Surviving a murderous deadline

I've been writing a lot lately. Not that anybody else notices, considering how I've blogged nothing at all recently, but... I've been writing, in fact, most furiously just last week. I wrote a paper on HIV, AIDS and men who have sex with men in the Philippines, on behalf of the Philippine National AIDS Council, as part of the country's contribution to the conference on MSM and HIV in Asia and the Pacific, which has just commenced as I write in New Delhi, India. There was also a Powerpoint presentation accompanying this paper, which Ferdie mostly did, two of us last week feeling like college students again rushing to finish their thesis.

I wanted to go to India, and I think some people were half expecting that I go too. I declined - rather, we came into a consensus that I should decline. Inspite of initial excitement (I have never been to India yet), we considered that the organization might come to a stand still with Ferdie and I gone. These coming weeks would be crucial for the organization. We are anticipating major things happening like the upcoming scenario for Global Fund rounds three and five. So between Ferdie and I, he was the more likely choice; he is our "permanent" member in the Council, I his "alternate." Together with Ferdie are two NGO representatives from Cebu and Zamboanga, two officials from the health and social welfare departments, and the monitoring and evaluation officer of the Council's secretariat. Dr. Mike Tan was supposed to go as well, organizers in India were hoping he could, but for some reason or other he dropped out a few days ago.

The process that led to this conference was very challenging. It was recommended that before the conference, every participating country should conduct its own consultative meeting. Mobilizing funds for country consultation was difficult; UNAIDS was doing all its best to help come up with funds, but none really could be had at short notice. PNAC was also rushing to attend to so many concerns but at least it was able to assign one secretariat staff to work on the consultation and secure a modest but functional venue (SACCL Conference Room in San Lazaro Hospital). Our group was also doing the best that we can to put together this consultation; de facto, I was thrust into the vortex of all the rush.

As I was gaining my own momentum towards the national consultative meeting, I got pulled out. An Asia-Pacific civil society meeting was going to be held in Bangkok on the same day as the consultation's, August 25. I was asked to represent AP-Rainbow (the network of LGBT organizations in the region) in the meeting. I was considered the logical choice for the meeting as it was about the universal access initiative; I represented the network in the first meeting held in Pattaya, Thailand earlier this year. The national MSM consultative meeting was held just the same, not as "flawless" as I had hoped (and believed it could have, had I been there), but it received positive feedback. As for the meeting I attended, I couldn't say for sure how meaningful the results have come... I sensed a lot of the participants having difficulty in making decisions on behalf of their work, their organizations and their countries. Again, I noticed how "fortunate" the Philippines was when it comes to government-civil society collaborations, particularly on HIV/AIDS. And it was easy to fail in fully appreciating how different the situation was for some of our other Asian neighbors.

As soon as I got back to Manila, I knew that my priority was writing that damned paper. Jonas could have done it for us, but I think he was also neck-deep in his work, both at the Congress and with LAGABLAB. Usually, our choice of writers are down to two in the most dire of situations, either him or me. Then more concerns came parading in such as the operational planning of the AIDS medium-term plan and the evaluation meeting a la road-tour of Global Fund (we had to attend two of these, in Bicol and Southern Tagalog). I was practically doing two things at the same time, almost on every occasion - preparing the paper and attending to the other what-have-you's. One night, I was looking at my desktop calendar and couldn't believe at the amount of working I've been doing. To think, I'm actually not being fully compensated at work right now. Having no ongoing contract projects at the moment, I'm only getting a modest allowance for every day that I report to work, just like a volunteer. Ah, such is the reality of NGO work!

Just a few days ago, Ka Ruthy (who is at the helm of Global Fund's NGO implementers) and I, being both journalism students in college, were talking about the travails and traumas of writing assignments like this paper - she already had more than her share, I'd think, having been involved in development work way before I did. She suggested that we should look into the possibility of having the paper published, as in print, which was something of an unspoken wish for me. It could be the first survey of MSM and HIV work in the country, we agreed, but inside I was also thinking, this would also be an important first for me. I've never yet experienced an ego-booster as having to see published work credited to my name, even back in my public relations and advertising days. I did press releases, background papers and feature articles, which didn't come with a by-line. Some journalists would rather put their own names on the by-line, a little quid pro quo for getting press releases printed on paper. I also wrote for brochures and the like since I started doing NGO work but "self-aggrandizement" is not really the point of publishing those.

Lately, during small packets of time when I could afford some daydreaming, I think about that possibility, of my writing and my name being published. I'd like to believe that having that opportunity would be just compensation for all the tribulations this New Delhi paper-presentation has brought. This paper had a murderous deadline, cheers for having survived... but getting published in return for all the hard work should be the redemption.

[Maybe, I should also publish the paper on the blog, a little at a time, it's fifteen pages long. I told you, the experience was almost like beating the deadline for your college thesis.]