IAF Alumni, Meet and Greet 2015 at FNF Manila

Last Thursday night, October 22, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF) - PH Office hosted its annual reunion for alumni of the International Academy for Leadership (IAF), short courses and seminars (1-2 weeks long) in Gummersbach, Germany. Here, FNF PH Country Director Jules Maaten speaking, giving the opening remarks.

It's a beer and sausages reunion. Venue was the San Lorenzo Village multipurpose hall, Makati City. Below, lots of huge German sausages, sliced. And pork bar bq, and litson manok.

Two choices of beer, Lager and dark, free flowing from two huge kegs of beer beneath the dispenser and plastic cups. I feasted on both, one after the other, my tongue enjoyed the roller-coaster change of beer tastes. :-)

Program MC was Pauline Sanchez. She called on three alumni -- Jorgia Salonga, Mikael de Lara Co, and Tricia Robredo -- to briefly share their experience at the IAF in Gummersbach. Below, Assistant Sec. Kael de Lara Co.

Pauline asked for any volunteer from other alumni who wanted to share their experience, I raised my hand. I said that I  attended the seminar on "Local Government and Civil Society", late October 2008. Our seminar facilitators defined decentralization as those functions that can be done by the local governments, do not assign to the national government. And civil society is defined as those functions that can be done by civil society, of mature and responsible individuals, do not assign even to local governments. Which means that a state of civil society has the smallest, leanest possible government presence.

I find this political philosophy the most radical in the planet, at least among the major ones (vs. socialism or conservatism or democratism, etc.). And that makes me a big fan of (classical) liberalism and the FNF.

After the short sharing of experience, the game -- we were divided into four groups. A quiz, on six subjects -- general knowledge, movies, music, food, sports, and another one. 

Our group was the overall winner, thanks to the great and quick minds of John Coronel, Taikee Calleja, Noel Medina, and Lambert Ramirez. My contribution to such victory was minimal, if any :-)

The group photos, fun and wacky. Beside me is former Cong. Erin Tanada.

Then the karaoke and sing along. Outside the room, near the beer and sausages, someone pulled out a guitar and there was another round of singing. Kael, Paolo Zamora and Bing Salvador are good guitarists. We sang some songs by U2, Bob Marley, Pearl Jam, other rock bands.

Thanks again Jules, FNF-PH team, for another fun-filled night and reunion with my fellow IAF alumni. FNF events are always among my priorities, so long as I get an invitation.

All photos above from the FNF-PH Office fb page.
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See also:
Decentralization 3: Challenges to Local Government, November 18, 2008 
IAF Seminar 2008, Gummersbach, Germany, January 21, 2011 
FNF Philippines and Liberal Challenges 2013-2016, June 14, 2013 
IAF Seminar, Gummersbach, Germany, Part 2, October 13, 2013 
Rule of Law 22: IAF Seminar in Germany, April 09, 2014

IAF Seminar, Gummersbach, Germany, Part 2

This is the continuation of my earlier paper, IAF Seminar 2008, Gummersbach, Germany, posted in January 21, 2011. The course that I attended in THA, Gummersbach, Germany, was "Civil Society and Local Government" conducted I think, from October 26 to November 2, 2008. or almost five years ago. I feel nostalgic...

Our batch visited some government offices in Cologne, about one hour by car from Gummersbach. A local paper featured one story about such visit.

 One of those lecture-workshops. To my right was Asma Asfor from Palestine, to my left Isil Cakmac from Turkey.

My other batchmates from different countries. From left: Jingjing Cai from China, Pai from Indonesia, Xinggo Li also from China, Diego Conti from Brazil, Bastian Saputra from Indonesia, Brian Lariche of Malaysia, Asma Asfor from Palestine, Nora from Colombia (?), Marcelo from Venezuela, and Elsa from S. Africa.

Other batchmates from other countries.

We also have evening lectures, about 2x, excluding the welcome and farewell dinners of the 8-days seminar.

Fellowships in the evening. We have a quota of 1 free glass of beer per night per participant. Some batchmates don't drink, so they give their beer stub to us drinkers, so we can have two glasses on a night. The glasses are big anyway, so two bottles should be enough.

IAF Seminar 2008, Gummersbach, Germany

In late October 2008, I attended the International Academy for Leadership (IAF) of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty (FNF) in Gummersbach, Germany. The IAF holds about a dozen seminars per year on different topics, each seminar about 8 to 14 days long. The seminar that I attended was on "Local Government and Civil Society." Here's our group picture, we were 24 from about 10 or 11 countries from Asia, South America, Africa and Eastern Europe.

The venue was the Theodor Heuss Akademie (THA). It has complete facilities -- lecture rooms, meeting rooms, wide lobby, dining hall, internet area, library, 8-storeys dormitory, etc. The akademie is on top of a small hill. The city proper is below it.

Gummersbach is a small and hilly city in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the richest among 16 states in Germany. It is 56 kms from Cologne. In front of the akademie is a forested and open grassland area, very serene and beautifully-landscaped.

Our cheerful and very intelligent moderators were Dr. Monika Ballin and Dr. Arno Keller. They really have a good grasp of the philosophy of liberalism -- its emphasis on individual liberty, the principle of subsidiarity and the goal of a lean and limited government. They also smiled a lot.

The Director of the academy is Birgit Lamm. A tall and soft-spoken lady who by now, has hundreds of friends from around the world, alumni of the academy. I am curious what Birgit would be writing because she tends to listen more than speak. So I guess her brains are full of different inputs and impressions of the participants and what those are saying.

Four of us were from South America -- Argentina, Paraguay and Venezuela. They speak very little English, but we have two lady translators who would give simultaneous translation during the lectures. We wear the headphones when our friends from S. America would speak to listen to the translators.

It's not all lectures and group dynamics, of course. We also have good time, in the evening, usually starting around 8:30pm. We gather in the lobby and just have a chat with each other, or we sing and dance. There is a piano in the lobby. Our Argentiian friend, Marcelo, played the piano and the guitar. They may not speak good English but they know and sing a number of songs by The Beatles, Billy Joel, Michael Jackson and other known Western musicians. Of course we also hum along with their Spanish songs and beat to their fast dance.

Ahh yes, we put our country's respective miniature flags in front of us everyday during lectures. The sight adds color and symbols to the participants. Some of us also were not that fluent in English, so we have to listen more attentively.

Another view of the participants. One side of the lecture room is facing the woods. It was nice to go out there during break time and noontime, feel the tolerable cold.

Aside from lectures, we also have group workshops and group presentations, to act out on certain policy debates. The "group acting" can be funny. Then we will assess each group after. Here, our group is protesting the closing of one municipal facility, we were the "protesters", while another group was supporting the move. I invented that plackard that said, "Remove our pub, we will block your beer delivery." :-)

We also had some guest lecturers. Here, Mr. Uwe Ufer, a City Mayor near Gummersbach. Uwe was an independent politician who did not believe in belonging to any political party and wanted to focus his effort and time with the citizens than allocate additional time dealing with party matters and politics.

More pictures and stories later in Part 2 of this subject.