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“Our life is a gift from God; what we do with our lives is our gift to God.”On Tuesday Mayor Sara Duterte conferred the Datu Bago Award on seven Dabawenyos for their exemplary contributions to Davao City. Given annually during the anniversary of the founding of the city, the Datu Bago Award is the highest award bestowed on Dabawenyos by the City government and is generally celebrated on March 16. For the first time its history, the mayor conferred the awards using a virtual platform after a year of deferment. I would like to congratulate all the Datu Bago Awardees of 2019, namely Tita A. Lacambra-Ayala; she was a multi-awarded poet, author, publisher, and visual artist. Andry K. Lim is an advocate of natural farming and sustainable agricultural and helped Davao adopt organic food production. Arturo M. Milan is a hardworking and trailblazing Davaoeño business leader with a compassionate heart. He credits God for those gifts and uses his vast network of human and material resources to serve the less fortunate in the community. Sir Milan is also connected to College Education Behind Bars (CEEB) and partners with the Davao Light and Power Company to conduct a Basic Electrical Skills Training (BEST) at CEEB. He also works with Davao City and NGOs on housing projects to help the poor. We are grateful to Sir Milan for all his good works. Posthumously, Renato B. Lumawag was recognized for his significant contribution in chronicling the history of Davao and Mindanao and in his photojournalism on its diverse communities and their people. Ruben G. Robillo is a stellar doctor with a special focus on serving indigenous children, those with special needs, and the elderly. Leoncio P. Villa-Abrille is a lawyer, recognized for his significant contribution to the city’s urban shelter program for informal settlers and for his humanitarian contributions to the city, including his championship of the YMCA for its youth leadership programs. Continue reading →

The world we live in is currently facing many challenges ranging from a pandemic, poverty, ignorance, and conflict to climate change, decreasing social solidarity, and globalized economies that are increasingly polarized by income, wealth, stabilization, and mass immigration. A scarcity of great leaders today has intensified the severity of world problems; therefore, we need a leader who is mentally sound, emotionally balanced, physically healthy, socially adjusted, and spiritually alive to deal with global issues. But it is sad to say, no such leader has emerged, so that we live in a world without strong leadership. Our world is in desperate need of principled, strong leaders who base every decision on their values. We have a world divided on many fronts but a paucity of leaders to handle them. Since the end of World War II, the US traditionally led the world, gaining first and foremost the description of “global leadership,” meaning that the United States tended to be the first or most important country for identifying or framing international issues, taking actions to address those issues, setting an example for other countries to follow, organizing and implementing multilateral efforts to address international issues, and enforcing international rules and normatives. But, today this is no longer true because America has lost its moral compass and no longer has the ability to uphold the American values, so that in the face of resistance, it counters with appeasement. For the four years of the Trump Presidency, America spent much of its energy on whether Russia meddled in the US elections, thereby promoting Russia and President Putin while denigrating America‘s leadership role in the world. The more the parties and the media talked about Russia‘s interference in the voting process, the more America lost its luster. Continue reading →

Constant change and disruption characterizes the twenty-first century. So much is changing so quickly in our culture. One of the things that is shifting dramatically is how deeply we seem to hate each other. Elections and the Coronavirus have made that trend worse. The world witnessed a wave of violent protests, ranging from Myanmar to the United States and from Hong Kong to France, Iraq, Africa, Libya, and Latin America, to name just a few. At the same time, many societies have faced challenges related to individuals and groups engaged in violent acts and other types of extremist activities. The most prominent examples include the increase of hate crimes against Asian–Americans over the last year that has focused attention on an ongoing prejudice against this group. Hate crimes against Asian-Americans have been skyrocketing in the United States since the Coronavirus pandemic. Stop AAPI Hate, a reporting center for such incidents in the US, estimates that more than 3800 anti-Asian bias incidents have occurred since last year when the pandemic began, and these incidents include everything from verbal harassment to physical attacks. The shootings at the three Atlanta area spas resulted in the deaths of eight people, six of whom were Asian women. Granted, spas tend to be staffed by workers from a few Asian countries, but these are just a few examples. Many on the left assign responsibility to Donald Trump‘s rhetoric about the Covid-19 crisis, which often blamed the Chinese government for the way it handled the virus. The other reason contributing to the prejudice against Asians may be the economic war going on between the U.S and China because this competition in general has cast Chinese, and other Asian-Americans by association, as potential enemies. Continue reading →

 Undoubtably, a global economic war is developing. It is a new kind of Cold War, although not one based on ideology such as past geopolitical tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States, But it is a war for international legitimacy, a struggle for hearts, minds, and money in a very large part of the globe that is not aligned with America or with NATO. The global balance of power is shifting, and for many countries, the smart money might be on China now. Countries in Asia, like the Philippines as well as others, are closely watching the rise of this international order, led by China. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi took his second trip to Middle East countries ; Turkey , Iran, the United Arab Emirates , Oman and Bahrain , right after the Alaska Summit which was held between China and the United States. Wang’s visit to the Middle East to promote the internationalization of the Chinese currency , and build a safe haven for U.S dollar depreciation. Last week, Iran and China signed a twenty-five year strategic cooperation agreement addressing economic issues arising during the U.S sanctions on Iran. However, the devil, as always, is in the details, and those details apparently remained to be sorted out in the form of specific contracts and plans for cooperation. But China is taking advantage of Iran’s sanction-ridden economy as the Iranian government fears its loss of sovereignty in the complex geopolitics of the Middle East. Continue reading →

While there has been a lot of media focus on school for the students around the globe for missing learning because of pandemic , there has been not much attention on further education learners missing out and particularly for the learners at the Jails/prisons in the Philippines . From K-12 to students enrolled in higher education, the pandemic has affective the way students are getting their education including the People deprived Liberty( PDL).Just like traditional Colleges, education programs for people inside Jail and DAPECOL have had to make some changes in the wake of the pandemic. Our team at the College Education Behind Bars programs inside Davao City Jail and DAPECOL  campus have been working around the clock preparing  paper based modules of learning which PDLs can then complete , College Education Behind Bars has transitioned to a correspondence course model until its safe return to in person learning but mean time to continue developing their skills and getting their education for when we all return to normal face to face education. While this ensures that PDLs are able to continue to access their learning, we know that nothing can substitute for face-to-face learning, which is designed to rehabilitate PDLs . Although we don't expect education to look the same as it did before the pandemic. However, we  don't want to return simply to business as usual. This is a potentially exciting opportunity to look at the more effective and varied ways of delivering education and other activities .This is particularly important since PDLs currently spend so much time in their cells. In March we were able to flip students at College Education Behind Bars inside the Davao city jail into model paper based learning. Continue reading →

The early February military coup in Myanmar is a clear sign that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members cannot stick to their principle of non-interference and avoid reputational damage at the same time, especially when Myanmar continues to be the major thorn in the side of the of the more than fifty-year old organization. There is no doubt that the military coup in the former Burma country will have an impact on ASEAN members and regional security, especially on its member states. The question is how can we expect ASEAN to respond to the recent Myanmar coup? With the arrest of Myanmar’s Ms. Suu Kyi, President Win Myint, and other leaders of the National League for Democracy (NLD) the members already have been divided about how to response to the takeover; Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia have expressed concern over the power seizure, calling for restraint and a peaceful resolution of the matter, while the Philippines and other members have maintained that the issue was strictly an internal affair. Nevertheless, on Twitter, foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin, Jr. blamed the Myanmar coup on Western institutions.” The last people I will listen to is a white face in this issue . I am really angry that they destroyed a great thing,” he said. Regardless of the member states responses, the coup d’etat has had consequences. The displacement of the thousands of Muslim Rohingyans fleeing from their homes in Myanmar has put ASEAN in a bad situation with world leaders, the United Nations, and rights groups, among other activitists, accusing it of lacking leadership and failing to generate an effective response to the matter. If ASEAN member states ignore the problem in Myanmar, it can worsen the Rohingya Muslims’ situation and cause more people to flee to other countries. Minorities’ problems, in particular the Rohingya Muslims, have not been resolved, and the country has also inherited problems that were not settled during the six-year de facto leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi, who had received the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize during her fifteen years of detention. Seen as a champion of human rights, she also failed to deal with the crisis of the Rohingya minority. Continue reading →

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) knows very well what the Chinese government is doing to Uyghur Muslims, but it does not seem to want to talk about this. Many Muslim countries are the biggest violators of human rights, but China is hiding the reality of its treatment internationally. For example, the leaders will routinely bring up the Palestinian issue, the Kashmir issue, and the Karabakh issue, but when it comes to the Uyghurs, they close their eyes and enforce China’s policy. This is clearly a double standard, but more troublesome, it is a shame.At the same time, many Muslims in general do not like America and consider America as the enemy of Islam, chanting “Death to America” and burning the American flag. But US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that China is committing ongoing “genocide” against the Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic and religious minority groups in the Xinjiang province, including the arbitrary imprisonment or other severe deprivation of the physical liberty of more than one million civilians, forced sterilization, torture of a large number of them, capricious detainment, forced labor, and the imposition of draconian restrictions on freedom of religion or belief, freedom of expression, and freedom of movement. The world is witnessing the Chinese government’s systematic attempt to destroy the Uyghurs. As a result, America imposed economic sanctions on senior officials of the Chinese Communist party in retaliation for the mistreatment of Uyghurs, which on the face of it should be a source of deep embarrassment for the Muslim leaders and even more for the one billion Muslims around the world. After all, the leading advocate of Muslim rights in China was the Trump administration, which Muslim countries such as Iran, considered an enemy of Islam, as mentioned above. The OIC consists of fifty-seven Muslim majority nations, frequently taking up cases in which it believes that Muslims are mistreated, criticizing Israel for its occupation of Palestinian territories, and, at Iran’s behest, speaking against the Israeli government. Continue reading →