2013: My New Year’s Prayer

"You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. 
That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies; that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life."
                           ~J Krishnamurti

My favorite anecdote about prayer is about court pleadings. One time, a devoutly religious client of our office upon reading the last page of a case pleading saw that it contained a prayer concluded & said, “because of this prayer, we will win the case.” My late father, as a member of Adoracion Nocturna in our parish wrote a paper on prayer which I remember today with so much fondness. Mincode, my NGO network’s Pablo Relief Operations in 3 Provinces that were hardest hit by Typhoon Pablo is called "Our Help is our Christmas Prayer!"

So, my first act for 2013 is to articulate my litany of prayers:

Access to beaches: For many of us, owning beaches is not important but access is.  It is heartwarming to note that the Department Of Environment & Natural Resources (DENR) is enforcing the 20 meter plus 5 meter water easement from the highest water mark. This easement of “25 meters from the water line” is based on the 20 meters easement from the highest water mark plus the 5 meters setback from walkway or beach pavement. My prayer is that this is enforced in all of our 7,100 islands.

Baganga: During this relief period, some of us are already grappling with short term & long term rehabilitation of communities. We will be putting up cacao nurseries in Baganga in time for planting in the next few months. Rice & corn grains can already be planted with perennial fruit & forest trees soon after clearing or grubbing operation is had with fallen trees. My prayer is enough funds for this endeavor. 

Copra price is very low & our prayer is for the coco levy funds to be used for the rehabilitation of the coconut industry. My prayer is for many coco farmers to be organized (as against individual farmer recipients of coco levy funds) around the proper use of these coco levy funds.

Divorce is long overdue. We thank our own Congresswoman Luz Ilagan & Gabriela for representing us women in this advocacy. Except for our Muslim communities, we are the last nation - state in this post modern world that does not have divorce & so our prayer is for the divorce law to be available as an option.  Our advocacy for divorce is related to our fight against violence against women. It is also in keeping with the women’s movement toward the promotion for bodily rights, autonomy and empowerment of the oppressed gender. It is not against men. It is against oppressors. 

Exercise: It has been said that sitting in front of e-gadgets is the new vice. My prayer is enough time to stretch and run or walk and burn calories. Even doing household chores is better than sitting.

Facebook & Social Media: There is so much to say and our prayer is for our right to freedom of expression to be always guaranteed. My prayer in this age of social media when news can be reported by anyone & accessed readily is a professional redefinition of the journalist’s role. Because anyone or everyone is now into reportage, the professional journalist’s role should be to make sure that facts in news reporting are correct and analysis is incisive & can be empirically validated.

I joined the signing of the people’s petition by the The Save Our Sunset (SOS) Manila Bay Coalition against the reclamation of Manila Bay. The prayer is to “stop the planned and future reclamation of Manila Bay & …to enact a master plan that maximizes the opportunities and potential of the waterfront for the enjoyment of the people,” among others.

Finally, from Regina Brett, I am adopting this as my prayer for aspiring writers, “A writer writes. If you want to be a writer, write.”

"Everyone has unique gifts and talents. 
What you love is what you're gifted at. 
To be completely happy, to live a completely fulfilled life, you have to do what you love."  
                       ~~~ Barbara Sher 

www.mindanaotimes.net/womenwise-2013-more-new-year-reflections/ 

I just finished writing a project design and I feel kind of drained. It is a pleasant tiredness, though, like one who has created something. Ernest Hemingway has a line on this, “After writing a story I was always empty and both sad & happy, as though I had made love & I was sure this was a very good story although I would not know truly how good until I read it over the next day.” 

Writing a project design which one wants to implement in a year or two is akin to planning our next days and weeks and years. In futures studies, we call this colonizing our near & far future. This is not unlike when one is planning a program of study or when one decides what university course to pursue. A Facebook friend of mine shared that she made a mistake in taking a college course. So, my advice was to look forward to when the course will grow on her, in time, or that she should turn back because to continue with the journey means she is further removed from where she wants to go. Of course, this is granting she knows where to go. A relevant mantra here are these lines from Alice in Wonderland: 

Alice, asked the Cat, Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'

`That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.

`I don't much care where--' said Alice.

`Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.

`--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.

`Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, `if you only walk long enough.' 

In writing project designs, like in life, one imagines the outcomes and results. What will it take to get the desired results?

In writing project designs, like in life, one imagines the outcomes and results. What will it take to get the desired results?

Every January, I always try to plan my year so as not to end up just doing the motions. But, recently, I find myself enjoying the moments like in a drift.

I am also in a stage where it is so easy to say that I have been there or I have done that. So, my mantra is no more of the same, please.

Truth to tell, there are always spaces for changes, like 2012 is an end of an era & 2013 is another era. We live our lives in seasons and cycles. The 10 year primary & high school cycle,  the four or more university years, the trying twenties, the young & middle adulthood, the empty nest syndrome years, & the retirement years. Life sounds simple when seen this way. And life is simpler too, when planning is done in cycles. What university course to take? What do I want to be? What will I do to be rich or famous? What will make me happy?

New Year is about resolutions. My mantra for when one quits bad habits comes from these lines, again, from Ernest Hemingway, “By then I knew that everything good & bad left an emptiness when it stopped. But, if it was bad, the emptiness filled up by itself. If it was good you could only fill it by finding something better….”  Or finding that which is just as good.

I found myself listening to singer Adele during the holidays and for the lovesick & brokenhearted out there, she says, “Never mind, I will find someone like you.”

The Philippines Now A Year After The P-Noy Aquino Presidency

An analysis of the Philippine situation now should be at once social, economic and political.
Let me start with the economy as it is the infrastructure of society according to still relevant classic sociologists.

 Aquinomics, according to economist Cielito Habito can be summarized into two & I quote,
“economics of business confidence and economics of fiscal responsibility.”

 As explained by C. Habito, the Philippines posted a growth in private domestic investment from zero in 2002-2007 to 37% now, with a corresponding drop in foreign direct investments and local government spending. The growth from investments is from the private sector and across all sectors, urban and rural, including the farming sector. The explanation for the drop in foreign investments is the U.S. flat economy and the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

These two economies are our biggest foreign investors. Still, the increase in domestic private investment is a positive one. The “economics of fiscal responsibility,” accordingly is our budget surplus or under spending in government construction, for instance, 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.

 Last year registered the creation of about half a million jobs from the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Industry which also registered a U.S $9 billion Philippine income from the services sector. According to Ms. Marife Zamora, Philippine country manager of Convergys, there is still a lack of qualified human resources in this field who are good in English, computer savvy and logical thinkers.
 Still, about eleven (11) million Filipinos are still unemployed.

 On the political front, during the year, we have been a recipient of advisories against travel to the Philippines by foreign countries. The Manila Hostage Crisis became a symbol of sorts of the incompetence of our chain of command to handle a crime situation involving foreigners as victims.

That the tourism sector is into a “re-branding” of the Philippines is of positive note.

 Politics is mainly the stuff of our three branches of government.
According to P-Noy himself, the chief achievement of his administration, so far, is his policy of good governance and the restoration of public trust.
But, perhaps the snail pace pursuit of this “Ang Daang Matuwid,” may have been responsible for P-Noy’s drop in his net satisfaction rating by the SWS polling operation from a high of +64 in November 2010 to a low of +46 in June 3-6, 2011.

 Various committees in Congress are into investigations galore in aid of legislation : to name a few, the fertilizer scam, AFP scam, and lately the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes scam involving the clergy.

 The pillars of our justice system have not been able to resolve both old and new heinous crimes : Ninoy Aquino murder, Visconde massacre, Dacer-Corbito, Maguindanao massacre, etc.

 Last, but certainly, not least is the social services sector.

For women, the lingering delay in the passage of the Reproductive health bill is the ultimate test of the impotence of the lawmaking & policy making branches of our government. This is also a commentary on the failure of the P-Noy administration to muster political support for this piece of legislation from various political parties in Congress.

 That we are the last nation - state in this post modern world that does not have divorce for the majority speaks a million words of indictment of how feudal our leaders in position of power and authority are.

 As someone, who personally heard direct testimonies of about a hundred empowered parent leaders of the Pantawid sa Pamilya Pilipino Program or the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program, I am adopting the view that this centerpiece program of the PNoy Administration is an investment in human resources to arrest poverty of the poorest of the poor of the current generation so that these children now in school will take care of the next generation.

The Philippine Proposed Divorce Law

Half of the entire Filipino population is already ready for divorce while a big part of the remaining half is just undecided. Our advocacy for divorce is related to our fight against violence against women. It is also in keeping with the women’s movement toward the promotion for bodily rights, autonomy and empowerment of the oppressed gender. It is not against men. It is against oppressors.

My sense is that a knee-jerk objection to divorce is just based on fear for the word divorce whose connotation is associated with the “ end of romance.” But it is not so. It is about what to do when the romance and the marriage contract have failed irrevocably. So, before we object, let us be informed first. The current proposed law is authored by our own feminist mentor, professor, then Davao City local legislator, now Party list Representative Luz Ilagan & Rep. Emerenciana de Jesus of the Gabriela Women’s Party.

The Gabriela Women’s Party proposed grounds for divorce are very straightforward and serve to improve on the current grounds for legal separation and more:

a) When the petitioner has been separated in fact for at least five years and reconciliation is
highly improbable;
b) When the spouses have already been granted a court decree of legal separation for at least
two (2) years & reconciliation is highly improbable;
c) When any of the grounds of legal separation has caused irreconcilable differences;
d) When one or both of the spouses are psychologically incapacitated to comply with the
essential marital obligations &
e) When the spouses suffer from irreconcilable differences that have caused the irreparable breakdown of the marriage.

Notice the words used are superlatives : irreconcilable, irreparable, marriage breakdown and highly improbable reconciliation. In turn, divorce as a remedy is an option.
In keeping with the women’s movement’s advocacy against violence, the bill proposes that the existing six (6) months cooling off period after filing of the petition for divorce shall not be applied where the action for legal separation or divorce involves acts of violence under the Anti- Violence Against Women & Their Children Act ( R.A. 9262)

Under current law on legal separation, a decree of relative divorce or legal separation does not sever marital ties; one is still married and thus a separated spouse is criminally liable if a spouse takes on an extra marital relationship. But, under the proposed divorce law, the effect or a decree of divorce cuts marital ties and thus remarriage is allowed; support is given to the innocent spouse who is not yet gainfully employed but only up to one year and custody is decided by the court for minor children in keeping with the “best interests of the child.”

Shouldn’t a remedy available to all nations of the world be available to us also? We have no right to celebrate national freedom and independence day if we continue to legally cage and imprison some of our women and men in broken and failed marital unions.

This remedy is not for couples who are in marital bliss. We should be confident that all around us we witness romance almost all of the time and couples living happily together. We should just bear in mind that marriage contracts are human made and that we are only improving the terms and conditions of the contract and thus by so doing we are improving the institution of marriage through law and policy. Our God in heaven will not surely be against improvement and our pursuit of human happiness and rights.

DIVORCE LAW NOW

The Philippines is now almost the only nation in the world which has no absolute divorce, except for Vatican City. When I shared this lately in an international group, they said that maybe it is one of the reasons why a whole community wants to secede from the Philippines. Italy where the Vatican is has recognized divorce a long time ago. I said almost because we have divorce among our Muslim communities. As an available option, absolute divorce which once existed in this country and available in Muslim communities, is very long overdue and should also be available as a remedy for majority of Filipinos. The absence of a divorce law for the majority of women in the Philippines is particularly oppressive for women trapped in violent marriages. Forever etched in my mind is the celebrated case of Maria Teresa Carlson, reportedly trapped in a very violent marriage and she tragically jumped to her death.

Then, in our communities, we have a village justice system that for purposes of maintaining what is their false concept of peace and harmony at home would opt for an “amicable settlement” among couples who are forever fighting and who clearly cannot be together anymore.

For now, only those who can afford the costly annulment process have access to the effects of absolute divorce. Which is why, we say that annulment is for the rich. A mother of my student recently spent more than half a million pesos for her annulment to happen. A cousin of mine who now lives in Paris recently engaged the services of a lawyer and as well she got an annulment from a far away court in exchange for a large sum. But, I also know of many friends and neighbors who wish to be separated from their husbands but the costs of annulment are so prohibitive.

In the case of Muslims and in keeping with fundamental Quranic concepts of justice and equality, divorce is part of the Islamic complete code of life around the world. Among our Muslim sisters and brothers in the Philippines, they have one of the most sophisticated laws on divorce. A woman can divorce her husband through mutual agreement or by returning the dower or mahr. The mahr is nuptial gift or dowry given to the wife by the husband which is an essential requisite of a Muslim marriage contract. Or a Muslim woman can orally divorce her husband – if she has demanded this in her marriage contract – or by just placing the delegated right of divorce in the marriage contract. The challenge is to popularize this legal option as most Muslim women are not aware that she can opt for this delegated right of oral divorce in the marriage contract. Of course, all divorces should be registered so that when a woman remarries she will not be liable for adultery or zina.


That a community of nations in the whole world shares a remedy called divorce and that it is not yet available to the majority of Filipinos for the longest time now are very revealing and disturbing. Long ago, many Catholic majority countries – Spain, Brazil, Ireland , Mexico , Portugal and all of Latin America – have recognized divorce.

So, the passage of law on divorce will formalize an existing extra legal remedy of separation in fact. The divorce law will be a right and a remedy accessible to those who need to move on from a marital arrangement that is not working anymore.