Philippines is perfect place to study faith, globalization - Tony Blair

The Philippines is in many ways the perfect place to explore the complexities surrounding the relationship between faith and globalization, both past and present. As a society deeply influenced historically by Spanish, Indonesian, Malaysian and indigenous cultures, it finds itself in the 21st century occupying a delicate and profoundly important role in both Asian and Western trade and  foreign affairs. I am therefore pleased to announce that the Tony Blair Faith Foundation (TBFF) has just established a deep and extensive partnership in the Philippines: A schools initiative to make inter-faith dialogue a part of social education, a program presently in 17 other nations; and a consortium of universities that will join the global Faith and Globalization course that was begun at Yale in the USA and is now in eight countries around the world.

Britain abused and rejected the Philippines

Tony Blair is a youngest with a longest service period Prime Minister in the United Kingdom. He resigned from his all position in the politics and political party last June 2007 after so many criticisms of his participation in the Afghanistan and Iraq invasion led by Former President George W. Bush.

He might be no escape of the dirts in the politics reason he resigned and starts to serve the people by his own will and own direction without the measure from the dirty world of politics.

The Britain government is still having the huge unpaid indebtedness to the Philippines after they turnover the North Borneo Territory (Sabah) to the ally Malaysia. Without respect and rejecting the ruling Sultan of Sulu, the British Government include the North Borneo (Sabah) to the crown treaty and turnover to Malaysia in spite of the several warning from the United States that the North Borneo (Sabah) is not belong to the crown treaty and must remain free and part of the Sultanate State of Sulu under the Philippines Government.

The stupid mistake of the British Government is a prime reason for the never ending conflict in Mindanao as the locals are keep on longing to take back the missing piece of their territory resulting to continues revolution until the present time.

With the pride of the British Government, they did not accept mistake. The conflicts continue rising and already tallied around 150,000 death. The 150,000 death is enough for the Britain to correct their previous mistake and they are accountable to all of this.

The initiative of the defecting Tony Blair is good for the Philippines but this is not enough to clean the mindset of the aboriginals (Muslims, Subano and other tribe in Mindanao) that they lose a piece of land because it was stolen by the British Government.  Read more here about this issue.

Enormous possibility

The Philippines is a great place to have such ideas. It is a fascinating country on the move, facing big challenges but with enormous possibility which it is starting to fulfill. It has a new president with a strong mandate and the determination and capability to succeed and a people behind him willing him on. It is a nation of 100 million, situated in the middle of the rising East, with resources, culture and beauty to exploit. Its people are hard-working and smart. Its poverty remains real, but so does its potential.

Faith is also a big part of the country. It is predominantly Christian and Catholic; but it has a significant Muslim population. In the past years the Philippines has witnessed a tragic dispute in its Mindanao region, where the majority of the Muslim people live. Largely ignored by the outside world, this conflict has resulted in the death, in recent decades of 150,000 people, displaced two million and inhibited what could be huge investment in the southern part of the islands which is rich in deposits of oil, gas and minerals. It is actually the second oldest conflict on earth after North/South Sudan.

Faith-based programs

Hence the need for, and the importance of faith-based programs that promote peaceful coexistence. Of course, here, as in all such situations there are a myriad of political and territorial issues that complicate. However, here also, we cannot hope to establish peace without accepting that religion is part of the problem and therefore must become part of the solution. To its great credit the government is prepared to recognize this and help make it happen.

The TBFF will be working closely with the government on two levels. In the first place, we will be working with the Department of Education to bring our “Face to Faith” program into Filipino public schools. This program will provide the next generation of Filipino leaders with the opportunity to learn essential communication skills while also gaining greater understanding of inter-faith dialogue and the role of religion in the world. Second, we will work with the Commission for Higher Education, the Office of the Peace Process and a consortium of universities in our “Faith & Globalization Initiative,” which gives university students from around the world the opportunity to learn more about religion’s complex relationship with the forces of globalization.

Pervasive and complex

From this example, we can see a wider truth about the way we live and work today. The role of religion in today’s world can be described in two words:  Pervasive and complex. Religion extends its influence over a myriad of aspects  of our daily lives in the globalized 21st century, whether or not we have  religious faith ourselves. Religion can claim responsibility for some of the most profoundly positive and important events and movements the world has ever known. Yet it has also been associated with some of the most heinous and horrible crimes against humanity.

Unstoppable force

Globalization is an unstoppable force, driven partly by technology and partly by people. Its impact is to thrust people online and physically together through mass travel and migration. So today people are aware of, mix with and compete with those of a different faith. There are then two responses. One is to make sense of this interaction by establishing ways and means of living together, learning from each other and coexisting in mutual respect.

The other is to react against the changes such a process brings and use religious faith as a badge of identity in opposition to those of another faith. The world over, this struggle is being played out.   There is a risk that extremism grows unchecked except by security methods whereas what is needed is a combination of hard and soft power. But the other side effect is that faith itself is discredited, seen as the cause of the world’s problems not a vital civilizing force for its future.

This would be sad; because the single most compelling fact about faith and the reason those of faith are still growing in numbers not diminishing is that amongst all the potential for conflict, it still does immense good for the people of this world, in caring for them, supporting them when weak and counseling them when strong. This, not the extremism is the true Face of Faith.

Tony Blair is the founder and patron of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation (http://www.tonyblairfaithfoundation.org/blog/entry/the-phillipines-government-and-tony-blair-announce-plan-for-peace-building).

 

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Philippines' products stand tall over China's territory

By MARIA TERESA T. ALMOJUELA (Minister and Consul General, Philippine Embassy Beijing)

Philippines — One may ask — amidst the preparations for the summitry of the State Visit of President Benigno S. Aquino III to China next week and its weighty agenda — how is the Philippines seen in China?

A quick survey of Philippine presence in China would bring up an eclectic mix of Philippine “flag bearers” – things, people and places that shape the images conjured by the word “Philippines” in the minds of the common Chinese.

The list would be topped by edibles found in the markets like dried mangoes, the pan de sal (labeled “Filipino bun”), Philippine bananas grown in Mindanao and Oishi snacks and mango juices. Seafood from the Philippines is also in high demand – gaining ground in high-income cities in mostly-landlocked Chinese consumer markets.

Since the success of Philippine lobbying in the 1990s to secure access of Philippine bananas in China, the country has become the third largest market for Philippine bananas. These days, Mindanao-grown cavendish is a staple in Chinese tables – one sign of the dramatic change in consumption patterns in China over the last two decades, a change that has accultured the Chinese to the best of what the outside world could offer – from food, music and clothes, to luxury cars and yatchs.

Thanks to the efforts of the Department of Tourism to build up the Philippines in a very competitive but numbers-rich outbound travel market in China – Boracay (called the Changtan Dao – meaning Longbeach Island) has carved its own name in China.

The strength of the Boracay brand, as an island-paradise get-away that is not far from China, and the market’s familiarity with Cebu, resonates in the popular impressions of the Philippines’ tropical destinations among the Chinese.

One would easily know this from cab drivers and pedestrians who voluntarily share these images of the Philippines when they encounter a Filipino.

This branding has made Cebu and Boracay the most popular destinations of Chinese tourists in the Philippines. The market is booming and blooming: China is one of the fastest-growing markets for Philippine tourism, ranking fourth in terms of arrivals in 2010.

Chinese impressions of the Philippines are enriched by personal contacts with the increasing number of Filipinos in China – currently estimated at 10,000. This includes Filipino musicians and bands playing in watering holes from Xinjiang to Tibet to Heilongjiang to Shanghai, English teachers, and corporate executives and engineers employed by global giants and Philippine companies.

There are many individuals of notable distinctions – from tycoons like Carlos Chan (known as Shi Gong Qi) and Lucio Tan (Chen Yong Cai), whose business interests span the entire Chinese map, to journalists like CNN Beijing Bureau Chief Jaime Flor Cruz, Harvard-educated Intel executive Lara Tiam, architect Marco Torres who carried the Beijing Olympic Torch and who persuasively tells the Chinese of the wonders of the Philippines through networking sites, blogs, tweets and his lifestyle magazine, chef Rey Lim who has been whipping up appetites in high-end Western fusion restaurants in the Chinese capital in the last 17 years, and Elmer Reyes, an athletics teacher at an international school who runs ultra marathon and triathlon races.

Among these individuals are agents of cultural interaction such as soprano Anne Luis of the Bayanihan Dance Troupe, who studies Beijing Opera at the National Theater Academy of China. With her, the Chinese people are very much taken by the homage a Filipino talent is paying to China’s ancient theater form.

The Philippine Consul General in Beijing, Maria Teresa Almojuela, says that “the Filipino men and women in China are not merely bearing witness to China’s changes: they are contributing to the energy of the Chinese society and taking part in its history.”

There were three Filipinos, who enthusiastically threw themselves into the City of Beijing’s fervor for its 2008 Olympic hosting: aside from Marco Torres, the father-and-daughter team of Jaime and Michelle Florcruz were chosen by the Beijing government to be among the 58 expats to carry the Olympic torch. It was the first time for Philippine nationals to run with the Olympic torch since the 1964 Tokyo games – and these Pinoys delivered with aplomb.

These Olympic torch bearers reflect the Filipinos’ penchant for giving themselves to Chinese civic causes. The Philippine Ball in Beijing, organized by the leaders of the Filipino community bi-annually, raises funds for Chinese charities. There are community projects like schools and orphanages in China which are supported by Filipino benefactors and volunteers.

These examples have strong historical precedence. Records show that in 1930s Shanghai, Philippine veterinarian Dr. Honorio Evangelista led the Philippine company of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps, ready to help the city in the outbreak of hostilities. The Filipino volunteers were said to be “keen volunteers and always participated in activities and hazardous assignments, earning for themselves medals and honors.”

Since the 1990s, China has warmly received teachers from the Philippines, mostly in the English language. To date, there are over 2,000 Filipino citizens who teach English in all levels of education in China, from pre-schools to graduate schools.

Filipino educators also founded the first international school in the province of Fujian in 1993. The Manila Xiamen International School (MXIS), founded by Filipino educators Roman and Mildred Go, now boasts of a student population of 328 students representing over twenty countries.

A Filipino traveling to China will be surprised that most Chinese know the Presidents of the Philippines by name. The Chinese are after all an educated people who still devour books, read newspapers and watch the evening news, keenly following China’s public affairs.

The average Chinese could easily remember the names of Presidents Marcos (Ma-ke-si Zhongtong), Estrada ( Ai-si-te-la-da Zhongtong) and Arroyo ( A-lou-ye Zhongtong). It is also known in China that President Aquino ( A-ji-nuo Zhongtong) is the son of former President Corazon Aquino, whose visit to China in 1988 included a journey to the laojia (hometown) of her great-grandparents’ ancestors in Fujian.

The Chinese profess an admiring impression of the women leaders of the Philippines and hold the Philippines as a model for gender equality in politics. This is the reason Philippine women Presidents like Aquino and Arroyo capture the imagination of the Chinese public.

The older Chinese generation in their 60s, 70s and 80s could still recall their first enchantment with the Philippines and the Filipino woman in the image of Imelda Marcos. Her visit to Beijing in 1973 was beamed in Chinese state television. And so the image of Filipino women to that captive audience – and for a very long time in China - was Imelda Marcos herself – regal and svelte in pink terno being toasted by Chairman Mao Zedong, and carrying both beauty and power as she paved the way for our formal ties.

Contemporary Chinese hardly miss the fact that the Filipinos are a musically-gifted people because of the presence of Filipino musicians in China.

Filipino musicians are among the most sought-after performers in the Chinese music scene, headlining shows in the most popular bars and hotels in China. Some bands have so captured the fancy of their Chinese audience that they are even invited to perform in variety shows on local television channels.

It is estimated that there are over 3,000 Filipino musicians working in China. While it may seem on the surface to be a recent trend, records show that Filipino musicians were in fact very much in the Shanghai music scene in the 1920s and 1930s – playing nightly in the plush clubs, cabarets and hotels in the city in combos with 6 up to 12 members until the wars stopped the music.

The Philippine presence in Shanghai in its days as Paris of the East was such that the former French concession had a Manila Road (pronounced locally as Man-nun-la-lo). Today, this is named Yan’An Road – a busy beltway of flyovers at the heart of the city.

Philippine flavors are also making headway to the Chinese palate. The importation of fruits and food products to China, including dried mangoes, banana chips and polvoron (shortbread cookies), mango, calamansi, coconut juices, purees and concentrates are adding new flavors in a country whose young, diverse, and open-minded market welcomes new culinary experiences.

Many Chinese are becoming more aware that leading snack food brand Oishi is made by Liwayway Marketing Corp., a Filipino company which first ventured into the Chinese market in 1993 with two companies in Shanghai. In less than 20 years, its China operations has expanded to 14 facilities all over Mainland China under the head company Liwayway (China) Co. Ltd.. Oishi’s range of range of products includes more than 50 variants of salty snacks, cereals, popcorn, cookies, powdered juices, and sauces.

Bistro Luneta is flying the Philippine flag proudly in downtown Shanghai, serving amazingly delectable squid sisig, chicken empanada, chicken and mushroom adobo, lechon kawali and other Filipino gastronomic treats.

Luneta is probably the only Filipino restaurant in the entire Mainland China. By doing successfully, it may also be paving pathways for other Philippine restaurateurs to enter China’s culinary scene.

Oishi and Bistro Luneta both represent the range of investment ventures that Filipinos have made in China’s dynamic and huge market. Since China’s opening up at the beginning of the 1980s, the cumulative volume of Philippine investments in China has grown to US$2.78 billion by the end of 2010. Currently, the Philippines is one of Asia’s top sources of investments in China and ranks as China’s fourth largest ASEAN investor.

This is one of the key features of the bilateral economic relationship, and places It also places the Philippines in an extremely good vantage point to engage China towards a stronger economic partnership, especially as the latter has recently become, according to the UN World Investment Report of July 2011, the fifth largest source global investor.

A Filipino travelling to China will find numerous high-rises, malls, factories, and ventures across the territory that illuminate the role of Philippine investments in contributing to the synergy of the country’s economic transformation in the last three decades.

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