I got a citation

Acceptance Speech for the Bayi Citation for the lifetime promotion and defense women’s and people’s rights, and vigilance for genuine democracy.

Sylvia Estrada-Claudio, MD, PhD

April 30, 2009



I am deeply grateful to the Barangay-Bayan Governance Consortium (BBGC) and the Institute of Politics and Governance (IPG) for this citation. I also wish to thank the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and One World Action for their support of the BBGC and the IPG in this and other endeavors.

It was difficult to think about and write my acceptance speech. I do not know how to say that I think my award is less about me and more about the people I work with, while at the same time say that I am honored to be a member of a select group of Bayi awardees whose individual achievements are impressive. I am feeling deeply validated and at the same time, feeling like a fraud for getting an award when I was simply doing my duty and having fun while I was at it.

Nonetheless, I believe that awards are given to call attention to persons and their work so that others may be inspired.

So let me try to raise the stakes by talking to you not just about the people I work with, but also about the happiness that comes with the work. In other words, working with the oppressed in poor communities is not just noble work, it is also as the young say, pretty cool.

Where I work, there are many people who do not ask for recognition for doing their duty to their community and country. They expect no praise for coming to work on time, treating the public with courtesy and accounting for every centavo that they spend. These things are not a big deal and we take them for granted.

In the organizations I work with, people earn enough to meet their family's basic needs because those of us who could earn more tend to share their salaries with those whose work is valued less. In other words, I have met so many people who understand that beyond a very minimal threshold, happiness does not increase in proportion to income.

In my work the poor among us have an equal voice. We think and laugh and sit together in long and short meetings hatching plans of affirmation and subversion. We are not unaware of the inequities between us, but we have forgiven each other for the moment while we are trying to end the problem.

In my world we refuse to be twisted and amputated to fit conceptions of what is good for women and girls. We allow our waistlines to expand as we please and raise or lower our hemlines with impunity. We also raise our eyes to look deeply into the eyes of our lovers, our children and our friends.

In my world women and girls are not ashamed to be smart. We study the world around us in order to change it and mold it closer to our visions. Medicine and math; cooking and contraceptives; disruption and democracy---all the things under the sun and beyond the sun are our areas of interest.

In my world we are rarely afraid when we are together. Together we have ended criminal control of water and electricity in poor communities, faced down abusive husbands and confronted our lack of self esteem and feelings of inadequacy.

In my world the pleasures of the body are welcomed with joy. We rejoice in our strength and revel in our sensuality. We eat and sleep without worry. We dance and sing with abandon. We make love or refuse to make love without guile or guilt. We also expect to bear just the number of children we choose. In other words, we are not afraid of our desires, our passions our loves and our choices.

In my world we demand that justice triumphs in our intimate relationships and that caring thrives in our working ones.

In my world the atheist lives happily with the believer because when we allow ourselves to think and feel deeply we realize that we cannot really tell who are the heretics and who are not. In my world, we refuse allegiance to religious authorities that give no value women's capacity to discern for themselves.

In my world, we stay in the Philippines because of the overwhelming poverty. We do so because in the face of iniquity, a simple act of decency is an act of heroism, a small act of compassion an act of renewal, and everyday we witness the tremendous productivity and creativity of the poor.

In my world we view call the for the universal enjoyment of human rights as a serious and achievable proposal.

And here is the really inspiring thing, this world really does exist. It has existed for a long, long time and will continue to do so. It exists as anything would—full of contradictions and human frailty. But it is there nonetheless. And it is neither small nor narrow nor exclusive. We must tell people about it lest the cynical, the overly-pragmatic and those who do not understand what they are missing succeed in hiding it from view.


Thank you, for this citation and the chance to tell you all about how lucky some of us are to be able to live our dreams now.

Coming Home Part 2

They put me on their blogroll these Filipino Free Thinkers---- deists, secular humanists, agnostics and atheists.

So now, I need to ensure that the blogpost you get when you click on the link at their website at http://filipinofreethinkers.org/, is about freethinking. My last one had nothing to do with my agnosticism.

So I might as well write up what I have been blabbing to all my friends about.

It all begins with a link my eldest son sent me. It leads to a site where I applied to join the egroup of the Filipino Freethinkers. I sign up after repeatedly having to edit my short description. I tried to put too many justifications because I thought they needed much convincing about: 1) my worthiness; 2) my not being a security threat.

I feel like a spy the first week or two after I am accepted into the egroup. I have been an agnostic all my life so I should feel right at home. But I am silent because for one thing, I noticed most of the group is young(er). It is also not a grassroots organization (yet). This is not a criticism as much as self-reflexivity about what my comfort zones are when it comes to issue-based groups.

But I am thrilled because: 1)FINALLY there is a group I can relate to; 2) I am learning a new method of organizing. I am as a happy as a vampire who as found her coven. I learn that there will be a first-ever forum. I wanna go, I wanna go. Should I? Shouldn't I?

Then, someone starts a thread about the reproductive health bill and I cannot help myself. I answer. For that, I get invited to do a 10 minute talk about practical freethinking in politics and particularly about the reproductive health bill. I cancel everything for that Saturday afternoon and commit to go.

I am like a kid in a candy shop with this group. When my turn to speak comes, I need to ask something I have been asking now for decades: "Are my sister and I the only two Filipinas who were born into a household where both parents were agnostic (or atheist)? Could we possibly be the only 2 who did not have a religious education with our baby bottle? Amazingly, a young man says he too is like us. More amazingly, instead of getting the awkward or curious responses---they clap! Here I do not have to explain myself or justify my upbringing or defend my parents.

I had learned not to bring my beliefs up because, growing up in the 60's and 70's, people reacted to me as if I was insulting their religion for not having one. I had learned to just be quiet when in government and other secular events I am not told there will be a mass before the actual forum or I am asked to "stand for an invocation". I have learned because no matter how hard I try to explain, seek a little sensitivity or have a civilized debate--I get nothing. At most I get, "its ok, its ecumenical." When I answer "but I don't pray. It is against my spirituality to pray," I get no further answers.

Those of us who have felt any form of marginalization on the basis of our sexual orientation, race, class, ethnicity, religion or disability, know what it is like to have to deal with repeated and unwitting slights. It wears you down. It does not help when those who are not discriminated against trivialize these things (e.g. "the invocation is only for 10 minutes"; "she did not mean to be insensitive"). Sometimes too, being misunderstood is not about day-to-day slights but major hurts. My mother-in-law, a truly wonderful Catholic woman of profound faith, died without learning about my agnosticism because I loved her too much to upset her.


So this group, just being there--I did not care if I was the older-one-flowing-over-at the-mouth. I was home again, in a group of 60 or so people I had just met.

What is more, I am happy with how these young people are using the internet to fight their struggles. I am elated to find people who are a natural constituency for the RH bill. I am thrilled at the thought that one does not have to come from my socialist background to care about the rights of people.I am over-the-moon at seeing their committment to reaching out to the marginalized. I am overjoyed that they are committed to a better country (and world).

I am also glad to meet such a bright set of people. No anti-intellectualism here--unleash your inner geek or nerd. And, despite my teasing at the forum, not all of us geeks or nerds are socially inept.

In my political circles and with my NGOs, I have long suggested that we start a "coalition against moral tyranny". No takers. Perhaps I was talking to the wrong set of people. Perhaps my words were too negative. Anyway, I think I will stop nagging now.

I have a new place to be when I want sanctuary from the mindless religiosity of the insensitive majority or the sanctimonious malice of the moral police.

A Bad End to a Good Start

Friends of mine who also work in the University of the Philippines (UP) and live near it (in fact they live on campus)tipped me off the other day to a breakfast place in the newly opened Ayala-UP technohub.

They know that my husband and I go out for Sunday breakfast to get away from the household and the kids so that we can actually have a conversation---even if the conversation is about who gets to call the plumber.

Flapjacks, a 24-hour breakfast restaurant, is a pleasant place. It's got this airy, open feel. The huge glass windows allow the sunlight in and the orange chairs and yellow walls keep things happy. As newcomers, we did not realize that it was a self-service restaurant, but the waitress gladly brought us menus, took our orders and even brought us the bill. She also suggested that we share my "endless cup of coffee" as it was obvious that I did not understand that to mean that a big insulated jug of coffee would be brought to our table. I have not seen eggs benedict on a breakfast menu for a long time, and I so had that. It was..eggs benedict. I don't think breakfasts need to be complicated in order to be good. So when I say, "ok", I mean it as an endorsement. Indeed the menu covers generally what I look for in a breakfast menu when I am not having my usual oatmeal--rice, tocino, tapa, longganisa, ham, bacon, eggs, bread and hotcakes.

I am excited too about the possibilities of this part of the technohub. Only a third of the establishments are open, and I am looking forward to the opening of more food outlets and a drugstore. I did not get to go to the bookstore, but I will next time.

Today was the kind of Sunday that convinced me that I am almost over the intense mothering years. My eldest son woke up at 2 pm---his usual; my middle child was off to a debate tournament; and my youngest did not get in until about 4 pm as he had slept over at a cousin's house.

We almost had dinner at home, except that Sundays have been family day since forever. So we decided to have a quick dinner out just to keep the habit going. Both my middle child and my youngest wanted to get home early though, to do some final bits of homework before knocking off. They were both exhausted.


We haul off to the technohub again. At night, the center court features a lighted set of fountains--pretty. We have come to expect some prettiness from Ayala developments. I might add that there is sufficient green in this large commercial/business area. I haven't seen it all though. I wonder whether old trees were cut as the only trees I saw were young ones.

Then the nightmare began. We decided to eat at the Old Spaghetti House. It took some time before they could clean the table we took over from people who had just left; some time before someone came to give us menus; and some time before we could place our orders. We were still good-humored at this point because it did look like a busy night. (My entire family suffers from liberal, middle class guilt. We are very rarely mean to waiters.) But it got worse and worse. We practically had to beg the waiters for water. The food came in dribbles. After repeated follow ups, my husband finally went over to the counter only to come back with our youngest son's food platter in hand. (I jokingly asked if he had volunteered his services out of love for his family.)My husband's order never came, even if it was the same order as that of our middle child, who had finished his food way beforehand. In exasperation we asked that all the rest of our orders (desserts and my husband's oh-so-absent meal) be canceled and we be given the bill. Guess what? The bill comes, after follow ups, only they were still charging us for everything.

So my husband gets up to talk to the manager (poor man was getting a work-out instead of a meal) and she turns out to be the owner who turns out to be unable to do anything about anything. It's a pity I did not know this, as I had earlier vetoed a suggestion that we just walk out because I was afraid that the waiters would have to pay for our bill out of their salaries. (It's that liberal middle-class guilt thing again.)

We ended up at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf beside the nightmare of an Old Spaghetti House. The sympathetic people there brought my husband a tuna sandwich real quick and some soothing tea for me. It was there when we realized that this was the first time ever that we walked out of a restaurant with one of us being unfed. The second worst experience was at the soft opening of another restaurant, but the manager was so apologetic he did not charge us and had us take home some cake. That made us less miserable.

We are home now and the kids are upset about having to sleep much later than expected because dinner took so long. As for me, I had hoped to go to bed early too, but I just needed to write this down.

Anyway folks, do the serving staff, the cook and the owner a favor and lessen the load on the Old Spaghetti House at the UP-Ayala technohub---avoid the place.

Greetings

I would like to greet my Christian friends a Marry Christmas and my non-Christian friends Happy Holidays.

I like Christmas carols actually, even if I am not a Christian. In the same way that I like religious classical music from Europe, Handel's Messiah, for example. In fact I listen to my copy of the Messiah during the Christmas season.

For me it's the traditional songs, Filipino and English, plus a few new good ones. "New" means to me something written in the 20th century. A choir please. I hate jazz, samba or stars-on-45 versions. The most contemporary I can get is Celtic Woman's Christmas album..released a few years ago. They're good, they sing mostly traditional English carols and I believe most of them are classically trained.

I have not blogged in ages. After my wild abandon of watching birds instead of working, I have had to learn more about not working because of a recent illness that has left me slightly disabled. I discovered during my first visit to the gym in months that my left triceps is now a "noceps" or maybe just a "slightceps". My rehab doctor and I will have a few moments of excitement when I see her in January.

In any case, like many others my illness has helped me realize that I must re-order my life around my essentials and that the world does not crumble when I do. So like December, I will chill...

Picture above shows me descended upon by my sons, several nieces and a nephew. Kids, you gotta love them.

Amorsolo and the Birds

It is late at night and I am exhausted. I really should get some sleep as I am facing another hell of a week in a series of hell weeks. Today, for the first time in a really, really long time, I have decided to fail an NGO I am working with by not submitting an article I promised to contribute.

I am in dangerous territory here. My over-developed superego is screaming: "there will be dire consequences for you and the entire international feminist movement!!!!!"

But this triumph over guilt and compulsion comes from something I did this afternoon. Something I promised I would write about instead of the TRULY IMPORTANT AND EARTHSHAKING 25 year anniversary of a global network on reproductive rights.

I went to the University of the Philippines Vargas Museum and enjoyed the exhibit of Amorsolo paintings. (See it, it's lovely and historical and has much more even for those who for some reason cannot enjoy Amorsolo's stupendous evocations of light.)

Then I went birdwatching. The lovely people at the Wild Bird Club of the Philippines(www.birdwatch.ph) gave us a free guided tour right on the UP Campus. According to their brochures, the Philippines has a 600 species and UP Campus has at least 100 of them.

It's funny that having grown up on the campus, and now ending up teaching there, I am only beginning to appreciate a whole other universe that has surrounded me for most of life.

I am afraid I cannot recall the names of the kites, the shrikes, the swallows, the woodpeckers and the doves that were pointed out. I can't recall which one was white-necked or yellow-bellied or long-tailed. I recall the white necked one was really beautifully colored and wondered why they would name it after the little swath of white on its neck. I recall seeing what is called in Tagalog a "batobato" which is the name of the street one corner down from where I live.

I made one of the guides laugh by calling a piece of birdwatching equipment, "that fancy thing".

But it was glorious. Having grown up on the campus I know how beautiful it is. Despite the encroachments of the city it remains a haven for nature and thereby, the birds.

UP campus at dusk is also my absolutely most wonderful place to be. As far back as I can remember I would take walks in the Campus at twilight.

All the birds I saw where sweet and seemingly non-aggressive creatures. Except that someone said that the bulbuls flew away because a kingfisher came. But it did not seem as if there was any harm done.

Anyway, I prefer to keep my fantasy of those sweet harmless birds. I have to deal with an an unethical woman in my work life these days, and I have much to do before I can stop working with her. So it was a treat to be away from the mud-slinging, innuendos and hypocrisy of pot-bellied, yellow-spined, chattering humans to watch those sweet, yellow-bellied, white-throated and long-tailed birds and hear their odes to nature.

I think I will buy me one of those fancy things and set it up in my UP office. My only real goal: to spot a yellow-bellied something or other for myself.

Hierarchies

My work involves a fair amount of travel abroad. I guess this makes me a business traveler. But I am not rewarded with multimillion dollar bonuses and perks like the heads of those investment banks who have managed to imperil the world's financial systems. I am not rewarded like those World Bank people who have caused so much misery by their failed economic policies. I am not even rewarded like those police generals of the Philippines who went to an Interpol conference in Russia recently and were caught carrying 100,000 EUROS which they said was the unspent portion of their contingency fund.

In short, I am sour graping because I always travel coach. Always. So I make grape juice out of sour grapes. Outward bound, I am often seated beside the seaman or nanny or cleaning woman working abroad. I have learned many things from them and sometimes have been of some help. I will never forget the young woman who was going to Singapore to become a maid and who was upset about a last minute payment demanded by the recruiter at the boarding gate. She had no money and was also unsure about why they checked in her bag. Though I was not getting off at Singapore, I had an unused phone card from a previous visit. I gave that to her, US$ 20 that I could spare and my mobile number. I also assured her that her bag would be at the airport and explained to her how airport procedures work. Crisis counseling all the way to Singapore.

But my real intellectual treat is going home. Naturally the economy section is full of Filipinos. Up there in the sky; under the flag of whatever nation the airline is registered in; made equal by the fact that we are all given the same service and privileges of economy class; divested for the moment of our degrees and ranks and most of our possessions---Filipinos still manage to impose on themselves a sophisticated form of social stratification. It took me years of travel to figure out but it is there. Of course the lowest rung is occupied by overseas Filipino workers in blue collar jobs. This rung is further stratified by the type of blue collar work of course, with the women entertainers looked down upon. The next rung is occupied by the viajeras who are based in the Philippines and go off to Singapore or Hongkong to buy things for their shops. The next rung is occupied by returning white collar workers and students. Next, people who have more or less permanent jobs in the US, Europe or Canada and are on the way to citizenship. Then, Filipinos who have become citizens of these nations. Also at the top are Filipinas who have gained their citizenship by marrying Canadian or American or European men. This is a special category because many of the mixed race couples are in first of business class if the man is wealthy. But people try to distinguish white collar Filipinas who married white collar foreigners from gold diggers who married a foreigner.

I am sorry to be so blunt. None of these categories are my own and I certainly decry the fact that female entertainers of any sort are put down. I do not think that everyone in the plane subscribes to this nonsense, though I doubt whether anyone is completely unconscious of it. Was not this sort of elitism in air travel by a former columnist the subject of protest sometime this year?

Anyway, the intellectual treat involves observing how this system is put into place. How culture and behavior are caught up in a system of signification that re-establishes class and gender differences.

I will never forget the Filipino woman who spent our entire trip from San Francisco warning her white male seatmate about the heat, the chaos and irrationality of "people in Manila". From her exaggerated American twang, I figured she was not a second generation Filipino American, but a newly naturalized one. Her loud comments eventually led me to confirm this.

I will never forget as well the time when the Narita-Manila section of my flight from the US got severely delayed. Classes fell immediately in with each other as we spent the long hours of waiting together. OFWs hang around with other OFWs. Seamen banded with other seamen who flirted and patronized with the Japayukis. The Fil-Americans and Fil-Europeans stayed together. I decided to hang around with the OFWs who assumed I worked as a nanny until someone decided to clarify the off-vibe they were getting by asking me what exactly I did. When they learned I was teaching at a university, the social relations changed a bit. Luckily where I teach has a reputation for serving the Filipino people. Filipinos being very gracious and friendly folk, I was "re-accepted" into the group. But they treated me not as a familiar but with mixed amounts of deference for my position and amusement at my obvious choice of hanging out with them. Seamen began offering me imported cigarettes and the women started offering me cologne at the 6th hour of our waiting. Unlike the columnist mentioned earlier, I prefer the honesty of simple folk to the pretentiousness of the spoiled Filipino elite. At least with this bunch, no privileges are assumed, none of us are spoiled by the benefits of unmerited entitlements. Indeed, we all had a sense that we there despite the absence of anyone's helping hand.

My point is that our poor, feudal and oppressive society survives on schooling people from an early age in the intricacies of a hierachical social system. The children of the poor are taught early to fall into subordinate positions and subservient attitudes. This is a scourge on the self esteem of the majority poor. It is also a scourge on the moral foundations of the children of the Filipino wealthy.

Most of all it is a scourge on our well being as a nation because democracy thrives only when each person believes deeply that they are of equal worth and have access to the same basic privileges.

Yesterday a poll came out that the majority of Filipinos are supportive of reproductive health initiatives and the proposed reproductive health bill being deliberated in Congress, despite their understanding of the Roman Catholic Church's opposition. In response a Roman Catholic Bishop said that morality was not a popularity contest. He forgets that the Church also says that each person's conscience is fundamental to moral judgment and must be respected greatly.
This is one of the most profoundly democratic element of the Church's teachings. Indeed, the sense of the faithful is meant to guide the Church. The Bishops are guilty of a horrendous sense of elitism and have been that way since the time of Spanish colonialism. The Church's patriarchy survives because the Bishops believe we are all their caciques in the fields of moral righteousness.

Letter to the Editor of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

Dear Editor,

I have been following the Inquirer's coverage on the reproductive health controversy over the past weeks. I wish to commend the commentary by John J. Caroll, S.J., entitled, "Facts and fallacies in the population debate"(http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20080905-158759/Facts-and-fallacies-in-the-population-debate). I admire his willingness to correct "loose argumentation" on the part of those who he believes are arguing for the position of the Roman Catholic Church.

I agree with Fr. Carroll on most of his points. As early as 1994 at the UN International Conference of Population and Development, I had already agreed with former Philippine ambassador to the Holy See, Henrietta “Tita” T. De Villa, that women advocates should have a sincere dialogue with the Bishops on the matter. That dialogue never materialized. But if it does, Fr. Carroll should be one of the participants.

The Inquirer is also to be commended when it confirmed the complaint of Prof. Ernie Pernia (http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/letterstotheeditor/view/20080904-158540/Letter-based-on-faulty-report) that their reporter had misquoted the UP School of Economics (UPSE) position (http://www.econ.upd.edu.ph/papers/Population_Poverty_Politics_RHBill.pdf) on the relation between poverty and family size. This is important because the letter of to the editor of Marita F. Wasan (http://archive.inquirer.net/view.php?db=1&story_id=156355) took exception to the UPSE paper on the basis of the inaccuracy. Fr. Carroll in his article corrects Kit Tatad's argumentation about the same thing.

If nothing else, the debate reminds everyone to check facts. I do not think this is a requirement merely for journalists and academics. I think it is a requirement of good citizenship. National debates guided by clear argumentation and factual accuracy can be the only basis for an enlightened social policy on these and other controversial matters.

Thus, my disappointment that in a letter to the editor that came out on the same day as Fr. Carroll’s commentary (http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/letterstotheeditor/view/20080905-158777/Best-way-to-avoid-AIDS-STDs-pregnancies), Imelda LL. Areolla makes the factually inaccurate claim that the use of condoms will not stop the spread of HIV and that, "The microscopic holes in condoms are large enough for the AIDS virus to pass through."

The World Health Organization has condemned this misinformation saying, ‘These incorrect statements about condoms and HIV are dangerous when we are facing a global pandemic which has already killed more than 20 million people, and currently affects at least 42 million.’ It said ‘consistent and correct’ condom use reduces the risk of HIV infection by 90%. There may be breakage or slippage of condoms – but not holes through which the virus can pass. (For a summary of the scientific information and the WHO position on the matter of condom use and HIV prevention go to:http://www.who.int/3by5/en/Condom_statement.pdf)

Ms. Areolla's article also resorts to the loose argumentation Fr. Carroll decries. First, she misrepresents HIV-AIDS prevention programs as mainly condom distribution. The literature shows that several programmatic elements are recommended (in some programs this includes an emphasis on abstinence and chastity). The scientific literature on “abstinence only” programs also shows that these do not prevent pre-marital sex, let alone sexually transmitted infections.

Secondly, her idea that sex education simply tells adolescents that sex is safe when they use contraceptives is wrong. She further gives the false impression that the adolescent sex education advocated by the medical community is one that does not emphasize values. Sex education for adolescents should teach them about the biology and physiology of many aspects of sexuality and should be explicit about sexual intercourse, prevention of transmission of sexually transmitted infections and contraception. When I teach to various audiences, I also include a discussion about moral frameworks (both secular and religious) that people might want to consider when looking at these matters. Whether only Catholic values of reticence about sexual acts, abstinence before marriage and non-contraception in marriage should prevail in a secular education system is another matter altogether.

My last point is that the Inquirer itself (and the entire profession of journalism) needs to remain self-reflective about what the Inquirer terms as “balanced views”. Is it “balanced” to give equal treatment to views supported by weight of scientific data (e.g. condoms prevent HIV-AIDS) and views supported by the inevitably errant experiments in science (e.g condoms have holes that allow the virus to pass through)? I would argue that giving both views equal space, leads to dangerous results, and does not uphold the highest standards of journalism.