Nobody heard them?

I was supposed to be one of the DEAF members of the Philippine delegation from the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde to the 2008 Summer Leadership Institute (SLI) for Post-secondary Deaf and Hard of Hearing students to be held at the Herstmonceux Castle, East Sussex, England from August 9 to 15, 2008.

The program is sponsored by the Postsecondary Education Network International (PEN Intl) and the National Technical Institute for the DEAF (NTID) Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York. Other student ambassadors are John Alexis Abad, Jocelyn Tamayao, Raymond Manding while the teachers/interpreter are John Xandre Baliza, Leonides Sulse and Febe Sevilla.

We all applied for a visa on July 9 through visa application center of the British Embassy at the AXA Life building and we were told to wait for a text message from the Embassy as to when our visas would be available for pick up. The passports with visa of Mr. Baliza and Mr. Sulse were released on July 10. Since I traveled to the United States of America in December 2004 and October 2005, I considered myself as a fast track applicant based on visa guidelines. Besides, upon application, my hearing teacher was informed by one of the ladies receiving the application documents that it will be up to the processing officer to determine if the applicant falls under the fast track category.

We all waited for a text message but we did not receive any until Mr. Sulse, our deaf teacher, speaking through Ms. Ruby de Castro, one of our hearing teachers, called the Embassy Call Center on July 29 with no positive feedback. Subsequent calls were made on August 1 and 4 and she was informed that the visa is not yet available and that there should not be any cause to worry. Another follow up call on August 5 said that it takes 15 working days to process the visa and on August 6, Ms. de Castro was informed that processing of visas might take 20 days or more.

On August 8, a day before our scheduled departure, Ms. Mary Lamb from the office of the sponsoring agency in the United States tried to call the visa section hoping to ask for the kind consideration of releasing the visas in time for our departure on August 9. She was instructed to fax the itinerary and flight confirmation. We found that instruction a bit strange since all those documents were attached to our application. Nonetheless, Ms. Lamb faxed the documents. Through the kindness of Ms. Maria Mardon, on the same day, all of the delegates sent a letter of appeal via email addressed to the visa section to expedite the release of our visas. On Aug. 11, at around 12 noon, Ms. Sevilla got a call on her mobile phone asking her what her plan was about her visa application. Jocelyn Tamayao also got a text asking her the same question. We all found those calls strange while I and the other student/delegates have not received any text at all.

I am extremely sad and frustrated because the seminar is a one-of-a-kind multinational leadership training program for DEAF students like me. Attendance to the Summer Leadership Institute (SLI) will enable me to improve my leadership and advocacy skills not only for personal gain but to eventually impart the knowledge and skills we will get from the SLI to the rest of the Filipino Deaf community. Deaf people like us oftentimes experience discrimination and we look at opportunities like the Summer Leadership Training as a great equalizer to prove to the hearing community that we too can be productive members of society. I am doubly sad for Ms. Febe Sevilla, our interpreter, who had to borrow money just to buy her Filipiniana costume to be used during the program. She hoped to pay her debtor from her allowance of USD 700 which will be given to her when she gets to England. The personal allowance of the other students of the delegation were mostly donations from well meaning friends of their families since they are enrolled in our school on full scholarship because they do not have the financial means to pay for their tuition fees.

As I write this letter, 10:40 p.m., August 11, 2008, I and the other student ambassadors have not received any advise from the Visa Section of the Embassy as to the status of our application and the date of the release of our passports. Now, we can only imagine how the other members of the delegation from Japan, China, Russia and the United States of America are pleasantly sharing experiences and participating in activities which will further enrich their lives as DEAF people. - KRISTINA M. ARCE, Student Ambassador, PEN-Int'l. 2008 Summer Leadership Institute

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(Ed's note) This letter was excerpted from a letter originally sent to British Ambassador Peter Beckingham.

A wasted piece of MOA

The gestation of peace has been excruciatingly slow yet when it took shape it turned fast into a serpentine seed of evil that is sowing divisiveness among the peoples in Central and Western Mindanao . Violence has erupted anew. How frustrating indeed to see decades of negotiations wasted into naught and evolving still into another irrational argument to wage war and fan the dying ember of divisiveness.

Just when both sides announced they have completed the draft of the memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain belligerent elements led by breakaway group of Commander Umbra Kato marched in full battle gear to scuttle the peace talks, set houses on fire and towed away farm animals and freshly harvested crops of unsuspecting farmers cowering in fear and anxiety.

How else will the leaders react this barefaced display of firepower, brute force and savagery? We cannot take it against Vice Gov. Manny Piñol of North Cotabato if he rages against the atrocities of the brigands led by Commander Umbra Kato. We cannot fault Gov. Mangundadatu of Sultan Kudarat and other Muslim leaders to raise their voices against the MOA when the forces of terror sow fear, devastate and dislocate not only Christian and lumad communities but Muslims as well.

The Arroyo government is in earnest to push through with the MOA to the extent of earning ire even from among her political allies in addition to the rabid political opposition. Unfortunately the MILF hierarchy is apparently not capable of addressing the restiveness and adventurism of a number of their field "Commanders", among them Umbra Kato. This is the very reason why some quarters doubt whether the MOA once signed will finally put an end to violence in Mindanao . This apprehension is not only among Christians but shared by all the peace loving in Mindanao who have gotten tired of the lawlessness in the region.

We believe that the Moro people deserve a homeland but this should not be done through threats and aggression. This government has demonstrated its sincerity and determination to provide ancestral domains for the indigenous peoples, which by the way are truly the genuine inheritors of the lands and resources of this country, and we believe that expanding the autonomous territory will not be much of a problem. But this should be done with rationality and civility and not through the point of a gun. That is not negotiation. That is coercion.

No matter how sound is the MOA on ancestral domain this will just be another piece of precious document wasted if the realities in the ground precedes it. We do not want to take sides on the conflict but the MILF should prove it can handle the multi-headed hydra that hounds it like it did with the MNLF. - MIRIAM DAHUNOG, miriamdahunog70@yahoo.com