The Virtue of Changemaking

Much has been said about changemaking as an art: We use imagination to visualize the change that we want and let our hands form this vision into something real and tangible. Passion incites consistency and discipline yields results.

I agree to all these things yet, my humble experiences as a head of programs in a start up foundation in the last three years have taught me that changemaking takes more than just skill and creativity; it requires faith. It needs patient trust.

When I entered the foundation in July of 2011, there were several challenges that we had to undertake. We needed to boost program spending, increase the involvement of our principals in our causes, gain awareness about the foundation within and outside its network, and develop new programs that will change mindsets and their corresponding behaviors and impact.

As I took on the challenge, I thought that everything easily operated on a causal basis. If we wanted to boost spending, then we should propose big projects. If we wanted to increase involvement among the family members, then we should keep on sending event invites. If we wanted brand awareness, then we should just maximize corporate communications support from our sister foundation and so on…

In reality, however, change was not as easy as that. My first year was actually quite frustrating. Projects did not get easily approved. In fact, we had to find our own niche, which we could not just pull out of thin air. There were several executive committee and board meetings that left me unfulfilled, wanting and clueless. There were days when tasks were just too overwhelming that I got palpitations. It would have helped if there was somebody else to help me on a full-time basis.

The blessing came under the disguise of a regulator's recommendation to hire another full-time staff. But even finding that staff took three painful tries to finally reveal a gem and a long-time professional partner. Soon, however, the organization began to grow with the addition of more full-time program and administrative staff, plus the inclusion of shared service personnel from a sister foundation.

These days, I can only smile inwardly when I see one of our principals rise from his seat at the center of the table during a board meeting to take a closer look at our program updates and give practical suggestions with his background as a results-driven businessperson. His siblings would then actively trade ideas—sometimes, engaging in light moments—during our regular meetings. They are no longer just involved in the planning process; they join us in influencing stakeholders and they also promote their own causes. Beautifully, they have become the foundation's very own advocates.

It did not take long for some little results and some milestones to slowly reveal themselves. We started to become more specific in our proposals, thereby yielding more approvals that result in actual projects needing significant funding. We began to see many stakeholders within our shared networks with the sister foundation who would nod in recognition of our foundation as a separate and distinct organization. And most importantly, we already saw some positive behavioral changes in some of our target sectors such as the workers in informal sector who are willing to shell out P1,800 to P2,400 a year for health savings instead of their usual vices; employees who choose to line up in the canteen’s healthylicious corner, which our program encouraged to be created; parents and their children who cook and eat more vegetables because of the influence of our projects; and individuals who are ready to commit small, simple yet sustainable actions for the environment.

My whole experience in the foundation allowed me to gain deep respect and appreciation for my superiors and mentors. Both of them are seasoned development workers who have been involved in putting together medium-term development plans for the country and cascading them to the grassroots. I realized that of course, they knew what I had in mind whenever I start talking ambitiously big but at the end of the day, they help me taper these dreams, digestible in bite-sized forms.

In this reflection, I will write some words of wisdom that were derived from an advice that my boss shared during a pocket session. He said that he believes in creating change through incrementalism—small, simple strokes that nonetheless paint the big picture. Whereas a revolutionary approach yields much resistance, incrementalism works carefully for and with people so that over time, they embrace our own advocacies and they become internally changed as well.

Change therefore does not happen overnight. It is a work in progress. We let ideas simmer as we act. We let people accept the change that we advocate for and in the process, we allow ourselves to be changed internally—carefully yet radically. Changemaking is therefore not just an art but a virtue-seeking experience.

Inspired by the Prayer for Patient Trust by Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

Understanding Our Coping Mechanisms

Here’s a more enlightened view of persons who appear to be unremorseful:

The feeling of guilt can sometimes be so intolerable that it is the ego’s natural reaction to protect itself. Having acted on the whims of the id through a wrongdoing, the ego is subjected to the superego’s voice of reason—our conscience, which may be a very stressful experience. We employ defense mechanisms in order to help us cope.

It is amazing to note the broad range of defenses than an ego can use. It can begin with denial—blocking external events and refusing to face, if not confront the situation, followed by projection, which allows us to attribute our poor judgment to another person. Minimization, on the other hand, lets us downplay the intensity of our mistakes.

 More beautifully, the ego can resort to sublimation or the conversion of guilt and shame into something constructive. It may also be the ego’s way to remind its external reality—family but mostly, friends—of the good deeds that it has done in the past as a way of denying the painful truth. And, it may also be his way of consoling his wearied ego, unconsciously making efforts to compensate for its mistake.

As posted by Joyce on Facebook
14 May 2014

Reflections from the Ruins (Remembering Bohol and Cebu after the Earthquake)

I recall waking up to some household commotion about a certain earthquake on October 15, 2013, a non-working holiday: Fe, my daughter's caregiver, was desperate to get in touch with her parents. I turned to the TV and the Internet, and discovered that a 7.2-magnitude earthquake hit the Central Visayas region, severely affecting the provinces of Bohol and Cebu.

As the days went by, photos of the earthquake's extensive damage surfaced in the news, showing damaged houses, impassable roads and bridges that were lined by cracks, inoperable hospitals and government offices, and worst of all, fallen centuries-old churches.

When the opportunity to help came at work, I did not hesitate to leave the comforts of Manila and take risks as the prevailing news at that time prompted most people to expect the worst. (This was around two weeks before the Yolanda disaster.)

Arriving in Cebu on October 25, 10 days after the earthquake, my colleagues and I were greeted by some aftershocks---all of them I did not feel. Cebu seemed quick to recover. The half-hour ride from the Mactan airport to the Metrobank Fuente Osmeña Circle did not show any damage or signs of the earthquake affecting Cebuano's lives. It was, in fact, business as usual in Metro Cebu.

Bohol, however, was a different case.

Gaping cracks on the road from the Tubigon port

As the ferry docked in the Tubigon port, I followed a trail of cracks on a road that was made uneven by the earthquake. I joined about a hundred volunteers in one of the four distribution sites---Clarin, the town where my daughter's caregiver hails.

Miles and miles of damaged properties caught my sight as the bus drove from Tubigon to Clarin. I could not help myself from thinking about someone who I had not seen for quite sometime then. Despite all the issues that we could not settle, there was one thing that held us together even until that time. It was our passion for development work. Peering through the lens of my company-issued camera reminded me of how his photos looked after his community trips. It was as if I was looking at the community through his eyes.

A house with collapsed walls and ceilings

Shortly before reaching St. Michael Parish, the site of our relief distribution, a question crossed my mind:

Why does God allow bad things to happen to mankind?

I was seated in the pilgrim center within the courtyard of the Basilica Minore Del Sto. Niño in Cebu City a day later when an answer came.

Facade of the Basilica Minore Del Santo Niño,
the oldest church in the Philippines

God allows destruction so we may experience rebirth and so we may rebuild---back and hopefully, better.

I thought about Sodom and Gomorrah, the great ancient civilizations that were wiped out by either natural or man-made disasters, and nations that were once called as global super powers. Then I thought about relationships.

When all things just cannot seem to fall into place no matter how hard we try, we need a metaphysical collapse. From chaos, we need a momentary silence so God may work in ourselves. What feels like weeks, months or years for us is only a blink in the eye of God; a fraction of a second in the cosmos.

As the months went by, my reflections were enriched through several spiritual activities, which included some of my mindful walking, chi running and yoga practices, Monday fellowships and Ignatian prayer and share sessions, and recollections.

Yesterday, Fr. Mon Bautista, SJ shared a fitting theme in his Maundy Thursday recollection at Ateneo Rockwell, which has finally given a most proper push to my pen. He shared that spiritual conversion begins with a crisis, "a jolting, jarring experience," which can come in three ways: a sense of dissatisfaction, an experience of pain and sorrow, and a challenge of our faith.

"For you are dust, and to dust you shall return." (Genesis 3:19)

God allows bad things to happen -- our crises -- so we may be humbled; so that we may remember. 

Fr. Mon further explains that conversion entails letting go (of possessions, beliefs and habits) that once held us. And once we have let go, we embrace new ways of thinking, perceiving and beholding, which respectively translate to new ways of living, witnessing and loving.

And today, Good Friday, I think about God's only son, Jesus Christ, who He allowed to die on the cross not only for our sins, but to show us that in His resurrection, we may be reborn. In Christ's ministry, He spoke of tearing down the temple, which He will rebuild in three days.

Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days." (John 2:19)

For whatever Christ's statements intend to symbolize, I feel a glimmer of hope today as Pope Francis institutes changes in the way the Catholic Church responds to the issues that have been knocking on its doors for quite some time already.

It is humbling to finally find the courage and the patience to organize my reflections in the form of a blog post. It is, in fact, God's way of helping me remember the reason why I came back.