Manay Gina as peacemaker
Last week, Rep. Gina de Venecia of Pangasinan’s Fourth District made another pitch for peace at the South Korea general assembly in Seoul. She spoke about the need to build an enduring alliance between friendly nations, saying that “one nation’s problems can no longer be solved by itself alone because we have become so inter-dependent and so closely connected.”
“Fortunately, she said, “an exceptional sense of brotherhood exists between the Philippines and South Korea.”
“History tells us that for five years, starting in 1950, the Philippines had deployed an expeditionary force to help South Korea defend itself from the invasion of the north, during the Korean War.” Among the soldiers who fought side by side with the South Koreans was former President Fidel Ramos, with martyred senator and opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr., the father of our current President Benigno Aquino III, who served as a war correspondent.”
After the war, every September, Koreans and Filipinos pay homage to the monuments built in Goyang City and Yeoncheon county in honor of the Filipino troops who fought in the Battle of Yultong, Representative Gina said. To honor the Korean and Filipino countries’ commitment to peace, former President Joseph Estrada declared September 7 of every year as Korean War Veterans of the Philippines Memorial Day.
According to Gina, “In order to ensure that our region is thriving and peaceful, we must continue to strengthen existing alliances such as this, forge new partnerships, and build coalitions based on common interests.”
Manay Gina’s statements confirmed what her husband, former Speaker Jose de Venecia, and founding chairman and co-chairman of the International Conference of Asian Political Parties Standing Committee, said as keynote speaker on the special session on Filipino-Korean Friendship.
From her husband, Manay Gina learned the art of peace-building. In her speech before the Korean assembly, she said that while her husband was speaker, he pioneered the conduct of inter-faith dialogues in the United Nations since 2002, and at home, tried to help end the conflict in southern Philippines. He was also among the proponents of the inter-faith dialogues that the Philippines, Malaysia, Iran, and 33 other states had proposed to the UN General Assembly in 2006. Today, more than 70 nations are co-architects in these global, regional and inter-faith dialogues.
“Empowered by the ideals of my husband, I decided to explore the best avenues where my talents can be of use, with the goal of helping to build a more productive and compassionate nation.”
In spite of a fractured shoulder, Gina’s husband Jose de Venecia has been on rapid peace-building speaking engagements, such as in Vladivostok in Russia, Chengdu in China, and Seoul, in the last few weeks, and he is off to Bali, Indonesia next week to speak at the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as keynote speaker, and then to Sri Lanka and Islamabad, Pakistan in late September.
Joe has helped mobilize Asian support for President Aquino’s peace pact with the MILF and has appealed for a difficult but possible historic meeting in Mecca between Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, leader of the world’s Sunni Muslims, and Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei, leader of the Shi’ites as the practical solution to bring peace and reconciliation in the lands of Islam.
He noted that in spite of frequent diplomatic tussles between the US and Russia, it was President Putin and President Obama who jointly forced the successful removal of Syria’s chemical
weapons, without U.S. bombing that could have led to a wider war, while U.S. and Chinese ships helped dispose of the dreaded weapons.
Gina’s peace-building effort on a regional level was first evident when she led an all-women delegation on a people-to-people mission to the People’s Republic of China. The delegation, Gina said upon her delegation’s return to Manila, left Vice Minister Chen Fengxiang of the International Department of the Communist Party of China “very impressed.” After all, the women’s delegation was the first and only group from the Philippine government to China since the escalation of the maritime dispute in the West Philippine Sea.
That peace mission resulted in her crafting of a bill to improve Philippine-Sino relations by calling for the resumption of bilateral talks and the creation of a Philippines-China Council to address the problem in the West Philippine Sea and other areas of common concern and mutual benefits.
Now serving her second term in the House of Representatives, she has made her mark as a competent lawmaker, sponsoring bills ranging from the creation of a national cancer institute, a measure on youth suicide intervention and prevention, a move to make Manaoag, Pangasinan, a pilgrimage site and tourist destination, and a proposal to strengthen the Philippine Crop Insurance System in view of the recurring calamities that endanger the livelihood of farmers and fisher folks.
A footnote on Koreans’ generosity: South Korea was among the first foreign governments to come to the aid of Yolanda victims. Last December, the South Korean Armed Forces deployed a one-year mission to help in the reconstruction of public infrastructure in typhoon-stricken towns of Leyte.
Lt. Baek Myunghyu, public relations officer of the Korean joint support group, said the South Korean government is sending $30-million in its one-year reconstruction of government buildings, hospitals, schools and municipal halls in the towns of Palo, Tanauan and Tolosa. He added that his government did not hesitate to help Filipinos in recognition of the country’s participation in the 1950s Korean War.
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“Countries all over the world continue to wage what seems like a losing battle against drugs and drug addiction. The Philippines is no exception. Drug abuse, addiction and our drug policy affects Filipinos of all ages and social strata. But the government’s campaign or so called ‘war on drugs,’ is a losing battle for the most affected.” These are dismaying words from No Box Transitions Foundation.
“Our punitive approach to drug addiction and drug use is causing more harm than the treatment and care we provide,” said Inez Jorge Feria, executive Director of No Box Transitions Foundation.
NoBox Transitions is a non-profit organization whose advocacy is to make sure that the treatment, care, and services that people need for substance-related problems are available and easily accessible, and that nobody is subjected to harms from stigma, discrimination, and ignorance. Feria said the organization is disturbed that so many minors are put in jail for minor drug offences when they should be helped.
In a forum at GT Toyota Auditorium at the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman, leading experts brought up fresh perspectives on drug use, drug addiction and the Philippines drug policy led by Dr. Carl Hart, author and neuropsychopharmacologist from Columbia University. A panel of esteemed experts talked about the Philippine context including Dr. Michael L. Tan, UP Dilliman chancellor and Dr. Anna Tuazon, assistant professor at the Psychology Department of the University of the Philippines.?According to Dr. Hart, 80-90 percent of drug users do not need treatment or are not drug addicts. “The most important treatment of addiction is the assessment. Too often this does not happen if we throw people in the same categories.” According to Hart, “The notion that we can keep everybody safe all the time is unrealistic and paternalistic. Car accidents happen but we don’t ban cars on the streets.”
The forum challenged stakeholders to “question everything because popular notions on drugs are not supported by enough scientific evidence and the current knowledge is not enough.”
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