The “Hawak ng Babae ang Kalahati ng Mundo” session provided a meaningful space for women and men from Indigenous Peoples (IP) and non-IP communities to reflect on gender roles, leadership, livelihoods, identity, and community life. Through participatory activities, participants examined the realities of their daily responsibilities and recognized the often-unseen labor and leadership of women in households, farming, coffee production, entrepreneurship, and community governance. The 5Rs Framework encouraged reflection on recognizing, reducing, redistributing, representing, and building resilience around shared responsibilities. Discussions on the Three Layers of Life and the Four Harmonies deepened participants’ understanding of purpose, well-being, relationships, spirituality, and stewardship of creation. The session also created opportunities for dialogue between IP and migrant communities, particularly on ancestral domain rights, coffee farming, economic cooperation, and peaceful coexistence. Ultimately, the gathering affirmed women’s vital contributions while promoting inclusive, respectful, resilient, and harmonious communities.
Continue reading
Permanent link to this article: https://waves.ca/2026/08/31/women-hold-half-the-world-leadership-livelihoods-and-community-transformation/
On August 20, 2026, over 150 community leaders, educators, and advocates filled the Bapa Benny Tudtud Auditorium for the First Davao Democracy Forum, convened by Ateneo de Davao University and the Philippine Observatory on Democracy. Far from a quiet academic exercise, the forum confronted a living paradox: Dabawenyos’ fierce commitment to democratic ideals alongside enduring support for strong, centralized authority. As a reactor for the panel “Reactions from the Frontlines of Democracy,” I was tasked with testing empirical research against community realities. Scholars Atty. Romeo Cabarde Jr., Dr. Rosalinda Tomas, and Dr. Christine Diaz mapped our political DNA — authoritarian inclinations, social media’s shaping of democratic imagination, and pathways for civic education — revealing what researchers term authority-based democracy: not an absence of democratic values, but a complex, ambivalent consciousness rooted in performance-based legitimacy, historical memory, and conditional trust. This reflection challenges us to democratize effectiveness itself, turning disciplined governance into participatory, accountable systems.
Continue reading
Permanent link to this article: https://waves.ca/2026/08/21/beyond-the-numbers-standing-at-the-frontlines-of-davaos-democratic-reflection/
The SONA ng Sambayanan 2026 is more than a protest statement; it is a prophetic indictment of a political and economic system that continues to produce poverty, corruption, inequality, and ecological destruction. While I affirm its call for accountability, social justice, and the rejection of political dynasties, I also read it through the analytical lens of a more radical transformation, expressed within the ethical commitments of nonviolent Liberation Theology. For me, corruption is not merely the failure of individual politicians but a symptom of deeper structural realities—oligarchic capitalism, landlordism, neocolonial dependence, and the concentration of wealth and power. My commitment remains rooted in the liberating way of Jesus Christ, who confronted oppressive systems through courageous, truth-filled, and active nonviolence. Genuine transformation will not come simply by replacing political personalities but by dismantling unjust structures and building participatory institutions where justice, peace, human dignity, and the common good can flourish.
Continue reading
Permanent link to this article: https://waves.ca/2026/07/24/beyond-corruption-a-nonviolent-liberation-theology-reading-of-the-sona-ng-sambayanan-2026/
For many years in peacebuilding work among Indigenous Peoples in Mindanao and across Asia, I have become increasingly convinced that authentic leadership is not primarily about authority, position, charisma, or institutional power. Leadership is fundamentally about nurturing life, sustaining relationships, and guiding communities toward justice, dignity, and peace. My understanding of leadership is best represented by a pyramid. Unlike conventional leadership models that emphasize control from the top, this framework emphasizes foundations, relationships, service, and stewardship. It is especially relevant in Indigenous communities where leadership is often understood as relational, communal, and accountable to both present and future generations.
Continue reading
Permanent link to this article: https://waves.ca/2026/06/05/the-leadership-pyramid-peacebuilding-leadership-lessons-im-learning-from-indigenous-peoples/
It was both an honor and a privilege to serve as one of the plenary speakers during the First Lumin-awa International Multidisciplinary Research Conference (LIMRC) 2026, held on 25–27 May 2026 at the Teatro Kalinga of Kalinga State University in Bulanao, Tabuk City. The conference brought together researchers, educators, practitioners, government leaders, and development partners from across the Philippines and abroad under the theme, “Innovating Justice and Governance: Multidisciplinary Pathways to Equity, Inclusion, and Sustainable Development.” The event was jointly organized by Kalinga State University and the state universities of the Cordillera Administrative Region through a landmark academic partnership that seeks to strengthen research collaboration and social innovation.
Continue reading
Permanent link to this article: https://waves.ca/2026/05/29/i-represented-cfp-at-the-first-lumin-awa-international-multidisciplinary-research-conference-2026/
At 70, I no longer see my life primarily through the language of aging, retirement, or diminished productivity. I experience this season instead as a deepening emergence into my own humanity—a quieter, freer becoming that decades of schedules, institutional demands, leadership burdens, and economic necessity had often obscured. In a culture obsessed with speed, youthfulness, innovation, and measurable output, growing old is frequently treated as decline. Yet many ancient societies understood elderhood not as irrelevance but as ripened presence. Elders were valued because they carried memory, discernment, emotional depth, and wisdom shaped by suffering, failure, love, endurance, and long reflection. I hesitate to call myself wise, because life still dismantles my certainties with remarkable consistency. Yet I do recognize within myself a gentle simplification. The noise of performance is fading. The need to impress is loosening. Ego occupies less space. What remains feels closer to essence.
Continue reading
Permanent link to this article: https://waves.ca/2026/05/12/after-a-salaried-job-discovering-new-aspects-of-my-becoming-at-70/
The Toboso encounter in Negros Occidental, where Alyssa Alano (“Ka Kikay”), two children, and others reportedly died during a military operation, grieves me not only as a citizen but as a person of faith. I do not see this merely as another security incident, nor simply as another chapter in the ideological war between the state and the revolutionary movement. I see it as a moral wound upon the nation. Whenever young lives are extinguished in the mountains, fields, or villages of our land, something sacred is violated. Human beings are not expendable instruments of state policy, nor are they disposable fuel for revolution. Every life bears inherent dignity. Every death in this long conflict should trouble the conscience of the Republic.
Continue reading
Permanent link to this article: https://waves.ca/2026/04/29/toboso-alyssa-alano-and-the-unfinished-peace-a-peacebuilding-pastors-reflection-on-justice-human-dignity-and-national-reconciliation/
