OFWs: From Conflict-Ridden Mindanao to War-Torn Middle East
OFWs, many of them women, are fleeing strife-ridden Mindanao to look for jobs in war-torn Middle East. For salaries that hardly uplift their lives at home, is government exporting OFWs…
Gov?t Asked to Adopt UN Declaration on IP Rights
As tribes denounce killings of 72 indigenous peoples What could be the reasons for the Philippine government?s refusal to vote for the adoption of the draft United Nations Declaration on…
Out of Beirut, Stranded in Buhangin
A Filipino-Lebanese family in Davao tries to pick up the pieces of a life torn apart by the war in Lebanon.
By Germelina A. Lacorte
davaotoday.com
DAVAO CITY — All they really want right now is for the war to stop so that they can go back home and continue life where they left off.
Anthony Ballouz, 18, and his brother, Ronald, 16, express this wish as they watch footages of downtown Beirut on television in their mother?s home in Buhangin here, where they sought refuge from the war that broke out between Israeli troops and the Hezbollah guerillas in the southern part of Lebanon.
The four Ballouz brothers were among the Filipino Lebanese children whose families have been torn apart because of the war. Their father, George Ballouz, a Lebanese businessman, had to stay behind as the three brothers were ferried out of Beirut to take a flight aboard the Jordanian Aviation plane from Syria to follow their mother and youngest brother in Davao. They were among the second batch of Filipinos arranged by the Philippine embassy to be brought to the Philippines early last week.
The Role of Third Parties in the Mindanao Peace Process
Moro scholar Abhoud Syed M. Lingga, executive director of the Institute of Bangsamoro Studies, argues that third parties are crucial in the search for peace in Mindanao. "Involvement of third…
CEGP: Keeping the Flames of Freedom Alive
75 years ago, a group of campus writers formed the College Editors Guild of the Philippines. It went on to become a vanguard of freedom and patriotism. Last Tuesday night, Davao-based members of the CEGP came together not just to reminisce but to keep the flames of the guild burning.
CEGP members and alumni at the 75th anniversary bash at the Kanto Bar, Matina Town Square. (Click here for more pictures.) davaotoday.com photo by Barry Ohaylan
By Cheryll D. Fiel and Tyrone A. Velez
davaotoday.com
DAVAO CITY — It was a special day on the calendar. They could not wait for dusk to come. All roads that night led to Kanto Bar at the Matina Town Square for these individuals who are as diverse as the roles they have assumed now.
Some of them are lawyers, teachers, government employees, NGO workers, political advisers, editors and writers of the dailies, politicians, wives, mothers, fathers, the still-proud-and-crazy-after-all-these-years punks, poets, artists and bohemians by heart.
But that evening was not about who they are, who among them are successful, who arrived in the latest car model, who married whom, who has aged. Forget about that sort of triviality. Because that Tuesday night this week, they were just this: activist-writers eternal.