What we (Filipinos) do for love...

The growing population of Filipinos in Sweden did themselves proud when they decided- through the heads of various organisations, to organise formally into a foundation which is now called Philippine Education Society or Filippinskt Utbildnings Sällskap. The project is a brainchild of the current Philippine Ambassador to Sweden, Mrs. Angara-Collinson.

Organising Filipinos in Sweden is not a novel experience. Since the celebration of the 100-year RP centennial in 1999, the number of Filipino-Swedish organisations have grown. A few, like Bayanihan headed by Edgar Gumabon in Helsingborg has been around for a much longer time. There has been an attempt to start a federation of Filipino-Swedish organisations in 1999, and it did get started but was burnt out after the second year. Federations are not always easy to manage if the member-organisations do not fully commit themselves to a common goal and shared purposes.

The Philippine Education Society, or PES, for short has one clear vision. It is to upgrade the professional status of Filipinos seeking job specifically in Sweden by helping them with language training in Swedish before they arrive in this country. This is the specific aim but the long-term vision is to upgrade the professional level and competence of Filipinos seeking work overseas.

It is lamentable that a majority of Filipino manpower export abroad crowd the service sector, which means roughly that most young Filipinos go abroad and work as housemaids and baby-sitters. Nevermind if the hardworking image of Filipino nannies is immortalised in films like "Mammoth", but the truth is that, we can do better with Filipino competence in other fields.

Looking at how China and the Chinese are crowding universities and colleges in Europe and the North America for advanced knowledge in edge-cutting technology fields, why are we settling for low-status work and sinking the general image of the country to that of exporter of cheap labour?

The Philipppine Education Society, PES, is just getting started and refining the procedures and strategies for achieving its goal will take more than a half-hearted voluntarism. It requires an engagement that comes from love, the love of one's birth country. Because even if we overseas Filipinos have long ago cut our placental ties with the Motherland, there is no way we are getting anywhere without looking back at our roots and our identity.

A tribute to Nelly Sindayen

Nelly Sindayan is an institution in Manila's media community. She became one without any efforts on her part. And there are not so many who have attained a celebrity status who can claim the honor of being one. She was unique in the way she became a necessity to all, her nearest friends and every distant visitor who came to Manila to start a long acquaintance with a country, whose secrets were never unraveled so easily. For Nelly Sindayen, Manila and the country was an intimate knowledge.

I have no words that can describe a woman of substance that Nelly Sindayen was. She would probably burst into laughters if I dared so. Our friendship began in mid-1978, when all of a sudden I had to take over Far Eastern Economic Review because Rodney Tasker, the Manila Bureau Chief and ASEAN correspondent was sued by the Defense Minister and hence could not return to Manila for fear of being arrested and taken to jail. Nelly was then, secretary to Rodney Tasker and secretly, the main source of all juicy news on the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).

Nelly walked out of being secretary and became - rightfully, her own person as stringer for Time magazine. Southern Philippines was brewing in a two-sided hell: the Muslim separatist war and the Communist insurgency war. Nelly Sindayen, who was a Tausog had all the contacts in the South and had no problems locating the news sources. We made many trips to Southern Philippines, sometimes waiting for airplanes at midnight in the airport.

She had her MNLF contacts and I had my NPA sources. On several occasions, I had to report on the MNLF as well such as the elections for the autonomous regions. I was never alone. Nelly always shared her news sources.

We were also together through many harassments in the hands of Malacanang guards who refused us from going to press conferences, under various pretex that we were not listed officially and Nelly would burst out: "Do you know who you are talking to? Call your superior!" The same scene in many accreditations for coverage of foreign dignitaries. Our names would inadvertently not show up in the official list. I can see how Nelly placed both hands on her hips and said: "Do you see anyone from Time magazine here?"

She was not just an indispensable partner in media reporting. She was an indispensable friend in all those times we suffered setbacks in our emotional lives. Journalists are proned to turbulent love affairs and Nelly was always a heart minder and mender. I don't remember how many times we had been in Mabini - Manila's red district and favorite hangout of our male counterparts, to meet up with them and talk about how we filed our stories. Most of all, to brag about who made a scoop. And Nelly was always joking about male colleagues who celebrated the day's triumph behind the curtains of some sleezy bars.

Nelly Sindayen became an institution not because she ever tried to be one. It just happened through the years of her being a helpful, hospitable friend to all. Her home was a favorite meeting place of everybody- politicians, diplomats, academics and fellow foreign correspondents. She loved to hold parties and invite people of every political persuasion and creed. Her home in Magallanes was designed for parties. When I came to Manila in May 2004 - after ten years of absence, I stayed at her place. We partied almost every night, had lunches with

media friends and went to all the places of the usual "media suspects." She was vibrant, energetic and defiant of all threats of human failures. She defied cancer and refused hospitalisation.

When she stopped responding to my emails, I became worried. It was not like her to let a mail go unanswered. And then I was told she suffered a stroke and was confined in a hospital. I wished, as I had never wished that she would walk out of this situation with the same defiance she had shown during all those difficult situations we had been together, the same defiance against death or the threat of it.

I guess that finally, she had to give up. My biggest regret is that I have not had the chance to see her again, to hold her hands as she lay in her hospital bed and assure her that the friendship we had through all these years, was never going to grave. I will miss her but I have been lucky to be her friend for a very very long time.

Sleep well, Nelly! We are many who love you.

Winter break in Fuerteventura, Canary Island

People living in Northern Europe, or more specifically the Nordic countries need an escape from a long winter, which could last until the month of April. There's a feeling of heaviness to shake out of the human body, like beating a carpet of dusts it has accumulated. Aside from a delayed celebration of the new year - because January is just too frozen to wake up happiness in slumber, getting away during February or March is just saying goodbye to winter and hasten its departure so that spring can arrive in all its glory.

Fuerteventura is the second biggest island in Canary Island, the largest being Tenerife. It had literally risen from the ocean's bottom after a huge volcanic eruption some 30 million years ago. In 1402, it was discovered by Jean de Bethencourt who exclaimed: "Que fuerte ventura!" Or, "what strong winds!" Looking down from the airplane, one sees a landscape similar to the mooncrater - burnt grey-black, sparsely-dotted by white-painted housing settlements, many of which have flat roofs. The volcanic earth is contrasted by the deep blue Atlantic sea that holds the islands in firm embrace.

It was my first trip to the Canary Islands, and it was an experience worth remembering for the joys as well as the curses that came with the trip. The Dalai Lama said last year that, we must visit a new place at least once a year and that's exactly what happened. On the way to Arlanda, I discovered that my luggage was left behind and there was no way for the taxi to return if we were to catch the flight to Fuerteventura. My fiance´ comforted me and said, it wasn't a catastrophe. We could shop in the city or even go to Tenerife. That was all done the following day, except that I could not find a suitable swimsuit and ended up buying an extra large two-piece for a 12-year old girl.

Vacationing in a sunny place means adoring the sun in all nakedness, almost anyway, and discovering gourmet delights. The hotel Bahia Grande - which is owned by the tour operator Apollo, is a beautiful landscape of sprawling buildings, gardens and a swimming pool that faced the ocean. Its closest neighbour is a village separated by a low mountain that jotted out to the waters. The easiest way to reach this place - which we discovered while searching for an authentic fish restaurant, was to take the mountain side, go inside shallow caves and avoid the coming high tide by literally rock climbing. Since we liked the fish restaurant very much, we took the adventurous trail three times. The restaurants owned by the hotel - one Spanish and another Italian, were not so memorable, culinary-wise.

We took excursions to well-recommended places, although it is rather easy to go around the island on a rented car or the bus. But being on holiday means avoiding the stress of finding directions and waiting for bus schedules.

There are only 70,000 to 100,000 people living in the island. The most important source of income is tourism, fish, goat ( for its milk made into cheese) and tomato, potatoes and onions. There are more goats than people. What makes the island unique in its physical character is that it is mountainous, volcanic with lava areas, and its big areas of sand dunes. Here, it is the sand, the sun, the sea that lord over. The climate is influenced by two main elements: the Golf stream and the Sahara desert which account for the very dry climate, lots of sun and pleasant wind.

When you visit this place, take the chance to go to Corralejo- a fishing village on the northernmost part; Caleta de Fuste, only 10 minutes from the capital Puerto del Rosario; Costa Calma, a modern vacation village in Jandia island; and Jandia, a quite relaxing holiday resort with a shopping mall that offers tempting designer goods. Or, to to the flea market where almost real Gucci, Pradas, Louie Vuitton bags are peddled by Africans. "Everything very cheap today, Madam!" #

Breaking out of solitude

There are thousands of single households in Sweden, especially in Stockholm. Marriages and partnerships break up and one faces a life of torturous solitude. There are actually two sides to this situation. On one hand, one can look forward to a life of freedom that has been compromised in a relationship. On the other hand, loneliness is a hunter that strikes when you are most vulnerable. And the pain of having lost someone overcomes the joy of being set free from a relationship that had gone sour. There is no easy choice, no balance between having and not having someone if only to cheat solitude.

During these days, net dating has become a popular tool for meeting people not only to seek new partners but to make new friends. Most datings occur in workplaces, which is a popular ground for meeting future partners. There are also other places where meetings and potential romances happen such as single bars, dance places and cruises. Going alone on any of the cruises guarantees...if you happen to be a good looking girl or gal, a night of fun especially on the dance floor. The rest of what might happen..depends upon your sense of right and wrong, or simply put, your own conscience.

I had to deal with solitude in various ways. There are friends who are always prepared to offer company and such meetings especially on Friday nights are unforgettable. But then when you come home, you know that the silence of the rooms are taunting reminders of solitude. I have been kind of brave to go to cruises alone not because I wanted to meet anyone, but simply to get away from a boring work routine, to relax and to have fun in the dance floor. One time, I happened to have platform shoes that I could not walk properly. So I sat in the nightclub and watched others enjoy themselves. A man took courage to ask me if I wanted to dance and I said, "No, thank you, my shoes are too high!" Then he said: " Can I buy you a drink?" to which I relied: " I already have one". Then he said: " Would you like to join me in my cabin?" And I said straight in his face: "Dream on!"

On another occasion, I ran into a group of entrepreneurs belonging to an old Swedish brotherhood organisation. They were having a boardmeeting but that evening they were all in the nightclub. I was alone, which was evident to dance partner hunters, so one of them approached me if I would like to join them in their table. They were obviously Swedish gentlemen, so I joined them. It was the funniest most memorable evening I ever had. I became the brotherhoods "muse" of the night and we danced until three in the morning. They became good friends after this cruise.

But the best meeting place for new friends that I discovered is the net. I have always been kind of cynical about net dating. I thought that meetings face to face was better, if only to test the chemical reaction between two different people. But since I became a member of a Swedish/Nordic friendship club, I found out that it is actually fun to communicate with people you have not even met in person. And it is not surprising that many find partners through net friendship clubs. The "M" magazine runs a series of successful romances that blossomed from net friendships.

So whats keeping one from breaking away from a heart-tearing solitude? With a little ingenuity, daring and lots of charming personality, the devil in disguise could be vanished. One the other hand, there are also pitfalls in net dating that one has to guard oneself against. There are bluffers and social miscasts waiting for a kill. Be on the guard, as always.#

All about hearts...

When Valentines Day celebration is just a few hours away, many hearts are throbbing faster at the excitement of an anticipation in the strange world of love. Is something memorable going to happen..like a declaration of love? Maybe an engagement which brings two people one step closer to matrimony? Will a shy person finally have the courage to make his feelings known? Will it be reciprocal?

It is so much easier to discuss making love than making war, between loving and hating and between having and losing. Love defies definitions. It is different from person to person. I have just been reading a Swedish blog where there is a heated discussion on the meaning of love. Many are of the opinion that it involves strong feelings between two people, and that there is reciprocity of such feelings. One woman was very clear in her definition that it is respect for each other. For me, respect is respect and love is love.

I wrote a long time ago that we all have love stories, unforgettable emotional encounters that defy the norms of the heart. I thought that in each life, one is lucky to experience at least one big love affair. It takes enormous courage for the heart to become whole again after it has been broken because of a loss. Many allow their hearts to stagnate in bitterness.

Valentines Day's most important message is most probably to remind us how important and valuable the heart is, not only from a fysiological but more importantly from an emotional point of view. A heart that has grown hard with bitterness and hate, is already dead.#

Bloging on middle age crisis..and new beginnings

Little did I know - much less appreciated - how difficult it is for sixty-plus people to fall in love...again! Until a woman friend I met on the net brought out what I could not comprehend in the beginning. Re-starting life is harder for many middle-aged people because many are saddled with painful experiences caused by losses that wounded their souls.

I recently became a member of a society of sixty-plus people who are looking for friends and love. A majority of the members are women, which proves that they are the surviving parties most affected by losses as a result of death of a life partner or one's own child, divorce that came too late in life, and other heart-shattering experiences that left deep wounds in the soul. The "society" offers a forum of exchange between members that keep the flow of communication on different topics lively, thus breaking social isolation among those that have already been deleted from the system after retirement.

I found myself writing a Swedish blog in the form of a diary. In the beginning I felt hopelessly lost in the nuances of the Swedish language. I was searching for a style I am used to in English, meanings I could hide between the lines but which do not escape the detection of the native speakers. But I was already there, and hell! I was going to write in Swedish. I wanted a unique style, something all my own and not one subject to comparison. Hence, I decided that all my narrations would start with an exotic recipe, and then proceed with a philosophy. I would find a philosophy for my day's encounters from the "sublime to the ridiculous".

I started this new project first with a diary entry about "Hot meatballs for a Sunday family dinner", and continued with a serious topic on how to break social isolation without being lost in cyberspace. The response was awesome. I had orders for several kilos of hot meatballs by a reader ready to offer cash on immediate delivery. Then, I followed it with "Sushi and Tempura, after getting lost on the way to the city". Then came "Peking duck and the English taxi-driver " - (the English driver who offered me a place in his bed when I could not remember the address of the place I was going to one late night in London.).

Then came " From Sjögräs" to "Cibo" - which was about a booking in Söder's Sjögräs restaurant that was unfortunately not booked at all, and that we were forced to find another restaurant and ended up in "Cibo", an Italian restaurant in Åsogatan that was much better than Sjögräs. And after the dinner, we went on a car drive around Stockholm's harbour, looked at the majestic white ships quietly moored side by side on a still night when Stockholm city slept. And inside the car, Tom Jones sang "Touch Me..and I will be a fool again."

My latest diary entry was about "Hot lamb curry and the poetry of life". I gave the recipe of an authentic indian lamb curry and proceeded to describe a day in my work in a nursing home; how my heart broke when one of my patients died especially after the relatives arrived and started to cry. I went to a dark room and cried my heart out, not because a very sick patient died but at the images of deaths happening in war torn areas; of children lying dead in the street; of mothers clinging to the lifeless bodies of their children and all the mothers and wives losing their sons and husbands to senseless killings in the Middle East. I cried over the lifeless body of my husband on a hospital bed, and over many other deaths all over the world, unmourned and uncelebrated. I wanted to call someone and say:" Help me!"

There is indeed poetry in life and in death, in the beautiful as well as in the ugly, in the solitude the heart suffers from as well as in the glimpses of hope that, what has been shattered may find a new hope, only if the heart can forgive and forget that hurts from the past.#

Lukas Moodysson's "Mammut" film premier on Jan. 19th

Lukas Moodysson's new film "Mammut" or Mammoth will be premiered on Jan. 19th, in the Stockholm cinema Rigoletto. The story, as earlier announced is about the effects of globalisation upon various lives in different countries. This particular film by a very social-oriented Swedish director who has won acclaim for previous films like "Lilja Forever" and "Container" is set in three countries, of which two are in Asia.

I worked as the interpreter for the parts shot in Manila, Philippines. I am not at liberty to disclose what the film looks like because I have not seen the whole of it, but based on Moodysson's previous films one can expect an emotionally touching story.

Globalisation has altered many people's lives, social structures, traditions and human relationships. A Time magazine featured the Philippines some weeks ago - for which I wrote a comment in this blog- in an article entitled " A Motherless Generation". The article is factual yet humanised in bringing out the anguish and agony that take place between parents - who worked abroad and children left behind in the care of relatives. Thousands of children are growing up in homes devoid of warmth and parental love, and even if they get the schooling they need for a good future, there will always be that nagging loneliness by parents missing on their children's young years and children not knowing the closeness of a mother's affection.

Globalisation has altered for good the boundaries of the labour market, so that surplus labour in Asia and Africa find way to the nearer places like Hongkong and Japan; to Europe and especially to the Middle East. The Philippines in particular, witnessed as exodus of contract workers to the Middle East in mid-70s at the height of the oil crisis. In those days, the conditions of work especially salaries, were much better than what is offered in the crowded markets today. Stiff in competition due to surplus labour, the salaries that overseas workers receive have dropped to as low as USD100 monthly. How does one support a family back home and one's self with this kind of money?

It is not just the diminution of wages that overseas workers suffer from. Many women are constantly exposed to sexual exploitation, the worst of which is rape - first in the hands of the recruiter, then the employer. In the Middle East, this is a common story among many young girls, some of whom were sent to jail accused of false crime like stealing, but who in reality were raped by their employer who want to discredit the girl victim's story.

Lukas Moodysson's film is not about this particular effect of globalisation. It is something else and I do recommend warmly to all, to see the film because it is very close to the reality of the world we live in.#