Waway Saway on videos and books on peace for children

“Iitsa, tamoka, yataki, tumbi!”  “Iitsa, tamoka,
yataki, tumbi!”

Iitsa, tamoka, yataki, tumbi! (That’s throw, catch, step and stamp!)

I thought for a while it was a line in a Kenyan song I learned from
someplace else, but the words sounded familiar even if it was belted
out in a universal beat.

Waway Saway’s song lingered in my hearing perimeter even hours after
watching a video on it, which he posted at Youtube.com.

The song was about care for the environment in which the singer urged
the listeners to throw, catch, step and stamp on one’s fear against
caring for the environment.

The video showed Gali (“fellow” or Binukid equivalent to Cebuano’s
“Bai”) perform in an international audience with fellow Talaandig
artist Balugto Necosia in a peace concert in South Korea’s tourist
favorite Naminara Island.

In the midst of it all

Monologue in front a TV report on the Lanao Norte attack

This is a time to be old,
and a time to be young
a hesitation we cannot flaunt.
In this time of Mindanao
I know I am home,
but I know I am not at home.

Who would want to breath the threats in your life?
Who would want to see blood on the streets?
Who would want to be a target at any time?

Do we want peace?
What kind of question was it that they ask?
Do we want peace?
What kind of answer do they want from us?

We wanted it all our life
We wanted it every time we sleep and we wake up
We wanted it in the past and we wanted it now!
We wanted it. We needed it!

Dare not to play with our fate
Dare not to toss hope and crash hope
Dare not to toy with our homeland
Dare not to keep us wait any longer.

Give us what we ask for.
This is a time to be home.

Being present at the Fourth Mindanao Media Summit

Participants take time to smile and relax for a date with posterity (Photo by Skippy Lumawag courtesy of Mindanews)

The formal sessions of the 4th Mindanao Media Summit just concluded early afternoon today, 09 August 2008.

The theme: “Mindanao 2020: The vision begins with us”, is placed in an imposing tarp at the back draft. It was a reminder to me as a member of the group who took on “drafting” the vision from the participants. “Where are the other members of the styling committee?” I asked myself.

I ate a late breakfast today as I stayed late for my recent attempt to write a narrative report. So when I entered the summit hall, I have to do some catching up on who did what the night before.

I caught up on the secretariat who were busy calling the rest of the group for the picture taking.

Meanwhile, I picked the shiniest plate on the buffet table and proceeded to feast on hotel breakfast. In my peripheral vision and hearing I could hear Jocan talking me to drop the breakfast for a moment and smile it out in the photographic firing squad.

I managed some sips of brewed coffee and few scoops of the one-serving steamed rice and the hard-boiled egg and beef curry sud-an. I have to or I couldn’t move a muscle to say “cheese”. Oh, I went there seconds later as I have to squeeze in my summit shirt. I went there to see if the pool was really tempting enough for some laps of swimming, to regret I didn’t plunge when I could last night.

The last day of the three-day gathering of Mindanao media’s “decision-makers” started with quaint picture taking by the poolside of the Waterfront Insular Hotel in Lanang, Davao City.

It was supposed to capture for the future the faces of the news professionals who participated in the summit in a step to improve capacity as stakeholder to peace and development in Mindanao.