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Startup to begin editing humans’ DNA in 2017
We’re not quite ready to alter human DNA on a massive scale, but there are means to edit genes in some parts of the body such as eyes to correct certain medical conditions. One startup called Editas Medicine will begin testing a gene repair program on humans in two years, marking an impressive advancement for biotechnology. The aim is to fix a rare form of blindness by simply editing out the bad parts from a gene.

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Editas Medicine uses a technology called CRISPR, MIT’s Technology Review writes, that was invented just three years ago and has been spreading through biology laboratories. The technology has already been used to edit the DNA of monkeys, but Editas might become the first company to start clinical trials.

The startup plans to treat a rare eye disease called Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), which affects the retina cells that are responsible for receiving light. By targeting the eyes of LCA patients with CRISPR tech, the company wants to fix the eyes of people affected by the disease and cure or prevent blindness.

What happens during a CRISPR procedure for LCA is that the patient gets injected right into the retina with a soup of viruses containing the DNA instructions needed to manufacture the components of CRISPR, including a protein whose job is to cut a gene at a precise location.

To treat LCA, Editas’s procedure will effectively delete 1,000 DNA letters from a gene called CEP290. Preliminary lab experiments have shown that after the treatment, the gene should function correctly. But before the human clinical trial starts, the therapy will be used in the lab on animals.

In theory, CRISPR tech could be used to treat any gene abnormality in the human body but the site notes that it’s difficult to make DNA repairs in most cell types, with the eye being an exception as the treatment is injected directly under the retina.

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When we have a level playing field, Americans out-compete anyone in the world. That’s a fundamental truth about our country.

But right now, the rules of global trade put our workers, our businesses, and our values at a disadvantage.

If you’re an autoworker in Michigan, the cars you build face taxes as high as 70 percent in Vietnam. If you’re a worker in Oregon, you’re forced to compete against workers in other countries that set lower standards and pay lower wages just to cut their costs. If you’re a small business owner in Ohio, you might face customs rules that are confusing, costly, and an unnecessary barrier to selling abroad.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership will change that -- and you can read the complete text of it right here.

The TPP is the highest standard trade agreement in history. It eliminates 18,000 taxes that various countries put on American goods. That will boost Made-in-America exports abroad while supporting higher-paying jobs right here at home. And that’s going to help our economy grow.

I know that past trade agreements haven’t always lived up to the hype. So I want to tell you a little bit about what makes this trade agreement so different, and so important.

The TPP includes the strongest labor standards in history, from requiring a minimum wage and worker safety regulations to prohibiting child labor and forced labor. It also includes the strongest environmental commitments in history, requiring countries in one of the most biologically diverse areas on Earth to crack down on illegal wildlife trafficking, illegal logging, and illegal fishing. These standards are at the core of the agreement and are fully enforceable -- which means we can bring trade sanctions against countries that don’t step up their game.

And for the first time ever, we’ll have a multilateral trade agreement that reflects the reality of the digital economy by promoting a free and open Internet and by preventing unfair laws that restrict the free flow of data and information.

In other words, the TPP means that America will write the rules of the road in the 21st century. When it comes to Asia, one of the world’s fastest-growing regions, the rulebook is up for grabs. And if we don’t pass this agreement -- if America doesn’t write those rules -- then countries like China will. And that would only threaten American jobs and workers and undermine American leadership around the world.

That’s why I am posting the text of this agreement here for you to read and explore.

There’s a lot in here, so we’ve put together summaries of each chapter to help you navigate what’s in the agreement and what these new standards will mean for you.

Read it all in full right here.

I know that if you take a look at what’s actually in the TPP, you will see that this is, in fact, a new type of trade deal that puts American workers first.

Take a look. Then make up your mind.

-- President Barack Obama

ag kiri diay?

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Sugod na pud ni nga mga pulong karong eleksyon puhon.

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Thailand deports four Russians placed on int'l wanted list

BANGKOK -- Thai authorities on Friday have deported four Russians who were placed on the international wanted list by the Interpol, head of the Russian Embassy’s consular department Vladimir Sosnov told TASS.

"Eduard Malkov, Yevgeny Yukin, Kristina Mokina and Grigory Lysakov accompanied by Russian police officers have departed from Bangkok to Moscow. All of them were detained by the Thai law enforcement agencies at the request of the Russian side," he said. The Russian citizens were deported by two different flights for safety reasons.

Malkov, a native of Chelyabinsk, was sentenced to three years’ probation for smuggling super-potent substances. He pledged not to leave the city but went into hiding. Malkov was arrested in the resort city of Pattaya in early October where he worked in a baker’s shop.

Yukin was sentenced in absentia to two years in prison by the Central district court of Novosibirsk for large-scale fraud committed by an organized group.

Mokina and Lysakov are the defendants in the same criminal case overseen the Investigative Department of the Federal Security Service (FSB) in the Krasnoyarsk territory.

Mokina is accused of breach of confidence and "theft of property on a large scale and malversation." Lysakov is charged with complicity in the fraud. Last May, a court in Krasnoyark remanded both defendants into custody. They were placed on the international wanted list later in October. (PNA/TASS)

no shortage kay made in china tanang kandila?

pwede ba naay bala pero walay pistola? an obvious scam.

DOH-7: Be more wary of vehicle emissions than haze

CEBU - Central Visayas Health Director Dr. Jaime Bernadas told the public to be more wary of man-made pollutants like the daily vehicle emissions endangering public health more than the haze which is temporary.

Bernadas said though the haze has been a chief health issue these days, the public should also be equally concerned about the impact of vehicle emissions to human health.

“Vehicle emission is a major contributory factor in the development of respiratory diseases,” said Bernadas.

The DOH-7 director urged the public to take public transport more or do car pooling and lessen the use of personal private cars in order to reduce vehicle emissions.

Smoke belching largely contributes to the formation of smog which is also linked to a variety of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, according to the British Columbia Air Quality Report.

In the same report, it outlined the common pollutants vehicles emit and their health effects including nitrogen oxides which irritate the lungs, carbon monoxide which decreases the ability of the blood to carry oxygen and fine particulate matter that can worsen symptoms in individuals with respiratory or heart diseases.

Bernadas said it is high time the Clean Air Act be strictly implemented wherein under the law, it considers the maximum limits for all major pollutants to ensure air quality for the health, safety and welfare of the general public.

“We still see many vehicles out there that are no longer fit to ply the streets,” said Bernadas. Frequent inhalation of air pollutants can eventually lead to the development of respiratory diseases, said the DOH7 regional director.

These man-made air pollutants caused by smoke belching should be a major health concern more than the haze as the public is confronted with such pollutants daily, said Bernadas.

The haze is just temporary, said Bernadas but added that vulnerable groups such as those with bronchial asthma, respiratory and heart diseases, the elderly and the very young should use face mask to protect themselves from the dust particles brought about by the haze.

The Environmental Management Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, however, said air quality in Metro Cebu continues to improve based on the latest air monitoring results. (rmn/fcr/PIA7)

EMB7: Air quality in Metro Cebu improving but still not haze-free

CEBU - In spite of the improving air quality in Metro Cebu, the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR-7) said Cebu is still not haze-free and that tiny dust particles lingering in the air could still pose health risk especially to vulnerable groups. 

Engr. William Cuñado, regional director of the DENR-EMB7, in a press conference said the latest air monitoring result showed dust particles otherwise known as particulate matter with a size of 2.5 micrometers in diameter reached a 24-hour average value of 49 micrograms per normal cubic meter.

This passed the allowable limit of 75 micrograms per normal cubic meter based on the National Ambient Air Quality Guideline Values under the Philippine Clean Air Act.

“But even if the concentration of the dust particles has reduced, this does not necessarily mean that air quality is already safe,” said Cuñado, adding that a declaration of safe air quality means monitoring results of the dust particles in the air in a 24-hour period must show normal limits.

Cuñado said there are still erratic changes in the monitoring results as the highest concentration of dust particles was recorded during nighttime at around 8:30 p.m. last night at 315 micrograms per normal cubic meter, exceeding the allowable limit.

The lowest concentration was recorded at 3:30 this morning at three micrograms per normal cubic meter.

The DENR-EMB7 regional director attributed wind velocity as a major factor behind the level of concentration of the dust particles which varies at day and nighttime. 

Dr. Jaime Bernadas, regional director of the Department of Health (DOH-7), on the other hand advised the use of personal protective gadget like mask to protect themselves from the dust particles.

“We recommend the use of N95 mask especially those belonging to the vulnerable groups like those with bronchial asthma, pulmonary and cardiovascular diseases and extreme ages or the elderly and the very young,” said Bernadas, adding these groups are prone to developing respiratory tract infections.

For those not under the vulnerable groups, Bernadas suggested the use of ordinary face mask.

Cuñado, however, said those who cannot afford to buy the N95 mask can settle for a handkerchief or face towel which should be wet and placed it over one’s nose and mouth.

The dust particles will settle on the wet hanky or face towel.

According to Cuñado, only heavy rains can be the ultimate solution to eradicate or scrub off the 2.5 micrometer-diameter particulate matter suspended in the air.

Cuñado likewise said densely vegetated areas can expect lesser concentration of dust particles as these can be trapped in the leaves of the trees as the agency’s reforestation program has been a huge boost in addressing the problem.

Both Bernadas and Cuñado advised the public to seek immediate medical consultation in case of even the slightest difficulty in breathing as this could be an effect of the haze which has not only affected Metro Cebu but has reportedly reached some parts in southern and northern parts of the province and the region.

Bernadas said city, municipal, and provincial health offices are required to furnish DOH-7 continuous monitoring reports in the number of respiratory cases in their respective areas.

Cuñado said that starting tomorrow, DENR-EMB7 will conduct daily press conference every 1:00 p.m. to update the public on the latest monitoring report of the air quality in Metro Cebu and other related updates. (rmn/fcr/PIA7)

Voters registration period not extended

MANILA - Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Juan Andres Bautista has directed Election Officers in registration centers in the country to accommodate as many people as they can who would like to have their biometrics taken and validate their registration on the last day of the registration period on Saturday.

“It’s the last day of registration so ang amin namang direktiba is that we will try to accommodate as many as we can,” he said in a telephone interview.

With this, the poll body chief said that they would no longer extend the registration period, noting that it may interfere in their schedule in connection with the preparations for the next year’s polls.

“Kasi nga ang potential problem it may interfere with out timeframe for our election and that extending the voters registration may impact our preparation,” Bautista said.

But, he noted that the registration period, in some areas in Region 2 that were affected by typhoon Lando, will be extended for one day.

“It was only Region 2 they were the ones who asked if they can extend. Ang gusto yata nila one day. Now ako naman well we give them the discretion if ever they wanted to extend,” Bautista said.

At the same time, he is leaving it up to the Supreme Court to decide on the petition filed by Kabataan Party-list to stop them from implementing the Oct. 31 deadline and compel them to extend the registration until Jan. 8, 2016.

“It is up to the SC, just like what I’ve said we gave the people 17 months, one and a half year for people to register and validate their biometrics,” he added.

Registration centers in local Comelec offices, malls and other poll body-designated registration areas, are open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The Comelec has implemented a 12-hour shift, which started last October 17 until October 31 in anticipation of a big number of deadline beaters.

Based on poll body records, there are some 3 million registered voters that do not have biometrics.

The nationwide registration startedon May 6, 2014.

According to Republic Act 10367, or the Mandatory Biometrics Registration Act of 2013, voters, who fail to have their biometrics taken prior to the May 2016 elections, shall be deactivated from the voters’ list and shall not be allowed to vote.

Biometrics data refers to the automated identification of an individual, particularly his/her photograph, fingerprint, and signature. (PNA)

Aris inserts P46M for DEDVMH in GAA 2016
By JUNE S. BLANCO

REP. Erico Aristotle Aumentado (Bohol, 2nd District) has inserted P46 million in the 2016 General Appropriations Act (GAA) for the expansion of the Don Emilio del Valle Memorial Hospital (DEDVMH) in Ubay town.

Aumentado said the move aims to accommodate more patients who have recently been filling up the rooms, out-patient department (OPD), hallways, audio-visual hall and practically all spaces in the hospital.

These patients, he explained, come not only from the 2nd District, but from the 1st and 3rd Districts as well.

Aumentado said indigent patients all over the province are attracted to the hospital’s zero billing upon discharge policy because they enrolled in the Philippine Health Insurance Corp.’s (PhilHealth) expanded enrolment program and the covering of any balance with a trust fund from the Department of Health (DoH) deposited by the solon with the hospital for the purpose.
In a parallel move, the solon filed a bill seeking to increase the hospital’s bed capacity from the existing 50 to 200 â€" even 250.

DTI: No shortage, price increase of candle in Zambo City

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Oct. 30 (PNA) â€"- The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has warned business establishments selling candles against profiteering as the nation observes All Souls Day.

Dr. Sitti Amina Jain, DTI regional director, issued the warning as she urged consumers to file formal complaint before the agency should they notice exorbitant increase in the price of candles.

“They can be charged of profiteering if proven they are charging exorbitant price and taking advantage of high demand (of candles),” Jain said.

Jain said they are monitoring the prices of candles to include the flowers although there is no suggested retail prices (SRP) for the two products.

She said there are no shortage in the supply of candles, as well as no price movement yet based on their monitoring results.

The flower dealers augment their supply by purchasing from other places since the flower growers from this city could not supply the local market demand.

The demand for flowers and candles are high during this season. (PNA)

Duterte still won't run as prexy even with Diño’s COC withdrawal, says aide

DAVAO CITY, Oct. 30 (PNA) â€" Nothing has changed in the decision of Mayor Rodrigo Duterte not to run for president in the 2016 polls even with the withdrawal of Partido ng Demokratikong Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) standard bearer Martin Diño from the presidential race.

Duterte’s executive assistant, Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go made this clarification when reporters chanced upon him on Thursday afternoon at the opening of a police sportsfest at the Almendras Gym here.

Duterte was supposed to open the sportsfest but did not show up and instead sent Go and City Administrator Melchor Quitain.

“Ingon ni mayor (The mayor said) nothing has changed ug magpadayon daw siya sa iyang soul searching karong (and he said he will continue with his soul searching this) All Soul’s Day,” Go said.

Quitain, who is the executive secretary of Duterte’s Hugpong sa Tawong Lungsod party, said the decision of Diño is only the first step and there will be a second step if the mayor decides to run.

“If he is going to be a substitute - still it depends upon the mayor but the ground is laid already for him to make his decision,” Quitain said.

“But still the mayor has to make his decision…at least everything and the ground work has been laid,” Quitain said.

The withdrawal of Diño came ahead the end of the five-day period given by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for him to explain why he should not be declared a nuisance candidate. Diño made the decision upon the advice of his lawyers.

In a 10-page motu proprio petition signed by Maria Norina Tangaro-Casingal, acting head of the Comelec's law department, and two other lawyers, the Comelec legal office asked the Commission to "Declare Martin Diño as Nuisance Candidate and Refuse to Give Due Course To Or Cancel His Certificate of Candidacy."

"It is clear that respondent has filed her (sic) COC to put the election process in mockery or disrepute... and that he has no bona fide intention to run for office of the President," the petition claimed.

"While it is true that 'the right to vote and to be voted for shall not be dependent upon the wealth of the individual concerned, whereas social justice presupposes equal opportunity for all, rich and poor alike, and that, accordingly, no person shall, by reason of poverty, be denied the chance to be elected to public office,' reality is a bitter pill that Respondent has to swallow," the petition concluded.

In a statement through former North Cotabato governor Manny Piñol, PDP-Laban national chairman Ismael Sueno said Diño decided to withdraw his Certificate of Candidacy (COC) to pave the way for Duterte who has earlier announced that he would yield to the decision of his national party.

Sueno chided the petition as a mockery of the election process. “It is this very petition of the Comelec legal department which prejudges Martin Diño's true intention in filing his COC and belittles his capacity to wage a nation-wide campaign," Sueno said.

"It is our inherent right as a political party of good standing which has participated in national elections since the 1980s to have a lineup of candidates to field. Our best bet is Mayor Duterte but since he failed to file his COC as President, the party opted to field Diño," Sueno said.

"We could have fielded Senator Koko Pimentel and he could have also announced that in case our first choice, Mayor Duterte decides to run within the window allowed by law for substitution, he would yield. Would they have petitioned to declare Senator Pimentel as nuisance candidate?" Sueno asked.

Sueno said that PDP Laban, even with its meager resources, "will fight this mockery of the election process tooth and nail."

"The true intent of a presidential candidate and his capacity to wage a national campaign cannot be determined by just three lawyers of the Comelec," he said.

Earlier, PDP-Laban during its national council convention affirmed the party's support for Diño as the party’s presidential candidate. It was a move to quell any move to disqualify Diño. Diño is the PDP-Laban deputy secretary general for the National Capital Region and concurrent chairman of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC).

The party also unanimously voted Duterte as “substitute” presidential standard bearer once the party’s presidential candidate withdraws from the race in next year’s elections.

PDP-Laban has considered Duterte as the party’s strongest presidential hopeful.

“Mayor Duterte 'must dutifully abide by the decision',” the resolution said, to ensure the party’s victory.

Sueno said with Diño out of the race, the party has until December 10 to fill in the void in its Presidential slot. The PDP Laban chairman said a COC for President has been prepared for the signature of Duterte. (PNA)

Palawan’s free PhilHealth membership able to assist over 3,400 patients
By Jesus M. Ustares

PUERTO PRINCESA CITY, Oct. 30 (PNA) -- Health and Other Social Services (HOSS), the Palawan provincial government’s free membership Philippine Health Insurance (PhilHealth) program, has already succeeded in helping over 3,400 patients this year.

Maridel Gajardo of the provincial government’s HOSS said the patients were helped in their hospitalization through the provision of free PhilHealth membership even while they were confined in various hospitals in Palawan.

She explained that as soon as they are registered, patients can immediately avail of the discounts entitled a PhilHealth member.

The discounts offered are based on their status. As much as 50% can be availed to almost zero payment when the patient is utterly impoverished to pay for hospital expenses.

Gajardo explained this is what Palawan Governor Jose Alvarez dreams â€" that every Palaweño has access to health services, and if they do not have enough to pay, their health can still be taken care of.

In 2014, she said the provincial government provided free PhilHealth membership cards to 19,575 residents but only 5,000 actual users were monitored to have availed of them.

This is probably because many are unaware about the advantage of being a PhilHealth member. Information dissemination is now reportedly being done to raise their awareness.

DENR 7 issues 11,222 land titles in Central Visayas

CEBU CITY, Oct. 30 (PNA) -- The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) 7 has issued a total of 11, 222 land titles as of October 23 in Central Visayas, an official said.

DENR 7 Regional Executive Director Dr. Isabelo R. Montejo said of the total number of land titles issued, 9, 408 titles were mainly agricultural lands handed in to farmer owners in four provinces in the region while the other 1, 814 titles were all residential free patents.

Cebu received 1,583 agricultural patents and 358 residential patents; Bohol with 7,174 and 985; Negros Oriental with 360 and 400; and Siquijor with 291 agricultural land titles and 71 residential patents.

Montejo said their accomplishment reached 94 percent against the target of issuing 10,000 agricultural land titles and 70 percent for issuing residential titles against a target of 2,580 2015.

“The patent issuance and distribution is a priority program that the DENR has been putting its energy and resources on aside from the other equally important one like the national greening program (NGP),” Montejo said.

Montejo said he has directed the provincial and community environment and natural resources officers in the four provinces to observe strictly the required time frame in accepting, processing and releasing of the said documents.

“Applications should be acted very promptly in accordance with the existing policies and should not be kept in a drawer and applications with incomplete requirements should be returned immediately with appropriate notifications for the applicant to comply with,” Montejo said.

Montejo also reiterated his call to the public to transact only with authorized personnel .

He said the public should report immediately any abuses or illegal transactions committed by DENR 7 personnel particularly on land titling fixing like soliciting a certain amount outside of the required or legal fees. (PNA)

Mayor Rama wants first 4 floors of new Cebu City hospital up by February 2016

CEBU CITY, Oct. 28 (PNA) -- Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama has asked the contractor to speed up construction of the PHP1.5-billion Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC) and have at least four floors of the 10-floor building standing by February next year.

The old CCMC building on N. Bacalso Avenue, Cebu City, where the new and modern building will rise, was demolished after it was heavily damaged by the magnitude 7.2 earthquake that struck Cebu and Bohol last Oct. 15, 2013.

Rama said he wants significant progress by February when the city celebrates its Charter Day, and also because it’s an election year next year.

Engr. Catalino E. Padilla, president of CE Padilla Construction Inc., said that based on their plans and study, they can only finish the first two floors by February, but they will try their best to heed the mayor’s request.

The company won the bidding for the first phase of the building amounting to PHP515 million, which covers construction of the foundation and structural frame of the 10-story hospital.

Padilla talked with the mayor after the ceremonial pouring of the first layer of concrete for the new CCMC building Tuesday.

Padilla told the mayor the building’s footprint is almost half a hectare for each floor that’s why it will take time to finish one floor.

But Padilla told Rama they will try their best to make four floors by February.

Padilla said he also reported to the mayor that when the building is up, it will be able to withstand a magnitude 9 earthquake.

Cebu City Engineer Jose Marie Poblete said the building's target completion date is in April 2017 yet. (PNA)

PTV powers all Visayas stations, Mindanao next

MANILA, Oct. 28 (PNA) -- People’s Television (PTV) Network has completed the restoration of all its Visayas stations with its Iloilo Station now back on air.

With a five-kilowatt transmitter in Barangay San Miguel, Jordan, Guimaras, PTV-2 went on air after a four-year absence.

The station covers the City and Province of Iloilo, and parts of Guimaras, enabling an additional 500,000 Filipino television viewers to gain access to the state-run network.

The revitalization of the Iloilo station comes on the heels of the reenergization of its PTV-11 Cebu station, in time for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Senior Officials Meeting last August.

“With the revitalization of our Iloilo and Cebu stations, we have regained our presence in the Visayas regions,” PTV General Manager Albert Bocobo said.

PTV's signal now reaches televiewers in most parts of the Visayan Region, including Samar, Leyte, Bohol, Cebu, Camotes, Siquijor, Negros, Guimaras and Iloilo.

“Our signal will further improve and reach even more Filipinos once our new transmitters from Italy are installed,” Bocobo said.

Bocobo added PTV aims to recover lost ground in Mindanao this year by revitalizing its Pagadian, Zamboanga and Cotabato stations, in partnership with the Information and Communications Technology Office of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-ICTO).

PTV and DOST-ICTO recently signed a 25-year Memorandum of Agreement allowing the former to co-locate in various points in the country.

Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Secretary Sonny Coloma said the reenergization of the PTV stations across the country is part of a five-year revitalization plan, which has been part of President Benigno Aquino III's thrust of empowering the people living in the countryside by providing them with timely, correct, and relevant news and information. (PNA)

Cayetano to airport officials: catch “tanim bala” syndicate in 48 hours or resign
Calls for probe on alleged extortion scam


"The government should not hassle the people they should protect!"

Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano said this as he expressed outrage over another reported extortion attempt by airport personnel employing the “tanim bala” scheme at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) on an unsuspecting Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW).

Cayetano has called for an immediate punitive action against all those who are behind the continuing extortion activities. He also plans to file a resolution to conduct a probe on all other related concerns of OFWs and travelers at the country’s airports.

"Kung gusto natin ng tunay na pagbabago, kailangan natin ng matapang na solusyon at mabilis na aksyon. Dapat pabilisin ang imbestigasyon sa 'tanim bala' para ang matitinong empleyado ay hindi na madamay sa kalokohan ng iilang abusadong tauhan," he declared.

"If airport officials cannot catch the culprits and put them in jail within 48 hours, then the best call is for them to resign from their posts," he added.
 
The senator cited a recent report that an OFW from Hong Kong was arrested and prevented by the police from leaving the country because security staff allegedly found a bullet in her unlocked carry-on bag when it went through the X-ray machine at the NAIA Terminal 2.

Cayetano for his part criticized airport officials for seeking the immediate inquest of the victim instead of launching a comprehensive investigation on the obvious attempt to harass the OFW. He also decried their lack of concern over the series of reported extortion attempts through "tanim bala" in their respective jurisdictions.

"This is an unacceptable conduct towards an OFW who has no police record and is fully aware of restrictions for air travel. Authorities should exercise zero tolerance over these harassment cases. It’s bad enough that our OFWs had to put up with unwarranted policies like the random inspection of their balikbayan boxes,” Cayetano intoned.

Meanwhile, to prevent such incidents from happening again, Cayetano pushed for the drastic improvement of security and surveillance systems in the country’s airports, to increase authorities’ ability to catch criminals and protect the innocent.

“Now is the time for immediate action and change. There's a need for us to improve our CCTV surveillance in our airports. Any charge against a person for having a bullet in his or her possession should always be supported by uninterrupted CCTV footage,” he said.

The senator expressed the urgent need to replace the country’s 20-year-old outdated analog cameras with new IP (Internet Protocol) surveillance videos, which have clearer images, expanded light capabilities, and greater scalability and ease of use. Major cities in the ASEAN region, including Bangkong and Jakarta, already employed this kind of technology. As such, the Philippines should follow suit, he asserted.

Cayetano also suggested that airport terminals in the country should have rotating supervisors so as to reduce the time and the opportunity for theft and other extortion activities among airport personnel.

Acting Ombudsman Casimiro places LWUA Chair Pichay under preventive suspension
20 May 2011

Acting Ombudsman Orlando C. Casimiro ordered the preventive suspension of Prospero Pichay Jr., Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA).

          In a 10-page Order, Acting Ombudsman Casimiro placed Pichay under a 6-month preventive suspension without pay for the alleged unlawful investment of LWUA funds in the total amount of P780M in the Express Savings Bank, Inc.  (ESBI) a private banking institution.

          The Order stemmed from a complaint filed by several LWUA officials.

          In their complaint, they alleged that Pichay and the other respondents “violated the provisions of the General Appropriations Act (GAA) for Fiscal Year 2009, when they unlawfully disbursed LWUA funds by investing the total amount of P780,000,000.00 in the Express Savings Bank, Inc., a private thrift bank under the administered rehabilitation by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP)”.

          They also alleged that the LWUA Board of Trustees unlawfully authorized the payment in favor of ESBI of the amount of P4M “for subscription to the increase in the authorized capital stock of said bank.”

          The complainants also averred that the respondents violated BSP Circular No, 309 when they failed to secure prior approval of the Monetary Board on the sale or transfer of shares before the disbursement of a total amount of P480M funds which resulted in the ownership or control by LWUA of 20% of ESBI’s voting stock.

          In his Order, Acting Ombudsman Casimiro said since the evidence of guilt against Pichay is strong, it is “imperative on the part of the Office of the Ombudsman to immediately place him under preventive suspension, as the need for precautionary measures against possible abuse of the prerogatives of his office may escalate under the circumstances.”

          The prayer for the preventive suspension of the other respondents was however denied there being no proof of their participation in the disputed LWUA Board Resolutions.

          The Office of Executive Sec. Paquito Ochoa has been furnished a copy of the said Order.

Acting Ombudsman Casimiro orders DO Gonzalez III from perfoming function as DO for MOLEO
13 May 2011

Acting Ombudsman Orlando C. Casimiro yesterday directed Deputy Ombudsman Emilio A. Gonzalez III to “cease and desist from performing official and administrative functions at the Office of the Deputy Ombudsman for the Military and Other law Enforcement Offices.”

          This is contained in the Implementation Order dated 12 May 2011 sent by Acting Ombudsman Casimiro to Deputy Gonzalez yesterday. A copy of the same Order was transmitted to the Office of the President (OP) this morning (13 May 2011).

          The Order was sent by Acting Ombudsman Casimiro following receipt yesterday of a Memorandum issued by Executive Secretary Paquito N. Ochoa, Jr., directing the former to immediately implement the OP decision dismissing Deputy Gonzalez from the service in connection with the Rizal Park hostage-taking incident.

          Acting Ombudsman Casimiro was also directed to inform the OP within twenty-four (24) hours of the actions undertaken on the said case.

It's Kazuhiro, CEO of VIBBIDI, the simplest video editing app. I read your tweet and I reached out to you because you seemed to be interested in new technology and apps!

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If you have any feedback, please don't hesitate to contact us! We hope to build the world's most breathtaking short video app platform together with you!

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Cayetano supports Duterte's Federalism proposal; Allot P800B to Mindanao through MPDP

Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano expressed his full support for Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte's Federalism approach to government as a way to attain inclusive growth in the country by granting other regions more access to government resources and funds.

During his visit to Davao City last weekend, the senator stressed the need to effect real change in people's lives by resorting to bold solutions that will address the country's long-enduring problems.

"Ang isang malaking problema ng bansa ay halos lahat ng pera ay nasa Metro Manila. Other regions are not provided with enough attention. Si Mayor Duterte, ang solusyon niya ay Federalismo," Cayetano noted. "Lahat ng kandidato, ang sinasabi lang ay dadamihan ang mga project. During budget season, pwede naman naming ikalat ang pondo hindi lang sa Metro Manila, pero hindi ginagawa," he added.

Cayetano declared that this could be the reason why there is a strong clamor for Duterte to run for president and why his proposals are resonating with people, because only he offers real and concrete change.

"There are many ways to skin a cat, pero dapat may ang political will at tapang. That’s why ang clamor talaga ng tao ay hindi plataporma, but someone who will actually do it," he stressed.

Cayetano, for his part, has been pushing for the decentralization of government by funding more programs that will create real change in regions outside NCR, particularly in Mindanao.

The senator recently filed Senate Bill No. 2972, or the Mindanao Peace and Development Act of 2015, which, if enacted into law, would grant a guaranteed funding worth at least P800 billion in 10 years, for the development of various sectors such as education, health, business, agriculture, transportation and infrastructure, including the establishment of a railway system in the region.

While lauding the current administration for its notable contributions in economic progress, Cayetano said a more long-term solution is needed to achieve inclusive growth and to address the growing congestion problem in the capital city.

Reinstatement of Customs police chief not a "midnight deal"
12 May 2011

PRESS STATEMENT 12 May 2011 The Office of the Ombudsman’s order reinstating Jose Brigido Nicomedes Yuchongco to his position as Senior Police Chief, Customs Police Division-Enforcement and Security Service at the Bureau of Customs was not a “midnight deal”. The statement was issued by Atty. Mary Rawnsle Lopez, of the Office of Acting Ombudsman Orlando C. Casimiro, in reaction to reports that the said order was a “midnight deal” as it was signed by former Ombudsman Ma. Merceditas N. Gutierrez on May 4, 2011, or 2 days before she was to step down from office. Atty. Lopez mentioned that the Ombudsman’s resignation, as submitted to the Office of the President, is effective up to the close of office hours of May 6, 2011. As such, she was authorized to exercise her official functions until May 6, 2011. Hence, she can still act on cases pending before her office.

Cambridge Prof delivers OMB Integrity Lecture
22 January 2014

The Office of the Ombudsman held its 3rd Integrity Lecture Series entitled “Current Issues in the War Against Corruption” on January 14, 2014 with Prof. Barry A.K. Rider from the University of Cambridge as guest lecturer. Prof. Rider earned his LL.B. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of London, and also obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Cambridge.

In his lecture, Prof. Rider focused on the importance of transparency on disclosure, with emphasis on international cooperation, witness protection and incentivizing whistle blowing. He also cited the growing trend of elite enforcement or specialized enforcement agencies in anti-corruption.

Former Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo, Fr. Albert Alejo, Lead Convenor of Ehem! Aha! Movement, and Dean Antonio La Viña of the Ateneo School of Government served as panel reactors.

The open forum was facilitated by Commissioner Ma. Ngina Teresa Chan-Gonzaga of the Presidential Commission on Good Government.

In her culminating address, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales remarked that “(l)ess opportunities for corruption mean more funds for the delivery of government services, which ultimately translates to a fairer chance at an improved quality of life for every Filipino.”
The Ombudsman Integrity Lecture Series aims to communicate and engage the public and private sector on the various programs and projects of the Office of the Ombudsman to further build a broad-based strategic partnership of all anti-corruption stakeholders.

In partnership with the Asian Development Bank, United Nations Development Program, USAID and Metrobank Foundation, the Lecture Series is part of the Ombudsman Integrity Caravan seeking to engage advocacy partners and promote dialogue on good governance, integrity and anti-corruption topics leading to a coordinated multi-sectoral effort against corruption

Ombudsman preventively suspends cop accused in King’s slay

The Office of the Ombudsman ordered the preventive suspension for six months of P/Supt. Leonardo Felonia, the alleged “mastermind” in the killing of businessman Richard King on 12 June 2014 in Davao City.

In a five-page Order, Deputy Ombudsman for the Military and Other Law Enforcement Offices Cyril Ramos directed the Secretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government and the Chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP) to implement the suspension of Felonia, a police officer assigned at the PNP Regional Intelligence Unit in Ecoland, Davao City.

The Order cited police reports that King was fatally shot by Paul Dave Molina Labang while King was in his office in Davao City.  Labang, together with accomplices Rommel Dela Cerna and Rodel Dela Cerna, later positively identified Felonia as the “mastermind” who plotted the killing of King.

In his Order, Ramos stated that “given the power and authority attached to P/Supt Felonia’s position as Head of the Regional Intelligence Unit, there is a strong probability that he may influence witnesses or tamper with any evidence material to the case.”

Felonia is facing administrative charges of Grave Misconduct and Conduct Unbecoming a Police Officer before the Office of the Ombudsman. A separate criminal case for murder filed by the Department of Justice is pending with the Regional Trial Court of Davao City.

Under Section 24 of Republic Act No. 6770 (Ombudsman Act of 1989), the Ombudsman or his Deputy may preventively suspend any officer or employee under his authority pending an investigation, if in his judgment the evidence of guilt is strong, and (a) the charge against such officer or employee involves dishonesty, oppression, or grave misconduct or neglect in the performance of duty; (b) the charges would warrant removal from the service; or (c) the respondent’s continued stay in office may prejudice the case filed against him.

mao niy atong giayo balong. in the meantime, pwede man gihapon magbutang ug picture by putting this code
[img ] url sa photo location [ /img]

manual sa una ta ron.

Define marriage.

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Map of Bohol

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Naunsa man mga paryente ni Mike Ortega Ligalig nga involved man sa political dynasty.

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Check out @mikeligalig's Tweet: https://twitter.com/mikeligalig/status/658829148211671040?s=09

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Cebu City mayor directs police to file criminal raps against Chinese couple in resto shooting

CEBU CITY, Oct. 23 (PNA) -- Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama Friday ordered the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) to file criminal charges against the Chinese couple involved in the fatal shooting of two Chinese diplomats and wounding the Chinese Consul General in Cebu inside a restautant on Gen. Maxilom Ave, Cebu City on Wednesday.

Gou Jing, first secretary consul of the Chinese Consular Office in Cebu, and her husband Li Qingliang, are still held in police custody at the Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 headquarters in Camp Sergio Osmena Sr. in Cebu City.

Reporters were barred from entering the police offices where the couple was held.

An ambulance was on standby at the camp.

Chief Supt. Prudencio Tom Banas, PRO 7 director, said the two had claimed diplomatic immunity under a bilateral agreement between the Philippines and the People’s Republic of China.

Banas said the two would be turned over to Chinese Embassy officials in Manila through the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

But Mayor Rama, a lawyer, said consular officials are not among diplomats who enjoy immunity from prosecution in the country.

Rama said they should be charged criminally because they committed a crime under Philippine jurisdiction.

Li, in a surveillance camera footage, was seen shooting the head of Consulate finance officer Hui Li, the neck of Deputy Consul General Sun Shuan and the hand of Consul General Song Ronghua inside the Lighthouse Restaurant at 1:19 p.m. Wednesday.

Hui and Sun later died in the hospital while Song remains confined. (PNA)

Supreme Court rules in favor of striking workers of local university in Davao
By Jessie L. Casalda
DAVAO CITY - The Supreme Court (SC) has sustained the order of the Court of Appeals affirming a ruling from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) directing the University of Immaculate Concepcion (UIC) to distribute some P11-million school’s proceeds to labor union members who staged a strike during the 90’s.

In a 22-page decision, the High Court also ordered the University of Immaculate Concepcion (UIC) to pay P30,000 each to 11 “confidential employees” who were terminated from their jobs without complying to the prescribed procedural process.

Ofelia Diapuez, Melanie dela Rosa, Angelina Abadilla, Lelian Concon, Mary Ann de Ramos, Zenaida Canoy, Alma Villacarlos, Paulina Palma Gil, Jose Boston, Gemma Galope, and Leah Cruza were dismissed by the UIC management after they refused to give up their membership with the UIC Teaching and Non-Teaching Employees Union â€" Federation of Free Workers (FFW).

The SC’s Third Division composed by Associate Justices Francis Jardeleza, Presbitero Velasco Jr., Martin Villarama, Diosdado Peralta, and Jose Portugal Perez reversed the findings of the Department of Labor and the Court of Appeals that the employees have the right to join the labor union since they did not hold managerial functions.

The case stemmed from the Notice of Strike (NOC) filed by the UIC union workers on June 20, 1994, on the grounds of bargaining deadlock and unfair labor practice allegedly committed by the school’s management.

But the impending strike was averted since the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) had immediately assumed jurisdiction over the labor dispute to settle it amicably.

Employee referrals main source of quality hires - LinkedIn

KUALA LUMPUR -- Employee referral programs are poised to overtake internet job boards as the biggest source for attracting top talent in Southeast Asia (SEA), according to a study by LinkedIn, the world's leading online professional network.

LinkedIn's fifth annual SEA Recruiting Trends survey shows that 52 percent of the over 300 talent acquisition leaders in the region identified employee referrals as the second-biggest source of quality workers this year, up from 48 percent last year.

Internet job boards remain the biggest source, at 54 percent, but down from 58 percent in the previous year. Rounding up the top three sources is social professional networks, at 41 percent from 35 percent previously.

Globally, social professional networks represent the top source of quality hires, at 43 percent, followed by internet job boards (42 percent) and employee referral programs (32 percent).

"Thirty-six percent of the talent leaders we surveyed view referral programs as a long-lasting trend as the recruiting landscape becomes increasingly competitive," said Senior Director of Talent Solutions for LinkedIn in Asia-Pacific and Japan, Feon Ang.

"This, together with the increasing success that companies are finding in amplifying their employer brand on social professional networks, mean that the pair could be a strategic sourcing combination that play a key role in helping recruiters win the war for talent," she said.

Rise in hiring volumes

When organizations communicate their employer brand, they are consistently finding success with online professional networks over the past four years, with 57 percent citing this as the most effective channel.

Company websites, on the other hand, have fallen in effectiveness over the years to 61 percent.

Talent leaders need not do it all alone in the pursuit of employer brand excellence. Cross-functional partnerships between talent acquisition and marketing teams are critical in this effort, as 46 percent of talent leaders surveyed said their team shares employer branding responsibilities or contributes to branding efforts with marketing.

The survey also revealed that 50 percent of respondents said they expect hiring volumes in their organizations to increase in 2016 compared with this year, while 50 percent said that hiring budgets rose this year, extending the trend from previous years.

Survey results show that hiring budgets are not expected to grow at the same pace as volume, and this imbalance will prevent organizations from transforming their talent strategies in the year to come.

On obstacles to attracting top talent, 53 percent highlighted finding candidates in high demand talent pools as their biggest challenge. Compensation (48 percent) and competition from other employers (45 percent) were also among the top issues faced by talent acquisition. (PNA/Bernama)

All-Female Press Corps of Hilary Clinton

Book Summaries help you understand books studied in schools and give you insights that make for great book reports. Gain a new perspective by reading about the author, and learn how settings, characters, and themes help make these books acclaimed works of literature.


Watership Down

Published 1972

I  ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Richard Adams was born May 9, 1920, in Newbury, Berkshire, England. After earning a degree from Worcester College, Oxford, he married Barbara Elizabeth Acland on September 20, 1949; the couple subsequently had two children. At the age of 50, Adams, who worked as a British civil servant and had never published anything, produced a bulky typewriter manuscript. His story about rabbits had delighted his daughters and he was anxious to have it published. Unfortunately, his animal fantasy was turned down by four publishers and four literary agents. Finally a small publishing house, Rex Collings, accepted the manuscript. The 2,000 copies printed by Collings sold surprisingly well. When Penguin reprinted the book in paperback and promoted it as a novel for children, it sold over one million copies. In the United States Macmillan then printed a hard cover edition which became a best seller, selling over 700,000 copies. Adams's unwanted manuscript turned out to be the best-selling Watership Down.


Watership Down is that paradox of commercial publishing, an instant classic. Adams's subsequent novels were eagerly awaited by editors and readers alike. In addition, he compiled, introduced, or wrote several non-fiction works. By the age of 60 Adams had his name on the title pages of ten works and an established reputation as a writer of distinctive fantasy.


In its triumphant passage to classic status, Watership Down won the Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal, but did not meet with unanimous critical acclaim. Many reviewers were confused because the book was marketed in Britain as a juvenile book and in the United States as an adult novel. Is Watership Down then an adventurous animal fantasy for children in the tradition of The Wind in the Willows (1908), or is it a political commentary for adults like the animal allegories of George Orwell (Animal Farm, 1945) and Karel Capek (War with the Newts, 1937)?


The timing of the book also made some reviewers uneasy. Three years before Watership Down made rabbits chic, a Robert Merle novel popularized dolphins as anthropomorphic characters; two years before Richard Bach made Jonathan Livingston Seagull a household name. Critics wondered whether Adams's rabbits were part of a literary fad.


Reviewers who smelled an allegory lurking beneath the surface disliked Watership Down for not making its allegory more explicit. Those who suspected an attempt to capitalize on the novelty of rabbit protagonists were quick to point out Watership Down's literary flaws and obvious lineage. But such reviewers proved to be a minority; most hailed the book for its imaginative creation of a rabbit world, complete with mythology, history, and government, and for its evocation of nature.


Adams's subsequent novels have not achieved the same commercial or critical success. His second novel, Shardik (1974), also created a whole new world, although a human rather than an animal one. With its long and at times gruesome narrative, the novel proved somewhat of a philosophical puzzle. Adams's third novel, The Plague Dogs (1977), returned to animal protagonists and, like Watership Down, created a convincing imaginative world, this time from a canine perspective. Many critics thought that The Plague Dogs saddled its narrative with excessive preaching against the mistreatment of animals; the combination of story and sermon proved less appealing. Adams's fourth novel was a surprise; The Girl in a Swing is an intriguing love story but lacks the exotic characters and locales that Adams's readers had come to expect.


Adams has established himself as a serious author. Watership Down appears on numerous school reading lists. Literary critics are attracted to Adams's use of mythology; his creation of alternate worlds have made researchers anxious to trace his sources. Adams's use of realism in animal fiction challenges the central tradition of sentimental anthropomorphism in children's literature.

II  OVERVIEW


Watership Down portrays the issues of survival and trust from a variety of perspectives. The story begins in the threatened rabbit warren, Sandleford. It is an ordinary society, pleasant but imperfect, neither an Eden nor a tyranny. Its doom comes from without, not within; only a half-dozen rabbits, sensing some ill-omen, flee the warren and survive its destruction. Now in a hostile environment, the band, led by Hazel, must rebuild the rabbit community even as it travels. To survive, the group pools its wisdom, and each individual takes responsibility for what he does best: the fastest scouts ahead, the biggest confronts enemies, the most cunning chooses a place to rest.

III  SETTING


Adams pays particular attention to the landscape in Watership Down. By providing a detailed map of the land around Nuthanger Farm and frequent descriptions of the countryside and climate, Adams creates a tactile, three dimensional setting, so convincing that eavesdropping on the conversation or thoughts of rabbits seems natural. All of the places in the novel, including Watership Down itself, are actual locations in England. By using specific geographical details, Adams adds a sense of reality to his fantastic tale. In addition, he ends the book with a 'Lapine Glossary' which further recognizes the rabbits as having a culture and language all their own.

IV  THEMES AND CHARACTERS


The concern for the environment and the focus on leadership combine to form the central theme of the novel, which is the formation of community. In the leporine world of Watership Down, community is achieved when a group of individuals share a common purpose in life, realize that cooperation is essential to survival, and trust the complementary talents of others.


The wandering escapees of Sandleford encounter two other societies. Cowslip warren at first seems delightful; its rabbits are well-fed and uncrowded. Its bounty is deceiving, however; the warren survives only as a farmer's colony, well-fed in order to provide an occasional, inevitable stew to the man's table. The Cowslip rabbits understand their plight, but lack the will or the wisdom to combat it.


If Cowslip warren is pampered and imprisoned, Efrafa warren is fiercely independent. To preserve itself, however, Efrafa has developed a militaristic, fascist state under the rule of a ruthless, ever-vigilant leader. Efrafa lets no native rabbit leave and enslaves outsiders who wander into its territory.


When the Sandleford refugees establish their own warren at Nuthanger Farm on Watership Down, they preserve the freedom that Cowslip surrendered in exchange for ease, and they create the solidarity that Efrafa could impose only by force. Adams remarked once that he strives to portray an 'animality' which corresponds to 'humanity'; i.e. those ground rules which harmonize the competing interests of the individual and the group. Watership Down argues that cooperation, self-control, and self-sacrifice are as crucial to animality as to humanity.


Because the effort by Hazel's band is a communal one, none of the rabbits emerges as a dominant personality. Together they act as the novel's protagonist. Each represents a skill, talent, or disposition that makes the community flourish. Hazel is a planner, the one who realizes what tasks must be done and has the courage to face up to danger. Bigwig is physically strong and courageous; he provides brawn and is the group's fighter. Fiver is the prophet and seer, sensitive to the omens and premonitions that precede conscious decisions. Holly is the loyal subordinate, ready to lend brain or brawn as circumstances demand.


The rabbits are aided by a seagull, Kehaar, whom Hazel had fed and sheltered when it was injured. In return Kehaar aids in the attack on Efrafa. It is a remarkable instance, to the animal characters, of cooperation between species. Kehaar provides comic relief as well as tactical assistance; he speaks English with an Eastern European accent that must be read aloud to be appreciated.


The one malevolent character is General Woundwort, the tyrant of Efrafa. Having escaped death several times as a young rabbit, Woundwort believes in rule with an iron paw: only constant vigilance, severe discipline, and willingness to inflict pain ensure survival. Woundwort is a terrible antagonist, coming within a hare's breadth of capturing Hazel's band. The hare whose breadth Woundwort cannot overcome is Bigwig, who courageously stymies the General's attack in a dark tunnel.


A final important character appears in the interpolated narratives. Six times the main action pauses while a rabbit tells a tale of El-ahrairah, a legendary rabbit hero. These tales of rabbit heroics against traditional enemies, even against the 'gods,' embody in one character the diverse qualities of Hazel's band. The stories of El-ahrairah form an incremental commentary on the nature of animality: the cunning and courage to face enemies, the wisdom and foresight to flee when cunning is not possible, and the willingness to risk one's self for others when flight is impossible.

V  LITERARY QUALITIES


The success of Watership Down results from several stylistic features. The first technique is the use of epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter. These epigraphs, drawn from the Bible, classical literature, English poetry, science, and folklore, serve the narrative function of indicating the direction the action will take. They also serve the thematic function of suggesting the seriousness of the action. If passages from Shakespeare, Blake, and Saint Paul illuminate the tale, then surely it is more than an entertaining story about rabbits. The epigraphs also place Watership Down in the tradition of the 19th-century English novel, which frequently used such epigraphs as a sign of seriousness.


In plot structure Watership Down has suggestive parallels to the Roman epic, the Aeneid. The rabbits' escape from doomed Sandleford, their temporary sojourn at Cowslip, and the battle with Efrafa warren recall Aeneas's flight from besieged Troy, his dalliance with Dido at Carthage, and his warfare against Turnus in Latium to establish a city for the surviving Trojans. Like the epigraphs, the epic suggestiveness establishes Watership Down as a serious literary work.


Animal stories are as old as human imagination. Fables use animals to represent human behavior, and fairy tales often employ animals with magic powers to change human destiny. Other animal stories, such as Anna Sewell's Black Beauty (1877) and Jack London's The Call of the Wild (1903), relate the animal's interactions with human beings, often in sentimental language. Watership Down is distinguished by the remoteness of the human world and by Adams's ability to have his animals' dialogue in human speech, yet remain rabbits in their behavior, instincts, and knowledge. Adams also avoids the didactic tendency of animal fiction; that is, the explicit teaching of human ethics or morals.

VI  SOCIAL SENSITIVITY


Adams's tribute to the English countryside is less pastoral than ecological. His account of rabbit habits and habitat reflects the ecosystem of a rural landscape where all living things constitute a delicate balance. If one part of the ecosystem is carelessly destroyed, the whole environment suffers. Adams's offers a positive image of leadership to a society that seems to have lost its ability to accept direction from anyone other than media celebrities, well-groomed politicians, or ideological bullies.

VII  TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION


1. Why do the rabbits believe that it is necessary to leave Sandleford Warren?


2. Which is your favorite rabbit? Which is your least favorite? Why?


3. Do you feel that the epigraphs at the beginning of the chapters enhance the novel?


4. One of the last chapters in the book is entitled 'Dea ex Machina.' What does this phrase mean? Why is an appropriate title?


5. What purpose do the myths of El-ahrairah serve?


6. What is the Owsla? Is it similar to any governmental office in the United States?


7. What role do humans play in this novel?


8. Compare the warrens, Cowslip and Efrafa. Why do the Sandleford rabbits find them unacceptable?

VIII  IDEAS FOR REPORTS AND PAPERS


1. Watch the movie Watership Down and compare it to the novel.


2. Pick several of the epigraphs and explain how they relate to their chapters.


3. Trust and survival are two primary themes in Watership Down. Explain their relationship. Which rabbit do you think best exemplifies each of these attributes?


4. Compare the rabbit community to human society in terms of power, class, and social structures. Has Adams portrayed the rabbits in only human terms, or does he give them rabbit characteristics as well?


5. Critics have compared Watership Down to Virgil's Aeneid. Read Virgil's work and compare the two.


6. Read another novel that features animals. Is Watership Down more or less realistic? Why?

IX  RELATED TITLES AND ADAPTATIONS


Though many readers of Watership Down hoped for a sequel, Adams has so far not obliged them. Perhaps he believes that part of the charm of the story is that it is a unique, imaginative experience of the rabbit world.


In his third novel, Adams explores a different animal world. The Plague Dogs is a novel whose protagonists are two dogs, Snitter and Rowf, who escape from a scientific research station. Loose for the first time in the wild, Snitter and Rowf survive with the help of Tod, a fox who is wise in the ways of stealing chickens and hunting sheep. The two dogs elude recapture until they are reunited with their master in a surprising, happy ending.


These canine heroes are drawn with the same care as the rabbits of Watership Down; readers hope for them to escape as instinctively as they rooted for Hazel's band to find a safe warren. Unfortunately, Adams's canine world is not as fully imagined as his rabbit world. It does not possess the mythology, the psychology, and the politics which created the persuasive reality of the warren. The dogs deal extensively with human beings who remain in the background of Watership Down.


In 1978 Marin Rosen wrote, produced, and directed an animated version of Watership Down. Rosen's script, which condensed the action of the book, focuses on the ecological theme. The sophisticated animation technique avoids the sentimentality associated with Disney animal tales and appeals to adults as well as children. A distinguished cast of actors, including Sir Ralph Richardson and Zero Mostel, provides the voices. The film was more of a critical than a popular success.


Contributed by: Robert M. Otten, Indiana University, Purdue University at Fort Wayne


Source: Beacham’s Guide to Literature for Young Adults. Copyright by Gale Group, Inc. Reprinted by permission.

Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Book Summaries help you understand books studied in schools and give you insights that make for great book reports. Gain a new perspective by reading about the author, and learn how settings, characters, and themes help make these books acclaimed works of literature.


The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Published 1980

I  ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Douglas Adams was born March 11, 1952, the son of Christopher Douglas, a management consultant, and Jane Donovan, a nurse. Adams was a recipient of an honors degree in English Literature from St. John’s College, Cambridge, in 1974. He began his writing career as a scriptwriter for radio and television comedies. For a time, he supported himself with odd jobs ranging from cleaning chicken houses to guarding the royal family of Qatar. “I was lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck and gazing up at the stars,” he says of the inspiration for his most famous story. “It occurred to me that somebody ought to write a hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy.” His idea, first conceived as a radio series, was developed for the British Broadcasting Company. The 1978 series gradually won an enthusiastic following. Pan Books approached Adams to novelize his scripts. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy sold one hundred thousand copies the first month and eventually sold two million copies in England alone. Across the Atlantic Ocean, similar success followed with a radio series on National Public Radio and a television version of the book.


Adams added four books to “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980), Life, the Universe and Everything, (1982), So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (1984), and Mostly Harmless (1992). Tired of the series, Adams coauthored Last Chance to See with zoologist Mark Carwardine in 1990. In a departure from the “Hitchhiker” books, it recounts their journey to see seven endangered species. He also developed a detective series which includes Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (1987) and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988).

II  OVERVIEW


Moments before the earth is demolished to make way for a “hyperspacial express route,” Arthur Dent is rescued by Ford Prefect, an alien who is disguised as an out-of-work actor. Prefect, who has become Dent’s friend of several years, has been stranded on Earth while researching the planet for the revised version of the electronic book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The pair’s misadventures as they ricochet from a Vogon spaceship, to the Heart of Gold state-of-the-art spaceship, to the planet factory, Magrathea, form the book’s prime focus: satire.

III  SETTING


Though initially set in England, the majority of the story takes place in space, either in spaceships or on the planet Magrathea. Adams creates his own worlds, cultures, creatures, and vocabularies in satire that fillets science fiction cliches and the human condition.


Dent and Prefect find themselves in two ships very unlike the usual spare and futuristic spaceship of science fiction genre. Just as the earth is vaporized, they use a “transformational beam” to board the spaceship of a Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz. In the ship’s galley, Dent first sees dirty dishes and dirty alien underwear scattered about. Sitting on mattresses that have been grown and dried from the Sqornshellous Zeta swamps, Dent is not comforted by Prefect’s reassurance that “very few have ever come to life again.”


The Heart of Gold is the second ship to pick up the pair. In Adams’s world, this ultimate space-age transportation is shaped like a running shoe and has its own sales brochure. Giving it an Improbability Drive, which powers the ship through every point in the universe, Adams creates scenes within the ship that combine elements of an Andy Warhol painting with Walt Disney’s “Fantasia.”


Finding Magrathea had been a high priority of many previous space explorations. When the characters accidentally discover it, Prefect ranks its drab and desolate exterior somewhere below “cat litter.” They learn its interior is three million miles across and that Magrathea’s inhabitants used to make planets inside it.

IV  THEMES AND CHARACTERS


The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy includes five characters: Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Trillian (Tricia MacMillan), Slartibartfast, and Marvin, the robot. Though all are likable enough, they are one-dimensional creations who merely react to circumstances rather than handle them.


Arthur Dent is hardly the customary space hero. He has no answers, no solutions, and exhibits no bravery. The only thing he actually does is lie down in the mud in front of bulldozers intent on demolishing his home. During crises in space, he curls up in the fetal position, screeches “Huhhhhgggnnnnn,” falls asleep, or asks for a cup of tea.


Adams has said, “Arthur Dent is to a certain extent autobiographical. He moves from one astonishing event to another without fully comprehending what’s going on. He’s the Everyman Characterâ€"an ordinary person caught up in some extraordinary events.”


Zaphod Beeblebox sums Arthur up quite well when other aliens propose to replace Arthur’s brain with an electronic one. “You’d just have to program it to say ‘What?’ and ‘I don’t understand’ and ‘Where’s the tea?’” he responds.


Arthur’s sardonic one-liners in the face of the catastrophe provide much of the humor in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. For example, after being told by Ford Prefect that they are safe in a Vogon Constructor Fleet spaceship, Arthur says, “This is obviously some strange usage of the word safe that I wasn’t previously aware of.”


Ford Prefect accepts Dent for what he is, and the two are good friends. Prefect is a roving researcher for the electronic book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. After being stranded for fifteen years on Earth, he expands its guidebook description from “harmless” to “mostly harmless.” He spends his time crashing university parties, drinking, or trying to pick up girls. As Arthur mourns the loss of Earth and its inhabitants, Prefect tries to reassure him by saying, “You just come along with me and have a good time. The Galaxy’s a fun place.”


Prefect does not get very upset about any kind of peril, including his impending demise in the vacuum of space. As trouble appears, his first defense is to simply talk his way out of it. Ironically, Prefect cannot understand why humans talk so much, but decides if they do not continually exercise their lips, their brains start working. Zaphod Beeblebrox should be, as a space creature with three arms and two heads, a villain. Instead he turns out to be Ford Prefect’s semi-cousin, President of the Imperial Galactic Government, and mostly harmless himself. He is an adventurer, but is barely capable of piloting the spaceship he has stolen.


Trillian is an attractive human who Dent once tried to pick up at a party. As Zaphod Beeblebrox’s companion, she does little but fiddle with the spaceship’s controls and stand behind someone, anyone, during dangerous situations. Her most important contribution in the book is to bring two white mice (actually “hyperintelligent pandimensional beings” who first commissioned the creation of Earth) into the Heart of Gold spaceship.


Marvin is a prototype robot. Zaphod Beeblebrox calls him “the Paranoid Android,” and Dent labels him “an electronic sulking machine.” The first thing he says is, “I think you ought to know I’m feeling very depressed.” Marvin is depressed, despairing, hopeless, abject, and wretched throughout the novel. Some reviewers credit him to be a satiric statement against the “me-first generation.”


Slartibartfast functions in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to give information. An award-winning fjord designer, he fills in missing information for Arthur and the readers. He explains Magrathea’s history and also explains that space travelers commissioned the creation of the Earth in order to find the Ultimate Question for the Ultimate Answer.


Adams has said, “I’m not a science fiction writer, but a comedy writer who happens to be using the conventions of science fiction for this particular thing.” Adams quickly deflates the arrogant notion that Earth and human kind are somehow pivotal to the universe. Earth is so obscure in the largeness of space, its entry in Ford Prefect’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is just barely discernible, listed above “Eccentrica Gallumbits, the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon 6.”


The computer in science fiction is always in control by virtue of its unerring logic. On the other hand, the Heart of Gold’s computer is merely brash and cheery, and completely defenseless in protecting its ship. It can only sing “When You Walk through the Storm” as nuclear warheads approach. It wants a relationship with its programmers, and it possesses a matriarchal back-up personality which cautions Arthur and his companions to stay “all wrapped up snug and warm, and no playing with any naughty bug-eyed monsters.”


As a comedy writer, he turns the laugh toward religion, nonviolence, alcohol, dollar-a-day guide books, philosophy, science, and poetry in seeming random fashion.

V  LITERARY QUALITIES


Adams’s satire is not bitter. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is mostly about funâ€"fun with words, fun with genre, fun with television, and fun with human nature.


A great deal of Adams’s humor depends on the unexpected. The coveted Heart of Gold spaceship is shaped like a running shoe. Nuclear warheads, attacking the space ship, unexpectedly turn into a bowl of petunias and a sperm whale. Adams’s satire pokes fun at Scripture as well as the notion that monkeys left with a typewriter will eventually pound out a Shakespeare play.


Adams frequently employs the technique of flashback. As Arthur knows nothing of events in space, filling him in on past events provides the reader with similar information. Adams accomplishes this with a variety of vehicles, including footnotes and narration. Entries in the electronic Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy tell Arthur about Magrathea, and Slartibartfast explains the creation of Deep Thought and its mission to arrive at Life’s Ultimate Answer.

VI  SOCIAL SENSITIVITY


Adams’s satire skewers several sacred icons of society: science, poetry, philosophy, and government. As Dent and Prefect romp through space, the various other characters and events act as vehicles for Adams’s social commentary.


His technological wonders include the Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic, the Paralyso-Matic bomb, the Babel fish translator, and Kill-O-Zap gun. With names sounding like something out of a comic book, they make it impossible to take the technology of his world seriously.


Adams takes to task society’s fascination and dependence on computers. The computer on the Heart of Gold and on Marvin the robot should solve problems with unwavering, impersonal logic. Instead the spaceship’s computer whines and breaks into song. Marvin is emotion on wheels. Two of the funniest sections in the book satirize poets and philosophers. The recitation of the poem “Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning” causes members of the audience to die of internal hemorrhaging. One listener survives by gnawing off his own leg. Captured by a Vogon, Arthur and Ford are strapped into Poetry Appreciation chairs, attached to “imagery intensifiers, rhythmic modulators, alliterative residulators and simile dumpers,” and then forced to listen to Vogon poetry. Only Adams’s view of philosophers and philosophy is more scathing. His philosophers are part of the “Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Thinking Persons.” More concerned with job security than finding meaning to life, they argue for rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty.


Adams points to the governmental ineffectiveness. In his world, the primary function of the President of the Intergalactic Government is to draw attention away from power rather than exercise it. Civil service in Adams’s world is manned by clods who are expert only at bludgeoning beautiful creatures to death.

VII  TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION


1. Why does this book continue to be popular, especially among college students and adolescents?


2. Adams’s humor has been described as both sophomoric and brilliant. Decide which term best describes Adams’s work and justify your opinion.


3. How effective is Adams’s use of the technique of flashback in the novel?


4. What unresolved questions or conflicts in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy makes a sequel likely?


5. Compare and contrast Adams’s portrayal of space alien creatures in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to those found in science fiction genre.


6. What science fiction cliches does Adams’s satire target?


7. How does Adams sustain his generally upbeat and buoyant tone throughout the book?


8. What foibles of human nature does Adams take issue with in his book?


9. The space-age technology in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy may have seemed far-fetched and bizarre in 1980. Which of the inventions that Adams includes have appeared in society two decades later? How do you explain this seemingly prophetic materialization?


10. Some critics find the characters in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy interesting because of the way they react to challenging circumstances. Discuss each character’s response to the attack by Magrathea’s missiles.

VIII  IDEAS FOR REPORTS AND PAPERS


1. Much of the technology described in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as being science fiction is now part of our daily lives. Pick one of these three inventionsâ€"digital watches, hydroboats (vehicles which hover above water without touching it), and virtual reality gamesâ€"and research the development of it.


2. Adams has described his main character, Arthur Dent, as a semi-autobiographical character. Research the real-life accomplishments of Adams and discover the similarities between the author and Arthur.


3. Just about the only action Arthur Dent ever initiates takes place in the first chapter when he lies down in front of the bulldozer. Research at least one person who initiated passive resistance in modern history. Relate the circumstances which inspired it, and discuss the results of the disobedience.


4. Ford Prefect’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was published on a “sub meson electronic component.” Investigate electronic publishing today and the arguments for and against this form of publishing.


5. Carl Sagan was a controversial scientist. Compare his views of the origin of the universe to those given in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.


6. For inventing the Infinite Improbability Drive a student scientist is awarded the Galactic Institute’s Prize for Extreme Cleverness. Pick a Nobel Prize winner in one of the science or medicine categories. Research what contribution or discovery earned him or her such renown.


7. Marvin is a robot of unique qualities. Compare and contrast his capabilities, personality, and programmed functions to other famous robots such as Robby the Robot of “Lost in Space” television fame, R2D2 and C3PO of the “Star Wars” movies, or Hal in Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey.


8. Investigate references in the Gospels that Adams parodies when Deep Thought announces it is only the second largest computer in the universe.


9. Read selections from the “Monty Python” television scripts and the books of Jonathan Swift and Kurt Vonnegut. Compare and contrast Adams to each of them.


10. Obtain The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in radio script and/or television script form. Compare and contrast the effectiveness of these forms to the book.

IX  RELATED TITLES AND ADAPTATIONS


Adams’s five books in the “Hitchhiker” series send his quartet of characters forward and backward in time after The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. By programming the second largest computer in history to deliberate seven and one-half million years, they learn in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that the Ultimate Answer is 42. The problem they pursue through subsequent books is finding the Ultimate Question for the Ultimate Answer. In The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, they discover the true reason for Earth’s existence. In Life, the Universe and Everything, their mission is to save the entire universe from Krikkit white killer robots. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish recounts how Arthur finds true love, while in Mostly Harmless, Arthur searches for home and discovers his estranged daughter who is searching for the planet of her ancestors.


Contributed by: Vicki Cox


Source: Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults. Copyright by Gale Group, Inc. Reprinted by permission.

Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Book Summaries help you understand books studied in schools and give you insights that make for great book reports. Gain a new perspective by reading about the author, and learn how settings, characters, and themes help make these books acclaimed works of literature.


Things Fall Apart

Published 1958

I  INTRODUCTION


The story of Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart takes place in the Nigerian village of Umuofia in the late 1880s, before missionaries and other outsiders have arrived. The Ibo clan practices common tribal traditionsâ€"worship of gods, sacrifice, communal living, war, and magic. Leadership is based on a man's personal worth and his contribution to the good of the tribe. Okonkwo stands out as a great leader of the Ibo tribe. Tribesmen respect Okonkwo for his many achievements.


Even though the tribe reveres Okonkwo, he must be punished for his accidental shooting of a young tribesman. The Ibo ban Okonkwo from the clan for seven years. Upon his return to the village, Okonkwo finds a tribe divided by the influence of missionaries and English bureaucrats who have interrupted the routine of tradition. Only when Okonkwo commits the ultimate sin against the tribe does the tribe come back together to honor custom.


Critics appreciate Achebe's development of the conflict that arises when tradition clashes with change. He uses his characters and their unique language to portray the double tragedies that occur in the story. Readers identify not only with Okonkwo and his personal hardships but also with the Ibo culture and its disintegration. Chinua Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart not for his fellow Nigerians, but for people beyond his native country. He wanted to explain the truth about the effects of losing one's culture. Published in 1958, the book was not widely read by Nigerians or by Africans in general. When Nigeria became independent in 1960, however, Africans appreciated the novel for its important contribution to Nigerian history.

II  CHINUA ACHEBE


Chinua Achebe is a world-renowned scholar recognized for his ability to write simply, yet eloquently, about life's universal qualities. His writing weaves together history and fiction to produce a literary broadcloth that offers visions of people enduring real life. Critics appreciate his just and realistic treatment of his topics.


Achebe writes primarily about his native Africa, where he was born Albert Chinualumogu Achebe in 1930. He grew up in Ogidi, Nigeria, one of the first centers of Anglican missionary work in eastern Nigeria. His father and mother, Isaiah and Janet Achebe, were missionary teachers. Achebe's life as a Christian and member of the Ibo tribe enables him to create realistic depictions of both contemporary and pre-colonized Africa. He blends his knowledge of Western political ideologies and Christian doctrine with folklore, proverbs, and idioms from his native tribe to produce stories of African culture that are intimate and authentic.


Achebe left the village of Ogidi to attend Government College in Umuahia, and later, University College in Ibadan. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from University College in 1953. He worked first for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation as a writer and continued radio work in various capacities until 1966, when he resigned from his post as Director of External Broadcasting. Dissatisfied with the political climate that would later prompt the Biafran War, he began traveling abroad and lecturing as the appointed Senior Research Fellow for the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.


Continuing his teaching career, Achebe accepted a position with the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 1972. He was a visiting professor of English at that institution until 1976 and again in 1987-1988. He also spent a year as a visiting professor at the University of Connecticut. In the intervening years, Achebe returned to his native country to teach at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.


Achebe has written extensively throughout his adult life. His numerous articles, novels, short stories, essays, and children's books have earned prestigious awards. For example, his book of poetry Christmas in Biafra was a winner of the first Commonwealth Poetry Prize. His novels Arrow of God and Anthills of the Savannah won, respectively, the New Statesman-Jock Campbell Award and finalist for the 1987 Booker Prize in England.

III  PLOT SUMMARY
A  Part Iâ€"Okonkwo's Rise to Fame


Achebe's Things Fall Apart describes the tragic demise of an Ibo man named Okonkwo. Initially, Okonkwo rises from humble origins to become a powerful leader in Umuofia, a rural village in southeastern Nigeria. As Okonkwo climbs the ladder to success, however, it becomes apparent that his strengths are also his weaknesses: his self-confidence becomes pride, his manliness develops into authoritarianism, and his physical strength eventually turns into uncontrolled rage. In a broader sense, Achebe sets this story about Okonkwo at the end of the nineteenth century when Europeans first began colonizing this region of Nigeria on a large scale. By so doing, Achebe establishes a parallel between Okonkwo's personal tragedy and colonialism's tragic destruction of native African cultures.


The first section of the novel describes Okonkwo's rise to a position of power. Determined to overcome the unmanly and unsuccessful example of his father, Unoka, Okonkwo develops a strength and determination unmatched among his peers. These attributes enable him to become a great wrestler, strong warrior, wealthy farmer, and prestigious member of his community. As the Umuofians notice his extraordinary talents, they reward him with numerous titles and honors. For example, they make him the guardian of Ikemefuna, a young boy awarded to Umuofia as compensation for wrongs committed by a neighboring village. Similarly, when Okonkwo starts a farm, he receives a generous loan of 800 yams from Nwakibie, a wealthy farmer. Nwakibie is willing to loan these yams to Okonkwo because he knows that Okonkwo will succeed, and Okonkwo proves his ability to succeed by surviving even after a terrible drought destroys his crops. Undaunted by either his humble origins or the forces of nature, Okonkwo soon becomes one of the most successful and well respected men in Umuofia.


Okonkwo's success, however, quickly begins to lead toward his ultimate downfall. Because he is so successful, he has little patience with unsuccessful and “unmanly” men like his father. In fact, he publicly insults Osugo, a less successful man, by calling him a woman during a kindred meeting. Not only does Okonkwo's success lead to conflicts with other members of the village, but it also drastically disrupts his ability to rule his own family. Because of his autocratic style of ruling and impulsive anger, his own family fears him. In fact, his own son, Nwoye, eventually rejects him, much like Okonkwo had rejected his own father earlierâ€"only Nwoye rejects Okonkwo for being excessively masculine, whereas Okonkwo rejected Unoka for not being manly enough. Even more significantly, Okonkwo's hasty temper provokes him to beat his third wife, Ojiugo, during the sacred Week of Peace, a festival time during which Ibo custom strictly forbids any form of violence. Okonkwo commits his worst crime, however, when he participates in the sacrifice of Ikemefuna. After Okonkwo had raised Ikemefuna as his own son for several years, an Oracle required that the Umuofians sacrifice Ikemefuna. Because Okonkwo had been like a father to Ikemefuna, Okonkwo's friend Ezeudu warns him not to participate in the sacrifice. When the rest of the men begin sacrificing Ikemefuna, however, Okonkwo disregards Ezeudu's advice and participates in the sacrifice because he fears that the others might consider him unmanly. When Nwoye eventually finds out about Ikemefuna's death, he has a serious crisis that causes him to question not only his father's example but also the customs and beliefs of his people.


Despite Okonkwo's numerous violations of custom and violent behavior, he ultimately loses his prestigious position in Umuofia not because of his misdeeds but because of an accident. During Ezeudu's funeral ceremony, his gun misfires and accidentally kills a boy. Ironically, it is for this accident rather than for his numerous misdeeds that the Umuofians burn down Okonkwo's home and exile him for a period of seven years.

B  Part IIâ€"Okonkwo's Exile to Mbanta


After being exiled from Umuofia, Okonkwo seeks refuge among his mother's kinsmen in Mbanta, a neighboring village. During this time, the British begin colonizing the surrounding areas, and this begins a vicious cycle of mutual confrontation as the two cultures clash. For example, the inhabitants of Abame kill the first white man who arrives in their city because they fear him and cannot communicate with him, and the British destroy Abame in retaliation for this murder. Christian missionaries also begin arriving in Umuofia and Mbanta, and they hold debates to gain converts. Most of the people are not interested in the missionaries' religion, but a few people, including Okonkwo's son Nwoye, convert. When Okonkwo finds out about Nwoye's conversion, he becomes enraged and disowns Nwoye. Toward the end of Okonkwo's exile, the tensions between the village and the missionaries escalate when the Christian converts kill a sacred python and the tribe retaliates by ostracizing the Christians. After Okonkwo's period of exile ends, he holds a great feast to thank his relatives, and he begins making preparations for his return to Umuofia.

C  Part IIIâ€"Okonkwo's Return to Umuofia


In the final section, Okonkwo returns from exile with hopes of reclaiming a position of power in Umuofia, but Umuofia has changed drastically since the arrival of the Europeans. The first missionary in Umuofia, Mr. Brown, won the people's admiration because he respected their customs and developed personal relationships with them. When Mr. Brown has to leave for health reasons, however, he is replaced by the Reverend James Smith, an ethnocentric zealot who stirs up deep antagonism between the new Christian converts and the rest of the town. These tensions finally explode when Enoch, an overzealous new convert, eats a sacred python and publicly unmasks an egwugwu spirit. The Umuofians avenge Enoch's blasphemies by burning down the Christian church, and the British retaliate in turn by arresting the leaders of Umuofia and fining them 200 bags of cowries.


The Umuofians pay the fine, but the leaders are angered by the duplicitous and unjust manner in which the District Commissioner treated them. Consequently, they hold a meeting to decide how to respond. The village is divided as to whether they should ignore this injustice or retaliate with violence, but Okonkwo has made up his mind that he will oppose British colonization even if nobody else will join him. When a messenger from the government arrives to stop their meeting, Okonkwo kills the messenger, and the meeting ends in chaos.


The next day the District Commissioner himself comes to arrest Okonkwo, but Okonkwo has already committed suicide. The people of Umuofia ask the commissioner to bury Okonkwo because it is against their custom to bury a man who has committed suicide. The commissioner orders his men to take down Okonkwo's body because he has an interest in African customs, but he refuses to help personally because he fears that cutting down a dead body might give the natives a poor opinion of him. Achebe's bitterly ironic conclusion to the novel describes the District Commissioner's callous response to Okonkwo's tragedy. In the many years that he had toiled to bring civilization to different parts of Africa he had learnt a number of things. One of them was that a District Commissioner must never attend to such undignified details as cutting down a hanged man from the trees. Such attention would give the natives a poor opinion of him. In the book which he planned to write he would stress that point. As he walked back to the court he thought about that book. Every day brought him some new material. The story of this man who had killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading. One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph, at any rate. There was so much else to include, and one must be firm in cutting out the details. He had already chosen the title of the book, after much thought: The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.




Ironically, the District Commissioner thinks that he has helped pacify the 'primitive' tribes of the Lower Niger, but he is blind to his complicity in destroying these tribes and provoking the chain of events leading to Okonkwo's suicide. The District Commissioner's thoughts are doubly ironic because he claims to understand Africa enough to write a history of it, but he remains thoroughly ignorant of the people he intends to write about. Okonkwo's tragic demise, like the tragic destruction of indigenous African people and their traditions, is a long and complex history, but the District Commissioner only sees it as a mere paragraph. For far too long, Europeans like the District Commissioner have ignored and misrepresented the history of Africa, but Achebe's Things Fall Apart begins to correct the historical record by retelling the conquest of Africa from Okonkwo's African perspective rather than the District Commissioner's European one.

IV  CHARACTERS
A  Okonkwo


Out of awe and respect, the Ibo tribe refers to Okonkwo as 'Roaring Flame.' Fiery of temper with a blazing appearance, Okonkwo strikes fear in the hearts of his clan members as well as his own family unit. Okonkwo's huge build topped by bushy eyebrows and a very broad nose give him the look of a tornado on the warpath. His whole demeanor reeks of controlled fury; he even breathes heavily, like a dragon ready to explode. He always appears to be wound for fierce action.


While Okonkwo's appearance portrays a man people fear, it belies the terror Okonkwo hides within himself. For his entire life, Okonkwo has had to deal with having a father who is considered weak and lazyâ€"'agabala' in the tribe's terms. The tribe detests weak, effeminate men. Okonkwo is terrified to think that the tribe will liken him to his father. He is even more afraid of recognizing in himself some semblance of weakness that he sees in his father. Thus, he despises gentleness, idleness, and demonstrations of sensitivity. He will not allow himself to show love, to enjoy the fruits of hard work, or to demonstrate concern for others, nor can he tolerate these in other men. He rules his family unit with an iron fist and expects everyone to act on his commands. He speaks curtly to those he considers less successful than himself and dismisses them as unimportant. An extremely proud man, Okonkwo continually pushes to overcome the image his heredity might have given him.


The tribe sees Okonkwo as powerful. They respect him for his many achievements. Not only has he overcome his father's weaknesses, but also he has accomplished more than the average tribesman. As a young man, he wrestles and beats one of the fiercest fighters in the land. Next, Okonkwo goes on to amass three wives and two barns full of yams. Then, he acquires two titles and is considered the greatest warrior alive.

B  Unoka


Unoka is Okonkwo's father, the root of Okonkwo's fear and problems. Unoka represents all that the Ibo abhorâ€"gentleness, lack of ambition, and sensitivity to people and nature. He is a gifted musician who loves fellowship, the change of the seasons, and children. Although Unoka is tall, his stooped posture bears the weight of the tribe's scorn.


Unoka is happy only when he is playing his flute and drinking palm wine. Tribal customs frighten, sicken, and bore him. He hates war and is nauseated by the sight of blood. He would rather make music than grow crops. As a result, his family is more often hungry than not, and he borrows constantly from fellow tribesmen to maintain his household. He dies in disgrace, owing everyone and holding no titles.

C  Nwoye


Okonkwo's son, Nwoye, disappoints him. Nwoye shows all the signs of his grandfather's sensitivity and laziness, and Okonkwo fears that Nwoye will shame the reputable name Okonkwo has worked so hard to achieve. Nwoye knows that he should enjoy the masculine rites of his fellow tribesmen, but he prefers his mother's company and the stories she tells. He questions and is disturbed by many of the tribe's customs. Okonkwo beats and nags Nwoye, making Nwoye more unhappy and further distancing him from the ways of the clan.


When Ikemefuna comes to live with Okonkwo's family, Nwoye grows to admire his knowledge and to love him like a real brother. Out of his respect for Ikemefuna, Nwoye begins to associate more with the men of the family and tribe, and to act more like the man that his father wants him to become.


After Ikemefuna's death, Nwoye feels an emptiness that cannot be filled by the clan's traditions. He is plagued by old questions for which the clan has no answers.

D  Ikemefuna


Ikemefuna comes to live with Okonkwo's family as a peace offering from Ikemefuna's home tribe to the Ibo for the killing of a Umuofian daughter. From the beginning, Ikemefuna fills the void in Okonkwo's life that Okonkwo's own son cannot.


Ikemefuna adjusts quickly to his new family and tribe and energetically participates in activities. He earns everyone's love and respect because he is so lively and talented. Only two years older than Nwoye, Ikemefuna already knows much about the world and can do almost anything. He can identify birds, trap rodents, and make flutes. He knows which trees make the best bows and tells delightful folk stories. Okonkwo appreciates Ikemefuna for the example he sets for Nwoye.


Ikemefuna lives with Okonkwo for three years. The tribe then agrees to kill Ikemefuna because the Oracle of the Hills and the Caves has requested it. Ikemefuna's death brings far-reaching consequences.

E  Ekwefi


Ekwefi, forty-five years old, is Okonkwo's second wife. Although she fell in love with Okonkwo when he won the famous wrestling match, she did not move in with him until she left her husband three years after the contest. Ekwefi had been lovely in her youth, referred to as 'Crystal of Beauty.' The years have been hard on her. She has become a courageous and strong-willed woman, overcoming disappointment and bitterness in her life. She has borne ten children, only one of which has lived. She stands up to Okonkwo and lives for her daughter, Ezinma.

F  Ezinma


Ekwefi lives for Ezinma, her only living child, her pride and joy. Okonkwo favors his daughter, who is not only as beautiful as her mother once was, but who grows to understand her father and his moods as no one else does. Father and daughter form a special bond. Okonkwo and Ekwefi treat Ezinma like she is their equal rather than their child. They permit her privileges that other family and tribal children are not granted. Okonkwo's only regret towards Ezinma is that she is not a boy.

G  Nwoye's mother


Nwoye's mother is wise to the ways of the tribe. While she knows that her sons will never be able to display such emotions, she tells her children wonderful stories that describe feelings like pity and forgiveness. She attempts to keep peace in the family by lying at times to Okonkwo to help the other wives avoid punishment. She tries to adhere to sacred tribal customs. She shows compassion at the message that Ikemefuna is to return to his family. In her own way, Nwoye's mother displays the courage of a tribesman.

H  Ojiugo


Ojiugo evokes Okonkwo's anger through thoughtless acts and prompts him to break the sacred Week of Peace. As a result, the priest of the earth goddess punishes Okonkwo.

I  Obierika


Obierika is Okonkwo's best friend. Unlike Okonkwo, he is a thinking man. He questions the circumstances that are sending his friend into exile, even while trying to console Okonkwo and taking care of Okonkwo's preparation for departure. Obierika is the one who visits Okonkwo while Okonkwo is exiled and brings him the first news of the missionaries' arrival, knowing that Okonkwo's son has joined them. At the end of the seven-year exile, Obierika builds Okonkwo two huts and sends for him. Finally, a sad and weary Obierika bids a last tribute to his friend when he leads the diminishing clansmen through the rituals required to cleanse the land Okonkwo has desecrated.

J  Ogbuefi Ezeudu


A noble warrior and the oldest man in all the village, Ogbuefi Ezeudu has achieved a rare three titles. He is the one to tell Okonkwo that the tribe has decided to kill Ikemefuna. Ezeudu warns Okonkwo not to be a part of Ikemefuna's death.


At Ezeudu's death, the clan gathers to bid a final sacred tribute to a man who has nearly attained the highest tribal honorâ€"lord of the land. When Okonkwo accidentally kills Ezeudu's son during the ceremony, the clan is horrified. Okonkwo can think only of Ezeudu's warning.

K  Ogbuefi Ugonna


A worthy tribesman of two titles, Ogbuefi Ugonna is one of the first of the village men to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion offered by the Christian missionaries.

L  Mr. Brown


The first white missionary to come to Umuofia, Mr. Brown gains the clan's respect through his calm nature and patience. He neither attacks the tribe's customs nor badgers them to join him. He restrains his overzealous members from harsh tactics. He simply offers education to the Umuofians and their children. The mission is flourishing when Mr. Brown has to leave for health reasons.

M  The District Commissioner


The District Commissioner arrives in Umuofia at the same time as the missionaries. He and his court messengersâ€"called 'Ashy-Buttocks' for the ash-colored shorts they wearâ€"try clansmen for breaking the white man's law. These white men are greatly hated for their arrogance and disrespect for tribal customs.

N  Reverend James Smith


Mr. Smith replaces Mr. Brown when Mr. Brown has to leave the mission. The Reverend Smith leads the overzealous with a passion. Where Mr. Brown was mild-mannered and quiet, Mr. Smith is angry and flamboyant. He denounces the tribe's customs and bans from his church clan members who must be, according to him, filled with the devil's spirit to want to continue tribal tradition.

O  Enoch


Enoch is an overzealous member of Mr. Brown's mission. While Mr. Brown restrains Enoch from taking his faith to extremes, Mr. Smith does not. Mr. Smith not only condones Enoch's excessive actions, he encourages them. Enoch instigates the battle between Umuofia and the church by unmasking an egwugwu, or ancestor spirit, during a public ceremony. This is one of the greatest crimes a man could commit.

V  THEMES
A  Custom and Tradition


Okonkwo's struggle to live up to what he perceives as “traditional” standards of masculinity, and his failure to adapt to a changing world, help point out the importance of custom and tradition in the novel. The Ibo tribe defines itself through the age-old traditions it practices in Things Fall Apart. While some habits mold tribe members' daily lives, other customs are reserved for special ceremonies. For example, the head of a household honors any male guest by praying over and sharing a kola nut with him, offering the guest the privilege of breaking the nut. They drink palm-wine together, with the oldest person taking the first drink after the provider has tasted it.


Ceremonial customs are more elaborate. The Feast of the New Yam provides an illustration. This Feast gives the tribe an opportunity to thank Ani, the earth goddess and source of all fertility. Preparations for the Feast include thorough hut-cleaning and decorating, cooking, body painting, and head shaving. Relatives come from great distances to partake in the feast and to drink palm-wine. Then, on the second day of the celebration, the great wrestling match is held. The entire village meets in the village playground, or ilo, for the drumming, dancing, and wrestling. The festival continues through the night until the final round is won. Because the tribe views winning a match as a great achievement, the winner earns the tribe's ongoing respect.


Tribal custom dictates every aspect of members' lives. The tribe determines a man's worth by the number of titles he holds, the number of wives he acquires, and the number of yams he grows. The tribe acknowledges a man's very being by the gods' approval of him. Without custom and tradition, the tribe does not exist.

B  Choices and Consequences


In Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo makes a choice early in life to overcome his father's legacy. As a result, Okonkwo gains the tribe's respect through his constant hard work. The tribe rewards him by recognizing his achievements and honoring him as a great warrior. Although the tribe believes that Okonkwo's personal god, or chi, is good (fate has blessed him), they realize that Okonkwo has worked hard to achieve all that he has (if a man says yes, his chi says yes). When he breaks the Week of Peace, however, the tribe believes that Okonkwo has begun to feel too self-important and has challenged his chi. They fear the consequences his actions may bring.


The tribe decides to kill Ikemefuna. Even though Ezeudu warns Okonkwo not to be a part of the plan, Okonkwo himself kills Ikemefuna. Okonkwo chooses to kill the boy rather than to appear weak.


When Okonkwo is in exile, he ponders the tribe's view of his chi. He thinks that maybe they have been wrongâ€"that his chi was not made for great things. Okonkwo blames his exile on his chi. He refuses to accept that his actions have led him to this point. He sees no connections among his breaking the Week of Peace, his killing Ikemefuna, and his shooting Ezeudu's son. In Okonkwo's eyes, his troubles result from ill fate and chance.

C  Alienation and Loneliness


Okonkwo's exile isolates him from all he has ever known in Things Fall Apart. The good name he had built for himself with his tribesmen is a thing of the past. He must start anew. The thought overwhelms him, and Okonkwo feels nothing but despair. Visits from his good friend, Obierika, do little to cheer Okonkwo. News of the white man's intrusion and the tribe's reactions to it disturb him. His distance from the village, and his lack of connection to it, give him a sense of helplessness. Even worse, Okonkwo's son, Nwoye, joins the white man's mission efforts.


Okonkwo's return to the village does nothing to lessen his feelings of alienation and loneliness. The tribe he rejoins is not the same tribe he left. While he does not expect to be received as the respected warrior he once was, he does think that his arrival will prompt an occasion to be remembered. When the clan takes no special notice of his return, Okonkwo realizes that the white man has been too successful in his efforts to change the tribe's ways. Okonkwo grieves the loss of his tribe and the life he once knew. He is not able to overcome his sense of complete alienation.

D  Betrayal


In Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo feels betrayed by his personal god, or chi, which has allowed him to produce a son who is effeminate. Nwoye continually disappoints Okonkwo. As a child, Nwoye prefers his mother's stories to masculine pursuits. As an adult, Nwoye joins the white missionaries.


Okonkwo also feels betrayed by his clan. He does not understand why his fellow tribesmen have not stood up against the white intruders. When Okonkwo returns from exile, his clan has all but disintegrated. Many of the tribe's leaders have joined the missionaries' efforts; tribal beliefs and customs are being ignored. Okonkwo mourns the death of the strong tribe he once knew and despises the “woman-like” tribe that has taken its place.

E  Change and Transformation


The tribe to which Okonkwo returns has undergone a complete transformation during his absence in Things Fall Apart. The warlike Ibo once looked to its elders for guidance, made sacrifices to gods for deliverance, and solved conflicts though confrontation. Now the Ibo are “woman-like”; they discuss matters among themselves and pray to a god they can not see. Rather than immediately declare war on the Christians when Enoch unmasks the egwugwu, or ancestral spirit, the Ibo only destroy Enoch's compound. Okonkwo realizes how completely the Christians have changed his tribe when the tribesmen allow the remaining court messengers to escape after Okonkwo beheads one of them.

F  Good and Evil


Many of the tribesmen view the white man as evil in Things Fall Apart. Tribesmen did not turn their backs on one another before the white man came. Tribesmen would never have thought to kill their own brothers before the white man came. The arrival of the white man has forced the clan to act in ways that its ancestors deplore. Such evil has never before invaded the clan.

G  Culture Clash


The arrival of the white man and his culture heralds the death of the Ibo culture in Things Fall Apart. The white man does not honor the tribe's customs and strives to convince tribesmen that the white man's ways are better. Achieving some success, the white man encourages the tribesmen who join him, increasing the white man's ranks. As a result, the tribe is split, pitting brother against brother and father against son. Tribal practices diminish as the bond that ties tribesmen deteriorates. Death eventually comes to the weaker of the clashing cultures.

VI  CONSTRUCTION
A  Tragedy


Things Fall Apart chronicles the double tragedies of the deaths of Okonkwo, a revered warrior, and the Ibo, the tribe to which Okonkwo belongs. In literature, tragedy often describes the downfall of a great individual which is caused by a flaw in the person's character. Okonkwo's personal flaw is his unreasonable anger, and his tragedy occurs when the tribe bans him for accidentally killing a young tribesman, and he returns to find a tribe that has changed beyond recognition. The Ibo's public demise results from the destruction of one culture by another, but their tragedy is caused by their turning away from their tribal gods.

B  Setting


Things Fall Apart is set in Umuofia, a tribal village in the country of Nigeria, in Africa. It is the late 1800s, when English bureaucrats and missionaries are first arriving in the area. Although there is a long history of conflict between European colonists and the Africans they try to convert and subjegate, by placing the novel at the beginning of this period Achebe can accentuate the clash of cultures that are just coming into contact. It also sets up a greater contrast between the time Okonkwo leaves the tribe and the time he returns, when his village is almost unrecognizable to him because of the changes brought by the English.

C  Conflict


In Things Fall Apart, the Ibo thrive in Umuofia, practicing ancient rituals and customs. When the white man arrives, however, he ignores the Ibo's values and tries to enforce his own beliefs, laws, and religious practices. Some of the weaker tribesmen join the white man's ranks, leaving gaps in the clan's united front. First, the deserters are impressed with the wealth the white man brings into Umuofia. Second, they find in the white man's religion an acceptance and brotherhood that has never been afforded them due to their lower status in the tribe. As men leave the tribe to become members of the white man's mission, the rift in the tribe widens. Social and psychological conflict abounds as brothers turn their backs on one another, and fathers and sons become strangers.

D  Narration


Achebe develops Things Fall Apart through a third-person narrativeâ€"using “he” and “she” for expositionâ€"rather than having the characters tell it themselves. Often speaking in the past tense, he also narrates the story with little use of character dialogue. The resulting story reads like an oral tale that has been passed down through generations of storytellers.

E  Imagery


While the characters in Things Fall Apart have little dialogue, the reader still has a clear image of them and is able to understand their motives. Achebe accomplishes this through his combination of the English language with Ibo vocabulary and proverbs. When the characters do talk, they share the rich proverbs that are 'the palm-oil with which words are eaten.' Achebe uses the proverbs not only to illustrate his characters but also to paint pictures of the society he is depicting, to reveal themes, and to develop conflict. Vivid images result, giving the reader a clear representation of people and events.

F  Point of View


Critics praise Achebe for his adept shifts in point of view in Things Fall Apart. Achebe begins the story from Okonkwo's point of view. Okonkwo's story helps the reader understand the Ibo's daily customs and rituals as well as celebrations for the main events in life: birth, marriage, and death. As the story progresses, however, it becomes more the clan's story than Okonkwo's personal story. The reader follows the clan's life, gradual disintegration, and death. The novel becomes one of situation rather than character; the reader begins to feel a certain sympathy for the tribe instead of the individual. The final shift occurs when Achebe ends the story from the District Commissioner's viewpoint. While some critics feel that Achebe's ending lectures, others believe that it strengthens the conclusion for the reader. Some even view it as a form of functionalism, an African tradition of cultural instruction.

G  Plot and Structure


Divided into three parts, Things Fall Apart comprises many substories. Yet Achebe holds the various stories together through his use of proverbs, the traditional oral tale, and leitmotif, or recurring images or phrases. Ibo proverbs occur throughout the book providing a unity to the surface progression of the story. For example, 'when a man says yes, his chi says yes' is the proverb the tribe applies to Okonkwo's success, on the one hand, but is also the proverb Okonkwo, himself, applies to his failure. Traditional oral tales always contain a tale within the tale. Nwoye's mother is an expert at telling these talesâ€"morals embedded in stories. The stories Achebe tells throughout Things Fall Apart are themselves tales within the tale. Leitmotif is the association of a repeated theme with a particular idea. Achebe connects masculinity with land, yams, titles, and wives. He repeatedly associates this view of masculinity with a certain stagnancy in Umuofia. While a traditional Western plot may not be evident in Things Fall Apart, a definite structure with an African flavor lends itself to the overall unity of the story.

H  Foil


Achebe uses foilâ€"a type of contrastâ€"to strengthen his primary characters in Things Fall Apart, illuminating their differences. The following pairs of characters serve as foils for each other: Okonkwo and Obierika, Ikemefuna and Nwoye, and Mr. Brown and the Reverend Smith. Okonkwo rarely thinks; he is a man of action. He follows the tribe's customs almost blindly and values its opinion of him over his own good sense. Obierika, on the other hand, ponders the things that happen to Okonkwo and his tribe. Obierika often makes his own decisions and wonders about the tribe's wisdom in some of its actions. Ikemefuna exemplifies the rising young tribesman. A masculine youth, full of energy and personality, Ikemefuna participates in the manly activities expected of him. In contrast, Nwoye appears lazy and effeminate. He prefers listening to his mother's stories over making plans for war. He detests the sight of blood and abhors violence of any kind. Mr. Brown speaks gently and restrains the overzealous members of his mission from overwhelming the clan. He seeks to win the people over by offering education and sincere faith. The Reverend Smith is the fire-and-brimstone preacher who replaces Mr. Brown. He sees the world in black and white; either something is evil, or it is good. He thrives on his converts' zeal and encourages them to do whatever it takes to gain supporters for his cause.

VII  HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
A  Tribal Society


Things Fall Apart was published in 1958 just prior to Nigerian independence, but it depicts precolonial Africa. Achebe felt it was important to portray Nigerians as they really wereâ€"not just provide a shallow description of them as other authors had. The story takes place in the typical tribal village of Umuofia, where the inhabitants (whom Achebe calls the Ibo, but who are also known as the Igbo) practice rituals common to their native traditions.


The Ibo worshipped gods who protect, advise, and chastise them and who are represented by priests and priestesses within the clan. For example, the Oracle of the Hills and the Caves grants knowledge and wisdom to those who are brave enough to consult him. No one has ever seen the Oracle except his priestess, who is an Ibo woman but who has special powers of her own. Not only did the gods advise the Ibo on community matters, but also they guided individuals. Each person had a personal god, or chi, that directed his or her actions. A strong chi meant a strong person; people with weak chis were pitied. Each man kept a separate hut, or shrine, where he stored the symbols of his personal god and his ancestral spirits.


A hunting and gathering society, the Ibo existed on vegetables, with yams as the primary crop. Yams were so important to them that the Ibo celebrated each new year with the Feast of the New Yam. This festival thanked Ani, the earth goddess and source of all fertility. The Ibo prepared for days for the festival, and the celebration itself lasted for two days. Yams also played a part in determining a man's status in the tribeâ€"the more yams a man has, the higher his status. Trade with other villages was facilitated by small seashells called cowries which were used as a form of currency.


Within the village, people were grouped according to families, with the eldest man in the family having the most power. On matters affecting the whole village, an assembly of adult men debated courses of action, and men could influence these assemblies by purchasing “titles” from the tribal elders. This system encouraged hard work and the spread of wealth. People who transgressed against the laws and customs of the village had to confront the egwugwu, an assembly of tribesmen masked as spirits, who would settle disputes and hand out punishment. Individual villages also attained various degrees of political status. In the novel, other tribes respect and fear Umuofia. They believe that Umuofia's magic is powerful and that the village's war-medicine, or agadi-nwayi, is particularly potent. Neighboring clans always try to settle disputes peacefully with Umuofia to avoid having to war with them.

B  Christianity and Colonization


While Christianity spread across north and south Africa as early as the late fifteenth century, Christianity took its strongest hold when the majority of the missionaries arrived in the late 1800s. After centuries of taking slaves out of Africa, Britain had outlawed the slave trade and now saw the continent as ripe for colonization. Missionaries sent to convert the local population were often the first settlers. They believed they could atone for the horrors of slavery by saving the souls of Africans.


At first, Africans were mistrustful of European Christians, and took advantage of the education the missionaries provided without converting. Individuals who had no power under the current tribal order, however, soon converted; in the novel, the missionaries who come to Umuofia convert only the weaker tribesmen, or efulefu. Missionaries would convince these tribesmen that their tribe worshipped false gods and that its false gods did not have the ability to punish them if they chose to join the mission. When the mission and its converts accepted even the outcasts of the clan, the missionaries' ranks grew. Eventually, some of the more important tribesmen would convert. As the mission expanded, the clan divided, discontent simmered, and conflicts arose.

C  English Bureaucrats and Colonization


After the arrival of the British, when conflicts came up between villages the white government would intervene instead of allowing villagers to settle them themselves. In the novel, a white District Commissioner brings with him court messengers whose duty it is to bring in people who break the white man's law. The messengers, called 'Ashy-Buttocks' for the ash-colored shorts they wear, are hated for their high-handed attitudes. These messengers and interpreters were often African Christian converts who looked down on tribesmen who still followed traditional customs. If violence involved any white missionaries or bureaucrats, British soldiers would often slaughter whole villages instead of seeking and punishing guilty individuals. The British passed an ordinance in 1912 that legalized this practice, and during an uprising in 1915, British troops killed more than forty natives in retaliation for one dead and one wounded British soldier.


One of the most important results of Europe's colonization of Africa was the division of Africa into at least fifty nation-states. Rather than being a part of a society determined by common language and livelihood, Africans lived according to political boundaries. The divisions often split ethnic groups, leading to tension and sometimes violence. The cohesiveness of the traditional society was gone.

D  Nigerian Independence


British colonial rule in Nigeria lasted only fifty-seven years, from 1903 to 1960. Although Nigerians had long called for self-rule, it was not until the end of World War II that England began heeding these calls. The Richards Constitution of 1946 was the first attempt to grant some native rule by bringing the diverse peoples of Nigeria under one representative government. The three regions (northern, southern and western) were brought under the administration of one legislative council composed of twenty-eight Nigerians and seventeen British officers. Regional councils, however, guaranteed some independence from the national council and forged a link between local authorities, such as tribal chiefs, and the national government. There were three major tribes (the Hausa, the Yoruba and the Igbo) and more than eight smaller ones living in Nigeria. This diversity complicated the creation of a unified Nigeria. Between 1946 and 1960 the country went through several different constitutions, each one attempting to balance power between the regional and the national bodies of government.


On October 1, 1960, Nigeria attained full status as a sovereign state and a member of the British Commonwealth. But under the Constitution of 1960 the Queen of England was still the head of state. She remained the commander- in-chief of Nigeria's armed forces, and the Nigerian navy operated as part of Britain's Royal Navy. Nigerians felt frustrated by the implication that they were the subjects of a monarch living over 4,000 miles away. In 1963, five years after the publication of Achebe's novel, a new constitution would replace the British monarch with a Nigerian president as head of state in Nigeria.

E  Literary Traditions


Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart just before Nigeria received its independence. He intended the book for audiences outside Africa; he wanted to paint a true picture of precolonial Africa for those people who had no direct knowledge of traditional African societies. As a result of the Nigerians' acquisition of independence, the Nigerian educational system sought to encourage a national pride through the study of Nigerian heritage. The educational system required Achebe's book in high schools throughout the English-speaking countries in Africa. The book was well received. Chinua Achebe has been recognized as 'the most original African novelist writing in English,' according to Charles Larson in The Emergence of African Fiction. Critics throughout the world have praised Things Fall Apart as the first African English-language classic.

VIII  QUESTIONS


How does the displacement from one's culture affect a person psychologically? Explain possible reactions a person might have and the steps someone might take to help him or her adjust.


School integration is being attempted across America. How successful has it been? Cite specific examples, such as court cases, to support your answer.


Integration is being attempted in a high school in Cape Town, South Africa. At the beginning of each school day, white students and students from one of the black societies are required to attend a formal assembly. Students are also required to wear school uniforms. What might the students infer from these requirements? Support your answer by discussing the purpose of assemblies and uniforms in our society and researching cultural aspects of one of the black societies in Cape Town.


Compare and contrast American and African colonization by discussing the events and their effects.


Investigate women's roles in tribal society. Find and discuss specific examples from Things Fall Apart.


Women in tribal societies were often forced to undergo female circumcision. Investigate the purpose of this ritual. What are the medical implications of this procedure?


Language is an important means of communication as well as a prominent culture marker. What does a person's language tell us about him or her? What effects could loss of one's languageâ€"through physical disability or societal disallowanceâ€"have on a person?


Missionaries went to Umuofia to convert the Ibo to Christianity. Should anyone try to change another's religious beliefs? Take a stand from either a Christian's point of view or from an opposite point of view. Prepare a logical argument for presentation in a debate.


What is the purpose of multicultural education in our country? Describe some of the efforts that are being undertaken by schools around the country. What have been your own experiences? Discuss the methods being used to implement these programs and their success.

IX  COMPARE AND CONTRAST


1800s: Prior to colonization, common language and geography differentiated African societies. Six types of societies existed: hunting and gathering societies, cattle-herding societies, forest dwellers, fishermen, grain-raising societies, and city (urban) societies. The geographic area in which people lived determined their lifestyle. Colonial Africa: Africa was divided into more than fifty nation-states, with no regard for maintaining groups sharing common language and livelihood. Today: Societies are no longer as clear-cut. People have more opportunities for education, better jobs, and improved means of communication and transportation. They marry individuals from other societies. As a result, the societies have become mixed, but ethnic conflicts still lead to violence.


1800s: While religion varied from society to society, most Africans shared some common beliefs and practices. They believed in a supreme creator god or spirit. Other lesser gods revealed themselves as, and worked through, community ancestors. Colonial Africa: Missionaries arrived and introduced Christianity. Many tribesmen converted to the new religion. Today: While more than an estimated 25 percent of Africa is Christian, traditional African religion is still practiced, as is Islam. Islam is a monotheistic religion related to the Jewish and Christian traditions.


1800s: Prior to colonization, Africans had their own identities and cultures and were not concerned with participating in the modern world. Colonial Africa: After colonization, African children were taught European history and literature so that they might compete in the modern world, while their own heritage was ignored. Today: Africans continue to seek the independence they began to achieve in the 1950s and 1960s. There is, however, a renewed interest in cultural heritage, and traditional customs are being taught to African children.


Source: Novels for Students. Copyright by Gale Group, Inc. Reprinted by permission.

Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Book Summaries help you understand books studied in schools and give you insights that make for great book reports. Gain a new perspective by reading about the author, and learn how settings, characters, and themes help make these books acclaimed works of literature.


The Brothers Karamazov
Published 1881

I  INTRODUCTION

At the heart of The Brothers Karamazov is a murder mystery surrounding the homicide of a family patriarch, Fyodor Karamazov, and the role of his sons in the crime. The book is also a novel of ideas: Fyodor Dostoevsky debates the existence of God, the role of religion in modern societies, and the consequences of class differences on the individual.

On its publication in 1881 readers were shocked by the controversial nature of the novel, in particular the frank discussions of religion and class division. Today, The Brothers Karamazov is considered one of the greatest novels in world literature; moreover, Dostoyevsky is renowned as one of the preeminent figures in Russian literature, along with such authors as Nikolai Gogol, Leo Tolstoy, and Alexander Pushkin. His work has influenced many important writers and thinkers of the twentieth century, such as Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, and Sigmund Freud.

II  FEDOR MIKHAILOVICH DOSTOEVSKY

Born in Moscow on October 30, 1821, Dostoevsky grew up in a privileged family. His father, a doctor, was a tyrannical disciplinarian; his mother was a pious woman who died before Dostoevsky was sixteen. After her death the family moved to a spacious country estate. To escape the oppressive atmosphere at home, he developed a love for reading, in particular the works of Nikolai Gogol, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and Honore de Balzac.

While attending boarding school, Dostoevsky received word that his father had been murdered by his serfs. The family did not report the murder for fear of losing income; their serfs would undoubtedly have been sent to Siberia for the crime.

According to his father's wishes, Dostoevsky trained as an engineer at the School of Military Engineers in St. Petersburg. With this training, he accepted a commission in the Czar's army in 1843. After a year he resigned and began his career as an author, depending on income from the family estate. His first novel, Poor Folk (1846), was published to great critical acclaim but little commercial success.

Dostoevsky's participation in the subversive and socialist Petrashevsky Circle led to his imprisonment. In 1849 he was ordered to die by firing squad. Fortunately, an imperial rider appeared in the nick of time with the message that his sentence had been commuted to ten years of hard labor in Omsk, Siberia.

This traumatic experience prompted Dostoevsky to abandon his interest in humanism, atheism, Western ideas, and liberal thought; instead, he focused his attention on Russian Orthodox dogma and conservative politics. These new interests were fueled by studying the only book allowed prisoners in Siberiaâ€"the New Testament. Consequently, Dostoevsky's works after 1849 are wrought with Gospel images of suffering and redemption.

After four years in the penal colony at Omsk, he was released on the condition that he serve in the army at Semipalatinsk. While in the service, he met and married a widow. In 1859, with a grant of full amnesty, Dostoevsky returned with his wife to St. Petersburg. He set to work immediately and started two political journals. He wrote articles on his belief that Russia should take a religious and conservative course in its development and published them in his magazines. Tragically, he suffered several personal and professional setbacks in the next few years: His wife died in 1864; he became a gambling addict; his brother died; and the authorities shut down his political journals.

In 1867 Dostoevsky married Anna Snitkina, a young woman who had been employed as his stenographer. Soon after they married, they traveled to Europe to escape creditors. Together they raised four children: Sofia, Lyubov, Fyodor, and Aleksei. These years abroad proved very fruitful for Dostoevsky, as he completed several works before his return to Russia in 1871.

In the 1870s he reconciled himself to the liberal elements of Russian politics. He finished The Brothers Karamazov in 1880. Within a year of the book's publication, Dostoevsky suffered a hemorrhage in his throat and died on January 28, 1881.

III  PLOT SUMMARY
A  Part I

The Brothers Karamazov is set over a period of two-and-a-half months in 1866, in a small Russian town near Moscow. A third-person anonymous narrator tells the story thirteen years after the events of the novel. In Part I, the Karamazov family is introduced: Fyodor and his three sons Dmitri, Ivan, and Alyosha. There is assumed to be a fourth son, Smerdyakov, born illegitimate.

Because their mother is dead, and Fyodor has abnegated his fatherly obligations, the sons are brought up outside the Karamazov home.

Each brotherâ€"except for Smerdyakovâ€"appears to represent a particular human aspect: Dmitri is the sensualist (body); Ivan is the intellectual (mind); and Alyosha is the spiritual one (soul). As all three aspects struggle and balance one another in the individual, so too do these three brothers in the family. Although different, they exhibit a characteristic Karamazov trait, like their father: They are passionate, do not consider the consequences of their actions, and compulsively tell what they believe to be the truth.

Two brothers appear to escape the Karamazov destiny. Born illegitimate, Smerdyakov is rational and deceitful. Alyosha is profoundly influenced by two father-figures, in particular Father Zossima, who provides spiritual guidance.

Dmitri and Fyodor visit Father Zossima to have him settle a dispute over Dmitri's inheritance. Zossima is dying, and soon Alyosha will take over this position of mediator, providing a bridge between spiritual and secular worlds. Their mission is a failure.

Although Dmitri is engaged to Katerina, he has fallen in love with Grushenka. Fyodor decides that he wants Grushenka as his wife as well.

B  Part II

At first Alyosha works to reconcile the hostile factions of his family and community together, but soon he wonders: Is he a monk or a Karamazov? Alyosha's dilemma dominates Part II.

Before Zossima dies, he tells his life story to Alyosha. As a youth, Zossima had been a wild young manâ€"much like Dmitriâ€"until he realized God's goodness and the world's beauty. After Zossima felt remorse after slapping a servant, he decided to treat everyoneâ€"servants, children, animalsâ€"with love and respect.

Perhaps the most well-known passage in the novel occurs in Part II: Ivan's philosophical essay on “The Grand Inquisitor.” The poem is set in sixteenth-century Spain during the inquisition when the Church was burning heretics (non-believers) at the stake. It is an imaginary dialogue between a Grand Cardinal and Christ, which parallels the situation of Ivan speaking with Alyosha.

The Cardinal explains his cynical and pragmatic view of humanity, that all a person wants is “someone to bow down to, someone to take over his conscience, and a means for uniting everyone at last into a common, concordant, and incontestable anthill.” Because people are hungry, they will accept slavery.

Alyosha is strongly affected by both speeches, but by Ivan's in particular. He experiences a crisis of faith. At the end of Part II, Zossima dies.

C  Part III

Fyodor is murdered and the investigation begins. Dmitri becomes the prime suspect when it is revealed that he has apparently spent a large amount of Katerina's money on a party with Grushenka, precisely the same amount that Dmitri believes Fyodor owes him. Instead, Fyodor offered this money to Grushenka. Dmitri in fact saved half of the money so that he and Grushenka could leave town and begin a new life elsewhere. In everyone's eyes, Dmitri is insane with jealousy and this is assumed to be his motive for his father's murder.

One night, with Alyosha at the monastery grieving for Zossima, Ivan in Moscow, and Smerdyakov apparently fallen into an epileptic fit, Dmitri goes to his father's house looking for Grushenka. When he discovers that she left with a former lover, Dmitri strikes Fyodor's servant Gregory and leaves him for dead. He chases after Grushenka, who welcomes Dmitri's love and offer of escape. At that climactic moment the police arrive to arrest him for the murder of his father. With so much evidence against him, Dmitri's plans to escape are thwarted.

D  Part IV

Part IV is set two months later. The scandal has become national news and attracts much attention. A notorious Moscow lawyer has even offered to defend Dmitri. Before the trial begins, Alyosha's maturation into a father-figure to several of the boys in town further develops, and Ivan makes his love for Katerina known.

A number of characters are sick, including Ivan, Smerdyakov, and a young boy, Ilyusha. Ilyusha's relationship with his father contrasts with that of the Karamazovs as Ilyusha and his father lovingly defend one another's honor. Ilyusha also admires the precocious Kolya, who in turn admires Alyosha; these bonds cross class and age barriers.

Smerdyakov admits to Ivan that he killed Fyodor after Dmitri left the house. Smerdyakov commits suicide. Tragically, Ivan has a mental breakdown the night before the trial begins. As a result, this new evidence is never seriously considered. The trial is filled with dramatic tension, and both the prosecutor and the defense attorney deliver convincing arguments on the guilt and innocence of Dmitri Karamazov. There is a collective sense of guilt in the courtroom. According to the narrator's sense of courtroom's reaction just prior to the verdict, Dmitri will be judged innocent. Yet the verdict is guilty.

E  Epilogue

Alyosha, Ivan, Katerina, Grushenka, and Dmitri plan for Dmitri's escape to America. There is some reconciliation amongst the members of the group. Ilyusha dies and, like Dmitri's trial did for the Karamazov family, this event brings the characters together. Alyosha urges them all not to forget these events because, as dark as they were, they proved the importance of love and community.

IV  CHARACTERS
A  Alyosha

See Alexey Karamazov

B  Fyodor Karamazov

Modeled upon Dostoevsky's own father, Fyodor is the patriarch of the Karamazov family. A cruel and miserly man, he is also a misanthrope and narcissist. He plans to use his formidable fortune to marry Grushenka.

Fyodor embodies “Karamazovism,” that family trait of the Karamazovs referred to throughout the novel. It is the ability to throw oneself into dissipationâ€"orgies, alcohol, and blasphemyâ€"with wild abandon. According to Kirillovitch, the Karamazovs are emblematic of that element of Russian society whose spiritual side is undeveloped but which possesses an overwhelming vitality. Fyodor stands in opposition to those who hope to enlighten and reform Russia, like Peter Miusov.

C  Ivan Karamazov

If Dostoevsky's novel is viewed as a novel of ideas, then Ivan, the middle brother, is the hero. He is a “morose and reserved” young man who recently graduated from the university. Besides the narrator's voice, his voice is the most frequent. Ivan, however, uses other narrative voices to express his thoughtsâ€"a devil, an Inquisitor, or a dry recitation of facts.

Ivan gets so caught up in polemics that he ends up in critical condition with a “brain fever.” His apparent possession by a demonic being sheds light on the primitive state of neurology just prior to the revolutionary ideas of Sigmund Freud.

Like his father, Ivan prefers logic and facts; they prevent him from falling into a despair brought on by trying to make sense of a world full of absurdities. Therefore he collects facts in a notebook. In this, some critics and biographers assert that he resembles Dostoevsky.

Ivan is responsible for the most famous aspect of the novel, “The Grand Inquisitor.” This “poem” is an internal monologue. As Ivan's mental suffering increases, he withdraws from society. He eventually suffers a mental breakdown.

D  Ippolit Kirillovitch

Kirillovitch is the prosecutor who views this murder case as his swan song. He dies of consumption nine months after the trial.

E  Kolya Krassotkin

Kolya is a potential Ivan. However, with the intervention of a strong spiritual man like Alyosha, Kolya can become a positive force in the future.

F  Michael Makarov

Michael Makarov is a police captain. A man of little education and not altogether abreast of the recent judicial reforms, he is loved by the community for his dependability.

G  Marfa

Marfa is Gregory's wife. A smart woman, she knows some herbal remedies that she uses several times a year when Gregory suffers from lumbago. The remedy consists of alcohol and is sleep-inducing, which is a key fact in the Fyodor's murder.

H  Maximov

Formerly a landowner, Maximov is a silly character down on his luck.

I  Peter Miusov

A distant relative of Fyodor and Kalaganov, Miusov is a liberal freethinker, reformer, and an atheist. He is a landowner in the district and has spent considerable time abroad, especially in France. Hypocritically, his revolutionary acts benefit his financial interests, not humanity.

J  Captain Mussyalovitch

Captain Mussyalovitch is a proud Polish officer who dumps Grushenka. Later he tries to reconcile with her in order to spend her money.

K  Father Paissy

A learned and well-respected man, Father Paissy is a man of reason who assumes the role of Alyosha's spiritual guide.

L  Father Ferapont

Father Ferapont is an old monk who rarely goes to church and is constantly experiencing religious doubts. Yet in the novel, he represents saintliness. He represents an archaic Christian ascetic and he is adamantly opposed to Father Zossima.

M  Peter Perhotin

Dmitri pawns his pistols to Perhotin, a young official who is launched on a bright career because of Dmitri's murder case. Perhotin directs the authorities to Mokroe.

N  Rakitin

A sycophantic gossip, Rakitin (his name means pliable, like a willow branch) is willing to do anything to be “in the loop.” He is a divinity student, but some predict he will eventually be a gossip columnist. He fulfills this destiny during Dmitri's murder trial.

O  Kuzma Samsonov

Samsonov is an evil merchant who sexually exploits Grushenka. Now old and dying, he tries to encourage Grushenka to marry Fyodor. To facilitate the match he sends Dmitri to a man who would gladly give him the money he needs.

P  Lizaveta Smerdyastchaya

The mother of Smerdyakov (his name means “the stinker”), Stinking Lizaveta is the town's child. An orphan with a mental disability, she was most likely raped by Fyodor. She dies giving birth to her son in a bathhouse. Gregory takes and raises the child.

Q  Smerdyakov

Smerdyakov is Fyodor's illegitimate son. Given different circumstances, Smerdyakov could have been Ivan's equal. Instead, his thirst for knowledge has been unsatisfied. Like Dmitri, Smerdyakov resents Fyodor. However, he represses his feelings and becomes Fyodor's trusted confidant to gain a better position. He plans out the murder.

R  Captain Snegiryov

Captain Snegiryov is the town drunk.

S  Ilusha Snegiryov

Ilusha is the proud son of Captain Snegiryov. He represents the innocent child destroyed by the world in Dmitri's dream. Protective of his family, he is embarrassed by his father's drunken antics. When Dmitri beats his father, the boy is tormented by desires for revenge. When Alyosha tries to befriend him, Ilusha beats him. Alyosha's nonviolent response surprises Ilusha. He races home and comes down with a cold. The cold worsens; before he dies, he reconciles with everyone and becomes a martyr for love and peace.

T  Stinking Lizaveta

See Lizaveta Smerdyastchaya

U  Agrafena Svyetlov

Known as Grushenka, she represents the ideal Russian beauty. She is the proper counterpart to the ideal man, Dmitri. Grushenka (whose name means light and bright) is dumped by a Polish officer and spurned by her family. With little to her name, a merchant named Samsonov becomes her protector and she becomes his mistress until he is too old. She also helps him in his business and wisely invests any money that comes her way so that she is an independent woman.

Samsonov advises her to marry Fyodor for the money; however, she wants to marry Dmitri for love. When the Polish officer returns she thinks she is still in love with him but discovers he only wants money. Throughout the novel, Katerina and Grushenka are enemies until Katerina helps Dmitri.

V  Father Zossima

Born into the upper class, Zossima becomes an officer until, in his haughtiness, he hits his servant. He asks for forgiveness, considered an incredible act. The next day he refuses to return fire in a duel. He resigns his commission and becomes a monk who wanders the country for twenty years. Eventually, he makes his home in the monastery and tries to reinvigorate the institution of the Elder.

Word of his greatness spreads far and wide. Many predict he will be a saint and they unsuccessfully look for evidence of miracles.

W  Fetyukovitch

Fetyukovitch is a famous defense attorney. He is attracted by the notoriety of Dmitri's case; in the end, he is unable to save Dmitri.

X  Gregory

A former serf, Gregory is a religious old man who decides to stay with Fyodor after his emancipation. Deep down, he hates his master, but he believes he is fated to stay with him. He also acts as a surrogate father for Dmitri.

Y  Grushenka

See Agrafena Svyetlov
Z  Anna Hohlakov

Madame Hohlakov is a wealthy widow who suffers from a lack of faith.

AA  Katerina Ivanovna

Daughter of a military officer, Katerina feels obliged to offer herself to Dmitri because he saved her father from prison by providing the money needed to replace embezzled funds. As fate would have it, she later inherits a fortune and repays the debt.

According to Ivan, Katerina is the epitome of the lacerated person, which is defined as someone who suffers a particular humiliation or pain and is incapable of moving beyond that moment. For Katerina, this moment is the offering of herself to Dmitri for money. When he gives her the money without taking advantage of her offer, this act of generosity from a man she thought was base and vile troubles her for years. At first she thinks that marrying Dmitri will ease her mind. She is placated only when she is able to help him later in the novel.

AB  Alexey Karamazov

Alexey, known as Alyosha, is the youngest of the Karamazov brothers and an honest young man. Alyosha's earliest memory is of his mother praying to the Virgin Mary to protect him. After growing up away from home, he returns and visits his mother's grave. Later he decides to become a monk.

According to the narrator, he is the “future” hero of the book and of Russia. (In fact, Dostoevsky had planned a second volume focused on Alyosha.) Alyosha serves as a bridge between the corrupt past and a brighter future, as represented by the closing scene where the previously surly gang of boys surrounds him. The atheist Kolya is chief among them.

Alyosha is not a religious fanatic like Father Ferapont or a mystic like Father Zossima. In fact, Alyosha is considered a realist. The difference between Alyosha and Ivan is simply that Alyosha decides, “I want to live for immortality, and I will accept no compromise.”

AC  Dmitri Karamazov

First son of Fyodor, Dmitri is raised by Gregory, the family servant. As a boy, Peter Miusov decides to give him the best education. When he loses interest, Dmitri is passed off on relatives. Having no other prospects, he pursues a military career.

Over the years, his father gives him money, yet never informs him of his net worth. Eventually, he discovers that he has spent all of his inheritanceâ€"according to Fyodor. Dmitri's inability to sort out his financial situation and stand up to his father eventually leads to his downfall.

Dmitri's voice can be funny or poetic, swaggering or humiliated. Psychologically, he is a man of passion and the senses, of the earth (Dmitri is from Demeter, goddess of earth, fertility and grain).

The lesson Dmitri learns is that only by the awakening of men like himself to Christian duty, can those in poverty and oppression (as seen in his vision) have a bright, fulfilled life.

V  THEMES
A  God and Religion

The central theme of the book is the question of God's existence and the role of religion in modern society. At the time he wrote Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky was deeply religious and felt that the only true religion was Russian Orthodoxy. Even so, the question of God's existence bothered him to the day he died. In the novel, he employs the narrative technique of two inset worksâ€"an article and a story within the novelâ€"in order to debate religious concerns. The former is Ivan's article on the position of ecclesiastical courts, and the latter is Ivan's philosophical essay featuring the Grand Inquisitor.

With the story of the Grand Inquisitor, Ivan doubts the existence of God. Presented as a debate in which the Grand Inquisitor condemns Christ for propagating the belief that man has the choice between good and evil, the essay reflects on redemption, the conflict between intellect and faith, and the role of evil in Christianity. If one is a Christian, one becomes consumed with questions, such as if God is all-powerful and good, why do children suffer as in Dmitri's nightmare?

Alyosha exemplifies the idea that the answers do not matter. He views a belief in God as a way to spread love. Thus, Alyosha is a man of action, a realist working within the system, while Ivan is paralyzed by doubt and fear.

The questions are not decided by the end of the novel. Still, there are definite lessons: Love is all-important and people should love freely; life after death should be an integral belief for all; people are capable of evil, especially when they attempt to divorce themselves from their sensuality; and man must be his brother's keeper.

Finally, salvation for mankindâ€"as Alyosha expresses it to the group of boys at the end of the novelâ€"depends upon social solidarity. Isolation of people from each other must end; people must be guided by their spiritual leaders. This last message is almost a prophetic warning to the communists who hoped to create solidarity without spiritual kinship.

B  Justice and Injustice

There are many instances of injustice in the bookâ€"Dmitri beats Ilyusha's father, Fyodor rapes Lizavetaâ€"but none of these injustices are punished or resolved. In fact, the legal system seems to be a mockery of justice. Courts, lawyers, and punishment are for the weak and are often ineffectual. In the novel, the criminals punish themselves and seek their own redemption. For this reason, the role of the church becomes more important; if secular society cannot effectively punish transgressors, then religion must impose a sense of guilt and eventual punishment for sinners.

C  Artists and Society

Both the prosecution and the defense use the analogy of the novelist for the case of Fyodor's murder. The imaginative artist, Fetiukovich, has a better grasp of the facts than Kirillovich. Yet Kirillovich triumphs because the average man, who sits on the jury, cannot perceive what is “real.”

According to Dostoevsky, reality cannot be explained in terms of environmental factors, social facts, and evidence, but in the impossible terms of faith. If the jury can be made to believe that something else might have happened, then Dmitri is innocent.

The trial's debate over reality and Dmitri's fate is an allegory for the debates in the novel as a whole. Dmitri is not as smart as Ivan, but he knows to focus on the important issues. He believes that people are stuck in the trivial concerns of life and give too little attention to immortality. Apparently, the role of the novelist is to accentuate this situation.

VI  CONSTRUCTION
A  Structure

Like many other novels of the nineteenth century, The Brothers Karamazov is composed of a diverse array of narrative techniques. These techniques include tales, anecdotes, confessions, digressions, a novella, and a trial transcript. None of these elements can be isolated from the novel without making it incomplete.

The narrator seems omniscient, yet allows various parts of the story to be told by others without clarification. As a result, there are approximately eleven versions of Fyodor's murder.

The multiplicity of voices and layers drive home the themes of the novel through repetition and mirroring. The novel works on thesis and anti-thesis. Zossima, and his echo Alyosha, counter Ivan's thesis. Fyodor and Miusov foreshadow Ivan's thoughts. Dmitri repeats a portion of Ivan's speech. Ilusha and his friends are mirrors of and responses to Ivan's “rebellion.” Kolya's goose is a mirror of Ivan and Smerdyakov.

B  Symbolism

There is allegorical significance in virtually every aspect and feature composing the fabric of The Brothers Karamazov. Dmitri's shame hangs about his neck like an albatross. His redemption is in the form of a small icon that Madame Hohlakov gives to him.

Animals and insects are employed not only to describe character traits, but also as harbingers. For example, cockroaches in the wall emphasize Ivan's horror.

Another symbolic technique is the use of color. The dominant color in the story is black, then red. Black stands for mourning but also for bad choices, such as Grushenka's wearing of a black dress. Blackness, or darkness, also hides Dmitri as he awaits Grushenka or watches his father.

The counterweight to blackness is the pure white of snow. Snow saves Russia from its enemies. Snow is the predominant element in the land of exile, Siberia; it signals redemption and rebirth.

Water is a symbolic force by its very absence. The people of the town, like Alyosha, must leave in order to find fresh water. All water in the town is dirty, except for tears and dew.

C  Crime Story

The Brothers Karamazov is a crime story. A subgenre of the detective storyâ€"a nineteenth-century innovationâ€"crime stories focus on the environment in which the crime was committed. They tend to be told from the perpetrator's point of view.

While a crime story at heart, the novel is far more complex. It is not only concerned with the perpetrator's point of view or with the crime, but also with the concept of original sin as symbolized by the criminal event. Thus, the murder is only a device to explore universal philosophical themes as religion and the existence of God.

The lack of a reliable version of the crime allows the reader to make his or her own decisionsâ€"not just about Dmitri but about those larger themes.

D  Oedipus Complex

Although the Greek story of Oedipus (in Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex) has been the subject of many artists, it is best known in the twentieth century through Freud's reworking of the myth as a psychological condition. The Oedipus Complex, according to Freud, is common among men who desire the death of their father in order to sleep with their mother. Freud was quite literal about this incestuous desire.

Essentially, the Oedipus story tells the tale of a boy destined to murder his father and sleep with his mother. Knowing this prophecy, extensive precautions are taken to avoid contact with his parents. Yet while traveling as a young man, Oedipus fights and kills a stranger at a crossroadsâ€"this stranger turns out to be his father. Later, he arrives in Thebes and solves the riddle of the Sphinx. As a result, he marries Jocasta (his mother). When the truth of his actions are revealed, he blinds himself.

The Oedipal complex is evident in each of the brothers Karamazov. Each brother secretly longs for their father's deathâ€"both on behalf of their deceased mother and because their father is very cruel. It is most obvious in the character of Dmitri who was sent away from his father but returns. He falls in love with the woman his father desires. The death of his father enables him to marry Grushenka.

In addition to the Oedipal complex, Dostoyevsky explores other realms of psychology in the novel. In many ways, he was ahead of his time, as he preceded the work of Freud. For example, Dostoyevsky explores several psychological issues: exhibitionism; adolescent perversity; laughter as an unconscious unmasking; the phenomena of the “accidental family”; and the “death-instinct.” He also displays the phenomena of split personalities in Dmitri, Katerina, and Ivan.

VII  HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
A  The Romanovs

In 1689 Peter the Great assumed the throne in Russia. His attempts to modernize Russia were not entirely successful, but he did manage many reforms before his death in 1725. Another reform-minded leader, Catherine the Great, resumed the task of modernization in 1762.

From 1801 to 1825, Alexander I continued in the path of Peter and Catherine. He granted amnesty to political prisoners and repealed many restrictive laws. Under Alexander's reign, Russia increased in size and power. When Napoleon marched on Moscow in 1812, he found the city burned to the ground and, with no supplies and winter setting in, he retreated. The Russian army routed Napoleon's troops using guerrilla tactics.

In 1826 Nicholas I adamantly opposed liberal ideas and Western thought. He instituted secret police, strict censorship, and the removal of all controversial materials from educational institutions. Writers were arrested, university chairs in history and philosophy abolished, and student bodies reduced. Meanwhile, he reformed the economy and compiled the first set of Russian laws since 1649. In 1854 the Russian military forces were defeated by an international army of Turkish, British, French and Sardinian troops in the Crimean War (1854-1856).

In the tradition of Peter, Alexander II reduced restrictions on higher learning. He reformed the judiciary, instituting Zemstvas in 1864. A Zemstva was a system of local self-government responsible for education and public welfare. Throughout the 1870s Russia resumed its struggle with Turkey over the Dardanelles, a struggle it eventually lost.

After 1881, Alexander III reintroduced censorship and strengthened the police force. The Zemstvas were curbed, assimilation was forced on minorities, and assaults began in earnest on the Jewish population through a series of pogroms which killed hundreds.

The last of the Romanovs, Nicholas II, started his reign in 1894. Although he had the best of intentions, the populace assumed that he was under the influence of Rasputin, a mysterious religious leader. After a loss to Japan in 1904, his rule was in danger. On January 22, 1905, his troops fired on thousands of peaceful protesters. Hundreds were killed.

B  Revolution

Under the reign of Alexander I, secret organizations and societies formed and influenced Russian culture and politics. For example, the Decembrists called for an end to Czarist leadership and advocated a constitutional monarchy or a republic. They attempted to take control of Russia when Alexander I died but were crushed by Nicholas I. Another group, the Nihilists, advocated a complete abolition of the present state. Revolutionary activity increased under the tolerant reign of Alexander II.

Revolutionary groups grew more educated, organized, and focused. Industrialism created a class of factory workers open to communist ideas. This group would eventually overthrow the Romanov dynasty in the Russian Revolution of 1917. Though Alexander allowed the revolutionary groups to exist, they were not content with the pace of reform. In 1881, Alexander was assassinated by a revolutionary.

C  Russian Serfdom

A serf was a person who was legally designated servile to his landlord. Unlike a slave, a serf could have inherited property, bequeathed wealth, and bought his way out of serfdom or of some servile duties. Dictated by local custom, service included fighting for the landlord in combat and allowing the landlord to sleep with one's daughters.

With the rise of the merchant class in Europe and evolution of feudal societies into constitutional monarchies, serfdom declined. Descendants of serfs rose to the middle class and social mobility increased. In France, serfs gradually vanished as a result of the French Revolution. Yet the practice survived and grew more repressive in Russia. Spurred by revolutionaries, serfs revolted throughout the first half of the nineteenth century in Russia.

The most notable series of revolts occurred during the disastrous Crimean War in 1854. Finally, forty million Russian serfs were liberated when Alexander II ordered their release in 1861. Even though free by law, many peasants remained second class citizens in realityâ€"an issue explored in The Brothers Karamazov.

VIII  QUESTIONS

1. Dostoyevsky had a profound impact on many twentieth-century authors like Albert Camus, Richard Wright, and Franz Kafka. Select a novel by one of these authors and write an essay tracing Dostoyevsky's influence.

2. There are many references throughout the novel to religious lore. Pick a few of them and research the full stories. How do these references impact the story? Are they relevant to modern American readers, or are these stories ignored?

3. Define the concept of the ideal Russian woman. Compare Grushenka and Katerina in terms of this concept.

4. Dmitri reluctantly considers escaping to America. What does America represent in this context? Has the impression of America changed?

5. How does the story of Ilusha's lost dog reflect the concerns of the novel as a whole?

IX  FURTHER READING

Notes from the Underground (1864) marks a turning point in Dostoyevsky's thought. It was written in reaction to Nikolay Chernyshevsky's utopian novel, What Is To Be Done? Here, Dostoyevsky outlines the moral universe that he will explore in the rest of his writings.

Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment was published in 1866. This crime novel chronicles the moral struggles of an impoverished student, Raskolnikov, who kills his landlady for money. This novel is considered a masterpiece.

Published in installments between 1875 and 1877, Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina tells the story of a tragic love affair in late nineteenth-century Russia.

In Russia, a landowner had to pay a “soul tax” on his deceased serfs until the next census. Such absurdities inspired Nikolay Gogol's 1842 masterpiece, Dead Souls. Gogol's satire about an enterprising young man who is trying to buy social mobility through prospecting on such dead souls garnered Russian literature critical and commercial popularity.

Ivan Turgeniev's Fathers and Sons (1862) explores the generation gap. The protagonist is a young intellectual nihilist who believes only in the laws of natural science; much to his chagrin, he falls prey to emotions such as love and unhappiness.

Source: Novels for Students. Copyright by Gale Group, Inc. Reprinted by permission.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I  INTRODUCTION

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881), Russian writer and thinker, one of the world’s greatest novelists, whose works dramatize religious, moral, political, and psychological issues.

II  EARLY LIFE

Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky was born in Moscow. He was educated at the School of Military Engineering in Saint Petersburg, but abandoned his military career in 1844 to devote himself to literature. His first novel, Bednye liudi (Poor People; also known as Poor Folk), appeared in 1846 and won immediate praise from Russia’s most prominent literary critic, Vissarion Belinsky. Structured as a series of letters, the work is both a sentimental novel and a penetrating psychological study of its main character. The book that followed, Dvoinik (1846; The Double), is a startling psychological study of a disintegrating personality, but it was much less popular than Poor People. Over the next three years Dostoyevsky published ten undistinguished short novels and stories that barely rise above the literary conventions of the day.

In the late 1840s Dostoyevsky became involved with a group of idealistic young men who met in secret to discuss social problems and social reform in Russia. The repressive Tsar Nicholas I, fearing the spread of revolutionary ideas, regarded the group as highly dangerous. In April 1849 Dostoyevsky and 23 others were arrested, tried, and condemned to death; however, the sentence was changed to imprisonment in Siberia. For the next four years Dostoyevsky lived in a prison in Omsk, sharing a barracks and doing hard labor with some of Russia’s most desperate criminals. During this time, the epileptic seizures that he had begun to experience intensified, possibly as a result of the hardship and stress of prison life. In 1854 he was released from prison but required to serve in an army unit stationed in Siberia, where he married a widow with one son. Only in 1859 was he allowed to return to Saint Petersburg.

Dostoyevsky’s prison experiences left him with a firsthand knowledge of the criminal mind and of the human potential for evil. His youthful belief in the possibility of creating a good society by applying various social theories was replaced by the conviction that human life must be guided first of all by religious principles.

III  MIDDLE WORKS

The decade from 1860 to 1870 was tempestuous for Dostoyevsky, marked by severe financial problems, ill health, and a gambling mania, as well as some literary success. Dostoyevsky’s most significant works of the early 1860s are Zapiski iz mertvogodoma (1861; The House of the Dead), a powerful fictionalized memoir of his prison experiences, and Zapiski iz podpol’ia (1864; Notes from Underground). The latter is a penetrating psychological portrait of the spiteful and alienated narrator and, at the same time, a political work that challenges the idea that a good society could by constructed on the basis of reason alone. It also raises the dilemma of human freedom: If people are not free they are not truly human, but if they have freedom their human impulses to do evil may lead them to destroy themselves and others.

Dostoyevsky hoped to make a living by publishing a magazine, but his journalistic ventures, undertaken with his brother Mikhail, ended badly. Their first magazine had considerable success until it was abruptly shut down by the government in 1863 for a supposedly unpatriotic story about an uprising in Poland, and its successor never had sufficient funding to survive. In April 1864 Dostoyevsky’s wife died, and his brother Mikhail died three months later. Dostoyevsky was left with enormous debts from the failure of his second magazine and from the obligation he felt to support his brother’s family. In 1867 he married Anna Snitkina, a stenographer to whom he had dictated some of his writings. To avoid creditors the couple spent the next four years in Europe. Anna proved to be a steadying influence on her husband, sharing his poverty, enduring his frequent gambling sprees, nursing him through the aftereffects of his epileptic seizures, and helping repair his finances. They returned to Russia in 1871.

IV  LATE MASTERPIECES

Dostoyevsky’s finest work is found in four novels written during the last 20 years of his life. These works share exciting, even melodramatic, plots; murder as a central event; and a vivid treatment of profound ideas. The heroes are placed in extreme situations and torn by conflicting desires.

In Prestuplenie i nakazanie (1866; Crime and Punishment), Dostoyevsky’s conflicted hero, the student Raskolnikov, is driven to test the limits of his freedom: If he is truly free, then “everything is permitted” and he should be able to step beyond the accepted limits of right and wrong. Pondering ideas current in his time, he convinces himself that true, rational morality means doing the greatest good for the greatest number of people. On that basis he tries to justify intellectually his murder of an old pawnbroker who accumulated money by exploiting the misfortunes of others. But instead of committing murder coolly and using the pawnbroker’s money to do good, Raskolnikov is haunted by what he has done. He eventually confesses his crime, influenced by the selfless love of a prostitute, Sonia; by the psychological probings of Porfiry, the detective investigating the murder; and by his repulsion at Svidrigailov, a character who flouts moral standards. Only at the end of the novel, in his Siberian prison, does Raskolnikov finally begin to recognize that he has violated not just a human law but God’s law as well.

In Idiot (1868-1869; The Idiot) Dostoyevsky attempts to portray “a positively beautiful man.” His hero, Prince Myshkin, is a Christlike figure who becomes entangled in a complex love intrigue involving two women, Aglaya and Nastasya, who are drawn to his innocence and loving personality. But Myshkin is too frail to survive amid a corrupt and greedy society, and the novel ends in tragedy: Nastasya chooses not Myshkin but the jealous and violent Rogozhin, who murders her. Myshkin himself is overcome by mental illness (his “idiocy”), for which he had earlier been treated, and returns to a sanatorium in Switzerland.

Besy (1871-1872; Devils, also known as Demons or The Possessed) is Dostoyevsky’s most political novel. Its dark humor contains a direct and powerful attack on those who were, in the author’s opinion, driving Russia to destruction by trying to build a society without God and therefore without genuine moral principles. Dostoyevsky argues that the ideas of a high-minded, idealistic generation of liberals of the 1840s had given birth to the violent and unprincipled revolutionaries of the 1860s. The novel also explores profound philosophic issues through its central character, the mysterious Nikolay Stavrogin. Stavrogin is Dostoyevsky’s most willful character, but his will leads him only to inaction and he eventually commits suicide.

Brat’ia Karamazovy (1879-1880; The Brothers Karamazov), Dostoyevsky’s longest and last novel, brings together themes and issues explored in his earlier fiction and journalistic writings. Its plot centers on the murder of a greedy and cynical old man, Fyodor Karamazov. Fyodor has three sons: Dmitry, the eldest, who is passionate and emotional; Ivan, a detached intellectual; and Alyosha, the youngest, who is pious and loving. The faith of each of the three brothers in the justice of the world is challenged in the course of the novel, but is ultimately reborn. Dmitry is humiliated by the interrogation that follows his wrongful arrest for his father’s murder; after a crucial dream in which he confronts the depth of human sufferings, he begins to admit his moral accountability for his father’s death and to accept his responsibilities for others. Ivan makes a powerful argument for the injustice of God’s world, rejecting a God who permits innocent children to suffer and proposing a godless world where people would exchange their freedom for material security and comfort. Alyosha’s spiritual father, the elder Zosima, argues that human beings must accept their share of the responsibility for evil in the world. All human actions are interconnected, and so “all are responsible for all.” Life’s justification, Zosima maintains, is to be found in practicing “active love”â€"that is, deliberately performing loving acts for othersâ€"in daily living.

V  INFLUENCE

Dostoyevsky became widely known in the English-speaking world only after his death, through translations by British scholar Constance Garnett between 1912 and 1920. His influence, however, has been immense, and not only in literature. His novels anticipate the 20th-century antiutopian worlds created by British writers George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. His psychological explorations, which intrigued Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, show the workings of the unconscious mind and the complexity of the human personality. The religious dimension of his works explores the consequences of a world without God. Even though they are deeply rooted in 19th-century Russia, his novels are surprisingly relevant to the 20th century in that they anticipate contemporary problems of alienation, social disruption, and totalitarianism, and the implications, both positive and negative, of human freedom.


Contributed By:
Kenneth Lantz
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Ivan Turgenev
Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883), Russian author, considered the foremost stylist in Russian literature; his novels, poems, and plays are characterized by elegant craftsmanship, lucidity, and a liberal, balanced point of view.

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was born November 9, 1818, in Orël in central Russia and educated at the universities of Saint Petersburg and Berlin. On his family estates, while still a child, he first witnessed the mistreatment and suffering of the serf class; such abuse, widespread in the Russian economic system, eventually became a recurrent theme in his writings. Before turning to a literary career, Turgenev worked for a short time as a minor civil servant in Saint Petersburg. His first published work, the long poem Parasha (1843), was well received by literary critics. Through the next few years the publication of several of his short stories established Turgenev as a significant Russian writer. He became involved in the ideological controversy between two groups of intellectuals known as the Westernizers and the Slavophiles. The Westernizers urged Russians to better their lives by incorporating into them the best aspects of European culture. The Slavophiles, rigidly Orthodox, championed native Russian customs and believed that they should remain untainted by foreign influences. Turgenev sided with the Westernizers. Later, he spent long periods of time outside Russia, often mainly to be near the celebrated opera singer Pauline Viardot-Garcia, whom he loved. After 1871 he remained in Paris. He died near there, at Bougival, September 3, 1883.

Turgenev wrote plays, stories, novels, and nonfiction sketches. He had published several poems and prose sketches before the appearance of his first book, A Sportsman's Sketches (1852), a collection of stories of Russian peasant life. Of the many plays he wrote early in his career, the finest is probably A Month in the Country (1850), a gentle but penetrating study of aristocratic life still frequently performed. Of his stories or short novels, First Love (1860) and Torrents of Spring (1872) are notable as lyric, beautifully realized evocations of love. His longer novels include On the Eve (1860) and Smoke (1867), both portraits of passionate young girls and their stormy love affairs. In his masterpiece, Fathers and Sons (1862), Turgenev names, defines, and analyzes the philosophy of nihilism; Bazarov, the hero of the novel, is an idealistic young radical, a commoner and a university student, dedicated to universal freedom and destined for tragedy in his own life. Turgenev believed in the goals of his hero, but he also believed that they could be achieved only through a long period of gradual change rather than by revolution. Turgenev's complete works have been translated into English.

Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Nikolay Gogol
Nikolay Gogol (1809-52), Russian writer, whose plays, short stories, and novels rank among the great masterpieces of 19th-century Russian realist literature.

Nikolay Vasilyevich Gogol was born March 20, 1809, in Sorochintsy, Mirgorod, Poltava Province, of Cossack parents. In 1828 he went to Saint Petersburg, where he eventually secured employment in the civil service and became known in literary circles. Enthusiastic praise greeted his volume of short stories of Ukrainian life, Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka (1831). Then followed another collection, Mirgorod (1835), containing “Taras Bulba,” which was expanded in 1842 into a full-length novel; this work, dealing with 16th-century Cossack life, revealed the writer's great ability for accurate and sympathetic character portrayal and his sparkling humor.

In 1836 Gogol's play The Inspector General appeared. A rollicking satire on the cupidity and stupidity of bureaucratic officials, it is a comedy of errors regarded by many critics as one of the most significant plays in Russian literature. It concerns the local officials of a small town who mistake a young traveler for an expected government inspector and offer him propitiatory bribes to induce him to overlook their misconduct in office.

From 1826 to 1848 Gogol lived mostly in Rome, where he worked on a novel that is considered his greatest creative effort and one of the finest novels in world literature, Dead Souls (1842). It has also been published in English under the alternative title Chichikov's Journey. In structure, Dead Souls is akin to Don Quixote by the Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Its extraordinary humor, however, is derived from a unique and sardonic conception: Collegiate Councillor Pável Ivanovich Chichikov, an ambitious, shrewd, and unscrupulous adventurer, goes from place to place, buying, stealing, and wheedling from their owners the titles to serfs whose names appeared on the preceding census lists but who had since died and were, accordingly, called “dead souls.” With this “property” as security he plans to raise loans with which to buy an estate with “live souls.”

Chichikov's travels provide the occasion for profound reflections on the degrading and stultifying influence of serfdom on both owner and serf. The work also contains a large number of brilliantly depicted Russian provincial types. Dead Souls exerted an enormous influence on succeeding generations of Russian writers. Many of the witty sayings expressed in its pages have become Russian maxims.

As published, Dead Souls was intended to constitute the first part of a larger work; Gogol began the sequel but in a fit of hypochondriacal melancholy burned the manuscript. In 1842 Gogol published another famous work, “The Overcoat,” a short story about an overworked clerk who falls victim to Russian social injustice. In the following year Gogol made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and on his return a priest persuaded him that his fictional work was sinful. Gogol thereupon destroyed a number of his unpublished manuscripts. He died March 4, 1852, in Moscow. Gogol is ranked with such literary giants as the novelists Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky and the poet Aleksandr Pushkin.

See also Russian Literature.


Contributed By:
Marc Slonim
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar
Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (1901-1973), Cuban president (1940-1944, 1952-1959) and dictator, born in Banes. He joined the military in 1921 and in 1933 emerged as a leader in the overthrow of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada, who had succeeded dictator Gerardo Machado y Morales earlier in the year. Under the first regime of Ramón Grau San Martín, Batista became chief of staff of the army and as such gained control of the Cuban government; in 1934 he forced Grau's resignation. Ruling first through puppets, he was elected president in 1940 and during his 4-year term actually effected some social reforms. In 1944, however, his handpicked candidate was defeated by Grau, and for the next eight years Batista remained in the background. Then, in 1952, he staged a coup with army backing, assumed the presidency, and suspended the constitution; he was ratified in office by a sham election in 1954. An armed revolt, led by Fidel Castro, finally overthrew Batista's corrupt government on January 1, 1959. He spent the rest of his life in exile.

Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Cuban Revolution
I  INTRODUCTION

Cuban Revolution, widespread uprising in Cuba that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista (1952-1959) and brought the government of revolutionary leader Fidel Castro to power. The revolution established the only communist state in the western hemisphere and produced profound changes in the economic and social structure of Cuban society. It also ended more than a half century of United States influence in Cuban internal affairs.

Batista’s government, which came to power following a military coup in 1952, had become widely unpopular as a result of rampant corruption and harsh repression of dissent. Batista faced growing opposition to his rule from many segments of Cuban society. Fidel Castro, a political activist and former lawyer, led the best organized of a number of anti-Batista forces. He waged a successful guerrilla campaign from the mountains of eastern Cuba while steadily building a broad network of support both within Cuba and abroad. This coalition of opposition forces eventually induced Batista to flee the country.

Following the overthrow of Batista, Castro began changes that dramatically altered Cuba’s political, economic, and social structure. He confronted the United States, which had been involved in Cuba’s internal affairs for decades, and announced that Cuba would follow a socialist path. Castro severed Cuba’s close ties with the United States and aligned Cuba with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), then the leading power among the world’s communist nations. This strain on relations between the United States and Cuba continued into the 1990s.

The revolution also left a legacy of opposition among exiles who left Cuba rather than live under the Castro government. More than 1 million Cubans left the island for exile in the three years following the revolution. At first, many of these exiles were professional middle-class Cubans who saw their livelihoods threatened by Castro’s economic policies and objected to the political system that Castro imposed. Restrictions on political freedoms and economic hardships caused thousands of other Cubans to flee the island in the years since Castro seized power.

Many of these exiles fled to the United States and settled in Miami Florida; many in this community remain committed to the overthrow of Castro and the establishment of a democratically elected government in Cuba. See Cuban Americans.

II  BACKGROUND

Cuba had been a Spanish colony since 1492. In 1898 the United States declared war on Spain and captured Cuba along with several other Spanish possessions (see Spanish-American War). The Cuban Republic was founded in 1902. However, its independence was limited by the insistence of the United States that it had the right to intervene in Cuban internal affairs.

During the early part of the 20th century, U.S. business investment in Cuba grew, and by the late 1930s it had become an important part of the Cuban economy. U.S. influence in Cuban affairs and U.S. business interests on the island were often resented by Cubans, especially when the worldwide economic depression of the early 1930s devastated Cuba’s economy. When Cuban leader Ramón Grau San Martín enacted legislation that reduced the influence of the U.S. government and businesses in Cuba, the United States responded by supporting Cuban military officer Fulgencio Batista, who overthrew the Grau government in 1934.

As Cuba’s army chief, Batista functioned as the real power in Cuba, installing a series of puppet presidents. He served a four-year term as president himself from 1940 to 1944 and returned to the presidency in 1952 when he organized a military coup that overthrew the elected government. During his second regime, Batista’s government grew increasingly repressive and corrupt.

Batista’s relationship with U.S. businesses was complex. He promoted investments by U.S. companies, but he also encouraged the growth and diversification of Cuban businesses to reduce Cuba’s dependence on sugar production, which had dominated the economy since the late 1700s. During Batista’s regime U.S. businesses owned 35 percent of the Cuban sugar industry. This represented the smallest proportion of U.S. ownership since the 19th century. Nevertheless a growing number of Batista’s opponents came to see him as a symbol of continued U.S. economic dominance over the island.

Resistance to Batista’s government developed among university students and gradually spread to include varied segments of Cuban society. Because the Cuban economy was growing in the mid-1950s, the opposition to Batista focused mainly on the repressive nature of the dictatorship and Batista’s suspension of constitutional government. A number of Cuban revolutionaries, however, advocated major social and economic reforms to end peasant land evictions, to reduce chronically high seasonal unemployment in Cuba’s important sugar industry, and to narrow social and economic inequalities.

One of the people opposing Batista was Castro. On July 26, 1953, Castro and several dozen associates attacked the army’s Moncada barracks in Cuba’s second largest city, Santiago. The attack failed. Castro was captured following the attack, but the bravery of his actions and the edited version of the speech he gave in his defense at his trial won him widespread attention. Castro was sentenced to prison, but a confident Batista released him from jail in 1955. Castro went to Mexico and to the United States to gather forces and to raise funds for an invasion of Cuba. While in Mexico he met Argentine revolutionary Ernesto (Che) Guevara, who would prove a valuable ally in the coming revolution.

III  THE VICTORY OVER BATISTA

In 1956 Castro, Guevara, and about 80 other revolutionaries sailed from Mexico aboard the yacht Granma. They landed in Cuba in a shipwreck. Batista’s soldiers killed most of the guerrillas, and the remainder fled to the Sierra Maestra mountains of eastern Cuba and began fighting an improvised guerrilla war. The guerrillas adopted the name 26th of July Movement, after the date of Castro’s attack on the Moncada barracks.

The guerrillas’ program was moderate, promising elections, constitutional government, and land reform according to the constitution. Castro affirmed that he was not a Communist. By mid-1958 the guerrillas under Castro’s command numbered just 400. Batista’s army proved inept, however, and 12,000 government troops failed to defeat Castro’s small band of guerrillas. The 26th of July Movement also had important support among the organized anti-Batista forces in the cities, where revolutionaries engaged in many acts of sabotage and acquired weapons and supplies for the guerrillas in the mountains.

Especially important were university students organized in the Revolutionary Directorate, an independent group led by José Antonio Ecchevarría. The Directorate’s attempt to assassinate Batista in March 1957 nearly succeeded, but many of its members, including Echeverría, were killed in the attempt. In 1958 guerrillas from the Directorate and from another revolutionary group, the Second Front at Escambray (led by Eloy Gutíerrez Menoyo), were operating in the Escambray mountains of central Cuba.

Another source of opposition to Batista was professional military officers, who conspired to overthrow Batista on several occasions. In September 1957 a major military uprising temporarily seized the naval base at Cienfuegos. The military plotters were arrested.

In March 1958 Castro and his movement called a nationwide general strike. The strike failed in most of the country because Cuba’s major labor organization, the Cuban Confederation of Labor, threw its support behind Batista. In the same month, the U.S. government cut off weapons sales to Batista’s government. U.S. envoys and political moderates in Cuba tried to convince Batista to leave power peacefully, but Batista refused. Meanwhile, revolutionaries from Castro’s movement and from other organizations escalated violent resistance. During the second half of 1958, guerrillas seized ground in the countryside from the army. In the cities, several of Batista’s leading henchmen were assassinated and numerous government buildings were bombed. Batista’s forces responded by killing the leading urban revolutionaries.

As a result, Castro emerged as the only significant revolutionary leader. In late 1958 Castro dispatched an invasion force led by Guevara and fellow revolutionary Camilo Cienfuegos to central Cuba to coordinate activities with guerrillas independent of Castro’s organization. In December of 1958 the only pitched battle of the war took place for control of the city of Santa Clara in central Cuba. Following the battle, Batista’s army retreated and disintegrated, and Batista’s regime collapsed. In the early morning hours of January 1, 1959, Batista fled the country.

IV  BREAK WITH THE UNITED STATES

Victorious revolutionary forces established a new government, which disbanded Batista’s army, prohibited political parties, and deferred elections. As the leader of the best-known and most powerful revolutionary group, Castro exercised the greatest influence on government policies, and he became prime minister in February. Castro visited the United States in April, where the U.S. government offered him assistance as well as criticism. In May the new Cuban government enacted a major land reform law that nationalized most farms larger than about 400 hectares (about 1000 acres). This action appropriated much of the Cuban property held by large U.S. agricultural firms.

Seeking to break the hold that the United States had on Cuba, Castro sought foreign support to counter the traditional influence of the United States. In late 1959 Castro approached the USSR, the leader of the world’s Communist nations, for support. Although Cuba’s Communist Party had joined the insurgency against Batista quite late, its leaders had increasingly assumed key roles in the new order. In May 1960 Castro reestablished diplomatic ties with the USSR, which had been severed under Batista’s regime, and made an agreement to import Soviet oil. In June the Cuban government took over foreign-owned petroleum refineries that refused to process Soviet oil. Within days the U.S. government outlawed the purchase of Cuban sugar, the mainstay of Cuba’s economy. Cuba then assumed control of all U.S. property on the island and established a military alliance with the USSR. In January 1961 the United States broke diplomatic relations with Cuba. As Cuban policy shifted to the left, many moderate leaders resigned from the government or were forced out of office.

V  SOCIAL CHANGES

To rally support, Castro appealed to Cuban patriotism and promised a better life for the poor. A spellbinding public speaker, he spoke for hours at a time several times a week, seeking and obtaining broad popular support. He traveled frequently throughout Cuba in a campaign to meet people, find out about their problems, and elicit their backing.

Castro’s government launched a number of programs aimed at improving social conditions among poor and uneducated Cubans. In 1961 the government temporarily closed schools and sent about 270,000 students and teachers to the countryside to teach illiterate citizens how to read and write. This crash program to increase literacy, and follow-up efforts in subsequent years, taught almost everyone to read and write. Before the revolution about a quarter of all Cubans were illiterate, with a median schooling level of third grade. In the mid-1990s the literacy rate approached 95 percent, and the typical Cuban had a middle school education.

Also in 1961 the government decreed that all health care would be paid for by the state. The government built clinics in rural areas that had no medical facilities, and it required graduates of medical schools to provide two years of health care service in these areas.

Seeking to shape a new society, the government strongly fostered cooperative activities in neighborhoods and in the work place. Neighbors cleaned up streets and parks, encouraged recycling of materials, and helped in mass vaccination campaigns. Workers built housing units next to their work places.

VI  ECONOMIC CHANGES

In 1960 and 1961 the Cuban government took control of all private firms except small agricultural plots belonging to individual Cubans. The government believed that it could organize the Cuban economy more effectively than private firms; socialism, its leaders believed, was more rational than the market.

Following the break with the United States in the early 1960s Cuba’s economy suffered a number of setbacks. The United States organized a partial embargo on trade with Cuba in late 1960 and expanded it to a full embargo in early 1962. The embargo made it illegal to import goods from Cuba to the United States, or to export to Cuba any products that were manufactured or had parts that were manufactured in the United States. The result was severe shortages of consumer goods in Cuba within a few years.

The Cuban government faced a further economic setback when it attempted to decrease Cuba’s dependence on sugar by diversifying the economy. Efforts were made to encourage industrialization, including the manufacture of light consumer goods, as well as machinery and equipment. The government also tried to increase the variety of agricultural crops grown by Cuban farmers. These efforts failed, partly because of poor planning, organization, and incentives by the government; partly because of lack of incentives; and partly because many of Cuba’s most qualified businessmen and technicians fled the country when Castro began nationalizing businesses in the early 1960s. The Cuban economy declined drastically in the years that followed and the government began rationing food, clothing, and most goods and services.

Cuba abandoned its diversification policy in the mid-1960s and again focused on sugar production. In 1970 the government mobilized the country’s workers in an unsuccessful effort to produce a record annual total of 10 million tons of sugar. The overemphasis on sugar production drained workers from other sectors of the economy and led to increased shortages of already scarce consumer goods. With substantial Soviet assistance, the Cuban economy recovered and grew rapidly in the 1970s, although it still specialized on sugar production. Dependent on Soviet assistance, Cuba integrated its trade and investments with the USSR and the Communist countries of Europe.

VII  LEGACY OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTION
A  Domestic Legacy

At home the Cuban government made major strides in improving social conditions. By the 1980s Cuba’s health care system was the best in Latin America, and its infant mortality rate ranked among the lowest in the world, dropping to 9.4 per 1000 live births in 1995. Between 1958 and 1995, Cuban life expectancy rose to 76 years, matching that of the United States.

The policies implemented by the Castro government caused a radical realignment of power in Cuba. The private owners of the nation’s wealth lost their property and the government came to own and operate nearly all aspects of economic life. The small wealthy class that had ruled Cuba was replaced with a new elite of government officials and educated professional workers.

But Castro’s domestic policies have encountered opposition, both from dissidents inside Cuba and from the Cubans who left the island for exile. Castro’s economic policies have alienated many Cubans who found their prospects for economic betterment blocked by a government that restricts the ownership of property and regulates the earnings that individuals make in their work. Castro’s political policies also cost him the support of many Cubans who opposed the suspension of the Cuban constitution of 1940, the refusal to allow open elections for the nation’s political offices, the repression of political dissidents, the imprisonment of tens of thousands of political prisoners, and the instances of torture. Others objected strongly to the sharp constraints on freedom of religion and the deportation of hundreds of members of the clergy.

B  Foreign Affairs Legacy

Cuba’s break with the United States and its alliance with the USSR enmeshed Cuba in the Cold War, an ideological and political struggle between the nations allied with the United States and those allied with the USSR. The United States consistently opposed Castro’s regime, and in 1961 it backed a group of Cuban exiles who landed at the Bay of Pigs on the southern coast of Cuba in an attempt to overthrow Castro’s government. The attempt was defeated, but the invasion widened the gulf between the United States and Cuba.

Cuba then became a key player in the Cold War. In mid-1962 Castro welcomed the secret deployment of Soviet ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads on Cuban soil. This led to a major confrontation, known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, at the end of which the Soviets agreed to remove the missiles and warheads in exchange for a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba.

With the U.S. government committed to overthrowing Cuba’s government, Cuban leaders established a wide-ranging alliance with the USSR and with revolutionary movements and governments throughout the world that were opposed to the United States. From the 1960s to the 1980s Cuba covertly supported revolutionary movements in many countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Altogether more than 300,000 Cuban troops served overseas. Many Cubans posted abroad believed that these war efforts defended the homeland and its revolution; for other Cubans, the war efforts were difficult to justify and deflected efforts from pressing economic and social tasks in Cuba.

When the USSR collapsed in 1991, Cuba lost its principal ally, and the United States tried to undermine the Cuban government. In 1992 the U.S. government prohibited trading with Cuba for subsidiaries of U.S. firms located in foreign countries. In 1996 the Congress of the United States passed the Helms-Burton Act, which attempted to discourage foreign investments in Cuba. These attempts failed, however, as Castro obtained other trading partners and foreign investors. In the late 1990s, Cuba remained the only Communist regime in the world outside East Asia. Although domestic opposition grew, government leaders insisted that Cuba would remain a one-party political system.


Contributed By:
Jorge I. Domínguez
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Fidel Castro
I  INTRODUCTION

Fidel Castro, believed to be born in 1926, Cuba’s head of state from January 1959 until his resignation in February 2008. Fidel Castro claimed power in 1959 following the Cuban Revolution, an armed revolt that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. He became prime minister of Cuba in 1961 and shortly thereafter canceled elections and suspended Cuba’s constitution. Castro continued to rule as prime minister without regard for the 1940 constitution until 1976, when the nation enacted a new constitution that allowed limited electoral participation by Cuban voters. Cuba’s National Assembly elected Castro president of the country in 1976, and he was subsequently reelected every five years. He resigned in February 2008 due to ill health and was succeeded by his brother Raúl Castro. However, Fidel remained the head of the Cuban Communist Party.

Castro declared himself a Communist in 1961 and began to transform Cuba into a socialist nation, inaugurating wide-ranging changes in the country’s social and economic systems. He instituted programs that dramatically increased the nation’s literacy rate and provided quality healthcare to almost all Cubans.

The socialist nature of Castro’s government sent many members of the elite and professional classes into exile. Government seizures of properties and business holdings, the suspension of elections, the militarization of society, control of the media, and the politicization of education convinced conservatives and moderates to seek exile in Spain, Mexico, France, and, primarily, the United States, particularly the state of Florida.

During the 1960s through the 1980s, Castro allied himself with the communist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR); in addition, he supported revolutions of national liberation in Latin America, Africa, and Asia and became a leader among heads of state in nations that had recently won their freedom from colonial powers. Castro and his socialist government faced strong opposition from the United States, which formerly had been Cuba’s ally and main trading partner. United States businesses with holdings in Cuba opposed Castro’s seizure of their property, and many U.S. politicians saw Castro’s socialist policies and alliance with the USSR as a threat to the security of the United States.

II  CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born on a sizable estate near Birán in Oriente Province. He was the third of seven children born to Angel Castro y Argiz, a Spanish immigrant, and Lina Ruz González, a household servant who later married Angel. Angel Castro was a self-made man whose fortune came from laying track for the sugar railway and transporting cane in oxcarts. He transported cane by oxcart from sugar fields to nearby processing mills, where it was converted into refined sugar. The railroad tracks he helped construct connected the sugar refineries to other rail lines in Cuba. Angel valued hard work and insisted that his sons demonstrate thrift and persistence.

Castro’s education began in the local public schools near the neighboring town of Mayarí, where his classmates were the children of laborers. Recognized for his scholastic talents, Castro was tutored and then enrolled in Santiago de Cuba’s La Salle School, which was run by French priests. At school, Castro was unruly and a fighter. He challenged the authority of the priests and vied for leadership among the students. Because of this behavior, his father sent him to the Dolores Colegio, a Catholic private school known for its tough discipline and high academic standards. There Castro learned the value of discipline and authority. While attending school in Santiago de Cubas, Castro witnessed U.S. soldiers’ behavior toward Cuban citizens, whom the Americans treated as inferiors, and he developed a strong aversion to U.S. influence in Cuban politics.

In 1940 Castro enrolled in the prestigious Belen Secondary School in Havana, where he competed with the children of Cuba’s elite for academic and social recognition. At Belen, Castro learned Cuban history and took as his hero José Martí, the father of Cuban independence from Spain. Castro also developed his athletic and oratory skills during his time at Belen.

III  EARLY POLITICAL CAREER

In 1945 Castro entered the University of Havana Law School, where he became involved in politics. At the university, politics centered around student political gangs, and Castro took part in the often violent confrontations among these gangs.

Castro’s political ideals matured as he committed himself to overthrowing President Ramón Grau San Martín, of the Auténtico Party, who had allowed corruption to grow in business and politics. Tired of university politics, Castro joined the Party of the Cuban People (the Ortodoxo Party), founded by Eduardo (Eddy) Chibás. The Ortodoxos publicly exposed government corruption and demanded reform. The party’s founding principles included building a strong sense of national identity among Cubans, opposing the influence of powerful foreign nations in Cuba’s affairs, supporting social justice, establishing economic independence for Cuba, and evenly distributing the nation’s wealth through government control of natural and economic resources.

Inspired by these values, Castro involved himself in three important activities. First, in 1947 he joined the Caribbean Legion, a group of political exiles from other Caribbean nations based in Cuba. With them, he took part in a failed effort to overthrow Rafael Trujillo, the dictator of the Dominican Republic, by launching an invasion from Cuba.

When the Dominican coup attempt failed, Castro returned to Cuba to focus on his second crusade, the electoral defeat of the candidates of the Auténtico Party. Campaign activities were punctuated with violence, and amidst the furor, Castro’s firebrand speeches and effective political organization brought him early recognition, if not power, in the Ortodoxo Party.

In April 1948 Castro undertook the third formative activity in his early political career. He attended the Ninth Pan American Union conference, a student conference held in Bogotá, Colombia. The conference was organized by Argentine president Juan Perón to protest U.S. domination of the western hemisphere. Upon arriving in Bogotá, Castro and a friend, Rafael del Pino, disrupted the conference by showering astonished delegates with pamphlets condemning U.S. influence in Latin America. A few days later, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, leader of the Colombian Liberal Party, and a man from whom the student rebels took council, was assassinated. The news of Gaitán’s death rocked Bogotá, and outraged students rioted in the streets.

Castro was later blamed for instigating the uprising, known as the Bogotazo, but he was little more than a spectator. His pamphleteering of the Pan American Union meeting has been cited as evidence that he was a Communist at that time. In truth, the Bogotazo proved a turning point in the development of Castro’s political thought. Because Gaitán’s commitment to reforming the political system through democratic means resulted in his death, Castro concluded that making changes through the electoral process could not succeed.

When Castro returned to Cuba, he threw himself into the presidential campaign of 1948, which pitted Carlos Prio Socarrás, a seasoned politician and member of the Auténtico Party, against Eddy Chibás, the leader of the Party of the Cuban People (called the Ortodoxo Party). Castro was cynical about Cuban electoral politics. He believed that elections were often rigged and that the United States controlled Cuban politicians, regardless of whether they were elected officials or dictators. As a result, Castro formed a radical branch of the Ortodoxo Party called the Radical Action Orthodox wing. This organization supported Chibás in the 1948 election. Prio Socarrás won the election, despite Castro’s efforts.

After Chibás committed suicide in 1951, Castro believed he should become the leader of the Ortodoxo Party and ran for a seat in the Cuban House of Representatives in the 1952 election. Before that election could occur, however, General Fulgencio Batista staged a bloodless coup d’etat and established a dictatorship that ended Castro’s chance to attain office legally. Castro’s cynicism hardened into rejection of electoral democracy, and he declared himself in favor of armed revolution.

IV  REBEL LEADER

As dissatisfaction with Batista’s coup spread, Castro formed one of several underground organizations that plotted to overthrow Batista. Among the anti-Batista groups contributing to political destabilization were the Auténtico Party’s radical wing; Civic Resistance, a coalition of urban resistance groups that carried out acts of sabotage in the cities; and the National Revolutionary Movement, an anticommunist group that formed within the military. To stop the wave of popular rebellion, President Fulgencio Batista placed the armed forces on alert and dispatched secret police and informants to identify, torture, and kill organized dissidents.

On July 26, 1953, Castro and his supporters attacked Cuba’s second largest military baseâ€"the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba. Castro, his brother Raúl, and approximately 150 revolutionaries plotted to overrun the base, which was manned by 1000 trained soldiers. The rebels planned to seize the radio station at the base and announce the beginning of a guerrilla movement. They also intended to take weapons from the fort to use in their military campaign. Their mission failed badly. Over half of Castro’s band was captured, tortured, or killed. The martyrdom of the youthful revolutionaries had the unexpected effect of drawing attention to their heroism and generating sympathy for their cause. Castro’s guerrilla movement would be called the 26th of July Movement after the date of the assault on the barracks.

Castro and other conspirators survived the attack, but were captured. The prisoners went on trial from August to October of 1953 for conspiracy to overthrow the Cuban government. At his trial Castro countered the charge by attacking Batista’s illegitimate coup in what has become known as his “History Will Absolve Me” speech. He accused Batista of violating the democratic 1940 Constitution, of using terror and torture to suppress popular will, and of rejecting universal human rights guarantees. Castro declared that the young rebels stood for a return to democracy as established in the suspended 1940 Constitution, agrarian reform, the recovery of resources stolen by government officials and their friends, educational reform, profit sharing with laborers, and public housing provisions.

The court’s verdict was a foregone conclusion. Castro was found guilty of conspiring to overthrow the Batista government and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Castro served less than two years of his sentence. Prison afforded him time to read political philosophy, classical literature, history, and military strategy. His time in jail strengthened his will to change Cuba and shaped his ideas about the means of resistance.

In the 1954 national election, Batista ran unopposed because all major parties withdrew their candidates to protest his regime. While Castro was in jail, new militant operations formed: the Revolutionary Directorate, composed of university students, and the Second National Front of Escambray, composed of militant rural laborers. Both groups engaged in acts of sabotage, which Batista met with increasing violence. By 1955 Batista felt confident enough of his hold on power to grant a general amnesty for all political prisoners, including Castro.

In May 1955 Castro left prison. He soon departed for Mexico, where he trained and indoctrinated recruits in the ideals of social revolution. Ernesto “Che” Guevara, an Argentine Marxist, joined Castro’s guerrilla band and added his ideals of an armed struggle based on the support of rural peasants to the movement’s ideological mix. After a year of preparation, Castro decided to take his guerrilla squadron to Cuba to begin a military campaign against Batista. In November 1956, Castro and 81 other men boarded the ship Granma and set sail for the southeastern coast of Cuba. Their plan was to form a revolutionary force in the Sierra Maestra, and to encourage a popular revolt. Batista's army met them at their landing at Playa Colorado, and only around a dozen men, including Castro, escaped arrest, torture, or prison.

In the Sierra Maestra, Castro established his military and political leadership. His tactics consisted of attacking small military units in order to capture weapons, gain territory, and impress the people with the strength of his revolutionary group. The rebels lived among Cuba’s rural peasantry who supported them with food, information, and sometimes shelter. Castro thus learned of the difficulties they faced. He promised that if he were successful, he would redistribute land to those who worked it, as well as provide free education and decent health care. While fighting in the mountains, the 26th of July Movement was bombed by U.S. planes. Castro’s troops escaped unharmed, but the peasants suffered serious casualties. Castro’s resolve to confront U.S. influence in Cuba hardened, and he pledged himself to support others around the world who were opposed to U.S. influence in their internal affairs.

During this time, Castro was only one of many leaders of the anti-Batista movement, and he was forced to compromise with other rebel leaders. However, he had one advantageâ€"he had developed a clear ideological position, while other groups focused only on removing Batista.

By mid-1958 Batista’s government had lost most of its support in Cuba and abroad. The United States stopped the shipments of arms to the Cuban military, and Castro’s troops fanned out over the island. When guerrilla units led by the 26th of July Movement’s Che Guevara attacked the city of Santa Clara in December 1958, Batista’s forces crumbled. On January 1, 1959, Batista fled to the Dominican Republic, leaving Cuba without a leader or a consensus on governing principles.

V  NATIONAL LEADER

Castro stepped into this vacuum, claiming total authority for himself and his movement. His political ideals set out in his “History Will Absolve Me” speech, and his dominant personal charisma overpowered other rebel groups. His rhetoric and youth promised a break with the corrupt past. Millions of Cubans pledged themselves to a revolutionary process without knowing what exactly that process entailed.

A  Domestic Policy

Castro did not assume the office of president at first, but instead became the head of the Cuban Armed Forces. Yet he brought before the politically moderate cabinet sweeping reforms. During Castro’s first nine months in office, approximately 1500 decrees, laws, and edicts were passed, some of which appropriated business interests and private properties owned by U.S. citizens and corporations. Among the most important acts were the Agrarian Reform Law and the Urban Reform Law, both passed in 1959. These laws broke up large property holdings and redistributed them to the poor. Castro became prime minister in February 1959, following the resignation of Prime Minister Miró Cardona. At this point moderate cabinet ministers and officials began leaving the government. In May 1961 Castro canceled promised elections and declared the Constitution of 1940 outdated. In December he announced that Cuba would become a socialist nation.

Transforming Cuba into a socialist nation required a reorientation of values. To address this need, Castro and Che Guevara developed the New Man theory, which called for the development of a new type of citizen who would regard work not as a means of personal enrichment, but as a commitment to social change. This theory held that Cubans would no longer work for personal profit, but for the good of all people. Income and benefits, such as education and medical services, were to be evenly distributed. Under the new political structure, government agencies represented people, and political parties were dissolved. The state controlled the press, and neighborhood watch groups checked for ideological purity. People advanced at work and in government according to their loyalty to Castro. Castro and Guevara also drew up a plan to export revolution around the world.

Although Castro advanced his political agenda, his economic plans failed. He wanted to diversify the economy, which had been heavily dependent on agricultural production. Castro devoted the first four years of the revolution to promoting the growth of Cuban industry that produced previously imported goods. However, Cuban products were impractical and of poor quality. At the same time, traditional agricultural production declined, and sugar output, upon which the economy depended, fell nearly 50 percent.

In 1965 Castro reversed the economic plan and focused the economy again on agricultural production and the export of a few primary products. The focus on sugar production took on monumental proportions in 1969 and 1970, when Castro announced the goal of a 10-million ton sugar harvest. Like the earlier industrial plan, the sugar harvest of 1970 failed to reach its target, drawing in only 8.5 million tons. This failure cost Cuba’s ally, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), billions of dollars in financial aid. After 1970 the Soviets required Cuba to develop five-year and ten-year economic plans and to introduce a professional bureaucracy. The influx of Soviet financial aid helped the Cuba economy to recover during the 1970s, but it also made Cuba economically dependent on the USSR.

Although Castro had to agree to the USSR’s demands for economic planning, he insisted on charting his own course for political developments in Cuba. He deviated from the centrally controlled Soviet model by allowing some democratic participation in government through the Popular People’s Power movement inaugurated in 1976. This movement allowed voters to elect candidates approved by the Communist Party to serve in local government posts. These local party members in turn elected representatives to provincial and national assemblies, which would supervise government activities at the regional and national levels. Also in 1976, the newly elected National Assembly of People’s Power created the president of the State Council, which combined the functions of head of government, head of state, and commander of the armed forces. The assembly elected Castro to fill the post.

From 1975 to 1985, Castro allowed small-scale and individual capitalist enterprise by permitting private farmers to market their excess agricultural produce. In 1986, however, he reversed himself and again prohibited private sales, on the grounds that such capitalist policies disturbed the even distribution of wealth. Individuals and government officials who had profited too much from private trade were arrested and fined. Policy reversals such as these sent ripples of discontent throughout the island.

B  Foreign Policy

Castro’s opposition to U.S. influence in Cuba and other parts of the world made conflict between the two nations inevitable. In 1959 American business interests joined disaffected Cubans in sounding the alarm that Castro was a Communist. Whether Castro was a Marxist-Leninist at this time or before is hard to know, but he did associate with the People’s Socialist Party (PSP) because it offered support and a solid political organization. The PSP also helped Castro establish links with the USSR, which provided Cuba with a new international ally to counter growing opposition from the United States. Tensions escalated between the United States and Cuba as Castro began seizing U.S. businesses in Cuba. In 1960 the United States placed a partial trade embargo on Cuba, prohibiting the importation of all items except food and medical supplies. The United States also recalled its ambassador, broke formal relations, and began arming and training Cuban exiles for an invasion of Cuba.

On April 17, 1961, approximately 1500 Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs on the southern coast of Cuba. These exiles, who were backed by the United States and trained by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), intended to raise a counterrevolution. The invasion failed, and most Cubans rallied behind Castro. The Bay of Pigs invasion silenced dissenting voices within the island and consolidated Castro’s power. It also removed any doubt about the socialist direction of Castro’s revolution.

In May 1961 Castro publicly rejected Cuba’s 1940 Constitution and its democratic tenets. In November 1961 he declared himself a Marxist-Leninist and made Cuba a major participant in the Cold War struggle between the United States and its allies and the group of nations led by the USSR. Between 1959 and 1962, approximately 200,000 people who opposed Castro’s political leadership emigrated to the United States, Spain, and Mexico; over 80 percent of this first wave of refugees were well-educated professionals (Cuban Americans).

Stunned by the defeat at the Bay of Pigs, the United States deployed Operation Mongoose, an effort to destroy Castro from within Cuba and through military invasion. Agents working for the U.S. government made a number of unsuccessful attempts to assassinate or discredit Castro. A U.S. invasion of Cuba never materialized, largely because of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. This crisis developed after Castro secretly accepted Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles with the capacity to destroy most of the United States. The result was the Cuban Missile Crisis, in which the U.S. and Soviet governments nearly went to war over the deployment of nuclear warheads in Cuba. After three tense weeks of negotiation, the superpowers agreed that the USSR would remove the missiles, while the United States promised never to invade Cuba. Castro was not consulted about the agreement, which infuriated him, but it did free Cuba from the threat of U.S. military intervention. As a result, Castro was able to develop the economic and social policies promised by his revolution.

Castro chose international confrontation with the United States as his defining international principle. Confident of Soviet support, Castro allied himself with revolutionary groups throughout the world. In Africa he sent aid and later soldiers to various nations, beginning with Ghana in 1961, Algeria in 1962, and Angola in 1965. What began as small military missions to support the socialist Popular Movement of Liberation in Angola (MPLA) escalated into a full-fledged war that the rebels eventually won. Winning the Angolan conflict resulted in the world’s recognition of Cuba as a significant international military power.

Castro also involved Cuba in revolution in the western hemisphere. In 1967, Che Guevara went to Bolivia to initiate another revolution, but the Bolivian army captured and executed him within the year. In Nicaragua, Castro committed as many as 5000 military advisors, medical technicians, teachers, and agricultural experts to aid the victorious Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN) in 1979 (Nicaraguan Revolution). It is significant that Castro advised the Sandinistas not to follow his example of antagonizing the United States, and he supported their policies of a mixed economy, democratic government, and international nonalignment. When insurrection began in El Salvador in 1979, Castro advised the combatants that he would have nothing to do with the struggle unless the militant factions united under a single ideological front. When that was completed in 1981, Cuba and the USSR shipped some arms to El Salvador’s Faribundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), and Castro provided a haven for revolutionary planners.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Castro saw himself as an important leader of nations seeking independence from the domination of the world’s wealthier and more powerful nations. In 1980 he was the president of the Non-Aligned Nations Association, and he made Cuba the focus of international youth conferences.

C  The Post-Cold War Years

In 1989 two events shook the island and threatened Castro’s control. General Ochoa Sánchez, a decorated hero of the Bay of Pigs invasion and the mastermind behind Cuba’s victory in the Angolan civil war, was arrested, convicted, and executed for drug smuggling. Some Cubans believed that Ochoa Sánchez’ real crime was his popularity, his ability to lead a military coup, and his rather moderate criticism of Cuba’s economic and political paralysis.

A far more important development was the collapse of the USSR, which left Cuba without its major economic ally. With the United States still enforcing a blockade on trade with Cuba, the loss of Soviet financial aid and trade spelled certain economic collapse unless capitalist economic reforms occurred. Castro declared a “Special Period in a Time of Peace,” which meant strict rationing, shortages, and required “voluntary” labor. Castro told Cubans that he had no solution for the crisis, but vowed that he would never surrender to American capitalism.

As the economic crisis deepened in 1992-1993, Castro reluctantly surrendered by allowing foreign investments in specific economic sectors, such as tourism, biotechnology, and telecommunications. While the economy appeared to diversify, domestic economic scarcity led to an active black market, through which international products, including American goods, flowed. In 1993 the price of goods increased, and the Cuban peso, which in 1989 had been worth $1.18, fell in value to less than a penny. To stop spiraling inflation, Castro allowed Cubans to use foreign currencyâ€"including U.S. dollarsâ€"that could be exchanged on global markets. These decisions destroyed the social and economic equality that the revolution had established. Cubans with access to U.S. currencyâ€"obtained through jobs in the tourism industry or gifts from relatives overseasâ€"attained a higher standard of living than other Cubans. Between 1989 and 1994 the economy declined by 40 percent, and some Cubans set out for the United States in rafts, preferring to risk their lives at sea rather than suffer economic misery.

A 1994 outburst in old Havana, the result of frustration, hunger, electrical blackouts, poor transportation, and unemployment, was the only challenge to Castro’s hold on power. The old rebel met the crowd face-to-face and convinced protestors to disband. He told them they could leave Cuba if they wished, and tens of thousands accepted his offer.

Castro held tenaciously to power in the late 1990s. Ironically, his best ally may have been U.S. laws sponsored by U.S. Senators Robert Toricelli and Jesse Helms and U.S. Representative Dan Burton. These laws were designed to discourage international trade with Cuba in hopes of bringing down Castro’s government. This pressure caused would-be Cuban dissidents to stand behind a leader whose failures they found less distasteful than the tactics of the United States. As a precaution, however, Castro amassed rapid deployment troops intended to suppress a popular revolt. Castro’s age and health are the only indicators of his departure from Cuba’s highest office.

“I love power, and I am the revolution,” said Castro in 1987. The sentiment of that statement was echoed in Castro’s unwillingness to plan for his departure from office. Cuba’s constitution provides for an orderly transfer of power following Castro’s death or resignation. Whether Cubans will follow this procedure is questionable. Traditionally, Cuba’s leaders have attained office not through constitutional methods, but by exercising personal power and influence. Castro discouraged others from cultivating this kind of power, yet he trained no obvious contenders for constitutional leadership among future generations of Cubans.

In January 1998, Pope John Paul II visited Cuba. His trip drew enthusiastic crowds, even though Cuba is officially an atheistic nation. As the Pope called for faith, tolerance, peace, and justice, people chanted “We are not afraid” and “Liberty.” Castro affirmed his commitment to peace and justice, and mostly ignored demands for faith and tolerance. His respect for the Pope and his humility at Mass prompted some to see him as an aging man contemplating his mortality. Others, however, saw him as a shrewd strategist who benefited from the Pope’s condemnation of the U.S. embargo as a violation of human rights.

Hopes for the easing of U.S. sanctions against Cuba raised by the Senate in August 1999 were overshadowed by the Elian Gonzalez affair during the first half of 2000. Castro led the Cuban response in the legal and political tussle to have the shipwrecked six-year-old boy returned from his exiled family in Miami to his father in Cuba.

Castro condemned the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, although he drew common cause with President Hugo Chávez Frías of Venezuela in criticizing the launch of military action against Afghanistan and subsequently against Iraq (see U.S.-Iraq War). The Castro government also routinely condemned the detention facility established by the U.S. military at its base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where it held alleged al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners. Slowly improving economic conditions led Castro to reverse many of his previous market-oriented reforms of the early 1990s. In March 2003, in what was one of the largest crackdowns upon opposition during his rule, 78 dissidents were arrested and imprisoned following show trials.

Castro suffered a number of high-profile health scares. In 2004 he broke his knee and fractured his arm in a fall during a televised public speech. In August 2006 he “temporarily” handed over power to his brother, defense minister Raúl Castro, after an operation to stop intestinal bleeding. In February 2008 Fidel announced his resignation as president, saying that he could no longer continue to perform his duties with his ailing health. The National Assembly elected Raúl as president the same month, although Fidel remained the head of the Cuban Communist Party.


Contributed By:
K. Lynn Stoner
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Bay of Pigs Invasion
Bay of Pigs Invasion, unsuccessful attempt in 1961 to overthrow the government of the Cuban premier Fidel Castro by United States-backed Cuban exiles. Increasing friction between the United States and Castro's leftist regime led President Dwight D. Eisenhower to break off diplomatic relations with Cuba in January 1961. Even before that, however, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had been training antirevolutionary Cuban exiles for a possible invasion of the island. The invasion plan was approved by Eisenhower's successor, John F. Kennedy.

The operation was designed as a means of overthrowing the Castro regime without revealing U.S. involvement in the operation. The plan originally called for the gradual buildup of anti-Castro forces within Cuba into a cohesive political and military unit capable of toppling Castro. However, the operation quickly escalated into plans for a full-scale invasion, with the budget expanding from $4 million to $46 million and the CIA training and supplying anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Guatemala.

On April 15, several days before the invasion, CIA pilots destroyed part of Castro’s air force. They were preparing to complete the job on April 16 when President Kennedy, for reasons that have never been properly explained, ordered a halt to the air strikes. On April 17 about 1500 exiles, armed with U.S. weapons, landed at the Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) on the south coast of Cuba. Hoping to find support from the local population, they intended to cross the island to Havana, but were quickly stopped by Castro's army. By the time the fighting ended on April 19, about 100 had been killed and the rest taken prisoner. The Cuban government later released the captured exiles after a ransom was paid.

The failure of the invasion seriously embarrassed the Kennedy administration, which was blamed by some for not giving it adequate air support and by others for allowing it to take place at all. An internal CIA secret audit of the operation blamed the failure on a series of mistakes made by the agency in the planning and execution of the invasion. Prepared by CIA Inspector General Lyman Kirkpatrick, the audit was kept secret for 36 years before being released to the public in 1998.

Kirkpatrick concluded that the CIA failed to provide for adequate security measures in the training and preparation of the mission. News of the impending invasion leaked to the media and also reached Castro, who made preparations for the attack. The audit also found that the CIA conducted little reliable intelligence gathering regarding the situation in Cuba and failed to realize that no wide-scale organized resistance to the Castro regime existed to assist the invaders. Despite this lack of information the agency assured Kennedy that an invasion would be met with strong support from the Cuban people. That support never materialized.

Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

MAYOR BABA HINTS BLACKLISTING HUMABOL:
HUMABOL’s use of minors in rally violates trust, UN laws
By Rey Anthony Chiu

For allegedly using children as cover for possible police dispersal operations, a radical farmer group could be in a bad light.

The Provincial Peace and Order Council (PPOC) headed by Gov. Edgar Chatto slams the Hugpong sa mga Mag-uumang Bol-anon (HUMABOL) for using children as blankets against police dispersals.

In fact, provincial social welfare and development officer Carmelita Tecson said [Humabol] could be facing possible violation of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UN-CRC).

The PPOC did not take lightly the military reports on the HUMABOL rally to commemorate the 7th death anniversary of slain peasant leader Victor Olayvar Sept. 9.

City Mayor John Geesnell “Baba” Yap said police operatives in charge in keeping order during the mass action reported that the farmers used the children to discourage forceful dispersal.

With the HUMABOL already tagged as a leftist legal front, Bohol Local Monitoring Board coordinator Romeo Teruel hinted that the use of children as violation of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and the International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) and a complaint to the Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC) is in order.

CARHRIHL is one of the substantive agreements which the country’s state agents and the rebel armed groups follow, even as they settle polarizing political beliefs. 

According to Prof. Carlos P. Medina, Jr. JMC co-chair for the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP), JMC brings together the GRP and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines in a joint collaborative effort to ensure the compliance of the signatories, the parties to the CARHRIHL.”

The rally organized by HUMABOL, drew a starting crowd of less than two hundred at the Plaza Rizal and eventually grew, but observers also noticed the presence of children carrying placards.

“It was a Monday and children ought to be in school,” points out Tecson, who raised the alarm, further saying that involving innocent children in political activities jeopardize their development.

While staging rallies to express protest and grievances against government is a constitutional right, even for children, using them especially when it interferes with their education, mental, moral and social development is against the international convention.

Article 15 of the UNCRC states that the state recognizes the rights of the child to freedom of association and to freedom of peaceful assembly, but there are also safeguards imposed in conformity with the law needed in a democratic society in the interests of national security and public safety and public order.
Yap confirmed that Humabol sought a permit to gather and the group allegedly assured the mayor that its issues would be based on the call for justice for Olaivar.

Sadly, however, the rally also took up other miscellaneous issues like the controversial Priority Development Assistance Funds, the Provincial Government’s Purok Power Movement and other politically incendiary issues.

The city mayor wanted to know if the permits could carry conditions, so as to make it a basis for blacklisting groups seeking permits to gather in the future.

Yap also shared that HUMABOL has clearly violated the trust of the city mayor when they picked other issues in the rally despite assurances that it was only to commemorate the farmer leader who was ambushed in Danao town on Sept. 8, 2006.

Public school teacher, nanagmal ug estudyante

CEBU CITY â€" Usa ka public school teacher ang nag-atubang karun ug kontrobersiya human gipasanginlan nga nangulata sa usa ka tinun-an nga nakakuha lamang ug gamay nga iskor sa iyang exam sa Liburon Elementary School sa dakbayan sa Carcar, Cebu.

Giingong na-trauma ang biktima hinungdan nga dili na kini musulod sa klase ug dili na magpabiya sa iyang ginikanan tungod sa kahadlok nga balikan sa iyang magtutudlo.

Nasayran nga gihapos ug libro, gisumbag ug gikumot sa maestro ang estudyante sa dihang nakakuha lamang kini ug 10 points sa 50 items nga exam.

Kalabot niini, gipadayag ni Dr. Gregorio Cyrus Elejorde, schools division superintendent sa Carcar City Division nga nagpahigayon na sila ug imbestigasyon ug gikatakdang mag-atubang ang maestra ug ang ginikanan sa biktima. | BNFM Cebu

DOST tags three Region 8 provinces as priority for free internet project
By April Mae O. Espada

TACLOBAN CITY â€" The Department of Science and Technology - Information and Communications Technology Office (DOST-ICTO) has initially identified some areas in Leyte, Eastern Samar and Samar provinces as location for the Free Wi-Fi Internet Access in Public Places project.

DOST Eastern Visayas assistant regional director Ernesto Granada said initial survey results point to some areas in the three provinces as ideal sites for setting up of internet facility given the strong presence of TV wide space signal.

The said public Wi-Fi, according to Granada, is a TV wide space technology intended for public to use for oral communication like video calls and written communication like e-mails or chats.

“This plan will be made easy for people to be more knowledgeable in the news updates. Likewise, education will no longer be a burden for the individuals who have no internet connection,” the official said

The facility will also facilitate more affordable means of communication of people in urban centers and rural areas through the use of social media.

This project will be implemented in the region after the pilot testing in Bohol province and Luneta Park this year.

Public plazas have been identified for the installation of public Wi-Fi. The internet facility will be maintained by local government units.

The project aims to bring Internet connectivity to class 4, 5, and 6 towns in the country.

Recently, the project got a PHP3 billion upgrade from the Senate, expanding the coverage nationwide. Originally, the initiative was designed to cover only town plazas of 748 class poor towns, with a budget of PHP334 million. (PNA)

pila kahay bayad sa Salon ani? hehehe

Dalan sa Kalimot
sinulat ni Mike Ortega Ligalig

1
Ang akong mga tudlo nahikalimot na sa kahumot
sa imong gininhawa. Gisubay ko ang imong mga ngabil
apan wala ko na makita ang alimyon sa imong talidhay,
hinuon mao na lay nagpabilin ang bakak mong mga pulong.

2
Ang akong mga tudlo buot mokab-ot sa imong aping
ug sa dihang mipilit akong panit sa imong panit
wala koy laing nasimhot kon dili ang katab-ang
sa imong pahiyom - ug ang nangamig mong pagtagad
mikuyanap sa tibuok kong mga palad...

3
Gani sa imong mga mata mialisngaw ang kabugnaw
sa pinitik sa imong kasing-kasing - ug maoy mipalong
sa nagsilaob ko untang kamingaw kanimo...

4
Asa na ang dinagaang sa imong parayeg?
Asa na ang katam-is sa imong pagdayeg?
Asa na ang pagtaob sa imong dughan?

5
Ayaw itukmod kining alimpatakan diha sa bung-aw
sa mga paghandom kay diha sa ngilit akong mahanduraw
ang nagdagtom tang kagahapon, hinuon tudloi pag-usab
kining mga tudlo pagsubay ngadto sa dalan sa kalimot

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Office of the Senate Majority Leader
Alan Peter S. Cayetano
Rm. 603 GSIS Complex Senate of the Philippines Roxas Blvd Pasay City
       
PRESS RELEASE
05 October 2015


Cayetano reiterates call for additional benefits, support for Filipino teachers

In commemoration of the World Teachers’ Day on Monday, Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano has renewed his call for government to institutionalize more measures aimed at providing additional compensation, benefits, and support for the country’s educators.

"As we celebrate this year’s World Teachers’ Day, I urge my colleagues to take time not only to thank our teachers for their invaluable contribution to the society, but to also work towards giving them the support that they deserve,” said Cayetano, who co-authored and paved a way for the third-reading passage of Senate Bill 510 seeking to declare October 5 as National Teachers’ Day in the Philippines.

To make the support palpable, the senator pushed anew for the passage of his Senate Bill 94, which, if signed into law, will give public school teachers additional compensation of P9,000 in the form of allowances and other remuneration from local school board funds, P1,000 worth of annual medical allowance, and a bonus to answer for the unpaid benefits granted by the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers.

“The teaching profession is crucial in creating a society geared towards progress. Yet, it is one of the most taken for granted careers in the country in terms of compensation,” Cayetano lamented, noting that the entry level for public school teachers is only Salary Grade (SG) 11 or about P18,549 per month.

Cayetano is set to file another bill that will provide scholarship grants for public school teachers’ dependents and for educators planning to pursue further studies.

The senator said teachers occupy a high place in his legislative agenda as he had been surrounded by family members who, at one point in their lives, were educators.

His grandmother, Juliana Cabrera Luna, was a public school teacher at the Pateros Elementary School. His mother Sandra was a pre-school directress, while his father, the late Senator Rene “Compañero” Cayetano, was a law professor at the Lyceum of the Philippines. His brother, Taguig Rep. Lino Cayetano also taught at the UP College of Mass Communications. ##

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Ig-unsa man kaha ni nako?

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Cayetano thanks Duterte for supporting his VP bid

Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano expressed his gratitude to Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte for supporting the senator’s vice presidential bid in the upcoming national elections.

In an interview following their dinner meeting on Tuesday (September 29), Duterte was asked by media members in Davao City to compare Cayetano with other possible candidates for vice president, to which the mayor responded, “Wala, wipe out ‘yan sila lahat sa kanya.”

Duterte also lauded the Senate leader’s “good grasp of practical solutions” for the country’s enduring problems on poverty, poor infrastructure, and lack of inclusive economic growth.

Cayetano, for his part, thanked the mayor for believing in his ability to serve the country in a higher office. He said he also continues to pray for a president who will take on the challenge of creating genuine change in the lives of Filipino families.

“I join my fellow Filipinos in hoping for the best. Mayor Duterte is a very decisive person, he’s the type of leader who offers concrete solutions to problems and really takes action,” the senator said in a radio interview a day after he officially announced his plan to run for VP.

“When I announced my candidacy in Davao, I took a step of faith. I told myself that a good partner is really worth waiting for," he added.

The senator, meanwhile, stressed that whatever happens in the following months preceding the 2016 polls, he will remain committed to his goal of pushing for real change and a more inclusive growth throughout the country.

www.tubagbohol.com is now 8 years old...

www.tubagbohol.com is now 8 years old...

www.tubagbohol.com is now 8 years old...

Hotel room yields drugs

Police yesterday afternoon swooped down a popular but low-cost hotel, which police said is a drug outlet in Tagbilaran City, and confiscated several sachets of shabu and drug paraphernalia from a suspected drug pusher, who is the son of the caretakers of the building owned by former city mayor Joe Torralba.

Also seized was an unlicensed .38 revolver gun loaded with a single bullet from the security guard-on-duty at Sky High Lodge, now renamed as Center City Inn located a few meters away from Philippine Maritime Instititue (PMI) along CPG Avenue, this city.

Police, armed with a search warrant issued by Regional Trial Court Executive Judge Suceso A. Arcamo, have long monitored the alleged illegal drug business of Ryan Antonio, whose reported cohort is the hotel’s security guard who, according to the police, has been acting as Antonio’s runner, dealer and collector in the illegal drug trade.

Before the search warrant was served on Room 312, where Antonio, 28, lives with his wife and two kids, elements of the Provincial Public Safety Company (PPSC) and Special Weapons and Tactics Team (SWAT) had been checking in and out of one of the rooms at Sky High Lodge during the past few days while they were monitoring Antonio’s activity, said Police Senior Inspector Rolando Desiree Lavisto, PPSC/SWAT acting chief.

When the police arrived at Sky High Lodge, the security guard, identified as Ariel Rafols Cenecero, immediately ran to the third floor of the building and locked himself up inside the comfort room. Cenecero eventually opened the toilet and surrendered to the police.

Lavisto said the guard is reportedly employed by Bronze Cross Security and Detective Agency, whose main office is in Davao City.

“After investigation and inspection we learned that Cenecero is not a licensed security guard and is in possession of an unlicensed firearm,” Lavisto said. “In three instances, our asset had bought shabu from Cenecero while he is in duty at Sky High Lodge.”

The police drug raid shocked city residents, who have been appraised by the police during a Provincial Peace and Order Council meeting of the reported buy-and-sell of illegal drugs at hotel desk counters.

After the inventory of the seized shabu and drug paraphernalia, police brought Antonio to Camp Dagohoy where he will stay at the PNP lock-up jail pending filing of appropriate charges before the court tomorrow.

Police also put Cenecero in jail, and according to Lavisto, there is an indication that the security guard might testify against Antonio.

Lavisto said the police would still look into the extent of the liability of the security agency who issued an unlicensed firearm to one of its security guards. But the police chief has assured that the security agency cannot be implicated in the illegal drug charges.

Yesterday’s arrest of Antonio is an offshoot of orders issued by Police Senior Superintendent Dennis P. Agustin, Bohol PNP director, who has been leading a daily crackdown on illegal drugs in the province.

Antonio is a son of Corazon Antonio, a regular employee assigned at the City Treasurer’s Office since 2004. Antonio’s father, Eugenio, is the manager of Villa Pastores, one of ex-mayor Torralba’s real estate ventures.

8 out of 10 Boholanos back guv’s leadership

Roughly 8 out of 10 Boholanos are satisfied with the performance of Gov. Edgar Chatto as top leader of the province, according to the latest survey conducted by the Holy Name University (HNU) Research Center.

The results of the Bohol Poll 2014 shows that Chatto, who is serving his second term as governor, gathered a net satisfaction rating of 82%.

Chatto has been earning this high trust and confidence from Boholanos since he assumed office in 2010, said to be the highest ratings given to an incumbent governor ever.

The governor's selfless servant leadership has not escaped the attention of no less than the highest leader of the country.

President Noynoy Aquino, during his latest visit to the province a week ago, lauded Chatto's leadership especially in the quick action and strategic response to what is dubbed the great Bohol quake, which toppled homes, roads, bridges, churches, and claimed human lives. Aquino spoke of what is surely a bright future that await Boholanos with hardworking leaders like Chatto.

The results of the survey conducted between April 2 to 27 were released by the HNU Research Center, mastered by the Social Weather Station, on Monday.

Chatto polled highest in the Second District at 89%, followed by 83% in the First District, and 76% in the Third District. Tagbilaranons gave the governor a satisfaction rating of 75%.
Respondents of the survey were asked if they are satisfied, dissatisfied, or not satisfied at all by execution of official mandates of the governor.

The Office of the Governor also received the same level of trust and confidence with the survey showing the Governor's Office getting the highest satisfaction rating from those who visited government offices in the past 6 months. 

The Bohol Poll survey also displayed a high net satisfactory rating for tourism promotion at 68%, the number steadily climbing to this peak since surveys in 2010.

The upcoming visit of the United Nations World Tourism Organization Secretary General Dr. Taleb Rifal is sure to boost tourism promotion as the Bohol Tourism Recovery Plan is to be reported in the presence of the highest official of the highest policy-making body for tourism in the world.

Under the leadership of Chatto, which thrust has advocated the strong participation of the private sector, especially in leading the tourism industry, the recovery plan for tourism maps out strategies such as restoring visitor confidence and recovering markets, maximizing impacts, increasing resiliency of destinations, communities and businesses to crises, and expanding Bohol's position as top tourism destination nationally and globally.

Only 3% said they were dissatisfied while 13% were undecided, said the same survey about Chatto's leadership.

Urban centers gave the governor a net satisfaction rating of 73%, while rural rating posted a high of 86%.

Across brackets, the class ABC rated him 82%; class D, 82%; and class E, 84%.
The governor also polled highest at 84% satisfaction rating among those aged between 25-34, and 45-above, while he got 81% from young people aged 18-24.

Chatto, for his part said, it has always been shared leadership, transparency, and good good governance that has helped propel Bohol towards achieving successes, whether it is to further development, and even now in its recovery efforts. It is team effort in dedicated public service that resulted in the high satisfaction ratings of the Governor's Office and other Capitol offices, a confidence that Chatto appreciates.

As governor, Chatto institutionalized People's Day at the Capitol and now at the mansion and in satellite offices in Talibon, Carmen, and Jagna. (Leah/EDCOM)

Mayor Baba: Yet so new, yet so popular

Yet so new, yet so popular, is the best description there is to a neophyte politician like City Mayor John Geesnell “BABA” Yap who got a high net satisfaction rating of +65, the Bohol Poll 2014 showed.

According to the survey, standard net satisfaction ratings considers +50 to +69 as “very good” which means that a great majority (73%) were satisfied of his performance as mayor while quite a few (8%) said otherwise.

Only in his first term, Mayor Yap was inspired by the trust and confidence that the Tagbilaranons has been showing him. The overwhelming support during the recently concluded SAULOG TAGBILARAN 2014 festivities was a concrete manifestation of the peoples’ support. It should also be remembered that President Benigno S. Aquino III, during his speech at Bohol Island State University in Tagbilaran City for the FabLab launch last May 2, Bohol's first ever Fabrication Laboratory Shared Service Facility Project said, "In terms of diligence, it will be difficult to beat this group. If your leadership is this hardworking, I will not be surprised that a bright future awaits Boholanos. They are public servants who will not leave you in your hour of need."

With a very good rating, this was a quantum leap from the former city mayor Dan Neri Lim net satisfaction rating of -2 last April 2013.Also, the Tagbilaranons gave the city government a relatively high net satisfaction rating (satisfied minus dissatisfied) on the efforts in promoting investments at +47, protecting the environment at +45, providing livelihood and employment at +25, traffic management at +28, reducing graft and corruption at -1, ensuring adequate drinking water at + 66, and protecting life and property with (+31).

It can be inferred from the figures above that Mayor Yap’s rating was the highest in all the previous surveys that has been conducted in the specific services outlined in the HNU Bohol Poll.

BOHOL POLL is an annual monitoring activity on the sentiments of the Boholanos on social, economic, political issues of local and national concern. The Bohol Poll is conducted in April of each year since 2000. The Center of Local Governance of the Holy Name University boasts of being the first locally-based institution capable of conducing local public opinion polling.

Many Boholanos are aware that PDAF scam takes place

Seven out of 10 or 73% of Boholanos believed that “pork barrel scam” or Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) anomaly has taken place and hit an  awareness level of as high as 79%, this according to the latest Bohol Poll 2014.

The same survey showed that a vast  Boholano majority are not convinced that former and present Boholano officials are allegedly linked to the PDAF anomaly but only a handful are.

The respondents of the survey have identified the officials who are linked to the pork barrel scam and not the interviewers, Ms. Maria Paz Jimenez Espiritu, one of the presenters of the survey results last week, said.

The officials include former congressman and now Gov. Edgar Chatto, who got 19% in Boholanos’ awareness allegedly linking him to the anomaly. Incumbent Rep. Arthur C. Yap had 16%; former congressman Atty. Roberto Cajes, 11%; former congressman and now Securities and Exchange Commissioner Atty. Eladio M. Jala, 7%; his son former congressman and now city councilor Atty. Adam Relson Jala, 4%; incumbent Rep. Rene L. Relampagos, 2%; and former congressman and governor Atty. Erico B. Aumentado, one percent. Those who said they don’t know, 31%, the survey showed.

Chatto got 10% of the Boholanos who are convinced he is allegedly linked to the anomaly; 23% of them do not believe; 12% has little belief and a hefty 55% remained undecided, the survey said.

Arthur Yap’s rating of his alleged involvement in the scam: “Dako ang pagtuo”-14% of the respondents; “Wala motou” -- 13%; “Undecided”-- 65%; and “Gamay ang pagtu-o”-- 8%. The respondents gave him a hefty 50% in 2nd district; 1st district, 20%; and 3rd dist., 6%, the survey said.

The same survey said that Cajes posted “Dako ang pagtuo”-- 10%; “Wala motuo”-- 12%; “undecided”-- 53%; and “gamay ang pagtuo”-- 20%.

SEC commissioner Atty. Eladio Jala had zero percent in “Dako ang pagtuo;” “Wala Motuo”-- 16%; “Undecided”--74%; and “Gamay ang pagtuo”-- 11%. City councilor Atty. Adam Relson Jala: “Dakong Pagtuo”-- 4%; “Wala motuo”-- 8%; “undecided”-- 61%; and “Gamay ang pagtuo”--28%.
Aumentado’s involvement in the alleged scam: “Dako ang pagtuo”â€"12%; “Wala Motuo”--42%; “Undecided” â€" 55%; and “Gamay ang pagtuo” â€" zero%, the survey said.

The percentage (73%) awareness level of the Boholanos on PDAF is an offshoot of the following qaustion: “Adunay anomaliya nga nahitabo sa paggamit sa pork barrel kon PDAF diin ang pundo gipaagi sa mga dili lehitimo nga NGOs o non-government organizations.”

Under the awareness level of the PDAF, 90% of the Boholanos is recorded in 3rd district of the province but low in 2nd district with 67%. Tagbilaran City had awareness level of 84%; and 1st district, 77%.

Meanwhile, the performance of the provincial government in curbing graft and corruption is in the net negative two (-2) after deducting 32%  who are “dissatisfied” from 30% “satisfied.” A big chunk or 38% remained “undecided,” the survey said.

Only in 1st district that the province posted a net positive twelve (+12%) with 40% “satisfied” minus 28 “dissatisfied.” Thirty-two percent (32%) of the Boholanos are still “undecided.”

The respondents gave the provincial government a net -15% in curbing corruption; net zero percent in 2nd district; and -10% in 3rd district, the survey said. Among the age bracket, only 35-44 gave the province +8%, the rest all negative: 18-24 years old â€" negative seven (-7%); 25-34 --- negative two (-2%); and 45-above --- negative six (-6%).

City government performance against graft and corruption is at net negative one (-1). Thirty six (36%) percent were “dissatisfied” and 35% “satisfied” while 36% “undecided.” (RVO)

Beach tourism shuns mangroves planting?
By Rey Anthony Chiu

Tourism or environment? Take your pick.
In Bohol, where many people have seen the lure of easy money in tourism, environmentalists find it hard to convince communities about planting mangroves, it reducing the “come-on” of white sandy beaches.

Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) sources hints the issue as communities into beach tourism accordingly turn away from the plusses of mangroves because it can make their beach fronts dirty.

People do not want mangroves in their coastlines because it can make the sea muddy, Juliet Paler of DENR said over Kapihan sa PIA Thursday.

The mud however, is an indication that the mangroves were able to stop the mud eroded from the mountains, she quickly added.

Paler explained that the soil eroded from the hills due to unrestrained human activity tends to go downhill and cover the seagrass beds and reef areas which are the feeding grounds of fish and other marine resources.

On the other hand, the same DENR source admit that people tend to look at the tourism added value of the mangroves in boardwalks as the better money source.

This is over the benefits the mangroves can give to the communities.

Mangroves, added Bohol Coastal Resource Management Coordinator Adlefa Salutan, are keys to maintain a healthy balance of marine resources.

Aside from providing shelter to spawning fish, regulating water temperatures for the fry to grow and providing the detritus for the fingerlings to survive, mangroves are also hosts to wildlife, endemic and migratory birds, Salutan added.

Also, mangroves have the most pollutant absorptive capacity among plants, considering their dark green leaves, quipped in Paler who went on to say that mangroves take in massive amounts of carbon dioxide and egests them out as oxygen.

But the most people see in mangroves forest is a boardwalk where tourists can get a closer look at the ecosystem.

In Bohol, functional mangrove boardwalks included in the tour packages are the San Vicente Mangrove Association (SAVIMA) and Abatan Lincod Maribojoc Nipa Growers Organization (ALIMANGO), Panadtaran Mangroves in Candijay, Panggangan Calape Causeway and the famed Banacon Mangoves Eco-Tours.

Relampagos pushes proposal to prevent torture

Congressman Rene L. Relampagos of the first district of Bohol raised concerns on torture remaining among the top human rights concerns in the country, along with extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances. “Even with the passage of Republic Act No. 9745 or the ‘Anti-Torture Law of 2009,’ torture still persists in various prisons and detention facilities all over the country,” the Congressman, who was previously Chair of the House of Representatives Committee on Human Rights during the 15th Congress (2009-2012), said.

It may be remembered that the Philippines adhered to the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment (CAT) on June 18, 1986. To implement the provisions of this Convention, the Philippines enacted Republic Act No. 9745 or the “Anti-Torture Law of 2009.” The philosophy under CAT and RA 9745 is on combating impunity by criminalizing torture and prosecuting perpetrators of torture. “However, we have yet to see a test case on this,” Cong. Relampagos said.

“While the Anti-Torture Law is a landmark human rights legislation, there is wisdom in enacting a law to supplement RA 9745 with focus on strengthening prevention of the commission of torture in all places of detention. The mechanism or regular visits to places of detention to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, under the OPCAT, is still not institutionalized,” the lawmaker added.

The OPCAT or the Optional Protocol on the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment was adopted on December 2002 by the General Assembly of the United Nations and entered into force in June 2006. The Philippines became a State Party to this Optional Protocol last April 17, 2012 through accession. Specifically, OPCAT advocates the establishment of a system of regular visits to be undertaken by independent international and national bodies to institutions or places where persons deprived of liberty are found.

Under the OPCAT, States parties are mandated to institutionalize its own national preventive mechanism (NPM) which will have, among others, the following functions and powers: (a) to regularly examine the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty in places of detention with a view to strengthening, if necessary, their protection against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; (b) To make recommendations to the relevant authorities with the aim of improving the treatment and the conditions of the persons deprived of their liberty and to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, taking into consideration the relevant norms of the United Nations; and (c) To submit proposals and observations concerning existing or draft legislation.

Cong. Relampagos elaborated that, “having our own NPM assures us that torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment will not find its way in our prisons, jails and all other places where persons deprived of liberty are found. And by this, we do not talk only of the physical violence committed against the detainees by law enforcers and jail personnel but also looks at the physical condition of these detention facilities such as congestion, poor living conditions, lack of ventilation, unsanitary surroundings, and others â€" which all result to torture. The NPM will ensure this through their regular visits and monitoring.”

The NPM will be given the power to conduct unhampered, unrestricted and unannounced visits to jails, prisons and detention facilities.  “It is envisioned that these regular and/or surprise visits  will deter the commission of torture.  More importantly, the NPM will give recommendations which will either be for investigation and prosecution of offenders and/or the improvement of jail conditions â€" all with the aim of preventing torture,” according to the Congressman.  The NPM will cover all places of detention from the precinct level to the national penitentiaries.

“In the present set-up of our government, the Commission on Human Rights is the only institution which is Constitutionally given the power to exercise independent visitorial powers over jails, prisons and detention facilities. If we will have an NPM through a law, independent, regular and unannounced visits to places of detention will be ensured. The NPM that we propose will be an independent body but is attached to the Commission on Human Rights for proper coordination,” said the lawmaker.

“After due consultation with relevant stakeholders, the final proposed bill will be ready for filing within the weeks to come,” Cong. Relampagos assured. “We hope to pass this within the present Congress so that the gains of the Anti-Torture Law will be adequately sustained,” he ended.

Meanwhile, the proposed House Resolution No. 1149 authored by Congressman Rene L. Relampagos,  chair of the House committee on tourism, was approved by the House Committee on Transportation in its meeting last May 7, 2014. Specifically, the HR 1149 seeks to highly commend Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) Director General William Hotchkiss III and Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya for their hard work in ensuring compliance with international civil aviation standards thus, causing the lifting of the ban on the Philippine national carrier to operate in Europe and the restoration of the Philippines international safety aviation rating to Category I status by the United States of America Federal Aviation Authority (FAA).

“I am elated with the fast action by the House of Representatives Committee on Transportation on the proposed HR 1149. This only speaks well of our appreciation to the good deeds and exemplary efforts of CAAP and DOTC. The tourism industry welcomes this and is highly anticipating its favorable effect in the months and years to come,” said Cong. Relampagos.

Capitol dads commend media
role in disaster and recovery

Capitol lawmakers on Friday hailed the media for its restless, impact accounts from early disaster hours to swift response and running recovery, proving Bohol’s prolific leaders and resilient people against the mightiest earthquake they will long remember and not forget.

At the same time, the provincial board congratulated the Bohol Chronicle for winning a national press award for best reporting on disaster.

“We (in the government) would not have accomplished today---and our enabling actions not have been known or considered---had it not been for media reporting, monitoring and drumbeating,” Board Member Tomas Abapo, Jr. said in introducing the resolution commending the press.

Presided over by Vice Gov. Concepcion Lim, the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) passed in mass motion Abapo’s measure commending the local media, both print and broadcast, “for a job well done.”

Gov. Edgar Chatto had himself earlier thanked the media for not just vividly documenting the agonies of disaster but going its way or partnering with the government and other sectors in helping the earthquake victims back on their feet.

The legislature’s praises for the media, also known as the “Fourth Estate,” climaxed in a salute to the Chronicle for winning the Philippine Press Institute (PPI) national special award for all weeklies---the Coke 2013 Bayanihan Award for Best Reporting on Disaster.

Outside the session hall, SP Floor Leader Cesar Tomas Lopez and Board Member Elpidio Jala told some newsmen it is indeed high time to recognize the press partners and fiends in tests and triumphs, effectively echoing Abapo’s view.

The SP recognized the spirited press works to have dramatically helped heighten the motivation to contribute to the process of Bohol’s massive rehabilitation.

Structures, both natural and man-made, of all makes and sizes were toppled and human lives perished by the hundreds in the mightiest and most devastating earthquake to ever hit Bohol island, even destroying parts of nearby Cebu province on October 15 last year.

Several sessions ago, the provincial board formally commended the governor and vice governor “for a job well done in mitigating the sufferings of our people thru swift emergency and rehabilitation operations.”

Pres. Benigno S. Aquino III extolled in his Christmas message to the nation the resilience of the quake-battered Boholanos to be “like the beaconing, inspiring Bethlehem star.”
He added that he had himself witnessed “how truly” the Boholanos did muscle, wounded as they were, to rise and move on.

The taller-than-the challenge, stronger-than-hope resolve to rebuild back better from pieces and miseries---while then even at the same time helping the eastern Visayas victims of monster typhoon Yolanda---more made the world not leaving Bohol, according to the board.
On his May 2 visit which was his fifth to Bohol since earthquake, the president again hailed the Bohol leaders for their solidarity, hardwork, consistency and perseverance all through these most crucial times.

“All these, plus the gaining convergence of our actions and sacrifices for each other, could not have caught widest attention if not critically for the drumbeat accounts by the media,” Abapo said.

The lawmaker enumerated the different media outlets which also include the Sunday Post, Bohol Times, Bohol Standard, Bohol Balita, DYRD, DYZD and DYTR, among others, even including community cable television operators offering airtimes for government development programs.
Board Member Dionisio Balite, publisher of the Bohol Times, gazed straightly at Abapo’s face, attentively listening to his colleague who was delivering his introductory speech in crisp premise while standing on the rostrum at the middle of the session hall.   

“Giving credit where it is also due,” Abapo continued, “it is high time to acknowledge the faithful efforts of all our media partners and friends,” with deserved mention of the Chronicle for its award-winning chronicles of the disaster.

The PPI recognition of the works of the local pioneering journal and media institution, which coincidentally marks its 60th year on May 16, on disaster and the triumph of hope over pains and fears can do help inspire the recovery effort of the province, according to the board. (Ven rebo Arigo)

SP bestows citation to Boholano
pilot who died in cloud-seeding

The provincial board of Bohol has passed a resolution expressing condolence to the bereaved family of Philip Jubane and commending him for his laudable job in cloud seeding when he died after the airplane he piloted crashed in barangay Coloma, Bagabag, Nueva Vizcaya on May 4, 2014.

Provincial Board Member  Tomas D. Abapo, Jr., initiated the measure during his short privilege speech during the regular session of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) presided over by Vice-Gov. Concepcion Lim on Friday. The said Resolution was unanimously adopted and sponsored en masse, Abapo said.

The veteran lawmaker pointed out that it is but worth giving commendation to Jubane, a Boholano, a resident of Barangay Bungahan, Antequera town, for his job in making rain for the cushion the impact El Niño. 

Jubane is survived by his wife, Heidi and a young son, municipal Kagawad Cecille Rebosura, who is a relative of the deceased, said during his burial at public cemetery last week.

Jubane’s companions in the airplane who also died in the crash are Christopher Evan Borja, Melvin Simangan ug Leilanie Naga, all were employees of the Bureau of Soils and Water Management, Department of Agriculture.

Jubane and company flew the RP C1974, a Baron fixed-wing airplane in the cloud seeding, during the last flight of four when it crashed at past 2 PM in barangay Villa Coloma, Bagabag, Nueva Vizcaya.

They flew over Magat river and watershed areas as part of the “flight plan” for cloud-seeding from Cauayan City airport, Isabela, a neighboring province of Nueva Vizcaya, the report said.

Reports from Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) in Bagabag airport said that the airplane was commissioned by SN Aboitiz Power-Magat Inc. for cloud-seeding over Magat watershed.

“Cloud seeding, a form of weather modification, is the attempt to change the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds, by dispersing substances into the air that serve as cloud condensation orice nuclei, which alter the microphysical processes within the cloud. The usual intent is to increase precipitation (rain or snow),” according to Wikipedia.

In Bohol, cloud seeding was also employed with the use of an airplane rented by the province as the dry spell hit the province sometime in 2012. (RVO)

Negros Or declared conflict
manageable and dev’t ready

Taking into account the fact that no major tactical offensive has been launched by its insurgents for two years now, the Provincial Government of Negros Oriental found it fitting to declare the province “Conflict Manageable and Development Ready” Wednesday.

Considered a great, momentous and historical event by Negrenses, everyone acknowledged that finally, the Bayanihan spirit has created an environment conducive to the province’s economic development gearing towards a just and lasting peace.

It has been noted by the Philippine Army that NegOr’s insurgency level has significantly dwindled in the past years and its insurgents severely reduced and weakened in terms of manpower, firearms, affected barangays and activities and this is seen as a strong indication that they can no longer threaten the province’s stability.

The “peace-full” affair was led by NegOr Gov. Roel Degamo and Vice-Gov. Mark Macias where a video presentation of the province’s Internal Peace and Security Operations (IPSO) was shown to the guests followed by the reading of the Joint Declaration which was consequently signed, together with a Joint Letter Directive, by Gov. Degamo, NegOr League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP) Pres. Bentham dela Cruz, Directorate for Integrated Police Operations (DIPO) Visayas Dir. PCSupt Catalino Rodriguez, PRO-7 Regional Director PCSupt Danilo Constantino, 3ID Philippine Army (PA) Commander MGen Aurelio Baladad, CenCom Commander MGen John Bonafos and Bohol Gov. Edgar M. Chatto.

PA 302nd Infantry Commander Bgen Francisco Patrimonio, Army Commander MGen Hernando Irriberri, DILG OIC-Provincial Director Farah Gentuya and Bantay Bayanihan’s Marietta Jambora also graced the event.

Defense Sec. Voltaire Gazmin, Guest of Honor and Speaker, who, after the formal program, gave a press conference, warmly praised the coordinated and concerted efforts among the LGUs, the AFP, PNP, the Civil Society Organizations and all peace-loving individuals and organizations and called it “a historic occasion aptly manifested by the unity of goal and direction by both our civil and military authorities to address insurgency in this province and in the whole Region 7.”

The unity of goal exhibited by everyone, he said, got the attention of the national government so much so that the province would get full support from it in guarding its newly-achieved glory and peacefulness and encouraged everyone to continue fighting insurgency through peaceful means.

Gov. Degamo on the other hand said that this is a welcome development in his administration and that with its current status, the province is now open to more economic and business opportunities, bringing more benefits to the people.

He cited the combined efforts of law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders in bringing their services to the hinterlands which has been instrumental in making the people put their trust once more in the government.

Meanwhile, the Province of Bohol, now widely-known in peace-keeping circles because of its brainchild, the Countryside Development Program Purok Power Movement (CDP-PPM), which is widely embraced by the AFP due to its tested-and-proven approach/effect in bringing rebels back to the folds of the law, had earlier received a letter of invitation.

Eager to know and hear how the Province of Bohol achieved its current status of being insurgency-free, and bent on achieving a similar state of affairs, NegOr Gov. Roel Degamo, in said letter addressed to Gov. Chatto, asked the latter to speak about “The Bohol Experience” and to share with them the Boholanos’ struggles, and the whats and hows that led to Bohol’s acclaimed position.

Heeding the request, Chatto humbly explained that Winning the Peace (instead of Winning the War) is the essence of the Internal Peace and Security Plan (IPSP) Bayanihan, where he expounded that according to United Nations organizations, mainstreaming peace-building can be pursued in the traditional areas of development cooperation such as education, health and land management.

He said that fostering peace and development in conflict-affected regions requires citizen-oriented governance working in partnership with an active civil society; that Integrated Territorial Security System (ITSS) work can only succeed under an environment where the people participate and operate with the peace-makers of government.

Chatto added that slow progress toward both peace and sustainable development is due in part to conflicting and uncoordinated approaches among diverse stakeholders; that even within the government, cooperation and coordination is critical in the delivery of basic services to the people.

Furthermore, the “Whole-of-the-Nation Approach” of IPSP Bayanihan is also the “Convergence Approach” being adopted by the national government and International Aid Organizations such as the USAid in its delivery of socio-economic projects in Bohol, which is also one of the strategies of the CDP-PPM, Chatto continued.

This same approach can be synonymous with many terms like convergence, multi-stakeholder, multi-pronged, or multiâ€"level; while the other critical approach development is “people-centered approach” which is, in essence, means “empowering people” that which gives substance to “inclusive growth” in national economic development.

“Countryside development is the key to achieve ‘inclusive growth’ because it is centered on the people and empowers them,” Gov. Chatto pointed out strongly.

Other programs being used and implemented in areas declared like this are the participation of peace-keeping forces like the PNP and the mobilization of their Barangay Peace-Keeping Actions Teams (BPATS) and Barangay Intelligence Network (BIN), massive and regular conduct of CARHRIHL info campaign or the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, Chatto said.

“Government must work with the empowered people, business sector, civil society, as well as our NGOs and with the different segments of our community.  What is essential is the presence of our law enforcers for they are with us all along in this journey, providing us a feeling of strength and security,” Chatto added.

Gov. Chatto firmly believes that with this declaration, NegOr is on its way to achieving true peace and development.

Gov. Degamo gaily acknowledged this and energetically gave his word that “we will continue to be aggressive in bringing the services to the hinterlands.”

Part of NegOr’s monthly medical mission is being conducted in far-flung areas in the province where Degamo said he wants health services delivered to the doorstep of the people, which also aptly provides the venue for the Provincial Government to hear from its constituents what services they would prefer, one of the reasons that convinced rebels to go back to the folds of the law.

This very same strategy is quite similar to Bohol’s HEAT IT Caravan which encompasses the province’s overarching development framework in its delivery of basic services right into the people’s very own doorstep.

Being now development-ready, Gov. Degamo is expecting an increase in business and economic activity where investors will be attracted to pour their resources which will boost the province’s economy.   

Cash assistance for thirty rebel returnees and cash incentives for Guns for Peace were awarded during the ceremony.

Negros Oriental is marked as the 5th “Manageable Conflict and Development Ready” province here in the Visayas; where out of its 16 provinces, six are insurgency-free and five provinces are manageable conflict and development ready.

Currently gloriously basking in its current status, “Negros Oriental should now strive to be an insurgency-free province,” thus challenged Gov. Chatto of Bohol. (jlv/EDCom)

Sevilla, Bohol has new mayor

The town of Sevilla, Bohol will have a new mayor starting this Wednesday (May 14) when the Commission on Election Manila would convene a new board of canvassers and declare 2013 mayoral candidate Ernesita B. Digal as the town’s legitimate chief executive.

Digal, who garnered 2,624 votes as against Juliet Dano in the May 2013 elections, is expected to be proclaimed by Comelec Manila as the new mayor of Sevilla on May 14 even as the Supreme Court has not handed down its ruling on the issue.

The Comelec in an en banc resolution had cancelled Dano’s certificate of candidacy. However, she was still proclaimed mayor of the town, and continues to function as of this writing.
Comelec said that since the Supreme Court has not issued a temporary restraining order (TRO), its decision on the fate of Dano and Digal is final and executory.

According to the Comelec, “Section 8 (2) of Resolution No. 9523, in relation to Section 13 (b), Rule 18 of the 1993 Comelec Rules of Procedure provides that a decision or resolution of the Commission en banc is deemed final and executory if no restraining order is issued by the Supreme Court.”

“The records do not show that an Order was issued by the Supreme Court restraining the execution of the assailed Resolution of the Commission en banc,” the Comelec said in its writ of execution dated May 6, 2014, and was signed by Comelec acting chairman Elias R. Yusoph.
The poll body has ordered that a Special Municipal Board of Canvassers â€" to be composed of Atty. Abigail Justine Cuaresma-Lilagan (chairperson), Atty. Kimberley Joy Alzate-Cu (vice-chairman), Atty Genevieve V. Guevarra (member), and three support staff â€" would convene on May 14, 2014 at the Comelec Session Hall in Manila “to proclaim Ernesita B. Digal… as the duly elected mayor of Sevilla, Bohol.”

Digal, represented by her two legal counsels, Atty. Menedio Thadeus P. Bernido and Atty. Teodoro M. Lagang, ran as mayor under the Liberal Party in the 2013 elections.
Bernido in an interview with Bohol Sunday Post has said that the decision of the Comelec is a reaffirmation of their long-standing position that Dano, after all, had no legal standing to have run as mayor of Sevilla.

But according to Atty. Handel Lagunay, counsel for Dano, the Comelec should have exercised “judicial courtesy” since the Supreme Court is yet to rule on its petition seeking for a TRO.
“We don’t expect this writ of execution,” Lagunay told the Post last night. “We are surprised with the decision of the Comelec.”

Lagunay stressed that proclaiming Digal as mayor of Sevilla is still inappropriate at this time. (MIKE ORTEGA LIGALIG)

kay byudo naman sya, byuda nalang pud unta iya gipangita. luoy, gataroy pa intawon to sa dihang ang sundang mitidlom sa iyang kaunoran ug kabukogan.

Nothing Can Separate You
Daily Devotional for Sunday, September 6th, 2015

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Romans 8:35

Nothing you could ever experience, no matter how terrible or frightening, could ever separate you from the love of God. No tribulation and distress you might ever suffer could be so intense that God’s love for you is not even more fervent. No persecution could be so painful that God’s love cannot bring comfort. Famine might starve you of food, but you will never hunger for the Father’s love. Poverty cannot strip you of God’s compassion, just as even death itself is incapable of robbing you of your heavenly Father’s infinite love. If you base your view of God’s love on your circumstances, you will become confused. There may be times when you will ask, “How could a loving God allow this to happen to me?” You may begin to question what you find clearly stated in the Word of God. God promised that you would never be separated from His love; He did not say that you would never face hardship, persecution, poverty, or danger. If you doubt that God could love you and still allow you to experience difficult experiences, consider the life of Jesus. If you allow the death of Jesus on the cross to forever settle any questions you might have about God’s love, you will approach difficult circumstances with confidence. Knowing that there will never be anything that could separate you from God’s perfect love, you will watch to see how God expresses His love in each circumstance. Don’t ever judge God’s love based on your circumstances. Instead, evaluate your circumstances from the perspective of God’s love.  Henry and Richard Blackaby

Long Enough on the Mountain
Daily Devotional for Monday, September 7th, 2015

The LORD our God spoke to us in Horeb, saying: "'You have dwelt long enough at this mountain." Deuteronomy 1:6

If God allowed us to live on the “mountaintop,” we would not experience trials, but neither would we achieve any victories. The Israelites had gathered at the foot of Mount Horeb while God spoke to them and gave them His law. It was a breathtaking experience! Fire and smoke covered that awesome mountain; lightning flashed, and loud trumpet sounds pierced the air in a deafening crescendo! The ground at the foot of the mountain shook, and the people trembled in fear (Exod. 19:16-25). As important as it was for God’s people to have this inspiring encounter with Him, their Lord had not rescued them from Egypt in order for them to settle around a mountain in the wilderness. God delivered them so that they could conquer the Promised Land. God wanted to demonstrate His power to the Israelites so that they would trust Him in their conquest of Canaan. Finally, God announced that they had been long enough at the mountain; it was time to go to battle. The mountain is an enticing place to set up camp. Peter, James, and John were prepared to reside on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus, but their Lord knew that a demon-possessed boy needed their assistance down below (Matt. 17:4, 14-18). At times God will graciously provide you a mountaintop experience. These times come in many settings: during your time alone with Him, at a Christian conference, by reading a Christian book, or at a prayer meeting. You may wish you could spend the rest of your life basking in the glow of your encounter with God. But remember, these mountaintop encounters are God’s way of preparing you for the battles that await you. Henry and Richard Blackaby.

SEN. MARCOS DESCRIBES AS OPPRESSIVE THE RANDOM INSPECTION OF BALIKBAYAN BOXES

SENATOR Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. on Monday hit the government for its oppressive treatment of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), which, ironically, are being hailed as modern-day heroes for their huge contribution to Philippine economy through their billions of dollars remittances.

“I don’t understand this oppression of our OFWs,” he said referring to the plan of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) to implement a random inspection of balikbayan boxes as a strategy to curb smuggling.

Marcos questioned the BOC’s plan of random inspection of balikbayan boxes considering the huge budget given to the agency to purchase x-ray machines for inspection of cargoes.

“Opening the balikbayan boxes for inspection is not necessary because we have given the Bureau of Customs a big budget to buy x-ray machines and these machines can be used to inspect the balikbayan boxes,” he said in an interview over radio dzIQ.

Marcos said he could not understand why the anti-smuggling campaign of the BOC should zero in on balikbayan boxes while big-time smuggling facing the agency needed focused attention.

“The priority problem of smuggling is not the balikbayan boxes. We have heard of two thousand containers that had disappeared and could not be found by the (Bureau of) Customs. We received news that even trash from another country found its way to Philippine soil. Why are they not looking into these thoroughly?” he said.

While he agreed with the BOC campaign against smuggling, Marcos said it should focus on big syndicates operating “inside its own backyard.”

“If some balikbayan boxes are being used for smuggling, I’m sure these are small compared to big violators. The worth of the balikbayan box is not the money spent for its content, but the sacrifices endured by the OFW abroad to send small things that will make his or her family here happy,” he said.

www.tubagbohol.com is now 8 years old...

pasuko-suko aron mapansin

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Veteran solon files measure that will exempt senior citizens from paying travel tax
By Sammy F. Martin

MANILA - A veteran lawmaker on Monday has filed a measure that will give all senior citizens to be exempted from travel tax and terminal fees at all airports and seaports on both domestic and international travel.

BUHAY Party-list Rep. Lito Atienza filed House Bill 5997 that will afford the country’s more than six million senior citizens the opportunity to travel and see all the beautiful sights and historical landmarks in our country, as well as tourist destinations abroad that they have not been able to visit due to financial constraints.

“Our senior citizens have spent the most productive years of their lives working and contributing to the country’s economy in general, as well as to the development of their respective communities, in particular. It is but right that we give back to our senior citizens and encourage them to travel while they are still strong enough to do so,” Atienza said.

“This is a very timely incentive for them to travel and be our country’s very own tourism ambassadorsâ€"to enjoy travelling across the country and different parts of the world and to help promote our major tourist attractions such as the underground caves in Palawan, the Chocolate Hills in Bohol, and the world-famous beaches of Boracay, to name a few,” he added.

The former Manila mayor had always strongly advocated for granting benefits and privileges for our lolos and lolas starting with his “Mahal Ko Si Lolo, Mahal Ko Si Lola Foundation” in 1976.

It paved the way for the passage of the Senior Citizens Law which grants discounts on medicines, groceries, transportation and even movies. (PNA)

mura man ug walay angay kabalak-an ning sitwasyona

Comelec likely to delist 160,000 registered overseas voters from voters' list
By Ferdinand G. Patinio

MANILA - Some 160,000 registered overseas voters are likely to be delisted from the voters list, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said.

According to Comelec Resolution No. 9983, there are a total of 163,019 Filipino voters abroad, who failed to vote in the last two elections, that are scheduled for deactivation by the Resident Election Registration Boards (RERBs).

“For purposes of the May 9, 2016 elections, after updating the voting history of each and every registered overseas voters, there are 163,019, who failed to vote in the 2010 and 2013 elections,” said the ruling dated Aug. 18.

The resolution noted that keeping the records of these voters will have an effect on the deeds of the poll body.

“Maintaining the registration records of those who failed to vote in two successive elections in the National Registry of Overseas Voters and in the Certified List of Overseas Voters would have an adverse impact in our election preparation, budgetary estimation, and voter turnout,” the ruling said.

It added, “It would also affect the accuracy of having real numbers in the registration count for purposes of data collection for future reference.”

Section 13 of the Republic Act 10590 provides that the RERBs shall deactivate and remove the registration records of any person, who did not vote in two consecutive national elections.

However, the Comelec en banc said these voters can contest the actions of the RERBs as they are given until Sept. 30 to object their inclusion in the Order of Deactivation.

The resolution added that they will be notified by RERBs about their inclusion in the said order.

In the 2013 mid-term elections, a total of 238,557 registered voters have failed to vote in the 2007 and 2010 polls.

But, their registrations were not deactivated instead the poll body issued a resolution allowing them to vote as long as they file their Manifestations of Intention to Vote.

Meanwhile, the Comelec reported that, as of Aug. 6, there are already 1,147,293 registered overseas absentee voters for the May 2016 polls.

The deadline of registration for Filipinos overseas is on Oct. 31. (PNA)

DESPERATION could have crept into the camp of administration presidential candidate Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, or it just released a trial balloon to gauge the pulse of the people.

This was the reaction of Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. to reports that a “Mar-Noy” tandem, a team-up between Roxas and President Aquino in the 2016 elections, is in the offing.

“For me, it looks like a little desperation on the part of the camp of Mar and it somewhat shows that they can’t get (a vice presidential candidate for him),” Marcos said.

Marcos said if he had his way, he would advise Roxas, whom he considers as a friend, to stop floating this idea because it only creates an impression that nobody wants to run with him as vice president.

“I would advise him na huwag ganoon kasi ang dating sa tao ay parang walang gustong sumama sa ‘yo  kaya’t napipilitan kayong kunin si Pangulong Aquino para mag-vice (president),” he said.

But Marcos also thought that the Mar-Noy tandem could just be a trial balloon to test whether it is acceptable to the people or not.

“Kung minsan parang trial balloon na sinusubuk-subukan lang para makita ang reaksyon ng tao. Siguro isa ‘yun. I don’t know kung gaano talaga kaseryoso iyung move na silang dalawa ang magka-tandem,” he said.

Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos, Jr. yesterday told vice governors of Mindanao the substitute bill for the controversial Bangsamoro Basic Law is not just inclusive but beneficial and fair to all: Moros and non-Moros alike.

Marcos, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Local Government, was one of the guest speakers in the Mindanao Vice Governors’ Conference held at the Limketkai Luxe Hotel in Cagayan De Oro City. He said he only did “the right thing to do’’ in crafting the substitute bill.

The conference was led by Misamis Oriental Vice Governor Jose Mari Pelaez, the vice president for Mindanao of the Vice Governors League of the Philippines.

“I believe we tried very hard to be fair to everyone concerned,” Marcos said when asked in the press briefing about allegations that his substitute bill, the Basic Law on Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (Senate Bill No. 2849), watered down the powers granted to the Bangsamoro government.

Explaining the reasons behind the changes, Marcos pointed out that many of the provisions of the bill treated the Bangsamoro government similarly to other local governments in the country, in order to draw them closer to mainstream Filipino society instead of treating them as a separate group.

This principle, according to Marcos, guided the substitute bill’s provisions on the authority of the Bangsamoro government over Lake Lanao, which some critics in social media have tagged as “anti-Moro”.

“What is different in our substitute bill is we just considered what was described either as inland waters or Bangsamoro waters to adhere to the definition of municipal waters. I don’t see why we need to change it,” Marcos said.

Under the Local Government Code, "municipal waters" includes streams, lakes, and tidal waters within the municipality that are not the subject of private ownership and are not within national parks, public forests, timber lands, forest reserves or fishery reserves.

Marcos noted that SB 2894 even extended the boundary for marine waters from 15 kilometers up to 22.224 kilometers (12 nautical miles) from the low-water mark of the coasts that are part of the Bangsamoro geographical area.

However, he said SB 2894 ensured that the power plants generating electricity from the waters of Lake Lanao, as well as the transmission facilities connected to the national grid, remained under the supervision of the National Power Corporation.

“Lake Lanao is critical as it supplies 60 percent of all the power in Mindanao. We all know that we are in crisis when it comes to power generation in Mindanao,” Marcos said. Rotating brownouts lasting from four to eight hours frequently occurs in many areas in Mindanao.

During the Senate hearings on the bill, the Mindanao Development Authority took the position that Lake Lanao should be excluded from the Bangsamoro territory, and should be maintained under the exclusive control of the national government for the communal use and benefit of the entire Mindanao.

Marcos said that while he tried his best to correct the flaws of the draft BBL in the substitute bill, it could be further improved with additional inputs from his fellow senators during the period of amendment and in the bicameral conference committee, after both Houses of Congress have passed their own version of the measure.

Other than the Bangsamoro, the two-day conference tackled other topics including the status of development programs and projects for Mindanao, the K to 12 basic education program, and the energy situation in Mindanao.

Zamboanga City Rep. Celso Lobregat was also one of the guest speakers at the conference, attended by 15 vice governors from Mindanao and one delegate from Aurora province, as well as several members of provincial boards.

murag gidugo o di ba kaha gilaygit ning usa ka iring...

May God Rule in Our Midst

Daily Devotional for Monday, August 17th, 2015

"Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven." Matthew 6:10

In heaven, God’s will is the only priority. A word from God brings angels to do His bidding, immediately and without question. Jesus instructed us to pray that God would accomplish His will in our world in the same way. This means that God’s purposes would be preeminent in our homes, our businesses, our schools, our churches, and our governments.

Jesus taught His disciples to pray that God’s purposes be carried out in the world around them. In modeling how they should pray, Jesus was teaching His disciples how to share God’s heart. He demonstrated this again at Gethsemane when He prayed “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will” (Matt. 26:39). It is as we seek God’s kingdom on earth, and not our own purposes, that we gain the same mind as our heavenly Father. We become co-laborers with God by praying faithfully in agreement with His desires.

As you seek the Lord’s will, He will guide your praying. He will invite you not only to pray, but also to become involved in His activity as He answers your prayer. If He places a burden upon you to pray for an individual’s salvation, that burden is also His invitation to join His activity in that person’s life. Prayer will prepare you to be a servant through whom God can bring about His will on earth. Pray that the Lord’s absolute rule on earth will begin in your life. Then watch to see how God uses you to extend His Lordship to others   Henry and Richard Blackaby .

Substitute BBL bill provides transition measures to ensure smooth handover - Sen. Marcos

Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos, Jr. on Wednesday said his proposed substitute bill on the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBBL) will ensure a smooth transition from the current Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) government to the proposed Bangsamoro government even if the bill is not approved by October this year.

Marcos, Chairman of the Committee on Local Government tasked to deliberate on the BBL, earlier said he will file the committee report on the substitute BBL on Monday but stressed he cannot predict how long it would take the Senate to approve the measure.

“Pagka lumabas na sa committee ko, it is out of my control. It is up to the Senate, up to the House and the bicam (bicameral conference committee). I will not make promises I cannot fulfill or I have no right to make,” Marcos explained.

If the BBL is not approved in time for the filling of certificates of candidacy (COCs) on October 12 to 16 this year, the ARRM elections will be held alongside the May 9, 2016 national and local elections.

“Kung wala pang BBL, magpapa file ang members of the assembly to run again for the ARMM assembly because the Bangsamoro government does not exist by then,” Marcos explained.

The situation becomes complicated, according to Marcos, if the BBL is approved after the ARMM elections are held, or when the official campaign period for ARMM has started, since the BBL calls for the abolition of ARMM.

“Once the BBL is enacted into law, ARMM will be abolished and the Bangsamoro government will then sit in the form of a transition authority. Isinama na namin sa transition authority ang mga elected ARMM assemblymen so the phase out of ARMM is not too sudden,” Marcos said.

Likewise, Marcos said he cannot guarantee the enactment of BBL within the term of the current administration. He noted that legislative deliberations are unpredictable, and pointed out that several groups have vowed to challenge the measure before the Supreme Court once it becomes a law.

“Hindi natin masasabi kung ano ang mangyayari, yung mga challenges sa Supreme Court, how long that will take, kung mananalo, kung matatalo. It is very hard to pin it down. As I said, ang maipapangako ko for sure is on Monday, the Committee Report will be filed,” Marcos said.

Assuming BBL is not passed within the term of the current administration, Marcos said it can simply be re-filed in the next Congress where the deliberations need not go back to square one.

“We have a new rule that was adopted in the last Congress, that we can take note of the findings in previous hearings on the same subject, kaya hindi na kailangang ulitin,” Marcos pointed out.

Meanwhile, Marcos also said he also ensured the substitute BBL provides protection to the estimated 26,000 public servants  who would be displaced  with the abolition of ARMM.

“Wala tayong magagawa, because if they abolish the offices--- and they will abolish the offices of ARMM----e wala nang item yung mga civil servants. Kaya tanggal sila sa serbisyo,” Marcos said.

“We want to make sure that they will have all the guarantees that the Civil Service Code grants them, most importantly the security of tenure and also length of service,” he added.

Noting that many teachers in ARMM would be displaced with the establishment of the Bangsamoro government, Marcos said they should be given first crack for the same positions that would be opened under the new regional government.

On the other hand, Marcos said that those who would not be absorbed under the new Bangsamoro government and would opt for early retirement should get all the benefits due them.

“Kung mag-e-early retirement sila, ang calculation ng kanilang pension is from the length of service. We have to make sure that mako-consider yung talagang buong length of service nila,” Marcos said.

The Senate debates on the proposed BBL is expected to go into full swing next week, a day or two after Marcos files the committee report on the proposed law.

Now!

Daily Devotional for Friday, August 7th, 2015

Then another of His disciples said to Him, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." Matthew 8:21

Often our struggle as Christians is not in deciding whether we should obey Christ but in obeying immediately. We may acknowledge our need to follow Christ and commit ourselves to do what He has told us. Yet when God reveals His will to us, that is the time to obey! God’s revelation of His will is His invitation to respond immediately.

Some would-be disciples pledged their willingness to follow Jesus, but they told Him they were not ready yet. In Jesus’ day, a Jewish man was expected to care for his elderly parents until they died. One man wanted to wait until his father died before going with Jesus. This would be an honorable delay. The man had to choose between this important responsibility and heeding a call from the Lord. Yet God knew this man, and He knew the man’s father. God would have taken care of the man’s father, if he only would have followed Jesus. This was an opportunity to walk with the Son of God, yet the concerns of this life were competing for priority with obedience to God.

Timing our obedience is crucial. Invitations from God come with a limited opportunity to respond. Some opportunities to serve Him, if not accepted immediately, will be lost. Occasions to minister to others may pass us by. When God invites us to intercede for someone, it may be critical that we stop what we are doing and immediately adjust our lives to what God is doing. Missing opportunities to serve the Lord can be tragic. When an invitation comes from God, the time to respond is now.     Henry and Richard Blackaby .

Giving Your Best
Daily Devotional for Saturday, August 8th, 2015

You shall not sacrifice to the LORD your God a bull or sheep which has any blemish or defect, for that is an abomination to the LORD your God. Deuteronomy 17:1

God’s love moved Him to sacrifice that which meant the most to Himâ€"His only Son. Our response, if we truly understand His love for us, is the desire to give back to God that which means the most to us. The Old Testament reveals that God set forth high standards for the sacrifices He required of His people. A worthy sacrifice had to cost the people something. As their hearts shifted away from God, the people began struggling to give God costly offerings. They would bring blind, lame, and sick animals, assuming God could not tell the difference (Mal. 1:. God saw what they were doing and declared their offerings to be in vain (Mal. 1:10). Throughout the Old Testament period, God was setting the stage for the ultimate, perfect, and sinless sacrifice of His Son for the sins of humanity. The offerings we give back to God reveal our hearts’ condition. A heart that overflows with gratitude for God’s love will respond in selfless devotion. If we are unwilling to sacrifice our time, our possessions, our money, or our energy, we indicate that we do not love God as He desires. God takes delight in the person who gives to Him cheerfully out of a loving heart, a person who understands that God is the source of everything he has and who knows that God will more than compensate for whatever is sacrificed for Him (2 Cor. 9:. If you struggle in giving your best offerings to God, pause and reflect on what God sacrificed for you. Trust Him and give Him the best that you have because you love Him with all your heart. Henry and Richard Blackaby .

FASTER INTERNET, RELIABLE TELECOMS SHOULD BE A PRIORITY OF NEXT ADMINISTRATIONâ€"SEN. MARCOS

Faster internet speeds and robust telecommunications systems should be a priority of the next administration, Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos, Jr. said.

In the open forum portion of the Asia CEO Talks at Marriott Hotel on Wednesday, Marcos noted that telecommunications has made all economies a part of the global marketplace.

“It was five or six years ago when the volume of commerce conducted on the internet surpassed the volume of commerce conducted face to face in stores, in malls and all of our more traditional ways of buying and selling. That is something that we must immediately recognize,” Marcos said.

With these changes in global commerce, he said the next administration should adopt a mindset where telecommunications, especially the Internet, is part of the Philippines' essential infrastructure.

Marcos noted that the Philippines ranks among countries with the slowest and most expensive Internet services in the world.

According to a study on consumer Internet speeds, as of May 2015, the Philippines had the second slowest average download speed among 22 Asian countries, next only to war-torn Afghanistan.

Internet metrics provider Ookla found that the Philippines averaged a download speed of just 3.64 megabytes per second (Mbps), which ranked 176th out of 202 countries worldwide.

The global average broadband download speed of 23.3 Mbps is nearly eight times faster than in the Philippines.

“How are we supposed to conduct business on this basis? You and I all know that when it comes to a point where there is no Wi-Fi, we don't quite know what to do with ourselves because we have to keep that line of communication going,” Marcos said.

“It's simply something that we have not paid attention to and it is something that is weakening the ability of our businessmen to conduct business in this global marketplace,” he added.

Marcos said the Philippines can learn from the best practices of other countries and adopt policies that proved successful in providing better Internet service.

“The technologies exist, the skills that are required exist, and it is just a question of us taking on the policy and the concept that this is important and an essential service. It's not a luxury, it's not for fun because this is the way that business is conducted in this day and age,” Marcos said.

Pilot cheats death as plane carrying fish crash lands in Palawan

PUERTO PRINCESA CITY, July 31 (PNA) -- A small aircraft that brings live fish to Luzon smashed into the ground of the airstrip in Barangay New Barbacan in the northern Palawan town of Roxas early Thursday morning.

Initial reports obtained by the Philippine News Agency (PNA) from Senior Inspector Salvador Tabi of the Municipal Police Office (MPO) of Roxas said the light aircraft with registry number RP-C9078 owned by Aviation Tech Inc. Company (ATIC) was piloted by Capt. Eugene Abela when it met an accident in Palawan.

The light aircraft, which was being used to transport live fish products from the province reportedly came from Cavite and was on its way to San Vicente town, also in the north.

It crashed due to mechanical malfunction, said Tabi.

On its way to make an emergency landing at the Roxas airstrip after the pilot sensed the mechanical trouble, the light aircraft’s front wheel broke, causing it to land forcefully to the ground.

Abela was safe from the incident, but the aircraft suffered major damages.

Further investigation is still being conducted. (PNA)