Manila Travelogue: 27 May – 3 June, 2010

A glance of Manila at Holiday Inn hotel Makati

Manila’s Face after Ten Years

End of May 2010 I visited again Manila for a week attending the Asian Public Intellectual Aniversary in Ateneo de Manila University. This is another visit after a year and I going back to Manila is like going home for me. I used to stay for two and a half year in 2000 – 2003 for taking my Master and conducting Asian Public Intellectual research. I was pretty at home staying at this 12 million population city. Well actually it is not correct to call the city with Manila, as the name is referring to old Manila city which is only one among 17 local government units/ cities of Metro Manila.

Physically Manila today is not much different with a decade ago. We can still see colorful Jeepneyes run along its dense roads. Hundred years of old churches around the old city of Manila are still well maintained. There in front of the churches, women and children sell candle and beautiful sampaguita, a necklace weaved from Jasmine flower, as an offering for the patron lady. In a more modern part of Metro Manila, Makati, we can see sky crappers rise around the area left only a small portion of the land for gardens and threes.

Ateneo de Manila University parking lot in Quezon City

Well my API gathering was fun. We had series of lectures from Dr Krisina Krisantu from Thailand whom did amazing humanitarian work in Africa. After spending 20 years as professional doctor and invented some medicine in her own name. She decided to work a year voluntarily to Afrcan countries, helping their government to produce cheap massive medicine production so that people there could fight HIV/ AIDs and malaria effectively. Her lecture was indeed very inspiring, so that I was also thinking what can I do to help people in this world.

We also have other wonderful lectures from KS Jomo, a prominent Malaysian economist whom now working in the UN head quarter in New York. We also have Ben Anderson whom book Imagine Community was used by many as references in social theory discourse.

Asian Public Intelectual Community - Indonesians group

 The API fellows also have their intelectual works exhibited. Some fellows have great pictures taken from their photography work as such Cholin Nicholas and dave Lumenta.

At University of the Philippines

Visiting a galery at UP

My favorite picture: representing Filipino character which are cheerful, outspoken, and religious, look at the rosario in his hand

Art perfomance lead by Motohide Taguchi from Japan, they created their own music and dance compsition

 Later at the the end of the gathering we had art perfomance directed by Dhany Reyes. It was wonderful: we gave appreciation to the API initiators and people whom work for it in an Oscar award style.

Indonesian fellows Krisnadi, Heru and me take a picture with father Jose Cruss of Ateneo

Art performance which was all directed by Danny Reyes

There was fashion show from each country, and I was lucky because Yanti brought this piece of batik so that I can have an indonesian culture flavor  

 Incidentally when I was there last May, the country had just finished conducting national election. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, the son of late President Corazon Aquino won landslide number of vote for the position. However the elected vice President, Binay, does not come from the same party with Noynoy. It is interesting that President and Vice President are selected separately not as a package, through this way it is very possible that the President and Vice President would not go along in deciding country matters. However the President is certainly have more power as he is the one who responsible to select member of his cabinets and run the administration.


Together with Presidential election the country also elected 22 senators and 277 congressmen. Senators are elected nationally. The first 12 senators with highest votes will occupy the position for 6 years, while other 12 senators with least votes will be in office for 3 years and have to run for another election to extend their term in senate. The senate has very important role as the body is responsible to pass the laws. The 277 congressmen were also elected at the same time with the presidential election. They represent area and has crucial function in preparation the state budget.

The Philippines is divided into layers of Local Governments with province as its primary unit. Currently there are 81 provinces in the country. Provinces are further divided into Cities and Municipalities, which in turn divided into villages (Barangays). Province is headed by Governor, City/ Municipality is headed by Mayor, village is headed by Barangay Captain. Governor and Mayor are directly elected and have 3 years term in office while Barangay Captain is assigned in for 5 years term. All provinces are grouped into regions, currently there are 22 regions in the country for administrative convenience. Most government offices establish regional offices to serve the constituent provinces, for instance the Department of Defense has Office of Civil Defense (OCD) in the region. The regions themselves do not possess a separate local government, with the exception of the Muslim Mindanao Region and Cordillera Administrative Region.

Politically dynamic, the Philippines was experienced a number of coups. Two of its presidents (Ferdinand Marcos and Joseph Estrada) were also forced down by people power. The strong resistance by leftist group and the big number of civil society encourage a strong control to the government. These days the legislator is discussing to pass the freedom of information act.

Hachiendas and Political Familism

Economically, the Philippines is considered as a middle income country – rank 47 on GDP by World Bank 2008, with USD 166,909 million). However the poverty rate is quit high, around 20% with more than 50% of its people are vulnerable to poverty. The country economic situation was obviously visible if you go out to the provinces. People who mostly work as peasants or fishermen live in poor condition. These people normally have a big number of children due to pro live stand they have as a Catholic county. Statistical data said that the country has 2 percent population growth since 2004 - 2007. No wonder here we can see children working to help their parent earn money.

Some of these people work for local rich landlord who own large portion of farm in the province that locally called as Hachienda. Their peasants and landlord relationship has taken form of patron client relationship. This landlordism is actually inherited by Spanish that at once ruled the country, and many of these landlords indeed have Spanish blood. Some old landlord families, for instance the Ayala family, are transformed into successful businessmen base in Manila. These people are frequently appeared at the lifestyle pages of Manila newspaper and magazine, either for party events or charity works. This obviously shows a big gap between the poor and the rich. The Gini coefficient for the country overall fell from 0.49 in 1997 to 0.47 in 2003, but this is still higher than the 0.45 measure for the late 1980s and 1994, and very high for the region overall.

The Hachienda system is deep rooted in the country, one social culture inheritted from Spanish’s 300 years colonialization. Now it even strengthens because many of the rich families are also hold powerful position in politics. The governor, mayors and congressmen are normally circulated among the strong family members. Once the father hold a strong political position, their wife and children will follow suit. We can see this for instance from the Marcos family that still powerful in their province. The son of later president Joseph Estrada was also won the second as congressman. And the new president, Noynoy Aguino also comes from the strong Hachiendos family.

Rosalie Hall wore her Phillipines traditional culture which strongly influenced by Spaniard

The country performance of good governance is not yet satisfactory by corruption cases indicator. In 2009 Transparency International’s CPI survey the Philippines was ranked 139 from 180 countries with score 2,4 (0 – 10 with 10 as the least corrupt).

This social and political fact has actually triggered strong opposition from the leftist group. The leftist group opposes the government through underground guerilla fighting through New People Army (NPA) as well as political activities through its various front line organizations to change the social system of the Philippines. The strong influence of leftist group has been coloring the dynamic of the country’s NGOs which mostly very critical to the government.

When almost all part of the Northen Philippines was strongly influenced by Spanish culure, this Igorot culture was still maintained their local cuture due to their remote location 

The US Legacy
Aside of strong Spanish cultural present, we can also see the US legacy in the country. The US used to govern the Philippines for about four decade since 1898. The US occupation has strongly influenced to the country’s political system and has established a strong tie to its economic relationship that obviously apparent to this day. English has been taken as second national language and widely used by the Filipino in their public arenas so that people used to speak mix Tagalong-English that they named as Taglish. Nowadays this English fluency has given Filipino migrant workers more advantage in competing for work abroad.


Nice Places to Visit
We can visit many good places in the country. In Manila we can go to old city with many of its old building with Spanish Architecture. At this part of Manila we can also see many old churches show their elegant western architecture. During Lenten season, we can see people do a sacrifice procession to remember Jesus Christ pain. Some people let them self to be crucifixes to represent him.

Moslem visitors like me would like to visit the Moslem community and its Mosque in Quiapo. In the area they can get halal food and buy some cheap gifts to bring home.

It is good that last year I have chance to visit Tagatay in Cavite province. Tagatay is a beautiful tourist destination that has cool air and green environment. There is a beautiful lake in the top of the mountain as the most valuable piece of the place in which nobody wants to miss.

East Nusa Tenggara Indonesia Travelogue: Encounter with a Teku tradition

Lasiana Beach

One good thing of working in an NGO like Oxfam is that we have a chance to travel to the very remote place of a country. Oxfam is normally working in the most underdeveloped area that located far away from the capital. It takes hours or days to reach the project site from the capital city. In my opinion, you will never understand the true soul of a country without travelling to its hinterland in which people still live in their traditional way of life. It is wonderful to see their traditional architecture, costume, foods, and their way of life which reflect their close relationship with the nature.

Last May 2010, I visited Nusa Tenggara Timur --- we frequently shorten into NTT-- for the first time. Ah ya it was embarassing actually why after more than three decades of my life in this country I haven't ever visited this poor but beautiful province. We went together in a group of five: Patricus Usfomeny, Vu Minh Hai, Irene Cahyani, and Ari. These pictures here were taken together by me, Hai, and Irene.

Nusa Tenggara Timur which literally means east part of the east south island, was gracefully attractive. It has three big islands: West Timor, frores, and Sumba, with more than 500 islands scaterred around. I did not be able to travel to other part of the province except for only west Timore. Very ufortunate time indeed. A friend told me that Labuhan Bajo in Flores was like a heaven in earth for its beautiful virgin beach.

In the plane that brought me from Bali, I flew together with group of tourists whom brought big surfboards. A native Timorese friend told me that this province is actually have very beautiful beach with strong wave which provides great pleasure for surfing. Serious surfers frequently march to Nembrala island of Rote Ndao district in the province to do excercise before go for surfing competition in Hawai or Brazil.

Well I did not have opportunity to visit other than West Timor island, but even the beach there in West Timor is also beautiful (eventhough they were not well maintained). I visited Lasiana beach with some signs of government intentions to establish it as tourist destination, but unfortunately with very poor condition. May be because there were not so many people visited. I am sure it is not because that the places are less appealing but simply because of lack promotion.

Lasiana beach

Children playing at one cool afternoon in Lasiana beach

This one, is a new well designed restaurant we visited along our way to Belu in the border with East Timorcountry. I am sure the owner spend pretty much money to make it green and beautiful. At one of its small gazebos I stop to pray.

Stop over at this pretty new retaurant

 

                                                                      
Nusa Tenggara Timur, the home of 4.5 million people, is considered as one of the poorest provinces in Indonesia. It has 36.29% people living in poverty, almost doubling the national poverty rate of 17.75% (2006 data of Provincial Bureau for Statistics). The poverty trend in the province is also getting worse; since 1999, NTT has dropped from 21st to 24th in the Human Poverty Index (HPI) ranking and from 24th to 28th in the Human Development Index (HDI) ranking.

That impression was clearly in sight: abandon garden in the middle of Kupang the province capital city, poor houses along the way to Belu district, and also skinny children with reddish hair.

This lady crushes corn (or paddy) at this wooden bowl to prepare meal

A family in Belu district

The province is considered as savanah area with relatively low average of rainfall, occurring mostly between November to April at every year. The topography is very rugged, dominated by deeply incised, erodible limestone which supports open savannah grasslands. Even though it only has very limited fertile land, but most of the people in NTT are working as farmers. Big number of them are peasants with small lot of farms. They domesticate cattle, horses, pigs and goats aside of planting their farm with seasonally crops as such corn, vegetables and some rice.

girls taking waters from nearby river in Belu district for their family needs

If you visit the villages in NTT you can see how simple their lives are. Their houses are very modest; wooden walls taken from palm three skeletons, grass (or palm leaves) roofs, with no bed or chair inside. People develop high roofs for their houses and deposit their harvest crops on it. This symbolizes their local wisdom of food security. Depositing most of their corns and paddy in the roof, they take one small portion of the crops for daily consumption. By this way they can manage their food for a certain period before they harvest a new one.

This is an umah bubu literally means the round house, normally develops in the back of a house. Under its roof they deposit their dried corns. The mother of the house guard this house and other members of the family can not enter without her permission

She is mama Maria, the mother of the house owner. She stay all the time in this small and smokey umah bubu for cooking with this little grand daughter.

He is Pak Bernardus the house owner. He chews betel leaf and bitter nut all the time to keep his teeth healthy. He did not know how old was his age, and that all fine for him. He can understand Bahasa Indonesia the national language, but speak only tetun his local language  

Corns, the field harvests are depositted on the top of umah bubu to feed the family for a year before another harvest 

This is what they cook in the umah bubu, a simple foods named Jagung Boti (corns mix with vegetables and sometime they also put coconut milk in it)

Yet sometime the situation becomes so worse when they fail to harvest due to long drought, flood, or disease. People takes many ways to cope with this difficulty. Some people goes to the city to look for other jobs. Some other people prefer to stay in the village and cope the crisis by selling their remaining livestock or go to the forest to gather tamarind and other valuable plants. While a group of people in one district in NTT prefers to take other people's property to keep living.

There is one popular traditiona robbery gang in NTT that locally called as Teku. The Teku people originally works as peasant. However during the hard time when they have nothing to eat, they turn them self as robbery gang. Teku gang is not only consisting of small number of people, instead it involve the whole village members including the women and children. They usually employ some kind of informant that will identify one specific house as a target, normally a rich family. They then sign the house that has been appointed by giving an early warning to the house owner. They send the house owner an offering that consist of betel leaf and bitter nuts together with a letter saying that they will visit on certain date of night. Upon receiving the letter the house owner will can do nothing, people are not sure whether it is because of a kind of magic spell or due to harsh threat given by the robbery gang.

In NTT tradition, bettel leafs-bitter nuts offering is a symbol of respect. People use this offering to ask a girl for marriage, given to the highly respected people in the society, or given to a guess. Thus I am thinking that in the case of Teku robbery, this offering could be interpret as a symbol of regret to the house owner. They are kind of saying that they are sorry for taking their money and other property from the house. They know that they take other people belonging illegally but they do it decently, with permision.

In my opinion the traditional Teku Robbery story in NTT above simply highlights the hypothesis that poverty drives to criminality. So it is true that we need to elevate poverty in order to create a peaceful world.

Changed

Five summers
Different swallow flies
Another daisy blooms
Time has passed by
You also have changed
From someone I ever knew

Jakarta, May 31, 2009

February Snow

The earth is white
The river is frozen
When a wind sends his icy blow
No threes waving their naked branches
It is a February Snow here
Cold, quiet, and anxious…
Only me who burned in a flame

Massachusetts, 13 February 2009

longing for a serenely lake

Far in the meadow; wild yellow flowers cheerfully greet the wind, don't even bother when an irressistible distance birdy song is scratching my lonely heart. want to run back to the serenely lake, hidding from a scary grey reality.

Jakarta, 15 February 2007

Poligamy of the week

A'a Gym, the most popular kiai (Islamic cleric) in Indonesia was getting married again with a 37 year old widow. I was shocked by this news. How come this respectable soft spoken kiai can choose to be a poligamous him self. What the reason? His wife just looks fine; healthy, good looking enough, caring, loving, and they have 7 children already.

I really don't understand and soon join the long line of women who disappointed by his decision. As a popular preacher A'a Gym's speech is widely influencing, so I am afraid that his poligamy will inspire people to do so. I don't really care If some lay people take a second, third, or fouth wife, but I do really concern with A'a Gym's decision because he has the capacity to change the perception of Indonesian toward poligamy. I do scare if Indonesians are getting more and more tolerant toward poligamy in the future.

If poligamy becomes culturally accepted it is really scary for women's life. A friend told me of poligamous culture in Mali, Africa. He said that the practice of poligamy has been widely accepted in Mali, even men are socially supported to do so. Instead of desperately sad, a Mali woman would be proud if her husband is getting married again. Instead of defending, a mother will encourage her daughther's husband to get another wife. As a result of this poligamous culture, men in Mali enjoy a convenience life because their wifes are competing each other to give better services to the husband.

Years before (during Bu Tien Soeharto's era) poligamy considered as negative. But now I am afraid that Indonesians are going to be more tolerant to poligamy soon. There is indication of it; you can name some top government officers or members of paliament who have more than one wife.

A friend of mine (a guy) asked me why am I so angry with A'a Gym's decision, while poligamy considers as legal in Islam and his wife was also accepting the decision? He said it is natural for a man to love more than one woman, poligamy then considers as better choice than love affairs.
Yes, poligamy is legal in Islam but the Qur'an actually dicourage it. One important requirement for a man who want to have more than one wifes is that he should be able to do it justly, and Qur'an highlights that it is almost imposible to be a just husband. So it is better for a man to married only one wife.

Why Qur'an discourages poligamy but do not prohibit it? We should understand the sociological contect of that time. During Muhammad's life (around 600 AC) the Arabic people were frequently catch into tribal wars. So many men died in wars, and there were so many wifes and children lost their protectors. Then poligamy at that time was understandable, it were not safe for women and children life alone without having protectors. Yet still Islam limited their previous poligamous habit to marry only up to 4 women---one reference mentions that the 4 wifes limitation of poligamy was also practice in ancient judaism---. The discouragement was also seen in Muhammad's life, he told his daughter's husband, Ali, not to married another women when Fatimah still alive because he didn't want to see her disstress. It is clear now that Islam discourages the poligamy. It is not a sunnah, instead a makruh (you will be praised if you are not do it)**.

So shortly poligamy has nothing to do with Islam.

In my view poligamy is more about power relation than regious discourse. It is a matter of power relation between men and women within their households. There is only one formula for a power relation, anybody who has more power or has more resources s/he will able to pressure the other to follow her/his wills. Poligamy usually happen when the wife is powerless, especially if they are economically dependent to the husband. Imagine, can a woman say no when her husband want to get married again, while on the other side she has no job, has no money, but has so many children.

So you women, don't be fool; be strong and independent!

December Political Sex Affair

Early this December a porn video distributed publicly from cellphone to cellphone, from email to email. It has been becoming juicy news to this day in Indonesia, not only because of its vulgarity but also because one of the two actors in the video is a paliament member from the biggest party in Indonesia. This proofs that morality of Indonesian, particularly its politicans are deeply decreasing. It is seems that morality is no more considered as the top list of their concern.

There is indication of this analysis. The politicians' comments are not focusing on YZ sexual missconduct but instead focusing on political motive behind the distribution of the video. A politician said: "I am sure a powerful guy is orchestrated this publication. If there is no backing I don't think that she will came out bravely to show her sexual affair. Today YZ is victimized, may be tommorow will be me or you who knows". It is so sad to hear the statement. By saying so this politician indirectly say that most of Indonesian politicians are indeed have lack of morality. Thus the problem is not laying on YZ's lack of morality but because his political competitor is trying to sabotage his political carrier.

If most of politicans in the parliaments indeed have misconduct habit like YZ then surely we will understand if our country is going nowhere. How can the politicians will lead us to develop a better society if they them selves have immoral behaviour?

It is true that in daily politics, sex, money, and power are interrelated each other. People deeply aware that sex may be used as a tool to reach money and power. The history even take notes that so many important historical events were taking in place by involving sex. There were long line evidences show that powerful men would be easily surrender under the feet of beautiful women. Cleopatra knew well how to use her power of beauty to influence the powerful Julius Cesar for the interest of her people in Egipt. We do also still remember how Bill Clinton's was pressured by impeachment trial when his sexual affair raised in public.

It is true that in highly political arena, women are frequently used to trap their competitor. Yet they will not been catch into the trap if they were clear, did not have misconduct behavior.

If we do democratic mechanism to select our representative, I will not really care with YZ or other politicians misconduct behavior. By discovering their corruption, infidelity, love affairs, and so on surely the public will not elect them in the next election. People will easily judge which representatives are good enough to voice their interest. Then, problem solved!

However sadly we do not has this direct election mechanism for the house of representatives. The so called semi proportional legislative has a very complicated rules to elect a representative in the House. In an election every political parties should propose a list of candidates from their party. Only a candidate who earn a BPP (a certain number got from all voters divided into the number of seat in the district), will directly elected. Other candidates who do not reach BPP have to follow the order in the list to take the rest of the seats. A BPP usually consists of hundred thousands votes, thus for the last election there were only less than 10 people gain the votes. This mechanism give the room for bad politicians to be elected eventhough they got very few votes.

By this mechanism so many nation's affairs would be depending on political parties stand. In the case of YZ, it is really depend on Golkar's decision. If the party finally decided not to dismiss YZ from his legislature position, peole has no mechanism to punish bad people from the house. Therefore it is very urgent for Indonesian to call for a legislative direct election!