Royalty
Royalty
Updated 01:04am (Mla time) Oct 28, 2004
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the October 28, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
IF there is justice in this world, no Filipino children would be at the mercy of toxic wastes left at the former US military bases in Clark and Subic. If there is justice in this world, they would -- like all children should -- be happily at play and looking to a future brimming with hope. They would not be grievously ill and their bodies riddled by afflictions directly caused by the toxins still enveloping their homes, poisoning the water they drink and the very air they breathe. Quite simply, they would not be dead.
More than a decade after the US bases on Philippine soil were closed down in September 1991, toxic waste contamination remains an undiminished plague. Yet the cleanup long demanded of the United States by various groups is not tagged high priority in Philippine government projects. Nowhere is it mentioned in President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's 10-point agenda (unless "the development of Clark and Subic as the best international service and logistic centers in the region" includes it, although that's a bit of a stretch); it did not even merit lip service in her perfervid spiels during the election campaign. Even otherwise attentive observers forget, momentarily riveted as they are by the increasingly difficult business of living, as well as by the scandals on unexplained wealth. Yet the problem continues to fester, like a boil slowly coming to a head.
On top of her commitments as president of Amade Mondiale (and true-blue member of royalty), Princess Caroline of Hanover has been requested to tell the world the story of the stricken Filipino children at the former US bases. As reported by the Inquirer, the princess acknowledged the request of seven-year-old Michael Pili's grandmother Norma, who, in voicing it to the esteemed visitor on Tuesday, managed to convey the desperate nature of their existence. Michael is one of 500 children whose illnesses have been directly linked to toxic waste contamination. There are many others like them whose cases are undocumented; some have given up the ghost.
Michael's grandmother in effect conveyed, that if her government could not, or would not, do something about him and others like him, perhaps Caroline of Hanover would. Not that the grandmother was grasping at straws in nursing that hope. By accounts, the princess is of a different mold and does not belong to the category of the merely decorative. She had written US President George W. Bush as early as 2002, seeking the cleanup of the former American bases as well as compensation for the victims of toxic waste contamination. And Amade, along with the Philippines' Alliance of the Bases Cleanup, has brought the issue to the United Nations. (Compare this with the slow action of the Philippine government, which did not even have the spine to push the cleanup as a fair exchange for its swift, unequivocal support for the US-led "war on terror" and subsequent invasion of Iraq.)
class
CLASS is as class does. Princess Caroline's brief stay in the Philippines to visit and raise funds for the facilities of the Virlanie Foundation Inc. is remarkable for being low-key -- in more ways than one. In her visits to shelters for single mothers, street children and other minors involved in crime or victims of abuse, or the Madapdap resettlement site in Mabalacat town in Pampanga province, she was noteworthy for a simplicity of appearance and manner. (On television, a 14-year-old victim of rape who had, with others like herself, just sung for the princess, said she was moved to tears by the latter's quiet, appreciative presence. It was as though, the girl said, not without a tinge of wonder, Caroline understood her plight.)
This simplicity, at once both elegant and intense, imbues in the princess a certain power and makes of her a worthy president of Amade Mondiale, otherwise known as the World Association of Children's Friends. She commands attention because of it, and thus effectively serves to focus attention on the state of some of the unfortunate children on the planet, and what prosperous countries and sectors can do to help.
Caroline of Hanover calls to mind what Daniel Barenbolm wrote of the late literary critic and activist Edward Said, who, he said, had a "musician's soul" and "knew quite well that in music, force is not power, something that many of the world's political leaders do not perceive." Long may her star shine.
Updated 01:04am (Mla time) Oct 28, 2004
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the October 28, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
IF there is justice in this world, no Filipino children would be at the mercy of toxic wastes left at the former US military bases in Clark and Subic. If there is justice in this world, they would -- like all children should -- be happily at play and looking to a future brimming with hope. They would not be grievously ill and their bodies riddled by afflictions directly caused by the toxins still enveloping their homes, poisoning the water they drink and the very air they breathe. Quite simply, they would not be dead.
More than a decade after the US bases on Philippine soil were closed down in September 1991, toxic waste contamination remains an undiminished plague. Yet the cleanup long demanded of the United States by various groups is not tagged high priority in Philippine government projects. Nowhere is it mentioned in President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's 10-point agenda (unless "the development of Clark and Subic as the best international service and logistic centers in the region" includes it, although that's a bit of a stretch); it did not even merit lip service in her perfervid spiels during the election campaign. Even otherwise attentive observers forget, momentarily riveted as they are by the increasingly difficult business of living, as well as by the scandals on unexplained wealth. Yet the problem continues to fester, like a boil slowly coming to a head.
On top of her commitments as president of Amade Mondiale (and true-blue member of royalty), Princess Caroline of Hanover has been requested to tell the world the story of the stricken Filipino children at the former US bases. As reported by the Inquirer, the princess acknowledged the request of seven-year-old Michael Pili's grandmother Norma, who, in voicing it to the esteemed visitor on Tuesday, managed to convey the desperate nature of their existence. Michael is one of 500 children whose illnesses have been directly linked to toxic waste contamination. There are many others like them whose cases are undocumented; some have given up the ghost.
Michael's grandmother in effect conveyed, that if her government could not, or would not, do something about him and others like him, perhaps Caroline of Hanover would. Not that the grandmother was grasping at straws in nursing that hope. By accounts, the princess is of a different mold and does not belong to the category of the merely decorative. She had written US President George W. Bush as early as 2002, seeking the cleanup of the former American bases as well as compensation for the victims of toxic waste contamination. And Amade, along with the Philippines' Alliance of the Bases Cleanup, has brought the issue to the United Nations. (Compare this with the slow action of the Philippine government, which did not even have the spine to push the cleanup as a fair exchange for its swift, unequivocal support for the US-led "war on terror" and subsequent invasion of Iraq.)
class
CLASS is as class does. Princess Caroline's brief stay in the Philippines to visit and raise funds for the facilities of the Virlanie Foundation Inc. is remarkable for being low-key -- in more ways than one. In her visits to shelters for single mothers, street children and other minors involved in crime or victims of abuse, or the Madapdap resettlement site in Mabalacat town in Pampanga province, she was noteworthy for a simplicity of appearance and manner. (On television, a 14-year-old victim of rape who had, with others like herself, just sung for the princess, said she was moved to tears by the latter's quiet, appreciative presence. It was as though, the girl said, not without a tinge of wonder, Caroline understood her plight.)
This simplicity, at once both elegant and intense, imbues in the princess a certain power and makes of her a worthy president of Amade Mondiale, otherwise known as the World Association of Children's Friends. She commands attention because of it, and thus effectively serves to focus attention on the state of some of the unfortunate children on the planet, and what prosperous countries and sectors can do to help.
Caroline of Hanover calls to mind what Daniel Barenbolm wrote of the late literary critic and activist Edward Said, who, he said, had a "musician's soul" and "knew quite well that in music, force is not power, something that many of the world's political leaders do not perceive." Long may her star shine.
posted by Dante at 4:10 PM
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