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.