The Sisyphus Complex of Philippine Agrarian Reform

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj2XfCeC-4cQmNyu926qbtmrzkBOoUC9RqNT1avYBlsFr75HV6NXHMg93H329Io4KQDC2d4DabQSANjdE7T27-zgdWakyWNW2c5HLt7hsvNC_W2xI4kezurmWasxAWFKcPbbTCrlgXtyJv/s1600/lloyd_tronco_negros_002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj2XfCeC-4cQmNyu926qbtmrzkBOoUC9RqNT1avYBlsFr75HV6NXHMg93H329Io4KQDC2d4DabQSANjdE7T27-zgdWakyWNW2c5HLt7hsvNC_W2xI4kezurmWasxAWFKcPbbTCrlgXtyJv/s320/lloyd_tronco_negros_002.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <span style="font-size: large;">During the American period, there was this program known as the Homestead Act. This was patterned after the same program wherein Americans went west and founded their own farms and homesteads. Now, American agriculture is a Titan in their economy. Further along there was the Land Reform initiated by President Diosdado Macapagal and of course, when Martial Law was declared in September 21, 1972, President Ferdinand Marcos declared the entire country a “Land Reform Zone”. During the reinstallation of Congress in 1988, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) was enacted into law and then CARPer during the GMA administration.<br /> <br />One question begs to be answered. How come the great majority of rural Filipinos remain poor? Why have these laws and programs failed dismally inspite of all the good intentions that was behind them? It is evident that no matter how noble the intention of giving land to the landless, there was no support mechanism in place for the Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARBs). This has also indirectly contributed to decreasing productivity in land reform areas. But the real tragedy is that the ARBs became poorer and more vulnerable to the vicissitudes of fate and economic dynamics.<br /><br />Maybe it is time that we look hard into this supposed economic “cure all”, whether it is a case of twisted economic idealism or twisted economic romanticism. As quoted : “It was a political solution to an economic problem”, now we find ourselves in this situation and it is not bound to get better if the system is not revised. It has been a generation since CARP was enacted into law. Let us try to save another generation from lives of hardship and misery. <br /><br />I was prompted to put forth the lines above because of a 2007 account I read in the blog of deceased but well respected journalist Ding Gagelonia.  The account went this way:<br /><br /> <b>The True Picture of CARP in Negros Occidental</b><br /> <br /> We had just had a most unusual lunch experience. I sat across a group of people known as ARB’s – Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries. These are families who were once farm laborers in large haciendas but, thanks to the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), are now proud owners of the land they once tilled on behalf of their landlords. Over fried chicken, rice and a hot fudge sundae, I listened to the people sharing the meal with me. They told us of their struggles, of the hardships they have all endured, both before and after they became beneficiaries of CARP.<br /><br /> I have a lump in my throat the whole time I am writing this piece as I struggle with my own feelings. I am not a prolific writer. I write only when I feel the urge. Right now I am writing because I feel compelled to write.<br /><br /> I had seen the headlines only weeks ago and read about the bloodshed in their lands. We are in the famed island of Negros, where, in places like Hacienda Velez-Malaga, so many lives have been wasted in the name of Agrarian Reform. I saw the special report in one of ABS-CBN’s late night documentary-type shows. I had prepared myself for an emotional moment. But I didn’t prepare myself for a guilt trip.<br /><br /> Yes, lunch was one big guilt trip. I kept asking myself, How can I stand this? Here I am, 3G cellphone in hand and staying at a luxury hotel, how can I live with myself, with my 30 pounds of excess weight from, well, overeating… how can I face this other creature of God in front of me and not feel guilty? At sixteen, she is barely four feet tall. No, she is not a natural dwarf, and she doesn’t look like those Ethiopian malnourished children from war-torn Africa that we used to see on the internet. But malnourished she is, nonetheless, hence the stunted growth. She stopped growing when at age 7 she started working in the sugarcane fields. She’s been out of school since grade four, and while she dreams of becoming a teacher someday, she knows that every year that passes, that dream becomes more and more unlikely to happen, because she has been out of school for six years now.<br /><br /> Working under the hot sun from sun-up to sundown, her skin is as dark as the purplish sugarcane in the fields that she tends. Because her body has been strained by hard labor, she is not skin and bones. Instead she is muscular like a farm-hand young boy. Indeed, if not for the name, she could be mistaken for a boy.<br /><br /> She had a good meal today, probably the only one like it in weeks, if not months. Yet she could not muster a smile for my camera. The other people in her group confirmed what I had seen on TV. That indeed there are people in their neighborhood who gather certain types of stones from a river and boil them to extract their “flavor” so that they could have some soup. They said it’s not always that bad. On good days they get to catch some frogs. So I noticed they purposely did not finish the two pieces of chicken in front of them. They ate one and they had the other one wrapped to be brought home. God knows how many more mouths those will feed tonight.<br /><br /> Edelyn hardly speaks. She will only respond when asked directly, and her answers are typically only a few words. And tears well in her eyes as she struggles to answer my questions. So the older women do the talking. And tell her story for her. I asked her if indeed she knew how to dress and broil a frog, as claimed by one of the older women. She nods, and for a fleeting moment I thought I sensed a faint smile – borne maybe out of pride in her shall we say, unusual culinary skills. In their village, about five kilometers from the town of Murcia, they have no electricity. Officially, all the barangays in their town have electricity, but their village is too far away from the nearest cables. And they have no water. They walk two kilometers to the nearest water source, a natural spring, for every drop of water that they use – for drinking, for washing, for cooking, for bathing, for everything.<br /><br /> I also met Sison Ventoso, a 14-year old boy named after Jose Maria Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines. That name says a lot about who his parents look up to as a hero. He can easily get mistaken for an 8-year old. He is that small. In spite of his equally stunted growth, he dreams loftier dreams – of becoming an engineer. Perhaps that’s because he got as far as grade 6, two grades higher than Edelyn.<br /><br /> The typical ARB received anywhere from one-half to two hectares of land acquired by the government from the previous landowner. The government pays back the former landlords little by little over a ten-year period. The land is awarded to the tenants on the belief that as the new landowners, the former landless farmers become empowered and will no longer need to revolt against the government to remove the shackles of poverty from their heels. Land Reform was the perceived cure for poverty, which was the root of all insurgency in the past: the peasants felt they were not getting a fair share of the country’s wealth and natural resources. Poverty provided the fertile ground for the sowing of communist ideals. This is best exemplified by the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, and has been reprised many times in other parts of the world.<br /><br /> Indeed land reform, now known as the comprehensive agrarian reform program, was seen as the cure for poverty, the root of all economic evils in our country. The simple facts are: the vast majority of our country is rural, and the livelihood of our people is mainly agriculture-based. So the thinking goes, for as long as most Filipinos remain poor peasants, or tenant farmers, we can never rise from our third-world poverty-beset situation. That is the socio-eco-political basis for land reform. In the words of Mayor Sonny Coscolluela of Murcia, it was a political solution to an economic problem.<br /><br /> The CARP law expires next year, after a second ten-year extension. Before that, land reform was a landmark program of former president Diosdado Macapagal, father of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. And after all those years of land reform, where are we now? Or more significantly, where are the people – by that I mean the Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARB’s)?<br /><br /> Well I met some of them today. And it saddens me to acknowledge that they are in fact worse off now, especially when compared to their counterparts who have remained working as farm laborers in the big haciendas. While the ARB families are starving, their counterpart families in the big plantations have a good life. Their landlords provide for all, repeat, ALL their needs. They have food on the table, and in the ref (yes, they have refs!), they have fairly nice clothes, they have medical care, they have social security, their children go to schools right inside the hacienda. The older kids even go to college. And I only today did I discover the big difference: farm workers in the haciendas were salaried employees. As such they had regular wages, and all the benefits that employees normally get, including SSS membership.<br /><br /> Sugar plantations are actually agro-industrial complexes, managed like regular corporations, with the farm workers providing the bulk of the labor force required for production. It’s a long process that involves prepping the land prior to the planting season, all through the growing stage, down to the harvest, collecting the canes and transporting them to the sugar mill; from there it goes through a second stage of production until the final product is produced; and from there it goes to the marketing, sales and distribution process before all the hard work pays off and the farm gets cash for its products. And sugar is a once-a-year crop. That means all throughout the year, the landlord advances all the costs and expenses, and only at the end of the long process does he get his money back.<br /><br /> When the land gets covered by CARP, the farm workers effectively lose their jobs. The government takes the land away from the landowner and gives it to the farmers. So the former landlords stop paying any wages or any other benefits to them. They become entrepreneurs even if they do not know the meaning of the term. Given this background, it is no surprise that most of them fail at it.<br /><br /> But there is more to this than meets the eye. In spite of their plight, the ARB’s still believe in CARP (and surprisingly, so do the landlords), if only because they like having land that they can pawn. The biggest mistake we have made is believing that giving the land to the farmers solves all our problems. The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), in fact bases the success of its program on the quantity of land that it has redistributed. With 20-20 hindsight vision, we now know that if that alone is what gets done, then we are so very badly mistaken in our notion that land redistribution is all that needs to be done.<br /><br /> The failure of CARP lies in the lack, or even total absence, of the support services to enable ARB’s to properly till their land and become economically progressive farmer families. What typically happens is that after ARB’s receive their land (and nothing else), they will need to borrow extensively just to get things started – buy seeds, farm implements, fertilizer, etc. (on top of their basic needs: food, clothing, shelter). In as short a time as two years, the ARB family will end up having buried itself into so much debt that the land they were given eventually gets sold or pawned, surreptitiously of course, because it is illegal to do so. How that happens is another story altogether.<br /><br /> In the end, the family ends up so much worse off than before they were given their land. They still till the same land but now they have no more landlords to run to for help. In the past, whatever they needed, whatever emergency befell them, they were always taken care of by the landlord. Under their new situation, who do they turn to? One common answer: loan sharks. We already know where that path leads.<br /><br /> Going back to our lunch guests, in spite of their seeming lack of education, the ARB’s were quite aware of their plight. They knew all along how futile the whole exercise was. They explained for example, how it was impossible for them to pay off their loans knowing how low their farm’s output would be compared to their needs. In some cases they only generate an income of a mere P5,000 a year. Even if they pull out from school all their young children and commit them to work the fields (not uncommon), it would still not be enough to feed the family. That’s because most of their income is eaten up by usurious rates charged by loan sharks.<br /><br /> So they are forced to explore other income sources. They grow whatever they can grow in the little land that they have, but since this is too small, they send their children to the big cities to work as domestic helpers. One mother sent her 14-year old daughter to Manila. More than ten year later she has yet to hear from her again. And in spite of the terrible agony she suffers from not knowing whether her oldest daughter is alive or not, she has sent two more daughters to Manila, not because they needed to look for their elder sister, but to look for work. If you noticed that the parents think of their children as a “labor force,” you are right. Peasant farmers bear as many children as possible because indeed the children are “assets” – not much different from their carabaos. More children means more farm hands to till the land. Child labor is the norm, not the exception.<br /><br /> In cases where their land is already effectively controlled by their creditors, the ARB’s end up working the land like they were tenant farmers all over again. If they can find work in other farms, such as cutting the grass in preparation for the planting season, they get paid P80 a day. That’s on the high side. The not-so-well off landowners can only afford to pay P60 a day. I cannot imagine how a family can live on P60 a day. It doesn’t help my imagination to learn that the average family here has 8 children.<br /><br /> The failure that is CARP, or should I say, the tragedy that is CARP, creates more problems the more we continue its misguided implementation. Because the old landowners no longer own the land, they have stopped paying taxes on it. And given their already sorry state of financial affairs, nobody can expect the new landowners to pay real estate taxes either. So municipal coffers are now slowly seeing a continuing decline in tax collections. And with over-all productivity going down because of this, economic growth in the rural areas gets as stunted as the growth (or lack of it) of the malnourished children that are born to the families there. Dwindling economic activity in major agricultural areas is of course a vicious cycle that brings down the rest of the country. Not to mention the impact on overall literacy as more and more of the ARB’s children drop out of school to either work the fields, or find jobs as domestic helpers in the bigger cities. In some cases, they go into prostitution.<br /><br /> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: large;">What’s the bottom line? Why am I so engrossed in this unpleasant subject matter? Why do I think this deserves the attention I am asking everyone to give it? Because this affects all of us. How? Let us not forget, CARP is funded with billions and billions of tax money – our money. And if my tax money is being used to create more Edelyn Pinedas, then I feel compelled to put a stop to it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: xx-small;">https://midfield.wordpress.com/2007/11/16/the-tragedy-that-is-carp/<br /><br /></span></span><br /><br /> <br /> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=3629012486930784822&postID=2448568973459334708&target=facebook" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8VZfdyGqGxYxPWoelwmGbf0QFLIKAuJeUY4gkUrOuG0ypMqSfMCY5oXqRyQNoFBeMj4-rf3fO2HSZuuzFh6RfAhiQUOB0mhu1FMnZNnkfdasfJ-Tjd3cZm3lh88B0ouKAVkPXVh278OA/s1600/sharefb185.png" /></a> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=3629012486930784822&postID=2448568973459334708&target=twitter" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip3bfhc90-5xenm9-eqI_ICgI5V8KPl28Gu8oXZsvNDA_oIk8ioAazonJE38acYIiOnSDyuPWj6zn-8wCMPPY5TMVVENEoNk2PfH73eNX5qkEIkvLossHYwU848ikKXjhyr1MRuJIjmFo/s1600/sharetw185.png" /></a></div>

Essays Lloyd Tronco The Sisyphus Complex of Philippine Agrarian Reform

During the American period, there was this program known as the Homestead Act. This was patterned after the same program wherein America...

Read more »

How Two Non-Dentists Are Reshaping Dental Practice In The Philippines

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9VY_NQQiqcEUiz4hvaqpM3PNOGa_60gdVkQhh2o7zCpBQOETGKk0yN02AWvy_OxYzST_wYw66nA565omZdWvADV3pAOodvz9wHZbTU1DGAzSM7qeb4WXo_jbaO5JqhsVVy4Dg2nKJmZDA/s1600/medix.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9VY_NQQiqcEUiz4hvaqpM3PNOGa_60gdVkQhh2o7zCpBQOETGKk0yN02AWvy_OxYzST_wYw66nA565omZdWvADV3pAOodvz9wHZbTU1DGAzSM7qeb4WXo_jbaO5JqhsVVy4Dg2nKJmZDA/s1600/medix.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Medix Founder, Marc Medina (R) and Co-Founder, Lloyd Tronco<br /> (L) are reshaping how young dentists will keep records in the future.</td></tr> </tbody></table> <span style="font-size: large;">MANILA, Philippines - The dental profession is one which is clearly shaped by the dentists themselves.  Seldom does it happen when non-dental practitioners contribute to the path of the future of dental practice.</span><br /> <span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span> <span style="font-size: large;">In this day and age of business disruption though, two non-dental practitioners are helping shape the future of clinic management for dentists with an online platform which helps dental professionals manage their records.</span><br /> <span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span> <span style="font-size: large;">For the longest time, dentists have been keeping records on a 3x5 inch index card with chartings of fillings and actual tooth condition.  All of that is set to change in the next few years as an app called Medix slowly but steadily gains ground among Filipino dentists.</span><br /> <span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span> <span style="font-size: large;">Medix ( <a href="http://www.medix.ph/" target="_blank">www.medix.ph</a> ) is an online platform for dentists to keep their records and simplify their management through the use of digital technology.  Medix CEO, Marc Medina, is a Computer Science graduate whose family background involved selling dentist chairs.  His Co-Founder in this technology startup, Lloyd Tronco, is a seasoned advertising professional whose credentials include being part of multinational ad agencies like McCann-Erickson.  Together, the two non-dentists have drawn on their own fields of expertise to propel Medix to be part of the standard tools of the trade in a dentist's clinic.</span><br /> <span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span> <span style="font-size: large;">"It's not an easy climb, this path to getting Medix accepted among current dentists", says Medina.  "Perhaps the greatest hindrance would be the clinic secretary, and the fact that some dentists still need to adapt to technology.  But we've seen interest.  Interest is high, all we need to push for is adaptability".</span><br /> <span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span> <span style="font-size: large;">From the end of Tronco, who serves as Marketing Director, he says, "It's just a matter of time.  We're patient (no pun intended).  The dental students who are currently in dental colleges are our hope.  They are the ones who no longer need to adapt to smartphones and tablets.  As we speak, they are glued to those devices".  He adds, "When the time comes for them to start their practice, these young dentists will hardly resort to the 3x5 card.  They'll immediately go digital via Medix".</span><br /> <span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span> <span style="font-size: large;">True enough, as more dentists are glued to their iPads, iPhones, Androids and tablets, there is no other way for dental practitioners to go but use a digital platform like Medix to not only keep records but also create appointments and manage the entire clinic.</span><br /> <span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span> <span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span> <span style="font-size: large;">(for more inquiries on Medix, a message may be sent via <a href="http://www.facebook.com/medixph">http://www.facebook.com/medixph</a> or email medixph.dae@gmail.com ).</span><br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=3629012486930784822&postID=4201901075716445677&target=facebook" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8VZfdyGqGxYxPWoelwmGbf0QFLIKAuJeUY4gkUrOuG0ypMqSfMCY5oXqRyQNoFBeMj4-rf3fO2HSZuuzFh6RfAhiQUOB0mhu1FMnZNnkfdasfJ-Tjd3cZm3lh88B0ouKAVkPXVh278OA/s1600/sharefb185.png" /></a> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=3629012486930784822&postID=4201901075716445677&target=twitter" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip3bfhc90-5xenm9-eqI_ICgI5V8KPl28Gu8oXZsvNDA_oIk8ioAazonJE38acYIiOnSDyuPWj6zn-8wCMPPY5TMVVENEoNk2PfH73eNX5qkEIkvLossHYwU848ikKXjhyr1MRuJIjmFo/s1600/sharetw185.png" /></a></div> <br />

Gadgets Miscellaneous News Philippines Science Stories How Two Non-Dentists Are Reshaping Dental Practice In The Philippines

Medix Founder, Marc Medina (R) and Co-Founder, Lloyd Tronco (L) are reshaping how young dentists will keep records in the future. MANIL...

Read more »

The Journal

<br /> <header class="entry-header"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5kuZYxJQdTk45VoWEMTQvUmUF-RZQ8y7qny7AJL3o_r3LTouY1QNHNIV_1SZfgtQ9K48GDQpmJvyF2ro6h7DgPghLxQ4OCF6QB4wK0WHeKE7vMZIx-9J9EHJ3xI1ImA-7XqkJoZh40rDG/s1600/flag150.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5kuZYxJQdTk45VoWEMTQvUmUF-RZQ8y7qny7AJL3o_r3LTouY1QNHNIV_1SZfgtQ9K48GDQpmJvyF2ro6h7DgPghLxQ4OCF6QB4wK0WHeKE7vMZIx-9J9EHJ3xI1ImA-7XqkJoZh40rDG/s1600/flag150.jpg" /></a></div> <h1 class="entry-title"> <span style="font-size: large;">The Journal</span></h1> </header><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">Hello and welcome to EuroFilipino Journal.</span><br /> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">EuroFilipino Journal was originally published as an official magazine during the early 2000s. Following the initial publication of the journal, we decided to instead embrace technology and continue the Journal online, so that it is more accessible to Filipinos around the globe.</span><br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">This online Journal is currently a work-in-progress as we endeavour to upload the many wonderful contributions written for the Journal saved in our archives.</span><br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">If you would like to order a physical copy of the original EuroFilipino Journal that was printed in 2001, then please email emailfilipinojournale@<span class="skimlinks-unlinked">gmail.com</span>.</span><br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">Enjoy reading the EuroFilipino Journal, fellow Kababayan.</span> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=3629012486930784822&postID=8347483382801138426&target=facebook" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8VZfdyGqGxYxPWoelwmGbf0QFLIKAuJeUY4gkUrOuG0ypMqSfMCY5oXqRyQNoFBeMj4-rf3fO2HSZuuzFh6RfAhiQUOB0mhu1FMnZNnkfdasfJ-Tjd3cZm3lh88B0ouKAVkPXVh278OA/s1600/sharefb185.png" /></a> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=3629012486930784822&postID=8347483382801138426&target=twitter" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip3bfhc90-5xenm9-eqI_ICgI5V8KPl28Gu8oXZsvNDA_oIk8ioAazonJE38acYIiOnSDyuPWj6zn-8wCMPPY5TMVVENEoNk2PfH73eNX5qkEIkvLossHYwU848ikKXjhyr1MRuJIjmFo/s1600/sharetw185.png" /></a></div>

Journal UK The Journal

The Journal Hello and welcome to EuroFilipino Journal. EuroFilipino Journal was originally published as an official magazine du...

Read more »

Contributors

<br /> <header class="entry-header"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNK2hk-chxt2PwYzXisH4DdnzkHtbmF_Udz8l3tLs_7_E3tmt6R1ZBlwj5e3yf6J24xfyPx9I_lqltWZ5dYqQqa7YbBkGHySbMn7AAdzagAGfJ4vxSVUgrAac02Iiq9xr7WnLKRGoqU-pV/s1600/flag150.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNK2hk-chxt2PwYzXisH4DdnzkHtbmF_Udz8l3tLs_7_E3tmt6R1ZBlwj5e3yf6J24xfyPx9I_lqltWZ5dYqQqa7YbBkGHySbMn7AAdzagAGfJ4vxSVUgrAac02Iiq9xr7WnLKRGoqU-pV/s1600/flag150.jpg" /></a></div> <h1 class="entry-title"> </h1> </header> <span style="font-size: large;"><b>Who’s Who at EuroFilipino?</b></span><br /> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">A magazine’s success rests on the strength of its contributors and how they appeal to the reading public.  We hope that the following writers will continue to entertain and provoke you, or simply to give you something to smile or think about.</span><br /> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>EuroFilipino Journal</b></i></span><br /> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Managing Editor:</b> Gene Alcantara</span> <span style="font-size: large;"><b>Features Editor:</b> Jun Terra</span><br /> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Contributors:<br /> </b>Carmila Legarda<br /> Cynthia Barker<br /> Charles Kelly</span> <span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 1.71429;">Jim Domingo<br /> </span>Perry Ostrea<br /> Sotiris Hadjisotiriou<br /> Ken Evans<br /> Bert Cabual<br /> Ed Maranan<br /> Melissa Legarda-Alcantara<br /> Perry Diaz (USA)<br /> Fr Shay Cullen (Philippines)</span><br /> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Cartoons:</b> Kris Soguilon</span><br /> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Photography:</b> Carlos Garcia</span><br /> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><b>EuroFilipino Journal:</b> “Bringing Filipinos and their issues to the global fore.”</span><br /> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Email:</b> EuroFilipinoJournale@<span class="skimlinks-unlinked">gmail.com</span></span> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=3629012486930784822&postID=7473573469372525554&target=facebook" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8VZfdyGqGxYxPWoelwmGbf0QFLIKAuJeUY4gkUrOuG0ypMqSfMCY5oXqRyQNoFBeMj4-rf3fO2HSZuuzFh6RfAhiQUOB0mhu1FMnZNnkfdasfJ-Tjd3cZm3lh88B0ouKAVkPXVh278OA/s1600/sharefb185.png" /></a> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=3629012486930784822&postID=7473573469372525554&target=twitter" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip3bfhc90-5xenm9-eqI_ICgI5V8KPl28Gu8oXZsvNDA_oIk8ioAazonJE38acYIiOnSDyuPWj6zn-8wCMPPY5TMVVENEoNk2PfH73eNX5qkEIkvLossHYwU848ikKXjhyr1MRuJIjmFo/s1600/sharetw185.png" /></a></div>

Contributors UK Contributors

Who’s Who at EuroFilipino? A magazine’s success rests on the strength of its contributors and how they appeal to the reading pu...

Read more »

Filipinos Respected in Spain

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgNTm66hQ50BYLHffBJgvalRScQvAx93E75jv9-sKmWpE4pB8CTs3fqbloxkIig4P0TdmhhyphenhyphengekWT9UU2mH5qGNZq6BstudHn4ID7bbGN-wH8dU8BvvySGRH7DkWXaW_Bw4vSO05nF3kOa/s1600/flag.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgNTm66hQ50BYLHffBJgvalRScQvAx93E75jv9-sKmWpE4pB8CTs3fqbloxkIig4P0TdmhhyphenhyphengekWT9UU2mH5qGNZq6BstudHn4ID7bbGN-wH8dU8BvvySGRH7DkWXaW_Bw4vSO05nF3kOa/s320/flag.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <span style="font-size: large;">Spain as a country is very much intertwined with the history and culture of the Philippines, having been its colonial master for almost 4 centuries, until the Philippine Revolution of 1898.  It remains an important destination for Filipinos who may want to see places and monuments associated with the country’s national heroes.  Nowadays a vibrant and active Filipino community lives, works and carries on as new Spanish-Filipinos.<br /><br />Ipinagmamalaki ni Consul General Cookie Feria ng Embajada de Filipinas ang Filipino community sa Espanya.<br /><br />Bukod kasi sa kanilang sipag at tiyaga sa trabaho, marami na rin sa kanila ang unti-unting nag-iisip ng negosyo upang umangat ang katatayuan.<br /><br />Malakas din ang impact nila sa mga Kastila na mataas ang tingin sa kanila at humahanga sa kanilang dalang kultura sa bansang ito.<br /><br />Maging ang matataas na opisyal sa pamahalaan ng Espanya ay mga Pinoy din ang hanap na empleyado kung mga pamilya nila ang pag-uusapan.<br /><br />Dagdag niya, “Their employers also are the movers and shakers here, diba? The mga government officials here in Madrid, their employees are Filipinos… when the (city) President’s nurse stepped down, I got a phone call from the secretary of the President asking me to find a Pinay to take care of her parents. Doesn’t that say something great about us, how Spanish think of FIlipinos…”<br /><br />Tinatayang may mahigit mga 45,000 Pinoy sa buong Espanya at bagama’t marami sa kanila ang nagtatrabaho sa mga bahay-bahay, marami rin ang nagpapatakbo ng mga establishments dito na nagbibigay sa kanila ng idea at experience sa business.<br /><br />Ayon kay Ms Feria – “It is a good indication of Filipinos trying to branch out from being employees to being employers and entrepreneurs, little by little they are growing, it’s a learning experience. You see that the establishments are basically one man operations you know and basically they are actually still catering to the Fil community; it would be nice to see them cater to the local community, the Spanish community, maybe by way of opening up restaurants, maybe other services for instance… A lot of Filipinos here we are the waiters in the restaurants or the cooks — why can’t they be the owners, they are the ones who practically run business… That would be the logical step.”<br /><br />Ayon kay Congen Feria ang importante lang dito ay marunong ka ng wikang Kastila upang makapag-business ka at makapag-take advantage sa mga suportang ibinibigay ng Spanish government sa mga migrante.<br /><br />Ang wikang Kastila ay hindi mahirap para sa mga Pinoy dahil sa ating kasaysayan, at dahil mula high school hanggang kolehiyo ay pinag-aaralan natin ito sa Pilipinas.<br /><br />Sa totoo lang nakatutuwang marinig na maging ang mga kabataang naglalaro ng basketball sa Madrid, pati ang mga manonood, ay Kastila ang usapan.<br /><br />Ang Madrid ay puno rin ng mga bagay-bagay na Pinoy na mabibili halimbawa sa mga antique markets o shops tulad ng paintings, carvings, mga mapa atbp na dala ng mga Kastilang nanggaling sa atin noong unang panahonm nang ang Pilipinas ay nasasakop pa ng Espanya.<br /><br />Mayroon din ditong mga permanent exhibits sa mga museo tungkol sa Pilipinas at ang mayaman nitong kultura.<br /><br />Hindi rin mahirap ma-inspire ang mga Pinoy dito dahil magpunta lang sila sa Avenida de Filipinas, sa metro Islas Filipinas, ay makikita nila doon ang rebulto ni Dr Jose Rizal na replika ng nasa Luneta, at mababasa pa ang kabuuan ng kanyang tulang Mi Ultimo Adios sa Kastila at Filipino, nakaukit sa plakeng bronze.<br /><br />Kinumpirma naman ni Ambassador Joseph Bernardo ang magandang katatayuan ng mga Pinoy sa Espanya.<br /><br />Ayon kay Ambassador Bernardo, “Napakagaling ng community natin dito. Wala tayong problema at iginagalang sila ng mga Kastila at mahal na mahal sila para silang miyembro ng mga pamilya.”<br /><br />Umaasa rin siya na lalong darami ang mga Filipino entrepreneurs sa Espanya pagdating ng araw.<br /><br />by Gene Alcantara</span><br /> <span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=3629012486930784822&postID=6602649609468790056&target=facebook" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8VZfdyGqGxYxPWoelwmGbf0QFLIKAuJeUY4gkUrOuG0ypMqSfMCY5oXqRyQNoFBeMj4-rf3fO2HSZuuzFh6RfAhiQUOB0mhu1FMnZNnkfdasfJ-Tjd3cZm3lh88B0ouKAVkPXVh278OA/s1600/sharefb185.png"></a> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=3629012486930784822&postID=6602649609468790056&target=twitter" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip3bfhc90-5xenm9-eqI_ICgI5V8KPl28Gu8oXZsvNDA_oIk8ioAazonJE38acYIiOnSDyuPWj6zn-8wCMPPY5TMVVENEoNk2PfH73eNX5qkEIkvLossHYwU848ikKXjhyr1MRuJIjmFo/s1600/sharetw185.png"></a></div>

Continent Gene Alcantara Spain Stories Filipinos Respected in Spain

Spain as a country is very much intertwined with the history and culture of the Philippines, having been its colonial master for almost 4 ...

Read more »

A piece of England forever Philippine

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp94eckjLXZ5AN_rkKCrRFp8PVqFKYOoO8Xcy398gemMs8gqCgKudcxxmEW2QJ-wVSr94pnN4PiA2dlDlOFTI5w8jGyzz-o916P5XKM6iFbX93I6eH7MIteRa7m87y-EvBjdyFy-cWlZXE/s1600/885896_4184267143063_7919875874249902112_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp94eckjLXZ5AN_rkKCrRFp8PVqFKYOoO8Xcy398gemMs8gqCgKudcxxmEW2QJ-wVSr94pnN4PiA2dlDlOFTI5w8jGyzz-o916P5XKM6iFbX93I6eH7MIteRa7m87y-EvBjdyFy-cWlZXE/s320/885896_4184267143063_7919875874249902112_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">— by Gene Alcantara</span><br /><br />There is a bit of London that will forever be Philippine.  It is a house on 37 Chalcot Crescent NW1, on Primrose Hill, just off Regents Park, owned many many years ago by the Beckett family.  One can approach it from two tube stations, southward from Chalk Farm or westward from Camden Town.  If one happens to be visiting the London Zoological Gardens, it will just be about 10 minutes walk across the road in a northerly direction.<br /><br />The three-storey, white painted house with spear-like metal fencing in black, is easy to spot in the rows of identical terrace houses on the crescent.  For it is the only one with a blue circular plaque to the left of the black front door saying that Dr Jose Rizal, Filipino hero, lived there in 1888-1889.  The way though that the house has become for all intents and purposes a pilgrimage site for Filipinos visiting the British isles, one would think Rizal lived there for a long long time.<br /><br />I suppose he did not have to live there for very long.  For whatever period of time he spent in that house had been absolutely productive for both the birth of the Philippine Republic, and the pride of Filipinos nowadays not just as a nation of heroes, but as one with a rich cultural heritage.  The house was of course Rizal’s base when he came to England for scholarly pursuits.  It is important because under its roof he undoubtedly contemplated the state of his country and what he was going to do to bring about a better future.<br /><br />While he was a boarder in the house, Rizal worked on three major literary undertakings–his annotations of Antonio de Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, his philological studies with a view to producing a Philippine dictionary and grammar book, and most importantly his sequel to Noli Me Tangere.  During this time he was prolific in political writing as well as correspondence with family and friends.  Rizal was supposed to have done some sculptures during this period too although I have never set eyes on any of them at all.<br /><br />Chalcot Crescent is located fairly centrally and is a stone’s throw away from the residence on Elsworthy Terrace of his good friend, Dr Reinhold Rost, librarian of the India Office Library and who gave him access to Morga’s book.  Across the park, the British Library would probably have been a good hour’s walk away.  The major sites of attraction of London would have been also mere walking distance from where he was staying.<br /><br />It is a pleasant surprise therefore to find that Rizal had also actually traipsed from there to London’s more distant but less affluent East End to continue his work with Filipinos.  He apparently set up a Filipino young men’s club in the Dalton area near Hackney to ensure that his kababayans of that time were always conscious of national issues.  Rizal should probably also be given the title of ‘Father of Filipino Community Organizations in Britain’.  A lot of Filipinos nowadays own houses in London’s East End where prices are generally cheaper, but I do not think many of them realize that the hero was active in their community a hundred years ago.<br /><br />I wish I had a copy of the second volume (1888-onwards) of Epistolario Rizalino which the Biblioteca Nacional de Filipinas published in 1930.  It ought to have details of Rizal’s community organization work in London.  It would be fascinating to see which Filipinos were here then, what they did, what they talked about and possibly where they met regularly.  Maybe the Filipino community can discover another historical site in London.  But this time, maybe the government or some rich Filipino benefactor could purchase the property and turn it into a Philippine center or museum.<br /><br />The Filipino community continually seeks role models for their children born or growing up in Britain.  The Philippines however is strangely bereft of credible modern heroes who could be turned into icons of role model proportions, and whatever Filipino breakthroughs are made to date in Britain relate usually to the theatrical stage.  So looking back to the heroes of a century ago, with their imperfections and individual tragedies, is a safer bet.  For theirs at least are monumental achievements with which it is less difficult to identify.  However, one cannot simply identify with these heroes in scholarly books or in newspaper articles.  What they need is a place to go to where they could see visually what these heroes looked like and what sort of things they did when they were here for the country.  One solution is to have a house devoted to Filipino heroes who lived in London.<br /><br />The Chalcot Crescent house is apparently owned by an American lawyer who rents out the property to visiting Americans.  Apart from the Philippine Ambassador, his wife and embassy staff and the Knights of Rizal  who every June 19 pay tribute to Rizal with a floral offering at the house, I know of nobody else who was ever let into the house to feast his or her eyes upon whatever historical artefact remains inside, particularly the two rooms Rizal occupied as bedroom and receiving room.  This is a tragedy for the Filipino community, and a shame indeed for the Filipino nation.  How could the nation allow such a historically valuable property slip through its hands?  Its non-Filipino tenants probably cannot even begin to appreciate how much this landmark means for Filipinos around the world.<br /><br />This property (and the Dalton one, if it ever gets discovered) ought to become more than just a site to pose at for souvenir photographs.  I would like to see it as a testament to Anglo-Filipino relations, to the ties that bind both countries to each other in the spirit of friendship, trade, cultural and even political cooperation.  That is my fervent hope for Filipinos in Britain who have long been in need of an enduring place to meet with pride.  A place where people can bring their families and friends.   A place which can showcase the best of Filipinos, old and even new.  A piece of England forever Philippine.</span><br /> [2003, London]<br /> <br /> Photo credited to Mr. Ronaldo Samson Adoptante <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=3629012486930784822&postID=3546242783260174679&target=facebook" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8VZfdyGqGxYxPWoelwmGbf0QFLIKAuJeUY4gkUrOuG0ypMqSfMCY5oXqRyQNoFBeMj4-rf3fO2HSZuuzFh6RfAhiQUOB0mhu1FMnZNnkfdasfJ-Tjd3cZm3lh88B0ouKAVkPXVh278OA/s1600/sharefb185.png" /></a> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=3629012486930784822&postID=3546242783260174679&target=twitter" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip3bfhc90-5xenm9-eqI_ICgI5V8KPl28Gu8oXZsvNDA_oIk8ioAazonJE38acYIiOnSDyuPWj6zn-8wCMPPY5TMVVENEoNk2PfH73eNX5qkEIkvLossHYwU848ikKXjhyr1MRuJIjmFo/s1600/sharetw185.png" /></a></div>

Articles Cribs History News Travel Travel-Europe UK A piece of England forever Philippine

— by Gene Alcantara There is a bit of London that will forever be Philippine.  It is a house on 37 Chalcot Crescent NW1, on Primrose Hill,...

Read more »

Ghosts at Wrobla

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoDKeLjizhOlMoFMnryOFkbQNp2VljqKIRZBLLfdciLgZuRuWDqMlk2CLnkvLvN6WvCg78GE84W1n-7sO_EZ2XYV4gfOtmSLlZENHtKOtYLrCEzNrwHcPSZFmAaqtws8w4cVjaDxmVTkd5/s1600/Gda%25C5%2584sk_ulice_Wr%25C3%25B3bla_i_Kurza.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoDKeLjizhOlMoFMnryOFkbQNp2VljqKIRZBLLfdciLgZuRuWDqMlk2CLnkvLvN6WvCg78GE84W1n-7sO_EZ2XYV4gfOtmSLlZENHtKOtYLrCEzNrwHcPSZFmAaqtws8w4cVjaDxmVTkd5/s320/Gda%25C5%2584sk_ulice_Wr%25C3%25B3bla_i_Kurza.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo from <span class="_r3"><a class="_ZR irc_hol i3724" data-noload="" data-ved="0ahUKEwj04sqvrtLKAhXFGKYKHUnjCc4QjB0IBg" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gda%C5%84sk_ulice_Wr%C3%B3bla_i_Kurza.JPG"><span class="irc_ho" dir="ltr">commons.wikimedia.org</span></a></span><span class="_r3 irc_msc"><a class="_ZR irc_msl i3591" data-i="1" data-noload="" data-ved="0ahUKEwj04sqvrtLKAhXFGKYKHUnjCc4QhxwICA" href="https://www.google.com/search?tbs=simg%3Am00&tbnid=UZg4AJ_Joy5UfM%3A&docid=OR4JzmwsWv8HAM&tbm=isch"><span class="irc_idim"></span></a></span></td></tr> </tbody></table> — by Gene Alcantara<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: large;">Not many people believe in ghosts.  This much I know.  Or perhaps many people would rather deny the possibility of the existence of ghosts for whatever reason, than having to deal with the scary prospect of seeing a spectre.  They would say, “Hmmm, hard to believe.  Are you sure it was not the wind or just your playful imagination?”  Well, if only. <br /><br />As for me, well, I do believe in ghosts.  Or rather I have to believe because I have experience of them first hand.  Right in the very house I lived in on Wrobla Street in Warsaw for the last three and a half years.  If anybody had told me before I came that there was a ghost in the house I would probably have treated the matter with some skepticism (Oh, ok, trepidation, but only a bit!).<br /><br />My first experience of the ghost at Wrobla happened in the first year of my posting when I was on my own, about three years ago.  I was facing the oven about 10-11 pm at night heating up one of those frozen packets of Spanish Paella or Mexican chicken.  Suddenly at the periphery of my left vision I sort of detected a faint movement in the archway leading to the dining room.  Naturally I turned my head to look and when I did, all my hair stood on end.  I felt my scalp tingling as my hair rose of its own accord, and I knew fear.  For there was this white woman peeking at me with a smile, long dark hair flowing down.  My stomach was suddenly filled with ice but although the terrifying vision only lasted perhaps a second, it is permanently imprinted in my memory.  I am normally a brave man but I was scared and had to call my family in London to seek some comfort.<br /><br />That was really the first and last time I had an encounter with the apparition until in April this year, a female friend, Normie Lopez de la Rosa, who transferred from Turkey and had some psychic talent, attempted to treat another friend, Fe Grzybowski, whom she believed was being bewitched.  This she did in the house apparently through some sort of prayer and ceremony.  I did not witness this myself as I was away in Berlin at the time competing in an international public speaking competition.  Somehow the ceremony seemed to have perhaps opened some mystical doorway or triggered some psychic phenomenon because when I got back from Germany I started having strange and scary nightmares.  And my family, who had since joined me in Warsaw, started hearing strange noises at night.  No one would venture down into the basement laundry room alone once dusk fell, for Normie said that this was the place where the ghost seemed to hang around.<br /><br />To deal with the problem once and for all, we called in a priest from the huge Catholic church on Dominikanska Street who came, prayed and blessed all corners of the house.  Unfortunately I don’t think it completely got rid of the ghost but we somehow got reassured that we have involved a man of God.<br /><br />As for me, I tried to deal with the ghost also.  Normie said it was a young woman she saw in our laundry room.  I went down one evening to “talk” to  the ghost and ask that it not bother my family.  But the minute I stepped foot on the basement floor, my head was enclosed by a cold presence and my hair stood on end again.  So I beat a hasty retreat back up the stairs (I mean, I ran back upstairs!).  Since then the family ended up leaving the lights on on the stairs all night, and the radio on on low volume.  We even had a few icons hung around although they seemed never enough.  Somehow I would still be woken up at night by something touching my face or a noise or a bad dream.<br /><br />When my children Giselle and Terence visited from university in May and June, I deliberately did not tell them about the ghost that haunted the house at Wrobla.  But I did not reckon on my youngest daughter Melissa telling them not to enter the first floor bedroom because apparently that was where she once saw her electronic piano playing by itself.  They were skeptical at first, my teenage kids, but when one night Giselle woke up hearing and feeling footsteps in her room in the middle of the night, they became firmly aware of the ghost.<br /><br />Two friends of mine, Dee Calmel and Edyta Ganczarczyk, said perhaps that the ghost was interested in me, liked me, and probably was protecting me and the house somehow.  Carmila, my spouse, tried to be brave about it – she was not about to give me up for a ghost!  For if it was an unfriendly ghost it might have done us or our relationship harm.  It could even be apparently a naughty ghost who moved things around the house because  sometimes we ended up not finding things where we were supposed to have left them.  This last was true because looking back over the years, I have indeed lost or misplaced items of clothing and other small things and I had always suspected my cleaner Pani Grazyna of hiding them!<br /><br />Actually Wrobla was not my first experience of ghosts in Poland.  About two years earlier I went to attend a series of classical and jazz concerts sponsored by the British Council in Zabrze and in Tarnowskie Gory in the southern part of the country.  In winter it was, late in cold November.  The Zabrze event went very well and the following day I travelled to Tarnowskie Gory and looked for my hotel in the town.  It turned out that my hotel was some distance away in a village called Rybna.  It took the taxi about 20 minutes to get to the village across white fields.  The hotel was in fact a 200-year old palace called Palac Na Rybny, a magnificent green building right in the middle of this snow-covered estate with leafless trees around.  My room was a huge apartment on the first floor with impressive original 17th-18th century furniture and a palace room feel to it.  Only I could not sleep a wink, the bedroom felt very strange indeed as if there was somebody there watching me, and I kept hearing all sorts of peculiar sounds.  I thought there was a ghost in the bedroom.  I spent the night with all the lights on watching BBC World.<br /><br />So was I perhaps simply sensitive to supernatural things?  Well possibly.  The presence of a ghost in the house was further confirmed by an independent person.  At the end of July I ran an international health and safety course in Warsaw and hosted dinner at home one night for the participants.  A  Brazilian colleague, Alexander W, who was into yoga, psychic stuff and out-of-body experiences confided in me the following day while having lunch at the Patio Restaurant that he saw two manifestations in the garden of the house at Wrobla.  One was apparently a yellow circle of light/energy  normally associated with Buddhism.  When he asked if I was a Buddhist or have anything to do with Buddhism, I said no but that I did have a collection of amulets and charms from the Philippines, Hong Kong and other places which might emit such yellow light.  The other thing Alexander saw apparently was the ghost of a young woman standing in the backgarden.  He said that he did not feel anything negative about the ghost so it was possibly a friendly one.  In a way I was pleased by the fact that the ghost appeared a friendly one, but I was even more pleased to get confirmation that it was true that my house was host indeed to some supernatural presence, considering the skeptical tones some British colleagues made when they heard my story .<br /><br />My landlord, Jerzy Buczkowski, was sympathetic but adamant that nobody had died in the house.  It was a relatively new house and my predecessor and I were the only tenants.  So perhaps the ghost was of someone who died a long time ago, for who knows what the place was like over the long bloody course of Polish history?<br /><br />Another psychic friend in London, Diana Reed, gave me a smudge wand made of Taos sage, cedar and juniper, all sacred Native American herbs, to smoke the house out one night to clear it of the ghost.  The term ‘smudging’ is supposed to be the practice of cleansing ritual spaces, altars and tools with the smoke for purification and protection.  Well, I had not managed to do it despite repeatedly wanting to, with something else always happening, and so I eventually left the house with it undone at the end of my posting.<br /><br />The house at Wrobla was a lovely six-floor house, and I have many fond memories of living there.  Sharing the house though with a ghost did not really inspire much confidence especially at night when all one wanted and needed to do was to have some sleep.  Perhaps the female ghost was indeed looking after me and protecting the house, but it was not the kind of caring that I really would like to have.  Not in Poland.  Not anywhere else if I could help it.</span><br /> <br /> Written in 30 September 2002. Revised 9 October 2012. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=3629012486930784822&postID=7696288176499286902&target=facebook" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8VZfdyGqGxYxPWoelwmGbf0QFLIKAuJeUY4gkUrOuG0ypMqSfMCY5oXqRyQNoFBeMj4-rf3fO2HSZuuzFh6RfAhiQUOB0mhu1FMnZNnkfdasfJ-Tjd3cZm3lh88B0ouKAVkPXVh278OA/s1600/sharefb185.png" /></a> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=3629012486930784822&postID=7696288176499286902&target=twitter" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip3bfhc90-5xenm9-eqI_ICgI5V8KPl28Gu8oXZsvNDA_oIk8ioAazonJE38acYIiOnSDyuPWj6zn-8wCMPPY5TMVVENEoNk2PfH73eNX5qkEIkvLossHYwU848ikKXjhyr1MRuJIjmFo/s1600/sharetw185.png" /></a></div>

Continent Gene Alcantara Journal Poland Stories Ghosts at Wrobla

Photo from commons.wikimedia.org — by Gene Alcantara Not many people believe in ghosts.  This much I know.  Or perhaps many people wou...

Read more »