2010 : My Personal Notes

The biggest event of the year is, of course, the changing of guards in the political palace that is Malacanang and the ascension to power of P- Noy, the scion of Cory and Ninoy on the wings of the political platform to address corruption and changes in our social, economic and political landscape.

One year passed and the victims of the Maguindanao massacre are still wailing and wanting for justice. There is still no let up in our national pain, grief and anger over this election related crime where journalists were among the 58 innocent women and men who died doing a civic duty to country.

Climate change was so palpable in the floods that hit our Philippines and Pakistan and many other countries. Thousands of travelers were stranded in London, Frankfurt, Schipol and other airports in Europe as hundreds of flights were cancelled in mid winter due to snow and this makes 2010 Christmas memorable but not comfortable.

The release by WikiLeaks of classified, confidential cables of the U.S. State Department stunned the diplomatic and international community. There is no knowing now as to the impact and result of this release of diplomatic documents but, for sure, there will be a redefinition of the legal landscape of confidentiality and communication technology in the conduct of foreign affairs towards security and world peace.

The whole wired world was aghast at the tragic hostage drama that happened in our premier park involving Chinese tourists and Rolando Mendoza, a decorated policeman turned hostage taker. We landed in the New York Times; ordinary citizens here and Filipinos abroad were tweeting and connecting through social media how inept we were. After the fact, our lessons learned pertains to prevention and management of crisis, who is coordinating and in charge, the importance of negotiation skills, the human resources skills of our women and men in uniform and the effectiveness of our justice system.

After fifteen years in prison, Hubert Webb, et. al were acquitted due to failure of prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Webb et all were the perpetrators. As to opinion on this Visconde massacre, the country is divided. Belatedly, the social media were used in this case for public awareness to counter the “ danger of a single story.” But, the pillars of our justice system are on trial here by the court of public opinion. We hear there is a move to re-open the case. Time left is six months before the prescriptive period of 20 years set in.

The whole nation was glued to the big show of Congressman Manny Pacquio in the world boxing ring. Charice Pempengco under the initial boost by Oprah became one of the stars of Glee, an American television show.

Our economic refugees abroad continue to send dollars to families here and thus children are able to have university education. The four (4) billion conditional cash transfer to the poorest families sounds promising given that it will be presided over by our dear Dinky Soliman, a colleague in PILIPINA, the Filipino national feminist movement. We have faith in the peace process as we have faith in our Ging Deles, another PILIPINA founder, and Dean Marvic in much the same way that we have faith in the negotiators on the MILF side.

So, happy holidays to all. Let me repost my signature Christmas wish : My wish is to be able to feel Christmas through the eyes and heart of the child in me and to believe in the magic of Christmas : faith in a Santa Claus from the heavens, giving gifts of love and all the works. Faith is a lot like love and hope and invoking that warms my heart !