Nature Wins. All The Time

“Oh people of the earth
Listen to the warning the seer he said
Beware the storm that gathers here
Listen to the wise man…” (Brian May, 1975)

For the first time in my life I, like a million others who had access to the internet, watched in real time a storm brew and spew its wrath on everything along its path.  What is comfortable to note is that the loss of lives now is far lower than what we got last year at about this time.  Thank you, Sendong for a powerful lesson.  What we failed to teach each other nature did. 

After we pray and cry for the dead it’s time to transcend the self-pity and the ranting.  All human effort to wax eloquent about disaster preparedness and response only went so far.  Pablo (shouldn’t his international name be Blopa?!) knew that it was time for a practicum.    From cyberspace he looked majestic, strong, powerful.  It was easy for him to spot those who skipped classes, some subjects or entire courses in the aftermath.

The warnings came late last week; and until Monday evening all that Cotabato City got was a not so sunny but very hot weather.  Odd.  Some friends joked that there must be something wrong with the advisory.  I felt there was nothing wrong with being prepared.  Ok, Mindanao was once marketed as Typhoon-Free so why not set up shop here. 

But there’s a catch: before Pablo, Mindanao may have been typhoon-free but what was always unspoken was that it is disaster-prone, and it’s all man-made.  C’mon.  The logs did not cut themselves; the nickel and the gold didn’t gouge itself out from the bowels of the earth; the African palms and bananas did not drill those gigantic pipes to quench its enormous thirst; the creeks did not gorge itself with plastic and the grasses did not spray itself with herbicide.             

We retired in the night after checking as many posts possible on social media and updates on cable tv; and making sure Gel in Bukidnon and Ram in Puerto Princesa have taken the necessary precautions.

There was nothing unusual with my 3 o’clock waking hour Tuesday morning, except that the blanket remained folded.  It must have been warm.  Pablo continued to creep overnight; and the raindrops came at exactly 4:30 and it’s more than 24 hours since.

Sr Erleen of HESED called that their culminating activity on December 5 where I was a resource person is cancelled.  The road to Tapian along the coast is impassable.  What a fitting way to reflect as the Mindanao Week of Peace ended with the theme “Together for Sustainable Peace in Mindanao”.  Many like-minded sectors would be talking among themselves on how to make it work while the usual culprits continue to make hay – bringing in unregulated imports, inviting external consultants, investing in capitalist financial structures – and still debate why durable solutions can’t be  had.

Who’s together?  What’s sustainable? Whose peace?  Development for whom? 

Sendong came last year.  Something that did not have a name so we just called it Habagat came in August.  Let’s brace for something stronger than Pablo and exponential after that until we remember, as Bryan May said, we are people of the earth.  There’s just no way we can mess up with nature.  It always wins. ##

Cotabato City

5 December 2012

Aveen Acuña-Gulo wrote an editorial column “The Voice” for the Mindanao Cross from 1991-2006. She likes to challenge stereotypes.  “Don’t worry about my opinions,” she says.  “It won’t make a dent to the conventional.”  

In the name of what? Hill 224 and the cycle of oppression

This article appeared on MindaNews on August 16 2012 1:05 am

http://www.mindanews.com/mindaviews/2012/08/peacetalk-in-the-name-of-what-hill-224-and-the-cycle-of-oppression/

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COTABATO CITY (MindaNews/15 August) —  Several actors figure prominently in this recent armed conflict:
First and foremost is the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters or Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement who harassed military installations in the middle of Ramadhan allegedly to avenge the death of a comrade last June;
The military who, under the constraints of the current GPH-MILF peace talks maintains a defensive position considering that Camp Omar of the BIFF/BIFM is still technically an MILF camp; the government on all levels, whose access to the press and cyberspace seem to manifest that emergency relief assistance will already address a situation that repeats itself over the years.

In this week-old crisis, everybody who has something to say has already been given considerable time and space on radio, print, television and the internet despite the Habagat floods in Luzon.  The faces of suffering (with children as the easiest sympathy-generating tools), the inhumane living conditions in evacuation centers, the sights and sounds of guns and weapons of destruction, images of reporters with fancy gear in the battle zone, the humanitarian response of rice, medicines and photo ops, the illogical numbers of IDPs – are all the same; only the dates have changed.
Can we still learn?

In this light, may we call upon specifically the media to go beyond the usual reportage.  This should help initiatives, i.e. the privilege speech last July of ARMM Sectoral Rectoral Representative for IPs calling for a legislative inquiry into the real situation symbolized by Hill 224.  Statements issued by IP leaders (both men and women) to declare Mt Firis as a zone of peace still seem not to etch itself in the consciousness of decision-makers, much less the general public.

The rampage that started in the Mt Firis Complex is more than the current peace talks.  It is a case of land-grabbing, neo-colonialism, development aggression and annihilation of culture rolled into one.  While it is true that IDPs now start to languish in lowland evacuation centers and truly deserve help, the media can generate action with their sense of fairness and nationhood by covering the plight of the indigenous peoples.  Do we really have to wait for the IPs to shed their non-confrontational nature for them to earn precious air time or newspaper space?  Accounts are replete with how IP names were used several times by different sectors either for election purposes or in order to avail of humanitarian and development assistance.  Whether it changed their lives for the better is another story.

The Indigenous Peoples (Teduray, Lambangian and Dulangan Manobo or TLaD) know that their ancestral land covers 189,534 hectares with a perimeter of 211 kilometers in Maguindanao alone. [The 289,286 hectares documented by Cotabato-based Institute for Autonomy and Governance (IAG) already covers parts of Sultan Kudarat Province].   This indigenous knowledge has been passed through  centuries through oral tradition using natural markers like rivers, rocks, trees among others.  The IP concept of ancestral domain is “private land owned by a community,” and community in this case refers to the three IP groups.

IAG further states that “…between 2002-2006, various Muslim Mindanao Acts created new municipalities carved out from Mt Firis: Datu Unsay, Datu Saudi, Guindulungan, Shariff Aguak and Talayan which were inevitably ruled by Maguindanao Mayors.  Recent regional laws also removed 12 coastal barangays of Upi to form the Datu Blah Sinsuat municipality, and renamed the Teduray ancestral domain portions of Dinaig town into the Datu Odin Sinsuat Municipality.”

Faced with the challenge of the Regalian Doctrine where “all lands not otherwise clearly appearing to be privately-owned are presumed to belong to the State” the TLaD have united themselves to have what is left of ancestral domain be given a title on which, under the present IPRA law can only be issued by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP).

Interestingly, the ARMM chose not to be covered by the IPRA law when it was passed in 1997.  Assurances were made that being autonomous, it can take care of its own IPs who comprise around half a million, or 20% of its population at that time.  Though excruciatingly slow, efforts are underway to have an NCIP or its equivalent in the ARMM.

Not known to engage in armed confrontations to resolve conflict, the IPs retreat to what they think are safer grounds every time they are harassed. What they consider as ancestral land have now been made either camps by revolutionary groups, or subdivided into municipalities, and titled to be their own by political families.  Calls to let them move to evacuation camps which are near the highway are met with the uncertainty that the land that they will return to will already have become logging sites, camps or plantations as what happened in the past.

We appeal to the media to interview the mayors of the affected municipalities and ask why they allowed these atrocities to flourish; what are their political plans and how they intend to finance it.  It would be good to see what type of businesses flourish every time displacements occur.  If the answers are incomprehensible, maybe the questions are not precise.   If things are better left unsaid, it is understandable that someone’s life may be at stake – or maybe documents can talk.

We call on the Mindanao Humanitarian Team who has the collective capacity and expertise to triangulate data submitted by local government units.  Let it not be said that spoilers of the peace have higher intelligence quotients in terms of numbers.

And to the consumers of news, a spectator public that has expanded exponentially through social media, may there be more discernment in what is read or heard.  May we not be multipliers of lies and half-truths as, according to Socrates, slander becomes the tool of the losing debater.

While all issues and discussions will not fit into this one article, it is clear that self-pity will not solve the crisis symbolized by Hill 224 either.  Let us help duty-bearers, policy-makers and each other come up with research-based and informed actions.  Only proactive response will do justice to the faceless indigenous peoples who have long been marginalized.

In the name of peace.

(PeaceTalk is open to anyone who wishes to share his/her piece on peace in Mindanao. Aveen Acuna-Gulo is the Project Manager of IPDEV, an EU-funded project for the recognition and empowerment of indigenous peoples in the ARMM.  IPDEV is implemented by the consortium of Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Institute for Autonomy and Governance and Development Consultants.  The views expressed here are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the EU, KAS, IAG and DEVCON)

Food security: Tatay-style

This article appeared on MindaNews May 4 2008 12:27 am

A couple of weekends ago I visited him in Bukidnon.  Now slightly bent in his 68 yr-old farmer’s gait, he showed me a new bamboo-slat barn he was making.  He would store his newly harvested corn on one end; and some chickens on the other.  It is not unusual for me to see unmilled corn (in cobs, and sometimes with husks) in any corner of the house – - even the sala, and bedrooms, mind you – - and of course above the wood-fueled stove.

“How do you manage the weevils?” I ask.

His reply: “The weevils can't consume everything.”  Ah ok.  (I remember someone told me that Ilocano neighbors were spraying something like water steeped in tobacco leaves around their kamalig or barn.  I suppose this was to minimize insects).  

Knowing how high rice prices had become, Tatay let me bring home one sack of yellow corn grits; but I can only manage transporting 25 kilograms 220 kilometers back to Cotabato City.  Why, some markets here already sell corn grits at P28!  This would surely last for a month with my family of 5. 

Tatay’s corn-eating lifestyle comes from his Sugbu-anon (Cebuano) roots.  He looked for greener pastures in Mindanao in the 1950s because the limestone soil in Cebu was difficult to till only corn would grow, and sparsely at that.  He relates further that they were so poor that having chicken or beef was already a luxury.  He said, “Bukidnon soil will grow anything if you just plant something on it.  I wanted to eat chicken, so I raised chickens.  I wanted to eat beef, so I raised cows.”  And so on and so forth.

He tells us, "Pobre ta pero wa ta maglisod" (we are poor but we are not hard-up).  It wasn’t easy sending all of us seven children to school, but his concept of being hard up is when “wa na juy lung-agon (when you do not have anything more to cook).”

According to him, his folks always said that "Kinahanglan mag-abot ang imong abot".  The first 'abot' – accent on the first syllable, meaning meet; the second 'abot' – accent on the second syllable, meaning harvest.  Roughly translated, it means “Your harvests should meet.” 

In the early 1970s, Tatay stacked up 80 sacks of palay, unmilled upland rice (dinorado) to see how long it would last considering it was sun-dried properly.  But the long dry spell hit Mindanao (El Nino wasn’t the name then) he had no choice but to mill his palay.  While the rest of our neighbors grudgingly had corn, we had rice.  Sometimes we exchanged the rice for the neighbors’ corn.    This was the time when I also learned that the volume of the boiled rice (or corn) could be expanded by adding cubes of camote (sweet potatoes) or unripe saba bananas which I think is called “sinaksak”.  Up to today, he also stacks up on palay, just enough when he needs it, with all of his children already grown up and on their own.

Tatay tried modernizing, too: mono-crops, chemical fertilizers, test tube planting materials, hybrid seeds.  He also wanted to test the claims of science and technology and huge profits versus time-honored wisdom.  But it seems he was always disappointed every time.  With the lure of huge loans, his fellow farmers become more debt-ridden than ever.  Was it because the loan for the yellow corn became a yellow car?  Seeds and other agricultural inputs grew mansions?  The sugar industry raised a whole structure of oppression?  Agents and middlemen shaved commissions from agricultural inputs one layer after the other?  Behind the commercial chicken- and swine- feeds were hormones that created disease-prone offspring?  Behind the animal dispersals were ghost recipients?

As Tatay put it, “Let the others loan as much as they want.  I’m happy.  Wala ko’y utang (I’m not in debt).”  But he has corn anytime he likes.  All the vegetables he loves are just growing around his house: bamboo shoots,malunggay leaves, kulitis (spinach), saluyot (Philippine spinach), kudyapa (wild spinach).

Bottom line:  Investing so much for nothing.  Why bother with self-induced stress?  Tatay seems happy with his plow and the smell of the freshly upturned earth; even plowing at 3am when the moon is shining (“I could rest at 8am when the sun gets hot”).    

As one observer put it, “Filipinos are always in a hurry but are always late.”  With the country’s present rice crisis and chronic indebtedness, modern technology and modern financing schemes may have to take a back seat for now because the value of building on what we have has already been forgotten.  As a nation we have become culturally unstable to handle resources that are readily available from commercial companies (don’t forget the ‘multinational’ part. It seems we have changed its context to ‘investors’).

For us to claim to be an agri-based economy and people are hungry, it’s a shame.  We don’t need elaborate, confusing, thus corruption-prone schemes.  Our national dignity depends on food security down to the household level. 

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Aveen Acuña-Gulo wrote an editorial column “The Voice” for the Mindanao Cross from 1991-2006.  She is not stating full names of people and institutions to protect their identities.  “Don’t worry about my opinions,” she says.  “It won’t make a dent to the conventional.”)

Why Peace Campaigns Didn’t Work

(This article appeared on the online edition of Our Mindanao on December 4, 2012)
http://www.mindanews.com/mindaviews/2012/12/04/the-voice-why-peace-campaigns-didnt-work/

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The title of this piece is supposed to be “Why Peace Campaigns Didn’t Work; Why It Still Doesn’t and Never Will”.

I read with amusement an article about Sarah Geronimo being tapped by the Armed Forces as its   Ambassadress of Peace.  A wholesome image seems to be the first criteria.  It seems that getting ambassadors of something has become very mainstream, along with the causes they espouse.  Let’s see if the observation reflects reality.  For this 600-word article, let me just focus on showbiz personalities.  I’m not very good at answering questions from topics that are out of context.

Right after the signing of the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro, OPAPP brought Epy Quizon, Ebe Dancel and Datu Khomeini to a conflict-affected area said to be on its way to development.  Of course who could forget KC Concepcion as National Ambassador Against Hunger earlier.  Shortly after UNWFP got her, ACT4PEACE followed with Robin Padilla, UNICEF with Bamboo (who else?).

Bear with me if I say that at one point I also thought the idea of getting an ambassador was a novel idea.  In the early 2000s when peace was the buzzword with the signing of the GRP-MNLF Peace Agreement, part of the Communication Plan was to tap a Peace Champion (it wasn’t called Ambassador/dress then).  The UN-Multi-Donor Program wanted a popular face to match the slogans.  Somehow it just did not materialize; Aga Muhlach was the last suggestion but he was already engaged with Jollibee.  Culture of Peace was just freshly hammered onto the 3Ms (military-morofront-media) many felt it was contradictory to the tenets of peacebuilding to commercialize a worthy cause.  The UNMDP morphed into A4P to adapt to the changing context. 

Pacquiao’s name was floated in 2007 for WFP – but some say he, of rags-to-riches boxing fame, didn’t have the “kagat” (x-factor) for something fit for royalty.  The rest is history.

What did we gain from celebrities mouthing worthy causes and showing their well-scrubbed faces in a wailing crowd of fans?  After the shrieking and the autographs and the photo ops and facebook postings, what?  All this time that they were around did it really make a dent on the peace?  If it did not work then, will it work now?  If it did, how?    

If the strategy did work, maybe it was on something else but definitely not peace.  Picking up from this cue, there was no more need for politicians to hire celebrities to mouth their causes.  They did not have to shell out any amount from their pork barrel for talent fees to the celebrities, transporting them in fancy cars, billeting them in plush hotels and dealing with their managers with their individual quirks.  All they did was just show their own faces and tried to look worthy enough! 

At one point the perpetuation of the practice was reinforced with a foreign funded campaign for handwashing.  Note though that with the late SecJess Robredo’s move for good governance, the handwashing campaign removed the faces of the governors from their soap and toothpaste.  But damage was already done – the practice remained even without foreign funding, and went beyond soap and toothpaste to tarpaulins and product endorsements.  Talk about effectivity, the practice of self-worship now even has a name: EPAL. 

I’d like to define EPALism as “a state of mind where you believe that your face is loved by everyone except others.”  With all those faces screaming for attention in a sea of eyesores, little does the owner know that most of the time, nobody actually ever remembers him/her afterward and for what reason.  Don’t they get it?  Right.  It’s a state of mind.  Sarah and the rest need not worry. 

Unless that face is removed from the message, campaigns for peace and all other issues that go with it – hunger, poverty, landgrabbing, logging, right to self-determination, corruption, mining, GMOs, human rights, respect for nature, name it – will never work.  ##

Cotabato City

30 November 2012

Aveen Acuña-Gulo wrote an editorial column “The Voice” for the Mindanao Cross from 1991-2006. She likes to challenge stereotypes.  MindaVoice is her version for MindaNews.  “Don’t worry about my opinions,” she says.  “It won’t make a dent to the conventional.”  

  

Tatay-Nanay Tawagan Nila!

This article appeared on MindaNews November 30 2012 4:56 pm

Tatay-Nanay Tawagan Nila!

I have always loved family in all shapes and sizes, economic status and types of crises.  But I’m never so sure if at first glance the relationships discussed are about celebrities – showbiz or political.

But if family tells me there’s something worth viewing on the internet, it should be something special.  I saw Ram’s post on FB about Zoren-Carmina’s wedding.  I asked Raj if he can share the link?  Oh-kay… When you got highly wired boys in the Gulo household who I suppose are of marrying age (or shall I say at least one is) it shouldn’t be a problem especially if Tatay and Nanay beckon for some further advancement in their computer-internet education.

Ho-hum.  I’ve must have seen all those surprises on TV and YouTube that nothing surprises me anymore.  Or maybe if it did, the moments were fleeting and it is comforting to note that reality always sinks back in.  After almost two weeks that many netizens have swooned and shed tears and swooned and shed tears, I gave in to my skeptical self to check out if there’s really something in the video that makes it stand out.  The rock version of growing old together seemed awry; but credit good editing, the entertainment value went to the back seat as I later would realize.

“Tatay-Nanay tawagan nila!” My thoughts sort of jumped to my throat as I took my Pikit coffee when Carmina called Zoren Tatay.  What could be sweeter in this early Wednesday dawn than this very homegrown term of endearment.  I might have missed Zoren calling the mother of his twins “Nanay” in the clip – though he mentioned Honey more than once.  But it really didn’t matter.  Mommy is to Daddy as Mama is to Papa as Inâ is to Amâ as Oma is to Opa in tune with the latest Gangnam fashion.

These guys seem like they are very very good friends, what can I say.  They laugh and cry; share good humor and are joyful with hugs and kisses.  And I’m sure they quarrel too; but they must have done a lot of work to be able to grow into this level of relationship.  Their showbiz veneer must have shielded the real people in them, people who go through heartaches and pains like many of us do.

The little more that I know of the couple are them with those two adorable well-behaved twins on TV commercials; and it’s also nice to know that there’s a Tatay Reggie in the picture, who sheds tears of joy seeing his daughter raise a family of her own and passing the love to the next generation.

However this marriage would go in the next fifty years, I say a prayer in my heart that they remain strong together; and so with billions of other families around the world.  As it is said, let’s take care of the family; and society will take care of itself. ##

Cotabato City

28 November 2012

Aveen Acuña-Gulo posts in her Facebook as the Monumental Operations Manager (MOM) who is a Bukidnon-born Cebuano mother of three (3) Maguindanao-Ilonggo-Cotabateño children; who will always be a child at heart even if she is a hundred years old.

Book Review: Fields of Hope

(This book review was published by Tambara, a publication of the Ateneo de Davao University)

* * * * * *

Book Review: Fields of Hope by Fr Roberto Layson, OMI

…page 2 pa lang tulo’ na akong luha…[1] 

I have to shake myself back to my senses while reading Fr. Bert’s book.  I have to remind myself that no, I’m not listening to a homily.  On second thought, with the little that I know of Fr Bert, he must have shared these stories in his countless sermons already. 

This time, his words are frozen on paper.  I can now catch up with his homilies.

When Carol Arguillas of MindaNews invited me to the book launching of Fields of Hope, I sent my usual regrets.  I’m paying through the bank.  Send it through courier, or have it handcarried – I just want the book. Khalas.

Few days later I uploaded a picture of the book on my Facebook album “Food for the Mind.”   Eizel, a friend on FB and real life commented that it should be labeled “Food for the Soul.”  While I still need to find my own description of “soul”, I say isn’t she right – reading Fields of Hope just makes me feel undescribably good it must be feeding something to my soul!  

Eizel shared that she reads it to her few month-old Pablo.  Whoa!  If that’s not an effective way of “Righting Mindanao History”, I don’t know what is.     

Fields of Hope is a collection of 214 stories that put faces to the names we just hear of in the news.  Places and people that are part of statistics to drive home a point or quash an argument that Mindanao is misunderstood, misconstrued, mislabeled, misdirected – all mishaps one can think of.  Add to that the Preface, Responses from the Readers, and a profile of The Author -- you got 217 stories all in all!

MindaNews notes that at least 259 books and journals on peacebuilding in Mindanao have been published from 2000-2010.  Fields of Hope is included in this year’s harvest, and since the year is not yet over, this is a sign that consciousness towards the real face of Mindanao is increasing with momentum.

Fr Layson notes that storytelling is a powerful medium not only in the countryside, but in the metropolis as well.  That means storytelling is also a powerful medium anywhere in between.  Each of us must be in many places within that spectrum, aren’t we?

Page 2 by the way tells a story of a Jolo tricycle driver who by instinct tried to protect a young girl from kidnappers. The kidnappers shot him dead in the ensuing struggle.  The girl is 7-year old Rachel Ann Gujit, alive when rescued a few days later, is a Christian; while the driver, unmindful of his own safety, is 40-year old Iskon Abubakar, a Tausug Muslim.   Religion was never a barrier between these two human beings in the few crucial minutes of their lives together.  With this tone, Fr Bert illustrates the interconnectedness of the people of Mindanao in the entire book.

Written in simple, conversational English, each story breathes a life of its own in 2-3 pages on the average.  It shows distinct images of warm bodies and hearts full of compassion for each other.  Not that these stories were just told to Fr Bert, but these are stories that he himself experienced.    

Where can you find Muslims guarding the Christians while they attend dawn masses for Misa de Gallo?  Where can you find Christians crawling to the nearest detachment to inform the soldiers that helicopter guns are pointed at Muslim and Christian families huddling under coffee trees?

It’s not always that these stories find their way outside Mindanao, and much less elsewhere.  Capturing it in print allows it to be told and re-told, no different from planting seeds in a field one by precious one.  As Fr Bert puts it, while nothing seems to be happening waiting in God’s goodness and mercy, one day green fields may just carpet the land.

Let’s take the story of Kali and Pax, named after the Cebuano Kalinaw, and the Latin Pax, both meaning peace.  They are convent dogs at the time Fr Bert was Parish Priest of Pikit, North Cotabato.  While Kali was your ordinary critter, Pax was the extraordinary one.  He likes to lie on the patio which, during evenings is visited by frogs whose main purpose was to get all the insects taking opportunity of the light.

But Pax wants to stretch, too, and the frogs get in the way.  So he carries one gently in his mouth and drops it on the grassy lawn.  He comes back again for another and goes through the same routine.  By the time he’s done a handful others are already back to the patio!  He was outnumbered but he just continued without hurting them.  Somehow he manages to get his little stretching space. 

This is the concept of the Zones of Peace that Fr Bert built with the communities – an assertion without being offensive.  Take note: he did not do it alone.

Like many of us, at one point in his life Fr Bert also could not distinguish tribe from religion: that Tausug, Maguindanao, Maranaos are tribes; and that Christianity and Islam are religions.  Imagine how much ingrained knowledge he had to deconstruct upon knowing that one can be Tausug and a Christian both at the same time!  And he had to learn it from his students at the Notre Dame of Jolo College. 

He also showed how Muslim leaders could also be so pragmatic in the most seemingly mundane situations.  When pilots petitioned a Jolo Mayor to remove the cathedral belfry maybe because it was distracting their view, the Mayor told them to transfer the airport somewhere else!    

At the bottom of the stories are verses from the Bible and the Q’uran.  It seems to top off ordinary encounters as profound inter-faith experiences: one doesn’t have to lose his/her faith to be accepted by the other.

With our daily overdose of news on conflict and misunderstanding, have we ever wondered how four million people must have lived and survived in the provinces where Fr Bert has served as a missionary priest since 1988?  It must not have always been conflict and misunderstanding, then. 

This is the book that will affirm your belief that the goodness of people always prevails.  If you want to be nearer an accurate picture of Mindanao in your mind, this is for you.  

At, kung mababaw ang luha mo, be prepared.

                                                                        *****

Cotabato City

September 2011

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[1] Rough translation: “I have not gone past page 2 and my tears already started falling”

Pill-poppin’ Philippines

(This article was first published in the Mindanao Cross on 29 November 2005)

There was a time in my life when I was a walking pharmacy.  Literally.  I had tablets for headache (at least four brands), muscle/abdominal pain, colds, antibiotics, and arrythmia or abnormal beating of the heart.  I had vitamins in all shapes and sizes, too.  I also felt it was my duty to hand headache pills to anybody who was in pain.

The children were healthy, or so we thought; but almost every month we had to see a doctor because someone in the family was sick; not to mention easy access to hospitals.  Jun and I came to a point where we asked, “Is this all there is to life?  Work hard, earn a little, and spend most of the money on medicine and hospitalization?”

To make the long story short, it has been five years now that not one medicine tablet can be found in the house; nor has any member of the family taken one.  The bulk of the family budget is now spent on the basics: tuition, utilities and food; and happily in that order.

How we got rid of medicines in our lives is another story, but for now let me focus on an email I received lately: it concerns about Phenylpropanolamine (PPA), a chemical component of most medication for colds.  The email tells the story of a woman who died of hemorrhagic stroke, later determined to be caused by the said drug.  Hemorrhagic stroke in street language means the brain is bleeding.

Oh dear.  I immediately recall when, as a young mother twenty years ago, I gave drops to Raschid my firstborn, because of a stuffy nose.  He was normally like a spinning top, exploring the world.  This time just sat on his crib, with his robust chest and cloth diaper, very quiet.  Well, he didn’t have stuffy nose anymore, but his breaths were long and deep.  Sensing something was not right, I picked him up and danced him into motion, asking every now and then, “Naunsa man ka, Nak? (What’s wrong, son?)” Deep in my heart I knew it was the colds medication whose brand name I can still remember.

For as long as I have been using the internet, this warning on PPA was already circulating.  But many people have no access to the internet.  And sadly too, pharmaceutical companies do not carry giant billboards that they are pulling out the products containing this chemical in contrast to their hard-sell come-ons to take their products at the first sign of discomfort.  How’s that for a pain-avoiding culture?

(If you want to find out more which products contain PPA, click this url: http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/infopage/ppa/)

Isn’t it also funny that advertisements only shout how cheap their medicines are?  Their selling point is mostly “it’s affordable.”  Well, maybe they’re also being true to themselves, they cannot shout their products can cure because indeed they rarely cure.  They just mask the pain while another disease builds up somewhere.  If they say it can cure, where’s the explanation how?  The empowered consumer can see this. 

If there is anybody talking about the side effects of these poisons disguised as cures, only a few comprehend.  For cancer patients, it is said “If the cancer won’t get you, the chemo will.”  My own mother died of breast cancer, er, now I can say she died of poisoning due to the only approach medical practitioners and we knew then.  Parallel to that, more and more people are also becoming unwilling victims to the saying, “If the high-blood pressure won’t get you, the maintenance will.”  Change high-blood pressure to diabetes and the meaning won’t change.

A pathetic news item was aired on the radio lately: teenagers are already using Viagra. For whatever purpose is anybody’s guess.  Teachers, with their meager salaries, have to scrounge for means to buy their prescribed cardiovascular medication.  Retirees hire personal nurses to count which pills to take at what time of the day.  And look, people even compare notes as to who spends the most on these synthetic drugs and it has become a status symbol.  Indeed, we have becoming a nation of drug dependents even without shabu. 

Is it any wonder the government’s health programs are not going anywhere?  Even if they argue among themselves which imported generics are the cheapest, they are still importing poison.  Commissions are passed anywhere along the line for products that were never meant to cure anyway.  Where’s empowerment there?  There must be a way out.

Yes, many die, and usually the causes are kept hush-hush.  And even if the causes are discussed, people still go into denial saying it is not at all drug-related.  Somewhere along the decades-long life of one person who died of sickness is drug use.  In relation to this, what then, is the lesson for those of us who are still alive?

NEVER TAKE ANYTHING MAN-MADE. 

Another question: why can't pharmaceutical industries find a cure for the common cold?

Answer: Because colds were never meant to be cured in the first place!

Colds are the body's way of expelling waste materials from the body.  Pharmaceutical products are made from synthetic materials, and/or natural materials that are synthesized into separate components. 

Remember, no factory/factory product can ever duplicate the chemical processes that occur in substances in their natural form.

In layman's terms, when one takes something man-made to stop the colds, the colds (or catarrh and other waste) settle on your weak tissues all around your body, dries up and stays there, invites bacteria and rot.  Conventional medical approaches usually treat infection, and not necessarily removing the cause of the infection.  I could see many doctors and medreps pouncing on me right after reading this but relax: I am just translating scientific findings into terms understandable to the ordinary person.  Remember I was a patient many times in my life.  I (as a matter of fact my whole family) was once the end-user of this high-profile but subdued structural violence called pharmaceutical industries.  It’s high time to explore the most sustainable (read: peaceful) health approach: natural.  I did not make up all that I wrote here.  It is backed up by research.  I do not expect you to believe what I wrote here, that is why as consumers, we need to do our own research to prove/disprove our doubts.  Isn’t empowerment everybody’s wish?      

So much research has already been done on the bad effects of synthetic medicine.  In contrast, all research done on the good effects of natural approaches would not do any help if we still continue listening to and following the relentless advertising campaigns of big pharmaceutical industries that sippin' syrups & poppin' pills equals good health.

*****

(It's been almost seven years since I wrote this article. And even with so-called modern technology and breakthroughs in health care, it seems that our nation's drug dependence has become worse.  Patient empowerment is still an uphill climb with government acting as the main promoter of synthetic medical intervention for health issues. -aag) 

Bangas Rising

(This article was first published in the Mindanao Cross on July 17, 2004. -aag)

There was no way to get out of the motorized banca that had no outriggers.  Small waves lapped at the Jolo port as we helplessly looked at the dark sheet of rain advance towards us from the horizon where there were no threatening skies earlier.  The water let out a crunchy sound as heavy raindrops broke the surface of the Sulu Sea.

Our guide, Sam Hadjal, Peace and Development Advocate (PDA*) of the nearby island of Bangas (Municipality of Hadji Panglima Tahil or HPT, formerly Marungas), shouted out orders to two fellow nimble-footed boatmen to secure the video equipment we were bringing into a small compartment in the boat’s prow.  The rest of our luggage that could not fit in were hurriedly wrapped in plastic grocery bags that finally served their purpose after staying in our backpacks’ forgotten pockets for some time.

The next twenty minutes of heavy downpour drenched us – Sam and the boatmen, video- and professional cameraman Joe Benavides, Scriptwriter/director Abner Luzon, production assistant Cris Enopeña, fellow UN Volunteer Ibrahim Lakibul and three other passengers.  We were on our way to document the peace building efforts of the GOPUNMDP3 and partners in the Peace and Development Community (PDC) of Bangas.

“The rains have a way of neutralizing the waves,” shared Ibrahim, himself a Tausug.  “The sea is usually calm after a downpour.  This banca is semi flat-bottomed and doesn’t have outriggers so that it can easily glide in the waves.  Outriggers can break easily with big waves.”  The banca is owned by the Barangay Local Government of Bangas.  20-liter plastic containers filled with drinking water bought from the mainland also provided some stability.

Experiencing heavy rain while seaborne was some kind of a spiritual journey.  Looking at a view of five to six islands in the horizon was an entirely new experience.  And the sea: it looked powerful.  No, it wasn’t cold; there wasn’t a breeze.  “This will not take long,” Sam said, surveying the skies. 

Bangas is a community of bakwits (Internally displaced persons or IDPs) who had fled the mainland of Sulu at the height of the conflict in the 70s.  This explains why most of the residents are not related to each other.  The place is serene, and the harmony among the Bisayans, Sama, Badjaos and Tausugs can be felt even by a first time visitor.

The 45-minute trip let us dock in a newly constructed community wharf under full sunshine.  I was ferreted to Sam’s house; the men in Bgy Capt Mohammad Basiri’s house.  Both houses are on stilts.   We change clothes and dried the wet ones under the sun.  Lunch was grilled fish and squid, green mango slices and seaweeds.

HPT Municipality is a group of islands owned by the Tahil clan, who were generous enough to let the bakwits stay and call it home.  We pay a courtesy call in the main island to former Mayor Hja Daraw Tahil-Hayudini who is a direct descendant of the Panglima.  A retired teacher and very articulate, she exudes a motherly aura that is both respected and feared by the community.  The incumbent mayor, Hja Nedra Burahan, who is also her daughter-in-law, is in Jolo. 

“We waited for you yesterday for the celebration of the Maulud-n-Nabi,” Hja Daraw told us.  Maulud-n-Nabi is the birthday of Prophet Muhammad (SAW).  This was just a few days after elections and indeed we lost one-half day in our itinerary due to poor cell phone signals.  Coordination really went awry but with the help of DXMM-Jolo reporter Fatma Adili and Fr Romeo “Villy” Villanueva we had accommodations for the night at the De Mazenod Formation Center.    

 

Remnants of the previous day’s celebration were still apparent.  Live coals that roasted a fattened cow were still smoking.  We take footages of the noonday prayers.  We waited for this moment as it is disrespectful – or bad taste at least, to stage a religious activity for a documentary. 

We interview Bgy Capt Basiri, PDA Sam, UNV Ibrahim.  We take footages of boats in different stages of production; their barangay multi-purpose hall that houses their computer, television with satellite cable connection; their bakery; their dried seaweeds and seaweed lines; men constructing the barangay health station; young girls pounding rice for sweets; women and children in joyful chatter; young people playing basketball with one ring.   A marker tells us that one white-sand mangrove-lined paradise is called Ramos Beach.

By the end of the day our clothes and leather hikers were bone dry.  Five hours of electricity came from a generator.  Supper was still fish and squid, prepared differently this time; another variety of seaweeds; and two kinds of sea urchins (suaki and tihi-tihi).  This would easily cost us a thousand pesos in any city! 

Basiri, a soft-spoken man who is called “baryo” by the residents, dreams of more things to come to Bangas. No war, there's harmony among different tribes, the sea is abundant -- it’s amazing to see how a small dot of an island like Bangas in a majestic Sulu Sea already have elements of peace that defy conventional perception.  


Development is not far behind.  It's a matter of time.

*****


*PDAs are former MNLF combatants