‘More compelling than elections’

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

EVEN WHILE MANY ELECTED GOVERNMENT officials and bureaucrats are preoccupied with the coming elections, there are agencies and local governments units (LGUs) that have been or are silently going through a process of transformation.

And their best efforts could mean a $500-million grant for anti-corruption reforms.

“This is a more compelling story than the elections,” said Dr. Jesus P. Estanislao, founding chair of the Institute for Solidarity in Asia and trusted finance secretary during the Aquino administration. “Here are government agencies backed by private sector partners saying that governance reforms cannot take a back seat even during an election season.”

The Department of Education, Department of Health, Department of Transportation and Communication, Department of Public Works and Highways and Bureau of Internal Revenue and Philippine National Police have made their performance commitments public at the Public Governance Forum (PGF) held for two days last week. These agencies are undertaking the continuing Performance Governance System (PGS), a local adaptation of the Balance Scorecard System (BSC) applied to the public sector in several countries to track their performance against a set of goals.

The forum was jointly convened by ISA, the National Competitive Council (NCC) and the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP). ISA is an independent, non-partisan, not-for-profit institution that seeks to improve public governance through citizen participation. It conducts the public governance forum twice a year.

The six government agencies will post on their websites, their governance scorecards and commit to make quarterly reports on the basis of the governance scorecards. We will be watching.

These will not be mere rhetoric, Estanislao stressed. “This is serious. They are making public their performance commitments for 2010 and telling everyone to judge their performance by these parameters.”

These agencies’ performance could seal the deal on a $500-million, five-year grant from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a US foreign aid agency created by Congress with strong bipartisan support to help in the fight against global poverty.

Estanislao disclosed that more agencies have pledged to undertake the PGS process before June 2010. These are the Department of Social Welfare and Development, Department of Budget and Management, Civil Service Commission and National Economic Development Authority. Senior career undersecretaries will lead the anti-corruption programs so that sustainability can be assured even with a change in leadership.

Three cities—Santa Fe, Talisay and Dipolog—made separate presentations before ISA fellows at the forum on their progress toward “initiated” status. The Philippine Navy and the Nursing Profession in the Philippines which have obtained “initiated” status did the same.

Estanislao said that ISA has worked with LGUs or 30 of the 127 cities of the Philippines. The city of Iloilo has been elevated to the Hall of Fame while the city of San Fernando is a candidate.

Present at the governance forum were representatives of South Korea’s customs and New Zealand’s defense force, both Hall of Famers, who described the process their agencies went through and how they emerged with flying colors.

On the occasion of its 10th year anniversary, ISA launched the book “Guideposts for Governance” by Estanislao. The book highlights the key governance values that ISA associates promote as they install a governance culture in their respective units or organizations. After I get my autographed copy I will share what it is about.

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I have just screeched to a halt in order to quietly observe Holy Week. Until a few days ago, I was busy finishing feature stories for this week and Easter. I hope you get to read them.

One is about Josefina “JD” Constantino, or Sr. Teresa of Jesus and Mary, a Carmelite nun who turned 90 last Palm Sunday. JD was a known writer and newspaper columnist, UP professor and civic-minded citizen before she joined the contemplative life at the age of 54 in 1974. In Carmel, she continued to write and produced a lot of written works, all fruits of her contemplation.

I was assigned to write about traditionalist Catholics and the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) who are popularizing the Tridentine Mass (think 16th-century Council of Trent) or the traditional Latin Mass which has the priest facing the altar, with his back to the people as in the days of yore. SSPX was founded by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre who defied Vatican II reforms and ordained bishops without papal approval. They were excommunicated but were recently reinstated. It’s nostalgia for the past, a noted theologian remarked.

Just as interesting is Tito Santos, artist and entrepreneur, who produces beautiful contemporary priestly vestments in his workshop in Bulacan. He employs about 80 workers. His vocation story will come out in the Easter issue of the Sunday Inquirer Magazine.

I was sent to Tanay, Rizal, recently and I can say that it’s still Calvary for the victims of “Ondoy.” Many still live in tents six months after the killer flood washed away their homes and sources of income—sewing machines, fishing boats, farms. “Ma’am,” they tearfully asked, “may pag-asa bang mailabas ito sa inyong diaryo?” (Ma’am, is there hope that this could come out in your newspaper?)

This Paschal season, may you be steeped in the wondrous mystery of our redemption.

Quo vadis? Try Latin Mass

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

MANILA, Philippines—Brush up on your Kyrie and Pater Noster. Ransack the old baul and bring out your lola’s lace veil and Roman Catholic Daily Missal in Latin. And don’t compare the lovely Gregorian hymns you heard the nuns chant long ago with what you’d be hearing.

Do you want to make a trip down church memory lane? If you want to immerse yourself in pre-Vatican II liturgical rituals and rubrics because you rue that the Roman Catholic Church is too involved in the modern world as, in fact, it should be as the church’s social encyclicals so urge, there is a place for you to go.

In other words, if you are a traditionalist and you want to find company...

Skirts, veils

Every day, for some years now, the Tridentine Rite of Mass, also known as the traditional Latin Mass, is being held at the Our Lady of Victories Catholic Church. (The word Tridentine is derived from the Roman Catholic Church’s 16th-century Council of Trent that preceded Vatican I and II.) Located in New Manila in Quezon City, the church is run by the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX). Fr. Adam Purdy is the prior of the church.

In this church, women wear veils as in pre-Vatican II days. Those who have none could borrow veils and even skirts right there. (A woman offered to lend this writer a skirt.)

Women are urged to not wear pants and instead wear skirts or dresses. Men are enjoined to wear decent attire. Men and women in shorts and those with bare backs and figure-hugging outfit are not seen here, unlike in mainstream churches where the dress code is sadly, generally ignored.

Last Palm Sunday’s Latin Mass (including the blessing of the palm fronds) at Our Lady of Victories Church was two-and-a-half-hours long. The Mass (readings, prayers) was entirely in Latin, and mostly chanted solo, except for the Credo and Pater Noster which the choir and the congregation sang.

The Palm Sunday gospel (the Passion of Jesus, which is among the longest in the entire year), which took some 30 minutes to chant, was delivered with the priest facing toward the side. Those with Latin missals could follow but the rest simply listened, sat, stood, knelt. There was no homily and little oral participation from the congregation.

Back turned to people

The priest, Albert Hela (we were told), wore the old version of the chasuble, and celebrated Mass facing the altar, with his back turned to the people. He faced the congregation only when he sang “Dominus vobiscum” and “Ite misa est.”

Communicants kneeled at the railings (no queuing) and received the Eucharist straight into their mouths from the priest and not from lay ministers.

And the music? This was not the Misa del Campesino of Latin America. And this was not the Benedictine Abbey of Our Lady of Montserrat or the chapel of St. Scholastica’s. If the music alone of the “momentous occasion” (as the invitation described it) were to be critiqued, there was much to be desired.

As one observer said, “St. Gregory the Great would agree that solemn need not be long, tedious and dry. The Last Supper, the institution of the Eucharist, was a super-charged, dramatic event. Jesus saw to that. I was looking forward to at least hearing a soaring Panis Angelicus.”

Excommunicated, reinstated

But there are Catholics who still want this kind of 16th-century liturgy. About 400 people—properly attired, many carrying Latin missals—were present at the Palm Sunday Latin Mass.

SSPX was founded by the controversial French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre who defied Vatican II reforms. He ordained four bishops without the permission of Pope John Paul II and was promptly excommunicated. The four bishops were reinstated into the Catholic Church only last year.

But according to background information from Purdy, the lifting of the excommunication does not mean that SSPX is now fully reconciled with the Church. For its part, SSPX had issued a statement, signed by one of its bishops, Bernard Fellay, expressing “filial gratitude to the Holy Father for this gesture” and looking forward to “talks which enable the Priestly Society of St. Pius X to explain the fundamental reasons which it believes to be at the origin of the present difficulties of the Church.”

Purdy (who was not present last Sunday) had invited media to the Palm Sunday Mass so that the traditional Latin mass would be popularized. He said: “The Holy Father Benedict has made known his intention for the return of this celebration of the Mass. His Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum of July 7, 2007 was world news. This document is the request of bishops and priests to restore/return to the Traditional Liturgy.”

Emy Ortiz, an advocate of the restoration and of the Tridentine Mass, said: “The Lord Our God is calling His people to go back to tradition. Modernism has [put] mankind in peril. Mankind is already going back to natural and traditional medicine. So, in religion, mankind is going back to tradition for it is the truth and was formed by Jesus Christ Himself and his apostles.”

Not everyone totally agrees.

Nostalgia

Theologian Percy Juan Bacani of the Missionary of Jesus, a much sought-after lecturer and preacher, said of the move to popularize and restore the traditional Latin Mass: “It’s totally out of context. God would like to talk to you in your own language, in a language you understand. How do you explain the divine in a mysterious language?”

Latin, the lingua franca of the Roman empire, is no longer spoken anywhere in the world but many words and phrases have survived and made it into the major languages of the world. Much like Sanskrit in the Hindu religion.

“It’s a nostalgia for the past,” Bacani said.

Traditionalists

Bishop Julio X. Labayen, known to be a progressive bishop and a Carmelite, told the Inquirer: “The Church also respects the traditionalists. If the Latin Masses would keep their faith tight, then let them be. The most important thing is faith in Christ Jesus.”

He added: “But after Vatican II, and with the liturgy that we have now, we can see that the Church has moved into the language of the people. It is in order to make God’s message meaningful to the masses.”

Earth Hour: Saturday, 8:30 p.m.

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

LET’S DO IT AGAIN!

Here’s the good news about us: Last year, the Philippines ranked first worldwide in terms of total number of cities and towns that participated in Earth Hour. This year, we can outdo ourselves by getting 15 million Filipinos in 1,000 cities and towns all over the country to participate in Earth Hour 2010.

Let’s switch off our lights at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 27, and convey the message that each of us can make a difference in reversing climate change. For one hour let us revel in the semi-darkness and bask in the sheen of the quarter moon. The Inquirer is part of this hour-of-darkness campaign.

You can win prizes by documenting your Earth Hour participation using your mobile phone or digital camera. Read the rules at http://www.wwf.org.ph/earthhour/.

Last Monday was World Water Day. It passed without much of a splash because of the election campaign frenzy. We thought more cool “watery” activities could have been held in towns and cities to find solutions and raise consciousness about the world’s dwindling safe water supply even in the face of killer floods and destructive rampaging waters from balding mountains.

But Greenpeace and EcoWaste Coalition did make a splash by releasing a partial result of the Green Electoral Initiative (GEI) survey on the presidential candidates’ positions on the environment. Overall results will be presented on Earth Day in April.

Environmentalist Nicanor Perlas got the “greenest” mark with 8.7 points, while independent candidate Sen. Jamby Madrigal landed second with 7.8 points, and Bagumbayan Sen. Richard Gordon took third place with 7.2 points. The trio were given the highest marks for their “clear, comprehensive and progressive positions and plans on protecting the country’s water resources.”

Bangon Pilipinas’ Eddie Villanueva scored 4.8 points, Liberal Party’s Sen. Benigno Aquino III and Nacionalista Party’s Sen. Manuel Villar both got 3.6 points, and Ang Kapatiran bet Councilor JC de los Reyes 2.7 points. Former President Joseph Estrada of Partido ng Masang Pilipino and former Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro of Lakas-Kampi-CMD got zero points for not responding to the survey.

On the issue of water, the candidates were asked two questions: (1) If elected president, what specific steps will you take to ensure the availability of clean water sources in the country? (2) Are you for or against amending the Clean Water Act to incorporate and institutionalize a framework of zero discharge of hazardous chemicals from factories and domestic sources?

The top three’s answers to question 1 were quoted in the Inquirer’s news report last Tuesday. For question 2, all six said they were for amending the Clean Water Act.

I thought Gordon’s answer to question 2 was the best: “I have always been an advocate of personal responsibility. If you make a mess, you clean it up. Don’t fix the blame, fix the problem. This personal view on life applies across the board, and in a very literal sense to the problem of pollution. Any producer of waste must be fully accountable and liable for it and its effects. I would allow different enterprises to find different ways of dealing with their waste—they can invest in treatment facilities individually or collectively, for instance—but the bottom line must be that every enterprise must clean up after itself.”

New York-based think tank Global Source, in their latest paper on the impact of El Niño in the Philippines, said that recent studies show that unless active steps are taken to protect and conserve the Philippines’ freshwater sources, the amount of freshwater available for each person by 2025 will decrease dramatically by 65 percent of the current per capita availability.

The international observance of World Water Day grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development Rio de Janeiro. Since 1993, a yearly theme was adopted. This year it is “Clean Water for a Healthy World.” The period from 2005 to 2015 has been designated “Water for Life Decade” and the campaign goes parallel with the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which has 2015 as the target date.

According to the World Health Organization, every year more than one billion human beings resort to using potentially harmful sources of water. This perpetuates a silent humanitarian crisis that kills some 3,900 children every day and thwarts progress towards achieving the MDGs.

WHO further reports that 4 of every 10 people in the world do not have access to even a simple pit latrine and nearly 2 in 10 have no source of safe drinking water. To help end this appalling state of affairs, the MDGs include a specific target (number 10) to cut in half, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. In addition, the UN Millennium Project Task Force on Water and Sanitation recently recognized that integrated development and management of water resources are crucial to the success or failure of all the MDGs, as water is central to the livelihood systems of the poor.

According to clean water advocates, 1,500 cubic kilometers of wastewater are produced globally. While this could be reused productively for energy and irrigation, in most cases it is not. In developing countries 80 percent of all waste is simply discharged untreated, because of lack of regulations and resources. In the meantime, population and industrial growth increase pollution and the demand for clean water. As a result, human and environmental health, drinking and agricultural water supplies for the present and future are compromised. A grim scenario indeed.

Perlas best bet to solve water woes, survey shows

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

MANILA, Philippines—The water problem must be addressed holistically, said one presidential candidate. Another said clean water was a human right. Watersheds must be safeguarded, stressed yet another. Invest in physical infrastructure, one answered.

These were some of the responses of seven presidential aspirants to questions posed by environmental groups in a “Green Electoral Initiative” (GEI) survey, particularly on the issue of water.

To mark World Water Day Monday, EcoWaste Coalition and Greenpeace announced their ranking of the presidential candidates’ platforms on clean water. They were graded from zero to 10, with 10 as the “greenest.”

To dramatize the survey results, activists carried nine empty pails of varying sizes representing the candidates’ scores. They queued “pila-balde” style as if at a water pump, at the activity held at Quezon City Hall.

The grading on the water issue was part of a bigger rating scheme for the candidates’ environmental platforms, the complete results of which will be released in April.

Environmentalist Nicky Perlas received the “greenest” mark with 8.7 points, while independent candidate Sen. Jamby Madrigal came in second with 7.8 points. Bagumbayan standard-bearer Sen. Richard Gordon was third with 7.2 points.

They were given the highest marks for their “clear, comprehensive and progressive positions and plans on protecting the country’s water resources.”

Bangon Pilipinas’ Bro. Eddie Villanueva scored 4.8 points; Liberal Party’s Sen. Benigno Aquino III and Nacionalista Party’s Sen. Manuel Villar each got 3.6 points, and Ang Kapatiran candidate JC de los Reyes got 2.7 points.

Former President Joseph Estrada of Puwersa ng Masang Pilipino and ex-Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro of Lakas-Kampi-CMD got zero for not responding to the survey.

Manny Calonzo of EcoWaste Coalition said the ranking on water was the first of a series of “green” rankings to be released.

“We want to inform the voters how those aspiring to lead our nation intend to tackle environmental woes such as the declining quality and quantity of our freshwater sources caused by continued generation and discharge of pollutants from household, agricultural and industrial sources,” he said.

Greenpeace and EcoWaste Coalition, a network of more than 20 environmental groups, stressed the need to put in place “a robust policy and program that aims at zero discharge to reduce pollution on the country’s freshwater and groundwater sources as well as to avert looming chemical threats to our remaining water supply.”

They also stressed the public’s “right to know” about pollution releases.

On the issue of water, the candidates were asked two questions: (1) If elected president, what specific steps will you take to ensure the availability of clean water sources in the country? and (2) Are you for or against amending the Clean Water Act to incorporate and institutionalize a framework of zero discharge of hazardous chemicals from factories and domestic sources?

For Perlas: “Water must be addressed holistically. We need to implement the framework of comprehensive watershed management. And this should be done within a comprehensive land use plan which delineates the watershed areas of the country once and for all.

Madrigal said: “Clean water is a human right. As president and concurrent secretary of the environment, I shall remedy the continuous decline in the quality of our clean water sources. I shall have the DENR issue a system that goes beyond standards and focuses on prevention.

Gordon replied: “First, safeguard our watersheds with reforestation programs that involve endemic species. Second, demand implementation by every local government of the rainwater collection law. Third, develop a system of small dams throughout the country. Fourth, develop a system of incentives for individuals to incorporate rainwater storage systems and filtration in their homes.”

Tears, laughter, mark necro service for 'angel of budget'

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

 MANILA, Philippines—Stories about Emilia Boncodin’s frugality drew much laughter.

Tears and laughter—but mostly laughter—marked the necrological rites for former Budget Secretary Boncodin held Thursday night by her friends and colleagues in government service.

On the fourth night of Boncodin’s wake, her colleagues at the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP) and the Career Executive Service Board (CESB) took turns to share stories and anecdotes about her and to praise her dedication and integrity as a public servant. Her mother Cristeta and only sister Adel were present.

Patricia Santo Tomas, Development Bank of the Philippines chair and former labor secretary, said Boncodin’s idea of a treat for her staff was ordering food to-go from Jollibee.

“She also liked going to Kamameshi and Serye at Quezon Memorial Circle. Saksakan ng tipid. (She was miserly).” Fine dining was not part of Boncodin’s lifestyle.

Boncodin died March 15 of kidney failure at the age of 55. On Friday, her remains were transferred from Santa Maria della Strada Church in Quezon City to the Department of Budget and Management office in Manila, prior to her burial at the Heritage Memorial Park in Taguig City on Sunday.

Boncodin also served as DAP chair from 2001 to 2005. She left government in 2005, along with other senior government officials collectively known as “the Hyatt 10,” after the “Hello, Garci” scandal broke out.

In their tributes, her colleagues in the DAP and CESB talked about her humanity and how she gave a face to the good side of government bureaucracy through her quiet dedication, honesty and hard work.

Exemplar of modesty

Calyzar S. Divinagracia, DAP board chair, described Boncodin as an “exemplar of modesty and frugality.”

DAP president Antonio D. Kalaw Jr. spoke about her “utmost diligence and simplicity.”

Rarely did Cabinet members, who served on the DAP board, attend meetings, he said. They usually sent representatives. But Boncodin was always present.

Boncodin, however, was perennially late, Kalaw said, a habit that was confirmed by other colleagues who spoke at the tribute.

The reason, they said, was she always gave time to people who consulted her and there was never enough time for each one. And so she would be late for the next appointment and the next.

Boncodin, Divinagracia said, worked to make the DAP financially viable without asking funds from government. She played a key role in its seven-year subsidy program. She also taught at the DAP and at the University of the Philippines (UP) National College of Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG).

“She did not want DAP to have an isang kahig, isang tuka (hand-to-mouth) existence.” But, he added, “She was very matipid (frugal). She even refused to give honoraria to the DAP board of trustees. ”

Elevator

Santo Tomas and Boncodin’s friendship began some 25 years ago in Boston where they were both scholars at the Kennedy Institute of Governance in Harvard.

“As labor secretary I had been asking her to help us replace our vintage 1935 elevator,” Santo Tomas recalled. “We had an embarrassing incident when a visiting dignitary got stuck in the elevator. I invited Emy to visit us and see for herself.”

On the day Boncodin was supposed to come, Santo Tomas and her staff waited for her arrival but she was delayed. When she finally arrived, it was to tell them that she herself got stuck in the building’s elevator.

The labor department got its wish a year later with an increase in its capital expenditure.

Great teacher

Former DAP president Dr. Eduardo Gonzales, now a professor at the UP Asian Center, recalled that when Boncodin resigned as budget secretary in 2005, there was a debate within the DAP on whether or not they should openly support Boncodin’s move.

“Emy advised us to just wait and see.” Her advice proved to be a wise and practical one, he added.

Boncodin was not given to anger but she had her moments. Once, she threatened to walk out when she thought their group decision as judges in an award would be influenced by an outside party.

Ma. Anthonette V. Allones, executive director of the CESB, said Boncodin “could say ‘no’ and people would not feel bad. She was a great teacher, she had a great understanding of the budget process and the public finance system.”

Angel of the budget

Even in cyberspace, tributes were passed on through e-mail.

Former health undersecretary Mario Taguiwalo wrote: “Emy served her country… in a special way, by mastering the many annual versions of the more than 1,000 pages of books called the General Appropriations Act also known as ‘The Budget,’ also pronounced as ‘bad yet.’

“During Emy’s long watch, she was able to make the imperfect rules governing its preparation, authorization and execution yield as much benefit that any political instrument can reasonably generate. Above anything else, she showed how faithful stewardship in public life is practiced,” Taguiwalo wrote.

He also called Boncodin “the angel of the budget.”

Always do right

Former Welfare Secretary Corazon Alma de Leon recalled: “Emy helped me get the needed budget when I was chair of the CESB. That is why they now have a building they call their own. She exercised the art of the possible but always with honesty, integrity and hard work. She lived the core values of ‘Gawin ang Tama (Do what is right).’ She didn’t have to die at 55. But I guess she was ready. None of us are.”

“Emy liked singing,” Santo Tomas said. “She was more than just a public servant. She was a happy person and a really good person. They say that if you are with good persons, you also become a good person.”

Fiery words and flashy pronouncements were not Boncodin’s style. She just walked her talk. It could be done, it could be lived—was the message of her life. She lived simply, she died simply.

“But now she has lipstick on, and even eye shadow,” Santo Tomas quipped, drawing laughter from the audience.

Balangiga in the cusp of change

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

IT WAS, first and foremost, a nostalgic reunion of several groups that have had personal and activist ties in years past with veteran community development worker Oscar “Oca” Francisco who became a party-list representative last year, representing the Alliance for Rural Concerns (ARC). But our weekend gathering in Tacloban City, Leyte and trip to Balangiga and Basey in Eastern Samar were also Congressman Oca’s way of introducing the groups to developments in that part of the country, particularly people’s participation in local governance and community development. 

Trust Oca to blend the “alumni” of the three groups—National Union of Students of the Philippines, Student Catholic Action and the church-based National Secretariat of Social Action (where Oca spent many years in justice, peace and development work and where I got to know him)—and bring them down to the grassroots to see for themselves what is happening in people’s lives.

There were more than 20 of us billeted at the quaint Hotel Alejandro that provided a historic backdrop through vintage World War II photos that tell the story of courage and the struggle for freedom. And trust Oca to blend exposure to poverty alleviation and people’s concerns with fun and freedom such as ballroom dancing, singing and sightseeing.

Before we all flew to Tacloban, Oca sent us background materials, among them, his serious discourse, “Reflections on Community Organizing and Ballroom Dancing” which is a very good read. Oca presents CO as an act of creation and celebration and smashes the totalitarian view that there is only one correct reading of the world and history. CO workers, Oca urges, must re-imagine the world. (I will post his opus in my blog.)

Oca’s name is synonymous with CO. And despite his twice-weekly dialysis, Oca remains active in the field, having co-founded the Institute for Democratic Participation in Governance (IDPG). Why, he even has a network called Dialogue (Dancing Instructors Action for Local Governance and Empowerment).

We visited Balangiga, the historic little down that fought to the death the colonizing Americans in Sept. 28, 1901. The event which happened during the waning years of the Philippine-American war is now known as the “Balangiga encounter”.

To resist domination, tribesmen of Balangiga attacked the elite Company C, 9th US Infantry Regiment, which had fought in China and served as honor guard during the inauguration of the American civil government in the Philippines and the installation of William Howard Taft as governor. It was a cinematic and suspenseful strategy that showed the Filipinos’ boldness and daring in the face of a superior force. Forty eight Americans perished and 28 native combatants died. (I remember watching the movie “Sunugin ang Samar” directed by Joey Gosiengfiao.)

In retaliation, the Americans waged a scorched-earth campaign and turned Samar into a “howling wilderness”, earning for Gen. Jake Smith, the sobriquet, Howling Jake. Hundreds of Filipinos were killed.

A life-like replica of the bloody event by National Artist Napoleon Abueva now stands in front of the Catholic church of St. Lawrence.

As most everyone knows, there is a campaign for the return of the three church bells of Balangiga that the Americans carted away more than 100 years ago. Two bells are in Wyoming, USA and one is in South Korea. When the bells are finally returned on Sept. 28 this year, as it is hoped, there will be a glorious celebration. Our group promised to be back for that and for more of Balangiga’s solosogue (blue marlin).

But Balangiga is not just about the bells. A poor municipality of Eastern Samar, Balangiga is struggling, and with some success, to get its share of the so-called development pie. Thanks to ARC and IDPG, and through the World Bank-assisted Kalahi-CIDDS (Kapit-bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services), a government poverty alleviation project, Balangiga is now in the cusp of development.

Theirs is not a government-dictated type of development. People’s participation is strong. According to Mayor Viscuso S. de Lira, Kalahi-CIDSS taught them about “participatory governance and how to listen to our people.” More than 200 persons, mostly women, volunteered for Kalahi-CIDSS. They trained to be agents of change and equipped themselves with knowledge on procurement, fund disbursement and inspecting projects and materials.

About 95 percent of the projects were implemented by volunteers. These were projects that the people themselves wanted. During the three cycles of KALAHI-CIDSS, Balangiga had 26 subprojects, many of which were drainage systems, roads, daycare centers, schools and water and sanitation facilities. Thirteen other subprojects were granted for the Makamasang Tugon implementation. These are Balangiga’s “new bells”.

We visited a road-opening project and a day-care center that was near completion. The projects, the people told us, were being monitored through the community-based monitoring system (CBMS) adopted by the local government units (LGU). They described to us how the work was done and monitored by volunteers who felt pride in becoming part “owners” of what they have built.

Don’t count on the national. The hope is in LGUs and in the ordinary folk who participate in governance and chart their own development as a community so that extreme poverty may be a thing of the past. In fact, the people of Balangiga are now ringing their “new bells”, even as they await the return of the old bells that signified their defiance against domination and their love of freedom.

Hildegarde and the 'Goddess at Sunrise'

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

UNTYPICAL and myth-shattering but beautiful is the trophy that noted sculptor Agnes Arellano created for the Hildegarde Award for Women in Media and Communication. This award is conferred yearly during Women’s Month by the Mass Communication Department of St. Scholastica’s College to honor and recognize the outstanding contributions of women in shaping the Philippine media.

Arellano’s “Goddess at Sunrise”, done in synthetic onyx, is a figure of a naked woman with arms raised and the palm of her hands facing upward. She is carrying half of the sky.

Well endowed on the hips, thighs and bosom, “Goddess” is a picture of fecundity, the antithesis of the stereotypical slim, lithe Barbie types perched on glass shelves. But while she is sumptuous and soft in front, her back tells another story.

She has a protruding spinal column of nine nodules that go up to the back of her slightly upturned head. She has a third eye on her forehead and a serpent is crawling around her feet. On the trophy’s base are signs and symbols related to Hildegarde.

“She is my ode to Hildegarde,” says Arellano who is in constant search of the sacred feminine. “Goddess” is a representation of the shadow of a woman that Arellano had seen on a hilltop at sunrise and which gave her an “aha” moment. (You can see it in my blog, www.ceresdoyo.com.)

The Hildegarde Award is now on its fourth year. This year being the 25th anniversary of St. Scho’s masscom department, the students and faculty decided that the honorees should all be Scholasticans in media—broadcaster Tina Monzon Palma of ABS-CBN and Bantay Bata, teacher, singer, composer Susan Fernandez (posthumous) and moi of the Inquirer.

Much of what I said to those at the rites I drew from the Hildegarde piece I wrote in this space some years ago.

Again, I say, it behooves us to learn from great women who lived many centuries removed from our time, women who made a dent in their milieu through their daring and groundbreaking work. Voices crying in the wilderness, prophets in their time, women of uncommon courage and wisdom.

Hildegard of Bingen was one such woman.

Hildegard, a saint of the Catholic Church, was an extraordinary woman who lived in the Rhineland valley in the 12th century. She was the abbess of a large and prosperous Benedictine abbey. She was a prominent preacher, doctor, scientist, artist, mystic, healer, poet, musician and composer. She had written nine books on theology, medicine, science and physiology. She was a communicator of wisdom and knowledge. Today she would be considered an eco-feminist.

Those of us who were educated at St. Scho knew her only as one of the great Benedictine saints but we didn’t know much about her life and work. Now we do and we hail her.

We knew St. Hildegard then as the building up front, the most imposing structure in the campus, done in Beaux Art and Romanesque style, with intricate arches, huge columns and a grand social hall. On the front wall of the building are Saints Hildegard and Scholastica’s images in bas-relief.

With the rise of the women’s movement, Hildegarde is back to her future, so to speak. Her life is being celebrated. Her written works and music are being studied.

Hildegarde was 42 when she began to have visions that she recorded as “illuminations”. I have the book “Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen” with commentary by Matthew Fox who said of her: “If Hildegard had been a man, she would be well known as one of the greatest artists and intellectuals the world has ever seen.”

Fox dedicates the book “to my sister Hildegard, and all her sisters, past, present and to come, in a hope that their wisdom will cease to be repressed, ridiculed, forgotten and otherwise excluded from church, society and culture, so that the earth might be blessed and mutuality might be the law of the land.”

Wrote Bernard W. Scholz in “The American Benedictine Review”: “(Hildegarde) castigated a pope for his timidity and an emperor for moral blindness. She taught scholars and preached to clergy and laity as no woman before her had ever done…”

For almost 800 years Hildegarde was virtually unknown but in the 1980s she began to emerge and awareness of her significance began to grow. Her music is now being played.

Of her own music, Hildegarde said: “These watery varieties of sounds and silences, terrifying, mysterious, whirling and sometimes gestating and gentle must somehow be felt in the pulse, ebb and flow of the music that sings in me. My new song must float like a feather on the breath of God.”

But it is in “Illuminations” that one gets a glimpse of Hildegarde’s “greening power”. (She coined the word viriditas.) She was first to view the universe as a cosmic egg. She offered a scintillating insight into the cosmos and its symphonic beauty. I couldn’t help thinking, Hildegard was eight centuries ahead of Teilhard de Chardin.

Hildegarde sings to us even today, and these lines from her could very well be for us, her 21st-century sisters.

“Hail, O greenest branch…(O viridissima virga…)/ When the time came/ that you blossomed in your branches/ hail, hail was (the word) to you! For the warmth of the sun distilled in you/ a fragrance like balsam./ For in you blossomed the beautiful/ flower that gave fragrance/ to all the spices/ which had been dry/ And they all appeared in all verdure…

“O life-giving greenness of God’s hand,/ with which he has planted an orchard,/ You rise resplendent into the highest heavens,/ like a towering pillar./ You are glorious in God’s work…

Celebrate Women’s Month, celebrate woman power!

Confession of a highwayman

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

THE MURDER A FEW DAYS AGO OF HIGHWAYS contractor Wilfredo “Boy” Mayor (2005 jueteng whistleblower) by what appeared to be hired hit men gave rise to speculations about what he might have known about shady deals in the domain of public works. The assassins pumped 22 bullets into Mayor’s Volvo 850. He had just come from the casino.

Those who know Mayor say the murder may not be connected with his jueteng past but with his foray into contracting and getting in the way of those who coveted juicy projects.

I don’t know Mayor from Adam. I have no idea who did him in. What I know is that public works is a messy, shady field which the weak of stomach would fear to tread.

Years ago, I sat down with a highway engineer whose construction firm was among those that regularly bid for huge government projects. He agreed to be interviewed for our Sunday magazine issue on corruption.

Caught in the web of corruption that plagued government infrastructure projects, the engineer admitted to brazen participation in the evil system but wished he didn’t and had a choice.

[highwayman n: a person who robs travelers on a road]

The engineer didn’t rob but he was a member of the cast of characters in the highway robbery that went on in the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). I don’t remember his face, his name. And if he’s reading this, I hope he could tell us how things have changed. His confession might be dated but this is what he said at that time:

The DPWH is a perfectly departmentalized system of corruption. Every office or department where your paper passes is well set up to milk you. There are two types of milkmen in the department: the garapal (crude) and the Mr. Clean types. The garapals make a killing by dealing with contractors directly. The Mr. Clean types are SOBs who use their subordinates for the dirty job.

In the prequalification stage before the bidding, people in the department will find ways to disqualify you. These are among the most corrupt. They check on your financial state, equipment capability, engineering capacity and experience. Then they try to find fault, waiting for you to pay your way through them. These people are underpaid.

There are rigged bids. People in the department sell estimates to bidders. There is no way for me but to participate in the scheme. If there are five of us bidding, I talk to the other four to sell their bids to me. Then I call for the estimator to give me an estimate. I jack up my bid by five percent, but my bid would still be the lowest because I have already bought the other four bidders.

That five percent jack-up is the milk that will be divided into five and distributed among the four “losing” bidders and the estimator. See, the five of them earned money without having to do actual construction work. I am the one who will do the actual work.

I want to play Mr. Clean but how can I? They’ll steal some of your papers and give you a rough time to slow you down.

There is also what you call a “price escalation committee.”

It takes time for us to collect. Our receivables are sitting on the desks. A lot of our money goes out, just so we can collect. I still have collectibles and they’re being withheld. They think they’re hurting me. They’re hurting the small people.

How do we start to clean up the system? If I were the one to do it I would get people inside who are also SOBs but who would put in a good performance. No use putting a good guy who is bookish and is just trying to learn the system. The department has to be professionalized, employees have to be given good salaries. That means spending more, but in the end government will profit from it, as there will be less stealing of money that is supposed to go to the government. I really wish contractors would get contracts at the right price. No rigging.

As it is, indirectly, the government is losing from all these shady deals. Money goes to the people who get it in the form of kickbacks. The government loses, we, the contractors also lose.

Oh yes, I’ve personally delivered as much as P5 million—cold cash—in one blow. You don’t fool around exposing anyone here, no marked bills. There’s some kind of code of honor here. You break that and you’re finished. Maraming onsehan, marami ring nababaril.

How do all these come out in my books? Ah, I will not tell you. In this business there are three types: the rich, the stupid and those who refuse to make money

.

I’ve done a lot of big projects for the government: roads, bridges, dams. I can tell you that I delivered well. There are those who will not worry tomorrow about the inferior roads they built. I think those crooks should be killed.

Preparing for a project entails a lot of work. You have to check the project requirements, determine the area of work, do the design, check the budget. You also have to make surveys of your own to find out where projects will be put up. I also had to pay my way through in my rural projects. I had to give to the New People’s Army. By the time I am awarded the project, I have already spent a million. The trick here is to disqualify other bidding contractors. I know how to do that.

I have shared a project with a close relative of Imelda Marcos. They would always watch me. I’m tuso (clever), they said. That guy told me, hati tayo o ibubulgar ko (let’s half or I’ll expose you). I subcontracted for him.

You cannot eliminate all these practices if people are not paid properly. They get themselves paid some other way. Makikita mo naman kung sino ang magnanakaw, you’ll know who are the cheaters. Yung ibang empleyado diyan, pasigasigarilyo na lang, Salem pa. (Some of them just smoke, and Salem, mind you.)