Congratulations EU - despite all

It is easy to criticise the decision to award the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union.

The timing however is bad. EU is undergoing just now a paralysing crisis where North
stands against South, where top leaders' democratic ideals are in question and poor EU members are protesting in the streets.

At the same time, the Union has bigger problems. Several members - Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary - have shown little respect for EU's ground principles of democracy and human rights.
Political populism, up to pure Nazism wins terrain in many member-countries. Refugee politics is criticised for creating a walled Europe.

A new survey of Europe's barometer shows less surprisingly that sympathies for the Union has collapsed in the most crises-affected areas. In 2001, some 55 percent of voters in Portugal, Irland, Italy, Greece and Spain gave their confidence to EU. Today the figure is 25 percent. To think that a peace prize would change this is naive.

However, outside Oslo's peace prize committee's ill timing, there is good reason to applaud the decision. EU is a peace project - and unquestionably successful as such. It is more significant to give the peace prize to a united Europe than say, to PLO leader Yassir Arafat and warmonger Henry Kissinger.

For EU's history is Europe's peace. The one who saw earliest the need for reconciliation was Winston Churchill. Already in 1946, a year after the end of the war, he said in a speech in Zurich: "The first step in the re-creation of a European family must be a partnership between France and Germany." And so it happened, four years later when France laid to rest its suspicion against Germany and allowed in West Germany, in a cooperation involving coal and steel production.

Earlier, the German postwar economy wavered in a vacuum between the Marshall plans and the victors' benevolence. Today, EU's predecessor coal and steel union, integrated the country with its neighbours. France' fear of being out-competed in the steel area was eliminated, thanks to both countries' joint management.

In this way, the European Union's best moments continued to function. Enemies in the past have atoned and began to cooperate. Economies were woven together and boundary restrictions were abolished which set the conditions for improved welfare. Western Europe, one of the world's most war-ravaged region is now a model for peace and solidarity. Suffice to say, despite all of EU's shortcomings, it is worth a prize.

But the timing to say the least, is questionable. It would have been reasonable to give the union the peace prize in 2004, when it expanded membership to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union's former satellite countries- Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech and Hungary became members. In this moment, EU showed its best side as an example, a united force and umbrella for welfare through a market economy cooperation.

Maybe the Nobel peace prize has a double reminder of what the union was and could become again, a reminder for young Europeans who have not experienced the ravages of war and the Cold War and merely sees EU as a failed political project.# (My own translation and editing from Dagens Nyheter's editorial, Oct. 13, 2012)

The night of the military

Sept. 21, 1972 was like no other nights. It was the night of the military. There was something unwelcomed in the air, something that instinctively I knew was going to happen eversince I returned to Manila from Europe. I was a member of the Philippine delegation consisting of foreign service officers to the prestigious EROPA Public Administration/Foreign Service Course to Tehran, Iran and West Germany in 1971. When I came home to Manila after a two-month study tour of some European capitals, the writ of habeas corpus was suspended and I learned that many friends went underground. Student leaders, university professors, labour leaders and student activists became the target of an intensive surveillance.

I got a note from Satur C. Ocampo - then Assistant Business Editor at the Manila Times, that he went into hiding and that our two children Jose Sarni, aged 8 and Maria Sonora, aged 7 were left in 51 Tirona St, BF Homes in the care of my sister Daisy. Our house was newly-built in the prime Banco Filipino-developed housing subdivision. We lived before this in Avocado Street, United Paranaque.

On that fateful night of Sept. 21, 1972 - I stayed awake, stared into the darkness and listened to any noise from anything moving. It was dead still until I heard the alarm from Metrocom jeeps coming to a stop infront of 51 Tirona Street. I saw from the glass window some uniformed men coming out of the two military jeeps. And the knocking on the door followed. I opened the door and in came three men. The leader introduced himself as the captain. They were polite.
He asked: "Does Satur Ocampo live here?"
I replied: " No, he doesn't".
Next question: "Do you know where he is?"
I replied: " No, I don't".
He continued: "We are going to search this place".
I asked: "What are you looking for? He is not hiding anywhere here."
He said: " Subversive materials!"
The team of three - several were waiting outside, went through all the rooms, opened all the cabinets, went through all the books and things everywhere. The children who were sleeping then woke up and cowered in the dark, unable to ask anything. My sister was paralyzed from fear in her room. After some hours of turning the place up and down, the military men left. They didn't find any books that mentioned anything about Communism, Marxism, Leninism, Mao Tse Tung and all those political thinkers we were studying in my Political Economy Graduate course at Lyceum University.

As I was saying, when I returned to Manila I felt an eerie atmosphere, the feeling of a tempest wrapped in heavy rain clouds. With the lifting of the writ of habeas corpus, the dissappearing act of known activists, it was not too difficult to guess that the military would sooner or later make a general appearance. Our house has been a favourite meeting place of top leaders of the anti-Marcos opposition. In the house were dozens of copies of the newly-published book of Amado Guerrero. I took half to a friend's place and buried them in the backyard, and did the same with the other half in my own backyard. All my textbooks in my political economy class, as well as the books of Mao Tse Tung, my brother hid in the ceiling of the house. So, by the time the raiding military came on the night of Sept. 21, 1972, only some harmless books remained on the shelves.

When the television came to life the next day, it was the face of Francisco F.Tatad that greeted us - boyish bespectacled Kit was reading the proclamation of martial law in the country. He became the spokesperson of Ferdinand Marcos, the man who seized power unconstitutionally through the military and crushed all opposition to his dictatorship.

On the night of Sept. 21, 1972 we learned that no less than 5,000 top opposition leaders and politicians were arrested and thrown to jail. No, I was spared that night. The arrest came six months later, at midday of March 31st, 1973. Three Metrocom jeeps arrived and out came several men headed by a certain Capt. Napoleon Cruz. They showed me an ASSO document where my name was written along with Dr. Sotero Laurel and Mrs Laurel, President of  Lyceum University. They said they were taking me to a military camp in Laguna. In that camp which was three hours from Manila, I was the 13th female detainee held in the clubhouse. I was not listed as a detainee which was dangerous because I could have been salvaged without any records of having been arrested and detained. But I had a guardian angel who saw to it that my name was included officially as a detainee. I was there for a month.

The interrogation periods took place at midnight in what they termed "sugar and vinegar". It was plenty of questions asked each time, all coming from what they called the "blue book", a record of intelligence reports by paid spies roaming the universities and press club. My main interrogator was Jose Feria, then a Colonel but before this, a humble and friendly member of my editorial staff at The Lyceum. He was infact my bodyguard because he was built like one. So, when he kept on asking me about the Kabataang Makabayan, I told him that he should answer it himself because he overstayed both in Lyceum and in the KM movement. ( Feria died some years later in an encounter in Mindanao with the New People's Army, NPA. Capt Napoleon Cruz who led the arresting team that fateful morning in 51 Tirona Street, died in a car collision.)

When I was released after a month's detention, I knew I would never be at peace and that 51 Tirona will always be under surveillance. I packed my children and placed them to my mother's care in Camalig, Albay. The martial law regime was going to last a long time and my life, as well as that of their father- who was eventually captured and heavily tortured to near death, had changed beyond forever. If that detention was not enough, I woke up one day and read on Manila Times that I was among subversives working in the government. Some 5,000 people lost jobs that day.
The Marcos regime got rid of me and I got rid of the regime and begun a new journey into the challenging world of media. I became a journalist!
( This is just a summary of  a much longer story waiting to be told properly.)

Re-visiting the "motherless generation"

Sometime ago, I read an article entitled "A motherless generation" - based on an emotional narrative of a Filipina working as au pair in Spain. Her lamentations about missing her children who were growing up in the care of her relatives, portray the painful agony of thousand other mothers from countries like the Philippines, who are forced to work abroad in order to support children and parents. Marriages break up and the effect of broken homes further aggravate the social cost of overseas labour. The winner is the country's economy that benefits from the billions in foreign remittances of overseas workers.

This is the tragedy of a globalised labour market that forces people - a majority of whom are mothers and wives, to leave their families behind because of economic reasons. Many women work as domestics, au pairs as well as other service-related jobs. Each one has a story to tell, about the experiences in battling discrimination, unfair labour condition, sexual exploitation, loneliness and loss of self-dignity. And the children have their own sad tales of growing up without parental love and affection. No matter how loving grandparents and relatives maybe, there is no substitute for mother's love. It is the bedrock of one's childhood without which adulthood would be devoid of love itself. What could a child who grew up without a mother's nurturing love possibly share with her own family and children. As the cliche goes, you cannot give that which you never had.

Growing up without close maternal love and affection that plague the "motherless generation" is aggravated by an uncertain sense of moral and ethical values in the children's understanding of their relationship with the outside world. In worst cases, apathy replaces sympathy for one's own family and the humanity at large. And because they are deprived of the nearness of parental love, it becomes difficult for them to develop feelings of affection and empathy for others. They are emotionally handicapped to share the most important function of the heart, to give and reciprocate love and to be compassionate and forgiving to those who err against them.
I am not generalising that all children belonging to the present-day "motherless generation" suffer from deprivation of the finer qualities of the heart. There are lucky exceptions, who by sheer strength and determination overcome the overwhelming difficulty of growing up without mothers. It maybe genetics, intelligence and a nourishing alternative home environment that have cushioned the negative effects of absentee mothering.

However, before the present day "motherless generation", it was the era of a "fatherless generation". In the 60s and 70s, the Philippines underwent a social and political upheaval after the imposition of martial law followed by a prolonged era of authoritarianism. It was characterised by armed conflicts between the government's military forces and the rise of people power movements fighting for democratic changes. The Marcos dictatorship used the military to suppress all forms of dissent through oppression and suppression of all freedoms. It was the reign of state terrorism. Thousands of people - students, workers, farmers, professionals, journalists joined the underground movement and became the forefront of the people's revolution for democratic change. Many were arrested and detained for many years, often in solitary confinement.

The children of political activists became orphans, losing fathers and mothers to the struggle. They became "children of the revolution" - growing up in someone else care in some safer sanctuary beyond the brutal reach of vengeful military men and civilian defense forces roaming the cities and countrysides. These were dangerous days of "search, arrest and detention" of anyone suspected of involvment in subversive activities. Subversion meant affiliation with the illegal communist movement. It was a clear black and white definition of who was subversive - those against the dictatorship and those who were in favour. "If you're not with us, then you must be against us."

How many "children of the revolution" were deeply traumatised by the temporary, in some cases the permanent loss of parents. Have these children been compensated for their sufferings in early life, honoured for their phenomenal ability to grow up without hatred and regrets for the way they were born into parents with political commitments greater than family. How did the children understand that it was for the greater good, for a future in a democratically-governed society that they grew up without parents.

In my own private sphere, my children were martial law victims just as much as their parents. They had prolonged stay in the province in my mother's care when the military intelligence placed my BF Home residence under surveillance, for how long I cannot begin to guess. A year after martial law was declared, I was arrested and detained for more than a month. I was released due to the appeal and representation made by a close friend whose uncle was a former Minister of Foreign Affairs.

My children were not affected by any "motherless generation" syndrome. I was around, so was my sister who devoted her life to taking care of the children. She never married. I was always on the go, a single parent and breadearner. I did not sense any trauma affecting my children who in an amazing way, grew up with tremendous capacity for love and compassion.

Today's children of the "motherless generation" are inheriting their mother's work and hence treading the same uncertain path in some foreign countries where they have little or no rights at all. They are also paying the same social cost in the form of broken homes, loss of children's custody and worst- the weakening of Christian family values that had been at the core of Filipino nationhood. And while the economy depends on the overseas workers' remittances to pay for the crude oil imports, the "motherless generation" remains hostage to a future without mothers. #

A town and city in me

There has been a long gap between my last blog in August 9, 2011 and today, when I felt an impluse to write about living a dual life, about having two universes to traverse and make life complete. For me, it is having the town and city at the same time. I wish to elaborate on this because this is not a new phenomenon for me. I just realised that since I was young, I was living in two universes, commuting whenever life demanded a change of tempo, climate, belongingness and home.

As a child, I grew up in a small town at the foot of Mayon Volcano. It is a picturesque small town where everyone knew everyone, or where half the population was related by blood in the Filipino's expanded family system. I loved the small town and what it gave us in terms of childhood experience - the games we creatively made because technology was still underdeveloped, the town events that were mostly church-related but for which we looked forward to because it was the thing to be a part of. Most of all, the town fiestas which depending upon one's state of economy were huge feasts or simple ones but still awaited with much excitement, especially the town's formal dance at the plaza where the local society's who's who delightfully patronized in their latest fashionable gowns. As children, we watched outside the fence and felt awed at being part of the social landscape.

That was the town part. Then came the city part that arrived with the need for higher education in universities mostly in Manila. Even then, Manila was already a big metropolis with so much attraction, bright lights, department stores, huge parks that contrasted with the simplicity and smallness of a town. The city meant challenge in school, and later in one's chosen career. When I worked as a journalist for a foreign news magazine, I suddenly found myself submerged in my work. The challenges were so great especially at the time when the country's political situation was not at all friendly to the media.

I had my getaway from all the stress and madness of journalism. I disappeared into the smallness of my hometown and into the loving care of my mother. My children were all small and living partly with my mother during the martial law days. So much was my need for a small town not just to recover lost energies but to seek protection from the relentless harassments of both the military and the dictatorial leadership. I coped with the city's challenges by returning again and again to the simplicity of a small town. It had grown some poisonous snakes during the military's dominance in the countryside but still, the feeling of safety was always there.

Why am I rationalising between a divided life just because I find myself in the same situation today? I want to say that living in two spaces has always been in us. I didn't realise it right away. I thought it was because winter in Western Europe has become harder. This is not really the main reason. Living in a sophisticated city like Stockholm has many demands so much so that time is never enough to complete a day's lifetime. I can appreciate the Swedes love for duality in their lifestyle - of being in the city as well as in the country on weekends. Life goes a full circle. It is having both the simplicity and calm of a town and the challenges of greater living in the city.

In a small island town like Sta. Maria in Sal, life is so much simpler and uncompromising. A mini carnival is already a big event because everyone becomes a part of it. Things that one needs for daily living are not always available but it is the little discoveries that colour a day, like the joy of finding fresh ingredients for cooking, the bountiful food from the sea, the friendliness of the local population.

If I could not live in a town and city and appreciate all there is to being part of both spaces, then I am totally missing the essence of a complete life, of enjoying the variations in environments and of sharing friendships and affection with those around me. It is not wrong to admit that even while I glide in the marble floors of grand places in the city, I can also wade in the mud of a town or village.#

From Ystad, Skåne to Bornholm, Denmark

The Swedish summer is blessed with many beautiful things in nature that defies words to describe what the eyes can behold everywhere - from neatly landscaped gardens and parks everywhere, to friendly green forests with their treasures of berries and wild mushrooms, to the Swedish archipelago - big and small, near and far - to hundreds of blossoms on the wayside- wild and nurtured, in an array of colours and forms. It is a word-defying experience to be so close to so much beauty.

The trip to Ystad

We ( G. and I ) left by car for Ystad last July 19th, intending to spend some free days in the summerhouse in Bjäresjö - 10 minutes from Ystad. The trip - which included a 30-minute coffee stopover- took 6 hours and 30 minutes. The summerhouse is empty during most parts of the year, hence the grasses all-around were waist-high.

Some tiles on the roof had fallen due to a storm sometime ago and the water meter was out of order because it had frozen during winter. At the basement where this is located, the rats and frogs have also found their winter refuge. After a day of intensive work, life assumed some degree of normality. But Skåne where there are more sunny days than other parts of Sweden, the rain came everyday as though heaven has been crying over abandonement of the place.

This was no way to spend a short holiday. So we contacted our Danish pal in Cape Verde Claus Mogensen and took in his long-standing invitation to visit Bornholm and his 150-year old windmill. There is a daily ferry from Ystad to Bornholm - a Catamaran capable of carrying some 120 passengers. It takes one hour and a half to negotiate the distance. Bornholm -true to everything the brochures and travellers say, is a beautiful island, a summerplace for many Danes and Swedes as well as other Europeans who have discovered the quality of life the island offers its visitors.

Claus had rented a small car that took us around the island. He has even arranged for us to meet his relatives living in Bornholm and farming herbs and vegetables for domestic consumption. The windmill - shown in the picture above is magnificent, truly a landmark that Denmark should help preserve through some form of maintenance subsidy. It would function well as a cafe with books and souvenirs to sell to visitors. But sadly, that is not the case. Do we want to buy a piece of the mill, asked Claus. A very tempting proposition indeed but since we are in the process of simplifying our lifestyle, owning a windmill is not going to be simple.

The one-day tour of Bornholm was a memorable experience. The weather cooperated and gave us enough sun to brighten even our moods. The Bornholm food specialities consist mainly of smoked fish - salmon, herrings, mackerel and eel. The ingredients used vary from herbs to different onions, to the secret of smoking fish used by the restaurants, to the cooks who make each dish and their presentation. Most of all, the food tastes better in the company one has. Afterall, the sum of it all requires that each part of the composition harmonises with one another and that is to say - the people in the company, the food on the table, the drinks that fuel the joyous laughter and all the beauty one can absorb just by looking outside and beyond.

This is just one summer tale among many others. Next will be the trip to Finhamn, located in the middle part of Stockholm's beautiful archipelago.#

Roses have thorns

June must be Cupid's favorite month where falling in love and getting married are the most important celebrations. Falling in love and staying in love is life's most ambitious challenge. But falling in love is not the end in itself as we all know. Like roses, it has thorns that can cause deep cuts when handled wrongly.

What has impelled me to dwell on the subject of love? It is Jonathan Franzen's essay "Liking is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts". On first impression I thought that he was admonishing the revolutionary triumph of technology over one's requirement for joy and satisfaction in life, especially a life that is settled enough and therefore needs no further adventures in actual human interactions.

It is true that the latest technological gadgets have made life extremely confortable for users who can communicate with friends in different parts of the globe within seconds. One finds it easier to tell millions of Facebook users the most intimate things in one's life without fear of arguments. Indeed, even when friends go out together to enjoy moments of real human interaction in the name of friendship, there is always the danger lurking in one's handbag or pocket that an IPod or Htc is buzzing for attention. There is no moment of complete solitude even if one so desires that is not broken by the urgency of an IPod or Htc.

Is it truly a no choice situation between life with love but without the jealous technology that never sleeps, that is always there at one's service and forever attentive to one's wishes, a life of comfort with a servant doing one's bid without complaints as opposed to being in love with a person, interacting with that person and going through the process of living endangered at times by bickering, anger and disappointment. How many times can we fall in love, get hurt, curse love, and then love again? And how many small trivial things in a day can fire up and conflagrate into a forest fire? So we retreat and find peace and solace in the company of a laptap.

When we are at pain, we curse everything in the universe except ourselves for our inability to handle the thorns of the beautiful roses. Love like roses needs watering - all that TLC or tender loving care in so many hundred little things we do everyday. Do we give each other comforting words at the end of a difficult work day, hug each other and laugh over a glass of wine while watching some silly relationship reality show. When routines of loving are sometimes forgotten , is the heart forgiving enough to listen to reason? Or do we sulk and prolong the agony of silence.

Living and loving have many traps and we are often sidetracked. It happens sometimes that love is sacrificed for something more exciting and alluring. It is when love itself is exchanged with another love that could be another person, object or adventure. Then comes pain and disappointment and often the promise never to respond to Cupid's beguiling call again. Better be alone with all the sexy technology gadgets that don't cheat on you.

As Franzen admonished in his essay, stop feeling sorry for yourself and stop despairing over the environmental destruction of the planet. Go out and get a life, find love in a person or another living creature. Chances are you could get hurt, but hell you are having a real life. You've outwitted the thorns of the roses and can now enjoy beauty unencumbered by indifference and apathy.#

Summing up half-a year's life

Someone has written beautifully how life should be counted in terms of moments that take one's breath away, so here's how I count those moments of breathtaking wonders that left me lost in two worlds of changing scenes and landscapes. We left Stockholm with the last wild mushrooms picked and the rest covered by autumn leaves.

For three weeks, from October 26th, we lived in a boat in Las Palmas marina. We had dinner cooked in the boat, drinks in the cockpit with new-found friends, ambulance sirens singing all day long, and restful loving nights.

On Nov. 12th, we left the tranquility of a safe harbour for the most daring sailing adventure we embarked - crossing the north Atlantic from Las Palmas to Cape Verde. Y/S Sheilah was prepared for this big trip with more than sufficient food and drinks - all shopped in Lidl. We left Las Palmas with all the daring our spirits could muster for what was going to be an unforgetable experience of a lifetime. The sailing took nine days and six hours. It was a life and death situation as huge swells threatened to swallow us.

We came to Sta. Maria in Sal Island and begun our new life as islanders. We learned to live by the Cape Verdean's life motto: "No stress!" It means many things - both good and bad. We had a wonderful Christmas celebration with Cholo, Felicity, Steven and later with new friends in swinging CaboBar.

We embraced the lifestyle that the island offered to all - a 24-hour of sunshine and turquoise blue ocean within seconds of walking, and the perpetual lapping sound of the waves lashing at the near white sandy beach. We found interesting works to do, projects to tie-up two different worlds. We looked at inter-island shipping and West Africa cargo services; at owning a bar and restaurant, a travel agency that will concentrate on organised health and medical tourism between Cape Verde and the Nordic countries. With the troubles in the Middle East, many Nordic tourists found way to Cape Verde. We have a local business registered in Cape Verde.

We made a trip to some islands and marvelled at the beauty of nature as well as the sprawling resort hotels just waiting to embrace lovingly the battered souls from lives of hurried living. The best moments we continue to enjoy are the sundown drinks in our balcony, looking at the sun as it slides slowly to the other half of the world, the infinite ocean in its solft blue grey colours and the dots of small fishing boats anchored in Sta. Maria pier.

Our island life has been made richer by new friends we found and whose company we shared in great joy and laughters - over uncredible foods and ceaseless flow of spirited bubbles. We met and have been entertained in the private homes of Cape Verdeans proud of their food culture, their love for music and a life unhindered by demands for economic development. Even progress has to wait for its time when the people are ready to embrace change.

Now and then the drummer boys turn up in the beach for a few hours of drumming and we put on Cesaria Evora's evocative music. "What are we toasting today?" we ask each other. " Why, to life of course... and these moments of bliss and love and all the little challenges that keep the mind alive." (Picture taken at the CaboBar in Dec. 2010, just before the arrival of 2011)