Greetings after a long layoff, and thanks for continuing to check in. I aim to make more frequent entries, starting now, April 25, 2018. OK, I know. I said the same thing over a year ago and did not follow through, but just check and see, starting right now.
Another general observation is that I am going to move a bit more into an informal style. So, while I will continue to proofread compulsively, I expect you will notice me being a bit more chatty and personal, occasionally even brief. The content will remain similar to the past, with topics ranging from news from my Filipino friends through the most recent tug-of-war between Duterte and his critics. In other words, I will be covering all sorts of topics.
For starters, however, I am now posting my December, 2017 article from VIA Times Newsmagazine. That article contains my selected highlights from my other monthly articles from the magazine.
Here's the article, and I'll see you soon.
Another general observation is that I am going to move a bit more into an informal style. So, while I will continue to proofread compulsively, I expect you will notice me being a bit more chatty and personal, occasionally even brief. The content will remain similar to the past, with topics ranging from news from my Filipino friends through the most recent tug-of-war between Duterte and his critics. In other words, I will be covering all sorts of topics.
For starters, however, I am now posting my December, 2017 article from VIA Times Newsmagazine. That article contains my selected highlights from my other monthly articles from the magazine.
Here's the article, and I'll see you soon.
And the Winner Is . . . Strong
Filipino Women
The plan was to write this
last article of 2017 as a review of the highlights from the articles of the
past twelve months, starting with December, 2016. Quite to my surprise, four of the twelve
clearly focused on “Strong Filipino Women.” That has been a recurring theme in
my writing for the past twenty-five years, but the twelve titles from 2016 gave
no such clue. I guess that shows how
ingrained strong women are in the social fabric of the country, as I see it.
1) March. The first three
articles paid scant attention to the women theme. Then came March, 2017, with my column
entitled “Duterte News: Some Good, Mostly Bad.”
Supremely ironically, it actually was all about strong women. Half way through the article, the Duterte
news turns sour. A Filipino court (read ‘Duterte’)
had just ordered the arrest of Senator Leila De Lima. She had been speaking out courageously
against Duterte’s administration, particularly the vigilante (“extrajudicial”)
killings in his war on drugs.” Senator
De Lima was indeed arrested in March and remains in detention as of this
writing (December, 2017).
As it happens, though
this is not in my March article, the other major figure who has been vocal in
opposition to Duterte is another strong Filipina, Philippine Vice President
Leni Robredo. A November 10, 2017 article
in “DW” (“Deutsche Welle” is a liberal but reputable German international news
organization) interviewed Robredo. The Vice
President had hoped to find some common ground with Duterte when he appointed
her to his Cabinet (Housing and Urban Development), but that hope quickly
faded. She was ordered to stop attending
Cabinet Meetings, and Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (son of the Marshal Law
Dictator) insists he will replace her as Vice President. He lost to Robredo by 200, 000 votes last
year. In my observations, it has been
mostly women opposing Duterte’s extremism.
2) June. The second Strong
Filipino Woman is the hero I found in the “New York Times” obituaries (April
29, 2017). Our hero received front-page
coverage, unusual for NYT obituaries.
Florence (“Betty”) Finch got her fighting spirit from her American father
and her quiet strength from her Filipino mother. Her father fought in the U.S. Army in the
Philippine-U.S. War (1899-1902), then surrendered (in marriage) to a Filipina. Daughter Betty married an American sailor who
was killed in action trying to bring supplies to the U.S. troops on
Corregidor. Betty collaborated with the
Philippine Resistance during the Japanese occupation until she was discovered, imprisoned,
and tortured repeatedly. She was
liberated on February 10, 1945. She
weighed 80 pounds. She wasn’t finished
fighting. She joined the U.S. Coast
Guard and was highly decorated for her service, including the Asiatic-Pacific
Campaign Ribbon, the first woman to do so.
The Coast Guard named a building in Hawaii in her honor in 1995.
3) July. I have been a fan
of Wonder Woman since I was a kid and never missed a day reading the “funnies”
in the daily paper. I caught the “Wonder
Woman” movie this past summer though I rarely go to movies. Imagine my delight when I came across a
picture on Facebook recently (June 27) that showed my friend Beng Dalisay
holding an article from the June 26 “Philippine Star,” with the headline,
“Wonder Woman in the House.” Butch
Dalisay, UP Professor and currently Vice President for Public Affairs, wrote
the article as a tribute to Beng after accompanying her when she conducted an
art restoration workshop in Ilongo.
Butch begins by reminiscing how he first saw Beng at UP. He was a shy freshman, she an upperclassman
at an anti-Marcos (Marcos Sr.) rally. He
ends by watching her with a similar “crush” as he sits in on the workshop,
“like a mouse in a corner of the room.”
4) November. University
Professor Gelia Castillo (1928-2017) was a Philippine treasure, “a world-class
rural sociologist.” She was declared a
National Scientist in 1999; she was a long-time Consultant in residence at the
International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), which largely generated the
“Green Revolution” that has supported millions of farmers and fed the hungry in
the Philippines and globally. I was
honored to know her personally, enjoying classic Filipino hospitality (food and
laughter). She also had a great, dry
sense of humor. I’m smiling as I recall
her comment to me when Cory Aquino rescinded the law permitting and supporting
birth control: “It was a Cardinal Sin,” she said (Jaime Sin was then Cardinal
of the Philippines). To her many honors
should be added, “Champion of the People.”
Contact Bob Boyer at Robert.boyer@snc.edu or
<anamericaninmanila.com>.