and commercial centers in Baguio’s neighboring BLIST towns. But the BLIST idea up to now is only good on paper. New schools and new commercial establishments, including giant sari-sari (variety) stores called malls, are now added to our already crowded downtown.

It is not surprising then that each morning we all rush like crazy to catch a ride to town as we accompany our pre-school and grade school children to their schools. Like protons and neutrons, we all revolve around the nucleus that is Baguio’s central business and campus district.

Life could be more comfortable if people along Marcos Highway, for example, would rather send their children to some schools in Tuba town. The same could apply with people from Itogon and Sablan.

As part of BLIST, La Trinidad is already so congested and badly planned that it also needs some re-engineering. No wonder the town suffers from traffic jams and perennial floods.

It is time we learn from Marikina City. Floods used to be a perennial problem of the shoe capital. But the engineering genius of Bayani Fernando transformed the city into one of the models of urban development. With Singapore as its benchmark, Marikina City is one place where one can bike without fear of being sideswiped by running vehicles because bikers are safe and secured in their own lanes.

Walking along Marikina’s sidewalks is also like a stroll in the park after the city government legislated that sidewalks must be “returned to the people.” Marikina’s slogan is that “sidewalks are for people” so private individuals have no right appropriating portions or whole sidewalks as part of their talyer (auto repair shop), vulcanizing shop, or parking lot.

From a flood-prune town, Marikina City now aspires to become Metro Manila’s Singapore, and it is apparently moving into this direction as its leaders are matching their words with concrete actions.

But in years past, Marikina was always in the news each time a super typhoon hits Metro Manila. Choppers had to rescue people who had to climb to their rooftops as floods invaded their living rooms.

We can also learn from our brother and sister Ivatans in Batanes who learned to live with the storms and typhoons that batter them each rainy season. We are told the Ivatans’ houses are so designed in such a way that these can weather super-typhoons and storms.

As we pick up the pieces again after and learn our lessons from typhoon Florita, the typhoon reminds us that life is not 100 percent summer. Storms also come into our lives from time to time to strengthen and build our character as individuals and as a community and to add a thing or two to our individual and collective wisdom.

Random Thoughts on Dreams

Tomorrow, John Denver sings, is yesterday’s dreams.

Each of us has dreams, and our dreams are always for something better than the situation in which we are now. For those of us parents who don’t have wealth to hand down to our children, we labor hard so our children can get to and finish school. Our dream is that one day after they finish college, our children can finally stand on their own toes.

So we may be taxi drivers, masons or carpenters, farmers or simple office workers, but we share a common dream -- to see our children become independent and responsible for their own lives later on. By the time our children get to become independent, we can breathe a sigh of relief as we thank the heavens for giving us all the strength and the love to help make the dreams of our children come true.

It is also this dream of a better tomorrow for our families, which drives many of us to seek jobs overseas. Unfortunately, we are born in a country where we are uncertain of what tomorrow will bring for us. Jobs are still elusive. Government can’t provide these for us. We try to apply for a government position and we discover that there are hundreds vying for that single position. And more often than not, the lucky one is the one endorsed by some top politician.

In applying for jobs overseas, we have to seek for those that are in demand in the global job market. Highly in demand now are nurses. As a result even pastors, physicians, accountants or office workers are now enrolling in nursing schools.

The demand for nurses created some multiplier effect in the home front. Universities and colleges, which didn’t offer nursing courses before, have opened nursing departments. In fact, new nursing schools have also mushroomed. So do review centers, which have sprouted like flea market stalls and videoke bars. Problem is that one review center has allegedly been implicated in leaking some answers to a board examination last June.

With the possibility of nullifying the results of the recent board exams as a result of the alleged leakage, hundreds of examinees who honestly passed the exams would be unnecessarily affected. This would disrupt the dreams of many young people who were aspiring to make the nursing board exam as a passport to jobs overseas. That’s what dishonesty can do – it can destroy dreams.

The review center, which reportedly leaked some answers to the board exams, might as well start learning that honesty is still the best policy. The review center reportedly leaked answers to the board exams in order to ensure a big percentage of board passers and thus raise its reputation over the other competing review centers. With such motive, this review center should be closed down because it has disrupted the dreams of many young people.

By leaking some answers, the review center is also teaching a wrong value, which just adds to the various scams in both high and low places now tearing apart this nation. These scams make this country of our dreams a land of our nightmares. We can do better than this as a people by reviewing our GMRC (good manners and right conduct) or refreshing ourselves with the values and qualities we learned as Boy and Girl Scouts.

Papal Blessing and God’s Will

Ms. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her spokespersons in Malacañang were happy to report that she was given a pat in the back by Pope Benedict XVI during her recent visit to the Vatican because of her role in repealing the death penalty.

Malacañang apparently made sure the death penalty was repealed before the scheduled presidential visit to the Vatican and other European countries, which have long been lobbying the Philippine government to abolish the death penalty.

A presidential spokesperson also reported that the Pope has given a “vote of confidence” for Ms Arroyo’s government, including the Malacañang-led drive to change the Constitution.

Still discredited as a result of the “Hello Garci” scandal, Ms. Arroyo needs all the vote of approval or diplomatic pat in the back she gets during her European state visits. These are also the breaks that Malacañang’s spin doctors can put to good use. For a presidency that suffers from a credibility crisis, all the right spin fed to media helps Ms Arroyo to stay in power. Her government standing on quicksand and not on solid rock, Ms Arroyo needs all the right spin to help her survive.

We must appreciate Ms Arroyo for helping abolish the death penalty. Every human being who values and reveres life would also pat Ms Arroyo’s back for her role in repealing the death penalty. But we must be scared by a government that cannot stop the killings of activists and journalists in the same way that we dread the killings of people by any other group, vigilante or rebel.

On Charter Change, we can cha-cha with Malacañang if we can see that we are not being taken for a ride. Those in the know have warned us that changing the constitution before the 2007 elections will create a powerful Interim Parliament composed of incumbent politicians who will decide whether the 2007 elections will be held or not. Changing the constitution according to Malacanang’s framework, we are also warned, will create a super-power President with additional Prime Minister powers, open the door for those in power to stay on indefinitely, and will weaken the Supreme Court as a check against martial law, abuse of power and violation of human rights.

If anything, Ms Arroyo and her spin doctors were able to divert public attention from the “Hello Garci” fiasco to the cha-cha debate. Their line: this country cannot move forward because of a defective constitution. Ergo, change the Constitution and lo and behold a paradise.

So it is important for Malacanang’s spokespersons to tell us that the Pope has given a vote of confidence for Ms Arroyo’s political reforms via Charter-change. Ms Arroyo needs all the papal blessing to help her push what’s on her agenda. She needs the Pope’s pat in the back to also bolster her claim that it was God’s will for her to be the country’s president. She had said that it was God’s will for her to rule the country, remember?

The problem was that earlier in December 2002, she swore before the statue of Rizal below the Baguio City Hall that it was God’s will for her not to run for president for the sake of the country’s unity. That earlier decision should have been the more correct move and the real will of God. But like an unpredictable twist in a story of fiction or an unpredictable weather as a result of global warming, God’s will also changes, at least according to Ms Arroyo.

Checks and Balances

Checks and Balances

They have reasons to be worried, if not alarmed, over the future leadership and governance of this country, which our children and grandchildren will soon inherit. So in a June 22 full-page national newspaper advertisement some concerned Filipinos declared: “We don’t need the proposed charter change.”

Their reasons: “We don’t need a Constitution that would take away our right to vote directly for the President, create a powerful Interim Parliament composed of incumbent politicians that decide whether the 2007 elections will be held or not, create a super-President with additional Prime Minister powers, open the door for those in power to stay on indefinitely, and weaken the Supreme Court as a check against martial law, abuse of power and violation of human rights.”

The signatories to the full-page advertisement include former Comelec chair Christian S. Monsod, businessman Raul T. Concepcion, former Senator Wigberto Tañada, UP Economics Prof. Solita Monsod, former DILG Secretary Rafael Alunan, and scores of others who include prominent church leaders such the Most Rev. Angel N. Lagdameo of the archdiocese of Jaro, Most Rev. Orlando Quevedo of Cotabato archdiocese, Archbishop Oscar Cruz of Lingayen, and many more.

According to the signatories, the current proposed reasons to change the Constitution “take away power from the people and hand it over to those who already have too much of it.” As it has been oft-repeated, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So the signatories fear that the proposed reasons of the Charter change proponents would only further concentrate absolute power into the hands of those whose glasses are over-spilling with it as their piggy banks are getting fatter.

Monsod et. al. instead proposed that constitutional reforms are best done through a more transparent Constitutional Convention after the 2007 elections, “where any changes will not benefit those in power today.”

They also underlined the need for a “strong social reform program.” This program, they say, requires “a sharper focus and visible action on safety nets for the poor, especially in the areas of education, food security, health and housing; strict implementation of agrarian reform and environmental laws; a serious and sustained fight against graft and corruption; and increased representation in Congress and local governments for marginalized sectors.”

Under the backdrop of a discredited electoral system as a result of the “Hello Garci” fiasco, Monsod et. al. stressed the need for electoral reforms. They remind us that “a trustworthy electoral system is a fundamental building block of a democracy.” They say that the 2007 election, if credible, can serve as an indirect referendum on the term of the present administration, “so we can move on.”

And their battle-cry: “Ibalik natin ang tiwala sa ating mga institusyon, sa ating sarili, at sa ating demokrasya (Let us bring back trust in our institutions, in ourselves, and in our democracy).”

After the Marcoses were ousted in February 1986, many of us had the romantic notion that democracy and good governance would finally reign. But it turned out that it was not as simple as that. At least one institution -- a free press -- has been restored. But even the media institution has been under threat under the administrations that replaced Marcos’ martial law regime. The media is now seeing the worst thus far under Ms. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s administration when journalists are now being killed along with militant activists. Now the Philippines is said to be next to war-torn Iraq, in terms of the most dangerous place in the world to practice journalism.

Along with an independent and credible judiciary and an independent legislature, a free press is one of the important checks and balances of a real democracy. But how can journalists practice their democratic role when practicing their profession and vocation has become dangerous to their health?

If behind the proposed Charter change is “a creeping dictatorship” as some critics pointed, may God bless the Philippines. Under a dictatorship, we, in the press, can only harp on the true, the good and the beautiful but not on the bad and the ugly. Those who had experienced and survived hell under martial law, therefore, should have more reasons to join the chorus of other advocates of real democracy: NEVER AGAIN!

Back Issue (April 2005)

April Showers

Maurice Malanes

It has started drizzling. In some parts it actually rained. Amid the dust of summer, the showers of April signal the coming of the rains in May when we expect our meadows to be green again.

For us in rural farming communities, the showers of April and the rains in May signify hope and rebirth. The regular rains can enable us to prepare again the fields and nem-a (upland swidden) and sow our corn and peanut seeds and other grains and legumes and our betang or camote cuttings.

By August, we can already harvest what we have sown in May. By then, we have food on our table to keep us warm and strong as we wrestle with the storms and typhoons of August.

For us in the farming village where we have to live by the sweat of our brows, such cycle of the changing seasons has taught us early on in life how to prepare for the months ahead. The cycle of the changing seasons has thus tempered our spirits so we can adopt ourselves to changing situations.

And that’s the beauty of the seasons. The seasons, whether they are two or four, remind us that there’s a time for everything – a time to sow and reap, to rejoice and mourn, to die and to be born.

The seasons are the actual metaphors of our lives. That’s why the sages teach us to learn how to weather the storms of our lives. When we are lonely or when we face some trials, we are also taught not to despair because behind the stormy or cloudy skies is a smiling sun. For other people who experience the blues of winter, they always have spring to look forward to.

The seasons have also taught us that life is not 100 percent summer. And yes, life is not 100 percent picnic at Boracay or at Hundred Islands. The ants and bees know this. This is why ants store as much food and bees gather as much nectar during summer so they have something to sustain them during the rainy days.

For our officials, bureaucrats and technocrats, the seasons must be a good guide in governance. The dry season, which starts in December and ends in April, for example, is the best time to repair and build roads and school buildings and to unclog canals and drainage systems.

But government in this country apparently is not sensitive of the seasons in the same way that it is usually insensitive to the needs of citizens, whose taxes sustain the national coffers. Those who allocate budget for public works do so when the rains come. This makes repair works much more complicated and costlier. Contractors are happy for this, but not for us, the tax-paying citizens of this republic.

Although we are (to borrow the phrase of one commentator) a country of wonderful people, we are still run by an awful government. Yet, we like to believe that for starters our government can become as wonderful as the citizens of this Pearl of the Orient if those involved in governance learn at least to read the seasons. (15 April 2005, Cordillera Today)

Birds in the Neighborhood

Birds in the Neighborhood

Kekesyag, kuyotan, samote, solak, indukit, kalimbabanga, leblebdik… These are some of the Kankanaey names of birds already familiar to me when I was still a child growing up in Kibungan, Benguet in northern Philippines. And I’m happy that I still see these birds in the sub-village of Benin in Pinsao Proper Barangay of Baguio City where we moved in two years ago. In fact, some of these birds wake us up even before the break of day.

I also hear an owl (which we call kup in Kibungan) or two hooting at night or at early dawn. A migratory bird we call tala also appears from September to December, signaling the coming of another season. Some 300 meters from where we live where we also tapped our water source from a spring, I once saw an ot-ot or wild pigeon, which is now quite rare, if not under threat of extinction.

These birds continue to remind us of some remaining wildlife species in our neighborhood. And despite the bird-flu virus, I always take delight in listening to them as they cheerfully feast on some worms and caterpillars from the caliandra, alnus, pine, bal-lay, apiitan, dagad-ay and other planted and endemic trees within our environs.

When the fruits of the already existing backyard native guava tree ripen starting October, some big bats would also come at night to share in the harvest. An environmentalist friend says the presence of bats helps indicate some balance in an ecosystem because bats help propagate trees. Wherever they drop their wastes, these flying mammals are helping sow seeds, which grow to become full-fledged trees.

We are fortunate to have some trees in our small community. So as early as six years ago I tried to do my part by helping plant some fast-growing caliandra seedlings on the small lot we acquired there. These caliandra trees now mingle with other trees the families of the lot owner planted earlier. Because caliandra trees help fix nitrogen in the soil, the Benguet coffee seedlings and some fruit trees I interspersed with them are proving to be in good company with these ipil-ipil-like trees.

Also enjoying the friendship of the caliandra and alnus trees are my passion fruit plants, whose ripening fruits are ready for the picking any day now.

If where there’s smoke there’s fire, where there are trees there are birds. That’s obviously why there are no birds along Session Road. If there are, they would suffocate to death from the thick vehicular smoke that now engulfs Session Road and the rest of downtown Baguio.

And have you ever wondered why after a day in your downtown office or after hours of doing your rounds downtown, your head aches and your eyes feel strained and heavy? This always happens to me. But the headache and eye strain disappear once I go home and inhale a lot of fresh air. Obviously, no expert would need to tell you that the headache and eye stress were due to gas emissions and other foul air you absorb downtown.

So home is not a drag, but a pleasure haven and a place to rejuvenate one’s tired and stressed body if one happens to be where there are swaying trees and humming birds. With trees and birds as company at home, one doesn’t have to long for relaxation elsewhere, such as at the noisy big mall. A good book plus hot lemongrass and mint tea from the backyard are enough to help one contemplate and appreciate all the best things that life can offer.

Independence

Independence

A hundred eight years ago, Filipino revolutionaries finally rose up against Spain and won for the country its much long-awaited independence. But that independence was short-lived. The Americans came and after a mock Spanish-American War in Manila Bay, Spain sold the Philippines to the Americans for US$20 million dollars under a treaty negotiated in Paris.

Had the Americans not took over this archipelago, the Philippines could have been the first colonized country in Asia to become an independent republic in 1898. After almost 400 years under the Spanish friars and colonial officials, Filipinos could have begun reclaiming their identity and building an independent nation at the turn of the century. But that was not to be.

The Americans came at a time when Filipinos were still smarting from the hang-over of more than three centuries of Spanish subjugation. Under the Spaniards, we were treated as Indios or even heathens whom the colonizers had to “Christianize” and “civilize.”

But in the guise of Christianizing and civilizing us, the Spaniards actually were after three g’s that abounded in our lands – gold, ginger and garlic.

Rizal and others debunked the Spanish colonizers’ propaganda that we didn’t have a civilization. They asserted that even before the Spaniards came, we already had a civilization of our own and that our ancestors were already trading with our Asian neighbors.

But more than 300 years of Spanish subjugation was enough to condition in a negative way our psyche as a people, thus -- as a spiritual teacher pointed when she talked recently about the pains of colonization -- adversely affecting our ability to operate with self-respect.

Already battered by more than three centuries of Spanish colonization, the Filipino people were too vulnerable to withstand American colonization after that Manila Bay mock battle. As expected, some Filipinos resisted and defied America. But American colonial soldiers made the communities of those who resisted a howling wilderness, killing and maiming those who didn’t bow to Uncle Sam. And those whom America won over were molded into becoming little brown Americans through education.

The Americans brought an educational system that was supposed to train Filipinos to be able to govern themselves under an American-patterned democracy. Such educational system had also colonized our consciousness so much so that we became addicted to anything “Stateside” or American – from Levi’s to Hollywood movies and hamburgers. Such colonial mentality still runs deep and may take many lifetimes to reverse this.

For a brief period in World War II, Japan also occupied our archipelago, which it sought to annex as part of what it called “Asia’s Co-prosperity Sphere.”

After World War II, the Philippines practically was still part of America’s colony through various military bases, some of which became America’s launching pad and refueling stations during its war on Vietnam.

We, as a people, regained our national pride as Filipinos when the Philippine Senate in 1991 finally abrogated the RP-US military bases treaty. Mount Pinatubo in 1991 also erupted and the Americans had rushed to dismantle their bases and leave home.

A few years later, however, the Americans had a way of reclaiming the military bases through what was called the Visiting Forces Agreement, which, critics say, virtually made the whole country a military base. Under the agreement, American military vessels can dock in any sea port in the country. Also from time to time, American soldiers conduct their war games here and some soldiers would go astray to abuse our women.

A century and eight years after 12 June 1898, we still have a long way to go to be really independent and be totally free. But we are optimistic that someday, as the song goes, we shall overcome.

Shaking Hands With Pain

Shaking Hands with Pain

By Maurice Malanes

Throngs of people filled the University of the Philippines-Baguio auditorium late afternoon last June 1. Coming from all walks of life and ages, the people trooped to the UP-Baguio campus to listen to Denise Lawrence or Sister Denise, a traveling spiritual teacher of the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University.

The topic assigned to Sister Denise was “shaking hands with pain, anxiety and fear.” She says pain comes in many forms and each of us experiences any of these pains in one way or another. There’s the physical pain of a toothache or headache or some other diseases or ailment. There’s emotional pain, which comes after we are betrayed, deceived or abandoned.

We also experience financial pain when we are heavily indebted and so it becomes a burden for us trying as much as we can to pay not only the principal but also the interests of a loan. So we try to get three jobs just so we can pay off our loans. But we are not super-beings so in getting three jobs we overstretch ourselves and end up not performing well as we become exhausted.

Although Sister Denise did not cite it, we might as well add the multi-billion foreign debts Third World countries like the Philippines have to pay to the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. We, ordinary citizens, pay taxes and a bulk of our taxes is used to service just the interests of our foreign debts. Already burdened with taxes, we feel bigger pain when we eventually learn that our country’s multi-billion loans ended up in the pockets and secret bank accounts of some top officials.

A deeper pain, says Sister Denise, is philosophical pain. This happens, for example, when we couldn’t get answers as to why bad people rule the world and the good ones are sidetracked. So when bad people rule and prevail over the world, we tend to lose our hope and drop out from engaging with the world. Also as a result, our sense of right and wrong or our ethics gets blurred and we may end up joining the pack of bad people, which is more tragic and painful as we note how the world seems to be losing all the good people.

There are also the pains brought about by colonization, be it political or religious or a mix of both. As a result of colonization, for example, colonized people tend to lose their ability to operate with self-respect. Why? Colonizers, who had projected themselves as superior, had regarded the colonized as less inferior subjects to be subjugated and exploited, if not abused, or “heathens” to be “civilized” and “Christianized.” Suffering from such historical trauma, we Filipinos, for example, until now seem unable to get our acts together to efficiently and effectively govern our blessed country.

And there are the more damaging and more painful effects of war. Wars become damaging to human beings because under a war situation something illegal and abnormal becomes “normal.” So killing, maiming, rape and other forms of indignities become seemingly normal in a situation of war. All these leave deep psychological trauma, particularly for those who become orphans and widows.

To justify wars, both warring factions have to maintain some kind of propaganda that some people deserve to be killed because they are “pigs,” “crocodiles” or some other animal labels. We agree with Sister Denise that wars, be it the old world wars or the current “war against terror,” need some propaganda by both warring parties to justify all the killings. Governments would regard their perceived enemies as not only insurgents, subversives or rebels, but “enemies of democracy and the free world” or worse, “terrorists.” Those on other side of the fence also have their own labels to justify their wars.

But life is sacred. Human life, says Sister Denise, is a gift so not any of us has the right to extinguish it. She teaches that human life is a gift because it is only humans who have a sense of morality and ethics and who have thoughts on God. So to be human, she says, is to deeply regard another person as a spiritual being, and not an object to consume or exploit or some animal to slaughter. She says that each human being is in essence an immortal soul, who is by nature peaceful, loving and blissful.

As we have to deal with all our pains and traumas through some vital processes such as dialogue, we also have to finally realize that we are all spiritual beings or souls who are part and parcel of the Supreme Being, says Sister Denise. It is only through such realization that we begin to value and respect not only our own self-worth but also the self-worth of others.

That many trooped to the UP-Baguio campus to listen to Sister Denise apparently shows that many hunger for spiritual food amid the various levels and forms of pain we all experience in this mundane world.