Chained Melody

Recently, there was a news item about prisoners being chained to prevent escape. What a throwback to the dungeons!

If penology seems to be retrogressing, mediation is progressive justice system.

Ban-dila

As we enter Holy Week, perhaps it is time to ironically follow the name of this local newscast.

Indeed, words can make or break negotiations during mediation.

Sane Mali

Zayn Malik lost One Direction- i.e., to remain true to his girlfriend while on tour. So his Pinoy fans lost him too when the group performed in Manila.

Life is all about choices manifested in behavior. Mediation tries to undo these wrong choices.

Ma Catty

Makati is becoming a City of Screams, with a catfight cum dogfight a brewing. Corruption charges do that to incumbents bent on staying on. Send them the song,
"Let it go".

Mediation is sought in court. Before that time, both parties could have sat down in one City Hall, and not in separate ones as is happening. Even earlier, no corruption should have happened in the first place.

S-team Building

That's not the latest morph of the A-Team. Rather, it was the result of a team-building activity in the teleserye Forevermore. Sometimes, the effect of an exercise to unite the group is exactly the opposite.

Despite all the goodwill of parents, too, their brood made up of willful individuals can become fractious, especially when in-laws enter the picture. A job for mediators, hopefully before the family is dragged to court.

Man Does That

Melissa Mendez is taking Woeman's Month to stratospheric heights. In a fight with co-passengers on a flight to Pagadian, she was offloaded and now faces a court suit.

Perhaps flight and ship crew have to be trained in mediation as well as self defense against passengers, hijackers or otherwise.

Fit-ah

That cracker ad shows two ways of claiming ownership- assertively and aggressively.
One can whisper one's claim or spread havoc in the process.

Mediation often sees examples of these.

Black and Blue

This is not about physical abuse but rather that dress cross-coloring to white and gold.  Sure got most of us agog in the midst of our own little and big problems.  Some traced the controversy to color blindness.

Mediation also deals with reality conflicts, some due to moral blindness.

Kristel Nayari

Kristel Mallari gave the commencement speech in her school, the Santo Nino Parochial School as Salutatorian.  In it, she berated the subjective grading system there. My guess is that she did not make the grade (literally) as Valedictorian. Teachers took turns to make her stop and leave the stage.

Mediation between Kristel and the school should have been done before that day.

Call Lapse

The President was rumored to have collapsed the other night. Could they have been referring to his term of office and not his physical condition? Reminds me of the time my GrandAir ticket office received a threatening telephone call about we were going down. We feared a bomb was lobbed in our plane, or barring that, a prediction of our coming business downfall!

Once again, we are faced with confusing news. Mediators try to make sense and compromise in the midst of these suspicious self-promoting ploys.

Nicodemus

Reading today's Gospel reading on Nicodemus, I recalled the same name of the pug of Robin Williams' priest character in one movie years ago. The name, it seems, stands for a loyal friend. Indeed, the original Nicodemus faced the Pharisees and defended Christ thus, "Does our law condemn people without first hearing them and knowing the facts?"

A mediators is like a modern-day Nicodemus then.

Danish Backsliding

That is not a new equipment in the playground. The proclaimed happiest country on earth recently experienced two counts of violence. According to AP, targets were ironically "a free-speech seminar and the capital's main synagogue."

Trouble in paradise is bound to happen, after the fall of Adam and Eve. Hence Jesus Christ was sent to set the example as the Greatest Mediator.

Insulting Buddha in Burma

Recalling a young foreigner spray-painter in Singapore years ago, another expat's assault on a local culture happened in Myanmar recently. Reuters has reported that "a New Zealand bar manager and two local colleagues (were) jailed with labor for two and a half years for insulting religion by using a psychedelic image of Buddha wearing headphones to promote their bar."

What may be an adventure to a foreigner could be an insult and a crime to the locals. That is why Pinoys leaving for work abroad are required to undergo orientation on the culture of the country they are going to, so they become aware and sensitive to it. "Preventive mediation" at work here.

Danish Happiness

Aside from Disneyland, Denmark is also the happiest place on earth. An Inquirer article revealed that the Danish secret, aside from their pastry, is that their "government itself does little but mediate"..."the social dialogue between employers and the trade unions"..."and no politician, regardless of ideology, seeks to disrupt or unfairly influence the healthy discourse." Also, the Danish envoy mentioned their "investing in the youth. Education. Education. Education." But in the end, it all boils down to "trust between citizens and government."

Mediation is surely a step toward this utopia being replicated all over the world!

On Hamster Wheels

In Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho's show last weekend, there was an interesting twist in a featured summer getaway resort. Persons were acting like hamsters going in circles   but high above land.

Sometimes, we have to get into the others' shoes to get a feel of their situation. If that is not possible, a mediator could facilitate this process by looking at both sides objectively.

Atenean Girls

In schoolyear  1970- 71, we were several female cross-enrolees in Experimental Psychology at the Ateneo de Manila. Truly experimental! So was topping the first quiz. Now, Ateneo is accepting females in high school.

Such openness and exposure would be best for these young people to experience within the academe, and not strictly just socially. Hopefully, too, there would be less need for mediation between them in school or after.

Religious Remedy

This Sunday was made extra blessed by this Inquirer news that Santa Rosa de Lima Parish Church in Tuguegarao, Cagayan is being renovated by the Wong Chu King Foundation. What an excellent example of global ecumenism!

Such openness to others is the stuff of mediation.

Non-Mediatable

One of our two dogs died today. He was the younger, wilder but more sensitive therefore more vulnerable of the two. Rescued by my son from "aso cena," he was at first naturally hostile, then became anxiously prone to gnawing anything in sight and within reach. Once he got out of the house and promptly massacred a rooster tied to a tree. Thus, Sandy was renamed Samson. Will miss that lovable character.

Death is one of those non-mediatable cases.

Audi-thing

There is a sour note on the Department of Trade and Industry's handling of a "test case for the Philippine Lemon Law." As reported in the Inquirer's Biz Buzz, a recent buyer of an Audi returned the car posthaste, which the distributor attended to. However, the owner "refused to retrieve his Audi, insisting on a full refund or a brand new unit." How is DTI going to settle this conflict?

Sales is a power keg for disputes. As they say, buyers (and sellers) beware!

Another Digger

Not for gold nor grave, but suspended Mayor Binay is digging in his office. Why can't people respect the law, especially if he is a lawyer and had vowed to explain his side in the proper forum? Public office is such a magnet for clingers-on, you wonder why?

Mediation is another venue for checkmate where you run out of excuses and have to  face the music, or dance to it on your way out.

Mediating Meetings

Aside from secretarial duties yesterday, I had to play talk cop between contending members. Two members had a thing or two against one other member, so you could guess where it was leading.

Expectations of members and of leaders have to be clarified or written, just to be clear, understood and objective. Mediators can help out here.

Church vs. State

There is "schism" in the Philippine Catholic Church regarding what to do with a problem like P-Noy.  Some pro-GMAers want his outright resignation, and being taken over by a Council headed by B-Nay! Others are content with an apology or an honest-to-goodness explanation. Cardinal Tagle called for working together to strengthen government institutions.

When too many cooks want to run the kitchen, there is going to be something or someone burnt. Mediation serve as firefighters of relationships.

Solomonic Mediation

On BEAM channel last night was a timely feature on King Solomon. It narrated, among other less known events, his being confronted by two mothers claiming an infant. Solomon decided to half the baby into two, forcing the real mother to come forward to save it by offering her child to the other mother, instead. Case solved.

These breakthroughs in mediation are truly inspired and worked for by mediators together with the disputants.

Listen in Silence

Today's Holy Mass homily had a thought- provoking message. Listen spells silent in jumbled letters.

How true! For aside from prayer, mediation requires the same, and not only to prepare one's reply to what is being said. One should not only hear with the ear, but with the heart, as well.

"Am arty" Blues

When one news commentator asked if the MRT was an accident waiting to happen, we are sure she was not referring to the catfight that ensued recently in the first section of the train reserved for women, the elderly and the disabled. Three Catwomen exposed their claws and aimed for the other's crowning glory in rowdy celebration of Woemen's Month.

Truly, propinquity breeds contempt, whether in public utility vehicles or close relationships. Mediation to the rescue- of untangling hair or other knotted situations.

Media Stars

All the young stars sprouting like beans are fair game for nosy entertainment reporters. One of them asked pointblank a controversial teen star regarding an emerging competitor. As expected, the reply was "Good for her," or the like.

Ego plays a big role on the mediation table, too. Instead of fanning the fire, though, the mediator extinguishes it. Then, the real issue rises out of the ashes.

Moro con Moro

The new head of the Special Action Force which lost 44 of its men to the MILF/BIFF/ Muslim private armies is a Moro. He is Moro Virgilio Lazo. May he bind the opposing forces in a lasting peace. After all, he is one of them in name.

At times, in mediation, too significance is not lost to disputants. Mediators bring this out, especially the former close ties of conflicting parties.

Tragedy, A Part of Life

During the tv coverage of a fire yesterday, this philosophical remark of a woman victim stood out among the usual pleas for help.

This point of view lessens the burden during mediation, too, while not preventing us from seeking a way out of it that is fair to all concerned.

Family Feud

Peping and Tingting are up in arms, not embracing but repelling their nephew Noynoy.

Their motives have been suspect. As in mediation, when families fight, one wonders what went wrong down their tree.

MRT Works Woes

The saga of the elevated trains has been elevating blood pressure, too. Passengers naturally demand additional service in exchange for the additional fare.  At last, a glimmer of hope in the weekend repairs to be done! Of course, service will then be shortened on those days, but better to avert more accidents waiting to happen.

Mediation likewise looks for doable compromises to settle disputes, considering the needs, interests and capacities of both sides.

Admission of Fact

Nothing disarms like candor. Kris Aquino's siblings, she claims, admits that she is "maarte" and that is why she is in show business.

In mediation, too, admission of fact hastens the process toward settlement.