X Men

Saturday May 10, I was invited to speak at the first assembly of PAX - Philippine Association of Ex-Seminarians. We met under the shade of the trees at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani Memorial Center.

It was a chance to get in touch with some friends I knew in the SVD seminary, including Fr. Mike Padua who was introduced as the chaplain of PAX; he has been also supportive of the XVDs - the association of former SVDs. I also met alumni of other seminaries.

Atty. Ribo from Leyte is one of the prime movers, and said in his welcome remarks that there is really no specific and clear purpose for PAX, as of now. Just a gathering and fellowship.

I said that the fellowship is reason enough, especially since PAX could be a “learning fellowhip.” After all, ex-seminarians and ex-priests need to learn many things that we didn’s in the seminary - how to be parents and partners, how to earn our living, how to serve the wider community not as full-time celibates but as people with families.

 Since we were at the Bantayog, I explained that the names on the Wall of Remembrance used to be restricted to those who fought and died as martyrs for democracy during martial law. But what about those who survived? Later, the Bantayog board recognized those who continued to work for democracy after EDSA 1986 and died of old age or sickness.

I drew some parallelism to the church’s ideas about whom to honor as saints. The first were the “martyrs” those who gave up their lives giving witness to their faith. But later, the church recognized “confessors” - those who lived out their witness day by day and eventually died of old age or sickness. I said that as a young priest-activist, I may have had a “martyr complex,” expecting to die young in the struggle. But now I prefer to be a confessor, and live to a ripe old age.

As an educator, I commented that martyrs are not the best resources for learning. Their main lesson is about courage in the face of death. We cannot learn much from their lives, since it is not acceptable to talk of their faults and failings; these have been washed away by their shedding of blood. In the pithy phrase of some commentators, martyr-saints are “to be admired, but not imitated.”

And yet we are only too conscious of our own limitations, our failings and weaknesses, even as we strive to overcome then and learn. That is why confessors are better teachers. They stumble and fall, but rise and learn, and more important, they persevered till the end. They are an early example of sustainability.

The other church tradition gave honor first to virgins who didn’t marry but dedicated their lives to the service of the church, and to widows who didn’t marry again after their husbands died. Only much later did the church come up with another category of saints, using a double negative “nec virgo nec vidua” - neither virgin nor widow.

Just as confessors are a model for the majority; martyrdom is not to be sought, but it comes, only for a minority, so also “neither virgin nor widow” is the life condition of the majority.

That is the life path that ex-seminarians and ex-priests have to explore, and we can benefit from exchanging notes in a fellowship like PAX.

But there is also an X factor in the identity that unites the members of PAX, our being ex-seminarians. Is this merely a historical reference, that once we spent time in the seminary studying to be priests? Or does it mean something more - a commitment to and a search for ways to contribute to the wider community?

We had a second guest speaker at the PAX assembly - Among Ed Panlilio, governor of Pampanga. it’s the third time we meet, all of them unplanned. “This may mean something,” we told each other. He spoke about his crusade against jueteng, and asked PAX for help in filing a case against Bong Pineda, and asking PNP General Razon to assign an anti-jueteng officer to Pampanga.

I recalled that of the 15 mayors in Oriental Mindoro, four are ex-seminarians, alumni of Saint Augustine Seminary in Calapan. I teased the rector that maybe the seminary curriculum should be revised to take this into account - have a common basic curriculum, then have two tracks, one for those who will be priests and another for those who will go into public service.

Is there really an X factor in the fact that at one time in our lives, we responded to a perceived call to service? And though we responded later to another call - to family, business, public service, development work etc., can we say that the spirit that made us respond to the first call is still there, looking for new contemporary ways of service?

PAX is a venue to pursue this question.

 

 

 

24 Hours

No, this does not refer to the TV series, just a recent quick trip to Baguio.

Wednesday at 12:15 am, I took the Victory de luxe bus from Quezon City to Baguio City. The non-stop trip on a solo reclining seat was worth the 600 pesos fare. Twenty-four hours later, on Thursday at 12:15 am, I boarded a similar bus trip from Baguio back to Quezon City.

The bus arrived at the Victory station in Baguio at 5 am. I was fetched by Renato Navata, regional director of DAR-CAR, the Department of Agrarian Reform in the Cordillera Administrative Region. He had invited me to speak at a “write shop” for a program on developing community-based leaders in agrarian reform communities (ARC) and indigenous peoples’ communities.

I was a young SVD priest when I first met “Boy” Navata. I think he had just left his seminary studies, and was a volunteer worker with the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF); we did some work together. We lost touch during the years of martial law, but I heard that he was also active in the resistance movement.

I don’t know how he got into DAR, but it makes sense, since agrarian reform was his original passion. He narrates with a wry smile: “When we have a meeting of DAR regional directors and I strike a conversation with Benjie de Vera (another former rebel), my fellow directors would tease us as a caucus of the New People’s Army.”

It has been a while since I visited the Cordilleras, and I was happy to accept his invitation. I also learned quite a bit at the write shop.

The DAR-CAR workshop is in line with the resolution of the Regional Development Council of CAR to launch a fresh initiative toward autonomy for the Cordilleras. This is based on a provision in the 1987 Constitution for autonomy both for Muslim Mindanao and the Cordillera. But two previous plebiscites to pass an Organic Act were rejected.

“Your third attempt reminds me of Frank Sinatra,” I told the participants. Their quizzical expressions turned to smiles when I explained that I was thinking of his comeback song “Let Me Try Again.”

One lesson the RDC drew from the previous failures is that the campaign for autonomy should not focus immediately on politics, but on development. Another lesson, based on the people’s suspicion of politicians who previously pushed for autonomy, is the need to develop new community-based leaders who would be more credible. Hence the workshop on a program to develop these grassroots leaders.

After I finished my MA in Philosophy, I spent a year in Abra, one of the six provinces of CAR, as a “regent” at the St. Joseph Seminary in Bangued. Two of the young Tingguian high school seminary students, Cirilo Ortega and Bruno Ortega, later became guerrilla-priests, joining Conrado Balweg, also a Tingguian, and Nilo Valerio, an Ilocano, in the New People’s Army.

Boy Navata and I spent time reminiscing about the four comrades. Bruno died as a guerrilla fighter, but from sickness, rather than combat. Nilo was killed by the military; when they found out that he was a priest, they cut of his head and buried his body in separate places. Up to now, his wife Daisy and their children have not been able to give him a proper burial. Cirilo survived martial law and eventually returned to priestly service. Conrado broke away from the NPA, founded the Cordillera People’s Liberation Front (CPLA), and forged a peace agreement with the government, with the demand that an autonomous regional government should be established. He later died a tragic death, killed by the NPA. More recently, his wife Azon died of heart attack.

Their names and faces were on my mind as I listened to the assessment of the development assets and strategic potential of the Cordillera. “It has two outstanding characteristics,” according to the DAR-CAR. “it is the watershed cradle of the North, and it is predominantly populated by indigenous peoples.”

Although the Cordillera is classified as one of the three poorest regions, it is the region that hosts the headwaters of 12 major rivers that are crucial for irrigated agriculture in the Ilocos Region, the Cagayan Valley Region, and parts of Central Luzon. The same headwaters are also important for the hydroelectric power that feeds the Luzon grid.

One of the 4-point advocacy agenda of the DAR-CAR is RUPES - “rewarding upland people for the environmental services” that they provide. Through their indigenous knowledge systems and practices, they preserve the watersheds which are critical for the agri-ecological systems. These watersheds are also carbon sinks.

Unlike other regions where indigenous peoples are minorities, over 90% of the population in the Cordillera belong to 19 major indigenous tribes. But although there are 65 ARCs or agrarian reform communities in the region, only 5 out of the 110 potential CADTs or Certificates of Ancestral Domain Title have been granted. Hence the importance of implementing the two asset reform laws - CARP or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, and IPRA, or the Indigenous People’s Rights Act.

The action program that we discussed focused on the development of grassroots community leaders and advocates among the ARBS or agrarian reform beneficiaries, and the Indigenous peoples’ communities. We also looked into the need to mobilize allies and advocates among the established institutions - academe, local governments, churches, business. I suggested that they tap the potential of Cordillera inhabitants who have migrated abroad.

Before midnight, Boy Navata brought me to the bus station and gave me a bag of Cordillera vegetables plus a few bottles of local wine. I drifted off to sleep, thinking of the four young SVD priests, all students of mine, who devoted their lives to defend the rights of the communities they served in the Cordillera.

I thought of their witness and sacrifice, and those of many other Cordillera leaders, like Macli-ing Dulag and Pedro Dungoc. I hope that the program to develop new grassroots leaders will insure that their dreams will continue to be pursued even if it takes the biblical “40 years” of struggle.

Forty Years of Struggle

In the Bible the number 40 means a very long time. When we read that “it rained 40 days and 40 nights,” that is not to be understood literally; simply that it rained for a long. long time.

This morning, I thought of the biblical meaning of 40 when I met Atty. Camilo Sabio at the Pius XII Catholic Center. We were there for what has been billed as the Agrarian Reform Summit of Stakeholders, which is also the third Bishops-Legislators Caucus on the issue of extending CARP and reforming it.

I met Mil Sabio around 40 years ago, when he was a lawyer with the Federation of Free Farmers. I had been introduced to agrarian reform as the main social justice issue in the Philippines by Jerry Montemayor, whose son Leonie was also at the summit. There were also veteran FFF farmer-leaders and organizers, including Boy Tan from Bukidnon. As we reminisced about our years together in the struggle, I realized that it has been 40 years ago!

It has been a very long struggle. And it will continue to be a very long struggle.

Of course the struggle for social justice in the rural areas has gone on much longer than 40 years. The 40 is a personal reference, since 1968 was when I got ordained as an SVD priest, after which I asked my superiors to assign me as a chaplain of the FFF.

The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program or CARP was passed into law in 1988, part of the fruits of EDSA 1986. As Atty. Christian Monsod explained, it was a law that reflected the compromises of those who held power after the restoration of formal democracy. CARP is revolutionary in its intentions, since it wanted to redistribute agricultural land from the landlords ( big and small ) to the small farmers. But it chose to do this through the processes of the restored democratic order, with its checks and balances, and its domination by the elite.

Twenty years later, we can assess CARP as either “half full or half empty,” in the words of Archbishop Tony Ledesma, the lead convenor of the National Rural Congress II which is being convened by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines. There are around one million ARBs or agrarian reform beneficiaries. But there are still two million hectares of public and private land waiting to be redistributed under CARP.

The LAD ( land acquisition and distribution ) component of CARP fell very short of its original 10-year target deadline. We lobbied and campaigned in 1998 to extend funding for CARP, and it got a 10-year extension, which expires this year on Friday the 13th of June.

Today’s summit and yesterday’s pre-summit are part of the campaign to seek another extension of CARP. More precisely, of its LAD component, as Congressman Edcel Lagman clarified. He championed the 1998 extension, and has played an important role in the current campaign.

There’s some good news. The House committee on agrarian reform passed a consolidated bill by majority vote; it now awaits debate in plenary. There is also steady but slower movement in the Senate.

Even better news is that many bishops have taken up the cause of agrarian reform. It is fair to say that the militant grassroots campaign of farmers organizations and their NGO partners would not have gotten this far if the bishops hadn’t thrown their open and official support.

That’s what I said in the brief “synthesis” I was asked to give at the summit. I reminded everyone that there is no real summit without a base and slopes; that’s the flaw of other “summits” convened by government , which starts at the top. This summit is different, since it acknowledges and builds on the work of the grassroots and the “middle forces.” But without the participation of those on top - leaders in power institutions, our cause cannot successfully compete for what may be one of the scarcest resources, which is public attention.

The legislators at the summit cautioned the bishops and the farmers about the resistance that the proposed extension will face in the plenary. They urged the bishops to talk to the representatives in their dioceses, and mobilize their constituencies. Part of the interesting discussion at the summit was how to define what is “just compensation” for the land owners, especially since some courts interpret this as based on market price. The current law cites too many factors to consider, which gives courts too much leeway. There seems to be a need to pass a law that defines this more precisely and fairly, and the bishops took up the challenge to provide the moral basis for this.

The summit participants are seasoned enough to acknowledge the role of real politik even if our only intention is to extend the present law. But we also want to reform the law, and this is not just to improve it, but also a real politik move to separate the “soft opposition” from the hardliners. Even those who support the extension of CARP acknowledge that there are those who don’t want a mere extension of the law, but are willing to go along if there are reforms that accompany the extension.

There is a long list of reforms that we want. The challenge is how to push for as much as we want, while accepting that not everything we want is possible under the current balance of forces. I tried to capture this idea as ang pinakamagandang pwede - a third way between those who are willing to settle for mere extension and those who would not accept anything less than all the reforms we want.

Education for What, and for Whom?

The next two days, I will be busy with the pre-summit and summit on agrarian reform, sponsored by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines and the Rural Poor Solidarity. I have been asked to listen to the presentations and workshop reports, and attempt a synthesis at the end.

But this Sunday evening, my thoughts are on education.

Part of the reason are some ideas about education in Richard Bolles’ What Color is Your Parachute which I finished reading in Naujan, and re-read on the way back to Quezon City yesterday.

The other reason is the commentary of Eugenia Duran-Apostol ( which Rainier Ibana posted in the PPE21C Yahoo Group ) where she talks of the need to make education “relevant.” She cites with approval Pepe Abueva’s question to those who want to uplift the quality of Philippine education: “Education for what, and for whom?”

I wonder what was the reaction of those who listened to her talk. Her commentary is based on the speech she gave to the leaders of the “57-75″ Movement and the representatives of six LGUs where education alliances have been organized under the auspices of the movement.

The 57-75 Movement seeks to improve the average scores of Grade 6 students in the National Achievement Test ( NAT ) from the present 57 to 75 in five years. The strategy is to organize education alliances in towns, cities and provinces. I noticed that Synergeia is represented on the Council of Leaders. This makes sense since Synergeia has pioneered this approach to education reform.

When I first met Nene Guevarra, president of Synergeia, she was still program officer of Ford Foundation. She formulated her program framework for education as “Building a constituency to make education work.”

Nene Guevarra’s innovative strategy was to get mayors and governors who are Galing Pook winners and convince them to apply their leadership to the field of public basic education, using their powers under the Local Government Code. Mayors and governors chair the Local School Boards which decide on the use of the Special Education Fund.

Building a constituency of course means getting the whole community involved. In addition to the LGU and the DepEd (teachers and principals), the Synergeia approach seeks the collaboration of parents, higher academic institutions, NGOs and business.

Nene explains that her training as an economist makes her insist on “metrics.” ( She does not use the term itself; I picked it up from an article on Bill Gates’s approach to philanthropy. ) All efforts and interventions must have measurable outcomes, e.g. improved reading skills, and improved NAT scores.

Because it is able to report measurable results, Synergeia has managed to mobilize funds from a variety of sources even after Ford Foundation ceased operating in the Philippines.

During our annual Synergeia retreat, some questions do come up about these measurements.

One is about the integrity of the NAT scores. A Synergeia mayor said that he once offered 500,000 pesos prize money to the schools in his town whose students would show the greatest improvement in their NAT scores. To his surprise, none of the school principals and teachers wanted to use the NAT results as basis for awarding the prize. “They must know something about the NAT that we don’t,” he said with a knowing grin.

Whatever our questions about it, NAT is the only test that is administered nationwide and every year, which makes it useful to compare the performance of schools and to check progress.

The other recurring question about measurements is related to the theory of multiple intelligences proposed by Howard Gardner. IQ tests have been criticized for limiting “intelligence” to two - linguistic and logico-mathematical. To a great extent NAT and similar tests limit themselves to the same two intelligences. But again, there are no tests as yet that are “intelligence-fair.”

The ALS nationwide test for high school equivalency has also been criticized as biased toward “classroom competencies,” even though many of the out of school youth will not pursue higher education. In fact the DepEd has developed a “portfolio assessment” as alternative. But officials say is difficult to administer, even if there were a bit more funds for the Bureau of Alternative Learning System (BALS).

The discussions on measurements of learning will continue. But until alternatives become available, education advocates have to work with what is there, even if they are inadequate.

And there are even deeper questions we must ask. Not just how to measure student learning, but what should students be learning in school?

The questions ( and answers ) are posed differently by Eggie Apostol and Richard Bolles.

Eggie asks: ” Wouldn’t we want our schools to imbue our future generations with an unshakable sense of right and wrong? Wouldn’t we prefer that our teachers inculcate in our youth positive civic values like
citizenship and respect for the rights of others?”

She adds further: ” All the effort that we are expending now is not just so we can carve out a good education system. I really believe that we are doing this because we are a nation in search of our soul.”

Rainier picked up the phrase “searching for the nation’s soul,” I guess because he is a philosopher. I wonder if anyone of the 57-75 Movement campaigners reacted ( or at least thought ), “Those are fine ideals, but our movement wants to focus first on measurable results, like NAT scores.”

E-Net Philippines, which re-elected me as its president last April 25, is a civil society campaign network advocating Education for All ( EFA 2015 ). We appreciate and learn from the good practices of Synergeia in improving the performance of the formal school-based education system. To have a chance of achieving EFA, we need those kind of collaborative partnerships and alliances in every province, city, town and barangay.

What E-Net offers to the movements for education reform is our framework of EFA which includes not just the F - formal basic education, but also E - Early Childhood Care and Development, and A - Alternative Learning System.

But in a conference in Manchester last year, the education minister from Uruguay posed a provocative question to those of us who are part of the Global Campaign for Education, which is campaigning for the goals of EFA 2015, and usually cite that between 70 to 80 million children of school age are not in school and between 700 to 800 million adults are still illiterate. These are not his exact words, but I recall him asking: “Do we presume that the existing educational system is OK, and all we need to do is insure that everyone can enter it?”

In the preface to his book, Richard Bolles lists “three essential life skills” which a good education should give us, and which unfortunately few graduates learn in school:

1. How to choose and find a job - that matches your gifts, skills and experience; gives you the income you need; makes you happy; and gives you a sens of purpose in life.

2. How to chose and find an appropriate partner - principles for the heart and principles for the mind that make relationships more likely to happen, more likely to endure. How to find and value friends.

3. How to think and make good decisions - including knowing the way in which work, money, sex, and religion become playpens throughout our lives, wherein each of us acts out and spells out who we really are.

Learning and Earning

It’s the day after May 1, and I am checking the new internet place in Naujan, my hometown.

I missed yesterday’s mass actions, but not really. Everytime one of these political ”liturgical” dates come up, it’s dificult to choose among the competing events, much less attend all of them. Last year this was easier resolved since ELF had a group of Danish exchange students from the LO Vinterskole, and the resource person who addressed them was Rene Magtubo from the Partido ng Manggagawa; they decided to accept his invitation to join the rally at Plaza Miranda. Two of the Danish students who were active members of the Danish labor party even spoke at the rally, to the delight of their fellow participants. Not long afterwards, one of them, Thor, unfortunately met an untimely death while vacationing in Greece.

I travelled to Naujan to be with my mother and sister, but took along a book I had meant to read since I picked it up at a bookstore in Kuala Lumpur. On the Supercat boat trip, I started reading the 2008 edition of Richard Bolles’ What Color is Your Parachute? The blurb on the cover claims that it has sold over 9,000,000 copies, but I think that counts all the editions; the book is revised yearly. It is considered the best-selling practical manual for job-hunters and career changers. 

According to the author, the latest edition and the two preceding ones include major changes because his thinking has also undergone major changes, presumably reflecting the changes in the world of work and careers. Thay are of course most applicable to the USA and developed countries of the North/West, but there are useful lessons even for those of us who live and work in the South.

When I first read this book, probably more than a decade ago, I found his ideas very useful, not only because they are research-based, but because they reflect his values as an ordained Episcopal minister for over 50 years.

I remember one of his ideas, that that the ideal job or career we should aspire for, and most probably will stick to, is that which meets two needs - applying and developing our skills and potentials, and at the same time contributing significantly to the well being of others.

He gave two examples of a too one-sided job/career  - a top salesperson of a deodorant, and a dedicated staff of a leper colony. The first, he says, develops the skills and potentials that make for a successful salesperson, but deodorants may not be the priority needs of people. This reminded me of Steven Job’s pitch when he recruited the Pepsi executive to Apple - “You can go on selling sugared water, or you can make a difference.” On the other hand, the staff at a leper colony may be doing something meaningful, but they may suffer burn out and need a career change. It’s another question of course if the person sees it as a special calling or commitment.

With so many new college graduates looking for work very year, on top of the unemployed and underemployed, I wondered if I can cull ideas from Richard Bolles’ book that they will find useful. My first thought was that they would be happy to get any job that come their way. Perhaps the ideas in the book will appeal more to those who have lost their jobs, want to change jobs, or even change careers.

During my watch as TESDA director-general, I took part in planning and assessment conferences of the DOLE, Department of Labor and Employment. That was when I realized that the term “employed” officially covers more than one category. We usually understand employed as earning a salary or wages. But as far as I recall, wage and salaried workers and employees constitute only one half, 50% of all those considered employed.

Who are the other 50% employed? The second category is “own-account: or self-employed, which ranges from the small farmer owner-cultivator to the taipans like Henry Sy. They make up 35% of the employed. The remaining 15% have a somewhat quaint label - “unpaid household labor.”

The precise percentages may have changed slightly (I had not time to check the latest figures), but I have been told that this “trinitarian” categorization remains basically the same in official government documents.

Whenever the government agencies some together to discuss employment and unemployment, one of the standard culprits they cite is the “mismatch” between labor demand and supply. Consequently, they look to reform the education system, both to provide better foundational knowledge, skills and attitudes, and also to be more “demand-sensitive” by responding to market signals.

While these ideas are well taken, they may be reinforcing a presumption about the relation of education and employment that should be tempered by other factors. After all, it is investments that create the job opportunities, and the decisions on investment are not made only on the basis of the available supply and quality of workers and supervisors, employees and managers.

Still, conventional thinking correlates education with employment, or at least employability. A recent example of this was the premise of the “due diligence” results presented at the Veritas College of irosin - how many graduates found jobs in the field they studied. During my talk, I reminded them that “lifelong learning” has three purposes and perspectives - the liberal and humanist idea of developing a person’s potential, the idea of developing informed and active citizens, and the idea of having sustainable livelihoods.

Educators and social activists like myself tend to emphasize the first two perspectives, and worry that the new enthusiasm of dominant institutions for “lifelong learning” is driven mainly by the need for labor flexibility and competitiveness. But we need to incorporate into our thinking the legitimate and often more immediate concern of our learners for earning.

In the run up to CONFINTEA 6, the May 2009 international conference on adult learning that will be hosted by Brazil, I welcome the proposal of  Heribert Hinzen of DVV, the German adult education association. He says that one of the focus themes we should explore is the link between the adult education tradition (associated with conscientization and empowerment) and technical-vocational education and training or TVET. I would add also the perspective of self-employment and entrepreneurship, and incorporate the social phenomenon of global migration.

In 2006, I was invited to a conference in Adelaide which had an evocative theme much along these lines - AVESS, Adult and Vocational Education for Social Sustainability. I told the convenor, who is also a former priest, that I found the theme stimulating, though from a diferent starting point. The conference organizers addressed mainly TVET and challenged it to incorporate the ideas and methods of adult community education. But I said that I come from the adult and popular education movement, and interpreted AVESS as a challenge to address the issue of skills and earnings.

Ove Korsgaard of the Association for World Education, in his external evaluation of ELF, also posed this issue. Perhaps, he wrote, the mission of ELF which is “education for life” should be expanded to “education for life and livelihood” since we work mainly with poorer grassroots communities.

That reminded me of the remark of a farmer-leader to activists: “Kayo namang mga aktibista, ang itinataas ninyo ay ang aming kamulatan, pero hindi ang aming kita!”

In response, I would cite the UNDP distinction between “income poverty” and “capability poverty.” It is fair to say that the more direct effect of education and learning is on capability poverty. But it is also fair for the learners to ask for lessons on how to use their improved capabilities to improve their incomes.

Interestingly, Richard Bolles claims that the most successful strategy for job-hunting and career-changing starts with assessing our capabilities ( including goals and preferences ) rather than the usual advice to start with assessing the market. That comes next, as the necessary second step.

 

Sorsogon Stories

Just got back from a too-short visit to Sorsogon. Oyen Dorotan invited me to speak at a strategic planning workshop of VCI - the Veritas College of Irosin; we were joined at the airport by a young lawyer who was with the team that had done “due diligence” - legal, financial, and operational.

When our plane landed at the Legazpi airport, we noticed that there were a lot of soldiers and government officials. Pepe, the driver who fetched us, told us that GMA was expected to arrive that same morning; a helicopter was waiting to fly her from there to Masbate. We were glad to get out of the airport in a hurry.

The workshop was in a retreat house in Sorsogon City, about an hour’s drive from the airport. When we arrived, the team of facilitators were already at work, processing expectations, and reviewing the mission and vision of the Veritas College of irosin.

I was introduced to the chair of the VCI board, Bishop Bastes. We were both happy to meet after 40 years. He and I studied at the same SVD seminary, and I remember him as a very talented organist and composer. Since then he has become a biblical scholar and has been elected as the first Catholic president of the Philippine Bible Society. I also congratulated him for his work as chair of the fact-finding team that investigated the Lafayette mining operations in Rapu-Rapu.

On the way to Sorsogon City, I listened to the animated conversation of Oyen and Pepe. They reminisced about their participation in the election campaigns of Oyen’s husband, Eddie Dorotan, whom Pepe fondly call “Doc.” Eddie is a medical doctor who won twice as mayor of Irosin, but lost in the congressional elections of 1998.

Although we didn’t meet until a couple of years ago, I have heard of the good work done by Dr. Eddie Dorotan and Oyen in Irosin. They established an NGO, Likas, which promoted community-based health and other development programs in all the barangays of Irosin, the hometown of the Dorotan family. When he won as mayor, activists attributed it to their development work, and wondered if that is the path to take for other activists who want to run for public office.

One of Doc Eddie’s brother joined the New People’s Army and was killed in combat as an NPA commander. No wonder that when he was elected mayor of Irosin, on top of his list of “policies that make a difference” was the declaration of the whole of Irosin as an Agrarian Reform Community ( which meant that it should be tenancy-free ), and the declaration of Irosin as a “zone of peace” to be respected by the combatants of the NPA and AFP.

Implementing his policies was helped by the fact that the Department of Agrarian Reform was headed by a friend and fellow development activist, Ernie Garilao. He was also able to persuade both the AFP and the NPA command to honor the zone of peace, until the NPA commander who was party to the agreement was killed in an encounter.

Another of his policies was to make Iroson “jueteng-free.” When the families of the jueteng collectors complained to him, he took pains to explain that his opposition to jueteng was not based on moral repugnance, but because it drains resources from the people. The daily collection then was 100,000 pesos. He was offered 10,000 pesos as his daily take if he would tolerate jueteng. “Even if they distribute 20,000 to the winners, that means that 70,000 pesos are taken away from the people,” explained Oyen.

Sadly, jueteng has come back to Irosin with a vengeance. There are now three draws a day.

I am sure that development activists would applaud Mayor Dorotan’s for his choice of policy priorities. But Pepe’s positive appreciation of what Doc Eddie had done as mayor focused on other things, and reflects the values of ordinary citizens. “Doc is the first mayor who improved all our roads - they are all concrete,” he told me as he drove me around Irosin. “He also improved the town hall and other buildings.” He did add that he would want to start a business in Irosin, but only if the government is run like the time Doc was mayor.

The firs time Eddie ran for office, the NPA maintained neutrality. But during his second campaign, the NPA demanded payment for PTC - permit to campaign, which he refused. Oyen recalled an incident which shocked one of their children who was distributing campaign materials in a barangay. The NPA took the leaflets and destroyed them. But she added with a wry smile, “When Eddie won by a landslide, the NPA was the first to congratulate him.”

Doc and Oyen met in UP as activists in the Student Catholic Action. She is from Lipa City, and also served some time as a political prisoner. During the workshop break, we had a very enjoyable conversation about all sorts of topics, including parenting. She laughed at how our daughter Ayen described my work to her grade school class: “My father cannot live without meetings.”

She said that one of their children also took a long time to fill a school form that asked about his parents’ occupation. He had no problem with his father, since Eddie is a doctor and practiced his profession. “But I got my degree in nutrition,” Oyen said, “and my masters in public administration, and he didn’t see me practicing either of the two.” When asked by his teacher, her child also said that his mother always goes to meetings.

Eddie and Oyen plan to settle down in Irosin once their children have finished their education and have their own careers. In the meantime, they make it a point to travel as a family to Irosin once a year, not only for vacation but to do community service. She says that Eddie is very happy at his job as executive director of Galing Pook Foundation: “He earns much less compared to his previous consultancy work, but he finds this work more fulfilling.”

Because of the stories I have heard about Doc and Oyen’s work in Irosin, I am even more eager to meet Eddie at the June 7 general assembly of the Galing Pook Foundation. The last time we met, he expressed keen interest in the discussion initiated by Joe Almonte about using good local governance as a way to transform our country. It is not enough to have “islands of good governance” - the title of the World Bank country assistance program to the Philippines. What we should aim for is to have a whole “archipelago” of good governance.

In my workshop talk on “opportunities and challenges,” I shared some ideas about philosophies and perspectives in education, including lifelong learning and multiple intelligences. I also discussed the possibilities of ladderization, since VCI offers both degree courses and non-degree technical courses.

VCI is a “community college” established by a group of Irosin’s citizens, including Doc Eddie’s father, who contributed and solicited funds. it is the only higher education institution in irosin, and most of its students come from poor families. In fact, many of those who avail of the “study now, pay later” program fail to pay. We discussed some ideas for generating funds, including learning partnerships and “diaspora philanthropy.”

The two super typhoons have damaged many of the buildings of VCI, and not all of them have been repaired. But based on the due diligence report, VCI can be proud of having quality graduates, many of them gainfully employed. Among them are graduates of education, most of whom passed the Licensure Examinations for Teachers.

What is worrisome, and an issue for strategic planning is the lack of students in the agricultural courses. And yet agriculture is supposed to be the flagship course, and in fact was the main reason for setting up VCI, since Irosin is the rice granary of Sorsogon. VCI has a four hectare demo farm.

Whatever their problems may be, I told the participants that I still envy them for having a community college that has served Irosin for 23 years. My hometown Naujan had no post-secondary school until the previous mayor decided to establish an LGU college. I convinced him to start with technical courses, and it has quite successful graduates of the welding course. But the course on agricultural mechanics also has fewer students and employment prospects.

The last time I visited Irosin was more than 40 years ago, so Oyen asked Pepe to give me a quick tour of Irosin before my flight back. He brought me to a spot on the highway just outside the town proper, which has a spectacular view of Irosin and its rice and coconut fields, with Mount Bulusan at the background. The place is appropriately named “Valley View” and was one of the projects of Doc Eddie.

As I bade Bishop Bastes good-bye, he told me a story about my mother who was in charge of the seminary kitchen for many years: “I am forever grateful to Mommy dela Torre. I was quite thin and frail, and after I played the organ at church service, she would give me extra food. That’s why I got to be stronger.”

I promised him that I will tell Inay about this when I vist her on May 1.

Sustaining Our Campaigns

This weekend was a rare one for me - no meetings or appointments ( I begged off from one on Saturday morning ), and I had time to be with my small “nuclear family.” Girlie and Ayen traveled with me to Mindoro for an overnight visit to Inay and to celebrate my sister Yen’s birthday; she’s here from Puerto Rico to be with Inay for a month. From Singapore, Yeyi and Minette even joined us by texting welcome news - the scan shows she has identical twin boys!

I am savoring the last few hours of the weekend. Then the week starts with an early Monday morning flight week to Legazpi City in Bicol, and travel by land to Sorsogon. I travel with Oyen Dorotan, a fellow board member on the FPE, the Foundation for Philippine Environment, who sits on the board of Veritas College of Irosin, and who has invited me to speak at their strategic planning workshop.

This weekend seems to be bracketed by education.

Last Thursday and Friday, E-Net Philippines held our biannual general assembly. I gave the President’s Report on Thursday morning, and presided at the first meeting of the newly-elected Board on Friday afternoon. Although I am the president of E-Net, it was Thea Soriano our national coordinator and the staff who took organized the event, so I could shuttle to two other commitments.

Friday morning, I was invited to speak at the national convention of the World Council for Curriculum and Instruction, Philippine chapter. The topic assigned to me was kilometric - Responsible Stewardship for Sustainable Development of Mother Earth: An Education Perspective. I presumed that this was related to the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.

I focused my talk on the concept of “responsible stewardship,” but from the tradition of social justice, since that has been and remains my central concern. From an education perspective, it is important to re-examine our concepts of ownership and stewardship. I shared my early learnings -that the right to use is more important than the right to own, and that the current understanding of ownership as absolute ( the right to use and abuse ) needs to be challenged by the biblical idea of stewardship.

The tradition of social justice has something to offer to the discourse on sustainability, but it also has much to learn. I think the relationship of the two is captured well by Gani Serrano’s formulation, “fairness in a fragile world.”

When I got back to the E-Net assembly, I was told that the whole morning had been taken up by intense discussion about the nomination and election process for the new Board of Directors. I commented that we Filipinos have suffered from a “democracy deficit” even in civil society, so that when there is space for it, a lot of energies are spent in insuring fairness and transparency.

Anyway, the E-Net assembly elected 15 Board of Directors, representing a good mix of old and new members, and there were no protests about the results or the process. The assembly adopted the same 2006 formula - 3 to represent Mindanao, 3 to represent the Visayas, and 4 to represent Luzon and the National Capital Region, and one each for ECCD, Formal Basic Education, Alternative Learning Systems, Gender, and Education Financing.

At our first BOD meeting, we discussed the issue of helping develop the next set of leaders for E-Net. The campaign to achieve Education for All has a 2015 deadline. We must maintain our momentum and insure continuity across leadership changes. I tossed out for consideration the idea of convening an E-Net NCR as a platform for training a second layer of leaders. After all, there are E-Net member organizations in almost all the cities and towns of Metro Manila.

John Maxwell has an aphorism that applies to all campaigns and movements that have goals - dreams with deadlines - that need energies and presences beyond those of the initial leaders: “There is no success without succession.”

At the Thursday meeting of the FPE which I managed to attend ( I missed the Friday meeting ), we discussed the phasing out of FPE funding from two sites. In both cases, the staff were quite confident that the local communities and partner institutions would be able to sustain their commitment to biodiversity conservation. The main reason they gave was the strengthening of indigenous systems of organization and enforcement, gaop and lapat. I probed about the number and quality of leaders in the sites.

In my talk at E-Net, I cited the idea from the Global Campaign for Education, that while we are a network of organizations, we need to identify and support individual EFA advocates. In the next two years, we also want to set up local EFA committees to insure that we have a broader and deeper base of our campaign.

At the start of campaigns, the role of leaders and key advocates is quite prominent. Hence the need to develop successor generations of leaders and advocates. But the sustainability of a campaign is most insured when its issues and its methods become embedded in the culture of the the members and the communities.

That is what we experienced in the community organiziing process among the urban poor. From a tradition of dependence and waiting for outside initiatives, they develop an alternative tradition that takes as SOP and demands consultation and participation. It is an example of Gramsci’s idea that “good sense” should become “common sense.”

Perhaps my theme should be revised to read: “Renewing our spirituality and strategy for justice and sustainability.”

A Trinity of Liturgies

Today I took part in three meaningful liturgies. No, I did not attend three religious ceremonies, though one included some prayers.

In the seminary, I learned that the word “liturgy” combines two Greek words - laos (people) and ergon (action or work). We can translate liturgy either as “public works” or as “mass action.”

As a young activist, I would describe our protest rallies as liturgies. Our marches through the streets of Metro Manila were like religious processions; our placards and organizational banners were similar to those carried by religious confraternities, and our chanted slogans were like the litanies recited by devotees.

Our secular liturgies served two purposes, external and internal. Externally, they proclaimed our faith to the public, hoping to influence them or at least inform them. But the experience of marching together and listening to speeches also served to strengthen our shared beliefs and identity.

Today’s morning liturgy started at 10 am, in front of the Quezon City Hall, and was organized by E-net Philippines as part of our advocacy campaign on Education for All (EFA). It is part of a global liturgy, since members of the Global Campaign for Education in 100 countries will be mobilizing millions at different times today to take part in the “World’s Biggest Lesson” on the theme: Quality Education for All! End Exclusion Now!

The organizers assembled over 1000 participants, mainly children in school and out of school, but also teachers, parents, and EFA advocates. As soon as I got to the place, May-i Fabros, our new media staff, steered a couple of reporters my way for interviews. Then the emcee called me to the stage to give the opening talk. He addressed me as “Father Ed,” which reinforced my sense of the event as a liturgy. But instead of greeting them with “The Lord be with you,” I led the gathering in an antiphonal chanting of our theme: De kalidad na edukasyon! Wakasan ang eksklusyon! Edukasyon para sa lahat!

The noon liturgy was held in one of the committee rooms of the Batasang Pambansa or Congress. A number of bishops led by Archbishop Tony Ledesma marched with farmer-leaders and agrarian reform advocates to lobby for the extension of CARP - the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform program. A small delegation was allowed to meet Speaker Nograles for a dialogue in his office. He expressed his personal support for the extension of CARP, but also admitted that the passage of a bill will be difficult.

I stayed for a while outside the main gate of the Batasan where most of the marchers listened to fiery speeches of farmer leaders from different provinces. But I got a text message from Bel Formanes that she couldn’t join me, as she had to take care of her daughter who suffered convulsions after delivering her baby. “Please take care of the interfaith service,” she requested.

After the dialogue with the Speaker, around a hundred of us gathered in the room where the Committee on Agrarian Reform was scheduled to have a hearing at 1 pm. Many of the congressmen and women were already seated, but others who came in later found their seats temporarily taken by farmers, advocates, and bishops.

I introduced the interfaith service by telling the members of Congress present that although we know that the passing laws have to take account of realpolitik, any law should be grounded in moral principles, and our prayers hoped to set that tone for their deliberations.

As the series of short prayers were said - by Catholic bishops, a Muslim imam, farmer-leaders, and CARP advocates, I wondered how the members of congress present were feeling. Did any of them resent being pressured by our prayers, especially that of an UNORKA leader who used the theme from the Lord’s Prayer - “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven”? His prayer reminded me of Thomas Munzer, leader of the German peasant uprising during Martin Luther’s time; he invoked that same line and added: “In heaven there are no landlords. Let there be none on earth.”

We closed the interfaith service by singing Bayan Ko. I introduced it by saying it may be the only thing that everyone in the room agrees on. I said that CARP is a contentious issue, and while it is supposed to benefit the majority, it is still seen as favoring some at the expense of others. I asked that as we sing Bayan Ko, could we try thinking of how CARP will benefit not just the majority, but the whole country.

The third liturgy was in Makati, where FPE, the Foundation for Philippine Environment, hosted a celebration of its 16th Anniversary. If the two earlier liturgies were mainly prayers of petition, this third liturgy was one of thanksgiving.

A short video, narrated by Gary Granada, explained the history of FPE as an innovative fund, administered by NGOs and POs, to promote and support biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. (Gary and I were elected to the FPE Board two years ago). The closing images were accompanied by his plaintive song on the environment, reminding us of the slogan on the T-Shirts given to us: Biodiversity. Now you see it. Now you don’t. Act now!

We were told that FPE is the biggest non-government source of funds for biodiversity conservation. In 16 years, it has disbursed over 500 million pesos to various projects on biodiversity conservation. Grants have been given to around 500 NGOs and POs, but many of these are one-off small “action grants” given to NGOs and POs for advocacy activities and capability-building. The bigger multi-year grants went to programs of NGOs and POs who are at work in 22 sites that FPE has prioritized based on their rich biodiversity and the threats that they face.

As part of the anniversary celebrations, FPE gave plaques of recognition to five of these programs. I was impressed and inspired by the brief description of the biodiversity in these sites, the threats they faced and continue to face, and the programs’ activities and achievements.

The five biodiversity sites are initial answers to the question, “What has FPE to show for all the money it has given out?”

I hope that during my remaining term as board member of FPE, I can see for myself these program sites. I also hope to find out from the implementing NGOs and POs what lessons we can learn from their experiences - both positive and negative - which we can apply for work in future sites. Juju Tan, FPE’s outgoing chair, is particularly keen that these lessons are spelled out.

It would take too long even to briefly describe the program sites and the work of the NGOs and POs. Let me just list them as my way of expressing appreciation:

Biak na Bato National Park Conservation Project: Miriam-PEACE ( Public Education and Awareness Campaign for the Environment ) and Buklod Unlad sa Dalitang Umaasa sa Kalikasan ( BUNDUK )

Mts. Banahaw-San Cristobal Protected Landscape: Luntiang Alyansa sa Bundok Banahaw ( LABB ) and Tanggol Kalikasan-Timog Katagalugan.

Mt. Bulusan Volcano National Park Community Based Resource Management Project: Lingap para sa Kalusugan ng Sambayanan ( Likas ) and Pederasyon ng Nagkaisang Samahan sa Bundok Bulusan.

Paranas Community-Based Forest Management Project: Katatapuran nga Pederasayon han Parag-uma ha Samar ( KAPPAS )

Matutum Integrated Conservation and Development Program: Mahintana Foundation Inc. and Matutum Integrated Peoples Organization

Wishing for the Gift of Bilocation

Today I wished I had the gift of bilocation.

It was a day when I needed to, but couldn’t, attend activities that were happening at the same time in different places. I was reminded of what a Brazilian activist said at the 2007 World Social Forum in Nairobi, after repeatedly hearing delegates complain about not having enough time. “We all have time - the same 24 hours in a day,” he said. “But what not all of us have are priorities.”

I do have priority issues that engage my time and energy. But today all my priority issues had an activity to which I had been invited. Quite a strange and rare occurrence, like all the planets aligning.

My first issue for the day was agrarian reform and rural development; historically, this issue started off my social involvement as a seminarian and a young priest. There was a breakfast meeting at the office of the Alliance for Rural Concerns, to plan the next day’s mobilization for the extension and reform of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). Farmers organizations in the Rural Poor Solidarity will be joined by some bishops, led by Archbishop Tony Ledesma, in a march to Congress, where there will be a dialogue with Speaker Nograles, and an interfaith service at noon, followed by the committee hearing on CARP.

They asked me to help emcee the interfaith service. Somehow, I still get asked to play a “liturgical” role.

I left the meeting earlier than the others, to rush to the Department of Education’s Bulwagan ng Karunungan, for the conference on “Learning without fear.” This is part of the series of activities on Education for All sponsored by E-net Philippines during Global Action Week (GAW). Thea Soriano, E-net’s national coordinator asked me to explain the background and the theme of GAW 2008 - Quality Education to End Exclusion.

We first presented the short video prepared by the Global Campaign on Education, and after giving a short briefing on GCE and EFA, I invited the participants to tomorrow’s activity in front of the Quezon City Hall, part of the “World’s Biggest Lesson” which will be held in 100 countries, and which the GCE hopes will make it to the Guinness Book of Records. Outside of Quezon City, E-net members and partners will be holding similar activities in Baguio, Cotabato, Sharif Kabungsuan, Davao City and Davao del Norte.

In my brief talk, I asked what these advocacy activities really achieve. Like the GCE, we want our activities to achieve specific results - changes in policy and practice. “Perhaps we can also look at what we do as similar to liturgies,” I said. “Even if we participate with different levels of intensity and awareness, our collective action calls the attention of government, which is an important step to action.”

One of the scarcest resources is “attention,” and governments have to deal with competing priorities. Hence the need for continuing advocacy, including occasional “liturgical” events.

After my talk, Thea and I rushed to Greenhills. E-net was invited by the Unesco National Commission (Unacom) to a “National Dialogue on the Development and State of the Art of Adult Learning and Education.” Various government agencies gave presentations; E-net was asked to present the experiences and ideas of civil society and NGOs. The discussions that followed were quite useful.

I think the purpose of the activity was mainly to get inputs for the national report that the Unacom is supposed to submit by the end of April, as part of the process toward Confintea 6, the international conference on adult education. Compared to EFA 2015, adult learning and education does not receive enough government attention. We were all self-critical about our shortcomings in documenting our experiences and assessing the outcomes of our activities so that we can make a more effective case for adult learning.

I suggested that for the Philippine report to Confintea 6, we should not simply present the usual statistical overviews, or even a few boxed case studies of good practices. We should look at the kind of adult learning and education that is happening within those social programs and movements that appear to have made significant progress e.g. participatory local governance, microfinance and enterprise development, migration and reintegration. I was pleased to hear the representative from the Catholic Education Association of the Philippines emphasize the need for adult education toward “engaged citizenship.”

The last issue for the day was rural electrification. I dropped by the National Electrification Administration (NEA) to get updates about the conference of all electric cooperatives in Cebu on April 23 to 25. I have been invited, but unfortunately cannot join Fr. Paking Silva at the learning session that will precede the “Lumens Awards” ceremonies for outstanding electric coops. I have to be at E-net’s activities this week, including our general assembly.

Ironically, these activities forced me to miss today’s Earth Day events. I missed the early morning fluvial parade on the Pasig river, which is led by the Sagip Pasig Movement, to draw attention to the polluted state of Pasig and other Philippine rivers, and to push for community-based ecological solid waste management as part of a “Clean River Zones” program. I also missed the noon Pontifical Mass of Cardinal Rosales which he celebrates every Earth Day since three years ago.

I console myself that “every day is Earth Day,” but of course we need special days and activities to focus attention.

As I shuttled between these various engagements, there was another reason to wish for the gift of bilocation. My mind kept traveling to Mindoro where my mother had just returned home to Naujan, after being confined for five days at the ICU in Calapan. I could call my sister and aunts who are there with her, and get some reassuring news about Inay’s recovery. But I want to be at her bedside.

Mindoro Meditation

It’s Sunday afternoon and I am at an internet cafe in Calapan City, taking a short break from the hospital, where my mother has been confined at the ICU since early morning of Wednesday. At first I thought only of checking my e-mails, but decided to post some thoughts that occupied my mind these past few days.

My aunt’s phone call last Tuesday evening said that Inay’s condition had worsened, but I didn’t realize how serious it was until I got to the hospital last Friday and heard the details. My sister Yen who flew in hurriedly from Puerto Rico is a nurse and had a better sense of the danger that Inay could have faced.

The doctors at the hospital diagnosed it as “sepsis” due to her gangrenous foot. My sister said that if the sepsis had been general, affecting Inay’s whole system, she had resigned herself to arriving too late to see her alive.

Luckily, the infection, which the doctors presumed was from the foot wound, affected only her pulmonary system, causing pneumonia. When I asked my sister what was the reason for Inay’s profuse cold sweating on Tuesday night, she said that it was her body’s reaction to a massive bacterial attack. This Sunday morning, Inay showed all signs of responding well to the treatment. In addition to her appetite which she thankfully never lost, she recovered enough to easily recognize her visitors, and even managed to speak again, softly but intelligibly.

All of us staying here at the hospital or shuttling between Naujan and Calapan can breathe more easily. But though Inay keeps asking to go home and leave the hospital, my sister wants her to stay a few days longer, to make sure that there is no recurrence of infection.

We take turns keeping watch at Inay’s bedside. During one of the hours I was alone with my sleeping Inay, I prepared to pray as fervently as I could for her. But I found myself asking, “What do I pray for?” Do I pray that she fully recovers? Do I pray that her remaining time is without pain, but accepting that she will not fully recover? I experienced at a very personal level the tension expressed by Gramsci’s attitude toward social transformation - “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.” Perhaps more appropriately, optimism of love, and a realistic acceptance of the rhythm of life and death.

We have had frank conversations, my sister and I, and also my aunts and close relatives about Inay. Last February, when Inay went through a bad phase, Girlie asked me gently if Yen and I have ever talked and confronted how we felt and thought about the prospect of losing our mother. After all, Inay is 88, and practically all doctors we had consulted prescribed amputation to prevent sepsis from her gangrenous foot. But they also accept that her age and weakened condition make amputation a high risk option. Anyway, Inay does not want amputation, and neither do Yen and I.

We have to deal with the other risk from infection. Dr. Oabel’s treatment offered us some hope, but this recent infection attack reminded us of his earlier cautionary comment, that Inay’s age and constricted blood flow are factors that should temper our hopes for her recovery.

I travel back to Quezon City tomorrow morning, to a week that is crowded with previous commitments - Earth Day events, the Global Week of Action on EFA, meetings of the Foundation for Philippine Environment, advocacy for the extension of CARP, and a few more. My sister has managed to ask for some time off from her own work, and will stay with Inay till mid-May. I look forward to the loving company of Girlie and Ayen who have mobilized prayers for Inay.

We can give thanks that there appears to be no immediate danger to Inay. But these few tense days gave us pause to think of our priorities, and to give thanks for the gift of life.

They were also days that made us realize how blest we are with family and friends - Inay’s brothers and sisters traveling to her bedside, our cousins and other relatives visiting and sending their concern, priests, activists and “strangers” whose lives somehow connected with Inay’s. Thank you for all the prayers and affection.