Philippine Humphrey Fellows

Historic rendezvous with Philippine Embassy and Filipino Humphrey Fellows
L-R: Monette Singh, Robert Borje, Ronnie Amorado and Reggie Junio

The great Vice Consul and Third Secretary Robert Borje works with the Philippine Embassy in Washington, DC. Vice Consul Borje comes from Mindanao, Philippines. He used to be with the giant network of the ABS-CBN News and the Mindanao Economic Development Council (MEDCo) before joining the Department of Foreign Affairs and got assigned in the Washington Embassy. It was a very pleasant experience to meet the very young, promising and awe-inspiring Vice Consul during the State Department Reception Dinner hosted by the Department of State for all the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellows for 2009-2010 last October 20, 2009 in Washington, DC.

Mabuhay si Robert! Hail Robert!
Keep up the good work, Vice Consul!
The country is proud of you!

The Philippine Fellows

Maria Filomena Singh is a Fellow at the Washington University's College of Law in Washington, DC. She is a presiding judge in the Regional Trial Court of Quezon City in the Philippines. She is also a professor of law at the Ateneo de Manila University School of Law and at the Philippine Judicial Academy in Manila. She specializes in the field of law and human rights with focus on more efficient court management, alternative dispute resolution, and programs which could unclog the local court's heavy dockets. During her Humphrey year, she hopes to gain new knowledge and skills that will help her advocate for a more efficient case management system, and a more independent judiciary to help perpetuate better Philippine internal and international stability. Judge Singh holds a Juris Doctor degree (Doctor of Law) and a recipient of the Judicial Excellence Award. In 2007, the Society of Judicial Excellence named Judge Singh as one of the Top First Level Court Judge in the Philippines.

Regina Junio is a Fellow at the Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences in Ithaca, New York. She is a professor at the Ateneo de Zamboanga University back in the Philippines. She handles natural science courses, leads the various university social development programs and conducts research on solid waste management, natural resources management and minerals development. She mentors development programs with partner communities on natural resources management in the Philippines. Her Fellowship program is focusing on conflict management for communities in conflict over natural resource use, best practices for sustainable development and environmental economics. Prof. Junio holds a Master of Science in Chemistry Education.

Ronnie Amorado is a Fellow at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of the Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. As a Humphrey Fellow, he is working on his post-doctorate research on anticorruption and citizenship with special focus on policy analysis and evaluation especially as it relates to good governance and anti-corruption reforms. His research interest revolves around the dark side of social capital, notions of integrity and betrayal theory among others. He has been working for numerous years with government agencies and private sector organizations on discourse formation, conducting anticorruption research, providing training and public lectures on management, good governance and corruption issues. Currently, he is the Country Coordinator of the Ehem Anticorruption Group, a major anticorruption movement run by the Society of Jesus in the Philippines. He holds a doctorate degree in development studies specializing in governance and anticorruption studies. He is author of Fixing Society: The Inside World of Fixers in the Philippines (2007), which won a National Book Award/Outstanding Book Award for 2008 given by the prestigious Philippine National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST).

Click on this link for more photos of the Filipino Humphrey Fellows.

Click on this link for more photos of the 2009 Humphrey Global Leadership Forum Opening Tour in Washington, DC.

Click on this link for more photos of the State Department Reception Dinner.

I also visited the Smithsonian Space Museum (click here) and the Natural History Museum (click here).

As they say, pictures speak a thousand words. And museums make a great country's national identity greater!

Filipinos Syracuse

It is always nice to see compatriots in a foreign land! This is the first meeting of Filipino Fellows and Scholars in Syracuse, NY. From R-L: Atty. Rene Pacaldo from the Fortress City of Iligan; Mr. Ryan Villar from the Salt Province of Pangasinan; Ms. Jaclaine Mercado of Pampanga, the Land of the Beauty; Lt. Col. Al Jaji of the River City of Cagayan de Oro and Sultanate Province of Sulu; and Dr. Ronnie Amorado of the Durian City of Davao. Rene is faculty of the MSU-Marawi City while Al works with the Intelligence Division of the Philippine Army. Both Rene and Al are Fulbright Scholars finishing their PhDs on environment with the State University of New York (SUNY). Al specializes on environment and conflict, while Rene studies carbon sequestration of willow shrubs as alternative source of energy; he is also studying US environmental laws. Ryan is a Central Bank Fellow taking up instructional designs, while Jac is a Moynihan Scholar taking up international studies. Both Ryan and Jac are taking up their second MA degrees in Syracuse University; both respectively earned their first MA degrees on government administration and political science from the Ateneo de Manila University. Ryan works with the HR Group of the Philippine Central Bank, and Jac a full time scholar. Ronnie is a Hubert Humphrey-Fulbright Fellow doing his anticorruption research at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in Syracuse University.

The meeting was sponsored by Al in celebration of Eid'l Fitr last September 20, 2009 at the Fuji Asian Buffet Restaurant in Syracuse. As of last account, there are about 13 Filipinos studying in Syracuse.

What is good with meeting compatriots in a foreign land is the joy of a lifeline -- we all easily connect like we have known one another back home. We can also speak our home-grown language, and discuss current events and issues affecting the country. The lifeline actually provides sanity. In the words of Al -- "magaling ka nga, sige'ng aral, basa at sulat, palaging English, pero para ka na rin namang sirang ulo!"

We plan to hold a monthly Filipino Day, just an informal fellowship day among Filipino compatriots, to provide lifeline and sanity!

Mabuhay ang mga Pilipino!
Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!

Niagara

It's awesome! Majestic. Spectacular. Powerful. Blissful. Lovely. The Niagara Falls on one good Saturday on August 22. No words can fully capture the enormity and immensity of this natural resource. An enduring creation! No wonder the first French, Swedish and Belgian explorers in as early as 1600s were all enchanted in their memoirs and chronicles of the Falls located very intimately between Canada and New York. On why they are referred to as Niagara is mostly allegorical, most probably coming from the 17th century inhabitants known as the Niagagaregans. Tourism and hydro-power industry began to boom in Niagara in 1800s, while a series of preservation programs from both countries were implemented in the mid-1800s to early 1900s. Niagara Falls has since become a huge tourist attraction and favorite spot for wedding ceremonies and among honeymooners. I glimpsed on two wedding ceremonies held against the backdrop of the Falls and raging river flows! Very romantic! A popular 19th century romantic story claims that Napoleon Bonaparte's brother Jérôme and his bride came to the Niagara Falls for their honeymoon.

Click on my album here to see more photos of my Niagara experience with my in-laws and family friends. The wallpaper-quality photos are courtesy of Bong Asuelo.

Lovers, honeymooners, poets, painters, photographers, chroniclers, geologists, and plain sightseers from all over the world come to Niagara Falls to experience its awe and magic. Like this poem written by J.S. Buckingham in 1837, it's indeed a gift from the Great Creator!

To NIAGARA

Thy diadem's an emerald, of the clearest, purest hue,
Set round with waves of snow-white foam,
and spray of feathery dew;
While tresses of the brightest pearls float
o'er thine ample sheet,
And the rainbow lays its gorgeous gems
in tribute at thy feet!

And from that hour to this,
in which I gaze upon thy stream,
From age to age, in Winter's frost
or Summer's sultry beam,
By day, by night, without a pause,
thy waves, with loud acclaim,
In ceaseless sounds have still proclaim'd
the Great Eternal's name!

The Fellows

The proud international Hubert H. Humphrey Fellows (2009-2010) of the Fulbright Exchange Program in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in Syracuse University, New York. First row: Anita Sarmah (India), Simpson Snoh (Liberia), Addys Then Marte (Dominican Republic), Emma Silva (Ecuador). Second row: Jamel M’Hedhbi (Tunisia), Alexei Ionasco (Moldova), Ronald Amorado (Philippines). Third row: Dong Seok Lee (South Korea), Nimrod Goren (Israel), Joseph Bangura (Sierra Leone), Shouvik Mitra (India).

The Fellows are chosen through a globally competitive screening and qualification system through the auspices of their respective Fulbright country commissions. Each Fellow is expected to make good use of their professional expertise, experiences and dexterity through an exchange program with fellow counterparts from various participating countries. As Fellows, they will be attending special seminars, academic courses, site visits, agency visits and dialogs, professional development activities and professional affiliation activities that are all geared towards attaining their individual program plans for their country re-entry application.

Click here for the bio-sketches of the Fellows and their respective country representation and areas of specialization.

The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of the Syracuse University in New York is also the premiere public affairs and public administration school in the United States. Maxwell School is the first and oldest public administration program in the country and prides itself of a long-standing tradition of academic excellence in the areas of citizenship, public affairs and public administration. For many years already, the Maxwell School of the Syracuse University has been ranked by the US News and World Report as the No. 1 Graduate School for Public Affairs in the US (and most probably in the world). Top public affairs and public administration practitioners from around the globe come to the Maxwell School for academic degree or professional development.

For 2008-2009, the top 24 Graduate Schools for Public Affairs ranked by the US News and World Report are:

1. Maxwell School, Syracuse
2. Harvard (tied with another school)
2. IU Bloomington
4. Princeton (tied with another school)
4. U of Georgia
6. UC Berkeley
7. U of Kansas (tied with two others)
7. UMichigan
7. USC
10. Carnegie Mellon (tied with 3 others)
10. Duke
10. NYU
10. UChicago
14. American University (tied with 11 others)
14. Columbia
14. Georgetown
14. GWU
14. SUNY Albany
14. UCLA
14. U of Minnesota - Twin Cities
14. UNC Chapel Hill
14. UT Austin
14. U of Washington
14. U of Wisconsin Madison

Click here and here for the reports on the graduate school ranking in the US.

Go forth Fellows! Go forth towards a better world order! Make your country proud of you!

The Athenian Oath

I have always been fascinated and drawn into oaths and what they dearly hold and represent. An oath is more than just a promise or a commitment. It has some sacredness involved in it. A person making an oath unleashes all his or her honor and dignity. A person who violates his or her oath is a shameful dishonor and a disgrace, unworthy of his or her person (or degree or profession, or accomplishment, or family and religion, or name and reputation). So it really struck me immediately when I encountered the Athenian Oath -- the philosophic oath of all free governments and public bureaucracies, of all visionaries, leaders, managers, planners and administrators from around the globe.

In a nutshell, the Athenian Oath swears to "leave this community better than when we found it!"

The Athenian Oath has become a very inspiring philosophical foundation of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of the Syracuse University in New York. Being the first and oldest public administration program in the world, and ranked as the No. 1 graduate school of public affairs and public administration in the United States, Maxwell School prides itself of shaping the evolution of public administration theory and practice in democratic societies worldwide. At the crux of this pride lies a very strong influence from the Athenian philosophers in the ancient Greeks from over 2,000 years ago.

The Athenian Oath of the City-State is thus proudly inscribed right at the giant wall by the entrance foyer of the Maxwell Hall just beneath the statue of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), political philosopher and one of the most influential American Founding Fathers (also the 3rd President of the United States) and who wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776:

"We will never bring disgrace on this our City
by an act of dishonesty or cowardice.
We will fight for the ideals and Sacred Things
of the City both alone and with many.
We will revere and obey the City's laws,
and will do our best to incite a like reverence
and respect in those above us who are prone
to annul them or set them at naught.
We will strive increasingly to quicken
the public's sense of civic duty.
Thus in all these ways we will transmit this City,
not only not less, but greater and more beautiful
than it was transmitted to us!"

In the ancient Greece, Athenian men were obliged to make this oath when they reach the age of seventeen. A derivative of this oath -- known as the Oath of the Young Men of Athens and inscribed on a bronze plaque in the Thacher School in California -- also reads:

"I will not disgrace these sacred arms,
nor ever desert a comrade in the ranks.
I will guard the Temples and
the Centers of Civic Life,
and uphold the ideals of my Country,
both alone and in concert with others.
I will at all times obey the Magistrates
and observe the Laws
as well those at present in force
as those the Majority may hereafter enact.
Should any one seek to subvert those laws
or set them aside,
Him I will oppose
either in common with others or alone.
In these ways it shall be my constant aim
not only to preserve the things of worth
in my Native Land,
but to make them of still greater worth."

An earlier version of this oath, known as the Athenian Ephebic Oath (because they made the oath in the Ephebic College in Athens) reads more in elaboration:

"I will not disgrace my sacred arms
Nor desert my comrade, wherever I am stationed.
I will fight for things sacred
And things profane.
And both alone and with all to help me.
I will transmit my fatherland not diminished
But greater and better than before.
I will obey the ruling magistrates
Who rule reasonably
And I will observe the established laws
And whatever laws in the future
May be reasonably established.
If any person seek to overturn the laws,
Both alone and with all to help me,
I will oppose him.
I will honor the religion of my fathers.
I call to witness the Gods …
The borders of my fatherland,
The wheat, the barley, the vines,
And the trees of the olive and the fig."

Long live the Athenian Oath!

Time Zones

Greetings from the University of Syracuse in the upstate New York. I just arrived here recently (August 11), and have began adjusting my psyche to the new environment. It really feels weird to cross several time zones. I flew out of Narita at about 3 PM, and witnessed dusk and darkness at 6 PM high up thousands of altitudes. When I was just about to sleep at 10 PM (supposedly), it suddenly became 11 AM as we cruised the Pacific and landed Detroit at 2 PM. It was like I was robbed of my night and felt more weird to have skipped morning. I arrived Syracuse at 6 PM like I never moved dates (left Manila on August 11 and arrived on the same day). Time zones are amazing. When the first-ever world time zone conference or the so-called International Prime Meridian Conference was held in 1884 in Washington DC, the aim was to harmonize the different local times of all countries which were just using the sun as the basis for setting the time (solar time). And since then, longitudes and latitudes, as well as the Greenwich Meridian Time (GMT), International Date Lines (IDL) and the Universal Time Coordination (UTC) have been used. Thanks to the transcontinental trains, especially those crossing the US and Canadian borders in the 1800s. With the trains crossing several countries, the mass confusion of what the exact local time was (since there were different local times) led to the need of coming up with a standard time for all. And so the trains became the mother of invention for time zones, and the Canadian railway engineer Sir Sandford Fleming (1827-1915) became the acknowledged Father of Standardized Time because he developed the system of worldwide time zones that have been used until now.

Its summer time now in Syracuse, sunny but its cold (already for me). And sunset is at 9 PM, whew! This is my first experience of a semblance white night! I also need to get myself familiar with US cents. They all look the same. And the giant pizzas and burgers here are not good for our health; I need to start jogging.

I'm attending my Hubert Humphrey - Fulbright Fellowship at the Maxwell School at the Syracuse University, touted as the No. 1 graduate school of public affairs and public administration in the whole of US for many years now (Harvard is only 2nd in rank). It's also nice to know that Maxwell School is the first to open the public administration program in the US in the late 1920s (it has the oldest and longest-running public affairs and public policy program blended with social science curriculum in the country). I'll be working on global corruption and integrity initiatives for a year, as part of my work with the Ehem Anticorruption Group. As a research university, Syracuse has a lot of interesting historical and pioneering accomplishments since its foundation in 1870 .

Welcome to the Orange City (and the orange carpet, not red carpet), the land of the great Orange Basketball Team (NCAA Divison), the Orange Football Team and the Orange Lacrosse Team. CUSE (Syracuse nick) is also home to the touching memorial of the 35 students who were among the fatalities in the terrorist bombing of Flight Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.

I'll be staying around to live the Orange life until next year, and adhere to its wonderful philosophy: Suos cultores scientia coronat! Knowledge crowns those who seek her!

Atop a Simba

We had our class field trip of the UP-Mindanao's MA students (DM231 Development Perspectives) last July 5 in Calinan and Mintal. We had a community dialog with Kasilak-Stanfilco, a visit at the Philippine Eagle in Malagos, and an offsite class and tour at the PNP-XI's Regional Training School, where we witnessed an on-going police training of newly recruited PNP personnel.

One of the tour's highlights was our close encounter with the steel-armored Simba, aka locally as Lawin. Simba belongs to the generic Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs) tank type, also known as the Simba Light Combat Vehicle (SLCV). We also had a good peek of the interior and its technology, but we were prevented from taking pictures for security reasons. So we just delighted with the body muscle and exterior endowments of this APC.

APCs became popular in WWI, with the bulky British Mark IX tanks. In WWII, the US M3 and German SdKfz 251 APC tanks dominated the battle fields. Most armoured personnel carriers use diesel engines comparable to that used in a large truck or in a typical city bus. APCs are often known to troops as 'Battle Taxis' or 'Battle Buses.' The modern American M113 for instance used the same engine as the standard General Motors urban buses.

APCs come in many variants. Apart from the Mark IX, M3 and SdKfz 251 tanks of Britain, US and Germany, there is also the mini-bus type of the Polish DziK-3s tanks used by Iraq, or the GTK Boxer German/Dutch APC. Interestingly, the VAB APCs (Véhicule de l'Avant Blindé or Armoured Vanguard Vehicles) of the French Army are similar to the Philippine SLCVs (Simba APCs), which are designed and manufactured by the British GKN Engineering Company.

The Philippine's all-terrain Simba is amazing! Small but terribble, and very reliable in deploying reinforcements and supplies, transporting infantry and providing frontline defense cover against enemy shrapnel and ambush attacks. It also doubles as an offensive assault tank in small scale armed operations with its mountable machine guns and grenade launchers. The Simba is likewise very useful in mopping-up operations.

What makes it more amazing is its tag price at 34 million pesos each. It has four big steel-rubber tires costing at about 320,000 pesos each. Easily, each Simba's four tires can reach about 1.5 million pesos.

We gathered the PNP has about 17 regions, with each region having about 8 Simba APCs. That's a whopping 578 million pesos! The caveat is, more than half of these APCs are not functional! However, public documents show that the Philippine Army as a whole purchased about 150 SLCV units in the 1990s. It should be interesting to know of the current status of the Philippine APC stock!

Cross fingers, these amounts are not over-priced! C'mon, we need a break!