{"id":3698,"date":"2020-05-10T17:57:13","date_gmt":"2020-05-10T09:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.350.org\/philippines\/?p=3698"},"modified":"2020-05-10T21:37:23","modified_gmt":"2020-05-10T13:37:23","slug":"wisdom-in-simplicity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/philippines\/wisdom-in-simplicity\/","title":{"rendered":"Wisdom in simplicity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chuck Baclagon<\/strong><\/p>\n


\nRoberto Verzola, Obet to his friends and comrades, passed away last May 6, at the age of 67, leaving behind a legacy of contributions for the advancement of human rights, ecological sustainability, renewable energy and information technology advocacy.<\/span><\/p>\n

He has been hailed as the father of the Philippine email, a stalwart in the environmental movement, a Martial Law survivor, a public intellectual and a pioneer in the constellation of advocacies that he has been part of.<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember him standing tall yet unassuming, his simple attire a very sharp contrast to his accomplishment as a revolutionary, an intellectual and a fine example of a human being that has lived what Socrates calls an ‘examined life’.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Society, Ecology and Transformation<\/b><\/p>\n

I first learned of Obet through his volume of reflections that synthesized what he calls a \u2018green worldview\u2019 into a compendium entitled “Society, Ecology and Transformation<\/a>“, or simply SET to those who have been part of the Philippine Greens, his cell of environmental activists who, like him, also dared to imagine not only a socially just world but also one that is ecologically sustainable and spiritually fulfilling.<\/span><\/p>\n

SET landed on my hands at a crucial time in my mid-20s when I decided to leave corporate work and pursue a career in the nonprofit world. The departure was a product of personal burnout from deadlines and the need to reclaim my broken radical enthusiasm from my involvement in student activism.<\/span><\/p>\n

What challenged me at the time was that everyone else from my collective in Anakbayan has already pursued careers, started families or risen up to bigger responsibilities in the movement. The only people I could connect with were the ragtag anarchists that I met during my earlier involvement in punk subculture, and it was one of them who lent me a copy of SET.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Obet (in the blue shirt), speaking with anarchists who visited the anti-GMO hunger strike at the Department of Agriculture in 2002.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

It was from SET where I learned about the relationship of the multiple ecological crises and its intersections with justice under a system that fails to evenly distribute resources, rights, access and opportunity. More importantly, I also learned about the need to propose solutions that can extricate us from the deadly embrace of a system that is killing our natural world and our fellow human beings.<\/span><\/p>\n

SET was also my gateway to the works of E.F. Schumacher<\/a>, Rachel Carson<\/a>, Barry Commoner<\/a>, Aldo Leopold<\/a>, Edward Abbey<\/a> and Murray Bookchin<\/a>, all supplementing my Marxist-Lenninist-Maoist upbringing from my student activism. Those readings led me to defining my career decisions that found fulfillment in becoming a staff of Greenpeace in 2005 as their first digital campaigner in Southeast Asia, a role that I held in the organization for a decade.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No to BNPP<\/b><\/p>\n

I finally was able to meet Obet personally in 2009, in a convening meeting of organizations working against the proposed revival of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP)<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It was in that campaign that I witnessed Obet disarm the most hostile proponents of environmental ruin in his usual calm manner. In a Committee on Appropriations hearing at the House of Representatives in 2009, the chief proponent for the BNPP, then-congressman Mark Cojuangco<\/a>, condescendingly questioned his credentials to be a resource person in the hearing. Obet responded by simply stating \u201cI am Roberto Verzola, I am an electrical engineer, a math teacher and a former member of the Presidential Committee on the Philippine Nuclear Power Plant that was tasked to study the legal options available to it in connection with the decision to mothball the nuclear plant.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It was enough to immobilize Cojuanco\u2019s assault on his opponents at that hearing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Advancing science and technology for the people<\/b><\/p>\n

Obet helped bring the Internet to activists in the early 90s towards the start of the millennium by providing email services to NGOs,<\/a> helping them link up with their global network of supporters and funders around the time when email was a privilege only to those who could afford the technology to set it up.<\/span><\/p>\n

When Bill Gates came to the Philippines in 1998, Obet donned a suit to play him in an action organized by the Philippine Greens<\/a> against information monopolies.<\/span><\/p>\n