“But still I am thankful for 2021, for the seeds planted and the flowers that bloomed.”
2021 was a tough year for many of us. Worst of all, we saw too many deaths. In my case, at least ten close friends and relatives have died and mostly in circumstances painful to their families.
The human rights situation continued to deteriorate. Many colleagues were and are getting killed. It is heartbreaking to see clients Leila De Lima and Myles Albasin still in jail for their fifth and fourth Christmas respectively.
The climate emergency has accelerated, as we are now experiencing with Odette even as development aggression has escalated.
Finally, the politics of the country is going on the wrong direction.
But still I am thankful for 2021, for the seeds planted and the flowers that bloomed.
I am grateful for my teaching in more than 20 schools all over the country and in the many other opportunities to teach and mentor, including guiding many undergraduate, JD, LLM, JSD, and PHD students in their thesis, GIR, and dissertation requirements. 2021 was a breakthrough year for me as a teacher as I experimented with using music, videos, and new forms of interaction and assessment in my undergraduate, graduate, and law classes.
I am grateful also to the many organizations and networks that invited me to share analysis and ideas, like the John Dewey School for Children, environmental, indigenous peoples, and human rights organizations, and many law schools/IBP chapters doing MCLE or continuing legal education programs.
I am also thankful to the many church, academic, business, and civic groups that have trusted me to brief them on the political situation of the country, providing objective and nonpartisan information and analysis. I expect more requests for these briefings in 2022 — before and even after the elections.
I am honored to have been appointed as Chair of the Jurisprudence and Legal Philosophy Department of the Philippine Judicial Academy. It is so wonderful to be able to teach prospective and current judges, many of whom are already my former LLB, JD, LLM, and JSD students.
I am happy to have produced so many academic publications and journalistic pieces this year; four international book chapters and two international journal articles, one edited book, three law review articles, more than 100 Eagle Eyes columns, around 20 Rappler articles, three Inquirer articles.
I am proud of my human rights work in 2021, especially with the Lumad schools and youth sector. It has been a challenging year but we successfully defended our clients from all threats, went on the offensive against NTF-ELCAC, celebrated the graduation of our students, and laid down the ground work of rebuilding and reopening the schools in their communities.
I am proud also of the work I am doing in defense of planet and people, including the Masungi Georeserve and its defenders. I am also a mentor to many environmental justice lawyers and advocates and a big supporter and resource to many environmental organizations.
I am glad that I am still engaged in the work for climate justice that has become even more important, with intensified engagement in the international negotiations that must be done for a better global response. I appreciate my team and colleagues in the Manila Observatory and for the chance to be their leader and mentor.
I am honored to be in the Boards of Rappler and more recently of the Pinoy Media Center and of having been asked to convene and chair the Movement Against Disinformation. There is no place I would rather be than in the frontlines of the fight for the truth and against fake news and hateful views.
I am grateful for music, for Taylor Swift and Ben and Ben in particular. They have consoled and inspired me, provoked and calmed me down, accompanied me in sadness, made me dance with joy at times.
I am grateful of course for family and for all of us having been protected from death and sickness in this past year. I am truly appreciative of friends, old and new, for bonds that have strengthened and deepened in a year of living dangerously.
My experience of loving and being loved reminds me of Gabriel Marcel’s distinction of having and being. In Chapter 8 of The Mystery of Being, he talks about disponibilite— or making oneself available to others and to mission. What is important is not what you have done or accomplished in a year or indeed in a life—but it is how you have said yes to love, how you have given yourself to what you have been called to, how you live the mission, that defines who you are.
Above all, my heart is full of praise for our Lord, who always forgives me for my shortcomings, whose plan for me in 2021 had many twists and turns but always it is the narrow door The Lord leads me to, the eye that the big camel I am is able to go through because all things are possible for God.
My God is a Person, divine yes but a person nevertheless, thus I am not able to predict what will happen next, but I do know I am loved, never left alone, and the ultimate outcome is always good.
Happy new year everyone!
