2011 : My Personal Notes

photo credit : Karlos Manlupig



aOnce again, it is the season to assess the newsmakers and highlights of the year.

Arab Spring : From personal conversations with friends from the North African countries of Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Pakistan, Turkey, Malaysia & Indonesia, the sense I got was that in these revolutions, religious fundamentalism was not articulated; these historic events are for now just basically about a break from an old regime. Where these revolutions will lead their countries still remains to be seen. In Tunisia, a model of sorts in secularism, the feminists are afraid that they might lose the gains of the past century. Tunisia is one of two countries in the Muslim world that has legally not allowed polygamy. There is an apprehension that the feminist movements are narrowly seen as anti- religious fundamentalism and this is a limited reading because in reality women’s discourses are about everything oppressive. But, the women are happy that recent revolutions in their countries have brought about a sense of citizenship and a democratic interest in politics.

Budget : The “economics of fiscal responsibility,” of the PNoy administration is accordingly related to the budget surplus or under spending by government in 2011. For instance, it was reported that there was under spending in construction, which at first glance would mean a low absorbent capacity of this administration but not so because the 2011 budget was made by the Arroyo administration as the P-Noy crafted budget begins in 2012 yet. There was a loud cry from the state universities & colleges which indicated that the budget allotted for 2012 is not enough to defray the increasing cost of education

Corona Impeachment:The impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Chief Corona was initiated by our representatives in the House of Congress. There are those who fear that this process could undermine our judiciary which is a co-equal branch of both our executive and legislative branches of government. But, impeachment as provided in our Constitution, the fundamental law of the land, is part of the process of making our public officers accountable.

Divorce: Except for our Muslim communities and except Vatican, the Philippines is now the only state in the world which does not have absolute divorce. Italy, where the Vatican is, has legislated divorce a long time ago.

Flash Floods : June 29, 2011 was the worst flood of Davao City. Sendong of December 16 this year was worst than ONDOY in terms of casualties. After these tragic typhoons, must we still continue to deny climate change? Vulnerability assessment & disaster risk reduction are so indicated involving government, the private sector & our communities.

Homosexuality : A proposed House Bill 1483 in the Philippine Congress defines sexual orientation as “ the direction of emotional sexual attraction or conduct. This can be people of the same sex (homosexual orientation) or towards people of both sexes ( bisexual orientation) or towards people of the opposite sex (heterosexual orientation).” The challenge, at hand, is to understand or to promote “alternative discourses” from other sexual orientations. The women’s movement has had great help from the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual & Transgenders (LGBT) community in the promotion of the salience of sexuality to women’s well being and in the campaign against violence. Homosexuality is not only a sexual preference; it is also a political act.

London Looting : The looters did not belong to any one pigmentation & color or racial background: they were just kids which were either middle class & wealthy. There was no statement of ownership or signature to the riot; there was no unifying ideology except that these looters were self driven, acted as a mob & used social media to plan or launch their attacks. The rioters were called a mob because they were not organized & their participation was instantaneous. But, a mob is also part of the larger society and it is an indictment that something is deeply wrong in Great Britain now. For now, the causes of this mayhem can be attributed to a conflation of many things. But, the framing of things or theories to explain all these is addressed to the big society not just the governance apparatus. In short, the solutions are indicated for all social institutions.

Manhattan : The slogan of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement which started in a park in Manhattan is “We are the 99 per cent.” The OWS movement claims that the wealth of the United States is enjoyed only by the top 1% but not by the 99% or the larger majority. OWS is a backlash in the excesses of the economies of rich countries which during the recent meltdown was bailed out using taxpayers’ money. This massive movement which wants reforms towards democratizing the economic system has gone viral from New York, to Chicago, to other countries like Canada, Italy, England, etc.
The above events had a great impact on how I have viewed the world in relation to my work.

2011: My Key Personal Moments ( Part Two)


Two years after the ONDOY flood, the Disaster Risk Reduction Coordinating Councils are in place as a policy in the whole country up to the village level (Barangay), but which still proved puny in the context of the massive SENDONG flood. The training tenor in our social development projects is that disaster risk management is all about community & that climate change is not fiction but is a life and death issue.We introduced relocation to communities in danger zones & we emphasized the fact that floods and storm surges are not solely about poverty as we saw how a rich country like Japan was devastated by a tragic tsunami. And, yes, climate change is a development issue and we must all embark on a national greening program. From the President’s State of the Nation Address, (SONA), the two words for environment were about trees and floods. A stipend program for the safeguarding of trees while farmers are waiting for the harvest of coffee and cacao will be offered to informal settlers. So, is this an offer for the urban poor to relocate to farms?

The Reproductive Health Bill still could not muster enough votes for passage into law. My sense is that it is based on a mistaken notion by legislators that how they will vote on the bill is conflated with election votes. An important development from the religious sector is that Fr. Joaquin G. Bernas, S.J., Jesuit educator and constitutionalist has communicated his nuanced stand on the RH bill. He has communicated that the Philippines is a pluralistic society and that it is so wrong to impose one belief system to the rest of the population. Fr. Bernas said, & I quote “What I am doing is to place all this in the context of our constitutionally mandated pluralistic society. Not all citizens of the Philippines are Catholics. Many of them therefore do not consider artificial contraception immoral or anti-life. The teaching of my Church is that I must respect the belief of other religions even if I do not agree with them. That is how Catholics and non-Catholics can live together in harmony. The alternative which, God forbid, is the restoration of the Inquisition.”

The world mourned the passing away of Steve Jobs, co –founder of Apple, a personal computer company, who himself said, “People are listening to more music. Millions of people have rediscovered the joy of music.” Steve Jobs did not originally invent these hardware and software. He improved on them through great product design. He brought the word “design” to a new level by popularizing that design is not just structure but more importantly, his concept of design is also about function. From the heavy or cumbersome to carry stereo system or walkman, we were introduced to the iPod, the minute music gadget with a cool design; the sleek iPhone 4S (with a voice command, GPS features & built in compass for location & directions) & the iPad are simply making the other models so last season, so to speak.

On sexual orientation, a recent report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights was submitted to the Human Rights Council pursuant to its resolution 17/19, in which the Council requested the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to “commission a study documenting discriminatory laws and practices and acts of violence against individuals based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, and how international human rights law can be used to end violence and related human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

The 2011 SONA of the Philippine president will be remembered for posterity for the vivid branding of the abuse of authority mindset as exemplified by the indiscriminate use of the siren or WangWang. Henceforth, corruption and the abuse of those in power and authority will now be called the WangWang mentality. The report about the drinking of the billion peso worth of coffee is, accordingly, the ultimate in abuse of entitlement in government and government owned & controlled corporations.

During the year, I was part of the civil society group which helped Secretary Dinky Soliman of DSWD and Dr Larainne Abad Sarmiento of the UP NCPAG facilitate the Mindanao wide discussion of the progress of this CCT program dubbed 4P’s (Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program) in the Philippines. The three day meeting was with 89 Parent Leaders (PL), who came from all over Mindanao and who are the community leaders of this 4P’s program. The big group broke up into workshop groups & I facilitated one group of parent leaders & I was so touched with this encounter. It was a very candid discussion of the many faces of poverty & how this program changed their lives in many ways. In the course of the sharing, half of these mothers in my group would cry tears of happiness – much like a positive outcry. (An outcry in sophisticated investigation methodology is good evidence.) I was touched when they said profoundly that “it brings so much happiness that now we are able to feed and send our children to school, unlike before.”