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A Vision For The Bases

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First Published: Reflections - Philippine Daily Inquirer Publication Date: 12th September 1991 Author's Name: Father Shay Cullen SSC

The hard torrential rain battered on the rusted tin roof. It was smaller now because of the volcanic eruption. Volcanoes have a way of reducing the size of small huts clinging precariously to mountain sides or teetering on the brink of ravines.

Last June when swarms of earth tremors threatened to pitch them into the abyss and dash them to the ground I had a vision.

Volcanic stones and ash rained down from thunderous skies lit by lightening bolts of burning sulphur shaking the little hut that Neuves and Isidero called home. After eight hours of bombardment, loaded with sand and ash it sagged and then folded like a crumbled cloth only moments after they had grabbed their baby and dashed out into the night.

A few days later I was helping this family and some others to repair their huts. Then I sat on the bare mountain and looked down to where the US military base, a wealthy monster of conspicuous consumption, stretches away to the distant forest of Bataan and then bowed my head and prayed.

Lord, how has this come to be? What can replace it ? I lifted my eyes and saw a vision of the future, a brave new world where principled and determined Filipinos were filled with honest commitment to end suffering and exploitation.

In my vision the military facilities in the tropical rain forest are now part of a World University of Ecology. Instead of soldiers learning to wound and kill, thousands of students are intent on learning how to end suffering and prolong life. They gather medicinal plant wisdom from their teachers - the Aeta, tribal forest dwellers versed in the healing secrets of nature.

My gaze drifts to the nearby Cubi airport where once a military menace threatened a nuclear fire storm that would engulf the forest and the people. In my vision it is no more and the runway, hangers and repair facilities are leased to a consortium of airlines where a thriving industry repairs and rebuilds their civilian aircraft. A school of aeronautics prepares young people for a productive future. I see regular flights touching down in the shadow of the forest linking the University of Ecology and the industries to the rest of the world.

Looking across the Bay towards the South China Sea Grande Island is now a family recreation center open to all. Family tourists filled the beaches and restaurants while others with their children go on guided tours of the forest and the University of Ecology.

I see a small oil tanker, environmentally friendly, make its way to the oil terminal and pump its precious cargo into the vast storage tanks from where it will be bought and sold, earning millions for the country.

Then my gaze drifted over to the former military wharves now a container port and I can see the huge buildings of the former Naval Supply Depot host a thriving light industry giving thousands work with dignity.

Lastly the ship yard was alive with the sounds of jack-hammers and riveters as commercial ships lay at anchor waiting to provide many more with rewarding work.

Then the vision faded and I looked down at the neon city. The slave market was open, it was business as usual as all the street signs said.

Good people pay the human cost of poverty. The leaders turn a blind eye and a deaf ear. They don't want to see the suffering and cannot hear the weeping, silent as it is that sits heavy on every heart. They can never see the loneliness of the woman sitting sadly at a door, jilted and betrayed, used and cast aside. Nor will they know about the little child behind the prison bars that cries, with tears streaming down her cheeks, asking for her mommy who can't pay the guard to let her out of jail.

But millions more are trapped behind the prison bars of debt and poverty and are budgened into silence and submissiveness. That's just the way it is.

The bases agreement has been signed, the people's fate is sealed, the bases will go on and on. It's been decreed that wrong is right, that evil is good and that the privileged are secure, the end justifies the means no matter what the side-effects will be. AIDS is only one and broken homes another. The drug abuse, and child abuse and the violence against women and inhuman living is left unquestioned because they say you have it elsewhere too, as if having many wrongs will make them right.

How can this be, I ask and I know the answer, we abandoned our God of love for the idols and trinkets of a privileged and a well fed world.

Yes, we let it be, but must it be forever ?

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