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Everyday Heroes: Jaime Lim
Everyday Heroes: Jaime Lim
Lim has been the publisher of the Asian Reporter newspaper for 15 years and is involved in numerous boards and community groups. But he may be best known for his Asian Reporter Foundation, which has awarded more than $700,000 in scholarships to area students.
| The Silent Drums of Mindanao |
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| Tuesday, 19 May 2009 | |
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9 May 2009 (Mindanao Series) The Silent Drums of Mindanao Yolanda Ortega Stern – A Daughter of Mindanao There was a time when the drums of Mindanao signaled a birth, a death, a wedding, a baptism or some joyous occasion. Today in the forests, the unexpected joys of discovery is stifled by fear. Is that a leaf rustling in the dark or a fearful father coming home to sleep? Is that a wild boar digging for root or a mother hunting for food for a child? Is that a fruit bat swaying in the wind or ‘strange fruit’ strung up to dry? Is that a civet cat searching for ripe coffee beans or a freedom fighter looking for sustenance? In the cacophony of a never silent forest, is that rustling sound a lost son returning or a dead man come alive? Is that a commando lying in wait, praying he would not have to kill again! or a chopper dropping deathly dust to save the miserable from life? Among the bustling crowds in Tawi Tawi and Jolo; the Sunday flea markets of Basilan; the busy stalls in Davao, Cotabato, General Santos, Marawi and other Mindanao provinces, where are the old drums to be found beating to the rhythmic thunder of our hearts? Where are the accompanying cymbals and various tools of our native expressions that move with our limbs and our bodies to break us out of our mental prisons? There was a time when nights in Mindanao twinkled with kerosene lamps, candles, and oil lanterns rigged from empty bottles. Old voices filled the silence with stories and children played by moonlight. Doing homework by candlelight often invited a giant moth into the open windows. Remember the stunning sight of a single tree lit by fireflies and beyond in melancholy sleep, the rice fields! And the sound of the drums always drumming in some distant village! Beautiful, incomparable Mindanao! But sigh! These nights the hills are complex jungle nightclubs with lightning and thunder for dance lights. The cicadas are barometers. On clear nights, the stars navigate captives and fishermen alike as they have done for centuries. Troubles not visible in light of day can snatch you in these wild jungles. If dawn is life, then night is death. And the drums are silent. The people and their lost voices, their smiles dead, their dreams invisible, no longer hope. Despair is their brother, prayer a true friend. I am no longer hopeful there will be joy for Mindanao in my lifetime because the drums are silent and the guns are talking. To the Moslems, the Lumads, the Christians and Filipinos of all religious denominations, you are beautiful people, and compared to many countries, Mindanao, the Philippines, are Paradise. Bring back your drums! |
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Site by OIA
447 Sutter St. Philippine Consulate Bldg. Suites 700-701 San Francisco, California 94108-0000 Tel/Fax 415-398-3043 USA The U.S. Federation of Philippine American Chambers of Commerce, Inc., is a not for profit corporation incorporated under the not for profit laws of California. It has 42 chapter members from all over the United States mainland to include Hawaii. Incorporated in 1997, it bridges US Philippines trade and commerce, promotes goodwill and mutually beneficial projects between the two countries. It holds an annual conference in the US and one trade mission a year to the Philippines. It currently has several major Memorandums of Agreement with major Public and Private sector departments of the Philippines, including a major one with the US-SBA. |
Copyright © 2008. FPACC - Federation of Philippine American Chambers of Commerce. All Rights Reserved.
Site by OIA
447 Sutter St. Philippine Consulate Bldg. Suites 700-701 San Francisco, California 94108-0000 Tel/Fax 415-398-3043 USA The U.S. Federation of Philippine American Chambers of Commerce, Inc., is a not for profit corporation incorporated under the not for profit laws of California. It has 42 chapter members from all over the United States mainland to include Hawaii. Incorporated in 1997, it bridges US Philippines trade and commerce, promotes goodwill and mutually beneficial projects between the two countries. It holds an annual conference in the US and one trade mission a year to the Philippines. It currently has several major Memorandums of Agreement with major Public and Private sector departments of the Philippines, including a major one with the US-SBA. |