My 2012 began even before it actually did. The story started with the storytellers themselves, in a place wiped out by Sendong, in the company of strangers, on Christmas day the year before. We heard stories of men and women who lost everything in a place they once called home. It is a glaring lesson of how one can lose it all. And the least that Jes and I could do was to tell their story on JANUARY 5, 2012:
By Jes Aznar and Iris Gonzales
Their story started on a quiet Friday night, supposedly the end of another week at work, the start of a much-awaited weekend with loved ones, just nine days before Christmas Day. The place is northern Mindanao.
Cong Corrales
Leonardo Vicente “Cong” Corrales sat in front of a borrowed computer to write what just happened. Tropical storm Sendong ripped through the province and other parts of northern Mindanao.
As a provincial correspondent for various local and foreign media agencies, Cong had to report on the devastation. The storm had left hundreds dead, homeless and missing. The morgues were overflowing. The streets were flooded. Cadavers were floating along with heaps of trash. Crumbs of homes were all over.
But after three hours, the only words that came out were: “Cagayan de Oro City. By Cong Corrales, correspondent.”
Saturday, December 17, 2011. A few hours before, Cong and his family rushed to the roof of their wooden house to escape the flashfloods unleashed by the surging storm.
They waited for the waters to subside. In the darkness, they could hear the cries of pain.
People were shouting the names of missing loved ones. The screams for help went on for hours, struggling to be heard amidst the sounds of the howling winds.
Cong’s home, the second floor of a two-story shelter, is along Burgos Street, Barangay La Consolacion, one of the hardest hit areas in the province.
The morning after the flood, Cong’s home was a portrait of mayhem. Everything was covered with the thickest mud and the stench of garbage filled the damp air.
But Cong did not have enough time to clean the trash.
He had a story to write.
“But I did not know where to start,” Corrales said.
Cong is one of at least 35 journalists from Cayagan and Iligan affected by the storm. Two Iligan-based journalists died while others lost everything.
Merlyn Manos
GMA-7 correspondent Merlyn Manos, a single mother to two children, was already asleep when the floods came. She was in deep slumber in a worn-out white nightie, exhausted from a day’s work. She was out all day doing a feature story about the Christmas Village in the center of town. Her son roused her from sleep. “The house is flooded!” he said in a shaking voice. Their house is a small rented space in Green Village, Hinaplanon, Iligan City.
Merlyn had no time to pack. She managed to slip on a shirt before they rushed out to the roof. They could not open the door, as the waters were already high. The only way out was through the hole for the air conditioning unit.
The winds were wild and the waves were punching hard. Merlyn felt it was the end.
“I felt then that we were going to die,” she said.
From above, they could hear the cries of mercy – loud, shrieking screams for help from mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, sons and daughters.
“We could not do anything. We were helpless up there,” she said. As Sendong battered their street, the shouts grew louder.
They went back to the house when the waters subsided. It was then that Merlyn realized she had lost everything.
“When I went to my room, I saw my laptop floating. I said to myself, ‘it’s gone. It’s gone,’” Merlyn said.
But by 12 noon, Merlyn had to file a story. Her desk had called. She had to report something. Amidst the chaos, she managed to do a phone patch — a live report via telephone — as it is known in broadcast industry parlance. Merlyn ended up reporting her own story. At that time, she did not imagine how she would be able to work again without her laptop and camera.
Jigger Jerusalem
Jigger Jerusalem, a correspondent of The Philippine Star in Cagayan de Oro, also lost his laptop in the flood; and everything else in the rented room where he stays.
“Now, I have to start from scratch again. I have to buy new things and tools. I need a digital camera and a laptop,” said Jigger.
But Jigger can’t bring himself to write just yet. The trauma is still very fresh. At night, he can still see in his inner mind’s eye the flood of mud that gatecrashed his room. He can still hear the winds and the screams from little voices, the cries for help; the sounds of panic, desperation and pain.
“I promise I will write again when the time comes when I can again function as a working journalist,” Jigger said. On January 4, Jigger’s by-line appeared again on the front page of the Philippine Star. He wrote a story on the opening of classes in CDO.
Bonita Ermac
She works as a correspondent for Mindanao Gold Star Daily in Iligan. When the floods came, Bonita, also a single mom, secured her son and her 80-year old mother.
“From our room, we went down to the kitchen. The waters were already high. We had to hold on to wooden bars in the ceiling. My 80-year old mother was with us. She was hospitalized after because of pneumonia.
After that, Bonita could not think of writing again just yet.
“I lost all my things,” she said.
Michael Kundimann (missing)
Leni Kundiman lost her husband, Michael and her home. Michael was a radio reporter and news anchor and the last time Leni heard his voice was at the height of Sendong’s wrath.
They held on to a rope just outside their house in Bayug Island in Iligan City but a shanty that had been washed away by the flood hit Michael. His voice trailed off and was never seen again since that night.
Bayug Island had been wiped out. What used to be a village where hundreds of families lived and survived the daily fare is now a barren lifeless land. There are no more homes, just makeshift wooden altars with candles and flowers for the dead. The laughter of children who used to roam around will never be heard again.
There’s only a deafening silence and an eerie shade of gray in Bayug Island and in the rest of Iligan and Cagayan.
But the story does not end here. Each and every journalist affected by Sendong will carry on.
“Padayon,” as they say it. They will again find the words and capture the images. They will start again and again and they will keep on telling other peoples’ stories the way they used to do before howling winds and a merciless storm struck that fateful Friday night.
(This project is produced by Jes Aznar and Iris Gonzales, in cooperation with the Center for Community Journalism and Development and the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines. To those who wish to help the affected journalists, you may call the NUJP office at at (02) 3767330.)
Below is the epilogue:
Inside the Oarhouse Pub in Malate, a well-known watering hole of journalists and artists, three documentary photographers are scratching their heads in frustration.
A Canon film camera has just arrived from the United States and they are to take turns taking a single shot, as part of an international photography project.
But they can’t do that anymore. The camera is not working and they’re pinning the blame on Customs people.
“Customs must have opened it. There’s no other explanation,” one of them says in between sips of ice-cold beer one early Thursday evening.
They are huddled by the bar scrutinizing the camera, which arrived in the Philippines via a global parcel service provider, sealed in a plastic wrap.
It’s a long way from US shores but nobody knows for sure if it was opened.
As it is around the globe, here in the Philippines, citizens are wary of Customs people. The impressions or misimpressions are endless – they open parcels, they slap unreasonable duties on goods entering the country or hell, they steal your stuff.
The view inside the bureau isn’t much different. But there’s so much more.
It is a fragmented agency shaped by centuries of reforms and different leaders with the end goal of fulfilling its mandate of raising revenues while at the same time protecting the country’s borders from the illegal entry of goods.
There are varying expert opinions on how to address the problem of corruption and smuggling in the bureau.
Former Customs Commissioner Titus B. Villanueva believes that the bureau should evolve more as an efficient trade facilitator, instead of a generator of revenues while former another Customs Commissioner Alberto D. Lina says professionalizing the bureau through higher pay is the key.
Providing the agency with additional budget to modernize its equipment in the different borders should also be a priority, insiders say.
Indeed, the list of solutions is endless. The challenge is for the bureau’s present and future leaders and employees to confront the demands of modern trade and more sophisticated smuggling methods in the years to come.
A glimpse inside has shown me that the Bureau of Customs is a bureaucracy teeming with success and failure, with excellence and mediocrity, with courage and cowardice, with genuine public service and corruption, with love and hate.
I long to write a perfect ending to this reportage, perhaps to say that the better side has triumphed over the other but reality intrudes.
What I saw inside is a strange enigmatic weaving of the two conflicting sides. The result is a bureaucracy where lawlessness is governed by rules, where there is honor among thieves, and where lions live in perfect harmony with lambs. Self-preservation and survival are guided by idealism and as shady deals are sealed in the different Customs offices, Mother Mary watches by.
I am in awe of the men and women who are at home here, they who find serenity in the bedlam. To quote the great playwright George Bernard Shaw, “I never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from people.”
FEBRUARY was a quite a blast, literally. A boat ride took us to the islands of Palawan, where Jes and I swam and sang under the scorching sun and spinning stars.
MARCH is always about a birthday. But this year, my thoughts went beneath the rubble:
BAYUG ISLAND, Iligan City – For the skies, it was just another spit of rain, perhaps just stronger than in previous days.
But for people whose lives are shared with loved ones and are measured not by routines of Mother Nature but by family ties and relationships, the rains were a curse. A curse so mad, merciless and unforgiving.
And that curse is seen everywhere here in Bayug Island: devastated houses, coconut trees; shattered windowpanes, slabs of remaining concrete, crushed roofs; clothes; wooden dressers; sofas; refrigerator; photographs; mattresses.
The island, traditionally considered as the first settlement in Iligan, has now become a desolate land that breathed its last breath that fateful Friday night when waves, as if furious, came and pared off hectares and hectares of Bayug’s villages.
Located at the mouth of Mandulog River, the island has an estimated land area of 300 hectares, home to some 400 families scattered around 8 sub-villages.
Now, large portions of the coastal village are barren. There are only makeshift altars assembled out of left over pieces of wood, for candles and flowers for the dead.
Most of the survivors have sought refuge in cramped evacuation centers – public schools turned temporary shelters or tent cities donated by aid agencies.
Danny Gongob is among those who survived. But he lost his wife and two children.
I met him a day after Christmas Day, standing on a small square of concrete where their house used to stand, where the family used to live, where he slept with his wife and children every single night; where they used to spend Christmas Days together.
Now, there is nothing but a makeshift altar with a flickering candle and a bunch of pink and white flower petals for his missing loved ones.
And their dark red Spongebob mattress covered with the thickest mud, which he found a few meters away.
It was very dark when the storm came that night, he says. The grip of the waves was strong and howling, drowning the sounds of children who screamed for help.
But for Danny, there’s no time to grieve too long. He is back in Bayug only for a brief moment, as he will be going around the city and nearby villages in search of his wife and children.
Dodo Nagayag, another survivor, lost his mother and three siblings but he, too does not have enough time to weep.
To survive, Dodo must salvage whatever pieces of scrap metal left of their house and their neighbors’ too. He will sell this for ten pesos a kilo.
With bare hands and some stones and slabs of concrete, Dodo tries to pull out from the rubble whatever rusty metal bars he could find and even the iron sheets crumpled by the waves.
In APRIL, I added my voice in story on human rights issues around the world.
Bloggerstatements zum Thema "Menschenrechte und Internet"
The Google Collaboratory Project is out. Below is the video that includes my blogger statement on human rights and the Internet.
MAY is about Mother's Day. I disagree with celebrating it because everyday is mother's day but then again, who wants to say no to a day filled with some extra love?
In JUNE, we woke up in Frankfurt, Germany, walked the cobblestone streets of Bonn, backpacked through Berlin and gatecrashed Documenta 13 in Kassel. In between, I stood on a platform to send Jes off as he went to even faraway cities.
In JULY, the sweet bitter taste of our trip lingered:
For 13 long years she endured the beatings. It wasn’t so rough at first, she says, and every time it happened she hoped with fingers crossed that it would be the last.
One morning, she woke up and realized that finally, she wanted to end her troubled marriage, to stop the beatings and everything else.
Her name is Winnie Penaredondo. She calls herself a survivor and an advocate against violence against women.
I met her one afternoon at the launch of a project for justice and healing aimed at survivors of gender-based violence and organized by the Women’s Feature Service, a news service for women.
Winnie skips the details of her life as a ‘battered wife’. What she stresses is that women who experience violence should realize that they could get out of their situation.
As a survivor-advocate, Winnie is involved in the Justice and Healing Project, which aims to ‘educate and capacitate the various components of judicial systems to be able to deliver rights based and gender sensitive services’, in cases of violence against women.
Under the two-year project, there are various activities ranging from barangay (local government) forums to workshops and training for the judiciary and legal practitioners.
One objective is to educate all genders in the community about violence against women and how to address it together. Most importantly, the project aims to facilitate legal and psychosocial assistance to women victims and survivors, in order to facilitate faster recovery and reintegration.
Winnie recalls that one difficult part of being a battered wife is the feeling of shame and isolation. This, she laments, is what prevents victims from speaking out and seeking help.
In the Philippines, violence against women remains rampant.
According to the 2008 National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) conducted by the government’s statistics office, women aged 15 to 49 have experienced all forms of violence including physical, sexual, emotional and economic. Specifically, one in five women in this age group has experienced physical violence since age 15.
‘14.4 per cent of married women have experienced physical abuse from their husbands and more than one-third or 37 per cent of separated or widowed women have experienced physical violence, implying that domestic violence could be the reason for separation or annulment,’ the survey said.
For women like Winnie, the fight isn’t over. She says part of her healing is to help others get out of their situation.
And that is what she will keep doing until she is able to help as many victims as she can.
Indeed, violence against women is a story that needs to be told and re-told over and over; not something to be ignored or tucked beneath the quiet sheets of matrimonial beds. It needs to be written about until no woman anywhere in the world shall experience the might of the fist ever again.
In SEPTEMBER, I stood up against a simple gag order put in place at a time when the Freedom of Information Bill has become a forgotten measure.
DOF gag order
A memo forbidding Finance officials from speaking to the media demonstrates how urgent the passage of the FOI bill is
By Iris C. Gonzales
FINANCE SECRETARY Cesar Purisima has issued a memo forbidding officials of the Department of Finance (DOF) from speaking to the press on matters not related to their duties as fiscal authorities.
The memo was dated July 19 and released to the media on July 23.
Dubbed as a gag order by some members of the press covering the Finance department, the memo was issued to “ensure that the DOF’s policy pronouncements are clearly communicated to the public."
“Officials are advised not to comment on issues that go beyond their scope of authority. If they do so, the media (are) advised that said official does not reflect the position of the Department and such comments are made on their own personal capacity,” Purisima said in the order.
He listed the Finance officials covered by the order as follows:
- On all matters pertaining to the Domestic Finance Group – Undersecretary Jeremias N. Paul, Jr. and Assistant Secretary Ma. Teresa S. Habitan;
- On all matters pertaining to the Revenue Operations and Legal Affairs Group – Undersecretary Carlo A. Carag;
- On all matters pertaining to the International Finance Group – Undersecretary Rosalia V. De Leon;
- On all matters pertaining to the Corporate Affairs Group and Privatization Group – Undersecretary John Philip P. Sevilla;
Not surprisingly, Finance reporters found the memorandum out of order, and some beat reporters wrote about it.
- On all matters pertaining to the Policy Development and Management Services Group – Undersecretary Gil S. Beltran.
BusinessMirror reporter VG Cabuag, in a July 24 article, quoted an unnamed source in the department as saying that since Purisima took over as Finance chief in 2010, “there has been oral instruction that bars other officials from making statements to the media, especially on the state of the Philippine economy, among others, but this was the first time that such order was formalized.”
PPP: The Trigger Point
Several days before Purisima issued the memorandum, beat reporters wrote a story on the potential contribution of the government’s public-private partnership (PPP) infrastructure projects on economic growth.
The story, which quoted Finance Undersecretary Beltran, focused on what the PPP could have contributed to the economy had the program taken off last year as the Aquino administration promised.
This writer was among those who wrote the story, which was published also in the July 19 issue of The Philippine Star:
“The Philippine economy could grow by an additional two percentage points this year if the government is able to bid out all eight infrastructure projects under its PPP program,” a Finance official said.
Given these estimates Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran said the Philippine economy has the potential to grow by seven to eight percent this year from the official target range of five percent to six percent if the PPP projects are rolled out as planned.
However, Beltran noted that state spending has been improving.
At the same time, he said that spending would improve further if the PPP projects planned for the year would be bid out.”
No gag orderIn a dialogue with reporters after a July 26 press conference, Purisima denied that he meant to gag Finance officials.“It’s not a gag order,” he said.He said the memo was issued merely to make sure that the DOF official being interviewed by the press knows what he or she is talking about.He also said the order was necessary so that Finance officials who talk to the press do not discuss policy matters outside their areas.“You have to have some discipline,” he said, referring to officials who discuss with Finance reporters issues outside their expertise.However, what Purisima failed to note was that the discussions on the PPP including its contributions to the economy are not outside the scope of the Finance department.In fact, in November 2010, it was Purisima himself, together with other government economic managers, who led the launch of the PPP program in a two-day conference at the posh Marriot Hotel in Pasay.At the time, Purisima hailed the event as a success, saying that a lot of investors had already expressed interest in the various projects in the pipeline.“We’re very excited. There has been a lot of firm interest among investors,” Purisima said then.In fact, he also announced that year that the PPP Program can be implemented in about a year’s time or within 2011.However, until today, only one of the 10 originally proposed projects have been bid out. The rest are still awaiting approval.The sole PPP project awarded was the P1.956-billion Daang Hari-South Luzon Expressway Road Project. This was awarded to the Ayala Corporation.The FOI billPurisima’s memorandum order comes at a time when the Aquino administration has been criticized for its failure to prioritize the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill.President Benigno Aquino III, who delivered his third State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 23, was widely criticized for not even mentioning the bill.It cannot be denied that as head of the government’s economic team, Purisima reflects the Aquino administration’s attitude to media access to information and to dealing with the press in general.On July 26, National Union of Journalists of the Philippines chairman Nestor Burgos Jr. said that without the passage of the measure, the Aquino administration’s supposed advocacy for transparency and accountability would not be comprehensive and sufficient.The bill seeks to allow citizens to access to information including government documents upon formal request.President Aquino himself promised to press for the enactment of the FOI bill, saying that this was a strategic pillar of his “daang matuwid” platform of good governance and accountability.But Purisima’s policy is clearly the opposite of transparency and accountability.Indeed, the irony is stark and telling. If the chief economic manager’s move is an indication of what’s in store for the press under this administration, it’s likely that there won’t be an FOI Law during its watch.No gag order
In a dialogue with reporters after a July 26 press conference, Purisima denied that he meant to gag Finance officials.
“It’s not a gag order,” he said.
He said the memo was issued merely to make sure that the DOF official being interviewed by the press knows what he or she is talking about.
He also said the order was necessary so that Finance officials who talk to the press do not discuss policy matters outside their areas.
“You have to have some discipline,” he said, referring to officials who discuss with Finance reporters issues outside their expertise.
However, what Purisima failed to note was that the discussions on the PPP including its contributions to the economy are not outside the scope of the Finance department.
In fact, in November 2010, it was Purisima himself, together with other government economic managers, who led the launch of the PPP program in a two-day conference at the posh Marriot Hotel in Pasay.
At the time, Purisima hailed the event as a success, saying that a lot of investors had already expressed interest in the various projects in the pipeline.
“We’re very excited. There has been a lot of firm interest among investors,” Purisima said then.
In fact, he also announced that year that the PPP Program can be implemented in about a year’s time or within 2011.
However, until today, only one of the 10 originally proposed projects have been bid out. The rest are still awaiting approval.
The sole PPP project awarded was the P1.956-billion Daang Hari-South Luzon Expressway Road Project. This was awarded to the Ayala Corporation.
The FOI bill
Purisima’s memorandum order comes at a time when the Aquino administration has been criticized for its failure to prioritize the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill.
President Benigno Aquino III, who delivered his third State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 23, was widely criticized for not even mentioning the bill.
It cannot be denied that as head of the government’s economic team, Purisima reflects the Aquino administration’s attitude to media access to information and to dealing with the press in general.
On July 26, National Union of Journalists of the Philippines chairman Nestor Burgos Jr. said that without the passage of the measure, the Aquino administration’s supposed advocacy for transparency and accountability would not be comprehensive and sufficient.
The bill seeks to allow citizens to access to information including government documents upon formal request.
President Aquino himself promised to press for the enactment of the FOI bill, saying that this was a strategic pillar of his “daang matuwid” platform of good governance and accountability.
But Purisima’s policy is clearly the opposite of transparency and accountability.
Indeed, the irony is stark and telling. If the chief economic manager’s move is an indication of what’s in store for the press under this administration, it’s likely that there won’t be an FOI Law during its watch.OCTOBER was historic because of the signing of a peace pact between Muslim rebels and the government. It is hopefully, the end of an era of conflicts and lost lives.
We lost Tiong Ed in NOVEMBER, the same month three years ago when the country lost 53 people to a massacre that sees no justice still.
In the same month, I told the story of a man named Enrique Razon, a ports tycoon and every president's friend.
DECEMBER took us to a paradise called Cloud 9, a few hours in an 800-dollar-a-night villa, then to hell and back.
There it goes, a few days left before 2013. I look forward to another year of stories, found in different time zones, between the yellow sun, the dancing stars and the deep blue sea.
