Mentoring the Mentors Program

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

My article “Fomenting a Revolution in the Classroom” (Sunday Inquirer Magazine, June 12, 2011), which was on the Mentoring the Mentors Program (MMP) generated concrete and surprising responses.

MMP executive director Chinit D. Rufino got a lot of phone calls and e-mails. Good thing I included MMP’s contact numbers in the article, because if I didn’t I would not hear the end of it and I’d have had to keep forwarding messages to MMP. There were those who wanted to send donations so that more school administrators and teachers could experience the program, some wanted to volunteer their services (they have to go through training first), others wanted seminars for their schools – “ASAP, please.”

So here I am writing again about the program in this space so that more people would know about it and get interested. This is a much shorter version without photos. For the full version, read the magazine online at www.inquirer.net.

MMP is taking the countryside by storm, but quietly. By storm, because it has unleashed so much energy and fire from both the catalysts and the catalyzed, the mentors and the mentees. Quietly, because those involved do their work without fanfare.

But the time comes when the light should no longer remain hidden under a bushel. To use another biblical imperative, they should get out there and shout from the rooftops.

MMP had low-key beginnings. It had a most unlikely main instigator in the person of journalist-publisher Eugenia “Eggie” D. Apostol, founding chairperson of the Philippine Daily Inquirer (1985) and the Foundation for Worldwide People Power (FWWPP). Apostol has a string of national and international awards for her daring in the field of journalism, especially during the dark days of the Marcos dictatorship. She was not a school teacher. But something so possessed her to go beyond journalism and get her feet wet in education. FWWPP embarked on a movement called Education Revolution which included an adopt-a-school and mentoring the mentors programs.

Adopt-a-school was an idea whose time had come and was promptly adopted by civil society, business and the government. But MMP also took on a life of its own and gave its initiators great surprises in the way principals and teachers took to it like ducks to water. There was so much thirst to be quenched and a watershed moment had come.

MMP is a program meant to further develop teachers’ skills in mentoring their students, open their hearts and broaden their perspectives. Its main targets are the public school system and teacher education institutes (TEI). It mentors teachers on the “new” teaching methodologies so that both teachers and students become not only learned individuals but also agents of change.

Education for social transformation is the ultimate goal of mentoring, so at the center of MMP’s work is to help people learn more effectively and “helping people to become the person they want to be.”

MMP is a mobile program designed to meet the participants in their own localities. Sessions are limited to 50 to 65 persons to ensure quality and personalized mentoring.

The topics in the mentoring program: Kambio sa pananaw from akin to atin (paradigm shift); principles and practices in mentoring; character formation; leadership for service; building win-win relationships and the art of loving; active teaching-learning strategies and designing effective instruction/understanding by design.

Rufino has had years of experience in values formation at the Marie Eugenie Institute in Assumption College. She was among the first persons who brainstormed with Apostol.

Snared into the “revolution” were my close friends, Drs. Evelyn Mejillano and Celia Adriano, education professors from the University of the Philippines. Mejillano became MMP’s national coordinator and trainor, while Adriano, whose expertise is instructional design and methodology, was trainor. Lirio Mapa of the Franklin Covey System also joined the team.

Today, seven years later, the MMP veterans look back on their trailblazing efforts: 6,450 principals and teachers mentored in 30 cities. Their cups overflow because of the profuse expressions of gratitude, the clamor for follow-ups and seeing change in teaching and learning.

An MMP seminar begins with a lot of heart-opening, soul-searching and hand-holding (the art of loving, leadership, character formation, win-win relationships), then segues into the innovative and effective ways of teaching, many of which were not taught in TEIs. Active teaching and learning are not merely lectured about, they are experienced.

Seasoned teachers’ teachers Mejillano and Adriano did not invent these new ways. Scientific research in education, they stress, have shown how effective learning takes place and that some old methods must go. Teaching may be one of the oldest professions but it does not mean that methods should remain Jurassic.

Adriano has rendered the old, wordy lesson plans obsolete and shows teachers how to make more focused, workable ones. Creativity is key and teachers must use new ways to make learning enjoyable and unforgettable.

Dr. Esther V. Tabaniag, principal of Tongantongan Elementary School in Valencia City, said: “MMP was different from what I had attended in the past because it made learning go beyond the exercise of imparting and acquiring knowledge. It emphasized that teaching children and developing their intelligences and skills should include a strong sense of community responsibility and moral values.”

Might your school need an MMP seminar? Be aware that superintendents have a budget for teacher training while mayors have a budget from their local school boards. MMP could also find sponsors for the financially challenged. Contact MMP at Tel. Nos. 8693292, 8938588 and mentoringthementors@gmail.com.

Send feedback to cerespd@gmail.com or www.ceresdoyo.com

Journalism as if Earth mattered

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo
 

I can’t resist this one, so let me say something about the matter before I proceed to the intended subject of today’s column.

When another round of fishkill occurred in Taal Lake a few days ago, was it a fisheries official who said that it was not a fishkill but “fish mortality”? A grouchy copy editor would have red-penciled it were it not a direct quote, an example of jargon, euphemism, even obfuscation, that could be a story in itself.

In a how-to-write monograph that I often use when speaking about writing, veteran editor Edward T. Thomson, presents basic guidelines. One of them is “avoid jargon.” He advises: “Don’t use words, expressions, phrases known only to people with specific knowledge or interests. Example: a scientist, using scientific jargon, wrote, ‘The biota exhibited a 100 percent mortality response.’ He could have written: ‘All the fish died.’”

Another advice: Choose short words instead of long ones. “Kill” is four letters while “mortality” is…

In his “How to write with style,” best-selling novelist Kurt Vonnegut points out that the longest word in Hamlet’s “to be or not to be?” (by Shakespeare) is three letters. Imagine Hamlet saying instead: “Should I act upon the urgings that I feel, or remain passive and thus cease to exist?”

Vonnegut adds: “James Joyce, when he was frisky, could put together a sentence as intricate and as glittering as a necklace for Cleopatra, but my favorite sentence in his short story ‘Eveline’ is this one: ‘She was tired.’ At that point in the story, no other words could break the heart of a reader as those three words do.”

And so, with hearts breaking, let us say, “All the fish died.”

“Fish mortality” isn’t exactly scientific jargon, but I can’t see how different it is from a fishkill, unless it is explained why. I think the explanation given was that the recent fishkill was not so bad when compared with the previous one.

It’s still a fishkill if you ask me, (“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” Shakespeare said) and this recent one, any way you call it, stank just as bad. Blame overstocking in fish cages, overfeeding to hasten growth and greed for profit. It’s hitting not only Taal Lake, (home of the indigenous tawilis and to-die-for maliputo), but also Pangasinan and, recently, La Union.

Now, to get back to what I was writing before I got interrupted by “fish mortality.”

How can journalists cover stories on environment and development, on poverty and injustice, with professionalism, depth and authority? How can they relay the stories in a most effective, convincing, life-changing way? How deeply and passionately involved should they be in the events and issues they cover? Should they remain mere recorders and blow-by-blow storytellers?

Get hold of “Dateline Earth: Journalism as if the Planet Mattered” (2nd edition, 2010, Inter Press Service Asia-Pacific) by Kunda Dixit, an exciting must-read not only for career journalists but also for other carriers of news and information. It’s also for those who use news and information as they carry out their mission or vocation here on Planet Earth. For the so-called “citizen journalists,” too, who emerge from the woods with sometimes stunning reports.

My copy arrived during the fishkill and the flooding that swept away lives, livelihood, homes and people’s dreams. (Thanks to IPS Asia-Pacific director Johanna Son.)

A Nepalese, Dixit was stationed in the Philippines as IPS head for many years. He finished journalism in Columbia University. His book is not a crash course on environmental journalism as the title might suggest. It covers a lot more. The reference to Earth could be the author’s way of stressing how everything on our planet home is interconnected in small and big ways and in a fast way.

Dixit notes how the speed and ease of communications has improved, but the content has not changed. There are many stories still dying to be told. “This book is inspired by the ghosts of those untold stories.”

Television, radio and newspapers now have less time and space for serious analysis, Dixit laments. “What passes for ‘alternative’ is often mediocre journalism. If the cause is great enough, it seems, you don’t really have to be professional, or strive for credibility.”

But there is a way to do both, Dixit says. “Be committed and passionate while still upholding the accepted core values of journalism. In fact, being deeply involved in a story about the global environment crisis or the social injustices that keep people poor, actually helps enhance a reporter’s credibility and professionalism. Being outraged by war crimes is a good sign, it means a journalist still has some feelings for what is right.”

Dixit shows how journalists can and should be more attached to the story on conflict, environment, development, poverty deprivation or disasters.

Ask me. Total objectivity is a myth. Balanced and fair – would be more like it.

Dixit’s book provides real-life events that the media have covered, bungled or effectively reported. In the chapter “Mass Media and Mass Ignorance,” he cites the thousands of cotton farmers in India who committed suicide because of falling prices and indebtedness. “But each suicide is covered as an event by the reporter in the crime beat, and not investigated as a trend… How deep are journalists willing, or allowed, to dig for context?”

Dixit reminds: “Journalists should strive to cover deprivation and the causes of social injustice, not just their effects. It means each of us having a conscience and using it: by striving to be fair in an unfair world.”

There’s much more in “Dateline Earth” than could be taken up here. The title of Dixit’s last chapter asks: “Who, What, When, Where, Now What?” Read the book and find answers.

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Tags: Book , Earth , environment , Fishkill , Journalism , Kunda Dixit , Taal Lake , “Dateline Earth: Journalism as if the Planet Mattered”

                                   (First stanza of Rizal's "Mi ultimo adios" written before his execution on Dec. 30, 1896.)

Today, June 19,  is the 150th birth anniversary of our national hero, Dr. Jose P. Rizal. May his life and death continue to inspire our generation and generations to come. He is truly "The First Filipino".

Yamot Aetas and Mt. PInatubo 20 years ago

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

“BINULSA KO na lang ang aking kalungkutan (I put my sorrow in my pocket).” —Paylot, an Aeta leader.

Here are excerpts from the feature article I wrote shortly after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption that went on for days in June 1991. I had gone to Zambales when the volcano was still spewing ashes and tracked down the Aetas and the Franciscan nuns whose idyllic community in Yamot on the volcano’s slopes was buried in ash and was no more. Nine years earlier in 1982, I spent time there and wrote a magazine article on the experience.

It was the Aetas of Yamot and the nuns who first alerted Phivolcs about the volcanic rumblings. I remember Sr. Emma Fondevilla, FMM, a scientist who lived among the Aetas, rushing to my house to show me the information. It was the Inquirer that first came out with her story. At first the Aetas were not taken seriously because the volcano was believed to be dormant. (Sr. Emma is now the provincial superior of the FMM in the Philippines.)

Then Mt. Pinatubo sprang to life in 1991 and gave the world an astounding pyroclastic show that darkened portions of planet Earth and caused some climate change. The Aetas of Yamot would later publish a coffeetable book “Eruption and Exodus” for which I wrote the foreword.

Today I remember with fondness the late Sr. Carmen “Menggay” Balazo, FMM who spent many years of her life organizing the Aetas so that they would become self-reliant communities. After many years and the Aetas had come into their own through Lakas (Lubos na Alyansa ng mga Katutubong Ayta ng Sambales), the Franciscan nuns moved on, confident that the Aetas would continue what they had begun.

The complete article “Somewhere, a Buried Village will Rise Again,” came out in the Sunday Inquirer Magazine on July 7, 1991.

                                                                 * * *

They weep not, for the village is not dead and buried. It lives in the villagers. Wherever the people go, the village will be transplanted. This is what this group of Aetas believes, this is what they hope to happen. Yamot, their home, is gone, buried in ash by a thundering volcano, but it will rise again somewhere.

On the day of the deadliest eruption, these Aetas were camped on a hilly place called Tomangan when suddenly the heavens heaved and darkened and then rained grayish mud and solid particles. The signal flags were raised and the bullhorns were sounded. It was an awesome sight. A stream of humanity shrouded in grey descending and fleeing for their lives. Somewhere a bus was waiting for them. Theirs was perhaps the most organized evacuation plan carried out during the dark hours. This group of Aetas was different.

Earlier, when Pinatubo became restless, the Aetas held study sessions on volcanoes. The people were shown pictures and video footage on how volcanoes behaved. The nuns invited resource persons from Phivolcs. Until that time the Aetas did not know much about eruptions. There were no oral accounts passed on by their ancestors. If there were, they must have been lost during those 600 years that the volcano was silent…

I tracked them down in Sta. Cruz town which was the sixth evacuation center the Aetas of Yamot stayed in. That time they were getting ready to move to Candelaria which they hoped would be the last…

Every time the Aetas moved, they took with them their meager belongings and farm animals. As early as April when Mt. Pinatubo started to grumble, they already headed for safer grounds. Still, they did not expect the volcano to bury their dreams so swiftly. Yamot, their village, was within five kilometers off the volcano.

They had evacuated to Tomangan when the deadly hour came without warning. They had no choice but to leave behind the work animals they had taken with them the past two months as they were preparing for the worst. They un-tethered the animals so that they could run for their lives but hoping that Aetas and animals would find each other again someday. “We know our animals,” says an Aeta leader. “We know how they look. I hope they are alive.”

The memory of that encounter with an angry volcano remains. Until that time, they had no idea how fierce a volcano could be, especially when it started raining solid particles “na parang buto ng sitaw” (the size of beans)…

The nuns are homeless, too. These past months of “organized wandering” they have been living in tents just like the Aetas. Like Ruth said to Naomi, “Wherever you go, I will go.”

The Aetas of Sitio Yamot in Poonbato (Botolan, Zambales) have come a long way. Ten years ago (1981) when the nuns came for the first time, many of the Aetas were afraid and diffident. But it didn’t take long for the Aetas to welcome them. The Aetas were impressed that these nuns lived simply in huts in their midst and did not attempt to Christianize them. The nuns taught them how to read and write and not be fooled by middlemen. They did not start off with ABC. It was L for “lota” or land and D for “damowag” or carabao. They learned how to compute how much they were cheated on their bananas by scheming traders…

In 1982 when I spent time there, the nuns had been in the area barely a year but already they had wrought changes in the Aetas’ lives. The key was organizing. Now 10 years later (1991), the Aetas of 12 sitios in that area have eight cooperatives. Most of the Aetas in the coops belong to Lakas. It was through Lakas that many of the Aetas found a voice.

Yamot slowly became a dream village. Then the eruption and the exodus.

“Nanay namin ang Pinatubo (Pinatubo is like our mother),” says Palawig Cabalic, Lakas secretary. There dwells the Divine, whom the Aetas call Apo Namalyari. There in the afterlife, they believe, there their souls will go….

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Tags: Aetas , Community , culture , Disaster , Eruption , Evacuation , Mt. Pinatubo , Religious orders , Volcano

Fomenting a revolution in the classroom

Sunday Inquirer Magazine/FEATURES/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

A text message from a teacher in Palawan who attended a three-day Mentoring the Mentors seminar/workshop reads, “Hi, Dr. Sol, Dr. Eve & Dr. Cel! Ds s Rhoda, one of the pax in MMP at PSU. Just wanna thank u all again for what we got out of d seminar. For one, a mentor lyk me whos considering quitting her job made a (180) degree turn around in a matter of 3 days…”

The program is taking the countryside by storm but in a quiet way. By storm –because Mentoring the Mentors has unleashed so much energy and fire from both catalysts and the catalyzed, the mentors and the mentees. The sessions are usually quiet, because those involved are observing in rapt attention what is taking place and are not inclined to make useless chatter. They have more important things to do.

But the time comes when the light should no longer remain hidden under a bushel and should instead be brought forth. To use another biblical imperative, they should get out there and shout from the rooftops.

The Mentoring the Mentors Program (MMP) had low-key beginnings. It had a most unlikely instigator in the person of journalist-publisher Eugenia “Eggie” D. Apostol, founding chair of the Philippine Daily Inquirer (1985) and the Foundation for Worldwide People Power (FWWPP). Apostol received the 2006 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Literature, Journalism and Creative Communication Arts plus several national and international awards for her work and daring in the field of journalism, especially during the dark days of the Marcos dictatorship.

Eggie was not a school teacher. But something possessed her to go beyond journalism and get her feet wet in education. And so FWWPP embarked on a movement called Education Revolution, which included the adopt-a-school and mentoring the mentors programs. A series of meetings, consultations and brainstorming sessions created interest and enthusiasm among individuals and groups.

Adopt-a-school was an idea whose time had come, and was promptly adopted by civil society, business and the government. But the Mentoring the Mentors Program also took on a life of its own and gave its initiators great, pleasant surprises in the way principals and teachers took to it like ducks to water. There was so much thirst to be quenched and a watershed moment had come.

What is MMP?

It is a program meant to further develop teachers’ skills in mentoring their students, open their hearts and broaden their perspectives. Its main targets are the public school system (teachers and principals) and teacher education institutes (TEI). It coaches mentors (teachers) on the “new” teaching methodologies so that both teachers and students become not only learned and capable individuals but agents of change.

Education for social transformation is the ultimate goal of mentoring, and so at the center of MMP’s work is enabling people to learn more effectively and “helping people to become the persons they want to be.”

MMP is a mobile program designed to meet the participants in their own localities. Sessions are limited to 50 to 65 persons to ensure quality and personalized mentoring.

MMP executive director Stella “Chinit” D. Rufino enumerates the topics in the mentoring program:

-Kambio sa pananaw [paradigm shift from "akin" (mine) to "atin" (ours)]

-Principles and practices in mentoring

-Character formation

-Leadership for service

-Building win-win relationships and the art of loving

-Active teaching-learning strategies

-Designing effective instruction/understanding by design

Rufino has had years of experience in values formation at the Marie Eugenie Institute based in Assumption College. Fired up with the idea of helping public school teachers, she was among the first persons who brainstormed with Apostol.

Snared into the “revolution” were Dr. Evelyn Mejillano and Dr. Celia Adriano, both education professors from the University of the Philippines. The then newly-retired Mejillano became MMP’s national coordinator and a trainor, while Adriano, whose expertise is instructional design and methodology, came on board as a trainor, spending weekends in places with unfamiliar names. Lirio Ongpin Mapa of the Franklin Covey System also joined the team.

Today, seven years later, the MMP veterans look back on their trailblazing efforts: 6,450 principals and teachers mentored in 30 cities all over the Philippines. Their cups overflow because of the profuse expressions of gratitude, the warm welcome when they go back for follow-ups, the clamor for more, and most of all, seeing change and results in teaching and learning.

Rey Amit, principal of Alanib Elementary School in Lantapan District in Bukidnon recalled his MMP experience: “I was so lucky to have gone through the active learning process. We used to think that there was only one way of teaching English, Math or Science. But with active learning, we realized there are new ways.”

He also learned how to improve relationships among teachers, shifting from the “akin” to “atin” mentality strongly stressed in the “kambio sa pananaw” (paradigm shift) exercises.

Dr. Esther V. Tabaniag, principal of Tongantongan Elementary School in Valencia City, reflected: “I thought MMP was just training. It was different from what I had attended because it made learning go beyond the exercise of imparting and acquiring knowledge. It called for teaching and learning with a heart. It emphasized that teaching children and developing their intelligences and skills should include a strong sense of community responsibility and moral values.”

While the MMP seminar may begin with a lot of heart opening, soul-searching, and hand holding (the art of loving, leadership, character formation, win-win relationships), it eventually segues into innovative and effective ways of teaching, many of which had not been taught in traditional institutions for teachers.

Active teaching and active learning are not merely subjects of lectures but are experiences teachers go through during the MMP seminar. This results in many “aha!” moments and unforgettables that the principals and teachers can’t wait to take home and share.

Seasoned teachers’ teachers Mejillano and Adriano did not invent these new ways. Scientific research in education, they stress, have shown how effective learning takes place and that some old methods should be changed. Teaching may be one of the oldest professions but it does not mean that methods should remain forever Jurassic.

For example, among the subjects of contention are lesson plans. Adriano has practically rendered the old wordy lesson plans obsolete and is teaching the teachers how to make more focused, workable ones. This results in more “aha!” moments. Creativity is key and teachers must not be afraid to use new ways to make learning enjoyable and unforgettable.

Here are some features of the MMP sessions:

-Participant-centered. Participants learn about themselves and develop personally and professionally.

-Activities are highly participatory and anticipatory.

-Activities are based on the latest brain research and studies on multiple intelligences and how these are applied to teaching strategies.

-Handouts are interactive and personalized to suit the participants’ needs.

“That is why we first get the principals,” Mejillano said. “If the principals are convinced, change takes place easily.” It goes without saying that among the MMP’s great assets are newly-retired school superintendents in the region, who have caught the fire and for whom there is no turning back as far as education revolution is concerned. As they say, teaching is for always. And so is learning.

The clamor for more MMP seminars is now greatly felt and MMP executive director Chinit Rufino and the MMP team see the need to multiply themselves. More trainors have to be trained. More funds are needed – it is plain to see.

The cost per session is about P150,000, inclusive of facilitators’ fees, handouts, transportation and board and lodging for facilitators, meals for 65 persons for the three-day session, rental of venue and equipment.

Superintendents have a budget for teacher training while mayors have a budget from their Local School Boards. They could provide MMP seminars for their teachers if they so wish. Fund-challenged but eager individuals can be served through the kindness of sponsors. But finding sponsors is another interesting story.

The quiet revolution that MMP began is now spreading inexorably. One has to experience it to believe it. Here are some words from the mentored mentors:

From Palawan State University: “These three days have been the most productive session in the university… They are excellent resource persons… We felt the tremendous surge of passion in your hearts. It is infectious!”

From Ormoc City: “I will implement the acquired knowledge by changing myself first in order to create the change in others. But this change must be rational and with a purpose. I was disappointed I was not aware of this earlier. I could have started a radical change for myself and my students, but I know it is not too late.”

From Iloilo: “We developed a passion for excellence among us teachers, which translated into a significant increase in our pupils’ performance in achievement tests: from 42nd place in the district achievement test, Bolilao Elem. School is now in the top 10.”

From Gingoog City: “Your sincerity to revolutionize Philippine education radiates with the untiring service you have rendered. Amazing! Thank you very much for reinvigorating my spirit, to be the best person/mentor I can be. Your inspiration touches my heart.”

Much has been achieved, but there is still so much to be done, the MMP team cannot stop saying. As they forge ahead, they take to heart and make alive the words of Mahatma Gandhi: “We must be the change we seek in the world.” •

Interested parties may contact the Mentoring the Mentors Program at 3F Marie Eugenie Institute, Mother Marie Building, Assumption College, Makati City. Tel. 8693292, 8938588 (fax), Email: mentoringthementors@gmail.com

Tags: classroom , Education , Eugenia “Eggie” Apostol , Mentoring the Mentors Program (MMP) , revolution , Stella “Chinit” D. Rufino

Maliputo, tawilis and poisoned waters

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

In this season of huge fishkills in Taal Lake in Batangas, and Bolinao and Anda in Pangasinan, we again confront the grim reality of food gone to waste and environmental devastation caused by human greed.

Bolinao was that brave little town that stood up to big foreign investors that planned to put up a cement plant and mine its limestone deposits in the mid-1990s. The project would have ruined a rich marine habitat and changed the town’s way of life. I went there and saw for myself why the people of Bolinao were jealously protecting the land and the sea. I wrote a three-part series on the raging issue. Cape Bolinao is a special place like no other, the reason why the UP Marine Research Institute is there.

Years later, beach resorts and fish pens would proliferate with little regulation, making the Bolinao landscape unsightly. The fishkills in the recent years proved that fish cage owners have continued to push the limits, breeding too much in too little space, dumping too much feed to hasten growth. All for profit. In the end, the greedy have everything to lose. But to the bottom they take with them the rest of the fishing industry, even the small fishers who subsist on their daily catch of fish that thrive happily in the open sea. Who wants to buy and eat fish—the cultured bangus especially—nowadays?

For a couple of decades now my diet has consisted mainly of fish and veggies. I take some meat and chicken only when I eat out, which is not often, or when there is not much to choose from on the buffet table. I was born in a historic coastal town in Iloilo where fresh fish was aplenty, and fish preserved in ice or ilado (from the Spanish word hielo or ice) was considered second class. I have tasted the best and the freshest the sea has to offer.

Massive fishkills are upon us now. Images of tons of bangus floating belly up and rotting away, coastal residents wearing masks and truckloads of dead fish being buried should haunt those who have caused this and give them nightmares. The Inquirer’s editorial two days ago, (“Cosmic justice,” 6/7/2011) said it fiercely. It was about insatiable greed, neglect, abuse and—at last—nature striking back in a most nauseating way.

Deserving immediate attention are the indigenous species in our rivers and lakes, the areas of the fishkill. These species could go extinct because of foreign species that take over their habitat. They are also threatened by the fishkill. Take the case of the tabios or sinarapan (the world’s smallest edible fish) of Lake Buhi in Camarines Sur, and the tawilis and maliputo of Taal Lake. They could go the way of the pre-historic acanthodians and placoderms if nothing is done to preserve them.

During a trip to Taal town (one of my favorite places in Batangas), one elder I met told me in jest that the easiest way to buy maliputo is to brandish a cuarenta y cinco (.45-caliber pistol). Maliputo is a prize catch because of its exquisite flavor and texture. I have tasted maliputo only twice in my life. To say it is delicious is an understatement. The lake water’s volcanic quality must have contributed to the fish’s flavor. Make mine grilled to perfection.

Tawilis (fresh water sardines not found anywhere in Asia) in Taal Lake aren’t as hard to come by as maliputo. Bottled tawilis in olive oil, done Spanish-sardines style, are now available in some delis. In Tagaytay City, you can buy from the Good Shepherd Convent store by the ridge where the view of Taal Lake and Volcano is most awesome. When you behold that scenery from there you wouldn’t suspect that there is a crisis in the lake below.

I did some research on the maliputo and was once again fascinated by the secrets of Taal lake. A good book on the lake is “The Mysteries of Taal: A Philippine volcano and lake, her sea life and lost towns” (Bookmark) by long-time Philippine resident, researcher, diver and award-winning writer Thomas R. Hargrove. (His book based on his ordeal as a kidnap victim of narco-guerrillas of Colombia became the basis of the movie “Proof of Life”.)

Chapter 7, “Sea snakes and sardines, sharks and sponges—the incredible marine life of Lake Taal,” is as mystifying as it is informative. “Lake Taal’s marine life draws me back, almost like those mysterious towns that sank so long ago. Her deep waters are classified as fresh today—but Taal protects life that Nature intended only for the sea.”

Marine biologists, geologists, archaeologists, historians and storytellers would find in the bosom of the lake treasure troves of information lost in time. But there is only so much that a wonder like Taal Lake and Volcano can take from marauding humans. When the tawilis and maliputo become very rare, we know something is going awry.

Maliputo, I learned from my readings, belongs to the caringidae family. Its scientific name is caranx ignobilis. It is said to be a variety of talakitok which thrives in the brackish water of river mouths and mangroves. Talakitok caught in the Pasipit River that leads to the lake is called maliputong labas (maliputo from outside).

It is said that the real maliputo is found in Taal Lake and is called maliputong loob (maliputo from inside). This is the variety that would call for a cuarenta y cinco.

I also read that an enterprising woman, an aquaculturist named Maria Theresa Mutia, has found a way of saving the maliputo from extinction. After a decade of research, she and her team succeeded in making the fish breed in captivity in Botong, a seaside barrio in Taal. It’s been decades since I visited Botong.

Words from Hargrove: “Lake Taal has her secrets and her underwater ghost towns—but she makes you earn the right to share them.”

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Tags: fish kill , Fishing industry , maliputo , rare fishes , sinarapan , Taal Lake , tabios , tawilis

Amnesty International at 50

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

ITS FAMILIAR logo shows a burning candle with a piece of barbed wire wound around it. This was a familiar image of hope during the terrifying days of martial rule (1972-1986) in the Philippines. It was a candle that braved the tempest and shone in the night. Today, it continues to be a source of strength and hope for many oppressed peoples all over the world.

Amnesty International (AI) turned 50 last May 28.

“Since the Amnesty International candle first shone a light on the world’s hellholes, there has been a human rights revolution,” said Salil Shetty, AI’s secretary general. “The call for freedom, justice and dignity has moved from the margins and is now a truly global demand.”

Yes, the world has changed dramatically in so many ways since AI’s founding, but not necessarily for the better. Nations have risen against nations, geographical boundaries have changed. Evil despots rose and fell. Many oppressed peoples and individuals fought, triumphed and broke free.

But the struggle for freedom continues in new landscapes and circumstances. Today, all over the world, many nations and peoples continue to live in terror and unfreedom. New tyrants have emerged, causing destruction and death, bringing untold pain to countless human beings. But there is a candle that continues to shine.

AI is marking its 50th anniversary with the launch of a Global Call to Action “designed to help tip the scales against repression and injustice” with events held in more than 60 countries in every region in the world. The anniversary, AI said, comes against the backdrop of a changing human rights landscape, as people across the Middle East and North Africa courageously confront oppression, tyranny and corruption—often in the face of bloodshed and state violence.

AI’s global call to action for human rights includes a digital “Earth Candle” online that would allow netizens and activists to have an overview of AI’s work worldwide and become a force for change. The catch phrase “Be one more, ask one more, act once more” urges one to move one other person to act for human rights and help create a groundswell.

AI’s Shetty said that activism is a powerful force for change, a shown by the brave protestors in the so-called “Arab Spring.”

AI began as an idea of ordinary people working together to defend human rights and gathered at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church in London. From that small group started by British lawyer Peter Benenson, AI has grown to more than three million members and supporters all over the world. AI’s presence is felt in more than 150 countries through its human rights work and campaigns to free prisoners of conscience.

The AI anniversary launch was marked by a global symbolic toast to freedom all over the world. This gesture, AI said, pays tribute to two Portuguese students imprisoned for raising their glasses to liberty, an injustice that so enraged Benenson that he launched AI on May 28, 1981.

AI, the world’s largest human rights organization, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977.

AI worked for the freedom (through letter-writing campaigns, documentation, visitations, etc.) of many Filipino political prisoners during the martial-law years and risked the wrath of the dictatorship. Dr. Aurora Parong, a former political prisoner and director of AI-Philippines, recalls: “Years before AI-Philippines was established in 1987, AI members from other countries visited jails and helped in the release of political prisoners. AI amplified the cries of victims of human rights abuse and helped Philippine groups in bringing these to the outside world.”

AI indeed helped in the growth of human rights consciousness and activism in the Philippines.

“Despite progress,” an AI statement said, “human rights violations are at the heart of key challenges facing the world today. Governments fail to uphold the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights and are even fueling violations. Almost two-thirds of humanity lacks access to justice.” Abuses are driving and deepening poverty, discrimination against women is rife, and in the last year alone, AI documented cases of torture and ill-treatment in at least 98 countries. AI recently launched its 2011 Annual Report on Human Rights.

This year, AI’s focuses on six areas: freedom of expression, abolition of the death penalty, reproductive rights for women and girls in Nicaragua, ensuring international justice in the Democratic Republic of Congo, corporate accountability in the Niger Delta, and ending injustice and oppression in the Middle East and North Africa.

Said Shetty: “We can offer something that the forces of repression can never contain or silence: people united in common action; the sharp and powerful rally of public opinion; the lighting of one candle at a time until millions of candles expose injustice, and create pressure for change.”

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This Friday, June 3, at 7 p.m., there will be “sacrificial dinner” at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani Memorial Grounds on Quezon Avenue corner Edsa in Quezon City. Dubbed “Pamana ng mga Bayani”, the dinner is part of Bantayog’s 25th anniversary activities.

Bantayog is calling on anti-Marcos activists/survivors to oppose a “hero’s burial” for the late dictator. They are urged to send in their “I was part of the anti-dictatorship struggle” stories that would create a true picture of that period in history that claimed the lives of countless Filipinos.

The dinner hopes to raise funds so that the legacy of heroism of those who fought and died for freedom may live on.

Dinner tickets are at P1,000. For inquiries call Dionie at 4348343 or 09213834988.

Send feedback to cerespd@gmail.com or www.ceresdoyo.com