Up Close and Personal Update
from Jose Montelibano
to Rosalinda Olsen

 

December 7, 2003

 

Dear Rose,

I am paying for forgetting that my body is not as young and as strong as my passion and my visions. We went to Tarlac the other day and visited one new site, a one-hectare area within a farming community once owned by small "hacienderos." I was with Tony Meloto and the GK team in Tarlac, meeting with the family members who agreed to join the GK movement and experiment with the program in an effort to see visible improvement in both material and relational well-being in the community. I hope that we can begin work there by the first quarter of 2004.

We then proceeded to another municipality to visit an established but small GK community with less than 20 families. The GK team there suffered some delays because the person in charge had a heart by-pass and had to rest for a while. We did not have a deep bench of volunteers there, a situation which is slowly but surely reversing itself as GK is becoming more popular in the CFC community. We will be building another 12 houses in the next two months and upgrade the ones already in place. The GK team in Tarlac has been asked to visit the more outstanding sites in Metro Manila and Bulacan so that the team members can see the standards these progressive GK communities are following.

When it was dark, we went to Hacienda Luisita as guests of Peping Cojuangco for the night. It gave us a chance to privately discuss the political dynamics from someone who has been in politics for almost 45 years before retiring in 1998. He also invited the mayor of Angeles City who has shown interest in joining GK. Another mayor, Franklin Quijano of Iligan City, one of the most outstanding in the Philippines and due to receive a Conrad Adenauer award the next day, followed for a late dinner meeting with us. He is Mr. GK mayor with 14 GK communities in his city, six of which are being established today. He wants all 44 barangays to have their own in the next three years. Franklin is also part of the peace panel in Mindanao for the government.

We finished our meeting/discussions at around 3 am, had a brief sleep, and then had an early breakfast meeting with the Tarlac GK team again before proceeding to our Aeta GK community (Pinatubo GK) in the Crow Valley military reservation in Capas. It was my first time to visit that particular village for a minority and indigenous people (we have another one for B'laans in Mindanao) and it was, frankly, fascinating. It is just unfortunate that it is inside a military reservation (the US Air Force used the area as a practice target area) and access there has to go through military check points. Anyway, CFC and GK are now familiar sights with the soldiers who normally do not deny access. I just wonder what happens when we want to visit at night.

We drove to Angeles City to meet with the mayor and his urban housing staff. It was more of a site visit (actually, we visited two sites) as Tony wanted to see the possible areas where we can work and we did find a community of about 100 former squatter families in their now-owned slum community. We hope to build our GK teams in Angeles to begin work there in three months' time.

When we got home, there was only time to catch up with GK meetings at the Center (that's headquarters - the CFC Center), freshen up, and rush to a birthday dinner hosted by the celebrant, Amada Bagatsing. I think his birthday was earlier, or just about to be, but he wanted a chance to be with his favorite friends in a more private setting.

We missed going to Banahaw today, which does not please me very much at all. But we have another birthday dinner to attend today which I felt we should not miss. It is for the mother of a friend, for Mrs. Leticia Tinio Saycon who is now 88 years old but still going strong. She and her children own the Natalia Village subdivision which just partnered with GK. Her family donated a few lots for the poorest of the poor in a special area in the middle of their middle class subdivision where there is a live brook and where 8 or so hectares can be developed for vegetable farming and cut flowers. Then, they agreed to subsidize more lots to accommodate 80 low-income workers of GK, dropping prices from P3,000 per sq.m to P1,000 so that the land could be affordable. In short, a middle class subdivision will allow entry of D & E families under the GK program to show that people of different economic classes can live in harmony and peace. We are calling the project the Natalia GK (Natalia is the name of Mrs. Leticia's mother).

I will fly to Bukidnon on Monday and will be back Tuesday in time for another GK meeting, one with the Ateneo University and its president who wants to give us office space in Makati (in the former Ateneo de Manila graduate and law school in Salcedo Village or in Rockwell where these are now located). It will be my first trip to Bukidnon where I hope to visit at least two GK sites, the pictures of which I will of course send you.

Rose, it seems that my life in the near future will be one flurry of activities. Please bear with me, especially in the technical aspect of our website. I just don't know how to keep up with learning new tricks in this fast changing technical world. Even the pictures I will be sending you later will be sent one by one as I still don't know how to send them in bunches. I had asked someone to come here in the house yesterday, someone with computer savvy, to help me understand certain things. Unfortunately, my schedule was so full that we had to move our session.

Boy