by Paul Ballard
May 16, 2013
~ “When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute – and it’s longer than any hour. That’s relativity.” ~ Albert Eistein, 1957
~ “I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita…’I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.’” ~ J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1945
~ “Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life’s become extinct, the climate’s ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier by the day.” ~ Anton Chekhov , 1897.
~ “Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise.” ~ National Academy of Sciences, 2003.
~ “It’s important to question whether global warming is even a problem for human existence. Thus far no one has seriously demonstrated any scientific proof that increased global temperatures would lead to the catastrophes predicted by alarmists. In fact, it appears that just the opposite is true: that increases in global temperatures may have a beneficial effect on how we live our lives..” ~ U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), 2003

~ “Global climate change presents us with unprecedented challenges. Since science can do no more than estimate a broad envelope of possible outcomes, from the benign to the catastrophic, society must approach the problem as one of risk assessment and management. Unfortunately, waiting much longer to see which way things go is not a viable option since it takes thousands of years for CO? levels to return to normal once emissions cease.” ~ Kerry Emanuel , 2012
***
Today, perhaps as never before, our climate seems to be in trouble. Climate change coupled with population growth could drastically alter and deteriorate the environment and life prospects for our grand-children and later generations.
For many Americans, as for New York City Mayor Bloomberg, Hurricane Sandy’s devastation last November was a world-changing wake-up call. Responding, in his second Inaugural Address early 2013, Pres. Obama emphatically renewed U.S. policy commitment to leading global action to avert the future devastation of our Planet threatened by climate change. Since then, we have had at least two strong reminders of how pressing is the need for global action now.
Two More Harbingers of Climate Change: First, the International Energy Agency (IEA) in its 2012 World Energy Outlook (WEO) reported the world has only a fast closing window of time – about five to ten years – to adopt strong new energy policies to mitigate climate change. Absent these, IEA says, a rise in global temperatures of over 2°C this century will be inevitable. This would bring with it potentially devastating consequences for human life and the environment.
Then, just last week, scientists reported that the carbon emissions – generated by fossil fuels we burn to create energy for our homes, factories and transport – had achieved a dangerously new high of 400 parts per million (ppm) much sooner than expected. In other words, the global economy is spewing emissions into the Earth’s atmosphere faster than ever before. As the global recovery proceeds, faster economic growth is relying ever more – not less – upon on fossil fuels.
Science is generally agreed on the nature of the impacts climate change would likely have. But the scale of these – how much they will affect human life in future – is far less certain. In good part this is because much will depend upon how quickly and effectively actions are taken to limit them.
How Is Climate Change Impacting Us? : Already we see around us signs of the increasingly powerful impact of climate change upon the world we live in : ~ Extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, floods, droughts, are becoming ever more frequent and severe. Since 2000, there have been major hurricanes such as Sandy and Katrina – as well as others elsewhere in the world, notably South-East Asia. Ensuing floods have affected more coastal cities. Multi-year droughts have affected regions such as the U.S. South-West and Australia. ~ Air pollution has increased massively – most visibly in China, threatening human health on a large scale. ~ Glaciers are receding rapidly contributing to droughts and crop and food shortages. On current trends, the mountain glaciers of the Andes could disappear in eighty years, threatening millions of poor highland peoples with famine. Alarmingly, the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets are thinning. And the Greenland glaciers are spawning icebergs faster than ever before.
~ Acidification of the oceans already threatens with total destruction in twenty years forty per cent of our seas’ coral reefs – home to the planet’s greatest diversity of animal and plant species.
The Earth’s temperature is rising – by almost 10 since 1970. But unlike earlier warming periods, this trend is not regional but world-wide, and therefore most likely caused mainly by human activity. IEA says global emissions rose by 2.5% annually during 2000-10, and over 3% in 2011. Over sixty per cent of global emissions are generated in emerging markets – notably China, the Middle East. But these are still relatively small and can only grow more rapidly in future, under current policies.
The Stakes : What Would Unabated Climate Change Do ? : Many scientists – notably in the U.N. Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (2007 Nobel Prize winner) – and other organizations – like IEA – have done detailed research to assess the likely impacts of unchanged policies and unabated climate change upon our long term future. Their projections are far from precise and show a broad range of possible outcomes. This has given an opening to climate change naysayers especially on the political right in the U.S.A. – such as U.S. Senator Inhofe (cited above). However, even the low-end – or least damaging – anticipated impacts are quite alarming : ~ With current fossil-fuel use policies across the world, global temperatures would rise by 5-6°C by the year 2100. With full implementation of new climate policies already committed to by major countries, global temperatures would still rise by 3-4°C by 2100. Only timely and full adoption – before 2022 – of far-reaching energy policy changes, switching to low-carbon and renewable energy sources, would keep global temperatures from increasing by over 2.5°C by 2100.
Why Most of Us Would Not Like it Hotter : According to the IPCC and other scientists, even the lower end global temperature rises (by only 2-2.50C by 2100) will have major adverse impacts. These include greater water shortages and droughts, wildfires, flood and storm damage, resulting in much greater loss of life, health problems, loss of crops, food shortages, and loss of as much as one-third of all animal and plant species. Such problems could multiply almost exponentially with global temperature rises over 3-4°C, and could reach devastating levels over 5°C. Over 3.5°C rise could destroy up to one third of global coastal wetlands. Over 4.50 rise could shrink the global economy and lead to melting of the West Antarctic ice sheets. Some northern hemisphere regions – notably parts of North America – might benefit from slightly warmer climate in terms of energy use and crops. But this would be more than offset by devastating impacts in terms of disease and famine among already poor populations of the southern hemisphere. Food and resource insecurity globally could spark widespread political unrest.
How to Stay Cooler , More Prosperous and Safer : According to the IEA, to keep open the time window for maintaining global temperature increase below 2°C by 2100, emission abatement measures need to be adopted exceeding those already voluntarily agreed by individual nations. These include reduced electricity use, energy efficiency savings in buildings and homes, and later in transport. Beyond this, even more far-reaching actions are needed : massive increase in low-carbon fuel use, especially renewables (hydro-power, solar, wind, bio-energy), and nuclear power; as well as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). Critical to the success of this would be setting carbon pricing policies – nationally initially, but preferably globally – to support a strong shift away from fossil fuels and to control emissions of harmful gases such as methane. The good news is that technologies already exist that can contribute strongly with sufficient government policy support to make them viable in the global energy market.
The Need for Action Now : As climatologist (and global warming skeptic) Kerry Emanuel says (quoted above), despite the broad level of uncertainty in climate change outcomes, the potential impacts could be so devastating to human life and society and in such a short time-frame we would not have the ability to effectively adjust. Despite the repeated efforts of politically influential naysayers and vested interests in the fossil fuels industries, as humans we do not have the luxury of time on our side. To minimize the risks of far-reaching devastation major policy changes in support of climate change abatement are needed urgently. To be fully effective, these need to be global in scope, rather than mere ad hoc national policies that might conflict or undermine each other. The recent collapse of the European Union’s carbon pricing market underscores the risks of this.
I, for one, hope that our political leaders will overcome their qualms – as well as the vested interests – and move forward boldly with the energy and climate policies the world needs. In April 2011, a motion acknowledging that climate change is predominantly caused by human activity was voted down by the U.S. House of Representatives. Let us hope that more enlightened views will prevail there in the near future. The road ahead will not be easy. But it is a vital one for our future.

by Rodel Rodis
May 16, 2013
This was the question posed to me by a curious TV reporter on May 7, just three days after a stretch limousine hired to carry nine Filipino nurses to a bridal party across the San Mateo Bridge suddenly burst into flames killing five of the occupants, including the bride.
When she interviewed me in my law office in San Francisco, Ann Notarangelo, the weekend anchor of CBS 5?s Eyewitness News, explained that she was only asking the question because it was on the minds of her viewers. She thought I might know the answer as I taught Filipino American History at San Francisco State University and I am the legal counsel of the Philippine Nurses Association of Northern California. Plus, I told her, I am married to a Filipino nurse.
Ann said that she was frankly surprised to learn that one out of every five registered nurses in California is a Filipino, a considerably large percentage since Filipinos number only 2.3 million (officially 1.2 million) out of a state population of 38 million.
“I never noticed it before,” Ann observed, “because I generally don’t see people in racial terms.” But, she said, in reflecting back on all the times she visited friends and relatives in hospitals all over California, she now recalls seeing Filipino nurses everywhere. And, I added, not just in California.
NO LONGER INVISIBLE
The seeming anonymity of Filipino nurses in the US – of being there but not being quite there – is likely no more. The video clip of the fire-engulfed limousine taken by a passing motorist using a cell phone was the top story in the US over the weekend. Americans learned that the fatalities included Neriza Fojas, 31, a newlywed bride who was planning to get married again in the Philippines in June; Michelle Estrera, 35, the bride’s Maid of Honor who worked with her at a Fresno medical facility; Jennifer Balon, 39, and Anna Alcantara, 46, of San Lorenzo, who both worked at the Fruitvale Healthcare Center; and Felomina Geronga, 43, who worked at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Oakland.
Americans also learned about the nurses who escaped the fire and were treated for burns and smoke inhalation: Mary G. Guardiano, 42; Jasmine Desguia, 34; Nelia Arrellano, 36; and Amalia Loyola, 48. In a TV interview shown all over the US, an anguished Nelia Arellano blamed the limo driver for failing to stop immediately and for cowardly refusing to help them get out of the burning limo.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/limo-passenger-to-driver-after-fire-help-me/2013/05/07/d4dfd631-e67b-4b16-b01b-503c68b0e28f_video.html?tid=obnetwork

.As the TV camera started rolling, Ann posed the question to me:
“So why are there so many Filipino nurses in the US?”
I told her that Americans should not to be too surprised at the large number of Filipinos in the US. After all, the Philippines was a US colony from 1899 until the Japanese occupation in 1942 and, some would argue, a “neo-colony” for many decades after the Philippines was granted independence by the US in 1946. Just as it does not surprise the British to see many Indians and Pakistanis in England, nor does it surprise the French that there are many Algerians in France. They understand that people from the colonized countries generally tend to gravitate and immigrate to their “mother” countries, even long after their native countries were granted independence.
There are four waves of Filipino nurse immigration to the US. Actually, for the TV interview, I told Ann there were three.
FIRST WAVE
The first wave came after the US began its colonization of the Philippines and needed local health care professionals to meet the health needs of the subject population which is why the US Army recruited Filipinos to work as Volunteer Auxiliary and Contract Nurses.
Under the Pensionado Act of 1903, Filipinos were sent to the US as government-funded scholars (pensionados) including those pursuing a nurse education. Some of those who stayed for employment as nurses in the US went on to form the Philippine Nurses Association of New York in 1928. The association’s first president was Marta Ubana, who completed her Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Many other pensionado nurses returned back to the Philippines to help set up and manage the 17 nursing schools that were established in the Philippines from 1903 until 1940. Large numbers of the graduates from these nursing schools thereafter immigrated to the US as, unlike with the Chinese and Japanese, there were no immigration restrictions against them since Filipinos were considered “US nationals” and even traveled with US passports.
My friend, Lissa Sobrepena, came to my office two months ago and excitedly told me that she just learned that her grandmother, who died before she was born, had lived and worked in the US as an RN. She showed me the photos of her grandmother, Isabel Mina, which she saw by logging on to Ancestry.com. On it, she viewed various documents of her grandmother including the two passport applications of Isabel Mina who lost her US passport while traveling in the US.
Lissa learned that her grandmother had immigrated to the US in 1921 with two other Filipino nurses, Josefa Cariaga and Petra Aguinaldo, and that they all worked as RNs in Hawaii and California before moving on to New York.
Lissa then learned to her astonishment that her grandmother’s best friend, Petra Aguinaldo, was the grandmother of her husband, Robert Sobrepena. Neither Lissa nor Robert knew that their grandmothers were nurses and were friends and that they had traveled together across the US.
SECOND WAVE
According to Catherine Ceniza Choy, associate professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History (Duke University Press, 2003), the next big wave of nurses from the Philippines began in1948, as part of the Exchange Visitors Program that was set up by the US State Department to “combat Soviet propaganda”. Because of the “special relationship” between the mother country and its former colony, a large percentage of the exchange visitors came from the Philippines, and many of them were nurses.
Among these nurses was Maria Guerrero Llapitan who came to the US in 1948 to take post-graduate nursing courses at Baylor University in Texas. Maria had served as the supervisor of the operating room of a hospital in Bataan before it fell to the Japanese invaders in 1942.
After completing her postgraduate studies at Baylor, Maria moved to Chicago to work at the Cook County General Hospital where she met her fiance. She then went to Hunter College for Women in New York to get her nursing degree while working at Sloane-Kettering Memorial Hospital in New York.
Maria later married her fiancé in San Francisco where they set up a family in 1951. She later was among the Filipino nurses who formed the Philippine Nurses Association of Northern California in 1961.
THIRD WAVE
The third wave of Filipino nurse immigration to the US came after 1965 when US Immigration laws were liberalized to allow Filipino nurses and other professionals to immigrate to the US. It also allowed Filipino nurses to come to the US on tourist visas without prearranged employment and to then adjust their status in the US.
During this period, the number of nursing schools in the Philippines soared from 17 in 1940 to 170 in 1990 to more than 429 at the present time.
But only 15-20% of the Filipino nurses who immigrated to the US after 1965 could pass the state nursing board exams. This led to the establishment in 1977 of the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS) to help prevent the exploitation of graduates of foreign nursing schools who come to the United States to work as nurses but who can’t pass the nursing board exams here.

The CGFNS developed a pre-immigration certification program that consisted of: a credentials review; a test of nursing knowledge (CGFNS qualifying examination), and an English-language proficiency examination (TOEFL).
Since 1977, CGFNS has administered more than 350,000 tests to approximately 185,000 applicants in 43 test sites worldwide. From 1978 to 2000, the data showed that 73% of CGFNS test takers came from the Philippines, followed by the United Kingdom (4%), India (3%), Nigeria (3%), and Ireland (3%).
ROLE MODEL
Menchu Sanchez immigrated to the US in 1980s and has worked as an RN for more than 25 years, the last three years at the New York University Langone Medical Center. When Superstorm Sandy battered New York last October, Menchu was taking care of 20 at-risk infants in the Intensive Care Unit of her hospital. Sandy knocked out the electric power to the hospital causing Menchu to organize the nurses and doctors to carry the babies in warming pads down 8 flights of stairs to safety. Menchu was invited to sit beside First Lady Michelle Obama at the State of the Nation Address (SONA) of Pres. Obama on February 12, 2013.
In his SONA speech, Pres. Obama cited Menchu as a role model: “We should follow the example of a New York City nurse named Menchu Sanchez. When Hurricane Sandy plunged her hospital into darkness, she wasn’t thinking about how her own home was faring. Her mind was on the 20 precious newborns in her care and the rescue plan she devised that kept them all safe.”
Many Filipino nurses who entered the US on H-1work visas after passing the CGFNS tests benefited from the passage of the Nursing Relief Act of 1989 which provided for their adjustment to permanent resident status if they had H-1 nonimmigrant status as registered nurses and had been employed in that capacity for at least 3 years.
But the “sunsetting” of this law in 1995 effectively decreased Filipino nurse immigration to the United States. The passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1998 (IIRIIRA) further discouraged nurse immigration to the US.
GROW YOUR OWN
The passage of restrictive legislation was fueled by xenophobic fears of foreign nurses as was expressed in July of 2009, when former Washington DC Mayor Marion Barry complained to the press: “In fact, it’s so bad, that if you go to the hospital now, you find a number of immigrants who are nurses, particularly from the Philippines,” Barry told the Examiner. “And no offense, but let’s grow our own teachers, let’s grow our own nurses — and so that we don’t have to be scrounging around in our community clinics and other kinds of places — having to hire people from somewhere else.”
Grow your own nurses the US did. According to the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, US nursing schools produced close to a million nurses from 2006 to 2011.
While the demand for Filipino nurses may have waned in the US, the demand for Filipino nurses in the rest of the world did not diminish. Filipino nurses working for the National Health System (NHS) in England drew national attention last February when Britain’s 91-year-old Prince Philip, while on a tour of a new cardiac centre in Bedfordshire, England, turned to a Filipino nurse and said: “The Philippines must be half-empty – you’re all here running the NHS.”
Not quite, not by a long shot, your majesty.
According to Reuben Seguritan, general counsel of the Philippine Nurses Association of America (PNAA), the Philippines is the world’s largest supplier of foreign-trained nurses with 429 nursing schools and 80,000 nursing students. To place this number in perspective, City College of San Francisco, with 89,000 students, does not have the resources to accept more than 75 students into its nursing program. The nursing students are chosen by lottery from a list of about 500 students who otherwise qualify for acceptance.
FOURTH WAVE
Is there a fourth wave of Filipino nurse immigration to the US?
Yes, but it hasn’t arrived yet. According to recent CNN report, “Demand for health care services is expected to climb as more baby boomers retire and health care reform makes medical care accessible to more people. As older nurses start retiring, economists predict a massive nursing shortage will reemerge in the United States.”
The CNN report adds: “We’ve been really worried about the future workforce because we’ve got almost 900,000 nurses over the age of 50 who will probably retire this decade, and we’ll have to replace them,” [economist and nurse Peter] Buerhaus said.”
The fourth wave may come as early as 2014 when the US Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, comes into effect and about 30-40 million Americans without any health insurance will finally be covered by health care insurance.
LPG Marketer’s Association party-list Rep. Arnel Ty believes that Obamacare will “stimulate” the US hiring of foreign nurses. “This will hopefully spur a bit US demand for new foreign nurses and other health practitioners such as pharmacists, physical therapists, medical technologists, radiologists, and speech pathologists,” Ty said.
As we reflect on the past and contemplate the future, let’s all say a prayer for the repose of the souls of the five Filipino nurses who died in that limo fire on May 4 and pray also for the recovery of those nurses who were injured in that accident.
(Send comments to Rodel50@gmail.com or mail them to the Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 or call 415.334.7800).

by Dr. Philip S. Chua.
May 16, 2013
May  In a previous column, we wrote that soft drinks, which I called “liquid candy,” cola or uncola, diet or regular, “are unhealthy, especially for children. Not only because the regular ones are loaded with sugar (high carbo, super calories), but because of the other adverse effects all these soft drinks (without exception!) have on people’s health.”    
 Ravi Dhingra, MD, clinical instructor in medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, reported that “both diet and regular soft drinks have brutally high acid levels.”
      “Drinking more than one soda a day – regular or diet – appears to increase the risk factors for heart disease,” the Framingham Heart Study researchers emphasized.  
      The following findings of the Harvard research, which we are quoting in full, are a most convincing confirmation and re-affirmation of the other clinical studies in the past:
RISK RISES WITH SODA CONSUMPTION
   Harvard Medical School researcher Ravi Dhingra, MD, and study colleagues looked at nearly 6,000 middle-aged men and women who had exams every four years. At the outset, all were free of heart disease and metabolic syndrome. Four years later, in comparison to people who drank less than one soft drink a day, researchers found that those who consumed one or more sodas a day experienced:
* A 25% increased risk of impaired (or higher than normal) fasting glucose and high triglyceride levels.
* A 31% greater likelihood of becoming obese.
* A 32% higher chance of lower HDL levels.
* A 44% increased risk of metabolic syndrome.
* These results were published in the July 31, 2007, issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
STUDY RESULTS WERE A SURPRISE
      Dr. Dhingra and his colleagues were surprised that regular and diet soft drinks posed similar risks for metabolic syndrome – which remained the case even when the study was adjusted for dietary factors such as saturated and trans fats, calorie and fiber consumption and levels of physical activity. There are several theories as to why this might be – perhaps the extreme sweetness of soft drinks makes people more apt to eat sweet foods, or the caramel content may promote insulin resistance and inflammation. But these are theories, and no one knows for sure. To others though it is now obvious that high acidic levels will help cause these symptoms.
Adverse Health Effects
      Drinking soft drinks of any kind has been linked to the development of obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus, osteoporosis, lowered calcium and potassium level, heart disease, high blood pressure, metabolic syndrome, dental cavities and nutritional depletion. There is also a claim that it may have an adverse effect on conception. These liquid candies also contain caffeine which could disrupt sleep and lead to anxiety and DNA damage and hyperactivity, especially among children.
      The prevalence of obesity among Americans doubled between1977 to 2001 and this trend was paralleled by a doubling of the consumption of soft drinks. An increase in the body mass index (BMI) of 0.24 kg/meter square was found among children for each (ONE!) soft drink they consumed. Studies on adults (50,000 female nurses on one study) revealed that drinkers of even one can of soft drink led to weight gain, and increased blood sugar among diabetics.
      One study reported this interesting finding: “One four-week experiment compared a 450 calorie/day supplement of sugar-sweetened soft drinks to a 450 calorie/day supplement of jelly beans. The jelly bean supplement did not lead to weight gain, but the soft drink supplement did. The likely reason for the difference in weight gain is that people who consumed the jelly beans lowered their caloric intake at subsequent meals while people who consumed soft drinks did not. Thus, the low levels of satiety provided by sugar-sweetened soft drinks may explain their association with obesity. That is, people who consume calories in sugar-sweetened beverages may fail to adequately reduce their intake of calories from other sources. Indeed, people consume more total calories in meals and on days when they are given sugar-sweetened beverages than when they are given artificially-sweetened beverage or water.”
One alarming report: “In 2003, the Delhi non-profit Centre for Science and Environment published a disputed report finding pesticide levels in Coke and Pepsi soft drinks sold in India at levels 30 times that considered safe by the European Economic Commission.”
Another study showed that those subjects who consumed soft drinks had lower bone mineral density, placing them at increased risk of suffering, not only osteoporosis but bone fractures. More scary is the increased risk for the development of metabolic syndrome (a group of conditions that include type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, obesity, high blood fat, low level of good cholesterol).
      It is our government’s role and responsibility to protect our children by not allowing our schools, public or private, to have vending machines that sell soft drinks and other unhealthy products, much like outlawing the vending machines that used to sell cigarettes.
While I believe liberty and freedom of choice in a democracy are our birth right and government intrusion in our personal behavior/habits is abuse of power, I cannot argue the fact that since the seat belt law was enacted (depriving individuals the right to drive without a seat belt), the degree of injuries and incidence of deaths from car accidents have plummeted around the world. The government’s ban on cigarette advertising and laws prohibiting smoking in public areas (restaurants, movies, trains, buses, etc) have likewise greatly benefited the public medically. The ban against using the cell phones while driving is another obviously good law. And there are dozen others.
So, the current admirable attempt by some well-informed legislators in the Philippines to protect our people, especially the children from the very harmful effects of soft drinks by introducing a bill to ban soft drinks is clearly for the people’s well-being, since We, the People, don’t appear to give a damn. Of course, the debate will go on. I only hope science and not politics shall prevail and the victim will not be our people’s health.
 The Departments of Health and Education and other agencies concerned must also ensure the public that all schools require a course in nutrition for all students and offer only healthy menus in their cafeteria. After all, a healthy citizenry translates into a healthy nation.

For more on this subject, please visit philipSchua.com
Email: scalpelpen@gmail.com

by Fermin Salvador.
May 16, 2013
Bago natapos ang 2012 ay naaprobahan ng kongreso ang dalawang trilyong pisong (humigit-kumulang 50 bilyon dolyar-US?) badyet ng Pilipinas para sa taon 2013. Pinakamalaki ang alokasyon para sa edukasyon. Na nararapat lang. Pero sa kabila nito’y makaaasa kaya ng drastikong pagsulong ng mga programa at hakbang pang-edukasyon? Hindi. Ang inilaan na badyet sa edukasyon ay katumbas lang ng isang tabo sa isang dram na halagang makasasapat sa mga pangangailangan. Pero hanggang doon lang ang pondong kayang ilaan. Kumbaga sa tawaran sa palengke’y ‘tapat’ na ito. Bagaman hindi lahat ay tapat sa gobyerno. May porsiyento pa nito na mapupunta sa korapsiyon.
Hindi Mayamang Bansa
Hindi mayamang bansa ang Pilipinas. Inaamin ito ng mga Filipino. Nababatid ito ng buong mundo. Hindi na nahihiya ang mga Filipino na makita ng mundo ang mga sira-sirang paaralang-pampubliko at gutay-gutay na mga aklat na ginagamit ng mga mag-aaral. Hindi rin pinipintasan ng ibang bansa ang Pilipinas sa ganitong kundisyon. Mas okey na ito kesa halimbawa sa Banglades o Somalia. Nasa konteksto lang ng istatus ng isang estado.
Pero kung ang mga itinuturing na asensadong bayan ang magpapabaya sa aspeto ng mga programa at proyektong pang-edukasyon at iba pang batayang pangangailangan ng mga mamamayan, tiyak na may pagkundena at kritisismo. Gaya sa US. Kung gumagastos ito ng trilyong dolyar sa militar/depensa habang napapabayaan ang mga pampublikong paaralan, agad na may reaksiyon ang maraming bansa. Sa kasalukuyan, malaki ang deficit sa badyet ng US. Naghihigpit ng sinturon. Pero sa kabuuan ay sapat pa rin ang alokasyon ayon sa pangangailangan. Hindi ang kapos na pondo ang suliranin sa edukasyon kundi ang wastong paggamit ng pondo. Hindi na maaari ang mga waldas na pamamaraan. Tinitiyak pa ring nasa pinakamataas na global na kalidad ang mga imprastrukturang pang-edukasyon mula sa mga mega-siyudad hanggang sa pinakamaliliit na bayan.
Sinisiguro rin ng US ang pinakamataas na antas ng serbisyong pangkalusugan sa lahat ng mamamayan. Isang alagang-proyekto ni Pangulong Obama ang tinawag na “Obamacare”. Ito’y bagaman ang mga Republican ay may ibang ideya sa pagkakaloob ng mas mabuti, mas mura, at mas reyalistikong serbisyong pangkalusugan sa mga mamamayan.
May mga bansa na ang palisi ay di baleng maging mangmang ang mga mamamayan nito o magutom o mabansot basta dambuhala ang kanilang sandatahang-lakas. Isang halimbawa ang Hilagang Koreya na ang tuon lang ng pamahalaan ay pagpapalakas sa puwersang militar kahit gutom ang mga mamamayan.
Pamumuhay ng mga Mamamayan
Suriin natin ang Tsina. Sa nakalipas na mahigit dalawang dekada ay lumukso ang ekonomiya nito mula sa wala pa sa unang sampu patungo sa ikalawang puwesto sa daigdig. Isa-isa nitong nilampasan ang mga dating nakabuntot sa US: Hapon, Alemanya, Pransiya, at Britanya. Naging pangunahing eksporter ang Tsina ng mga binansagang “low-tech” na produkto. Naging paboritong destinasyon ito ng mga korporasyong multi-nasyunal na nag-outsource. Ngunit ano ang impact nito sa mga mamamayan? Naging mas maganda ba ang pamumuhay ng mayorya ng mga Tsino kesa sa mga ordinaryong Hapon o Aleman? O nasa third world pa rin ang kundisyon nila? Pati na ang mga karapatang-pulitikal?
Bago pa man maging ‘world class’ ang kundisyon ng pamumuhay ng mga mamamayan nito’y nais na ng Tsina na maging superpawer ang kapabilidad sa gera. Nagpupundar ito ng ‘world class’ na puwersang-pandagat at bumili ng aircraft carrier sa Rusya na bilyong dolyar ang halaga at bilyong dolyar pa ang kakailanganin sa mga instalasyon. Ang ipinambili rito’y galing sa pawis ng daan-milyong Tsino na nagtatrabaho sa mga pabrika ng mga korporasyong multi-nasyunal sa sahod na fraction lang ng ibinabayad ng mga kumpanyang ito sa sariling lupain. Ang makataong pamahalaan ay inilalaan ang yaman na natatamasa sa mga programa at proyektong magpapaangat sa kalidad ng buhay ng mga mamamayan nito na pinagmulan ng nasabing yaman. Hindi sa mga arsenal-panggera na ang silbi ay para pampayabang lang ng mga lider nito.
Kung imbis na tumuon sa pagpapataas sa antas ng pamumuhay ng mga mamamayan ay nakatuon ang pamahalaang Tsina sa pagpapalakas ng sandatahan, halos wala itong ipinag-iba sa Hilagang Koreya. Multi-trilyong dolyar man ang ekonomiya ng Tsina ay wala itong repleksiyon sa nakararaming mamamayang Tsino na kapos sa maraming bagay.
May panahong kabilang ang Pilipinas sa mga nangunguna ang arsenal-militar sa Asya. Sa panahong iyo’y pangalawa sa Hapon ang Pilipinas sa laki ng ekonomiya. Kabilang noon sa may pinakabagong modelo ng mga fighter jet ng lakas-panghimpapawid. Pero kahit noon ay marami ang nagugutom at walang sariling bahay na Filipino. Umiiral ang dibisyon sa lipunan sa pagitan ng mga may buhay-alipin at buhay-panginoon. Samantala’y manhid ang pamahalaan pagkat ang mga namumuno/pulitiko ay masaya na sa sistemang sila’y naghahari-harian. Nagkaroon ng insurhensiya na ginamit na alibay ng rehimeng Marcos para magdeklara ng batas-militar na ang mga korapsiyon at pang-aabuso ay naglublob sa Pilipinas sa pusali.
Dinamismo Para sa Pag-asenso
Ngayon, kahit may malinaw na banta sa eksternal na seguridad ng Pilipinas katulad sa bahaging kanlurang karagatan nito ay di maimodernisa ang lakas-sandatahan. Pag maliit lang ang bibingka, maliit lang din ang hiwa nito. Ibig sabihin, paghahati-hatiin ang kakarampot na pambansang badyet sa lahat ng serbisyong obligasyon ng gobyerno sa mga mamamayan nito. May hiwa para sa edukasyon, kalusugan, transportasyon, pagpapairal ng sistemang pangkatarungan, atbpa. Kahit kapalit ang dignidad ay namamalimos ito ng mga warsip at iba pang gamit-pandigma mula sa mga kaalyado gaya ng US.
Kabilang sa limampung pinakamalaki sa buong mundo ang ekonomiya ng Pilipinas. Maraming industriya ang Pilipinas at multi-bilyon ang remitans ng multi-milyong manggagawa nito na nakadeploy sa iba’t ibang lupain. Ngunit may mga utang ito na dapat bayaran habang ang sistemang pang-ekonomiya nito ay di (ganap na) dinamiko bagkus ay nakatali sa mga tradisyunal na bukal (source) ng rebenyu. Nakakawit din dito ang palakol ng kultura ng korapsiyon na ‘nagpapamadyik’ sa multi-bilyong pisong halaga mula sa dalawang trilyong pisong badyet. Nababawasan pa ang dati nang kapos na pondo na laan sana sa mahahalagang serbisyo.
Hindi nilalapatan ng pagiging progresibo ang isang estado o lipunan na naghihikahos ang mga tao. Sa paghihikahos, tinutukoy hindi lang ang pisikal na aspeto kundi ang kakayahang maging dinamiko. Hindi lahat ng estadong mayaman ay masasabing progresibo. Hindi ang nasa ilalim ng diktadura, monarkiya, may hindi pantay na kalayaan, karapatan at kalagayan ang mga mamamayan. Hindi rin progresibo kung may talamak na kultura ng korapsiyon.

by Fred C. Wilson III
May 16, 2013

“I am not a little bit of many things; but I am the sufficient representation of many things. I am not an incompletion of all these races; but I am a masterpiece of the prolific. I am an entirety, I am not a lack of anything; rather I am a whole of many things. God did not see it needful to make me generic. He thinks I am better than that.”
- C. JoyBell C.-

When I lived in San Francisco I had no problems blending in within the local citizenry. Once I moved to Chicago things changed. When I walked down streets, attended church, went to school, and shopped people would stop and stare; some hostile most curious as to my ethnicity. When some asked I’d reply “I’m an American” at other times “ET’s Uncle Fred.” I’ve had people approach me and ask questions/directions in ‘Chinese!’ If they were sincere I’d answer them. Sometimes situations get silly. I remember teaching at an overwhelmingly African-American elementary school on Chicago’s West Side. While grading some papers I overheard two of my students back of the classroom say, “We all know Mr. Wilson wants to be Black but he’s really Chinese.” A lot of folks ask me if I’m Asian. Being married to a wonderful Fil-Am lady for nearly 25 years I take these inquires as compliments. I rarely complain since their questions appear harmless, though at times I wonder.
My family tree is a complete mystery. Both sides of the family, save for my two brothers, are barely literate. Only our Mom kept historical records. I have little idea where my roots lie. With the renewed American interest in family genealogies I often wonder about the unknown branches of my relational tree. When I get enough loose ‘change’ I’ll invest it with one of those companies that specialize in DNA tracing. I want to find out exactly where my roots lie; who were my people? Where do they come from? Are they alive now?
Several years ago I wrote a series on my missionary adventures working/living among southern Mexico’s indigenous peoples. The trip and series were successful. I wanted to bring the Gospel Message to the mountain peoples in places so remote, accessible only by horse/mule back. I wanted to explore the source of where Latin, Black, and Asians met and merged in North America. I hoped these discoveries would shed light on my own racial origins. Had I known then I would have driven a few miles north instead of east into the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains.
Espinalillo is a barrio in the town of Coyuca hub of Mexico’s ‘Chino’ Filipino enclave. Coyuca’s ‘Manila Men’ are remnants of what once was a thriving Filipino community a carryover from the infamous yet lucrative Mexican-Manila galleon trade. During those dark times many Filipino men maintained two separate families replete with wives, children and extended families; one back home the other in Mexico since Manila Men were barred from bringing their families to the New World. Through the centuries those men branched out throughout Mexico. They were the descendants of the Manila Men who first arrived in Acapulco from the Philippines. They came to North America as sailors and force laborers under the ‘polo’ work system. A fortunate few immigrated to Mexico to work as merchants, ship builders and in other professions. Hundreds of years of intermarriage haven’t erased their Filipino features. Reader you can still recognize Filipino characteristics in many of contemporary ‘Chinese’ Mexicans. Filipinos were the first Asians to arrive in Mexico and Gulf coastal United States aforementioned in a previous article on southern Louisiana’s Filipino communities.
After our mission team left Acapulco we drove to our new home the 409 year old ‘Parroquia De San Miquel Arcangel’ in the village of Xochistlahuaca, Guerrero. This church is high in the Sierra Madres. Our cook had physical features commonly associated with Filipinos. Her ready smile, friendliness, and persuasive but strong no-nonsense personality reminded me of some of my Filipina relatives. This woman was kindhearted but a bit of a flirt. She nearly drove me crazy when I tried to borrow ‘her’ kitchen to cook a special dinner for the padres. Though I was her guest she made damn sure she was queen of her kitchen and brooked no argument from me or the two friars.
During the height of the colonial era the Spaniards used to collect peoples the way American kids collect baseball cards, stamps, and computer games. Manila was a terminus for indigenous peoples captured from India, Myanmar, Indonesia, and Muslim Mindanao. After their enslavement they would be transported to North America to fill the ranks of slave laborers who had deserted, were murdered, starved or beaten to death by their vicious Spanish overlords. Also aforementioned in an earlier article, ex-Filipino slaves who fled Spanish galleons made up the bulk of first non-native settlers in the Louisiana bayous. Before the French Acadians, there were the ‘Manila Men.’ According to author Carlos Quirino’s book ‘The Mexican Connection’ the backbone and heart of Acapulco’s present day multi-billion dollar tourist industry is comprised of Mexican-Filipinos. This brings to mind the Cathedral Mass I attended when I was in that city was presided over by a Filipino priest who spoke textbook Spanish. It’s also worth mentioning that many waiters, cabbies, sales clerks, and security guards in that resort city are Mexican-Filipinos. The only other parts of Mexico with sizable Mexican-Filipino communities are in Baja California, Sonora, and Mexico City. Elsewhere in Latin America Filipinos are scarce. To my knowledge there are very few if any Filipino communities of numerical significance in any other Latin country save for Mexico.
When I was in Curacao, Netherlands Antilles there was a popular Filipino restaurant in capitol city Willemstad that specialized in a fried variety of lumpia the popular Filipino side dish. Fried Lumpia was one of the most popular snack foods in Curacao.
After hours of searching Philippine embassies, consulates, and private industry sources I deduced that the number of Filipinos living in Latin America is abysmally low. According to some recent statistics there were exactly 35 Filipinos living Chile. Some are priests, business people, mining engineers, and other professionals. In 2008 there were 379 Filipinos in Brazil and a mere 136 in Venezuela. For some odd reason Filipinos appeared to have generally avoided the Southern American continent. This article didn’t answer my personal questions about my own mixed ancestry. However it did shed light on the origins of Filipinos coming to the New World.
An educated/activist populace can work economic wonders in the marketplace. They can boycott fast food restaurants that use meats of dubious quality, refuse to purchase tubes of expensive creams/salves injected with air bubbles to give it extra weight, sue health care providers for watering down life saving medicines, and learn organizational strategies to petition government/company officials to stop companies from using the legal system to skirt quality control and employ other dubious business practices to rob you. In ‘Buyer Beware’ Philippine Adventures will focus on how to fight for your consumer rights to quality, affordable and safe products. Peace and all things good.
(vamaxwell@yahoo.com)

by Don Azarias
May 16, 2013
Obviously motivated to overcome public perception of his lack of leadership in making compromise with Republican lawmakers, President Barack Obama is proposing a 2014 budget that provides for tax increases while reducing Social Security, Medicare and other government-sponsored safety net programs including veterans’ benefits.
Say what, Mr. President? You are reducing Social Security and Medicare benefits which are the lifeblood of retirees and the elderly including those veterans? Have you forgotten that they have paid their share into the system with their hard-earned money after spending the best years of their lives working to make a living? And now you also want to increase their taxes?
Like everyone else, I thought you care about the middle class and those poor people who are truly deserving of government assistance? It looks like your genuine concern for those poor people has evaporated, all of a sudden, for the sake of political expediency. How are you going to make good on your campaign promise to those special interest groups, who are now demanding paybacks in exchange for their votes that provided you with a second term in office?
While Republicans are having a field day for Obama’s sudden turnaround, Democrats and liberals are bashing him for having the dubious honor of being the first “Democratic president that has officially proposed to cut the Democratic Party’s signature New Deal program, Social Security.”
I’m confident that the readers will agree that Obama has no one else to blame but himself on this issue. He made it a habit of making a campaign promise of providing socialized health care and various government-sponsored programs to win votes only to find out later that the costs of those entitlements are unsustainable. Now, he is being forced to eat crow.
A key feature of Obama’s plan is a revised inflation adjustment called “chained CPI.” For the readers’ information, CPI stands for Consumer Price Index. This new formula would effectively curb annual increases in a broad swath of government programs but would have its biggest impact on Social Security. The plan would also include reductions in Medicare spending, much of it by targeting payments to health care providers and drug companies. The Medicare proposal also would require wealthier recipients to pay higher premiums or co-pays.
The plan, if ultimately legislated, could impact almost all Americans. The rich would see tax increases, the poor and the elderly would get smaller annual increases in their benefits, and middle income taxpayers would find themselves in higher tax brackets.
According to an analysis of Social Security data, once the change is fully phased in, Social Security benefits for a typical middle-income 65-year-old would be about $136 less a year. At age 75, annual benefits under the new index would be $560 less. At 85, the cut would be $984 a year.
The concept behind the chained CPI is that consumers substitute lower-priced alternatives for goods whose costs spike. So, for example, if the price of oranges goes too high for some consumers, they could buy alternatives like apples or strawberries if their prices were more affordable. This flexibility isn’t considered in the current system of gauging inflation, a calculation that determines how much benefits grow each year. Taking it into account means such benefits won’t grow by as much.
Advocates for the elderly say seniors pay a higher portion of their income for health care, where costs rise more quickly than inflation.
The White House has said the cost-of-living adjustments would include protections for “vulnerable” recipients but didn’t provide specifics on how it will be implemented. So what’s new? It’s another one of Obama’s promises.
As expected, the angry reactions from various retirees’ and seniors’ advocates were fast and furious.
“The president should drop these misguided cuts in benefits and focus instead on building support in Congress for investing in jobs,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement.
AARP’s legislative policy director said Obama’s budget proposal, while not a surprise, was a disappointment. “The message seems to be that the president wants a deal and is willing to even sacrifice such important benefits as Social Security as part of that deal,” said David Certner. The seniors lobby argues that Social Security doesn’t belong in the budget talks because it isn’t contributing to the deficit and is separately financed with its own dedicated taxes.
Obama is also well aware that he would face stiff resistance from his allies in Congress. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who sides with Democrats, said he and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), spoke out strongly against changes in calculating cost-of-living increases.
“It would make major cuts in Social Security benefits … and also very significant cuts for disabled veterans,” Sanders said in a telephone interview. “I do not believe that the American people want to balance the budget on the backs of disabled veterans or widows who lost their husbands in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Obama has made repeated vows not to add to the tax burden of the middle class. He has made it a habit of saying that he wants to save the middle class though he seems ignorant of the fact that the middle class has always carried the tax burden in this country. It has always been the middle class that is being bled dry to pay for those unaffordable social service and other safety net programs like Medicaid and food stamps being espoused by Obama and the Democrats. Now he wants to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits to the elderly and war veterans. Isn’t that an asinine idea?
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), reminded Obama that House Republicans have made it perfectly clear that savings in entitlement programs should not be contingent on more tax increases.
“If the president believes these modest entitlement savings are needed to help shore up these programs, there’s no reason they should be held hostage for more tax hikes,” Boehner said. “That’s no way to lead and move the country forward.”
And, once again, it marks a full shift from Obama’s stand in 2008, when he was battling Republican Party nominee John McCain for the presidency.
We may recall the speech Obama made to AARP on Sept. 6, 2008, when he said: “John McCain’s campaign has suggested that the best answer for the growing pressures on Social Security might be to cut cost-of-living adjustments or raise the retirement age. Let me be clear: I will not do either.”
Yeah, right, Mr. President. It seems like you really enjoy eating crow.

by Arnold De Villa
May 16, 2013
“Millennials are a generation mostly of teens and 20 somethings known for constantly holding up cameras, taking pictures of themselves and posting them online”
- Josh Sanburn, Time Magazine, May 20, 2013

My wife and I belong to the latter batch of baby boomers, the generation for which the future of Social Security pensions is predictably dismal. Our demographics range from the post war oldies through the hippie movement of the 60’s and the Vietnam protestors after that. During that era though, many of us were still kids. Some label our generation as “Generation X”, suburban kids whose income has outpaced that of their parents. The polemics are significant but not my personal focus. As Baby Boomers, we saw the transition of television from a black and white screen encased in huge furniture to a colored flat screen with a slightly smaller box. The copying machine we knew was the one that needed a paste of ink and a stencil to type in a key. Our computers in College were the huge refrigerator-like main frames locked up in a room and all that we saw were dumb monitors with a twinkling white cursor manipulated by BASIC commands. Windows were not opened nor made. And when I was a freshman in College, the slide rule was on its way out while the pocket calculator started its trend.
Around three decades later, technology leaped a million years, innovations that used to be in vogue vanished in obsolescence, and new inventions which were mere futuristic idealisms took over the world and over the minds of this new generation called “Millennials”. A recent edition of “Time Magazine” labeled this era as a “me generation”, mired in a narcissistic world view of people who still live with their parents and possess a deep sense of entitlement.
As mentioned from the quote above, they are the late teens and the early 20’s who probably have never used a fax machine before, does not know what a slide rule is, and is the target focus of “Tweeter”, “Facebook” and “Instagram”. They love taking pictures of themselves in odd positions, text messages as if there was no end, and cannot survive without their iPhones, Androids or other forms of smart phones. They have the fastest fingers that convert telegraphic missives into a new symbolic language oftentimes deprived of proper grammar and syntax.
According to “Time Magazine”, Millennials consist of people born from 1980 to 2000. Allegedly, they are the biggest age group in America to date. Time Magazine also alleges that the Millennials have less civic engagement and lower political participation than any other previous groups. I am quite indifferent to what Time Magazine claims about this generation, except for the fact that my son belongs to this group. It was because of him that my interest in their article started. And as I read, I realized that he indeed belonged to that group with all the signs and symptoms that exemplify the generation. I panicked. We always have a high regard for our own children despite their tattoos, their attachments, the rings that pierce their noses and metal links in other parts of their body.
There is something in the Social Media software like Facebook, Tweeter and Instagram that is more of an oxymoron than anything else. Facebook, for instance, pretends to connect friends but the “like” button has functioned more like a virtual compensation for popularity, the likes of which are marked by full accounts with 5000 “friends” and a multitude of followers. “Tweeter” claims to be a micro blog which actually seems to be an accumulated collection of soliloquys with followers and following that took the stead of Facebook’s friends. And I say oxymoron because while it may be true that virtual relationships and cyber friendships are progressing, physical closeness and real communication due to Social Networks seem to be both deteriorating.
As I see my son thumbing his phone one letter at a time, totally engrossed on his Galaxy and his I-Pad in almost everywhere we go, I ask myself whatever happened to the “Social” event, the part of which he was supposed to interact with people. Just like other members of his generational tribe, physical people tended to be foregrounds secondary to individuals connected through a user name and a password. Hence, they chat or tweet their time away to as many people as they can, in the shortest possible while, with the briefest plausible message. In so doing, the microscopic short moments convert into an accumulation of fragmented hours marked by clicking and sending telegraphic missives encoded in their own jargon.
As a parent, even without chatting with other parents, I could probably assume a consensus on the sheer annoyance we all share every time our Millennial gets locked up in a social networking mode. In this mode, the distinction between social indolence and social productivity is as tough as reading the manual of a new software program. How in the world would we want someone to know everything that we do, what we eat and the places we go? And most of all, what is the rationale behind the frenzy of wanting others to know about a change in hair style, a different new shirt, or the way tongues stick out for a new pose? How in the world is it possible to virtually converse with other people on an incessant basis, on a 24-7 itinerary?
I dared not to ask lest I drove my son away. I allowed him to be him through the process of matured tolerance and a huge dose of “saintly” patience. There was a time when his phone broke down and I was euphoric convincing myself that he could probably have dinner with us without tampering with his phone. But of course, the I-Pad also had texting capabilities. How can I forget? I bought it for him. His texting never ended. His chatting was incessant. And I did not understand. I obviously needed a new code. Years passed.
Yesterday, at a convocation exercise, my Millennial son received various awards, one of which caught my attention more than anything else. Besides being recognized for his academic performance and receiving a transfer scholarship, he got an award for being the Student volunteer of the year who marked the most number hours in different undertakings from civic issues to political fund raisings and projects with habitat for humanity. Needless to say, it was the code I needed to decode what Time Magazine alleged and to understand the background of the technological foreground I witnessed under my own nose.
Time Magazine somewhat neglected to mention about the exception. The constant contact of Millennials among their peers is not an absolute conglomeration of superficial bantering and senseless chicanery. Somewhere along the chain is change we often do not see, not for lack of execution, but for lack of explicit narration. That which is often significant does not become popular until the right moment of execution actually takes place. The Boston Marathon Bombing could be a perfect example. Suspects were caught due to the speed of information and the agents that dissipated the information.
So in the end, I guess patience paid. The Baby Boomer has conceived the birth of the Millennial as both groups have dominated demographic growths in their respective times. Millennials may be accused as lazy and narcissistic. The Hippies of the Baby Boomer crowd were also accused of the same stereotype. Yet, somewhere in the untested benefits of technology, are social exceptions of hidden greatness. Patience and time perhaps are the markers of such events. They come when they come.
Just like any father is, I am proud of my son. And his awards are probably the best mother’s day gift that he could give his mom. Soon, he will stop being a millennial and form his own trend. Before that happens, I will probably have to learn from his texting methods and carefully watch the social changes that he does. Finally decoded!

by Carmelita Cochingco Ballesteros.
May 16, 2013
As my friend Letty and I sat in her car, waiting for the traffic lights to turn green, a tall and slim woman crossed the street. She didn’t walk; she glided like a fashion model. She didn’t half-run like the other pedestrians; she glided like a butterfly. She didn’t rush like other people; she glided gracefully like a kite on a bright and breezy day.
“That’s my Nana Tonya!” Letty exclaimed, then pulled over, and got out of her car. She ran after the tall and slim woman who had crossed the street and had been lost in the crowd. Nana Tonya is Letty’s aunt.
After about 10 minutes, Letty came back and told me that Nana Tonya would join us for breakfast at her Tata Nito’s house the next morning. It was February 2012. Letty and I were in Cabanatuan City making arrangements for her 60th birthday party. Her uncle, Tata Nito, had offered his home for our overnight stay.
I woke up to the garlic-rich aroma of fried pork longanisa – a home-grown sausage specialty in Cabanatuan City. Cheerfully, Letty and I joined Tata Nito and family at their happy breakfast table.
Soon, a lady in a lavender floral blouse, a purple skirt, a lilac headband, dangling gold earrings, red lipstick, and a radiant smile took the vacant seat right beside me. It was Nana Tonya.
After some small talk, I asked, “How old are you, Nana Tonya?”
“Ninety-nine,” she said with a naughty twinkle in her eyes.
“When were you born?” I probed. I was a bit skeptical. Maybe she made a mistake. Maybe I heard her wrong.
“May 4, 1913,” she replied without batting an eyelash.
“So you’ll be a hundred years old next year!” I blurted out.
… And so on May 4, 2013, Letty and I met up with her extended family members in Cabanatuan City to celebrate Nana Tonya’s 100th birthday.
It’s my first time ever to attend a centenarian’s birthday bash so I took advantage of the rare opportunity to interview some of Nana Tonya’s close relatives. I am amazed that at 100, Nana Tonya’s as lucid as Einstein and as witty in repartee as Ellen DeGeneres. What’s her secret? What does it take to live up to a century?
Nana Tonya with Juan, 87, youngest brother, and nephew Manuel.

Some Background. Born and raised in Peñaranda, Nueva Ecija on May 4, 1913, Nana Tonya is the third of nine children: Salud, Ambrocio (Letty’s father), Antonia, Felisa, Jose, Arturo, Virginia, Teofila, and Juan (Tata Nito). Nana Tonya has two living siblings, Virginia and Juan.
After getting married, Nana Tonya moved to Talavera, Nueva Ecija in 1936. She has lived in Talavera ever since. In fact, she knows my grandparents, uncles, and aunts who are natives of Talavera.
Nana Tonya’s husband died during the Second World War. She never re-married although she could have. She’s got the bearing and fashion sense of a beauty queen! She raised her three children all by herself.
Like Pilar, the main character in the novel Mag-inang Mahirap by Valeriano Hernandez-Peña, Nana Tonya provided for her family through an itinerant buy-and-sell business. She earned more than enough and she was generous with everyone.
Secret No. 1. Nieces, nephews, and grandchildren would help out in the buy-and-sell business whenever she needed them, or whenever they needed her. She has always been hard-working, thrifty, cheerful, and kind.
Manuel, a nephew, confided that he left home for some reason at age 12. Nana Tonya took him under her wings. No questions asked. No ifs, no buts. She taught him this and that and he learned many valuable lessons. Most of all, he learned from her the meaning of unconditional love.
Secret No. 2. Tata Nito, 87, the youngest and only living brother of Nana Tonya, confirmed that she is hard-working, disciplined, thrifty, and single-minded about making money through self-employment. She never retired from her buy-and-sell business. Thus, she has been active physically and mentally.
Secret No. 3. Zenaida B. Tanjoco-Bautista, 70, is the youngest of Nana Tonya’s three children. Zenaida has six children, 22 grandchildren, and seven great, grandchildren. She thinks that being a vegetarian is one of the reasons that her mother has lived to a 100.
Secret No. 4. In addition, Zenaida said that Nana Tonya gets plenty of exercise by walking around the community as the one-woman Chief Executive Officer, Procurement Officer, Marketing Director, Distribution Manager, and Collection Department of her buy-and-sell business. She gets plenty of sleep, of course. She sleeps soundly like a well baby.
An Accident. Nana Tonya would go to Divisoria to buy blankets and ready-made apparel and would resell them to office employees.
But Nana Tonya slipped and fell down while shopping in Divisoria in November 2012,. Her left thigh joint had been badly fractured.
So Nana Tonya has been home-bound since November 2012. The doctors who have seen her so far say that surgery is out of the question given her age. A grandchild who’s serving as her primary caregiver says that her grandmother complains of extreme pain.
But during the party, Nana Tonya didn’t show any trace of pain at all. If she were competing in the Miss Universe Beauty Contest, she would at least receive the Miss Friendship Award or Close-up Smile Award.
Still Running the Race. Centenarians are fighters. Nana Tonya could have opted out of a birthday party, but she didn’t. She could have moaned in a corner, but she greeted everyone with her radiant smile. She could have complained of her pains and sufferings and misfortunes, but she spoke of happiness, gratitude, and faith.

May 16, 2013
With China moving closer to total control of the South China Sea, the other five claimant countries are getting nervous… very nervous. Indeed, China’s neighbors are so nervous that they’re arming themselves in an attempt to stop China’s aggressive advances into their territories. But at the rate China is building her naval forces and deploying them to the South China Sea and East China Sea, there is only one country that could stop her – the United States.
But the U.S. is hesitant to get involved militarily in China’s territorial disputes with her neighbors. However, the U.S. made it crystal clear that in the case of Japan, she would defend Japan in the event China attacked her over the disputed Senkaku islands.
The Senkaku islands (Diaoyu to China), a group of five uninhabited islands and islets wedged between Okinawa and Taiwan, is a tinderbox ready to explode. The standoff between Chinese maritime vessels and the Japanese Coast Guard could escalate into armed conflict at the slightest provocation from either side. Japan had warned China that she would use force to stop Chinese occupation of the islands.
If war erupted between China and Japan, the U.S. is treaty-bound to defend Japan. And here’s the kicker: the U.S. has three other mutual defense treaties — with Taiwan, Philippines, and Australia – that could turn the conflict into a war of global magnitude! Which makes one wonder if Russia would be tempted to join the fray — on China’s side — to settle Russian-Japanese territorial dispute over the four South Kurile Islands.
Chop-chop
During Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to Russia last April, Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted that one way of settling their dispute over the South Kurile Islands is to split them evenly. Putin’s solution makes sense. First, Russia and Japan get two islands each; secondly, it ends their dispute; and thirdly, war is avoided.
In the game of Poker, that’s called “chop-chop.” When there are only two players left before the “flop,” one player could propose a “chop-chop” — that is, to split the pot evenly between them.
This “chop-chop” solution could be repeated in several flashpoints in the East China Sea and South China Sea where China is embroiled in several territorial disputes with her neighbors.
Territorial disputes
The Senkaku territorial dispute among Japan, China, and Taiwan could be settled easily since the uninhabited islands and islets don’t have value big enough to trigger a war between China and Japan. Actually, Japan and Taiwan had recently agreed – after 17 years of negotiation – to share fishing rights in the waters around the Senkaku Islands without settling the sovereignty issue.
The big – and complicated — territorial disputes are those that China has with five countries that have overlapping claims to parts or the entire Spratly archipelago in the South China Sea. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei are claiming parts of the Spratly archipelago that are within their 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) while Taiwan is claiming the entire archipelago. But China has arbitrarily drawn an imaginary line – referred to as the “nine-dash line” – that encompasses about 80% of the entire South China Sea. She claims this as part of China since ancient times.
China and Vietnam are also claiming the Paracel Islands that China took over by force from Vietnam in 1974. And then there is the Scarborough Shoal — which is within the Philippines’ EEZ – that China occupied in 2012. Recently, China imposed a 15-mile fishing restriction around the contested area.
Chinese checkers
Over the last few years, China had become more assertive – and aggressive – in pursuing her territorial claims. Recently, she deployed naval warships to the South China Sea and landed troops on James Shoal, some 1,100 miles south of China and 50 miles from the coast of Malaysia. It was symbolic act to establish control over the waters near Malaysia.
What China is doing is like a game of Chinese checkers, which is to move her pieces in single steps or jump over other pieces. The objective is to be the first to move all her pieces across the board to “home” on the opposite side of the board.
On May 6, 2013, a fleet of 30 fishing boats left China’s Hainan province for the Spratly Islands under a unified command and accompanied by a supply ship and transport vessel. The fishing boats have a capacity of more than 100 tons each. They plan to stay in the disputed waters for 40 days. A Chinese official said that the operation aims to develop a “business model” that would let fishermen catch fish around the islands on a regular basis. In essence, that would set a precedent for future fishing forays to the waters around the Spratlys. Not too long ago, a high-ranking Chinese general proposed sending 5,000 armed fishing boats into the South China Sea.
Last year China announced that effective January 1, 2013 Hainan police will board and search ships that would “illegally enter what China considers its territory in the disputed South China Sea.” Thus far, China has not imposed this new policy yet, lest it would provoke the United States who had made it crystal clear that “freedom of navigation” must be maintained in the South China Sea, which is one the busiest – if not the busiest – trade routes in the world. Can you imagine what would happen if China successfully blocked cargo ships heading to Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, or the Philippines coming from the Indian Ocean through the Strait of Malacca?
Pivot to Asia
Recently, the U.S. Navy Chief, Admiral Jonathan Greenert, during a nine-day trip to Japan, Singapore, and South Korea, reassured the U.S.’s allies in Asia-Pacific that the U.S. plans to expand her naval presence in the Pacific with new ships and high-tech weaponry.
It is interesting to note that the U.S. Navy has 283 in her current fleet of which 101 are deployed and 52 are in Pacific waters, and would be increased to 62 ships by 2020. That doesn’t take into account that there are 47 ships under construction or under contract including three nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. The USS Gerald R. Ford, the first of the three, will be launched in November 2013.
U.S.-China confrontation
But the most contentious of China’s territorial disputes is with the Philippines. Recently, the Philippines took their dispute to the United Nations for arbitration under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The Philippines claims that under UNCLOS, she has fishing rights to resources and to enforce her laws within her EEZ. However, China had made it clear that she would not agree to an arbitration.
With no clear solution to China’s territorial disputes with her neighbors, sooner or later one of these disputes would become an armed confrontation involving China and the U.S. The problem is that China has declared the South China Sea and the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands as “core interests,” which means that they’re not negotiable. So how can China convince the other claimants to negotiate the disputed waters and islands when China’s position is that they’re not negotiable?
With the U.S. providing a “nuclear umbrella” over her allies in Asia-Pacific, it would be very unlikely for China to push her aggression to the limit. Instead what she’s doing is taking small steps like in a game of Chinese checkers, chop-chopping her way to “home” without alarming the U.S. and her allies. And pretty soon, she would accomplish her ultimate goal… without firing a shot.
Indeed, there is a “chop-chop” solution to the choppy sea disputes. But it works two ways. It can be used to settle disputes amicably like what Putin had in mind in regard to the South Kurile Islands or Xi Jinping can use it to bully China’s neighbors into submission.

Bart and I had waited a long time for a grandchild that when our daughter announced a baby on the way, we were super excited. Before long, in fact, months before the baby was due, Bart blurted out we would do the babysitting ourselves. Knowing he isn’t the type to commit to that kind of responsibility, I was impressed. But what do you know? My husband conveniently forgot when the time came, that it was supposed to be the two of us doing this “Apostolic Mission” (a concocted term by Filipino Americans to mean sitting for their “apo” or grandchild). I ended up being the only one sitting for our dear Quincy, whose demands multiplied as he went into his third month.
While I truly enjoyed caring for my grandson, who seemed to know just when to flash the most charming smiles, I realized early on that it wasn’t and wouldn’t be just a walk in the park. I maust have forgotten that I was only in my 20’s when I had my three kids… and the fact that back in the Philippines, we could afford a nanny for each one of them. When we came here, they were 5, 6 and 7 years old, had some sense of independence and were ready for school. It wasn’t easy but it wasn’t quite as hard as taking care of babies and toddlers.
Seeing how exhausted and sometimes exasperated I looked each day they came home from work, my daughter and son-in-law were worried that I might one day utter the dreaded words, “Sorry, but Lola is quitting.” Indeed, the thought crossed my mind a few times but remembering the reasons I had volunteered to do it, in the first place, makes the thought go away. The fear of bad things happening to this precious baby while in the care of a stranger gives this grandma that extra ounce of strength and resolve to carry on despite some brief moments of frustration when Quincy is inconsolable.

There, too, is the challenge of being there to lay down the foundation of his early childhood, of inculcating the ideals and values inherent in our culture. Starting him off with Tagalog lullabies to put him to sleep and talking to him in Pilipino as he smiles, giggles and coos in response are all it takes to convince me that my backaches at the end of the day must be coming from somewhere else and not from holding Quincy too long.
I used to wonder why people say you’ll love your grandchildren more than your own children. Now I know why that saying has been accepted by many, if not all – hook, line, and sinker. Babies are simply adorable. They smell and feel heavenly. They inspire us to do better and make us feel young again. They renew our life’s purpose and motivate us to live longer. They present us with the opportunity for a do-over, in case we want to go over the things we’ve missed teaching or passing on to our children.
I fancy the idea of seeing Quincy say “Po” and “Opo” (a respectful way of saying “yes” in Pilipino) to his elders or of kissing their hands (mano) just like my grandchildren from my nieces and nephews back home do. More than these physical manifestations of love and respect for his elders, I would like to see him grow up with a genuine love, care and respect for his parents, grandparents, uncles aunts and older cousins and older folks outside of the family.
A friend of mine once told me how impressed she was with her son’s fiancée, a Cambodian, who expressed her desire to take her grandparents into their home when they have settled down, to care for and look after them. She also wholeheartedly followed her parents’ wish to hold a traditional Cambodian wedding. She marveled at the fact that there were still second generation Asian Americans who are steeped in their traditions and values even as they have assimilated into the American culture.
I think that of all the Asians (although we have willingly submitted to the American classification of us as Pacific Islanders, I insist on our original classification as Asians) we Filipinos have the tendency to be more American in our ways and values. In our enthusiasm to assimilate, we tend to forget to keep what’s good in our culture and traditions. And as parents, I believe we have been remiss in our responsibility to stand our ground at home to preserve the family values and the heritage we hold dear.
Introducing Quincy to the best of Filipino values does not end in his learning to say “po” and “opo” , kissing the hands of the elderly or knowing how to speak in Tagalog. It’s a start but there’s a long road to tread in trying to educate him on the deeper values, the ones that count and make a Filipino a better person.
While our kids have picked up good American values too, foremost of which are their compassion, sense of equality and fairness, belief in education and competitiveness that earned them a measure of personal success, it will take some form of reorientation, such as spending a month in the Philippines, to learn about their roots and their heritage. But given their busy schedules, this is nothing but a whimsical idea.
Finally, it would be unfair not to mention, though, that as I carry out my Apostolic Mission, I have also learned and relearned a number of things myself. First, I realized just exactly how much my children’s nannies have done for me. I can’t put a price to the devotion and service they have given my kids and how they made my life very easy and comfortable. Second, I debunked the notion that I missed writing my columns for the past three issues because of Quincy. Poor child is not the one to blame for my mood and lack of motivation. On the contrary, I now found him to be a wellspring of inspiration and ideas. So, instead of me saying “Lola to the rescue,” it’s now “Quincy to the rescue.”
Yes, indeed, Quincy helped his Lola get her groove back. Thanks, Quincy!