Scouting Around the World

Tarlac City, Philippines

2009-05-07T17:34:00.003+08:00

Taking the opportunity of a long weekend, the Asia-Pacific Regional Office of the World Scout Bureau went on an office outing to Bolinao, Pangasinan – around 275 kilometers away from Manila.

On our way to Pangasinan, we stopped over Tarlac City to have breakfast at Asiaten Hotel in Tarlac City. The breakfast was hosted by Mr. Dan Asiaten, who obviously owns the hotel.

He served daing na bangus, which is popular in Province of Tarlac. He also served longganisa and chicken tocino together with fried rice. These are Filipino delicacies and it was, indeed, a happy breakfast meal for us. In our appreciation, we presented him a Scout gift from the Asia-Pacific Regional Office.

Mr. Dan Asiaten (above, in red shirt), is an active Scout Leader and in fact, he is a member of the National Executive Board of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines. He is also a member of the council executive board of Tarlac Council of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines, which has a Scout population of 30,890 (as of December 2008).

Mr. Asiaten has seven children – five boys and two girls. Three of his sons are Eagle Scouts. His family also owns the Tarlac Montessori School, where Scouting flourish!

You may be wondering why I wrote an article about Mr. Dan Asiaten. One of the purpose of this blog is to introduce dedicated people, like Mr. Dan Asiaten, who continuously support the ongoing development of Scouting, especially at grass-root level.

Mt. Makiling, Philippines

2009-04-29T15:56:00.009+08:00

The TICKET TO LIFE is a flagship project of the Asia-Pacific Region on educating street children, through Scouting, in eight pilot countries. My wife, Sophie, is one of the two national coordinators of the APR Ticket to Life Project in the Philippines. Taking advantage of the summer holidays, the Scout Troop, under the APR Ticket to Life Project, located in Malate, Manila has organized their first Camp from 21-23 April 2009 at the Boy Scouts of the Philippines (BSP) Camp, Mt. Makiling, Los Baños, Laguna.

The camp staff was composed of my wife, Sophie Castillo, Derek Bonifacio and his wife, Cynthia, who was our Camp Grubmaster and myself. We went to Mt. Makiling on two different batches and we arrived first at the camp. We immediately started cooking rice for the Scouts. Their viand or main dish was pre-cooked the night before, which is chicken “adobo.”

The 15 Scouts arrived around lunchtime. These are children living in the streets of Malate. They arrived with the Scoutmaster, Jeffrey Alitagtag together with our collaborators from Our Lady of Remedies Parish (Malate Church), composed of Fr. Enrique Escobar, Teacher Beth, and Ate Angel.

While we were cooking the rice, Jeffrey gave the Orientation and Camp Routine to the Scouts. The 15 children were divided into three Patrols of five Scouts. After this session, the Scouts had a hearty lunch – they finished all food! Perhaps because they were too excited to come to Mt. Makiling and were not able to eat breakfast.

We had a simple Opening Ceremony by reciting the Scout Oath and Law, an Opening Remarks was given by Fr. Enrique and Remarks was also made by Sophie.

After the Opening Ceremony, the Scouts were divided into three bases and reviewed basic knots such as – overhand knot, figure-of-eight knot, clove hitch, bowline, sheep shank and timber hitch. Used to using “tagalog” in their day-to-day living, you should listen to them call these knots in many different ways! But in the end, they know their knots! We had an exciting knot relay to review what they learned. It was so noisy . . . the Scouts were cheering and coaching their team mates!

Towards the end of the day, the Scouts learned basic first aid from Derek and Sophie. To review what they learned, they identified one Scout among them who has a wound and applied first aid to his wound.

After dinner, we asked Fr. Enrique to facilitated a self-reflection. It was an interesting activity. It revealed much about the Scouts. Fr. Enrique asked the Scouts to draw members of the families, with an instruction – “to draw close to you, if you like or love this family member and draw away from you if you dislike or hate this family member.”

There were then divided into two groups. Teacher Beth and I facilitated one group and we tried to draw-out from the Scouts the real reason or meaning of their drawings. I am particularly filled with awe with the difficult circumstances these children are experiencing – at a very tender age! Majority of them are beaten up by their parents – most of them are their step fathers. One of the Scouts even drew a person with horns . . . I asked this Scout who would this person be and he answered me without hesitation, “my evil brother!” Every time his elder brother gets drunk, he lashes it out with this Scout.

On the second day, we had our flag ceremony at the main flag mast in Mt. Makiling. I have been with Scouting in the Philippines for more than 10 years but it is only now that I learned that the main flag mast at Mt. Makiling was donated by the officers and crew of U.S.S. Bryce Canyon (AD-36).

The flag ceremony was simple. The Scouts proudly raised the Philippine Flag and pledged allegiance to it. They recited the Scout and Law. Until now, Fr. Enrique could not believe how these Scouts follow a certain standard – a certain norm. A Columban Sister by the name of Sr. Venus, joined in the morning from Manila.

We gave the Scouts instructions on how to use the compass. After being familiar with how the compass works, we staged a competition among the Patrols. They also tried the Challenge Valley at Mt. Makiling. They were full of energy and surpassed every challenge without any difficulty. Each one tried to surpass each other. We were looking for their esprit d'corps and we were missing it perhaps this is because this was their very first camp.

After lunch, we teached them bandaging and emergency transport. It is most interesting when the Scouts learn how to make a makeshift or improvised stretcher. Again, we had a contest among the Patrols. We designated a starting point and end point and place a glass of water on the victim’s chest. They need to transport the “victim” at the shortest time without the water in the glasses getting slipped.

We teached the Scouts how to handle, care for, and use the pocket knife, ax, and saw - based on the Boy Scouts of America’s “Totin’ Chip.”

On the third day, everybody was up and excited! This was hiking and swimming day! However, since our theme was, “Towards Unity,” we prepared a little surprise for the Scouts. As I earlier said, they were divided into three patrols. When we served breakfast, we un-evenly distributed their viand or main dish. Each Scout should get a slice of meat but we gave extra slice of meat to one Patrol while the other lack one.

It is very interesting how the Patrol which lack one slice of meat divided what they have among themselves, while the one with the extra slice did not share it with others. They did not even asked each other.

After our flag ceremony, Derek facilitated a team-building exercise called “caterpillar walk.” They are beginning to learn unity and communication. They went on a hike and at the end the Scouts cooked their own food – inihaw na tilapia (grilled tilapia).

After the morning routine of the fourth day, we asked them to clean-up the place. I was late and took the shower after they cleaned the placed. I was enjoying my shower . . . the showers smells so good and was so clean! Thanks to the Scouts.

After breaking camp and packing their thing up, we had a small evaluation. The Scouts enjoyed all the activities. The staff, however, left words of wisdom. Bernand expressed that he has a mind set about what “street children” behave and looked like. He said that he never saw this in the Scouts. It was a gratifying comment. And I particularly told the Scouts that I understand what they were going through. I was once beaten up by my father for cheating my mother. I did not understand then why I was beaten up but it stuck to my mind that it is important to be honest.

We had a simple Closing Ceremony and we ate our last meal in camp. At lunch time, I told Ate Angel to inform us whenever parents expressed changes in their children. She confirmed that some parents have already expressed better behavior observed from their children.

We are, indeed, getting there . . .

Baguio City, Philippines

2009-04-17T07:30:00.000+08:00

Last week, during the holy days, my family and I went to Baguio City for vacation. We stayed at a friend’s place and I met a long time friend, Noel Salvacion. He encouraged me to write all my experience while I travel around the world because of Scouting. Please allow me to tell my story …

Baguio City Scout Council is one of the 101 local councils of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines. Every summer vacation, they launch a programme they coined as Operation SumVac (for summer vacation). Baguio City is the summer capital of the Philippines and tourist, local and overseas flock the city every year. Scouts are doing their “good turn” by assisting tourist for directions or with whatever they can. Senior Scouts and Rover Scouts are even involved in traffic, making sure that pedestrians are safe to cross the busy streets of Baguio City, especially at that time.

My heart always jumps with joy whenever I see Scouts helping tourist, or manning the traffic. Even when Scouts, in their uniform, walk the streets of Baguio City is itself a source of inspiration. It always makes me feel that Scouting is alive.

Baguio City Scout Council has 8,434 Scouts and adult leaders (as of Jan-09). The regional office coordinating Northeastern Luzon Region (NELR) and Ilocos Region (IR) of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines is also located in Baguio City. While in Baguio City, my wife and I took the opportunity to visit this office.

We met Flor Atinyao, who is the current Regional Scout Director for NELR-IR. Flor was once involved with our project of reviving Scouting in Cambodia. We also met Milo Nevarida, who retired as Regional Scout Director of the same region, was enjoying the retired life and was bragging about his two noisy pet turkeys. Mr. Neverida is a mentor when I was a young executive with the Boy Scouts of the Philippines.

Edwin Mutug was also there at that time. He is the Council Scout Executive of Nueva Vizcaya Scout Council. We also met Mark Cambod, the Regional Field Scout Executive. Mark, who is a wonderful person, was a classmate from the 22nd National Training School of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines. Mark and I were looking at our “class” picture and started counting who among our classmates were still active in Scouting.

These four people we met are full-time executives of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines. Scouting is their life and even during this time of holidays they still talk about Scouting. I was happy sitting with them, listening as they expressed their frustrations and dreams about how to make Scouting flourish. After a while, it was lunch time. I sat with them and ate lunch together – they still talk about Scouting!