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Silliman Journal

Margaret Helen Udarbe-Alvarez, Ph.D., EditorWarlito S. Caturay Jr., MA, Associate EditorIan Rosales Casocot, MA, Production Editor

Nenith P. Calibo, Business Manager

Editorial Board

Myrish Cadapan-Antonio, LlMJane Annette L. Belarmino, MBA

Gina Fontejon-Bonior, MAJose Edwin C. Cubelo, Ph.D.Roy Olsen D. De Leon, MS

Theresa A. Guino-o, MSEnrique G. Oracion, Ph.D.

Muriel O. Montenegro, Ph.D.Betsy Joy B. Tan, Ph.D.

Lorna T. Yso, MLS

ovErsEas Editorial Board

Dennis Patrick McCann, Ph.D.Alston Professor of Bible and Religion, Agnes Scott College, Decatur, Georgia, USA

Ceres E. Pioquinto, Ph.D.English Lecturer, HMZ Academy/Dialogica Zug, Baar, Switzerland

Laurie H. Raymundo, Ph.D.Director, University of Guam Marine Laboratory, Mangilao, GU, USA

Lester Edwin J. Ruiz, Ph.D.Director, Accreditation and Institutional Evaluation,

Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada, The Commission on Accrediting, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Dr. Margaret Helen Udarbe-Alvarez, Chair

volume 53 Number 2 | July to december 2012

Prof. Victor Aguilan, Ph.D.Associate Professor, Divinity School

Silliman UniversityDumaguete City, Philippines

Prof Ma. Arve B. Bañez, M.A.Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology

Ateneo de Davao UniversityDavao City, Philippines

Chih-Wei Chang, Ph.D.Associate Research Fellow/Director

Department of Exhibition, National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium

Taiwan, Republic of China

Prof. Roy Olsen D. De Leon, M.S.Chair, Biology Department


Prof. Robert Guino-o, M.S.Assistant Professor, Biology Department


Prof. Gail Tan-Ilagan, Ph.D.Chair, Department of Psychology

Ateneo de Davao UniversityDavao City, Philippines

Prof. Lorna Peña-Reyes Makil, M.A.Sociologist

Dumaguete City, Philippines

Prof. Ruben C. Mendoza, Ph.D.Assistant Professor, Department of Theology

Ateneo de Manila UniversityQuezon City, Philippines

Prof. Enrique G. Oracion, Ph.D.Director, Research and Development Center


Board oF

rEviEWErs

Prof. Robert V. Panaguiton, Ph.D.Associate Professor, Social Sciences DepartmentSchool of Liberal Arts, Ateneo de Zamboanga UniversityZamboanga City, Philippines

Kang-Ning Shen, Ph.D.Assistant Researcher, Department of Environmental Biology and Fisheries ScienceNational Taiwan Ocean UniversityTaiwan, Republic of China

Prof. Margaret Helen Udarbe-Alvarez, Ph.D.Dean, College of Arts and SciencesSilliman UniversityDumaguete City, Philippines

Prof. Brigitt Bernadel Villordon, M.P.H.Assistant Professor, Biology DepartmentSilliman UniversityDumaguete City, Philippines

Silliman Journalvolume 53 Number 2 2012

The Silliman Journal is published twice a year under the auspices of Silliman university, Dumaguete City, Philippines. Entered as second class mail matter at Dumaguete City Post Office on September 1, 1954.

Copyright © 2012 by the individual authorsand Silliman Journal

all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the authors or the publisher.

ISSN 0037-5284

opinions and facts contained in the articles published in this issue of Silliman Journal are the sole responsibility of the individual authors and not of the Editors, the Editorial Board, Silliman Journal, or Silliman university.

Annual subscription rates are at PhP600 for local subscribers, and $35 for overseas subscribers. Subscription and orders for current and back issues should be addressed to

The Business manager Silliman Journal

Silliman university main library 6200 Dumaguete City, negros oriental Philippines

Issues are also available in microfilm format from

University Microfilms International 300 n. Zeeb road, ann arbor Michigan 48106 USA

other inquiries regarding editorial policies and contributions may be addressed to the Silliman Journal Business manager or the Editor at the following email address: [email protected].

or go to the Silliman Journal website at www.su.edu.ph/sillimanjournal

Cover and book design by Ian Rosales CasocotCover painting, “Irresolute Individual” by Gian Centeno, courtesy of the artist.Printing by SU Printing Press, Dumaguete City

Editorial NotesMargaret Helen F. Udarbe | 13

Baylor and Silliman: Historical and Academic Comparison

of Two Christian UniversitiesEnrique G. Oracion | 19

Walking Humbly With the Moros Towards the Kingdom:

A Reflection on the Catholic Church’s Mission in Muslim Mindanao

Ruben C. Mendoza | 44

Toward a Pauline Hermeneutic of Dialogue

Dennis Solon | 76

Local Government-Academe Partnership: Touching and Inspiring Students in

Environmental MonitoringEnrique G. Oracion | 100

Adolescents’ Emotional Awareness, Regulation and Transformation:

Emotion-Focused Therapy as Anger Management

Nelly Zosa Limbadan and Margaret Helen F. Udarbe | 122

Community Awareness and Perception of the Implementation of the

Coastal Resource Management Programs In Four Coastal Areas of Bolinao,

Pangasinan, PhilippinesAnnie Rose D. Teñoso

and Annie Melinda Paz-Alberto | 144

CoNtENts

Length-Weight and Length-Length Relationships and Fulton Condition Factor of Philippine Mullets (Family Mugilidae: Teleostei) 176 | Robert S. Guino-o II

Physico-chemical and Bacteriological Characteristics of Señora River, Siquijor Island, Central Philippines 190 | Hermilita L. Paculba, Rosalina E. Catid, Ronald Alexis L. Tan, Glory J. Barrera, Septima C. Aque, and Diogenes M. Barrera

Notes

Cultural Practices in Relation to the Utilization and Conservation of the Señora River and Other Community Practices 213 | Josel B. Mansueto, Expedita O. Duran, and Ricky C. Jumawan

The Philippine-American War in Verse219 | Myrna Peña-Reyes

BooK Review

Reconnecting with the Sillimans: On Tawny Ryan Nelb’s Mission Accomplished: Robert and Metta Silliman’s Missionary Work in the Philippines, 1924-1966 (2012)231 | Lorna Peña-Reyes Makil

Silliman Journal welcomes submission of scholarly papers, research studies, brief reports in all fields from both Philippine and foreign scholars, but papers must have some relevance to the Philippines, Asia, or the Pacific. All submissions are refereed.

Silliman Journal is especially receptive to the work of new authors. Articles should be products of research taken in its broadest sense and should make an original contribution to their respective fields. Authors are advised to keep in mind that Silliman Journal has a general and international readership, and to structure their papers accordingly.

Silliman Journal does not accept papers which are currently under consideration by other journals or which have been previously published elsewhere. The submission of an article implies that, if accepted, the author agrees that the paper can be published exclusively by the journal concerned.

Manuscripts of up to 20 pages, including tables and references, should conform to the conventions of format and style exemplified in a typical issue of Silliman Journal. Documentation of sources should be disciplined-based. Whenever possible, citations should appear in the body of the paper, holding footnotes to a minimum. Pictures or illustrations will be accepted only when absolutely necessary. All articles must be accompanied by an abstract and keywords and must use gender-fair language.

Silliman Journal likewise welcomes submissions of “Notes,” which generally are briefer and more tentative than full-length articles. Reports on work-in-progress, queries, updates, reports of impressions rather than research, responses to the works of others, even reminiscences are appropriate here.

Silliman Journal also accepts for publication book reviews and review articles.

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically in one Microsoft Word file (including title page, figures, tables, etc. in the file), preferably in RTF (.rtf). Please send one copy of the manuscript as an e-mail attachment, with a covering message addressed to the Editor: [email protected]

The Editor will endeavor to acknowledge all submissions,

NotiCE to aUtHors PUBliCatioN GUidEliNEs

consider them promptly, and notify the authors as soon as these have been refereed. Each author of a full-length article is entitled to one complimentary copy of the journal plus 20 off-print copies of her/his published paper. Additional copies are available by arrangement with the Editor or Business Manager before the issue goes to press.

Other inquiries regarding editorial policies and contributions may be addressed to the Business Manager at [email protected], or the Editor at [email protected].

silliMaN JoUrNal

13

silliMaN JoUrNalvol. 53 No. 2 JUly to dECEMBEr 2012

Editorial NotEs

Welcome to this issue of Silliman Journal. Please don’t let the “irresolute individual” on the cover deter you

from reading the variety offered by this issue. In addition to unpeace, peace is also discussed here.

Our full-length papers begin with Silliman University research director Enrique Oracion’s essay on two higher education institutions—Baylor in Texas, U.S.A., and the other, Silliman in the Philippines. The paper developed during Ike’s four-month fellowship stint at Baylor University. While this article compares the two universities from a historical and academic perspective, a second article will highlight the quality of the faculty at both universities in SJ

“Perhaps there is nothing in the whole of creationthat knows the meaning of peace. For is not the soil restless by comparison with the unyielding rock?”

Ugo BettiThe Fugitive

(1953)

“The only condition of peace in this world is to haveno ideas, or, at least, not to express them.”

Oliver Wendell HolmesThe Professor at the Breakfast Table

(1860)

“I know of no more disagreeable situation than to be left feeling generally angry without anybody in

particular to be angry at.”

Frank Moore Colby(1926)

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silliMaN JoUrNal JUly to dECEMBEr 2012 vol. 53 No. 2

Editorial NotEs

2013. The paper is followed by Dr. Ruben Mendoza’s “Walking Humbly

with the Moros towards the Kingdom: A Reflection on the Catholic Church’s Mission in Muslim Mindanao” and Dennis Solon’s “Toward a Pauline Hermeneutic of Dialogue.” Both papers tackle the matter of dialogue in Muslim Mindanao, despite the odds. Ruben says that the Catholic Church has been inadequate in responding to the Moro issue and suggests it “move out of its comfort zone.” For his part, Dennis uses Paul’s letter to the Romans, stating that “Filipino Christians can draw lessons from this letter about some significant and positive ways for dealing with peoples of other religious persuasions.”

Then, Ike Oracion’s second contribution to this issue describes the service-learning involvement of undergraduate and graduate anthropology students in environmental monitoring. In particular, Ike and his students checked on the impact of a waste management center upon residents in Bayawan, a city south of Dumaguete City in the Visayas Region, Central Philippines, finding that service-learning can be a very emotional experience, yet beneficial for educational partnerships and changes in policy.

The fifth article evaluates an anger management intervention program for applicability to a group of adolescents. The authors, psychotherapists Nelly Limbadan and Marge Udarbe found that emotion regulation and transformation can indeed occur in a brief period of time, with proper facilitation and supervision as well as direct counseling.

The next three studies are all somehow related to marine and riverside conservation awareness, practice, and investigation. The first article describes how coastal residents in Bolinao, Pangasinan, Philippines perceive the implementation of coastal resource management programs in the area. Next, biologist Robert Guino-o specifically studies Philippine mullets, considered economically important food fish in the Philippines. Robert’s research reports for the first time the occurrence of the longfinned mullet Osteomugil perusii and the dwarf mullet Osteomugil engeli in Philippine waters. Finally, physico-chemical and bacteriological characteristics of a river in Central Philippines is looked into by Hermilita Paculba and colleagues.

NOtes seCtiON

The two contributions to the Notes Section could not be so different from each other. First, Josel Mansueto and others investigate

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MarGarEt UdarBE-alvarEz

community practices in the use of the Señora River on Siquijor Island (related studies appear both in this issue and in SJ 2011, vol. 52, no. 2).

Then, the poet Myrna Peña-Reyes in “The Philippine-American War in Verse,” tells us about the “Yankee Rudyard Kiplings”—American poet-soldiers and war correspondents who recorded in verse America’s colonial adventure in the Philippines. Cited poems tell of battles and heroism, death and propaganda, homesickness and humor.

BOOk RevieW

The lone book review in this issue is by the Dumaguete City resident sociologist Lorna P. Makil who, in “Reconnecting with the Sillimans,” reviews Tawny Ryan Nelb’s Mission Accomplished: Robert and Metta Silliman’s Missionary Work in the Philippines, 1924-1966 (2012). Nelb is an American archivist and historian commissioned to write about the missionary work of Presbyterians. To Nelb’s meticulous research and facts, Prof. Makil adds her own personal notes, making the review in itself interesting reading.

ACkNOWledgMeNts

I would like to thank Gian Centeno whose painting is showcased on this issue’s cover. Gian is in the pioneering batch of Fine Arts majors at Silliman University and graduates in March, 2013.

My gratitude also goes to my staff—Nenith, Warly, and especially, production editor Ian Rosales Casocot, for countless reasons, and the editorial board, especially Ike Oracion and Roy de Leon whose time and commitment to peer reviewing I have called upon repeatedly.

Our contributions are many and diverse and my thanks go to the authors and their colleagues for their confidence in SJ as well as to our readers and reviewers, including our overseas board for always being there and coming through, sometimes after my last-minute requests. As Shakespeare wrote in The Merchant of Venice, “How many things by season seasoned are / To their right praise and true perfection!”

Margaret Helen F. UdarbeEditor

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Baylor and Silliman: Historical and Academic Comparison

of Two Christian Universities

Enrique G. oracionresearch and development Center

silliman Universitydumaguete City, Philippines

Employing historical and comparative approaches, this paper describes how Christian commitment has inspired Baylor University and silliman University in establishing quality higher education institutions that have surpassed the test of time and continued to develop academic and community programs that bear and transmit Christian values and ideals to students amidst the secularization of higher education in the world. informed by their vision and mission, both institutions demonstrated efforts in promoting faith-learning integration and at the same time ensuring quality education at par with other universities in the Us and the Philippines, respectively. Certainly, the younger silliman still has something to learn from Baylor although it has its own ways of integrating faith and learning and in improving the quality and scholarships of its faculty and students, evident in the recognition it received in recent years.

keyWORds: Christian university, Protestant, Baptist, Presbyterian, faith-learning integration

iNtROdUCtiON

I was struck by some parallel events in the history of Baylor University (henceforth, Baylor) and Silliman University (henceforth, Silliman) and their common foundation as Christian

higher education institutions, which they claim in their respective mission statements, even though they are widely separated by the

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CoMParisoNs oF tWo CHristiaN UNivErsitiEs

Pacific Ocean. And speaking of a body of water, Baylor can be aptly described as a campus by the river with reference to the Brazos River on its northern side, while Silliman is a campus by the sea because, on the eastern side, it directly faces Bohol Sea. Metaphorically, water is life and the connection of these two institutions to certain bodies of water, by coincidence, incidentally symbolizes their commitment to nourish life and to promote quality living, a commitment that is evidently embedded in their degree programs and community engagement in both the sacred and secular fields. Both are Protestant universities; in fact, Baylor is the largest Baptist higher education institution in the world while Silliman is one of the largest Presbyterian universities in the Philippines.

Baylor is situated in Waco—a small city in Texas—while Silliman is situated in Dumaguete City, also a small city and the provincial capital of Negros Oriental. Each is the oldest university in its locale: Baylor in Texas and Silliman in Negros Oriental. Silliman is also the oldest Protestant university in the Philippines. Baylor was established on February 1, 1845 and is now (i.e. 2012) 167 years old (Baker, 1987, p. 15), while Silliman, which was founded on August 28, 1901, is 111 years old (Carson, 1965, p. 1). They have both surpassed their hundred years of struggle for existence amidst the challenges of modern times. It was the Texas Education Baptist Society, as recommended by Reverend William Milton Tryon and District Judge Robert Emmett Bledsoe Baylor, which established Baylor University (Baker, 1987, p. 12). Meanwhile, Silliman was founded under the auspices of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, USA through a donation from Dr. Horace B. Silliman, a retired businessman from the town of Cohoes in New York (Carson, 1965, p. 1).

Although establishing a school was originally the idea of W.M. Tryon, it was after R.E.B. Baylor that the university was named because the former refused the honor. Tryon did not want to be misconstrued as having personal interest for suggesting the idea of creating a school, so he endorsed the name of Baylor. Actually, Baylor also refused in favor of Tryon because, according to him, he had done nothing worthy of being honored. In the end, the highest officials of the Republic of Texas supported Tryon’s suggestion of having Baylor’s name (Baker, 1987, p. 15). In the case of Silliman, although Dr. David S. Hibbard, together with his wife Laura, had done all the work to start Silliman Institute and was its first President, it was named after Dr. Silliman in recognition of his persistence in building a school for the Filipino people because they “need a new kind of

21


E.G. oraCioN

education” (Carson 1965, p. 2). The foregoing events were just a few of the historical facts about

Baylor which got me more interested to discern how Silliman is similar or different from Baylor. It also led me to further examine how Silliman may stand among other universities in the Philippines some years from now like in the case of Baylor in Texas or in the US. Certainly, the experiences of Baylor is a good benchmark for Silliman being both Christian and private non-profit universities. I stayed with Baylor as a Fellow of the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia (UBCHEA) from January to May 2012. The opportunity to be in the campus of Baylor for four months allowed me to read books and documents in its libraries; to participate in its academic and co-curricular activities; to intellectually interact with Dr. James Benighoft, the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Policy; and to interview some faculty and administrators to validate the information about Baylor I got from my readings and observations.

In the following sections, I will compare Baylor and Silliman in terms of the political events that unfolded when they started as educational institutions and eventually expanded, the challenges met and opportunities enjoyed, and the adaptability of programs they pursued that described or characterized the quality of Christian education they have produced through the years.

POlitiCAl eveNts

It is interesting to point out the parallel political events in Texas and the Philippines prior to the coming of the Americans. Texas was once part of Mexico and the latter was a former Spanish colony, which was also the case with the Philippines, but the Mexicans gained their independence earlier—on August 24, 1821—than the Filipinos did. According to the Handbook of Texas On-line, “New Philippines or Nueva Filipinas and Nuevo Reino de Filipinas were secondary names given to the area of Texas above the Medina River at the time of Domingo Ramón's expedition of 1716” (de la Teja, cited in Baker & Pohl n.d.). The same source also notes that in using these names the Franciscan missionaries were actually trying “to equate their work in Texas under Philip V with that of their brethren in the Philippine Islands under his predecessor, Philip II, thus engendering royal support.” They wanted the province of Texas to be like a “new” Philippines. However, the name was no longer commonly used in legal documents by the early

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1800s except in land grants. The residents of Mexican Texas and the Republic of Texas were

disgruntled with the Mexican government because of its shift to centralism during the rule of General, then President, Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana. They revolted, led mostly by immigrants who were accustomed to federalism in the United States where they came from, which produced the Republic of Texas on March 2, 1836. But it was not that easy for the young republic which was always threatened by invasions of Mexican troops in some of its territories as well as by Indian attacks. These had also impeded the plans of the Texas Baptist Education Society to establish a school (Baker, 1987, p. 12).

On the other hand, in the Philippines sometime later, the Filipinos did gain independence from Spain but it was short-lived because the Philippine-American war erupted. The sovereignty of the United States over the country by virtue of the Treaty of Paris, resulting from the defeat of Spain in the Spanish-American war in 1898, was not recognized by Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo. The general played a major role in the final stage of Filipino revolution against Spain up to 1898. He proclaimed the First Philippine Republic on January 23, 1899 and became the first president to mark the end of Spanish occupation of the country.

So while Baylor was chartered a university in the last year of the Republic of Texas when it became part of the United States of America, more than 50 years later the establishment of Silliman coincided with the end of the Philippine Republic when it became a US colony. Certainly, American missionaries thought of education a very important tool to meet various challenges in life particularly under newly acquired or imposed political statuses of the people of Texas and the Philippines, respectively.

CHRistiAN visiON ANd MissiON

In its decision to proceed with the establishment of a school, the Education Society was guided by a major goal of meeting “the need for educating ministers as well as those individuals interested in secular learning” (Baker, 1987, p. 12) through a school that “…would be fully susceptible of enlargement and development to meet the needs of all ages to come” (originally quoted in Baker 1987, p. 12). The Society already had a vision that the school it could establish would not only be parochial in scope and provisional in character but

23


E.G. oraCioN

would grow so as to significantly impact not only Texas at a certain period in its history but even beyond for many years to come. On the other hand, Dr. Silliman’s proposal to the Presbyterian Board to establish an industrial school in the Philippines was inspired by the Hampton Institute model in Virginia which he also supported. But because of the religious background of its founders, “Silliman has been intimately associated with the Protestant missionary movement and with the formation of and growth of evangelical churches in the Philippines” (Carson, 1965, p. 1).

Baylor and Silliman as Christian educational institutions have Protestant orientation that strongly determined their directions in the succeeding years up to the present. Baylor upholds a moderate Baptist orientation, as opposed to fundamentalism, founded upon an ecumenical Christian mission that “historically stood for religious liberty and tolerance” (Parsons, 2003, p. 64). In the same manner, Silliman, with its Presbyterian and Congregational traditions, also plays a significant role in the Ecumenical Movement and is, therefore, liberal in its religious perspective. With similar historical beginnings and religious foundations, Baylor and Silliman undeniably have the vision and motto that are filled with notions of delivering excellent education to all, regardless of religious affiliation and beliefs, in order to produce the kind of leaders who will serve not for personal gain but for the well-being of others in society, within and beyond one’s community, and within the natural environment with a commitment to pursue Christian ideals in the process.

The mission of Baylor says “to educate men and women for worldwide leadership and service by integrating academic excellence and Christian commitment within a caring community” with Pro Ecclesia, Pro Texana (For Church, For Texas) as its motto. Similarly, Silliman’s mission is to become “a leading Christian institution in Asia committed to total human development for the well-being of society and environment” with the motto of Via, Veritas, Vitae (the Way, the Life, the Truth). Guided by these mission and mottos, both institutions have visualized that their respective students and graduates are both intellectually equipped and spirituality inspired by Christian ideas, values, and practices that put their education not only for personal pursuit of grandeur but likewise for the service of humanity. For Baylor, being a Christian university is not enough just to have an atmosphere of high moral and religious kind of campus life, but that which also integrates faith and learning into the whole process of educating its students (Schmeltekopf, 2003, p. 11). Silliman shares

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the same expressions without compromising “academic dignity and secular scholarly pursuits” and equally recognizes the “reality and supremacy of the Divine” (Silliman Strategic Plan 2008, p. 31).

sMAll BegiNNiNgs

It was not immediately in 1845 that Baylor started to operate. It had to open a year after because the location had to be identified, and the president and the faculty had to be named. In its first opening, the students had to be content with what was immediately available to become their classroom. From the documents he examined, Baker (1987, p. 23) described later the scenario of the first class in this manner:

On May 18, 1846, twenty-four young boys and girls gathered in a small partially refurbished frame schoolhouse on the southern edge of Independence to open the first class of Baylor University. Thirty-year-old Henry F. Gillett, a native of Connecticut who had been in Texas teaching and farming for about six years, greeted the students. He was the only employee of the University, as president Henry L. Graves had not yet arrived.

The scenario of the first class at Silliman Institute (its first name) was not far different from the experience at Baylor. Although there were more students at Baylor representing both sexes with only one school official around, the first batch of students at Silliman was all boys, because that was originally intended to be an industrial school, and the school President and a teacher were both present to receive the students. Similarly to the Baylor students, the first batch of Silliman students had to start from scratch but their commitments to learn very well prevailed as they continued to meet during the succeeding school days. From the letter of Dr. Hibbard, Carson (1965, p. 1) quoted the following lines that show how the first class at Silliman started:

There were fifteen boys that morning. The equipment consisted of four desks about ten feet long, two tables and two chairs, a few McGuffey’s Readers, a few geographies, arithmetics and ninth-grade grammars. I was President; Mrs. Laura Hibbard was the faculty (italics mine).

I am showing the earliest enrollment and classes to compare those with the scenarios now after more than a century of the existence of these two universities. With such limited resources and enrollment when they started, one may ask how they continue to operate during times when the political climates were unstable in those places.

25


E.G. oraCioN

Moreover, formal education would have been a novelty which few locals would have considered very important, since they had been making a living without finishing school or earning degrees. Even at present, newly established schools have to have enough capital to sustain their operation when income from tuition fees is not enough or not reliable to pay for faculty and staff as well as to purchase what equipment and facilities are needed in order to attract more students and to become competitive. Baylor and Silliman were, therefore, navigating the seas without clear assurance that they could reach land with limited resources at their disposal. Establishing school as part of missionary work, I would say, they may have been motivated by faith that God would provide for a noble cause, and indeed, donations kept coming from philanthropists who believed in them.

tHe exPANdiNg PReseNt

Baylor was merged with Waco University (another Baptist school in Texas) in 1886 and was moved from Independence to Waco. The merger was primarily driven by the desire of some trustees to have only “one central university which the entire denomination could support,” and Baylor was retained as its name because of loyalty to the denomination’s first school (Baker, 1987, pp. 40, 42). Baylor presently occupies an area of 735 acres (297 hectares). For the school year 2010-2011 it had a student population of which 80 percent came from within Texas and 20 percent from 48 states and 86 countries. The enrollment for that period was 15,029 wherein 12,575 (83.67%) were undergraduate students and 2,454 (16.33%) were graduate and professional students (www.baylor.edu/about/index.php?id=48867). Although Baylor has only 11 schools and colleges, these academic units offered 151 degree programs at the undergraduate level, 76 master's programs, 33 doctoral programs and the juris doctor. Previously, it also included a medical school.1

Meanwhile, Silliman, which is centrally located in Dumaguete, occupies an area of only 153 acres (62 hectares). It includes all academic levels: pre-school and basic education, both elementary and high school, and collegiate and post-graduate education. In 2012, it has 17 academic units but its degree programs are limited as compared to those at Baylor. It only offers 63 degree programs at the undergraduate level, 27 master’s programs, 9 doctoral programs, juris doctor and medicine. In the school year 2010-2011 (Annual Report of Silliman, 2011) it had an average

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enrollment for the two semesters of 8,732 covering the following academic levels and degree programs: undergraduate (5,920), graduate (291), medical (91),2 law (95), special students (18), high school (981), elementary (991) and preschool (345). In summary, the undergraduate students comprised 68% of the total enrollment followed by those enrolled in basic education (26.53%) and the graduate and professional degree programs (5.46%). The small percentage of special students (0.21%) refers to those who only took English orientation classes (usually South Koreans) or other lessons for a limited period in a semester. As a whole, the foreign students from about 23 countries comprised only 4 percent (368) of the total student population.

The growing number and mixture of academic programs Baylor and Silliman have acquired since their modest beginning is a fulfillment of their missions of providing holistic education in response to the needs and demands of a modern and globalizing world. They did not simply stop with what they had offered during the first half of the century of their existence, nor did they cater only to the communities immediately within their surroundings as well as the church that they are directly affiliated with, but they chose to spread their wings and soar high and wide to meet both the opportunities and threats in the secular world. Nevertheless, they both retained their religious schools which are tangible expressions of their beginnings and commitments. But it was only in 1905 that a Theological Seminary was organized in Baylor, only to separate from it in 1907 and later move to Forth Worth, Texas in 1910. To have a seminary on campus was important enough that in 1993 the George W. Truett Theological Seminary was organized in Waco, but classes only began in 1994 (Baylor University, 2011, p. 5). Meanwhile, at Silliman, a Bible School was opened in June 1921 to train students who wanted to go into church ministry. This was the rationale of Dr. Frank Laubach, a member of the American Board Mission, when he proposed having this school (http://www.su.edu.ph/college/divinity/). Today it is called Divinity School and offers Bachelor of Theology, Master of Divinity, and Doctor of Theology.

exPANdiNg BeyONd tHe MAiN CAMPUs

The academic program of Baylor does not only transcend time but likewise space. It has expanded to other places in Texas in order to bring quality education to areas where it is appropriately needed and resources are available. In 1909, it opened as a diploma program

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the Baylor School of Nursing within the Baylor Hospital in Dallas—the predecessor of the Baylor University Medical Center.3 It is now called the Louise Herrington School of Nursing, which started to offer degrees in nursing in 1950. The first Bachelor of Science in Nursing degrees were awarded in 1954 and this made the school one of the oldest baccalaureate nursing programs in the United States (Baylor University, 2011, p. 296). The School of Nursing is now conveniently housed in the Harry W. Bass Academic Center at the Dallas campus of Baylor. This is just a few blocks northeast of downtown Dallas and is highly accessible to students who want to enroll in the nursing program. Pre-requisite courses may be taken either at the Baylor-Waco campus or elsewhere.

Meanwhile, three new off-campus academic programs are in partnership with the state and situated in Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas. First is the Army-Baylor Graduate Program in Health and Business Administration, which produces graduates with Master of Health Administration (MHA) degrees, which may be combined with the Master in Business Administration (MHA/MBA). The program is fully accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME) and the Association for the Advancement of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) (http://www.baylor.edu/graduate/mha/). Second is the U.S. Military-Baylor Graduate Program in Nutrition and the U.S. Military Dietetic Internship Consortium which award Master of Science in Nutrition degrees (http://www.baylor.edu/graduate/nutrition/). And the third is the U.S. Army-Baylor University Doctoral Program in Physical Therapy which started to offer masters degrees in 1971 and the doctoral physical therapy program in 2003 (http://www.baylor.edu/graduate/pt/). All the above programs are especially designed to meet the needs of personnel in the uniformed services. But what is noteworthy here is the high regard of the state for Baylor’s reputation in the fields of health research and education, reflected in the fact that the former forged partnerships with the latter rather than with other private or state universities in Texas.

The other recent off-campus academic program of Baylor is the 21-month Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) program which actually started on the main campus in 1991. It is now offered in its extension schools in Dallas since 1993 and in Austin since 2001. The professors from the main campus would travel to these places to hold classes as scheduled although local lecturers who are practitioners are also being tapped to handle

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certain courses. Meanwhile, paper submissions and other assigned activities are conducted on-line. According to Dr. Gary Carini, Associate Dean for Graduate Studies of the Hankamer School of Business, the EMBA Program is unique because it illustrates a campus in a learning environment. The knowledge from classroom instruction is immediately applied by students in their existing professions. Classes are also conveniently scheduled so as to fit the work schedules of these students who want to advance their careers.

Although Silliman is already more than a century old, it has never expanded to other cities in the country, unlike other private sectarian or religious universities in the Philippines (e.g., Saint Paul University, La Salle University, Ateneo de Manila University, University of San Carlos) to cater to people who wish to enroll but are hampered by cost and time because of the distance. The geographic extension of classes or having campuses in other places is not actually new in the Philippines. In fact, several state universities in the country (e.g., University of the Philippines, Negros Oriental State University, Cebu Technological University) have campuses in some parts of the province where they are located or in other provinces which are managed as one system.

Actually, Silliman had a plan to have an MBA Program similar to what Baylor has that will particularly cater to professionals who are working in Manila, the capital city of the Philippines. A feasibility study was conducted to determine its viability, considering strong competition with other universities. If this is to be pursued, lessons about how to proceed can be gleaned from the opinion of Dr. Carini that to have a competitive off-campus program is to offer quality instruction but with a relatively comparable price—not necessarily the lowest—with other universities. Often price is associated with quality, and professionals who are conscious of their investments would naturally select the best university but with a fairer price. Silliman has a high national reputation and a number of alumni working in Manila who may avail themselves of its MBA Program. Likewise, qualified alumni in Manila with related advanced degrees can be tapped to handle classes in addition to the pool of faculty coming from the Dumaguete campus at certain times.

CHAlleNgiNg ANd sHARPeNiNg tHe iNtelleCt

Another feature of the academic program of Baylor is its dedication

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in providing students a broad range of learning opportunities that cater to individual preferences and abilities. It may be appropriately considered a special program, because it has stricter requirements and expectations for students who want not only to deepen but also to broaden their understanding of the various aspects of life in relation to the disciplines that they are currently pursuing. Baylor’s Honors College provides talented students with superior academic records and independent motivation with several “innovative and challenging interdisciplinary programs.” These programs include the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core, the Great Texts Program, the Honors Program, and the University Scholars Program (Baylor University 2011, p. 248). I remember when I was yet in college that Silliman also had an Honors Program which was opened only to university scholars, but it had stopped in the 1990s after the faculty who supported it had either retired or left the university. Although it was just one program and was not sustained, it nevertheless showed that Silliman also has that desire to provide a more specialized academic program for talented students.

The Honors Program which started in 1959 at Baylor is a four-year departmental and interdisciplinary program which inspires students to intensely explore their major fields of study by integrating several areas of knowledge through independent research with guidance from faculty members from various disciplines. The Baylor Interdisciplinary Core, on the other hand, offers an “option for the general education requirements of all undergraduate degree programs.” In this case, there is an integration of the various academic disciplines within a set of comprehensive interdisciplinary courses so the students can see and appreciate the relationships and connections among issues, disciplines, and thinkers. As a result they are able to critically examine and synthesize the materials that they study towards a more comprehensive understanding of the matters at hand. There are five sequences of courses in the program, including The Examined Life, World Cultures, The World of Rhetoric, The Natural World and The Social World (Baylor University, 2011, p. 250). The incumbent Silliman president Dr. Ben S. Malayang III has proposed this mode of integrating core courses as part of strengthening the liberal education program of the university. However, this has yet to be realized and adopted by the faculty members who have initially shown some apprehension because of the problem of integrating several topics in a single course.

The Great Texts Program of Baylor is akin to Dr. Malayang’s

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proposal of exposing Silliman students to various readings in the humanities for the same reason of broadening their liberal arts education. As practiced at Baylor, the Great Texts Program is an “interdisciplinary program that explores the richness and diversity of the Western intellectual heritage” (Baylor University, 2011, p. 266). The students select a major and minor concentration of studies as the focus of their undergraduate education. If they major in Great Texts of the Western Tradition, they will find this useful especially if they are in the Bachelor of Arts programs or will pursue graduate study. Having Great Texts as a minor will strengthen their background in liberal arts as well as broaden their learning. The University Scholars Program likewise seeks to broaden the liberal arts background of students while they are being prepared “for a career through concentrated study in several areas” (Baylor University, 2011, p. 269). They are free to create an individualized course of study and are exempted from having specialized course requirements of a traditional major. Throughout their entire four years in college, they get advice from a program director that mentors them.

AdAPtive ACAdeMiC PROgRAMs

While remaining true to its heritage the academic program of Baylor does not only aim to produce graduates who are knowledgeable and skilled in their specialized disciplines in order to meet the demands of the labor market and to provide substantial return of investments for their college education; it also makes sure that its graduates have a broader, integrative, and humane understanding of issues confronting them when they will start to practice their professions by providing them a strong background in liberal arts education. The adaptive nature of the academic programs of Baylor is seen in its expanding degree programs and in bringing Baylor education off-campus coupled with scholarships for those who need them. This likewise indicates Baylor’s commitment to make education available to anyone who has the motivation and talent but may be hampered by social inadequacies. Meanwhile, the creation of Honors College provides extra opportunities to students who crave more learning and demonstrate love for greater challenges beyond what the regular academic program can offer them.

Comparatively speaking, the academic programs of Silliman may lag behind Baylor in terms of quantity and resources, but the

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essence of responding to the demands of time and the market as well as in producing well-informed graduates is apparent. Some of the programs of Baylor which have been reaping positive results, such as its EMBA and Honors College are actually within the plans or had been practiced in the past, but they are not further pursued by Silliman administration. However, given its limited human and financial resources, Silliman has to be careful about expanding or reviving programs unless it is assured of sustainable support of alumni and faculty. It has to re-assess the proposal to offer off-campus MBA or other graduate programs, to review the need to re-establish its Honors Program in terms of the interest of students, and to re-evaluate the capacity of faculty to teach integrative courses.

In general, the major concern of Baylor and Silliman on liberal arts education is informed by its importance on providing broader human and spiritual dimensions on the learning of students promoted by early philosophers and the forerunners of Christian education. This perception about the importance of liberal arts is summarized by Holmes (2001, p. 10-11) who particularly reiterated the argument of philosopher Seneca: “While liberal studies cannot actually bestow virtue…they do prepare the soul for its reception…prepare one for wisdom.” Furthermore, Holmes (2001, p. 26) also wrote that according to Augustine, “liberal learning leads to the contemplation of God….” Thus, institutions supportive of Christian higher education, like the United Board, always look for programs that promote whole person in the liberal arts tradition (http://www.unitedboard.org). Liberal arts education helps in preparing students “for service to both church and society” as well as in bringing them to “the unity of truth that Scripture implies” (Holmes, 2001, pp. 2, 20).

iNtegRAtiON OF FAitH ANd leARNiNg

Talking about commitment to Christian faith and quality education is like discussing how religion and science can be reconciled given their perceived inherent tensions. In fact, even the past trustees of the United Board that link Baylor and Silliman in the Fellowship Program, which I had participated, had to grapple with the question of whether Christian higher education really exists. One group argued that there is no such kind of education, while the other said that it is what Christian schools offer. According to Dr. Paul Lauby (1996, p. 192), former executive director of the United Board and was with Silliman

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for 16 years, Christian education takes “religion seriously in all areas and dimensions of life, and… fosters a cohesive and comprehensive educational experience” but is “completely committed to a free exchange of ideas and serious consideration of all world views.” It is a kind of education that does not adhere to self-righteousness and attitudes of exclusion, he added. This is the view that has ultimately guided the United Board in partnering with Christian higher education institutions in Asia, both Protestant and Catholic. But Dr. Lauby was, at the same time, alarmed by the growing secularization of Christian colleges and universities.

For Baylor, the tension within its organization was real and had caused a division between the conservatives and moderates who upheld different views of how to face the threats of secularization of Christian institutions. The tension was marked with the charter change of Baylor that made it independent from the Baptist General Convention of Texas. The centrists viewed this to have allowed the university to be “both intellectually enlightened and religiously faithful” (as quoted in Baker, 2007, p. 113). I do not have to elaborate on the details of the tension because they have been thoroughly described in the book The Baylor Project: Taking Christian Higher Education to the Next Level edited by Hankins and Schmeltekopf (2007). But what is important to note from my reading of this book is that there is a way to maintain Christian heritage without abandoning the pursuit for quality education, which Baylor has successfully done and clearly shown in the recognitions and achievements it has earned.

Dr. Herbert H. Reynolds, Baylor president from 1981 to 1995, pledged during his inaugural speech “that we will continue to remain true to that heritage and respond faithfully to the trust granted us” (as quoted in Baker, 1987, p. 301). He favored the integration of faith and learning because of his belief that Baylor had a unique purpose: “to be a first-rate university which acknowledges that humankind is God’s creation and that the best type of education is that where discovered truth and revealed truth exist side by side in a complementary fashion” (as quoted in Baker, 1987, pp. 316-317). Taking a comprehensive view about Christian faith allows a scholar to use his or her religious orientation as “a starting point, the end point, and the guiding inspiration” and not a “limiting label,” according to Dr. Richard John Neuhaus, for scholarly pursuits or for seeking and serving the truth (Baker, 2007, p. 119). Thereafter, I presume that what Dr. Reynolds and Dr. Neuhaus advocated had informed the direction of the academic programs of Baylor and driven the students to excel

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in their disciplines without abandoning Christian ideals. Dr. Robert Sloan Jr., Baylor former president, later wrote that he was also for faith and learning integration but he was criticized because of his “managerial style and methods of implementation” (Sloan, 2007, p. 320).

Therefore, the expansion of academic programs of Baylor, particularly on the physical and natural sciences, in order to respond to secular demands should not be taken as a neglect of Christian ideals. In fact, with more academic programs, more avenues are opened by which these ideals can find application and interpretation, provided that these ideals have been internalized by students in their participation in various religious or faith-related activities and in dialogues with their professors. Indeed, there are Baylor faculty who do not see being a Christian and a scientist to be problematic, and it is interesting to find them among faculty who handle courses at Honors College. They certainly can influence the thinking of their students, and they do not only speak inside the classroom but also in churches that seek harmony between science and faith (e.g., Hendrickson, 2012, p. 3). For example, when I was in Baylor, the Physics Department of Baylor invited Dr. Hugh Ross, an astronomer and Christian apologist, to lecture on the convergence of physics and faith (Allison 2012, p. 1).

The Annual Report of Baylor (2011) of its achievements provides evidence of the strong Christian identity of the university not only in academic realms but as demonstrated by students in campus ministry activities and in the community. The Spiritual Life Center of Baylor offers a variety of experiences and exposures for students to re-examine their faith and to find meaning for their being in a university. These activities include chapel hour, mission work, pastoral care, and spiritual growth and formation. Chapel is considered to be the oldest tradition of Baylor where students and faculty come together at scheduled times on Mondays and Wednesdays to listen to and be inspired by people about their commitment to Christ. There is the Seventh and James Baptist Church within Baylor campus where students can attend services, in addition to the various Baptist churches around Waco. Meanwhile, three groups aside from the Baptist Student Ministries or religious structures intended for students are present inside Baylor campus where worship services are also held. These are the St. Joseph Catholic Student Center, the United Methodist Student Center, and the Reformed University Fellowship which is the campus ministry of the Presbyterian Church.

The students are also given opportunities to serve and learn

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in the community to instill the spirit of volunteerism and service-learning into their lives as Christians even after they graduate from the university. These opportunities are provided by its Community Service Programs and the Baylor Interdisciplinary Poverty Initiative. Baylor also sponsors the Global Mission Leadership Initiative of the School of Social Work, which trains international students and sends them back to their home countries to serve the needs and transform the lives of marginalized people (Snoberger-Balm, 2012). During his March 21, 2012 chapel remarks, Baylor incumbent president Judge Ken Starr emphasized the realms where science and God intersect as well as how faith and science are equally embraced by Baylor faculty and students while working with or helping communities in need (http://www.baylor.edu/president/news.php?action=story&story=111933). This is another occasion which shows how at Baylor the opportunities to link faith and science emerging from classroom or community activities are made for students to appreciate.

The case of Silliman is not very different from that of Baylor. Although it is affiliated with the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP), it is officially non-sectarian or ecumenical and its academic environment is generally liberal. Its Christian orientation does not discourage the expression or exercise of other beliefs and, therefore, any tension due to religious differences is not common. Except the University Church, there are no other religious buildings within the campus but there are several religious student organizations pursuing ministries. So while it is known as a Protestant university, the majority of its faculty and student population are Roman Catholics with a good number also of Muslim students. As of Baylor, religious freedom is promoted at Silliman but all students have to take a Religion course as an institutional requirement and to participate in church programs and activities. Moreover, ecumenical and other religious celebrations, but not Catholic masses, are allowed at Silliman with permission from the University Church as a matter of policy.

The position of Silliman about the integration of faith and learning is clearly articulated in its mission: “infuse into the academic learning the Christian faith anchored on the gospel of Jesus Christ” (Annual Report of Silliman 2011, p. 4). President Malayang emphasizes always the place of the church in what he calls the 5 Cs of Silliman education which include classroom, church, cultural center, court (athletic) and community. And the church is not just a component that can be removed for convenience, because Christian faith is considered

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“foundational to a Silliman education” where “various activities for faith nurture, education, worship, fellowship, and service are in store for Silliman students all year round” (Annual Report of Silliman 2011, p. 10). Faith integration in classroom and campus activities is done in a manner that does not discriminate students from other religious denominations. But as a way to ensure that the theology and practices of faith shall respect and conform to the Protestant heritage, the University Spiritual Life Council (USLC) is organized and currently led by a University Church Elder who happens to also head the Office of Student Affairs (OSA). The Dean of the Divinity School co-chairs the USLC and the memberships have both academic and church representations which include the University Senior and Associate Pastors.

The highlight of Silliman’s Christian celebration is the University Christian Life Emphasis Week (UCLEW) during the first and second semester which is spearheaded by the USLC. The activities designed for the week take in the forms of faculty and staff retreat, church convocations, Bible studies and devotions and Galilean fellowship participated by students, which are spiritually relevant, Christ-centered, and deeply rooted in the Word of God (Annual Report of Silliman 2011, p. 13). The people involved in these activities, either as convocation speakers or Bible facilitators, are Sillimanians who represent the cross section of the community but are not necessarily Protestants. They can be administrators, faculty, staff, students, alumni, and the ministers of the University Church. Therefore, fostering of spiritual growth among members of the Silliman community is part of the academic calendar and programmed according to a chosen theme for the semester.

Similar to Baylor, Silliman has a strong community engagement by involving students through volunteer work and the employment of service-learning as pedagogy. As part of their academic learning, the students are brought to the community both to serve and to learn in the process while at the same time instilling the values of sharing to people in the community who are less privileged as compared to them. So while they are able “to test theories and principles through actual community work” (Annual Report of Silliman 2011, p. 12) they are made to experience the Christian meaning of service to others and an appreciation of the blessings they have as compared to people who have not attended schools like Silliman. Their service-learning experience challenges their elitist thinking that they are superior because of their education and teaches them the notion

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that as privileged Christians they have responsibilities to fulfill. The realization of the values of service and sharing come about during reflection sessions in which they process their community experiences with the help of their teachers (Oracion, 2010). Thus, faith and learning integration in Silliman education ensures competence, character, and faith among its graduates as results.

MeAsURes OF QUAlity edUCAtiON

The quality of education that a university offers has some indicators and these include the program accreditation and ranking it receives, the graduates it produces, and the impacts it makes on society in terms of government policies and programs. An indirect measure is the amount of donations and grants it receives from institutions, both private and public, that believe in its ability to produce graduates who can make significant contributions to societal and environmental well-being. But in this paper, I will limit my discussion to the accreditation of programs and rankings that Baylor and Silliman have achieved during recent times. Although this is not the best way to demonstrate how Christian commitment and quality education are related in the absence of comparative data of a significant sample of non-Christian and Christian schools, I may be able to show that a well-meaning emphasis on faith will not hinder the delivery of quality education as demonstrated by these two Christian universities.

The accreditation of academic degrees and programs given to certain schools signifies that these have complied with the standards set forth by the granting agencies, either private or governmental; and therefore, accredited schools have satisfactorily demonstrated competence and delivered quality education. Baylor has degree programs at all levels accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (CCSACS) and is also a member of ten educational organizations (Baylor University, 2011, p. 8). Foremost of its memberships as a Christian university is that with The Lilly Fellows National Network of Church-Related Colleges and Universities which started during the administration of Dr. Reynolds. This network is concerned with “the connection between scholarly vocation and the Christian faith” (Baker, 2007, p. 116). Many of Baylor’s academic units are also accredited by their respective professional organizations or specific accrediting agencies. There are also some specific departments and programs that enjoy

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individual accreditation in addition to the accreditation given to their mother academic units.

Meanwhile, Silliman is one of the few universities in the Philippines granted autonomy by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED). As an autonomous university, it has the authority to develop new programs without the approval of the CHED. In 2010, it was also granted Institutional Accreditation by the Federation of Accrediting Agencies of the Philippines (FAAP)—a status enjoyed by only five universities in the country. The two private, non-profit agencies that accredited Silliman and are authorized by CHED are the Association of Christian Schools, Colleges and Universities-Accrediting Agency, Inc. (ACSCU-AAI) and the Philippine Accrediting Association of Schools, Colleges and Universities (PAASCU). Of the 32 duly recognized programs offered by Silliman, 94 percent are accredited by ACSCU-AAI (60.00%) and PAASCU (40.00%) (Annual Report of Silliman, 2011, p. 36). In 2012, seven of Silliman’s graduate programs in English, History, Sociology, Public Administration, Nursing, Social Work, and Psychology were given Level IV accreditation by ACSCU-AAI. Also, seven of its undergraduate programs in Arts, Science, Psychology, Mass Communication, Nursing, Secondary, and Elementary Education were awarded the same level by PAASCU (http://su.edu.ph/article/445-14-Academic-Programs).4 Meanwhile, the masters and doctoral degree programs of the Divinity School are accredited with the Association for Theological Education in South East Asia (ATESEA).

Although national or international rankings of academic institutions have their own biases and loopholes in terms of indicators and methodology, they are nonetheless helpful in knowing how one is generally perceived by others. Baylor ranks 75th in the 2012 U.S. News and World Report ranking of national universities in the US and some of its graduate programs are given high ratings as well (http://www.colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com). There are 262 national universities in the US, which are doctorate granting institutions, and composed of 164 public and 98 private universities. Harvard University and Princeton University share the top ranking among these national universities. It is interesting to note that all those universities in the top 10 are private but do not have religious affiliations except for Duke University which is ranked 10th and identified with the Methodist Church. Meanwhile, Baylor shares the rank of 75 with five public universities and one private university which is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church.

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The above data roughly show that getting into the highest rank may be difficult for universities that might be limited by their religious principles and priorities unless they make deliberate attempts to balance the demands between religious tradition and scientific pursuits. How Baylor is able to balance these demands in providing quality education and land above 50 percent of all ranked universities in the US may be gleaned from the remarks of one of its recent graduates and a former student body president:

“Now that I am in the workplace, it has become even more apparent to me how important my education was at Baylor. Baylor was a place where I grew spiritually, academically, and as a young leader”(Anonymous 2012, p. 8).

Silliman may not have the same fame that Baylor has enjoyed but it is equally gaining recognition as one of the top 10 universities in the Philippines. It is ranked sixth with the University of the Philippines, a national public university in the country in the lead.5 The scores used in rating come from the Asian University ranking for 2011 released by Quacquarelli Symonds, a leading global career and education network (http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/asian-university-rankings/2011?page=5). In contrast to the US, where the top universities are private and non-religious, in the Philippines, aside from the two public universities on the list, those universities belonging to the top ten are private and affiliated with religious groups. Those based in the national capital region are the Ateneo de Manila University, University of Santo Tomas, De La Salle University and Adamson University while those in the provinces are Silliman University, Xavier University, University of San Carlos and Saint Louis University. All of these universities are Catholic except for Silliman.

CONClUsiON

Both Baylor and Silliman have been seriously negotiating the demands of religious traditions and scientific pursuits in order not to fall into the trap of being too exclusive or of betraying the ideals of their founding leaders. Since they have chosen to be true to both worlds, faith and learning, they are managing two identities of being Christian universities in the traditions of the Baptists or Presbyterians and of being competitive scholarly institutions as expected by the scientific community. They can, however, decide which should be

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their major concern, as did some American universities that started as religious schools and eventually lost this affiliation when they turned to secular education in the desire to be on the top (see Benne 2007, p. xiii). This means that Baylor and Silliman could have been like other seminary schools if they really wanted to pursue more religious instructions. But they took the more challenging path of combining religious instructions with the secular disciplines as a way of adapting to the changing world where Christian faith and values are needed to spiritually enlighten graduates as future workers and leaders.

But as noted earlier, the experience in the Philippines is more interesting because the quality of education being offered by the top religious schools does not diminish. Despite that Catholic educational institutions are more conservative than the Protestant universities on certain social and moral issues they are more able to combine faith and science because of the priorities they set for using education as a venue for evangelization. Thus delivering quality education becomes an effective means of enlightening students about their faith, and not religion questioning or limiting their pursuit for more knowledge. For instance, the case of the Ateneo de Manila University, managed by the Jesuits who are known to be more scholarly and liberal among the Catholic religious orders, demonstrates effective faith-learning integration inspired by its motto “Light in the Lord” (http://www.admu.edu.ph/index.php? p=120&type=2&sec=39&aid=7542). Meanwhile, in the US in general, Benne (2007, p. xiii) would confirm how every Protestant university lost its Christian identity as it pursues top research university status but the Catholic universities had fared better in this regard.

Indeed, secularization is slowly or quickly creeping into the “soul” of Christian universities all over the world because times have changed and they have to adapt or to directly confront the challenges and threats brought about by this development. Should they hold on to the notion of doctrinal purity of their religious affiliation or to become Christian universities in a general sense as in the cases of Baylor and Silliman? This question is begging for a change in the definitions of their identity, perhaps different from how they were envisioned a century ago, to meet the threats of “pervasive secularism and loss of traditional moral virtues” (Sloan, 2007, p. 327) confronting Christianity at present. As Schemeltekopf (2003, p. 11), Baylor former Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, wrote that a “Christian college or university which does not integrate faith and learning will eventually collapse from within.” With this note,

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Silliman can learn from the story of Baylor as to how it maintains faculty and students who manifest commitment to Christian faith and values that inspire, rather than limit, their scholarly search for knowledge which they unselfishly share for uplifting the worsening conditions of society and the environment.

NOtes

1 The Baylor University College of Medicine started in 1903, located in Dallas, as a result of the alliance between Baylor and the medical doctors who decided to start a medical school to improve the medical practice in north Texas. However, in 1969 the College separated to become an independent institution which allowed it to access federal funding. The Baylor College of Medicine is currently located in Houston (Camp 2010; see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baylor_College_of_Medicine).

2 Similarly to the Baylor College of Medicine, the Silliman University Medical School was a brainchild of certain groups of physicians in Dumaguete City who realized the need to establish a medical school. Given the required resources and processes to start a school, the group worked with the Silliman administration on October 20, 1997 to prepare for all the documents for its approval by the Board of Trustees (BOT) and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED). The BOT approved the Medical School Program on March 20, 2004 and the CHED approved it to start in school year 2005-2006. So while Baylor College of Medicine later became independent from Baylor University, the Medical School of Silliman University is yet in its infancy but has already made a record of having 100% passing rate during the last two board examinations.

3 The name Baylor University Medical Center was officially adopted by the trustees only in April 1959 although it had been called the medical center previously (Baker 1987, p. 251). Presently, this hospital is not owned by Baylor University. Meanwhile, Silliman University also includes the Silliman University Medical Center (SUMC) which is managed by the Silliman Medical Center Foundation, Inc. (SMCFI) where the College of Nursing and School of Medicine students are sent for clinical instruction and internships. The SUMC was formerly the Mission Hospital but was directly located inside the campus. It was first opened in December 1915 as part of the medical missionary work of American educators and doctors in Negros Oriental and the nearby province of Siquijor.

4 Level IV which is the highest, is given to “accredited programs which are highly respected as very high quality academic programs in the Philippines and with prestige and authority comparable to similar programs in excellent foreign universities” (http://www.paascu.org.ph/paascuprimer.pdf).

5 There are a total of 2,180 higher education institutions in the Philippines classified into private (1,573) and public (607) as of August 2010 (http://www.ched.gov.ph).

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ACkNOWledgeMeNt

I gratefully acknowledge the grant from the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia for my Fellowship at Baylor University. Also, my appreciation to James Bennighof, Ph.D. who served as my mentor, and to Treva Hall and Alexine Burke for their assistance as coordinators of the Fellowship Program at Baylor.

ReFeReNCes

Allison, T. (2012, March 2). Faith, Physics to converge in Monday lecture. The Baylor Lariat, p. 1.

Annual Report of Baylor (2011). Baylor University, Waco, Texas.

Annual Report of Silliman (2011). Silliman University, Dumaguete City, Philippines

Anonymous (2012, Spring). What Baylor means to you. Baylor Magazine, 10 (3), p. 8.

Baker, E.W. (1987). To light the ways of time: An illustrated history of Baylor University (1845-1986). Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press.

Baker, H. (2007). The struggle for Baylor’s soul. In B.G. Hankins & D.D. Schmeltekopf, (Eds.), The Baylor project: Taking Christian higher education to the next level (pp. 110-137). South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine’s Press.

Baker, E.C. & Pohl, J.W. (n.d.) Texas revolution, Handbook of Texas online. Published by the Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved from http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qdt01

Baylor University (2011). Undergraduate catalogue 2011-2012. Volume 114.

Benne, R. (2007). Foreword. In B.G. Hankins & D.D. Schmeltekopf, (Eds.), The Baylor project: Taking Christian higher education to the next level (pp. xi-xiv). South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine’s Press.

Camp, K. (2010). Baylor University, Baylor College of Medicine considers closer ties, The Baptist standard. Retrieved from http://www.baptiststandard.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10658&Itemid=53

Carson, A.L. (1965). Silliman University (1901-1959). New York: United Board for Christian Education in Asia.

Hendrickson, M. (2012, March 30). Lecture series seeks accord of science, faith. The Baylor Lariat, p. 3.

Holmes, A.F. (2001). Building the Christian academy. Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

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CoMParisoNs oF tWo CHristiaN UNivErsitiEsLauby, P. T. (1996 ). Sailing on winds of change: Two decades in the life of the United Board

for Christian Higher Education in Asia, 1969-1990. New York: United Board for Christian Education in Asia.

Oracion, E.G. (2010). Intercultural service-learning and multicultural symbiosis. In J. Xing. & C. Ma (Eds.), Service-learning in Asia: Curricular models and practices (pp. 91- 110). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Parsons, M.C. (2003). Building a faculty at a Christian university: The significant contribution model. In D.D. Schmeltekopf, D.M. Vitanza, & B.J.B. Toben (Eds.), The Baptist and Christian character of Baylor (pp. 63-98). Waco: Baylor University.

Schmeltekopf, D.D. (2003). A Christian university in the Baptist tradition: History of vision. In D.D. Schmeltekopf, D.M. Vitanza, & B.J.B. Toben (Eds.), The Baptist and Christian character of Baylor (pp. 1-20). Waco: Baylor University.

Silliman Strategic Plan (2008). Silliman University strategic plan (2008-2016), Dumaguete City, Philippines.

Sloan, R.B. Jr. (2007). The Baylor project: A response. In B.G. Hankins & D.D. Schmeltekopf (Eds.), The Baylor project: Taking Christian higher education to the next level. South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine’s Press. Pp. 303-337.

Snoberger-Balm, E. (2012, Spring). The weight of the world. Baylor Magazine, 10(3), pp. 30-35.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baylor_College_of_Medicine (Accessed: February 5, 2012)

http://www.admu.edu.ph/index.php?p=120&type=2&sec=39&aid=7542 (Accessed: April 3, 2012)

http://www.baylor.edu/about/index.php?id=48867 (Accessed: March 24, 2012)

http://www.baylor.edu/graduate/mha/ (Accessed: March 24, 2012)

http://www.baylor.edu/graduate/nutrition/(Accessed: March 24, 2012)

http://www.baylor.edu/graduate/pt/ (Accessed: March 24, 2012)

http://www.baylor.edu/president/news.php?action=story&story=111933 (Accessed: April 3, 2012)

http://www.ched.gov.ph (Accessed: April 14, 2012)

http://www.colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com (Accessed: April 3, 2012)

http://www.paascu.org.ph/paascuprimer.pdf (Accessed: April 3, 2012)

http://www. su.edu.ph/article/445-14-Academic-Programs (Accessed: April 20, 2012)

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http://www.su.edu.ph/college/divinity/ (Accessed: March 24, 2012)

http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/asian-university-rankings/2011?page=5(Accessed: April 3, 2012)

http://www.unitedboard.org

E.G. oraCioN


Walking Humbly with the Moros Towards the Kingdom:

A Reflection on the Catholic Church’s Mission in Muslim Mindanao*

ruben C. Mendoza, Ph.d.department of theology

ateneo de Manila University

In this reflection, I address the question of the Catholic Church’s mission in Muslim Mindanao as it responds to the long-standing aspiration of the Moros for self-determination. First, I give an overview of the dialogue between Filipino Christians and Moros, contextualizing this within Philippine history, the changes brought about by Vatican II, and the contemporary challenge of overcoming prejudices. And second, I ask what kind of voice the church must speak if it is to be a credible gospel witness in Bangsamoro. It seems to me that the church needs to be a voice of compassion, justice, and peace in a context that has seen so much violence. In addition, I will suggest that there are two Filipino values, namely pakikipagkapwa-tao and pakikiramay, which are already operative in those who engage in dialogue and peacebuilding efforts, but which need to be foregrounded as cultural resources in responding to the conflict. As ecclesia semper reformanda est, conversion will always be an indispensable element of its journey toward the realization of the Kingdom in Muslim Mindanao.

keyWORds: interreligious dialogue, Bangsamoro, Catholic Church, mission, peacebuilding, Mindanao, colonization, reconciliation

I was born and raised in a culture which was (and still is) proud of its Catholic heritage. When I was in primary school, textbooks often referred to my country, the Philippines, as “the only Christian/

Catholic country” in the whole of Asia. Growing up, I myself accepted

* The substance of this paper was presented in a conference, “Religions and Asian Public Life,” that was efficiently organized and generously funded by the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia, at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, last 6-7 July 2012.

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this claim with pride and unfortunately the hubris that went with it. Coincidentally, that period in my life was roughly the height of the armed conflict between the Muslims in Mindanao, the Moros1, and the Philippine armed forces when thousands of combatants and civilians on both sides of the conflict were killed and millions worth of property were destroyed. Not surprisingly, this conflict reinforced the deep-rooted prejudices of many Filipino Christians against the Moros, an intolerance that has been manifested publicly in the negative representations of the Moros in the popular media.2

Ironically, although the root causes of the conflict date back much earlier, many of the festering wounds between Moros and Filipino Christians occurred within the decade after Vatican II, the first council of the Catholic Church which has a positive valuation of other religions and which called on the church to engage the adherents of other religious traditions in dialogue. It has been nearly fifty years since the opening of Vatican II and although many of its teachings have been received, contemporary issues underscore the task of reception as an ongoing undertaking of the local churches.

In this reflection, I will address the question of the Catholic Church’s role in Muslim Mindanao as it engages in interreligious dialogue and peacebuilding efforts, together with the various stakeholders of the conflict-ridden areas,3 as means of responding to the long-standing conflict between the Philippine government and the armed Moro fronts. This essay will be two-fold. First, I will give an overview of the dialogue between Filipino Christians and Moros, contextualizing this within the Moro nationalist discourse, the changes brought about by Vatican II, and the contemporary challenge of overcoming prejudices. And second, I ask what kind of voice the church must speak if it is to be a credible gospel witness in Muslim Mindanao. It seems to me that the church needs to be a voice of compassion, justice, and peace in a context that has seen so much violence. In addition, I will suggest that the Filipino value of pakikipagkapwa-tao, which appears to be already operative in those who engage in dialogue and peacebuilding efforts, need to be foregrounded as a cultural resource in responding to the conflict. As ecclesia semper reformanda est, conversion will always be an indispensable element of its journey toward the realization of the Kingdom in Muslim Mindanao.

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CatHoliC CHUrCH's MissioN iN MUsliM MiNdaNao

MORO NAtiONAlisM ANd tHe ChurCh’s Mission in MusliM Mindanao

Moro Nationalism and History

The Moro nationalist discourse4 is anchored on a reading of history that regards the contemporary Moro armed struggle as a continuation of the resistance of the Muslims in southern Philippines against Spain.5 For instance, Salah Jubair, the pseudonym of Mohagher Iqbal who is the chief negotiator of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) with the Philippine government (GPH), frames his discussion of the peace process with the claim that the root of the problem in Bangsamoro is the annexation of Mindanao and Sulu to the Philippine state, “second only to colonialism itself that started during the Spanish times and was continued by the Americans.”6 In this section, I would highlight three important elements of this discourse that have impacted Christian-Muslim relations7 and then, present a critique of the Moro nationalist discourse which while providing explanatory value to the armed conflict fails to address the complexity of the historical processes.

First, while the exact date of the arrival of Islam in the Philippines is an unsettled issue, it is an incontrovertible fact that Islam predated the coming of Christianity into the Philippines.8 The Sulu archipelago, where Islam first came into the country, was part of a trading route that ranged from the Arabian Peninsula to China and up to Southeast Asia.9 Muslim traders established trading colonies along these routes and it was they who made possible the expansion of Islam in the Malaysian peninsula and eventually in the Philippines.10 Prior to the arrival of the Spaniards in the country, the locals of Sulu and Maguindanao already had their own centralized system of government modeled after Muslim states.11 There was even a thriving Muslim community in Manila at that time.12 Jubair even speculates that “had not the Spaniards come at that time there would have been at least three or four kingdoms, one in Manila, two in Mindanao and one in Sulu, and all or most of the inhabitants, like in nearby Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei, would have become all Muslims.”13 Moro nationalists take pride in the fact that Islam came prior to Christianity and apparently grew deep roots among the inhabitants of Mindanao and Sulu, a fact which proved to be an insurmountable obstacle for Spanish Christian missionaries.

Second, Christianity in the Philippines came as part of Spain’s colonization of the New World in the 16th century, a conquest

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that was justified by papal bulls, primary among which was Inter caetera of Pope Alexander VI in 1493,14 and as part of its attempt to control the spice trade in Malaku. When Spain decided to make a permanent settlement in the Philippines, the expedition of Miguel Lopez de Legaspi in 1565 was accompanied by Augustinian friars. Later on, other religious congregations arrived and carried on the work of evangelization: the Franciscans in 1578, the Jesuits in 1581, the Dominicans in 1587, and the Recoletos in 1606.15 Inspired by the crusading spirit that saw Spain drive away Muslims from the Iberian peninsula and consistent with the understanding of missio ad gentes as conversion at that time, lowland Luzon and many areas in the Visayas were Christianized by 1650.16

The mission to convert was inseparable from the goal of political pacification. Missionary friars became parish priests, learning local languages and living among their converts in order to “translate” Christianity into local cultures and stamp out worship of local spirits. Under their leadership, everyday life was framed and regulated by church teachings and guidelines. The friar was everywhere—mobilizing people for state and church work, cajoling their support through sermons, and punishing their sins they revealed in confession. For the friar, religion was a tool of both liberation and subordination. Imbued with a deep sense of righteousness and moral ascendancy, the friar hoped the conversion of “heathens” would bring about their salvation. At the same time, the threat of eternal damnation helped ensure loyalty to the church and colonial state.17

With the rise of Spain’s power in most of the Philippines through military and spiritual conquest,

Earlier divisions of language and local polity now became religio-political, with the rival states oriented to different universal centers, legal systems, and moral codes. Language and naming were especially sensitive to the localization process,…. the names of ordinary individuals became markers of identity tied to a larger Catholic or Muslim world: Baptized Christians took Hispanic Christian names, while converts to Islam adopted Arabic Muslim names.18

In contrast to their success in Hispanizing and Christianizing most of Luzon and the Visayas, the conquistadores were generally unsuccessful in gaining a foothold on the predominantly Muslim-areas in Southern Philippines19 and the missionaries themselves failed in their attempts to convert the people to Catholicism. According to Majul, Islamic consciousness grew in the face of Spanish attempts to subjugate them. For the ‘ulama, Spain came to uproot Islam from dar ul-

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Islam. “They therefore preached resistance as a religious and patriotic duty, with Paradise as a recompense.”20 It is not surprising then that the Moros fiercely resisted the Spaniards and their Christianized indio allies. The fact that Mindanao and Sulu were not colonized by the Spaniards like Luzon and the Visayas has had a significant impact on the contemporary Moro discourse and identity as an unconquered nation. For instance, Salah Jubair argues about the term “Moro”:

It was a tag that was chosen for him by the enemy, not by himself. But unlike Filipino which signifies allegiance, nay subservience, to Spain, his name was the result of animosity and warfare—and resistance to foreign pressure. If Filipino was the child of colonialism, Moro was the offspring of anti-colonialism.21

Such a contention while stated polemically appears to betray a sense of superiority over Spain’s Christianized Filipino allies,22 whom the Muslim datus never regarded as equals but “as inferiors worthy only of being slaves.”23

When Spain ceded the country to the Americans in 1898 under the Treaty of Paris, it included Mindanao and Sulu,24 an inclusion that Moro nationalists question since Spain had no sovereignty over those islands. The US conceived of its mandate in Moroland not only “to develop, to civilize, to educate to train in the science of self-government”25 but also to prepare the Moros for integration into the predominantly Christian soon-to-be Philippine state.26 Nevertheless, the American colonial policies that followed their initial statement of intention reveal their imperialistic and economic motivations.27

Since they saw themselves as different from the rest of the Philippines, many Moro leaders made representations to the new colonial government that they should be treated differently from Filipinos. 28 For instance, in a meeting in Zamboanga with US Secretary of War Jacob M. Dickenson in 1910, Hadji Ujaton stated:

We [the Moros] are a different race; we have a different religion; we are Mohammedans. And if we should be given over to Filipinos, how much more would they treat us badly, when they treated even the Spanish badly who were their own mothers and their own fathers in generation? How did they treat them?.... We far prefer to be in the hands of the Americans, who are father and mother to us now, than to be turned over to another people.29

However, in spite of such objections, the American pacification efforts of predominantly Muslim areas had as one of its aims the “Filipinization” of the Moros.30

With the Americans came, as part of the American imperial

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legacy, the Protestant traditions. Hence, with the two Western colonial powers came Christianity, a faith that became a fabric of local Philippine cultures but which was instrumentalized to promote state interests. Like many of the churches during that period, the churches in the Philippines, both Catholic and Protestant, failed in questioning cultural biases, including the religious prejudices of many of its members.31 It is noteworthy that at this period in the history of the Philippines, the predominant paradigm in the Catholic Church in relation to other religious traditions was, “Outside the Church, there is no salvation.”32

A third important factor, which is related to the second one above and that has impacted contemporary Muslim-Christian relationship is the fact that many of the social ills that many Moros experience are rooted in the actions and policies of both the Spanish and American governments. Spain initiated the Regalian doctrine of land ownership. This had the effect of disempowering the Moro traditional leaders with regard to land distribution and effectively led to the loss of many of the ancestral areas of the Moros. The Americans continued this policy and initiated a resettlement program in Mindanao.33 After independence from the Americans, the Philippine government in Manila continued this resettlement policy in Mindanao in which Christian Filipinos in the Luzon and Visayas were enticed with free land to migrate to Mindanao, particularly in places which the Moros consider as part of their ancestral domain.34 While this policy provided land for the Christian settlers, it resulted not only to land loss by the Moros but also to their minoritization.35

The Moros’ loss of political independence, the loss of their land and their eventual minoritization in their ancestral domain marginalized the Moros politically and contributed to the perhaps unintended consequence of stunting the economic development of the vast majority of Moro communities. Noteworthy is the fact that the provinces that belong to the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao are the poorest in the country.36 In this context, it is not surprising that Moros would assert their right to self-determination through armed means.37

It must be pointed out, however, that the Moro nationalists’ reading of history, particularly of the armed Moro fronts, is not without its problem. It has to do with what Thomas K. McKenna refers to as the “myth of Morohood”38 or what Patricio N. Abinales calls “the myth of the eternal Moro resistance,”39 on which is anchored the Moro uprising and is used as a bargaining chip in their peace talks with

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the government. While the Moro nationalist ideology contends that “the Spanish ascription ‘Moro’ reflected an actual social entity—a self-conscious collectivity of Philippine Muslims engaged in a unified, Islamic-inspired, anticolonial resistance,”40 McKenna argues convincingly that this narrative fails to do justice to “the complexities and contradictions of that period” and even entails the “subjugation of an unruly history” to support its stance.41 For McKenna, “Spanish aggression against the Muslim polities of the archipelago did not, to any significant degree, stimulate the development of an overarching ethnoreligious identity self-consciously shared by members of various Muslim ethnolinguistic groups”42—contrary to the claims of Moro nationalists, like Jubair above, that Moro nationalism began during the Spanish colonial period, antedating the development of Filipino nationalism. In fact, for McKenna the roots of Moro nationalism are found in and were nurtured during the American colonial period,43 particularly through the influence of Najeeb Saleeby.44

Furthermore, McKenna’s observation regarding the Moro insurgents of the Bangsamoro Rebellion in the 1970s makes one wonder how the Moro identity as understood by the rebel leadership is appropriated by the Muslim masses: “… it was striking to note how rarely any of the insurgents, in expressing their motivations for taking up arms or fighting on against great odds, made spontaneous mention of either the Moro nation (Bangsamoro) or Islamic renewal, the two central components of Muslim nationalist ideology.”45 This is quite telling for the insurgents and Moro nationalists who base their claims on this ideology.

In his study of state formation during the American colonial period, Abinales raises similarly hard questions about the politics of identity.46 He questions the nationalist framework which regards the armed Moro rebellion as an organic part of Filipino nationalism.47 For instance, with regard to the Muslim responses to American colonialism, he raises two issues about the categorization of responses either as collaboration or revolution. First, he questions the rigidity of this dichotomy since these responses overlapped in a situation in which the Muslims found themselves in a situation of social and political uncertainty brought about by American power. Abinales argues that it is better to interpret them in terms of the Muslims’ experiences in Southeast Asia—among the datus as actions of “men of prowess” (orang besar) who positioned themselves to gain more local power as they related with the Americans and the datus become colonial politicos.48 Second, he questions the assumption that

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the Muslim responses were not any different from the Filipino elite’s responses. For Abinales, Muslim revolts were efforts “to stave off colonialism” and “[n]one indicated any forward-looking, anticolonial, or nationalist perspective.”49 He considers the contemporary Moro rebellions “as modern mobilizations against the intrusive reach of the nation-state than as a latest edition of an epic Moro struggle against various colonialisms.”50 In a similar vein, Medina asserts:

The Bangsamoro identities have been formed not through spontaneous processes of self-definition but primarily according to the exigencies of power—the demands for political autonomy and independence as a consequence of the state’s domineering role. Their identities and communal interests are malleable and pliant as they interact with the state’s power. It responds to the political, economic or social needs of group members at any moment, depending on the contingencies of national politics.51

Nevertheless, while the genesis of the Moro identity is contested, the Moro nationalist narrative appears to inform the current peace talks between the MILF and the GPH. For instance, in the joint draft of the MILF and the GPH in the recently concluded 32nd Exploratory Talks in Kuala Lumpur where both sides reached a “framework agreement” in 6 October 2012, it is stated:

Those who at the time of conquest and colonization were considered natives or original inhabitants of Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago and its adjacent islands including Palawan and their descendants, whether of mixed or of full blood shall have the right to identify themselves as Bangsamoro by ascription or self-ascription.52

What is uncontested, however, is that many of the Muslim groups

in southern Philippines, whether they refer to themselves as Moro or not, aspire for peace, justice, and development, desires which are fundamental and legitimate.

a Watershed in the Church’s relationship with other religions

It is with this backdrop that we can better appreciate the changes brought about by Vatican II on the Catholic Church and their effects on Muslim-Christian relations. After holding on to an exclusivist theology of religions for a long time, Vatican II brought about a sea of change in the Catholic Church. For the first time, official magisterial documents have a positive appreciation of the religions and called on the Church to engage them in dialogue. For instance, Nostra aetate acknowledges that the “ray of Truth” may be found in them

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and affirms that the church rejects nothing that is true and holy in them.53 Gaudium et spes goes on to stress that “the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery.”54 Given these assertions, the church is then called upon to discern the Spirit’s presence in others and to affirm the elements of the doctrines, rituals and life of peoples of other religions that seem to manifest the fruits of the Spirit’s presence.55

In their reception of Vatican II in their own multi-religious contexts, the Asian bishops appear to further develop Vatican II’s position. The bishops firmly believe that other religious traditions participate in God’s plan of salvation.56 This realization on their part is born out of the church’s encounter with peoples of other religions who, in diverse ways, appear to manifest the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives and religious practices.57 It is not surprising that the bishops “accept them [other religions] as significant and positive elements in the economy of God’s design of salvation.”58 In them, the bishops

recognize and respect profound spiritual and ethical meanings and values. Over many centuries they [other religions] have been the treasury of the religious experience of our ancestors, from which our contemporaries do not cease to draw light and strength. They have been (and continue to be) the authentic expression of the noblest longings of their hearts, and the home of their contemplation and prayer. They have helped to give shape to the histories and cultures of our nations.59

Moreover, for these pastors,

God’s saving will is at work, in many different ways, in all religions... God’s saving grace is not limited to members of the Church, but is offered to every person. His grace may lead some to accept baptism and enter the Church, but it cannot be presumed that this must always be the case. His ways are mysterious and unfathomable, and no one can dictate the direction of His grace.60

It is because of God’s grace in others and the church’s sharing

in this realm of grace that one can view other religions as “sublime realities of enjoyment, having value in themselves” and not as something to be used to serve the Christian truth.61

dialogue in the Philippines

Even before the reforms ushered in by Vatican II about the Catholic Church’s relationship with other religious traditions, many Moros and Filipino Christians were already engaged in dialogue although


it was not referred to as such. In their day-to-day life, Christians have had to deal and relate with their Muslim neighbors and vice-versa. While the discourse of dialogue was not yet in vogue, many people at the grassroots level practiced its meaning in their friendships with one another, a “dialogue of life” as later church documents would label these efforts. Those engagements served to make possible the more formal dialogues that have taken place between the believers of these two religious traditions.

The formal dialogues that have occurred between the Moros and Filipino Christians since the 1960s are focused mainly on social issues of common concern.62 In his review of Muslim-Christian dialogue in the Philippines, Julkipli Wadi, a professor at the University of the Philippines’ Institute of Islamic Studies, observes among other things, that it is triggered mainly by problems in predominantly Muslim areas and that the agenda for dialogue are not theological issues but the social, political and economic problems that both Muslims and Christians experience. The focus is not on religious differences but on human values.63 However, Wadi claims:

In the Philippines, the lukewarm reception, if not suspicion, by some Muslims about inter-religious dialogue is dictated by the fact that it is merely used to profile personalities and to explore Muslim issues but not to resolve their age-old aspirations for political liberation and seek solutions to specific problems like peace and order, poverty or unemployment. It is observed that resolutions and statements of concern passed during dialogue conferences and peace advocacy seminars are mere recommendatory, with no guarantee of being heard, let alone implemented, by the government. Hence, some Muslims view inter-religious dialogue just as a venue to ventilate emotions, fears and problems, which does not help them address their more immediate problems like poverty, discrimination and oppression.64

Hence, it seems that while collaboration on social concerns have taken place between the two groups, the efforts between the dialogue partners have not made any significant political and economic impact in bringing about a just and peaceful settlement to the Moro aspiration for self-determination. A probable reason for this is the non- or partial reception of the teachings of Vatican II on other religions by many Filipino Christians.

The (non-)reception of Vatican ii on other religious Traditions

The reception of church teachings is a complex and contested process. On one hand, teachings may serve to question and challenge cultural conditionings and biases, and purify them of what is contrary to the

r.C. MENdoza

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gospel. On the other hand, they may also serve to affirm the goodness that is found in one’s culture. After all, it is in and through one’s culture that one interprets, understands, and lives the gospel. Just as one’s culture may facilitate the reception of church teachings, it also happens that cultural presumptions and unquestioned seemingly self-evident truths may prove to be stumbling blocks in the reception of the same teachings. The latter case seems to be evident with respect to the church teachings on other religious traditions. While the teachings of both Vatican II and the Asian bishops on interreligious dialogue eventually became part of the teachings of the local church in the Philippines, enshrined in both the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines and the Catechism for Filipino Catholics, much remains to be done in changing the prejudices and animosity felt by many Filipino Christians toward the Moros,65 a fact that militates against their reception.

For instance, in a 2005 national survey that was intended to measure the bias against Muslims, it emerged that many Filipinos are biased against Muslims:

It…appears that a considerable percentage of Filipinos (33% to 39% based on Indices 4 and 5) are biased against Muslims notwithstanding the fact that only about 14% of them have had direct dealings with Muslims. The bias appears to be adequately captured by the questions on stereotypes and serves to explain hiring and leasing decisions of Filipinos, as well as perceptions of Muslims as terrorists and the adoption of a hard stance with respect to approaches in pursuing peace in Sulu.66

Given this attitude, it is not surprising that peace advocates in

Mindanao find it hard to establish and build constituencies of peace that are supportive of the peace process between the GPH and the armed Moro fronts. This bias against the Moros appears to be a backdrop of the opposition of many Christian politicians against the initialed Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) between the GPH and MILF in August 2008. While the protesters ostensibly argued that there was lack of consultation of the various stakeholders and a lack of transparency in the negotiations, I think that the underlying reason for their objection to the MOA-AD was not only the fear of many politicians of losing political power and influence in a few areas of their bailiwicks but also the fear of being governed by Moros and their imagined dire consequences.67

Even living near Moros is unthinkable for some. For example, the Barangay Council of Libungan, Cotabato, an area that is traditionally part of Moro land, rejected the proposed construction of a mosque in

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their barangay. While the barangay’s resolution ironically states in part that the barangay is a Christian community that is “in harmony with other people and tribes and their ways of living,” it asserts that “the construction of mosque for the practice of religion in the barangay is not a necessity considering the very limited number of Muslim families, the proposed site is surrounded by Christians raising backyard livestock projects [euphemism for piggeries?] that will augment family income.”68

In the aftermath of the 18 October 2011 Al-Barka incident in Basilan in which 19 soldiers were ambushed and killed by the MILF, ABS-CBN’s TV Patrol, one of the most popular prime time news programs in the Philippines, in an apparent knee-jerk reaction, made a poll two days after the ambush in which it asked a leading and telling question which reveals more, I think, of the bias of the program, “Do you agree that the peace talks with the MILF should be stopped and that the government should launch an all-out war against the MILF?” Not unpredictably, a whopping 97% of TV Patrol’s respondents said “Yes.” A week after the same incident, Ramon Tulfo, a prominent Manila-based journalist but who hails from Mindanao, made the following commentary which appeared in the country’s most widely distributed national broadsheet, Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI):

Whatever he says to justify not going to war with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, President Noy [Aquino] is perceived as a weakling. He can never appease the Moros who, when you give them your hand, will ask for your entire arm. Moros smell fear: Don’t be surprised if they continue to pillage and kill. The only time they will stop their mayhem and plunder is when the government launches a punitive expedition like what President Erap did when he was in power. The Moros, especially the Tausugs, love to fight, and how! The only way to earn their respect is to fight back instead of cowering in fear.69

Tulfo’s portrayal of the Moros, unflattering to say the least,

captures many of the stereotypes that many Filipino Christians have of Moros. It is writing such as this that perpetuates the negative images of the Moros in many a Christian’s popular imagination.

Eight months after, another PDI commentator, Ramon Farolan, a retired military officer, makes a point similar to Tulfo’s:

The lesson from the past is that peace talks do not solve our problems. In fact, they embolden the enemy, giving it time to consolidate its forces and increase its weaponry. In 1996, we made peace with Nur Misuari and his MNLF, only to see them go on a rampage a few years later. We can sign another peace treaty with the MILF. It will not guarantee peace.

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I have said this in the past—the only guarantee of peace in Mindanao, the only way to defend our territorial integrity is to have a strong and disciplined Armed Forces, certainly one that will not allow the brutal murder of its soldiers to go unpunished; one that can protect the people from terrorists, local or foreign, so as to enable them to live in peace and security.70

Given the reactions of the respondents in the survey, Tulfo, and Farolan, all of which are symptomatic of the unquestioned prejudice of many Filipino Christians against Moros, it is all the more imperative that the church exerts the effort to address this issue. Moros have been pilloried in the public arena for a long time and the church cannot simply wash its hands for its complicity in this matter.71 While the church engages the Moros in dialogue, it must also be an instrument of eradicating the biases of its own members and develop in them an open attitude toward the Moros if it hopes to garner their support for a just and peaceful resolution of the armed conflict in Mindanao. In this regard, intrareligious dialogue that enables the airing of and addresses prejudices, and promotes the healing of memories appears to be necessary. Church leaders must necessarily take the initiative in this regard even if it means becoming unpopular in their own communities72 and if it hopes that its teachings be received by the Christian community. While the voice of the Catholic Church has been heard in other areas of the public sphere, this is one area unfortunately where the church apparently speaks only in whispers.

liviNg tHe kiNgdOM iN A tiMe OF CONFliCt

To speak or not to speak

There are many social ills facing contemporary Philippine society, many of which are seemingly intractable like the poverty of so many Filipinos. In this discussion, I will focus on only two issues, the proposed Reproductive Health Bill (RH Bill) in Congress and peacebuilding in Mindanao. I will use the church’s response to the former as a foil for the church’s (seeming lack of) response to the latter. A polarizing question confronting the Filipino nation is the pending RH bill in which the Philippine bishops have been so vociferous in their opposition.73 As early as 2003, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) issued a pastoral letter in which the bishops called for the rejection of an earlier version of the bill since it “has many errors that contravene the teaching of the Church.”74 After that,

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the CBCP issued one letter after another that touched on the issue of reproductive health and the related bills in Congress.75 The latest CBCP pastoral letter on this issue, “Choosing Life, Rejecting the RH Bill,” called for the present RH bill’s (HB 5043) outright rejection. In an effort to galvanize broad public support, the CBCP argues, “Far from being simply a Catholic issue, the RH bill is a major attack on authentic human values and on Filipino cultural values regarding human life that all of us have cherished since time immemorial.”76 Some bishops warned politicians that they would campaign against them in the elections if they support the RH bill, a tactic which appears inconsistent with Catholic social teaching and a distortion of the role of the church in politics.77 A few went so far as to threaten the Catholic supporters of the bill that they would be refused communion in the Eucharist. In the acrimonious debates surrounding this issue, the bill’s supporters are labeled “anti-life” while those who oppose it are “pro-life”—characterizations which oversimplify the issues involved. For all intents and purposes and notwithstanding the church’s attempts to portray the debate as an issue for all peoples of faiths and for all Filipinos, the Catholic Church’s opposition to the RH bill boils down to its teachings on sexual morality. Now that the trial of the chief justice of the Philippine Supreme Court is over, debates about the RH bill have resumed in the public arena.78

In comparison to the Catholic Church’s position on the RH bill is the apparent lack of support, as manifested in its relative “silence” on the issue, from the bishops for the ongoing peace process between the GPH and the MILF.79 At the local level, it must be pointed out that efforts have been made by the churches in Mindanao to promote and engage in interreligious dialogue. For instance, the different local churches in Southern Philippines have established the ministry of interreligious dialogue. Various grassroots efforts to promote interreligious harmony and peace efforts have also been ongoing.80 At the national level, the CBCP was conspicuously silent on the Bangsamoro issue when the armed conflict was at its height in the 1970s. In the 1980s, the Philippine bishops first issued general statements on peace although they were in response to a context under Marcos’ Martial Law and the aftermath of Marcos’ ouster from office and did not directly deal with the Moro question.81 The first statement of the CBCP that referred to the Moro issue was its letter, “Seek Peace, Pursue It,” in 1990, although this issue was only one among others that were mentioned in it. In that letter, the bishops argued for the inseparability of peace and justice, and the need for

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reconciliation. Among the agenda the bishops proposed for the Decade of Peace (1990-2000) was the peaceful resolution of questions of self-determination by various groups, which included the armed Moro fronts, “within the context of national sovereignty.”82 The CBCP also issued statements on peacebuilding in support of the National Unification Commission established by the president of GPH then.83 The first CBCP pastoral letter that directly and solely dealt with the Moro issue was “An Urgent Appeal for Peace in Mindanao” in 2000. This was issued in the aftermath of President Joseph Estrada’s all-out war against the MILF which resulted to the displacement of more than a million people. In this letter, the CBCP called on the government and the MILF to end their hostilities and go back to the negotiating table.84 Aware of prevailing sentiments, the bishops observed “that our words for peace run against the prevailing opinion, including that of our own flock. We might even be misinterpreted as against the government.” Nevertheless, the CBCP asserts that its position on the issue is not political but evangelical. It commits itself to a plan of action:

We observe the trauma, the bitterness, prejudices and biases, resentment and even hatred that are building up among our people because of the war. We, therefore, pledge that the pastoral programs of the Church shall assist in healing the psychological wounds and hurts of people, in reconciling conflicting groups, and in building a culture of peace in our country, especially in Mindanao.85

The CBCP issued a similarly named pastoral statement, “Urgent Appeal for Peace,” three years later, when due to a series of bombings in Davao, the peace talks were halted and the government waged war against the MILF. In its statement, the bishops challenged the church to be peacemakers and ambassadors of reconciliation. The bishops also reiterated their call to both parties to end their fighting and find a just and lasting solution to the enduring conflict.86 Unfortunately, the bishops did not have a collective statement in light of the MOA-AD fiasco when armed battles broke out once again in 2008 and 2009. The most recent statement from the Catholic hierarchy regarding the peace process was “Toward Building a Just and Lasting Peace in Mindanao” which was issued after the signing of the “framework agreement.” In it, the Mindanao Catholic bishops expressed “vigilant optimism” about it, called for continuous consultations with all the stakeholders, and stressed the need for six values “that constitute a ‘people’s platform for Peace in Mindanao’”: sincerity, security, sensitivity, solidarity, spirituality and sustainability.87

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If the frequency of a particular theme in its pastoral letters is the basis of an issue’s importance for the bishops, then it appears that the issues related to reproductive health (read: sexual issues) are more important for them than the Moro issue. While there is a concerted effort on the part of church leaders to block the pending RH bill in Congress, e.g. prayers for the defeat of the bill in sacramental celebrations, the mass mobilization of people, and tarpaulin advertisements in parishes rejecting the bill, there appears to be a lack of it with respect to the latter. Perhaps, given this context, it is not surprising that Mohagher Iqbal, chairman of the MILF peace panel, claimed that there are “spoilers” to the ongoing peace negotiations between the GPH and the MILF. For Iqbal, they

are the decision-makers; they are those whose vested interests are radically affected or altered if there is a change in the status quo, because many of them owned vast tracts of lands in Mindanao; and they are also engaged in mining, plantation economy, logging, banking, trade and industry.88

He further claimed:

Of course, there are other groups, not in the level of spoilers, who have reasons to fear for radical alteration in the status quo. I think it is not wrong to say if I include the Catholic Church and to a little extent the Protestant Church in this categorization, although the latter has shown greater flexibility or accommodation as far as solving the conflict in Mindanao is concerned, while the former has not yet to come out with a definitive stance on the Moro Question, except by individual Church leaders like Archbishop Orlando Quevedo.89

Probably in response to his challenge for the church to get involved in the peace process, a month after Iqbal’s statement, Antonio Ledesma, the archbishop of Cagayan de Oro, a predominantly Christian city in northern Mindanao, called on all dioceses and Catholic universities in Mindanao to help in furthering the peace process.90 Whether true or not, partially or totally, many Moros perceive the church as indifferent, at best, and hostile, at worst, not only to the ongoing peace talks between the MILF and the GPH but also to their valid concerns.

The Face of the Church and how to speak

What emerge from the above comparison are two different faces of the church. On one hand, we have a church that has been so vocal in its opposition to the RH bill, a church that is so sure of the righteousness

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of its cause that it threatens those who oppose its stand. It is a church that has tried to flex its political muscle and use it as a weapon to get what it wants. While this church complains that the government is not really interested in dialogue (read: the proponents and the supporters of the bill in Congress will not change their mind), the irony of it is that the church leadership will also not change its stand regarding the bill.

On the other hand, we find a church, that is biased against the Moros and is also seemingly apathetic to their valid concerns. It is a church that has responded inadequately to the Moro issue and has failed to address their justifiable concerns. It is also a church that is complicit to the colonial and postcolonial policies that have resulted to the deminoritization and marginalization of the Moros in their own land.91

These two faces of the church are insufficient in the church’s task of proclaiming the Kingdom and in responding to the context of Mindanao. In order for the church to be a more credible witness of the Kingdom, the Christian community needs to all the more embody the virtues of compassion, justice, and peace as it works together with the Moros for the attainment of what John Lederach calls “justpeace.”92 This is not to say that Christian communities have not lived these virtues but to simply underscore their significance in Mindanao and the need of the church to be perceived as living these virtues. The Catholic Church has been so ensconced in the corridors of power that it has refused, consciously or unconsciously, to move out of its comfort zone to the margins of society.

First, just as Jesus had compassion for those who suffered in his time, including the Gentiles, the church is called to be compassionate to the Moros. The Kingdom demands a privileging of the margins where the Moros often are and where one encounters “the surprising God in unexpected locations.”93 In many and diverse ways, the church in Mindanao has been the face of compassion in many conflict areas. For instance, the vast majority of those who get displaced because of the armed conflict has been Moros. In many places, the Catholic parishes in the affected areas have served as safe havens for the “bakwit,” the local term for internally displaced persons (IDP’s).94 More than showing compassion for the “bakwit,” however, the church must ensure that they are not put into that miserable position in the first place.95

Second, the church must also work for justice. For the present bishop of Cotabato, Orlando Quevedo, injustice is the root cause of

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the Moro struggle and he highlights three aspects of this injustice—injustice to the Moro identity, injustice to Moro political sovereignty, and injustice to Moro integral development.96 If we agree with Quevedo’s contention that the Bangsamoro struggle is basically a question of justice, then the church as a justified community and as a community which considers the work for justice as an integral part of evangelization (Justice in the World) is challenged to rectify this situation as part of its becoming church. While the social action ministries of the local churches are concerned with and promote human rights, their work for integral evangelization has not touched on the Moro quest for justice. Perhaps, the local churches in Mindanao can collaborate with each other and with the Moros about this issue, particularly as they work and lobby for good governance on the part of both Christian and Muslim political leaders.

And third, as communities called and formed by the Prince of Peace (cf. Is 9:6) and to whom Jesus offers peace (cf. Jn 14:27; 20:26), the church is challenged to engage in the task of peacebuilding. Although Catholic social teaching still has to further develop in this regard,97 there are enough resources in the Christian tradition that can serve as bases and inspiration for this undertaking. In times of armed conflict, it may include the task of working for the cessation of hostilities and acting as mediators. For example, when armed clashes broke out between the GPH and the MILF in 2009 which resulted to the displacement of thousands of families, Quevedo appealed to the warring parties to end the war:

From the depths of my soul I can only cry out to all warring parties, “Enough is enough!”…

For the sake of the evacuees and in the name of our one God of peace, end your war! Go back to the negotiating table. Let the thousands of evacuees return safely to their home. Collaborate with one another toward this objective. Together, rehabilitate their destroyed properties. Give them another chance for a truly human life.98

At other times, the church needs to be seen as one that accompanies the communities in peacebuilding. The Christian communities need to see the Moros as fellow pilgrims in building the Kingdom as they, together with Christians, effect reconciliation within their communities and with each other. It is only when both the Moros and Christians have become reconciling communities that peace between the two religious communities may be realized.99 Here, perhaps, just as the Philippine church emphasizes the importance of building basic ecclesial communities, it too can, like what the local church of Jolo in

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southern Philippines has been doing, focus on the development of basic human communities—inclusive communities where both Moros and Christians refuse to live in their own “ghettoes” but rather choose to build bridges of friendship with each other. It is a movement from negative peace—the cessation of armed hostilities, to positive peace—the building of the social fabric of the nation, a “relationship-building based on the inherent dignity of each person.”100

In addition to embodying these virtues, I would add a core value which springs specifically from Filipino culture: pakikipagkapwa-tao.101 I think that this value has been operative and fundamental in the Christian community’s efforts to relate to Moros in positive terms. It seems to me that it needs to be integrated into the discourse of what it means to become a Filipino church in the concrete context of Philippine culture and history since they are expressive of a Filipino’s psyche. Pakikipagkapwa-tao means to engage the other as a person and to treat her or him as such. She or he is another person just like oneself. It is recognition of a shared identity—that the self and the other are both persons, “an inner self shared with others.”102 As such, one treats the other, the kapwa-tao, as an equal. The sense of the other as a kapwa-tao (another person) is particularly important in conflict situations in Mindanao where one sees the other as simply ibang tao (a person who is not one of us; an outsider) and even not as a person. The distinction between ibang tao and hindi ibang tao (one of us) has in many cases resulted to sectarianism, regionalism and parochialism. Perhaps, more problematic is the situation in which a person refuses to regard the other as a kapwa-tao, making it easier for her or him to ignore, abuse, and kill the other. When war broke out between the GPH and the MILF in 2009, many church-people in Sta. Teresita Parish in Datu Piang, Maguindanao were at the forefront of helping more than 28,000 “bakwits.” The church-people were actively involved in the bringing of the people into safe areas, the provision of medical needs, and the solicitation and distribution of relief goods for the people.103 This is a concrete instance of pakikipagkapwa-tao—a bright light shining in the midst of the darkness and horrors of war. A “bakwit’s” religious affiliation was a non-issue for those who helped but what mattered was that she or he was a kapwa-tao.

In this task of becoming a voice of compassion, justice and peace, in pakikipagkapwa-tao, and in the process become a credible voice in the public sphere, conversion as a listening to and collaboration with the Spirit is indispensable. In its interreligious engagement with the Moros, the church needs to let itself be disturbed by the Spirit—to

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journey to the periphery and to discern and discover the Spirit’s movement in it. Like the blind man, Bartimaeus (cf. Mk 10:46-52), the church needs the courage and the humility to ask Jesus, “Lord, I want to see.” In so many instances, the church has not only been blind to the plight of the Moros but also turned a blind eye to them. Like Peter, who needed to learn the boundlessness of God’s compassion and mercy (cf. Acts 10:34-35; 11:1-18), the church needs to recognize the Spirit that is poured out to all (cf. Acts 2:17-18) and reject nothing that is true and holy in others (cf. Nostra aetate, 2). This would mean, I think, a letting go of our false images of God and to discover the reality of Desmond Tutu’s assertion, “God is not a Christian,” particularly in relation with the Moros. It would also mean for the Christian communities a letting go of prejudices against the Moros. Since in conflict situations, the “enemy” is often demonized and dehumanized, it would mean seeing and recognizing the Moros as persons with dignity, as kapwa-tao and as kapwa-anak ng Diyos (a fellow child of God), and beloved of God. It would mean the “conversion of heart and mind from violence to nonviolence as a means of conflict transformation, from sectarianism to… the sense of belonging to a universal human family, which counters nationalism and narrow globalization”104 and one may even add, a sense of belonging that counters religious triumphalism and fundamentalism. In this way, one may hope that interreligious dialogue will truly be a dialogue of salvation.

CONClUsiON

Several days after I wrote the substance of this paper, I went to Cotabato City, the seat of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao. The last time I was there was fifteen years ago. It was the place where I began my journey of overcoming my own prejudices against the Moros. My conversations with friends over there made me appreciate the complexity and difficulty of the church’s mission in Bangsamoro. They put many of the things I claim here in perspective. Indeed, the church cannot but walk humbly with the Moros as they collaborate with one another to build a more peaceful and just society for all.

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches (Mt 13:31-32 NRSV).

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It appears that this parable best describes the efforts of the church in Muslim Mindanao to sow the seeds of the Kingdom. While it sows the seeds of compassion, peace, justice, and pakikipagkapwa-tao, it can only hope that they will be “the greatest of shrubs” where all the peoples of Muslim Mindanao, burdened and weary because of the conflict, will find rest for their souls (cf. Mt 11:28-30 NRSV) “in its branches.” When that time comes, then the people will no longer walk in darkness, the yoke of their burden and the rod of the oppressor broken, for there shall be endless peace (cf. Is 9:2-4.6-7). But until then, one continues on the journey towards the Kingdom one step at a time and hopes that whatever the travails are of the present, they too shall pass.

eNd NOtes

1 My use of the term “Moro” to refer to the Muslims in Mindanao and Sulu is more for the sake of convenience. Nevertheless, I am aware of the contested and negotiated nature of this identity marker as a social construct, cf. James F. Eder, “Ethnic Differences, Islamic Consciousness, and Muslim Social Integration in the Philippines,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 30 (2010): 317-32; Patricia Horvatich, “The Martyr and the Mayor: On the Politics of Identity in Southern Philippines,” in Cultural Citizenship in Island Southeast Asia: Nation and Belonging in the Hinterlands, ed. Renato Rosaldo (Berkeley: University of California, 2003), 16-43; and Lanfranco Blanchett-Revilli, “Moro, Muslim, or Filipino: Cultural Citizenship as Practice and Process,” in Cultural Citizenship in Island Southeast Asia, 44-75. More will be said about this identity below.

2 Cf. Vivienne SM. Angeles, “Moros in the Media and Beyond: Representations of Philippine Muslims,” Contemporary Islam 4 (2010): 29-53. In order to build good will with the media, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) made a deliberate effort to engage them in dialogue and urged them to be fair in their reports regarding the Moros, particularly about the ongoing peace process between the government and them (cf. Ed Lingao, “The Media and Mindanao,” GMA News Online, 6 July 2012, http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/264357/news/specialreports/amid-peace-negotiations-milf-to-stage-show-of-force-in-maguindanao [accessed 16 July 2012]).

3 The importance of involving different actors in peace processes was highlighted in a recent peacebuilding conference, “Challenges to Catholic Peacebuilding” (29-30 May 2012), in Rome. As Scott Appleby puts it, “the Church is not the sole or often even the primary actor in this drama unfolding; put positively, we have and must have partners…” What the church does in its peacebuilding efforts is accompaniment, a “walking in solidarity with people caught in the dehumanizing dynamics of deadly conflict” (“Closing Statement: On the Need for Unlikely Partners,” http://cpn.nd.edu/assets/70299/appleby_closing_talk_final.pdf, accessed 20 June 2012).

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4 For examples of this discourse, cf. Cesar Adib Majul, “The Muslims in the Philippines: An Historical Perspective,” in The Muslim Filipinos, eds. Peter G. Gowing and Robert D. McAmis (Manila: Solidaridad Publishing House, 1974), 1-12; and Samuel K. Tan, Decolonization and Muslim Filipino Identity (Quezon City: Department of History, U.P., 1989). 5 For example, Salah Jubair, A Nation Under Endless Tyranny, 2nd ed., http://www.bangsamoro.org/ (accessed 18 September 2012); Nasser A. Marohomsalic, Aristocrats of the Malay Race: A History of the Bangsa Moro in the Philippines (N.A. Marohomsalic, 2001); and Bobby M. Tuazon, The Moro Reader: History and Contemporary Struggles of the Bangsamoro People (Quezon City: CenPEG Books, 2008). For a typical presentation of this discourse in a blog, cf. Datuan Solaiman Panolimba, “Armed Struggle of the Bangsamoro in the Philippines,” 25 June 2009, http://barangayrp.wordpress.com/2009/06/25/armed-struggle-of-the-bangsamoro-muslims-in-the-philippines/ (accessed 18 September 2012).

6 Salah Jubair, The Long Road to Peace: Inside the GRP-MILF Peace Process (Cotabato City: Institute of Bangsamoro Studies, 2007), 4.

7 In highlighting these three factors, I do not mean to be exhaustive of the different elements that are at play in Christian-Muslim relationships nor do I intend to give a comprehensive presentation of the history of this relationship. This complex issue warrants more than what is intended in this paper. For a good historical overview and more comprehensive discussion of Muslim-Christian relations in the Philippines, cf. William LaRousse, “Muslim-Christian Relations in the Philippines: An Historical Overview,” MST Review 6 (2004): 114-71. See also his excellent study, Walking Together Seeking Peace: The Local Church of Mindanao-Sulu Journeying in Dialogue with the Muslim Community (1965-2000) (Quezon City: Claretian Publications, 2001). For an insightful presentation on the roots of the conflict in Mindanao, cf. Astrid Tuminez, “The Past Is Always Present: The Moros of Mindanao and the Quest for Peace,” South East Asia Research Centre of the City University of Hong Kong, Working Paper Series No. 99, May 2008, http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/YFT7T4Aly4Ecg4nnClaCikySAI9i3yR1sjHd55HgobEYjJCy409-5fa-4RWXm5TY_iPX55qnQk6P5mGzJd4ZDAXlWZwkuzE/Tuminez_Mindanao%20Conflict.pdf, accessed 10 July 2012).

8 For an account of the history of Muslims in the Philippines, cf. Cesar Adib Majul, Muslims in the Philippines (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1999). Majul notes that there was already a Muslim community in Sulu by the last quarter of the 13th century if not earlier (cf. Majul, Muslims in the Philippines, 56-69).

9 On the connection of “the Philippines” within maritime Asia before Spanish colonization, cf. Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, State and Society in the Philippines (Lanhan, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2005), 35-39. The earliest Chinese account on Chinese trade with Sulu dates back 1349 (cf. Majul, Muslims in the Philippines, 411-17).

10 Cf. Majul, Muslims in the Philippines, 56-69. Majul makes the observation, related and in contrast to the eventual colonization and Christianization of Luzon and the Visayas, that the Muslim traders “did not found colonies for their mother countries or as invaders with imperialistic designs.” It is because of this that “Islam came to be

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regarded not only as something less foreign than Christianity but also as an ideology with pre-nationalistic overtones” (Majul, Muslims in the Philippines, 50). In light of the Islamization of Southeast Asia in the 14th century, Abinales and Amoroso add the observation that a “Muslim ruler found that Islam helped him build and centralize political power, which rested on three bases: material reward, coercion, and spiritual power” (State and Society, 43). Not surprisingly, in order to further their interests, the rulers of Sulu converted to Islam, and so did their subjects although “localization” occurred among the people—“Islam being incorporated gradually into existing beliefs and practices, as it continues to be today” (Abinales and Amoroso, State and Society, 45).

11 Cf. William Henry Scott, Barangay: Sixteenth Century Philippine Culture and Society (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1994), 173-78; and on the sultanate system, cf. Tan, Decolonization and Filipino Muslim, 13-31. For the tarsilas of the sultanates of Mindanao, especially Maguindanao, cf. Najeeb M. Saleeby, Studies in Moro History, Law and Religion (Manila: The Filipiniana Book Guild, 1976).

12 Cf. Majul, Muslims in the Philippines, 78-84; Horacio de la Costa, Readings in Philippine History: Selected Historical Texts Presented with a Commentary (Manila: Bookman, 1965), 14-15, 19-20; John H. Schumacher, Readings in Philippine Church History (Quezon City: Loyola School of Theology, Ateneo de Manila University, 1979), 16.

13 Salah Jubair, A Nation Under Endless Tyranny.

14 Schumacher, Readings in Philippine Church History, 2-4. On the “myths” about Inter caetera, cf. William Henry Scott, Looking for the Prehispanic Filipino and Other Essays in Philippine History (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1992), 15-23.

15 Schumacher, Readings in Philippine Church History, 17-18.

16 John N. Schumacher, Growth and Decline: Essays on Philippine Church History (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2009), 23-29. From the first period of evangelization (1570-1650), there were three areas that serve as evidence of the maturing of the Filipino Christianity from 1650-1700. First, there were various efforts to deepen the faith of Filipino Christians by explaining more thoroughly the catechism that they memorized when they were baptized. Second, there were attempts on the part of the missionaries to reach those people who had not been reached or reached effectively in the second half of the 17th century. And third, lay people increasingly participated in the work of the missionaries. The full blossoming of the church came about from 1700-1768 with the emergence of religious life for women and men (Schumacher, Growth and Decline, 22-54). Nevertheless, the Christianized natives were not mere passive recipients of the Christian faith. As Karl Gaspar argues, “While the Spanish friars Christianized the natives, the converts Filipinized the faith of the missionaries. In the process some of the traditional beliefs, practices and rituals either disappeared or evolved into new elaborate ones” (The Masses Are the Messiah: Contemplating the Filipino Soul [Quezon City: Institute of Spirituality in Asia, 2010], 124).

17 Abinales and Amoroso, State and Society, 51. In an apparent contrast, Schumacher presents a reading of the missionary endeavors that is sympathetic to the church,


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particularly as the missionaries raised their voices against the abuses committed by the conquistadores, typically took great effort to instruct the converts about the Christian faith, and responded to their needs (Readings in Philippine Church History, 22-55; Schumacher, Growth and Decline, 1-21). When Joerg Rieger claims that “[c]olonial Christianity failed to question colonialism, mostly because it operated under the tacit assumption that the colonial enterprise was the Christian enterprise” (Joerg Rieger, “Theology and Mission between Neocolonialism and Postcolonialism,” Mission Studies 21(2004): 210), this seems not to be the case of the church in the Philippines. For instance, the Synod of Manila, held intermittently from 1582-1586, rejected the so-called right of conquest of Spain, regarded Spanish sovereignty over the Philippines as valid “to the extent that this was necessary for the preaching of the Gospel” (Schumacher, Readings in Philippine Church History, 28), and affirmed the fundamental equality of Spaniards and Filipinos, and the right of Filipinos to own their own land and to rule themselves (Schumacher, Growth and Decline, 5-15). Domingo de Salazar, the first bishop of Manila who assumed his office in 1581, was more radical in his view than the Synod. He was of the position that “the king of Spain could have no political rights over the Philippines except by just war or by free choice of the Filipinos” and he even went back to Spain to argue his case before the king (Schumacher, Growth and Decline, 7).

18 Abinales and Amoroso, State and Society, 52.

19 For a discussion of the “Moro Wars” (the Spanish expeditions to Muslim lands, the slave raids by Muslims in the Visayas and Luzon, and the naval battles between the Spaniards and the Muslims), cf. Majul, 121-297, 337-75. Cf. also Thomas McKenna, Muslim Rulers and Rebels: Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in Southern Philippines (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 76-80.

20 Majul, Muslims in the Philippines, 407.

21 Salah Jubair, A Nation Under Endless Tyranny, 2nd ed. http://www.maranao.com/bangsamoro/0204-evolution_of_moro.htm (accessed 11 August 2012).

22 Perhaps, Jubair’s rhetoric expresses a prejudice born of the fact that the word for slave among Muslims is bisaya, the same word that refers to the inhabitants of the Visayan islands (cf. Patricio C. Abinales, Orthodoxy and History in the Muslim-Mindanao Narrative [Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2010], 40, footnote 9).

23 Abinales, Orthodoxy and History, 40.

24 On the annexation of the Philippines by the Americans, cf. Frank Hidman Golay, Face of Empire: United States-Philippine Relations, 1898-1946 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University, 1997), 1-89.

25 Quoted in Peter Gordon Gowing, Mandate in Moroland: The American Government of Muslim Filipinos 1899-1920 (Quezon City: Philippine Center for Advanced Studies, University of the Philippines, 1977), 15-16.

26 Gowing, Mandate in Moroland, 257-314.

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27 Cf. Golay, Face of Empire.

28 Cf. e.g., Midori Kawashima, “Explanatory Notes on the Maranao Petitions: Letters of Haji Bogabong, 1935,” The Journal of Sophia Asian Studies 21 (2003): 219-232. As will be seen below, Patricio Abinales interprets these representations from a different perspective.

29 Quoted in Gowing, Mandate in Moroland, 251-52.

30 Cf. Nathan Gilbert Quimpo, “Colonial Name, Colonial Mentality, and Ethnocentrism,” KASAMA 18 (2004), Solidarity Philippines Australia Network, http://cpcabrisbane.org/Kasama/2004/V18n1/ColonialName3.htm (accessed 15 July 2012). See also Patricio C. Abinales, Making Mindanao: Cotabato and Davao in the Formation of the Philippine Nation-State (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2000).

31 It seems to me that the Catholic Church is more culpable in this regard by virtue of its long history and power in the Philippines.

32 For an authoritative study of this controverted axiom in the Roman Catholic tradition, cf. Francis A. Sullivan, Salvation outside the Church: Tracing the History of the Catholic Response (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2002).

33 Cf. McKenna, Muslim Rulers and Rebels, 114-24.

34 For instance, cf. Faina C. Abaya-Ulindang, “Huks in the Land of Promise: The Rise and Demise of Economic Development Corps,” Graduate Forum 8 (2010): 107-206. Cf. McKenna, Muslim Rebels and Rulers, 114-19.

35 Tuminez contends, rightly I think, that just as the land is the root of the Bangsamoro issue, it is also the potential means of resolving the problem, see Astrid S. Tuminez, “This Land Is Our Land: Moro Ancestral Domain and Its Implications for Peace and Development in Southern Philippines,” The SAIS Review of International Affairs 27(2) (2007): 77-91. Cf. also Astrid S. Tuminez, “Rebellion, Terrorism, Peace: America’s Unfinished Business with Muslims in the Philippines,” The Brown Journal of World Affairs 15 (2008): 211-23. Gutierrez and Borras argue that, as a response to the armed conflict in Muslim Mindanao, redistributive land reform be an integral part of the solution (Eric Gutierrez and Saturnino Borras Jr., The Moro Conflict: Landlessness and Misdirected State Policies [Washington, DC: East-West Center Washington, 2004]).

36 It is important to consider that colonial and postcolonial policies are only partly to be blamed for the poverty of many Moros. The issue is more complicated than what the space here allows. For instance, the poor governance exercised by many Moro political leaders is part of the problem and has even exacerbated an already less than ideal situation. Take a look for example at the former political leaders of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao who displayed wealth disproportionate to their positions as public officials while the ordinary Moro lives in abject poverty, cf. the reports by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, Carolyn O. Arguillas, “Shamefully Rich, Clan Has 35 Houses and Fleet of Wheels,” http://pcij.org/stories/featured-stories/shamefully-rich-clan-has-35-houses-fleet-of-wheels/ (accessed 10 July 2012); Soliman M. Santos, Jr., “The Maguindanao Massacre, the


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Bangsamoro Problem and the Peace Process, http://pcij.org/stories/the-maguindanao-massacre-the-bangsamoro-problem-and-the-peace-process/ (accessed 10 July 2012); and Ed Lingao, “Putting Maguindanao in Context,” http://pcij.org/stories/putting-maguindanao-in-context/ (accessed 10 July 2012). There appears to be no genuine effort on the part of leaders such as them to empower the people and effect genuine change. It even appears that they are using the people as milking cows for their own ends and treat them as serfs in their perceived “feudal” lands.

See also Peter Kreuzer, “Political Clans and Violence in the Southern Philippines,” Peace Research Institute Frankfurt Report No. 71 (2005), http://hsfk.de/downloads/PRIF-71.pdf (accessed 1 July 2011). In this paper, Kreuzer highlights the need to understand the role of feuding political clans either with one another and/or with the armed Moro fronts in order to better understand the complexity of the situation and respond accordingly to it: “Any strategy which aims at resolving the political conflict between the MILF guerrillas and the Philippine state, must be aware of the interdependencies between the various arenas of violence and players and must therefore develop an integrated ‘recipe’ for civilising the violence” (Kreuzer, “Political Clans and Violence,” iii).

37 For a fuller treatment of the historical roots and contemporary causes of the Moro armed struggle, see Macapado Abaton Muslim, The Moro Armed Struggle in the Philippines: The Non-Violent Autonomy Alternative (Marawi City: Office of the President and College of Public Affairs, Mindanao State University, 1994), 52-133. See also United Nations Development Programme, Philippine Human Development Report 2005: Peace, Human Security, and Human Development in the Philippines (n.p.: Human Development Network, United Nations Development Programme and New Zealand Agency for International Development, n.d.), 66, http://hdr.undp.org/docs/reports/national/PHI_Philippines/Philippines_2005_en.pdf (accessed 30 June 2008).

38 Cf. McKenna, Muslim Rulers and Rebels, 80-85.

39 Cf. Abinales, Orthodoxy and History; Abinales, Making Mindanao.

40 McKenna, Muslim Rulers and Rebels, 81.

41 McKenna, Muslim Rulers and Rebels, 84. McKenna’s contention is supported by Hayase who argues that while Islam served as the new principle of unity in the development of the Maguindanao sultanate, it was the interests of the ruling class that mattered when historical circumstances changed (Shinzo Hayase, Mindanao Ethnohistory Beyond Nations: Maguindanao, Sangir, and Bagobo Societies in East Maritime Southeast Asia [Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University, 2007], 39-79).


43 McKenna, Muslim Rulers and Rebels, 86-112.

44 McKenna, Muslim Rulers and Rebels, 104-106. Saleeby, who published the first scholarly work on Muslim Filipinos in English and who was the first superintendent of schools of the Moro Province, proposed that the traditional Muslim elites be used to implement American colonial policy. Aware that the various Muslim ethnolinguistic groups were not united, Saleeby also argued for “the formation of a new transcendent

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Philippine Muslim identity: through the development of Morohood” (McKenna, Muslim Rulers and Rebels, 106), a unifying identity which would serve as a means of preparing them for eventual integration into a postcolonial Philippine nation.


46 Abinales, Making Mindanao, 2-4.

47 Abinales, Orthodoxy and History, 37-39.

48 Cf. Abinales, Orthodoxy and History, 34-72; Abinales, Making Mindanao, 45-68.



51 Rizal G. Buendia, “The Politics of Ethnicity and Moro Secessionism in the Philippines,” Working Paper No. 146, Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University, November 2007, 17, http://wwwarc.murdoch.edu.au/publications/wp/wp146.pdf (accessed 15 October 2012).

52 Joint GPH-MILF Draft, “Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro,” 2, emphasis added, http://opapp.gov.ph/sites/default/files/GPH-MILF%20Framework%20Agree ment.pdf (accessed 11 November 2012).

53 Vatican II, Nostra aetate, 2.

54 Vatican II, Gaudium et spes, 22.

55 The late John Paul II goes on to develop this pneumatological dimension of the Catholic Church’s theology of religions in his writings, particularly in Dominum et vivificantem and Redemptoris missio, cf. O’Collins, “John Paul II on Christ, the Holy Spirit and World Religions.”

56 Cf. Second Formation Institute for Inter-Religious Affairs, 3.1, in FAPA III, 126.

57 Cf. BIRA IV/7, 12, in FAPA I, 310.

58 FABC I, 12 in FAPA I, 14. 59 FABC I, 14, in FAPA I, 14.

60 Second Bishops’ Institute for Interreligious Affairs, 12, in FAPA I, 115.

61 Felix Wilfred, “Becoming Christian Inter-religiously,” in Being Christian, ed. Silvia Scatena, et al, Concilium (London: SCM Press and Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2011), 62.

62 Cf. Michael L. Fitzgerald, “Christian-Muslim Dialogue in South-East Asia,” Islamochristiana 2 (1976): 171-77; Peter G. Gowing, “Christian-Muslim Dialogue in


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the Philippines 1976-1981,” Islamochristiana 7 (1981): 211-25; Sebastiana D’Ambra, “Christian-Muslim Relations in the Philippines,” Islamochristiana 20 (1994): 179-206.

63 Michael Amaladoss, “Dialogue at the Service of Life,” FABC Papers 72B (1995): 11.

64 Julkipli Wadi, “Braving Muslim-Christian Dialogue: A Muslim Perspective,” MST Review 6 (2004): 32. Given the apparent incommensurability of the different religious traditions, dialogue seems to be more promising when there is a focus on commonly shared human values rather than on doctrinal issues.

65 The present-day attitudes of Filipino Christians toward the Moros are admittedly not merely an issue of reception but also involves issues such as of history, culture, memory, and power, all of which influence negatively or positively the reception of church teachings.

66 United Nations Development Programme, Philippine Human Development Report 2005: Peace, Human Security, and Human Development in the Philippines (n.p.: Human Development Network, United Nations Development Programme and New Zealand Agency for International Development, n.d.), 58, emphasis in the original http://hdr.undp.org/docs/reports/national/PHI_Philippines/Philippines_2005_en.pdf (accessed 30 June 2008). 67 Rudy Rodil, a Mindanao historian and peace advocate, underscores the importance of dealing with emotions in addressing the armed conflict in Mindanao and in the peace process (Rudy Buhay Rodil, “Notes on the Conflict with Mindanawons,” Tambara 27 (2010), http://ejournals.ph/index.php?journal=TAMBARA&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=1878).

68 This is taken from an email posted in an e-group that serves as a forum for the discussion of Mindanao concerns and issues.

69 Ramon Tulfo, “The President Is a Weakling,” On Target, 25 October 2011, http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/82391/the-president-is-a-weakling, (accessed 30 October 2011).

70 Ramon Farolan, “Remembering Al-Barka,” Reveille, 18 June 2012, http://opinion.inquirer.net/30907/remembering-al-barka (accessed 18 June 2012).

71 It may be of interest to note that two of the top ten “spoilers” of the peace process for the MILF are Roman Catholic bishops, cf. “MILF Lists Top 10 ‘Spoilers’ of Peace Talks,” 31 August 2011, http://www.gmanews.tv/story/231026/nation/milf-lists-top-10-spoilers-of-peace-talks (accessed 30 Oct 2011). While I present here stories of the biases of many Filipino Christians against the Moros, of which there are many others, I am not saying that they occur without any reason at all. On the contrary, it is true that many of these Christians had negative personal experiences of the Moros, stories which were shared and became part of the social consciousness of many Christians communities. It is also true that on the side of the Moros, they have their own prejudices against Filipino Christians which also are a part of their community’s consciousness.

72 In a study of the Mindanao Bishops-Ulama Conference, it was reported that

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priests who participated in the Imam-Priests-Pastors Forum received “negative feedback from parishioners, and… [were] ‘insulted, criticized, isolated and accused of being pro-Muslim’” (Brenda Fitzpatrick, “The Philippines. The Mindanao Bishops-Ulama Conference,” in Pursuing Just Peace: An Overview and Case Studies for Faith-Based Peacebuilding, ed. Mark M. Rogers, Tom Bamat and Julie Ideh, 127 (Baltimore: Catholic Relief Services, 2008), http://www.crsprogramquality.org/storage/pubs/peacebuilding/pursuing_just_peace.pdf (accessed 21 June 2012).

73 Since the time of this writing, the RH bill was passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate of the Republic of the Philippines after lengthy and bitter debates. It was signed into law by President Benigno Aquino Jr., on 21 December 2012, as Republic Act No. 10354, the “Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012”—much to the dismay of many leaders of the Catholic Church and their supporters.

74 CBCP, “We Must Reject House Bill 4110,” 31 May 2003, http://cbcponline.net/v2/?p=476 (accessed 12 July 2012). Three years before this, the CBCP issued a letter in which it criticized four bills in Congress which it deemed problematic. The bills it criticized involved the issues of divorce, the legalization of abortion, lesbian and gay rights, and population program (“‘That They May Have Life and Have It Abundantly’: Pastoral Statement on the Defense of Life and Family,” 26 January 2000, http://cbcponline.net/v2/?p=449 [accessed 12 July 2012]).

75 Cf. CBCP, “Hold On to Your Precious Gift,” 18 February 2005, http://cbcponline.net/v2/?p=505; “Standing Up for the Gospel of Life,” 14 November 2008, http://cbcponline.net/v2/?p=558; “Reiterating CBCP Position on Family,” 16 September 2009, http://cbcponline.net/v2/?p=574; “On the Government’s Revitalized Promotion of Condoms,” 2 March 2010 http://cbcponline.net/v2/?p=580; and “Securing Our Moral Heritage: Towards a Moral Society,” 24 July 2010, http://cbcponline.net/v2/?p=588; (accessed 12 July 2012). The bishops also partly touched on the issues involved in the bill in another letter, “Saving and Strengthening the Filipino Family: A CBCP Pastoral Statement on the 20th Anniversary of Familiaris Consortio,” 2 December 2001, http://cbcponline.net/v2/?p=465 (accessed 12 July 2012).

76 CBCP, “Choosing Life, Rejecting the RH Bill (A Pastoral Letter of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines),” 30 January 2011, http://cbcponline.net/v2/?p=1151 (accessed 24 June 2012).

77 Eric M. Genilo, “Crossing the Line: Church Use of Political Threats Against Pro-RH Bill Legislators,” Hapag: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Theological Research 7 (2010): 63-77.

78 For instance, Patricia Evangelista in her PDI column questions the pronouncements of church leaders against the RH bill, particularly the church’s understanding of “contraceptive mentality” and “artificial” in relation to contraceptives (Patricia Evangelista, “Contraceptive Mentality,” Method in Madness, 24 June 2012, http://opinion.inquirer.net/31291/contraceptive-morality, accessed 24 June 2012). For her part, Mary Racelis calls on church leaders to learn to listen to women and seriously consider the consequences of their decisions on them (“A Listening Church?,” http://opinion.inquirer.net/31851/a-listening-church, accessed 12 July 2012).


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79 I am making the presupposition here that an integral part of the Catholic Church’s mission in Mindanao is the task of peacebuilding. When confronted with a conflict situation that has cost the lives of thousands and the destruction of property worth millions, the church cannot but consider peacebuilding as an urgent task.

80 For examples of these efforts “from below,” cf. Karl M. Gaspar, Elpidio A. Lapad and Ailynne J. Maravillas, Mapagpakamalinawon: A Reader for the Mindanawon Peace Advocate (Davao: Alternate Forum for Research in Mindanao, Inc. and Catholic Relief Services, 2002). Cf. also LaRousse, Walking Together Seeking Peace, 389-406.

81 Cf. CBCP, “Joint Pastoral Letter on the Church’s Mission of Peace,” http://cbcponline.net/v2/?p=240, 1982 (accessed 12 July 2012); CBCP, “A Covenant Towards Peace,” 21 November 1986, http://cbcponline.net/v2/?p=285 (accessed 12 July 2012); and CBCP, “The Fruit of Justice Is Peace,” 26 January 1987, http://cbcponline.net/v2/?p=292 (accessed 12 July 2012).

82 CBCP, “Seek Peace, Pursue It,” 31 January 1990, http://cbcponline.net/v2/?p=314 (accessed 12 July 2012). It must be pointed out that while the Bangsamoro issue is a question of sovereignty for the government, it is a question of self-determination for the Moros.

83 Cf. CBCP, “Pastoral Statement of the CBCP on Peace-Building,” 25 January 1993, http://cbcponline.net/v2/?p=345 (accessed 12 July 2012); and “Peace in Our Times,” 12 July 1993, http://cbcponline.net/v2/?p=347 (accessed 12 July 2012).

84 CBCP, “An Urgent Appeal for Peace in Mindanao,” 6 July 2000, http://cbcponline.net/v2/?p=459; (accessed 12 July 2012).

85 CBCP, “An Urgent Appeal for Peace in Mindanao.” In a previous letter, “Building a Culture of Peace by Respecting Life and Human Rights,” the bishops underscored the need to build a culture of life, a culture of human rights and a culture of peace. The bishops referred to efforts being done to foster peace in Mindanao and stressed the need for dialogue (http://cbcponline.net/v2/?p=444, 26 January 2000 [accessed 12 July 2012]).

86 CBCP, “An Urgent Appeal for Peace,” 10 March 2003, http://cbcponline.net/v2/?p=489 (accessed 12 July 2012).

87 CBCP, “Toward Building a Just and Lasting Peace in Mindanao (A Statement of Catholic Bishops in Mindanao on the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro),” 14 October 2012, http://www.cbcpnews.com/cbcpnews/?p=5759 (accessed 7 November 2012). While it is the people of Mindanao who will be directly affected by any peace agreement, this statement will have more political weight if it was issued not only by the Mindanao bishops but by the entire CBCP.

88 Mohagher Iqbal, “The Need for Urgency in Negotiation,” http://www.luwaran.com/home/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1715:the-need-for-urgency-in-negotiation&catid=58:speeches&Itemid=543 (accessed 30 June 2011). These “decision-makers” that Iqbal refers to are mostly Christian politicians and

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business people and Muslim political leaders who have been co-opted by the Philippine government.

89 Iqbal, “The Need for Urgency in Negotiation.”

90 Bong D. Fabe, “Mindanao Dioceses, Catholic Universities Urged to Help Push Peace Process,” CBCP News, 14 June 2011, http://www.cbcpnews.com/?q=node/15830 (accessed 30 June 2011).

91 Admittedly, the church in Muslim Mindanao has other faces. For instance, during the martial law years under President Ferdinand Marcos, many church people were at the forefront of the battle for human rights. Unfortunately, this and similar faces of the church have been marginalized with respect to the Moro issue.

92 Cf. John Paul Lederach, “Justpeace: The Challenge of the 21st Century,” in People Building Peace: 35 Inspiring Stories from Around the World (Utrecht: European Center for Conflict Prevention, 1999), 27-36.

93 Wilfred, Margins: Site of Asian Theologies, xi.

94 For a study that highlights the agency and the power of the bakwit in the face of suffering, cf. Jose Jowel Canuday, Bakwit: Power of the Displaced (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University, 2009).

95 Proactive measures on the part of the church would mean a more active involvement on the part of its leaders in establishing harmonious relationships with leaders of both the military and the Moros and in building Christian communities of healing and reconciliation.

96 Orlando B. Quevedo, “Injustice: the Root of Conflict in Mindanao,” http://www.bangsamoro.info/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=46 (accessed 30 June 2008). While Quevedo seems right in emphasizing injustice as the root of the conflict in Mindanao, Patricio Diaz argues convincingly that the solution to the “Muslim Problem” is the upliftment of the socio-economic life of the Muslim masses and not just the appeasement of Muslim leaders, cf. Patricio P. Diaz, Understanding Mindanao Conflict (Davao City: MindaNews Publication, 2003), 2-22.

97 See the groundbreaking work, Robert J. Schreiter, R. Scott Appleby, and Gerard F. Powers, eds. Peacebuilding: Catholic Theology, Ethics, and Praxis (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010).

98 Orlando B. Quevedo, “An Open Appeal for Peace and for Our Evacuees,” 23 July 2009.

99 On the ministry of reconciliation, cf. Robert J. Schreiter, The Ministry of Reconciliation: Spirituality and Strategies (Maryknoll, N.Y, Orbis Books, 1998); Robert J. Schreiter, “Reconciliation and Healing as a Paradigm for Mission,” International Review of Mission 94 (2005): 74-83.

100 Appleby, “Closing Statement.”


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101 While pakikipagkapwa-tao appears to be a distinctive Tagalog value, it seems that based on my informal conversations with persons of other ethnic groups pakikipagkapwa-tao has a dynamic equivalence in their own languages. Yet, this apparent similarity of values is not treated in this paper for reasons of brevity and will be explored in another study.

102 Virgilio G. Enriquez, From Colonial to Liberation Psychology: The Philippine Experience (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1992), 43. For Enriquez, kapwa is a core Filipino concept that explains Filipino interpersonal behavior (From Colonial to Liberation Psychology, 39-55).

103 Cf. Eduardo C. Vasquez, Jr., “A Glimpse on the Plight of the Internally Displaced Persons of North Cotabato and Maguindanao,” 17 September 2009. Vasquez was the head of the interreligious ministry of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate and concurrently parish priest of Sta. Teresita Parish at the time of the war. His stories of the experiences of several of the “bakwit” are heartrending and at times infuriating. For instance, money is extorted from the “bakwit” by unscrupulous individuals in order for the evacuees to receive the food tickets of the World Food Program (WFP). They were made to pay 5 pesos for every name that was registered in the WFP master list and when the food arrived, they were being charged 500 pesos when everything was supposed to be free!

104 Appleby, “Closing Statement.”

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Toward a Pauline Hermeneutic of Dialogue1

dennis solonHeidelberg University

Nordrhein Westfalen, Germany

Paul’s letter to the romans can serve as a methodological tool for present-day Filipino Christians in engaging their Muslim counterparts. in this letter, Paul encourages his readers to engage each other in love and acceptance. Although the conflicting parties described in this letter both belong to the same group of Jesus‘ followers, they can nevertheless be seen as representing differing cultures and religious convictions. Hence, Filipino Christians can draw lessons from this letter about some significant and positive ways for dealing with peoples of other religious persuasions.

keyWORds: Pauline hermeneutic, interreligious dialogue, sin, salvation, reconciliation, hospitality, non-retaliation

iNtROdUCtiON

Though the causes and supporting rationales of the present conflict in Mindanao2 are increasingly complex, such conflict nevertheless follows the basic pattern of Muslim and Christian

religious strife common since the Spanish colonization of the country during the 16th century.3 This essay focuses on this religious aspect,4 and proceeds from the assumption that the political and cultural struggle has some religious factors. The fundamental importance of the religious dimension(s) of the conflict in Mindanao manifests itself in the developing trend toward interreligious dialogue.5

Finding new methods and paradigms for engaging with peoples of other faiths, like Muslims, remains a constant challenge for Filipinos. Basic here is the need to explore the theological and

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exegetical dimensions for such dialogues.6 In German context, Gerd Theißen emphasizes the challenge of Biblical exegetes in bringing their disciple forward in the direction of interreligious dialogue. He writes:

Nun ist es eine angenehme Aufgabe, durch Auslegung der Bibel eine gemeinsame Basis für die christlichen Konfessionen im ökumenischen Dialog zu schaffen. Vor uns liegt aber eine weit schwierige Aufgabe, der interreligiöse Dialog.7

At present, achieving a common basis for the Christian confessions in ecumenical dialogue through interpretation of the Bible is a convenient task. But a far difficult task confronts us: interpreting the Bible for interreligios dialogue. (translation mine)

In response to the present need, this paper examines the potential contribution of the Pauline writings, focusing specifically on the letter to the Romans and on the general question of peacemaking through interreligious dialogue. Many New Testament scholars have argued that peacemaking is one of Paul’s major concerns in his apostolic ministry, as can be gleaned from his letters. Conversely, the practice of interreligious dialogue is seen nowadays as a way of making peace. Since this paper is exegetical (pertaining to the methodological process of discerning “what the text could have meant”) in nature, it does not attempt a systematic treatment of Paul’s approach to religious dialogue. It seeks, rather, to encourage the reading of Paul as one engaged in a similar task. However, it hopes to offer some hermeneutical (as concerned with discerning “what the text could mean today”) impulses in today‘s interreligious context. This essay proceeds with a brief description and background of the Muslim-Christian religious issues, which provides the context of interpretation. Then it moves to a basic exegetical analysis of Romans, after which some hermeneutical points will be highlighted.

religious Violence Between Christians and Muslims in Mindanao

I identify this conflict as having religious dimensions due to an understanding that political and cultural conflict in Mindanao is rooted in a conflict of religious identities. One central factor here is what may be termed “mutual prejudice.”8 The Muslims consider Christians “land grabbers and oppressors who took away their lands from them.”9 I grew up in a relatively Christian community in the

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toWards a PaUliNE HErMENEUtiC oF dialoGUE

middle of the Philippines and it was only late in my teenage years that I finally met some Muslims. Yet, during my childhood, the common opinion was that Muslims were less “cultured”10 and even that they were “murderers, thieves and dirty.”11 The media has reportedly reinforced this prejudicial attitude toward the Muslims.12 Although both sides suffer from this stereotyping, it is the Muslims who suffer most, given that they are a religious minority. What caused all these negative labelings? Let us quickly visit the history of the conflict in Mindanao.

historical Background of the religious Conflict in Mindanao: A (very) short sketch

As Muslims comprise only about five percent of the total Philippine population,13 they are numerically a small minority in the Philippines.14 They are, however, long established within Philippine society. There exist documented accounts of Muslim settlement in Mindanao from early as the middle of the 14th century. These migrants from the Malay peninsula settled first in Borneo and then in the islands of Sulu. Over a period of time, these Muslim communities expanded to the southern coasts of Mindanao.15

The Spanish occupation and colonization of the Philippines, especially beginning in 1571, disrupted the spread of Islam throughout the Philippine Islands.16 The ugly story of Spain’s 300 year long unsuccessful yet bloody attempts to subjugate the Muslim population left a monumental mark on the Muslims in Mindanao, who sought to protect their cultural and religious heritage at all costs. Gowing‘s comment that Muslims regarded armed encounter between them and the Spaniards and Christian Filipinos as a jihad (holy war)17 relates the “religious” character of the conflict. The series of armed encounters left burned towns and villages, and death of hundreds of men, women, and children behind them. Of course, the conflict was not one-sided: both communities were victims of “cruelty and butchery.”18

Military operations against the Muslim population characterized also the start of the American occupation.19 This approach soon changed, however, into “a policy of friendship, aid and toleration.”20 Quite the opposite of their predecessors, the Americans can generally be viewed as tolerant towards the Muslim religion. According to Mckenna, “American colonizers often exhibited a certain respect for the ‘Mohammedanism’ they found in the Philippines and did not

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encourage Christian proselytization among the Philippine Muslims.”21 During this period, the main reason for the marginalization of the

Muslim population was the immigration of Christian Filipinos from the northern part of the Philippines, a practice initiated by the Americans and continued during the Philippine commonwealth beginning in 1935. After the devastation of World War II, Mindanao became viewed as a land of opportunity. This led to another wave of immigration, the peak of which occurred in the ‘60s and ‘70s. This drastically changed the percentage of Muslim population in Mindanao. During this period, many Muslims who had rightful claim to their land by virtue of ancestral domain, lost that ownership because they did not follow American legal procedures. The lack of access to national assistance for development (e.g., education, infrastructure), coupled with the perceived contempt toward Muslims, resulted in the development of an independence movement among Muslims. This movement was first known as the Muslim Independence Movement (MIM), formed by Udtog Matalam on 1 May 1968.22 The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) also began during this period “as an underground movement in the youth section of the MIM” and continued after the disbandment of MIM.23 In 1984 the Moro Islamic Liberation Front was formed, which has an added goal of forming an Islamic state.24 Since breakup of talks between the Arroyo government and the Muslim rebels in 2008, armed conflict in Mindanao has resulted in the displacement of at least 750,000 Christians and Muslims and several hundred of casualties.25 If one counts deaths and displacements of persons from the Marcos regime (1965-1986) to 2008, this total would increase to more than three million displaced persons and at least 120,000 deaths, according to the best estimates.26

The socio-political conflict in Mindanao is an intricate matter. Alongside Mindanao’s general culture of violence, one finds the cultural mandate of “retaliation” predominant among many tribal groups in Mindanao.27 All of this is supported by the problems of “starvation and poverty, environmental decay, militarism, inequality, underdevelopment, sexism, ethnic and religious discrimination.”28 These are all important contributing factors, but are not my immediate concern. My point is that the persistent conflict in Mindanao has a religious root, and that this cannot be detached from the socio-cultural and political problems of today. With this in mind, I turn to Paul’s letter to the Romans as a way toward a Pauline hermeneutic of religious dialogue.

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the Need to Contextualize Paul

The increasing interest in a contextual approach to the Christian faith, in theology as well as in Biblical interpretation, is well known. One major challenge in Biblical interpretation, especially in Asia, is to read the Bible from “contextual, pluralist, and postcolonial and religious perspectives.”29 This approach allows the text to speak to the historical realities in Asia and to make better sense of the Bible’s gospel proclamation. With a postcolonial reading, attention is given to the voices of the “colonized and marginalized in the biblical text,”30 and the reader is instructed to maintain a hermeneutic of suspicion with regard to “texts used to justify colonial powers.”31 This is where I wish to begin. Reading Paul from a postcolonialist perspective allows us to develop a Pauline “hermeneutic of dialogue.” What I mean here by “postcolonialist” is avoiding an interpretation that would represent political or cultural domination. In the following brief investigation of Romans, using a hermeneutic of dialogue, I wish to demonstrate two things. First, for Paul, the false appropriation of religion can cause injustice and, as a worst case, bring destruction to the human race. Second, Paul’s ethic of love and tolerance is necessary for today’s Christian Filipinos in engaging with peoples of other religions.

A HeRMeNeUtiC OF diAlOgUe

This study employs Martin Buber’s programmatic “dialogical hermeneutic.” The basic method draws inspiration from Paul Knitter’s emphasis on human relationship necessary to such dialogue.32 In Buber’s dialogical hermeneutic greater emphasis falls on the text rather than on its author. In effect there is an “I-Thou” relationship between the (actual) reader and the (original) text as against between the reader and the author. In other words, the (original) author becomes in principle detached from this interpretive engagement as the text is seen in the present context of interpretation. This entails the risk of misrepresenting the original author or missing the author’s original intent. I take that risk in this essay of possibly misreading or misrepresenting Paul.33

Such a kind of reading can result in a transformation of the reader in the course of engaging with the text. In this hermeneutical process the reader is aware that Biblical interpretation is not just an individual enterprise but also a “public and communal matter.”34 Here, the immediate context of the interpreter(s), therefore, comes

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into play. Employing this hermeneutical method in the interreligious context of the Philippines, the question becomes one of how a Filipino can read the Bible as a “Thou” and think of one’s fellows as another “Thou.” This calls for the laying aside of prejudice towards those of other religions.35

By “hermeneutic” I am referring to the carrying out of a Biblical text‘s meaning, i.e., an answer to “what the text meant?” to the present (social, political, cultural) realities of the interpreter.36 Because I, as an interpreter, am situated in an interreligious (and socio-political) conflict, I have found the concept of “dialogue” useful as a model for this task. Dialogue is widely accepted as an effective way of engaging across interreligious boundaries. Volker Küster breaks this process down into two ethical missional tasks: [1] understanding of the faith of the dialogue partner; and [2] appropriation of one‘s faith in relation to the dialogue partner.37 This paper focuses on the second aspect, in that it underscores the ethical dimension(s) of religious dialogue.

I thus read the theological aspects of Romans with a mind to constructing a positive account that will direct and support Christian Filipinos in their engagement with Filipino Muslims. As will be shown below, the theological concepts of salvation, sin, and reconciliation as well as the ethical imperatives of hospitality and non-retaliation in Romans are prominent themes for a Pauline hermeneutic of dialogue. Based on Buber‘s “dialogical hermeneutic,” these concepts will be interpreted in light of the situation of Mindanao.

Paul‘s approach to other religious Traditions and its reception

Judaism was itself characterized by a large measure of diversity, and the “Jesus-Messianic” movement, whose message Paul preached among the non-Jewish world, was part of that diversity. While Paul had to deal with some social and cultural tensions within this larger stream,38 the group encountered other religious beliefs among non-Jewish peoples. Paul interpreted such encounters in light of his Jewish “theo-political”39 roots. He himself confessed to being a Jew (Phil 3:5; Rom 11:1). The book of Acts reports that Paul also bore a Jewish name “Saul” (7:57; 8:1,3; 9:1,4).40 Paul’s own writings and the narratives of Acts suggest Paul’s encounter with non-Jewish religions within the Greco-Roman world. The author of Acts in 17:16-31 narrates Paul‘s activities in Athens and his speech before

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people of other religious convictions there. One can sense that what took place in this very incident was a religious dialogue through a question-answer narrative.41 First, Paul discusses with the people there and proclaims Jesus and his resurrection (Vv. 17-18). Then the Athenians ask Paul about his preaching: “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting” (17:19)? Paul then responds with a positive, appreciative remark of their religiousity: “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way” (17:22).42 Owing to his encounter with non-Jewish religions in the Greco-Roman world, it is plausible that Paul may have been influenced by their beliefs and thoughts.43 From Acts 17, one can conclude that Paul, as Luke reports, was basically respectful, albeit critical, of other religions.44 This story in Acts 17 is but only a report from an observer of Paul. Let us now look at Paul through his letter to the Romans more closely in view of our concern in formulating a hermeneutic of dialogue.

general thoughts on Romans

It can, first of all, be argued that Paul’s letter to the Romans is universal in scope.45 Some of the universal themes in Romans are as follows:

[1] Universality of salvation. In reference to the gospel, i.e. the Christ event, Paul argues that “it is the power of God for salvation (soteria) to everyone who has faith, to the Jews first and to the Greek” (Rom 1:16). The meaning of the Greek word soteria contains the senses of deliverance, security, safety, bodily health, and well-being.46 The English translation “salvation” may, therefore, encompass all these aspects. With this, Paul may sound inclusivistic47 given that the salvation, which resulted from the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was now being extended to non-Jews. Noteworthy is the manner in which Paul regards the hope of deliverance from turmoil and oppression as available to all people regardless of race and culture. In Paul’s understanding, such salvation is closely related to God’s justice, as expressed in Rom 1:17-18. Waetjen comments that “salvation and God’s justice are inextricably linked together in the gospel that Paul evangelizes because salvation...is a continuous interdependent collaboration between God and human beings that is directed toward the realization of all that God‘s justice designs to accomplish in the world.”48

[2] The general reference to peoples of various races. This can be illustrated

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by Paul’s use of the Greek ethnos (pl. ethne). In the Hellenistic-Jewish literature, the word refers to nations and peoples in generic terms, and can include Israel or be used in distinction to Israel.49 Paul employs this terminology in a similar manner.50 The term occurs in Paul’s authentic letters 45 times, and in Romans alone 29 times. The usual translation51 “Gentile(s),” which distinguishes itself from “Jew(s)” may not always capture Paul’s idea of “ethnos/ethne” in Romans. In Rom 1:5, for example, Paul talks about the received grace and apostleship “to bring about obedience of faith among all the nations (ethne)…,” which includes his readers/hearers in Rome (Rom 1:6).

[3] The universality of Sin. In Rom 3:9, Paul declares that all human beings, whether Jew or Greek, share the same status, i.e. that all are under sin (hamartia). Hamartia is “the power of the infection that generates idolatry and injustice.”52 Quoting from the Scriptures, Paul continues that “no one is righteous. There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks God…No one does what is right. Not even one.” (3:10-11, 12b). Earlier Paul charged Jews and Gentiles alike with godlessness and unrighteousness (asebeia kai adikia) in Rom 1:18-2:16. Yet, observable in 3:9ff is Paul’s description of human aggressiveness through words and deeds as a means to damage other individuals. This, for Paul, is a sign of Sin’s reign over the speaker and the doer.53

Rom 3:13ff juxtaposes the malicious words and brutal acts that destroy humankind in describing human sin. The verb dolioo (to deceive) in v. 13, which appears here in imperfect active form, signifies words spoken that bear no truth or are devoid of certainty.54 The text in Psa 5:10, which Paul cites, describes how the evildoers desert truth. As P. Craigie comments, “Their tongues articulate no truth, but only the smooth words of flattery, which are lies designed cunningly to enable the evil to achieve their ends.”55

The expression “their feet are swift to shed blood” in Rom 3:15 speaks of the sinful human’s delight hurting, harassing and finally killing individuals. Isa 59:7-8, cited by Paul here, regards the blood shed by these evil persons as innocent.56 In view of social injustice, T. W. Jennings, Jr. rightly describes universal sin:

Universal “sin” is the characterization not of individuals as individuals but of social totalities that are in basic ways ‘unjust.’ Individuals whether Greek or Judean seen simply as persons may indeed, as Paul has said, do what is just and right. But when viewed as participants in unjust social orders they are nonetheless judged as the social order is judged.57

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[4] The universal dimension of reconciliation. In Paul’s Rom 9-11 discussion concerning the Jews not believing in or rejecting Jesus Christ, he states, “For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world (katallage kosmou), what will their acceptance be but life from the dead” (11:15)! In 11:12 he also declares: “Now if their stumbling means riches for the world (ploutos kosmou), and if their defeat means riches for (the) nations (ploutos ethnon), how much more will their full inclusion mean?” Although Paul’s position may seem enigmatic, one thing is clear: for Paul, the failure of the Jews to come to faith in Jesus Christ paves the way for the salvation of all nations. The word ploutos (riches) here may refer generally to the blessings brought by the gospel to other nations.58 Rom 11:15 is an explicit expression of Paul’s universalism, that is, the prospect of salvation for all based on his understanding of Christ’s gospel.59 The expression katallage kosmou may be read as a general reference to reconciliation between any conflicting parties. The term katallage originally carries a diplomatic concept in the Hellenistic world. It means the coming together of two parties who have become enemies toward each other, and thereby establish friendship.60 Paul picks up this Greek concept in oder to make better sense of his message of reconciliation between God and humankind through Jesus’ death (see Rom 5:1, 8-10).61 For Paul, the possibility of human reconciliation rests on the truth of God’s reconciliation to humankind through Jesus Christ.

In Paul’s context, on the micro level, he encountered the conflict between the Christian Jews and Gentiles on the micro level. On the macro level, there existed the conflict between the Christian community and the Roman imperial order. Hermeneutically, katallage kosmou could effectively address present day conflicts, including those between religious groups (although this may not have been at the forefront of Paul’s own thinking). Moreover, a focus of human relationships is discernable in Paul’s overarching argument in Rom 11:32-15:13. Here, Paul pursues a theology of reconciliation that can unite conflicting groups, not only among the churches in Rome, but also within the increasingly divided global Messianic movement.

sOMe iMPliCAtiONs OF ROMANs FOR tHe CONFliCt iN MiNdANAO

To draw this into the context of Mindanao, it seems, first, clear that the discussion of salvation is important. In Mindanao, salvation can mean

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deliverance from flying bullets, the safety of women and children, and a basic level of human security. Countless families have been displaced due to armed conflict. Many have left their farms, shifting either to urban areas or migrating to other provinces and beginning life anew without anything.62 These people have chosen to suffer poverty and homelessness rather than to endure the mental and psychological torture of war. As a result of war, and corrupt officials Mindanao is underdeveloped. Most areas in southern Mindanao have a low literacy rate. Foreign aid is scarce in these regions.

Second, Filipino Christian engagement with Muslims, drawing on Paul’s discussion on the universality of sin, must include a mutual acknowledgment of failures, not mutual blaming. The Muslim minority has suffered the brunt of the blame. Here the media has an important role in curbing the mindset among the majorities that the Muslims are the “bad guys.” The desire and delight “to shed blood” (Rom 3:15) has potentially greater consequences today given the advanced technology of warfare whereby it is possible to kill tens or hundreds in a single instant.

Third is the concept of reconciliation (katallage). Armed conflict in Mindanao, since the advent of the MNLF, has been going on for almost half a century. This armed conflict must one day come to an end. This is where Paul’s idea of reconciliation can be instructive. Reconciliation can mean not just the peaceful coming together of conflicting individuals, but also of warring ethnic or religious groups. Reconciliation, however, does not mean here eradication of differences, rather the appreciation of co-existence without injuring those who are different. Tensions arise when one imposes one’s own persuasions on the other. In a context of differing cultures and persuasions, Paul issues some ethical exhortations in Rom 12, which could serve Filipino Christians as guiding ethical principles.

romans 12 and the Christian Ethic of dialogue

As mentioned earlier, our Pauline hermeneutic of dialogue seeks to highlight the ethical aspect of it, that means the practice of our faith in relation to other religious groups. The Pauline idea of peacemaking, which is prominent in Romans 12, could be a pragmatic way of appropriating such aspect. In Romans 12-15:13, Paul explains the ethical consequences of receiving God’s grace through Jesus Christ (see Rom 3:21-26; 5:1-11; 8:1ff). In chapter 12, Paul encourages his

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readers to offer their bodies to God as a reasonable worship (vv. 1-2), to treat each other as equal members of the one body of Christ (vv. 3-8), and to maintain the character of Christian life both within and without the Christian community (vv. 9-21). In reference to Christian-Muslim context in the Philippines, this section focuses on Rom 12:9-21.

love as hospitality to strangers (vv. 9-13)

Verses 9-13 highlight the command of love. Paul calls for a truthful (not hypocritical; Grk., anypokritos) manifestation of love. The Christ-believers are supposed to reciprocate such love with one another, excelling in showing honor, and finally, they should pursue friendships with strangers (ten philoxenian diokontes; cf. Rom 15:7). Existing translations of this last phrase in v. 13 connote the idea of extending or showing hospitality (e.g., NRSV, ESV, Menge, Zürcher, and Luther translations). Although these translations capture Paul’s thought, they somehow minimize his emphasis on love for strangers (or “friendship with strangers”), as characterized by the Greek word philoxenia. This term means “to receive and show hospitality to a stranger, that is, someone who is not regarded as a member of the extended family or a close friend.”63

This Pauline teaching is significant for a Christian engagement with Muslim counterparts. Muslims, due to their religious beliefs and lifestyles, are often viewed precisely as strangers. The usual Christian Filipino attitude is to shy away from them. Christian Filipinos tend to do business but not make friends with them. The meaning of philoxenia could also extend to accommodating those who are different in terms of race, culture or religious persuasion.

Ethic of non-retaliation (vv. 14-21)

The ethical exhortations of Paul in Rom 12:14-21, especially vv. 14, 17-21, may be read as an “ethic of non-retaliation.”64 This particular exhortation is addressed to Christ-believers in Rome and regards how they should relate to outsiders, most especially how to respond to external hostilities.65

Bless66 those who attack67 (diokontas) [you],68 bless and do not curse (v. 14)…Return no one evil for evil, but take foresight for good conduct in the sight of all.If possible, so far as it concerns you, live peacably with all.Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but leave room for wrath; for it is written,

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‘Vengeance is mine, I myself will repay, says the Lord.’ But, ‘if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by doing

so you will heap coals of fire upon his head.’Do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good.

Supposing that the pronoun “you” in Rom 12:14 is likely not

Paul’s formulation, the expression “bless the attackers” may refer to the command of blessing them, whether or not the Christ-believers in Rome were being directly effected by the attacks.69 The participial forms in v. 17 constitute a polite variation of the direct command of parallel text found in Joseph and Aseneth 28:14.70 Significant here is the presence of “all” (panton) in v. 17b, which further indicates that a Christian’s relationship to the “attackers” is part of the good conduct71 to be carried out in sight of human beings.72 Thus v. 17 suggests a particular way of responding to hospitality. In connection with v. 21, retaliation does not overcome evil. Overcoming evil occurs by doing what is good. In v. 18, Paul reformulates this creative response to hostility through the admonition to make peace (eireneuontes) with all. Again, the presence of “all” implies that this task is not limited to those within the Christ-believing community, but extends to those outside, including the persecutors.73 Relating to the practice of peacemaking, Paul discourages his Roman Christian readers from revenge. God is to deal with the enemy’s offenses (v. 19), since God alone is the final avenger.74 The readers are encouraged to respond affirmatively by providing for the needs of their enemies as this might in turn bring them to remorse and transformation.75

CONClUsiON

In this brief essay I have tried to demonstrate the usefulness of Paul‘s letters in undertaking religious dialogues with Muslims, using his letter to the Romans as an example. Central is the hermeneutical aspect, that is, the importance Paul‘s ethic of non-retaliation as a basic Christian characteristic. A Pauline hermeneutic of dialogue calls for Christian sensitivity towards the needs of their Muslim brothers and sisters. It challenges Christians to listen to their hopes, fears and concerns, and to extend help without strings attached.76 Such a Pauline ethic of non-retaliation is perhaps the most challenging, but also most constructive action, in view of the cultural-political conflicts in Mindanao. Unless Christian Filipinos, holders of government positions or not, are

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willing to undertake such a pro-active non-retaliatory role in relating to their Muslim counterparts, it is difficult to see a genuine peace shining over the land of promise, the land of Mindanao. Owing to the complexities of the grassroots situation in Mindanao, the present paper does not offer how the ethical aspects of a Pauline hermenetic of dialogue can be concretely applied in local contexts (among local churches, for instance). This concern warrants consideration for future study and reflection. Another thing that also needs attention in the continuing task of formulating a Pauline hermeneutic of dialogue is a closer analysis of Paul‘s use of justice terminologies in his letters,77 which appears to be a promising undertaking, especially in view of the socio-cultual context of Mindanao.

NOtes

1 The author is grateful to Dr. John Flett and Dr. Gordon Zerbe for reading the draft.

2 Mindanao is the third major island group of the Philippines, located in the southern part of the country.

3 The intricacies of the current conflict situation in Mindanao have been reported by Johns Hopkins University’s School for Advanced International Studies after a study trip in Mindanao conducted by some of its graduate students on Jan. 15-22, 2011, in Hopmann and Zartman (eds.), “Mindanao: Understanding Conflict 2011,” http://www.sais-jhu.edu/academics/functional-studies/conflict-management/pdf/Mindanao-Report_Complete_Report April 5.pdf (accessed July 20, 2012). See also Mark Turner, Mindanao, Land of Unfulfilled Promise (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1992).

4 The author is, however, aware that the religious is intrinsically related to the political and cultural dimensions of the conflict. The use of “religious” here is not about to “succumb to government and economic propaganda of the dominant economic and political powers of the country,” as Bishop Erme Camba strikingly puts it in criticizing the sole use of religious categories in dealing with Muslim-Christian relations in the Philippines. The seemingly narrow understanding of “religion” outside the realm of society and politics is perhaps a negative contribution of Christendom. It seems to me that Islam encompasses the social, economic and political life of the Islamic peoples, in the same way one can think of Judaism, which does not only refer to Jewish religious beliefs but also the land and socio-political and cultural aspects of the Jewish people (I borrowed this idea from Gordon Zerbe, based on a private communication with him). See for example Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). Lori Peek, “Becoming Muslim: The Development of a Religious Identity,” Sociology of Religion 66, no. 3 (2005): 215-42, highlights the importance of religious identity among the Muslims as primary over other forms of social identity.

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5 Examples are: Silsilah, an interfaith dialogue movement founded by Fr. Sebastiano D’Ambra on May 9, 1984; and the Bishop-Ulama Conference (BUC), a dialog forum established in 1996 [see Brenda Fitzpatrick, “The Philippines: The Mindanao Bishops-Ulama Conference,” in Pursuing Just Peace: An Overview and Case Studies for Faith-Based Peacebuilders, ed. Mark Rogers (Baltimore: Catholic Relief Services, 2008)]. For the UCCP’s (United Church of Christ in the Philippines) active engagement in this venture, see Erme Camba, “Muslim-Christian Relations in the Philippines,” a paper presented at the Conference on “Postcolonial Christianity: Can Old Canadian Wineskins Hold New Ethnic Wine” on March 11-14, 2002, at the Canadian Mennonite University, Winnipeg, Canada. See also Cristina J. Montiel, et al., “The Moro Struggle and the Challenge to Peace Building in Mindanao, Southern Philippines,” in Handbook of Ethnic Conflict International Perspectives, ed. Dan Landis (Boston, MA: Springer, 2012), 80-82. It must be noted here that Silliman University’s newly established Master in Peace Studies program is an evidence of the university‘s commitment to promoting a culture of peace on the academic level.

6 Exegetical contributions supportive of religious dialogue in the Philippines are relatively scarce. Mary Nebelsick, “Ishmael’s Forgiveness of Abraham in Genesis 25:8-9 as a Paradigm for Christian-Muslim Dialogue,” UCCP Church Workers Annual Convocation (2007), appears to be the only exegetical contribution (from the Old Testament) to this discussion in Philippine Context.

7 Gerd Theißen, “Von der Literatursoziologie zur Theorie der Urchristlichen Religion,” in Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft: Autobiographische Essays aus der Evangelischen Theologie, ed. Eve-Marie Becker (Tübingen and Basel: A. Francke Verlag, 2003), 176-185, here 184. My own translation.

8 According to Laura Jennings, “Prejudice,” The concise encyclopedia of sociology (2011): 470-71, 470, prejudice means “the judging of a person or idea, without prior knowledge of the person or idea, on the basis of some perceived group membership.”

9 Manzano Nieva, “Christian-Muslim Relations in the Philippines,” http://cmglobal.org/vincentiana/cgi-bin/library.cgi?e=q-00000-00---off-0vincenti--00-0----0-10-0---0---0direct-10---4-----dtx--0-1l--11-en-50---20-about-nieva+manzano--00-0-1-00-0-0-11-1-0utfZz-8-00&a=d&c=vincenti&srp=0&srn=0&cl=search&d=HASH0103db33264c7a7a2be1510f (accessed May 14, 2013).

10 The underdevelopment of the southern regions in Mindanao in terms of economy and education compared to those in central and northern areas of the Philippines may reflect this kind of labelling. As Peter Gowing, Mosque and Moro: A Study of Muslims in the Philippines (Manila: Philippine Federation of Christian Churches, 1964), 44, notes, “it is impossible not to note, as one travels through the Muslim areas of the Philippines, the extraordinary backwardness of Muslim communities in every area of life. The most elementary rules of sanitation and hygiene, long since adopted by most Christian Filipinos, are unknown; medicines reside primarily in the hands of Muslim faith healers or quack doctors; agricultural practices are highly traditional and inefficient; the economy, in many areas, is not far removed from the barter stage; and even minimum social overhead facilities such as access roads, deep wells, etc., are in shorter supply than in other rural areas of the Philippines.” For a recent

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toWards a PaUliNE HErMENEUtiC oF dialoGUEdescription of underdevelopment in Mindanao, cf. Miriam Coronel Ferrer, “From Rebels to Governors: ‘Patronage Autonomy’ and Continuing Underdevelopment in Muslim Mindanao,” in Regional Minorities and Development in Asia, ed. Huhua Cao, and Elizabeth Morell (London; New York: Routledge, 2010).

11 Nieva, “Christian-Muslim Relations.” The “notorious” image of the Muslims is sometimes used to admonish unruly children. In the neighborhood I used to hear parents telling a child, “Watch out! if you continue misbehaving, a ‘Moro’ will soon come with a sword to get you!”

12 Concerning this discussion, see Florangel Rosario-Braid, Tuazon, Ramon R.; Diola, Faina L.; Lopez, Ann Lourdes C.; Gutoc-Tomawis, Samira, “Prejudice and Pride: News Media’s Role in Promoting Tolerance,” http://www.muslimmindanao.ph/mass_media/pride_prejudice.pdf (accessed May 14, 2013).

13 As of July 2011 the estimated philippine population is about 101.8 Millions. See Thomas M. Mckenna, “Governing Muslims in the Philippines,” Harvard Asia Pacific Review 9, 1 (2007): 3-9, 4. The article is accessible at http://www.indexmundi.com/philippines/population.html.

14 For a discussion on the muslim minorities in the Philippines, see Abhoud Syed M. Lingga, “Muslim Minority in the Philippines. A paper presented during the Seacsn Conference 2004: “Issues and Challenges for Peace and Conflict Resolution in Southeast Asia, Shangri-La Hotel, Penang, Malaysia, Jan. 12-15, 2004,” http://www.muslimmindanao.ph/islam_phil/muslim minority.pdf (accessed April 24, 2013).

15 For the interest in space and time, I limit my discussion here and direct readers for details about the history of the coming of Islam in the Philippines to Gowing, Mosque and Moro, 16-36; F.V. Magdalena, “Intergroup Conflict in the Southern Philippines: An Empirical Analysis,” Journal of Peace Research 14, no. 4 (1977): 299-313; Thomas McKenna, Muslim Rulers and Rebels: Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in the Southern Philippines (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); William Larousse, A Local Church Living for Dialogue: Muslim-Christian Relations in Mindanao-Sulu, Philippines, 1965-2000 (Roma: Pontificia università gregoriana, 2001), especially the first three chapters.

16 Mckenna, “Governing Muslims in the Philippines”, 4.

17 Gowing, Mosque and Moro, 21. According to Nathan Gilbert Quimpo, “Options in the the Puruis of a Just, Comprehensive, and Stable Peace in the Southern Philippines,” Asian Survey 41, no. 2 (2001): 271-89, here 272, note 1, the MILF since its founding “often referred to its struggle as a jihad.” It is noteworthy, that the jihad does not generally refer to violent warfare, but to the (Muslim) struggle for obedience to God‘s word and will on earth. See Irfan A. Omar, “Towards an Islamic Theology of Nonviolence (Part 2): A Critical Appraisal of Maulana Wahiduddin Khan’s View of Jihad,” Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection 72, no. 10 (2008): 751-58.

18 Gowing, Mosque and Moro, 22. The religious character of the Spanish offensives against the Muslims can be discerned from the instructions of Governor-General des Sande to a Captain Figueroa, who was in command of an expedition against the

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d. soloNMuslims in 1578: “You shall order that there be not among them any more preaching of the sect of Mohammed since it is evil and that of the Christian alone is good… And because, for a short time since, the Lord of Mindanao has been deceived by preachers of Burney [Borneo], and the people that our object is that they shall be converted to Christianity, and that he must grant a safe place where the law of Christianity be preached and the natives may hear the preaching an be converted without risk or harm from the chiefs… And you shall try to ascertain who are the preachers of the sect of Mohammed and to seize and bring them before me… And you shall burn or tear down the house where the evil doctrine is preached. And you shall order that it not be rebuilt.” Quoted by Gowing, Mosque and Moro, 20.

19 An example of this is Gen. Leonard Wood‘s assault of Bud Dahu in 1906, after the Tausug (one of the various Muslim ethnic groups in the Philippines) leaders opposed the American policies of occupying the Muslim soil. See Hannbal Bara, “The History of the Muslim in the Philippines,” http://www.ncca.gov.ph/about-culture-and-arts/articles-on-c-n-a/article.php?igm=4&i=232 (accessed Sept. 12, 2012).

20 Gowing, Mosque and Moro, 23.

21 McKenna, “Governing Muslims in the Philippines”, 4.

22 Cf. McKenna, Muslim Rulers and Rebels: Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in the Southern Philippines, 144; Lela Garner Noble, “The Moro National Liberation Front in the Philippines,” Pacific Affairs 49, no. 3 (1976): 405-24, 408.

23 Noble, “The Moro National Liberation Front in the Philippines,” 409.

24 Ira Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, 2nd ed. ed. (Cambridge ;New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 682.

25 Cf. Hopmann and Zartman, “Mindanao.”

26 Salvatore Schiavo-Ocampo, and Mary Judd, “The Mindanao Conflict in the Philippines: Roots, Costs, and Potential Peace Dividend,” Social Development Papers: Conflict Prevention & Reconstruction, http://internal-displacement.org/8025708F004CE90B/(httpDocuments)/8A4B6AFE92D9BB82802570B700599DA1/$file/WP24_Web.pdf (accessed May 14, 2013), 5.

27 For an overview on this topic, see Wilfredo III Torres, “Introduction,” in Rido : Clan Feuding and Conflict Management in Mindanao, ed. idem (Makati City Philippines: Asia Foundation, 2007).

28 Nieva, “Christian-Muslim Relations.”

29 Moonjang Lee, “Asian Biblical Interpretation,” in Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible, ed. Kevin Vanhoozer (London; Grand Rapids, Mich.: SPCK; Baker Academic, 2005), 68.

30 Lee, “Asian Biblical Interpretation,” 68-69.

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E.J. toWards a PaUliNE HErMENEUtiC oF dialoGUE31 Lee, “Asian Biblical Interpretation,” 69.

32 Paul Knitter, Ein Gott—Viele Religionen: Gegen den Absolutheitsanspruch des Christentums, trans. Josef F. Wimmer (München: Kösel, 1988). In this book Knitter describes dialogue at some point as hermeneutic.

33 Plato informs us of the drawbacks of writing. In Phaedrus 275, he recounts Socrates‘ critique of any written text by having the danger of being misinterpreted by its reader.

34 Donald J. Moore, “A Book Review on ‘The Text as Thou: Martin Buber’s Dialogical Hermeneutics and Narrative Theology’,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 63, 1 (1995): 159-61, here 160.

35 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd rev. ed. (London: Continuum, 2006), 304, fittingly puts it, when he discusses the idea of “transposing oneself”: For what do we mean by ‘transposing ourselves’? Certainly not just disregarding ourselves. This is necessary, of course, insofar as we must imagine the other situation. But into this other situation we must bring, precisely, ourselves. Only this is the full meaning of ‘transposing ourselves.’ If we put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, for example, then we will understand him—i.e., become aware of the otherness, the indissoluble individuality of the other person—by putting ourselves in his position.

36 Bernard C. Lategan, “Hermeneutics,” Anchor Bible Dictionary 3 (1992): 149-54, here 149, explains that in hermeneutics “a dialogue unfolds between present and past, between text and interpreter, each with its own horizon.”

37 Volker Küster, “Art. Dialog Vii. Dialog Und Mission,” Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (4th ed.) 2 (1999): 821, 821. Perhaps alongside this step would be appropriating or integrating the values of other religious traditions into the Christian ethical modes of communication of values, as suggested by Ariane Cisneros, “Understanding Through Appropriation in Interreligious Dialogue on Ethics,” Journal of Religious Ethics 39, no. 2 (2011).

38 Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity, 44, calls this larger stream “Judeo-Christianity.” Sample passages in Romans are: 1:18-3:31 on the question about who can be considered righteous; the question of Israel’s unbelief (chaps. 9-11); and the cultural tensions in chap. 14.

39 This terminology is employed in order to avoid the anachronism of assuming that “Christianity” and “Judaism” existed as separate sociological or theological entities in the time of Paul. See William Cavanaugh, Theopolitical Imagination (London; New York: T&T Clark, 2002). In addition, “Christianity” as a distinct religion was not yet established in Paul‘s time. Cf. V Shillington, Jesus and Paul Before Christianity: Their World and Work in Retrospect (Eugene Or.: Cascade Books, 2011); Gordon Mark Zerbe, Citizenship: Paul on Peace and Politics (Winnipeg, Manitoba: CMU Press, 2012), 14-19.

40 Hans Dieter Betz, “Paul (Person),” Anchor Bible Dictionary 5 (1992): 186-200, 186.

41 A keyword is the verb διαλέγομαι (dialegomai; in ESV “to reason”) in V. 17, which basically means “converse, discuss or argue.” See Frederick Danker, A Greek-English

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Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3d ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), διαλέγομαι, 232.

42 The historicity of this event may be in question, but the report shows how latter generations of Christians may have remembered Paul. See Raymond Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament (New York: Doubleday, 1997), 84.

43 Cf. Brown, Introduction, 84: “Non-Jewish influence on Paul is plausible...” Frederick C. Grant, “St. Paul’s Mysticism,” The Biblical World 44, no. 6 (1914): 375-87, 378, notes this possibility: “Although we can hardly look for any direct, conscious influence of one or another of the religions and philosophies of the day upon young Saul in Tarsus (his Jewish home and rearing being sufficient bulwark against these), yet we can hardly fail to see the influence of the spirit of the times, the general atmosphere in which men lived, to which all of these religions and philosophies contributed.” Paul’s expressions in Phil 3:10f “to me to live is Christ, to die is gain” and “I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me” may also be derived from the thoughts of mystery-religions. See Grant, “St. Paul’s Mysticism,” 382.

44 Cf. Robert Dunham, “Acts 17:16-34,” Interpretation 60, no. 2 (2006): 202-04.

45 Not that it is addressed generally to all people of different races and religions, since its main addresses are the Christians in Rome sometime in year 56 C.E., during the reign of the emperor Nero [cf. Udo Schnelle, “Einleitung in Das Neue Testament,” (2005), 130]. But that it touches themes that are universal in nature.

46 Henry Liddell, A Greek-English Lexicon. With a Revised Supplement, 9 ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 1751.

47 S. Mark Heim, Salvations: Truth and Difference in Religion, 6 ed. (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2003).

48 Herman Waetjen, The Letter to the Romans. Salvation as Justice and the Deconstruction of Law (Sheffield UK: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2011), 50-51.

49 See James Scott, Paul and the Nations: The Old Testament and Jewish Background of Paul’s Mission to the Nations With Special Reference to the Destination of Galatians (Tübingen: Mohr, 1995), 120. Cf. Liddell, Greek-English Lexicon, 480.

50 Scott, Paul and the Nations, 121-122.

51 E.g., NRSV, Luther Bible, NASB.

52 Waetjen, Romans, 104; cf. Rom 1:18, where God‘s wrath is revealed against human idolatry and injustice.

53 “Their throats are opened graves; they deceived (edoliousan) with their tongues. The venom of vipers is under their lips; their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their paths, and the way of peace they have not known; there is no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom 3:13-18).

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54 Waetjen, Romans, 49-50, underscores that the honor-shame culture within the Roman empire, which “legitimates lying and deception,” “endorses the acquisition of honor at the expense of others.”

55 Peter Craigie, Psalms 1-50, vol. 19, Word Biblical Commentary (Waco Texas: Word Books, 1983), 88.

56 The text in Hebrew has the adjective naqi (innocent) for dam (blood). However, in LXX this adjective is not present.

57 Theodore Jennings, Outlaw Justice the Messianic Politics of Paul (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, forthcoming), 42. (Jennings‘ book already came out of the press this year, but the one available to me at the time of writing was the draft of his manuscript.)

58 James Dunn, Romans 9-16, vol. 38B, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word Books, 1988), 654.

59 Cf. Alain Badiou, Saint Paul. The Foundation of Universalism (Stanford Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003), 110: “The universal is not the negation of particularity. Every particularitiy is a conformation, a conformism. It is a question of maintaining a nonconformity, and only the universal, through an interrupted labor, an inventive traversal, relieves it.” Cited by Waetjen, Romans, 267.

60 For a thorough discussion and analysis of the meaning of katallage as diplomacy, see Stanley Porter, Katallasso in Ancient Greek Literature, With Reference to the Pauline Writings (Cordoba: Ed. El Almendro, 1994).

61 See also Stanley E. Porter, “Art. Versöhnung. Neues Testament,” Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (4th ed.) 8 (2005): 1054-59; P. Stuhlmacher, “Jesus Als Versöhner. Überlegungen zum Problem der Darstellung Jesu im Rahmen einer Biblischen Theologie des Neuen Testaments,” in Versöhnung, Gesetz und Gerechtigkeit, ed. Idem (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981), 9-26; Cilliers Breytenbach, Versöhnung. Eine Studie Zur Paulinischen Soteriologie (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1989).

62 See for instance J. Stark, “Muslims in the Philippines,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 23, no. 1 (2003): 195-209, 201: “Between January 1972 and the declaration of martial law in September that year, there were continued atrocities on both sides which saw the gradual depopulation of several towns in the Cotabato province. Around 30,000 Muslims and Christians left their farms as a result of this violence.”

63 J. P. Louw, and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains, 2d ed., vol. I (New York: United Bible Societies, 1989), 455. Cf. Ceslas Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, trans. James D. Ernest (Hendrickson, 1995), 3:455.

64 G.M. Zerbe, Non-Retaliation in Early Jewish and New Testament Texts: Ethical Themes in Social Contexts, vol. (13), Jsp Supplement (Sheffield Academic Pr, 1993), 212.

65 Cf. Robert Jewett, Romans, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 765: “The

E.J. toWards a PaUliNE HErMENEUtiC oF dialoGUE

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theme that links the material from vv. 14-20 together is the response to hostility, which in the Roman situation has been experienced both inside and outside the Christian community.”

66 That is, to speak of someone favorably (Grk. eulogeo). See Louw, and Nida, Greek-English Lexicon, 1:430.

67 Other possible translations are “harass, oppress.” See Louw, and Nida, Greek-English Lexicon, 1:499: “to systematically organize a program to oppress and harass people“; In the Vulgate persequentibus.

68 This pronoun (Grk. humas), which is absent in some manuscripts, including the Vulgate, is perhaps an attempt to clarify the “you (Christ-believers) and they (outsiders)” relation, which is implicit in the text.

69 Cf. Jewett, Romans, 766.

70 “You must not repay evil for evil to your neighbor, for the Lord will avenge this outrage.” See Walter Wilson, Love Without Pretense : Romans 12.9-21 and Hellenistic-Jewish Wisdom Literature (Tübingen: Mohr, 1991), 771.

71 Cf. Jewett, Romans, 771.

72 See also 1 Thess 5:15.

73 Jewett, Romans, 772: “peace is to be sought with those outside as well as inside of the Christian community.”

74 See Jewett, Romans, 775. Also on p. 776: “...divine wrath requires no human vindictiveness, that it remains a divine prerogative, and thus that it belongs in that area of unsearchable mystery celebrated at the end of Rom 11.”

75 The expression “to heap coals of fire upon one’s head” (cf. Prov. 25:21-22) evokes an imagery of undeserved kindness that awakens remorse.

76 McKenna, “Governing Muslims in the Philippines”, 8, has articulated the idea of helping the Muslim communities without strings attached in response, for example, to the problem of Islamic education in Mindanao.

77 I have dealt with the term only very slightly in connection with the concept of salvation.

ReFeReNCes

Badiou, A.U. (2003). Saint Paul. The foundation of niversalism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Bara, H. (n.d.). The history of the Muslim in the Philippines. Retrieved from

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http://www.ncca.gov.ph/about-culture-and-arts/articles-on-c-n-a/article.php?igm=4&i=232

Betz, H.D. (1992). Paul (Person). Anchor Bible Dictionary 5, 186-200.

Boyarin, D. (2004). Border lines: The partition of Judaeo-Christianity. Philadelphia PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Breytenbach, C. (1989). Versöhnung. Eine Studie Zur Paulinischen Soteriologie. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag.

Brown, R. (1997). An introduction to the New Testament. New York: Doubleday.

Cavanaugh, W. (2002). Theopolitical imagination. London: T&T Clark.

Cisneros, A. (2011). Understanding through appropriation in interreligious dialogue on ethics. Journal of Religious Ethics, 39, 2.

Craigie, P. (1983). Psalms 1-50. Vol. 19, Word Biblical Commentary. Waco, TX: Word Books.

Danker, F. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian Literature (3rd ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Dunham, R. (2006). Acts 17:16-34. Interpretation 60, no. 2, 202-04.

Dunn, J. (1988). Romans 9-16. Vol. 38B, Word Biblical Commentary. Dallas, TX: Word Books.

Ferrer, M.C. (2010). From rebels to governors: ‘Patronage Autonomy’ and continuing underdevelopment in Muslim Mindanao. In H. Cao & E. Morell (Eds.), Regional minorities and development in Asia (pp. 19-40). London: Routledge.

Fitzpatrick, B. (2008). The Philippines: The Mindanao Bishops-Ulama conference. In M. Rogers (Ed.), Pursuing just peace: An overview and case studies for faith-based peacebuilders (pp. 117-132). Baltimore, MD: Catholic Relief Services.

Gadamer, H-G. (2006). Truth and method (2nd rev. ed.). London: Continuum.

Gowing, P. (1964). Mosque and Moro: A study of Muslims in the Philippines. Manila: Philippine Federation of Christian Churches.

Grant, F.C. (1914). St. Paul’s mysticism. The Biblical world, 44(6), 375-387.

Heim, S.M. (2003). Salvations: Truth and difference in religion (6th ed.) Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis.

Mindanao: Understanding conflict 2011. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.sais-jhu.edu/academics/functional-studies/conflict-management/pdf/Mindanao-Report_Complete_Report April 5.pdf (accessed July 20, 2012).


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Jennings, L. (2011). Prejudice. The concise encyclopedia of sociology, 470-71.

Jennings, T. (In press). Outlaw justice the Messianic politics of Paul. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

Jewett, R. (2007). Romans. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Knitter, P. (1988). Ein Gott—Viele Religionen: Gegen den Absolutheitsanspruch des Christentums. (J.F. Wimmer, Trans.). München: Kösel.

Küster, V. (1999). Art. Dialog Vii. Dialog und Mission. Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (4th ed.), 2, 821.

Lapidus, I. (2002). A history of Islamic societies (2nd ed.). Cambridge: University Press.

Larousse, W. (2001). A local church living for dialogue: Muslim-Christian Relations in Mindanao-Sulu, Philippines: 1965-2000. Roma: Pontificia università gregoriana.

Lategan, B. C. (1992). Hermeneutics. Anchor Bible Dictionary 3, 149-54.

Lee, M. (2005). Asian Biblical Interpretation. In K. Vanhoozer (Ed.), Dictionary for theological interpretation of the Bible (pp. 68-71). London: Baker Academic.

Legrand, L. (1981). The unknown God of Athens: Acts 17 and the religion of the gentiles. Indian Journal of Theology, 30, 3, 158-67.

Liddell, H. (1996). A Greek-English lexicon. With a revised supplement (9th ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Lingga, A.S.M. (2004). Muslim Minority in the Philippines. A Paper Presented During the Season Conference 2004: “Issues and Challenges for Peace and Conflict Resolution in Southeast Asia, Shangri-La Hotel, Penang, Malaysia, Jan. 12-15, 2004. Retrieved from http://www.muslimmindanao.ph/islam_phil/muslim minority.pdf (accessed April 24, 2013).

Louw, J. P., & Nida, E.A. (1989). Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: Based on semantic domains. 2 Bände (2nd ed.) Vol. I. New York: United Bible Societies.

Magdalena, F.V. (1977). Intergroup Conflict in the Southern Philippines: An Empirical Analysis. Journal of Peace Research, 14(4), 299-313.

McKenna, T. (1998). Muslim rulers and rebels: Everyday politics and armed separatism in the Southern Philippines. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

McKenna, T.M. (2007). Governing Muslims in the Philippines. Harvard Asia Pacific Review 9(1), 3-9.

Montiel, C. J., Rodil, R.B., & de Guzman, J.M. (2012). The Moro struggle and the challenge to peace building in Mindanao, Southern Philippines. In D. Landis

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(Ed.), Handbook of ethnic conflict international perspectives (pp. 71-89). Boston, MA: Springer.

Moore, D. J. (1995). A Book Review on “The text as thou: Martin Buber’s dialogical hermeneutics and narrative theology.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 63(1), 159-61.

Nebelsick, M. (2007). Ishmael’s Forgiveness of Abraham in Genesis 25:8-9 as a Paradigm for Christian-Muslim Dialogue. UCCP Church Workers Annual Convocation.

Nieva, M. (n.d.). Christian-Muslim relations in the Philippines. Retrieved from http://cmglobal.org/vincentiana/cgi-bin/library.cgi?e=q-00000-00---off-0vincenti--00-0----0-10-0---0---0direct-10---4-----dtx--0-1l--11-en-50---20-about-nieva+manzano--00-0-1-00-0-0-11-1-0utfZz-8-00&a=d&c=vincenti&srp=0&srn=0&cl=search&d=HASH0103db33264c7a7a2be1510f

Noble, L.G. (1976). The Moro National Liberation Front in the Philippines. Pacific Affairs, 49(3), 405-24.

Omar, I. A. (2008). Towards an Islamic theology of nonviolence (part 2): A critical appraisal of Maulana Wahiduddin Khan’s view of jihad. Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection, 72(10), 751-58.

Peek, L. (2005). Becoming Muslim: The development of a religious identity. Sociology of Religion, 66(3), 215-42.

Porter, S. (1994). Katallasso in ancient Greek literature, with reference to the Pauline writings. Cordoba: Ed. El Almendro.

Porter, S.E. (2005). Art. Versöhnung. Neues Testament. Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (4th ed.), 8, 1054-59.

Quimpo, N. G. (2001). Options in the the pursuit of a just, comprehensive, and stable oeace in the Southern Philippines. Asian Survey, 41(2), 271-89.

Rosario-Braid, F., Tuazon, R. R., Diola, F. L., Lopez, A.L.C., & Gutoc-Tomawis, S. (2008). Prejudice and pride: News media’s role in promoting tolerance. Retrieved from http://www.muslimmindanao.ph/mass_media/pride_prejudice.pdf

Schiavo-Ocampo, Salvatore, & Judd, M. (2005). The Mindanao conflict in the Philippines: Roots, costs, and potential peace dividend. Retrieved from http://internal-displacement.org/8025708F004CE90B/(httpDocuments)/8A4B6AFE92D9BB82802570B700599DA1/$file/WP24_Web.pdf

Schnelle, U. (2005). Einleitung in das Neue Testament.

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Shillington, V. (2011). Jesus and Paul before Christianity: Their world and work in retrospect. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books.

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Stuhlmacher, P. (1981). “Jesus Als Versöhner. Überlegungen zum Problem der Darstellung Jesu im Rahmen einer Biblischen Theologie des Neuen Testaments.” In idem (Ed.). Versöhnung, Gesetz und Gerechtigkeit, 9-26. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Theißen, G. (2003). Von der Literatursoziologie zur Theorie der urchristlichen Religion. In E.M. Becker (Ed.), Neutestamentliche wissenschaft: Autobiographische essays aus der evangelischen theologie (pp. 176-185). Tübingen and Basel: A. Francke Verlag.

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Wilson, W. (1991). Love without pretense: Romans 12.9-21 and Hellenistic-Jewish wisdom literature. Tübingen: Mohr.

Zerbe, G.M. (1993). Non-Retaliation in Early Jewish and New Testament Texts: Ethical themes in social contexts. Vol. (13), Jsp Supplement. Sheffield Academic Press.

Zerbe, G.M. (2012). Citizenship: Paul on peace and politics. Winnipeg, Manitoba: CMU Press.

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Local Government-Academe Partnership: Touching and Inspiring Students

in Environmental Monitoring

Enrique G. oraciondirector, research and development Center

silliman University, dumaguete City

in this paper, i describe the partnership between Bayawan City and silliman University in the Philippines in monitoring the potential negative impact of the waste management center that the city has built to a nearby community. the city government provided the logistics while the Environmental anthropology students did the survey for free. During the reflection sessions and in their written narratives, the students said that they were emotionally touched by the helpless conditions of households they interviewed. these households feared the potential negative effects of the said center, had no safe source of drinking water, and lived in a community with poor sanitation. this paper will show that service learning as a pedagogy will not only reinforce what students learn in the classroom but will also make them emphatic and inspired to use their skills to address a problem.

keyWORds: local government-academe partnership, service-learning pedagogy, waste management center, household survey, environmental monitoring, Bayawan City, silliman University

iNtROdUCtiON

Service-learning as pedagogy of teaching has been drawing interest among higher education institutions in the Philippines, although it is named by some educators as community involvement. It

may be called by different names, but the essence of exposing students to the community to get involved or to serve in community affairs that are relevant to classroom instruction is apparent. In summer of

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2011, a national workshop was held to introduce and institutionalize the practice of service-learning in higher education institutions in the Philippines that are members of private educational associations. The workshop was facilitated by Silliman University and Trinity University of Asia. These two institutions spearheaded the adoption of service-learning in the country through the support of the International Partnership for Service-Learning (IPSL) and the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia (UBCHEA) (McCarthy, 2009). Earlier, while I was also in Hong Kong for my UBCHEA Fellowship prior to that national workshop on service-learning in the Philippines, I had attended the conference of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) where research partnerships among and between academic institutions and the business community was discussed to enhance quality learning and its impact to society. The relevance of partnership is also true in service-learning.

Educational partnerships in service-learning program is needed because the engagement of the academe in this area cannot be fully realized without active collaboration among the community, non-government organizations and the local government units of places where students will render community service (Oracion, 2010). But a community does not always mean a geographic place but could be any situation where there is certain group of people that needs help and can be served. It could be a school, an association of farmers or mothers, an orphanage or home for the elderly, a hospital, as homeowners association and related others (e.g., Pushpalatha, Chithra, Jacqueline & Sherina, 2009). The motivations or drivers for partnership are several which reflect the needs of collaborating institutions or organizations. In the partnership between or among educational institutions, it is expected to be beyond resource borrowing to knowledge sharing for mutual learning (Africa Unit, 2010). This can be similarly true or feasible in the partnership of academic institutions with government and non-government organizations.

In this paper, I will present the partnership between the city government of Bayawan and Silliman University in Dumaguete City in Negros Oriental, Philippines. Bayawan is a newly-created city inaugurated on December 23, 2000 but is already committed to maintaining a safe environment for its constituency before urbanization takes over. The two partners are 100 kilometers away from each other. I will discuss in the succeeding sections how the partnership was forged and what the arrangements were as well as how this has benefited or will benefit the students of Silliman

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loCal GovErMENt-aCadEME ENviroNMENtal PartNErsHiP

University and the constituency of Bayawan City. The data used here were taken from the sharing of experiences of students during the reflection session within the service-learning period and in the written narratives they wrote when they were no longer in my class. This allowed me to check if what they expressed during the reflection sessions were consistent with their written responses.

local Government and academe Partnership for safe environment

The local government units in the Philippines are required by law to effectively address the problems of contamination of drinking water reserves and the pollution of bodies of waters such as creeks, rivers and seas due to indiscriminate dumping of domestic and industrial solid and liquid wastes. These mandates are embedded in the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 (Republic Act 9003) and the Clean Water Act of 2004 (Republic Act 9275). In response to this, Bayawan City established its Waste Management and Ecology Center (henceforth, waste management center) in an upland barangay about 10 kilometers from the city proper. The facilities within the center include sanitary landfill, composting plant, material recovery facility, septage treatment facility and wastewater treatment facility. The latter is intended to treat the leachate from the landfill and supernatant from the septage treatment (Boorsma, Bollos, Torres & Aguilar, 2009). Its constructed wetland in a coastal barangay, which is duplicated in the waste management center, was already found to be efficient as a wastewater treatment tool (Guinoo, Aguilar & Oracion, 2009).

The composting plant produces organic fertilizer from biodegradable solid waste for the agricultural projects of the city government or for sale to local farmers, while the material recovery facility segregates those recyclable wastes, thus reducing the amount to be dumped into the landfill. The reduction of solid wastes by segregation will increase the lifespan of the sanitary landfill which is projected to be between 9 to 10 years (Boorsma et al., 2009). The septage treatment facility, on the other hand, is for the sludge to be collected from residential houses in order to enhance the liquid waste management of the city. And the last of the facilities in the center, which is the wastewater treatment facility, is connected to the whole system that finally treats the leachate from the landfill and the supernatant from the septage treatment before releasing this to the

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nearby creek (Figure 1a and 1b).

Figure 1a. workers segregate plastic Figure 1b. the newly-opened sanitarywaste for recycling landfill

The waste management center started its operation in the early part of 2010 and the concern of the city is how the leachate from the wastewater treatment facility will be monitored given the limited technical capacity of its personnel. The city government has no registered chemist who can conduct water monitoring and testing although it has available laboratory equipment for this purpose. Nonetheless, the monitoring and testing points within and around the waste management center as well as the areas where to collect water samples were identified. The water testing was conducted before and during the operation of the land fill to obtain baseline and annual data for determining the changes in water quality in surrounding areas. As already mentioned, the wastewater coming out from the waste management center also has to be secured to prevent contamination of the groundwater and other bodies of water surrounding the area, thus preventing water-borne diseases in the nearby communities.

Silliman University which is a century-old university, committed to the enhancement of the spiritual, social and environmental well-being of people in communities within its reach (Ligutom, 2009, p. 159), had positively responded to the request of the mayor of Bayawan City. The partnership was facilitated by the Research and Development Center, which I head as Director. The nature of data to be gathered for monitoring the potential negative impact of the waste management center on the immediate environment and the nearby community required the involvement of the Chemistry, Biology and Sociology or Anthropology faculty and students. I was handling a

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course in Environmental Anthropology during the semester when the agreement was finalized and I took advantage of this opportunity of having a community where my students could engage in service-learning. Two faculty members from the departments of Chemistry and Biology likewise accepted the challenge when the idea was presented to them.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between Bayawan City and Silliman University to formalize the agreement which will be effective up to certain time that the two parties will find it necessary. The city government of Bayawan provided the logistics while Silliman University offered the free services of its faculty and students who conducted water analysis, biological monitoring and household survey (see Figure 2). The logistics included transportation from Dumaguete City to Bayawan City and back, accommodation, and meals during fieldwork on particular weekends. The chemicals or reagents for water analysis as well as the laboratory facilities and equipment were provided by the city government during fieldwork, but some major water analyses were done at Silliman University due to time constraints. The personnel from the City Environment and Natural Resources Office-Urban Environment Management (CENRO-UEM) operating the waste management center likewise participated or assisted during fieldwork. In effect, they were mentored and hopefully become capacitated to continue the monitoring in the future.

The field activities in Bayawan City of faculty and students were part of the service-learning program of their respective departments. These activities were integral to their classroom instructions and were undertaken during certain periods of the semester. In the case of Chemistry students, the conduct of the water quality monitoring and analysis was under their course in Industrial Chemistry. For Biology students, their participation was part of their supervised training during summer while for my class, and as mentioned earlier, it was part of a requirement in Environmental Anthropology. Fieldworks enabled the students to apply the theories and skills they learned in their respective classes. The experience was valued not only in terms of the knowledge they gained but also in terms of their contribution to the effort of the incumbent administration of Bayawan in making the city environmentally secured.

My class in Environmental Anthropology composed of two graduate and eight undergraduate students were directly interacting with the local residents because they surveyed all the 53 households

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in the community. The graduate students also presented the results of the household survey to community leaders and local government officials. Since I was not personally involved in the fieldwork of the Chemistry and Biology students, because we were in the field during different months of the school year, only the experiences of my students in Environmental Anthropology will be included in this paper.1 With my direct involvement, the students completed the whole process of surveying the households, processing the data, and presenting the results to the concerned city officials of Bayawan within a month. The actual direct engagement of students with the community residents nearby waste management facility and the city officials covered four days. I was with them to ensure their safety as well as the quality of the data gathered.

Figure 2. Conceptual Model of the Partnership

But let me discuss first some theoretical considerations in analyzing the impact of service-learning to the emotions and actions or wishes of the students as results of their exposure to the realities of the community they surveyed, although the engagement was only for a short time. The point is that it is not the amount but rather the quality of time the students have spent in fieldwork that is more important to achieve in service-learning engagement if time is limited and is a big constraint (cf. Bernacki & Jaeger, 2008). Other studies have shown that scheduling and mobilization for community work are always going to be problems for service-learning students and cause tensions

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(Shannon 2007). They also have other academic requirements that they need to satisfactorily meet within the same semester.

service-learning in Confronting and appreciating realities

Service-learning literature is replete with the notion that it provides opportunities to students to confront various forms of realities which some of them may consider strange or completely different from their kind of reality (Colby, Bercaw, Clark & Galiardi, 2009; McCarthy, 2009; Oracion, 2010). In this paper, I define confronting as the act of how the students tackle the tasks assigned to them under the service-learning program and face up to the challenges of accomplishing them for the benefit of the people they serve or work with. In this case, the students are not simply viewed as recipients of instructions but as creative individuals finding ways and navigating their courses of actions in getting the tasks done according to defined expectations. Meanwhile, appreciating, which is an act that corresponds to confronting, describes the understanding and valuing of students of their experiences in service-learning. Appreciation ranges from being grateful for having been able to serve and share their knowledge and skills to being frustrated for failing to meet their own or other peoples’ expectations of serving others.

So while there is a need to follow-up and determine the long term effect of service-learning to students, in terms of how they confront and appreciate the realities before them during service-learning, which means exploring its effects on graduates (Sato, McCarthy, Murakami & Yamamoto, 2009), it is still important to look into how this emotionally affects and inspires college students to do better and value what they currently have which they often overlook and take for granted. It is only when these students are able to see how others appear contented even if they have much less, that they start to realize how much more they should appreciate what their parents have provided them (Oracion, 2002, 2010). Although the impact of service-learning on the personal and social traits and skills of students (McCarthy, 2009) may be affected by the length of community engagement they have, this can become more significant if there are ready activities for them when they start community work which are consistent with their skills (Colby et al., 2009; Oracion, 2009).

Although there are mixed methods and findings on the impact of service-learning, the study of Bernacki and Jaeger (2008) at least


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showed that even if the students only had a semester of service-learning exposure, they already manifested more compassion and social sensitivity, improved understanding and ability to solve social problems, and greater efficacy to make the world better. Generally, students with service-learning experience were found to “perceive more positive changes in themselves than did students in traditional courses” (Bernacki & Jaeger, 2008, p. 7). However, service-learning to some other students and teachers is filled with tensions because of limited resources and conflicting expectations that often result in negative experiences and frustrations. Shannon (2007) observed among his service-learning students some signs of frustrations when they did not sense the positive impact of the services they rendered while others were not motivated or excited enough because they felt being obligated to engage in community work as a course requirement. These observations certainly imply the need for teachers to orient and psychologically prepare their students before their community engagement (McCarthy, 2009).

The areas of the experiences of students in service-learning that may be examined as measures of its impact should be clearly specified. These may include what knowledge and skills the students were able to learn or enhance, how the realities they discovered in the field affected them emotionally, what plans they have thought of in response to these realities, and what they wished for the community to have which it should acquire or which the government should provide. In one of my previous works, I quantitatively measured the multiple and related impacts of service-learning (Oracion, 2002). Based on the self-rating of 92 students enrolled in different courses, I found out statistically significant positive relationships in the combination of the following variables: classroom knowledge and skills, amount of service rendered, value of service rendered and enhanced knowledge and skills.

The interactions of the above mentioned variables mean that service-learners who have more knowledge and skills acquired from classroom instruction have rated higher amount of services they rendered to the community. Correspondingly, those who had rendered more services had valued more or were satisfied with the services they had rendered, and those who had served more rated higher in terms of the additional knowledge and skills they learned from the experience in the community service. In other words, students who had less learning inside the classroom were less effective in community service and found less meaning in what

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they were doing. In this present paper, I want to qualitatively pursue how the realities observed by the students and what they heard from household interviews had emotionally affected and inspired them to develop certain plans of action and hopes for the community that they had studied and known even for a limited time.

Environmental anthropology and Fieldwork

Environmental Anthropology is not a general education course and is offered only to students who are majoring in Sociology or Anthropology. This course examines the relationships or the dynamic interactions between human populations and environments in order to address practical environmental questions, problems, and concerns. It looks also into the ways by which environments have restricted the ability of human populations to have a healthy life as they use traditional strategies and explores alternative strategies in response to a changing environment particularly amidst global climate change. To enhance the analytical ability of students, they are exposed to different conceptual approaches of studying human-interaction interactions and case studies of such interactions in different environmental conditions categorized into preliterate and contemporary societies, rural and urban communities, coastal and upland areas.

Field trips and exposures to communities are deemed important for students to appreciate more the lessons provided in classroom settings. The partnership of Silliman University with Bayawan City helped a lot in this methodological necessity in teaching. So, with the knowledge they already learned in social theory, research, and social statistics, students were brought to the community to interview households about their conditions relative to certain socioeconomic, health and sanitation issues which may be affected by the presence of the nearby waste management center. The fieldwork happened only during the middle of the semester when they were already theoretically and psychologically equipped to do the interviews and understand the data they will gather. As expected, everyone was excited to travel without cost and to be in another place which was new to many of my students, particularly the foreigners and those not from Negros Oriental.

The students went around the community in pairs and searched for the households to interview which were scattered in the valley and

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hillsides nearby the waste management center. They used the survey questionnaire, written in English but translated into the dialect, which I prepared with the help of a Filipino graduate student. The night after the first day of the survey, we had a reflection session about the initial experiences of the students and discussed the problems they had encountered in order to make the fieldwork the next day easier. Although the students were tired of walking and climbing the hills to locate the households to interview during the first day, they expressed their satisfaction of the experience and eagerness to go on during the sharing. The next day, the tasks were easier to accomplish because the students had already strategized their movements based on their first day encounter with the community.

All the households within the potential affected area of the waste management center were surveyed and the data were analyzed in the school. With my close guidance, the Filipino graduate student assumed major role in data processing and in the analysis over the implications of the results together with the other students involved in the survey. The major problems perceived and experienced by the community were identified and solutions were suggested by the students. I prepared the technical report as senior author, because of the authority it needs, with a Filipino graduate student as a co-author (see Oracion & Gemina, 2010). He likewise orally presented the data, along with the recommendations, to the concerned city government officials of Bayawan. This report will serve as baseline for monitoring the conditions of these households during the succeeding years, but involving other sets of students. How the current students were affected and inspired by their service-learning engagement in Bayawan City will be discussed in the succeeding sections and will be compared with future sets of students.

Knowledge and skills learned and Enhanced

During the validation, the Filipino graduate student of the research report and the undergraduate students were able to prepare a summary of what they considered as the major issues that are bothering the households nearby the waste management center. The first two related issues included the fact that the drinking water of the community was not safe because of poorly developed sources and bad sanitation practices (see Table 1). These were further threatened by potential contamination from the waste management center. Moreover, the

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residents blamed the greater proliferation of flies observed during the fieldwork as compared in the past to the waste being dumped at the center that produced foul odor. The students likewise noted that the community seemed to lack adequate knowledge on the purposes of the waste management center and its operations to mitigate potential negative effects. Through their actual experience, students, with the facilitation of the graduate student, were able to carefully and critically sum up the issues under consideration.

Table 1. sources of Water for drinking

Type of Information Number Percent Sources of Water for Drinking Open dug-well 19 35.85 Undeveloped spring 16 30.19 Shallow well (hand pumped) 15 28.30 Spring box 4 7.55 Communal faucet from spring 1 1.89

Ownership of Toilet Without toilet 29 54.71 With own toilet 23 43.40 No answer 1 1.89

Source: Oracion & Gemina (2010)

Figure 3a. open dug-well Figure 3b. Undeveloped spring

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Meanwhile, the knowledge and skills reported by students which they got from the fieldwork were a combination of those related to the discipline as well as those relevant to the development of personal and social skills. One of the graduate students, who decided to pursue teaching after earning his degree, remarked that “service-learning program serves as an avenue to facilitate the initiation of interventions that will enable the community to address their problems and issues of concerns.” He added that it allowed the students to observe and hear people in actual situations which help in appreciating the usefulness of the knowledge and skills gained inside the classroom. For the foreign student, it was hard for him to interview locals and he found the importance of working with a Filipino student who spoke the native tongue. It was totally a new experience for him working in the community which he could never learn inside the classroom.

For the undergraduate students, it was a discovery and a realization of the kind of work that they may go into after graduation especially if they will be working with community projects. They became aware that fieldwork is not that easy because one has to travel and move around the community to meet people in order to understand the social problem under investigation. One mentioned the needed stamina for surviving a long hiking trip (Figure 4a). Moreover, they realized that an ability to interact with a diversity of people was important in order to generate quality data for a community program (Figure 4b). This ability includes being like the community people or appearing simple in the manner of dressing to avoid social gap that may restrict the flow of information. My American student, who took this principle seriously in fieldwork, went around interviewing without shoes because he saw many barefooted residents. He also

Figure 4a. the group rests after a long walk in search for households to interview

Figure 4b. the graduate students review the data of the undergraduate students

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spoke in twisted dialect and many locals were amused with him. These are skills which students cannot learn by simply reading but by actually interviewing strangers and winning their trust to get the needed information.

Time management was also mentioned as an important learning during fieldwork which can be applied to the many other undertakings of students. The undergraduate students also appreciated having worked with professionals, and that included me and the city government officials who joined us in fieldwork, and with the graduate students. Moreover, some students were able to see how plastic waste materials were segregated, so they can be recycled or sold to buyers. And being there in the site of the waste management center, the students appreciated how this can function in the disposal of solid and liquid wastes. Hearing the stories of the nearby residents, the students also recognized the potential threats the site can bring to the potable water supply of the community which is situated downhill and the foul odor it can produce because of the waste coming from the public market.

Emotional impact and Point of realization

The students generally considered that interviewing and being there in the community allowed them to learn the “other side of life” and those of other people who were not as fortunate as they were. This connects to what I said earlier that preparing the students before fieldwork is a must. Pre-fieldwork preparation had helped a lot because this gave them right focus and motivation despite the short time that they engaged with the community. One female student wrote that “I am very much affected by the interaction I had with the people I interviewed,” which she could not have experienced when just confined inside the classroom.

The meaningful experiences of students must be also basically due to the gross differences between their social statuses and the community residents who made a living basically by farming and by working for other households. The students felt sorry to hear their sad stories, and these households were more inspired to tell because they needed someone to hear their situation. They told the students that none from the city government had gone to interview them about their sentiments toward the waste management center. There must have been a breakdown of communication from the city government

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down to the community because the former would claim there was consultation done with the community.

On the other side, the students noticed that despite their miserable and difficult situations, the households they had interviewed were very nice and hospitable to them (see Figure 5). They considered them very helpful, honest and compassionate which the students may perhaps have not expected from marginalized people who must have considerable discontentment and angst against society and the government. Given the available resources the community had, the students felt the strong will of families to feed their children and struggle for a better life, because despite the odds, they generally appeared to be happy (which is, of course, a trait that describes the adaptability and resiliency of Filipinos). One student commented that she “felt more blessed that I have all the things I need” because of what she saw in the community. She was disturbed that school age children had to stop or did not attend school because they had to assist their parents in the farm. Such emotional impact resulting from this exposure to social disparity is not only true to my students now because I heard this several times from my previous service-learning involvement (Oracion, 2002, 2009, 2010; see also Ligutom, 2009).

Figure 5. A farmer offers boiled young corn during the interview.

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Meanwhile, my graduate student from Tibet, who was present during the presentation of the results of the survey to the concerned city government officials, was impressed by the democratic atmosphere of the process. He appreciated the freedom given to those present to ask questions, make comments and give suggestions to the city mayor who was presiding the meeting. He was also introduced to everyone before the meeting started which made him more appreciative because his presence was valued. The Filipino graduate student whom I asked to lead in the processing and presentation of the data was thankful for the opportunity. He said that it “motivated me to commit my time and knowledge in the succeeding activities that may follow after the fieldwork.” What he meant was the other opportunities that he may be involved in Bayawan City considering that its partnership with Silliman University is a continuing engagement. Like any other student, he was also emotionally affected by the conditions of the households he interviewed and there was that burning desire to continue working for them.

inspired Planned actions

After the students discussed the processed data, they agreed that the community needed to be more aware and informed of the basic functions, purpose and benefits that the waste management center will generate as well as to have safe sources of potable water. In line with this, they suggested that the waste management center must adopt progressive preventive measures and minimize the presence of flies within and outside the center. When these matters were presented to the concerned city government officials, the mayor realized the need to send health personnel to check the status of the health and potable water supply of the community. Whether or not this was actually done was already within the powers of the local executive which oftentimes depend on the availability of resources to mobilize and on the sense of urgency of doing it. This is something which can be monitored in the succeeding fieldwork.

At a personal level, there were students who desired to continue doing volunteer work when there are opportunities available and this manifested how their service-learning engagement had inspired them. One wrote that she wanted “to serve and maybe help other people even if it’s just (in a) small (way).” Another student desired to go back and pay a visit to the woman who helped her when she

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almost fainted after that cruel climb over the mountain to reach the waste management center. I was with her at that time and I almost fainted myself because of the mid-day heat and fatigue. My student added that she was always reminded of the woman’s kindness and helpfulness even if she was not a relative—a hospitality which is very common in rural communities. In fact, doing household survey in rural Philippines is easier compared to doing it with households in cities. The latter are always suspicious of strangers and one have to be experts in handling the hostility or indifference of prospective respondents for interviews.

The exposure of students to the difficult life in the community also served as inspiration for them to become better persons and not to take for granted the luxuries and opportunities they currently enjoy. One student who became conscious perhaps of wasteful spending said that, she will try her best to manage her resources well and to always thank the Lord for all the blessings she received and will be receiving. Another student became conscious of finishing a degree and promised to study hard, to find a good job, to have a family, and to have children with a good life and education. All these are obviously expressions of the desire to get away from a miserable life, particularly that there is still time for planning and preparing, and the realization that life is not all about enjoying it but also about working hard. The lesson learned is that a person is always responsible for his or her own future.

For the Filipino graduate student, the whole experience had affirmed his plan to work at Silliman University after getting his degree and to participate in research projects that can help bring about better understanding of social realities and development in communities among students. He realized that there is a great opportunity within the university, in general, and in its research unit, in particular, to initiate projects that may be implemented in coordination with any stakeholders willing to be involved in community development work. Notably, for this particular student, the practice of integrating service-learning in his future teaching career, either at Silliman University or outside of it, is likely. This implies the relevance of involving graduate students in service-learning rather than focusing only with the undergraduate students. The graduate students can assume leadership role in implementing a community project because they are more mature and have greater experience compared to undergraduate students.

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Quality of life for the Community

The students wrote what they considered the community residents should acquire to have quality life, and their responses included foremost stable sources of income and quality education for their children. It is interesting to note that these are reflections of the importance students have put on education for job security and as investment for higher productivity either in farming or off-farm employment. They also equally gave value to quality health care and services which the government has to provide, they added, through a well-equipped and functional health center nearby the community. This also goes without saying the need to secure the community’s sources of potable water and to inform them how to improve their sanitation practices because these all connect to quality health. One student felt that the households she interviewed must have a permanent place to live because they were tenants and under the mercy of the landowners. Another student recognized the importance of having fewer children which they can afford to raise.

In the future, if given the opportunity to pursue service-learning in Bayawan City, the Filipino graduate student who wished to pursue teaching described how he would work with the community. He believed that improving the quality of life in the community demands active involvement of the residents since it is not something that will simply be provided to them. The community has to be assisted and empowered through a participatory action research process wherein they could systematically organize their experiences and build up a solid case that they could use to lobby before the local government leaders for support and attention to what they need. They have to be taught to gain active representation in the different local special bodies of the city government which decide on appropriate and relevant programs that truly respond to their pressing needs and concerns. He finally noted that sustaining a working relationship with Silliman University, especially with its Service-Learning Program, can be of great help.

Facilitating and Retarding Factors

In the course of the fieldwork of my students, they were exposed to the social, economic, environmental and political realities of the community which they may have less understood and appreciated if

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they only remained inside the four walls of the classroom (Oracion, 2006). To hear these realities directly from the mouths of their respondents and to see them around the community, added value and meaning to what they read in journal articles and books and from classroom lectures. But whatever they heard or saw around could still be less understood and appreciated if they were not provided with the critical lens to analyze and interpret them. Thus, classroom instruction is always an integral part of service-learning engagement of students and the latter is not just a reason for students to escape classroom lectures and assignments. Service-learning, which brings students to reality, is not an end by itself, but a tool to validate what they learned from the classroom. Taken together, they learned concepts, acquired skills and underwent affective or emotional changes which are personally and socially relevant and enriching.

Since service-learning engagement requires a host or recipient community and resources for the mobility of students, the partnership forged between an academe and a government unit or non-government organization is always vital for maximizing the use of resources and available opportunities (Figure 6). The environmental commitment of Bayawan City and the trust of its officials to the capacity of Silliman University faculty and students to undertake the monitoring of its waste management center became a facilitating factor for bringing our students for their service-learning engagement. The only retarding factor that I experienced, not only for this class but in my previous

Figure 6. A graduate student presents the survey results to city government officials

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service-learning activities, is the time needed for serious community work and the requirements of other courses (see also Ligutom, 2009). The students have other courses to mind that are equally important in order that they can graduate from college. Doing service-learning every weekend, which is the only possible option during a semester, is also draining to students and this explains why prolonged engagement of students with a community is always impossible.

A possible strategy is to have three complementary subjects, which is the maximum number that a student can enroll during summer, either under one teacher or two teachers who agree to employ service-learning as a teaching strategy. This could take the form of a summer field school under the close supervision of the teachers concerned. The students have to live in a community where an existing project of the school is being implemented. For example, courses in sociology (current social issues), history (Philippine history) and political science (Philippine Constitution) may be combined when students shall have service-learning engagement. All students must enroll in the three courses. They have to complete the required 54 hours to earn credit for each course. Introductory sessions of these courses have to be conducted in the campus where the students would be oriented about service-learning principles, learning expectations of every course, concepts and theories, and activities in community work.

The 40 students, which is the minimum class size, can be assigned to live with certain households in the community or a dormitory which may be provided by the local government or non-government organization. Considering the large number of students involved, two communities may be covered and the teachers can only agree on how they will distribute the tasks of supervising the students. This also means that a partnership has to be forged by the academe in conducting service-learning, not only for placement of students but also for logistics. But, this partnership must be sustainable and not only short-term in order to appreciate the accumulated impact of the services by batches of students to the community over the years. It is also preferred that this partnership can be attached to the Extension Program of the university. The students can work with and be supervised by professional extension workers, thus, providing work force to an extension project and supplementing the supervisory function of the teacher.

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CONClUsiON

The service-learning engagement of students under Environmental Anthropology discussed in this paper may be brief, but is concise and specific to a particular purpose, i.e., to conduct household survey of the social, economic and health conditions of households nearby the waste management center. The goal was to establish baseline data for purposes of monitoring the potential negative impact of the center to the health of these households. The health data will be correlated with the chemical and biological data gathered by the chemistry and biology students, whenever there will be observed contamination in nearby water sources of the said community.

The students of Environmental Anthropology both served as channels of the community in relaying their situation and sentiments to the city government and as providers of information to the latter for mitigating whatever unintended consequences the waste management center may bring to the said community. The partnership between Silliman University and the city government of Bayawan offered the students the needed logistics to be in the community to render service and to hone their research skills and environmental knowledge.

The experiences of my students as expressed during our reflection sessions in the field and in school after fieldwork, as well as in their written narratives after a semester have validated the findings of other studies on the positive impact of service-learning (Shannon, 2007; Bernacki & Jaeger, 2008; Oracion, 2009, 2010). Specifically, these findings refer to how the service-learning engagement of students improve their understanding of social problems, enhance their compassion for others in need, and stimulate their sensibility to appreciate and value what they have and what the community should have based on what they heard from interviews and observed in the community. The desire to engage in volunteer works in the future and to employ service-learning pedagogy when given the opportunity to teach was noted from both the undergraduate and graduate students, respectively. Indeed, service-learning makes teaching more effective and grounded with reality if time and resources of both teachers and students will only allow.

NOte

1 The group was actually composed of two graduate students in anthropology (one was Tibetan) and eight undergraduate students majoring in anthropology and

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sociology (one was American). Five of the undergraduate students just sat on the class for a period because the service-learning activity we planned the previous semester in our Social Statistics class was not realized due to problem in time and logistics.

ACkNOWledgeMeNt

I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to the officials of Bayawan City for the opportunity to work with them for a better environment, to the community residents who shared their time for the interviews, to my students in Environmental Anthropology who painstakingly pursued the task of drawing out the sentiments of the community so they can be relayed to the city government, and to the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia (UBCHEA) for supporting my attendance to the Third Asia-Pacific Regional Conference on Service-Learning in Hong Kong at Lingnan University on June 7-11, 2011 where I originally presented this paper.

ReFeReNCes

Africa Unit (2010). Good practices in educational partnerships guide: UK-Africa higher & further education partnerships. Department for Business Innovation and Skills, Department for Employment and Learning and The Association of Commonwealth Universities, UK.

Bernacki, M.L. & Jaeger, E. (2008). Exploring the impact of SL on moral development and moral orientation. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, pp. 1-11.

Boorsma, J. K., I. T. Bollos, E. O. Torres & A. S. Aguilar, Jr. (2009). Establishment of Bayawan City's waste management and ecology center: An environmental milestone. Retrieved from http://www.bayawancity.gov.-ph/press.php

Colby, S., Bercaw, L., Clark, A.M. & Galiardi (2009). From community service to service-learning leadership: A program perspective. New Horizon in Education, 57(3), 20-31.

Guinoo, R. S. II, Aguilar Jr., A.S. & Oracion, E.G. (2009). The efficiency and social acceptability of the constructed wetland of Bayawan City, Negros Oriental. Silliman University Research and Development Center, Dumaguete City and City Environment and Natural Resources Office, Bayawan City, Negros Oriental.

Ligutom, E.M. (2009). Service-Learning in Silliman University: Perspectives of Administrators, Teachers and Students. Lessons from Service-Learning in Asia: Results of collaborative research in higher education. Service-Learning Studies Series No. 4. International Christian University, Service-Learning Center, International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan. Pp. 159-186.

McCarthy, F.E. (2009). Where we are now: A review of service-learning among SLAN colleges and universities in Asia. New Horizon in Education, 57(3), 8-19.

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Oracion, E.G. (2002).Quantitative evaluation of the participating students and cooperating residents of the service-learning program. Silliman Journal, 43, 143-164.

Oracion, E.G. (2006). Beyond the walls: Service-learning as a strategy to a socially relevant education. Powerpoint Presentation. Silliman University, Dumaguete City, Philippines.

Oracion, E.G. (2009). Service-Learning in multicultural Contexts: Approaches and experiences in the Philippines and India. Lessons from Service-Learning in Asia: Results of collaborative research in higher education. Service-Learning Studies Series No. 4. International Christian University, Service-Learning Center, International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan. Pp. 45-66.

Oracion, E. G. (2010). Intercultural service-learning and multicultural symbiosis. In J. Xing & C. Ma (Eds.), Service-Learning in Asia: Curricular models and practices (pp. 91- 110). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Oracion, E.G. & Gimena, R.G. (2010). The social impact monitoring of the waste management and ecology center of Bayawan City, Negros Oriental: A baseline report. Research and Development Center, Silliman University, Dumaguete City.

Pushpalatha, M., Chithra, J., Jacqueline, H.M., & Sherina, A.E. (2009). Changing perspectives through Multicultural Experience. Lessons from Service-Learning in Asia: Results of collaborative research in higher education. Service-Learning Studies Series No. 4. International Christian University, Service-Learning Center, International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan. Pp.16-36.

Sato, Y., McCarthy, F.E., Murakami, M., & Yamamoto, K. (2009). The impact of service-learning: Reflections from service-learning alumni. Lessons from service-learning in Asia: Results of collaborative research in higher education. Service-Learning Studies Series No. 4. International Christian University, Service Learning Center. Pp. 137-150.

Shannon, J. (2007). Engaging the tensions of service-learning. Academic Exchange, 98-102.


Adolescents’ Emotional Awareness, Regulation, and Transformation:

Emotion-Focused Therapy as Anger Management

Nelly zosa limbadanateneo de davao University

davao City, Philippines

Margaret Helen F. Udarbesilliman University

dumaguete City, Philippines

aimed at addressing increased violence and aggression in the school setting, this study evaluated the use of Emotion-Focused therapy (EFt) in managing anger level and intensity of selected adolescents. these adolescents were 16 high school students on strict disciplinary Probation status whose level of anger was determined using the adolescent anger rating scale. the two-phase study first consisted of developing a tool to measure the effectiveness of EFt—a tool referred to as the Emotional awareness, regulation and transformation scale (Earts). the second phase involved the conduct of the therapy as a psychotherapeutic intervention intended to help selected adolescents deal with anger. A significant improvement was observed from pretest-posttest data on Earts at the conclusion of the 12-session EFt.

keyWORds: anger, instrumental anger, reactive anger, anger control, anger management, emotion-focused therapy, adolescence

iNtROdUCtiON

Adolescence is unquestionably a developmental stage that is both exciting and challenging. As a transition period from childhood to adulthood, the earliest influential

conceptualization of this age group led to the storm-and-stress view

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of Stanley Hall in the early 1900s. Part of this adolescent perspective describes a turbulent time charged with conflict and mood swings, stress and unhappiness. Although it is not a universal and global adolescent experience to have major difficulties, Steinberg (2002) postulated that some adolescents encounter serious psychological and behavior problems that disrupt not only their lives but also the lives of their significant others. These problems vary from substance abuse and depression and suicide to crime and delinquency during adolescence, affecting a worrisome number of teenagers.

Smith and Furlong, in their study on anger and aggression among Filipino students, disclosed that anger is an important correlate of student aggression, and that there is a clear link between high levels of anger and problem behavior in school, poor academic performance, peer rejection, and psychosomatic complaints (cited in Campano & Munakata, 2004). Moreover, uncontrolled anger is cited as one of the factors linked to serious school violence. One interesting yet very disturbing observation was that students in private schools reported high mean scores in physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger, school hostility, and destructive expression compared to public school students.

Balana (2010) reported that most high school students suffer from violence. This was from a study “Towards a Child-Friendly Environment—Baseline Study on Violence Against Children,” a collaborative survey by Plan International, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Australian Government Overseas Aid Program (AusAid), Council for the Welfare of Children (CWC), and Philippine Women’s University. According to the study, verbal abuse is the most prevalent form of violence at all school levels, including being shouted at, cursed, ridiculed, teased or humiliated. Physical violence included pinching, throwing things at a child, spanking, making a child stand under the sun, locking a child in a room or enclosed space, and sexual assault. What is more disturbing is that the acts of violence increase in frequency as the child moves up to higher grade levels.

Anger is inarguably a universal truth in the field of human behavior. It is one of the basic emotions alongside happiness, sadness, fear and disgust. Anger is pervasive and powerful. It is also widely misunderstood and ignored (Mental Health Foundation, 2008).

Regardless of age, sex, culture, socio-economic status, educational attainment and other social categorizations, anger has been experienced by almost everybody. Simon (2005), however, observed that anger is not a popular topic of study—angry people are not fun to be around

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and are difficult to treat. DiGiussepe and Tafrate (cited in Feindler, 2006), stated that anger studies may be unpopular because “no one likes to hug a porcupine.” One can expand a porcupine to a snake or a skunk. Like these animals, when angry people are threatened, they can become verbally argumentative, volatile and at times, menacing.

A thorough review of the psychological disorders listed in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) (APA, 2000) shows at least five disorders that included anger as either necessary or sufficient to reach a diagnosis. These disorders are oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, borderline personality disorder, intermittent explosive disorder, and bipolar depression (DiGiusseppe, 2001).

Studies reveal that during adolescence, there is clearly an increase in behavior that can be considered “problematic” or “at risk,” such as drug use, truancy, school suspensions, vandalism, stealing, and precocious and unprotected sex. Many of these problematic behaviors are symptoms of conduct disorder—one of the most common reasons for referral of a child or adolescent for psychological or psychiatric treatment. The DSM clearly stipulates that evidence of conduct disorder is one of the criteria for the diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder (APD) in adulthood. In 2001, a Canadian-based Children’s Mental Health publication disclosed that the prevalence of conduct disorder is estimated at between 1.5% and 3.4% of the general child and adolescent population. The onset of conduct disorder tends to peak in late childhood and early adolescence. About 40% of children and adolescents with conduct disorder eventually develop APD. In nondiagnostic terms, this type of behavior has been termed psychopathy, sociopathy, or dissocial personality disorder (Nelson, Finch & Hart, 2006).

Deffenbacher, Oetting and DiGiuseppe (2002) emphasized that psychologists need to be informed about anger because they often work with anger-involved people. To work with angry individuals necessitates tailor-fit programs that are carefully designed to answer their varying needs. This paper attempted to explore emotion-focused therapy (EFT) as an approach to managing anger in adolescents. Anger, as a powerful emotion, is dealt with via an approach drawing out emotions in an individual. EFT was developed by Leslie Greenberg, a Canadian psychologist who, in 1979, started employing this therapy with couples, publishing Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy in 1988 and Facilitating Emotional Change in Individual Therapy in 1993. EFT is essentially a therapy that focuses on working with “lived emotion”

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in the session. Whereas both psychodynamic and cognitive therapies tend to work more with conscious cognition, the focus in EFT is on how to work with people's actual feelings and changing emotions in the session, so that the real emphasis is on trying to understand emotional processes and how emotions change (http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=36618). EFT is an integrative approach, combining client-centered, gestalt, and cognitive principles. It also includes interactional systemic perspectives that elucidate humanistic insights with an empirical approach.

Like other humanistic approaches, EFT adheres to the notion that what best explains human behavior is the subjective experience of reality. To further evaluate the effectiveness of EFT on adolescents with anger problems, the tool Emotional Awareness, Regulation and Transformation Scale (EARTS) was developed.

RevieW OF RelAted liteRAtURe

The common English language definition of “anger” is that it is a strong passion or emotion of displeasure or antagonism, excited by a real or supposed injury or insult to one’s self or others, or by the intent to do such injury (www.webster-disctionary.net). Feindler (2006) recorded five varied definitions and descriptions of anger (citing Kennedy, 1992, Novaco, 1998, and Spielberger, 1999). Kennedy wrote that anger was an affective state experienced as a motivation to act in ways that warn, intimidate or attack those who are perceived as challenging or threatening. Anger is coupled with and is inseparable from sensitivity to the perception of challenges or a heightened awareness of threats or irritability. It can be inferred that Kennedy’s analysis emphasized anger as a passion and motivational state that promote approach and even aggressive actions.

Novaco defined anger as a negatively toned emotion subjectively experienced as an aroused state of antagonism towards someone or something perceived to be the source of aversive event. This definition focused on the interpersonal nature of anger and the fact that there is usually a perceived stimulus thought to be aversive. Spielberger’s exposition of anger was a more fundamental concept than either hostility or aggression as found in his anger, hostility and aggression (AHA) syndrome. Anger refers to a psychobiological emotional state or condition that consists of feelings that vary in intensity from mild irritation or annoyance to intense fury and rage, accompanied by

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activation of neuroendocrine processes and arousal of the autonomic nervous system.

In addition, Mills (2005) described anger as a natural and mostly automatic response to pain of one form or another (physical or emotional). Anger can occur when people do not feel well, feel rejected, feel threatened, or experience some loss. The type of pain does not matter; the important thing is that the pain experienced is unpleasant. Because anger never occurs in isolation but rather is necessarily preceded by pain feelings, it is often characterized as a 'secondhand' emotion. Also, anger is an experiential state consisting of emotional, cognitive and physiological components that co-occur, rapidly interacting with and influencing each other in such a way that they tend to be experienced as a feeling state (Deffenbacher, 1999).

In 1995, Kemp and Strongman conducted an historical analysis of anger theory and management, reviewing how social scientists understood the emotional state called anger. First was a standard, uncomplicated analysis of anger made by Izard (1991), who listed the following causes of anger: restraint, the blocking or interrupting of goal-directed activity, aversive stimulation, being misled or unjustly hurt, and moral indignation. He viewed it as an emotion that interacts with disgust and contempt, and as adaptive. Anger mobilizes energy and can be justified as an appropriate defense against assertiveness. Furthermore, anger is often undesirable and typically avoided in so far as possible. He also suggested that not expressing anger could result in health problems. Although, in Izard's view, anger is not the only cause of aggression, appropriate expression of justified anger may even strengthen the relationship between the angry person and the person who is the target of the anger.

From the same 1995 review, the following antecedents of anger were identified: the failure of friends, the failure of strangers, inappropriate rewards, the failure of relatives, inconvenience, and the failure to reach goals. In the particular context of personal relationships, they pointed to unjust treatment, the violation of norms, and damage to property.

It is noteworthy that the fullest and most far-reaching consideration of anger (and aggression) by a psychologist in recent decades has been made by Averill (1982) who took a firm social constructionist standpoint. His simple starting point is that anger is antisocial, unpleasant, negative, and very common. Taking up the point that anger is very common, Averill further pointed out that its main target is a loved one, a friend, or an acquaintance. Its aim is

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often to change whatever conditions have brought it about. Always, there is a perceived wrong, something that was done either purposely or through negligence. In other words, the cause of anger is either an unjustified act or an avoidable accident. Averill also characterized many ways to express anger, but argued that people tend to dwell on the more dramatic of these, mainly involving physical aggression. More often than not, in Western society, anger is dealt with by talking things over or seeing the conflict as a series of problems that can be solved. Many episodes of anger are seen by people as having beneficial outcomes, even though the experience of anger might have been unpleasant. More recently, Kalat (2011) described anger as associated with a desire to harm people or drive them away.

Bernstein (2003) stated that anger, unlike other mental disorders, is highly contagious, and one of its most salient symptoms is not realizing that people have it. In another distinct way of looking at anger, Averill illustrated that “anger can be thought of as an architect’s blueprint. The availability of the blueprint does not cause a building to be constructed, but it does make the construction easier. In fact, without the blueprint, there might not be any construction at all.”

Deffenbacher (cited in Wilde, 2002) has proposed that angry individuals tend to possess numerous cognitive processing patterns that lead to increased levels of anger. He enumerated seven types of cognitive errors often committed by anger-prone individuals, the first being poor estimation of probabilities. Second, thinking pattern concerns their attributional errors. The third cognitive error involves overgeneralization—using overly broad terms when describing time like excessive use of “always” and “never” and using global descriptions for people like stupid, lazy, and so on. The fourth pattern is dichotomous thinking (employing black-and-white thinking). The fifth is inflammatory labelling. The sixth error deals with demandingness, as anger-prone individuals believe others should not act in certain ways or that they must not behave as they have, in fact, behaved. The last cognitive error of an angry individual involves catastrophic thinking.

Anger Management studies Considering the possible effect and magnitude of what an angry person is capable of doing, anger management programs have been created to address issues of controlling or regulating but not

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eliminating emotions because anger, as one of the basic emotions, also serves a favorable purpose. Anger activates behaviors and has strong reinforcing qualities.

In the mid-1970s, the topic of anger control seemed to have arisen from a flurry of books and papers by Novaco (cited by Kemp & Strongman, 1995), who viewed anger as an emotional response to provocation, a response that occurs in three modalities—cognitive, somatic-affective, and behavioral. Thus, there are appraisals, tension and agitations, and withdrawal and antagonism. Management of anger is then based on group discussion of the problems involved in the anger. Encouraged is a self-exploration of the situations that lead to anger, followed by an imagery-based reliving of recent angry experiences. Therapists suggest that the angry feelings clients experience are influenced by their own thoughts and offer clients an account of the functions of anger.

This was followed by so-called stress inoculation where clients are taught relaxation skills to control their arousal and various cognitive controls to exercise on their attention, thoughts, images, and feelings. They are taught to see the provocation and the anger itself as occurring in a series of stages, each of which can be dealt with. Programs dealing with managing anger come in a form of techniques as a specialized form of interventions or as incorporated in several therapeutic approaches.

Meta analyses suggest that psychosocial interventions reduce anger. Effect sizes vary from study to study, but overall effect sizes tend to be moderate to large and to suggest fairly reliable, consistent treatment effects of anger reduction interventions. It is also notable that studies with short-term (e.g. 1-month) and long-term (12-15th month) follow ups reveal maintenance of effects. What are generally accepted to be effective are the cognitive behavioral interventions, as well as group anger management interventions rather than individual treatment.

A major premise of Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) is that emotion is foundational in the construction of the self and is the key determinant of self-organization. At the most basic level of functioning, emotions are an adaptive form of information-processing and action readiness that orients people to their environment and promotes their well-being (Greenberg, 2004). Therapists who practice EFT use specific tasks to work with clients’ emotional processing to facilitate changes in clients’ emotions schemes, how they treat themselves, and how they interact with others (Watson, Goldman, & Greenberg, 2007).

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EFT relies on three major empirically-supported principles for enhancing emotion-processing. The first and most general goal in EFT is the promotion of emotional awareness. Increased emotional awareness is therapeutic in a variety of ways. Becoming aware of and symbolizing core emotional experience in words provides access both to the adaptive information and action. Awareness also helps people make sense of their experience and promotes assimilation of it into their ongoing self-narratives. One very important thing to note in emotional awareness is not thinking about feelings; it involves feeling the feeling in awareness. Acceptance of emotional experience as opposed to its avoidance is the first step in awareness work. Having accepted the emotion rather than avoided it, the therapist then helps the client in the utilization of emotion.

The second principle of emotional processing involves the regulation of emotion. Emotions that require regulation generally are either secondary emotions such as despair and hopelessness, or primary maladaptive emotions such as the shame of being worthless, the anxiety of basic insecurity and/or panic. Linehan (cited in Greenberg, 2004) stated that clients with under regulated affect have been shown to benefit from validation and the learning of emotion and distress tolerance skills. Emotion regulation skills involve such things as identifying and labelling emotions, allowing and tolerating emotions, establishing a working distance, increasing positive emotions, reducing vulnerability to negative emotions, self-soothing, breathing and distraction.

The third and probably most fundamental principle of emotional processing involves the transformation of one emotion into another. Although the more traditional ways of transforming emotion either through their experience, expression and completion or through reflection on them to gain new understanding does occur, EFT found another process to be more important—a process of changing emotion with emotion. This novel principle suggests that a maladaptive emotional state can be transformed best by undoing it with another more adaptive emotion. In time the coactivation of the more adaptive emotion along with or in response to the maladaptive emotion helps transform the maladaptive emotion. The philosopher Spinoza was the first to note that emotion is needed to change emotion, pointing out that “an emotion cannot be restrained nor removed unless by an opposed and stringer emotion. Reason clearly is seldom sufficient to change automatic emergency-based emotional responses.

In this study, the EFT was conducted in a group setting. In

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determining the group size, several experts stated almost similar figures ranging from 4 to 12. Corey and colleagues (2010) said that the desirable size for group process depends on several factors, namely age of clients, experience of the leader, type of group, and problems to be explored.

tHeORetiCAl FRAMeWORk

This study was anchored on Lazarus’ (1991) theory of cognitive appraisal of emotion (Figure 1). This is expressed in terms of his cognitive-motivational-relational view of emotion and coping processes. He characterized anger, like other negative emotions, as resulting from harm, loss, or threat, but with any blame for these being attributed to someone. For the angry person, the implication is that whoever caused the harm, loss, or threat could have exercised control and not done it, if he or she had so wished. More particularly, Lazarus argued that a matter of general importance to people is the preservation of their ego identity. Any assault on this will prompt anger, a reaction which is to an extent dependent on personality and on one's recent history of being demeaned. In Lazarus’s terms, adult human anger is spurred by “a demeaning offence against me and mine” and in this context, even a simple frustration can imply being demeaned. However, anger “can be transformed readily by cognitive (or emotion-focused) coping processes.”

Figure 1. Lazarus’ theory of cognitive appraisal of emotion.

Person-environment Relationship

[1]Cognitive Appraisal

emotional Responses:

[2] subjective experience[3] thought-

Action tendencies[4] internal

Bodily Changes[5] Facial

expression

[5] Responses to

emotion

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At the heart of Lazarus’s theory of emotion is the process of appraisal—i.e., cognition is a necessary part of emotion—always characterized as being both primary and secondary. With respect to the primary appraisal of anger, there must be a relevant goal at stake, an incongruence involved with respect to reaching that goal and concern with the preservation of self-esteem against assault. If these conditions are met and the primary appraisal that leads to anger is made then, according to Lazarus (1982), secondary appraisals follow. Blame, for example, is apportioned: if to an external agent, then anger will result; if it is self-directed, anger also results. As Izard (1991) suggested, Lazarus argued that for anger to occur, one must believe that whoever is blameworthy was capable of control (i.e., of not doing whatever was done) but chose not to exercise it. Further, anger also involves the appraisal that the best way of dealing with the offense is to attack. Moreover, if one has the expectation that there is a good possibility that attack will provide a successful way of coping, then anger is more likely to result.

Lazarus also had some interesting comments about the implications of anger and its control: [1] anger is often inhibited, particularly if it seems that its expression might produce a strong retaliation; [2] expressed anger can be both useful and dangerous, but uncontrolled anger may be both counterproductive and physically unhealthy; and, [3] there are many types of extreme, lasting, or recurrent anger, or the inability to express anger at all, any of which may be pathological. Of course, whether or not these manifestations are regarded as pathological will depend on time, place, and culture (Kemp & Strongman, 1995).

CONCePtUAl FRAMeWORk

Using Thompson’s input-throughput-output model (1967), the primary conceptual framework of this study (Figure 2) shows that assessment of the participants’ anger level served as the input, wherein pretesting was conducted. Applying Lazarus’ construct of the psychology of anger, this study recognized the importance of assessing the anger level of the individual. The assessment covered instrumental anger, reactive anger, anger control and the total anger. Instrumental anger refers to a negative emotion that is considered as a triggering factor that leads a person to retaliate. Reactive anger is the immediate angry response, while anger control refers to the

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proactive behavioural-cognitive method a person uses to deal with his or her anger. These appear in the input box.

The next box is labelled “High” as this indicates possible symptoms of emotional problems leading to anger from those who are pretested. Those who scored in the lower range were not included in the intervention. Then, using Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), an intervention was designed and implemented in 12 sessions, thrice a week. An instrument was also developed to measure the effectiveness of the modules designed. This tool, Emotional Awareness, Regulation and Transformation Scale (EARTS) underwent the process of test development, validation and internal consistency check. Analysis of the outcomes was done as part of the output box.

stAteMeNt OF tHe PROBleM

The primary objective of this study was to determine the effectiveness of emotion-focused therapy (EFT) as an approach in anger management among adolescents at a private high school in Davao City. Specifically, it sought to answer the following questions:

1. What is the profile of the participants’ anger response patterns according to Instrumental Anger, Reactive Anger, Anger Control,

Figure 2. Conceptual Model of the study.

AssessiNG tHe ANGeR LeveL oF PARtiCiPANts As AN iNDiCAtoR oF tHe sYMPtoMs oF eMotioNAL PRoBLeMs

• instrumental Anger

• Reactive Anger• Anger Control• total Anger

HiGH

Low

ANAL

Ysis

oF

oU

tCo

Mes

1. DesiGN oF iNteRveNtioN As ADAPteD FRoM tHe eMotioN-FoCUseD tHeRAPY

2. test DeveLoPMeNt:

eMotioNAL AwAReNess, ReGULAtioN, AND tRANsFoRMAtioN sCALe (eARts)

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and Total Anger?2. What is the psychological profile of the experimental group

participants?3. What is the level of pretest and posttest scores of the experimental

and control groups in emotion-focused therapy principles in terms of emotional awareness, emotional regulation, and emotional transformation?

4. Is there a significant difference in the level of pretest scores of the experimental and control groups before the implementation of emotion-focused therapy (EFT)?

5. Is there a significant difference in the level of post test scores of the experimental and control groups after the implementation of EFT?

MetHOd In order to evaluate the effectiveness of Emotion-Focused Therapy among adolescents identified with anger, a true experimental design, specifically the Randomized Pretest-Posttest Control group design was utilized. Participants were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. All participants were pretested on the dependent variable, the experimental group was administered the treatment, and both groups were then posttested on the dependent variable.

The participants of this study were high school students of a private university in Davao City, Philippines selected from the 200 students who were under the student disciplinary program (i.e., included in the program due to violations of school rules and regulations stated in the student handbook). By definition, suspension is a serious disciplinary status imposed on a student for violating school policies and regulations. It also refers to the imposition of community service due to accumulation of jugs/posts and/or outright violation of any instance stipulated under the provisions for suspension or the act of preventing the student from attending classes.

The instruments administered were the Adolescent Anger Rating Scale (AARS) (Burney, 2001) and the research-constructed Emotional Awareness, Regulation, and Transformation Scale (EARTS)1. The Emotion-Focused Therapy Module, developed based on the principles of emotional awareness, emotional regulation and emotional transformation, was used as an intervention for 12 sessions.

From the list of 200 students placed in the disciplinary probation

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program, 64 were due for suspension and were administered the Adolescent Anger Rating Scale. Sixteen obtained a high score on one or more AARS subscales. A T-score of 60 was used as a determining factor for inclusion. Applying the true-experimental design, a randomized selection was done through fish bowl technique. The first eight names picked were assigned to the experimental group and the other half comprised the control group.

After the pretest administration, implementation of the intervention took place. Two Modules in the EFT were carefully designed to address the needs of the participants as revealed in their response patterns. Effectiveness of the modules implemented through the EFT was measured using the EARTS as a posttest.

After the 12th session, post test was conducted, followed by statistical treatment. Debriefing of the participants (both the experimental and control groups) was done immediately after the last session.

ResUlts ANd disCUssiON

anger response Patterns

Administration of the Adolescent Anger Rating Scale (AARS) resulted in anger response patterns of participants according to instrumental anger, reactive anger, anger control, and total anger (Table 1). For the instrumental anger subscale, the scores of the participants are distributed from average to very high level. In the average level, six (37.5%) of them reveal that when in a state of anger, they do not typically resort to retaliation and getting back to the source of anger. But the moderately high to very high instrumental anger level has four and six participants, respectively. This means that four of them have thoughts of retaliating and have actually planned revenge, while six participants display a critical anger level that will likely result in retribution or striking back.

Such outcome supports what Geldard (2004) stated that there are inevitable challenges that adolescents face, one of them being emotional reactivity. What a person feels is real and a product of internal processing of an external stimulus, provoking further anxiety when anger expression is thwarted. It is noticeable, however, that for a number of the participants, they had ideation of revenge to get even or use other mechanisms to defend themselves, e.g., through

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denial, projection and regression. It must also be emphasized that inappropriate behavior may often be a consequence of these internal ego-defending mechanisms.

Table 1.

respondents’ anger response patterns, n=16.

Anger Level INSTRUMENTAL REACTIVE ANGER TOTALT-Scores ANGER ANGER CONTROL ANGER f % ƒ % f % f %

Very High( >70) 6 37.5 2 12.5 0 4 25

Moderately High(60-69) 4 25 8 50 1 6.25 4 25

Average(41-59) 6 37.5 3 18.75 14 87.5 8 50

Moderately Low (31-49) 0 0 3 18.75 1 6.25 0 0

Very Low( < 30) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Meantime, two participants scored very high while eight of the participants obtained a moderately high T score on reactive anger. A high reactive anger score indicates impulsive and hyperactive response styles. This supports Mills (2005) who described anger as a natural and mostly automatic response to a threatening situation. It does not even have to be on a higher scale. As revealed by the adolescents in the research, this threat can be a pain that is quite unpleasant. For anyone who may feel threatened, the natural tendency is to defend oneself. In this study, the adolescents defended themselves by acting out very impulsively.

Seen in a larger scale, reactive anger is defensive by nature and potentially damaging to one’s self-esteem. It also harms relationships because an angry person thinks in a black and white manner or what

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Deffenbacher (1993) calls dichotomous thinking. For someone who is threatened whose feelings will escalate to anger, there are only two things: the person is hurt and then naturally reacts and responds out of those hurt and angry feelings inside.

For the anger control subscale (Table 1), 87.5% are in the average level, meaning that the majority do not have any proactive cognitive-control method used in resolving instrumental anger and/or responses to anger. More specifically, they do not possess the ability to control anger outbursts.

Two points are discussion-worthy from this result: [1] anger control or management approaches, and [2] the seemingly nonchalant attitude of adolescents towards their own anger. First, it is widely accepted that anger is normal, thus it becomes a question now about the need to attend or participate in anger management activities. This further implies a need for continuous concrete efforts to teach handling emotions so further negative effects can be avoided. Second, Martinez et al. (2008) disclosed that much of the learning of how to express or inhibit anger can be explained from a developmental perspective. Snyer and colleagues maintain that socializing agents, especially parents, play an important role in influencing children’s learning of emotion regulation. So when children or adolescents have healthy emotional expressions even in their younger years, there may be lesser incidence of misbehaviours that are partly related to violence and aggression (cited in Martinez et al., 2008).

Finally, the total anger subscale reveals a 50% split between average levels and moderately high to high levels. This subscale is an index of scores obtained in instrumental anger, reactive anger and anger control, thus a general indicator of the anger response patterns of the participants. In combining the anger behaviors and reactions with what is consciously done to handle or manage adverse reactions, this profile justifies the need for an intervention because many are aware that they may resort to vengeance and become impulsive and hyperactive in their response styles, but do not have skills to manage anger.

The Experimental Group’s Profile

Looking closely at the experimental group’s profile, based on results of the Kiersey Temperament Sorter, drawing tests, and EARTS, the researchers found a number of common themes that emerged in

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relation to the family context, distinct personality characteristics, and an observed adaptability to changes. The lack of warmth at home was observed in majority of the respondents. Although this paper does not highlight the culpability of parental and family concerns, the observation is a reality that is not negligible. Some distinct personality characteristics are also apparent among the eight participants, including being isolated and withdrawn. When traced from a mesosystemic viewpoint, this preference to be alone and staying away from the group, can be seen as a by-product of a lack of warmth or affection at home. This is highly toxic because isolation and withdrawal are features of adolescents who have frequent suicide ideations. On a positive note, these young people are open to changes and are highly adaptive to adjustment and transformative programs. This is promising for program development in assisting adolescents in maladjustment.

Emotional awareness, regulation and Transformation scale (eARts) Pre- and Post-test (Pre- and Post-emotion-Focused Therapy)

Results on the Emotional Awareness, Regulation and Transformation Scale (EARTS) before and after Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) intervention are revealing (Table 2). For both the experimental and control groups, the respondents obtained a mean ranging from 3.01 to 3.46 (average), meaning that they generally perceived themselves to be emotionally aware and able to regulate and transform emotions from unpleasant to pleasant.

Emotional awareness does not only refer to what one thinks about feelings, but Greenberg (2004) said that it is the involvement of feeling the feeling in awareness. This means that the adolescents tested with the EARTS already possessed that ability to be emotionally aware even if it is only in the average level. Similar contention can be taken from the average result for emotional regulation. EFT highlights the ability of the individual to monitor and evaluate one’s emotional reactions. Pretest data suggest that, for about half the time, the adolescents may have monitored their own emotions. In terms of transforming emotions, the score ranged from average to high average, meaning that there is already an effort and attempt from both experimental and control group adolescents to modify reactions that might increase their anger tendencies, thus leading them to misbehave and

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eventually misbehave at home and in school.However, posttest data (Table 2) show an overall mean of 3.86

against the 3.21 in the pretest, showing an increase in the mean gain score after EFT was implemented as an intervention. Looking closely at the posttest result of the experimental group, the principles of emotional awareness and emotional regulation both leaped from average to high average after EFT, indicating a higher and increased level in emotional awareness, regulation and transformation. Further, the higher overall posttest mean of 3.86 suggests effectiveness of the therapy. The control group on the other hand, showed a similar description of average (3.24 in both the pretest and the posttest).

Using the Mann-Whitney u Test, there was no significant difference between the experimental group and the control group in their pretest scores (Table 3), but there were significant differences between the experimental group and the control group in their posttest scores. This means that EFT as an intervention for anger management among adolescents was effective.

The favourable outcome of the intervention is supported by Greenberg (2008) who said that when emotions are focused on, accepted, and worked with directly in therapy, this can encourage and support emotional change. Considering the emotional state of the adolescents, stronger emotional outbursts are felt at an increased intensity because of the lack of self-control, judgment and

Table 2.

Pretest and Post-test results of the Experimental and Control Groups on the Emotional awareness, regulation and Transformation scale (EarTs).

EFT EXPERIMENTAL CONTROLPrinciples Pretest Posttest Pretest Posttest

MEAN DESC MEAN DESC MEAN DESC MEAN DESC

Emotional Awareness 3.16 A 3.78 HA 3.27 A 3.39 A

Emotional Regulation 3.01 A 3.69 HA 3.16 A 3.08 A

Emotional Transformation 3.46 HA 4.11 HA 3.29 A 3.36 A

Total 3.21 A 3.86 HA 3.24 A 3.28 A

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emotional regulation. However, when guided and allowed to explore the dynamics of their angry and possibly disruptive behaviors, adolescents can modify behavioral reactions and further monitor and evaluate their emotional reactions.

Moreover, psychologists are optimistic about emotional transformation in adolescents because neuropsychologists recently found that the brain is still developing in the teen years. This further means that the teens may actually be able to control how their own brains are wired and sculpted. Children who “exercise” their brains by learning to order their thoughts, understand abstract concepts, and control their impulses are laying the neural foundations that will serve them for the rest of their lives. Thus, when emotional exercises, such as those conducted during EFT, are regularly provided by helping professionals, emotional development in adolescents is highly possible.

CONClUsiONs ANd ReCOMMeNdAtiONs

In sum, the anger profile of the participants revealed a homogeneous distribution in terms of instrumental and reactive anger. As scores in these subscales increased, anger control followed a downward pattern. Also, both experimental and control groups were similarly on the average in emotional awareness, regulation and transformation before EFT, but posttest scores registered a difference of .86, lending support that the EFT sessions helped the adolescents manage their anger by looking into their own emotions (awareness), monitoring

Table 3.

Mann-Whitney u Test for the significance of difference in the Pretest and Post-test scores of the Experimental and Control Groups.

Between the Pretest Scores Between Post-test Scores of Experimental and Control of Experimental and Control Groups Groups

Mann-Whitney U 29.00 5.00

Exact Sig. [2*(1-tailed Sig)] .798 (a) .003 (a)

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and evaluating emotional reactions (regulation) and modifying one’s emotion to construct a new meaning (transformation).

Destructive behaviors of adolescents can certainly be lessened or avoided when there are programs initiated by the institutions surrounding them. It is apparent that in the locale of the study, there is an absence of a therapeutic environment that despite sanctions of each and every violation, adolescents continue to defy them. While it may not only be because of anger and aggressive tendencies of the youth, interventions that allow young people to be emotionally literate should be in place. Emotion-Focused Therapy to address anger problems can be integrated in school programs. School counsellors can be given training and workshop on facilitating emotional development among children and adolescents and especially addressing suicidal ideation, depression, and other psychopathology. No therapy is effective when the therapist is unfit to carry out any helping relationship. This is not an issue on competence but a helper’s genuineness of character in helping clients deal with emotional outbursts. It may be helpful then to assess therapists in terms of their own anger expression, regulation and transformation.

The use of Adolescent Anger Rating Scale in the institution is advantageous for early detection of anger problems resulting in possible conduct disorders and misbehaviors. The use of EFT may also be expanded to other clinical concerns, not just anger. EFT started out as an approach for helping couples but through exploration and with empirical evidence, EFT is now being used for anger-related disorders. Finally, for those interested in test development, the Emotional Awareness, Regulation and Transformation Scale can be improved to aid in the proper assessment of anger-related problems. More importantly, further validation and reliability testing of EARTS will tackle cultural considerations as this is a Filipino-made test, sensitive to the experience of Filipino adolescents. Once validated and tested with a more representative sample, norms may be established.

ACkNOWledgMeNts

The authors wish to thank colleagues at Ateneo de Davao University and Silliman University for their support and encouragement and psychology practitioners Dr. J. Enrique Saplala, Dr. Ma. Caridad Tarroja, and Dr. Gail Tan-Ilagan for their needed input and suggestions for the improvement of this paper.

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eNdNOtes

1 To ensure that proper instrumentation procedures were observed and EARTS become a psychometrically sound tool, two steps were undertaken. First, experts in the field of psychological assessment and educational measurement and evaluation were requested to validate the items included in the EARTS. Areas covered included clarity of the language, presentation and organization of concepts, suitability of items, adequateness of purpose, attainment of purpose, and respondent-friendliness. Second, reliability coefficient was determined by computing the alpha coefficient (frequently called Cronbach’s alpha) to check on the internal consistency of the instrument after some time had elapsed. The EARTS was pilot-tested at a sectarian high school in the city with 30 students. Comments and feedback were taken into account before the actual conduct of the EARTS as pretest to the research participants.

2 Intervention through EFT was held three times a week (Monday, Thursday and Saturday) and ran for 12 sessions. Fridays were reserved for reflections and bring-home therapeutic activities. Interactive group processes were utilized and techniques and skills in EFT were included in the intervention. These activities were geared towards reducing and managing the kind of anger the adolescents were currently experiencing. As the group therapy progressed, individual therapy was concurrently conducted towards the sixth to seventh sessions to gain a particular insight and derive a personal experience from each participant. Individual sessions depended upon the need for special follow-up, but it was made certain that each one of them were individually attended to and given at least an hour for personal disclosure that they would rather articulate in a one-on-one session. This process allowed the researcher/therapist and the participant to engage into a deeper understanding of the anatomy and dynamics of anger.

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Community Awareness and Perception of the Implementation of the

Coastal Resource Management Programs in Bolinao, Pangasinan, Philippines

annie rose d. teñosoPangasinan state University,

Binmaley, Pangasinan, Philippines

annie Melinda Paz-albertoEnvironmental Management department

institute of Graduate studies and institute for Climate Change and Environmental Management

Central luzon state UniversityMuñoz, Nueva Ecija, Philippines

Community knowledge, involvement, and support are all essential in the implementation of coastal resource management programs for sustainable resource use and economic development. this study aimed to identify the coastal resource management (CrM) programs implemented in Balingasay, arnedo, victory and Binabalian in Bolinao, Pangasinan, Philippines, CrM related issues and problems, and the recommended solutions for better management strategies of coastal resources and to determine the extent of community awareness and involvement and perceived government and non-government interventions in the implementation of these programs in these barangays. Marine protected areas and community based mangrove conservation projects were observed to be protected and managed by the local government units and non-governmental organizations.

the respondents had moderate awareness and moderate perceived level of implementation on information, communication and education programs for CrM programs, fisheries and CrM legislation. similarly, the local communities had moderate awareness and moderate perceived level of implementation of the CrM programs. the perceived level of community participation and involvement in CrM and perceived level of government intervention were found to be occasional. Moreover, the perceived level of interventions of the NGo, academic and research institutions in CrM of Bolinao, Pangasinan were seldom.

Low catch by the fisher folk, poverty, overfishing, illegal fishing,

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a.r.d. tEÑoso & a.M. Paz-alBErto

keyWORds: coastal areas, coastal resource management, awareness, implementation, perception, poverty

iNtROdUCtiON

Community Based Coastal Resource Management (CBCRM) is rooted in the belief that community knowledge, involvement, and support are all essential in the creation of sustainable

resource use and economic development. Views of the conditions of resources and program implementation shape the community’s response to conservation attempts, as do their views of their own situation, and their relationship to resources and to other resource users. The need to understand these perceptions is especially strong in the case of community level coastal resource management programs that seek not only to protect the environment, but also to improve the lives of the coastal community that depend on it. Perceptions of resource conditions and trends reveal needs of the community, and the perception of a crisis is a key predictor of community participation in management efforts (Baticados, 2004; Pollnac, Crawford, & Gorospe, 2001a). Their understanding of the problems may reveal points of disagreement with the diagnoses of the experts. But, perceptions of management efforts are similarly important, especially concerning program objectives relating to human wellbeing, which is often subjective and difficult to measure (Pomeroy et al., 1997). As with resource conditions, positive program evaluations can be seen as a measure of program success (Pollnac et al., 2001; Pomeroy et al.,1997; Webb, Maliar, & Siar, 2004).

Community views are also key predictors of program support, compliance and sustainability. With Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), McClanahan (2005) suggested that positive perceptions may be impacted by the type of management restrictions, the degree of degradation, the failure of management to live up to promises and ineffective or preferential enforcement. Therefore, it is imperative to understand perceptions of communities in the implementation level

pollution, squatting, waste disposal and climate change were the major problems identified. These were caused by different human activities in the coastal area. Provision of alternative livelihood and effective enforcement of fishery laws and ordinances are suggested in order to solve these problems.

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of coastal resource management programs to determine management efforts as well as attitudes within a program area. Objectives and quantitative measures are undoubtedly relevant as well as essential for evaluation of impacts. Nonetheless, they are proxies for more contextual, subjective, experience ideas such as quality of life and marginalization, which may be better measured through perceptions (Pomeroy et al., 1997).

Bolinao is one of the coastal municipalities of Pangasinan that has experienced the challenges of degrading resources in its coastal areas. To maintain these valuable resources, the local people in Bolinao have taken the initiative to conserve their resources through coastal resource management programs like the establishment of marine fish sanctuary and mangrove management areas. This kind of intervention started in 1998 and has been adopted by some of the coastal barangays of the municipality. Through the years, they have managed to slowly deal with the problems on the degradation of their coastal resources in hopes of reviving and saving resources and biodiversity.

The coastal resource management plans and their implementation in this municipality have gone through many challenges such as acceptance and cooperation of the people on the conservation practices of their coastal resources as well as intervention from government and non-government institutions. As such, believing that exploring perceptions may reveal subtle, more abstract impacts of the coastal resource management (CRM) programs that are difficult to measure, but nonetheless important, this study was conceptualized to enhance the effectiveness of the implementation of CRM in coastal areas. This study documented the awareness of the community on the present CRM programs and their perception on the implementation level in selected barangays: Balingasay, Arnedo, Victory, and Binabalian in Bolinao, Pangasinan. Specifically, the aim was to identify CRM related issues and problems and the recommended solutions for better management strategies of coastal resources and to determine the extent of community awareness and perceived government and non-government interventions in the implementation of CRM programs in these barangays.

MetHOds

The four coastal barangays of Bolinao, Pangasinan—Arnedo, Balingasay, Binabalian, and Victory—have had an active coastal

CoMMUNity aWarENEss oN CrM ProGraMs iN BoliNao

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resource management program for the past few years; marine protected areas have been established and mangrove ecosystems are managed.

The respondents were the residents of the four coastal barangays, the municipal and barangay officials, and cooperators of the coastal resource management programs (or the implementing organizations of the program). The sample size was determined using the formulas in Cochran (1977):

[a] no = tα2 pq/d2

where no = initial estimate of the sample size tα = Students’ t-distribution with a level of significance of α p = probability or proportion of “successes” q = probability or proportion of “failures” d = desired degree of precision

[b] n = no/[1 + (no – 1)/N]

where n = final estimate of the sample size no = initial estimate of the sample size N = total population size

With a total sample size of 351, the respondents per coastal barangay were selected through random sampling with sample size proportional to the population size of the coastal barangay (Table 1).

Table 1.

Barangay Population size and respondent sample size.

Coastal Barangay Population Size Sample Size

1. Balingasay 976 1202. Binabalian 655 813. Arnedo 928 1144. Victory 292 36

Total 2851 351

Interviews and questionnaires, in English and the vernacular,

were used to gather data on the socio-economic status of the residents of these areas, their awareness and perceived implementation levels of

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CRM programs, the problems/issues encountered, and their proposed solutions. Supplementary information was gathered through probing questions. Informal interviews were also done through focused group discussions using guide questions. The data gathered were tallied, analyzed, and interpreted. Frequency counts, percentages, weighted mean and ranking were used for the descriptive analysis.

ResUlts

socio-economic Profile of the respondents

Majority of the respondents from the four barangays were male and married. The average age was 38 in Arnedo, 40 in Balingasay and Binabalian and 39 in Victory. In terms of educational attainment, less than half in Arnedo (45.61%), Balingasay (43.33%), Binabalian (40.74%) and in Victory (27%) have their elementary education. Only 21.05 percent in Arnedo, 21.67 percent in Balingasay, 20.99 percent in Binabalian and 11.11 percent in Victory have completed their secondary education. Very few have reached the college level. In all the four barangays, the respondents depend on fishing as their major source of living. Their average number of children was four or they have six household members on the average. The mean monthly income of the respondents in Arnedo was only PhP 3,245.61, while PhP 2,995.61 was in Balingasay, PhP 1,859.65 in Binabalian and only PhP 1,241.23 in Victory. These results indicate that the respondents from the coastal areas live below the poverty line and have very low educational attainment. This result conformed with findings of an earlier study by Hilomen and Jimenez (2001) in the Lingayen gulf, which revealed that the low educational attainment of the fishermen was a factor that caused the meager average income of PhP 3,000.00 per month.

For fishing facilities, the results show that there were 13 types of fishing gears operated by the respondents in their coastal areas (Table 2). Of these fishing gears, hook and line topped the list (45.61%) in Arnedo, 23.33% in Balingasay, and 72.22% in Victory. Spear gun topped the gears (25.93%) in Binabalian. Multiple handline, spear gun, compressor with net, drift gill net, fish net, trawl, petromax, bottom set gill net, tuna drift gill net, beach seine net, ring net and sky lab were also used by the respondents in fishing. Skylab were the least used. The motorized boat was the next popular fishing

149



Tabl

e 2.

Fish

ing

faci

litie

s of

resp

onde

nts

in th

e fo

ur b

aran

gays

of B

olin

ao, P

anga

sina

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seho

ld

Arn

edo

Ba

linga

say

Bi

naba

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Vic

tory

Gea

rs

ƒ %

ƒ %

ƒ %

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Fish

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rs*

M

ultip

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andl

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38

33.3

3

19

14.1

7

7 8.

64

12

33

.33

D

rift

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Net

11

9.65

4 3.

33

1

1.23

6 16

.67

H

ook

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52

45

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28

23

.33

11

13

.58

26

72

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T

una

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ft G

ill N

et

3 2.

63

1

0.83

0 0.

00

2

5.56

B

ottom

set

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net

6

5.26

2 1.

67

0

0.00

4 11

.11

B

each

Sei

ne n

et

3 2.

63

1

0.83

0 0.

00

2

5.56

R

ing

Net

3 2.

63

1

0.83

0 0.

00

2

5.56

C

ompr

esso

r with

net

9

7.89

11

9.17

5 6.

17

0

0.00

F

ish

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8

7.02

5 4.

17

3

3.70

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33

Spe

ar g

un

7

6.14

24

20.0

0

21

25.9

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2 5.

56

Petr

omax

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ht fi

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4 3.

51

7

5.83

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41

0

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T

raw

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51

3

2.50

2 2.

47

2

5.56

S

ky la

b

2 1.

75

1

0.83

1 1.

23

0

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Boat

Mot

oriz

ed

10

3 90

.35

68

56

.67

34

41

.98

34

94

.44

N

on-m

otor

ized

2

1.75

42

35.0

0

42

51.8

5

0 0.

00

Non

e

9

7.89

10

8.33

6 7.

41

2

5.56

150



transport. Table 2 shows that among the respondents, 90.35% in Arnedo, 56.67% in Balingasay, 41.98% in Binabalian and 94.44% of the respondents in Victory were operating motorized boats and 1.75% in Arnedo, 35% in Balingasay and 51.85% in Binabalian used non-motorized boats. These findings indicate that most fishermen used passive type of gears rather than active gears. The higher number of hook and line operators may be attributed to the lower cost and easy operation. Silvestre and Hilomen (2004) noted that hook and line was the second commonly used gear in the Lingayen Gulf, accounting to 12.21%.The use of motorized banca in the coastal area is an advantage to fishermen to have higher catch. The higher number of motorized banca may be linked to the fisherman’s priorities. Since fishing is the major source of living, the purchase of motor engine is one of the top priorities aside from the gear. This is similar to the findings of Mcglone and Villanoy (2001) where there was a higher number of motorized banca operating in the Lingayen Gulf rather than non-motorized ones.

Coastal Resource Management Programs

The municipality of Bolinao established several programs and projects in order to manage its coastal resources. Some of these are found in Barangay Arnedo, Balingasay, Binabalian, and Victory where marine areas are protected and mangroves are managed by the LGU and NGOs or people’s organizations (Table 3).

Barangay Balingasay has 14.77 hectares of marine protected area (launched in 1998); Victory has 4.8 hectares (since 2002) while Arnedo has 19.47 hectares (since 2004). The newest of the four study areas is the 10.8 hectares in Binabalian which started in 2006 (Figure 1).

Community-based mangrove conservation projects were also observed in the four barangays. The mangrove management area in Arnedo with 8.65 hectares started in 2004 whereas the 8.8 hectares in Binabalian commenced in 2004. The widest mangrove management area is 15 hectares located in Victory (started in 1999). Meanwhile, mangrove conservation also naturally occurs along Balingasay River (Figure 1).

Marine protected areas and mangrove management areas in these barangays are part of the coastal resource management programs implemented by the local government units. These were established to bring back the integrity of the coastal resources that were degraded since the Lingayen Gulf was declared an environmentally critical

151



area. The marine protected areas were established as “no take” zone—fishing and other activities are prohibited to ensure species replenishment in the area.

Table 3.

Coastal resource Management Programs in arnedo, Balingasay, Binabalian, and Victory Bolinao, Pangasinan.

Programs Activities In-Charge of Management

Mangrove - Mangrove planting LGUPlanting and - Coastal clean-up KAISAKA FederationManagement - Nursery development SAPA and management SAMMABAL - Replenishment and SAMMABI planting SMMV - Monitoring and evaluation - Patrolling and protection

Marine - Planning workshops LGUProtected and consultations KAISAKA FederationAreas - Guarding and SAPA patrolling in SAMMABAL cooperation with the SAMMABI community SMMV - Deputized “bantaydagat” - Regular monitoring

Figure 1. Marine protected areas and mangrove management areas in Bolinao, Pangasinan.

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Information campaigns and consultation with the community are regularly done to ensure the progress of the program. Guarding and patrolling in the form of deputizing “bantaydagat” are included in the activities in the area.

In the mangrove management areas, additional activities included nursery development, replenishment and planting of mangroves, coastal clean-up, monitoring and evaluation as well as patrolling and protection. These activities were supported by the local government units through the leadership of the municipal mayor and its staff in-charge in cooperation with the people’s organization. The allotted budget for all the coastal resource management programs for the coastal areas of Bolinao was PhP 1,105,000 in 2009 and PhP 500,000 in 2010.

All of these programs were launched and managed by the local government units (LGUs) in partnership with the people’s organization (PO), the Kaisahan ng mga Samahan Alay sa Kalikasan, Inc. (KAISAKA) Federation. Management of these projects was specifically given to the member organizations of the KAISAKA in every barangay. These members are the “Samahang Pangkalikasang Arnedo” (SAPA) in Barangay Arnedo, “Samahan ng mga Mangingisda at Mamamayan ng Balingasay” (SAMMABAL) in Barangay Balingasay, “Samahan ng Mangingisda at Mamamayan ng Binabalian” (SAMMABI) in Barangay Binabalian and “Samahan ng Maliliit na Mangingisdang Victory” (SMMV) in Barangay Victory.

issues and Problems in Coastal Areas

The eight issues and problems along the coastal areas of Bolinao, Pangasinan (Table 4) were ranked by the respondents from 1 to 7 as to its seriousness where 1—in this case, low catch—is considered to be the most serious issue/problem while No. 7 was considered the least serious. Bolinao, being regarded as an environmentally critical area, suffers from the degradation of fish catch. With the establishment of the “no take zone,” the area for fishing was reduced, thereby limiting the catch for the fisherfolk.

Causes of the identified issues and Problems in Coastal areas

The low catch (Table 5) was caused by overfishing in the municipal

153



waters (82.34%), illegal fishing (52.71%), influx of transient fisherfolk (38.46%), and increasing number of fisherfolk (34.47%). The continuous illegal fishing within the municipal waters of Bolinao, Pangasinan resulted in the rapid depletion of fish stock and the destruction of the coastal and marine resources. These caused the low catch and poverty in the area. This was also the problem of the whole Lingayen Gulf as stated by White and Cruz-Trinidad (2000) and Domingo (2001).As to the poverty problem, four causes were identified: low income (86.89%), low educational attainment (75.50%), lack of employment opportunities (47.01%), and high population growth rate (37.61%). Poverty is a major problem particularly in the coastal areas of Bolinao. This was also found by Domingo (2001), who claimed that residents in fishing villages had an average monthly income of PhP 2,658.00, way below the poverty threshold of PhP 6,195.00 for a family of five to survive (NSCB, 2007). The residents as well as the labor force could not be gainfully employed due to low educational attainment. On the other hand, overfishing was mainly caused by poverty (81.2%). This was followed by high dependence on fishing as primary source of income (47.86%), continuous increase of fishing efforts (38.46%) and weak fishery law enforcement (15.95%).

People continue to resort to overfishing because they have no other source of income. Whatever law is enforced, implementation is always difficult if the stomach is empty. Moreover, illegal fishing is mainly caused by poverty (92.59%). Other causes were limited number of “bantay dagat” law enforcers/volunteers (85.47%) and lack of alternative livelihood (81.20%). One reason for the use of fishing methods destructive to fish populations and habitats is the “cost efficiency” of these methods. Dynamite fishers are known to

Table 4.

issues and Problems of the respondents in the Coastal areas of Bolinao, Pangasinan.

Issues and Problems Rank

Low Catch 1Poverty 2Overfishing 3Illegal Fishing 4Pollution 5Squatting 6Waste Disposal/Climate Change 7

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Table 5.

Causes of identified issues and Problems in the Coastal areas of Bolinao, Pangasinan.

Isssues and Problems Identified Causes ƒ %

Low catch 1. Overfishing in the municipal waters 289 82.34 2. Illegal fishing 185 52.71 3. Influx of transient fishermen 135 38.46 4. Increasing number of fishermen 121 34.47

Poverty 1. Low income 305 86.89 2. Low educational attainment 265 75.50 3. Lack of employment opportunities 165 47.01 4. High population growth rate 132 37.61

Overfishing 1. Poverty 285 81.20 2. High dependence on fishing as primary source of income 168 47.86 3. Continuous increase of fishing efforts 135 38.46 4. Weak fishery law enforcement 56 15.95

Illegal fishing 1. Poverty 325 92.59 2. Limited number of Bantay Dagat law enforcers/volunteers 300 85.47 3. Lack of alternative livelihood 285 81.20

Pollution 1. Excess feeding and fecal matters from mariculture operation 175 49.86 2. Improper disposal of industrial and domestic wastes 155 44.16

Squatting 1. No housing facilities 254 72.36 2. Increasing number of coastal immigrants 135 38.46 3. Population growth 125 35.61

Waste Disposal 1. Lack of discipline among the residents in disposing wastes 256 72.93 2. Lack of information on solid waste management implemented by the LGU 138 39.32

Climate Change 1. Lack of discipline among the residents in waste management 155 44.16 2. Continuous burning of wastes 135 38.46

155



spend shorter working hours with a maximum of eight hours at sea compared to bottom sea gill net and dredge net fishers who work 12 hours or more. Thus, short term financial profitability and labor productivity are relatively higher for dynamite fishers.

On the pollution problem, excessive feeding and fecal matter from mariculture operation could cause pollution (49.86%). Also, improper disposal of industrial and domestic waste was pinpointed by 44.16% of the respondents as cause of pollution. All development activities contribute to coastal marine pollution. People all over the world have long thought of the ocean as vast and limitless. As a result, the ocean has been used as a dumping ground for all kinds of waste-hazardous waste, sewage, and solid waste. Uncontrolled population growth and increasing urbanization and industrialization have overwhelmed the capacity of the ocean and coastal waters to dilute and disperse this growing volume of wastes. Furthermore, urban and industrial pollutants such as heavy metals, petrochemicals, sediments, sewage and solid waste have degraded the country’s coastal waters, impacting the health of coral reefs, fisheries and the communities that depend on them (DENR et al., 2001).Squatting along the coastal areas is caused by absence of housing facilities (72.36%), increasing number of coastal immigrants (38.46%), and population growth (35.61%).

On waste disposal, the main causes identified were lack of discipline among the residents in disposing wastes (72.93%) and lack of information on solid waste management implemented by the LGU (39.32%). Solid waste, though managed by the local government units, still contributes to the problems in the coastal areas.

solutions to the identified issues and Problems in Coastal areas

Solutions recommended by the respondents to the issues and problems in Bolinao coastal areas (Table 6) are resource rehabilitation program (85.75%) and controlled fishing (92.59%). Poverty could be solved if there are employment (84.05%) opportunities for all and livelihood (72.93%) programs. To avoid overfishing, effective enforcement of fishery laws (16.52%) and alternative livelihood (69.80%) were also recommended. On the other hand, squatting could be resolved if housing programs (56.41%) are offered to the residents and the development of the coastal area as eco-tourism zone (16.24%) is done.

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Table 6.

Recommended solutions to the issues and Problems in Bolinao Coastal Areas.

Isssues and Problems Identified Causes ƒ %

Low Catch 1. Resource rehabilitation programs 301 85.75 2. Controlled fishing 325 92.59

Poverty 1. Employment 295 84.05 2. Livelihood programs 256 72.93

Overfishing 1. Effective enforcement of fishery laws 58 16.52 2. Alternative livelihood 245 69.80

Illegal Fishing 1. Strict enforcement of fishery laws 167 47.58 2. IEC campaign 120 34.19

Pollution 1. Cleaning of coastal area 190 54.13 2. Regulation of mariculture operations 135 38.46

Squatting 1. Housing programs for squatters 198 56.41 2. Development of coastal areas for eco-tourism 57 16.24

Waste Disposal 1. Implementation of Solid Waste Management program 143 40.74 2. Solid waste management to lessen climate change impacts 132 37.61 3. IEC campaign 123 35.04

Meanwhile, waste disposal could be minimized if the solid waste management programs are implemented (40.74%); the same program can also help lessen the impact of climate change (37.61%). Proper knowledge through IEC (35.04%) campaign on solid waste management could minimize problems on waste disposal in the coastal areas.

awareness levels of respondents and Their Perceived implementation levels of CrM related activities and Projects.

A study of the awareness of respondents and their perceived implementation levels on the information, education and

157



communication program for CRM programs in Bolinao (Table 7) showed that respondents are moderately aware of the implementation of this program. This awareness was due in part to the distribution of pamphlets like the “Gabay hinggil sa pagpapatupad ng batas ng sanktuwaryo” (2.72) and pamphlets for ecologically friendly aquaculture (1.88) and RA 8550 (1.82). The respondents were aware of the posters posted on fish sanctuary (2.7) and on human activities that affect the coastal zone. In trainings and seminars, respondents claimed to be moderately aware of the training programs on mangrove plantations and nursery project (1.92) and trainings on the fish sanctuary establishment and management (1.99). According to the perceptions of respondents: these were moderately implemented (2.09 and 2.19), respectively. For the training programs on solid waste management (1.84) and environmental governance (1.79), majority were not aware but were perceived to be moderately implemented (2.10 and 2.13), respectively.

Also, respondents were aware of the public hearings on the establishment of sanctuary and management (2.94) and the consultation and planning for mangrove reforestation (2.72). These were rated 2.83 and 2.86, respectively in their perceptions on implementation level. However, on the conduct of school orientation programs on CRM, respondents claimed to be moderately aware (2.26) of the program. Thus, this was rated also to be moderately implemented (2.45).

Overall, the rating for the awareness of the respondents on the information, communication and education programs for CRM in Bolinao was 2.26—moderate in awareness—while in the perceived level of implementation of the programs it was rated to be moderately implemented (2.25).

The awareness levels of respondents and their perceived implementation levels of the CRM programs in Bolinao (Table 8) shows that the respondents were aware of the coastal resource management programs in Bolinao, Pangasinan. In terms of resource rehabilitation, protection and enhancement, respondents were aware of the establishment of mangrove reforestation (2.78) and its implementation (3.17) while mangrove nursery (3.43) was perceived to be moderately implemented (2.53). Also, respondents were aware of the establishment of the marine fish sanctuary and rated it as well implemented (3.45). They were moderately aware of the establishment of mangrove reserve and deployment of artificial reef. Overall the conduct of resource monitoring and evaluation

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C. T

rain

ings

and

sem

inar

s

1

. Tra

inin

gs a

nd s

emin

ars

on m

angr

ove

plan

tatio

n an

d nu

rser

y pr

ojec

t 1.

92

MA

2.09

M

I

2. T

rain

ings

and

sem

inar

s abo

ut fi

sh sa

nctu

ary

esta

blish

men

t and

man

agem

ent

1.99

M

A

2.

29

MI

3

. Tra

inin

gs a

nd s

emin

ars

on s

olid

was

te m

anag

emen

t

1.

84

MA

2.09

M

I

4. T

rain

ings

and

sem

inar

s on

env

iron

men

tal g

over

nanc

e

1.

79

NA

2.13

M

ID

. Con

duct

of d

ialo

gues

1

. Pub

lic h

eari

ng o

n fis

h sa

nctu

ary

esta

blis

hmen

t and

man

agem

ent

2.

94

A

2.

83

I

2. C

onsu

ltatio

n an

d pl

anni

ng o

n m

angr

ove

refo

rest

atio

n pr

ojec

ts

2.

72

A

2.

86

IE.

Con

duct

of s

choo

l ori

enta

tion

prog

ram

s

2.

12

MA

1.91

M

I

Ove

rall

Rat

ing

2.

26

MA

2.25

M

I

Lege

nd:

1.00

-1.8

0 - N

ot A

war

e (N

A)

1.00

-1.8

0 - N

ot Im

plem

ente

d (N

I)1.

81-2

.60

- Mod

erat

ely

Aw

are

(MA

)

1.81

-2.6

0 - M

oder

atel

y Im

plem

ente

d (M

I)2.

61-3

.40

- Aw

are

(A)

2.61

-3.4

0 - I

mpl

emen

ted

(I)3.

41-4

.20

- Muc

h A

war

e (M

cA)

3.

41-4

.20

- Wel

l Im

plem

ente

d (W

I)4.

21-5

.00

- Ver

y M

uch

Aw

are

(VM

A)

4.

21-5

.00

- Ful

ly Im

plem

ente

d (F

I)

159



Tabl

e 8.

awar

enes

s le

vels

of

res

pond

ents

and

The

ir Pe

rcei

ved

impl

emen

tatio

n le

vels

of

impl

emen

tatio

n on

the

Cr

M P

rogr

ams

in

Bol

inao

Aw

aren

ess

I

mpl

emen

tatio

nC

oast

al R

esou

rce

Man

agem

ent

Prog

ram

s

M

ean

Des

crip

tive

Mea

n D

escr

iptiv

e

Rat

ing

Rat

ing

R

atin

g R

atin

g

A. R

esou

rce

reha

bilit

atio

n, p

rote

ctio

n, a

nd e

nhan

cem

ent

1

. Est

ablis

hmen

t of m

angr

ove

refo

rest

atio

n

2.

78

A

3.

17

I

2. E

stab

lishm

ent o

f man

grov

e nu

rser

y

3.

43

A

2.

53

MI

3

. Est

ablis

hmen

t of m

angr

ove

rese

rve

2.05

M

A

2.

53

I

4. E

stab

lishm

ent o

f fish

san

ctua

ry

3.01

A

3.45

W

I

5. D

eplo

ymen

t/ins

talla

tion

of a

rtifi

cial

reef

s

2.48

M

A

2.

38

MI

B. C

ondu

ct o

f res

ourc

e m

onito

ring

and

eva

luat

ion

1

. Con

duct

of p

artic

ipat

ory

coas

tal r

esou

rce

asse

ssm

ent

2.30

M

A

2.

14

MI

2

. Con

duct

of r

apid

reso

urce

app

rais

al

2.16

M

A

2.

09

MI

3

. Con

duct

of r

esou

rce

ecol

ogic

al a

sses

smen

t

2.12

M

A

2.

08

MI

C. I

mpl

emen

tatio

n of

was

te m

anag

emen

t

1. C

ondu

ct o

f bar

anga

y co

asta

l cle

an-u

p

3.

18

A

3.

24

I

2. I

mpl

emen

tatio

n of

sol

id w

aste

man

agem

ent p

lan

3.11

A

2.84

I

Ove

rall

Rat

ing

2.

66

A

2.

66

I

Lege

nd:

1.00

-1.8

0 - N

ot A

war

e

1.

00-1

.80

- Not

Impl

emen

ted

(NI)

1.81

-2.6

0 - M

oder

atel

y A

war

e (M

A)

1.

81-2

.60

- Mod

erat

ely

Impl

emen

ted

(MI)

2.61

-3.4

0 - A

war

e (A

)

2.

61-3

.40

- Im

plem

ente

d (I)

3.41

-4.2

0 - M

uch

Aw

are

(McA

)

3.41

-4.2

0 - W

ell I

mpl

emen

ted

(WI)

4.21

-5.0

0 - V

ery

Muc

h A

war

e (V

MA

)

4.21

-5.0

0 - F

ully

Impl

emen

ted

(FI)

160



obtained moderate awareness from the respondents while the perceived implementation levels on the conduct of participatory coastal resource assessment (2.14), rapid resource appraisal (2.09) and resource ecological assessment (2.08) got ratings of moderate implementation.

In the implementation of waste management, the respondents were aware of the conduct of coastal clean-up (3.18) and solid waste management plan (3.11) while they rated these as 3.24 and 2.84, respectively in terms of perceived level of implementation, meaning that waste management programs were being implemented in Bolinao. Overall, the awareness of the respondents on the coastal resource management programs was 2.66 (aware) and their rate of implementation was 2.66 (implemented).

The awareness of respondents and rate of implementation on the fisheries and coastal resource management legislations and regulations (Table 9) seems to show plain recognition of the existence of these laws. Legislations, laws or rules on CRM showed little effect on the awareness of the respondents as most of them were moderately aware of the R.A. 8550, Ecological Solid Waste Management Act (R.A. 9003), (1.94), Clean Water Act (R.A. 9275), (1.89) and Code of Practice for Aquaculture (FAO 214) (1.86). All these were rated to have moderate implementation. Seemingly the respondents did not feel the impacts of these laws in their life. This could be the reason for its low rating of implementation. As for the regulations (Table 9), respondents were aware of the registration of municipal fisher folk (2.63) and inventory and monitoring of fishing structure and fishponds (2.82). On fisheries licensing, the respondents claimed to be well aware (3.18). All of these were rated as moderately implemented.

In terms of law enforcement, respondents were aware of the conduct of seaborne patrol operations (2.69), establishment of community-based enforcement (2.66), conduct of surveillance and operation and coming–up with master list of suspected illegal fishers (2.90), presence of bantay dagat volunteers and fish warden (2.95), provision of incentives to active law enforcers (2.68) and strengthening of Barangay Fisheries and Aquatic Resource Management Council (BFARMC) (2.73). All of these rules, regulations and law enforcement activities were rated as moderately implemented by the local government units.

161



Tabl

e 9.

awar

enes

s le

vels

of

res

pond

ents

and

The

ir Pe

rcei

ved

impl

emen

tatio

n le

vels

on

the

Fish

erie

s an

d C

oast

al r

esou

rce

Man

agem

ent l

egis

latio

ns a

nd R

egul

atio

ns in

Bol

inao

A

war

enes

s

I

mpl

emen

tatio

nFi

sher

ies

and

Coa

stal

Res

ourc

e M

anag

emen

t Leg

isla

tions

and

Reg

ulat

ions

M

ean

Des

crip

tive

Mea

n D

escr

iptiv

e

Rat

ing

Rat

ing

R

atin

g R

atin

g

A. L

egis

latio

ns/la

ws/

rule

s

1. R

.A. 8

550

1.

91

MA

1.94

M

I

2. E

colo

gica

l Sol

id W

aste

Man

agem

ent A

ct (R

.A. 9

003)

1.

91

MA

1.89

M

I

3. C

lean

Wat

er A

ct (R

.A. 9

275)

2.06

M

A

1.

88

MI

4

. Cod

e of

Pra

ctic

e fo

r Aqu

acul

ture

(FA

O 2

14)

2.

13

MA

1.86

M

IB.

Reg

ulat

ion

1. R

egis

trat

ion

of m

unic

ipal

fish

erfo

lks

2.63

A

2.60

M

I

2. I

nven

tory

and

mon

itori

ng o

f fish

ing

stru

ctur

e an

d fis

hpon

ds

2.

82

A

2.

23

MI

3

. Fis

heri

es li

cens

ing

3.18

M

A

2.

61

IC

. Law

enf

orce

men

t

1

. Con

duct

of s

eabo

rne

patr

ol o

pera

tions

2.

69

A

2.

47

MI

2

. Est

ablis

hmen

t of c

omm

unity

-bas

ed e

nfor

cem

ent

2.

66

A

2.

46

MI

3

. Con

duct

of s

urve

illan

ce a

nd o

pera

tion

and

com

ing

up w

ith m

aste

rlis

t

s

uspe

cted

ille

gal fi

sher

s

2.90

A

2.39

M

I

4. P

rese

nce

of B

anta

y D

agat

vol

unte

ers

and

fish

war

den

2.95

A

2.40

M

I

5. P

rovi

sion

of i

ncen

tives

to a

ctiv

e la

w e

nfor

cers

2.68

A

2.29

M

I

6. S

tren

gthe

ning

of B

aran

gay

Fish

erie

s an

d A

quat

ic R

esou

rce

Man

agem

ent C

ounc

il (B

FARM

C)

2.73

A

2.32

M

I

Ove

rall

Rat

ing

2.55

M

A

2.

3 M

I

Lege

nd:

1.00

-1.8

0 - N

ot A

war

e

1.

00-1

.80

- Not

Impl

emen

ted

(NI)

1.81

-2.6

0 - M

oder

atel

y A

war

e (M

A)

1.

81-2

.60

- Mod

erat

ely

Impl

emen

ted

(MI)

2.61

-3.4

0 - A

war

e (A

)

2.

61-3

.40

- Im

plem

ente

d (I)

3.41

-4.2

0 - M

uch

Aw

are

(McA

)

3.41

-4.2

0 - W

ell I

mpl

emen

ted

(WI)

4.21

-5.0

0 - V

ery

Muc

h A

war

e (V

MA

)

4.21

-5.0

0 - F

ully

Impl

emen

ted

(FI)

162



ble

10.

Perc

eive

d le

vel o

f Com

mun

ity in

volv

emen

t in

the

impl

emen

tatio

n of

the

Cr

M P

rogr

ams.

Var

iabl

es

Mea

n D

escr

iptiv

e

R

atin

g R

atin

g

1. T

he c

omm

unity

mem

bers

org

aniz

e th

emse

lves

into

an

orga

niza

tion

as p

artn

er in

coa

stal

reso

urce

man

agem

ent

2.88

O

C2.

The

com

mun

ity a

ssis

ts in

the

plan

ning

of t

rain

ing

and

plan

s to

pro

tect

the

coas

tal r

esou

rces

2.87

O

C3.

The

org

aniz

atio

ns in

the

com

mun

ity a

ctiv

ely

part

icip

ate

in th

e pr

otec

tion

and

cons

erva

tion

of th

eir

c

oast

al re

sour

ces

2.

78

OC

4. T

he c

omm

unity

mem

bers

ass

ist i

n th

e fo

rmul

atio

n of

coa

stal

reso

urce

man

agem

ent o

rdin

ance

s

2.53

S

5. T

he c

omm

unity

mem

bers

str

ictly

follo

w th

e fis

hery

law

s, ru

les

and

regu

latio

ns e

nfor

ced

by th

e LG

U

2.64

O

C6.

The

you

th a

nd w

omen

in th

e co

mm

unity

par

ticip

ate

in th

e m

anag

emen

t of c

oast

al re

sour

ces

2.

40

S7.

Com

mun

ity m

embe

rs a

ssist

in th

e m

obili

zatio

n of

wor

kgro

ups t

o im

plem

ent t

he p

lans

and

pro

gram

s in

CRM

2.

48

S8.

The

fish

er fo

lks

and

com

mun

ity m

embe

rs a

ssis

t in

the

sour

cing

of l

ocal

and

ext

erna

l fina

ncia

l and

tech

nica

l ass

ista

nce

to b

e us

ed in

the

man

agem

ent o

f coa

stal

reso

urce

s

2.56

S

9. T

he co

mm

unity

mem

bers

will

ingl

y re

port

to th

e co

ncer

ned

auth

oriti

es il

lega

l fish

ing

activ

ities

in th

eir a

rea

2.62

O

C10

. The

com

mun

ity m

embe

rs a

ssis

t in

the

mon

itori

ng o

f fish

ing

rela

ted

activ

ities

in th

e ar

ea

2.

72

OC

Ove

rall

Rat

ing

2.

65

OC

Lege

nd:

1.00

-1.8

0 - N

ever

(N)

1.81

-2.6

0 - S

eldo

m (S

)2.

61-3

.40

- Occ

asio

nal (

OC

) 3.

41-4

.20

- Alw

ays

(A)

4.21

-5.0

0 - O

ften

(O)

163



Perceived level of Community involvement in the Coastal resource Management Program implementation

The overall rating of the respondents’ perception on the community involvement in the implementation of the coastal resource management programs in Bolinao, Pangasinan (Table 10) showed that the members of the community occasionally participate and involve themselves in organizing themselves as partners in coastal resource management. Plans for training and to protect the coastal resources (2.87), protection and conservation of their coastal resources (2.78) and monitoring of fishing related activities in the area (2.72) were also rated as occasional.

Their involvement and participation on the formulation of coastal resource management ordinances (2.53) was seldom. Similarly, participation of youth and women in the community in the management of coastal resources (2.40), assistance in the mobilization of workgroups to implement the plans and programs in CRM (2.48), sourcing of local and external financial and technical assistance to be used in the management of coastal resources (2.56) were also seldom. As such, the overall community participation and involvement in coastal resource management were occasional (2.65).Occasional participation of the people in coastal resource management contributed to the low effectiveness of the program. Since, the program requires people’s cooperation towards its success, the program must get the people’ support; otherwise it will likely fail. Therefore, the government should cater to the needs of the people, particularly in the augmentation of their livelihood, for them to participate in the CRM programs of the government.

Perceived government intervention

The government intervention in the implementation of coastal resource management (Table 11) was also occasional. Government interventions were also rated as occasional participation. These were in the preparation and approval of barangay ordinances on CRM (2.72), preparation and approval of the Local Government Unit (LGU) municipal ordinances in CRM (2.82), extension of necessary assistance from the national government agencies for necessary technical and financial assistance to the LGU’s in CRM project implementation (2.69), and strict enforcement of the fishery and CRM laws, rules, and

164



ble

11.

Perc

eive

d g

over

nmen

t int

erve

ntio

n in

Coa

stal

Res

ourc

e M

anag

emen

t.

Var

iabl

es

Mea

n D

escr

iptiv

e

R

atin

g R

atin

g

1. T

he b

aran

gay

coun

cil p

repa

red

and

appr

oved

bar

anga

y or

dina

nces

on

CRM

2.72

O

C2.

The

Loc

al G

over

nmen

t Uni

t (LG

U) p

repa

red

and

appr

oved

mun

icip

al o

rdin

ance

s in

CRM

2.82

O

C3.

The

pro

vinc

ial g

over

nmen

t act

ivel

y in

volv

ed in

the

prep

arat

ion

of C

RM p

lans

and

impl

emen

tatio

n in

the

prov

ince

2.

31

S4.

The

Nat

iona

l Gov

ernm

ent a

genc

ies

have

ext

ende

d th

e ne

cess

ary

tech

nica

l and

fina

ncia

l ass

ista

nce

to

the

LGU

’s in

CRM

pro

ject

impl

emen

tatio

n

2.

69

OC

5. T

he L

GU

str

ictly

enf

orce

the

fishe

ry a

nd C

RM la

ws,

rule

s, a

nd re

gula

tions

in th

e co

asta

l are

a

2.88

O

C6.

The

gov

ernm

ent r

evie

wed

and

upd

ated

pla

ns a

nd p

rogr

ams

to fu

rthe

r im

prov

e th

e m

anag

emen

t of

c

oast

al re

sour

ces

2.

59

S

Ove

rall

Rat

ing

2.67

O

C

Lege

nd:

1.00

-1.8

0 - N

ever

(N)

1.

81-2

.60

- Sel

dom

(S)

2.61

-3.4

0 - O

ccas

iona

l (O

C)

3.41

-4.2

0 - A

lway

s (A

)4.

21-5

.0

- Ofte

n (O

)

165



regulations in the coastal area (2.88). According to the respondents, the government seldom reviewed

and updated plans and programs to further improve the management of coastal resources (2.59); active involvement of the provincial government in the preparation of CRM plans and implementation (2.31) were also seldom. Overall, the rating on the government interventions for the coastal resource management in Bolinao was 2.67 (described as occasional). According to the respondents, government interventions were occasional, meaning that the people did feel the presence of the government in the implementation of the programs. This can be attributed to their lack of awareness as well as their occasional participation in government programs. This implies that cooperation between the government and the people is a requisite for a program to succeed.

Perceived intervention of the nGo, academic and research institutions in Coastal resource Management of Bolinao, Pangasinan

The intervention of the NGO, academic and research institutions in coastal resource management of Bolinao, Pangasinan was rated as seldom (Table 12). The respondents stated that there was seldom intervention in all the categories assessed. Empowerment of NGOs/SUCs to the community members through training and capability building was rated 1.99, assistance of the community members to organize themselves into associations was 1.98, information, education and communication (IEC) materials from NGOs and SUCs for advocacy and networking for coastal community organizations was rated 2.03.The conduct of research and development programs relevant to the present needs of the coastal communities was rated 2.00. The close working relationship of the NGOs/SUCs with the LGUs in implementing CRM activities was rated 1.99; the assistance of the NGOs/SUCs to the coastal communities in finding viable alternative livelihood projects, and so on was given a rating of 2.00 and the NGOs as a go-between or as a chaperon to community leaders also obtained a rating of 2.00.

The local governments of Bolinao have established partnership with supporting agencies and organizations in order to implement the CRM programs. These include the Kaisahan ng mga Samahan Alay sa Kalikasan Inc. (KAISAKA, Inc), Bolinao Marine Ecological

166



Fund Foundation Inc. (BOMEFFI), UP-Marine Science Institute and MERF, HARIBON Foundation, UP College of Social Work and Community Development, Foundation for Philippine Environment, United Nations Development Program, Royal Netherlands Embassy, United Nations Environment Programme-Global Environment Facility, Philippine Tropical Forest Conservation Foundation Inc., Asian Social Institute, Glaxo-Smith and Kline, Pangasinan State University-Institute of Environmental Governance, DA-BFAR, DENR, DILG, DOST, OPAg ,PNP, PCG and other line agencies. However, even with the presence of these partner agencies, people still rated their intervention in the CRM programs as seldom. This could be attributed maybe to the non-participation of people in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the projects; hence, people did not understand the purpose, outputs, and benefits of the projects.

disCUssiON

Marine protected areas and mangrove management areas in the four coastal barangays are part of the coastal resource management programs implemented by the local government units. These were established to bring back the integrity of the coastal resources that were degraded since the Lingayen gulf was declared to be an environmentally critical area. The marine protected areas were established to be a “no take” zone where fishing and other activities are prohibited to ensure the freedom of the species to replenish in the area. Regular consultation with the community and information campaigns are being done to ensure the progress of the program. Guarding and patrolling have been included in the activities in the areas in the form of deputizing “bantay dagat.”

Ranking first in the problems of the respondents was low catch, followed by poverty, overfishing, illegal fishing, pollution, squatting, waste disposal and climate change. Bolinao, regarded as an environmentally critical area, suffers from the degradation of fish catch. With the establishment of the “no take zone,” the area for fishing was reduced thereby limiting the catch for the fisherfolk. Although the goal of the “ no take zone” is to increase the fish species in the future and provide a breeding ground expected to spill over to the fishing areas and increasing their catch, this goal has not been realized up to this date because the effectiveness of MPAs is still in

167


a.r.d. tEÑoso & a.M. Paz-alBErtoTa

ble

12.

Perc

eive

d in

terv

entio

n of

the

nG

o,

aca

dem

ic,

and

res

earc

h in

stitu

tions

in

Coa

stal

res

ourc

e M

anag

emen

t of

Bol

inao

, Pa

ngas

inan

.

Var

iabl

es

Mea

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168



question. Aside from this, poverty still remains together with the increasing population that needs to eat and survive. Therefore, the MPAs are difficult to manage and protect because people would still continue to find a way to live today and disregard the future.

This is true in the whole Lingayen Gulf. According to Domingo (2001), illegal fishing, overfishing and pollution are the three major problems of the fishery resources of the Lingayen Gulf, and there are several socio-economic and institutional-related causes that are attributed to these problems. The continuous illegal fishing within the municipal waters of Bolinao, Pangasinan has resulted in the rapid depletion of fish stocks and the destruction of the coastal and marine resources. These caused the low catch and poverty in the area. This was also the problem of the whole Lingayen Gulf as stated by White and Cruz-Trinidad (2000) and Domingo (2001). People would continue to resort to overfishing because they have no other source of income. Whatever law is enforced, implementation would always be difficult if the stomach is empty. One reason for the use of fishing methods destructive to fish populations and habitats is the “cost efficiency” of these methods. Dynamite fishers are known to spend shorter working hours with a maximum of eight hours at sea compared to bottom sea gill net and dredge net fishers who work 12 hours or more. Thus, short term financial profitability and labor productivity are relatively higher for dynamite fishers. Low catch and poverty are the main reasons why people continue to overfish and neglect any coastal resource management. Implementation of any CRM program would be very difficult if people continue to live without subsistence. No one would want to cooperate and they would still prioritize how to live and survive at whatever cost.

All development activities contribute to coastal marine pollution. People all over the world have long thought of the ocean as vast and limitless. As a result, the ocean has been used as a dumping ground for all kinds of waste—hazardous waste, sewage and solid waste. Uncontrolled population growth and increasing urbanization and industrialization have overwhelmed the capacity of the ocean and coastal waters to dilute and disperse this growing volume of wastes. Furthermore, urban and industrial pollutants such as heavy metals, petrochemicals, sediments, sewage and solid waste have degraded the country’s coastal waters, impacting the health of coral reefs and fisheries and the communities that depend on them (DENR et al., 2001). The respondents recommended resource rehabilitation program (85.75%) and controlled fishing (92.59%) as a solution to the

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low catch. Poverty can be solved if there are employment (84.05%) opportunities for all and livelihood (72.93%) programs. To avoid overfishing, effective enforcement of fishery laws (16.52%) and alternative livelihood (69.80%) were also recommended.

Rehabilitation of degraded habitats to improve fish stocks and fisheries yields is a priority. Philippine fisheries are now being fished to their limit, yet there are sufficient laws that provide a policy and regulatory framework for use, access, and allocation of resources. However, law enforcement has been ineffective and this should be taken into account. Therefore, improving local livelihoods for communities in coastal areas is closely linked to building a base for a more sustainable management of coastal and marine resources. A stimulation of small-scale enterprises in communities could be accompanied by qualified technical assistance and financing opportunities to reduce the pressure in the coastal resources.

Another important factor is giving people information about coastal and marine ecosystems and the effects of their deeds. It is, therefore, a priority to ensure that information is better distributed to both LGUs and coastal communities because increased awareness and access to information will improve participation in coastal resources management, and encourage local communities, barangay groups, and local managers to become effective coastal managers. If the reefs of Bolinao were to provide greater sustained production, new management measures must be adopted to reduce the fishing pressure. This requires the successful introduction of alternative livelihoods, both marine and land-based.

According to the CRM staff, with the implementation of the CB-CRM Program that began in 1993, presentations on the need for coastal management have been made to the municipal government and to the various village councils. Relationships, however, were informal and non-official. Forming an official working group between the municipality and the project will have scientific inputs channeled through public education and passage of municipal resolutions for specific management interventions, and will serve as recommendations for land and coastal use planning.

According to the president of the KAISAKA Federation, the people’s organization in every barangay takes charge in the management of the marine sanctuaries and mangrove areas. However, the activities are monitored by the federation and the CRM staff of the local government unit. But, because of poverty where people need to work and survive, the organization has not been very active. Some

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leaders have to go to other towns to earn a living and others get sick and could not participate effectively.

In Bolinao, the lack of political will is linked to the low level of environmental awareness. In both scales, overfishing is linked with the lack of alternative livelihoods that can lead to the overall problem of poverty in the coastal areas. Thus, the coastal resources management strategies being developed in Bolinao should address a combination of social, political, and economic issues as well as ecological/environmental concerns.

Overall, the respondents were moderately aware of the fisheries and coastal resource management legislations and regulations. The national policy and legal framework for coastal resource management consist of national laws, administrative issuances and International treaties and agreements that define and guide management responsibilities for the use of coastal resources. However, the implementation of these policies and laws remain weak due to a variety of factors, among them the legal and jurisdictional conflicts that arise from the plethora of legislation and administrative issuances affecting different types of economic activities in the coastal area. Conflicting interpretations of these laws and poor dissemination of information have contributed to the difficulties in implementation (DENR et al., 2001). The people are the key towards the success and management of a development program. According to Alcala and Vande Vusse (1994), the current degraded condition of many coastal areas, low level of public awareness and the socio-economic situation in coastal communities present challenges to successful coastal resource management. But then, the sustainable management of the coastal area can only be correctly addressed with efficient information management of the environmental and socio-economic conditions that affect the coast (SIDS, 2004).

As to the perceptions of the community members, the coastal resource management programs were moderately implemented. According to the CRM staff of Bolinao, after the implementation of the CB-CRM Programs that began in 1993, presentations on the need for coastal management have been made to the municipal government and to the various village councils. Relationships, however, were informal and non-official. According to the president of the KAISAKA Federation, the people’s organization in every barangay takes charge in the management of the marine sanctuaries and mangrove areas, monitored by the federation and the CRM staff of the local government unit. However, because of poverty and the need of people to work

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and survive, members of the organization have not been very active. Some leaders have to go to other towns to earn a living and others get sick and could not participate effectively. Other members of the community would not want to get involved because they had no time for it unless given financial incentives. This resulted to their perception that the programs/ level of implementation was moderate. Many coastal management programs in the developing world, including that of ISO, aimed to help fishermen because they were seen to be the “poorest of the poor ” (Pollnac et al.,2001). Furthermore, within these communities, the “burdens” and benefits of conservation are rarely—if ever—equally distributed. If programs are to benefit the “poorest of the poor,” it is vital to explore the ways in which benefits and costs are distributed within and between communities (Eder, 2005).

Intervention of government and non-government institutions were perceived by the people to be occasional or seldom. Since, people could not feel the benefits of the program, while experiencing poverty. The coastal resource management office, on the other hand, does its work in the monitoring of the programs within the 23 coastal barangays. However, the three CRM staff cannot do much without the support of the people’s organization considering the area to cover. Budget also is limited considering that only a million peso is the budget for the 23 coastal barangays.

Thus, the coastal resource management strategies being developed in Bolinao addresses to a combination of social, political and economic issues as well as ecological/environmental concerns. In Bolinao, the degree of concern for the environment among the ordinary citizens and local officials is variable. While one environmental problem may be perceived as important, another may be ignored even if the two are intrinsically of equal value. This is not to say that there are no informed individuals. Indeed, a number of residents, including some professionals, have demonstrated an appreciation for environmental issues. Unfortunately, they are in the minority. Yet full appreciation of environmental issues is central to any meaningful progress towards sustainable development.

CONClUsiON

The municipality of Bolinao had established several programs and projects in order to manage its coastal resources. In Barangays Arnedo, Balingasay, Binabalian, and Victory, marine protected areas

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and mangrove management areas were established. These coastal areas are protected and managed by the LGUs and NGOs or people’s organizations.

Low catch by the fisher folks, poverty, overfishing, illegal fishing, pollution, squatting, waste disposal and climate change were the major problems identified. These were caused by different human activities in the coastal area. As such, provision of alternative livelihood and effective enforcement of fishery laws and ordinances were suggested in order to solve these problems.

The respondents had moderate awareness and moderate perceived level of implementation on information, communication and education programs for Coastal Resource Management(CRM) programs, fisheries and coastal resource management legislations and regulations in Bolinao. Similarly, the local communities had moderate awareness and moderate perceived level of implementation of the CRM programs in Bolinao. The perceived level of community participation and involvement in CRM and perceived level of government intervention were found to be occasional. Moreover, the perceived level of interventions of the NGO, academic and research institutions in CRM of Bolinao, Pangasinan was seldom. The success of the Bolinao coastal resource management programs, thus, hinges on three crucial players: local government, national government, and strong community involvement.

Thus, the coastal resource management strategies being developed in Bolinao should address a combination of social, political and economic issues as well as ecological/environmental concerns.

ReCOMMeNdAtiONs

• Information, communication and education on the management of marine protected areas and mangrove management areas should be strengthened by the local government particularly the CRM department and the people’s organization to heighten public awareness and obtain community involvement and participation in the management of marine protected areas.

• The municipal council should continue to strongly support the marine protected areas and mangrove management areas to ensure success in the coastal resource management.

• Livelihood programs started by the LGU and other agency linkages should be supported and continued towards the attainment of


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economic sustainability.• The LGU and the barangay council should join and participate

in the training on environmental governance and awareness conducted by the Pangasinan Institute of Environmental Governance to equip them with the knowledge on implementation of environmental laws and legislations.

• Other trainings on environmental awareness should be organized and joined by the community members.

ReFeReNCes

Alcala, A.C., & Vande Vusse, F.S. (1994). The role of government in coastal resource management. In R.S. Pomery (Ed), Community management and common property of coastal fisheries in Asia and the Pacific: Concepts, methods and experience. International Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management Conference.

Añonuevo, C. (1989). The economics of municipal fisheries: The case of Lingayen Gulf. ICLARM Conf. Proc. (17), 141-55

Arquiza, Y. & White A.T. (1999). Tales from Tubbataha. Natural history, resources use and conservation of the Tubbaha reefs, Palawan, Philippines. 2ndSatu.Fund for Marine Conservation Foundation, Inc. and Bookmark Inc., Manila.

Baticados, D. B. (2004) Fishing cooperatives’ participation in managing nearshore resources: the case in Capiz, Central Philippines. Fisheries Research, 67, 81–91

BFAR (Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources). (1996). Philippine Profile. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, Manila, Philippines.

Calud, A., Rodriguez, G., Aruelo, R., Aguilar, G., Cinco, E., Armada, N., & Silvestre, G. (1996). Preliminary results of a study of the municipal fisheries in Lingayen Gulf, pp. 3-29. In G. Silvestre, E. Miclat, & T.E. Chua. (Eds.). Towards sustainable development of the coastal resources of lingayen Gulf, Philippines. ICLARM Conf. Proc. 17, 200 pp.

Courtney, C.A., Atchue III, J.A., Carreon, M., White, A.T., Smith, R.P., Deguit E., Sievert, R., & Navarro, R. (1999). Coastal resource management for food security. Coastal Resource Management Project and Bookmark Inc, Philippines. 27pp.

DENR, DA-BFAR, DILG, CRMP (Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Department of Agriculture- Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, Department of Interior and Local Government and Costal Resource Management Project) (1997): Legal Jurisdiction Guidebook for Coastal Resource Management in the Philippines.Coastal Resource Management Project, Cebu City, Philippines. 196 p.

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DENR, DA-BFAR, DILG, CRMP (Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Department of agriculture- Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, Department of Interior and Local Government and Costal Resource Management Project) (2001): Coastal Management Orientation and Overview.Guidebook for Philippine Coastal Management . Coastal Resource Management Project, Cebu City, Philippines.

Eder, J.F. (2005) Coastal Resource Management and Social Differences in Philippine Fishing Communities. Human Ecology, 33(2), 148-169

Hilomen ,V.V., & Jimenez, L.F. (2001). Status of fisheries in Lingayen Gulf. In M. Mcglone & C. Villanoy (Eds.), Resource and social assessment of Lingayen Gulf. Project Report submitted to the Fisheries Resource Management Project, Department of Agriculture, Marine Science Institute, University of The Philippines and the Marine Environment and Resources Foundation, Quezon City, Philippines.

Hilomen, V.V., Licuanan W., Aliño P., & Jimenez, L.F. (2001). Status of fisheries resources in Lingayen Gulf: Easing the pressure and enhancing the resources. Paper presented at the National Conference on fisheries Resource and Social Assessments, Development Academy of the Philippines, Tagaytay City. Fisheries Resource Management Project, Department of Agriculture, Quezon City, Philippines.

McGlone, M. & Villanoy C. (Eds.). (2001). Resource and social assessment of Lingayen Gulf. Project Report submitted to the Fisheries Resource Management Project, Department of Agriculture, Marine Science Institute, University of The Philippines and the Marine Environment and Resources Foundation, Quezon City, Philippines.

McManus, L.T., & Chua T.E. (eds) (1990). The coastal environmental profile of Lingayen Gulf, Philippines. ICLARM Tech. Rep., 22, 69.

Mcmanus, L.T., Yambao, A.C., Salmo, S., & Alino, P. (1998). Participatory Coastal Development Planning in Bolinao, Northern Philippines: A Potential Tool for Conflict Resolution. International CBNRM Workshop, Washington, D.C., May 1998. Marine Science Institute, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines

Pollnac, R.B., Crawford, B.R., & Gorospe, M.L.G. (2001a). Discovering factors that influence the success of community-based marine protected areas in the Visayas, Philippines. Ocean & Coastal Management, 44, 683–710

Pollnac, R.B., Pomeroy R.S, & Harkes I.H.T. (2001b). Fishery policy and job satisfaction in three southeast Asian fisheries. Ocean & Coastal Management, 44, 531–544.

Pollnac R.B., & Pomeroy, R.S. (2005). Factors influencing the sustainability of integrated coastal management projects in the Philippines and Indonesia. Ocean & Coastal Management, 48, 233-251.

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Pomeroy, R.S., Pollnac, R.B., Katon, B.M., & Predo, B.M. (1997). Evaluating factors contributing to the success of community-based coastal resource management: The Central Visayas Regional Project-l, Philippines. Ocean & Coastal Management, 36, 97-120

Webb, L., Maliao, R.J., & Siar, S.V. (2004). Using local user perceptions to evaluate outcomes of protected area management in the Sagay Marine Reserve. Environmental Conservation, 31(2), 138-148.

White, A.T. (1997). Planning for integrated coastal management: What are the steps? Tambuli, 3, 15-19.

White, A.T. & Cruz-Trinidad, A. (2000). The values of Philippine coastal resources: Why protection and management are critical. Coastal Resource Management Project, Cebu City, Philippines, 96 pp.


Length-Weight and Length-Length Relationships and Fulton Condition

Factor of Philippine Mullets (Family Mugilidae: Teleostei)

robert s. Guino-o iiCenter for tropical Conservation studies

department of Biology, silliman Universitydumaguete City, Philippines

the present study describes the length-weight (LW), length-length (LL) relationships and Fulton condition factor (K) for 10 mullets collected from 14 sampling sites in the Philippines. Comparisons of LW, LL, and K are confined to five mullet species with sample size between 11 and 438. The other five mullet species are excluded in the comparison due to the limited sample size (n = 3 - 6). among these mullets Liza sp. from ilocos sur is the longest at 21 cm and the heaviest at 89 g. it is followed by the bluespot mullet Crenimugil seheli with a mean total length of 18 cm and a mean weight of 72 g. the greenback mullet Chelon subviridis (Negros oriental) ranked third in mean total length at 17 cm and a mean weight of 62 g. the shortest (12 cm) and lightest (19 g) is the dwarf mullet Osteomugil engeli. the relationships between total length (TL) and weight (W) for the 10 mullets show high coefficients of determination (r2 = 0.88 - 0.98). all mullet species show negative allometric growth as indicated by the regression coefficient b < 3. the relationships among TL, FL, and SL for Philippine mullets are all linear (r2 > 0.96). the average Fulton condition factor is highest for the longfinned mullet Osteomugil perusii (2.12) and lowest for the dwarf mullet Osteomugil engeli (1.71). the results of this study are important for the management and conservation of mullet species in the Philippines.

keyWORds: Philippine mullets, length-weight and length-length relationships, Fulton Condition Factor (K)

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r.s. GUiNo-o ii

iNtROdUCtiON

The establishments of length-weight and length-length relationships are important tools in fisheries biology because they provide information on the external morphology, growth

pattern and general condition of the fish that can be used in population structures analysis (Le Cren, 1951; Strauss & Bond, 1990). Most noted studies on length-weight and length-length relationships among the Philippine fishes include milkfish, grouper, silver perch and wetland fishes (Grover & Juliano, 1976; Gonzales et al., 2000; Quilang et al., 2007; Garcia 2010). There are no extensive data, to the best of one’s knowledge, on length-weight and length-length relationships on any of the Philippine mullet species.

Previous studies on the length-weight relationships of mullets were often based from singular collection of fish species from commercial and artisanal fisheries. Of the 80 mullet species, 12 species have been studied for length-weight relationships which included Chelon labrosus, Liza aurata, Liza ramado, Liza saliens, Liza falcipinnis, Liza grandisquamis, Liza carinata, Liza subviridis, Liza melinoptera, Liza parsia, Mugil cephalus, and Valamugil cunnesius (Borges et al., 2003, Ecoutin et al., 2005; Verdiell-Cubedo et al., 2005; Andrea-Soler et al., 2006; Garcia, 2010; Hussain et al., 2010). The sample sizes of these studies ranged from less than 10 to more than 1,000 individuals.

In the Philippines, there are 20 recorded mullet species (Froese & Pauly, 2011) but only one study on length-weight relationships was conducted on the greenback mullet Chelon subviridis collected from Candaba wetland on the island of Luzon. However, the linear regression parameters of this study were derived from three individuals (Garcia, 2010).

This study aims to determine the length-weight and length-length relationships and condition factor for 10 mullet species in the Philippines. These species are economically important food fish all over the country and are caught throughout the year regardless of their sizes. This paper reports for the first time the occurrence of the longfinned mullet Osteomugil perusii and the dwarf mullet Osteomugil engeli in Philippine waters.

MAteRiAls ANd MetHOds

The collection sites and their geographic coordinates are the following:

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Figure 1. Collection sites of mullets in the Philippines are shown in the dots.

FUltoN CoNditioN FaCtor oF PHiliPPiNE MUllEts

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Baler in Aurora (15o44’51”N, 121o34’41”), Binmaley in Pangasinan (16o03’55”N, 120o19’42”), Vigan in Ilocos Sur (17o33’38”N, 120o29’54”), Laoag in Ilocos Norte (18o27’11”N, 120o47’45”), Camalaniugan in Cagayan Valley (18o17’38”N, 121o40’59”), Pagatban River in Negros Oriental (9o21’52” N, 122o48’3” E), Talisay in Cebu (10o15’38”N, 123o56’26”), Panglao in Bohol (9o36’46”N, 123o51’01”), Ormoc City in Leyte (10o58’54” N,124o34’51”E), Cagayan de Oro City in Misamis Oriental (8o29’15”N, 124o41’46”E), Davao City in Davao del Norte (7o03’47”N, 125o37’57”E), Malita in Davao del Sur (6o24’58”N, 125o35’48”E), Dipolog City in Zamboanga del Norte (8o33’24”N, 123o20’52”E), and Tandag in Surigao del Sur (9o07’15”N, 126o11’43”E).

Monthly sampling was done in Pagatban River in Negros Oriental from January 2011 to December 2011. Mullet samplings outside Negros Oriental were conducted on the following months: December 2011 (Cagayan Valley), February 2012 (Baler in Aurora), May 2012 (Ilocos Sur, Ilocos Norte, Leyte, Davao, Cagayan de Oro and Zamboanga) and June to August 2012 (Bohol, Pangasinan and Surigao).

Monthly fish samples were collected in Pagatban River on Negros Island, Central Philippines using a non-selective seine net (mesh size = 1 cm2). The salinity of the river where the fish were collected ranged from 0–0.2 ppt. The river depth was between 1.5 and 2.5 m and a width between 110 and 120 m. The monthly sample size consisted of more than 30 fishes per species which were sorted, labeled and examined in the laboratory. Other mullet species outside Negros Island were collected by small-scale fishermen within three to five days during the author’s site visit to the designated sampling sites.

At least twenty (20) fish specimens per mullet species were used for taxonomic identification based on the following diagnostic features: shape of teeth and tails, pattern of the hind margin of scales, shape of premaxilla, position of the maxilla when the mouth is closed, color of the pectoral fin, length of the pectoral fin in relation to the origin of the first dorsal fin and standard morphometric and meristic counts (Strauss & Bond, 1990). These data were compared to the mullet taxonomic guides by Thompson (1997), Harrison and Senou (1999) and Durand et al., (2012). Fish were measured for total length (TL), fork length (FL), standard length (SL), body depth (BD), body depth/standard length percentage ratio (BDSLR), head length (HL) and eye diameter (ED) to the nearest 0.01 mm (Quilang et al., 2007). Each fish specimen was photographed before proceeding to standard fish measurements and meristic counts using ImageJ software program

r.s. GUiNo-o ii

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which enlarges the image to a desired size and converts standard length measurements into their equivalent pixels. Furthermore, the use of ImageJ software enables the fish specimens to be preserved longer because of the shorter exposure time of the latter to ambient temperature, thus giving more time to examine the specimens closely without the irritating smell of the fixative solution. Each specimen was weighed to the nearest 0.01 gram using a digital weighing scale and later fixed in 10% formalin solution and stored in 70% ethanol solution for long-term preservation.

The length-weight relationship was determined using the regression equation W = a×Lb where L is the total length in cm, W is the weight in g, a is the regression intercept, and b is the regression coefficient or slope. The b value was used to determine the type of somatic growth of a fish either isometric or allometric (Zhu et al., 2008). Isometric growth as indicated by b = 3 means that the fish has an “unchanging body shape” regardless of its size while allometric type (b is < 3 or > 3) indicates that the fish has a “changing body shape” in relation to its size. Length-length relationships of SL against TL, SL against FL, and FL against TL were determined using linear regression equation SL = a + b×TL. The Fulton’s condition factor (K) indicates a measure of the well-being of a fish or determined using the equation K = (W/SL3) × 100 where L is the standard length in cm and W is the weight in g. A I value of > 1 indicates good condition while K < 1 indicates poor condition (Hall & Van Avylle, 1986); in general the higher the K value, the better is the physical condition of the fish (Froese, 2006).

Statistics such as mean, minimum and maximum were used to describe lengths and weights of the specimens. Statistical differences of the lengths, weights and condition factors (K) of the mullet species were tested using Kruskal-Wallis as the data did not conform to the normality test.

ResUlts

Ten mullet species with a total of 753 individuals were collected from 14 sampling sites all over the Philippines. Total length and body weight of the fish are shown in Table 1.

Of the total 438 greenback mullet Chelon subviridis fish samples measured in this study, 344 or 78% were within the mean total length (TL) range between 9 cm and 19 cm, 90 or 21% were between 20 and 29


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cm and four or 1% between 30 and 36 cm. The mean total length was 17 cm (SD + 4). Whereas 374 or 85% of C. subviridis samples weighed between 6 g and 99 g, 52 or 12% between 100 g and 199 g and 12 or 3% between 200 g and 392 g. The mean weight was 62 g (SD + 51.1). Meanwhile, of the190 longfinned mullet Osteomugil perusii samples, 121 or 64% had total lengths (TL) between 9 cm and 14 cm, 66 or 34.7% between 14 cm and 20 cm and 3 or 1.6% between 21 cm and 23 cm. The mean length of O. perusii was 15 cm (SD + 2.7). In terms of weight, 123 or 64.7% weighed between 11 g and 39 g, 53 or 27.9% between 40 g and 79 g and 14 or 7.3% between 80 g and 130 g. The mean weight of Osteomugil perusii was 40 g (SD + 23). Of the eleven Liza sp. samples, two or 18.2% had total lengths (TL) between 18 cm and 19 cm, 8 or 72.7% between 20 cm and 22 cm, and one or 9% at 23 cm. The mean length of Liza sp. was 21 cm (SD+1.58). In terms of weight, two or 18.2% had weights between 63 g and 79 g, 7 or 63.6% between 80 g and 99 g, and two or 18.2% between 100 g and 122 g. Of the 59 bluespot mullet Crenimugil seheli, 11 or 18.6% had total lengths (TL) between 12 cm and 16 cm, 47 or 80 % between 17 cm, and 21 cm and one (1.7%) at 24 cm. Its mean length was 18 cm (SD+2.2). In terms of weight, two or 3.4% had weights between 19 g and 24 g, 16 or 27.1% between 25 g and 64 g, and 41 or 69.5% between 65g and 102 g. The mean weight of C. seheli was 72 g (SD+20.91). Of the 59 dwarf mullet Osteomugil engeli, 15 or 42.8% had total lengths (TL) between nine cm and 11 cm, 16 or 45.7% between 12 cm and 13 cm, and four or 11.4% between 14 cm and 15 cm. The mean length of O. engeli was 12.10 cm (SD +1.71). In terms of weight, two or 8.3% had weights between 7 g and 8 g, 9 or 37.5% between 8 g and 15 g, and 13 or 54.2% between 16 g and 29 g. The mean weight of O. engeli was 19 g (SD+6.9).

The regression parameters and the coefficient of determination for the length-weight relationships (LWR) of the 10 Philippine mullets are shown in Table 1. The sample sizes ranged from three to 498. The regression coefficient (b) ranged from 1.74 - 2.9. Nine out 10 of the b values were below 3; only the squaretail mullet Ellochelon vaigiensis had a slope value (b) of above 3. The regression intercept (a) ranged from 0.004 - 0.407 while the coefficient of determination (r2) ranged from 0.88 - 1.0.

The regression parameters and coefficients of determination of the length-length relationships (TL, SL, and FL) of the 10 mullets are estimated in Table 2. The coefficient of determinations (r2) for all the length-length relationships for the 10 species ranged from 0.80 to 1. The range of r2 for FL vs. TL was 0.92 to1.00; the range of r2 for FL vs.

r.s. GUiNo-o ii

182


Tabl

e 1.

tota

l len

gth

(TL)

, Bod

y W

eigh

t (W

), an

d le

ngth

-Wei

ght r

elat

ions

hip

(W=a

TLb )

for T

en P

hilip

pine

Mul

lets

.

TL

(cm

)

W

(g)

W=a

TLb

Spec

ies

n R

ange

M

ean

± SD

n

Ran

ge

Mea

n ±

SD

a b

r2

Chelo

n m

acro

lepis

3 19

.3 -

20.3

1

5.7

(1.5

) 3

40.6

- 61

.7

53.7

(11.

4)

0.08

1 2.

36

1.00

Ello

chelo

n va

igien

sis

3 16

.0 -

21.4

1

9.1

(2.8

) 3

50.

0 - 1

30.2

96

.1(4

1.4)

0.

004

3.36

0.

99

Chelo

n su

bviri

dis

438

9.1

- 35.

5 1

6.6

(3.3

) 43

8 1

2.6

- 115

.9

50.

1 (2

6.0)

0.

014

2.90

0.

95

Liza

sp.

11

17

.8 -

23.8

2

0.6

(1.5

) 11

6

3.2

- 122

.0

86.

7 (1

6.0)

0.

055

2.43

0.

94

Ost

eom

ugil

enge

li 35

9

.0 -

14.2

1

3.2

(1.2

) 35

1

4.6

- 32.

0 24

.3 (4

.6)

0.

013

2.88

0.

98

Ost

eom

ugil

peru

sii

190

9.2

- 23

.1

18.

1 (1

.3)

190

57.

7 - 9

7.5

75.

0 (1

0.7)

0.

014

2.92

0.

97

Cren

imug

il se

heli

59

12.0

- 23

.5

18.

0 (2

.8)

59

19.

2 - 1

28.3

68

.4 (2

7.5)

0.

021

2.79

0.

88

Mug

il ce

phal

us

3 18

.0 -

24.5

2

1.5

(3.3

) 3

59.

7 –

99.2

84

.9 (2

1.9)

0.

407

1.74

0.

92

Plic

omug

il la

bios

us

5 14

.4 -

15.6

1

5.1

(0.5

) 5

34.

3 –

43.5

39

.6 (3

.5)

0.

028

2.67

0.

93

Vala

mug

il sp

. 6

19.1

- 20

.5

20.

0 (1

.1)

6 1

9.2

– 12

8.3

68.4

(27.

5)

0.05

4 2.

43

0.89

n is

sam

ple

size

, SD

is s

tand

ard

devi

atio

n, a

nd r

2 is

coeffi

cien

t of d

eter

min

atio

n, a

is th

e re

gres

sion

inte

rcep

t, b

is th

e re

gres

sion

coe

ffici

ent,

and

r2 is

the

coeffi

cien

t of d

eter

min

atio

n.


183


Tabl

e 2.

leng

th-le

ngth

rela

tions

hips

invo

lvin

g to

tal l

engt

h (T

l), s

tand

ard

leng

th (s

l) a

nd fo

rk le

ngth

(Fl)

for 1

0 Ph

ilipp

ine

mul

lets

.

Spec

ies

n SL

= a

+ b

TL

r2 FL

= a

+ b

TL

r2 FL

= a

+ b

SL

r2

Chelo

n m

acro

lepis

3

SL=

-0.9

1 +

0.89

TL

0.99

FL

= -0

.48

+ 0.

94TL

0.

99

FL=

1.02

+ 1

.05S

L 0.

99

Chelo

n su

bviri

dis

43

8 SL

= -0

.09

+ 0.

83TL

0.

99

FL=

0.08

+ 0

.93T

L 0.

99

FL=

0.32

+ 1

.11S

L 0.

99

Cren

imug

il se

heli

59

SL

= -0

.07

+ 0.

84TL

0.

96

FL=

0.16

+ 0

.93T

L 0.

98

FL=

0.42

+ 1

.09S

L 0.

99

Ello

chelo

n va

igien

sis

3 SL

= 0.

57 +

0.8

0TL

1.00

N

.A.

N.A

.

Liza

sp.

(Ilo

cos

Sur)

11

SL

= -0

.08

+ 0.

81TL

0.

98

FL=

0.02

+ 0

.93T

L 0.

96

FL=

0.22

+ 1

.13S

L 0.

98

Mug

il ce

phal

us

3

SL=

2.47

+ 0

.725

TL

1.00

FL

= 3.

02 +

0.8

0TL

1.00

FL

= 0.

33 +

1.1

0SL

1.00

Ost

eom

ugil

enge

li

35

SL=

-0.1

9 +

0.85

TL

0.98

FL

= -0

.23

+ 0.

97TL

1.

00

FL=

0.14

+ 1

.12S

L 0.

99

Ost

eom

ugil

peru

sii

19

0 SL

= -0

.42

+ 0.

85TL

0.

99

FL=

-0.1

8 +

0.95

TL

0.99

FL

= -0

.21

+ 0.

90SL

0.

99

Plic

omug

il la

bios

us

5

SL=

-1.8

1 +

0.96

TL

0.80

FL

= -1

.45

+ 1.

05TL

0.

92

FL=

1.78

+ 1

.00S

L 0.

96

Vala

mug

il sp

. (Ilo

cos

Nor

te)

6 SL

= -3

.28

+ 0.

96TL

0.

96

FL=

-1.4

4 +

1.05

TL

0.92

FL

= 1.

78 +

1.0

0SL

0.96

n is

the

sam

ple

size

; SL

is th

e st

anda

rd le

ngth

in c

m; F

L is

fork

leng

th in

cm

; TL

is to

tal l

engt

h in

cm

; a is

the

regr

essi

on in

terc

ept;

b is

the

regr

essi

on

coeffi

cien

t; an

d r2 i

s th

e co

effici

ent o

f det

erm

inat

ion;

N.A

. for

not

app

licab

le.

r.s. GUiNo-o ii

184


TL was 0.96 to 1.00 while that of SL vs. TL was 0.80 to 1.00.The Fulton condition factor (K) value for the 10 Philippine mullet

species are found in Table 3. The average K for these mullets ranged from 1.44 to 2.40. Among the mullets with sample greater than 10, Chelon subviridis (Negros Oriental) has the highest average K value (2.34). When all sample sizes were included, the largescale mullet Chelon macrolepis shows the highest K value (2.40) while the flathead grey mullet Mugil cephalus has the lowest average K value (1.44).

Table 3.

Fulton Condition Factor (K) for Ten Philippine Mullets.

Species K min max

Chelon macrolepis 2.40 2.21 2.63Chelon subviridis (Negros isolate) 1.93 1.05 2.88Crenimugil seheli 2.03 1.24 2.72Ellochelon vaigiensis 2.34 2.13 2.50Liza sp. (Ilocos Sur isolate) 1.85 1.65 2.03Mugil cephalus 1.44 1.20 1.60Osteomugil engeli 1.71 1.50 1.93Osteomugil perusii 2.12 1.46 2.87Plicomugil labiosus 1.95 1.77 2.07Valamugil sp. (Ilocos Norte isolate) 1.90 1.67 2.10

K is the average Fulton condition factor; min and max are minimum and maximum.

disCUssiON

The length frequency distributions for Chelon subviridis, Liza sp., Osteomugil engeli, Osteomugil perusii, and Crenimugil seheli did not follow the bell-shaped configuration. Kruskal-Wallis test showed significant differences in length (P<0.01) and weight (P<0.01) among these mullet species where Liza sp. was the longest (20.8 cm) and heaviest (89.1 g) species while O. engeli was the shortest (12.1 cm) and lightest (18.6 g). The mean weights of the other three species ranged from 40 g to 72 g and mean total lengths ranged from 15 cm to 18 cm. The species Chelon macrolepis, Ellochelon vaigiensis, Mugil cephalus, Plicomugil labiosus, and Valamugil sp. were not included in the length-weight comparisons due to low sample size (n=3-6).


185


The length-weigh relationship equations for the 10 mullets generally indicated a negative allometric growth except for the species Ellochelon vaigiensis which showed positive allometric growth. By negative allometry (b < 3), the fish is said to be “lighter for its length” while positive allometry (b > 3), is when the fish is “heavier for its length” as it grows (Froese, 2006). Isometric growth (b = 3) is indicated by equal increment in terms of weight and length. Allometry values of the same species have been noted to vary in relation to place and time. Borges et al. (2003) reported that Liza aurata in Algarve, South of Portugal exhibited positive allometry with the parameter b = 3.154 (n=23) however, Andrea-Soler et al. (2006) reported isometric growth for the same species collected from Segura River, Southeastern Spain (b = 3.006, n=20). Similarly, the flathead mullet, Mugil cephalus in Spain showed positive allometric growth (b = 3.357, n=80) as reported by Verdiel-Cubedo et al. (2005), but the study of Andrea-Soler et al. (2006) showed negative allometric growth for M. cephalus in Portugal (b = 2.96, n=38). Variations in b in this study are attributed to sample size differences as there are species that are more commonly caught than others. Environmental parameters such as temperature, trophic level and food availability among others in the sampling sites vary as well which influence over-all fish growth. Regardless of the variation in b values, the significance of length and weight relationships is its usefulness in fish stock assessment where it is easier, faster, and more accurate to measure fish length than weighing it.

The high coefficient of determinations (r2) for all of the 10 mullet species indicate that length-length relationships are highly correlated with each other. The total lengths (TL) of the mullets in this study were notably different from the recorded TL of the same species in the mullet species guide by FAO (1984; 1974). For instance, the average TL of Chelon subviridis in this study was 17 cm but the mean TL for this species was 25 cm. Similarly, the mean TL of Crenimugil seheli in this study was 18 cm while the standard mean TL for this species was 20 cm according to Rau and Rau (1980) who studied the economically important fishes in Central Visayas of the Philippines 33 years ago.

Of the 10 mullets, only two species Mugil cephalus and Osteomugil perusii had average total length (TL) that were within the commonly reported TL, but M. cephalus sample size was small (n = 3) due to its seasonal rarity during the sampling period. Other mullets in this study whose average TL were below the commonly reported TL were: Chelon macrolepis, Ellochelon. vaigiensis, Osteomugil engeli, and Plicomugil labiosus. The species Chelon subviridis which was sampled

r.s. GUiNo-o ii

186


on a monthly basis for an entire one year period was observed to have a wider distribution that includes the upper midstream section of the river whereas Osteomugil perusii and Crenimugil seheli were exclusively found in the downstream part of the estuary. For this reason, C. subviridis may find itself an easy target for overexploitation by human residents in the upstream portion of the river and the downstream estuary who depend on fish as their source of protein. Fishing pressure may play an important role for the observed TL disparities between the caught mullets and the commonly reported TL.

The Fulton Condition Factor (K) values for the 10 mullet species significantly vary from each other (p=<0.01). These values generally indicate that the fish species were in the “slimmer” side of the condition factor scale. The differences in K values could be attributed to differences in habitats, food availability, gonad development, gender of the fish (Quilang et al., 2007; Zhu et al, 2008; Hussain et al, 2010; Ndome & Eteng, 2010). The same factors are attributed to the variations in the regression coefficient (b) which indicates growth type of fish. Other factors that influence the condition factor of a fish include the number of specimens examined, season and area, spawning, degree of stomach fullness, healthy or diseased condition, differences of fishing gear and/or mesh size sizes, preservation techniques employed, and differences in the observed length ranges of the specimens (Borges et al., 2003; Andreu-Soler et al., 2006; Verdiell-Cubedo et al., 2006). Previous studies on the water quality of the Pagatban River in Negros Oriental where Chelon subviridis, Crenimugil seheli, and Osteomugil perusii thrive indicated environmental perturbations brought by mining activities 25 years ago (Rosario, 1999; Guino-o et al., 2011).

In summary, this study shows that Liza sp. was the longest (21 cm) and the heaviest (89 g) among the Philippine mullets. The bluespot mullet Crenimugil seheli ranked second in terms of length (18 cm) and weight (72 g). The species greenback mullet Chelon subviridis ranked third in total length (17 cm) and weight (62 g). The shortest (12 cm) and lightest (19 g) was the dwarf mullet Osteomugil engeli. All mullet species showed negative allometry while the Fulton Condition Factor was highest for Osteomugil perusii (2.12) and lowest in Osteomugil engeli (1.71). The parameters of the length-length relationships were highly correlated with each other (r2 = 0.96 to1.0).

All mullet species in this study are commercially exploited by coastal residents. A regulatory framework is necessary to regulate their fishing activities to promote conservation and sustainable utilization


187


of these species. A fishery regulation that limits fishing activity to the minimum legal total length will help these species from being overexploited as this will give them a chance to grow to maturity. Fish below and beyond the minimum legal total length should be returned to its habitat. A healthy mullet fishery can be expected in the estuaries when fishery regulations are coupled with a fishing ban during their reproductive season. Lastly, validating the levels of heavy metals in the tissues of the fishes collected at estuaries with history of mining and pollution is suggested in order to safeguard the health of the consumers.

ACkNOWledgeMeNts

This study forms the third chapter of a five-chapter dissertation study and was funded by the Philippine Council of Marine and Aquatic Research and Development of the Department of Science and Technology. Special thanks to Dr. Danilo T. Dy of the University of San Carlos, Cebu City, Philippines for the initial comments of the manuscript. The comments from two anonymous reviewers have greatly improved the paper and are gratefully acknowledged by the author.

ReFeReNCes

Andrea-Soler, A., Oliva-Paterna, F.J., & Torralva, M. (2006). A review of length-weight relationships of fish from the Segura River basin (SE Iberian Peninsula). J. Appl. Ichthyol., 22, 295-296.

Borges, T.C., Olim, S., & Erzini, K. (2003). Weight-length relationships for fish species discarded in commercial fisheries of the Algarve (southern Portugal). J. Appl. Ichthyol. 19, 394-396.

Durand, J.D., Shen, K.N., Chen, W.J., Jamandre, B.W., Biel, H., Diop, K., Nirchio, M., Garcia de Leon, F.J., Whitfield, A.K., Chang, C.W., & Borsa, P. (2012). Systematics of the grey mullets (Teleostei: Mugiliformes: Mugilidae): Molecular phylogenetic evidence challenges two centuries of morphology-based taxonomy. Mol. Phyl Evol, 64, 73-92.

Ecoutin, J.M., Albaret, J.J., & Trape, S. (2005). Length-weight relationships for fish populations of a relatively undisturbed tropical estuary: The Gambia. Fisheries Res. 72,347-351.

FAO (1974). Species identification guide for fishery purposes: Western Central Pacific fishery area 57 and 71. W. Fischer, B. Bianchi, & W.B. Scott (Eds.). Vol. 3. Rome: FAO.

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FAO (1984). Species identification guide for fishery purposes: Western Indian Ocean. W. Fischer, G. Bianchi & W.B. Scott (Eds.). Rome: FAO.

Froese, R. (2006). Cube law, condition factor and weight-length relationships: History, meta-analysis and recommendations. J. Appl. Ichthyol. 22, 241-253.

Froese, R., & Pauly, D. (Eds.). (2011). Fishbase. Retrieved on July 24, 2011 from www.fishbase.org.

Garcia, L.M.B. (2010). Species composition and length-weight relationship of fishes in the Candaba wetland on Luzon Island, Philippines. J. Appl. Ichthyol.

Guino-o, R., Alcala, M., & Basa, E. (2011). Water quality assessment of Pagatban River: 25 years after post-mining activity. Technical Report submitted to the Commission on Higher Education Zonal Research Center, Silliman University, Dumaguete City.

Hall, G.E., & Van den Avylle, M.J. (1986). Reservoir fisheries management: Strategies for the 80s. Bethesda, MD: American Fisheries Society.

Harrison, I. J., & Senou, H. (1999). Mugilidae. In FAO species identification guide for fisheries purposes. The living marine resources of the Western Central Pacific, Vol. 4. Bony Fishes, Part 2 (Mugilidae to Carangidae). K. Carpenter & V. H. Niem (Eds.). Rome: FAO, 2069-2108.

Hussain, S.M., Papernoz, R., & Khatoon, Z. (2010). Length-weight relationships of fishes collected from the Korangi-Phitti Creek area (Indus delta, northern Arabian Sea). J. Appl. Ichthyol., 26, 477-480.

Isa, M.M., Rawi, C.S., Rosla, R., Shah, S.A., & Shah, A. S (2010). Length-wt relationships of freshwater fish species in Kerian River basis and Pedu lake. Res. J. of Fisheries and Hydrobio, 5(1):1-8.

Moyle, P., & Cech J., Jr. (2004). Fishes: An introduction to ichthyology. USA: Pearson-Prentice Hall.

Ndome, C.B., & Eteng, A.O. (2010). Prelim. notes on length-wt relationships and condition factor for Cynoglossus brownie and C. senegalensis (Pisces: Cynoglossidae) off the East Coast of Niger delta, Nigeria. World Appl. Sciences J., 10(5), 584-589.

Quilang, J.P., Basiao, Z.U., Pagulayan, R.C., Roderos, R.R., & Barios, E.B. (2007). Meristic and morphometric variation in the silver perch, Leiopotherapon plumbeus (Kner, 1864), from three lakes in the Philippines. J. Appl. Ichthyol., 23(5), 561-567.

Rau, N., & Rau, A. (1980). Fishes of Central Philippines. USC-GTZ.

Rosario, E.A. (1999). Final management plan of the Bayawan-Basay watershed in Negros Oriental, DENR-PENRO, Dumaguete City.


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Strauss, R.E., & Bond, C.E. (1990). Taxonomic methods: Morphology. In C.B. Schreck & P.B. Moyle (Eds.). Methods for fish biology (pp. 109-140). Bethesda, MD: American Fisheries Society.

Thompson, J.M. (1997). Mugilidae of the world, Vol. 41. Queensland Museum, 456-562.

Verdiell-Cubedo, D., Oliva-Paterna F.J., & Torralva, M. (2006). Length-weight relationships for 22 fish species of the Mar Menor coastal lagoon (western Mediterranean Sea). J. Appl. Ichthyol., 22, 293-294.

Zhu, G., Xu, L., Zhou, Y., & Dai, X. (2008). Length-frequency compositions and weight-length relations for bigeye tuna, yellowfin tuna, and albacore (Perciformes: Scombridae) in the Atlantic, Indian, and Eastern Pacific oceans. Acta Ichthyologica et Piscatoria, 38(2), 157-161.

r.s. GUiNo-o ii


Physico-chemical and Bacteriological Characteristics of Señora River,

Siquijor Island, Central Philippines

Hermilita l. Paculbarosalina E. Catid

ronald alexis l. tanGlory J. Barrera

septima C. aquediogenes M. Barrera

siquijor state Collegelarena, siquijor, Philippines

the water quality of señora river in lazi, siquijor, Philippines was assessed in terms of its physico-chemical and bacteriological (Escherichia coli) characteristics. the study aimed to establish baseline data on its water quality for future studies. it also determined the spatial and seasonal variation of the parameters used. sampling was done in the upstream, midstream, and downstream sections of the river from February to July 2011. Major findings are as follows: [1] all values of the parameters monitored are within the permissible limits (based on the standards set by the dENr, except for E. coli; [2] there is no significant difference in the spatial variation (among the three stations) of dissolved oxygen (do), salinity, water sub-surface temperature, water surface temperature, nitrates-N, phosphates-P, and E. coli contents [however, levels of total dissolved solids (TDS), pH, and conductivity of the river are significantly higher in the downstream station]; [3] there is no significant difference in the seasonal (wet and dry months) variation of all the parameters; and [4] Based on E. coli content of the water, señora river failed to meet standards set by the Philippine National standard for drinking Water (PNsdW). The middle and downstream part of the river can be classified as Class B and C intended for primary contact recreation such as bathing and swimming only.

keyWORds: physico-chemical and bacteriological characteristics of rivers, señora river

191


H.l. PaCUlBa, r.E. Catid, Et al

iNtROdUCtiON

Agriculture is among the greatest water users as well as the largest contributor to water pollution (Enger, 2000) as a result of an expanding global population growth (Cunningham &

Cunningham, 2008). Siquijor Island, being one of the smallest provinces in the Philippines with only one river existing is not an exception.

The island province of Siquijor in Region 7 is bounded in the north by the islands of Cebu, Bohol in the northwest, mainland Mindanao in the south, Camiguin in the east, and Negros Island in the west, and is geographically located at 9o05.76’00” and 9o18.19’00” N and 123o26.51’00” and 123o42.02”E (Bendijo et al., 2004). The island is hilly and mountainous, made up mostly of limestone rocks. The climate of Siquijor is characterized by the dry season from January to May, and the wet season from June to December. Rainfall is minimal in this province than it is in the rest of Region 7. Typhoons usually affect only the southern part of the Island—in the towns of Lazi and San Juan (Bendijo et al., 2004).

Señora River in Lazi, is the major river in the province of Siquijor. It traverses the barangays of Capalasanan, the Cangclaran-Tagmanocan border, Nagerong, and the Simacolong-Tigbawan

Figure 1. Map of the lazi municipality showing the location of the sampling stations in señora river. Modified from Geographic atlas of siquijor (1999).

192


PHysiCo-CHEMiCal CHaraCtEristiCs oF tHE sEÑora rivEr

border. The tributaries in the upper reaches of the river irrigated the rice paddies which in turn contribute agricultural runoff to the river. In the middle segment of the river is the Cambugahay Falls which is frequently visited by both domestic and foreign tourists. It receives one of the tributaries from the barangays of Canggomantong and Po-o. The downstream portion of the river, Barangay Tigbawan, is densely populated. Residential wastewaters are directly discharged into the river without any treatment.

Table 1.

Geographic Coordinates of the sampling sites.

Station Site Coordinates Station Site Coordinates Station Site Coordinates

1 9°10’37.6” N 1 9°10’21.4” N 1 9°10’06.1” N 123°36’55.3” E 123°37’02.8” E 123°37’07.7” E

1 2 9°08’48.3” N 2 2 9°08’39.6” N 3 2 9°08’27.8” N 123°37’24.4” E 123°37’27.2” E 123°37’35.2” E

3 9°07’50.8” N 3 9°07’45.7” N 3 9°07’35.5” N 123°38’15.7” E 123°38’17.4” E 123°38’24.1” E

Many river studies have been conducted across the Philippine archipelago. The much known Pasig River in Metro Manila was declared virtually dead in 1990 by DENR (Cruz, 1997) during dry summer months since the dissolved oxygen content dropped below standard that can support aquatic life. It was revealed that the water quality had deteriorated which were attributed to the indiscriminate discharging of waste into the river by manufacturing industries and from the households as a result of urbanization. Pampanga River, being the fourth largest basin in the Philippines, is susceptible to ecological imbalance due to pollution and natural changes (Angeles, 2008). Borlongan (2010) reported the alarming deterioration in the physico-chemical quality and rise in the nutrient levels of Jalaur River in Iloilo. Cagayan de Oro River in Cagayan de Oro City is contaminated with fecal coliform which was due to improper disposal of human and animal wastes into the river due to unavailability of toilet facilities (Lubos, 2008). The quality of water in Naboc River in Mindanao was assessed by Mines and Geo-sciences Bureau (MGB) XI in 2009. It was reported that Naboc River is heavily burdened by poisonous deposits

193



from mining tailings of Mt. Diwalwal gold panning operations. Aside from mercury and cyanide, it is ailing with other heavy metals such as copper (Cu) and lead (Pb) and suspended solids of clay and soils, turning its once clear waters into murky. It is also heavily silted as revealed by the presence of suspended solids.

It is in view of these revelations that the researchers were interested to dwell on this area, thus this study was conceived. The results will help find mitigating endeavors of all of the stakeholders of the river. This study was conducted particularly to establish baseline information of the water quality of the river. The different water quality parameters monitored were dissolved oxygen (DO), total dissolved solids (TDS), pH, conductivity, salinity, water surface and water subsurface temperatures, nitrates-N, phosphates-P, and biological parameter using E. coli. The seasonal (wet and dry months) and spatial variations and correlations between parameters were also determined. The quality of the water is compared with the standards set by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), and USEPA, while the classification of the river is based on DENR standards.

MAteRiAls ANd MetHOds

sampling stations

Three sampling stations with three sampling sites each, approximately at five hundred-meter distance in between sites, were strategically established to determine the physico-chemical and coliform (E. coli) content of the water. Station 1 is located upstream (Capalasanan), Station 2 is in the middle segment (Cambugahay Falls), and Station 3 in the downstream or estuarine portion of the river (Tigbawan). There were three samples per sampling sites with three replicates for each water quality conducted during the entire duration of the study.

sample Collection and Frequency

Water quality parameters such as dissolved oxygen (DO), total dissolved solids (TDS), pH, conductivity, salinity, water and ambient temperatures were monitored in situ each month, using portable meters, from February to July 2011. Samples of about 500 mL of river

194


water were obtained using sterilized polymeric bottles and brought to Chemistry and Biology laboratories of Silliman University, Dumaguete City for analysis of nitrates-N, and phosphates-P, and E. coli.

statistical Analysis

The laboratory results obtained each month were subjected to descriptive statistics. Mean + standard deviation were used and one-way ANOVA (with 95% level of significance and 5% margin of error) was utilized to determine the significant difference of the parameters between stations and between dry and rainy months.


This study provides baseline information about the water quality of the three sampling stations in Señora River, including variations in the parameters during wet and dry months. The monthly average values of the different parameters are presented in Appendix B. Mean and standard deviation of the parameters are presented in Table 1. Comparisons of the river quality vs. water quality standards set by the DENR are also presented (Tables 2 and 3).

a. dissolved Oxygen (dO)

Dissolved Oxygen is an important parameter which determines the quality and suitability of water to support aquatic life. The dissolved oxygen (DO) level of the water in Señora River ranged from 5.91– 9.77 ppm. This range is higher than the acceptable limit (more than 5 ppm) for fishes and other aquatic organisms to survive (Mapa & Trinidad, 2001). The higher DO values indicate unpolluted water (Varunprasath & Nicholas, 2010; Moniruzzaman et al., 2009). Station 3 has the lowest DO value of 6.81 + 0.567 mg/L, which might be attributed to several factors, including direct dumping of organic wastes from neighboring households.

Organic waste demands oxygen for decomposition (http://www.dnr.mo.gov/env/esp/ water quality-parameters). This is in agreement of the results of other studies conducted elsewhere (Hart & Zabby 2005; Davies et al. 2008; Abowei 2010). In this study, a slight decrease


195


of DO values was observed during dry months, probably due to increased water temperature (Miller, 1998; Abowei, 2010).

b. total dissolved solids

Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) is a measure of the amount of material dissolved in water such as carbonates, bicarbonates, chlorides, sulfates, phosphates, nitrates, calcium, magnesium, sodium, organic ions, and other ions. Sources of TDS include fertilizer in agricultural runoff, salinity from tidal mixing, minerals, returned irrigation water, and acidic rainfall.

The total dissolved solids (TDS) content of the water was lowest in Station 1 (216+ 34.205 148 mg/L) during the wet months (February, April, and June) and highest in Station 3 (1045.56+1016.425 mg/L) during the dry months (March, May, and July). A slight increase in the TDS values during dry months in the three stations was observed. However, this increase is not statistically significant.

c. ph

pH is a measure of the acidity or alkalinity of substance. Acidic surface waters (pH < 7) decrease the survivability of animal life in lakes and streams. In more severe instances, acidity eliminates some or all types of fish and other aquatic organisms. Healthy rivers have pH values of 6.5 or slightly above (Eubanks et al., 2006).

The pH of water in Señora River ranged from 6.7–8.1, which is slightly acidic to slightly basic. The lowest pH of the water (6.7–slightly acidic) was observed in Station 1 in February, 2011. Station 2 has the highest mean pH value of 7.93 ±0.166 (S.D.) during the dry months. The alkalinity of water in this Station might be attributed to the run-off coming from rice paddies and other domestic discharges. The difference of the pH of the water did not vary significantly between wet and dry months.

d. Conductivity (µs)

The conductivity of the water in Señora River ranged from 310–4600 µS. Station 1 has a mean value of 456.22 µS and standard deviation of 73.641 μS during wet months and Station 3 with 1784.44 ± 1584.775 S.D. µS during dry months. Station 3 has significantly higher conductivity values relative to other stations since it is the downstream of the river


196


where fresh and seawater mixed. Sea water has higher conductivity than freshwater because of dissolved salts or electrolytes. The high standard deviation value in this station can be accounted by the lowest value of 547 µS registered in the month of July since sampling was done during a low tide (High Tide at 10:36 AM with 1.9 m and Low Tide at 6:11 PM with -0.2 m). While it is possible that the conductivity of the water in Station 3 might be affected by the discharges coming from Tagmanocan and Nagerong (residential and agricultural) and Tigbawan (commercial and residential) areas, statistical tests revealed negative.

e. salinity (‰)

The salinity of the water in Señora River ranged from 0.1-1.0‰ in the upstream stations and 0.2-5.4‰ in the downstream station. The increase in salinity in the downstream station is due to the influx of seawater (which has salinity of about 35‰) during high tide (Castro & Huber, 2005). f. Water surface Temperature (oC)

Temperature affects the concentration of dissolved oxygen in a water body. The oxygen content of river water is inversely correlated with temperature. Oxygen supplies are generally richest in cold thoroughly mixed headwater streams and lower in the warm downstream sections of the rivers (Molles, 2005).

In this study, the water temperature of Señora River ranged from 25oC – 29.6oC which is within the normal limits. Results showed that there is a slight increase in the water temperature during dry months for the upstream and midstream of the river but not true for Station 3. This is justifiable since most sampling was done from upstream in the morning to downstream in late afternoon. The slight increase in temperature of the river during dry months was found to be insignificant. This result means that there is no thermal pollution of the water that can cause changes in the chemical kinetics of the water, considering that no industries are discharging high temperature water into the river.

g. Water subsurface Temperature (oC)

It is disclosed that Station 1 has water subsurface temperature value ranging from 25.8 – 30.2oC; Station 2 with 25–28.9oC; and Station 3 with 25–30.2oC. The registered maximum water subsurface temperature of


197


river was 30.2oC during the month of April (the driest month with a least amount of rainfall as recorded by PAG-ASA Lazi Bay Station) and the lowest temperature of 25oC in the month of March (a wet month based on PAG-ASA data).

There was no significant difference between the average values of water subsurface temperature within stations and the difference in water subsurface temperature between wet and dry months is insignificant.

h. Nitrates – N (mg/l)

Nitrates can cause excessive growth of algae and other aquatic plants, which then die and decay, depleting dissolved oxygen in water and killing fish. Drinking water with excessive levels of nitrates lowers the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood. This can kill unborn children and infants, especially those under one year old (Miller, 1998).

Station 1 has the nitrates-N content ranging from of 0.34-1.28 mg/L; Station 2, has 0.25-1.48 mg/L; and Station 3 with 0.068-1.17 mg/L. The registered maximum nitrates-N content of river water was 1.48 mg/L at site 3 of Station 2 during the month of February and the lowest value of 0.068 mg/L at site 3 of Station 3 in the month of March. The higher nitrates-N content of the water might be attributed to the runoff from the rice paddies discharged directly to the river. Nitrate enters streams from natural sources like decomposing plants and animal waste as well as human sources like sewage or fertilizer (Behar, 1997).

The natural nitrate level is usually less than 1 mg/L. Concentrations over 10 mg/L may have an effect on the freshwater aquatic environment (Behar, 1997). In this study, the nitrate content of the water in the river is within the normal acceptable range. No significant difference was observed between the average nitrates contents of the water per station and during wet and dry months.

i. Phosphates – P (mg/l)

Together with nitrates, phosphates are another inorganic plant nutrient which is considered as water pollutant (Miller, 1998).

Across stations, the month of February has higher value of phosphate contents than the rest of the months. Phosphate source might be the minerals from surrounding areas, animal waste, detergent, and fertilizer. The lowest value of 0.007 mg/L was observed


198


at Station 1 in the month of May and the highest reading of 0.054 mg/L at Station 1 February.

The range of the phosphates-P content of the water is 0.007-0.054 mg/L which is within the normal limits. Phosphates do not pose a human or health risk except in very high concentrations. Larger streams may react to phosphate only at levels approaching 0.1 mg/L, while small streams may react to levels of PO4-3 at levels of 0.01 mg/L or less. In general, concentrations over 0.05 will likely have an impact while concentrations greater than 0.1 mg/L will certainly have impact on a river (Behar, 1997). No significant difference was observed between the average nitrates contents of the water per station and during wet and dry months.

j. Escherichia coli

Certain strains of E. coli, a fecal bacterium, can cause diarrhea, nausea and even death, if not treated (Todar, 2008; Lubos, 2008). According to Money et al. (2008), E. coli is a widely used indicator of fecal contamination in water bodies.

In this study, E. coli contents of the river water, in terms of Colony Forming Unit (CFU) per 100 mL (CFU/100 mL) was observed highest in Station 3 (103,333 CFU/100 mL), in March followed by Station 1 in the same month. The E. coli content in all stations exceeded the standards set by DENR and USEPA of 1000 CFU/100 ml, which is an indication of human and animal waste discharged into the river.

As shown in Table 4 some barangays (Gabayan at Station 3 with 48.8% of the households; Cangomantong at Station 2 with 33.1%; and Tagmanocan at Station 3 with 29.4%) near the river lack toilets. Pigpens near the river were also documented during an ocular visit in the different stations. This result supported the findings of other studies (e.g. Lubos, 2008). The presence of this bacteria means that the water in Señora River is not ideal for swimming.

Siquijor Province is not yet urbanized and industrialized. There are no manufacturing companies and industries that will alter the quality of the water as evidenced by the parameters chosen in the study being still within the permissible limits (based on the standards set by the DENR, except for E. coli.

There is no significant seasonal (wet and dry months) variation of all the parameters and no significant spatial variation (among the three stations) of dissolved oxygen (DO), salinity, water sub-surface temperature, water surface temperature, nitrates-N, phosphates-P,


199


and E. coli contents. However, levels of total dissolved solids (TDS), pH, and conductivity of the river are significantly higher in the downstream station. TDS is usually associated with conductivity of the water and Dissolved Oxygen with water temperature. The solubility of gases decreases with an increase in temperature.

CONClUsiON

Based on the findings of this study, the values of the different physico-chemical characteristics of Señora River in Lazi, Siquijor are still within the permissible limits which make the river unique relative to other rivers found in literatures except for the bacteriological parameter, E. coli, the values of which exceeded the standards, in all stations.

The water quality is threatened to be impacted by human activities, specifically the downstream of the river, as indicated by the significant increase in certain parameters. The whole stretch of the river can support aquatic life and can be used for agricultural and other industrial purposes.

ReCOMMeNdAtiONs

Based on the significant findings of the study, it is recommended that the Local Government Unit of Lazi, Siquijor and other concerned government and private agencies conserve Señora River. Specific recommendations are as follows:

1. Information, education, and awareness campaign be conducted with emphasis on the importance of Señora River with the stakeholders.

2. Environment-friendly farming practices shall be planned, developed, and implemented in order to minimize agricultural wastewater problems.

3. Planning and implementation programs for the residents along the river banks pertaining to clean and healthy environment shall be made a priority in order to correct the problems created by residential and other domestic wastewater discharged into the river.

4. Monitoring of physico-chemical (including pesticide and heavy metal contents) and bacteriological parameters of the river water be conducted.


200


Tabl

e 1.

Mea

n ±

sd o

f Phy

sico

-che

mic

al P

aram

eter

s of

señ

ora

riv

er d

urin

g W

et a

nd d

ry M

onth

s.

Para

met

ers

Stat

ion

1

Stat

ion

2

S

tatio

n 3

(Cap

alas

an)

(Cam

buga

hay

Falls

)

(Buk

ana/

Estu

ary)

W

et M

onth

s D

ry M

onth

s W

et M

onth

s D

ry M

onth

s W

et M

onth

s D

ry M

onth

s

Dis

solv

ed O

xyge

n (m

g/L)

7.

96+

1.01

0 7.

15 +

0.78

7 8.

01+

0.57

8 8.

01+0

.639

7.

85+0

.840

6.

81 +

0.56

7

Tota

l Dis

solv

ed S

olid

s (m

g/L)

21

6 +

34.2

05

219.

78+3

0.72

8 22

5+14

.816

23

3.78

+15.

123

501.

78 +

549.

175

1045

.56

+ 10

16.4

25

pH

7.56

+ 0.

208

7.32

+0.4

71

7.84

+0.0

58

7.93

+0.1

66

7.62

+0.0

83

7.63

+ 0

.122

Con

duct

ivity

(µS)

45

6.22

+ 73

.641

45

8.56

+69.

820

473.

67+3

5.50

7 49

3.89

+14.

278

940.

67 +

928

.072

17

84.4

4 +

1584

.775

Salin

ity (‰

) 0.

19+

0.03

3 0.

21+0

.033

0.

20+0

.000

0.

47+0

.400

0.

71 +

1.13

1 1.

30 +

1.72

9

Wat

er T

empe

ratu

re (o C

) 26

.86+

1.1

14

27.6

4 +1

.394

26

.99+

0.98

4 27

.50+

0.40

0 28

.17

+1.4

47

26.1

0 +1

.093

Subs

urfa

ce T

empe

ratu

re (o C

) 26

.89+

1.1

14

27.7

7+1.

839

27.7

1+1.

036

26.8

6+1.

396

28.1

0+1.

823

28.1

4+ 2

.000

Nitr

ates

-N (m

g/L)

0.

57+

0.20

6 0.

65+0

.298

0.

72+0

.262

0.

62+0

.376

0.

59+0

.287

0.

63+

0.29

7

Phos

phat

es-P

(mg/

L)

0.02

+0.

010

0.03

+0.0

17

0.02

+0.0

07

0.03

+0.0

18

0.02

+0.0

05

0.02

+ 0.

008

E. co

li (C

FU/m

L)

3890

0.00

± 2

4915

6.38

9

274.

00±1

0772

.384

1408

5.11

±134

13.4

01

166

77.6

7±10

797.

312

5

4822

.11

±217

38.4

79

233

44.3

3 ±1

9991

.609


201


Tabl

e 2.

Com

paris

on B

etw

een

seño

ra r

iver

Wat

er Q

ualit

y an

d su

rfac

e W

ater

Qua

lity

stan

dard

s B

ased

on

dEn

r a

nd u

sEPa

.

Para

met

ers

Seño

ra R

iver

St

anda

rd

DO

(mg/

L)

7.63

>

5

Tota

l Dis

solv

ed S

olid

s (m

g/L)

39

0.82

50

0pH

7.65

6.

5 to

8.5

C

ondu

ctiv

ity (µ

S)

767.

91

1000

**Sa

linity

(‰ )

0.51

0

- 5W

ater

Tem

pera

ture

(o C)*

27.2

1 N

ot m

ore

than

5o

rise

in n

atur

al te

mp

Wat

er S

ubsu

rfac

e te

mpe

ratu

re (o C

) 27

.58

—N

itrat

es-N

(mg/

L)

0.63

10

Phos

phat

es-P

(mg/

L)

0.

023

0.2

E. co

li (C

FU/1

00m

L)

37

,673

10

00

* OER

CD

** U

SEPA

Tabl

e 3.

seño

ra r

iver

Wat

er Q

ualit

y an

d W

ater

Qua

lity

Gui

delin

es a

nd W

ater

Cla

ssifi

catio

n.

Para

met

ers

AA

A

B

C

D

Seño

ra R

iver

DO

(mg/

L)*

5 5

5 5

2 7.

63To

tal D

isso

lved

Sol

ids

(mg/

L)

39

0.82

pH*

6.

5 –

8.5

6.

5 –

8.5

6.5

– 8.

5 6.

5 –

9.0

6.0

– 9.

0 7.

65C

ondu

ctiv

ity (µ

S)

—

—

—

—

—

767.

91Sa

linity

(‰ )

—

—

—

—

—

0.51

Wat

er T

empe

ratu

re

—

—

—

—

—

27

.21

Subs

urfa

ce te

mpe

ratu

re, o C

*

26-3

0 26

-30

26-3

0 25

-31

25-3

2 27

.58

Nitr

ates

-N (m

g/L)

7

7 7

7 15

0.

63Ph

osph

ates

-N (m

g/L)

<0.0

03

0.5

0.5

0.5

5 0.

023

E. co

li** (

CFU

/100

mL)

0 0

37

,673

*bas

ed o

n D

ENR

Adm

inis

trat

ive

Ord

er 2

008-

XX


202


Tabl

e 4.

stat

us o

f san

itary

Fac

ility

of t

he B

aran

gays

alo

ng th

e Vi

cini

ty o

f señ

ora

riv

er in

laz

i, si

quijo

r (20

10)*

Bara

ngay

s Po

pula

tion

No.

of H

ouse

hold

s W

ith T

oile

ts

With

out T

oile

ts

Nea

r Sta

tion

N

o.

%

No.

%

Can

gcla

ran

520

87

74

85

.1

13

14.9

2

Can

gom

anto

ng

1083

181

121

66.9

60

33

.1

2

Cap

alas

anan

12

52

20

9

17

8 85

.2

31

14.8

1

Gab

ayan

17

85

29

7

15

2 51

.2

145

48.8

3

Nag

eron

g 12

45

20

8

16

2 77

.9

46

22.1

3

Poo

81

5

136

124

91.2

12

8.

8 2

Sim

acol

ong

1787

298

273

91.6

25

8.

4 3

Tagm

anoc

an

817

13

6

96

70

.6

40

29.4

3

Tigb

awan

17

56

29

3

28

3 96

.6

10

3.4

3

* Tak

en fr

om th

e Ru

ral H

ealth

Uni

t rep

ort o

f the

Mun

icip

ality

of L

azi


203


APPeNdix A

Monthly Variations in the Physico-chemical Parameters in the Three sampling stations of señora river (February-July, 2011).

1. Monthly mean dissolved oxygen of the river water

2. Monthly mean total dissolved solids

3. Monthly mean ph values


204


4. Monthly mean conductivity

5. Monthly mean salinity

6. Monthly mean subsurface temperature


205


7. Monthly mean water temperature

8. Monthly mean NO3-n concentration of the water

9. Monthly mean PO4-P of water per station


206


10. Monthly mean E. coli concentration (in CFU)

APPeNdix B

Monthly variations in hydrological parameters of señora river (February to July 2011).

1. Monthly variation in river width of señora River.


207


2. Monthly variation in river depth of señora river.

3. Monthly variation in water velocity of señora river.


208


4. Monthly variation in water discharge of señora river.

ReFeReNCes

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Abowei, J.F.N. (2010) Salinity, dissolved oxygen, pH and surface water temperature conditions in Nkoro River, Niger Delta, Nigeria. Advance Journal of Food Science and Technology 2(1), 36-40.

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Behar, S. (1997). Definition of water quality parameters. Testing the waters: Chemical and physical vital signs of a river. Retrieved from http://fosc.org/WQDataParameters.htm

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Buijs, P. & Toader, C. (2007). Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Retrieved from www.oecd.org/env/eap

Castro, P. & Huber, M. (2005) Marine biology (5th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill Higher Education.


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Cunningham, W. & Cunningham, M.A. (2008). Principles of environmental science: Inquiry and applications (4th ed.). New York: Mc Graw-Hill.

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Moniruzzaman, M., Elahib, S.F., & Jahangira, Md. A.A. (2009). Study on temporal variation of physico-chemical parameters of Buriganga River water through GIS (Geographical Information System) Technology. Bangladesh Journal of Scientific and Industrial Research, 44(3), 327-334.

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Sawyer, C., McCarty, P., & Parkin, G. (1994) Chemistry for environmental engineering (4th ed.). New York: Mc Graw-Hill Inc.

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Varunprasath, K. & Nicholas, D. (2010). Physico-chemical parameters of River Bhavani in three stations, Tamilnadu, India. Iranica Journal of Energy and Environment 1(4): 321-325.

Water quality with computers. Total dissolved solids. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ualberta.ca/~edtechpd/documents/activity_probes_procedure dissolvedsolids_boora_v1.pdf



Cultural Practices in Relation to the Utilization and Conservation

of the Señora River and Other Community Practices

Josel B. MansuetoExpedita o. duranricky C. Jumawan

siquijor state Collegelarena, siquijor, Philippines

this research investigated people’s cultural practices related to the river. data were gathered using a Focused Group discussion to supplement the responses to the questionnaires and actual site observations including interviews and visits. it was found out that both religious (mainly roman Catholicism) and cultural beliefs are practiced interchangeably by the local people. local culture and practices have contributed to the respect and realization of the limitations of the natural resources. People used indigenous ways of healing practices using plants from the riparian area of the river.

keyWORds: cultural practices, river conservation and utilization, animism, folk healing, community practices

iNtROdUCtiON

Siquijor Island is well-known for its mysticism, religious rituals, folk healing and other cultural practices (Pontenila & Reynolds, 1971; Dumont, 1992; Mascuñana, Pioquinto, & Schales 1999;

Seki, 1994; Mascuñana & Mascuñana, 2008). The local people of Siquijor (Siquijodnon) believe on supernatural

beings (Mascuñana et al. 1999; Mascuñana & Mascuñana, 2008) or local deities residing in the so-called “sacred places.” Such belief has been regarded as contributory towards the preservation of natural resources and reduced exploitation (Acheson, Wilson, & Steneck,

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1998; Agrawal, 1995; Alcorn, 1993; Altieri, 1994; Berkes, 1989; 1998; 1999; Berkes, Colding, & Folke, 2000; Berkes & Folke, 1998; Berkes, Folke, & Gadgil, 1995; Berkes, Kislalioglu, Folk, & Gadgil, 1998; Brookfield & Padoch, 1994; Callicott, 1994; Chapman, 1985; Child & Child, 1993; Colding, 1998; Colding & Folke, 1997; Dei,1993; Denevan et al., 1984; Dwyer, 1994). This in turn will result to improved resilience of the ecosystem (Holling, 1973; Alcorn & Toledo, 1998; Begossi, 1998; Berkes et al., 1995). According to Berkes (1999), resilience is high in ecosystems believed by the locals as “sacred places.” Berkes (2002) also argued that cultural or “traditional ecological knowledge” plays an important role in conserving natural resources.

Previous anthropological studies done in Siquijor (e.g. Mascuñana et al. 1999) described folk healing that utilizes certain plants in the preparation of decoction both for healing and sorcery (Mascuñana & Mascuñana, 2008), and most of them emphasized the mysticism and religious aspects only. However, this present study presents the beliefs and practices of the local people which may unconsciously help protect the natural ecosystems such as the Señora River in Lazi, Siquijor.

MetHOds

This study interviewed 249 respondents (all household heads) in the eight barangays along the Señora River. Methods included focused group discussions (FGDs), a questionnaire, and a structured interview guide. Prior to the interview, request letters or permit to conduct research (PCR) documents explaining the intent of the research were disseminated to the respective executive heads (e.g., mayor and barangay captains).

Ranking and frequency of the responses on their cultural beliefs and practices were obtained from the questionnaire. Content analysis of the responses on the open-ended sections of the questionnaire was also done. The answers were supplemented by data from the FGDs.


More than a dozen cultural practices were identified during the conduct of the study. However, only those perceived as directly related to the utilization of the river ended up in the present report.

CUltUral PraCtiCE aNd tHE sEÑora rivEr

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(A separate paper describing the other cultural practices is being prepared for publication elsewhere.)

Out of the 249 respondents, majority (about 90%) considered the river a “sacred place” and they refrained from overexploiting the river using destructive methods as a way of respecting the “unseen inhabitants of the river.” Likewise, 77 (30.92%) avoided using the river during Tuesdays and Fridays while 95(38.15%) avoided the river during Holy Week. Over 100 respondents (n=102) said that women refrained from using the river during menstruation

The locals’ belief in the existence of the supernatural beings is superceded by their religion for they feel secure in using the river when they pray (18.16%) or make the sign of the cross (supposedly asking for protection) which is a Roman Catholic practice (22.16%). After the prayer, they recognize the presence of other entities by asking permission from the spirits to allow them to use the river (18.02%). These practices revealed how animism and Catholicism are incorporated into local culture. However, given the minimal percentage distribution of the cultural practices, this diminishing practice poses additional threat to the exploitation of natural resources.

As is the case elsewhere, such belief has been regarded as contributory towards the preservation of natural resources due to reduced exploitation (Acheson et al., 1998; Agrawal, 1995; Alcorn, 1993; Altieri, 1994; Berkes, 1989; 1998; 1999; Berkes et al., 2000; Berkes & Folke, 1998; Berkes et al., 1995, 1998; Brookfield & Padoch, 1994; Callicott, 1994; Chapman, 1985; Child & Child, 1993; Colding, 1998; Colding & Folke, 1997; Dei,1993; Denevan et al., 1984; Dwyer, 1994), which in turn will result in improved resilience of the ecosystem (Holling, 1973; Alcorn & Toledo, 1998; Begossi, 1998; Berkes et al., 1995).

Berkes (1999) underscores enhanced ecosystem resilience in areas believed by the locals to be “scared places.” In this study, it is the semi-subterranean stream in the upstream station that has been considered bintan (synonymous with “sacred” in other cultures) by the locals. It is noteworthy to mention that the surrounding vegetation appears intact. The freshwater shrimps (Macrobrachium australe) and the freshwater cyprinid Spotted Barb (Puntius binotatus) were of relatively larger size as compared to heavily exploited areas.

In one interview, a folkhealer revealed that herbs were gathered weeks before the Holy Week (Personal communication, Pedro Ano-os). The mixture of oil and herbs were used in healing sick people, as well as in making business and personal potions. Some of the

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plants used for this concoction were derived from the riparian area of Señora River such as are pangagos, hambalante, and bangkunayong-kumalom (tree). Based on the folkhealer’s description of these plants, these belong to at least two families, including the Family Moraceae.

CONClUsiON ANd ReCOMMeNdAtiONs

The cultural practices suggest the interdependence of local communities and the river. Beliefs on supernatural beings may have contributed to the preservation of certain areas of the river and adjacent forested areas. It is recommended that the present investigation be further pursued. There is also a need to document and verify some of the cultural practices, particularly folk healing.

ACkNOWledgMeNts

The authors wish to thank CHED-ZRC, Siquijor State College in Larena, Siquijor and Silliman University and St. Paul University in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental.

ReFeReNCes

Acheson, J.M., Wilson, J.A., & Steneck, R.S. (1998). Managing chaotic fisheries. In F. Berkes & C. Folke (Eds.). Linking social and ecological systems: Management practices and social mechanisms for building resilience (pp. 390-413). Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.

Agrawal, A. (1995). Indigenous and scientific knowledge: Some critical comments. Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor, 3(3), 3-6.

Alcorn, J.B. (1993). Indigenous peoples and conservation. Conservation Biology, 7, 424-426.

Alcorn, J.B., & Toledo, V.M. (1998). Resilient resource management in Mexico’s forest ecosystems: The contribution of property rights. In F. Berkes & C. Folke (Eds.). Linking social and ecological systems: Management practices and social mechanisms for building resilience (pp. 216-249). Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press.

Altieri, M.A. (1994). Biodiversity and pest management in agroecosystems. New York: Food Products Press.

Begossi, A. (1998). Resilience and neotraditional populations: The caic¸aras of the


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Atlantic forest and caboclos of the Amazon (Brazil). In F. Berkes & C. Folke (Eds.). Linking social and ecological systems: Management practices and social mechanisms for building resilience (pp. 129-157). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Berkes, F. (Ed.). (1989). Common property resources: Ecology and community-based sustainable development. London, UK: Belhaven.

Berkes, F. (1998). Learning to design resilient resource management: Indigenous systems in the Canadian subarctic. In F. Berkes & C. Folke (Eds.). Linking social and ecological systems: Management practices and social mechanisms for building resilience (pp. 98-128). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Berkes, F. (1999). Traditional ecological knowledge and resource management. Philadelphia: Taylor & Francis.

Berkes, F., Colding, J., & Folke, C. (2000). Rediscovery of traditional ecological knowledge as adaptive management. Ecological Applications, 10(5), 1251-1262.

Berkes, F., & Folke, C. (Eds.). (1998). Linking social and ecological systems: Management practices and social mechanisms for building resilience. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Berkes, F., Folke, C., & Gadgil, M. (1995). Traditional ecological knowledge, biodiversity, resilience and sustainability. In C. Perrings, K.-G. Ma¨ler, C. Folke, C.S. Holling, & B.O. Jansson (Eds.). Biodiversity conservation (pp. 269-287). Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.

Berkes, F., Kislalioglu, M., Folke, C., & Gadgil, M. (1998). Exploring the basic ecological unit: Ecosystem-like concepts in traditional societies. Ecosystems, 1,409-415.

Brookfield, H., & Padoch, C. (1994). Appreciating agrodiversity: A look at the dynamism and diversity of indigenous farming practices. Environment, 36(5), 6-11, 37-45.

Callicott, J.B. (1994). A survey of ecological ethics from the Mediterrranean Basin to the Australian Outback. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Chapman, M. (1985). Environmental influences on the development of traditional conservation in the South Pacific region. Environmental Conservation 12, 217-230.

Child, A.B., & Child, I.L. (1993). Religion and magic in the life of traditional peoples. Englewoods Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Colding, J. (1998). Analysis of hunting options by the use of general food taboos. Ecological Modelling, 110, 5-17.

Colding, J., & Folke, C. (1997). The relation between threatened species, their protection, and taboos. Conservation Ecology 1(1), 6. Available online: http://www.consecol.org/vol1/iss1/art6and

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Dei, G.J.S. (1993). Indigenous African knowledge systems: Local traditions of sustainable forestry. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 14, 28-41.

Denevan, W.M., Treacy, J.M., Alcorn, J.B., Padoch, C., Denslow, J. & Paitan, S.F. (1984). Indigenous agroforestry in the Peruvian Amazon: Bora Indian management of swidden fallows. Interciencia, 9, 346-357.

Dumont, J.P. (1992). Visayan vignettes: Ethnographic traces of a Philippine Island. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Dwyer, P.D. (1994). Modern conservation and indigenous peoples: In search of wisdom. Pacific Conservation Biology, 1, 91-97.

Holling, C.S. (1973). Resilience and stability of ecological systems. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 4, 1-23.

Mascuñana, R.V., Pioquinto, C.E., & Schales, C.K. (1999). The holy week rites of the mananambal of Siquijor. Silliman Journal, 40(1), 13-47.

Mascuñana, R.V., & Mascuñana, E.F. (2008). The folk healers: Sorcerers of Siquijor. Quezon City: Rex Book Store.

Pontenila, M., & Reynolds, H. (1971). Sorcery in the framework of folk medicine on Siquijor Island. Silliman Journal, 18(1), 75-96.

Seki, K. (1994). Healers in Siquijor. Yakara Studies in Ethnology, 24(10), 21-22.



The Philippine-American War in Verse

Myrna Peña-reyes

With our interest in the Philippine-American War re-awakened by the recent release of John Sayles’ film Amigo (filmed in Bohol) and the publication of his book, Moment

in the Sun (McSweeney’s, 2011), I am brought in mind of the “Yankee Rudyard Kiplings,” those American poet-soldiers and the war correspondents who recorded in verse America’s colonial adventure in the Philippines. Like the British in their Asian colonies, the U.S. Army also had

Blood lust [is] in their faces, for the work they’re destined forIs the grim and lurid battles of a bloody eastern war;The martyrs are among them to the “White Man’s Burden” creed;The servants are among them of a nation’s greatest need;

(from Your Own, A.L. Price, 1908)

The United States of America would join for the first time the privileged company of world imperialist powers.

Of the naval battle that mustered out the Spaniards and ushered in American rule over our islands, one sailor-soldier, celebrating the victor’s “dominant blood,” records in

A Ballad of Manila Bay So through the dark we stole our wayPast the grim waders and into the bay,Past Kalibuyo, and past Salinas— And came at the break of day

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tHE PHiliPPiNE-aMEriCaN War iN vErsE

Where strong Cavite stood to oppose—Where, from a sheen of silver and rose,A thronging of masts, a soaring of towers, The beautiful city arose. How fine and fair! But the shining airWith a thousand shattered thunders thereFlopped and reeled. For the fighting foe— We had caught him in his lair…

A description of the one-sided battle follows, ending with Dewey’s victory:

Manila Bay! Manila Bay!How proud the song on our lips today!A brave old song of the true and strong, And the will that has its way… The dominant blood that daunts the foe,That laughs at odds, and leaps to the blow—It is Dewey’s glory today, as Nelson’s A hundred years ago!

(Charles George Douglas Roberts, 1908)

Tributes and exhortations to Admiral George Dewey, the new U.S. national hero, were many, including this one in mock illiterate Negro speech:

Hol’ Dem Philuppines

Mistah Dewey, yo’s all right, Hol’ dem Philuppines! Made yo’ point an’ won yo’ fight, Hol’ dem Philuppines!If dem natives get too gayMake dem walk the Spanish way;Show dem dat yo’s come to say, Hol’ dem Philuppines!

Doctah Dewey, doan’ yo’ care, Hol’ dem Philuppines! Let dat German ge’man swear, Hol’ dem Philuppines!Reckon dat yo’ saw dem first,Just yo’ say to wienerwurst:“Come en take dem, if yo’ durst,

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M. PEÑa-rEyEs Hol’ dem Philuppines!

Fesser Dewey, yo’ is wa’am, Hol’ dem Philuppines!Reckon yo’ can ride de storm, Hol’ dem Philuppines!Tell him dat yo’ will not grieveIf ol’ Diederichs should leave—Keep dat razar up your sleeve, Hol’ dem Philuppines!

A’m’al Dewey, watch yo’ kyards, Hol’ dem Philuppines!Folks all sen’ yo’ best regyards, Hol’ dem Philuppines!Make dem fo’iners lay low,If dey ‘sist to pester so,Make dem take dah clothes and go, Hol’dem Philuppines!

(George V. Hobart, 1899)

When the Philippines became the enemy, the Americans record their skirmishes with the Filipino “insurrectos”:

Ballad of Paco Town The bullets a vicious music made,Like the whistle and whine of the midnight blastOn the weltering wastes of the ocean whenThe breast of the deep is scourged and flayed…

The verse continues by glorifying the heroic act of one signal-man who quickly repairs the telegraph wire severed by the bullet of a Filipino soldier:

Out of his saddle he sprang as gayAs a schoolboy taking a holiday,Wire in hand up the pole he wentWith never a glance at the tower, intentOnly on that which he saw appearAs the line of his duty plain and clear.To the very crest he climbed, and there,While the bullets buzzed in the scorching air,Chipped his clothing, and scored and stungThe slender pole-top to which he clung,Made the wire that was severed sound,Slipped in his careless way to the ground,

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tHE PHiliPPiNE-aMEriCaN War iN vErsESprang to the back of his horse, and thenWas off, this bravest of signal-men. (Clinton Scollard, 1908)

And what good would the coming of America do for the Philippines?

Uncle Sam the Tutor

When your Uncle came out east There was nothing here; at least, Not much. But he turned things upside down And he waked the sleepy town With his clutch.In the carromata trails He has laid the shining rails For the cars; He has brought electric light Where once reigned the queen of night And the stars;He has bidden strife to cease, Brought about a reign of peace In the isles;He has opened up the farms Where the sun the dark soil warms With his smiles;He established public schools, Progress uses them as tools In its works;He has made men stand in awe Of the lightning that in law Ever lurks;He has lifted up a race, Wiped its weeping, childish face With his hand;Washed its soiled clothes, made them neat, Set the child on tottering feet, Bade it stand;

(A.L. Price, 1908)

One isn’t really sure if the invaders could appreciate the tropics. Is this tongue-in-cheek?

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M. PEÑa-rEyEsAin’t It Fine? Tropic skies and tropic days,Tropic gleams on tropic bays, Tropic waters softly flow, Tropic phosphorescents glow, Tropic woods on rocky hill, Tropic vales a-slumber still, Lordy, ain’t it fine!

Tropic seas just wallerin’ roundTropic emptiness of ground,Tropic morning, night and noon,Tropic stars and tropic moon,Tropic paling dusk and dawn,Tropic life so fleetly gone— Lordy, ain’t it fine!

(A.L. Price, 1908)

For their own dead, they romanticize, with a proper nod to religion, as in:

Our Dead in Pasay

They died, and dying, turned their eyesTo homeland flag and strangeland skies—The flag for which men well might giveTheir lives; the skies inviting men to live—And threading through their purpose goodRan love of men and brotherhood. And here they lie in slumber sweet,This tropic land their winding sheet,While o’er them float the winged hours,Above them grow the fairest flowers,And in their spirit’s tingling veinsThe pride of unseen victory reigns.

Then o’er them coldly resting there,Be speeches made, let solemn prayerAnd martial music sweetly blendO’er those who sleep till time shall end—Till Resurrection’s Angels spreadTheir snowy pinions o’er our dead.

(A.L. Price, 1908)

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One wonders where their “love of men and brotherhood” went when they fought the Filipinos.

They sprang to the defense of a fellow soldier who was punished, perhaps, for doing his job too well:

The Army’s Martyr Grafton

A soldier’s duty is not to knowThe face of friend or the face of foe;A soldier’s duty is not to feelBut change the nerves of his heart to steel:A soldier’s orders are, “Kill or dieWith never asking the question, why.”

Know you that Grafton, obeying, wonThe satisfaction of duty done,And know that he feels, in his prison cell,That sacred oaths may be kept too well,A soldier’s oath is a sacred thing,About it the good in a man will cling...But how can men who have never felt The leaden weight of a cartridge belt,Nor drank from springs where the army drinks,Nor thought the thoughts that the army thinks,Be judge of men who have lived it through—Have lived, have loved, and have blessed it, too?

By Grafton’s kind, was Mount Dajo won,By Grafton’s kind have great deeds been done,For Grafton’s kind form the rank and fileThat faces death with a cheerful smile.God help the land that, at any time,Pronounces duty well done a crime.

(A.L. Price, 1908)

The Moro Wars which challenged the Spanish before them proved an insurmountable barrier to U.S. hopes of complete dominion over the Philippines. The following verse, an exception to the mostly narrative doggerel-type verse being written then, shows a more competent lyric evoking the mood and drama of a fight with an economy of words:

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In Mindanao

A dark one hid in a jungle,A tramping of booted feet,A grown hand clasping a bolo,A rush from a safe retreat.

A quick down-stroke at a sentry,A strangled moan in the night,A pool of blood in the forest,To tell the tale of the fight. A comrade found in the blackness,Beside him a severed head,The forest keepeth its secretsAs well as it keeps its dead.

(A.L. Price, 1908)

A more detailed description of battle is also an occasion for a poet-observer, who knows the real situation in the Philippines, to air his cynical view of the propaganda coming out of Washington:

The Peaceful Philippines Have you heard the rustle in the cogon by the way?Have you glimpsed a black clad bolo-man soft creeping on his prey?Have you heard the jungles barking with a voice of rifle shot?Have you seen a comrade reeling as a bullet reached the spot?Have you heard the sharp spears hurtling past and buzzing as they fly?Have you seen the dead men’s faces grinning grimly at the sky?Have you heard the ring of campilan, the clash of deadly kris?But at Washington they tell us that the Philippines have peace.

Have you seen a Moro fighting with his body full of lead?Have you clubbed your gun and brained him so you’d know the tao was dead?Have you charged upon a cotta where the women fought like menAnd the men all fought like devils in hell’s deepest dismal den?Have you heard them pray while dying for the strength to lift a knifeSo that hell might grin with pleasure for another Christian life?Have you seen the red blood flowing in the pathway of the kris?Yet at Washington they tell us that the Philippines have peace...

(A.L. Price, 1908)

Although, as expected, the Army and their Government leaders believed in the rightness of the U.S. cause, some anti-war voices were raised then, as they are raised today:

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An Arraignment

In the name of young manhood degraded and lost, In the name of the shame and the manhood you’ve cost,In the name of your tyranny blacker than crime, In the name of the hearts you have smirched with your slime, I arraign you, Army!

In the name of the idleness fostered by you,In the name of your ease where the worthlessness grew,In the name of the land you have pillaged of men,The lads you have sunk to your hell’s deepest den, I arraign you, Army!

In the name of your blight to an epoch of peace,In the name of your crime-mill that never can cease, In the name of the cities, the name of the landThat is filled with the tramps who are bearing your brand, I arraign you, Army! (A.L. Price, 1908)

As with most men away from home, the Americans suffered homesickness too:

Homesick?

Oh, I’m having lots of pleasure, And I find that life is sweet,But I’d like to see the shimmer Of the breeze upon the wheat.

Hereupon me life is smiling And the softest zephyrs blow,But I’d like to see men plodding Up and down a cotton row.

Yes, I’m making stacks of money, And I’m working, night and morn,But I’d like to smell the fragrance Of the blossom on the corn.

No, I do not think I’m homesick, Very little, any way,But I’d like to hear a mower Rattle through a field of hay.

(A.L. Price, 1908)


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Sarcastic humor is used in voicing their doubts that the Filipinos can ever be trusted with “the right to tote a gun” (read “independence”):

Song for the Assembly

They’ll foregather in Manila—every tribe from every sea—From the gee-string to the silk hat every kind of dress there’ll be;And the mixing of the dialects will drown all sign of sense,And the interest in bearing arms will reach a state intense.They can’t call each other liars; they’re not civilized that far;They will not learn the meaning of the word from those who are.When Santos’s good steel bolo rings on Gomez’s sharpened kris,How’d you like to be the sergeant who will have to keep the peace?How’d you like to have the place?How’d you like to bear the mace?How’d you like to dodge about between the bolo and the kris?How’d you like to see them gloatAs they cut each other’s throat?How’d you like to be the sergeant who will have to keep the peace? (Chorus)

How’d you like to have the place?How’d you like to bear the mace?How’d you like to dodge about between the bolo and the kris?How’d you like to see them gloatWhen they cut each other’s throat?How’d you like to be the sergeant who will have to keep the peace?

Taft will meet them in Manila and he’ll look into their eyesWith a fatherly expression and remark they’re getting wise;Then they’ll hand him their petition for the right to tote a gunFor the bolo isn’t swift enough to give them any fun;And I’d like to see the Taft smile that the papers talk about!When they find they cannot have the guns, ‘twill sadly put them out.When the secretary leaves the hall the row will not decrease!How’d you like to be the sergeant who will have to keep the peace?

(A.L. Price, 1908)

Little did they know that the U.S. had become “the policeman of the world,” a role they continue to play today, albeit, perhaps, more and more with regret and resentment.

In narrative, ballads, and doggerel rhymes depicting the popular literary style of their time, these American poet-soldiers and war

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correspondents have left a record of their nation’s first assay into colonial adventurism. While their superior attitude is expected, the reader may be surprised by the range of concerns that the verses cover, integrated within, or against, patriotic pronouncements. The effects of America’s grand adventure at the turn of the 20th c. on the lives and fortunes of Filipinos have been long and lasting, for better or for worse.

ReFeReNCes

Price, A.L. (1908). In white and khaki: Selected rhymes. Manila: Kemlein & Johnson.

Scollard, C. (Ed.). (1908). Ballads of American bravery: The silver series of English and American classics. New York: Silver, Burdett & Co.

Stickney, J.L. (1899). Admiral Dewey at Manila: The complete story of the Philippines: Life and glorious deeds of Admiral George Dewey, including a thrilling account of our conflicts with the Spaniards and Filipinos in the Orient. Chicago: Imperial Publishing Company.


rEviEW


Reconnecting with the SillimansReview by Lorna Peña-Reyes Makil

Dumaguete residents and students of Silliman University before and immediately after World War II in the Philippines were used to the ubiquitous presence of American missionaries in

their midst. Among these missionaries were Robert (Bob) and Metta Silliman who, like most of the American missionaries working in the University, did not actively preach their faith but were witnesses to it through their lives and multiple functions in teaching, committee work, prayer and Bible study groups, advising organizations, administration, and various social contacts with students and the community.

The Sillimans worked and lived in Dumaguete for over 40 years and were known to students, faculty and the community who were around before the mid-1960s. Their legacy as missionaries is known to this older generation of Filipinos who interacted with them, many of whom, like Bob and Metta, are no longer with us.

For those of us who are still around, we welcome a new monograph on the Sillimans by American archivist and historian, Tawny Ryan Nelb. The impetus for its publication is the interest maintained by the Berta

tawny Ryan Nelb

Mission Accomplished:Robert and Metta Silliman’s Missionary Work in the Philippines, 1924-1966

Midland, Michigan: Memorial Presbyterian Church, 2012), 84 pages

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rEviEW oF MissioN aCCoMPlisHEdE.R. Strosacker Memorial Presbyterian Church (Memorial Presbyterian Church of Midland, Michigan) in having promoted missionary work for over 100 years.

The book introduces us to one of Midland Church’s long-time members, Grace Anna Bell Dow, great granddaughter of one of its founders and wife of Herbert Dow of the famous Dow Chemical Company. They were generous supporters of the church and its programs.

In 1925, Midland Church was approached by Dr. David Hibbard, president of then Silliman Institute, for help in the work of the small college in Dumaguete. Grace Dow quickly responded and gave the first of many donations she was to make to support part of a missionary’s salary in the Philippines.

The missionary was Metta Jacobs Archer, a young widow with a Master’s degree in education (Illinois University) who had been teaching English for a year at Silliman Institute. Grace Dow’s donation enabled Metta to extend her stay and continue with her teaching duties.

Bob Silliman (distantly related to Horace Brinsmade Silliman who had given the money to start Silliman Institute) arrived in Dumaguete in 1925 and taught with the Silliman history department, having earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago. The book tells us that he and Metta married the following year in nearby Cebu. He would earn his Master’s degree in history from Lafayette College, Pennsylvania in 1937 during one of their furloughs.

Grace Dow extended her donation to include part of Bob’s salary. By then, a close personal friendship was developing between her and the missionary couple. When Metta’s younger sister, Abby Jacobs, arrived as a new missionary in 1931, part of her salary was also covered by Grace Dow’s patronage.

It was this unusually warm and personal friendship between patron/benefactor and missionaries in the field that, especially for us readers who knew the Sillimans, carries great interest, showing how such a relationship was nurtured by almost weekly letters from them to Grace Dow, supplemented by photos and postcards which conveyed to her the rich details of their lives and the people they worked with, of their physical environment and their cultural surroundings. Their exchange of letters through the years forms part of the archival source of Nelb’s book. In a world when modern communication technology was unknown, they succeeded in maintaining a firm friendship through regular personal letters. As Bob described it, he “wrote to Grace just as often and just like I write my mother” (p. 47).

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l.P.r. MaKil

What had started as a formal donation by Grace Dow to Silliman Institute in 1925 was sustained through time by her personal friendship with the Sillimans and her active interest in mission work. She was typical of the church women of her time: member of several women’s groups which included foreign and local missionary societies. These societies formed the core of the church’s participation in missionary work through their direct financial support and a lively curiosity about foreign religions and cultures. (Note: In a similar vein, it is said that the wife of Horace B. Silliman belonged to such a women’s missionary society. It was she who first suggested to her husband that he give money to America’s newest colony at the turn of the century.)

The book also describes Grace Dow as being active in groups outside the church. She offered personal assistance to those who needed it, “…but above all, she was known for her quiet acts of charity and deep faith. With no fanfare, she would tend to the needs of others…” (p. 13). As a good Presbyterian, she believed that “man’s responsibility of ministry to others cannot be left to the clergy alone.”

This, and the amazing friendship that Grace Dow had with the Sillimans, whet the reader’s curiosity about her. It is good to know about her altruistic character and deep faith which inspired her life (Nelb is a good archivist and historian who makes excellent use of her sources). But perhaps because many readers of this book knew the Sillimans personally and interacted with them as fellow human beings, there is also a wish to know what Grace Dow was really like as a person. What other interests, if any, did she share with the Sillimans (e.g., did she enjoy literature and music as Metta did?) that kept their friendship alive? This book does not tell us this or other details that would round out Grace Dow as a person. But perhaps this is not part of the job of an archivist’s account?

Grace Dow was widowed some five years after her friendship with the Sillimans began. Nelb posits the idea that the Sillimans “gave her a substitute family to care for and to worry about” (p. 47). Her children were all grownup by then. And indeed, the Sillimans were like family to Grace, and she to them. Her support went beyond their salaries. Her monetary gifts enabled them to travel and visit other missions, and see more of the country this way. She helped provide them “with creature comforts that helped offset the distance from home and the hardships of the tropics” (p. 18).

Except for the years spent later in the mountains hiding from the Japanese (1942-1944), it may not be quite accurate to describe missionaries at Silliman University, like Bob and Metta, as living

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the “hardships of the tropics.” Midland Church and Grace Dow were influenced more by stereotype ideas of mission life than facts. Dumaguete was a provincial capital where the living was relatively easy and gracious, a safe and secure town outside the usual path of seasonal typhoons, with the basic amenities (water and electricity, etc.) and a semblance of modern living that was truer to the picture than life in the forsaken boondocks. American missionary families on campus enjoyed high respect and adulation, had two or more Filipino servants and lived in comfortable screened houses that protected them from mosquitoes and other tropical pests (while Filipino homes on campus had to wait longer for the same privileges).

The vacation home in the mountains—Fern Rest—that the Sillimans maintained “to escape the heat in the lowlands” placed them a little above some of their missionary counterparts and most of the Filipino families with whom they worked and lived. Although no one begrudges them this house at Camp Lookout, it should be noted that Fern Rest offered a luxury similar to that provided by the Baguio vacation homes of Governor-General Howard Taft and other early American colonial leaders and wealthy landed Filipino families. At the same time, however, Fern Rest also afforded Bob and Metta easier access to the residents of the small mountain community who were also recipients of their missionary services.

When the Presbyterian Board imposed cuts on the salaries of the missionaries during the world wide Depression of the 1930s, Bob and Metta received monthly and quarterly checks from Grace Dow to augment their support and to enable them to extend assistance to students and others in the University.

World War II brought deprivations suffered by the Sillimans with other missionaries and Filipino families in the mountains. But this was also the time when Bob’s administrative skills were widely recognized and appreciated. His appointment as Deputy Governor for Southern Negros Oriental called for his help in reorganizing the local governments and securing food for the guerillas and civilians.

In 1944, the Sillimans, along with other missionaries in Negros Oriental, were rescued by an American submarine and carried to safety to Australia where they were personally welcomed by General Douglas MacArthur. (Much of the drama of this thrilling event is lost in the author’s straightforward and factual retelling of the main action.) From there, they were taken to the American mainland where they rested and recuperated from their ordeal of almost two years. Nelb writes that the time spent by the Sillimans with Grace Dow at her Midland

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home was a period of grace that further cemented their special ties. It was during this time that Grace Dow informed them of her decision to provide for their support after her death with gifts of stocks and cash. (She passed away in 1953.)

With the help of Midland Church and other friends, the Sillimans made preparations to return to Dumaguete after the war, gathering hundreds of books to restock the University library collection that had been destroyed during the Japanese occupation. They were the second American couple to arrive, one year after the University had re-opened. The task of rebuilding and rehabilitating Silliman University kept them busy. While Metta resumed her teaching, Bob served as College Dean, then as Vice President, and finally in 1961-62, as Acting President.

While Nelb mentions these crucial roles that Bob held in the University, her monograph does not include an interesting fact about Bob’s public persona as it was known in the community. She could not have possibly known about it. But for readers who were around then, Bob was perceived to be “different from the other missionaries” who were seen to be more friendly and approachable. He had an unsmiling, serious demeanor and was feared for his stern and formal ways of dealing with the faculty and students. (The 1956 University yearbook, Portal, has a picture showing faculty members enjoying a good laugh at a gathering, with Bob sitting in their midst wearing his trademark poker face. The picture has this caption: “$64,000 to the funny-man who can make him smile.”) Filipinos, in general, are known for their easy smiles. Bob’s warmer nature, which was more like his real self, was known only to his immediate household, intimate friends, and those with whom he worked closely. As a young applicant for missionary service for the first time, he was described to the Presbyterian Board by one of his college teachers thus: “…his interest in others, his kindness of nature, and his tactfulness will actuate him in whatever service he enters…” (quoted in Arthur L. Carson, Silliman University 1901-1959, pp. 353-354). So why did he choose to be distant and formal, uncharacteristically blunt as a missionary with the university community in general? It is possible that he assumed a public image that, as a practical man, he knew would facilitate the observance of impersonal, efficient and institutional procedures contributing to a successful administration of the University. The fear and respect that he inspired in others made his job as administrator easier.

Readers who lived in Dumaguete during the time of Bob and Metta will be delighted to meet again in the pages of Nelb’s book their foster children who people warmly called “adopted ni Silliman”: Emma Cole-

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Teves, Eleanor Funda-Sardual, and Fred Dael. Their lives turned out well in the service of others—as nurse, as college professor of English and literature and tireless church worker, and as a corporate manager, respectively.

Nelb concludes her narrative of Bob and Metta’s ministry with a description of the warm send-off that they received from the University and Dumaguete leaders when they retired in September 1966. They had given the best years of their lives to Silliman University and Dumaguete, and for this, they were adopted as son and daughter of the city, with all the rights and privileges of citizenship bestowed on them.

Not many of the friends and acquaintances whom they left behind were aware that they lived out their final years at Westminster Gardens, a community for Presbyterian retirees in Duarte, California. Retirement was difficult for them because of Metta’s poor health and dementia from Parkinson’s disease. She died at 97 in 1988, followed by Bob at 88 in 1990. Nelb also mentions that Metta’s sister, Abby Jacobs, retired in the same place and passed away before them in 1983.

Nelb ends her monograph with this accurate conclusion: “The collaboration of the Church, the missionaries, the patron and the University allowed tremendous contributions to each of their communities that were impossible in isolation. What a wonderful legacy of service for them all” (p. 57).

This book is recommended to those who are interested in the American colonial period in Philippine history. For the general public, the book will add to their knowledge and understanding of the American missionary contributions to Philippine education. And for old timers who are still around, the monograph will serve to reconnect them to a nostalgic past when the quality of University life was enriched by the presence of American missionaries like Robert and Metta Silliman.

The book contains pictures that add interest to its informative data—pictures of the young Robert and Metta when they first worked in the Philippines, and many years later when they retired; old pictures of students and University buildings; some pictures of the war; the “adopted ni Silliman”; a picture of the well-kept grounds of Bob and Metta’s retirement home; and pictures of Grace Dow (but strangely enough, there is no picture of these three good friends together).

Two errors of fact are noted: [1] When David Hibbard visited Dumaguete and chose it as the future site for Silliman Institute, he met the governor of Negros Oriental, Governor Demetrio Larena (not Meliton Larena who was the town mayor, p.9); and [2] Silliman

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University in August 2008 honored Robert and Metta Silliman by naming the Main Library (not a new multimedia center) after them (p.77, footnote 167).

ABOUt tHe RevieWeR

Lorna Peña-Reyes Makil was briefly associated with the Institute of Philippine Culture in Ateneo de Manila University before she worked with the Philippine Social Science Council for twelve years. She returned to Dumaguete in 2002, keeping busy with research, writing, volunteer work, and other activities in a community which she finds “kind to retirees.”

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Silliman Journalvolume 53 Number 2 2012