"Kamalaysayan Patrol" 06-19-2010: Mystery in Calamba

Hunyo 19, 2010 ngayon, ika-149 na taong kaarawan ng pagsilang ang isang Pilipinong bantog sa kadakilaan. Siya’y walang iba kundi si Jose Protacio Rizal, kilala rin bilang Dr. Jose P. Rizal, na isinilang sa Calamba, Laguna noong Hunyo 19, 1861. Angkop naman ang petsa ngayong araw na ito sa paglulunsad ngayon ng blog-broadcast ng “Kamalaysayan Patrol,” isang naiibang paglilingkod ng Kaisahan sa Kamalayan sa Kasaysayan o Kamalaysayan para sa buhay na isipan ng mga aktibong mag-isip na mga kabataang may kaugnayan sa makabagong teknolohiya ng impormasyon at komunikasyon o ICT. Nagawan namin ng paraang makapagpadala sa malayu-layong nakaraan ng isa naming reporter, na may dalang isang laptop computer na may solar panels para di na siya kailangang maghanap ng electric sockets sa panahong di pa naimbento ang mga ganoon, at may kapasidad ring magpadala ng blog postings sa ating google account sa pamamagitan ng isinasaksak na broadband USB.
.
. Dapat ay makapagpadala na siya ng panimulang ulat upang sabihin sa atin dito ngayon kung nagawa nga niyang mahanap sa Calamba ng taong 1868 and batang si Pepe Rizal.at nasimulan na niya ang pakikipagkwentuhan dito para mas makilala natin nang ganap ang batang sa paglaki’y magiging Jose Rizal.
May nakuha na po tayo na iisang-linyang mensahe na nagsasabing di pa niya nahahanap ang bata dahil sa dinami-rami raw ng napagtanungan niya ay wala raw nakakakilala sa sinumumang nagngangalang Jose Rizal sa Calamba. Katunayan, wala raw nakakakilala ng sinumang may apelyidong Rizal sa Calamba, at nagtataka siya dahil alam niyang magkakakikala ang halos lahat ng mga taga-Calamba at alam din niyang malaki at prominenteng pamilya sa Calamba ang pamilyang kinasilangan ni Pepe.
.
. Kailangan pa raw muna siyang maghanap ng karagdagang impormasyon ukol sa hiwagang ito bago magpadala ng unang ulat niya sa Kamalaysayan Patrol. Abangan muna natin ito, mga kaibigan, at ipapaalam namin sa inyo sa sandaling makapag-ulat na siya. Tutok lang po sa ating himpilan, mga kaibigan, sapagkat nagsimula na ang ating kakaibang palatuntunang… “Kamalaysayan Patrol”!!!
.
. (Kamalaysayan Features)

'Aquino govt will need Nat'l Environment Plan'--WED Assembly

PRESS RELEASE June 6, 2010

‘AQUINO GOVT WILL NEED A NATIONAL ENVIRONMENT WORKPLAN’

......– World Environment Day Annual Assembly

The incoming government of President-apparent Benigno C. Aquino III will need to have a clear and comprehensive National Environment Plan to institute substantial changes in the directions and workstyle of its own Dept. of Environment and Natural Respources, according to the first of nine resolutions of the Eighth Annual Assem­bly of the UN-convened World Environment Day-Philippines (WED-Phils.) Net­work held yesterday at the Environment Studies Institute of Miriam College in Quezon City. Yesterday was observed throughout the world as World Environment Day, as mandated by a United Nations resolution way back in 1972.
.

. Attended by dozens of delegates from big and small member-groups and fraternal organizations of the decade-old WED-Philippines, notably the Green Convergence for Safe Food, Healthy Environment and Sustainable Economy (Graan Convergence) and Boy Scouts of the Philippines (BSP), the Assembly passed this resolution as presented and explained by Dr. Ernesto R. Gonzales, a noted ecological economist, who said “Noynoy” Aquino had campaigned and won on the platform of real change, and his government now expected and his government is now mandated to effectively address the ills that have pervaded the earlier levels of performance of DENR that the Philippine environment movement has found to be dismaying. “This is at least as important as, if not more crucial than, the incoming President’s choice of whom to appoint as DENR secret­ary," he emphasized.
.
. Answering questions from other assembly participants, Dr. Gonzales said a National Environment Plan is not meant to replace the 1992 document Philippine Agenda 21. “Far from it, the NEP would give teeth to PA21 as Republic Acts are passed to ensure and strengthen the implementation of Constitutional provisions. After passing the resolution, the Assembly created a committee to work on a draft plan based on consultations, and to communicate closely with Malacañang to express and explain the spirit of the resolution and report on the progress of the work done on it. The Assembly delegates appointed him to chair this committee.
.

. Other resolutions pertained to a consolidation of approaches for the “Green movement” to address various issues; the integration of its advocacy efforts with “Greenterprise” work that would make available environment-friendly products for massive shifts to “green lifestyles” that would also give added income to active environmentalists; the affirmation of families and local communities as vital constituencies of the nationwide environmental movement; and the more vigorous promotion of basic ethics for the entire effort, notably the “Culture of Truth,” “Culture of Assetion” and the “Culture of synergetic teamwork,” dubbed “Balik-Bayanihan para sa Kalikasan.”
.
. Other organizations represented at yesterday’s Assembly included SaninbLakas ng mga Aktibong Lingkod ng Inang Kalikasan (SALIKA), Environ­ment Broadcast Circle (EBC), Consumer Rights for Safe Food (CRSF), Green Pilipinas; “Green Community Action for the Restoration of the Environment (Green Care), Miriam PEACE, and Pateros River Basin Organization (PatRiBorg). WED-Phils. has been led by co-chairpersons emeritus Puerto Princesa City Mayor Edward S. Hagedorn and SanibLakas lead founder Ed Aurelio C. Reyes.
.

. In partnership with the concerned LGUs. This network held earlier annual assemblies in the cities of Princesa, Cagayan de Oro, Baguio, Tagbilaran, Davao and Batangas, and will be doing the same in a Mindanao city next year.
.

. WED-Phils. had launched last May a WED-commemorative project covering areas in the Philippines and abroad, centered on a “New Seed” declaration that now has versions in four Philippine languages and nine other languages (Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Swahili. The “New Seed” declares an identical commitment to actively defend the envi­ron­ment, especially in the wake of the failure of powerful world leaders to “seal the deal” at the Copenhagen summit last December on effectively addressing the global climate change crisis.
.
. The Eighth WED-Phils. Annual Assembly was chaired by Reyes, also secretary-general, WED-Phils. Read at the start of the assembly were keynote messages, namely the WED-2010 message of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon about global biodiversity being “in peril,” and of the WED-Phils. message seeking the “broad­ening of our very narrow minds.”
.

Reference:


Ed Aurelio C. Reyes
Secretary-General, WED-Phils.

Today is World Environment Day. Let's make it Historic.

TODAY, It’s JUNE 5, 2010, WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY Let's make it Historic!

The United Nations decided in 1972 that this date be marked yearly for this commemoration, and we greet one and all as we mount our concern and hold actual activities for the conservation of the Environment that would still be suitable for sustaining Human Life, excluding the wasteful and environment-destructive lifestyles human societies have developed over the past decades.

.

. Today, World Environment Day-Philippines (WED-Phils.) Network, led by chairmen-emeritus Edward S. Hagedorn (reelected mayor of Puerto Princesa City) and Ed Aurelio C. Reyes (concurrent secretary-general), together with network chairmen Mayor Eduardo Dimacuha and Oliver Gonzales of Batangas City, asks Filipinos throughout our archipelago and outside it, along with all our siblings in Humankind throughout our planet, to join the multi-language chorus of individual people, families and communities committning to mount an active defense for out Environment, active defense for the life, dignity and wisdom of Humankind ad of Nature.

.

. For this, we are presenting a “New Seed” declaration in more than a dozen languages you can all choose from for this day’s chorused recitation in your own respective small and big groups and gatherings. These are five Philippine languages (Filipino/Tagalog, Pampango, Cebuano, Pangasinan and Cuyonin) and nine languages of other countries (English, French, German, Spanish, Swahili, Chinese, Korean, Hindi and Portuguese), and more translations are being worked on now. Please open http://newseed.8m.net and navigate to the translations, or go directly to the menu of links to the translations by clicking here: http://newseed.8m.net/contents-specific.htm. Just in case you and or your group decides to translate to your own language, please send your translation {and info on the translator) to wedphils@yahoo.com (as embedded text or attached image file).

.

. Today is World Environment Day.Let's make it Historic.

A NEW HOPE... then, THE EMPIRE SRRIKES BACK...

...that we have been living on a planet whose resources are not actually infinite as earlier thought and whose receptacles for waste have not been infinite, either.

.

. There was worldwide realization that Humankind has been overloading the planet and overextracting from it. That realization of entire nations came to be reflected in a formal summit meeting of their governments held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and that “Earth Summit” hammered out a big bouquet of earnest resolutions that even got to be translated into serious national laws and programs of action in a good number of the world’s countries.
.
. It was really like Humankind had finally regained its senses and found its unified will for good, to stand in reverence before the rest of the bio-diverse citizens and elements of our living planet Gaia, to take full responsibility for past and present environmental destruction that their scientists had diligently documented. Conscious of the collective desire for ensuring survival and sustained development in Our Common Future, we rediscovered love for Nature and for Life.
.
. But things were not to be seen for long through “green-colored lenses.” The super-conglomeration of corporate conglomerates, in short, the Empire, just had to Strike Back. The years before what could have been the second step to follow that big one in Rio, the Empire of Globalized Greed consolidated its mechanisms for “The Ten Commandments of the Golden Calf,” laid out a system of laws and multilateral agreements, and built up an immensely powerful enslaving entity called Worldwide Trading Organization. That hoped-for second step to be made in Johannesburg was stopped before the summit there could even begin.

.
. After The Empire Strikes Back, it leaves the Knights of the Force of Life and Oneness shocked and weakened: The gains at Rio had apprently been all but decimated and the direction had been reversed!
.
. Still, The Force of Life and Oneness has remained and is enabling us from within to rebuild the ramparts of the struggle against Globalized Greed, and the populace in each of these countries are awakening to the needed consensus that we can no longer depend on governments to advance and protect our crucial interest for sustainable survival. We are deciding to defend our homes and ourselves We are Reinventing the Will, our will!

.
. We are gradually deciding to stop our governments from habitually leading us by chains on ourr noses and from grossly misrepresenting our collective will. After these governments failed to Seal the Deal at Copenhagen for a unified workplan to combat climate change, the peoples of the world saw the slow but the sure emergence of a New Seed of hope and inspiration to seal ourr own deal among peoples, not among governments, to mount an Active Defense of the Environment and to do it right in ourr homes and fields and communities.

.
. The Force of Life and Oneness is with us – with you and me and with all who freely, clearly, and firmly decide to be with us. Dare we actively defend the life, dignity and innate wisdom of Humankind and of Nature? Armed with the "New Seed" of inspiration and actions, we might not even need any laser swords for this!

-- ding reyes

of subic, zambales

June 4, 2010

------------------------

WED-2010 Activities - Philippines

World Environment Day - Philippines (WED-Phils.) Network

Line-up of Commemorative Activities:

I. Pre-WED (before June 5, 2010

1. April 2010 -- Earth Day-related

a. Soft-launch and website uploading of the book Biped on the Blue Ball (3rd Edition), with an Addenda section focused on the importance of the Copenhagen Summit and on the circumstances of its failure to 'Seal the Deal' on Combatting Climate Change (see http://love-life.faithweb.com/biped.htm), the context of the "New Seed" project .

b. Launching and Initial translations phase of "New Seed" project (read explanations in http://readdingz.blogspot.com/2010/05/understanding-and-explaining-new-seed-1.html), starting with its first chorused recitation on May 2, 2010, in Castillejos, Zambales; followed by its first ceremonial presentation during the multi-nationality and inter-faith "Symphony of Prayers for Peace" on May 16, in Marikina, Metro Manila; followed with the solicitation, receipt and uploading of the "New Seed" proclamation's translations in Philippine and other nations' languages (see links to these these in http://newseed.8m.net/contents-specific.htm).

c. Adjustment of venue of WED-2010 climax events, like the 8th Annual Assembly and the "Handshakes and Hugs for Earth Synergy" multi-nationality ceremony. Posting of initially- proposed resolutions for consideration by the 8th AA (http://readdingz.blogspot.com/2010/05/proposed-resolutions-for-wed-assembly.html), receipt and uploading of inputs from two resource persons (Prof. Paul Olivares & Dr. Ernie Gonzales.

d. Organizing of other events for the day June 5: morning activity -- River-blessing Walk with ferry cruise along Pasig River (cancelled this morning for later sked); "Art-Jam para sa Kalikasan" combining some chorused singing, poem-reading and drawings exhibit and on the spot sketching, and a brief theatrical monologue "Message of the Prophets of Profits" earlier uploaded in http://readdingz.blogspot.com/2010/04/message-from-prophets-of-profits.html).

II. WED-proper (June 5, 2010)

1. WED-Phils. 8th Annual Assembly (1-5 p.m., Miriam-ESI)

a. Opening

Basics of Opening: Anthem, Invocation, Welcome Remarks

Keynote Addresses:

Reading of WED-2010 Message from UN Sec.-Gen. Ban Ki-moon

Reading of WED-2010 Message from WED-Phils Sec.-Gen. Ed Aurelio Reyes

b. Assembly Discussions: presentation, discussion and action on Proposed Resolutions, including: Orientation and Design of DENR; an Agenda for a Green Philippines; Grassroots constituencies for our environment movement; a Green on-line library and info-sharing and -dissemination systems; Green Ethics campaigns (for culture of Truth, culture of assertion including campaign for widest adoption of "New Seed, culture of essential teamwork, etc.,); partnering of Green advocacy and Green Enterprise; and some internal policies of WED-Phils for choice of local hosts (including choice of preferred host for WED-2011, building of post-Assembly committees, appointment of functionaries.

2. WED-2010 'Art Jam para sa Kalikasan' (5-6 p.m., Miriam-ESI)

3. "Handshakes & Hugs for Earth Synergy" (multi-nationality ceremony & celebrative closing)

III. Post-WED (June 6, 2010-June 5, 2011)

1. "New Seed" Continuing campaign (esp. among homeland and overseas Filipinos)

2. Publication, promotion and implementation of other AA resolutions.

Prepared and Posted

by E. A. Reyes, WED-Phils. Secretary-General

June 4, 2010

-----------------------------------------------------

Walking on Water

WED-Philippines Network. June 5, Morning ctivity
"Lakad-Pahingalay sa Baybay-Ilog (river healing ritual/walk)" FLASH: Rescheduled for later day. see below.

Yes, it can only be a miracle. A quixotic dream perhaps?
can only be a fool’s dream that the river that stretches from Laguna de Bay to Manila Bay, receives 43 minor tributaries and connects to 4 main rivers from Manila, Makati, Mandaluyong, Pasig, and Taytay, can still be what it had been before – a river of life.
.
. Has anyone of us dared to imagine a clear and clean Pasig river where we can see the fishes, birds and plants thriving in and because of it? can you imagine wanting to take a dip in the river because it’s just so, oh invitingly beautiful?
.
.. Sad to say, but we may have a hard time imagining today what was fond memories of our elders’ yesterday.
.
.. Well, who could have imagined that really? if you live in Metro Manila, most probably that body of water you pass by that’s almost made solid by the mass of trash on it is part of Pasig river. Maybe it’s not that far behind that we can actually walk on water after all.
.
.. IAM a Filipino, so it’s natural for me to make light of things. It is our ability to laugh in times of distress, hopelessness, and tragedy that has always been our saving grace. But our ability to dream big for our children, our family and our country has not only saved many of us, but it has spurned us to do great things. and this is what IAM counting on.
.
.. Let us not let the fond memory of Pasig river remain only with our elders. Let us affirm and let everybody know that we are here doing everything to make this a reality for our children. Perhaps it’s only a dream now. But isn’t it what dreams are meant to do? to inspire us. To make us better and do better? We dare to dream not only for ourselves but for our children, our family, our country and for the next generation.
.
. Join us as we walk and re-visit “Ilog Pasig” to show that we are a people of dreamers who know that the power of intention, faith and action can make the clear, crisp water of our rivers flow again.
.
.. Let the river of life and love flow for all…Bathala Nawa
.
.. We will start with an indigenous water healing ritual with Prof. Grace Odal-Devora around 7:00am at Marikina Riverbanks Plaza. After the ritual, we will walk to Kalawaan, ferry station in Pasig City where we will ride the ferry to experience how our ancestors see the river. We will get off at the Intramuros station and from there we will walk again to Manila bay for the closing ritual.
.
. Please bring snacks, water, extra clothes and weather protection. Please wear comfortable walking shoes.

---- IAM
(Integral Arts Meta)

WED-Philippines Bulletin (June 4, 11:38am):
URGENT BULLETIN: THE RIVER-BLESSING WALK BY THE PASIG SCHEDULED FOR TOMORROW HAS JUST BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO AN EMERGENCY WITH THE GROUP ORGANIZING IT AS AN INTENDED PARTICIPATION IN WED-2010. SEE FURTHER ANNOUNCEMENT ON ITS RESCHEDULING. THANKS SO MUCH!

---------------------------------

Let's Seal the Deal among the World's Peoples!

To Save Our Home Planet:
Let's Broaden Our Very Narrow Minds!!!
Statement on World Environment Day 2010

By Ed Aurelio C. Reyes
Secretary-General, World Environment Day-Philippines Network
(WED-Phils., also named Green Families and Communities Network)
From our humble archipelago between the largest ocean, to our east, and the largest landmass, to our west, and from amidst our people in whose hearts "the twain actually does meet," we dare raise our humble voice to plead that we all heed the plea of the smallest living cell of Life for us to help preserve that Life.
.
...... The inexorable realities of fierce competition among life forms for the favor of surviving the moment-to-moment challenges of Darwinian natural selection does not threaten to extinguish that Life itself. Left alone to its own wildest wind and water storms, to its own immense tectonic collisions, to its own frequent quakes and eruptions, and to its own cycles of axial polarity shifts, the planet does not threaten to extinguish that Life itself. Human activities do, and they have inflicted much harm, to put it kindly
.
...... What do threaten and harm entire species, families and kingdoms of life forms on this planet are effects from the repeated and sustained activities of the supposedly-wisest of these life forms on this planet, the homo sapiens who swaggers on this earth to lengthen his life and make his life and only his life comfortable, using his supposed wisdom. But such brand of wisdom his physical and consciousness evolution has so far afforded man has accorded him with a very narrow mind.
.
...... With many noble exceptions that cannot, anyway, lessen the effect of the dominant narrow mind-set, man has not evolved within himself the broadmindedness needed to go beyond his own safe skin. He has not yet learned the reality of "fellow-man," much less, of "fellow species" of Biodiversity on this earth. Locked in the narrowness of his consciousness, he has learned only the value of his own instantaneous moment of existence, and has denied himself of the benefits of real historical memory and a real sense of foresight.
.
...... Given just a precious few more dozen years or so to unite on a common mind and will to stop climate change from going beyond the "tragic rubicon" of "having a maximum 350 parts per million of CO2 in our atmosphere," man's more powerful governments were allowed to keep their own narrow minds for justifying and maintaining comfortably wasteful lifestyles for a minute elite, who have never really learned about "other people" and never learned to be concerned over how these (namely, we!) barely live.
.
...... And so, with the feeble technically defensible but obviously morally-condemnable failure to "seal the deal in Copenhagen" last December, the "world leaders" now have to face the same big life-and-death challenge to curb global warming with the same narrow mindset over a much shorter timeframe. Although we have been predisposed to celebrate "Earth Day" and "World Environment Day" every year, this is obviously not the time for any celebration.
.
...... The rest of the billion people in the world are apparently not concerned enough to really lift a finger to help avert the environmental catastrophe. Shackled by real and imagined conditions and feelings of powerlessness by governments and institutions that would even habitually invoke their own collective name, the majority of humans apparently think we can still afford just to categorically excuse ourselves of substantial involvement ("Sorry, we're busy!"), or just sigh and whimper and then immediately shift our attention to many distractive affairs that would not force us to work too hard or work at all for the sake of life forms outside our own families houses within our respective neighborhoods.
.
...... The "New Seed" Declaration of commitment of families and communities to actively defend the environment as our collective home, (see http://newseed.8m.net/) has had moderate initial spread in the Philippines and beyond, but it is being met in many instances with questions like "Why bother?" or with more polite non-responses. A similar effect has been had with the less-than-moderate spread of the Earth Synergy poem, titled "A Giant Leap for Humankind," since 2000. (see http://love-life.faithweb.com/poem-eng.htm; send inquiries and comments on this to wedphils@yahoo.com.)
.
...... We don't know if its is just lack of information or really a lack of I.Q., to derive the logical conclusions from the information and muster enough strength of will to act, that Humankind desperately lacks.
.
. .... Without the broadminded real intelligence that humans can have, we are apparently preparing to perish still clueless as to where we shall have fallen short. Well, as some say, there is bliss in ignorance. And we can only pray that before the great Day of Doom, sleeping gas would be combined with all the greenhouse gases, that continue to be emitted undeterred, so we can all simply intensify what we have been doing beyond the fruitless high-level conferencing that we have been doing... we can continue sleeping and die smiling in slumber sans even sighs of regret.
.
...... Can we change such a tragic and gloomy ending to World and Human History? With much difficulty we still actually can. A great place to start is our narrow minds about our billions of "totally disconnected" selves, and start seriously developing our collective thinking and feeling about the concept of ourself.
.
...... Dare we start this historical process on June 5, World Environment Day? Let's do it! Let's seal the deal among ourselves, whatever our governments and institutions do or refuse to do! And whatever we have to do to actively defend our environment, let's do it well, and let's do it together, fully conscious of our oneness among all Humans and within our broader synergy and Biodiversity.

Quezon City, Philippines
5 June, 2010

For a fuller articulation of the spirit of this message, with data supplied as addenda, please read http://love-life.faithweb.com/biped.htm.)