The people’s agenda

The 7th Asian Europe People’s Forum (AEPF) held in Beijing two weeks ago came up with resolutions and recommendations that were sent to the Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) of heads of state and policy makers who also held their gathering in Beijing a week later. I was at AEPF—the people’s version—which had for its theme “Social and Ecological Justice” and which preceded ASEM.

The final version of the 2008 AEPF resolutions have been sent to ASEM and I hope the leaders and policy makers who attended ASEM would take heed. After all, AEPF, since its inception 14 years ago, has been issuing warnings against neo-liberalism, globalization and the like. With the Sept. 2008 financial melt-down that changed the world, there is reason for the smart alecks of finance to heed voices from the underside.

AEPF consists of social movements from Europe and Asia with networks in communities, organizations and individuals committed to working for a just and equal world. AEPF’s “people’s agenda” is based on four fundamental principles”: the promotion of economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights; the promotion of environmentally, socially and economically sustainable patterns of development; greater economic and social equity and justice (including equality between women and men); and the active participation of civil society organizations (CSO) in democratic life and decision-making process of their countries.

With the current global financial crisis affecting everyone on this planet, AEPF is urging leaders to give special attention to the poorest, the excluded and the marginalized.


The call is to use the opportunity presented by the current financial and political crises to put in place an alternative, repeat, an alternative financial architecture and infrastructure that will promote and enable a “more equitable, carbon neutral and just global economic system, reclaiming national development policy rights and empowering working people. Financial institutions and financial decision-making must become truly accountable and transparent.”

The resolutions are grouped into 1)social and economic rights, 2)finance, 3)taxation, 4)public spending and investment, 5) environment, 6)participatory democracy and human rights, and 7)peace and security.

Given the limited space, I can only highlight a few resolutions.

One of the calls related to social and economic rights is “respect the right to food and healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods that protect biodiversity.” The melamine scare spawned in China’s food industry is indeed a wake-up call.

I was in the well-attended workshop on food security and food sovereignty and I managed to put in my voice on behalf of the fisherfolk (because land-based food production seemed to get all the attention). Given that cue, Pablo Gonzales of Kilusang Mangingisda found his voice and called attention to the plight of the fisherfolk who are among the most neglected sectors in the Philippines.

With that intervention, the word fisherfolk found its way into the resolutions. “Food producers and fisherfok should have access to and control over the means of production (land, seeds, water, appropriate technology). There must be full recognition of the rights and role of women in food production.”

With many women’s CSO present that line on women and food was bound to find its way in. But just as important is the “implementation of agrarian reform programs, strengthening local food production and consumption, diversification, controls on agribusiness and decreasing dependence on international markets, and support small holder agriculture and sustain peasant farmers and indigenous communities.”

And because of the current food crisis, included too is the call for “a moratorium on grain and food-based agro-fuel production.”

Finance and public spending and investment were much discussed topics among participants who stayed up late nights to hear out one another and the experts as well. Here are some resolutions:

“Create people-based banking institutions and strengthen existing popular forms of lending based on mutuality and solidarity; institutionalize full transparency within the financial system through the opening of the books to the public, to be facilitated by citizen and worker organizations; introduce parliamentary and citizens’ oversight of the existing banking system.

“Redirect government spending from bailing out bankers to guaranteeing basic incomes and social security…invest massively in improved energy efficiency, low carbon emitting public transport, renewable energy and environmental repair; introduce incentives for products produced for sale closest to the local market.”

As to the environment, there is a call to: “Develop decentralized, renewable energy sources to combat climate change and contribute to sustainable development. Implement legislation that will support all citizens in reducing their energy consumption. Stop the development of carbon trading and other environmentally counter-productive techno-fixes, such as carbon capture and sequestration, agrofuels, nuclear power and ‘clean coal’ technology.”

There is a lot more on the environment and the other six main issues. Policy makers and legislators could find leads in the AEPF7 document by accessing its website. There is a lot to be done to give those words a human expression.

This All Souls and All Saints weekend is a special time to remember the dead, especially those who gave up their lives for the truth. I remember my fellow journalists who raged against the dying of the light and pushed their pens to the edge so that this benighted country may emerge closer to the light. Their passing may have left as diminished in a way but their courage continues to light our way in the wilderness.

The view from the underside

Beijing — As I said last week, although the theme of the 7th Asia-Europe People’s Forum (AEPF) is “Social and Ecological Justice”, there was no escaping the current global financial crisis that began in the posh financial enclaves of the world and in the brains of its overpaid architects in expensive suits.

And so even with 33 workshops on different crucial topics, the AEPF Asian and European participants spent night hours outside of the workshops deciphering this financial meltdown.

We called it “Beijing Nights”. Anyway, there was no escaping for a night in town because the venue—sprawling Dragon Spring Hotel with its lovely willow trees and lagoons—was outside the city. Beijing Nights meant there was work to be done in the session rooms and bottomless tea.

AEPF, held every two years, is like an overture to the Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) of heads of state. It’s the people’s version, and resolutions arrived at here are sent to ASEM for state leaders to consider when they meet a week later. Will they seriously listen now?

In Helsinki in 2006, the AEPF thinkers-doers and worried civil society delegates already warned about unbridled neo-liberalism. The Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998 was not to be forgotten. There was a lot of discussion about free trade agreements and globalization. A Filipino professor gives this layman’s definition of the much discussed fount of evil called neo-liberalism: “A night watchman’s concept of the state, it means privatization, deregulation, liberalization, with minimal state intervention in the economy.”



AEPF seeks to defend the weakest Asian economies and to seek alternatives to the Asian-Europe free trade. But in Beijing there were other issues to tackle as well—peace, alternative energies, climate change, food security and food sovereignty, water, foreign debt…

The handwriting had been on the wall. Suddenly the world changed in September 2008. The financial behemoths crumbled to the ground.

As one AEPF organizer said, quoting an old Chinese saying, “The sky is high and the emperor is far.” But the sky has its limits, she added, and the emperor is gone. And one Chinese speaker said that crisis in Chinese means both danger and opportunity. Now we must find our way out together. Regional formations is one solution, it was suggested. It is now clear that the people must not leave everything to the state and that civil society must play a central role.

One of the awaited speakers, the Philippines’ Dr. Walden Bello of the Focus on the Global South and Freedom from Debt Coalition asked rhetorically, “Is it greed?” The answer is yes. It is also because of lack of regulation. He also hinted at overproduction.

Now we will be forced to look into agriculture and reinvigorating it, Bello said, and the industrialist, anti-agriculture paradigm must be reversed.

Malaysian Dr. Charles Santiago, an AEPF stalwart who heads the Monitoring Sustainability of Globalization and now a member of parliament, gave a sweeping view of the financial crisis from the underside. (I could email it to those who want the whole thing.) Excerpts:

“The high priest of free market ideology Alan Greenspan, the former Chair of the US Federal Reserve for 18 years, in his book ‘Age of Turbulence’ heaped praise on the magic of financial markets and criticized as foolish those who called for greater regulation…In fact he asked ‘Why do we wish to inhibit the pollinating bees of Wall Street?’

“One year into the publication of the book, world financial markets have been gripped with panic…Global stock markets have hit rock bottom and are in a free fall. Wall Street lost its top five investment banks. The US Congress passed a $700-billion rescue package fearing that the US financial system might collapse and it constitutes the biggest US government intervention in history…

“The Chairmen of the failed Lehman Brothers is reported to have received about $484 million in various kinds of compensation even when the company was in trouble. In fact the captains of industry continue to cheat and plunder because they do not pay for the crisis. The victims are workers who might be out of job and who might have lost all savings. This is your classic socialism for the rich and free market poverty for the poor.
“What is peculiar about the 2008 financial crisis is that it is taking place alongside a food, energy and an ecological crisis. (I)t humbled the world’s economic powers. They are asking developing countries like China to help solve the credit crisis through coordinated interest rate cuts…

“But if we are to seriously combat the current system, if we are to offer comprehensive and not piecemeal alternatives, then it is also vital to look below the surface—beyond even today’s pressing financial, food and ecological crisis—and understand the deeper processes that are at work… (Here he goes into detail.)

“It should be clear to all of us that the very developments that are supposed to reinvigorate capital are actually the sources of catastrophic crises. And it is at the very moment of crisis that the artificial separation of economics and politics collapses before our eyes… Governments, regional organizations, international institutions like the IMF and World Bank this past weekend—all scramble in unseemly haste to bail out their benefactors through subsidies for the rich. How ironic that the ‘free markets’ are today totally dependent on state intervention…

“Meanwhile, it is clear that the social costs of stabilization are being borne largely by working people…it seems to me that the scale of the crisis and the popular outrage today provide an historic opening for the renewal of the kind of radical politics that advances a genuine alternative to capitalism….”

Asia and Europe meet in Beijing

Beijing--Here we are together again, this time in Beijing, for the Asia-Europe Peoples’ Forum 7 (AEPF7). This is a follow-up of AEPF6 in Helsinki in 2006.

The last time I was in Beijing was 24 years ago. (I was in Nanjing last year.) In 1984 our group was hosted by the Chinese government and we were toured around several major cities for two weeks. Most Chinese people were still wearing the standard green or blue Mao suits and Mao caps with the red star then. I still have those but I didn’t bring them with me for wearing here in chilly Beijing or I’d look stupid or mistaken for a leftist “G&D” in a time warp.

Non-government and civil society organizations (CVOs) that are non-state and non-corporate from Asia and Europe are gathered here for this year’s forum theme: “For Social and Ecological Justice”. AEPF is dedicated to increasing understanding and solidarity between the peoples of Asia and Europe and to promoting harmony, peace and development of the two regions.



AEPF usually precedes by a few days the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) of heads of state. AEPF aims to bring the people’s voices from the ground, so to speak, to the rulers of Asia and Europe. ASEM would be to Asia and Europe as APEC is to Asia-Pacific and the US. One of AEPF’s aims is to create alternatives to ASEM’s “neo-liberalist agenda”.

Created in 1996, AEPF has had forums every two years that paralleled the ASEM summit. The last two were in Vietnam and Finland. The forums are meant to give a venue for CVOs in Asia and Europe to discuss issues that affect their respective regions. (Not to confuse this with AEBF or Asia-Europe Business Forum.)

Asian and European CVOs have called for more civil society participation in ASEM but this is not happening. These groups have had to make their own parallel gathering in order to call attention to issues on the ground. Coming out together in a big way calls the attention of world leaders and decision-makers. The Philippines has a good representation in AEPF, they are the non-communist left mostly, and why not, the Philippines is the NGO/civil society hub of Asia.

As a bi-regional network, AEPF has indeed opened a new chapter in people-to-people relations and among CVOs in Asia and Europe. Socio-economic and political experts from both regions have recognized the significance of intergovernmental relations and concerted responses to issues.

Besides strengthening linkages in these two regions, AEPF had made lobby visits to ASEM member countries to bring up the Asian financial crisis and call for an Asia Monetary Fund, European development cooperation and the EU-Latin American regulation.

AEPF had also done research on the impact of economic instruments such as the Investment Promotion Action Plan and the Trade Facilitation Action Plan developed by ASEM.

There had been exchanges on privatization of water utilities in Asian cities and the involvement of European companies. The reconciliation process in the Korean peninsula and security issues had also been discussed in the past.

The AEPF network has been expanded with the inclusion of Vietnamese groups and requests from Chinese groups for inclusion. Well, we’re in Beijing now.

AEPF bewails the “narrow economic focus” of the ASEM process that results in the “severe marginalization” of key concerns such as human rights, equitable development, democratization and environmental protection. Government-civil society dialogue has yet to be concretized.

AEPF sees EU-Asia relations to be in an interesting stage. Both are seeking positions in the global trade and the geo-political state of affairs. For EU, it is the inclusion of new countries, deepening integration and major constitutional issues.

In Asia, things continue to unfold. There is the restructuring of the labor market, migration, deregulation and privatization of public services. Asia also hopes to be a fully integrated region with the establishment of East Asian Community modeled after the EU.

The question: How united could East Asia be with its “patchwork of political discord, territorial conflict and economic equality”? Asia has much to learn from the EU experience.

AEPF’s long-term goal is to establish itself as a leading forum for advancing a critical understanding of Asia-Europe relations through research excellence, policy formulation and campaigning. “Critical mass” is important if it is to sustain its interregional connectivity, expertise and collaboration. It hopes “to develop into a hub of networks with genuine national and international significance leading to multilateralism from below.”

AEPF’s target groups from below are trade unions, peasant and farmers organizations, food sovereignty networks, environmental movements, human rights and development groups, women’s movements, indigenous peoples’ movements, peace movements, debt and trade justice campaigns, academics and students. Throw in the media, parliamentarians, policy makers in government, and ASEM-related institutions. It’s a very potent brew.

Among the topics being discussed in this year’s forum are migrant labor, anti-terrorism policies, alternative energy policies, religious fundamentalism, climate change, arms trade, local governance, HIV-AIDS, the disabled, millennium development goals, intercultural dialogue so many more. I have a difficult time choosing where I should be.

Deliberations, discussions and debates are still going on among the stakeholders. I am waiting for the resolutions and the action plans.

‘Isang bagsak’ for Oca

My heart broke that I couldn’t be present at the Oct. 3 fund-raising evening for Oscar D. Francisco (Oca to his friends) but I told myself that I will do my part to help him. The affair was held at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani (Monument of Heroes).

Oca’s name is not about to be etched on the black granite wall at Bantayog where the names of martial law heroes and martyrs are etched. Oh no. Oca is alive is not about to go into the night. With the prayers and help of his friends, he will get well and again serve communities in the Oca style of bursting energy, intensity and, most of all, laughter.

Oca, hang in there.



Pilgrim of change, social reformer, development activist. Oca is all those and more. With his verve, vigor, vision, intelligence and gift for communication, Oca could have made it to the big league of the so-called financially successful. But Oca, although not poor, chose to work among the poor and wretched of this earth.

Oca is seriously ill with diabetes and other related ailments. More than a month ago, Oca developed a serious infection that almost cost him his legs. Repeated medication to address his declining health led to kidney failure. Dialysis was the only option to remove the unwanted substances in his body and cleanse his blood.

Oca is now undergoing dialysis twice a week which costs his family a whopping P100,000 a month. His wife Edna and children, one of them a doctor of medicine, know how heavy this is for the family.

Oca’s condition has curbed his mobility and made him vulnerable to other threatening ailments. This means limiting his crucial interventions in projects and movements that benefit the “PDO”. For babes in the woods, PDO was part of activists’ jargon. It means poor, deprived and oppressed. I don’t hear that often anymore.

For years Oca worked sans salary or with little material compensation. He was always busy out there. He could be tapped at moment’s notice gratis et amore. He was great at mobilizing people, facilitating conferences and workshops and bringing life to boring meetings.

With his great speaking voice and Spanish features, Oca could easily blend with the well-heeled, but no, he chose the downtrodden to be his companions in the journey. Oh, but he knew how to have fun and could easily get people involved in merrymaking such as karaoke singing and ballroom dancing in his new base in the Visayas. Although Oca travelled to many remote places in the country he was based in Luzon most of his life.

Whenever Oca was in town and joined the regular potluck dinners (at Maring Feria’s, where else) of former Nassa (National Secretariat of Social Action) church workers, we would always ask Oca for a “nat-sit”.

The letter of appeal written by my “ex-Nassa” friends Mano and Tess describes Oca as “a critical instrument in the building of alliances between the included and the excluded in our society, a crucial hand in coalition building, and a determined reformer and bridge builder between civil society and the state. His service can be traced to his Student Catholic Action days, his role as Justice and Peace coordinator of Nassa (of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines), his stewardship of various foundations and NGOs and his clear and participatory leadership within the National Anti-Poverty Commission.”

Oca is stubbornly committed to this country and its people. Those of us who have known him for decades know his inner strength. Oca’s case is not hopeless. He just crossed over the threshold of 60. As soon as he is strong enough, Oca will undergo life-saving surgery. He might just get convinced and say yes to a kidney transplant.
All ye comrades of different stripes, ideologues of different colors, subversives and non-subversives, activists underground, above ground and in exile, ye mitered and sceptered men in robes, women religious, social action workers, political beings of vision, academics, please hear the pleas of Oca’s friends in the “Isang Bagsak for Oca Committee”.

You may send email to isangbagsak_oca@yahoo.com. For those who were born yesterday, isang bagsak is the cue for one, just one, loud clap and stomping of one foot which is a sign of approval and appreciation. Isang bagsak could make tyrants shudder. When Oca yelled “Isang bagsak!” the room thundered.

Those who wish to help may deposit their donation at the Oscar D. Francisco savings account 1756-1032-13 at the Bank of the Philippine Islands, in Better Living, Paranaque. Isang Bagsak for Oca hopes to raise P1 million for Oca’s surgery/transplant. That’s less than the price of one SUV.

My fellow countrymen and countrywomen, here is a man who deserves our help and gratitude.

My good friend Daphne Ceniza-Kuok, now based in Hong Kong, blew into town last week to once again give International Care Ministries (ICM), a church-based organization, a boost. ICM has many development projects in the Philippines. A friend of Oca’s, this former activist (she still is) did not simply settle in her Kuok comfort zone, she is always on the move to reach out to her fellow Filipinos here and in HK. Last year she entrusted me with a sum for 10 poor women’s livelihood in a typhoon-devastated province.

Last week I wrote about the “A-Book-Saya” book donation project started by Christian-Muslim couple Armand (a former Inquirer reporter) and Annora Nocum (PDI, Oct. 1, page 1). The books are for the children of war in Mindanao. If you want to donate books, old or new, contact 9323609, 3393732, 09228169510, zamboyo66@yahoo.com or satisfaction.blogspot.com.

Filipino mandarin

It was a big but not a glitzy, showy affair. Definitely not for the loud society pages but more for the art critics maybe. From the invitation to the event, the book, the food and drinks to the renderings in sculpture and painting, and most of all, the music—they all suggested muted elegance. Perhaps one could call that class.

Music lovers were treated to a musical feast at the Meralco Theater last Saturday evening for the celebration of the 85th birth year of the late Robert Coyiuto, a trailblazer in the insurance industry. It was an event so well planned by his descendants who chose fine classical music to honor their patriarch and set the tone of the celebration. More on the music later.



Here’s an abstract from the biography “Filipino Mandarin” written by award-winning writer Charlson Ong.

“When Robert Coyiuto passed away at the relatively young age of 58 in 1982, he was a giant of the Philippine insurance industry. He had led various companies to the pinnacle of the industry and founded Prudential Guarantee and Assurance Inc. which his heirs, led by Robert Coyiuto Jr., would eventually transform into one of the nation’s top corporations. Before the term taipan came in vogue to describe successful entrepreneurs and industrialists of Chinese descent, Coyiuto led corporations that boasted hundreds of millions of pesos in resources.

“Born of humble origins in Fujian, China in 1923, Coyiuto settled in Manila shortly before the outbreak of WWII to help his elder brothers run the family trading business... The youngest surviving male children in a brood of 10—born to goldsmith Co Di Jian, and a bound-feet village woman, Tan O Kuan—Coyiuto was a quiet, self-possessed boy who loved to read and study. In Manila, he taught himself English and learned the culture of his adopted land.

“(Coyiuto) was also among the earliest to venture into petroleum exploration in the country. In 1975, (he) was among the first foreign industrialists to explore business in China at a time when the country was emerging from decades of isolation. In 1977 (he) became the first Filpino member of Lloyd’s—an insurance market of a kind based in London.

“For all his admiration of modernity, Coyiuto was a gentleman of the old school. He was steeped in Confucian tradition and valued family above all. Like those from his generation, he cherished propriety, filial piety, righteousness and compassion.”

Coyiuto married Rosalyn Go with whom he had nine children: (not in chronological order) Emeline, Samuel, James, Elisa, Robert Jr., Peter, Jane, Carolyn and Miguel. I do not know any one of them personally.

The evening’s program host was TV’s David Celdran who happens to be our new board chair at the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. Rafael del Casal’s bust of Coyiuto and a portrait by Romulo Galicano (with his trademark vertical lines) were unveiled.

But it was the music that was the centerpiece of the night. The Philippine Philharmonic orchestra under the baton of international conductor Helen Quach opened the concert with Wagner’s “Prelude to Act 1 of Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg”. Quach knew it by heart.

Juilliard-trained Cristine Coyiuto (married to James), one of the country’s leading pianists, played “Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor” with, ah, confidence and grace on an award-winning Bosendorfer piano shipped from Vienna for the occasion. I had primed myself by listening over and over to Schumann’s opus before the concert.

And fresh from her flute lessons in France, 14-year-old daughter Caitlin gave everyone a wow moment with her seamless, silken rendering of Poulenc’s Flute Sonata (orchestrated by Sir Lennox Berkeley). And more wow moments with the jazzy Bolling encore piece with Caitlin’s mom on the piano.

The musical evening was capped with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4. I have reason to pine for either the 6th or the 5th symphony (which Quach conducted last year) but with the Dragon Lady of the Podium bringing the 4th to a blazing end, who can complain? You bet, Tchaikovsky—to borrow a line from rock—was in the building.

A plug… This weekend Quach descends to the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ darkened orchestra pit (this time with a battery-illuminated baton) to conduct Puccini’s “La Boheme”. Dubbed the “greatest love story every sung”, the somewhat Philippinized opera is produced by the Philippine Opera Company. There ain’t no fat lady singing, just penny-pinching indie artists on a Manila landscape singing in Italian. (Oct.3 and 4 at 8 pm, Oct. 5 at 3 pm. For tickets call POC 8928786, Ticketworld 8919999 or CCP 8321125.)

Gary del Rosario, one of the three tenors singing Rodolfo, came all the way from Seattle Opera. I wrote about him more than 15 years ago, when he was a choir boy from Pasig, newly discovered by Tony Hila.

Unlike the Coyiuto concert which was free, “La Boheme” begs for your support. Didn’t you notice that despite hard times, big venues still pack it in for foreign pop artists? We should be more supportive of our own, especially those who keep classical music alive.

I had watched “La Boheme” at the CCP in 1992 and I still have my ticket stub as bookmark in a book on opera. This collector’s item won’t get me a free seat at tomorrow’s gala but in solidarity with the Mimis and Rodolfos of this world, I bought a ticket for the vertigo section. (As the editor bitingly answered a letter writer on a ticket issue yesterday, Inquirer editors--and writers, too--could afford to pay for bleacher tickets.)

I wish our struggling artists and patrons of the arts a great musical weekend. Hunger is not just for food for the body but also for food for the mind and spirit. A quote from The Bard as I remember from my college “Twelfth Night” days: “If music be the food of love, play on, give me excess of it…”