Some living lines in my life's lane

The passing away of many memorable people whom I had the fortune - as well as misfortune of encountering in my life's history in the Philippines, brings to mind some questions about what and how these well-known personalities have touched my life.

I was truly saddened about Cory Aquino's death and memories of her home in Times Street, Quezon city came back. She spoke little, was seen little in a court of friends and journalists where her husband was the main actor. Yet, one could sense the strength she had that was her husband's lifeline during his days of incarceration and exile. She said with a half smile during a dinner I had with her: " So, is it true that (President) Marcos is afraid of Ninoy? What is he afraid of ?" I could have said: " The force that Ninoy Aquino has to end the Marcos regime". It is prophetic that it was infact Cory Aquino who led the moral crusade that ended the dictatorship after Ninoy was brutally assasinated in the Manila International airport.

The late President Ferdinand Marcos left a million quotable lines - his and his brilliant speech writers. As a journalist then, there was no shortage of quotes from this man who knew what to feed journalists hungering for good lines. The one I remember most was what he said at a press conference in Malacanang Palace. I think I asked him if the New People's Army (NPA) could surrender without giving up their arms. And he replied with his typical half-smile, half-smirk on his face: " I will embrace my enemy even as I hold a knife in my hand."

My best pal, Time's Nelly Sindayen owns a great number of lines for each of her friends, as well as foes. The ones that drew great laughter was her Tausog dialect spoken like a homosexual. And when she talks, her own laughter was never far behind. Then there was Teddy Benigno of AFP - also gone and probably having a good laugh with Ninoy Aquino - somewhere out there. Teddy wrote long columns and one often wondered if he ever learned the use of a period to end sentences.

And not too long ago, Adrian Cristobal also passed away. Adrian was a great speech writer not just of the late Pres. Marcos but more so of Imelda Marcos. Of lines and quotes, one cannot forget the ones that Adrian wrote or said. What I remember most were the ones he wrote when I was a newcomer at the College Editors' Guild, and he and the late Labor Secretary Blas Ople - another brilliant speech writer of Marcos, were conference lecturers. In one of his private letters he wrote: "You are Galathea to Pygmalion". I was an aspiring writer and I thought that he was trying to encourage me. They were beautiful lines he wrote when he was not yet in the corridors of power.

As I sit and ponder at many living lines that friends and enemies left behind, I also see their faces expressive in what they are saying and later breaking into joyous laughter. How could these people with great minds simply go and we are left to muse over what had been said, at which juncture of a life's history and that of a nation.#

Cory Aquino - A Woman of Substance

Cory Aquino was hesitant to become president. She did not plan to be a politician. She was a mother, a housewife of the most popular political oppositionist to the Marcos dictatorship, Benigno Aquino Jr. After the treacherous assassination of her husband in 1983, Corazon Aquino ceased to be the quiet person she had been all through her role as politician's wife. She became the leading spirit of the Philippine's people power revolution that led to the downfall of the Marcos regime.

As foreign correspondent of the Far Eastern Economic Review, I had on many occasions been to the Aquino's residence on Times St in Quezon city, where former Senator Benigno Aquino - on a temporary freedom from Camp Crame prison held court and met journalists, politicians and friends almost every day. The senator was a fantastic source of valuable information and made excellent copy for my Hongkong-based paper. In all those sessions with him, Cory was almost invisible in the house. She was in the living room only to see that the guests were attended to. During some late interviews I made with the Senator, she was very solicitous with dinners and once she actually had dinner with me and spoke about her concern over the Senator's situation in prison.

When I returned to the Philippines in 1986 for a short visit, she had just been elected president of the Philippines. The whole nation was jubilant and yellow became her symbolic colour of victory. I saw her in Malacanang during her first days and she looked like she wasn't sure she was actually the President. She still rode her old car to Malacanang Palace. When my younger sister Daisy was murdered in 1989, I saw her again in Malacanang. She had called her Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Fidel Ramos and asked him to expedite the search for the killers of my sister.

As a President, she was a compassionate person. She had a program of reform that was blocked by old powers and the military - accustomed to getting its way with Marcos tried to topple her government a few times. If she was given the chance she needed, she could have rebuilt a country demoralised by years of abuse, corruption and greed. Even then, she tried her very best and her countrymen will remember her for what she was - an incorruptible moral leader of her country.

June...in an explosion of sun and happiness

In Sweden, it is hard to predict when summer comes and whether it will be all sun or sun and rain. It has become an accepted reality that Swedish mid-summer week is unreliably fickle and many feel cheated to spend their holidays indoor. Nonetheless, this country is extremely beautiful this time of year when everything comes to life and its waters are filled with boats of all sizes lazily cruising the archipelago, or just moored in various small harbours.

Despite the early pessimism over the unpredictable arrival of Swedish summer, it did come in full blast week after midsummer with 25 to 30 plus degree temperature, almost rubbing off the dominance of the sun in places South like Greece. The sun has a strong effect on people's humour and well-being and most of all, on one's capacity for love and affection. Somehow, in the cold winter days and night - our hearts find it difficult to respond to warmth and the need to share it with someone, or others. It is not that love disappears into darkness. The heart just seems more melancholic and proned to dark thoughts ( for others suicidal!).

I have many reasons to be happy before the after June with many happenings of the heart like the joy of awaiting a new grandchild, of being at a son's wedding in Santorini and witnessing an immeasurable surge of happiness in two people who celebrate a much -awaited union, and then becoming part of many events simultaneously occuring in my nearest geographic space. The Volvo Ocean Race Stockholm Stopover for one, was a sight to feast on.

However, even in the brightest of horizons can come some rainclouds and I don't mean meteorologically. The world - near and far, remains unsettled by military and economic conflicts aggravated by the deterioration of life's quality in poorer parts of the world. While I have personal reasons to be happy, I am not entirely detached from a world that is wrestling with hard issues of survival.#

Taking the global market by the horn

(Welcome Speech on the occasion of the formal launching of the Philippine Education Society in Stockholm, June 5, 2009)

I have the honour of welcoming you all to the celebration tonight of the 111th anniversary of the Philippine independence. Eleven years ago, we proudly celebrated the 100 year commemoration of our freedom from 400 years of Spanish colonisation. During that time, the population of Filipino immigrants in Sweden was officially around 8,000. Today, the community- spread in all parts of the country has grown to more than double.

The celebration of the Philippine independence every year strenghtens the consciousness of national belongingness especially among the immigrant Filipinos, who keep the sense of "blood and belongingness" alive through associations and federations. The purposes and directions taken by every organisation vary in certain ways but the ultimate goal is to stay together and strengthen the bonds of common heritage.

Tonight, we celebrate the historic achievement of national independence but more specifically, the commitment we have taken upon ourselves to give back something to the Motherland. It is common knowledge that overseas Filipinos remit huge amount of money to the homeland, to the tune of 8 to 9 billion US dolllars per year - a considerable contribution to the country's national economy.

However, what makes tonight's celebration memorable is the formal launching of a foundation, known as the Philippine Education Society, or PES. The foundation has a specific goal - a modest one to start with and that is to grant scholarship to deserving young Filipinos in the form of language training, to give them a competitive advantage in the Swedish labour market. It is a small step towards the improvement of Filipino competence in a global market that is facing severe competition. But a good step nonetheless and PES is exactly where it should be - which is taking the challenges of a global market by the horn.

The PES has several working committees - each of which has specific targets to achieve. The most important is the fundraising and business committees, upon whose shoulders will rest the life and survival of this young foundation. We are aware of the hard times facing the global economy, the retrenchment made by national budgets to solve the financial crisis. We are also aware that the labour market is under severe pressure to keep unemployment from plummeting into depths never known before. However, despite the economic crisis and because of the economic crisis, we are raising the competence of our workforce that want to find its way to the global market. Sweden is both a national and a global market.

If the PES can - in a modest way, help equip our young workforce the language competence to improve its chances in a global labour market, then we shall have made tonight not just memorable but historic when we look back 20 or 50 years back. Despite the crisis we face, our sense of compassion to help and share resources with the less fortunate can never be taken away from each and everyone of us because of the bonds of blood and belongingness.

I thank you you all for for being with us tonight and for giving support to the new foundation.

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!" #