LSD-2-Health-Healing-Return-Nature

For Health and Healing:

Return to Nature!

By Sylvia O. de Guzman
Member, LightShare e-Group, Sanib-Sining, Sanib-Sigla, and Katipunang DakiLahi

[This is a short excerpt from “Principles and Techniques of Natural Health and Healing,” an article by Ms. Sylvia de Guzman solicited for Kamayan para sa Kalikasan Forum session of April 2005 on “Health Care without Pharmas.” The author, a major speaker at that session, is a human develop­ment specialist, writer, and educator who has studied and practiced natural health and healing techniques such as Tai’ chi and meditation over the past 11 years, and is affiliated with several organizations teaching and disseminating such techniques. The full article, to be published by the Lambat-Liwanag Paradigm-Specific Task Force on Holistic Health, explains much more, under such headings as: Phy­sical, Mental, and Psychic Toxins; Negative Mental Prog­ramming Lowers the Immune System; Natural Capacity for Self-Healing; The Process of Healing; Harnessing Natural Healing Energies; The Vital Life Force; and Mental Re­programming; Diseases with Karmic Roots. The Lambat Liwa­nagNetwork’s 2nd Empowering Paradigm is “Holistic Health and Healing.” Ms. De Guzman’s full article is an excellent contribution to the development and elucidation of this empowering paradigm, second of 15 being developed by the mainly-academe-based Lambat Liwanag Network for Empowering Paradigms.]

Based upon millennia-old traditions of health care and validated by the latest findings of modern sci­ence, including such newly emergent fields as psycho­neu­roimmunology, this new approach presents a radi­cal de­parture from the con­ventional framework of main­stream medical and health practice, and alters the way medicine is approached.

Return to Nature

....Although natural health and healing provides a range of options for health care that may even be applied com­­plementary to modern medicine, at its core is a return to na­ture – making full use of the human being’s natural capacity for self-healing, long neglected by medicine, as well as the vast resources and energies nature offers to attain and main­tain health.

....As much as pos­sible, natural healing avoids highly intru­sive interventions that obtrude upon and dras­tic­ally inter­fere with the natural work­ings and subtle energy flows of the human system, or that cause the natur­al func­tioning of the body’s systems to atrophy from long dis­use and foster permanent depend­ence on synthetic pre­pa­ra­tions.

....A distinct advan­tage of na­tural health and healing tech­niques is that they often re­quire greatly reduced expend­iture since many of the healing energies provided by nature are free or come cheaply, such as those coming from sunlight, water, and fresh air.

HEALING THE PERSON,

NOT THE DISEASE

.

....While conventional medi­cine treats diseases in a generic way, prescribing the same heal­ing treatment and regimen for all persons manifesting similar symp­toms, natural health and healing strives to heal the patient as a unique and complex indi­vidual.

.... Gradually, the me­­dical profession is relearning what once it knew so well – that we can not understand disease unless we understand the persons af­flicted with the disease.

....This includes knowing and under­standing the circumstan­ces of their lives, and their psycho-emotional profiles and back­ground, and on this basis, finding their unique paths to­wards health and healing. Me­dicine then ceases to be only a mechanistic specialty but is transformed into a special calling that requires compas­sion and depth of under­standing of the whole person.

In this new paradigm of health care, patients are no lon­ger viewed as unquestioning sub­jects for passive treatment by medical experts and authorities, but as active participants sharing responsibility for their own heal­ing on the basis of informed choice.

Preventive Approach

to Health

Conventional medicine is cu­r­ative; it attempts to cure the sick­ness as this manifests phy­sically, when it is already there. On the other hand, natural health and healing is preventive; it tries to attain and maintain health and wellness even before any ailment manifests.

Conventional medicine is cu­r­ative; it attempts to cure the sick­ness as this manifests phy­sically, when it is already there. On the other hand, natural health and healing is preventive; it tries to attain and maintain health and wellness even before any ailment manifests.

....Its em­phasis is on pre­venting sick­ness from occurring by bols­ter­ing the immune system and re­sorting to practices and states of mind conducive to health and vitality, such as nutritious food and cleansing diet, meditation techniques that foster inner har­mony, music and art that mas­sage the soul, ade­quate rest and sleep, sanitation, and exercise. Attention is turned away from disease and death, to­wards health and life.

Health as

Holistic Well-being

....All major religions and philosophical systems of hu­manity are one in teaching that human beings are multi­dimensional, consisting not on­ly of physical, but also of emotional, mental, psy­chic, and spiritual dimen­sions.

....Many effects and symp­toms, therefore, that ma­ni­fest in the grossest phy­sical or material dimension, have their origin and causes in some deeper dimension or higher, subtler sphere. The same is true with sickness and disease.

....Hence, health is now de­fined (in the global context, by such United Nations agen­cies as the World Health Organization) in a comprehensive and holistic way in terms of physical, phy­siological, mental, psy­cho­logical, emotional, and spirit­ual well-being. This coincides with current multi-dimension­al approach to intelligence: multiple intelli­gences include not just the conventional com­ponents of Intelligence Quo­tient (I.Q.) of analytical/ma­thematical intelligence and verbal/linguistic intelligence, but also other intelligences such as body-kinesthetic, spa­tial/artistic, musical, interper­sonal/social, intraperson­al/self-know­ledge and self-mas­tery, naturalistic/environ­mental, and psychic/spiritu­al/cosmic.

Root Cause of Disease

While conventional medi­cine concerns itself mostly with the physical manifesta­tions of disease which are but effects and symptoms, natural health and healing seeks to look into the deeper causes of disease as these are rooted in the human psyche.

.

....As early as the fourth century B.C., the Greek philo­sopher, Aristotle, said: “A change in the state of the soul produces a change in the state of the body.” This upholds what mystics have been saying throughout the ages: that most diseases of the physical body have their roots in the human consciousness: the mind and the inner soul.

=======

…humans are multi-dimensional, consisting not only ..of physical, but also of emotional, mental, psychic and spiritual dimensions......................................

=======

Body-Mind-Spirit Connection

....Now, more than 2,000 years later, this principle is at the core of a radical new ap­proach to the study of human disease, an approach that ex­plores the body-mind-spirit con­nection and the power of mind over matter.

....For a long time, conven­tional medicine sought only physical explanations for hu­man disease. Much has thus been achieved in studies on: bacteria and viruses that in­vade the body; biochemical malfunctions in the body systems; che­mical toxins that poison the body; the effect of envi­ron­mental factors such as pol­lution; the influence of ge­netics in such congenital dis­eases as hemophilia; the role of diet, food, and nutrients in human health; and many otheruseful findings. Though add­ing much to the fund of hu­man knowledge, these stu­dies explained human diseases on­ly in physical terms.

While conventional West­ern medicine concerned itself most­ly with tangible cells, tis­sues, and organs, other healing traditions such as Chinese me­dicine and Ayurvedic medi­cine also delved into the subtle energy pathways, movements, and interconnections at work in the human system.

....Now, based on advanced studies, medical researchers and practitioners have started to acknowledge what mystics have long taught: that the root of most diseases that manifest in the outer physical body lie in the deeper dimensions of mind and inner soul. Consi­derable scientific evidence is increasingly establishing the psycho-emotional and psych­ical roots of disease. Medical research has found that more than 90 percent of diseases are psychosomatic, arising from inharmonious conditions in the mind, mostly due to stress. Stress-related maladies range from allergies to ulcers, hyp­ertension, high blood pressure, and heart ailments.

Researchers are now stu­dying the relationships am­ong con­sciousness, psycho-social fac­tors, attitudinal heal­ing, and the immune function, the con­tribution of lifestyle and em­otions to health, and the rela­tion of stress and illness. Science now documents how feelings can create chemical changes in our body. Daniel Goleman, in his book, Emo­tional Intelligence, presents the latest psychological re­search findings on the pro­cesses by which emotions trig­ger reac­tions in the brain, re­sulting in the release of hor­mones and chemicals.

Health: A State of Harmony and Wholeness

....What state of inner con­sciousness causes disease in the outer physical body? Dis­harmony.

Renowned mystical healers since ancient times such as Aeschulapius, prince of Thes­saly in Italy (whose symbolic staff was the caduceus, which has become the emblem of modern medicine), the power­ful mystic philosopher-healer, Nagarjuna of India, and the eminent healer-alchemist, Pa­ra­­celsus of Switzerland, have taught that if some disorder or disharmony prevails in the in­ner psychic dimension and state of consciousness, this is bound to have an outer mani­festation in a sickness of the physical body. Health is a state of harmony and whole­ness.

....This is now increasingly being verified by modern me­dical science. Correlations have been observed in the incidence of specific ailments with certain psycho-emotional states, among others: rep­ressed anger with kidney or gall stones (accumulation of unre­leased mental and emotional toxins); unexpressed or unre- ­quited love with heart ail­ments (a heavy, overstrained heart); excessive mental or emotional burdens or weight of respons­ibilities with shoul­der and back aches (carrying a heavy load); and nervous tens­ion with ul­cers or hyperacidity (upset sto­mach).

Clearly, our psyche -- our emotional and mental state -- affects our health. We can change our biology by how we think and feel. A bout of de­pression can wreak havoc with the immune system while fall­ing in love can boost it (re­sulting in an elevated immune response marked by increased salivary immunoglobin antigen or SigA).

....Despair and hope­lessness increase the risk of heart at­tacks and cancer, there­by short­ening life. In contrast, joy and ful­fillment keep us healthy and extend life. This scientific va­lidation of the bo­dy-mind-spi­rit connection con­firms our ca­­­pacity for mindful change at the cellular level.

Disharmony from Lack of Attunement with Nature

What, in turn, causes dis­harmony in the inner dimen­sion?

....It is important to under­stand that, as human beings, we are part of a larger order of interconnected existence in the cosmos. This is expressed in the Chaos Theory propounded by physicists, biochemists, mathematicians, and other scientists which states that there are no isolated energy movements in the universe. We live amidst the intricate workings of a natural sea of energy marked by polarities which must be kept in har­mony and balance. The human system itself constantly strives to attain homeostasis or bal­ance. The body is governed by natural cycles which should not be disrupted for they exert a significant effect and influ­ence on the body.

=======

As human beings, we are part of a larger order of existence in the cosmos. There are no unrelated energy movements in the universe…

=======

...In the grand scheme of the cosmos, whether we like it or not, we are subject to natural cosmic laws. And whether or not we believe in these natural universal laws, we are influ­enced by them, much as gra­vity would exist and influence us whether or not we believe in it, as we can easily test if we jump from a cliff – we would fall, even while declaring dis­belief in gravity.

.

....It would serve us well, therefore, to know these natur­al universal laws and conduct our lives in harmony with them and in attunement with the forces of nature. Such laws include: the Law of Com­pen­sation or Karma, which states that what we sow, we reap; the Law of Evolution, which states that all human beings indivi­dually and all humanity collectively are on a course of ev­olution; the Law of Sharing, which states that what we share would inevitably come back to us multifold; and the Law of Cycles, which states that all of life and nature is governed by cycles.

.

....Ultimately, disharmony in our system is caused by lack of attunement with nature, by violating the natural laws of the cosmos and thereby caus­ing undulations in the cosmic web, by upsetting the harmony and balance in nature and thereby triggering a counter­­balancing reaction which may be cataclysmic, and by disrupt­ing the natural functioning of the body.

In health and healing, as in all life, self-knowledge and self-mastery are of crucial importance.

...In much the same way that we can control and shape our destiny by our actions today and at each moment, so also can we do much to control and improve our health and well-being.

.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BACK TO LSD-2 TABLE OF CONTENTS

To post FEEDBACK on this article, click HERE, join as member, and send your comment as a message.

.

LSD-2-GaryGranada-Article

Innate Dignity and Value

of All Beings.

By Gary Granada

A popular singer-composer, Gary is a member of Kaalagad, an ecumenical interfaith com­munity that works with various groups in promoting environment concern, sensitivities to issues of birth and per­son, economics of sufficiency, solidarity and critical pluralism, and com­munitarian accountability. As a participant in Sanib-Sining’s signature drive for the “Credo forSynaesthetics” (LD, May-June 2005), and long-standing member of Kamalaysayan, Gary is part of Pamayanang SanibLakas, the syner­gism community organized by the SanibLakas ng Ta­ong­bayan Foundation.

[English translation of the first of six informal but very insightful and inform­ative short bi-lin­gual lectures by popular singer-composer Gary Granada presented in a single CD titled “HI­ER­ARCHIC SELECTION: The Evolution of So­cial Sub­structures.” Gary’s lectures trace the roots of the basic social substruc­tures of Eco­logy, Genders, Economics and Belief Systems to the even more basic building blocks of Biology, Phy­sics and Ethics. It attempts to construct a coher­ent tem­plate with which to make sense of the confrontations that chart the major plots of the story of the inhabitants of the Earth. “Every­where in the world, societies such as ours ope­rate according to a com­plex ranking system that promotes ecological, personal, economic and id­eologi­cal strife,” the CD’s jacket explains. “Humans against their own habitat, racial and and gender stratification, child abuse, capit­alists ver­­sus workers, and ethnic, religious and ideolo­gi­cal wars of attrition. If we are to stem the winds of war in the hope of forging peace, the general public, particular ly the young, has to step up and step in. And Step No.1 is popular instruction.”

In a text message to LSD’s editor, Gary said the in­tention of this CD project is to be of some assistance to the work of educators.]

.
ONE of the most profound questions of philosophy is .“What makes us human?” Pupuntahan din natin ‘yan, eventually, but for now let’s keep to the simpler approach. We are humans because biologists call our genus “homo” which means human in Latin. So whether we admit it or not, we are all homos, humans!

Our species is called “homo sapiens,” where sapiens is the Latin word for wise. So, that means “wise human.” Ha!

Hindi na tayo sigu­rado nga­yon, we no longer know for sure whether we are all homo sapiens! And there is even a sub-species that they call “homo sapiens sapi­ens,” to distinguish bet­ween modern hu­mans and recent humans. We are the modern humans, those who are hung up on mp3, chatting, texting, and lived with­in these last 100,000 years or so.

Why are there species? So you will know if you and your “crush” are compatible. If two individuals are of the same species, there is a possibility for them to have grandchild­ren. For example, kung ang asawa mo ay unggoy, if you are married to a monkey, it is still possible for you to bear offspring, but because you be­long to different species, your offspring cannot bear their own offspring. Buti na rin ‘yon, di ba?

What’s the point? This: It is a contest of num­bers and of durabi­lity. Con­test ito ng pa­ramihan at pati­ba­yan. While you are numerous, your spe­­cies will thrive. If there is a scar­ city of food or habitat and there has to be a contest for it, or if there are floods, storms, earth­quakes, the numerous and dur­able will survive. Matira ang marami at matibay.

..........If you still remember, in high school we learned that because of mutation, and gene flow, new species emerge every so often. And through natural selection, and random genetic drift, the fit and the lucky survive. At ang maruru­pok ay nauubos at nae-extinct. Now, is this okay? Is it good or bad that species become extinct? That depends on who is asked. If you are the one who is going to be extinct, you would consi­der that bad!

And this is the first of the contests, ang unang tungga­lian. The contest between the human species and the non-human species. This is the first hierarchy. And the dic­tionary calls this “anthropo­centrism,” a system, doctrine or attitude in which realities are regarded as centered about humans, or in terms of hu­mans. Anthropos – tao; cen­trism – sentro; nakasentro sa tao. According to one quote, “man is the measure of all things.” Pangunahin ang tao; higit sa lahat, tao. The humans look down on the non-hu­mans. “Hayop ka!” you would hear when one is an­gry. And those who become comatose, with physical or mental dysfunction, are pitied for having become like vege­tables. “Kawawa naman, gu­lay na!” Humans are sup­posed to be high up, plants are below and so are the animals that are non-human.

And because of this over­focusing on the human, our en­vironment has gone haywire – nagkanda-leche-leche na! Land has been destroyed, seas have been poisoned. And the air has been polluted, all for the sake of human satisfaction. This is very ironic because it is actually in the interest of the humans that the environment be conserved, because this is the habitat or home of the hu­man. We have seen the des­truction brought about by cala­mities that are really human-made. Kagagawan din ng tao! For example, those greedy log­gers of the woods in Quezon province.

Unfortun­ately, hu­mans have refused to admit cul­pability. People from the place are blaming the logging compa­nies, the logging compa­nies blame the residents who would cut and cut timber without any permit. Others blame the rebel army who have turned logging into a fund-raising enterprise, instead of preventing logging, they sim­ply collect “revolu­tionary tax” on the activity. Ci­vil society is blaming govern­ment, giving per­mits to logging conces­sion­aires in exchange for much money that winds up in the pockets of DENR of­fici als. And the DENR is blam­ing the ty­phoon! Kaya, awa ng Diyos, natapos ang kwento nang wa­lang naaresto!

Nature is crucially vital to us. Human conditions are de­pendent on the conditions of the environment. Obvious ba?!

The old folks would call it “simpol aritmitik!” Negating the consequence implies nega­ting the antecedent. It is a sim­ple equation. If p implies q, then by contraposition, not-q implies not-p, where p is endemic in q, meaning, that p is a subset of q, and that for any n that is not a subset of q, p is not a subset of n. Hehehe! It only means that because humans cannot survive with­out nature, when humans des­troy nature, humans are des­troying humans.

.......Perhaps it can be said that this view is still centered on the humans, where the human values nature only because it is in the best interest of the hu­man to do so. Pero mas mabuti na yon, it is much better than not caring for the environment at all!.........

Others would accept that message, but not narrowly limited to the self - interest of humans. For them, na­ture was cre­ated and ac­corded dig­ni­ty. Integrity of Creation!

.......Christians, for example, would say, the word “creation” pre­sumes that there was/is a Cre­ator. So for people who be­lieve that there is a God who created this entire universe, it is part of their appreciation, thankfulness and obedience to­ward their God to cherish and conserve what that God has created. Pagpapahalaga at pa­nga­nga­laga sa Kanyang nilik­ha.

.......What may be presented as a simple parallel to this is re­ceiving a love letter or gift from someone who loves you. The natural thing to do is to treasure this, as a gesture of your love for the sender. You would not treat it like dirt, but on the contrary cherish it close to your heart as very valuable.

On the other hand, there are others who do not believe in the existence of any god, but they hold it as truth that aside from human beings, all beings are imbued with inhe­rent dignity and value.

Bakit, maganda ba ang ipis? Can we find any beauty in the cock­roach? Let’s ask its own mo­ther! Deep Ecologists call this “ecosophy,” the phi­lo­sophy of the ecology. Wala pa yata ‘yan sa dictionary.

......In a gist, it states that aside from the human, other life forms or expressions of exist­ence, whether living or non-living – flowers, worms, large lizards, tadpoles, stones and brooks, mountains and vol­canoes, include also the dawn and the new moon – all have their innate value, likas na ka kabuluhan, in their own right, and in relation to other beings.

And this intrinsic and in­alienable integrity of all beings does not have to be derived from a supreme being, or God, or Creator. And even among the materialists, without be­liev­ing in any god, many con­sider Nature as sacred.

So, sabi nga ng nanay ko, “entonces,” whether you do this because you still want to live on, or you are striving to live the will of God, or to up­hold the intrinsic beauty of na­ture, whether or not there is a god for you, our common “de­nomi-nature” is Nature.

Thus we can unite on our first message. Because it is true that nature is valuable, our in­tention is to care for Nature. But as the present reality is that humans are destroying Na­ture, our demand is that this des­truction of Nature be stopped.

.
=
=
=
=
.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BACK TO LSD-2 TABLE OF CONTENTS

To post FEEDBACK on this article, click HERE, join as member, and send your comment as a message.

.

LSD-2-FAQs-SanibLakas

What is...

As a common noun, it is the Tagalog word for both the phenomenon of synergy and the principle of synergism. As a proper noun, it refers to two distinct but intimately-linked organizations, which are:

1 .....1..SanibLakas Foundation. This was registered with the Se­­curities and Exchange Commission of the Philippines as “Sa­nibLakas, Inc.,” a non-stock, non profit corporation,” in Septem­ber 1996, and was registered as SanibLakas ng Taongbayan Foundation, or simply SanibLakas Foundation, in August 1997.

2..Pamayanang SanibLakas (Synergism Community). This is a complex organization created by SanibLakas Founda­tion in November 2002 to embrace in one organizationally-loose but dynamic synergism community all the organizations and insti­tutions created by the Foundation, including Sanib-Sining Move­­ment for Synaethetics, Sanib-Lakas ng Inang Kalikasan (SALI­KA), Lambat-Liwanag Network for Empowering Paradigms, Ka­tipunang DakiLahi para sa Pambansang Pagsasanib-lakas (Da­kiLahi), Advocates of Cooperative Education on Synergism (ACES), Consumers’ Coalition for Truthful Information (CCTI), and, since very recently, the Local Community Empowerment Study Cen­ter (LCE, a.k.a. “Paaralang Baranggay-Tagbalay”).

What is the Vision and Mission of SanibLakas?

SanibLakas Foundation envisions a future reality where Filipinos embody synergy and live it consistently for our own individual and collective uplift­ment and as a contri­bution to the entire human family and the planetary community. The SanibLakas mission is two-fold: to promote the synergism principle, and to build actual syn­ergies.

Who are the members of the Foundation? How can one acquire and retain membership?

SanibLakas Foundation has a few dozen members from vari­ous sectors and areas of human concern, who have shown themselves to be attuned to the synergism philosophy and have chosen to live this principle in their own lives and to help peo­ple within their respective circles of influence get to be fa­miliar with the praxis (theory and practice) of synergism. When two members-in-good-standing of the Foundation agree that a third individual apparently qualifies to be a member, consi­dering the latter’s behavior and articulations on such behavior, these two jointly submit the name of the individual to the Sa­nibLakas Foundation’s Membership Committee. This Com­mittee then asks all SanibLakas Foundation regular members, within its immediate reach through the common communication channels, whether they have any personal knowledge that can affect that the Foundation’s decision on whether of not to invite these people into the organization. The Committee receives the basis of the recom­mendation and all the other pertinent information on the person, seeks to verify/clarify all the items for and against the person, and decides whether or not to invite the recommended person for mem­bership in the SanibLakas Foundation. If the Membership Committee approves, it conveys the invitation to the person con­cerned, along with information on the Foundation and the rights and duties of its members. If the invitation is accepted, the new recruit signs and files the Activation Form and is sworn in. Mem­bership in the Foundation may be lost for cause, including a clear manifestation of disinterest in continued membership.

Is it true that SanibLakas is “into everything”?

The two-fold mission mandates by implication that Foundation members, and other people who actually come to grasp the princi­ple of synergism, seek to apply this principle to their daily lives. Stephen Covey, in his bestseller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, teaches his readers to “synergize!” as the sixth habit, add­ing that “the exercise of the other habits prepares us for the habit of synergy.” When these people do that, they magnetize like-minded people around them in the pursuit of one paradigm shift within one or a number of areas of hu­man concern, and the Sa­nibLakas Foundation’s two-fold mission develops a work­able framework that gets syn­ergized with all the other frameworks of SanibLakas eff­orts. In developing work in any area of concern, Sanib­Lakas seeks to build equal partnerships with individuals and en­tities outside the Foundation, and a new synergy-oriented pa­radigm-specific forma­tion often emerges as a mechanism for team­ing up in such part­ner­ships.

Especially at the start, the Foundation leadership was very much pro-active in choosing the areas of concern very relevant to the pursuit of the organization’s two-fold mission. For example, syner­gism-oriented education for cooperatives was chosen as an early priority because synergism is the very soul of cooperativism; the movement for “synaesthetics” was also formed early in our his­tory because a visual-arts group called “Sanibkulay” came up with a Credo asserting that “all humans are artists” and seeking to tear down walls between practicing artists and so-called “non-artists” (see LD-1, May-June 2005, p. 95.); and efforts to build synergies among environmental advocates started based on the assertion that we Earthians are all stakehold­ers in environmental conservation and after the observation that the more than 2,500 organizations listed as participants in Earth Day 2000 commemoration in the Philip­pines have been, apparently, not united enough to make an impact on the environmental scene.

Is SanibLakas not spreading itself too thinly?

First of all, the Foundation is not trying to do everything that has to be done in the world or even in the Philippines. The role of Sanib­Lakas Foundation is focused on, first, seeking to develop and clari­fy the appropriate application of the synergism principle in the vari­ous areas of human concern, and, second, building synergies am­ong various doers, bringing together people and entities who really ought to be teaming up, so they could pursue their respect­ive bene­ficent advocacies more effectively. A significant part of this is the call we have raised for entities earnestly working to build and uplift our nation to have active presence in local commun­ities and to synergize their efforts these local communities.

Are you not spreading your members too thinly?

Individual SanibLakas officers and members who become very act­ive members in a plurality of concerns and organizations do so upon their own personal choice, in full and responsible consider­ation of their time priorities and constraints. There is even a cate­gorical policy that guarantees the right of anyone to decline a task or position on the basis of inavailability of quality time one can give it, a policy that prohibits anyone from seriously “volunteering any­body else.” All we require of Foundation members is attendance in annual general assemblies, clear and dependable declarations of intent and/or acceptance relative to any task, and clear and de­pendable declarations of any adjustments to these, if any has to be made. Considering the real limitations on the availability of quality time (and personal spending money to spare) on the part of the Foundation’s mem­bers, and considering the near-absolute absence of any central funds at any given time up to now, SanibLakas work has not been proceeding as fast as we want to carry it forward. But we have, very early on, decided not to work ourselves to death, confident that more and more people will soon­er or later join our endeavors by whatever form of support or hands-on participation they would choose to give for any stretch of time. Please note well that the pronoun “we” is very much ex­pandable. It has expanded immensely for SanibLakas, especially now with the Pamayanang SanibLakas accelerating in growth. We can predict that in another five years or so, a big percentage of the individual Filipinos embraced into the SanibLakas com­munity will be people from areas outside NCR.

Isn't it difficult enough for the Foundation to maintain a significant presence in Metro Manila? Why don't you just try to influence local realities from this center?

We want our existence to have a significant effect on the nation. Ma- nila is a convenient communication and coordination center to ope­rate from, but as a center, this metropolis is practically out of touch with the deep realities outside it. We believe we can only build the syn­ergy of nationhood from the voluntary clustering of local com­muni­ties premised on the latter’s own realities and their own realization that they would benefit from such clustering in managing their cultu­ral, natural and economic resources and uplifting them­selves toge­ther. So, we seek to promote the synergism principle effectively am­ong them and help them build actual synergies. Our work of help­ing more and more people self-actualize as humans (“mag­pakaTao!”) and helping them build strong bonds of synergy among themselves (“MakipagKapwa-Tao!”) will keep on going and even accelerate, despite all those dramatic changes in the com­position and texture of national policy-makers. This destiny of our people has long historical roots in the ‘tangkilikan’ precepts of Rizal’s La Liga Filipina and in the communities-gathering work of Bonifacio’s Kat­ipunan. The bigger difficulty is actually in building enough perseverance and clarity of direction among the majority of our members, against all difficulties and distractions.

What is this Pamayanang SanibLakas? Is it an

alliance or coalition, a network or, an umbrella?

It is what it says in it name—pamayanan or community. When the SanibLakas-initiated organizations were only very few, we coined the phrase “Broader SanibLakas Family,” to refer to the universal set of people who do not all belong to the subset that the Founda­tion is, but already feel and eagerly accept the synergism orienta­tion in the work that their respective organizations were doing. It is really an expanded family, which is what a community should really be seen to be (instead of being perceived as a place, a community should be recognized as a big “family” with its collective house or territory). The Pamayanan’s charter mandates it to have an annual assembly which has generally been more of spirit-boosting get-toge­ther. It is a mechanism for members of its member-organizations to feel a strong sense of belonging, of being very much at home in to enjoy the reunions of the big clans, which is what communities real­ly are. The Pamayanan is not an umbrella that is above anyone, it is an em­bracive community spirit – with a name.

.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BACK TO LSD-2 TABLE OF CONTENTS

To post FEEDBACK on this article, click HERE, join as member, and send your comment as a message.

.

LSD-2-Slide-to-Slumberland

SLIDE TO SLUMBERLAND (Some ways you may try…)

1. Lie comfortably and perfectly still. Or almost-perfectly still. Mentally count your exhales. If you lose count, start again. Many who do this fall asleep without reaching 100. Short dreams sneak in and make them lose count, forcing them to repeat. Next cycle, they would lose count even earlier.

2. Enjoy the moment. Enjoy your bed, pillow and blanket, enjoy the breezes or cool air, enjoy the mellow music or silence that enables you to hear cricket, frog and bird sounds. If there are fragrant smells around, enjoy them, too. Linger on your enjoyments, and you’ll soon fall asleep with a smile.

3. Enjoy the darkness that gives rest to your tired eyes. If you can, project pictures of Nature upon that dark “screen.” Imagine yourself as a polar bear curled up in deep slumber in a dark cave at night, a six-month night!

4.Think happy thoughts, especially about the preceding day, recent days, or earlier days. Such thoughts may not necessarily enable you to fly like Peter Pan, but who knows? The moment you fall happily asleep you can fly, you can do just that in the happy dream, which can allow you to refuse to grow up. You can make wishful dreams about the future, but resist the temptation of making plans because doing that would wake up your mind. Think positive thoughts about yourself, in amusement or in pride, and think positive thoughts about other people, especially friends who have been really nice to you. If tearful and fearful problems come in and disrupt the happy thoughts, remind yourself of earlier problems you had earlier cried over but later on smiled at in amusement or even laughed about afterwards.

5. Reading at night can make your eyes more tired and signal the entire body to feel sleepy. It works for many people. However, reading horror stories, suspense thrillers or materials that are mentally too stimulating may not be the best bedtime reading fare for immediately sliding to sleep.

6. For some, boredom works. You can bore yourself to sleep, for example by listening on the phone to a boring person talk about his boring life. But try not to fall asleep before he himself does! You may also listen to taped intro­ductions in the speeches of some politicians who start with long roll-calls of people present, or anything that bores you to death in the daytime.

7. But if you want to pre-tape anything at all, record sounds of waves breaking at the beach, using an entire side of a cassette tape just on this repeating sound or both sides if you can play it in auto-reverse mode. Keep it on while you’re asleep but keep it low. It’s a good massage on the subconscious.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BACK TO LSD-2 TABLE OF CONTENTS

To post FEEDBACK on this article, click HERE, join as member, and send your comment as a message.

.

LSD-2-Tangkilikan-Components

Let’s All Help Create, Strengthen:

The ‘Tangkilikan’ Components

By Tony Cruzada Kasikap
Co-founder and Tangkilikan Coordinator, Katipunang DakiLahi;
Overall Coordinator, Sanib-Sikap Initiatives;
Board of Trustees member, SanibLakas ng Taongbayan Foundation

[This is reproduced from the second part of Cruzada’s article in ‘Pambansang Talastasan’ and ‘Pambansang Tang­kilikan’: Twin Imperatives for National Syn­ergy-Building, Empowerment and Upliftment, a pamphlet written by Ed Aurelio Reyes and Cruzada, with an introduction by NEPA president, and DakiLahi chairperson Faustino G. Mendoza Jr., and published by Katipunang DakiLahi in 2003.]

HERE is a user-friendly guide to “Tangkilikan Compo­nents,” especially for networks and associations earn­estly dedicated to improving the Philippine economy by creating new realities where they count—local economies.

Pinoy Market
(Tumatangkilik sa
Produktong Pinoy)

The starting point for the re­surgence of the economy is market demand. It is the mar­ket which alone sustains trade and industry. And the situation of consumers, their purchasing power, affects the fortune of enterprises. If the vast major­ity of the population have a low purchasing power, de­mand will be low and the pro­ducers of goods and services will have little business: if they produce large stocks, pri­ces will be depressed and if they are not already suffering loss, their profits are next to nil.

Consumers preferences al­so affect business. If con­sumers in large numbers continue to pre­fer foreign, imported products, no local industry will thrive. Filipi­nos who will patronize Fili­pino products are needed in great numbers to save Fili­pino jobs and industries and keep the Philippine econo­my afloat. If the market continues to be flooded with foreign goods, and there is little local pro­duction, we are reduced to a society of consumers, spend­ing for as long as there is money to spend, by those who still have that money. But no new wealth is created, no new money flows into the eco­no­my while it is being bled by fo­reign investments, resulting in continuing outflow of capi­tal.

We are all affected by the condition of the economy. We worsen that condition as we continue to patronize foreign goods at the expense of local industries. So, before indul­ging our preferences, we must first seek to build our national economy, or suffer the conse­quences. We need to take a long-term view. If the econo­my does not recover and is not rebuilt on the strength of local productivity, we all sink with it eventually.

Trading, Wholesale/Retail
(Tumatangkilik sa Mamimiling Pinoy)

Consumer net­works by geogra­phic clusters must estab­lish mechan­isms that free them from the clutches of unscru­pulous traders. Re­tailers can consolidate in a com­mon-services cooperative that will do the volume purchase, so that as a cooperative they perform the wholesale func­tion. A worker coop can ope­rate the actual purchase and de­livery function, while the retail­ers are the investors and the subscribers. The workers coop will not be after unfair advan­tage by itself, as it will be a member of a trading coope­rative network participating in the sharing scheme.

A Credit Coop can be a partner providing credit line to the Trading Cooperative. The trading cooperative can have an investment in the credit co­operative, or the retailers can become members of the credit coop and avail themselves of concessional group loans. Re­tailers of fruits, vegetables, dairy and other items sold in volumes daily can form a com­mon service cooperative for wholesale buying. Alongside many of these retailer/whole-­saler cooperatives there can be a sup­ply service for sari-sari stores and a com­munity - based network of households. For example, wholesale trading of rice can be planned for household delivery. The consumer network places the order, the Credit Coop finan­ces the bulk purchase and pays the supplier; and the house­holds pay the cooperative.

Pinoy Quality Products=
(Dapat Tangkilikin ng Mamimiling Pinoy)

Necessarily, quality Filipi­no products must be produced which can compete with im­ported ones in quality and price. In fact, there are already many products produced by Filipino manufacturers which are of high quality and are being exported. All of these products have to be promoted together so that the range of local products can be known and appreciated and can help convince households that their needs can be met by local producers.

In the case of certain goods that are still substandard, pro­duct development support can be negotiated and pro­vided. Discriminating buyers can com­mit to buy Filipino pro­ducts and demand quality from local producers in the name of rebuilding the local economy. The credit coope­ratives can play a big role in financing the production of Pinoy quality products.

Agro Producers’ Welfare=
(Tangkilikan ng mga Magbu­bukid at mga Mamimili sa Lungsod)

Producers and manufac­tur­ers are hard put because of taxes, the high cost of money, materials, machinery and man­power. Under a system where profits are paramount for the owners of enterprise, the costs, including wage of workers, have to be cut down. But under a different system based on the perspective of workers, what is paramount is employ­ment security. Profits can be small at the start and increased only through gradu­al build-up. Worker coopera­tives stand a better chance of surviving the present crisis.

Also, worker coops are a way to spread and multiply em­ployment. More employment means more people with pur­chasing power, a bigger mar­ket for Filipino products.

Among producers, the pro­ducers of basic commodities such as rice, crops and poultry continue to be poor. This is because the cost of production is high. They are at the mercy of traders for agricultural in­puts. To break this, farmers will need to shift to organic farming and no longer depend on expensive inputs.

Ultimate­ly, they ought to be co-owners of cooperatives producing ag­ricultural inputs, like fertiliz­ers, feeds and farm machinery.

The end-user should be co-pro­ducer or at least be an invest­or. As a consumer he will be entitled to discounts and re­bates. As worker he will have his wage for work contribu­tions. And as investor, he will share in the profits.

Small/Medium Enterprises and/or Workers’ Cooperatives=
(Tangkilikan sa pagpapalago ng mga Pagawaan at Nego­s­yo ng mga Magkakamanggagawa)

Small and medium in­dus­tries account for more jobs than the big corpo­rations.

The multiplication of SMEs therefore provides a better avenue for the reduction of unemploy­ment.

Worker Co­operatives are SMEs with the added advan­tage of be­ing owned by the workers and there­fore also pro­vide employ­ment security, for as long as the business is vi­able.

And even if a parti­cular business is no longer mak­ing enough money for the group, the coop can al­ways explore new business op­tions since they are the owners.

The credit coops will be doing the economy a great boost if they support initial capitalization of worker co­operatives.

Industrialization
(Tangkilikan ng mga Negosyo Upang Maitindig ang Malalaking Industriya)

Industrialization which in­volves heavy industries re­quires smaller industries that utilize the output of the heavy industries. Before heavy in­dus­tries become viable, there must first be the mul­tiplicity of down­stream indus­tries of the small and medium type.

Again, the Credit Coops can help lay the ground for event­ual industrialization by supporting the spread of numerous small and medium industries that in time will absorb the products of heavy industries, such as a steel mill. This process starts with a groundswell of small-scale lo­cal enterprises developing ma­ny products, and these, in turn set off the basis for the deve­lopment of much more pro­ducts, in a chain reaction.

=======

This process starts with a groundswell

of small-scale

local enterprises.

=======

It is the crucial role of credit co­operatives is to provide capi­tal loans or pro­ductive loans (not only the providential loans asked for) to members who would be en­couraged to go into entrepre­neurship.

Beyond Micro-Finance
(Tangkilikan sa Maliliit Tu­ngo sa Malalaking Pamumuhunan)

Credit cooperatives have largely provided the service of micro-finance and mostly to individual entrepreneurs and small-time traders and vendors. Through bigger credit coopera­tives, they should now look at financing cooperative busi­ness­es at the level of SMEs. Workers coops in manufact­uring, wholesale trading and largescale services all need ca­pitalization. The excess liquid­ity of millionaire cooperatives can be put to good use for these group enterprises. Part­nership arrangements will help spread the risk, even as ade­quate capital will become av­ailable. All worker members will become members in a pri­mary credit coop. And the pri­mary coop should avail itself of the mutual protection that the network and partnership setup offers.

of modest dimen­sions. Then, from there, the family can move on to a better dwelling as its in­come increases. And fi­nally, they can settle in per­manent homes. The rental in all various stages would be in­stallments for the final house.

Many children of poor fa­milies cannot complete their schooling due to lack of mo­-ney. But these families can be organized to plant and care for community forests. Their share of the income from commer­cial tree farms can be sub­stantial. And part of it can be reserved for the children’s schooling. Cooperatives can set up a fund to advance pay­ments for enrolment and study expenses, by co-in­vesting in such community forests. There are many other possibilities.

Cruzada...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BACK TO LSD-2 TABLE OF CONTENTS

To post FEEDBACK on this article, click HERE, join as member, and send your comment as a message.

.