$2-M Asian program in search of journalists

By John Nery Philippine Daily Inquirer

Posted date: May 31, 2010

MANILA, Philippines—The keynote speaker gave the audience plenty to think about. Preeminent Southeast Asia scholar Benedict Anderson lashed out at the “catastrophic” Arroyo administration, and lamented the isolation of public intellectuals from “the general public.” But during the breaks on the side of the international conference in Quezon City to mark the 10th anniversary of the $2-million-a-year Asian Public Intellectuals (API) fellowship program over the weekend, one recurring question dealt with something a little more basic: Where are the journalists? Out of 216 fellows from five countries who have completed their research under API’s generous terms, 88 are academics, or a full 40 percent of the total. There are 39 NGO workers (including, from the Philippines, political analyst Joel Rocamora and leading physician Fe de los Reyes), and 35 creatives (film directors like Nick Deocampo and Auraeus Solito). However, only 15 of all fellows are journalists (with only four from the Philippines). Clearly, said university professor Theresita Atienza, a fellow now serving on API’s regional committee who culled the statistics, “we need more journalists” to apply for the fellowships. Research project The program allows fellows from the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand to conduct a research project of their choice, for up to a year and with all expenses paid, in any or all of the five countries except their own. Cover via Amazon “The idea is to support civil society, but to support it from the professional knowledge standpoint,” said Ambassador Yohei Sasakawa, chair of Nippon Foundation, which conceptualized, directs and funds the program. The program provides this support, said Tatsuya Tanami, foundation executive director, by meeting its two main goals: “To identify and nurture public intellectuals” in Asia, and “to form a community of these public intellectuals.” This emerging community of public intellectuals was on living display during the international conference hosted by Ateneo de Manila University—more than half of all API fellows attended the three-day forum, and the fruit of their work was showcased through books and art exhibits. Herry Yogaswara, a fellow from Indonesia, identified an aspect of the API program that distinguishes it from other fellowships. “One of the features of this program is continuity.” For instance, a “regional project” begun in 2008 has allowed over 55 fellows, after they had completed their research, to work together again on what Atienza described as “community-based initiatives for ecological balance” in five sites in the region. (In the Philippines, the activity site is Batanes.) Partner institutions Another distinctive feature of the program is the depth of its endowment. Tanami said the foundation had invested, “roughly speaking, US$20 million in 10 years.” He quickly pointed out that, “though it sounds like a lot of money,” the funds did not only bankroll some 30 fellows conducting research in five countries every year, but also “five research units in partner institutions.” The API partner institutions are among the region’s leading educational centers: The Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Kyoto University, Institute of Malaysian and International Studies at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Institute of Asian Studies at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, and Ateneo de Manila. The 10th anniversary conference was held on Ateneo’s Quezon City campus, in part in tribute to the university’s 150th anniversary. Some of the more prominent API fellows include Malaysian economist Jomo K. S., now an assistant secretary general at the United Nations; Kavi Chongkittavorn, a senior journalist from Thailand; and Indonesian election commissioner Sri Nuryanti. The API is unusual among institutional donors in funding as many as 30 fellows every year. With the inclusion of applicants from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam starting with the next cycle, the number of “Asian Public Intellectuals” will rise markedly in the next few years. Thought-provoking The conference began with a provocative keynote address by Anderson, the celebrated author of “Imagined Communities.” Reading several volumes’ worth of API research findings, Anderson told a packed hall, “aroused in me an anxiety.” He noted that the years from 1998 onward were politically turbulent ones for the region. And yet: “What struck me in reading these volumes was the relative invisibility of this turmoil.” In the research projects conducted in Thailand, he noted, “Thaksin [the controversial ex-prime minister] barely appears.” In those involving the Philippines, a reader gets “no idea of the catastrophic presidency of Gloria Arroyo Macapagal.” (He mistakenly inverted the President’s names.) This relative invisibility led him to discuss “the rise and decline of the traditional role of the public intellectual”—a decline, he said, caused mainly by the growing separation of academics and other traditional intellectuals from the general public. In the press briefing that concluded the first day of the conference, Surichai Wun’Gaeo, API fellow and director of Chulalongkorn’s Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, took issue with Anderson’s directly political model. “We are too much concerned with power politics in this model,” he said. “In API, the issue of power relates also to understanding...The issue is much more basic than just political. For us, [the issue is] how to strengthen the power of understanding.” In the same briefing, Fr. Bienvenido Nebres, SJ, Ateneo president, sought to base that understanding on the self-chosen research concerns of the new generation of knowledge workers. “The API is giving opportunities to younger intellectuals precisely to develop a regional point of view,” Nebres said. “The future belongs to the younger generation—but you have to trust them.” It’s a future that includes journalists too.