From a compassionate retreat master to a well-respected American Jesuit priest, who has found home in the Philippines and in the hearts of Filipinos (including mine). Father James Reuter, S.J has something to say...
Our republic has become one of the weakest nations, steadily left behind by its more progressive neighbors. Forty years ago, we were only second to Japan in economic stature, and way ahead of Singapore , Hong Kong , Malaysia , and Thailand . Today, at our present growth rate, it will take us 30 years to get to where Thailand is.
Our national debt is estimated to be at US$200B (compared to US$28B when Marcos fled). We will be competing, not against Thailand or even Vietnam , but against Bangladesh. We will be the most corrupt nation in Asia , if not in the world (we're already ranked 11th most corrupt nation by Transparency International) ...
The signs are clear. Our nation is headed towards an irreversible path of economic decline and moral decadence. It is not for lack of effort. We've seen many men and women of integrity in and out of government, NGOs, church groups & people's organization devote themselves to the task of nation-building, often times against insurmountable odds. Not even people's revolutions, bloodless as they may be, have made a dent in reversing this trend. At best, we have moved one step forward, but three steps backward.
We need a force far greater than our collective efforts, as a people, can ever hope to muster. It is time to move the battle to the spiritual realm... It's time to gather GOD's people to pray for the economic recovery and moral reformation of our nation.
Is prayer really the answer?
Before you dismiss this as just another rambling, I'd like you to consider some lessons we can glean from history.
England 's ascendancy to world power was preceded by the Reformation, a spiritual revival fueled by intense prayers.
The early American settlers built the foundation that would make it the most powerful nation today --- a strong faith in GOD and a disciplined prayer life. Throughout its history, and especially at its major turning points, waves of revival and prayer movement swept across the land.
In recent times, we see Korea as a nation experiencing revival and in the process producing the largest Christian church in the world today, led by Rev. Paul Yongi Cho. No wonder it has emerged as a strong nation when other economies around it are faltering.
Even from a purely secular viewpoint, it makes a lot of sense. For here, there is genuine humbling & seeking of GOD through prayer, moral reformation necessarily follows. And this, in turn, will lead to general prosperity. YES, we believe prayer can make a difference. It's our only hope.
Today, we launch this email brigade, to inform Filipinos from all over the world to pray, as a people, for the economic recovery and moral reformation of our nation. We do not ask for much. We only ask of you to fwd this email to your close friends and relatives.
This is the kind of resolve and unity which can make a big difference. Of course, if you feel strongly, as I do, about the power of prayer, you can be more involved by starting a prayer group or prayer center.
We have tried people power twice before; in both cases, it fell short. Maybe it's time to try prayer power. GOD never fails. Is there hope? YES! We can rely on God's promise, but we have to do our part. If we humble ourselves and pray as a people, GOD will hear and heal our land. By GOD's grace, we may still see a chance of a better future for our country.
'If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from Heaven, and will forgive their sins, and will heal their land...
(2 Chronicles 7:14).
If you care for your children and grandchildren, let's not abandon the Philippines. Please pass this on...
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
No Crice-sis?
One early morning, preparing to leave home for Villegas Organic and Hobby Farms in Batangas, my breakfast-to-go was packed with a news that the Philippines is importing another 250,000 tonnes of rice because of the typhoons that struck the country. This is on top of the 1.5 million tons of rice we have contracted with Vietnam to supply us early 2009. We have become the world's biggest rice buyer and the government is claiming there is no rice crisis.
Rice is the most important food crop, a staple food in our country. Over 10 million metric tons of rice is needed to feed Filipinos. However, it is palliative to say that rice importation is the solution to rice shortage (or no shortage?!).
A senator notes that rice importation "symbolizes the government's neglect of the local agriculture sector." An NGO adds, "Rice importation has not resulted in lowered rice prices, but worsened the bankruptcy of farmers and even placed the country in greater food insecurity."
While rice production from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation's point of view "is facing serious constraints including a declining rate of growth in yields, depletion of natural resources, labour shortages, gender-based conflicts, institutional limitations and environmental pollution. Overcoming hunger, poverty and malnutrition - while protecting the environment - requires collective action by all stakeholders. The diversity of the regions, peoples, and resources connected within the world's rice-based systems, requires a diverse approach for global rice-based development that includes participation from the local to the international level."
A study made by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) showed that consumers in the Philippines waste some 25,000 sacks of rice, amounting to Php30 million everyday.
How do we, in our own little way, avert a full-blown rice and food crisis?
This SUMMER 2010: Expose your kids to the values of Care, Health, Ecology and Fairness through sustainable and organic agriculture. At Villegas Organic and Hobby (VOHO) Farms, we are ensuring informative FUN FOR YOUR KIDS while ensuring food security and nutrition, poverty reduction and overall environmental wellness through the employment of sustainable and organic agriculture practices.
Take a tour of the farms in 5 minutes, click here.
We Care for your Health, We Nurture the Earth!!!
CALL +632.774.8472
SMS +63.9088.858.656
EMAIL activeculture.club@Gmail.com activeculture@Ymail.com
SKYPE activeculture.club (kindly email us first before calling)
WEB http://villegasfarmcomplex.multiply.com/
Other activities at the VOHO Farms:
Lakbay-Aral sa Bukid Organiko (Study Tour in an Organic Farm)--SIGNATURE TOUR
Summer Camping--SPECIAL PROMO, Lakbay-Aral for Parents and Teachers, Tree Planting and Harvesting, Educational Trip stop-over, Communing with Nature, Tree Climbing, Fishing, Animal Care and Experience, Trail Hiking, Preparing and Tasting Ethnic foods and delicacies, and more
Some of the Organizations that have been to the farm are De La Salle Lipa faculty and students; United Nations Filipino Consultants and Expatriate Staff; Medical doctors and practitioners of Alternative medicine; Agricultural Development and Marketing Officers from Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Japan and Philippines.
Rice is the most important food crop, a staple food in our country. Over 10 million metric tons of rice is needed to feed Filipinos. However, it is palliative to say that rice importation is the solution to rice shortage (or no shortage?!).
A senator notes that rice importation "symbolizes the government's neglect of the local agriculture sector." An NGO adds, "Rice importation has not resulted in lowered rice prices, but worsened the bankruptcy of farmers and even placed the country in greater food insecurity."
While rice production from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation's point of view "is facing serious constraints including a declining rate of growth in yields, depletion of natural resources, labour shortages, gender-based conflicts, institutional limitations and environmental pollution. Overcoming hunger, poverty and malnutrition - while protecting the environment - requires collective action by all stakeholders. The diversity of the regions, peoples, and resources connected within the world's rice-based systems, requires a diverse approach for global rice-based development that includes participation from the local to the international level."
A study made by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) showed that consumers in the Philippines waste some 25,000 sacks of rice, amounting to Php30 million everyday.
How do we, in our own little way, avert a full-blown rice and food crisis?
This SUMMER 2010: Expose your kids to the values of Care, Health, Ecology and Fairness through sustainable and organic agriculture. At Villegas Organic and Hobby (VOHO) Farms, we are ensuring informative FUN FOR YOUR KIDS while ensuring food security and nutrition, poverty reduction and overall environmental wellness through the employment of sustainable and organic agriculture practices.
Take a tour of the farms in 5 minutes, click here.
We Care for your Health, We Nurture the Earth!!!
CALL +632.774.8472
SMS +63.9088.858.656
EMAIL activeculture.club@Gmail.com activeculture@Ymail.com
SKYPE activeculture.club (kindly email us first before calling)
WEB http://villegasfarmcomplex.multiply.com/
Other activities at the VOHO Farms:
Lakbay-Aral sa Bukid Organiko (Study Tour in an Organic Farm)--SIGNATURE TOUR
Summer Camping--SPECIAL PROMO, Lakbay-Aral for Parents and Teachers, Tree Planting and Harvesting, Educational Trip stop-over, Communing with Nature, Tree Climbing, Fishing, Animal Care and Experience, Trail Hiking, Preparing and Tasting Ethnic foods and delicacies, and more
Some of the Organizations that have been to the farm are De La Salle Lipa faculty and students; United Nations Filipino Consultants and Expatriate Staff; Medical doctors and practitioners of Alternative medicine; Agricultural Development and Marketing Officers from Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Japan and Philippines.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Have a Fruitful Year 2010!!!
Being a valued friend, we are growing a banaba tree under your name (your family's / organization's name) at the start of the year at Villegas Organic and Hobby (VOHO) farms!
Banaba (scientific name: lagerstroemia speciosa) is a popular medicinal plant in the Philippines for the treatment of urinary tract infection and diabetes, as well as a weight-reduction agent. Commonly found in the provinces, it is said to be used for over 50 years by our grandparents. Practicing agroforestry, this tree seats along shrubs, vegetation and livestock.
The Villegas Organic and Hobby Farms, spearheaded by Mr Pablito Villegas, and run by Kalipunan ng Sustenableng Agrikultura Magsasakang Organiko (KASAMA KA) organic cooperative, a group of farmers and organic practitioners, promotes agroforestry which combines agricultural and forestry technologies to create more diverse, productive, profitable, healthy and sustainable land-use systems.
Agroforestry increases biodiversity by incorporating several plant species into an area that creates wider habitat for varied species of birds, insects, and other animals. Agroforestry also has the potential to help reduce climate change since trees take up and store carbon at a faster rate than crop plants. In addition, it augments the lives of farmers, since cash crops are planted simultaneously with fruit-bearing trees.
VISIT YOUR TREE at Villegas Organic and Hobby (VOHO) Farms, Malvar Batangas, Philippines. Let us plant more trees for this generation and the next. We are not just growing banaba tree - there's more.
Take a tour of the farm in 5 minutes - click VOHO quick tour.
The VOHO farms offer the following activities:
Summer Camping (with SPECIAL PROMO), Educational trip stop-over; Lakbay Aral for Students, Parents, Teachers; Tree planting; Communing with Nature, Tree Climbing, Fishing, Animal Care and Experience; Trail Hiking; Preparing and Tasting Ethnic foods and delicacies; and more...
We CARE for your HEALTH, We NURTURE the EARTH!
CALL +632.7748472
SMS +63.9088858656
EMAIL activeculture@ymail.com, activeculture.club@gmail.com
SKYPE activeculture.club (kindly email us first before calling)
WEB http://villegasfarmcomplex.multiply.com/
Banaba (scientific name: lagerstroemia speciosa) is a popular medicinal plant in the Philippines for the treatment of urinary tract infection and diabetes, as well as a weight-reduction agent. Commonly found in the provinces, it is said to be used for over 50 years by our grandparents. Practicing agroforestry, this tree seats along shrubs, vegetation and livestock.
Agroforestry increases biodiversity by incorporating several plant species into an area that creates wider habitat for varied species of birds, insects, and other animals. Agroforestry also has the potential to help reduce climate change since trees take up and store carbon at a faster rate than crop plants. In addition, it augments the lives of farmers, since cash crops are planted simultaneously with fruit-bearing trees.
VISIT YOUR TREE at Villegas Organic and Hobby (VOHO) Farms, Malvar Batangas, Philippines. Let us plant more trees for this generation and the next. We are not just growing banaba tree - there's more.
Take a tour of the farm in 5 minutes - click VOHO quick tour.
The VOHO farms offer the following activities:
Summer Camping (with SPECIAL PROMO), Educational trip stop-over; Lakbay Aral for Students, Parents, Teachers; Tree planting; Communing with Nature, Tree Climbing, Fishing, Animal Care and Experience; Trail Hiking; Preparing and Tasting Ethnic foods and delicacies; and more...
We CARE for your HEALTH, We NURTURE the EARTH!
CALL +632.7748472
SMS +63.9088858656
EMAIL activeculture@ymail.com, activeculture.club@gmail.com
SKYPE activeculture.club (kindly email us first before calling)
WEB http://villegasfarmcomplex.multiply.com/
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Law against beggars
This season of sharing we are "taught" of generosity. Everyday, especially this Christmas season, we are flocked with kids on the streets knocking on car windows, caroling in the streets, clinging to jeepneys. And almost instantly we drop a coin or two, for whatever purpose it serves the beggars, or us... What we were not taught is that there this is a law against this act.
What is the law against beggars? The ANTI-MENDICANCY law signed in 1978, says that mendicants, exploited infants (do you see women carrying babies in the streets?), children who are 8 years old and below, minors found begging, parents of exploited infants and children are criminally liable under Article 59 and 60 of Presidential Decree No. 603. Definition of terms, penalties and scope of the law in
http://www.lawphil.net/statutes/presdecs/pd1978/pd_1563_1978.html
There are avenues to sharing your blessings to the "rightful" poor and helping them improve their lives. Please take the route to a LAWFUL "alms-giving," fund raising.
What is the law against beggars? The ANTI-MENDICANCY law signed in 1978, says that mendicants, exploited infants (do you see women carrying babies in the streets?), children who are 8 years old and below, minors found begging, parents of exploited infants and children are criminally liable under Article 59 and 60 of Presidential Decree No. 603. Definition of terms, penalties and scope of the law in
http://www.lawphil.net/statutes/presdecs/pd1978/pd_1563_1978.html
There are avenues to sharing your blessings to the "rightful" poor and helping them improve their lives. Please take the route to a LAWFUL "alms-giving," fund raising.
Friday, December 25, 2009
"Out there is the real world ... in here is the dream"
A paraplegic marine dispatched to the planet Pandora becomes torn between following mission orders in exchange for a spinal surgery that will fix his legs and saving a civilization he has considered his own.
In the movie Avatar, it gives one a view of the "struggles" in living on earth. Faced by greed and selfishness, we human beings have to make a firm resolution to preserve early inhabitants' culture, protect and uphold their rights and not force them to take ours.
In the Philippines, the Dumagats and Remontados, the indigenous people of Laiban, Rizal are under threat to lose their heritage, dominion, livelihood for the sake of "supplying water" to the lowland people, the Metro Manilans, through the construction of Laiban Dam.
The environment group can not reconcile how there are visible leaking water pipes, "mishandling" of water, connections of illegal origin and claim that the only way to cure the shortage of water is to destroy ecology by building a dam. Have we really looked at other means? Have we done root cause analysis? Have we determined the variances, risks, defects, underlying factors that are leading to the unfavorable outcome? Are we really addressing the real problem or just patching up a problem for business interest, to rake in profits?
The Laiban Dam project is not only disadvantageous to the native people of Laiban, but also to the Metro Manilans who is claimed to be the direct recipient of the project. Father Bienvenido Miguel Jr issued a statement, "The project is anti-poor. It will create unsustainable debt obligations and it will always be the mass who will again bear the burden of shouldering the high cost of water just to pay the huge loans incurred in the building and maintenance of the dam." Alongside, Freedom from Debt Coalition advocacy coordinator Dianne Roa said that "Each household that consumes around 30 cubic meters of water has to shell out an additional Php540 to Php600 monthly should this proposed project push through."
The loss of biodiversity from 25000 hectares of virgin forest which will be submerged in water, the displacement of 6000 indigenous people is not a localized issue. We should all be vigilant in the movements of the government towards this project, however secretive they may be.
Our hearts go to the people of Laiban, and you? Where is your real world? (this photo was taken during a tree planting activity in Laiban, while trying to ease the sadness of the locals.)
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): let's do tree planting in Laiban! email us activeculture@Ymail.com, activeculture.club@Gmail.com
More about Laiban Dam Project, visit the following links:
Freedom from Debt Coalition
Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines
Philippine Online Chronicles
photos courtesy of Alda, the prospective princess in pink :) and avatartrailer.com
In the movie Avatar, it gives one a view of the "struggles" in living on earth. Faced by greed and selfishness, we human beings have to make a firm resolution to preserve early inhabitants' culture, protect and uphold their rights and not force them to take ours.
In the Philippines, the Dumagats and Remontados, the indigenous people of Laiban, Rizal are under threat to lose their heritage, dominion, livelihood for the sake of "supplying water" to the lowland people, the Metro Manilans, through the construction of Laiban Dam.
The environment group can not reconcile how there are visible leaking water pipes, "mishandling" of water, connections of illegal origin and claim that the only way to cure the shortage of water is to destroy ecology by building a dam. Have we really looked at other means? Have we done root cause analysis? Have we determined the variances, risks, defects, underlying factors that are leading to the unfavorable outcome? Are we really addressing the real problem or just patching up a problem for business interest, to rake in profits?
The Laiban Dam project is not only disadvantageous to the native people of Laiban, but also to the Metro Manilans who is claimed to be the direct recipient of the project. Father Bienvenido Miguel Jr issued a statement, "The project is anti-poor. It will create unsustainable debt obligations and it will always be the mass who will again bear the burden of shouldering the high cost of water just to pay the huge loans incurred in the building and maintenance of the dam." Alongside, Freedom from Debt Coalition advocacy coordinator Dianne Roa said that "Each household that consumes around 30 cubic meters of water has to shell out an additional Php540 to Php600 monthly should this proposed project push through."
The loss of biodiversity from 25000 hectares of virgin forest which will be submerged in water, the displacement of 6000 indigenous people is not a localized issue. We should all be vigilant in the movements of the government towards this project, however secretive they may be.
Our hearts go to the people of Laiban, and you? Where is your real world? (this photo was taken during a tree planting activity in Laiban, while trying to ease the sadness of the locals.)
Laiban Dam, Tutulan by Greg Bituin Jr
(10 syllable poem)
Proyektong Laiban Dam ay para lang
Sa pagpapayaman ng ilan
Laiban Dam ay dapat labanan
Pagtayo nitong ating tutulan
Ang kalikasan ay alagaan
Pati katutubong mamamayan
Sierra Madre by Sidhay B.
Sierra Madre tinubuan
Pama ng kalikasan
Yaman nitong silangan
Binhawa ng pamayanan
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): let's do tree planting in Laiban! email us activeculture@Ymail.com, activeculture.club@Gmail.com
More about Laiban Dam Project, visit the following links:
Freedom from Debt Coalition
Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines
Philippine Online Chronicles
photos courtesy of Alda, the prospective princess in pink :) and avatartrailer.com
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