Pearls and Barbed Wire

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I had the strangest experience in Cavite, which I feel is pretty symbolic of my trip so far. Cavite was he last stop on my trip to Southern Tagalog. We where going to the Cavite Municipal Jail to visit a Pastor who is being held there as a political prison.

Pastor Berlin is one of the strongest men I have ever met. He has been active his whole life advocating for pro-people change in the Philippines. He decided to go into the seminary in order to lift up the most oppressed sectors in the country with the word of God. He wants to teach peseants and workers to think for themselves and demand their rights because he believes that God desires rights for all of his people. The Pastor was abducted 9 months ago. He was tortured, and like so many others, accused of being in the NPA. He was resurfaced, he believes, only because his family and his church demanded to know his whereabouts. When he was resurfaced he was charged with the murder of a union president 17 years ago. This is a man he has a never met, a men whose family believes that he was murdered by the military for his own activism.

The Pastor talked with me all morning about his situation as a political prisoner. He talked to me also about his thoughts on the legal left in the Philippines and the repression they are facing by the government. He was articulate and passionate. Though he was the most happy when he talked about the ministry programs he has set up within the prison for his fellow inmates. To stave off boredom and to fulfill the internship requirements of his third year of seminary Pastor Berlin is preforming prison ministry. I already seen people in this country make the most of some pretty terrible situations, but the Pastor is going above and beyond, making his situation better and continually thinking about how he can improve the lives of the other inmates. This man is fighting to better his country, even as he himself is being detained, because it is the right thing to do, because he loves his country and becuase he believes that as Filipinos it is their duty.
Just as we where leaving the Pastor gave all three of us who visited him black bracelets made out of plastic cord made to look like barbed wire. He wears one himself to symbolize his illegal incarceration. He put the bracelet on my left wrist.

As we rode a tricycle away from the prison I thought about his gift. The bracelet was on the same wrist as the pearl bracelet I had been given the day before by my Souther Tagalog facilitator. She had grown up in Palawan, which is very rich in pearls farms. She had been surprised to find out that pearls are expensive in Canada, since unrefined pearls are pretty common in the Philippines. She gave me one of her many unrefined pearl bracelets - a gorgeous collection of uniquely shaped pink, cream and white pearls. It looked added against my barbed wire bracelet. Although looking out over the countryside, full of bows and palm trees I realized that the whole country could be symbolized by pearls and barbed wire. The Philippines is full to bursting with beautiful scenery, beautiful mineral, rich agriculture and hearty, delicious foods. The people here though are being forbidden to take advantage of or enjoy any of this wealth. the government and rich capitalists bar them from being around any of these wonders. I had been feeling guilty on my trip in Southern Tagalog as I enjoyed the beautiful sights from my bus windows. I realized though that it is not that I should feel guilty about enjoying these amazing parts of my journey, but that all Filipinos should be just as free to enjoy these beautiful things as I am.

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Photos

Cavite Municipal Jail
I am positive that this quote was stolen from someone famous, and is in fact not the original thought of the jail warden.