June 23, 2009
2. Highlights of the Week!!
Highlights of the Week!!
• Orientation: Got the lowdown on KPD and the affiliates, the national political spectrum, and the three main campaigns on which all the organizations are collaborating. The campaigns are those against: 1) Charter Change (constitutional amendment); 2) the revival of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant; and 3) the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). I’ll explain the first two in this post, but I’ll have to cover the VFA and the highly controversial U.S.-Philippines military relations in a later post after I have better figured out the issue.
• “TindigNation” Planning Meeting: This was an impressive gathering of a wide range of political interests all united for one purpose – to prevent President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) from changing the constitution (Charter Change or “ChaCha”). ChaCha is a ridiculously obvious attempt by GMA to: 1) remain in power once her second term expires next year (either by term extension or adoption of a parliamentary system in which she would become Prime Minister); and 2) eliminate most of the 1986 Constitution’s nationalist provisions – such as the guarantee of Filipino ownership of Filipino natural resources – for no reason but to cede to (or perhaps collaborate with) foreign interests.
The interests present at the meeting plan to launch a coalition called TindigNation (an arguably clever fusion of tindig, meaning “stand up”, and indignation). The individuals in attendance represented academics, university student groups, political parties, various progressive groups like KPD, and even local big business (because ChaCha would augment the advantages of foreign corporations over domestic ones).
At the moment, the coalition is focused on preventing current legislative efforts to allow the constitution to be changed by Constituent Assembly (“ConAss”), or the convening of the Senate and House as a joint assembly. If a constituent assembly is held, ChaCha is likely to occur because its wide support in the 238-member House of Representatives would trample the main sources of resistance found in the 23-member Senate. Congress is in recess until July 27 (also the date of the President’s highly-anticipated State of the Nation Address, or SONA!), so KPD and the coalition will be mounting some major organization and mobilization efforts during the next few weeks.
• Creating a brochure for the Anti-Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (anti-BNPP movement). This was my baby for the week. I have to say, it looked and sounded pretty good (though I’m starting to doubt myself because I haven’t seen or heard of it since I passed it on for final approval and printing.) Since I had to become a pro on the issue, here’s the deal:
The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was a project of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the 1970s-80s. It was a disaster. It was built by Westinghouse Electric, an American corporation, at the price of $2.3 billion. It faced strong opposition from the start and became a symbol of the corruption and other assorted evils of Marcos regime. It sits on the edge of a humongous volcano which makes up the whole northern Bataan Peninsula; it is near a couple major fault lines; and, it had a large number of structural defects which were found after it was closed following the topple of Marcos. Furthermore, debts from the BNPP annually comprised about 20% of national debt servicing for over 30 years. Naturally, a push has emerged in Congress to recommision the plant for commercial operation. KPD is working with a coalition (the Nuclear-Free Bataan Movement) set out to prevent what would be a truly remarkable feat – the revival of such a hugely unpopular disaster.
• Anti-BNPP protest: This was a great follow-up to the brochure production and briefings on the BNPP issue. A few days before the protest, I traveled to the province of Bataan with KPD and ASSERT leaders to attend to final preparations (Bataan is about 2 hours from here, across Manila Bay to Mandaluyong’s northwest). The protest, held on Saturday, took the form of a 3,000-person march through the Bataan countryside. It was both a commemoration of a 1985 protest that helped to close down the BNPP in the first place and a protest against the current efforts to revive the plant. The 7-mile march ended in the provincial capital, Balanga, where the protest finished with a program of speeches, song, dance, and short theatrical performance.
The event was a great introduction to - and display of - the capabilities of KPD and its affiliates to work together, organize, and mobilize at the grassroots level. Members of ASSERT, PKMM, KAISAKA, MAKABAYAN and KPD all contributed to the organization and execution of the event. Also impressive was the media coverage which the event secured; it got a sizable write-up on the second page of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, one of the country’s major newspapers.
• And one more highlight I must include – Movie about Van Gogh at the French Film Festival with a bunch of KPD and ASSERT people I had met an hour earlier. French film, English subtitles, Tagalog-whispering Filipino audience, and one unwell Dutchman. A pretty confusing evening. And if you’re interested, I’d give the movie a B-.
I hope you enjoyed all the acronyms and abbreviations.
Posted by Isaac Jabola-Carolus at 10:23 AM
June 22, 2009
1. My First Blog Post Ever: Some Background, before More Interesting Posts
I’m now a full week into my internship here in the Philippines. The words which first come to mind: mosquitoes, really really hot, really really sweaty, rice. I suppose, though, that I have to give a better summary to you two or three people (excluding my parents) reading this. Of course there is more new information in my head than I can reduce to a few words or sentences, so I’ll try to pick the finest clusters and give you a few enjoyable and educational paragraphs about my Jack Ringer Fellowship Filipino adventures:
I am presently stationed in Mandaluyong City, a city of people and really big shopping malls. Together with Makati (it’s neighbor to the south), Mandaluyong is at the geographic heart of Metropolitan Manila and the economic heart of the country. My knowledge about the city, however, doesn’t yet extend much further than that. I’ve been so busy thus far that I’ve barely seen any of the place. I am ashamed and vow to do better in the next week or two.
Why so busy? Or first, what I am doing here? My understanding of the answer is not what it was a week ago. My original understanding: I would be working primarily with Action and Solidarity for the Empowerment of Teachers (ASSERT), an organization that works as a central core for a network of teachers and teacher unions, associations and federations. As I have written earlier and poorly explained to everyone who asked what I’d be doing here:
ASSERT works to promote and protect teachers’ economic and democratic rights and to lead progressive reform of the Philippines’ education system. Towards those ends, ASSERT organizes teachers’ unions and associations, provides teacher education and training, and leads national and sectoral campaigns for teachers’ rights and welfare.
My new understanding of what I am doing here: I will be learning about and helping in the efforts to remedy every major social problem in the Philippines!!!!! Just kidding, sort of. What I mean to say is that it looks like the scope of my work this summer will be broader than just teachers’ rights and education reform. Here’s why: ASSERT is a sectoral affiliate of a broader organization called Kilusan para sa Pambansang Demokrasya (KPD), or Movement for National Democracy. (Other “sectoral” affiliates - as they are called here - include organizations of women, workers, urban poor, peasants, and fisher folk.) Because ASSERT works so closely with KPD (as I hope to clarify further on), I will be working with both organizations.
KPD is an organization with a very large purpose. It aims to help bring about genuine democracy and progressive social change in the Philippines. It strives for political change that will align the Philippine government with the interests of the majority of Filipinos and not just the elite class, the U.S., and foreign capitalists. So when I say ASSERT is a KPD sectoral affiliate, I mean that it is the teachers’-rights-and-education node of a broad network working for more democratic governance and national freedom from restrictive international economic and political forces.
KPD is the center of a national network of sectoral organizations like ASSERT that are united by the principles of nationalism and democracy. And while I joke about solving all the major social problems in the Philippines, it seems that KPD is set out to do just that. Yet as the organization maintains a set of very-long-term goals, it also deeply engages a number of immediate issues, such as Charter Change (ChaCha), the revival of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), and the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). I’ll explain each of these later. As far as its operation is concerned, KPD is all about mass education and grassroots organization for those campaigns currently on its agenda. KPD and its affiliates each have chapters scattered throughout the country. Right now, I am in the national office where the secretariats of KPD and its affiliates are based. In the next two months, though, I will be dispatched to various regional chapters where I’ll be able to see how these organizations work at the grassroots level.
An explanation of the physical setup here at the national office may help you to understand the relationships between KPD and the sectoral affiliates. Four feet to my left is the desk of one of the KPD national leaders; four feet behind me is the desk of an ASSERT national leader; in the far corner of the room is where a leader from the women’s organization (KAISAKA) works; and also behind me is a smaller converted office where the three leaders share bunks. On the opposite side of the wall in front of me is the bunk of a peasant leader (PKMM), and across the hall is the workers’ organization office (MAKABAYAN). Maybe that was just confusing, but the point is that these organizations constantly interact, and their efforts and aims are all very much intertwined. They simultaneously work on the cross-sector big issues and their individual campaigns and agendas.
This has been more than enough for one post, and I haven’t even gotten to what I actually did this past week! I’ll have to follow this up with a highlights-of-the-week post in the next day or two. Look out for it. It should be more exciting and interesting than this one. It should also help clarify what KPD and ASSERT actually do, since most of this post was just devoted to articulating what they are. Be well and do good!
Posted by Isaac Jabola-Carolus at 10:10 AM | Comments (4)
