Nation building

NO HOLDS BARRED
Ike Señeres

Are you interested in nation building? It happens to be the goal of the United National Integrated Development Alliance (UNIDA). UNIDA is the organization behind the UNIDA Philippines Yahoo Group. If you are not yet subscribed to this group, please send any email, even a blank email to unidaphilippines-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. If you are already subscribed, please send me an email for my information.

Effective next week, I will no longer post my weekly columns in the UNIDA Philippines Yahoo Group. My weekly columns will henceforth be posted only in the Senseneres Yahoo Group. If you wish to receive copies of my weekly column via email through this other group, please send an email to senseneres-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. As an alternative, you could also read my weekly columns at www.senseneres.blogspot.com.

If you happen to be a Filipino scientist, inventor or engineer based in the Philippines or abroad, please join the Roster of Scientists, Inventors and Engineers (ROSIE). To do this, please join first the Global Action for National Development Assistance (GANDA) Yahoo Group by sending an email to ganda_assistance-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Spouses and friends of Filipinos may also join both Rosie and Ganda.

Ganda is an international organization of volunteers who would like to assist developing countries in planning, implementing, monitoring and reporting their national development programs. GANDA is positioned to assist all developing countries, including the Philippines . Hopefully, it will become the vehicle for Filipino scientists, inventors and engineers to reach out to the rest of the world.

Taken as a whole, I am hoping that UNIDA and Rosie could become the active forces in leading the process of nation building in the Philippines . I am also hoping that beyond the Philippines , Ganda could also become a force in promoting the talents of Filipino scientists, inventors and engineers abroad.

If you want to join local UNIDA chapters, please tell us your location. As we start to know where our members are, we are going to organize eyeballs so that we could get to know each other. In the case of Metro Manila, we are going to organize chapters in each city. In the case of the provinces, we are going to start with provincial chapters until we could get the critical mass to start city chapters.

It was a pleasure to meet again with Dr. Poch Macaranas, who was my boss when he was an Undersecretary for International Economic Cooperation (IEC) at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA). I was first “captivated” by nation building when I worked under Dr. Jolly Benitez when he was Deputy Minister for Human Settlements, but it was Dr. Macaranas who taught me the international dimension of this goal.

As a result of my meeting with Dr. Macaranas, I have decided to incorporate the goal of nation building in everything that I am doing, both in my businesses and in my advocacies. As Dr. Macaranas aptly put it, this is not a difficult thing for me to do, and as a matter of fact, I could no longer “escape” it, because it is already part of me. Jokingly, I told him that he is partly to “blame” for that.

It is perhaps providential that my boss at the Global News Network (GNN), Mr. Harry Tambuatco, is also zealous about the goal of nation building. I am now producing ten shows for GNN including my own show, and because of Mr. Tambuatco, the goal of nation building is now the common denominator of all of my shows.

Perhaps it is also providential that Mr. Bombit Buencamino, the President of Metro Club has asked me to organize seminars for his venue, along the goal of nation building building. In particular, Mr. Buencamino wants me to organize events and seminars that would encourage cooperation between government and industry, in support of national development in general.

What is nation building? To cut a long story short, it is the better and the more understandable term for national development. For good measure however, we should aim for integrated national development.

Watch KA IKING LIVE! Thursdays 7pm to 8pm in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 21 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings. Visit senseneres@blogspot.com