I recently saw a BBC show that featured the Nobel laureates (except for the recipient of the peace award, US President Barack Obama) for 2009. Most of them were men and women of science; one was a writer, a Romanian-born woman who fled the communist world in the 1980s.
Aside from making me want to get my hands on Herta Muller's works, the show reminded me that all great works stemmed from passion AND hard work.
Two of the physicists, Willard Boyle and George Smith, were recognized for the imaging work that they did forty years ago. Another, Charles Kao, was honored for his pioneering work in fiber optic technology, also many decades ago. Now this man suffers from Alzheimer's disease, but his wife -- who says, tearfully, that what she misses the most are the intellectual conversations she used to share with her husband -- is sure he appreciates how big a deal it is to win the Nobel.
One of three recipients of the award for physiology or medicine, Carol Greider, stumbled into a breakthrough in enzyme research one Christmas morning. This is very telling: why work on Christmas, unless your work is one you are truly and deeply passionate about? One of the economics laureates, Elinor Ostrom, studied the best possible way to manage common resources like water and forests. She was driven by the poverty from which deprived her of access to the most basic things as a child.
Muller felt her writing was a midst of survival amid repression in Eastern Europe. She did flee to the West in the mid-1980s but memories of her early years continued to haunt her “For a long time after arriving in West Berlin, my eyes hurt. I've never seen so much color,” she said. The grayness of her previous life, as well as from the knowledge that her father was an SS officer “who never talked about the war, like it was taboo,” filled her with the longing to express herself.
Alas, not even the Nobel Prize can erase bad memories.
What the Prize does,however, is to inspire others to do what they were meant to do, and exceptionally well.
**
On New Year's Eve, as others prepared elaborate meals for the media noche, lit the firecrackers they had just bought or watched year-ender programs on television, I rearranged the furniture in my living room. The children had gone to sleep after dinner, and our maid was on vacation, so I took advantage of my solitude.
I wanted to create a new atmosphere in the house by having more balance,efficiency and space. I used the two tall bookshelves as dividers between my home office and the rest of the first floor. I put the three-level cubbyholes on top of a long low cabinet. I dusted and swept. By the time I finished, there was a lot more room, all right. I was pleased with what I had done.
I had just enough time to rest for a while, take a quick shower, heat the food (lasagna and pizza, pre-ordered) before I had to wake the children up at a quarter to twelve. The kids and I shared a nice meal as we watched some concert DVDs, drowning out the blast noises from the street. I asked them whether they had drawn up their plans and targets for 2010 (the phrase “New Year's Resolutions”, an overused one, would have made them roll their eyes); they said they were still working on them and that we could exchange notes when they were done. The clock struck twelve, we said our Happy New Years, put away the dishes and then went to bed.
(It was on the first day of the year we cooked a real meal – a quick-fix fettuccine in tuna pesto in just-right servings. We did not really subscribe to the belief that one's dining table should be overflowing with round fruits and an excess of every dish imaginable to ensure prosperity the whole year round.)
In the morning I organized the contents of my bookshelves and the kids' cubbyholes. I had no time to do this the night before.
And in the afternoon, in lieu of the luxurious holiday nap, I stayed in the spare room and the terrace of the second floor, which had become a convenient dumping ground for things we did not need but whose fate we were too lazy to decide. When you have children aged 15, 13, 9 and 7 in the house, you have every imaginable item ranging from old test papers, broken crayons, discarded toys, guitar straps, pictures of friends, second-hand paperbacks whose covers have been torn off, even printouts of previous things you have written.
Dealing with these was not easy. There was always the temptation of reading an old notebook or smiling at wacky pictures. The task of sorting required discipline and focus. I had to stick to the categories of “garbage”, “for washing”, “ for repair.” I also had to be firm on whether I was still going to need/ want a certain item at some later date, keep it, remember that I kept it, and where. Or whether I could do without it. I must have spent over three hours upstairs; fortunately, the afternoon breeze was lovely.
What was even lovelier was finding treasures I thought I had lost – a special-edition magazine whose contents I could not find online, a flask disk that contained old files, a long-lost pair of shades, my older daughter's letters to me when she was seven, even the soundtrack CD of Leaving Las Vegas.
I had to abandon the task at dusk, although I wanted to do more. Some of the children's friends would be dropping by, I was told, and so I hurried to fix myself and something to serve them, besides. I made a program to spend the next two Fridays finishing my clearing activity.
Even then, I already had a mountain of items for disposal. Again there was a lot more room. I felt light, purposeful and optimistic. The exercise was like a domestic detox experience; it educated me on what was really important. You rejoice at finding long-lost treasures while getting rid of junk that had accumulated, without your noticing it, over time. You now have room for new treasures, real ones worth keeping. You become wiser and more able to tell between what you need,what you want,what you can live without and what can make you live better.
On the first day of 2010 I did not go out of the house at all. I had no great holiday adventure to speak of, no out-of-town trips, grand makeovers or insanely abundant food on the dining table. But I felt wonderful. It was one of the best New Year celebrations I ever had.
A clean slate, best symbolized by a New Year, is liberating. It does not absolve us of the consequences of past actions, but it gives us room to make new memories as wiser,more deliberate individuals.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Sunday, December 27, 2009
(Bitter) Sweet Reunion
Ninongs and ninangs and kids. This was taken at my house on Dec. 26.
Couple-friends Ron and May and Bong and Winnie
In my previous life I belonged to a circle of couple-friends who were godfathers and godmothers of each other's children. There were five such couples – the men of which grew up together, having attended the same elementary school. The wives somehow managed to hit it off, as well,or at least suffer the company of the others.
For many years this group held Christmas and New Year parties, potluck style and with exchange gifts to match. Sometimes we drove to Tagaytay and back on a whim. The babies grew into children who ran around and played together, the wives talked about such mundane things as recipes and report cards and in-laws, while the husbands reminisced about being five-year-olds and fourth-graders together, went off for a drive and maybe did other things they didn't want their wives to know.
That was long ago. A lot of things had happened since those days. Two of the five couples had separated; three of the men had gone to the Middle East; one of the women had gone to live with her parents in Butuan City.
This Christmas became a reunion of sorts although not all the members of the original group were present. There were three gatherings in three different places, owing to the sensitivities of the estranged couples who refused to make a public appearance – and be grilled as to the whys and the how comes – together. There was not much food, to be sure, because the meetings were spontaneous, but the children, all of whom were so much bigger now but who re-connected instantly even though they had not seen each other for years, had a ball. A late afternoon snack lasted all the way to eleven o'clock at night.
In a few days, those on vacation will board their planes and everybody will resume his normal routine. It leaves a warm fuzzy feeling, though, that despite the upheavals and the decisions one makes in other aspects of one's life, there are people who will remain your friends, want to make sure you are really okay, and show concern for your children – their godchildren, after all -- as though they were their own.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Strawberry signs
One Friday afternoon in December, I was in Manila to have lunch with a friend. The trip was difficult and I was fretting over a lot of things: expenses for the upcoming holidays, my daughter's prospects for college and elswehere, the need to spend more time with bunso, as well as the deadlines I had to meet. Walking along Pedro Gil street just after alighting from the train,it began to drizzle – and I did not have an umbrella. Just great, I thought. I worried not so much about being rained on but walking on the mud and dealing with the spattering of passing vehicles. This was Manila, after all, not exactly the most pleasant-smelling place on earth.
But then I passed by strawberries wrapped in square styrofoams and being sold for fifty pesos per pack, and I managed to smile. I loved strawberries, loved the contrast of red and green, the way you can dip a piece into honey and pop it in your mouth. I loved, as well, the urgency of consuming a pack within x number of hours lest the crispness fade. And then I found myself uttering a wish, or a prayer, or whatever.
If someone would give me strawberries soon, I thought, or even something in the form of a strawberry, I could start hoping for better days. I am doing well, nowadays, of course, but I can just sink under all the pressure on my shoulders – manage my household, be a good mother, live up to being an up-and-coming writer who uses her writing to nudge people into action.
In the meantime, how about me? How about being worried about, for a change, being taken care of, being told, for once, to “Relax. Let me handle it.”? How about being asked what you need and want? Not worrying about your late-night companions in the jeepney? Being able to talk when you feel like talking? Not having to talk when you don't want to? Being gone out of somebody's way for?
Four days later, I was at a Christmas party for some NGOs and a friend, Vigie, handed me a cushion in the form of... strawberry. I thought it was something you used for pins, but the strawberry in fact transforms into a reusable bag when you turn it inside out. When you don't have use for it anymore, it becomes a strawberry again.
It's been in my bag since. I carry it around like a charm, a reminder that there is reason to be hopeful. Hope – a very nice Christmas present, indeed.
(Thanks, dear readers, for bothering with my musings. I know I have not blogged as much as I did in the beginning. I'll try to do better next year. Merry Christmas! -- Adelle)
But then I passed by strawberries wrapped in square styrofoams and being sold for fifty pesos per pack, and I managed to smile. I loved strawberries, loved the contrast of red and green, the way you can dip a piece into honey and pop it in your mouth. I loved, as well, the urgency of consuming a pack within x number of hours lest the crispness fade. And then I found myself uttering a wish, or a prayer, or whatever.
If someone would give me strawberries soon, I thought, or even something in the form of a strawberry, I could start hoping for better days. I am doing well, nowadays, of course, but I can just sink under all the pressure on my shoulders – manage my household, be a good mother, live up to being an up-and-coming writer who uses her writing to nudge people into action.
In the meantime, how about me? How about being worried about, for a change, being taken care of, being told, for once, to “Relax. Let me handle it.”? How about being asked what you need and want? Not worrying about your late-night companions in the jeepney? Being able to talk when you feel like talking? Not having to talk when you don't want to? Being gone out of somebody's way for?
Four days later, I was at a Christmas party for some NGOs and a friend, Vigie, handed me a cushion in the form of... strawberry. I thought it was something you used for pins, but the strawberry in fact transforms into a reusable bag when you turn it inside out. When you don't have use for it anymore, it becomes a strawberry again.
It's been in my bag since. I carry it around like a charm, a reminder that there is reason to be hopeful. Hope – a very nice Christmas present, indeed.
(Thanks, dear readers, for bothering with my musings. I know I have not blogged as much as I did in the beginning. I'll try to do better next year. Merry Christmas! -- Adelle)
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
All about choices
Last Tuesday I was invited to the joint Christmas party of the Philippine Legislators' Committee on Population Development and Reproductive Health Advocacy Network. The reproductive health bill may not have been passed in Congress, they said, but more Filipinos became aware of it and what it sought to do. And that, my hosts said, was a victory in itself. They gave certificates of recognition to members of the media -- including me -- who have reported on/ written about the issue and somehow sustained the debates for and against the bill.
I have written several pieces on the matter not because I want to limit the number of Filipinos. I believe, rather, that every family -- every woman -- should be able to plan and make informed choices on when she wants to bring another child into the world. Take charge, refuse to just go with flow.
How ironic it was, then, that on the day of that party, our house helper Alma told me that she was almost two months pregnant. She was nineteen and the pregnancy was unplanned. She feared her father's wrath (the family was in Pangasinan and relied partly on the money she sent them every month). She said she did not want to marry her boyfriend, whom she described as “maloko,” a milder term for a jerk.
Alma wanted to induce an abortion. She said a friend had offered to accompany her to look for the "wonder pill" that would take care of her problem. And she would do it that weekend, during her day-off.
Some of us have friends, acquaintances or even family members who have resorted to taking a few pills (usually an anti-ulcer drug, available in Manila's dingiest streets) upon learning that they were pregnant. I personally know at least three women who have done so, in varying degrees of success. These women were lucky they did not bleed themselves to death or ended up giving birth to kids with abnormalities. But these extremes happen – I am sure my NGO friends have the statistics to back it up.
I waited for the perfect opportunity to talk to Alma and tell her how I, as her employer and hopefully some sort of an older sister, felt. Much as I was pushing for empowerment via choice, I did not think that anybody had the right to terminate a life that had already started inside a woman's womb.
There were no further choices to be made now. The only point of choice was that moment when my helper decided to have unprotected sex with the jerk, and before that, when she decided to have sex with him at all regardless of possible consequences. Well, her unplanned pregnancy was a consequence of that action, and she now had to live with it.
Still, it was her life and not mine. The call was Alma's and ultimately the most I could do was to hope that her choice would be the better one. I had no authority to impose my will on her, and so that Saturday morning when she stepped out for her day off -- a trip to Quiapo, I later on learned -- I could only sigh.
I did not expect her to be back so soon. From what I've heard, these pills can make a woman bleed for several days. But two days later, there she was again at my doorstep. I asked her how she was. "Hindi natanggal, (I wasn't able to remove it), ate, ” she said. I winced at the way she referred to the baby like it was a cyst or an ingrown nail.
It's been a week since then and Alma has been moving about the house attending to her chores. I had offered her the opportunity to work until her seventh month, and to return to my house after her delivery. For now, however, she has to face the challenge of telling her parents about her condition, keeping her fingers crossed that her baby, despite those pills she took, would turn out fine.
It is sad that I have written so much about the need to make women, especially the young and the undereducated, aware that they do have a choice. Yet in my own home, my backyard, there was somebody who rushed blindly and fell anyway.
Fortunately, our fall is not our ending. Alma has the rest of her life to redeem herself, make it up to her child and make the right choices from hereon.
I have written several pieces on the matter not because I want to limit the number of Filipinos. I believe, rather, that every family -- every woman -- should be able to plan and make informed choices on when she wants to bring another child into the world. Take charge, refuse to just go with flow.
How ironic it was, then, that on the day of that party, our house helper Alma told me that she was almost two months pregnant. She was nineteen and the pregnancy was unplanned. She feared her father's wrath (the family was in Pangasinan and relied partly on the money she sent them every month). She said she did not want to marry her boyfriend, whom she described as “maloko,” a milder term for a jerk.
Alma wanted to induce an abortion. She said a friend had offered to accompany her to look for the "wonder pill" that would take care of her problem. And she would do it that weekend, during her day-off.
Some of us have friends, acquaintances or even family members who have resorted to taking a few pills (usually an anti-ulcer drug, available in Manila's dingiest streets) upon learning that they were pregnant. I personally know at least three women who have done so, in varying degrees of success. These women were lucky they did not bleed themselves to death or ended up giving birth to kids with abnormalities. But these extremes happen – I am sure my NGO friends have the statistics to back it up.
I waited for the perfect opportunity to talk to Alma and tell her how I, as her employer and hopefully some sort of an older sister, felt. Much as I was pushing for empowerment via choice, I did not think that anybody had the right to terminate a life that had already started inside a woman's womb.
There were no further choices to be made now. The only point of choice was that moment when my helper decided to have unprotected sex with the jerk, and before that, when she decided to have sex with him at all regardless of possible consequences. Well, her unplanned pregnancy was a consequence of that action, and she now had to live with it.
Still, it was her life and not mine. The call was Alma's and ultimately the most I could do was to hope that her choice would be the better one. I had no authority to impose my will on her, and so that Saturday morning when she stepped out for her day off -- a trip to Quiapo, I later on learned -- I could only sigh.
I did not expect her to be back so soon. From what I've heard, these pills can make a woman bleed for several days. But two days later, there she was again at my doorstep. I asked her how she was. "Hindi natanggal, (I wasn't able to remove it), ate, ” she said. I winced at the way she referred to the baby like it was a cyst or an ingrown nail.
It's been a week since then and Alma has been moving about the house attending to her chores. I had offered her the opportunity to work until her seventh month, and to return to my house after her delivery. For now, however, she has to face the challenge of telling her parents about her condition, keeping her fingers crossed that her baby, despite those pills she took, would turn out fine.
It is sad that I have written so much about the need to make women, especially the young and the undereducated, aware that they do have a choice. Yet in my own home, my backyard, there was somebody who rushed blindly and fell anyway.
Fortunately, our fall is not our ending. Alma has the rest of her life to redeem herself, make it up to her child and make the right choices from hereon.
Feeding the mind
published 22 December 2009, MST
That mental ability is a joint function of nature and nurture is obvious. A mixture of genetic and non-genetic factors shapes the level of a person’s IQ, define his thinking process and even determine how he behaves and reacts to different events. We really can’t do much about the things we inherit from our parents; we can only wish we take after their better qualities—a strong artistic inclination, for instance, a calm and reasonable demeanor, an analytical mind, even a photographic memory.
But beyond genetics, there is a world of a difference between nourished individuals and malnourished ones. In a paper on nutrition and brain development, Aida Mendoza-Salonga, professor and chairman of the Department of Neurosciences in UP Diliman, says the crucial months for mental nutrition starts from the womb until the first few years of life. This is shown perhaps by the plethora of milk formulas in the market. They flood the supermarket shelves, each claiming to give “the proper nutrients for your baby’s superior development.” Why, at one point, a company was able to equate its brand with producing gifted children. I say that’s genius—not the babies, but the marketing blitz.
Of course there are other factors that affect a child’s mental nourishment in those crucial years: the home environment, exposure to media and other enrichment activities and eventually the school where the parents send the child.
The goal is for the child to realize his full potential. But that’s assuming that all parents have the capability to nourish their child practically from the moment of conception by having the mother have the best pre-natal care, encouraging her to breastfeed her baby, choosing from the many available supplements,buying the best educational toys and sending the child to the best schools.
But we know this is not the case for every Filipino family—not even most Filipino families.
The fact is that children during this stage need key nutrients—iodine, folic acid, iron, zinc, vitamin B6 and vitamin A, deficiency in which “can cause cognitive and behavioral deficits over a lifetime,” Mendoza-Salonga says.
To be more dramatic about the whole thing, think how in a few decades, malnourished children with their could-be-better brains will comprise the generation we have been counting on to get the nation out of this rut. What will happen to the quality of decisions made at the family, community, industrial (or corporate) and government levels?
***
Yvonette Duque, a community doctor, is with the health mission of World Vision Foundation Philippines. Duque has personally seen both sides of the spectrum in her professional practice. She used to work with organizations that charged their patients exorbitant amounts. Then she decided to become a doctor to the barrios, traveling to far-flung barrios in the country and even spending a year in Africa. Now she says the joys of her profession are not found in donning an immaculate white suit and collecting big professional fees.
At a Sulo hotel media forum on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Duque delivered a presentation on health issues confronting children. She started her talk by showing two scanned images of brains of two children, both below five years old. This was a study conducted by professor Ascobat Gani of Indonesia, she said. What’s the difference between the two brains?
The left image showed a big black area at the center of the brain. In the right, the black spot was much smaller. According to Duque, the one on the left was the brain of an undernourished child. There was literally nothing much inside the head—a tragedy because an empty brain is permanent. “There is an irreversible loss of opportunity,” Duque said. “This child will end up being a burden to his family and to society.”
The image on the right was the brain of a nourished child—and crucial nourishment should be given nine months before the child is born and 36 months after birth. This child will be quality human resource later on and is more likely to obtain higher income for his contributions.
If only bridging this gap were that easy. Actually, malnutrition is a vicious cycle that begins with having healthy parents. “If the father takes drugs and alcohol, smokes, and is himself malnourished, what kind of genes will he pass on to the child which he sires?” And of course, maternal health is a prime concern. If a mother is herself unhealthy, the quality of her egg cells, the conditions in her body that houses her child in the nine months before it is born, her ability to deliver the baby under normal circumstances, and her capacity to care for it well are all compromised.
And what if the child turns out to be a girl, subject to the same poor conditions growing up? She herself will not be a healthy child and a healthy adolescent, and her pregnancy and motherhood will be attended by the same difficulties that hounded her mother before her.
In the meantime, as these people struggle to meet their basic daily necessities, the attention on education and other means to improve mental health are relegated to the background.
Clearly there has to be intervention. But whose job is it to intervene?
Duque says that her work at the foundation has made her realize that World Vision and other organizations that go to the communities can, at best, only provide complementing services to existing efforts by the government. Even the national government, through the Health Department only plays supporting role.
The real decision makers who do make a difference at the grassroots level are the local government officials, according to Duque. It is they who decide whether a project is worth pursuing—not just starting, only to lose steam later on.
World Vision, for instance, can only adopt communities under its Nutrition Jumpstart program and prescribe the 7-11 intervention method. The method has seven points for pregnant women: adequate diet, iron and folate supplements, tetanus toxoid immunization, malaria prevention, healthy timing and spacing of birth, de-worming and access to maternal health service. It also has 11 points for children 36 months and below: appropriate breastfeeding, essential newborn care, hand washing, appropriate complementary feeding, adequate iron, vitamin A supplementation, oral rehydration therapy, care seeking for fever, full immunization, malaria prevention and de-worming.
Even the national government can only make sure that there are funds available when they need to be tapped.
So how can we make sure that good intentions do not get lost in politics?
Advocacy is key, Duque says. In turn, the people at the community must know the issues that must be tackled head on. To Duque’s mind, children’s nutrition during the crucial 45 months—with its implications on the IQ level, cognitive ability and behavior of the future generation—should be a priority, and a long-term one.
Christmas is the season for children and for hope. Would it not be easy if we can take the gift of good nutrition for every Filipino child, put it in a box and wrap it with bright paper? Since we cannot, let’s do the next best thing and not allow these real issues to wax and wane with what goes on in politics. We should demand that candidates, especially local ones, seeking our vote in the coming elections know their priorities and are prepared to see them through.
A blessed Christmas to all.
**
Readers' comments
Adelle,
I read your article, "Feeding the Mind". I think along the same lines, and wrote a book I believe you would enjoy, called NUTRITION AND YOUR CHILD'S SOUL. You may read about it on my website, www.dolevgilmore.com. Should you decide you'd like to order the book, contact me through the form on the website, and I can send you a PayPal invoice in any currency, and I'll pay half of the shipping cost. It would be a great honor to send a book to your country.
All the best,
Dolev Gilmore
(Israel)
That mental ability is a joint function of nature and nurture is obvious. A mixture of genetic and non-genetic factors shapes the level of a person’s IQ, define his thinking process and even determine how he behaves and reacts to different events. We really can’t do much about the things we inherit from our parents; we can only wish we take after their better qualities—a strong artistic inclination, for instance, a calm and reasonable demeanor, an analytical mind, even a photographic memory.
But beyond genetics, there is a world of a difference between nourished individuals and malnourished ones. In a paper on nutrition and brain development, Aida Mendoza-Salonga, professor and chairman of the Department of Neurosciences in UP Diliman, says the crucial months for mental nutrition starts from the womb until the first few years of life. This is shown perhaps by the plethora of milk formulas in the market. They flood the supermarket shelves, each claiming to give “the proper nutrients for your baby’s superior development.” Why, at one point, a company was able to equate its brand with producing gifted children. I say that’s genius—not the babies, but the marketing blitz.
Of course there are other factors that affect a child’s mental nourishment in those crucial years: the home environment, exposure to media and other enrichment activities and eventually the school where the parents send the child.
The goal is for the child to realize his full potential. But that’s assuming that all parents have the capability to nourish their child practically from the moment of conception by having the mother have the best pre-natal care, encouraging her to breastfeed her baby, choosing from the many available supplements,buying the best educational toys and sending the child to the best schools.
But we know this is not the case for every Filipino family—not even most Filipino families.
The fact is that children during this stage need key nutrients—iodine, folic acid, iron, zinc, vitamin B6 and vitamin A, deficiency in which “can cause cognitive and behavioral deficits over a lifetime,” Mendoza-Salonga says.
To be more dramatic about the whole thing, think how in a few decades, malnourished children with their could-be-better brains will comprise the generation we have been counting on to get the nation out of this rut. What will happen to the quality of decisions made at the family, community, industrial (or corporate) and government levels?
***
Yvonette Duque, a community doctor, is with the health mission of World Vision Foundation Philippines. Duque has personally seen both sides of the spectrum in her professional practice. She used to work with organizations that charged their patients exorbitant amounts. Then she decided to become a doctor to the barrios, traveling to far-flung barrios in the country and even spending a year in Africa. Now she says the joys of her profession are not found in donning an immaculate white suit and collecting big professional fees.
At a Sulo hotel media forum on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Duque delivered a presentation on health issues confronting children. She started her talk by showing two scanned images of brains of two children, both below five years old. This was a study conducted by professor Ascobat Gani of Indonesia, she said. What’s the difference between the two brains?
The left image showed a big black area at the center of the brain. In the right, the black spot was much smaller. According to Duque, the one on the left was the brain of an undernourished child. There was literally nothing much inside the head—a tragedy because an empty brain is permanent. “There is an irreversible loss of opportunity,” Duque said. “This child will end up being a burden to his family and to society.”
The image on the right was the brain of a nourished child—and crucial nourishment should be given nine months before the child is born and 36 months after birth. This child will be quality human resource later on and is more likely to obtain higher income for his contributions.
If only bridging this gap were that easy. Actually, malnutrition is a vicious cycle that begins with having healthy parents. “If the father takes drugs and alcohol, smokes, and is himself malnourished, what kind of genes will he pass on to the child which he sires?” And of course, maternal health is a prime concern. If a mother is herself unhealthy, the quality of her egg cells, the conditions in her body that houses her child in the nine months before it is born, her ability to deliver the baby under normal circumstances, and her capacity to care for it well are all compromised.
And what if the child turns out to be a girl, subject to the same poor conditions growing up? She herself will not be a healthy child and a healthy adolescent, and her pregnancy and motherhood will be attended by the same difficulties that hounded her mother before her.
In the meantime, as these people struggle to meet their basic daily necessities, the attention on education and other means to improve mental health are relegated to the background.
Clearly there has to be intervention. But whose job is it to intervene?
Duque says that her work at the foundation has made her realize that World Vision and other organizations that go to the communities can, at best, only provide complementing services to existing efforts by the government. Even the national government, through the Health Department only plays supporting role.
The real decision makers who do make a difference at the grassroots level are the local government officials, according to Duque. It is they who decide whether a project is worth pursuing—not just starting, only to lose steam later on.
World Vision, for instance, can only adopt communities under its Nutrition Jumpstart program and prescribe the 7-11 intervention method. The method has seven points for pregnant women: adequate diet, iron and folate supplements, tetanus toxoid immunization, malaria prevention, healthy timing and spacing of birth, de-worming and access to maternal health service. It also has 11 points for children 36 months and below: appropriate breastfeeding, essential newborn care, hand washing, appropriate complementary feeding, adequate iron, vitamin A supplementation, oral rehydration therapy, care seeking for fever, full immunization, malaria prevention and de-worming.
Even the national government can only make sure that there are funds available when they need to be tapped.
So how can we make sure that good intentions do not get lost in politics?
Advocacy is key, Duque says. In turn, the people at the community must know the issues that must be tackled head on. To Duque’s mind, children’s nutrition during the crucial 45 months—with its implications on the IQ level, cognitive ability and behavior of the future generation—should be a priority, and a long-term one.
Christmas is the season for children and for hope. Would it not be easy if we can take the gift of good nutrition for every Filipino child, put it in a box and wrap it with bright paper? Since we cannot, let’s do the next best thing and not allow these real issues to wax and wane with what goes on in politics. We should demand that candidates, especially local ones, seeking our vote in the coming elections know their priorities and are prepared to see them through.
A blessed Christmas to all.
**
Readers' comments
Adelle,
I read your article, "Feeding the Mind". I think along the same lines, and wrote a book I believe you would enjoy, called NUTRITION AND YOUR CHILD'S SOUL. You may read about it on my website, www.dolevgilmore.com. Should you decide you'd like to order the book, contact me through the form on the website, and I can send you a PayPal invoice in any currency, and I'll pay half of the shipping cost. It would be a great honor to send a book to your country.
All the best,
Dolev Gilmore
(Israel)
Monday, December 14, 2009
Basking in brilliance
On Sunday I saw a show on BBC that featured the Nobel laureates (except for peace) for 009. Most of them were men and women of science (chemistry, physics, medicine or physiology and economics). One of them was a novelist, a Romanian-born woman who fled the communist world in the 1980s.
Aside from making me want to get my hands on Herta Muller's works, the show reminded me that all great works stem from passion and hard work.
Two of the physicists were recognized for work that they did forty years ago.
Another was honored for his pioneering work in fiber optic technology, also many decades ago. Now this man is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, but his wife – who says, tearfully, that she misses her husband's intellectual discourses – is sure he appreciates how big a deal it is to win the Nobel.
Another scientist stumbled on a breakthrough in ribosome technology one Christmas morning. Which is very telling – why work on Christmas, unless your work is one you are truly and deeply passionate about?
One of the economics laureates studied the best possible way to manage natural resources like water and forests. She was driven by the poverty from which deprived her of access to the most basic things as a child.
And Muller felt her writing was a midst of survival amid repression in Eastern Europe. She did flee to the West in the mid-1980s but memories of her early years continued to haunt her.
“For a long time after arriving in West Berlin, my eyes hurt. I've never seen so much color,” she said. The grayness of her previous life, as well as from the knowledge that her father was an SS officer “who never talked about the war, like it was taboo,” filled her with the longing to express herself.
Alas, not even the Nobel Prize can erase bad memories.
What it does,however,when you get past the fact that it came from the last will and testament of the man who invented the dynamite, is to inspire you. To do what you were meant to do,work hard, and be the best version of yourself.
Aside from making me want to get my hands on Herta Muller's works, the show reminded me that all great works stem from passion and hard work.
Two of the physicists were recognized for work that they did forty years ago.
Another was honored for his pioneering work in fiber optic technology, also many decades ago. Now this man is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, but his wife – who says, tearfully, that she misses her husband's intellectual discourses – is sure he appreciates how big a deal it is to win the Nobel.
Another scientist stumbled on a breakthrough in ribosome technology one Christmas morning. Which is very telling – why work on Christmas, unless your work is one you are truly and deeply passionate about?
One of the economics laureates studied the best possible way to manage natural resources like water and forests. She was driven by the poverty from which deprived her of access to the most basic things as a child.
And Muller felt her writing was a midst of survival amid repression in Eastern Europe. She did flee to the West in the mid-1980s but memories of her early years continued to haunt her.
“For a long time after arriving in West Berlin, my eyes hurt. I've never seen so much color,” she said. The grayness of her previous life, as well as from the knowledge that her father was an SS officer “who never talked about the war, like it was taboo,” filled her with the longing to express herself.
Alas, not even the Nobel Prize can erase bad memories.
What it does,however,when you get past the fact that it came from the last will and testament of the man who invented the dynamite, is to inspire you. To do what you were meant to do,work hard, and be the best version of yourself.
An incentive to best practices
published 14 Dec 09, Manila Standard Today
In the Northern town of Tabuk, Kalinga, the local government created the Matagoan program in 2001 to create a more secure community and help settle tribal conflicts. Tribal warfare, after all, was a fact of life for these indigenous peoples. Tribesmen saw each other as brothers and even perceived wrongdoing against a brother in one tribe often led to bloodshed. Of course, the other side would not take this sitting down, and so began a cycle of violence. When these things happened, everybody suffered—everyday life was disrupted and economic activity ground to a halt.
A Mataogan Council also helped promote peace pacts and conduct annual renewals of peace and unity vows. Later on, the council expanded to include sub-tribes as well as immigrants from other provinces. It also strengthened relations between the police and the community. In the next six years, the program helped settle 33 of 35 tribal cases. Police records also say that crime solution efficiency improved from 80 percent in 2003 to 89 percent in 2007. As a result, the business environment also improved. In 2003 there were 651 registered business establishments in the province. Four years later, the figure was up 19 percent to 774.
Over in Parañaque City, the Adolescent Friendly Reproductive Health Services program seeks to “promote and provide quality health services that are responsive to the needs and protective of the rights of adolescents. Indeed this is a stage when young people try to assert their independence, question authority and experiment with prohibited drugs, cigarets, alcohol and sex. The program seeks to channel these restless young people’s energy into something productive and community based.
The adolescents themselves identify the kind of reproductive health services they need. They do peer counseling and become involved in other activities in the area. After being pilot tested in Barangay San Dionision and BF, the program was replicated in five other barangays. The objective is to see declining rates of teenage pregnancy, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases.
* * *
A nation constantly fed bad news would feast on gems such as these stories—true and in no way embellished or tainted with the slant of public relations. In fact, Tabuk and Parañaque are only two of 14 recipients of this year’s Galing Pook awards. The citations recognize best practices in local government units in the country in the hope of telling other communities that yes, it can be done. Galing Pook has been recognizing such feats since 1993.
If we think this year is a bad year for local governments, then we may just be focusing on a few very rotten eggs. Eddie Dorotan, executive director of the Galing Pook Foundation, says that one of the more difficult aspects of his job is trimming the list of noteworthy programs. The list normally starts from anywhere between 100 and 300 local government units, from the barangay to the provincial levels. After the applications and nominations are received and initially screened, members of the National Selection Committee—composed of distinguished and independent individuals from various fields of expertise—go to these places to see for themselves how the projects affect the respective communities. In the final stage of the evaluation, representatives of the short-listed projects fly to Manila to “defend” their programs before a panel. The committee normally settles for a final list of 10—except this year, which was deemed a “banner year.”
Aside from peace and order and health initiatives in Tabuk and Parañaque, other winning projects include programs in peace building, environmental protection, information system, access to social services and public-private partnerships.
Of this year’s recipients, seven are from Luzon, two are from Visayas and five are from Mindanao. There are no geographic criteria, nor are programs chosen or eliminated because of the political leaning of the officials behind them.
The programs are evaluated in terms of positive results (they should have visible, measurable impact on the community), people’s participation (officials should not be the only ones acting), innovation (new approaches even to age-old problems), efficiency (more ad better results with less resources), duplicability (can the program be easily copied in other communities anywhere in the country?) and sustainability. Local government units that have already won three or more awards are conferred with the Continuing Excellence award.
* * *
“We award the programs and the local government units that push them, not the officials,” Dorotan, a medical doctor and who was himself a two-term mayor of Irosin, Sorsogon in the 1990s, says. He does not deny that officials seeking re-election can very conveniently use the awards to boost their stock, but in the end, “this is not about politics but about leadership.” The real quality of these officials’ leadership will be revealed eventually to their constituents, after all.
Galing Pook, which is propped up by the Ford Foundation a well as by the Development Bank of the Philippines and the Land Bank of the Philippines, has expanded its functions in recent years. Aside from choosing these good examples, it also works with the government in replicating the award-winning programs. Winners in the area of public health, for instance, get to meet with national health officials to offer their input for future projects.
There is no dearth of worthy programs, according to Dorotan, and the most important thing is that these programs make people feel that they can improve. In the process, a new breed of local government officials who conceive of the programs and see them through is also revealed. “These leaders are likely to be good at the national level. Unfortunately, media consigns them, especially those from far-flung places, to oblivion.”
It’s not as if these leaders are elbowing each other out to gain national prominence, either. “Most of the time, they themselves don’t want to run for higher posts because they may not be able to fight, or even tolerate, the corrupt system.” What a waste.
Does being able to deliver winning programs entitle officials to build their dynasties in their so-called spheres of influence? And should the people put up with “tolerable” corruption in the barangay, municipal or city hall just as long as projects such as these are brought to them by their leaders?
“True leaders live what they preach,” says Dorotan. “If you say you are against wrongdoing in government, you will be uncompromising and shun it completely. It takes real leadership to do that.” The dynasty issue is simple, too: no individual nor family should be indispensable.
As we know, however, all these pronouncements are easier made than seen through. “It is up to the people to be vigilant.”
Dorotan notes that from the beginning, the programs have been addressing the same issues: poverty, environmental protection, peace and order, the delivery of social services. But the innovation factor is key: We have to keep improving on solutions.
Next year’s elections will be critical, not only for installing a new batch of local executives but for choosing good people at the national level to support and inspire local initiatives and serve as embodiments of good governance.
In the end, the idea is not only to have individual pockets of local government gems and honoring them with awards as though they were the exception. The Galing Pook awards will realize its vision when, as a rule, the governed and the governors work together and in concert all over the archipelago, in addressing the many challenges confronting the nation and working for a better life for all.
In the Northern town of Tabuk, Kalinga, the local government created the Matagoan program in 2001 to create a more secure community and help settle tribal conflicts. Tribal warfare, after all, was a fact of life for these indigenous peoples. Tribesmen saw each other as brothers and even perceived wrongdoing against a brother in one tribe often led to bloodshed. Of course, the other side would not take this sitting down, and so began a cycle of violence. When these things happened, everybody suffered—everyday life was disrupted and economic activity ground to a halt.
A Mataogan Council also helped promote peace pacts and conduct annual renewals of peace and unity vows. Later on, the council expanded to include sub-tribes as well as immigrants from other provinces. It also strengthened relations between the police and the community. In the next six years, the program helped settle 33 of 35 tribal cases. Police records also say that crime solution efficiency improved from 80 percent in 2003 to 89 percent in 2007. As a result, the business environment also improved. In 2003 there were 651 registered business establishments in the province. Four years later, the figure was up 19 percent to 774.
Over in Parañaque City, the Adolescent Friendly Reproductive Health Services program seeks to “promote and provide quality health services that are responsive to the needs and protective of the rights of adolescents. Indeed this is a stage when young people try to assert their independence, question authority and experiment with prohibited drugs, cigarets, alcohol and sex. The program seeks to channel these restless young people’s energy into something productive and community based.
The adolescents themselves identify the kind of reproductive health services they need. They do peer counseling and become involved in other activities in the area. After being pilot tested in Barangay San Dionision and BF, the program was replicated in five other barangays. The objective is to see declining rates of teenage pregnancy, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases.
* * *
A nation constantly fed bad news would feast on gems such as these stories—true and in no way embellished or tainted with the slant of public relations. In fact, Tabuk and Parañaque are only two of 14 recipients of this year’s Galing Pook awards. The citations recognize best practices in local government units in the country in the hope of telling other communities that yes, it can be done. Galing Pook has been recognizing such feats since 1993.
If we think this year is a bad year for local governments, then we may just be focusing on a few very rotten eggs. Eddie Dorotan, executive director of the Galing Pook Foundation, says that one of the more difficult aspects of his job is trimming the list of noteworthy programs. The list normally starts from anywhere between 100 and 300 local government units, from the barangay to the provincial levels. After the applications and nominations are received and initially screened, members of the National Selection Committee—composed of distinguished and independent individuals from various fields of expertise—go to these places to see for themselves how the projects affect the respective communities. In the final stage of the evaluation, representatives of the short-listed projects fly to Manila to “defend” their programs before a panel. The committee normally settles for a final list of 10—except this year, which was deemed a “banner year.”
Aside from peace and order and health initiatives in Tabuk and Parañaque, other winning projects include programs in peace building, environmental protection, information system, access to social services and public-private partnerships.
Of this year’s recipients, seven are from Luzon, two are from Visayas and five are from Mindanao. There are no geographic criteria, nor are programs chosen or eliminated because of the political leaning of the officials behind them.
The programs are evaluated in terms of positive results (they should have visible, measurable impact on the community), people’s participation (officials should not be the only ones acting), innovation (new approaches even to age-old problems), efficiency (more ad better results with less resources), duplicability (can the program be easily copied in other communities anywhere in the country?) and sustainability. Local government units that have already won three or more awards are conferred with the Continuing Excellence award.
* * *
“We award the programs and the local government units that push them, not the officials,” Dorotan, a medical doctor and who was himself a two-term mayor of Irosin, Sorsogon in the 1990s, says. He does not deny that officials seeking re-election can very conveniently use the awards to boost their stock, but in the end, “this is not about politics but about leadership.” The real quality of these officials’ leadership will be revealed eventually to their constituents, after all.
Galing Pook, which is propped up by the Ford Foundation a well as by the Development Bank of the Philippines and the Land Bank of the Philippines, has expanded its functions in recent years. Aside from choosing these good examples, it also works with the government in replicating the award-winning programs. Winners in the area of public health, for instance, get to meet with national health officials to offer their input for future projects.
There is no dearth of worthy programs, according to Dorotan, and the most important thing is that these programs make people feel that they can improve. In the process, a new breed of local government officials who conceive of the programs and see them through is also revealed. “These leaders are likely to be good at the national level. Unfortunately, media consigns them, especially those from far-flung places, to oblivion.”
It’s not as if these leaders are elbowing each other out to gain national prominence, either. “Most of the time, they themselves don’t want to run for higher posts because they may not be able to fight, or even tolerate, the corrupt system.” What a waste.
Does being able to deliver winning programs entitle officials to build their dynasties in their so-called spheres of influence? And should the people put up with “tolerable” corruption in the barangay, municipal or city hall just as long as projects such as these are brought to them by their leaders?
“True leaders live what they preach,” says Dorotan. “If you say you are against wrongdoing in government, you will be uncompromising and shun it completely. It takes real leadership to do that.” The dynasty issue is simple, too: no individual nor family should be indispensable.
As we know, however, all these pronouncements are easier made than seen through. “It is up to the people to be vigilant.”
Dorotan notes that from the beginning, the programs have been addressing the same issues: poverty, environmental protection, peace and order, the delivery of social services. But the innovation factor is key: We have to keep improving on solutions.
Next year’s elections will be critical, not only for installing a new batch of local executives but for choosing good people at the national level to support and inspire local initiatives and serve as embodiments of good governance.
In the end, the idea is not only to have individual pockets of local government gems and honoring them with awards as though they were the exception. The Galing Pook awards will realize its vision when, as a rule, the governed and the governors work together and in concert all over the archipelago, in addressing the many challenges confronting the nation and working for a better life for all.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Wavering on the call for "deep and early cuts"
What is the Philippine team really bringing to Copenhagen?
Two weeks ago in this space, in an article called “Getting dramatic over climate change”, I wrote about the Philippine position that our delegation would be bringing to Copenhagen, Denmark during negotiations for carbon-emission cuts. The resulting climate change pact – if one could be arrived at – would pick up from where the first commitment period of the Kyoto protocol is perceived to have failed.
The talks begin today.
According to the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Global Warming and Climate Change, the Philippines, along with other developing nations that are historically not responsible for the alarming level of greenhouse gases in the air but which stand to lose the most from the effects of the warming planet, will push for “deep and early cuts” by industrialized nations.
“Specifically, our team will press for cuts of at least 30 percent between 2013 and 2017, at least 50 percent between 2018 and 2020, and at least 95 percent by 2050, all from 1990 levels,” I said, lifting from brochures handed out by that office during a media summit that coincided with the celebration of Climate Change Consciousness Week.
Secretary Heherson Alvarez, the presidential adviser, himself said that this Philippine position was “pretty much firm.” In fact, during the short interview I had with him, Alvarez talked more about administrative challenges to the Climate Change Commission, created by the just-signed Climate Change Act, for it to help the country adapt better to the effects of global warming, specifically more frequent and more powerful storms and resulting floods, landslides and mudslides.
But now a coalition of at least 36 civil society organizations, including members of the CSO Working Group on Climate Change and Development, is worried that the Philippine position may not be so firm after all, and that global political machinations may be behind this weakened stance.
Andres “Chito” Tionko, for instance, who was part of the Philippine delegation to Bangkok, finds it disturbing that President Arroyo now says the Philippines “need not insist on deep and early cuts in carbon emissions, but should require countries to make a commitment.” This apparent distancing from the “deep and early cuts” demand, he says, has been influenced by the recent visit of United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the country. The US has a lot to lose if it binds itself to cutting its emissions, especially in a recessionary environment.
The organizations are alarmed that the US and other developed countries may have been promising financial support for developing countries' adaptation programs in exchange for these countries’ going easy on them in the mitigation side.
And here's even greater cause for alarm: Bernaditas de Castro Muller, an adviser to the Philippine team and lead negotiator for the G77 + China bloc (actually a group of 130 developing countries), has been dropped from the official list of delegates to Copenhagen. Muller, a retired Filipino diplomat based in Switzerland, is known as “dragon woman” in environmental negotiation circles; she has been relentless and uncompromising representing the interests of the bloc – representing two-thirds of the world's population.
A profile of Ms. de Castro-Muller, as well as insights into climate diplomacy, appear on the November 7 issue of The Guardian, entitled “Lifting the lid on climate change talks” by John Vidal (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/07/climate-change-talks-2009).
Crossing de Castro-Muller out of the delegation would compromise not just the Philippine position but the position of the entire bloc. Then again, that's exactly what the Annex 1 (developed) countries would love; the Filipino diplomat has been a thorn on their side during the grueling climate negotiations. Apparently,Vidal says, climate diplomacy is polite on the outside but vicious from within.
The civil society coalition now asks that the official list of delegates to Copenhagen be made so that the public would know whether those who are actually representing the Philippines are not in for the junket but are highly qualified and trained negotiators.
“The Philippine position is very progressive. It carries not just our national interests but the interests of vulnerable developing countries. But in order for our progressive positions to get through, they have to be effectively negotiated. Our negotiators and technical advisers play a strategic role in the negotiations; without them, most progressive positions become meaningless,” says Kala Constantino, advocacy coordinator of Oxfam in the Philippines.
Rowena Bolinas, coordinator of the working group, adds: “We believe the Filipino people deserve to be represented by negotiators who will not be coerced into agreeing to any worthless deal that will compromise our common future.”
(But what if another, less malleable developing country “adopts” Muller just so she could remain negotiating for the nations most imperiled by climate change, and what if she agrees?)
On the other hand, Secretary Alvarez insists there is no truth to the allegations that the Philippines is not anymore pushing for deep and early cuts. “The President is not backing off from that. But she is pushing instead for a broader policy approach called Green Philippines,” the adviser says. “The new Philippine position, thus, is not limited to the single issue of carbon cuts anymore.”
Alvarez also says that Muller’s exclusion from the list of delegates was an arbitrary decision of the Executive Secretary (Eduardo Ermita) in an effort to trim the number of delegates which had ballooned to 120. Ermita allegedly felt he had to cut the number of attendees lest the public accuse the administration of going on an excursion to Copenhagen. Alvarez adds: “It was an arbitrary move. Even some of the people I myself put in the team were also removed. How can Muller be excluded for pushing for ‘deep and early cuts’ when she is not its proponent in the first place?”
**
Tionko tries to correct a misconception. The world does not need yet another agreement on the climate; the Kyoto Protocol would suffice. After all, what's expiring in two years is the first commitment period, not the agreement itself. There is still a second commitment period, and the United States can join anytime, that is, assuming President Barack Obama's promises are not merely that. Another agreement – a Copenhagen Protocol, for instance – would need ratification by the Congresses of each of the nations represented in the talks. That's not swiftly done, and in the meantime, the clock is ticking.
And we thought that in this day and age, the world would be beyond the phenomenon of rich nations bullying the poor. Unfortunately it has just acquired another name: Historical carbon culprits, the developed economies, “softening up” developing ones through adaptation aid and other means of persuasion.
The Philippines, by itself, will not carry much clout as it would if it bonds with other countries that share its fate. Will President Arroyo buckle down under this pressure? Is the catch phrase “deep and early cuts” hollow, after all?
That's not really an offense against us. But it will be -- and an unforgivable one at that – against our children and our children's children.
adellechua@gmail.com
Two weeks ago in this space, in an article called “Getting dramatic over climate change”, I wrote about the Philippine position that our delegation would be bringing to Copenhagen, Denmark during negotiations for carbon-emission cuts. The resulting climate change pact – if one could be arrived at – would pick up from where the first commitment period of the Kyoto protocol is perceived to have failed.
The talks begin today.
According to the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Global Warming and Climate Change, the Philippines, along with other developing nations that are historically not responsible for the alarming level of greenhouse gases in the air but which stand to lose the most from the effects of the warming planet, will push for “deep and early cuts” by industrialized nations.
“Specifically, our team will press for cuts of at least 30 percent between 2013 and 2017, at least 50 percent between 2018 and 2020, and at least 95 percent by 2050, all from 1990 levels,” I said, lifting from brochures handed out by that office during a media summit that coincided with the celebration of Climate Change Consciousness Week.
Secretary Heherson Alvarez, the presidential adviser, himself said that this Philippine position was “pretty much firm.” In fact, during the short interview I had with him, Alvarez talked more about administrative challenges to the Climate Change Commission, created by the just-signed Climate Change Act, for it to help the country adapt better to the effects of global warming, specifically more frequent and more powerful storms and resulting floods, landslides and mudslides.
But now a coalition of at least 36 civil society organizations, including members of the CSO Working Group on Climate Change and Development, is worried that the Philippine position may not be so firm after all, and that global political machinations may be behind this weakened stance.
Andres “Chito” Tionko, for instance, who was part of the Philippine delegation to Bangkok, finds it disturbing that President Arroyo now says the Philippines “need not insist on deep and early cuts in carbon emissions, but should require countries to make a commitment.” This apparent distancing from the “deep and early cuts” demand, he says, has been influenced by the recent visit of United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the country. The US has a lot to lose if it binds itself to cutting its emissions, especially in a recessionary environment.
The organizations are alarmed that the US and other developed countries may have been promising financial support for developing countries' adaptation programs in exchange for these countries’ going easy on them in the mitigation side.
And here's even greater cause for alarm: Bernaditas de Castro Muller, an adviser to the Philippine team and lead negotiator for the G77 + China bloc (actually a group of 130 developing countries), has been dropped from the official list of delegates to Copenhagen. Muller, a retired Filipino diplomat based in Switzerland, is known as “dragon woman” in environmental negotiation circles; she has been relentless and uncompromising representing the interests of the bloc – representing two-thirds of the world's population.
A profile of Ms. de Castro-Muller, as well as insights into climate diplomacy, appear on the November 7 issue of The Guardian, entitled “Lifting the lid on climate change talks” by John Vidal (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/07/climate-change-talks-2009).
Crossing de Castro-Muller out of the delegation would compromise not just the Philippine position but the position of the entire bloc. Then again, that's exactly what the Annex 1 (developed) countries would love; the Filipino diplomat has been a thorn on their side during the grueling climate negotiations. Apparently,Vidal says, climate diplomacy is polite on the outside but vicious from within.
The civil society coalition now asks that the official list of delegates to Copenhagen be made so that the public would know whether those who are actually representing the Philippines are not in for the junket but are highly qualified and trained negotiators.
“The Philippine position is very progressive. It carries not just our national interests but the interests of vulnerable developing countries. But in order for our progressive positions to get through, they have to be effectively negotiated. Our negotiators and technical advisers play a strategic role in the negotiations; without them, most progressive positions become meaningless,” says Kala Constantino, advocacy coordinator of Oxfam in the Philippines.
Rowena Bolinas, coordinator of the working group, adds: “We believe the Filipino people deserve to be represented by negotiators who will not be coerced into agreeing to any worthless deal that will compromise our common future.”
(But what if another, less malleable developing country “adopts” Muller just so she could remain negotiating for the nations most imperiled by climate change, and what if she agrees?)
On the other hand, Secretary Alvarez insists there is no truth to the allegations that the Philippines is not anymore pushing for deep and early cuts. “The President is not backing off from that. But she is pushing instead for a broader policy approach called Green Philippines,” the adviser says. “The new Philippine position, thus, is not limited to the single issue of carbon cuts anymore.”
Alvarez also says that Muller’s exclusion from the list of delegates was an arbitrary decision of the Executive Secretary (Eduardo Ermita) in an effort to trim the number of delegates which had ballooned to 120. Ermita allegedly felt he had to cut the number of attendees lest the public accuse the administration of going on an excursion to Copenhagen. Alvarez adds: “It was an arbitrary move. Even some of the people I myself put in the team were also removed. How can Muller be excluded for pushing for ‘deep and early cuts’ when she is not its proponent in the first place?”
**
Tionko tries to correct a misconception. The world does not need yet another agreement on the climate; the Kyoto Protocol would suffice. After all, what's expiring in two years is the first commitment period, not the agreement itself. There is still a second commitment period, and the United States can join anytime, that is, assuming President Barack Obama's promises are not merely that. Another agreement – a Copenhagen Protocol, for instance – would need ratification by the Congresses of each of the nations represented in the talks. That's not swiftly done, and in the meantime, the clock is ticking.
And we thought that in this day and age, the world would be beyond the phenomenon of rich nations bullying the poor. Unfortunately it has just acquired another name: Historical carbon culprits, the developed economies, “softening up” developing ones through adaptation aid and other means of persuasion.
The Philippines, by itself, will not carry much clout as it would if it bonds with other countries that share its fate. Will President Arroyo buckle down under this pressure? Is the catch phrase “deep and early cuts” hollow, after all?
That's not really an offense against us. But it will be -- and an unforgivable one at that – against our children and our children's children.
adellechua@gmail.com
Friday, December 4, 2009
Bunso
As was customary, I deposited Elmo into My Playroom which was just beside where I was going to have my weekly massage. There was a time when Elmo's eyes shone at the prospect of spending an hour or so at that place – toys,tikes,books and all-- so their parents could get some real shopping done. This time, however, Elmo was on the verge of crying. I had reprimanded him for touching everything in the mall he was not supposed to touch: stair rails, elevator rails, the surfaces of kiosks.
And then I remembered, these days I had been pretty hard on the boy: prepare for school on time,fix your bag,do your homework, brush your teeth, finish your food, etcetera etcetera. See he had not been exhibiting much enthusiasm for any of those things. The only things that perked him up were SpongeBob Square Pants and the Transformers. At six forty five in the morning, when every body is running late, a mom forgets her resolution not to nag or yell. What diplomacy? The bell is about to ring!
This afternoon Elmo's last words to me as he entered the playground were “Wag kang matagal ha?” (Dont be long, please) Poor baby, did he feel he was getting too big to be in that place full of toddlers? I knew he had wanted to be left in the internet cafe upstairs, where his Ate Sophie preferred to be left nowadays so she could tend to her farm and her pets on Facebook. But it was too cold there, he said, and they were fighting besides. That's another thing. Not too long ago Sophie, 9 and Elmo,7 were inseparable and got along just fine. Now they got on each other's nerves. Each wanted to spend time with me without bringing along the other. Elmo was especially resentful that I'd been spending more time with Sophie (okay, it's true.) I brought her to the office yesterday, I went to Bataan with her last Friday, took a boat and went swimming and kayaking on the beach. And on Sunday she would be accompanying me again at a christening in Bulacan. (At this stage shes the most manageable. Not yet a teenager yet not anymore a child you have to mind all the time).
And so I got my massage, just a shiatsu on my chronically painful back . Thirty minutes later I was done and observed Elmo from outside. He was on a bouncing ball,amusing himself. The other children were huddled somewhere else. I waved, and when he saw me, he jumped up and raced to the door at once. I gave the claim stub to the clerk and noticed that 1. Elmo could not stand straight 2. His nose was bleeding. What's up, I asked. He said he needed to go to the boys' room. I waited for him at the magazine stand at the corner. I figured such a small thing, going to the washroom unaccompanied, could be a big badge of accomplishment for my boy. When he went out he was still bleeding. Yet he was talking about french fries, and being torn between sour cream and barbecue. I pressed a tissue onto his nose.
I took his little hand (filthy, I thought) and regretted that I forgot my wet wipes or alcohol. When I looked at his face, though, I clutched his hand a little tighter. What thoughts were going into this boy's mind? Among the four he is the closest to his father. Among the four he is the one who always wants to be at the other house because of unlimited TV and unlimited play time. Among the four, and being the youngest, he is the most clueless about why what happened did happen. This is going to be the third Christmas of my new life and I am thriving, I am finally in control, running my household and my family unchallenged. I am supermom not DESPITE the fact that I am single. I am supermom BECAUSE I am single. But did my little boy know the separation was it not his fault and that I love him fiercely, nevertheless?
We claimed Sophie from the cafe at the third floor, and then she wanted to have fries, too. It was too early for dinner and I had cooked something at home; this was only merienda. She settled for sour cream, he asked for barbecue. She asked to taste his fries and he asked to take a few from her pack. And just like that, brother and sister were okay. Oh, children. Did they know that someday when I'm gone all they would have would be each other? I told them the story of the mother who died from a crushed heart. The doctors could not tell what caused it. But it was because her two children, both of whom she loved so much, were enemies. If you want my heart to remain healthy, I warned Sophie and Elmo, then you'd have to make allowances for and love each other. They knew it was fiction but nodded anyway – and shared a cup of Sprite while they wolfed down their fries. What joy.
Elmo's nose had stopped bleeding by then,but since it was the weekend, they had to spend the night at their father's,and I was dropping them off there first. What will you do when you arrive, I asked them. Take a bath. Put on clean clothes. Make a Christmas list (they had been saving the entire year and both had respectable amounts in their junior savings accounts). Next Friday, I announced as the tricycle roared noisily into dusk, Elmo and I will go shopping for his Christmas clothes and I will help him get his gifts for family and friends. Just Elmo and me,okay? I told Sophie.
I looked back at Elmo. Finally, for the first time, his eyes shone.
And then I remembered, these days I had been pretty hard on the boy: prepare for school on time,fix your bag,do your homework, brush your teeth, finish your food, etcetera etcetera. See he had not been exhibiting much enthusiasm for any of those things. The only things that perked him up were SpongeBob Square Pants and the Transformers. At six forty five in the morning, when every body is running late, a mom forgets her resolution not to nag or yell. What diplomacy? The bell is about to ring!
This afternoon Elmo's last words to me as he entered the playground were “Wag kang matagal ha?” (Dont be long, please) Poor baby, did he feel he was getting too big to be in that place full of toddlers? I knew he had wanted to be left in the internet cafe upstairs, where his Ate Sophie preferred to be left nowadays so she could tend to her farm and her pets on Facebook. But it was too cold there, he said, and they were fighting besides. That's another thing. Not too long ago Sophie, 9 and Elmo,7 were inseparable and got along just fine. Now they got on each other's nerves. Each wanted to spend time with me without bringing along the other. Elmo was especially resentful that I'd been spending more time with Sophie (okay, it's true.) I brought her to the office yesterday, I went to Bataan with her last Friday, took a boat and went swimming and kayaking on the beach. And on Sunday she would be accompanying me again at a christening in Bulacan. (At this stage shes the most manageable. Not yet a teenager yet not anymore a child you have to mind all the time).
And so I got my massage, just a shiatsu on my chronically painful back . Thirty minutes later I was done and observed Elmo from outside. He was on a bouncing ball,amusing himself. The other children were huddled somewhere else. I waved, and when he saw me, he jumped up and raced to the door at once. I gave the claim stub to the clerk and noticed that 1. Elmo could not stand straight 2. His nose was bleeding. What's up, I asked. He said he needed to go to the boys' room. I waited for him at the magazine stand at the corner. I figured such a small thing, going to the washroom unaccompanied, could be a big badge of accomplishment for my boy. When he went out he was still bleeding. Yet he was talking about french fries, and being torn between sour cream and barbecue. I pressed a tissue onto his nose.
I took his little hand (filthy, I thought) and regretted that I forgot my wet wipes or alcohol. When I looked at his face, though, I clutched his hand a little tighter. What thoughts were going into this boy's mind? Among the four he is the closest to his father. Among the four he is the one who always wants to be at the other house because of unlimited TV and unlimited play time. Among the four, and being the youngest, he is the most clueless about why what happened did happen. This is going to be the third Christmas of my new life and I am thriving, I am finally in control, running my household and my family unchallenged. I am supermom not DESPITE the fact that I am single. I am supermom BECAUSE I am single. But did my little boy know the separation was it not his fault and that I love him fiercely, nevertheless?
We claimed Sophie from the cafe at the third floor, and then she wanted to have fries, too. It was too early for dinner and I had cooked something at home; this was only merienda. She settled for sour cream, he asked for barbecue. She asked to taste his fries and he asked to take a few from her pack. And just like that, brother and sister were okay. Oh, children. Did they know that someday when I'm gone all they would have would be each other? I told them the story of the mother who died from a crushed heart. The doctors could not tell what caused it. But it was because her two children, both of whom she loved so much, were enemies. If you want my heart to remain healthy, I warned Sophie and Elmo, then you'd have to make allowances for and love each other. They knew it was fiction but nodded anyway – and shared a cup of Sprite while they wolfed down their fries. What joy.
Elmo's nose had stopped bleeding by then,but since it was the weekend, they had to spend the night at their father's,and I was dropping them off there first. What will you do when you arrive, I asked them. Take a bath. Put on clean clothes. Make a Christmas list (they had been saving the entire year and both had respectable amounts in their junior savings accounts). Next Friday, I announced as the tricycle roared noisily into dusk, Elmo and I will go shopping for his Christmas clothes and I will help him get his gifts for family and friends. Just Elmo and me,okay? I told Sophie.
I looked back at Elmo. Finally, for the first time, his eyes shone.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Can't get enough
(The editorial I have not yet submitted. I turned in something else today and my turn does not come again until Wednesday. – AC)
It's official: President Arroyo wants to “serve the hard-working people of [her] province” and is running as representative of the second district of Pampanga.
Arroyo has served the nation for eight years and ten months as chief executive. She will serve it for seven more months. One would think a 62-year-old would want to retire, go back to teaching, write a book, maybe enjoy her grandchildren. Then again, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is no ordinary woman.
They say a term is too short for a good president and too long for a bad one. Was Mrs. Arroyo a bad president? It's hard to say; every report and figure is so tainted with bias for and against her. The public does not know where to look for an objective assessment. The media, fed by attention deficient politicians, has been sensational. On the other hand, the President's defenders have been relentless, too.
Of course she's not seeking the same term – technically. Her constituency will shrink and if only because of that, a victory is likely. The perks will be there, even with an opposition president. Especially with a lame one.
The outrage is expected. The move does little to quell the speculation that Mrs. Arroyo is up to some tricks. After all, the House of Representatives has been servile to her when she was president, quelling several impeachment complaints and pushing, shamelessly, for a constituent assembly. Fortunately, an outraged public foiled this move. But because Plan A has been foiled, Plan B emerges, or so we are told.
But let us assume that there are no plans. Let us view Arroyo's decision without a past and without a future – whether or not she has been a good president, and whether or not she intends to steer the House of Representatives into something else.
The simple fact is that seeking another post, especially a lower one, after one has become president is repulsive. When you get elected to the presidency, it is assumed you have done your best. The law may be swayed so as not to bar you from running again, but your convictions should. If you wanted to do good, you should have done it while you could. When your time is up, you take a bow and suffer the legacy you have made for yourself.
Another former President, convicted plunderer Joseph Estrada has filed a certificate to run for president. Now the man says Arroyo is not qualified to run. The statement is downright comic when you remember it is Erap himself who faces disqualification questions.
When you are talking about the things you have to do to be worthy of the Office of the President, there is no room for comic relief or lame rhetoric.
It's official: President Arroyo wants to “serve the hard-working people of [her] province” and is running as representative of the second district of Pampanga.
Arroyo has served the nation for eight years and ten months as chief executive. She will serve it for seven more months. One would think a 62-year-old would want to retire, go back to teaching, write a book, maybe enjoy her grandchildren. Then again, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is no ordinary woman.
They say a term is too short for a good president and too long for a bad one. Was Mrs. Arroyo a bad president? It's hard to say; every report and figure is so tainted with bias for and against her. The public does not know where to look for an objective assessment. The media, fed by attention deficient politicians, has been sensational. On the other hand, the President's defenders have been relentless, too.
Of course she's not seeking the same term – technically. Her constituency will shrink and if only because of that, a victory is likely. The perks will be there, even with an opposition president. Especially with a lame one.
The outrage is expected. The move does little to quell the speculation that Mrs. Arroyo is up to some tricks. After all, the House of Representatives has been servile to her when she was president, quelling several impeachment complaints and pushing, shamelessly, for a constituent assembly. Fortunately, an outraged public foiled this move. But because Plan A has been foiled, Plan B emerges, or so we are told.
But let us assume that there are no plans. Let us view Arroyo's decision without a past and without a future – whether or not she has been a good president, and whether or not she intends to steer the House of Representatives into something else.
The simple fact is that seeking another post, especially a lower one, after one has become president is repulsive. When you get elected to the presidency, it is assumed you have done your best. The law may be swayed so as not to bar you from running again, but your convictions should. If you wanted to do good, you should have done it while you could. When your time is up, you take a bow and suffer the legacy you have made for yourself.
Another former President, convicted plunderer Joseph Estrada has filed a certificate to run for president. Now the man says Arroyo is not qualified to run. The statement is downright comic when you remember it is Erap himself who faces disqualification questions.
When you are talking about the things you have to do to be worthy of the Office of the President, there is no room for comic relief or lame rhetoric.
Psychological first aid
published 30 Nov 2009, Manila Standard Today
There is such a thing as a honeymoon phase in disaster response. Remember the overwhelming bayanihan spirit that swept the nation just after the onslaught of tropical storm Ondoy and after that, typhoons Pepeng and Santi? Images we saw on television and our own experiences, or those of people we actually knew, prompted Filipinos to make unprecedented donations and even volunteer to join relief distribution activities. The community spirit gave us a high. For those who were themselves affected, the honeymoon came in the form of gratefulness at simply being alive, a strong sense of purpose and a will to be strong despite the tragedy.
These feel-good days hardly last. The rest of us go back to our routine, comforted by the thought of at least having done “something”. On the other hand, disillusionment descends upon the victims. They become vulnerable to survivors’ guilt, feeling as though they did not do enough to save their loved ones as they were themselves saved. The disaster hits home, so to speak. A woman realizes that her husband, or child, or a parent, is dead. A man must come to terms with the fact that the house, income source and all other things he has toiled for have been washed away. Grief then becomes the more prominent emotion. Material and emotional recovery seem like a distant dream.
Director Suzette Agcaoili of the Social Welfare Institutional Development Bureau of the Social Welfare Department says disaster stress is normal reaction to abnormal circumstances such as disasters. It is normally manifested as irritability and anger, self-blame or blaming of others, isolation, fear of recurrence, numbnessm helplessness, mood wings, sadness and depression, denial, concentration and memory problems as well as relationship conflicts.
Different individuals have different built-in capabilities in dealing with disaster stress. It depends on their natural attributes as well as their pre-existing vulnerabilities, mainly the cache of memories and emotions stored in their brains. Some people are remarkably resilient and are able to deal with their loss head on and hence move on to rebuilding faster, with minimal or no intervention.
Some, however, manifest the symptoms of a more advanced problem. They have panic attacks and have reduced ability to function for months, even years. Its not quite a post-traumatic stress disorder situation, but it could lead there if it goes unattended. Their reactions are most likely occasioned not by a single event but by an event that unleashes all other stored emotions from the past. These need a different kind of attention from professionals, although it does not in any way suggest they are already mental patients. One of the ongoing programs of the Social Welfare Department is the critical stress debriefing program, which is applied in seven stages by trained individuals and completes a process from introduction to closure.
The challenging part is that some of the members of the Social Welfare Department debriefing team are themselves victims of the devastation and must cope with their own experiences before being able to help others. Agcaoili herself lives in Concepcion, Marikina and has had to deal with her own reactions to Ondoy’s devastation and the threat it posed on her person and her 85-year-old mother who lived with her.
The Social Welfare Department director talks about a teacher who also lives in Marikina and was a victim of Ondoy. What stand out in their meetings are the teacher’s extraordinarily vivid memories of the July 1990 earthquake, which she has witnessed as a high school student in Baguio. Apparently, in her school, there was a security guard who always greeted her in the morning, and she saw this guard buried in the resulting rubble. As a result, even up to now, any vibrations on the ground (caused by passing trailer trucks, for instance) cause her to freeze and compulsively look for the stairs so she could head for the ground floor. Only then can this teacher feel safe.
* * *
Last week, Agcaoili, a practicing clinical psychologist, talked to a group of volunteers from member-organizations of the Nutrition Research Information Network on psychological first aid. There is nothing advanced about the subject matter, no need for graduate degrees in clinical psychology. These volunteers are about to be fielded into their respective communities to simply “talk” to disaster victims in the event new disasters come along. It’s psychological first aid, a crucial step that’s as vital as making sure the victims have something to eat and have a place to stay immediately after the tragedy.
Talking about what’s wrong is always good therapy, Agcaoili says, and the best thing is that anybody—students, employees and civil servants, vendors, tricycle drivers and housewives —with a sense of compassion and pakikipagkapwa-tao can do it. People who feel vulnerable and insecure won’t probably open up to a mental health worker in a white coat or a psychologist who comes with a pen and paper; they will talk, however, to somebody who tells them they can talk about anything and is ready to offer not rehearsed answers but a simple hug.
And just as being a psychological first-aid giver does not require an academic degree, not everybody can be an effective one. One has to exude kindness, sincerity, compassion and a non-judgmental nature in order to draw the other person out.
Sometimes in an effort to offer comfort to another, we utter words and phrases that may be well-meaning but may have adverse effects. Agcaoili cautions the first-aid giver to refrain from saying the following; “I understand what it’s like” (unless one has been in an exact same situation, one can never understand); “don’t feel bad” (commanding); “you are strong, you can do it, don’t worry” (trivializes the disaster’s effects); “it could be worse, at least, you still have...” (providing false consolation); and “it’s God’s will” (when a person’s faith is shaken, this is probably the last thing he or she would want to hear.)
In no way shall a first-aid giver exert pressure on the other person to talk, or be disheartened by initial adverse reaction such as extreme emotions or refusal to communicate. He should not make grand promises (“the government will build you a new house!”), give false hopes (“your child is still alive and is recovering in the hospital” when the child is actually dead), or criticize relief efforts by other organizations.
In the end, the objective of psychological first aid is to occasion a feeling of safety, calm, connectedness, self-efficacy, and hope.
* * *
We often think relief always takes the form of noodles, canned goods, toiletry and other basic things contained in a plastic bag and distributed to the “poor” victims. That’s good for the first few weeks—remember the honeymoon period I mentioned in the first paragraph?—but beyond that, and after all the donations have been handed out, what else is left?
Continuing relief is just as important, Agcaoili says, and it does not always take the form of tangible, consumable goods. Psychological first aid, as well as the more advanced critical incidents stress debriefing, plays a big part in the recovery process and in the person’s total well-being. Most often, not everybody needs special attention. People just need to talk about their experience and heal, over time. It prevents them from feeling helpless and resorting to depending on doles all the time. It ensures that in time, they will be ready to prevent similar incidents or cope better if he cannot prevent them.
adellechua@gmail.com
There is such a thing as a honeymoon phase in disaster response. Remember the overwhelming bayanihan spirit that swept the nation just after the onslaught of tropical storm Ondoy and after that, typhoons Pepeng and Santi? Images we saw on television and our own experiences, or those of people we actually knew, prompted Filipinos to make unprecedented donations and even volunteer to join relief distribution activities. The community spirit gave us a high. For those who were themselves affected, the honeymoon came in the form of gratefulness at simply being alive, a strong sense of purpose and a will to be strong despite the tragedy.
These feel-good days hardly last. The rest of us go back to our routine, comforted by the thought of at least having done “something”. On the other hand, disillusionment descends upon the victims. They become vulnerable to survivors’ guilt, feeling as though they did not do enough to save their loved ones as they were themselves saved. The disaster hits home, so to speak. A woman realizes that her husband, or child, or a parent, is dead. A man must come to terms with the fact that the house, income source and all other things he has toiled for have been washed away. Grief then becomes the more prominent emotion. Material and emotional recovery seem like a distant dream.
Director Suzette Agcaoili of the Social Welfare Institutional Development Bureau of the Social Welfare Department says disaster stress is normal reaction to abnormal circumstances such as disasters. It is normally manifested as irritability and anger, self-blame or blaming of others, isolation, fear of recurrence, numbnessm helplessness, mood wings, sadness and depression, denial, concentration and memory problems as well as relationship conflicts.
Different individuals have different built-in capabilities in dealing with disaster stress. It depends on their natural attributes as well as their pre-existing vulnerabilities, mainly the cache of memories and emotions stored in their brains. Some people are remarkably resilient and are able to deal with their loss head on and hence move on to rebuilding faster, with minimal or no intervention.
Some, however, manifest the symptoms of a more advanced problem. They have panic attacks and have reduced ability to function for months, even years. Its not quite a post-traumatic stress disorder situation, but it could lead there if it goes unattended. Their reactions are most likely occasioned not by a single event but by an event that unleashes all other stored emotions from the past. These need a different kind of attention from professionals, although it does not in any way suggest they are already mental patients. One of the ongoing programs of the Social Welfare Department is the critical stress debriefing program, which is applied in seven stages by trained individuals and completes a process from introduction to closure.
The challenging part is that some of the members of the Social Welfare Department debriefing team are themselves victims of the devastation and must cope with their own experiences before being able to help others. Agcaoili herself lives in Concepcion, Marikina and has had to deal with her own reactions to Ondoy’s devastation and the threat it posed on her person and her 85-year-old mother who lived with her.
The Social Welfare Department director talks about a teacher who also lives in Marikina and was a victim of Ondoy. What stand out in their meetings are the teacher’s extraordinarily vivid memories of the July 1990 earthquake, which she has witnessed as a high school student in Baguio. Apparently, in her school, there was a security guard who always greeted her in the morning, and she saw this guard buried in the resulting rubble. As a result, even up to now, any vibrations on the ground (caused by passing trailer trucks, for instance) cause her to freeze and compulsively look for the stairs so she could head for the ground floor. Only then can this teacher feel safe.
* * *
Last week, Agcaoili, a practicing clinical psychologist, talked to a group of volunteers from member-organizations of the Nutrition Research Information Network on psychological first aid. There is nothing advanced about the subject matter, no need for graduate degrees in clinical psychology. These volunteers are about to be fielded into their respective communities to simply “talk” to disaster victims in the event new disasters come along. It’s psychological first aid, a crucial step that’s as vital as making sure the victims have something to eat and have a place to stay immediately after the tragedy.
Talking about what’s wrong is always good therapy, Agcaoili says, and the best thing is that anybody—students, employees and civil servants, vendors, tricycle drivers and housewives —with a sense of compassion and pakikipagkapwa-tao can do it. People who feel vulnerable and insecure won’t probably open up to a mental health worker in a white coat or a psychologist who comes with a pen and paper; they will talk, however, to somebody who tells them they can talk about anything and is ready to offer not rehearsed answers but a simple hug.
And just as being a psychological first-aid giver does not require an academic degree, not everybody can be an effective one. One has to exude kindness, sincerity, compassion and a non-judgmental nature in order to draw the other person out.
Sometimes in an effort to offer comfort to another, we utter words and phrases that may be well-meaning but may have adverse effects. Agcaoili cautions the first-aid giver to refrain from saying the following; “I understand what it’s like” (unless one has been in an exact same situation, one can never understand); “don’t feel bad” (commanding); “you are strong, you can do it, don’t worry” (trivializes the disaster’s effects); “it could be worse, at least, you still have...” (providing false consolation); and “it’s God’s will” (when a person’s faith is shaken, this is probably the last thing he or she would want to hear.)
In no way shall a first-aid giver exert pressure on the other person to talk, or be disheartened by initial adverse reaction such as extreme emotions or refusal to communicate. He should not make grand promises (“the government will build you a new house!”), give false hopes (“your child is still alive and is recovering in the hospital” when the child is actually dead), or criticize relief efforts by other organizations.
In the end, the objective of psychological first aid is to occasion a feeling of safety, calm, connectedness, self-efficacy, and hope.
* * *
We often think relief always takes the form of noodles, canned goods, toiletry and other basic things contained in a plastic bag and distributed to the “poor” victims. That’s good for the first few weeks—remember the honeymoon period I mentioned in the first paragraph?—but beyond that, and after all the donations have been handed out, what else is left?
Continuing relief is just as important, Agcaoili says, and it does not always take the form of tangible, consumable goods. Psychological first aid, as well as the more advanced critical incidents stress debriefing, plays a big part in the recovery process and in the person’s total well-being. Most often, not everybody needs special attention. People just need to talk about their experience and heal, over time. It prevents them from feeling helpless and resorting to depending on doles all the time. It ensures that in time, they will be ready to prevent similar incidents or cope better if he cannot prevent them.
adellechua@gmail.com
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Getting dramatic over climate change
published 23 Nov 2009, Manila Standard Today
Students in colorful native costumes crowded Heroes Hall in Malacañang on Friday morning. There were dancers, singers, musicians who played tunes by blowing on used soft-drink bottles filled with varying amounts of water. A mural by an Isabela-based artist was unveiled. A woman from Palau rendered a native chant.
The event was not, per se, a cultural exhibition. During the multi-media summit on climate change, art was not an end in itself but a tool. For the rest of Climate Change Consciousness Week – November 19 to 25, according to Presidential Proclamation 1667 – a host of similar activities will supplement forums and discussions on the issue. The visual and performing arts are a force in fostering awareness, and beyond that social transformation and committed action. The National Commission for Culture and the Arts tries to popularize among citizens a concept that's highly technical – and downright scary.
Menacing prospects
There is a tipping point of irreversible climate change, the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Global Warming and Climate Change quotes scientists as saying. That will be the day when the level of greenhouse gases trapped in the atmosphere would be 450 parts per million, roughly by the year 2050. When this point is reached, a two-degree centigrade increase in global temperature will occur. Sea levels will rise by six to seven meters. Here in the Philippines, such an increase in sea levels will reduce the land areas of Mactan and Guimaras. Vast areas of Malabon, Navotas and Manila (including the newsroom at the Port Area where I write this column now), will be permanently under water.
Today the greenhouse level stands at 372 parts per million. Yet, even before the tipping point is reached, “creeping” climate change is already upon us. The 20 or so typhoons that visit us every year are getting stronger and more frequent, says Secretary Heherson Alvarez, the presidential adviser on climate change. Typhoons only used to average 120-140 kilometer per hour; now they are in the vicinity of 180-200 kph. There are unprecedented floods and landslides, as we so painfully know.
There are two approaches to climate change: mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation refers to acts and omissions that keep us from releasing more carbon into the atmosphere. Thus we push back the tipping point. On the other hand, adaptation refers to dealing with the effects of climate change – the disasters that we are seeing now – because, precisely, climate change is not just a looming prospect. It's already here.
Copenhagen and the Philippine position
Next month, world leaders will be gathering in Copenhagen, Denmark to negotiate a treaty to succeed the Kyoto protocol that sought to get countries of the world to cut emission targets, depending on their level of industrialization. Kyoto is expiring in 2012 and is largely viewed as inadequate, especially since the United States of America, the world's biggest economy and the second-largest carbon emitter (next to China) never ratified it.
President Barack Obama has indicated his country would walk the talk this time around. But will US senators, who ultimately have to pass legislation, back him up? Americans may not be too keen on cutting their emissions if it would crimp industrial output – especially in a recession. The Chinese, on the other hand, insist that America has had a big head start in getting rich by dumping carbon into the air. Why should China set its limits when its economy caught up only recently? Indeed it's going to be a political issue, Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, says. Let's just hope that for this one, concerns of the human race would be more important than each nation's output issues. Countries that stand to lose the most need all the help they can get from the real culprits.
This is the Philippines' clout and personality in the talks, never mind that we are a low-carbon emitter. The 1995 Manila Declaration,which brought together 38 countries most at risk from climate change, affirmed the extreme vulnerability of archipelagic and island-nations. (The woman who chanted was the Hon. Faustina Rehuher Marugg, minister of community and cultural affairs of Palau, a country which may just share the Philippines' fate in the long run.)
So in the Copenhagen talks, the Philippines, along with other vulnerable nations, will press for deep and early emission cuts by industrialized nations. Specifically, our team will press for cuts of at least 30 percent between 2013 and 2017, at least 50 percent between 2018 and 2020, and at least 95 percent by 2050, all from 1990 levels.
Then again, these are just demands, and like other multi-lateral talks, there will be plenty of haggling and power play. We hope the delegates do not get stalled by their national interests and forget that each day wasted on disagreement brings all of mankind a little closer to tipping point.
An administrative challenge
Alvarez says that if there was something the country realized from the disasters we've seen in recent years, it is that we sorely lack a national climate change action plan. These are extraordinary times and we should be on war footing against climate change, he says. All sectors must be mobilized.
Aside from his advisory office, Alvarez also oversees the reorganized Presidential Task Force on Climate Change,which the President chairs. These agencies will eventually be absorbed by the Climate Change Commission, created by Republic Act 9729, signed by the President just last October. He hopes that the commission will be able to craft a national blueprint for this extraordinary war.
Then again, some sectors say that there are already too many commissions under the Office of the President and that a department-level body is needed to ensure that any initiatives are sustained regardless of political developments. Alvarez agrees, and believes these gaps in the law will be addressed soon enough. For now the main challenge is to get the emerging agencies going, especially in the adaptations aspect, seeing how destructive recent disasters have been.
But is it possible to sustain the momentum, especially since the elections – and the circus that goes with it -- are just around the corner? The key here is to make commitment to the mitigation and adaptation to the effects of climate change an election issue. Since the would-be commission would be under the Office of the President, the next chief executive should be committed to the cause, lest it get taken over by the other equally pressing concerns of the presidency.
Will Alvarez himself seek an elective post next year? “Well, my party (Lakas-Kampi-CMD) is nominating me,” he says, “but I would rather stay here and focus on these emerging agencies.” He adds that while the country's position on mitigation is already pretty much settled, much work remains to be done on the adaptation front. These agencies need to be less reactive; they must be able to acquire the technological sophistication in order to anticipate what kind of disasters are likely to occur where, thus minimizing the damage to lives and property.
Then again, this is just another summit where well-crafted pledges and dramatic declarations are made. The celebration of climate change consciousness week and the passage of the law are crucial first steps that need to be followed through at every level to make them work. Climate change is not something you talk about and then forget. The threat won't go away – unless the whole world acts, and drastically.
And no, that's not being theatrical.
**
Readers' reactions:
Hello Adelle,
In just a few days from now, on December 7, 2009, the UN Climate Change Conference will be held in Copenhagen for government leaders to initiate programs that would forestall catastrophic disasters caused by unpredictable shifting of weather patterns.
The conferees are expected to discuss the recent severe floodings and landslides in the Philippines; the similar calamities in Bangladesh, Vietnam and even South America; the accelerating loss of ice sheets in Greenland and Antartica; the melting of glaciers and the reduced water supply during the dry months around the world.
All these environmental calamities are causing tremendous impact on our global health and safety, our food production, our security, not to mention the widespread of pests and diseases among our people.
Euro RSCG Worldwide, our mother communications agency, has partnered with Kofi Annan’s Global Humanitarian Foundation to campaign for climate justice. Our global CEO,
David Jones, has initiated the “Tck Tck Tck Time for Climate Justice” campaign, the biggest advocacy geared towards seeking a solution for climate change.
Euro RSCG employees, sister companies and clients are doing their part and are joining the biggest human clock that’s ticking down towards the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen on December 7. We would like to invite you, your family and your friends to join us in the campaign to save Planet Earth.
The clock is ticking. It’s about time we fought for the world. Please request your family, friends, and everyone in your network to upload their tck, and support the fight for climate justice. Let our voice be heard. Let us follow through with the decisions to be made this December in Copenhagen.
For now, I’d simply ask you to log on to www.timeforclimatejustice.org and join the world in waiting for the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December. Upload your 1 second tck video and be part of the world wide supporters of Climate Justice. You may also visit The Global Alliance for Climate Justice on Facebook.
Sincerely yours,
Charlie
Charlie A. Agatep
President & CEO Agatep Associates
Group Chairman Euro RSCG Manila
16th Floor Robinsons PCI Bank Tower,
ADB Avenue corner Poveda St,
Ortigas Center Pasig City 1600
Philippines
T [632] 638-6057 to 63
T (632) 631 7888
M +63 917 533 4596
E charlie.agatep@agatep.com
**
Good Morning Adelle,
I hope the Copenhagen leaders did not forget the effects of beef production and animal worship India has 1/3 of the global population of cattle.
Be Blessed!
Mario
Students in colorful native costumes crowded Heroes Hall in Malacañang on Friday morning. There were dancers, singers, musicians who played tunes by blowing on used soft-drink bottles filled with varying amounts of water. A mural by an Isabela-based artist was unveiled. A woman from Palau rendered a native chant.
The event was not, per se, a cultural exhibition. During the multi-media summit on climate change, art was not an end in itself but a tool. For the rest of Climate Change Consciousness Week – November 19 to 25, according to Presidential Proclamation 1667 – a host of similar activities will supplement forums and discussions on the issue. The visual and performing arts are a force in fostering awareness, and beyond that social transformation and committed action. The National Commission for Culture and the Arts tries to popularize among citizens a concept that's highly technical – and downright scary.
Menacing prospects
There is a tipping point of irreversible climate change, the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Global Warming and Climate Change quotes scientists as saying. That will be the day when the level of greenhouse gases trapped in the atmosphere would be 450 parts per million, roughly by the year 2050. When this point is reached, a two-degree centigrade increase in global temperature will occur. Sea levels will rise by six to seven meters. Here in the Philippines, such an increase in sea levels will reduce the land areas of Mactan and Guimaras. Vast areas of Malabon, Navotas and Manila (including the newsroom at the Port Area where I write this column now), will be permanently under water.
Today the greenhouse level stands at 372 parts per million. Yet, even before the tipping point is reached, “creeping” climate change is already upon us. The 20 or so typhoons that visit us every year are getting stronger and more frequent, says Secretary Heherson Alvarez, the presidential adviser on climate change. Typhoons only used to average 120-140 kilometer per hour; now they are in the vicinity of 180-200 kph. There are unprecedented floods and landslides, as we so painfully know.
There are two approaches to climate change: mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation refers to acts and omissions that keep us from releasing more carbon into the atmosphere. Thus we push back the tipping point. On the other hand, adaptation refers to dealing with the effects of climate change – the disasters that we are seeing now – because, precisely, climate change is not just a looming prospect. It's already here.
Copenhagen and the Philippine position
Next month, world leaders will be gathering in Copenhagen, Denmark to negotiate a treaty to succeed the Kyoto protocol that sought to get countries of the world to cut emission targets, depending on their level of industrialization. Kyoto is expiring in 2012 and is largely viewed as inadequate, especially since the United States of America, the world's biggest economy and the second-largest carbon emitter (next to China) never ratified it.
President Barack Obama has indicated his country would walk the talk this time around. But will US senators, who ultimately have to pass legislation, back him up? Americans may not be too keen on cutting their emissions if it would crimp industrial output – especially in a recession. The Chinese, on the other hand, insist that America has had a big head start in getting rich by dumping carbon into the air. Why should China set its limits when its economy caught up only recently? Indeed it's going to be a political issue, Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, says. Let's just hope that for this one, concerns of the human race would be more important than each nation's output issues. Countries that stand to lose the most need all the help they can get from the real culprits.
This is the Philippines' clout and personality in the talks, never mind that we are a low-carbon emitter. The 1995 Manila Declaration,which brought together 38 countries most at risk from climate change, affirmed the extreme vulnerability of archipelagic and island-nations. (The woman who chanted was the Hon. Faustina Rehuher Marugg, minister of community and cultural affairs of Palau, a country which may just share the Philippines' fate in the long run.)
So in the Copenhagen talks, the Philippines, along with other vulnerable nations, will press for deep and early emission cuts by industrialized nations. Specifically, our team will press for cuts of at least 30 percent between 2013 and 2017, at least 50 percent between 2018 and 2020, and at least 95 percent by 2050, all from 1990 levels.
Then again, these are just demands, and like other multi-lateral talks, there will be plenty of haggling and power play. We hope the delegates do not get stalled by their national interests and forget that each day wasted on disagreement brings all of mankind a little closer to tipping point.
An administrative challenge
Alvarez says that if there was something the country realized from the disasters we've seen in recent years, it is that we sorely lack a national climate change action plan. These are extraordinary times and we should be on war footing against climate change, he says. All sectors must be mobilized.
Aside from his advisory office, Alvarez also oversees the reorganized Presidential Task Force on Climate Change,which the President chairs. These agencies will eventually be absorbed by the Climate Change Commission, created by Republic Act 9729, signed by the President just last October. He hopes that the commission will be able to craft a national blueprint for this extraordinary war.
Then again, some sectors say that there are already too many commissions under the Office of the President and that a department-level body is needed to ensure that any initiatives are sustained regardless of political developments. Alvarez agrees, and believes these gaps in the law will be addressed soon enough. For now the main challenge is to get the emerging agencies going, especially in the adaptations aspect, seeing how destructive recent disasters have been.
But is it possible to sustain the momentum, especially since the elections – and the circus that goes with it -- are just around the corner? The key here is to make commitment to the mitigation and adaptation to the effects of climate change an election issue. Since the would-be commission would be under the Office of the President, the next chief executive should be committed to the cause, lest it get taken over by the other equally pressing concerns of the presidency.
Will Alvarez himself seek an elective post next year? “Well, my party (Lakas-Kampi-CMD) is nominating me,” he says, “but I would rather stay here and focus on these emerging agencies.” He adds that while the country's position on mitigation is already pretty much settled, much work remains to be done on the adaptation front. These agencies need to be less reactive; they must be able to acquire the technological sophistication in order to anticipate what kind of disasters are likely to occur where, thus minimizing the damage to lives and property.
Then again, this is just another summit where well-crafted pledges and dramatic declarations are made. The celebration of climate change consciousness week and the passage of the law are crucial first steps that need to be followed through at every level to make them work. Climate change is not something you talk about and then forget. The threat won't go away – unless the whole world acts, and drastically.
And no, that's not being theatrical.
**
Readers' reactions:
Hello Adelle,
In just a few days from now, on December 7, 2009, the UN Climate Change Conference will be held in Copenhagen for government leaders to initiate programs that would forestall catastrophic disasters caused by unpredictable shifting of weather patterns.
The conferees are expected to discuss the recent severe floodings and landslides in the Philippines; the similar calamities in Bangladesh, Vietnam and even South America; the accelerating loss of ice sheets in Greenland and Antartica; the melting of glaciers and the reduced water supply during the dry months around the world.
All these environmental calamities are causing tremendous impact on our global health and safety, our food production, our security, not to mention the widespread of pests and diseases among our people.
Euro RSCG Worldwide, our mother communications agency, has partnered with Kofi Annan’s Global Humanitarian Foundation to campaign for climate justice. Our global CEO,
David Jones, has initiated the “Tck Tck Tck Time for Climate Justice” campaign, the biggest advocacy geared towards seeking a solution for climate change.
Euro RSCG employees, sister companies and clients are doing their part and are joining the biggest human clock that’s ticking down towards the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen on December 7. We would like to invite you, your family and your friends to join us in the campaign to save Planet Earth.
The clock is ticking. It’s about time we fought for the world. Please request your family, friends, and everyone in your network to upload their tck, and support the fight for climate justice. Let our voice be heard. Let us follow through with the decisions to be made this December in Copenhagen.
For now, I’d simply ask you to log on to www.timeforclimatejustice.org and join the world in waiting for the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December. Upload your 1 second tck video and be part of the world wide supporters of Climate Justice. You may also visit The Global Alliance for Climate Justice on Facebook.
Sincerely yours,
Charlie
Charlie A. Agatep
President & CEO Agatep Associates
Group Chairman Euro RSCG Manila
16th Floor Robinsons PCI Bank Tower,
ADB Avenue corner Poveda St,
Ortigas Center Pasig City 1600
Philippines
T [632] 638-6057 to 63
T (632) 631 7888
M +63 917 533 4596
E charlie.agatep@agatep.com
**
Good Morning Adelle,
I hope the Copenhagen leaders did not forget the effects of beef production and animal worship India has 1/3 of the global population of cattle.
Be Blessed!
Mario
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Obstacle course
In the “About Me” section on the right side of this blog page, one of the adjectives I used to describe myself is “seasoned commuter.” It's a bad season, apparently.
I don't know if I'm getting old,or am becoming more defensive of my person,or if Manila's dangerous elements have just upped their ante. I'd been plying the Pier-Malanday jeepney route on the way home from work for three years now, and suddenly I'm scared. I realized it was not just the waist and back strain I get from lurching sideways aboard the jeep that I despised. My blog entry “Bothered” sums up the revulsion I feel towards a particular segment of the male population, and most of them board the jeep at some point along my route from the office. It does not help that about two or three months ago, the newsroom's chief proofreader, Judy May, was held up along Commonwealth Avenue, her hefty bag and all it contained taken from her. It was the 15th; fortunately her salary which she had just withdrawn was in the pocket of her jeans.
And just last Monday, along McArthur Highway which I thought I knew so well, just after BBB and right before Fatima, another jeep sent an SOS to ours. A hold-up was going on, and the passengers were trapped. We sped on, though, and honked furiously at a parked police car just a few meters ahead of us. When we got closer, we realized that the police car was empty. The policemen were standing some distance away from their car, on the lookout for big trucks and their suspicious cargo. We waved at them and pointed to the direction of the jeep where the hold-up was going on. Did they get the message? I don't know. I had to alight by then; I had reached my stop.
So by Tuesday night I was edgy. I am likewise careful about flagging cabs at that hour (I prefer two-colored ones with known franchises), and sometimes the drivers are so choosy that you want to slam the door on their faces after they have rejected you. Plus a ride would cost me a hundred and sixty, one way. (When you are a single mom, and wed to your career in the print media, whose rewards are many but certainly not financial, that's nothing to sneeze at.) That evening, around nine o clock, I decided it was safer to sit behind the driver rather than at the entrance. Two stocky men in black climbed up the front seat, beside the driver. Beside me was a gangster-type teenager, the kind with the oversize shirt, long fingernails, bling blings and a cap not worn but barely put top of head. At both sides of the entrance,two more men, one in gray and another in blue, were seated. One of them was looking at me, perhaps aware that I was observing everybody.
I tried to take it easy. They went on board maybe Blumentritt and there I was, debating whether I should alight or not. My late Lola used to say that I should follow my “kutob” (gut feel) all the time because it was likely right. But Rizal Avenue was itself only lighted in some points. IN others, it was also not safe aground. By that time I was already nauseous and had difficulty breathing. I wanted out.
On Second Avenue, Kalookan, I did, at the first well-lighted corner. (I realized later that it was lighted because it was a motel and there was a beer house and a life-size image of Marian Rivera holding a beer bucket). I flagged another jeep but noticed all the passengers were male and so shooed it away. Finally, a nice looking cab and a harmless looking old driver stopped in front of me like an angel to the rescue. The smell of the car's interior (it was new,and there were no fancy air fresheners) seemed like the scent of heaven. A safe haven. I fished out my cell phone and shared my predicament with a friend, M.
M listened patiently as I recounted my ordeal over lunch the following day. He suggested I take the train instead. That one was always an option, but since it was such a hassle, I never took it except when it was raining and Recto and R. Papa were flooded.
I tried the train indeed. The two very short jeepney rides (from Pier to Carriedo Station,and from Monumento station to Fatima) did not expose me much to the risks of the route. The only problem was that even at that hour,, the crowd was impossible. The coaches were jampacked. Fortunately, there was a separate section for men and women. So even though I felt like a fish in an overcrowded can of sardines, it was tolerable because all those women were not foreign and threatening to me. They were, like I was, moms tired from work racing to get home to their children – and to the comfort of their beds.
This is not to say it was a fabulous ride. It was not. But it was less unpleasant. There were also all sorts of goodies in Monumento. Apples, oranges, boiled corn, pillow cases, stuffed animals, garlic, onions etcetera etcetera. A feast for the eyes.
The really redeeming part was that I was home just an hour after leaving the office. I may have found a new route home. That is, until that fine day that I can afford a vehicle of my own. THAT would be another challenge.
I don't know if I'm getting old,or am becoming more defensive of my person,or if Manila's dangerous elements have just upped their ante. I'd been plying the Pier-Malanday jeepney route on the way home from work for three years now, and suddenly I'm scared. I realized it was not just the waist and back strain I get from lurching sideways aboard the jeep that I despised. My blog entry “Bothered” sums up the revulsion I feel towards a particular segment of the male population, and most of them board the jeep at some point along my route from the office. It does not help that about two or three months ago, the newsroom's chief proofreader, Judy May, was held up along Commonwealth Avenue, her hefty bag and all it contained taken from her. It was the 15th; fortunately her salary which she had just withdrawn was in the pocket of her jeans.
And just last Monday, along McArthur Highway which I thought I knew so well, just after BBB and right before Fatima, another jeep sent an SOS to ours. A hold-up was going on, and the passengers were trapped. We sped on, though, and honked furiously at a parked police car just a few meters ahead of us. When we got closer, we realized that the police car was empty. The policemen were standing some distance away from their car, on the lookout for big trucks and their suspicious cargo. We waved at them and pointed to the direction of the jeep where the hold-up was going on. Did they get the message? I don't know. I had to alight by then; I had reached my stop.
So by Tuesday night I was edgy. I am likewise careful about flagging cabs at that hour (I prefer two-colored ones with known franchises), and sometimes the drivers are so choosy that you want to slam the door on their faces after they have rejected you. Plus a ride would cost me a hundred and sixty, one way. (When you are a single mom, and wed to your career in the print media, whose rewards are many but certainly not financial, that's nothing to sneeze at.) That evening, around nine o clock, I decided it was safer to sit behind the driver rather than at the entrance. Two stocky men in black climbed up the front seat, beside the driver. Beside me was a gangster-type teenager, the kind with the oversize shirt, long fingernails, bling blings and a cap not worn but barely put top of head. At both sides of the entrance,two more men, one in gray and another in blue, were seated. One of them was looking at me, perhaps aware that I was observing everybody.
I tried to take it easy. They went on board maybe Blumentritt and there I was, debating whether I should alight or not. My late Lola used to say that I should follow my “kutob” (gut feel) all the time because it was likely right. But Rizal Avenue was itself only lighted in some points. IN others, it was also not safe aground. By that time I was already nauseous and had difficulty breathing. I wanted out.
On Second Avenue, Kalookan, I did, at the first well-lighted corner. (I realized later that it was lighted because it was a motel and there was a beer house and a life-size image of Marian Rivera holding a beer bucket). I flagged another jeep but noticed all the passengers were male and so shooed it away. Finally, a nice looking cab and a harmless looking old driver stopped in front of me like an angel to the rescue. The smell of the car's interior (it was new,and there were no fancy air fresheners) seemed like the scent of heaven. A safe haven. I fished out my cell phone and shared my predicament with a friend, M.
M listened patiently as I recounted my ordeal over lunch the following day. He suggested I take the train instead. That one was always an option, but since it was such a hassle, I never took it except when it was raining and Recto and R. Papa were flooded.
I tried the train indeed. The two very short jeepney rides (from Pier to Carriedo Station,and from Monumento station to Fatima) did not expose me much to the risks of the route. The only problem was that even at that hour,, the crowd was impossible. The coaches were jampacked. Fortunately, there was a separate section for men and women. So even though I felt like a fish in an overcrowded can of sardines, it was tolerable because all those women were not foreign and threatening to me. They were, like I was, moms tired from work racing to get home to their children – and to the comfort of their beds.
This is not to say it was a fabulous ride. It was not. But it was less unpleasant. There were also all sorts of goodies in Monumento. Apples, oranges, boiled corn, pillow cases, stuffed animals, garlic, onions etcetera etcetera. A feast for the eyes.
The really redeeming part was that I was home just an hour after leaving the office. I may have found a new route home. That is, until that fine day that I can afford a vehicle of my own. THAT would be another challenge.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Ship of the young
(photo courtesy of MST's Lino Santos. So I was on board a big ship -- while it was docked. Next time I'll make sure I'll be sailing on one.)
published 16 Nov 2009, Manila Standard Today
On Thursday morning at 10 o clock, MS Fuji Maru docked into Pier 13 of the South Harbor in Manila. The Japanese ship had on board a curious group of people. Aside from the usual crew who actually get the ship to sail and stay on course, the bulk of the passengers were between the ages of 18 and 30. There were more than 300 of them, 39 from Japan and 28 each from Indonesia,Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and yes, Myanmar.
The journey started in Japan where the participating youths (PYs, as they call themselves) went through a two-week orientation and country program. They were acquainted with their co-participants both from their home countries and their counterparts from other countries. They paid courtesy calls to Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and to the prince and princess. They went around Japan and were educated on Japanese culture and system.
This year, Manila is the first stop of the Ship for Southeast Asian Youth, the 36th since the very first ship sailed in 1974. The participating youths stayed four days here and left yesterday, Sunday, to sail again for Malaysia. Another four days there, and then it's off to Singapore, and then Thailand,and then Brunei. On December 17 the ship is expected to return to Japan where it started. The program lasts 53 days.
Is it a cruise, an extended party? Sure it is, but its more than that. The SSEAYP is conducted by the government of Japan pursuant to its effort to forge closer ties with member-countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. On board the ship and in the various ports of call in the host countries are activities organized to provide participants with the best opportunities in all aspects-- cultural,political, social.
It's not as though the participants will be there to simply soak up everything the program has to offer, either. These young people are themselves achievers to begin with in their chosen fields. They are student leaders and professionals who have shown great potential in their respective areas. The best of the best, so to speak. After all, the activities are so designed to enable the participants to learn not just from the experience but from interacting with one another. The PYs must have something to bring to the table as well.
On board the ship, the participants are divided into eleven groups called Solidarity Groups). There are country introductions,club and other activities to better acquaint the PYs with the traditions and cultures of their counterparts. There are film festivals, sports competitions and food parties. Aside from these social interactions, discussion programs take up most of the participants' time. They talk about cross-cultural understanding, environment,food culture/food and nutrition education, international relations, school education, traditional culture,volunteer activities and youth development. They come up with conclusions, recommendations in a paper and present these to the whole group.
Upon stopping at each of the host countries, two or three Pys (from different countries) are adopted by local families for three days and two nights. This is called the homestay program. The participants also pay courtesy calls to ranking government officials, attend welcome/ send-off ceremonies and visit institutions in the field of education, culture,social welfare. Last year's participants visited two television stations, two universities, a city hall, a museum, the central bank, the Supreme Court, the Cultural Center of the Philippines and a Gawad Kalinga community in the Baseco compound.
**
Ariel Miguel Ortilla, 21, from Quezon City and Norianne Lou Frondoza, 28, from Central Mindanao are two of the participating youths in this year's program. In a press conference just after the ship's arrival at the Manila South Harbor, they narrated how they heard about the program, how they submitted their applications and what their expectations were for the next few weeks. They believe they will be better Filipinos, better participants in regional and world affairs – and better individuals.
“SSEAYP means different things to different participants,” writes Anna Oposa, a 2008 PY, in the newsletter of the National Youth Commission (www.youth.net.ph), the agency behind the Philippine participation in the program. “It was a perfect balance of learning, fun and adventure.”
Balance is apparently the key word. The commission is the agency that accepts and evaluates applications from those who want to participate in the program. It tries to give equal opportunities to male and female applicants from all regions in the country. There is also an attempt to ensure there are as many 18 year olds as there were twenty-somethings or those pushing thirty.
“Today's young people are decidedly more outspoken,” says Tomoko Dodo, who was an administrative staff for the SSEAYP in the 1970s. Now she is on board the ship again, at least as it docked in Manila, in her capacity as director of the Japan Information and Cultural Center. “Fortunately there are also better ways to keep in touch,” referring to the Internet and the mobile phone.
Keeping in touch, after all, has been part of the post-SSEAYP experience. One would like to know how people you have spent fifty-something days on a ship with eventually turned out. Lifelong friendships are formed, but there are also alumni groups and other means to track how former PYs have gone on after the program and as they progressed in their careers. The participants are likely to emerge as their country's next decision-makers. It is good for them to gain a regional perspective and appreciate similarities and differences between Filipinos and other peoples.
They say that if you want to know where a country is going, you should look at the faces of its youth. Are they grim, detached, disillusioned? Or are they committed, optimistic?
“We can't wait for what the world has in store,” Oposa says, “We can't wait for what we can give the world as well.”
Imagine if only more young people in the Philippines and Asia – not just the best of the best – can be empowered to rise above the constraints of poverty, lack of education, ill governance and armed conflict and embrace this enthusiasm, too.
Mrs. Complex
“Talent is universal, opportunity is not.”
Will you not be fascinated by a woman who has forgiven her husband after a very high-profile indiscretion (several, actually), and who has accepted a job where a former opponent is now her boss? Who has lived through the suicide of her best (male) friend and tried to redefine the role of first lady, and, failing, receded to the background?
Such a person would have to be made of tough stuff. That's how I view Hillary Clinton, and that's why I spent Friday morning watching the televised university forum where she talked to young Filipinos who asked her questions ranging from international relations to her girlhood crushes.
She could be terse-looking if she wanted, or needed to, but Mrs. Clinton was as sunny as that morning. ABS-CBN scored the exclusive, so its top anchors were onstage alongside the secretary, three others were scattered in the auditorium while two others were in colleges in the Visayas and Mindanao. Ah, technology. Though the event was held at the UST, the country's other leading universities were represented.
A whirlwind, her visit has been described, and it was true She was here for only twenty four hours, and in that time managed to visit a flood-ravaged school in Marikina, have dinner with the president, grace the forum and lay a wreath at the memorial for war veterans. Was it enough? It appears so. Hillary was already a senior citizen but she was till charming; it is hard to imagine any other from the US government eclipsing her presence. Governor Arnold Schwarenegger, perhaps, or Barack and Michelle Obama. Other than that, Hillary was a star.
She told basketball player Chris Tiu : “Of course the Pac-man's going to win!” She said he was impressed at how the Philippine government has been working to address poverty. Diplomacy at its best? Maybe, but at least she tried to take off the pressure from the government. “People themselves have to take responsibility and organize themselves.”
Hillary had several other nuggets that were a far cry from the lofty motherhood statements – to which you could not relate – mouthed by our politicians. Aside from telling the people not to rely on government all the time, she also offered her view on how to take on a seemingly overwhelming problem: individual solutions. “Mentor a poor child. Change one life at a time.”
Again, diplomacy, when asked about alleged human rights violations by the government specifically the Armed Forces. “It is not perfect here as it is not perfect in other places.” And when Pinky Webb wanted to know whether President Arroyo intimated to her the former's plans for next year's election, Mrs. Clinton said they dealt with each other from administration to administration. In effect, that she saw Mrs. Arroyo as the head of this administration, not as a politician. In other words, it's none of her business. Still, she hinted that she saw Arroyo as on her way out. “It's easier to make decisions when you are on your way out.”
Clinton made her position on other world issues clear. On the dilemma between free trade and protectionism. Myanmar. Armed conflict. Corruption. Automation. Climate change. Migration. These were complex issues but she managed to articulate her views succintly. She connected well with the young folks,who were in that hall and elsewhere.
It helped, I guess,that the young people were a little starstruck with the woman who spoke candidly about her failed nomination as the presidential bet of the Democratic Party. IN the end, what made the forum a success was her willingness to take on complex questions as well as personal ones. And as she waved goodbye to the adoring crowd (adoring anchors,as well) I wondered what the complex Mrs. Clinton was REALLY thinking at that very hour.
Will you not be fascinated by a woman who has forgiven her husband after a very high-profile indiscretion (several, actually), and who has accepted a job where a former opponent is now her boss? Who has lived through the suicide of her best (male) friend and tried to redefine the role of first lady, and, failing, receded to the background?
Such a person would have to be made of tough stuff. That's how I view Hillary Clinton, and that's why I spent Friday morning watching the televised university forum where she talked to young Filipinos who asked her questions ranging from international relations to her girlhood crushes.
She could be terse-looking if she wanted, or needed to, but Mrs. Clinton was as sunny as that morning. ABS-CBN scored the exclusive, so its top anchors were onstage alongside the secretary, three others were scattered in the auditorium while two others were in colleges in the Visayas and Mindanao. Ah, technology. Though the event was held at the UST, the country's other leading universities were represented.
A whirlwind, her visit has been described, and it was true She was here for only twenty four hours, and in that time managed to visit a flood-ravaged school in Marikina, have dinner with the president, grace the forum and lay a wreath at the memorial for war veterans. Was it enough? It appears so. Hillary was already a senior citizen but she was till charming; it is hard to imagine any other from the US government eclipsing her presence. Governor Arnold Schwarenegger, perhaps, or Barack and Michelle Obama. Other than that, Hillary was a star.
She told basketball player Chris Tiu : “Of course the Pac-man's going to win!” She said he was impressed at how the Philippine government has been working to address poverty. Diplomacy at its best? Maybe, but at least she tried to take off the pressure from the government. “People themselves have to take responsibility and organize themselves.”
Hillary had several other nuggets that were a far cry from the lofty motherhood statements – to which you could not relate – mouthed by our politicians. Aside from telling the people not to rely on government all the time, she also offered her view on how to take on a seemingly overwhelming problem: individual solutions. “Mentor a poor child. Change one life at a time.”
Again, diplomacy, when asked about alleged human rights violations by the government specifically the Armed Forces. “It is not perfect here as it is not perfect in other places.” And when Pinky Webb wanted to know whether President Arroyo intimated to her the former's plans for next year's election, Mrs. Clinton said they dealt with each other from administration to administration. In effect, that she saw Mrs. Arroyo as the head of this administration, not as a politician. In other words, it's none of her business. Still, she hinted that she saw Arroyo as on her way out. “It's easier to make decisions when you are on your way out.”
Clinton made her position on other world issues clear. On the dilemma between free trade and protectionism. Myanmar. Armed conflict. Corruption. Automation. Climate change. Migration. These were complex issues but she managed to articulate her views succintly. She connected well with the young folks,who were in that hall and elsewhere.
It helped, I guess,that the young people were a little starstruck with the woman who spoke candidly about her failed nomination as the presidential bet of the Democratic Party. IN the end, what made the forum a success was her willingness to take on complex questions as well as personal ones. And as she waved goodbye to the adoring crowd (adoring anchors,as well) I wondered what the complex Mrs. Clinton was REALLY thinking at that very hour.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
The commission on morals
It was still, in all honesty, probably a long shot. I am talking about the application for party-list accreditation of Ang Ladlad, the group that seeks to represent the Filipino lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in Congress. Headed by the fuschia barong-sporting Danton Remoto, professor of English at the Ateneo de Manila University, Ang Ladlad already sought to be recognized – and failed – in 007. It tried again, for next year's polls,but a recent resolution by the Commission on Elections dashed the group's dreams anew.
Admittedly this country is not ready for such an edgy step. The Catholic church here remains a force – for good or for otherwise is debatable,of course, as that BBC debate I wrote about shows – to be reckoned with. There is no question with Jesus Christ, who is Lord and Savior and Healer and Comforter all at the same time. But the church officials, or at least some of whom we see on tv, pontificating, are a different thing altogether. They are almighty, unforgiving,absolute. They will scare the hooves out of you with the talk of eternal damnation. (I have yet to be enticed by the thought of eternal life. It sounds so...boring. like Twittering without the 140-character limit. I try to be a good girl for the here and now. But that's another entry.) See how they have stymied the passage of the reproductive health bill, despite its urgency? We're talking lives here, talking choices. And the politicians are mighty scared.
Ladlad tried, nonetheless, even though the prospect of success was grim at this point. It was determined to fight on. Ten, twenty years from now,who knows? Things change. Perceptions widen. But what got the LGBT community's goat was the basis of dismissal of its petition for accreditation: moral grounds.
And no, it was not the Catholic Bishops conference of the Philippines or any other denomination that heard and decided Ladlad's case. It was the Commission on Elections, specifically the second division which is composed of Commissioner Lucenito Tagle and two others.
According to the Comelec, Ladlad tolerates AND advocates immorality which offends religious beliefs. The commission proceeds to quoting several verses from the New Testament and the words of one Lehman Strauss in Homosexuality: The Christian Perspective. The resolution also lifts from The Muslim View of Homosexuality by Roy Waller.
Strauss also says “older practicing homosexuals are a threat to the youth.” the commission apparently believes him hook line and sinker because it proceeded to cite the provision of the Constitution mandating the state to protect the youth from moral and spiritual degradation.
We often complain of the Church stepping into the bounds of government. What's happening is the other way around, a government agency trying to act as the moral guardian of it's people. I am sure th commissioners who decided on the case belonged to another generation, a generation that saw homosexuality as an aberration, a sickness that must be cured. Are they at fault or are they simply prisoners of their time? The problem is they have a choice to set themselves free. Are they embracing that choice? Do they even know they have it?
I'm biased, of course. I grew up with a gay father figure, Papa Edwin, who was my mother's youngest brother. Danton himself was my professor at the Ateneo and Reader of my senior thesis (he gave me two As). I have gay and lesbian friends. Without these circumstances, will I be any less forgiving? I don't think so.
The Comelec should have restrained itself from making moral judgments. Who's to say what's moral and immoral? If it had wanted to deny Ang Ladlad its accreditation,it should have simply pointed out that the group did not represent a marginalized sector of society. The discourse was utterly uncalled for.
Admittedly this country is not ready for such an edgy step. The Catholic church here remains a force – for good or for otherwise is debatable,of course, as that BBC debate I wrote about shows – to be reckoned with. There is no question with Jesus Christ, who is Lord and Savior and Healer and Comforter all at the same time. But the church officials, or at least some of whom we see on tv, pontificating, are a different thing altogether. They are almighty, unforgiving,absolute. They will scare the hooves out of you with the talk of eternal damnation. (I have yet to be enticed by the thought of eternal life. It sounds so...boring. like Twittering without the 140-character limit. I try to be a good girl for the here and now. But that's another entry.) See how they have stymied the passage of the reproductive health bill, despite its urgency? We're talking lives here, talking choices. And the politicians are mighty scared.
Ladlad tried, nonetheless, even though the prospect of success was grim at this point. It was determined to fight on. Ten, twenty years from now,who knows? Things change. Perceptions widen. But what got the LGBT community's goat was the basis of dismissal of its petition for accreditation: moral grounds.
And no, it was not the Catholic Bishops conference of the Philippines or any other denomination that heard and decided Ladlad's case. It was the Commission on Elections, specifically the second division which is composed of Commissioner Lucenito Tagle and two others.
According to the Comelec, Ladlad tolerates AND advocates immorality which offends religious beliefs. The commission proceeds to quoting several verses from the New Testament and the words of one Lehman Strauss in Homosexuality: The Christian Perspective. The resolution also lifts from The Muslim View of Homosexuality by Roy Waller.
Strauss also says “older practicing homosexuals are a threat to the youth.” the commission apparently believes him hook line and sinker because it proceeded to cite the provision of the Constitution mandating the state to protect the youth from moral and spiritual degradation.
We often complain of the Church stepping into the bounds of government. What's happening is the other way around, a government agency trying to act as the moral guardian of it's people. I am sure th commissioners who decided on the case belonged to another generation, a generation that saw homosexuality as an aberration, a sickness that must be cured. Are they at fault or are they simply prisoners of their time? The problem is they have a choice to set themselves free. Are they embracing that choice? Do they even know they have it?
I'm biased, of course. I grew up with a gay father figure, Papa Edwin, who was my mother's youngest brother. Danton himself was my professor at the Ateneo and Reader of my senior thesis (he gave me two As). I have gay and lesbian friends. Without these circumstances, will I be any less forgiving? I don't think so.
The Comelec should have restrained itself from making moral judgments. Who's to say what's moral and immoral? If it had wanted to deny Ang Ladlad its accreditation,it should have simply pointed out that the group did not represent a marginalized sector of society. The discourse was utterly uncalled for.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Doing away with mercury
published 9 Nov 2009, MST
When I was a kid I had this toy, a maze enclosed in hard transparent plastic, which you had to tilt up or down or sidewards so that a droplet of liquid could find its way through the broken lines and corners. I remember being fascinated with the beautiful silvery-white bead as it moved to find its way through my puzzle. Later I learned that the bead was called mercury, although another term, quicksilver, was more descriptive.
It is the same thing found in thermometers and sphygmomanometers (blood-pressure checking device). Mercury easily reacts to changes in temperature and pressure, hence its use in these instruments. But when these instruments break, and the mercury is released into the air, that’s where the danger begins.
“Mercury is toxic,” says the World Health Organization in a policy paper, “It may be fatal if inhaled and harmful if absorbed through the skin. Around 80 percent of the inhaled mercury vapor is absorbed in the blood through the lungs. It may cause harmful effects on the nervous, digestive, respiratory, immune systems and to the kidneys, besides causing lung damage. Adverse health effects from mercury exposure can be: tremors, impaired vision and hearing, paralysis, insomnia, emotional instability, deficits during fetal development, and attention deficits and developmental delays during childhood.’’ In 1991, the WHO conclude that a safe level of mercury exposure, below which no adverse effects can be had, had never been established.
There has been an international effort to ban mercury-containing thermometers and sphygmomanometers in Swedish, French, Danish, Norwegian and American hospitals since the early 1990s. Initiatives in Southeast Asia came much later, in 2006,with the first Southeast Asia Conference on Mercury in Health Care. Here in the Philippines, the Health Department released Administrative Order 21 in July 2008. The order established guidelines for the gradual phase out of mercury in all Philippine health care institutions.
The AO mandates all hospitals to immediately discontinue the distribution of mercury thermometers to patients, stick to the prescribed timeline in phasing out mercury in their facilities and undertake a mercury minimization program.
***
Faye Ferrer, program officer for Southeast Asia for Healthcare Without Harm—a Virginia, USA-based international non-government organization that seeks to “implement ecologically sound and healthy alternatives to health care practices that pollute the environment and contribute to disease”—says the Philippine situation is unique because of the popularity of mercury-based thermometers here. In hospitals, for instance, there is an almost 1:1 ratio of beds to thermometers. Once the patient goes home, he is given a kit which includes a thermometer. These are also available over the counter.
Ferrer describes mercury as a “traitor.” It is widely used in hospitals and households, it is odorless and beautiful to look at. You would not think it is toxic. She recalls the mercury-poisoning case in St. Andrew’s School in Parañaque City in 2006. The teacher, who should have known better, passed a beaker containing mercury to the class. The unsuspecting children were fascinated with the substance’s properties. Soon members of that class had to be rushed to the hospital and one of them now has an advanced case of Alzheimer’s disease. “How can you ever compensate for a future that has been lost?” Ferrer asks.
Mercury poisoning is not limited to people who come in contact with the element. The moment it is released into the air, it travels and eventually collects in waterways. Some people who have been exposed to mercury do not manifest the symptoms, but it is their children who do.
Still, Ferrer credits the Health Department, especially Secretary Francisco Duque, for its commitment to the phase-out program, which targets all hospitals to be mercury-free by the end of 2010. Hospitals, both public and private, have generally been compliant to the drive. Healthcare Without Harm has recognized 16 hospitals (one in General Santos, one in Tuguegarao, two in Baguio and 12 in Metro Manila) for their phaseout efforts. Other hospitals are not doing so bad, either. It helps that the Health Department has set complying with the AO as a condition to the issuance or the renewal of licenses to operate.
But the phaseout is just part of a comprehensive program to stamp out mercury in health care settings. Ultimately, there is really no place to dump all the mercury that has been rounded up. Certainly it cannot be mixed with other waste materials. It cannot be destroyed, too, without exponentially raising the dangers. Last month, HCWH gathered stakeholders to a forum that sought to resolve the issue of an intermediate storage facility for mercury.
The Environment Department is expected to set up the guidelines for long-term collection and storage of mercury phased out from health care facilities. But the department is already saddled with too many responsibilities (and constrained by limited funds) so that it argues that there is no need to establish new guidelines for mercury. It already has a Chemical Control Order for Mercury and Mercury Compounds (Administrative Order 38, series of 1997). The Department’s representatives, however, concede that the control order needs review and expansion. There will be more talks to settle this issue.
For now the more pressing concern is educating citizens on what to do if their mercury-based thermometers break. Hospital staff already know what to do. They are provided with “spill kits” that would enable them to put away the mercury safely. What about households? Not everybody is aware, in the first place, that mercury is toxic and that it is not safe to treat a broken fever gauge as you would a discarded pen.
Here is the prescribed how-to: The area should be evacuated and internal ventilation should be turned off. Use a face mask to avoid inhaling mercury vapor. Use clothes and shoes that can be discarded. Remove all jewelry as mercury sticks to metal. Put on rubber or latex gloves. Identify the affected surface and locate the mercury beads. Use an eye dropper or a needle-less syringe to draw up the beads. Use sticky tape to collect hard-to-see beads. Place everything in a zip-lock bag. Gather every item used in the clean-up in a leak-proof bag, label it and put it way. Finally, keep the affected area ventilated to the outside for at least 24 hours. Do NOT use a vacuum cleaner. If it’s a sphygmomanometer that broke, contact the Health Department immediately, This is so because there is a bigger amount of mercury involved.
Although digital thermometers and sphygmomanometers are gaining popularity, mercury based ones are still very much in the market. Why, a few months ago I was able to get one from Mercury (a coincidence, I suppose) Drug. It is hoped that the campaign for the phaseout of mercury will kill the demand, and soon.
We have yet to hear about other sectors’ own efforts to stamp out this deadly element’s use. Workers in small-scale mining communities who are exposed to mercury for prolonged periods are unfortunate because it is highly likely they aren’t even aware of the perils of their job. Do they have a choice? What protection and livelihood alternatives does their local government give them?
On the other hand, the Philippine Dental Association has said it was no longer using mercury-based dental amalgams for aesthetic purposes, according to Ferrer. Nonetheless, in dental missions to far-flung rural communities, this kind of “pasta” is still the most popular. Again, ignorance and lack of access to alternatives are the main problems.
As for my toy, I honestly don’t know what became of it. I’ve transferred houses at least four times since and I don’t remember bringing the maze with me. Even if it’s a long shot, I’m hoping that it has not been broken and then somebody who knows about mercury’s real ugly nature finds it and puts it away the proper way.
adellechua@gmail.com
**
Readers' Reactions
from George Hodghes III
If you are interested in mass exposure to mercury, look at the CFL lights being used both in residences and in workplaces. The disposal situation is also a problem.
**
It is a good one. More reasoned writing. Some of our reporters,
reporter writes at the top of their mouths. Some seem to be
just feeling [filling] space.
Max Fabella
**
Adelle, I am a toxicologist with the health department in Michigan in the US and saw your article/editorial on the Internet. I often help people who have had mercury spills and thought you and others might be interested in a video about mercury vapors that was made by the US EPA and a university here in the states. You can view the video at our website: www.michigan.gov/mercury . There is a link on the opening page for the video. If you'd like, I can mail you a CD of it too. Thank you for educating people on the dangers of this metal.
Christina Bush, Toxicologist
Michigan Department of Community Health
Bureau of Epidemiology
Division of Environmental Health
Toxicology and Response Section
Capitol View Building, 4th Floor
201 Townsend Street
Lansing, MI 48913
BUSHCR@michigan.gov
www.michigan.gov/mdch-toxics
V (517) 335-9717
Toll Free 1-(800) 648-6942 ("MI TOXIC")
F (517) 335-9775
When I was a kid I had this toy, a maze enclosed in hard transparent plastic, which you had to tilt up or down or sidewards so that a droplet of liquid could find its way through the broken lines and corners. I remember being fascinated with the beautiful silvery-white bead as it moved to find its way through my puzzle. Later I learned that the bead was called mercury, although another term, quicksilver, was more descriptive.
It is the same thing found in thermometers and sphygmomanometers (blood-pressure checking device). Mercury easily reacts to changes in temperature and pressure, hence its use in these instruments. But when these instruments break, and the mercury is released into the air, that’s where the danger begins.
“Mercury is toxic,” says the World Health Organization in a policy paper, “It may be fatal if inhaled and harmful if absorbed through the skin. Around 80 percent of the inhaled mercury vapor is absorbed in the blood through the lungs. It may cause harmful effects on the nervous, digestive, respiratory, immune systems and to the kidneys, besides causing lung damage. Adverse health effects from mercury exposure can be: tremors, impaired vision and hearing, paralysis, insomnia, emotional instability, deficits during fetal development, and attention deficits and developmental delays during childhood.’’ In 1991, the WHO conclude that a safe level of mercury exposure, below which no adverse effects can be had, had never been established.
There has been an international effort to ban mercury-containing thermometers and sphygmomanometers in Swedish, French, Danish, Norwegian and American hospitals since the early 1990s. Initiatives in Southeast Asia came much later, in 2006,with the first Southeast Asia Conference on Mercury in Health Care. Here in the Philippines, the Health Department released Administrative Order 21 in July 2008. The order established guidelines for the gradual phase out of mercury in all Philippine health care institutions.
The AO mandates all hospitals to immediately discontinue the distribution of mercury thermometers to patients, stick to the prescribed timeline in phasing out mercury in their facilities and undertake a mercury minimization program.
***
Faye Ferrer, program officer for Southeast Asia for Healthcare Without Harm—a Virginia, USA-based international non-government organization that seeks to “implement ecologically sound and healthy alternatives to health care practices that pollute the environment and contribute to disease”—says the Philippine situation is unique because of the popularity of mercury-based thermometers here. In hospitals, for instance, there is an almost 1:1 ratio of beds to thermometers. Once the patient goes home, he is given a kit which includes a thermometer. These are also available over the counter.
Ferrer describes mercury as a “traitor.” It is widely used in hospitals and households, it is odorless and beautiful to look at. You would not think it is toxic. She recalls the mercury-poisoning case in St. Andrew’s School in Parañaque City in 2006. The teacher, who should have known better, passed a beaker containing mercury to the class. The unsuspecting children were fascinated with the substance’s properties. Soon members of that class had to be rushed to the hospital and one of them now has an advanced case of Alzheimer’s disease. “How can you ever compensate for a future that has been lost?” Ferrer asks.
Mercury poisoning is not limited to people who come in contact with the element. The moment it is released into the air, it travels and eventually collects in waterways. Some people who have been exposed to mercury do not manifest the symptoms, but it is their children who do.
Still, Ferrer credits the Health Department, especially Secretary Francisco Duque, for its commitment to the phase-out program, which targets all hospitals to be mercury-free by the end of 2010. Hospitals, both public and private, have generally been compliant to the drive. Healthcare Without Harm has recognized 16 hospitals (one in General Santos, one in Tuguegarao, two in Baguio and 12 in Metro Manila) for their phaseout efforts. Other hospitals are not doing so bad, either. It helps that the Health Department has set complying with the AO as a condition to the issuance or the renewal of licenses to operate.
But the phaseout is just part of a comprehensive program to stamp out mercury in health care settings. Ultimately, there is really no place to dump all the mercury that has been rounded up. Certainly it cannot be mixed with other waste materials. It cannot be destroyed, too, without exponentially raising the dangers. Last month, HCWH gathered stakeholders to a forum that sought to resolve the issue of an intermediate storage facility for mercury.
The Environment Department is expected to set up the guidelines for long-term collection and storage of mercury phased out from health care facilities. But the department is already saddled with too many responsibilities (and constrained by limited funds) so that it argues that there is no need to establish new guidelines for mercury. It already has a Chemical Control Order for Mercury and Mercury Compounds (Administrative Order 38, series of 1997). The Department’s representatives, however, concede that the control order needs review and expansion. There will be more talks to settle this issue.
For now the more pressing concern is educating citizens on what to do if their mercury-based thermometers break. Hospital staff already know what to do. They are provided with “spill kits” that would enable them to put away the mercury safely. What about households? Not everybody is aware, in the first place, that mercury is toxic and that it is not safe to treat a broken fever gauge as you would a discarded pen.
Here is the prescribed how-to: The area should be evacuated and internal ventilation should be turned off. Use a face mask to avoid inhaling mercury vapor. Use clothes and shoes that can be discarded. Remove all jewelry as mercury sticks to metal. Put on rubber or latex gloves. Identify the affected surface and locate the mercury beads. Use an eye dropper or a needle-less syringe to draw up the beads. Use sticky tape to collect hard-to-see beads. Place everything in a zip-lock bag. Gather every item used in the clean-up in a leak-proof bag, label it and put it way. Finally, keep the affected area ventilated to the outside for at least 24 hours. Do NOT use a vacuum cleaner. If it’s a sphygmomanometer that broke, contact the Health Department immediately, This is so because there is a bigger amount of mercury involved.
Although digital thermometers and sphygmomanometers are gaining popularity, mercury based ones are still very much in the market. Why, a few months ago I was able to get one from Mercury (a coincidence, I suppose) Drug. It is hoped that the campaign for the phaseout of mercury will kill the demand, and soon.
We have yet to hear about other sectors’ own efforts to stamp out this deadly element’s use. Workers in small-scale mining communities who are exposed to mercury for prolonged periods are unfortunate because it is highly likely they aren’t even aware of the perils of their job. Do they have a choice? What protection and livelihood alternatives does their local government give them?
On the other hand, the Philippine Dental Association has said it was no longer using mercury-based dental amalgams for aesthetic purposes, according to Ferrer. Nonetheless, in dental missions to far-flung rural communities, this kind of “pasta” is still the most popular. Again, ignorance and lack of access to alternatives are the main problems.
As for my toy, I honestly don’t know what became of it. I’ve transferred houses at least four times since and I don’t remember bringing the maze with me. Even if it’s a long shot, I’m hoping that it has not been broken and then somebody who knows about mercury’s real ugly nature finds it and puts it away the proper way.
adellechua@gmail.com
**
Readers' Reactions
from George Hodghes III
If you are interested in mass exposure to mercury, look at the CFL lights being used both in residences and in workplaces. The disposal situation is also a problem.
**
It is a good one. More reasoned writing. Some of our reporters,
reporter writes at the top of their mouths. Some seem to be
just feeling [filling] space.
Max Fabella
**
Adelle, I am a toxicologist with the health department in Michigan in the US and saw your article/editorial on the Internet. I often help people who have had mercury spills and thought you and others might be interested in a video about mercury vapors that was made by the US EPA and a university here in the states. You can view the video at our website: www.michigan.gov/mercury . There is a link on the opening page for the video. If you'd like, I can mail you a CD of it too. Thank you for educating people on the dangers of this metal.
Christina Bush, Toxicologist
Michigan Department of Community Health
Bureau of Epidemiology
Division of Environmental Health
Toxicology and Response Section
Capitol View Building, 4th Floor
201 Townsend Street
Lansing, MI 48913
BUSHCR@michigan.gov
www.michigan.gov/mdch-toxics
V (517) 335-9717
Toll Free 1-(800) 648-6942 ("MI TOXIC")
F (517) 335-9775
Monday, November 9, 2009
Force for good
Late Sunday evening I chanced upon a debate program on BBC called Intelligence Squared. I would have switched to another channel immediately, because I did not really want anything heavy just before going to bed on a Sunday night. However, the motion around which the debate centered was whether the Catholic church was a force for good in the world. I decided to stay tuned.
I was, after all, a Catholic,being born so,and having attended Catholic schools all my life. But I'm what one would call a “cafeteria Catholic,” picking only the aspects of the faith that suit me while ignoring all the other tenets. Does this make me a candidate for excommunication? Who's to tell?
The arguments were winding down when I tuned in but the issues put forth were all too familiar, particularly the Church's opposition to artificial birth control and homosexuality. One woman described herself as “a Catholic for 38 years until I saw the light.” Now she is a volunteer in Africa helping save women's lives that are put in peril each time they are pregnant yet again.
The most curious part was the before-and-after polls. Before the debate, six hundred plus of the audience said that yes, the Catholic church was a force for good in the world. Eleven hundred plus said it was not. Three hundred plus were undecided. After the debate, only two hundred plus believed the Church a force for good. Eighteen hundred plus now believed the contrary. Only thirty four people remained undecided.
Of course the numbers could have been influenced by the very choice of audience members. If they picked the audience a certain way, I certainly missed it. Were they staunch Catholics or were they skeptics? How malleable were their opinions? Were they students or adults, common people you would find on the street?
Two things. First it is rather alarming to see that even before the debate, the number of people thinking that the Church was NOT a force of good was nearly twice the number of those thinking otherwise. A church, catholic or otherwise, is supposed to exist to be a force of good.
We here in the Philippines have our own dilemma. Majority of the population is Catholic and yet there is strong opinion against the church. I myself have written a few things about the empowerment of the poor through choice, something which the church here appears bent on denying. Support of many Catholics to the still-unpassed reproductive health bill is an example. Apparently people as not as easily dictated upon as before.
The second thing that bothered me was the result of the after-debate survey. Were the debaters chosen to represent the church really just terrible, incoherent speakers? Or do they stand for the church leaders we mortals have come to resent when they pontificate about the righteousness of some and the indulgences of many? Do we get frustrated listening to them that, just out of spite, we do the things they tell us not to do? Just look at the religious in this country. They cannot seem to argue against the bill from a rational perspective. It's always morals, right or wrong, damnation in hell. But what about the quality of life? Where is the morality in living in squalor just because you are not aware that you don't have to deliver a baby every year?
I admit I have not really given my religion a lot of thought. It might be laziness on my part, reluctance to embrace so fundamental a change, or it might be that I have not found a faith that's just the right fit for me. Or maybe I like being Catholic, taking comfort in the familiar concepts that have been drilled into my head by the RVM sisters (twelve years) and the Jesuits (4 years).
It is evident is that Catholicism is losing its hold. Members of its hierarchy are arrogant and self righteous, like the Pharisees that Jesus himself castigated. Their own excesses and indiscretions? These are conveniently swept under the rug. And then Church leaders continue to preach anyway.
I think the Catholic church needs to change its approach, if it's at all possible. Today's generation of believers need more than dogma. They need to feel that they are not being judged right within their faith. Faith is, in the first place, meant to be a source of comfort and nourishment in the darkest of days. In this day and age, the faithful will not continue to be so if you continue to employ the carrot and stick approach of heaven and hell.
They have to respect their members' ability to think for themselves, not be dictated upon. Is that not the best way to glorify God-given intellect? Isn't goodness a journey? Right within the church, we need a change we can believe in. Not only to make us stay, but to make us feel like we are truly in in the first place, warts and all.
I was, after all, a Catholic,being born so,and having attended Catholic schools all my life. But I'm what one would call a “cafeteria Catholic,” picking only the aspects of the faith that suit me while ignoring all the other tenets. Does this make me a candidate for excommunication? Who's to tell?
The arguments were winding down when I tuned in but the issues put forth were all too familiar, particularly the Church's opposition to artificial birth control and homosexuality. One woman described herself as “a Catholic for 38 years until I saw the light.” Now she is a volunteer in Africa helping save women's lives that are put in peril each time they are pregnant yet again.
The most curious part was the before-and-after polls. Before the debate, six hundred plus of the audience said that yes, the Catholic church was a force for good in the world. Eleven hundred plus said it was not. Three hundred plus were undecided. After the debate, only two hundred plus believed the Church a force for good. Eighteen hundred plus now believed the contrary. Only thirty four people remained undecided.
Of course the numbers could have been influenced by the very choice of audience members. If they picked the audience a certain way, I certainly missed it. Were they staunch Catholics or were they skeptics? How malleable were their opinions? Were they students or adults, common people you would find on the street?
Two things. First it is rather alarming to see that even before the debate, the number of people thinking that the Church was NOT a force of good was nearly twice the number of those thinking otherwise. A church, catholic or otherwise, is supposed to exist to be a force of good.
We here in the Philippines have our own dilemma. Majority of the population is Catholic and yet there is strong opinion against the church. I myself have written a few things about the empowerment of the poor through choice, something which the church here appears bent on denying. Support of many Catholics to the still-unpassed reproductive health bill is an example. Apparently people as not as easily dictated upon as before.
The second thing that bothered me was the result of the after-debate survey. Were the debaters chosen to represent the church really just terrible, incoherent speakers? Or do they stand for the church leaders we mortals have come to resent when they pontificate about the righteousness of some and the indulgences of many? Do we get frustrated listening to them that, just out of spite, we do the things they tell us not to do? Just look at the religious in this country. They cannot seem to argue against the bill from a rational perspective. It's always morals, right or wrong, damnation in hell. But what about the quality of life? Where is the morality in living in squalor just because you are not aware that you don't have to deliver a baby every year?
I admit I have not really given my religion a lot of thought. It might be laziness on my part, reluctance to embrace so fundamental a change, or it might be that I have not found a faith that's just the right fit for me. Or maybe I like being Catholic, taking comfort in the familiar concepts that have been drilled into my head by the RVM sisters (twelve years) and the Jesuits (4 years).
It is evident is that Catholicism is losing its hold. Members of its hierarchy are arrogant and self righteous, like the Pharisees that Jesus himself castigated. Their own excesses and indiscretions? These are conveniently swept under the rug. And then Church leaders continue to preach anyway.
I think the Catholic church needs to change its approach, if it's at all possible. Today's generation of believers need more than dogma. They need to feel that they are not being judged right within their faith. Faith is, in the first place, meant to be a source of comfort and nourishment in the darkest of days. In this day and age, the faithful will not continue to be so if you continue to employ the carrot and stick approach of heaven and hell.
They have to respect their members' ability to think for themselves, not be dictated upon. Is that not the best way to glorify God-given intellect? Isn't goodness a journey? Right within the church, we need a change we can believe in. Not only to make us stay, but to make us feel like we are truly in in the first place, warts and all.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Lost and found
Alster Lake in Hamburg
Watching BBC and CNN nowadays sends me to the proverbial memory lane and brings back images I thought I had forgotten. On Monday, November 9, the Berlin Wall will have fallen for twenty years. This event heralded a climate of change in Europe and eventually the world, providing a tangible proof to the dismantling of divisions brought about by the Cold War.
But my German experience is personal. I was there two and a half years ago for a short course on economic and financial journalism. I ended up learning so much more – about the world, about people, about myself. It helped me chart the course of the rest of my life.
It is unfortunate that when I was there I was not yet a blogger. I could have recorded my observations and impressions real time. Had I been blogging then, I wold have done so faithfully, and enthusiastically. I would have produced a respectable online travel journal. Sayang!
But enough of something I cannot anymore do anything about. Now watching the news or reading the IHT gives me goose bumps. I see the Brandeburg Gate, for instance, or parts of the wall, and the empty niches of the Memorial to the Jews, and I read about the border guard who decided to open the darned gate,and I think to myself, the place is just so rich with history – of events and names and places, yes, but also the history of human nature. And suddenly I don't feel inadequate at being an outsider to all these things, somebody from a small nation across the globe, who was a fat and awkward 13 year old in November 1989.
I took many pictures, though, although I missed on a few aspects, failing to capture the rest of my routine (i.e.,train ride to school, what I did on the weekends that I went out, where I bought my yogurt and tea and where I went “dancin' till the morning light.”) I think I have enough. And it was not just one city,either. The photo attached to this entry is one of a lake in Hamburg, taken (with my unassuming but trusty Nokia) one late afternoon. Looking at the lake photos always makes me feel...misty.
Last week I uploaded my photos into an album in my Facebook account. I am be happy to share it with my friends, of course, and am always excited if somebody “likes” the pictures or,moreso, comments on them. But it's not done yet. All of the pictures are posted now but I am not quite finished – I will work on the captions and make them tell a story.
That experience enriched me professionally, and in so many ways besides. I learned to live alone – sleep alone, wake up alone, do chores alone, entertain myself alone. At the same time I gained access to a bigger forest. We always feel as though the Philippines is the universe. It it not. I feel I had been yanked into outer space,or at least the atmosphere, suspended there and made to look down. My perspective now covers a whole lot more. There is suffering here? Oh, yes. But there is also suffering somewhere else. The less unfortunate ones get featured on CNN or BBC. A lot more suffer and die and remain in oblivion.
I learned, too, to overcome certain fears. After sleeping alone in hotel rooms and my apartment for two months, I was convinced that the scariest things are the tricks our own mind plays with us – if we allow it to, that is. Ghosts? There should have been plenty of those in the city where the murder of six million jews was planned. But far scarier are the ghosts of our past. If we do not confront them, head on as we should, then they have the power to haunt us, not only on a full moon's night or on Halloween, but for the rest of our lives. They have the capacity to destroy our well-being, emotional stability, judgment and even relationships with the people we love. Boo.
Finally, I learned not to be scared of getting lost. I know people who would rather stick to the same roads and confine themselves to places within their comfort zones. They are terrified at the prospect of not knowing where they are and having to suffer the indignity of figuring out how to get back on track. I feel lucky that I am not one of those people.
My classmates (all from third world countries) and I were given everything we would need during our stay – a place to live, train tickets, course materials,planned excursions to must-see places – and maps. Among ourselves, we planned activities to bond and get to know one another. We had to look after our own apartments, cook our meals and do our laundry. There were the demands of class work on top of all that (my payroll was also active and I was doing editing and writing for my newspaper from six time zones away.) Despite these, one still had a lot of free time. And that delicious freedom emboldened you to explore.
Getting lost was part of the experience. Sometimes I got lost with Lib, my fellow Filipino. But more often, I got lost alone. I looked for shops, took a look at parks, or simply soaked in the newness and the foreign-ness of it all. The maps hardly made sense and the train stations looked painfully alike and my sense of direction was screwed up and not too many people knew English.
But I always found my way back.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Bothered
“Adelle Chua wonders why the things that did not bother her before do now.”
This was my tweet on Thursday, September 17. One and a half months later, nothing has changed except that sometimes, on really bad days, being bothered becomes an understatement.
I should be clear on the things I do not like. In the course of my days, where I live and work and how I shuttle between these two places (maybe more), I come into contact with people I would rather not see or interact with. Shall I be called a snob for not liking what I see, especially given my very humble beginnings?
To be sure, I'm still not a hotshot either but at least I did my time, earned my keep and have the occasional luxury into peeking into a lifestyle I want and deserve.
Maybe it's precisely because I've worked my ass off all these years and bore the extraordinary lemons that have been thrown my way with great aplomb. That's why I'm starting to feel entitled – and threatened,as well.
I wish to god I did not have to ride a tricyle or a jeep anymore, especially those plying the Valenzuela-Manila route. I think I have had enough dealings with grimy men (the women I don't mind, which is why I am convinced I am just scared and not a snob) who spit on the street, with filthy nails (some have deliberately overgrown nails on the thumb or pinky) and sweaty arms and with brown or blond streaks in their hair. I abhor the way they leer at you and look at you as though they want to take advantage of your naivete and your many concerns, and the way they chuckle if you try to fight or show that you don't like the way they stare. I don't like the way that I am constantly on guard when I am inside the jeep, sizing up each passenger determining whether he is a potential hold upper or sex maniac or simply a poster boy of the working class. I hate those young men who should otherwise be working THEIR asses off making a decent living but instead roam the streets, sniffing rugby, demanding that you give them money when they ask, and spending whatever little they have on fancy bling-bling,cellphone load,cigarettes and alcohol. I notice the inconsiderate way they sit on the jeepney, raising their legs too comfortably as if the place were theirs and there were no other people around. I hate cab drivers who demand a mark-up saying that the destination is too far and isolated and the traffic is bad (as if it's not bad everywhere else). I don't like people who inflict themselves on you and feel uninhibited to ask for your “help” all the time,just because you get by and they don't. Oh Jesus give me a break.
I hate people who feel they can get close. Let them suffocate in their conceit. Sometimes I wonder whether it is more effective to simply turn away, refuse to acknowledge their presence, or fight altogether. Oh my energy is precious. I have a job and I write and I'm a mom to four very challenging children and I run a household on my own and I have big dreams. Why waste it?
Sometimes too I feel like a hypocrite for being disgusted by the type of people I just mentioned above. Here I am, writing about lofty causes like empowering the poor and correcting social inequity. Yet why do I feel so strongly about my not-so-flattering environment? Why do I wish I had been born under more comfortable, more conventional circumstances? I could have devoted all that spent energy into becoming even greater, doing more.
I have to be fair to myself here. I don't want to take off and leave these people to rot in hell, either. Instead I want them to be well-scrubbed, well-fed, well-read. I do not want to deal with another illiterate person who spits on the street and measures his self-worth by the number of illegal things he has done and gotten away with. This country is in the doghouse and anybody in government who says things are getting better has NEVER boarded a jeepney along Avenida Rizal. The problem is that we are stuck with choices from the elite, These people have never even SEEN squalor and chaos in action. (Okay,some have,but they lack the sincerity to effect long-term solutions. They choose instead to dole money to popularize themselves with the poor they say they empathize with.) We don't need a government that provides everything for its people. We need a government that enables people to look after themselves. Raise well-scrubbed,well-fed, and well-read children. Good mannered ones, too.
Tragically, these things don't even cross the minds of the poor. They are too preoccupied with figuring out where to get the next meal and managing their resentment towards people who were born well. Being born into a social group, after all, is a random event.
Getting stuck there, however, is not. One stays a victim of circumstance by choice. You can choose to rise above it all, and through dignified means. But first you have to realize that you can.
This was my tweet on Thursday, September 17. One and a half months later, nothing has changed except that sometimes, on really bad days, being bothered becomes an understatement.
I should be clear on the things I do not like. In the course of my days, where I live and work and how I shuttle between these two places (maybe more), I come into contact with people I would rather not see or interact with. Shall I be called a snob for not liking what I see, especially given my very humble beginnings?
To be sure, I'm still not a hotshot either but at least I did my time, earned my keep and have the occasional luxury into peeking into a lifestyle I want and deserve.
Maybe it's precisely because I've worked my ass off all these years and bore the extraordinary lemons that have been thrown my way with great aplomb. That's why I'm starting to feel entitled – and threatened,as well.
I wish to god I did not have to ride a tricyle or a jeep anymore, especially those plying the Valenzuela-Manila route. I think I have had enough dealings with grimy men (the women I don't mind, which is why I am convinced I am just scared and not a snob) who spit on the street, with filthy nails (some have deliberately overgrown nails on the thumb or pinky) and sweaty arms and with brown or blond streaks in their hair. I abhor the way they leer at you and look at you as though they want to take advantage of your naivete and your many concerns, and the way they chuckle if you try to fight or show that you don't like the way they stare. I don't like the way that I am constantly on guard when I am inside the jeep, sizing up each passenger determining whether he is a potential hold upper or sex maniac or simply a poster boy of the working class. I hate those young men who should otherwise be working THEIR asses off making a decent living but instead roam the streets, sniffing rugby, demanding that you give them money when they ask, and spending whatever little they have on fancy bling-bling,cellphone load,cigarettes and alcohol. I notice the inconsiderate way they sit on the jeepney, raising their legs too comfortably as if the place were theirs and there were no other people around. I hate cab drivers who demand a mark-up saying that the destination is too far and isolated and the traffic is bad (as if it's not bad everywhere else). I don't like people who inflict themselves on you and feel uninhibited to ask for your “help” all the time,just because you get by and they don't. Oh Jesus give me a break.
I hate people who feel they can get close. Let them suffocate in their conceit. Sometimes I wonder whether it is more effective to simply turn away, refuse to acknowledge their presence, or fight altogether. Oh my energy is precious. I have a job and I write and I'm a mom to four very challenging children and I run a household on my own and I have big dreams. Why waste it?
Sometimes too I feel like a hypocrite for being disgusted by the type of people I just mentioned above. Here I am, writing about lofty causes like empowering the poor and correcting social inequity. Yet why do I feel so strongly about my not-so-flattering environment? Why do I wish I had been born under more comfortable, more conventional circumstances? I could have devoted all that spent energy into becoming even greater, doing more.
I have to be fair to myself here. I don't want to take off and leave these people to rot in hell, either. Instead I want them to be well-scrubbed, well-fed, well-read. I do not want to deal with another illiterate person who spits on the street and measures his self-worth by the number of illegal things he has done and gotten away with. This country is in the doghouse and anybody in government who says things are getting better has NEVER boarded a jeepney along Avenida Rizal. The problem is that we are stuck with choices from the elite, These people have never even SEEN squalor and chaos in action. (Okay,some have,but they lack the sincerity to effect long-term solutions. They choose instead to dole money to popularize themselves with the poor they say they empathize with.) We don't need a government that provides everything for its people. We need a government that enables people to look after themselves. Raise well-scrubbed,well-fed, and well-read children. Good mannered ones, too.
Tragically, these things don't even cross the minds of the poor. They are too preoccupied with figuring out where to get the next meal and managing their resentment towards people who were born well. Being born into a social group, after all, is a random event.
Getting stuck there, however, is not. One stays a victim of circumstance by choice. You can choose to rise above it all, and through dignified means. But first you have to realize that you can.
Things to do
Even the terms are daunting by themselves. When you mouth the words “millennium development goals” to the people they are specifically meant to help, all you will likely get are blank stares. And why not? These are big words.
They are still too big even for those who do understand multi-syllabic terms. The MDGs are associated with the United Nations, which brings to mind lofty aspirations—to some, only that —on a global scale.
In 2000, leaders representing members of the community of nations signed a pact to meet across-the-board minimum developmental requirements by the year 2015. There are eight of these goals. One, eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. Two, achieve universal primary education. Three, promote gender equality and empower women. Four, reduce child mortality. Five, improve maternal health. Six, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. Seven, ensure environmental sustainability. Eight, develop global partnership for environment. Measurable targets were set for each of these goals.
Nine years into the campaign—or six years away from reckoning, whichever way we prefer to look at it—are we even nearer to the goals?
We can’t, of course, speak for other countries but Dulce Marie Saret, advocacy specialist of the United Nations’ Millennium Campaign in the Philippines, can say much about what’s been going on hereabouts.
The first thing Saret will tell you is that we are NOT likely to achieve the most crucial of the goals,specifically the first (on poverty), the second (on primary education), the fifth (on maternal health) and the sixth (on HIV/AIDS and other diseases).
The numbers are depressing. Thirty-three percent of Filipinos live on less that $1 a day. About five-point-two million children are not in school. Eleven mothers die every day due to pregnancy-related causes. HIV cases among the youth nearly tripled from 41 in 2007 to 110 in 2008. And just last year, there were 1.8 million unplanned pregnancies, about one-third of which ended up in abortion.
A series of activities last month sought demand that the nation’s leaders deliver on the commitment to a better life for all. Through Stand United and Take Action Against Poverty, Filipinos scored the Guinness record anew for having the most number of participants taking part in a single event. In 2006, there were 2.1 million participants; in 2007, 7.2 million. In 2008, there were 35.2 million, roughly about the same number as this year. What’s the point of standing up? Maybe it’s because its the opposite of sitting down—what we are trying to tell our leaders is that we are not taking these dire situations sitting down.
Filipinos have always hankered for inclusion in the book of records, even for the most trivial and inconsequential of reasons. This is one exception. The question is, will the message get through, even after all the participants have taken their seats at the end of the day?
Saret admits that the activity has been criticized for this. Is it just an all-out campaign for a single day of activity, before and after which both people go back to their silent tolerance of their leaders’ lack of action? “This is why the agency is now making the MDGs an election issue,” she says. “We have just launched the I Vote for the MDGs campaign.”
There was a forum last Oct. 20 among presidential aspirants who shared their thoughts and answered questions on the development issues raised by the MDGs. The event was organized by the United Nations Development Program and the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines. Alas, only five presidential wannabes bothered showing up. Those who were absent may have reasons, of course, but it would have been good if they can get past the waving and the smiling and the unchallenged remarks and actually share the details of how they intend to make the lives of Filipinos better.
That’s really something we’d like to hear.
***
There will be another forum this month; this time, the focus will be on the environment.
Ondoy, Pepeng, Ramil and very recently, Santi reminded us that disasters set back development efforts big and small. Resources that should otherwise go into creating new opportunities go instead to rehabilitation of people, communities and infrastructure. Hence the already daunting task of improving the lives of millions is made more difficult. “If there is such a thing as ‘disaster-proofing’ the MDGs, we’d like to do that,” Saret says.
The event will coincide with final preparations for the start of the Copenhagen talks where world leaders would negotiate the successor treaty to the Kyoto protocol, which will expire in 2012. The Kyoto pact embodies countries’ commitment to capping their carbon emissions. But it has been deemed inadequate, especially since the United States, the second-largest emitter of carbon, has not ratified it yet.
Then again, one does not have to think on a global scale when talking about the environment. There are pressing issues here where we can actually do something not above our heads. We can discuss forest cover, garbage disposal, slum dwelling and access to potable water. These are the small but tangible ways people can be mobilized for the environment. These issues have become more urgent. Saret believes that because of first-hand experience, people will be more interested and more likely to exert pressure on their leaders to act.
***
The Millennium Campaign, Saret explains, is an agency of the United Nations but is quite unlike the other units that work with government. Instead, the campaign identifies more with civil society which demands that government leaders make good on their commitments to achieve the goals. The targets should be included in the planning of policies and programs, and the effects on people should be sustainable instead of instantaneous and short-term. The campaign is also working on bringing the MDGs to the local level. This way, programs will be easier to jump-start and the results easier to observe, document, and replicate.
But won’t the MDGs fall prey to the designs of politicians? Saret acknowledges that it cannot be avoided. In the end, all that matters is that a family is able to have decent meals,a child goes to school, a mother is able to deliver her baby safely. Let politicians promise a better life for their constituents. But let us badger them into making good on these promises.
Saret says her group has tried to think of other ways to communicate the essence of MDGs to the common man. “Mga Dapat Gawin (Things To Do)” is a pretty accurate shot. Coming right down to it, that’s really what the goals are—simply a list of things to do so more people will enjoy a better quality of life. Easy enough to comprehend? Then again, many things are, as they say, easier said than done.
adellechua@gmail.com
They are still too big even for those who do understand multi-syllabic terms. The MDGs are associated with the United Nations, which brings to mind lofty aspirations—to some, only that —on a global scale.
In 2000, leaders representing members of the community of nations signed a pact to meet across-the-board minimum developmental requirements by the year 2015. There are eight of these goals. One, eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. Two, achieve universal primary education. Three, promote gender equality and empower women. Four, reduce child mortality. Five, improve maternal health. Six, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. Seven, ensure environmental sustainability. Eight, develop global partnership for environment. Measurable targets were set for each of these goals.
Nine years into the campaign—or six years away from reckoning, whichever way we prefer to look at it—are we even nearer to the goals?
We can’t, of course, speak for other countries but Dulce Marie Saret, advocacy specialist of the United Nations’ Millennium Campaign in the Philippines, can say much about what’s been going on hereabouts.
The first thing Saret will tell you is that we are NOT likely to achieve the most crucial of the goals,specifically the first (on poverty), the second (on primary education), the fifth (on maternal health) and the sixth (on HIV/AIDS and other diseases).
The numbers are depressing. Thirty-three percent of Filipinos live on less that $1 a day. About five-point-two million children are not in school. Eleven mothers die every day due to pregnancy-related causes. HIV cases among the youth nearly tripled from 41 in 2007 to 110 in 2008. And just last year, there were 1.8 million unplanned pregnancies, about one-third of which ended up in abortion.
A series of activities last month sought demand that the nation’s leaders deliver on the commitment to a better life for all. Through Stand United and Take Action Against Poverty, Filipinos scored the Guinness record anew for having the most number of participants taking part in a single event. In 2006, there were 2.1 million participants; in 2007, 7.2 million. In 2008, there were 35.2 million, roughly about the same number as this year. What’s the point of standing up? Maybe it’s because its the opposite of sitting down—what we are trying to tell our leaders is that we are not taking these dire situations sitting down.
Filipinos have always hankered for inclusion in the book of records, even for the most trivial and inconsequential of reasons. This is one exception. The question is, will the message get through, even after all the participants have taken their seats at the end of the day?
Saret admits that the activity has been criticized for this. Is it just an all-out campaign for a single day of activity, before and after which both people go back to their silent tolerance of their leaders’ lack of action? “This is why the agency is now making the MDGs an election issue,” she says. “We have just launched the I Vote for the MDGs campaign.”
There was a forum last Oct. 20 among presidential aspirants who shared their thoughts and answered questions on the development issues raised by the MDGs. The event was organized by the United Nations Development Program and the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines. Alas, only five presidential wannabes bothered showing up. Those who were absent may have reasons, of course, but it would have been good if they can get past the waving and the smiling and the unchallenged remarks and actually share the details of how they intend to make the lives of Filipinos better.
That’s really something we’d like to hear.
***
There will be another forum this month; this time, the focus will be on the environment.
Ondoy, Pepeng, Ramil and very recently, Santi reminded us that disasters set back development efforts big and small. Resources that should otherwise go into creating new opportunities go instead to rehabilitation of people, communities and infrastructure. Hence the already daunting task of improving the lives of millions is made more difficult. “If there is such a thing as ‘disaster-proofing’ the MDGs, we’d like to do that,” Saret says.
The event will coincide with final preparations for the start of the Copenhagen talks where world leaders would negotiate the successor treaty to the Kyoto protocol, which will expire in 2012. The Kyoto pact embodies countries’ commitment to capping their carbon emissions. But it has been deemed inadequate, especially since the United States, the second-largest emitter of carbon, has not ratified it yet.
Then again, one does not have to think on a global scale when talking about the environment. There are pressing issues here where we can actually do something not above our heads. We can discuss forest cover, garbage disposal, slum dwelling and access to potable water. These are the small but tangible ways people can be mobilized for the environment. These issues have become more urgent. Saret believes that because of first-hand experience, people will be more interested and more likely to exert pressure on their leaders to act.
***
The Millennium Campaign, Saret explains, is an agency of the United Nations but is quite unlike the other units that work with government. Instead, the campaign identifies more with civil society which demands that government leaders make good on their commitments to achieve the goals. The targets should be included in the planning of policies and programs, and the effects on people should be sustainable instead of instantaneous and short-term. The campaign is also working on bringing the MDGs to the local level. This way, programs will be easier to jump-start and the results easier to observe, document, and replicate.
But won’t the MDGs fall prey to the designs of politicians? Saret acknowledges that it cannot be avoided. In the end, all that matters is that a family is able to have decent meals,a child goes to school, a mother is able to deliver her baby safely. Let politicians promise a better life for their constituents. But let us badger them into making good on these promises.
Saret says her group has tried to think of other ways to communicate the essence of MDGs to the common man. “Mga Dapat Gawin (Things To Do)” is a pretty accurate shot. Coming right down to it, that’s really what the goals are—simply a list of things to do so more people will enjoy a better quality of life. Easy enough to comprehend? Then again, many things are, as they say, easier said than done.
adellechua@gmail.com
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Elmo
i lifted this from www.maveangazetteonline.blogspot.com, my children's school's online school paper. bea wrote this poem for her little bro elmo after he was reprimanded by his father for being too roly-poly.
Elmo
ni Beatrice Adeline Tulagan
Nag-iingay ka, iyon kasi ang dahilan.
Ilang beses nang sinabihan ay wala pa rin.
Sa sobrang kulit mo, nakatikim ka tuloy ng todo.
Wala na ang tawang nakaplaster sa mukha mo.
Sinundan kita, sa kwartong madilim.
Nakadapa ka sa kama, patuloy pa ring humihikbi.
Nagtatago sa kumot, basa na rin ang unang yakap mo.
Ayaw na ayaw kong nakikita kang ganito.
Linapitan kita, sinubukang lambingin;
Nang sa gayo’y mapawi ko man lamang ang sakit.
Pero tila nahihiya ka, patuloy na lumalayo.
Sana’y alam mong ako’y andito.
Binulungan kita, sinubukang patahanin.
Ngunit malayo pa rin talaga ang tingin.
Hinalikan ko ang noo mo, paalis na rin ako.
Ang mapag-isa, siguro’y yun talaga ang gusto mo.
Maya-maya, kakatok ka na sa aking kwarto.
Sisilip kang bahagya, mag-aayang manuod.
Kalungkutan ay bakas pa rin sa mukha mo.
Pero ngingiti ka, dahil alam mong ikaw ang bunso ko.
Elmo
ni Beatrice Adeline Tulagan
Nag-iingay ka, iyon kasi ang dahilan.
Ilang beses nang sinabihan ay wala pa rin.
Sa sobrang kulit mo, nakatikim ka tuloy ng todo.
Wala na ang tawang nakaplaster sa mukha mo.
Sinundan kita, sa kwartong madilim.
Nakadapa ka sa kama, patuloy pa ring humihikbi.
Nagtatago sa kumot, basa na rin ang unang yakap mo.
Ayaw na ayaw kong nakikita kang ganito.
Linapitan kita, sinubukang lambingin;
Nang sa gayo’y mapawi ko man lamang ang sakit.
Pero tila nahihiya ka, patuloy na lumalayo.
Sana’y alam mong ako’y andito.
Binulungan kita, sinubukang patahanin.
Ngunit malayo pa rin talaga ang tingin.
Hinalikan ko ang noo mo, paalis na rin ako.
Ang mapag-isa, siguro’y yun talaga ang gusto mo.
Maya-maya, kakatok ka na sa aking kwarto.
Sisilip kang bahagya, mag-aayang manuod.
Kalungkutan ay bakas pa rin sa mukha mo.
Pero ngingiti ka, dahil alam mong ikaw ang bunso ko.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
It's never okay
delivered at the round-table conference between media and stakeholders on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
Sulo Hotel, 29 Oct 2009
Good morning everyone. Thank you for having me here. I am here because I represent media by virtue of my job. But I am also a stakeholder, because I am a parent.
When we hear the phrase “violence against children,” some images come to mind automatically. Bruises and scars and the helpless looks on the victims' eyes. Sometimes the lifeless body of a child. Violence is a horrible thing by itself, but when perpetuated against children, it becomes even more detestable. The stories we hear are unbelievable, especially when the perpetrators of the violence – physical, sexual, emotional or psychological, or some or all of them at the same time -- are those persons who are supposed to take care of these children: parents, relatives, teachers, anybody with ascendancy.
This we know through the most compelling stories we see on television or read about in the newspapers. From the looks of it, society is united in condemning these heartless, insane and violent abusers. These are extreme cases. We agree that these children must be given safe haven and that the abusers must be put away in jail. And we will work towards enabling the victims to put the pieces of their life together.
Indeed there is no problem when violence is so extreme that it becomes a public affair.
But media has been less noisy about the subject of corporal punishment, especially in the context of the home. It is something that is private and may be even more sensitive than the dynamics of husband and wife relations. In a marriage, each partner is supposed to be on the same level or to complement the other one, at least ideally. Neither is supposed to be more influential or powerful than the other. Again, ideally. That's partnership. Marriage in the twenty first century.
But when you talk about parents and children, the unequal relationship is there at the outset. Who are we to challenge it? I am the parent and I am clearly in charge. Nobody is going to tell me how I am supposed to raise my child. The assumption here, of course, is that all parents love their children, all have their best intentions in mind, and that parents are not monsters all the time.
Sadly, between the intentions and actual words and actions, an ocean of a difference can lie.
We are all products of different manners of upbringing. Different generations, customs, individual quirks. There are families that solve their problems by yelling at each other. Some are more diplomatic. I suppose most of us are somewhere in between. There are also families that punish their children in various ways, spanking, slapping, depriving them of food or other basic needs, as well as cursing them or uttering words that are meant to humiliate, belittle, degrade them. There are countless nuances and variations. But you get the idea. All in the name of discipline.
Because of our backgrounds and maybe own experiences, we may think that nothing is wrong with these. We may have been subjected to them ourselves and look, we didn't turn out so bad. Several weeks ago I attended a forum organized by this same group that explored the issue of corporal punishment and some initiatives at the House of Representatives.
The biggest hurdle is the resistance of parents to a perceived intrusion by the State into their turf. No matter how the bill is crafted so that it is constructive instead of punitive, parents will feel threatened especially if they are not causing their children any dark bruises, long scars. They know better. They love their children.
But experts tell us that this kind of violence, prolonged and silently borne, may have very serious consequences on the lives of the children. The effects may be physiological, mental and behavioral. The worst thing is that they may be long-term and irreversible. Ms. Fonacier-Fellizar’s paper ends with this warning. What will happen to an angsty generation who will either fold up before authority figures or rebel against them? Either reaction is not beneficial in nation building and in the exercise of raising responsible adults.
This is an important thing that should not be lost in the debate caused by wounded parental pride. Given the resistance, I believe media could help not by dwelling on the negative but in pushing for a positive, constructive way to change this mindset among parents – and among children, too, that it's okay to be harmed. In the previous forum that I mentioned, there was a discussion on positive discipline, along with basic principles and a framework. I think it's worth pushing in a long-haul effort to enlighten a new generation of parents. There is media, of course, but there can also be parent-teacher seminars in schools, peer counseling and many other ways. Nothing beats a positive approach to anything.
Another form of violence against children is what happens in conflict zones. We don't hear, see or read about them in media for obvious reasons. They are just too far away. It is just too difficult to reach out to them and hear their stories of loss and displacement. Yet the sufferings are there. Unfortunately, media's role here is very limited. We do not have the power to stop the senseless wars. We can only tell the stories when we can. And remind everybody that just because this does not occur in Imperial Manila, they are not there. Because they are. And these suffering children who cannot even go outside to play or have parents to go home to have as much a right to a secure and comfortable life as much as your child, or mine.
**
After violence against children, there is also violence BY children. In as much as we do not want our children to be hurt, we also do not want them to be the ones inflicting the hurt on others.
Why else would we frown on games involving virtual battles, especially the graphic ones where the splattering of blood is depicted? Why else would we get so worked up on the existence of bullies either in the school or in the home? And how about the child soldiers recruited by the Abu Sayyaf, the MILF or the New People's Army? Teenagers are ideal recruits for these organizations because they are innocent and trusting like children but have the strength and stamina of adults. They are most likely poor, separated from their families, displaced from their homes and have limited access to education and other basic social services. They are so malleable they have no qualms inflicting harm on others. They have nothing to lose.
Violence by children may or may not be the effect of his or her own experience of abuse. In all of these cases, having children who perpetuate violence is equally disturbing. What kind of adults will they grow up to be? What ever happened to their being the nation's hope?
Media's primary role is to drive home the point that violence against children and by children is never okay. It is not something to bear or to suffer. It is not just undesirable but totally unacceptable. We have to remind the public of this every chance we get.
Sulo Hotel, 29 Oct 2009
Good morning everyone. Thank you for having me here. I am here because I represent media by virtue of my job. But I am also a stakeholder, because I am a parent.
When we hear the phrase “violence against children,” some images come to mind automatically. Bruises and scars and the helpless looks on the victims' eyes. Sometimes the lifeless body of a child. Violence is a horrible thing by itself, but when perpetuated against children, it becomes even more detestable. The stories we hear are unbelievable, especially when the perpetrators of the violence – physical, sexual, emotional or psychological, or some or all of them at the same time -- are those persons who are supposed to take care of these children: parents, relatives, teachers, anybody with ascendancy.
This we know through the most compelling stories we see on television or read about in the newspapers. From the looks of it, society is united in condemning these heartless, insane and violent abusers. These are extreme cases. We agree that these children must be given safe haven and that the abusers must be put away in jail. And we will work towards enabling the victims to put the pieces of their life together.
Indeed there is no problem when violence is so extreme that it becomes a public affair.
But media has been less noisy about the subject of corporal punishment, especially in the context of the home. It is something that is private and may be even more sensitive than the dynamics of husband and wife relations. In a marriage, each partner is supposed to be on the same level or to complement the other one, at least ideally. Neither is supposed to be more influential or powerful than the other. Again, ideally. That's partnership. Marriage in the twenty first century.
But when you talk about parents and children, the unequal relationship is there at the outset. Who are we to challenge it? I am the parent and I am clearly in charge. Nobody is going to tell me how I am supposed to raise my child. The assumption here, of course, is that all parents love their children, all have their best intentions in mind, and that parents are not monsters all the time.
Sadly, between the intentions and actual words and actions, an ocean of a difference can lie.
We are all products of different manners of upbringing. Different generations, customs, individual quirks. There are families that solve their problems by yelling at each other. Some are more diplomatic. I suppose most of us are somewhere in between. There are also families that punish their children in various ways, spanking, slapping, depriving them of food or other basic needs, as well as cursing them or uttering words that are meant to humiliate, belittle, degrade them. There are countless nuances and variations. But you get the idea. All in the name of discipline.
Because of our backgrounds and maybe own experiences, we may think that nothing is wrong with these. We may have been subjected to them ourselves and look, we didn't turn out so bad. Several weeks ago I attended a forum organized by this same group that explored the issue of corporal punishment and some initiatives at the House of Representatives.
The biggest hurdle is the resistance of parents to a perceived intrusion by the State into their turf. No matter how the bill is crafted so that it is constructive instead of punitive, parents will feel threatened especially if they are not causing their children any dark bruises, long scars. They know better. They love their children.
But experts tell us that this kind of violence, prolonged and silently borne, may have very serious consequences on the lives of the children. The effects may be physiological, mental and behavioral. The worst thing is that they may be long-term and irreversible. Ms. Fonacier-Fellizar’s paper ends with this warning. What will happen to an angsty generation who will either fold up before authority figures or rebel against them? Either reaction is not beneficial in nation building and in the exercise of raising responsible adults.
This is an important thing that should not be lost in the debate caused by wounded parental pride. Given the resistance, I believe media could help not by dwelling on the negative but in pushing for a positive, constructive way to change this mindset among parents – and among children, too, that it's okay to be harmed. In the previous forum that I mentioned, there was a discussion on positive discipline, along with basic principles and a framework. I think it's worth pushing in a long-haul effort to enlighten a new generation of parents. There is media, of course, but there can also be parent-teacher seminars in schools, peer counseling and many other ways. Nothing beats a positive approach to anything.
Another form of violence against children is what happens in conflict zones. We don't hear, see or read about them in media for obvious reasons. They are just too far away. It is just too difficult to reach out to them and hear their stories of loss and displacement. Yet the sufferings are there. Unfortunately, media's role here is very limited. We do not have the power to stop the senseless wars. We can only tell the stories when we can. And remind everybody that just because this does not occur in Imperial Manila, they are not there. Because they are. And these suffering children who cannot even go outside to play or have parents to go home to have as much a right to a secure and comfortable life as much as your child, or mine.
**
After violence against children, there is also violence BY children. In as much as we do not want our children to be hurt, we also do not want them to be the ones inflicting the hurt on others.
Why else would we frown on games involving virtual battles, especially the graphic ones where the splattering of blood is depicted? Why else would we get so worked up on the existence of bullies either in the school or in the home? And how about the child soldiers recruited by the Abu Sayyaf, the MILF or the New People's Army? Teenagers are ideal recruits for these organizations because they are innocent and trusting like children but have the strength and stamina of adults. They are most likely poor, separated from their families, displaced from their homes and have limited access to education and other basic social services. They are so malleable they have no qualms inflicting harm on others. They have nothing to lose.
Violence by children may or may not be the effect of his or her own experience of abuse. In all of these cases, having children who perpetuate violence is equally disturbing. What kind of adults will they grow up to be? What ever happened to their being the nation's hope?
Media's primary role is to drive home the point that violence against children and by children is never okay. It is not something to bear or to suffer. It is not just undesirable but totally unacceptable. We have to remind the public of this every chance we get.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Teachers and heroes
published 26 Oct 2009, Manila Standard Today
One of the faces I was really pleased to see during my high school reunion last month was that of Mrs. Priscilla Tañedo Catanauan, my adviser and English teacher during my freshman year. I had not seen nor heard from Ma'am Precy since the day I graduated from high school sixteen years ago. She had transferred from the school I attended to Kalayaan National High School, in the more remote part of Kalookan City.
But it was a reunion and everybody was busy catching up with everybody else, so outside of the hasty hellos and what-have-you -been-up-tos, there was no opportunity for longer talk. Too bad, really, because even as I noticed that my former teacher had visibly gained some years, what struck me more was that while watching our program, Ma'am Precy had the same quiet presence that allowed you to be just who you were. She was accepting, encouraging; never judging, never harsh. A subsequent online exchange proved to be an instructive exercise.
Isabela-born Catanauan is a graduate of St. Paul University in Tuguegarao (major in general science,minor in English) and has been teaching for the past 23 years. She spent two years at La Salette of Roxas and a good eleven years at the RVM-run Our Lady of Grace Academy before deciding to transfer to Kalayaan. She transferred for personal reasons; her children were then in their formative years and she felt she needed to spend more time with them. The public system required teachers to spend only six hours at school, which freed up more time for Catanauan. While she handled English classes in OLGA, she taught science subjects in the public high school. After a few years, she became science department head.
The transfer gave Catanauan the opportunity to observe similarities and differences between the private and the public systems. “In terms of service and commitment, there is no remarkable difference in teaching in a private and a public school,” she says. “In the private school where students are functionally literate, a teacher needs to give beyond what they already know, a teacher must be at least ten books ahead of them, a lot of preparation and teaching strategies are to be employed. In the public school where most of the students are deprived and less privileged, both economically and socially, a teacher faces the great task of bringing out the best in them and the most of what they know.”
As overseer of science instruction in the school, Catanauan is presently challenged by the introduction of the concept of climate change to her students. Especially now, after the devastation wrought by recent storms Ondoy and Pepeng, the young are more receptive to the idea that it is climate change that is responsible for extreme weather conditions. Faulty practices, like improper disposal of waste and a general apathy towards the environment, make the problem worse. She hopes these would make students more aware of their role and at the same time prepare them for calamities that may strike in the future.
Now that's real learning, which Catanauan believes cannot be measured solely by raw scores obtained in examinations. She evaluates her students by the improvements they make over time – and in all aspects, not just the grade.
Outside of the classroom, Catanauan has even more daunting challenges. A typical day starts at 4:30 in the morning when she has to prepare the needs of her husband George, a jeepney operator/ driver/ mechanic, as well as that of her children. At ten o'clock she reports to school and carries out her duties until 7 in the evening. Like any working mother, Catanauan constantly tries to give more of herself to her loved ones but always feels guilty that she is not doing enough. Fortunately her children have seen through this juggling act and learned to appreciate their mother's calling. In fact, she has set such a good example that two of her children are themselves professional teachers and two are studying to become teachers (another two are still in grade school). Some passions, after all, do run in the family.
Catanauan says she has never considered any other profession and cannot imagine herself being in another field. Success, she says, is achieving one's goals righteously. She is happy that she is able to live her dream of interacting with the youth and inspiring them.
Still, she aspires to do more. “I want to be an instrument in improving lives,” Much needs to be done to achieve quality education – not just for those who can afford it, but for all. She is a witness to the deterioration of the education system in the country. “Every Filipino deserves an equal opportunity for quality education.” Sadly, genuine commitment and quality service rendered by teachers like her are not enough to make this happen.
“Many students cannot cope with the minimum learning competencies set for their level. Lack of classrooms and teachers resulting to big class size, inadequate facilities, limited instructional time and poor teacher preparation are factors that result to the deterioration of education. To solve this problem,there is a need to align teachers to teach their major subject. There should be continuous training and retraining of teachers. Adequate facilities and classrooms should be provided.”
Well, accessibility of education is a common advocacy among candidates for next year's elections. Let's see who among these wannabes, local and national alike, are sincere and serious in making a difference.
**
October 5 was set aside by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as World Teachers' Day. Here in the country, the day was supposed to mark the culmination of month-long activities in the Teachers Month Campaign by organizations led by the Metrobank Foundation. The devastation brought by Ondoy and Pepeng, however, has caused the campaign to be extended until October 31. Difficult times have a way of bringing out the heroes in people, the foundation says, and teachers easily come to mind when we talk about heroes.
In the meantime, Catanauan's view of heroism has got nothing to do with being great or famous. “It is doing things no matter how simple they are to improve other people's lives. It is the act of forgetting oneself for the welfare of others.” Amen – how can we say we are a nation so in want of heroes?
Precy says she is driven by her commitment to her work and her love for her family. Her life is not comfortable nor luxurious, yet she considers herself successful. Her living trophies are former students who have eventually succeeded in their chosen careers – and her children who are turning out just fine.
Ma'am Precy says she looks forward to going back to her hometown after retirement, enjoying the comfort of family she has so assiduously built and nurtured side by side with her vocation. She is excited to care for more grandchildren (she has one already). She will look back to whether she has become an instrument indeed.
But even now we see she has taught her children and mothered her students well. That day may yet be far away, but her students – past and present, myself included – already know the answer.
**
Readers' reactions:
Dear Ms. Adelle,
I would like to thank you for featuring our dearest Ma'am Precy in your opinion page dated Oct.25, 2009. The teachers here at Kalayaan National High School were very happy upon reading your article about her - being a teacher and a committed mother. I have knwon Ma'am Prezy way back 1995 but I got the chance to know her well when we became co-teachers in KNHS 1998. I become an avid fan of her because of her qualities. Later, we bacome friends. True enough, Ma'am Prescy is very accepting, never harsh, she's so sincere. More than that, she is very humble, intelligent .and kind. But there is one quality that Ma'am Precy that I really adore and that is she can make you laugh out of her jokes.
More power to you Ms.Adelle and to Manila Standard Newspaper. God bless!
Very truly yours,
Mrs. Wilhelmina D. Tarnate
**
Dear Adelle,
I enjoy reading your column which I found most interesting, but the
big turn-off for me is when so-called climate change (formerly “global
warming”) is incorporated into a rather interesting piece.
In today's column, you mentioned “…Catanauan is presently challenged
by the introduction of the concept of climate change to her students.
Especially now, after the devastation wrought by recent storms Ondoy
and Pepeng, the young are more receptive to the idea that it is
climate change that is responsible for extreme weather conditions.”
The teacher's intention might be benign, but it is appalling to think
that impressionable skulls of young children full of mush are being
brain-washed with an insane notion without any foundation at all.
The climate change connection to Ondoy and Pepeng has no basis
whatsoever. I consider the regurgitation by Philippine media of Al
Gore’s global-warming-money-venture- scheme as junk science without
any factual basis but only enriches Al Gore's bank account.
Best regards,
Gil Torres
One of the faces I was really pleased to see during my high school reunion last month was that of Mrs. Priscilla Tañedo Catanauan, my adviser and English teacher during my freshman year. I had not seen nor heard from Ma'am Precy since the day I graduated from high school sixteen years ago. She had transferred from the school I attended to Kalayaan National High School, in the more remote part of Kalookan City.
But it was a reunion and everybody was busy catching up with everybody else, so outside of the hasty hellos and what-have-you -been-up-tos, there was no opportunity for longer talk. Too bad, really, because even as I noticed that my former teacher had visibly gained some years, what struck me more was that while watching our program, Ma'am Precy had the same quiet presence that allowed you to be just who you were. She was accepting, encouraging; never judging, never harsh. A subsequent online exchange proved to be an instructive exercise.
Isabela-born Catanauan is a graduate of St. Paul University in Tuguegarao (major in general science,minor in English) and has been teaching for the past 23 years. She spent two years at La Salette of Roxas and a good eleven years at the RVM-run Our Lady of Grace Academy before deciding to transfer to Kalayaan. She transferred for personal reasons; her children were then in their formative years and she felt she needed to spend more time with them. The public system required teachers to spend only six hours at school, which freed up more time for Catanauan. While she handled English classes in OLGA, she taught science subjects in the public high school. After a few years, she became science department head.
The transfer gave Catanauan the opportunity to observe similarities and differences between the private and the public systems. “In terms of service and commitment, there is no remarkable difference in teaching in a private and a public school,” she says. “In the private school where students are functionally literate, a teacher needs to give beyond what they already know, a teacher must be at least ten books ahead of them, a lot of preparation and teaching strategies are to be employed. In the public school where most of the students are deprived and less privileged, both economically and socially, a teacher faces the great task of bringing out the best in them and the most of what they know.”
As overseer of science instruction in the school, Catanauan is presently challenged by the introduction of the concept of climate change to her students. Especially now, after the devastation wrought by recent storms Ondoy and Pepeng, the young are more receptive to the idea that it is climate change that is responsible for extreme weather conditions. Faulty practices, like improper disposal of waste and a general apathy towards the environment, make the problem worse. She hopes these would make students more aware of their role and at the same time prepare them for calamities that may strike in the future.
Now that's real learning, which Catanauan believes cannot be measured solely by raw scores obtained in examinations. She evaluates her students by the improvements they make over time – and in all aspects, not just the grade.
Outside of the classroom, Catanauan has even more daunting challenges. A typical day starts at 4:30 in the morning when she has to prepare the needs of her husband George, a jeepney operator/ driver/ mechanic, as well as that of her children. At ten o'clock she reports to school and carries out her duties until 7 in the evening. Like any working mother, Catanauan constantly tries to give more of herself to her loved ones but always feels guilty that she is not doing enough. Fortunately her children have seen through this juggling act and learned to appreciate their mother's calling. In fact, she has set such a good example that two of her children are themselves professional teachers and two are studying to become teachers (another two are still in grade school). Some passions, after all, do run in the family.
Catanauan says she has never considered any other profession and cannot imagine herself being in another field. Success, she says, is achieving one's goals righteously. She is happy that she is able to live her dream of interacting with the youth and inspiring them.
Still, she aspires to do more. “I want to be an instrument in improving lives,” Much needs to be done to achieve quality education – not just for those who can afford it, but for all. She is a witness to the deterioration of the education system in the country. “Every Filipino deserves an equal opportunity for quality education.” Sadly, genuine commitment and quality service rendered by teachers like her are not enough to make this happen.
“Many students cannot cope with the minimum learning competencies set for their level. Lack of classrooms and teachers resulting to big class size, inadequate facilities, limited instructional time and poor teacher preparation are factors that result to the deterioration of education. To solve this problem,there is a need to align teachers to teach their major subject. There should be continuous training and retraining of teachers. Adequate facilities and classrooms should be provided.”
Well, accessibility of education is a common advocacy among candidates for next year's elections. Let's see who among these wannabes, local and national alike, are sincere and serious in making a difference.
**
October 5 was set aside by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as World Teachers' Day. Here in the country, the day was supposed to mark the culmination of month-long activities in the Teachers Month Campaign by organizations led by the Metrobank Foundation. The devastation brought by Ondoy and Pepeng, however, has caused the campaign to be extended until October 31. Difficult times have a way of bringing out the heroes in people, the foundation says, and teachers easily come to mind when we talk about heroes.
In the meantime, Catanauan's view of heroism has got nothing to do with being great or famous. “It is doing things no matter how simple they are to improve other people's lives. It is the act of forgetting oneself for the welfare of others.” Amen – how can we say we are a nation so in want of heroes?
Precy says she is driven by her commitment to her work and her love for her family. Her life is not comfortable nor luxurious, yet she considers herself successful. Her living trophies are former students who have eventually succeeded in their chosen careers – and her children who are turning out just fine.
Ma'am Precy says she looks forward to going back to her hometown after retirement, enjoying the comfort of family she has so assiduously built and nurtured side by side with her vocation. She is excited to care for more grandchildren (she has one already). She will look back to whether she has become an instrument indeed.
But even now we see she has taught her children and mothered her students well. That day may yet be far away, but her students – past and present, myself included – already know the answer.
**
Readers' reactions:
Dear Ms. Adelle,
I would like to thank you for featuring our dearest Ma'am Precy in your opinion page dated Oct.25, 2009. The teachers here at Kalayaan National High School were very happy upon reading your article about her - being a teacher and a committed mother. I have knwon Ma'am Prezy way back 1995 but I got the chance to know her well when we became co-teachers in KNHS 1998. I become an avid fan of her because of her qualities. Later, we bacome friends. True enough, Ma'am Prescy is very accepting, never harsh, she's so sincere. More than that, she is very humble, intelligent .and kind. But there is one quality that Ma'am Precy that I really adore and that is she can make you laugh out of her jokes.
More power to you Ms.Adelle and to Manila Standard Newspaper. God bless!
Very truly yours,
Mrs. Wilhelmina D. Tarnate
**
Dear Adelle,
I enjoy reading your column which I found most interesting, but the
big turn-off for me is when so-called climate change (formerly “global
warming”) is incorporated into a rather interesting piece.
In today's column, you mentioned “…Catanauan is presently challenged
by the introduction of the concept of climate change to her students.
Especially now, after the devastation wrought by recent storms Ondoy
and Pepeng, the young are more receptive to the idea that it is
climate change that is responsible for extreme weather conditions.”
The teacher's intention might be benign, but it is appalling to think
that impressionable skulls of young children full of mush are being
brain-washed with an insane notion without any foundation at all.
The climate change connection to Ondoy and Pepeng has no basis
whatsoever. I consider the regurgitation by Philippine media of Al
Gore’s global-warming-money-venture- scheme as junk science without
any factual basis but only enriches Al Gore's bank account.
Best regards,
Gil Torres
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
An ethical question
How next door to happiness lives sorrow
- R. Kelly
Gotham City
I saw an indie film last week (I wrote about it separately in my newspaper column) which had some scene taken inside a prison compound. I've also been following a show, Locked Up Abroad at the National Geographic Channel, where people narrate the circumstances of their landing in jail in a foreign country. Last Monday's episode was shot in the Laguna provincial jail even as the story was supposed to be set in Bali, Indonesia. The inmates were even talking in Filipino. I suppose the NatGeo people thought their first-world audience would not be able to tell the difference between Bahasa and Tagalog.
I digress. I am especially attentive of jails because I've actually been in one -- at the men's prison facility of the Quezon City Police Department. It's quite near Edsa, at the foot of the Kamuning flyover, on the right side if you are headed south.
February 2005. I was a freshman at the UP College of Law. My legal ethics teacher broke the class up into groups. My group was tasked to explore inmates' access to legal advise. See, inmates in city jails are just charged but not yet convicted. They were on trial or awaiting verdict. They either had no money for bail or were locked up for non-bailable offenses. The statistics are lost on me now but I know that some of the men there could be free, albeit temporarily, for a few thousand pesos...if only their families could raise the amount. The same story applies even to those who had been wrongly accused. I mean, how were we to know?
The men suffer the squalid conditions prisons in third-world countries are known for. There are too many people in too few square inches of space. It is not an exaggeration to say that these guys take turns sleeping, or else they would all have to do it standing up. The inmates subsist on very spartan meals.
Maybe to provide some comfort, the compound has specific sections for specific gangs, usually determined by the inmates' province of origin. Regionalism is nowhere as alive as it is here. There are attempts to make the place livable. There was a basketball court where inmates pass the time. Some quarters also have sari-sari stores. The enterprising ones sell coffee,sugar, laundry powder,biscuits. Talk about underground commerce.
And the smell! It is a potent mixture of grime and sweat and human waste and garbage and enclosure. Of course, one tries not to cover one's nose – lest one offend the men. Shirtless and tattooed and menacing and so dangerously close,they could have done anything to Nikki (my groupmate) and me.
Yup, Nikki and I were right there inside the prison, not just looking into it. We roamed the cells, with only two prison guards to make sure we are not touched nor taken hostage by the inmates. I was deathly afraid of this possibility and I tried to calm myself by thinking these guys may not be as desperate as they would be if they were convicted already. Still, I stayed close to the policeman. The men followed us with their eyes; Nikki and I tried not to meet them. It was an all-male compound. What else could they be thinking?
We were led upstairs. More prisoners, I expected, crowded into less spacious quarters. But no, on the third (or was it fourth) floor of the compound, one can actually feel the wind on one's face. There were railings, yes, but they could also pass for windows. There were cots, folding beds. Orocan drawers to organize the inmates' clothes and personal effects. Electric fans. Television sets.
None of the people on the privileged floor were Filipinos. They were Chinese, charged with trafficking drugs, who did not even speak English (or so they claimed).
As everywhere, some are more equal than others at the Quezon City Jail.
I think about this experience now and I cringe at how I could have taken it all so nonchalantly at the time. (Nikki was even giggling because the officer whom we interviewed was named Colonel Panti.) Maybe because I was evaluating the experience as nothing more than a means to make the grade. How shall we present all this to the class? What medium should our group use? What ethical issues may be raised? Would Ma'am Jardaleza be impressed or has she heard it all before?
I know. I am guilty of belated reaction. That in itself is an ethical question. Where has my social conscience been for the past four and a half years? Why have I kept silent?
The truth is, I might have kept these memories carefully tucked away in a corner of my brain. It is, after all, an inconvenient knowledge; it is easier to refuse to let them haunt me. I probably would not have remembered had I not seen those scenes on tv and in the film.
And I realize that now that I am in media, through this blog and the more traditional newspaper, I actually have a voice. I now wonder whether writing abut these things can actually make a difference. To the deplorable jail conditions. To the inclination to lock up an innocent man just to be able to say a case is closed. To the snail-paced procedures in our legal system, where one day or one week does not mean much to lawyers and judges but mean the world to the inmates' families. To the disparity in living conditions between the haves and the have nots, even in a controlled facility such as prison.
It is a curse to be born poor and ignorant in this country. But the greater curse is to feel so strongly about certain things and be scared that one day that passion is going to be extinguished by the acceptance that the evils you rile against are just so formidable. So formidable that you give up.
- R. Kelly
Gotham City
I saw an indie film last week (I wrote about it separately in my newspaper column) which had some scene taken inside a prison compound. I've also been following a show, Locked Up Abroad at the National Geographic Channel, where people narrate the circumstances of their landing in jail in a foreign country. Last Monday's episode was shot in the Laguna provincial jail even as the story was supposed to be set in Bali, Indonesia. The inmates were even talking in Filipino. I suppose the NatGeo people thought their first-world audience would not be able to tell the difference between Bahasa and Tagalog.
I digress. I am especially attentive of jails because I've actually been in one -- at the men's prison facility of the Quezon City Police Department. It's quite near Edsa, at the foot of the Kamuning flyover, on the right side if you are headed south.
February 2005. I was a freshman at the UP College of Law. My legal ethics teacher broke the class up into groups. My group was tasked to explore inmates' access to legal advise. See, inmates in city jails are just charged but not yet convicted. They were on trial or awaiting verdict. They either had no money for bail or were locked up for non-bailable offenses. The statistics are lost on me now but I know that some of the men there could be free, albeit temporarily, for a few thousand pesos...if only their families could raise the amount. The same story applies even to those who had been wrongly accused. I mean, how were we to know?
The men suffer the squalid conditions prisons in third-world countries are known for. There are too many people in too few square inches of space. It is not an exaggeration to say that these guys take turns sleeping, or else they would all have to do it standing up. The inmates subsist on very spartan meals.
Maybe to provide some comfort, the compound has specific sections for specific gangs, usually determined by the inmates' province of origin. Regionalism is nowhere as alive as it is here. There are attempts to make the place livable. There was a basketball court where inmates pass the time. Some quarters also have sari-sari stores. The enterprising ones sell coffee,sugar, laundry powder,biscuits. Talk about underground commerce.
And the smell! It is a potent mixture of grime and sweat and human waste and garbage and enclosure. Of course, one tries not to cover one's nose – lest one offend the men. Shirtless and tattooed and menacing and so dangerously close,they could have done anything to Nikki (my groupmate) and me.
Yup, Nikki and I were right there inside the prison, not just looking into it. We roamed the cells, with only two prison guards to make sure we are not touched nor taken hostage by the inmates. I was deathly afraid of this possibility and I tried to calm myself by thinking these guys may not be as desperate as they would be if they were convicted already. Still, I stayed close to the policeman. The men followed us with their eyes; Nikki and I tried not to meet them. It was an all-male compound. What else could they be thinking?
We were led upstairs. More prisoners, I expected, crowded into less spacious quarters. But no, on the third (or was it fourth) floor of the compound, one can actually feel the wind on one's face. There were railings, yes, but they could also pass for windows. There were cots, folding beds. Orocan drawers to organize the inmates' clothes and personal effects. Electric fans. Television sets.
None of the people on the privileged floor were Filipinos. They were Chinese, charged with trafficking drugs, who did not even speak English (or so they claimed).
As everywhere, some are more equal than others at the Quezon City Jail.
I think about this experience now and I cringe at how I could have taken it all so nonchalantly at the time. (Nikki was even giggling because the officer whom we interviewed was named Colonel Panti.) Maybe because I was evaluating the experience as nothing more than a means to make the grade. How shall we present all this to the class? What medium should our group use? What ethical issues may be raised? Would Ma'am Jardaleza be impressed or has she heard it all before?
I know. I am guilty of belated reaction. That in itself is an ethical question. Where has my social conscience been for the past four and a half years? Why have I kept silent?
The truth is, I might have kept these memories carefully tucked away in a corner of my brain. It is, after all, an inconvenient knowledge; it is easier to refuse to let them haunt me. I probably would not have remembered had I not seen those scenes on tv and in the film.
And I realize that now that I am in media, through this blog and the more traditional newspaper, I actually have a voice. I now wonder whether writing abut these things can actually make a difference. To the deplorable jail conditions. To the inclination to lock up an innocent man just to be able to say a case is closed. To the snail-paced procedures in our legal system, where one day or one week does not mean much to lawyers and judges but mean the world to the inmates' families. To the disparity in living conditions between the haves and the have nots, even in a controlled facility such as prison.
It is a curse to be born poor and ignorant in this country. But the greater curse is to feel so strongly about certain things and be scared that one day that passion is going to be extinguished by the acceptance that the evils you rile against are just so formidable. So formidable that you give up.
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