by Charina Sanz Zarate / Mindanews
DAVAO CITY -- “The art of storytelling lies within the storyteller, “ Ruth Sawyer writes, “to be searched for, drawn out, made to grow.” The secret of this gift, she says in her book “The Way of the Storyteller”, really lies in the storyteller’s creative imagination; her power to evoke emotion; and her sense of conviction.
It is in this narrative spirit and tradition that we celebrate the work of another gifted storyteller, Dr. Macario D. Tiu, whose prose and imagination and whose diverse writings – from literature to history – never fail to enthrall, captivate, even titillate, a generation of Mindanao readers.
Once again, with his latest work entitled “Davao: Reconstructing History from Text and Memory”, Tiu presents us another historical narrative of Davao which is so far the most comprehensive and scholarly work on Davao. Written in fluid language and adhering to rigorous scholarship, Davao history is pushed back further than 1848 when it was conquered by the Basque adventurer Jose Oyanguren.
The book also features many new information: the most substantive discussion of each Davao tribe in any single volume, including a theory of their migration; the most in-depth discussion of Datu Bago as well as other Davao heroes; sample studies of the different settlers at different period of Davao history; and the widest collection of myths and legends representing almost all the tribes of Davao. The book is published by the Ateneo de Davao University Research and Publication Office for the Mindanao Coalition of Development NGOs.
Perhaps the reason why Tiu’s narratives resonate with us deeply is because he tells it in ways that we easily feel and understand. “Qualify, simplify,” he told a young scholar recently, who seemed lost in the maze of theoretical paradigms that complicate in what would have been otherwise clear and simple realities.
“The community poet”, he writes, “clarifies, simplifies, and makes things understood.” He likens the poet’s origins to a baylan. “The baylan is the bridge between humans and the spirit world. She interprets what the deities say. She clarifies what is strange or mysterious. She is the simplifier. She is the clarifier. She familiarizes,[xvii] and communitizes things. That is the role of the poet.”
Seeing the kinship between a poet and a balyan is very much like Tiu - - the home-grown Mindanawon scholar who asserts to make the strange familiar by “indigenizing and vernacularizing the foreign” as he puts it. One is therefore tempted to think that the “balyan” in his short story of the same title which won first prize in the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial awards this year (Cebuano) can perhaps be a “self-representation” of sorts.
Last year, Dr. Tiu, a Palanca awardee in 2001 for short story in Cebuano and Philippine Graphic Fiction awardee in 2000, was also chosen one of four finalists for the history category of the National Book Award 2003 for "Davao 1890-1910: Conquest and Resistance in the Garden of the Gods."
Dr. Tiu is currently the editor of Tambara, the official journal of the Ateneo de Davao University and writes a column for Mindanews entitled “Bisag Unsa”.
In the book’s foreword, Patricio N. Abinales, author of “Making Mindanao”, has this succinct tribute to Tiu: “Mindanawons have something to be proud of in this work by Davao ‘s leading scholar and multi- awarded poet and short-story writer. For it is a major contribution to a Mindanao-wide effort of recovering our story as a people of an island that has, since its incorporation to the Philippine body politic, consistently shaped the directions and shifts of its national narrative.”
Macario D. Tiu is indeed an inspiration to a generation of Mindanao scholars and shows the way to an engaged scholarship, one that is imbued with a sense of purpose and conviction, pursued not for its own sake but to reshape realities and to advocate for changes, and to rewrite a marginal past from the vantage point of the silenced and the inarticulate.
(The book had its "soft launching" on December 15. It will be formally launched on January 14, during the inauguration of the new Davao Museum. Copies of the book are available at the AdDU Bookstore, AdDU Research and Publication Office, Mindanawon, Mindanews, and other outlets. For details, call 221-2411 local 8213 and look for Ryan Digan.)
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Turkish Schools Offer Pakistan a Gentler Vision of Islam
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
The New York Times, May 4, 2008
KARACHI, Pakistan — Praying in Pakistan has not been easy for Mesut Kacmaz, a Muslim teacher from Turkey.
He tried the mosque near his house, but it had Israeli and Danish flags painted on the floor for people to step on. The mosque near where he works warned him never to return wearing a tie. Pakistanis everywhere assume he is not Muslim because he has no beard.
“Kill, fight, shoot,” Mr. Kacmaz said. “This is a misinterpretation of Islam.”
But that view is common in Pakistan, a frontier land for the future of Islam, where schools, nourished by Saudi and American money dating back to the 1980s, have spread Islamic radicalism through the poorest parts of society. With a literacy rate of just 50 percent and a public school system near collapse, the country is particularly vulnerable.
Mr. Kacmaz (pronounced KATCH-maz) is part of a group of Turkish educators who have come to this battleground with an entirely different vision of Islam. Theirs is moderate and flexible, comfortably coexisting with the West while remaining distinct from it. Like Muslim Peace Corps volunteers, they promote this approach in schools, which are now established in more than 80 countries, Muslim and Christian.
Their efforts are important in Pakistan, a nuclear power whose stability and whose vulnerability to fundamentalism have become main preoccupations of American foreign policy. Its tribal areas have become a refuge to the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and the battle against fundamentalism rests squarely on young people and the education they get.
At present, that education is extremely weak. The poorest Pakistanis cannot afford to send their children to public schools, which are free but require fees for books and uniforms. Some choose to send their children to madrasas, or religious schools, which, like aid organizations, offer free food and clothing. Many simply teach, but some have radical agendas. At the same time, a growing middle class is rejecting public schools, which are chaotic and poorly financed, and choosing from a new array of private schools.
The Turkish schools, which have expanded to seven cities in Pakistan since the first one opened a decade ago, cannot transform the country on their own. But they offer an alternative approach that could help reduce the influence of Islamic extremists.
They prescribe a strong Western curriculum, with courses, taught in English, from math and science to English literature and Shakespeare. They do not teach religion beyond the one class in Islamic studies that is required by the state. Unlike British-style private schools, however, they encourage Islam in their dormitories, where teachers set examples in lifestyle and prayer.
“Whatever the West has of science, let our kids have it,” said Erkam Aytav, a Turk who works in the new schools. “But let our kids have their religion as well.”
That approach appeals to parents in Pakistan, who want their children to be capable of competing with the West without losing their identities to it. Allahdad Niazi, a retired Urdu professor in Quetta, a frontier town near the Afghan border, took his son out of an elite military school, because it was too authoritarian and did not sufficiently encourage Islam, and put him in the Turkish school, called PakTurk.
“Private schools can’t make our sons good Muslims,” Mr. Niazi said, sitting on the floor in a Quetta house. “Religious schools can’t give them modern education. PakTurk does both.”
The model is the brainchild of a Turkish Islamic scholar, Fethullah Gulen. A preacher with millions of followers in Turkey, Mr. Gulen, 69, comes from a tradition of Sufism, an introspective, mystical strain of Islam. He has lived in exile in the United States since 2000, after getting in trouble with secular Turkish officials.
Mr. Gulen’s idea, Mr. Aytav said, is that “without science, religion turns to radicalism, and without religion, science is blind and brings the world to danger.”
The schools are putting into practice a Turkish Sufi philosophy that took its most modern form during the last century, after Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey’s founder, crushed the Islamic caliphate in the 1920s. Islamic thinkers responded by trying to bring Western science into the faith they were trying to defend. In the 1950s, while Arab Islamic intellectuals like Sayyid Qutub were firmly rejecting the West, Turkish ones like Said Nursi were seeking ways to coexist with it.
In Karachi, a sprawling city that has had its own struggles with radicalism — the American reporter Daniel Pearl was killed here, and the famed Binori madrasa here is said to have sheltered Osama bin Laden — the two approaches compete daily.
The Turkish school is in a poor neighborhood in the south of the city where residents are mostly Pashtun, a strongly tribal ethnic group whose poorer fringes have been among the most susceptible to radicalism. Mr. Kacmaz, who became principal 10 months ago, ran into trouble almost as soon as he began. The locals were suspicious of the Turks, who, with their ties and clean-shaven faces, looked like math teachers from Middle America.
“They asked me several times, ‘Are they Muslim? Do they pray? Are they drinking at night?’ ” said Ali Showkat, a vice principal of the school, who is Pakistani.
Goats nap by piles of rubbish near the school’s entrance, and Mr. Kacmaz asked a local religious leader to help get people to stop throwing their trash near the school, to no avail. Exasperated, he hung an Islamic saying on the outer wall of the school: “Cleanliness is half of faith.” When he prayed at a mosque, two young men followed him out and told him not to return wearing a tie because it was un-Islamic.
“I said, ‘Show me a verse in the Koran where it was forbidden,’ ” Mr. Kacmaz said, steering his car through tangled rush-hour traffic. The two men were wearing glasses, and he told them that scripturally, there was no difference between a tie and glasses.
“Behind their words there was no Hadith,” he said, referring to a set of Islamic texts, “only misunderstanding.”
That misunderstanding, along with the radicalism that follows, stalks the poorest parts of Quetta. Abdul Bari, a 31-year-old teacher of Islam from a religious family, lives in a neighborhood without electricity or running water. Two brothers from his tribe were killed on a suicide mission, leaving their mother a beggar and angering Mr. Bari, who says a Muslim’s first duty is to his mother and his family.
“Our nation has no patience,” said Mr. Bari, who raised his seven younger siblings, after his father died suddenly a dozen years ago. He decided that one of his brothers should be educated, and enrolled him in the Turkish school.
The Turks put the focus on academics, which pleased Mr. Bari, who said his dream was for Saadudeen, his brother, to lift the family out of poverty and expand its horizons beyond religion. Mr. Bari’s title, hafiz, means he has memorized the entire Koran, though he has no formal education. Two other brothers have earned the same distinction. Their father was an imam.
His is a lonely mission in a neighborhood where nearly all the residents are illiterate and most disapprove of his choices, Mr. Bari said. He is constantly on guard against extremism. He once punished Saadudeen for flying kites with the wrong kind of boys. At the Turkish school, the teenager is supervised around the clock in a dormitory.
“They are totally against extremism,” Mr. Bari said of the Turks. “They are true Muslims. They will make my brother into a true Muslim. He’ll deal with people with justice and wisdom. Not with impatience.”
Illiteracy is one of the roots of problems dogging the Muslim world, said Matiullah Aail, a religious scholar in Quetta who graduated from Medina University in Saudi Arabia.
In Baluchistan, Quetta’s sparsely populated province, the literacy rate is less than 10 percent, said Tariq Baluch, a government official in the Pasheen district. He estimated that about half of the district’s children attended madrasas.
Mr. Aail said: “Doctors and lawyers have to show their degrees. But when it comes to mullahs, no one asks them for their qualifications. They don’t have knowledge, but they are influential.”
That leads to a skewed interpretation of Islam, even by those schooled in it, according to Mr. Gulen and his followers.
“They’ve memorized the entire holy book, but they don’t understand its meaning,” said Kamil Ture, a Turkish administrator.
Mr. Kacmaz chimed in: “How we interpret the Koran is totally dependent on our education.”
In an interview in 2004, published in a book of his writings, Mr. Gulen put it like this: “In the countries where Muslims live, some religious leaders and immature Muslims have no other weapon in hand than their fundamental interpretation of Islam. They use this to engage people in struggles that serve their own purposes.”
Moderate as that sounds, some Turks say Mr. Gulen uses the schools to advance his own political agenda. Murat Belge, a prominent Turkish intellectual who has experience with the movement, said that Mr. Gulen “sincerely believes that he has been chosen by God,” and described Mr. Gulen’s followers as “Muslim Jesuits” who are preparing elites to run the country.
Hakan Yavuz, a Turkish professor at the University of Utah who has had extensive experience with the Gulen movement, offered a darker assessment.
“The purpose here is very much power,” Mr. Yavuz said. “The model of power is the Ottoman Empire and the idea that Turks should shape the Muslim world.”
But while radical Islamists seek to re-establish a seventh-century Islamic caliphate, without nations or borders, and more moderate Islamists, like Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, use secular democracy to achieve the goal of an Islamic state, Mr. Gulen is a nationalist who says he wants no more than a secular democracy where citizens are free to worship, a claim secular Turks find highly suspect.
Still, his schools are richly supported by Turkish businessmen. M. Ihsan Kalkavan, a shipping magnate who has built hotels in Nigeria, helped finance Gulen schools there, which he said had attracted the children of the Nigerian elite.
“When we take our education experiment to other countries, we introduce ourselves. We say, ‘See, we’re not terrorists.’ When people get to know us, things change,” Mr. Kalkavan said in his office in Istanbul.
He estimated the number of Mr. Gulen’s followers in Turkey at three million to five million. The network itself does not provide estimates, and Mr. Gulen declined to be interviewed.
The schools, which also operate in Christian countries like Russia, are not for Muslims alone, and one of their stated aims is to promote interfaith understanding. Mr. Gulen met the previous pope, as well as Jewish and Orthodox Christian leaders, and teachers in the schools say they stress multiculturalism and universal values.
“We are all humans,” said Mr. Kacmaz, the principal. “In Islam, every human being is very important.”
Pakistani society is changing fast, and more Pakistanis are realizing the importance of education, in part because they have more to lose, parents said. Abrar Awan, whose son is attending the Turkish school in Quetta, said he had grown tired of the attitude of the Islamic political parties he belonged to as a student. Now a government employee with a steady job, he sees real life as more complicated than black-and-white ideology.
“America or the West was always behind every fault, every problem,” he said, at a gathering of fathers in April. “Now, in my practical life, I know the faults are within us.”
Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting from Karachi and Quetta in Pakistan and from Istanbul.
The New York Times, May 4, 2008
KARACHI, Pakistan — Praying in Pakistan has not been easy for Mesut Kacmaz, a Muslim teacher from Turkey.
He tried the mosque near his house, but it had Israeli and Danish flags painted on the floor for people to step on. The mosque near where he works warned him never to return wearing a tie. Pakistanis everywhere assume he is not Muslim because he has no beard.
“Kill, fight, shoot,” Mr. Kacmaz said. “This is a misinterpretation of Islam.”
But that view is common in Pakistan, a frontier land for the future of Islam, where schools, nourished by Saudi and American money dating back to the 1980s, have spread Islamic radicalism through the poorest parts of society. With a literacy rate of just 50 percent and a public school system near collapse, the country is particularly vulnerable.
Mr. Kacmaz (pronounced KATCH-maz) is part of a group of Turkish educators who have come to this battleground with an entirely different vision of Islam. Theirs is moderate and flexible, comfortably coexisting with the West while remaining distinct from it. Like Muslim Peace Corps volunteers, they promote this approach in schools, which are now established in more than 80 countries, Muslim and Christian.
Their efforts are important in Pakistan, a nuclear power whose stability and whose vulnerability to fundamentalism have become main preoccupations of American foreign policy. Its tribal areas have become a refuge to the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and the battle against fundamentalism rests squarely on young people and the education they get.
At present, that education is extremely weak. The poorest Pakistanis cannot afford to send their children to public schools, which are free but require fees for books and uniforms. Some choose to send their children to madrasas, or religious schools, which, like aid organizations, offer free food and clothing. Many simply teach, but some have radical agendas. At the same time, a growing middle class is rejecting public schools, which are chaotic and poorly financed, and choosing from a new array of private schools.
The Turkish schools, which have expanded to seven cities in Pakistan since the first one opened a decade ago, cannot transform the country on their own. But they offer an alternative approach that could help reduce the influence of Islamic extremists.
They prescribe a strong Western curriculum, with courses, taught in English, from math and science to English literature and Shakespeare. They do not teach religion beyond the one class in Islamic studies that is required by the state. Unlike British-style private schools, however, they encourage Islam in their dormitories, where teachers set examples in lifestyle and prayer.
“Whatever the West has of science, let our kids have it,” said Erkam Aytav, a Turk who works in the new schools. “But let our kids have their religion as well.”
That approach appeals to parents in Pakistan, who want their children to be capable of competing with the West without losing their identities to it. Allahdad Niazi, a retired Urdu professor in Quetta, a frontier town near the Afghan border, took his son out of an elite military school, because it was too authoritarian and did not sufficiently encourage Islam, and put him in the Turkish school, called PakTurk.
“Private schools can’t make our sons good Muslims,” Mr. Niazi said, sitting on the floor in a Quetta house. “Religious schools can’t give them modern education. PakTurk does both.”
The model is the brainchild of a Turkish Islamic scholar, Fethullah Gulen. A preacher with millions of followers in Turkey, Mr. Gulen, 69, comes from a tradition of Sufism, an introspective, mystical strain of Islam. He has lived in exile in the United States since 2000, after getting in trouble with secular Turkish officials.
Mr. Gulen’s idea, Mr. Aytav said, is that “without science, religion turns to radicalism, and without religion, science is blind and brings the world to danger.”
The schools are putting into practice a Turkish Sufi philosophy that took its most modern form during the last century, after Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey’s founder, crushed the Islamic caliphate in the 1920s. Islamic thinkers responded by trying to bring Western science into the faith they were trying to defend. In the 1950s, while Arab Islamic intellectuals like Sayyid Qutub were firmly rejecting the West, Turkish ones like Said Nursi were seeking ways to coexist with it.
In Karachi, a sprawling city that has had its own struggles with radicalism — the American reporter Daniel Pearl was killed here, and the famed Binori madrasa here is said to have sheltered Osama bin Laden — the two approaches compete daily.
The Turkish school is in a poor neighborhood in the south of the city where residents are mostly Pashtun, a strongly tribal ethnic group whose poorer fringes have been among the most susceptible to radicalism. Mr. Kacmaz, who became principal 10 months ago, ran into trouble almost as soon as he began. The locals were suspicious of the Turks, who, with their ties and clean-shaven faces, looked like math teachers from Middle America.
“They asked me several times, ‘Are they Muslim? Do they pray? Are they drinking at night?’ ” said Ali Showkat, a vice principal of the school, who is Pakistani.
Goats nap by piles of rubbish near the school’s entrance, and Mr. Kacmaz asked a local religious leader to help get people to stop throwing their trash near the school, to no avail. Exasperated, he hung an Islamic saying on the outer wall of the school: “Cleanliness is half of faith.” When he prayed at a mosque, two young men followed him out and told him not to return wearing a tie because it was un-Islamic.
“I said, ‘Show me a verse in the Koran where it was forbidden,’ ” Mr. Kacmaz said, steering his car through tangled rush-hour traffic. The two men were wearing glasses, and he told them that scripturally, there was no difference between a tie and glasses.
“Behind their words there was no Hadith,” he said, referring to a set of Islamic texts, “only misunderstanding.”
That misunderstanding, along with the radicalism that follows, stalks the poorest parts of Quetta. Abdul Bari, a 31-year-old teacher of Islam from a religious family, lives in a neighborhood without electricity or running water. Two brothers from his tribe were killed on a suicide mission, leaving their mother a beggar and angering Mr. Bari, who says a Muslim’s first duty is to his mother and his family.
“Our nation has no patience,” said Mr. Bari, who raised his seven younger siblings, after his father died suddenly a dozen years ago. He decided that one of his brothers should be educated, and enrolled him in the Turkish school.
The Turks put the focus on academics, which pleased Mr. Bari, who said his dream was for Saadudeen, his brother, to lift the family out of poverty and expand its horizons beyond religion. Mr. Bari’s title, hafiz, means he has memorized the entire Koran, though he has no formal education. Two other brothers have earned the same distinction. Their father was an imam.
His is a lonely mission in a neighborhood where nearly all the residents are illiterate and most disapprove of his choices, Mr. Bari said. He is constantly on guard against extremism. He once punished Saadudeen for flying kites with the wrong kind of boys. At the Turkish school, the teenager is supervised around the clock in a dormitory.
“They are totally against extremism,” Mr. Bari said of the Turks. “They are true Muslims. They will make my brother into a true Muslim. He’ll deal with people with justice and wisdom. Not with impatience.”
Illiteracy is one of the roots of problems dogging the Muslim world, said Matiullah Aail, a religious scholar in Quetta who graduated from Medina University in Saudi Arabia.
In Baluchistan, Quetta’s sparsely populated province, the literacy rate is less than 10 percent, said Tariq Baluch, a government official in the Pasheen district. He estimated that about half of the district’s children attended madrasas.
Mr. Aail said: “Doctors and lawyers have to show their degrees. But when it comes to mullahs, no one asks them for their qualifications. They don’t have knowledge, but they are influential.”
That leads to a skewed interpretation of Islam, even by those schooled in it, according to Mr. Gulen and his followers.
“They’ve memorized the entire holy book, but they don’t understand its meaning,” said Kamil Ture, a Turkish administrator.
Mr. Kacmaz chimed in: “How we interpret the Koran is totally dependent on our education.”
In an interview in 2004, published in a book of his writings, Mr. Gulen put it like this: “In the countries where Muslims live, some religious leaders and immature Muslims have no other weapon in hand than their fundamental interpretation of Islam. They use this to engage people in struggles that serve their own purposes.”
Moderate as that sounds, some Turks say Mr. Gulen uses the schools to advance his own political agenda. Murat Belge, a prominent Turkish intellectual who has experience with the movement, said that Mr. Gulen “sincerely believes that he has been chosen by God,” and described Mr. Gulen’s followers as “Muslim Jesuits” who are preparing elites to run the country.
Hakan Yavuz, a Turkish professor at the University of Utah who has had extensive experience with the Gulen movement, offered a darker assessment.
“The purpose here is very much power,” Mr. Yavuz said. “The model of power is the Ottoman Empire and the idea that Turks should shape the Muslim world.”
But while radical Islamists seek to re-establish a seventh-century Islamic caliphate, without nations or borders, and more moderate Islamists, like Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, use secular democracy to achieve the goal of an Islamic state, Mr. Gulen is a nationalist who says he wants no more than a secular democracy where citizens are free to worship, a claim secular Turks find highly suspect.
Still, his schools are richly supported by Turkish businessmen. M. Ihsan Kalkavan, a shipping magnate who has built hotels in Nigeria, helped finance Gulen schools there, which he said had attracted the children of the Nigerian elite.
“When we take our education experiment to other countries, we introduce ourselves. We say, ‘See, we’re not terrorists.’ When people get to know us, things change,” Mr. Kalkavan said in his office in Istanbul.
He estimated the number of Mr. Gulen’s followers in Turkey at three million to five million. The network itself does not provide estimates, and Mr. Gulen declined to be interviewed.
The schools, which also operate in Christian countries like Russia, are not for Muslims alone, and one of their stated aims is to promote interfaith understanding. Mr. Gulen met the previous pope, as well as Jewish and Orthodox Christian leaders, and teachers in the schools say they stress multiculturalism and universal values.
“We are all humans,” said Mr. Kacmaz, the principal. “In Islam, every human being is very important.”
Pakistani society is changing fast, and more Pakistanis are realizing the importance of education, in part because they have more to lose, parents said. Abrar Awan, whose son is attending the Turkish school in Quetta, said he had grown tired of the attitude of the Islamic political parties he belonged to as a student. Now a government employee with a steady job, he sees real life as more complicated than black-and-white ideology.
“America or the West was always behind every fault, every problem,” he said, at a gathering of fathers in April. “Now, in my practical life, I know the faults are within us.”
Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting from Karachi and Quetta in Pakistan and from Istanbul.
Turkish honour killings: A dishonourable practice
Apr 12th 2007 | DIYARBAKIR AND VAN
The Economist print edition
Despite a government crackdown, honour killings persist in Turkey
WITH his soulful eyes and timid smile, Murat Kara, a 40-year-old stocking seller in the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, is an unlikely murderer. Yet 13 years ago he pumped seven bullets into his younger sister. His widowed mother and uncles told him to kill the 17-year-old after she eloped with her boyfriend, staining the family's honour. Mr Kara resisted for three months because “I loved my sister and didn't believe she deserved to die.” But then the neighbours stopped talking to him, the grocer refused to sell him bread, the local imam said he was disobeying Allah, and his mother threatened to curse the milk she had breast-fed him. So he gave in.
The killing of women by male relatives who believe they have dishonoured the family-eg, by getting pregnant outside wedlock or wearing revealing clothes-has haunted Turkey for centuries. Bowing to pressure from the media, feminist groups and the European Union, Turkey's mildly Islamist government has launched an unprecedented campaign against honour killings, disarming even its fiercest critics.
State-employed imams now declare honour killings “sinful” in the Friday sermons they deliver across the country. Tens of thousands of army conscripts and police recruits are taught that violence against women is bad. Brooking the ire of his conservative constituents, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, told a gathering of foreign Muslims that “discrimination against women is worse than racism.” Nor is this mere talk. Turkey's penal code has been tweaked to stiffen penalties not only for those who commit honour killings but also for those who plan them. Had Mr Kara, who got seven years thanks to a judge who deemed he had been unduly provoked, killed his sister today, he would in all probability be serving a life sentence.
The trouble is that, despite the government's efforts, honour-related crimes show little sign of abating. A parliamentary report last August found that 1,091 such crimes had been committed in the past five years-over four a week. Only three of 51 honour killers interviewed for another study said they had any regrets.
In a society where female chastity is venerated and the motto “my horse, my gun and my woman are sacred” is common among men, “this should not come as a surprise,” notes Zozan Ozgokce, a female activist who runs an EU-funded project in Van to counsel abused women. Fatma Sahin, a deputy from Mr Erdogan's AK Party who drafted the parliamentary report, blames the deeply entrenched patriarchal and feudal system in the Kurdish provinces, where many of the murders occur. Rampant poverty and illiteracy have been exacerbated by the forced eviction of millions of Kurdish villagers by the army in its war against PKK rebels in the 1990s.
With refugee families of up to 20 or more crammed into tiny slums, incest and rape have shot up, says Handan Coskun, a social worker in Diyarbakir who is investigating links between female suicides and honour crimes. One survivor said she was ordered to take her own life (and locked in a room with a bottle of bleach) by her father, who sought to disguise his daughter's failed murder as suicide. She managed to escape; less fortunate souls have been found dead with their wrists slit or hanging from a rope.
In Diyarbakir and elsewhere in the south-east, new efforts are being made to protect vulnerable women through emergency hotlines and shelters for abused women. The first government-run refuge opened its doors outside Diyarbakir two years ago. Many of the residents are pregnant teenage rape victims, who risk being killed by relatives who blame them (and not their rapists) for their plight.
Still, male accomplices or perpetrators are often targeted, too. And honour crimes are not a uniquely Kurdish phenomenon, says Leyla Pervizat, an Istanbul-based expert. This is especially true of the fiercely conservative Black Sea region where “after the men are killed, their penises are cut off and stuffed in their mouths,” she adds laconically. What gives her hope is that the number of those willing to tip off the authorities about a planned murder is growing-so more lives are being saved. And many of the whistleblowers are male.
The Economist print edition
Despite a government crackdown, honour killings persist in Turkey
WITH his soulful eyes and timid smile, Murat Kara, a 40-year-old stocking seller in the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, is an unlikely murderer. Yet 13 years ago he pumped seven bullets into his younger sister. His widowed mother and uncles told him to kill the 17-year-old after she eloped with her boyfriend, staining the family's honour. Mr Kara resisted for three months because “I loved my sister and didn't believe she deserved to die.” But then the neighbours stopped talking to him, the grocer refused to sell him bread, the local imam said he was disobeying Allah, and his mother threatened to curse the milk she had breast-fed him. So he gave in.
The killing of women by male relatives who believe they have dishonoured the family-eg, by getting pregnant outside wedlock or wearing revealing clothes-has haunted Turkey for centuries. Bowing to pressure from the media, feminist groups and the European Union, Turkey's mildly Islamist government has launched an unprecedented campaign against honour killings, disarming even its fiercest critics.
State-employed imams now declare honour killings “sinful” in the Friday sermons they deliver across the country. Tens of thousands of army conscripts and police recruits are taught that violence against women is bad. Brooking the ire of his conservative constituents, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, told a gathering of foreign Muslims that “discrimination against women is worse than racism.” Nor is this mere talk. Turkey's penal code has been tweaked to stiffen penalties not only for those who commit honour killings but also for those who plan them. Had Mr Kara, who got seven years thanks to a judge who deemed he had been unduly provoked, killed his sister today, he would in all probability be serving a life sentence.
The trouble is that, despite the government's efforts, honour-related crimes show little sign of abating. A parliamentary report last August found that 1,091 such crimes had been committed in the past five years-over four a week. Only three of 51 honour killers interviewed for another study said they had any regrets.
In a society where female chastity is venerated and the motto “my horse, my gun and my woman are sacred” is common among men, “this should not come as a surprise,” notes Zozan Ozgokce, a female activist who runs an EU-funded project in Van to counsel abused women. Fatma Sahin, a deputy from Mr Erdogan's AK Party who drafted the parliamentary report, blames the deeply entrenched patriarchal and feudal system in the Kurdish provinces, where many of the murders occur. Rampant poverty and illiteracy have been exacerbated by the forced eviction of millions of Kurdish villagers by the army in its war against PKK rebels in the 1990s.
With refugee families of up to 20 or more crammed into tiny slums, incest and rape have shot up, says Handan Coskun, a social worker in Diyarbakir who is investigating links between female suicides and honour crimes. One survivor said she was ordered to take her own life (and locked in a room with a bottle of bleach) by her father, who sought to disguise his daughter's failed murder as suicide. She managed to escape; less fortunate souls have been found dead with their wrists slit or hanging from a rope.
In Diyarbakir and elsewhere in the south-east, new efforts are being made to protect vulnerable women through emergency hotlines and shelters for abused women. The first government-run refuge opened its doors outside Diyarbakir two years ago. Many of the residents are pregnant teenage rape victims, who risk being killed by relatives who blame them (and not their rapists) for their plight.
Still, male accomplices or perpetrators are often targeted, too. And honour crimes are not a uniquely Kurdish phenomenon, says Leyla Pervizat, an Istanbul-based expert. This is especially true of the fiercely conservative Black Sea region where “after the men are killed, their penises are cut off and stuffed in their mouths,” she adds laconically. What gives her hope is that the number of those willing to tip off the authorities about a planned murder is growing-so more lives are being saved. And many of the whistleblowers are male.
After Lifetime in Germany, Turks Still Alone and Torn
By MARK LANDLER
March 25, 2007
The New York Times
DUISBURG, Germany, March 20 — The last cups of Turkish black tea had been drained, the platters of olives and goat cheese cleared, but the snowy-haired Turks lingered at the table.
“Of course I always think about going back,” said Yusuf Mermer, 69, who left Ankara in 1969 for the Ruhr, where he operated a forklift. He now lives in a nursing home here. “I have nieces and nephews in Turkey, but I would just be a burden on them.”
His voice cracked and tears trickled down his creased face. “Looking back, I don’t even know why I came to Germany,” he said. “Things were going fine for me in Turkey.”
Four decades after the first Turks arrived as guest workers, they are reaching retirement in a land that still feels foreign. For Mr. Mermer and many others, it is a bleak time with the recognition that they will live out their days in a place where they had planned to stay only a few years.
Germany never planned on them staying, either, and now faces a looming social and financial burden. Of its 2.7 million people of Turkish origin, 320,000 are of retirement age. That is expected to double by 2020.
Many of these immigrants, particularly older women, do not have the savings or pension and health benefits to afford a nursing home with round-the-clock care. The government has to pick up the shortfall — an unexpected payback for the long years of service of these guest workers, or gastarbeiter.
Socially isolated after decades of living in Turkish enclaves, these accidental Germans often speak little or no German. And having toiled in low-paying, physically taxing jobs, they are in poor health relative to native Germans of comparable age.
“For the first time in our history, we have to deal with considerable numbers of immigrants who are elderly,” said Reiner Klingholz, the director of the Berlin Institute for Population and Development. “They age differently from Germans. They have different medical problems.”
But they do share one thing with Western Europeans: they cannot rely on their busy children to take care of them. Three cities are trying different approaches to help them.
In Berlin, the country’s first private nursing home exclusively for Turkish people opened last year. Called Turk Huzur Evi, or the Turkish House of Well-Being, it will eventually offer beds for 155 people. It has a Muslim prayer room, with a visiting imam who preaches regularly, and serves Turkish food and meat prepared according to Islamic rules.
In Frankfurt, the state of Hesse finances a retirement home with a section for Muslims. Its 11 beds are filled, the majority with Turks, though there have been Afghans.
Here in Duisburg, the nursing home, known as Haus am Sandberg and run by the German Red Cross, has 15 Turkish residents — 8 women and 7 men — and nearly 80 Germans. They share airy quarters around a two-story atrium. Ralf Krause, the director, said it made little sense to segregate the Turkish residents, since they were already a diverse group: Sunnis and Kurds, Anatolians and people from Istanbul, devout Muslims and acolytes of Ataturk, Turkey’s great nationalist leader.
There is plenty of room for friction. “It’s not even as if they all eat olives and goat cheese,” he said, referring to the traditional Turkish breakfast served each Tuesday.
On a recent morning, however, there was quiet harmony in the breakfast room. Young women, some in head scarves, served food to their parents. A little girl scampered about, chattering in German.
Children and grandchildren are the main reason these Turkish immigrants stay. With the passage of time, many of them have few friends or family members left back home.
“They always say they want to go back, but their families are in Germany, so they are torn,” said Bengi Azcan, 40, a German-born social worker who is the daughter of Turkish immigrants. “It is especially sad because they know they will never achieve their dream.”
Dilber Cevik, 67, moved to Germany three decades ago from Amasya, in central Anatolia. She worked in a fishery in Hamburg before moving to Duisburg, a forest of smokestacks and steel mills on the Rhine with one of the Germany’s highest concentrations of Turkish immigrants.
“When you’re young, of course, you never think about being retired,” Mrs. Cevik said, sitting in a wheelchair. “I never imagined I would end up in a retirement home in Germany. But it is God’s will.”
Two of her daughters live nearby and visit twice a week. Mrs. Cevik has other children in Turkey, but frets that the medical care would not be as good there.
Like most immigrants here, Mrs. Cevik speaks only Turkish. Some have forgotten their German — common among the aging, particularly those with Alzheimer’s — while others never learned more than a few words. “We never needed German; we were always surrounded by Turkish people,” said Mr. Mermer, who went back to Turkey once, but returned to Germany for good in 1972, the year before Germany stopped inviting workers from abroad.
The lack of connection to German society compounds the isolation that many Turkish immigrants feel after retiring, Ms. Azcan said.
The German government, which has struggled with immigration policy in general, has yet to come to grips with aging immigrants. In the 1980s, it tried to entice people to return home by paying them cash. About 250,000 foreigners — mostly Turks — did leave by 1984, but the flow soon dwindled because there were few jobs in Turkey then.
With only 4,000 Turks a year returning home these days, the German government and Turkish groups will have to share the burden of providing culturally aware nursing homes and caring for the growing number of retirees, said Faruk Sen, director of the Center for Turkish Studies in Essen. There are signs of that. In another part of Duisburg, a Turkish group that is building one of Germany’s largest mosques has included plans for a small retirement community across the street.
The German and Turkish residents of Haus am Sandberg are experiencing genuine integration for the first time, after a lifetime in what social scientists have called “parallel societies.” Frieda Fuchs, a 90-year-old German, said her Turkish neighbors made life more interesting.
Multicultural living is not without its crossed wires, however. A few weeks ago, the staff brought the groups together for a dinner with cuisine from both countries. Sitting across the table from the Turks, the Germans broke into a quavering chorus of “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles,” the former lyrics of Germany’s national anthem.
“Maybe they were rattled because we were playing Turkish music,” Ms. Azcan said, wincing at the memory. “This is a process. We’ll see as we go along which model works best.”
March 25, 2007
The New York Times
DUISBURG, Germany, March 20 — The last cups of Turkish black tea had been drained, the platters of olives and goat cheese cleared, but the snowy-haired Turks lingered at the table.
“Of course I always think about going back,” said Yusuf Mermer, 69, who left Ankara in 1969 for the Ruhr, where he operated a forklift. He now lives in a nursing home here. “I have nieces and nephews in Turkey, but I would just be a burden on them.”
His voice cracked and tears trickled down his creased face. “Looking back, I don’t even know why I came to Germany,” he said. “Things were going fine for me in Turkey.”
Four decades after the first Turks arrived as guest workers, they are reaching retirement in a land that still feels foreign. For Mr. Mermer and many others, it is a bleak time with the recognition that they will live out their days in a place where they had planned to stay only a few years.
Germany never planned on them staying, either, and now faces a looming social and financial burden. Of its 2.7 million people of Turkish origin, 320,000 are of retirement age. That is expected to double by 2020.
Many of these immigrants, particularly older women, do not have the savings or pension and health benefits to afford a nursing home with round-the-clock care. The government has to pick up the shortfall — an unexpected payback for the long years of service of these guest workers, or gastarbeiter.
Socially isolated after decades of living in Turkish enclaves, these accidental Germans often speak little or no German. And having toiled in low-paying, physically taxing jobs, they are in poor health relative to native Germans of comparable age.
“For the first time in our history, we have to deal with considerable numbers of immigrants who are elderly,” said Reiner Klingholz, the director of the Berlin Institute for Population and Development. “They age differently from Germans. They have different medical problems.”
But they do share one thing with Western Europeans: they cannot rely on their busy children to take care of them. Three cities are trying different approaches to help them.
In Berlin, the country’s first private nursing home exclusively for Turkish people opened last year. Called Turk Huzur Evi, or the Turkish House of Well-Being, it will eventually offer beds for 155 people. It has a Muslim prayer room, with a visiting imam who preaches regularly, and serves Turkish food and meat prepared according to Islamic rules.
In Frankfurt, the state of Hesse finances a retirement home with a section for Muslims. Its 11 beds are filled, the majority with Turks, though there have been Afghans.
Here in Duisburg, the nursing home, known as Haus am Sandberg and run by the German Red Cross, has 15 Turkish residents — 8 women and 7 men — and nearly 80 Germans. They share airy quarters around a two-story atrium. Ralf Krause, the director, said it made little sense to segregate the Turkish residents, since they were already a diverse group: Sunnis and Kurds, Anatolians and people from Istanbul, devout Muslims and acolytes of Ataturk, Turkey’s great nationalist leader.
There is plenty of room for friction. “It’s not even as if they all eat olives and goat cheese,” he said, referring to the traditional Turkish breakfast served each Tuesday.
On a recent morning, however, there was quiet harmony in the breakfast room. Young women, some in head scarves, served food to their parents. A little girl scampered about, chattering in German.
Children and grandchildren are the main reason these Turkish immigrants stay. With the passage of time, many of them have few friends or family members left back home.
“They always say they want to go back, but their families are in Germany, so they are torn,” said Bengi Azcan, 40, a German-born social worker who is the daughter of Turkish immigrants. “It is especially sad because they know they will never achieve their dream.”
Dilber Cevik, 67, moved to Germany three decades ago from Amasya, in central Anatolia. She worked in a fishery in Hamburg before moving to Duisburg, a forest of smokestacks and steel mills on the Rhine with one of the Germany’s highest concentrations of Turkish immigrants.
“When you’re young, of course, you never think about being retired,” Mrs. Cevik said, sitting in a wheelchair. “I never imagined I would end up in a retirement home in Germany. But it is God’s will.”
Two of her daughters live nearby and visit twice a week. Mrs. Cevik has other children in Turkey, but frets that the medical care would not be as good there.
Like most immigrants here, Mrs. Cevik speaks only Turkish. Some have forgotten their German — common among the aging, particularly those with Alzheimer’s — while others never learned more than a few words. “We never needed German; we were always surrounded by Turkish people,” said Mr. Mermer, who went back to Turkey once, but returned to Germany for good in 1972, the year before Germany stopped inviting workers from abroad.
The lack of connection to German society compounds the isolation that many Turkish immigrants feel after retiring, Ms. Azcan said.
The German government, which has struggled with immigration policy in general, has yet to come to grips with aging immigrants. In the 1980s, it tried to entice people to return home by paying them cash. About 250,000 foreigners — mostly Turks — did leave by 1984, but the flow soon dwindled because there were few jobs in Turkey then.
With only 4,000 Turks a year returning home these days, the German government and Turkish groups will have to share the burden of providing culturally aware nursing homes and caring for the growing number of retirees, said Faruk Sen, director of the Center for Turkish Studies in Essen. There are signs of that. In another part of Duisburg, a Turkish group that is building one of Germany’s largest mosques has included plans for a small retirement community across the street.
The German and Turkish residents of Haus am Sandberg are experiencing genuine integration for the first time, after a lifetime in what social scientists have called “parallel societies.” Frieda Fuchs, a 90-year-old German, said her Turkish neighbors made life more interesting.
Multicultural living is not without its crossed wires, however. A few weeks ago, the staff brought the groups together for a dinner with cuisine from both countries. Sitting across the table from the Turks, the Germans broke into a quavering chorus of “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles,” the former lyrics of Germany’s national anthem.
“Maybe they were rattled because we were playing Turkish music,” Ms. Azcan said, wincing at the memory. “This is a process. We’ll see as we go along which model works best.”
Shipments of children, a darkly growing trade
By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 2005
MANILA — The young girls often come in groups of five or more, clustered in the farthest sections of passenger ships, away from prying eyes. They hardly talk to each other, but only because they hardly know each other. They are mostly teenagers, some as young as 14. Most of them are excited about the trip to Manila, which is usually their first.
But some, like Julia, know they made the wrong decision the moment the ship pulls away.
“I was afraid the whole time. I don’t know what would happen to me,” said Julia, who spoke on the condition that her real name not be used.
Julia was 17 when a man approached her on the street in General Santos, a city in the southern Philippines, and offered her a job as a housemaid in Manila. She was promised a monthly salary of $55 - a handsome sum for a girl whose parents earn hardly half of that in a month. All the man asked of Julia was that she lie about her age and leave that same night.
Together with four other teenage girls, Julia boarded a passenger ship bound for Manila last November, one of the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Filipino children being trafficked to Manila every day, most of them ending up in prostitution dens or in warehouses and factories where they are treated virtually as slaves.
It is a modus operandi that is being repeated all over the country, particularly in the poorest areas. As a result, the Philippines is now one of the hot spots in Southeast Asia for trafficking in persons, especially children, which generates approximately $10 billion a year worldwide, according to Unicef, the UN agency that works to protect children.
According to Unicef, a “good proportion” of the estimated 60,000 to 100,000 exploited children in the Philippines have been trafficked. A decade ago, a national survey determined that a quarter-million Filipino children were working and living away from their homes.
While most trafficking is done domestically, many of the Filipino victims end up as prostitutes in Japan, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and Europe.
The Philippines is also a transit point and destination for victims from China, the U.S. State Department said in a report on human trafficking released in June last year.
“Endemic poverty, a high unemployment rate, a cultural propensity towards migration, a weak rule-of-law environment, and sex tourism all contribute to significant trafficking activity in the Philippines,” the report said.
“There’s an increasing number of trafficking going on now,” said Dolores Alforte, executive director for the Philippines of Ecpat, an international network that opposes child prostitution, trafficking and pornography.
A recent study by Alforte’s group found at least seven “high-risk areas” in the country: the cities of Zamboanga, Cagayan de Oro, Laoag, Dumaguete, Cebu, and Manila as well as the province of Bicol.
Although the government, along with nongovernmental groups, has been active in its campaign against child trafficking, traffickers - usually friends and acquaintances, even relatives, of the victims’ families - have always found ways to be a step ahead, said Vicky Juat, Unicef’s child protection officer in Manila.
For example, when the government and these organizations, along with the coast guard and the maritime police, increased their inspection of passenger ships, even establishing halfway houses for trafficked people in certain ports, the traffickers merely used other routes or shifted to buses and small ferries, which are not as well-monitored.
But even with increased vigilance by the authorities, the traffickers still manage to lure victims. At the port of Manila, hardly a day goes by without minors’ being abandoned by their recruiters for fear of the police, according to the Visayan Forum Foundation, a Unicef-supported private group that put up a halfway house inside the port compound.
The number of trafficked children is often increased by the conflicts in the south. According to Rebecca Barrious-Ballesteros, head of Visayan Forum’s protective care unit, the number of trafficked children increased tenfold during certain months in 2003, when fighting broke out between the government and Muslim insurgents in Mindanao.
“We’ve noticed an increase in the number of those we help in recent months,” Ballesteros said. “That could mean that more trafficking has been going on, but that could also mean that it is because of the increased intervention by government and nongovernment groups.”
Visayan Forum has cared for more than 2,000 trafficked Filipinos since October 2003.
Juat, the Unicef officer, said the Philippines continued to be a hot spot because of a number of factors, foremost of which is the grinding poverty in the provinces, where most of the victims come from.
“We are country that’s very vulnerable mainly because of the poverty,” Juat said. She said that in many cases parents agreed to send their children away, partly to ease the burden on them but mainly so these children could work and help out. Often, the recruiters would give advance money to the parents.
In one instance, the Visayan Forum found out that many of the victims they thought they had sent home turned up later at the organization’s halfway house, indicating a reluctance among many of the victims to go home. “They’d be going home to the same poor environment so they probably thought, ‘Why bother?”‘ said Unicef’s Juat.
In fact, Julia, the girl from General Santos City, does not plan to go home soon. “I’d rather stay here at the halfway house for a little while, maybe finish high school,” she said.
Julia had been rescued from her recruiters when a fellow passenger learned that the girls were going to be sold to a prostitution den and promptly reported the situation to the authorities.
International Herald Tribune
SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 2005
MANILA — The young girls often come in groups of five or more, clustered in the farthest sections of passenger ships, away from prying eyes. They hardly talk to each other, but only because they hardly know each other. They are mostly teenagers, some as young as 14. Most of them are excited about the trip to Manila, which is usually their first.
But some, like Julia, know they made the wrong decision the moment the ship pulls away.
“I was afraid the whole time. I don’t know what would happen to me,” said Julia, who spoke on the condition that her real name not be used.
Julia was 17 when a man approached her on the street in General Santos, a city in the southern Philippines, and offered her a job as a housemaid in Manila. She was promised a monthly salary of $55 - a handsome sum for a girl whose parents earn hardly half of that in a month. All the man asked of Julia was that she lie about her age and leave that same night.
Together with four other teenage girls, Julia boarded a passenger ship bound for Manila last November, one of the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Filipino children being trafficked to Manila every day, most of them ending up in prostitution dens or in warehouses and factories where they are treated virtually as slaves.
It is a modus operandi that is being repeated all over the country, particularly in the poorest areas. As a result, the Philippines is now one of the hot spots in Southeast Asia for trafficking in persons, especially children, which generates approximately $10 billion a year worldwide, according to Unicef, the UN agency that works to protect children.
According to Unicef, a “good proportion” of the estimated 60,000 to 100,000 exploited children in the Philippines have been trafficked. A decade ago, a national survey determined that a quarter-million Filipino children were working and living away from their homes.
While most trafficking is done domestically, many of the Filipino victims end up as prostitutes in Japan, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and Europe.
The Philippines is also a transit point and destination for victims from China, the U.S. State Department said in a report on human trafficking released in June last year.
“Endemic poverty, a high unemployment rate, a cultural propensity towards migration, a weak rule-of-law environment, and sex tourism all contribute to significant trafficking activity in the Philippines,” the report said.
“There’s an increasing number of trafficking going on now,” said Dolores Alforte, executive director for the Philippines of Ecpat, an international network that opposes child prostitution, trafficking and pornography.
A recent study by Alforte’s group found at least seven “high-risk areas” in the country: the cities of Zamboanga, Cagayan de Oro, Laoag, Dumaguete, Cebu, and Manila as well as the province of Bicol.
Although the government, along with nongovernmental groups, has been active in its campaign against child trafficking, traffickers - usually friends and acquaintances, even relatives, of the victims’ families - have always found ways to be a step ahead, said Vicky Juat, Unicef’s child protection officer in Manila.
For example, when the government and these organizations, along with the coast guard and the maritime police, increased their inspection of passenger ships, even establishing halfway houses for trafficked people in certain ports, the traffickers merely used other routes or shifted to buses and small ferries, which are not as well-monitored.
But even with increased vigilance by the authorities, the traffickers still manage to lure victims. At the port of Manila, hardly a day goes by without minors’ being abandoned by their recruiters for fear of the police, according to the Visayan Forum Foundation, a Unicef-supported private group that put up a halfway house inside the port compound.
The number of trafficked children is often increased by the conflicts in the south. According to Rebecca Barrious-Ballesteros, head of Visayan Forum’s protective care unit, the number of trafficked children increased tenfold during certain months in 2003, when fighting broke out between the government and Muslim insurgents in Mindanao.
“We’ve noticed an increase in the number of those we help in recent months,” Ballesteros said. “That could mean that more trafficking has been going on, but that could also mean that it is because of the increased intervention by government and nongovernment groups.”
Visayan Forum has cared for more than 2,000 trafficked Filipinos since October 2003.
Juat, the Unicef officer, said the Philippines continued to be a hot spot because of a number of factors, foremost of which is the grinding poverty in the provinces, where most of the victims come from.
“We are country that’s very vulnerable mainly because of the poverty,” Juat said. She said that in many cases parents agreed to send their children away, partly to ease the burden on them but mainly so these children could work and help out. Often, the recruiters would give advance money to the parents.
In one instance, the Visayan Forum found out that many of the victims they thought they had sent home turned up later at the organization’s halfway house, indicating a reluctance among many of the victims to go home. “They’d be going home to the same poor environment so they probably thought, ‘Why bother?”‘ said Unicef’s Juat.
In fact, Julia, the girl from General Santos City, does not plan to go home soon. “I’d rather stay here at the halfway house for a little while, maybe finish high school,” she said.
Julia had been rescued from her recruiters when a fellow passenger learned that the girls were going to be sold to a prostitution den and promptly reported the situation to the authorities.
Breast-feeding: A Philippine battleground
By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published: July 17, 2007
MANILA: Nurjana Dones is bucking a trend in the Philippines. Now eight months into her first pregnancy, she decided early on that she would breast-feed her baby.
“I’m convinced this is the only way to feed my child,” said Dones, 21. “I don’t care about what all those television advertisements are saying: that formula milk will make my child smarter,” she said, while waiting for a checkup at a government health center in Quezon City.
Besides health, another factor is money: Dones, who is jobless, cannot afford the $50 a month that formula costs. Her husband works at a warehouse, earning the minimum wage of less than $200 a month.
Filipino and UN health authorities are heartened by the resolve of mothers like Dones, who make up a dwindling minority as breast-feeding rates decline in the Philippines and throughout Southeast Asia. As economies develop and more women take on full-time jobs outside the home, they have less time to breast-feed and more cash to spend on formula.
In the Philippines, the proportion of babies who are exclusively fed on breast milk in their first six months dropped from 20 percent in 1998 to 16 percent in 2003.
Throughout Southeast Asia, only 61 percent of women breast-feed their babies up to four months and 35 percent up to six months, according to the World Health Organization, or WHO.
But what has health authorities here most concerned is the role of aggressive advertising by formula producers. Now the long-running battle over what companies can say and do to promote commercial substitutes for breast milk has reached the Philippine Supreme Court.
“Infant formula has been glamorized to the point that many mothers are now convinced that it is superior to mother’s milk,” said Dr. Nicholas Alipui, the Unicef representative to the Philippines. He was referring to advertisements that claim formula milk and follow-on milk - for children one year old or older - make babies smarter.
For instance, Wyeth, a pharmaceutical and nutritional company based in the United States, has been running television advertisements for its Promil brand that feature child prodigies who can paint or play the piano. The ads have become so well known that a Filipino who shows above-average intelligence is often teased as a “Promil kid.”
Nothing, Alipui said, could be further from the truth. He said that about 82,000 children under 5 die each year in the Philippines, mainly because of poor nutrition. He cited a WHO statistic that said 16,000 of these deaths are caused by “inappropriate feeding practices, including the use of infant formula.”
He and other health officials are concerned that, while infant mortality rates remain high, the benefits of breast milk, such as enhanced immunity for the child, are being lost.
To encourage breast-feeding, the Philippines government enacted a Milk Code in 1986 that regulates the marketing of formula. The code bans advertisements and other promotional activities for formula intended for babies up to 1 year old. Last year, the Philippine Department of Health, concerned about the steady decline in breast-feeding and arguing that formula companies had been violating marketing regulations, revised the code, extending the promotion ban to milk substitutes for children up to 2 years old.
The companies, Wyeth among them, went to the Supreme Court to challenge the revisions, arguing that they were unconstitutional because they restricted free expression and that the health department had exceeded its mandate. The court issued a temporary restraining order against the new regulations and is expected to rule on their legality within a few weeks.
The companies have said they do not dispute the value of breast milk but that the new regulations unfairly restrict information from reaching women who cannot breast-feed.
“This is not a battle between breastfeeding and formula,” said Felicitas Aquino-Arroyo, a lawyer for the Pharmaceutical and Health Care Association of the Philippines, the industry group that filed the suit, in an interview in June. “This is about the arrogance of the Department of Health.” She called the assertion that formula was a factor in the high rate of infant mortality in the Philippines a “malicious insinuation.”
The Philippine Milk Code case is being closely watched because of its potential impact in Southeast Asia as a whole.
The stakes are certainly high for the milk companies, which sell nearly $500 million worth of milk substitutes annually in the Philippines, according to the Health Department. Breast-milk advocates also stress its importance to shaping how babies are fed.
“If the milk companies succeed in the Philippines case, it will have a huge negative impact because countries in the region will be deterred from promoting breastfeeding,” said Yeong Joo Kean, a legal adviser in Kuala Lumpur for the International Baby Food Action Network, a breast-feeding advocacy group.
Only the Philippines has a Milk Code that regulates the advertising and promotion of formula, Yeong said. “Most countries in Southeast Asia have been doing something to promote breast-feeding over the years but aggressive marketing by the milk companies have eroded these gains,” she said.
The WHO blames the decline of breast-feeding not just on advertising, but on other promotional tactics by formula manufacturers, such as giving free samples to health care professionals, sponsoring travel and seminars, even giving away such items as air conditioners.
In June, the WHO called such aggressive marketing tactics “an alarming threat to child survival” and said that in many countries in the region, “the combination of weak public health systems, slick and expensive marketing of milk formula and poor enforcement of marketing regulations have contributed to the decline of breast-feeding.”
In the Philippines, more than $100 million are spent annually to advertise milk substitutes, according to a 2006 report from AC Nielsen.
The companies have largely complied with the Milk Code restrictions pertaining to formula for infants up to 12 months; what they distribute are samples of products intended for kids 12 months and older. But according to the health department and Unicef, the promotion of milk substitutes for older children is dissuading mothers from breast-feeding newborns.
“They’re using follow-on milk as a backdoor,” Alipui, of Unicef, said of the companies.
This is why the Health Department revised the Milk Code to include a ban on advertising and promotion of follow-on milk products, said Alex Padilla, the Philippines undersecretary of health.
To be sure, health experts say, commercial promotions are not the only factor for the decline in breast-feeding. Alipui said that formula is a convenient fallback for many Filipino mothers who work outside the home.
Moreover, although the Health Department has ordered all government and public offices to provide breastfeeding stations or at least open their clinics to breast-feeding mothers, it has been less successful in persuading private establishments such as shopping malls to do the same.
For Dones, the mother from Quezon City, it is all about changing the mind-set created by advertising - a mind-set that, according to the Unicef and the health department, forces even poor mothers to spend what money they have on formula.
“Here we are, a poor country where many families cannot afford a decent meal on a daily basis and yet spend 2,000 pesos a month on formula milk - milk whose benefits don’t even come close to the benefits of mother’s milk, which is free,” she said. Two thousand pesos amounts to about $44. “It’s amazing what those television commercials can do.”
International Herald Tribune
Published: July 17, 2007
MANILA: Nurjana Dones is bucking a trend in the Philippines. Now eight months into her first pregnancy, she decided early on that she would breast-feed her baby.
“I’m convinced this is the only way to feed my child,” said Dones, 21. “I don’t care about what all those television advertisements are saying: that formula milk will make my child smarter,” she said, while waiting for a checkup at a government health center in Quezon City.
Besides health, another factor is money: Dones, who is jobless, cannot afford the $50 a month that formula costs. Her husband works at a warehouse, earning the minimum wage of less than $200 a month.
Filipino and UN health authorities are heartened by the resolve of mothers like Dones, who make up a dwindling minority as breast-feeding rates decline in the Philippines and throughout Southeast Asia. As economies develop and more women take on full-time jobs outside the home, they have less time to breast-feed and more cash to spend on formula.
In the Philippines, the proportion of babies who are exclusively fed on breast milk in their first six months dropped from 20 percent in 1998 to 16 percent in 2003.
Throughout Southeast Asia, only 61 percent of women breast-feed their babies up to four months and 35 percent up to six months, according to the World Health Organization, or WHO.
But what has health authorities here most concerned is the role of aggressive advertising by formula producers. Now the long-running battle over what companies can say and do to promote commercial substitutes for breast milk has reached the Philippine Supreme Court.
“Infant formula has been glamorized to the point that many mothers are now convinced that it is superior to mother’s milk,” said Dr. Nicholas Alipui, the Unicef representative to the Philippines. He was referring to advertisements that claim formula milk and follow-on milk - for children one year old or older - make babies smarter.
For instance, Wyeth, a pharmaceutical and nutritional company based in the United States, has been running television advertisements for its Promil brand that feature child prodigies who can paint or play the piano. The ads have become so well known that a Filipino who shows above-average intelligence is often teased as a “Promil kid.”
Nothing, Alipui said, could be further from the truth. He said that about 82,000 children under 5 die each year in the Philippines, mainly because of poor nutrition. He cited a WHO statistic that said 16,000 of these deaths are caused by “inappropriate feeding practices, including the use of infant formula.”
He and other health officials are concerned that, while infant mortality rates remain high, the benefits of breast milk, such as enhanced immunity for the child, are being lost.
To encourage breast-feeding, the Philippines government enacted a Milk Code in 1986 that regulates the marketing of formula. The code bans advertisements and other promotional activities for formula intended for babies up to 1 year old. Last year, the Philippine Department of Health, concerned about the steady decline in breast-feeding and arguing that formula companies had been violating marketing regulations, revised the code, extending the promotion ban to milk substitutes for children up to 2 years old.
The companies, Wyeth among them, went to the Supreme Court to challenge the revisions, arguing that they were unconstitutional because they restricted free expression and that the health department had exceeded its mandate. The court issued a temporary restraining order against the new regulations and is expected to rule on their legality within a few weeks.
The companies have said they do not dispute the value of breast milk but that the new regulations unfairly restrict information from reaching women who cannot breast-feed.
“This is not a battle between breastfeeding and formula,” said Felicitas Aquino-Arroyo, a lawyer for the Pharmaceutical and Health Care Association of the Philippines, the industry group that filed the suit, in an interview in June. “This is about the arrogance of the Department of Health.” She called the assertion that formula was a factor in the high rate of infant mortality in the Philippines a “malicious insinuation.”
The Philippine Milk Code case is being closely watched because of its potential impact in Southeast Asia as a whole.
The stakes are certainly high for the milk companies, which sell nearly $500 million worth of milk substitutes annually in the Philippines, according to the Health Department. Breast-milk advocates also stress its importance to shaping how babies are fed.
“If the milk companies succeed in the Philippines case, it will have a huge negative impact because countries in the region will be deterred from promoting breastfeeding,” said Yeong Joo Kean, a legal adviser in Kuala Lumpur for the International Baby Food Action Network, a breast-feeding advocacy group.
Only the Philippines has a Milk Code that regulates the advertising and promotion of formula, Yeong said. “Most countries in Southeast Asia have been doing something to promote breast-feeding over the years but aggressive marketing by the milk companies have eroded these gains,” she said.
The WHO blames the decline of breast-feeding not just on advertising, but on other promotional tactics by formula manufacturers, such as giving free samples to health care professionals, sponsoring travel and seminars, even giving away such items as air conditioners.
In June, the WHO called such aggressive marketing tactics “an alarming threat to child survival” and said that in many countries in the region, “the combination of weak public health systems, slick and expensive marketing of milk formula and poor enforcement of marketing regulations have contributed to the decline of breast-feeding.”
In the Philippines, more than $100 million are spent annually to advertise milk substitutes, according to a 2006 report from AC Nielsen.
The companies have largely complied with the Milk Code restrictions pertaining to formula for infants up to 12 months; what they distribute are samples of products intended for kids 12 months and older. But according to the health department and Unicef, the promotion of milk substitutes for older children is dissuading mothers from breast-feeding newborns.
“They’re using follow-on milk as a backdoor,” Alipui, of Unicef, said of the companies.
This is why the Health Department revised the Milk Code to include a ban on advertising and promotion of follow-on milk products, said Alex Padilla, the Philippines undersecretary of health.
To be sure, health experts say, commercial promotions are not the only factor for the decline in breast-feeding. Alipui said that formula is a convenient fallback for many Filipino mothers who work outside the home.
Moreover, although the Health Department has ordered all government and public offices to provide breastfeeding stations or at least open their clinics to breast-feeding mothers, it has been less successful in persuading private establishments such as shopping malls to do the same.
For Dones, the mother from Quezon City, it is all about changing the mind-set created by advertising - a mind-set that, according to the Unicef and the health department, forces even poor mothers to spend what money they have on formula.
“Here we are, a poor country where many families cannot afford a decent meal on a daily basis and yet spend 2,000 pesos a month on formula milk - milk whose benefits don’t even come close to the benefits of mother’s milk, which is free,” she said. Two thousand pesos amounts to about $44. “It’s amazing what those television commercials can do.”
Kabayan: A Captive Eagle Flies Home to the Wild
By Charina Sanz
Published in Newsbreak. (Vol. 4 No. 11, June 7, 2004)
KIDAPAWAN CITY –Somewhere in the mist-covered slopes of Apo Sandawa, a mighty banug once lived that was known to strike fear in the hearts of men. For this winged creature would descend from the sky and swoop down on a prey – man, child, beast – which it would carry home to a langub (cave) hidden far into the deepest recesses of the mountain.
For a long time, so goes this old Manobo legend, no one has seen this mighty banug who once lorded it over the highest of Philippine peaks – Apo Sandawa or Mount Apo – that majestic mountain shrouded in myth and mystery.
“We fear the banug,” says Obo-Manobo Datu Joseph Andot, 54, as he remembers this story told him by their kaapuhan (elders). “But we welcome him home because it is a thing of the forest, and all things coming from nature, should be returned. If they are lost, we too shall perish because they had been part of the lives of us lumads.”
Today, amid the rhythmic beat of the kulintang, Datu Andot along with other tribal leaders have set out to prepare lumps of betel nuts and apog (lime) wrapped in buyo leaves for a betel-nut chewing ritual called samaya in honor of one such banug called Kabayan who will be returning home.
Kabayan is a Philippine eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi) and the first captive-bred eagle in Asia to be released to the wild. The April 22 (Earth Day) experimental release was held inside the Philippine National Oil Corporation Geothermal Production Field 701 at the Mount Apo National Park.
Right now, Kabayan, who was earlier transported to the site on March 30, is fidgeting inside the hack box where he was temporarily caged apparently oblivious to the stellar status accorded him. Kabayan - named after his sponsor, vice-presidential bet Senator Noli de Castro - can be seen from a TV monitor installed near a stage where a pre-release ceremony was held. On stage were De Castro’s wife, Arlene Sinsuat, Presidential daughter Lulli Arroyo, PNOC chief Paul Aquino, Environment Secretary Elisa Gozun, Energy Secretary Vince Perez, and re-electionist Cotabato Governor Manny Pinol.
Towards the end of the speeches, the datus have formed a half-circle for a thanksgiving ritual called pamaas. One of them held aloft in his arms a white chicken which he placed on a table and, using a knife, sliced a tiny portion of the feet to let the blood flow. But only a trickle came out, leaving some of the lumads worried. “Dapat modugo,” someone in the crowd says. “Otherwise, the spirits would be angry.”
Later, betel nuts were handed to the VIP guests for “mama” (chewing) after the rituals were held amid a whiff of electoral fever in the mountain air. “There is no politics involved here,” Philippine Eagle Foundation chair Carlos Pedrosa earlier told reporters in a press briefing. “Kabayan was chosen because of his health conditions and the timing.”
Clouds of mist now descend on a mountain top as a motley crowd of journalists had begun to trek to the actual hack site. It was an hour before noon, just before the cicadas shrilled a noonday siren, and a moment Domingo Tadena, Kabayan’s caretaker, had been waiting all his life.
FREEDOM
Memories still flash across Tadena’s mind as he awaits along with the others Kabayan’s mow-wit od layang (soaring home). “He has an attitude, he is wild, different sa iba,” says Tadena who witnessed the hatching of captive-bred eagles, including that of Pag-asa, the first Philippine Eagle conceived through artificial insemination in 1992.
Tadena himself handled Kabayan’s hatching on November 23, 2002. The raptor, a product of cooperative artificial insemination on the female eagle Kahayag from the male eagle Junior, is one of 30 under the captive breeding program of the Philippine Eagle Foundation in Malagos, Davao City.
From the start, Kabayan was programmed for release to the wild and was reared in an environment that simulates forest conditions with limited human interaction. “We had to wear a mask and use puppets when feeding him,” Tadena says. Live prey is also occasionally brought to him to practice his hunting skills.
Kabayan, he recalls, struggled when they pinned him down to strap an aluminum leg band and a backpack-type radio transmitter to track his movements after the release. Also implanted in his breast muscle is a microchip for identification. “He was howling when we traveled him to Mt. Apo.”
The 57-year-old Tadena, who had worked with eagles for almost 30 years, says he believes that Kabayan longs for freedom because eagles, even those bred in captivity, carry in them an “instinct” of the wild. “They want to stay outside the cage. Napakasarap,” he smiles. “Sometimes when we forget to lock a cage, they fly on their own not wanting to return, that’s why we have to capture them back.”
It is now half an hour after the hack box had been opened and still Kabayan, who strikes an imperial pose, refuses to budge from his perch. By now, feathers crowning his head are raised into a crest, as he cranes his neck towards the direction of the viewing deck which, although sealed by a canvass blind, are pierced with square-shaped holes. Protruding from the holes are bulky camera lenses and curious faces. Hushed whispers and mobile phone ring tones also gave the masquerade away.
“He is distracted,” Tadena explains. “Or maybe he doesn’t know that the cage is open and that he is free to fly.” Someone had by this time slammed a steel roof, prompting the eagle to fly off to a nearby log. Kabayan was seen trotting to the far end of the log and once again, settled on a perch.
Finally, just before 1 p.m., Kabayan flew to freedom back to the wilds and was no longer seen in the hack site. “It is very fulfilling,” exclaims Tadena. “I have so much trust that he can survive.”
But the “wilds” Kabayan is coming home to is a troubled terrain that sits atop a potentially explosive ecological hotspot. “We do not discount the possibility that the eagle will die,” admits Lito Cereno, PEF program manager for education, and although all “methods and instruments” were in place to ensure his survival, "it is still part of the probability.”
Beleaguered mountain
Still, chances of Kabayan meeting another eagle in Mt. Apo which stands at 2954 meters above sea level are almost nil. With only seven pairs or 14 eagles spotted in the entire 72,112.59 hectares of the national park, Kabayan may have to mate with another captive-bred eagle to be released to the wild. “This could be Mia,” says Tadena. “She grew up with Kabayan together.”
Kabayan and Mia are only about 500 remaining pairs of Philippine eagles in the country, a number that is critically low, says PEF director Dennis Salvador. “That is why we do captive breeding . . . to put new blood in the gene pool”. This number can even dwindle due to the rapid destruction of their habitats, poaching and the disappearance of prey population.
Mount Apo, a known sanctuary and historic home of the eagle, had been tagged as one of the country's 17 environmental hot spots. Recently, the mountain was closed to climbers because of the tons of waste found in the trails that led to the further deterioration of the forest.
Located about 40 aerial kms. west of Davao City, Mount Apo straddles the mountain ridge dividing Davao City and Davao del Sur on the east and Cotabato on the west. The ASEAN Heritage Site Committee, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and the World Bank had recognized it as a rich heritage site and an important center for biodiversity.
Revered as sacred mountain by the indigenous peoples living in its foothills, it is also being claimed by them as part of their ancestral domain. On February 14, the Obo-Menuvus had been issued a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title covering only about 3.2 hectares of land located in Barangay Ilomavis and Barangay Balabag, Kidapawan City.
A 12-kilometer road from Kidapawan City passing through Barangay Ilomavis however leads to the PNOC site where a 12-megawatt geothermal power plant was built right in the heart of the mountain. A massive opposition waged more than a decade ago was marked by a D’yandi ritual where 21 datus forged a blood pact, “vowing to defend Mt. Apo to the last drop of our blood”.
“We had survived the resistance but PNOC pledged that we help develop and replenish the natural resources,” says Energy Secretary Vincent Perez. He claims that they were able to reforest 591 hectares and drilled only 66 geothermal wells.
This remark though came in the heels of a new law passed on Feb. 3 excluding the PNOC’s geothermal reservation containing 7,010,000 square meters from the Mt. Apo Natural Park because of a “prior vested right”. The law - Republic Act No. 9237 also known as the Mount Apo Protected Area Act of 2003 - only mandates the PNOC to directly assist in “reforestation and other preservation activities” in the park.
But PNOC was caught in a controversy in recent months because of the alleged “arsenic poisoning” found among some villagers living near the geothermal plant. But while local environment and health officials have disputed findings made by experts led by Dr. Nelia Maramba, a toxicologist from the University of the Philippines, a group of NGOs advocating for environmental protection of Mt. Apo stands pat on Maramba’s findings.
“We are hoping that eventually he will settle here,” says Cereno referring to the PNOC’s Site B where Kabayan was released because of its “suitability in terms of food and vegetation”. Asked about the dangers of Kabayan being caught in the PNOC’s mammoth facilities and transmission lines, he replies that based on their studies the “live wires are only about three meters in distance and unless both ends are accidentally touched, it will not cause electrocution.”
But the fear of the mythical banug still remains among the lumads who are anxious about the eagle preying on their domestic animals despite assurances from PEF personnel that Kabayan is not inclined to do so.
"We would have wanted a meeting with all tribes to discuss the return of the eagle," says Datu Andot. He adds that while they were informed about the raptor's entry, other tribal groups do not seem to favor his return. Living around the park aside from the Obo-Menuvu are the Bagobo, K'lagan, Kaulo, and Ata-Manobo tribes. "But since he is already here, we might as well take care of him," he says.
Although feared, the banug was also known as a “protector of Mt. Apo”, so goes another legend. One day when the forest was about to be devoured by fire, the mighty bird dived into the water and soon darted up flapping its wet wings to douse the fire.
“This was how Apo Sandawa was once saved,” Loga, a young Manobo woman, says. “And when he was gone, the forest had also lost its protector.” ###
Published in Newsbreak. (Vol. 4 No. 11, June 7, 2004)
KIDAPAWAN CITY –Somewhere in the mist-covered slopes of Apo Sandawa, a mighty banug once lived that was known to strike fear in the hearts of men. For this winged creature would descend from the sky and swoop down on a prey – man, child, beast – which it would carry home to a langub (cave) hidden far into the deepest recesses of the mountain.
For a long time, so goes this old Manobo legend, no one has seen this mighty banug who once lorded it over the highest of Philippine peaks – Apo Sandawa or Mount Apo – that majestic mountain shrouded in myth and mystery.
“We fear the banug,” says Obo-Manobo Datu Joseph Andot, 54, as he remembers this story told him by their kaapuhan (elders). “But we welcome him home because it is a thing of the forest, and all things coming from nature, should be returned. If they are lost, we too shall perish because they had been part of the lives of us lumads.”
Today, amid the rhythmic beat of the kulintang, Datu Andot along with other tribal leaders have set out to prepare lumps of betel nuts and apog (lime) wrapped in buyo leaves for a betel-nut chewing ritual called samaya in honor of one such banug called Kabayan who will be returning home.
Kabayan is a Philippine eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi) and the first captive-bred eagle in Asia to be released to the wild. The April 22 (Earth Day) experimental release was held inside the Philippine National Oil Corporation Geothermal Production Field 701 at the Mount Apo National Park.
Right now, Kabayan, who was earlier transported to the site on March 30, is fidgeting inside the hack box where he was temporarily caged apparently oblivious to the stellar status accorded him. Kabayan - named after his sponsor, vice-presidential bet Senator Noli de Castro - can be seen from a TV monitor installed near a stage where a pre-release ceremony was held. On stage were De Castro’s wife, Arlene Sinsuat, Presidential daughter Lulli Arroyo, PNOC chief Paul Aquino, Environment Secretary Elisa Gozun, Energy Secretary Vince Perez, and re-electionist Cotabato Governor Manny Pinol.
Towards the end of the speeches, the datus have formed a half-circle for a thanksgiving ritual called pamaas. One of them held aloft in his arms a white chicken which he placed on a table and, using a knife, sliced a tiny portion of the feet to let the blood flow. But only a trickle came out, leaving some of the lumads worried. “Dapat modugo,” someone in the crowd says. “Otherwise, the spirits would be angry.”
Later, betel nuts were handed to the VIP guests for “mama” (chewing) after the rituals were held amid a whiff of electoral fever in the mountain air. “There is no politics involved here,” Philippine Eagle Foundation chair Carlos Pedrosa earlier told reporters in a press briefing. “Kabayan was chosen because of his health conditions and the timing.”
Clouds of mist now descend on a mountain top as a motley crowd of journalists had begun to trek to the actual hack site. It was an hour before noon, just before the cicadas shrilled a noonday siren, and a moment Domingo Tadena, Kabayan’s caretaker, had been waiting all his life.
FREEDOM
Memories still flash across Tadena’s mind as he awaits along with the others Kabayan’s mow-wit od layang (soaring home). “He has an attitude, he is wild, different sa iba,” says Tadena who witnessed the hatching of captive-bred eagles, including that of Pag-asa, the first Philippine Eagle conceived through artificial insemination in 1992.
Tadena himself handled Kabayan’s hatching on November 23, 2002. The raptor, a product of cooperative artificial insemination on the female eagle Kahayag from the male eagle Junior, is one of 30 under the captive breeding program of the Philippine Eagle Foundation in Malagos, Davao City.
From the start, Kabayan was programmed for release to the wild and was reared in an environment that simulates forest conditions with limited human interaction. “We had to wear a mask and use puppets when feeding him,” Tadena says. Live prey is also occasionally brought to him to practice his hunting skills.
Kabayan, he recalls, struggled when they pinned him down to strap an aluminum leg band and a backpack-type radio transmitter to track his movements after the release. Also implanted in his breast muscle is a microchip for identification. “He was howling when we traveled him to Mt. Apo.”
The 57-year-old Tadena, who had worked with eagles for almost 30 years, says he believes that Kabayan longs for freedom because eagles, even those bred in captivity, carry in them an “instinct” of the wild. “They want to stay outside the cage. Napakasarap,” he smiles. “Sometimes when we forget to lock a cage, they fly on their own not wanting to return, that’s why we have to capture them back.”
It is now half an hour after the hack box had been opened and still Kabayan, who strikes an imperial pose, refuses to budge from his perch. By now, feathers crowning his head are raised into a crest, as he cranes his neck towards the direction of the viewing deck which, although sealed by a canvass blind, are pierced with square-shaped holes. Protruding from the holes are bulky camera lenses and curious faces. Hushed whispers and mobile phone ring tones also gave the masquerade away.
“He is distracted,” Tadena explains. “Or maybe he doesn’t know that the cage is open and that he is free to fly.” Someone had by this time slammed a steel roof, prompting the eagle to fly off to a nearby log. Kabayan was seen trotting to the far end of the log and once again, settled on a perch.
Finally, just before 1 p.m., Kabayan flew to freedom back to the wilds and was no longer seen in the hack site. “It is very fulfilling,” exclaims Tadena. “I have so much trust that he can survive.”
But the “wilds” Kabayan is coming home to is a troubled terrain that sits atop a potentially explosive ecological hotspot. “We do not discount the possibility that the eagle will die,” admits Lito Cereno, PEF program manager for education, and although all “methods and instruments” were in place to ensure his survival, "it is still part of the probability.”
Beleaguered mountain
Still, chances of Kabayan meeting another eagle in Mt. Apo which stands at 2954 meters above sea level are almost nil. With only seven pairs or 14 eagles spotted in the entire 72,112.59 hectares of the national park, Kabayan may have to mate with another captive-bred eagle to be released to the wild. “This could be Mia,” says Tadena. “She grew up with Kabayan together.”
Kabayan and Mia are only about 500 remaining pairs of Philippine eagles in the country, a number that is critically low, says PEF director Dennis Salvador. “That is why we do captive breeding . . . to put new blood in the gene pool”. This number can even dwindle due to the rapid destruction of their habitats, poaching and the disappearance of prey population.
Mount Apo, a known sanctuary and historic home of the eagle, had been tagged as one of the country's 17 environmental hot spots. Recently, the mountain was closed to climbers because of the tons of waste found in the trails that led to the further deterioration of the forest.
Located about 40 aerial kms. west of Davao City, Mount Apo straddles the mountain ridge dividing Davao City and Davao del Sur on the east and Cotabato on the west. The ASEAN Heritage Site Committee, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and the World Bank had recognized it as a rich heritage site and an important center for biodiversity.
Revered as sacred mountain by the indigenous peoples living in its foothills, it is also being claimed by them as part of their ancestral domain. On February 14, the Obo-Menuvus had been issued a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title covering only about 3.2 hectares of land located in Barangay Ilomavis and Barangay Balabag, Kidapawan City.
A 12-kilometer road from Kidapawan City passing through Barangay Ilomavis however leads to the PNOC site where a 12-megawatt geothermal power plant was built right in the heart of the mountain. A massive opposition waged more than a decade ago was marked by a D’yandi ritual where 21 datus forged a blood pact, “vowing to defend Mt. Apo to the last drop of our blood”.
“We had survived the resistance but PNOC pledged that we help develop and replenish the natural resources,” says Energy Secretary Vincent Perez. He claims that they were able to reforest 591 hectares and drilled only 66 geothermal wells.
This remark though came in the heels of a new law passed on Feb. 3 excluding the PNOC’s geothermal reservation containing 7,010,000 square meters from the Mt. Apo Natural Park because of a “prior vested right”. The law - Republic Act No. 9237 also known as the Mount Apo Protected Area Act of 2003 - only mandates the PNOC to directly assist in “reforestation and other preservation activities” in the park.
But PNOC was caught in a controversy in recent months because of the alleged “arsenic poisoning” found among some villagers living near the geothermal plant. But while local environment and health officials have disputed findings made by experts led by Dr. Nelia Maramba, a toxicologist from the University of the Philippines, a group of NGOs advocating for environmental protection of Mt. Apo stands pat on Maramba’s findings.
“We are hoping that eventually he will settle here,” says Cereno referring to the PNOC’s Site B where Kabayan was released because of its “suitability in terms of food and vegetation”. Asked about the dangers of Kabayan being caught in the PNOC’s mammoth facilities and transmission lines, he replies that based on their studies the “live wires are only about three meters in distance and unless both ends are accidentally touched, it will not cause electrocution.”
But the fear of the mythical banug still remains among the lumads who are anxious about the eagle preying on their domestic animals despite assurances from PEF personnel that Kabayan is not inclined to do so.
"We would have wanted a meeting with all tribes to discuss the return of the eagle," says Datu Andot. He adds that while they were informed about the raptor's entry, other tribal groups do not seem to favor his return. Living around the park aside from the Obo-Menuvu are the Bagobo, K'lagan, Kaulo, and Ata-Manobo tribes. "But since he is already here, we might as well take care of him," he says.
Although feared, the banug was also known as a “protector of Mt. Apo”, so goes another legend. One day when the forest was about to be devoured by fire, the mighty bird dived into the water and soon darted up flapping its wet wings to douse the fire.
“This was how Apo Sandawa was once saved,” Loga, a young Manobo woman, says. “And when he was gone, the forest had also lost its protector.” ###
Mindanao’s poor left out in progress on education
Charina C. Sanz-Zarate / MindaNews / 17 November 2003
DAVAO CITY -- It is way past 6 p.m. Along a busy sidewalk in Anda St. here, 7-year-old Thessa sits on a stool, her head bent over a worn-out notebook where she writes her answers to a Math assignment. From time to time, she raises her head to glance at a textbook perched before her on an improvised desk prepared by her mother Cristy, a sidewalk vendor.
Behind Thessa, a throng of passersby rush to catch a ride home as PUJs caught in the traffic honks, blares and bleats. She remains bent over her homework, her little fingers holding a pencil, her only one she says, amid the noise and the heat right in the heart of downtown Davao.
“I want to be a teacher,” Thessa, a Grade II pupil in a public elementary school here, smiles. Her mother beams proudly. But a shadow quickly crosses her face. “I’m worried. Will she ever go to college? My husband has no work.”
A few steps away just across the street in the corner, about 70 participants to the Mindanao Education Forum earlier met inside the Grand Men Seng Hotel held Friday to ponder over a similar question: how to make sure that Thessa and thousands of other school-age children like her in Mindanao will be able to go to school, stay, and hopefully finish college.
The forum was convened by the Mindanao Coalition of Development NGO Networks (Mincode) to “provide a venue for incisive discussion and assessment among stakeholders on the status of the education sector in Mindanao.”
But the Powerpoint slides presented during the forum clicked on to portray a grim picture on the overall education situation in Mindanao, particularly if stacked up against the already dismal rates in the national level.
The odds against Thessa, for instance, to even finish high school stand at only 3 or 4 out of 10. This is based on the records of the Department of Education that show the number of Grade 1 enrollees who get to finish fourth year in 10 years.
But Thessa, who lives in Southern Mindanao (Region XI), has far better chances of surviving school compared to, say, a pupil from the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) where only 1 out of 10 Grade 1 enrollees finish high school in 10 years. Region XI, where Davao City is situated, has the highest completion rate of 45 percent in Mindanao.
Her dream to become a teacher someday also stands at risk as only 20 out of 100 teachers in Mindanao who took the licensure exam in 1998 passed, the lowest figure in the country. But again, because she lives in Southern Mindanao where the passing rate is close to 30 percent, Thessa’s chance of passing is higher than those coming from other Mindanao regions. ARMM had the lowest passing rate at a dismal 5.24 percent.
A Growth with Equity in Mindanao (GEM) report lists down a host of factors affecting Mindanao education: inputs to learning which include the child’s own capacity to learn, the subject matter, teacher competence, tools and time for learning; peace and order situation and the economy; household characteristics such as low family income and size, and low parental education levels; and education governance such as the need for effective delivery of basic education, how much is being spent and how the money is spent, and corruption.
And hardest hit are the poor and the disadvantaged children. “Progress in educating Filipino children appears to be by-passing the poor, the disadvantaged, the indigenous peoples and the Muslim children, ” points out Rene Raya, lead coordinator of the Task For Education Financing of the Education Network.
Recently, the National Statistics Office revealed that about 250,000 of the approximately one million children and youth aged 6 to 24 years in ARMM were out of school based on results of the 2002 Annual Poverty Indicators Survey. Among the children and youth who belonged to families in the bottom 40 percent income group in ARMM, 28.4 percent were out of school.
Need for Gender-Disaggregated Data
“Sometimes, it depends upon the mother,” reflects Cristy as she watches over Thessa’s homework while attending to a customer buying pomelo. She believes that the mother plays a key role in instilling the value of education among her children.
Thessa is lucky that aside from being an only child, her mother, a graduate of a vocational course, constantly reminds her about finishing school. “Do not be like me and your father.”
Being a girl, Thessa is more likely to finish secondary education than a boy her age, according to the Mindanao Commission on Women citing various studies. A higher drop out rate was noted among boys in high school which are attributed to higher costs of secondary education, and possibly society’s demand for teenage boys to earn a living. “Boys,” states an Asian Development Bank study, “are pulled out of school to join the labor market but pushed the girls to stay in school longer in the absence of jobs for the latter.”
But the gender parity index of Gross Enrolment Ratio indicates that there were more eligible girls than boys to enter the elementary level. This index refers to the “total enrolment of females and males in a given level of education as a percentage of the population that, according to national regulations, should be enrolled at this level.” The GPI for Net Enrolment Ratio also known as participation rate, on the other hand, showed more boys actually enrolled in the elementary level.
The MCW paper also suggests that “cultural bias implicitly promoted through education has contributed to social divisions among the peoples of Mindanao.” It also calls for “an educational system tailor-fit to the multicultural needs of Mindanao to strengthen social cohesion.”
Not Entirely New
The overall picture of the country’s education situation is not entirely new. Raya, who reported on “Trends and Gaps in Financing Education Sector,” begins a narrative about an old man who recalled hearing the same things 30 years ago. “Matanda na ako, ganito pa rin ngayon (I’m old now, but things are basically the same as before).” The audience, who mostly came from the DepEd and non-government organizations from all over Mindanao, laughed.
“We should not fall into the trap of (just seeing) the big picture,” says Bro. Robert McGovern, FMS, president of the Notre Dame Business Resource Center. He suggests, for instance, a “check on government operational guidelines on education which may explain the problem ... or that may run counter to education services mandated by the Constitution.”
A closer look at the country’s education expenditure shows that only about 15 to 18 percent of the national budget is allocated for education. This means that the government spends only about P5,500 per pupil, and since 1998, the real per capita spending on education has even been declining.
For 2002 to 2015, the Philippines needs about P250 billion more just to ensure universal primary education or P18 billion per year in added resources. An additional 20 percent more than its current allocation should be infused to cover the deficit.
What Can Be Done
Mincode, which is composed of 11 NGO networks, bats for a priority Mindanao education reform agenda and to draw public support and awareness on the status of Mindanao education.
Forum participants also mapped out plans which include the following: increase and proper utilization of the Mindanao education budget; effective delivery of basic education; eliminate corruption; creation of a multi-sector education to lobby for the Mindanao education reform agenda.
They also urge LGUs to look for other funding resources to support the education needs of its constituents as well as members of the House of Representatives to allocate at least 10 to 20 percent of their Congressional Development Fund for education-related projects in their respective areas
Ten years from now, Thessa will hopefully be a college freshman pursuing her ambition to become a teacher. This, if only policy makers can only listen to the hopes and dreams of a seven-year old girl, studying in a dimly-lit sidewalk, amid the noise, the heat, and the blaring of jeepney music.
DAVAO CITY -- It is way past 6 p.m. Along a busy sidewalk in Anda St. here, 7-year-old Thessa sits on a stool, her head bent over a worn-out notebook where she writes her answers to a Math assignment. From time to time, she raises her head to glance at a textbook perched before her on an improvised desk prepared by her mother Cristy, a sidewalk vendor.
Behind Thessa, a throng of passersby rush to catch a ride home as PUJs caught in the traffic honks, blares and bleats. She remains bent over her homework, her little fingers holding a pencil, her only one she says, amid the noise and the heat right in the heart of downtown Davao.
“I want to be a teacher,” Thessa, a Grade II pupil in a public elementary school here, smiles. Her mother beams proudly. But a shadow quickly crosses her face. “I’m worried. Will she ever go to college? My husband has no work.”
A few steps away just across the street in the corner, about 70 participants to the Mindanao Education Forum earlier met inside the Grand Men Seng Hotel held Friday to ponder over a similar question: how to make sure that Thessa and thousands of other school-age children like her in Mindanao will be able to go to school, stay, and hopefully finish college.
The forum was convened by the Mindanao Coalition of Development NGO Networks (Mincode) to “provide a venue for incisive discussion and assessment among stakeholders on the status of the education sector in Mindanao.”
But the Powerpoint slides presented during the forum clicked on to portray a grim picture on the overall education situation in Mindanao, particularly if stacked up against the already dismal rates in the national level.
The odds against Thessa, for instance, to even finish high school stand at only 3 or 4 out of 10. This is based on the records of the Department of Education that show the number of Grade 1 enrollees who get to finish fourth year in 10 years.
But Thessa, who lives in Southern Mindanao (Region XI), has far better chances of surviving school compared to, say, a pupil from the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) where only 1 out of 10 Grade 1 enrollees finish high school in 10 years. Region XI, where Davao City is situated, has the highest completion rate of 45 percent in Mindanao.
Her dream to become a teacher someday also stands at risk as only 20 out of 100 teachers in Mindanao who took the licensure exam in 1998 passed, the lowest figure in the country. But again, because she lives in Southern Mindanao where the passing rate is close to 30 percent, Thessa’s chance of passing is higher than those coming from other Mindanao regions. ARMM had the lowest passing rate at a dismal 5.24 percent.
A Growth with Equity in Mindanao (GEM) report lists down a host of factors affecting Mindanao education: inputs to learning which include the child’s own capacity to learn, the subject matter, teacher competence, tools and time for learning; peace and order situation and the economy; household characteristics such as low family income and size, and low parental education levels; and education governance such as the need for effective delivery of basic education, how much is being spent and how the money is spent, and corruption.
And hardest hit are the poor and the disadvantaged children. “Progress in educating Filipino children appears to be by-passing the poor, the disadvantaged, the indigenous peoples and the Muslim children, ” points out Rene Raya, lead coordinator of the Task For Education Financing of the Education Network.
Recently, the National Statistics Office revealed that about 250,000 of the approximately one million children and youth aged 6 to 24 years in ARMM were out of school based on results of the 2002 Annual Poverty Indicators Survey. Among the children and youth who belonged to families in the bottom 40 percent income group in ARMM, 28.4 percent were out of school.
Need for Gender-Disaggregated Data
“Sometimes, it depends upon the mother,” reflects Cristy as she watches over Thessa’s homework while attending to a customer buying pomelo. She believes that the mother plays a key role in instilling the value of education among her children.
Thessa is lucky that aside from being an only child, her mother, a graduate of a vocational course, constantly reminds her about finishing school. “Do not be like me and your father.”
Being a girl, Thessa is more likely to finish secondary education than a boy her age, according to the Mindanao Commission on Women citing various studies. A higher drop out rate was noted among boys in high school which are attributed to higher costs of secondary education, and possibly society’s demand for teenage boys to earn a living. “Boys,” states an Asian Development Bank study, “are pulled out of school to join the labor market but pushed the girls to stay in school longer in the absence of jobs for the latter.”
But the gender parity index of Gross Enrolment Ratio indicates that there were more eligible girls than boys to enter the elementary level. This index refers to the “total enrolment of females and males in a given level of education as a percentage of the population that, according to national regulations, should be enrolled at this level.” The GPI for Net Enrolment Ratio also known as participation rate, on the other hand, showed more boys actually enrolled in the elementary level.
The MCW paper also suggests that “cultural bias implicitly promoted through education has contributed to social divisions among the peoples of Mindanao.” It also calls for “an educational system tailor-fit to the multicultural needs of Mindanao to strengthen social cohesion.”
Not Entirely New
The overall picture of the country’s education situation is not entirely new. Raya, who reported on “Trends and Gaps in Financing Education Sector,” begins a narrative about an old man who recalled hearing the same things 30 years ago. “Matanda na ako, ganito pa rin ngayon (I’m old now, but things are basically the same as before).” The audience, who mostly came from the DepEd and non-government organizations from all over Mindanao, laughed.
“We should not fall into the trap of (just seeing) the big picture,” says Bro. Robert McGovern, FMS, president of the Notre Dame Business Resource Center. He suggests, for instance, a “check on government operational guidelines on education which may explain the problem ... or that may run counter to education services mandated by the Constitution.”
A closer look at the country’s education expenditure shows that only about 15 to 18 percent of the national budget is allocated for education. This means that the government spends only about P5,500 per pupil, and since 1998, the real per capita spending on education has even been declining.
For 2002 to 2015, the Philippines needs about P250 billion more just to ensure universal primary education or P18 billion per year in added resources. An additional 20 percent more than its current allocation should be infused to cover the deficit.
What Can Be Done
Mincode, which is composed of 11 NGO networks, bats for a priority Mindanao education reform agenda and to draw public support and awareness on the status of Mindanao education.
Forum participants also mapped out plans which include the following: increase and proper utilization of the Mindanao education budget; effective delivery of basic education; eliminate corruption; creation of a multi-sector education to lobby for the Mindanao education reform agenda.
They also urge LGUs to look for other funding resources to support the education needs of its constituents as well as members of the House of Representatives to allocate at least 10 to 20 percent of their Congressional Development Fund for education-related projects in their respective areas
Ten years from now, Thessa will hopefully be a college freshman pursuing her ambition to become a teacher. This, if only policy makers can only listen to the hopes and dreams of a seven-year old girl, studying in a dimly-lit sidewalk, amid the noise, the heat, and the blaring of jeepney music.
"Follow the sunset"
Carolyn O. Arguillas/MindaNews
Saturday, 21 June 2008 10:11
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/21 June) – Professor Octavio Dinampo fell seven times, two of them he considers “bad fall,” as he and the ABS-CBN crew led by senior reporter Ces Drilon were “made to climb more than 30 hills and mountains and valleys” while in the hands of their kidnappers from June 8 to 17.
Fortunately, X-ray procedures taken Friday afternoon showed he sustained no fracture, an announcement that made the 51-year old professor smile. His eyes looked a bit watery when Dr. Teodulfo Barnuevo replied “yes” to the question if he could be allowed to have a massage.
“At first I thought I was alright but when the fatigue set in, that’s when I felt every part of my body aching,” Dinampo, chair of the Mindanao Peoples’ Caucus (MPC) said upon arrival at the Davao International Airport mid-morning Friday.
Even before the abduction, Dinampo had already been suffering from gout. And while he asked Drilon and her crew not to walk fast so he could catch up, “after saying yes, sometimes they forget.”
He felt his feet swelling “when we were already released.”
Dinampo, whom Drilon contacted to arrange for an “exclusive interview” with Abu Sayyaf leader Radullan Sahiron, Drilon and Encarnacion were freed at around 11 p.m. June 17.
Less than 24 hours later, the ABS-CBN crew got medical attention at the Presidential Suite of the Medical City in Pasig while Dinampo remained in military custody for what MPC secretary-general Mary Ann Arnado, a lawyer, said was a “prolonged debriefing” at the Western Mindanao Command in Zamboanga City.
The softspoken Dinampo was finally free at noon of June 19. He stayed in an economy hotel overnight and boarded the early morning flight to Davao City on June 20 with wife Hainatul and MPC council member Liza Ugay.
He arrived at the Davao Doctors Hospital at around noon and while having the preliminary examination at the emergency room, was welcomed by DDH President Dr. Dominador Cabrera.
“Sana may ganito sa bundok,” the professor laughed when an orderly asked him to sit on the wheelchair so he could be taken to the X-ray department and later, to a private room, where he was supposed to have been a confidential patient.
The MPC officials, however, allowed the media a few minutes of interview.
“This is my second life,” he had said, earlier in the morning. “I would consider Davao my second home,” the Jolo-based professor, said.
But Dinampo is returning home soon after his medical examination, meeting and psychosocial debriefing here.
“Definitely because I could not, I should not hide from lawless elements because that will only encourage them to do more harm. We have to face it. And I have no job except in Sulu. Even if they offer me another one, I think I would still return and continue my work and this time I will be doubled and this time I will go directly to the community, no longer through a particular group,” Dinampo said.
He said he had “no idea how much amount” was paid for ransom but heard over the radio that P5 million was paid for the release of assistant cameraman Angelo Valderrama.
For nine nights and ten days, he kept the hostaged team’s spirits up.
A very spiritual person, Dinampo said he would give pep talk to Drilon and company. When he wanted to convey a message he didn’t want the kidnappers to understand, he would talk to them in English.
He would repeatedly tell Drilon and company to be in high spirits although sometimes, when Drilon noticed he was feeling low, she would give the professor the pep talk.
But he managed to repeatedly tell the team not to walk so fast “because we have to anticipate some shooting and that rule is if that’s going to happen, we drop, we roll, we crawl and we run and we run and we run and follow the sunset.”
“Sunset,” he explained, was towards the direction of Jolo.
“What if it’s evening, Prof? What if the sun had set?” he remembers Drilon asking.
”Just remember where the sunset was,” he replied.
Located at the western part of the Philippines, Jolo is famous for its glorious sunset.
At one point, he said, he asked “Is this my end, God? Is this the end for me?” It was Friday the 13th and he had just had his first decent bath and he “felt very clean.”
MPC colleagues who were in Jolo to welcome Dinampo as soon as they were released on June 17, said the professor told them, “second life, second life,” as they hugged him.
Before they were flown to Zamboanga dawn of June 18, he managed to have a few minutes’ reunion with his wife and three of their children. He has yet to see his six other children. There simply was no time as they were released midnight.
But in this, his “second life,” he says he will find time for his family, and for his peace advocacy,” the kidnapping notwithstanding, “we are going to double or even triple it.” (Carolyn O. Arguillas/MindaNews)
Saturday, 21 June 2008 10:11
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/21 June) – Professor Octavio Dinampo fell seven times, two of them he considers “bad fall,” as he and the ABS-CBN crew led by senior reporter Ces Drilon were “made to climb more than 30 hills and mountains and valleys” while in the hands of their kidnappers from June 8 to 17.
Fortunately, X-ray procedures taken Friday afternoon showed he sustained no fracture, an announcement that made the 51-year old professor smile. His eyes looked a bit watery when Dr. Teodulfo Barnuevo replied “yes” to the question if he could be allowed to have a massage.
“At first I thought I was alright but when the fatigue set in, that’s when I felt every part of my body aching,” Dinampo, chair of the Mindanao Peoples’ Caucus (MPC) said upon arrival at the Davao International Airport mid-morning Friday.
Even before the abduction, Dinampo had already been suffering from gout. And while he asked Drilon and her crew not to walk fast so he could catch up, “after saying yes, sometimes they forget.”
He felt his feet swelling “when we were already released.”
Dinampo, whom Drilon contacted to arrange for an “exclusive interview” with Abu Sayyaf leader Radullan Sahiron, Drilon and Encarnacion were freed at around 11 p.m. June 17.
Less than 24 hours later, the ABS-CBN crew got medical attention at the Presidential Suite of the Medical City in Pasig while Dinampo remained in military custody for what MPC secretary-general Mary Ann Arnado, a lawyer, said was a “prolonged debriefing” at the Western Mindanao Command in Zamboanga City.
The softspoken Dinampo was finally free at noon of June 19. He stayed in an economy hotel overnight and boarded the early morning flight to Davao City on June 20 with wife Hainatul and MPC council member Liza Ugay.
He arrived at the Davao Doctors Hospital at around noon and while having the preliminary examination at the emergency room, was welcomed by DDH President Dr. Dominador Cabrera.
“Sana may ganito sa bundok,” the professor laughed when an orderly asked him to sit on the wheelchair so he could be taken to the X-ray department and later, to a private room, where he was supposed to have been a confidential patient.
The MPC officials, however, allowed the media a few minutes of interview.
“This is my second life,” he had said, earlier in the morning. “I would consider Davao my second home,” the Jolo-based professor, said.
But Dinampo is returning home soon after his medical examination, meeting and psychosocial debriefing here.
“Definitely because I could not, I should not hide from lawless elements because that will only encourage them to do more harm. We have to face it. And I have no job except in Sulu. Even if they offer me another one, I think I would still return and continue my work and this time I will be doubled and this time I will go directly to the community, no longer through a particular group,” Dinampo said.
He said he had “no idea how much amount” was paid for ransom but heard over the radio that P5 million was paid for the release of assistant cameraman Angelo Valderrama.
For nine nights and ten days, he kept the hostaged team’s spirits up.
A very spiritual person, Dinampo said he would give pep talk to Drilon and company. When he wanted to convey a message he didn’t want the kidnappers to understand, he would talk to them in English.
He would repeatedly tell Drilon and company to be in high spirits although sometimes, when Drilon noticed he was feeling low, she would give the professor the pep talk.
But he managed to repeatedly tell the team not to walk so fast “because we have to anticipate some shooting and that rule is if that’s going to happen, we drop, we roll, we crawl and we run and we run and we run and follow the sunset.”
“Sunset,” he explained, was towards the direction of Jolo.
“What if it’s evening, Prof? What if the sun had set?” he remembers Drilon asking.
”Just remember where the sunset was,” he replied.
Located at the western part of the Philippines, Jolo is famous for its glorious sunset.
At one point, he said, he asked “Is this my end, God? Is this the end for me?” It was Friday the 13th and he had just had his first decent bath and he “felt very clean.”
MPC colleagues who were in Jolo to welcome Dinampo as soon as they were released on June 17, said the professor told them, “second life, second life,” as they hugged him.
Before they were flown to Zamboanga dawn of June 18, he managed to have a few minutes’ reunion with his wife and three of their children. He has yet to see his six other children. There simply was no time as they were released midnight.
But in this, his “second life,” he says he will find time for his family, and for his peace advocacy,” the kidnapping notwithstanding, “we are going to double or even triple it.” (Carolyn O. Arguillas/MindaNews)
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