‘Surgeons do not cry’

“My knife is my wife,” Dr. Jose “Ting” Tiongco told me 12 years ago. “My fascination with surgery has been total I have forgotten to get married.” Ting is a brilliant surgeon, one of the passionate doctors who blazed a trail in health care cooperatives in Davao and later in the rest of the Philippines. Twelve years ago I did a feature-review (“Ting Tiongco and the dream”) of his book “Child of the Sun Returning”. On his book he had scribbled, “You once asked me if I was writing a book. I did. In my heart. Aniana.” Aniana is Visayan for “here it...

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A day at a factory

I invited myself to the factory. The company does not need media exposure or publicity. They don’t sell their products here. In fact the owner requested that there would be no mention of his name (let’s call him Mr. K), the company’s name, the brand names, etc. It was I who was interested to know more about what was going on in the factory, how production was, the workers, the size, the product. I had never been to something like this before. I met Mr. K and his wife, through a friend, during the breath-stopping Cloud Gate Dance Theater performance...

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Knowledge economy 101

Seoul--When you give something a name, you empower it. And so, they’ve given it a name—knowledge economy or knowledge-based economy. In layman’s terms knowledge economy (KE) means using knowledge to create wealth. Wealth isn’t a bad word if it means quality life, not just for a few, but for all. Representatives from six countries—Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Mongolia, Philippines and Vietnam—gathered in Seoul to learn more about knowledge economy and how it could be made to work in their respective countries. If you look at the list of countries...

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Reflections for Ramadan

One of the 2008 Ramon Magsaysay Awardees I was able to interview recently was Ahmad Syafii Maarif of Indonesia. He is the awardee for the Peace and International Understanding Category. The banner headline last Monday was was “Fighting continues as Ramadan begins.” Just below it was my article with the title “Terrorists hijack God, says RM awardee”. I thought it complimented the banner story. Here was a revered Muslim scholar and activist, trying all his best to help restore the good name of Islam which has been tarnished by terrorists. “Terrorism...

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