The changing Christmases of my life

For the first time in our family life, not everybody could be present in our reunion. In the past, Wherever each one of us were, we would come to roost in the family nest.

My eldest, Veronica Pedrosa of Al-Jazeera was in Thailand covering the 10 years anniversary since the Asian Tsunami. There were beachside memorials and religious services across Asia to mark the 10th anniversary of the tsunami in the region that killed hundreds of thousands. Marta was in Sai Kung in the New Territories of China, and Eduardo was in Ormoc to spend it with his in-laws. Only Alberto and Ricardo both were in Manila. We have been spending Christmas for six years now without my late husband who died in 2008.  But we had to do the best we could to be together using the technology of communication through skype.

The only sameness was the roast turkey with Austrian stuffing as we have had in 20 years of exile in London. Food seems to be more constant  and easier to replicate the Christmas meal through the years. In London we could buy wild turkeys which are tastier but could be bought off the rack in Selfridges, my favorite food store in London because I could walk to it. A son brought a Christmas pudding changed and did the best we could which is another touch from London habits. We usually had After 8 mints, a variety of cheeses with fruits to top the meal and the breaking and sharing of “crackers” (fancifully wrapped little trinkets with a saying or a prediction). This year, we had the addition of grandson Caleb whom I called my Einstein because he seems so precocious but then I am his grandmother so you can say I am biased.

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There is another must occasion on the 26th of December. It is the birthday of a good friend, former Speaker Jose de Venecia who invites all and sundry to an open house. He has now moved to an international career to apply his talents for diplomacy and putting coalitions together. Among the organizations in his list are the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP) and affiliate organizations like the Centrist Asia Pacific Democrats International (CAPDI), the International Ecological Safety Collaborative Organization (IESCO), and the Permanent Conference of Political Parties in Latin America and the Caribbean (COPPPAL).

This is a wide constituency which he could use to spread out advocacies from the Philippines as well as to “promote peace, reconciliation and a culture of dialogue, understanding and cooperation; and in fighting poverty, corruption, and climate change to the rest of the world.

“We urge an urgent revival of the interfaith dialogues which we helped advance in the United Nations system in 2004 to help reduce the religious extremism, tensions, violent and bloody conflicts raging in a number of areas of the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa; and renew our appeal for the leaders of Sunnis and Shi’ites to perhaps meet in Mecca to discuss ways to bring peace to the lands of Islam;

This column takes note also of his words for the  Asian Century: “More than ever, we are committed to continue to contribute our most modest share in helping promote the 21st Century into a truly Asian Century….

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For those who are not in Facebook or have not yet joined Bayanko in crowdsourcing for a new constitution for a new country, here’s a contribution from Gerard Dacudao from Spain.

This is his suggested Preamble:

“In deference to our revolutionary forefathers, we THE PEOPLE, in order to create a new government ruled by its people, a government focused on the service of its people, creating an inclusive society of equal opportunity, and a society with responsible citizenry, do hereby promulgate this constitution.

And for Article 1 on National Territory he contributed the following.:

Section 1. The Republic of the Philippines is an archipelago composed of islands defined in the Protocol of Madrid in 1885, the Treaty of Paris in 1898, and the Convention of Washington, DC in 1930 – including the Spratlys group of islands in the West Philippine Sea.  All internal waters, territorial waters, archipelagic waters, contiguous zones, exclusive economic zones, continental shelves surrounding these islands as defined in international law comprise the National Sea Territory of the Republic of the Philippines.

Section 2. The Republic of the Philippines shall adopt an inclusive national territory policy for both land and sea territories and shall be open to both foreign and domestic sourced goods, services, and investments to develop these territories without passion nor prejudice under the context of uncompromising taxation policies, fair yet firm judicial processes in case of disputes.

Section 3. Any other territory who wishes to join the Republic of the Philippines may enter, if a referendum about joining the Republic was done among its inhabitants.

Dacudao adds that these are his version of what he got from the facebook page of BayanKo.

“This is freshly harvested so to speak, but still pending approval of the panel of experts of BayanKo. Personally, I like the Japanese constitution as it is clear and neatly done as what we could expect from the Japanese. If we want a parliamentary model, the Japanese model is a good basis to adapt. They just lack taxation clause guarantees that are important if we want to tell the world that the Filipino people will back up its currency’s interest obligations via taxation. An important element in BayanKo Point 9 which is how to bridge the gap between rich and poor.

Readers of this column with access to Internet are invited to do the same. One study described crowdsourcing as a similar to an hourglass, with the top half all the suggestions from the crowd, the connecting middle come from the panel of experts that would put together coherently and the lower half will the culled suggestions from the crowd that would then be subject to a referendum. Can it be done should not be a question. We will just have to do it, depart from our usual way of relying on the elite and express ourselves in the best way we can for a better country.

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My column “It is time” was reprinted in the Bayanko crowdsourcing page ub FB. It was well visited and commented upon which shows once again that social media has come into its own as alternative media and can be used for advocacies that would not be covered in mainstream and oligarchic media.