It is good that the mayors of the League of Cities of the Philippines who attended the forum this week with Hiroshima City Mayor Akiba Tadatoshi have passed the resolution on sisterhood with the 2010 Magsaysay awardee’s beloved city of Hiroshima.

It wasn’t clear in the news report if by sisterhood they meant actively advocating the goals of Akiba-san and the Mayors for Peace to rid the world of all nuclear weapons. But there is certainly no legal impediment for them to do just that. After all, our constitution explicitly adopts a policy not to have nor allow any nuclear weapon in the country.

The ban on nukes is one of the major achievements of our 1987 Constitution. When passed, we still had the problem of American bases on our soil. America’s policy was neither to confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons so we never knew if such weapons were in fact locked up in the ships that docked at the former Subic Naval Base, or the planes that landed in the former Clark Air Base.

Today, we don’t have these foreign military bases anymore. There’s no reason why our mayors cannot be among the world’s leading advocates for a nuclear-free world, if only they find time to go beyond their parochial concerns and read up on this global movement.

Unique Hiroshima

Mayor Akiba’s invitation to make Hiroshima City the continuing venue and host of the global initiative to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2020 is one other offer that governments world-wide cannot and should not refuse.

Hiroshima is unique. In the center of the city is a sprawling park with a river running through. This was the same river where on August 6, 1945, people hit by the lightning strike of the world’s first atom bomb ran for relief from their searing pain. In the Peace Memorial Park is the museum. In the museum are the artifacts of that fateful day: a broken lunch box, distorted clocks stuck in time, human shadows imprinted on twisted metal.

Hiroshima is an inspiration. Ravaged by a bomb, it rose beautifully from the ashes through the efforts of its own people. Its hibakushas (survivors) endure, a haunting reminder of the destructive power of the a-bomb and the human will to survive.

Nagasaki’s story as the other A-bombed city is equally uplifting. But because it is hilly and more congested, it does not have the wide, open space of Hiroshima that is suitable for mega-events.

Hiroshima is close to my heart. I spent the winter semester of 2006 in east-Hiroshima prefecture as a visiting professor at Hiroshima University. In 2007, Hiroshima University’s HiPeC organized the International Peace Building Conference at the International Conference Hall at the Peace Park with peace advocates from Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America coming together.

In March 2008, we brought over a representative each from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front for a small workshop on Ceasefire and Development. The MILF’s Von Al Haq came, as did former chair of the government panel, Gen. Rodolfo Garcia, and Guiamel Alim of the Bangsamoro Consortium of Civil Society.

A tour of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial was part of both events. The effect on the participants was visibly deep. It was as if we were on a pilgrimage. For that is what the park is, a pilgrimage site to honor the victims but also to affirm the preciousness of humanity and the unassailable truth that this world does not need nuclear bombs.

This is the enduring message of Hiroshima. As Mayor Akiba said in his speech at the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation last August 26, “Until they came to Hiroshima, they knew nothing.”

ABC Weapons

In the global disarmament campaign, there are what we call the ABC weapons. We have banned weapons B (biological) and C (chemical), but not the most destructive of all, the A-bomb.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) came into force in 1970. Sure, it discouraged more testing and production of new nuclear weapons. But 40 years later, we are still far from the universal aspiraton of complete disarmament of the five recognized nuclear-weapon states (UK, US, France, China, Russian Federation) who have signed the Treaty, and certainly of those non-Treaty states that are believed to have or are developing nuclear weapons. Among the latter are India, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel and Iran.

Yet nuclear weapons meet all the criteria to ban a weapon. They are indiscriminate. They do not distinguish between combatants and civilians. One bomb has the capacity to destroy both living and non-living things over vast expanses of air, water and earth. The weapon causes unnecessary and superflous suffering. No political or military objective can ever justify its use. Not in 1945, not now nor in the future.

Vision 2020

Mayor Akiba and the Mayors for Peace are thus actively working on the goal of having majority of states ready to sign a Nuclear Weapons Convention in 2015, leading to a total ban by 2020. 

And there are good signs in this direction. In April 2009, in Praque, US president Barack Obama pledged to begin gradually reducing the US’ arsenal of nukes. For the first time, the US ambassador to Japan officially attended the Peace Memorial ceremony last August 6. And within the same month, Mayor Akiba received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for his leadership in mobilizing citizens and governments against this ultimate weapon of mass destruction.

So why should a mayor along with other mayors be spearheading this movement? Akiba-san provides this answer: “We (mayors) are relatively neutral in terms of ideology and other values in that we must collect garbage and build roads for all our citizens regardless of their political affiliations. To do our job … requires a rational, comprehensive worldview.”

Let’s hope that five-ten years from now, our mayors prove these statements true.

E-mail: mcf178@yahoo.com