July in Manila has been quite eventful!! We just came back from a visit to Bohol. Bohol is a beautiful province in the middle of the Philippines, and is famous for it’s chocolate hills, a collection of conical hills that a small area. Legend has it that the town being plagued by a giant carabao, who ate all of their crops. Finally having had enough, the townsfolk took all of their spoiled food and placed it in such a way that the carabao would not miss it. Sure enough, the carabao ate it, but his stomach couldn't handle the spoiled food, so he defecated, leaving behind him a mound of feces, until he had emptied his stomach of the food. The feces then dried, forming the Chocolate Hills.

 But wait, this one is even better……There was a Gluttonous giant named Dano that ate everything in his path. One day he came to a plain. He saw a beautiful young woman named Eng. To win her affection, he needed to lose weight. So he excreted everything he ate. In the end, his fecal matter covered the land and he won Eng's affection. Enough said!

We felt that the best way to see, feel, and experience the province was on motorbikes. This is why I love the Phils. Something that would take at least 6 months of written tests, lessons, and drivers test in Canada is equivalent to a 3 minute quick and dirty lesson in the Philippines. Driving through the hills was amazing! Dan even convinced us that we had to climb an actual hill…which honestly, is WAY easier than it looks. However, with the help of a few local kids and teens, and with a lot of blood, sweat, and tears (LITERALLY) we made our way up the hill (which btw has an incline of at least 75 degrees!). I am embarrassed to say that these kids, IN THEIR FLIP FLOPS, could have lapped me 10 times over. I’m either incredibly out of shape, or they are just super human.

After the climb, one of the teens took us to her village and her house to meet her family. After talking to her for a while, we learned that she should be in her first year of high school, but is not attending because of financial difficulties. This really struck a chord with me because she is the very person that mountains of legislation that we’ve been reading over the past couple months is supposed to help and protect. Statistics say that the Philippines has one of the highest literacy rates in southeast Asia, but what good is this when many of these children don’t have further education to supplement it. It is one matter when these children don’t want to attend secondary school in order to carry forward with the family’s farm or learn the trade of their family’s business, but it is a completely different matter when the child has hopes and dreams of being successful, only to be held back by the lack of financial means. Legislation dictates free schooling for ALL children up to the end of secondary school, so where is the disconnect? I think it is time for the President and her band of clowns to take responsibility and provide some accountability of the situation.

Work on the textbook for the child rights class has concluded, and Tim and I are now assigned to working on a report that will be targeted toward the participating member countries of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations). ASEAN is in the midst of proposing the creation of a human rights body that will monitor the member countries. Although all of these nations are already members of the UN and signatories to many human rights conventions and treaties, regional human rights mechanisms are beneficial in ensuring that international human rights laws are observed and implemented by the countries who have agreed to them, and to ensure that member states address human rights concerns in their respective areas of jurisdiction. This purpose of this report is to demonstrate that all the ASEAN member countries are capable of signing to and being monitored by a regional human rights body.

It is interesting to note that on paper, there are many countries who have acceded to or at least signed most human rights conventions, and then there are those who have left the majority of them unsigned. How accurate of a depiction is this of the true human rights landscape of the nation? If an alien was to come to earth and choose a country to live on based on how many treaties and conventions both these countries has signed, let’s just say that Cambodia would win hands down, and the United States...well, they would be at the back of the bus..no..they'd be hangin off the back fender. Hmmmmmmmmm………. Happy 4th!

Labels: Chocolate Hills

posted by shivani  # 11:43 PM