Book Review: Fields of Hope

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

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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

Mangosteen, Mangosteen!

(This article appeared in Mindanews on September 2007. -aag)

 

There was a hushed atmosphere inside Asian Spirit flight from Jolo as it taxied to a halt on the Zamboanga City airport.  The backdoor opened and one ground staff found his way to the luggage section.

“Ang daming mangosteen! (So much mangosteen!),” he shouted with glee as it sent passengers and crew hollering in delight.

“Mangosteen, mangosteen…andaming mangosteen…” the staff sang to a tune he probably just composed that moment as he carried bunches of the prized fruit down to the carts.  The ditty sort of gave some of us passengers a last-song-syndrome long after we deplaned.

The vendors on the sidewalks of downtown Jolo were apologetic they had to give it to us at p55 per big bunch of four smaller bunches even at peak season (usual peak season price p5/kg).  They said the provincial government of Sulu bought a C-130 loadful of mangosteen to be sent to Manila for display and sale at big department stores thus reducing the local supply.  We were just as happy it was way below the p40-50 per small bunch anywhere else.

Luck would have it that with five of us in the team, our tickets covered for all our 70 or so kilos of fruits.

Who would want to carry such a heavy and cumbersome load from this paradise island all the way to mainland Mindanao in September?  Bangkal in Patikul would find you stepping on robust mangosteen seedlings that would rival any nursery if marketed as planting materials.  Forgive my hyperbole but when I went to Panamao in July, I also found out that Sulu is a forest of fruit trees, like one tree growing over the other, an awe-inspiring mix of lanzones, durian, mangoes, bauno, coffee, and of course, mangosteen -- absolutely no hybrid varieties that’s why disease is still unheard of. 

Mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana) can now be found and sold in many parts of Mindanao; but what makes Sulu mangosteen special is its natural state owing largely to the rich volcanic soil of Bud Dajo and Bud Tumatangis; and typhoon-free climate.  I was told that fruiting seasons rotate around geographical locations in the island.  Hybrid (ergo non-Sulu) varieties, commercial fertilizers, pesticides and flowering hormones would be the biggest insult to this god-given bounty.

Guarding the fruits seemingly with our lives (Isa her lanzones both from Sulu and Basilan where we went a couple of days earlier; and me my mangosteen from Sulu), we take souvenir pictures in the baggage claim area of Zambo airport before we go separate ways.  I told Isa that yes, what stimulates my interest more would be how to weave the coconut leaf baskets the Basilan lanzones came with.  It is packaging in its indigenous and excellent form the local government should find a good marketing and ecotourism potential in it).

At home in Cotabato City, the mangosteen seeds found their way to the freezer.  It would give my family 5-star gourmet coolers daily for the next month.  Sun dried, the shells would give us and infinite supply of refreshing tea.

With that, who would be swayed with all the sales talk of factory processed mangosteen products when I can get the much needed anti-aging phytochemicals straight from the fresh fruits?  I mean, the only reason why mangosteen producers resort to processing their fruits into juices, capsules, soaps and what have you is that there’s not much innovative marketing strategies for the fruits itself. 

Wait:  weren’t the mangosteen from Sulu brought to Manila by C-130 planes?  This is a step towards the innovative marketing strategies -- government taking the initiative.

Meantime, the airport guy’s ditty would playback in my mind: “Mangosteen, mangosteen…ang daming mangosteen…”

*****

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.”    

 

Secret of Survival: Green Juice

(This article was submitted for the December 2010 edition of Pipeline, the WFP Staff Magazine.  Featured for the month were WFP's nomadic families.  Though Jun and I did not yet fit into the classification, the theme of the issue was basically how spouses and families provided the invisible, yet invaluable support to the whole organization worldwide. --aag)

I wouldn’t have survived WFP without the support of my husband.  My work in WFP mostly entails a bumpy vehicle ride to the site; and walking under the hot Mindanao sun or on muddy road to visit, say, a school, an evacuation camp or a food-for-work project.  Ordinarily this would translate to painful muscles and creaking joints if done for a day; and if done for days in succession could also translate to physical sickness and drained spirits. 

At any given day before sunrise, Jun is already in front of the blender whipping up something.  Minutes later that would mean a glass of raw vegetable juice waiting for me on the table – today it could be juice from malunggay[1], another day chayote, then turnips, radish, cucumber, tomato, carrots, any combination of at least two plus a long list of many more. 

I gulp it down, knowing fully that if there is anything undesirable to the taste, I will only have to deal with it for at most, only 10 seconds – but would be what I need to prop me for a grueling 8 hours ahead.  After a day’s work, it’s another glass of juice of whatever fruit is in season: mangosteen, pomelo, guava, papaya, etc. 

Jun comes from a family engaged in the medical profession.  Being his father’s namesake (Benjamin), Jun was expected to be the doctor in his generation.  From my side, my own family depended so much on the medical profession as well.  Jun’s parents separated while he was in medical school; my own mother succumbed to breast cancer when she was 38.  I grew up thinking I’ll be dead, too, at 38.  Our own perfect images of family were both shattered. 

As husband and wife, our quest for a solid family translated to near hypochondria – always afraid of getting sick.  We fussed so much on ourselves and the children, making frequent visits to every specialist at the first signs of discomfort; making sure all prescriptions are bought.   Thus, there we were, “poppin’ pills and sippin’ syrups” – with oftentimes, only short relief.  A big percentage of whatever little we both earned went to vitamins, energy drinks, food supplements, doctor's fees, medicines and hospital bills.  We realized it was not the way to live our life.      

For some reason in our 27 years of being together, I had to work and Jun stayed at home.  He cooked while  I drove the family car.  As if to break stereotypes further, Jun became interested in iridology in the late 90s.  Sensing it was just  the surface, he went on to do self-study on this lesser-known science and affirmed that indeed, something was greatly hidden from humans.

“It seems that the problem is not what we eat,” he often says.  “It’s what we do not eat.”

According to him, we no longer eat vegetables; vegetables in its God-created state -- raw , pure, fresh, whole and natural.

“Yes, we eat vegetables,” he continues, “but also with everything else that’s not vegetable: oil, salt, sugar, seasoning, butter, cream, etc.  We also have to cook it, make it look pretty and taste heavenly so that we will consume everything.  Aren’t we just feeding only our senses?”

“Why not feed the body?” he asks.  “And the best way to feed the body is through juicing.  Less chewing, less effort, immediate results because from your stomach it goes straight to your bloodstream.  Your blood carries all the life-giving nutrients to your cells, empowering your cells to get rid of all wastes.  Your lungs become strong enough to collect and expel mucus; your colon becomes strong enough to expel stools, and so on and so forth.  With clean insides, can disease still set in?”

“By drinking vegetable juice (unpeeled, unpitted) early in the morning,” he continues, “your vegetable requirements for the day are already covered.  Then you can eat everything else.”

Life has been like that in the Gulo household since the year 2000.  The concepts are so simple even for the children to understand, which they relate to what they learn in school which in turn provides lively conversations at the dinner table.  And interestingly, we no longer have a medicine cabinet because not one single tablet can be found in the house.  Yes, we do see a doctor, but these visits are very few and far between. 

Jun has been called names, sometimes condescendingly: Dr Gulay (his father was Dr Gulo), Mr Malunggay, Doctor Nature – but he doesn’t mind – and gulay in the dialect means vegetable.  “I’m just helping my family, friends, and friends of friends how to eat, re-discovering what our ancestors have learned over thousands of years.  I can’t confine myself to 5-year old or so researches of pharmaceutical industries.”

For me, I’ve been chided too, for not making full use of my health insurance.  Some even call me “Last (wo)Man Standing” -- maybe for being the last person to get sick.  I just smile and keep quiet.  Whatever we should have spent for medicines and hospital bills we can now use for outings in the beautiful nature spots of Mindanao; plus a little savings.      

“Nature has provided us with all that we need from day one,” Jun concludes.  “Sunlight, wind, air, water, soil.  These are nature’s doctors.  And it’s for free.  Nature cures – if we give it the chance.”

If it’s so good, why isn’t everyone into it, I pry. 

“There’s another element: time.  It did not take us overnight, remember?” he reminds me.  “While it takes a short time for some to understand, it will take long for others.  Maybe never.  Let’s be grateful we understood.”

With conversations like this, I look at each day of my work at WFP with a whole new light.  And maybe that’s not just survival: it’s living life to the fullest.

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Cotabato City, Philippines
December 2010

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[1] Scientific name: Moringa oleifera