Memory lane

A FEW days before my death, I was born. I died in mid-March of 1974 in Annex II of the then Northern Mindanao Regional Training Hospital. Doctors were only able to revive me after they “cut down” a major artery in my lower leg.

I have so many fond memories in the now Northern Mindanao Medical Center. As I said, I was introduced to the hospital when it was just a training hospital. I practically grew up in that hospital.

Last week, when my brother called to invite me to the launch of their year-long centennial celebration, I was so excited. It is not every day that you get to celebrate 100 years of something because it takes literally a hundred years to do so.

“Housed in a building of mixed materials with a nipa roof, the Misamis Public Hospital opened on Oct. 1, 1917, in the district of Carmen, Cagayan, Misamis Province,” the centennial committee on its history written in its short summary of its 100-year journey to where and what it is now.

It was established at a time when the country was under American colonial rule. However, it was maintained mainly with funds from the Capitol under the then Governor Isidro Rillas, who served as Misamis governor from 1917 to 1919.

In 1932, the then MPH was constructed in its present location at the Capitol grounds. However, the hospital was destroyed during World War II. In 1945, it was rebuilt and renamed as Misamis Oriental Provincial Hospital.

As I told fellow columnist Rhona Canoy, that name seemed to have stuck. Until now, many Kagay-anons, when they flag a motorela, still inexplicably tell the driver: “Sa provincial, nong.”

In 1966, by virtue of Republic Act 4662, it was renamed and declared as the Northern Mindanao Regional Training Hospital. This was the first step in its journey to becoming a tertiary medical facility in the region.

My mother, Thomasita Bajao Corrales, was already a senior nurse then. I would eat my lunch with her at its cooperative canteen or at the room for minor surgeries at the dispensary.

The best part of growing in a training hospital was mingling with student doctors and nurses — lots of fond memories there.

While my contemporaries at Xavier University Grade School were busy with their kote and jolen, I was making cotton balls and vaginal gauze swabs with student nurses at NMRTH.

I was also privy to hospital grapevine. Let’s just say that I was aware of stories about the doctors and nurses. And man, are those stories saucy!

I remember Dr. Dy, with his goatee, ambling his way to the dispensary and never failing to remind me that he circumcised me, much to my chagrin as I try to strike up idle conversations with the student nurses.

There have also been dour memories with the hospital.

No one was with me during my graduation at Xavier University High School. Earlier that afternoon, my father, Emilio, had suffered his fifth cardiac arrest and was rushed to the intensive care of the then newly established heart center of the NMMC.

After typhoon Sendong ravaged our barangay in 2011, all my kids took their prophylactic shots against leptospirosis at the hospital.

Almost two years ago, my mother died at the hospital’s dialysis room.

Let me just say that the hospital has been an important part of my personal history. Maybe that’s the reason why I was also excited with its centennial year. Like a long-time friend, we share a lot of history together.

My brother who is working at the hospital now told me they are planning to hold various activities to highlight their centennial year. It began with the unveiling of the centennial wall in front of the hospital last week. He said they will hold a major activity every month until October 2018.

I can’t wait to cover each and every one of these activities.

Hunting fake news (2)

“You furnish the pictures, I’ll provide the war.” – William Randolph Hearst, New York World owner

HERE’S the second and last installment of my series on hunting fake news. Purveyors of fake news almost usually also post accompanying fake photos to further bolster the “legitimacy” of their stories.

Fake photos?! It’s hard to imagine, right? It’s because you would think photographs are precise representations of events. Well, unless you’ve been hiding under a rock in the last decade, photographs can be manipulated.

However, in this age of photoshop and other digital photo manipulation applications, you might find it surprising that photo manipulation is not actually new.

It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. It means photographs evoke emotions faster than an article can because it is, after all, visual. You don’t need to read anything. You just look at it and wham–emotions start to flow.

The quote above is an actual reply of Hearst to a cable message of his illustrator assigned in Cuba in 1897, Frederic Remington.

Hearst, for reasons only known to him, had wanted to ignite a war between the US and Spain. Cuba at that time had an insurrection against its Spanish colonizers. However, Remington cabled Hearst: “Everything quiet. There is no trouble here (Cuba). There will be no war. Wish to return.”

So when USS Maine exploded in Havana Harbor less than three weeks since the cable message exchange, Remington illustrated the boat as it sank. Hearst wasted no time in using the illustration to foment war between the US and Spain. This was reflected in a phrase he popularized in his newspaper, New York World, “Remember the Maine, to hell with Spain!”

Spain had nothing to do with the sinking of USS Maine but Hearst made it appear in his articles that it was result of a direct attack of Spain against American forces.

Within three months, the Spanish-American war was raging hard. The Philippines, being a Spanish colony that time, had to be “conquered” by the US as spoils of that war. After that war, the US became a global power to contend with and ended Spain’s old-brand of imperialism.

In a way, bad journalism–in this instance, a fake photo–was the reason why the Philippines was colonized by the US. By the way, a small digression if you will. Hearst was caricatured best in Orson Welles’ magnum opus “Citizen Kane.”

It would have been dramatic that the “new world” conquered the “old world” except that because the war was fueled by a fake photo, it was nothing short of tragic.

Talking of tragic, here in the Philippines now, no less than the government’s communication team has joined in purveying fake news and photos.

The Philippine News Agency posted a story on how the military is having difficulty with close quarter battle in flushing out the Maute Group from Marawi City. I knew the correspondent who wrote the article, so I believed the article. However, the editors, in their incomprehensible wisdom, posted an accompanying photo of an American G.I. patrolling the hinterlands of Vietnam.

Not to be left behind, newly appointed Presidential Communications Operations Office Assistant Secretary Margaux “Mocha” Uson posted a photo of the Honduran police on their knees praying in the hopes of rallying support for government troops who are currently fighting the Maute Group in Marawi City.

When the fake photo was pointed out, Uson brushed off criticisms by saying the photo was mere symbolism of the point she was making or a “representative photo.” Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if her succeeding blogs will not carry any titles–she is already entitled.

They have since taken down the photo and issued an erratum of sorts.

As for my colleagues in media, either they be in private or government employ, I have this to say: If we keep on repeating the same mistakes in a chosen field for a considerable length of time then maybe it’s time to seriously consider another craft or trade. You’re not contributing to the well-being of the planet and your species.

Now that we have the history of fake photos out of the way, let’s discuss how to hunt for fake photos on social media platforms.

But before we discuss knowing what to look for in fake photos, I’d like first to discuss how photos are being faked.

1. Drawing or staging. Unlike studio or glam photography, photojournalists are not supposed to be “directing” a crime scene. The photo should be an accurate depiction of what happened. I have witnessed this once. A photojournalist, at he was back then, asked one of the protesters in a rally to move closer to where he was standing so he could capture a more “provocative” frame. This practice, by the way, is frowned upon by professional photojournalists.
2. Post production alterations. This is where photoshop or other photo editing apps comes in. Sometimes photojournalists would think a column of smoke from a burning building isn’t quite fluffy or big enough they’d clone that column of smoke and paste it on the same frame. There have been times also when photojournalists introduce another subject from an old photo and pass it off as one frame.
3. Inaccurate captioning. It’s quite unfortunate that people in this administration’s communication team have been fooling us with foreign photos with inaccurate captioning, as what we have been witnessing lately. We have also seen our “friends” on Facebook posting photos of bomb victims in the past and captioned it as happening (read: ATM) currently in Marawi City. As in news articles, the captioning the real date of when the photo was captured is also of the same import.

You can also always use Google’s “image search” feature if there’s something suspicious about a photo. I used this in the Vietnam war photo PNA used to pass off as happening in Marawi City. I felt the photo was so familiar but could not put my finger on it. So, I downloaded the photo, fed that photo in Google’s image search, and voila–it was a photo of an American G.I. patrolling the hinterlands of Vietnam.

If the photo is sent to you via email, you can check the details of the photo by accessing its metafile data. You access this by right-clicking the photo’s thumbnail in your file browser. A dialogue box will pop out. Left click on properties.

So, in spotting a fake photo you need to inspect the following:

1. Shadows. I summarize photography as the art of taming shadows and light. Look for inconsistencies in the subjects’ shadow in the photo. For example, if the shadow of a man in the photo is leaning at a 45 degree angle, every thing else in the frame should have the same 45 degree angle-leaning shadows.
2. Light source. Inversely from shadows, the light source of the whole frame should be global. The bounce of the light source on the subjects in the frame should be consistent with the shadows these set. This means the light source should be at the opposite end of the subject’s shadow.
3. Discoloration. This usually happens when a subject introduced to a photo is a clone of a subject from a different photo. If you can see discoloration on the edges of a subject in a photo (read: inconsistent color from the main frame), chances are the photo has been manipulated with a photo editing software.
4. Pixilation. This is akin to the presence of discoloration in a photo, except that instead of color inconsistency there’s inconsistency in pixels of the photo. This happens when the photo editor clones a subject from a different photo and placing it on a new photo without considering the image size (read: dots per inch or pixels per inch) of the photo the photo editor cloned it from.

Now that you know how to distinguish fake news and photos from the real ones, you might ask what am I to do with this new skill. You need to call fake news and photos out. As for those who are share-a-holics: Always check and verify what you share on your wall.

Like the fair warning I posted on my wall weeks ago, I warned friends, relatives, acquaintances, and colleagues that I will be more aggressive in pointing out shared fake news and photos on my Facebook account. I will screen-capture any friend’s post sharing a fake news, and post it with a stamp “Fake News.” Plus, I blocked their accounts from mine.

It’s all worth it, I promise you. Ever since I amped up my hunting for fake news and photos on my Facebook account and called these out for the garbage that they are, the news feeds on my wall have starkly improved.

There are no more fake news except for sporadic trolling on the threads of my posts and a deluge of friends and message requests. But, hey, don’t forget you have full control of your social media account. Like I said in my post: Good luck with that. I don’t [expletive] know you.

Now, I’m enjoying Facebook again.

Skating on thin ice

“Don’t be surprised when a crack in the ice appears under your feet. You slip out of your depth and out of your mind with your fear flowing out behind you.” -The thin ice, Roger Waters (Pink Floyd)

THE animosity on social media has really taken off. People whom I thought I knew to be discerning and critical are sharing obvious propaganda passing off as journalistic work. Even people who are close to me by blood have been espousing hatred towards political dissenters of the republic which he based on an article written by paid hacks of the “fifth column.”

It pains me to see government employees, career bureaucrats, and academics swallow President Digong Dada’s hate rhetorics–hook, line, and sinker. Hasn’t it occurred to them that hate escalates? It’s like wildfire. You keep fanning on the flames of hate, you will get burned eventually. When it does, please don’t act surprised, aghast or scandalized at the level of hatred floating around because we did our part in it.

How do you think the Rwanda genocide started? It started with hate propaganda against an entire class of people broadcast on local radio over and over until the collective psyché of the people snapped. Hate took a life on its own. Interesting sidebar to this is that it was fanned by religious people. Just like what the fictional international crime lord on the TV series “The Blacklist” said: “Hell hath no fury than a fundamentalist scorned.”

Trolls and even actual people who behave like trolls on social media have been fanning this great ball of hate. With all the available information online, methinks these people consciously choose to be ignorant like fanatics in a cult. I agree with Prof. Ben Domingo when he posted online: “Trolls do not deserve an explanation.”

I mean what can you really do or say when the person you are trying to reach out to has decided to believe in the alternative reality this regime has whipped up. I used the word: decision, because it is exactly that–a conscious choice to shut out dissenting opinions and perspectives. One cannot even call for sobriety online without being branded as either a “dilawan” or an “adik.”

The “us and them” tactical narrative is as old as time. The generals and czars used it to divide and conquer. It even has a biblical version: “If you are not with us, you are against us.”

As for me, I take solace in the thought that the age-old primeval law of self-preservation will ultimately kick in. Human beings can only eat so much bull crap in their lifetime.

Fake obituary

OF all the clauses in the code of ethics in journalism, the most memorable one for me is: “Do no harm.” I know it is more of a guideline than an actual rule but you can understand the damage you could do to your fellow human beings when you broadcast or publish just about anything without the checking the facts before reporting it.

Humans as we are, we are all bound to commit mistakes.

I once inadvertently “killed” an associate justice of the Court of Appeals by choosing the wrong photo to go with the banner story of a judge who died. The associate justice was so mad that he sent me a letter. I remember becoming a bit nervous because it was written on his official stationary. You know the kind that starts with “from the desk of associate justice…” He asked me to explain within 72 hours why he should not sue me in court.

I explained that it happened because his photo was erroneously filed in a folder under his name. After asking for an apology, profusely, we published an erratum the next day explaining that the photo was not of the judge who died, and that we committed a mistake.

In my 10 years or so in the print medium, I have made mistakes. However, it is another thing when you willingly lie or quote imaginary sources or text messages sent by who-knows-who.

Over the weekend, President Elipe broadcast over Magnum Radio that he received text messages about Opol Mayor Maximo Seno supposedly passing away. Seno subsequently told this paper that it was a lie, and that, obviously, he is alive. He went to the US for a three-month medical leave. Imagine what the false information has done to his family, friends, and worse, his constituents in Opol.

Just so the ex-councilor would understand, let’s turn him into an example. Again, this is just hypothetical. How would Elipe’s loved ones feel if a broadcaster, quoting an imaginary source, falsely reports that he was abducted by the Maute group and then beheaded? Of course, the broadcaster could, like him, hide behind the Sotto Law that allows him not to divulge the identity of his news source. But wait, I recall Prof. Chell Diokno teaching us that the Sotto Law (Shields Law in the US) only protects journalists in the print medium. Sorry, I digressed.

Going back to the Elipe's lie, because he broadcast the terrible rumor passing off as a “news item” over a radio station, his listeners could have taken it as a legitimate news. What if a close relative of Seno with a medical condition keeled over after hearing Elipe’s fake news? Would Elipe be responsible for such death?

It was like Martin Andanar quoting an “intel report” that the journalists who covered the press conference of Sen. Antonio Trillanes III were given $1,000 each.

Working in mass media should not be taken lightly. There will consequences to everything you publish or broadcast. Andanar got demoted for maligning the Senate press corps. What do you think will happen to Elipe?

Just recently, this paper erroneously accredited a photo to our correspondent although it was not his. We have since admitted our faux pas, apologized, took down the photo and article, and published a clarificatory article the very next day.

Still the group felt pissed off. But that’s another story all together because it turned out their beef was misdirected at us when they were really pissed off with another group with the same name.

Post no bill, please

CONSIDERING how many times this regime has been finding ways to mess up our civil liberties, it should change its logo to a fist with the middle finger sticking out.

As if the be-wigged stooge of President Digong Dada at the justice department hasn’t wrangled the Republic’s judicial system enough to serve the regime’s vendetta, here comes another stooge who wants to impose the historically “effective” ghetto-like branding – all, of course, in the name of waging the war on drugs.

About a fortnight ago, Interior Secretary Ismael Sueño opined to label houses that are supposedly “drug free” with a decal telling people the house is such.

Sueño suggests this will be better than the violent Oplan Tokhang. He is so convinced there is nothing inherently wrong with this that he vilified Amnesty International-Philippines when the latter called him out on his plan to brand houses. Sueño even resorted to a childish play on words against the Nobel Prize laureate saying: “They should be branded as human wrong group, not human rights group.”

Who will determine if the household is indeed drug-free? Who will evaluate and confirm this as a fact? How will they categorize and what are the rules of implementation of this branding campaign?

This came to him, Sueño said, after meeting with the regional peace and order councils recently.

He said this regime is shifting to a non-violent and positive way to combat illegal drugs. Is he admitting that Oplan Tokhang was wrong? The plastering of “drug free” stickers on houses, he said, will not be a police operation but by the civilian peace and order councils from the regional down to the barangay level.

Hasn’t Sueño been listening to his boss? Didn’t Digong Dada push for the postponement of the barangay elections because “most” barangay officials are allegedly involved in the illegal drugs trade? Now, Sueño wants these people allegedly involved in illegal drug trafficking to decide which house in their barangay is drug-free? If he doesn’t see the problem of conflicts of interest in that arrangement, I personally don’t know what will.

How sure is Sueño that this new branding campaign will not be used by barangay chairpersons as a subtle campaign for their own pedestrian political careers? Let’s not forget we are going to elect a new set of barangay officials this coming October. I, for one, am not expecting for such decal. This is because I have been at odds with our barangay chairman in Consolacion – a Roa, I might add – since he practically abdicated his mandate to policing our village of drug users and hooligans. My regular (at 165 of them) readers will bear this out since I have been writing about his governance style or to be accurate his lack of it.

Plus, let me remind Mr. Sueño that we are in the Philippines – a third world impoverished country – where a house does not automatically mean one family. I live in a house being shared by two other families. Should our brilliant barangay chairman decide not to stick a decal on our house on my account – just to get back at me – won’t that be unfair for the other two families, who may or may not be involved in illegal drugs?

I am most certain that this will be used arbitrarily by barangay chairpersons who want to stay as chairpersons in their barangays after October.

“Plus, let me remind Mr. Sueño that we are in the Philippines…”

Which company will be printing the drug-free decals. Who stands to gain from this enterprise? In street vernacular: Pila man gyud, ser?

I mean, how different is this to Nazi Germany’s posting of a Star of David on the homes of Jews not too long ago. This may be a reverse of what Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim did before, spray-painting houses of suspected drug traffickers but its effect is still the same. It will discriminate the household members of a house with no drug-free sticker plastered on it.

So, no, Mr. Sueño, I will not participate in your version of a Star of David – respect my right to private property and post no bill, please.

Ode to horses of Troy

Unite! Oh, paladins of Mother Earth

Let their maculate aggress be for naught

They’re wolves in ewe’s fleece, cowardly and guileful

Scuttlebutt, Trojan horses, chicane-sleuths

Chesty hubris of a bruised ego

Grown tender, deluded of bygone glories

Heed not the hoggish imp’s salvo

Our crusade transcends his inanities

The imp’s derogation, we shall overcome

And justice for all

NOTE: Re-blogged in commemoration of the 4th anniversary of Mamamayan Ayaw sa Airspray (Maas)--residents of Lower Sirib, Calinan, Davao City, victims of development aggression we hosted here in the city.


IT HAD RAINED all afternoon that day, cold and soggy, she tried to push the thought out of her mind.

She had been tossing and turning on her banig most of the night. Somehow she could not rest easy, all the more—sleep. She felt as if two thousand crickets were sniveling from all directions.

Finally, she sat up and gaped blankly at a portion of a lit parol that managed to sneak its multi-hued lights into their rip-ridden tent.

Alas! Sleep still eluded her.

The night, conversely, was deafeningly quiet. As expected, no cargo trucks passed the road that could have easily engulfed them with dust and petrol fumes. Even the stars that night seemed to shine brighter than she had gazed them for the past month.

But, like her thoughts that night, the draft of the chilly December breeze that crept into their makeshift shelter, was an unwelcome interruption that made slumber for her even more difficult.

Except for their assigned night-watch and her, all of their members were fast asleep—albeit cramped inside their 4x2 meter-shelter.

It was the eve of the 24th of December, and it was her first time to be away from home on such an important evening. Evenings like these are meant to be spent with kin and loved ones. Not this year, at least for Gina and her neighbors.

“Really, I don’t mind spending my Christmas Eve here, away from my family,” blurted Gina.

Home for Gina and her neighbors is Purok 3, Lower Sirib, Calinan, Davao city.

Gina and her neighbors have been encamped just beside the street—over a canal—a few meters from the Court of Appeals here in Cagayan de Oro city. Her group, Mamamayan Ayaw sa Aerial Spray, are on a drive to defend their right to life and healthy environment. Theirs is a basic struggle for sobriety amidst chaotic social structures.

You see, from where Gina lived, near a banana plantation, have been constantly sprayed—along with the bananas—with agro-chemicals.

Gina suffered skin rashes. These worsen, she observed, when the plane that sprayed the agro-chemicals meet crosswinds where the agro-chemicals would definitely drift unto Gina’s neighborhood.

Her other neighbors had it much worse. Many suffered from pulmonary diseases while some mothers gave birth to sickly children. The aerial spraying in the little community beside the banana plantation has adversely affected their way of life.

Theirs is a community of peasants and agri-workers. Their well-being is their only capital for their livelihood—toiling the earth.

Long ago, three years to be exact, they won a battle when the local legislature in their city enacted an ordinance banning the practice of aerial spraying in banana plantations.

When the banana growers questioned the legality of the ordinance in a regional trial court, Gina and her neighbors won yet another battle. The circuit court ruled that there was nothing wrong with the ordinance and that it even upheld the constitutional right of every person to life and a healthy environment.

But the banana growers, having all the resources at their disposal, lodged a question on the constitutionality of the city ordinance to a higher court—Court of Appeals.

It was becoming clear to Gina that they may have won some battles but the banana growers would not easily give up the war.

At that instant, Gina and her neighbors decided that they have had enough of the aerial spraying.

“Dili mi mga peste,” was to be their battle cry.

They decided to take their struggle a notch higher. They decided to come here where the appellate court holds its office.

When they arrived in Cagayan de Oro city, they immediately went to the Court of Appeals and set up camp a few meters away.

After more than a month, Gina and her neighbors had been shouted and glared at, pushed and shoved, harassed and arrested, promised and lied at. But the struggle continues, Gina vowed.

She did not mind having to spend this year’s Christmas Eve away from her home. She did not mind the dust and petrol fumes every time a cargo truck passes their encampment. Gina does not even mind that they have to cramp themselves in their makeshift shelter by the road whenever they have to eat, hold a meeting or sleep.

It was not because she was cold and soggy that night. It was not because of the draft in their makeshift shelter every time the chilly December breeze blew that she could not sleep that night.

Gina did not mind being away from her kin this Christmas Eve because as she reasoned: “What we are doing here is for all of us, so that this thing that has been slowly killing us will be stopped.”

What bugged her this year’s Christmas Eve was her realization that the environment including its inhabitants are being raised to the altar of greed and profit and yet it takes so agonizingly slow for “learned” individuals to see what is right in front of their noses.

Gina could not sleep thinking that as the rights of the people are being trampled wantonly; the supposed vanguards of truth and justice are as lame as their excuses and counter proposals.

It is already fourteen past two in the early morn of Christmas day but sleep still evaded Gina.

Hence, Gina made a solemn oath on her very first Christmas Eve alone, without kin but with kindred spirits, to continue the struggle not only for her rights but more so the rights of those who are downtrodden. Those who have been stripped of their dignity and opportunity by the very people who have sworn to serve them.

What started for Gina as a struggle for her right to life has blossomed into a warm and resolute fervor to serve the people.

Unexpectedly, Gina yawned.

She smirked when she finally felt sleepy—probably weakened by her internal debate that seemingly long dreary evening.

She felt relieved as she laid her head to sleep thinking that tomorrow will, yet, be another day of struggle and that she should be well-rested if she was to continue to struggle for our rights and justice for all.

Wanted: “Angels”

Note: I am reblogging this old Christmas featurized news I wrote four years ago. I was working as a staff reporter for Sun Star Cagayan de Oro Daily, then.

ROSE Abrogar rises each day just before dawn. After a hot cup of diluted coffee, she goes to Cogon Market, taking the trisikad her father rents, to sell two peso-plastic bags to people picking fresh fish and vegetables.

Stephanie is ten years old. At ten years, she goes about her routine to augment her family’s income. For her labor, she earns P20 a day.

Stephanie lives with her three other siblings in Bolonsiri, Camaman-an and she has been selling plastic bags for as far as she can remember. She said she often wondered how it is to be in school and play with classmates.

Her father is a sikad driver who, on the average, nets P50 a day. Her mother does laundry for their rich neighbors but that does not happen most of the time, leaving Stephanie and her three other siblings to work in order to survive the daily grind.

When asked what she really wants for Christmas, she says, without batting an eyelash, “rice.”

Early this month, Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD 10) launched a survey to the 100 rescued child workers on what specific items they would want to have for Christmas. Items ranging from complete school uniform, educational supplies, shoes, to basic needs like what Stephanie asked for.

Christmas came early for Stephanie and ninety nine other child workers as last Thursday the children were given gifts they wished for when they were rescued early this month by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE 10).

Stephanie is one of the 100 rescued child workers who are the pilot batch to benefit from DOLE 10’s “Project Angel Tree.”

In a simple ceremony held in the Provincial Capitol grounds dubbed “Angel kisses and Gift giving,” child workers received the gifts they wished for plus a bagful of educational supplies.

They were treated with a dance number from mascots of a popular fast-food chain while eating their lunch with their gifts in their little hands.

David Bustig, 13 years old, a child worker from the municipality of Binuangan, Misamis Oriental, told this paper, he had not had fun like last Thursday in all his life. He recalls how his back ached every time he would carry hollow blocks from the factory to the delivery trucks.

“Karon pa ko nakabati ingon ani nga kalipay. Unta magpirmi ning angel tree,” Bustig wistfully says.

Governor Oscar Moreno, who was at the event, is grateful for the project adding that he is particularly proud because the Province of Misamis Oriental is the only province that had adapted Project Angel Tree in its council. Vice Governor Norris Babiera authored the provincial resolution adapting the said project as part of the social welfare and development program of the province.

Although only five out of the 25 municipalities of the province participated in the said project, Moreno said there is always room for improvement even as he challenged the rest of the municipalities to join the network of the project.

Project Angel Tree, in cooperation with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD 10), has been the pet project of DOLE 10. It took off late June of this year and culminated this December. DOLE 10 started the project as an advocacy in January of this year. It is a network of benefactors coming from different sectors of the region.

Rodrigo Deloso, chief labor employment officer of the technical support and supervision division of DOLE 10, says he hopes next year’s Project Angel Tree will include a scholarship package for the rescued child workers, even as he invites people to join their advocacy in rescuing child workers and giving them something to hope for.

“As of now, we have established a network of benefactors which we call angels. It’s a combinative effort of department offices, private non-government organizations, business sector, local government units and individuals. Because we plan to expand the project to include a scholarship program for the child workers, I am invited everyone to share their time and money to the project. Share your blessing to these children, be an angel to them,” Deloso said.

Last Thursday’s gift giving was sponsored by Federacion Internacionalé de Abogadas (FIDA-CDO chapter), Province of Misamis Oriental, City of Cagayan de Oro, League of PESO Managers.

Of following orders and understanding 'em

 It is only natural for people to want to protect their hard-earned properties.

I DO NOT want to be a wet blanket—pardon the pun—especially since this city's Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (CDRRMC) has already celebrated its “zero-casualty” feat¹ in responding to super typhoon 'Pablo' (International code name: Bopha) that pummeled Cagayan de Oro and other parts of the island, last week.

Even if the “zero-casualty” claim has raised some, if not many, eyebrows, I still say City Hall has done quite a feat as compared to its response—or the lack of it—when tropical storm Sendong (International code name: Washi) flooded this city and claimed some 600 lives and destroyed at least hundreds of millions of infrastructure, properties and agricultural production.

While City Hall sycophants are busy patting each others back for a job well done, there is something we should reexamine if only to further improve our city's disaster response in future calamities—natural and man-made.

Let us take a closer look at the supposed forced evacuation order of Mayor Vicente “Dongkoy” Emano at the height of 'Pablo,' ang how the Cagayan de Oro City Police Office (Cocpo) implemented the order.

Under the Disaster Risk Reduction Management Law (RA 10121), the local chief executive can exercise its police powers to order a forced evacuation in areas where widespread danger is imminent, of which Emano did on December 4 shortly after raising the alert level to code red. The city then, has been included in the list of areas under storm signal number 3.

I, personally, was sort of excited to see this order in action because one, it was going to be my first time to see a forced evacuation implemented and I only see this in the movies and news coverages on calamities elsewhere in the country.

That day, together with international news wires photojournalists—Froilan Gallardo (Associated Press), JB Deveza (Agence France Presse) and Cai Panlilio (Thomson Reuters)—we visited Sitio Tambo, a community of shacks beside Cagayan River and were surprised to see people, albeit only adult men, still in their shacks.

“We have already evacuated my wife and four daughters to an evacuation center in Zone 8 last Monday afternoon. But we opted to stay behind because we are afraid our homes would be looted. Just last night (December 3), we spied and prevented some people trying to get into the houses of our neighbors,” Felix Araneta, married, 39 years old said when I asked him why he was still in his home despite the code red alert of CDRRMC.

However, when a SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics) patrol car entered the community, that day, the five police officers appeared clueless as to the mechanics of the order.

I approached one of the officers and asked him if they were in the area to implement the mayor's force evacuation order in the community and how they intend to do it. The officer replied they were indeed in the community to effect the mayor's order. However, it was clear in his reply that they did not understand what forced evacuation is.

“We will go around the community to persuade the people to evacuate their homes but if they insist on staying, we cannot really force them to,” the officer said.

ABS-CBN TVPatrol Northern Mindanao anchor Primy Cane, Philippine Daily Inquirer correspondent Bobby Lagsa and other local reporters experience quite the same disappointment in Sitio Tibasak, Barangay Macasandig that same day^.2

Acting city police director Senior Superintendent Antonio Montalba, who arrived in Tibasak two hours late after Emano issued the force evacuation order, told reporters that—he said they were late because they were still having breakfast—they waited for CDRRMC assistant officer Engr. Armen Cuenca to go with them in implementing the order.

Just in case there will be cases filed against them for implementing a direct order of the city mayor, he reasoned to the flabbergasted reporters. Anyway, most of the people in the geohazard areas have already voluntarily evacuated their homes days before, Montalba reportedly added.

Lagsa—in a Facebook thread—quoted Montalba as saying, “wala na lang nako pugsa pud kay gabii na og gusto nako matulog (I did not force the people who stayed behind because the night was drawing near and I wanted to get some sleep),” in the CDRRMC Exit Conference on Wednesday (December 5).

It is only natural for people to want to protect their hard-earned properties. Ergo, for force evacuation to be effective, the people need to be reassured that even if they leave their houses, their properties will be safe from looting.

We can see force evacuation effectively implemented in the Bicol region whenever Mt. Mayon threatens to unleash its wrath. Truck loads of government security forces would go to geohazard areas and physically taken out of harm's way. These security forces stay behind and search every house in the community to make sure every one has been evacuated.

While the people are being transported to the evacuation centers, they could see that the security forces stayed behind to guard their homes from possible looters.

Had Montalba understood his orders, the force evacuation would have been implemented effectively. Ergo, properly implementing the “risk reduction” concept of RA 10121.

Pablo would have been Kagay-anons' first-hand experience of this law in action.

______ 

1 http://www.goldstardailynews.com.ph/mindanao/casualty-takes-new-meaning-in-c-de-oro.html

2 http://www.goldstardailynews.com.ph/mindanao/montalba-takes-his-time-food-first-evacuation-later.html

Matuwid na daan: crooked as a trapo

23 November 2012

TODAY, we mourn the passing away of yet another year as justice remains elusive to the victims of the infamous Ampatuan Massacre.

Three years ago, 58 individuals—32 of whom were journalists and media workers—were brutally waylaid in Ampatuan town, Maguindanao province, in the worst election-related violence ever in the history of our republic.

Three years after, 96 of the 196 accused of taking part in the massacre, are still at-large. Until now, the case is virtually locked in a limbo of motions and bail hearings. While the case has dragged on at a snail's pace, suspicious-looking characters—riding in tandem—have been reportedly hounding some of the more outspoken relatives of the massacre victims.

Three years is too long a time and justice that is THIS delayed is justice DENIED.

It is bad enough that the massacre earned us the international poster cover for impunity. The International Freedom of Expression Exchange Network (IFEX)—a federation of 90 independent organizations worldwide advocating freedom of expression—has declared, every 23^rd of November, as the International Day to End Impunity.

We condemn the downright insensitive remark of Malacañan Palace downplaying the unabated human rights violations as “leftist propaganda.” There is something seriously amiss when witnesses and complainants of human rights violations are harassed and hunted down faster than government could arrest the suspects.

Today, we also mourn the death of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill in the 15^th Congress. By letting FOI Bill die, it is now crystal clear to Mr. Aquino's “Boss” that his now lame campaign slogan: Matuwid na daan, is actually as crooked as a traditional politician.

Justice for the victims of the Ampatuan Massacre and the continuing reign of the culture of impunity!

Uphold the freedom of expression and of the press!

End Impunity Now!

Reference:

Cong B. Corrales

Chapter Vice Chair

NUJP CdO

0935.909.8033

nujp.cdo@gmail.com

Witch's brew

In the spirit of Hallow's Eve, I would like to share a recipe of a cough medicine you can brew on your own. Mommy Stella gave it to me. I also feel it is apt--what with the Celtic-borne holiday--since it is called Witch's brew.

My roommate and I tried this when a particularly stubborn cough refused to leave us be for at least three consecutive days. Pastilan!

I cannot even begin to tell you what was more embarrassing, the constipated goose-like heavy panting after a three-minute barking spiel or the burble segue of phlegm that sounds like a rickety carburetor of a Ford Cortina at the most inappropriate times.

Nevertheless, my roommate and I guarantee this "brew" really works. The Witch's brew is good in quelling that stubborn and tickly cough--I've tried it. It is the next best thing to Menthodex because it is cheap.

Actually, it is more effective than all the "all-organic" crap the enterprising local radio block timers hawk on their equally crappy commentary shows air, combined.

Digression. Talking of "wonder drugs" that has been flooding the market of the gullibles, I recall their ridiculous marketing blurbs.

Oh, sorry for rambling, brews. Here's the recipe.

Witch's Brew

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1 Tablespoon honey

1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar 

Mommy Stella recommends you use the unfiltered vinegar--Bragg. She said not to use Heinz or Del Monte brands since these are not only filtered, these are also distilled.

Yeah, I know. I, too, asked her how much Bragg is paying her for endorsing their unfiltered vinegar. Just joking mamu. d^_^\m/