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?



So easy to say, it almost sounds cliché. But it is obvious, if not glaring, that these two—dunong at kalusugan—are sorely what the majority of Filipinos are pining for. Raw knowledge and talent we have plenty of, for we are indeed a gifted race, but to hone these and translate these into progress and a better life is another story.

While I tend to agree with the research-based generalization that Filipinos are among the happiest in this world, I would probably give credit to our genes and hormonal make-up rather than to the state of affairs in our surroundings. Yes, we have fewer suicides compared with the more affluent nations but it is because being long-suffering has become a way of life.

And speaking of suicides, the day the President was delivering her SONA a desperate man was again high up there on one of the billboards from hell, about to call it quits because he had lost his job as kaminero (street sweeper), his wife with their child in tow, everything that gave meaning to his life. MMDA chair Bayani Fernando’s assurance that he would have his job back gave the man reason to live. That was all it took to give him hope for the moment.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” which is very much part of his theory of personality has long been proven to be very basic. Unlike Freud who delves deep into that dark ocean called the unconscious, Maslow is more of a humanist who focuses on the potentials of persons, their search for higher wisdom, understanding, creativity. Therefore, if the environment is right, persons, people, communities could become actualized, fully grown, happy. That is easier said than done, of course.

Here is the summary of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs which could be represented by a triangle: 1)physiological needs, 2)safety needs, 3)needs of love, affection and belonging, 4)needs for esteem, 4)needs of self actualization. We all had to memorize these in Psychology class.

I was thinking along these lines while listening to the SONA and the President’s list of accomplishments and the sound of feather-fluffing and also her plans for her three remaining years in office. Which of these needs has her government helped to meet dramatically? If surveys are to be believed, most Filipinos are still struggling with numbers 1 and 2. Food, water, the basics to survive.

When will the trickle-down effect be felt?

All most people need is “a clean, well-lighted place”, to borrow the title of Hemingway’s famous but short story. A place to be, to stay, to feel safe in, to belong. Clean and well-lighted, where the body and spirit could feel free and comforted.

Hemingway’s understated story, though set in a small café with a time frame of a few hours, is about basic yearnings for a safe haven, not just for the body but for the spirit as well.

Despair is a major element in the story, perhaps a projection of the Nobel Prize winner’s own search for true meaning and sense of purpose.

We all yearn for that clean and well-lighted place. The truly poor in this country have their literal specifications—a home they could call their own, clean water, nutritious food, good neighbors. And don’t forget the music.

I quote what the late Sr. Christine Tan, RGS, whose feastday it was last Tuesday, said many years ago when she took on a leadership position. Leaders hearken. “Today, as we live through helplessness and national suffering, I hold the key to many lives. Each step I make could build or destroy, contribute to truth or to sham. Perhaps the world will be better because I was born. But while every fiber of my being is immersed in this frenzy of service and passion, deep in my core, nothing matters except that on the day of reckoning, the One for whom I lived my live in struggling purity, will see my face… and recognize it.”

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.



“Birthday parties” were held in many parts of the world last Tuesday and here in the Philippines, NGOs held a forum and a film showing.

One significant development is Japan’s formal ratification of the ICC treaty yesterday at the United Nations headquarters in New York. With Japan in, 105 states have ratified the ICC treaty. There are more than 30 others who have signed but have not ratified. The Philippines is among them.

Last year, the Senate, the House and the Commission on Human Rights made resolutions for the Philippines’ ratification of the statute. But Pres. Arroyo has not transmitted the document to both houses so that the ratification would be final.

Most of the world’s democracies (all but one European Union government), most of sub-Saharan Africa, most of Latin America and the Caribbean have joined the ICC.

The ICC budget is about 90 million Euros a year and Japan will assume about 19 percent of it. Japan has also nominated a judicial candidate for election to the court in December.

Universal ratification and greater cooperation from governments in securing arrests are among the ICC’s important goals. The international support for the ICC shows the growing consensus that impunity on the part of perpetrators of massive atrocities will no longer be tolerated. There is a court of last resort to which the aggrieved could go.

The court is currently investigating grave mass crimes in four countries—Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and the Central African Republic. It has issued seven arrest warrants.

Later this year, the court will begin hearing the case against Thomas Lubanga Dyilo on the use of child soldiers.

The Philippine Coalition of the ICC here is a network of individuals and organizations committed to generate support for the ICC through information and lobbying so that the Philippine government would ratify the Rome Statute. It is part of an international network of about 2,000 civil society groups that support the universal acceptance of the ICC.

Today the court is truly international, permanent, fully functional and becoming attuned to the cries of affected communities. It reflects the major legal systems of all geographic regions of the world and could hold individuals accountable for massive crimes.

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Good PCIJ stuff. The Philippine Center of Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) is donating hundreds of books and other publications on investigative journalism and related topics to institutions and individuals who would have need for them. Please email marketing@pcij.org or call 9293117 for the titles and on how to get them.

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Good Samaritans in cyberspace. Have you ever encountered major problems with your computer, like desperately trying to retrieve files that vanished? And cried buckets?

My email folders containing about four years of mail (from readers included), attachments, images and documents suddenly vanished. For two weeks all efforts to retrieve them from where they lay hidden did not work. Although I am right-brained (writers and artists usually are), I followed website to-dos in sequence and I must have earned a doctorate in computer software tinkering, but still no results.

I sought help from God of cyberspace and I got a response from the Pinoy blog Couch Camote of Ruben Canlas Jr. who turned out to be the CEO of Dig It All (as in digital) Solutions.

He and the Good Samaritans of his office (open-source advocates with strong left brains) came to my rescue and made me a charity case even though I was willing to pay an arm and a leg. It took a whole day of work to retrieve my files, but the effort was worth it, thanks to Ruben, Data and Lee.

As journalists we always seem to know where to find help for others in need. Then suddenly we are the needy.

Dig it All is mainly into website development and is on the 19th floor of Medical Plaza on San Miguel Ave. in Ortigas Center, Pasig City. Tel 9107788, http://digitalsolutions.ph. Their clientele is quite impressive.

But hey guys, you brought me in from the cold, even carried my clunky PC from the parking lot to your office, and gave me aid. May blessings rain down on you. I will pay your goodness forward.

Indeed, there are Good Samaritans even in the cyberhighways.

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.



How to introduce Lean to those who did not or do not know him if not through his own words? Here is something he wrote to Lidy Nacpil who was going to be his wife, widow and mother of their only daughter. This says a lot about who he was and is food for thought for those who are still wondering about the hierarchy of things in their lives. This is vintage Lean, a classic.



"The socialist man must know how to compute the distance of the stars, how to differentiate a fish from a shark, a mammal from a reptile. He must know how to distill wine into liquor and how to arrive at e=mc2. He must know how to cook bacon, butcher a pig and roast a lamb. He must be capable of leading armies into battle. He must know how to follow orders, give orders and he must know when to disobey them. He must be able at debate, at lobbying, at open struggle. He must know how to analyze difficult political situations, how to get out of one and how to convince others that they must do the same. He must know how to sail a ship, dig a latrine, construct a pigsty, wash clothes, wash dishes, plan an offensive, plan a retreat, mix martinis, drink martinis, differentiate brandy from whisky, keep quiet, participate, take care of babies, manage a state bureaucracy, soothe pain, comfort the sorrowful, maintain his composure in hot water, when to watch, when to participate, repair appliances, maintain a car, purge revisionists, ride a horse, run from a bull, swim, play tennis, drown gracefully, sink with his ship with honor along with the mice, discuss Mao, debunk Zinoviev, ridicule Stalin, appreciate a beehive, raise chickens, cook chickens, play boogle (respectably), correctly read Mabini, recruit members into the movement, motivate members to struggle, host a party, play at least one musical instrument, be critical, self-critical, honest... The socialist man is the total man. Specialization is for ants.

"It is Marx who teaches us the real meaning of creativity, of true sentiment and communist passions. I expect Marxists, or those who profess to go by that title, to be the most sincere, honest, dignified, humble, cultured, mature and sensible. Marxists without an ethic are Stalins. Marxism teaches man to be total. Marxism enables us to develop into the total human being. Liberal humanism tried to do this but failed because they did not know how to go about it. Again, only a Marxist ethic is truly humane... I can be pretentious enough to conclude that I am a Marxist. And it is precisely because of this fact that I can appreciate Tolkien and appreciate him unabashedly.-March 4, 1983 11:20 pm

Yes, Tolkien. Several of those who spoke about Lean that night expressed regrets that Lean did not live long enough to watch the “Lord of the Rings” movie trilogy. Lean had known and fought battles with class and heart.

By the way, the soundtrack of the musical “Lean” which was staged 10 years ago has been reissued and is available in CD. How to make Lean alive again on stage was a difficult task for its creators and the actors. The right music, words, choreography and everything else could have come only after everybody had resurrected Lean in their minds and in their hearts and knew him again. For Lean was many things to many people. As Cookie Chua (who played Lidy) sang so soulfully, “Paano mamahalin and katulad mo?”

Oh yes, Lean had a lot to say about love, romantic love. His treatise on traditional and radical romantics could be enriching for both Valentine’s Day homilists and hard-core revolutionary pedagogues. But let’s save that for February.

But love, indeed, was at the core of Lean’s commitment to the cause of justice and freedom. He saw beyond his time. “I am quite convinced that in a few years’ time, the nature of our struggles will change drastically. We shall have to launch a democratic version of the socialist revolution. The national democratic struggle will be left behind by history and we shall be buried with it in the heap of antiquity if do not shake ourselves awake and really lead.”

Yes, and really lead with integrity. Lean had showed how.

57 blood-red years

Showbiz celebrity brats like Paris Hilton and other wannabes out there have a lot to learn from this great woman.

Long before she became a movie icon and had her name on the firmament of genuine stars Rosal Rosal (Florence Danon) had already begun to have a life outside of the glitzy world of showbiz.

“I was in this world but not of this world,” she likes to say. It’s a biblical phrase she often quotes to stress that the movie persona she was known for was not what she was in real life. Of course, people know that by now.

This year, Rosal Rosal marks 57 years of service to the Philippine National Red Cross’ (PNRC) Blood Program. It’s been close to six blood-red decades since she started to lend her time, talent and treasure to an endeavor few celebrities like her have embraced. Indeed, blood is thicker than the sweat and tears she had shed to get the work done.

At 16 going on 17 Rosal found herself in the world of movies. Her Eurasian looks landed her strong character roles, vixen roles among them, when she was younger. That was also about the time that she got drawn to charity work and to the work of the Red Cross.

It all started with a little boy who lay sick and unconscious in the Philippine General Hospital. Rosal chanced upon him and his distraught mother during one of her hospital visits. She did all she could to help, she looked for blood and medicines for him. Her efforts paid off. “When he opened his eyes,” Rosal remembers with tears, “his first word was, ‘Nanay.’”



That scene, that experience, was the goading factor that set her off on a road less-traveled. There were times when she wondered whether what she was doing had an impact. She was often told, “That’s enough, you’re working alone.” Rosal recalls feeling low one day while watching water from a faucet coming out drop by drop. Slowly but surely the glass soon became full. Rosal likens her efforts to the water that slowly fills then floods the lives of those who thirst and hunger.

In her later years in the movies, Mater Dolorosa roles (and contravida ones, too, why not) became frequent for Rosal, maybe because of the real-life role she had played for many decades and continues to play to this day.

Being mother to her own family (TV host Toni Rose Gayda is her only daughter) and thousands of sick and indigent Filipinos who flocked to seek her help through her TV program (Kapwa Ko, Mahal Ko and then Damayan), she became known as the refuge of the desperate many. She didn’t have to shuck her movie-star way of grooming in order to wade into the world of the so-called Great Unwashed. People knew that behind the tear-stained make-up (tears come easily) is a woman of sense and purpose.

She’s had her share of pain. Her marriage lasted a mere five days and she’s never seen him since. “After that,” she quips, “I realized I do not need a man in my life.” Indeed, Rosal has never had another man in her life, that is, as husband, partner, husband or lover. She is married to her cause, the Blood Program, that is, and to charity work. (Rosal was conferred the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Service several years ago.)

Yesterday, on the occasion of PNRC Governor Rosal’s “57 years of service to humanity”, PNRC is launching the National Blood Center’s Apheresis Center at its headquarters on Bonifacio Drive. Rosal and PNRC executive director Corazon Alma de Leon had given me a tour of the blood center a couple of months ago and I was indeed impressed and happy to know that something like this is accessible to those who need blood that is safe and free.

What is apheresis? The word comes from the Greek work that means “to take away”. Donating blood used to mean giving away the whole bloody thing in bags. Now, through the apheresis way, donors give only the select blood components—platelets, plasma, red cells and the infection-fighting white cells called granulocytes. Or one could give a combination of these depending on the donor’s blood type and the need of the moment. Apheresis is commonly done to collect just platelets and plasma.

The great thing about this is that a single apheresis donation can provide as many platelets as five whole blood donations. Aside from this, a platelet transfusion from a single donor greatly reduces the risk of an immune system reaction to the transfusion on the part of the recipient. Therefore cancer and leukemia patients whose immune systems are greatly compromised benefit much from single-donor platelet transfusion.

The Red Cross makes sure that donations go through additional typing called human leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing to ensure that the donor and recipient are closely matched. Apheresis donors may be on call to give emergency donations to those who have been matched with them.

And here’s something for those inclined to be perennial givers. People who donate just platelets can donate every three days for a maximum of 24 times a year. If you want to donate you must at least be 17 years old, at least 110 pounds and in good health.

Here in the Philippines where dengue cases are aplenty during the rainy season, the apheresis center would indeed be a great source of the blood components needed by hemorrhaging patients.

Compared with other countries, the PNRC’s Blood Center is just as good, Rosal says. There are 65 blood centers all over the country, she adds.

It’s been five, six decades since the great Rosa Rosal black-and-white must-sees “Anak Dalita”, “Badjao” and “Biyaya ng Lupa” were filmed. And the great blood lady continues to embrace the mga anak dalita of this country.

Fifty seven blood-red roses for you, Tita Rose.