Kalayaan

P h i l i p p i n e E m b a s sy i n P r e t o ri a , S o u t h Af r i ca
Kalayaan
Volume 4, Issue 4
October—December 2007
In this issue:
President Arroyo attends
13th ASEAN Summit
Singapore
1
Secretary Romulo
expresses ‘ASEAN’s pride’
2
President Arroyo’s Arrival
Statement from the 13th
ASEAN Summit
2
Philippines ranks 6th in
Worldwide Gender
Equality
3
Philippine Embassy
participates in ASEAN
Darts Tournament
3
View from the Palace:
Good and bad effects of a
strong peso
4
Culture Ingested: Notes
on the Indigenization of
Philippine Food
5
Philippine Embassy
celebrates National Peace
Consciousness Month
7
Philippine Embassy
participates in
International Fair 2007
8
Photo Gallery
9
The Filipino Language
10
Embassy personnel join
Filcom Basketball
Tournament
10
Message from the
Ambassador
12
President Arroyo attends 13th
ASEAN Summit in Singapore
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo arrived in
Singapore on 18 November to attend the
annual meeting of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) heads of state
and government, the
highest decisionmaking organ of the 10member ASEAN.
High on agenda of the
13th ASEAN Summit
and related meetings in
Singapore on 18 to 22
November was the
signing by ASEAN
leaders of the ASEAN
Charter which the High
Level Task Force
drafted during the 12th
ASEAN Summit held in
Cebu early this year.
This historic document,
which former President
Fidel V. Ramos as
member of the Eminent
Persons Group helped
formulate, is expected
to serve as a legal and
institutional framework
as well as an inspiration for ASEAN to meet
future challenges and
opportunities.
During the Summit,
President Arroyo
brought up issues on
environment, including
the protection of coastal
and marine ecosystems
as well as renewed calls
for the use of renewable
and alternative sources
of energy, such as biofuels, to soften the effect of high prices of oil
in the world market.
Other highlights of the
five-day ASEAN Summit were:
• Signing of another
important document
on ASEAN Economic
Community Blueprint, a master plan
that identifies the
priority measures and
actions to be undertaken to transform
ASEAN into a region
with free movement
of goods, services, investment, skilled labor and freer flow of
capital by 2015.
• Discussions on problems on energy, the
environment, climate
change and sustainable development,
and the signing by
ASEAN leaders of a
declaration of environmental sustainability to protect and
manage the environment, respond to climate change and conserve the region’s
natural resources.
• ASEAN leaders declared their support
for a successful outcome of the negotiation at the Conference
of the Parties to the
United Nations (UN)
Framework Convention on Climate
Change in Bali next
month, which seeks to
pave the way for a
climate change roadmap beyond 2012,
when the Kyoto Protocol expires.
Other documents that
were signed at the 13th
ASEAN Summit by
ASEAN Ministers were:
the ASEAN Mutual
Recognition Agreement
on Architectural Services; the ASEAN
Framework Arrangement on the Mutual
Recognition of Surveying Qualifications; and
the Protocol to carry
out the 6th Package of
Commitments under
the ASEAN Framework
Agreement on Services.
PAGE 2
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V O LU M E 4 , ISSU E 4
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s Arrival Statement
from the 13th ASEAN Summit
We return to the Philippines one
day ahead of schedule saddened
about the plight of the victims of
the recent typhoon but satisfied
that as a result of our efforts in
Singapore, the Philippines will
benefit from greater security,
stronger economic growth and enhanced solidarity to make progress
to protect our environment.
Secretary Romulo and Secretary
Favila will stay in Singapore.
The fact that ASEAN has signed a
Charter that is legally binding and
that will create a more powerful
regional bloc is an important milestone in the history of our region.
It sends a signal that ASEAN nations are determined to play a larger, more strategic role to move
our region and each member nation forward.
The Philippine economy and our
people have only benefited from
economic growth due to global engagement. Increased trade between ASEAN nations will continue to accelerate our economic
growth, foreign investment and
the creation of good jobs for our
people.
And while we are pleased that we
have incorporated language in the
Charter that advances human
rights and democracy, we remain
concerned that the forces of authoritarianism still move rather
slowly towards democracy in
Myanmar. Let me be clear: We
embrace the advances of ASEAN
but remain concerned about the
pace of progress of Myanmar on
the issue of human rights. We particularly deplore the treatment of
Aung San Suu Ky. She must be
released. Now.
We will not rest, in representation
of the political leadership and constituency of the Philippines and as
a member of ASEAN, in the pursuit of justice and reconciliation in
Myanmar. We must be active in
advocating peaceful reforms in
that nation. It is good for Myanmar, for ASEAN and the world.
We are happy to return home to
press forward with our agenda and
focus on the needs of the victims of
the recent as well as the incoming
typhoons and also the needs of
poorest among us during this holiday season.
November 21, 2007
Secretary Romulo expresses ‘ASEAN’s pride’ in landmark
decisions at 13th ASEAN Summit
Secretary Alberto G. Romulo expressed ASEAN’s pride in the expected landmark decisions the organization will shortly take as
leaders of the ten Southeast Asian
countries gather in Singapore for
their 13th Summit.
Secretary Romulo said in an interview on 16 November that the
ASEAN Charter signed in Singapore on 20 November is "a crowning achievement for the organization and the peoples of Southeast
Asia."
"The ASEAN Charter lays the
foundation for a region that fosters
peace under the regime of democracy, good governance and the rule
of law, and where human rights
and fundamental freedoms are
respected and promoted," Secretary Romulo said.
The spadework done in Cebu during the 12th ASEAN Summit
chaired by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and in Manila at the
40th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting
chaired by Secretary Romulo set
the stage for the historic signing of
the ASEAN Charter that would
transform ASEAN into a rulesbased and more effective organization for the promotion of peace and
prosperity in Southeast Asia and
beyond. "The creation of an
ASEAN human rights body will be
among the signal achievements
mandated by the Charter," Secretary Romulo said.
Secretary Romulo expressed optimism that the situation in Myanmar would not derail ASEAN from
making that achievement, adding
that recent positive developments
in the efforts of the United Nations
Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari
are encouraging. Nonetheless,
Secretary Romulo said that lack of
progress in implementing Myanmar’s roadmap to democracy
would hurt the credibility not only
of Myanmar but of ASEAN also.
Secretary Romulo emphasized that
the release of Daw Aung San Suu
Kyi and all political detainees in
Myanmar must take place, and the
harassment of monks – the most
peaceful sector of Myanmar society
– must not happen again.
Secretary Romulo said that other
landmark documents expected at
the Singapore summits include the
blueprint for the ASEAN Economic
Community and the declarations
on environmental sustainability,
climate change, and sustainable
energy. These declarations are
important advances that build
upon the declaration on regional
energy security which was signed
at the 2nd East Asia Summit in
Cebu.
The Philippine delegation headed
by President Arroyo also followed
up action on the ASEAN Declaration on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Migrant
Workers signed in Cebu and the
AMM decision taken last July in
Manila to establish a committee to
implement that declaration.
V O LU M E 4 , ISSU E 4
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PAGE 3
Philippines ranks 6th in Worldwide Gender
Equality: World Economic Forum
The Philippines ranks 6th in offering women more equal treatment at work and in politics,
education and health care, according to a World Economic Forum study published this month.
The Global Gender Gap Report,
which studies the differences in
social and economic opportunities between men and women
worldwide, finds Sweden with
the smallest gap, followed by
Norway and Finland, with the
Philippines at sixth, Sri Lanka
15th, South Africa 20th and the
US 22nd. The study examined
115 economies.
"The Global Gender Gap Report
quantifies the challenge: it shows
that the highest ranking country
has closed a little over 80% of its
gender gap, while the lowest
ranking country has closed only
a little over 45% of its gender
gap. By providing a comprehensible framework for assessing and
comparing global gender gaps
and by revealing those countries
that, regardless of the overall
level of resources available, are
role models in dividing these resources equitably between
women and men, we are expectant that this Report serves as a
catalyst for greater awareness as
well as greater exchange between policy-makers," said
Saadia Zahidi, head of the WEF’s
Women Leaders Programme.
"The Philippines and Sri Lanka
are distinctive for being the only
Asian countries in the top 20 of
the rankings. The Philippines is
once again the only country in
Asia to have closed the gender
gap on both education and health
and is one of only six in the
world to have done so. The Philippines’ scores on political empowerment improved further, as
did some of its economic indicators such as estimated income,
labour force participation and
income equality for similar
work," the report stated.
The study also found that within
the 25-nation European Union,
France and Italy at 70th and 77th
respectively score lowest, behind
China’s 63rd place and Brazil’s
67th. Sweden is the only country
in the world where men and
women hold equal numbers of
positions in parliament and
among government ministers.
Under a United Nations convention dating from 1979, governments are committed to preventing discrimination against
women and in 2000, the promotion of women’s rights was one of
eight Millennium Development
Goals. These UN targets aim to
eradicate extreme poverty and
hunger, improve the health of
mothers, fight HIV/AIDS and
bring about environmental sustainability by 2015.
"Gender-based inequality is a
phenomenon that transcends the
majority of the world’s cultures,
religions, nations and income
groups," the report said.
Philippine Embassy participates in ASEAN
Darts Tournament
Philippine Ambassador to South Africa Virgilio A.
Reyes, Jr. (10th L) leads Embassy personnel and
their families in participating at the ASEAN Pretoria Committee Darts Tournament hosted by the
High Commission of Malaysia and held at the
High Commission grounds on 17 November 2007.
At the tournament, Minister and Consul General
Renato L. Villapando (9th L) scored the highest in
the individual category. The Tournament forms
part of the ASEAN Pretoria Committee’s efforts
to promote greater interaction between members
of the ASEAN Community in South Africa. The
Committee is comprised of the seven ASEAN Missions in Pretoria (Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar,
the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam).
PAGE 4
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V O LU M E 4 , ISSU E 4
View from the Palace
Presidential Spokesperson Sec. Ignacio Bunye
Good and bad effects of a strong peso
The strength of the Philippine peso
has served us well in acting as a
buffer against the rising tide of oil
prices in the world market. Based on
data from the Department of Energy, the average savings in 2007
from the appreciation of the peso
from P51 to a dollar to its current
level (P46.88-$1 as of end-Oct. 2007)
is around P2 per liter for both
unleaded gasoline and diesel.
A stronger peso also translates into
huge savings in debt appropriation.
The Department of Budget and Management estimated savings in 2006
to reach P15 billion, while savings
up to the period ending Sept. 2007
reached P24 billion, due in large
measure not only to the peso appreciation but also to increased creditor
confidence as a result of our prudent
deficit management. The savings, in
turn, allowed the government to propose huge increases in the 2008
budget for education, health and
infrastructure.
Of course, there are sectors that are
adversely affected by the growing
strength of our local currency. Exporters and families of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are hard hit by
the peso’s appreciation. A stronger
peso reduces the competitiveness of
our export products as they become
more expensive in dollar terms. (The
impact is somewhat less for exporters with high import contents.) As
the peso appreciates, beneficiaries of
OFW remittances also receive less in
pesos.
The government is quite aware of
both the pros and cons that come
with a stronger currency. This is
why the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas
has come up with measures to temper the peso appreciation and ensure
overall stability in the foreign exchange market. The country prepaid
some its foreign obligations, temporarily halting the strengthening of
the pesos but reducing our debt service further down the road. The Development Bank of the Philippines is
also in partnership with the trade
and finance departments in conceptualizing a hedge fund for exporters.
For our OFWs, the BSP continues to
promote competition in the remittances market while pushing for
financial literacy programs for
OFWs.
Government savings from debt servicing and consumers’ benefits in
terms of a lower and stable inflation
rate are good news that gives all of
us room for optimism as 2007 ends.
This administration shall continue
to pursue safety nets for the export
and OFW sectors because these vital
sectors have been producing tremendous gains for the economy. Also, our
OFWs deserve quality support and
assistance from the agencies of government considering their heroic
sacrifices to help the nation and secure a brighter future for their families.
The saga of a strong peso continues,
and we must be conscious of its positive and negative effects on our national life.
*****
Our nation can still join the ranks of
rich nations in the next two decades,
where economic progress stands
alongside peace and security, if our
efforts are fueled by a common factor
- faith in God and love for the people.
This was the essence of President
Arroyo’s appeal to the country’s religious leaders at the recent BishopsUlama-AFP-PNP Forum for Peace in
Cagayan de Oro City.
In her statement, read by Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process
Jesus Dureza, the President stressed
that our faith in God and our faith in
the people are the twin forces that
will strengthen our resolve to love
our country, unite our nation and
establish harmony among our people, and truly care for one another.
The President purposely made this
call in Mindanao, which she said
was symbolic as the island is called
the “Land of Promise.” “Just as we
work for Mindanao to be an area of
peace and prosperity, let us work for
the next three years to be an era of
peace, reassurance and hope for the
whole nation,” the President said.
The President envisions that by
2010, when she bows out of office,
the Philippines would be on the right
track to becoming a modern nation.
The Bishops-Ulama- AFP-PNP
Peace Forum brought together religious leaders and peace officers with
the objective of promoting healthy
and constructive dialogues among
peace officers throughout Mindanao.
It also supports the ongoing peace
process in Mindanao with the ultimate goal of achieving lasting peace
on the island and propelling economic progress there.
*****
In the midst of the political noise
last week, including the tragic event
at the Batasan, the awards ceremony for the country’s outstanding
micro entrepreneurs was a very welcome flicker of light in what would
have been an otherwise dark week.
Presidential Consultant for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion has
truly pushed his advocacy of assisting Filipino entrepreneurs, beautifully complementing efforts of institutions such as Citibank, which
lends to the microfinance institutions which in turn lend money to
our micro-entrepreneurs, the People
Credit and Finance Corporation
which was created under the AntiPoverty Law which President Arroyo
authored when she was a Senator,
and the National Livelihood Support
Fund.
Indeed, the current stable growth
conditions have sparked a wave of
entrepreneurial activity in our country, as evidenced by the marvelous
work done by the awardees.
V O LU M E 4 , ISSU E 4
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PAGE 5
Doreen G. Fernandez
Culture Ingested: Notes on the Indigenization of
Philippine Food
(Part 1 of 3)
In spite of his daily participation
in its preparation and consumption, the Filipino is often hard
put to say just what Philippine
food is. In his home and restaurant menus are found dishes
with vernacular names like laing
and paklay, Spanish names like
embutido and mechado, and even
Chinese food with names like
tokwa and bihon, and even Chinese food with Spanish names,
like camaron rebosado dorado
con jamon – all companionably
coexisting.
The reason for the confusion is
that Philippine cuisine, dynamic
as any live and growing phase of
culture, has changed through
history, absorbing influences,
indigenizing, adjusting to new
technology and tastes, and thus
evolving.
Filipino food today as shaped by
Philippine history and society
consists of a Malay matrix, in
which melded influences from
China and India (through trade),
Arabia (through trade and Islamization), Spain and America
(through colonization), and more
recently the rest of the world
(through global communication).
A special path to the understanding of what Philippine food is can
be taken by examining the process of indigenization which
brough in, adapted and then subsumed foreign influences into the
culture.
“Eating,” Nanomichi Ishige, a
Japanese anthropologist, has
said, “is the act of ingesting the
environment.” It is quite certainly also ingesting culture,
since among the most visible,
most discernible and most permanent traces left by foreign cultures on Philippine life is food
that is now part of the everyday,
and often not recognized as foreign, so thoroughly has it been
absorbed into the native lifestyle.
dish that can truly be called part
of Philippine cuisine.
This particular aspect of cultural
borrowing and change bears investigation; not only are the results of immediate and gut-level
concern to every Filipino, but the
process is one in which not only a
few, but the greater majority of
Filipinos, participated. The process of borrowing went on in innumerable Philippine households
through many years. It was a
conscious and yet unconscious
cultural reaction, in that borrowers knew that they were cooking
foreign dishes while making necessary adaptations, but were not
aware that they were transforming the dish and making it their
own. Pancit, for example, from a
Chinese noodle dish, is now the
signature of many a town or region (pancit Malabon, pancit
Marilao, pancit habhab of
Lucban), and of many an individual (pancit ni Aling Nena). That
certainly shows that both evolution and creation have been involved.
The principal difficulty in this
investigation is methodology.
The evidence for this research is
generally consumed, digested
and transformed – and thus no
longer available in archives, or
for carbon dating. Yet in a way
one can say that the evidence is
always being manufactured and
discovered anew, every day, in
every meal in every home. Still,
the work of one cook is not hard
and fast evidence, and is fraught
with variables and at best can
only indicate a pattern.
The process seems to start with a
foreign dish in its original form,
brought in by foreigners
(Chinese traders, Spanish missionaries). It is then taught to a
native cook, who naturally
adapts it to the tastes he knows
and the ingredients he can get,
thus both borrowing and adapting. Eventually, he improvises
on it, thus creating a new dish
that in time becomes so entrenched in the native cuisine
and lifestyle that its origins are
practically forgotten. That is
indigenization, and in the Philippines the process starts with a
foreign element and ends with a
METHODOLOGY
Secondly, to conventional research methods like documenting and comparing variants, recording changes and seeking reasons for them, one must add
critical and analytical tasting – a
process difficult to standardize
and imprison in formulae. For
this preliminary exploration, I
have used a method that combines examination of the dish as
done in the original culture and
as extant in Filipino cooking, and
then analysis to determine the
culture change or pattern discernible from this.
NAMES
How then does one recognize
these indigenized dishes on the
Philippine table? Firstly by their
names, since these were often
borrowed along with the dish.
Siopao, for example, is a Hokkien borrowing that suggests the
cooking process, steaming, pao
being steamed bread. Pancit,
which comes from the Hokkien
pian + e + sit is still recognizably
(Continued on page 6)
PAGE 6
Culture Ingested...
Chinese, although originally it
did not necessarily mean a noodle dish. Gloria Chan-Yap tells
us that it literally means
“something that is conveniently
cooked” and indicates the frying
process. Since noodles are easy
to prepare by frying, the word
often, but not necessarily, means
noodles. Pesa in Hokkien simply
means “plain boiled” and it is
used only in reference to the
cooking of fish, the complete
term in Hokkien being peq + sa +
hi, the last morpheme meaning
‘fish.’ Chan-Yap cites this as an
example of semantic “widening”
since in Tagalog pesa in isolation
does not mean fish, but can
mean “boiled” when one says
pesang manok. However, the
point remains: the names indicate the origin.
Adobo is the noun derived from
adobado, the name of a stewed
meat dish in Mexico, from where
Carmen Guerrero-Nakpil says
Philippine adobo comes. In
Spain, however, adobo is a pickling sauce, made by cooking together olive oil, vinegar, garlic,
thyme, laurel, oregano, paprika
and salt. The Filipino has thus
given the name adobo to a particular dish of chicken or porkand-chicken, and derived from it
an adjective to describe other
foods using the same or a similar
cooking process (adobong posit).
The term adobado has moved
from the dish to the process of
stewing in a spiced or flavored
broth (e.g. “Ang itik sa Angono’y
adobado na bago prituhin.”),
thus using the basic meaning –
to cook in a pickling sauce. And
indeed Philippine adobo is adobado, but in condiments chosen
by the native taste: vinegar and
garlic, bay leaf and peppercorns,
and more recently soy sauce, the
Chinese contribution.
Some borrowings from Spanish
are literal and do not undergo
semantic shifts like the above:
K ALAY A AN
cocido, salpicon, croquetas.
Some are only portions of the
original name, e.g. carne
mechada (meat with a lardoon)
has become mechado; gallina
rellenada has become relleno,
relleno in Spanish being the
forcemeat with which one stuffs
the chicken. Especially interesting cases are dishes like pescado
en salsa agrio-dulce and
morisqueta tostada, which in
spite of their Spanish names are
really Chinese. These are panciteria dishes, which in the Spanish period were translated into
Spanish for printing on menus.
The dishes entered the native
kitchen from the panciteria and
so retain the Spanish names.
Some of these menus survive in
small panciterias, and although
the years have corrupted the
spelling in amusing ways, the
Spanish words cloak a Chinese
dish which most Filipinos recognize as Chinese, but now consider Filipino.
Semantic analysis of the names
of food would thus reveal origin,
something of the nature of the
change and also further information. For example, the Chan-Yap
study finds that loanwords are
fewest in the category of rice
products and fowl, and suggests
that this may be because both
rice and fowl had long been food
sources for Filipinos, who
“already had in their possession
the culinary words appropriate
for describing referents” in these
categories. On the other hand,
the fact that there are many
loanwords for meat (goto, kanto,
kasim, paykot, liempo) suggests
that the Tagalog people learned
the habit of eating so meat cuts,
especially pork, from the Hokkien speakers and the habit of
eating beef from the Spanish,
since many of the terms for beef
are Spanish (punta y pecho,
cadera, lomo, solomillo).
INGREDIENTS
The ingredients contained in the
original dish, and those in the
V O LU M E 4 , ISSU E 4
local edition, are also clues to the
process of indigenization. Noodles in Chinese cuisine, for example, are generally cooked with
meat and vegetables to flavor the
noodles. Filipino pancit has local
meats and vegetables – and a
few other things not found in
Chinese cooking at all. Pancit
Malabon, being the signature
noodle of a fishing town, has
squid and oysters and salted
eggs, which individually may
conceivably found in a Chinese
dish, but not in that combination. Pancit Marilao has crumbled okoy of rice flour, since its
home base, Bulacan, is ricegrowing country; pancit palabok
has flaked tinapa and crumbled
chicharron. The tinapa is from
the native cuisine (smoking being one of the ways of preserving
food in the days before refrigeration), and chicharron is from the
Spanish, but they are combined
in a dish of Chinese origin. A
special example of adaptation
through ingredients is pancit
buko, in which flour noodles are
replaced by strips of young coconut cut and treated like noodles.
Bringhe would also be an example
of a cultural change made through
the use of ingredients from the
Philippine landscape. Paella is
generally made in Spain with
chicken or rabbit, with rice and
seasoning, especially saffron.
Bringhe does use chicken, but the
rice is malagkit and the sauce is
coconut milk, to which is added a
bark called ange, which turns the
rice green instead of saffron yellow. Paella was created from the
Spanish country landscape – the
rabbit scampering by, the chicken
bought from a farmer, the saffron
which is the most expensive spice
in the world and grows in Spain.
Eating paella, therefore, is ingesting the Spanish landscape. Eating
bringhe, however, is ingesting the
Philippine landscape – the chicken
running around on the farm, the
coconut from a nearby tree, and
the malagkit for fiesta cakes. This
is a clear example of indigenization through a change of substance, spirit and name.
V O LU M E 4 , ISSU E 4
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PAGE 7
Philippine Embassy celebrates National
Peace Consciousness Month with gettogether with Filipino communities in
Gauteng, South Africa
Nearly 200 Filipinos and their South African friends participate in an afternoon of food, fun and friendship at the Embassy’s commemoration of National Peace Consciousness Month in Pretoria on 29 September 2007.
Philippine Ambassador to South
Africa Virgilio A. Reyes, Jr. reported to the Department of Foreign Affairs that the Philippine
Embassy in Pretoria commemorated National Peace Consciousness Month with a get-together
held at the Embassy grounds on
29 September 2007 with the Filipino communities in Gauteng
Province, South Africa.
The get-together came after
newly arrived Filipinos working
in Bombela SA, a contractor for
the construction of stadiums for
South Africa’s hosting of the
FIFA World Cup in 2010, requested for a get-together to be
able to meet with other Filipinos
in the country.
The Embassy took the opportunity to host the get-together that
would bring the Filipinos from
Bombela with other Filipino
groups in South Africa to com-
memorate National Peace Consciousness Month, contacting
Filipino community leaders to
inform other Filipinos of the
event.
Nearly 200 Filipinos from all
over Gauteng Province attended
the get-together.
In his welcoming remarks, Ambassador Reyes congratulated
the audience for sustaining the
good reputation that Filipinos
have in South Africa. He informed them of the importance of
the occasion as a way of disseminating information on the Government’s efforts in making
peace with the MILF and the
CPP-NPA, stating that the peace
talks with the MILF are gaining
ground with the assistance of
observers from the Organization
of Islamic Conference (OIC) as
well as Malaysia, and President
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s dedi-
cation to ending the government’s war with the CPP-NPA
by issuing Proclamation No.
1377, granting amnesty to members of the CPP-NPA-NDF and
other Communist rebel groups.
The get-together continued with
a potluck luncheon with food contributed by members of the Filipino communities, games for the
children, and impromptu dance
numbers presented by engineers
from Baguio as well as by Embassy personnel.
A highlight of the event was the
bingo mini-fundraiser to raise a
starting fund for the eventual
donation to the Gawad Kalinga
and Classroom Galing sa
Mamamayan (CGMA) programs.
PAGE 8
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V O LU M E 4 , ISSU E 4
Philippine Embassy participates in
International Fair 2007
as fashion accessories and barong
Filipino, and delicacies for sale
such as polvoron, lumpia, and
kutsinta. The booth also sold
drinks such as gulaman as well as
softdrinks and bottled water. All
proceeds of booth sales were donated to charity organizations recognized by the Fair organizers.
Many of the booth visitors were
fascinated by the displays, especially the native formal wear.
Most had asked whether they were
available in South Africa, and
were interested in buying the displayed barongs. Embassy staff
manning the booth and wearing
their own Filipiniana attire were
also complimented by the visitors.
Philippine Embassy staff and their families welcome fellow participants at the International Food and Culture Fair held at the Union Building grounds in Pretoria on 3 November 2007.
Chargé d'Affaires, a.i. (CDA) Renato L. Villapando of the Philippine Embassy in Pretoria, South
Africa reported to the Department
of Foreign Affairs that the Embassy participated in the International Food and Culture Fair held
at the Union Building grounds in
Pretoria on 3 November 2007.
admired the displays arranged
around the booth.
The Philippine booth featured displays of Philippine tourist destinations and handouts, several samples of Philippine handicrafts such
At the cultural show that was part
of the Fair, Embassy personnel
performed the cariñosa and the la
jota moncadeña dances to the delight of the crowds.
A day before the Fair, the awardwinning Filipino film ‘Magnifico’
was shown as part of the roadshow
that travelled to different townships around Pretoria and Johannesburg to generate interest in the
Fair.
The Fair, an annual event organized by the South African Department of Foreign Affairs and the
City of Tshwane Municipality as a
fund-raising effort for several
charity organizations in South Africa, was participated in by nearly
100 foreign Missions represented
in Pretoria.
The Fair was opened at 10:00 a.m.
by the South African Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Sue van
der Merwe. After the formal opening, she went around and visited
the different booths set up around
the large venue. The Deputy Minister, when she arrived at the Philippine booth, thanked CDA Villapando and the Embassy staff for
their participation at the Fair, and
South African Deputy Foreign Minister Sue van der Merwe visits the Philippine booth
shortly after the formal opening of the Fair. CDA Renato L. Villapando of the Philippine
Embassy welcomes the Deputy Foreign Minister.
V O LU M E 4 , ISSU E 4
K ALAY A AN
PAGE 9
Photo Gallery
At left: At the Embassy’s commemoration of National Peace Consciousness Month on 29 September, engineers from Baguio entertain
the crowd with an impromptu dance using various materials.
At right: Ambassador Reyes and Consul General Villapando (right)
join the Embassy staff in interpreting Hotdog’s “Manila” duting the
get-together with the Gauteng Filcoms to celebrate National Peace
Consciousness Month.
At left: Embassy Cultural Officer Helen Firme-Subido dishes out
lumpia for eager visitors as Mrs. Venus Arbado looks on at the International Fair held at the Union Building grounds on 3 November. Aside from the tasty lumpia, the Philippine booth also sold
polvoron, kutsinta, gulaman, and softdrinks
At right: Michelle Angeline Francia and Erastian Dave
Arbado, children of Embassy personnel, dance the cariñosa
at the cultural show forming part of the International Fair.
At left: Chargé d’Affaires, a.i. (CDA) Renato L. Villapando (8th L)
leads Embassy personnel and their family members in participating at the ASEAN Badminton Tournament hosted by the Royal
Thai Embassy in South Africa and held at the Pretoria West
Showground on 10 November 2007.
At right: CDA Villapando (7th L) represents the Philippines at the
ASEAN Golf Friendly Competition hosted by H. E. Dr. Tran Duy
Thi (3rd L), Ambassador of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to
South Africa, and held at the Pretoria West Country Club on 28
October 2007.
PAGE 10
K ALAY A AN
V O LU M E 4 , ISSU E 4
The Filipino Language
Filipino is the national and an
official language of the Philippines as designated in the 1987
Philippine Constitution. It is an
Austronesian language that is
the de facto standardized version
of Tagalog, though is de jure distinct from it. Sometimes the language is incorrectly used as the
generic name for all the languages of the Philippines which,
in turn, would be incorrectly
termed as "dialects".
The Commission on the Filipino
Language, the regulating body of
Filipino, envisions a process of
popularizing regional dialect usage derived from regional languages, as the foundation of
standardizing and intellectualizing a language, based on a lingua franca.
History
On November 13, 1936, the
Surian ng Wikang Pambansa
(National Language Institute)
selected Tagalog as the basis of a
Wikang Pambansa (national language) based on the following
factors:
1. Tagalog is widely spoken and
is the language most understood in all the regions of the
Philippines.
2. It is not divided into smaller,
separate languages as
Visayan is.
3. Its literary tradition is the
richest and the most developed and extensive (mirroring
that of the Tuscan dialect of
Italian). More books are written in Tagalog than in any
other autochthonous Austronesian language.
4. Tagalog has always been the
language of Manila, and the
political and economic capital
of the Philippines under both
Spanish and American rulers.
5. Tagalog is the language of the
Revolution and the
Katipunan—two very important incidents in Philippine
history.
In 1959, the language became
known as Pilipino to dissociate it
from the Tagalog ethnic group.
Later, the 1973 Constitution provided for a separate national language to replace Pilipino, a language which it named Filipino.
The pertinent article, though,
Article XV, Section 3(2), mentions neither Tagalog nor Pilipino as the basis for Filipino,
instead calling on the National
(Continued on page 11)
Philippine Embassy personnel join Filcom Basketball
Tournament in Johannesburg
up. The Blue team placed third,
and the Red team placed fourth.
Philippine Ambassador to South Africa Virgilio A. Reyes, Jr. attended
the championship games of the Filipino Community Basketball Tournament held in Johannesburg on 18 November 2007 and awarded the
trophies and medals to the winning teams.
The Black team won the tournament, with the White team as runner-
In October, Minister and Consul
General Renato L. Villapando,
opened the basketball tournament that pitted several teams
of Filipinos against each other
in friendly games. Personnel of
the Philippine Embassy, namely
Attaché Earl Alonzo (standing,
1st L), Consular Assistant Carlos Cruz (standing, 2nd L), Finance Officer Joselito Adaya
(standing, 4th L), Consular Officer Rommel Briones (standing,
10th L), Property Officer Erastus Arbado (not in photo) and
official driver Jose Jimenez
(seated, 1st L), joined the Red
Team, with Mr. Adaya acting as
playing coach.
V O LU M E 4 , ISSU E 4
K ALAY A AN
PAGE 11
Filipino...
Assembly to:
take steps towards the development and formal adoption of a
common national language to be
known as Filipino.
In 1987, the new Constitution
introduced many provisions for
the language. Article XIV, Section 6, omits any mention of Tagalog as the basis for Filipino, and
states that:
as [Filipino] evolves, it shall be
further developed and enriched
on the basis of existing Philippine
and other languages.
Meanwhile, Article XIV, Section
7 states that:
Subject to provisions of law and
as the Congress may deem appropriate, the Government shall take
steps to initiate and sustain the
use of Filipino as a medium of
official communication and as
language of instruction in the
educational system.
and:
The regional languages are the
auxiliary official languages in
the regions and shall serve as
auxiliary media of instruction
therein.
Republic Act No. 7104, approved
on 14 August 1991, created the
Commission on the Filipino Language, reporting directly to the
President and tasked to undertake, coordinate and promote
researches for the development,
propagation and preservation of
Filipino and other Philippine
languages. On May 13, 1992, the
commission issued a resolution
specifying that Filipino is the
indigenous written and spoken
language of Metro Manila and
other urban centers in the Philippines used as the language of
communication of ethnic groups.
However, as with the 1973 and
1987 Constitutions, the resolution did not go so far as to identify this language as Tagalog.
Filipino was presented and registered with the International Organization for Standardization
(ISO), and was added to the ISO
registry of languages on September 21, 2004 with it receiving the
ISO 639-2 code fil. In June 2007,
Ricardo Maria Nolasco, Chair of
the Commission on the Filipino
Language, acknowledged that
Filipino was simply Tagalog in
syntax and grammar, with yet no
grammatical element or lexicon
coming from Ilocano, Cebuano,
Hiligaynon, or any of the other
Philippine languages. Furthermore, on August 24, 2007, Dr.
Nolasco elaborated further on
the relationship between Tagalog
and Filipino:
Are "Tagalog," "Pilipino" and
"Filipino" different languages?
No, they are mutually intelligible
varieties, and therefore belong to
one language. According to the
KWF, Filipino is that speech va-
riety spoken in Metro Manila and
other urban centers where different ethnic groups meet. It is the
most prestigious variety of Tagalog and the language used by the
national mass media.
The other yardstick for distinguishing a language from a dialect is: different grammar, different language. "Filipino",
"Pilipino" and "Tagalog" share
identical grammar. They have
the same determiners (ang, ng
and sa); the same personal pronouns (siya, ako, niya, kanila,
etc); the same demonstrative
pronouns (ito, iyan, doon, etc);
the same linkers (na, at and ay);
the same particles (na and pa);
and the same verbal affixes -in, an, i- and -um-. In short, same
grammar, same language.
On August 22, 2007, three
Malolos City regional trial courts
in Bulacan decided to use Filipino, instead of English, in order
to promote the national language. Twelve stenographers
from Branches 6, 80 and 81, as
model courts, had undergone
training at Marcelo H. del Pilar
College of Law of Bulacan State
University College of Law following a directive from the Supreme
Court of the Philippines. De la
Rama said it was the dream of
Chief Justice Reynato Puno to
implement the program in other
areas such as Laguna, Cavite,
Quezon, Nueva Ecija, Batangas,
Rizal and Metro Manila.
Honorary Consular Establishments under the Jurisdiction of the Embassy
Mr. Allan M. Harvey
Consul, a. h.
Philippine Consulate in Cape Town, South Africa
85 Main Road, Muizenberg 7945
Cape Town, South Africa; or
P. O. Box 284
Muizenberg 7950
Mr. Etienne A. Brechet
Consul General, a. h.
Philippine Consulate General in Luanda, Angola
Rua Rainha Ginga, No. 190
Luanda, Angola; or
P. O. Box 9771
Edenglen 1613
Tel: +27(0)21-7889295
Fax: +27(0)21-7889261
Tel: +244-222-638298; +244-923-7335258; +244-9234060098; +244-222-637028
Fax: +244-222-637037/38/40
Message from the Ambassador
H. E. Virgilio A. Reyes, Jr.
Maligayang Pasko at Manigong Bagong Taon!
Mga mahal kong kababayan,
We have gone through
another memorable year,
marked by a significant
increase in the number of
Filipinos who have come
to Southern Africa to work and, in
the process, contribute to the wellbeing of the motherland.
In February, we opened the year’s
Calendar of Activities with the National Arts Month celebration, which
also commemorated the 21st Anniversary of the EDSA People Power
Revolution of 1986.
In March, Policy Consultations were
conducted in Manila, where all Philippine Foreign Service posts, represented by their Heads, participated
in lectures, seminars and workshops
aimed to more fully coordinate the
implementation worldwide of Philippine foreign policy.
On 14 May, Filipino people in all
parts of the world participated in the
Senatorial and Party-List elections.
It was the first Philippine Overseas
Absentee Voting exercise in South
Africa where ballots were earlier
sent by mail to the registered Filipino voters in the country.
In June, our Embassy celebrated the
109th Anniversary of the Proclamation of Philippine Independence with
a reception at the Embassy grounds,
where we highlighted our culture to
our friends from the South African
government, other diplomatic mis-
sions in South Africa, and members
of the Filipino community.
From 23 to 25 August, our Embassy
participated in the ASIA+ Exposition
held in Kimberley, Northern Cape
province, where we were able to generate interest in Philippine products
such as San Miguel food and beverages, Charantea ampalaya supplements, Mega Sardines products and
the superb tourist spots of the country.
In September, our Embassy hosted
officers from the Commission on Audit (COA), who found the Embassy
records in order. The COA officers
visited the Embassy among other
Philippine foreign service posts to
conduct the government’s regular
audit.
On 29 September, we were proud to
host members of the Filipino communities in Gauteng and surrounding areas for a get-together at the
Embassy grounds to commemorate
National Peace Consciousness
Month.
Almost 200 kababayans attended the
event, which was a fun-filled day of
food, fun and friendship. It also
showed how vibrant the Filipino
communities in Southern Africa are
getting.
On 3 November, our Embassy participated in the International Fair
organized by the City of Tshwane
and the South African Department
of Foreign Affairs, where South Africans and other guests were treated
to samples of Philippine food and
products.
Also in November, the Filipino community in Germiston organized a
basketball tournament for all Filipinos in the area, including personnel
from your Embassy.
Nitong taong ito, natulungan din
natin ang ating mga kababayan sa
Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, at sa
Angola.
In the coming months, we are hopeful of new opportunities to better
serve Filipinos and Philippine interests in Southern Africa, such as the
planned opening of an honorary consulate in Botswana and the continuation of the promotion of Philippine trade and investment.
Nais kong pasalamatan ang mga
Pilipinong walang-sawang umaalalay sa inyong Pasuguan upang mabigyan kayo ng kaukulang serbisyo at
tulong, tulad ng mga Pilipino sa
Germiston, ang mga inhinyerong
Pinoy ng Eskom, at ang ating mga
kababayan sa Bombela at Grinataker.
As we look forward to 2008 and the
exciting events we are sure to unfold, I would like to thank you, my
fellow Filipinos, once again for striving to be the exemplary citizens that
the residents of this part of the
world have come to respect and admire.
Maligayang Pasko sa inyong lahat,
at nawa’y maging mas masagana
para sa ating lahat ang darating na
bagong taon.
Kalayaan is a quarterly publication of the
Philippine Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa.
Ambassador Virgilio A. Reyes, Jr.
Editorial Adviser
We welcome contributions and comments!
Contact us at:
Third Secretary & Vice Consul Eric R. Aquino
Editor
Embassy of the Philippines
54 Nicolson Street, Muckleneuk, 0181
Pretoria, South Africa
Tel: +27(0)12-3460451/52
Fax: +27(0)12-3460454
Email: pretoriape@mweb.co.za,
philemb.pretoria@gmail.com
Ms. Maria Gina P. Magsumbol
Editorial Assistant
Mr. Erastus P. Arbado &
Ms. Cynthia Tecson Ricaplaza
Circulation Managers