Pursuit of Peace

For an insurgent group, there are major advantages in pursuing peace. It is spared from military offensives. Its negotiators, who must be identified to the government, are immune from arrest.

Peace negotiations, however, do not stop the military from defensive operations, including the hot pursuit of any rebel who brings harm to anyone, whether soldier or civilian. A peace process is not supposed to stop the state from enforcing laws and protecting citizens from armed extortion, looting, and destruction of property. The government must keep this in mind as the two rebel groups with which the administration is exploring peace escalate their attacks on both military and civilian targets.

The peace process also doesn’t prevent the state from stopping the flow of weapons and funds to rebel groups. Those weapons can come from several sources. Military and police arsenals can be raided or weapons seized from soldiers and cops. There have been cases of soldiers and policemen themselves selling government-issued guns and ammunition to rebel groups. The gunsmiths of Danao in Cebu are also sources, although their products are of poor quality. Many news features have been published about the illegal gunsmiths of Danao. If journalists can find the gun makers, it shouldn’t be too hard for law enforcers to do the same.

Then there’s the funding. Maintaining a rebel army, especially one with families and other non-combatants in tow for use as human shields, requires a hefty amount of funds. They can’t subsist on camote forever; they need supplies for day-to-day survival. They need a lot of money for weapons and ammunition. How are the funds obtained? If they engage in criminal activities such as kidnapping, extortion and burning of private property to raise funds, they must be arrested.

Authorities can also scrutinize bank accounts, foundations and suspected shell corporations that might be used for rebel financing. A few years before the terrorist attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, the brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden operated a charity foundation in Mindanao through which funding was believed to have been channeled to the Abu Sayyaf.

There are many ways of fighting an insurgency other than the use of military force. A peace process can be pursued without sacrificing the duty of the government to enforce the law and keep the public safe.

Sewer Rat

For a man who ruled his country with an iron hand for 42 years, the end came ignominiously, and as brutally as he treated his people. Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, once dubbed “the Mad Dog of the Middle East,” begged for his life as he was dragged out of a sewer where he had hidden after an American drone struck his fleeing convoy.

His captors showed no mercy. Grainy video footage of his final moments showed Gadhafi beaten and bloodied by a frenzied mob before a bullet to the head put him out of his misery. Ecstatic people then posed for photos beside his corpse. “What did I ever do to you?” he reportedly asked.

As with the other authoritarian casualties of the Arab Spring, what Gadhafi did to his people led to his fall. Forty-two years can give someone the impression that he has a divine right to rule and luxuriate in the entitlements of absolute power. Until his final days, the North African despot acted true to form, ordering his own people killed for his own survival.

As in Egypt after the fall of another durable despot, Hosni Mubarak, jubilation erupted across Libya as Gadhafi’s death was confirmed. And as in Egypt, uncertainties are ahead over the fate of Libya after four decades under a man who made no preparations for an orderly transfer of power. For 42 years, Gadhafi’s relatives and cronies flourished, with the regime failing to spread the blessings of the nation’s massive oil production to the grassroots.

This is a key lesson from the Arab Spring: no head of state is invincible in the face of deep public discontent. That discontent can bubble up from many sources: economic hardships, social injustice, the absence of equal opportunities, stifling of civil liberties. Gadhafi’s Libya had all those problems and more: the brutality of his regime made the successful uprising in neighboring Tunisia an inspiration to long-oppressed Libyans.

Those problems will not disappear overnight with the killing of Gadhafi. Egyptians are fully aware of this, particularly the women who braved threats and joined regular protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. For now, however, Libyans can revel in the success of their revolution, and breathe the free air with the death of a dictator.

Warning Signs

The two cases of passion killings recently happened at SM North Edsa and SM Pampanga served as a reminder of the role of the family in the preservation of Filipino values that were obviously damaged because of the incidents.

Had the families of the victims in close monitoring of their children, those two incidents can be avoided, thus, saving precious lives. Yes, parents of those killed, particularly the SM Pampanga violence were two minors perished, were to be greatly blamed resulting in the death of their loved ones.

Lest it be misunderstood that we are tossing the blame solely to the parents of the victims but accounts of respected members of the community including religious groups stress that there are now warning signs that the family, as a basic unit of the society, is indeed in the midst of collapse because of the increasing incidence of crime of passion not only in those two malls but also elsewhere.

It is now clear that there is an urgent need to go back to the basic where children are taught primarily by their parents, values necessary for them to realize the importance of life.

The warning signs are already obvious. Unless proper approaches to restore immediately the core values among Filipino families, there will be more passion killings that will happen in the future.

A collective effort, therefore, of every Filipino family is the ultimate answer in avoiding senseless deaths not the assertions of others of breach of security protocols of mall operators.

No more, no less.

A Matter of Perspective

We live in this world that is full of ego. What matters is all about us, ourselves. We are often, to our own thinking, correct. What we do is correct. We don’t care about others because they are wrong in the first place.

We see things from our own perspective – not from others.

How true indeed were the words of William James. “The greatest discovery of my generation,” he once said, “is that man can alter his life simply by altering his attitude of mind.”

I was reminded of a story written by Valerie Cox. It goes something like this: A woman was waiting at an airport one night. With several long hours before her flight, she bought a book and a bag of cookies. She then found a place where she could sit and do her reading.

She was engrossed in her book but noticed that the man beside her was grabbing some cookies “from the bag between.” She tried to ignore the situation because she wanted to avoid making a scene.

The situation continued for some time. As she read and munched her cookies, the man was continuing to eat the cookies, too. She also continued to ignore him but she told herself, “If I wasn’t so nice, I’d blacken his eye!”

Then, finally, there was only one cookie left. The man took the last cookie and broke it in half. With a smile on his face, he offered her half and ate the other. She took the other half and thought, “This guy has some nerve, and he’s also rude. He didn’t even show any gratitude.”

Right there and then, she wanted to say something but her flight was called. She gathered all her belongings and headed for the gate, refusing to look back at the “cookie thief.”

She boarded the plane and continued reading her book. In the middle of the flight, she reached her back pack and “gasped with surprise.” She found her bag of cookies inside it.

“If mine are here,” she said, “then the cookies we were eating were his and he tried to share them to me.”

It was too late to apologize. She realized that she was the rude one and the thief.

Life is a matter of perspective. We have to see things from different angles. If someone has done something bad to you, try to see it from his point of view. If you were in his place, will you do the same thing? As they say, there are always two sides of a coin.

Success and failure go hand in hand. You either win or lose. But then again, it’s a matter of perspective whether you emerge a winner or a loser. A winner is always part of the answer while the loser is always a part of the problem. The winner has a program but the loser has always an excuse. The winner says, “Let me do it for you.”

The loser complains, “That’s not my job.”

The winner sees an answer for every problem while the loser sees a problem in every answer. The winner sees a green near every sand trap but the loser sees two or three sand traps near every green. The winner says, “It may be difficult but it’s possible.” The loser dismisses it this way: “It may be possible but it’s too difficult.” Which perspective do you usually follow?

Think positively, Norman Vincent Peale suggests. The Daily Motivator urges: “Use your energy and your time where they can make the biggest positive difference. Being positive is more than just repeating happy phrases.

Being positive means living positive. Being positive means seeing the possibilities for improvement and advancement in every situation, and acting on them.”

There’s more: “Being positive means doing what is necessary and right even if it is not easy or popular. Positive values are more than just platitudes. Sincere positive values result in effective positive actions. And those actions will bring real, lasting and substantial achievement.”

But oftentimes, people choose to think negatively. Two buckets met at the well. One of them looked morose. “What’s the trouble?” asked the second bucket sympathetically. “Oh,” replied the first, gloomy bucket, “I get so weary of being dragged to this well. No matter how full I am, I always come back here empty.”

The second bucket laughed. “How curious! Why, I always come here empty and go away full. I’m sure if you started to think that way, you would feel much more cheerful.”

That is what optimism is all about. The Daily Motivator suggests, “Rather than lamenting what you do not have, make the most of what you do have. Rather than being stopped by what you cannot do, move forward by doing what you can do. Instead of agonizing over the past or worrying about the future, make sure that right now you are the very best you can be.”

It was during the war and the Army was drafting young me by the thousands. A simple farmer boy walked down the street right in front of the draft board office. A neighbor told him, “You better stay away; you might get drafted into the army.”

The boy, who had actually not even heard of the war, did not understand what it was all about. So the neighbor explained the situation. But the boy answered, with these words:

“Well, I always figure that I have two chances: I might get drafted – and I might not. And even if I’m drafted, I still have two chances: I might pass and I might not. And if I pass, I still have two chances: I might go overseas or I might not. And even if I go across, I still have two chances: I might get shot – and I might not.

And even if I got shot, I still have two chances: I might die – and I might not. And even if I die, I still have to chances…”

Carlos Castaneda said it right: “Things don’t change. You change your way of looking, that’s all.”

A Basic Women's Right

It is ironic that while medieval male senators, trying to score brownie points with the male leaders of the Catholic Church, prevent the passage of the Reproductive Health bill not through intelligent arguments but by sitting on it, the Philippines has just hosted the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ human rights conference on promoting maternal health.

Held last week, the conference discussed ASEAN member states’ progress on the achievement of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, particularly Goal No. 5, which aims to promote universal access to reproductive health services by 2015. The Philippines has committed to achieving the MDG. As in many other aspects of human development, the Philippines is lagging behind its ASEAN neighbors in achieving MDG No. 5, and is even going in the opposite direction, according to health and human rights officials.

The ones who need the RH bill in this country are impoverished women. Those with sufficient education and means have access to reproductive healthcare and enjoy the luxury of choosing whether or not to practice contraception. These women include the wives of several of the legislators who are against the idea that all women, regardless of income level, have the basic right to reproductive health.

While millions of impoverished Filipino women wait for access to reproductive healthcare, a Filipino-American midwife has been chosen as one of the Top 10 “CNN Heroes” for providing free maternal healthcare to poor women in Indonesia. Robin Lim is being honored for setting up “birthing sanctuaries” for Indonesians who need maternal and general healthcare.

Lim follows in the footsteps of Efren Peñaflorida, who was named CNN “Hero of the Year” in 2009 for bringing education to the poor while pushing a kariton or cart. Peñaflorida, who grew up in the slums, addressed a need that he knew was acute among the impoverished communities in the Philippines. There is another acute need waiting to be addressed, and which lawmakers living in Forbes Park and other posh villages cannot be expected to understand: poor Filipino women need reproductive healthcare. The RH bill has to be passed. Reproductive health is a basic women’s right, and a basic need.

Protection only for VIPs

Like food, shelter, roads and school facilities, the number of cops has failed to grow commensurately with the country’s ballooning population. The Philippine National Police, under fire for a spate of sensational crimes in Metro Manila and nearby provinces, pointed out that 50,000 more cops are needed to come close to the ideal ratio of one police officer for every 500 population.

Although the PNP constantly hires new recruits, the organization also loses personnel every year through mandatory retirement, resignation, and dismissal for various offenses. PNP officials said the number of police personnel has not increased since 1986. About 140,000 PNP personnel are tasked to keep nearly 100 million Filipinos safe. Even if an estimated 10 million are overseas, the current police-population ratio is still far from ideal.

Officials said 6,000 new recruits are joining the PNP next month. It would improve the ratio if none of those 6,000 will do bodyguard duty for VIPs. The PNP is tasked to keep the entire population safe, and not just a handful of public officials. Cabinet members and politicians who like moving around with a coterie of bodyguards in tow survive without security escorts when they leave office. Several murders in recent years have shown that a bodyguard – or an AK-47 for that matter – is no protection from a determined assassin.

Cops are assigned as bodyguards even of well-connected private citizens. Why should a few Filipinos enjoy more protection than the rest? Only a handful of top public officials, plus individuals who face genuine threats and are under the Witness Protection Program, are entitled to security escorts. The president of the republic deserves them; his advisers do not.

There have been numerous attempts in the past years to limit the number of police and military personnel assigned to bodyguard duty. All the efforts were soon reversed, as politicians – plus their wives, children, mistresses and cronies – raised howls of protest. President Aquino, who on the first day of his administration banned all civilians from using sirens and blinkers, should see this as another manifestation of the wang-wang mentality that must be curbed. He can start by making his Cabinet members and advisers set the example.

Children's month

For the 19th year, the nation is marking National Children’s Month with a reminder from child welfare authorities that children have a basic right to participate in all undertakings that concern them. This year’s theme focuses on the need to strengthen local bodies: “Local Council for the Protection of Children para sa Bright Child: Pakilusin, Palakasin, Pagtulungan Natin!”

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the Philippines is a signatory, includes four specific provisions on children’s participation. Articles 12 to 15 of the convention stipulate that children’s rights include freedom of expression and of thought, conscience and religion. A child has the right to freedom of association and peaceful assembly. There is also the right to express views freely in all matters affecting the child, with appreciation of the views depending on the child’s age and maturity.

Studies conducted by the Council for the Welfare of Children, through the National Committee for Child and Youth Participation, showed that promoting children’s involvement in matters that concern them improved relations within the family, in school, and in communities. Participation also boosted children’s self-confidence and interest in becoming achievers.

October, the month dedicated to children, is also a time to review measures to fight child abuse in all its forms. Across the country, many children are victims of domestic violence, human trafficking, sexual exploitation and child labor. Many are forced into abusive situations by their own parents. Children are used by insurgent and bandit groups for various purposes, even as combatants.

With the juvenile law exempting children up to 18 years old from criminal prosecution, drug dealers, carjackers and other crime groups are increasingly employing teenagers. When apprehended, the teens are turned over to social welfare personnel, who eventually return the children to the same families and communities that fostered their criminal behavior. Such children can benefit from immersion in a foster family, but social welfare officials have admitted that the country’s foster care culture is weak. Juvenile rehabilitation centers are also woefully inadequate.

The task of promoting the welfare of children is daunting, but sustained efforts have produced some progress in the past years. Like any major challenge, every little step counts.

Abuse of a system

The party-list system has become a travesty, with groups that are anything but marginalized fielding front organizations, and nominees who have never been part of the groups they are supposed to represent winning seats in Congress.

If taxpayers are now paying the salaries, pork barrel allocations and upkeep of certain party-list representatives who clearly do not belong to the marginalized sector, and large political parties and religious organizations have managed to subvert the system, the Commission on Elections is not entirely to blame. The final word on accreditation rests with the Supreme Court. Comelec officials in the 2010 elections also said they were too preoccupied with the country’s first fully automated polls to effectively screen party-list applicants and their nominees.

These days the Comelec, whose new chairman has received the nod of the Commission on Appointments, is again busy preparing for automated elections in 2013, and deciding whether it will use the same system in 2010 or a new one. But Chairman Sixto Brillantes has not overlooked the party list. Earlier this week he reminded those planning to seek a party-list seat in 2013 to file their applications for accreditation early. This would not only allow the Comelec to screen each group thoroughly but also give the applicants more time to challenge a ruling disqualifying them.

This is a stopgap measure, until the rules and requirements for the system are fine-tuned so that it upholds the spirit of the law. The party list is meant to give marginalized sectors a voice in legislation. The selection of which sectors are truly marginalized and deserve special congressional representation must be done with great care. Framers of the Constitution had good intentions when they included the provision on the party-list, and that intent must not be undermined. Also, there are better uses for public funds than maintaining additional and sometimes undeserving members of Congress. Look at some of the party-list members now sitting in Congress: children of politicians and other prominent personalities who were born with a silver spoon, representing groups whose marginalized status continues to be the subject of debate.

The system has been so abused that it’s time to consider proposals for its abolition. This, however, will require a constitutional amendment. Until this happens, the Comelec must improve the rules and screening of party-list applicants

My Dream

TWENTY YEARS AGO, I dreamed of becoming an explorer of nature not just here in the Philippines but also abroad. I was fascinated by the beauty of nature.

There are these stunning plants and abundant species of different kinds of animals, wild or domestic one. I totally wanted to discover and become a part of nature’s beauty. Fortunately, I was born here in the Philippines, and becoming a Filipino is a pride of many.

The Philippines has plenty of natural resources, natural habitats and a huge body of water. I am very fortunate that I live in the Philippines and knowing that the beauty of nature is just a step away on our door.

Outside the house, I notice giant trees, chirping birds and several animals around. The river invites you to wash your feet on its clean and clear water. It was all-over mesmerizing.

But that was twenty years ago.

I am now 34 years old and still want to explore the beauty of nature but since the giant trees were logged, rivers were polluted and became like trash bins of many people living beside it, and the birds are not often seen out there, flying and chirping. I just don’t know if I will pursue my endeavor of knowing nature better as ever.

Agricultural lands are now converted into industrial lots which resulted to less plants and trees. This means less oxygen in the atmosphere and more emission of carbon dioxide and other gases detrimental to us and to the environment.

The chemicals from the factory are dumped directly to rivers and thus, making these bodies of water polluted.

Therefore, if this will be the case in the succeeding years in the Philippines, I doubt if I can fully capture the elegance of nature, the beauty that lies within. Twenty years after, the Philippines will become more polluted and unsafe to live in.

But if we will continue our advocacy on protecting and conservingour natural habitats, there will be great chances of maintaining its natural grace and beauty.

The Filipino can!

Never say it can’t be done until you’ve really, really tried. Then try some more.

All of us will go through life and will be told at one point or another that something just can’t be done or that we are bound to fail if we try. That comes with the territory. The real test is if what we know and believe is greater than what others think, even our personal heroes or experts.

Sometimes it is the personal relationship or title that often ties us down and stops us from even trying. Because we believe or trust someone, we tend to abort rather than try.

I found myself in such a situation about five years ago when one of my “car heroes” told me about how he wished “we”, meaning Filipinos, had the skills to make cars out of aluminum rather than fiberglass. That, he said would really put us on the map.

Without batting an eyelash, I told him that Filipinos have the skills and that the project he had in mind was entirely feasible. We may not have all the sophisticated equipment but “If there’s a will, there’s a way”.

Unfortunately, my elderly mentor could not be convinced. As far as he was concerned we did not have the technology and much less the experience handling the alien and exotic metal we call “aluminum”.

I felt so bad after that talk because I knew it could be done, that Filipinos could do it and if he only believed, he could have had his dream come true. Unfortunately, he was overwhelmed with expert information from people who never actually tried or tried hard enough. He signed off his vision on the opinion of others.

In spite of that, he was one of my car heroes and he left me with a challenge that was just too good to pass off, to actually make his idea a reality.

If my car hero gave the challenge, I have to be honest and say, that I had a lot of help from God.

For two years, I had searched for a 1965/66 Mustang Fastback just like my dad had, which he also acquired from my car hero. There was a rumor that a rich old man in Tanauan, Batangas had dumped such a car inside a piggery and that he was not selling.

So I spent about a year or more following the trail, finding the man, made friends with him and eventually bought a totally rusted, dilapidated shell of a ’65 Mustang. Everyone who saw the car said I lost my mind or wasted good money.

When the boys at the shop saw the car they told me it was beyond repair and that we would simply have to make completely new panels. So imagine where I was. My hero said it couldn’t be done, people tried to hide the location of the car, my friends laughed at me and now even my own crew said: “just throw it away”.

That’s when I told them: We are making the first all-aluminum bodied 1965 Mustang in the world!

My “Latero” thought I was nuts. In fact he openly expressed his doubts and hesitation since he never tried it and no one he knew had ever attempted to make a full size aluminum body.

I told him: “Trust me”.

I then spent the next two months studying how the project would go, what would be required and asked my other mentors for their thoughts on the project. Sadly everyone said, “You can’t do it” or “It can’t be done”. But that, I told them, was the very reason I was doing it. Because Filipinos can!

The first lesson is never to let go of your vision or your belief. The second is to prove to yourself, in your mind or on paper how it can be done and how it should be done. Then pray for the almighty God to sustain you through the journey and to open doors for you.

As you get your nerve and hopes up, be willing to make mistakes and willing to fail if it comes to that. Finally, “Just Do It”.

When your crew, family or employees realize that you are far more interested in trying and that failure will not be taken against them, when they see you that you are more excited about the adventure, the challenge, more than the costs, you might discover that they will soon take ownership of the challenge as well as the vision.

Once we had lift off, we had a crowd. The naysayers became the curious and then became the cheering squad. Once word got out that it was a mission to prove Filipinos can, we suddenly had a handful of supporters ready and waiting to provide parts and technical expertise once we made the aluminum body.

It took us nine months just to make the body, we used basic tools, hammers, rubber mallets, home made implements and ordinary oxygen / acetylene torch. The project started sometime in 2009 and we completed it in time for my birthday last April 2011 or about two years total.

I was recently approached by Top Gear Philippines and they made a video about the car, about the project, and about how the Filipinos did.

If you want to view that video, go to http://www.topgear.com.ph/features/feature-articles/filipino-classic-car-enthusiast-makes-an-aluminum-ford-mustang.

To God be the glory as well as to the Filipinos who believe.