Category: Advocacies

Soldier carrying rifle while walking across a tropical riverside bridge

From Enemies To Brothers-In-Arms

Many questions were seeking to be answered: Could the memory of years of fighting simply be erased? Could we bury the suspicion between Christians and Muslims? How do I deal with the prejudice among my veteran soldiers – or the fears of the former rebels? Could we be certain of their loyalty? And, perhaps most difficult of all, how could we erase the invisible, yet almost tangible divide between “them” and “us”? Ultimately, the question was simple: How does one welcome a man who may once have been shooting at soldiers like us – and now ask him to become our brother-in-arms?

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Families boarding buses while uniformed personnel coordinate an urban evacuation

The Children of Carmen

On our last night in Davao, I asked what they had learned from our trip. After hearing many of the kids offering gratitude for the trip, a young boy – someone who had stayed silent and detached for most of the trip – raised his hand slowly, his eyes wide and innocent, and when acknowledged, spoke candidly in their dialect. His words pierced straight through my heart: “I learned that not all soldiers are killers.” Silence. “And not all Christians are land-grabbers,” he added.

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Make Huey drab green, thin jungle canopy, realistic evacuation clearing

What I Learned From the Hills of Hilongos

Coming home, marching out from those dark woods, I would appreciate more clearly why General Abadia insisted that officers must first prove themselves in the trenches before aspiring for higher commands. Men do not follow rank. They follow credibility. They follow leaders who have carried the same heavy pack, walked the same knee-deep muddy trails, endured the same sleepless, shivering nights, and shared the exact same mortal dangers.

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The Five Days That Changed The Way I See The World (Part 5)

The workshop’s greatest gift is that it taught me that stewardship is not reserved for environmentalists, scientists, or large landowners. It belongs to all of us. It begins in the choices we make each day. The trees we decide to plant. The plastics we choose not to use. The compost piles we create. The local farmers we support. The children we teach to love the earth. These may appear to be small acts. But nature has always taught us that small things, repeated faithfully, eventually transform entire landscapes.

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The Five Days That Changed The Way I See The World (Part 3)

As I walked back across Gran Verde Farm that afternoon, I found myself looking down more often than ever before. Not because I was tired, but because I had developed a new respect for what lay beneath my feet. I realized that the greatest lesson of the day wasn’t about compost, bees, worms, or insects. It was about relationships. Nature survives because everything contributes to something greater than itself.

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