Hawks and Doves by Ronan S. Estoque, MA (April, 2006)

What do you do when your neighbor recently bought a gun and is openly threatening you and your family? Will you go to the police? Will you inform your friends and relatives about the current situation? Will you buy your own gun for protection?

The threat is there and there are so many possibilities. What is certain though is that you are going to do something. You will not sit idly by and let events take its natural course without doing something.

Similarly, the same is happening in the Middle East. Just recently, Iran openly announced that they have already developed a weapon's grade plutonium and that Israel will finally have its comeuppance. The West of course is gravely concerned with these troubling events and its possible escalation to another Middle East skirmish. Because this time around, the possibility of a nuclear weapon entering the equation might escalate into a world war with a religious undertones and flavorings. If a war is made out of this posturing, it will be the Christians and Jews against the Muslims.

I am quite certain that the West will only use the nuclear weapon as a last resort and for a defensive purpose only. The Muslims however is a big question mark. Internally, the moderates are battling it out with the fanatics and if there is a nuclear prize to be won, this could escalate into a graphic scenario of a neighbor threatening another neighbor with a loaded gun.

I could just imagine the effect of an American aggression in Iran (all in the guise of preventing a nuclear holocaust) in the Philippine economy. Simply stated, this will only mean more economic difficulty. If you think that life now is difficult, just imagine when the price of everything is skyrocketing just because there is nuclear turmoil boiling somewhere in the Middle East.

To diffuse the situation and to prevent such a gloomy scenario, the moderates in the Middle East politics must prevail. Ironically, the Christians, the Jews and the Moderate Muslims must work together to defeat the aggressive posturing of the fanatics. All possible scenarios are gloomy and deadly without the moderates gaining the upper hand against the fanatics. Because whether we like it or not, the doves of Islam are needed to disperse the convention of war hawks.

Somehow, this has become a contest between the warmongers and the peacemakers regardless of religious orientations.


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There is a story why Ms. Abuel carries the first name of Baby Girl. When Ms. Abuel was born 21 summers ago, her birth gave so much happiness to her parents that they forgot to properly give her a first name. Coming from a family of farmers, Ms. Abuel was the first in her family to be born inside a hospital.

The only mistake was that the parents of Ms. Abuel did not insist on giving her a first name and when the name Baby Girl Abuel was registered in the municipal civil registry, due to the absence of a given first name - Baby Girl Abuel became the official name given not by her parents but by the system.

It was the first time for the parents of Baby Girl Abuel to enter the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC). And since, Ms. Abuel is graduating with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Electronics and Communications Engineering, everybody in the family is excited. When the master of ceremony uttered the immortal announcement of "we are now witnessing the entrance of the graduating students…", there were tears rolling in the eyes of her parents. Seeing their daughter graduating (the first in the family) at the PICC was worth every hardships and sacrifice that the family endured.

There were some close instances when Baby Girl Abuel was almost unable to continue her studies. What with the unexpected death of her grandmother and with the string of typhoons that visited the republic, the four hectares of rice paddies that her parents were farming almost yielded close to nothing. They were not even enough to cover the expenses for the purchase of saplings. Somehow, someway, the parents of Baby Girl Abuel were able to persist and overcome the economic hardship - in short, a mini miracle transpired and she is now marching in the expensive and intimidating hall of PICC.

The hope now is for Ms. Abuel to pass her licensure examinations, to finally land a job and to start the tedious steps of lifting her family from the clutches of poverty.

There is really no guarantee that she will be successful, what is certain though is that her fight against the cycle of poverty will be more difficult if she was not able to finish and acquire a degree. Bill Gates, the riches individual in the planet is a college drop-out. Lucio Tan, one of the riches individual in the republic is also a drop-out. The question however is that with a population of almost 6 billion people worldwide, just how many Bill Gates and Lucio Tan do we have? For ordinary mortals with no moneymaking ability, education seems to be the only passport that will close the door of poverty. Hence, the toil and sweat for a college degree continues with the hope that with a college degree, at least a level playing field in the hunt for a job will transpire.

In life, there are no guarantees. With a college degree, there is at least a glimmer of hope for the fight against poverty. There is a reason why graduation rites are sometimes called commencement exercises - a "commencement" indicates a new beginning. For the likes of Ms. Abuel and her family, this is a new beginning.

From the Humanities and Social Sciences Department, a heartfelt congratulations to the batch of graduates of 2006!