Battlefronts

The Commander in Chief and his brave soldiers and police forces have won a decisive war against one of the most vicious terrorist band in the world — the Maute ISIS. The cost is not cheap. We lost scores of our own brave soldiers, policemen and innocent civilians, women held captives raped and billions worth of homes and other properties destroyed and more. 

We have seen the face of devastation and the herculean task to rebuild Marawi is beyond anyone’s imagination. 

Amidst the ruins we witnessed how our Muslim brothers and sisters protected and cared for the Christians who lived and studied in the once idyllic and beautiful Islamic City of Marawi. 

The refugees were aided by the countless and nameless Samaritans among Christians. We are a band of brothers all fighting a common enemy that has no religion but uses the name of God or Allah to shield their evil deeds. 

Elsewhere in other parts of the globe, the nucleus and other cells of ISIS that have brutalized their own kin and showed no mercy to other faiths have likewise been crushed. The timing of their decimation came on the heels of the extermination of the Marawi caliphate. The cadence and sequence of events are so profound like suddenly the rumbling sound of battles came to a stop and then no more. 

Ang Pambansag Awit was never sung with immense fervor and a strong feeling of joy, thanksgiving, sense of patriotism than how it was rendered by men and women in uniform and civilians in Marawi. 

The gargantuan task of rebuilding Marawi is complex. This is the time for all good men to help and restore back Marawi to its beauty and grandeur. The time for healing will take a little time but heal it will. 

Rejecting Aid from EU 

“Kinsa man ang giluud sa kwarta?” This is a provincialism which means “does anyone feel nauseated with money?”. 

When President Duterte directed Foreign Affairs Secretary Allan Peter Cayetano to decline aid from the European Union not a few were surprised and some amused. Others were mad, extremely bitter why Duterte would reject multi-million-dollar aid that is for the taking and could make the life of Juan dela Cruz a bit better. This is generally true except that some truth surrounding the aids and grants from Europe may be shocking. Indeed the rejection doesn’t go with the norm. 

Having said that, the President’s polite refusal to accept aids from EU should invite attention and not an outright condemnation. 

Being based in Davao gives me some vantage to pry into the events and reasons why the President who had been mayor for over 23 years would rather not touch the EU aids with a ten-foot-pole. 

Let me take you back in history. When Marcos was hijacked by the CIA and installed Cory Aquino as President, the US propaganda machinery pictured the Philippines as a badly devastated country having been pillaged by the dictatorial regime. And so the US, Canada, Japan and European nations set up a mini-Marshall plan similar to what the US and Britain did for the rehabilitation of countries in Europe that had been badly damaged by WWII. 

The mini-Marshall plan for the Philippines had its headquarters in Hong Kong. A number of countries, led by the United States gave money to the MMP except for a number of European countries which have billions to spare but had some guidelines to follow. Their constraint is that they can extend aid but not through the government. Aids or grants have to be sent direct to non-government organizations like Foundations and Peoples cooperatives. 

The mini-Marshall fund did not generate substantial fund because other would-be donors must have found out that the country was not shattered after all. The organizers instead changed the game plan and declared to the local government units to submit feasibility studies and gave grants on a first come first serve basis.

General Santos City and if am not mistaken Subic got the lion share. Gensan got a big slice of the pie, not because there were geniuses that drafted an FS pronto, but the smart OIC Mayor Rosalita Nunez simply submitted an FS done by JETRO for General Santos City Development Plan during the Marcos incumbency.

Part of the story was that Japan was irked because while they did the FS the projects were awarded to American contractors. But that is another story. 

So what ever happened to the European aid? Some enterprising politicians and private groups got wind of the onus of financial grants to NGOs. Soon NGOs sprouted like mushrooms in Davao City. Livelihood projects like one incubated by the late Fr. Rudy Malasmas were laudable for these served the beneficiaries but several other NGOs of varied orientations soon cropped up and outlived those engaged in livelihood programs. 

EU and Canada, for reasons of their own, would generally course their aids through a conduit which are popularly known as donor foundations (DF). The DFs do the screening of project FS from beneficiary foundations (BF) and then release the funds with very little questions or none at all. They have to liquidate the fund allocated to them for dispersal otherwise they lose the privilege of being the conduits. 

And there lies the problem. EU donors in particular have biases for projects that fall into the categories of Environment, Human Rights, Illiteracy and Hunger to name a few. 

At the start, HR issues were the most popular, the Philippines having come from the aegis of a dictatorial regime. Later illiteracy and hunger became a favorite fare along with environment. 

In Davao City, some European and Australian nationals organized their own NGOs in connivance with the locals and received the grants. They had it so good they have their own private planes and live in posh subdivisions. They contrive issues that suit the donor foundations agenda and voila it's la dolce vita. 

From the mendicants that they were in their native lands they suddenly enjoy the pleasures of a "Third World country'' that they paint us with. Some of them enjoy added bonus - a Filipina wife. And what about the grants? A pittance goes to their alleged beneficiaries. 

But not to be outdone are the locals. Nowadays what sell to DFs are "projects" relating to human rights which covers a vast area of funding possibilities like the all-time favorite - extra-judicial killing with added condiments like "militarization" and spiced with "killings of Lumad farmers". Then there are lucrative projects that pertain to Environment. So lucrative Foundations have become that they have inter-locking memberships.  

Am quite certain that President Duterte would not have minded these "enterprises" but he will not allow the people behind some of these BFs to have their thing at his and the government expense. When lies are peddled to donor countries like the EU somewhere along the way the spigots of poisoned aids or grants have to be closed. 

At this time when the government is facing several internal and external threats President Duterte knows where and who to target. He has done with Marawi. When he declines the aids and grants from members of the EU communities that does not mean he considers them enemy. He just want to deprive some quarters the means to fight him in another front.