Hospices for the poor, piglets for women

How exciting and challenging it is to work among the young, the promising, the poor who are strong and who could claim a future. How wonderful it is to count the successes.

But how noble it is to work among the forgotten and the least, among those who do not matter even to their own next of kin. They have no wealth to give back, except a smile and a thank you, and a lesson or two on how to love.

I have just read about an Asia-Pacific Conference on hospice care that is starting today here in Manila. The Philippines must now be on the map of hospice care.

The Philippines is now known as a training ground for caregiving and a source of health workers for the world—in both the domestic setting and institutions such as hospitals, hospices and nursing homes.

Professional caregiving in the domestic setting is commonly associated with overseas work or with the rich who could afford to hire caregivers. This chore used to be part of the household chore of yayas and houseboys, but now, one could hire trained ones who want to earn while waiting for overseas employment.

In the past, the word hospice conjured up images of old, sick, poor, unwanted and abandoned people with nowhere to go and left in homes such as the ones founded by Mother Teresa. Or of rich elderly folk entrusted by their next of kin in the hands of church-run institutions where they could be cared for and live comfortably until they die.

Until recently, the word hospice was not commonly mentioned in the Philippines and the one most people knew was the Hospicio de San Jose run by nuns near the Malacanang area and which, if I am not mistaken, dates back to the Spanish era.

Read More

SOS call from a seaman

If I were to put together the feature stories I had written about overseas Filipino workers (OFW) they could probably fill one small volume. Come to think of it, I probably should put them between covers. They’re part of our history as a people in search of the land of milk and honey.

One story was about a domestic helper who stabbed dead the Saudi princess she worked for and who maltreated her for so long. The stabbing happened while the DH and her mistress were on a holiday in Cairo. The maid’s tearful letters to home (the last from the Cairo Hilton were they were staying) intimated that something was bound to happen. I was able to get hold of a photocopy of the bloodstained letter to her family which a Filipino consul found on the crime scene.

Another story was about someone who worked for Saudi royalty and who regaled me with her version of a “Thousand and One Nights” and photos of her wards, the desert picnics, the opulence that surrounded her.

And more. Stories told by OFWs (with photos to show, too) of their 1990 exodus across the desert when the Gulf War began. “Tomboy love” among lonely maids in Hong Kong. Husbands left behind to care for the children while their wives toiled abroad, kids left in the care of relatives and how they coped. Non-government organizations helping families of OFWs through savings and livelihood.

And how could one forget the Filipinos working in a Mediterranean luxury cruise ship as chefs, cooks, top-notch engineers, musicians, food and drink servers, spa attendants. They were proudly Pinoy and the best of the lot on the ocean blue, and so obliging to serve up sinigang and adobo even on formal dinner nights. Ah, but ever pining for the day they would be home.

Read More

Sing, ‘fiat justitia ruat coelum’

Indeed, one can say, “nessun dorma”. No one sleeps as this benighted country awaits the rising of the sun and the day of judgment of former president Joseph Estrada.

In Puccini’s last opera “Turandot”, no one sleeps as Calaf, the “Unknown Prince”, waits for Princess Turandot’s life-and-death answer to a riddle. Calaf’s fate hangs in the balance.

I am starting to write this piece on the eve of the Sandiganbayan’s judgment on Estrada, accused of plunder and several other crimes. I continue writing tomorrow (yesterday, that is) after either his conviction or acquittal.(Now, as I continue writing, he is being judged guilty of plunder, but not of perjury, and is being sentenced to reclusion perpetua or 40 years. It takes less than 30 minutes to read it all to him.)

Out of the window goes the piece I had intended to write. That is, my two cents on the great tenor of our time Luciano Pavarotti whose death last week was mourned by music lovers worldwide. I soaked the world’s grief and mine in his music in the past days, deriving comfort from the sacred arias, to the flirtatious and “brindisi” ones, to even the Hollywoodish “Yes, Giorgio”; from his vintage 1965 recording to his recent crossovers from opera to pop.

Read More

In the dying light in a pauper’s eyes

MANILA, Philippines -- The absent one. This was how Mother Teresa referred to that absence that she felt in her life during her 50-year dark night of the soul.

Where was the beloved, the one for whom she poured out the substance of her life, the one supposed to give meaning and purpose to her selfless daring to love the world’s most abandoned?

Mother Teresa’s own revelations, kept and hidden even after her death 10 years ago, and made public just recently in a book (“Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light” edited by Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk), are now the subject of scrutiny and speculation, even of awe. It is Time magazine’s cover story this week.

But this happens to those who tread that mystical twilight zone reserved for the highly spiritually evolved among us. It is a price they have to pay. They have been privileged to experience the divine so intensely and intimately. And when the peak experiences that have led these chosen ones to do daring acts of love, when the ecstasy and consolation are withdrawn, when from lush orchards they are led to deserts, barren and desolate, there is no balm for the pain. Worse, there can be neither feeling nor non-feeling. Just a yawning absence.

Read More

Heroes on my mind

Like the Tina Turner screamed, “We don’t need another heee-ro.” Not another dead one anyway.

But this month is for heroes, both the dead and the undead. And so we, the undead, had another round of the so-called “holiday economics” weekend. The newly dead are having their day, they are coming at us, hogging the headlines. Their message—“It is the soldier…” Their flag-draped coffins are continuously being marched before our eyes in very cinematic ways.

I play “Taps” on my mind and salute you all.

Strangely photogenic indeed are scenes of the heroic dead being brought to their resting places. Mourning becomes electric, as they say. The movies have unforgettable images of these. But even more awesome are the real-life scenes—choreographed procession, funeral dirge, riderless horse and all. But in the past millennium only one was Ghandi-an and only one was Ninoy-esque in scale and grandeur.

Terrifying are the funeral marches that cry to the heavens for vengeance, with protestors flailing the corpses of their heroes in a sea of grieving, raging humanity.

And heart-breaking are the ones held almost in secrecy or attended only by a few. Like Jesus’. Like the one of our lively guide in the wilderness where we spoke and broke bread with rebels and slept with armed women in a hut bristling with hand grenades and other deadly weapons. (That was many years ago, okay?) Soldiers caught up with his band, one day, and he took in the bullets so his comrades could slip away. A little candle in a darkened room was all he had, and a sister weeping, pointing to the rope marks on her brother’s neck.

Read More

MDG mid-term review: Missing the target

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

The Philippines is “off the track”, it’s too soon to celebrate and there is a lot of work that needs to be done to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

2007 is midway the 15-year-long process of achieving the so-called MDGs targeted by the United Nations but the Philippines is still way off the expected results.

Social Watch Philippines gathered civil society groups last Aug. 15 and 16 to do a mid-term review of the MDGs and came up with conclusions and suggestions.

Among them: Government is “missing and messing up the MDG targets” and citizens should therefore help monitor government performance and push for an alternative budget for the MDGs.

The Philippines is one of 189 countries that signed in 2000 the Millennium Declaration and covenant to attain the MDGs by 2015. The MDGs refer to the eight goals and 18 targets that the international community committed to attain in 15 years.

The eight goals are 1)eradicate extreme poverty and hunger 2)achieve universal primary education, 3) promote gender equality, 4) reduce child mortality, 5) improve maternal health, 6) combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, 7) ensure environmental sustainability, and 8) develop a global partnership for development.

Read More

‘Getting Home’ and going the extra mile

As a gesture of support for the film industry of this world, I told myself I will watch at least one film shown at the 9th Cinemanila International Film Festival (still going on, by the way) which has the presence of no less than US director Quentin Tarantino. The guy’s name is splashed on big banners at the Gateway Mall in Araneta Center, the festival’s venue.

I watched the Chinese film “Getting Home”, a “gently philosophical road comedy”, directed by Zhang Yang because the synopsis promised something so out of the ordinary. Also because I had watched a couple of really good Chinese ones in the past, among them, the award-winning “Not One Less” (starring rural school children as themselves) and the heart-breaking “Xiu-Xiu, The Sent-Down Girl”. These are minimalist films, if I may call them that, and do not belong to the “Crouching Tiger” genre that has elaborate sets, movements and plots.

I was not disappointed. When it was over I walked out of the theater with a smile on my face and a little tear in my eye. And “Getting Home” was supposed to be a comedy. You know, like “Ang Tatay Kong Nanay” (Dolphy and Nino Muhlach) is comedy but brings on the tears in the end. Because it is about human relationships.

Who’d ever think of making a film about a wandering corpse? Hold your horror, “Getting Home” isn’t a horror movie. It is about friendship and loyalty beyond death. Like, “How do I love thee, let me count the ways”. Countless indeed are the ways a friend would think of to prove his loyalty to a friend who died far away from home and in not so honorable a manner.

Read More

Rainy day thoughts

The falling of rain was front page news two days ago. For too long the parched metropolis and the rain-starved countryside had waited for the sky to open and wash clean the grime and slime of the oppressive (election) summer and renew life in faraway towns and farms.

While some parts of Asia were swirling in mud and excess rain water that caused thousands to perish, we in the Philippines had to resort to cloud-seeding, oratio imperata and threats of water rationing in order to avert a water crisis.

And then the rain poured.

Though farmers had to suffer losses because of the rain’s delay, there is still a lot to be thankful for, among them, lessons, lessons, lessons. And plans to address similar crises in the future.

But weren’t such plans made years ago when the El Nino-La Nina crises were playing out in our lives? What happened to those pond-like rain reservoirs and other water preservation methods for farmers to put in place?

Read More

Chinese RM awardees unlike China’s me-generation

One of this year’s seven Ramon Magsaysay awardees, China’s Chen Guangcheng who is blind, will not be able to come. He is in prison. Three of the seven RM awardees are from China.

This week’s Time magazine’s cover story is about China’s burgeoning young adults (under age 30) numbering about 300 million. Unflatteringly called the “me-generation”, they are post-Mao, post-cultural revolution babies born in the era of Deng and his successors. They woke up to the hum of a rapidly growing economy, made their first steps inside a bubble that radiated a sheen their parents never knew when they were that age.

Now these 20-sometings are taking over and living it up. Although their lives are still within the confines of a communist state, this so-called me-generation couldn’t care less. They have what they want, they enjoy the myriad pleasures and satisfaction the economy they work for could offer, so why rock the boat?

The hunger for democracy, the lack of it in China—that the world frowns on—is not going to hamper their lifestyle. The rural countryside and the poverty that still stalk millions who toil under deplorable conditions—these are not in their list of priorities.

That’s what the Time cover story tried to portray. As a 27-year-old advertising company owner said: “We are more self-centered. We live for ourselves, and that’s good. We contribute to the economy. That’s our power.”

Read More

A clean, well-lighted place

On June 30, 1992—that was 15 years ago—just before the new president, Fidel Ramos, was going to be sworn in, I was somewhere in Santa Cruz, waiting for our photographer. I was in a rush to finish an assignment so I could be home to watch the swearing in on TV.

I was doing a magazine story and I forget now what it was. But what turned out to be unforgettable was my encounter with a family of soon-to-be-seven that lived in two pushcarts. The mother’s name was Evangelina Gamutan. She was 34 but looked 54. She was ngo-ngo (with a cleft palate) and was heavy with her fifth child. Her children were aged 3 to 13. The eldest looked like she was six and had only been to Grade One. Her husband scavenged for used bottles and sometimes begged for alms.

If Angelina is still alive now she should be 49 by now and with, maybe, 10 children. When I asked her then where she was going to give birth she answered, “Ung a-an abu-in.” Kung saan abutin or wherever.

Soon they were going to be seven in all. The two wooden carts would have become too small for the growing brood. I was struck by the things Evangelina had in her mobile home. She had a dish rack, a rusty thermos bottle, a dirty teddy bear, a broom…Just like what you’d find in any home. You bet she didn’t know there was a new guy up there and newly sworn-in lawmakers and government officials as well.

This scene was swimming in my head while watching Pres. Arroyo deliver her seventh State of the Nation Address (SONA) last Monday. I noted down a pair of words she emphasized—dunong at kalusugan. Knowledge and health as keys to a person’s becoming and one of the basic driving forces of a community’s progress. For how to move forward if one was not equipped with the mental know-how and did not have the physical strength to do what needs to be done?

Read More

World Day of Justice

Last Tuesday, July 17, was World Day of Justice. The day marked a milestone in the history of international law and international justice. Nine years ago in 1998, 120 states attending the Plenipotentiary Conference in Rome adopted the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC). As of today, 139 states have signed and 105 have ratified.

It should be noted that while celebrations were taking place all over the world, here in the Philippines a summit on extrajudicial killings attended by stakeholders from civil society, the government and the church, as well as legal experts and individuals in search for justice, was taking place.

Here are some pertinent facts about the ICC. The ICC is the first permanent international judicial body capable of trying individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes when national courts are unable or unwilling to do so.

The ICC represents one of the significant opportunities for the world to prevent or significantly reduce the deaths and devastation that result from conflicts. The Rome Statute of the ICC came into force on July 1, 2002 and since then, much has been achieved in the establishment of the court. Located at the Hague in the Netherlands, the court is now a fully-functional institution. The senior court officials are now seated in place and are proceeding with formal investigations.

Read More

Remembering Lean

The youth of this generation ought to have and ought to know someone like him, someone so passionate and dedicated to a vision and a cause. And yet so endearingly likeable. Ask his friends and comrades.

He was the quintessential student or youth activist. Leandro “Lean” Alejandro was all of 27 when he was killed in a hail of bullets 20 years ago. He was emerging from his organization’s office when the forces of evil swooped down on him and gunned him down. The predators had caught up with their prey and would turn him into mincemeat. What they did not know was that the spirit of this young man would live on and beyond, while the rot in his attackers’ murderous souls would continue to fester as long as they lived.

To quote writer Jo-Anne Q. Maglipon who made a moving testimony at Lean’s 47th birthday: “Someone else like Lean had to take more.” Lean is now beyond it all, and yet his example remains within reach. Will someone like him again emerge on the horizon?

Two nights ago, Lean’s friends from a wide spectrum, mainly political activists of all shapes, sizes, stripes, colors, ages and advocacies gathered to celebrate his life and also their own. “Gabi ni Lean: Isang Pag-alaala” was a night of remembering. Words, music, food and drinks flowed at the PETA theater in Quezon City. There was much laughter, and sometimes tears, as people recalled the life and times of Lean through live and video testimonies. This was to again connect to this young man who lived intensely, bravely and romantically.

Read More