DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/28 Dec) – Regularity of release being among the criteria on which journal publications are assessed, the editorial board of the Tambara has made sure that volume 28 comes out as expected on the last day of the year. As I write this blurb, the press is running.
This newest edition of the Tambara sets the standards for academic journal publication in the region. All the scholarly articles included here had been carefully selected from the submissions received for this special edition on multicultural governance and peace in Mindanao.
International lecturer Eric Casino, formerly the head of the anthropology department of the National Museum, examines the 1900-1920 modes of colonial governance on which present-day political structures and instrumentalities have sprung. Former Tambara editor Macario Tiu gives us a glimpse of the influence of Japanese presence on the socioeconomic and political order in Davao City in the first half of the twentieth century. Ateneo (de Zamboanga) Peace Awardee Raymundo Ferrer and his aide Randolph Cabangbang examine the implications of
the International Humanitarian Law on the armed conflict in Mindanao that spans the last fifty years or so. Former BBC correspondent Annabel McGoldrick reports on the findings of her research on the psychological impact on ADDU audiences of war/peace journalism news framing. SAS Dean Daniel McNamara, SJ directs the reader how to find God – and peace – in all things, the Jesuit physicist’s way. As a
historical note – lest Ateneans forget, we have also included the admonitions of outgoing ADDU President Antonio Samson, SJ on the educative mission of the Ateneo de Davao University.
This volume comes to us through the commitment and dedication of associate editor Pamela R. Castrillo of the Humanities Department and guest editor Patricio N. Abinales of the University of Hawaii in Manoa, who labored with me in the painstaking process of pushing the limits of these papers to their utmost excellence. To this end, we had been aided by the comments of our international pool of reviewers, to include Stephanie Koorey (Australian Defence College), Alastair Reed (Utrecht University), Rudy Rodil (Hiroshima University), Federico
Magdalena (University of Hawaii), Joshua Gedacht (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Michael Sotiropolous (State University of New York at Stony Brook), Jowel Canuday (Oxford University), Margaret Alvarez (Silliman University), Joey Jegonia (Xavier University), Reynaldo Vequizo (MSU-IIT), Karl Gaspar (Redemptorist Center for Social and Ecological Concerns), and Ericson Batican (COPERS).
We hope readers enjoy our humble offering in the name of Mindanao scholarship.
On a personal note, I offer this benchmark as a grateful culmination of the eleven years that the University has privileged me to work on the official journal of the ADDU. Six years under Mac Tiu’s tutelage, a semester under Bet Alejo’s, two editions as officer-in-charge until I earned my PhD and became qualified to officially be the editor… You bet, I learned a lot. Enough to produce this volume that speaks for itself, anyway. So, thank you, Father Sam, for trusting I could do
it. I wish you were around for me to report, “Mission accomplished, Father.”
(Wayward and Fanciful is Gail Ilagan’s column for MindaViews, the opinion section of MindaNews. Ilagan teaches Social Justice, Family Sociology, Theories of Socialization and Psychology at the Ateneo de Davao University where she is also the associate editor of Tambara. You may send comments to gail@mindanews.com. “Send at the risk of a reply,” she says.)