Amid renewed clashes between the military and terrorist groups in Mindanao, the Filipino-Chinese community has stepped up its support for the cause of educating poor kids who swim their way to school in Western Mindanao as a long-lasting solution to the peace and order problem there.

                The  Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran Inc (Kaisa), one of the country’s biggest Filipino-Chinese organizations, has donated 25 boxes of books and school supplies to two isolated Christian and Muslim communities where kids either swim in sea water or rampaging mountain rivers to reach schools in Zamboanga City and Zamboanga del Sur.

                “Education is a good ingredient for lasting peace. Peace is not just the absence of war but a situation where everyone regardless of race, religion, ethnicity and class can live their lives fully,” said Kaisa Founding President Teresita Ang See of their decision to help some 500 poor school children with their schooling.

                Kaisa is responding to the request of the Kristiyano-Islam Peace Library (Kris) for help to Muslim children in a mangrove community in Layag Layag, Zamboanga City who swim or wade their way to school for two hours daily.

                “We thank Kaisa for reaching out to these hapless kids who show true grid and determination by swimming their way to learning come hell or high water. There will be less violence in Mindanao if people there are less hungry, less angry and better educated,” said Kris Founding President Armand Dean Nocum .

                Nocum also thanked Asia Brewery Inc. Chief Operating Officer Michael G. Tanfor agreeing to undertake the transport of 25 boxes of books and schools supplies to Zamboanga City.

                In Zamboanga, Nocum will be working with Dr. Anton Lim of the Tzu Chi Foundation, blogger Jay Jaboneta and marketing guru Josiah Go who raised funds to build boats and provide other help to the Layag Layag community.

                In Tungawan, Sibugay, Zamboanga del Sur, Kris will help fill up the library of the Claret Mission Center of Claretian priest Fr. Larry Lorenzo so kids there will no longer have to walk hours over a combination of muddy, stony mountain terrain; and flood-prone rivers to reach the town’s public library.

                The Tungawan library is the 4th Kris Peace Library put up in partnership with the Claretian Missionary Order and the Kapatirang Claretian Inc (KCI), an organization of ex-Claretian priests and seminarians. There are Kris Peace Libraries in Manicahan, Zamboanga City; Don Antonio Heights, Quezon City; and in Rodriguez, Rizal.

                 Nocum said they need more book donations and asked donors to go to their drop off points at Kris Library, No. 9, Dona Isidora Street, Don Antonio Heights, Diliman Quezon City or at Dean & Kings Legal PR and Communications Marketing firm located at Suite 300, Kimvi Realty & Dev’t Bldg, 1191 Maria Orosa St., Ermita, Manila (please check Pls call me there at Tel 3393732/Cel. 09228169510. Pls look for Jess/Rose. Tnx.http://www.krislibrary.com/contact-us.html for map and direction).

                                                                                                    (30)

Reference: Arizza Nocum, 0999 560 9435, 352 2313 / 571 8997, arizza.nocum@gmail.com

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               Will a Christian-Muslim Marriage work? This was a question coming from a book donor today. Well, this has been a recurring question from donors and recipients of our Kristiyano-Islam (Kris) Peace Library.

                To answer them all, I am re-posting here an article from multi-awarded Inquirer journalist Ma. Ceres Doyo done when we first thought of stepping up our then seven-year-old advocacy to bring books to Mindanao by establishing the A-Book-Saya Group which eventually put up the first Kris Peace Library in Zamboanga City.

                The interview was done when were still operating the Satti Group House outlets in SM Fairview, Ortigas and Manila. We eventually close the business after realizing that the food business is more complicated than my PR legal PR business and Ann’s used car business.

                Feel free to “share” or forward this write up to friends who are contemplating to go into a mix-religion/culture marriage or are struggling to make such marriage work.

                Here’s the story of our lives ...

Christian-Muslim couple’s dream

They show the way to peace

By Ma. Ceres P. Doyo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 04:08:00 10/01/2008

Filed Under: Books, Children, Wedding, Religion & Belief, Food, War

MANILA, Philippines—This marriage between a Christian man and a Muslim woman works.

This is what Armand Nocum and Annora Sahia wish the Christians and Muslims in Mindanao, some of whom have difficulty living together, can learn from.

And now the couple want not only to show how they live together in harmony, but also hope to go beyond themselves and reach out to war-torn communities in one simple way—through books.

Specifically through the Books-4-Guns project, also known as the A-Book-Saya Group, which suggests the joy and enlightenment a book can bring to children who have known only strife.

But before the books there was food. And food, as people may well know, is a great pacifier, bonder, uniter—the way to go to assuage hunger and appease anger as well.

Armand, an ex-seminarian and a former reporter of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and Annora, a Tausug Muslim and a nurse, own the Satti Grill House. It is a small budget eatery in Ermita, Manila, and it serves food of Malaysian and Arabic origin indigenized by the predominantly Muslim communities of Zamboanga and Sulu.

The word “satti” is derived from the Southeast Asian “sate” or “satay.” The eatery Satti is also the name of a dish.

Satti’s bottled peanut sauce is now undergoing fine-tuning by the Department of Science and Technology. (The couple also have a stall at the SM Fairview Food Court plus other income-generating endeavors.)

Books, not guns

Armand grew up in Zamboanga City, and Annora, in Sulu.

“We plan to flood Mindanao with books and magazines, both old and new, in order to open the eyes of young Christians and Muslims there to the reality that they have a better future if they pick up a book rather than a gun,” he said, adding:

“We had a common childhood experience of seeing many guns, but we remember books to be very rare. It’s like you weren’t a full human being if you didn’t own a gun.

“If the books can stop even only one or two potential terrorists from bombing civilians, that would be fulfillment enough for us.”

Armand and Annora spoke with one voice: “What do we do to children who grew up thinking that the future depends on how they handle their guns? What do we do to children of war who grew up with guns, and not books? Kill them all?”

A variety of books have already been donated, Armand said.

These will be examined and classified, but he wishes that there were more books suited for the children of indigenous communities in Mindanao. (There are some available now, written and designed by writers and artists from such communities, courtesy of Pamulaan, but they are not easy and cheap to produce.)

Christian, Muslim weddings

Armand recalled seeing the fair Annora for the first time when he was a reporter for a Zamboanga paper.

Annora was then a student at the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Zamboanga.

He wooed her, but marriage was not immediate. She left for Kuwait while he moved to Manila and joined the Inquirer.

For the two of them, religion was not a big issue, but for some relatives it was. To make a long story short, when Annora came home in 1995, the two decided to tie the knot.

They had a Christian wedding (with Fr. Angel Calvo, a Claretian, officiating) and later a Muslim wedding (with an ustadz presiding) on Oct. 7, 1995.

Calvo, a Spanish Catholic missionary and known peace advocate, assured the couple it was all right for them to be husband and wife.

“I was a Claretian seminarian,” Armand said. “Fr. Rhoel Gallardo, who was kidnapped and killed by the Abu Sayyaf, was my fellow seminarian.”

Pain-filled years

Not too long after the wedding, Annora left again for Kuwait, where she worked as an operating-room nurse. “I wanted to earn a little more,” she said.

She did not know she was pregnant when she left. Their elder daughter, Arizza Ann, now 13, was born in Kuwait.

Annora came home with the baby but left again shortly. Armand continued to work as a reporter. Arizza was left in the care of Armand’s brother and sister-in-law.

“Those were pain-filled years,” Armand recalled. “I lived in a rented, rat-infested room and went to work in a beat-up motorcycle. But those years of saving up paid off.”

After a total of five years in Kuwait, Annora came home to stay. Their second daughter, Ashia Marie, was born eight years ago.

Ashia studies at Holy Spirit School, a school run by Catholic nuns, in Fairview, Quezon City. Arizza also studied there and graduated valedictorian. She is now enrolled at Philippine Science High School.

It will be up to his daughters to choose their religion when they come of age, Armand said. For now, they are exposed to the Christian and Muslim faiths as practiced respectively by their father and mother.

Peace and unity

Early in the marriage, Annora, with her good business instinct and Armand backing her all the way, started a car exchange business that expanded in no time.

Armand stayed on in journalism until 2006.

With their small businesses thriving, the couple now want to spend their energies on something else—peace and unity.

“Through food, we can break down the wall of bias that some of us Christians have put up,” Armand said.

“Muslim food appreciation may bring respect of the Muslim religion, culture and norms. We are happy that in our food outlets, Christians and Muslims are coming together to break bread daily,” he said.

However, Armand said with a sigh, “the recent outbreak of war in parts of Mindanao has shown us that we should do more than offer food.”

This is why, Armand said, he and Annora decided on the Books-4-Guns project and adopted the A-Book-Saya catchphrase to counter the damage that the Abu Sayyaf was doing to the image of Muslims in general.

Jolted out of comfort zone

The book project had long been there, but he did not push it hard enough, Armand admitted.

“Then the MILF-MOA brouhaha jolted me out of my comfort zone,” he said, referring to the scrapping in August of the memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which had caused a resurgence of violence. “This time there is no turning back.”

Armand said he was “willing to sacrifice time, money and comfort” to keep the book project going—and thriving.

“When we stay silent we are contributing to the loss of innocence, dreams and hopes of the Muslim and Christian children being marched off to war as child soldiers,” he said.

“Today they may appear distant and fragile, like toy soldiers, but 10 years from now, these children will become deadly bombers and make us pay for our indifference and neglect of their miserable lives in Mindanao.”

The systems and structures of the project have yet to be put up, but Armand hopes that things will fall into place with the help of like-minded citizens in Mindanao and elsewhere.

“I nurtured this dream for more than 20 years,” he said. “Annora and I hope to show young Muslims that we care for them. We want to saturate schools and day-care centers in Zamboanga, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi with books in order to make young Muslims realize that there is greater hope in knowledge than in the barrel of a gun.”

(Please go to http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20081001-163894/Christian-Muslim-couples-dream to read the original copy of the Inquirer article)

           Since Maguindanao Massacre suspect Zaldy Ampatuan exposed his bombshell a week ago, I see my friends in media going into overdrive. The heat got even intense when former Comelec supervisor came out with his own media-world shaking revelations.

            It is times like these when I do miss the adrenalin rush of a good news scoop, the competition among media network; and the fame that goes with the one to get the earth-shaking exclusive story. That has been my life for 20 years (please read my daughter Arizza’s writing about those days at:  http://www.krislibrary.com/2/post/2011/07/a-biography-the-kris-library-founder-armand-nocum.html).

            As Ampatuan and Bedol stole the media stage last week, I was deep in preparations and packing of goods and school supplies for kids attending the opening of the 3rd Kristiano-Islam Peace Library in Montalban, Rizal (please read http://www.krislibrary.com/1/post/2011/07/kris-library-is-my-tylenol-my-ponstan-my-pain-reliever.html.

            As Bedol surfaced and faced the media pack yesterday, I was playing golf with my junior golfer Ashia. And as the media pack descended on the Heart Center of the Philippines where Zaldy is confined today, I was again playing golf with Ashia to prepare her – and myself – for tomorrow’s 2nd Diether Ocamp Celebrity Golf Cup, where Kris Library is one of the beneficiaries.

            In fact, that same old feeling of “media high” came back as I saw this morning media colleagues from the Senate beat again mob and later tail Senator Manuel Villar who was one of the speakers in the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) Expo 2011 at the SMX Convention Center in the Mall of Asia. I used to cover the senator when I was still a reporter for the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

            Indeed, my world has changed after my heart angioplasty operation last year. Although there is still some stress in my legal public relations (PR) firm business – Dean & Kings – I now try to get clients with less stressful cases. If possible, we now choose cases that give least harm to people.

            In the process, I sometimes feel the world is passing me by as my firm turns down highly exciting and excitable cases that can somehow prick one’s conscience. Maybe I’m getting soft?

            What the heck! Today I managed to capture on video Asia’s 14-feet putt and I realized no media or PR excitement can match the simple joys of a father-daughter bonding.

            PR clients and business deals are just around the corner, but the moment frozen in time spent with your kids will never come back again. Never.

       At these times when all government and private companies and their officials are vulnerable to attacks from all sides, it pays for all concerned to practice "reputation management" -- the art of ensuring that one has a good personal and corporate reputation -- in good times before criticisms reach their offices.

        You don't do it the way the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) did when they hired a public relations firm for a fee of P544,000 when the problem was already in their doorsteps. Managing one's reputation or brand through corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects should be a year-long, life-long endeavor for government offices and private corporations.

         To help them do it, we at Dean & Kings have written our friends and clients to offer them a venue for their CSR and PR initiatives, please read on and pass this message to people you want to help resolve their PR and reputation management problems:

18 July 2011

 

Mr. Hans T. Sy

Chairman

SM Prime Holdings Inc.

Dear Mr. Sy,

We congratulate you for the various life-changing Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR) projects that your family and SM Prime Holdings Inc. has initiated.

Unfortunately, most of the newspaper and television news on these causes have landed on the society pages, people and events pages; and show-biz television segments. Many others end up in the obituary pages where few people read them.

There is need to bring news stories about these CSR causes to the prominent and well-read news pages, television segments, radio prime-time spots and magazines so these causes may be exposed to more peoples and invite greater goodwill from the public towards you and your company.

Towards this end, we at Dean and Kings Legal Public Relations & Communications Marketing are launching soon a news forum dedicated not only to bringing light to serious issues of the day, but also to bring attention to worthy causes like yours.

Our weekly press forum – known as Full Court News Forum – is aimed at providing a venue for everyone to bring out word about their activities and accomplishments; clarify and explain issues involving their business projects in the full court of public opinion.

The Full Court News Forum - held Wednesdays of every week at the Manila Pavilion Hotel, United Nations Avenue – offers more services compared to the regular news forums. These include the writing of press releases, research work on news angle to ensure the media will pick up your story; and advice on how best you can present your issues and concerns to the public. 

Our expertise on this matter rests on the fact that D&K is the only Philippine Legal PR firm to have its own CSR project – the Kristiyano-Islam (Kris) Peace Library. Kris Library, a ten-year-old literacy advocacy, had gained local and international attention in the traditional news media and leading Internet-Based blogs to include Asia Today (with offices in Chicago, China, Taiwan); World News Report (Russia); Regator (Georgia, USA); Independet.ie (Ireland); and Wikio News (United Kingdom).

 Kindly check the Kris Library website news at http://www.krislibrary.com/kris-projects-in-the-news.html to see a few sample of our media exposure or check Kris Peace Library at Google to see and read about 5,000 entries or news about Kris Library here and abroad.

 Our advocacy pales in comparison with your advocacy, but we feel confident of being able to give even more media exposure to your causes and generate goodwill to your corporate and personal identity here and abroad.

            Please contact us at (02) 3393732 / (02) 3538482; 09064401219 / 09327202766 / 09306778309 or email us atdeanandkingslegalpr@gmail.com for a free consultation on how you can best project your positive issues to the public.

            Thank you.

Sincerely yours,

Armand Dean Nocum

President & CEO

Dean & Kings Legal 

            We wish to greet actor-businessman Diether Ocampo on his birthday today! Diet's KIDS Foundation has been very supportive of the projects of the Kristiyano-Islam Peace Library (also known as A-Book-Saya Group program). Last year we greeted Diet over KC Conception's show Simply KC at ABS-CBN. Here is the video clip of the show:

Here's what we earlier wrote about Diet's help to Kris:

Kris Library Is One of Mindanao’s Best, Thanks to Diether Ocampo’s K.I.D.S. Foundation

                The two-story Kristiyano-Islam  Peace Library (Kris) could probably be one Mindanao’s best privately-owned libraries due its more than 5,000 collection of high-quality, hard-to find and rare books, the bulk of which was donated by the International School of Manila (IS) and where fees can go up to about a million (US $20,000++) per school year.

                For this we thank actor and businessman Diether “Diet” Ocampo’s Kabataan Inyong Dapat Supportation (K.I.D.S) foundation for linking us up with IS officials who turned over to us 97 boxes of books and audio-visual materials in 2007.

                The move proved to be a turning-point for us because up to then, we have been engaged in turning over books to school libraries or distributing it to poor Christian and Muslim kids in Zamboanga City. But then since starting this advocacy in 2001, we noted that giving books to libraries is not really a good idea because we always hear students complain that they cannot get their hands on our books because the librarians are unfriendly, are strict when they go in with wet or muddy feet (which is expected of children who live in the farms or the sea); or that they are always being castigated for being noisy.

                In short, the books we donate end up not being read because the libraries are deemed unfriendly to students and there is really no clear effort on the part of the schools to let the children hang around in the libraries. Years after the donations, librarians even come out to me to say proudly that they have covered up the books and they have not been dirtied by the students and they do look brand-new.  Of course, this declaration only breaks our hearts because our effort to make the books useful and make a difference in a poor child’s life had been in vain.

                Public libraries are also closed early evenings and weekends when students use it the most.

                Likewise, looking at the sets of books from IS and the thought that we have to break them up to individual students is equally heart-breaking. Giving it to them does not also guarantee that they will indeed read them or share them to neighbors.

                 Thus, we then realized that the IS books could be a sign from God/Allah for us to finally fulfil my long-time dream then to build a library and so build it we did on an inherited lot in Manicahan and using mahogany and gimelina trees I had the vision of planting years ago in my other properties in Zamboanga. Friends and clients from our legal public relations firm and car business then foot the bill for the rest of the construction work.

                Now you see how the programs and advocacies of our A-Book-Saya Group (ABSG) and K.I.D.S. are so much intertwined. Apart from Diether who clearly has a heart for the poor Christian and Muslim kids in Mindanao, we are also truly indebted to the true engine of KIDS – its officers and volunteers led by Atty. Karina Tanega, Roxanne Oquendo and June Hamoy who hails from Basilan. The three ladies are the dedicated and indefatigable workers who built KIDS up from scratch and did all the dirty work and spade work to make KIDS the well-known and respected organization that it is today.

                This year, KIDS and Kris are again embarking on a major tie-up as Diet chose Kris as one of the beneficiaries of the 2nd Diether Ocampo Celebrity Charity Golf Cup in Tagaytay Highlands on July 21, 2011. Please support this event which will help finance our plans to build a full-scale library in Quezon City; donate books or fill up libraries in poor communities in Rodriguez, Rizal; Zamboanga City; and Tungawan, Zamboanga del Sur. 

            There are millions of Filipinos who are considered as informal settlers (or those who the insensitive among us call squatters). Although many of us may not like this problem to exist, we cannot deny or ignore their existence because their lives are intertwined with our lives.

            And just as we have taken the problem of marginalized Muslims in Mindanao, the Kristiyano-Islam Peace Library is taking the problem of informal settlers in Metro Manila and the rest of the country for the sake of the children whose only fault is to be born in a family that do not own or cannot afford to own land. It is not their fault to be born not in the pedigreed Ayala, Gokongwei, Tan or Sy Clan, although we too wish we were.

            Thus, as we open our third Kris-CUPA-KCI Library in a resettlement area for informal settlers in Montalban, Rizal, we also declare the start of our advocacy to join my Claretian priests mentors -- where I studied to become a priest -- to fight for the welfare of families who live in informal settling communities and many of whom are probinsiyanos like me. Please join and support our newest cause.

            Please read a press release we prepared for the opening of the Kris-CUPA-KCI Library last Friday:

Claretian Priest, Kris Literacy Group Call for Humane

Treatment of Relocated Informal Settlers

 

 

            A Claretian priest and organizers of the Kristiyano-Islam Peace Library (Kris) opened up a community library in a resettlement site in Montalban, Rizal Friday with a call for the humane treatment of relocated victims of Typhoon Ondoy and Metro Manila fires and demolitions.

            Fr. Eduardo Apungan CMF, head of the Claret Urban Poor Apostolate (CUPA), lamented that there is no serious effort on the part of the government to make resettlement areas that cost billions to build livable, thus thousands of relocatees end up selling their units and returning back to Metro Manila.

            “These people have suffered so much from the deluge of Typhoon Ondoy, the loss of relatives and properties from fires; and trauma from forced demolitions. The least we can do is to help them resettle in far-flung places they can call home,” Fr. Apungan said during the opening of the CUPA-Kris Peace Library in a resettlement site in Barangay San Isidro, Montalban, Rizal.

            Armand Dean Nocum, founder of the non-government group Kris Peace Library, noted that recent figures from the National Housing Authority (NHA) show that it had earmarked P27.194 billion to relocate 125,265 families of informal settlers, who are also commonly called “squatters.”

            “This 27.194 billion will just go down the drain without the government really solving the problem of urban congestion because there is no serious effort to make relocation areas attractive to previously urban-dwelling people,” Nocum said.

            Fr. Apungan observed that in the resettlement site in Barangay San Isidro, for example, thousands of people who had relocated there early this year remain without light, water and other basic facilities. In other areas, relocatees suffer from floods which they had supposedly fled from in Manila.

             The resettlement area being helped by CUPA is home to 10,000 families who were victims of Typhoon Ondoy and the series of fires, demolitions of informal settlers communities in Guadalupe-Laperal  Compound in Makati, North Triangle, Botanical Garden, New Manila, Agham Road in Quezon City; and San Juan, Pasig, Navotas, Taguig and other places in Metro Manila.

CUPA and Kris Library put up the community library with the help of the Kapatirang Claretiano Inc. (KCI) – a group of Claretian ex-priests and seminarians co-founded by Nocum – to enable thousands of students in the resettlement community meet their educational needs even without computers and Internet-based information in the absence of electrical power.

            CUPA put up the library structure with donors of Kris, KCI and NHA area coordinator  Beth Matipo providing the three sets of encyclopaedia and about 600 children’s books, reference books, textbooks and other educational materials. Kris and other donors also distributed school supplies and bags to the students in the resettlement site.

            CUPA is working to build a “just and humane place of living” for families in resettlement areas; while Kris Library is engaged in the building of libraries, refurbishing of ill-equipped libraries; and distribution of books to advance the cause of education in far-flung areas, especially Mindanao.

            The CUPA-Kris-KCI Library is the third for Kris, which started building libraries in Zamboanga City and Quezon City in 2008.

Donors may bring books, school supplies and old computers to the Kris Library in No. 9, Dona Isidora Street, Don Antonio Heights, Diliman, Quezon City or at Dean & Kings Legal PR and Communications Marketing at Suite 300, Kimvi Realty & Dev’t Bldg, 1191 Maria Orosa St., Ermita, Manila. Donors may call 3393732/09228169510 or check www.krislibrary.com for direction.

                                                (30)

Reference:

Arizza Nocum

09995609435 / 5718997 / 3522313 /

arizza.nocum@gmail.com

Common Caption:

Ondoy Children Enjoy Books. Children traumatized by Typhoon Ondoy and the fires and violent demolitions in Metro Manila excitedly go over childrens books in the community library put up by the Claret Urban Poor Apostolate (CUPA) and the Kristiyano-Islam Peace Library (Kris) at a resettlement area in Montalban, Rizal. CUPA and Kris officials have called on the government to improve living conditions in resettlement areas so as not to waste P27 billion in reconstruction program with many relocatees returning to the metropolis to escape harsh living condition in resettlement sites.  

                For over 20 years I’ve worked in media – The Morning Times in Zamboanga City and later The Philippine Inquirer in Manila.

                For 20 years life was a great roller-coaster ride, I sat front seat to witness and report about all major events starting from Zamboanga’s Cawa-Cawa Siege, the Little League Baseball Scam, EDSA 2 & 3; and travelled all over the world to see Palaces and state halls; and meet Presidents and Kings that few people get to do.

                I left the Inquirer in 2007 after my heart told me it could no longer take all the wild and unusual excitement. I underwent a heart operation and six metal stents were placed to open up my 99-percent blogged veins last year. I’m now living on a bionic heart.

                After the Inquirer though, the excitement continues after I put up the Deans and Kings Legal Public Relations, the first legal PR firm in the country. We help project and explain to the media and the public the developments pertaining to high-profile legal issues and cases you see, hear and read on television, radio, and newspapers.

                Needless to say this kind of work – like media – brings stress because we are exposed to a daily dose of legal issues and stories about the really good and really worse in man. There is good and bad behind legal issues and like lawyers, we have to untangle the mess and web of lies, truth and the law.

                These two careers exposed me to the best and worse a man can do to fellow man. I’ve met, shook hands and talked to Philippine presidents, foreign heads of states, senators, justices, congressmen, generals, tycoons, legal eagles, rebels, terrorists, madmen, fugitives, convicts, whistle-blowers; and sinners and saints. Some of them are also my clients and former clients now.

                Like in media, the stories they tell involve mostly negative issues as they either rage after suing somebody or suffer as they get sued by somebody. Some of them end up investigated in congressional hearings, in jails, in hospitals and some I last see in funeral parlors. This is such a dog-eat-dog world.

                I am happy to have the support of family and friends to keep my sanity; and sense of right and wrong intact. Thus far, I’ve managed to stay clear and politely rejected clients whose perceived criminal acts seem too bizarre and unacceptable. We try mostly to take on the cases of those of who have less in life and the law.

Still, all the daily dose of bad news can get on my nerves. Add to that the never-ending kidnapping incidents in Zamboanga City where my relatives and friends live in fear while asking this question: “Will I be the next victim?”

                It is in times like this that I turn to our Kristiyano-Islam Kris Library (Kris) advocacy for additional spiritual and moral support. Kris helps me see and believe in the inherent goodness of man. Kris is where total strangers I meet in and outside of Facebook send help even if they don’t know me and even if they live in the other side of the world.

            Such is the case of an FB friend who only started communicating with me just this month and yet he trusted me with his US $200 which he sent over so I can buy basic school supplies for 120 kids during the opening today of the KRistiyano-ISlam (Kris) Peace Library, Kapatirang Claretian Inc. (KCI) and Claret Urban Poor Apostolate (CUPA) – Kris-KCI-CUPA Library -- in Barangay San Isidro, Rizal Province.

Then there is Ben Leano who donated a 1990 set of Britannica Encyclopaedia but now says Kris inspired him to go further by putting up the Tabang Maguindanao FB campaign to help flood victims; there is my US-based cousin Olga Natividad who sent three boxes of books while she’s busy putting up cultural shows there; and Fil-Canadian Car-Car Wong who gave up a European trip to donate school supplies and do volunteer work for Kris.

            There is also the unique case of my Auntie Flor Nocum and assisted by husband Uncle Mar and daughter Mariflor tapping Arab friends in Kuwait to collect copies of the Holy Quran and Islamic books which they sent to Kris Library-Zamboanga for the research needs of Muslim students in Zamboanga; and then there is OFW couple Rhuayda and Seller Basangan celebrating Seller’s birthday in Ireland by raising P15,000 to help Kris.

            Lastly, there is the wonderful Pasig-based family who gave us a check of P50,000 so we may finally send our first Kris scholars to college; as well as those entering elementary and schools in Zamboanga this year.

            There are many more good people and their deeds inspire me and keep my faith in man’s capacity for goodness.

            This afternoon, I will take a bigger doze of pain relievers as I see the smiling faces of kids – with eyes glowing like flashlights – as they read for the first time imported books in a library put up by Claretian priest Fr. Eduardo Claud but which the kids can rightly call their own.

            Life is beautiful!  

My youngest boy Arno – nickname for Armand Dean Nocum II – is growing up with gazillion of books all around. Not only will he inherit my mini-library in my office-room in Quezon City, he will grow up exposed to the thousands of books that pass through us from donors and which are in turn distributed to schools and libraries all over the country.

            Lucky Arno! How different is his life going to be from my childhood days in a barrio in far Zamboanga where old newspapers wrapped in dried fish are like precious gems to this wide reader. I can still recall the pungent smell of fish assaulting my nose as I try to brush off fish scales and sometimes fish blood from newspaper pages so I can read them.

            That sorry situation has changed for kids in my barrio in Manicahan, Zamboanga City after we put up in 2008 the Kristiyano-Islam Peace Library which has more than 5,000 collection of imported books – one of Mindanao’s biggest NGO-owned libraries – and eight computers for free use by students there.

            Unfortunately, my childhood situation has not changed for millions of poor kids in the country. According to the latest available data from the National Library of the Philippines, there are currently 688 public libraries in the country servicing almost 91,983,000 Filipinos and counting! No wonder rich and more educated China is spitting on us in our own shores!

            And you know what, for all the millions our congressmen get – P60-M to P80-M a year in pork barrel funds – only four of them managed to build libraries. Why? There is little commission or “tongpats” in building libraries compared to roads, waiting sheds, basketball courts etc.

            I should know, I've build one such library from scratch with the help of friends and public relations clients and we did it at half the price congressmen spend for similar structures. There are more than 220 congressional districts in the country.

            There are also only 52 provincial, 97 city, and 535 municipal libraries to service the general populace. This situation makes the law (Republic Act 7743, enacted June 17, 1994) mandating the creation and operation of a public library in every congressional district, city and municipality throughout the country inutile. If the law is strictly implemented, there should be about 2,000 libraries by now.

            My thoughts are on our lack of libraries as I see little Arno's wide, innocent eyes glowing as me and other volunteers busy ourselves packing up books for the setting up tomorrow of the Kris-Kapatirang Claretiano Inc. (KCI) and Claret Urban Poor Apostolate (CUPA) Library in a resettlement area for the victims of typhoon Ondoy, the fires in Manila and demolitions in the metropolis in Rodriguez, Rizal. Please read more about this at http://www.krislibrary.com/1/post/2011/07/post-title-click-and-type-to-edit1.html.

            Tomorrow one more library – not fancy but enough to provide the needs of far-flung kids like me -- is rising up in Rodriguez, Rizal. Tomorrow, our third library will rise up after the softTomorrow there will be one less shortage of libraries in the Philippines.

            And so we thank everyone here and abroad who have donated books and school supplies to help make the Philippines great again – one library at a time!

             The soft opening of the Kris-KCI Library in Rodriguez, Rizal is tentatively set this Friday (July 15), the eve of the 1849 founding of the Claretian order. Fr. Eduardo Claud offered to convert one of Claret Mission Center’s room into a library.

            Apart from Ondoy victims, the Rizal resettlement area is home to families affected by fires and the demolition of informal settlers communities in Guadalupe-Laperal Compound in Makati, North Triangle, Botanical Garden, New Manila, Agham Road in Quezon City; and San Juan, Pasig, Navotas, Taguig and other places in Metro Manila.

                In Tungawan, Sibugay, Zamboanga del Sur, the Kris-KCI tie-up will seek to fill up the library of the Claret Mission Center under Claretian priest Fr. Larry Lorenzo so kids there will no longer have to walk hours over a combination of muddy, stony mountain terrain; and or swim through flood-prone rivers to reach the town’s public library. Book delivery date is tentatively set end of July.

             Knowing the value of books, Saint Anthony Maria Claret declared in 1848: “Books are the food of the soul, and just as the body is nourished by wholesome food and harmed by poisonous food, so it is with reading and the soul.”

            Claretian or not, I hope you will join us in our quest to help thousands of kids recover from the trauma of deaths, floods, fires and violent demolition to help kids fill up their minds with positive things in life through books, computers and basic school supplies.

             The country’s deadliest storm, Ondoy (international codename: Ketsana) killed close to 300 people, affected close to two million people in Luzon, forced about 600 people to seek refuge in 571 evacuation centers; and damaged about P5 billion in properties

            You may send your donations through Paypal at www.krislibrary.com or call us for details if you wanna send it through local banks or money transfer companies. Please bring your books, school supplies and old computers at Kris Library, No. 9, Dona Isidora Street, Don Antonio Heights, Diliman Quezon City or at Dean & Kings Legal PR and Communications Marketing firm located at Suite 300, Kimvi Realty & Dev’t Bldg, 1191 Maria Orosa St., Ermita, Manila (please check Pls call me there at Tel 3393732/Cel. 09228169510. Pls look for Jess/Rose. Tnx.www.krislibrary.com for map and direction).

            In Zamboanga City, you may bring the books to my brother Joey Nocum’s Used Car Display Center (UCDC) at Nunez Extension Road, Zamboanga City.

Thank you and good day to all!

Here are parts of the speech I delivered at the flag ceremony of the National Transmission Corporation (Transco) last July 4. Please read my humble attempt to put the Mindanao problem into perspective. Thanks.

             My talk today will revolve around three issues: the situation in Mindanao and why only education is the real solution; the need for us get out of our comfort zones to help Mindanao; and why helping Mindanao is a patriotic act beneficial to all Filipinos.

             Ano ba talaga nangyayari sa Mindanao? To answer that question, let me cite to you the case of my home place Barangay Manicahan, Zamboanga City. Our place is increasingly becoming known as Zamboanga’s kidnap capital.

            To date, four of my relatives have been kidnapped and several more already received letters with bullets inside, a message that they will soon be kidnapped if they will not give kidnappers “protection money.”

            Why is kidnapping high in Mindanao? It is because people there are much poorer than those in Manila and all over the country. It is because you have a mix problem of poverty, unemployment, lack of education; and wide circulation of loose firearms. You give a hungry man a gun and you have the making of a criminal. You add lack of education in the equation and you have a kidnapper.

            Poverty and lack of education has made kidnapping there a “cottage industry,” with ransom money dropping to as low as P5,000 (cheaper than many of the mobile phones you’re holding now). Although the kidnapping of the rich get in the news, what remains unreported are the almost daily kidnapping of the poor victims who are released in exchange for a motorcycle, a mobile phone or an owner-type jeep.

            Indeed, Manicahan is a microcosm of what is happening in Mindanao – a beautiful place torn asunder by government neglect, poverty, illiteracy; and prevalence of loose firearms.

            How can we solve that? Not by government’s all-out-war policy! This solution will never work because for every ASG men you kill, you have five of his children taking up his guns and fighting his cause.

Besides, how do you fight a group of young warriors who are not afraid to die, having misinterpreted the promise of the Holy Koran that martyrs of the faith will get 72 virgins in the after-life. Although this is just a metaphor, it is unfortunate that many Islamic militants take this literally in the same manner that Christians take literally the Biblical call for us to go forth and multiply …

In Mindanao today, we see the rise in the number of what we call child soldiers or child warriors. These are children who are unable to go to school due to poverty and are lured into joining the ranks of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the New People’s Army and the Abu Sayyaf.

Mindanao provides a fertile ground for child soldiers – who range from 7-12 years old -- because children there grow up in poverty and ignorance; convinced that the only way out of poverty is through the barrel of a gun. Deprived of books and education, these children do not know that there is bigger reward and stability in becoming a doctor, an engineer, a nurse or a call-center agent.

 Indeed, Mindanao provides a poisonous environment for children. It’s like being born blind and having no hint how light looks like. If you are born with guns but have no books around you, how can you discover the importance of studying and the rewards of becoming a professional?

            Many kidnappings are now attributed to ASG members as young as 7-12 old who act as spies to pinpoint potential victims. It is estimated that 13 percent of the 10,000 soldiers in the ranks of the MILF are child soldiers.

 But it is not too late. We can still stop the rise of child soldiers. Through books and literacy programs, we can still intervene and transform the minds of kids 10 years below for them to see that there is still a life outside the barrel of a gun.

            This was the reason why we started the A-Book-Saya Group book-donation project. Our answer to the Mindanao problem is to fight guns with books, education versus terrorism. We want to intervene and change minds of young kids while they are young. We want to show Mindanao kids that they do have an alternative to take the path of peace; not violence.

            With this advocacy, we solicit books, used computers, educational materials and assistance from generous donors here in Manila and we ship these to poor families and schools in Mindanao. We’re out to flood Mindanao with books and computers, not guns.

             In 2008, we built the two-story Kristiyano-Islam (Kris) Peace Library in an Abu Sayyaf lair in Zamboanga City to help Muslim and Christian kids there get better education and turn their backs on the path of violence.

             Thus far, Kris Library had financed the education of 101 scholars and clocked100,000 visits from poor Christian and Muslim students who do research, have a free use of eight computers; and avail of reading and computer-literacy lessons.

            This month, we are going there to bring books and school supplies to children who swim two hours daily to reach their school in Zamboanga City; and children who climb mountains and swim across rampaging rivers to get an education in Tungawan, Zamboanga del Sur.

            And in gratitude to our donors in Manila, we are building – subject to availability of funds – another Kris Library in Barangay Holy Spirit, Quezon City. We are also working to put a Kris Library in resettlement area for victims of the last typhoon Ondoy in Montalban, Rizal.

            Our objective is simple. If in our lifetime we shall have prevented at least one child-soldier from growing up to bomb our buses, LRT trains or ships, then we shall have achieved our mission in life.

            In this regard, we enjoin you all to help us in our cause because the Mindanao problem is not limited to Mindanao alone. Remember, Mindanao is not far from Manila. All a terrorist need to do t bomb us here is to buy one plane ticket to travel here.

            Peace is always a better and cost-effective solution than war which cost taxpayers about P300 billion in military operations in Mindanao from 1975. This amount does not even include billions of “tongpats” for the generals and their wives.

            So, let us all get out of our comfort zones to help Mindanao because when Mindanao suffers, so do all of us. With the failure in government service, the poor people in Mindanao are looking to us for help. We are their only hope. Let us be patriots and help these kids.

            Although we are in this advocacy, we are not rich. We are not philanthropists. Like our donors and supporters, we are ordinary people who have just gone tired of complaining about the problems in our country and have decided to do something about it in our limited way.

            We are not out to change the world and we will be happy to change the life of children one child at a time. You can all be part of our cause by donating your old books, computers, making financial help or acting as volunteers to our cause. Kindly check us out at www.krislibary.com.

            (I thank Transco officials and employees led by President/CEO Rolly Bacani for the warm welcome. I also would like to express deep appreciation for the invitation extended by Ms Linda de Guzman of the office of of the vice president for Transco and for the donation of books. Mabuhay po kayong lahat!)