A Thai group raises funds for Japan through hip hop on Rama IV Street, Bangkok.

Plant operators tell AP reporters that by the end of Saturday, they hope to have four of the six units at the Fukushima Daiichi site reconnected to power. But even if the power is connected, it’s still not certain that the cooling systems would then kick in or be effective enough to cool the uranium rods and avert disaster.

Last Friday afternoon, when the 9.0 earthquake struck Japan, I was in the remote islands of Batanes, about half way between the Philippines and Taiwain, right at the intersection of the Pacific and the China seas. Like many people around the region, we filled water tanks and prepared for possible evacuations as news reports came in. Thankfully, the expected tsunami did not reach Philippine shores as some had feared.

(This despite a viral text message that circulated throughout metro Manila that warned people to seal themselves inside their homes and prepare for an imminent radiation outbreak – turned out to be false.)

The picture that is now emerging from Japan is one of devastation – and ongoing fear and frustration. As the BBC puts it, “Millions of people have been affected by the disaster – many survivors have been left without water, electricity, fuel or enough food; hundreds of thousands are homeless.”

As world leaders, scientists and government officials work to confront the problem, people on the streets throughout Southeast Asia are also taking action. I came across this local Thai group in Bangkok this week who were raising funds for Japan by dancing hip hop. They generated a lively, supportive crowd during a time of regional crisis.

Forester Nonoy Bugtong, 48, stands at the site where his tribal community defeated a plan by the Marcos Administration to build a 6,300 hectare resort in the early 1970s.

In 1971, the Ikalahans became the first indigenous community in the country to gain recognition for their stewardship of tribal forest land. Today, the villagers use traditional methods to manage some 57,000 hectares of forests.

After four decades, the Ikalahans are the Philippine’s best chance of entering the global carbon market – and thus receiving much-needed funds in exchange for their sustainable practices.

A footpath spans a river in the village of Imogan, where some 600 Ikalahan people are at the center of an effort to mitigate climate change with traditional forest management.

However, some groups are raising concerns over the carbon trading program, negotiated through the UN’s REDD+ program, a source of controversy in recent climate change talks. Questions persist over ownership of the forests and the carbon within them; who will manage the funds that will be generated; and the effects of indigenous communities entering into global market-based agreements.

The story of the Ikalahan offers a glimpse into the next phase of how climate change negotiations could play out across the world’s threatened forest communities.

Stay tuned: video, audio and a print story are coming soon…

Ferdinand Marcos received the strong support of former US President Ronald Reagan during his rule.

But Satur Ocampo, a board member of the Samahan ng mga Ex-detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (SELDO), a group of former political prisoners, challenged the removal of 2,013 victims from the case. According to the Associated Press, the federal court’s decision will distribute funds to 7,526 petitioners, which would amount to $1,000 each. Distribution will begin as early as mid-February.

“We reiterate that while we welcome this development, we raise questions as to how the court-appointed lawyer Attorney Robert Swift has considered the victims’ views on the case,” Ocampo told the Philippine Star. Ocampo called on Aquino to support the Marcos Victims Compensation bill, which he said, would officially recognize human rights violations during the Marcos martial law era.

Not everyone here in Manila is happy with the developments. Juan Ponce Enrile, who served as Defense Secretary under Marcos and is now the Senate President, criticized the US court decision and defended Martial law.

“Martial law was an act of State under the Constitution. It was not done arbitrarily,” Enrile told the Philippine Inquirer.

(I remember last June, watching Aquino’s inauguration along with millions of others in Manila, when Aquino’s victory was officially announced by Enrile himself on the Quirino Grandstand – an interesting twist of fate. )

Like many things in the Philippines, the past is a contested field. According to Luis Francia’s account of the heady days just before martial law was declared, a staged assassination attempt on Enrile provided cover for the government to declare martial law and clamp down on a rising resistance movement.

“On the fateful day of September 21, 1972, Enrile had decided to ride in his security car, rather than his own, later escaping the fusillade of automatic-weapons fire directed at his car by ambushers. His good fortune was ascribed to God’s intervention. The deity in this case, however, was a two-personned God: Marcos and Enrile himself. The attempted assassination, according to the government, left it no choice but to declare martial law. The next day, September 22, Proclamation 1081 put into place martial law.” (A History of the Philippines, 2010: p. 225-226)

(Check out an archived video of Marcos declaring martial law here.)

Francia then describes what happened next: “Military units fanned out across the city to arrest political opponents, activists, and anyone suspected by the regime of subversion. The first politician picked up was Senator Benigno Aquino Jr.”

Eleven years later Aquino, a leader of the opposition movement, would be shot dead on the airport tarmac upon his return from exile in the US.

Today, Senator Aquino’s son, Noynoy, is now the president of the Republic. The question is whether or not his administration will support efforts to finally and conclusively recognize the human rights violations of tens of thousands.

The group SELDA has announced plans to hold an assembly in Manila the end of this month on the passage of the bill. Meanwhile, US-appointed lawyer Swift tells AP that his team is still going after $70 million in Marcos assets through New York and Singapore courts.

When I was traveling through the Philippines in 2008 and reporting on Rizal’s legacy, some students seemed bored at the mention of Rizal and recalled his life’s watermarks with a monotone recitation – born in 1861, exiled to Mindanao, executed in 1896 – so it’s inspiring to hear his life and work live on with the youth.

Last week, just a couple days before December 30th and the anniversary of his execution by the Spanish, I drove by Calamba, his hometown on the way to the western edge of Batangas. In honor of Rizal and his struggle for independence – on the national, individual, and cultural levels – I’m including here a few excerpts of his work; for the best reminder of his relevance today comes from his own words.

From Noli: The central character, Ibarra, visits Old Tasio and finds him writing in “hieroglyphics” – it’s a language that refuses to use the Roman alphabet and insists on preserving an indigenous form. Old Tasio explains:

“Because I’m not writing for this generation, I’m writing for the ages. If they could read these, I would burn my books, my life’s work. On the other hand, the generation that can decipher these characters will be an educated generation. It will understand me and say, ‘In the nights of our grandparents, not everyone was asleep.’”

Also, from Noli, here’s a passage that I think of often as I walk through Manila. This translation by Harold Augenbraum captures the direct power and simple observation of Rizal:

“These thoughts fly around the space between the sahig, where humble mats lie, and the palupu, where a child sways in a pendant hammock. His breathing is easy and calm. Every so often he swallows his saliva and whimpers. He dreams of eating, his stomach is empty: the bits his older brothers have given him have not been enough. (From the chapter, “Sisa”).

And I must include a selection from Rizal’s final poem, Mi Ultimo Adios, written in the days before his execution, as he was imprisoned in Fort Santiago, Manila. He smuggled the single page from his cell and his words went on to help ignite the revolution:

My dreams when a lad, when scarcely adolescent:
my dreams when a young man, now with vigour inflamed;
were to behold you one day – Jewel of eastern waters! –
griefless the dusky eyes: lofty the upright brow:
unclouded, unfurrowed, unblemished, and unashamed!

And, finally, an excerpt from a letter Rizal wrote that was published in La Solidaridad in February 1890. At the time, Rizal’s Noli Me Tangare had come under harsh criticism and was banned in the Philippines. Rizal was responding to specific criticisms of Vicente Barrentes, who held high positions in the Philippine colonial government, and who said that Rizal’s work came from a “twisted” spirit.

“My spirit is ‘twisted’ because I have been reared among injustices and abuses, because since a child I have seen many suffer stupidly and because I too have suffered. My ‘twisted spirit’ is the product of that constant vision of moral ideals succumbing before the powerful reality of abuses, arbitrariness, hypocrisis, farces, violence and other vile passions. And twisted like my spirit is that of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos who have not yet left their miserable homes, who do not speak any other language but their own, and if they would write or express their thoughts, they would leave my Noli me tangare very puny indeed and with their volumes there would be enough to raise pyramids for the corpses of all the tyrants…”

Mubuhay si Dr. Rizal!