Present!

PINOY KASI
Present!

By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 00:19am (Mla time) 08/30/2006

Published on Page A13 of the August 30, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

TODAY is the International Day of the Disappeared, "disappeared" being a translation of the Spanish "desaparecidos."

In the 1970s and 1980s, Latin Americans began to use that term to refer to people who disappeared under politically repressive regimes. Like the Philippines, several Latin American countries suffered through that decade under US-sponsored military dictatorships. The most brutal ones were those of Chile and Argentina, where the regimes conducted "dirty wars" that included thousands of liberals and leftists being picked up by the authorities, never to be seen again.

Eventually, the full brutality of these disappearances surfaced as survivors, and the military themselves, came out with the stories of what had happened. In many cases, the victims would simply be executed and dumped into unmarked graves. But in Argentina, the most horrifying of stories involved "vuelos de la muerte" [death flights], in which sedated political prisoners would be loaded onto military planes and then dumped
into the sea.

Argentina also had the "chiquitos desaparecidos," disappeared children. Some of the abducted political prisoners were pregnant women, and the military would sometimes wait until the mothers delivered. The mothers would then be executed, and then the children were spirited away for adoption.

Nilo Valerio

Human rights groups estimate that during the Marcos dictatorship, there were about 1,600 disappeared Filipinos. I had a personal link to one of them, and I thought that sharing his story would make the disappeared more real.

Back in the 1980s, when I was working for a health NGO, one of our frequent visitors was Daisy Valerio, an NGO worker who would come by selling bamboo products from her communities' income-generating projects.

I knew Daisy's husband, Nilo Valerio, a former SVD priest who had gone to the hills to join the New People's Army (NPA). Many religious like him had chosen that option because they felt it was the only way to address society's injustices.

Then one day it happened. Nilo disappeared. We learned later from witnesses in the town of Bakun in the northern province of Benguet, that there was an encounter on Aug. 24, 1985 between the military and the NPA. Three rebels were killed: Nilo, 35; Reseta Fernandez, 27; and Soledad Salvador, 28.

The soldiers beheaded the three rebels, and used one of the women's heads for target practice. The bodies were buried in a single grave and the heads in another site. The graves were all unmarked. The acting chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines at the time was Fidel Ramos, and he himself described the executions as "barbaric." He promised an impartial investigation and punishment for those involved.

To this day, the bodies have not been recovered, and no soldier has been prosecuted.

Daisy eventually became secretary general of the Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearances (Find). In 2003, Daisy and her two sons visited the "barangay" [village] where Nilo was killed. She says elderly people came up to the sons for a tearful reunion of sorts; they could see the sons' resemblance to "Ka Bobot," Nilo's underground name.

Bakun residents spoke too about the need for healing for their community, and how this has not happened because the bodies have not been recovered.

It is the disappearance of 1,600 Filipinos that keeps the entire nation from recovering. Even more disturbing is that the disappearances have continued. Even after democracy was restored, disappearances continued through the presidencies of Aquino, Ramos and Estrada, although not on the same scale as during the Marcos regime. Sadly, there were also the disappeared from within the NPA when, in the 1980s, paranoid cadres executed their own comrades suspected of being deep penetration agents (DPAs).

In August 2001, Daisy and other members of Find had an audience with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who was barely seven months in office. After listening to their stories, the President told them: "I hope there will be no disappearances in my time."

Daisy tells me she still cries now for Nilo, but more often, she cries, too, out of anger at what's happening today under Ms Arroyo, with almost daily reports of new arrests, murders and, yes, disappearances.

Living on

Anthropologists note that only humans bury the dead, with mourning and with reverence. Burying and grieving for the dead are among the hallmarks of our humanity, so the phenomenon of the disappeared is especially disturbing. What kind of low life, one has to ask, can kill, and then defile the dead?

Social scientists have coined the term "othering" to describe the process here. People have to be indoctrinated, brainwashed, to hate the "enemy" and to think of them as less than human. The other day the Inquirer had aphotograph of Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, Ms Arroyo's leading star in her all-out war against the Left, addressing an anti-communist rally in Pampanga province. The caption said he talked for two hours. One can imagine the rage that he built up in that rally. I'm sure he didn't call for arrests, or torture or murder. The master demagogue knows better.

The government may want to pick up a few lessons from the repressive 1970s and 1980s. Succinctly: The dirty wars failed, and failed miserably. Rather than instilling fear in the population, each disappearance, each human rights violation drove more people to join the opposition and eventually, the repressive regimes, even with the full force of the military behind them, collapsed.

Appropriately, the practice of "disappearing" the detainees has worked against the dictators and their butchers. Normally, these criminals go into exile and bide their time, hoping to benefit from statutes of limitations or a time limit for the prosecution of crimes. But a revolutionary ruling from a Chilean judge, Juan Guzman Tapia, has changed this and has become the basis for international law. Tapia ruled that for as long as people remain "disappeared," these detainees are, technically, still under "sequestration," in the custody of the military, so until they produce the bodies, they remain liable for criminal prosecution.

Eventually, we will know who are behind the new wave of terror in the Philippines. The truth will always come out because human rights violations remain etched in people's memories, including those of the soldiers ordered to kill and maim. But it is the relatives and friends of the "disappeared" who often end up at the forefront of organizations and
movements to bring justice. In Buenos Aires, Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo are well known, grandmothers who keep their vigil at a central plaza calling for justice for their disappeared children and grandchildren.

In Latin American countries, memorial services are conducted where they read out the names of the disappeared. As each name is read, people respond "Presente!" It's a way of saying the disappeared are still with us.

Language and the law

PINOY KASI
Language and the law
By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 00:58am (Mla time) 08/25/2006

Published on Page A13 of the August 25, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

WE complain endlessly about how lawless the country is. But there are really two sides to this. On one hand, the rich and powerful know what the laws are, and manipulate the legal system to their advantage. On the other hand, you have the poor, who don't know the laws and end up being victimized by the powerful.
Language seems to aggravate the situation. With English still dominating our legal system, it's no wonder that the laws favor the rich.
I thought about these problems of language and the law as I read a copy of a letter from Napoleon Imperial to Sen. Manuel Lapid (Lito Lapid, to most Filipinos). Nap, who is with the education and manpower development division of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda), was appealing to the senator to push for the use of Filipino, from the legislative processes to trial proceedings.
Model laws
Nap's letter got me thinking. Perhaps one reason the nation is in shambles is that the vast majority of Filipinos have little appreciation of our laws. I intentionally used the word "appreciation" because we have many wonderful laws, so much so that other countries sometimes look to our laws as models. Let me cite a few examples:
The Generics Act of 1989 is still cited in medical journals and consumer magazines worldwide as an example of how governments can promote rational drug use, and bring down drug prices, through the use of generics.
Our National AIDS Prevention Law, passed in 1995, has been hailed by AIDS groups as model legislation with its incisive provisions on prevention, treatment and care. Policy analysts have pointed out that the law, with its strong anti-discrimination clauses and support for a multisectoral National AIDS Council, may have been one reason the prevalence of HIV in the country is low.
During a recent trip to Thailand, I met a woman legislator who told me she had been inspired by one of our laws that penalizes marital rape. She's been working to get a similar law passed there.
Then there's the recent passage of the Juvenile Justice Bill, which prohibits the imprisonment of minors and provides for rehabilitation services. I predict that it will inspire legislators in other countries to pass similar ones.
Rights
The list could go on and on. We do have good laws but they would become even more effective if more people understood them, and used them. There were multi-lingual information campaigns around the Generics Act shortly after it was passed, and that helped to make an impact. Alas, with time, the campaigns dwindled and many provisions of the law are rarely enforced.
With traffic regulations, we see attempts to use local languages for better enforcement. We see more street signs now in Filipino, but they still remain largely ineffective, partly because even in Filipino, the messages are not clear.
Nap Imperial's point is to have new laws translated into and disseminated in Filipino. But I suspect laws in Filipino may be even more obscure than in English, so even more important would be public discussions of these new laws, conducted in local languages and through the mass media. Just listen to the legal assistance programs on radio, and you'll find listeners calling in non-stop, asking, in Filipino, about a wide range oflegal issues from late birth registration to inheritance.
I'd like to see these programs going a step further and helping to change the Filipino view of the law. Right now, Filipinos look at laws mainly as prohibitions, exemplified by all the "bawal" [prohibited] signs we see on the road. Since the powerful are always getting away with doing what's prohibited, Filipinos end up looking at the "bawal" signs and our laws as "suggestions"-things that you shouldn't do, if there's a risk of getting caught.
Our public service programs should do more to emphasize how laws protect people. A "No Parking" sign is there to prevent street congestion. A "Slow" sign may mean the area has many schoolchildren crossing.
We need more discussions, too, about how laws help to assure fairness, to protect rights. A "No Counterflow" sign should be explained not just to prevent traffic gridlocks but also to ensure fairness. Why should anyone be allowed to speed forward ahead of all the others who have been patiently waiting?
Language is important again to "interrogate" laws, and the principles behind these laws. I once heard on radio an aggrieved woman complaining, "Hindi karapat-dapat. Hindi fair." ["It's not right. It's not fair."] We need to talk more about fairness, and the law, along lines of what should be.
Grievances
Nap also describes how court proceedings in English put many Filipinos at a disadvantage. One reason is that their poor grasp of English prevents them from following what's going on. But language isn't just a medium, it's a setting as well. When judge and lawyers speak in English, they duplicate the existing power inequities: We, the English speakers, know what's right and you, the speakers of the "vernacular," of the "dialect," are ignorant.
Contrast our court hearings with our "barangay" [village or neighborhood district] justice system, where the protagonists can confront each other in Filipino or the local language, with barangay officials mediating. Again, language sets the stage. Being able to speak, even occasionally curse -- in Filipino or Cebuano or Ilocano -- allows people to bring outimportant information to argue a case. Speaking in Filipino, the barangay captain comes through as firm, yet understanding. I've seen a tiny woman barangay captain restrain huge bullies, calm fiery wives, admonish haughty mistresses with two words: "Makinig ka." She wouldn't have been as effective if she said, "Listen."
Our notions of democracy revolve around voting, but I'm less impressed with our elections than by the ways we lobby for or against laws. Politicians' speeches leave me cold, but I'm always impressed with forums where a peasant, or a worker, or a student, is able to explain a law with all the eloquence that can come only with using local languages. Speakers using English fall flat, the laws degenerating into jargon, distant andirrelevant. In Filipino or a local language, the words fly, bodies move, almost musically, as people begin to appreciate a law, and claim it as their own. Now that's citizenship.
Similarly, the use of Filipino in barangay halls allows people to speak their minds. Not surprisingly, the barangay hearings are often resolved without going on to the police station or a court, sometimes in just one afternoon. People can feel justice is done, and that the laws do benefit citizens.
"Galing!" ["Very good!"] I've heard people say after a barangay hearing. And I know they were not just praising the skills of the barangay officials, but also expressing how they felt, a sense that they're recovering from whatever wrong was done. That's justice, brought about by the synergy of language and law.

Different

PINOY KASI

Different
By Michael Tan

Inquirer

Last updated 00:43am (Mla time) 08/23/2006

Published on Page A11 of the August 23, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE superlatives were profuse for the two babies: pretty, precious, adorable, lovely. Missing my own Yna after almost two weeks of separation, I had to chime in as well, almost tempted to ask the proud parents for permission to carry the infants.
The elevators in the Toronto hotel where I was staying were running slow that day, so a small crowd eventually gathered around the couple and their babies. One was pushing a carriage with a sleeping baby inside, while the other one was carrying, with admirable aplomb, a baby in one arm and a baby bag in the other, overflowing with children's stuff.
From the first time I saw them, I knew the babies were adopted. The giveaway was that the two had, well, two daddies, a gay couple.
Normalized
Scenes like that are actually becoming more common in many parts of the world. Even in the Philippines, gay men and lesbians have been adopting children for the longest time ever, often informally, and more often as single parents. I know a gay physician whose lover died suddenly almost 20 years ago, leaving behind a wife and two children. The doctor took them all in, and raised the two children as his own, sending them to one of the best schools in Manila.
Gay couples raising children are more of a recent phenomenon, partly because homosexuality has been such an underground affair, making it difficult for two men, or two women, to build a stable relationship. Now that societies are more accepting, we're seeing more of long-term couples, including many who now want legal reforms to adopt children as couples, and to have their relationships recognized as civil unions.
All these developments upset some conservatives. I'm saying "some" because many conservatives actually welcome these developments. On Canadian TV the other night, there were two Baptist ministers, a man and his wife, being interviewed. The woman minister was totally in favor of gay marriages, arguing that a loving relationship should be blessed, whether it involves a man and a woman, or two men, or two women. Her husband used Scriptural passages to argue that homosexuality is wrong, but conceded that gay couples are as capable of loving relationships as heterosexual couples. These conservatives at least see the potentials for family values in gay relationships.
But others are not as open, and vehemently oppose legal adoption and legal marriages for same-sex couples, and the fear here is that such legal developments will "normalize" what they feel is immoral and abnormal.
I can understand those fears, seeing how that scene in the elevator will linger in people's minds and will be the topic of many conversations: "Oh, guess who I ran into at the elevator."
Natural
Yet when you think about it, what the moralists fear most is that people will see that gay men and lesbians are, well, as loving and nurturing as straight people.
After all, adopted children are often much more loved than "natural" children. The unwanted child becomes wanted, almost with a vengeance, often given a much better life than he or she would have had with the natural parents. Gay couples are also known, both in the West and here in the Philippines, to tend to take special children, those who aredifferently abled, or with developmental difficulties.
I suspect that facing so much social discrimination and hatred, gay people tend to latch on more quickly to the "underdog" child, and many will work miracles to bring out the child's full potentials.
'Diprensiya'
I've wondered about how the moralists deal with their own gay and lesbian relatives. It's inevitable; every clan has its own share of "suspects." The hard-liners simply cut ties with these queer relatives but others will grudgingly move toward patronizing tolerance. Who, after all, keeps the ever-sacred family running? Who do you run to when you need money? Who volunteers, or is volunteered to care for the young, the sick, the disabled? Who else but the "bakla" [gay] brother, the tomboy sister?
And who cares for the elderly parents? A friend of mine told me once about a young mother who had been fretting about an "effeminate" son, worrying that the child would grow up to be gay. This elderly woman, whose gay son pampers her like no other, advised the young mother: "Now wouldn't you be so lucky if he turned out gay?"
Many lesbian and gay children are committed to caring for their parents, but many too want to have children of their own, and not necessarily by marrying someone of the opposite sex. Is society fair to deny legal parenting status?
Alongside that move toward parenting, many gay men and lesbians struggle to sustain long-term personal relationships. Again, is society fair to deny same-sex couples certain rights? To give just one example, in many countries, including the Philippines, a gay man or lesbian cannot sign consent forms for emergency procedures or surgery for a same-sex partner. Yet, without any kind of legal rights associated with marriage, gay men and lesbians will find ways to stay by the side of a partner, caring for them through sickness and health, and, mind you, even death will not do these couples part.
Homophobia, the fear of homosexuality, grows on ignorance. When gay men and lesbians accede to social pressures and remain in the shadows, they are agreeing to perpetuate the ignorance and bigotry.
There is tremendous pressure to conform in the Philippines. The Spanish word "diferencia" only means difference, but it somehow mutated to the Filipino "diprensya," to mean "defect." The Spanish word for "defect" is "defecto" so really, in the Philippines, to be different is to be defective. Put another way, the discrimination against gay men is based on the idea that a man acting like the "weaker sex" must be "defective," as is the case for lesbians daring to be so "masculine."
The two men I met at that Toronto hotel were effeminate, the type many would want to make invisible. And yet I challenge anyone to tell me they are "weak" and "abnormal," as with the millions of other lesbians and gay men who choose to devote their lives to children not their own, to parents too old and weak for "normal" siblings to handle.
Traditionally, gay men and lesbians have drifted to the caring professions partly because that's what society assigns, with stern admonitions to be "respectable" and not to "practice" homosexuality. Times do change and these days, more people are ready to say: "I'm here to serve, but I want you to know I'm different and I'm proud of it."

Terrorism

PINOY KASI

Terrorism
By Michael Tan

Inquirer

Last updated 02:25am (Mla time) 08/18/2006
Published on Page A13 of the August 18, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

IT WAS five in the morning, Wednesday, in Toronto and I woke up reminding myself it was Wednesday night at home and I had to finish my Inquirer column before going off to work at the AIDS conference. I stumbled to the door to get the newspaper, relieved to see that the headline wasn't, for once, about more bombings in Lebanon or suicide bombers in Iraq. Instead, the headline read, "Clinton demands action" -- about which I'll tell youmore.
After reading the Canadian newspaper, I went into the Internet for the Inquirer. The headline was about impeachment hearings, but I skipped the article; we don't need the fortuneteller Madam Auring to tell us what the future will be for those hearings.
One breaking news item caught my eye: "SC stops gov't ban on breast milk substitute advertisements." As I read through, my heart sank. I knew I had to write about another kind of terrorism, different from and yet similar to those bombs in the Middle East.
Good science
I'll get back to that Supreme Court decision, but first let me pick up on the AIDS conference. Monday's sessions were more ceremonial, with a lot of nice things said about hope and solidarity and moving forward.
The Toronto newspaper headlines captured Tuesday's sessions at the AIDS conference, as speakers moved from rhetoric to the harsh realities of the battle against HIV/AIDS. Bill Clinton, in one of the public discussions, had talked about how the world now has the tools, the money and the power to prevent HIV infections, and yet is unable to do so because science has been fighting a losing battle with ideology.
Let me be more specific: On Tuesday, the World Health Organization released a thick report, "Preventing HIV/AIDS in Young People," summarizing a massive review of the evidence from 80 studies conducted in developing countries to evaluate the impact of different programs. The studies show that the following work: Curriculum-based sexuality education in schools, community services for adolescents, explicit but culturallysensitive messages in the mass media, and special outreach facilities for young people most at risk, for example, young sex workers.
Yet the US government has opposed many of these programs, for example, denying funds to projects that give health education, and services to sex workers have been labeled as being pro-prostitution.
Filipino conservatives, linked to US and other international right-wing groups, have also opposed sexuality education in schools. Much of their ire targets the use of condoms, which they say don't work because they have holes through which HIV passes. This is bad or junk science, considering that the scientific evidence has debunked these myths -- OK, let me be more direct: these lies.
What has the US government pushed for HIV prevention? Abstinence-only programs, which at least have parents and teachers talking with young people. In the Philippines, all we can offer young people is mumbo-jumbo incantations: "Just don't do it, and let's not even talk about it because you might start doing it."
War on drugs
Another example that came up on Tuesday was the programs for injecting drug users (IDUs), drug dependents who inject the narcotics. They are at great risk of being infected by HIV, and passing it on because of contaminated syringes and needles.
Speakers at the Toronto conference cited study after study showing the effectiveness of what are called harm-reduction approaches. This includes giving clean syringes and needles to injecting drug users, as well as drug rehab with substitution therapy (for example, methadone), and of course intensive counseling and support.
Again, the US government was singled out as being the last developed country that opposes harm reduction, because the conservatives see the syringe and needle programs as promoting drug addiction. The US government's alternative has been its "war on drugs" approach, specifically, increasing penalties for drug use, whether injecting or not,and throwing users into jail, with little rehab.
The evidence is clear that this "war" approach fails miserably, with America's drug problem growing by the day. Yet whatever America does, we imitate. By the Philippine government's own admission, we now have millions of drug dependents that are unable to help themselves to overcome their addiction.
Fortunately, injecting-drug use is not too popular in the Philippines, but we need to worry too about "shabu" ["crack"]. The AIDS conference had several speakers warning about how the use of methamphetamines contributes as well to HIV risk. This happens because users of these drugs tend to have more unprotected sex with multiple partners.
Saying no
What does all this have to do with the Supreme Court decision? The Department of Health (DOH) issued new rules in May that would strictly regulate the advertising of breast milk substitutes (better known as infant formula or milk powder). The Mercury Drug store chain and several formula manufacturers -- Abbott Laboratories, Wyeth Philippines, Mead Johnson, Astra-Zeneca Pharmaceuticals, Bayer Philippines, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline -- sued the DOH and asked the Supreme Court to block the new rules. The Court first upheld the DOH, but it has now reversed itself.
I haven't seen the Supreme Court order yet, but the Inquirer article quotes the companies' lawyer, Felicitas Aquino-Arroyo: "The DOH order unduly expanded the authority granted it under the Milk Code by prohibiting the free flow of information regarding the nutritional content of infant formula vis-à-vis breast milk and the other traditional milksubstitutes, which will only result in preventing much needed knowledge on proper infant feeding."
The parallels are all too similar between HIV prevention and child health. We have the facts, the evidence from science on what's needed for good health, but we allow ideologues to overrule science.
In the case of the infant-formula controversy, we are dealing with drug companies which use "free enterprise" to protect their narrow interests. We allow drug companies to make spurious claims about the benefits of infant formula, all in the name of "free flow of information."
Some of these companies are also producers of antiretrovirals needed to prolong the lives of people with HIV. The multinationals dictate high prices for their medicines and have tried to block generic manufacturers from producing cheaper versions, all in the name of "free enterprise." Not surprisingly, only 10 percent of the 38 million people living with HIV today have access to the antiretrovirals. With our passive acceptance of religious fanatics and "free enterprise" fundamentalists, we're actually welcoming latter-day terrorists into our midst, inviting them to blow themselves up, taking us and future generations with them.

Superpinoy?

PINOY KASI
Superpinoy?
By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 01:37am (Mla time) 08/11/2006

Published on Page A11 of the August 11, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE full-page advertisement was eye-catching. It showed President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in a Superwoman-Darna-Zsazsa Zaturnah outfit, flying high with Mary Joy Bunol, also in a Superwoman outfit but wielding cooking utensils.

"Supermaids!" the ad proclaimed, to announce latest training program of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda), all part of Arroyo's latest public relations spin, Superpinoy, or Skills Upgrading Program for Employment and Re-employment of Pinoys.

Bunol was featured because the 23-year-old Ilongga had taken one of the training courses and is now serving, and the ad boasts about this in bold letters, a royal family of Malaysia.

Kids, pets and cars

The super-"sobra" [excessive] hype aside, this Tesda program is intriguing. There are several training modules involved, including personality development, home safety, childcare, home management, cooking and care of pets.

Each module is broken down to very specific topics. For example, under personality development, you have topics like personal grooming and communication skills (phone conversations included). Home safety includes handling high-rise, safety-window ladders. Childcare is the most impressive, including a module on child growth, behavior and development and other topics such as choosing age-appropriate toys. Home management includes "washing car," "reading label [sic] and chemical instructions." Cooking includes "table setting: western, Chinese." And care of the pets includes "how to tame domestic animals."

A minimum of 200 hours training earns a National Certificate I, making you eligible to work as a domestic helper and a monthly salary of US$250 to $350. To get a National Certificate II, which makes you a Supermaid, you have to do 235 hours, which could get you a monthly salary of $350 to $450. More ambitious? Then do 270 hours and get a National Certificate III, which makes you a "Household Service Manager/Valet/Governess" eligible for a salary of $450 and up.

I can imagine my professor friends at University of the Philippines and other state universities doing some quick mental calculations now with their salaries. Yes, a governess would get the salary of a full professor.

And why not? If the graduates of this program do become proficient caring for kids, pets and cars, they'd not just be supermaids but supermoms and superdads, or, quite simply, supermen and superwomen.

Back to basics

Many families already have these supermen and superwomen, people who haveworked for years with the same family, some working for a mere pittance, others getting quite good salaries and considered very much part of the household.

I have an aunt who first hired a teenager, fresh from the provinces, almost 50 years ago to work as a gardener. He's still with them and has become a kind of majordomo. He cooks the finest meals, makes appointments for my aunt, hunts for the latest Korean TV soap and, yes, still dabbles in the garden. He earns so much that he flies home to Cebu province, towing Samsonite luggage (OK, borrowed from my aunt). And when one of my
aunt's grandchildren got married some time back, he had a cash wedding gift larger than what some of the official godparents gave.

But these supermen and superwomen pick up their skills on the job over the years, often by trial and error. If they're fast learners, well and good. If malnutrition and infant formula impaired their brain development, then, well, good luck.

Looking at the "supermaid" modules, I first thought: Why can't we have similar programs for helpers who want to serve local households? I know Opus Dei has a training program for domestic helpers.

Then on second thought, I wondered why all this cannot be part of our formal educational system. So many of the topics in the supermaids course are so basic -- for example, cooking and cleaning the house -- that they really should be integrated into our formal educational system, and, this is important, it should be done for both males and females.

All too often, low-income Filipino parents pull their kids out of high school and send them to work, claiming that the schools offer little that's relevant to life. So why not integrate some of Tesda's "superpinoy" modules into the formal high school curriculum? English would probably be better taught as a "communications skills" module (including banishing that "for a while sir" phrase when asking people to hold); math could be more interesting using examples from marketing, cooking and managing one's allowance. Health and science could integrate childcare. Even a pet care module could be taught as part of health and science. We wouldn't have the problem I described in last Wednesday's column of brutal dog slaughtering if Filipino households would just learn about proper and responsible pet ownership.

Too much for our schools? Spread out Tesda's 235-hour curriculum over four years of high school, maybe even two years from elementary school, and you have a very manageable program.

For export only?

The Tesda supermaids program reminds us how export-driven we are when it comes to developing human resources.

Some time back I wrote about how we've been fretting about the brain drain involving doctors and nurses, while forgetting to do something for those who do stay on. We developed a six-month training course to produce exportable caregivers, but have little to offer to upgrade the skills of midwives and "barangay" [village] health workers, the ones who keep our health care system from totally collapsing.

Tesda comes up with this program to produce supermaids but our public schools are stagnating. When an "innovation" does get proposed, it's for something ridiculous like boxing in elementary and high schools.

I get so depressed when I hear parents telling their children to study hard, so they can work abroad. The supermaid program only reinforces this export mentality, with the idea that you should learn first aid and cooking only if you plan to work as a maid overseas.

The competencies named in the supermaid curriculum are stuff our young Filipinos need to survive. If those competencies are properly integrated into our elementary and high schools, we'd then produce graduates ready to tackle more training for higher-paying jobs, instead of going off to work as underpaid supermaids.

I suspect, too, that if we strengthened our elementary and high school curricula to include not just skills but values around national identity and purpose, we could produce a generation of Filipinos who would be better able to care for their families, as well as the nation. Overseas or at home, we'd have our Superpinoys.

Kindness

PINOY KASI
Kindness
By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 01:30am (Mla time) 08/09/2006

Published on Page A13 of the August 9, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

I WON'T name the province because I've already contacted the authorities there, hoping they'll do something. I'm writing about this here with the suspicion that this is happening all over the country, and hoping readers will do their part, in their own hometowns.

Last week I was in one of those picture-perfect resorts with a Dutch university professor and her daughter, combining work with a bit of a vacation. We had it all: sun, sea, surf and more.

There were, foremost, the children. They'd pass by alone or in groups, some of the bolder ones coming up to talk. Long after they'd left, we could still hear their chatter, their laughter.

Adding to the warmth of these scenes were the dogs. Early mornings were the best time to catch them, some accompanying children to school, others roaming in groups, occasionally wrestling each other. As with people, there were some laggards too, curled up and sleeping late. Still others were the solitary types, walking alone as if in deep contemplation.

The resort itself had three dogs, which would come around every now and then to play with the guests, coaxing us to give them a quick massage. The resort's visitors, mostly foreigners, were only too happy to oblige.

Dark clouds

So it went, with no one expecting to see so soon this paradise disintegrating.

The dark clouds began to gather on the second day of our stay. My visitors and I were strolling through one of the villages. It was around 1 p.m. and we had just visited the "barangay" [village] chapel and lighthouse. As we approached one of the houses, we could hear a man's voice getting louder and louder, full of anger as he scolded several small children in his yard.

The father was clearly working himself into an uncontrollable rage. One of the children began whimpering, and then the beating began. I looked back and could see him dragging the child into his hut. The child ran out of the hut and got another beating, accompanied by a torrent of curses.

All this was happening close to a school and some kids watched but kept their distance, a decision our group took as well. For all our talk about Filipino community spirit, we generally try not to intrude into domestic affairs. But I did make a mental note of the incident and planned to take it up with contacts in the health department.

That night I tried not to think of the child-beating as we entertained more visitors: a Dutch journalist, his Filipino wife, their two kids and some of her relatives. For the children, it was love at first sight when they saw the resort's dogs. Dinner for the children became more of token nibbling, interrupted by more playing with the dogs. After the visitors left, I took a stroll by the beach and found several sand paintings, mixed with the footprints of the children and the dogs.

Protecting tourists

The next day, my visitors and I went into town for a bit of sightseeing. It passed uneventfully except at one point where the Dutch professor noticed a policeman with a rifle. She shivered and said, "I don't like that." In Europe, people don't run around carrying arms, not even policemen. My friend had lived in Manila several years back and was used to seeing armed security guards, but it did seem strange seeing an armed man in a quiet rural area.

Time passed quickly and soon it was time for my visitors to leave. The morning of their departure, I went off for a walk as the visitors packed up. But the morning calm was suddenly shattered by the most heartrending cries of a dog. It went on for a few seconds, so I knew it wasn't a dog hurting from a small accident. And then there was silence.

As I walked toward the street to check what was going on, it seemed as if a tape recorder had been turned on again to replay the entire agonizing scene, except that this time I could also hear dull sounds indicating a dog was being beaten to death.

I decided not to look, partly because my visitors had by then come down with their bags and we needed to leave for the airport. I didn't want to upset their stay so I didn't tell them what happened. As we loaded their bags into the resort van, we saw a group of armed men again. My visitor again shivered, "They shouldn't have armed people around in resorts."

I got back to the resort in the evening. Over dinner, I realized the resort dogs weren't around. My heart sank as I wondered if they had been the ones killed. To my relief, I found out they were safe, but they were under leash, kept hidden for the meantime by their worried owner.

Two dogs had indeed been killed that morning right outside the resort. The residents said there's a municipal ordinance that allows policemen to shoot stray dogs. "Dog-hunting to protect the tourists," one resident said, then added, smiling, "It's also pulutan [bar chow]."

Back in Manila I finally told the visitors about what had happened and they agreed it was important that I write about the incidents. We have questions for the authorities -- the local government officials as well as those in the hotel and tourism industry. What does all this say about us as a people when fathers beat up their children totally without shame even as visitors pass by their homes? What does it say about Filipinos when we protect tourists by deploying armed men who go around, shooting and beating dogs to death?

What's happening to our child protection laws, our Bantay Bata [Child Watch] programs? Why is the country's Animal Welfare Act being violated by law enforcers themselves? If indeed dog-slaughtering is meant as a public health measure, why not adopt the civilized ways -- rounding up and impounding the dogs first and giving owners a chance to claim them.

We spend millions advertising the Philippines as a "Wow" place for tourists and foreigners who want to retire. But all it takes is one zealous child advocate, or one animal rights activist, to witness what I saw and put the stories on the Internet, and foreign newspapers and people will associate the Philippines not with white sand beaches and sunny smiles, but with images of abused children and dogs beaten to death.

Yes, it's a tough and violent world out there. But I wonder if the child abuse and dog-slaughtering are signs that we're not only becoming desensitized to violence, but also actually now enjoy blood and gore. After the two dogs were killed, I could hear people running around shouting, "Patay! Patay!" ["Dead! Dead!"], with the same kind of perverted delight and cheers you hear from the crowds during cockfights and boxing.

Now I hear proposals to include boxing in elementary schools nationwide. Enough of this nonsense. What we need are more teachers promoting child welfare, environmental conservation, including the protection of animals. All the more now, we need to do something about our growing callousness. Let's do this for ourselves, for a kinder nation, a kinder world.

Who's next?

PINOY KASI
Who's next?
By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 02:08am (Mla time) 08/04/2006

Published on Page A13 of the August 4, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THIS morning, I received a text message from a friend based in Baguio City. I'm translating the text: "Update from those who visited Chandu. He's OK now. Can communicate. Hope he'll pull through." That was the uplifting part, but the text ended: "Alice's burial on Friday."

Chandu is Dr. Constancio Claver, a physician working in the Cordilleras and chair of the Bayan Muna party-list group in Kalinga province. Last Monday, his family was ambushed by armed men on board two vans. Chandu and a bystander suffered gunshot wounds and both are now recovering. Sandy, their 7-year-old daughter, was in the van and was spared but suffers from shock. Alice, Chandu's wife, died from her wounds.

On the same day they were ambushed, there were two other political assassinations. League of Filipino Students provincial spokesperson Raymond Guran was killed in Sorsogon province, and Tanod tabloid photojournalist Prudencio Melendres was shot to death in Malabon, Metro Manila. I've lost count of the figures from the human rights groups, but the three murders add to the more than 700 political assassinations that have occurred under the Arroyo presidency.

Bobby de la Paz

The attempted murder of Chandu has shaken health professionals, reminding many of us of the assassination back in 1982 of Dr. Remberto "Bobby" de la Paz.

I got the news by phone from Dr. Mita "Mamita" Pardo de Tavera. She went straight to the point: "Bobby was killed yesterday."

I was stunned. Bobby and I worked for Mamita's AKAP, an NGO doing community-based health programs with emphasis on tuberculosis control. Bobby and his wife Sylvia, who was also a physician, had chosen to serve remote areas in Samar. It was a dangerous time because to the Marcos dictatorship and the military, anyone who served the poor had to be a subversive.

The people whom Bobby served thought otherwise. He was well loved, content with his P1,000 monthly salary and occasional gifts from patients. As he lay dying from his gunshot wounds, a call went out for blood donations. Hundreds of townsfolk came forward, offering to donate.

Bobby was 29 when he died. His mother, Mommy Lydia, was visiting at that time and recounted later, how Bobby had asked, as she cradled him in her arms: "Masakit, masakit ... Bakit, bakit?" ["It's painful, it's painful ... Why, why?"]

Medical neutrality

Almost 25 years after Bobby's death, this attempted assassination of Chandu makes us ask why again. Why is this nation, with all the trappings of a democracy, reliving the nightmare of the Marcos dictatorship?

Doctors are a respected lot in the Philippines, seen almost as gods, so even a hired assassin has to be driven by a ferocious hatred before he can pull the trigger. Bobby, big gentle Bobby, took 22 bullets.

Chandu also served Kalinga as a physician to the poor, and his attempted assassination sends a signal to other doctors working in similar circumstances to be careful, for they could be next. I remember Bobby telling me how the military would sometimes ask him why he had chosen to serve in Samar province, and didn't migrate to the United States. At that time, doctors could still migrate to America, without becoming nurses.

The Philippines is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and several other international protocols that recognize medical neutrality. In relation to health professionals, that's summarized in two sentences in the Code of Medical Neutrality: Medical workers shall be respected, protected and assisted in the performance of their medical duties. Medical workers shall not be punished for providing ethical medical care, regardless of persons benefiting for it, or for refusing to perform unethical medical treatment.

The Philippines is suffering enough from the exodus of health workers, including doctors turned nurses. Those who have remained generally stay in the cities, serving the upper classes. With the attempted assassination of Chandu Claver, the stark message we get now is this: "Stop working with the poor. Get real and migrate ... We need your dollars more."

Desperate

I have heard people arguing, but "these people" are leftists. So? If I recall right, we live in a democracy, which respects political pluralism. With President Arroyo's repressive government, Bayan Muna and other leftist groups are among the dwindling courageous voices that help keep her from imposing a dictatorship. The assassinations are attempts to silence the remaining voices.

Every assassination has brought more demands for investigations, but for the most part, the government has chosen not to even respond to the appeals. Only recently has President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo begun to call for investigations, but those are seen as coming too little, too late, especially when compared to the praise she heaped on Jovito Palparan, a military officer who does not try to disguise his disdain for human rights, during her State of the Nation Address.

We have to ask, too, who else would have the resources and logistics for so many assassinations nationwide, conducted in such similar styles, and with such similar targets. The murders are too clearly linked, backed by experts in murder and psychological warfare. Just last June, another Bayan Muna leader, Markus Bangit, was killed in Isabela. Shortly after, Alice Claver received a text message referring to her husband: "Matapang si Doc. Hindi niya kayo mahal." ["Doc is being brave. He does not love you."]

A disturbing possibility arises: Has Ms Arroyo, as commander in chief, lost control of the more hard-line factions of her government, both civilian and military? Ferdinand Marcos chose to ride the military tiger, but in his last few years as president, old and sick, he lost control even as the military tried to outdo him in trying to keep the dictatorship.

No one thinks Marcos personally ordered Bobby's assassination in 1982, but his years of dictatorship had created a culture of impunity that allowed that assassination. We didn't know it then, but in retrospect, Bobby's murder was the beginning of the end of the Marcos dictatorship as the dictatorship turned more and more paranoid. In 1983, opposition leader and former Sen. Benigno Aquino was assassinated too when he tried to return to the Philippines. No longer acts of impunity, the killings became the last acts of desperation of a failed state.

* * *

Rally: Health Alliance for Democracy (HEAD) and Health Action for Human Rights are calling health workers to participate in a protest rally at 10 a.m. today, Aug. 4, in front of the Department of Justice. Please wear white.

Bullies

PINOY KASI
Bullies
By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 02:40am (Mla time) 07/28/2006

Published on Page A15 of the July 28, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

LAST week, I wrote about the Department of Health's new implementing rules and regulations (IRR) that should end misleading advertising and unethical promotions of breast milk substitutes or milk formula.

When I wrote that column, I didn't know that the milk formula manufacturers, through the Pharmaceutical and Health Care Association of the Philippines (PHCAP), had filed a case against the DOH calling for a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the new IRR. Fortunately, the Supreme Court turned down the petition.

The PHCAP move was not surprising. This organization, composed mainly of multinational drug companies, has bullied Filipinos each time we proposed important public health reforms. Back in 1986, when they were still the Drug Association of the Philippines, they opposed the passage of the Milk Code, which was the first law we had to regulate the marketing of milk formula. Two years later, they fiercely opposed the passage of the Generics Law. Over the years, they have tried to block attempts to bringdown the costs of medicines, including filing a suit to block the government's importation of low-cost medicines.

They haven't been doing this alone, often recruiting the Philippine Medical Association (PMA) to oppose the reforms. Last month, the Inquirer published a letter from one of the PMA's past presidents, Dr. Santiago del Rosario, claiming that breastfeeding had many "limits."

Fortunately, the Inquirer published, last Monday, a rejoinder from Dr. Nicholas Alipui, Unicef's country representative, summarizing the vast scientific evidence to show breastfeeding's superiority as well as bottle-feeding's many risks and dangers.

Pro-life

Way back in the 1980s, I was already in touch with some of the breastfeeding advocates, the likes of Ines Fernandez of Arugaan and Sr. Pilar Verzosa of Pro-Life Philippines. I mention Sister Pilar because breastfeeding is a pro-life issue in its broadest sense. The DOH estimates that we could prevent up to 16,000 infant deaths each year simply through breastfeeding, because it gives better nutrition and protection against diseases, and all for free.

Yet breastfeeding has been on the decline over the years. I did some research and was amazed to find survey data going back to 1963, when the average period of breastfeeding in the Philippines was 14.5 months. By 1982, it had dropped to 12.1 months.

Those surveys probably referred to breastfeeding in general, to include the weaning period where other foods were introduced. From two recent National Demographic and Health Surveys, we know that the median period for exclusive breastfeeding -- which the World Health Organization and Unicef recommend for the first six months of infancy -- was a mere 1.4 months in 1998 and 0.8 months in 2003.

Personal battle

Let me share my personal battles here to explain why this is happening. When my Yna was born two years ago, I had to fight tooth, nail and claw, for her to be breastfed. Some of her aunts, her grandmother and great-grandmother had decided that Yna's mother could not breastfeed saying she was too "small," too sickly. Those are of course misconceptions, and I quote from Dr. Alipui's letter: "Virtually all mothers can breastfeed ... Mothers who are starving, sick, recovering from surgery including caesarian section, those who adopt and those with inverted nipples can breastfeed."

But even more shocking was the relatives' conviction that milk formula was healthier, and that bottle-fed babies would be more intelligent. It was clear they had been convinced by the misleading ads and marketing. When I looked into the bag the relatives had prepared for the mother, I found a feeding bottle.

I stood my ground about breastfeeding with the help of our obstetrician, Dr. Sylvia de la Paz. I was thankful we had a Milk Code that prevented sales agents from coming into the maternity wards to promote infant formula. But one of the nurses came by a few hours after Yna's birth and gave the new mother a "souvenir booklet" where she could list the child's developmental milestones, vaccinations and other health information. I was appalled by the booklet. It was produced by one of the milk manufacturers and filled with pictures of their products.

I knew I had to fight extra hard to make sure Yna would get her breast milk. Her mother had difficulty initially, but was pleasantly surprised when the milk began to flow. In the months that followed, she would complain about producing "too much" milk. Yna was on exclusive breastfeeding for five months, including refrigerated breast milk, until her mother had to leave to work overseas.

Yna turned two a few days ago, and has the height of a three-year-old. And her weight? I plead for mercy when she asks to be carried.

I do feel triumphant when the aunts ooh and aah and go, "Iba talaga ang breastfed" ["The breastfed are really different"]. But the victories can be hollow. When Yna shows how fast a learner she is, they go, "Iba talaga ang kaniyang gatas." (Her milk formula is different.)

Even breastfed babies will eventually have to go into milk formula and with all the manufacturers' claims about creating child geniuses through their products, people begin to attribute the rapid brain development in the child to the formulas. I have to keep reminding Yna's relatives that her intelligence comes too from breastfeeding, as well as the massive social stimulation she's been getting since birth, from mobiles (the hanging ones, not the phones), simple puzzles and building blocks to singing and dancing and reading and of course child's play itself.

One would think that on cost considerations alone, people would just vote for breastfeeding. Have you noticed the most expensive milk formulas are those intended for infants? As the child grows older, they graduate to new formulas, which become cheaper. (It's all a bit like schooling – these days, preschool and kindergarten can be more expensive than college!)

So maybe this is why the milk manufacturers are so adamant about targeting the newborn, who are the most vulnerable to the problems of bottle-feeding. If only these manufactures would recognize that if they could just be ethical and scientific about their products and their business practices, they might even expand their markets. Leave the babies to breastfeeding and more of them will survive.

But maybe I'm being naïve in believing that corporate social responsibility is possible with these companies. If they have a change of heart, well and good, but if they decide to continue to bully Filipinos, I hope our health department and the courts will stand their ground. All the talk about the Filipinos' love for children, about defending the defenseless, will mean nothing if we can't assure a child's right to be breastfed.

Digital memories

PINOY KASI
Digital memories
By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 01:37am (Mla time) 08/02/2006

Published on Page A11 of the August 2, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE first digital camera I had was a heavy early model passed on to me by my father. I was really impressed with its photographs, but my enthusiasm was quickly dampened because its battery would run out after five or six shots, and had to be recharged using an adapter three times the size of the battery. The camera fell slowly into disuse and then went into storage.

Through the years, the cameras have improved, and I've been able to benefit from this technology without having to buy any. I've had two more digitals, and both were manufactured by Kodak, given to me as part of their awards for "child-friendly" columns. I have to say the cameras are the best prizes I've ever gotten.

'Kodakan'

The cameras give a new meaning to "kodakan," the Filipino term we coined to mean photography. Suddenly, photography isn't just a matter of preserving memories, although, as I'm going to describe later in the column, that function remains important.

Given that I teach, do research and write, the cameras have been a real boon, functioning almost as a very efficient research assistant.

Let me give a few examples.

Teaching anthropology has meant helping students to become more conscious about how our culture is constantly being shaped by different institutions, including government, the faith-based groups and mass media. We're surrounded, bombarded by all kinds of messages and images, and it's important we become critical about how those messages can be manipulative.

A digital camera allows me to capture those messages and images – either as still pictures or, lately, as short videos -- which I then replay to students for their critical analysis.

For example, I once took a picture of a billboard ad showing women in a wild frenzy, chasing after a young male holding a new model of a cell phone. Of course, ads often use hyperbole to market a product, but it's still useful for young people to reflect on the way the ads reflect social norms. Is a man's self-worth so tied to his cell phone, to its being the
latest model? Would you see ads showing a woman clinging to the latest model of a cell phone, and men chasing after her?

It isn't just billboard ads that you can shoot. One of my favorite teaching tools is a digital photograph of two female mannequins in the lobby of Mahidol University's International College (MUIC) in Thailand. One mannequin was decked out in a proper college uniform, meaning a skirt at knee's length, a blouse properly tucked in with sleeves reaching the elbows. The sign read: "MUIC uniform."

Next to that mannequin was another one showing a female in a skirt above the knee, a blouse too transparent, with sleeves that were too short, and a cell phone hanging from her neck. It had a sign that asked, "Who?"

I use that digital photograph to talk about gender, and how society tries to control women's bodies through prescribed uniforms. Curiously, there was only one mannequin showing a male in the proper uniform, without an accompanying figure showing "improper" male uniforms. After all, males can't be "improper." I also ask students, "Now, how do you think the women students actually dress?" And, wisely, the kids answer, "Probably a lot more like 'Who'."

The possibilities for teaching materials are endless. I've shot, all at the spur of the moment, amulet vendors in Manila's Quiapo district, shelves in a Mercury Drugstore selling dozens of brands of skin whiteners, rows upon rows of sachet products in a "sari-sari store" [neighborhood variety store].

Photocopiers

More recent models of digital cameras have such good close-up functions that they're really almost like portable photocopiers. I use them to take a picture of the white board after a particularly interesting class discussion, or a meeting, where the most important words and ideas have been written. That way you can review it later, even typing in the text into the computer and printing it out for the students or participants in the meeting.

This "photocopier" function is useful as well for converting photographs from books and magazines into teaching materials. In the past, we had to make slides to project on the screen. Now, you can just take a digital shot from a book and show it on the computer. I've used this photocopier-slides function for everything from maps to the lesions of different diseases.

The last Kodak digital camera I got has a "text" function that adjusts the settings so you can take fairly decent pictures that will show the words on a page. I say "fairly decent" because obviously you can't get down to very small fine print. But it's good enough if all you want is to do an electronic clipping of a newspaper or magazine for quick reference: an ad, a photograph, even recipes.

You can also use the close-up function for taking pictures of important documents like your passport and credit cards when you travel. If you lose them, you can quickly report the loss with all the details.

Digital Zen

We return now to the original function of cameras: preserving memories. Some teachers ask students to submit a small ID picture that they then use as memory aids, but I never did that because the ID pictures often look very different from the person.

Besides, I was younger then, with a better memory. Now with more senior moments, I've turned to the digital camera for help. At the beginning of a new semester, I take digital pictures of my students in groups and then print out the photographs so they can identify themselves. The poses are more natural, and the pictures current. I have a large digital file now of students. Who knows, someday one of them might become a president, or the country's most wanted criminal, or both, and the Inquirer can use his photograph from his days at the University of the Philippines.

The whole point of digital photography is that it allows so much more spontaneity, for people having their picture taken, as well as for the one doing the "kodakan." You can be quicker as well to grab a photo opportunity ... the first blooming lotus in a pond, a dragonfly in the garden, a child's first steps.

I do worry about how digital photography might reinforce our desire for instant gratification. My Yna, at age one and a half, had learned to pose for a digital shot and then reach out for the camera wanting to look at her image.

Recently while conducting some biological anthropology research in a coastal area, I chanced upon a school of tiny fish in the shallow waters. I didn't have my camera, and thought of rushing back to get it but then decided to stay put and just enjoy looking at the fish as they made their way, leisurely and gracefully, through the water and into the sunset.

Someday soon, I'll bring Yna back to that beach and remind her of the Zen of digital photography: There's gratification too in waiting, in resisting the compulsion to capture everything on film or a memory card. Bravo for the digital camera and digital memories, but our fondest, more precious memories are best kept in the mind's eye and in the heart.

Riding the tiger

PINOY KASI
Riding the tiger
By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 01:28am (Mla time) 07/26/2006

Published on Page A13 of the July 26, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THREE years, eleven months and six days. As of Monday, by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's own count, that's how long she intends to stay in power.

Which got me thinking: Since she took power on Jan. 20, 2001, we've had her, as of Monday, for five years, six months and four days.

Ms Arroyo's State of the Nation Address (Sona) has been criticized for not dealing at all with where we are now, instead dishing out unrealistic promises of infrastructure projects. But if you look at the years, months and days of her presidency, it becomes clear that the Sona was indeed a political update, although one that, Gloria-style, revolves around herself. Her Sona was her way of saying: "I've survived beyond five years, the normal term the Constitution gives to a President, and I did that against all odds. Moreover, I intend to survive till 2010."

Payback

With that context, it's easier to understand how Monday's Sona was crafted as a kind of theatrical payback to all who have kept her in power. Thus, the extended "thank you" portion to start off her speech, as she named all her loyalists, each sentence interrupted by applause.

The most lavish praise went to her supporters in the military, for obvious reasons. Then there were the loyal members of the House of Representatives, the ones who blocked impeachment investigations. There were the governors, mayors and local government executives, key players in moving the "people's initiative" forward to change the Constitution.

Significant, too, were her silences. She completely ignored the senators, reciprocating their deep affection for her. Strangely, she didn't heap praise on the Catholic bishops, whose last pastoral letter stunned the nation with its subservience to the regime.

But Ms Arroyo's speechwriters know better than to stoke the allegations going around about bought bishops. The Sona acknowledged the bishops through another route: a silence on population issues. That didn't pass unnoticed, with several commentators, from Rep. Gilbert Remulla to TV host Dong Puno and guests on the latter's talk show, expressing amazement over her continuing denial of this aspect of family welfare and national development. As I mentioned in an earlier column, the bishops seem to have bartered the nation's soul in exchange for assurances that Ms Arroyo will maintain her "pro-life" (read: anti-family planning) stance.

After the praise came the promises, in effect saying, "If you stick with me till 2010, and maybe beyond, here's what I have to offer." Amid the thunderous applause, one could almost hear the cash registers ringing in the politicians' heads as she described infrastructure projects. It was not accidental that she hardly mentioned education and health, in which juicy commissions and kickbacks are harder to come by as compared with roads and infrastructure funds.

I squirmed, too, upon hearing mention of super regions in the Sona. There could be another carrot in there for our political mules, these super regions possibly being an appetizer for the proposed federal system that would be introduced if we change the Constitution and shift to a new parliamentary system.

State of war

There was no lack of incentives for Ms Arroyo's loyalists, but on the night of the Sona, ABC-5 television had an excellent documentary, "State of War," to remind us that the biggest winners in the current political chess game are the militarists among her advisers.

"State of War" focused on the President's declaration of "all-out war" on the communists and featured interviews with the military, the New People's Army (NPA), cause-oriented leaders, and residents in several communities labeled as sympathetic to the rebels.

It was from "State of War" that I learned of another count, coming from the human rights group Karapatan, which alleges that there have been 709 extra-judicial executions during the Arroyo presidency, a figure only slightly lower than the 766 killed from 1986 to 2001 during the presidencies of Aquino, Ramos and Estrada.

The documentary showed a military "interaction," targeting villages suspected of being sympathetic to the NPA. There was chilling footage of military men hired to try to "win over" the villagers through a combination of tearful demagoguery ("What are the communists doing to our beloved Mother Country?") and slapstick humor.

There were outright threats, too. In one scene, villagers were warned about a neighboring town's priests, described as "makademonyo" [pro-demon]. The villagers were then asked if anyone had, in the last elections, supported party-list candidates from Bayan Muna, Anakbayan, Anakpawis, Akbayan or Gabriela. "Come forward and clear your name," the military man cajoled them, "because for sure you are a member of the [Communist] Party."

I wondered if the military men knew how ideologically diverse these groups are, but then, do they really care to make distinctions?

Then there was the daughter of a peasant NGO leader, tearfully expressing her fears for her father's life. That segment was a stark reminder that both the Armed Forces and the NPA have their arms while the NGO leaders only have their commitment, which unfortunately will not ward off the bullets. Should it be surprising if more of these leaders and their followers eventually give up on democratic processes and take to the hills? "State of War" had interviews with NPA cadres, including students who had joined the rebels.

The controversial Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, singled out for praise in Ms Arroyo's Sona, was the star of the documentary. Some of the general's remarks were vintage doublespeak. An example: "I don't think most of them" -- the victims of summary executions -- "are really innocent."

At one point, Palparan described the military: "We are the coercive power of the state." I don't know if he is aware that such a description is also used by Marxist revolutionaries, who argue that because a state survives through coercion, there is no way to achieve social change except through armed struggle.

After the Sona, after "State of War," I thought, sadly, of how Ms Arroyo's promises and praise have further reinforced traditional politics with its horse-trading and bartering. Worse, hounded by her own insecurities, she has chosen to ride the military tiger which she will never be able to dismount, placing herself and the nation in deep peril. Before the end of her term, a mere 1,431 days from now, she may yet have another dubious achievement: reviving Southeast Asia's last communist insurgency.

'Bad Kings'

Bad queens aside, Gilda Cordero Fernando's new children's book, "Bad Kings," will be read out tomorrow at 6 p.m. at Podium by the likes of National Artists Virgilio Almario and Napoleon Abueva, Repertory Philippines' Joy Virata and Cultural Center Chair Emily Abrera.

Bungad's story

PINOY KASI
Bungad's story
By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 01:49am (Mla time) 07/21/2006

Published on Page A13 of the July 21, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

ACTUALLY, this is my friend GP's (also known as Jepoy) story.

The other day he called me, not knowing where to start. "Tiny! He was so very tiny...," he began.

"Wait, wait," I tried to calm him down, and eventually I was able to piece his story together. He had just helped to deliver a baby! Mind you, GP isn't a doctor, a nurse, a midwife, or a "barangay" [village] health worker. The sister of his landlord, Jean, happened to be visiting Manila when she went into labor and ... well, I'm jumping ahead of the story.

It's one of those amazing tales of the city, "city" here being Metro Manila, and I thought of sharing it to remind us of the bittersweet realities of life in our megapolis. For a change, I wondered: If babies could think and talk like adults, what story would baby Bungad tell? Read on.

Sensurround

Nanay [Mother] and I had come to Manila to visit her brother. A few days at most, she told me. It was a long trip from Pangasinan, but then I got to travel First Class, complete with a waterbed and sensurround -- in the womb we don't see too much but the other senses are just so amplified. Bump, bump we went on the road, alternating with Nanay's heartbeat, "ti-bok, ti-bok, ti-bok," and with mine, which went full-speed, "bok, bok, bok, bok."

I figured we'd gotten to Manila when the noise levels went into a wild crescendo. I could hear the names of towns and cities being hollered, bus horns blaring away, music and sounds claiming to be music. I could hear babies crying, too, and I wondered what was in store for me once I joined them in the world out there.

The trip to my Tito Jess was bumpy again-gosh, Manila's roads are worse than the ones we have in Pangasinan province. I could hear the strong rain pounding on the jeep and I felt Nanay's anxiety as she made her way around.

Back home, I'd eavesdrop on her conversations with friends, and quite often they'd talk about how much easier each pregnancy becomes. This was her sixth, so her friends figured it would be a breeze.

Ha! If they only knew. In the womb, I had learned to read what my Nanay's feelings were, from her heartbeat, from her breathing. I felt it all: happiness of all sizes and shapes, including the ones Tagalogs call "nakakataba ng puso" [heartwarming]. When she felt it, I did, too, from inside her. Sadness, too, came in different forms: the sadness that came from hurting was the most intense, but the ones that came with little anxieties worried me, too, in the way they nibbled away at Nanay's psyche, at her soul, and mine as well.

A soul? Yes, at some point in the pregnancy, we feel it too-some people call it "ensoulment." I call it being wanted: It's an overwhelming feeling, the moment when Nanay acknowledged I was around. It was unconditional, but I could hear her as she would, over the next few months, sigh and fret about new responsibilities. I didn't feel I was less wanted, but I knew that Nanay, as any good parent should, was worrying about what my future would be.

And so the months passed, as I learned to figure out the range of human emotions and feelings. Early on, I learned, too, about hunger, about waiting ... and waiting, Nanay's own hunger pangs becoming mine, too, her heart at times taking a curiously different rhythm which I would figure out only later.

Sure, there were tranquil moments. Most of the time, I'd just stay put, serenely synchronized with Nanay's movements. Life's that way. A stressed life in the uterus, the scientists say, actually determines your predisposition to health problems later in life because your brain is always on red alert, always in a state of emergency.

Arrival

I'll fast-forward my story back to our visit to the big city. I'll admit there was a certain appeal to its chaotic din. As the days wore on, I figured, hey, how long am I going to have to wait before I see that exciting world?

One night, I thought, oh, no, do I have to wait till we get back to Pangasinan to be born? I want out. I want to see Manila, now already. So I began to push, tentatively at first, and then with more determination, you know like the way they knock on doors except this was the cervix. And Nanay would reply with her heart: "tibok tibok, bok bok." I knew she was apprehensive, and it made me feel guilty, but hey, this is Manila. If I wait till I'm born in Pangasinan, it'll be years before I see the big city.

I could hear Nanay talking, to herself, maybe to me: "It's not time yet. Not now. We can't afford to go to a hospital here in Manila." She wanted to cry out but held back, not wanting to alarm Tito Jess and the others in the house.

The long night wore on and the new day found Nanay unable to hold back. I could sense people rushing about, trying to figure what to do. I could hear the name of a hospital mentioned several times and that it'd take only five minutes in a taxi to get there, but no one seemed to have any money, not even for a taxi.

I was feeling really guilty now. If I had a cell phone I'd have sent a text message to Nanay and told her it was OK, we could wait till we got back to Pangasinan. But it was too late now, the bag had broken, the world was waiting for me.

"Oh no," I thought as I moved out into the world, a hand grasping my head. I could hear him. It was Tito GP, asking for help, asking what to do next and then talking to me. "You're so small," he said. "You're like a Pepsi bottle."

Then suddenly, pak!

"Hoy, quit it," I wanted to tell him, "That happens only in the movies. Clean out my nose and all this muck and I'll cry for you."

Pak! "Hey, quit it!" I had to summon all the energy to cry out, in Sanggolese, "Announcing the arrival of Batang Quezon City!"

Thanks

Of course, they didn't understand me, but I could feel everyone sighing in relief. There was more commotion as they prepared to move Nanay and me to the health center. I was still connected to Nanay because no one wanted to cut the umbilical cord. I could hear Tito GP going: hey, the kid was born at the "bungad" [threshold], at the doorway, let's call him Bungad, baby Bungad.

I was too tired to protest, just thankful I'd made it, thankful that Nanay was fine. I was famished and as I reached out for breakfast, I suddenly understood why Nanay's heartbeat sometimes went "tibukbuk, tibukbuk." She had a huge goiter.

That's why I'm writing this story for the Inquirer. I get Mike Tan's honorarium for today's column so I can get some tests at the Philippine General Hospital.

If I'm OK, well, this is just to remind you that for each birth in this enchanted disenchanted kingdom that's the Philippines, there's much to be thankful for, considering the odds we face for survival. I know this is only the beginning. For now, I guess I should be grateful, knowing they were probably kidding about naming me Bungad.

And boy, am I glad I wasn't born in a taxi. How do you think GP got his name?

Breast is best

PINOY KASI
Breast is best
By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 00:41am (Mla time) 07/19/2006

Published on Page A15 of the July 19, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE advantages of breastmilk are legion, but I can summarize them in one sentence: It's free, it offers complete and superior nutrition, it provides protection against many diseases and health disorders.

Yet many Filipino couples choose to bottle-feed their infants. Sometimes the reason is that the mother has to return to work, and is unaware that she can refrigerate her breastmilk and have it given to the child. More often though, Filipino couples think that infant formula is superior to breastfeeding, and spend hard-earned money -- up to P1,000 a week – on the milk powder. The reason is simple: They're victims of the relentless marketing campaigns of the milk companies.

The marketing campaigns could be even worse if it were not for the Milk Code, whose 20th anniversary we should be celebrating this year, given that it has saved the lives of countless children by regulating the promotion of infant formula.

Signed on Oct. 20, 1986 as Health Department Administrative Order 51, the Milk Code went by a mouthful of a full name: the National Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes, Breastmilk Supplements, and Related Products. These breastmilk substitutes are more popularly known as "infant formula" although that term is not very accurate since "infant" refers to children aged 1 and below, while the breastmilk substitutes and supplements are available for children above the age of 1.

Twenty years after that law was passed, the health department has issued Administrative Order 2006-0012 with new Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR). The department should be praised for the new IRR, as it clamps down on new forms of reckless marketing of the breastmilk substitutes.

Revolutionary

Before 1986, there was no law regulating the promotion of breastmilk substitutes. It was a chaotic situation, with all kinds of marketing gimmicks for infant formula. The most notorious were the sales agents who would station themselves in hospitals, giving out free samples to mothers who had just delivered, and convincing them that the infant formula was better than breastfeeding. One mother told me she was told that she couldn't breastfeed because her breasts were too small. That's complete nonsense: breast size has nothing to do with breastmilk production.

The marketing was so effective that as early as the 1970s, I'd find infant formula in the sari-sari stores of the most remote villages, sold with those other blights of "civilization": cigarettes and soft drinks. Filipinos were convinced that infant formula was modern and healthy while breastfeeding was old-fashioned and inferior.

Local consumer and health groups joined a global campaign against the milk companies' marketing strategies. The groups pointed out that the infant formula, besides depriving babies of the benefits of breastmilk, was also killing babies. Because it was expensive, parents would use less powder, which resulted in the infants' under-nutrition. In other cases, parents would prepare the infant formula with dirty water, which would result in
severe diarrhea for the infants.

But under the Marcos dictatorship, the campaign to regulate infant formula moved slowly. The milk companies were all huge multinationals and exerted political clout that effectively barred attempts at regulation.

After the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolt, health groups used the new democratic space to campaign for public health reforms. The new health department, under Dr. Alfredo Bengzon, was more receptive to these reforms and one of the early victories was the passage of the Milk Code.

The Milk Code was revolutionary in the way it regulated advertising, and required all ads to state: "Breastmilk is best for babies." The milk manufacturers and advertising companies protested, but the Code pushed through. Later, a Rooming In Law was to be passed, requiring hospitals to keep the newborn infant with the mother as soon as the child was born so breastfeeding could be initiated.

Backsliding

Alas, through the years, there's been a noticeable backsliding in the implementation of the Milk Code. Milk companies aren't as aggressive in maternity wards, but they're still able to get hospitals to distribute free booklets to new mothers, supposedly so they can record milestones in their newborn child's life, but each page carries blurbs for an infant formula product.

The promotions have become aggressive with pediatricians and other health professionals but the worst effects come from advertising. The ads state that breastmilk is still best, but the token declaration is drowned out by all kinds of wild claims for the breastmilk substitutes. If we are to believe the manufacturers, we'd be a nation of geniuses and child
prodigies.

The new IRR, which take effect this month, cracks the whip on these promotions. These new moves are not arbitrary, they're based on the recommendations of experts from the World Health Organization and Unicef that are stated in the IRR, among others:

First, exclusive breastfeeding, without any food supplements, is stillbest for infants from birth to 6 months.

Second, there is no substitute for breastmilk. The ones that are marketed can only approximate breastmilk, but can never be a complete replacement.

Third, breastfeeding remains appropriate for young children up to the age of 24 months, or beyond.

Fourth, infant or milk formula can be hazardous to a child's health.

Cows and humans

Invoking these principles, the health department has a number of rules and regulations to promote breastfeeding and to regulate the sales and marketing of the infant formula. There are quite a number of prohibitions, one of the most striking being an "absolute" prohibition on "all health and nutrition claims for products within the scope of the Code," including "any phrase or words that connote to increase emotional, intellectual abilities of the infant and young child." Let's see if such offending ads are pulled out now.

"Financial and material inducements" to promote the breastmilk substitutes are prohibited not just for health workers but also for members of the workers' families. Manufacturers are also prohibited from giving "gifts of any sort" to "any member of the general public, to hospitals and other health facilities."

I have to say I'm very impressed with the IRR, but worry about its implementation. Penalties for violations are fairly light, consisting of two months to one year imprisonment, and/or fines of P1,000 to P30,000, loose change for the companies.

Perhaps on our own then, as we stumble along with the present economic and political crisis, we might want to make a difference with the health and nutrition of children. There's much that needs to be done to promote breastfeeding, even as we become more vigilant about the ads and marketing campaigns. A catchy slogan to remember from the 1970s: Cow's milk is best for cows, human breastmilk is best for humans.