Isaac Jabola-Carolus

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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 June 22, 2009 10:10 AM

Comments

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