‘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 is.” A more dramatic translation would be “It is here.”

Earlier, I did a long cover story on him for the Sunday Inquirer Magazine. I went to Mindanao just for that. I got to watch him perform a Caesarian operation and interview his fellow doctor-visionaries. These doctors were once called “doctors who refuse to say die”.

Twelve years after “Child of the Sun Returning” I received from Ting another book titled “Surgeons Do Not Cry”, a compilation of his column pieces for a Mindanao news agency. On it he scrawled: “Twelve years later and the anger and bewilderment is still there. Thank God there is still hope!”

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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 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines some weeks ago. The show was part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation. The Cloud Gate’s founder Lin Hwai Min of Taiwan is an RM awardee (1999).

One day last week, I visited this Taiwanese-owned luggage factory (let’s call it the K company) just outside of Metro Manila. This factory produces some of the most expensive, if not some of the most durable luggage in the world, more expensive and more durable than the enduring popular brands that we know. That is what Mr. K, the Taiwanese owner, an electronics engineer, told me and he showed me why and how much the products cost abroad.

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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 that were invited, you would right away see that these are the economic laggards in Asia. In Pilipino, we say, the kulelat or in Ilonggo, kulihot.

The World Bank Institute and the Korean Institute of Development brought together individuals from these six countries, most of them educators from universities, government officials from the education bureaucracy, economic planners, information experts, plus a couple of media practitioners. Before we left for Seoul, we had to attend a teleconference and then go through some online learning about (KE) through—here’s a new word—moodling. Yes, in a classroom in cyberspace.

But nothing beats coming face to face with one another and with the gurus of KE who preach the gospel of KE. You bet, there was a lot of KE jargon flying around and a few times this journalist had to ask: What does that look like on the ground?

And what’s KE all about? Here are the ABCs I have lifted from notes.

Knowledge economy rests on four pillars: 1) improving the economic and institutional, 2) fostering innovation, 3) upgrading education, and 4) strengthening information and communication.

A sound economic and institutional regime (EIR) is of primary importance, we were told, for achieving better policy results in the functional knowledge pillars as well as for getting the most from related investments. Advanced economies have something to show for their success. They have well-established institutional frameworks based on democracy and free markets. But hand in hand with the development of a KE is an institutional framework that goes far beyond and into labor markets (employment flexibility, employability, mobility), sophisticated financial markets (microfinance, venture capital), products and services markets and effective protection of intellectual property.

What about the kulelats with mediocre economic and institutional regimes? They would require “a well-articulated, strategic set of steps focused on very specific problems and taking into account bureaucratic, political, social and economic interests.”

Innovation was a word that was mentioned so often. It is supposed to be the spearhead of the KE concept. Innovate or be left behind. Innovation is key to the developmental success of a number of countries, South Korea among them. Technological innovation, in particular, is crucial for dramatic growth, it enhances competitiveness and increases social well being.

Innovation can be defined as “the design, development and diffusion of something new to a given context, leading to a significant improvement in the economic, social or environmental conditions.”

Innovation occurs at three levels: 1) local improvements are made by adopting available technologies to satisfy basic needs or to upgrade products or services, 2) competitive industries to develop through adaptation of technologies initially produced in or by developed countries, 3) ultimately, new innovations of global significance are developed.

Innovation cannot be forced to happen. In developing countries an appropriate technical culture must first be built. Then there should be incentives to support and stimulate entrepreneurship.

And now the education pillar. Education is supposed to be the great leveler and enabler. It creates opportunities and reduces poverty. The educated individual is able to create, share, disseminate. An educated population, being more sophisticated, has higher demands, thus driving industries to innovate.

Strong information and communication technology (ICT) is the fourth pillar. It is the component that should fill the knowledge gaps in poor countries. ICT creates better efficiency and improves services. ICT creates advances in manufacturing, trade, governance, health care, agriculture and delivery of services. ICT also reduces costs, breaks down time and distance barriers and enables speedy mass production of goods.
Getting there, becoming a so-called knowledge economy does not happen overnight. Erecting the four pillars requires a long-term strategy. A country may be strong in one pillar but weak in another. Leaders and policy makers must be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of their people and resources.

For those interested, the World Bank Institute’s Knowledge for Development (K4D) has developed the Knowledge Assessment Methodology (KAM), an internet-based tool that provides a basic assessment of the KE readiness of a country or region. Log on to www.worldback.org/kam and find out.

KAM is meant to be a user-friendly interactive tool based on the KE framework. It was designed to help countries assess their strengths and weaknesses and compare themselves with their neighbors. KAM could help identify problems and opportunities for a given country, help direct its focus, say, in making policies and investments and how it could make a transition into a knowledge-based economy.

KAM is able to assess a country’s or a region’s comparative KE position on a global scale (compared with 140 countries), on a regional scale (compared with eight regional groupings), on the basic of human development and the basis of income levels.

KAM na.

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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 is not the authentic face of Islam,” Maarif keeps stressing again and again. “The terrorists hijack God.”

These “hijackers” kill with the name of Allah on their lips, they invoke the name of Islam to justify their extreme causes. At this time when Islam is suffering a bad image because of the extreme behavior of some its adherents, a voice—brave and loud—calling for moderation is hard to find.

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Meeting greatness

Over these past many years, I have been privileged to meet, get to know and write about some of the great men and women of Asia (or GMWA as we have come to call them).

“Great Men and Women of Asia” is also the title of five volumes of easy-reading books (there’s more to come) that contain stories about the lives of Asia’s greats, both the known and the little-known, the times and milieu they live/d in and their contributions to enrich this part of the world through their selfless deeds, courage and creativity. Plus, plus.

Greatness of spirit or the G-factor is the plus that makes them a breed apart. It is a gift, a grace. The reason the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (RMAF) picked these persons (and institutions, too) to be emulated.

The great news is that the GMWA series recently won the “Excellence Award for Best Writing in book form about Asia” at the 2008 Asian Publishing Awards held in Singapore. The GMWA books bested 79 entries from 23 countries. Congratulations to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (RMAF) and staff, Anvil Publishing, the books’ editors and the bunch of us writers who had consented to be harassed. We did great in our own little way. Greatness has certainly rubbed off on us.

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Kasilag: ‘Making a difference in music’

MANILA, Philippines—I was in Davao City last week for the soft opening of the Heritage Museum of the Pamulaan Center of Indigenous People’s Education and to attend the opening of the 2nd National Conference of Indigenous Peoples Higher Education in the Philippines. (I will write a feature story about the events in another section.)

While the members of the University of Southeastern Philippines’ Pangkat Silayan Theater Collective, gloriously clad in their ethnic attire, were playing genuine ethnic sounds, I thought of National Artist for Music (1989) Lucrecia Kasilag. She had worked hard to put ethnic music in the mainstream through her compositions, until the sounds became familiar and ensconced in the Philippine musical landscape.

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The boy who ate MSG

In literature you have the boy who ate stars (two different works and authors from different continents but the same title) and in tabloid journalism the boy who had a fish for a twin. In the recent news we had the boy who ate MSG.

More than a week ago there was a news story from Sagay City, Negros Occidental about a two-year-old boy who had MSG (monosodium glutamate, a flavor enhancer commonly known as vetsin) to go with his rice. He must have had too much of MSG (as there was no dish to eat with his rice) and he got dizzy, fell down the stairs and hit his head on the ground. His destination was the hospital where doctors found him to have suffered from head trauma as a result of the fall.

According the news report by Carla P. Gomez (Inquirer Visayas) and from TV news online the boy was out of danger but there was bleeding in an area of the brain that needed attention.

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'Boses': Music to heal

"MUSIC is a holy place, a cathedral so majestic that we can sense the magnificence of the universe, and also a hovel so simple and private that none of us can plumb its deepest secrets... It is the sounds of earth and sky, of tides and storms... From the first cry of life to that last sigh of death, from the beating of our hearts to the soaring of our imaginations, we are enveloped by sound and vibration every moment of our lives. It is the primal breath of creation itself, the speech of angels and atoms, the stuff of which life and dreams, souls and stars, are ultimately fashioned."

That quote is from the Overture (introduction) by Don Campbell, the author of the amazing book, "The Mozart Effect: Tapping the Power of Music to Heal the Body, Strengthen the Mind, and Unlock the Creative Spirit."

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Korean teachers here to learn English teaching

For several years now Korean kids have been coming to the Philippines to attend English camps. On board my flight from Seoul last week I counted about 100 Korean kids all wearing blue T-shirts and with ID cards hanging from their necks. One teacher was carrying all the passports. I took photos while they were boarding. The kids looked like they were from elementary school.

Now it is the Korean teachers’ turn to come and learn how to teach English and use English for teaching. The first batch of Korean teachers arrived Tuesday last week for a month-long training in English teaching. Education and tourism officials call this “education tourism”. There is environmental tourism, medical tourism, rest/recreation/retirement tourism and now you have education tourism.

Sure, we’re supposed to have been left behind by our Asian neighbors in the academic department but there’s still English we are good at and could teach. And I hope this does not go the way of agriculture. Many years ago the Thais came here to study agriculture, but look now, they’re the world’s biggest rice producer and we are the biggest rice importer.

Fifty teachers from elementary and middle school from Busan, South Korea are now participating in the Specialized Training Program under the National English Proficiency Program (NEPP) of the Department of Education. The program’s duration is from July 23 to August 23.

In exchange, I was told, the local government of Busan will donate $6 million worth of learning equipment to the Philippines.

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Baseco worries, Juana Tejada rejoices

When you are poor you think of yourself as vulnerable, you consider changes in the landscape of your life that is not of your doing as threatening. Will the changes mean being thrown about again like flotsam and jetsam on one’s native shores? Where to move, where to live and where to find livelihood? Will so-called industrial and commercial development take over, leaving the vulnerable to fend for themselves?

Residents of the Baseco compound in Manila’s Tondo district are anxious that proposed changes in the place where they had been settled will mean they could be moved out. The government agencies concerned should be forthright with the poor and not leave them to speculate about their fate.

Some 6,000 to 10,000 poor families have been residents of Baseco since 2001. Baseco is 56 hectares in area. In the beginning it was frequently underwater but improvements on the reclaimed site were done. In 2002, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declared that the 56 hectares should indeed be for the homes of the poor. That same year, four major fires hit the area which led to the reclamation of five more hectares. This area was divided into lots for about 1,000 families.

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46664

Say “four, double six, six, four” and remember.

46664 was Nelson Mandela’s prison number when he was in prison for 27 years on Robben Island, off Cape Town in South Africa. He was prisoner number 466, imprisoned in 1964. Like other prisoners, he was referred to not by his name but by his prison number. Mandela was 46664.

Tomorrow, July 18, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, freedom fighter and former president of South Africa, turns 90. He has been feted by artists and celebrities as well as people from all walks of life in the past weeks. The gathering of people was not just about him and his favorite causes but also about us, about this world we all hope could be a better place. After all, this man is the quintessential symbol of Everyhumanbeing’s quest for what is good—freedom, justice, equality, peace, prosperity for all. His personal suffering and triumph may not be every one’s lot but they had an impact on every citizen of this planet whether we felt it or not.

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Rampant crime in the country’s NGO capital

Women working and living in the so-called NGO capital of the Philippines are up in arms because of the rampant criminality in the area.

Quezon City’s Teacher’s Village East and West and Barangays Central and Pinyahan and neighboring areas, home to dozens of national and international NGOs (non-government organizations), is a prime spot for criminals who prey mostly on women walking the streets to and from their offices or homes. This area is right behind Quezon City Hall!

Almost every female NGO worker in this prime address has a crime story to tell about herself, her co-employees, friends or neighbors. Cell phone and bag snatching, hold-ups, break-ins, carnapping, name it. Not a few had had not one, but several encounters with criminal elements in this Quezon City area. The perpetrators are mostly on motorcycles.

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