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.

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