Canadian ambassador happy with Can-Phl relationship

I can quickly be proven right when I say that Filipinos have a very good image of Canada and Canadians. Those who have gone to Canada are impressed by the beauty of its forests, lakes, fauna and flora (oh, who will not fall in love with Victoria Island?), and the warmth and friendliness of its people.

The new Canadian ambassador, Neil Reeder, enhanced the favorable image of his country and people with his disarming charm and wit demonstrated during the Manila Overseas Press Club and Canadian Chamber of Commerce night at the Manila Golf and Country Club last week.

A source of pride for the Canadian community in Manila was the visit here of  their Prime Minister Stephen Harper last November — the first visit of a Canadian leader to the Philippines in 15 years.  He was also the first  G8 leader to visit President Aquino.

Just a week after Ambassador Reeder and his wife Irene arrived in the Philippines, Typhoon Yolanda struck. Quick to come to the scene was Canada which donated $85 million for the victims. The Prime Minister announced that his government would match that figure, meaning a total of $170 million in assistance. The funds will be used to assist in recovery and reconstruction, provide shelter and opportunities for farmers and fishermen and those in the service sectors.

“We were one of the first countries to arrive to help the Philippines, and one of the last to leave,” said Ambassador Reeder.

Canadian assistance did not come only after Yolanda. It  provided nearly $800 million for development assistance since the restoration of democracy in l986. This was marked for  supporting decentralization and strengthening of local governance, private sector development for those in the micro-economy, and in promoting gender equality. In fiscal year 2012-2013, the government provided over $16 million in official development assistance.

Why do Filipinos like to live in Canada? They must have good answers. The Philippines is the largest source of immigrants to Canada for the past three years. Over 30,000 permanent resident visas have been given out at the embassy in Manila, and a large number of temporary labor visas were issued for Filipinos to work in Canada last year. Indeed, immigration to Canada from the Philippines has tripled over the past ten years, leading to the creation of major Filipino communities, particularly in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and Calgary.

Maclean’s magazine, said Reeder, his country’s national newsmagazine, reported that Filipinos comprise the largest foreign community working in Canada’s North – in the Yukon, Northwest Territories and the self-governing aboriginal territory of Nunavot. “No one has more courage than the Filipino welding a pipeline in the Yukon, at minus 40 in January,” said Reeder.

Today, over 800,000 Canadians of Filipino origin, live and work in this foreign country, and Tagalog is the fastest growing language there.

Of great import is the North American country’s  appreciation for the role of media in society. It has supported training for reporting and photojournalism skills for provincial media practitioners, for elections, human trafficking human rights and other issues. It awarded Eileen Mangubat, publisher and editor in chief of the Cebu Daily News with a Marshall McLuhan Fellowship for Responsible Journalism.

Freedom of Information is still a ticklish issue in this country, with politicians and government officials suspicious of the  journalists’ watchdog role.  Ambassador Reeeder said, freedom of information is guaranteed by his nation’s Bill of Rights. More than 25 years ago, he said, Canada’s Access to Information Act was passed  to allow citizens to request and demand records from federal government institutions. This law permits Canadians to retrieve information from government files, establishes what kind of information  should be accessed, and legislates timelines for government to respond to a particular request.

The legislation,  Reeder said, “has made government workers and public servants thorough and transparent in all our dealings and activities,  having in mind that what we spend are public funds, and thus we are ultimately accountable to the Canadian public.”

Preserving the peace is a must. Canada, said the ambassador at the MOPC night, “in its discreet and modest way,” played a key role in supporting the Philippine government in advancing the Bangsamoro Peace Process. He said  Randy Beck, the Royal Canadian Mounted  Police Assistant Commissioner from British Columbia chairs the Independent Commission on Policing Mindanao. This commission has presented its recommendations to the government and MILF panels on creating a new civilian police force responsible for maintaining  law and order in Bangsamoro.

It will be  a thrill to see Royal Mounties trudging through the hills and vale and nooks to  keep the peace in Mindanao.  To that suggestion, the ambassador will smile, and I’ll say,   “Joking only.” That we’re able to swap jokes shows that he  is warm and friendly, indeed  a good envoy of peace.

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“The next frontier in education is the online arena. Sometime back, the card catalog, the Dewey decimal point system, and the librarian were our best friends. Who, today, can say that they learn exclusively without the aid of the computer, without going online and accessing information from the web?”

These are questions asked by Mildred Dominguez, one of my most computer literate contemporaries. Mildred is  co-owner and president of Arkipel Software Development. She sleeps, thinks and eats to the tune of bytes and sounds and online learning. And to think that in our college days, we were just using typewriters and calculators, and sending messages by telegram and telepathy!

Mildred says, “Since 1994,  the open source operating system that is currently the rockstar OS of the server realm online access in the Philippines  â€” has been increasing steadily. According to AGB Nielsen, approximately 36  percent of the Filipino population  today accesses the internet. That’s up from a meager two percent back in 2000.”

Many have abandoned the library and the home encyclopedia to access information, this entrepreneur says.  â€œThe new go­ to is doing a search online. How many times a day do I ‘Google it’?   Countless times, I confess. YouTube, Wikipedia, Google Books are great resources for the dilettante. But what about the serious student? Whether in the university or in an organization or company training course, online learning is an extension of the student experience.”

“The value and benefit of an online lecture platform to academia is obvious. There are many more areas where this application will prove vastly useful.  Mildred assures us that through the Sophia platform, Arkipel can help any school, university, and organization install, customize, integrate and maintain their own online courses by utilizing the power of OPEN EdX.

Online courses and training will soon be an integral addition to the learning experience for most organizations  in the Philippines. Arkipel is spearheading this highly performant means by which Filipino schools, companies, and organizations can jump into the online learning arena today.

For more information regarding the Sophia online learning platform, contact Arkipel at [email protected] or call 208 7008.

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Email: [email protected]