30 October 2007

006 ~ Hallowed Histories

Last week, on the day the world celebrated the UN’s 62nd founding anniversary, the Philippines mourned the death of an Armed Forces of the Philippines lieutenant colonel, who succumbed to malaria while serving as a military observer in the Sudan.

The sudden passage creates another somber moment in the long-running career of the global kawal, Tagalog for soldier, and a forbidding addition to the memorial of the fallen in Haïti, Liberia, East Timor, Vietnam, and Korea.

It doesn’t matter that some of them perished in action, fighting for the general good with "extraordinary bravery", then being honored with the Dag Hammarskjöld Medal in the Service of Peace, the US Congress Soldier’s Medal, or the sole Philippine Medal for Valor conferred on an individual in the line of international-peacekeeping duty. It doesn’t matter that the rest died of disease, accident, or some other kind of non-hostile misfortune.

What matters is that until the time of reckoning with their personal fate, these outbound Filipino soldiers all lived a consequential period of resuscitating a near-dead peace, of breathing light to a benighted land, and of improving other people's odds of finding better destinies.

The 16-year-old PNP Contingent, early into its endeavor, lost two men (Cambodia, 1992-93), not to enemy fire.

Before the untimely demise (the deaths came within a few months of each other), the police officers withstood the grind of staff work; community immersion; high-risk patrolling; and adapting to the overseas-service environment, which was a painstaking process for a neophyte contingent.

Early into the mission in Khmer territory, the two noncommissioned personnel (with ranks loosely equivalent to police master sergeants) accomplished as ordered, improvised and innovated as time-wisened enlisted men were expected to do. So that when they departed, the statistics* to which they were reduced did not appear in the records as squat little figures, and in vain.

Toward the end of the road, they were paving the way for sobriety in a hideously genocidal society. In their own unassuming ways, they were advancing a campaign that in a less than a year's time was written down in humankind’s annals as the UN’s first successfully concluded peacekeeping operation.

It was just very sad that they couldn't come home "vertically", at everybody's prayer during the contingent send-off, to jubilate the triumph that they'd helped achieve.


===
*The Filipino police officers were two of the 61 international military and civilian police personnel of the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia who died while in mission.

15 October 2007

005 ~ So Much for History

Around this time last year, the Department of Foreign Affairs hosted a fine evening of observance of the 61st UN Day.

There was an illuminating exhibit that bore the theme, “Stand Up for Peace, Stand Up for A Better World”. Sumptuous cocktails and pleasantries followed to assure a successful celebration of the Philippines’ 61st year as an operative figure in the world peace pursuit.

The most meaningful of the events, however, was the preceding program that showcased cultural dance and song talents; unveiled an issue of Philippine Postal Corporation commemorative stamps; and, best of all, graciously handed out certificates of recognition to the international peacekeeping contingents of the PNP and the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

The audience could feel the pride of the uniformed men from the honored line, each taking a turn to represent his organization in receiving the token signed by Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto G Romulo. The sheet of paper, one per mission, wrote of the Philippine government’s appreciation for the efficient discharge of peace-restoration duties in places outside national borders. It embodied the belief of the Filipino people that despite lingering problems at home, enkindling the spirit of good-neighborliness was as noble as it was necessary.

At the time, halfway into its fifteenth year of overseas service, the PNP Contingent was overseeing the simultaneous deployment of 280-odd police officers in Africa’s east and west coasts, the Caribbean, East Asia and the Middle East, and Eastern Europe –sustaining a special political endeavor, organizing the ballot, keeping the peace with or without an armed mandate. At the time, there was an unwitting preparation being made for yet another recognition, already an international one, of the Philippines being the world’s top UNPol contributor.

Now at sixteen, the PNP Contingent keeps growing in strength, coverage, and experience, given the additional global-policing slots in UNMIN, the UN Mission in Nepal, and UNAMID, the African Union/UN Mission in Darfur.

In mid-2007, Filipino police officers went near the "Top of the World", on a UN special political mission (the PNP's second, after Afghanistan), to scale the challenge of successfully administering the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the Nepalese government and the Maoist Communist Party. In a few months, about 45 Filipino police officers will fly to the Sahara, to shape a peace and order landscape that would have been haven for 200,000 lives snuffed out in the heat of the Janjaweed rampage. The PNP's men- and women-in-uniform will join a large-scale hybrid effort between the incumbent forces of the African Union and the new assemblage of UN Blue Berets, 26,000 or thereabouts in all.

There are times when people innocently ask why the PNP, or the Philippine government for that matter, can afford the extravagance of coping with the demands of wars that are not theirs, when internally the police-to-population ratio is a frustrating figure.

The outward reason, as written in the Philippine Constitution’s Declaration of Principles and State Policies, is adherence to “the policy of peace, equality, justice, freedom, cooperation, and amity with all nations”. The Philippines, being a UN founding member (and, on quite a number of times, actively seized of highly critical UN Security Council matters), should not be remiss on her obligation to humanity. She is out there to defeat the evils of hatred and strife, being spread at a harrowing speed, and not her purpose for existence.

The inward reason, although a still-to-be-optimized one, is the benefit given –given back to, actually– the Filipino police outfit. Returning members of the PNP Contingent carry a wealth of experience with which to boost action on the home front. They were not mere eyewitnesses to the effects of discord; they were among the brains and brawn that reversed the torment brought about by genocides and ethnic purges, civil wars and foreign intrusions. They were among the brains and brawn that put teeth into the host country’s law enforcement arm.

The ideal when the Filipino police officers come back is for them to act as instruments for retooling an institution bereft of a consistently clean and dignified image. With more than three million (wo)man-hours of international peacekeeping experience, since Day One in Cambodia (3 April 1992) and through the non-UN periods in Haïti (1994-95) and Iraq (2003-04), the PNP Contingent has countless ways of contributing to peace and order in its homestead.

The envisioned reentry program for the PNP Contingent is geared toward the intensive training of recruits and specialization-course students, on the areas of crime prevention and suppression, crime investigation, police-community relations, administration of manpower and logistics.

It is assumed that the package includes making good use of the UN’s principle of “democratic policing”, where police officers are representative to the community; responsive to public needs and expectations; and accountable to the law, ethics, and morals of the land. It is also assumed that the package values the fact that the PNP Contingent –having undertaken the design or redesign of police academies in failed states, the vetting and certification of trainees, advisory work with the incumbent local law enforcers– can see through renovating its own organization’s structure.

Currently, PNP Chief Police Director-General Avelino I Razon Jr is charged by his commander in chief to galvanize the country’s human rights advocacy. Now is an opportune moment to have the PNP Contingent (the returning unit, to be more specific) on its mettle, with lessons learned from being exposed to effects of the unthinkable abuses inflicted on men, women, and children –by men, women, and, in the most shocking situations, armed-to-the-hilt children.

Sixty-plus years of the Philippines standing up for a better world by preserving humankind outside of her backyard is not a hollow gesture or an exercise in futility. (Even during her military’s two-decade rest from peacekeeping overseas, circa 1970-90, she was involved in international discussions on shaping a better future for Cambodia and East Timor, all of which paid off in time.)

The short of it is that there is a big, noble cause behind the act of sharing, no matter from which perspective it is viewed. The commensurate return, the modest reward, should not be left to fritter away.