RP Must End Its Participation in the "Alms Race" - Reyes

RP Must End Its Participation in the "Alms Race" (Part 6 of "Filipino Psyche" Series)

(Note: I copy pasted this article and saved it in my blog because there have been online articles that I have read before but when I click the link, it is no longer there.  I cannot forget this article because of the term that the author used: Alms Race. 

I have shared this in a Facebook post in 2016;
https://www.facebook.com/aveen.acunagulo/posts/10154114220282991?pnref=story

And I shared it again today, September 29, 2017.
https://www.facebook.com/aveen.acunagulo/posts/10155227805187991

Almost a decade after this was written, a duly elected President by the name of Rodrigo Roa Duterte has shown to the world, aside from the millions who believed in and voted for him, that the Filipino people are not beggars. -aag)

The full series starts with this link:

http://www.mabuhayradio.com/reinventing-the-philippines/reinventing-the-filipino-psyche-part-one

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Part Six of the "Reinventing the Filipino Psyche"

By Bobby M. Reyes
Thursday, 09 August 2007 05:13
  The Philippine government, with the help of the Overseas Filipinos, must end its practice of begging for alms AKA economic and/or military aid from the industrialized world, especially from the United States. The Overseas Filipinos earn enough that the Philippines can easily give up its perennial quest for charity from foreign donors. The Filipino leaders must leave out the begging bowls from their luggage when they make official trips or even state visits to the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Russia – the so-called G-8 countries – and/or the other industrialized nations in Europe and Australia. Ending the Philippine participation in the "Alms Race" will make the Filipinos look good, feel good and proud of their socioeconomic independence.

I wrote in Part One of the "Reinventing the Filipino Psyche:" QUOTE. The Philippines does not have economic influence because its population that now exceeds 85 million souls does not have much buying power. For many Filipino families earn an average of a measly U.S. dollar per day. There is really no change in the income of the Filipino family. Then Philippine National Security Adviser Jose Almonte reported at a Socialist Congress in Chile in 1994 the same income of one-dollar a day.

Economic power translates to political clout. And as the adage says, mendicants cannot be choosy. This is the reality that sadly very few Filipino national leaders and many Filipino-American community associations cannot understand or refuse to understand. UNQUOTE.

But the Philippines can afford now to cast away the international image of a mendicant country. Filipino workers and immigrants earn annually in excess of $42-billion—as spelled with a B—in the United States alone. Filipino Americans and the Overseas-Filipino workers (OFWs) in the United States remit a minimum of seven-billion dollars per year back to the homeland. And how much does the United States give per year in economic AND military aid? The American aid does not exceed two-hundred-million dollars per annum.

This writer has posted comments in some e-forums about the "Philippine Foreign Aid to the United States." Yes, it is the other way around: The Philippines is actually providing indirectly foreign aid to the most-powerful and richest country on earth. To read the article about this topic, please go to http://www.mabuhayradio.com/content/view/71/51/

In fact, the Philippines can be one of the few countries that can help in ending the world’s "alms race." There are nearly nine-million Filipino souls toiling from the sands of Saudi Arabia to the sands of Nevada. There are Filipino merchant marines manning cargo vessels and cruise ships in all the world’s seven seas. The Philippines is now the world’s biggest provider of medical professionals. Perhaps the world, especially the G-8 countries, can take advantage of the skills of the Filipino in seamanship and medicine to bankroll the operation of a fleet of hospital ships that can minister to the needs of some of the poorest countries in the world, especially in the African continent.

(More on this topic later this week in the Health and Medicine Section of this online publication.)

In short, the OFWs know the value of their services, the importance of their work and the dignity that their professional careers bring to their existence and consciousness. Perhaps the OFWs must indeed go home and participate in the electoral process, so as to "reinvent" finally the Filipino psyche, so that the Filipino mind can be productive to the maximum level. Perhaps the 2010 national elections in the Philippines will enable the people to change the prophetic words of Philippine Commonwealth President Manuel L. Quezon. It was Mr. Quezon who said that he preferred a government run like hell by Filipinos to a government run like heaven by Americans. Perhaps the OFW objective for the 2010 elections is to present to the Filipino people a government run like the Land of Promise, if not paradise, by Filipinos trained in America and other leading countries as an alternative to a government run like a nightmare by traditional politicians.

(To be continued . . .)

To read the article in its entirety, please go to this link: http://www.mabuhayradio.com/content/view/156/90/

The Limits of Tolerance

My Article for OpinYon

30 November 2016

The Limits of Tolerance

How much of bad behavior have we as a Filipino nation tolerated lately?  What’s with tolerance that it deserves its own international day of observance?

In 1996, the United Nations passed a resolution to observe November 16 as the International Day for Tolerance.  Its website[1] says that it launched this campaign to promote tolerance, respect and dignity across the world.  It aims to reduce negative perceptions and attitudes [towards refugees and migrants, and to strengthen the social contract between host countries and communities, and refugees and migrants].

It also set up a prize that may be awarded to institutions, organizations or persons, who have contributed in a particularly meritorious and effective manner to tolerance and non-violence.  Interestingly, the winner for 2016 is the Federal Research and Methodological Center for Tolerance Psychology and Education (Tolerance Center, for short) of Russia.

While the Philippines has a Presidential Proclamation No 914[2] observing the day, this year’s International Day for Tolerance came and passed us by uneventfully.  Observance of this day is probably just confined to school activities if ever.  While the UN definition seems to limit the context to host countries, refugees and migrants, the Philippines has its own unique context on tolerance.

Social media was full of the milestones of the five-month old Duterte Administration, not to mention the incessant destabilizing actions from detractors on mainstream media that dish out propaganda material no different from so-called fake news on social media.  More particularly on November 16, internet traffic was abuzz with the admission of an extramarital relationship by a former justice secretary – a woman justice secretary at that.  If anything, wrongdoings by public officials (not just women) were tolerated by a general public who had lost steam in fighting corruption. 

The UN definition of tolerance includes lofty concepts like respect and dignity.  These are interesting times in the country’s history as these words are being put under the scrutiny of a nation that has awakened from years – nay, centuries – of tolerating oppression.  They elected into power a person who was neither an oligarch nor a member of the elite.  President Rodrigo Roa Duterte (PRRD) is an iconoclast, someone who broke a lot of conventional characteristics of what presidents of the Philippines were in the past.  PRRD turned tables on the US, the UN and the EU questioning their interference on local affairs. Indeed, is interference a manifestation of respect towards the Filipino people?  Coming from institutions of international statures themselves?  How could we as a people, have tolerated the dictation from foreign entities as if we were their puppets?

From the time the Philippines was colonized by the Spaniards and the Americans; and after the braver ones were snuffed out bloodily, Filipinos who survived were reduced to meekness and subservience just to maintain relative peace.  Unquestioned loyalty was even manifested when Filipinos fought alongside the Americans in their wars against other countries.      

When the Americans left and Filipinos ran government, those who belonged to the upper crust of society, became the new masters and treated the rest of the citizens as slaves.  History is replete with stories of how the ordinary Filipino tolerated the abuses or intolerance of the master. 

How did the Filipino tolerate the abuses?  How did they counter it?  The same UN website[3] offers five requirements to fight intolerance: law, education, access to information, individual awareness, local solution.  Somehow many of the actions of the people also fall on these five.  For example: the faulty electoral process that the people tolerated was countered this time with the sheer number of voters, the magnitude of which was already impossible to tweak on computerized counting machines.  Half-truths, incomplete truths and angled truths that were churned out by mainstream media was countered with real time posts on social media long before mainstream media had time to tweak it.  To compensate for the gap on television, newspapers and radio, people informed each other on what was going on.  And instead of looking at more of the same Luzon-bred candidates, they pitched a local guy to fix the national problem. 

Years of protest actions in the streets and in the courts proved futile (or did it just bear fruit?).  Marginalized for ages, people used the silence of the voting booth to show that they already had enough.

The 100-day working honeymoon period for its 16^th President was a welcome development for a people who have reached the limit of their tolerance towards a system that is oppressive.

And the momentum has just started.

* * * * * *

Cotabato City

18 November 2016

Aveen Acuña-Gulo posts herself on Facebook as a Monumental Operations Manager (MOM).  She 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.

She wrote a column “The Voice” for the Mindanao Cross from 1991-2006. 

She likes to challenge stereotypes.  “Don’t worry about my opinions.  It won’t make a dent to the conventional,” she says.

---

[1] http://www.un.org/en/events/toleranceday/

[2] http://www.gov.ph/1996/10/31/proclamation-no-914-s-1996/

[3] http://www.un.org/en/events/toleranceday/background.shtml

How We Can Help: Disaster Response in 3D

September 4, 2016

I received feedback of some people asking why should we be donating for the bombing victims when President Duterte said all the medical expenses will be shouldered by government.

I understand your concern.

Ganito yan:

3D's of Disaster Response

Donate
Dedicate
Do It Now

I came up with this rule of thumb for dummies. There are trainings and templates on Disaster Response for experts but it seems like we ordinary citizens have yet to master the secret of surviving on our own, by and among ourselves. As it is right now, it seems like "to each his own".

* * * * *

When the news of the Davao blast came out, the first questions that whizzed in our minds were (and yes, in this order):

1) Was that really a bomb?
2) Were people killed?
3) Do I have family or friends there?
4) How can I help?
5) and many more

Answers:

1) Only the authorities can tell us what really exploded. Since we are not the authority, any effort we exert saying what it was is a total waste of time. Let’s leave it to them.

2) Yes. Among them Cotabatenos.

3) At least Facebook now has a feature on how to check if your FB friends are safe. If my memory serves me right, this was used during the earthquake in Haiti, then the Japan Tsunami and the Nepal Earthquake. Whatever concerns others have on whether Facebook is being used by some big power to monitor impacts of terrorism is beyond me. The relief I felt every time I got a notification that friends were ok was immeasurable. This goes without saying that family members are the first people we check before anything else.

4) The focus of this post is on HOW CAN I HELP

That is the first D in the 3Ds. Donate.

a) Money is the first thing that comes to mind. While money can do many things, it is not everything.
b) We can also donate blood.
c) And if money and blood are already out of the question, we can always donate Time. Volunteer. Run errands. Go online. The gift of self is priceless as it is endless.

(Take note that food and water were given by grateful citizens to the disaster responders).

Deskbound, the least I can do was share information through Facebook on anything that shed light on the situation. Looking for answers on who did it was a waste of time and emotion. Then there were calls for blood. I retweeted it. I can see that blood donations were pouring in. But not necessarily because of me. I was just one among hundreds who went online to help.

Then the question came: How can I help? We’re so far away.

I asked around. At that point – barely 12 hours after the blast – the advice on sending donations was to send directly to the family. Ok. Done.

Now back to where we were: Why would we be asking donations when government is shouldering all the expenses?

Well, to be honest – that the government under Duterte would be doing that never, ever crossed my mind at the height of the crisis. Until now.

Remember that generosity is -- I can’t find the best English equivalent: Bukal sa Loob. Roughly, innate. From within. From deep in the heart. And the soul. Natural na sa atin bilang isang tao ang magiging mapagbigay.

And to bring the point closer to home: Remember in the 80s and in the 90s when we had disasters? Natural, man-made – name it. Bakbakan, bakwit, baha, tagtuyot. Pag nanawagan sa radio kung ano ang pangangailangan, dumarating, umaapaw. The heartfelt generosity of Cotabatenos was overwhelming.

But there was a point in our history when this generosity faded. I have an answer but I would just like to ask if you have any idea…

Ok I hope that you took a few seconds to think through that.

The point where we lost that generosity was when foreign aid came. There may be other reasons but yes, this is one.

When before we donated rice wholeheartedly by the glass, now it came in trucks from big organizations. When before we organized ourselves to manage our own garbage, now it is replaced by some foreign-funded agency teaching us how to sweep our own backyards. The only thing probably that remains to be donated without being funded by foreign money is blood.

And before I make a longer list and you adding to it, let me just emphasize that no, I am not criticizing. I am describing. Whether we come out to be better people (collectively) or not with help from outside remains to be seen.

This motivation to give whatever little we can to victims of bomb blasts is an opportunity to be generous. We can only whisper a prayer that those generous individuals be blessed more abundantly.

I like to feel being Cotabateno again. As this new administration is genuinely generous, we also cannot let this opportunity to be generous to each other be taken away from us.

No matter where we are.

#WalangIwanan
#KeepTheFaith
#KeepThePeace

Here's the link to the original Facebook post:

https://www.facebook.com/aveen.acunagulo/posts/10154043053442991