Being sick

I have been suffering from asthma attacks in these past days. Last night was really difficult. I called my niece who is a Doctor and she said "Mama, you have to nebulize, buy this and that ... then take anti-histamine." So I made it home, and my other niece Laura came into my room with the nebulizer, taught me how to break open the medicine and squeezed the liquid into the container and connected all the tubes and then asked me to put on the "mask" and turned the nebulizer on.
As I watched her, and kept on hearing the voice of my doctor-niece, I can't help but wonder how these ladies are doing to me what I was doing to them when they were still babies, toddlers, very young children until they were big enough not to need a "Mama" to hold them through their illnesses!
Truly indeed, what you have done to them in the past, they are now doing for you... what a wonderful way LIFE is :)

THE Book

THE Book
My sister teaches at the Notre Dame University College of Mass Communication. She asked me to get her a book by Marites Vitug, Shadow of Doubt, as my birthday present for her. I went to google the title and found that it was sold only in selected outlets, one of which is the UP College of Law. I was coming to Manila so I texted a dear friend who teaches at UP to please please buy me the book. He said okay, and then the following day said that the book has been sold out, and that on Friday, it was going to be delivered at Solidaridad Bookshop in Ermita. I looked at my schedule and saw that we were free after 2 pm so I decided to go and buy the book myself.
When we arrived at the book store, two lawyers were already there, waiting for the books to be delivered. It seems that the books were coming from somewhere and the delivery man took the taxi and was caught in the traffic. Ian and I waited and joked and went through the book shelves of the little bookshop, so rich in one-of-a-kind books that if they were accepting payment by credit card, I could have bought so many! We waited and read, waited and read, waited and read for the next two hours... We read Julie Yap Daza’s “I did not marry you because I love you!” and other quotes from famous Pinoys. We browsed through Newsweek, Newsbreak, Time, the Business World, comic books, medical books, books on love and relationship, books on ... anything!!!!
Finally, the books arrived. We lined up (by that time, there were several others who came in already, having come and asked, went away and then returned...and finally decided to stay and browse much like what we were doing) and Ian was NUMBER ONE up there! In less than 5 minutes, I counted there were 8 books already sold and there was one more man waiting in line who said he reserved in advance for 5 books!
We were very happy to have our books, as Ian left for the airport and I went back to my hotel room. I wish to thank the author for coming out with this book. According to my dear friend the UP Professor, the author is now receiving death threats. It is only in the Philippines that democracy is so compartmentalized – it is claimed by everyone who wants to run for public office yet defined “a different way” by those who refuse to have their public office investigated. Sigh... only in the Philippines? Nah....

Working for Justice in pursuit of Peace

Timor Leste will always feel like "home" to me, after going through a major war in 1999 and two minor internal / civil conflicts with the people. Whenever I step out of the plane into the soil, the air makes me feel enveloped like a prodigal daughter (ha ha). People who used to know me in the past call out "Mai ona Senhora? Kleur ba feriadu!" (Hey Missis, you have come? Took a long vacation, ya?). The smile on their faces make me feel that I just left the country yesterday. When I meet the driver and speak the language, he smiles and says "You still speak like a native, welcome home!"

This year, my visit was in support of my organization (CRS)'s support to the (3rd) Timor Leste Peacebuilding Institute. I was very excited as this was a dream come true for me - to finally train national (East Timorese) trainers for their own institute!

The week started with a 6 day training of trainers and it was fun as we shared our experiences as trainers, reviewed many of the concepts of conflict, violence, peacebuilding. We also took time to understand the Conflict Transformation paradigm of John Paul Lederach because this is what TLPI wanted as its core value and teaching, We took time to form the facilitating team for the TLPI 2010 courses (Conflict Resolution Skills, Peace Advocacy and Trauma Healing) and then we prepared our syllabus and modules for the courses. It was fun as the trainees were a mix of practitioners, trainers and program staff.

As a trainer-accompanier, I was very excited for the simulation when the teams had to present a part of their module and the others had to pretend that they were participants. The experience was very intense, and there were many lessons learned for me as well as for everyone I believe. For me, even as in my heart I feel that I am part of the land, I still am not an East Timorese and I had to accept that hard part. In the long run, the land was theirs, the culture was theirs, the decisions to be made had to be owned by them.

The course on Conflict Resolution Skills was held up in Dare, where the fog comes into the session hall and you see the participants seating around like shadows and the facilitator walking and gesturing like a shadow. It was very cold, and very beautiful.

It was another opportunity for people who are like and unlike-minded to get to know each other and learn together and start building bridges towards each other. It was also a novel experience for the three co-facilitators who patiently learned from each other and from me, meeting each other every break time to improve, improve, improve presentation skills and teaching-learning skills, and using activities to teach and putting together lessons learned. We ritualized the end of the course with the traditional dance called Tebedai where everyone stomps around the room in one tight circle :)

During the course, we invited Pat Walsh who is the senior consultant for the CAVR or the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in Timor Leste to come and share with us the work of CAVR in the past, in the present and what he thinks the people around the room can contribute towards the attainment of justice in the present and future. It was a session that generated so many questions and silences.... for a country that had at least one person dead or lost (desaparecido) in every family, wounds have to be dealt with in gentle and respectful manner.

Before coming back to Mindanao, I went to visit the CAVR office in the old Balide prison where many of those who were suspected as supporting the nationalist movement have been incarcerated, tortured, killed. It was a visit that resulted in mixed emotions.

I was so happy to see the prison in its new "dress" - new paint (soft rosy cream for walls, bright blue for the jail doors leading to the rooms converted into offices and one small store that sells the books and CDs as a result of the work of CAVR), big paintings, a reflection garden. It is upon entering the room that contains the history of the struggle (in words and pictures, framed in big boxes) that my heart felt that it was being squeezed. It is seeing again what this country had to go through in its fight for independence... the deaths and massacres, the hunger, the tortures, the personal crimes committed against the women suspected of supporting the revolutionary movement, the divided families (with children being separated from parents)... and the FEAR that is still almost palpable as I walked around the room. Yet as I look at the eyes of those whose faces were caught on cam, there is a fierce look of determination in their eyes, the commitment ... A LUTA CONTINUA! ... the struggle continues.... and the HOPE is also palpable as I look at the faces in the pictures.

As I left the room, I offered a short prayer for the nation... and then I entered another room which made me feel so much like crying. It was the room with no windows, it was the room where they held political prisoners incommunicado for days, it was a room where, when they take you out, you do not come back to. At present, it had a small white board where people can write down the name of someone who is still missing or who was heard to be held in that room many decades back. It also has a small candle stand where people can light candles and offer prayers.

Across a small aisle is a couple of rooms that had no ventilation... and as you enter, your eyesight is met with a huge picture of a woman who is almsot naked, lying on the floor with her eyes covered, bearing the signs of torture. I was not able to stand that ... I left and stood still outside, in the garden, just holding myself in. I knew I had to cry but I did not want to do this at that time (knowing I had a meeting in a couple of hours' time and I still had to finish my report). It was then that I thought of how to help others deal with what I have just experienced. I designed a process of preparing one's self for the experience, and processing one's experience immediately after the visit. I immediately communicated this with the facilitator for TLPI who will be bringing the participants to visit CAVR the following week-end. I offered a prayer for those who have died, those who are still dying inside because of what happened to them, and for those who refuse to die and be defeated by their bad experience... A LUTA CONTINUA!

The visit to the CAVR office brings into clarity the hard work for JUSTICE and PEACE.

There are those who think that the work for justice and the work for peace contradict each other. I do not agree to this. The work for PEACE (sustainable, rooted, meaningful for the people) is based on finding justice for the wrong done unto a people. "People" here means individuals, families, communities and the Nation that wraps everyone into her arms. Until and unless there are individuals, families, communities in Timor Leste who feels that the wrong done unto them have not been fully addressed, then we will have pockets of dissent, discontentment, anger and bitterness pock-marking the whole nation.

And when noble efforts like what the Peacebuilding programs of institutions like CRS TL, Caritas, Belun, Oxfam, the Justice and Peace Commission work together to help people address the conflicts in their midst, to deal with their brokenness and to work with justice in a way that does not add to the injustice, then there will be pockets of peace like ... road maps? arrows? ... or oases where we can draw our inspirations from. (I wanted to say "pockets of peace beautifully tatooed alongside the pock marks on our nation" but I still cannot expound on this analogy so I am living the work for peace as oases...)

After writing this blog, I feel a sense of release...

... and when everything is over and done with, I am Deng, a Filipina, a Mindanawan, with the heart for the people of Timor Leste... A Luta Continua!

Last Sunset of 2009 as seen from home











(As seen from my bedroom window)

(As seen from the second floor of the house)

At sunset today, I tried to catch the last rays of the sun in 2009.

I know that we have seen so much tears, fears, deaths, greed, lies and more lies in 2009. And we have also seen the best of the Pinoy – braving the flood waters, losing one’s life in saving others, standing up for the truth even if it meant losing one’s freedom and economic means, putting aside a lucrative career to push a cart and educate the less fortunate children (being hailed as the CNN Hero of the Year was a bonus), a woman judge accepting the case against a tyrant with equipments like backhoes and chainsaws and uzis and machine guns (well, we still have to see the beginning of the search for justice here)...

In 2009 we lost a beloved figure in Tita Cory, we also gained a reluctant Presidential candidate who has the values Tita Cory instilled in her brood – Noynoy Aquino.

Personally, in 2009, I went through a wringer and what pain it brought me! This made me realize that no matter what I do, when people have formed a judgment of who I am, and these people have the power to decide on my fate, it is still up to me to accept their decision or not. Standing up to POWER has its consequences and yet this made me stronger and more practical in looking at the world around me.

May 2010 be kinder to us, bring justice to those who have been wronged, and put a new President who cannot be bought, who cannot be bribed, who does not seek only a military solution to any problem in the country, and who honestly thinks of the country first before anything else.

MABUHAY ANG PILIPINAS!

My Very Special Grandnephew

My Special Grandnephew Kyle (seen here watering his Granny's plants)

His name is Kyle and he is very intelligent. He loves and knows cars. When he was one year old, he knew how to turn on the DVD player whenever his Granny (my Mom) wanted to watch some movies. He is five and comes home from school showing the stars he got from his classes. He is special because he has very senisitive skin. He turns red and scratches all over if he feels hot, is perspiring, or has eaten eggs or any of its by products. He needs to have his special lotion that stops the itchiness and he takes medications when the itching turns bad. There are times taking a bath (which he sooooo loves taking with the water VERY COLD) turns into an agony as he screams with pain – his sores aching from the touch of water.

Last Christmas, the most precious gift I had was hearing him say "I am taking a bath and it's not hurting me at all!" Even the religious sisters who live near our house rejoiced with us over this :) His parents have simple joys - they rejoice when he is finally able to go around the house in his short pants and sleeve-less shirt.

This past year, his mom and dad started to wean him out of his medicines and specially prepared milk, and started giving him ordinary growing-up milk. He has started to adapt to the milk (turning red around the eyes when he drinks, and then slowly his colour returns to normal).

This afternoon, after his nap, I walked with him outside the house thinking “this child needs to run and play outside.” He ran and jumped and ran a race with some kids in the neighbourhood until he started scratching. Immediately, my sister called him inside the house, and I saw for the first time what happens to him and how the family copes. A bowl of ice, a soft wash cloth, and he gets sponged all over with iced water to stop him from scratching. The ice-cold wet cloth must not be rubbed but patted. He instructs his Yaya “Ate, you have to make the cloth like a ball and then dab it on my skin!” I watched for a while and then I went up to my room and cried.

Merry Christmas, Kyle. Next time, Mama Deng will know better...

Bonding with Mom

Mom just went through an eye operation to remove the cataract from her left eye (the one on her right eye is not yet ripe but we have to keep a close watch on it because if it ruptures, its going to make her right eye blind). People who are following Mom's unending battle with her eyesight is aware of the sickness that runs in Mom's family - glaucoma. This can make a person blind if left untreated. Mom has only one request to us all - please do everything possible to save her eyesight. She said "I want to see my great grandchildren grow, I want to see until the day I close my eyes and open them to see Dad again in heaven, and Jesus too." So we, her children, try to do everything we can in our power to do just that. She has a very good eye doctor (Dr Ricardo Torno at Limso Hospital) who is very patient with her, very concerned, calls her "Mommy" and gave her this pair of cool sunglasses to protect her newly operated eye from all the elements in the world!

When the doctor operated on her eye last Friday, they have to bring her to the operating room. My sisters were there, my brother kindly drove my nephew and niece from Cotabato to Davao to be with their Granny, and I was on my way home to Davao from Pikit. I was receiving step-by-step texts from Ate while I was in meeting with the Cotabato IRD staff and when I received the text that said "They have wheeled Mom into the OR, she feels scared and Monette is crying." I paused and informed everyone that my Mom was being operated on and that I needed a prayer break :)

When I arrived home (around 8:00 PM), Mom was safely home, with one eye-patch, and two medications (drops) on the eye every two hours. I took over my two sisters and did this.

Mom wanted to go home to Cotabato City but the doctor did not allow her to do that. She missed this year's All Souls' Day celebration with Dad and sent this text message to my brother "When you go and visit Dad, give him my regards and tell him that I can visit him when I am back there." I laughed and said "Mama, you can say that to Dad right now and he is listening and will understand!" Mom looked at me and said "It's different because he is physically there." I don't understand because I talk to Dad wherever and whenever but I guess Mom can have her ways, too... so I said "Sorry Mom, of course you can say that to Kuya." (Hugged her, too!)

Now that Mom's eye-patch has been taken off, the doctor gave her this pair of cool sunglasses! I brought Mom to NCCC and she was so delighted to see so clearly the mall workers dance and see clearly the price tags :) Thank you GOD for giving us the resources to make Mom's eyes better. Thank you also for the opportunity to enjoy Mom some more :)

Mom is leaving tomorrow to go back to Cotabato and we have already brought her groceries for her small sari-sari store, the food that she bought is enough for three (herself, Nonoy the driver, and Inchai, the niece of my sister-in-law) and will tie them over the 4 hours drive. She is excited to share her good eyesight with our neighbors, her grandson Kyle and the priests and sisters who are her "adopted children". But she still has to see her eye doctor for a final check up before she leaves... and again I will not be with her as there is a meeting that has been previously arranged. My sister is taking over and this world is better because of sisters and brothers who are blessings in our lives.

LOVE YOU MAMA

Two statements for the release of Fr Mitch Sinnot

FROM NASSA - The National Secretariate for Social Action (Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines)

STATEMENT ON THE KIDNAPPING OF FR. MICHAEL SINNOT The CBCP National Secretariat for Social Action – Justice & Peace strongly denounces the kidnapping of Columban Missionary, Fr. Michael Sinnot, last October 11 in his home in Pagadian City, Zamboanga del Sur. We appeal to the kidnappers of Fr. Sinnot to release him immediately so he may safely return to his parish and his community.
Fr. Sinnot has been active in various social services, like in the Centre and School for Special Children, which he established, and has been bravely working for interfaith, and peacebuilding programs in Mindanao.
We express our solidarity with the Diocese of Pagadian, headed by the Most Rev. Emmanuel Cabajar, and to the community of the Columban Missionaries.
We likewise emphasize that Fr. Sinnot’s kidnapping constitutes a flagrant distortion of the aims and aspirations of the peace-loving people of Mindanao. It is a desecration of the religious values and an infringement against the spirit of human dignity and solidarity, which the Muslims and Christians are jointly pursuing.
A crime of this kind is a fresh reminder of the need for a sustained effort in dealing with kidnapping and abduction committed by terrorist groups. We call upon the government to bring to justice those responsible for this outrageous crime and demonstrate that lawlessness and impunity will not be tolerated.
+ BRODERICK S. PABILLO, D.D National Director

************************************************************************************
From Peace Advocates Zamboanga (PAZ)
An Appeal for the Freedom of Fr. Michael Sinnott

(A statement by Peace Advocates Zamboanga.)

THE kidnapping of Irish priest Fr. Michael Sinnott last Sunday, October 11, in Pagadian City, Zamboanga del Sur is yet another serious assault against our hallowed belief in the sacredness of every human life, against the democratic order that enables us to live in dignity, security and peace as a community and society of God-fearing and law-abiding citizens.

The old age of 79 year-old Fr. Sinnott and the fact that he devoted much of his life to serve the poor and marginalized people of Mindanao, especially those in our home region, including indigenous and peoples of other religious faiths, make this kidnapping extraordinarily cruel and saddening. The value of Fr. Sinnott’s life and work is beyond any ransom price. For its despicable and unspeakable evil and barbarity do we strongly condemn this kidnapping of a holy man.

We, therefore, urge and appeal to our civilian, police and military authorities to exercise their duty and exert all efforts for the early and safe freedom of Fr. Sinnott. We propose that appropriate rewards be given to any person/s that will promptly help bring this about.

We appeal to our fellow citizens, including civil society peace and community development workers, to remain true and strong in the face of this assault against our shared principles and beliefs. We are again challenged by this crime.

We commiserate with the fellow priests in the Missionary Society of St. Columban of Fr. Sinnott in the anguish that his kidnapping may cause them, as they cause in us as well. We are confident – as we stand in solidarity with the Columban community in the Philippines – that no kidnapping, no act of violence against missionaries will ever, as it never did in the past, stop them in their mission to uplift peoples through the power of their faith, benefits of education, and emancipation through social justice and freedom. Indeed, the always divine yet often difficult and dangerous pursuit of this noble, life-giving mission holds the essence of true martyrdom, which calls all to work in the service of others no matter the personal cost.

We appeal to people to pray for Fr. Sinnott, for God to strengthen and preserve him in this his hour of great trial. And yes, let us most of all pray for the captors, that God may overflow their hearts with His miracle of repentance, mercy and grace. “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” – (Mark 11:24).

Zamboanga City, October 14, 2009.


FR. ANGEL C. CALVO, CMF
President

PAZ/ KATILINGBAN
CLARET
San Jose Road Zamboanga City
Tel: 63 62 9911168CP/ +639177102926