Nicanor Perlas
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Nicanor Perlas is a Phillipino activist.
He won the Right Livelihood Award, which is also known as the "Alternative Nobel Prize", in 2003 for his activism in the Philippines. The speaking substance, writings and training approaches of his are based on almost 40 years of active engagement in various efforts to create a better world.
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[edit] Activism
In his university days, Perlas was one of the key organizers of a university wide education reform movement that resulted in changes in university policies. It was also during this time that he founded the first ecological society in the Philippines. After graduation he co-organized a successful large scale global campaign, the first of its kind during his time, to halt 12 nuclear plants in the Philippines. Perlas subsequently become a technical adviser to the Presidential Commission on the Philippine Nuclear Power Plant, Office of the President of the Philippines, where he was instrumental in stopping the operation of the fully constructed and operational Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, a $2.2 billion project plagued with design, construction, location, and corruption problems.
Shortly thereafter, Perlas was appointed member of the national technical panel overseeing the regulation of pesticide use in Philippine agriculture. While in this capacity, he simultaneously mobilized and headed a national effort that resulted in the banning of 32 hazardous pesticide formulations in the Philippines. The ban triggered the creation of a P750 million government program to reduce the use of pesticides in Philippine agriculture.
In parallel with these efforts, Perlas pioneered the introduction of large scale commercial organic and biodynamic agriculture in many provinces in the Philippines. All these efforts were the fruition of early advocacies in sustainable agriculture when he was still an agricultural journalist and columnist at the Modern Agriculture and Industry-Asia, where he pioneered the first monthly articles on ecological agriculture in the Asian context. Together with colleagues at the International Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture or IASA, he coined the term sustainable agriculture in 1983, a term which has received wide use and currency until today.
Perlas was the chief negotiator for a network of national networks, which involved 5000 organizations, that successfully stopped the agenda of radical and one sided liberalization in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation or APEC. He successfully introduced strong sustainable development language in the Leaders and Ministerial Declarations in APEC, and constrained the Individual Action Plan of the Philippines to abide by sustainable development principles. The successful negotiations prevented the premature exposure and economic decline of 3 million Philippine rice farmers to subsidized and artificially cheap rice coming from other countries.
[edit] Projects and offices
Perlas is the co-founder, president and executive director of the Center for Alternative Development Initiatives or CADI, in metro Manila and Iloilo City, where he guides research and policy work and develops initiatives on globalization, threefolding and their impacts on civil society, cultural power and sustainable development.
He is also the co-founder and spokesperson of Karangalan which hosted a series of national conferences highlighting important global and national innovations and achievements by Filipinos in many disciplines and fields. Karangalan aims to stimulate the creation of a visionary Philippines. The 1st National Conference and Festival on “Mobilizing Excellence for Creating a Visionary Philippines” was January 21-23, 2005 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, in partnership with over 40 organizations and networks.
Perlas is the chief facilitator and co-founder of the ABS-CBN Forum on the Filipino Future, December 16, 2004, a national spiritual-cultural movement active in creating a better Philippines. He was an adviser on Strategy and Integral Sustainable Development and Member, Board of Directors, Lifebank, and Board of Trustees of Lifebank Foundation, both of which help close to 35,000 economically poor families thru microfinance.
He has been chairman of several national civil society networks including the Green Forum Philippines, the Philippine Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, and the Civil Society Counterpart Council for Sustainable Development.
[edit] Social Three-Folding
Co-founder the Global Network for Social Three-Folding, Globenet3 or GN3, with more than 17 geographic and functional nodes in over 12 countries in Asia, Europe, Africa, and the United States of America. GN3 advances profound societal transformation towards integral sustainable development on the basis of socially-engaged spirituality and deep substantive inner change.
Co-founder and spokesperson for Tindog Pilipinas! A national movement for a better Philippines, Professionals for Social Responsibility, and the Philippine Advancement and Renewal thru Threefolding Networking, Research & Service, or PARTNERS, which is the Philippine node for GlobeNet3.
[edit] Philippine Agenda 21
In the mid-1990s he was one of two technical writers of Philippine Agenda 21 or PA21, which is a creative response to the challenges of elite globalization. He was one of the official civil society delegates from the Philippines at the Earth Summit in Rio. It was out of this experience, among others, that he helped shape the process and substance of PA21. Having emerged from more than 26 regional and national consultations, PA21 was characterized by the former Philippine president as the most consultative policy document in post-martial law Philippines. PA21 is still officially the blueprint for sustainable development in the Philippines, although presently marginalized by the current controversial government of the Philippines.
He was also the technical writer of SIAD: Framework for the Localization of Philippine Agenda 21, which is now used by a number of local governments and civil society organizations to advance sustainable integrated area development in towns.
[edit] Speaking and Consultancy
Perlas has been the resource person and keynote speaker in over 70 global conferences and events in over 20 countries, and over 120 national conferences on a range of topics including culture and societal transformation, integral sustainable development, globalization, technology, corporate social responsibility, science and spirituality, social threefolding, strategic microfinance, direct democracy and others.
He has provided consultancy work for several UN agencies, the Philippine Senate, donor agencies and foundations, as well as many other businesses, and global civil society networks and organizations.
As a technical writer and key formulator of Philippine Agenda 21, as well as co-chair for the Civil Society of the Philippine Council for Sustainable Development, Office of the President of the Philippines, Perlas was invited to attend several UN meetings including the UN General Assembly on Sustainable Development, UNGASS and the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, 6th Session, as Technical Adviser to the Philippine Delegation to the UN.
Co-Founder and Board Member, Global Leadership Initiative, www.theglobalinstitute.org and member, Mikhail Gorbachev’s Commission on Globalization
Creative Member, Club of Budapest, Recognized as “highly creative innovators for a social and ecological sustainable world and a culture of peace”.
[edit] Trainings
Perlas has conducted hundreds of training sessions in the Philippines and abroad on a wide range of topics convergent with his writings. In this context he has innovated and developed a new framework for advancing integral sustainable development through the harmonious weaving together of profound inner change and radical but peaceful societal transformation. He calls this new framework the Lemniscate Process, which integrates the substance of more than two dozen disciplines and fields, all geared towards unlocking human creativity, enthusiasm and commitment for creating a better world.
Perlas is a professor at the accredited Doctoral program on Applied Cosmic Anthropology of the Asian Social Institute, where he gives in depth theoretical and practical elaborations of the Lemniscate Process. He is also a board member and a resource person for training programs of the Gamot Cogon Institute or GCI, based in Iloilo, Philippines.
[edit] Writings
Perlas has written over 300 articles, editorials, monographs and books on a range of topics including anthroposophy, globalization, Social Threefolding, conscious evolution, civil society, multiple intelligence, creativity, cultural power, philosophy of science and biology, technological singularity, sustainable agriculture, appreciative inquiry, Neurophysiology and consciousness, good governance, new politics, associative economics, and the integration of inner change and large-scale societal transformation.
He is the publisher and editor-in-chief for TruthForce! A national and global internet-based news and analysis service which reaches thousands of subscribers and readers in over 60 countries.
Editor-In-Chief, Ikabuhi Newspaper for Micro-Entrepreneurs (34,000 + circulation)
His book, Shaping Globalization: Civil Society, Cultural Power, and Threefolding, has been translated in 9 languages.
[edit] Awards
Outstanding Filipino Award or TOFIL, in 1994, Global 500 Roll of Honor Award of UNEP in 1994, Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize 2003.
He also received highest honors upon his graduation from Xavier University (Cagayan de Oro) with a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture, major in Agronomy and minor in Agricultural Economics.
[edit] Bibliography
- Shaping Globalization : Civil Society, Cultural Power and Threefolding (2000)
