Something to Thank For
On this day of Thanksgiving, we have many things to thank for despite the grim statistics of our lives.
Sixteen Americans are unemployed.
One of every five children is poor.
Many more are falling in the cracks of our uneven economic lives, with the number of those unable to access basic social services increasing each day.
There is a widespread discontent among Americans.
And in the streets of Manhattan that lead to the citadel of commerce and capital, the famed Wall Street, there is uproar on what has become of our iniquitous lives.
The main motive of the pilgrims, the pioneering peregrines of our immigrant lives in this country, is the search for a better life, one marked by quality, not mere quantity (read: the possession of even the most unnecessary).
It is a life marked by freedom and liberty.
It is a life marked by respect for life—one’s own and another’s.
It is a life marked by abundance, not by want, deprivation, dispossession.
On Thanksgiving Day, this is all what it means: a return to the basics of our life as a people in the United States of America.
United in our diversity, united in our struggles, and united in our need to reclaim the very essence of our collective life—our union despite the odds.
We have so much to thank for despite the challenges that we see each day.
We have so much to thank for despite the increasing number of the homeless on our streets in Hawaii.
We have so much to thank for despite the need to take stock of what else we need to do so that next year, our Thanksgiving Day will be a bit better, more joyous, more bountiful.
Like the peregrines of old, we need to come to the table again, and with a thankful heart, remember that there is much to give even as there is much to ask for.
_______________________
Hurrah to the Consul General
We join the Filipino American community in thanking the Honorable Consul General Leoncio Cardenas for his years of service as a foreign affairs officer in the name of the people of the Philippines.
His coming to Hawaii for the second time is his way of coming full circle with his passion and dedication for the homeland of the immigrant Filipinos of Hawaii.
Even as we bid him adieu, we will always remember the work that he has done for our communities, his engagement with our various civic organizations, and his abiding presence in the many things that matter to us.
We say, saludos, Apo Leoncio Cardenas! Agbiagka! Mabuhay ka! Long live!
FAO Editorial
Nov 2011
Showing posts with label agcaoili editorials. Show all posts
Showing posts with label agcaoili editorials. Show all posts
Observer Editorial
RENEWAL
We begin the New Year with a note of hope.
We begin it as well with the commitment that this hope that resides in us will continue to spring eternal and that, unlike the challenges that we had to contend with last year, it will not push us against the wall.
For in these difficult circumstances we are in, this sense of hope is what makes sense to the already senseless events and news and realities that bombard us each day, deadening our sense of the morrow, and numbing us to become unaware that there is grace in life, however inchoate this grace is insofar us our set of expectations is concerned.
The whole gamut of meanings that we can draw up as we transition to the new year is encapsulated in that very sense of hope that we keep deep in our heart and soul: each of us, with that sense always the anchor upon which we secure our commitment to struggle for something better, something truer, something more beautiful even as we become witnesses to the opposite of what we least want to see.
The times are dire.
The times are difficult, very difficult.
The times of our lives are not memorable in the sense of their being joyous, as they should be, as we expect them to be, as we want them to be.
The times of our going through the motions of living life everyday under the threat of foreclosures and recession and job losses and all other trying circumstances are not what we Filipino Americans came to America for.
Certainly, we were expecting something grander, something rosier as soon as we took the first step on that plane ride to this country. In that first step was our living and huge dream of making it—as all other people in the past, remote and immediate, have dreamed.
But herein comes the double-edged sword threatening our existence, and threatening the life of our dreams.
Here is where the need for us to hold on to that dream so that it becomes immediate, urgent.
Here is where our capacity for the testing of our mettle comes to the rescue, with our inner force from our ability to hope for something better the proof of that capacity.
Whoever says that joy is only defined by our being under the warm and bright sun?
Joy is also dancing in the rain, and committing to memory each moment of that act of dancing—our own dancing—in the rain.
This New Year then requires a renewal on our part, one from our relentless act of hoping, one from our ability to dance in the rain, and enjoy that dance of our life.
We wish you the kindness and blessing of the times.
We wish you a blessed renewal the new times offer.
A. Solver Agcaoili
Fil-Am Observer Editorial
Hon, HI/Jan 2009
Filipino Veterans and Pilgrims
Editorial-2
Filipino Veterans and Pilgrims
The celebration of Thanksgiving Day leads us to the same road in search for that action of grace, the road taken by the Pilgrims who were in search of a new chance to live a life of peace and justice.
But with the continuing injustice done to the Filipino veterans, many of whom are dying everyday because the benefits that are long overdue have yet to be given them, the Thanksgiving of the Filipino veterans as the new pilgrims comes off as something off tangent.
With only about 18,000 of them left of the 250,000 who served the United States in order to fight the American War in the Pacific against the Japanese occupiers and invaders, the continuing inaction—despite talks and debates in the United States Senate and in the House of Representatives on how to finally grant them the benefits they deserve—will only exacerbate the kind of treatment given to these soldiers who fought an American war side by side with the American soldiers.
And to think that in that war, more than one million people died in the name of World War II.
The cry of the veterans and those supporting their cause is for the bills S 1315 (The Veterans Benefits Enhancement Act) and House Bill 68097 to be reconciled.
But when the reconciling would happen is an issue that is as urgent as the need to recognize that more than half a century after the war, these Filipino veterans have yet to receive what is due them.
"It's long overdue that the United States Senate recognize the contribution made by so many Filipinos in World War Two to the success of ourwar effort," said Sen. Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat.
This sums up the fight for justice for these veterans.
As to their contribution to the cause of fighting alongside the American soldiers, Durbin praised the Filipino veterans: "Our fight in the Philippines was a bitter, long, and tragic battle that ended well but only after great sacrifice by the Filipino people, by Filipino soldiers and by our American soldiers."
This praise, however, needs to be translated into concrete terms.
Filipino Veterans and Pilgrims
The celebration of Thanksgiving Day leads us to the same road in search for that action of grace, the road taken by the Pilgrims who were in search of a new chance to live a life of peace and justice.
But with the continuing injustice done to the Filipino veterans, many of whom are dying everyday because the benefits that are long overdue have yet to be given them, the Thanksgiving of the Filipino veterans as the new pilgrims comes off as something off tangent.
With only about 18,000 of them left of the 250,000 who served the United States in order to fight the American War in the Pacific against the Japanese occupiers and invaders, the continuing inaction—despite talks and debates in the United States Senate and in the House of Representatives on how to finally grant them the benefits they deserve—will only exacerbate the kind of treatment given to these soldiers who fought an American war side by side with the American soldiers.
And to think that in that war, more than one million people died in the name of World War II.
The cry of the veterans and those supporting their cause is for the bills S 1315 (The Veterans Benefits Enhancement Act) and House Bill 68097 to be reconciled.
But when the reconciling would happen is an issue that is as urgent as the need to recognize that more than half a century after the war, these Filipino veterans have yet to receive what is due them.
"It's long overdue that the United States Senate recognize the contribution made by so many Filipinos in World War Two to the success of ourwar effort," said Sen. Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat.
This sums up the fight for justice for these veterans.
As to their contribution to the cause of fighting alongside the American soldiers, Durbin praised the Filipino veterans: "Our fight in the Philippines was a bitter, long, and tragic battle that ended well but only after great sacrifice by the Filipino people, by Filipino soldiers and by our American soldiers."
This praise, however, needs to be translated into concrete terms.
A Solver Agcaoili
FAO November 2009/Editorial
The Giving of Thanks and the Filipino Immigrants
Editorial
The Giving of Thanks—
and the Filipino American
The constants in the holiday every American awaits each fourth Thursday of November are things that are familiar: a day of celebration, a feast of good harvest, and the memory of the action of grace—action de grace—as the other North Americans, the Canadians, would call it.
It is these same thoughts that connect the immigrant Filipino American to this land, whether that immigrant is a migrant or a local born.
For the action of grace is in the remembrance of the things of the past that matter to a people, like the motive to that journey of the Pilgrims to come over here and seek a life by eking out something from a land that initially was unfamiliar, strange, and alien.
That act of seeking a life—an act that was returned with grace acting on them—was one fat chance that they needed to completely sever their ties from a homeland sundered by religious wars, religious persecutions, and religious righteousness.
In their coming to America, the Pilgrims would inaugurate a continuing coming of peoples in search of a chance of a lifetime in the United States, the peoples of the Philippines included.
As we celebrate this day of giving thanks, the American in the people of the Philippines in this land is celebrating his oneness with all the people of this land, their generous adoptive land.
It is an occasion of grace, indeed, if by grace we mean the kind of life we celebrate and live, away from the humdrum of the daily life in the country where our ancestors or we come from.
Then again, part of the grace of coming together in the company of our community is to remember that other people have not had the same chance of a new life that we do have.
Part of that capacity to thank, therefore, is to reconnect with the communities that are in need of this action of grace that we do celebrate each Thanksgiving Day.
The Giving of Thanks—
and the Filipino American
The constants in the holiday every American awaits each fourth Thursday of November are things that are familiar: a day of celebration, a feast of good harvest, and the memory of the action of grace—action de grace—as the other North Americans, the Canadians, would call it.
It is these same thoughts that connect the immigrant Filipino American to this land, whether that immigrant is a migrant or a local born.
For the action of grace is in the remembrance of the things of the past that matter to a people, like the motive to that journey of the Pilgrims to come over here and seek a life by eking out something from a land that initially was unfamiliar, strange, and alien.
That act of seeking a life—an act that was returned with grace acting on them—was one fat chance that they needed to completely sever their ties from a homeland sundered by religious wars, religious persecutions, and religious righteousness.
In their coming to America, the Pilgrims would inaugurate a continuing coming of peoples in search of a chance of a lifetime in the United States, the peoples of the Philippines included.
As we celebrate this day of giving thanks, the American in the people of the Philippines in this land is celebrating his oneness with all the people of this land, their generous adoptive land.
It is an occasion of grace, indeed, if by grace we mean the kind of life we celebrate and live, away from the humdrum of the daily life in the country where our ancestors or we come from.
Then again, part of the grace of coming together in the company of our community is to remember that other people have not had the same chance of a new life that we do have.
Part of that capacity to thank, therefore, is to reconnect with the communities that are in need of this action of grace that we do celebrate each Thanksgiving Day.
A Solver Agcaoili
FAO Editorial/Nov 2009
Domestic and Structural Violence
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE
Another family has been put asunder by this social malady we call domestic violence.
A mother is dead, killed by her husband, who killed himself, leaving a daughter with the horror of a memory, and our prayer for her healing.
And soon, so she can move on to pick up the pieces of her life.
But we are left with the pang of rage.
And anger.
And self-questioning.
Why would incidents like this happen?
Who end up destroyed in this wanton destruction of limbs and life as domestic violence continues to lurk in the corner, or loom large before our very eyes, with the statistics reminding us that so much is being done, and yet so much is yet to be done?
The fact that many Filipino and Filipino-descended families have been affected by this social pathology and disease is a cause for alarm for all of us in Hawai`i and everywhere.
The number is growing—and the stories of tragedy we wish did not happen are getting to be more sordid and bleak and dark each day.
No, we cannot afford to have more of these killings because of domestic violence in the way we cannot afford to ignore the fact that there is something in the structure of our societies that make these incidents of domestic violence happen.
Something is wrong with those who think of domestic violence as a solution to life’s worries and challenges.
But something is wrong as well when the structures of our societies—structures that include our institutions—are held hostage by these tragedies that are now becoming more frequent.
We make a call in strongest terms possible to stop domestic violence in order to stop once and for all the evils that it brings to all of us.
Our wish is to see that no family will ever suffer because of domestic violence.
And we wish that this be realized now, not later.
FAO Editorial, Jul 2008
Another family has been put asunder by this social malady we call domestic violence.
A mother is dead, killed by her husband, who killed himself, leaving a daughter with the horror of a memory, and our prayer for her healing.
And soon, so she can move on to pick up the pieces of her life.
But we are left with the pang of rage.
And anger.
And self-questioning.
Why would incidents like this happen?
Who end up destroyed in this wanton destruction of limbs and life as domestic violence continues to lurk in the corner, or loom large before our very eyes, with the statistics reminding us that so much is being done, and yet so much is yet to be done?
The fact that many Filipino and Filipino-descended families have been affected by this social pathology and disease is a cause for alarm for all of us in Hawai`i and everywhere.
The number is growing—and the stories of tragedy we wish did not happen are getting to be more sordid and bleak and dark each day.
No, we cannot afford to have more of these killings because of domestic violence in the way we cannot afford to ignore the fact that there is something in the structure of our societies that make these incidents of domestic violence happen.
Something is wrong with those who think of domestic violence as a solution to life’s worries and challenges.
But something is wrong as well when the structures of our societies—structures that include our institutions—are held hostage by these tragedies that are now becoming more frequent.
We make a call in strongest terms possible to stop domestic violence in order to stop once and for all the evils that it brings to all of us.
Our wish is to see that no family will ever suffer because of domestic violence.
And we wish that this be realized now, not later.
FAO Editorial, Jul 2008
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