Tribute to Dr. Aloysius Baes

Here's a short tribute to an extraordinary scientist and an exemplary environmental advocate, Dr. Aloysius Baes, reposted from www.bulatlat.com. This article was compiled from various testmonies, written and spoken, during two parangal (tribute) held for Ochie last December 23 and January. In the picture [below] is his mother, speaking of her son's life before a full audience at the Aldaba Hall in the Univeristy of the Philippines.

Dr. Aloysius Baes: Scientist, Composer and Revolutionary Par Excellence

Heroes are known not by how they died, but by how they lived in the service of the people to the very end. Dr. Aloysius "Ochie" Baes, 58, former Rapu-Rapu Fact-Finding Commissioner and environmentalist, consistently embodied this principle until he died.

His passing away at the National Kidney Institute last Dec. 21 merited an obituary in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, but there was definitely more to Ochie, as friends and colleagues called him, than what could be immediately said in a few concise lines.

A scientist by profession and an activist by choice, Ochie exemplified the best of what the iskolar ng bayan (people’s scholar) could offer to the country and to the world. At the tributes held last Dec. 23 and Jan. 29 at the Baes residence in Laguna and the Aldaba Hall in the University of the Philippines, Quezon City , respectively, Ochie's family, friends, colleagues and comrades were all brought together by narratives of his short but multi-faceted life: As a son and brother, student activist and revolutionary, Martial Law survivor, chemist and professor, commissioner, consultant, writer, poet, composer, musician, environmental advocate and scientist for the people.

Famous warrior

Dr. Aloysius Baes used to kid friends about the origins of his first name, claiming in jest that he was named after a mighty Greek god and - if still incredulous - a Nobel Prize winner who discovered a new chemical element.

The truth was that “Aloysius” is a variation of the name “Louis” which means “famous warrior.” Later, this name would exemplify much of what Ochie would become as a student leader and as a scientist.

Ochie was the eldest in a brood of four boys and one girl, a Boy Scout and proverbial “Mama's boy” born into a traditional, middle-class family. His parents had a piano at home and shared their love of music with the parish and with their children. Little did they then realize that this gift of the arts fostered upon their children would much later on reverberate in the hearts of countless activists. [Read the rest here].

Postcards from the ASEAN Sugbo Protests

Here are some intermittent snapshots during the ASEAN Summit protests in Cebu City from January 10-15, 2007.

VOYAGERS FOR PEACE ARRIVE IN CEBU

Left: Reported Navy personnel (complete with metal shields and hard hats--the ones used by construction wokers) block the Bicol contingent of the VOYAGERS FOR PEACE from getting out of Pier 3 at the Cebu City Port at around 7 a.m. last January 12.
Center: A 10:00 PM salubong (with lanterns and streamers) for the VOYAGERS FOR PEACE Manila contingent at Pier 6.
Right: The salubong for the Manila, Bohol, and Bicol contingents were covered by our friends from both local and national media. One particularly resourceful (and agile) camera crew member hitches a ride atop the last jeepney filled with protestors and covers the event from his mobile station.

U.S. OUT OF SOUTHEAST ASIA: A sea-based protest on Talisay's shores against U.S. military presence in SEA by Kalikasan-PNE, Pamalakaya, BAYAN, KMP, Anakpawis, and the local community. Activist swimmers, environmentalists and fisherfolk swam for around 300 meters, surrounded by Navy patrols, and burned the U.S. flag while standing in waist-deep waters.

PHILIPPINE GOV'T No. 1 HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATOR IN ASIA: Those who denounce GMA as a hypocrite for calling for democracy in Burma during the ASEAN Summit have every right to do so. Among the issues that demonstrators from various provinces have brought up are the continuing extrajudicial killings of activists, the most recent of which happened in Bicol (left). Activists from Central VIsayas also cap the VOYAGERS FOR PEACE cultural night with a presentation on the life of slain environmental activist and BAYAN Bohol Vice-Chairperson Vic Olayvar (center).

BEHIND THE BILLBOARDS: Sight-seeing at an ancestral mansion after the rallies? Nah! We're just posing in front of a giant tarpaulin billboard along Osmena Ave. claiming to showcase the 'wonders of Cebu'. Dozens of these brightly-lit billboards were erected during the Summit preparations and now line the city's major avenues along with banderitas and other festive decor for the Sinulog fiesta.

What the snapshots don't show are the numerous vendors and street children hidden in the shadows of these prominent billboards.

The Year of Crossing Over

Three years summarized in cliches*: 2004 was the year of jumping into the abyss. 2005, the year of tying up loose ends. 2006, the year of crossing over.

2006 was a year of literal and figurative departures: of working for still-detained labor leader and lawmaker Ka Crispin Beltran, of shuffling between Congress and Camp Crame and the Heart Center after Ka Bel's arrest, of getting married, of losing my mother-in-law to lung cancer, of moving house thrice, of starting work at an environmental network, of mournful but meaningful departures: Erika, Mommy Cel, Ka Pido, Roval, Ka Ochie, Auntie Tess, Ka Tirso, Lyn and Randy's fathers, Atty. Gojol and other activists assassinated by the Arroyo administration's death squads.

Will be spending New Year at the hospital, as my grandmother has pneumonia.

*Still can't figure out the exact character key for the letter 'e' with that strange mark on top.

Green Post

Green is said to symbolize the new. So, a MEANINGFUL GREEN YEAR to all!

Speaking of things green, here are some

Environmentally-friendly New Year's Resolutions
for Third World residents...

1. Conserve electricity. We will be forced to anyway, at the atrocious and unbelievable rates that electric companies such as Meralco are charging consumers. Better to divert extra energy to calling for a repeal of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA), which brought upon the scourge of more expensive power rates in the first place.

2. Throw away garbage properly. Metro Manila produces more than 7,000 tons of trash daily, a quarter of which ends up in clogged waterways and biologically-threatened rivers such as the Pasig. Do your part in reducing the unnecessary spread of solid waste by disposing of it properly.

The same holds for seemingly insignificant but disposable items, such as candy wrappers, empty softdrink cans, leftover food wrappers, and loose paper. It's utterly disppointing to see that people who loudly obsess with "keeping clean, neat and fresh" won't think twice of throwing litter in the streets, out of car windows, and elsewhere in public--even when there are trash cans lying around the place for the whole world to use. Although I generally maintain that the MMDA's ubiquitous pink street signs border on the morbid ("Walang tawiran nakamamatay" - 'No crossing the street: deadly') to downright moronic ("Bawal ang tao dito" - 'Humans are prohibited here'), there was one that made perfect sense in the context of this annoying litterbug mentality among Filipinos: Maliit na basura ibulsa. (Too bad that 'Bayani's boys' inexplicably display these in the middle of national highways such as EDSA.)

3. Quit smoking. It's a real health hazard, an additional (and non-essential) expenditure, and it stinks. If you can't, then try not to do it around people who would otherwise benefit from the absence of noxious second-hand smoke. Remember that the Philippine health care system isn't exactly efficient nor cheap. And that there are better ways to handle stress, social anxiety, and ennui than through puffing your lungs out as if your existence hinged on it. As the hilarious quote attributed to Brooke Sheilds points out: "Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life." (hahahah).

4. Say 'NO' to destructive and plunderous projects in our communities. Prevent the Lafayette and Marcopper mine spills from happening all over again: stop foreign TNC mining and large dam projects right in their tracks, way before they get a foothold on public land.

5. Write or lobby lawmakers to reject lopsided trade deals such as the JPEPA. Out of the hundreds of possible trade products in this Japan-Philippines agreement signed by GMA and Koizumi, at least 141 were classified by the DENR as "environmentally-sensitive" if handled improperly, including clinical waste, and hospital discards. Far as I know, the only real local 'commodity' that the Philippine government is really capable of exporting to Japan are nurses, so go guess who's the loser at the receiving end of waste importation?

6. Protect the local fishing industry and marine biodiversity. If you thought Nemo and Sebastian were cute, then think of how giant corporate trawlers from Japan, the US, Canada, and Australia are quickly depleting our aquatic resources, degrading our coastlines and coral reefs and depriving some 8 million Filipinos of their livelihood from small-scale fishing.

7. Boycott Petron. For causing the largest oil spill ever on Philippine waters in Guimaras. For (oops) doing it again with the Misamis oil sludge spill. For flatly refusing to compensate for the damages. For going about its perfunctory clean-up operations without providing adequate protective gear for residents paid to do so. For endangering the lives, health, and livelihood of the community in the process. Need one say more?

8. Plant trees and protect our forests. Face it: the Philippines no longer has much forest cover to speak of. An estimated 90% of Philippine old-growth forests have already been cut down due to massive log importation, commercial deforestation, and timber licensing agreements throughout the Spanish, American, and post-Commonwealth periods. But while helping a tree or two grow is noble in itself, it's going to take much more than small-scale reforestration efforts to reverse the devastation produced by the systematic and colonial plunder of our resources.

9. Don't vote for incompetent Environment USecs running for higher public office in the 2007 national elections. They didn't quite do a good job at the DENR, how can we expect them to do a better job as Senators or Congressmen?

10. Support the peoples right to free and fresh water. Land-locked countries often go to war with each other over water rights--a historical reality which has generally spared this archipelago, where freshwater supplies are theoretically abundant and accessible to the majority of the populace. This, as history also shows, is not true: in terms of freshwater availability per citizen, the Philippines ranks as the second LOWEST among all Asian countries. This is largely caused about by water privatization and pollution related to waste dumping by commercial industries such as mining and logging. Quit drowning in apathy, reclaim our water reserves for the benefit of all. #

...And 12 Resolutions for Myself
The simpler, the better. So here goes:

1. Wake up at dawn. So that I may witness the fragile teethering of a world between slumber and consciousness: the primordial and ethereal flow of repose and awakenings unimpeded by the mundane flow of human follies... NAAAH! So that I get to arrive at the office earlier AND have more time to write press releases, heheh.
2. Learn how to cook.
3. (Upon fulfillment of Resolution # 2) Cook more vegetables and eat more fruits. They come in more colors and shapes than meat and are kinder on the digestive system. Ideally, they should also be cheaper.
4. Write more often and in more forms . And not just when the need arises.
5. Paint and draw. These two things I haven't really done ever since deciding to go full-time in 2004. See resolution # 4.
6. Have time for art history research. This year, I had perfectly valid excuses for my utter absence of output. Next year, wala na !

7. Visit a mining-affected community or an area affected by large-dam operations.
8. Keep in touch with family and friends more often .

9. Maintain a CLEAN desk. This is the hardest to do. I share a cramped 2'x2' meter cubicle with three jolly male officemates, none of whom are really serious about keeping stuff tidy and aesthetically-acceptable. At home, my desktop bears an uncanny resemblance to a certain aerial photograph of wartime Manila, taken right after returning American planes bombed the city to smithereens. This year, I'll win the war against debris, disorder and dust balls! As Starstruck and First Quarter Storm veterans would say: Dare to believe, dare to struggle, dare to win!

10. Bike to work. So am saving up for a bicycle (plug: care to donate one instead?).
11. Quit my annoying habit of hair-pulling. Found the clinical term for this disorder in my sister-in-law's books: trichotillomania. It is possible to wean oneself away from this anxiety problem without drugs, that's certain.
12. And lastly: Sleep earlier. The old adage holds true: Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

You Are Not a Cook

You know cooking isn't for you, and you wouldn't even consider trying to make a homecooked meal. And this is a very good thing. You've saved all your friends and family from unintentional food poisoning!

Are You A Good Cook?

A meaningful New Year to all!

Somber December for Lafayette victims

Three days to before Christmas and I can hardly feel any holiday cheer (nor chill) in the air.

This December, however, is far more somber for the residents of Rapu-Rapu island in Albay, where the controversial Lafayette mine project continues to operate. Like many of their fellow Bicolanos, Rapu-Rapu folks were beset by landslides during the height of typhoon Reming month, untimely departures, and more.

The Rapu-Rapu island landslides, however, were diffferent from those which devastated the regions surrounding Mayon Volcano in Albay. Instead of mudflows and lahar and water composites, Rapu-Rapu was hit by dozens of small landslides composed of broken rocks, organic wastes, and debris. At least eleven people died in the wake of the debris that hit Barangay Malobago, the community nearest to the Lafayette open-pit mine site. Many of the fatalities came from one household which was literally crushed by a curtain of rocks cascading down the mountain slope. Despite the government and Lafayette's press releases, Fr. Ino Bugauisan and other local leaders report that no relief operations have reached the island as of last week.

The folks from CEC-Phils suspect that the landslides are closely associated with Lafayette's massive blasting operations during the past months. It is reported that Lafayette has dug hundreds of meter-deep holes in the earth filled with bags of combustible materials, and is underway on blasting through to the very heart of the mountainous terrain. Many of the community folks compare the jolts in the aftermath of the explosions to little 'earthquakes'. They say that blasting operations, held twice daily, have grown progressively stronger before Reming hit and forced Lafayette to again halt its operations.

Neither has Rapu-Rapu reaped the so-called economic benefits of foreign TNC mining at the close of 2006. Only 30% of Lafayette's laborers are locals of Rapu-Rapu; the rest are itinerant workers sourced from elsewhere in the Visayas. Almost 100% of all fisherfolk in the island (practically its entire population perhaps) have virtually lost their livelihoods as the catch continues to dwindle inexplicably.

____________________

Lafayette victims have also lost two defenders this month: human rights lawyer Gil Gojol and environmental chemist Dr. Aloysius Baes.

Dr. Baes, 58 years old, was a member of the Rapu-Rapu Fact Finding Commission (RRFC) which declared the Lafayette mine tailings spills as a case of irresponsible mining and recommended the termination of its contract with the government, He passed away last December 22 at the National Kidney Transplant Institute after a sudden illness.

Atty. Gojol, 46 years old, is a Bicol-based human rights lawyer who represented over a hundred Sorsogon-based fisherfolk in a class suit against Lafayette early this year. He and his driver were accosted and shot to death last December 12 by motorcycle-riding assassins in Sorsogon, near a military detachment.

I got to meet Dr. Baes, or Ochie as he was fondly called, during my first week at Kalikasan last October. He was a kind man with sharp, inquisitive eyes and a precise, patient way of explaining things. Even though he was often in pain from gout and had difficulty breathing, Ochie managed to speak at a forum on mining liberalization at IBON. He also gave the KPNE and CEC staff an afternoon-long lecture on toxic heavy metals in the oil and mining industries, scheduling a follow-up workshop to demonstrate a test kit he devised. That workshop never pushed through.

I only got to know more about Ochie from my colleagues' and husband's anecdotes about him: how he was as a scientist who sought to change social reality, how the biochemist was also a composer, how he envisioned environmental advocacy as an extension of the people's struggle for liberation. A short tribute written by Gani for AGHAM best articulates how we feel at his early departure.

Similarly, I hardly knew Atty. Gojol when we visited his wake last Tuesday. But upon hearing the testimonies of his clients (most of whom are from the poor and from progressive organizations) and his colleagues, it struck me how profound a loss he was to the people. LIke Ochie, Atty. Gojol has unwittingly erected a monument in our hearts.

Of love and liberty

'Took quite a while to finally retrieve this particular file, but here it is anyway: a photo of detained Anakpawis Congressman Crispin 'Ka Bel' Beltran and Rosario 'Ka Osang' Soto-Beltran during their 50th wedding anniversary rites last November 16, at the Chapel of the Philippine Heart Center (PHC).

More than a month has passed since then, but I'll always have fond memories of that day when Ka Bel and Ka Osang renewed their marriage vows in front of family, friends, and comrades. (November 16, coincidentally, is also the anniversary of the Hacienda Luisita massacre n Tarlac.)

It was a serene Sunday afternoon, marked by cold and intermittent rainshowers, alternating between grey and sunny skies. The day's absolutely mixed-up weather only seemed to reflect my own ambivalence towards the event: while I was happy for Ka Bel and Ka Osang, I felt sad knowing that with his experiences, stature, and age, Ka Bel doesn't deserve to be detained and shorn of his rights in the way that the Arroyo administration's morally-bankrupt conjugal circus has been doing for MORE THAN NINE MONTHS already.

What happened that day is already stale news: The ceremony was held in the hospital's 5th floor chapel because the courts inexplicably refused to issue a permit for any larger venue outside the PHC. Ka Bel was escorted by his PNP guards to the cramped chapel, which was packed tight with well-wishers, guests, and grandchildren of all ages and sizes. The media and even personal videographers were barred from covering the event. A festive reception was held at the nearby Parks and Wildlife, but Ka Bel was forced to stay put in the hospital by his police captors.

As traditional ceremonies go, this event had its fair share of sponsors, pictorials, and good food. But what I like to remember about that day, instead, were the last few minutes prior to the entire event: how Ka Bel's eyes crinkled at the edges while he grinned like a teenager ready to take on the world. How he seemed so much more positively sprightly and lithe that day, greeting visitors and family with more bounce in his step after donning a warm yellow undershirt and barong. How he would gamely pose for the cameras that a few managed to sneak in past his guards, how happy he seemed to be upon seeing so much comrades at this single moment.

I also swear Ka Osang looked a decade younger that day, dressed in a yellow embroidered Maria Clara dress and wearing dainty beaded slippers. Back in Ka Bel's hospital room, Ka Osang didn't want to sit down, saying that she wasn't used to wearing such dresses and didn't want to wrinkle the fabric. I recalled her painstaking visits to Camp Crame last April, where Ka Osang trudged to the PNP hospital clad in shorts, rubber shoes, headband, and a red t-shirt calling for Ka Bel's freedom, and her stories of how she would tirelessly wake up at dawn to sell foodstuffs then walk all the way from Fairview to Camp Crame back when Ka Bel was jailed during Martial Law. Two decades older and a political detainee's wife twice over, Ka Osang now often suffers from aching joints and finds it physically difficult to be as active as she was before. But this did not douse her resolve to continue fighting for Ka Bel's freedom once more.

In the end, I was happy because this short ceremony was more than a public affirmation of a couple's love and commitment to one another for five long decades: it was also an affirmation of conviction and hope in the face of political persecution, a lesson imparted by these two people who have been through hell and back yet have not given up on the struggle. Seeing Ka Bel and Ka Osang at this moment, I knew in my heart that the Arroyo administration failed, miserably and absolutely, in its attempt to break Ka Bel's spirit.

In the Aftermath of Catastrophes

It's 5:39 a.m. I'm sitting stupidly in front of my husband's desktop, trying to shake some wits out of dreamland and back into my addled brain before dawn.

My computer won't start. I don't think it crashed, or at least I hope it didn't. For some reason known only to the divine and the idiotic alike, it just REFUSED to start. Totally unresponsive ever since last night, despite working perfectly well for most of the day. My husband, the more technically-proficient one between the two of us, has thrown in the towel on this case.

I'm not devastated. Just on the verge of freaking out as practically all the files that I will need to get through with this week--and even the next--are all inside the bowels of that sleeping machine.

This is a sanity break. Am still cross-eyed from trying to edit a long-overdue briefing paper that would be better off if rewritten from scratch instead. I'm suppressing the urge to surf for J-pop videos on Youtube. In a while, I will attempt to make breakfast while navigating around an elusive leak in the kitchen sink. In around three hours, I'll be at the office writing a press release on the environmental catastrophes left in the aftermath of typhoon Reming.

I would've wanted to start this week with a barrage of rants about retiring PCs and the limitations of Vulca-seal, but realize that it's absurd to do so when other people are having it worse elsewhere. While we from Metro Manila (along with the ubiquitous billboards erected by companies) have been generally spared from the wrath of typhoon Reming, our toiling brothers and sisters from Southern Luzon and the Visayas regions have not.

My office mate has had the roof of his house and his small pig pen literally blown off as the storm hit his hometown last Friday, as with most of his neighbors. A cathedral in Marinduque reportedly had its roof swept away by the bluster of winds. The peoples of Marinduque, Albay, and Mindoro Oriental--some of the areas most adversely devastated by poverty, militarization, and large-scale mining operations-have had it the worst, absorbing the full impact of the storm. The exacerbating impacts of destructive and unstable mining projects such as Lafayette's polymetallic mine in Rapu-Rapu island (which already had two mine spills) has yet to be fully disclosed by the government and companies which are scampering to protect their trading stocks from plummeting.

A forwarded message from one e-group recounts text messages from eyewitnesses of the tragic mudslides in Albay:

"...Grabe talaga! Am here in Bicol and witnessed how it was. And yung mga nasa likod ng factory nalunod and natabunan ang mga bahay. Parang dagat na...

...Horrible talaga...ang dami patay. Ang mga bahay natabunan ng mga sand, mud and boulders...

...lagpas sa haus namin ang muddy water. Ang dami patay sa Guinobatan.

----sa Ligao, for the first time, umabot sa 2nd floor sahig yong baha na maputik talaga. Kahit minsan ay di pa nangyari yun.

...sabi naman ng ate kong doktora sa Albay provincial hospital since 1965 pa, sanay na siya sa nakakakita ng patay, pero sa biyahe nila from Legaspi to Ligao, kinilabutan siya sa mga nakita nila along the way: patay, bahay na may konting tuktok na lang ang nakikita, and similar scenes."

The responses to the catastrophes left in the aftermath of Reming only underscore the priorities of those in governance. Foreign governments and international institutions have sent in their expressions of support. Concerned citizens and even the New Peoples' Army are helping out in the relief work for typhoon victims. But while the Arroyo administration is reportedly processing the initial tranch of the rehabilitation fund after belatedly declaring a state of calamity yesterday, it seems that GMA's allies are still more interested in pursuing plans for Charter Change than ensuring that the people will be able to withstand and be less adversely affected by other natural calamities in the future.

How typical. Typhoons may come and go, but some things (like this blasted government!) never change.