Hi, guys.  Still alive. Too alive, maybe. Will be posting some things soon. But you know ’soon’ is a long time when I say it. I swear I’m too busy to post about the things I’m busy with. Will do. Soon.

Poetry and Activism

This is a draft video of Axel Pinpin (which might stay as a draft due to my lack of video and audio coverage) sharing his experiences with the students of the International Institute of Social Studies in the Hague, the Netherlands.

Axel Pinpin was illegaly detained for 28 months, together with other men who were known to be the “Tagaytay 5″, after being abducted by unknown armed men later on identified as police and military elements. They were accussed of being members of the New People’s Army.

International Day of the Disappeared in the Netherlands

Video by ilena

Filipino Refugees in the Netherlands (FREN)
30 August 2009

Utrecht, 30 August – Filipino refugees living in the Netherlands and Dutch organization Aim for Human Rights gathered in the city of Utrecht on 29 August to commemorate the International Day of the Disappeared, echoing the global call to ratify the UN Convention for the Protection of all Persons against Enforced Disappearances and to stop enforced disappearances worldwide.

Participants to the commemoration joined the throng of Saturday shoppers in the city center, holding up photos of the disappeared and giving passersby white balloons with photos and information about the disappeared. Dave Harvey, member of Aim for Human Rights and coordinator of the commemoration activity, led the participants in distributing 300 balloons and telling the stories of the disappeared.

Victims whose stories were heard included Jihad Eid of Lebanon, who disappeared in 1990; agricultural technician Jonas Burgos of the Philippines who was abducted in Manila in April 2007; and indigenous people’s leader James Moy Balao, missing since 17 September 2008.

The balloons were later simultaneously released, symbolizing the aspiration that their stories should be spread ever wider, and not to be forgotten. The Filipino refugees and Aim for Human Rights were also joined by HIJOS, families of the disappeared in Argentina, and students from Indonesia.

“It was an effective and successful action,” Mitchie Mallorca Saturay, one of the event’s participant, observed. “We need to ensure that the stories of the disappeared are kept alive… We were able to inform a wide public, here in Utrecht, that enforced disappearances is still happening in the Philippines.”

“It is heartwarming to see that the Dutch public and Aim for Human Rights are concerned about the victims of disappearances and the loved ones they left behind,” said Angie Gonzales, member of Filipino Refugees in the Netherlands. “I heard expressions of sympathy and good wishes from quite a number of ordinary passersby today… they understood the barbarity of the abductions and they sympathize with those who are left behind, not knowing if they will ever see their loved ones again.”

Asked why he joined the event, FREN member Boyen Baleva explained, “I know James Balao personally, he is a close friend of mine… I was also a victim of abduction and torture in June 2001 by elements of the 17^th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army. I consider myself lucky that I was surfaced after five days, that I can tell my story myself.”

“It is appalling to hear that not a single official of the Arroyo government has been held accountable for the disappearance of more than 200 persons since 2001,” Baleva continued. “Arroyo officials express satisfaction whenever one of their own is exonerated, as if to say that keeping cases of enforced disappearances unsolved makes them happy.”

Mrs. Editha Burgos, mother of Jonas Burgos and Chairperson of Desaparecidos, is scheduled to visit several countries in Europe in October and November for a speaking tour. She was invited by several human rights organization in the continent to shed more light on the phenomenon of enforced disappearances in the Philippines, especially under the current Gloria Arroyo government.

First Night of Interrogation

Axel Pinpin recites/performs a part of a poem that he made when he was illegaly detained for 28 months after being abducted by unknown armed men later on identified as police and military elements. Axel Pinpin, an agriculturist a poet and an activist, was tortured during his illegal detention.

I’ll be posting more about his story soon.

Only in the Philippines?

I was a part-time tourist in Vienna. Part-time, because I went there for a cultural project that PINAS-FIRST¹ organized. The idea of being a tourist never attracted me.  Sight-seeing and photo opportunities so I can say “I was there” to everyone just do not fit to my interests. But in the end, being a tourist does not have to be that way. It’s not about what you do, but about how you do it.

Young Filipinos once again participated in a cultural workshop, this time focusing in the three groups of islands of the Philippines: Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. As a culmination of the seven-day workshop, they performed a short play that was made out of their own ideas and creativity. Because they were born in Austria, or have been living there since they were very young, they requested the parents to share their experiences in the Philippines to them, so that they can have more ideas for the short play there were making. They wanted to know more than those tourist spots. The rice terraces, the chocolate hills: “Only in the Philippines!”: just like how Filipinos always say it. They wanted to have more insight about things you can find ‘only if the philippines’: drivers texting while driving, students bringing their own chairs to school because they don’t have enough chairs there, and so on. But are these things really to be found ‘only in the Philippines’?

I was present in this sharing. It was amazing to hear their experiences and how those things still happen today. “Only the people in the government change, but not the situation,” said one parent.

One of the discussions was about what a parent called ‘being a foreigner in your own country’. While tourist spots are constantly being visited by foreigners and rich Filipinos, it has not been available for the average local residents. A parent mentioned that a few number of local residents aren’t even aware of that particular tourist spot which lies in their town. A parent also mentioned that the Ifugaos, who once built the famous Banaue Rice Terraces and lived independently with their harvests, are now forced to leave their farms and pose or dance their traditional dance for the tourists so they can earn some money to live by the day. Commercialization of their tradition is now spreading. The access and control of their own land is dwindling. One wonders who gets the benefits of tourism while the residents there who once owned the land are now becoming poorer and poorer.

The idea of that made it more unattractive for me to be a tourist. But I wanted to see Vienna anyway, so we went to Kahlenberg, a mountain where you can get a view of Vienna. Filipinos who have been living in Vienna for a long time took the time to drive us up the mountain. Living in the Netherlands where you have no mountains or hills makes you excited to see the city surrounded with them. It was really wonderful. We stayed there until it was dark enough to see the lights of the city turn on. They shine like diamonds. However, we couldn’t see the panoramic view of the city. In the middle of the place lies a hotel. We had to go to the other side of the hotel to see the other part of the view. It must be a nice hotel. It gives you the view of the city, without obstructions. Surely everybody will enjoy that: everybody who can pay the price of a room there! My companions found themselves reminiscing how everybody could get a full view of the city a couple of years ago, before the hotel was built.

I guess ‘being a foreigner in your own country’ isn’t ‘only in the Philippines’. And I bet much more aren’t.

And I guess being a tourist is not just about taking photographs. You just have to open your eyes beyond the wonders of the world and see the things happening right there. Only then can you really see the place. You can just find the photographs on the internet, but the other things? You can only see them when you’re there yourself. So don’t waste it by only taking photographs of facades without seeing the situation behind it. There’s a bigger thing in the picture.

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¹PINAS-FIRST: Pinoy in Austrian Society for Integrity, Reforms and Social Transformation. www.pinas-first.com

Enter at your own risk?

(Blood in your Hands! Acrylic, Watercolor & ink 70×50 cm)

It’s been three years and I still can’t wait to go back home. My main reason, maybe, is that I left too early. It was only here that I understood the Philippines’ history, culture and society and how it is connected to other countries. And of course, one cannot fully understand such a thing. More questions come when answers are found, and it is a chain of questions and answers that never ever end. And with this comes my insatiable desire to go and learn the stories I have never learned, tell the stories that they never let us tell. I want to go back and do those things I haven’t had the chance to do when I was living there. It is so difficult that I finally understand who I am and where I come from and yet cannot be there.

I am actually planning to visit home as soon as I get some papers that will allow me to go and of course some money to pay the flight. I was keeping the thought that simple. Documents and money. That was all I need. I was trying to be too narrow-minded as to completely ignore the reason why I ended up here in the first place!  The killing of Pitao’s daughter and the abduction to a Filipino-American who went back to the Philippines to do human rights work is a shout to me that I should wake up from my stupid dream.

Lasy March 2009, 20-year old Rebelyn Pitao was found dead floating on a river, partially naked with stab wounds and evidence of sexual abuse. Rebelyn was a teacher and her only “crime” was being the daughter of a member of the New People’s Army (NPA).

Pitao’s mother explained how, with the police officers listening, tricycle driver Danny Peliciano told her that two unknown men had boarded his vehicle alongside Rebelyn when she climbed in to ride home. As they neared Bago Gallera de Oro subdivision a white van – a Toyota Revo – blocked their path and forced the tricycle to stop.

“Two other men came out of the van and dragged her out of the tricycle. The driver said Rebelyn was screaming for help but he could not do anything because the men were armed. The driver said he ran away. Then they dragged my daughter inside the van.”¹

Somebody, not a member of the NPA, killed? Unbelievable believable. Gloria Arroyo, you are indeed worse that Marcos.

I always hear survivors of Ferdinand Marcos’ martial law in the 1970’s say that that kind of civilian-killings barely happened during the martial law. Barely, because there are some cases. Jose Maria Sison’s brother, for example, was an economist and a deputy director of the Presidential Economic Staff of Marcos, but was still abducted and was never surfaced.
Last May 19 at around 1:30 pm, Melissa Roxas, an American citizen of Filipino descent, and a member of BAYAN-USA and the cultural group Habi Arts based in Los Angeles, California, was abducted in Tarlac. She was with two other volunteers, Juanito Carabeo and John Edward Handoc. Roxas went to the Philippines in 2007 to pursue human rights work, where she became a full time volunteer health worker

At least eight fully armed and hooded men believed to be members of the military abducted the three health workers at gunpoint and herded them into a van that had no license plates. This is the first time that a Filipino-American has fallen victim to what looks like another case of enforced disappearance.²

The circumstances of Roxas’ abduction typify the abductions and enforced disappearances of over 200 innocent civilians, allegedly last seen in the hands of suspected state security forces.

In the Philippines, you don’t have to be a communist to be killed. You just have to do human rights work. Or at least be a daughter or a son of someone who does!

I deeply condemn the killing of Rebelyn and the abduction of Melissa Roxas. Same goes to the more than a thousand more political killings since 2001. Several investigations, most notably by the United Nations Human Rights Council, have pointed to the military as the main culprit in these atrocities.

Sure, all I need is some documents and some money. I can legally go back to the place where I was born. But it’s like the Arroyo administration and the military hanged an invisible “Enter at your own Risk” sign for all those Filipino (daughters/sons of ) political refugees abroad wanting to go back home.

^{1 https://abs-cbnnews.com/special-report/03/14/09/killing-too-far-rebelyn-pitao}

^{2 http://www.bulatlat.com/main/2009/05/24/fil-am-activist-2-others-abducted-at-gunpoint/}

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Note: I wrote this a few months ago. Melissa Roxas is now surfaced. In the video below, melissa tells her story of abduction and torture:

Our Future is in Our Hands

Art for gaza

June 2009

Collaboration (concept and painting) Martin Travers, Hiyas Saturay, Ilena Saturay & Marikit Saturay

Thanks Jako and Eunice

Here on the slopes of hills, facing the dusk and the cannon of time
Close to the gardens of broken shadows,
We do what prisoners do,
And what the jobless do:
We cultivate hope.

- Mahmoud Darwish

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Art is a weapon

Tumatakbo ang Oras

Para sa mga taong naiiwan ng oras!

Trying to make a story out of my random shots Muisc: Tumatakbo by Mojofly

Getting a Glimpse of Filipinos in Austria

My sister and I went to Austria last February to visit some friends and explore whatever there was to be explored. I was amazed to see Filipinos everywhere I went and surprised that I didn’t notice that the first time I went there.

On our first day, we watched a Filipino film called Love me Again at Cineplexx Donauplex – quite a big cinema. It was filled with Filipinos, of course, since it was meant for Filipinos (there were no German or English subtitles). It was enough to make clear that there are many Filipinos in that country.

There are approximately 30,000 Filipino immigrants in Austria today, according to the official statistics of the Philippine Embassy in Austria. Also according to official statistics, 20,000 of those immigrants are nurses working in Austrian hospitals.

The fact that two-thirds of Filipino immigrants are nurses results in stereotypes. It happens that when some people in Austria (even Filipinos themselves) meet Filipinos, the first thing they ask is which hospital they work in. It is true that the majority work as nurses, but one should not be too close-minded to assume they’re all nurses.

When I was in Austria, the first thing I noticed was that almost all the workers in Burger King were Filipinos (including the manager), except for two or three others. The same goes for KFC en McDonald’s.

A woman was telling me that she worked for a Dutch businessman. When I asked what kind of work she did, she said, “Domestic helper, what else?” Thousands of Filipinos work as domestic helpers. She also said that it is especially difficult now because the money she earns is lost to the rising prices of the basic things that a family need. She said that it is really not enough because she doesn’t have a permanent job or pension and she is sending money to support her family in the Philippines.

I also met a lot of young Filipinos in Austria and I was amazed by how easily they integrated and learned the language without forgetting their Filipino identity. Most of these young people did not go to a special language school, but just learned the German language by not being afraid to use it. A lot of young Filipinos who were born in Austria still speak Tagalog, Bisaya and/or other Filipino language/s.

“It is about time that we show that there are more Filipinos in Austrian society, not just nurses. We should show how the Filipinos are contributing to the development of the Austrian society,” says an officer of Austrian Society for Integrity, Reforms, and Social Transformation (PINAS FIRST) and a member of Migrante Europe, speaking to the second and third generation Filipino youth.

PINAS FIRST is a democratic organization of migrant Filipinos and their families in Austria. Last July 2008, PINAS FIRST organized a creative integrated arts workshop for the youth that aimed at a cultural venue to develop awareness, appreciation and pride in Filipino history, culture and heritage and at the same appreciate Austrian cultures. They are planning to do this again this year, further developing young people’s skills and  hoping for more new participants.

(Photo: meeting up with Filipino youth who attended the workshop last July 2008)

This is just a glimpse of the Filipino people in Austria. There are much more to be explored. I will surely come back there and have a much deeper insight.

Kabataan ng Pag-asa

“Kabataan ng Pag-asa” (Youth of Hope)

Pag-asa, meaning hope, is (also) the name of a village in Quezon City, where I met these young people. The shadows try to eat them, but they never lose hope..

Games

High quality? click HERE.

[Music: Walang Nagbago by Eraserheads. ]

Live Painting

February 7, 2009 (Amsterdam)

First live painting

Was hella stressed. But it was worth it.

Happy Birthday, Professor.

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(Photo by Nwel & Viory)

How beautiful the blossoms of red flowers..

Palestina Vrij! (Free Palestine!)

Shots from the demonstration in The Hague (December 31,2008 ) and Amsterdam (January 3,2009), the Netherlands.