IN THE NAME OF INTERNATIONALISM

Some people would probably look at me as a cock-eyed optimist for not attacking the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit. I think I have become cautious about the power of the parliament of the streets ever since we installed fake presidents who could use violent means to curb dissent. By the way, are we still counting how many journalists have been killed since the time of Cory, and how many in this present administration have been added compared to other regimes?

Why do I shun the parliament of the streets? In the first place, as an elderly, my legs cannot go standing for long under the heat of the sun even if I would have a parasol. Secondly, I cannot stand listening to sloganeering which shows a lack of creativity in engaging in political discourse. Thirdly, if I would be in the streets, I would like to be able to speak out also and not just remain a stand-by, a listening board to speakers who do not know how to spice up their speeches with humour, a very important feature when you are trying to persuade people politically.

Fourthly, and this is the most important, the APEC visitors are people who were voted upon by their own peoples in their own countries. I feel that when you attack APEC, you are also attacking the capacity of our visitors to decide intelligently and to think of what is an important event that they should attend.

Hence, in the name of Internationalism, we respect the rights of other peoples to elect their own leaders and ergo, we should respect their decisions by providing the best and safe accommodations for them to be able to discuss about matters that concern our present and future lives with other countries.

The Asia Pacific region is a very important area in this planet. It has the most number of religions – Buddhism, Shintoism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, home-grown religions as well as born again groups. In other words, we are very much concerned about our souls, not just our physical well-being. So when we are attuned to the spiritual, we engage with others deeply, touching their hearts, minds and souls.

I do hope that we have learned a lot from this broad array of cultures that we have opened up to.

Next time, we should distinguish which events are worth attacking from the streets. For example, when oil companies always raise their prices and our government is just simply too lazy to abolish the oil regulation law, when many children become victims of traffickers from abroad, when labor migration is being encouraged instead of scuttling it as it is a form cop-out to the government's being able to provide decent employment or even to curb inflation so that our people could live with ample provisions for basic necessities and a little leisure and recreation; and so many other issues that are close to our hearts in wanting a better and happy life for all of us.