Building Relationships and Strengthening Communities in Mitigating Climate Change

The following speech was delivered during the 

4^th College of Arts and Sciences Foundation Day Celebration (CFCST) Doroluman, Magpet, North Cotabato

12 December 2012

Building Relationships and Strengthening Communities in Mitigating Climate Change

 

To the University President Dr Samson Molao, it’s an honor to see you again after I paid you a courtesy visit sometime last year;

To all the teachers, who I know will leave a mark on the lives of CFCST students in more ways than one;

To Dr Harris M Sinolinding, Dean of the fledgling College of Arts and Sciences;

To all the students – of which I still am up to this day – Assalamu alaikum, maayong buntag kanatong tanan; and as they say in the Teduray language, fiyo gufuwon.

Ako po ay si Aveen Acuña-Gulo, and it is with joy that I want to share with you the meaning of my name.  Ang nanay ko po ay si Avelin, at ang tatay ko naman ay si Ben.  Pinagdugtong nila ang kani-kanilang pangalan, kaya nabuo ang Aveen.  Ayaw naman paawat ang mga maglola sa kabilang panig, kaya nailagay ang Leonila at Angelina; at ang pinaka ninang na rin na si Corazon.  Then a foreigner asked me, “Were you named after the soap?” I said, “No, I was born before the soap.”

Eto bago ko lang din nalaman na mali pala ang nailagay sa aking birth certificate – sapagkat pagkatapos ng bawat pangalan ay may comma.  Dapat, ang sabi sa akin, nakalagay din sa aking transcript of records, diploma, at passport ang mga comma.  Sabi ko, malamang yung clerk na nagta-typewriter ay kelangang huminga habang pinapakinggan ang aking tatay kaya nailagay ang mga comma na yan.  Tuloy sa dinamidami ng mga naghohokus pokus ngayon ng birth certificate, naging mabusisi na rin ang NSO.  Malay mo, may ibang taong nagngangalang Aveen Leonila Angelina Corazon Espina Acuña na walang comma.

Nung niligawan naman ako ng isang taga Cotabato, talagang ayaw ko sa kanya kasi ang kanyang apelyido ay nakakatakot.  Ipinaliwanag naman nya sa akin na ang mga Maguindanao nung araw ay di nakakabigkas ng salitang R, at ang ibig sabihin ng kanyang apelyido sa tagalog ay “guro”.  Ang kaalamang ito ay ipinamahagi namin sa aming tatlong anak; at sa lahat ng kakilalang may kaunting pagtatanong kung kami nga ba ay sadyang di maunawaan.  Yes, the accent is on the first syllable kaya, Gúlo para sa kapayapaan.  But I always make sure I always include my maiden name which Acuña, so that one time when I verbally spelled out my full name to somebody, she wrote it as Aveen Acuña Dash Gulo. 

That said, maybe that explains why I am always a teacher by heart – as I like to learn new things every day, I also like to share something new every day.  As I speak here, I would like to encourage you to take note of what I am saying.  Have a pen and paper, write down immediately the key words that you hear; so that by that time it is your turn to ask questions, meron kaagad kayong reference.  I like it if you ask me a lot of questions; and I like it also if you listen to my answers.

When Dean Sinolinding asked me to be part of your celebration, I did not have second thoughts.  In whatever small way, I am happy to be part of the fourth anniversary of your college.  And believe me, what really struck me about your school, was how it started.  The vision of Hadja Bai Fatima Matabai Plang is very remarkable that every now and then, I wish somebody would publish her work so that many people will know how she beat the odds just to have a home for orphans – children who lost their parents because of the war in Mindanao.

As hyperactive CMU college freshmen in 1980, we grilled Harris [Dean Sinolinding] where exactly is North Cotabato; where exactly is Arakan; and where exactly is CEFV (Children’s Educational Foundation Villate was the old name of CFCST, wasn’t it?)  It would be several years later, in 2010 that I first set foot on CFCST, hoping that our work with the UN World Food Programme would make a difference on the lives of the children in the Orphanage.  Custodial Care Program (CCP) is a fancy name but I still like to use the word “orphanage” so that the essence of why it was built will not be lost.  We supported your school garden for two cycles; and the support extended to the development of a nursery for forest tree seedlings for planting in the Mt Sinaka watershed.  I am grateful to all of you for giving us in WFP the opportunity to help. 

Please forgive me if so many things rushed through my head as to the potentials of what we can do together.  I remember us discussing about having a vetiver grass nursery.  I hope they’re growing lushly now because climate change has overtaken us.  We talked about books and more books for the library; better quarters for the children; more trees for Mt Sinaka; organic gardens; and so on and so forth. 

As we sit here now, the warnings 10-20 years ago are have actually become a reality.  As we speak here, there’s a lot of activity going on in the eastern part of Mindanao responding to the devastation brought about by Typhoon Pablo.

May I just share with you some parts of my most recent blog entitled: Nature Wins.  All The Time. 

For the first time in my life I, like millions of 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 worth noting is that the loss of lives now seems to be far lower than what we got last year at about this time with Sendong.  I still believe that every human life is precious; but somehow in our anguish there is the reminder that whether we like it or not, people are part of nature.  Humans have equal footing with coconut trees, bananas, mountains and rivers whenever calamities hit with unimaginable speed and strength.  I bow in submission with thanks to Sendong for a powerful lesson.  What we failed to teach each other, nature succeeded.  This year, the people of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan seem to be more prepared; and after Pablo, I’m sure the people of New Bataan and Cateel in Davao Oriental would be more aware of and prepared for the next typhoon. 

After we pray and cry for the dead, it’s time to transcend the self-pity and the ranting.  Last year when I posted pictures of Sendong victims on my Facebook, someone called my attention to remove the pictures out of respect for the dead, which I did. I am grateful for that sisterly reminder.  It was out of frustration that how I wished we could do more in alleviating the suffering.  All human efforts to wax eloquent about disaster preparedness and response only went so far.  Pablo (whose international name is Bopha -- shouldn’t it be Blopa?!) knew that it was time for a practicum.    From cyberspace he looked majestic, strong, powerful.  In the aftermath, it was easy for Pablo to spot those who skipped classes, some subjects or entire courses.

The warnings came the week before.  It came through radio, TV, newspaper, internet and text messages. Until Monday evening all that Cotabato City got was a not-so-sunny but very hot weather which was quite odd.  Some friends joked that there must be something wrong with the advisory.  I thought there was nothing wrong with being prepared.  Mabuti na lang na pagtatawanan natin ang isa’t-isa for preparing for things that did not happen; kesa wala na tayong panahong pagtatawanan pa ang isa’t-isa dahil inanod na tayo ng bagyo.  

 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 the unspoken word is that it is disaster-prone, and these unspoken disasters are all man-made.  Of course we know about armed conflict as being man-made.  These man-made conflicts are the reason why children lost their parents in a war that they did not make; that’s the reason why this orphanage had to be put up. 

But the calamities we are facing are no longer natural.  C’mon.  The logs did not cut themselves; the nickel, the gold, the gravel and the sand did not gouge itself out from the bowels of the earth; the African palms and bananas did not drill gigantic pipes to quench its enormous thirst; the creeks did not engorge itself with plastic and the grasses did not spray themselves with herbicides.            

We retired that night after checking as many posts as possible on social media and updates on cable tv; and making sure my daughter Gel in Bukidnon and son Ram in Puerto Princesa have taken the necessary precautions. Pablo’s path was said to pass through these provinces.

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.

More than 24 hours later Sr Erleen Carcillar of HESED Foundation called me up saying that their culminating activity for the Mindanao Week of Peace on December 5 was cancelled.  I was supposed to be their resource person.  She said that the coastal road to Tapian, DBS Maguindanao 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 disaster preparedness work while the usual culprits continue to make a lot of money out of logging, mining, bringing in unregulated petrochemical agricultural inputs, inviting external consultants with locally inapplicable ideas, investing in oppressive capitalist financial structures – and still debate why durable solutions are so difficult to attain.

Makes me think: what do we mean by together?  By sustainable? What’s peace?  And when we talk of development, para kanino?  Please take note that around the world, big farms did not address food security.  80% of what we eat comes from small farmers, hindi sa mga plantasyon.  Statistics have proven that food come from these small landholdings, farms that we can easily manage without external assistance. 

Working as a pioneer disc jockey with DXOL in 1986 was a breakthrough of sorts.  For one, DJs in those days worked so hard to achieve the American twang; and consequently it was rare for FM radio stations to deliver news in Filipino.  With my solid bisaya accent I really found it a challenge.  Naglisud jud ko.  But aside from making music, we also produced information bits – 15-seconders; 30-seconders – that included messages about the environment.  Remember that these information bits were aired without sponsors, meaning the station did not earn anything from it.  These were just aired repeatedly during the day depending on the theme. 

Little did I know too, that these warnings, delivered more than twenty years ago have now become a reality, are now in our doorsteps, and even carried entire houses away with the flood waters and liquefied soil.  Marami dito sa atin ay nakaranas ng disaster – gera, bakwit, baha.  (Reminds me of my women colleagues who were supposedly working for peace: Aveen Acuña-Gulo; Cynthia Guerra; and Grace Rebollos – which sounds ‘rebellious’). 

I want you to see if we share the same observations: Radio now rarely integrates into their programming information bits on how to be prepared during disasters. Maybe they do -- but only when a government office or some foreign funding pays for airtime.  On hindsight, while many of us prepared for Pablo with the help of modern technology, did the people in Eastern Mindanao (New Bataan and Cateel and the rest of the disaster areas) have access to the internet or cable television?  Did they have radio at the minimum?  If they had, how much of the programming was dedicated to disaster preparedness?  To environmental awareness? 

Isn’t it appalling to note that radios are being put up here and there with the sole purpose of promoting political careers of individuals?  I have also asked myself: at what point did radio become a no-brainer laughing machine? An idiot box that is talking either about love lives and cheating; bashing and bullying each other on air?  Delivering hallelujahs about which politicians constructed this or that infrastructure?  Talk about having uncontrolled power in one’s hands – or should I say uncontrolled power from one’s mouth.

Of course radio is also filled with sponsored advertisements about the benefits of bananas, rubber, herbicides, African palm, commercial fertilizers.  Why?  Because these are the ones that rake in big money.  So much of it has been aired over the years it’s no surprise that even the minds of farmers have become barren.  Di na gani kabalo mopili ug binhi kay certified seeds na may paliton.  Di pa gani paliton -- maghulat pag kanus-a mag distribute si mayor gobernor congressman ug certified seeds.  Pangutana ug itanom ba tanan? Ibaligya pa man gani ang uban.  

Remember what the most recent Magsaysay Awardee Dr Romulo Davide said? “There is no barren soil, only barren minds.”  Financiers continue to laugh their way to the bank in their expensive vehicles and the rest of us continue to complain why we are still poor.  Maayo lang unta’g poor nga hamugaway; dawbi kay poor na unya naglisud pa.  Naunsa na lang. 

Local governments are mandated to come up with their own disaster plans; I remember that as WFP we used to provide food support to the LGU just for them to be able to come up with a disaster plans at the barangay level.  Take note that when we ask barangay officials about their population, they usually give you the number of voters.  Meaning, how can you be a good manager if you don’t know your numbers, if you don’t know how many are living right in your area of responsibility, who lives where, where they run to in times of disasters.  In short, the 5Ws 1H should be at the back of the heads and the tips of the fingers of these local government managers for them not to be called incapable.

But then again elaborate disaster plans can only do so much.  People have become so dependent on others for their survival.  I tell you in the number of years that I have worked with humanitarian response, I realized something: once disaster strikes, it is always “To Each His Own”.  Kanya-kanya yan.  I also tell you, nga ang attitude sa tawo karon, magsige na lang ug agad sa gobyerno.  Kabalo na ta nga way mabuhat kanato ang gobyerno, nganong magsalig man lang gihapon ta sa gobyerno?  Bonus na lang na kung tabangan man galing ta sa gobyerno. 

Of course, it is their mandate.  But take note that the very same disaster council that you are expecting help from could be victims themselves.  Moigo gani ang disaster, di na mo makapanangpit sa inyong kapitan.  Di na mo makapanangpit sa inyong mayor.  So forget about others.  Take care of yourself, take care your own area of responsibility – which is your family.  Let me ask you this moment: Kabalo ba ang tagsa-tagsa ka membro sa inyong pamilya kung unsay buhaton kung moabot ang katalagman?  Nah, di ta kasaway sa atong LGU ana kung kita mismo wa kapangandam sa atong pamilya.  Preparedness starts with awareness.  Statistics show that those who are aware and are prepared mentally, have better chances of survival in a disaster.  It’s not being selfish; it’s being practical. 

In Cotabato City and in the surrounding areas of Maguindanao, North and South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and Sarangani we joke among ourselves: Kung dili baha, bala.  Kung dili bala, baha.  Meaning, we as humanitarian workers responded mainly to these types of disasters – armed conflict and/or floods.  But of course consciously we also reminded ourselves about earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, droughts.  I posted a picture on my FB saying:  Rainy season – prepare for dry season.  Dry season – prepare for rainy season.  Sa palagay nyo, tama ba? 

Disasters do not happen in isolation – it is always a series of critical events that we just continually ignore and ignore time and again.  When Sendong came last year, it did not happen on its own.  What do you think were the critical events before that: There was logging, mining/quarrying, massive commercial agriculture, bad urban planning, among others.  Look at Pablo.  Before it happened there was logging; mining/quarrying, massive commercial agriculture, bad land use plan.  Having said that, how about looking at the situation in reverse? If we see logging, mining, quarrying, massive commercial agriculture, dysfunctional or no land use plan now, then let us expect a disaster to strike anytime soon.    

On television we hear about news that it would take years for the banana industry in Pablo-hit areas to recover.  I was wondering what if there were no banana plantations there in the first place, would we be counting the amount of damage now?  Had the forests been left in place there, would we be counting the amount of damage now?  Did the amount of minerals, sand or gravel extracted from that place over the years compensate for the amount of damage now?  Did the roots of those bananas, coconuts and other agriculture monocrops hold the topsoil strongly enough not to be carried along with the flood waters now?  Is there a way that we can also convert into pesos the amount of grief survivors are experiencing now? 

I find it bad mathematics when big companies lure people with how much money they will profit from bananas, African palm, sugar, RR corn, rubber, cassava, etc as monocrops without presenting the socioeconomic cost of environmental degradation over years of use.  I find it bad judgment for even the most brilliant of agriculture scientists give in to this line of thinking at the expense of the environment.

On my way here to Arakan, these things did not escape my eyes.  The African palm, corn and other plantations are impressive.  I know that some portions of Arakan have already become banana republics, alongside your neighbor Makilala.  I don’t have to mention the corn in Carmen that attributed to the longest most traffic-hazardous solar dryer in the world.  Corn grains which may account anyway for 25% food loss or food wastage.  Do you think the owners of these plantations would be the ones who will be washed away in the event that flashfloods and landslides occur?  Think again. 

Something that did not have a name so we just called it Habagat came in August this year.  Even if it was not a typhoon, it brought devastation similar to that of a typhoon – floodwaters, devastation, grief.  If the current attitudes towards nature continue, then let us brace for something stronger than Pablo and something exponential after that, in the most unprepared places, until we remember that there’s just no way we can mess up with nature, because it always wins.

  

In the midst of these challenges, what can we do?  I count on your individual creativity on how you can contribute.  My current involvement is with the indigenous peoples in the ARMM – the Tedurays Lambangian, Dulangan Manobo of Maguindanao and the Higaonon of Wao Lanao del Sur.  Let me say that if IPs all over the Philippines are vulnerable, they are blessed because in a way because they are covered with IPRA which, despite its flaws, was signed in 1997.  And because the ARMM was formed in 1989, IPRA did not apply there, with the option that being autonomous, they can craft their own law which they did nineteen years later in 2008.  And just like any law that was done in a non-consultative manner, Muslim Mindanao Autonomy Act 241 or the Tribal Peoples’ Rights Act did not have implementing rules and regulations. 

Non-government organizations can only come in to fill in the gaps of government which is mandated to be the prime responder to the needs of its citizenry.  Cognizant of the gaps in the law, IPDEV convened the technical working group and facilitated for the review of MMAA 241 only in this July of this year.  And after three months of seemingly endless deliberations, it was signed on October 25.  The IRR integrated indigenous agricultural practices and stewardship for nature and its resources.  It also emphasizes the principle of Free Prior and Informed Consent or FPIC where the communities have to have the collective decision on what development is best for them.  We can only hope these implementing rules and regulations would put teeth to the law, so to speak. 

Just last Sunday we also assisted the Office of the ARMM Deputy Governor for IPs because they wanted to do a tree planting.  IPDEV took care of the mobilization and other technical support; while the ODGIP took care of the invitations.  This evolved into putting tree planting to a higher level which is building forests.  With tree planting you only have the individual trees in mind.  Anytime the treeling grows to one inch in diameter, it runs into the danger of being made into wood charcoal.  Whereas if the mindset is deconstructed towards thinking about forests, hopefully the context changes.

Forests are not just trees – but trees of infinite variety, not just rubber, as most North Cotabatenos I realize have been brainwashed to believe in.  Forests are trees, plus shrubs, rivers, mountains, grasses and most of all, people.  So when you build forests, you think about all the other life forms.  Remember, human beings are not separate from nature.  A psychologist said that for humans to think that we are the superior life form is already a thinking disorder. 

Counting on the indigenous belief of the existence of a Tuluse (God) and the guidance of the spirits of ancestors (Segoyong), the Forest-Building activity was highlighted last Sunday with the presence of the OIC Governor of the ARMM Mujiv Hataman.  Take away the politics from your minds and let’s try to see the significance of the occasion:  First, it was done on Mt Firis, ancestral land of the Teduray, Lambangian and Dulangan people.  Aside from being totally logged over starting in the 1950s, Mt Firis Complex was subdivided without the benefit of a consultation with the IPs into municipalities and assigned to members of political clans.  On Mt Firis sits the Batew (Sacred Stone) which to the IPs are the equivalent of the Kaaba of the Muslims and Holy Land for the Christians.  Just to give you an idea what I am talking about, Mt Firis is where Umra Cato set up Camp Omar in 2000 until it was taken over by the Philippine Army just in August of this year.

Among the Indigenous Peoples, land is life.  You cannot separate people from the land.  You take away the land, you take away life.  This indigenous wisdom has stood the test of time.  We cannot just dismantle what was built over millennia with just a few years of research and modern day development theories.  It’s time to deconstruct conventional thinking. 

As environmental activist and lecturer Vandana Shiva says, “Wealth is not even about money.  It’s about well-being.”  What good would foreign investments bring if it amounts to structural violence and annihilation of cultures and peoples’ ways of life?  Let me define structural violence as a system where everybody benefits except the real beneficiary.  For example: let’s take the National Greening Program.  This early, I find something unsustainable about the whole thing: everything is for sale from seedlings to potting soil!  Okay, so let's see who benefits: the seedling grower, the plastic bag vendor, the trucker, the warehouse owner – it seems it has taken the shape of another business venture which runs into the danger of committing another blunder: forgetting to put the tree into a forest!

In the same way that when I discovered the wonders of Vetiver I realized that everything was done – seminars, training, piloting – except one thing: planting.  People get excited, people want to get involved, and get excited again about the next fad, and realize little planting has really been done.

One of the mountains in this country that is still a living example of a forest is Bud Dajo in Sulu.  I tell you, this mountain literally has trees growing on top of each other.  Of course that’s an exaggeration, meaning, in a real forest, distances between trees are not measured.  The forest floor is so rich with humus and other organic matter life flourishes without the aid of commercial fertilizers and pesticides.  How many more mountains or forests would continue to be such?    

If we’re so committed to greening the country, why would we have to reinvent the wheel and bring in imported species when you have to worry about their survival rate on foreign soil?  Why can’t we make do with what we already have at a fraction of the cost?  In my years of looking at all the initiatives to improve peoples’ lives, I think I have seen the sure-fire way of making projects a failure: think of how to make money out of it.  It will surely make you forget the very first reason why you did it anyway. 

In closing, I do not advocate anything that I have not tried and tested.  Otherwise I would be another oppressive middleman.  Dean Sinolinding told me that Environmental Sciences would be your next course offering here at the College of Arts and Sciences.  Aren’t you admirable.     

With climate change there is not much time.  Things have to be done now; not a day longer, not a day later.  As I address this to you future Social Workers, this is not the time to be solely dependent on government, on media, on external assistance.  Be strong from the inside out.  Nature is the best teacher and it is God’s gift to us.  What we do to nature is our gift to God.  It’s time to give back.

Maayong buntag.      

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The speaker is currently the Project Manager of IPDEV, an EU-funded capacity building project for Indigenous Peoples in the ARMM.

She wrote a column "The Voice" on the editorial page of the Mindanao Cross from 1991-2006; has been into humaniarian/development work with UN-MDP, IOM, UNV, UN-WFP in various capacities since 1998; is the Bukidnon-born mother of three Maguindanao-Ilonggo-Cotabateno children, Raj Ram and Gel.   

She believes that nature is the best teacher, a philosophy she shares with Jun, her husband of 28 years who is a nature cures practitioner.  She was born on July 5, 1963 and is always happy to share how old she is, courtesy to a nature-centered lifestyle.

She is also the convenor of the Vetiver Forum, a volunteer citizen action towards soil and environmental protection with the use of Vetiver Technology.