Category Archive for: komentaryo

komentaryo

the dangers of fun

congratulations are in order: the DOT after all has triggered a meme of itsmorefuninthephilippines and its campaign has functioned exactly the way they imagined (with the help of a media enterprise now admitting its bias, yehey!) it is not without its critics, myself included, but i don’t mind letting it have a life all its own, commentary included about as much as unthinking celebration: if we can trip on the DPWHere, how can we not trip on this one?

which is not to agree that we should be blinded by all this fun. which is to hope that we all know — we all agree — that tourism in itself, as an industry is a sharp and double-edged sword. one only needs to look at Boracay and Tagaytay and find that foreign investment has meant congestion and pollution and the slow but sure killing off of local industry.

Poor entrepreneurs have generated their own capital over time, by starting small and reinvesting profits over several years. However, they may be squeezed out if outside investors drive rapid growth in the industry – as occurred at Boracay Island in the Philippines (Shah, 2000).

one only needs to walk through Makati Avenue on any evening, or Greenbelt 3 on a weekend to find that here are forms of tourism like we don’t want to talk about. go off to Angeles and find the industry of girlie bars that have been brought back to life by the middle-aged Caucasian man who has decided to disappear quietly in the Philippines upon retiring from wherever in the world he comes.

“The Department of Tourism is treading on dangerous waters. Marketing the Philippines as a destination for divorcees is practically synonymous to marketing the Philippines as a destination for sex tourists” (gabriela website, 2011)

The Philippines is one of the favored destinations of paedophile sex tourists from Europe and the United States. (“Global law to punish sex tourists sought by Britain and EU,” The Indian Express, 21 November 1997)

The tourism program of the government which aims to project the Philippines as a major tourist destination has increased the number of prostituted women. As more and more areas of the country are targeted for tourism, more and more women are driven to prostitution in desperation to ensure their family’s survival. (“Women Evaluate the State of the Nation,” GABRIELA, 24 July 1997)

these statements might be decades old, yes. that these resonate in the present? it is everything and telling of what any tourism program has to care about. it’s also to point to this fact: the reality has got to get better for the majority in this nation, so that they might know of those fun images, too. the goal has to be about making those witty taglines real for all of us.

because let us not even talk about tourism and this campaign, as if it is something that will save us from anything at all. know that this campaign in particular is replete with the limitations brought on by social class: more than who would even say “it’s more fun…” here, who exactly can afford to think about fun in this way? who has the wherewithal to be putting together memes, to have photographs of nation that are deemed worthy for being tagged “fun”?

know too that in the narratives of tourism across the world, it is the poor that suffers for it. they are the ones who lose access to their own resources, because they are not equipped to negotiate with the programs of tourism that exist.

there are many other examples where a few private entrepreneurs exclude local people in order to gain key assets, often through unauthorised land-grabbing. For example, Sabang is the gateway town for St Paul’s National Park in the Philippines, and 20–30 years ago contained much public land, almost all of which has now been privately exploited. The local authority lacks effective power to prevent breaches of planning regulations (Ashley, Boyd, Goodwin 2000).

know that “Tourism development has not <…> incorporated poverty elimination objectives. It remains driven by economic, environmental and/or cultural perspectives at national and international levels” (Ashely etal., 2000).

and in the philippines it is driven now by the notion of fun: which is always and only fleeting. which is only true for a few of us.

sources:
PRO-POOR TOURISM: PUTTING POVERTY AT THE HEART OF THE TOURISM AGENDA by Caroline Ashley, Charlotte Boyd and Harold Goodwin, Natural Resource Perspectives (journal), March 2000.
factbook on sexual global exploitation: philippines. http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/philippi.htm.
“Tourism Dept draws flak for divorcee tourism.” gabriela website. http://gabrielawomensparty.net/news/press-releases/tourism-department-draws-flak-divorcee-marketing.
“Tourism, the poor and other stakeholders: Asian experience” by Shah, K. (2000). ODI Fair-Trade in Tourism Paper. London: ODI.

komentaryo

yearenders and firestarters

because 2011 ended with some sadness, and the new year had me on a roll, which is to say it forced me to hit the ground running. one must be thankful.

the yearender for arts and theater and the one on popular culture were up before the end of 2011. though with the Metro Manila Filmfest happening at the end of the year, too, these could only be overshadowed by the notion of ending-with-a-bang and a foreboding of the year to come. the sadder thing might be that this has fueled discussions on Pinoy film from people who admit they haven’t watched it in a while. well what else is new with regards elitism in this country.

which is to segue too into the fact that i did see some of the MMFF films: the Asiong Salonga review and the My Househusband review are up, and i have two more to go. suffice it to say that as far as Asiong is concerned, what we might demand for at this point is a viewing of the director’s cut, if only so we can judge its creative team who were ignored / disrespected / dissed by the movie’s producers as they added removed scenes, changed music and/or sound, and messed with the editing of the film. that’s the work of director Tikoy Aguiluz, editor Miranda Medina, and musical score by Nonong Buencamino that we have yet to judge Asiong Salonga by. show us the director’s cut na!

in the meantime, the wish for 2012, has to be clarity and truthfulness and just our cards on the table. because it seems that between those faked-up magazine covers and press releases about objective journalism, between power-to-the-people rhetoric and the govt strategy of running a government campaign by not doing it themselves, 2012’s begun on very very rough ground.

<…> “good people do horrible things thinking they are doing something great,” Slavoj Zizek says, and yes he was talking about the violence of communism and stalinism, but in third world philippines, he could just be talking to you and me and our lack of a sense of the realities that define us. it could just be you and me refusing to get to the heart of any and all of this nation’s problems: a failure in the system that allows for the poor to get poorer and grow larger, and a minority to get richer. and i daresay, the middle class thinking they can save the world by working — admittedly or not — within the system the State has set up.

“The basic insight I see <with regards the Occupy Movement> is that clearly for the first time, the underlying perception is that there is a flaw in the system as such. It’s not just the question of making the system better.” — yes Zizek, not anymore.

we should all be reminded of this the rest of 2012.

quotes from Zizek via this Harper’s Magazine interview by J. Nicole Jones, November 2011.

komentaryo

on (the) line: credibility, the academe, journalism

truth to tell i didn’t care much about this “expose” of Marites Danguilan Vitug because it was a non-Corona non-issue to me. non-Corona, because exposing the lack of a dissertation, the number of years he took to finish the phd, his ineligibility for the honors he was given, point to the fact that this was always a UST issue. the basic question being: why make corona an exemption to university rules?

and i didn’t care for that question because i knew without a doubt that Corona’s phd could easily fall under the purvey of academic freedom and autonomy (as the UST statement has said) — within which of course patronage politics and favoritism and everything horrid you can imagine actually exist. that this was UST’s prerogative is truth. this doesn’t make this an easier truth to swallow.

but maybe we should swallow our egos and admit that as with every other institution in this country, the academe is not one that we must comfortably equate with “academic rigor” or “quality and calibre.” if you are realistic about the academe here, and truthful even to yourself if you’re a member of it, then you’d know that patronage and politics are the invisible hands that put and keep people in power there, and in fact this can get you everything from the good raket outside of the academe to the positions of power within it, or just an easier time at an MA and/or a PhD. what we should be looking at in fact, is output: how many of our degree holders are actually relevant to nation? how many of those dissertations will hold up to scrutiny?

and what did the UST faculty and panel think of corona’s scholarly treatise in place of the dissertation? baka naman brilliant at hindi lang natin alam. for all we know he deserved that phd, because too, UST touches on something crucial to the discourse of the university in this country. UST says that they

can grant academic degrees to individuals “whose relevant work experiences, professional achievements and stature, as well as high-level, nonformal and informal training are deemed equivalent to the academic requirements for such degrees.”

i haven’t heard of this kind of freedom from and within the two universities i’ve been part of as student and teacher. ang galing that UST can award Naty Crame Rogers a doctorate degree because certainly she and many other literary and cultural stalwarts deserve it. not that they need a phd to be productive, but truth to tell Corona didn’t need this either: a phd is not even a requirement for becoming supreme court justice. go figure.  

but Vitug insists questions are still unanswered:

“What UST is saying is that they can flout their own rules because they’re an ‘autonomous’ institution,” says Vitug. 

well, yes. wouldn’t any independent private institution defend itself based on those grounds?

“There is no quarrel with academic freedom. UST should be clear with its rules and state in what instances do they give exemptions. In the case of cj [Chief Justice Renato Corona], a lecture was enough (instead of a dissertation) and the 5-year residency requirement, to qualify for honors, was disregarded,” Vitug also says.

well, yes. and i say, if you demand that UST be clear about the rules it bends, then i demand it of all universities in the country. accountability for all (count the number of faculty members who will be given tenure if we were to be transparent about these rules!). which is still to say this: even the bending of rules based on whether a person deserves something, is totally within the university’s prerogative. again, non-corona, non-issue.

if i were the one who had blogged about this, i would’ve already backtracked and told my readers i had barked up the wrong corona tree, and missed the university prerogative point. but that’s me. and i’m no journalist.

which is really what this has become about, yes? beyond corona, it has become about that UST statement which raises questions about credibility and online journalism, ones that on Twitter and Facebook it seems people would rather dismiss as the questions of the ignorant. ah, but Shakespeare always said ignorance is bliss.

and it is with bliss that UST in fact dismisses Vitug as journalist, because they ask:

“Does <sic> anyone claiming to be an online journalist given the same attention as one coming from the mainstream press?” the statement said. “We understand that while Miss Vitug used to be a print journalist, she’s part of an online magazine, Newsbreak, which has reportedly been subsumed into ‘www.rappler.com.’ What’s that?

i’m sorry, but this was funny to me both on the level of UST’s dismissal but also on the level of  its utter refusal to acknowledge Vitug as a credible figure, period. because for UST where she writes is of utmost importance as they go on to ask:

“Is that a legitimate news organization? What individuals and entities fund Newsbreak and Rappler? Do these outfits have editors? Who challenged Miss Vitug’s article before it went online so as to establish its accuracy, objectivity and fairness? Why was there no prior disclosure made? What gate-keeping measures does online journalism practice?”

these are valid questions to ask, aren’t they? and certainly those behind Rappler cannot claim credibility — or demand we give them that — on the basis of who’s behind it and their years of experience. because if there’s anything we know about writing online, it’s that no matter your history of writing (Angela’s got a CV that will put into question countless credibilities online and beyond, excuse me), you’re only as good as that last piece, your mistakes are for the world to see, your ability at humility and apology crucial.

in this sense it is important that Rappler respond to these questions properly and accordingly, and not brush it off by invoking Vitug’s years as journalist or by saying that they are ” journalists <who> have worked for global news organizations and top Filipino news groups.” certainly if they take pride in being “online journalists” who “promise uncompromised journalism that inspires smart conversations and ignites a thirst for change” they must begin by answering questions on legitimacy and credibility, banking as they do on the names that are on their roster.

of course this will mean drawing lines between online journalism and non-journalism, news reporting and opinion, blogging and tumblelogging and tweeting, but this is a discussion worth having, now better than later, if only because that UST statement is a challenge to make those definitions clear.

if only because given such unquestioning love for the Vitugs and Ressas of this world, we now see revealed the bubble of friendship and camaraderie and mutual-admiration that uncritically exists online.

maybe we all only hate UST for daring to pop that bubble and reveal us for what we are: no better than the mainstream.

komentaryo

on self-help and the Pinay

or let’s begin 2012 by talking about oppression, shall we?

My issue with self-help books is that they are mostly American. And anyone who lives off of the Philippines’ contradictions and silences, crises and sadnesses would know that not much of American self-help applies to the every Pinay.

The 11 stupid things women do by Veronica Pulumbarit, based on the book by Dr. Laura Schlessinger Ten Stupid Things Women Do To Mess Up Their Lives among other sources, reeks of a universalizing and stereotyping of the woman that just fails to consider how differently women – and men – live in third world Philippines. Of course Dr. Schlessinger and every other self-help guru or magazine would have its own market in this impoverished nation, but that’s really the phenomenon of a first-world-pocket in the age of transnationalization, where social class differences are becoming more and more stark, and Pinays of a certain class can actually live believing in the ideologies of the first world.

But a majority of us live differently in a nation that’s more chaotic than we’d like to admit. And that whole list? Let me reconfigure it and tell the every Pinay how none of it is stupid, because much of it is totally different where we come from, maybe even totally right given where we stand and how we continue to be oppressed by stereotypes and archetypes that are everything and grounded in what’s here. In that sense those absolutes of self-help are also dangerous, because they make us imagine that being woman is the same across races and nations, and it universalizes womanhood in a way that keeps us exactly where we are, limiting the way we think, telling us to stick with the status quo. How does that even help the cause of liberating the Pinay from her contemporary shackles?

1. Having wrong ideas about courtship? Welcome to the Philippines, where good ol’ panliligaw is consistent – even when reconfigured – ritual, but which also allows kilig and magic to be had. It is kilig that carries us through the courtship, one that in these shores has its own set of rules and guidelines, its own steps towards the final decision to becoming an official couple. There is no “dating” so many men before deciding on one. In fact, where we come from the signals are clear: if we’re not interested in a guy, courtship doesn’t even happen. If I’m interested in you, then the ritual begins. There’s nothing desperate about it at all, and in fact it’s this time of kilig and ligaw that all the power is in the Pinay’s hands. And inappropriate men? Boo. Where we come from even a stretch of a courtship and seven years of a relationship can mean exactly that. Such is the nature of kilig that fizzles out. There’s no American self-help explanation for a word that doesn’t translate into English, yes?

2. Being excessively devoted to the wrong person. We are being told here that women stay with the wrong men because women have low self-esteem. Wrong. Where we come from, the Pinay enters a relationship and is in it for the long haul. We are taught to stay. Here the Pinay is still made to believe that she must marry her first love, here she is still told that going from one boyfriend to the next is bad form not to mention bad for her reputation, here she is still questioned for ending a relationship for no reason other than that “it didn’t feel right.” The Pinay stays not because she’s got low self-esteem, but because she’s got so much of it: she is taught that she can work on a relationship because she can work her man. And when she finally lets go of this man, it’s because the Pinay has gotten tired of devotion, and walking away then becomes her brightest most self-assured moment, too.

3. Being too passionate. Seriously? Seriously. Where we come from women lack precisely this passion because Pinays are also taught to rein it in, hold your horses, not for anything else other than a guilt trip, if not a promise about the fires of hell: the heavens don’t like loose women. It’s the same rationale that keeps us only as good as our virginities. It’s the same religious conservatism that has kept every other Pinay stupid about sex and her own body. I say go find some passion and light that little fire, practice safe sex and go for that one night. Sex in and by itself is always possibly enjoyable; sex without strings attached is infinitely liberating for the Pinay in the context of closet conservative pretentious liberated Philippines. You only know to rein yourself in, when you’re actually the one in control of you – heart / mind / body included.

4. Not realizing one’s worth. Dr. Laura says, “It is your job as a woman, as a person, to become as fully realized as you can by having dreams, forging a purpose, building an identity, having courage, and making commitments to things outside yourself.” Right. Try telling a working class underemployed call center agent that. Or the barista who’s saving up so she can leave the Philippines to become a blue collar worker elsewhere in the world. Or even just talking to a Pinay about “commitments outside of herself” when she’s got a family to fend for. Who’s got time for dreams in the third world, really? What we’re worth is really only equivalent to what we do – that’s not even about being Pinay as it is just about the limits of social class, plain and simple.

5. Not taking care of oneself. Not only is it not cheap to be healthy where we come from, it’s also a question of who’s got the time to think / cook / be healthy? Don’t talk to me about not eating canned goods and cheap fastfood meals, when that’s all a majority of us can afford, literally and figuratively.

6. Not being courageous. Eh? Dr. Laura says that women have a hard time “expressing healthy and righteous anger.” She obviously hasn’t seen our stereotype of the crazy woman kontrabida. Or just the bungangera palengkera. And every Pinay has it in her, every Pinay after all has got her taray to back her up. Taray is the response to the notion that we have yet to learn to speak our minds. In fact when the Pinay doesn’t speak her mind, she is being practical: after all, if you’re going to lose your job by being assertive, your first question has to be will it be worth it? And if not, then we’ve got our pamewang and taas-kilay to reveal our taray. And yes, there are no direct translations for all those words, again because the Pinay is not even imagined by those self-help books.

7. Being jealous and insecure. But what of just being selosa as a matter of intuition? What of pakiramdam ng babae – the woman’s intuition – as the premise of an inexplicable insecurity? Truth to tell the Pinay would gain much by listening precisely to the impulses that are about jealousy and insecurity, not just because sometimes these are revealed to be based on things that turn out to be valid, but also because it balances out our katarayan. My advice? know to draw the line between intuition and paranoia, and you’ve got a handle on jealousy and insecurity, too.

8. Being careless and immodest. Which Pinay is unaware of “the danger of being sexually harassed when they dress immodestly”? Though the better question is, why would sexual harassment be blamed on the woman for wearing what she wants? This is exactly why we have not evolved in the direction of women’s liberation in this country. Because here we are being told that “When a woman dresses to fit into an evil and worldly society by choosing clothes that pleases the tastes of both men and women, she sins. When she dresses to entice or receive the admiring glances of the opposite sex, she defrauds and sins” (Pollard). And I can’t help but ask: in what century are we in exactly? And do we know that this is exactly the excuse men invoke when they harass and abuse women? That “She asked for it”? Que horror.

I’d tell the Pinay: wear what you want mindful of where you are going, who you will be with, and what you will be doing. Be responsible for your body, as you insist on your right to wear what you want, knowing full well that people’s reactions to how you look is a measure of who they are, not who you are.

9. Not being committed to a relationship. You’re telling the Pinay that? I’d tell you to see Number 2. In fact the Pinay is so made for commitment that I’d rather warn her about its by-product: the Pinay who’s got her wedding all mapped out after the good first date. Because much might be said about committing to a man, but even more might be said about knowing when to draw that line, between staying and leaving, between what’s in front of you and forever. The future is what keeps us working on something in the present yes, but the present is also a measure of whether we want to get to that future at all. There’s no point really in planning who the members of your entourage will be when all you’ve got in front of you is a man who’s only willing to spend today.

10. Being dishonest and unfaithful. Loyalty? Check! Devotion? Double check! We are told: “Whenever you are away from each other check in regularly to let them know you’re okay.” Again, you’re talking to the Pinay? We are the champions of clingy and togetherness, and if we were to decide we would be everywhere with our men. In fact the lesson for the Pinay should be about how to keep a life as an individual, separate from the man, without being paranoid about dishonesty and unfaithfulness. Also, there’s the even more important lesson: much might be said about honesty, but there are some questions that need not be asked, answers that we’d rather not hear. The Pinay is obsessed with knowing everything about her man, and sometimes we fuel precisely the dishonesty because we also demand a set of answers they cannot give. In truth: there’s value in letting some things go, especially those things that aren’t about you at all.

11. Not being caring and compassionate. For the Pinay this is precisely the kind of stereotype that keeps them in roles that are oppressive, that renders them immobile to some extent, that makes them think less than they actually are. Being caring and compassionate is our default, this is the way we are brought up, the only way we know to deal with the world. And this is what keeps us in the box labeled submissive / ideal / wife / mother. This is what makes it seem right that we should go beyond ourselves, and sometimes forget ourselves altogether. I say let’s learn to balance caring and compassion with the katarayan that’s in our lineage as women; let’s balance that with caring and compassion for ourselves first. Much might be said about selfishness when you’re a Pinay who’s brought up with an unflinching unthinking selflessness.

Looking at this list, it is clear to me that all those things that were deemed stupid, all those things that we were being told not to be, not to do, all those things don’t apply to the Pinay in this context. When you live and breathe this culture that contradicts itself with regards how to love and treat and trust its women, American self-help of any kind cannot help us any. To impose those rules on the Pinay might be the most tragic thing to happen to our struggle, not just for identity, but for our right to our own bodies.

Of course this anti-self-help-list, in its mere existence is a set of absolutes, too. But I’d like to think that these are only as absolute as they remain open to debate and discussion, as these remain to be practiced where we come from. I’d like to think that because we have yet to even imagine ourselves liberated and free, that we’re still working on lists such as this, versus seeing it as a set of rules. More than anything I’d like to imagine that this is a more truthful, because more particular, assessment of the things the Pinay should learn to do.

Those stupid things women do? We’re already bigger and brighter than all of that.

komentaryo

on volunteerism, and the disaster of a government

the cultural discourse on bayanihan and the Filipino’s propensity for kindness and reaching out has undoubtedly changed since the disaster that was Ondoy in 2009. then, relief efforts were galvanized online, like a grand display of how we could all be heroes, how we could help in our own ways, with narratives on heroism cutting across artistas going on their boats and surfboards to help out those stranded on the rooftops of their homes, with the nameless | faceless pinoys all over the world who opened up their homes to donations and spent time packing these for sending to affected areas.

this story was no surprise then, as it is no surprise now, two years after, with the disaster called Sendong. and it doesn’t surprise me either, the questions now being asked of volunteerism and helping out, of the bayanihan that happens online. in fact it is infinitely interesting that these questions are being asked now, because it means we are becoming more and more critical even of ourselves, and the role we play in light of government’s functions and dysfunctions, all the more highlighted in times of tragedy.

on twitter, @complainerchua raised valid points about the use of such a public space to raise funds to be donated to Sendong relief efforts:

complainer1
complainer1

@complainerchua was referring to @franky who was selling his samsung tab to the highest bidder with the promise of giving all the money earned to @gangbadoy’s Rock Ed. @complainerchua then asks: why make this so public? why display the amount of a donation?

the answer of course seems simple: on twitter and in light of the tragedy, people might be willing to shell out a little bit more than the actual amount for the gadget. in as much as it might be seen as a display of how much @franky was donating, it could also be a display of how much people were willing to help.

which might be said of Rock Ed via @gangbadoy as well. on the one hand it might seem like an overload of calls / demands / pleas for every kind of aid that’s needed for Sendong victims. at the same time, it’s entirely possible that companies like So-en and Avon, EQ diapers, LBC, Cebu Pac and PAL would be less, uh, helpful (?) were they not being called upon / mentioned / thanked via social media. it’s not to say that they might not help otherwise, but we can’t know that for sure anymore.

what i’m sure of is the fact that for whatever complaints we might have about the volunteerism that Rock Ed stands for, it has proven itself as a credible NGO through which funds and donations might be generated and can pass through, from donor to beneficiaries. and any organization, non-government and otherwise, would know that credibility is hard to come by in these shores.

but here is the crux of the matter: how can an NGO be more credible than government? how can we trust it more in a time of crisis?

elsewhere in the world private and non-government relief efforts is about helping people in need. when someone like Oprah or Ellen, when Rachael Ray, take on causes, they are doing so to help a particular sector of people; when a huge television special is put together to raise funds, it’s very clear that it’s about helping the victims of one tragedy or other. but here where we come from the line between helping people and helping government is not clearly drawn.

not surprisingly, it’s a line that government itself would rather not draw. because then it allows a president like PNoy to not speak at all in the aftermath of tragedy. it allows him to think that it’s ok to stay silent for four days because yes, his people are doing their jobs, but also because look at the Filipinos! coming together to help CDO and Iligan! because without drawing that line, PNoy can come out and talk about the Filipino as hero, he can talk about falling 10 times and getting up 11 times (paano ‘yon exactly?), he can talk about lending a helping hand, and he can take credit for a nation’s middle and upper classes that rise to the occasion of tragedy, that will do what it can, given its limited resources.

it is because that line isn’t drawn that Rock Ed is being questioned now, on twitter and elsewhere, for the volunteerism that it banks on and celebrates. it is in the blurring of that line that someone like Illac Diaz can shoot from the hip and question rock concerts as fund raising activities. the critical stance is valid of course, but its premises need to be questioned, too. it should be clear to everyone after all, that the demand for a long-term solution is extraneous to the function of an NGO, the insistence on systemic change is different from the demand for volunteerism in a time of crisis — or at any other time for that matter.

and so in the same way that it was counterproductive of Mar Roxas’ DOTC to just set aside the volunteer work that the Cobonpue-Layug-Pineda team put together for the National Competitiveness Council’s NAIA 1 project, it is unfair (and yes, counterproductive) to be hitting Rock Ed and other NGOs for what they do in a time of crisis. this is valid work that volunteers put in, it is work that surely some other NGO would take on if Rock Ed weren’t around, albeit with less organization and probably a less functional network of donors / donations / volunteers.

which is not to say NGOs like Rock Ed should be saved from criticism at all. in fact they should precisely receive a fair amount of criticism because of how they function in light of government, and how they can be and are used by the latter in rhetoric and discourses on how things are ok, when things are farthest from being so.

in that sense we need to make clear, that whether we volunteer as individuals or within organizations, the work we do will not save the world, nor is this work that should even be here were government functioning properly and correctly. volunteerism, in a time of crisis and beyond, is always a stop-gap operation, always a short-term solution, always always a band-aid for the shallow wounds.

the deeper, more painful, more dangerous wounds, those are for organizations that fight and struggle for a change in the systems that are dysfunctional and corrupt and oppressive, the systems that allow for legal and illegal logging to continue, the systems that let more than a thousand people die in a flood. NGOs are in a box of a cause, or a time of need, or sectoral change at most. its refusal to negotiate on the level of systemic change is its own limitation. that the latter is also what makes NGOs a welcome friend to a disaster of a PNoy government, is no surprise.