American nun’s EDSA 1 letters (2)

Maryknoll missionary Sr. Helen Graham has been working in the Philippines since 1967. As a theologian who teaches Sacred Scriptures in two religious institutions, Sr. Helen has put her theology into practice and has been very involved in justice and peace issues.

During the volatile season that preceded and culminated in the February 1986 EDSA 1 people power uprising, Sr. Helen chronicled daily events (from Feb. 10 to Feb. 26) in her letters to friends abroad. Excerpts:



February 25, 1986 4:15 P.M.

Dear everybody,

I just got home! Went out early this morning to see what was going on at Club Filipino where Cory and Doy had their inauguration ceremony. I’ve been standing a long time. They were finally sworn in about 10:30 a.m. and from there I went to Pepe Diokno’s house for lunch. It’s his birthday tomorrow. Siya ang bayani ko talaga!!!

How to recount the last 24 hours here! Yesterday morning there was a kind of meeting-reflection with the Association of Major Religious Superiors of Women in the Philippines. In the afternoon I went over to Camp Crame to get the feel of things. There were so many people it was almost impossible to walk! The crowd stretched from Ortigas to Farmer’s Market. I guess that would be four kilometers. It was wall-to-wall people guarding both the military camps.

Yesterday morning while Ferdinand Marcos (FM) was giving a live speech on TV to disprove the report that he had already left the country, he was cut-off. The rebel forces captured the TV station (a gov’t run station confiscated from the Lopez family at the beginning of the martial law period). I understand the Lopez family is allowing Radio Veritas to use the station during this crisis.

In this situation one realizes the VERY important role of communications. The government-controlled TV and radio stations have been broadcasting lies for 14 years and no one would believe they were lies until the election and so many people had their own personal experience of being cheated.

Even while hundreds of thousands were in the streets and it was obvious that FM was finished, these stations continued to broadcast that FM was in control. People in the provinces did not know any better. So, Radio Veritas performed a very significant role in the happenings.

This morning during Marcos’ own inauguration the rebel forces captured channels 9, 2, and 13 while about to air FM’s inauguration. Now all of the communications (TV that is) are in the hands of the Cory-Enrile-Ramos forces.

The situation is grave at the moment and will be for the next few days. FM has called on all his goons to come and defend him. There are snipers everywhere. Hundreds of thousands of people are in the streets protecting the different TV stations from the Marcos loyalist forces. Earlier this morning it was reported that six tanks and a large number of military were on their way from Northern Luzon to Manila. There are thousands at various barricades to prevent these loyalist forces from entering the city.

But with all that has happened and is still happening, I am very uneasy. This is NOT really a revolution in the true sense. This is a revolution that has been coopted from the masses. This is a revolution of the middle.

Today at her inauguration, Cory appointed Enrile as Minister of Defense and Ramos as Chief of Staff. These are the same ones who had run the military during the martial law period. They are responsible for thousands of arrests, torture, murder, disappearances etc. They are overnight heroes, newly converted, “born-again”. Today, Cory asserted herself…people were afraid that Enrile and Ramos were really taking over. And they might still do that. She does have a mind of her own and I hope she can stick to that.

So the next two days are quite uncertain…

Love,
Helen

February 26, 1986

Dear everybody,
There were reports last night that four US helicopters picked up Marcos, his family, some of his people and his henchman, Gen. Ver and took flew them to Clark Air Base where they enplaned several hours later for Guam on their way to ????? When the helicopters took off, thousands of people surged into Malacañang Palace which has been closed and heavily guarded and barricaded for the past 20 years. Some began to loot and others formed a human barricade to prevent looting. There was a great rejoicing during the night. It is estimated that some 20,000 people surged through the palace during the night.

Voice of America announced at 6 a.m. that FM was on his way to Guam. Philip Habib is on his way back to speak with the Aquino government. The State Department issued a statement that the purpose of the military aid to the Philippines is to professionalize the military so that it could deal more effectively with the “communist insurgency” estimated to be about 20,000-strong. This gives me pause in the midst of great jubilation and celebration of victory.

Now that the “smoke” has cleared, we see Cory in place as our President. A woman, a valiant woman, who has demonstrated the highest qualities in the midst of this whole situation. A woman who has risen to the need of the hour and whose firmness, and non-political behavior communicated credibility and enabled people to trust for the first time in the 14 years of martial law. If she had wavered for a moment, this “people power” would not have risen to such a pitch.

I urge Americans to complain about the US being a dumping ground for former dictators and their military henchmen who have repressed their people for so many years. Let not our country become a haven for dictators.

Love,
Helen

Gawad Kalinga goes worldwide

Philippine Daily Inquirer/News/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo and Nestor P. Burgos Jr.

Bishop says GK new kind of People Power

MANILA, Philippines -- Hope and a better life are the latest Filipino exports. Poor as it is, the Philippines would not be left behind in the sharing department.

Gawad Kalinga (GK), the highly successful housing and development project for the poor, is going global to improve the lives of the countless poor in other countries. This major step means familiar GK key people will have to be moved and new faces will emerge. That is all there is to it.

“Walang iwanan.” (Nobody leaves, nobody gets left behind.) This was what Gawad Kalinga’s charismatic, outgoing executive director Antonio Meloto said to counter a nasty newspaper rumor that he was leaving GK, the flagship housing and development project of Couples for Christ (CFC), along with GK chair Frank Padilla.

Meloto said the spin on his and Padilla’s change of status “had been given malice, whatever the reason.”

Meloto and GK were twin awardees for community service of the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation in 2006. Meloto was the Inquirer’s Filipino of the Year for 2006.

Meloto and Padilla will now work as “roving ambassadors-at-large or ambassadors of goodwill” for GK’s advocacies. This means traipsing the globe to “unleash the Filipino spirit of hope.”

New kind of People Power

To Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines president Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, this is the new kind of “people power” the country needs as it commemorates the 21st anniversary of the 1986 People Power revolt.

The Jaro prelate said the 1986 popular uprising could no longer be commemorated the way it was done in recent years.

“The memory of the people about People Power has diminished. The children who are 20 years old now do not really know what people power was,” Lagdameo said at Thursday’s turnover of a housing project which GK helped build for church workers in Jaro.

“I feel there is a shift in image in our celebration of People Power now. That image or icon now is Gawad Kalinga,” said Lagdameo.

The new work Meloto and Padilla have taken on upon themselves is both awesome and daunting.

Expanding advocacy

“With so many opportunities to upscale, upgrade and go global,” Meloto said, “I have to free and detach myself from operational matters and fund management.”

Luis Oquiñena takes over as GK executive director. Jose T. Tale takes over Padilla’s post as GK board chair.

“I will now focus on building the GK global network of partners and expanding advocacy abroad,” Meloto told the Inquirer. He said GK would start projects in developing countries such as India, Nigeria, South Africa and Nicaragua.

GK has already built more than 100,000 homes all over the Philippines and in Southeast Asian countries such as Cambodia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. More than 1,000 GK communities have been built in 350 towns and cities.

And there’s enough donated land for 300,000 more houses to be built.

Global recognition

Going global is part of the GK777 campaign that means building 700,000 homes in 7,000 communities in seven years by year 2010.

Last Feb. 14 and 15, Singapore President S.R. Nathan who was on a state visit, attended GK events in Baseco in Tondo and Calamba, Laguna. He extended his country’s support for more homes in Laguna, to the typhoon victims in Sorsogon, and for education and health programs in the Singaporean-funded GK Village in Baseco.

Nathan said his country also wanted to help children in GK communities in Muslim Mindanao.

Previous to this, Meloto said, the Canadian government, particularly in the provinces of Ontario and Alberta, had given support to the mudslide victims of Southern Leyte. AIG USA, Fedex and UPS were among the multinationals that contributed to local GK communities.

To date, more than 300 corporations have supported GK projects.

Rebuild the motherland

Meloto added that the city of London, through the Lord Mayor, also gave aid for the victims through GK. This was after receiving positive feedback from British GK volunteer Dylan Wilk, British Ambassador Peter Beckingham and his wife Jill, as well as from executives of British corporations in the Philippines that had adopted their own villages.

GK donors are tax-exempt in the United States, Canada and Australia. It has a US partner, Ancop, to which Fil-American donors could channel donations.

“Filipinos abroad are coming home to help rebuild their motherland,” Meloto enthused. “Many Filipino doctors and other health professionals in North America are supporting us by adopting GK communities. Corporate executives who have retired are volunteering their expertise, some even give up their promising careers to work with GK full time. Ateneo University and the University of the Philippines are putting up the GK Institute for the training of volunteers, caretaker teams and the local government unit (LGU) partners for township development.”

Family and church estates

Not to be outdone are the counterparts at home who have put in not just sweat equity but their properties as well. The Lopezes of Iloilo, the Aranetas of Negros, the Laurels of Batangas—these old and landed families have given their share. The Benitezes of Laguna recently gave 18 hectares, with former Bayanihan dancers donating 100 houses.

American nun’s EDSA 1 letters (1)

Maryknoll missionary Sister Helen Graham has been working in the Philippines since 1967. As a theologian who teaches Sacred Scriptures in two religious institutions, Sr. Helen has put her theology into practice and has been very involved in justice and peace issues.

During the volatile season that preceded and culminated in the February 1986 EDSA 1 people power uprising, Sr. Helen chronicled daily events (from Feb. 10 to Feb. 26) in her letters to friends abroad. Here are excerpts:

Feb. 23, 1986

Dear everybody,

Greetings from Quezon City!! As you know Sec. Philip Habib was sent here by Reagan on a “fact finding” mission. He spoke with a number of influential figures and two times each with Ferdinand Marcos and Cory. Cory said that she told him not to bother seeing her if he was going to ask her to join Marcos’ government. Habib left around noon yesterday. At around 3:00 p.m. (or so) the drama began…



I got home about 8:30 p.m. to hear the news that Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Deputy Chief of the Armed Forces Lt. General Fidel Ramos had announced that they no longer supported Marcos as the lawfully elected president but were supporting Cory and they and their supporters were holed up in Camp Aguinaldo. They were being interviewed over Radio Veritas—they had called a press conference for the local and foreign press. At around 10 p.m. FM appeared on TV (picked up by RV) and held a press conference also. FM announced that he had aborted a coup and that they had arrested some of the officers involved and he presented two of them who read their ‘confessions’ before the cameras…

Voice of America was airing the situation at 9 p.m. By 6 a.m. the next day statements were coming from Sen. Kerry and Rep. Solarz. Also a statement was issued from the White House, approved by Reagan, agreeing with Enrile and Ramos concerning the massive fraud in the elections. I am wondering just how connected the US government is to what is happening at the moment. Cory and Doy are in Cebu—they left yesterday morning. They seem to be out of sight at the moment.

At 5 a.m. this morning 16 armed men entered the RV compound in Bulacan and destroyed their 50-kw MW transformer and three SW transformers. So RV is operating now on a 10-kw emergency transformer in Fairview.

I went to camp Aguinaldo this morning. I just returned so that I could write this letter (10:45 a.m.). Apparently just after I left, Gen. Ramos came out and spoke to the crowd outside—approximately 5,000 people. These people are guarding the military inside. As long as the civilians and the foreign press are outside, FM might think twice about attacking the camp.

In my Feb 11th letter, in the last paragraph I said that I would not “exclude the possibility of a US backed coup d’etat on the part of the so-called reform group in the military (which seems to be associated with Enrile…).” You know I feel very uncomfortable about the whole thing. Emotional feeling is HIGH. People follow behind ‘quick’ heroes. RV announced this morning that Ramos and Enrile are the new heroes. Well I cannot forget so many detainees who were tortured, who have disappeared, who have been killed and for whom there was NO JUSTICE COMING FROM RAMOS OR ENRILE…. I have close friends who were tortured and killed. If you remember the BBC film, you have there an interview with Enrile concerning the part played by Col. Aure in the torture and death of my friend Puri Pedro in January 1976.

6:00 P.M. Feb 23, 1986
Just came back from Camp Aguinaldo/Camp Crame area. The numbers have swelled from what they were in the morning. Those who had been there during the night (an estimated 30,000) had gone home to sleep, eat and bathe. So we were about 4,000 to 5,000 persons. This afternoon the group had swelled to 200,000 to 300,000 easily…perhaps even more. EDSA (the main city artery), from Farmer’s Market to Ortigas Avenue, was blocked off and was like one big grand ‘block party’.

RV is announcing that the marine battalion and tanks that were parked at the Ortigas end are now marching toward Meralco. People are being asked to blockade the area so that they cannot get through. As darkness comes across the skies the situation for those keeping vigil during the night becomes more serious.

Ramos is giving a press conference from Camp Crame recounting the support of the field commanders for them—90 per cent. Both Enrile and Ramos have consolidated their forces in Camp Crame and have abandoned Camp Aguinaldo. The marines camped at the crossroads of EDSA and Ortigas consist of 7 tanks, 14 jeeps and 6 6X 6 trucks with about 500 to 600 men.

7:00 a.m. Feb 24th

Voice of America just announced that the camp is being attacked and that Reagan has announced that he will cut off all aid if the loyalist forces attack the rebellion. So I am going now to the camps to see what is really happening. Even to the last hour FM carries on the lie. …Cardinal Sin is speaking on the radio now, asking for calm and quiet and saying a prayer…

RV has announced that there is confirmation that FM and Imelda have left the country. There will be dancing in the streets tonite!!! There is dancing in the streets right now outside of Camp Crame right now!!!

Call from the US says that FM stopped over in Guam and was shown on TV. Also that the US will give him temporary permission to stay in the US. I urge you to write to Congress to let them know that we, the American people, DO NOT want the US to be a place where dictators can find a home. Send him with that fellow from Haiti… let them go to Antarctica or outer space. We do not want them in America!!!

Love,
Helen…

Love,
Helen
(to be continued)

Ken Saro Wiwa on my mind

When CNN reporter Jeff Koinanga got near the place where he was supposed to meet with his interviewee Jomo Gbomo, spokesman of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), his boat was surrounded by boatloads of armed men. Men in black, wearing bonnets, brandishing big firearms and shooting into the air, prancing, dancing. This was enough to sow terror in the heart of even the most hardened of journalists.

I couldn’t help recalling my own foray into the wilderness of Samar with a bunch of journalists. Using a motorized banca, we went through a heavily canopied river from the banks of which emerged heavily armed rebels who would lead us further into the wilderness and into the heart of a guerrilla movement. Into Tarzan territory, I called it. But we weren’t supposed to be frightened. Our hosts made sure of that.

When I saw the CNN footage I thought I had been there before. Except that this was the Niger Delta.

Were these armed men the ones supposed to meet with the journalist? Where was Jomo Gbomo? He was the one who supposedly did the inviting. Will he show his face? Would he emerge? Was this the right group? Jomo never got to present himself but the armed men had a surprise for the journalist: 24 Filipino hostages, all looking forlorn, frightened and forsaken.

(Jomo would later call the journalist to say MEND was not the one holding the hostages.)



The Filipinos had been held captive since January in the Niger Delta. The oil-rich river delta is a hotbed of dissent. Various ethnic groups have been waging a struggle against Western multinationals and their own government for many years. Who are the legit freedom fighters, who are the bandits? Who are the true leaders, who are the mini-despots in the making?

Last week CNN showed the 24 hostaged Filipino workers in Nigeria with their captors. Thanks to CNN reporter Koinanga, it was, I think, the closest any outsider got to them. It was a terrifying scene and I felt something in the pit of my stomach. The reporter was himself not sure how safe it was to get in and out of the place ruled by fragmented armed groups. Coming face to face with the hostages was a surprise. Being able to talk to them and get them to speak was a bonus.

Two days ago the Filipino hostages were set free. Two still remain in the hands of their captors. No ransom paid, the news report said.

Watching and reading about all these, I couldn’t help but remember Ken Saro-Wiwa, writer, hero, martyr, who was hanged, along with eight others, on Nov. 10, 1995 in Nigeria. He had led the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) so that the government would heed their demands. He was hanged.

When Saro-Wiwa and the eight others—all members of the Ogoni tribe—were hanged, Greenpeace issued a statement saying that they were hanged for speaking out against the environmental damage to the Niger Delta caused by Shell Oil through its 37 years of drilling in the region. Saro-Wiwa was campaigning for the basic right to clean air, land and water and his only crime was his success in bringing his cause to international attention.

Greenpeace said that Shell’s call for “quiet diplomacy” at the 11th hour was not of any use. For Shell had ample opportunity to demonstrate concern when Saro-Wiwa was in detention and on trial. Instead, Shell chose to remain cozy with the Nigerian military dictatorship at that time.

The execution of Saro-Wiwa created ripples all over the world and today, many environmental and literary groups hail him as a hero.

Here was what Saro-Wiwa said to the tribunal: “I repeat that we all stand before history. I and my colleagues are not the only ones on trial. Shell is here on trial…Its day will surely come and the lessons learnt here may prove useful to it for there is no doubt in my mind that the ecological war that the company has waged in the Delta will be called to question sooner than later and the crimes of that war be duly punished. The crime of the company’s dirty war against the Ogoni people will also be punished.”

Several times in 1993, Saro-Wiwa was arrested but he was adopted by Amnesty International as a Prisoner of Conscience. The supposed reason for his arrest was that he had incited the youth to murder.

Since the change in government in 1998, both the government and the oil companies have acknowledged the problem of underdevelopment in the Niger Delta but the environmental damage caused by oil exploration has not been fully addressed. MOSOP continues to demand that Shell conduct and environmental assessment and do a clean up.

As a writer, Saro-Wiwa had produced 27 books and had been honored for excellence in creative writing. He was a member of the Ogoni tribe composed of some 500,000 people. The Ogoni live in the densely populated Ogoniland in south-eastern Nigeria.

Ogoniland has produced more than US30 billion worth of oil for Nigeria through the government’s joint partnership with Shell. But the oil endeavor has resulted in severe pollution of Ogoniland.
Now the Niger Delta is described as “anarchic”, meaning that varied groups have exploited the situation and the ones who suffer the most are the people.

The hostage situation pushed back Saro-Wiwa to my consciousness and I couldn’t help imagining the cross-continental repercussions of the trouble in the Niger Delta. I thought, it could spawn a movie like “Babel”, with the Filipino hostages taking center stage, their families in the Philippines sustaining the progression of the plot. And the oil companies…

It is sad, an eye opener of a movie that is sad.

Vista and toxic e-waste

I wanted to be one of the countless gawkers in green or blue attire at last weekend’s Microsoft Vista launch at the seaside mall but when I imagined the number of people there who spoke computerese I changed my mind. Besides, I was not buying the new program. Not yet. I mean, we’d soon have to have it if there is no other one to choose.

Although I’m no techie, I’ve been reading up on Vista and what it can do for me. Microsoft’s Bill Gates himself said Vista took some five years to perfect so it must be awesome. But some computer experts say it still would need some fine-tuning once it gets out there and people start using it.

So what does this mean for all of us? Vista ruling our world vista, our cultural and information landscape, the way we do things, think, create and communicate? But what about our “hard copy” vista, that is, our terra firma, the hard ground on which we walk?

Greepeace has issued a warning on the e-waste, the e-junk, the e-garbage that Vista will generate. Greenpeace doesn’t mean the digital junk in your computer files and e-mail, it is referring to the material electronic junk that will pile up on the ground. Because every trying-hard Who’s Who in the computer world would want to shuck the old PC for a new computer bundle that comes with Vista plus plus.

Upgrading the old PC is too jurassic for some. Like, why go through the cumbersome upgrade when, for just a few bucks more, you get a whole new bundle?



But wait. Bill gates and Microsoft didn’t tell us what to do with the old, where to throw them.

I share Greepeace’s concern that Vista, Microsoft’s newest operating system, could trigger a deluge of e-waste in developing countries. With Vista, Greepeace says, more companies and individuals may feel the need to replace their computers sooner as these might become incompatible with the new OS. The result, Greenpeace warns, would be “massive volumes of computer scrap in dirty re-cycling yards and dumpsites in the Philippines, Thailand and other Asian countries where most of the world’s e-waste dumps are located.”

Some months ago I watched a TV documentary on a remote place in China that used to be a rustic, rural destination. Now it is the destination of dead computers, a veritable junkyard of toxic and harmful electronic innards and skeletons. It draws thousands of scavengers who salvage parts that could still be used or recycled. It was a shocking sight, a terrible site, a cemetery.

Recycling is good, but should it be this way?

“With Vista,” Greenpeace’s Beau Banconguis warns, “Microsoft could effectively hasten the obsolescence of half of the world’s PCs, especially in the absence of fully functioning global take-back systems for PCs.” Banconguis is with Greenpeace Asia’s campaign against toxic waste. She adds that companies would feel the need to upgrade their PCs and when they do, the world is not prepared for the massive e-waste the upgrade will generate.

I myself did try to run a free on-line test on my PC to see if it was Vista-ready. I was told I needed something to get the test done. I was just testing and I was already being told by this on-line program that there was some tweaking to do. Forget it, I said. Was I being told that tweaking and upgrading is hard to do, that I should junk my old hard/software and go get a new package?

Greenpeace says that current environmental policies of computer companies are not enough to provide an effective solution to the growing mountains of toxic electronic waste from computer components. Microsoft, Geenpeace emphasizes, should have factored in these consequences and should have laid out mitigating measures to minimize the problem of obsolescence, before they started introducing new innovations. Innovation should not translate into more pollution, Banconguis adds.

Multi-billionaire Gates was beaming in snowy Davos where the world’s Who’s Who in economics were recently gathered, where the prefix eco- also became eco- of ecology, what with global warming and climate change high on the agenda of the world’s economic movers. Did he say anything about e-waste?

Greenpeace cites a study conducted by SoftChoice Corporation that states that 50 percent of the current breed of PCs are “below Window’s Vista’s basic system requirements” while 94 percent are not equipped to run on Window’s Vista Premium edition.”

Greepeace has been campaigning so that PC and mobile phones manufacturers would phase out toxic substances from their products and place take-back mechanisms for their products when they reach the end of their lives. They should design their products in a way that they could be easily upgraded, disassembled and recycled.

When I wrote in this column about an NGO that takes e-waste for recycling, not a few wrote to ask where and how. (Contact Philippines Business for the Environment.) Some years ago I delivered a car trunk full of dead electronic gadgets to a vocational school for its students to study and make something of.

The useful lives of electronic equipment could be longer if only manufacturers would not plan their obsolescence. Planned obsolescence is an immoral marketing strategy. The digital camera that I bought in 2001 is now obsolete, Its new battery pack and memory card that I recently bought (an upgrade that I regret) are no longer compatible with the latest hi-resolution model (which is half the price of my 2001 camera).

We are in a throw-away world and we are the worse for it. The last time I tasted the word vista’s real meaning was when I was meditating on lines from Francis Thompson. “Up vista-ed hopes I sped;/ and shot, precipitated/ Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears…”