nita herrera-umali berthelsen (1923-2014)

she was my mother‘s youngest sister, the writer i wanted to be like when i grew up.  sharing here an essay she wrote sometime around independence day the 4th of july 1946.  little more than four years later her eldest brother narciso, congressman of quezon province, was falsely accused of and jailed for murder and communist-coddling, this in the time of the huks and lansdale and magsaysay, in aid of increased military aid from america.  it was like tia nita had sadly seen into a troubled future a country still in the shadow of the stars and stripes.

JUST WHERE ARE WE?
Nita H. Umali

–And of course the proper answer, the one I should quite emphatically give myself, would be, “Why, stupid, it is almost dawn, the light is seeping in! A new day is being born. Why do you close your eyes to it? And why do you turn your back to the sun?” Maybe it is because I am nearsighted, physically and otherwise, and I am afraid of dazzling glares, and because emotionally I am not looking through rose-colored glasses.

This, of course, is striking a discordant note somewhere, and at such a time as this is very improper. I just hope that on the very day of July four the afternoon mist is here to make me realize that all are not sharp angles, except in my noonday imaginations.

Yes, freedom is here and hundreds of years ago they started to gather the bricks for the stronghold that we have today. Women in long, swishing skirts and upswept hair, going to Church in slipper-shod feet, whispering to God that their men should be saved. Mangled bodies and wet blood smelted and the foundation laid. Time went on, and the materials for building were not so dearly priced, until a few years ago, the iron yoke was laid on our backs. Once more, women, now in short skirts, their wooden shoes punctuating the hush in the chapel, asked from God. Not whispered prayers, but in silent supplication, because spoken words were so dangerous. Maimed limbs, numb minds, and closed mouths. The flame of the blood red sun trying to engulf them, and the blood of past ages and the present day flowing by their feet, urging them on, to fight for freedom, for the greater glory.

And now we shall get it. By a piece of paper, signed and sealed, everything will be different. Or will it? Will there be a change in us as we go to class, or walk the streets? Will our way of thinking, our mode of reasoning, alter? Will our country, with all its men and women, its strong-willed leaders, its weak officials, its priests, and lawyers and doctors, its teachers and bandits, its carefree youths and discontented peasants, its beggars and criminals, will she, the Philippines, with her tropic skies and lazy palms, that small group of islands, after long years of restfully reclining on the solid hunk that is America, will she learn to stand erect, unsupported, even on a pair of wobbly feet?

We have what we want, what every other dependent nation has long wanted — we have it in our hands; shall we let it slip away? Will the four freedoms that we have fought for, will it, be just a mockery to what we are? The present dust of Manila is in our eyes, and the dust of the world in our consciousness. The way is dim and shadowy, and though now and then there are erratic shafts of light, still the sudden brightness of tomorrow may blind us.

Faith, hope, and love, those age old standards, these are the sole supports we have, the beacons that are here to guide us, as we leave the protecting shadows of the stars and stripes, and venture forth into a new life that is but a continuity to the old.

the clipping is posted on her facebook page managed by daughter karen. https://www.facebook.com/nitaumaliberthelsen

China on the Edge

There is something very wrong in China at the moment. China, I believe, has just passed an inflection point. Until recently, everything was going its way. Now, however, it seems all its problems are catching up with the Chinese state at the same time.

The country has entered an especially troubling phase, and we have to be concerned that Beijing—out of fundamental weakness and not out of strength—will lash out and shake the world.  ~ Gordon G. Chang

When even the Chinese liberals keep silent

By Glenn David

MANILA: When a government is known to censor truth and suppress freedom of speech, why do its citizens easily take to the streets in protest against their Asian neighbors? The Chinese liberals and pro-democracy groups have kept their silence on China’s territorial encroachment in Asia long enough.

In an ethics symposium I attended in Washington, D.C. six years ago, the Tiananmen massacre of 1989 was discussed as an example of a government’s attempt to suppress democracy. A Chinese national reasoned that the People’s Republic’s military only responded in self-defense. He said doreign powers instigated and backed the revolution to destabilize the government. The death tolls were exaggerated and the government blameless. The participants which had representatives from at least 15 countries was in an uproar. Everyone knew that those students died for democracy and were silenced by the iron hand of Deng Xiaoping.

Even up to now, the Tiananmen massacre is banned from textbooks and the media, and is essentially removed from China’s history. Internet searches and social media discussions about the event from June 4, 1989 are blocked and policed by the government. Freedom fighters, democratic-leaning citizens and humanitarians use codes to mask messages over the Internet about this event, such as “65-1”, “63+1” and “May 35th.” Yet the voices of freedom from China’s pro-democracy citizens, particularly in Hong Kong, still find a way to commemorate the sacrifices of the students.

Historical revisionism and media content policing still continue in China and goes beyond its borders. With its economic and military supremacy in the Asian region, China has increasingly become more aggressive and less diplomatic in its dealings. China has actively sought to expand its territories both east and west of its borders. In the west, China mobilized its military in a territorial dispute with India’s Ladakh region. In the east, China has claimed the entire South China Sea and the islands in it as its own: territories previously enjoyed as Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

China has used its state media to justify its actions to its citizens. Private media channels, including the Internet, are still heavily regulated and censored by the Chinese government. The media has been used to discredit any diplomatic means employed by other countries to resolve territorial disputes. Last year, the Chinese state media published accusations against the Philippines of instigating the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) as accomplices in disputing China’s takeover of territories. It has condemned any arbitration at the United Nations and warned of a “counterstrike” – taken as a military warning.

It is therefore not surprising that there is misdirected anger, coupled with national pride, from the Chinese against their Asian neighbors. The media has been misused in history by many autocratic countries to misinform and cause dissent; this is true even in democratic ones. The Chinese government continues to be one of the worst offenders.

China uses its state media to deploy its “9-Dash Line” map that states, in all absurdity, that anything further than a stone’s throw away from the shores of Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines, belong to China. It has completely disregarded the 200-nautical mile EEZ provided by UNCLOS. Under this map, Chinese warships can dock visibly across the Philippine or Vietnamese shores and should not be taken as a threat!

Ironically, the same Chinese pro-democracy, humanitarians and freedom fighters have kept mum about these territorial issues. Even the liberal Chinese from Hong Kong have kept their silence on their government’s military conquest of the South China Sea. Perhaps because there is much to be had in the claim for the South China Sea: it contains 3% of the world’s known oil reserves and 8% of natural gas. Trade routes shared by Asian countries will be monopolized by China. The region is part of the famed Coral Triangle which has one of the richest coral life and marine stock.

The voice of democracy does not speak out only when individual freedoms are suppressed. It requires its citizens to speak out when others countries’ freedoms are threatened. There is no middle ground: defend the freedom encroached upon by your government within and outside your country; otherwise, it just becomes hypocritical.

Speak out when your government antagonizes the same Asian neighbors that have sympathized with your quest for freedom of speech and democracy. The same neighboring countries have welcomed your refugees and taken them as their own. To our Chinese brothers who have democracy on your lips, prove your resolve: it is time for your voices to be heard once again.

Can PH face up to the AEC challenge?

By Ernesto M. Pernia

A plethora of explanations has been advanced as to why the Philippines falls well behind the other four Asean originals (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia). These range from the protectionist policies for “infant industries,” political instability particularly in the 1980s that practically shooed Japanese FDIs (foreign direct investments) to our neighbors, weak governance and dysfunctional institutions, to poor infrastructure, rapid population growth, brain and skills drain from massive emigration, etc. While all these likely mattered one way or another, little is said about the underinvestment in education in general and in science and technology (S&T) in particular. Being a public good, education and S&T create positive externalities and, hence, tend to be privately underconsumed and undersupplied especially in terms of quality.

Read on…