The Nobelists and the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill

The desperate attempt of ANTI-RH camp at name-dropping scientific scholars is outrageous! Sadly, they often cite two of my teachers in economics — Michael Spence and George Akerlof — devoid of accuracy, context and the specificities of their studies. Spence and Akerlof won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 (together with Joseph Stiglitz) on the economics of information - specifically, "for their analyses of markets with asymmetric information". Their names, as well as God's, have been used irresponsibly for the church's and its fans' disinformation propaganda. 

The Rebel with the Nobelists Michael Spence and George Akerlof
(I.S.E.O. Summer School, Iseo, Brescia, Italy, June 2010) 

If Spence and Akerlof had studied the bill and the Philippine case closely, I have no doubts they would be in favour of the RH Bill. I believe that the task of convincingly answering all the criticisms against the RH Bill has essentially been completed. This is the prerequisite for it to be enacted asap! 

Michael Spence is now Chair of the Commission on Growth and Development, or the 'Growth Commission'. Having been acquainted with his work, a participant in his lectures, and knowing his emphasis on the necessity of country-specific studies, my sense is that Spence will be in favour of the RH Bill. He would most likely remind implementors though of the importance of functioning 'institutions' and 'timing' in public health intervention. In the concluding remarks of the Growth Commission's study Health and Growth (2009), Spence wrote: 

" Historically, progress in health owed much to adequate food and public health interventions, and those important relationships persist in the modern world. Chronic illness undermines current productivity and promises future losses in output. These deprivations can be passed on to the next generation if investments in children are not made in a targeted and timely fashion. Good health improves the capacity to learn and work, which dramatically improves income and welfare at the household level even if the effects at the aggregate level may be harder to discern. The methodological problems in capturing these gains deserve attention and further work. More attention also needs to be paid to upgrading healthcare institutions, as more of the same is neither affordable nor desirable. "

See: Health and Growth (2009)

Certificate received from Robert Solow and George Akerlof
"Learn Economics from Nobel Laureates", Iseo, Italy (2010)

George Akerlof, together with his wife, Janet Yellen, studied out-of-wedlock childbearing specifically in the context of the US from the 1960s to the 1980s focussing on states with liberalised contraception and legal abortion — therefore, these are conditions and circumstances that do not apply in contemporary Philippine context (which is very important in Akerlof's recent work on 'identity economics') and the provisions of the RH Bill. Anyway, here's the concluding recommendation of Akerlof and Yellen (1996) in their short article, "Why Kids Have Kids: Don't blame welfare, blame 'technology shock'":

" What should be done? Even if possible, attempts to turn back the technological clock by restricting abortion and contraception would now be counterproductive. Besides denying reproductive freedom to women, such efforts would increase the number of children born and reared in impoverished single-parent families. Most children born out of wedlock are reported by their mothers to have been "wanted," but "not at that time." Some are reported as not having been wanted at all. Easier access to birth-control information and devices and to abortion could reduce the number of unwanted children and improve the timing of those whose mothers would have preferred to wait. "

See: George A. Akerlof and Janet L. Yellen (1996) "Why Kids Have Kids: Don't blame welfare, blame 'technology shock'"

The RH Bill is no panacea for all social ills. It was never envisioned or peddled as such, and never will it be. In fact, RH advocates are also strong proponents of other important measures for economic, political, social, cultural, institutional, and moral reforms towards a much more democratic, developed, humane, caring, and just Philippine society and a community of nations.

The RH Bill can and must be enacted as soon as possible!

Salaried work for bus drivers, plus profit sharing

Enforcing monthly salary to public utility bus drivers is a good initiative and opens up a good opportunity to instill professionalism among our 'professional' drivers and workers in the transport sector. Sadly, it has taken countless lives to initiate such reforms. Our market-driven ('boundary system') transport sector has to be reformed.

Personally, I believe in salaried work for these workers, plus profit sharing with the bus owners and operators. PNoy and his team can do it! Political will!

From "Users" to "Producers" of Technology

Reference to the article "The Ten Nations Where Facebook Rules The Internet"

This time the Philippines is "The Social Networking Capital of the World" — from friendster to facebook. Before, the country was "The Text Messaging Capital of the World". 

Indeed, Filipinos have been great "users" of technology. But it's only when we become "producers" of technology that we can catch-up with development.

A key to progress has always been the "production" of things and ideas.

Long live the legend Bob Marley!

Thanks for the songs of freedom. Peace, Bob Marley! You left us 30 years ago, but your spirit lives on. Long live the legend!

Here's a collection of Bob Marley's Top 10 Most Politically Significant Songs by Casey Gane-McCalla: 

10. War. Bob took a speech from the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haille Selassie at the United Nations and made it a song that showed how racism was the cause of the many wars in Africa at the time.

9. Concrete Jungle. This song represented the struggle of the urban poor in the third world. Though the song refers to Arnett Gardens, a garrison in Jamaica, it could represent the poverty and tension found in any ghetto.

8. Redemption Song. This epic ballad represents the fight for freedom in the face of great adversity.

7. Africa Unite. During the 70s when Africa was ridding itself from colonialism, Bob made an anthem that would call for its countries to join forces in Pan-Africanism.

6. Revolution. Another song that calls for both a mental and physical revolution, wiping out wicked ideas from society.

5. Rat Race. While accusations of the CIA operating in Jamaica were common place, Bob addressed the issue in this song, “Rasta now work for no CIA.”

4. Belly Full. Bob goes into the poverty and drastic wealth inequality between the rich and poor in both Jamaica and this world, and the tension that they cause.

3. Get Up Stand Up. Though this song deals with the Rastafarian faith, it has become an anthem for sufferers everywhere.

2. Zimbabwe. This song represents the hope excitement of independent Africa and celebrates the fighters who fought against colonialism.

1. Ambush. In The Nigh. Bob was shot in 1976 and he addresses it in this song. He did not blame any political party despite accusations that the U.S. backed JLP was behind it, Bob did not blame any party but the climate of political nepotism and violence that lead to the attack.

Long live the spirit for freedom, justice, peace, unity, and love!

Fortress Denmark

Reference to BBC News report 'Schengen state Denmark to re-impose border controls'

Oh, fortress Denmark! 

Anyway, protectionist and nationalist tendencies can easily be predicted in the EU, where political-economic class alliances forged integration under conditions of uneven development. 

This right-wing government is 'alienating' Denmark from its old humane, progressive social system founded on the values of care and concern for others, solidarity, communitarianism, and egalitarianism. 

Resist and change!

"Workers spend what they get; capitalists get what they spend."

Reference to the Speech of President Aquino at the 32nd National Conference of Employers

I like this speech of PNoy before the ECOP. The gist of his message to the employers reminds me of Keynes and the aphorism of Kalecki: "Workers spend what they get; capitalists get what they spend." 

I hope PNoy maintains this common sense in the art of creating a middle-income nation where economic growth leads to high income for the workers, increased earnings for the investors, and a larger tax base for the government!

It's the Economy: The Threat to PNoy's Satisfaction Ratings

Reference to the GMA News Online report "SWS: Satisfaction with govt dips, but most still pleased"

If there's any that would gradually drag down PNoy's satisfaction rating, it's the economy. 

 

No doubt, PNoy has made very good political initiatives, including the appointment of progressives to important socio-political positions. However, the visioning and management of 'the economy' has remained the exclusive turf of the same monetarists-technocrats from Marcos to GMA (like Paderanga, Virata, Purisima, Sicat....).

We are all workers!

Labour is source of value and wealth! We are all workers!

Some Principles and Policies to Address Oil Price Hike and Inflation

Reference to the GMA News Online report "Govt is caught between business policy and oil prices, says Energy chief"

We are in a very difficult situation! Oil prices largely contribute to inflation.

But I find Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras statements here more sensible than the Friedmanian conclusion of Deputy Presidential Spokeswoman Abigail Valte on price-control-leads-to-shortage. In a way, the legal action and monitoring mechanisms by DOE-DOJ are 'price control policies' that are good to combat 'administered pricing' of the greedy oil companies. But this is not enough!

The Galbraithian-Keynesian sense of Walden Bello should be seriously considered, addressing the needs for price stability and full employment towards growth, social welfare and social justice.

'Effective price controls' should be instituted with 'wage controls' to prevent imbalance between profits/investments and wages/incomes.

Fiscal policies must prioritize the people, workers and consumers through expenditures on job-creating programs and tax cuts (including of EVAT and in tolls).

Realign targeted funds of CCT in favor of 'universalization' of social welfare; government job guarantee schemes (a la Minsky's government-as-employer-of-last-resort); and SME financing.

Use this crisis as an opportunity for socio-economic reforms (including disciplining of 'market forces'), as well as for environmental sustainability (alternatives to foreign oil-based production system).

PNoy administration must rediscover 'coordination' — in other words, team work — for this should involve a coordinated response from literally every department and agency of the government.

And yes, we also need good luck!

"The Economics of Happiness"

I would like to see this documentary.... A movement for economic localization sounds appealing to me as well. It's a viable alternative development system. 



The Economics of Happiness - Official Trailer from The Economics of Happiness on Vimeo.

Watch the video clips and trailer here.

Letter from Carlota Perez: 'The world is transformed by transforming it. And to transform anything one has to know how.'

I will be moving out of Tallinn in a few days' time. I will definitely miss the sights, sounds, smell, taste, and feel of Tallinn (I don't even wear my iPod these days, trying to be present most of the time and cherishing the things that I'll miss - those that have had become a part of my routine in the last 10 months). Tallinn has taught me a lot - academically, professionally, and personally. Thank you, thank you, thank you! The Tallinn experience has indeed been a good game, and will have tremendous impact on the pursuit of my personal legend.

As I pack up my things and tidy up my files for my return to the Philippines and later on settling in Denmark for another upcoming adventure, I came across this letter to me by Carlota Perez, author of the longtime Edward Elgar bestseller Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages (2002). To act as her teaching assistant on September 2006 was one of the best learning encounters I had in Tallinn. I have gotten to know closely a serious researcher, a dedicated teacher, and a truly lovely woman. I wish to share with you this thoughtful letter of Tita Carlota, instilling in me that idealism should be firmly grounded on wisdom and knowledge.

7 October 2006

Dear Bonn,

I read your letter now. It holds very similar views to your review and it is also very well written and argued. But of course you now know that I do not believe in those total transformations of the system.

We do not have any alternative theory to capitalism. Certainly Marx ended his critique of the system by saying that the workers should take over. That is not a theory of how to do it. Worse still, the foundations of that tenet are the socialization of the forces of production which he thought was occurring at the end of the second great surge. Many things have happened since then. Among other things his proposal was tried out and failed.

The Soviet experience showed how the workers (or the members of the party that says to represent them) become a privileged caste that uses power for its own aims and to control society but is not capable of setting up a social system of happiness for all. In my view, the best historical example of something really decent was the Swedish social democratic experience, but that (as much as the Soviet one and the Keynesian welfare state) was based on the characteristics of the mass production paradigm, which is now exhausted.

Thus we do not have a theory (or historical experiences) of how growth and social development can be achieved in a manner that is different from capitalism. We do have the experience of modifying capitalism as in the Keynesian welfare state to improve the lot of the great majority of society. I certainly believe in understanding the world in order to transform it for the better. My present understanding leads me to think that we can improve the present world with the present paradigm in ways that will make the lot of the majority of the people on the planet better.

It is not easy and it requires knowledge, knowledge and more knowledge; perseverance, perseverance and more perseverance; creativity, creativity and more creativity. It will not happen with anger, resentment, desperation, impatience, radical criticism or violence and destruction.

One cannot transform the world by "revealing" how awful it is and by wishing it were radically different. The world is transformed by transforming it. And to transform anything one has to know how.

I understand your impatience and I value the very serious efforts you are putting into studying and your acute sensitivity to injustice and inequality. I know, however, that personal experience is accumulated tacit knowledge that I cannot transmit to you. There is no other way than for you to learn for yourself through trial and error.

You can count on me in your journey.

Best wishes,
Carlota

One could just imagine how ecstatic I am receiving this reply from Carlota herself two years after I wrote it in the first instance only as a course requirement. I wrote my letter to her on September 2004 - the first time I read her book as a requirement in the course by J. Gabriel Palma when I was doing my International Masters in Regional Integration (IMRI) degree at the Asia-Europe Institute. Gabriel then required us to write a one-page 'think piece', a reflection of the assigned reading for each day. For that day, I chose to read her book and my 'think piece' style was in the form of a letter to the author. I read the letter in class. I read it again in Erik Reinert's course, as well as in Banji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka's and Carlo Pietrobelli's, professors who also required us to read her book. Here was the think piece I wrote:

20 September 2004

Dear Carlota Perez:

In your book Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages (2002) you have reinvented Schumpeter's concern on financial capital that greatly influences economic growth and technological transformation by interpreting how the changing relationship between technological advances and financial capital shapes the pattern of economic cycles. Avoiding the technological determinist trap, you have argued on the historical specificity of technological revolutions, which represents what you call 'techno-economic paradigms', and showing the interaction among technology, politics, society and culture leading to certain economic pattern.

Providing a historical and empirical account of the link between technology and finance, you have interpreted in detail the major historical breakthrough depicted in what you call 'techno-economic paradigms' that initiated the revolution: the industrial revolution (1771); the age of steam and railways (1829); the age of steel, electricity and heavy engineering (1875); the age of oil, the automobile and mass production (1908); and the age of information and telecommunications (1971). In this long-wave economic cycle phenomenon, you have focused on the crucial role played by social and institutional factors in first resisting the technological revolution, and then facilitating its unfolding potential.

An interesting point you have also made in your book is your distinction between production capital and financial capital not along the lines of the quantity of assets but on the motives and criteria of the agents with the purpose of creating wealth in a capitalist system. In the epilogue, you have recommended for the leadership of production capital (i.e., agents who generate new wealth by producing goods and services and whose objective is to accumulate greater and greater profit-making capacity) over financial capital (i.e., agents who already possess wealth and whose objective is to make money grow).

Far from being revolutionary (i.e., changing the social structure from the unjust domination of capital to a more humane one), you have concluded the need to (re)create institutions that are coherent for continued capital accumulation. While you may have aptly utilized historical-structural analysis in interpreting the dynamics of economics, you seem to fail in putting the social back in to your overall analysis. There is little doubt that the dynamics between technological revolution and financial capital throughout history, and which lead us to the current information society, have made major impacts on the relations between human beings and their environments across different social groups. However, it is in ways that largely enhance, and even recompose, existing relationships in a capitalist system. I am thus interested in asking 'how is the political economy of social relations shifting under the impact of market-led technological revolution?' What are the consequences of technological revolution, and its corresponding economic pattern, in the realm of corporate control and popular use?

I would like to think that the dynamics between technological revolution and financial capital entail both an institutional and ideological intervention toward the strengthening of market-driven social relations. Institutionally, market forces are managed through privatization (i.e., the sale of public assets to private investors), liberalization (i.e., opening up of restricted markets to competition), the reorientation of regulation (i.e., the securing of business interest), and corporatization (i.e., public sector organizations adopting corporate form of organization). In your book, you have questioned socio-political institutions without even questioning the political economy of capitalism in which the information revolution has brought rising inequalities of condition. The widening of social divisions is resonated in ownership of and access to technology and finance. The great unconsummated project of our time is not just to interpret reality but to change it.

Thank you,

BONN BRYAN T. JUEGO
IMRI Student (Philippines)

Carlota gave me a present - an original copy of her book which she personally used in her course at Tallinn University of Technology with the following dedication: 'To Bonn Juego - With good wishes for a brilliant future (30 Sept. 2006)'. Thanks for the inspiration, Tita. Thank you for being part of my nurturing. I'd definitely love your presence in my journey - your valuable accumulated tacit knowledge shall provide a firm grounding on my youthful idealism.

Erik Reinert (2007), 'How Rich Countries Got Rich ... and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor'

The new book of my supervisor, Erik S. Reinert, is now available at (online) bookstores: How Rich Countries Got Rich ... and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor (London: Constable, 2007). I am reproducing the details of the book below.

It is fascinating how this book has sparked both intense and intensive debates in economics, business, and the social sciences already, given that it was only published late April. Find out for yourself why Erik's book has elicited interesting debates as soon as it was published from mainstream economists to heterodox economists to socialists to journalists to bloggers. (Here for Erik's reply to recent debates on his book.)

Do get one for you and for your institutes/organisations/networks/schools/libraries!

*****
HOW RICH COUNTRIES GOT RICH ... AND WHY POOR COUNTRIES STAY POOR
by Erik S. Reinert

----
AUTHOR

Erik S. Reinert is editor of Globalization, Economic Development and Inequality: An Alternative Perspective (2004) and co-editor of The Origins of Development Economics: How Schools of Economic Thought Have Addressed Development (2005). He is Professor of Technology Governance and Development Strategies at Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia, and president of The Other Canon foundation in Norway. He is one of the world’s leading heterodox development economists.

For further information see www.othercanon.org.

----
SYNOPSIS

From Renaissance Italy to the modern Far East, the development of the world’s wealthy nations has been driven by a combination of government intervention, initial protectionism, and the strategically timed introduction of free trade and investments. So says Erik Reinert, a leading economist who does not subscribe to the orthodoxy. Yet despite its demonstrable success, when it comes to development in the poorer nations, Western powers have largely ignored this approach and have taken the toughest of hard lines on the importance of free trade.

Reinert sets out his revisionist history of economics and shows how the discipline has long been torn between the continental Renaissance tradition on one hand and the free market theories of English and later American economics on the other. He argues that our economies were founded on protectionism and state activism and it was long before they could afford the luxury of free trade. When our leaders come to lecture poor countries on the right road to riches they do so in almost perfect ignorance of the real history of mass affluence.

One country’s medicine could be another country’s poison. A book aimed at a politically aware and progressively minded readership, How Rich Countries Got Rich . . . will bury economic orthodoxy once and for all and open up the debate on why free trade is not the best answer for our hopes of worldwide prosperity.

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CONTENTS

Foreword by Jomo K.S., UN Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development and Founder Chair of International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs)

Introduction

1 Discovering Types of Economic Theories
2 The Evolution of the Two Different Approaches
3 Emulation: How Rich Countries Got Rich
4 Globalization: the Arguments in Favour are also the Arguments Against
5 Globalization and Primitivization: How the Poor Get Even Poorer
6 Explaining Away Failure: Red Herrings at the End of History
7 Palliative Economics: Why the Millenium Goals are a Bad Idea
8 'Get the economic activities right', or, the Lost Art of Creating Middle-Income Countries

Appendices

I David Ricardo's Theory of Comparative Advantage in International Trade
II Two Different Ways of Understanding the Economic World and the Wealth and Poverty of Nations
III Frank Graham's Theory of Uneven Development
IV Two Ideal Types of Protectionism Compared
V Philipp von Hönigk's Nine Points on How to Emulate the Rich Countries (1684)
VI The Quality Index of Economic Activities

Notes
Bibliography
Index

(365 pages)

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PRAISES

'Reinert forces you to think. He reaches deep into economic history and the history of economics - the history of theory, practice and policy - creatively synthesizing an evolutionary, institutionalist, new 'canon', putting technological progress and production experience - 'learning by doing' - at the centre of economic development. '

- Jose Antonio Ocampo, UN Undersecretary General for Economic and Social Affairs

'Warning: this book will forever change your conception of economic development.'
- Professor Carlota Perez, Tallinn University of Technology and Cambridge University

'Disinters those awkward truths the free trade theorists wanted dead and buried. Reinert's brilliant forensics rebuild a convincing economic blueprint for tackling world poverty.'
- Alex MacGillvray, author of A Brief History of Globalization

'Erik Reinert's book represents a breakthrough in our understanding of the links between technology and the wealth and poverty of nations.'
- Christopher Freeman, Professor Emeritus, SPRU, University of Sussex

'A fascinating overview of how contemporary economics came to follow its historic path, and of a different route it might have, and may still yet, pursue.'
- Robert Heilbroner, on Reinert's 'The Role of the State in Economic Growth'

Dengan Cemerlang / With Distinction / Summa cum laude

The European Union education system has finally recognised the International Masters degree (with distinction) conferred to me by the Asia-Europe Institute, University of Malaya. As such, I am now eligible to pursue doctoral studies in any European university.

After receiving the call in the office from the credentials evaluator of the academic recognition centre, I had a look at the diploma and transcript of records which I submitted to them for assessment. I glanced at the diploma in an offhand manner. Nothing special; and I thought it was even printed in an ordinary paper. What struck my attention more was that the paper was a bit crumpled due to the careless handling of the courier despite my friend Tina's (who I know to be very particular and caring) all caps notice to the courier in Malaysia when she mailed it to me here in Estonia: ‘PLS. DON'T FOLD. IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS INSIDE. THANK YOU!’

When I got back to the dorm, I thought of sending emails to my former professors - each of them has actually made an original contribution to their respective fields, making them to be among the world’s most distinguished scholars in the fields of development economics, regional integration, and political economy. I sent emails to them, expressing all over again my gratitude to the wonderful learning encounters I had with them when I was doing my MA, and also sharing with them the honour of receiving the ‘dengan cemerlang’, which is truly special to title-obsessed societies like Malaysia.

I never consider myself a great student. In fact, I had each and every mark in the University of the Philippines’ grading system encircled in my undergraduate classcards, from 1.0 to 1.75 to 2.25 to 3.0 to 4.0 to 5.0 to ‘inc’. The only grade I never had was ‘drp’ since I always said to myself then ‘tuloy ang laban’ (the fight shall continue) even though I could have handily opted for this grade when getting a 5.0 in Math 17 was already too imminent. I still keep all these undergraduate classcards in my ‘suitcase of memories’ (which is literally a suitcase where I have tried to keep memorable stuff since elementary and high school - and yes, including those cheesy love letters to my old crushes!). I was not in the top 10 of the graduating class in both elementary and high school. I had also my time in Row 4 (yes, that row for the slow, naughty pupils in the class!), kasama ng mga kakosa ko (with my fellow inmates), our groins always got pinched when I was in grade school. I did not even come from the top section in our high school when I graduated.

I received awards of recognition for leadership though for both the graduations in high school and college - as the highest boy scout leader in the former and as member of the student council and leader of several student organisations in the latter (I was even nominated to the UP Diliman Gawad Chanselor Para sa Pinakamahusay na Lider Estudyante [UP Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Leader] which, I was told, I could have won had it not for the ‘inc’ I had during that semester – long story). But then I do not consider myself to be academically excellent. During the time he was president of UP, my former professor, Francisco Nemenzo, even described me as ‘flippant at times’ in one of the ‘handwritten’ recommendation/reference forms he filled out for me. (Yes, I've kept that recommendation letter in my suitcase)!

In other words, getting a ‘summa cum laude’ for my International Master’s degree feels too good to be true, if not funny enough. Until I received replies from my former professors.... And these lines flattered me but saddened me as well (especially when this wonderful and passionate teacher said his teaching stint is now over):

Dear Bonn,

…[T]he honorific "dengan cemerlang" is entirely merited - whatever...you went through in...Malaysia could never take away from the fact, pure and simple, that you are an outstanding scholar with a tremendous passion for knowledge. You deserve everything, Bonn!

Though you are in my heart for many reasons - not least your high-level monkeying around - I also realise that you were my last great protege as a student and, if I may say so, the best of the bunch. Sometimes I pass a few moments thinking of those whom I have taught - [IP, LC, AN, DK, RR], and the rest. They're all in the academic world, ploughing their furrow, teaching a new generation, writing their findings. But you were the best and you will go furthest in pushing our understanding of critical political economy. I feel my teaching stint is done ... time for other things now.

Thanks for the very kind words, Professor, especially for the reminder that what has been awarded to me is full of meaning. I'll try to carry on. Now I have understood more than ever why my mother was disappointed to learn that I did not attend the convocation to receive this distinction. I have once again discovered how the mundane can be extraordinarily special, how one thing can contain everything, and how the commonplace can be deciphered to understand its beautiful mystery.

I had a sentimental glance at the diploma, embraced it close to my heart thanking those who have blessed, helped, and motivated me, including the Malaysian people, especially the workers, whose sweat has cultivated and fertilised me with so much blessings. And I said to myself that I will never look at that crumpled paper indifferently again! It is a token readily retrievable from memory to keep me inspired especially during times of doubt when a dormant optimism needs to be awakened. Indeed, like any other objects, that piece of crumpled paper is inanimate. It is I who shall give life to it.

Well-meaning friends and family often ask me: Why Malaysia when I could get to Singapore? Why Estonia when I could get to the UK or the US? I thank Robert Frost for providing the answer:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

P.S. The other day I received another beautiful inspiring letter from my first ever boss and former professor, who is well-regarded as a serious scholar with multi-awarded research and who recommended me to do my MA at the Asia-Europe Institute.

Dear Bonn,

It looks like you're living a charmed and charming life out there getting to places we can only imagine and meeting all kinds of interesting and important people. You also work with a very solid core of scholars who are on the cutting edges of unorthodox but compellingly relevant academic and policy approaches to the social sciences.

Indeed, we grow and progress in life remembering what motivates and inspires us, and forgetting the old things of no value that have once stolen our dreams. This, I – we – must take to heart and keep in mind. This is how to play a good game dengan cemerlang, with distinction.

A Meaningful Easter in this Wonderland

During the Holy Week I've been writing to friends that I felt the Holy Week more when I was in the predominantly Muslim country of Malaysia a couple of years ago than here in the predominantly Lutheran Estonia. But after some heartfelt encounters I had with an old working woman in the laundry on Holy Wednesday and Maundy Thursday, I could say I have not only 'felt' the spirit of Lent here, I have soulfully 'experienced' it. This heartwarming experience I hold between me and my God. I go BAGETS for the Holy Week; thanks to a reminder from Fr. Jerry Orbos, whose reflective message I also forwarded to family and friends for Lent: Balik Panginoon, Alis Galit, Gawa Mabuti, Express your love, Tanggal Bisyo, Sacrifice, Smile, Secret. I thus keep these things a secret, something between me and my Master. As Fr. Jerry wrote:

S-Secret: If you want to experience real joy, do all of the above in secret. Let it be something just between you and your God, and you’ll experience a joy which the world cannot give or take away. Come to think of it, maybe this is the reason I started this column with a note about being a secretary—a reminder to keep our Lenten project of transformation and communication a secret.

As I am not familiar with the changes in the schedule the church here made in observance of the Holy Week, I thought of dropping by the church yesterday to see whether an English mass would be celebrated. There I found myself as the only member of the faithful, aside from the two guys fixing some decorations in the altar. I knelt down and stayed awhile for some quiet moments. I then proceeded to the bookstore where I found myself holding Lewis Carroll's classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass (1871). I bought it, as well as Jorge Luis Borges' The Mirror of Ink (1933) -- both I intend to read when I leave Tallinn and travel around Europe in the next few weeks.

I am a child again. I have started reading Alice in Wonderland this Easter Sunday. I am enjoying it. The book has both pictures and conversations! As Alice said to her sister at the beginning of the book: 'and what is the use of a book without pictures or conversation?' This line immediately hit me, and made me smile, being reminded of those moments when I used to candidly say to my bookworm friends that I don't read novels because I find them too long and all letters! But then a friend once teased me during one of our trips to Puerto Galera when she caught me relaxing in my cottage holding a heavy read, and she said to me: 'Why are you reading Marx on the beach?!'

Thus far, I have now encountered several characters in Alice's Wonderland. The first was the White Rabbit with pink eyes (whose figure is also the illustration in Chapter One) which ran close by Alice uttering, 'Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!', and taking a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket. To her burning curiosity seeing for the first time a rabbit with a waistcoat-pocket and a watch, Alice followed the White Rabbit and there she found herself down the rabbit-hole to experience the adventures in wonderland. (Interestingly, since this classic work the image of a 'white rabbit' in many folklore has been related to a sign of a new adventure and even good luck.)

Upon searching for e-cards to send to friends this morning I have noticed that the images and symbols that are associated with Easter include eggs, flowers, ducks or hens, rabbits or bunnies, and crucifix or the risen Lord. I am reminded of the Philippines where most people observe the Lent in the sorrowful passion of Christ, and hence the images of the cross and the performance of various penance. In other countries, however, Lent is observed with symbols of eggs, flowers and bunnies, which may appear to some to be only about a celebration of the glorious moment of Easter without the sorrowful mystery of the season. I do not want to go deeper into a discussion of this seeming difference in observance of Lent in various places and its implications for peoples' worldviews.

Cultural symbols signify a great deal about the way of life and thinking of people in a given territory. But I must also hasten to say: cultural symbols are not only bounded in space, or in a given territory, but also in time. It is sad to think that important cultural symbols that can be said to comprise a 'good life' only take the spotlight during occasional specific time frames (e.g., the images of rabbit and the risen Lord are only prominent during Lent). Such is the tragic case in my dear country. Rather than being truly integrated into the lifeworld of people, the symbols of Easter -- which all point to the virtues of faith, hope, and love -- will be corrupted by the vicious curse of the materiality of the political economy of poverty and plutocracy. The reason ain't mystery, it's history: people's way of living, or their happiness, is profoundly link to the wider material and social world.

After reading the first chapters of Alice's Wonderland, I flicked through the last pages of the book and there I found this beautiful and timely letter from Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, which I am reproducing here. I imagine this letter to have been written to me, both as a child of my dear mother and as a child of the struggle for change. Too, I wish I could have written these lines to the children of the world, especially the hopeful children in the Land of the Morning, the Pearl of the Orient, my dear country, Pilipinas. Sadly, like many other classic works, Carroll's story endures but the impact of its message is obscured in the history of human relations. Written in the spring exactly 131 years ago, we may cry a la Alice, becoming 'Curiouser and curiouser' and later on find ourselves swimming through the pool of tears we have had wept in the course of our adventures in this wonderland we call our world. But then again, it is the challenges and adventures, and our reflection upon our past, present, and future, that make life worth living.

An Easter Greeting
TO EVERY CHILD WHO LOVES
Alice

DEAR CHILD - Please to fancy, if you can, that you are reading a real letter, from a real friend whom you have seen, and whose voice you can seem to yourself to hear, wishing you, as I do now with all my heart, a happy Easter.

Do you know that delicious dreamy feeling, when one first wakes on a summer morning, with the twitter of birds in the air, and the fresh breeze coming in at the open window — when, lying lazily with eyes half-shut, one sees as in a dream green boughs waving, or waters rippling in a golden light? It is a pleasure very near to sadness, bringing tears to one’s eyes like a beautiful picture or poem. And is not that a Mother’s gentle hand that undraws your curtains, and a Mother’s sweet voice that summons you to rise? To rise and forget, in the bright sunlight, the ugly dreams that frightened you so when all was dark — to rise and enjoy another happy day, first kneeling to thank that unseen Friend who sends you the beautiful sun?

Are these strange words from a writer of such tales as Alice? And is this a strange letter to find in a book of nonsense? It may be so. Some perhaps may blame me for thus mixing together things grave and gay; others may smile and think it odd that any one should speak of solemn things at all, except in Church and on a Sunday: but I think — nay, I am sure — that some children will read this gently and lovingly, and in the spirit in which I have written it.

For I do not believe God means us thus to divide life into two halves — to wear a grave face on Sunday, and to think it out-of-place to even so much as to mention Him on a week-day. Do you think He cares to see only kneeling figures and to hear only tones of prayer — and that He does not also love to see the lambs leaping in the sunlight, and to hear the merry voices of the children, as they roll among the hay? Surely their innocent laughter is as sweet in His ears as the grandest anthem that ever rolled up from the 'dim religious light' of some solemn cathedral?

And if I have written anything to add to those stores of innocent and healthy amusement that are laid up in books for the children I love so well, it is surely something I may hope to look back upon without shame and sorrow (as how much of life must then be recalled!) when my turn comes to walk through the valley of shadows.

This Easter sun will rise on you, dear child, feeling your 'life in every limb', and eager to rush out into the fresh morning air — and many an Easter-day will come and go, before it finds you feeble and grey-headed, creeping wearily out to bask once more in the sunlight — but it is good, even now, to think sometimes of that great morning when the 'Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings'.

Surely your gladness need not be the less for the thought that you will one day see a brighter dawn than this — when lovelier sights will meet your eyes than any waving trees or rippling waters — when angel-hands shall undraw your curtains, and sweeter tones than ever loving Mother breathed shall wake you to a new and glorious day — and when all the sadness, and the sin, that darkened life on this little earth, shall be forgotten like the dreams of a night that is past!

Your affectionate friend,

LEWIS CARROLL
Easter 1876

I could so well relate to this letter. I have discovered the child in me again. This, especially, I personally dearly miss:

Do you know that delicious dreamy feeling, when one first wakes on a summer morning, with the twitter of birds in the air, and the fresh breeze coming in at the open window—when, lying lazily with eyes half-shut, one sees as in a dream green boughs waving, or waters rippling in a golden light? It is a pleasure very near to sadness, bringing tears to one’s eyes like a beautiful picture or poem. And is not that a Mother’s gentle hand that undraws your curtains, and a Mother’s sweet voice that summons you to rise? To rise and forget, in the bright sunlight, the ugly dreams that frightened you so when all was dark — to rise and enjoy another happy day, first kneeling to thank that unseen Friend who sends you the beautiful sun?

And this, particularly, for all the children of the 'Sun of righteousness', I earnestly pray:

...[B]ut it is good, even now, to think sometimes of that great morning when the 'Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings'.

Surely your gladness need not be the less for the thought that you will one day see a brighter dawn than this — when lovelier sights will meet your eyes than any waving trees or rippling waters — when angel-hands shall undraw your curtains, and sweeter tones than ever loving Mother breathed shall wake you to a new and glorious day — and when all the sadness, and the sin, that darkened life on this little earth, shall be forgotten like the dreams of a night that is past!

Wishing you and your families all the blessings Easter brings. May we all keep the Easter virtues of faith, hope, and love alive in our hearts. And may we not forget that the greatest of them all is love. Let the invincible love in us conquer the alienating curse of wickedness, anger, hatred, and fear haunting many of us.

Have a meaningful Easter down the rabbit-hole in our adventures for the good life in this wonderland!