WE WOULD like to particularly stress that leaders can have a sharper view at how the people respond to the message they convey by adopting participatory leadership as their style of leadership.

By participatory, we mean involving a wider section within the organization in the study of issues, in the formulation of the plan, and in the implementation, monitoring and assessment of such plan.

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By involving the entire membership of the organization, or a substantial section thereof, in decision-making processes and in the enforcement of such decision, we can be assured of accurate information gathered through our organization’s built-in feedback mechanism.

Need for common interpretation

It is very important that both the messenger and the receiver have a common view of what the message is all about. In the absence of this, a message may trigger certain actions that it does not ordain and become a cause for conflict. It may even result to unimaginable disaster.

If the "underground" story involving the Escalante massacre in Negros is true, it can be a case in point. The grapevine story demonstrates how a simple misunderstanding between the messenger of the message and the receiver could result to disaster.

The untoward incident happened when an allegedly semi-schooled municipal mayor shouted "fire" at the Cafgus manning the M60 machine gun at the municipal hall rooftop, instead of "ceasefire" as instructed by the constabulary officer. Then, tragedy happened. The rest is history.

Barbershop analysis of the incident yielded two theories: The mayor either misheard the constabulary officer’s instruction or he did not understand the meaning of the word "ceasefire."

This incident, again if this grapevine story is true, was a classic example of how the receiver of the message fails to interpret what it really stands for (which is to prevent an untoward incident from happening in order to save life); how the receiver fails to determine what the message really wishes to convey (which is actually to stop firing); and how the messenger fails to convey what he wants the receiver to understand. (To be continued)

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BY THE WAY, please excuse me if I dedicate this section of my space to something that borders to egoism, but I am doing this to contextualize the amount of emotions involved for the injustice done to my poverty-stricken family in Barangay Amparo, Patnongon, Antique by certain elements of DENR in San Jose, Antique and DENR-Region VI in Iloilo City.

I do this to also contextualize the happiness that I felt when DENR Secretary Atienza struck down as null and void the administrative order of Lormelyn Claudio, which could have deprived my family in Antique of a portion of their property without due process and through of fraud, strategy and stealth.

For more than two decades, I was involved in the struggle for the rights of basic sectors and communities. I did this even during the time when I was still the chief of the Public Information Office and later, of the Barangay Affairs Office of the General Santos City Government.

I was a member of 800-strong delegation who traversed, for day and night, the mountain ranges of Sarangani Province to a remote area where 17 people, including children, were massacred by one of the elements of the Cafgu. I was assigned, then, to document the incident for the South Cotabato Alliance for Peace (Scap), a bishop-military liaison group working for peace in this part of Mindanao.

I also organized a 200-strong delegation which conducted ocular inspection of the site, located deep in the mountains of General Santos City, where the houses of the 17 B'laans families were bombarded with bullets and were later burned down, and secured justice for the victims.

These and many more were my participation in the people’s struggle, and all these did not come easy. I was detained thrice and imprisoned once for my participation in the struggle. I faced so many criminal charges, and put my freedom and my life at stake for so many times for the cause of others.

This is the reason why when that great injustice was done to my hapless family in Antigue with impunity, for reason of their want and ignorance, I terribly suffered from an internal revolt. My conscience cannot simply rest in peace.