METROPOST


NOV. 4 - NOV. 10, 2018 OPINION 5 CECILIA HOFMANN GENDER BENDER h.cecilia7@gmail.com


n the PAL flight back from Manila the other day, “This is your captain speaking…..” was a woman’s voice. I took notice because I couldn’t remember having a woman flight captain before. Of course, that’s probably because I rarely fly, or only when really necessary, and for the reason that we’re urged, in this environmentally-critical time, to avoid air travel’s excessively-high carbon footprint. (Some well- known seriously-committed environmentalists have given up flying altogether.)


O


Captain Martinez, for that was her name, I tried to hang back when passengers were disembarking, to see if I could briefly talk to her. But perhaps technical tasks kept her in the flight deck and I finally had to go. Looking up the subject, it seems that PAL’s first female captain started flying in 1993, and that since then, their women pilots number 54. However, it remains a male-dominated profession with women comprising only 2 percent of pilots across all airlines in 2016.


But to get back to


The Manila meeting of the Philippine Commission on Women precisely discussed the situations and issues of women across different sectors. One group I had not encountered before was


D


only what he had to others; he gave all of himself.


r. Rolando Villanueva del Carmen was generosity incarnate. He gave not


visit to his relatives, friends, and his dear alma mater, Silliman University in August 2018 was most likely his last, and even when he was in severe pain, he summoned all of his will and strength to make that visit happen. And when we tearfully embraced each other moments before he left for the airport, he whispered to me his parting good wishes for Silliman. Our deep friendship started on Founders Week of Silliman in August 2006 when I offered him a ride from the College of Law at Villareal Hall to Bethel Guest House where he was billeted


Even as he knew that his


Pinay Tradeswomen: Women in Construction. These are women welders, masons, electricians, and painters mostly in Luzon, and who have organized to try to improve their employment opportunities and the terms and conditions of their work. They don’t have an easy time of it as gender bias is still the norm. Then I was suddenly reminded that long ago when I planned to rent a run- down bungalow in Quezon City, a friend referred me to her architect sister. She brought a small team of women to do the renovation


work, and they did a terrific job! A pioneering group of women 25 years ago, but today Pinay Tradeswomen is struggling.


It’s known that economies strongly benefit when women are significantly involved in different sectors of the economy.


food products, handicrafts, souvenir items or the like, and do not achieve significant scale to really make a difference. What would be needed is economic planning for women,


policies, scholarships and training for women on a preferential basis, and services for child-minding. Yes, that means putting


employment


resources where they’re needed. But instead, government continues to pursue and promote labor migration, with all its attendant risks and problems for women OFWs


The captain is a woman


and their families, in order to defuse the pressures of unemployment, and to allow it to muddle along with lax and ineffective economic development and job creation.


Of course, there are many women in the liberal professions, most from families that could afford higher education. But rural women do very poorly, women in the informal sector generally just survive, and women’s under- and unemployment rates remain high.


When “livelihood” programs for women are implemented, they often tend to be small scale, artisanal production of


EULOGY Atty. Mikhail lee Maxino


local journalist Alex Pal. Dr. del Carmen followed up that first donation with more grants of $5,000, another $10,000, and $15,000. He told me to do with the


grants however I deemed fit, and I said I wanted the money to be used for research scholarships for law students. He was happy with my decision. On several occasions, and


Management, the College of Business Administration, the Senior High School programs, and scholarships for high- performing students.


again in August this year, he repeatedly told me that his givings to Silliman started with our chance encounter. He said that without that serendipity, his gifts to Silliman would not have been as generous.


Dr. del Carmen’s generosity has since then produced several excellent lawyers from Silliman University.


Dr. del Carmen has been supporting Silliman University


member of the faculty of Sam Houston State University, has also generously supported its College of Criminal Justice throughout his tenure, and has given hundreds of thousands of dollars for scholarships. He has two scholarships in his name (the Rolando, Josefa & Jocelyn del Carmen Criminal Justice Endowment Scholarship, and the Rolando del Carmen Criminal Justice Endowed Scholarship), and recently contributed a gift annuity in honor of its Dean Phillip Lyons. In addition to these scholarship funds, Dr. del Carmen provided intermittent scholarships and gifts for students in need, or who demonstrated academic excellence.


Dr. del Carmen, a beloved


promising student in the SU College of Law who performed exceedingly well in his pre-law course. He gifted three Silliman law graduates with a total of $10,000 for having placed in the Top 10 (ranked 2nd


with his wife, Josefa, that week. I did not know who he was


that time, but I offered him a ride because it was a hot day to stand and wait for a tricycle. The travel time from Silliman


to Bethel eventually became longer than usual for such a short distance because maybe we didn’t realize it, we were enjoying our conversation. We bonded so quickly, and


the next thing I learned, he donated the first $10,000 to the Salonga Center for Law and Development (which I headed as its first director) the moment he returned to the US that year. The story of that chance


meeting is documented in a story in the Philippine Daily Inquirer (Jan. 13, 2007) written by


with very generous student scholarships, faculty fellowships and grants to broaden and sustain quality education. His contributions are currently funding the Rolando Villanueva del Carmen Honor Hall at the University, providing free housing for the top students in need, and working to develop programming to help expand their views of life.


The only thing he asked in return is that these graduates give back to the University once they succeed in life.


contributions at Silliman are the Dr. Jovito R. Salonga Center for Law and Development, the Angelo King Center for Research & Environmental


Among his other


in the 2016 Bar examinations. He also contributed a $1,000 scholarship for a student from Singapore, a member of the award-winning bowling team at Sam Houston State U. “To me, it is an investment in the person and in the future of the University,”Dr. del Carmen would repeatedly say.


, 9th , and 10th )


Dr. del Carmen earned his Doctor of the Science of Law from the University of Illinois in 1970, Master of Laws from the University of California- Berkeley in 1967, Master of Comparative Law from the Southern Methodist University in 1961, Bachelor of Laws from Silliman in 1956, and Bachelor of Arts from Silliman in 1953. Silliman granted him a


Doctor of Laws (honoris causa) in August this year.


Dr. del Carmen became an assistant professor at Sam Houston State U in 1974, was


TO PAGE 6 He gave a scholarship to a


A shameful policy that we don’t hear political leaders talk of ending. Basically, government


promotes the export of labor to secure the benefits of remittances.


H av e MICAH STEFAN DAGAERAG


HONEST ENGAGEMENTS


micahdagaerag@outlook.com


For all the promises of God find their Yes in Christ. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. (2 Corinthians 1:20)


you eve r


expressed some goal or wish to one of your friends, and their reply was “just have faith and claim it”?


As an insulin-dependent diabetic for years, and a Bar examinee this year, I get this a lot.


The b iggest megachurches, the most popular preachers, and the biggest-selling products in Christian bookstores overwhelmingly accept and advocate this Christian version of the Law of


More and better work for women, in all fields including those usually thought of as being men’s domain, that’s what government should apply a gender lens to plan. Had I managed to meet


PAL Captain Martinez that day, I would have liked to tell her that I particularly enjoyed the flight knowing she was in command!


Attraction – that if we just believe for something with enough single-mindedness and mental determination, refusing to accept all other possibilities, then we will receive whatever it is we are believing for and claiming. The first problem is that this implies that the goodness of God is conditioned upon our own works.


For then, God rewards and hears only the “strong” of faith, the “super Christian”. This creates insidious problems for the Christian soul, leading the believer into either excessive pride on one hand, or excessive despair on the other. For when we are experiencing more success in life, we internally and


even piously attribute those successes to ourselves because of all the faith we had mustered up and exerted. Our effort becomes our entitlement. God becomes our debtor, and we become our own little gods and goddesses in our hearts. This is why we even get angry at God when He doesn’t grant us what we’ve believed for so hard, and we even think that He has cheated us. This is vain self- idolatry that destroys lives and souls.


On the other hand, when


life goes terribly wrong, and bad things just keep happening in life, we end up blaming ourselves for not having enough faith for God


to hear us. Imagine the guilt and confusion that we feel when we pray and believe so hard for a loved one to be healed, but the person dies nonetheless.


In this case, we don’t feel that God has cheated us, but that He has rightfully punished us for not being strong enough in faith. This, too, is a great tragedy brought about by the “just-claim-it” theology, and many a church person has spiritually burned out and lost their faith from the sheer weight of the burden on their hearts.


Yet, Jesus Himself said that we will have tribulation in this world (John 16:33), and that if He as our master endured suffering we as His


WILLIAM E. ABLONG EYE OPENER wea_129@yahoo.com T


he column title of another columnist in this paper caught my attention – “Are you poor?” Such title made me think of the thousands of Dumaguetnons who are living below the poverty line, those whose wages are below what is considered as ‘decent income, and the thousands who have remained homeless and have become contented having ‘sako’ or newspaper pages to serve as their walls and tattered sheets from cardboard boxes as their beds. The same question redirected my thoughts to a survey conducted by the Social Weather Station which revealed that there are 10.9 million jobless Filipinos in the first quarter of 2018. Fortunately,


the data I gathered from the Philippine Statistics Authority states that of all the towns and cities within Negros Oriental, Dumaguete has the lowest poverty incidence rate which is 6.5 percent.


(Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers) through the Department of Labor and Employment is, I think, a good program except that with the forthcoming elections, it might be used and abused by many politicians and incumbents. Through this initiative,


The TuPAD initiative


sitting officials can achieve “pogi-points” by distributing jobs left and right to unsuspecting citizens. Of course, the catch is that every job given is equivalent to a vote in the precinct come 2019.


of TuPAD a little bit funny. The word “displaced” is quite understandable and we can think of explicit situations wherein a person becomes displaced. Examples would include being a victim of natural calamities, being caught in the crossfire during armed conflicts (like the one in Marawi), or perhaps being unceremoniously evicted from a job due to company bankruptcy. Howeve r,


I just find the definition


“disadvantaged” is confusing. What can make a worker disadvantaged? This is perplexing to me, and I am wondering how local politicians will define the criteria. Because the definition


the word


I don’t think a saint filed his COC last October. All I’m saying is that we need to choose those who can guide our way towards a Christian way of life, and not escort us off course.


Dumaguete has been known as a University Town. We are not lacking in academic institutions, and we produce thousands of graduates every year. Yet, we still have numerous unemployed people, underemployed individuals, and fresh graduates who would immediately opt to go to Manila or abroad because they think they couldn’t get a decent job here. Why do we have so many unemployed people? Why are


Wrong mindset Poverty, the TuPAD program, an erroneous mindset


is vague, I presume our politicians will hastily dole out jobs regardless of the job seeker’s qualifications, so long as there is a promise of a vote come 2019.


In most cases, when we say that a person is poor, we usually refer to a person’s economic circumstance. However, poverty is not


Poverty


just financial scarcity; it also means lack or absence of moral ascendancy. Therefore, as voters, we need to vote for those who can provide us not just the economic opportunities necessary for our lives to thrive but also those who can serve as a good exemplar to righteous existence.


those underemployed stay in their current situations? And why do new graduates prefer to go to big cities instead of staying in their own hometowns, even when there is no guarantee of getting a good paying job? This is because of our erroneous way of thinking that an office job is always better, that working in an air-conditioned place is tantamount to having a high salary.


Hopefully, the City’s new leaders come 2019 will give more emphasis on the power of industry, on the wealth of our land resources, and on the benefits of entrepreneurial endeavors.


I am not saying that we have to vote for the saints (there is no such thing) and


servants will suffer as well (John 15:20).


All over the Bible,


from cover to cover, God frequently uses pain and loss in the believer’s life to accomplish His purposes and bring glory to Himself, the supreme example of which being the pain and suffering of His one and only Son on the cross. We are to have faith, but it is the strength of the God we believe in that saves and avails, not the strength of the faith itself.


The strong and the weak of faith in Exodus were equally able to miraculously cross the Red Sea. And the great and the small of faith will both be saved in


Christians, God has not promised us success


Christ, even faith as small as a mustard seed (Matthew 17:20).


I quoted a passage at the start of this article saying that God’s promises are always Yes in Christ. But how do we know if God has promised us something? By our feelings? By our greatest desires? No. It is by reading His word. He has not promised us healing of all diseases, or a promotion at work, or a good grade in school, but He has made much better promises, such as: to provide for our needs (Matthew 6:33), to never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5), and to forgive and cleanse us of our unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).


We should always remember that poverty is not a God-given circumstance. It is a choice. It is our choice.


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