making a difference at gunpoint David Spearing S ix weeks in the Philippines: “Where is your companion?” demanded the woman on a busy street in Zamboanga, the capital city of Mindanao in the southern Philippines. She was asking my wife Dianne what she was doing on the street by herself. “When they kidnap you, no one will know,” she said. “You must not go on the street by yourself”. We eventually moved from our first residence-office, a ward in a hospital, to an abandoned house in a walled compound owned by the client and where I worked with a few Zamboanga- trained young architects. For security, we had an armed guard 24 hours a day and an unfriendly Rotweiller. Also patrolling the grounds by day and night were 2 wild deer and a hairy, black wild boar. The boar was the most vicious and therefore the king of the compound. With this security, we were able to work with a peace of mind necessary to focus our tasks. The assignment was to develop a masterplan for 15 hectares of rolling jungle and savannah for a family- owned agricultural college named ZEAC (Zamboanga Arturo Eustaquio College). This included the development of a 100-acre farm, identifying slopes, stability and development potential. Recommendations were made for other proj- ects, including washrooms, locker rooms, handicapped requirements, seismic bracing, draining, runoff, water management and design. For five weeks we walked nearly every inch of the land accompanied by body guards trained in martial arts. The beautiful sloping property was in a suburb of Zamboanga called Pasonanca. We and our relatively influential clients dressed casually (jeans and worn t-shirts) to remain inconspicuous. We left and returned to our office-house by various routes. We seldom travelled without bodyguards. It is strange and almost unbelievable for an ordinary Canadian to think of bodyguards. For influential Filipinos, however, bodyguards are a way of life. We went for afternoon tea with Delfin Castro, owner of the property adjacent to ZAEC’s 15 hectares. He is also the former Supreme Commander of the Southern Command of the Philippine forces who is reputed to have determined the course of history: during the famous people’s revolt in Manilla, he refused to take his troops to then President Ferdinand Marcos’ aid. He and his wife Corey were gracious hosts. They sent two cars to pick us up. The first was driven by a machine gun toting, trained driver. The second car followed, never more than one metre behind, with four more body guards with machine guns. At all times, even while having tea in the idyllic bamboo and thatch pavilion and while inspecting the property, the five bodyguards and others in this small security force were strategically stationed, always at the ready, fingers by the trigger. Castro was the President-Elect of the Rotary Club that co- sponsored our assignment. While I was giving my presentation to the Zamboanga Rotary Club, six armed guards surrounded the hotel meeting room, The cause for me is world understanding- from which I believe flows peace.
machine guns in leather covers. We were later told that the Canadian CEO of a major company in Zamboanga had been kidnapped while leaving a Zamboanga Rotary Club meeting. The one architectural assignment turned into five more assignments during our six week stay. Added were the redesign of exits and circu- lation patterns in a 14,000 seat stadium which was half way through construction; the redesign of another staduim for retraining MNLF guerrillas; revisions to designs of two low cost housing projects, of 120 units, one under construction and one on the drawing board; and the review of a new property purchased by my client in the mountains outside of Zamboanga. As well, I was flown to Cagayan d’Oro, in Mindinao to discuss and assess a preliminary and conceptual eco-tourism resort development of 2,500 hectares. A piggyback assignment in a suburb called Cabatangan, was where former Muslim guerillas under Nur Misuari and the Muslim National Liberation Front (MNLF) were being trained to be peace officers. Recently, 80 hostages were taken in Pasonanca and moved to Cabatangan before they were released. The exchange rate is usually one foreign hostage for about 100 local hostages. We went in October of 1997. In March of that same year an architect from Vancouver, Lawrence G.Woolcox, was murdered on a beach on a small island near prime coral reefs. He had spoken out against the members of the military who had had no hesitation in fishing thousand year old coral reefs by blowing them up with explosives. For this he was murdered. Larry had started a plan for underwater ecological reserves in the southern Philippines and as a dedicated architect, was making a difference in that corner of the world. In June of the same year, Jun Trinidad, a CESO volunteer from Richmond, who we had intended to turn to for local knowledge died mysteriously in bed in Zamboanga. He was staying in the hospital bed and room we were initially given The Canadian Embassy, when asked about these incidents, provided us with almost no information. The Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that staff didn’t feel there was a problem. Why is there all this security? Why is there the militancy? We have come to believe that part of the reason is that for 55 years the Philippine government has pursued a plan to populate Mindanao, the Sulu Archapelago and the Southern Islands with a Catholic population thereby displacing the indigenous Muslim population. The Muslim population is desperately fighting for world attention and fighting to preserve their land and their way of life. While we can’t condone actions of terror, our eyes have been opened a little. We now question most media coverage and can put into perspective our pre- departure briefing and our own cultural adjustment.
David Spearing is an architect in Nanaimo, B.C. He is the author of Living on Mountain Slopes and has volunteered with CESO since 1994, taking him twice to Russia and once each to Poland, Peru, Guyana and the Philippines.
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ON SITE review 6: BEAUTY
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