planet philippines (calgary edition) january 16-31, 2012 issue

JANUARY 16-31, 2012Calgary Edition PLANET PHILIPPINES1

JANUARY 16-31, 2012 Calgary EditionPLANET PHILIPPINES2

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LEANDRO MILAN .................................................................................. Editor-in-ChiefPEPPER MARCELO ............................................................................... Assistant EditorARNEL RIVAL ........................................................................................ Layout ArtistROMY FLORANTE .................................................................................. PhotographerDIANA PAMELA TRISTE ........................................................................ Editorial Assistant

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ANADA has shortened the procedures needed for foreign caregivers to obtain permanent resi-dent status and has enacted several measures to protect the caregivers from abusive employers.

Canadian Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney said this was the Canadian government’s response to reports of abuse to foreign caregivers by their employers.

CANADA HASTENS PR PROCESSING

FOR CAREGIVERSUnder the new procedure, a foreign caregiver can obtain

permanent resident status in 18 months or less. They can apply for permanent residence after 3,900 work hours, rather than two

years of work, to ensure overtime is appropriately recognized.

Filipino caregivers gather in Vancouver to discuss common concerns.

Canada’s Immigration Minister Jason Kenney greets Filipino parishioners of Our Lady of Assumption church in Toronto.

At the same time, the federal government recently issued at least 10,000 open work permits for caregivers from other countries, ac-cording to CBC (Canadian Broad-casting Corp.) News. The permits allow the caregivers to continue to work in Canada, without being tied to the family that sponsored them to come here. Many caregivers have

complained about alleged mistreat-ment, long hours for little pay and poor work conditions.

Granting an open work permit allows caregivers to leave sponsor-ing employers without losing their permission to be in the country.

Kenney said it is “frustrating” that many live-in caregivers have to stay in their employer’s home even though they have already complet-ed their work obligations because they are waiting for their applica-tion for permanent residence to be reviewed. He said in several cases, this set-up had resulted to maltreat-ment of workers.

“This is understandably frus-trating,” Kenney said. “That’s why we have started issuing open work permits to live-in caregivers as soon as they have completed their obliga-tions and submitted an application for permanent residence.”

Under the new procedure, a for-eign caregiver can obtain permanent resident status in 18 months or less. They can apply for permanent resi-dence after 3,900 work hours, rather than two years of work, to ensure overtime is appropriately recognized.

The need for second medical examination when the caregiver ap-plies for permanent residence has likewise been eliminated in the new guidelines. Also, a standardized em-ployment contract has been adopted so that both the employer and the caregiver agree to the salary, hours of work, vacation time, overtime, holidays, sick leave, and the terms of termination and resignation.

The new policy also defines the costs the employer is obliged to pay, including the caregiver’s travel ex-penses in coming to Canada, medical in-surance, workplace safety insurance, and third-party represen-tative fees. It also pro-vides for emergency processing of work

permits and employer authoriza-tions to hire live-in caregivers who have been abused and need to leave their employment immediately while a dedicated phone service for live-in caregivers has been set up.

To assess the legitimacy of a job offer, Canadian authorities would verify if caregivers would be residing in a private residence and providing child care, senior home support care or care of a disabled person in that household without supervision, as well as whether the employer has suf-ficient financial resources to pay the wages of the caregiver and whether the accommodations being provided are adequate.

For employers who have failed to live up to the terms of past job contracts, they will be banned from hiring foreign workers, including live-in caregivers, for two years.

Philippine Ambassador to Can-ada Leslie Gatan said the revised labour policies for caregivers dem-onstrates “the continued trust and confidence of the Canadian society on the skills and dedication to work of Filipinos in general.”

Government estimates Filipino caregivers in Canada to be more than 100,000, some of them have complained of labour abuse from their employers ranging from non-payment of salaries to physical maltreatment.

Kenney said the Canadian gov-ernment has taken action to protect live-in caregivers from exploitation with regulatory improvements im-plemented under its Live-in Care-giver Program in 2010 and the Tem-porary Foreign Worker Program in 2011. n

www.planetphilcalgary.com


T’S MORE fun in the Philippines.”That’s the new slogan that will brand the

new Philippine tourism campaign to be rolled out in international markets starting April this year.

Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez Jr., in an exclusive briefing for InterAksyon.com prior to public launch of the campaign on Jan. 6, said the slogan created by advertising firm

BBDO Guerrero | Proximity Philippines, answers the funda-mental question, “Why the Philippines?”

IT’S MORE FUN IN THE PHILIPPINES‘What differentiates the Philippines from every [other place] in the world is the Filipino. [It’s] his special gift for transforming what is already a beautiful place into an unforgettable special place,’ says Secretary Jimenez.

BY MA. STELLA F. ARNALDO

The new tourism logo is a banig weave that forms the map of the Philippines. Very colourful and very graphic, it’s a pixelized version of the map with a very modern feel.

“What differentiates the Philip-pines from every [other place] in the world, as we said from the start, is the Filipino. [It’s] his special gift for transforming what is already a beautiful place into an unforget-table special place,” Jimenez said. “You take two identical islands,

put Filipinos in one, it’s going to be more fun there.”

Also launched last Jan. 6 was a new logo, which is a “banig weave that forms the map of the Philip-pines. It’s very colorful, very graph-ic, sa biglang tingin [at first glance], it’s a pixelized version of the map.

Whatever activity a tourist wants to engage in, such as boating, scuba diving and hiking, the answer will be, “it’s more fun in the Philippines.”

It has that very modern feel also,” Jimenez said. President Benigno S. Aquino III, he noted, also gave his inputs on the colors.

Hours after the government rolled

out its “It’s more Fun in the Philip-pines” campaign, Internet pundits pointed to a 1951 Swiss National Tourist Office ad which proclaimed “It’s more fun in Switzerland!”

Dennis Gorecho, who described himself as a Manila lawyer, criti-cized the tourism department for spending a large amount of money on a copycat ad and linked to a website of the old Swiss poster.

“DOT (the Department of Tour-ism) spent millions ---- to come up with an ad campaign that seemed to have been used from one that is already more than 60 years old ----“ he wrote on his wall on the social networking site Facebook.

However, Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez and other officials swiftly rejected the new copycat al-legations.

“The line isn’t a manufactured


THE YEAR 2012 marks the kickoff of the tourism department’s newest campaign, which aims to boost the tourism industry and lure 10 million tourists into the Philippines by 2016. Fresh-

ly appointed Tourism Secretary Ramon “Mon” Jimenez is heading the much-awaited campaign, which is centered on one fundamental idea: social media.

In a private sit-down conversation with Rappler, Jimenez enthu-siastically outlines the creative, revolutionary campaign that relies heavily on online platforms and the ownership of Filipinos.

“This is not your usual campaign that we launch with a toast and firecrackers. This is, in a very real sense, the people’s campaign,” says Jimenez.

In a bold move, the Department of Tourism (DOT) trades in tra-ditional forms that past campaigns have used -- such as television commercials -- for a more modern, more interactive approach.

Why social media?Jimenez acknowledges that using social media as the primary

medium for the campaign gives the DOT less control – and gives more to the people.

But that is exactly what he wants.The campaign appeals to Filipinos to promote the Philippines

themselves, to interpret the campaign’s logo and official line how-ever they see fit, then share it through the internet and their social networks.

It is meant to function as a meme. The decision to crowd-source came easily to Jimenez who believes it is natural for Filipinos to share their thoughts and ideas with one another and come together for a cause, citing the People Power Revolution as an example.

Born in EDSA“Social networking was born in EDSA,” he says. “You don’t have

to convince a Filipino... we have an almost instinctive trust in that system. Crowd-sourcing is, historically in fact, something we bumped into long before the rest of the world did.”

Given his trust in the influence of a crowd, Jimenez knows that the first people he needs to persuade to be on his side are Filipinos.

“People must believe they are worth a visit from the world,” he says.

And what better way to move the internet-loving Philippines, a nation with one of the largest social footprints in the world, than through social media?

Thinking out of the boxJimenez boasts 35 years of experience in advertising, which he

says, taught him to think openly and creatively. He shares that the day he realized the power of social media was the day he “met the core of the 21st century.”

“I spent 25 years getting good at media that is irrelevant today. That was a very painful time,” he says with a smile.

Today, he is a firm believer of a medium that traditionalists are frightened to even explore. “Social media is the medium and every-thing else is closely becoming the subset of it,” he says. “Nothing ap-pears on television that the social media or the world haven’t already sanctioned as something we want to see.”

Modest budgetThe strategy also works within the DOT’s modest budget.While he has much faith in the impact of online platforms, Ji-

menez admits he is taking a risk. He calls the campaign the most major social media project he has ever undertaken, but remains con-fident that the people will use the power they have for good.

“The Filipino has a naturally, genuinely positive vibe -- it will flow in that direction,” he says.

Late last year, Jimenez asked eight different advertising agencies to propose a campaign for the DOT. Among the agencies, he says BBDO best captured the answer to the question he posed: Why the Philippines?

The answer proposed by BBDO will be the line of DOT’s campaign, a line Jimenez says, he hopes people will take ownership of, the line he hopes all Filipinos will use when asked that question. (Rappler.com) n

slogan. It’s simply the truth about our country. Don’t be swayed by people who are trying to punch holes in it,” Jimenez tweeted.

“If you look hard enough, you might even find an old ad that says ‘It’s more fun in Alcatraz!’” he added, referring to the notorious former US prison.

“Uh, ok, so Switzerland used ‘It’s more fun--’ in 1951. That’s 61 yrs ago. Even intellectual property rights expire after 50 yrs,” Finance Secre-tary Cesar Purisima said, repeating another lawyer’s Twitter comment.

The Philippines hopes to attract 12 million visitors by 2016, when Aquino steps down from office.

The new brand campaign was presented to the President some-time in mid-December with a num-ber of his Cabinet members in at-tendance.

Asked about the President’s re-action, Jimenez said: “He was very relieved. He was worried that it was going to be a more exotic kind of controversial [slogan].” The Presi-dent had previously approved the controversial “Pilipinas Kay Ganda” (How Beautiful, the Philippines) slo-gan launched by the DOT in Novem-ber 2010, which was later scrapped due to massive public outcry.

Jimenez said he had to ask the President for more funds to produce and roll out the campaign more effec-tively. While he declined to reveal the exact amount, the DOT chief said Aquino “gave us more money than what we initially asked for.”

Admittedly, the country’s cam-paign funds will probably not com-pare to the advertising budgets of other countries, so the DOT is rely-ing on social media as well, to help push the campaign.

Thus, along with the interna-tional slogan is a “hashtag”, which will be at the center of a “reflection campaign” to be used domestically, and primed purposely for social media use: “#1forfun”. (In social networking sites like Twitter, the

hashtag symbol (#) used before a word or group of words signifies a topic or message category. It makes searching for relevant keywords or topics much easier.)

Although schooled in the tra-ditional forms of advertising and marketing, the DOT chief believes social media is key to mounting a successful brand campaign, consid-ering that his agency has a budget of only P2 billion a year.

“There is a resource we cannot easily quantify, the support of Filipi-nos everywhere. We are far and away the most savvy Internet communica-tors in this part of the world. In fact we’re so savvy, Filipinos are the only Asians who can cause trends on Twit-ter.” (Quickly validating his point, #ItsMoreFunInThePhilippines was trending on Twitter worldwide just 30 minutes after the unveiling of the new slogan.)

Jimenez described the new in-ternational slogan as “so deceptive-ly simple” that traditional advertis-ing and marketing people may find the new tag line “a little strange be-cause it is a thought almost drawn from social media… In a very real sense, it is a very modern 21st cen-tury kind of campaign. But it’s something Filipinos immediately can get behind, because it’s true.”

Jimenez stressed that in fact, the word “fun” in relation to the Philip-pines, is tweeted every six minutes, as per BBDO’s research.

The slogan thus allows Filipinos “to take hold of the line and make it their own.” There are “endless possibilities” for the campaign, he said, “if you play around with it in your head.” Whatever activity a tourist wants to engage in e.g. scuba diving, hiking, “even planking,” he jested, the answer will be, “it’s more fun in the Philippines.”

He cited ways by which the campaign would be carried out in key markets.

“Next year, for example, we hope to buy space over a parking lot

in New York City with a billboard that shows bancas lined up along the beach of Puerto Galera with the people laughing. Their bancas have funny names like ‘Tom Cruises’ and the headline says, ‘Parking. It’s more fun in the Philippines.’”

He continues: “You’ll see a poster coming up from the Under-ground in London, of the Banaue Rice Terraces, with Igorot guides along with tourists and it says, ‘Get-ting upstairs. It’s more fun in the Philippines.’”

The domestic campaign can com-mence as soon as the week following the launch, Jimenez said, as BBDO is expected to set up a web site and a Facebook account to encapsulate the campaign’s key elements.

“I’m hoping the domestic cam-paign will be covered by well-mean-ing private organizations and the networks doing their own thing,” he added. The Advertising Board of the Philippines has already committed to give free billboard space in certain key areas in Metro Manila, he said, while Smart Communications’ will also be using the new line in lieu of its “Tara Na” (Let’s Go) promotion.

Jimenez has also been meeting with several media company and broadcasting network representa-tives to persuade them to get behind the new brand campaign.

Other tourism slogans long used by the country’s competitors in Asia include: Amazing Thai-land, Malaysia Truly Asia, Incred-ible India, etc. In 2010, Australia launched “Nothing like Australia”, Spain had “I need Spain”, and just last December, Vietnam launched its “Timeless Charm” promotion.

BBDO Guerrero bested seven other ad agencies in last year’s bid for the P5.6-million “Philippine Brand Campaign focusing on Tour-ism”. It was also responsible for the hugely successful “WOW Philip-pines: More than the Usual” brand campaign used by the DOT since 2001. (InterAksyon) n

A planned poster at the Underground in London will show the Banaue Rice Terraces, with Igorot guides along with tourists and it says, ‘Getting upstairs. It’s more fun in the Philippines.’

SOCIAL MEDIA TO FUEL TOURISM CAMPAIGN

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HE CNN (Ca-ble News Net-work) website described her as “an Ameri-can woman who has helped thousands of poor Indone-

sian women have a healthy pregnancy and birth.”

But to relatives in Baguio City, Robin Lim, the CNN Hero of the Year for 2011, is “very Filipino”.

The 54-year-old Filipino-Amer-ican midwife, fondly called Mother Robin or Ibu Robin, drew applause for her work in the Yayasan Bumi Sehat (Healthy Mother Earth Foundation) health clinics in Indo-nesia, which extend prenatal care, birthing services and medical aid to impoverished women. She particu-larly promoted traditional healing practices and offered her services in Nyuh Kuning, a small village on Bali island.

Named this year’s hero by the American cable news channel after an 11-week vote on CNN.com, Lim will receive $250,000 for her foun-dation, on top of the $50,000 she and other honorees got for making it to the Top 10.

Lim is the second honoree of Filipino descent to be included in CNN’s roster of heroes.

In 2009, educator and social worker Efren Peñaflorida Jr. was named CNN Hero of the Year for his exceptional advocacy of educat-ing Filipino out-of-school youths through his so-called “pushcart classes.” Peñaflorida, who grew up in the slums of Cavite province, founded the Dynamic Teen Com-pany, which also supported Lim’s nomination.

In one of her letters to the In-quirer Northern Luzon Bureau, Lim described her campaign for the CNN Hero title as a crusade she made on behalf of every mother in the world.

True heroines“My CNN nomination is for

the new mothers, who give birth in small dimly lit rooms all over our planet day and night,” she wrote in a letter dated Oct. 17. “They are the true heroines. When I ask people to vote for me, I know it is not for me… I want it for them.”

Lim accepted her award on Dec. 12 in an event dubbed “CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute” at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

NEW CNN HERO ‘VERY FILIPINO’

‘Mother’ Robin’ (middle) duplicates the feat of compatriot Efren Peñaflorida, who was named CNN Hero of the Year in 2009.

A certified professional midwife, Robin (right) helps save the lives of mothers and babies in her adopted country of Indonesia.

“Lim’s nomination and selection as CNN Hero of the Year is a victory for all of us because she is so

proud of her Filipino ancestry. Her mother was born in Baguio. Her late maternal grandmother -- whom

she idolized -- is pure Filipino,” according to Robin’s cousin, Remy Lim.

BY DESIREE CALUZA

“Lim’s nomination and selec-tion as CNN Hero of the Year is a victory for all of us because she is so proud of her Filipino ancestry. Her mother was born in Baguio. Her late maternal grandmother, Vicenta Munar Lim—whom she idolized—is pure Filipino,” ac-cording to Robin’s cousin, Remy Lim.

Remy said Lim often gave credit to her grandmother, Nanang Vi-centa, a midwife who served in Baguio during World War II, in all the literature about the nonprofit, village-based organization that she organized in 2003.

Lim’s family in the Philippines had also campaigned for her bid in the CNN search through social net-

working sites, Remy added.

Guerilla MidwifePart of the campaign was last

month’s showing of the film Guer-rilla Midwife, a documentary about Lim’s natural child birth advocacy, at the Mt. Cloud Bookshop on Ba-guio’s Session Road.

“Much love and big congratu-lations to Robin Lim!” Mt. Cloud said in a message posted on its Facebook account.

The company also invited the public to get “more insights into Robin’s life” by reading her novel, Butterfly People. Launched by Lim at the bookshop in November last year, the novel set in Baguio City is based on the life of her grand-mother and their family’s history, it added.

“We hope that with her winning the CNN Hero title, Robin will be able to pursue her dream of putting up a clinic in Baguio… I hope that the people here will support her if she ever pursues her dream,” Remy said.

Safe and loving birthAt the rites in Los Angeles, Lim

accepted her award from the host, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, and called on the public to promote “safe and loving birth.”

“Today on our Earth, 981 moth-ers in the prime of their life will die… I’m asking you to help change that. Every baby’s first breath could be one of peace and love. Every mother should be healthy and strong. Every birth could be safe and loving, but our world is not there yet,” she said.

Lim also noted that the high maternal and infant mortality rates in Indonesia, for example, were due to medical costs rising beyond the reach of many women.

In a CNN interview earlier this year, Lim said: “The situation is bad … babies are unattended, deliv-eries have become commercialized and mothers die from hemorrhage after childbirth because they can’t afford proper care.” (Philippine Dai-ly Inquirer) n

Lim’s family in the Philippines had also campaigned for her bid in the CNN search through social networking sites.


BOTTLES SPREAD

ILIPINO ENTREPRENEUR Il-lac Diaz is aiming to help a million poor people in a year, and with the help of some plastic bot-tles and a clever social media campaign may

do even better.Diaz’s project appears simple - fill

discarded soft drink bottles with water, place them in roofs of houses and allow the refracted light to brighten homes during the day instead of using electric bulbs.

The idea appears simple - fill discarded soft drink bottles with water, place them in roofs of houses and allow the refracted light to brighten homes during the day instead of using electric bulbs. Now the project is on track to help a million people over 12 months.

BY KARL MALAKUNAS

LIGHT&HOPE

Plastic softdrink bottles attached to small sheets of galvanized iron are ready for installation.

The GI sheet with the plastic bottle is attached to the roof.

However, what began as a small-scale effort in a Manila slum early last year has quickly spread throughout the Philippines and even into impoverished communi-

ties as far away as Colombia, India and Vanuatu.

It has also earned Diaz acco-lades from the United Nations, which brought him to its climate change summit in South Africa last December to show world leaders how “solar light bottles” are help-ing to tackle global warming.

“This has blown us away,” Diaz, head of MyShelter Foundation,

told Agence France-Presse of the international reaction to the proj-ect that is in part due to a powerful YouTube clip and smart use of so-cial media sites such as Facebook.

“Our original concept was just a Philippine project. We didn’t think it was going to be possible to do it on this scale.”

More than 15,000 solar light bottles have been installed in slums around the Philippine capital this year, and the project was set to ramp up with another 10,000 to be put in homes during a mass day of volunteer action in December.

Diaz said another 100,000 were installed in the Philippines’ second-

A solar light bottle illuminates a sari-sari store.

RECYCLED

+15


EDSA:HONORING A FILIPINO

GENIUSPeople gather at the historic thoroughfare to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the EDSA People Power Revolt on Feb. 25, 2011.

BY ART VILLASANTA

F IT were not for the unbending determi-nation of Filipino intellectuals in 1958, Epifanio de los San-tos Avenue (or Edsa) might well have been named “Avenida 19 de Junio.”

Or “President Ramon Magsay-say Avenue.” Or “Gen. Douglas MacArthur Highway.” And if Edsa were not named Edsa, what would we have called the People Power Revolution of 1986?

But who is Epifanio de los San-tos, anyway?

Despite his obscurity today, De los Santos (or “Don Panyong”) was regarded by some of his peers as the greatest Filipino genius after na-tional hero Jose Rizal. Noted histo-rian Gregorio Zaide described him as a rare genius because of his ency-clopedic knowledge and talents.

Indeed, the words “polymath” or “universal genius” come to mind when one considers De los Santos’ achievements as a scholar, lawyer, historian, journalist, jurist, phi-losopher, bibliophile, biographer, philologist, painter, poet, musician, literary critic, politician, librarian, biographer, translator and linguist (with an excellent command of Spanish, English, French and Ger-man, even Ita, Tingian and Ibaloi), researcher and philanthropist.

He is regarded as the “first Fili-pino academician,” and few schol-ars of his time could match his vast knowledge of the Philippines.

He died in 1928 at the age of 57 and was honored as “the great among the great Filipino scholars.”

Epifanio de los Santos (or “Don Panyong”) was regarded by some of his

peers as the greatest Filipino genius after national hero Jose Rizal. He is considered the “first Filipino academician,” and was honored as “the great among the great

Filipino scholars.”

Patriot and writerBorn to a wealthy family in

Malabon on April 7, 1871, De los Santos studied at the Ateneo Mu-nicipal de Manila, where he ac-quired a bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude (with highest honors), in March 1890. In 1891, he began studying jurisprudence at the Santo Tomas Law School and obtained his licentiate in law in 1898.

He was considered one of the best Filipino writers in Spanish, and was the first Filipino to become a member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Language (a position that was denied Rizal), the Spanish Royal Academy of Literature, and the Spanish Royal Academy of His-tory in Madrid.

But despite his love for the Span-ish language, De los Santos was a fiery patriot who championed Phil-ippine independence through jour-nalism. He became associate editor of the influential revolutionary pa-per, La Independencia, in 1898, using the pen name G. Solon.

He cofounded the patriotic newspapers La Libertad, El Re-nacimiento, La Democracia and La

Patria. Among his famous patri-otic essays were titled “Filipinos y Filipinistas” and “Filipinas para los Filipinos.”

De los Santos also wrote exten-sively in Tagalog. He was a mem-ber of an eminent group of scholars called the Samahan ng mga Ma-nanagalog, which was founded by Felipe Calderon in 1904.

His peers in this circle of great Tagalog writers were Lope K. San-tos, Rosa Sevilla, Hermenigildo Cruz, Jaime de Veyra and Patricio Mariano.

First gov of Nueva EcijaAs a politician, De los San-

tos was a member of the Malolos Congress. He served as district at-torney of Nueva Ecija, his father’s province, and was its first governor in 1902—a post to which he was re-elected in 1904.

After his term as governor, he was appointed provincial fiscal of Bulacan and Bataan.

In 1907, he wrote an essay with the interesting title, Fraudes electo-rales y sus remedios (Electoral fraud and its remedies) for the Philippine Assembly.

In 1918, De los Santos was ap-pointed technical director of the Philippine Census.

His last and most significant government position was as direc-tor of the Philippine Library and Museum, to which he was appoint-ed in 1925.

By tradition, this prestigious post was reserved for Filipinos of learning and scholarship. As head of the museum, De los Santos built up its collection of paintings, sculp-tures and other art forms to an ex-tent that his contributions exceeded those of his predecessors.


Illac Diaz with a family inside their solar-lighted house.

biggest city, Cebu, in December, putting the project on track to meet or exceed its goals of helping one million people over 12 months.

Grassroots revolution“This is a grass-roots revolution,

a people-powered revolution, using simple and low-cost technologies,” Diaz said.

Diaz described the bottle con-cept as the opposite of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth model, which he said required poor countries to import or develop clean energy technologies such as windmills and solar panels.

“These are expensive and not a lot of people... actually benefit from them,” he said. “So instead of go-ing high-tech, high-specialty, why not go with something that could be done by hand and cheaply, but could be replicated thousands or millions of times. You can affect more people, save more carbon.”

Diaz said each solar light bottle each year saved 17 kilograms of car-bon dioxide, one of the gases that causes global warming, compared

The main circumferential highway in Metro Manila, EDSA runs some 24 kilometers (or 15 miles) from Caloocan City in the north to Pasay City in the south.

Despite his love for the Spanish language, De los Santos was a fiery patriot who championed Philippine independence through journalism.

He was still museum direc-tor when he died from a stroke in 1928.

Triumph for intellectualsThe construction of the North

and South Circumferential Road that Commonwealth President Manuel L. Quezon envisioned as the Philippines’ most beautiful highway began in 1939.

For reasons that remain unclear, however, the Americans renamed this road “Highway 54” after World War II.

In 1959, by virtue of Republic Act No. 2140, Highway 54 was renamed “Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (Edsa),” in recognition of Don Panyong’s genius and contri-butions to the country’s intellectual and artistic heritage.

But it was not the favorite choice for Highway 54’s new name. There were three other formidable alter-natives: “Avenida 19 de Junio” (in honor of Rizal’s birthday); “Presi-dent Ramon Magsaysay Avenue” (in memory of the beloved presi-dent who died in 1957) and “Gen. Douglas MacArthur Highway” (for the American officer who led US forces in liberating the Philippines from Imperial Japan in World War II).

Compared to these great men,

De los Santos was the dark horse in the race.

Eulogio Rodriguez, who served as De los Santos’ assistant at the Phil-ippine Library and Museum, vigor-ously spearheaded the campaign to rename Highway 54 in honor of the latter. (Rodriguez would later become Senate president.)

After Rodriguez’s death, Juan Francisco Sumulong, who was De los Santos’ classmate at the Santo Tomas Law School, took up the campaign.

Sumulong’s lobbying and that of the Philippine Historical Com-mittee, the Philippine Historical Association, the Philippine Library

Association, the Association of University and College Professors, the Philippine National Historical Society and the Philippine-China Cultural Association won the day for Epifanio de los Santos Avenue.

It was a triumph for the Filipino intellectual.

The text of RA 2140, enacted on April 7, 1959, partly reads: “The name of Highway 54 in the Prov-ince of Rizal is changed to Epifanio de los Santos Avenue in honor of Don Epifanio de los Santos, a son of said province and the foremost Filipino scholar, jurist and historian

of his time.”

Historic highwayEdsa today is the Philippines’

most historic highway. Its name is inextricably linked to the People Power Revolutions that restored democracy in 1986 (or Edsa I), and ousted then President Joseph Es-trada in 2001 (or Edsa II).

The main circumferential high-way in Metro Manila, it runs some 24 kilometers (or 15 miles) from Caloocan City in the north to Pasay City in the south.

Edsa is a 10-lane expressway

that also encompasses the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) Line 3 extend-ing from Taft Avenue in the south to Monumento in the north by 2011. It forms the major portion of the Circumferential Road 4 (C-4) in Metro Manila and arcs in a semi-circle through the cities of Pasay, Makati, Mandaluyong, Quezon City and Caloocan.

In August 2009, Sen. Mar Rox-as proposed that Edsa be renamed “Cory Aquino Avenue,” in honor of the woman who led the struggle to oust the dictator Ferdinand Mar-cos and became the Philippines’ first woman president.

According to Roxas, “it is but fitting to offer in her memory the road that had made her famous all over the world.” But he subsequent-ly withdrew his proposal without explanation.

Now we have a bill filed in the House of Representatives by Bohol Rep. Rene Lopez Relampagos that again seeks to rename Edsa Cory Aquino Avenue.

Whether the measure will pass muster is unclear at this time. But it will do well for Congress to con-sider who De los Santos was, and why naming Metro Manila’s lon-gest highway after him honors the Filipino as an intellectual. (Philip-pine Daily Inquirer) n

RECYCLED BOTTLES...

with a household using an electric light bulb instead.

“If you multiply that by a mil-lion bottles, that will save more car-bon than one huge windmill which costs more to run.”

Lighting up the alumsIn the San Pedro slum com-

munity (in Laguna province) on the outskirts of Manila where the project started, residents think not about the climate but of the extra light they enjoy during the day without having to use an expensive electric bulb.

Many of the slum houses are dark even during the brightest days, with few windows in the concrete or corrugated iron walls to let the

daylight in.Monico Albao, 46, has five solar

bottles installed into the corrugated roof of his tiny home that he shares with his 22-year-old daughter, her bus conductor husband and their two-month-old grandson.

“My electricity costs have halved. The money we save, we spend on food and clothes for my grandson,” said Albao.

55-watt lightThe solar light bulb emits the

same amount of light as a 55 watt electric globe, and is expected to last for up to five years, according

to Diaz.All that is required is a disused

soft drink bottle, which is then filled with purified water and a small amount of bleach to stop any bac-teria from growing.

The bottle is then placed inside a hole in the roof and sealed so that rain does not leak through. When the light passes through the bottle, it refracts and shoots into the room in all directions.

MyShelter Foundation is not the first group to use the solar light bottle -- Brazilian Alfredo Moser is largely credited with coming up with the concept a decade ago.

However Diaz’s organization has been singled out for praise from the United Nations for its ability to upscale and reach so many people.

Role of InternetIn this regard, Diaz said one of

the keys to his success was using the Internet to make people aware of the solar bottle while also giv-ing them a solution online so they could immediately begin installing lights on their own.

Diaz said a person in Co-lombia began a replica project in September after watching MyShelter Foundation’s You-Tube clip, while others had been set up recently in South Africa, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Ne-pal and Mexico.

Diaz, who oversees a perma-nent staff of just a dozen people, also uses the online publicity to at-tract volunteers in the Philippines and sponsors from abroad.

“This is all part of us becom-ing an NGO 2.0 - helping a million people without being a multi-mil-lion-dollar foundation,” said Diaz. (Agence France-Presse) n

From page 11 Diaz said one of the keys to his success was using the Internet to make people aware of the solar bottle.


ETRO MA-NILA is cha-otic.

The me-tropolis is crowded and p o l l u t e d . Traffic is cra-zy; commut-

ers and car owners alike have a hard time getting around; the roads are jam-packed with cars, buses, jeepneys, tricycles, and motorcycles. Slums stand cheek by jowl next to gated communities. Shopping malls and high-rise apartments sprout from the ground, while billboards dominate the skyline.

What happened in the interven-ing years? How did we get into this mess? More important, can we get ourselves out it?

Let’s reframe Metro Manila by putting it in a global context. We may find viable solutions from oth-er cities that share our woes.

Depending on which list you look at, Metro Manila is the 15th or the 17th largest megacity in the world. A megacity is typically de-fined as an urban area that has more than 10 million people. Metro Manila’s population of about 13 million will climb to more than 15 million before the end of this de-cade.

Our megacity is not much dif-ferent from the other megacities in the world, which include Jakarta, Mexico City, Mumbai, and Shang-hai. We share the same urban prob-lems as these cities, and these prob-lems were produced by the same dynamics.

The population of Metro Ma-nila, like that of other megacities, exploded in the last 50 years. It shot up from 1.5 million in 1948 to 12.5 million by 2010. That means that more than 180,000 people flocked to the metropolis every year for the last 60 years.

The megacity’s boundaries also exploded; the highly urbanized core grew by around 14.6 square kilometers every year from 1948 to 1996. That’s a growth rate of 849 percent.

All over the world, people move to cities because they have more chances of making money, finding a job, or starting a business in cities than anywhere else. Urbanization is driven not by poverty but by op-portunity.

REFRAMINGBY BENJAMIN DE LA PENA

METRO MANILA Metro Manila, for all its insanities, is the engine of our

economy. We can look at its problems and be dismayed, or we can view them as challenges to do better, to create

a more livable and efficient engine.

The rural folk are attracted to big cities because it is there where they can improve their lives and realize their dreams.

One way of making Metro Manila livable is to improve the public transit system since 85 percent of the people rely on buses and trains.

Metro Manila makes up a mere 2.1 percent of the total land area of the country. Yet it generates more than a third of the national econo-my. In 2005, every square kilome-ter in the megacity produced about US$3 billion.

Metro Manila, for all its insani-ties, is the engine of our economy. We can look at its problems and be dismayed, or we can view them as challenges to do better, to create a more livable and efficient engine.

Why have they failed? Mainly because their decisions have been based on two myths.

Myth #1: Moving people, main-ly the poor, out of the city will de-congest it.

We have been trying to decon-gest the city since the late 1960s. The “Balik Probinsya” program pays the urban poor or gives them land to get them to return to their

provinces.It doesn’t work, however. Peo-

ple from the provinces go to Metro Manila because they have more chances of making money, finding a job, or starting a business in the

megacity than anywhere else in the country.

Many Filipinos flock to Metro Manila in search of the good life. In fact, as a share of the popula-tion, fewer poor families live in

the megacity than in the rest of the Philippines.

Let’s be careful what we wish for when we say that we want to decon-gest the megacity. A city that is de-populating is a city whose economy has failed. It is a “shrinking city.”

In contrast, a city that has a healthy economy continues to grow whether city planners want it to or not.

Myth #2: Building more roads will relieve traffic congestion.

In an urban area like Metro Ma-nila with a lot of traffic, adding new roads to distribute the traffic seems like a good idea. This is why we’ve widened roads and built flyovers and skyways.

Here are two pieces of bad news: First, Metro Manila’s roads already take up nearly a third of the land in the megacity; there’s very little more expansion we can do. Second, building more roads will only worsen traffic.

In the study, The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from US Cities., economists Gilles Duranton and Matthew Turner found that that where there are more lanes and roads, there will also be more traffic.

It is counter-intuitive. The oppo-site seems to be true: Taking away a road—even a major highway—ac-tually improves traffic.

What we can do is to make our megacity more livable. We can do that by changing the focus of our efforts.

Here are four steps we can take now to make our megacity a better place to live in:

1. Let’s put people first. If people count, then we should

count people. If we count vehicles, then a single car has the same value as a single bus. On the other hand, if we count people, then the bus, which carries 50 to 75 people, has more value than the car, which car-ries five people.

The principle of putting people first also applies to the way we de-sign our streets. In Metro Manila, we build sidewalks that are some-times only two feet wide. Often, trees and lampposts eat up into the narrow sidewalk and force pedestri-ans to walk on the streets. If people count, then we need to count the number of people using a sidewalk. Then we need to make sure the sidewalks are wide enough to ac-commodate the volume.

We make wide streets that are very hard for many people - includ-ing children, the elderly, and per-sons with disabilities - to cross.

We would do well to plan our

JANUARY 16-31, 2012 Calgary EditionPLANET PHILIPPINES18megacity around persons on foot. “The pe-destrian is the indicator species for livable and sustainable communities,” Harriet Tregon-ing, chief planner for Washington DC, once said. If we care for pedestrians, then safety features, such as crossings that put them first and widened footways, will follow.

2. Let’s make public transit the first and easiest option.

In 2007, 67,000 jeepneys, 10,754 buses, 61,173 tricycles, and 1.47 million private vehicles plied the streets of Metro Manila. There are nine private cars for every single public utility vehicle.

But 85 percent of the population in Metro Manila uses public transportation. Why not make public transportation more efficient for them?

We need to design better public transport because we want a transport system that does not favor the rich over the poor and the mid-dle class. Such a transport system will also lower labor costs and boost our country’s competitiveness.

3. Let’s build extensive bicycle facilities.While figures are hard to come by, many

Filipinos bike to exercise and to get to their places of work. They choose to bike - despite the dirty air, reckless drivers, and lack of bik-ing facilities - because the bicycle is the cheap-est and greenest form of transportation.

4. Let’s ask public officials to take public transportation at least once a month.

Their doing so will expose them to the daily realities of most of the citizens they

serve. It will remind them of the hassle pe-destrians and commuters have to go through every day.

In Shanghai, public officials take public transportation once a week. In Chicago, all public officials are required to take public transportation on all their trips during office hours.

Do we want to make Metro Manila a bet-ter place to live in? Then we must be prepared to work hard—and to wait.

(Excerpts from the lecture on urban plan-ning and mobility in Metro Manila delivered by Benjamin de la Peña, Associate Director for Urban Development at the Rockefeller Foundation, last October in Makati City. Mr. De la Peña has a master’s degree in urban planning from the Graduate School of De-sign at Harvard University.) n

It is wrong to assume that building more roads will relieve traffic congestion; in fact, it will only worsen traffic, according to studies.

planet philippines (calgary edition) january 16-31, 2012 issue

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