Westport floating basin

Greenie is the lovely local blacksmith tutor.
At the art exhibition his amazingly intricate, miniature, steampunkeske, models of a plane and a lighthouse that actually glowed were my favourite exhibits.
The whimsical, fun, or utilitarian works he creates out of pieces of metal are a metaphor for what he strives to produce from the raw material of his students.
Although he loses a few along the way, he is always there in court to support any that find themselves on the wrong side of the law.
He gets them to exhibit at the art exhibition, or sends them over to us to get their picture taken with any unusual or interesting piece of work they've completed.
He is one of the unsung heroes of the community.








photos - Sonia Beal

Granity is a little town 20 minutes north of Westport, that I really like. This is a picture of a girl in Granity taking her goat for a walk. The Goat didn't want to go. I wanted to live out here, but after several people, not from Auckland who don't see commuting as a normal fact of life, expressed horror at the idea of driving for 20 minutes to get to work, I decided against it. Granity has a lot of artistic and community minded people - they have a community owned opshop and recycling centre and an old theatre that sometimes shows movies on a Saturday night. It also has its fair share of alcoholics and those with a fraught relationship with the law. Maybe it's just like any community. I think court reporting skews my perception of Buller and makes it seem filled up with mullet-haired boyracers and petty crims. I feel like I'm always running into them just after I've written a story about their court appearance, I never know if they know it was me or not. Sometimes I give them monikers. One of my favourites is 'Baby-faced basher' He was a very babyfaced offender who appeared in court on a domestic violence charge that included smashing his girlfriend's cell-phone and then buying her a new one - possibly twice - I can't remember now. Anyway the charges were relatively mild, and the lawyer played on Babyface Basher's looks to make the whole incident seem nothing more than youthful folly. You can imagine my horror, surprise and embarrassment, when a week later I ordered a coffee in a cafe in Granity and old Babyface served it to me. I was really curious to know if he recognised me, but there was no way i was going to ask him or congratulate him on finding gainful employment after his earlier set backs. I had that weird, nervous, almost excited feeling you get when you meet someone that you know lots about but they have no idea who you are. This, however, was only the first of our encounters and a month or two later when I knocked on the door of a house with a possible room to rent in Granity, who should answer, but Babyface. He had been on the couch smoking and playing his guitar, like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Luckily the room was gone already so my flustering encounter was brief. As was the time it took to run into him again the same afternoon back at the cafe. By this third encounter it was like we knew each other we both said hi. I almost feel like me and Babyface are on the road to becoming friends.

I can't believe it's been almost five years since I started this. (huge gaps in between countries of course). I can't believe how personal, sometimes cringe-worthy, my entries were. I can't believe that I'm keeping them all and carrying on with this partial sharing of my innermost thoughts, if only to myself. But it's good, once started, in my own halting, flitting way, to see something through. Amongst all the countries, interests, friends, that I've skipped out of, to have a thread running through. To be able to call myself, if nothing else on airport forms, a diarist. Yes yes, that is what I've always wished to be, it only comes to me just now.
I was thinking, I could never be as personal as I was in the beginning. Too much journalism, too much living in small community paranoia, but now I find maybe, with every facet of our social networking, reality tv watching society compelling us to bare our souls to anyone who'll listen, maybe I can still.
This is where I used to live and some things I used to see

On my arrival Iligan harbour I was greeted to the site of young men and their babies swimming out to the boat to dive for coins thrown by passengers.
Iligan City in Mindanao is definitely the strangest couchsurfing experience I've had.
The people I stayed with were great, but it's not a tourist destination by any stretch of the imagination.
The famous waterfalls which you might want to look at are just outside the city boundary and as such not 100% safe to visit. -Kidnapping is alive and well in Mindanao and no-one wants to be “the next Italian” (Italian Red Cross worker who was held hostage for six months in Basilan while I was there).
My couchsurfing hosts, told me that in this area kidnapping is restricted to Filipinos only and foreigners are pretty safe, (but who wants to take the risk....). Another local told me he could point out well known kidnappers who frequented the cafe he ran.
I actually spent a lot of time in that cafe cooling off under the airconditioning and eating banoffie pie and am still facebook friends with one of the girls who worked there.

To give you an idea of what I was feeling and thinking while in Iligan, here are a couple of extracts from some letters I wrote while there.
“Dear Jess,
I was thinking of you today. Interviewing all these great Muslim Ulamas who are using the Koran to advocate for peace in Mindanao. "Islam is Peace" they tell me.
They are so stoked at the thought that I might be writing a story about their peace advocacy for the paper instead of the usual stories of Muslim terrorists.
I'm talking to such inspirational people, doing such inspirational work, fighting against ignorance and greed and just saying it like it is, but they have to go off the record all the time so they don't get murdered because of something I write. It's like everyone knows who is responsible for the violence but no-one can speak out directly because they'll get shot. The guy I talked to yesterday just had his house bombed for speaking out against warfare and violence, and today I spoke with a guy who spent 7 months in prison under Marcos and has seen lots of his friends murdered.....
So privileged to have them take time to share their sometimes painful stories with me, feel really guilty that I'm so useless at getting their stories out to a wider audience.....
.....One of the women at the compound I'm staying in this week is called Chickie and she has a 10 year old daughter called Summer and a 2 year old water baby who jumps in the swimming pool at every opportunity. They were splashing round in the calf deep pool water yesterday and even though I barely know them insisted that I came in for a "swim". Even as I'm writing this I'm aware it sounds kind of boring, but after having quite an intense day of writing about media killings and the failure of democracy ect it was so sublime to be floundering round in a half full pool with a fearless hyperactive 2yrold and his sister.”



The kids from the family at the compound where my couchsurfing hosts stayed were so much fun. Here are some photos they took when they borrowed my camera:

















I talked about the situation in Mindanao with a lot of people while I was in Manila. Most agreed that it was under-reported.
One researcher believed the under-reporting was due to “fatigue, combined with bias”, and that there was an attitude of “It's just a bunch of Muslims”, among the Catholic majority sometimes. “Anti-muslim bias is quite deep in Filipino consciousness,” he said.
When I mentioned that I hadn't noticed it, he replied “the deeper the bias, the harder it is to confront and the less it gets talked about”, but he also conceded that safety issues made areas of the region difficult to report on: “you can't report if you're not allowed to go there”, he said.
According to Jaime Laude, a journalist who visited the evacuee camps in Maguindanao: “people want to cover up the mess (caused by fighting and poverty in Mindanao), we don't want to see what is happening on the ground, (eg 600 000 displaced by war) while we are here enjoying our lives in Manila.”
Another journalist I talked with thought that those who wanted power were using religion to draw people into a war that was really about money. - “'I'm claiming this land in the name of God and of our people', is far more catchy and romantic than claiming it in the name of small business and money”, he said.

In some ways the fighting in Mindanao was inherited from the Spanish Friars who colonised most the Philippines, but could never quite defeat the Moros, those Filipino Muslims and seagypsies of Mindanao, Sulu and Basilan.
“They are warriors. Even the Spanish, even the Americans never conquered them”, Laude tells me.
“If you want to change the culture of violence you cannot teach the elders, you have to start with the children -putting money into education is the only answer.”

In the Friars' minds they were still fighting the crusades of the middle ages -they were chivilrous, romantic heros on horseback, knights in shining armour rather than, bloodthirsty murderers trying to impose their religion and steal the lands of others.
For most ordinary people war needs to be romanticised or made holy otherwise they could never embark on it. The sordid, de-humanizing truth of war is almost unspeakable.
But for a moment let me indulge, let me use the frame provided by so many films, of the hero, always hopelessly outgunned and outmanned, but still facing his enemies and probably his own death with such courage and stoicism and poignancy that it makes you want to run out of the theatre and join a rebel army.
The image I have in my head was provided by Billy, whom I interviewed about the VSO in Iligan. He spoke about the U.S. waging war against the Moros after Spain ceded the Philippines to America and it was assumed the unconquered Mindanao region would automatically be part of the bargain. Billy told me about how the U.S. invented the 45 calibre pistol for the war against Mindanao where: “the Moro warrior wraps his body so he doesn't haemmorage when he gets shot. If you hit him with a smaller bullet he doesn't fall, he just keeps coming at you with a sword.”
The U.S. needed a bullet with “stopping power”, so they invented the larger 45 calibre.
This image I have in my head of the Moro warrior, in effect, prebandaging himself against future wounds and armed only with a sword, standing fearlessly against the might of the U.S. army is as compellingly poignant as the articles on gun development I used to research this topic, are horrifically disturbing.

Here are a couple of descriptions of Moros I found on the internet:
To prepare for battle, the Moro would bind their limbs with leather, take narcotics, and use religious ritual to gain an altered state of consciousness, this turned them into virtual Supermen. The .38 Long Colt pistol round the U.S. soldiers had simply would not stop the Moro. Of note is the fact that the Krag rifles the U.S. issued were also barely more than useless. (http://www.alpharubicon.com/leo/1911care.htm)
He [the Moro warrior] is absolutely fearless, and once committed to combat he counts death as a mere incident. (http://www.manatarmsbooks.com/excerpt.html)

Below are the articles I wrote about the Peace organisations I met with in Mindanao:
In August this year I was fortunate enough to travel to Iligan City in Mindanao, Philippines with the help of a grant from the Asia New Zealand Foundation. An English couple Lucy and Alex Mayers, whom I met on the couchsurfing website invited me to stay in their house. They are two of the last VSO volunteers in the Philippines.
They shared with me the joys and frustrations of their life in Iligan and introduced me to some of the inspiring organisations and people they work with.
At a time when pre-election violence is gaining momentum in the Philippines and the recent massacre of 57 people including 30 journalists (although I keep hearing new death tolls everytime I listen to a new report) in Maguindanao is receiving international attention, I wanted to focus on people dedicated to the slow, non-headline grabbing, unglamorous, work of building peace.
The following reports are based on interviews with some of the Peace Mindanao partners who were kind enough to take the time to explain their work to me.
The group of Muslim English students, in particular were really excited at the thought of seeing a story in the media showing Muslims as peace builders rather than the terrorists they felt they were usually portrayed as.

Lucy and Alex
Volunteer Service Abroad (VSO) has decided that the Philippines is all grown up now, and more than capable of sourcing volunteers from its own citizens rather than recruiting abroad.

“The Philippines has the talent-pool and skills to fulfill all the volunteer roles in our country”, says Mindanao VSO Peace-building Programme manager Romulo de la Roca (Billy).

“We are a middle income country with a lot of professionals. We just need to provide the organisational structures to get the people with the right skills to the right places and ensure their skills are made the most of ”, he says.

Having witnessed the success of VSO Bahaginan, a subsidiary of VSO which sends Filipino volunteers overseas, he wants to see volunteering become a more fulfilling and worthwhile experience for both local volunteers and the organisations they assist within the Philippines.

He also wants it to become easier for the returning Bahaginan volunteers to share their new skills learned abroad with their own country.

VSO is a 51-year-old international development charity which sends volunteers to developing nations to share their skills and has been working in the Philippines since 2001.

As someone who has been volunteering and working with Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) all his life, even spending more than seven months in prison during the time of marshal law “as a result of my volunteer activities”, Billy is helping to smooth out VSO's withdrawal from the country which will be complete in 2010.

Of his prison time, he says he was one of the fortunate ones, despite never receiving any of the monetary compensation promised to those tortured and detained.

“You were very lucky to come back alive if you were arrested under Marcos”, he says.

He also lost friends in the infamous Agrarian Reform march during Cory Aquino's presidency where “some of those we sent off to Manila came back, some got shot”.

However, the man who dropped out of university under the Marcos era but managed to complete a Masters degree in London on the effect of General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) negotiations and European Union policy on the Philippines coconut industry, is still dedicated to building peace in his country.

“I like to think of my peace advocacy as something based on justice. You recognise that past injustice needs to be redressed, but you want it redressed peacefully. The rebels have their story to tell too, it should be listened to rather than just shooting at them. That's one of the reasons why I never emigrated – there is too much to fix here.”

He sees his work with Peace Mindanao, a seven-year-old grassroots peace building project for communities affected by conflict, as part of the solution.

In Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur, where the organisation which has 14 partner NGOs plus two in Davao, developmental work is always linked with peace.

Whether an organisation is working on emotional recovery from war, coastal development, livelihood development, gender issues, water issues, or just studying English, conflict resolution plays a part.

As Billy says, the conflict in Mindanao, which arguably goes all the way back to Spanish then American colonisation, effects every facet of life here.

The Muslim volunteer programme helps to reduce prejudice against Muslims and promote peace, he says.

“If you are a Christian taking in a Muslim volunteer, then you will come face to face with their culture and find out they 're not that different from you and vice-versa. It promotes understanding between religions.”

The VSO is trying to popularise volunteering among Filipinos and publicise the the good work various groups have already been doing.

“We like to think of ourselves as a very religious people”, says Billy, “Catholicism and Islam are very influential, but volunteering doesn't always figure. People go out of their way to do good deeds everyday, but volunteering is something else – you have very clear goals as a volunteer.”

Currently the VSO is working with NGOs in Lanao to provide technical support through its volunteers.

Volunteers can be involved with anything from helping to write grant applications, to working with the Muslim volunteer programme, but one of their major roles is to assist in formalising organisational structures and clarifying the goals of the NGOs.

Billy says that although the Philippines has a large NGO sector staffed largely by volunteers, it continues to be unsystematised.

The informality of many peoples' organisations means that clear expectations, government support and spending transparency are often lacking.

While volunteers are eager to help put management systems in place and also acquire new skills, different organisations have differing capacities to absorb the skills of their volunteers, says Billy.

Congress has recently brought in some volunteering laws to help systematise the process, but it is still treated very informally.

Volunteers usually don't have regular hours and their work isn't recognised on C.Vs.

Not having a job description or having to renegotiate it along the way as organisations and volunteers work out what they can expect of each other can also be frustrating, especially for foreigners used to a different way of working.

“The first six months of volunteering is always the most challenging”, says Billy.


Aleem Elias A. Macarandas

When Aleem Elias A. Macarandas and a group of Ulama (Muslim religious leaders) started peace-building in 1994, they hadn't even heard of NGOs, let alone the VSO, they were simply responding to the imperative of growing violence in their home region of Lanao.

“It was a very volatile, very fragile situation, so we started holding meetings between Christians and Muslims in Lanao to try to understand the source of the conflict and address it”, says Macarandas.

From these meetings they realised that the problems were a product of the centuries old history of conflict between Muslims and Christians on one hand and , Moro armed groups and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on the otherhand.

Both groups held deep-seated biases which allowed fighting to easily erupt at any time.

Macarandas and the other Ulama decided to try and do something to resolve the conflict and thus his organisation, later formalised as the Philippine Muslim Welfare Society Inc (PMWS) in 2000 and partnered with the VSO and Peace Mindanao in 2003, began.

Using the influential Maranao traditional leaders as ambassadors, the PMWS has tried to introduce a culture of peace into a marginalised society whose poverty and ignorance allows them to be easily influenced by war mongerers.

“It is a very ambitious vision. It is not easy to just settle all these conflicts, but what is important is that we have started the journey”, says Macarandas.

Through town meetings and media broadcasts he and other Ulama use the Koran to promote peace.

Sadly many Moros (Islamic Mindanaoans) don't understand Islam clearly and don't live up to Islamic teachings in relation to Christians, which are the closest religion to them, he says.

Some Moros can recite passages of Arabic from the Koran, but they don't know what it means.

However thanks to the PMWS, Muslims and Christians are discovering the similarities of their religions and realising they can live with the differences and still be good neighbours and good citizens as well.

“Religion is no longer a reason for fighting”, says Macarandas.

PMWS also encourages Moros and Christian Filipinos to acknowledge their shared history of colonialism.

“We are all colonised people,” he says. “We only endured different kinds of suffering. The Muslims suffered fighting, the Christians suffered cruelty. Now that our colonisers are gone do we still have to inherit the fighting or cruelty that the Spaniards left to us? Maybe the government is wrong, but that's not the fault of your neighbour, it's the fault of a politician or party – you can't solve the problem by killing your neighbours after all they are just like your who are also victims .”

Macarandas is also scathing of the politicians who exploit history and ignorance to create conflict and perpetuate themselves in power.

He says he always invites politicians to PMWS conferences and village meetings, but they don't always respond.

“The Philippines is dominated by political dynasties who have controlled politics for generations from barrios to the senate. They survive by exploiting the situation in Mindanao”, says Macarandas.

At the grassroots level it is easy for peace advocates to get their message across.

It is much harder at the level of politicians and armed groups, but thanks to their work in Lanao at least, the number of recruits to armed groups is diminishing, particularly among the very young.

He says that in other areas of Mindanao such as Basilan and Maguindanao, the biases between Christians and Muslims run much deeper, and not even Muslim peace NGOs much less the VSO, have been able to work there.

However in Lanao there are even some politicians working alongside the 14 peace organisations, who are part of a new generation of leaders not affiliated with the old dynasties.

Part of the work of PMWS is trying to educate people to elect good leaders, but they are up against the open and institutionalised vote buying which is one of Ferdinand Marcos' legacies to the country.

“The polling booth is a market place, but the real problem, the real conflict is the pre-election violence. We are not yet ready to answer that problem”, he says prefiguring the recent massacre in Maguindanao.

For his outspokenness against violence he has received death threats and had his house bombed last May, although there has yet to be a conviction for the crime and he doubts there will be.

Despite this bombing, which among other things has resulted in the VSO banning their foreign volunteers from travelling to the mainly Muslim district of Marawi to work, Macarandas believes it is worth it.

He says his speech lambasting a coastal attack by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front last year, helped to prevent civil war in the area.

“If I didn't talk in the media maybe there would have been more fighting... but now in Iligan peace prevails.”

They have also achieved a degree of success in preventing Rido – a form of clan warfare and honour killing, which can be sparked off by the slightest insult and is prevalent among some Moro groups.

According to PMWS in the last ten years more people have been killed by Rido in Lanao than by the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

“Rido is more damaging than all armed conflict”, says Macarandas. “In Marawi City alone, more than 40 people were killed last January through Rido”.

However just recently he says peace advocates were able to intervene and get the family of a murder victim to go to the police instead of enacting their revenge by killing the whole family of the murderer.

“The direct result of our advocacy sent them to the police. Before they would have killed the whole community”, he says.

Macarandas says he doesn't blame his cousins living in the mountains and jungles for being open to the suggestion of taking up arms or believing Christians are their enemy.

He has the benefit of a Middle Eastern education, but how would poverty stricken people in a remote area with no roads know any better? he asks.

He would like to say to politicians: “if we had roads to my place, we could travel and meet each other. We could look at each other and realise we are no different.
You are exploiting us to stay in power”.


Jun Enriquez

Managing director of the Iligan based Peace Mindanao partner CSO-FP, Jun Enriquez is also no stranger to death threats.

The media summit he helped to organise in Lanao in October last year almost had to be cancelled due to the amount of controversy it stirred up.

The summit showcased the findings of local volunteers, journalists and activists monitoring human rights violations in the region where fighting still flares up between the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and rebels.

“There was huge pressure on us not to hold the Summit at all”, says Enriquez.

However despite death threats, they went ahead and after the findings were posted on Amnesty International's website, they received widespread attention from foreign embassies, who were highly critical of the Philippine government.

In response the local government tried to label Enriquez as a Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) sympathiser, but Enriquez is dedicated to the journalistic ethic of fairness and balance and encourages in the media to get both sides of a story.

Information from the fact finding missions he has helped to orchestrate show human rights violations towards civilians by both MILF and the AFP.

Enriquez's organisation trains local NGO volunteers on how to document the human rights abuses they encounter and also runs training for reporters on investigative journalism.

However he says he doesn't just want to concentrate on the “journalism of conflict” but on the “journalism of peace” too and believes the media has a large role to play in creating peace in Mindanao.

“The media are giving more and more attention to peace activities,” says Enriquez. “We have managed to create a network of local media practitioners who consider themselves peace builders. I am proud of that and hope that the media here can influence other journalists elsewhere in Mindanao. I hope the media can be the bridge in building peace.”



At the English class
“Peace is not just the absence of war, but equality and justice.”

“Peace is freedom and security.”

“Peace is our life”.

These are some of the definitions of peace which the group of Ulama and Aleema come up with at an English class in Iligan taken by VSO volunteer Alex Mayers.

While around the world English my not be regarded as the language of Peace, the Ulama Peace advocates in Lanao are still anxious to learn in order to reach a wider audience with their advocacy.

Alex and his partner Lucy are two of the last VSO volunteers in Mindanao.

The class was originally supposed to be held in Marawi, but since the bombing of the PMWS president Elias Macarandas’ house, the VSO has put strict travel restrictions on their volunteers and they are not allowed to leave Iligan from the south unaccompanied.

These travel restrictions are one of the frustrations Billy spoke of for volunteers, but he hopes this will not be a problem for less conspicuous Filipino volunteers who will be free to travel where they wish once the VSO has exited next year.

Despite the fact that most of the Ulama have to come all the way from Marawi to attend class, they are enthusiastic students.

Respected elders in their communities they all have various TV or radio spots or hold weekly meetings where they use the Koran to educate about peace.

With English, which is spoken widely throughout the Philippines including in universities and newspapers, they will be able to reach Filipinos who speak neither Arabic nor Maranao (the local Marawi language).

Spreading peace is very important to all of them.

“The Prophet wanted everyone to learn knowledge,” says Platino Pagal who has been on the supreme council of Ulama for 15 years and is also an Arabic teacher.

He asks: “how can you pray to God without peace?”

Journalistic Manifesto

I started writing poetry again a couple of weeks ago and now I can't stop. Like some people do crosswords or suduko or sketch. It clarifies my feelings and focuses my thoughts.
I wrote this in response to some somewhat sanctimonious musings on peace building and anger.

My journalism isn't generally detached, nothing I do is generally detached.
Of course I am interested in peace processes, I understand that violence and anger beget more of the same. I am appalled at the figure of 43 deaths in one month that Peace Mindanao partners, gives me. Most are attributable to “Rido” a kind of clan warfare where any insult to your family from homicide to a badly timed joke is repaid in blood.
I am amazed and in awe of the Ulema I meet in Iligan, working for peace, battling ignorance, to try and mediate some of the anger and violence in their communities. Their objective of Peace is a high and noble aim which I applaud, but part of the peace process, part of “peace journalism”, they tell me, is acknowledging the anger and resentment and bloody history which ended peace in the first place.
Ignoring this in ignorant bliss never turns out well.
I've read Tolstoy's War and Peace, I've read various Buddhist tracts. I am aware that being an angry peace-activist is an oxymoron, but ignoring or sublimating unpeaceful parts of yourself is also moronic and it's dishonest and generally I think people see through it.
In some ways this poem is the opposite of what I want to do with my journalism, but it is also an acknowledgement of the anger and darkness inside of myself, the violence of my emotions, both good and bad, admitting that not all of my work is inspired by admiration or objectivity, that some is the “journalism (and poetry) of outrage”.
I think acknowledging this has to be at the start of any peace-building efforts.


let me be anger
let me burn with the pure white light of rage
the cleansing fire
the scorched earth

where monuments to greed and ignorance once stood
let it all topple around me

arrow of the gods
plane slung against a blood red sky
the wild arc of your trajectory
strikes a chord
in my dischordant heart

Not for me hypocritical peace,
crushing compromise
silence where a great howl should be
I own my anger
and my actions

I would dismantle the whole world
to find a single grain of truth

and let a pure white light illuminate it.

Link: Report of the Humanitarian and Fact-Finding Mission to Maguindanao

 

The massacre in Mindanao on Monday the 23 of November in which at least 57 people including 30 journalists were murdered as they traveled to file candidacy papers for next year's elections, has been roundly criticised by the Philippine government, but considering the tiny amount of convictions (only 4) for the murders of any of the 67 journalists or 1013 activists killed under President Gloria Arroyo's nine year reign beginning in 2001, it is hardly surprising that the perpetrators of the Maguindinao Massacre seemed so at ease with acting above the law.
I am devastated by these deaths.
My thoughts are with all Filipino journalists, peace builders and activists who have worked so hard to try and bring about peace in their country, lift it from some of its war induced poverty and call those in power to account. The only good thing to come of this tragedy is that at last the media is actually naming names and the Ampatuan Clan and other Clans run by war lords in Mindanao might finally be held responsible for their violence.
Many people I spoke with about the embattled peace process in Mindanao mentioned the Ampatuan Clan as being part of the problem, but only off the record.
Quite rightly they believed they could continue their journalism or advocacy better by staying alive and not criticising the Ampatuans in print, than by naming them and ending up dead.

The Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR), had this to say of the Maguindanao Massacre: the killings, “are likely to trigger a cycle of reprisals and counter-reprisals that will raise even higher the levels of violence in Maguindanao, quite possibly in the rest of Mindanao, and even the entire Philippines itself. Violence has a way of begetting further violence, as Philippine experience demonstrates.”
“It was not only an attack on a local politician, on his supporters, and on journalists. It was also an attack on what’s left of Philippine democracy, in which free and peaceful elections have never been as urgent an imperative as today.”“Only the quickest and most decisive response in terms of arresting and bringing the perpetrators to court can prevent the November 23 killings from turning into one more incident to inspire the killers—of journalists, political activists, local officials, priests, lawyers and judges—who roam this country with impunity to keep on killing.,”

I did an email interview in August with Noynoy Espina, vice-chair of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), about the state of the media in his country. Can I just say what a fan I am of the email interview. No transcribing, no being unable to read your own shorthand, no painful phone conversations where the bad line means you have to ask everything three times. Also the interviewee has time to think carefully about what it is they want to say. Obviously email is not appropriate for all situations but sometimes it can be a stroke of genius. In this case it worked particularly well and I was amazed and very grateful to the comprehensive answers Noynoy gave to my questions about the Filipino Press.  Later I met Noynoy at the NUJP anniversary party where his gravelly voiced Karaoke rendition of "Wonderful World" was something else....
I've decided to publish the interview in full as I think his analysis stands up on its own without me writing it into a news report. However I would like to add some commentary and comments from conversations with other journalists.
While not a direct response to the current massacre hopefully the following interview will provide some background to the killing of journalists in the Philippines and relationship between Manila and the rest of the country as well as an overall background to how the Philippine media works in general. I've put Noynoy's statements on media killings in bold.


Noynoy:
"I'd like to be clear that my answers are my personal opinion and do not necessarily reflect the NUJP's positions or those of any media outfit or organization. The state of the Philippine press is quite complicated, in my own opinion, and far from ideal. There are several levels or divides, if you will, that all affect how the Philippine press performs or fails to perform its watchdog function. At one level, there is what I call the media industry – perhaps what you could call the ownership structures or the business side of media – and the media workers, both groups having different, often conflicting interests. On another level are the so-called “national” (read Manila-based) media outfits and the hundreds of mostly small outfits based in the regions and provinces. And on yet another level are the “mainstream” outfits and the “alternative” media. On the first level, I am sure you are aware that practically all the major outfits - whether print, broadcast or new media - are owned by either business or political interests. The same actually holds true with major regional outfits and even with many smaller provincial newspapers and radio stations. For most of the owners, the bottomline is either profit or the protection of their interests. While by and large, the working media – editors, reporters and other news staff – do strive to perform their jobs as best they can, this may sometimes clash with the interests of their employers, the media owners."

*Me:
While the phenomenon of business ownership of media effects most countries it is particularly poignant in the Philippines where it is said that practically the whole of the country, including the media, is owned by 10 wealthy families of Spanish and Chinese descent, who of course very interested in maintaining their wealth.
In America's Boy, James Hamilton-Paterson , describes them as "The Manila 400", referring to the number of people fitting into the ballroom of a famous Manila socialite rather than 400 families.
According to DJ Acierto at human rights group Karapatan, most problems occurring in the Philippines "are rooted in the basic conflict between the poor and the ruling classes and until this is fixed we will continue to have the same type of conflict."

Noynoy:
"On the second level, there is a vast difference between the way the Manila-based media and the regional and provincial press view and cover events. Being situated near the centers of national political and economic power, the Manila-based media often look at events from the perspective of these power centers. This tends to relegate events in the regions and provinces to the sidelines except when these involve armed conflict or natural disasters. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I think the regional and provincial press have a tendency to be overly hyperlocal in their perspective, often failing to situate events in their localities in the broader frame of the national life. In some cases, Cebu for example, there is an element of resentment at the chauvinism of what is derisively called in the provinces the “imperialism” of Manila. In most cases, though, it is because the bulk of local outfits lack the resources to maintain reliable news links to the national center. The result is what I call a lack of dialogue, not only between the national center and the regions but even between the regions themselves. On the third level is the divide between the “mainstream” and “alternative” media. By mainstream, I mean outfits that profess to hew to the Western model of journalism and its mantra of objectivity. Profess because, in my opinion, the interests that control outfits in the mainstream media often use “objectivity” as a convenient excuse for protecting and promoting the social, political and economic status quo, to which their owners belong. This is true even of those mainstream outfits that take a progressive or even oppositionist posture. These outfits can be overtly, even shrilly, critical of the ruling order of the day but seldom venture beyond the shallow spectrum of political partisanship to the deeper social roots of national problems. In marked contrast are the alternative media, ranging from the likes of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, which, despite a history of churning out reports critical of corruption, nepotism, and the other ills that afflict the political system, nevertheless professes a strict adherence to the Western conventions of journalism, to the openly left-wing online publication Bulatlat.com, to regional outfits like Mindanao's Mindanews and Davao Today and northern Luzon's Nordis that advocate regional concerns they rightly believe get scant attention from the national center and the rest of the country. These outfits do take a deeper look at the problems afflicting the nation and its people, very often incisively and with deep passion and commitment. However, their individual and collective output is mostly shunted to the fringes of mass consciousness, mainly by the dominance of the mainstream giants but also because they do require more of their audiences. On the plus side, a number of mid-level media executives, even in the mainstream giants, began their careers in the alternative press, especially during the waning days of the Marcos dictatorship and the Aquino years. But while many of them strive to imbue their staff with a more critical or analytical approach to the craft, they nevertheless remain constrained by the interests that control the outfits they work for. On the minus side, the repression of 14 years of dictatorship made for a rather small community of professional journalists following the so-called democratic restoration of 1986. As publications mushroomed in the years after the dictatorship's ouster, many of these staffed their desks with fresh graduates with little or no experience in working the field. This, plus the exigencies of protecting or promoting media owners' interests, has led many outfits to stick to the standard “he said, she said” or, as you rightly put it, “waiting for official sources” mode of reportage. Of course, with such mentors, many of the new crop of journalists have imbibed this admittedly lazy way of coverage. Given this milieu, are the Philippine media performing their watchdog function? Broadly, I would say yes, since, notwithstanding the weaknesses I have outlined previously (and I have just skimmed the surface, really), the Philippine media, to a large extent, seem to relish taking an adversarial position vis a vis government, even if within the narrow confines of political partisanship or focusing mainly on official malfeasance. Of course, there is very little investigative journalism to speak of, or very little of the sort that takes a critical and unflinching look at the problems besetting Philippine society. On the part of the mainstream media, this has mainly to do with the fact that such journalism would invariably run smack into the interests of their owners and that such reportage hardly commands a wide audience and is, thus, not all that commercially desirable. For the alternative media, the resources serious investigative journalism demands often are prohibitive. Unfortunately for the Philippines, our experience with a dictatorship that shut down the media, replacing these with its propaganda machinery, has given development journalism a bad, almost obscene, reputation. For this is what the dictatorship called the crap it dished out. This partly explains why many journalists and media outfits are wary of venturing into development journalism, preferring to stick with their adversarial role with most of the focus on politics and corruption in government. While there are a number of journalists and alternative media outfits that engage in development journalism, especially in the context of grassroots and civil society efforts, there is really no sustained coverage. And all too often, the subjects of development journalism of this kind tends to fall within the ambit of the social conflicts besetting Philippine society and, thus, in many cases the reportage comes across as advocacy journalism. Do the media reflect the various peoples, groups, interests and ambitions? Many journalists strive to. However, the interests that control much of the media preclude a true reflection of the broadest spectrum of groups and interests. Journalists in the Philippines face a whole range of obstacles to the effective practice of the profession. The skill level of many journalists across all platforms remains sadly wanting. This has much to do with both the quality of education in the country and the hiring practices of media owners, particularly in the regions. I am not a big fan of credentials, being a dropout myself. To be sure, I am not downplaying the value of a good education, although to be frank, I personally do not believe a journalism degree or any degree necessary to becoming a good journalist. Except for a few schools, there really are not that many good journalism schools in the country anyway, and most of the instructors have had little experience in the profession as well. Unfortunately, the trend of the post-dictatorship years, when the dearth of experienced journalists saw greenhorns manning desks or covering beats traditionally reserved for veterans – like Congress or the presidential palace – has continued to this day. There is thus little depth to much of the coverage of these crucial beats. The old newsroom culture, with its tradition of mentoring, has also all but become extinct. Technology has made it unnecessary for young journalists to report to the newsrooms where, in the past, they often got a better education in the craft from their editors than they ever could in classrooms. In the regions, a lack of resources prevents many small outfits from hiring real talent. There is also a lack of appreciation for the safety of journalists, especially those assigned to hazardous coverage like conflicts and natural disasters. Only a handful of outfits provide their staff with training and safety equipment, though to be fair, not many outfits can afford to equip their personnel with such gear. Fortunately, there are media organizations like the NUJP that offer free safety training to journalists. All too often, ownership patterns and hiring practices also lead to a breakdown in ethics. It is often argued that ethics is a personal issue. But to be practical about it, the only one who can really enforce ethics is the employer, through the power of the purse. Which begs the questions: what if the employer is unethical or imposes work conditions that often force ethical dilemmas? In some provinces, managers of radio stations have been known to require their reporters to solicit advertisements, sometimes in lieu of a regular salary. Even in major outfits, stories have been “killed” to suit the owners’ interests. Many journalists are also paid very meager wages."

Me:
With provincial salaries going as low as 15 pesos a story, several journalists I spoke with reported having to do extra work on top of their daily reporting when they first started out, such as selling their stories to the wire, inorder to make ends meet.
"You work everywhere, you "scoop" (tabo) everything to earn a living, from local TV and radio to PR work,"  one ex-correspondent journalist told me.
It is these journalists who work outside Manila who are in the most danger of being murdered but because they have to resort to other kinds of work as well, the government tries to dismiss them as the deaths of "blockclimbers" rather than journalists.

Noynoy:
"The lack of transparency in government makes it difficult for journalists to gain access to accurate information. The Palace has itself made this practically a policy with the issuance of executive orders that bar government officials and employees from testifying before congressional inquiries without the personal approval of the president. This lack of transparency is abetted by the absence of a freedom of information law. There are media organizations that have acknowledged these problems and are working to address them. However, because of the great odds, including the difficulty of engaging media owners, has made the work slow. Very often, it is the journalists who seek ways to improve their work conditions and make it easier for them to perform their jobs well. This sometimes entails setting side competition and working together. This works particularly well during hazardous coverage, such as conflicts and natural disasters. The killing of journalists in the Philippines has definitely taken a turn for the worse under the Arroyo administration. Since 2001, when Arroyo became president, more than 60 journalists have been murdered. This is the worst toll under any president, almost double that of the 14-year dictatorship or the combined deaths during the three previous administrations. And yet, there have only been three convictions, all of them gunmen, none of masterminds. There is no proof that these killings are part of any official policy, unlike the murders of activists. But government inaction and the administration’s often contemptuous or hostile posture toward the media help foster an impunity that emboldens those who seek to silence journalists. It is also strongly believed that many of these murders were ordered by politicians, most likely allied with the administration, or even members of the security forces who are either in cahoots with crime syndicates or run these syndicates themselves. To be sure, many of the murders are a result of a less than ethical practice of the profession, especially in the provinces where politics often equates with warlordism and where criticism can be taken very personally. Many of the victims have been known to be retainers of political factions. But there are just as many who were killed because they were zealously pursuing legitimate stories of either official corruption or criminality and its links with power structures. And, as many media organizations maintain, a lack of ethics is no justification for murder. However, there has also been a disturbing trend under this administration – the inclusion of media organizations and journalists in so-called orders of battle of the military. In 2005, the media came across a PowerPoint presentation called “Knowing the Enemy,” which was produced by the Armed Forces intelligence service and which listed down organizations accused of being “legal fronts” of the communist rebel movement. Among these were the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines and the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. Recently, another order of battle drawn up by the Army’s 10th Infantry Division was discovered. This also listed the NUJP as well as the group’s former secretary general, Carlos Conde, the Philippine correspondent of the New York Times and International Herald Tribune. Several journalists based in the provinces have also reported their inclusion in such lists. It is common knowledge that a number of persons whose names landed on such orders of battle have fallen victim to extrajudicial killings believed perpetuated by state forces. Aside from a glaring apathy towards media killings, this administration has itself sought to silence the press. In fact, it is only Arroyo who, since Marcos shut down the media, has tried a wholesale muzzling of the press when she declared a state of national emergency in 2006 and threatened to takeover outfits perceived to be inciting to sedition and subversion. During that short period, police were sent to raid an opposition paper and troops were sent to the headquarters of the two largest networks. This attitude has also led to the mass arrest of journalists who covered a failed mutiny by rebel soldiers who took over a hotel in Makati City in November 2007 and, more recently, to the brief detention by the Army of journalists covering the humanitarian crisis in Mindanao in late June. Our libel law, which dates back to the American colonial period and was designed to prevent the emergence of a press critical of the colonizers, has yet to be repealed or amended. Thus, libel remains a criminal offense. And the law has often been used to harass or even jail journalists who anger powerful interests, whether political or business. For example, Arroyo’s husband filed multiple libel suits against more than 40 journalists and media executives, withdrawing these only after he underwent open heart surgery and said he wanted to reconcile with his detractors. But the journalists he sued refused to take the bait and filed a countersuit accusing him of violating the Constitution by brazenly assaulting press freedom. The suit is still pending in court. The continued and worsening attacks and threats against journalists can be said to have made journalism more difficult under this administration, especially for reporters in the provinces where the danger of physical assault is many times greater. But if the Philippine media remain generally independent, it is largely because of the refusal of journalists to succumb to these threats despite the all too real dangers they face. Thus, yes, the Philippine press may be far from perfect, saddled with major issues of ethics, safety, the welfare of media practitioners and a host of others, but it remains free because journalists wish it to be. To be honest, there is a crisis of credibility too that many journalists believe is responsible for the lack of public sympathy and outrage over media killings. But I believe that should the media, as an institution, come under threat, the people will come to its defense to prevent a repeat of the experience under the dictatorship when the media was shut down and only government mouthpieces were allowed to exist. As for there being too much lifestyle and celebrity news, I cannot agree more wholeheartedly. This is because of the nature of media as, first, being an industry, a business, whose primary reason for existence is profit. And what sells better than celebrity and lifestyle? This is especially true in broadcast where more and more segments of primetime newscasts are devoted to entertainment news. But even many major newspapers have thicker lifestyle and entertainment sections than news. On the other hand, this can also be viewed in the context of how Philippine politics has regressed to the point where it now revolves around personality more than ideology or issues. The result is an obvious “dumbing down” of the news to pander to the least common denominator."

I was trying to interview people for an article on cyclone Ondoy and Mel sent me this story of his experiences during the floods. I enjoyed reading it so much that I didn't want to break it up into excerpts in my article. Here it is in its entirety. I've interspersed it with pictures of what Manila Bay looked like before the flooding. Note the ones at the very end with the woman collecting recycling from the beach made of rubbish.

Mel's Story

You're lucky to have left this "beautiful but benighted city" before the deluge, and I'm glad your sister is ok out there in Samoa. Just about everybody here has stories to tell about his or her experience or has friends or relatives who had lost their homes or had suffered worse from Ondoy's (Ketsana) devastation. Mine is no tale of misery or sacrifice - only inconvenience. And it's hard to talk about inconvenience when you're barraged everyday with news of sufferings of thousands of others. The flood's aftermath has exposed urban blight and helped us realize our puny existence. Rich and poor alike shuddered when nature showed us who's boss.

I and my two kids spent nine hours on a flyover on South Luzon Expressway near Buendia Ave. in Makati cocooned in a van amid torrential rains. We were with hundreds of others, I think, who got "trapped" on the flyover when the road below us got inundated within minutes forcing terrified motorists to leave their vehicles. That's when I realized we were luckier than those people on the streets below who had to wade in waist-deep water amid a heavy downpour. The flood overwhelmed even trucks and buses and that made the gridlock even worse. But it was fun time for many street kids who honed their swimming skills in what used to be a busy highway.



We waited out the rain inside the car, telling stories, and listening to news reports about the unravelling disaster. I didn't bring any food because we were on our way to a swimming party in Los Baños in Laguna some 70 kilometers away (We almost ended up in a different swimming party). The weather bureau which we call Pagasa didn't advise us that the volume of rain would be this heavy. There was no clear warning from disaster agencies. We're used to weather disturbances anyway.



We didn't actually starve. Happily, street vendors turned up in droves with answers to our gastronomic longings. Of course I was talking about stale biscuits, chicharon, pretzels, and some hardboiled eggs. And yes there was bottled water.




The rain eased a bit in the afternoon and then traffic moved a little. I crossed over to the other lane when I saw a chance only to stumble into another traffic jam. By this time, we were trying to return home. By 7 pm, we got to leave the bridge but had to drive through many flooded areas.




We passed by abandoned vehicles and processions of people trying to get home. What a pathetic sight. At an intersection a few blocks from home, I decided to pull over and finish our journey on foot. The water was too deep. I carried my little girl Fides on my back while her brother Julian carried our bag. It was dark because power had been cut and that spot in Metro Manila seemd to be eerily deserted. It was I think a 20 minute walk in waist deep brackish water to the building where we live. My kids said they had fun...




The government had a ready explanation for the rapid rise in floodwaters that left close to 300 people dead - the typhoon unleashed a month's worth of rain on a single day. Of course, the flooding would not have been that disastrous had the waterways not been clogged with tons of garbage.




Politicians here tolerate vote-rich squatter settlements near or over rivers and creeks. Property developers have no qualms about flattening mangrove swamps to build resorts or condos. And many ordinary Filipinos take pride in keeping their homes clean but see nothing wrong with throwing trash out of their car windows.



Mayors and other local officials here have pork barrel funds but these are rarely spent for environment projects or those that voters may not remember in the next elections. Now these officials were using funds that should have gone to dredging rivers, building flood control projects, etc. for doleouts in evacuation centers.



Up to this day, many areas in Metro Manila remain flooded. In some cities, the floods have receded but knee deep mud complicates rehabilitation efforts. The situation in many evacuation centers is terrible. Sanitation is the biggest problem. And we almost forgot about the animals...I think people from PAW (Philippine Animal Welfare) began collecting stray animals like cats and dogs in ravaged areas a day after the deluge. Many house pets were not as lucky...



This country is full of surprises.

Typhoon devastation exposes Metro Manila’s town planning disaster

This story was published on Pacific Scoop and I've put put up the edited version


Justin Jiminez with a pile of Manila rubbish... "operation Twitter" helped flood victims where authorities could not.

It was left up to many of Metro Manila’s 11 million citizens to organise their own rescue during last month’s deluge of typhoon Ondoy, which killed 295 and saw people trapped for hours in cars or on multistorey rooftops by raging floodwaters.

But ordinary Filipinos rose to the challenge and coped with an apparently unprepared, underfunded and disorganised central and local government.

“Twitter and Facebook were intense”, says Justin Jimenez. a Filipino-American intern at ABS-CBN, who spent his 24th birthday packing supplies at La Salle High School relief centre in Green Hills.

“There was update after update, telling people where the relief centers were, who needed what help and where.”

He describes the experience of following Twitter and seeing the flooding on TV in Eastern Manila while everything looked fine out his window in mostly unaffected Makati as “surreal”.

Many Filipino celebrities such as Carlos Celdran and Manual Quezon used Twitter to answer calls for help and handle the logistics of getting relief to the right places fast.

Jimenez’ own Facebook status two days after the disaster on September 26 – three days before the Samoan tsunami struck – was declared: “Justin Jimenez is eager to witness the power of the bayanihan spirit firsthand”.

Bayanihan is a Filipino concept which refers to a community spirit or helping each other, which Filipinos are very proud of as a national trait.

Jimenez joined in the group effort himself by volunteering to drive a small truck two days after the storm, loaded with supplies to San Roque Marakina, one of the worst hit areas.
Metro Manila floodwaters during typhoon Ondoy. Photo: Mel Selona

‘Cool networking’
“It was my first glimpse of the devastation. There were no lights, no electricity, debris lining the sidewalk, everything was still muddy. People were still walking around covered in mud.”

Jimenez says the way civil society used new social networking technology to combat the disaster and rescue each other was “really cool, really nice to see”. But it also highlighted how unprepared the government was.

Not only was their warning and response system inadequate but the whole lack of urban planning and amenities such as waste disposal and drainage for the sprawling metropolis has come under fire.

He says the authorities – who gave no warning of how heavy the rainfall would be – became defensive almost as soon as Ondoy hit, saying things like: “Don’t blame us, we responded much better than the US during Katrina”.

However, both central and local governments have been receiving much blame, both from the public and each other.

From wanting to send the local mayors to jail to suing the management of Angat, Ipo and La Mesa dams for opening the floodgates without warning, public officials are vowing to spend more taxpayer money in order to find culprits.
"The flooding was greatly exacerbated by drains either not being built large enough in the first place or being clogged by the city’s rubbish." Photo: Justin Jimenez

The flooding was greatly exacerbated by drains either not being built large enough in the first place or being clogged by the city’s rubbish.

‘Unsustainable city’
In Jimenez’ words, “Manila is an unsustainable city”. From the 1970s onwards, institutions such as the World Bank and leading Philippines universities have conducted numerous studies highlighting Manila’s urban planning as a disaster waiting to happen.

The studies singled out three areas of Metro Manila, Marikina Valley, Laguna Lake shore and Manila Bay as needing a cap on development due to their lack of infrastructure and frequent flooding.

These were the very areas worst affected by Ondoy, yet the government still claims to have been taken by surprise by this disaster.

According to Pete Troilo, director of business intelligence at Pacific Strategies and Assessments: “These months-long, multi-million dollar comprehensive studies have been routinely ignored by the Philippines government, failing to muster any active political support from key funding and implementing officials.
Girls clinging to a lampost as floodwaters swirled around then during Cyclone Ondoy. Photo: Mel Solina/PMC

Girls clinging to a lampost as floodwaters swirled around then during cyclone Ondoy. Photo: Mel Selona/PMC

“The implementation of effective urban planning programs and institutionalisation of disaster management systems requires long-term foresight and invariably take years to complete – a timeframe that extends far past political terms of office and administration lifecycles.”

Troilo who advises businesses on safety and feasibility issues in the Philippines, says, “Despite multiple warnings, the Philippines government never dedicated itself to solving the problem. Instead, during times of disasters the government always resorts to temporary evacuation and short-lived/sighted disaster relief.

“Indeed, over the course of the last 32 years, the Philippines government – from the Marcos regime of the 1970s to the Arroyo administration of today – was offered official warning after official warning with corresponding recommendations for improvement that went unheeded.”
Girls clinging to a lampost as floodwaters swirled around then during cyclone Ondoy. Photo: Mel Selona

Shanty dwellers
Troilo also cites studies recommending relocation back to the provinces of the riverside shanty dwellers who flock to Manila in the hope of finding work.

However, as the studies indicate, this is only feasible if the government invests in rural livelihood projects.

So far the government has failed to do this, relying on overseas remittances for people to subsist on rather than providing work in the countryside.

While the city came together for the relief effort, it will take time to see if the deeper issues of urban planning, over-population and infra-structure get addressed, says Jimenez.

People in the middle and upper classes are finally starting to talk about these issues. However, for those living hand to mouth in shanty towns with very little education available, simple survival takes precedence over consideration of the environment, he says.

Jimenez noted that all the relief was distributed in the very plastic bags which often end up in drains.

“It’s the same problem all over again with disposing of the bags.”

He says he heard of people simply taking the relief packages out of the plastic bags and then dumping them straight on the street. A study by the Asian Development Bank reports that 6050 tons of rubbish is produced in Metro Manila everyday but that only 71 percent gets collected and taken to land-fills. The rest is left on street corners and finds its way into drains.




Back to business
Despite Ondoy having destroyed $283 million worth of properties and effected almost four million people, in Jimenez’ area of Manila, Makati City, it is back to business as usual.

The aid efforts are winding down now and many of the high schools and students which served as temporary relief centers and volunteers are back to classes, says Jimenez.

“Things appear to be returning to normal”, he says, “but many places still need our help. It’s hard to get perspective here in Manila where the press is so Manila-centric, but the effects of the second storm Pepeng in the north, for example, are huge even if they don’t get as much media attention.”

Fortunately, the help coming in from overseas hasn’t abated.

In Glenfield, New Zealand, Jojo Velasco and his wife Ofel are spearheading a charity drive for victims of Ondoy from their Philippine goods shop, Tindahanpnoy.

“We have a very good Filipino community here”, says Velasco who has lived in Auckland for the last 10 years.

“Even though we are all different, still when calamity strikes we get together and help each other.”

This week the Hamburg Sud shipping company has agreed to take ten boxes of donations as far as Hong Kong free of charge, from where they can easily be shipped to the Philippines.

However, Velasco, voicing fears of many overseas relief networks – including governments believes it is better to send money directly to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) where he hopes it will get to the people who need it rather than going through the Philippine government which he fears will take a cut.
Jose, his wife and son, in their shop

Corruption notoriety
The Philippines is notorious for corruption.

Just this year the Red Cross released a survey revealing that 80 percent of Filipinos, Liberians and Columbians cited corruption as the biggest barrier to receiving aid compared to only 59 percent in Haiti, the Congo, Afghanistan, Georgia and Lebanon.

Velasco says ex Filipino Department of Social Welfare and Development staff come into his shop and tell how when donations arrive more three quarters disappear before they can be distributed.

Even though the government is “really crying for help now after tropical storm Pepeng came back”, Velasco prefers to send the money he raises to the charities of the TV stations GMA and ABS-CBN.

“Half each”.

He is very aware that it is only seven months away from the Philippine elections and he wants to remove any doubt that the government might use the donations for political gain.

When the local and national government distribute the aid they have received from overseas, they don’t say it comes from New Zealand or Canada, he says.

“They stick a picture of their own faces on it.” Senator and possible presidential candidate Lauren Legarda was recently reported in the Philippines media as saying: “Maybe it would be better not to be a candidate right?

“Maybe it is better not to run and whatever you will spend [on your campaign] just use this for humanitarian help”.

Poverty too high
Velasco agrees with Jimenez and Troilo about the state of urban planning in Metro Manila and hopes this election will usher in a president with the political will to uphold urban development laws and regulations.

“The unity of helping each other is there. We just need the political will of a leader to make it happen,” he says. “There are too many people in Metro Manila. The city is too small and poverty is too high.

“I feel sad about what has happened in my country. I grew up there. Even before Ondoy, that was the problem.”

Meanwhile, people affected by floods continue to shelter in relief centres while urban poor continue to dwell in shanty towns in 526 communities along the city’s river banks. The government does not have sufficient plans to provide better amenities and waste disposal, or to provide employment opportunities outside of Manila to ease pressure on the city.

How you can help

Thousands of Filipino “kababayan” (countrymen) need help after the typhoon and flooding hit Metro Manila.

Hamburg Sud Shipping has teamed up with the New Zealand Filipino Community to offer a 6 sq metre container free of charge departing for Manila at the end of October 2009. The container has been placed at the Good Shepherd Parish Church, Balmoral, Auckland, for donations:

Container closing date: 1 November 2009
Departure Date: 6 November 2009
Vessel Name: Cosco Fuzhou v.27N
Estimated Arrival in Manila: 25-30 November 2009

The goods that are most needed are food, clothing, blankets, footwear, towels and general medical supplies for general distribution by the religious organisations, aid agencies and government bodies in Manila.

More information and other collection points:
Good Shepherd Parish Balmoral
27 Telford Ave
Balmoral
Auckland
Tel: (09) 620 9517

Link: Erik Villanueva's Discussion paper on the poor after Ondoy  

I went to Siquijor looking for witches and found angels instead.

Link: Bolobolo (witch doctor) and love potion video: http://www.myspace.com/shamansofsiquijor


After the hectic pace of life in Manila I wanted some time on a laid back tropical island and fascinated by the stories of witches, healers and “black magic”, decided to head to Siquijor. What I wasn’t prepared for was just how beautiful and relaxed it would be, and how friendly the people. If the rumours of black magic, or even actual magic itself, have helped to protect the island from rampant tourism, then I don’t want to be the one to debunk the magical aura of “Fire Island”.

The name, magical sounding in itself, was bequeathed to Siquijor by the Spanish because of all the fire flies which inhabit it, making the island glow with its own eerie light during the evenings.
One of the nicest things I did on Siquijor was to drive up into the mountains for a group “firefly viewing” trip with the Japanese owner of my resort, who had transplanted this tradition from his home country. Our outing involved a group of guests piling into a truck while a “spotter” hung out the window until he found a tree buzzing with light and we lay down on the road to admire it and gaze at the stars.
I wonder if the fireflies are what started the idea of the island being magical, or if they actually are a signifier of the magic and the island really is one of those power sites which are said to exist all over the world?
I can only relate my firefly experience to the Waitomo caves in New Zealand. It is one of our biggest tourist attractions, where endemic luminous “glowworms” have made their home in a complex warren of stalactite and stalagmite bejeweled caves so that walking or floating through on a boat, it seems as though you are passing through a galaxy of stars. Maori (indigenous people of NZ) believed the caves were an entrance way to the underworld and upon reaching the tapu (sacred) cave, which was once a burial ground, the temperature inexplicably drops. The tour guides attribute the sudden cold to ghosts but tour guides know tourists enjoy being scared a little - it gives them better stories to tell when they get home.
(boat I traveled on to siquijor)
My journey to Siquijor started in Dumaguete where I talked to a resort owner about my search for witches. He had a healer from Mindanao associated with his resort whom he took his guests to visit. He said that when his healer went to Siquijor, all the other healers would run away and hide because they were afraid of his powerful white magic. He thought the healers on Siquijor used black magic - “One will make you a little bit sick and then another will make you a little bit better.”
He explained how they worked: “Everyone has some spirit-guides or guardians, not of this world, who follow you round. Most people aren’t even aware they’re there, but healers can talk to theirs and ask them questions. They can use them to find out what is making a person sick. If they discover someone else has put a curse on you they can help to remove it.”
On Siquijor most people were at great pains to tell me that they were a very god-fearing, religious people and all the “Black Magic” rumours were unwarranted. In New Zealand there are lots of “alternative healers” using all sorts of methods to heal people, from spirit-guides to herbs, to the more accredited, Chinese acupuncture. People either believe in them or they think they are charlatans trying to rip off the credulous, but no-one is really afraid of them or attributes them with powers of black magic.
Almost as soon as I arrived on Siquijor I got the flu. During the day I lay in a hammock under the coconut trees thinking about how lucky I was to be staying on this lovely island, but then at night I thought about what the resort owner told me in Dumaguete and wondered if a witch doctor on Siquijor really had set a spirit on me to make me sick. It was only the power of suggestion, but I stayed awake at night scaring myself with these thoughts and dreaming of fairy tale witches with pointy black hats and warty hooked noses.
I decided to go and visit one of the witches (bolo bolo)- I mean healers - anyway. Dagman my host told me he had taken more than 300 guests to the “bolo bolo” and they usually reported feeling better afterwards, “but it only works if you believe.”
There are only three bolo bolo on the island but about 100 different types of healers practicing things like massage. There are also said to be five shaman who can produce magic potions powerful enough to kill.
Several people I talked to on the island swore by the bolo bolo and one told me the story of how after Emelda Marcos had the bridges built on Leyte, her skin went all scaly “like a fish” and nothing would cure it until she came to see a Bolo bolo in Siquijor.
So Dagman drew me a map, I hired a motorbike and went to visit the Bolo bolo The drive is beautiful. Bamboo hut fishing villages sit on white-sand beaches, banked by rice paddies studded with coconut palms and fine old trees.



Everywhere I drove on the blissfully empty roads were waving smiling school children, placid caribou and farmers tending their crops.




As the road wound up the mountain brightly coloured washing strung on lines looked like Tibetan prayer-flags and I’m sure just getting out into such beautiful countryside was good for my health.
Even so I was slightly nervous and I kept imagining the coconut-headed scarecrows in the corn-fields coming alive and watching me like crazy, spirit-world sentries.

Dagman had told me the Bolo bolo's house stood alone at the end of the road, on the edge of the forest. From this ominous description I was half expecting the kind of gingerbread witch’s house used to lure children in for eating I used read about in fairy tales
But when I got there it was an ordinary bamboo house with a small shop, just like any other.
There was a fat pig and chickens, a couple of children playing with a kitten and another patient there with his Mum.

Except for being in a Nipa hut, it felt just like being in a doctor's waiting room at home.

The only give-away that the bolo bolo might be a witch was her extremely old age and the fact she had a black kitten. In Western folk lore witches are usually ancient and have a black cat. You should always be kind to any black cats you come across in case they belong to a witch. If you treat her cat well she may reward you, but if not she will cast spells against you
The bolo bolo spoke no English, but her other patient who was home on holiday from Dubai and had a rash on his arm cheerfully told me she used “black magic” to cure him. He said her power came “from heaven” but not from angels. God had come to her in a dream and given her the power to help people. She did seem to be be muttering some sort of invocation to someone in the sky as she filled a glass, with a black stone in it, with water and then blew into it with a bamboo straw all around my body. It sent goose bumps down my spine but that could have been just the effect of a cool glass touching the back of my neck. When she stopped, the water which had started out clear was murky and filled with bits of slime. “Very dirty”, she told me. She repeated the process with fresh water three times, the water remaining clearer with each session.
I wanted to believe, and part of me really thought the muddied water was the illness or black magic coming out of me. The journalist part of me however, remained unconvinced. “She could have been blowing gunk into the water through the straw”, was my immediate thought. Although I did feel good after my visit, needless to say my flu was still there the next day.
Maybe my own cynicism was to blame. Maybe it was visiting the famous Santa Rita or “Black Magic Mary” in the church in Maria on the way home. This statue, much vaunted in foreign travel guides for her supposed ability to come alive and wander round at night, looks terrifying in her black nuns habit with her staring eyes, holding a skull in her hands. I didn’t want to linger in the empty church.
I had the distinct feeling that I had seen her face in a dream earlier in the week. Having researched her however I discovered that she was actually a good, peacemaking woman who become a nun after her abusive husband died and her sons were murdered. In her later years the Italian saint had developed a stigmata bleeding from the forehead like Jesus scratched by the crown of thorns.

My next foray in Siquijor world of dark arts was to visit a “magician” who dealt in love potions. Again I was guided by Dagman who had smeared the love potion around the door frame of his resort in order to help business. From the way the rooms were filling with guests, it seemed to be working.
The potion can only be made during holy week and is a complicated process combining ingredients from “the North, the South, the East and the West, the sea, the sky, the earth and the forest”.
You mix it with your favourite cologne and dab it over your heart and if there is someone you wish to fall in love with you, or hire you for a job, you have to make sure you introduce yourself to them first before they introduce themselves to you or it won't work.
This just sounds like common sense to me.
Smelling nice and confidently introducing yourself to someone is bound to make you more attractive.
Maybe the love potion lends a helping hand. It doesn’t feel like anyone should need love potion in the Philippines - everyone already seems so friendly and open to the possibility of love anyway.
In New Zealand you can buy cosmetics which, although not going as far as proclaiming magical properties, use essences of natural ingredients only picked at a certain time of day, at a certain time of year, which are meant to enhance their effects. They are horrendously expensive,
Again I travel up into the mountains and through the forest to buy the potion, this time from an old man and his daughter.
I still have the love potion sitting on my shelf next to the bottle of San Migual gin - a little bottle of Philippines magic brought home with me.
Did it work? I smeared some on my computer to bring success for my writing and all in the same week my story got published, my tutor was happy with me and a declaration of love arrived in my inbox. I don’t know if I should attribute this to the potion or to my own magical self, but I’m keeping the potion.

Angels

All magic and witchcraft aside, I really did find some angels on Siquijor. The angels came in the form of an unlikely retired Japanese couple living out their dream of building a resort and helping children. Their resort is Villa Marmarine. Their charity is named Siquijor’s Angels and owner Toshito “Dagman” Harada uses his rotary club and other connections in Japan to raise money for projects in Siquijor schools such as providing running water and toilets, buying books and shipping over second-hand laptops from Japan.
Dagman, a retired school teacher, is unusual for a Japanese civil servant, in that he managed to spend a total of seven years teaching overseas with his wife and children in Lebanon, Kuwait, and the Netherlands. After he retired he and his wife Marie wanted to go abroad again because “there is no sense of community in Japan anymore”.
So they went on a tour, checking out Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Fiji and the Philippines, but it was Siquijor where they stopped.
He thought, “the children here are very simple, very shy, and they like to study. Maybe I can do something for them”.
He started by simply visiting schools and teaching them about Japanese culture through traditional games, even bringing over a troupe of Japanese university students to perform a musical. With funding help from his friends and ex-students in Japan he has now built toilets for 30 schools on the island. He can’t understand why anyone would build a school without one, but this is just one of many aspects of Filipino life which confuses someone raised in Japan.
“Filipino and Japanese culture are very different. At first it confused me a lot but I try to walk a balance between the two.”
Coming to grips with the very loose Filipino conception of time compared to Japanese punctuality and organisation was particularly difficult.
“They are always late, they don’t have planning.... but I understand it’s the Filipino way. Now I have many friends here - teachers, the Rotary club, tennis players, and of course all the children.”
In Japan teachers are often highly revered and much loved by their students, holding a very respected position in society. It was Dagman’s dream to have a place where he could invite his ex-students to come and stay with their families or girlfriends and experience another culture. So far about 30 have visited him.
This sense of wanting to be a good host, pervades the atmosphere of the resort and staying there you feel more like a friend than someone to make money off. In fact, though the business is doing very well since they got mentioned as “Top Pick” in the Lonely Planet Travel Guide, most of the money they make goes back into the island through the employment he provides to all the construction workers adding to the resort or working on the school projects. Most of the resort staff are also part time students whom he is helping through school.

The resort was designed by Marie and unlike some of the wedding cake concrete monstrosities further along the beach, it has an understated Japanese design ethic which tries to compliment, rather than obliterate nature
The deck overlooking the beach is built around the coconut palms she refused to cut down and natural fibers and wood have been used where ever possible, “despite the inconvenience of having to re-thatch the straw roof every year”.
Everywhere there are little Japanese touches mixed in with Filipino beach style which give charm to the place.
At night the friendly waitresses don a much more comfortable Filipino approximation of a kimono sewn by Marie and obis all askew they saunter about carrying cold flannels and free desserts to their guests.
From their own table Dagman and Marie chat happily with everyone and try to make them feel at home.
Flo, the Filipino manager took time to tell me various ghost stories from the island including one about a golden horse running around under the island which foreigners want to catch but if they do the island will sink.
She told me about various people on the island who had been enchanted by goblins and gone missing for hours, swearing they had been at a fancy party in a condo, which when they pointed it out, was really just a tree or cave.
Sometimes the goblins would return to try and convince their human consort to marry them and come away to the spirit world, much like fairies in Western folk lore.
She also spoke of a mysterious creature with a horse's head and a man's body who liked to sit in trees smoking cigars.
If you cut down their tree they would attack you, but judging from the numerous beautiful old Balete trees still standing on Siquijor, they still have plenty of places to live.
Flo said they were very frightening, but to me they sounded like some interesting creature you might meet in the pages of The Chronicles of Narnia or some other children’s book.
In Maori mythology the forests are also inhabited by many unearthly creatures, with every tree and stone and river having some sort of life force or spirit protecting it. You had to pray for permission before you could cut down a tree and there is a story about a man forgetting to do so before he cut down a huge Kauri tree to build a canoe. Tané the god of the forest got all the insects to put the tree back up every time the man cut it down.